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So this has been one of my pet projects for a while, creating civilian vehicles for 40k and i plan to turn it into an article.

For now I'm just gathering ideas of what they ought to look like.

I figure transportation will not look much like it does today. There will be construction/ag vehicles, limos for the elites, trucks to move cargo and not much else. Personal cars grant people a bit too much freedom for the Imperium's taste.

Anyway here are some ideas I've found.

These are my work

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-518-403_Armored%20Limo.html









And then I've yoinked these from the interwebs

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-518-19183_Civilian%20Vehicle%20ideas.html


The classic Genestealer cult armored limousines.













Anyone have civilian vehicles they've done?

Also I know at some point I had the Citadel Journal with Tim Huckleberry's Genestealer Cult rules (#40 and 41) which had some great limos made from the black coach and an issue of Necromunda magazine with some great converted ork buggies into Ash Wastes dune buggies but I can't find them. Anyone have scans?

there are the conversions based on the plastic ork truks, which were made into conventional army trucks.

http://davetaylorminiatures.blogspot.com/2009/06/troop-transport-truck-tutorial-part-two.html


The methodology could be repurposed to civilian quite easily.

The Tauros is meant to be a civilian vehicle. The elysian one is a stripped down version of it.

The Tauros isn't really a "common" civilian vehicle. It's a rugged all-terrain vehicle that's common on frontier worlds as a utility or tractor vehicle. They've been converted into combat vehicles by rebels, militias, and are sometimes adopted by Imperial Guard regiments for service.

I don't think we've ever had a 'real' description of the common vehicles of the Imperial citizenry. We've had descriptions of groundcars, stripped down Land Speeders, "hoverbikes" utilizing the anti-grav plates from Land Speeders, things like that.

Interesting topic....

There are several models of a "Rolls-Royce British Armoured Car" that are similar to your Russian one.
http://cs.finescale.com/FSMCS/forums/p/131549/1338079.aspx

The "40 ton Dragon Wagon Tank Transporter" is exactly how I picture a civilian heavy transport to look. Too bad it cost 100+ US dollars in 1/35 scale.

more pics of it at http://www.tamiyausa.com/articles/feature.php?article-id=194

http://www.accurate-armour.com Has a ton of highly detailed military vehicles including cargo/utility vehicles. Worth a look for sure!

Someday I'd love to scratchbuild these trucks from the game Rise of Legends, to me they look exactly what a 40k truck should be, reconzibly human, a bit primative, and way too big.



Option B looks just about perfect to me. I would only add a crane/robot arm to move the crates.



Some smaller tractors and delivery vehicles.



I have no idea what this is but it looks like something the local tech priest should drive around in just because.

All of these are out of the league for most of us (I'm more of a glue skulls to an existing model kind of guy) but they sure would look great.

I agree! those are cool!

I really like that Option B

They all look good, but not very civilan.

Maybe a train or monorail type thing?

I have been thinking along the same lines for some time. I was wondering if you might be thinking of possible rules for these vehicles. I would love to help.

Some great ideas hear!

Rennoc215 wrote:I have been thinking along the same lines for some time. I was wondering if you might be thinking of possible rules for these vehicles. I would love to help.

I am. Give me a week or so and I'll have idea written up.

Generally I'm thinking of a mission where you have to get a convoy out and adding civilian vehicles as transport options.

We already know what a car would look like in 40k, 9 armor, basic transport capacity. Then we need some rules to differentiate it from tracked military vehicles. How's this?

The Fjord Motors Basicar



9/9/9

12" move transports 5 humans (no one with a save greater than 4+)
2 access points, 2 fire points

Road vehicle - Moves 2d6" extra inches when on a road
Immobilized on a 1, 2 or 3 in difficult terrain

There are a few similar vehicles in a White Dwarf with Necron scenery, and there were rules for civilian vehicles in Rogue Trader.

Those pics from the necromunda/Journal make me drool, what good times.

If there was a place where they could be found as pdfs, and of course there isn't such a place. I wouldn't mind not knowing where it couldn't be found.

