Vehicle Gallery
Vehicles
Dark Angels
24th Praetorian Regiment
78th Praetorian Regiment
Squats
Other Imperial
Imperial navy wheeled armoured vehicles
Inquisition
Chaos
Necrons
Orks
Genestealer Cults
Dark Angels
The original Rogue Trader edition of Warhammer 40,000 featured several vehicle designs that were never released as kits. The two scratchbuilt models shown here are examples of these. On the left is an orgus flyer, a lightweight scout aircraft, while on the right is the grav attack. The grav attack was included in early marine and guard army lists and Games Workshop did give guidance on how to construct one form an empty deodorant container.
For a time White Dwarf magazine published a series of articles called 'Modelling workshop' that gave instructions for a number of hobby projects. The first of these was the original Space Marine Whirlwind, converted from the Rhino kit available at that time.
This predator has been given a simple weapons swap. A length of plastic tube and the muzzle compensator from a leman russ have been used to produce a predator armed with a vanquisher cannon. Combined with the las cannons in the sponsons, thsi vehicle is a lethal tank hunter.
Another modification to the turret weapons of a predator. This uses two of the autocannon barrels from predator kits on the twin linked las cannon mount to produce a twin linked auto cannon array. A radar array built from tau fusion blasters gives the vehicle the look of a mobile AAA gun.
Here it is a land raider that has undergone a weapons swap. The hull mounted heavy bolters have been swapped for a demolisher cannon, while the sponsons now each mount a single las cannon with a co-axial heavy bolter. I see this a seige breaking vehicle, able to blast through thick walls and disgourge the troops it carries through the breach.
Proving that the land raider is not a tank, the raven MBT uses a land raider chassis with a proper turret fitted. The turret mounts a vanquisher cannon, assault cannon and twin linked heavy bolters for anti-air defence.
24th Praetorian Regiment
Some time ago, it occured to me that all the available Imperial Guard vehicel were tracked. Since I had a spare upper lemn russ hull, I used it to produce a wheeled armoured car that I named the enforcer. A second example was added later.
The Epic rules included sveral variants of the chimera IFV. One of them was this, the chimeradon. It mounts a hevay cannon in the turret in place of the usual multilaser or similar sized weapon. I only placed four of the six hull mounted lasguns on this model to suggest that the greater firepower comes at the expense of troop carrying capability.
I had some shaving foam lids that I thought looked like tank turrets. As you can see I mounted these on chimera chasses to produce a pair fo light tanks I call the wyvern. The one on the the left mounts a conqueror cannon and the one on the right an autocannon.
This leman russ variant ws based on the WWII crocodile flame throwing tanks. The hull mounted weapon is replaced with an inferno cannon that draws its fuel from a trailer. In hindsight, this would have been better as a 78th Praetorian vehicle, but at the time of construction I had not started that regiment yet. The extra armour fashioned after explosive reactive armour plates is made from self adhesive PCB feet.
Originally I called these three all laser armed tanks the leman russ annihilator. But when Forgeworld released a tank fo this name that was different (they only changed the turret weapons) I changed the name to teh leman russ lightning. The turret swap was simple, the predator annihilator turret fit the old style hulls perfectly.
78th Praetorian Regiment
WWII style infantry deserve WWII style tanks. These leman russes have been converted to resemble the so-called 'Hobart's Funnies' used on D-day. From left to right:
- Vanquisher equipped with mine clearing flails.
- Leman russ with 'double onion' bunker busting explosive charge.
- Leman russ with trench crossing facines. After building this I discovered that I should have used hollow tubes for the centre. Pipes were put in the middle of the wooden logs to let water flow through them.
- Leman russ with movable 'skirts' and duplex drive. this is an amphibious tank for beach assaults and river crossings.
This light walker that I call a 'Gladiator' makes use of heavy weapon team autocannons to produce a more heavily armed version of the sentinel. ironically the infantry carried weapons are bigger than the vehicle mounted ones on the sentinel!
I noticed that in the current Warhammer 40,000 walkers went from the medium weight dreadnought straight to the super heavy knights. Therefore, I decided to create a heavy walker that I have named the centurian. It is shown here next to an armoured sentinel for scale.
Squats
In the original Warhammer 40,000 rules the squats were the equivalent of Warhammer fantasy's dwarves. In later editions they were removed first from the rules and later from the canon as well. However, they returned to the canon if not the game itself in the 6th edition rulebook.
Wanting armoured support for my old squat figures that looked like they were designed for squats, but still suitable for use with a Codex: Impeial Guard army I replaced the normal track units with those from the chimera kit. Plasticard armour plates were added not only to make the vehicle look wider, but also to hide the chimera details I don't like. The commander figure is an original squat gunner.
Likewise I lowered the sentinel model to make it look like it belonged to the squats. I did this by connecting the legs to the engine block instead of using the usual waist section.
The termite was an underground troop transport used by squat armies in the Epic rules. This scratchbuilt model is in three parts, a complete termite, a tracked transport vehicle and a termite a it surfaces.
The figures are original Games Workshop squat warriors.
