Heresy Era Thousand Sons - King Russ Vanquishers complete!

Snuck in a little brush time over the weekend and got some unit markings and the weathering onto the trio of King Russ Vanquishers for the Spireguard!

I realized once I laid 'em all out that I don't really have a photo area large enough for them all at once! Sneaky servitor in the back checking out the unsanctioned variant for possible techno-heresy, perhaps?

 

The addition of the bone-colored side doors really helped break up the expanse of red on the tanks, and provided a nice place to add in the regimental numbers and unit identifier. I stuck with the quasi-runic lettering, as it helps tie them out to the rest of the army - Once again, they don't really mean anything specific, I just went with some pleasing looking shapes.

 

The weathering still is a bit of a challenge for me - Constantly trying to refine the technique, understanding the appropriate colors to use and amount to apply. For the Thousand Sons vehicles I'm going with a scorched brown sponged on in various areas, followed by a further sponging of boltgun metal. These areas were given a little black wash and finally the extreme edges were hit with silver. I find that it's best to start out pretty reserved, it's always easier to add more later than it is to clean things up due to overzealous application!

 

The command tank has the reversed colors on the side panels which seemed to work out pretty well. Overall I'm quite pleased with how the squadron turned out!

"Unit's done, smoke if you got 'em!" ...Somewhat ironic as I quit smoking right around the time I started building this unit. So far so good!

Next up on the painting deck is a mess of Ad-mech who have been blurting angry binary at me for quite some time. On the upside it'll be a nice change from painting all the red and white and oh wait... Heh.

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - King Russ tanks nearly complete!

In between doing chores over the weekend I went back and made the side doors on the two vanilla tanks bone, which I think works pretty well. Also got all the gold on, including (with no hint of exaggeration) over 1500 rivets. Counted when I was doing the last one, 518 rivets per tank! Oof.

Now to decide what I want to do for unit markings. Providentially, the Prosperine Spireguard regiment present at the defense of Tizca were the 15th Prosperine Assault Infantry, so the "XV" also works for them (mirroring the 15th Legion markings I've done so far on the Thousand Sons). Once that's in place I can then go in and start the weathering process - I plan to do all of the Ksons and Spireguard tanks at the same time (which appeals to my batch-painterly predisposition), so that it has some consistency across the army. In the home stretch now!

In the background you can just make out the primed model I'm going to use to represent Lemuel Gaumon, one of the remembrancers mentioned in A Thousand Sons. I'm also planning on working up models for Kallista Eris, Camille Shivani and Mahavastu Kallimakus, to be used as wound markers or status markers for the army. Still sourcing interesting-looking models to use for the latter however...

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - King Russ tanks painting continues...

Got a little brush time in today - got the bone color laid in. Decided to give the command tank a reversed side panel scheme - Thinking I might do the two 'regular' tanks side doors in bone, now that I'm looking at 'em.

Got the tank commander more or less complete, pretty happy with how he turned out.

Moving right along now! Have a free day tomorrow, hoping to get them finished up this weekend!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - King Russ scale shots

Pressed on with the tanks a bit more yesterday - got up early in the morning and got the reds all finished, which involved a thorough wash that I'd left to dry while I was at work. When I got home it was cool enough in the hobby loft to get the boltgun metal sections painted and washed as well:

I also dragged out some of the Mordian 7th's tanks to take some scale shots. It's quite a bit bigger than a Leman Russ:

  

 

...But significantly smaller than a Macharius:

  

 

While it's not as long as a Malcador, it's a bit wider and taller. That one actually surprised me when I laid them out next to each other. In my mind the Malcador was quite a bit bigger than the King Russ.

  

 

So far, so good! The heavy lifting phase is out of the way, now it's time to start the detailing. ...And the rivets.

Oh god, the rivets...

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - King Russ painting begins!

Got the tanks all kitted out last night, and since It was a beautiful day out while I was home over lunch yesterday I got the Vanquishers primed. After work I got the very first red basecoat on as well! ...There is also now red basecoat all over my hands, the desk and what has suddenly become exclusively a painting shirt (covered in liiiiiitle red spots). Whoops!

