Finished Images
Construction & Painting
Before I chose to build a heresy legion I was playing a crimson fists army. I’d been collecting on and off since I was a teenager so close enough to 15 years give or take (more give). One of the Forgeworld goodies I had bought for my Crimson Fists was the Caestus assault ram.
The back story of the machine is pretty nuts! Here’s a reinforced flying tank with a short range melta cannon purpose built to turn spaceship hulls into slag seconds before smashing face first into the melting metal to deliver a full squad of terminators. Game play wise its fast moving with an armour value being Front 13 Side 13 Rear 11 with 4 HPs plus the invulnerable 5+ save on the front armour and this melta cannon shooting a large blast template of tank destroying goodness should be able to decimate any foe that stood against it.
The first time I used it in a match a twin linked lascannon from a dreadnought scored a penetrating hit directly on its front armour and I failed my invulnerable save too. The final result saw this go down in a burning wreckage and out of the full complement of 10 terminators inside only 1 survived. It has since destroyed a stompa a knight and hordes of troops. That’s all in the past as its now yellow.
I hit this with a wash of brown/black to dull the yellow and i’m considering more heavy weathering effects on the front end. The backstory says the attrition rate of these vehicles is high so smashing head first into tanks and spaceships wouldn’t provide the longevity other aircraft may have.
The construction photos
I didn’t take many photos of this when i built it years ago but here are a few i have found I painted the inside whilst it was apart and added some flair with the light colours. really it was a solid black undercoat with a heavy dry brush of metallic paint. to finish that off i dropped in some weathering powder.
Painting
Changing it’s colours proved messier than expected. I started off using Simple Green outdoor cleaner from my local hardware store Bunnings. This stuff is just a strong detergent that other forums i read mentioned will strip the paint off resin and fine cast without destroying the model in the process. It sort of worked but required a huge amount of scrubbing. I also left it soaking for a good 3 weeks, mainly because i got busy and was unable to get back to scrubbing it down.
Once i was happy with the paint stripping i hit the model with a base spray of Army Painter Demonic Yellow then masked up around the areas i wanted to turn black and using my airbrush used the Vallejo black surface primer. It not a bad airbrush primer but the paint hasn’t aged well and clogs the paint pot faster than expected.
Personally, the yellow is way to bright for the look i’m trying to achieve and I haven’t found a better colour for that than the games workshop Averland Sunset but they don’t make that colour in a spay can or a larger pot. I have since made my own bottle of the stuff but this was well after i did the under coat on the Caestus Ram.