A few more thoughts...

Thanks!

I love #2, is that the car from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?

Yep, the famous car wider that the submarine transporting it. Maybe the movie with the most logic faults

Of couse there are thousand planets with different kinds of transportation, even medieval ones. Here some first sources:

Ramshackle Games http://shop.ramshacklegames.co.uk/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=6
Old Crow. http://www.oldcrowmodels.co.uk/25vehicles.htm (25mm)
Old VOID Junkers had some buggies: http://www.scotiagrendel.com/Products/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=59_64&sort=20a&page=4
Steam vehicles: http://www.ironcladminiatures.co.uk/shop/category_9/Steam-tanks.html?shop_param=cid%3D%26
Scotia Grendel has two (one Blade Runner inspired): http://www.scotiagrendel.com/Products/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2_42
Star Wars (WoC Miniatures or Action Fleet (second one modified):





Transformer Toy (right scale!) "Bonecrusher":

I produced a skip truck for a necromunda campaign. Some of the ramshakle stuff looks pretty good too in the right setting.



It was quite simple and fun to make, used the back ends of two spare ork trukks and some plasticard, plus other odd scraps I had lying around in my bitz box.

Very interesting topic, I always imagined a vast web of tubes and monorails that intertwine throughout a hive, cutting through buildings, dipping underground and on the verge of falling apart.
I think they've already been mentioned but I can see 'dave taylor' trucks as a standard vehicle used throughout all aspects of the imperium, wether it be troop transport, ambulances, utility vehicles and so on.
Oh and nice work Captain Jack!

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was indeed extraordinary - brilliant visual design (such as the car) tied to a really crap story :(

Back on topic, what sort of civilian vehicles would there be in the Imperium in the year 40000? I'm guessing something like 1950s Russia (and much of Britain for that matter) - very few private vehicles (except for the very rich or politically elite), plenty of 'useful' vehicles like trucks and tractors and buses and trains. Technology level will be all over the place - steam-driven (or even animal-drawn) through to antigrav, most of it very utilitarian looking and much-repaired.

As mentioned above, the ork trukk does indeed make a great civilian truck (if you go to the trouble of de-orkifiying it), and the same is true of the ork battlewagon to make a heavier truck. Expensive though, unless you have a local ork player to buy all the spare orky bits off you.

on hive-worlds I don't see private transportation other than bikes etc being overly common, but on more rural worlds etc they'd likely be a neccessity to get between places.. so it'd depend heavily on the world, tech level or even region of said world.

Also - the League of Extraordinairy Gentlemen books are great, the movie was rather a let down though pretty.

So here's the first few sections of my articles, comments?

there will of course be lots of pictures when it's done.

Introduction

So, in the grim darkness™ of the far future there is only war. Fair enough, who wants to play a miniatures game where you take the role of office workers and students commuting to work each day? But where there's war there's logistics. Soldiers have to eat. Vehicles need fuel. Weapons need ammo. Officers need a swanky ride to the Apotheosis Day reception. Man, Marines and Battle Sisters cannot live on Armored Fighting Vehicles alone.

But despite 30 years of making terrain, premium resin kits and a huge range of plastic vehicles 40k has never had any civilian vehicles. They're often referenced in novels but rarely, if ever, seen in artwork and never in models.

However vehicles are a major part of any community. I'm seen many modelers produce detailed cities, factories and farms but leave out any sign of how people get around. Even GW produces some excellent roads but nothing other than tanks to drive on them.

So let's give this matter some thought.

A (very) Brief History

Rogue Trader had rules for ground cars but they were never really followed up on. There's a reference to the idea that land raiders and other vehicles were originally designed for explorers or for industry and not for war.

Later the original Genestealer Cult rules had armored limos for the magus and patriarch to ride around in in style. But again they didn't appear again and were never made into models.



In 3rd edition Tim Huckleberry's Genestealer Cult in the Citadel Journal list had armored limos and some nice conversions made from the Vampire Counts Black Coach. Later the Vehicle Design Rules specifically listed AV9 as the proper armor for civilian vehicles.

