Armored Basilisk Conversion

My apologies for not posting in a while. After getting caught up from the holidays, I found I was getting frustrated with my paint pot procrastinating. As busy as I stay with building and converting, and even getting a start to the painting, I still run into a painters block and can't seem to get things finished. Rather than post unfinished stuff, I held off in hopes I'd finish and be able to post a complete project. So far, no good. I've decided to post my WIP here, in hope that you all will forgive my painters block for a while.

First up is my Armored Basilisk Conversion. You might remember my post a while back about double tracking the new Hellhound hull. I had noted I was working on something I'd show later. This is the something. In the top picture you can see I used a Shadowsword turret assembly as the basis for an armored Basilisk. The turret is too wide to fit the standard Chimera hull, so some modification was needed to make it work. The picture to the right is the WIP for the double tracking of the hull I discussed in a previous post. The old Chimera sides made it too wide, so I used the new Chimera sides. It actually works quite well.

The next challenge was to make the barrel assembly. I didn't want to just plop a Shadowsword top on a widened Chimera hull. Plus I was getting the big parts from bitz buys and wanted to limit my purchases. So I scratch-built the barrel using a writing pen tube, an Xacto blade protector, and barrel bits from an old style Demolisher. I found a large plastic bushing to transition from barrel to turret. A nail holds it in place, allowing the barrel to elevate. The turret doesn't rotate, which begs the question, “Is it still a turret?” My original barrel-to-hull transition was cumbersome, and would have complicated making the turret rotate, so I decided not to try. I wished I’d rethought when I change to the bushing, because I think making it rotatable, like modern self propelled artillery, wouldn’t have been that much more effort. If I can get the bitz cheap, I may try it.

As you can see, there's a fair amount of card stock involved. I've had plain plastic stock saved up for a while, but I didn't hesitate to use other stock of opportunity. In this picture, you can see a used gift card. The blue pieces are punch-outs from an electrical circuit box and are supposed to be vents. The clear pieces were once a twist off top to a drink bottle, and will be tail/backup lights and perhaps a place to add some markings. I broke one of the antennas off before I was even done with it, and both are now magnetized.


Two more pictures to show the front and other side. While the intent was to magnetized the hull weapon, instead of adding a magnet I glued a piece of metal under the hole. I figured the magnet would be strong enough, but now I miss the holding power of using two. For instance, I’m not sure where the HB I magnetized, missing in these latest pics, has gone. Yep, magnet on both sides from now on…