The Nihilus Crusade - Vindicator Heresy

[Marshal_Roujakis]

Also, if you invest in an Assault unit, it never hurts to have a nearby character buff the said Assault Unit... you don't necessarily need a powerful character to buff them, an Apothecary to heal wounds for Terminators can annoy the crap out of an enemy, especially if you strategically place him somewhere where the enemy cannot reach him in Assault, a Chaplain to reroll failed to hit on Vanguard ensures that you have the oomph to deal enough damage to make them suffer more wounds through morale loss...

 

Another tactic is to try to have a screening unit... by screening unit, I meant a fast moving tough interception unit that can block a charge against you by providing itself as a bait... and then charging the already engaged unit on your turn ensuring that you get to hit first and deal more wounds. The best example of this is a bike squad or Land Speeder... just keep them cheap enough that you can spare points/power level.

 

Also, if the enemy wants to Assault the Land Raider to stop you from firing, and you know that's their tactic... then beat them to the punch literally... the LRC has Frag Assault Launchers that you can exploit to deal with lesser characters or just to kill weakened Monstrous Creatures... I've killed a Carnifex with those Launchers, so if they want the LRC, then use it as a battering ram... or if fighting Orks, then use that to kill weakened enemy tanks... I sometimes wish the LRC benefited from our Chapter Tactic to really make use of our rerolls... but alas, only the Ironclad has enough melee oomph with Frag Launchers and twin-DCCW to really deal the hurt in melee....

Edited December 11, 2017 by Marshal_Roujakis

[SydonianDragoon404]

Roujakis, on your point about charging in with the LRC, you're right about the Frag Assault Launchers, as that ability has literally won a game for me by killing off the last 2 wounds on Kaldor Draigo, but often I find myself in a position where I would actually do more damage by overwatching the unit that is about to charge me. Also, while this isn't the case all the time, I do sometimes fall victim to not be able to prevent the charge due to the sheer maneuverability or deep strike from an enemy unit. 

Lots of times the Land Raider is getting charged by things like tactical marines, carnifexes, cultists, and in most cases I'll deal more damage with overwatch, especially with Helbrecht standing nearby to re-roll all misses. Whether I charged or they did, the end result is often the same, except I am essentially denying myself an overwatch and handing my enemy a free round of swinging at the LRC. 

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I'm finding they're just charging it to tie it up. Facing one round of overwatch fire is nowhere near as terrifying as it firing hitting on its actual BS.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

So, I had another loss today. (Crushing in fact)

 

I remixed my army after my last games losing to hordes. This time I had 5 small crusader squads with a variety of heavy and special weapons. I created these by re-organising my marines into four categories.

 

First, I rebuilt the four random choppy marines into Sword Brothers by swapping their bolt pistols for bolt guns and keeping the chain swords. This keeps them cheap and means I get some range out of them. (Seeing as their role is to lead shooty squads).

 

Next, I repainted all the heavy weapon marines in my army in the same paint scheme. I call these my Longbow Squads. (I still can't bring myself to call them Devastators...) They have red helmets, a black shoulder pad and a red shoulder pad, both with white crosses. The purpose of this is to make them more easily swappable as they are no longer truly attached to a squad, but are assigned from the crusade's Archer brotherhood.

 

Third I had some unpainted marines from about 15 years ago which were originally intended to be a Deathwatch kill team, (back before they were an army in their own right and you could take a squad in any army using the rules in White Dwarf.) These marines are now plain boltgun crusaders.

(As an aside, their old metal special Deathwatch boltguns looked great on the Sword Brothers)

 

Fourth I rearmed some boltgun marines with special weapons. So that I have one per sword brother.

 

The idea is that I now have 5 squads worth of interchangeable Crusaders and 'Devastators'. It's far more flexible and means I can be in more places at once laying down some decent fire, it also means I can cover more ground in my deployment zone with 9" bubbles to protect from deep-strikers.

 

So, where did it all go wrong? Well, having played against horde armies a lot recently I over focussed on anti-infantry...

 

My opponent bought a mechanised Eldar army. 2 Grav Falcons each with a Warlock and a Dire Avenger squad; a Wave Serpent with 5 wraith Guard and a Warlock, a Fire Prism, two

squads of Guardians and a damn Scorpion SuperHeavy. I was massively outgunned. My tanks didn't last very long. (The LRC bought it on turn one to one round of shooting from the Scorpion.) The Razorback got charged by a grav-falcon and the Las-pred lasted longer and almost killed the fire-prism, but by turn two was (not) hitting the Alaitoc tanks on 6s as it lost stats and they were over that magic 12" away. I only really had three anti-tank weapons in the army and although I took the Prism down to 1 and the Wave Serpent from down to 3 by the end the Scorpion was just frying characters as there was noone left to shoot!

