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Have you ever wondered what a German WWII Shadowsword would look like? Well, that is the genesis for my next commission.

The client has a German themed WWII Imperial Guard army and wanted his super-heavy to have some of the same look as the rest of his heavily converted troops. The thought was this is going to be something similar to a Jagdpanther top set back like the Elefant tank with panzer-like turrets on the four sponsons. The main gun will have more of an artillery piece look to it similar to my Kingslayer cannon but bigger. So here's where we start:





To make things easier I'm actually using the Shadowsword top but turned backwards and pitched up like the Jagdpanther. The front armor has also been sloped to match. The sides will be widened a bit to line it up the edge of the armor plates above the tracks. A ball turret mounted TL heavy bolter will also go next to the main cannon on the right side.

Another interesting feature will be a metal scaled skirt to protect the road wheels. This feature also ties in with his infantry models. I did this by sculpting up a master that will be cast six times and glued in place of the original skirt:





As always there's still much to do but so far it's coming along nicely.

Ooh awesome! Cant wait to see how this one develops, looks like a very interesting start.

I dearly love Machinator blogs, subbed!

Also have you seen the fell blades Forge world were showing off at games day? your thoughts on them?

 Knightley wrote:
I dearly love Machinator blogs, subbed!

Also have you seen the fell blades Forge world were showing off at games day? your thoughts on them?

Thanks! It was hard to miss Forge World's release of not only the Fellblade but all the other goodies for the Horus Heresy. I think it's a beautiful model and they did great job capturing what a Space Marine super-heavy should look like. Of course I wonder how much of my design inspired their's

Back to the jagdsword, more updates today. I got the skirt on and the side panels of the top hull.





As you can see the armored top of the rear section will extend down to the track armor. This will probably mean I'll have to move the fuel tanks but that should be no big deal.



I'm pretty pleased how the skirt came out. Much easier then scupltiung it all by hand!



So far so good....

Looking amazing so far.

Having seen the FW model will this influence any further Fell Blade builds you may be planning? IIRC you had planned a Plasma based DA Fell Blade (And having brought one of your kits I'm also planning on making a GK Fell Blade)

I don't know if its just the camera angle, but the lines on the fabricated upper hull don't look straight, particularly where the main weapon will be.

Also, don't forget the zimmerit

 Nowlan wrote:
I don't know if its just the camera angle, but the lines on the fabricated upper hull don't look straight, particularly where the main weapon will be.

Also, don't forget the zimmerit

It's probably just the carmera, it can be hard to tell when everything is white.

Oh yes, there will be lots of zimmerit

Looks great so far, cant wait to watch this develop further. Have a big interest in WWII history so to see a conversion like this is cool.

Are there any pictures of the customers IG army this is being built for?

Here's a shot of the unit I wanted him to theme the tank to. My IG army is actually designed with a multi-regional look.

Huzzah! Someone else doing a WW2 German themed army! I'm liking where this is going. I too am in the process of making German themed tanks, more specifically a Tiger.

So what's a German tank without some zimmerit?

I recently got the zimmerit application tool from Trumpeter and it worked rather well. The customer will be able to use all six armor panels for the AV14...





...or he can slap on one or two sets of sponsons. Everything will be magnetized.

Sauragnmon wrote:
Here's a shot of the unit I wanted him to theme the tank to. My IG army is actually designed with a multi-regional look.

1. Are they 'veteran grenadiers'?
2. It appears that you uses high elf spearmen skirts too! can you say whether does spearmen torso fits well with cadian lasgun arms too?

Yes, the squad are Veterans, led by Bastonne.

No, I can't say whether the spearmen torsos work, I actually bits-ordered the legs, and they took a little shaving off the top to get a nice smooth fit to the Cadian torsos I used. With that in mind, I have a feeling that Spearmen torsos would come up short on the torso width for the arms.

Any further updates to this?

So I've continued to work on this project in the background and it's getting close to being done. First up is an error I had to fix on my part. Gone is the zimmerit of old and it's been replaced by scalemail similar to what is along the armored skirt. The model will be able to use all six armor panels or one or two sets of sponsons depending on battlefield conditions:







Another neat feature of this tank will be the panzer-esque sponson turrets (and yes, these will find their way into my store ):















Another customer request was a huge cannon with a pig snout mantel and a big muzzle brake. Well he got what he wanted















Lastly are the armor plates along the top complete with a little door. These will be further detailed with rivets and such:











So there we are! Hopefully the next set of pics will be of a finished product. Then we just have to wait until the customer paints it

So I've been busy today getting the little turret done so that I can get it cast up. I have to say it turned out pretty good and will make a nice addition to my store. On top of that I've come up with three different weapons to go along with it.

The laser cannon:



The heavy machine gun:



And the gatling gun:



And here the turret from the top:



I have plans to add a flamethrow and dual flak guns to the turret. What other weapons you you guys like to see?

Will you be adding a crane/hoist to the rear of the vehicle for aiding in loading ammunition like sturmtiger had?

Finally, IT'S DONE! Well, except for paint but the client is taking care of that

Here it is in the standard configuration but it can also be fielded with all armored plate or with four sponsons. The top is even removable so that the extra pieces can be stored inside. The plates and sponsons along with the main gun are magnetized so that is can come apart easily for transport.

Overall a neat little conversion project. Now onto the next....

Sweeeeeeeeeet....I want one