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So, as I mentioned in some other thread, I had an idea for a challenging (at leat for me) kitbashing project. The initial Thing that got me thinking was this here:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3963999
That already looks pretty cool but more importantly I was interested in the kitbashing tutorial from an old White Dwarf (?) that can be seen on image 3-8 of this website.
Basically its a vehicle put together from Leman Russ and Chimera Hull parts, plasticard, some spare tires and a chimera turret. Of course I could just order that, but building something similar myself sounded even more fun.

I found this rather charming as I personally think the STC principle of IG tech should enable a lot of parts to be cross compatible between different vehicles. The fluff behind this conversion will be that my homebrew regiment ordered a couple of vehicles + spare parts from the Administrativum, but the clerk in charge "lost" page one of the application in the trash bin. So he just signed page two and they got a huge load of spare parts without the vehicles to put them into. As they are chronocally short on supplies and material, they just said "F*** it, lets see what comes out if we put ALL of this together". In the end, its STC, so when it fits together, the engine starts and it can fire in a straight line, it was most likely intended that way and is just a lost STC...

So I dived into my bitsbox and surfed on a bits website to go wild! Here is what I got so far:

Taurox (left side of the picture): lower hull, side panels with doors, the whole suspension system with tracks, turret, 2 x hot shot volley gun, various small parts
Chimera (upper right): lower hull, front hull, various hatches, sensor Array
Leman Russ (below that): upper hull, storm bolter, smoke launcher, a hatch
Baneblade (below that): a cuppola with hatch
Sentinel (below that): 2x exhaust, 2x energy pack, 2x hunter killer missiles, antenna, sensor array
Tauros Venator (below that): 2x Multlasers and a small armor plate
Devil Dog (at the bottom in the middle): hull multimelter
+ (in the middle) 6 tires and a bull bar from some third party conversion kit I bought but never used.
+ (not shown) 1.5 tank upgrade kits.

So now I will clean those parts up and than try to find a way to fit as much of it together as I can. I would have loved to include one of the Baneblades sponson turrets or a Devildog gun or turret, but I couldn't get those for a sensible price yet. Maybe they will join the party later (or maybe someone here on Dakka has those spare and would like to trade?)

I'm already clear on some parts that will be included:
1. The "engine deck" of the Leman Russ hull + the exhausts of the Sentinel
2. the front armor part of the Chimera
3. the sidedoors and mudguards of the Taurox
4. the Baneblade cuppola

Now what do I currently (!) plan to do:
First the hull:
I tested it out a bit and one could fix together the Taurox lower hull and side panels, than add the Chimera front part in front and the Leman Russ hull part on top (the latter two would have to be shorted a bit at the sides). The three are Close enough in width (Taurox ~4.6 cm at the top of the side part with the doors, Cherma: 4.9 cm, LR: 5.0 cm). But the resulting vehicle would be very very bulky, and even bigger than a Leman Russ and that's not what I wanted to build. So instead I will try one of the following two variants:
first:

second:

A: LR upper hull, B: Chimera front armor, C: Chimera lower hull front, D: Plasticard
Note that the first one preserves the circular hole in the Chimera front plate AND the turret mounting of the LR. That would allow for an interesting (in my opinion) two-small-turrets layout. The resulting hull would be slightly longer than a chimera, but significantly lower. I will try it out and if it looks dumb I can still cut the parts back for option 2.
The sides of this proto hull will be closed with plasticard. From this stage on I intend to carefully cutting (as I'm sooo good at that *cough*) the Taurox lower hull to separate the mudguards and the highly structured "suspension string" on its floor. The mudguards shall be fixed at the sides of the hull. And I will look if I somehow can fix the suspension string below the Chimera hull floor. In a similar way I will try to cut the doors and some details from the Taurox side walls and add them to the plasticard sides of the hull to get more details.