 

I didn't make as many stupid decisions though, which is good and I did learn that 5 assault terminators are far better than 10 assault marines. So they will make a return.

 

All in all, I feel better about the army, next time I'll take a better mix of weapons (more lascannons and missile launchers) but the new structure means that flexibility is more possible. I should just have a couple of lists up my sleeve so I can react better.

Edited December 29, 2017 by Brother Adelard

[Sword Brother Adelard]

So enough moaning. Here's a WIP pic of my Christmas Ironclad:

 

[Firepower]

Is he running or hobbled?  Odd photo angle is odd. :teehee:

 

Also, Mmmmm, Ironclaaaaad 

[Sword Brother Adelard]

He's running. It's hard to show unless you're shorter than him. In which case, it'd be pretty scary. Edited January 24, 2018 by Brother Adelard

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Praise be, more time has been found for painting, (lots actually, I'm really getting into the swing for the first time in ages!)

 

Here is Ancient Villekin as he currently stands:

 

 

 

I'm reasonably pleased so far, I want him to be mostly White, due to recent inspiration I have taken from other sources. (See the white guy on the 3rd edition cover and here: https://armiesonparade.com/2016/09/30/black-templars-by-peter-king/)

 

But, I feel he's missing some colour somewhere, maybe some red maybe? Any thoughts?

 

Colour scheme aside, I'm very pleased with how the model has turned out. It was a right arse to get him to stand up, and I kinda regret sticking him to his base as it's made painting the legs rather tricky, but I certainly wouldn't want to be standing in front of him!

[Firepower]

Can't say I'm a fan of White Templars, but to each their own.  But yes, you definitely need to break it up with more color.  The Templar Dread in the inspiration army has a whole lot of bling that the artist used to break up the white.  Your Ironclad doesn't.  It's mostly a blank canvas.  So, either free hand, decals, or find more bits to slap on him.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Decals certainly, I was thinking of picking out some panels in red like the Storm Raven, maybe make the shoulders look more Sword Brethrenesque?

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Marshall Meinhard looked out from his position on the command deck of the Strike Cruiser, Sigismund's Fury at the gigantic form of the Space Hulk drifting in space.

 

The Nihilus Crusade had been diverted to the hulk by the pleas of the Tech Adepts of the Mechanicum, Meinhard had ignored them at first; the augurs had returned no life signs, no signs of active power sources and nothing of worth amongst the many ancient hulls which formed the Hulk and he had given orders to plot a new course. After all, what was the point of scouring a Space Hulk if there was no chance of slaughtering Genestealers or Greenskins?

 

However, one voice had managed to change his mind. One of the junior tech adepts, less obviously consumed by the opportunity to go hunting around endless cargo holds on the slim chance of locating some rare piece of archeotech than his elders, had quietly pointed out that the augur had detected a large quantity of fuel inside the hull of one of the more ancient Imperial hulls. At this comment Meinhard had shared a significant look with Sigismund's Fury's captain: Just last week she had raised that very issue with him. The crusade had been operating for a very long time in the shadow of the Cicatrix Maledictum and the ramshackle fleet which had formed in the crusade's wake was consuming fuel at an alarming rate with little chance of finding any more. Her raised eyebrows confirmed what he knew he must do. He sighed, gave the order and watched as the escort frigates were diverted to the Hulk. The tech adepts bowed out of his sight, rubbing their hands as they scurried to their loaned Thunderhawk.

 

------------------------------------

 

Castellan Everard walked behind ForgeMaster Ulrich, casually looking around the large cargo bay they had found themselves in. Ulrich was in his element and Everard knew it. He had dragged him in and out of every cargo hold, container, armoury and training deck in the cruiser searching for something of interest. Anything of interest. But so far they had found nothing. Ordinarily he would have teased his old friend at his childlike awe but today, he was content to let him keep searching and taking notes. The cruiser was old, very old. Ulrich had hypothesised from the lack of escape pods and the age of the equipment  that it had been abandoned during the scouring. Everard had nodded politely, personally disappointed at how little they had found in their search. Judging from the frozen piles of filth he had found in the corners of the armouries and the complete lack of weapons and ammunition, they hadn't been the first burglars to board the vessel. He felt his choler rise at the thought of the ancient human technology falling into the hands of the greenskins and quietly vowed to avenge the loss.

