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40K IG BUILD: Work on the Superheavies!
So our house 40K Astra Militarum is being organised and assembled, this is a project diary covering the organisation and painting being undertaken. To access most of this content you will need a backstage pass!
Weathering The Super Heavy Devisonal Markings
Adding Comms Arieals
Super Heavy Markings
Push on the Super Heavy Tanks Underway
Picking Out Unit And Divisional Markings
Black Chipping Effects - One of the best and fastest techniques you can learn!
If you try anything this weekend try this, as it's one of the most useful (and simple) techniques out there. In our opinion nothing gives a sense of 'Weight' to a model better than this...
Greasing the Metallics
Machines need grease, its one of those golden rules 😉
Fortunately its a lovely little touch to add to your models and really easy to do!
Engine Grills and Other Small Details
Detailing Broken and Missing Exhausts
So a couple of our tanks for whatever reason had exhausts missing, but rather than ignoring this we decided to make it a feature. Lets watch how its done...
Detailing the Aquila & Periscopes
Next round of details are underway and John is back with some tips...
Tank Factory Catch Up
Phew, that has been quite a work of week on the Tanks for this Imperial Guard army. What do you think of it all so far?
The Tank Factory Continues To Churn Out Armour
John continues work on his herd of tanks...hmm, I wonder what kind of collective term we could come up with for a group of tanks? An Armour?
Getting Stuck Into The Details - Painting Tank Stowage & More
John gives us the lowdown on how he is painting the stowage on these awesome tanks and also laying down some plans for his next steps and what will get super detailed next.
Mass Painting The Armoured Division!
Khrystan has been tasked with getting stuck into the tanks and painting them all up to a decent standard. This is where those 'factory line' painting set-ups really come into their own!
Armored Division: Fast & Brutal Tank Tracks
We have a lot of Tank Tracks to paint and we need them to look effective as they are one of the defining areas of colour contrast on the vehicles. John shows us his hot tip...
Armored Division: Rusting up the Exhausts
We love the Rust effects from Model Mates, and we're using to great effect here to weather up the Exhausts across the Death Vally Armored Division
Armoured Division - The Initial Weathering Steps (Fast, Easy and Perfect for Army Painting)
John takes us through the first steps of weathering we are using on the 'Death Valley' Armored Division. Nice simple stuff that lets us get an army put together quicker!
DEBATE: Toys to Machines & The Air Cav Assault Sled In Game
Warren 'tries' to explain to Lloyd how the Assault Sled works in game. And he's not sure it went well...
Air Cav, Creating a Mobile Assault Platform
So when considering how we could make an 'Air Cav' detachment look and act a bit differently, one idea Warren has been 'toying' with is the creation of a mobile assault platform. A Big Container of Doom that is deployed from an Air Cav Heavy Lifter and opens up to reveal squads of IG ready to defend to the death or assault for the Emperor!!!
Master of the Fleet
We are working on adding some special characters to the overall army, just for that extra flavour and to let us work up some cool senarios later on.
We are attaching each character (or Commisar) to one of the specific Detachements within our army, so in this case Master of the Fleet has taken direct command of the 'Air Cav'!
We can only spend about 1-2 hours on these but we think they are turning out well 🙂
Krystan paints the High Commanders
So we have a beautiful set of high commanders we want to attach to various detachments (or should that be the other way round??!!)
Colour matching old paints is the challenge faced today!
John Makes a Plan for the Armoured Company
The armoured company is primed and now we discus what the next experimental steps will be.
"OLD LEMAN RUSS KIT OR NEW??? - POST YOUR VOTE IN THE COMMENTS BELOW..."
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Astra Militarum Project Intro Video
We start to describe what we plan to do. (Tons of building!)
Nice that’s gonna look epic when all done, both in numbers of tanks and sheer scale.
Always thought of building a horse box for a chimera for my rough riders, shame i cant locate the box of old 40k stuff in the loft, fear it went to car boot or worse the tip..
I still like the old kit better though.
The new kit has those sidepanels fixed in the kit were the old kit had them seperate.
In my opinion having thos glued on seperate gave the model just that extra little dept that I’m missing with the new kit.
The new kit also doesn’t have that stowage rack on the back next to the engine 🙁
VOTE NOW: Click the Up Thumb Here for the Old Leman Russ Kit!!!
VOTE NOW: Click the Up Thumb Here for the New Leman Russ Kit!!!
The new kit is simpler to put together and allows for an easy change of sponsons’ weapons (a dry fit is OK, no need to magnetize them). The only thing about it is that the main weapon options are broken into two different kits with only a slight difference in the hull design.
They made a new Leman Russ kit? It better have all the weapon options. Oh never mind @happyhowler answered my question.
VOTE NOW: Click the Up Thumb Here if you think GW should drop the price of the new Leman Russ Kit to the price of the old Leman Russ Kit!!! Oooo and give me back metal tank commanders!! 😉
click here if you think GW should drop there prices as they are the dominant mini company and fleece us OH so badly!
This is a good way to keep track of this kind of thing. Can the Age of Sigmar board be put into something like this to make it easier to track?
