The Book of Thundercracker

[Yodaking]

The Book of Thundercracker

C3G IDW WAVE 53
THE END?


Comic PDF


Mini PDF

The figure used for this unit is a repainted Walmart Exclusive Transformers Titan Guardians non-transforming figure made by Hasbro *sold in store only*.
Its name is Starscream.

Thundercracker Painting Guide

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Character Bio - Thundercracker claims the skies as his arena. He looks down in contempt on those who cannot leave the ground — he considers them lesser beings. He will often attack the flightless beings below him for no other reason than to satisfy his scorn.

His superiority in this realm is the only thing he is sure of. Thundercracker is not entirely committed to the Decepticon cause, and even has some seemingly contradictory sympathy for the humans they terrorize. Fear of retribution from Megatron and the influence of his peers is usually enough to bury these doubts. Regardless, he needs constant reassurance from Skywarp and Starscream (which occasionally take the form of threats) that he's where he needs to be. Sometimes, his heart's just not in the job. (tfwiki.net)
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-Rulings and Clarifications-

• Base Clarification: Iron Giant is a double-spaced figure.

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-Combinations and Synergies-

Incoming Synergy:

• As a Cybertronian, Thundercracker has these Cybertronian Synergies.
• As a Huge figure, Thundercracker has these Huge Synergies.
• As a Seeker, Thundercracker has these Seeker Synergies.
• As a figure with the Super Strength special power Thundercracker has these Super Strength Synergies.

Outgoing Synergy:

• Seeker Assault allows you to attack normally with another Seeker you control.

Immunities, Benefits, and Weaknesses:

• As a huge figure, Thundercracker interacts differently with these special powers.
• As a figure with the Super Strength special power, Thundercracker interacts differently with these special powers.
• As a figure with the Flying special power, Thundercracker interacts differently with these special powers.

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-Strategy, Tactics and Tips-

• N/A

-Heroscapers Community Contributions-

• Initial playtest: Yodaking
• Second playtest: fret_gurglo
• Third playtest: Lord Pyre
• Forth playtest: Shiftrex
• Art: Comic, Figure, Background
• Card Art by Soundwarp

[Yodaking]

NAME = THUNDERCRACKER

SPECIES = CYBERTRONIAN
UNIQUENESS = UNIQUE HERO
CLASS = SEEKER
PERSONALITY = CONFLICTED

SIZE/HEIGHT = HUGE 15 (DOUBLE BASED)

LIFE = 6

MOVE = 7
RANGE = 6
ATTACK = 4
DEFENSE = 6

POINTS = 260

SONIC BOOM 10
Immediately after initiative is rolled for the first round, you may move all Seekers you control 10 spaces in a straight line. If you do, then one at a time, roll the 20-sided die for every opponent's Order Marker. On a roll of 10 or higher, that opponent must remove the Order Marker.

AERIAL ADVANTAGE
While Thundercracker can use his Flying special power, he is always considered to have height advantage on non-flying figures.

SEEKER ASSAULT
After revealing an Order Marker on this card and making a normal attack with this figure, you may target and attack normally a new figure with any Seeker you control.

FLYING
SUPERSTRENGTH

[Yodaking]

I present, Thundercracker!!



Here's the painting guide:

Spoiler Alert!

1. Before you begin, find an image of Thunder Cracker you like online that you can use as your painting guide. I found the picture of a toy that I liked the look of and though matched reasonably well with the figure I had. Throughout the process I will repeatedly reference this image to make sure I am staying on track and not missing anything.





2. Thin out some black paint with water. Using a larger brush, lightly cover the entire figure except for the head (*optional*, you could try leaving the canopy/cockpit area gold here, rather than repaint it like I did). Do not worry about being able to see the original color through this base layer of black paint. You will be adding more layers of paint later, this first layer you want pretty thin and messy, you’ll be able to see the brush strokes.



3. *optional* Once fully dried, turn the arms, head, and waist 120 degrees or 1/3 of a turn. This will expose some areas the paint didn’t reach. Cover the exposed areas all around each joint with thinned black paint. *if you don’t plan on ever reposing your figure this isn’t necessary*

4. Now apply another layer of thinned black paint onto the areas that need to be black on the finished product. I covered the feet, front/back/bottom, front shin guards, front chest air intakes, gloved hands, mid-riff vents, and then I also gave the canopy/cockpit (*only if you gave it a black base coat*) and Decipticon symbol on the shoulder another layer of paint as well (you will be dry brushing those areas later). This second layer of paint should leave you with a nice solid coating of flat black. If the original base color is still showing through or brush stokes are still visible, give it a 3rd coat but 2 should do it.



5. *optional* By the time you finish the all black sections, the joint areas will be dry enough to turn another 120 degrees. This will expose a new section that needs a quick coat of thinned black paint.

6. *optional* Next turn the joins a full 360 degrees and identify any areas that are still not covered in paint, then paint those areas with the thinned black paint to complete the joint base coat.