 

"Everard?" Ulrich had stopped at a doorway ahead, Everard had been watching his servo arms plug into the door's securing mechanism and Ulrich had just managed to override the lock's stubborn spirit. Ulrich had stopped, a look of awe etched across his face, his red helmet bathed in a golden reflective light. The source of which, Everard couldn't see from the corridor.

 

"Yes Brother?"

 

"Do you remember that time those flying Dark Angels stole our glory on that backwater planet during the Ophidium Gulf Crusade?"

 

Everard of course recalled it perfectly. They were lucky to have survived that crusade, fortunately for the pair of them Castellan Raimer had left their frigate behind when his Strike Cruiser had gone in search of the rest of the Dark Angels fleet, leaving Everard and his Sword Brethren to supervise the extraction of the imperial army troops. That had been the last day anyone in the Chapter had seen Raimer or the Gulf.

 

"What of it?"

 

"Do you remember that smug bastard on that jetbike?"

 

Again Everard felt his choler rise. Sammael. That arrogant sod. Everard's men were on the verge of running down the last of fleeing survivors of one of the temples of the 'Voice of the Emperor' when Sammael's flying monkeys had swooped in and gunned them all down. Afterwards Sammael had causally jumped off that hovering contraption of his and walked over to the seething Everard and said "I'm pleased we could be of service there brother castellan, you seemed to be having difficulty with those traitors."

 

"There was no difficulty Captain. Those traitors would have fallen to our blades without the aid of you and your diminutive Land Speeder."

 

"Oh, so you noticed old Corvex did you? Last one in the Imperium you know." With that he had jumped back in the saddle, span the bike round and covered Everard and his brethren with dust as he sped off after his men.

 

"Yes..." Everard replied.

 

"You need to see this."

 

Everard stepped towards his awestruck brother, he looked through the door way, stopped and stared. He then grinned widely and slapped Ulrich on the back with his heavy gauntlet.

​"Last one in the Imperium my arse !"

 

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The jetbike looks promising. Who's the manufacturer?

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Games Workshop?

[Eberious]

Look good so far, think the lance is a tad big for him though. I was toying with the idea of Templarfiying a Custodes bike as well. By the Emperor it shall be done. 

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I'll do some more tomorrow, there are a number of complications I've had to work through, chief among them the scale, Custodes are a lot bigger than marines. (I may have had more luck with Primaris scale bodies)

 

I'll document my current work tomorrow, I think if we all put our heads together. Simpler process can be found.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Oddly, with this building challenge in the offing, I have taken the opportunity to paint the things which are actually built. So the Ironclad is now finished, and I painted this Castellan in just over a day! (Two short days at work helped.) He's been sitting on my desk for months, just staring at me from the spike in a cork where I put his head...

 

You may notice the running theme...

 

 

 

​In other news, I have a game tomorrow, any tips against Chaos?

[SydonianDragoon404]

Be wary of Daemon Princes. They're characters, they have a 12'' move, they fly, and they hit like trucks. If you see the mutated shooty terminator type dudes (forget what they're called) kill them fast. Chaos space marines can pull off a reliable turn 1 charge by deep striking terminators and a sorcerer and then casting warp time to get a second move after deep strike. Make sure to protect your important units against this with some kind of bubble wrap and/or by using Abhor the Witch to deny warp time. 

 

As for chaos daemons, be wary of anything tzeentch, they hit much harder than you would think and that 4+ invulnerable is difficult for us to get through because we have basically no access to mortal wounds. Any Khorne Daemons will be able to deep strike and then take a 3d6 charge move using a stratagem, be prepared for that. Khornate daemon princes and blood thirsters need to be shot. Only charge in if you have to finish off a last wound or two. Chaos daemons have a stratagem that they can pop in your turn to either make a unit you're shooting at have +1 to their save roles (so anything large will get a 3+ invuln) or make you -1 to hit. 

 

Just a few things I've taken away from fighting chaos space marines and daemons. Honestly, I would fight CSM any time. The new Daemons codex? It's like trying to fight a blob of jelly. Nothing sticks and eventually they just swallow you because they have more models and better stratagems. 

[Bjorn Firewalker]

I like your models' dynamic poses.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Thanks, I can't take any credit for the Castellan's pose, he was made that way. However, getting the Ironclad to stand up after cutting both his legs off at the hips was a bit of a challenge, but ultimately worth the effort I think.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Praise be Brothers, today was my best game of 8th to date. 

