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Description
A pair of Basilisks to round out my mortal-slave crewed artillery.

The GW Basilisk kit is a weird hybrid. The main platform and gun are from a really old set of sprues I remember from second edition, but the Chimera it's many derivatives have been updated since then and so half the Basilisk kit is much newer. Sadly somewhere along the way they lost track of a few parts and it no longer has the bull mounted Heavy Bolter it comes with by default. The Tank Accessory sprue has a hull mounted Heavy Flamer instead. I feel like a Heavy Flamer is a pretty specialised piece of kit that doesn't really belong as the defensive weapon on an artillery piece that hopes never to need to use it. I cut the front of the heavy flamers off and used some Heavy Bolters I had kicking around from the Space Marine Stormhawk kits, which conveniently are just the front half so I didn't need to cut them up myself. It's also worth noting that the instructions are straight up wrong, and tell you to use the wrong piece on the rear hull that would leave a huge and stupid looking gap. Fortunately the correct piece to sue instead is still included.

It has always annoyed me that the Basilisk kit lacks crew, other than the brief time you could get those awful metal crew for it (which are no longer available). I was pleasantly surprised to find the Tank Accessory sprue now has some kind of crew, although it's a fairly dumb looking officer giving orders to... nobody? It's an odd choice. Even before I knew about him (it's not mentioned on the box or used in any of the official GW pictures of the model that I've seen) I had decided to build a full crew on each tank. I was also determined to include some ammunition. It seems crazy to have a tank on the board without any obvious way of firing more than a single shot (don't mention the Deathstrike). Eventually I found the "Trumpeter german 17cm K Gr39 Ammo" kit (google it and you'll find it). The sizing is perfect, and whilst it was fascinating to learn about "separate loading cased charge", I felt it was unnecessarily crowded if I used the cartridges and I would like to think the Imperium can probably handle an interrupted screw, so I just used the shells and charges. The crew are all magnetised to make them easier to paint and just in case I wanted to use empty guns as an objective in a narrative game.

Building these was a lot of fun, they were almost miniature dioramas on their own. The top Basilisk is the command tank, with the Artillery Company Commander in charge. It has a little more equipment on it, as well as aftermarket diamond grip plating on top of the track armour to make it easier to move forward from the rear platform. The second Basilisk has slightly more battered crew and a little less ammo and gear.

Description
A pair of Basilisks to round out my mortal-slave crewed artillery.

The GW Basilisk kit is a weird hybrid. The main platform and gun are from a really old set of sprues I remember from second edition, but the Chimera it's many derivatives have been updated since then and so half the Basilisk kit is much newer. Sadly somewhere along the way they lost track of a few parts and it no longer has the bull mounted Heavy Bolter it comes with by default. The Tank Accessory sprue has a hull mounted Heavy Flamer instead. I feel like a Heavy Flamer is a pretty specialised piece of kit that doesn't really belong as the defensive weapon on an artillery piece that hopes never to need to use it. I cut the front of the heavy flamers off and used some Heavy Bolters I had kicking around from the Space Marine Stormhawk kits, which conveniently are just the front half so I didn't need to cut them up myself. It's also worth noting that the instructions are straight up wrong, and tell you to use the wrong piece on the rear hull that would leave a huge and stupid looking gap. Fortunately the correct piece to sue instead is still included.

It has always annoyed me that the Basilisk kit lacks crew, other than the brief time you could get those awful metal crew for it (which are no longer available). I was pleasantly surprised to find the Tank Accessory sprue now has some kind of crew, although it's a fairly dumb looking officer giving orders to... nobody? It's an odd choice. Even before I knew about him (it's not mentioned on the box or used in any of the official GW pictures of the model that I've seen) I had decided to build a full crew on each tank. I was also determined to include some ammunition. It seems crazy to have a tank on the board without any obvious way of firing more than a single shot (don't mention the Deathstrike). Eventually I found the "Trumpeter german 17cm K Gr39 Ammo" kit (google it and you'll find it). The sizing is perfect, and whilst it was fascinating to learn about "separate loading cased charge", I felt it was unnecessarily crowded if I used the cartridges and I would like to think the Imperium can probably handle an interrupted screw, so I just used the shells and charges. The crew are all magnetised to make them easier to paint and just in case I wanted to use empty guns as an objective in a narrative game.

Building these was a lot of fun, they were almost miniature dioramas on their own. The top Basilisk is the command tank, with the Artillery Company Commander in charge. It has a little more equipment on it, as well as aftermarket diamond grip plating on top of the track armour to make it easier to move forward from the rear platform. The second Basilisk has slightly more battered crew and a little less ammo and gear.