Tuesday 16 January 2018

Death Company: Construction & Magnetising

I've had bits of my 18-man DC coming together over a few months now - they have some fiddly details to clean up and were complicated more by magnetising backpacks & jump pack options... but now have them all ready to go...



My final loadout was:
1x Thunder hammer
1x Powersword + BP
2x Powerfist + Bolter
11x Chainsword + BP 
= 15 troops
Current 8th ed rules mean that bolters are same cost but better range than BPs but I was far enough advanced when the codex came out that I'm sticking with the pistols and will have to do 'counts-as' bolters if anything. The pistols look right in any case. 

1x Chainsword and Banner. Either counts-as CS/BP, or I can leave him out and still have 3x 5-man squads without the banner bling. Including him gives me 2x 8-man squads. 
Lemartes
JP Chaplain

My construction process is still a little slow - I clipped off a bunch of parts and switched several around during assembly, as certain chests/legs have bling hanging off that don't fit in with others. Much easier to sort these into 'cells' during clean up, as I'd work on these over a number of weeks and be able to pack them away with the combo of parts I was happy with before final assembly.


The bases might look a little different to the rest of the army... the DC got some dragon forge resin bases with ruins & skulls. They will get a grey finish to match the rest but seems apt to feature more motifs of death on these guys. The bases also had a magnet installed so they will stick to movement trays later on. 


A few of the resin bases are actually much closer to the rubble look on my tactical squads so hoping the look won't be too far off the mark. 


Death company standard bearer - including a couple of bits from the command squad sprue mixed with DC/BA tac parts. This one has been fitted with a paperclip pin so the flag can be worked on separately. There is no official role for the banner - he will only count as a regular dude, but I have a few things in mind to add to the heraldry. 



16 dudes fitted to bases, and the legs pinned so they can be painted separately. 


Just when thinking these were getting close to done... magnetising 18 (including the 2 chaplains) backs, packs and jump packs = 54 magnets to install. Always double check the direction of the magnet... 3 seconds longer saves 10 minutes trying to prise them out when they go the wrong way. Even when you can get it down to a couple of minutes per magnet, this took the best part of an afternoon to add to all the packs and torsos. 


The jump packs take a little bit more prep work too - I make the trench a little bit longer with a drill bit, then pack the inside of it with a bit of green stuff to make it flat. Rather than take the nub off the back of the torso - this way the pack will 'lock' itself vertically, held by the magnet at the top and the nub to stop it rotating. 



17 down and 1 to go. 


Repeat the process with the standard jump packs as well... 
And we have 18 more minis ready for priming. 



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