Now to the propulsion: Here I have various ideas and will again have to test out how they look. The "simple" way would be to fix the suspension parts of the Taurox to the floor as intended, resulting in a rather "high legged" vehicles. Alternatively I could try to add those parts more to the sides, so that the tires/tracks reach out left an right a bit like in this funny conversion I found in the net:
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&id=5B1D591D0F17EE0656A1904079161DA215A80409&thid=OIP.APP7aZDwxz75s-1KUIPkrAHaHa&mediaurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F1e%2Fa0%2F76%2F1ea0767c4f238c1d28d0e8e1d8dd4364.jpg&exph=1080&expw=1080&q=taurox+kitbash&selectedindex=1&ajaxhist=0&vt=0
(I have a tendency to the latter)
Afterwards I will tryout a bit between 6x6 wheels, 2 wheels front + tracks back, tracks front +4 wheels back and all tracks.

And finally: armament. On the one hand I want to go wild and include parts I would usually not use. On the other hand the vehicle should make at least a bit sense. So I intend to go for a short range, fire support vehicle. I hope that I can make hull variant A work, so I will have two turret mounts, one in front with a 180° firearc and one on top with a 360° fire arc. My intended layout will be:
Devil Dog hull multimelter in the front
Tauros turret with 2x HSVG in front position
A kitbashed 2x Multilaser 1-2x Hunter killer Missile turret with a lot of lenses and the Chimera sensor array on top.
The Multilaser/HKM turret will be build in a way that the weapons face to the sky and get the AA rules (so +1 to hit against flyers, -1 against the rest). Fluffwise it will include the targetting array of a Hydra-AA-tank fixed together with what was at hand as weaponry. I could see one of those turrets being build on the base of a Baneblade sponson turret or a Hellhound turret - if I can get one...

I think (!) this loadout would actually make a bit of sense. It provides a decent amount of short range firepower against infantry and light vehicles + AA support below the treshhold of bringing a whole Hydra. I also think it makes more sense to fix the AA turret on top with the full firing arc and the Anti-Infantry turret in the front. The other way around there would be a risk of the HSVG accidently hitting the AA guns when they rise up and also the AA targetting very fast units needs the full firing arc more urgently

So far so good... lets see where this journey takes us...

Wow! This looks like a fascinating project! I'm very curious to see how this will end up.

And I have to confess, I might try something similar for my Guard once I have more of the basics built up.

Taurox turret makes sense as you can slap plenty of different types of weapons either side!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As always, looking forwards to seeing progress.

A sidenote to the vehicles name: it derived from a very nice talk about the concept with oldmate whom I quote:

Perhaps we could name it the hippagrif(On a side note it is one of my favorite mythical creatures because in myth it is acknowledged as being impossible(the cross of a horse and griffin. Natural enemies) therefore it is a mythical mythical creature!)

=> that really matches the weird "put all together" feeling.

Some first progress:
I glued those parts, where I already know how they will go together, namely the Taurox Tracks, their suspension and the turret. Then I did some basic magnetizing as usual to have more options later on:

Note that its much easier to glue the little sprue part with the magnet into the chimera front plate BEFORE you glue it to the floor (a mistake I made with my first chimera).

By now I have decided I want the tracks/tires to stretch out more to the sides and not fix them in the classical Taurox configuration under the hull floor. For once the classical way would result in a very high profile vehicle that would likely look as if it is prone to falling over. The second and more important factor for me is that I might get a "normal" Taurox later on and want the Hyppogryph to really look different in my collection. I also want to really do the long hull variant A with two turret, for the same reason: it will stick out more in between my (by now 6) single turret tanks.
So I cut the LR upper hull and the suspension blocks like this:


Further on, when I took a second look at the Taurox turret, I realized that I forgot to order the Taurox hatch too, assuming the Leman Russ or Tank-Upgrade kit hatch I had still lying around would fit too... boy was I wrong. They are a little bit to big while also having to short of an attachment to the hinges. While I might have to order some parts I forgot anyway I decided to go another way and think "in character", so what would an adventurous engineer do, if he does not have a fitting hatch? He wields a new hatch mounting or when he's at it a whole cuppola in place:

Looks a lot better this way in my personal opinion.

