Bleak mid-winter

I got some paint onto the tanks last night. I have been thinking about a winter theme for the new army; I tried it out last night, and I am not happy. I initially painted the Russ green, then masked off the tracks with tape. I masked some areas with toothpaste, then sprayed white. A quick wash down to remove the toothpaste and... well. It looked a bit untidy, and there wasn't enough green showing, so I tried to tidy up with a sponge and green paint to emphasise the edges and other areas where you'd get wear.

You can see the results from the attached pictures, but basically, it's not great. I should have left it in the original green finish (like the KV2 / Ragnarok)... I will have to strip and repaint.

However, on the plus side, the Ragnarok looks great and I'll get on and make another two of them over Easter (real life permitting...)

Tanks on the cheap

I'm starting to put together an Imperial Guard army for 40k, which can be quite expensive with the amount of armour you need to field. Enter the Ragnarok. The Ragnarok is a Leman Russ substitute fielded by the Death Korps of Krieg, loaded up with a battlecannon and a pair of heavy stubbers. Well, my version has the battlecannon, but the twin heavy stubbers are replaced with a heavy bolter - in other words, it's a direct Leman Russ substitute.

The basis of the Ragnarok is a 1/48 scale KV-2 produced by HobbyBoss. All that you need to do is to replace the gun with a plastic tube equivalent, replace the hull machine gun with a heavy bolter, and 40k-ify the top of the turret with a new hatch and smoke launchers. I'm sure most players have the majority of the necessary parts anyway.

As a comparison, the hull of the Ragnarok and the Leman Russ above are the same width (excluding sponsons), the same height to within 2mm, and the Ragnarok is about 20mm longer. And the best part is, I can get three Ragnaroks for the price of a single Leman Russ. I think I will have six of the Ragnaroks (I have three kits so far), armed as Battle Tanks and Demolishers, and a couple of Leman Russ as the more unusual variants - an Executioner, a Vanquisher, and an Exterminator ,the last of these to be painted in black as a commissar's vehicle - a full heavy bolter loadout should remind the troops not to retreat!

All I need to do is to work out how to add sponsons to the KV-2 kit...

And back to the buildings.

The 6x12 buildings are painted now, and so are some barricades - everything still needs an ink wash and matt varnish, and the barricades need shading and drybrushing as well.

More with that hill

I took this picture halfway through planting the flower beds, so you can see what's going on under the plants. Since the last picture, I have built little retaining walls from 5mm foamcore, filled the beds with some scrap polystyrene foam, and punched holes into it with an apple corer. Two coats of black acrylic, then a heavy drybrush of my ground colour to bring out the tiles.

The plants are from an aquarium plant ball, and they pop off on little cores that fit those holes. A bit of hot glue, and we're away. I think this looks quite decent, and it certainly fits with the 'Imperial Urban' theme I've got going on here. So. Happy :)

A hill, by any other name... part 2

Update - I spent a good hour sticking paving slabs down. I printed up a 1cm square grid onto thin card, and cut out loads of 2x2 and 2x1 pieces. Stuck down with white glue, they are what I'm using around all my building bases to bring them together in style. Next will be building the low walls and the flower beds...

A hill, by any other name...

I was trying to think of what I could make that would be like a hill, but more, well, urban. And this is what I came up with. When it's finished, it will have paving all over it, and flower beds in all four corners - like the second drawing on the second photo (apologies for the drawing, there's a good reason why I'm not a graphic artist)

More buildings.

And I finally got going on the scenery again. Funny how you can let this slide...

Anyway - two 12x12 buildings completed, and another one partially built. Front left is GW Basilica, front right is MageGothic ruins with a GW plastic crater to fill the insides. The pavements round the outside are covered with 20mm squares of thin card, and then drybrushed. Inside the buildings I have covered the ground with very coarse sand.

Both the back buildings are from Pegasus; the one on the left will have plasticard floors once I get some more card! Again, the ruin is filled with coarse sand. I still need to plug the holes in the pillars with the little blocks they give you in the box. For some reason, Onion is very interested in the building - maybe he thinks it's kitty litter rather than some sort of crushed shells.