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So, I've been working on my guard army for nearly eight years now. During that time, I've been an active player for about 3 of them, for over a hundred games. At least half of them have had a Leman Russ of one variant or another on the table. Yet, in all that time, I've never managed to field a painted russ.

There are a few main reasons for this. Firstly, I've long disliked how russes look, and have made many, many attempts to convert my original russ kit that I bought. It has always been in vain. Without having a design that I liked, it stood to follow that I never bothered to paint it. And even if I did, I have had a bad, brief history with painting vehicles. They always seemed to show brush strokes, and always looked... well... bad. That I didn't have a vehicle color scheme that I liked only made this problem worse. And so I've been painting infantry instead.

A few things have changed, though. Firstly, I'm starting to run out of infantry to paint. It turns out that when you have 200 guardsmen, you don't wind up needing any more on an average gaming night - you already have the weapons upgrades that you're likely going to want. Secondly, a couple of months ago, I bought a sentinel. Working with this, I FINALLY got down what I want my vehicle paint scheme to look like.

Also, for said project, I discovered washes, now shades. I've never been a big fan of washes before, and I guess I'm not all that sold on them for infantry models, but I was really shocked by how awesome they make vehicles look with such minimal effort. With a paint scheme I liked, a way to make them look good quickly, and with nothing else to do, I finally set about buying and painting my first leman russ model.

As my old russ had been so badly hacked about, I decided to buy a new one. This is my first experience with the new russ sprue, and I was really rather impressed. The new track system is a godsend, and I'm really glad that they copied this idea from the new chimeras. Also, I was rather impressed with how simple things are now. Where before there were parts of the tank that took several pieces to put together, now there are many fewer parts - things that weren't optional in the first place now being moulded on to the plastic in a single piece. The old russ turret was something like 18 parts. The new one is only 11, and for the same level of detail. The whole tank was faster and easier to put together than before. Also, the sponson and hull weapons are MUCH better, and I really like the new interchangability, without even needing magnets. My only regret is the complete lack of vehicle accessory sprue. I'll have to be putting on some of my old bits to make up the difference.

Anyways, after much deliberation, I eventually decided to build the russ in a stock, unconverted format. The more I looked things over and the more experience I got with it, the more the russ aesthetic sort of started to make sense to me. I think, if anything, this project has trained my eyes to see the model better, and not just as some big blob of tank. I did do a tiny bit of conversion work, though. While the hull weapons were interchangeable, the main weapon was not. After doing a little thinking, I eventually settled on a solution.



I started by chopping off the barrel of the main gun from its mounting lug. I wouldn't be using it anyway, and the knobs sticking off the side were just going to interfere. I instead mounted the gun on a piece of plasticard tubing. Then, I gouged into the bottom piece of the turret The front of the bottom has a semi-circle cut in it to hold the barrel. I simply repeated this in the part of the plastic behind. That way, the plasticard tube would be able to sit on two semi-circular points of contact, keeping the barrel snug and straight. Then, all I needed to do was to glue down a bit of plasticard so that there was a backstop for the tube to bump into, ensuring the whole thing wouldn't wind up getting pushed all the way back into the completed turret.

Once this was all done, it was time to hit the paint. I primed black, basecoated light grey (though in a slightly streaky way with my large brush - in this case, the inconsistencies add to the model, rather than detract), and then painted on my large camo swatches and bordered it with my rotting flesh color. I then hemmed and hawed about detail work, and finally decided on recognition stripes that I liked, putting them on both sides and doing the detail work on the turret. A quick bit of tin bitz and boltgun on the tracks, and the whole thing was basecoated.

Then I did the washing. One light pass of agrax earthshade and then a heavy pass of nuln oil (with a second light pass on a few places). Instatntly, the tank went from blah basecoated, to wonderfully grimy. Washes really are great for tanks.

After this, it was just doing a little more detail work (like the searchlight), and then doing some weathering. I already had a vehicle that looked ancient, grimy, and altogether gross, so I wanted to keep a little light on the weathering. I didn't want to make things TOO busy. I decided to just do some rust spotting, throwing down a bit of black on the edges, followed by some brown.









Behold, "The Tempest"!

I still can't get over just how easy this was. Really, it was just basecoating and washing with a touch of detail added on. I could have pounded the whole thing out in a weekend were it not for the fact that this was split over a holiday.

Secondly, I still can't get over how good this looks. Really, for very minimal effort, I've got what I can confidently say is the best looking miniature in my army at the moment. I've shied away from vehicles because they were hard to paint and looked bad. Now neither of those things is true.

This is the second vehicle I've done with this paintscheme, so I thought I'd also throw up a picture of what my first russ looks like next to my sentinel with the same scheme.



Anyways, I'm really pumped about this. I've already purchased my second russ, and hope to finish it relatively soon. Now that I don't have to sit and think about how I want it to look, but can just copy the other one I've already gotten done, that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

And, as is my custom, your poster.

Great paint job! (Is that what I think it is? An Eradicator with MM sponsons and hull LC?) There might be some purists who may not like the painting, but I love the British-looking markings and the scheme in general. Looks a lot like the Mark IV tanks of WWI!

wow, that scheme is really eye catching. Those squadron/company markings just look fantastic.

May the Tempest deliver the emprah's fury to your foes

Congrats! The infantry in your batreps look like they're painted pretty good, so it's surprising to hear you say that you don't have any painted vehicles. The Russ is a solid tabletop-quality job. Does it match your infantry, though? I don't remember seeing any ochre in your color scheme.

Very nice paint scheme on that! Excellent weathering.

Thanks!

Hedkrakka wrote:Is that what I think it is? An Eradicator with MM sponsons and hull LC?

Yup. My next russ is going to be a punisher with the same hull weapons.

