Peeps vs. Space Marines - Warhammer 40K

Hi everyone,

We were shopping recently and saw the aisle of Easter candy - and had the idea that it would be pretty funny to have a battle of Peeps against one of our Warhammer 40K armies.  We figured, the Space Marines would be best.

So, we bought a bunch of Peeps.  Then, we had to search for a Warlord for the Peeps (there wasn't anything like a really huge Peep that we could find at the store - though we did see some big ones for sale on-line).  So, we decided to use a big chocolate bunny for the Warlord.

Then, all we needed were some kind of vehicles (or Peep-pods) for the Peeps.  And, way up high on a shelf at the store we found the biggest plastic Easter eggs we had ever seen.  Perfect!

Construction of our Peep-Pods is completed!

We had to construct some bases - which we made from plastic cups - with plastic Easter egg grass hot-glued on.

The Battle:

Deployment:

The Space Marines were deployed on planet Omega-500 (which they had recently captured from the Ork Xenos).  [We will write another blog posting with further backstory explaining that Omega 500 is the planet where the Orkies originated from spores.] 

Ultramarines and Blood Angels had been stationed -- along with built-up fortifications -- to ensure that Omega-500 was held for the Emperor against any alien counter-attack.

Suddenly the routine of security watch was broken by com-link messages from the orbiting defense platform.  "Incoming Xeno drop ships.  Unable to classify identity.  Confirmed to 99.5% confidence, not Ork or other known Xeno species.  Captain Sicarius you will conduct recon, characterize the unknown crafts and defend the planet at all costs."

Turn 1:

After the strange landing craft came gently to rest on the planet surface, the Space Marines waited - and readied their weapons.

The Peeps have Landed!

Suddenly, strange Xenos life-forms emerged, in close military formation.

"We must repel these strange creatures!  Set targeting at the largest group to the left.  Fire the main cannon!" commanded the Captain.

Under command of computer guidance, the massive gun turned, locked onto the target, and fired!

Two of the green aliens - who were taking position to guard their huge alien leader were burned in the blast from the cannon.  "By the Emperor, those Xenos can certainly absorb damage, Captain!" replied main gunner after assessing his shot.

"Hover craft - recon!  Close the enemy and report best method for destruction."

"Closing, Captain.  Recommend supporting fire from the Scout squad in the Bastion.  Their sniper rifles may be able to push these creatures back."

"Captain - other than our Icarus Lascannon, our shots are simply passing straight through the Xenos!"  Recommend all units use weapons which are high strength."

"Orbiting image analysis completed.  All units must use caution in close-approach of the life-forms.  Clear evidence of Ork Xenos embedded in one of the creatures.  Analysis indicates units with full Terminator power armor best suited for close combat."

"Land speeder to main cannon - fire on these coordinates!"  "Fire!"

"A clear hit, sir!  This time the Warlord has taken damage.  He seems to still be fully functional though.  Just some to damage to what looks like his upper antennae structure."

 

 

"Sir, firing my multi-melta!"

 



 

"Massive effect, Captain!  He's roasted!  These creatures do not stand up well to heat!"

 

 

"Stormraven Gunship landed, sir.  Deploying Ironclad Dreadnought and Assault Terminators."

 

 

"We made quick work of them, sir.  By the Emperor, they seems to be made of fluff -- either that or marshmallow."

 

"Uh, sir - one second.  They seem to be reanimating some kind of zombie with their psychic powers.  Perhaps these creatures are Necrons!"

 

"Dreadnought unit - engage with flamer!"

 

 

"Target destroyed, sir.  That fluff zombie is now totally melted." 

 

 

 "All units - just wiped out a whole squad of them with my grav-gun.  Seems to cause them to expand and then melt into a pile."

  

 

"All untis - Captain Sicarius.  We have significantly reduced their number.  The Xenos are now in full retreat.  Continue to press the advantage.  We will win the day!"

 

 

"Sir, they have re-entered their craft.  The main drop ship is lifting off!"

 

 

"Concentrate all fire-power on the Warlord's craft!  We must bring it down!"

 

"Sir, we have grounded it!"

