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Thanks, that's mental. Truly examplifies the myth (or truth?) that GW was mostly a bunch of nerds having fun back then.

Was thinking about other niche designs - non militar/tanks. I remember a sort of drill or converted sentinel I saw, I think it was for neceomunda, but I feel those rarely are put forward. Which isn't unexpected, the game is a WAR game after all.

Bit of myth, bit of truth.

Videos in the Link Tank show there was a lot of “whatever makes the creatives happy” going on, but also that Bryan Ansell really knew his onions, and how to monetise.

Whilst it would be some time after he departed that GW really started raking in the big bucks? He did not leave as a poor man at all!

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Thanks, that's mental. Truly examplifies the myth (or truth?) that GW was mostly a bunch of nerds having fun back then.

Was thinking about other niche designs - non militar/tanks. I remember a sort of drill or converted sentinel I saw, I think it was for neceomunda, but I feel those rarely are put forward. Which isn't unexpected, the game is a WAR game after all.

Do you mean these?
[url=https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/260362-Ash%20Wastes%2C%20Civilian%2C%20Kit%20Bash%2C%20Mining%2C%20Necromunda%2C%20Prospector%2C%20Sentinel.html][/url
Cool conversions.

We do have a few civilian vehicles now- most noticeably the Cargo-6/8 ridgehauler and the Munitorum service vehicles. There are also the GSC vehicles, which are all civilian mining/prospecting equipment repurposed for warfare. From FW we have the Arvus lighter, Sentinel powerlifter, and Trojan, although as used by the Imperial war machine (I imagine civilian Trojans don't routinely carry heavy bolters, for example).

I'd like to see civilian cars or a bus though. I also think the Land Crawler is long overdue, it's the third part of the Land triumvirate and arguably the most important, apparently being a sufficiently-good utility vehicle to revolutionise Imperial agriculture. Plus, it is a common basis for wartime variants and conversions, like the Bruennhilde and Siegfried.

Also worth keeping in mind the Rhino and Land Raider are at least adapted from civilian STC designs.

Now, does that mean they just slapped on the weapons, with the armour plating being part and parcel of a design conjured for hostile environments is very much open to debate.

But their origin as civilian vehicles stands all the same.

I'm not convinced the Land Raider has ever been considered a civilian design. It has been presented as an armoured exploration vehicle designed to protect the inhabitants against hostile environments and hostile combatants. Combat always seems to have been factored in, likely as a response to early explorers being nobbled by gnarly local flora or hostile xenos like Orks. You could consider explorers civilians, but I think they were probably at least equivalent to irregular forces given the threats that abound in the 40k galaxy.

Rhinos I think have probably always been armoured for similar reasons, but do seem designed as a protective civilian vehicle that could be easily adapted to combat roles if attacked. A lot of early colonies probably operate a militia system similar to real historical colonies due to the limited infrastructure and support, so the lines between civilian and combatant become blurry.

Still not expressly a military design. Like a reverse Hummer.

The Landraider being a sealed environment is very likely a basic part of the design, as it’s overall robustness. From shocking weather to “arrgh! Space Dinosaur!”, that part of the design makes sense.

And its sheer weight and bulk would make it pretty handy at running stuff over.

I can also see the hull turret weapon placement being a pretty standard part of the underlying design, but whether the classic Heavy Bolters are a similar original feature is very much open to debate, as pretty much any bit of Dakka could’ve been the original.

The Sponsons? Possibly a later addition, maybe an optional original.

The original kitbash as seen in Rogue Trader showed only a single Lascannon per sponson, which seems more reasonable for a civilian vehicle intended for hostile environments. Which could lead the argument the modern version is considerably upgunned to proper military spec?

Maybe not strictly military, but definitely "combat" in a way, as to be fair, in the grip darkness of the far future, you often end up actively fighting With local wildlife and flora.

These necromundas conversions are those I had in mine. Would like to see agricultural machines as well, could be fun!

I believe it was kid Kyoto on this forum who had an article he wrote about civilian designs though, time to go check that back!