In the early 2000s Specialist Games' Necromunda Magazine had rules for adventures in the Ash Wastes. These rules came with some brilliant conversions for dune buggies and mining vehicles.



Several BL books have mentioned staff cars, delivery trucks and other civilian vehicles but never with much detail. Dan Abnett's novels have referred to the Cargo 6 and Cargo 8 (6 and 8 wheeled trucks) but that's the only name I've found.

Forgeworld has the Sentinel Powerloader and some engineering/recovery vehicles but no trucks or cars for the less glamorous side of war. The Tauros is supposed to be a converted civilian vehicle but there's no information on what the original looked like. It's suggested that Ork trucks and battlewagons are actually looted Imperial civilian vehicles but I've never seen an official picture of what the unlooted ones might look like (though I've seen some good conversions).

And that's about it.

(All this being said I am not all-knowing, if you know of references I missed please let me know.)

Transportation in the Imperium

So here's my take.

On most worlds cars do exist but the situation is much more like the old Soviet Union than the modern US/UK. You need permission to own a vehicle and they are rare. Most people who have them are well off enough to have drivers and guards, they don't drive themselves.

They do this because limiting mobility helps keep people in line. One of the Dune books their God Emperor outlawed the wheel because "it's much easier to control a society where everyone walks". Historically in Edo-era Japan the Tokugawa Shoguns made it illegal to build or maintain roads without permission. Without roads no one could mobilize an army to overthrow them.

They would also be rare due to limited resources, the Imperium is constantly at war and is now being strained to the breaking point. Fuel and parts for civilian vehicles will always be a lower priority than military.

So the vast majority of the Imperium walks or takes some form of mass transit, probably big crowded dirty buses and trains.

But still you need to move people and goods.

So typically in a city you'd have limos, trucks, trains and buses and not much else. Maybe scooters or bikes for messengers. Outside the city you'd have trucks, tractors and other agricultural vehicles. In more wild areas people would some sort of armored vehicle, maybe even a rhino, for transport.

Some of these designs will be STC (Standard Template Construct) models that are standard throughout the Imperium and work on just about any habitable world. Others will be local designs, that might be more primitive than the STC or more advanced but rely on some locally-produced parts or fuel that are not easy to get off world. So one world might have flying air cars but they only work in that world's unique magnetic field, or rely on a rare mineral to make the anti-gravity plates.

We also need to keep in mind that even a peaceful Imperial world is a lot closer to Baghdad than to Cleveland. There are regular riots, bombings and assassinations. Outside the cities we would expect to find bandits, cults and even xenos. An Imperial VIP will want bulletproofing and armor at the very least. Even on a civilian vehicle a few discrete weapons would not be out of place.

A gamer could go crazier with all sorts of scratch builds and conversions. BL books have mentioned worlds with skimmer cars and cargo walkers. But let's assume for the moment that most of the Imperium uses a standard design similar to other 40k vehicles.

Naturally the easiest answer is to just use modern vehicles, there's tons of 1/48 scale toy cars out there already. And that's a fine answer.

The problem would be that many modern vehicles don't fit the look of 40k. It would be a shame to create a dark Gothic battlefield and then put a shiny red sports car in the middle of it. Most 40k vehicles are patterned after WWI and WWII vehicles so that's the era I look to for inspiration on civilian vehicles. Even then familiar vehicles like the Willy Jeep will look out of place so I tried to look for more exotic and unusual choices.

I would say there's nothing saying that the Tauros proper is actually "converted" in any way. It seems like it's fairly stock, just with a gun mounted on it.

The Venator though is definitely converted.

I think that sums up the situation nicely, Kid.

So we need sources of 28mm (or 1:48 scale, to be more practical) 1920s-40s style vehicles, to use either straight or as conversion bases. Sadly, they aren't too common... :(

It all depends up[onm each Imperial world, some do have more or less interesting takes on personal conveyances, in Dead Men Walking the hive had cars one could rent, like taxis, or automated on rail systems. I would also imagine based on "For the Emperor" that busses and trains would also work for the Imp0erium as mass transit would be a workable solution to getting workers from the hab-blocks to their jobs and such.

