13th Armoured Division Sable Knights – Commander Glofski’s Squadron

Tanks, tanks and more tanks… who doesn’t like the Grimdark of Warhammer 40K tanks? I so enjoyed structuring and painting the 3rd Armoured Division Savlar Chemdogs starting last Spring and culminating in nine tanks and some troops for GW’s Armies on Parade after a six month schedule… I’m going to do it again. This time the inspiration comes from reading White Dwarf 366 June 2010 which is a tank fest full publication. On page 99 example colour schemes for tanks are suggested and one has taken my fancy as I can try to improve my freehand painting with the insignia. There is very little I can find on the web re the Sable Knights bar this WD mention of Commander Glofski and the tank dubbed ‘da Black Deff’ by the Orks of Bork. So, I’m going to have a bit of freedom creating  Glofski’s 13th Armoured Division.

For this tank division I already have one Leman Russ Executioner with Forgeworld turret; one Leman Russ Conquerer; one Leman Russ Exterminator; two Leman Russ Battle Tanks; one Basilisk and one Chimera all either needing constructing, repairing, painting or repainting to fit in with a colour scheme that I will think about over the next few weeks once the units are made and gathered together. One thing I will definitely do is use Severina Raine as Commander Glofski… there is nothing to say the Commander can’t be a dynamic woman!

I now remember why I hadn’t used this kit in previous projects. I’d picked up the old style Leman Russ a few years ago in a job lot on eBay not realising that parts were missing or broken on the sprew. Nonetheless I much prefer the old 1994 kit to the more modern version as there it allows much more customisation. With the help of my bits box, e.g. locating enough track pieces and the odd wheel, the build was pretty straightforward.

I’ll add a few more bits of equipment and tank supplies, but have left off side sponsons and a dozer plough to make this a sleeker tank for attacking with. Plain sides will also help with painting the large eagle markings of ‘da Black Deff.’ It’s pretty powerful with a lascannon, plasma cannon and a heavy gun on the turret.

Quick reminder that I’m using Severina Raine as the proxy Commander Glofski. It’s a very dynamic pose and portrays a very commanding position perched on top of the closed turret.

As with a number of GW resin cast miniatures, I find that the parts of the model never really fit snuggly together and the warping of the sprue is sometimes an indicator that this could be a problem during construction. It is still an incredibly detailed miniature but I needed a bit of liquid green stuff to fill the gaps.

From WD366 it’s quite clear that Glofski’s tank will be mainly black with a few grey bits and white and red markings. There can only really be one tank dubbed ‘da black Deff’ so I need to decide on a colour scheme that compliments the command tank and ensure some coherence for the squadron.

This led me to do some more research and plan out Glofski’s back story. It was the Orks of Bork that came up with the moniker ‘da black Deff’ and the planet of Bork appears in White Dwarf 349 (January 2009) with a four part battle report as Imperial Forces attempt to liberate an industrial frontier planet from the Orks.

The third battle report on pages 63-68 (WD349) details the Imperial Guard attempting to destroy the Orks’ airfield. The IG used are all in the bog standard GW studio Cadian green and light brown camouflage. Not that inspiring, but does get me thinking about Glofski’s back story further…

Glofski is not mentioned in the battle report so I’ve decided that her squadron was kept in reserve to tackle Ork units in the more industrial urban areas. So this will dictate a paint scheme that picks out the blue-grey from Glofski’s command tank but will perhaps include a cream/white camouflage pattern.

The painting of the Leman Russ is underway. First up is dry brushing the tracks with Leadbelcher and once dry washing with Seraphim Sepia. Then the lasgun barrel, exhaust pipes, fuel barrel and exhaust vents were all dry brushed with Citadel Colour Blue Grey (OOP). Again when dry these parts were washed first with Nuln Oil and then Drakenhof Nightshade. The tracks were then touched up with dry brushing of Chainmail.

NOTE: the turret has been removed for separate painting and so that I can constantly flip the tank over onto its sides when attempting to do the freehand painting of insignia.

The rear company markings are painted using Mephiston Red and White Scar. I have toyed with creating transfers for the eagle emblem and produced some via the PC. I’ll give them a go to provide a base template that I can paint over white.

Ok, I’m going to give the transfers a go. First attempt was a complete disaster! This was because I forgot that you need to spray the homemade transfer sheet with gloss varnish spray.

Once that was dry (I started work on the turret in the meantime), the second attempt was far more successful. Remember I’m using this as a template rather than the finished effect.

The transfer took nearly five minutes to become unstuck from the backing sheet and I had to effectively soak the side of the tank to provide enough of a frictionless surface to move the transfer around… not easy as the surface is full of bumps and bits. However with careful manoeuvring with a wet brush and needle sculpting tool, I was able to stretch the large transfer out.

I dabbed it dry carefully and coated with a layer of ‘ardcoat. Next will be to repaint white and black elements on the transfer to merge it in with its background. Side two will then follow.

UPDATE: In the cold light of day 24 hours later, I’ve decided I don’t like how the transfer has gone. One should never feel ashamed to admit it looked s**t, so using a sculpting tool and plenty of water I carefully scraped the transfer off the side and once dry resprayed with chaos black in order to go back to my first plan of freehand painting.

LESSONS LEARNED: 

1) don’t be afraid to experiment.

2) don’t fret over having to reject the outcome and to start again with another method.

3) homemade transfers take longer to separate from the backing paper and are very tacky when trying to manoeuvre around the model.

4) rough surfaces such as the side of the Leman Russ make it far more difficult to manipulate and get a smooth large transfer.

I used a .005 fine knib permanent black pen and drew an outline of the eagle using the original pictures as a guide. Using a fine brush I used skull white to paint over the outline and then to block in the shape of the eagle. This required three coats of white to allow a brighter image over the black foundation. This was repeated for the other side and sides of turret.

WIP shows how far I’ve got including painting Glofski on top of the turret and starting to fine detail elements.

The eagle needs black feather lines next and then I can move on to further fine detailing, transfers, insignia and weathering. I hope you agree the freehand WIP has turned out to be a better decision than trying the transfers.