Kannon Kar - (Pink Orks' Mek contributes to the Waaaghbash Kannonball)

Hi everyone,

Supreme Warboss Spork has been ENKOR-RAGIN' his Pink Ork army's Meks to come up with some BIGGER DAKKA for the battle he can feel coming.  He has agreed to an alliance with his brother Fork and his yellow Orks - and together they are readying the Waaaghbash Kannonball, their Ork Looted Train!

 The Ork's Waaaghbash Kannonball!

What's been on Spork's mind is that a really, really big gun mounted as part of the train has very clearly been used in the history of FIGHT'IN!!  Spork's Weird-boy has pulled the following images from the Warp for study:

Believe this train mounted gun was built by the French army.  Though pretty sure there are examples of this built by many armies over time....

An even earlier example of a train mounted cannon!

Catching you up, here are several posts related to the Waaaghbash Kannonball:
- The grand plan for the full looted train, Waaaghbash Kannonball
- The Dakka Chugga, looted steam train (POWER'D BY BURNIN' NIDZ!)
- Da Pain Train, looted from Eldar hardware
[This, here is the post about the Kannon Kar]
[And, still have work to do on the Kaboose Observ-obliteration Kar]

Spork's team has the following ideas for the Kannon Kar:

• Should have a really big gun.  After looking around, found a very nice big Tyranid "arm" gun.  Figured this could be looted with some way to mount it.
• Fully functioning turret; fully functioning elevation.  We weren't sure how to do this.  But, Spork has learned the hard way that if guns can't aim (with the help of Grots), they are pretty limited in what they can shoot.
• Had the idea of using a "Plasma Ball" on the Kannon Kar.  Got this idea from a very nice posting on Dakka Dakka where a visionary Warboss and Mek had mounted one onto a Morkanaut (here's a link to Deathwhisper's post)

And, for the beginning, that was it.  Then, had a nice visit with the team at Reno's The Summit Warhammer store.  (Happened to be on the Space Marine's Birthday.)  Chatted with them about the idea of playing a Death Race type scenario (which, of course, being a fight or battle, Fork and Spork agreed to)....  And, they pointed out that it would be pretty cool if the Kannon Kar's assemblage could disconnect from the flat car and charge into the battlefield if/when necessary.  Have had this idea echoed by several others in the past few weeks, so figured we needed to find a way to do it.

• Mount gun on mobile platform.  Well, a Rhino turned out to be pretty easy for Spork's boyz to obtain....  [And, disclaimer -- one of us -- who also works hard on his Space Marine Army pointed out that Ork looting was a pretty darned poor use of the Emperor's valuable Rhino!!!]
• Create a locking turret.  More tricky.  Lacking detailed plastic - and not wanting to use HUGE magnets, decided on using a threaded turret assembly.  Probably crazy to watch in real life - if the tank body is rotated enough times (righty-tighty; lefty-loosey), it comes free and can drive off the flat car.

As a bonus, the use of a Rhino provides a location to mount the 12V battery needed for the plasma ball's battery :)

Our Basic Raw Materials....

Here are the flat car (which once upon a time launched Lionel Train rockets with a little spring - ours doesn't - we got this off eBay for lower $$); the Rhino; and the Tyranid "arm" for the Nid Gun....

Caption....

Turret Assembly:

Looking around, we stumbled on the safety lid for medicine bottles.  We could cut the top off the bottle and then use the lid (which had threads on it) to mount on the flat car - and thread the tank onto that.

Here's the medicine bottle we looted to form our turret.  Cut off the top of the green plastic from the pill bottle - glued this to the bottom of the Rhino.  Then, mounting the lid onto the flat car.

So, here is the flat car with the lid glued on.  We had to build some I-beam structure under the lid to make sure that the Nid Gun wouldn't hit the brake superstructure on the flat car.  Added some bits for the rotation's automation.

Here's our flat car so far.  Have the rotation hardware in the works.  Needs some Seth Wires and Pipes to be added yet.

The Kannon -- Nid Gun

We cut off the "shoulder" connection part of the big tyranid arm -- and then had the idea to glue that onto an Ork Gun.  We connected the two with some "Seth Wires" (link to our lesson from Seth at Game Kastle - use real things for real things....)

Here is the tyranid gun-arm glued onto the Ork gun....

Very fine Seth Wires on this side - connecting the Ork power supply to the little "holes" in the tyranid arm up above....

One bit Seth Wire on this side to connect the Ork power to the Tyranid section....  (We added some other Ork bitz for fun!)

What was cool about that is that the Ork gun was set up to mount in a Lobba set of brackets for elevation.  Of course, we didn't have an extra Lobba bracket-set.  So, we dug through our bits.  And, what do you know - the forks of a Warbike (if turned inside-out) fit right onto the little plastic buttons on the Ork gun.  So, we used some hunks of sprue to build up an assembly to allow for the elevation.

Here is our gun hinge formed out of Warbiker forks with a couple of pieces of sprue glued on.  Probably going to add an Ork or Grot to be the elevation operator - but haven't done that yet.

Even more cool, that set of Warbiker forks fits right into the front of the Rhino!

Here is the 'Nid Gun on the front of the Looted Rhino.  You can see the inverted forks fitting perfectly into the front of the Rhino!

The Plasma Balla and Power Supply

We had sent a message on DakkaDakka to Deathwhisper to inquire about the plasma ball they had used on their Morkanaut.  Feedback was to look at Amazon, searching on Thunderball Plasma Pendant.  It's only about 2" across - so perfect to use.  (Here's a link - though probably need to find a different way to buy right now - this one says it's not in stock.) 

The Thunderball comes with a 12V car's cigarette plug - and a string of 12V hearing-air type button cells wired up.  Deathwhisper had warned us that the wiring (including the fuse in the plug) were a bit finicky - so we were ready for trouble.

Main thing was that we wanted ours to be rechargeable - and didn't intend to use in a car.  So, we cut away the alkaline batteries and the car plug.

Then, searching on eBay we found a very small 12V lithium ion battery which came with a charger.  (It took some searching to find one small enough to fit inside the middle of a looted Rhino!)

We wired this up to the 12V input to the Plasma Ball's boost converter - and Wow! we were in business.

Here is our rewiring job in completed state.  Lithium ion battery pack spliced to input of boost converter for Plasma Ball.

Quick video so that you can watch the plasma ball working - this was plugged into the car....

Another video of the plasma ball working from our 12V batteries

So, that's where things stand.  Lots of work yet to do -- here's a list.  And, of course, open to new ideas....

• Air brush the tyranid gun arm the same colors we used for the tyranid bodies in the Dakka Chugga's tender (blue and turquoise)
• Add more Orky bitz to the Rhino
• Build a "holder" for the plasma ball -- probably will use more tyranid bits for this
• Add Seth Wires to connect the plasma ball to more parts of the tank
• Mount things together with magnets (figure we need to use magnets in case we ever need to update the wiring)
• Mount the recharging cable in a way which looks cool - not dangling behind the Kannon Kar!
• We'll probably have room on the flat car for some Ork boyz -- we'll see...

Here is the Kannon Kar so far - with Plasma Ball flaring away!