Details

If you've read the fiction or army pages of this site, you know that my Imperial Guard army is based on Kataan IV, a predominantly desert world.

As such, I figured they would have a few specialist vehicles. Walkers and tanks are all very well, but when you're trying to cover massive areas of burning desert, you need something smaller and much much faster. And so the idea was born.

I wanted to make a Dune Buggy, and originally just intended to make it for the sake of modelling it, but decided I may as well use the VDR to allow its use ingame.

The actual design probably isn't that effective in game. It costs (according to a program I picked up, I still don't have the WD VDR issue) 41 points, though I think this might increase once I'm able to work it out with the new modifications to the VDR.

Seems a lot for just an Autocannon on wheels, but it's a Fast vehicle, and it can transport one person. I was thinking it might be useful to run a special character about the field, or even carry a Comissar once the squad is finished.

Either way, this was designed because I wanted to make the vehicle, not because I wanted the nuxt uber-psycho-beastie machine.

It's a very simple design. The most important parts being the wheels, which came from two old German WW2 vehicles, and the Autocannon, which was left over from a batch buy on eBay. The rest of the model is built from my bits box (and yet it made no dent in it at all, I think I have too many 'bitz').

Starting from the base up, the framework, as seen in the shot from below, is made of old sprues, with cocktail sticks for the smaller cross beams.

The roll bars are made from sprues, the curved ones are just old non-gw sprues that where much more flexible. 30seconds under my spot lamp and they bent easily.

A lot of pieces are scrounged from a German WW2 armoured car. The steering column, front wheel rack and pinion, rear drive axle, water bottles and weapon mount all come from there.

The lights are from some old toy that probably died many years ago.

The engine was a bit of a bash it and hope job. The petrol tank is an oil drum, similar to the GW ones. The base for the engine is the top vent off an old battery powered car, the cylinder head is from some random tube, similar to tic tacs but smaller I guess. The little bit next to this is from the suspension of the previously mentioned armoured car. It just happened this had a perfect match for the flamer cylinders, which are used to represent the supercharged engines (I assume they're filled with nitrowhatsit or something).

The seats (and front wheels come to that) are from a Schwimmwagen (apologies for bad spelling), and the mesh is from an old bird feeder.

I have detailed it with an old lasgun, a canvas roll made from kitchen roll and a gas can from a WW2 accessories kit.

Obviously both drivers are Tallarn gunners. I would have preferred more poseable models, but I had to use what I had.

As usual my painting is the weak point of the model, but I think it's tidy enough to let the complexity of the model shine through.

I considered putting the gunner in the second seat and mounting the Autocannon through the mesh, but I decided I liked the idea of having him up top with a great field of fire, plus that left the passenger seat free.

This is intended to be the heavy support, the attack bike if you would, for a squad of buggies. The smaller versions are going to be one seater/one manned affairs with smaller wheels, a smaller cabin and lighter weaponry. I can't decide between twin linked boltguns and a melta gun. I like the idea of Fast moving meltas, but they would bump the price up.

The model itself is finished except for a couple of aerials and maybe a small banner. I didn't add them before now because I have a tendency to snap banner poles off when using the scanner.

I think this is one of my favourite models now. I love the idea of scratch building anyway, but when I get a result I'm happy with I'm all the more smiley.

 

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