Dark Angels Rhino Transports for Legions Imperialis - TO DONE

 

 

Greetings and welcome back.  I have the completed Rhinos to share today and I'm pretty happy with how the came out.  One can certainly get carried away by all the small details on these models. Here, I chose to carry the Legion and the general look of the Rhinos in broad strokes.  At this small scale, the extra tiny details are easily missed and appreciated only by the painter

As I laid out my plan to add transfers to the models, it occurred to me that I had a bunch of the Horus Heresy 28mm transfer sheets with lots of infantry sized transfers that would work great as vehicle scale here.  I put a checkered strip down the hatch of the command rhino and used a gold Deathwing icon over that.  The second command rhino also got a Deathwing icon.  Then I chose two rhinos to carry elite members and used a heketonista icon for those. For the gunners, I carefully painted the shoulder trim steel to match the color scheme of the 28mm scale models. I may one day try my hand at using freehand to paint legion iconography on the shoulder pads...but not today.

Hmmm...looks like I forgot to paint the havoc launcher rockets...

Next, I chose two Rhinos to carry plasma squads and decided that these would be members of the Dreadwing.  So Dreadwing icons are on top of their rides. It's fun telling a story in this way with the transfers, in my opinion.  At this scale, these models are otherwise basically just black with some red here and there.  The Legion icons mark them out as Dark Angels for sure, but I wanted to show the eclectic nature of the First Legion's iconography, even though it has no rules significance in this game.

The last four Rhinos I gave to the Stormwing.  These will carry the Legion tactical squads.  Unseen in the pics, there are a couple Terran icons on the back hatches to indicate Rhinos carrying Terran veterans.  And there are a couple lion heads for those carrying Calabanite veterans. Each vehicle also has a unique vehicle number which I can use if necessary during games to better keep track of whose in which transport. There are SO many transport options for the Astartes.  I currently have twenty four rides I think across drop pods, Spartans, Land raiders and these Rhino transports - and that's just with one box of each.

After sealing the models with lacquer, I used weathering powders according to my Titanicus paint scheme to add Martian mud/dust to the tracks, plows, and running boards.  My goal there was to tie all the epic scale models together, for fun. 

And I had so much fun painting these Rhinos, that I immediately set to priming the rest of the Astartes armor I have in the collection so far. Poster tac/putty is used to keep paint out of the turret mounts.  The tolerances are such that a coat of primer is going to make it hard to get the turrets back on and the paint is simply going to scrape/flake off anyway.

A length of ferrous metal, like this hack saw blade, makes a perfect spray stick for all those little magnetized turrets!  The other models are stuck down using double-sided tape. I found that I picked up a brand that is particularly sticky, though.  It's going to be fun removing those once the primer is dry, without breaking off any delicate bits. I already snapped off a plow on one of the predators just trying to reposition the models. 😠

So that's a big stamp o' DONE for the Rhinos.  And I'm in position to knock out a bunch more armor.  I'm not sure what I'm going to paint first. And I'm also not sure how deep I'm going to go into this collection before returning to their 28mm cousins...or more Titans..or more tiny planes? Lot's of fun stuff on the horizon regardless!

I wish you all the best for your own projects.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!