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Hey all - I'm building a light armor company for the imperial guard, and I wanted some Devil Dogs, but A) didn't want to fill my figure cabinet (already likely to fill up with chimeras) or shell out the cash. So I picked up a couple of $5 tanks at walmart (the czech version of the panzer II I believe) and came up this these. The resemblance to bonapart from Tank Police is a plus in my mind.... They've done really well for me in a couple of games so far. Fast, decent armor, heavy flamer for infantry, melta for anti tank- just a nice unit.

Important safety tip: The tracks were removable brown rubbery stuff. To make them fit my army better I took them off and spraypainted them black. Big mistake! The spray paint NEVER DRIED. So be sure to do your paint tests when working with toys - they must use some weird stuff on some of them.

I like that they look fast and look nothing like a chimera. After all, how do you need an entire 12 person passenger compartment just to power one lousy melta cannon? Inferno cannon, OK, but the melta is a bit much.

The melta cannons are made from heavy flamers and the skull exhaust ports from the COD set.

Those are bad.

I'm sorry, but it's just awful. They proportions are all wonky, and being so tall they look goofy.

Look for A kit in the right scale....

Fair enough, though I think most 40K tanks are pretty goofy to start with. : )

Interesting idea, but the height spoils it IMO. Perhaps putting the turret on a bulkier body might help.

if you want to play them as proxy tanks, there you go

The Panzer 38(t) is a good tank to use for what you're after but I feel that 1/72 scale is too small. 1/48 would have been better and you can really 40k it up.

Anyway, paint them up and let's see them. They might actually be good to use as 'Count As' Sentinels which would be awesome.

Aesthetics aside, I think you should strive to get a tank that has the same 'footprint' as a chimera, your current tanks are short and very narrow, templates can miss them when they would hit a usual target, ranges of charges etc would be missing them. Any conversion or alternative stand ins should reflect the parent vehicle in dimensions to some extent.

And ignore cheese, or do what the rest of us do and give his current whereabouts to the gang of hoodies that are hunting him day and night. He'll move on then, like the end of each episode of the littlest hobo... (constructive Cheese, constructive, remember...? Or do I need to fetch the clips and car battery again?).

I think these are brilliant the way they are, and will look sweet when finished.

The proportions aren't at all wonky if you consider that it's a tank without the need for a loader or a breech. The result is a smallish tank with room for a driver inside the hull and a tank commander in the reinforced turret. There are real world examples of this.

This one even has a breech type gun, and still not much bigger than the OP's tanks. And this isn't even the smallest, I just can't find any smaller because I don't know what they're called.

My only consern is what MeanGreenStompa brought up about scattering blast templates. In friendlies (which are pretty much the only games you'll be allowed to play these anyway) I wouldn't complain about playing against them though.

I like the idea, but like stated before, the scale is too small. Sentinels maybe, but normal chimera tanks? no way. Only because its so much smaller then a normal chimera. It would get very annoying missing or spending another turn moving my boyz in just because its a few inches smaller then normal.

Actually, they remind me of an Epic Scale DKoK tank that was released for the last edition of Epic, Seigfreid light tanks. Looking closer they have a definite resemblance to earlier models of the Hellhound. I think I will have to steal this idea for my DKoK army.

You said that they were 5$ wall mart tanks\toys. How long ago did you get them?

Im with Sgt Six on this one, I like them just the way they are.

The proportions fit with the style of 40k (look at a leman russ), my only concern would be how small the details like rivets would look.

I also think you need larger base models to work with both because of rules issues and to make them look less like tankettes. Sure there werre many WWII tanks that were actually quite small but in 40k tanks are big and ugly.

I like the raised turret though, reminds me of the epic hellhound.

...but in 40k tanks are big and ugly...

Sez who? Considering the number of different factions and individual manufactoria within the Mechanicum, it's actually quite unlikely that not ONE of them thought agility, speed and a small target-profile would be a good move.

There are no rules in the 40K Rulebook that says tanks has to be big and ugly.

