How to build a Warjack – a guide for newbies from a newbie

Ok, this article is continuing my narration of my journey through the world of Warmachine. I decided to add more step by step articles as those are usually the most interesting ones in blogs that I read. So what’s better than doing that with my new Warmachine stuff?

This article has a specific audience in mind, namely people like me who are familiar with Games Workshop products, but new to Warmachine. We know the drill of doing miniatures from Games Workshop, but nevertheless Warmachine can pose its very own challenges. I am going to work with GW hobby products since I already have them laying around from my Warhammer adventures, but Privateer Press has its own line of hobby products. If you are interested in those, I suggest you check out the PP Forum.

This article is particularly those who may have built dozens of GW plastic models, maybe even complex ones, but never done a complex metal model like e.g. the Chaos Dreadnought. Now please note that I am not the ultimate wisdom in terms of modeling but a newbie myself, if you want to look at the real pros, pay a visit to Dave or Ron. However, I think the following guide could be useful for other newbies like me who are still dealing with basics.

The first thing you should always do after unpacking a new model is dry fitting everything to see how it’s going to be built. After that, I usually arrange the bits in the way (more or less) they are going to be glued together later. In terms of Warmachine I decided to go for the Thunderhead Warjack:

(you can click all images to enlarge them)

What you notice from these bits is that it’s a) a fairly complex model and b) the connection between the legs and the abdomen is going to be the weakest link – especially with the weight of all the metal resting on it. To prevent this baby from falling apart again, we need some heavy duty technique, so I decided to go for a mix between GW’s super glue and green stuff (modeling putty) plus the use of pins.

When I started in the early 90s with the hobby I just glued all the metal pieces together with super glue and I have seen many beautiful models fall apart again ever since, e.g. my Durth, The Treeman and the Wood Elf Forrest Dragon. Putting some extra effort into building a model is well worth the time if it doesn’t fall apart later and potentially also ruins your paint job.

When building metal models, it’s usually not the glue that is a problem but a mismatch of the pieces that don’t create a good adherent surface. For this purpose I mix super glue with green stuff as the green stuff greatly enhances the potential of the super glue.

Working with green stuff and super glue creates another important necessity to be aware of: you need a plan. When working with this combination, you need to let the model rest for a while before gluing on the next piece so that the super glue can dry. However, you can’t let it rest for too long either or your green stuff will dry out and become rock solid. So what you want is an exact plan on how to glue everything so that once you started the process, you can work swiftly but not hastily. This is why you spread out the pieces and dry fit them first.

So, let’s do all the pins first.

Before I started with the pins, I filed off the joints of the legs so they would fit into the sockets of the abdomen. After that, I drilled the holes with the GW hand drill and clipped off the pins from a standard paper clip. With the pins inserted into the joints of the legs it looks like this:

I also decided to do a pin for the joint between abdomen and torso. It was a wise decision as dry fitting showed that the model would even hold without any glue:

I decided to do the same for the arms with the same success:

Dry fit everything again after you made a pin just to see if the holes are in the correct location and if the pin has the proper length.

Once I had all the pins, I made the green stuff (I always use equal amounts of the blue and yellow components) and put small portions into the sockets. In this case, less is clearly more or you will have ugly green stuff spills all over your model!

Please take a closer look at the socket in the abdomen, there I applied two tiny portions of green stuff to either side of the hole – the tinier, the better. On the other hand, I was more generous with the green stuff going in the sinks on the arms where the electric coils will be later. Here you can create with green stuff a nice bed for the coils to rest on later, but still don’t use green stuff excessively.

So, once everything was ready, I started to glue together the various pieces. Always use small amounts of glue only, again less is more.

First, I took the pins out of the limbs again, filled them with a little super glue, and inserted the pins again.

After that I continued with the legs and the abdomen since they need the longest drying time for best stability. I smeared a little super glue over the green stuff and pressed on the legs with the pins going into the proper holes.

After that I took the torso, glued the shoulders to it, and let everything rest for a short while while I was gluing the electric coils into the sinks in the arms.

Once the model was stable enough, I glued the arms to it and connected the upper torso with the abdomen.

Once the model was stable enough again, I turned it over and glued the exhaust on the back onto the big blob of green stuff:

I let the model rest on its back over night so that the super glue had enough time to dry and the green stuff to become solid:

After that, only finishing work was left to be done:

1. Gluing the head to the torso. I used a pin for the sake of stabiloty as well, but not green stuff.
2. Gluing on the pistons – just plain super glue.
3. Gluing on the tubes. Take your time to bend them into the correct position so that they connect well once you glue them on.
4. Finally, I traced the shapes of the sockets on the Warjack’s feet with a pen on the model’s base, drilled holes into the outline, and cut it out with my hobby knive. After that, I just had to isnert the Warjack into its base.
   Warning: My Warjack’s left leg fell off again when I pushed it into the base. Maybe it’s a good idea to put the legs into the base before you glue them to the abdomen.

In Zurich, Switzerland, the Warmachine community is very small while the GW community is firmly established. A couple people asked me about the size of Warjacks as they are interested in using them for their Warhammer projects. For this purpose, you see the finished Thunderhead in comparison to a Space Hulk Terminator:

So, this is it for the modeling part. To continue, I suggest you check out Nick’s wonderful tutorial on how to paint a Warjack with easy highlights. Originally, I thought about doing my own tutorial, but this one pretty much covers it. Maybe I’ll still do my own tutorial just for the sake of running down the GW paints I used (Nick uses a broader range of paints).