XV9 Hazard Suit (How I did it - Part 5)

(Part 1 here) (Part 2 here) (Part 3 here) (Part 4 here)

Final bits for our kitbashed XV9 Hazard suit.

First we'll start with the arms. The Crisis suit arms are too small. So we are taking the arms from the XV88 Broadside. I never did like the missile-fist look, so instead I settled on a conversion that used the rifle hold position where you could magnetize the giant rifle and be able to swap it with the railguns and a missile pod (more on that in a later post). That conversion left these perfect arms.

 I started off by removing the lower-arm from them, but keeping the shoulder and joints.

Next the holes on the broadside arms are too small for the crisis arm pegs. I used a rotary tool to grind them out a bit more so it's a snug fit.

With the holes ground out a bit more, we can move on.

Since the broadide kit has no usable forearms, we will take them from the crisis arms.

You have to be careful to not cut up the crisis forearm, but you can its elbow joint, as we don't need that.

Now attach them to the broadside joints as pictured above. Where you glue them determines their pose, so experiment with some sticky take or something to make sure it's the position you want.

The original XV9 kit has all sorts of aerials allover the suit. This is an aerial that comes from the broadside kit. It originally goes behind the knee, but I found the broadside looked fine without it. It looks better here.

Once glue sets, get it on to your suit torso, and make sure it's the right pose.

Next we will move onto the head. All these parts are from the broadside kit. Luckily I never used them because I liked the other ones instead. I loved the traditional square looking head. These are very similar to the XV9 head.

On the XV9 head, there is a single aerial. It doesn't mount on the side of the head like a traditional battlesuit, but on the top in the middle. This head bit has a little peg for the aerial. I removed it and smoothed the area.

Glue the lens housing piece to the head. Then cut the aerial as pictured above.

Once it's cut, glue it to the top of the head. This completes the head.

In gluing it to the suit, you will need a riser. It can't stick in the original hole on the torso because it sets too deep in because we bulked up the suit. I used a ball of green stuff that I smushed onto the original hole, then smushed the new head into it. I made sure it was a position I liked. then I let the green stuff set and glued it in place. The hole I drilled in the middle of the jet pack is for a back flag I do on my suits. You will see that at the end of this post.

Final part to assemble are the guns. I opted to go with the twin-linked burst cannons, and I will go into why in the next post. The guns are from the XV25 stealthsuit kits, and the bit in the middle is a support system bit from the XV88 broadside kit. I had to shave the sides of the support system so they laid flat, and the guns had some little nub that helped it to mount to stealthsuit arms. I shaved those off so they could mount flat on a surface.

They glue together like so. As pictured, they are upside-down. When they mount on the under-arms of the suit, the aerial from the support system is supposed to be pointing down.

And here is this suit completed.

These guys were a lot of fun to discover and assemble. The back flags in each one are from Wargames Factory's Ashigaru Yari.

That's it! Hope this guide was helpful and understandable. When I took the photos, I wasn't sure how I was going to present the steps, I just photographed them as I made them.

Let me just say, that the XV9's are definitely worth it on the tabletop, even the basic loadout. I took them to a grand tournament in Spokane Valley Washington and they racked up the highest kill score for me aside from my Broadsides. Totally worth it.

XV9 Hazard Suit (How I did it - Part 4)

(Part 1 here) (Part 2 here) (Part 3 here)

This is where the XV9 really comes together. The legs and wings.

From left to right, the pictured pieces are knee-pads from an XV88 Broadside Battlesuit, little vents from a Space Marine power pack, and an XV8 Crisis Battlesuit leg.

First we need to attach the vents from the Space Marine backpacks. I removed the little nubs on the sides of the knees.

Glue on the vents. These make leg thrusters. Parts like these can simply represent the Vectored Retro-thrusters support system on battlesuits.

I put on the broadside battlesuit kneepads. These and the thrusters bulk up the legs. I also considered using Fire Warrior pauldrons.

The best feet for this are the XV88 Broadside Battlesuit feet. The XV8 feet aren't big enough. I generally start by mounting the feet first when the suit is making a standing pose. If you want to do a more dynamic running or flying pose, this part isn't necessary.

Now this thing is really starting to come together.

Moving onto the wings that are pretty signature to the XV9. Pictured above is a piece I added that the wings will mount to. This piece is the Target Lock signature system bit from the XV8 Crisis Battlesuit kit.

These are target lock signature system bits from the XV25 Stealthsuit kit. Cut them like above.

For the wings we will use the bits from the Sunshark Bomber kit. These are the wing bits on the Interceptor Drone. They have a little nub that sticks out. I removed it.

