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I was never terribly impressed by any of the Baneblade models of the three that have been available: the Armorcast kit, or the original two all resin variants from Forgeworld, though I do lament its passing for other gamers with no conversion kit available from FW for the atrocious plastic kit. Prior to the plastic kit coming out, the Baneblade, Shadowsword, and Stormsword were prohibitively expensive for me and I read some nightmarish reviews of assembling those resin monsters.

Then came the plastic kit, and the announcement that FW would be making conversion kits! Hooray! So I ran out and bought me a plastic Shadowsword... only to find out that FW was never going to sell just the conversion parts, but the entire plastic kit with it, once again with a prohibitive price tag. So, here we are. I plan on doing this monster up like "a real model" as my WWII tank-building brother would say, trying to correct a lot of the issues with the plastic kit, super detail it, and paint and weather it like the pros do on their real world tanks, and that table top gamers are just getting exposed to.

(A great example of this is the Model Masterclass books from Forgeworld, which is by and large recycled techniques you can get either free from military modeling sites and blogs, or from the many good military model magazines out there, but with a ridiculous cover price and a Forgeworld logo.)

As of now, here's what I'm planning:

* Completely rebuilding the cradle and barrel of the laser

* Widening the track guards and using some tank tracks from a real tank kit, as well as the sprocket and drive wheels

* Getting rid of a lot of the bland or badly done detail, primarily on the top of the superstructure

* Adding things like tools or toolboxes and bins or wire baskets for stowage

* Scratch building a new exhaust system to look closer to the FW version and detailing the existing vents on the rear deck

First up, here's some pics of my first steps with the new cradle:



I actually made this last year on a lathe, but getting laid off from my job and trying to find a new put the model building on hold for a while. It doesn't look like much yet, but here's a comparison pic of the Forgeworld cradle:



Now, as much as I like the looks of the Shadowsword, when I starting working on this piece, the big recoil compensator piston-thingies didn't make much sense to me. I mean, it's a giant laser and they don't have any recoil, so I'm changing the design slightly to look more like reinforcing struts for this titanic weapon assembly.

Here's a shot of the cradle with the rivets attached to the front plate and the struts in place, side-by-side with the plastic version:



And finally, shots of it lightly blue tacked in place to see how it looks mounted on the superstructure:



Don't worry, there's going to be a more details added to it before I'm done with the cradle. It is a little bigger than the plastic version, and the barrel is a fair bit bigger - I'm going to be using .5 inch plastic tubing for it.


C&C welcome as always. Thanks for looking,

-BCK

Nice work so far, and I like the fact you're de riveting the beast to an extent, it will ad a modern armour feel to it.

Look forward to more mate.

Funny that you mention that - I originally sanded off the rivets to put the bigger ones on like the FW version, but now that I'm coming back to the model nearly a year later, I'm considering doing weld seams instead.

The lack of rivets is one of the things I liked about the original FW Mars pattern Baneblade:




I'm not sure if I want to take it this far on my Shadowsword, but since I'm going to have to make new armor for the widened track guards already, the idea is there in the back of my head. Also, I'm glad a saved a lot of these old FW pics, as most of them were removed from the website ages ago.

Oh, this could be good!

I hope so!

I bring a small update, showing some testing of the new drive parts for the tracks. First up, a comparison of the GW track vs the one I'll be using:



It's only a little bit wider than the GW track, but due to where the road wheels will have to sit on it, the whole sub-assembly is being widened to accommodate it.

Here's the drive sprocket and return roller still being worked on:



I don't know yet if the ends will be visible and if I'll have to add rivets and such, so I'm holding off on further detail work for now.

And here they are blue tacked in place to get a feel for the look of it:



The return roller on the front isn't touching the first road wheel, it just looks like it from the angle and is actually spaced about the same amount as the other road wheels are from each other. I might have to extend the armor on the front and rear to cover the new additions, but I'm also planning on adding proper fenders like the FW version, and that might be enough by itself.

Thanks for looking,

-BCK

oops*

I really dig this, and agree with your remarks about Forge World masterclass publications. You can learn these techniques in any issue of Fine Scale Modeler, or for free online from a myriad of websites.

While I do love their products, I also agree they are ridiculously overpriced, riding the 40k lore and name. They're bridging the gap between the 'Eavy Metal school of painting models, and the traditional scale model school of painting. And charging an arm and a leg for said knowledge.

The 'Eavy Metal school works great for miniature soldiers, but starts to look like crap when painted onto a large tank, IMO.

That being said, great work. The baneblade and all its variants are without question some of the top models Forge World/GW has ever produced. Just a plain badass tank.

I like the track upgrades, but I'd be tempted to suggest putting the skull treads onto your track upgrades, if at all possible. Not only because it has skulls on it, but it has SKULLS on it!

