Imperial Armour - An Armoured Squadron Tale - part 1.

Dust clouds drifted across the hard packed dirt road that led down towards the Arden Gate, the town straddling one of the main through-fares leading to Lanatheum, the captial of Attica-Secundo.

Lieutenant Vayce regarded the road ahead through the viewports of his turret cupola. The Recce teams had reported recent movement but no trace of the Greenskins who had invaded the planet months earlier.

Still, that didn't mean that the aliens weren't out there. He'd been receiving disturbing reports of numbers of so called "Kommando's" that the Orks were using with increasing regularity from the infantry fighting on the other fronts.

He checked his auspex to be sure and then pushed his way up through the hatch to ride with his head in the fresh air.

He loved being a tanker, it was his calling from the Emperor of Mankind, but still, it stank so badly of fuel, oil, cordite and unwashed bodies that all recruits learned to quickly breathe through their mouth.

The warm air was stale but fresh compared to the interior of the tank and what a tank he had.

He was personally in command of a Leman Russ Vanquisher, produced on Forgeworld Stygies almost four centuries ago, it had been recovered and refitted three times due to damage in that time. The long eight meter cannon was a Tank-Killer, firing armour piercing shells it could kill almost any enemy vehicle they came up against. It was a priceless artifact which was becoming harder to make new each century as much knowledge was forgotten by the tech-priests.

His Armoured Squadron was compromised of four Leman Russ tanks, a second Vanquisher like his own, a Battle Cannon toting standard pattern and an Exterminator pattern with its twin-autocannon turret. This last tank was extremely deadly to enemy infantry with its hull and sponson heavy Bolters as well as the Stubber machine gun mounted on the cupola like his own machine.

They moved towards the crestline where the trees blocked the view towards the township, his fellow commanders taking the chance for some air like himself.

He flicked down the wirestalk of his microphone and triggered his squadron vox.

"Recce Spear, this is Squadron Actual, report in Shadrice"

"Sir, under heavy assault. Greenskin forces charging from...".

The vox cut out for a moment then Vayce's blood ran cold for a second as he heard the extended firing of a pair of autocannons.

When the Recce-Sergeants voice came back clear Vayce was already pushing his way back inside the turret, the other tank commanders followed his example, clanging hatches closed behind them.

"...again, incoming enemy vehicles, repeat incoming enemy vehicles, long range fire, I say..."

There was a faint distant bang, muffled by the dead air of the hot afternoon. A second later a whopping shriek came from out of the sky.

"Incoming enemy fire" Vayce voxed to his squadron, "Advance forwards towards the treeline and fire at will. Sergeant Rhodes, you and I will target vehicles, Coropal Muir enemy infantry, Sergeant Elam targets of opportunity, our Sentinels are under attack and need our support. May the Emperor Protect!"

*****

Let's start posting in September with a bang!

Throughout August, in spite of working copious amounts of overtime, I did find the time to start work on some of my long overdue Imperial Guard, (they'll always be Imperial Guard to me, not Astra Militarum).

I bought a Leman Russ Vanquisher conversion off eBay years ago and never got around to working with the tank because:

1. The original owner had modelled bullet damage in the most stupid places.
2. It was missing the track links.
3. The Basilisk Cannon the had used for the gun wasn't glued together properly or even squarely!

So, over the course of Lockdown part 2, I was idly browsing eBay and came across an auction for a full set of track links, and for less then a fiver including postage...BARGAIN!.

A root through the bits box of Doom I picked up from Fraser a while back yielded a proper Forgeworld Vanquisher turret, which just needed a little fettling to get up to standard.

So, the basis for the tank was set, however I wanted to try to take this opportunity to work on the tank to try to make it more "realistic" I guess.

Having watched a few WW2 documentaries and several of The Chieftain's videos, I went searching for suitable stowage and kit to cover the tank with.

The answer was a bag of resin stowage from a company called "Redog Models UK" on eBay.

These are their 1/48 scale Sherman stowage packs. I bought two separate packs, as a way to work on more Tanks in the future.

As with all resin parts, I washed them with warm soapy water after trimming off the flash and filing the admittedly few, casting lines on them.

Then it was just a matter of adding them logically to the tank:

Most clustered around the engine bay and the storage bin at the rear, as the crew obviously wouldn't want things being crushed by the turret as it swings.

I added several pieces to the turret, mainly kitbags rather then the crates and jerry can which are dotted about the engine bay.

I also added some spare track links to the side of the turret opposite the storage locker. This ideas is taken from WW2 Sherman's who would use track links, sandbags and the like to add extra protection to the frontal armour whenever they could.

Sadly the Leman Russes design at the front end makes this kind of awkward for keeping the turret and hull mounted weapon able to be moved.

