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Hello Dakka, Sir Erwin Steiner here.

This is my first Real conversion project, and im happy i can share it with such a great community.

My idea was to incorporate part of the somewhat ruined citadel that sits atop the chunk of the planet Caliban that survived the discintegration of the planet following a massive orbital attack.
The first attempt i made was a bit shoddy, having just built a ruined section of a chapel atop the landraider, with a pulpit for my Chapter Master to stand in and shout about how awesome the Dark Angels are. I scrapped this project in favour of my Second idea: To mount a full tower ontop of a Land Raider.

Thus far i have attached the tower to the landraider, and have begun pasting other bits onto it. This idea seems to be the better one, and im really REALLY happy with how its coming together. Some of the ideas im having i am very proud of, but im hungry for input. No one in my house really gives a about my hobby, and i can't really ask them their opinions, so i decided you, as warhammer players and collectors, may well have ideas i haven't, and which would benefit me greatly. Any criticisms, ideas, comments or free gifts are welcomed with opened arms

I've attached a bunch of pics i just took. Any questions will be answered as quickly, and as truthly as possible

Insane and truly great!

You should look up Kid_Kyoto's mobile cathedral. It's a similar idea using standard Imperial gothic architecture for the superstructure.

These kind of mad vehicles are the fun of 40K.

Apart from the balconies i love the model
The balconies just look like that would make the tank fall over, ESPECIALLY the rear one.
Cant wait for this to be finished though.

I totally agree, however a lot of thought went into this, and its not as mad as it seems, for the DA. Their mobile asteroid castle was the main influence, and the fact that a rolling castle/chapel would help boosy morale, and mess with enemy chappies. Its gonna look pretty sweet rolling around the board when its done.

Cheers for your post.
Erwin aka Dan

The balconies are all at the front, but i WAS thinking of popping one of them on the back, and now im not. heh. Im thinking of balancing the model out a bit, to make it not so front-heavy with the balconies, maybe adding something at the rear to counter-weight it all, but i don't know what. Any ideas as to what i could use would be most cool. The balconies were really a necessity, rather than cosmetic. I need a mount for my Heavy Bolters, and somewhere to mount the tank commander, who's generally poking out of a hatch like a rabbit.

Oh yeah, there are no rear balconies.
Whoops

The only problem I have with it is that the tower currently appears to literally be sitting on the Land Raider(especially as the tower support struts are hanging off the Raider's sides). If you could find a way to make it look more integrated and not just sitting there, it would look much better. Other than that, it's a great idea and a great execution.

yeah, for the dark angels this is the norm, i mean they turned a huge piece of rock into a kinda space ship/home planet thing!!! that landie looks awesome btw

I'm going to agree with what Platuan said... it's a neat idea, but you need to better mesh the tank with the tower...

I totally agree with you there, it is literally just stapled on top, but thats where one of my problems lies, my Green Stuff execution is not as leet as it could be. At present im trying to come up with ways of green stuffing some brick work. I've already filled the gap between the tower, and the venting above the Engine. This green stuff i carved to resemble the Larger stone blocks the tower consists of. Im thinking of cutting the tower supports about halfway up, and using greenstuff to make them go more vertically down onto the LR, instead of curving outwards at the bottom, making them over hang. What do you think?

This is a really neat conversion. If you want to make the tower look like it's attached more securely to the vehicle, though, I'd suggest using plasticard to build a "support structure" around the bottom of the tower. Specificially, I'd cover the large stones at the base with riveted armor plates. I'd also suggest doing the same to the existing supports that protrude from the sides of the tower (although I'd leave a hole in the one on the back to keep that neat skeleton visible), but continue the metal plates below the current bottom of the tower, fastening them to the sides of the tank (that is, leave them overhanging on the sides, but extend them down so that they look like they're part of both the tank and the tower). I think this could be done almost entirely with plasticard, only using Green Stuff to fill in the crevices. It might actually look neat to cover all of the "stone" detail on the tower with riveted metal plates.

A few other suggestions:
- The lower balcony on the front doesn't look like it's attached to the tank very well. It could use some additional supports (angled braces underneath, struts connecting the tops of the side arches to the tower, or both). Laterns or something else hanging from either side might also help it aesthetically - it seems to end a little to abruptly.
- The driver looks a little odd and exposed on the roof. I'd at least suggest adding one of the hatches to the roof, allowing him to come and go without a ladder. Replacing the wooden floor with metal might be another good move (the wood makes me think the vehicle wouldn't do too well under mortar fire). I think the driver could really use some kind of cover - maybe something like the gunner's shields you sometimes see on pintle-mounted weapons (I'd like to say to use a full enclosure, but I can't imagine one that would look good).
- I'm not sure what you have in mind for the assault ramp, but something like the door on (this one would fit well (perhaps not quite so big).
- If you want visual balance for the back, trailing banners (attached to poles protruding from the back or sides of the tower) might do the job without making the tank itself look unbalanced.

my first thought is "jeez i hope they dont hit the gas in that thing. TIMBER!" but after that went away i have to say its really a nice start. very gawdy and i mean that in a good way. i applaud you. id suggest that you try and blend the tower into the landraider a bit more as it looks kindda.... heres the tank and now heres the tower. other then that thumbs up

First: NICE!

But Platuan4th did hit the nail on the head.
You currently have a stone block tower, on a tank.

you need to: Use the texture of the land raider on the tower, engine, plating, symbols.
You could also move the exaust higher, so they overlap a bit with the base of the tower, it should help to merge the 2.

You could also use the stone block texture on some part of the land raider, but it could turn out silly...

hey, thanks for your posts and comments, they're all really helpful.

