Wednesday, December 8, 2010

I didn't know Guardsman Marbo was on Vraks...

It is true that Marbo has as much chance of dropping his demo charge on himself, as he does of tossing it into a crowd of Long Fangs.  That said, I thought it might a fun gamble!

To make this model, I began with one of the hero base-sets from Dragonforge.  These "hero" class bases really allow your special characters to stand out, with either interesting footing, or though enhanced elevation.  The peculiar topography of this base allowed me to make a more dynamic pose for Marbo.  I then added a sand-bag and knife to the trench portion of the base, to represent Marbo's nasty close combat blade at rest.  I believe this bit came from a Leman Russ sprue. 

For Marbo himself, I started with the crouched Cadian legs of a heavy weapons team, and to this pinned the torso and arms from a Forgeworld Enforcer model.  To replicate his poison ripper pistol, I replaced the Enforcer's laspistol arm by cutting at the elbow, and pinning on the glove and needle pistol of Fabius Bile.  In Marbo's other hand, I placed an improvised demolition charge made with an autocannon ammunition pack, pinned to the back of a flamer-fuel canister.  I then linked these two bits by adding a few pieces of paperclip wire, painted as tubing.  While a bit clunky, I imagine this to be a suitable improvised explosive device.

I really like the pose the model is in, as I think I have captured the moment that Marbo has popped-up over the side of a trench, and is in the act of hefting the rigged fuel canister into the enemy.  It also helps that I was able to represent all of Marbo's peculiar wargear.  While he has yet to see a gaming table, I am sure to be entertained by his explosive entrance!

7 comments:

  1. Very nice!

    I like Marbo, he's entertaining. Even if he doesn't kill anything, he's cheap and can cause the other player to change how he plays until Marbo appears and is dealt with.

    It's actually pretty unlikely for him to frag himself. One third of the time you'll roll a HIT. If you do scatter, if you roll 5 or less, it's still essentially a HIT. To hit himself, you have to roll pretty high on the scatter AND have the scatter go the right way. Even if he does hit himself, there's a 1 in 6 it won't wound, and hopefully he'll get his 3+ cover too. All told it's pretty safe for him to toss the charge.

    I've seen people do it, but it was when they put him closer to the target than they needed to, and even out in the open.

    Also if you can arrange something like tossing the charge out of a second-story window at a target on the ground, you're totally safe, as even if the blast scatters back it will only affect the lower level. :-)

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  2. nice model. loving the death mask and nasty looking pistol.

    the sandbags/knife are actually from the cadian heavy weapon sprue ;)

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  3. Marbo is a badass. thats all she ever wrote.
    You did a good job with him.

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  4. Love your Vraks take on this guy! nice one!

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  5. That's badass, I love it when people re-theme Special Characters to suit their army. :)

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  6. Top shelf conversion work as always!
    Hope hr does your boys proud on the gaming field.

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