Next step will be to figure out something with the turret mounting. While it would (with just a little bit of filing) fit into the hatch hole in the chimera front plate there would be three problems:
1. it cannot rotate freely because it is blocked by the rivets on top => I could file them down, but I would loose detail
2. the rectangular hatch beside it cannot be opened sensibly
3. As I want to fix the LR hull beside the Chimera front plate there will be kind of a step in the armor. The back of the turret would be really really close to that part and might scratch it
So the solution I intend (and again that would likely be made by an engineer faced with this problem) is to come up with some plasticard (or rather no-name PVC sheet) rings on top of that mounting hole. That way I will add 1-3 mm or so in between the chimera plate and the floor of the Taurox turret which should be enough to solve 2. and 3. If the rectangular hatch still looks problematic I will come up with something like a hatch that swivels sideways instead of opening upwards.



EDIT: just ordered some more parts - things I forgot or I just realized upon trying to plan everything out.
- some ventilation grills from the Taurox front I want to fix on the Leman Russ back
- the Sentinel cockpit that I will try to make work as base of the AA-turret + 2 x Sentinel Multilaser because they look more badass than the Tauros ones and were only 1,20€
- the Taurox topplate with the turret ring to cut it up and fix it on the Chimera front plate to get that little bit of space I mentioned
- the second Chimera hull floor part I forgot as my Chimera floor is too short
- a couple of smaller details I did not realize could be useful
=> I will likely wait for these parts before I seriously progress further and build/paint other stuff meanwhile.

Soooo, I got more parts (since I hadn't already enough *cough*), including the Tarox top hull front and the second Chimera hull floor part as most important elements. Here are the next steps of progress:

1. General structure:

As mentioned before it is composed of: Chimera front and floor (slightly shortened in the back), Basilisk back plate (lower left), Leman Russ top hull (shortened in the front before the front plate goes down and in the back immediatly after the triangular plates of the engine deck.), Taurox sidepannels (cut to size).

Some details to better illustrate what has been done:
2. tail of the vehicle:

Chimera hull floor (A) and Basilisk back plate (B). The Chimera hull part was shorted about 2-3 mm, to match with the Leman Russ upper hull (C). The latter was cut directly under the triangular armor plate of the engine deck.

3. details of the engine deck:

More details of the engine deck. The two sentinel exhausts (A) were cut a little bit to adjust to the v shaped tail of the structure and assist in stabilizing it. As I miss the small ventilation thingy that usually goes in the back of the LR engine deck I got the engine top of a Taurox and cut out the hatches (B). With only a slight cut in the lower right corner they fit perfectly to the LR engine deck sides. I also got the front grill of the Taurox as alternative ventilation, but it was too big. Yet if someone for his own project does not cut the back of his LR top hull, the Taurox grill fits perfectly on the large flat area there.

4. Side doors

It's not that easy to see, but I made small cuts in the Leman Russ hull (A, around the red arrow) to remove the small stripe of horizontal armor beside the angeled top. This was made after I realized that the Taurox sidepanels with the doors (B) have almost the same angle at the top and can easily be fixed there. I also cut away the lowermost, angled part of said doors (3rd picture), so that it fit perfectly to the chimera floor. At the top I filed the side pannels so that they take up the angles of the LR structure, so that it looks more natural.
I was really surprised here how easy everything went together. The adjustment of the doors to the LR hull was a walk in the park and it did not need more than a small cut at the base of the doors and they had exactly the height of my kitbashed hull structure, aligning with the Chimera floor. STC in work I think.

