Mordian 7th Regiment - Company Command Squad Painted. Also, RT-era Space Ninjas!

After painting a couple dozen Praetorians for the Ad-Mech army, I needed a break from the unrelenting red-and-white. That being the case I pulled down the partially-painted command squad for the Mordian 7th reboot and polished them off.

Not a lot remained to be done on the unit - just the final detailing, unit markings and the banner bearer's banner. Unfortunately my fine-point sharpies all appear to be dried up so I haven't been able to fill in the scrollwork on the banner as yet, but for all intents and purposes the unit is table ready!

While I was rooting around in the Closet of Doom I came across a box of old, ooooold models - one of which was this RT-era assassin. I think he'll be an admirable counts-as Sly Marbo for the 7th, as he has a ripper-pistol-looking gun, a poisoned sword on his back, and a meltabomb to represent his demo charge. A similar paint scheme in dark grey, red and gold and he ties in well with the rest of the army!

Anathema Assault Tank, Part 4 - Painted!

A bit more forward progress on the Anathema recently. Nothing too exciting, just finished up the red on the hull and started picking out some of the details.

I'm still trying to decide what other details I can add - the model doesn't really have a lot of large open spaces for unit markings.I think that somewhere on the model I want to add some white cog patterns to really tie it in to the Adeptus Mechanicus theme.

 

It really ends up looking fairly imposing, it is quite a large model in comparison to the 'standard' tanks. All in all it will be a suitable stand in for the Malcador Defender that it will be proxying.

 

All-in-all, I'd say that I'm 90% pleased with it as-is, but I'm still scratching my head as to what else it needs. Any suggestions, folks?

Anathema Assault Tank, Part 3 - Initial basecoats

As I'd mentioned in my last post, I decided to paint the Anathema and the Myrmidon simultaneously. I'm going with the basic metal and red scheme on both of vehicles, and as such started off with a heavy drybrush of Boltgun Metal followed by a Badab Black wash. Eventually I'll hit some of the higher edges with another pass of Boltgun Metal and a light pass of Chainmail, although that hasn't happened as yet.

I decided to trim down the roller pins to recover the caps which I then glued in place on the wheels. Still a little disappointed in that aspect of the kit, but overall I think it turned out fairly well. It ends up looking suitably heavy yet slightly ramshackle.

There's definitely more red armor plate space on the Anathema than there is on the Myrmidon. After I'd gotten the red undercoat on this tank, I reconsidered how spare the red was on the walker. This is just the Dark Flesh step - the models will both get a coat of Red Gore followed by highlights of Blood Red and Blazing Orange on the extreme edges. Once that's done I'll be going back through and adding the white cog-wheel edging on certain areas.

All in all I think it's going to be a fun project to finish up - it's just such an absurd vehicle!

Anathema Assault Tank, Part 2 - Build in progress

In what is the longest follow-up to an earlier post for this blog (so far), I finally sat down and built the Anathema Assault Tank that I purchased last January. I was tired of painting and felt I needed to build something - rather than more Dark Eldar, I took my life into my own hands and rummaged around in the Closet of Doom (ominous horns)
.

The Anathema Assault Tank is a relatively obscure Superheavy Tank known for its unorthodox 'tricycle' design. It is notoriously prone to "throwing a shoe' as the tank's Cataphracti crew humorously dub the problem - the bolts holding the traction plates in place tend to shear at speed, pitching the 100kg metal plates a surprising distance. There is an unsanctioned betting ring among the operators of the Anathema Assault Tanks regarding successfully hitting an enemy with the flying plates.

...And that's how I'm going to justify the fact that one of the treads is seriously out of true, now that I've looked at the picture. I attempted to remove it to no avail, fearing that I'd end up shattering the pieces. In game terms the Anathema will be used as a proxy Malcador Defender. It technically has the same weapons loadout, although their distribution is slightly different.

