# Vengrosian 32nd "Ash Bandits", IG Armoured company



## GrimzagGorwazza (Aug 5, 2010)

Well this year is a year of tidying up thigns which arent greenskins and whilst i was sifting through my mountains of unfinished or abandonned projects i realised i had rather a lot of imperial guard tanks. Some of these were undercoated and nothing more whilst several have been painted in an aweful traitor guard colour scheme.

Realising i had the potential makings of a side project which i could use to fill in spaces in my apocalypse game in July i've jumped in to try and get them all painted up and ready.

In total there are 5 leman russ' (one of which is a conqueror), 1 destroyer tank hunter and a forge world shadowsword. There may be more hanging around (i'm pretty sure there should be a basalisk and a griffon somewhere) but for now that's a pretty decent force to turn into an armoured company.

Whilst before i was painting the tanks in greens and blues (don't ask, i really don't know what i was thinking), i'm plannign to strip them down, repledge the former traitor guard tanks to the emperor and reform them as a desert army, more in keeping with my terrain boards. 

Thus the Vengrosian 32nd Armoured company was born. There will be very little fancy techniques here but i'm going to try to make each tank individual and personalised, probably with trophies and kill markings. As a mini theme i'm going to make sure each tank is named after a film.


Here are some shots of the tanks i found (the blue/green thing isn't even uniform across the tanks.....what in the name of the emperor was i doing?) like i said it's possible that even more will turn up. The destroyer isn't pictured, it's already soaking in fairy power spray.


































So once these are stripped and undercoated the plan is to hit them with a coat of Tamiya Dull red spray, mask off some camo stripes with maskol and then put on a coat of Army painter desert yellow spray. Once the maskol is peeled off i'll focus on highlighting and picking out details, in all i think i should have the company finished by the end of the month. 

After a couple of test runs on some cardboard i but the starting coats onto the two undercoated russi. 

















These two have been dubbed, by the adeptus mechanicus, "Man on Fire" (with the triple heavy bolter set up) and "Highlander" (hull mounted lascannon and Claymore pattern battle cannon). I'll have them finished in a couple of weeks with any luck.


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## GrimzagGorwazza (Aug 5, 2010)

Well i've been doing a lot of paint stripping, masking and respraying over the last couple of weeks and i now have all of my tank company at this stage. 









Not bad. I'll now be working through them one tank at a time. Probably starting with the Destroyer, i don't know why i love those tanks so much.


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## elmir (Apr 14, 2011)

Nice work reviving that previous mess


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## GrimzagGorwazza (Aug 5, 2010)

elmir said:


> Nice work reviving that previous mess


Thanks Elmir.

Here is the Destroyer completed and ready for battle, aside from needing some mud on the tracks. 

















This thing was a pain in the ass the rebuild, it seems that whoever did the origional scratchbuild used card instead of plasticard so when it was stripped down whole sections turned to mush and needed rebuilding. still it' looks the part now. 

As i mentioned all my tanks will be named after Films, This little nasty is called "The Grudge" because once it's got you in its sights you are going to die and there is nothing you can do about it.


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## Varakir (Sep 2, 2009)

Nice work, that has come out spiffingly :victory:

Like the idea behind the army and 'tanks named after films' is genius!


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## Iraqiel (May 21, 2008)

Oh mighty Grim-'the-ever-impressive'-zag please share more of your awesome desert tanks with us! 

I really like the colour combination that you've gone for, it looks rich and deep whilst the finished laser destroyer looks super mean. Keep up the good work!


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## GrimzagGorwazza (Aug 5, 2010)

Varakir said:


> Nice work, that has come out spiffingly :victory:
> 
> Like the idea behind the army and 'tanks named after films' is genius!





Iraqiel said:


> Oh mighty Grim-'the-ever-impressive'-zag please share more of your awesome desert tanks with us!
> 
> I really like the colour combination that you've gone for, it looks rich and deep whilst the finished laser destroyer looks super mean. Keep up the good work!



