++++INLOADING DATAFILE 086++++ Adeptus Mechanicus Land Raider WIP 1.0

I've been busy of late, and playing too many computer games as well, hence the dearth of posts.  But I have been working on some projects, most notably this.

In the first Horus Heresy book there are not many options available to the Adeptus Mechanicus, but one of them is an Adeptus Mechanicus Land Raider.  A quick glance will show that this is not the heavy assault transport we are all used to, but more a heavily armored exploratory vehicle for traversing hostile environments.  Its stock armament is only a pair of Lascannons and a single Heavy Bolter, and it lacks the Assault Vehicle rule so it does not have the iconic front assault ramp.  To make up for this you are getting it at a great discount at 195 points.

It also has a crazy amount of options, so you can customize it to your heart's content.

I decided to go with a relatively inexpensive but very potent anti personnel build with a Volkite Culverine and a pair of Quad Heavy Bolters.  I also plan to take an Exploratory Augury Web, Flare Shield, and an Auxiliary drive.

As you can see this is a pretty comprehensive rebuild of the basic Land Raider Chassis.  I picked up an old Land Raider a friend and I had tried to convert a while back and removed the front ramp and turret well.  Instead of having the standard offset front sponson I centered it, which means that the vehicle is driven by sensors (no driver's vision port).  I added the sensor pod from the Land Raider Helios to represent the augery web and rebuilt the front using a piece from a Land Raider Achilles.  Then a bunch of plasticard went into creating a new front sponson well, I wanted to use a layered armor plate approach to make it look like the standard Land Raider chassis had been reinforced considerably.

The Volkites and most of the other bits come from a Triaros Armored Conveyor.  I built the front sponson from some defiler and land raider parts, and the 4 gun volkite array just looks cool, its a great feeling when an idea starts to fit together right.  The tracks also were copied from the Triaros, I need to do more work to fix the gaps and casting errors in them but it was worth the effort to visually tie into other Admech vehicles more.

The side hatch was made from the Triaros.  The instant mold material is great for doing quick one off molds for cool parts like this hatch, I cast up at least a dozen for future use as well.  The side sponson is complex; first I started by casting copies of the Hunter turret well (an awesome bit as it can go on top of any vehicle).  Then I sawed off part of the waist to a Khorne Lord of Skulls (Very cool bit, I found a bunch online cheap.) to create a smaller turret well.  Then I took a rhino hatch, shaved the antennae off and inserted it.  After that I used the ball turret part from the volkites I chopped up to make the front sponson and used part of a Forgefiend's plasma cannon to attach it to the sponson.  This all attaches to the Quad Heavy Bolters which were made from recasts of the twin linked Mauler Bolt Cannon from the Triaros.

More work still needs to be done on the sponsons but the basic concept works.

The engine parts are again directly copied from the Trairos, I circled the particular parts below.  It was surprisingly easy to make the molds as the tracks come in separate pieces.

  I haven't completely decided yet what to do for the sides of the engines, this is just a test fit so far.  

 

From above you can see how the roof has been redesigned to accomodate the sensor turret, more detail work remains to be done.  The exposed machine parts on the back are something I am debating over.  They look cool, but it would require the rest of the roof to be redesigned further.  I'll let it sit for a bit and see what jumps out to me to help join all the parts together.

For the rear I'm debating on whether or not to try and use the big gears from the Triaros.  Alternatively I'll have a number of large exhausts coming off the sides.  I'm leaning more towards the exhausts, again this is just a test fit at the moment.

So that is where this project stands as of this afternoon.  Its coming out as well as I'd hoped, its actually the first time I've built a Land Raider in at least 8 years and its fun working with the kit again.

Coming up soon I'll take a break from my Admech posts to show off an Ork Dread mob I built to sell.  My goal is to build up some interest so that when I put the stuff up on ebay it actually gets a good price.

As always let me know if you have any recommendations on ways I can make this tank look better.