Monday, June 6, 2016

My 1st Leman Russ in....years.


As I've mentioned several times now, my fledgling Alpha Legion/Outremar army for 30k is very lightly armed. Previously, the most powerful weapon in their inventory was the autocannon on my Predator tank, however soon I'll have a leman Russ and its mighty battle cannon to add to their arsenal.

Dust. Why are these things always coated in dust?

I haven't had a Leman Russ in my last 2-3 Imperial Guard armies, mainly because its primary armament looks just plain dumb! The ridiculously over-sized gun mounted on an equally under-sized turret is laughable. A gun that large belongs on a WWII battleship, not a tank. Its been something of a long standing joke in the 40k community as to how the interior of a Leman Russ' turret actually functions. Officially I think GW's explanation is: 'Its shrouded in mystery...'. Unofficially i think its: pure fucking magic.


Don't get me wrong, I've had my share of Leman Russes over the years. Hell, at one time (4th edition I think) I had a full armored company of them! That said, the one with the old Forgeworld Conqueror turret was always my favorite. With much more realistic proportions, I'd say about 90% of the time I simply used the Conqueror as a standard Leman Russ.

Coming back to the present however, another complaint I have with the Leman Russ is: when did the damn thing rise up to a price of fifty-freaking-dollars? Yes, yes, I know EVERYTHING made by GW is overpriced but seriously, what the hell?

Looks like it was put together well at least (I hope!).

Trying to keep costs down, I turned to my trusted friend ebay, where I proceeded to lose at least a half dozen or more auctions over the past few weeks to obtain a cheap Russ. NIB auctions save at best $5-$10 off of retail, assembled (often poorly) models go often for close to regular MSRP (or so many of their very proud seller's price them), 'pro-painted' (those that actually are and not those that laughably claim to be) go for about triple that number.

Eventually, I got the old jalopy pictured above for twenty bucks which is more than I wanted to spend, but all things considered I guess I ought to count myself lucky. I wanted one without sponsons and skipped many an auction with shitty/blurry/unfocused pictures (which oddly, is a fairly frequent occurrence), because I didn't want glue scarred sides resulting from where the side-sponsons had been ripped off either.

Hopefully this old wreck will get here sometime this week, and won't have any unpleasant hidden surprises in its construction which is always a concern with used ebay acquisitions. If all goes well, I'll have it converted (in a decidedly non-standard manner) and ready to paint here sometime in the next 2 weeks or so.


neverness said...

I have been dealing with the same situations with ebay lately ehile trying to score another old style Whirlwind, Vindicator and some old Rhinos. It's become hard to get one for less than $35. I think 30k may have driven up the resale costs on these older tanks. That doesn't really make sense with what you are going through with the Russ though, as the newer kits have more options vs. the old one gun-choice kits and treads are harder to assemble.

Da Masta Cheef said...

Yes, I've noticed that the original rhinos and variants, which were easily available for around $10 or so have close to tripled in price. :-(