5. forward turret:

I got the Taurox upper hull front and carefully cut out the turret ring (A). It had the perfect size to fit over the round hatch in the Chimera top without getting into conflict with the added LR top hull (Again: STC!!!). As I hoped it gives just the little amount of elevation needed for the turret to rotate withot scratching the elevated structure of the LR hull (2nd and 3rd picture). In the 2nd picture you can also see where I made a cut in "wall" that seperates the Chimeras pilot from the troop compartment and glued in a piece of sprue (red arrow). This was done to assist alignment of the Chimera and LR hull parts and give more area to glue them together.
I also build a new hatch (B) since the normal Chimera hatches cannot open sensibly any more with the added turret. So I tried to build this thingy that is intended to go up a small way and then rotate out of the way around this little sprue cylinder.



Taken together: This project is really fun and it is surprising time and time again how easily the parts of different kits come together. They often have the same or very similar angles, and the sizes of armor plates are quite comparable.
The next step will be to find an arrangement for the Taurox tracks I'm happy with and close the sides. I also got a Sentinel turret to build the AA turret in the LR mounting. But both might have to wait a bit, as my wife wants to install me some LEDs into the Hyppogryph. We plan on putting one in the Taurox turret (in the front where the little window is), one in the Sentinel cockpit and one in a searchlight on the outside of said turret. For that we ordered some coin cell mounting and I will have to see if those can go in and out the turret hatches to change the batteries or if I have to build a megnetized side pannel that can be removed

Hull hatch looks good, looking good.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hull turret is very cool.

Thanks for the input.

Here are the next stages:

In reading direction:
1. my way of cutting the central suspension string of the Taurox floor free
2. suspension string fixed on the Chimera floor, note the good match in length (maybe 1-2 mm shorter than an uncut Chimera floor, but I had already shortened it, so perfect fit.). The broader part in the rear of the Taurox part also fits perfectly in between the rectangulars at the tail of the Chimera floor (on the uper and lower right in this picture)
3. Taurox tracks with elongated suspension (build from two suspension sets). I had already cut free the "connectors" to the tracks from one set of suspensions, cut and filed them a bit and then just glued them to a second set of suspensions. The holes for the springs are filled with greenstuff in the outer set.
I turned those springs (red arrows) in the inner set around 180°, so that their connectors face upwards instead of sideways. It took some slight filing and sanding but now they align to the areas marked in picture 2 with red arrows.
4. everything put together.

And the result:

It looks a bit high legged, but I like it. Initially I was planning to fix the tracks directly to the side pannels of the hull, which wold have resulted in an even broader and significantly lower vehicle, but then it would have had really small ground clearance. I would also have missed the opportunity to include the Taurox suspension string which looks quite nice but would have had a hard time fitting on the floor in the described layout.

In a later stage I will add the Taurox track guards, which will have to be cut a bit to really adjust to the hull. I was a bit concerned if there will be enough room for the larger track guard on the left side of the vehicle shown in the last picture, as the side door is really far behind on this side (both sides are different in the door position). Luckily it seems as if the track guard will just have enough room to fit and will also be positioned right under said door. So soldiers leaving the vehicle on the left side will step directly onto the track guard instead of into the suspension. On the right side there is just enough room to fix one of the Taurox ladders beside the track guard. So it all makes kind of sense in a vehicle.
As before: everything fits quite nicely and the project seems to stand under a good star.

This already looks pretty sweet.

I got distracted by some other stuff and I still have to decide for and order some LED stuff to try and install it, but yesterday I got around to closing the sides of the vehicle with some Polystyrol:



As you can see I also added the Taurox mudguards. I filed down the lower part of the left Taurox door on this side so that the track has a bit of room to "swing" with the suspension. Also soldiers leaving through that door step on the mudguard and not the Suspension. On the right side the track guard fitted quite nicely to the angled part on the lower left corner of the door.

