Friday, November 18, 2011

Cavember Painting Contest Expanded!

Col. Gravis is having a painting contest centering around Rough Riders based on a post from the excellent Col. Ackland regarding what he's calling Cavember - originally it was centered around Praetorian Rough Riders in particular, as Col. Gravis makes some spectacular kits for the army. I'm a huge fan of both the Praetorians and Rough Riders in general, so I have been excited to see the various renditions folks come up with. Recently however, he's opened the contest up to Rough Riders of any regiment which has given me some impetus to get a little more work done on my own Mordian 7th!


I've included a unit of Rough Riders in every incarnation of the glorious 7th that I've done all the way back to the RT era. I started off using the original Imperial Guard Rough Riders on horseback, though in recent years I've gone for a Mechanized Rough Rider on motorbikes instead. The unit above was from my 3rd-4th edition days, and were made from a combination of the old Dark Eldar jetbikes and various bits taken from the Imperial Guard Heavy Weapons sprues. The original how-to was on the GW site yoinks ago in the "Dok Butcha's Konvershun Klinic" articles they used to do. I posted a walk-through on their construction a while back here as well...


My previous version in 5th edition utilized the fantastic bikes available from Ramshackle Games and the unit I'm going to be painting up is built using much the same process as those shown above.


At the moment they're just assembled and primered, so they aren't all that photogenic thus far. With the contest just being opened up to a wider audience I've got my work cut out for me - only 12 days to go before the deadline, and with a full 10-strong unit I'd better get cracking!

7 comments:

  1. I'm glad you pointed me to Ramshackle games a while back. I ordered from them for my scout trucks, and other than them being pretty greasy I was very pleased.

    I've been umming and erring over buying these bikes from Ramshackle for use as rough riders... The alternative is that they also do quad bikes!

    Either way, the mechanised approach would work really well in my mechanised army and you've shown them in a great light! Looking forward to seeing this unit done!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good luck getting them all done but you could have just done a 5 man squad and not told the world it was ten, so now were expecting all ten done :) Must say those first bikes youdid are great, nice dynamic pose to them.

    Blitz

    ReplyDelete
  3. The excellent Col Ackland? -thanks, I'll take any compliment. I am in love with your bikes. I do remember that conversion how-to with the old HW wheels – but never had the money back then to get all the bits.

    BTW I agree that bike bases were the way to go for these boys, funnily enough!

    Welcome to the competition And Cavember! I hope you don't have much on in the next 2 weeks- we all would love to see you enter the bikes of the Mordian 7th.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks folks! I'm quite looking forward to getting some paint on these as a break from all the red and gold recently!

    @Oink - I've really been pleased with Ramshackle, and these bikes are no exception. The handlebars come with integral hands, so it's just a matter of using the outstretched guard arms from the heavy weapon team sprues and they go together like a dream. I'm putting in an order for a couple of those scout trucks based on how awesome yours look!

    @Blitzspear - Too right, Hah! Perversely, I'm sort of looking forward to them as 'hey, it's only ten of 'em, rather than the usual 25-30!' :)

    @Col. Ackland - I do have a couple days off around Thanksgiving coming up, so with a couple nice afternoons I'm hoping to get them done by the deadline. ...And yeah, building that 5-man unit was a rather questionable financial decision. Heh. Looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Love the motorcycles, something about horses in 40k never sat quite right with me. Great alternative.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks! I feel much the same way - definitely check out Ramshackle Games, they made the bikes and they work a treat with Cadian bits. Almost no greenstuffing or gap filling required!

    ReplyDelete