DKK - An end is in sight... (picture heavy)

If you remember the battle report where the Blood Angels went hunting for Eidolon, you'll recall that the table was almost pure white.  Now whilst this is ok for photos, it's not the best playing surface, so on the last Thursday in July, I threw a bit of grey streaky lovliness over it, so it matches the other two tables.  The slightly patchwork effect you can see here is simply to add smidgeon of visual interest to the table in the case of games with very little terrain.

Anyway, Sat 02 Aug and the High Lord of Terror has gone to visit one of her friends so, with recently arrived reinforcements, I thought I'd take the chance for an army shot of my DKK.  Here it is: 

Guessing that you might want a little more detail, on the left at the back, arrayed on the tank bunker, are the 'spares' from the three platoon layout in front of you.  This gives me enough bodies to change out the special weapons in all of the squads and to field a extra squad or two if I use them as a Siege List army.   All of the tank riders/salamander crewmen are perched on the ledge beyond the parapet.  On the extreme left are the three 'spare' Grenadiers - two flamers and a hellgun.

On the bunker to the right are the ML teams (My thinking was if I have an opponent who insists on a 5ed IG codex list, these just add a little more flexibility).  DKK don't normally field MLs, so we can assume that these are battlefield salvage.  And in front of the first floor bunker are the DKK Engineers. These boys were going to have 1/35 Luchs to ride around in, but now have a Chimera (with lots of resin add-ons) to convey their goliath to the enemy's doorstep.  But it's still in bits.

OC tanks, waving his sword about in true IG style.  Hatches, weathering, pintle mounts etc, all still to do.  Some of these tanks have mud and rust on already, but that's no big deal.

An Infantry Squad, just to illustrate that there are full squads next to each bus.

A Grenadier Squad, from the PzGr platoon.  Each PzGr Squad has a heavy flamer and two other special/assault weapons.

Obersturmbannführer Bloche and his command team, with banner, commissar, QM and bodyguards.  

His 2iC, with Commissar, death banner and none of the comparative comforts of the senior command team.   Guardsman Von Marbo, there, crouched in the foreground.

Another PzGr team.  On thing that I decided on, having all of these out on a table in front of me, was that the weathering on all of the vehicles ought to make them a shade darker - the infantry figures have a definite feel about them; which the Commissar's Panzer does share, so I can do it, I just have to find the time and get the process right.

Just to show the rear of the command squad Chimerae (ie, CCS, 2iC and all PCS); eagle door and a banner in the army signature colour (Dark Angel/British Racing Green) bearing the legend "Krieg".  Just in case they forget who they are.

The QM party, next to their Fuchs.

And a group shot again, hopefully showing the turret (tank)/hull (chimera) numbers.  It was nice to actually get to so this, I've been building this army for about eight years and this was the first time I actually got to see it on display like this.  I'm quite pleased with myself (as well as PVP, who painted all the little men) that it's turned out so well.

DKK Vehicle fleet progress

902 Inf Div's vehicles on the start line for their assault on Cudlipp Lines, NW of the Colil Promethium refinery. 

Once again this was written watching the news on Mon 28 Jul 13; these pictures are already a couple of weeks old and show some progress.  The camouflage is on and the turret numbers on the tanks (hull numbers on the Chimerae).  

The turrets on the DKK Chimerae have all been changed for FW auto cannon to match the Assault Brigade list from IA13.  Hurrah for 5,500 points of legal DKK !  

The best solution I found for the tracks was to use the Tamyia weathering stick and some powders.  The experiment with chalk dust and enamel paints was not a failure, but just not as good a result, IMO.  And they are my tanks, so goo sticks it is.

Here we can see the ASL tanks and their accompanying Chimerae, (the grey looking ones at the rear of the picture) with rusty tracks, to reflect their amphibious capacity and their markings. still an ongoing thingy.   I'd thought the ASL tanks were finished, but then compared to the improvements in technique and finish on the DKK vehicles, these also now need a little more love.  I'm not even thinking about the Devos IV PDF tanks.  

A slightly clear shot of the DKK Chimerae.  The stowage on these has been on once, and then came off because the FW turret has a comms kit bustle at the back.  And then on and off again on six of them for some FW Chimera tracks.  But they look OK ish now - the only thing is that all of my stowage appears to be held on by magic (as opposed to straps, racks, rope or whatever).  I could sort this out, but quite frankly, it's way down my list.

