Sabre Tankhunter and AotE Painting Chart

So another weekend of getting some work in on the Heresy-era Blood Angels in preparation for the upcoming trip to England. I managed to assemble (for the most part) my Sabre Tankhunter which I plan to use to bring the wrath of Baal to the enemies of the Emperor. I managed to get a hold of a very nice kit from Bare Bones Models. The kit is designed to work with the Space Marine Vindicator model. While some of the resin pieces needed some work I was very impressed with the fact that the kit came with instructions!

The first step was basically the same for all Space Marine vehicles, build your kit to this stage:

I love the Rhino chassis! I swear I could put this together in my sleep at this point! Well the next step according to the instructions (did I mention the kit came with instructions!) was to seperate the 'extra armor' door sections that the Vindicator kit comes with. It was very easy to do this, the door sections have a little grove that the saw blade fit right into. Using this grove allowed me to keep the cut parallel and neat. The 'extra armor' door sections look like this before I cut them apart:

After the door section is removed it will look like this:

Now here is where I messed up a bit and the instructions were not super clear. You are supposed to use one of the basic rhino doors on the side that the power coils mount to but not use a rhino door on the opposite side. I went ahead and put the basic rhino doors on both sides. The sidedoor detail that comes with the kit is designed to go into the door opening. I had to mount it to the outside of the rhino door but I don't think you can really tell that it is slightly raised. Take a look here:

The rest of the kit went together like a dream. The instructions were very helpful with the rest of the build process. I decided that I would like to use it as a Vindicator as well as a Sabre so I magnetized the barrel options. I didn't want to magnetize the power generators on the side of the Sabre so when I use it as a Vindicator it will have some extra fancy bits. I even went with having the Siege Shield be removable; figured it would be easier to paint and if I wanted to save some points it is an option to remove it as this point.

Here are some other shots of the Sabre tankhunter:

Now all that is left to do with the build is attach some guitar string between the two generator units. I did not have a suitable size of wire this weekend so it will have to wait a few days. I attempted to make some winged blood drops to 'bling up' the Sabre and the Mk 1 Predator but the press mold did not work very well and I have to start over with those. I do have one of the new Storm Raven and Baal Predator kits and I believe both of them come with various Blood Angel icons that I might be able to use.

If this post was not long enough, I managed to work out a starting painting chart to help me keep track of my purchase, build, and painting progress in my attempt to get ready for England. Here is what it looks like so far (this is still early planning stages and may change slightly over time):

Well that is it for now, thanks for looking!