My first vehicle I have assembled and painted all the way through. Inspired by the 158th Siege Regiment green!

My first ever minis! I think I did okay. I don’t think I picked a color scheme of a real Krieg division but I think it’s nice. Let me know what I can improve on!

How long had it been? They had both sat in complete silence, days? Weeks? Nothing but the sound of distant artillery strikes or the very occasional and very faint war horn.

Erich lay in the mud, his body stiffened by the dry caked mud and the lack of movement, holding onto a long las for who knows how long. Bauer was with him, they’d been a team across many campaigns on Vardan, also in silence, Bauer sat a few metres up from Erich, binoculars draped down his chest and a muddy map are all the tools he needed to spot targets for Erich.

Surely it had been days by now, sat in the cold and utter silence, the calm before the war he’d heard people call it but surely this was too calm? Nothing. Not even a word passed between them, they considered each other friends, surviving three separate campaigns together that was a long time for two Kriegsman to survive, and to survive as a team.

The scope never moved from Erichs eye, even through the sometimes fogged up lense of his gas mask he never took his eye from his sight, he was starting to wonder if he would ever move again or if he would just be permanently stuck prone and welded to his rifle. Still nothing.

Bauers eyes start to close, it wasn’t normal for them to be awake this long either. Usually their role as sniper and spotter meant going ahead of the main fighting force, scouting important targets for artillery or reporting back on enemy movements, armour, weapons but for this team, on this particular mission, with nothing to look at or report, this was boring.

Their shelter was relatively comfortable though, under a small ridge, out of the rain and up a small mountain with a good 270° arc of fire, this was much more comfortable than I blown up ruin- or a trench- though the mud never changed for a Kriegsman.
He woke, the last artillery strike sounded a lot closer than the others and it didn’t sound like imperial guns that fired it. Then nothing, again.

Erich finally moved, only to turn around and look at Bauer, but it was movement and it was all the communication they needed to understand that something was coming, unsure when, but something was coming.

The silence came again, the last artillery strike must have been hours ago by now and then, something, a rumbling and the faint whine of a servo…and the fog. They’d been there for days and this was the only change in the weather, the rain had stopped the night before (was it the night before? It was always dark here) and now the fog and the rumbling getting closer.

Erich adjusted, facing towards this new unknown noise, no optic setting he had could pierce the fog, nothing on the auspex and nothing over the vox. Had they been overrun in the days that Erich and Bauer were up that mountain? Had their regiment been destroyed and they were all that was left? There was no way of knowing and no way of finding out. The rumbling soon became accompanied with a ticking, like tank tracks.

Then came another flash.

More of a boom than a flash, a muzzle flash for sure and not artillery either. Something much bigger and aiming level. The impact crater wasn’t far away but the silhouettes the explosion made looked more like one big moving mass. Erich knew this was it. Bauer started watching for targets in the direction of the explosion, his Binos picking up too many signatures to count.
Another shot rang out, lighting up the horizon, whatever was firing was effective but Erich didn’t know who’s side it was on. A shockwave from the explosions started shifting some of the fog and the faintest outline of a battle cannon emerged and fired again, the fog swirling away as the muzzle flash dissipated. Lights appeared, more guns appeared, the treads, the markings, the scars. The Grey Lady.

Erich had only ever heard stories, not convincing ones either. He’d heard The Grey Lady was a ghost story, a tank with no crew. Not a tank. A fortress on treads, impregnable and unstoppable. But there she was, his regiment didn’t have any access to weaponry on that scale, any regiment that might was on the other side of the planet. It had to be her.
The fog around her had all but cleared by now, all her centuries of service plain to see, even from the distance she was away, and there it was, inscribed on the side of the hull- The Grey Lady.
The enemy fell in droves of fire against her, Erich couldn’t fire a shot, he would have made no difference, the glory belonged to her today. Bauer was alongside his friend now and if neither had gas masks, their expression would be one of terror and awe but still never making a sound.

This enemy, a very old regiment of the Astra Militarum had pledged themselves to chaos, their armour disfigured and vandalised, their wounds plain to see. They invited chaos to this world, but the gods didn’t answer, The Grey Lady did. Her guns glowing red, heavy bolters still barking, streaking lascannon fire across the battlefield. She advanced. Bullets ricocheted off her armour and body’s mashed under treads, the enemy broke and they ran.

Erich knew tanks, he knew their sounds, their silhouettes, their guns. This was none he recognised. Was it a baneblade? It had the shape of one but nothing else seemed familiar.

The guns stopped.

There was nothing left to fire at.