 Cave_Dweller wrote:
I really dig this, and agree with your remarks about Forge World masterclass publications. You can learn these techniques in any issue of Fine Scale Modeler, or for free online from a myriad of websites.

While I do love their products, I also agree they are ridiculously overpriced, riding the 40k lore and name. They're bridging the gap between the 'Eavy Metal school of painting models, and the traditional scale model school of painting. And charging an arm and a leg for said knowledge.

The 'Eavy Metal school works great for miniature soldiers, but starts to look like crap when painted onto a large tank, IMO.

That being said, great work. The baneblade and all its variants are without question some of the top models Forge World/GW has ever produced. Just a plain badass tank.

I like the track upgrades, but I'd be tempted to suggest putting the skull treads onto your track upgrades, if at all possible. Not only because it has skulls on it, but it has SKULLS on it!

I generally prefer Military Miniatures in Review (MMiR) or Military in Scale before it went OOP in 2012 for awesome modeling tutorials and tips, but Fine Scale Modeler has been stepping up its game lately, and I suggest all of the above for people looking for the latest and greatest techniques in the world of "pro" model building and painting.

I agree that the Bane and its variants are some of the best work by FW, and I really wish they'd do some kind of conversion for the Bane like they have with the Arkurion versions of the Shadowsword, Stormblade, and Stormsword.

Speaking of tracks, I have an update on them, but sadly, I don't think I'll be able to include the skulls. :(

The progress so far:




I've assembled multi-part tracks like this before, but the Maus has two individual pieces to make one link, where the others tend to be just one part per link, so it's proving to be frustrating getting the individual links to properly wrap around the sprocket.

A close up of the sprocket, where I've temporarily attached the old sprocket/return roller form the SS kit to maintain uniformity.




And with the outer armor piece removed for a better look at it:




I'm planning on doing the same with the return roller up front.

Finally, to show just how much wider the track sub-assembly is going to be, here's the armor plate that normally goes on top (which was warped pretty much beyond use).

Today, I decided to mock up the main body of the tank to see how I liked it and decide if I wanted to make any other major changes before going any further with the tracks, since they would be one of the last things to go on the finished model.

Here's a few shots from the side and front:



Here you can see the work on the tracks, progressing slowly. [:(]



As it turned out, I found a lot of things I didn't like. Something about how the glacis (the front armor of the main body) looked didn't seem right, and after comparing the model in my hand with some of the FW pics I have saved on my computer, I figured it out.



On the FW version, the glacis comes all the way up to the level of the track guard/side armor (or very close to it), but the plastic GW version does not. It's one of those things that I never noticed in all the pictures I've seen of the plastic tank, but was very obvious once I actually started to tape this thing together. That big gap looks odd and in the event that I was going to keep the front armor from the plastic kit, I had planned on making a lot of changes to it, so now I'm considering just scratch building everything from the above the Aquila to the superstructure. More on that and a bigger idea for this whole thing in a minute.

Next was the rear deck and the back of the tank:



The detail is pitiful, especially considering what you have to pay for one of these things and I've never like that huge, gaudy, Mechanicus shrine on the back of it. I'm well versed in the 40k fluff and know what zealots the AdMech and their followers are, but I think it's ugly and extraneous. I was wanting to remake the back plate entirely, but if my other idea works out, I won't have to bother with all of the exhaust pipes and such. Why?

Some months back I watched a tank restoration show where the sole surviving German Elefant tank was restored. I'd seen pictures and models of it for years, but something really clicked in the back of my mind while watching the show. Here's how it looks after the restoration:



I couldn't find a shot of the engine deck on the real thing, so here's a pic of a 1/35 scale model of one:



I think the Shadowsword might look cool with the superstructure pushed to the back of the chassis and the engine moved forward, plus it would also allow for a longer barrel, which would be awesome.

To try it out, here's a quick and dirty chop job I did on some artwork in Photoshop:



And who would make such a strange variant of the Shadowsword? I'm thinking these guys. []



Thanks for looking,

-BCK

I can't really understand what you mean by the difference in the armour between the two kits. If you mean that small gap on the GW kit that's not on the FW one I honestly doubt it'll be worth going through the hassle of changing it. The new superstructure looks pretty good though, you could even make a more detailed crew compartment, perhaps a couple of hatches allowing one to see inside.

 Valkyrie wrote:
I can't really understand what you mean by the difference in the armour between the two kits. If you mean that small gap on the GW kit that's not on the FW one I honestly doubt it'll be worth going through the hassle of changing it. The new superstructure looks pretty good though, you could even make a more detailed crew compartment, perhaps a couple of hatches allowing one to see inside.

The gap isn't that small and looks really sloppy to me, but if I'm going the route of the Elefant for the SS, then I'll have to remake that whole section anyway, and I'll bring it up to the level of the track guards. As for detailing the interior, that's a little beyond the scope of what I had in mind for this build, but thanks for the suggestion.