Thanks Guys. I've been cracking away at these behind the scenes and now "Highlander" and "Man on fire" are both ready to roll. 

















That's 3 of the 6 standard sized tanks finished. I think i'll get the shadowsword done next just to break things up before i tackle the last 2 LR and the conqueror.


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## Iraqiel (May 21, 2008)

Alriiiiiight! then, spearhead.


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## GrimzagGorwazza (Aug 5, 2010)

Back again, and whilst i said i was going to be working on the Shadowsword before i got going on any of the normal sized tanks i managed to bugger it up in sensational style (at one point of the debacle of the painting session i was working on the shadowsword i forgot that i needed to wipe paint from my brush to drybrush). So instead now, as i have had to rebasecoat the superheavy adn work back from there, i've finished another Russ. This one was going to be called "Gladiator" but i felt that with the boxy rebuit lascannon housing, cut down battlecannon and large amount of battle damage that it felt like an older tank that has survived a lot. 
With that in mind it has been dubbed "Memento".


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## GrimzagGorwazza (Aug 5, 2010)

So after a couple of days being distracted by graffiti techniques on terrain i'm back to the tanks. 

Another Russ is rolling out, Anger Management this time.


















Oh also i realised that aside from the names of the tanks there was no kind of markings on them. 
I've gone back and added markings like this to the rear of the turret on each one now. 









the first number is the army number, the second is the squadron number and the tank within that squadron. in this case 32 / 0105 = 32nd army , 1st squadron, 5th tank.

Only the conqueror and shadowsword left to do.


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## GrimzagGorwazza (Aug 5, 2010)

Triple post, but it's worth it.
Finished the final standard sized battletank today. The Conqueror "The Crow".


















That means that my russ squadron is complete (for now) and the only outstanding Vengrosian tank that isn't finished is the Shadowsword "End of Days". 

Here are the other guys lined up and ready for battle, once i've completed the Shadowsword i may return and add a bit of mud to the tracks as well as some pigment to the sides to mimic track dust.


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## Dakingofchaos (Sep 29, 2009)

That is a scary amount of now-holy armour!


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## Iraqiel (May 21, 2008)

Hahaha that's what I like to see, a Squadron of tanks in fine shape!

Great work, sorry to hear about the problems with the Shadowsword, but I'm sure it will look a treat once you've got it to your satisfaction!


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## GrimzagGorwazza (Aug 5, 2010)

So i thought i was nearly done with this project then when i was cleaning out my old stock room i found this little lot in a box. 










Because it's a pretty bad picture i'll explain.
What you see here are 4 hellhound tanks, a basilisk and a chimera. All still on their sprues...So that's another six tanks. What i'm planning to do is to break one of the hellhounds down and have a squadron of 3 hellhounds or variants. Then i'll build the basilisk, and with the other two chimera hulls i have i'll build a griffon and medusa. I've got a medusa kit from forge world and enough plasticard to build a mounting platform for it. As for the griffon i'm pretty certain i've seen the parts for one in my bits boxes, otherwise i'll have to do some scratchbuilding.
This also gives me sometthing of a problem, i havn't got crew to man the artillery vehicles. Again i'll sift through bits boxes to see what i can come up with. 

These will be on the backburner for a little bit, i want to get my shadowsword done, some of my white panthers finished and get some more terrain hammered out. I'll probably split the tanks into groups of three to paint just to break them up.


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## Iraqiel (May 21, 2008)

Good grief, what a find! If i found that, i'd be so much a happy chappy... i'd finally have a full hellhound squadron!


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## GrimzagGorwazza (Aug 5, 2010)

Well i was bored today but had just enough of a headache that i didin't fancy tackling the leviathans or work on correcting issues with the shadowsword (not lying, for some reason the volcano cannon which has been completely straight for nine years has developed a bow) so i decided to crack on with the hellhound squadron. After looking at the rulebook, which will be out of date in a month anyway, i decided to go with 2 hellhounds led by a devildog, the dog will have a multimelta to deal with armour if the tanks come up against any.

