Baneblade 3: Part IV

Well, the painting has begun. There's little point to posting lots of pictures, but I wanted to mark the naming of the fella.

Baneblade #3: Part Three

She's had a nice coat of yellow, and I've painted the ID # on the ERA rather than use transfers, for the obvious reason.













I'll take her out shortly to hit her with varnish so I can apply a few transfers. I'll also touch up the undercoat at the back, as I see it hasn't hit every angle. I think I made the exhausts a little small, but there's no point worrying about that now.

Baneblade #3, Part the Second

I may have mentioned that my grandiose plans for superheavies are in part based on their sponsons. Guardsmen will know that one can stick with the basic HB/HF sponson and Lascannon turret on either side or one can double this or remove it entirely, augmenting the vehicle's AV. So each of my super companies - it seems strange to refer to a trio of vehicles as a company, but there we are - will have a vehicle with double sponsons, one with greater side AV and a plain vanilla choice. This factored into my decision to buy a Baneblade the other day. I initially picked up the Shadowsword box, but then I remembered that the third and final Shadowsword in my trio is to be the double-sponson chap. My third Baneblade, on the other hand, is to be the chap with extra side-impact crash protection (which means I should perhaps call him volvo?), so there we are. The spare sponsons will sit about until I go mad and get a third Shadowsword.

So what have I done? I replaced the angled hull rivets, which are limited to ugliness by the manufacturing procedure. I realised I had too few side armour plates, and knocked up a new long single piece out of 2mm plasticard. I then decorated that with some nice, simple squared plasticard, meaning this to depict ERA. I then replaced the upper side plates with a single piece of 1mm plasticard, and stuck some treadplate on that.



A significant benefit of this is that I now have lots of spare bits and bobs to decorate my scratch supers. I've pretty much run out of gubbins to stick to them. I still had gubbins, mind - but it didn't look right. I removed the screwed-up rivets from the turret, and also chose to get rid of the mount for the searchlight. I may yet reattach that somewhere; we shall have to see. For now, however, I have covered the gap with the name plate. I need to check my transfer sheets, but if it's possible, I'm inclining toward the name St. Dom, after a mate with his own religion. Technically, it should be God Dom, but I think the Ecclesiarchy of 40K would frown on that sort of heresy!



With two intentions, I replaced the engine hatches. First, I wanted the bits. Second, I wanted to get a slightly better view of the engine bits than usual. I also replaced the port hatch on the turret. Should I say port or left? It is a veritable land battleship, after all. Mm. I also replaced two hull hatches, and glued plasticard flaps over the gaps left when I decided to retain two viewing ports for the bits box. I don't like the replacement of the final s with z. It is to me as fingernails on a blackboard are to others.



I am now breaking for some food, and then will return to decorating the turret. I am toying with applying more ERA, and I need to replace the rivets. I always get carried away by these large kits! Enthusiasm just appears out of nowhere and I speed through things!

Baneblade #3

Well, we had a grand weekend's wargaming, then I returned Khib yusa home by way of Lenton, Nottingham. Ooh, I have no money, but it was just too tempting!



A proper write-up of the weekend will follow. Here's a teaser of my dice-rolling skills.





At one point I manage to roll 14 misses and only 1 hit with a Heavy 15 weapon! Heh!

Let us begin to make preparations for the initiation of rumbling!

Heading over to collect my mate tomorrow. He's briefly back from distant shores for a few weeks, so I've arranged a 'gaming weekend. Some of the attendees couldn't make it, but there's a third fella arriving by train come Friday, so we'll be playing a mini-campaign. It'll be the first gaming I've done in about a year, so victory may not come easily - if at all! Anyway, there should be plenty of pictures of the battles over the next few days. I'm just off upstairs to have a poke a the gaming table in the attic in preparation.

Baneblade work and that something else again

Well, first off, I put an access point on the back of the "maybe a bunker".



Then I spent too long "riveting" the turret bases for some Baneblades. I'd done most of the work on these things ages ago, and then they'd sat about for years (literally, I think) because I couldn't face blocking in a few gaps. So the other night I filled the few empty panels, then got out the old GS and took care of the rest of the gaps. Then today I took care of the rest of the rivets.