 

 

"All units - provide post operation intel reports.  Techmarine - analysis on the strange egg shaped drop-pods which have just appeared to our rear...."

 

 

"Origin of the Xeno egg structures is unknown, Captain.  However, analysis does indicate that they are safely edible - even for civilians lacking Space Marine enhancements -- though I do caution that a consistent diet of these creatures would not be in good standing with the Emperor's health guidelines."

 

Notes:

• The microwave worked well to simulate multi-melta, plasma weapon and grav-gun attacks.  In case you've never tried to microwave a marshmallow - please take our word for it that you have to be very careful to keep the timing short.  Too long and you can make quite a mess as the marshmallows expand!  We weren't 100% sure Peeps would act just like marshmallows - but sure enough they do.  (Makes sense, given what they're made of.)
• We used the stove to burn the tops of some Peeps after attacks from incendiary weapons.  Had to be very careful while doing this.  Recommend only doing this over the sink.  We were also careful that this was only done by the adult (of the two of us).
• We had the idea to drill holes through Peeps to show how weapons were going right though.  That was not easy to do.  If we were to try this again, we might freeze the Peeps and then try drilling holes. 
• Making the zombie Peep was fun - and really messy.  We put plastic-wrap under the zombie Peep so that we wouldn't get Peep goo all over our battle mat.
• We had the idea (originally) to have Peeps attack the Space Marines - and suck them inside their marshmallow bodies.  But, after we worked with the Peeps a bit, we figured out how messy they were - and so we just stuck some Ork feet out of one. 

 

 Peep Codex:

 

 

 We couldn't find a 7th Edition Peep Codex - so we had to wing it.

We figured that Peeps had 5 HP.  The purple Peeps are psychic - had the ability to reanimate dead Peeps into Zombie Peeps.

Overall thinking on Peeps.  Can take lots of wounds, but very slow moving and very easy to hit.

In the first battle (this one), no close-combat weapons for Peeps.  Maybe we'll do Peep guns next time :)

 

Travel to MiniWargaming.com - Playing Matt!

Hi everyone,

This past Friday we traveled to the HQ of MiniWarGaming.com to play Warhammer 40K against Matt!  We had a great time - it was really run to play Matt - and - it was extremely cool to see the studio set-up where Matt and the other MiniWarGaming team members set up their BatReps.

We asked Matt if he'd be up for a photo with our favorite Space Marine and Ork!

[For us visiting Matt was really a big deal.  Going back to our very first days of us playing Warhammer 40K (when we came home from Gator Games and Game Kastle with boxes of Space Marines and Orks to glue together) watching Matt's Youtube Beat Matt Batreps was our introduction to what playing 40K is like.]

And, by the way, we discussed with Matt and agreed that we shouldn't write any *spoilers* of the battles we had here -- just write about our adventures traveling there and back.  :)

Challenging Matt

This idea came way back in September (7 months ago)....  We e-mailed Matt, explained who we were and how much we valued his 40K Batreps, and asked if he would be up for playing if we could get ourselves and our army(ies) to Canada.

Matt wrote back right away - and graciously explained that a) yes, they loved it when people traveled in to challenge them; b) that we should make sure our armies were fully painted; and that c) we needed to get to Welland, Ontario in Canada.

Getting Ready to Play Matt

Well when we got this e-mail back from Matt - we were pretty excited.  But, we also knew that we had quite a lot of work to do.  We were still pretty rough with the rules.  And, we had lots of model building to do.  (Confession - we certainly didn't have a fully painted army ready!!)

So, many thanks to a large group of people who were very generous with teaching us how to play :)  This spanned all the way from the first person who played against us, our friend Mr. E (here's a link to our write-up of that first battle); to the great group of friends we've formed in the progressive league we played in at Game Kastle in Fremont.

And, even a large thanks to people who gave us models (like Mr. T in San Francisco).  [By the way, Mr. T - if you ever get to read this - we did bring your Orks along with ours to challenge Matt.]  (Here's our write-up about Mr. T's Orks!)

Also, big thanks to the modeling experts who were happy to share how to paint, how to glue, how to magnetize, etc....  Game store friends helped us out; web forum people helped us out.  (Here's our write-up after our first 'season' of progressive league in Fremont.)

