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What I also find interesting about it is thatbis just high enough that it blocks line of sight between the majority of infantry models (Ogryn and Custodes might be the exception) but most vehicles can look over that greyish base.

Might be tactically interesting that infantry dudes can stick closely to the wall to become "invisible"

I like this on old kits like wall of Martyrs.
And yeah, that's nice to make proper cover which not a darn L-ruin thing

Nice void shield generator, the lightning orb is so fricking cool. Looks like a good size for a terrain piece/objective.
Certainly seems like an objective of strategic import.

Finally finished my Decablade project. It was quite a slog, but after about a year I passed the finish line. It was fun too, especially as my wife helped to step it up with some LEDs and I came up with two personal homebrewy variants. I won't show all of the classical 8, just some favorites.

1. Laserblade "Matuku"

It's basically "just" a Baneblade with a pure laser armament. Makes a lot of sense for my regiment as their planet (and system) isn't really good at producing cannons and heavy guns, but exceptional with las-weaponry. So they mixed up the Baneblade design a little bit, replaced the ammo-storage with some heavy capacitators and akkumulators and switched all the heavy bolters for Multilasers, the Main Gun for a heavy lascannon, the coaxial autogun for a fast firing light lascannon (from the Valkyrie set) and the hull Demolisher for a heavy, short ranged lascutter that can bring down fortifications. I would assume that concept isn't even that outlandish, just uncommon and therefore no tech-heresy. As the weaponry overall should tactically work the same as the classical loadout I'll just call it "Baneblade - Thoth pattern".

Also you can see the LEDs my wife attached for the front lights, the search light and the main Lascannon. Here it is in the dark



And here are some details up close:

A: turret roof with LED-searchlight B: main Lasweaponry C: shrine and LED backlights, D: sponson lasweaponry
In pic A you can see my attempt on painting it's name "Matuku" in a made up Maori Skript. Matuku is an Ogre-like monster of Maori folklore which I found fitting for such a well armed Lord of war.


2.: another new variant, that I decided to call the Hellsword. I'm not completely sure on the naming conventions, but I assume "Sword" are self propelled artillery pieces and the "Hell" prefix is pretty unoccupied right now with only the Hellhammer. I also found some conversion with an Apocalypse missile launcher with the name which fitted. It's Maori-name means "Tamatoa" after the big, shiny crab from Disneys Vaiana that I find hilarious.

It's basically 1.5 Superstructures glued together with a custom printed roof housing several vertical launch cells. 18x big ones and 12 smaller ones. Each big one is intended to house either ONE Manticore/Shieldbreaker/Pilum-AA/Firestorm missile or FOUR Skyspear AA-missiles or NINE long range hunter killer anti tank missiles. Each small nacelle holds 4 normal hunter killer missiles or a short ranged AA-frag missile for small, swarming flyers.
It doesn't have a huge targeting array right now so it would need input from other units. But it can fire one hell of a barrage if it wants to as well as being relatively flexible as it can be outfitted for different assignments. I personally find the idea of kitting it out with 90% AA-missiles the most interesting. That should give even a Manta something to worry about if it could face a barrage of 18 heavy pillum missiles while its drones are shredded by a hail of frag missiles.


3.: a classic: the Shadowsword. It's name means "Pele" - a hawaiian vulcano godess.

I took some inspiration from the user kabaakaba (thanks for that) and drybrushed the tip of the gun with blueish, turquoise and purple metal colors to make it distinct from my usual "burned metal" approach using washes. I like the result. Also it too got a special LED. I can't really make a foto that does it justice, but my wife managed to do it in a way that there is a little switch on the right side (you can see it just beside the big 3). If you push it down, the red LED powers up to 100% and than slowly fades out, which gives the impression of a very heavy lasershot (and is incredibly cool).

4. the good old Stormlord


I magnetized the gunshields for the firing deck too, which wasn't easy, but worth the trouble.


And finally some impressions of the cabling for those interested:

Some Rough Riders (because I can't seem to have enough). This time GWs Attilans with new heads from some .stl files I had lying around. I played around with some tartan scheme on the horse-covers. In a first attempt they had a similar pattern in inverted colors (red background, purple lines, dark blue points were lines cross) on the troopers coats, but that didn't look nice because it was just too much. For the bases I tried to achieve something like a cold steppe with some snow on the ground.

Overall some nice sculpts, but they are a bit more fidly to paint than Victoria Miniatures as the "horse rugs" get in the way of painting the front legs.

Those tough* riders look great, I like the tartan pattern on the barding(horse cloth) they look like some reasonably heavy cavalry.
rough*

Navigating the teeming jungle of fungi and algea on the swampy agri-moon of Ulambo is no small task and tends to bring even tracked vehicles to their limits. Therefore the inhabitants employ rather strange and organic looking crawlers as harvesters that are equally able to traverse land, swamp and open water. Under pressure fighting back the chaos incursions during the night of the thousand rebellions and the push to reclaim fallen world for the imperium, these sturdy vehicles were pressed into service as field conversions. Usually being turned into self propelled artillery carrying Medusa mortars and similar they have proven themselves surprisingly well. Their hull is already thick and resistant to withstand the often highly acidic ponds and swamps of Ulambo, they are exceptionally mobile in heavy terrain - if somewhat slow - and their tentacles can also be adjusted to cushion the recoil of artillery pieces that are usually to heavy for vehicles of their size.
While it remains an ellusive vehicle only used by few regiments, it is by now a common sight within Thoths artillery regiments and produced for this purpose instead of just converted.





A cute SPA I build from a kit from Miniatures Scenery:

I "de-deathguardified" it by cutting off all the spiky bits and replaced the side weapons with a heavy bolter and some bits from my bitsshop to turn it into an Armageddon pattern (or rather Ulambo pattern) Medusa. Size wise it's more or less in Leman Russ territory. I tried something new with the colorscheme, as I wanted to find a balance between "looks like military" and "looks like a converted civilian harvester". I considered yellow, bright green etc. but ultimatly went for Death Guard green spray, Drybrushing with Nurgling green, Seraphin Sepia and Nurgling green again. Very satisfied with it, since it looks distinctivly less military than my other vehicles while still looking interesting and fitting in.

very sucsessufully de-deathguardified!
The drab browny green is perfectly military, and somewhat freshly pressed into service.

I like the sentinel optics on the front. Like the beady little eyes of a crab or crayfish.

A fantastic vehicle!
I do like the mental image of it spreading those tendrils out on boggy ground to absorb the recoil of the mortar.