Guns For Hire Manticore 40K

          I decided to glue the outer rockets in place as they barely will sit in their positions.

   If you look closely below you can see the TV screen. I just realized that you can also see some of the unpainted putty and the floor tile edge! I'm too used to doing rough and ready ork vehicles.

Imperial Guard vehicles have only ever come my way second hand and have then been destined to be hacked into ork looted vehicles. However, recently I bit the bullet and bought a new Manticore kit.
The Imperial Guard are blessed with a huge variety of tanks and long range weaponry. My orks fell victim repeatedly to these mechanical monsters. With D3 large blast makers each time they made short work of some of my trucks and orks huddled around a force field which did diddlysquat to protect them. Sure, they 'only' fire four times but many games go for only that many moves anyway.
In any case Orks tend to lack long range , large template artillery. They have now lost the Boom guns that could be put in looted vehicles. Now orks have to rely on the 24"Kill cannons and hope they don't get destroyed first. At least the BiGg Meks have their Shock Attack guns which are really one man large blast long range weapons with variable strength and a wacky and dangerous wacky chance table.

The current rules of Warhammer 40k allow for an allied component. So far my Dark Eldar and Orks have been the only allied experiment I have used but I recently thought, what a great joke it would be to employ one of these suckers against Imperial Guard or Space Marines, Space Wolves etcetera? Maybe it will blow up another Manticore!
To go with it I have the cheapest Imperial Guard infantry ever! They are made from smaller scale Chinese copies of Airfix US 1/32 WW2 infantry with added putty shoulder pads and GW bases.
I also bought a metal Eureka Miniatures commissar type figure, complete with greatcoat, sunglasses, armour, metal fist and ponytail! I'll post a picture when he is painted.

MODELLING THE KIT

There is not too much complexity in the kit's construction. The hull was a little difficult to get to stay in place though and the tracks always seem to have a problem when I got to placing the last pieces. In the end I gave up trying to get it perfect and instead developed a cunning plan; I would fill the gaps with putty, sand, PVA and flock and continue this muck over the lower part of the vehicle. I think it worked as I have gone for a realistic dirty campaign look with mud, diet and grass caked on the tracks, especially at the front.

I drilled out the main hatch cover to take some fuse wire to make it possible to open or shut it. I folded the end of the fuse wire around the back of the hatch and super glued it with a little putty and covered that with a length of metal gauze. Then disaster struck as usual; I lost the smaller front hatch piece. I made a new one from metal gauze, putty and a small piece of floor tile cut to fit.

The paint scheme is based on WW1 dazzle which was based on breaking up outlines, much like the zebra's stripes, rather than blending in with the environment. The colours could be neutral ones and also primary colours red, blue and yellow. I also dry brushed with gun metal and  liberally applied a black wash and some muddy brown and then sand coloured dry brushing.

The transfer I chose was a black star on a white background. I added, in its centre a yellow 'frowny face', The left side of the vehicle has a number one as it is my first imperial guard vehicle not hacked into a looted ork vehicle. The scroll on one side, rather than a pompous tribute to the emperor, says 'Guns For Hire' and the scroll on the other side says 'Dishonour Him'. Basically these men are sick of being fodder for the empire and are prepared to hire themselves out to the highest bidder but I would not like to be in their shoes if they were captured by loyal Imperial Guard or Space Marines.

As they are 'desperate allies' they have to set up at the start 12 inches away from the Orks and have to roll if they are within 6" to see if they can fire or move. Needless to say they will set up in their own little posy behind a hill or building where they can concentrate on their indirect fire on their former comrades.