Armoured might of the Praetorian IV - Gallery photos part 4

In this post we will be taking a look at some updated pictures of the armoured behemoths of the Praetorian IV!

Up first the most beautiful tank to ever roll of the production line, the Macharius Vanquisher. In the game it is largely ineffectual due to a lack of really effective guns for the high points cost. In gaming terms I think you would be mad to take one instead of paying a bit more for a Baneblade. Needless to say I don't with such a mindset and it features whenever possible!

I struggle to think of too many crowning glories for this tank, however one does stick in my mind. It managed to shoot down a zooming and jinking chaos Hellblade fighter! One hell of a shot. If I recall correctly I think that was pretty much all it managed to do in that game.

Painting this tank was a joy and as you can see I went to town on freehand painting. In hindsight now I wonder if I should have painted the other two legs of the lion to give it a bit more depth.



More freehand on the other side of the tank too. A fair few tanks have wreaths painted on their hulls and so I thought this one should have biggest wreath befitting its size! Sadly I don't have a close up of him to hand, but you can see the laurence of arabia type tank commander in the turret. He is replete with medals and a desert scarf and goggles, and of course his cane because what self respecting Praetorian tank commander wouldn't have a cane.



Here we have the squadron of Leman Russ battle tanks. I've tried to give them all a unifying theme with the red and white on the side and from panels and the regimental lion head.



Here is the vanilla leman russ with tank commander. This was initially painted about 12 years ago I think and was updated when the army was restarted a few years ago. I've always preferred the tanks without sponsons as I think it gives them a better looking silhouette, additionally it corresponds with my usual tactics of keeping everything as cheap as possible so you can get more squads and tanks.

The tanks commander is a very old metal one of a similar era to the one in the proper tank hat with his arm seemingly swinging across his body (I imagine he is telling a pirate joke where the punch line is arggghhhh). He is also one of the few soldiers in the army who isn't wearing a pith helmet or the usual coloured fatigues!



Here we have the Executioner complete with the most expensive sponson combination you can manage! Unusual for me, yes, however there is a good reason! I painted this tank up in an evening just before attending a campaign weekend up at warhammer world. I was woefully short on points for  a 2500pts doubles game so quickly knocked up the Deathstrike and the Executioner to see me home.

I think that campaign weekend was only time the tank has ever been used. Fingers crossed it will take to the field again in the future, however it might require a bit take all your models kind of game. (apologies for the blurry nature of this future! I've been working on better photos and this one clearly didn't go to plan!)



Last of the heavy hitters is the Leman Russ Exterminator. This tank is my favourite of the Leman Russ variants and is a perpetual in all my lists. Simply put it kills almost anything. It has a rude number of shots and has floored tanks, terminators, hive tyrants and swathes of greenskins. In a few battles he benefitted from being BS4 as an HQ Leman Russ (as per Imperial Armour rules), it just makes it even better.

Like the vanilla leman russ this is a throwback to the old army of 12 years ago or so. It got restored to its full (battle damaged) glory with the update a few years ago. Its the old metal Exterminator guns which are nice and chunky. once again you will see another freehand wreath on the turret flank. As per my previous posts, these tanks will almost certainly be refitted again soon with extra battle damage, stowage and some more painted details.

I hope you are enjoying the gallery posts, we are almost at the end of them. But before we do finish them there will be some new finished models to post (that's right newly painted and hopefully finished this evening!) and an editorial talking about my army, my love for the hobby and above all else consistency...

Cheers!