Yeah im liking the format, but would tweak the ui, so rather than have a 1/3rd of each post taken up by the left gutter, i would move that to the top of the post, beneath the post title, so then the vids would be full width of page without having to go full screen to get a bigger view (tend to get frowned upon at work if i have full screen vid open ;))
Yup going to transfer AoS table over next days
Format might evolve 🙂
Those tank wheels are ork gold!! 😀 Put every single one you don’t use in a bitz box for your ork army! 🙂
After doing so many ork builds I don’t even see Leman Russes and Basilisks on your table, it is one vast pile of glorious Looting potential. *drools* 😉
A big mek wet dream for sure. 😉
V glad I bought 10 gorkamorka bitzbagz back in the day possibly the best thing gw ever sold…
Storm Troopers with jump packs would be more appropriate than veteran if you ask me… 😉
Fits the fluff more.
Go Beats or Go Home.
Gotta love your grandeur !
looking great guys!
I am a fan of the old kit, mostly because that is when I was first introduced to 40K.
I really like how you guys are putting this into a project build! it will make it so much easier to follow!
Drat!!, not a backstager 🙁
OMG how do I get my mitts on that BIG flyer can any 1 plzz put up a link to the online shop that sells them plzz
Hey @kender2001. The big flyers is a GI JOE Sigma 6 DragonHawk.
I’ve had a look for some on eBay since they showed em on the infinity weekend blogs.
Their pretty expensive.
It’s hard for me to pick which Leman Russ I prefer. Both have solid features about them that I really like.
The new kit is simpler and faster to build. It has lots of swappable weapon options making it easier to do multiple variants of the Russ per kit. Fitment is somewhat better, as it’s a newer mould with improved design elements.
The old kit is great because of the features it has that were eliminated to make the new kit simpler. The wheels and the tracks were always excellent for scratch building/kit bashing or conversion work. And if you used track guards to allow you to save some track pieces, and fewer wheels (which are not seen anyway), you would have a bevy of extra bits left over.
Having said that, I voted for the new kit because it was necessary. The old mould was tired, needed updating, and they took the opportunity to add weapon options, which really help the new kit give more bang for the buck.
@warzan I really like the idea of compiling project logs into the live blog format. I’m sure it will help with reduce front page clutter, and make organising much easier!
I didn’t expect my comment to bring this all about O.o
Better start being more careful with what I post, else we’ll end up taking over a small country or something…
Just painted up my first Infinity miniatures. I now see the appeal of painting sci-fi minis. And it was the day my first set of citadel shade paints turned up. A very cool and very fun way of painting. Not sure I can invest in 40K just now, but might take advantage of a sale of a small section at least to enjoy the painting aspect.
I have a little base coat spray paint to prime models with, but no air brush. Will you have some tips on painting 40K tanks when you don’t have the advantage of an airbrush?
You should try the colored primers by Army Painter, they have a great range of colours. They even have the range of paint that matches those primers. You’d save a lot a time. That’s what I did with my Imperial Guard army:
http://www.beastsofwar.com/groups/imperial-guard/forum/topic/my-imperial-guard-army/
BoW must have an insane bits box. I would love for the guys to show if off some time.
Fellas, for fear of sounding like a bit of a Nerd and I’m sure you won’t mind me pointing this out for clarity but…
Tanks are organised in to Troops, Squadrons, and Regiments.. Platoons, Companies, and Battalions would be infantry formations…
Sorry to be a spotter…
Cheers,
Steve
My turn to get nerdy 😉
The IG are pretty much modelled on the soviets, who had Tank Companies 🙂
Tank company
Prior to the late 1980s, a Soviet tank company consisted of a company headquarters and three tank platoons with T-64, T-72 or T-80 tanks for a total of 39 personnel and 13 tanks; companies using the older T-54, T-55 or T-62s tanks had 10 or 13 additional enlisted personnel. However, forces in Eastern Europe began to standardize tank companies at 10 tanks, with three tanks in each platoon instead of four.[2][3]
Sorry for being British Warzan…
I’ll wind my neck in now then (but those Leman Russ look very British to me…
Cheers,
Steve
And you would be right 🙂
The IG (or Astra Militarum as they are now) are modelled on a whole hodgepodge of historical periods, armies and equipment 🙂
they will always be the imperial guard. copy right or no copy right.
Great stuff! Building out all those tanks is very cool. I have some old style tanks unbuilt from early Space Marines – like the small Rhino. You are inspiring me to get stuck in (after years of idle time) on building my Crimson Fist army.
Really liking the blog format a big thumbs up from me.
Looking forward to other blogs like this one and I’m very jealous of the amount of tanks you’ve got there.
The force is looking great can’t wait to see them fielded!
love the steel army guys.
I have never played 40k. How big is the table going to be to house an army that big? And if tanks are presumably hard to take out, how long will a battle take at that size? Intrigued to see how this pans out and looking forward to the battle reports.
