Heresy Update - Blood Drinkers Spartan Assault Tank

Part of the appeal of the Horus Heresy as a 40K milieu is the sheer immense scale of everything. Where 40K has thousand-man Space Marine Chapters, 30K has hundred-thousand-man Space Marine Legions. In 40K we have 10-man tactical squads, in 30K 20 models is de rigeur. And where in 40K the Land Raider is the Daddy, in the Heresy era the Space Marines rolled in this beast - the Spartan Assault Tank.

Sporting twin-quad lascannons, heavy bolters, and a faintly ridiculous troop-carrying capacity of 25 models, the Spartan is the preferred assault transport for the discerning Legion Praetor.

The Spartan is a massive kit, to be sure. Assembly was reasonably straightforward even if the vendor I obtained it from neglected to supply instructions. The only non-kit part I added was the sensor pod mounted above the hull twin heavy bolters - it's from the plastic Land Raider kit. The vehicle commander figure is from the Forgeworld Space Marine vehicle crew set.

The sponson weapons on this machine are just super-cool too. I magnetized them both for easy transport and painting, and because the kit parts were a bit malformed and wouldn't allow articulation without some serious work. With the magnets, the weapons can easily elevate and depress.

The tracks, a source of much pain on Internet fora, were not good, but were not as bad as I'd feared. On one side they were so bad that I had to cut out one link altogether, but this is on the bottom run that can't be seen. The other problem was with the side doors - they just didn't fit and couldn't be modified. I cut new doors out of plasticard.

Decals are from the Forge World "Blood Angels" sheet.

Doors are always a pain point for me, but this vehicle is so cool that it would be a shame to seal it up. I can never seem to make Land Raider-type doors stay shut, but I address this by adding small pin to the top door that fits in a hole drilled in the face of the bottom one.

This is a vehicle that I quite enjoyed painting, and its tabletop presence will be undeniable, even in the context of large Heresy games. At 295 points plus upgrades, it's not cheap, but to me the "looks cool factor" is off the charts.

Heresy Update - Blood Drinkers Chapterhouse "Mark I" Rhinos

Heresy escalation continues! And while we all have a "resin habit", sometimes you can satisfy the Forgeworld crack cravings with some less-expensive drugs (meth?) from an alternative supplier. Step forward, Chapterhouse Studios and their "Mark I Rhino" conversion kit.

40K modellers will be familiar with Chapterhouse, one of the first third-party companies to make resin stuff compatible with Games Workshop kits. They're also famous for their nasty legal dispute with GW over intellectual property issues associated with their business. However, all of that seems to be behind them now, and they've brought out some interesting products, including this kit to convert the current GW Rhino transport into something more evocative of the Heresy era.

 

The kit, which retails for $14, comprises nine resin parts:the four side vents, two sets of side doors, and top hatch shown above, plus front and rear fascia plates, not shown. These replace or augment the parts in the standard GW plastic Rhino kit.

Assembly was very straightforward, without instructions being required. When putting on the side vents, though, you'll note that shaving one of the sides by a millimeter or so improves the fit greatly (see pic below).

 

 The other slightly awkward element of the kit is the resin casting gates connecting the side doors to the sprue (below). You have to be VERY careful in trimming these off, because the kit part is very thin at that area and prone to snapping right off. You can fix this with a bit of plasticard, as I did, but it's something to be aware of.

The crew figures are from Forge World. Front plate fits nicely in place of the standard kit part.

"Blood Drinker" decals are from the Forge World Blood Angels decal sheet.

I fitted the rear door over top of the plastic kit part, after shaving the plastic part flat. Assembling this way allows you to maintain the opening rear door feature.
  

I'm quite pleased with how these turned out, given the cost of the Chapterhouse parts versus that of the Deimos pattern Rhino kit from Forge World, but it really only makes sense if you have access to cheap Rhino kits. At full USD retail, the Chapterhouse Rhino costs $51.25 while the Deimos is 35GBP, at current exchange this is about $54. But for me, since I had two unbuilt Rhinos that I'd picked up cheap, it was a no-brainer. Sometimes meth > crack ;-)

Rise of the God-Machines!

 

As alluded to in Conscript Greg's original post on Ferrum Mori, I'm largely responsible for Titan Escalation. I always loved the old Armorcast Reaver Battle Titan, being that it was so closely based on GW's own Epic-scale titan models. Greg's progress on his Titan spurred me on to get mine completed as well.

Last week Greg brought over old Ferrum Mori for the Rogue Trader game (battle report forthcoming) and asked if I could a bit of a photoshoot with our two Titans together, so here goes...

As Greg noted in his post, his Titan is painted in the livery of the Legio Mortis, a Titan legion that turned traitor alongside Warmaster Horus. However, clearly it's early days yet for Ferrum Mori, since Imperial livery is still clearly in evidence alongside Sons of Horus iconography. No tentacles yet either ;-)

Apocalypse-class missile launcher and shoulder pauldron bear Imperial icons.

Decorated powerfist.

Greg did a nice job on the paintwork. He told me he went for a "cleaner" look as opposed to the dinged-up battle damaged look you'll see on my Legio Metalica titan.

"Horus promised to get us a bigger banner if we joined his team."

The Imperial Knight decal sheet included an awesome "VIN plate" transfer which Greg has used to good effect here.

Here's my Legio Metalica Reaver Battle Titan marching as to war.  I chose Legio Metalica (or "Iron Skulls"), a loyalist legion,  for my Titan since Greg was going traitor with his. I also went in a bit of a different direction from Greg's build, with heavier weathering, combined with the traditional Epic-style banners.