Here is how it looked once i had combined all of the kits...i'll be adding damage and accesories to these before i paint them.


























I'm going to try to make the names for these both film names and flame related. One will definately be called Event Horizon.


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## Iraqiel (May 21, 2008)

'man on fire'?


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## Tugger (Jul 22, 2013)

Them tanks are looking badass


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## Iraqiel (May 21, 2008)

Ah fool that i am, 'man on fire' is taken already. How about reign of fire? Dante's Inferno? Trogdor?


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## Dorns Legacy (Nov 9, 2012)

Faia..... its simple and translates to fire from japanese, now i know japanese aint always used but it did Nagasana no harm from the Horus Heresy series while he was hunting renegade marines on Terra. 

Failing that what about "Purifier of Hades" or "Immolater of Hades" ?


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## GrimzagGorwazza (Aug 5, 2010)

Iraqiel said:


> Ah fool that i am, 'man on fire' is taken already.


I noticed this but figured i'd mention it after i had some more info for an update. It would have been ideal if i hadn't already used it. 



> How about reign of fire? Dante's Inferno? Trogdor?


Dante's inferno i've not seen, i don't know why it doesn't sit right with me...i think it's because of Dante being a character in the 40k universe already. Trogdor is a whole nother issue, it seems i would have issues with it burninating the countryside, peasants and thatched roof cottages if i name it Trogdor.. Reign of fire i like, I might drop event horizon and save it for the next Destroyer i do. My Missus suggested "The Core" and i think i might try "Kiss of the Dragon", that will make up the triplet. 



Dorns Legacy said:


> Faia..... its simple and translates to fire from japanese, now i know japanese aint always used but it did Nagasana no harm from the Horus Heresy series while he was hunting renegade marines on Terra.
> 
> Failing that what about "Purifier of Hades" or "Immolater of Hades" ?



All good names however i'm trying to name each tank in the army after a film and as far as i can tell these aren't film names.


Bit of an update, i went to work today and was picking up some paints whilst i was there when i suddenly remembered that we had just started stocking the anarchy miniatures airbrush masks. I figured that there might be an opportunity to try something funky on the flame tanks so i picked up some of the scale pattern templates. The hotrod flames one was a little too cliche'd for my liking so i figured fire breathing dragon scales was a step in teh right direction. I pretty much got on with them as soon as i got home tonight, i might be able to paint this squadron before i go on holiday on Friday night. 


















I'm pretty happy with how they look, i think that once i get the other colours down the scales will be a little more broken up and once i've gotten the washes on they'll match the rest of the company a little better. 


Oh also i found some old metal models that with a little work i was able to turn into an infantry squad. The Vengrosians are getting some ground pounders added to their force.


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## GrimzagGorwazza (Aug 5, 2010)

So i'm on holiday which mean that i have had to put some of my larger projects on hold. I have however brought a couple of infantry squads with me. Including the guardsmen from the post above and some white panthers.
















Here is the test mini for the guard, i decided to go really dark with their skintones because i felt pale skin might get lost against the camo.


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## GrimzagGorwazza (Aug 5, 2010)

So after a couple of days on holiday i've managed to get a load more of the infantry done for my guard, they're taking a lot longer than i was expecting. There are so many different inks in effect that i seem to be constantly having to wait for a model to dry. Normally i would move onto the next in this kinda situation but i can't seem to get myself in the right frame of mind for that kinda painting. I'm focussing on one guy at a time and making sure each one is how i want before moving onto the next. 

Even now looking at these pictures i can see one guy who needs one of his eyes fixed and a couple of pouches that i must have missed when i went over with the washes. 

