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Yeah, sorry about the title.

But anyway, I have been thinking about starting up an Imperial Guard army (or Astra Millitarum if you must...) consisting of mainly tanks. But then I thought "why not make a couple of IS-2 tanks more futuristic and count them as Leman Russes?" Both because I simply love the tank itself (you can't go wrong with a 122mm cannon!), but I also think of the possibility to think up a reason to use it instead of an actual Leman Russ model.

And it's the last part that makes me wonder. Is there, or would it a possibility that a planet could've progressed differently from a usual Imperial planet? Ie, they've developed their own armoured vehicles, their own weapons etc.?

The short answer is no, but since the Leman Russ is the most butt-ugly tank model I've ever seen, go nuts.

You'll be the one IG player that shows up with an army that doesn't look like it was drawn by 6-year olds.

There are a few uncommon tank types in the Gaunt's Ghosts books. So you can always point to them as fluff examples if you have to.

Honour Guard is the book to read if you want to see a lot of them.

First link is in German:

http://wh40k-de.lexicanum.com/wiki/STeG_4

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/AT70_Reaver_Battle_Tank

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/AT83_Brigand_Super_Tank

The Imperium is so big that it's easy to suspend disbelief and say that some local designs have been permitted by the Mechanicum (pending centuries of investigation and bureaucracy, of course).

 EmpNortonII wrote:
The short answer is no, but since the Leman Russ is the most butt-ugly tank model I've ever seen, go nuts.

You'll be the one IG player that shows up with an army that doesn't look like it was drawn by 6-year olds.

I guess you haven't learnt that 40k armies are meant to look stereotypical in their own theme, making bland tanks actually awesome

To be fair, the IS-2 is a pretty beasty machine.


The Imperium is so widespread that I have no doubt that some WW2 era type tanks are in service somewhere. I'd have no problem playing against it, unless you try to tell me that it has side sponson weapons without actually having any side sponsons, but then you just need to buy a T-35, which actually looks like it might be a 40k tank.

The Guard equipment are standardized by Departmento Munitorum to ease the logistics, so it would need to be a darn good reason to be there.

That being said, there are few possibilities why it would be used;
- Local manufacturing facilities taken over by Imperial forces to replace tank losses or to complement the existing ones.
- Non-Guard armed forces.
- PDF.

Fezman wrote:There are a few uncommon tank types in the Gaunt's Ghosts books. So you can always point to them as fluff examples if you have to.

Honour Guard is the book to read if you want to see a lot of them.

First link is in German:

http://wh40k-de.lexicanum.com/wiki/STeG_4

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/AT70_Reaver_Battle_Tank

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/AT83_Brigand_Super_Tank

The Imperium is so big that it's easy to suspend disbelief and say that some local designs have been permitted by the Mechanicum (pending centuries of investigation and bureaucracy, of course).

I was thinking that I could say it's the standard vehicle for those forces of the specific planet (along with some more designs of course), and maybe they could just be permitted by the Mechanicum under the circumstances that they do not incorporate any technology that's from them (ie they're not allowed to re-use any parts of the Leman Russ tank for the "IS-2" tank).

welshhoppo wrote:To be fair, the IS-2 is a pretty beasty machine.


The Imperium is so widespread that I have no doubt that some WW2 era type tanks are in service somewhere. I'd have no problem playing against it, unless you try to tell me that it has side sponson weapons without actually having any side sponsons, but then you just need to buy a T-35, which actually looks like it might be a 40k tank.

Indeed it is!

And well, I did rather think of it as a design that's been made over time, which in the end is almost as durable as the Leman Russ (albeit perhaps a bit more unreliable). Because hey, let's be honest here. I do not think an actual IS-2 would hold up being shot at in the 41st millenium.
And yeah, I did just think of using them without any sponsons at all, because it just looks silly to smack those sorts of things on it.

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:
The Guard equipment are standardized by Departmento Munitorum to ease the logistics, so it would need to be a darn good reason to be there.

That being said, there are few possibilities why it would be used;
- Local manufacturing facilities taken over by Imperial forces to replace tank losses or to complement the existing ones.
- Non-Guard armed forces.
- PDF.

I did somewhat think of it as a non-Guard force. But I might just have to think it through about what excuse I'll use to do it.

 Rippy wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:
The short answer is no, but since the Leman Russ is the most butt-ugly tank model I've ever seen, go nuts.

You'll be the one IG player that shows up with an army that doesn't look like it was drawn by 6-year olds.

I guess you haven't learnt that 40k armies are meant to look stereotypical in their own theme, making bland tanks actually awesome

Ugly is ugly, dude.

If I'm going to invest my time in painting something, I'd at least like the possibility that it'll look good when I'm finished. LRBTs or most SoB will look like crap no matter how well the models are painted, because the models look like crap.

No getting around it.

