Thursday, 1 January 2026

New Year: Huscarl Restarted

I abandoned this conversion about ten years ago. I wasn't happy with the shape of the nose, as it didn't replicate the iconic Martian Metals Mk5 Ogre. Over the recent break I played a couple of games of Ogre Objective 218.

Afterwards, I found myself invigorated to have another go at finishing my conversion/rebuild.

During the intervening ten years I have acquired a few more reference pictures, see above. I started by using my new Dremel accessory bits to carve away metal, which can be seen in the first picture. I also realized I'd misinterpreted how the track bogies were meant to sit, which I will correct during this build.

These pictures are a big help in capturing the Martian Metal's profile, though, symmetry was apparently merely a suggestion.

If you look closely at the other Ogres in my reference pictures, you can see that there are two distinctly different Martian Metals Mk 5 Ogres. This can be seen in the placement of the secondary batteries, and the shape of the missiles.
 
So, I mixed up some Kneadite and Milliput to fill in the two big holes I made. 

 Checking on the symmetry of my work I found I'd not done a great job on reshaping the casting either.

Even If I can't reshape the Ral Partha casting perfectly, I want to get as close as I can to making the model symmetrical. The next step was to rebuild the nose.

Now I'll let that harden overnight, and work on it again tomorrow. 

That's all for now. Happy New Year to everyone.

Catch you on the bounce.