Tuesday 28 June 2016

Assembling and Magnetising the Stormhawk Interceptor

I recently purchased a new Stormhawk Interceptor after picking up the Death from the Skies expansion. I really liked the look of the new model and the rules were also rather great. I decided that I would magnetise the kit to get all the available options on the flyer.
 
One of the reasons for this is that it is actually quite difficult to choose between the Las-talon and Icarus Stormcannon. The Las-talon is a short ranged, two shot lascannon that is great for taking on vehicles or monstrous creatures. The Icarus Stormcannon on the other hand has Interceptor and Skyfire, great for possibly taking out enemy flyers before they have a chance to fire on the board and gets some big bonuses during the Dogfight phase.
 
After looking at the kit and checking out a few online guides, it was actually surprisingly easy to magnetise the kit.
 
I started by assembling the kit as detailed in the instructions. When it came to the tail section, I copied the Stormhawk conversion by Siph_Horridus over at the WeeMen blog. He had taken the top tailfin and moved it to the bottom after trimming the bottom fin. This gives the Stormhawk a much more streamlined look compared to assembling it in the regular fashion. I really liked this and it suited its role as a supersonic fighter jet.
 
I began by assembling the main hull. The bottom tail of the rear of the hull was removed.
The rear tail fin has been removed.


I then stuck the top tail fin onto the bottom of the hull, where I had cut away the fin section. This leaves a gap where the fin has been removed that I later filled in with liquid green stuff.

 
The underside of the front hull (where the las-talon or stormcannon goes) had a small square piece of plastic in the centre. This was removed and a hole for the magnet was drilled. The magnet (2mm x 1mm) was glued in place.
 
Some green stuff was added to the inside of the Las-talon and Icarus Stormcannon to allow the magnets to meet. The easiest way to do this was to stick the second magnet to the magnet already in place on the hull. Then fit each gun (with the green stuff in place) into position. This should leave a depression on the green stuff where the magnet should go. Then simply glue the magnet in place on the green stuff and allow to dry.

 
Next, I drilled a hole in each of the secondary weapon holders and glued a magnet in place. This will be used for swapping between the heavy bolters, typhoon missile launchers and skyhammer missile launchers.
 
I then drilled a hole in the corresponding position on each of the different weapons systems. One way to do this is to fit a second magnet to the magnet in the weapon holder and put a little bit of paint on the end to be attached to the weapons. Then fit the weapons, transferring the paint to the appropriate place on the gun where you should drill the hole.
 
The plastic on the weapons is actually quite thin for the skyhammer and typhoon missiles, so I accidently drilled through them when fitting the magnets. This was fixed by adding some greenstuff to the hole and smoothing it over on the facing side. It is not too noticeable when assembled and painted.
It may be easier to add some braces to the secondary weapon holders before gluing them together so that you don't need to drill into the front weapons facing, but just go deeper into the weapon holder.


 
After that, I assembled the Stormhawk as detailed in the instructions. The completed plane is now ready to be painted and is magnetised for all the weapons options.


 
In fact, the Stormhawk's weapons fit quite well that you probably wouldn't need to magnetise them if you didn't want to or couldn't. The secondary weapon systems fit quite snuggly on their holders and would most likely stay in place without the magnets. The main gun on the hull should stay in place with just some blutack.
 
I hope you have found this guide useful, I look forward to getting it painted up and on the battlefield!
 


16 comments:

  1. Uuuuh that looks nice! Can't wait to see it in your next batrep ;)

    Not sure when I'll get one myself though - my Stormraven has been sufficient so far, and I think I'd rather have 2 Stormtalons for a Raptor Wing first.

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    1. For me, the flyer is in my list as some form of anti-air firepower. If Death from the Skies is going to be in general use at tournaments and at the club, the Stormhawk is superior to the Stormtalon for me, as the Stormtalon loses Skyfire thanks to Death from the skies.

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  2. Really nice tutorial Mike :) I would heartily vote that you do more of these! It's amazing how sometimes it is simple and other time much trickier than you first anticipated.

    I think How-To-Guides are worthy of their own tab at the top of your page too!

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    1. Cheers Rob. I might put together some "how to" guides or put them together in a tab (I think I only have 3 at the moment).

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  3. Good stuff buddy, I'm itching to get my hands on a pair of these - it may even bring forward plans to re-paint the Iron Fists Storm Talons I've already got so I can field a flyer heavy list!

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    1. I really like most of the flyer models at the moment. I am planning to play more of the death from the skies missions (there is an Ork player with at least 4 flyers, so I should be able to!).

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  4. Nice touch, thanks for the shout out. Do you want the tail around that way, if so may I suggest you shave off the hinges off the flaps which are facing forward, so they don't look like flaps? I do think it's a great improvement to the Stormhawk!

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    1. Cheers Siph, it was your conversion, so thought you deserved the shout out anyway! Unfortunately, I have already painted the Stormhawk, so no hinge shaving for me.

      On a side note, would you be interested in taking part in the Better Know a Blogger series?

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    2. Mate, thank-you for the offer, but I keep my inter web presence fairly anonymous due to the nature of my work and keeping security savvy. No Twitter, FB, etc. Really touched for the sentiments tho. Thank you.

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  5. Great guide. Excellent magnet placement!

    I always find even if you don't plan on swapping weapons, the magnets are useful for weapon destroyed results.

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    1. Never thought of it for weapons destroyed results, would be quite handy!

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  6. I've found that the gun pods will almost swap around just with pressure fitting. The trim bits don't go quite far enough back to completely hold, but it's so close that a tiny bit of blu-tac or such will keep them on there. The Las-Talon/StormCannon on mine were pressure-swappable after I primed them. That little extra bit was all they needed to hold in there quite nicely.

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    1. I agree, I think there is no need to magnetise this if you don't want to or cant. Most of my stuff will stay together when primed. I just thought I'd do it anyway to add a bit of strength to the hold.

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  7. I like the switch with the tail fin, though rudder things seem to be backwards now (are they normally backwards?).
    Great tutorial on adding magnets to the weapons. I haven't done this to many of mine, but they can be tough to fit in, so I like your tip on adding green stuff back over the hole to clean up the weakened areas.

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    1. No, the rudders are normally at the back. If I wanted the rudders at the back, I would need the fins pointing forwards or I would need to cut them in half and fit them the other way. I decided to go for the easier option there.

      I don't magnetise too much myself, having only started this year. So far, all I've done are my two flyers. I've never really thought about doing it regular troops, but it is great for vehicles to give you all the options.

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