I filed down the surface of the forward track guards, because I want (and have) to place the Taurox headlights more distant to the hull. Similarily I removed the seats from the rear track guards. For now I left the adapters for the guns on the rear guards, but I don't think fixed guns firing along your sidedoors make much sense. I plan on fixing some waterbarrels there instead.
Next of I want to fix some armor plates and details left over from all the cutting sessions of the various parts to the "naked" parts of the sides. But progress will continue to be rather slow, as I paint and build infantry and other vehicles in parallel.

Aaaaand another one:
primed and painted the Sentinel cockpit that will serve as AA turret on top:

not the best photo, but I tried to paint all those little buttons with 4-5 colors each, ranging from bright to dark (or even black) with a small white dot to look in line with my current lense paint style.

Then I build a turret mounting:

the base is from Polystyrene foam (not sure with the styrene, some kind of plastic foam it is), and the "adapter ring" underneath vom Polysterene sheet. The hydraulic system is a Polystyrene rod in a fitting tube, even if I unfortunatly missed that the one behind shiftet a bit and the outer part is now shorter than the other one. Still looks nice.
The joint is a Lego part.

Last but not least, everything put together:


You can also see some details I added on the sides. Cutouts left over from the Taurox sides, a Chimera Antenna and some Sentinel power packs. Next I will try to tackle the rivetting.

Hard to say, to put those missiles on, maybe on brackets on the multi-lasers?
Perhaps off the sides of the 2 multi-lasers, one on each end.

I already tried them in a 45° angled position on the angled part of the outer multilasers, but that looked kind of overloaded. When I next find time for it I will try out some positions with pattafix. My main ideas are:
1. On top of the outer Multilasers, so that the MLs and missiles build a 90° angle on both sides
2. On top of the inner MLs so that they are quite high
3. At the back of the turret pointing upwards (they have to navigate to their target anyway, so it should not matter if they point in the correct direction when started
4. In some kind of twin formation at the side where the sentinel has its weapon
5. Underslung where the sentinel chainsaw is placed



Beside that I'm thinking a bit about potential rules for this thing and could use the audience' help:
A: the hull is a nearly equal mix of T6 W10 (propulsion and sides), T7 W11 (front and floor) and T8 W12 (back and top) which would average out to the chimera statline T7 W11.
Meanwhile I see that while the main turret gunner is less exposed than in a Basilisk he still sits in a T5 turret. Also the vehicle is rather big and long, so maybe less toughness, more wounds? Any opinions?
B: Any cost recommendations for a single use Skystrike missile? I would say 4 points, as even against a flyer the hunter killer missile does on average more damage (if my math isn't too far of), wounds better and is superior against ground targets
C: as the weapons loadout would be pretty comparable to a Leman Russ (quad MLs is a bit weaker than punisher, the two HSVGs are comparable to heavy bolter sponsons and the hull melter to the hull lascannon), but it has no grinding advance, no tank ace, has a weaker hull and cannot profit from Emperors Fist detachments I would say 75% of that cost? So 80 points for the hull?
EDIT: oh, I forgot D: currently it has the powerful Leman Russ engine powering the fast Taurox tracks, so I would assume M14''?

As mentioned some options to place the missiles:

A: diagonal on the outer Multilasers (looks verry broad)
B: at the side of the inner MLs or on top of the outer ones, building two 90° angles
C: on top of the inner ones
D: on the lower sides of the turret hull (but then the pilot can not sensibly get into the cockpit without stepping on the missile)
E: completely different missile system at the side (in that case not one use Skystrike missiles but some kind of normal missile system)

I could use some help to decide.
At the moment I think C looks best, but I'm not sure about it.
E could also be interesting, as one could be creative on how that AA missile works. Could be the normal Skystrike Missile (long rage, relatively high Strenght and AP), but for such a short range support tank I could also see it be some kind of fragmentation warhead against flying critters like Gargoyles, so something like frag (D6 S3/AP0/D1) with the added +1 to hit against flyers.

Any input is welcome.

