Thursday, September 24, 2009

AT70 Reaver roughed out

PaDA is proud to present the little brother to the Blood Pact's AT83 Brigand; the AT70 Reaver. Where the Brigand is the Urideshi Forge's equivalent of the Leman Russ, the Reaver is cheaper and lighter. Here's a couple quotes from Honor Guard by Dan Abnett, "Urdeshi made tanks, type AT70s, Indifferent performance and slow on the fire rate. 105-mil as standard." "The main weapons of the AT70s were longer and slimmer than the hefty muzzles of the Imperial Conquerors. Their blasts made higher, shrieking roars and sparked star-shaped gas-burns from the flash-retarders and the ends of their barrels."

In a perfect world the Imperial Guard codex would have light tanks and I could field it as such. Since it doesn't, I'll simply have to make due with fielding it as a Leman Russ and the AT-83 as a Leman Russ with extra armor.

I'm sticking with the book's description of the Reaver's weapons systems: a 105mm main gun (described as smaller than the leman russ') and a hull las-cannon. Note I've cut the track-guards to better resemble a Macharius and a Mort style tank. The vote from two posts ago was 5 for the track guards and 2 for cutting plasticard and scratchbuilding it up to look like the Mort. Well I gave it a try and it didn't work, so the much easier track-guard option will be used.


Here is the rare tank hunting version. I kid, I kid! This was the smaller diameter tubing I glued into the turret to anchor the gun barrel above. This is the smaller tubing before I cut it down, I couldn't resist capturing the ridiculous length.


Top down shows the track guards and the top hatch additions.


With a figure for scale.


Top down view with sponsons.


Angled view with sponsons.

9 comments:

  1. I say again "damn"... :)

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  2. ha, ha ha hahaha haut damn! i love the placement of the heavy bolters. they fall in nicely with the track guards. any pics next to it's big sister?

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  3. Cool conversion! I like the look of the mini Macharius.

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  4. Excellent conversion, I'm reading the second omnibus at the moment and I can just picture them in the tank battle on the way to the shrine.

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  5. So, first thing: damn... I mean, damn... Nice work.

    If you hadn't already done the sponsons and hull gun, I'd suggest you run it as a Devil Dog. Simply have the cannon count as a melta cannon. The Devil Dog is actually a pretty good example of a (really) light tank.

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  6. Wow, thanks for all the compliments! I'm happy with how this project is turning out and positive feedback is great.

    @Corey: I was going to run it as a Devil Dog, then I realized they couldn't take a lascannon in the hull, which is the only secondary weapon they're described with. I may give it a try anyway, just to see how it fits. The hull weapon and sponsons are not attached and will be magnetized so I can swap them out or remove them, just in case. I might also just write up a 13/12/10 tank without Lumbering Behemoth and see how that goes. (20pts less than a Russ?)

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  7. You could do it one of three ways:

    1) Bust out the old VDR and do up something like what you're saying. My experience was the VDR was a pretty good system if you weren't trying to abuse it.

    2) Just use the Predator stats. Maybe charge yourself a few extra points as a premium. The SM Pred is basically a light tank.

    3) Convert it up so that it fits being a Devil Dog. Take off the sponsons. Throw on some more convert-y bits and call the lascannon a "hot-shot lascannon" (i.e. a multi-melta).

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  8. Anonymous11/01/2010

    Excellent work! As soon as I figure out how to make a decent turret I'm going to be making some of these.

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