Modeling the Nicassar Rig and Dhows represents an interesting challenge. When used as a Caravan, the entire thing acts as one (presumably small-based) ship. When used as a Rig and Dhows, its five models that move and shoot independently. According to the rules, when used in campaign play, you can buy a Rig and four Dhows and then decide at the beginning of each game whether you want to field them together (if your opponent has several large targets) or separately (if your opponent presents numerous small targets).
So, how do you model that?
I have two ideas:
1) Make one version of the Rig that shows four Dhows docked with it and another version of the Rig and Dhows, seperated. The problem here is representing the five models consistently. This option is more attractive if I find some other bit I can slightly alter - or even just paint! - to be a Rig and Dhows, rather than totally scratch-building it.
2) Model the Rig and Dhows separately and jigger up a multi-stemmed base.
Right now, I'm leaning towards 1, but that's because I'm leaning towards painting up a gun drone chasis and calling it a Rig and painting up some Crisis Suit shield generators and calling them Dhows. However, before I do that, I need to figure out how big the Rig and Dhows should be...
Which brings me to my question - any thoughts on how large the models for Rig and Dhows ought to be? Would a gun drone body work for the Rig and shield generators for the Dhows, or would those be too small/big?