Oh, oh, and, I've been surfin (the interwebs not real surfing, that's too hard - there's no coast for at least two hours from here). And found these http://www.warchimera.com/en_US/p/Tracking-guards-for-transport-vehicle/16  So that might do for a few more IG vehicles, eh ?  certainly a saving over buying another vehicle accessory frame, even with the post from Poland.  It's not just for plumbers, you know.

Incidently Mrs Zzzzz has just discovered that if you ask Siri "Were you in Bross ?" he answers "I can't answer that."  Ahhh, the eighties...

Dodgy film review - Random extra post

By which I mean its a review of a dodgy film, rather than a dodgy review of a masterpiece.  The fallen princes have promised a review of a film called 'Hammer of the Gods' which might pop up soon, so I'm just joining in.

The DVD

Rise of the Shadow Warrior is like the AD&D adventures I used to play when I was at school.  Unearthed Arcana came out and all of a sudden everyone wanted to be a Barbarian or a Cavalier.  Ah, those were the days.  I wanted to build continent spanning empires and my best mate wanted heroic but doomed quests a la Elric of Marylebone*.

Anyway, this film is like his adventures; a cursed elven heroine, a mighty warrior and super tough orc off questing together through re-cycled protagonists (hey, if they are functionally immortal, we can just keep killing the same baddies, the film's producers will love the cost saving).

Anyway, the actors do the best they can with what they've been given.  Doubtless the writer envisaged a much bigger orc horde when he wrote it.  The production values are good and the world is internally consistent, which makes this a ripping yarn rather than a dismal waste of time, despite it's straight-to-DVD credentials.  I was completely unaware of this until it leapt into my basket at Tesco a week or two ago.

The reviewer here likened this to the Lord of the Rings trilogy and then professed to prefer this film, which I might be inclined to disagree with, but there you go.  It was filmed in Utah because it's cheaper than flying to South Island, Mr reviewer; whether or not the landscape fits the film better is subjective, surely ?

If you've got the time to kill (I did, but cannot remember the circumstances that gained me this extra two hours of down time; if I can find out how it happened, I'll let you in on it) and the spare £8, it might tickle your fancy; if you remember that the lead orc character is wearing the Grinch's mask resprayed a darker green and keep your expectations at that level, you should be entertained.

He's gonna steal Christmas !

*I know, I know.

New bunker

I'm drafting this on Mon 29 Jul 13.  I have a game coming up in a couple of weeks (ie a couple of weeks ago, by the time you read this) and need another bunker.  So I got another sheet of hardboard as a base and rescued some polystyrene from the mouse poo behind the bits box and future projects.

So I threw the basic shapes together from bits lying around. Its all stuck together with PVA and then covered in left over emulsion from the bathroom.  Or the kitchen.  Or something, there's always left over paint and it's good for undercoating terrain items.  The eagle eyed will spot the RSJ (that's "I beam" to the unitiated) sections in the foreground for bared wire and the concrete barrier sections with their reinforcing elements sticking out to of the top. 

This is it with the removable roof removed.  There is a firing step (made from plastic bits including a walkway section from an Urban Warfare kit) but this bunker is not really for infantry.  That would be too easy.  There is a COD ladder behind the cover view shield you can see on the left of these pictures, to get infantry onto the roof.

That's right, its a tank bunker.  Now, according to modern, rational thinking, an armoured vehicle would have sufficient armour to enable it to fulfill its battlefield role; if you wanted a tank's firepower in a static position, you would build a proper gun emplacement and leave the tank to use its maneuverability as it is designed to do. But this is the Grimdark of 40K and therefore the demented redundancy of tank bunkers is almost demanded.

This is it with the roof on and a tank in place.  I reckon that there will be two squads on the roof, one on each wall outside and a PCS in the bunker, hiding behind the tank.  This piece is now fully based and painted with a few bits tarting up the inside and barbed wire on the obstacles. 

And Admiral Drax was worried about the lack of hills generally so I put one together.  This now has smoothed contours and is a likely spot for rows of sandbags, turning it into a more formidable obstacle. 

Pre-publication post update

And here you see the finished article in action a fortnight later.  Apocalypse Battle Report coming soon.  There is a vanquisher in there.  It didn't hit anything in five turns, but, safe in it's bunker, didn't take a scratch.  Col Corbane suggested that following this vindication, perhaps bunkers for more tanks would be in order.  I have filed that suggestion at the bottom of the pile.

