Forgemas 14; Eldar Corsair Hornet; The Build.

Hello All,

Bluddtoof here with my first Forgemas 14 post, the build of my first Eldar Hornet for my new Corsairs army. I'm using the, slightly out of date, lists from the Doom Of Mymaera book from Imperial Armour and in a new style for me I won't be just buying all the cool toys I can get my grubby mitts on and then leaving half of them sat on shelves for 6 years awaiting some paint! No! This army will be built and painted unit by unit to a series of lists I've written! Will wonders never cease!
So Forgemas has worked out quite well for me as it gives me an opportunity to make a start on the army and paint one of the units from my initial 750pt list. The list contains a Corsair Prince with Bladesworn retinue on a Corsair Venom, 10 Corsairs with jetpacks, 3 Corsair jetbikes, a Hornet with Pulse Lasers (the subject of this post) and a Corsair Wasp Assault Walker with scatter lasers. The bigger lists each add more units to this base list and also add points to existing units here and there. More on those over the course of 2015.
Back to the Hornet and the style of the army in general; you may have seen some of my older posts on the trial build and paint of my first Corsair, they can be found here here here and here, the idea is that the army represents a Corsair raid on an Imperial facility and as such all the bases will be cut away sections of the facility floor, each infantry and bike squad will be distinguished from the others by the type of flooring material they are stood on rather than use squad markings, which don't fit the army in my mind.
All the vehicles will be on large scenic bases, I'm going to go to town on these and make each one into a little diorama with Imperial soldiers and techs hiding or fighting or dying etc, they'll include lots of ducting and pipework both under the floors and above them.

So onto the Hornet, it took me about 8 hours to build this, the base and model combined, and also several hours of drying time for the balsa and plaster sections, all told I built in 2 days and I really enjoyed it. The kit is decent quality, a fair bit of flash to remove but no warping which can be common with resin.

To start here's a picture of the completed build, I'll follow up with some step by step notes and piccies...

Fist step was to start on the base; I wanted to depict the Hornet zipping at breakneck speed down a pipe and conduit lined trench, hunting Imperial troops, the pilot relying on his unnatural reflexes to avoid the perilous structures. To achieve this I decided to pose the Hornet at a quite steep angle with one wing down in the trench, just skimming over pipes on top of the trench wall. The trench wall was the first bit to build and is made from a frame of 10mm cross section balsa pillars, 4 in total, with 2mm balsa sheet shaped around it to form the curved surface which mimics the bases edge and the flat surfaces. I used elastic bands to hold all this in place whilst the PVA set. If you try this ensure that the curved panel has the grain running perpendicular to the direction of curve, otherwise it won't bend! Pics...

Whilst that was drying I started on the Hornet itself, all the bits washed to remove that nasty mould lubricant (the bane of paint!)...

I started on the next new technique for me; magnetising weapons. I have to say it wasn't anywhere near as hard as I'd expected and it will give me huge tactical choice at almost no cost. The magnets are inset into the joints in holes I drilled, carved and filed out very carefully. I used a total of 8 little magnets on the model, the weapon cowling magnetises to the outside of the gun so the gun has 2 magnets, that's 4 on each side. I also ensured that I used the same polarity all round so that any weapon can fit to either side of each vehicle. I'll just have to remember that when I start the next vehicle! Pics of the magnetisation...

Next step was to build the pipework sections to fit onto the base, these plastic pipes are from Nightwing International and are part of their model railway scenery range. They're injection moulded plastic on sprues, each set contains loads of bits and poly cement works a treat. It's a nice modular system allowing almost infinite variation. Pics of the pipe sections and the base with the balsa section dried and coated with a thin skim of plaster to give a nice concrete finish...

Then it was back to Hornet to fit the engine intake and thrusters to the main body...

Once the plaster was dry I did dry runs with all the elements to get the positions right, I built the hiding guardsman, who's lost his helmet, lasgun and canteen in his dash for safety and is left with just a frag grenade and a trenching tool to fight off the raiders!
He's stood on mesh walkway (The mesh is the aluminium mesh sheet used for repairing car bodywork and suchlike, dirt cheep from my local hardware store) supported on plastruct girder. Before fitting the mesh I painted the base below in deep greens and swirls of Nurgles Rot; the black base will all be painted in this way and will have a coat of a couple of mm of water effects applied at the end (This will entail me making a snug polythene mould around the base edge to hold the liquid whilst it sets).
Here's the finished build from a few angles, the Hornet, pilot, canopy, guardsman and his loose gear are all un-glued so I can paint all the bits separately.....

That's it, I'm really pleased with it and can't wait to see it painted. More posts to come as that progresses, as ever C and C welcome.

Bluddtoof.