Trucks!

I wanted to show some of the work I have done for some of my other Vostroyan Vth vehicles.

I really liked what Dave Taylor did when he redesigned the Imperial Guard Chimera vehicle (See it Here!) the look of the truck is a great way of showing another version of a chimera with a front armor of 12 but the rest AV 10. His work on his trucks are exactly what I would expect for the Cadians, or any other imperial army with more standardized equipment.

However I was looking for something that would fit in better with my WWI theme of my Vostroyan forces. This is more of what I had in mind. The Russian Zis 6 Truck.

This truck was used for all sorts of roles in battle, most of which were a support role, nothing directly in the teeth of combat. This is perfect for Manticores, Deathstrikes and Hydras. (oh my!) I decided to begin the same way Dave T. did as well. The Ork Trukk chassis. Normally found for a ~$4.00 or so on EBAY.

The wheels were resin cast from a modern day 1/48 scale US Marine L.A.V. Shortly I removed the fuel tank as it would get in the way of my cab.

The armored fenders were the armored skirts from a Leman Russ / Chimera vehicle kits (current edition)

From there I began to build the cab. The front of the engine cowling was taken from part of the front fender of an Imperial Baneblade kit (Available as part of the accessory sprue available on GWs site. (I used almost everything from the sprue, I think it was probably worth the cost of it.) (almost)  The rest was constructed out of plastic-card. A small piece of wire mesh was placed on the front for a little air flow. (I figure armored louvers are behind the mesh to help protect the engine.
 

The headlights were from the accessory sprue for the Imperial bastion (they normally have a skull shaped vox caster/scanner thing on the top of them.

I framed out the cab in plastic card for the basic form. part of the baneblade accessory sprue made up the hear hatches of the truck cab. 

I began adding detail for the heavy bolter. This was made from the heavy bolter kit for the Imperial bastion. (how did I have so many of these things? take a look at my imperial Fortress of Eagles I had not used all of the heavy bolter kits that came with the bastions. This gave me a great opportunity to have a "bastion like" firing port to help protect my trucks should the enemy get past the front echelons. 

I put an old school IG vehicle hatch on top of the heavy bolter implying there is almost full cylinder set into the truck cab, as the Vostroyan Vth doe not waste good materials. Rivets and a drivers port was added to the cab, as well as a basic bumper.

I then set about building up the doors for detail, most of which is punched out of a sheet of plastic with different sized hand punches you can find in any scrap booking section of a decent craft store.

Fuel tanks and a bit of plastic card to add stowage as well as steps up to the cab. 

I placed magnets under the strips of plastic on the rear fenders. These magnets will hold down the truck beds that I will be building. I used two more "bastion" lights for the rear lights of the truck.

I built six trucks overall with the intent of allowing several bed designs to fill out my rear echelon battlefield roles. This allowed me to create 2 basic truck beds; 4 Hydra AA guns; 2 Deathstrike Missile Launchers and 3 Manticore Rocket Batteries.

Here are a few shots of them fully painted.   Decals have been subdued since. pictures were taken.       - Thanks for reading!

More on my Hellhound variants

Among all of the craziness that was shown in my last post about Chimeras, I wanted to now share a bit of the variants to represent my Bane Wolf and Devil Dogs. (I had put up a post of the Hellhounds quite some time ago.)

Here is the current GW version The nozzle is a little odd, but since workshop decided that was the design, I would take it as a nice suggestion and we could go on from there. 

Now if you are not familiar with the Bane wold for the Imperial Guard (at least until the codex is renamed), it is to be well respected. This little honey can melt anyone with its caustic chemical sprayer. Seriously 2+ poisoned template attack. (at least until the new codex is out in April '14)

SO from that template I went forth to create something that would fit in with the theme of my army...

The first consideration was in creating something that resembled the GW design but with my own flair.

The nozzle was fashioned out of the Imperial comms relay you get in the Imperial bastion. its two different parts to create the barrel. If you look at the GW sprues you can figure it out.

I added a heavy fluid pump (right side of the barrel towards the back) This was made from an extra hydrolic piston from the newer IG dozer blade. I added a small vent on the front of it. This vent was shaved off of a Space Marine searchlight. 

All told I was very happy with the look and like it more that the design GW produced, but that is aesthetics. What GW designers like and what I like may diverge from time to time, but rest assured I will use the designs I like. =) 

I produced two of these turrets so I could have the option of fielding both in a battle line. And the Emperor's mercy will be delivered to the enemy. 

I created two chemical storage racks for the Bane wolves as well. These, like my Hell hound carriages, are magnetized and can be removed if I want to use the chassis for another type of vehicle. 

The design is created from extra fuel storage tanks off of a Baneblade accessory sprue with an extra fuel tank added to the stack. Another part of the newer IG dozer blade and a few boxes helped flush out the look of the piece. Who knows. I may have to make more! 

The Devil Dog was the next turret I fashioned. I only made one of these as I am not a big fan of them at this time, but they have their uses. The basic design was the creation of a Heavy Multi-melta.

The barrels were created from the exhausts of a new Leman Russ Demolisher kit. The extra vents and cowling help illustrate the additional heat generated from a multi-melta that generates a blast template.

The barrel tips were two of the old GW pewter multi-meltas that came in the old demolisher kits when they used to have packs of metal pieces included with a basic Leman Russ kit. 

I used two of the multi-melta barrels in an over-under fashion. Additional coolant tubing was added from an old cabling kit that GW used to sell as bits. 

Dave taylor has a great article on making tubing out of green stuff on his blog (check it out here!) GUitar string can work really well also. 

I only made one of these. Depending on the IG (AM) codex could change this or rules in the new (Not 7th edition) of the WH40K rules could change how vehicles work and damage is done. I could make more of them. The casement on the back is also magnetized. Extra storage for the melta cells. 

The sides of my Hell Hound / Bane Wolf / Devil dogs have heavier armor on the sides than your average Chimera hull. So, to show this I decided to create extra armor sides. 

The additional armored skirts were attached permanently to 4 hulls of the 13 Chimeras I made. I figure when I go to battle, the most I will ever truly need on the table top is four. 

Should I need more, I hope I have the fortitude to make the additional pieces, but I have bigger problems at that point.

All told I am very happy with the look of the variants and of the Chimera "light tanks" as a whole. 

I will bring another article soon on my trucks!                                                      - Rich

Vostroyan Chimera's part deux!

Hello all,

      I have been working on several projects over the last few months and I wanted to share with you what I had been working on. A while ago I had a few articles concerning my chimera variations from the normal GW model. If you would like to see that article, you may go here or you are welcome to scroll back and check out the article that way.

      SO I got on this build it or sell it kick recently and decided to build everything that I can out of my Bitz Boxes and found out I could be rather productive.

 I was able to manage another 10 hulls. 

I planned on creating a total of 8 chimera hulls (including the two that are already painted)

I also made a total of 5 "heavier" chimera chassis that would be used for my Hellhound / Bane Wolf / and Devil Dog bodies. 

You will notice that the turrets have a yellowish color as they were created and cast out                                                                                                 

I will be showing them off in a future blog post. I will be trying to make more posts with a far greater frequency as well. 

Here is a close up of the stowage on the back of the vehicle. I really feel the details make the models. 

All in all it took about 2 weeks for me to sort through the bins and see what could be made and what types of chassis I wanted to create. 

Shortly after completing all of the builds I spent one full weekend bringing everything together for painting. I still have the final stowage to paint, but I love the look and I am very happy with it. 

 

I will be back soon with more! Thank you for checking this out.