As mentioned in the previous post, I've gone and signed up for a TOURNAMENT on the 24th of this month! Those that have known me for a well, and for a long time, may be a bit shocked by this. For the longest time, the whole bring-x-points-and-play-a-"competitive"-battle style of play was anathema for me. To be honest, I still don't love the idea, I'm more about fluff and narrative than competition. But I thought it might be a good opportunity to actually get out and meet some of these guys in the league and see who else is into fluff and narrative...
Conveniently it's at a place that's, like, four or five blocks from my house and only 1000 points. Despite easily having that in Guaiacan Commandoes or Tallarn, I got it in my thick head that I'd like to put a Brigade Detachment of Tallarn on the table for this event... Which means I needed to paint three more Infantry Squads, another Mortar Squad, two more Commanders and Command Squads, another Sentinel and THIS TANK...
Okay I didn't NEED this tank. I already HAVE a Tallarn tank. But I WANTED this tank, because... FORTY DICE BULLET HOSE!!! Okay, so they're only Strength 5... but now that ANYTHING has the potential to wound... Quantity has a quality all its own...
Leman Russ Punisher tank from Games Workshop. I have two more of these to paint and assemble - one is one of the older version - with the individual wheels (looks like a nightmare to assemble - especially without instructions!) - that I've had kicking around the lead/plastic pile for years...
I know, I know... I glued the forward bolt gun in upside down... I discovered this as I started to paint it and was furiously angry. despite my best efforts to pry it out - I couldn't do it without damaging the model so I decided to leave it for now and hope no one notices (honestly, would you have, if I hadn't mentioned it?). At some point I'll just carve it off and glue on a new one... Ugh... so annoying. I'm usually pretty careful about this sort of stuff!
My megalomaniac plan was to eventually have five - to fill out a "troop".
The writing on the turret is my attempt to write "Tallarn" phonetically in Arabic after skimming a wikipedia article on it. If there are any Arabic readers - I apologize profusely if I have mangled your language/script here...
The writing on the back is, again, my attempt at Arabic script - it's supposed to say Zakat - or "almsgiving" one of the five pillars of the Tallarn version of the Imperil Creed.
Most of the stowage on the tank is from a Tamiya 1/35 kit - Allied Vehicle Accessories Set. As everything on GW Astra Militarum tanks is goofy-cartoony-exagerated, they don't actually look out of place, despite being a larger scale!
The troop so far.
Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:
More Tallarn!
I have an Infantry Squad, a commander and a Command Squad on the workbench that I'm actively working on this week.
I'm hoping to get in another game of The Pikeman's Lament later this week, so stay tuned for a report of that game as well!
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Nice looking tank.
ReplyDeleteThe Wheelie version of the Leman Russ is pretty easy to put together because other than the large wheels, the others hardly matter. The treads are the harder part, as you have to puzzle out which of the medium sized pieces go where, not helped by the fact that the sprue works for the Russ and for the Chimera, so there are extra pieces...
If you need the instructions, I am sure I have a copy hanging around in my "tank" box.
Thanks! I will definitely pester you for them when I get around to assembling it!
DeleteThe tanks look cool! I would definitely not have noticed the gun was upside down (still couldn't tell). Maybe you could come up with some fluff about how that is some sort of modification made by a left-handed gunner or something. ha ha
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteThere are actually heavy boaters with right and left hand ejection ports - if you look at the ones in the sponsons - so they eject casings away from the vehicle... although, I'm not sure what exactly is feeling shells INTO the boaters...? Unless there's a feed in side the tank which shoots it forward into the gun to be shot and then expelled the casing outside the tank...? (Generally I think it's best not to question these things... it makes my brain hurt!)
Looking good! The script and the stowage give it some nice character.
ReplyDeleteThanks Preacher. I like the idea of these being festooned with extra kit - like they're expecting to be out there for a while. I've seen others that have put camouflage nets on theirs and I'd like to experiment with that at some point, but I don't have time right now!
DeleteIt'd probably be fairly trivial to use a jewellers saw to lop off the bolter right at the start of the sponson. Flip it and glue with some airplane cement that sorta fuses plastic together. The kerf of the blades is pretty minimal so you wouldn't lose much of the gun...
ReplyDeleteThanks Dave! I actually have spares, though, so it doesn't really matter. I also carved part of the top of the gun (the PROPER top!) off when I realized the mistake to make it look a bit less obvious (that little foresight-like-thingie) so it's not going to really be useable anyway even if I did manage to cut it off clean with a minimal kerf.
DeleteLovely looking tank and who really cares about the upside down bolter, it looks great! I've got an ancient leman russ kit knocking around and I'm sure I could copy/send you instructions, you could have the tank if you want as I can't see any possibility of me building it! Oh and I think the script is fab btw.
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Thanks Iain!
DeleteI'm a little AR that way. It looks wrong to me and it will bother me until I get around to doing it...
I actually found some instructions through google!
You’re not the first person to make the mistake with the heavy bolter; just check out the box art that was in GW stores for years before it was fixed:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.amazon.com/Plastic-Demolisher-Warhammer-Games-Workshop/dp/B002ICAXLY
Ha! That is too funny! Thanks!
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