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Storm Sword & Storm Blade  & Shadowsword.  Okay, actually the four superheavies are all based on one chassis that will have a magnetic interchangable turret.

Both the Heavy Bolter and the and Demolisher are mounted with magnets so they can be easily swapped out as needed.  I just shoved the mega battle cannon into the turret to see how it looked.

Here's the finished plasma blastgun,
and the current set up for the sponson weapons.

Unfortunately, right now I'm stymied on what to do with treads, I haven't found anything I like, and until I know the dimensions on those, I can't do the side hulls with and the sponson mounts.  I wish the Forge World treads weren't so stupid expensive.  So to distract myself from that, I decided to build a salamander command tank, and this is what I ended up with.

I made it from the Vindicator I used for the Bane Blade's demolisher cannon, and right now the only thing keeping it from being finished is the lack of a spare hull mounted heavy bolter. 

what did you use for the storm etc. etc. etc. hull ?

The tan hull is from a Tamiya 1/35 M2 Bradley. The green model, of which I'm currently using just the turret, is a Tamiya 1/35 Tiger 1.

i think they both look cool so far, as for your track dilemma i've seen lots of places online that have tank parts for sale . in fact in an earlier post some one mentioned a place called quarter-kit.com i looked at the sight & they have metal tracks that look pretty cool maybe you should check it out or some other place . anyway i'm looking forward to the finished products.

I think the salamander convo is great and really well done, but I'm afriad I don't like the cannon on the baneblade. It's way too huge and cartoony looking for me.

 

That's actually the Plasma blastgun for the Stormblade variant, and I think it looks like a pretty apt conversion to me. www.forgeworld.co.uk/cgi-local/sh000001.pl

Unless of course you're talking about the mega battle cannon rather prominently shown in the first picture.  It has had about a third of it's length trimmed off at this point, and I think that anything smaller would leave it looking kind of puny in comparison to the full tank.

I'm talking about the honking huge battle cannon on the first picture.

The plasmablast gun is nicely done,

Man, _why_ did you have to say that? It was all fine before, but now every time I look at the barrel, it's just this huge thing hanging there... I think part of the problem is for some reason the way it's positioned against the heavy bolter makes it look bigger, and I haven't finished combining those two turrets into one yet, so the cannon is massively oversized for just the Bradley turret.

Why not use a medium thickness peice of plastic rod, or some garden hose with plasticard bits added?

There are all sorts of generic household tubing that you can use to represent gun barrels nicely.

Here's my current progress:
Cannons:


Some trick of the camera always make the mega battle cannon seem to double in size, because I swear it looks just fine in person, and nowhere near that huge.

Baneblade:


I've shifted the Heavy bolter mounting, because it's original position was in the way of the turret. I'm very pleased with how the Co-axial autocannon fits into the cannon aperture on the Bradley turret.

Shadow sword:

The cannon sits a little high, and there's no good way to bring it down, and it needs to be shortened.

Stormblade:

I haven't done any work on yet on the actual mounting, so it's just sitting on the hull.

All the weaponry looks a little oversized right now, but keep in mind that the tread hulls and sponson housings will almost double the width. I'm also going to extend the back a bit farther for the engine compartment (you can see the start of that with the vent plate resting behind the turret). I'm also going to stick a pintle mounted heavy stubber on the hatch because it amuses me (it's only 12 points for another 3 shots, why not?).

My major point of frustration right now is the engine compartment and treads. Back when I started, I almost scored the treads and power plant from a land raider off e-bay, but I had it still using a now defunct e-mail addy, and so I didn't get any of the notification e-mails, and so someone else walked off with them for $5... I'm thinking of putting all my extra IG treads to use, and maybe making a double or triple wide track, but I really want that Land Raider power plant!

Bane Blade update:

Okay, I finally decided that my original Mega battle cannon was just too damn huge, and in the final appraisal didn't look good at all. So I cut it up, and installed this in it's place (I'm going to cut the original down, and turn it into the Siege Cannon I was having trouble getting to look right).

