Traitor Baneblade

Here's some WIP shots of the lighting project:




Showing the two switches under the rear hatch. I've since magnetised this hatch for easy removal and placement. One switch will do the headlights and lascannon lights, the other will do the searchlight, so they have a common live lead. They need different resistors though.




This shows the solution for the side sponson LEDs. I replaced the spindle with a hollow aluminium tube with a notch cut into it to allow the wires to pass through. This means the side sponsons are still fully functional and can be adjusted once painted.

Hoping to have the lighting part of this project finished by the end of the week, time permitting.

Chaos Baneblade

Pics to come later tonight, but another all text update unfortunately... Got slightly diverted into doing further work on my Baneblade. Since I figure I'll only ever be doing one of these, I decided to go to town on it. This includes making it a lit model, which has involved researching the arcane realm of LEDs, learning to solder and of course drilling and dremelling the hell out of my poor plastic kit :)

Unfortunately, I tried to go too far with the searchlight. I built a 10mm white LED housing but hated it and it looked out of place. Sadly, I ruined the searchlight that comes with the kit so I'll have to use something else and I'm dropping down to a more sane 5mm size, unless inspiration strikes again ;)

Red LEDs for the lascannons and yellow for the headlights and it looks good even without being lit up. The soldering is almost complete, so just the mounting to be done now!

Escalation

Got a few nice bits from Forgeworld and Pig Iron Productions in the post today.

Despite not having finalised an army list (I'm stuck on HQ units), I do already know a lot about what vehicles I want to include. I really like the Manticore model and it also happens to be a great piece of artillery, so I'll be including at least one. I've been following the building of the Bishkek 2nd Manticore over on Santa Cruz Warhammer, looks great.

I also really like the Tank Destroyer model so I bought one of those also. According to the fluff, they are often destroyed, recovered and modified to carry battle cannons so I'll be running it as a 'counts as' leman Russ Vanquisher with a hull lascannon and KC Pask (or at least his non-union Traitor equivalent ;)). I might convert a bit to show the repairs and the Lascannon, maybe go for a co-axial mounted version... All in all, I'm planning to run the vanquisher, a standard Russ and an Executioner, possibly squadded up with a Demolisher depending on points availability.

Apart from that, I got some more renegade militia torsos as I will need at least 20 to do the basic squads for an Infantry platoon. Another 10 will be enough for all the heavy weapons teams. I'm thinking autocannons or heavy bolters and maybe a few missile launchers for these.

From Pig Iron, I got some nice gas mask heads and some of the Feral Infantry Militia to use as penal legion troopers. I think a few people have had this idea already, but I still like them. Also got some backpacks etc.

I'm planning to do tank hunting Veteran Squads with the gasmask heads and Vostroyan bodies. This has, I admit, come straight from the Silent Company of Korsk, I really like the techno-archaic look and it will distinguish them nicely from the standard troopers. Bit of work to be done on them though as they need to be de-imperialed and I need to get some more flamers to convert into Melta Guns. Time to break out the dremel I think.

Beginnings

I've always been a chaos player.

I'd read some of the Imperial Armour books before now but was never that into them - they are aimed mainly at other armies as far as I can see. So, when the Siege of Vraks series was released, with more stuff for chaos, I was interested.

Then the new Imperial Guard codex was released. It looked great, but I was intrigued by one of the guys on the cover... what's his story? That combined with the chance to do a chaos Baneblade made it an easy decision... ;)


So, the bottom line is that I've decided to build a traitor Imperial Guard army. This will be quite a departure for me as it will be the first army I've actually planned ahead of time instead of randomly acquiring bits I like the look of. I'm also going to be looking to raise my painting game and use an airbrush for vehicles along with some advanced weathering techniques (oils, MIG pigments etc). I've also jumped on the blogwagon to hopefully motivate myself and track my progress.

I like the chaos militia models forgeworld have out at the moment but I don't want to limit myself to the Vraks militia rules (The amazing Chaos Ogrynn models notwithstanding) so I will be basing my new army on the loyalist codex. This also lets me use some of the amazing new vehicles for the Guard like the Executioner, Punisher, Vulture, Manticore... The list goes on :) Another job therefore is to come up with some (good) fluff.

I've started collecting the the required bits. As far as painting goes, I have started with a scout Sentinel to try out a few new techniques and finalise a vehicle colour scheme. I'll also be using some of the more advanced techniques described in the Forgeworld masterclass book for the first time so I figure it would be better to screw up a Sentinel instead of a Baneblade if it all goes pear shaped ;)

So, here's some pics of the Sentinel assembled. I've painted and weathered the interior of the crew compartment but nothing else yet. I also don't like the hunter-killer missile that comes with the new Sentinel (Far too big) so I still need to make one and attach it on the left side.
I've tried to be a bit more subtle than usual with the chaosification so just a few little extra bits added. The driver is a forgeworld chaos militiaman, a very straightforward conversion. I just needed to remove one of his gas mask tanks on his back to make him fit and fill the joins with green stuff. I used the model looking around to the right as he is meant to be a scout. His fighting role in the army will be to outflank with a partner or two with Autocannons and HK missiles to hopefully light up enemy armour from the rear.