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Hello, this is my first attempt at a "blog". And I hate that word so I'll try to think of something else to call it. Anyhow I was inspired by a previous thread about the lack of Choas variants for the Land Raider and what they should entail. This meant one thing to me, Reapers and plasma.
Let me tell you people who started out later a little story about the dark days of second edition... (cue flashback music...)
In the 40th millennium plasma was a very safe weapon in the Imperium of Man. No trooper ever got accidentally burned wielding a plasma weapon because in it's wisdom the Mechanicum equipped all such weapons with safety features which kept them from firing too fast and overheating. Also, since the plasma guns could be fired only every other turn nobody bothered using them and it was all meltas all the time.
Enter the Chaos codex, and there was a concerted effort to differentiate the technology of the 30th millennium traitors. It was decided that old tech plasma guns wouldn't have the safety features of their later descendants and that the depraved chaos marines would use them anyway... thus was born the gets hot rule! Chaos plasma cannons at the time were even multiple shot with small blast markers (similar to a later day Leman Russ Executioner)
Many plasma weapons of this era were mounted on vehicles and dreadnoughts for the extra cooling capacity the vehicles could carry, and they subsequently didn't overheat at all.
So to me it seems likely that an early Land raider variant from this period should include both Reaper autocannons and M30 style plasma cannons. What the transport capacity and points cost for such a Raider should be I have no idea, but I'm going to model it and since there are no rules for it anyway I'll make the weapons swappable with an ordinary lascannon configuration.
Below are the pictures for what I am starting with and my inspiration. My build will be in the style of Forge World's Mk2b (let's call it the Mk2a) and I'm starting with an ebay rescued chaos land raider that I deconstructed and ground a lot of spikes and glue off of.
I also got a set of Alpha Legion doors from FW, Krusher pattern tracks from Blood And Skulls industry, and there's a set of chaos vehicle crewmen from FW floating around somewhere
My plan is for each sponson to contain one M30 plasma cannon and the hull position to mount a Reaper autocannon

Shiny...

Got most of the body completed. Sponsons are just taped on for the camera now, I haven't built the swivels inside for the guns yet. Looking back on the FW model now my sponsons look awfully fat. I may work on that or leave them as they are.
Those FW doors are definitely undersized, the side doors were custom fit to the sponsons but I had to putty around the forward ramp. (I built the ramp stationary rather than try to repair the opening mechanism)
Wanted a slightly different look for the hull weapon mount and I wasn't sure I could replicate the FW part but I found part of a predator turret in the bits and I think it'll look sweet when it's done.
Next up is custom building two M30 plasma cannons, since none of the guns out there really look the part to me. (except for the FW executioner cannon which I'll use for a model)