StormRaven - Thoughts on Conversion.

Having thought about getting into Blood Angels either in favor of Space Wolves or along with my current wolves army I have been giving thought as to how I would do a Stormraven drop ship. I have seen many conversions using landraiders and other such square tanks, I have also seen scratchbuilt ones, some good, and some bad. I have listened to people tell of how a Valkarie has a similair transport capacity. All of this ran through my head.

Looking at the options for a Stormraven, it seems to me the Stormraven would be bigger than a Valkarie, possibly Landraider size overall (although perhaps longer and thinner than a landraider.) It has 4 access points, two of wich can hold Hurricane Bolter sponsons. There are also 4 "Bloodstrike" missiles which seem similair in appearance and deployment to the missiles in the Valkarie kit.

The way I see it, there are two possible ways of doing this: combine a Valkarie with a razorback and add side sponsons of Hurricane Bolters, or use two Valkaries to make a Stormraven, addind a side sponson of hurricane bolters as well. The first option leaves much to be desired, the wings on the valkarie will seem ill-equiped to deal with the larger Stormraven, unless a second set is added, and there is little room for the 4 "Bloodstrike" missiles in areas that make sense. It would be easy to put the twin linked Lascannon or Plasma Cannons on the top of the razorback section or the ship, however. I won't go into detail on how I would do this, as it would likely be just as expensive as the second alternative yet not as aesthetically pleasing.

The second option came together very well in my mind, looking at the Valkarie Stage-By-Stage Assembly article on the GW website, it would be easy to do some simple cutting to lengthen the transport bay of the Valkarie. Likewise, the sections on the top, sides and bottom would be similairly easy to blend into the lengthened section with a little bit of work. Adding the wings to both sections should be a snap and would make the most sense for aesthetic purposes and having the model look like it makes sense. Four missiles from the Valkarie kit can be added for the "Bloodstrike" missiles, one under each wing or, two under the front two wings. You could put the Hurricane Bolters in one of the access points in the side - the doors look like the same size as the Landraider side sponson doors, though if not then it should be easy to convert it so that the parts fit. Alternatively you could hang the sponsons under the rear wings.  The Plasma Cannons or Lascannons could simply be placed where the lascannons currently are on the Valkarie Model, the kit comes with lascannons and it should be easy to kit out a Plasma Cannon to fit on each side. The alternative would be to kit the front of the model to have the weapon which would make the most sense, but would be harder to make look good.

To do all this, I will likely buy the bits from the numerous bits stores on the web, and just buy two valkaries, this endeavor would be quite exspensive, however.