The Opus: Design, Assembly and Fiction

The completed model before priming

This post opens with an excerpt - well, a fragment written out of order - of a novel I want to write detailing the Ophidian Crusade against the Five Fingers of the Hand of Mag'ladroth, and the whole history of Danforth, Alicia, Shania and the Order of Our Crystal Lady in flashbacks. This introduces Perry and the Opus, Danforth's personal transport . . . a model which I am building and of which some pictures (and instructions on how to do the conversion yourself) appear after the story (or, if you are impatient, you can jump ahead to the conversion description by clicking here).

But I hope you will stay; I make no apologies for the length of this fiction - first, this is my blog :) But, secondly and perhaps more importantly, it is the background and story which attracts me to 40k (you can see this in the large number of history & background posts and the small number of completed models in the painting & modelling posts!) To me, my models are a reflection of the narrative I am creating.

While this WIP / tutorial is useful if you want to make exactly this model (which some people in an FB group I am in have expressed an interest in) they are also useful for the simple conversion of making the Corvus wider - another interesting conversion because the vehicle is, according to many, woefully undersized.

The starboard hangar of La Pucelle was a hive of activity, shouted commands, invectives, instructions, orders and camaraderie cutting through the promethum-haze. I ducked my head under the arch’s apex as I exited the chapel-like exterior of the Sororitas lander. I straightened and set my hat back on my head as Alicia stepped to the deck and stood beside me with a fair purr of servos. “You hungry?” she asked. “Place aft of forty-five on nineteen does a decent protein scramble and recaf.”

I shook my head. “I’m good, thanks.” I felt Alicia’s surprise - combat normally made me hungry - but the revelations in the suicidal tarot had troubled me, stirring aching memories of Anastacia more than worries, if the truth be told. I looked across the crowded deck, a line of sight opening for me like an alleyway. A deck officer - blonde and severely beautiful, braided hair lacquered beneath her peaked cap and her figure too-much for the fatigues to hide - was barking orders at a pair of scruffy pilots. They snapped and I stirred to attention.

She was not Anastacia, but she would do.

Alicia followed my gaze. She made the sign of the Aquila - warding and warning - and snorted. “You can get something delivered to her quarters,” she said with disgust. She bulled her way across the deck, the metallic stomp of her feet and the sweep of her wedge-armored shoulders cutting a respectful path.

I walked myself; toward the substitute, but my path took me past Perry and the Opus. She was kneeling by the landing gear, her slim hands busy with tools. She was still wearing her immaculate flightsuit under greasy overalls. As I approached, she turned and acknowledged me with a quick Aquila.

“How’s it going, Per?” I asked. She gave me a thumbs up. “She’s good - any damage?” She held her finger and thumb narrowly apart. “If you need help, I can . . .” She shook her head. “If you’re sure . . .” She nodded. “Alright. Well, be seeing you. The Emperor protects.”

She turned to me, actually set down the magspanner, beamed. “The Emperor protects,” she agreed.

Peregrine - Perry, Per - had come into my service during the waning days of the Indomitus Crusade. A scrawny urchin with a ragged pixie cut of adamantium-blonde hair, we had met while mutually incarcerated in the holding cell of Laertes spaceport on Ophelia VII. My presence was down to just one of the undercover parts of a complicated operation that was not nearly as exciting as you would think. She was there because Navy security had arrested her for (their words) “spying and snooping” at the Thunderbolts and Avengers hangared beyond the interdict line. She had refused - again, their words - to answer questions, only telling them “pilgrimage” when asked what she was doing and calling herself “pilgrim”.