Here's proof I'm not just photographing one and claiming it's two!

Turrets and something else

These last few days I've been working on a few turrets and a leftover bit of superstructure from the Trumpeter 1/35 Sturer Emil kit. There's an old cliché that failing to plan is planning to fail. I have no idea where I'm taking the superstructure at all! I'm just sticking stuff to it to seal it up and up-gun it. Maybe it could be some sort of blockhouse. Anyway, here it is with the turrets. The bases, guns and mantles were glued in place months ago. I'd angle them if I were making them now. To make up for that lack of slope, I thought I'd angle the sides. On one of the turrets this has gone rather awry. However, I like the utterly skewiff look it has, so it's staying.

Exploration Fawcett: Adventure's Inspiration!

Warning: This has nothing to do with wargaming. Now read on.

First, read an early twentieth century account of a chap's adventures in South America. Second, get yourself very drunk. Then go for a walk.

I walked along a track, took a slight detour, came back toward home, then decided that it wasn't long enough and that I wanted to see the regular and silver pheasants who were way down by the river. So I climbed down the slope. Climbing down a slope when drunk is fairly close to falling down it. Fortunately, I banged into a felled tree, and straddled it, slowing my descent. Then I fell down a bit more, and determined I would cross the river. I forget what motive impelled me. I know I wanted to get on the other side for some reason. Anyway, I ended up in the water a bit muddy and scratched. I gave up on my iPod at this point. I also removed my thick socks, which I was wearing with sandals because I'm a Tory (or because it was cold) prior to traversing the streamlet.

So I'm attempting to cross the River Dane - a grandiose name for a mere rivulet - and I am somehow atop a tree which has fallen across the river. I see that I'm not going to get across thus, and lower myself into the water with a splash. Striding is what some idiot would do, but since the bottom is unclear I pick my steps carefully. Given that I am drunk this evens out and I only fall a few times. I come out on the right bank and shout at some distant horses for some reason. That'll teach them not to aid my crossing!

Stumbling out of the refreshingly cold water onto the muddy bank I see the angle of the slope I must remount to get back to the path. There are nettles everywhere on it. Well, bugger that! It's amusing how the human mind fears short-term inconveniences and puts up with long-term ones. I turn about, cross the river again and end up on the far bank. By this point there are no pheasants about. Who could expect it when a drunken idiot has been splashing and swearing his way across the river.

I forge across the river but now, I'm sorry to say, my narrative breaks down. Crushed by the weight of the booze I have drunk my memory gives up the ghost. I shall reconstruct as best I can, but fancy may enter this account. I surge up the opposing bank, brushing past trees (and let's say discovering a colony of elves hell-bent on defeating mankind. I vanquish them. Give me your plaudits.). Breaking forth from the cover of the trees, I find myself in a luscious, dew-soaked green field. Here our certain narrative may recommence.

So drunk was I (and indeed am I now) that I misplaced the traversing of the field. At the time and subsequently I thought I must have veered to the right of the original path. In truth, I was way over on the left. Be that as it may, I gaze warlike across the field, ready to engage in fisticuffs if any bull should consider this his home. As you can guess, there was no bull or I'd be dead or severely injured and you'd not be reading this. So I cross the field and drop into a hollow where runs the fence, crowned with barbed-wire, which separates this field from that. Especially because I am drunk I am wary of barbed-wire.

All too conscious that I could rip a hole in my bollocks, I place my rucksack of waterlogged electrical goods and sodden papers atop the wire, and straddle that. You can rejoice in my falling skewiff to one side in good heart. I merely shredded one leg of my shorts, and my testes remain attached. I storm aggressively up the hill in the direction of a farmhouse I have seen. Since I am labouring under the misapprehension that I am to the right of the track, I veer to the right of the farmhouse, aiming to rediscover the track.

Again my memory breaks down. But I find myself eventually at a minor country road, near some llamas which I fail to look for or photograph. Though I expect that my camera is very dead. I had earlier tried to use my mobile telephone, and it had flashed at me, crying out in a proto-semaphoric way that it was cruelly abused by its current owner and that it needed to be rescued from being half drowned and dragged up and down hills and valleys. As its current master I irritably ignored it and pushed onward, deprived of my only means of securing help.

