Putting it together

Ronnie himself has said that Warpath is about vehicles - you just can't have a sci fi battle game without vehicles.

Unfortunately, the first wave of the Warpath shipped - as you know - without vehicles.  The one exception is the Enforcer Interceptor.

The Interceptor comes as a bunch of pieces in a bag.  I think it is a bit humorous the the old restic used to be called "sprue less" plastic - but a lot of the new hard plastic kits are actually coming sprue less.  The pieces have been pre cut from the sprues.  Apparently Mantic is able to save a tremendous amount of space by bagging the pieces instead of storing the sprues.

Interceptor in a bag

I found assembly of this to be quite straight forward once the pieces were identified.  There was one little 'gotcha' to watch for (below).

The largest pieces are the body and wings.

Body and wings top

These fit together easily.  However DO NOT glue the wings together yet.  It is always a good idea to dry fit all pieces before applying any glue, and this was very important for the wings.

body and wings bottom

They fit together nicely.  The hover blades are the bottom of the wings.

Body and wings pushed together

It wasn't until after I had them together (without glue) that I found the vent covers.   These are two small squarish pieces, with a flat bottom and a grate on the top (you can see hem below).  It isn't obvious at first what these are, but once you put the wings together you can see a small opening in the top.  This is the engine vents, and these go there.

Body, wings and engine vent covers

The thing is, they must be installed in the bottom piece of the wing BEFORE you put the wings together.  The bottom half of the vent cover is very slightly curved - and this makes it so each of them only fits on a single wing.  They slide into the space for them and the fit is quite snug.

Once these are in place you can glue the wing halves together and glue them to the body.

Body with wings

Next are the rudders and wing tips.

Rudders, wing tips and Twin Heavy Burst Lasers

The wing tips simple attach to the tips of the wings.  The connection here is round, so you can actually position these at any angle you might choose.  While I would expect nearly everyone to assemble their models in the flying position, you could turn these 90 degrees (thinner end up) to represent the thrusters that help with VTOL and hovering.    However doing this points the attached weaponry upward instead of forward - so is a bit less dynamic.  Also, the rudders, which appear to be a similar design, do NOT rotate, when I expect in an actual VTOL maneuver they would.

TL;DR - I glued mine on so the weapons faced forward, because I planned on using the flight stand anyway.

Wingtips in flight position

The rudders are two pieces, and only go together one way (the slot in the tips is angled).

Rudder pieces

These then fit onto the tails of the plane.  They aren't labeled, but should be obvious which goes on which side by the design.

Base Interceptor

There is only one more optional piece on the base interceptor (not shown) - a small landing foot that can fit under the front of the plane.  It isn't really needed in flight mode (I would assume it retracts) - but if you are modelling yours on the ground you will most likely want to add this to support the nose (especially if you are making a Persecutor bomber instead of in Interceptor).

Once the base model is assembled, you have to decide if you want the Interceptor or bomber.  The Interceptor is a transport - so you need to build the four piece transport compartment

Transport compartment - inside

The four pieces go together fairly well, but I found it is a bit fiddly getting all four together at the same time - especially since the door is designed to be hinged (if you don't want to glue it shut.

Transport compartment - outside

At trick I found is to turn the assembled body over, and build the transport compartment on to it - just not gluing it to the body (unless you want to do that now and permanently make it the one variant. Let the plastic glue set and it easily comes off.

Transport compartment, assembled.

If you want to paint the inside of it it will be MUCH easier to do this before gluing it to the plane.

You then have to decide which Interceptor you are building - the standard Accuser model uses the included plastic Twin Heavy Burst lasers - which are attached to the wing tips (and can be slightly angled if desired).

Finished Accuser Interceptor

From the bottom front

From the bottom back

and with the transport door open

If instead, you want to make the Arbiter variant, then you would instead attach the Twin Plaris Cannons - these are metal bits.  If you bought an Interceptor battlegroup in the kickstarter then you got the free upgrade with these (as well as bits for Smokescreen Grenades and the Anti-Missile Flare dispenser).  These are the same gun that the strider comes with as well.

Smokescreen Greenades, Anti-Missile Flare Dispenser (center top) and Twin Polaris Cannons (bottom)

If you want to do the Persecutor Bomber variant, then you do not put on the transport container (as it cannot transport troops), and instead attach the Anti-Infantry and Bunker Buster Bombs to the undercarriage and wing tips, and the Missile pods to the body.

Bunker Buster Bombs (top), Anti-Infantry Bombs (middle) and Missile-Pods (bottom)

The two identical bunker buster bombs go on the undercarriage, and then the anti-infantry bombs for the wing tips (one left, one right).  The missile pods can basically go on any flat surface - the Mantic picture in the books puts them on the body above the wings.

Bombs on the Presecutor

Looking at the profile - you literally only get the four bombs (though you have unlimited missiles), as each of the bombs has the Limited(2) rule.

From below the front

This rule must be fore sheer game balance - an it just surprised me that a bomber would not have racks of bombs on it - not just 4.

From below the back

But then that is what I get for trying to put "Reality" into a miniatures game.

Missile Pods

The missile pods can also be taken as an option on the Interceptor as well.

The bombs and transport compartment look like good options for magnetizing if you want the flexibility to field any of the variants.  I believe that for demos I'm going to be using the transport (as I want to demo that feature of vehicles), so I went ahead and glued the transport and twin lheavy burst lasers on (I have two more if I want another variant after all).

While it has to wait a bit in the queue, I am a bit curious how painting my first real vehicle is going to go.  If I remember to take pictures then that will have to be a future post.

Because it is all fun and games . . .