I think I'm leaning towards C - might help to see some other angles. Could you combine D + E - ie use missles from D but put both on the same side as E? (E looks a bit overloaded with the larger missile system both on th eone side...)

I'm liking either B or C look good.

Gotta say I'm liking the look of the flak array.

After a longer pause from this project I finally got around to slap some paint on it. My usual N'Go color scheme


Not the best spray job I ever did, but it will do. I think I did not shake my Nocture Green enough (the darker green) because there were some parts were it did not cover perfectly. But I think it's nothing I cannot fix with a brush afterwords. Some other minor things I could have done better, but live and learn.

Next off I will shade and highlight it (as good as I can) and then add a lot of little details etc. I already have the weapons primed black, but could not yet decide on the exact color scheme for them. Most likely some combination of black/Leadbelcher, Gold and hints of copper, as with my other N'Go vehicles.

All in all the paint definitly lets the parts come together a bit more.

The project approaches the finish line. Hereis the completed AA-array.



The guns are not completely parallel as one seemed to have shifts loghtly after glueing it on and also I realized afterwards that the gunner will have a hard time getting out of the cockpit, but overall Im really satisfied

The Hyppogryph up and finished. OK, almost, I’m still experimenting with my wife to put some LEDs in there. But beside from that, I’m pretty satisfied.
For the name I used again the Mandombe script I liked before, this time the name spells Kiune (at least I hope it does), which is a suaheli name meaning something like “He came from nowhere”. A little reference to him being puzzled together from spare parts instead of really being delivered to the regiment.
And here are some final pictures:


more details:


size comparisons:


Aaaand some lore of course:

920.M41 Segmentum Pacificus capital Hydraphur, Departmento Munitorum Subdivision Iota: rimward systems
Administrator third class Calistos took a sip of his recaf and sighed, as Sparky, the office servitor slowly slouched into his office, almost vanishing from view under a huge stack of requisition files he was balancing before him. The lobotomized servant hauled a feet thick collection on each desk and turned away too collect more of the never ending flood of paperwork pouring in from all over the segmentum. His personal responsibility being mostly rimward backwater systems, his work was a bit dull and repetitive at times, but he liked it that way. He began shuffling his way through the uppermost files, glancing through them and working away with his stamp of approval and the dreadful red marker of denial, allocating resources like he saw fit according to the regulations and – undeniably – his personal gut feeling were those were unclear until he came upon a single sheet that caught his attention. Usually it would not be something special, a list of spare and replacement parts for various Imperial Guard vehicles, the problem being some tiny numerals in the upper right corner stating “page 2 of 2”. Calistos shuffled through the files again, looked on the top of the stack, beside his desk and on the part of floor the servitor had crossed, but much too his frustration, page 1 seemed to have been lost in the warp, or more likely had been swept away somewhere along the endless corridors of the administrativum building. Calistos groaned silently at the thought of having to sort this out when he glanced again at the single page and relieved as he noticed the requisitioning regiment. The Thoth Askaris… again. Well, at least it was no one important. And from their reputation within the Departmento Munitorum they should be content to get something at all. Calistos shrugged, threw the single page he had in the copier and approved two requisition pages as he should – they could sort this out themselves and if anyone asked he could just claim the application to have been consisted of two identical pages.

