It took another 5 months following the Iron Warriors Rhino that took me forever to complete, but now I’ve FINALLY got this Vindicator done! As with the Rhino and the Dreadnought (Hellbrute), this model was bought second-hand from the same guy back over a decade ago, and then took me a long, long time to get around to stripping off the over-done spikes and replacing a few parts.
I built a new set of combi-weapons for the pintle turret mount, in this case a bolter and flamer combo. The launchers can work either as smoke or possibly as Havoc Launchers (I searched and searched, but I just couldn’t find a legit set of Havocs!)
I removed a few sets of hazard stripes that weren’t to my liking and simply painted those panels either black or metallic. The striping on the weapons combined with the dozer blade seemed enough, so I didn’t feel a huge need to add in more on the top or sides.
The Vindicator and its Demolisher Cannon obviously owes a direct debt of inspiration to the Sturmtiger from WWII. The reason that the Vindicator tank destroyer (and the Predator MBT, and the Whirlwind) are all based on the Rhino APC chassis – even today – is because the only plastic vehicles available in those early Rogue Trader days were the Rhino and the Land Raider (which with it’s WWI tank stylings was not going to work for these concepts).
As you can see above, we’ve got the very first Vindicator and what later became the Whirlwind from an old, old White Dwarf. Some time afterwards, in 1995-ish, TimDuPertis (later Armorcast) sold a licenced conversion kit that replaced the stock front glacis plate of the Rhino with the cannon. A few years later, GW rather suddenly cancelled the licences to make 3rd party products that companied liked Armourcast and Forgeworld (yes, really) and Epicast held. They then brought many of the designs that others had been creating into their new in-house resin shop, which is the Forge World that still exists today.
This particular model is actually long, long out of production, but it’s the original (GW) Forge World resin conversion kit on a Rhino Chassis, as seen above.
So here it is. The third of those three Iron Warriors pieces finally complete. Now I have a few other half-finished vehicles to try and get complete, but I’m pretty open for my next big piece of Iron Warriors Heavy Metal. Predator? Land Raider? Sicarian? Basilisk/Medusa?
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Super job, I really like the pared-down, industrial look of this thing. Also really like being reminded that the Sturmtiger’s ridiculous ‘gun’ was actually a rocket launcher. Anyway, fantastic work on your heavily-armed bulldozer.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks mate! I’m not sure what GW would have done if the Sturmtiger never existed. It (and the gun) is probably the most influential piece of hardware for their artowrk and models ever!
LikeLike
A bit of Basilisk would go down a treat !!!
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’ll have to have a look through the kits, but noted!
LikeLike
That is simply sweet! I love it!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Also, good history review of those early kits. Hats off to Tony Cotrell for innovating those early concepts.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Yeah, I thought it worth pointing out since this kit is a bit different to the current plastic kit. 🙂
LikeLike
Thanks mate!
LikeLike
Cracking job mate – that old kit has a lovely brutality to it!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks Alex. The dozer blade is what really gives it that feel to me. The big blunt gun doesn’t hurt, either, though! 😉
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yep the blade is just meaty and the weathering on it is superb
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks mate – I appreciate the kind words! 🙂
LikeLike
That really does look the part! Like it!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks John – not the most realistic look for a bit of armour, but it works for the 40k battlefield. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Looking great! All ready to fire all of its guns at once and explode into space!
And yeah, the STC concept they came up with to justify that has let them get some amazing mileage from add-ons to a few basic kits over the years.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks Alexis – an appropriate lyric for a Traitor Legion vehicle, too! Funny thing is that the whole STC thing is pretty much what we as humans manage to do IRL anyway!
I’ve seen a similar video (couldn’t easily find it on YouTube) about village-workshop/blacksmith based arms makers in South America creating weapons that look identical to the real thing (to smuggle into the US)
LikeLike
That’s forgery. A little bit different. STC would be more like the modularity of the Steyr Aug, or the standardization of ammo and magazine fittings across the various weapons used by different NATO forces.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Depends on which bit of fluff you’re reading. STC from the RT days were described as the very generic but adaptable blueprints/plans to make from whatever local materials and tools are at hand and have it be pretty much the same finished item regardless of where it came from. The jungle village firearms workshops are a really good example of this.
LikeLike
I guess I was thinking more of the Rhino => Vindicator/Predator/Whirlwind/Razorback/whatever aspect, yeah.
Even so, these are still made of essentially the same materials, just by different methods. It’s not nearly on the same level as an STC Leman Russ that can run just as effectively with a wood-burning engine or a fusion power plant.
On a semi-related note, I read a history of machine guns ages ago that mentioned that the Spanish (I think) had pretty much the best machine guns in WWII, but very few of them, since they didn’t have much in the way of mass-production facilities, but they did have a surprisingly large number of master gunsmiths who couldn’t bring themselves to sacrifice quality for speed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sounds interesting, though it might not have been the Spanish, if it were a WWII reference.. I’d be interested in checking it out of you ever come across it again.
LikeLike
Just awesome mate. It oozes menace.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Cheers, mate. It’ll be nice to get it set up alongside the rest of the force sometime. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
That looks fantastic! Brilliant work.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks! Now to figure out what’s next for these guys…
LikeLike
That looks rather special, can just imagine it in some nasty urban battle.
Do the Land Radier next 🙂
Cheers,
Pete.
LikeLiked by 2 people
So one vote for Land Raider, one for Basilisk. If I’m lucky, I’ll manage to find both. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great mate looks so good especially the paint work on the blade .One of the things I tell my kids is ,if you see something good buy it now as sure as shit they will stop making it !!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks mate. It’s a motto I pretty much live by since I missed out on a t shirt I really wanted, back in the 1990s…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hadn’t realised I had missed this post but fortunately I saw it in the end. Very cool and a great piece mate. Makes me think I need to look at a few mechanical items down the road.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thank you, TIM. I’m sure you’d do a brilliant job on them as well. Maybe something WWII to go with some of your other great work from the genre?
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s an Engineer vehicle if I ever saw one – like this M728: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M728_Combat_Engineer_Vehicle
Great work on it Az!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Most definitely, Mark – specifically designed for engineering large holes in all kinds of structures!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Absolutely awesome looking! I need to get a vindicator for my IW detachment
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you mate! I need to get some more heavy metal worked out for my IW as well now. Probably should finish some of the other armour I’ve got on the go first, though. Clean slate will be easier to work from!
LikeLike
Iron Warriors have really cool looking tanks and the paint job you did on this one is top-notch! The subtle and realistic weathering really caught my eye on this tank but the whole thing is really well done. Keep up the excellent work 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Kuribo! I just need to finish off some more stuff (including tanks) to make some more space for me to get to work on some more Iron Warriors Heavy Metal!
LikeLiked by 1 person