Mandragol-air

[Mandragola]

Hi all,

 

I have made a series of rash purchases and am now in posession of a bunch of little plastic planes. I've now built most of them and am thinking seriously about painting them.

 

I got hold of Wings of Vengeance, the ground asset pack, plus extra boxes of thunderbolts, marauder destroyers, fighta bommerz and grot bommerz. This seems like plenty of stuff to paint, and also enough for pretty much any game.

 

I built my first two thunderbolts as Furies but I've found I can quite easily make the armament interchangeable. Titanicus has given me the instinct to magnetise everything. I'm not sure if that's going to be possible with the munitions for this game and so far I haven't stuck any on. What do people generally do for this - leave them off, stick them on or make them removeable somehow?

 

For the orks I'm planning a couple of conversions. I've got a couple of fighta bommerz still on sprue and I'd like to make a double-hull one, to probably count as a grot bommer. Might make one of my actual grot bommerz into an eavy bommer instead by attaching different gunz and bombz to it. and I'd vaguely like to make the spare pair of wings I'll have into a flying wing dakkajet, if that's at all possible. The ork stuff looks like it offers plenty of opportunities for wacky conversions, and I think that would be highly appropriate. If I can somehow make a biplane dakkajet then I will.

 

No pics yet I'm afraid. You've all seen what this stuff looks like already.

[Firedrake Cordova]

I got hold of Wings of Vengeance, the ground asset pack, plus extra boxes of thunderbolts, marauder destroyers, fighta bommerz and grot bommerz. This seems like plenty of stuff to paint, and also enough for pretty much any game.

I have a feeling that's going to resemble a lot of people's collections (I have the 'eavy bommerz instead of the grot bommerz)  As you say, it should be good for a 300 point game, which should be more than enough.  FYI, the Taros releases will bring an Imperial Lightning fighter and Valkyrie transport/Vendetta gunship.

 

I built my first two thunderbolts as Furies but I've found I can quite easily make the armament interchangeable. Titanicus has given me the instinct to magnetise everything. I'm not sure if that's going to be possible with the munitions for this game and so far I haven't stuck any on. What do people generally do for this - leave them off, stick them on or make them removeable somehow?

The only really obvious candidate for being magnetised is the Thunderbolt, as far as I can see (there are guides out there).  The connectors for the under-wing munitions are so tiny, I can't really see them being magnetisable.  I think most people are reasonably easy-going on WYSIWYG due to the scale ... what I intend on going with is to keep them "roughly right" (no under-wing munitions on the model means none in the list, big shootas means it has kustom big shootas, rockets/bombs means it has some rockets/bombs but not necessarily the amount on the model).

Edited April 17, 2020 by Firedrake Cordova

[Mandragola]

Yeah the Taros stuff is looking very interesting. It seems to double the number of imperial planes available but so far we've only seen two Tau planes to go against them. That said, the Ork fleet seems a bit more rounded, with much better transport options than the Imperials have so far. The valkyrie looks kind of essential, and the Arvus is lovely.

 

I went for grot bommerz instead of eavy ones because I think maybe they're more useful. More transport capacity and slightly better dakka to the front. It looks like fighta bommerz might be the way to go for ground attack anyway, though I can't say that for certain.

 

I got hold of the Rynn's world board. It doesn't seem that big when planes can travel 8 or 9 hexes in a turn. Are people using some other sort of board, or just keeping games small for now?

[Firedrake Cordova]

Yeah the Taros stuff is looking very interesting. It seems to double the number of imperial planes available but so far we've only seen two Tau planes to go against them. That said, the Ork fleet seems a bit more rounded, with much better transport options than the Imperials have so far. The valkyrie looks kind of essential, and the Arvus is lovely.

I'm not so fussed on the Tau, but I do like the look of the Valkyries, and I think escorting a flight of troop-carrying Valkyries thought AA defences/fighters sounds like an excellent narrative mission.

 

I went for grot bommerz instead of eavy ones because I think maybe they're more useful. More transport capacity and slightly better dakka to the front. It looks like fighta bommerz might be the way to go for ground attack anyway, though I can't say that for certain.

My gut reaction is that a fighta-bommer with two pairs of big bomms and a wazmek speshul looks like it should squash something flat fairly quick.   You're probably right on the eavy bommer vs grot bommer issue ... I just go by what I like the look of, and worry about how to use it later

 

I got hold of the Rynn's world board. It doesn't seem that big when planes can travel 8 or 9 hexes in a turn. Are people using some other sort of board, or just keeping games small for now?

I missed out on the board (well, held off on it because I didn't like it being foldable card).  I've not used them, but Deep Cut Studios do some mats for Warlord Games' "Blood Red Skies", which go to 6'x4' and could be appropriate ... at some point I'll finally get around to ordering something like their battlefield mat with a hex overlay printed on it ...

