Anderson's Traitor Guard Vehicle Depot

[Brother Anderson]

Hi gang!

 

I started a WIP thread over on that part of the forum and @Bonehead suggested I whack some stuff in here, so here I am! To me traitor guard vehicles tend to be 1) nicked and 2) knackered and my logic is that it is much easier to steal PDF vehicles (or their loyalty is more suspect) than regular guard. To this end I've been converting vehicles for some time now to represent second line planes, tanks etc that wouldn't pass guard muster but that would find a use with PDF or private armies.

 

This first one is based on the Valkyrie chassis, representing a local pattern of the Lightning fighter.

 

 

More recently I've finished a Hydra conversion using the Goliath as a base, this required lengthening the chassis which I did by cutting it in half and building filling the gap with expanded PVC and various bits.

 

 

Here is an unpainted example of what I call the Chromnax Pattern Leman Russ, the logic here being that in history assault guns (AFVs without turrets) are cheaper to produce and so are more likely to find use with second line units. I have a tutorial I made for myself on how to make this so I wouldn't have to figure it out anew every time, I can clean that up and post it if anyone is interested.

 

 

 

[Tallarn Commander]

Your Traitor Guard vehicles are great! I love the creativity of your kit ashes, your use of rivets, and your weathering.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Those are great - both the conversions and the painting.  And your reasoning as to why chaos forces might be more diverse in equipment makes a lot of sense.  Your colours are very similar to those on my guard vehicles from my army that I played in 4th-5th ed. - I'm guessing we used some of the same Tamiya sprays.   Or at the very least, paints based on the same historical army colours.

 

And yes, your conversion guide I think is a great idea - maybe if you could post it in the Modeling Tutorials section.

 

If you have any infantry/crew to go with your vehicles, I would love to see those too.

Edited July 17 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Brother Anderson]

Thanks very much folks! I'm running into the upload limit so I'll do this in waves. Here's a transport aircraft I converted from a stormraven gunship, the Arvus Lighter flavour test says that it's "one of many such craft" so I figured I'd make one of them.

[Brother Anderson]

1 hour ago, Dr_Ruminahui said:

If you have any infantry/crew to go with your vehicles, I would love to see those too.

 

Haha was that Dunkelgelb by any chance? Of course, I take pictures of everything otherwise I forget what I've actually done!

[Bonehead]

This is a great collection of stuff mate! Great painting, great conversion work. And the colour scheme is perfect, it works across all the different models. Great bases too. 

The horde of militia is a really impressive achievement, just in terms of sheer numbers alone. I also really like the combination of parts for the storm troopers, that works perfectly. 

Some close ups of the various infantry styles would be nice; I like seeing all the rank and file models as well as the characters and vehicles.

I'd like to chuck in another vote to see the tutorial as well.

Edited July 19 by Bonehead

[Gnasher]

What Bonehead said, plus it would be great to see some other angles so we can see the details better & can work out what bits you've used.

 

Good work!

[Pearson73]

These are some cracking builds! The Arvus in particular is very cool.

[Brother Anderson]

Hi folks!

 

Thank you again for your kind words! I'd be more than happy to share some more close images of my infantry, I don't most of them to hand but I'll pop what pictures I do have here. 

 

There was a time a little while ago where it seemed like every guard box came with a bunch of Cadians, so a lot of my infantry use those as a base with Blooded arms and heads to chaos-ify them a sufficient degree (I hope!) Some ropey highlights going on now I see the pictures.

 

 

This is much the same thing but with DKoK, in later iterations I filled in the gas mask regulator box on the front ask these guys are wearing standard helmets.

 

 

These have been my most recent fixation, I like the rules for DKoK but as per the lore I thought it less likely to find them in the service of chaos than other regiments. Taking inspiration from an old Dave Taylor army I used Bretonnian heads as they're not dissimilar to the British Brodie helmet of WW1, so should hopefully get them across as DKoK in the game. They use flagellant bodies as a base (thank you old world for the bigger bundled units!) and Cadian or DKoK arms. I had an absolute ton of spare arms from other conversions so it was good to finally put them to use. I realise these don't look especially chaotic, so I've tried to go a bit extra on the unit leaders to make up for it.

