Annihilation Bombard

During construction and discussion with the skaven player, we called this the ‘super-mortar’ or ‘uberweapon’. I like the name (above) I finally came up with for the stories.

I stupidly deleted most of the photos of the earliest stages when I was trying to create space on my phone (for the later pictures … doh!) but two survived.

Here you can see an early test to see how it might fit together …

It was given to me already glued together, and would have been impossible to paint what with all the inaccessible innards. So I hacked it apart and began a-bashing. Here are the pieces undercoated …

There is a standard doomsphere, a toy cannon (Playmobile?) and various other bits, including wheels. (I had more of the cannon barrels. They would be used much later!)

Here are the pics of the completed model from various angles …

My Skaven player in the campaign and me had to come up with rules for the machine.

The general idea I had while building was that this is Clan Skryre’s attempt to create an army or city-destroyer. Inside the huge iron barrel is a warpstone grenado far bigger and far more potent than the bombs thrown by poisoned wind globadiers. The engine is mechanised (a converted doom wheel) to ensure it moves at sufficient speed, as it has to get within range of its target to lob the warpstone bomb, without being destroyed by enemy artillery or troops. Being a skaven engine it is unreliable, so it could blow up, centering it’s table-sized blast radius on itself! If it succeeds in lobbing it’s bomb, then a city could die! No damage to the buildings, but all life (give or take a few very lucky survivors) perishes. The globe is fused to blow in the air above the city. I might make that fact one of things that could go wrong, as if it hits the ground it will have a much, much lesser effect.

I reckoned we could have a brilliant scenario game in which the skaven player had to get this intact from one side of the board to the other. If he did so, then we roll for it firing. If that goes wrong, everything on the table could die!

Later, in discussion, we came up with the idea that just being near this thing can kill you, due to the poison it leaks!

…

I ordered sprues for 10 plague monks to convert to be this engine’s six attendants.

The test model used a skaven standard’s bell for a mask muzzle …

I decided it would do and so continued similarly with the rest. WIP shots …

Here they are not yet based, but otherwise finished. I kt-bashed them using bits of plastic and cord, to make filter tanks, and masks (so they don’t breath in too much warpstone vapour). They thus became a test version for the 2 strong guard regiment I modelled later.

This was the first time (in 40 years) I worked solely in acrylics rather than enamels or a combination of both, and one of the very few times I have used a white undercoat for the majority of the model. I like the guy with the shovel best – such a practical tool for a war machine attendant – he has to flatten any lumps in the way!