Relictors Deathstorm / Dreadnought Drop Pod Finished!

So here is the finished Pod, the first of my project of four Pods I've been busy doing recently. This one is different from the others as it uses 3rd party parts, namely Chapterhouse Studios Armoured Doors and is a Dreadnought Pod or Deathstorm Missile Pod. I've used the small StormTalon aquila's to decorate the doors to match my first Drop Pod and as usual, a white skull chapter badge.

I love the look of this Deathstorm Launcher, and gamewise its not bad either, cheap and great against horde armies, on the turn it arrives it pie-plates every unit (friend or foe) within range, with a large blast. After that, every turn it fires one large blast at an enemy unit within range - see Imperial Armour books for rules.

Here is the view of the Pod set up as the Dreadnought Drop Pod, or Lucius Dreadnought Pod.

Just a different view of the Dreadnought Pod configuration showing the Deathstorm FW sensor head and the deck protrusions.

This shows the magnets in the Pod vanes. For more notes on construction see my earlier posts on magnetising drop pods and using Armoured Doors 3rd party products. I'll be posting the completed 'normal' pods soon, just as soon as I've finished the remaining 4 doors... nearly there!

A final shot... or 40!

Armoured Drop Pod Doors - 3rd Party Resin Conversion Kit

The Chapterhouse Studio's Armoured Drop Pod doors are great for making a Games Workshop Space Marine Drop Pods stand out from the others. I've used them to differentiate between the normal Drop Pods and the Support element Drop Pod which can be played as a Deathstorm Missile Pod or a Dreadnought Drop Pod as seen in the previous post (here). The small Aquila are from the StormTalon kit, the doors come unadorned.

The casting of the underside of the Chapterhouse Door Armour is not perfect - so to fit flush to the GW Drop Pod, I removed the rivets (12 rivets each door) from the plastic Pod doors that were under the Chapterhouse Kit. The resin kit is designed with holes for these rivets, they just don't always cast with enough room so it's easiest to just trim them off the door instead, allowing a flush fit.

The second thing to note is shown in the photo above, once closed, the rivets on the Drop Pod vanes catch at the bottom end of the Chapterhouse Armour when fitted. This can be easily trimmed off to allow smooth door action, or in my construction, the vanes have a certain amount of give as the are only fixed at the top, in my design the bottom is magnetised to the Pod deckplate and door sub-assembly, meaning the doors slide past these rivets without too much problem.

When dry fitting the Chapterhouse Studio's kit to the GW plastic door prior to using super glue, I needed to soak each resin piece in hot water and hold to the door so it cooled into a flush uniform straight fit. If you use resin kits, this is normal but worthy to note here.

 Here is the position of the doors closed if the vane rivets are not removed... not good.

Here shows the closed doors if the vane rivets are removed (or in my case, allowed to move past).

Hopefully this helps any potential Armoured Drop Pod builders with your hybrid kits! I hope you agree this kit gives the normal pod a great sense of heavy duty hardware and sets them apart from the 'normal' Pods! Overall a great resin extra and easily fitted to your drop pods.