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Sunday, September 14, 2014

It Has Legs?!

Corbal Mobile Hardpoint
15 mm scale

 
While the Corbal Deployable Hardpoint provides ground troops with instant fortification and fire support, its static nature is unsuitable for a constantly-advancing planetary invasion force.  The Corbal Mobile Hardpoint is hardly the fastest-moving vehicle on the battlefield, but it can at least advance into newly captured territory, and its monolithic 11m stature makes even disciplined opponents consider retreat or surrender. Once a permanent position is established, the Corbal tower unit can be mounted as base defense or loaded back on a dropship for further service.

  
I knew I wanted to do this conversion as soon as I saw the Corbal on The Ion Age blog.  But I was stumped as to how to make the legs... my plasticard scratch-building skills are pretty sad and I'm too cheap to buy a whole other model just for its legs.  Fortunately, there's a ready source of interesting plastic shapes... Lego!  


I bought some promising-looking pieces off of eBay and started cutting: 


I'll freely admit these legs don't make a lot of sense mechanically, but I think we're well into "rule of cool" territory here anyway.  I also wanted the conversion to be "reversible" so the legs and belly details are mounted on an inverted 40 mm GW base that attaches to the Corbal's underside with a magnet and pins:


10 comments:

  1. Wow! Sweet conversion, Mr. M.

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  2. That is a very cool conversion. What a great idea!

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  3. I'm especially impressed with the detachable feature. I wouldn't have thought of that, very clever.

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    1. Thanks! I do think having the legs mounted this way (instead of more on the sides of the tower) makes it look less... something. Squat/tough? I dunno. But designing it this way was a fun challenge and, I hope, a useful proof of concept for other hobbyists :)

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  4. Hero Factory has a million & one uses for wargaming purposes. I've collected all of my sons discarded pieces, as they are prone to breakage if played with regularly.....not like the old Lego hey!

    Great scratch build there :)

    Cheers.

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    1. I admit I kind of love/hate this Bionicle/Hero Factory stuff. On the one hand, awesome ball joints and stylish Technic-compatible elements are nice. On the other hand I feel its limited ability to interface with "normal" Lego somehow violates the system's robust central philosophy.

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    2. LEGO stated that nowadays' kids have less play time/patience and spending lots of time just to set up a toy was outdated for part of their younger target so they came up with "buildable" action figures.

      Less set up time, more playtime!

      Anyhow, there was a time when LEGO didn't produce military guns nor green brick to avoid people using legos to build tanks and stuff alike.

      Now lego batman villains have uzis and such... times change I guess...

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  5. Holy Sh... Supreme Commander anyone? I recall computer strategy games having crawlin' bases, even boats...

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  6. Thats great, working smarter not harder. It reminds me of something that I cant quite place.

    Im looking forward to seeing it with some paint.

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Thanks for commenting!