Pablol - Imperial Guard - Month 5 - Wild card

I started painting two Leman Russes, but only managed to finish one in time. I was close to finishing both, but ran out of time. 

The second edition Imperial Guard codex has two Leman Russ variants:

The Leman Russ Battle Tank has standard stock equipment with no options. I was missing a few parts on this model so I made molds from blue stuff and cast replacements from milliput. I magnetized the battlecannon and the heavy bolter sponsons, because future editions have weapon options. I added some small plasticard details to the Heavy bolters, because they looked a bit bare.

The Leman Russ Demolisher has a demolisher cannon and a few side sponson options. In case I want to make another Leman Russ Demolisher I made milliput copies of the weapons. The demolisher cannon is attached to the turret, but the side sponson weapons and the Lascannon are magnetized. I had to cut the Lascannon from another Leman Russ hull, because this tank came with a Heavy flamer.

Both tanks needed quite alot of seam filling and a bit of damage repair. Undercoating the tanks also helped to see what details still needed to be fixed.

I did'nt have time to put up my studio so this month will have to do with smartphone photos.

I'm quite happy how the tank came out, but I noticed that the Vallejo colour in the new clear bottle is a bit different toned from the old colour I've used with the two previous tanks.

Leman Russ Battle Tank 205pts

Hope everyone managed through this month! Good luck for the last month!

On my last month to do list I have:

- A bunch of characters and my command HQ

- One lasgun servitor to complete the 5 model unit

- Three guardsmen to complete the heavy weapon squad

- The second Leman Russ to finish

- A second Chimera

Mustafa’s month IV: Rank and file #3, tank time!

 As cool as jump pack marines are, they are somewhat lacking in the firepower department.

Figured it was time to give them something with a bit more “oomph” to it!

I printed this bad boy a while ago but never really had the opportunity to put him on an army. The last two marine armies I did were not particularly speedy, so this he didn’t really fit in with them, but hell be perfect for my Blood Angel Assault Army!

In OPR games I’ll probably run him as one of the new anti gravity tanks from GW as he’s far too large to be a regular landspeeder. In games or 2nd edition I’ll probably run him as a command Predator.

Anyway, here’s the whole army so far. Cheers for looking!

Chris P's Rank and File Month 2 - The Land Raider

 Chaos Land Raider - 220pts

 

Just as I hoped, the Horus Heresy Land Raider harks back to the 80s/90s original, whilst being pleasingly chunky and detailed. I added spikes, gun muzzles and symbols from the Chaos vehicle sprue, which fitted pretty much perfectly, as did the giant skulls from a Fantasy Battle terrain set. I used a little texture paint to muddy up the tracks, and I like the contrast with the bright details. It's a little different from the datasheet (I could only conveniently fit one heavy bolter), but I'm very happy with the result.

Pablol - Imperial Guard - Month 2 - Rank & File

February was dedicated to refurbishing an old Hellhound. I was planning on also painting some infantry, but I was quite occupied with a big work project most of this month. The tank had some original metal bits, some 3d printed reproduction bits and some bits just missing. The hull had also taken a fair deal of damage. Removing some accessories from the tank also left some marks.

I decided to recast all the small turret bits from milliput so that it would look uniform.

I filled most of the surface damages with milliput and sanded the surfaces with files, sand paper and scalpels.

Some rivets were missing so I made new ones from plasticard.

The turret got new old hatches instead of the original targeting cupola, because I didn't have one and I wanted to add some accessories to the turret. The targeting cupola looks like its a solid lid which would prevent any of the crew members actually getting to the accessories I fitted on the turret.

I had a second round of sanding after the white undercoat.

I tried to paint the Hellhound more or less the same as the Chimera from January.

Hellhound 165pts

Sadly I didn't get any infantry painted this month, but I did work on something else. I wanted to have a photo backdrop so I searched for some inspiration from 2nd edition 40k books and decided to make a neo gothic industrial wall. The main structures are mostly Kapa board and a few different thicknesses of card. I was tempted to add much more detail to these, but I tried to stay true to the 2nd edition esthetic.

I sculpted a bunker style window from which I made plaster casts.

The door is a plaster cast of some 40k terrain I made about a year ago.

Everything just about fit in the group shot. The base is 16" x 16" and it will also double up as a Necropolis28 board.

A lot of photos, but not so much text. Next month I will have to get some infantry painted and my March tank will most likely be a Leman Russ. I hope everyone else had a productive February!

Pablol - Imperial Guard - Month 1 - Rank & File

I started off pretty strong with a Chimera almost painted on the 10th of January. That's all I had originally planned for this month. Then about a week ago I thought I could paint a whole infantry unit that I hadn't even finished putting together. A lot of faffing about, building flagpoles, making molds to convert some models and suddenly there was only a few days left of the month.

Very last minute, but I made it.

Larger size photo 

Imperial Guard Squad 100pts

Sergeant: Power sword, Plasma pistol 10pts

Heavy weapon team: Heavy Bolter 10pts

Special weapon: Grenade launcher 10pts

Chimera 140pts

Total: 270pts

I only later on realized that my Chimera is a not an MK1 model, so I added some Hellhound armour plates on the turret for compensation. I also made a flagpole and flag similar to the ones in the 2nd edition codex. While I was rushing to get everything finished I totally forgot the Chimera Storm bolter and couldn't manage to finish it in time because I hadn't made a pintle mount for it. It'll be mounted by next month. Tank markings will also be added.