However, for the sake of fairness in games, I'd use these as Sentinels like someone suggested before.

infilTRAITOR and swbruni

They ARE 1/48

http://store.foxholetoys.com/armor.html

We all assume your comments were an attempt to be helpful, not sarcastic…

rofl

As for the tall = goofy part, check out these real-world KV-2 tanks:

http://strangevehicles.greyfalcon.us/mauspic/kv2.jpg

Tall, tall, tall!

i like them from the side, but from head-on they definately look too narrow for my taste. I would try to stretch the chasis width by ~20% or thereabouts. I think it would help with both the visual scale issue, and with the "its too small to be fair" issue that previous posters have mentioned

kestral wrote:Fair enough, though I think most 40K tanks are pretty goofy to start with. : )

Paint them up , ignore the nay sayers . I have faith in how they look ( minus the scale lol )

I love 21st Toys there tanks are Uber I love them I use the Tiger Tanks for my Lemin Russ Tanks and 90% of my tanks victims don't care or seem to mind I wright it up to my IG army has been out of contacted with the imperial Command for some time and had to use what they had it go's into my army's history. and most find it to be honest and fair.

I think they would make good Hellhounds just Add Extra armor and the petrol tanks on the back Like I have ( will update with a picture later) im not at home right now so I will send you guys a picture soon.

have fun playing..


Malivictus.

Cant say they do anything for me....

Sadly, walmart does not seem to have them anymore, and I wouldn't pay $16 for the basic tank - better to buy a 1/35 kit or pay a bit more for the actual GW tank. I did see some on ebay at one point. Anyway, the point about them being hard to hit with templates is well taken - I generally offer my opponent the chance to count templates that scatter 1 inch off them as hits - that's the only scatter that would hit a chimera that won't hit them. I think small size balances out in other aspects - maybe a little harder to assault, but they don't screen troops very well, or block parts of the board the way normal tanks would. I think the size is reasonable for a vehicle that needs only a driver and commander - no loader, no huge ammunition store. I started them out as hellhounds but switched because I didn't think an inferno cannon's tanks would fit in them (though I did consider putting barrels on the back as has been suggested). Devil dogs are just a better match to a light tank frame. Their "footprint" is closer to sentinels, but I feel that walkers should be walkers (or at least some sort of vehicle capable of a close combat attack and crossing rough terrain), and I've got sentinels.

As for the shape, its one that could easily have been built in the interwar years (ww1 to ww2) when all sorts of weird tanks were floating around - and its the period that is the best match to 40K tanks IMHO.

A few thoughts on converting from historical tanks and scale - historical tanks are long and low compared to 40K tanks. There are lots of historical vehicles I'd love to use, but they don't look good next to 40K tanks - not square enough. For instance, in the right scale, a Panzer II is LONGER than a chimera. I think they're OK in their own army, but mixing the two is tough. 1/48 scale like these ones has some challenges - for one thing, there is MORE detail than you get on a GW kit - the scratchbuilt parts look kind of plain by comparison. Guns are way too small, but you probably wanted to change those out anyway. Vision ports are another issue - I covered over mine because they were way too small. Hatches are a bit small, but if a space marine can get out of the top hatch of a Rhino, I don't see the problem.

Anyway, here they are more or less painted, with a Chimera and Sentinel for scale. The other vehicle is a 1/35 scale polish Tankette. I got it because its one of the squarest vehicles around.... Not sure if I will get more or not, not entirely thrilled with it. For one thing, its small to mount a heavy bolter. Originally I was thinking three towing heavy mortars to count as Griffons.

Hmmm - attachment button not working. Hang on a moment.

Here's the win/win solution to the footprint, base them. Give them a base to the size of a chimera and use that for charging distance, templates etc. It will also give you more modelling and converting opportunities.

Lets see how this works - for some reason "options" at "attachments" buttons are not working for me...



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Scenic bases is a nice idea. I have to do something similar for my heavy weapons squads, which are mostly in the form of individual guys. (old rules).

I think these look great. You said you found them at Wal-Mart?

I love that first pic of them all painted, the camera angle makes the background look to scale minus the focus. It makes them look very real.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
as an aside, I have found that all of GW's turrets are grossly undersized for their supposed fire power. If the tank commander really sat right behind that main gun on the Leman Russ, not only would he get the snot knocked out of him from recoil, but would be getting in the way of the loader trying to reload.

nice work on the painting I did a youtube vid a few months back on my IG tanks I have..check it out..there all 21st toys ..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o--8Yjpcnss

Those are some spectacular paint jobs! It really helped the tanks not seem like toys. I like it.

they lack bulk/size, but if you like them on the cheap... whatever : (

I don't know, they are just not my thing. It is hard to believe that would be 12 Armor in the front.

They look alot better painted..