The Imperial Guard Tread-head thread

[Luke]

you know what, ive been looking around in order to try and find a way of making an actual 40k tank kit radio controlled, and have the only clue as to its abilities, be the tracks (which will obviously have to be rubber or similar)

any idead how i could go about this? what tank to use etc?

[Puffin Magician]

You don't necessarily need moving tracks to have a remote-control tank. Just keep the bottom section of the track open and put your drive wheels there. None of the fiddly work of tracks falling off or becoming ripped because of pointy drive wheels [as happened with my Tamiya T-72].

Old Guard's Chimera looks a lot like a simple Trojan conversion, and it's a very good one at that.

John, that is one very aqua tank...

[Anvils Hammer]

you know what, ive been looking around in order to try and find a way of making an actual 40k tank kit radio controlled, and have the only clue as to its abilities, be the tracks (which will obviously have to be rubber or similar)

any idead how i could go about this? what tank to use etc?

rubber tracks!! hell no.
you want to cast up individual track links and attach them together with small pins.

im still planning my remote controlled hellhound, with fully functional inferno cannon.

[Captain Brown]

im still planning my remote controlled hellhound, with fully functional inferno cannon.

Mental note to self, never agree to a game over at anvils hammer's house.

Joking aside there have been some great conversions and paint jobs here, keep them coming guys.

Something I have noticed, we fall into two groups, those who do up their tanks in whatever colour scheme they feel like and those who do the same scheme for all their tanks. I fall in the latter group, although I was originally in the former, not really sure what caused me to change. Any thoughts on this phenomenon?

[Anvils Hammer]

Mental note to self, never agree to a game over at anvils hammer's house.

Joking aside there have been some great conversions and paint jobs here, keep them coming guys.

Something I have noticed, we fall into two groups, those who do up their tanks in whatever colour scheme they feel like and those who do the same scheme for all their tanks. I fall in the latter group, although I was originally in the former, not really sure what caused me to change. Any thoughts on this phenomenon?

yeah your riht, ive ceratinly noticed this as well, i tend to paint my tanks using the same colours, but with different paterns, so there is still variety but also a bit of difference in there as well.

[treadhead]

generall those of us who have a tank based army will use consistent schemes...
my russes and russ variants are in one scheme, my bassies are another (well, will be - ive only got one finished!) and my chimeras are all in another...
now all i need to do is actually finish converting and repainting most of my tanks... hats the bane of buying off ebay! a hodge-podge of odedly painted models...

[Puffin Magician]

Something I have noticed, we fall into two groups, those who do up their tanks in whatever colour scheme they feel like and those who do the same scheme for all their tanks.

It's simple for me... my Armoured Company hails from an Apline Forge World, so mainly [off-?]White with Grey as well as the manditory AdMech Red in places. IG infantry aren't painted squad-by-squad, so why would IG tanks? Mismatched colour schemes irritate me and I don't think they look nice on the table; I sold my Biel-Tan because of it.

You can't say that Dodgy Ed's Armoured Company doesn't look great with a cohesive colour.

you want to cast up individual track links and attach them together with small pins.

...

im still planning my remote controlled hellhound, with fully functional inferno cannon.

And what happens when it explodes and burns your Venice table?

Edit:
Sheep, I forgot to mention this earlier. I really like the scheme on your Chimeras & Sentinel, the white Chaos Stars are simple but effective, and are small enough to provide sufficient contrast without being too much of a distraction.

The Predator turret is great too, which I've heard about many times but never actually seen. Along with the Heavy Bolter swap, this really looks like it's a normal tank. Subtle and believable converting that gives the model an individual look without changing so much as to suggest it's supposed to be different. The Mars-Pattern Leman Russ hull from FW does the same thing, but this looks better. Excellent.

[Getz]

I have actually painted a couple of my tanks in a slightly different colour scheme. Thsis is mainly because I tried one scheme, then realised the Base green was too dark to give any contrast when I tried to add the camoflage stripe. Since then I've gone for a slightly lighter, "greener" green, but the older tanks have kept their colour as I like the idea of my Amoured Comanpy containg a couple of vehicles that may have, for example, been painted in a differnt paintshop (and the difference is very slight).

[Robot 2000]

Getz, what is it that you do to your Russ turrets to get them looking so *******' cool?

Anyhoo, here's a pic of my tanks so far. I used to have a lot more but they'd all been repainted loads of times and were horrible.

I'm not sure why I chose this colour scheme, just wanted something neat which kind of fits in with my infantry I suppose

[Getz]

My Russes all have Forge World Ryza Pattern turrets, although I've convertred them a little by stetching the gun barrel by about 10mm. Other thanthat, I've just added a bits and bobs from the Tank Accessory sprue and hung some track links off the side.

[Getz]

Okay, as requested, here are some concept sketches for my Chimera based ARV.

Isometric view, plus some little detail and plan sketches

Side View

As you can see, they're a little rough, but it's really about putting the ideas down paper rather than making them pretty...

[old guard]

Very nice. how about opening up the back a bit more, go for a hydraulic crane, put a power pack for a russ in the back and make it look like an FV434?
Really like that.

So I see your Chimera ARV and I raise you my Atlas (DIY. got to watch the pennys and all that)

Sorry just spotted that one of them is a bit blurry (shaky hands)

[Captain Brown]

Great conversion old guard. For some reason the thing that makes it appear the most realistic is the beam beside the left track. (Strange that, I would have thought it would be the winch inside the hull or something like that.)

[highmarshaldave]

Hey guys. Some neat tanks so far, keep 'em coming. Since I started uni a few weeks back, I aint had much time to do any more to my modest array of vehicle. Those that are done can be found here

I'll draw particular attention to these three. . .
Vanquisher
Warrior Chimera
Warrior command Chimera

Enjoy, and I'll see what I can do about the others. . .

Dave out.

[old guard]

Captain Brown: I know what you mean, it just didn't look right without it. The log idea was as a result of looking at pictures of WWII german recovery vehicles which all sport a nice big log or piece of timber on them. If memory serves these would be chained to the tracks of a tank that had bellied on a tree stump or such like and allowed it to get off.

[Getz]

Very nice. how about opening up the back a bit more, go for a hydraulic crane, put a power pack for a russ in the back and make it look like an FV434?
Really like that.

I can see what you're getting at, but as this tank is actually going to spend it's working like as my Techpriest's Chimera (hence the Gun Servitor in place of a Turret) I don't want to take it too far from a basic Chimera chassis. Much of the inspiration in tis case has come from WWII ARVs such as the Cromwell and Crusader ARVs, which were pretty much spare tank hulls with winches and A frames...

Your Atlas, incidentally, is Helluva Cool. Must do one myself one day...

[Verergoca]

Argh! I hate you people! You make me want to start on my ad mech mechanized guard! But I have to finish my HE first! Argh, the inspiration, its killing me!

BTW, awesome work everyone!

[treadhead]

my Chimera ARV...

[old guard]

Seen it before, liked it, copied the pickie to my harddrive. Its got a good 'working vehicle feel to it with all the cables and stuff.

Getz: I see your point. are you going green or is the paintjob 'AdMech in your face come and have a go......' stylee?

[treadhead]

*flattered*

edit: sadly i sold the model a few years back... kinda wish i hadn't...