Edited April 17, 2020 by Firedrake Cordova

[Mandragola]

Well I've just built my first grot bommer. This is a really great kit I have to say. I love what they've done with the ork kit designs, with almost no duplicate pieces so you can make each plane different. It's also surprisingly big. It's extremely detailed though, and I'm not especially looking forward to having to paint all of the gubbinz on the thing. Overall very cool though.

[Firedrake Cordova]

I love what they've done with the ork kit designs, with almost no duplicate pieces so you can make each plane different.

Yeah, they're pretty great - I've got 9 Dakkajets and 6 Fighta Bommers, and every one is different. :D

[Mandragola]

Got some paint on a couple of Thunderbolt Furies today. This is mainly contrast with a couple of layers of skeleton horde and creed camo on top and a 1:1 mix of apothecary white and aethermatic blue underneath. I'd been aiming for a desert scheme but I think I've ended up with something a bit closer to a battle of britain Spitfire or Hurricane. Oh well. Overall I think they look ok so far

 

 

I've got to add unit insignia and maybe some other stuff. I think they're nearly there though. I'm going to get a marauder or two up to the same level next I think.

[Firedrake Cordova]

They look nice :)  As you said, you've got more of a temperate camo scheme going on instead of a desert one (that would be a single brown or two browns :)) 

[Arendious]

They look nice :) As you said, you've got more of a temperate camo scheme going on instead of a desert one (that would be a single brown or two browns :))

Or two grays.

Edited April 19, 2020 by Arendious

[General Zodd]

Hi all,

 

I have made a series of rash purchases and am now in posession of a bunch of little plastic planes. I've now built most of them and am thinking seriously about painting them.

 

I got hold of Wings of Vengeance, the ground asset pack, plus extra boxes of thunderbolts, marauder destroyers, fighta bommerz and grot bommerz. This seems like plenty of stuff to paint, and also enough for pretty much any game.

 

I built my first two thunderbolts as Furies but I've found I can quite easily make the armament interchangeable. Titanicus has given me the instinct to magnetise everything. I'm not sure if that's going to be possible with the munitions for this game and so far I haven't stuck any on. What do people generally do for this - leave them off, stick them on or make them removeable somehow?

 

For the orks I'm planning a couple of conversions. I've got a couple of fighta bommerz still on sprue and I'd like to make a double-hull one, to probably count as a grot bommer. Might make one of my actual grot bommerz into an eavy bommer instead by attaching different gunz and bombz to it. and I'd vaguely like to make the spare pair of wings I'll have into a flying wing dakkajet, if that's at all possible. The ork stuff looks like it offers plenty of opportunities for wacky conversions, and I think that would be highly appropriate. If I can somehow make a biplane dakkajet then I will.

 

No pics yet I'm afraid. You've all seen what this stuff looks like already.

Hi Mandragola, welcome across to the other tiny model topic! Sounds good to me, I’m with others in that I don’t think magnetising ordnance is a good idea. Rule of cool it, and most opponents will be fine with representative loadouts rather than WYSIWIG. On the topic of Dakkajet biplanes, here’s my attempt;

 

[Mandragola]

That stuff is very nice Zodd. I had a look at your stuff before I started out. My biplane is going to be a bit smaller than yours I think, using stuff like tail wings from the eavy bommer and fighta bommer. No idea what I'll make the fuselage out of, but I think a spare (and significantly luckier than average) grot bomb pilot will be in flying it. Not sure if I'll make it a prop plane or a jet - though a prop plane obviously shouldn't go anywhere near fast enough.

 

That's all imaginary for now. Here's something I've actually done: two Marauder bombers. Unit markings and a bit of highlighting on the metal still to go, but I'm liking how these look so far. C+C welcome.

 

 

Edit: the pic showed one wingtip that still looked a bit too "fake tan". Gave it a bit of a drybrush just now. These images are uncomfortably revealing!

Edited April 20, 2020 by Mandragola

[General Zodd]

That stuff is very nice Zodd. I had a look at your stuff before I started out. My biplane is going to be a bit smaller than yours I think, using stuff like tail wings from the eavy bommer and fighta bommer. No idea what I'll make the fuselage out of, but I think a spare (and significantly luckier than average) grot bomb pilot will be in flying it. Not sure if I'll make it a prop plane or a jet - though a prop plane obviously shouldn't go anywhere near fast enough.

 

That's all imaginary for now. Here's something I've actually done: two Marauder bombers. Unit markings and a bit of highlighting on the metal still to go, but I'm liking how these look so far. C+C welcome.

Don’t worry about prop planes, if the Ork flying it believes hard enough, it’ll go fast enough! Nice work on your camo for the Imperials, I think it’s really effective. I need to get round to putting my Imps up here at some point...

