“The Land Raider Is A Heavy Tank…”

“…And transport, used primarily by the Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines.”

These 6mm scale plastic models of two Land Raiders used to be produced by “Games Workshop” as part of their now long out of production (OOP) “Epic” range, and were found whilst I was delving through a second-hand box of “Adeptus Titanicus” from 1988. Unfortunately, due to the miniatures being previously owned, they had both already been undercoated in a somewhat overly thick, black paint.

However, rather than strip them/re-prime the “single most destructive weapon[s] in the Adeptus Astartes' arsenal”, I simply decided to pigment them as part of the Black Templars chapter, and therefore just treated them to a watered-down layer of “Citadel” Abaddon Black once they’d been glued to a couple of small “Flames Of War” stands by “Battlefront Miniatures”. As with the trio of slightly smaller Rhino vehicles I recently finished, I then ‘picked out’ the Land Raiders’ doors, hatches, heavy bolter, twin-linked lascannons, tracks and support struts with a combination of “Vallejo” Gunmetal and “Citadel” Nuln Oil.

"Games Workshop" WIPs - A Robot [Ultramarines], Land Speeder [Space Wolves] and Robot [Imperial Fists]

With the latest of my entries for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge completed, I have made some more progress on the rest of my “Epic” backlog, by slowly working my way through a number of Assault Marines, Devastator Marines, Terminators, Bikes, Robots and even an (intact) Land Speeder. Whilst some of these tiny figures have arguably had to form part of my burgeoning Black Templars force, due to being already ‘gooped’ in black paint, a fair few others have been bare plastic – and thus enabled me to start populating my all-encompassing Adeptus Astartes army with space marines from some of the other chapters.

I’m hoping this will lead to a really colourful mix of units on the tabletop, and wherever possible I am trying to match-up the various “autonomous military unit[s]” with the specialist teams they are specifically associated with as part of “Warhammer 40K” lore, such as the White Scars forming the backbone of my Bikes. In addition, I have also been successfully trawling “eBay” to procure some more of the slightly larger Mark VII power armoured space marines to intermingle with the vast legions of ‘beaky’ marines I already own.

"Catalyst Game Labs" WIPs - A Panther, Marauder and a Wolfhound

Alongside my “Epic” collection, I’ve also been working on some more “Battletech” mechs by “Catalyst Game Labs” for my Weird War Two campaign. I was initially planning on methodically completing the large and super-large models I already own. But the American company’s sudden release of its range’s second wave of miniatures has somewhat scuppered this, as it’s provided me with an opportunity to add a few more small-sized war walkers to my ‘Early War’ forces first.

Resultantly, I am still planning on continuing with my excursion into the Pacific theatre, courtesy of some Japanese-flavoured Marauders. However, alongside these “iconic early BattleMechs” I am also working on some expansions for both my German Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht forces. Most notably, a Wolfhound and a Panther…