@warzan Think I might have to sell you guys my stormhammer, ill do it cheap, no miles on the clock lol
@warzan for a project log a date as well as the time stamp would be a good thing
@warzan It would be good to see some photos of the other Guard units, the video at the top gives a good overview but some close-ups of the paint jobs etc would be great.
New Leman Russ kit design, weapons options etc with separate hatches and wheels like old one would be best.
Seems like the orcs will be pretty outnumbered. But as we all know, orkze are never beaten in a fight (much like italians).
Not a 40k guy anymore, but love to see this stuff. The look is just awesome!
Even John is going to feel challenged painting that many tanks.
Can anyone enlighten me as to what the counts as ad mech super heavy walker thing is and where can I get one?!
Not really that keen on 40K, but LOVE this kind of thing – what gaming is all about (when I was playing 40K, you would have got a – ‘If you want lots of tanks, go Epic).
As far as the infantry drop pods/structures go, I think for ‘standard Guard’, an air deployed strongpoint would make more sense than an assault platform, as they have (in my opinion) always been about firepower over assault. Not that it wouldn’t give you a staging point though 🙂
forget the Eldar heads, need a whole unit of the Justin heads! Or maybe just the sergeants…
I have built both types, the old and the new. I looked them over and I must say that they didn’t really change much so it was hard to remember when I switched to the new kit. But upon thinking back the new kit must have been the last few I did as they seemed much faster and easier to put together.
Go for it Warren it has always been about making any game yours and especially 4ok the rules used to say don’t know if they still do, “these rules a guideline.” So we took them at their word and had everything from guard dogs and sentry’s to an imperial escape pod on parachutes in a rescue game that was simply amazing and ended up like a 40k black hawk down thing. Played the attempted relief of a bridge too far, made our own half tracks etc to get a resupply to up the front. Go for it and when it comes to rolling for an objective or game structure then you aren’t playing it right.
Keep going love the Warren MKII Advance Troop Deployment Sled. Love the idea. I was assigned to a DEPMEDS unit for years. It was like a M.A.S.H. unit from the show except we used cargo containers that expanded (not unlike the toy) to make a hospital. I going to try and get some of those toys myself. I don’t think you need to worry about the troops; the lander has those big feet to use as shock absorbers.
Far be it from me to show favouritism but I have to say Lloyd has a point. From a functional point of view, the drop pods flipping open seems a bit odd. The front door dropping down would be much more practical. Extra guns, weapons and missiles could be side or roof mounted. I agree that if it remains closed, you don’t get to add all the cool details but by the same token are those details, cool as they are, there for the sake of being there?
The video of Warren trying to convince Lloyd his Imperial Guard Drop-Container was a good idea was awesome!
At least Warren plans on having the Guardsmen armed with lasguns when they land – I recall a WW2 film (or was it Call of Duty?) about Stalingrad in which the Red Army conscripts were thrown into battle unarmed and had to scavenge their rifles from those killed in the first wave.
The drop-container idea was also used in that Resident Evil film in the desert (Apocalypse?) – full of those super-fast zombies / ghouls. So, perhaps something for an army of Nurgle-cultist guardsmen?
Orks would want lots of grab-handles on the outside too, so they could cling on and keep shooting all the way to the LZ – before being squashed flat by the detonation of the exploding bolts on the side panels…
On deployment, how about taking a grimdark-Munitorium-Fog-of-War Test? Roll a D6 and
on a 6: free upgrade 1 of the 2 squad to veteran / elite status
on a 1: due to a supply-adept clerical error, the drop-container does not have 2 squads of guardsmen but instead is full of some totally inappropriate piece of guard kit (like in “A Bridge Too Far” with the air drop of fresh red berets for the out-of-ammunitions paratroopers).
Is the film you are thinking of Enemy At The Gates? I remember that being mentioned in our history classes back in the 80s
Is the live blog replacing the vlog this week?
Nope
Clog is uploading at the moment 🙂
With everything that’s going on we forgot to film one yesterday 🙂
that drop fortress thing was the funyest vid ive seen here!!
i agree with Lloyd.
This makes me want to actually finish my 40k stuff, but like lloyd I have some in this color scheme some in that color scheme and alot with no color what so ever.
Wow. The air cav. Love that box and how it opens out. I am thinking essentially “a drop pod for guard”. I think use a similar drop pod stat line for it.
I also think it HAS to open, otherwise cowardly guard would never come out. 😎
Maybe to simulate the jarring of dropping it, on a 1-2 dice roll it’s crew shaken?
This is a fine series 🙂 Too bad most of it is Backstage material…
Using guitar strings for antennas, an interesting idea.
One question @warzan, how do guitar strings respond after they are uncoiled. Also, what gauge/type would be best to use.
Oops, thats two questions.
I like Imperial Guard but it’s so much work to create a good army out of them…
I am working on my first tank – Space Marine Rhino. Tanks are really great. I like how the IG tanks are coming together. They look great. Lots of simple methods to do effects quickly. I appreciate learning those tips.
from what company are your praetorian Models??
from what company are your Praetorian miniatures??
Why did you not do the unit marking (which I quite like) prior to chipping?