Kingbreakers’ Long Patrol and Standard Combat Landspeeders

kingbreakers-iconSome time ago, my buddy Matt gave me a half-complete conversion project. He’d taken a Landspeeder, cut up the cab, and added some bedrolls, smoke launchers, and a Storm Bolter type thing on an extra wing frame. His aim was to build some sort of IG recon vehicle, but he decided it wasn’t going anywhere and handed it over.

With all the bedrolls and such I started thinking of it as a Long Patrol Landspeeder. The fluff notion became that the Kingbreakers employed a number of these on extended solitary patrols around Forestway, their home planet, and later in other systems as well. ‘Speeders intended for this purpose were grafted with extra sensors, lights, small weapons, comms gear, and provisions stores in order to sustain themselves for long periods, detect anomalies and enemies, and report back. Given the small size of the chapter and the reconnaissance oriented mission, these were manned with semi-automated guns so that a single Marine could take up the duty and potentially be unavailable for a good period of time. That practice only became even more important when the chapter was decimated in the tragic undoing of Forestway, a tale for another time. After that, many such recon units were further converted to have an armored cab so that a Scout could undertake those long range patrols and recce flights with relatively assured survival, helping to free all full battle brothers for deployment in front line combat.

Back in reality, at the time I finished putting the model together I didn’t have a ton of extra Marines to convert into pilots, and Matt’s were largely missing. I also liked the idea of a lonely Marine out on patrol; it fit in with the somewhat outdoorsy, quiet, solitary background mood of the Kingbreakers. Given that Matt had already added some packs, searchlights, and so on, it also only made sense to add some more doo-dads and really push it in that direction. In the end, I built up a little cab out of clay, a gun turret out of a Devastator squad Multi-Melta and the cone of a dead laser pointer, a nose mounted Heavy Flamer from a bits bag Jason traded me for some magnets, and a bunch of gribblies from random bits.

Last week I finally got around to painting that Long Patrol Landspeeder:

Kingbreakers' Long Patrol Landspeeder

Kingbreakers' Long Patrol Landspeeder

long-frontlong-rightlong-rear

I’m pretty happy with how this turned out. For some reason it’s a little shinier than I expected, even after dull coating, but not too bad in real life. Most importantly, the cab fits in with the body and with the narrow vision slit is even vaguely reminiscent of the official Tempest model, so that worked out reasonably well.

On that note, sometime earlier this winter I also painted up a standard Landspeeder model:

Kingbreakers' Standard Combat Landspeeder

Kingbreakers' Standard Combat Landspeeder

std-rightOn the construction side of things, I like the Landspeeder models a lot as they’re fairly straightforward to assemble, and quick to paint. Between these two I didn’t find a huge difference in painting before versus after assembly, but would probably do the former in the future. Really the slowest parts are the two Marine pilots, but they’re not too bad if done before assembly. The Kingbreakers icons are done with custom decals I made up. Like all my vehicles, these were base coated with cheap black spray paint. The main paint components in the Kingbreakers’ scheme are Privateer Press Paints’ Hammerfall Khaki, Ordic Olive, and Exile Blue, respectively washed with GW Gryphon Sepia, Thraka Green, and Asurmen Blue. The washes highlight the shapes of the components and provide a little bit of a weathered look I like, with basically no effort. I’ve found so far that really edging the lines on vehicles takes a ton of time and doesn’t really stand out on the gaming table, so for both these models I skipped that step in favor of getting them done.

I’m also pretty happy with how the bases on both came out. Given the large size and relatively visible nature of these on Landspeeders, they’re definitely worth spending a minute or two on:

Standard Combat 'Speeder Base

Standard Combat 'Speeder Base

Long Patrol 'Speeder Base Front

Long Patrol 'Speeder Base Front

Long Patrol 'Speeder Base Rear

Long Patrol 'Speeder Base Rear

Both bases were done quickly and easily. I built up the Standard Combat base with some greystuff blobs to give it a little bit of a smoothed rock texture. The Long Patrol base is textured with some hacked up balsa wood and bits from a toy race car. Both were sprayed black with the rest of their model, then painted Scorched Brown. They were then drybrushed to a greater or lesser extent with Snakebite Leather. The Standard Combat base was then also drybrushed with Bronzed Flesh, and the metal bits on the Long Patrol picked out in Boltgun Metal. The Standard base was then washed in Devlan Mud and the Long base in Gryphon Sepia. On both bases I then glued on some green flock, fake wheat grass, and fake lichen. Those elements were then randomly brushed again with the same wash as the base to darken them, tie them into the base, and add some color variation.

Finally, both have been constructed to disassemble, enabling easier storage, representation of battle damage and destruction, and swappable nose weapons:

Disassembled Standard Combat 'Speeder

Disassembled Standard Combat 'Speeder

On the Standard Combat model I cut off the tip of the flight base and simply glued on a 1/8″ magnet, with a corresponding partner sunk into the hole the base usually inserts into, after it had been slightly enlarged. The standard ‘Speeder model is light enough that this basically works if set level—it swings around easily, but is super stable when picked up or set down on the table. The Heavy Flamer similarly has a 1/8″ magnet sunk into it, and a matching one in the nose gun mount.

I had no base for the Long Patrol speeder, so I used a wood dowel rod supported by a balsa chunk on a cutout piece of plasticard. With the extra weight of the cab, the model was too heavy to sit readily at the somewhat more dynamic angle I cut the support rod at with just the magnet holding it together. To counter that, I added a sheath around the magnet on the ‘Speeder body that the base dowel fits into. Between that and the magnets it’s rock solid, even when set to pretty crazy angles. The Heavy Flamer was done similarly as the Standard model, just offset to the side a bit on the body.

One note about magnetizing like this is that it’s really hard to bind magnets to most surfaces with glue, so I usually wind up using greystuff or greenstuff to set them in place.

In game terms I play both of these simply as standard Landspeeders, usually outfitted with a Multi-Melta and Heavy Flamer in an all-comers list. All in all, I’ve come to view Landspeeders as one of the bright stars in the Marines’ lineup, and one of their definite advantages on the battlefield. More thoughts on their tactics will have to await another day, but suffice to say it’s become pretty rare for me to leave home without these, even for very small games, and I expect to build more for this summer’s ‘Ard Boyz.

More and higher res pictures of both models are available in the Flickr gallery.