Indeed it is fast approaching that time where the big fat dude in a red suit empties his sack down your chimney. Oh, and also Santa should be putting in an appearance too. I’m hoping that he’ll be bringing me the Forge World stuff I asked for, else I’ll set the Inquisition on his ass for use of witch power and xenos technologies.
This may be the last post I do for a week or so, as the preparations for the holidays are sucking up all my spare time, and then the day after xmas I will be hauling the family down to America’s Wang (apparently the affectionate name for Florida…) for a mini vay-cay and also to take my son to Disney…
So, first up for this one:
Land Raider Loadouts.
I have been having a spirited (but very friendly) discussion with my compadre back in the UK via email about Land Raiders and the positioning of sponson loadouts. It started initially by me telling him about some sweet armor plate upgrades that I purchased from Scibor’s Monstrous (which you can see here ). I wasn’t too sure where they were meant to go, but they do seem to fit quite nicely on the front quarters of the Land Raider, just forward of the sponson mounting.
Cries of ‘Heresy’ soon were abounding when I told him that my gun loadouts are positioned on the doors nearer the rear of the vehicle. When he was asking me where I had put mine, it made me wonder if I had cocked up when I was building the kit. Nope, the instructions show that, as do the images and diagrams in the Codex. Now i’m aware that just because the pictures show this, doesn’t mean you have to have them there, and I see plenty of pictures on teh interwebs with them on the forward quarter doors. In my honest opinion I think that they look freakin’ ugly and front end heavy with them like that.
His point, which was well made, was that surely troops embarking/disembarking would get shot to shit as they would be getting out of the vehicle right in front of the loadouts, and that having the armament on the forward quarter doors offers a little in the way of protection and cover for troops embarking the vehicle in the heat of battle. My counter to this was that as I use my LR primarily as a vehicle to get my assault terminators around, and couldn’t see marines in tactical dreadnaught armour trying to squeeze their asses out of those side doors when they have a bloody great assault ramp to charge down. I see those doors for getting into (before entering the combat zone), more than out of, but that could be me being pedantic.
A number of ‘real life’ examples where brought to the table by my buddy, who is a total treadhead at heart,and the points he made really did make sense. I guess I am sacrificing practicality over vanity. I also mentioned that real world physics mean little in 40K (I can see Dethtron rolling his eyes right now) and to try and rationalize some of the things in the 40K universe would probably give us a nosebleed.
So what are your thoughts, dear readers? Front quarter loadouts or rear quarter? does it even matter? I’d be intrigued to hear what you’ve got to say.
Black Templar Marshal
Amongst other things I have been tinkering with, I mentioned in my last post that I was going to convert a mini into a Templar Marshal, and showed you a sketch that I drew up. Well, I’ve been working on this chap, and here he is, ready for a little green-stuffing here and there, then some paint!
I still have to mess with the base as well, but I wanted to show you the fruits of my labors so far. I’m thinking i’d like to add a chain around his left fist and wrapping it around the shaft of the weapon, like the other Templars do. I’m a little apprehensive about modelling chain, but i’ll give it a go! It’s been a lot of fun seeing this chap develop from a sketch into reality. I think he seems to have a slightly haughty air about him, which is befitting of the chapter. I may well convert some more and have them as his command squad, we’ll see what happens with that.
So thats it for now. I may try and get another post in, but if I don’t, I’ll see you all in a week or two, so have a safe and happy holiday and make sure that you eat and drink lots!
TTFN
Paul
When Cannons Fade... 
Raiders have attuned sensors, which are psyberskull-linked to *all* friendly power armour, making shooting of disembarking troops quite impossible – duh 😉
Some nice work BTW – keep it up !!!
CS
Interesting, I can honestly say I didn’t know that! Looking at the model, it would be kinda hard to open the doors anyway if the guns were in a forward position…
Thanks CS!
Careful, I did add a smiley !!!
WM
Aye, I had the feeling that you were slightly elbowing me in the ribs on that one lol!
Holy crap, this is EXACTLY the thing that has been bogging me for the last MONTH! Back or front??!! I do find it logical that they should be in the front, if not because they won’t pose a threat to the passengers this way, then because they wouldn’t be prevented from shooting during (dis)embarkation.
Now, it IS a point that I only consider using Hurricane Bolters, which wouldn’t look THAT bad in the front (I think).
The Marshall is looking really proud and important, awesome conversion! Looking forward to more. Have a very merry xmas! (Why do you use x anyway? Me don’t gets it, I’s from Norway)
I think it’s just the lazy way of spelling it lol!
Honestly I think that they look so much better on the rear doors simply because it makes the model look balanced, if that makes sense?? I mean the front ramp is there for getting in an out of, right? who even needs side doors? lol!
Which part of Norway do you hail from?
hahaha it was a good debate mate but i will stand by my point with guns to the fore. I wish my guns to be free of clutter whether my boys embark or disembark. Point about freindly fire is spot on however if your doors are to the front and you enemy is straight in front of you and your guys are running to get back to the LR by running in the side doors at the front you have just disabled your lascannons etc from providing support fire. Its all in good fun anyway!!!! Should we mention the F22 vs thunderhawk part? Proabaly not :p
Right, thanks for clearing that up! I was actually wondering if it was the non-religious way of saying it…:-D
They DO look better in the rear, and one of the side doors will be blocked by an instrument panel(inside)/equipment panel(outside) anyway. And only normal marines would ever have a chance of crawling through them, fair point. I guess if you filled the Crusader to its maximun capacity of 15 Initiates, and every one of them desperatly tried to get out at the same time, with the guy carrying the chapter banner blocking the assault ramp exit in his hopeless maneuvering efforts, THEN the side doors would actually serve their function.
I’m from Bergen, the second largest city (yes, we call it a city), located on the west coast among the oh-so-fabulous, world-famous fjords. Cultural capital of Norway it is!
What figure are you using as abase, and what are
adding? I like this and might wanna steal it.
For my imaginary BT army (which BETTER be here
for Christmas)
have fun in the wang!
Thanks! The base for the figure is the Master of the Arsenal, which I scored on ebay for about $7. I added a crusader pattern helm from the Templar upgrade set, as well as the banner. The shield was a spare Forge World one I had kicking around. The force weapon type thingy was a mash up of the chaos lord staff with a Templar sword added to the top, which in turn was pinned and glued to a regular marine hand holding a grenade 🙂
I put mine on the back…