And, in the end, we got it done.  Two different lists of 1500 points, ready to go to play against Matt :)

Our Ork Army is Ready to Go!

Traveling to MiniWarGaming

Getting from California to Welland meant (one way or another) a pretty long set of flights.

In the end, the way which worked best with frequent flier miles was to fly first from San Francisco, CA to Newark, NJ -- and then take a commuter flight from Newark to Buffalo, NY.  Matt had coached us that we could fly to Buffalo and then drive across the boarder at Niagara Falls -- and then a short drive to Welland from there.

First there was the issue of packing.  Because we had cleared with Matt to bring some fortifications, we knew that we needed to figure out how to pack some bulky models - and our Orks.

In the end, what we did was pack our Orks in the army foam (with the cut-outs for each small model) - and then placed these into plastic bins which snapped shut.  We packed these full so that the foam couldn't rattle around. 

These are the bins we used to protect our Ork Army :)

Then we zipped that into our biggest duffel-type suitcase with a pretty squishy blanket surrounding it all.  (At this point, you could sit on it, stand on it - all pretty rugged.)

Loaded the bins into our duffel suitcase - and then surrounded that with this very fuzzy blanket.

For the fortification, we used lots of bubble wrap and then lots of clothing -- and outside of that books (as a layer of armor) -- to fill up our suitcase.  Not bullet proof (even with the book-armor) but pretty rugged.

How did it all work out?  Well, we got some good feedback via a comment here on the blog that TSA might open our packaging up - and not put it back quite right.  And, you know what -- they did!  Lucky thing was that even though they didn't snap our bins back together because everything was to tightly nested it really didn't matter and everything worked out!

And, by the way, we did watch closely -- we did our best to monitor the load and unload of the troop transport!

Arriving at MiniWarGaming.com!

Bright and early Thursday morning (it was 6AM for us!) we arrived at MiniWarGaming.com.  First thing we had to do was take a few photos to celebrate the arrival :)

 

Our visit :)

 The set-up at MiniWarGaming.com is extremely cool.  We got to have a look at the studio where we have seen Matt record his BatReps -- and we also got to have a look at the many studio armies.

One very cool thing was the terrific piece of terrain in the lobby!  We took some pictures of our favorite Ork and Space Marine with those.

Our favorite Ork and Space Marine with the scenery in the lobby at MiniWarGaming.com

Ork and Space Marine playing tag...

We had two 40K battles with Matt.  (Will be writing about those only after Matt and the MiniWarGaming.com team produce the videos from these battles.)  The day was truly a lot of fun.  Terrific to play against Matt - and terrific to get to play with the detailed terrain they have available.

Last key piece - we had a very tasty lunch - some very delicious food from a nearby restaurant!!
 

Launchin da Grot! (Grot Rokkit Lauch Report) -- Warhammer 40K

Our storyline....

Warboss Snotwaaagh sayz we needs more burny an' dakka way off dat way.  So, sayz he, "Mek, make me anuder of dose grot rokkits!"

"Righ' boss!" sayz our Big Mek.

Pretty soon we'z ready.  Da yoosless grot (Grot Pilot) iz loaded in 'is boomy (Bomb Capsule) on top of da big burna (Rocket).  Dat lil' bomb aima (Grot Pilot, Grot Astronaut, Test Pilot) iz ruddy an' we starts a coun-down.

Here is the Grot Bomb Aima ready to go! 

Da grot rokkit iz ruddy fur take-off!

Ten, nine, ay, sebum, den some udder nummers and wham -- off she goes.

Dat rokkitty fing gets to da top (Apogee) an da yoosless fluff pops out (Parachute).  Dat don' slow down dat grot - naw - he aimz direkly fur da aimin spot (Target).

Den, dakka-dakka-boom!  Dat grot lanz ri' wur hez spozed to hit!

Warboss Snotwaaagh sayz he, "Dats wa' I kallz teknulogize ri' der!  Waaaaagh!!!!"  An off we goes to attak!


How our launch went....

Today we launched the Grot Rokkit, our "Waaagh! Payloader" under real rokkit power.

Not sure how high we got it.