7. Paint those areas that should be grey, with a coat of light grey paint. I actually switch back and forth between two different sized brushes here, a larger brush for the large areas, then a medium sized brush for the edges and smaller sections. There are some lines already present on the figure establishing some different sections, try to use these as much as possible. The first coat of light grey paint did not give me a solid coat, so a 2nd coat was applied once the first coat had dried.



8. *optional* Turn the arms and waist, painting those exposed sections that should be grey with the light grey paint as well. Be sure to let the paint completely dry before turning the joints to paint a new section. This required several steps of painting, drying, turning, than painting some more.

9. For the wing stripes, you can try to do it free hand but since I had some painter’s tape on hand I decided to try it out and see how easy and effective it was at helping me maintain some straight lines where no lines on the figure currently exists. One line does already exist on the figure that sections off the last part of the wing, I will use that to determine where the blue section will be and base my red and white lines on that. When affixing the tape, I used features on the figure to guide where the tape would start and end wherever possible to insure a matching look without needing to measure everything. There is a little rectangle and a distorted square shape that I used for the vertical tape locations on the back side of each wing. To get tape on the front side of the wing, the tape will need to be cut into smaller sections. For the horizontal line, I again used the distorted square shape to guide placement. I found that the wing bumps were causing problems for the tape so I had to cut the end of the tape up and apply smaller pieces of tape to the wing bumps themselves and the small section on the other side of them. Once you are happy with the tape job, apply some red paint to create the stripes. This will require 2 coats of paint, so wait to remove the tape after the second layer has been applied and given a chance to dry.







10. After removing the tape (your hobby knife is a good tool for this), you can see the lines are pretty nice but also the tape took some of the base coat paint with it. That is why doing the red stripe first, then the white stripe, then the blue sections last is the right order. Now begin taping up the wings for the white stripe, using the red stripe as your guide now. The white stripe should not be as wide as the red one was. Use your smallest brush for the painting on this step, the white stripe isn’t very wide and you’ll want to try and avoid getting any white paint on the red stripe.







11. The white stripe turned out good in some spots but wasn’t so good in others. I’ll have a chance to fix it along the way. I’ve decided to try and free hand the little red triangles seen on the toy, also with a small brush, it didn’t turn out too bad. I’ll do some touch up work here as well though down the road.



12. This is a good time to dry brush the Decipticon symbol red. I like to use a specific brush when dry brushing, it’s easy to make using one of your old brushes that have started to fray. Instead of tossing it, cut 2/3’s of the brush tip off, leaving just a short flat brush where the tip would be. Do not wet this brush before dipping it into the paint if that is something you like to do with the regular brushes. After putting some paint on the dry brush, you will immediately try to rub the paint off the brush onto some newspaper. Be sure to rub the brush back and forth over the same area to create what looks like a rash of paint, this helps distribute the paint over more of the brush while drying out the paint that is left on the brush. Once your paint rash isn’t getting any bigger/darker, lightly brush the Decipticon symbol and you should see tiny flecks of red paint transfer over without having any wet paint drip into the groves and crevices. This should take several coats to achieve the level of coverage you want. Less is more here, and it’s easier to add another coat than it is to start over again because you put too much on.



13. Next I’ll dry brush the canopy, this is where I divert from my paint guide toy. I don’t have any ideas on how to recreate the translucent grey plastic look, so instead I took inspiration from some of the cartoon and comic art I saw where the canopy is yellow, or yellowish-gold. Some of the other toys also featured a yellow/gold tinted clear plastic too. So the yellow/gold look for the canopy seems pretty consistent across many mediums. You can choose to interpret this as straight up yellow, straight gold, or a mix of both, which is why you could choose to just leave this area gold in step 2 and never apply any paint on it. I’ve decided to try and attempt a mix of gold and yellow, the plan is to dry brush on a layer of both colors see how it looks. I put the gold layer on first, then the yellow over that.





14. Now you we are ready for the large application of blue paint, this I’ll do in two steps. First step should be using the small detail brush to carefully paint all the edges where the blue sections meet up with any red, white, grey, black or gold/yellow paint. Also take care of any small, or difficult to reach sections of the figure now.





15. With the edges of the blue sections taken care of, you can switch to the large brush and start covering all the large sections in paint. Stay away from the edges with this large brush. This will require at least 2 coats of paint. Remember to turn the arms and get blue paint where it belongs around the arm joints if you have been doing this step the whole way through.



16. With all the different paint colors in the proper places, now you can do some touch-up work. When painting you no doubt had some paint bleed over into an area you didn’t want it in, and some paint rubbed off from handling it. Now is when you correct those errors using the smallest detail brush you have. The paint lines do not have to be perfect when you are done with this step, just try to clean up some of the biggest mistakes.