[Mandragola]

Fair point about ork belief-based engineering. Also, just because a plane has a propellor there's no reason it can't also have rockets here and there.

 

Here's where I've got to so far with my double-hull and flying wing ork planes. These are in the very early stages. My plan is to add GS to the plasticard bits to recreate panels.

 

 

The double-hull plane will be a grot bommer I think. That probably makes most sense, anyway. I can have a grot bomb on each wing and two in the middle section. I've kept the canopy for a future project. One issue is that there's nowhere for the transported orks to go, so I'm considering adding something in the middle.  I'm probably going to remove the shootas from the wings and replace them with the hatches for the grots to climb down from my second grot bommer. I'll try to make that into an eavy bommer - which will require quite a it of work too.

 

The tailplane needs something like a couple of jets on the ends to make it look more orky, and of course a lot of work with GS on panels.

 

The flying wing dakkajet is simpler. The engines are just barrels from a spare AT turbolaser. I need to fill in the middle and add a couple more guns and a canopy. I tried the canopy off the fighta bommer but it looked too big, so the next idea is to have a grot bomb pilot in an open canopy.

[Firedrake Cordova]

Conversions look good :)

 

Fair point about ork belief-based engineering. Also, just because a plane has a propellor there's no reason it can't also have rockets here and there.

I was going to say there's no reason why it can't be a propeller-driven aircraft with rocket boosters ... seems like the kind of thing an Ork would do ;) :lol:

[Metzombie]

Fair point about ork belief-based engineering. Also, just because a plane has a propellor there's no reason it can't also have rockets here and there.

I was going to say there's no reason why it can't be a propeller-driven aircraft with rocket boosters ... seems like the kind of thing an Ork would do

The orkiest thing to do would be to put rocketboster on the propellers to make them spin faster.

[Mandragola]

Interesting thoughts. Thanks.

 

A bit more work here on my Imperial Navy force. I decided to do a slightly different scheme on my Destroyers. This is a low-altitude scheme so the camo is on the underneath instead of sky blue, and I've used a dark green instead of the brown colour - though the lighter green is the same. I wanted to create the idea of a scheme for a different purpose, but that is still part of the same air force. The plan is to use this scheme on other low-altitude stuff if I get it in future, like Valkyries and vultures - and maybe avengers. 

 

I'm not sure why modern ground attack planes seem to have camo on the underside. Maybe it's because camo is irrelevant for them for stuff on the ground - which can't really fail to spot them - so they worry more about being seen from above. I can also see these guys operating at night, when you wouldn't want a bright-coloured underneath to illuminate.

 

I'm considering a third scheme for lightnings of plain silver, to show that they're high-altitude interceptors.

 

Anyway here's what the first marauder looks like. I've made a start on the second one, as you can see in the background.

 

 

Still no ordnance attached to anything, for now. It probably makes sense to glue a load of hellstrike missiles to these.

 

What do you think, does it look odd to have a plane with a different camo scheme along with the others?

Edited April 23, 2020 by Mandragola

[Arendious]

Look odd, not really. If you feel up to squadron markings, just increment the 'odd' airframe and say it's from a different squadron. Or, as you pointed out, it's a Destroyer and has a different role, hence different scheme. (Your T-bolts have the excuse of flying escort for the Marauders, so that's why they're matchy.)

 

Camo on the underside is a little bit about all-aspect outline reduction (you do lots of turning doing CAS - thus flashing your sky blue belly), and a little bit about reducing the work load on the ground crew. (Better make sure that replacement panel came back from the paint shop the correct color...)

 

Hence the largely 'gray with grey' USAF schemes these days.

[Firedrake Cordova]

The "green-green" on the Marauder Destroyer looks great (I might actually prefer it to the others...) :D

[Mandragola]

Yeah I think it will be from a different squadron. I’m going to have markings and I plan that each type of plane should be from a different squadron.

 

As you say, the thunderbolts are escorts for the marauders, so it makes sense for them to have the same scheme. Other planes will have camo appropriate for their role. Lightnings might be plain metal to reduce drag.

 

It is a problem now that the destroyer looks like the odd one out. Hopefully in future that will be less of an issue when there are other planes with different schemes.

[Firedrake Cordova]

Lightnings might be plain metal to reduce drag.

Genuinely curious - is that "a thing"?  I know the USAF used unpainted planes towards the end of WWII in the pacific theatre, but that was largely because they were an attacking force (no need for camouflage mimicking the ground if you're not going to be attacked on the ground), had air superiority, and it reduced production time.

 

It is a problem now that the destroyer looks like the odd one out. Hopefully in future that will be less of an issue when there are other planes with different schemes.

You could always add in a couple of "ground attack" Thunderbolts with missiles and/or bombs ... no idea how effective they'd be, mind.  Or Avengers if you like the look of them.

