Now and Then: Leman Russ

Sometime around October I picked up a Leman Russ to make a command tank. I'll post some shots of that in a later post.

In March I won an auction on eBay for another Leman Russ. A Second Edition Leman Russ.

The box now is two halves, so was the 2nd Ed box. The instruction pamphlet is pretty straight forward for each version of the kit as well. Big differences in the contents are that the current release doesn't include road wheels or the Imperial vehicle accessory sprue (the first one, with the extra pointy dozer blade).

Another big difference is the original kit only made one Leman Russ variant. If you wanted a Demolisher you needed to buy that kit, and there was an Exterminator kit. Only heavy bolter sponsons, only hull lascannon. The aforementioned accessory sprue came with one heavy flamer.

This is my favorite part of the old kit is the rules. I've seen an entire armoured column destroyed due to just really, magically shitty rolls on that chart.

Sometime soon there will be a post with some tanks being taken from the Pile of Grey Shame instead of added, I promise.

Cheers,

CJ

Not Quite Creed Completed

This has always been my inspiration for my Creed figure. When last we saw Not Quite Creed, he was in this state of repair...

I painted up the legs and got the torso nearly complete before I left town. When I got back (and after thinking about it for the whole trip...) I gave Not Quite Creed a bath in some brake fluid (don't drink the brake fluid, and dispose of the waste properly if you choose to use it).

It was a good call in this case. I was originally planning a black stormcoat. After thinking the matter over thoroughly, I decided upon a dark grey stormcoat. The final result fits better with the other existing officers I have, namely the Cadian Colonel which I now use as an Officer of the Fleet.

Once the grey was actually on the model and I lay down the first black wash over it I knew I had made the right choice. His base is two layers of .125 inch thick cork with some sand. I like basing my heroes on 40mm bases, so I do it. On Not Quite Creed's base, I decided to try a road technique I saw on EonsOfBattle's YouTube channel. In their video, they use yellow for the lines and I liked it, but I also thought something like that may jar. I decided a white line, broken with the sigil of the Imperial Guard. I freehanded the lines and winged skull around the existing weathering.

Here stand Not Quite Creed and Kell both. They make a great pair on the field-

...wait, what? Well, shit.

This is the kind of thing that makes me want to go Oldhammer it up somewhere. I might just have to see about rounding up the guys and deciding on an Oldhammer format that suits us all. Not a single one of us is a competitive gamer, we're in it for the narrative. Stay tuned for more on these developments.

So here is my chart now. I only turned one square green, but this completes my Company Command Squad. I think next I will work on some of the Flamer troops from Platoon I. I might just bang out the six I need, as well as the six regular troopers I'll need. Having a Drax-a-gram is nice, it felt good to mark progress in such a way. I'll have to remember to keep up on it as I complete more figures.

Cheers,

CJ