Thursday 17 August 2017

Scratch-Built Chaos Hellblade Aerospace Fighter

Rolling over for an attack run

The Chaos Hellblade is an absolutely iconic 40K fighter plane. Imperial fighters tend to be Hawker Typhoons - heavy, brutal, blocky - but the Hell Blade is a Spitfire - light, elegant, agile.

Banking into a hard left turn: note the steerable lateral thrusters

Forge World used to make a Hell Blade but it has been withdrawn, possibly for remodelling as the quad-autocannon are gone in the new datasheet.

The new Hell Blade has twin guns. I have located them on top of the wing because that is the visible part of a fighter model and scratch-built models often are too 'clean'.

Power climb using the main ventral thrusters

The Hell Blade is normally piloted by a hard-wired servitor and/or a daemon. There isn't really room for a pilot.

Pulling out of a strafing run

I found a paper-plane template on the web for scale and the shape of the main body parts and wings.

Outrunning a missile

The plane is made from card, reinforced with white glue, and straws. Only the guns and sensor packs on the wings are from plastic kits.

It is painted with commercial primer, to smooth out the surface, Humbrol red spray can paint, as a base colour, and a light coating of Tamiya metallic red.


Okay, it not as good as a Forge World resin model but that will cost you the best part of a ton (assuming you can find one), and this cost pennies.



10 comments:

  1. I didn't realise that FW had removed that model teach me not to keep up to date with things and I love the look wish all loyalist flyers looked as good

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    1. I suspect it will return. It must have been a good seller.

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  2. Looking great, dude! I managed to get a FW one for a pretty reasonable price third-hand, at the cost of having to do some fix-up work on it. Definitely one of the coolest looking planes in 40K, and I do hope it gets an updated version soon.

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    1. You lucky chap. I have kept my eye out but never found one.

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  3. Hummm.

    Maybe it's due out in plastic ?

    Maybe not.

    So where do these templates lurk ?

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    Replies
    1. Type paper model Warhammer hell blade into Google. You will need to hunt around as Gee Dubs gestapo are closing them down.

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