Basically, these russes are taking the place of my stormtroopers that I swapped out. My most consistent MVP of 6th ed so far has been my 10-man stormie squad with 2x flamers. That's sort of what the eradicator is here to replace. Of course, I could have replaced a 175 point unit with a 185 point unit with a bolter boat configuration, but in this case, I have the option to take meltas AND cover ignoring weapons, so I'm going to jump on that.

Basically, I had 30 stormtroopers, 2 flamers, and 4 meltaguns. Now I'm going to have 3 russes with an eradicator cannon, 6 multimeltas, and 3 lascannons. That certainly seems like more firepower. The only thing that the tanks are lacking compared to the stormies is the anti-infantry killing power of the 48 S3 AP3 hellgun shots. I'm looking for my other two tanks to be punishers, in the hope that the 40 S5 Ap- shots will be a close enough analogue, especially once you throw in all those other Ap2/1 weapons.

the_Armyman wrote:it's surprising to hear you say that you don't have any painted vehicles.

Well, it's not that I don't have any painted vehicles, it's that I don't like my old ones. I struggled for years trying to find a scheme I like, and you can sort of see that in my hodge-podge vehicle collection. For example...





Before I did the sentinel, I was stuck between white (which would be confused for snow camo), brown (which wouldn't show detail at all), and grey (which would be way too boring). Then I remembered the camo scheme on my guardsmen, and that was that.

Now that I've finally got a theme that I like, I can move forward.

the_Armyman wrote: I don't remember seeing any ochre in your color scheme.

It's there, it's just subtle.

The "pistachio grey" scheme can be found on my guardsmen's pants. Some of the more elite units in my army have it for both pants and shirts.









Certainly not as obvious as the brown or the white, but it's definitely already a part of the scheme.

It looks great, but does this also mean you're going to go back and bring other things into this new scheme?

eventually.

Seeing these makes me full guilty that I painted my russes a drab grey. I do like your desert camo scheme.

Really loving that russ.. Is there any other vehicles planned for the army?
MB

Simply gorgeous paint scheme, and the poster made me cackle XD

I like your paint scheme and weathering. Overall it's solid Leman Russ paintjob. I think painting IG vehicles is pretty easy, which is why my IG army consists mostly of vehicles.

The russ is marvelous (we even paint with the same colors! Astronomican Grey and Desert Yellow?), but I wish that the Eradicator was worth taking in it's current rules. It's strictly worse than the battlecannon against >75% of most targets - ie. Marines and vehicles - and on top of that you have to pay more for it.

However, the barrel for it is sexy, so I usually end up putting them on sawed-off Basilisk barrels for an instant Colossus - which is terrifying against marine blobs of any kind, and what the Eradicator wishes it could be.

I really like how that Russ turned out; the muddyness of Nuln Oil looks really good on that setup, looks worn and used without looking sloppy. Lighter schemes really allow the detail of the Russ to stand out; it's an endless highlighting/drybrushing hell on anything dark, such as my black and grey tanks...

Pity it's such a horrid weapon setup

I love the weathering nice job, Looks great!

Thanks, everyone!

Joshh wrote:I wish that the Eradicator was worth taking in it's current rules. It's strictly worse than the battlecannon against >75% of most targets - ie. Marines and vehicles - and on top of that you have to pay more for it.

MajorStoffer wrote:Pity it's such a horrid weapon setup

Well, firstly, it's all swappable.

Secondly, when you compare the eradicator against a LRBT, start by filtering out those things that neither the eradicator NOR the LRBT are really any good against. Throw out terminators, for example, and AV13 (the LRBT can technically handle this target type, but they're terrible at it), and monstrous creatures, etc.

When you only look at what the battlecannon can handle decently, you'll find that the eradicator is equal to or better than it at like 75% of stuff. The battlecannon really only shines against MEq out of cover, while the eradicator is equal or better at every other infantry target type except for this one.

Throw in the hull weapons, and there's nothing this tank can't handle.

That said, I'm starting to think of possibly swapping it out for a pasquisher, because my opponents really like their tanks.

MajorStoffer wrote:Lighter schemes really allow the detail of the Russ to stand out; it's an endless highlighting/drybrushing hell on anything dark, such as my black and grey tanks...

Yeah, that's pretty much why I didn't go for brown.

It's kind of ironic, though. The reason that my guardsmen have brown armor is because I wanted them to match my tanks, and I wanted brown tanks. There's even a bit of fluff about the brown paint being photovoltaic.

Then it turns out that I'm not going to have brown tanks. Oh well...

MattyB wrote:Really loving that russ.. Is there any other vehicles planned for the army?

More russes, at least for the moment.

I'm actually building my second one now, and need some advice on which tank commander to use. I'm also hemming and hawing over whether my second russ should have sponsons on it or not. There are exactly two builds where I'd take a russ without sponsons - a demolisher, and a pask vanquisher, and I just happen to be considering one of those at the moment...

The Russ looks great Ailaros. I too have had real trouble thinking up a scheme for my tanks that will match my guardsmen. Your tank looks superb though so i may just take a leaf out of your book and do what you did.

Tank looks nice. Very impressed.

I really like the colors on that russ. It's odd, because I would have never thought blue and white would have went with those shades of brown, yet somehow it just works. I like it!

Nice tank The Eradicator is a fun variant to use

So, blue and white are actually the colors of Folera. It's easy to miss that with all of the brown in there, but you can see it here and there in glimpses, for example, my flag objective:



As such, some theme on blue or white was really the only thing I could do for this tank. I'm actually more grateful that the stripes go with the grey more than that they go with the brown.

looks good man glad it came out for yah

Totes cute!

I like the Greek style background of the unit. Good paint jobs.

Those are some great looking models you got there

Classy army you got there!

Nice work ros! Looks fantanstic...