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Besides, this thread is really motivating me to try my hand as civilian/ repurposed/ auxiliary vhl for my IG and stuff...

I find it hard to argue that any heavily-armoured vehicle carrying an anti-tank armament isn't military, or at least a paramilitary vehicle. The early explorers might not have been looking for a fight, but they were certainly ready for one!

If modern day police start accumulating armoured vehicles with heavy weaponry, a bit like a Rhino with a stormbolter or heavy stubber, people say they are militarising. Technically they are a paramilitary force with that level of equipment. But Land Raiders are a cut above as premier frontline gear that can fight in vacuum or underwater.

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Maybe not strictly military, but definitely "combat" in a way, as to be fair, in the grip darkness of the far future, you often end up actively fighting With local wildlife and flora.

These necromundas conversions are those I had in mine. Would like to see agricultural machines as well, could be fun!

I believe it was kid Kyoto on this forum who had an article he wrote about civilian designs though, time to go check that back!


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Besides, this thread is really motivating me to try my hand as civilian/ repurposed/ auxiliary vhl for my IG and stuff...

That Kid Kyoto article is where I found the image above

I think civilian vehicles are an interesting part of 40k lore. I've been doing some research and thinking about 40k trains, which I suspect are massive on many worlds. Somewhere like Armageddon needs a loading gauge that can carry the Chimeras they mass-produce IMO, and Chimeras are 5.7m wide. Very few existing railways on Earth accommodate trains much above 4m wide, so one accommodating nearly 6m needs to be huge. It would definitely run on a track gauge larger than standard gauge if it wanted to be stable (or on maglevs on some worlds).


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Re. auxiliary vehicles. Guard forces definitely use them if common patterns aren't available. The regiment below is on garrison duty, and uses locally-manufactured staff cars, "Tigermoth" skimmers, and "Longhaul" lorries capable of carrying ~20 Guardsmen each. It notes these are non-military vehicles, so probably soft-skinned. There is also a cargo river steamer with a crew and escort of 36.

Click the image to see the detail better.

I think you’re misunderstanding. My argument is the Landraider and Rhino didn’t start off military spec, but were later adapted to that roll.

Doesn’t mean the Imperium did it first when Arkhan Land rediscovered the Raider STC of course. Just that initially it wasn’t a military vehicle.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I think you’re misunderstanding. My argument is the Landraider and Rhino didn’t start off military spec, but were later adapted to that roll.

Doesn’t mean the Imperium did it first when Arkhan Land rediscovered the Raider STC of course. Just that initially it wasn’t a military vehicle.

For the Rhino, I think that is reasonable. But I'm not aware of any evidence to suggest the Land Raider was ever anything but military-grade gear. It was designed for use by colonists, but that doesn't mean its a civilian item.

Edit: Lexicanum suggests some of the more recent HH lore indicates that the Land Raider Proteus was thought to be adapted for warfare and highly suggests it was unarmed in its original form. I hadn't encounted that before and don't have access to the source referenced. Based on that information, I retract my statements above.

Did some digging, seems I’ve misremembered, and the Land Raider was discovered as an existing Assault Tank,


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Oh.

Reverse impasse 🤣🤣

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Did some digging, seems I’ve misremembered, and the Land Raider was discovered as an existing Assault Tank,


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh.

Reverse impasse 🤣🤣

Perhaps there are competing theories with the Mechanicus, or perhaps some versions of the Land Raider were always an assault tank (like the Phobos pattern) and others were civilian explorators (like the Proteus)? The Proteus is a different chassis to the Phobos after all.

Who bloody knows at this stage 🤣🤣

The unfortunage part about auxiliery vhls is that they don't get rules in 40k unlike the way they were a unit in the coh series for exemple. They could totally do things like repairs, grant rerolls, etc, but either i missed them entirely or tnever really had such rules. Maybe through krieger lists though, i should check that too. But iirc the range was still pretty narrow.

