Its a Ramblef**k is what it is: Scratchbuilt Rapier Weapons Battery.

Dan Abnett made me say that. He really did (He's also back! http://theprimaryclone.blogspot.co.uk/). I got hobby-antsy over the weekend so scratch built something.

I'd had a dry spell of decent new PC games to run alongside the hobbyage and in the last month I've revisited Civ 5, Simcity 5, Star Wars Republic Commando and Dragon Age Origins because the older ones just are better. Lacking focus. and having assembled everything in my 40k stuff box I felt like I needed an outlet. Picked up the iPad and saw the A-man is back. He used the colourfully indistinct phrase of 'cockwomble', this then lodged in my brain. 

Hence this; A Ramblef**k Legion Rapier Weapons Battery, (unpainted as yet).

I don't know what that Ramblef**k means, I really don't have an idea what connotations that has, it could be slang term from the 2000's that implies sexual-availability-across-a-village-common.

To me, Ramblef**k reads as 'you needed to do a thing, but you didn't know what that thing was, or how to achieve that indistinct thing'.

The Rapier you see before you is said thing. Its a conglomeration of boredom and necessity, of needing to do something hobby-linked, but without a direct end product in mind. Start with an excess of Imperial Guard Heavy weapons, follow that by noticing how cheap these AT weapons are in the Horus Heresy books, and then see their Statlines (Range 36. Strength 9, ap 2, Ordnance, Twin linked).

Yeah that'll do!

Basic carriage; Whump. Carve Carve. Saw saw, break snap trim. Basic shapes and then added too. The rambling design isn't that intentional, I just can't hold the ruler straight when cutting!

Chopping together 4 Lascannons might seem slightly wasteful but I realised I was unlikely to use them for anything other than Emplacements. 

The treads and wheels were from another model that I'd used as a cheap proxy for a Cyclops demolition tank, sadly its poor scale compared to the actual model meant I didn't want to use it further.

Detail was needed, cue the cockpit display from the inside of my Land Speeder Tempest (I mean when are you going to show the interior of an atmospheric fighter when its vision slits are the size of a postbox, and in my case glued!)  

Stick in some cabling and additional plates.

After that had been sprayed to unify, I then Ramblef**kled further still (the 'l' is intentional)

Bear in mind, the above unit has a decent statline. This Heavy Bolter variant was basically for me as a time sink, 

In-game this is only a Heavy 6, Twin Linked variant. I could have used those bolters elsewhere probably. Ah well, (magnetised this of course)

In the end, screw it. I ended up with something I could use, and curbed the pangs of not having assembled anything in a very long time. With some paint and a fair amount of snow covering the cracks, this was a free project that benefitted me greatly.

We'll see how this thing does in some Heresy Games, and how the Guard use it too.

Gotta get over my painting pangs, and just get stuff started.