 

 

I ventured forth with a mixed list:

 

HQ

• Marshall with Storm bolter and Power Axe, Crusader's Helm
• Castellan with plasma pistol and Thunderhammer
• Emperor's Champion

Troops

• Crusader Squad - 8 Inits with Chainsword, 1 with Power Axe, 1 SB with Power Sword and combi flamer, 4 xNeos.
• Crusader Squad - 3 x inits with Boltguns, 1 x Init with Plasma Gun, 1 Init with Hvy Bolter, SB with Chainsword and Boltgun.
• Crusader Squad - 3 x inits with Boltguns, 1 x Init with Plasma Gun, 1 Init with Hvy Bolter, SB with Plasma Pistol and Power Fist

​Elites:

• Ironclad Dread - Chainfist, Dread CCW, Storm Bolter and Hvy Flamer
• Dreadnought - Missile Launcher, Twin Lascannons, Hvy Flamer
• Assault Terminators - 3x THSS, 2 x Twin LCs

Heavy

• x2 Longbow Squad (Devastators) -Each with SB with Boltgun and Chainsword, 2 Inits with Boltguns, Lascannon and Missile Launcher.
• Land Raider Crusader with all the toys (Inside were the choppy squad, Champion and Castellan.

Transport - 

• 2 Razorbacks, one with Hvy Bolters, one with Lascannons.

I knew I was facing Chaos, but didn't know anymore than that so I chose a mixed list to react appropriately. The force could be mobile if needed, or stationary and provide a solid fire platform.

 

In the end, it was a Khorne force:

 

- Two Rhinos, each with 8 Berzerkers, with a Dark Apostle and Exalted Champion in one, Khârn in the other.

- Two squads of 10 Fleshhounds

- Two Squads of 10 Bloodletters

- One squad of cultists

- TWO (Yes, two!) Bloodthirsters.

 

As you can imagine, facing that many angry choppy things I switched to shooty force deployment. We played Recon from Chapter Approved and set up at opposite ends of the table (lengthwise thank the Emperor!)

We had to split our forces and deploy with a only a third on the table. I chose to deploy my shooty third; (Marshal, Both Archer Squads and the shooty dread.) My opponent deployed the Rhinos and some bloodhounds. I plonked my devastators on an objective each (in cover), I put the Marshal between them, in helm range for both and the dreadnought in between them, also within Helm range.

 

Turn 1: He rushes at me with the Rhinos and the dogs, he thankfully doesn't do anything else thanks to advancing everything. Sadly, both of his Bloodthirsters, one unit of Bloodletters and the cultists arrive at the end of turn 1. I spend turn one shooting the Rhinos, destroying one (First Blood) and hurting the other. My Razorbacks arrived as did my Assault Terminators. I put the Razors on the back edge in the helm range of the Marshal and then took a risk and dropped the Assault terminators right in front of the Bloodletters at the far end of the table from everything else.  I shot at everything I could and then came the turn of the terminators to charge the Bloodletters, however, they failed the charge... 

 

Turn 2: The Berzerkers, Rhino and Doggos move closer. The rest of his army arrives on turn two and he consolidates his deployment area. The Bloodletters and one of the Bloodthirsters charge at the terminators and kill them without chance to reply. The Bloodthirsters and dogs move closer.

My turn two was mostly spent shooting. I disembarked the Crusader squads from the Razorbacks and moved one into cover around an objective, (again, Helm range) the other raced towards another objective in my deployment zone. The rest of my army arrived and I deployed the Ironclad in charge range of the footslogging Berzerkers, (The ones with the Exalted Champion and Dark Apostle), the LRC arrived on the other side of the board, just behind the dogs and the remaning Rhino. The Ironclad finishes off the Berzerkers, but is killed in reply by the Characters, (The Exalted Champion dealt out a ridiculous amount of damage!) 

 

Turn 3: His Khârn Rhino, down to two wounds, just about manages to get the Berzerkers within range of my central Devastators, they deploy and move within change range. What is left of the first unit of Dogs (About three by now) moves to contest the objective held by the 6 crusaders on their own. The Apostle and Champion move at the Dreadnought. The Bloodthirsters thankfully still aren't close enough to charge anything. The Berzerkers and Khârn charge the Devastators, Khârn fails the charge, but the Berzerkers massacre them and consolidate at my Marshall to take the objective they were all standing on. The dogs charge my crusaders and kill all but the Sword Brother.  In reply he kills all but one dog. The Apostle fails the charge against my Dreadnought and the Exalted Champion (now on one wound) charges the other devastators. I somehow lose only two devastators to his axe and the remaining two together with the Sword Brother finish him off!