We had planned to use a little bit of Orky Mek no-how and mayzure da anglez -- measure the angle from the horizon -- to use some trigonometry to calculate our altitude.  But.... Our angle measurement didn't work out so well.  [Here's a link to a NASA site with those calculations.  We were going to use the simple single observer version.]



Our guess - we got to somewhere between 200 and 500 feet up.  [What units do Orks use for measuring length anyway?  Maybe 'chuckin' distans' (the distance the Warboss can throw a misbehaving grot?)]

We used a B6-4 motor in our Nova Payloader rokkit.  Judging by how high some other rokkits went, we could have gone larger on the motor and still stayed under the Moffett Field limit of 1000 feet (what's that, 50 chucks???)

Highlights:

- Launch worked!

- Grot Rokkit parachute deployed

- Our tether system to hold the whole rocket together worked well

- Did get up to 200-500 feet (10 or 25 chucks)

Things to try to do better:

- The grot was actually ejected at "da top" (apogee) and did indeed free-fall.  We're calling this something to fix because we don't want to lose our grot capsule.  But, in Ork terms, this was a huge success since the grot was able to steer all the way down to his target!!!

- Not enough smoke.  We saw that some people had rokkit motors which intentionally made more smoke.  Da's fer us!!

- Go highyu.  We're invited to go launch again over at Livermore where we can put in a bigger rokkit motor!  Bigga = highyu+betta!

- More close-ups for video!  (We wanna see da look on dat grots face wen he launchez!)

Info and Links:

- Here's a link to our earlier blog, when we first built up our Waaagh! Payloader Grot Rokkit and it's Grot Capsule, the Waaagh! Lander 7.

- Here's a link to our Youtube video with the Waaagh! Payloader launch.

- Here's a link to the Lunar club website.  They host the launches in the Silicon Valley area.

- And, small aside, we were a bit worried that the weight distribution of the Waaagh! Lander 7 would cause the rokkit to shoot sideways.  We did find this video of kids launching the same Nova Payloader Estes rokkit with a Lego Astronaut inside.  It went straight enough - so we set our human worrying aside and blasted off.  Sure enough it launched straight!

Warhammer 40K -- The Dakka Chugga! (Pink Orks Steam Train Looted Wagon!)

Hi everyone!

We finished the Dakka Chugga this past week!  Please check out what we've been up to.  Appreciate any thoughts or ideas for further work :)

Da Pink Orkys Dakka Chugga!

The pressure was on because we wanted to take it with us to Canada to show Matt from Miniwargaming.com.  So, lots of construction in the past two weeks :)

And, plenty of small things left to complete -- those will be fun!

Will put this posting in four sections:  1) photos of the Dakka Chugga as it stands today; 2) how we built it; 3) how we got it to Canada and back (safely!); 4) future plans

1.  The Dakka Chugga!

We took some posed shots with our original Pink Orkys.  These were our first 10 Ork Boyz with pink armor.  We're working on the story line - where the Pink Orks -- stranded on a planet because of poor battle performance -- have to build the Dakka Chugga to escape....  [Here's a link to the first Chapta of that story.]

A view of the port side of the Dakka Chugga

A quick explanation of a few of the port-side features:

• Workin Turrit  (Both elevation and rotation functions working)
• Fuel (Fool) Choppas  The Dakka Chugga is fueled by whoever is fool enough to get in its way.  (In this case Tyranids.)
• Trakshun Goo Holda  The Pink Orks' Mek has had his grots scoop up Tyranid icor and has loaded this into a dispenser.  Because of this, the Dakka Chugga can plow forward without rails.  When it comes to the Don't Touch Dat! rule, this is one of the controls to watch out for!!
• Lookin Pipe  With the load-out of gear, it's difficult for the Dakka Chugga's Driva (engineer) to see.  So, he can zero in on his targets using this periscope.
• Buzz Saw  Ground troops should stay away from the port side, else they'll be buzzed up (and prepped for the fuel process).
• Rokkit Lanchas  The Dakka Chugga is designed to throw a serious punch.  We plan to run it with the maximum number of rokkit lanchas under the looted wagon rules.

