Tag Archives: Iron Warriors

Iron Warriors Plague Marine Rhino APC (MechaNovember ’19)

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001001 Citadel Rhino Plague Marines Iron Warriors

Yeah, MechaNovember. Last Year. I did say I had some backlog to post up, didn’t I? This is an original Rhino kit from WAY back in 1989 that had been through at least one rebuilding, and a lot of abuse until I decided to rehabilitate it as a Plague Marine Rhino back in the mid-oughts. It’s been through at least two partial repaints since then but never managed to get to the finish line until the end of last year when I managed to managed to use the momentum off the back of completing that Flesh Tearers Razorback to get to the “just fucking finish it” mentality on this Rhino kit.

001001 Citadel Rhino Plague Marines Iron Warriors

As a kit that had been built and rebuilt a few times, not to mention copping a fair bit of converting, it’s got a lot of parts from random kits such as cut down (original) Necromunda Bulkheads replacing the original side hatches, plasticard on various parts of the hull, corrugated card in a few spots, a huge strap-on …barrel from some Verlinden aftermarket armour kit on the rear, an undead shield, GorkaMorka dozer blade, (metal) Chaos Terminator trophy racks, a chopped-in-half Plague Marine from the mid-90’s as a crewman rocking a pair of twin-linked linked (Ork) Bolters from the late 2nd edition era as well as a Puppetswar Shoulder pad and an Anvil Industries opposite pauldron and backpack for that slightly cut down vehicle crewman look.

001001 Citadel Rhino Plague Marines Iron Warriors

The wooden parts were used to give a consistency between that particular line of Plague Marines that had a lot of wooden furniture on their weapons. The door on the front as well as the top hatches came from some random plastic model kit, while the front hull panel was from a metal Warhammer Siege palisade that I got, damaged in some purchase or trade. Finally, the Nurgle Icon is from an Icon Bearer model, while the Iron Wariors Icon is etched brass – and I added a friendly nod to the Imperial Fists in the form of a Primaris helmet on a wooden mount.

001001 Citadel Rhino Plague Marines Iron Warriors

 

I tossed up whether to go with hazard stripes, as I typically would for Iron Warriors but decided in the end not to add them, letting the rusty iron and reddish wood tones play to both the Iron Warirors Legion as well as to the copper armour of those Legionaires that had decided to follow the path of the Plague Cult. I wanted the vehicle to both fit in with and stand apart from my other Iron Warriors vehicles.

001001 Citadel Rhino Plague Marines Iron Warriors

Finally a shot of the Rhino alongside some of the Iron Warriors Plague Marines that will be riding this thing into battle.

Heavy Metal Thunder! Iron Warriors Vindicator (Mechanismo May ’19)

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Iron Warriors Vindicator

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.

Iron Warriors Vindicator

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!)

Iron Warriors Vindicator

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.

Iron Warriors Vindicator

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.

Iron Warriors Vindicator

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?