Back to the beginning

Next tank platoon is another mostly Leman Russ platoon – mostly…

When I was building the army up originally the rules for ordinance weapons made the conqueror a thing and I kind of liked the added hint of realism that came with the forgeworld tank upgrades, so here we have one leading a pair of standard Leman Russ tanks with the Forgeworld Commissar as a commander – this means both my platoons will have commissar looking commanders showing but maybe they have a few of them across this regiment….

The turret needed hatches finishing and the commander fitting in – then a quick basecoat. The hull had been used for a “deep wet mud” effect experiment some years ago that I’m thinking of keeping as it looks kind of cool.

The Leman Russ tanks had a rattlecan spray of an army green halfords spray some years ago so that’ll be my starting point for them.

So round two.. go!

Light dusting to weather the ferret – light spray with the airbrush, it came out quite well – army painter air paint cyprus brown with a touch of vallejo airbrush thinner.

The airbrush was a cheapish one off amazon but has done just fine with this!

I’m just trying to decide what I should do for the base on this one.

I did a mass spray of prepped stowage pieces during the week for these tanks, then I’ve speedpainted over them to give us a rapid bit of colour to throw on & it looks like it has worked ok – well enough I’ve test fitted a couple of bits to the ferret too!

I did manage to spend an hour doing the tank commander up as well as a commissar however given he’d been painted prior and then over sprayed & I’ve given him a fairly basic do –  I’d not appreciated just how rough the texture might come out on a close up photo! He’s plenty fine for table top standard but gods the close ups look so bad I’ve not even added them….

I’ve added markings (with varnish this time) and I’m going to give them a wash & weather next chance I get! I’m already getting happy as it feels like I’m close to finishing the first unit!

My second sidequest! This one’s been waiting a loong time. I’ve had an epic imperial guard army as long as I’ve had a 40k one & I had the tanks all painted up to match, just never the infantry. I looked over this with my son a few weeks ago and decided that it might be a good idea to build a couple of armies out of the pile of bits we had acquired over the years and play some games of Epic Armageddon so I’ve pointed up 2 forces one guard one orks and they’ve been sat waiting for attention.

Something else I’ve been wanting to try for a while are the speedpaint markers & I picked up a box from my FLGS last week. With the “why not?” mindset I figured I’ll try and use them on the epic orks so I can do them when I’m away from my desk. We will see how this one goes….

While laid up after surgery in November last year I started a building spree on 1/35th kits – this is one of them – the Airfix Ferret MK2. I had a can of military green spray from another project so it had had a once over with that and been sat on the shelf next to my desk since then – until I had a bit of left over green in the airbrush after doing the Leman Russ’s I didn’t want to waste!

I used the slightly different tone to give it a bit of highlighting and then as I’d got the speedpaints out I blocked in the tyres and metals while I was waiting for the rain to stop to spray the stowage for the tanks .I’ve added the washes and decals while the sprayed bits are drying. I’ll add weathering while I do the Russ’s but I’m pretty happy with this one so far!

With a little splash of speed paint on some model stowage and a towcable made from a bit of string to complete I’m calling this one done! I’ve sprayed a light dusting and added a touch of rust and oil effects I’m still practicing with – I’m not happy with the old decals and the way they’ve interacted with the wash but I realised looking back at the hellhounds (which were the only unit I actually finished before they were put away) I think I’d used a decalfix solution or similar & mine has long since dried up. I’ll have to see what I can find out there that will improve those transfer films!

But we’re off the start line at least!