I would also add engine bits for like tubes and piupes as well as extra tanks for making them look steam powered or other such methods as Prometheum is for the military. Some worlds are mentioned as having skimmer cars, for the elites and the high end spire workers, (Executives and such) employed to run the nobilities businesses. Tamiya has been making nice 1/48scale WW-II vehicles for several nations. The Japanese coupe looks like a nice low budget personal car for a midhiver.


http://www.tamiyausa.com/product/category.php?sub-id=10500










Here is always an odd truck not seen in film.



Good city official car




That mid-hiver personal car


Heckuva enforcement patrol car


General use tractor



Automatically Appended Next Post:





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Other odd vehicles in 28mm scale from that era here: http://store.warlordgames.co.uk/28mm-ww2-bolt-action-101-c.asp

Looks like Tamiya blocks hotlinking, can you copy them into the Dakka gallery?

Odd, I am seeing the right now. very strange. Okay for those unable to see them, I did as Kid Kyoto suggested

utilitarian vehicles, most likely what some mid-to high rankers would get to have option to have in 40K
[/img]


An amphib for watery marshy worlds.
[/img]


A more luxurious model for hivers with some pull, or a mass production car/taxi.
[/img]



High official's car, including chief magistrate of enforcement or even an Inquisitor?
[/img]


Speaking of enforcers, I can see this as a great Police or factory owner's car, depending on bitz and paintwork.
[/img]


Mid-Hiver's coupe, for managers and other types of the mid hives and such. Bachelors, not so much a family car.
[/img]


With a slick paint job, this could be a Mayoral transport, or other official city beaurocrats' ride
[/img]

For enforcers or other official city business
[/img]


Now this one is hardly seen in films, and could also be for enforcement or a business truck
[/img]

Definitely IG/PDF use type vehicle.
[/img]


I see this and can't help painting it with "Mrs. Lovetts' meat pies" "why settle for soya?"
[/img]


Definitely for construction ideas or terrain where it was left quickly!
[/img]

These all look very nice but what about that mainstay of the urban battlefield, the burned out wreck? Anyone have any destroyed civilian vehicles as terrain set pieces? I think these would make a more realistic feel.

Bombastic wrote:These all look very nice but what about that mainstay of the urban battlefield, the burned out wreck? Anyone have any destroyed civilian vehicles as terrain set pieces? I think these would make a more realistic feel.

With the right conversion touch, any of these could be made to look burned out, shot up, crushed, etc.

@shasolenzabi - seems like once you've seen the image on their site it's in your cache and you can see it here but otherwise it's just broken links.

Thanks for the post, I have 2 of those kits but I see quite a few more worth getting.

Bombastic wrote:These all look very nice but what about that mainstay of the urban battlefield, the burned out wreck? Anyone have any destroyed civilian vehicles as terrain set pieces? I think these would make a more realistic feel.

The best I've seen is here:

http://www.combatzonechronicles.net/cozo8/pcar.htm





It uses a Plasticville car (basically the Mercury Coupe I linked to earlier).

What a fantastic thread, I can't believe I haven't seen this before! Thanks so much for the inspiration, everyone. The walker and JCB from the magazine are probably my favourites so far!

I've been playing around with some Ramshackle vehicle kits to make vehicles for my ash wastes-style Necromunda gangs. Bought the parts individually then used some plasticard to change the shape a little and threw in some 40k gubbins. All their vehicle kits seem really interchangable though, so I totally recommend them. (Be prepared to do a LOT of cleaning up though - thick mould release, tons of flash etc. Worth it IMO!)





Obviously, they're WIP. Hope you like though!

IMHO a Volkswagen Beetle or Ford Pickup would destroy the illusion of a SciFi setting 40k years in the future on a distant planet. There are historical games where they fit, in 40k they look like misplaced proxies.