17. Final step, I don’t often use sealer on my mini’s and I haven’t really had any problems with the paint chipping or flaking off later, but I’m going to use some here. Since it’s a larger toy, without a base and one that invites a lot of picking up and moving of parts, it seems more likely to suffer some paint loss with use so hopefully the sealer prevents that. I just cover the whole mini with some sealer using a large brush. Since I don’t use sealer very often there may be some better techniques for this step that I am not aware of, but the only thing I can say is make sure you let the paint completely dry before doing this step. You’ll be using a large brush, and spreading the sealer across paint lines, and you don’t want to accidentally move some still wet paint around on the final step. *optional* Make sure to turn the arms and waist to apply sealer there as well if you have been doing so for the application of paint.

[Yodaking]

To recap, my goal is to have the 3 Seekers be an 800 point block. That might prove to be a bit tricky as Starscream would be playing without anyone to usurp, but hopefully the positives and negatives of that power are balanced enough that he can play without one. Starscream is On Deck at 300, so that means Thundercracker & Skywarp need to average 250 points.

A few dials we can turn here. Starcreams' life ended up at 7, so we can bump the other 2 Seeker's life to 6 if more staying power is needed. Also I currently have it so Seeker Assault only lets two different Seekers attack, but I originally had it so it could be a double attack for one figure too. That's something we can go back to if they are coming in too weak on offense. Although Starscream tested pretty hot with a full time double attack, which is why I pulled back here.

As I was putting this thread together, I started thinking that maybe the Sonic Boom power could be once per game. It's generally a thing he does at the start of the battle, rather than again and again. Could make it a little stronger to basically give you one round vs. no OM's.

[Yodaking]

Card Art:

Spoiler Alert!

Figure Background: He likes to be in the air and has the Aerial Advantage ability on his card so he seems like a good fit for a generic sky background.

Figure Pics:

Spoiler Alert!

[fret_gurglo]

3 thoughts.

Love the figures, both look great.

I'm not sure that Starscream offers much to the Seekers other than being another option for Seeker Assault. It may not be a huge deal, but I would have liked to see something tying Starscream more as the leader of the Seekers. Could tie the Seekers to Starscream by adding to the Seeker Assault power a condition that it only can be activated if Starscream is in play. Just an idea.

How would you feel about doing all the Seekers at 300 and shooting for a 900 point team? In general the Decepticons were more warriors than the Autobots and it would be nice to see the Seekers as better than the average Autobot (right now really only average Autobot is Prowl at 270).

[IAmBatman]

Can't lie, it's so hard for me to work in 1.0 language at this point. I've gone native.

Should be a "space" you pass over, though, not a hex.

Don't know much about this guy. What's his deal?

[fret_gurglo]

Honestly, he is probably the weakest of the seekers as he is not really committed to the Decepticon cause (his wiki bio says "his heart is not really in it". His jets can make a massive sonic boom that disorients his opponents.

From TF Who's Who:

Profile: Soaring swiftly through the clouds, Thundercracker gazes with scorn on the creatures below. He is utterly contemptuous of anything that cannot lift itself off the ground and claim the sky. Occasionally, he expresses that contempt by diving and striking, leaving flame and destruction as he again speeds upward. Yet he is not totally convinced of the cause that he serves. Only the words of his Decepticon companions about the rightness of their cause, the destiny of conquest that is their birthright, convince him to go on. He is persuaded because he wants to be persuaded. Without a sense of purpose, Thundercracker would find his life unbearable.

Abilities: Like his fellow Decepticon jet fighters, Thundercracker can attain speeds of up to 1500 mph. He has the additional ability to produce controlled sonic booms of deafening magnitude that can be heard within a 200-mile radius. He can launch a drone rocket with a range of 500 miles that behaves similarly to a cruise missile and has the concussive force of 3000 lbs. of TNT. He has a shoulder-mounted automatic incendiary gun that shoots at 100 rounds per minute heat-resistant ceramic bullets containing a highly explosive flammable material that ignites on impact.

Weaknesses: Lingering doubts in Thundercracker's subconscious sometimes surface and impede his effectiveness, particularly when innocent human lives are endangered. Usually his fear of Decepticon Leader Megatron compels him to overlook these doubts.

[IAmBatman]

Gotcha. Did y'all want to rep the lingering doubts at all? Or is Starscream being a bit finicky enough difficulty to overcome when running them as an army?

[Yodaking]

For me just being able to draft him into a non-Decepticon army would cover his changing heart. Which would suggest I return to the double attack working when alone so he can join the Autobots or GI Joe on a mission if you wanted to do that.

Not sure about trying to get the up to 900, I had to keep giving Starscream live to get him up to 300. I also don't think they should all be the same price, Starscream should have some kind of bump as their leader. The Decipticons were certainly more aggressively violent than the Autobots, that's what made them the badguys, but the Autobots had their share of fighters too. Prowl was a cop on Cybertron before the war broke out, Starscream was a scientist.

[Yodaking]

I thought it would be nice to have a 800 point team for testing use, or add the 800 points to the current 1000 for a 1800 point game. But I suppose we could get the three of them up to like 860, then add Laserbeak in for a 1000 point team of Decipticon fliers. That would put the two other Seekers in the 280 range, with their leader Starscream at 300.

[Ericth74]

His Hearts Not ReallyIn It
If Thundercracker is your last figure on the board, remove him from the game.