View of the port side with "Feecha List" of the Dakka Chugga

Here are front views of the Dakka Chugga.  Clearly comes with a built-in reinforced ram.  The Kow Kacha is nicely set up to help plow through enemies.

Dakka Chugga from the front! 

 The Dakka Chugga heading straight toward the camera.  Turrit tracking in on target....

Here is a close-up of the Tenda where the side-bin of Choppas is stored - at the ready.  After a battle, dead bodies of (Tyranids) can be chopped and chucked directly into the Tenda.

View of the Tenda, loaded up with Tyranid bodies, side-bin of Choppa for Fool Choppin

 

Here is a quick list of the starboard side features

 

• Boyz in the Tenda  Set-up with some big weapons to ensure there is nobody coming up behind the Dakka Chugga.
• Fuel (Fool) Loada  As you might guess, the Loada is chuckin fuel (Tyranid bodies) into the Boila of the Chugga.
• Force Field Stuff  The Mek hasn't gotten all of this working yet - but the Dakka Chugga does have KFF hardware installed....
• Driva  The Dakka Chugga's Driva is peering out the starboard side - figurin' how to go fasta and fire more dakka!
• Extra Smoka  The smoke stack of the Dakka Chugga has Mek-enchanced bitz to cause the Boila to belch out extra smoke (for kamoflajin!!)
• Combi-Big Shoota-Burna and More Big Shootas  Lots of shooty and burny weapons on the starboard side.

 

View of the starboard side of the Dakka Chugga and "Feecha List"

 

Here are closer views of the Chugga and the Tenda so that you can see the Loada and the Driva better....

 

Close-in view of the Driva.  Behind him, you can see the Loada Chukkin Fuel....

 

We took photos with the Chugga decoupled from the Tenda.  Here's a look at the cabin of the Chugga.  We added a skull throttle and other Mek-modified controls.  The Pink Orks also had to enlarge the opening of the Boila's Burna-Box to fit Tyranid bodies inside with only some shoving!

 

A view of the Chugga's cabin - Driva leanin' out the winda' in classic fashion (we couldn't help ourselves with this bit of nostalgia)

 

Here's a look at the front of the Tenda so that you can have a better view of the Tyranid bodies loaded up :)

 

Chopped up Tyranids filled up the Tenda....

 

Does it run??  Well, we'll only be able to prove that with a video - but as you can see, we maintained the operating motor and pickups - so no issues with running the Dakka Chugga around *fill in the blank* [Christmas tree??]

 

Bottom view of the Chugga - electric motor and pick-ups still in place :)

 

2.  Building the Dakka Chugga!

 

We built the Dakka Chugga from a classic Lionel steam engine.  In this case, a 2-4-0 rig.

 

We had several to select from (had purchased a bunch of old parts off of eBay - plus had been collecting here and there).  But, we wanted to pick an 'engine' where we had 2 almost identical shells.  The reason for this was that we wanted to make a rusted up version (which the Pink Orks could find) -- and then the Mekked-up Dakka Chugga's 'engine'.

 

For the Tenda portion - the ones with the sloped back looked nice -- but we didn't select these because we had the idea of fitting Tyranid bodies in there from day #1 -- and we didn't think we could fit as many....

 

Dakka Chugga engine and tender candidates.  The one we selected in the near-right (#8602).  We used the tender in the fore-ground-left as well.  In the rear-right you can see the "shell" we used to make the rusty version....

 

Here is the rusty engine we created side-by-side with the finished Dakka Chugga.

 

Our rusty Chugga next to the finished one :)

 

We started work on the Tenda.  Step one was to cut out the coal.  Note:  That old-school plastic in Lionel models is extremely hard.  It's almost like a bakelite material.  Makes a real mess.  We used a demel tool to do most of this work.

 

The Dakka Chugga's Tenda after cutting the coal out of the old Lionel tender 

 

The next step was to create a box into which we could glue the Tyranid bodies.  The class Lionel tender is a flat metal piece with two trucks attached.  The tender body attached on top of that.  We didn't want to glue to that metal piece.  So, we took the metal base off and worked on the plastic top.

 

We used plastic sheet to form the base - used pretty thick material.  We added some straight sprue pieces underneath to act as beams.  We needed quite a bit of gluing surface area to get this to hold together with that bakelite type plastic.