I didn't have quite enough Cawdor gangers so theres a few Catachans and a Bretonnian archer to fill the unit of 10. The heavy weapon also changed from my original plan.

For my tribute I painted an Aspiring Chaos Champion in Terminator armour.

Side view 

It is in the post on it's way to Slaaneshchild. Slaanesh models didn't get a lot of attention in the 2nd edition codex, but I think these Daemonette bits go pretty well together with the terminator armour. I hope it has a similar mid 90's vibe as my Imperial Guard models. I was close to putting this on a 40mm base, but I'm glad I sticked to the original 25mm.

Next month I will paint another tank and hopefully also another unit. I hope to have atleast one tank painted per month.

Good luck for next month!

Mustafa’s Beakies: Wrap Up. Why paint one army when you can paint two?

 Should’ve done this a few day ago, but better late than never I say!

It’s nice to have a finished RT looking space marine army, especially one that includes some tanks.

I had quite a lot of fun painting these. The sculpts are lovely BigMrTong ones (aside from the HQ and squad leaders), and were an absolute joy to paint. They lent themselves very well to drybrushing and washes as they have lots of interesting lines and details compared to the old RTB01 lads.

So, as the title suggests, I actually painted two armies at the same time. The second one is a small 1st company Ultramrine force. The squads are all three-man ones as I’ll be using the army for One Page Rules. I was tempted to do them in the same colour scheme, but I wanted to avoid boredom.

Anyway, here are some pics :)

What’s next for the Emperor’s finest? Well, I reckon they need some fast support so it’ll be jump packs and speeders next year!

Mustafa’s Beakiees: Month V, rank and file

 I had a bit of a conundrum this month and I printed a couple of vindicators thinking they were in the 2nd Ed codex only to find that they didn’t rear their chunky heads until 3rd Ed!!

Cursing my stupidity I pulled at what little hair I have left stressing over a solution, only to find that some bright spark on the interwebz had already come up with an answer for all my woes!

http://projectanvil.blogspot.com/2017/03/get-started.html

These lads (and lasses possibly, I didn’t check) have updated and collated all the datafax cards as well as coming up with new ones to cover some of the more recent vehicles.

I printed off one of those newfangled laser vindicators too, but for the sake of this challenge it’ll count as a regular vindicator for games of 2nd Ed. I may try to work out the points for it, but that’s a challenge for another day.

So that’s two vindicators at 185 points each for a grand total of 370 points.

Cheers :)

Mustafa’s Beakies: Month II, rank and file.

I couldn’t let my lads go into battle without some backup, so here’s  a predator to keep them company :)

210 points for a twin linked turret lascannons, and lascannon sponsons. 

This was a print of an Epic scale tank, but I loved how chunky it is so went with this rather than an actual 28mm one.

It’s been done in my usual messy style as I want them to look like they are right in the thick of it.

JUNE: Tom's Space Orks - Wildcard (176points)

June - Wildcard month!

Absolutely steamed through this month, and then completely ran out of puff in the last week. Having used all my 'safety net' models (except a few of the Snotling lads below), I knuckled down and painted hard, and now I don't want to paint another orky thing for a while 😅

Anyways...

Lil' snotling runty assistants:

I'm not one really for specifically going out and collecting, say a complete range of minis from the get go. However, nearing the end of the challenge, I had a look through the catalogues and saw that my gretchin range was nearly complete. I put a call out on one of those facebook trading pages, and lo, these snotling guys came up... How could I say no! (I am still rooting around for a few, but they are nigh on impossible to find).

Andrea's Space Wolves - It's tank time! - (201 points)

Rank & File month 2 

Hi everybody,

this month it was an easy business... about painting! February has always been a difficult month because of family affairs, job, ski holiday, locust invasions, etc. So this time I took countermeasures and instead of running for finishing my monthly quota, a nice tank was the selected option!

Therefore, here is the Predator Annihilator in full Space Wolf style (and it seems I do not even messed up company badges!): the basic tank 120 pts + lascannon sponsons 90 pts.

 

The final result was quite satisfying, also considering that I was pessimistic about the outcome of a three-day bath-&-rubbing for decoloring! Honestly, if you look very close at the model, there are still evident signs of the process but this eventually add to the charm of a long-used and repaired war engine. Moreover,  it was also necessary the restoration of a couple of exhaust pipes (as far as I remember those were the first bits of the model to snap off, usually shortly after the painting and before the first battle!). Another great success: decals attached without even the smaller problem! In conclusion, I really had fun in doing it!

Now, hoping to have next months free enough to dedicate to Grey Hunter, the remaining Blood Claws and terminators, to not forget the boss, I will proceed in the challenge (well... there is always a Rhino in waiting, just in case... ;-))

Ciao, A

Mustafa’s Engineers Guild Expeditionary Force (430 points).

Rank & File #3 

I wanted my squats to have a bit of heavy support. Not too heavy as they are a mobile force, but running around on bikes without a bit of armour is just asking for trouble!

I wanted to go for something a bit different so I used a World War Toons tank. It’s actually the body of one  with the turret of another with some Imperial Guard tank bits stuck on. In game terms I’ll probably count it as a Rhino that some smart squat mechanic decided to bolt a multi melta. That would work out the to 430 point (370 for a Rhino, 60 for a Multi Melta).