Contenders, ready! Gladiators, ready!

Just a quick post this week, and this is largely a public service announcement for budding Space Marine commanders suffering from indecision.  In brief, the Gladiator tank can be built to swap between all loadouts without magnets.

I can’t claim credit for working this out myself, there are lots of other posts about this floating around the internet, but when I shared mine with fellow bunkerites none of them knew about it so we felt it was worth passing the word along.  

The key is to not glue in the base plates of the turret or the side sponsons.  Once they are undercoated, the paint will fill that gap nicely and the friction will hold them in place.  It’s as simple as that.  The Valiant and Reaper sponson options are simply not glued onto the peg, and again once sprayed friction will hold it in place whilst still allowing you to pull it apart.

The one option you can’t swap without using magnets is the storm bolter or grenades on the Lancer/Impulsor sponson.  It wouldn’t be too hard to do with a small magnet, but I simply didn’t bother with it.

I will also add that these aren’t the only sub assemblies I used, for purposes of painting I left the hover plates and front bumper off and sprayed and painted them separately, and out of habit I left the cupolas unglued.  I also magnetised the antennae so that when knocked they fall off rather than bend or break (I do this on all vehicles and highly recommend it).

Additionally, you can leave the entire superstructure and rear plate unglued and swap out to an Impulsor.  I haven't bothered to paint this yet, I was just leaving myself the option in the future.

As a bonus though, it now works perfectly to store all the spare components.  A very Ultramarian logistical victory.  

This really was just a quick PSA to let people know it was possible, so I didn’t get too bogged down in detail.  If you want a more detailed step by step guide, loads of people have already done them online.  Just google and you’ll find dozens of videos and articles about it.   Go out there and have fun treadhoverheads.