The kit was quite seriously out-of-true and even getting it to this state of build was a serious challenge. The resin is very brittle, and there were several occasions where I broke pieces attempting to trim or sand them. Most of these errors are hidden, but a perfect example are the holes in the tread plates designed to accept resin-cast axles provided with the kit. In an attempt to clear the flash from the holes, I broke two of them before deciding another tack was called for. Instead I'm going to use small bb's or beads to represent the lugs.

There's still a bit of gap-filling and minor detailing to do of course, but all in all it's brutish and slightly ridiculous, which perfectly encapsulates the Adeptus Mechanicus to me!

Anathema Assault Tank - Part 1

...Aaaaand the hobby fund falls into the double digits. Just yesterday I was thinking to myself "Gosh, I pretty much have everything I need for all the armies I have. Yup, gonna be able to just paint a mess of stuff and rebuild the hobby fund for a while". Then I made a pass through my favorite sellers on ye olde ebaye and ran across this:

Curses!

Dubbed the Anathema Assault Tank and made by a fellow I've done business with in the past, I'd missed out on the last one and was pleased to get a second chance at picking one up this time around. My sinister plan is to utilize it as a proxy Malcador for my burgeoning Adeptus Mechanicus army. The weapon loadout is rather close, though this sports a twin-linked Heavy Bolter that the Malcador lacks but forgoes a rearward-facing bolter. All in all I doubt my opponents would kick up much fuss about using it as a proxy.

It definitely looks different enough from the traditional Imperial Guard designs that I feel it would look out of place with the Mordian 7th, but it'll fit right in with the Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator Force Chi Xi as a field expediency trials test vehicle. Following this purchase (and one at the end of the week) I have to impose a moratorium on buying new models until such time that I paint and sell off some of the existing stuff. Hopefully I can get in some good brush time next month!

Get your motor runnin'... Part 3

Work progresses on the guard, albeit slowly. Over the last few weekends I've managed to get in a couple games to test out the various tournament list ideas for GenCon, and I think I've got the final list more or less dialed in. The most recent incarnation includes a 7-man unit of Rough Riders, so I finally got around to finishing off the seven I'd gotten assembled so far.

Earlier this week the second batch of bikes arrived from Ramshackle games, so eventually I'll end up with two 10-man squads. There's a fair amount of painting left to do for the tournament list however, and I really need to buckle down and crank them out over the next couple weeks. GenCon will be here before I know it!

Charon Pattern Leman Russ, Part 2

Following the father's day festivities, I managed to finish off the alternate Leman Russ this afternoon:

I also took a quick shot of the Charon alongside a standard Leman Russ. It's a little shorter in height but the overall hull is a bit more bulky than the regular version.

Finally I pulled out all the proxy/custom tanks and did a group shot. I'm planning on doing up another pair of the Griffons as well as at least another two of the Wyvern pattern Chimeras.

Overall, another fun little project!

Charon Pattern Leman Russ, Part 1

I'm working on a tournament list for GenCon, and it came to my attention that the tourney rules state any conversions must be made primarily from GW parts. As such, my King Russ pattern tanks are disallowed, being resincast models. While I do have a single standard Leman Russ, I thought it would be fun to make up an alternate version to better match the theme of the Wyvern-pattern Chimeras, the Griffon and other proxy/counts-as vehicles I've made. I ran across a neat combination of Chimera and Leman Russ kits a while back, and thought I'd try my hand at something similar. I opened up the Closet Of Doom and pulled out the vehicle bits box to see what I could come up with...

I started off with the undercarriage from the leman russ kit, and added on the snall bulkhead piece that is usually used in making a Basilisk to make an offset similar to the Macharius. I glued on the leman russ top hull, and filled in the bottom gap with a piece of plasticard (not pictured).

For the sides, I built up the standard Chimera left and right track sections (after significant searching through the bits boxes to find the appropriate parts), and used my Dremel to sand off the interior hull guides and the hatch combings on the exterior. I cut down the side armor plates a bit with the intention of using them to butt up against the side sponsons.

Once everything was sanded down, I glued the hull to the track units. The Leman Russ hull sits a little higher than the track units in the middle, but I intended to cover the gap with some track guards.

