More Tallarn Armour

TWO more tanks rolled off the assembly line this past week. Both of these I picked up used, assembled and partly painted. I did a bit of converting and repainted them entirely.



First we have #201 - The vanquisher belonging to the commander of 2 Squadron 451st Tallarn Tank Regiment - Captain Naji Raji.



With the others I put the tanks name at the back of the turret buckets and the tank's number on the sides of the buckets. But this one had spare track glued on there. I tried taking a section of it off, but it just wrecked the buckets, so I glued it back in place and painted the numbers and name elsewhere.

This tank I named "Quns" or "Snipe" (the verb, not the bird).



This Vanquisher was actually made from part of a metal barrel for an old Demolisher with a battle cannon barrel attached to the end of it. It wasn't a pretty conversion, but I hadn't the parts to completely replace the barrel. So I tried to hide the joint with some camouflage netting (made from a gauze pad).



I'd have preferred a regular Battle Tank or a Demolisher... or anything other than a Vanquisher, really. Vanquishers seem pretty weak in 8th. Fluff-wise, I think the Vanquishers are supposed to be bad-ass longer range versions of the battle tank. But in 8th edition 40K basically the battle tank fires HE and the Vanquisher fires an AP round.

The way AP rounds are represented in 8th is Heavy1 and a higher  AP (-3 instead of -2), and damage per hit (d6 damage instead of d3).... Which is great, if you can actually HIT the target! As the bog standard Leman Russ crew has a 4+ Ballistic Skill (I should say "STARTING" ballistic skill, as it quickly degrades as the tank starts to take damage). A regular battle cannon had Heavy D6 - which means, on average, it's going to get 3 shots at a target rather than one, so it's more likely to hit. As the regular battle cannon has the same strength as the Vanquisher... I'd rather have more chances to hit!

This is why I made this a company command tank - the company commanders tank has a veteran crew with a 3+ Ballistic Skill. It'll probably only get fielded when I need more than the 3-5 tanks in the 2 Troop are needed.

Why did I pick this up...? it was $20 (CAD) and already assembled... so, it seemed like a good idea at the time...?



Second is a Demolisher.



This is an old school demolisher with a cast metal barrel and sponson guns! The Demolisher is #832 and named "Matraqa" (which, if Google Translate is to believed, means "hammer" or "maul") commanded by Warrant Officer Mzali.



The first number in the numbering system I use indicated the squadron (company) the tanks is from, the second is the troop (platoon), and the third is the number of the tank within the troop. This is thus the second tank, 3rd Troop, 8th Squadron.



I figured the Demolisher is more like an assault vehicle, probably from a specialist engineering or support squadron, so I decided the 8th Squadron could be an assault engineer or support squadron within the 451st Tallarn Tank Regiment.



I'm getting to have quite the armoured force! I have two more Leman Russ tanks to assemble - they will both be regular Battle Tanks to finish off #2 (Arkan) Troop, 2 Squadron, 451st Tallarn Tank Regiment.

I also have a Basilisk to paint up. I need to do a bit of work on it - it was missing the railing and steps... and the BFG from the Bones 3 Kickstarter, which I thought I'd be able to pass off as Earth Shaker Cannon on a carriage mount. And a few more Sentinels... and loads of infantry and support stands and roughriders...

Oh, this will all keep me busy for some time.


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have the Arvis Lighter back on the painting desk along with all the Terminators from the Space Hulk game... They seem rather daunting. I should probably only put 2-3 on the table at a time. There are also piles of assorted sci-fi bits and bobs cluttering up the periphery of the table... Who knows what I'll actually finish up next...

We're heading into a long weekend, so hopefully we'll get some gaming in and I'll have some reports to post!