I also tore open the top of the chassis so that I could lower the turret, improving the over all look.



The volcano cannon is still a bit high, but I can live with that. I'm definitely going to have to shorten it about an inch.

I like the new main cannon much better now. But I really think the volcano cannon warrants a new, lower turret to keep the look closer to the established imagery. Otherwise it's really too close to a baneblade in appearance.

Okay, Baneblade update.  The secondary hulls are attached, and looking good.  Sponson heavy bolters are mounted, and looking not so bad.  Lascanons and targeters have had their magnets installed and can be popped on and off as needed.  I've gotten the majority of the body work done, and now I've gotten a good start on the details



I really do think it's starting to come together.



Unfortunately, since I'm using a rather shiny type of plasticard, the flash washed out all the details of what I've done, the panel sectioning, and the access doors that the handles are attached to.  You can also see the greenstuff halves of the exhaust pipes that I made.

Agree with Drake. It hardly needs to be shortened at all. Maybe even lengthened and widened. I'm digging it thought, because its the Gundam GP-02's nuclear bazooka! You need to cut off the pistol grip on it though, that looks kinda tacky.

I dont like the twin linked heravy bolter at the front. I would get the twin linked heavy bolter you get on the Ravenwing sprue. If anyone you know has Ravenwing boxset they will have this. It is ONLY needed for a Master of the Ravenwing on Land Speeder, yet it is included on every bike bits sprue, so one should have available (along with lots of assault cannon) to anyone you know who collects the new Dark Angels.
Add a turret ring and use the twin linked heavy bolter as a pintel mount. You get a decent weapon with no mess.

If you dont want to do that add the heavy bolters to the front of the turret in the space you have beneath and to the side of the main weapon. If you cut ther heavy bolters off so you only have the front half and glue them to a curved piece of plastic then glue that to the turret front (or better yet cut into the turet front) you have heavy bolters that are clearly not co-axial to the main weapon.

Also to prevent the lascannon from looking too much like bits stuck on flatboard remove them and mount them on a coin before adding them to the hull.

Then add thin card plates to the hull to give it definition before adding hatches and handles etc.

If were you I would concentrate on the Baneblade and build it for that. Making it into a Shadowsword aswell will likely not be worth it. Baneblades are a far better and more cost effective gaming piece and its not just the main weapon that is different, the side sponsons have different armament too.

Shadowsword, Stormblade, and Stormsword are the alternates.  All four super heavies use TL Heavy Bolters as their sponson weapon.  I've already built all four cannons, I just need to work on the mounting for them.

More Baneblade pics (I really need to get to work on the other turret weapons...). I've finished the engine and 'fuel' tanks (I have no idea what's in them, but they help balance out the model so that the turret doesn't seem so tall). I had better lighting so that some of the details aren't as washed out this time.

I didn't do a good job of capturing it, but both the tanks, and the extensions where the primary hull spills out onto the secondaries helps take some of the percieved height off the turret   I was just about to make a BWbits order, and the MoR HBs are only $1.50, so I'll see how it looks.

Okay, after letting this project languish long enough for a plastic baneblade to be rumored, confirmed, and released, I've returned to work on it, and it's shaping up just in time for me to get a plastic baneblade to squadron it with.

Mostly finished plasma blastgun.




Very unfinished volcano cannon:


Slightly earlier pic in Baneblade configuration.


You will notice that I tore out the old sponsons, which left the HBs hanging out in a rather ugly fashion.  In hindsight, i wish that I'd used the Razorback HBs, instead of the predator ones.

And the Salamander.


 At least I've gotten the crew finished.  The Enginseer is magnetically mounted so that he can be removed and fielded regularly if so desired.

And look, now he has a friend.

(although I do think that my mrk III does suffer some in comparison to the mrk II)

in all honesty now you have had the plastic Baneblade dumped onto your project your best option with the mk 3 would be to "make it orky".

lol wii