warrenborn - A Call To War: Clan Coyote Epsilon

It has been a while since I've been able to continue this project. A week in Denver for business and then getting sick that wiped me out for another week will do that. It had me backlogged on some other CGL projects so this had to sit on the back burner. I should be back on track for another update or two.

This is the last mech for my Clan Coyote Epsilon army. The Summoner Z is probably my most difficult modification to date. I took this one as a challenge and I’m pleased with how it came out. I did cheat a little bit. The left arm has extra actuators that are not supposed to be there but I’m going with the rule of cool. It worked. Truth be told, I still prefer the left arm that Mr Balk did on his version.

Where to begin? Let’s start with the parts. The resculpted Thor "Summoner" Prime (20-337) is the base mini that I started with. The right arm and LRM launcher are not needed at all. The left arm was sacrificed to a Ryoken C that I was working on at the time. In its place I used a Thor B left arm (OP-005). I’m not sure what fate the matching right arm will have yet. I also added the Thor C right arm (OP-008) and Thor E ATM Pod (OP-013).

All three pieces will need to be modified. We will start with the easiest one. The right arm on the Thor C includes an ER Large Laser and an ER Small Laser. I used snips to remove the ER Small Laser and filed the remaining bits away so it just leaves us with the ER Large Laser. This will fill in nicely for the ER Large Pulse Laser.

The launcher gave me some trouble. Or at least a lot of mental trouble. It looked so simple until I happened to notice that the record sheet had two different locations for it. The weapon chart had it on the right arm which is where I had planned for it to go. That would have been easy as OP-013 is designed to go over the right shoulder. So on to two plan B. Figure out a way to mount it over the left arm. That would require a lot of cutting and filing to make that work. When I was priming minis the other week, my Summoner C made me realize that the ATM shouldn’t be mounted over the shoulder but directly on top of the torso like the LRM launcher on the Prime. That makes life easier so on to plan C.

I took the launcher and liberally applied green stuff to fill the cavity. I tried to keep the side as flush with the rest of the launcher as possible. I wanted to provide a smooth interface without having to file too much. I did not get fancy and add try to continue the pattern that was on the side of the launcher. I also decided to keep it upright.

The left arm was the trickiest part of the build. I wanted a nice wide box similar to Mr Balk’s arm. The closest I could come up with that did not involve a lot of green stuff was the arm from the B configuration. I figured the easiest way to get something different was to file the missiles flat and drill eight holes. I could just leave it at that but I thought eight short gun barrels would look better than just holes. I used thin plasticard rod stock for the AP gauss rifles. Before I completely filed the missiles off, I drilled my holes into the center of the missiles. This saved me a lot of time in trying to line these gun barrels up. Once the holes were drilled, I was able to finish filing the face flat and then inserted the rods.