[This post was originally posted to Otherverse Games & Hobbies as part of a series called Plastic to Painted, or P2P. You may see logos or references to this site and series]
A Welcome Upgrade
When I returned to the hobbying in 2018, I was surprised to see which models had seen upgrades, and which had not. Some had seen some upgrades, but not much. Others had completely new lines. Models that I was happy to see get improved on were the Chaos tanks. Well, tanks in general, really. Tanks, for the most part, back in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s made no sense in terms of their scale. You can put a whole squad of marines in this? How? The Rhino‘s used to be tiny, and the Marines were almost as tall as the tank. There was no way they were all fitting inside. Not unless they took off their armor.
I know. I know. It’s a sci-if fantasy game. Leave me alone.
Seeing as just about all Astartes tanks were based off of that same Rhino pattern, they looked pretty bland and insignificant to me. Chaos tanks were no different. The same tanks, just with spikes and chains. Because spikes = chaos. But even with all those spiky-bits, they looked ho-hum. For me, the most dynamic looking of the chaos tanks(land raider aside) was the predator. And even that was a stretch. Again, it was the same Rhino chassis. The big thing was that it had a turret on top and sponsons on the side. The kit was plastic, but the turret and sponsons were metal. I remember the lascannon turret was front heavy, and the barrel would tip the turret off of the tank. Painting added just enough friction to make the turret stick in place. Until you wore down the paint. The sponsons flopped back and forth with a clack.
Even though these tanks couldn’t carry troops, they still made no sense in terms of size. Though, I guess in history there were small/light tanks. Also, the spiky-bits that were provided impeded the movement of the turret. The effective shooting radius of the main lascannon on my predator was about 20-25 degrees. But again, in history there were tanks that didn’t have a rotatable turret at all. So… yeah.
The newer kits were a welcome sight for me. They have a wider body and are better sized in general. The turrets and sponsons look cooler, and the models just plain look better on the table. Not comical like the old tanks used to look. The design is simple and effective. If you want to chaos-it-up, you can. I didn’t feel the need to add all those spiky bits and chains, like I did with the old-guard of Predators. Which was perfect, seeing as the direction I was taking my Iron Warriors was one of simplicity.
I painted these with my airbrush, using a thinned Iron Warriors base color. The hazards were also done with the airbrush using Tamiya masking tape. I knocked out the base layers and hazards for: 2 Predators, 2 Rhinos, 1 Vindicator, 1 Typhon, and 1 Fire Raptor all in one airbrushing session. I was able to finish all of those in a matter of 4 or 5 days. So, the airbrush took out the bulk of the work needed to get them all done.
I kind of wish I still had my old predator. That way I could have shown that disaster off here, like I did with my Oldhammer Rhino. But I trashed it some years back. The pewter turret is still around here somewhere, I think, but I cannot find it. I wanted to use it as destroyed terrain in my Knight projects back in 2020. But in the end I decided not too. It looked silly, when I mocked it up.
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Robert
All of these are true except for one:
Robert is: a Hobbyist, a Music Lover, an RPG Gamer, a Mustard Lover, Chaotic Neutral, a Japanese Speaker, a Veteran, an Otaku, a Table Tennis Player, an Anime Fan, an Aviation Professional, a New York Rangers Fan, a Chaos Lover With Loyalist Tendencies.