920.M41, Thoth, Spaceport Kigali
Enginseer Kassa Okoya approached the large hangar on the landing field that served the regiment as transient storage room while they picked up new recruits and material to fill up their losses. This morning a shuttle from the Departmento Munitorum had landed, so she was pretty thrilled to see what it had brought, when the Aqid had voxed her up to inspect it. Especially since the administrative drones in Segmentum Command very rarely responded to the Askaris requisitions at all, leaving the regimento hanging and reliant on whatever their homesystem could produce itself and what they could scavenge on the battlefield or nick wherever they could get away with it. The audible and intense cursing coming from the open hangar doors already told her that while they have gotten something, it might not really be as easy as they had hoped for.
Entering she saw a huge pile of boxes and crates but soon realized that there was an awful lack of actual trucks and chimeras, let alone tanks, she would have expected to be there. Aqid Riobu turned towards her, rubbing his face in a gesture of defeat and frustration. They knew each other since they were kids, before she had joined the cult of he machine and he the PDF and both had stayed close to their roots. She was still a relatively low member of the Mechanicus, with just a few augmetics and beside all her enthusiasm for machinery lacked the disdain for her flesh other members of her calling shared. So knowing she would never really climb through the ranks of her cult, she had joined with him, when Riobu was promoted into the regiment and had never regreted that decision.
“What’s the matter Riobu?”, “Take a look yourself, Kassa, does this look like Chimeras and Tauroxes? These idiots have sent us nothing than spare parts… with nothing to put them into.” As she knew all too well, they had lost their last Chimera of any of the official patterns a month ago, getting by on some Thoth produced Jackals and a couple of APCs they captured from a local militia. “What on earth should I do with that bunch of crap? Sure, we can footslog our way to the battlefield if it needs be, but without transports we won’t have anything in the way of supplies or heavy weapons… uhmm… Kassa? Are you listening at all?” the addressed enginseer had strolled over to some of the opened caches with a smirk on her face that Riobu knew all too well “You are ploting something again, don’t you?” “Relax Robu… I think we have enough stuff here, to build a Chimera and a Taurox… that’s a start at least. But I will need everyone that knows which way to point a wrench that you can get your hand too. And for the rest… Let’s say I have a theory I always wanted to prove…” was her answer, while she pulled a Taurox door out with her mechandrite and pushed it quizzically on the side of a Chimera hull deck.
Two days of relentless cobbeling later, her superior, Techpriest Zalazara entered the impromptu workshop taking sight of her creation with obvious surprise, followed by a hint of distain but mostly curiosity. “What in the Omnissahs name is… this thing, Enginseer Okaya? Explain yourself?” she asked in her ratling, mechanical tone and Kassa knew, that she had but one chance to convince her superior. Lucky enough she knew that Zalazara – as most of Bagwas priesthood – was extremely pragmatic and relatively unorthodox for a member of the Adeptus Mechanicus, as long as one delivered results. Bowing before the senior priest she answered “We call it the Hyppogryph. We… had to improvise a bit. And was it not the wisdom of the ancients to create the STCs in a way, that parts were interchangeable and designs adaptable to different environments? This here is merely… a little step further.”
Zalazara mustered her and her creation with a severe gaze before breaking into a chuckle that sounded like a sack full of loose screws and bolts. “I’m not even mad… that’s amazing – as long as it really starts up. And if it can also fire in a straight line, than it was most likely intended that way and just forgotten. Go on… convince me, or else…” She didn’t have to finish the sentence as Kassa knew damn well, that this was bordering tech heresy. So she climbed into the driver compartment and hit the key, only to be rewarded instantly with the humming and buzzing of the Leman Russ multifuel engine kicking his power through the chimera driveshaft into the four Taurox tracks carrying the vehicle. While she did not have a discernable mouth anymore, she could see in Zalazars remaining biological eye that she was smiling, as she rounded the compound and finally ordered her assistant to fire some practice shots with the Multilasers into a pile of scrap.
“OK… get on with it, on your own conscience. Test it in the field and if it is any use, we might as well call it Bagwa pattern Hyppogryph and claim it to be a rediscovered STC. Most likely it is, if it keeps working.” Zalazara finished and turned away, still chuckling silently. Kassa could barely wait to tell Riobu the good news…

Great fluff, and very happy to see this cross the finish line. Looks great and a deserved addition to the table.

Thanks, I'm also quite happy that the final result looks a lot like it could be some intentional guard vehicle.

As ever love the story section. Really suits the character of the vehicle!