+ inload: Lamb's World Tanks +

+ Armour +

+ 'What are you waiting for, a gilded invitation? Get in!' +

+ A recent visit to the Tank Museum down in Dorset was a huge inspiration, and caused me to get very frothy about tanks. 40k-wise, I've always been more of an infantry man, but the tank museum really showed how tanks can be varied and personalised – so I had to add some more to my Lamb's World army. +

+ Years back I bought some conversion kits for the GW Chimera, but ended up giving them to a PCRC mate, Lord Blood the Hungry. He generously gave them back to me, along with a whole pile of Elysians (cheers chum – I owe you one!). Perfect to add a mechanised element to my existing army. +

+ Along with the chimera conversion bits, I bought a Elysian Valkyrie riders set, a short-lived Forge World release. I used one of them sitting figures on Echo-118, the tank above (painted goodness knows how long ago); but now have the opportunity to put them where I'd intended to put them on purchase: inside the chimera. +

+ It's a very characterful set of figures, and I'm glad I snapped up a set when I had the chance. It's understandable that sets like this, which have little in-game purpose, tend to get crowded out by game-suitable figures. Still a shame they're out of print, though. +

+ As with all my Lamb's Worlders, they're based on Elysian figures. I trimmed away the respirators and decapitated them, replacing the heads. For these, I used a mix of Cadian FW respirator heads and some Van Saar heads, to create a nice mix. +

+ Being designed for the older Chimera kit, the third party conversion kit itself has a wonky fit. There are misalignments in anumber of places – an explanation for why can be found at Warfrog's Hobby Blog [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+]. I'm going to camouflage them as best I can with gap filling and stowage, rather than attempt a more serious cut-and-shut fix. Slightly disheartening, but I don't think it'll be too glaring on the table – and sometimes done is better than perfect. +

+ I'll be leaving the top of the Chimera open, and have magnetised the seated figures so they can be removed – either to add a bit of verisimilitude during a game, or simply to inspect the lovely sculpts. +

+ I'm also tempted to turn some or all of the holes in the upper hull (intended for lasguns) into portholes. This will allow more light in, and bring focus to the figures. If I do so, I think I'll keep one set of lasguns in place – perhaps representing some sort of volley gun to explain the in-game stats. + 

+++

+ Artillery and Tanks +

+ It's not just Infantry Fighting Vehicles, though. A win on eBay saw me take ownership of a Manticore artillery piece [SCRAPSHUNTERROABORT – and not the Medusa I called it originally!]. Artillery's not something that I've used much. I had a Basilisk back in 2nd edition, but that's as far as it went. This was very much terra incognita for me. I used the same approach as for my other tanks, but left the piece more lightly weathered than the front-line tank. +

+ The ideas for the decoration – such as the manufactory code (detail third from right at the bottom of the image), came from the Tank Museum visit. I thought it'd be a fun opportunity to adds some PCRC references, so the artillery piece got the code BZOA439-NTI as a nod to Lucifer216's Forgeworld Bezoa. The NTI is meaningless in-universe, but is a real world reference to the Alien Wars project, referring to Nova Terra Interregnum. +

+ Finally, I wanted to finish off the other Leman Russ, and bought a Vanquisher turret, to fit in with the Leman Russ company I have in Epic scale (these usually have a Vanquisher as the Company Command vehicle). It'll be fun to be able to field a whole Tank platoon plus command – and perhaps give me a fighting chance against the Knights popping up in the PCRC! +