 

In my turn I pulled an objective card which meant I needed to clear my deployment zone and take an objective from the enemy. With what I had available, and what he had left in the zone, this was just about possible. I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and the Marshall ran from the Berzerkers, leaving them open to a lot of shooting and all but three are killed.His Rhino is killed by the Crusader's Multi-Melta and the rest of its shooting is at one of the Bloodthirsters and the other dog squad. chipping away at both little but more. I deploy the Choppy squad from the Crusader with the Champion and Castellan, the Castellan moves towards the remaining dog fighting the lone SB, and pummels it back out of existence. The Champion and Crusaders charge the now isolated Khârn. The Champion takes him down to one wound and the Crusaders finish him off!
​I then consolidated the Crusaders into the Berzerkers, the plan was to contest the objective. This was technically possible, provided I didn't lose too many. The three Berzerkers fight back however, with their attacks and an unlucky morale test I lose all but the Sword Brother!

 

Turn 4:

One of the Bloodthirsters turns on the LRC, as do the dog unit, while the other Bloodthirster then closes on my centre. In the fight phase the three Berzerkers kill the remaining Sword Brother on the objective and the Bloodthirster and dogs charge the LRC, destroying it, but losing some wounds and some dogs to a fortuitous explosion. They then consolidate towards the centre. The other Bloodthirster and the Apostle charge the Dreadnought and one of the Razorbacks. The Razorback bites it, whereas the dreadnought survives and kills the Apostle in return.

All that is left in the centre now is the Castellan, Champion and the Marshal. The Dreadnought withdraws towards the devvies, while the rest of my army (the Razor, one Crusader Squad, One Devvy squad and the lone SB) all shoot at the remaining units. The Berzerkers die. 

​Now comes the best bit. The centre of my deployment zone has nothing in it but two, (thankfully weakened) Bloodthirsters and all my Characters. I charge the Champion at the weaker one, and the Marshal and Lieutenant at the other. Both are smited in a blaze of zeal! 

 

Turn 5: All my opponent has left which can do anything are the remaining Fleshhounds. His Bloodletters are too far away to affect anything and the Cultists were sat in impenetrable cover holding an objective in the far corner of the field. The dogs charge the isolated Champion and he is dragged down in a melee of jaws and claws. They consolidate and surround the Castellan. who fights back and kills three!

 

In reply I charge at the remaining dogs with the dreadnought and all the remaining Crusaders. The Marshall has a special objective to take Objective 6 and hold it for two turns. He moves on to the objective as the remaining dogs are put down. 

 

The whole game now comes down to a dice roll. If the game goes on to turn 6 I would almost certainly win. Holding Objective 6 would have given me a whopping 6 command points! and he had nothing which could have got anywhere near the objective to contest it.

 

Unfortunately, my opponent rolls a two and the game ends with a victory for him. (He had drawn some useful Chaos Tactical Objectives and was on 7 to my 3.) 

 

TL:DR: Overall I had a lot of fun in this game. For the first time I was really happy with my unit choices, made no massive mistakes and lost a game without being absolutely tabled.

 

Sitting back a bit and letting Khârn's boys come to me was definitely the right choice, as was having almost the entire army within Helm range of my Marshal. (This was an unbelievable improvement on having it on a jump pack Chaplain.) This decision saved my arse on a number of occasions, allowing my Devvies, Dread and Razors to chip away at his army, massively reducing the amount of damage it could do when it hit my lines.

 

The decision to teleport the terminators into his back line was risky and didn't pay off in the way I hoped, but forcing him to divert his Bloodthirsters for a turn paid dividends at the end of the game when they arrived so much later than his marines. Another good decision was my brainwave to take two Devastator Squads with only two heavy weapons. While this may seem odd, it means I got two Signums at the cost of a few extra Boltgun marines.

 

My favourite moment however, had to be the lone Champion charging and killing the Bloodthirster. This was by far the most useful thing he has done in 15 years of having him! The new Castellan was also absolutely epic in taking down the other Thirster and killing 4 Fleshhounds on his own. It also seemed quite appropriate for the Champion to die immediately afterwards, surrounded by baying daemon dogs.

 

 

The biggest disappointments had to be the Ironclad and the LRC. The Ironclad suffered from new model syndrome and was just unlucky, the LRC was felled in combat (again) and didn't have much impact beyond slowing down the Thirster and dealing some wounds when it exploded.