She would have been an impish, elfin creature - diminutive and skinny, with glassbird-delicate bones and expressive eyes as wide and blue as a Cherenkov rift - but for the fact she was so laconic she could have fought in the Peloponnesian Rebellion. Then again, she might have done; she never said. That's kind of the point I am making; she said practically nothing, only speaking when simple gestures could not answer my questions. Her mind was not shuttered, but neither did it gape whorishly open - hers was a careful, route-smart, self-reliant and wary intellect ill-used by the galaxy. Despite my professional inqusitiveness, I let her keep her secrets until we escaped. I returned the favor, of course - she had no idea I was an Inquisitor until we were extra-atmospheric in a stolen (their words; I - as an Inquisitor - prefer requisitioned) Aquila lander.

She was a natural pilot - phenomenally skilled, even in the unfamiliar craft - but she nearly sent it into a tailspin when I told her. “Hand of Him-On-Earth, hand of Him-On-Earth,” she kept repeating, over and over again. “Mercy on one who has consorted with xenos. Execute me with justice but I beg you do not send me back.” A score of words, but it was the most I have ever heard her say.

She had been gue’vesa. Her ancestors - grandfathers and -mothers several greats removed - had been part of the Damocles Crusade, sacrificed to the xenos by Kryptman’s pragmatism. For generations, they had bent knees and shown throats to the perfidious T’au, betraying their species by accepting the so-called “greater good”. Their masters had let their slaves keep their religion, but had blunted it with careful control, systematically suppressing triumphalist doctrines and snuffing out even the smallest spark of the flame of humanity.

Perry had somehow slipped through their net. The xenos insisted their charges speak their degenerate pidgin and printed expurgated and bowdlerized pamphlets for use during worship, but her family had retained - perhaps without realizing what they were - a few yellowing copies of common Astra Militarium texts; the Uplifting Primer, Lives of the Saints, even a copy of the Lectitio Divinitatus. Perry had devoured them, learning Gothic from her grandparents so she could read beneath the blankets of her cot after lights-out.

The texts did their work on her better than they did on whole regiments of the Guard; she saw the teaching the gue’vesa received for what it was - heretical propaganda - and rejected the false xenos ideology of the Greater Good. Intelligent and patient enough to realize those descended through generations of indoctrination from cowards and traitors would never come to love the Imperium as she did, she bided her time and planned her escape.

She became a dutiful worker, a model slave, quick and quiet in her obedience. With the right attitude and a mind like a sponge, her aptitude overcame alien prejudice and she caught the eye of an Earth-caste aerodynamicist and became his apprentice in all but name, learning everything she could of aeronautical engineering. She jockeyed within his organization, edging out other underlings for prime positions and becoming indispensable to him. He indulged her, giving her greater access to his work, granting her more authority and autonomy.

If you think the fact she left him with a knife in his heart and his manufactorum in flames shows ingratitude or cruelty, you don’t understand the perfidy of the alien, the vileness of the xenos. Nor do you understand what Perry - a mere girl raised by aliens amid heretics and traitors - understood almost from the moment she could walk; that the manifest destiny of humanity is to rule the galaxy and that all who stand in the way of the Emperor’s vision must be crushed.

She became part of my entourage then, joining us on La Pucelle and dividing her time equally between the chapel and a large workshop just off the hangar deck that was the only luxury she ever asked of me. She must have had a name - her parents probably gave her one, and if they didn’t the T’au would have - but she shook her head when we asked. It was Wayland who realized why; that would be in the T’au language and reminded her of slavery and oppression. He took to calling her “Pilgrim” or - in the Martian-accented High Gothic the Primaris Council preferred - Peregrine. She smiled and gave a thumbs-up of thanks, introducing herself in that manner - or, rather, pointing at herself and saying “Per” when the other said his name.

She and Wayland became fast friends, communicating less with words or even gestures and more just in the shared language of design and engineering. She allowed the Salamander into her sanctum, securing the doors with maglocks of her own design, encrypted with equations outside of Imperial mathematics and which my Rosette’s omniclavis could not open. She confronted me about that once, simply saying “just ask”. I never did.

