or maybe something in between

introduction and wip-gallery of drybrushed tank

this article will be the first about a tank that i really enjoyed to build. maybe because it was my very first baneblade. preordered and send within time as apocalypse was released in oct.07. but than with the box in my hands i  suddenly found myself unable to start building this verhicle on whichs’ release i was waiting for so long. the reason was that i had no idea how to convert it, that seemed to be worthy for such a model. further i wanted to integrate this model into my already existing army, that consisted of space wolves allied with more or less independent acting fractions of the imperial army.

some might say: “the original model is already impressing enough, why not simply keeping everything as it is ? – why does BobPanda always feel a necessity to do a conversion?”

well normally my answer would be: “because elsewise it would be too easy… , wouldn’t it ???.” but this time my main argument was, that with the upcoming apocalypseflush i expected a flood of baneblades rumbling over every 40k-related board or blog within the next months. i simply wanted to do something different. and than, suddenly when the first rumours came up, that there’d might come a baneblade-variant equipped with a vmb and transport capacity called stormlord, i already had mine. so i think i was propably the very first in the world building his own pattern of a stormlord, without even knowing yet, that there’d come a model like this more than 2 years later.

and here it is ! … : equipped with a vmb mounted in its’ turret, a twinlinked heavy bolter in its’ hull and two heavy bolters on top ….

as you can see, its’ paintjob is by far not finished yet. but i think within an article dedicated to provide an introduction to the model on the one hand and an overview about the outward design on the other hand, showing pics of the drybrushed status is just perfect.- because -imho- the paintjob does not yet distract from the conversion, but it is already far enough to suggest a harmonic effect. as a consequence on that, all pics you’ll find in this article will be of this specific paintjob-status.

in contrast to my currently ongoing projects i haven’t integrated any kind of electronics in this tank. – maybe because i still haven’t felt ready to start with this next stage. but allthough i really like this tanks design and i think the fact that it’s a quite simple, but effective conversion somehow fits to its’ rough character. as you can see in the picture above, i did not only convert the turret, but also some other areas spread all over the tanks surface to keep the balance between original model and conversions. i decided to keep the rear-section simple and unspectacular. so i replaced the fuelbarrels with some wolf emblems only and the exhausts got replaced by a door taken from the forgewordl space wolves landraider door-set.

this door also helped me to represent the tanks transport-capacity. i don’t like tanks with certain features and functions which are not represented by their design. e.g .the upcoming stormlord: nice concept, but where does the squad enter and leave the tank? in my case i decided that the motor was mounted in the right side of the rear section, right behind the shrine you can see at its’ rear. now the crew would be able to pass the motor in a small corridor leading directly to the rear door. if you look closely, you’ll notice, that the door is mounted high enough, that the shaft moving the driving wheels can find enough room beneath.

so now that the turret, the rear and the upper rear were done i started to think about what could be done with the front-section.  in contrast to the rear, the font is shaped like a wedge. this means, that the front itself is just a thin peace of armor with an imperial eagle, that already looks great by default and therefore required no conversion. the fronts “roof” normaly contains the small heavy bolter turret and the demolisher cannon. up from the beginning it was clear to me to remove at least the cannon. the reason was, that i thought it wouldn’t fit to the rest of the tank. when i realized the sheer size of the gap suddenly yawning there, where the cannon was before i saw my chance to integrate some kind of  lookout, where e.g. the commander could stand and enjoy the sound of war while the tanks main gun cuts down enemies like straw. – i simply called it: the coolest place to be on a battlefield.

this lookout can be accessed directly from the tanks interior through a sliding door, i took from the land raider. now that the tank was almost finished i still wanted it to become even more space-marine-like by exchanging the bolter-turret againt a twinlinked heavy bolter that we normaly find on other space marine tanks, like the land raider or the razorback.

finally i finished the build with some details like runes and adding the gunner and crewmember in the front.

i hope you enjoyed reading this article. … comments are welcome.

articles about how it will be painted will follow soon ….

BobPanda.