Another Scratchbuilt Tank Log... (and Steel legion too!)

[Commitz]

I usually just lurk around the forums here rather than posting, but that's because I've not really had anything to post. Just got back into the 40k habit, and I'm trying to do it on a fairly tight budget.

I play IG, and started collecting them sometime around the Armageddon campaign due to the Steel Legion being such great minis. Unfortunately, they became much less competetive in pricing when the plastic Cadians hit and for a while I was converted, due to the need to have an playable army built up. Somewhere along the line I went to university and the ever creeping prices of GW were too much for me to deal with on my student budget, so I abandoned any thoughts of buying new minis.

Now however I'm finished with university, getting back in to the hobby, and due to a wonderful twist of Games Workshop's frankly weird pricing policy, the Steel Legion minis are as competitively priced as plastic Cadians now! So I'm getting back into the hobby with a classic metal IG army.

Of course, Steel Legion require tanks and that's going to be the focus of this log. I'm a fan of the Leman Russ and Chimera shapes, they're iconic, but some of the design choices just are daft. Guns as large as the turrets, absolutely no suspension systems at all? 'Lumbering behemoth' it might be but the really interesting quality of the LR is that it can even hit anything while moving without a proper suspension system. It'd be like trying to play WoT in first person all the time (and that's bloody difficult).

I aim to fix that issue, while keeping the character of the tank intact. I'm also going to expand the chassis and turrets a bit while I'm at it, and have found almost the perfect tank to inform the shapes:



The ARL 44 (image courtesy of Wikipedia...).
It's longer and less stubby than the Russ but it looks like it belongs in the 41st milennium, and it's a post-war tank which adds to the character of it.
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The main chassis is the first part of the tanks I'm doing, extending the rear end & engine compartment to give the vehicles more bulk. This also lets me move the turret placement around a bit more without making the tank look too unbalanced.

[biggreengribbly]

I'm fond of the ARL-44, and trying to make Guard tanks fit more realistic design principles, so I'll be interested to see where this goes!

[Student]

Sounds like a cool idea and what you've done so far is looking like a nice neat job. I look forward to seeing more.

[Commitz]

I got a bit more done on the actual model and then realised that I wasn't sure what I was going to do for the suspension.
Decided to design the tank digitally but then got sidetracked by this:



Which is an entirely different design. Sherman Russ, anyone?
I'm set on the ARL flavoured ones for my current army though. Will post an actual update soon-ish.

[Servant of the Emperor]

So far so good. Sherman russ looks cool.
Keep us posted how it goes!

[Commitz]

I am not very good at maintaining threads.
Uh, anyway, I'm currently puzzling over what to do with the tracks on the tanks, but I have settled on a good shape for them.
Also I've got a blog up where I'm posting smaller updates and things:

http://scratchthattank.blogspot.co.uk/

[Commitz]

A few photos of tanks at different stages of development. I was originally going to stick with a more typically LR shaped track, but that's changed now. First design is the one on the right, current on the left.

I was also initially planning on moving back the turret ring, along with the sort of superstructure that it's mounted in, but with the second chassis (the one without the turret ring currently) I've been thinking about instead raising the size of the turret. I want to keep a roughly Russ sized sillhouette for the tank, but I think the chassis looks really good the way it is now.

Most of the stuff is currently a bit of a mess as I somehow don't have any sandpaper around. Loads of gaps to fill and filled gaps to sand at the moment.

[SDKFZ]

The first design looks more......modern. The second one looks more 40kish. Its down to what you like for your DKoKs. My thoughts are that the second one
looks more in style of the army.

[Commitz]

As usual I am terrible at updating project logs.
Decided to try getting the track sections printed, to save the fiddliness of hand building some new ones.



Looking to have them done within the next couple of weeks.

Also another render that I did a while back now and have subsequently deviated from. It gets a sort of idea about what I'm aiming for across but I reckon I'll make the turret a bit less stubby, and maybe change the frontal armour profile (if I get round to scratchbuilding an entire hull).

[Short Bearded One]

I'm waiting for the Steel Legion you mentioned