The original Rogue Trader book preceded any GW vehicle kit and I think the Land Raider and Land Speeder are the only vehicles that popped up later so it is full of obscure/mad ideas.



My favorites are these slaver mechs. Apparently made from Robotech/Macross Destroid legs these were actual playtest models which they did not show due to copyright fears. I think there's an STL for them around.



Bus gangs of Logan's world



Top image is the "Stega Tank"



Ornithopter



I don't think this ever got a name but I'd buy one.



As far as I know the only image ever of a 40k car.



The Compendium (the second RT sourcebook) had some neat scratch builds too.



I don't think this counts as obscure since it was featured in the VDR rules, and there's both STL and physical conversion kits out there but...

I wouldn't mind seeing some of the 'abnett-verse' stuff. that is, the various vehicles Dan Abnett invented for his various books. like the Arbites version of the Land Speeder used on Hubris in Eisenhorn: Xenos. it's only called a 'speeder' but it's explicitly referred to as a flying antigrav vehicle, open cockpit with rollbars, and a pintle mount heavy bolter ahead of the passenger side seat. the main difference compared to the Astartes one is that it's set up as a police vehicle with the cockpit area having two forward seats and then a row of passenger seats and a weapons rack behind them. (presumably this could be fit in easily enough without much change to the cockpit size given the difference in size between humans and astartes) and there is no mention of a nose-gun. similar 'speeder' vehicles seem to exist as civilian craft as well, presumably with different configurations of cockpit and without the guns, as he likes to refer to them when talking about urban traffic in the eisenhorn books. later books even call them landspeeders specifically, not just 'speeder'.

and it might be nice to see Stalk Tanks given an official design and model.. while i know they've been compared to Defilers in some sources, they are clearly much smaller, perhaps closer to the Sentinel in terms of size and role.

mithril2098 wrote:
I wouldn't mind seeing some of the 'abnett-verse' stuff. that is, the various vehicles Dan Abnett invented for his various books. like the Arbites version of the Land Speeder used on Hubris in Eisenhorn: Xenos. it's only called a 'speeder' but it's explicitly referred to as a flying antigrav vehicle, open cockpit with rollbars, and a pintle mount heavy bolter ahead of the passenger side seat. the main difference compared to the Astartes one is that it's set up as a police vehicle with the cockpit area having two forward seats and then a row of passenger seats and a weapons rack behind them. (presumably this could be fit in easily enough without much change to the cockpit size given the difference in size between humans and astartes) and there is no mention of a nose-gun. similar 'speeder' vehicles seem to exist as civilian craft as well, presumably with different configurations of cockpit and without the guns, as he likes to refer to them when talking about urban traffic in the eisenhorn books. later books even call them landspeeders specifically, not just 'speeder'.

and it might be nice to see Stalk Tanks given an official design and model.. while i know they've been compared to Defilers in some sources, they are clearly much smaller, perhaps closer to the Sentinel in terms of size and role.

Sounds a lot like a Land Speeder Storm to me.

 General Kroll wrote:

mithril2098 wrote:
I wouldn't mind seeing some of the 'abnett-verse' stuff. that is, the various vehicles Dan Abnett invented for his various books. like the Arbites version of the Land Speeder used on Hubris in Eisenhorn: Xenos. it's only called a 'speeder' but it's explicitly referred to as a flying antigrav vehicle, open cockpit with rollbars, and a pintle mount heavy bolter ahead of the passenger side seat. the main difference compared to the Astartes one is that it's set up as a police vehicle with the cockpit area having two forward seats and then a row of passenger seats and a weapons rack behind them. (presumably this could be fit in easily enough without much change to the cockpit size given the difference in size between humans and astartes) and there is no mention of a nose-gun. similar 'speeder' vehicles seem to exist as civilian craft as well, presumably with different configurations of cockpit and without the guns, as he likes to refer to them when talking about urban traffic in the eisenhorn books. later books even call them landspeeders specifically, not just 'speeder'.

and it might be nice to see Stalk Tanks given an official design and model.. while i know they've been compared to Defilers in some sources, they are clearly much smaller, perhaps closer to the Sentinel in terms of size and role.

