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.
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.
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..........
In this era of readily available large 40k vehicle kits, it is easy to overlook projects like this. But looking at the WIP pics illustrates just what incredible builds these are. The scale and skill level is insane and I am in awe of your modelling abilities.
ReplyDeleteBoth paintjobs are wonderful and totally sell the idea of battle-worn behemoths. Fantastic stuff!
Fantastic work, lads! And I'm sure that Crooksie's main gun definitely isn't compensating for anything.
ReplyDeleteI've got that White Dwarf with the instructions somewhere. I miss the days where they showed you how to make your own tanks, more or less for free (although you had to buy pens to make the cannons). Great work: both of those models look awesome.
ReplyDeleteThese are both absolutely brilliant - well done!
ReplyDeleteGuys, this is phenomenal, everybody thought you'd never do it, and they were 95% right, but you proved them wrong !
ReplyDeleteHaving held Otto's baneblade in hand, it is impressive, a formidable piece without a doubt !
This is awesome! The tanks are both modeled and painted brilliantly. Otto's explanation of his urban tank makes me love that... but then Crooks goes and paints up a Lucky 7's tank! So you both win in my mind!
ReplyDeleteNow I want to paint a tank. Maybe that tiny one I got from Ramshackle...
It's always a good day when you see the scratch built Baneblades!
ReplyDelete