Vyper WIP

o/

As you can see I've been working on my new Vyper. This was gifted to by the wonderful Loquacious for winning her banner contest. As I was looking through the kit, I was trying to recall if I'd ever owned a Vyper, and I don't believe I have (having gone through so many armies its hard to remember after a while). I don't think I've had a jet bike since the old wingless metal ones back in 2nd. ed. I haven't had too much trouble with assembly (barring a few things that I'll get to in a bit).

This is the first of my new Siam-Hann contingent which will be allied to the Exodites. I had a Siam-Hann army some years ago which was known as 'the second wave'. A name I came up with as they had a lot of transports & tanks, but no jet bikes. Something of a blasphemy for the Wild Riders. My old army was almost entirely red with some black trim as is normal, however I've decided to paint my new Wild Rider contingent predominately black with red trim. It looks almost a 50/50 split of red/black in the photo, however almost all of the red is on that canopy. The majority of black probably won't really be noticeable till I start painting tanks which have a much larger surface area.

As mentioned above I've had a few issues with this kit, though nothing insurmountable.
First was the mounting for the Shuriken cannon upgrade. How exactly is that supposed to mount underneath? While both cannons in the kit vary a bit in shape, neither seems to have an obvious mounting point. For your convenience, GW thought to not show how to mount the under slung shuriken cannon in the instructions (which are showing their age as the level of detail renders the part images to almost gray silhouettes, c'mon GW, new printing plates don't cost that much...). Anyways a bit of cutting, sawing and imagination I was able to come up with a good center-line mount for the cannon. Looks just fine in the end.

Second, just what exactly are the two parts pictured on the right used for? They're (again) not pictured anywhere in the instructions, or on the box, or on GW's website, nor did I see them pictured on any other assembled Vyper images that I could find in a google search. They also don't seem to have any obvious point of attachment (at least to the Vyper itself, they do have a fitting for a peg of some sort on the reverse side).

Third, The mounting for the turret weapon is...odd. I know this is an older sculpt, predating the newer auto-cad designs that fit together better, but you would think they would have put more effort into the weapon mounting (because its, kinda the whole purpose of the model). In the top photo you can see the hole on the underside of the EML. All of the weapons have this. Looks like a peg should fit through there except none is included, nor are there any holes to mount this imaginary peg onto the turret itself. Also, the place where the turret weapon fits in (using the otherwise useless ring) is too wide, meaning that it wont fit snugly (yet its too narrow to easily use magnets). I also have the turret pointed down a bit, as the EML won't sit level in the mount given the curvature of the turret itself, and the curved bit under end of the launcher.

As I said, nothing insurmountable. Rather its kinda like (though thankfully not nearly as bad as) mounting the weapons on an Obliterator's arms where you're left shaking your head thinking 'who the hell designed this?!' I hope to have the painting finished this evening and decals added so that I can varnish it. After which I can do the final assembly without worry of the canopy fogging over. I painted over the canopy's support struts in 'ard coat. To hopefully keep the paint from wearing off over time. If all goes to plan I'll have finished photos later in the week.