The High Profile work of the Senior Ordo Hereticus

I have recently explored the Bureau Astartes, the detective work of the permanent watching staff of the Ordo Hereticus and perhaps why a Space Marine Chapter is the size laid down in the Codex Astartes.

In all of these, I have mentioned the Inquistors of the Ordo Hereticus and their main task of keeping tabs on Chapter Masters, Abbesses of the Adeptus Sororitas and Bishops and Cardinals of the Ecclesiasty.

To this list[1] we might want to add autonomous military leaders like Generals of the Imperial Guard (who, remote from sector or sub sector command may go off and do their own thing), Admirals of the Imperial Navy (who, remote from sector or sub sector command may go off and do their own thing), Rouge Traders (whose remit is to go off and do their own thing) and the Dyamo of the more powerful houses within the Imperium.

Cardinal Richeleau - proof that one can fragrantly abuse the limits of one's power and only come unstuck when you try to take someone else's power for your own.  The OH would probably have left him well alone. 

Whether the Inquisitor’s approach is clandestine or authoritative bordering on the confrontational, there is a synergy between the heretic and the population within which they are hidden.  In each case, there exists an opportunity for the heretic to use his power to “disappear” the Inquisitor.   Obviously this is easiest for the Chapter Master in the orbital bond villain lair, but it shouldn’t be too hard for any of them. 

What there has to be is a system in place of Inquisitors (or their staff) logging their next audit or inspection with their HQ.  In the event that an Inquisitor does not check back in again within a proscribed time, this should perhaps trigger the dispatch of a second Inquisitorial team.  When they don’t check back, that should trigger a massive and overwhelming response.  It has to be in everybody’s interest to contribute to the resulting pogrom and so the overall security of the Imperium, in the name of and with the authority of the Immortal Emperor of mankind, has to mean something.

A Chapter Master is going to be acutely aware that the Inquisition is a direct child of the Horus Heresy and that the first Inquisitors were loyal former members of Traitor Legions.   This in itself, and the fact that his position is propped up by Chaplains of the Imperial Cult, make the Astartes predisposed to be seen to co-operate with the Inquisition. 

The Adeptus Sororitas itself is the branch militant of the Ordo Hereticus, what better place for a deviant to hide ?  But this places them firmly in the Ordo’s front line in the event of any battle.

It goes on; ultimately, all parties believe that they are serving the Emperor better and/or more diligently or that their work is the most important.  As the ultimate regulatory body within the empire, even the Ordos Malleus and Ordos Xenos would have to open their books to scrutiny.  This is not to say that any of these parties is a willing participant in being inspected, but that there exists perhaps an attitude of ‘if you’ve nothing to hide, then you’ve nothing to fear’.  There are no human rights in the Grim Darkness, even for Chapter Masters, Inquisitors and Imperial Cardinals.

Ultimately the governance of the Imperium is a delicate balance between these various powers who all purport to work to the same end for the same master.  The assurance provided by the Ordo Hereticus in this upper tier of government exists to demonstrate to all of the players that no one is above the law and that scrutiny by an outside agency is normal. 

If there was any separation of powers and responsibilities, then things would be easier; it wouldn't take an Holy Ordos to ascertain when things were going wrong.  However, with an empire held together by astropathic communication and long and unreliable warp travel; embodying combined authority in one person gives the collected empire a much more agile government, especially when dealing with outside influences.

Not the model for government within the Imperium of Man in the M39.

Does the Ordo Hereticus police itself ?[2] 

Are the movers and shakers of the Imperium really likely to exceed their level of authority ?  What does this look like ?  Colonel Kurtz from Apoc Now is a good example; the Queen from Snow White[3] is another – She is Queen, but that does not allow her to murder the king and then disenfranchise the Princess of the previous marriage.   And our quintessential example is of course Lugft Huron, the Chapter Master of the Astral Claws.

Col Kurtz - jus' went off and did his own thing. 

Now, that exact level of authority of any of these individuals is open to interpretation; in theory all answer to the High Lords of Terra; some like IG officers will have missions and commands from higher up the military command chain until one reaches the High Lords[4].  Ultimately at the level these people are operating at, it their own cognisance of the delicate balance that defines the bounds of the manageable, as opposed to the bounds of the possible, which is something different again.    We only have to look at Rogal Dorn pushing the shattered Imperium to the brink of civil war in the immediate aftermath of the Horus Heresy to see this in action[5]. 