 

 

These were an impulse buy/moment of madness but I realised that the old Vampire Counts Grave Guard didn't actually have that much skeleton showing on the legs and bodies, so I covered what bones were showing in milliput then mated the helmets from that kit to the DKoK ones by cutting both in half.

 

 

Finally these were a bit of a bits-box special, but I threw together another traitor regiment using Navy Breacher heads, Cadian arms and GSC Neophyte parts. 

 

[Brother Anderson]

Continuing the theme with vehicle conversions here's one I did late last year. The theory here is that it's a siege variant of the Malcador that was forgotten some time after the Horus Heresy, but that has been dug up the ancient corners of a couple of armoury worlds. I did much the same thing as I do with my Russ variants using the front of the Baneblade hull, but with another Baneblade plate to make the distance to the front of tank and with a casemate scratchbuilt out of foamed PVC, plasticard and bits. 

 

I think if I was to do it again I'd probably add more detailing to the casemate, but I think this was a one-and-done project.

 

[sitnam]

I think those Brodie troops are my favorite. The robes make them seem like religious zealots. I can see them not being Chaos-y enough but on my opinion they look the part. Do you have any lore for the different regiments?

Edited Tuesday at 07:08 PM by sitnam

[Brother Anderson]

27 minutes ago, sitnam said:

I think those Brodie troops are my favorite. The robes make them seem like religious zealots. I can see them not being Chaos-y enough but on my opinion they look the part. Do you have any lore for the different regiments?

 

Thank you, I'm glad that's the vibe! I figure a bit of insanity probably helps if you've been thrown into a trench and a big man with a spiky hat is telling you to charge 

 

I do have lore but at present it's all in my head, I will get round to writing it down one of these days.

[sitnam]

4 minutes ago, Brother Anderson said:

I do have lore but at present it's all in my head, I will get round to writing it down one of these days.

 

Oh I've had that problem for years with my various armies. I started just taking notes in my phone on a Google doc when I have downtime, really has helped keep those ideas straightened out. 

[Brother Anderson]

1 hour ago, sitnam said:

 

Oh I've had that problem for years with my various armies. I started just taking notes in my phone on a Google doc when I have downtime, really has helped keep those ideas straightened out. 

 

That's a great idea, I'll often have ideas on the bus, I'll start a note file for them!

[Bonehead]

More excellent work. I'm impressed with how you've managed to make such distinct units for the traitors out of a relatively small selection of parts. Combined with distinct paint schemes they stand apart from one another just enough to still look right as a collection.

I like the converted malcador too; technically it's the same tank as the annihilator I made in my log but because of all the remodelling it's completely different. Excellent paintjob, too!

[Gnasher]

Reminds me of the WW2 Brummbar German assault gun, was that the inspiration?

[Brother Anderson]

2 hours ago, Gnasher said:

Reminds me of the WW2 Brummbar German assault gun, was that the inspiration?

It was an unholy mix of that and the Sturmtiger yeah, a bit of VK45.01(P) mit Rammhaube “Rammtiger” thrown in too.

[Tallarn Commander]

Some more wonderful kitbashes and paint jobs. The Grave Guard trooper is particularly inspiring. Your vehicles and troopers lack Aquilas and some of your vehicles have Chaos stars so they look sufficiently Renegade to me.

[Brother Anderson]

22 hours ago, Tallarn Commander said:

Some more wonderful kitbashes and paint jobs. The Grave Guard trooper is particularly inspiring. Your vehicles and troopers lack Aquilas and some of your vehicles have Chaos stars so they look sufficiently Renegade to me.

