Ultramarine WIP Vanguard Veterans and Land Raider Terminus

Hi one and all!!

Finally I've got my camera talking to my computer, so I can share some of my recent WIP's..

Firstly I've got my converted Vanguard Veterans. These bad boys are tooled up to the max for some hardcore close combat. After reviewing the rules, and wargear available I decided to go for an extra uber unit, designed to go either go after characters or elite units. After seeing how potent Assault Terminators armed with a combination of power weapons and thunder hammer/storm shields, I decided to combine both of these into one unit, thus a combat squad (to be increased to 10) of Vanguards armed with power weapons and storm shields with jump packs. Thus an extremely hard hitting unit, with a very high survivability factor- Add on top the great rules for deep striking and assaulting on the same turn, this unit becomes quiet a scary unit!
For these guys I decided to use the forgeworld Red Scorpions Assault troops for the bodies, as the torsos have more parifiala on them, in keeping with the 'veteran' look. I also went for the bear head look, for some reason I associate bear heads with veteranness (Is that a word??!) Thus I selected five heads, two from the command sprue- one with a bionic eye, the other with respirator, one from the tactical sprue with half a metal head, and the final two from the Space Wolves sprue. My favour head has to be the Space Wolve head with the long beard/bionic eye, this guy reminds me of my favour character from Flash Gordon, Prince Vultan the Hawkman- played by Brain Blessed. To make the squad stand out further I didn't clip the legs completely of the sprue on one foot, thus making the models appear to be in flight/landing. Power Weapons are taken from a number of sources, the bionic arm from the commander sprue is used, with a Power Sword from the Dark Angels sprue, a Power Axe from both the Assault sprue and Black Templar's sprue are both used. The Sergeants Thunder hammer is taken from the deamonhunter Corteaz. The Storm Shields are second gen terminators Shields, these are slightly smaller than the new Terminator shields, All marines have been given the shoulder pads with terminator honours, and the 'U' symbols bought from GW direct. I hope you like!

My second major project is my Land Raider Terminus Ultra- 'Invictus'. The original Terminus looks great, and fits perfectly within a Space Marine force, however I- along with many aren't keen on the way the sponsons sit. The major problem is that the GodHammer Lascannons can not point directly forward due to the signal sponson Lascannon. I had seen the image that Siph had uploaded of the Terminus with a triple barrelled GodHammer- I love the look, however I wanted some thing different. I toyed with various options until I found the answer in my draws- I had gone into the draw to find another model, and discovered starring straight back at me a landraider with an Mk 2 predator turret sat on top of the chassis! I quickly grabbed two predator annihilator turrets and the landy-and wow! the look I wanted for my Terminus!
The raised portion of the chassis was sanded down to one level, and then raised using 3 top hull doors off a couple of rhinos. These parts were either sliced in to thin strips, or had the connecting teeth cut off. All parts were sanded down once finished. Two predator turrets were also sliced down, with the vent part cut away. It was then a case of trail and error to find the perfect spot for the turrets to sit. Once the position was finalised I then added the doors from the interior of the Land Raider to just sit in between the turrets, thus covering up the sanded away details of the original chassis. The next area of interest was the sponsons- whether to have the annihilator turret and single lascannon sponson, or the GodHammer sponson, and a converted turret.. In my eyes there was only winner- the Land Raider without the famous GodHammer sponsons would be a sacrilege! Thus the Autocannon predator turret was chopped up and the cannon replaced with a lascannon. I really like the look of the single lascannon, as the weapon mount has a sensor inbuilt- perfect for the machine spirt! The other part to note is Chronos, whats better than 5 lascannons, 3 twin linked? easy-5 lascannons, 3 twin linked at BS5!!
Like the Vanguards, the Land Raider needs to be completed, with a view to be completed this weekend!