[HH] Kratos Heavy Assault Tank

[Arkhanist]

The point of humanity in the 40k setting is that science no longer exists in any meaningful sense. They are incapable of learning from mistakes, correcting them and coming up with something better, as that's heresy and the mechanicum will come for you.

 

All technology comes from handed-down and repurposed STCs, which are basically low tech colony supplies; robust, simple to make. The rhino was originally a low tech, really reliable, all terrain civilian vehicle. And they went and got a version with guns on it and called it a tank.

 

Imagine you ended up with the real life M3 Grant as the one tank you were allowed to have. The turret gun is high velocity small calibre gun to take on other tanks, the big gun a limited traverse explosive shell designed to take on pillboxes and entrenched positions.

 

(a US tank supplied to the UK early WWII. US turreted ones were the M3 Lee, british turret, the M3 Grant)

 

 

The turret gun is too small calibre to actually do anything useful, and pillboxes aren't much of a threat in the desert, yet that's exactly the situation the M3 Grant found itself in in North Africa. And yet, they made it work. It had decent armour for its time, was reliable, and the 75mm gun was a lot heavier than anything else the Brits had. It was however, very vulnerable to the 88mm flak cannon repurposed as an anti-tank gun, as it couldn't go hull down; or indeed, fire to its left.

 

Now, it turns out there's a whole priesthood responsible for making them, from a design effectively handed down by god. Any change to it or improvements are heresy and will get you executed. The M3 Grant is the best tank you will *ever* have - until someone finds another god-box design that says you're allowed to put some machine guns instead of the turret gun, so you're allowed that as a variant. But you are not allowed to improve it, learn from experience or even understand how it works - just mindless repetition of the sacred ritual. Put a glacis plate on it, or learn that putting big holes in your front armour for vision slits or hull mounted guns is a bad idea - verboten. Or that being able to depress the main gun is important.

 

Tractors and trucks repurposed as tanks, and nobody can ever make improvements. No gow survive the galaxy trying to kill you. Here, have some more barely trained grunts with a flashlight and a few thousand M3 Grants, because that's the best we can do, until the knowledge gets so corrupted we forget how or we no longer have the tech base to even make that, and we have to go back to building the Bob Semple, a literal tractor with corrugated iron sheeting bolted on.

 

 

Oh, and the gun size vs turret is down to heroic scale - they're always 10 times bigger than any real gun would be. Real tanks, we learned you should put all the guns on the turret so you don't weaken your armour and have 360 degree fire and need less crew. And you end up with the primaris repulsor and everyone hates it.

Edited May 8, 2022 by Arkhanist

[DuskRaider]

I'm sorry, but rule of cool trumps realism in 40K and I love the anachronistic design of a lot of the tanks, in particular 30K. Much more sleek and "retro", more techy. In comparison, the "new" stuff looks clunky and meh, and when I say "new" I mean the Primaris shlock.

 

Speaking of which, I know it will happen but I'd rather they didn't port these over to 40K. Keep them in the past where most of them died in a fiery wreck founding what we know of as the Imperium in the current setting.

[Marshal Mittens]

On a note, sloped armor is not always better. It gives you more protection, generally, but also massively cuts down on the avaliable internal space in the tank. A lot of modern tanks don't use sloped armor, or don't use it everywhere, for this and other reasons. Edited May 9, 2022 by Marshall Mittens

[spessmarine]

I'm sorry, but rule of cool trumps realism in 40K and I love the anachronistic design of a lot of the tanks, in particular 30K. Much more sleek and "retro", more techy. In comparison, the "new" stuff looks clunky and meh, and when I say "new" I mean the Primaris shlock.

 

Speaking of which, I know it will happen but I'd rather they didn't port these over to 40K. Keep them in the past where most of them died in a fiery wreck founding what we know of as the Imperium in the current setting.

Anachronistic is Warhammer, and I love that about it

[Evil Eye]

The point of humanity in the 40k setting is that science no longer exists in any meaningful sense. They are incapable of learning from mistakes, correcting them and coming up with something better, as that's heresy and the mechanicum will come for you.

 

All technology comes from handed-down and repurposed STCs, which are basically low tech colony supplies; robust, simple to make. The rhino was originally a low tech, really reliable, all terrain civilian vehicle. And they went and got a version with guns on it and called it a tank.

 

Imagine you ended up with the real life M3 Grant as the one tank you were allowed to have. The turret gun is high velocity small calibre gun to take on other tanks, the big gun a limited traverse explosive shell designed to take on pillboxes and entrenched positions.

 

(a US tank supplied to the UK early WWII. US turreted ones were the M3 Lee, british turret, the M3 Grant)

 

 

The turret gun is too small calibre to actually do anything useful, and pillboxes aren't much of a threat in the desert, yet that's exactly the situation the M3 Grant found itself in in North Africa. And yet, they made it work. It had decent armour for its time, was reliable, and the 75mm gun was a lot heavier than anything else the Brits had. It was however, very vulnerable to the 88mm flak cannon repurposed as an anti-tank gun, as it couldn't go hull down; or indeed, fire to its left.