The Queen from Snow White - probably a heretic according to the OH, regardless of her being a witch.

If we embrace the notion that the good governance of the Imperium is the will of the Emperor, then by simply expanding our idea ever so slightly wider we hit on the idea that going against this will is a form of heresy.   The Ordo is interested in persons having truck with the ruinous powers and unfettered use of psychic powers[6], but at its apogee, the Ordo Hereticus is an instrument of governance, of ensuring compliance from the rulers of the Imperium itself.

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[1] I would suggest that an arbitrary cut off here might be persons with sufficient authority or disposable income to commission an assassination using the Oficio Assassinorium.   ie the movers and shakers of Imperial life – if someone dictates policy or controls forces then this is the level that the higher levels of the Ordo Hereticus ought to be looking at on a regular basis.

[2][2] Of course it does.  There is nothing like a nice bit of internecine conflict as a backdrop for a Dan Abnett tale.

[3] The Fairy Tale.  I quite like the Kirsten Stewart film myself; she might only be able to do one character, but she isn’t exactly hard to watch…

[4] There are other examples for all of the other branches of the Administratum; the Imperium is a very hierarchical place.

[5] Once ‘on side’, of course, Dorn is once again a major hero of the Imperium, rather than a villain.

[6] As previously discussed, monitoring the population for such things is generally the work of their watchers, not the highest ranking Inquisitors. 

Dorn vs Gulliman - why Chapters are so small

In the wake of the Horus Heresy there were those amongst the Primarchs who recognised the need for a system of checks and balances on the power of the Legions (cf Bureau Astartes).  Despite the predicable difficulties, Gulliman figured out that 1000 Adeptus Astartes would still be a significant military force. An easy spilt of any Legion[1] using existing quasi autonomous fighting units, hiving them off from their Legion hierarchy and formally making them independent.

Sons of Gulliman

The size limit would also greatly assist those monitoring the Chapters (Inquisitors of the Ordo Hereticus) in that the Chapter would not be so great an entity that it could not be thoroughly investigated.  A politically autonomous Chapter Master would answer to no one for the disposition of his forces, but was still subject to scrutiny regarding his policies and devices.

Dorn’s argument appears to be based on the idea that the Primarchs are the Emperor’s Sons and that therefore the Astartes themselves are from the Emperor’s own genetic material; and that also they are bound by common purpose (the safeguarding and furtherance of humanity) and being beset by traitors, their motives should be beyond question and that therefore continuing to wield the power of Legion was necessary; their opponents were still theoretically Space Marine Legions and itty-bitty little Chapters would just not cut the mustard.  Dorn recognised that having unified command and overwhelming force was pivotal to military success, Gulliman believed that the combination of unified command and overwhelming force was too great a risk for the Imperium to bear; that a multitude of Chapters, all still loyal to the Emperor, would suffice.  Could Dorn's Legion have saved the Orpheus Sub Sector ?  We will never know. 

Ultramarines - not all pink and fluffy.

The level of political autonomy they have is down to compromise.  Gulliman must have had such a hard time getting (for example) Corax and the Great Khan on side that his carefully balanced to be sustainable bands of warrior monks in space that he’d given little thought to their governance.  Not enough, anyway.  Dorn’s eventual capitulation on the brink of another civil war (his ships had been fired upon by the Imperial Navy) must have given him a strong position from which to insist that that a Chapter Master should have the absolute right to deploy his warriors as he saw fit; size of force deployed, force composition and choosing who to fight and when.   

Imperial Fist - Son of Dorn

This may well have been expressed in terms of picking one’s own fights, there is every chance that no thought was given to force size and composition; there may have simply been an assumption that the new Chapters would deploy en masse, as they had before, and therefore no definitions were given for deployments; allowing later Chapter Masters to scatter their force across space according to their own whimsy.

In the immediate post heresy these new Chapters in all probability deployed as formed units; each of them being a sub division of a pre heresy Legion anyway; used to fighting as a body of 1000 Astartes plus attachments.   It is only as time passes and the Chapter Masters (perhaps the second and third generations of Chapter Master) become more used to their autonomy and begin to see their Chapter as the focus for their loyalty, rather than themselves as simply collective inheritors of the might of their first founding Legion.