I cleared off the bottoms of 2 Shield Generator support systems from the Crisis kit. Then arrange and glue the target lock bits from the stealthsuits and the Interceptor Drone wing bits as pictured above.

Flip them upside-down and mount them on the Crisis suit target lock bits we mounted on the torso earlier. The mini-target locks are supposed to be facing back. They make up more of the vectored retro-thrusters system.

Next post will do the final parts. The arms, guns, and head.

(Part 5 here)

XV9 Hazard Suit (How I did it - Part 3)

(Part 1 here) (Part 2 here)

This post is about assembling the pelvis of our kitbashed XV9.

Start with the power unit from the back and thrusters part. This is the leftover piece. Start by cleaning it up and shave some of the edges down, get them beveled. This will become the waistline of the pelvis.

Now take the 2 pelvis pieces we cut off from their torso pieces and glue them together.

Make sure instead of the tops or bottoms lining up, the spherical hole where the legs insert keep lined up. Shave off and clean what you need on the top and bottom of this.

Glue on the power pack to the top of the pelvis. Clean up and even lines where you need to here.

Working on the back of the pelvis, I needed something to cover it and give it some substance back there. You are welcome to use whatever you want here, I used a couple parts. The yellow is leftover from cannibalizing a space marine's jump pack.

This is a support system bit from an XV88 Broadside Battlesuit kit. I cut off the 2 side pieces.

Those 2 side pieces flank the jump pack. This completes the back of the pelvis. Again, you are welcome to put what you want back here. Without these bits the torso just looks too small and doesn't have enough substance.

Now back to the front of the pelvis, I added the leftover bits we cut off from the outer shell of the stealthsuit. This completes the pelvis.

Now to mounting the pelvis to the torso. Here at the bottom of the torso we needed the pelvis to set inside it a little, so it looks like the torso is attached to the pelvis, and not just resting on top. I used a rotary tool to grind down a cavity in the center of the bottom of the torso.

This allows for some creative posing you may want to do with your battlesuit. It can determine whether you want the torso twisting a different direction of the pelvis, leaning down, facing up, etc.

Next post we'll get into the legs and wings.

(Part 4 here)

XV9 Hazard Suit (How I did it - Part 2)

(Part 1 here)

Today we will be working some more with the torso of the kitbashed XV9.

Start by cleaning up the backs of the thruster assemblies from the middle piece of the torso.

Assemble the jet pack units. Sand down the inner parts where the cuts were made.

Glue the 2 thruster assemblies together to make the completed jet pack unit. Now we will start assembling the torso and connecting the jet pack to the torso.

This is from the center torso piece. We are cutting a small part on the bottom so the jet pack sits on it straight, otherwise it would be at a weird angle.

That hole is looking into where the cockpit is supposed to be.

As you can see, the jet pack should rest properly on the back of the cockpit. If it doesn't, then that means you didn't cut out enough of the middle piece.

Now glue on the front of the cockpit. Your torso so far should look like this.

Next flip the whole thing upside-down and glue something in the bottom to cover up that huge gaping hole. You are welcome to cut and shape anything for this job. I used a piece of a Devilfish insides that nobody ever sees. I would suggest if you use plasticard, use something thick, because the pelvis is going to rest on this. More on that in a later post.

Next take the intake that came from the back piece of the torso, and our goal is to cut out enough of it so it rests on the front of the cockpit.

Like this. There is no direct way to instruct you on this part, you may have to shave off small pieces at a time to get it where you want.

Next we take the 2 halves of an XV25 Stealthsuit kit. In case you were wondering, the jet packs have already been removed from these. They were used on another conversion (more on that in a later post).

Remove and shave out the center parts from these halves. We just need these outer shell pieces. Do not glue these together.

This took a rough guesstimate on where to cut, but you want to make sure the cuts here are equidistant on both halves. The long parts are going to be used in the next step, but be sure to save the small parts too for the pelvis instructions in a later post.

Glue them to the top of the torso here. This whole thing is meant to give the XV8 suit a little more bulk, so it looks closer to the size of the XV9.

Next we want to fill in those unsightly gaps and holes that are now in the torso. Some converters like to perfectly shape the green stuff where you need it, but I like to blob it on places and carve it later after it's dry. It works best for me in getting straighter lines.

After I got the green stuff work done, my torso is done! It's a designers preference, but I wanted to keep those gaping holes in the front open. They will double as jet intakes. Also I wasn't sure what to fill them with. In the end they look good.

Now that the torso is complete, next we start on the pelvis.

(Part 3 here)