 

Now, it turns out there's a whole priesthood responsible for making them, from a design effectively handed down by god. Any change to it or improvements are heresy and will get you executed. The M3 Grant is the best tank you will *ever* have - until someone finds another god-box design that says you're allowed to put some machine guns instead of the turret gun, so you're allowed that as a variant. But you are not allowed to improve it, learn from experience or even understand how it works - just mindless repetition of the sacred ritual. Put a glacis plate on it, or learn that putting big holes in your front armour for vision slits or hull mounted guns is a bad idea - verboten. Or that being able to depress the main gun is important.

 

Tractors and trucks repurposed as tanks, and nobody can ever make improvements. No gow survive the galaxy trying to kill you. Here, have some more barely trained grunts with a flashlight and a few thousand M3 Grants, because that's the best we can do, until the knowledge gets so corrupted we forget how or we no longer have the tech base to even make that, and we have to go back to building the Bob Semple, a literal tractor with corrugated iron sheeting bolted on.

 

 

Oh, and the gun size vs turret is down to heroic scale - they're always 10 times bigger than any real gun would be. Real tanks, we learned you should put all the guns on the turret so you don't weaken your armour and have 360 degree fire and need less crew. And you end up with the primaris repulsor and everyone hates it.

Couldn't have put it better myself. I actually went to the trouble to convert a LR Exterminator out of a Chimera and chibi Somura tank (as a weird variant STC pattern) except even MORE anachronistic, featuring the old "main gun in the hull, secondary gun in the turret" doozy.

[Orange Knight]

So.... what I have learned from reading the last few pages, is that the hovering Repulsors are the most realistic Imperium tanks?

[Iron Father Ferrum]

It was never my intent to create a tangent on tank design in this thread -- I was merely expressing my dislike of the Kratos' visual design based on my own personal biases.  I'm going to write out a new thread in the AMICUS AEDES for those interested in pursuing the conversation further.  For the rest, let's allow the discussion to return to Kratos instead of tank design in general.

[UtariOnzo]

Personally, I kinda like it looks wise, but unsure if I’ll eventually run it in an Ironwing force I’ll eventually work towards

[01RTB01]

Between book spoilers and tank design the forum has descended. Can we move on yet folks?

[WrathOfTheLion]

I'm going to make a pretty cool Ironwing centerpiece tank with it.

 

Word Bearers this will also be great with. All sorts of decals to put on from the transfer sheet.

[Noserenda]

Not gonna bother making some wall of text reply to a dozen posts of such mixed quality so broadly...

Sliding scale is exactly right, as mentioned there are plenty of deign niggles on Imperial tanks, thats a design choice, like i mentioned, but it IS a sliding scale and the Kratos hull is frankly garbage. If it was the same/similar to the fairly excellent Sicarian itd be fine for example, or the Falchion or any of the other marine proper tanks. It just feels like its verging on the "roll the master in a pile of guns" too that the 40k tanks fall foul of. 

The turret is a problem because even a space marine cant do half a dozen jobs at once, trying to command the tank, watch whats going on, stay coordinated with the rest of the force, select and load rounds for the battle cannon, aim and fire the battle cannon and also be running the coax. Its just a poor design, hell cheat like the Russ and have the gun vanish as it enters the hull add a gunners hatch and it would look better. 

Sponsons suck for a broad variety of reasons, they are unarmoured, they are insanely vulnerable in general with exposed servos and cables; if you are moving through any kind of tight rough terrain they literally hook on things and eventually tear off, even on things the rest of the tank will plow right through normally; they have super limited fields of fire compared to a turret or even hull mounted gun; if they arent energy weapons you cant reload them without getting out of the tank, same for clearing jams and last of all they are rarely controlled by servitors so they need a whole 'nother gunner on board, we know this because there are rules for servitor guns, they dont work like normal gunners ;)  and the vast majority of sponson'ed marine vehicles do not have this rule.

I mean, if you like it, thats fine, but you arent going to convince me suspension of disbelief is important, or would you be ok if i try to run an Eldar on a 60mm base as a dreadnought? Or say my topless Custodes minis still get their full armour save, its off, it feels bad.

[01RTB01]

Not gonna bother making some wall of text reply to a dozen posts of such mixed quality so broadly...

 

Sliding scale is exactly right, as mentioned there are plenty of deign niggles on Imperial tanks, thats a design choice, like i mentioned, but it IS a sliding scale and the Kratos hull is frankly garbage. If it was the same/similar to the fairly excellent Sicarian itd be fine for example, or the Falchion or any of the other marine proper tanks. It just feels like its verging on the "roll the master in a pile of guns" too that the 40k tanks fall foul of.

