Today we have a model review followed by a magnetising guide! I like to have fully assembled pictures at the end of my reviews and I knew I would want to magnetise this model for easier transport. I asked in the Mercenaries Facebook page if there would be any interest in a guide on how to magnetise it and there was, so I figured I would wrap it into this review.
I won this model from Rikers Iron's Mega swag giveaway! Very excited to receive such an awesome prize. If you like hobby, painting and general good times give the stream a watch, we have some great people in the crew!
The torso is exactly the same as the Galleon. It is nicely detailed and has an odd boxy shape to it not present in most colossals which really helps to set it apart.
Slight mould slip here at the bottom left edges, these did clean up quite easily though with a craft knife.
The area the hips/legs attach to the upper torso is deep into the torso which makes it a secure attachment point.
Loads of mechanical details on the back, mainly linked to the huge furnace which powers it.
The hip and waist parts are the same as the Galleons, the pipes are crisp and well detailed with many rivets.
The legs are also the same sculpt as the Galleons, though on my Galleon the plates at the back of the top of the legs were a separate metal piece.
You can see here the slight mould lines that run down the leg. While they aren't particularly difficult to get rid of individually, it does make it take longer when they cross multiple details and surfaces.
This one took me about ten minutes to fix.
The shoulders are the same as the right shoulder from the Galleon.
These are higher quality than the one I got with my Galleon, which had a pretty bad mould slip which took ages to clean up. All I had to do here is clean up the resin injection areas.
The Blockader has these armour details which fit onto the shoulders in the same way as the Galleon had an armour plate. These are the same on both side however. They are really well cast with only the injection areas needing clean up.
The upper arms which connect the shoulder parts to the rocket fists are in metal. There was a tiny amount of clean up to do on the connection point.
These three miscellaneous part we can look at together.
Left to right they are; the crown that fits on the top of the biggest smoke stack, a pipe that fits on the top of the body just in front of the smoke stacks, and finally a armour piece that fits underneath the body at the front of the model. Roughly just under where the head is.
The flame guns are nicely detailed with minor mould lines, they seem to be identical.
As is traditional for Privateer Press, new variant on an existing chassis means a new head. I prefer the look of this head compared to the Galleons personally.
The back half of the rocket fists, these are really well detailed.
These are really well cast, I had worried that there might be mould lines on the spool of chain, but luckily that wasn't the case!
I think the 6 vent looking details on the underside of this part are exhausts for the rocket fists.
There is an injection port and a mould line on the end of this part where it connects with the front of the fist. This is a great place to put the injection port as it will never been seen once glued together.
These are some big fists, I was a little unsure about how they looked before I got the model, as from pictures online they looked a bit goofy. Once I saw them from multiple angles and saw that they have the fingers and a thumb on there and that it looks like its holding knuckle dusters! I was sold, it looks so much cooler to me now.
Unfortunately the spikes on one of the fists knuckle dusters are slightly misaligned a bit of mould slip, which I will fix with some green stuff later.
Resin injection ports on the connecting surface, again this is great no chance of reduced detail.
So,,, many,,, rivets!!!
When I first saw the concept art for this model I wasn't sold on it, I wasn't a huge fan of how it looked and I considered converting a Galleon by making my own rocket fists. As I had a lot of projects on my "to do" list this wasn't something I actively worked on. I have seen a few that other people have made though and I haven't been impressed with them, they have all looked slapped together and more like a toy.
It has some great details like the chain reel at the end of the arms, or the chunky shoulder pads give it a much more military feel compared to the "ragtag" looking Galleon that came before it.
I think the blockader is a great kit, while I wish it wasn't an exclusive model and was easier for people outside of the US to get hold of.
Now on to the magnetising guide! My reason for doing this is to make it easier to transport.
I used 6 10mm x 3mm magnets for this model.
First thing to do is mark the areas the magnets will be by first digging a little dent into the middle of each part. Then drill into that hole with a smaller drill bit than the one we will use to drill the hole for the magnet. (I used a 1mm drill bit for this, but others will work the same) This smaller hole will help keep the larger drill bit (10mm) in the correct position.
Then slowly drill until the hole is deep enough to fit the magnet. To make it less likely the magnet pulls itself out of the hole its important to get the magnet seated flush into the model.
When drilling into the torso I happened to drill into the hollow space in the centre. As this part if hollow it is hard to know how thick the resin will be in the area you drill into. When I magnetised the Galleon the resin was a lot thinner in one of the parts I drilled into and I had to fill the empty space to give the magnet something to stop it falling into the model.
Luckily this time there was enough resin left in the hole to not have to fill the void (it took a long time when I had to do it for the Galleon).
I fully recommend drilling all the holes before gluing any magnets in place. The last thing you want to do is glue the magnet the wrong way and have to dig it back out again.
With the arms you might find that the arms weigh too much for your magnets and they droop and point downwards. If this happens you can add a pin to keep this from happening like the following picture (this is from my Galleon which needed pins on both arms as they weigh a lot more than the Blockaders).
Before you glue the magnets into the holes check the polarity! Check it again! Then check it a third time! I can not overstate how annoying it would be to have to dig a magnet out.
Make sure all your magnets are securely glued in place before testing the connection. Once the glue is fully dried its then safe to give it a try. You might also want to cover over the magnets with a thin layer of green stuff, its not entirely necessary but can help hold the magnets in place.
And here the Blockader is fully assembled and magnetised!
I'm really happy with how quickly this all went, the experience of magnetising the Galleon helped a lot of course. Hopefully you find this review/guide helpful and are able to magnetise your Blockader (or Galleon) easier.
If you liked this review/guide let me know, I value feedback from you all.
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See you all next time!