Easy peasy, Vallejo Dark Flesh scrumbled on with a gnarly old tank brush. Next up will be the red gore/blood red highlighting and wash stages, which I'm sure are also going to prove to be very, very messy procedures!

I wanted to go with a somewhat whimsical tank commander for such a squadron of solid, destructive machinery, so I used some arms and head from the Victoria Miniatures heavy weapons team set. Going to be interesting to paint, that zippo is TINY!

The squadron weighs in at 552 points using the current Astra Militarum ruleset (or 622 if I'm feeling dirty and field them as Pask and an HQ squadron). To justify this heavy variant of the vehicle I'm calling it 'mandatory' that they take Extra Armour (of course) and pay the points for the Dozer Blade upgrade (re-roll difficult terrain) to represent their sheer weight smashing through the battlefield rubble. Even leaving off the side sponsons, once I add on the hull Lascannon and the hunter killer missile (because I love 'em), the 'base' King Russ is 200 points (a bit more for the commander's Augur array and some searchlights). Seems about right, I think. I need to snap a scale shot, let's just say I won't be accused of modeling for advantage when it comes to declaring cover saves!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Prospero Spireguard King Russ Vanquishers Assembly begins!

After a good couple hours with a Dremel sanding down all the casting gates and resin blocks, creating drifting piles of resin dust and undoubtedly reducing my life expectancy by a good few months (a respirator is a must for this sort of work), it was finally time to set to work building them! These tanks have always been a bit of a bear to assemble, as is generally the case with garage-quality kits, but with the purchase of an electric kettle a while back this time around it was (reasonably) simple to get everything straightened and bent into shape!

The front track guards ended up a little wonky on two of them, but all in all I'm reasonably happy with 'em. Now it's just a matter of rooting through the Closet of Doom for all the appropriate detail bits, hatches and whatnot to finish them off! In game they will be treated as Leman Russ Vanquishers, with extra armour (natch) and the Massive custom rule - due to their size they re-roll failed difficult terrain checks (essentially paying the points for a dozer blade, though they don't have one modeled). I'm planning on building a tank commander to match the rest of the Spireguard aesthetic for one of them - I'm really looking forward to getting some paint on 'em soon!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Terminator Squad Phosis painted

Pressed on with the Terminators this weekend and managed to get them finished off!

Looks like it makes the most sense to run the weapons as power axes, it'll make them unwieldy but the 18 (27 on the charge) S5 AP2 attacks is nice. Not bad at 305 points for the 9 of 'em, too! I am thinking that I'll add a few grass tufts to the bases, they need just a liiiiitle extra something I think...

Went spelunking in the Closet of Doom for something from the mists of history. The plan for the Prosperine Spireguard side of the army is to include a number of heavy tanks, such as a trio of King Russ pattern Vanquishers. Time to break out the Dremel!

TOEMP #9 - Heavy Metal, part 4

I managed to get the King Russ tanks painted up, but the weather is so cold I'm unable to seal them and add the water slide transfers:

Vanquisher and Battlecannon turrets - The Vanquisher is the must-have variant for me. It definitely makes my marine opponents sweat!

Punisher cannon and Heavy Bolter sponsons for maximum horde-killing!

Executioner and Plasma Sponsons - All of the turrets are swappable, and along with the alternate sponson weapons, I will be able to arm the tank in all sorts of combinations. The one thing I really like about the new Leman Russ kit is the swappable weapons. Definitely nice for flexibility!

I've been gathering bits to build an Ordinatus Minoris for the Adeptus Mechanicus, and the newest addition is a set of interesting-looking tracks. I'm still working on how I want it to look, the intent is to make a gantry section in the back using some Necromunda bulkheads, but I'm unsure how I want to approach the front section. Many sketches have been made and rejected, though I'm leaning towards using a Chimera kit and a mess of plasticard to extend and bulk out the command section. It's not going to be super-massive like the huge Ordinatus Majoris from the old epic game, but I do want to make it an homage to its style:

This will definitely be a long-term project. I don't want to rush into it, and I'm still gathering appropriate bits. I'm going to focus on the Guard for a while though, there's a lot of little projects left for the Mordian 7th that I need to polish off before I hare off on some monstrosity!

