It's no secret that at my core, I am a dyed-in-the-wool treadhead. It's the main thing that draws me to the Guard (or Imperial Army in this case), and in addition to all the lovely Leman Russ and Chimera variants available, the Guard also has access to some of the most ferocious superheavy tanks in the 40k universe. Back when I played Epic waaaay back in the day, I absolutely loved all the Baneblade and Shadowsword variants that were included. Over the years more and more have become available in 40k scale, and the one I've been most looking forward to is the Stormhammer, one of the few to arguably out-gun the Baneblade. When FW came out with their interpretation of the beast I knew it would be mine!


I'd picked up the model at GenCon and had initially thought I'd just pop in the Closet of Doom for some future date, but I couldn't resist the siren call of building a kit I hadn't tried before. Overall the build was a snap, essentially the only plastic parts are the track sections and the bottom hull, everything else is resin and fit surprisingly well!


They provide the option for all sorts of sponson weapons, but when it comes right down to it it's hard to go wrong with six lascannons! It turns out that the Shadowsword I'd originally built for the Spireguard is no longer supported by their army list, so the Stormhammer will take its place as the centerpiece of the army. Was quite looking forward to painting it, right up to the point where I realized how many rivets I'm on the hook for! Yikes!