 

The Dakka Chugga's Tenda after adding the floor (to hold the Tyranid bodies) 

 

Then we started adding plastic bits to the outside to make a patched look.  We put some into boiling water to warp them to the contour of the Tenda.  Some Trukk armor bits in the back.

 

Adding bits toh the sides of the Tenda (various patches and symbols) 

 

When we were done adding bits to the outside it still looked pretty plain.  So, we started gluing various spikey weapons to the outside.  That still looked sort of weird.  And, then it hit us that this could be the bin to hold the extra choppy weapons to chopping up the Tyranid fuel.  This gave us the idea we needed to form it up as a bit of a box.  The white pieces of plastic were from a bread bag (those plastic pieces which hold the bag closed)....  You'll also see some Ork flyer pieces on here....

 

Our Fuel Choppa Holda on the side of the Tenda 

 

We had gotten our hands on some broken up Tyranids on eBay.  We pieced these back together and air brushed them to that the tops would be blue, bottoms black.  Then added accent colors.  We figured that these were probably not the greatest colors for Tyranids - but they looked nice side-by-side with our Pink Orks.

 

These are the ill-fated Tyranids.  We first fixed them (got them on eBay all broken), then pained them, then staged photos for Chapta 2 of our story.  Then, as you'll see, we hit them with Choppas! 

 

To make sure the Tenda looked *totally* full of Tyranid bodies and guts we cut-to-fit pieces of these egg-sack-like bits we had purchased off of eBay.  (Not sure if these were actually original Tyranid pieces or something else.  Regardless, when we painted them up to match the Tyranids, they worked out pretty we underneath them.)

Don't know what these were called - but they looked cool under the Tyranid bodies

 

We primed the Tenda with all of the Fuel Choppas and other pieces - so that these would be primed black.  Then, with the Tenda loaded with the larva bits (which we had painted separately), here's now things were looking....

Dakka Chugga's Tenda all primed.  Laying in base of larva pieces.

 

We test fit our Loada ork to make sure he was going to work well.  We had set one Tyranid body aside as the one he would throw.  Also very nice that the Ork Boyz kits have both left and right hands which are already in a 'holding' position (for holding big shootas).  So, we built an ork with both hands this way....

 

We ended up putting the Loada Boy up on top of the pile of bodies a bit more.  Helped to make him stand out and also seemed more realistic.

Dry run with the Ork Loada

 

We mixed the GW's gooey green Nurgles Rot paint with Grumbacher Gel 531 to make a thicker mix and then dabbed it all over the Tyranid bodies.  Then we glued those in place.

Tenda full of Tyranid bodies.  Still needing more Tyranid icor!

 

Turned out that we needed quite a few batches of the Nurgles + Gel to make things look slimy enough.  Here's how things looked before the Gel was dry (it starts as opaque white, but dries clear).....

Another patch of Tyranid icor - waiting for it to dry :)

 

Then, it was time to work on the Chugga!

Step one for us was to remove the motor from the inside.  This really helped because then we were just working on the plastic shell.

A really nice person on Dakka Dakka had sold us a whole bunch of bits (many from Trukk, Battlewagon and Stompa) so we had lots of great raw material to work from.  A big problem, though was finding a way to place a turret onto the Chugga.

We ended up building out of a the turret section of a WWII Panzer tank.  This gave us the pieces we needed for both rotation and elevation.  We had some great gun barrel type pieces - but we had gotten excited about using those as Mek Guns - so we fashioned our gun barrel out of a burna bommer's ordnance.  Placing the driver from an Ork vehicle into the turret worked pretty well :)

We built up a lower section of the turret with various pieces of plastic.  And, to make sure this stayed on well. we used exoxy.  Super glue connections to the Lionel plastic weren't working very well for us.  And, we had a hard time getting model glue to work.  So, we went with the heavy-duty epoxy.  This worked just fine - and left a bead which looks very much like an Ork Mek weld.

Working on the Dakka Chugga's Turrit

 

We had agreed that to keep the Lionel heritage we would keep the 8602 number on one side -- and cut open the window on the other side -- for the Ork Driva to be leaning out.  Here's the side where we chopped things open.  We added some rear steel to close the window in.  (This bit may remind you of the reinforced ram pieces from a Trukk!!)