TOEMP #9 - Heavy Metal, part 3

I hope everyone has been having an enjoyable holiday so far! The weeks leading up to the new year are always packed full so squeezing in some brush time is tough. On the up side, I have a few days off coming up and I hope to be able to finish off the King Russ tanks.

In the home stretch on the tanks, though - I started the detailing process, and laid down the Dark Flesh undercoat for the red sections.

 

I decided on blocking in the red side panels on one of the tanks to see how it looked, and I think I like how it's coming along. I'm going to go back and make the cogs along the upper track guard red, but other than I think I'll leave the rest of the detail in grey and pick out the winged skull in gold.

 I received a package in the mail on Wednesday, which contained a few models from eBay - more bits for the Adeptus Mechanicus army. I've seen some interesting conversions done with the Imex "Robogear" models, and poked around to see what was available. This 'Spider' model caught my eye, and I thought I might be able to use it to make a Myrmidon Assault Engine - described in the codex as being like a somewhat smaller version of the Defiler. Multi-legged chassis, a pair of dreadnought close combat weapons and a twin-linked autocannon, but lacking the Battle Cannon and having slightly weaker armor. I was really pleased with the contents of kit, for a 'snap-fit' model, it's rather well detailed and it appears it will work out nicely!

TOEMP #9 - Heavy Metal, part 2

Well, I managed some forward motion on the King Russ tanks over the last few days, and got the main hulls and tracks painted. One of the nice things about painting tanks to me is that it really feels like you're getting a lot done. While it may take an hour to lay the base colors on, once it's done it certainly looks like I've accomplished a lot.

I start with a Shadow Grey basecoat followed by a drybrush of Fortress Grey, which is quick and easy, and I find it to be a good neutral color against which almost any other color I may choose to use stands out nicely.

 

On the tracks my standard scheme is a heavily drybrushed basecoat of Dark Flesh followed by a light drybrush of Snakebite Leather. I find that doing so ties the tanks in thematically with the infantry bases, which I rim in Dark Flesh. Once I get them all detailed out I'll go back and add a little road grime and mud-spatter along the bottom edges of the hull using the same earth tones.

 

Once I'm done with those stages, I go back over the tanks and re-black anything that's going to be painted in other colors, these shots are all taken after that step, but suffice it to say that following the drubrushing of the hulls, not only are the weapons, exhausts and what-have-you fairly spattered, but my hands (and occasionally forearms) are too. It's not the most tidy of painting methods!

 

 Painting up all of these at the smae time ensures that I'll be able to mix and match without there being egregious color variations between turret and hull. Although I use the same colors on all my tanks, when you set one that I painted six months ago next to one I painted three months ago, there's a noticable variation between them. One I may have drybrushed a bit heavier, or (and I've noticed this from time to time) one pot of Shadow Grey was a little bit darker or lighter than the next, and the tank is just not quite the same shade. It's not really a big deal, but it is noticable.

The 'heavy lifting' on the tanks is now complete, so all I have to do now is go over them and pick out all the detail work and add the heraldry. My intent is to use these interchangeably between the Mordian 7th and the Adeptus Mechanicus armies, so I'm considering painting in the side panels in red, but I'm not entirely sold on that idea just yet...

TOEMP #9 - Heavy Metal, part 1

The next Tale of Even More Painters challenge was issued a couple days back, and the option du jour for me this go-around is a minimum of two Heavy Support choices. My intention is to finish a trio of King Russ tanks that have been sitting around in a cleaned-but-not-assembled stage for the better part of 6 months, so I took advantage of the nice weather on Sunday to finish building the tanks and get them primered. Of course, these pictures of black primered models are somewhat grainy-looking since I had to crank up the mid-tones and contrast to even be able to see any of the details, but I figured I'd document the process from start to finish anyway!

