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If I said I was willing to build a dropship for an imperial guard platoon (full complement), which would include about 15 ground vehicles(so it would include some support heavy armour like Leman Russ or artillery pieces), some sentinels maybe and all attendant infantry, staff and all, how big do you think it would have to be?

My girlfriend has kinda dared me to build one, from the ground up, and I am pretty handy with plasticard and foamcore. I'm just drawing a blank on what it would look like design wise. I don't think I would go Battlefleet Gothic writ-small, although the church-atop-a-ship aspect could be fun.

I'm also assuming that flying support in the form of Valkyries and Vendettas would escort it on the way down, and not be carried inside.

I think I need help. Images, dimensions, anything, I want to pick Dakka's brains a bit. Please be nice with me?

There are drop ships on the codex bro..

Yes, which is why I mentionned the church-atop-a-ship earlier in my post, but looking at the ramp, I am assuming those are regimental affairs. There has to be something smaller, I believe.

Something a little less BFG in style, as well. Manta-sized, maybe.

Im not quite sure that you would get a platoon sized drop ship tbh. Considering that the IG rarely deploy in less then regiment sized operations (barring of course spec ops and maybe PDF ops) i thinks its unlikely that you would find anything but regiment sized dropships.

You could try trawling through lexicanum 40k. See if they have anything of use to you. Best of luck to you though.

The Cain books always tend to have platoon/company sized dropships. I always imagined them being like a mix of Star Wars Lambda class shuttles, Aliens dropships and the troop transports from Starship Troopers.

They tend to be described as having a large vehicle hold with seating for troopers on an upper deck.

Thanks Flinty, that's what I was thinking about.

Although I was thinking about it last night, and I think I might use some inspiration from BFG after all. With a chapel on top, and shorter wings with, say, a baneblade turret on each.

It's a good thing I have a b-load of foamcore lying around from my starship interior gaming table.

I thought the thing on the Codex was a Leviathan command crawler?

Dropships would be like a Gothic- style Manta on FW I would have thought if they had smaller ones.

The Manta is effectively platoon sized, if the capacity was transferred over to Guard equivalent models. Thinking about it a dropship for anything larger would take up most of the board

Some quick maths!

Measurements of a oldschool russ I had, 3.5" wide, 6" long, 3" tall.

3 russes wide, 5 russes deep gives 13.5" wide, 30" deep.

13x30 deep gives 390 guardsmen at 1 square inch each (ie a base).

Say the guardsmen need space 2" tall, gives the cargospace of 5" tall, 13.5" wide, 30" long.

Add whatever hull thickness, slap on some wings and engines.

It'd be a lot bigger than a Manta, a manta only holds 4 vehicles and I think ~50 men. For a company, I'd be doubling that to around 100 men and 8-10 vehicles... it'd be damn big.

In the various novels, the Guard bulk landers are described as huge, ugly, slab-like ships with brute force engines and nothing in the way of ornamentation.