Rolling Thunder

"Cannon, see that Eldar Farseer there? F**k him and everyone near him"

With no game this weekend, I managed to get some of the toys I received this week painted.

First up is the "counts as" Thunderfire Cannon, with a Devastator sergeant posing as a Techmarine. I chose to give him the hand-held device in one hand, and a powerfist in the other since Techmarines have servo-arms which give them close-combat bonus, and because the arm looks cool, especially when pointing. The kneeling pose is also very "gunner", which adds to the whole look.

I didn't have any specific shoulder insignia decal for him, so I superimposed a skull - the symbol of my boys - on a red sunburst pattern that came in the Dark Angels Devastator decal sheet, on the basis that it looks sort of like gears.

For the cannon itself I decided to pattern it after WW1 field guns - all painted in one colour. Most of the pictures I found on google are either black-and-white (duh!), and the colour ones are mostly museum pieces or abandoned guns in advanced stages of decay. I thought about weathering the gun to show chips and rust, but then I decided that as Marines, they would probably take better care of their equipment - after all, we are not orks. So I sprayed the whole thing green, painted in some of the missed spots, then washed it liberally with Badab Black, allowing pooling specially in the spokes of the wheels. Some "beading" occurred on some areas, which gave the appearance of oxidation. A brush of medium green highlighted the edges, and some black on the muzzle suggested soot.

The wheels appeared to be single pieces of metal with no separate tyres, so I drybrushed grey on the area that would contact the ground, and then silver to suggest bare metal showing through worn off paint. Since my marines are based on rocky rather than muddy ground, I did not add any mud stains.

The finished model looks plain; unfortunately there are no flat areas to apply the chapter symbol and there is a stark absence of skulls - not like my boys at all...

All in all I am pleased with the model. I am now working on the walls that came in the box too. If Rick does decide to build an Imperial Guard army based on Warzone figures, a few of these wouldn't be amiss.