As regards to Quidlon, i do have some cool supports for the frontal balcony, they're around here somewhere waiting to be filed a lot. They are the wooden angular ones from the same tower set, and my idea was to file them down to be smooth (i.e, get rid of the deep grain) and paint them up like metal. As regards to the banners, i think thats a nice idea, and would fit really well with the "Rolling piece of our flying asteroid castle". A decent shield on the gun does make sense, and also offers another little conversion to be done. I'll get some paper out and see if i can sketch up some ideas for a new storm-bolter, and attach a cool shield to it. I'll find a way to stick a shield onto the hb too.
Doors wise, i like that idea of using the COD ones, but as you say, i'd need some shorter ones. If i had the skill, id probably use some plasticard and greenstuff some detail onto them, but, i suck ass with GS.

M_Stress, i agree, heightening the rear of the LR might help merge the two, i never liked the sloping vents falling away from the tower at their silly angle. I'll see about maybe boxing them in, and putting some new vents onto them. I might see about lengthening the exhausts from the engine, they look a bit stubby now the tanks a bit taller.
Using the tanks texture is a great idea. I'll try and use some plasticard, as suggested by quidlon, and then apply some textures from the tank onto it, if i can. I'll try and do some more to the project tonight, but im feeling a bit under the weather, and i've had to call in sick to work...
more time for conversion work me thinks. Also, tomorrow, i'll go into my local model store, and acquire some more GS and plasticard (the stuff i have at the moment is a nightmare to cut, and is REALLY thick.)

Thanks again for your intrest, and your exceptionally useful comments. Have a good rest of the day everyone.
Dan.

Holy Heck ! Seige towers have finally made it to 40K ! Aside from the comments about blending the tower with the tank ( armour plating the bottom of the tower would seem the best bet to me ) there's not much I can add.

Rockin' job. Love it !

The Modelling forum is the best in Dakkadakka, since here we encourage and help each other rather than argue about silly points of rules and suchlike.

I so want a rolling Cathedral for my SoB... I've imagined using up to 4 LR's. However, I'd never invest that cost into it. I'd likely scratch build it as much as possible. It'd be so dang cool.

Try using the 1/72 scale model of the big German WW2 siege mortar. You can get it from Dragon or Hasegawa for £15. Four of them would give you a very good chassis for a mobile Cathedral.

Hey guys, first update in a while, been working like some sort of robotic slave, or Servitor, to put a wh40k theme into it. I've been thinking about the bledning of the tower/lr and i've had a few thoughts, but im gonna have to put them on paper and have a re-think, so i know im not commiting myself to something i bodge up. But, on a side note, the comments about the shielding for my weapons has had me thinking. Im an avid WW2 wargame player, and im a WW2 Panzergrenadier at Reenactment, so i get to mess with all sorts of nasty stuff, and recently, i was manning an MG34 on the back of an SDKFZ251, and i remembered your comment about a weapons shield. The MG34 had a neat, angled armour plating shield, and i thought that it would be an ideal shape/design to replicate for my tower, maybe a little less steep angled. What i've thought is: go out and buy a new DA command/veterans box set and, with all the extra bits, i can knock up some armour plates and stick some of the Heraldry onto them, making them a bit more themed (and hiding my dire lack of plasticard-ing skill).

http://www2.stevenshobby.com:5641/si/..%5Csi%5CProductFiles%5CDML6187.jpg

this is an idea of the shape of the MG shield, but i want it to be a bit bigger (for the Heavy Bolters) and possibly roughly that size for my storm-bolter. Hopefully they will look pretty neat. If not, i'll just make some flat ones, which i didn't really want to do, cos they'd look a lot like the IG weapons team shields. bleh. Maybe i'll rip some Ravenwing bike fronts up, and use the detailed edges of them to add some sexy wings. Who knows. Im still trying to draw some designs for them, inbetween work and sleep. Tomorrow, im going shopping, so hopefully tuesday/wednesday, i'll have some pictures for you of what i've done. Sorry i've not done anything more to the actual model, work tends to stand in the way of anything cool.

Ok, heres a picture i've drawn on MS paint (not as crude as it sounds) sort of outlining the ideas i've had about different parts of the Merge between LR and Twr

I like it a lot. I think the front balcony (over the ramp) doesn't quite work though.

I did a mobile tower too for the inquisition
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/864-.html?m=2&w=600
For this one I just used the tracks of LR and build the middle with plasticard, the middle is wider than a stock LR.

and I'm working on one for chaos now.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/19779-Tower%20of%20Skulls%20WIP.html?m=2&w=600

This one is a stock LR with the tower sitting on top.

*sniff* I smell the foul odour of threadromancy...

P4NC4K3 wrote:*sniff* I smell the foul odour of threadromancy...

My name came up AND I added substansive content.

It's cool.

Its really weird, if someone had just described the conversion idea to me then I would have had my doubts and suggested sticking to using cities of death kits, but seeing it in your photos it really works!

I think this is a great conversion and really fits the character of the Dark Angels. I agree with most of the posts that advise modeling something onto the front of the tank to make it look like the front balcony has supports, but I would also say that it looks fairly funky as it is. My only real addition to what others have said is to maybe put some sponson weapons on the sides of the tower, or maybe a turret mounted weapon on the top. You could then use it in a game of Apocalypse as an extremely cool Landraider Terminus. Or even without additional weapons you could us it in Apocalypse as a special landraider that has a much larger transport capacity as troops would also be in the tower (sorry, I'm totally addicted to Apocalypse and models that could have special 'Apocalypse' rules excite me at the moment).

But regardless of whether you add to/convert the it any further, I think you have an excellent model there and you should be happy with the result.

I was gonna do something similar with my Word Bearers. I really like the way it's turning out, so are these Fallen Angels?