Baneblades of Glory

Archaic Cotterell Pattern Baneblades

 

+++++++++ Baneblades of Glory +++++++++

Hello fellow hobby humans.  It is time once more for a mighty blog post and what could be more mighty than the original plus sized model for Warhammer 40,000.

 

Tony Cotterell's Baneblade was featured in White Dwarf #134

 

I am, of course, talking about the original Baneblade model by Tony Cotterell, featured in White Dwarf #134.  The Warhammer 40,000 version of the Baneblade was first published way back in December 1990.  The Baneblade itself is older with it's roots in the early Adeptus Titanicus/Epic iterations.

 The model featured in White Dwarf was built by Tony Cottrell himself and features an Imperial Captain miniature (from about 1989) as the commander.

 

From a time when the largest vehicle kit available was the Rogue Trader era Land Raider the people at Games Workshop came up with the idea of featuring an article that would give you instructions and plans to create your very own Baneblade as well as featuring rules for it's inclusion in Warhammer 40,000.

 

 

This model could be made from plastic card or cardboard and detailed with parts from contemporary tank models, shields, bases and weapons, available from GW at the time

 

 

The original Baneblade was armed with a hull mounted battle cannon and a turret mounted battle cannon with a coaxial lascannon.  

 

The hull mounts a heavy bolter.  Each of the paired sponsons feature a lasconnon top turret and 3 bolt guns protrude from each facing.  The rules state that the sponsons mount 3 heavy bolters however.

Sponsons in later iterations of the Baneblade changed to the familiar twin linked heavy bolters while the turret mounted coaxial lascannon was changed to a coaxial autocannon.  

 

 

 

Over time the number of weapons and types of Baneblade variants has developed considerably with a wide variety of models that can be built form the contemporary stock kit from GW.

 

 

+++++++++ Fireblade - TheOttoVonBismark +++++++++

 
Rather than build a straight version of the White Dwarf 132 model this model seeks to bridge the looks of the discontinued Forgeworld Mars pattern Baneblade to the original White Dwarf Baneblade. 

 

 

This Fireblade is suitable as the centerpiece for an Imperial Guard force I had most recently been working on called the Catachan Concrete Jungle Fighters.  The Fireblade is outfitted for the rigors of a city fight in the 41 Millennium.   

 

 

The coaxial autocannon on a Baneblade serves to aid in ranging for the main gun which is less of a consideration in close terrain, so this has been replaced with a lascannon, as seen on the original WD Baneblade.

 

 

The sponsons are from the WD plans with replacement of the bolt guns for some heavy flamers to give this vehicle some serious threat in close terrain.  

 

The hull turret heavy bolter has been upgraded to a Hellhound cannon from the Hellhound tank to continue the burny theme for dense urban terrain. 

 

 Additional fuel tanks from the Hellhound tank kit have been added as a detail.  

 

 

The Fireblade variant is armed with a short barrel rapid firing Hellhammer cannon, perfect for demolishing fortifications and buildings with ease. 

 

 

The model features a lot of parts used for the original Forge World Mars pattern Baneblade which was of course hand made for FW and used existing GW bits from their kits to greeble.  

 

  

Tracks were cast in resin from original FW models tracks and wheels and then mounted on foam card before attaching to the WD design undercarriage.

The demolisher cannon was constructed from copper tube with green stuff used to create the gun shield and fill/thicken the barrell.

 

The sponson height is placed just over the height of a guardsman to allow it to fire over their heads without turning them into an ad-hoc Kroot barbeque. 

 

As the FW model tracks are longer than the Cottrell hull, the hull was extended a bit behind the sponsons.  This makes the model sit nicely beside the FW Mars in overall dimensions so they won't look odd beside each other when I get that other one painted up. 

Paint was done with the airbrush, I followed the Forge World Masterclass books approach with this one by and large and am happy with the results.

 It's a great item to tick off the bucket list and now I can look forward to lording it over my non Baneblade driving mates...with the exception of.......... 

 

+++++++++ Baneblade - Captain Crooks +++++++++

It seems like millennia ago that theottovonbismark declared he was beginning a scratchbuilt Baneblade project, the crazy mummyflocker.

A gentleman's challenge was issued, and the two of us built in earnest for the next... 18 months.

The crew are made up of one Perry tank driver and a sawn-in-half Mordian heavy weapon crewman, who serves as the commander in the top cupola.

Initially I had planned to make this Baneblade for a 2nd ed Catachan army, but otto beat me to it, so I switched to making it a command tank for my Rogue Trader Compendium era Imperial Guard, the 'Lucky 7's' seventh regiment. I considered downgrading the weapon systems to something more era appropriate but probably won't. All the sponsons move thanks to the power of MAGNETS and I don't feel like making another set just to fit some tiny RT heavy bolters in there. Many more projects await!

Stay tuned for something EVEN BIGGER - OTTO AND CROOKS 28MM WARLORD TITAN CHALLENGE 2023*

See you next time!

*Definitely a real thing and not a joke.