Shadowswords!

Imperial Shadowswords of the 9th Necromundan Superheavy (Black) company traverse the ash wastes of Neu Diemensland. These tanks show several signs that they have been deployed as a part of the Necromundan regiment for some time, including gang markings painted on the armoured panels, engine kill markings predominantly displayed adjacent to the main gun, and various other honour markings on the tank's flanks. The tank on the far right has reinforced side armour in place of sponson secondary weapons, with the crew painting a stylised red Death Blades kill banner on the armoured panels.

The command tank, with yellow command symbol painted on it's flank, is equipped with sponson heavy bolters and a cupola mounted storm bolter as secondary weapons. While the third tank is equipped with sponson heavy bolters only. Often lascannon secondary weapons are fitted to shadowsword sponsons, but both of these tanks have exchanged the lascannons for improved rangefinding and targeting equipment, to allow them to be more accurate with the volcano cannon main armament.

In most deployments it is rare for shadowswords to be fielded as a single formation, with commanders preferring to distribute individual shadowswords throughout their forces. Formations such as this are normally only deployed against a formidable enemy force, when the situation calls for massed war engine killing armament.

I have always wanted epic shadowswords. Ever since the 90's when I first saw them I wanted some. There is just something pleasing about mounting a titan killing weapon on a tank!

I picked these three up not long ago from a member on the tactical command forum, and painted them up quick smart.

One of the tanks came without sponsons, but in 40k there is an option to run shadowswords in exchange for better side armour, so I simply sculpted some armour panels over the little holes where the sponsons fit with greenstuff.

While I was confirming this and reading up on the options for shadowswords in my Imperial Armour book, I noticed that now shadowswords have the option of lascannons added to the sponsons or alternatively giving them improved targeting. As these tanks only had heavy bolters on the sponsons, they must have improved their chances to hit with the main gun. So hopefully I'll roll plenty of 6's to hit with these two sponson guys when I use them, while the third will roll better armour saves!

The two red stripes on the left tank below were added give a bit of colour to the predominantly grey model. As they were black company, white squadron, the company and squadron markings didn't add much in the way of colourful contrast like they do on other vehicle formations.
So I added a few splashes of red to help out. I also painted the lights yellow, and added some green glowy bits to various places on the models to represent targeting systems, light from hatches, and add a little more contrasting colour.

In most of my epic games these tanks will usually be fielded individually as support formations, rather than in a company of three.
But it's nice to have the option there if I need it!