+ inload: 3rd edition battle and Leman Russ Vanquisher lore +

 + Vanquisher – and battle against the Emperor's Hawks +

+ 707th infantry +

The benefits of batch painting reveal themselves when you dig out an army carry-box and find a load of models that are nearly finished.

These Steel Legionaries, for my 707th army, have been part-painted for ages, and with a couple of hours free I've worked them up a little more, so they're ready for the table. This involved little more than picking out the dust goggles and a little work on the various weapons/equipment, as the coats were already finished by past-me. They still need the skin and eyes to be painted, but there's so little visible that this should be swift.

You'll spot the company banner has been worked up a little more, too, though I'm still musing over some icons to add. PCRC suggestions have included a Yarrick claw and evil eye, which sound cool.

I also took the opportunity to add some detail to this comms-trooper's map. I used contrast paints to prevent the lines looking too harsh and stark.

+ Tank support +

... and likewise this half-finished Leman Russ Vanquisher got polished up a little, an so is now three-quarters-finished.

This involved working the turret up a little more and picking out some more darker/metallic details.

Background-wise, the Leman Russ Vanquisher is a variant of the Leman Russ Battle Tank. Armed with a Vanquisher cannon, it's able to shoot dedicated anti-tank shells as well as regular battle cannon shells. So powerful and reliable is its main gun that it's even a credible threat to War Engines including Titans.

The STC for its construction was lost when the Forge World of Tigrus was overrun (darn orks!), but the Imperium can still produce similar variants from a limited number of other Forge Worlds. As a result, where once entire tank companies were made up of the Vanquisher, it's now more commonly seen alongside other Leman Russ variants, either acting as a dedicated tank-hunter or as a prestigious command tank.

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In the real world, Forge World produced a few different variants, shown below:

+ Gryphonne IV variant +

I'm fairly sure that the Gryphonne IV version above is the oldest – and was amongst the first Forge World releases in 2001. 

If you're interested in the history of the Leman Russ Battle Tank, inload this [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], which covers all sorts of ins and outs of this storied old model. Note that things marked with an asterisk in this inload are expanded on a bit further through the noosphericinloadlink.

+ Stygies VIII variant +

This version was released soon afterwards – it's certainly in the 2003 catalogue, and I'm fairly sure it was new in 2002. It's a good reflection of the early days of Forge World, where small runs of minor variants like this were their bread and butter, rather than having full ranges of their own.

Both this and the Gryphonne IV conversion kit were created for the original 1995 plastic Leman Russ release (the Mark IV*), and were later redesigned with an adapter to let them work on the redesigned Mark VII, which had a small hole in the hull for the turret. If you're looking to get one second-hand, it's worth checking which version you're getting.

+ Ryza Vanquisher turret +

This was a slightly later variant that came out for the Death Korps of Krieg, which by this point had expanded to have a whole range of their own subtly different vehicles. I'd not like to put a solid date on it, but I think the Ryza-pattern tanks and conversion sets stated appearing in the form above around 2008–2009.

This is a bit vague, because I think the DK-specific tanks were a development of an earlier Ryza-pattern turret, which came out earlier – around 2004. 

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+ The lenses and headlight go a long way to adding suggested detail, even when the rest of it needs a lot of cleaning up and refinement. +

But enough of delving into the dusty murk of past releases. I'll be continuing to work on this – the paintjob needs highlighting and cleaning up – but it's in a nice place and perfectly fieldable.

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+ Into battle! +

And speaking of fielding it, I had a great game against PCRC droog Stuntwedge. With the Tears of the Eye of Terror event creeping up on us, we wanted to get some practice in for 3rd edition 40k (well, '3.5', as we're using the various Chapter Approved updates).

To that end I dug out my Armageddon board [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+] and set up a few rocks, crops and hedges to suggest some roads.



Stuntwedge brought along a 2,000pt army of Emperor's Hawks, a Chapter he's had for decades, and has many happy memories for the whole PCRC. It was a treat to see them back on the board.

The Emperor's Hawks came along on one of the first campaign weekends we all went on, where he'd built a full Battle Company of this Codex-compliant Chapter.

The game itself was a thorough drubbing for the poor Steel Legion, with the final VP total being something like 1,500–200 to the Adeptus Astartes – more training needed for my Guardsmen, I think!

Some more glamour shots from the game.

Steel Legion lurk in the fields, the crops providing a 6+ cover save which proved considerably more useful than their armour...

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