Anyway, here are the shots of the squad so far. I'll also mention that because i'm not at home i am having issues with lighting in these pictures.

Missile launcher (the loader is still on the painting board)









2 New grunts (I imagine the guy on the right as being a rookie who hasn't ditched most of his gear yet, or maybe he's a packrat who has borrowed some additional fatigues from another regiment...who knows)


























The Sargeant 


















And everybody hanging out together.


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## Nacho libre (Feb 23, 2013)

Ummm comander.... It specifies in the uplifting primer that defacing or customising 
Imperial equipment is punishable by death at the hands of the nearest commissar.


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## torealis (Dec 27, 2006)

Love the stencilled patterning on those hellhounds.

And classic guardsmen! Amazing!


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## Varakir (Sep 2, 2009)

Great work on the guardsmen, i think the skin tone works really well with the colours you've chosen. You've managed to get a lot of character into these chaps 

I'm not 100% sold on the scales but i agree they should look really cool once the details are finished :victory:




p.s if you wanted films with a fire theme, surely you have to have a tank called backdraft!?


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## Iraqiel (May 21, 2008)

Looking very good! Your guard would be welcome to repel the ork menace beside mine any time. I love the 'irregular' look you've gone for, it works really well and I think will fit in well as a group of grizzled mechanised veterans who have to put up with tankies all the time!


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## alex_mac47 (May 3, 2009)

Really like the desert camo. Nice and simply but offers a really strong and dramatic effect! 

Also always positive to see former lost souls return to the Imperium!


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## GrimzagGorwazza (Aug 5, 2010)

Nacho libre said:


> Ummm comander.... It specifies in the uplifting primer that defacing or customising
> Imperial equipment is punishable by death at the hands of the nearest commissar.


I Assure you Lord Libre that no Soldier within my Regiment would ever deface their equipment. If however their wargear turns out to be of a substandard quality and is damaged then i have no problem with them using substitutes until such a time as they are able to find the correct replacment. If i catch anyone breaching these rules then i shall be sure to notify Commissar King, as soon as he's finished airbrushing purity flames on the side of his chainsword.

Brigadier Grimzag




torealis said:


> Love the stencilled patterning on those hellhounds.
> 
> And classic guardsmen! Amazing!





Varakir said:


> Great work on the guardsmen, i think the skin tone works really well with the colours you've chosen. You've managed to get a lot of character into these chaps
> 
> I'm not 100% sold on the scales but i agree they should look really cool once the details are finished :victory:


 it seems to be a mixed thing with the scales, my missus likes them more than i do. I'm really hoping that they get broken up a little by the other colours. 


> p.s if you wanted films with a fire theme, surely you have to have a tank called backdraft!?


Not sure how we missed this. I'm also not sure what logo i would paint for it. Each tanks has a little logo to go with its name. Reign of fire will be a crown made of flames. The Core will be a planet splitting open with the flames coming out. Kiss of the dragon will be a set of lips made of flames. 




Iraqiel said:


> Looking very good! Your guard would be welcome to repel the ork menace beside mine any time. I love the 'irregular' look you've gone for, it works really well and I think will fit in well as a group of grizzled mechanised veterans who have to put up with tankies all the time!





alex_mac47 said:


> Really like the desert camo. Nice and simply but offers a really strong and dramatic effect!
> Also always positive to see former lost souls return to the Imperium!


If i'm ever Ozways i'll have to try and bring my guard along. See if we can set up a megabattle against some xeno's, heck if i bring my brother then we could have a mega ork vs guard game. 


Update time. 

I've more or less finished the infantry squad, well as much as i can until i get back home. I don't have flock or greenstuff with me so that'll need to wait till i'm back in Blighty. Also the pictures are poop so again i'll need to dig out my lightbox area when i get home. 

For now here are the nearly complete WIPS


























Continuing my nameing theme i've decided that all of the characters in this army will be named after authors that i like. With that in mind the Corporal for this squad is Corporal Koontz with his second Lance Corporal Child.

