What we did ask her when we met for meals in the refectory was just what she was doing in there. “Work,” she told us, and then tucked into plain, honest, Imperial food with a gusto that belied her waif-like appearance. We joked about it - Perry’s Work. She was so taciturn - to her, Imperial Gothic was a sacred language, the tongue of not her liberators, but the utopia she had struggled her whole life to be part of, and so to waste words of it was tantamount to heresy - and so reverential when she spoke of “the work” it became an inside joke. We started to refer to it in High Gothic; Opus Peregrinas.

Eventually, she and Wayland revealed “the work” - a gift to me, to all of us, really. An air-to-ground attack aircraft and dropship, built to insert myself and my chosen strikeforce into the heart of a warzone. It was her design, a reinterpretation of STC blueprints she had requisitioned using the authority I’d given her as an Inquisitor’s personal engineer. It was a blocky but sleek piece of reverse-engineered tech-heresy, a violation of the Mechanicus’ stranglehold on technology. She had learned her discipline at an alien workbench and saw no reason to offer incense to anything except the Emperor. It was skinned in raw adamantium, a gleaming silver brick with looming wings, studded with weapons, countermeasures, sensors and VTOL thrusters, a pragmatic monster of a craft. The only concessions to Imperial whimsy were ceramite rosettes bolted to the tails and doors, and a gilded version of the same writ large on the dorsal surface.

Perry came to my elbow. She had a bottle of wine in one hand and a pot of black intumescent paint with a liner brush stuck in it. The wine was from my own cellar, and the purpose of it and the paint were clear to me - she wanted me to name the vessel; painting the appellation on and breaking the bottle against the hull. It was obvious to me. “What else?” I explained, painting the name on the prow and smashing the bottle into a thousand foaming fragments against the assault ramp.

Tinkling pieces of glass dripped from the ceramite scroll, the name Opus Peregrinas peering through the rivulets of wine.

Alright, still here? On to the pictures!

I wanted to create a special transport for my Inquisitor, Danforth Laertes. In MY house rules for Inquisition warbands I allowed a whole warband to take the Authority of the Inquisition rule which lets them board any <IMPERIUM> transport, and allowed the warband to take any <IMPERIUM> transport. So, I had a wide range to choose from. The obvious one was the Corvus Blackstar of the Deathwatch, which has the advantage of looking awesome and also being covered in many Inquisition symbols.

The problem with the Corvus, or so pretty much everyone on the internet said, was that it was too small. GW transports have always been undersized, but this one was particularly egregious they said. Also, just fielding a regular Corvus and saying it was an Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor's ride seemed like a bit of a cop out.

So, I looked around the GW range and found the Stormwolf, the Space Wolves flying assault boat. Actually, I found the Stormwolf's wedge-shaped front assault bay - I really, really like that look on vehicles and thought it would work well on the Corvus if I could make it fit.

I scoured the internet for pictures of the two models which would give me an idea of scale - there weren't many of them, and none that allowed me to see the two of them side by side but I thought I could make it work. I made a bitz order on eBay and got the Stormwolf components I would need (I didn't need the whole kit) and also bought a Corvus. I reasoned I could, once I had the pieces in my hands, hold them up to each other and carefully measure and decide if this was going to work.

The major components cut out and being placed against each other

Drawing on the blueprints to see what it might look like

I measured carefully and did math (because the blueprints at the back of the instructions are not 1:1 scale) and drew some mockups. It looked as if it might fit, but then I realized making a cardboard mockup would be easy and would give me a better idea.

Cardboard FTW!

The mockup looked good and so I resolved to actually start hacking plastic up. I first cleaned off the Space Wolf iconography from the parts I would be using and used plasticard to cover the gaps. Then I turned my attention to the Corvus itself . . .