Once this mindset has taken hold, that the 1000 warriors become an ideologically isolated brotherhood, each having its own doctrines and belief system that become more and more divergent over time.  Just look at the number of Chapters in the ‘modern’ Imperium who do not know who their primarch is.

After ten thousand years of autonomy,  the Chapter Masters are much less likely to risk their entire force in one engagement.  Also as their autonomy drifts to isolation, their need larger fleets and to cover more territory, which itself leads to smaller deployments and more of them.  Soon it becomes difficult to mass a Chapter for an en masse deployment; their Legion staging posts have evolved into a fortress monastery which has become the hub for the Chapter’s recruiting campaign.

All pictures randomly culled from t'interweb with apologies to the owners. 

I'm still posting on Tuesdays and Fridays, at least until the end of September. 

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[1] P30 of Horus Heresy Book 1.  It is clear from this that Gulliman’s idea was not actually that radical at all.  He possibly intended each Chapter to take a larger Auxillia with it.  Oh well…

Bureau Astartes (post three of two)

In case you need to refresh your memory:

Bureau Astartes (post one of two)

Bureau Astartes (post two of two)

To take this a little further then;  We're going to look at one of these modest deployments that a Chapter Master ordains in order to project his force out where he wants it to be; ie to position enough of his assets in patterns he finds useful across territory he wants to influence.  A penny packet SM force is sent out into the warp; Two squads (our troops choices) a junior Chaplin (our HQ choice) and a Storm Drain (dedicated transport) to get them down to the planet and back up to the Strike Cruiser.

Paint by Golem

There may well be one senior sergeant and one more junior one; just to spread experience and opportunity around in equal measure.   The force is this small because it has to fit into the Strike Cruisers described in the fluff, in this case a Space Marine ship as described in BFG (which I don't play or have a copy of) and the Black Library books (which I don't read) and Lexicanum (the source of all my knowledge).

They leave the Chapter fortress and are consigned to the warp.  Perhaps their mission is to show the flag at a world that is suffering from piracy.   The warp jump takes a year, they spend a year in system, pulling over every space farer they encounter for a year and have a few fights.  Contacting the Chapter by astropath, they are directed to rendezvous with a Chapter Battle Barge - another mission encountered stiff resistance from the arch enemy and suffered a defeat and the stain on the Chapter's honour must be restored.

This paint by golem as well !

The little task force joins with others to make a larger force and they take the fight to the scions of the traitor legions.  A Chapter Captain is KIA and our senior sergeant is promoted to junior Captain and has to remain on the Battle Barge (to return to the Chapter fortress for his career interview with the boss Chapter Master).

The little task force moves off onto its next mission, spending another year in the warp.  They emerge to fight heresy on an Imperial World (perhaps they wanted free speech, or universal education or some other heretical nonsense).  They move off and fight some minor xenos incursion and then, because their Strike Cruiser is not very big, need replenishment.  Arranged by astropathic communications they undertake another warp journey to rendezvous with a larger ship from an allied chapter to take on bolter rounds and SM issue missiles and so on.

The little tasks force sets off on another mission and probably due to the vagaries of the warp, is not heard of again for a century.   When they are contacted, the Chaplin (leading from the front) is reported as KIA.  The two junior sergeants report that they are still confident and motivated and so are set another mission; another punitive mission in concert with other Chapter assets.

However, due to either resourcing issues or, again, the vulgarities of the warp, they miss a rendezvous and find themselves isolated on another human inhabited world, that has not had interstellar contact for a thousand years and remembers the Imperium as Myth.  Here the SM are hailed as gods (or at least angels).  Their astropath (who is NOT functionally immortal) is now old, tired and has much less range than he used to.

There are three ways this can go;

• the SM remember the mission, stay true to their vows and return to their fortress monastery.
• they set themselves up as planetary rulers and usher in a new age (one way or another)
• their old, weak, astropath becomes a conduit for the ruinous powers and the little team go over to the other side.

You can see how, with variations in time and scale, this might play out again and again.  This is how bodies such as the Black Legion and the Red Corsairs recruit; they in probability still have limited capacity to create their own (C)SM, but things like this are going to get them more stable geneseed and result in better quality CSM.

