Well, since for the Tale of Painters project I've got the entire month of November to paint 4 Terminators (and since I'm waiting for bases for said Terminators), I thought I could take this opportunity to start working on the Baneblade.
First question: Why? - Because I won a Baneblade in a contest, and I want to use it in Apocalypse games. I do not, however, enjoy Imperial Guard and do not want any kind of contingent of them in my Apocalypse forces. Since it seems strange that the IG would send JUST a Baneblade as an allied force, it makes sense to just turn it into a Dark Angels tank.
What? - The idea for the Baneblade is to turn it into a rolling monastery of sorts. At first this idea included turning it into kind of an interrogation platform for captured Fallen, but the more I thought about it the less fluffy this idea seemed - given the lengths to which the DA go to keep their secret, it didn't seem likely that they would parade it around the battlefield in such a fashion.
So now the idea is similar to the Fortress of Arrogance, only no special rules associated. And (hopefully) it won't suck like the Fortress of Arrogance does.
How? - This will be a long project, I'm pretty sure. The final result is pretty spectacular in my head, so we'll see how well I can make it line up with reality.
The first stage of the project involves modifying the existing tank. To make this more difficult for myself, I have already assembled the Baneblade as you see it photographed by GW. This is because I was impatient and wanted to see it assembled. So now I've got to go back and chop up, relocate, remove, and modify portions of it. So first steps:
- Cut out completely the top of the platform on which the turret sits. The turret will be re-added later, but I want to center it.
- Remove side sponsons and armor plating - The side sponsons will be moved forward, but the armor plating and a few other parts will be replaced with some Cities of Death bits.
- Almost all of the rivets will be getting shaved off - reason being that they make the tank look too IG, and I don't want that.
- Some of the existing detail (hatches, Aquila, seams, etc.) will be shaved off, filled in, or otherwise removed to make a smoother overall appearance, and make room for Dark Angels iconography.
Now there are a LOT of rivets on this thing, and not all of them will be easy to shave off, but I'm pretty committed to getting rid of them. In my head, I keep seeing the FW Mars Pattern Baneblade (
link), which is a lot closer to how I would prefer the body of the tank look overall. I think GW went way overboard with the rivets.
I'll get photos of my progress soon. Should be a fun project.