Quick Question About Heavy Weapon Boxes

[PaRaSiTe_X92]

I've heard that you can make more than 3 weapons per pack (thanks to Crispin). I need 3 lascannons, 3 heavy bolters and 3 mortars, and is it possible to make 3 lascannons on tripods, 3 heavy bolters with lying down men and 3 mortars on bipods?

Thanks

[flakdragon]

I think he said you could make three with the addition of extra bits, such as extra guardsman, bases, etc., sorry.

[PaRaSiTe_X92]

I knew about the bases, but not about the men. Aren't all the men different for each weapon, or are you sure I need to buy some more?
Anyone know from experience?

[flakdragon]

Well, with any guardsman you could convert him for the pose.

[Stifflersthedog]

I bought 6 boxes of Weapons, You get 3 of each weapon, and its easy to make 3 morters, as they use diff pieces altogether, and same with Rokkits. so 6 no probs (you just need spare guardsman ) and obviously 3 on the main bases. It'd be a little tricky with Heavy bolters, cause all the tri/bi pods are used by the las and morters, but i "suppose" you can make a guardsman say "hold" it in his hands, ( although he'd probably fall over ). Wat i did was mzke mortars from spares, and everything else is normal in the box models, as i dont use Rokkits. Its a little tricky to get all 3, and some models may look weird, but it should end up wysiwyg

[PaRaSiTe_X92]

For heavy bolters you just stand it on the ground with them lying down (like a man with a sniper rifle).
For men, is about 9 enough? Do I just stick their arms in different positions, with no proper converting required? Or will I have to use green stuff and spare parts to make it look good?

Thanks

[Cripsin]

You will need a heavy weapon boxed set, and some spare cadians from the basic sprues along with some large bases.....

If you construct 3 lascannons as they come in the box, and three mortars using normal cadians and the extra bases, (some of the crew will have to stand as they only give you 6 kneeling legs).

The heavy bolters are the hard ones. If you use the steel legion or vostroyan ones as a guide to how they should look its not that hard though.... Use normal cadian legs, some pairs require a little repositioning (simply cut at the knee and repose, this stops them from having the knee touching the ground while the rest of the leg flails about), a normal body (but with the bit at the back of the neck cut off so the head can look upwards..... Next i used a grenade launcher firing arm (minus GL of course) as a means to hold the HB trigger, and an extended (requires cutting and greenstuffing at the elbow to make it reach the H missile launcher left arm (the one with the hand that rests on the ML) to hold the HB which simply lies infront of him, with the clip coming out the side as usual..... Viola!! Budget steel legion style heavy bolter!!

I will post pics when i can get hold of a digital camera, but it will be a few days yet, sorry......

[Sokhar]

You could save yourself 3 bipods by not bothering with the mortars, they're all but useless. However for getting the most out of the box, here's my take...

The box itself comes with six guardsmen, all crouching to man the weapons. Realistically you only need one per team and then a regular guardsman as a loader. So you could have six teams there. Missile launchers look pretty good with a standing Guardsman so you don't need any of your crouching guys for that. With mortars if you're dead-set on having them, consider modeling the pieces to look like they're carrying the mortar between positions or setting it up. If you do so then what you can do is save the bipod (by not having it set up) and save crouching figures by having a standing guardsman carrying the mortar around. Lascannons and autocannons both need a tripod to look right. However you can keep some versatility by only gluing the tripod down on the base but leaving the gun separate. That way if one list calls for a lascannon, you stick the gun in and you're ready to go. But if you'd rather have an autocannon, you could stick that in there instead. Don't really think you can model either of those two guns with the bipod and have it look right, so I'd leave those as is. With the bipods you could stick them on any weapon you like. I did some minor cutting and glued them to the bottom of my heavy bolters to prop them up a bit and they turned out nice. I don't bother with mortars and my standing guardsmen suffice for the missile launchers.

Realistically with some creativity and a few extra regular Guardsmen you can make every heavy weapon team in that box, which shows its really a great value. At the bare-ass-minimum with no converting at all you get at least 6-9 heavy weapons teams. So two boxes will really do anything but the largest Guard forces. Nice that GW gave us decent value on something for a change. Just stop giving us crummy flamers and grenade launchers in plastic.

[PaRaSiTe_X92]

@Crispin - Do all these pieces come in the guardsmen/heavy weapon squad boxes?

@Sokhar - Sounds good. I do preferably want 3 mortars as they will just hide and bombard. I also need 3 heavy bolters and 3 lascannons, as I said above. Once I get the set I'll have about 10-15 spare men, so I'll just experiment.

Thanks all

[Sokhar]

Mortars work well in real life. They're less than crap in 40K. 3 mortars hanging back and "bombarding" aren't gonna kill squat. Don't bother.