Edited April 24, 2020 by Firedrake Cordova

[Mandragola]

I think valkyries will be my main other thing in low-altitude paint. I might get some avengers one day and they'd probably be in that scheme too. I'm not a huge fan of avengers though. I'll definitely get some Arvus lighters but I'm not sure if they'd be in camo or just in some sort of grey.

 

I ready a bit about paint and drag. It sort of is a thing apparently. You want camo paint to be matt so it doesn't reflect light. That means it has a rougher texture than something with a gloss finish, which results in drag. Apparently a mosquito with special night paint (super matt paint designed to avoid searchlights) on was 20mph slower than normal.

 

I like the idea of my planes being from different squadrons, and potentially even from different planets - or even fleet-based. I imagine you might get a rivalry between a ground-based force like the Rynnsguard and the guys operating off a battlecruiser in orbit.

 

I think all my thunderbolts will be from the same squadron. I've got 6 though so I might try and organise them into two wings of 3. Or I might paint one red to be Dagor Jarni.

Edited April 24, 2020 by Mandragola

[Firedrake Cordova]

I ready a bit about paint and drag. It sort of is a thing apparently. You want camo paint to be matt so it doesn't reflect light. That means it has a rougher texture than something with a gloss finish, which results in drag. Apparently a mosquito with special night paint (super matt paint designed to avoid searchlights) on was 20mph slower than normal.

Ah, that makes sense (actually not something I'd thought of).  Now that I think about it, I remember hearing tales of Battle of Britain pilots having (or helping) their ground crew file down the rivets on the wings to get more speed (kind of related, although I'm not sure the magnitude of the effect) ...

Edited April 24, 2020 by Firedrake Cordova

[Arendious]

Quick answer - it depends.

Useful answer - it depends on several factors. Yes, any surface is going to have *some* effect on drag (hence the stories of filing rivets). But, given the already abysmal aerodynamics of Imperial aircraft, paint drag is likely a rounding error in the total drag equation. Rule #2 of aviation is that even a brick will fly with enough thrust - which is basically the entirety of Imperial aerospace engineering. Will leaving the paint off buy you a few extra knots airspeed? Probably.  But unless you're setting airspeed records (like the old bare metal Foxbats), or chasing something that's fast enough to be at the edge of your envelope (or beyond it - like those same Foxbats trying to catch SR-71s), there's a good chance another factor is going to be more important.

 

Things like; range/endurance - are you doing point defense, or combat air patrols, or (like the Foxbat's replacement, Mig-31) long-range airspace patrols? Paint is heavy, and carrying less of it means the fuel you have lasts longer.

Environment - More than just a pretty surface, paint is also there to protect the aircraft from all the 'stuff' it's flying through (or just sitting on the ground on alert.) 

 

Sensors - Bare metal reflects EM energy SUPER well. This is how chaff works. 

 

 

So, who're your interceptors, ahem, intercepting, Mandragola? And where? :D

[Mandragola]

I play Crimson Fists in 40k so I think most of my stuff will be Rynsguard, at least in theory. Part of the reason I started now was wanting to get hold of the Rynnsworld stuff while it was still available. Hopefully there will be Marine planes soonish, which I can paint as Crimson Fists.

 

I've got my second Destroyer painted up now. Time to do some markings I think.

[Mandragola]

I've painted up a Thunderbolt as Dagor Jarni. For this I started out with contrast (mixed flesh tearer red and flesh hound orange as I had no BA red) but then painted some mephiston red on the panels to get a more even coat. This guy got a bit of proper edge highlighting as well as dry brushing too. I wanted him to have a cleaner look, as befits a show off ace.

 

 

It's a bit odd to have a bright red plane after all the previous discussion of camo schemes. I'm quite happy with how it's come out though.

 

So here's where I'm up to with my AI Imperial stuff. Seven planes are base coated, waiting for me to figure out how to apply squadron markings.

 

 

Next up (and last of my current Imperial planes) are these three Thunderbolts. My first two are glued as Furies but for these I decided to make the weaponry interchangeable. This is relatively easy to do by just removing a couple of tabs. The guns sit in comfortably and are actually a bit tricky to get out, without needing any magnets.

 

 

One issue is going to be painting the camo scheme on them. They've got some armour panels, which have camo painted on for my normal Thunderbolts. I'm thinking about painting their noses red to match Jarni's plane, which will tie them together a bit and also make all their noses identical, so I don't have to worry about camo schemes not matching up with the weapons. I think that could look decent. I'll probably give them the same white tail rudder he has as well. Hopefully that way Jarni will look like he's an unusual member of the same squadron, rather than just some random plane that has turned up out of nowhere.

Edited April 25, 2020 by Mandragola