What a legend, only primarch to have a tank named after him - what better accolade could the imperium bestow upon someone??? As a die-hard Space Wolves player and collector of course I have a soft spot for the big hairy brute, and I'll tell you what, I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what Forgeworld do when they get around to the Sacking of Tizca.
For some, I'm sure the abiding image of Leman Russ is the one below from the cover of Prospero Burns:
For me however, I think I'll always first think of the (very) old Leman Russ model that once was available from GW:
I've got this guy stashed away with some of my older models, including the two wolves that he used to come with. Perhaps one day I'll dig him out and get some paint applied, maybe at the same time as working on the model below.
Probably towards the end of 2011, a company called Kabuki announced they would be produing a "Celtic Knight" as part of the Knights of Legend series. This was way before the Horus Heresy was even a glimmer in Forgeworlds eye, and looking at their pre-production example it seemed pretty obvious to me that this was going to be comfortably the best Leman Russ stand in available for quite some time:
You can imagine I was pretty excited so got my order in and the model arrived once they'd done their first castings, and below you can see the images I took when unpacking it for the first time.
The blister pack it comes in is very similar to the new Forgeworld packaging, and was packed full of parts. The cover art is also pretty cool, a nice animé styled image of Russ. You can also see the numbering which suggests that this will be a limited run.
Here you can see Freki and Geri, Russ' companion wolves, and the ice-flow that the model is running across when built
Here's the main body of the model. A fantastically dynamic pose, charging forward, much as you'd expect from the primarch of the Space Wolves. One thing I was a little surprised by was that this model is quite small. I'd say that as it is posed, it wouldn't be any taller than a regular marine (probably would be a bit taller if stood straight up), and a lot less bulky than your average GW marine. For a primarch I think I had a preconceived idea that they would be giants, but looking at Angron from Forgeworld, I don't think this model will be too out of scale (although probably will be a little on the small size).
The arms, weapons, shoulder pads and his braids all come in this little baggy, and next to it you can see his backpack and cape.
The detail on this guy is brilliant, so many little things that I keep finding new bits every time I look at him. Sadly, I imagine it'll be a while till I get around to painting him as I have to commit myself to completing One Force and my Skaven before starting back on the Wolves, but maybe I'll treat myself to it as a break at some point.
Stay tuned, as next post is the big 200!
Cheers - Andy