The same side armour plates used on the Leman Russes were also applied to the Basilisk of this artillery company, as well as the Salamander command vehicle. The gun shields were trimmed down to lower the profile of the artillery guns and each gun deck was customised individually with squat figures and artillery shells taken from Baneblade kits. Here are two examples of this:
These Manticores also use side plates to make them match the other squat vehicles. The commander in the vehicle on the left is an old Bloodbowl Dwarf figure.
Preacher Joshua
This special character ministorum priest delivers his sermons from a self propelled pulpit based on a sentinel walker chassis.
Imperial Navy Armoured Vehicles
I considered creating a small Imperial Guard force based around the idea of a Naval shore party. For this I built a handful of wheeled armoured vehicles to represent the idea that the Navy is not supposed to possess significant ground combat capability. The image shows a sidewinder IFV, equivalent to a chimera and a rattlesnake AAA gun equivalent to a hydra.
Inquisition
The exorcist tank kit left me with numerous spare parts, amongst which were the components for the immolator turret. I noticed the weapon mounts on this matched the size of sentinel legs and thus created this simple walker I call the Paladin.
This scratchbuilt stage coach that I call the mechano stage counts as a rhino for an Imperial inquisitor.
Chaos
These three leman russes show how Imperial vehicles can easily be converted into chaos ones just by adding a few bits from chaos accessory sprues.
This vehicle has been somewhat more heavily modified. By mounting a chaos dwarf hellcannon on a chimera chassis I produced a unique looking chaos basilisk artillery gun.
To go with my chaos squats I used a wide variety of parts as well as plasticard to construct this predator with twin linked las cannons in the turret and heavy bolter sponsons. The hull is made from a chimera chassis while the tracks come from a Lord of Skulls.
This chaos squat vindicator is made in the same way as the predator above. In addition to the tracks, the dozer blade at the front also comes from a Lord of Skulls.
Finally we have a Rhino transport made in the same style as the Predator and Vindicator.
Necrons
This simple flyer that I call the reaper model is scratchbuilt from plasticard with pieces added from a monolith.
Built from an old zoid toy, modified to have a necron driver, I call this attack walker the stag tank.
Orks
This ork flak trukk is based on he rules presented in Apocalypse Reload, but it could just as easily be used as the version in Imperial Armour volume 8. the weapons array was built from as many guns as I could fit onto the spare arm from a soulgrinder kit.
This is a more generic gun trukk, using a tau ion cannon as the basis for a big-zzappa. The half track modification was made using tracks and wheels from the old Imperial Guard tank kits.
Behold the Morkolith! Starting with a necron monolith some ork mekboy has improved it in every way. Painted red to make it go faster, a spolier for better handling, eight drive wheels instead of none, weapons that make more noise, built-in grot-nav and a bigger face on the front! In regular games of 40k I can count this as a battlewagon or looted wagon, while in apocalypse I can actually use it as an ork monolith.
Since there are two Ork gods, Mork and Gork I decided that if there was a Morkolith then there just had to be a Gorkolith too. This is a tracked vehicle (using tracks from the battlewagon kit) that is fitted with a large artillery piece as its main weapon.
This vehicle made by added Ork parts to a Genestealer cult Goliath was intended to be a gun wagon. However, with gun wagons being discontinued it can instead be used as an ordinary trukk.
This ork panza is built by fitting the turret from a baneblade to a chimera chassis that in turn uses two sets of tracks. Assorted ork glyphs and other plates are then used to decorate the chassis while an ork crew is added to the turret.
This feral Snake Bite battlewagon has been made from a regular battlewagon kit. The tracks have been replaced with wooden wheels and a steam boiler added for a power source that has been made from an empty paint pot. The plie of coal was made from chips of balsa wood.
I created a feral Snake Bite trukk in the same way as the battlewagon above, taking the regular kit and modifying it for a more primitive appearance. In this case the usual engine was replaced by a steam engine made from a glue stick with various spare parts added.
I raided my bit box for this feral Snakebit dreadnought, using armoured front panels from the trukk kit to base the body around. The arms are grabbed claws while the legs are made from Imperila tank doxer blades.
The battlewagon was made largely from parts of Imperial Guard vehicle kits combined with Ork ones. It seemed only natural to paint it up as a Blood Axe vehicle.
The Modelling Workshop articles that included the Whirlwind above also included some variations of the Ork battlewagon. This variant called the Gobsmasha was scratchbuilt from plasticard and a first edition style Rhino front plate.
Genestealer Cults
During the years of the Rogue Trader edition of Warhammer 40,000 Games Workshop had only a limited ability to produce vehicle kits and so when the Genestealer Cult army list was released in White Dwarf this cult limousine had to be converted from a die cast car. In this case I used a 1:43 scale Cadillac V16 to which I have added a pair of bolters hidden beside the headlights.
Copyright Notice
Converted miniatures remain the copyright of Games Workshop Ltd.
Zoid toy copyright Tomy.
Cadillac V16 car made by Guisval.
Centurian heavy walker, navy wheeled chasses, mechano stage and reaper copyright Stephen Dutton.