Modified Cab of the Dakka Chugga

 

We wanted to have missile launchers - but couldn't find any good ones in our bits pile.  So, we used some of the shoota weapons from the Ork planes -- cutting off the gun barrel -- and then glued in the tips of missiles.

Piecing together a Rokkit Lancha out of missile and gun parts

Here's how things looked after about 50% of the work.  We still hadn't mounted the weapon "arms" on either side.

To put the goo dispenser on - we actually cut the sand-dome off of the top and glued one of the spherical tanks we had left over from our Mek Gun build right into the hole which was left.

The big teeth and horned piece on the front game from some (of what we think were) GW Fantasy bits we had picked up on eBay.  It took some cutting to get that to fit over the headlight of the Chugga.  But, we did get it done finally.

Half way done with the shell!

 

To create the Driva we tried to make an Ork who looked a lot like the stereotypical train engineer.  Couldn't find a very good engineer's hat though.  So, this is actually a hat from the Panzer officer -- cut off carefully -- and then reamed out to make hollow -- and glued onto the Orks head.  The arms of the Ork are from the Ork Trakk -- modified a bit to make it look like he's wearing work gloves.

It was tricky to get the Ork put together so that he could look out the window.  Did quite a bit of trial and effor on his limb placement to get this to work.  Here are the pieces as we got him put together....

Working on the Ork Driva.  Fitting the hat onto the Driva's head

 

And, here's the shell -- nearly completed.  Still a few touches to add (the hoses from the slime dome), getting the Driva's head glued on.  But, mostly finished.

 Shell of the Chugga almost done!

 

We actually didn't fully assemble it until we got it to Canada.  More of that in the transporting section.  But, it does go together pretty easily.  We had been careful to make the turret assembly hollow so that you can still screw the locomotive's shell to the electric motor assembly which fits underneath (classic Lionel design).

 

3.  Getting the Dakka Chugga to Canada and Back!

 

We transported it in three pieces. 

 

(1) Electric motor for the Chugga.  This we fully bubble wrapped - and placed in its own area.  It is pretty massy - iron outer section; copper windings; iron wheels.  So, we figured we should keep it away from other plastic models.  Also didn't want it installed in the Chugga because we didn't want it's mass to cause the outer shell to slam into things.

 

(2) Chugga shell.  Wrapped this carefully in bubble wrap and soft material.

 

(3) Fully assembled Tenda.  Wrapped this carefully in bubble wrap and soft material.

 

Results:

 

Tenda - no issues either way.  100% success.

 

Chugga - only minor issues.  Electric motor pretty much impervious - and as far as we could tell we didn't suffer any fratricide either (because of the mass of the motor).  We had the starboard side gun-arm come off on the trip into Canada (very easy fix); and zero issues on the trip home.

 

4.  Improvements to the Dakka Chugga!

• Light and Sound  We do intend to add lighting and sound.  For lighting we are going to use the kit we got from Powered Play Gaming.  White light for the headlight; red light inside the Boila's Burna.  Will put the control card back in the Tenda and run wires forward.  Also planning to put the sound card in the Tenda.  (There is lots of room there under the Tyranid floor we created.)
• More Gutz  Charred Tyranid arm sticking out of Boila's Burna Box.  (After all, Orks aren't very neat in doing things....)
• More Dakka  Twin linked big shoot out the port-side window.  We have this ready to go - just didn't have it painted in time.  This way the Driva has something to easily aim and shoot.  This is also the reason we set him up with the periscope.

 

Next writing -- will finish the Pink Orkys story - Chaptas 2 and 3.  Fighting off Tyranids; Riding the Dakka Chugga.

 

Next build project -- working on a Gantry for our Launchable Grot Rokkit [Link to that posting].  And, starting to scheme on a modified diesel locomotive for the Yellow Orks to use.  Planning to modify a GP9 for that!

 

Update:  Here is the Dakka Chugga in motion :)

 

We set up some track and put the Dakka Chugga to work (hauling Space Marines)!

 

(Here is a Youtube Link since that probably looks nicer.)