Lonkelo kitbashes a fleet

I think that almost twenty years ago I got my hands on an airplane model kit. I can’t remember what kind of plane it was and if I ever finished it. All that remains are some bits in my bitsbox, of which I always thought they’d be useful for kitbashing a space fleet.

Their time has come! I’ve used them mostly together with special weapons bits from Warhammer 40k Imperial Guard/Astra Militarum sprues and some bits from some Tamiya German SD.KFZ.250/3 Greifs. (I wanted to use these for an IG army that I never really got round to building…).

These are my medium ships. As you can see I used IG grenade launchers (or whatever their called in 40k, never really played it..) for the main hull and other weapons for the engines.

I still have to decide which will be my frigates and which will be the destroyers. I’ve also got one more set of the ‘wings’ used for these. So I might build one more medium ship.

The big guy in the two pictures above is obviously the Large ship. I started off imagining it as a Carrier, but size wise it seems closer to a Battleship. I still want to fill up some gaps to finish it and am pondering whether I should add some more bits and bobs.

After tinkering on my Battleship, it was time to go to the complete opposite of the scale: the Bomber Wings!

This is just a small update, where I built four ships, which, with the still relatively large size IMHO, are good for two stands.

I have to admit, that if I could find more Grosse Messer arms, I’d make more of these and would perhaps put three bombers per flight stand. I have a feeling I’ll find more as soon as I stop looking…

These two consist of an Imperial Guardsman’s communications backpack, a part from an old Hellhound and some other bits that look like cargo. The left one uses jerry cans from my Tamiya halftracks and the other three flamer backpacks stuck together, again IG. I think they’ll either fulfill Utility Ship duties in my fleet or could serve as NPCs.

Below is the fourth of my medium ships. I had run out of suitable IG heavy weapons, but after seeing last week’s Weekender, I stole (borrowed?) the idea to use a plug as an engine instead. Quite happy with the look and I have a feeling it won’t look too different from the others after painting.

So, I took a day off and set myself the goal to finish this project for now. This meant that I needed a speedy approach, which didn’t always turn out as I liked, but got the job done. Also: I have a finished army. I never have finished armies. What is this??!

The destroyers’ body is actually the centre bit of a roll of dog poo bags… For the engines I used wall plugs and finished it off with some other bits for the main engines and a bit of sprue for the bridge.

As explained in a previous post: the frigates wings are from an old scaled model of a fighter jet that I got 25 years ago (??). I really like how these turned out.

Part two of my finished fleet!

The medium ships are more generic. The idea is that I can use them as utility ships, gunships, corvettes, or anything else that’s needed for the mission. These ships were made from IKEA plugs that I found I hadn’t used for a wardrobe. I’m slightly worried about the wardrobe, but this did provide me with 12 extra ships!

For the small ships again they can be used for different roles. The sleeker ships are more logical as recon wings, whereas the broader ones look more like fighter or bomber wings to me. I might add some more fighter wings at some point, for which I want to use knife bits. It would be cool if I could make them even smaller and stick six on a base!

The asteroids are basically crumpled up bits of aluminium foil stuck to a base. These I sprayed black and then dry brushed with a grey mixture.

The first space station was made from a bit from a jet engine to which I stuck some wheels, all from the aforementioned fighter jet set.

The other two space stations are bits stuck to some of the asteroids. The larger one  I slid over the side of a desk to give it a smooth hewn out bit. There I could then place the landing strip.

The Billion Suns website also recommends you get five comsats, so I made those as well. These are actually chopped down quivers from an old GW dwarf set. The solar panels are cut out bits of blister pack plastic.

…

Aaaaand DONE! Stop the clock. I did it. Very proud of myself. Soon I hope to take another day off from work. I’ll have to see which project I’m going to finish then!