Death Guard Land Raider project – The Disco Tank
When Dark Imperium was released last year, I was blown away by the Death Guard miniatures, and I started collecting Death Guard for Warhammer 40k. This in turn led me to Maggotkin of Nurgle for Warhammer Age of Sigmar, and between the two of them, I amassed a lot of Nurglings. Now reading through the fluff, Nurglings seem to be fun, mischievous and horrible little things, that like nothing more than fooling around, messing about, and tearing people to shreds, all while passing on Nurgle’s blessings.
I didn’t really like adding them to the bases of miniatures, as they always looked too close, or obscured the detail of the miniature they were next to, or the miniature would block out their detail, so I placed them all in the bitz drawer for Nurgle, knowing full well I would use them for something, someday. When I picked up a Land Raider for the Death Guard, a plan started to form, and before long, the idea of the Nurgle Disco Tank was born.
For all intents and purposes, the tank would be used as any other Land Raider. It would look the same from the outside, and just be standard, but when the doors opened and the button was pressed, the insides would light up like the club in Saturday Night Fever, and the Nurglings would be able to party. I ordered a small circuit with ten LEDs in three colours, and like any buffoon with a great idea, I sallied forth with no real plan.
The initial idea was to fit the circuit board under the tank, or in the exhausts to the rear, so that the button was easily accessible. What I discovered though, was that the circuit was too big to fit underneath – the Land Raider being a heavy transport, it has the ground clearance of a Y Reg Fiesta with knackered suspension, and too big for the exhausts. The only area I could think to fit it, was the crew compartment, which beggared the question… where the hell does the switch go?
Thankfully, the Land Raider has a cupola right where the circuit fitted, so I fashioned a frame to hold the circuit in place, so that the cupola hatch could be pressed to light up the disco. The frame was made using bits of the left over sprue from the Land Raider, and supports the circuit on three of its sides. This should (“should”) allow me to pop the top off the Land Raider to replace the batteries if the Nurglings party too hard.
Being in no way gifted in the ways of green stuff, I selected the points on the internal hull where I wanted the LEDs to go, gluing them into place to hold them firm where there was no other work needed, or drilling out the areas where I wanted the bulb to pop through. This would have been easier if I’d charged my drill before starting, alas I didn’t, and I used a pin vice to drill out a lot of holes, then carved them out to allow the red LED to poke through.
I glued them onto the side of the hull that I’d glued into place, leaving one side off so I could access the interior of the tank.
With the locations of the bulbs selected, I had to work out the best way of allowing the wires access to where the bulbs were being fitted. In order to get the wires out of the crew compartment and into the track sections of the hull, I carved a notch out of the top of the hull above the rear door – circled in red on the second picture below. This allows the wires to be manoeuvred across the top of the notch, so that they aren’t trapped, and aren’t too visible through the front of the tank. In order to allow the wires to fit into place when the two sections of the track hull are fitted together, a few millimetres were trimmed off the hull around each door – the area to be carved out is marked in pencil on the first picture below.
With the two sections of hull able to be fitted together, I started looking at where to fit the wires, and how to hide the excess cable. The handy thing about the Land Raider, is that it has the two sections of hull join together with a number of connecting tubes, where one fits into the other. These, and the ridges inside create ideal spindles to loop the cables around so that the spare cable will end up hidden directly behind the tracks.
The wires connected to the LEDs with really thin connectors, and I was careful not to snap them off by repeatedly adjusting them and pressing the sides together over and over again until nothing was stopping them joining.
Below are a few of the pictures that shows the wires looped around the outer hull, meaning that the inside is almost completely wire free.
Outer track hull in place, I started to paint the inside of the Land Raider, and trying out some basic colours on the outside.
After starting work on the interior, I decided that I needed to start planning the occupants, and went through the drawer of Nurglings – it’s not as big as it sounds – and chose a few who looked like they were having a jolly, including the sassy Nurgling in the MkII (I think) helmet.
That’s all for Part 1. Part 2 can be found here.
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