I assembled the tracks and track guards, which managed to cover the gap nicely. I also replaced the standard hull-mounted lascannon with one from the guard heavy weapons teams sprues.

I had a pair of assembled heavy bolter sponsons left over from an older project, which fit on the sides over the sanded-down hatch covers nicely. In the short term I'm planning on using the turret from the standard Leman Russ I have assembled and painted, though I'm thinking I'll eventually pick up a Ryza pattern turret from Forge World (or eBay if I can find one), as it's a little more streamlined and I think it may better suit the model. All in all it was a bit more work sanding and fitting than the recent Griffon proxy tank, but it ended up looking pretty decent. It stands a little shorter in profile than a standard Russ, but it is also a little wider, so I think it balances out in the end. I settled on calling it the Charon pattern, but I'm not 100% sold on the name. I'll have to dig out the Big Book of Mythological Creatures and see if I can find a better name that hasn't already been used...

Rounds Inbound, Part 2

Took some time this afternoon to do some painting and knocked out the proxy Griffon. While I was at it I also painted up a Destroyer I'd built based on an old beat up Leman Russ chassis. Not my best conversion work by a long shot, but it's servicable I suppose.

I really should have done more with the barrel, I may end up replacing it with something more interesting looking in the future. It's been unusually cloudy for the last week or so, and the models come out looking a little more blue than they truly are - it's supposed to be rather nice tomorrow, hopefully I can get some better-lit shots...

Rounds Inbound, Part 1

I stopped by my FLGS this afternoon and picked up a slightly damaged Whirlwind for about half the usual retail price. The Rhino was badly warped, and will end up being terrain fodder, but the launcher was intact. I had been reading the Adeptus Arbites codex from BoLS, and the Black Maria caught my eye. I thought about making one, but I subsequently thought that it would be more useful to use the bits to make a proxy of some sort instead, as it would be easier to justify as part of my guard army. That being the case I decided to use the launcher to make a vehicle that I will use as a proxy Griffon.

By happy coincidence, the panel that the Whirlwind launcher ordinarily attaches to is exactly the same width as the main hull of the Chimera, once turned sideways. A small strip of plasticard was sufficient to cover the gap left over when slotted into the top of the Chimera, other than that the whole kit went together almost as if it was designed to do so!

On the back side I used a couple pieces from the standard Chimera kit which fit almost perfectly, all I had to do was trim off a couple protrusions. I added a rear hatch and a few bits of stowage here and there to cover up some of the open spaces.

In game, I plan on using the model as a proxy Griffon with the armored crew compartment upgrade. I chose the Griffon as the range, template size and damage were all roughly similar to that of the Whirlwind's Vengeance missile option, though the griffon does hit slightly harder (Strength 6 as opposed to Strength 5). I dry fit both missile pod options, and though technically the Vengeance missiles are the larger of the two missile options, I felt the smaller missiles in their racks looked better when mounted to the Chimera chassis.

A super simple conversion, I'll have to make another pair to fill out the squadron!

Get your motor runnin'... Part 2

Still working on building the proxy rough riders on Hornet motorcycles and I snapped a quick picture after primering the few I've managed to assemble. I decided to change up the hunting lances based on a post by John and Mike over at Santa Cruz Warhammer seeing as I had a number of rokkit bits left over from the Ork sprues.

At the moment I only have six of the ten models built for the first squad, as I ran out of the plastic rod I was using for the lances. The end result will be seven lancers, two meltaguns and the sergeant, and I intend to build a second squad once I have a chance to place an order with Ramshackle Games for another 10.

Lastly I'm planning on using a slightly modified version of one of the single-cast bikes with integral riders to create a proxy Mogul Kamir miniature that is better suited to the history of the Mordian 7th Regiment.The fellow that runs Ramshackle Games threw this miniature in with my order due to a slight delay in shipping, and with the addition of a helmet and removal of some of the more egregious 'evil' bits I think it'll work. I'm working on a suitable bit of fluff to explain his looks and equipment as they relate to the Mogul Kamir rules.

So far so good!