Earthshaker Reinforcements!

In my journey to optimise my 2000pts tournament list I have found the space and need for a Basilisk. So I got to work making one.

Now having looked at Basilisks on the net, I struggled to find one that gave the model justice. The kit itself doesn't help as it only comes with the upgrade kit for one crewman which unless he's superhuman isn't gonna help the Basilisk maintain a good fire rate for its barrage.

So with many bits and kits available to me I set to work. I have already made one decision about the model and that was that it would have no Guns shield. I think you'll agree it looks far better without it.

 The Camo Netting was something I had done before with a Stygies Vanquisher and I wacted to do it again here. As many people have asked me, I'll go through, briefly how to do camo cloaks. Gauze bandage stretched out in thin layers and then soaked for a short time in PVA/water before being dried slightly and applied where I wanted it. I used some netting as well to use to cover the ammunition box at the rear as the actual lid for the box was never going to fit in such a confined space.

 I saw the Basilisk without its shield and it reminded me of Cold War US artillery. Having played the Video Game World of Tanks, I remembered that they all had a Dozer Blade on the rear. This was dropped into the ground when the tank was stationary to counter the recoil of the huge gun on the Chimera chassis. I tried it, it looked good and I kept it. I moved the step ladder to the side though as they still needed a means to get up and down from the firing platform.

 Tamiya Sandbags were used on the front as I figured without a Gun Shield the crew would improvise some less unwieldy protection for themselves. Several items from the tank upgrade sprue were added to the sides.

For the crew, I considered what roles and crew an artillery piece would need. So I came up with 4 different roles. The Spotter, also the officer on the firing platform. He would have the initiative and experience to recommend new trajectories faster than any Vox communication could. The Vox-Caster would naturally be in communication with the rest of the Battle Group in order to coordinate barrages and prevent any friendly fire (especially with the Tallarn Regiments' renowned manoeuvrability). The crewman with the coordinates would shout new coordinates to the crewman turning the trajectory wheel (or whatever it's called). Both these two crewman would be loaders also and I like to think the officer would also assist in this capacity if necessary as Tallarn officers only get there by merit (although you'd like to assume it's the same in the rest of the Imperium)

It took a while to paint but as you can see it's pretty decent. I'm super happy with the result. The keen-eyed of you may notice I ended up taking one of the sandbags off. The crew were painted with their traditional white desert headscarf (or Kefiya as the Tallarn call it).

My Tank Company markings are purple-white-purple and naturally Artillery Companies would also have their own colour markings. I chose blue-yellow-blue as I liked the look and it was completely different. The 'Jerry' cans are full of water as signified by the blue stripe across them. The Ork skull is from when a squad of Kommandos snuck up on the rear Basilisk batteries but was fought off by the ferocity of the the artillery crews. This skull's owner slain by the then soon-to-be promoted crewman (his officer having been murdered brutally in the fighting...). Yes I made that up. Some extra story to go with the vehicle always helps the immersion.

All my vehicles have names. This Basilisk is called 'Rashah' or in High Gothic (English) 'Tremor'. It is the 4th Basilisk of the 12th Artillery Company.

I wanted to add as much detail as possible but not too much. There are 3 Las-carbines visible on the tank, a pair of bottles filled with vivid blue liquid and several blanket rolls.

I dared myself to try and paint the word TALLARN on the little scroll thing under the aquila on tank and have never been more grateful for the fact that Tallarn in capital letters is almost entirely straight lines.

So now it will be painted when it next sees the battlefield and hopefully it doesn't just get killed first turn like it did in it's previous game 😂