A little more than a year past I had a go at building an all plastic Land Raider Crusader for myself before the new kit was announced, using plastic bits from other kits and old bolter sprues to complete the project*. With the new Land Raider Redeemer/Crusader kit now available, I decided to add a Redeemer to my already large army for the fun of it. After all, with seven squads of Terminators, a second transport seemed useful and I wanted a go at painting the cool flame cannons of the Redeemer. There's also an Apocalypse Formation datasheet out there now that comprises three or more Land Raider Redeemers, so my plan is to have one for my Deathwing**, one for my Grey Knights using the Forge World upgrades, and one for my new custom Space Marine Chapter.
For the curious painters out there, here are some notes on this color scheme. The base color for all my Deathwing models is a jar of Skull White mixed with about half a jar of Bleached bone. I never like the way Bleached Bone looks next to Dark Angels Green, it always appears a bit muddy to me, but I didn't want to go pure white either, so I created a custom off-white color that is much brighter than Bleached Bone. I used a lot of green accents on my Deathwing Terminators so having the light cream color next it contrasted well there and on the Land Raiders too I think. Using the cream as the base color also allowed me to use pure white for accents on details, like on skulls, wings, and feathers. Feathers are shaded with Fenris Grey while the shading in all the seams and around the rivets on the Land Raiders was done with thinned Scorched Brown. By limiting my palette to just a few colors for all the major features: cream, Dark Angels Green, Red Gore (burgundy) and gold, I was attempting to create a strong visual theme. Where I've gone outside the standard palette, such as for the yellow and black stripes on the Crusader, it was deliberate, calculated and limited.
Both Land Raiders are copiously decorated using the large Dark Angels icons from the Ravenwing plastic sprue. The custom gun shields for the multi-meltas were converted from extra Ravenwing sprue bike ferring upgrade bits. The gunner in Mark VI armor was built using Dark Angel Veteran sprue parts. The large white Dark Angels icons on the front door ramp of the Land Raiders was hand painted directly onto the doors.
Here are some pictures from different angles, including a couple close-up details shots.
I just finished painting the Cypher model and am planning to add at least one Drop Pod to this army as well. Large as this army is at approximately 6,000 points, it's still not quite "done", but when you like to paint and convert as much as I do, no Warhammer 40k army is ever really finished. My backlog will definitely be in more trouble when the new Imperial Guard models are released. Have fun!
*I originally left the frag launchers off of the Crusader conversion because only metal ones were available, but I recently added a pair of the plastic frag launchers to this model.
** Yes, I'm well aware that the Redeemer is not in the Dark Angels Codex, but there were good reasons to do this project anyway. First, it seemed like a fun addition to the army and the friends I play with are unlikely to care much about it, especially since the Dark Angels FAQ covers this possibility. Second, the Apocalypse uses for it are plentiful and in Apocalypse it matters not what color it's painted or which army it's associated with in relation to the Codex from which the rules originate.
For anyone who happens through the Battle Bunker in Maryland in the near future, I have a few more models on display there now, including my scratch converted Chaos Stormlord as well as something special that will be released in about ten days and a Chaos scratch conversion built using a gun barrel from that same new large kit. I may have some pictures for you in the near future, as soon as I know it's okay with the Administratum.