The point of this post is, that driven both by operational necessity and the notoriously fickle nature of warp travel and communication, these little teams are going to spend a lot of time feeling isolated and abandoned.  And that's when allegiances change.  So, in terms of attrition, boredom and isolation are going to rob the Astartes Chapters of as many highly trained genetically engineered super soldiers as combat will.  The more out of the way worlds of the Grimdark 39th Millenium are probably liberally peppered with such dangerous rogue individuals.

And welcome to Gonewild, my 50th reader.

The Black Templars, incidentally, according to the existing codex, are possibly not going to be prone to this type of attrition - they bimble about mob handed; they believe they are being true to Dorn, but as discussed, on a fundamental level, they are probably being true to what Gulliman intended as well.  But these guys (the minis in the pictures) look cool, in an intolerant, purging sort of way, so they get a bit of bandwidth. 

Man Hunt

There has been another incident in the Randstadt area.  As 18 Corps moves to its assembly area for its assault on the Colil Promethium Refinery area, there is a corresponding surge in insurgent activity. The various units of 17 Korps are called upon to suppress this activity.  Tactics are developed, both those using 17 Korps units as bait and/or diversions (notably 905 Inf Div, who seem to have a knack for attracting attention).  And also QRF activities using available assets.

Previously, these airborne QRF have always seemed to arrive too late to have any real effect.  Stratigae* in 72AG argue that the effect is to limit any insurgency act to the airborne QRF's reaction time or less.  This is generally held to be about eight minutes.  Whilst this has undoubtedly dissuaded many cultists from launching large scale actions, eight minutes is still plenty of time for a brief gun battle and dispersal.

Colonel Commandant Welbann (902 Inf Div) has presented 3* Gen Tolstoy (17 Korps) with an alternative.  Elements of 5th Saranian Light Infantry are airlifted in and allowed to run S&D missions using their own SOPs and resources.  This has been proving to be very effective within 902 Inf Div's TAOR, largely due to the high professional standards of the Gibersjeager.

Here D Coy has deployed; OC D Coy has already established a Command Post at the ambush site.  The four platoons are given a compass direction each and the air assets fly an ever expanding circuit, leap frogging the sections of the platoons out further and further by 5km hops until someone gets a trail.  The Saranian's use their skills and knowledge to guide the pilots to likely places for the trails to be.

Having 'hopped' Feldwebel Nonead, himself a tracking instructor, sets his sections tracking hound out looking for likely scent trails.

This airframe will then move to another Platoon to 'hop' one of their sections out.  It will be back with Feldwebel Nonead in about an hour.   This time Nonead (actually Betsie, the hound) did find a trail.

Alerted by Feldwebel Nonead, Feldwebel Clauac has his section dropped in one of the likely directions that someone fleeing Nonead's section might travel.  They then begin to work backwards, towards Nonead.  The other sections from this Platoon are being lifted to other likely routes that the cultist might take.

When their hound picks up the trail, Clauac and his section have to work hard to keep up. Although, we should note, the cultist has been running for three hours by now and the Saranians are only just starting. 

Inevitably, the cultist's trail eventually doesn't need following using one's nose, or tracking skills.  The fleeing man is soon found. 

The cultist, whose name I am not allowed to divulge, was recovered slightly chewed and handed over to the Ordo Hereticus.  All further information is classified. 

*The office of 3* General Sommonovic (Vostroya).  As 72 Army Group's Chief of Land Warfare, he is responsible for turning 4* General Zhukov's concept of operations into plans and orders.  He has ulcers.

I do look at my blog contents and historical posts from time to time.  I suspect that one of the reasons that posts attract a little more attention these days is that they are written without assuming that the reader knows exactly what I was thinking at the time I was writing it.  (some of the early stuff is truly awful).  I hope that this is the case and that the prose at least scans.  If you find a passage particularly stilted, clunky or unclear, do let me know - you'll be helping me to improve the blog - there's a chance that if you found it awkward, someone else just switched off all together. Cheers.

Scratch built Thunderbolt.

There are somethings in this hobby that I find to be an amazing display of commitment, time and skill.  For the time it must have taken to make these, I'd have just bought them. But then, even if someone with a steady hand and good eye had cut the plasticard, my Thunderbolt would still look like a sopwith camel.

I was just browsing the web and found WIP.  Never been there before but found some nice things.  And some amazing things, as well.  These two are featured here, plasicardthunderboltpair.
If you look the right of this shot, he's made an avenger as well !


And another one ! It was plogged here scratchbuiltthunderbolt.