224 Baneblade 'Zarathustra' Almost Finished

Evening, All!

Just thought I'd share with you the current state of my last project for the summer holidays before I go back to work: finishing off my venerable Forgeworld Baneblade Zarathustra...and I'm very nearly there!

Massive thanks go to Jeff over at Pirate Viking Painting for emailing me some very useful tips yesterday - some of which I've put into practice here. Although hardly any of it shows in the photos, she actually has a surprising amount of subtle detailing with rust and weathering now, which I'm pretty happy with. Cheers, Jeff! Seriously - check out his link, above.

Here are the pics - and yes, I've added an anti-aircraft autocannon onto a pintle mount. Why not, eh?

You may note that two of her track links are green. Apparently, when I assembled her from the godawful FW instructions seven years ago I put the tracks too far round. In order to remedy this, I did my first (basic) bit of press-moulding, making a mold out of Fimo modelling clay (it bakes to harden) and finding a surprising success in the resulting greenstuff impression:

And yes, that is what you think it is in the background. It's psyker time!

Cheers,

- Drax

PS: I may re-do the first half of the name plate: my fault for writing backwards from the central 'H'!

223 Competition Results and Good News

Good news first:

My new club is having a mini tournament next Thursday - five games of 400pts: Combat Patrol, essentially, with some challenging embuggerments. Should be a good laugh and a good challenge!

And in other news, I've decided that the names of my most recent two Leman Russ Variants will be as follows:

Annihilator: Lux Exitus - Light of Destruction

and

Demolisher: Redemtus - Rescued.

My sincere thanks and muted congratulations to (both!) The Jim [no link?] and The Inner Geek for the first one, and to The Other Kevin for the latter. Cheers, guys! - If any of you three wish to claim the somewhat dubious prize, please just drop me an email or comment below. It'd be nice if someone does, but I do appreciate you guys are way better at painting than me!

Thanks so much for all the entries, everyone: there were twenty-six in total, with some great rationales and a few giggles, too. Cheers.

- Drax.

222 Classic Armoured Fist Platoon - Complete!

Well then, more progress for the ol' progress blog. At last, my Armoured Fist platoon (comprising my old metal Cadians):

Pics first, then notes [There are links to old posts on the component units too]. Please forgive lighting - there's been a notable absence of sunlight recently...
HQ Section [gren, gren, flamer; officer could also be Al'Rahem proxy]:

1 Section [plasma gun]:

2 Section [melta gun]:

3 Section [grenade launcher]:

Here's a selection of models I quite like (the grenade launchers are all converted):

And here are the squad ID flashes:

It's took a fair bit of patient collecting and a little converting to ensure they're armed the same as my normal infantry platoons, but it's a simple and cheap combonation of weapons, and I find it works well. That said, having assembled the troops for this platoon, I then decided that I liked the missile launcher models way too much, so I just had to put those in too...a little spuriously, I fear.

At least eight of these have been with me since I bought the Cadian Shock Troops boxed set, over a decade ago, and as is befitting this veteran status I figure they could also double as chimera-mounted hardened vets if needed. As it happens, I've a few spare plasma and melta guns!

- "But surely Drax isn't getting all competitive?!" I hear you cry.

No, but I'm working on an idea to offer my services as a sparring partner for anyone at the club who wants to practise before tournaments, and these are so often an integral part of the competitive IG build...well - we'll see.

So there you go. Another thing crossed off the ol' painting chart.

By the way, the informal contest for naming a brace of my tanks ends tomorrow. Probably midday-ish, BST.

Cheers,

- Drax.

221 COMPETITION! FREE ENTRY! WEIRD PRIZE!

Hullo, faithful readers!

A simple competition for you, as mentioned in my last post. The prize is optional...you'll see why below!

To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment to suggest a name or names for my most recently completed Leman Russes, shown here (the top one's an annihilator, and the demolisher also has a vanquisher turret):

If you've already submitted a name before (including the original annihilator post) I shall consider that an entry, so it's worth checking the links above to see if someone's got there first.

As for the prize? Well, here's where it gets interesting...for me at least:

The prize is for Drax to paint up that unit you just never get around to painting...or never want to.

That's why it's an optional prize, because my painting is at best a 'good' tabletop standard - I like to think of it as simple but effective. Obviously not everyone's going to want to take me up on this: you may not like others painting your units, or you may simply not like my style. Those of you who are regular readers know my abilities, so I'm not going to go into the details of what I can and can't do, but I'll welcome all name suggestions, and the offer's there for the winner(s).

Notes:

1) The winner(s) will be the name(s) I like best. I may ask Mrs. Drax for help, if she cares enough. If there are two separate winners, then both may claim the...er...'prize'.

2) I'll happily cover the cost of materials as well as the normal postage cost of returning your figures to you (including abroad);

3) Basing minis is not really a strength of mine so I probably won't do that bit.

4) I'll paint it/them however you want me to, to the best of my abilities.

I figure it might be a bit of a break for you, and it'll almost certainly give me something different to paint, too!

For your reference, the names of my other Leman Russes are as follows:

MBT: Quietus

MBT: Purple Haze

Exterminator: Resurgam

Exterminator: Sirius

...and they're all named thus for a reason. See here for details if you're interested.

Good luck, and thanks for the interest!

- Chris.

220 Leman Russ Vanquisher/Demolisher Conversion

Well...

...not much of a conversion, but here are the pics. Explanation (and exciting news!) follows:

Having made an extention for the barrel of a Leman Russ MBT for use as a vanquisher (with a bit of ballpoint pen tube) and then realised I never intend to actually field a vanquisher, I realised that I still had some old demolisher bits knocking around...so I made one of those up too. Finally got around to finishing both of them last night. The painting's lacklustre because it's another bloomin' e-bay rescue story.

The only problem is that I don't have a name for it! Nor did I ever get around to actually naming the fifth of my Leman Russes (here)...this being the sixth and 'final' one.

To that end, Drax may be posing his first ever competition soon: for the best names (singles or as a pair) ...in keeping with my others, of course! Watch this space, and start thinking of your ideas...!

- Drax.

219 A Pack of Hellhounds

"Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!"

Here are my three hellhounds (or - to be a little more precise - two hellhounds and what generally seems to be a devil dog):

A) Cerberus:

B) Helios:

C) Gelert:

I know that the banewolf is a great machine for killing MEQs, but I just can't bring myself to field one under normal conditions. I have, on the other hand, decided that I quite like the dubious-yet-substantial potential of the devil dog! That and the fact that there aren't any other light vehicles with an anti-tank potential available for the Guard.

By the way - kudos to Tristan over at the excellent Terrain From Junk - I won a $40 gift certificate! Thanks, mate! He's got another competition going on over there at the moment too, and he needs your votes...

Cheers,

- Drax.

218 Hydra Conversion Finished

Hullo!

Well, many of you saw this in its early (and middling) stages, but here is my completed Hydra conversion:

I even managed - against the odds - to spray varnish it sans frosting:

For those of you who are interested in any of the earlier stages, HERE is my post on how I converted the Aegis defence turret, and HERE is the some of the backstory of the converted hull, whose previous incarnation was (and still is) the 'Wyvern' variant (HERE).

I love it when a plan (finally) comes together!

- Drax.