legions imperialis imperial fists predators

The Predator squadron is a ‘detachment’ I can use either as part of a larger armoured company, or as an optional detachment in a legion demi-company. Like other detachments, that actually makes it quite a flexible detachment to have in my list.

The kit comes with both turret options in full, which is fantastic! They don’t need to be magnetised to swap out options, the turrets sit snugly within the turret ring using just compression fitting. I did however add a magnet into the base of each turret purely for storage so I can also magnetise the spare turrets to the transport plate for going to club games and events. I did the same to the Leman Russ, even though those don’t come with both turret options in ‘full’. Thinking about future possibilities for turret swaps.

imperial fists predators

These were my favourite tank unit I’ve painted to date for Legions Imperialis. Maybe because I also did this exact same scheme in regular heresy scale, but possibly because they just look incredible in this scale. It is unlikely I would ever do a regular scale Predator squadron for Heresy, even just three tanks takes up too much space. But in Legions, I can literally knock out six tank squadrons in hardly any time and they look amazing all formed up on the tabletop.

I very much doubt these will be the last Predators I do, either for the Imperial Fists, or more likely another legion (Vlka Fenryka I’m looking at you …). However, at the time of writing a separate box for the Predators hasn’t been announced yet, so that will just have to go into the backlog for now.

In their current state they were rushed a little to get them into an event game a while back. So I do want to revisit the detachment to tidy up a few elements. That includes finishing the lense effects, adding some heat staining and exhaust soot to the exhaust stacks and a final pass of weathering and varnish to reduce the reflections on the turrets to help bring out the modulation more. I may add a few more details at the paint, but only if I really feel they are worth it at this scale.

Hope you like them.

To do the two-colour scheme for the Predators, I primed both hull and turrets black, but only pre-shaded the hulls. The hulls I airbrushed Tamiya Flat earth in full, then applied a modulated coat of Tamiya flat white focussed only on upper surfaces and lower half of the side skirts and rear hatch.

Hull colour application was Imperial Fist Contrast with Seraphim Sepia wash added to the uppermost shadows.

For the turrets I airbrushed Tamiya Dark Sea Blue over the black primer as a midtone and thinned Daemonette hide for highlights on the top of each turret dome and gun mantlet.

For metallic surface like tracks, exhausts and dozer blades I used metal series exhaust manifold. The squadron patch on the front of each hull was hand painted in model colour black.