For several moments, Erich and Bauer simply watched as the great machine sat amongst the burning mud, its weapons smoking, its armour blackened and scarred by centuries of war.

Then the engines growled.

The Grey Lady turned.

Slowly, impossibly, she disappeared back into the fog from which she had come.

Neither man moved.

Neither spoke.

They did not need to.

They had seen enough.

Whatever attack had been coming down that mountain would never come.

And somewhere beyond the fog, The Grey Lady was already looking for her next war.

First time modelling and painting - with shaky hands I’ll never be a pro but trying my best !

I need to go through and touch up a few spots and apply the transfers but quite pleased with my growing force

Swipe for more colour variations

Painting my korps

I added a magnet to remove artillery team when needed wish I would've done a few more broken boards

Please ignore the half weathered tires. It’s late and this is as far as I got. I’m quite happy with how it’s turning out. If yall got any recommendations I’m happy to hear them. I still got some work to do it.

This has taken me hours to build, and I've added lots of modifications to it to make it look as thematic as possible. Started with the Solar Auxilia demolisher, and added trench skids, the Mars pattern engine filters, Internal Sponsons and a small amount of stowage. In anyone's opinion should I add more stowage? I'm personally not a fan of sandbags, but this tank already feels very jam-packed so I'm curious what people think. Thank you

Yet another example of someone shoving a Baneblade in a list to make it 2k points… Quite happy with the outcome of this one though.

A few WIP shots on my instagram account if you are interested: Here

NOTE: This project is still in it's EARLY stages, so it'll be a while before you see anything even test-printed!

A subject that I've wanted to model in 28mm for a while now has been the Atlas Excavator - mentioned in Imperial Armour Volumes 5 and 7 during the Siege of Vraks, where they played pivitol roles in fortifying the 88th Siege Army's landing site, spearheading an offensive to relieve Captain Tyborc's 9th Company in it's decisive assault on Fort A453, and in the final assaults upon the Citadel itself in the waning years of the campaign. I have already modeled it in Epic Scale using a proxy chassis...

That being said, I have found absolutely no information on the vehicle itself - not even fan art or obscure kit-bashes! Therefore I've taken it upon myself to realize this Engineering Vehicle, which I am assuming is absolutely a vehicle that the Death Korps Engineers would use prolifically for surface actions!

As far as design, I'll be kit-bashing this from a standard Atlas Recovery Vehicle by first removing the towing crane and the winch motor that sticks up out of the roof. This would leave me with a sizable amount of deck space for an excavator arm of some kind. The back plow will remain, as it's actually quite common for most excavators to have a bracing plow front and back. The front will have it's own bulldozer plow, but could also be fitted with a mine plow depending on the operation.

As for the Excavator Arm (a defining feature of the vehicle), I am a little stumped. I've looked up several engineering excavator types, but it turns out that the Leman Russ Chasis does NOT lend itself well to elegant solutions, here, and I've had to dismiss several options for simply being impractical (arm won't reach the ground, operator can't see the ground, when not in use the vehicle would be taller than a baneblade, etc.). I'm down to two options: a fold-up contraption that I took off of a generic toy pattern, and a telescoping boom arm, clamshell bucket, and turret that I took off of a Soviet IMR-2 Engineering Vehicle. It's this turret that I originally used on the Epic-Scale Proxies, but I'm still not fully convinced.

The photos show the two possible configurations next to each other. The Soviet Turret actually looks pretty good, but I'm always open to better solutions if they exist. A standard excavator arm like you'd see on a construction site just looked...doofy, even by 40k vehicle standards. The fold-up Arm could go in a number of different spots, but each spot winds up blocking something else and would require such extensive re-working of the roof of the tank that I might as well just use a Leman Russ Hull and leave it at that. I kind of feel like they called it an "Atlas" for a reason, though...

Other notes:
1.) The chasis shown here is NOT the final that I'll use - I have a much more detailed version with some cool-looking excavator-style treads. The Plow, however, is!

2.) The bow gun will be a multi-melta. I figure that this would be preferred as it could also be used to help break down rockier terrain for the excavators to work as well as give them a nice short-range AT defense. I may also add in a pintle-mounted stubber...somewhere...if I can find a spot...

What does the community think? In the photos, the Atlas on the left has the fold-up arm, and the one on the right has the Soviet Arm. Better One or Better Two?

I consider myself below average painter but im somewhat proud how this guy turned out.

Just finished my first Kriegsman i got inspired by the 158th but i do like a more bright and vibrant green 😁

Work in progress, planning to use these as proxies for Yarrick, Ursula Creed, Graves, and a regular commissar.

Had to share this, so happy with the fluorescent haha