The Warforge Miniature Modelling and Conversion

More Mega-SAG design

So I gave it some more thought during the week, while I was at school, and I had a bit of an idea.

The main reason I didn't like the back-loading, artillery-esque concept for the Mega-SAG was that it seemed to suggest a tremendously low rate of fire in my mind; you'd have to put a shell in, close the hatch, fire, open the hatch, and repeat. Not very effective for a model that's supposed to stand in for three Big Meks with SAGs, but then again I'm probably the only one who'd ever really worry about the logistics of the model's fictional firing speed like that in the first place.

However, I was playing Left 4 Dead the other day, and while I had the Automatic Shotgun I remembered something. Combat shotguns can chamber multiple shells while being loaded, and then fire them off in series.

Basically, each shot ejects the spent shell and chambers the next one from the internal magazine. I figure, why can't the same mechanism apply to the Mega-SAG? The rear hatch is opened, and multiple snotling shells are loaded into the machine. Hatch is closed, and then the weapon is fired in rapid succession, ejecting spent 'cages' and chambering new ones until the internal magazine's depleted.

I did have time to make one quick conceptual doodle, which I figure I'll share:

In my previous post's comments for this project, Don pitched a decent idea of having a top-loading ammunition rail for the snotling shells. I have yet to draw that concept out, and it's definitely a good one, but truthfully I think having some sort of ammo-rail projection out the top rear of the gun ruins it's lines. Silly to be concerned with aesthetics on an orky warmachine, I know, but right now I'm sort've digging on the straight cannon-esque form in the above concept. I'll doodle up the alternative Don suggested when I have the time tomorrow. In the mean time, I feel slightly more comfortable knowing that I've come up with an overly elaborate, shotgun-magazine based explaination for the above design's rate of fire. I think I have some sort of mental disorder, because I am spending so much time thinking about the gun's method of firing, something most players would never consider in the first place.

Edit: You know what? Before I go to sleep, I may as well do this, quick and dirty.

This way I have something to work from for comparison. It's not terrible, certainly, but I'm not sure how to design rails for the shells to slide in on that won't obscure at least something. The back-loading artillery design would let me have a whole shell visible being loaded into the gun, and a pile of the remaining shells waiting to be lifted up and chambered somewhere on the base nearby... However, this one could be interesting as well. Maybe if I looted the shell-loading winch off a Vindicator I could add in a way of getting the snotling cages from the ground up to the loading grot on top...

Let me know what you guys think.