I wasn't happy with the conversion that i'd done on Child so i've taken her arm off and the backpack off, i'll resculpt these then i get home, the rest of the model is painted so this shouldn't take too long to complete once the greenstuff is dried. 









And a group shot, pretty dark but i can't help that right now.


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## torealis (Dec 27, 2006)

The only thing that detracts from the overall feel for me is the eyes. You're brave to have a go, and clearly have some skill, but they're not perfect. And in my view, eyes are something that have to be dead on, or they just look a bit goofy.

Also not a fan of names on the bases.

Sorry to be a Debby downer.


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## Ring Master "Honka" (Oct 31, 2011)

heh heh heH ha ha HA HA HA. PRETTY ToYz ta play wiV i look forwards TA sMashIN dem Ta bITz.

Dey Is lookin good for PUNY HUMIE SchTuff. 

Eragon springs to mind as a movie for your flame tanks. contains dragons


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## Iraqiel (May 21, 2008)

I also have some orks to contribute... Though unfortunately I'm miles away from where the civilised folk dwell.


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## GrimzagGorwazza (Aug 5, 2010)

torealis said:


> The only thing that detracts from the overall feel for me is the eyes. You're brave to have a go, and clearly have some skill, but they're not perfect. And in my view, eyes are something that have to be dead on, or they just look a bit goofy.
> 
> Also not a fan of names on the bases.
> 
> Sorry to be a Debby downer.


Hmm after having a look at the eyes i noticed a few that are a little goofy looking so i blacked them back out, then i decided that maybe i should have a look at some videos of people painting faces and eyes online to see if there is anything i can do to get a more solid looking feel. After 6 or so vids, most of which seem to use a similar method to the one i was already doing, i came away with 2 new little tips for improving the eyes. 
1: On models with a bronze or darker skintone, don't use white for the white of the eyes. The contrast is too damn high and the eyes end up looking cartoony. Instead use an off white or ivory. I switched out my "skull white" for army painter "skeleton bone".
2: Don't paint the pupils towards the centre of the eye or when you look at the model from the front it will look like this. 









Instead paint them slightly closer to the nose so that both eyes appear to be facing forwards. With this in mind i redid all but 2 of the models eyes.

So we have before:








and 
after:









I do think that the models are suffering a little bit from the size of the pictures, viewed at normal size the eyes don't seem anywhere near as horrible as these make them appear. See









Also i've removed the names, i'll be redoing them but i'm using tranfers. whilst i like having names on the models so i can develope the fluff a little better i don't feel the scruffy looking freehand writing that i do is in keeping with an imperial army. orks sure, freehanded names on the side of the tanks..ok. but not on something that should to all intents and purposes be viewed as being an official record. I'll print out names and rank badges on transfer paper to get the effect i want.




Ring Master "Honka" said:


> heh heh heH ha ha HA HA HA. PRETTY ToYz ta play wiV i look forwards TA sMashIN dem Ta bITz.
> 
> Dey Is lookin good for PUNY HUMIE SchTuff.
> 
> Eragon springs to mind as a movie for your flame tanks. contains dragons


Errrmmmm....yes. I've got a lot of flame tank names now...i just remembered that i was going to call one of them "Liar Liar"



Iraqiel said:


> I also have some orks to contribute... Though unfortunately I'm miles away from where the civilised folk dwell.


i'm game and i can sedate Honka for long enough to get him on a plane, i'll slip somthing into his milk and he'll be fine. Realistically though it'll need to wait, there is no way i could afford the journey and carriage that transporting my orks and guard would require. Maybe when i'm a rich and famous writer with my own private jet. 

Also the squad is now finished. 










I'm trying to work out how the platoon/company/regiment structure works for these guys at the moment. I should have another squad of them in a couple of months once i've finished all the other projects that i've got on hold still but the problem is that i've used a lot of the metal catachans in a single squad and i'm not a fan of the plastic ones so much. if i don't want to repeat the poses i'll have to think outside the box a little. 