Sounds a lot like a Land Speeder Storm to me.

I had the same thought. Interestingly, the book was released a few years before the model.

Is that book this old? When was the model released?

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Is that book this old? When was the model released?

The Arbites speeder was in Xenos, first published 2001, whereas the Land Speeder Storm model was released in 2009 (according to Lexicanum, but definitely 5th edition). So considerably later, enough that the Arbites speeder may have been inspiration.

Right, I overlook the fact that current speeders are definitely not Imperial guard speeders I saw in older books

 Haighus wrote:

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Is that book this old? When was the model released?

The Arbites speeder was in Xenos, first published 2001, whereas the Land Speeder Storm model was released in 2009 (according to Lexicanum, but definitely 5th edition). So considerably later, enough that the Arbites speeder may have been inspiration.

the classic landspeeder plastic kit (released in 1999) does have a set of hatches behind the pilot compartment


the redone version in 2008 (which iirc rolled all the original variants into one kit and recut the sprues) kept the hatches, though iirc they no longer could be modelled as open.

suggesting room for a 2nd set of seats if using human sized crew. i think the space marine version intended that area to be cargo space or something. the hatches tend to be replaced with the mounting point for the Landspeeder Typhoon missile pods in the original kits, and when the Storm model came around that whole area got replaced with the open topped passenger area.

I don't think that the basic speeder is big enough to add a second row of seats for Arbites in carapace armour. The Storm is intended for Scouts in carapace and is extended compared to the basic speeder to fit the extra seats. Scouts will be bigger than Arbites, but not by much. Especially if also encorporating a weapon rack.

The Arbites speeder sounds much closer to the Land Speeder Storm in design than the basic Land Speeder, and it is the Storm that came out 8 years after the book. Hence my speculation that the Arbites speeder could have inspired the designers who worked on the Storm.

Or the designs make no sens because when you look at 40k Tanks they're just off

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Or the designs make no sens because when you look at 40k Tanks they're just off

Whilst frequently true, Land Speeders look pretty good for what they are IMO. Its basically a hovering jeep with a couple of jet turbines strapped to the back. Obviously the anti-grav is all handwavium under our current understanding of physics, but within that caveat I'd expect a floating jeep to look a lot like a Land Speeder.

In the same place as Marcel des logis Walter but with the aircraft.

So that landspeeder anti-grav plate can have a space marine dangling off one side with no deflection in its attitude at all.

So what is the small amount of dynamic force are those two pairs of canards actually going to do?

Nice air intake for the engines just above the passenger compartment - the associated rant is an hour long.

In the grim darkness of the far future there is only surface drag...

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Or the designs make no sens because when you look at 40k Tanks they're just off

just because it's a weird design doesn't mean conscious thought didn't go into designing it, and that there couldn't have been meaningful influences on why it looks that way

Yes, there can be an aesthetic value to it and it is most probably thought out, nonetheless fact remains fact, it makes no sense.

Looks cool though so good enough for me and after all, I don't play 40k to have a game that makes sense

GW needs to release a juggernaut model. Not the pansy daemon-pony, but the massive land transport that could form the entirety of a battlefield in RT times

Do you mean the Capitol Imperialis?


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 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Yes, there can be an aesthetic value to it and it is most probably thought out, nonetheless fact remains fact, it makes no sense.

Looks cool though so good enough for me and after all, I don't play 40k to have a game that makes sense

To be fair, when your mode of interstellar travel involves punching a hole in reality, skinny dipping through Actual Hell, then punching your way back to reality? I’m not sure sense and physics as we understand them can really be said to hold much water!

Plus, given the utter ignorance of the setting’s technology? I wouldn’t put it past the Very Basic STC For The Very Basic Chassis to include some kind of anti-grab miracle which helps out when traversing very difficult ground to counteract the mass of the tank, and protective energy fields on the underside to help stop protrusions gouging the less armoured belly.