 

The turret is a problem because even a space marine cant do half a dozen jobs at once, trying to command the tank, watch whats going on, stay coordinated with the rest of the force, select and load rounds for the battle cannon, aim and fire the battle cannon and also be running the coax. Its just a poor design, hell cheat like the Russ and have the gun vanish as it enters the hull add a gunners hatch and it would look better.

 

Sponsons suck for a broad variety of reasons, they are unarmoured, they are insanely vulnerable in general with exposed servos and cables; if you are moving through any kind of tight rough terrain they literally hook on things and eventually tear off, even on things the rest of the tank will plow right through normally; they have super limited fields of fire compared to a turret or even hull mounted gun; if they arent energy weapons you cant reload them without getting out of the tank, same for clearing jams and last of all they are rarely controlled by servitors so they need a whole 'nother gunner on board, we know this because there are rules for servitor guns, they dont work like normal gunners and the vast majority of sponson'ed marine vehicles do not have this rule.

 

I mean, if you like it, thats fine, but you arent going to convince me suspension of disbelief is important, or would you be ok if i try to run an Eldar on a 60mm base as a dreadnought? Or say my topless Custodes minis still get their full armour save, its off, it feels bad.

Is it beneath you to respond to everyone?...

 

I hope you are well because your tone is very off.

Edited May 9, 2022 by 01RTB01

[Scribe]

I dont get it, I admit. I think it looks great, in line with the other HH tanks?

[DuskRaider]

I dont get it, I admit. I think it looks great, in line with the other HH tanks?

It does look great and it fits the general theme of HH Astartes armoured vehicles. For some reason a simple observation has turned into a serious debate about the real world functionality of a tank that was created for a setting 28,000 years in the future give or take while using the aesthetics of early-20th century tanks. It's a ridiculous topic in the first place and is only serving to derail the thread.

Edited May 9, 2022 by DuskRaider

[rookie40K]

In my opinion, awesome model. I really like this tank a lot. I’ll be getting a few of them. Hopefully the price isn’t too outrageous.

[01RTB01]

I'm tempted to replace the choom with sonic weapons..

[Interrogator-Chaplain Ezra]

 

 

 

Yeah the ignorance of the forge world sculptors in particular regards tank design these days is particularly depressing given how forge world started and its a definitely turn off. Its particularly frustrating here because its so close to being decent, but the one man turret with a fixed main gun, sponsons (particularly the nipple sponsons)  and the horrific shot trap of what i presume to be the sponson gunners spot next to the driver. Ick.

 

Like, sponson guns i can kinda tolerate despite how awful they are, as an aesthetic choice but it does wreck verisimilitude to be told this tank has no design flaws and near impervious armour when it so obviously does not. 

You haven't seen British tank designs from before 1944, I see

 

Yeah youll notice they immediately dropped side sponson guns from everything when they were expected to drive over anything but a shelled flat wasteland, because they are a liability with basically no advantages. 

 

And moved them into silly little extra turrets that had no place on any tank whatsoever while keeping all the shot traps and even inventing new ones. When they weren't trying to kill the drivers or work the poor sods in the turret to death.

Edited May 9, 2022 by Interrogator-Chaplain Ezra

[MegaVolt87]

I’m really diggin some of these 30k tanks. I’ve seen some other frater talking about use in 40K. Do we know if we will be able to use some for traitor legions? They seem to keep old wargwar, lore wise, and would love some of these for my Black Legion

 

Current CSM don't even have access to the same existing units in the current 40K FW book (sicaran variants) the loyalists do for example. I think HH tanks will likely move across at some point since they are plastic now and GW is all about the cross sell these days. 

[Silas7]

I do quite like this tank but the lack of up/down traversal on the bolter turrets bothers me. I could argue during the heresy there were probably so many targets it would be impossible to miss but it just seems to stick out compared to the other weapons to me for that reason. I prefer the Sicarian but I would also like to see this painted in Carcharodons livery.

The main cannon should be centered as well, right where the stubber is actually. Maybe won't look as bad with a 360 but still bugs me.

[Marshal Reinhard]

look bad and kratos don't belong in the same sentence

[Silas7]

look bad and kratos don't belong in the same sentence

Don't get me wrong I like the tank; just sharing a small nitpick in a similar vein as my first quote. What I really want to see is how a Sicaran battle turret looks on a Kratos body.

[Slips]

Most likely, very, very small.

[derLumpi]

Do we have some size comparison pictures? How big is it compared to existing tanks? Edited May 9, 2022 by derLumpi

[Slips]

 

Skip to 2:42 for a shot near a Rhino.

Edited May 9, 2022 by Slips

[Redcomet]

All those Volkte options is making me have feelings.

 

And that ram. That is a biggin

Edited May 9, 2022 by Redcomet