First up is my favorite incarnation of the Leman Russ turret options, the Vanquisher. Several of my usual opponents are marine-playing cheese mongers, and facing off against multiple Land Raiders is a common occurrence. The Vanquisher is always handy in those situations for the massive armor penetration, and is the one tank that is guaranteed to instill a sense of dread in my opponents. This particular tank has no side sponsons, giving me a lower-cost hull option for lower-point value games.

Next up is the "Hold on, I don't have enough dice" variant - the King Russ Punisher, with hull mounted and sponson Heavy Bolters (from the Predator kit). It performs admirably against horde armies, but I find that even though the Punisher Cannon is AP-, it is still surprisingly effective vs. MEQ armies just due to the sheer number of saves the opponent is called upon to make. I built this one as an answer to a friend's Baal Predator, adding the Heavy Stubber on a pintle mount just for fun. 32 dice dropping on the table at once is always a fun sound...

Next is the most modular of the three hulls, currently shown armed with the "vanilla" Leman Russ turret. As a test the side sponsons on this tank were taken from the new Leman Russ Demolisher kit (which is also where the Punisher cannon came from). I really like the fact that the model designers gave us the option to do swappable weapon options, and the more I look at it, the more I like the look with the enclosed sponsons (though I don't dislike Predator-style sponsons either). Part of my intention for these three tanks is for them to be usable in the Mordian 7th and the Adeptus Mechanicus armies that I'm working on, so the experimental nature of the tanks load outs can be handwaved away as "Field Expediency Trials"...

 

Lastly, as I had a spare turret left over from an earlier project, I decided to utilize some of the leftover turret bits from the Demolisher kit and make an alternate Executioner turret for the King Russ variants. My intent is to use this one in concert with the insertable Plasma Cannon sponson options for maximum Plasma goodness.

I'm planning on painting all three of these tanks concurrently so that the paint tint and highlights match up exactly and the turrets and hulls can be swapped out interchangeably. Further updates to follow as I get some brush time logged!

TOEMP #4 Complete!

I managed to finish up the Valkyrie for the Tale of Even More Painters challenge #4 -Since most aerial assets used by the Imperial Guard are generally 'on loan' from the Imperial Navy, I decided to go with the sandstone color scheme I used on the Thunderbolt.

I went with a grey color scheme on the underside similar to the Thunderbolt as well. I plan to add some waterslide aquilas and various decorations, but I couldn't find the Micro-sol and I need to wait until I get more before I start that process.

I have an Apocalypse game coming up in a couple weeks, so I spent some time building several units that I need to make the points requirement, first up is another flyer - a Vulture gunship armed with twin punisher cannons. The model was just too cool to pass up!

Next up is a squad of Stormtroopers - made from a mix of Scouts (half 'vanilla' scouts and the other half are from the Land Speeder Storm kit), Catachan lasrifles and FW Cadian upgrade bits. I'm not 100% happy with the way the Hellguns turned out though, I'll likely sell these guys off once I get them painted and do a rebuild using the shotguns from the Scout sprues as a basis for the weapon, adding the scopes, cabling and lasgun muzzles. These turned out a bit more like Hellcarbines, I think.

Last up, and what will likely take the most work to finish in time for the game - the six remaining King Russ variant tanks. I decided to go with one squadron of 3 Vanquishers (led my a Knight Commander Pask proxy), and one other squadron including a 'vanilla' Leman Russ, a Punisher, and an Eradicator. I'm still figuring out how/whether I will add side sponsons to the tanks - they're designed to utilize the Predator sponsons, and I'm trying to figure out how to best use those in conjunction with the various weapon options included in the new Leman Russ Demolisher kit.

When all is said and done the addition of these models will bump the army up to just shy of 7,000 points. I think that should probably be enough Guard for most purposes!