Sponge-chipping on the top carapace combined with spot application of Leadbelcher paint to simulate deeper chips.

The banners were downloaded from Bell of Lost Souls - helpfully made available by another Armorcast Reaver enthusiast. You can see his gorgeous Titan here.

Can't have a huge-ass Titan weapon without a kill banner, can you?

Leg armour displays Imperial livery with traditional tabard. I cut two small rectangles of plasticard and superglued the chain to them, then superglued the plasticard to the Titan. The banner top was wrapped around a spare piece of narrow gauge plastic rod. The banner support rod is suspended from the chains, then two skulls from the bits box were attached, one to each end of the support rod. It was a bit tricky to put this together but I think it looks good.

**OMG - I just realized I used the "reversed" banner!! Will have to address this...Jeez **

I made the banner pole from the same gauge rod as the tabard support, painted it and attached the banner with white glue. The Imperial eagle finial is from the bits box as well.

VIN plate from Imperial Knight decal sheet indicates construction on the Forge World of Metalica.

Here's a better view of the banner with Legio Metalica and Collegia Titanica iconography. The pole is removable.

Kill banner is also suspended from a removable chain, so I can switch it over to the Vulcan Mega-Bolter if necessary.

L-R: Ork Stompa, Leman Russ, Shadowsword, Imperial Knight, Land Raider

Here's a group shot with some of the other heavy hitters in my collection, just to show scale. The Reavers are significantly taller and larger than anything else out there. I really like these Armorcast kits - they are big, sturdy and great looking. Unlike Greg, I magnetized the arms using massive rare-earth magnets. This works well but was a bit of a pain, requiring major surgery to the resin. The Titan arms are very heavy and the resin is super-tough.

I really enjoyed working on the Reaver. It's really an iconic model and a great throwback to an earlier era of 40K... a more innocent time, if you will. Enthusiasts like Armorcast founder Mike Biasi came up with a cool project, pitched it to GW, and lo and behold, got a license to produce their fan resin. Contrast with today where fan resin producers get cease-and-desist orders and lawsuits pitched at them. But even if the fan in me doesn't agree, I understand. GW has Forge World in-house now, and doesn't need fan resin. There is more money to be made by selling a $1,000 Titan model themselves than there is in licensing a third-party to sell one for $400.  

I'm just looking forward to seeing these two god-machines go toe-to-toe in a massive Heresy battle. Now THAT will be impressive!

Magach 3s - 15mm Yom Kippur War

Magach 3s from Battlefront

Over the past couple months Dallas has been doing some really nice work on some 15mm Egyptians to participate in some Yom Kippur War gaming - see here for his really sharp tanks and here for some really nice infantry.  It's always fun when someone else in the group tilts over and joins in with a "New Insane Project", and in particular Dallas is great because he not only joins, but once he does, he provokes counter-escalation (Mike is great for this too).  And so here is a platoon of IDF Magach 3 tanks, ready to respond to this Egyptian provocation.

I used Vallejo's "Green Grey" on these tanks

The "Magach", as tread heads will immediately recognize, is a US M48 Patton tank.  The IDF acquired these from West Germany initially (I think) and then more from the US.  They equipped armour battalions serving in the Southern Command, the front facing Egypt in/on the Sinai. The Magach served in the Six Day War in 1967, and saw critical service again during the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

Decals from Battlefront

My initial Arab-Israeli war collecting was focused on the Golan Heights front, but with Dallas doing Egyptians I wanted to expand into the IDF tanks that saw service in the Sinai.  The Centurions and M51s saw action there as well, but the Magach tanks were pretty much exclusive to the Sinai and their rounded, egg-shaped silhouette is quite evocative of the desperate fighting along the Suez Canal in 1973.

Air recognition stripes

As with most of their tanks, the IDF set about improving them almost immediately.  They ditched the little mini-turret cupolas in favour of a more standard hatch, and up-gunned them from 90mm to 105mm. Tracking the many small modifications to the different version of Magach tanks is confusing and gives me a headache, but I think the main differences for gaming purposes are the main gun and the cupola. While there were only a relatively small number of the 105mm-armed tanks in 1967, by 1973 they were the norm in the IDF Southern Command, so I put the 105mm gun on these models.

You can kind of see the hacked-up cupola on the tanks

The models are from Battlefront.  The Magach kits are lovely, but unfortunately the cupolas are still the old-school "M1" cupolas from the original Patton tanks.  I believe the IDF used them in 1967, so this makes sense - Battlefront released these models for the Six Day War, after all.  But I wanted these tanks to "look 1973", so I attempted a crude conversion by simply cutting the MG off the turret and mounting a .50 cal MG on the top.  It's not pretty, and absolutely not a proper "Urdan" IDF tank cupola, but it will do for now!

I absolutely love the decals from Battlefront...

I painted the tanks with Vallejo "Green Grey" and pin washed them with GW "Agrax Earthsade" and "Nuln Oil" washes.  The decals are also from Battlefront, and they are REALLY excellent - no more free-hand attempts at Hebrew letters for me!!  I weathered them with pigment powders and they are ready for action.

Bring on the Egyptians! Hey - what's a "Sagger" anyway?

Dallas has kindly agreed to run a 15mm Yom Kippur War game with me a PrairieCon 2014 in Brandon this year.  We are hoping to play a test-game this week against his excellent Egyptians - stay tuned for details!