Brood Brother Basilisk - No Chamber of Secrets Required!

About a year and a half ago I finished up an Armageddon Pattern Basilisk for my Death Korps of Krieg force (which isn't done yet, but I'm hoping to get back to it next year). It was one of the models that got me back into Warhammer 40K, and is an absolutely amazing kit. If you haven't built one and you have reasonably good model building skills, I still recommend it. That was the last Basilisk I'd done, though. I'd build a few of the plastic ones many ages ago and had done some minor conversion work, but I hadn't touched a new all-plastic Basilisk in years. That changed a couple of weeks ago. My son and I went down to Guardian Games, which had just re-opened in social-distancing mode, and each picked up something new for our armies. He picked up a new Hammerhead, and I snagged a Basilisk.

Armageddon Pattern Basilisk - Done!

You can also call this the "holy crap I actually finished something" edition of the blog. I may ultimately go back and add some mud/dust effect on the vehicle once I get a few more of the ones for the army done, but for all intents and purposes, the Basilisk is ready to roll out. The photos in this entry are taken with my Nikon D90 DSLR camera. Make sure you click on the images for the full size version. The photos ended up being a little bright and some of the more subtle weathering is lost, so I'll likely try another shoot with a bit more diffuse light.

Warhammer 40K - Armageddon Pattern Basilisk - Part 2

Not a lot of photos this time, but I've been making steady progress on the Death Korps Basilisk I detailed in my last entry. I've been working on the exterior at this point, using one of my normal modulation paint schemes - though this is 3-tone camouflage, so it takes a bit of time to build up. At this point I'm using German World War I camouflage as was applied to the A7V tank. For the colors I used the Ammo of Mig World War I British and German Colors set (AMIG7111). The colors used are Dull Green (AMIG-077), Ochre Earth (AMIG-078), and Clay Brown (AMIG-079). For a base coat, I added black to darken the hue, and for the highlight I simply added white and modulated with my airbrush.

Warhammer 40K - Armageddon Pattern Basilisk in Progress

I've finally decided to take the plunge and start a Death Korps of Krieg force for Warhammer 40K. This particular variation on the tried and true Astra Militarum list ("Imperial Guard" for us grognards) was attractive for a lot of reasons - not the least of which was its World War I German aesthetic. All of the infantry and cavalry (including the horses!) wear gas-masks. This not only gives them a unique look, but means I have far fewer faces to paint! As with most lists of the type, they have access to an array of artillery and tanks. There is, however, one drawback. As the force is comprised almost entirely of resin miniatures and kits from Forge World, they're not only expensive, but take a bit to actually build as well.

One of the vehicles I'm starting with is the Armageddon Pattern Basilisk. This is, quite frankly, an amazing kit. The kit includes the plastic parts from the Chimera needed for the conversion as well as a resin fighting compartment and gun. The fighting compartment includes a full interior as even fully "buttoned up" some interior is visible. If you open the rear hatch, then you can see everything - though I'm going to try and find a way to keep my fighting compartment top detachable to people can get the full effect.

As I'm going for a World War I aesthetic, my DKK will be painted up as Great War German infantry, artillery, and tanks. This means their shades will be a bit different from the more familiar World War II versions - at least for the big guns and tanks. That being said, I'm going with Second World War interior colors for my vehicles (where applicable) as, well, that's what I've got handy!

Building the Basilisk is no mean feat. The engineering on the kit is fairly good, but as with any mixed media kit, the build is challenging. The first problem I ran into was that some of the resin parts were warped (in some cases badly so!).