I've come up with a way of tackling the problem of the missing crew on my artillery tanks as well. I've got a few of the old RT imperial soldiers but they're pretty short. 







PS: that's how he came from ebay. 

However they're wearing different uniform and won't seem so small when raised up on the bed of a vehicle artillery piece. With that in mind i've decided that Tank regiments in the Vengrosian regiment wear the above style uniform, although in more suitable colours. Tankers will be RT guardsmen.


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## Dakingofchaos (Sep 29, 2009)

Looking good! Tankers need to be smaller anyway to fit in the vehicles.


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## Varakir (Sep 2, 2009)

The new eyes look a lot better, but there is still a lot more white in them than there should be. The whites of the eyes usually only cover a small area, and certainly not more than the iris. I don't do eyes that often but i usually try and fill most of the middle of the eye with the iris colour, and just have slivers of white on either side.


Regardless these are looking very cool, the camo and detail work on the ammo belts is fantastic and they are absolutely brimming with character :victory:


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## Iraqiel (May 21, 2008)

Considered washing down the eyes with flesh to reduce the white?


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## GrimzagGorwazza (Aug 5, 2010)

Ok first of the fame tanks is good to go, say hello to "The Core".



























Turns out that the scales look pretty good once the washes were done.


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## Jacobite (Jan 26, 2007)

Nice use of both the old and new kits, scales works well as well. Just a stencil and a AB?


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## Old Man78 (Nov 3, 2011)

Good plog, like the work, the last picture of the chimera is really nice, the scale effect really stands out well the tanks at the start of the plog look like the paint was put on a bit too heavy on the camo stripes, and as others have said if you use a stencil for the names on the bases it would really help them pop, keep upbthe very good work


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## GrimzagGorwazza (Aug 5, 2010)

Jacobite said:


> Just a stencil and a AB?


An anarchy miniatures stencil and a can of army painter desert yellow. My AB Kung fu is not strong. 



Oldman78 said:


> Good plog, like the work, the last picture of the chimera is really nice, the scale effect really stands out well the tanks at the start of the plog look like the paint was put on a bit too heavy on the camo stripes, and as others have said if you use a stencil for the names on the bases it would really help them pop, keep upbthe very good work


Thanks dude, funny that you should mention the camp stripes on the tanks. They're actually the areas that were masked off, so the paint on the stripes is thinner than the paint on the rest of the hull. Hopefully ill get the other 2 tanks in this formation done tonight.


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## GrimzagGorwazza (Aug 5, 2010)

ok, the last of my hellhounds are done, i'm going to go back to these and fix some of the issues with the details later on but for now they are done. 


































So with these done, i'm now going to be working on the Shadowsword. The plan is to get the sword and another squad of panthers done before the 25th
here's hoping.


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## GrimzagGorwazza (Aug 5, 2010)

Shadowsword "End of Days" is ready to roll, i need to add squadron markings and the sides of the fuel drums need sometihng, especially as i filed off the eagles when this was being used as a traitor tank. I've deliberately left the track sections unglued so that i can do some repair work on them, the bogeys seem not to align to the tracks but for the game i have in a fortnight, they will do.


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## Khorne's Fist (Jul 18, 2008)

I'm impressed with the stencilling on the hellhounds, and the drippy nozzle is disturbingly familiar...

It would have been nice to see the big open spaces on the shadowsword done with the stencil as well.

I gotta spread some rep, but I'll get back to you.


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## Nacho libre (Feb 23, 2013)

got a kick out of the writing on the tank, so here's a cookie.


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## GrimzagGorwazza (Aug 5, 2010)

So in an effort to thin down the multiple imperial threads i started i've decided to consolidate them into one, so updates for the vengorsians and their imperial allies can now be found here and i will stop updating this thread.


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