17/11/2017

I spy with my little cyber eye..

Yet another silly idea for my upcoming Arbites/rioters scenario. This was something that simply came up from nowhere; I fancied having a surveillance drone for the police force. I know, I know, in WH40K these things are covered by mere servoskulls. But hey, honestly, I didn't want that; a floating, grinning skull with tentacles was out of the table this time. I have used servoskulls before, but I really wanted a simple drone, something that looked technological.

The centerpiece for this project had been lying in my bitbox for years. Quite appropiate, as it was the plastic One Ring from the Fellowship of the Ring starter box (do you even remember what am I talking about? That box actually had a plastic ring, I'm not making it, promise!). With some more bits glued to it I got this:

This is essentially the thing
For the rotor I toyed with the idea of building it from scratch, but then I found that vent from the Overkill sprues (the one of the Genestealer Patriarch -whatever it is called these days. N.B.: This reminds me I have to paint a lot of Genestealers. But that's for another day). It was smaller than the Ring diameter, so I had to fill it with greenstuff.

The rest is just a matter of tiny stuff from here and there
The front camera is from a Predator tank, I believe. And this was pretty much all, no way I could make it simpler.

Smile to the camera
Painting the drone was of course quite easy too. Just paint it black! I added the yellow stripes that my other Arbites vehicles have and painted the Adeptus Arbites seal on the side.

Those blue spots were supposed to be LED lights. Impossible for me to achieve a proper OSL at that scale
I used a couple of Imperial Guard decals. Here you have your floating skull

I'm not really sure of what rules I will give the drone. My preliminary ideas are about some intel device; the Arbites player will not know for sure at first where are the mobs, nor their numbers or composition. The drone will give that knowledge to the law enforcers. Something like that, I still lhave to give it a thought.

Please, Fred, stop harassing me. We talked about this
I'm replacing you for a regular dog, Fred, I'm warning you

I want to add some more things to my Arbites force, but not many more. I should really get to think of the scenario rules...

26 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thank you! Maybe too hi-tech and not as grimdark as it should, but it works for me!

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  2. Cool scratch build. The drone could also help identify the ringleaders of rioting mobs - until they’re taken out the mob could either be unbreakable, morale boosted or regenerate losses?

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    1. Hmmm, that's an interesting idea! I'll see how to implement it! Thank you!

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  3. Replies
    1. Thank you! I tried to do something different than the usual stuff :)

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  4. Replies
    1. Thanks! Little ideas coming out from nowhere ;)

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  5. Looks great, and you can still justify it in the fluff. Just say its not an autonomies drone but remote controlled.

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    1. You certainly have a valid point there. Ahhh, but then I should make the remote operating center, hmmmm...

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    2. Got to have some place where all the security cameras go to.

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    3. I'm thinking of a mobile center, a two people crew kneeling over screens in a case; something playable and an objective for the rioters.
      I believe I don't have bits for all that, but I'll give it a thought...

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    4. I was thinking a guard shack, but the two people idea allows for you move them any place you want on the table. opposed to a static location.

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    5. It will all depend on the bits I'm able to find! :D

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  6. Nice build
    That's very clever using the ring. It's awfully convenient that so many GW parts are size compatible. Circles have the same radiai on so many parts for example.

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    1. Thanks! Well, it's all a matter of toying with bits. From time to time you suddenly 'see' things that weren't there before. You being a master of scratchbuilding know for sure about that. It's somehow rewarding, seeing pieces fit into something new :)

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  7. That is a very nice scratchbuild mate and looks spot on next to the Arbite.

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    1. Thanks! It was fun to do (as silly ideas tend to be!) :D

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  8. Absolutely brilliant! That's such a clever use of random bits from your box. The resulting drone is perfect. It looks really striking in the black and yellow too.

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    1. Thank you! I'm not sure if this would be Mechanicus approved, you know, I didn't exactly use a STC...

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  9. That's very clever. The finished model looks like a production piece. Brilliant.

    As for background, there could easily be a bit of cyborg brain in the middle of that. 40k Servitors perform the same roles as robots in other sci-fi anyway, so I don't really see it as being a big issue.

    Maybe its like the AdMech robots: it runs on punch card programming tech :) Why not?

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    1. That's of course a valid point; if I'm not capable of deploying a remote control crew I think I'll take your idea, it works perfectly. Thank you!
      That's the good thing of 40K (specially early 40K), everything has a place and it's perfectly plausible :D

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  10. ostras!
    me encanta!!
    ha quedado genial y ha sido una gran ejecuciรณn de una muy buena idea! :)

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    1. ¡Gracias! Pero ya ver que es verdaderamente muy simple, sin complicaciones :)

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  11. Ha ha, you sir are a genius. Using the one ring to rule them all as an all seeing-eye (get it, get it?). ^_^ Nicely done indeed Suber. :)

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    1. Haha! I'll have to call him 'Saurie' or something like that! :D

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