 

EDIT: One cool thing my opponent had, which I wish I had taken some pictures of, were his Rhinos. They were converted to have front assault hatches. Simply by taking the standard top hatches, narrowing them a little and gluing them on the front! Simple, but really World Eatery.

Edited February 10, 2018 by Brother Adelard

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Now we have the rules for Blood and Zeal, I can start work again on finishing off models too far gone to be eligible for the competition. First on the agenda, my new Marshals.

 

First, the finished build of the Marshal on Jetbike. (Counts as Bike, with Power Lance, twin Boltguns and Master Crafted Boltgun, [All three Boltguns modelled by the Hurricanes] )

 

 

I've improved on the conversion since the first picture. I redid the left arm to lose the Custodes Vambrace and replaced with a regular marine arm, (keeping the original hand from the kit as it's easier to model that way.) I have also utilised the flying strips of material on the legs from the original kit, cutting off the shields and replacing them with Terminator bucklers from the BT upgrade kit. Finally, I cut the lance down a little in length to make it look more appropriately scaled.

 

And, as an attempt to properly use one of RogueCrusader's SB Shoulder pads, I have created this Marshal with a sculpted pauldron cape. (My first foray into sculpting and I'm too embarrassed to show you the back!)

 

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I sat down this week and painted the Jetbike. It's not my best work by a long shot, and even now I can see several things which need re-doing, but it's more than tabletop ready.

 

The main difficulty with painting it was the fact I built far too much of it while seeing if the build was viable at all. (Catch 22 really)  But here he is in all his hoverry glory:

 

Edited February 21, 2018 by Brother Adelard

[SydonianDragoon404]

Looks sick brother

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Good job on the jetbike and its rider.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I decided this past week to have a new look at how to bolster my armoured capacity. (This had nothing to do with being tabled by an IG armoured gunline led by a Shadowsword at all...)

First on the shopping list, a third Predator for some Killshotty goodness. I had one built already and a second in the box. But I didn't want to splash out £30ish on the third Predator. (Let's be honest, it's only purpose in life is to grab a Killshot strategem, so it's always going to be the Cinderella tank, only going to the ball when everyone else gets a ticket.) Therefore I decided to see if I could undertake my first rescue project.

 

Fortunately, one of the FLGS I frequent sells second-hand, dodgily constructed and painted models. They even had a Predator on the shelf! The other thing they have is a well-stocked bits wall, all of which are free to take. So I walked out with a Las-Pred, two HBs, a spare Autocannon, two right-handed lascannons. (They only had rights?) and a load of other bits all for £12!

 

I then spent yesterday overhauling him. (I could imagine the Techmarine giving a long whistle and sucking the air inbetween his teeth as the Marshal brings him in.) He had the following issues:

• For some reason the previous owner glued the turret in place?!
• Some of the track are from a different tank, (fortunately these are all on the bottom and not visible.)
• The tracks go different ways on each side.
• the sponson mounts were still there, but no weapons, no stalks and only one sensor.
• The cupola on top of the turret was glued on,
• the visor was glued shut
• At one point it was obviously festooned with smoke launchers, searchlights, HKMs and Storm Bolters, all of which had snapped off leaving the remnants of their mountings.

 

I started off with the turret, after a lot of wrenching, prying and levering all I managed to do was split the turret in half! leaving the bottom half still very much attached! I reasoned a) that any more force would just break something beyond repair and b) How often do you turn the turret in a game anyway? I therefore used the opportunity of it splitting in half to remove the lascannons and magnetise it to accept either weapons. Otherwise I glued the top back on and just left it where it was.

 

The sponsons were more fun. I had nothing to work with whatsoever to mount the weapons, a quick search of a bits site revealed nothing but empty warehouses and high prices. However, I had managed to pick up a complete Land Raider sponson in the bitz box at the shop! I hacked apart the mount and made two out of the one, I also recycled the Land Raider targetting sensor to make up for my missing one. I also drilled some metal into the mounts and now both accept the magnetised heavy bolters and lascannons from my existing Predators.

With a bit more filing, sand papering and a wash, here he is ready for paint stripping:

 

 

For my next tanky project I have had a bit of a brainwave, I reckon it wouldn't take a lot of effort to convert a Vindicator into a 'Counts as' Vindicator Laser Destroyer. Which I think is a far better tank than it's standard brother on paper. It has better range, more firing options, and if it sits still puts out 4 S9 AP-3 D3 shots, That's cheaper than an Annihilator and arguably more consistent damage!