At this point, I was thinking of this tank more as a British Sherman Firefly rather then a far future tank, so doing some research for photo's of a preserved tank, I came across these and the idea formed for adding camo netting to the tank as well:

Off to Boots Chemist one morning on a break at work it was for some Medical Gauze.

About half hours work with some watered down PVA yielded these results:

I chose not to wrap the entire tank, like the preserved one, as not to obscure all the details and panelling on the sides of the tank. 

Also keeping it away from any obvious movement area's, such as tracks, turret, etc.

And the "hot" areas, like the engine radiator grills and exhausts, I had fun wrapping it around the Stubber at the top of the turret and trying to get it to stay in place...

By now we were ready for painting, a blast of Death Guard Green spray gave a brilliantly easy "Army Green" base coat to work from.

From there it was just blocking in the main colour areas of Corvus Black, Baneblade and Mournfang Browns, some of the tarp was painted in Castellan Green.

The Camo netting was drybrushed Abaddon Black at this point and washed with NuLn Oil.

Tanks aren't clean machines, and I decided that my own Armour was going to look well used, so off researching weathering techniques to try out.

(As well as pushing the Tank away from being a toy, I also wanted to try to push my techniques up a bit, rather then just GW wash from the pot like).

So, with a tutorial I set out the tank with a mixture of Doombull Brown, Water and a drop of Washing up Liquid.

The latter is to break the surface tension of the water and allow it to run freely into the panel lines and around rivet heads:

Slightly patchy finish, but not to worry as I will be adding dust over the entire model soon.

An unexpected benefit of the Doombull Brown mixture was that the paint slightly separated as it was drying, leaving me with a great darkening effect, and a slightly reddish patina around the raised areas.

I then accentuated this with a wash made of Fire Dragon Bright (a light orange) with the same mixture of water and Washing up Liquid to run over the red lines for rust accumulation.

I also took the opportunity to add one of the most interesting parts of a Firefly to the Vanquisher Cannon. 

Namely the famous half barrel camouflage, which was used to try to disguise the longer battles of the 17pdr guns the historical tanks carried. Considering that this is the "Tank-Killer"* version of the Leman Russ I wanted to include it as well, so added some Ulthuan Grey to make the markings.

Someone, I think it was either Fraser or Dominic said that it really needed a unit marking, possibly an Army Flash as well. 

Once again it was back to research, this time coming from both WW2 and an older 40k rulebook.

The unit marking on the right of the photo is based off of the British markings, which used horizontal "Blue over colour" to denote Armour and then which squadron (HQ, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, Mech, Artillery, Recce). I added the Gothic donated "5" from true 3rd edition inspiration for the 5th company of my regiment.

On the left of the photo is the lightning bolt flash of the Army Group the regiment is attached to.

I also took the opportunity to pick out the spotlights with Iyanden Darksun and the various Imperial Aquilla with Ulthuan Grey.

It was all coming together really well at this point, so I decided to dirty the tank some to blend it all together and look like a real fighting machine.

The process was the same as my method for painting miniatures bases. Successive drybrushed of Baneblade Brown, and Ushabti Bone.

In-between the two layers, the Netting got a further drybrush of Mournfang Brown to darken it against the tank.

These stages are completed quite quickly so I never took any photo's of them, but wanted to get the tank itself finished.

And here it is...

The army badge, Company flash and Barrel Camouflage are all desaturated in these photo's because of my LED spotlight. They are very readable from three feet away** in person.

Hobby Bingo wise this tank gives me lots of points:

10 points for the Vehicle box.

50 points for the Horizontal line.

50 points for the Vertical line.

So 110 points, taking me to 670 points in total now.

I have a standard pattern Leman Russ on the go, and am in negotiations to trade for a second FW Vanquisher turret and Russ hull for it from Duncan.

The plan for the armoured Squadron is to build up the following list:

Leman Russ Vanquisher Tank commander.

Leman Russ Vanquisher.

Leman Russ Exterminator.

Leman Russ Battle Tank.

Two squadrons of Two Armoured Sentinels.

Atlas Recovery Tank.

These will all be painted in the dirt green colours and not tied to a particular GW regiment, so no visible tank commanders***, as I want to be able to use the tanks with ANY regiment of guardsmen I may choose to model (I have Catachan Jungle Fighters and Cadian Shock Troops in the background of the painting desk currently).

Well, time to crack on with some more painting.

Until next time...

* Not counting the actual Leman Russ Tank Destroyer with the big Laser Cannon. That's a Tank Destroyer and not a Tank. 

Yes there is a difference between the two types!

** My go to standard. If it looks good from three feet away, then it's good enough. 

I paint for pleasure and for my own display/gaming, not competetive "Golden Daemon/Crystal Brush" awards.

*** Unless I go down the route of possibly magnetising the Commanders turret cupola with him in it!