Wednesday 3 March 2010

Preview: Project Big Kahuna – Welcome to the Zone..

I’ll be honest with you all and say that currently Project Big Kahuna is at a standstill, as I seem to be suffering from something called writer’s block! Notably, I’m trying to actually write-up the titular rules entry itself and seem to have hit a wall, along with reality’s work demands and other distractions in the mix.

Click to embiggen

However, I’ve decided to treat you all to not only a 98%-complete redacted preview of a brand new character/unit entry from Project Big Kahuna, this being Colonel Falco de Groot & the {content removed} Reavers, but also snapshots of a WIP ‘concept model’ of said character!

I’ve started work on this model, in an attempt to break the monotony of having to sit down and churn out rules, fluff, points and statistics on the word processing software and hopefully re-unlock some inspiration to get me off my backside and achieve some real progress with Project Big Kahuna.



I am by no means an expert modeller or painter of models, but hopefully my pitiful attempt above(once finished, and then painted up) will capture the essence of said preview rules. My model of Colonel de Groot consists of:

-An old sentinel pilot head (for the goggles and the 'screaming orders' look)
- Catachan arm and body (with an arm raised to look like he's putting his goggles up)
- Space marine power fist & backpack
- Cadian legs
- Shaven ammo box plate (Aquila symbol for a passable 'belt')
- Plastic tubing for a deliberately-oversized ostentatious grav-chute (he is a high-ranking ‘elite’ character)
- Grav-chute wiring (to be added)
- Bolt pistol (to be bought of the bay of ee)
- Nail (for dynamic 'deep-striking' pose)
- Lots of blue tack, for now.

I’m not experienced with green stuff and I’ll not work in a harness for this model, but I may give it a go for future models though!

My actual intent for Project Big Kahuna is to eventually refurbish and convert a small 10-men squad of Cadians into a squad of play-testable {content removed} troops, along with concept models of the main characters if possible, the Colonel here being the first of many. Stay tuned for more progress!

Note: All illustration work depicted here is fan art and all fan supplement rules are completely unofficial and in no way endorsed by Games Workshop Ltd. All models are converted from Games Workshop Ltd parts and components with other non-official sources and are completely unofficial and in no way endorsed by Games Workshop Ltd.

9 comments:

  1. Looks very professional and very interesting. Love the bit about "Geronimo"- has the classic GW silliness in making a modern day reference make sense in the future.

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  2. Looks and sounds great so far Menzies.

    I have just really dug into the two column page format for the Soul Reapers project. Boy it sure is a lot of work.

    -Jim

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  3. @Max: Glad you got the reference. :) 'Geronimo', as said by people jumping out planes, is precisely the inspiration that gave me the spark to flesh out Colonel de Groot & his 'Reavers'. I re-read the fluff section of the BRB regarding the Kieldar offensive, and 2 bits of idea-fluff I had in my head collided into something new!

    @Big Jim: 2 column page format? Tell me about it!

    Sometimes it's a right pain getting the text to look 'right'. You wouldn't believe how many rewrites of both rules, fluff text, and re-sizing images it took me to get it all to have the right look. Homebrew is quite a little labour of love!

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  4. "Homebrew is quite a little labour of love!"

    Preach on Brother!

    Getting the final product ready, is turning into an insane amount of work. Not to mention all of the conversions and painting I need to finish; then take pictures of for the color section.

    -Jim

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  5. A colonel should have WS 5 and the 'Senior Officer' special rule. This guy has a sergeant's stats.

    Why not give him that Furious Charge and Deep-Stike Assault Orders as special rules?

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  6. My understanding of the rank 'Colonel' in the 40K universe has been coloured by playing 3rd edition IG codex, and now 5th. As such, I understand a Colonel to be the equivalent of a Company Commander (from the company command squad entry), them having 3 wounds and all.

    I was also wary of giving a {content removed} character WS 5, when the only characters in the IG codex with WS 5 are Straken & Marbo (both Catachans). I was also worried of giving an 'Elite' unit the orders ability, but now that I see the precedent of Junior Officers being troops being able to give out orders, I will rectify this.

    However, I take on board your comments, and a further tweak will be carried out prior to the release of the playtest document! :)

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  7. Excuse me I should clarify that I meant all special characters have one more point of WS than they normally would. Thus "Sgt." Bastonne gets WS 4 and "Colonel" Straken gets WS5 etc.

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  8. By your reckoning, Creed, Chenkov & Al'Rahem should have WS5? :)

    You are right though, I find myself agreeing that a character at that 'level' should have something in its point characteristic to really set him apart. While I am wary at creating a Deepstrike & Assaultable power-fisted character, but at the same time I'd like to push the boat out to make him fun for all to play.

    I've made an edit to the stats based on what we're discussing here, and once the playtest version is out and about I will rework this character, and others, based on further feedback too. Thanks again for reading!

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