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I am building a Custodes 40K army and I'm trying to use as many Custodes models as I can to represent compatible rules (FW Achillus Dread as a Contemptor with Chainfist and Twin Las, for example).

I snagged a used Caladius Grav Tank off of ebay recently with plans to either run it as a proxy for my Land Raiders or as a Sicaran and now that I have the model in hand it is not as far from a Land Raider as I thought:





As you can see (though perspective may skew things a bit), the Caladius is as wide and long as the Land Raider's hull; the Land Raider's sponsons add an additional 1" or so on each side where present.

My question to you is what do you think about using the Caladius to stand in for the Land Raider? It definitely would help maintain the look of the army as one pulled from time (planning a Guilliman to Emperor conversion) where as the Land Raider would not look quite right. The extra width on the sponsons is not insignificant but it also does not apply across the entire hull so I am conflicted about whether or not the Caladius would make a decent stand-in.

seems fine to me, course what'd be real nice is if FW gave uis 40k rules for the custodes stuff

If the guns on the Grav Tank were aligned properly i'd say yes. But like this? Hell no!

Morkphoiz wrote:
If the guns on the Grav Tank were aligned properly i'd say yes. But like this? Hell no!

Do you mean if they were on the sides of the vehicle or are you just pointing out how poorly they were put together?

If the latter that will be fixed before this ever hits the table (it is a freshly received ebay model anyways) but if you are referring to the sides then I'm curious why? Is it due to the missing mass of the side sponsons? With no firing arcs in 40K anymore it no longer matters that the weapons are on the sides or not except for the extra 1" of model that the sponsons add.

 SonicPara wrote:

Morkphoiz wrote:
If the guns on the Grav Tank were aligned properly i'd say yes. But like this? Hell no!

Do you mean if they were on the sides of the vehicle or are you just pointing out how poorly they were put together?

If the latter that will be fixed before this ever hits the table (it is a freshly received ebay model anyways) but if you are referring to the sides then I'm curious why? Is it due to the missing mass of the side sponsons? With no firing arcs in 40K anymore it no longer matters that the weapons are on the sides or not except for the extra 1" of model that the sponsons add.

I was just fething with you, sorry
I would not have a problem with that proxie whatsoever...

Sorry, but I wouldn't accept it. It looks nothing like a Land Raider, you're comparing a pure gun platform with a hull weapon and a large dual-gun turret to a heavy transport with a hull gun and a pair of sponsons. If I just look at the model there's no way I'd ever guess that it was representing a Land Raider. And that makes it a terrible proxy.

I'd say, firstly add the sponson weapons to the models for the lascannons. Perhaps you could the 30k barely present rounded sponsons instead of the regular 40k sponsons if you had the money and inclination to make them more thematic-looking. https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-SE/Land-Raider-Proteus

Secondly you should include the front loading ramp from the LR and look at placing he heavy bolters where those small guns are on the front of the vehicle. If that's not possible then place them in a small turret just above the drivers vision slit on the roof of the model.

Thirdly, remove the long main turret guns and stick em in your bits box. You can attach a combi-weapon to the front of the turret, where the targeting/vision apparatus are in the centre front of the turret.

Fourthly mount the vehicle high enough to match the LR superior height so you don't get any benefit from the lower profile.

Doing these would place the weapons in near enough the correct places and would give no advantage over the regular LR placement. All you'd be left with is the different design aesthetic.

This idea that models should look almost alike to what they represent is BS. I've seen a Starwars IG army where nothing looks anything like GW stuff, but it was tournament legal. I've seen Squat armies that look nothing like IG but they looked fine. The important factors are that models don't gain any advantage for being modelled differently (so you should stick as close as possible to the size, shape and general placement of weapons and critical features) and that they maintain some sort of over-arcing design aesthetic with the rest of your army.

If you're running Custodes and you don't mind converting/proxying all your vehicles for Forgeworld Custodes stuff then go for it. But things get a little weird if you roll with one of these proxied LR's alongside an actual LR model. Keep the aesthetic unified and you can get away with a lot more creative license.

I think it ugly - use the land raider - it looks better

Considering that Caladius very obviously is not a transport, it might make more sense to use Sicaran rules to represent it.