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:
The Guard equipment are standardized by Departmento Munitorum to ease the logistics, so it would need to be a darn good reason to be there.

That being said, there are few possibilities why it would be used;
- Local manufacturing facilities taken over by Imperial forces to replace tank losses or to complement the existing ones.
- Non-Guard armed forces.
- PDF.

Not necessarily; IG equipment is certainly 'standardized' by the Departmento Munitorum, but there's buttloads of evidence that "standardized" has a very widely varying, well, standard. There's sources that indicate that a Russ has all of an optical sight for the gun and the commander has a little periscope to direct the vehicle, while other sources point out that Russes have electronics equipment that would make a 21st century military jealous.

Like many things in the Imperium, there's a wide range of what is accepted as "standard". Given that, I'd say that the real "standard" involved is as follows:

1) does it have sufficient parts commonality to allow it to receive relatively standardized components for spares
2) does it use munition-compatible weaponry
3) does it use fuel-compatible engines

As long as you can find a plausible way to satisfy these three requirements, then I'd say you're golden. You could, for example, claim that the particular pattern of tank is pretty much a locally-adapted chassis design that is little more than a Russ in a different dress, so to speak; same gun, engine, relatively the same internals, just dressed up in a different shell.

The Death Korps of Krieg developed futuristic KV2s to replace their dwindled supply of Russes.

There's also the Macharius Heavy tank that was developed as a stopgap for units short on Baneblades. It's also the coolest looking tank Forgeworld ever produced. Twin linked Vanquishers. If only it's gun depression wasn't worse than a Maus.

 Arcsquad12 wrote:
The Death Korps of Krieg developed futuristic KV2s to replace their dwindled supply of Russes.

There's also the Macharius Heavy tank that was developed as a stopgap for units short on Baneblades. It's also the coolest looking tank Forgeworld ever produced. Twin linked Vanquishers. If only it's gun depression wasn't worse than a Maus.

If there is one country in the universe that would have thought the Maus was a good idea, it would be the Imperium of Man.

E-100, Maus, KV-5, Char C2, KV-2, P-1000 Ratte.... all things the Imperium would be crazy enough to build.

Locally constructed tanks or backwater planets cobbling together tanks for defense is not impossible.

They could also be relics...tanks that were in use by that world since before the heresy that the Mechanicum approved of due to their perceived origin from an STC, but aren't viable for widespread usage because the Leman Russ is cheaper to produce.

That or they could be one of many "one-offs" that spring up through various factors. Sure there would be more than one but its essentially the same. The tank is created to fill some need at some point and then X number is produced in haste since X (like a Russ or its blueprints) are not available in any manner. The tanks survive the ordeal they were originally created to deal with and not to be thrown away they continue to serve, but it would be highly unlikely for another to be built as now the Russ present/available or some other factor preventing them from being replaced (at least on a large scale).

Its possible. The Galaxy is extremely big. It allows for almost any scenario. (Trust me, I've seen the scenarios that are the exception to that rule. THey are not preety)

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Rippy wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:
The short answer is no, but since the Leman Russ is the most butt-ugly tank model I've ever seen, go nuts.

You'll be the one IG player that shows up with an army that doesn't look like it was drawn by 6-year olds.

I guess you haven't learnt that 40k armies are meant to look stereotypical in their own theme, making bland tanks actually awesome

Ugly is ugly, dude.

If I'm going to invest my time in painting something, I'd at least like the possibility that it'll look good when I'm finished. LRBTs or most SoB will look like crap no matter how well the models are painted, because the models look like crap.

No getting around it.

Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

Whiskey144 wrote:
Not necessarily; IG equipment is certainly 'standardized' by the Departmento Munitorum, but there's buttloads of evidence that "standardized" has a very widely varying, well, standard. There's sources that indicate that a Russ has all of an optical sight for the gun and the commander has a little periscope to direct the vehicle, while other sources point out that Russes have electronics equipment that would make a 21st century military jealous.

Like many things in the Imperium, there's a wide range of what is accepted as "standard". Given that, I'd say that the real "standard" involved is as follows:

1) does it have sufficient parts commonality to allow it to receive relatively standardized components for spares
2) does it use munition-compatible weaponry
3) does it use fuel-compatible engines

As long as you can find a plausible way to satisfy these three requirements, then I'd say you're golden. You could, for example, claim that the particular pattern of tank is pretty much a locally-adapted chassis design that is little more than a Russ in a different dress, so to speak; same gun, engine, relatively the same internals, just dressed up in a different shell.

Good point.

 EmpNortonII wrote:
The short answer is no, but since the Leman Russ is the most butt-ugly tank model I've ever seen, go nuts.

You'll be the one IG player that shows up with an army that doesn't look like it was drawn by 6-year olds.

Agreed, ugly is ugly, but I think there's some hidden potential beauty in the Russ, like when I look at it, I see the potential for an ARL44 conversion.