Cloning Tanks Part 3: The Proxy.

Part of the the fun of 40k is is making and fielding army lists, as we all know, but sometimes you just don't have that amount of models in your collection. Who keeps four Hydras anyway? What about when you want to field that many Hellhounds instead? Well, my answer for this has always been the Proxy Tank. This little fellow was my first:

A simple M8 mortar tank model, gifted me by a friend (he was moving and giving piles of stuff away) I fitted him with Sentinel multi-laser and painted him up in my Skitarii regimental armor colors (we're from a mountainous planet, hence the rocky camo). This little fellow stood in as my first Leman Russ for a while, until I found a LR kit cheap on eBay.

As you can see, they're nearly the same size. This little tank as also doubled as a Hellhound, a Chimera, and Demolisher, bless him. I was tempted to modify it with sponsons, but that would've pushed the model too far in one direction. The proper Proxy is an amorphous thing that could be one model or another, because it reads as both. If you're playing against good natured folks they'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Now this guy:

He's a sure departure from the norm, but he fits the theme of a Mechanicus force, which you'd expect to have weird war machines. I came up with him after seeing these things:

(image is copyright: Lucasfilm, used without permission) 
The Star Wars prequels suck ass, but honestly the Clone Wars TV show has to be the best thing to happen to the franchise since Return of the Jedi left theaters in the '80s. I loved the look of this bug-eyed artillery droid,a nd had been wanting to mess around with the Defiler chassis for some time. So, a few hatches and headlights later, you have Mr. Crabby:

Not exactly an accurate port. I probably could have mimiced that armor carapace using the Aegis Defense Line barricade set, but I also wanted to use the Defiler torso as a turret to tie him visually to my Leman Russ clones. The cannon barrel is from the Manufactorum sprue. I cut plastic card into cog shapes for the armor plating, thickening the leg shields and bulking the model out satisfyingly. Since he's supposed to stand in for a tank and not stride into hand-to-hand combat, I elected not to order the set of Defiler claws. I struggled for a while with the idea of replacing those foot claws with tread units running up the lower leg, but treads would buck the idea of having legs in the first place.

The turret is also magnetized (he's getting a Hydra turret soon)  and I kept the legs unglued because A) I like posability (though it's bitten me in the ass, as is the case with my posable Warhound) and B) transportability. Mr. Crabby disassembles extra-small, and fits into a cubby hole designed for a Sentinel model on my Vendetta's foam tray. He measures up quite well with Leman Russ models, too (although he's a bit taller):

That list down the foreleg is a list of campaigns and worlds. It's a nice little element that also adorns the hull of my proxy superheavy and a couple of Dreadnought. The superheavy is an old Sherman toy I resurrected and fitted with a massive Zoids Gojulas cannon:

That scroll under the eagle on the hull says "Ordinatis Minoris". I used it once in a friendly game as a Basilisk, but honestly the model is so much larger than a Chimera chassis, that it was just better for all concerned for me to make those clone Basilisks featured a few articles ago. I don't see that gun being anything lighter than a Titan's Volcano cannon. The thing is just too damn big.

Nonetheless the size of the model allowed me to do some cool things, like that little shrine inside the back compartment. I thought about making a roof to enclose the gunnery section, but the tank is as tall as a three-story building (apologies for not having an infantry model for scale) and realistically, an AP round is going to bore its way right through those slab sides anyway. I need to make a template for Mechanicus symbols; hand-painting them is a disaster. The half-cogs for my standard tank insignia come off well enough, but that one on the side of the SPG took forever to fine-tune and correct. If I ever make another one, I'll probably just use more Manufactorum panels. 

Cloning Tanks Part 2: Artillery

Back from the dentist with a numb jaw today, so that means more tanks. You'll remember these fellows from a post or two ago:

Today we're concerned with the little fellow on the left, the Griffon mortar tank. Nothing wrong with him; Griffon's a fine little tank for the points cost. However we need something to really pound those orks and other monsters into the turf, and his little mortar doesn't quite say "stay out of my deployment zone.  This time taking outlines and measurements for replication was a bit more difficult, as he came from eBay already assembled. I resisted the urge to pull him apart like a wrathful god, and just went with it. Hours of measuring, cutting, glueing, and painting gave us this:

They were made in the same frenzy of building that brought the cloned LR tanks about, and so share some of the same aesthetic; boxy hulls, big, heavy-duty treads, and more stowage and other tanky bits out of the steadily-emptier bits box. In retrospect, the Chimera chassis is so widely used in the Imperial Guard forces I should've built eight or ten of them, but this level of scratchbuilding really takes it out of you. However, I did have the presence of mind to build in one feature the LR clones lacked:

These suckers are modular. The gun assembly slides right out of the tractor section, which grips it tightly without needing to resort to magnets. Now I can make Hydra turrets, Manticore missile racks, even more Chimera hulls if I need them.

I lacked the bits to build a bunch of intricate artillery workings, not to mention crewmen to man the guns, so I just used old paint pots for the breech workings and called it a day. They're hidden by the hull sections anyway, and not so ugly and half-assed looking that they hurt the eye. Honestly I made sure to pack on enough detail on the hull, so even though the guns themselves are rather underwhelming, the model as a whole looks pretty darn good. In fact when they were done, I was genuinely surprised at how well they came out.

In future I'll just look for an inexpensive Chimera hull bit so as to trace them more accurately, but I may just default to the sizing of these to keep things uniform looking. I do like the burlier, more aggressive feel they have over the standard Chim.  I'll definitely keep to the more modular "universal tractor" idea, just to give me room for more interesting builds. Lord knows there are enough Chimera-chassis tanks in the Guard codex. 


In other news, the majority of you have spoken, and the Tyracron will keep his Tau legs. I won't, as someone suggested, change the name to TyraNecroTauCronAnids, as the Tyracrons are supposed to be Void Dragon Necrons, anyway. I've been sketching up some monstrous creature ideas, and it looks like the Carnicron might get a set of EVA-style jaws...