 

Thank you, that means a lot! I think the great thing about traitor guard is that every vaguely human sized release can be a traitor guard release with enough effort 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Your "arvus like" craft actually seems more in line with the old FW Aquila lander (most famously of the 4th ed box crash terrain) - it even has the detachable storage box in the back rather than the more typical cargo hold.  Yours is bigger than either, but closer in size to the aquilla, so if you were going to field it and if the aquilla still has rules, I would field it as that rather than as an arvus.  That said, there is incredible variation in military equipment across the imperium (in the fluff, at least) and, by logical extension, there must be even more (with even fewer official models) for civilian or quasi-civilian vehicles like the arvus and aquilla, so it actually makes more sense to have your own variant than to be fielding an official model.

 

I like your mortar tank, but the twin lascannon turret is bugging me a bit - it seems a bit too toy like, and I'm trying to figure out why.  I think its because of the gap and the back of the turret - if you were to do a similar turret in the future, I would put a little bit of armour there covering the gap and extending to the furthest sideways traverse of the guns.

 

I did a very similar kitbash of krieg models with blooded arms and heads - its a great way to get 20 unique traitor guard out of the blooded box, as it has basically double the arms and (especially) heads you need for that base kit.  Mine, though, I removed the chest boxes and replaced them with plasticard armour which I think worked quite well and made them more similar visually to the blooded models, which for me is important as I am mixing models within squads (the blooded box also has 3 extra chest plates, which are easy enough to kit bash onto krieg models, which I also did).  Yours look great, but its something to keep in mind if you are looking for further variations to your traitor guard, as its pretty easy to do.

 

I've also done my own take on chaos cultists using the genestealer cultist models (which are great models, IMHO) - I largely kept the original arms and (to a lesser extent, heads - I just didn't use any forehead bump ones), and made little plasticard stars to cover the genestealer icons on the original models.  Here are mine (autogun & shotgun) - again, yours are great, and I'm just showing you mine in the hopes they provide you further inspiration.

 

Oh, and I love your company commander - with his whip and pipe, he just exudes character.  Your goliath hydra is another personal favourite - you've made the pieces look like they belong together and turned out an extremely believable vehicle as a result.  Oh, and that last cadian with the beard and metal blindfold is brilliantly grimdark.

Edited Thursday at 06:05 PM by Dr_Ruminahui

[Brother Anderson]

Thanks for your feedback, the plasticard armour instead of the gas mask box on your krieg is a cracking idea, it works really well as they've already got the straps in place.

 

I totally agree with you about the turret on the siege malcador too, it's the weakest part of the build I think. If I were to do it again I'd probably have one there instead in a fixed or limited traverse mount and have another one pintle mounted like I do with my Leman Russ conversions.

 

Great idea on the GSC conversions, they're a lovely kit but what to do with the icons once you've shaved them off is the biggest challenge: a lot of them are placed awkwardly on cloth so it's tricky to shave them off cleanly.

 

I'm glad you like the company commander and the blinded guardsman  I wanted a pirate looking guy to lead my army as in my headcanon most of their equipment comes from raiding supply convoys etc, the rogue trader from the old Blackstone Fortress box seemed like a decent starting point.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

54 minutes ago, Brother Anderson said:

Great idea on the GSC conversions, they're a lovely kit but what to do with the icons once you've shaved them off is the biggest challenge: a lot of them are placed awkwardly on cloth so it's tricky to shave them off cleanly.

 

Thanks.  Another advantage of using the stars is that I didn't need to shave off the genestealer symbols, I just glued them on top (they made nice flat mounting points), which probably saves as much work as making the star generates.  While in theory this means you can still see the backs of some of the free hanging GSC symbols, in practice those are generally between the legs of models and are only visible if you pick up the model and look from the back between the legs.  I think the only ones I actually shaved off were the small one on the shaft of the banner and the big one on its top.

 

I probably made my stars a bit too big, but they get super fiddly the smaller you go.

[Pearson73]

Keeping up the cool work, I see. Love how brutal that Siege tank is, looks as if it could take a hell of a beating and then just start lobbing some ridiculous firepower right back.