I’m a firm believer in the old adage “waste not, want not”, so when I carve up something for bitz, I’m always looking for something to do with the leftover pieces and scrap. The sentry gun from Stupid Bitz Tricks #2 yielded several useful pieces that I decided to put to work filling another hole in my Imperial Guard roster: the lack of squad automatic weapons. I had a pintle mounted heavy stubber in my bitz box, and I’d always wanted to find a way to make it a handheld weapon system. However, it wasn’t until after doing the sentry gun that I realized I could convert the heavy stubber into something that looked like an Aliens smartgun. This is the result:

Construction

The images below show the bitz used and their configuration. (Click the photos below to view them at full size.)

Design

The main parts used are a spare set of Cadian flamer arms and the heavy stubber from the Imperial Guard Vehicle Upgrade sprue. The flamer was sliced apart in two places so that only the rearmost segment with the handgrip and the sling remained attached to the arm. The heavy stubber’s barrel was shortened by clipping out everything between the muzzle and the ventilated shroud, then gluing the muzzle directly to the shroud.

Next, the upper surface of the heavy stubber was shaved clean of all large protuberances (the lever-looking thing and the sight hump), and the rearmost end of it was squared off so it could mate nicely against the flamer’s handgrip. The bottom was also shaved flat, then glue was applied to the front of the flamer handgrip and the front sling swivel on the right flamer arm, and the heavy stubber was then pressed into place. The ammo drum was the ribbed section of the autocannon barrel that was left over from the sentry gun project, which was shaved flat on both ends and then glued into the notch on the bottom left side of the heavy stubber.

The sighting system is a Space Marine targeter that was left over from the sentry gun also, its front end having been sliced off to serve as the sentry gun’s sensor lens. The front of the targeter was sanded flat, and the targeter was then glued to the upper right side of the heavy stubber, above the ejection port. The next step was to incorporate the visual suggestion of a waldo system, so I rooted through my bitz box and found the lascannon barrel that was left over from the sentry gun project. On the bottom of the barrel, there’s a long rail–the frontmost, tapered section was sliced off.

The lascannon barrel rail segment was glued to the bottom of the heavy stubber, directly in front of the flamer handgrip, so that the flat end was flush with the heavy stubber’s receiver and the tapered end of the rail segment was pointing to the left side of the heavy stubber. This is what gives the visual suggestion of a waldo system. The next step was to add a vertical handgrip on the side of the weapon, in order to make it look more like an Aliens smartgun, and I used a leftover autocannon ammo drum handle for this purpose. The ammo drum handle was cut so that only one flange remained on it, and glued to the lascannon barrel rail segment.

Conclusion

If you happen to have leftover heavy stubbers from Leman Russ or Chimera kits, this is one way to make them man-portable. It’s also not a particularly difficult conversion, and it follows the same basic Aliens-inspired theme as the sentry gun.

One other fun thing you can do with the Imperial Guard Vehicle Upgrade Sprue is to use the tank commander parts to make a junior officer with upraised hand and binoculars, which would be a good stand-in for Lieutenant Gorman. You could also just use the tank commander’s head with the Cadian sergeant bitz to make a more heroic-looking lieutenant, so long as you remember to shave the sergeant stripes off the chainsword arm.

I think the weapon is a bit large, however, so I’m going to shorten the flamer handgrip and the heavy stubber body the next time I perform this conversion. I figure if I shave one or two more millimeters off the overall weapon length, it’ll be snugged in a little closer to the body and look a little less oversized.