Something that was very clear was that the main body of the Corvus would be too narrow to support the Stormwolf prow. I had been fortunate to have bought a bag full of random Space Marine flier pieces from eBay, and digging through that I found an engine assembly. With various mounting plugs trimmed off, it was 20mm wide - so I resolved to add 20mm to the width of the vehicle. I assembled the rear engines and cut them in half, inserting the new engine in the middle. I split the ventral piece of the hull in to three and added plasticard bracing so I could space it out.

I cut 10mm strips of 2mm thick plasticard and used them to rebuild the armor plates on the ventral surface. There is an angled section that required shorter strips and sanding (note; a lot of this was not visible in the final piece - I did not know exactly where the troop bay would mate with the fuselage, so I was doing more work than I really needed, but it did make the final piece stronger so was worthwhile).

I assembled the two tail sections and glued them on, attaching the sides of the ventral piece to the widened central section and glued it all together.

I cut the sides of the dorsal surface off. This was marginally more complex as the cutline needed to follow the designs embossed on the hull.

I assembled each wing and attached them to dorsal side pieces, and then attached those to the fuselage (the wings being in place made it much easier to get it all in position with the central dorsal section removed).

An underside shot of the build at this stage.

Underside shot from a different angle.

I now had to bite the bullet and cut the Stormwolf troop bay so it would fit on the fuselage. I cut it just aft and dorsal of the door jambs, leaving me with a little ledge to attach plasticard to. The above picture is with things taped in place to see how they fit.

The above picture shows where I had to glue a section I cut off from the dorsal plate of the troop bay back on; I'd shortened it too much for what I wanted. The sides of the troop bay would mate with the fuselage about a third of the way onto the spaces for the front doors with the Inquisition symbol on; I wanted to use those pieces but couldn't in that case. What I did was move the troop bay forward so I could mount them on to plasticard panels I used to extend the troop bay backwards. I also built a T-shaped bracer piece to hold the troop bay on the dorsal side (on the ventral side, it was securely glued in place).

The image above it shows the side doors glued in place (I cut the lights and controls off the side) and with the dorsal plate just resting in place.

The dorsal plate is secured to the bracers at the front, which bridge the gap between the side panels, and to the engine at the rear. The other bracers are just attached to the dorsal plate and provide support for the additional armor panels.

A three-quarter shot of the ship

Here you can see the small sockets built either side of the cockpit, which will house lascannons

A similar shot to one made before, but this time showing the dorsal plate glued in place.

You can also see some additional control surfaces glued onto the cowling of the central engine

Rear view, showing the engines and also a rear plate made from a Stormwolf component

Underside, showing how much of the earlier work bridging gaps was covered by the troop bay.

A spare piece from the Corvus was used to cover its flying stand socket; the one from the Stormwolf would be used.

Not visible is another X cut in the inner hull to allow the flying stand to fit deeply.

With that, the bulk of the work was done - the only things left were weapons and some details.

I had some assault cannons in the pile of flier bits, and assembled them. I had seen a conversion online of the Corvus where the hurricane bolters were mounted ventrally, rather than spoiling the dorsal Inquisition symbol. To make that really work, I needed to flip around the bolters and with come cutting and filing I did that.

Frontal view of the completed ship

Three-quarter view of the completed ship

A lot of little things done, but no pictures of the process! I attached the weapons, including lascannons in the sockets. I filled various gaps, added some pieces to make (stowed) landing gear at the front of the troop bay, and detailed the dorsal surface with plasticard and bits. I cut plasticard panels to detail the forward-facing spaces where the doors had previously been, and attached searchlight pieces to them.

And that, is that! A long blog post, with lots of pictures, but I hope there is something interesting or useful here. The earlier stages where I widened the Corvus show this can be done relatively easily - the only components needed are an engine from a Space Marine flier and a bunch of plasticard (I used 2mm thick as it is strong and a similar thickness to the Corvus kit). Maybe some of you will want to use that method.

I've primed the model black, and will be spraying it silver and then deciding what colors to paint it in addition to that! Watch this space!

=][= Danforth Laertes