I veered left on the country road, passing a large plastic tree, probably, and I drunkenly stumbled down a road, passing morning commuters idiotically contributing to the economy. Fools. I don't recall my descent of the hill and ascent of my drive. I do recall Mum's shock on opening the front door. You see, I had forgotten my key, and so rang the doorbell. I do mean forgotten. My key was in my rucksack, but I was too inebriated to know it. Picture the scene. Your son, staggering, soaked to the skin, spattered with mud, with two small scars on his face and his body covered in others, stands before you. You ask in concern what happened! He, completely unaware of his appearance, says, "I fell over." Then he ambles off and has a shower. Truly, mothers are ill-treated by their sons!

So I had a shower, fell into the second guest bed and awoke to Dad solicitously asking if I was ok. Again I just said that I had fallen over. I stumbled about, peering into a mirror and staring at the scars on my legs - for in my exuberance I had forged hardily through nettles, which raised a fetching rash, through thorns, which greeted me with scars, and into this and that, leaving me with two bruises on my upper left arm, the precise cause of which continues to puzzle me. The nettles even now make most of my legs, all my hands and part of my arms tingle. There is no pain unless I flex my hands, which are pock-marked with thorns. In fact I notice now that a thorn is still stuck in me. I shall end now and go remove it.

I want to see the rest of you doing such idiotic things while drunk or I shall be most displeased!

Trojan (open-topped)

I've been doing a spot of work on an open-topped Trojan, having varnished transfers to that cut-down Thunderer (see earlier posts. Photos to come). I am toying with the idea of fielding these little fellas similarly to Centaurs, i.e. they are both open-topped, more usually used for ferrying artillery pieces, and have space for a Heavy Weapon-toting chap to set up his piece. Given Trojan armour of 10/10/10, they'd also be endearingly easy to destroy. The image in my head is of half a dozen or so of these little fellas zipping about the battlefield and being slapped down by any fire that comes at them! Anyway, here's the current subject. As you can see, it has a hull-mounted Heavy Bolter, a pintle Heavy Stubber, a Hunter Killer Missile, and with an additional Heavy Weapon would mount ridiculously more firepower than a Centaur. On the other hand, it's clearly a glass hammer.

Stormblade finished

Ah, it's cooler this afternoon than it was last night. I think I'm living in some sort of topsy-turvy house! Anyway, pictures!









I decided to call her the Duke Don - since it was fairly easy to make up from pieces of the Superheavy transfer sheet - and give her an appropriately 40k motto, [I]Mors venit[/I] (Death has come).

Stormblade PIP

Well, she's got the base coat, half the weathering and all the stowage and so on done. I'm just about to hit her with weathering powders to tone down the yellow some more.

Stormblade completed

I added a few last details, and she's done. I'm just about to take her outside for undercoating.

Banesword and Stormblade

I've worked a bit on the engine of the Banesword.



I have also moved almost to completion on my first Stormblade.





This little fella has quite the history. I built the chassis initially to serve as a carrier for a Deathstrike Missile - long before the current IG Codex - as I felt that a Chimaera wasn't really enough for an ICBM. Then one day I knocked up the Plasma Blastgun from a bit of wood, some gardening wire and some plasticard, and wanted to mount it on something right away. Remembering that one of the theories for the appearance of the Leman Russ (i.e. its failure to look like a modern tank) is that it's an STC's modification of a tractor or somesuch, I decided the same could apply to this beasty. So in-universe she was originally a large urban construction vehicle, to which was added the main armament of a Stormblade which was otherwise wrecked. Back to modelling now. For many months she's been gathering dust, until last night when I suddenly grabbed a lot of plasticard, rulers, knife, and pencil, and started measuring, cutting and gluing. So now she has an engine compartment and some side armour plating. She as yet needs a spot of prettifying, but I should soon be able to start work on painting her!

Banesword scratch

Apologies for the hiatus. I fell into a bit of a slump. Now, however, I'm over it. To prove it, here's a Banesword I've been working on for a bit.





The Banesword's the long-range artillery variant of the Shadowsword. I do have the barrel, but forgot to add it for the picture. So here she is with the gun at an earlier stage of her life.