What guard army would be complete without some tanks to back it up! Next on the list of things to do was to get some heavy support slots filled, starting with the mighty Leman Russ!!!

By now, I was starting to get a theme coming together in my head, and I was pretty sure that I wanted to take the army down the Victorian/Steampunk route. The troops all ticked the box, but I didn’t want to just drop standard GW vehicles into the mix… luckily, I really like kit-bashing! I started scouring the web for a good ‘counts-as’ Leman Russ model, and came across the excellent Dystopian Legions range. I really liked the look of the tanks, particularly the Ironclad Terrier, and decided to get one and see if I could combine it with a Russ kit. I think it worked beautifully, (though I am biased), but here are some WIP shots, what do you think?

In terms of painting it, I didn’t really know what I was doing to be honest! The GW mags/web is full of crisp, clean looking tanks, but I didn’t feel that I had the painting skill to go that route. Besides, tanks are supposed to be mucky, right? After the basecoat I started to mess about with various ink washes/dry-brushing… then I started to add some mud and rust… To be honest, I got a bit carried away with it and thought I had ruined the model. By this time I had moved to a different club, (Bennet’s End, Hemel Hempstead: http://www.hemelwargaming.com/), which is full of really really experienced gamers and painters who are well worth listening to, and their feedback was really positive, (thanks guys!). So, with my fears allayed, I adopted this approach with all of my subsequent vehicles – it has become a bit of a ‘thing’ to be honest. Again, what do you think?