S.H.O.D.D.Y. 40k (Cheap Sci-Fi Tank)

[Bearwoodman]

First attempt:


And with a happy passenger:

[gamer Mac]

Madness
but I love it

[Digits]

Could be a great base for a range of utility vehicles or weapons platforms.  I created something very similar for my 40k army called BOAR.  With so many of them, you could create a whole range of use….

[Bearwoodman]

Those look great, Digits, some excellent ideas there (except yours don't look shoddy at all!). I particularly like the radar dish one, and the mesh walls on the version on the left. And of course any vehicle with a flat bed at the back is crying out for some sort of weapon system to be fitted.

[Storm Wolf]

Excellent more S.H.O.D.D.Y.ness, great modellling and may I say even better "Fluff"

And it`s so very Rogue Trader and believe me there is no higher accolade that i could give to this thread

All hail the S.H.O.D.D.Y!

Glen

[Moriarty]

AH! A S.H.O.D.D.Y. carrier!

Have you considered losing one track section on each of two, and joining them together for a wider vehicle?

[palaeomerus]

Another package of crudely molded plastic vehicles has arrived! 

These tracked missile launchers are smaller than the standard SHODDY Mk 1, and in fact are clearly designed to a completely different scale. There is almost no detail on the front of rear and they appear to be armed with sidewinder air-to-air missiles.

Still, they do have the significant advantage of being very cheap, with a pack of 10 costing me only £5.77 including postage, meaning I could field 50 of these vehicles for the price of a single GW Manticore and still have a few quid left over.

I see potential for these to be converted into small tracked utility vehicles, with an armoured cab for a single driver at the front and a open rear compartment that could be adapted for a variety of uses...

Those remind me of those funky little buggies for the Reaction Marines and Terran Feds line RAFM came up with as their answer to "GW SPACE MARINES" back in the day. Only they have a CAB so you can have AC on the moon. GW has since made their own version of this "Mario kart/riding lawn mower with a double .50 on the back" concept.

[Bearwoodman]

gamer Mac: Glad you like it! And I take the accusation of madness as a compliment while actually being a bit concerned that my first go at an STI Carrier looks a bit, well, sensible. More work needed.

Storm Wolf: Thanks for the comment! I tend to assume that everyone skips the words and goes straight to the pictures, but writing them down amuses me so I will keep doing it!

Moriarty: Nice idea for SHODDY STI Carrier XL. That way you might even fit a Primaris in one! I might have a play at that, I certainly have plenty of spare chassis! On a similar note I am sure these Carriers might also work in a sort of train, a bit like the BvS 10. There is also a sort of Thudd Gun Portee version on the horizon...

Palaeomerus: They do look cool, I had not seen those before. They even appear to have some ground clearance, unlike the GW options, so they should not get stuck on speed bumps. I think the rocket pod is very 40K and I think there has to be a SHODDY MLRS varient in the range. I am a bit worried about the driver of the buggy in the lower picture - if those gun barrels get hot he could become uncomfortable!

[Chief Lackey Rich]

FWIW, RAFM will still happily sell you those tracked weapon carriers, as well as the rest of the "Star Khan" range.  At a measly $9.95 they're probably cheap enough to justify buying over scratchbuilding something similar just on the time savings alone.

http://www.rafm.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=RAF&Category_Code=SKRM&offset=12

Worth a poke around the rest of that category (and the Lost Minis wiki for some of the missing images) for other vintage weirdness.  The uni-wheel assault vehicle is a thing of wonder worthy of GW at their silliest, the monotrak orc assault gun is pretty cute (sort of an orc version of an AdMech kataphron servitor decades before they were a thing - there's a blister of it on ebay right now), and the "destructor" not-Terminators have the kind of weapon options an RT player would have wet themselves over back in the day.  "What's better than a termie carrying an assault cannon?  How about four of them?" 

http://www.miniatures-workshop.com/lostminiswiki/index.php?title=Star_Khan_%28RAFM%29

[Bearwoodman]

Thanks Chief Lackey Rich, there are definitely some nice vehicles in that RAFM range! They certainly do offer a time saving over scratchbuilding at a very reasonable price (not to mention a quality upgrade!).  However, buying a complete product at sensible price point is simply not the SHODDY way, so I have sacrificed another cardboard cereal packet and pressed on with the Carrier design prototypes:

First up is the basic troop carrier version I made previously, to which I have added a pintle-mounted bolter for some light anti-aircraft capability.



Next is an attempt to dramatically improve the firepower of the STI Carrier by grafting the turret from a SHODDY Mark I MBT onto the rear deck in place of the passenger compartment. This gives the carrier real punch at the cost of increasing the strain on the rear suspension. Due to the position of the driver's compartment the turret does not have a full 360 degree traverse and cannot fire forwards, but if firing backwards was good enough for the 17 pounder WW2 Archer tank destroyer it is fine for SHODDY.


Moreover the carrier has a far wider arc of fire than the Archer. Critics might point to the fact that the recoil from firing the main armament when the turret is at 90 degrees to the direction of the hull tends to violently tip the vehicle onto its side, but this SHODDY is fitted with pneumatic stabilizers which can be gently extended to push the carrier upright again and back into action! Another game-changing engineering solution by SHODDY!

The crew figure is made from the body and arms from a sprue of Warlord WW2 British infantry I got with an issue of Wargames Illustrated, mixed with a head and weapon that was in a fairly random selection of 40k bits I got from ebay.


The next variant is a strictly export-only model especially designed in a bid to grow market share in a segment where humanity's arms manufacturers have traditionally struggled to win sales.


Extract from the SHODDY brochure:

"from the graceful swoop of its front armour plate to its ethnically appropriate design details this vehicle is a faithful homage to classic Craftworld designs of yesteryear. Without doubt the discerning Eldar tank purchaser will feel completely at home from the moment they squeeze into the reassuringly dark and noisy fighting compartment."




The crewmember's head and arms came from my random ebay bits, but there were no bodies to match so I used a torso from the plastic Perry Medieval Mercenaries set, as they were the slimmest I had.

[FramFramson]

Ahahahahahahaha a SHODDY St. Chamond. 

[gamer Mac]

 
I don't think an eldar would bee seen dead in that never mind alive

[Chief Lackey Rich]

However, buying a complete product at sensible price point is simply not the SHODDY way...

Fair enough, there certainly is something about a good DIY job that you just don't get with purchased models, and yours stuff always looks distinctive. 

OTOH, the old RAFM stuff's so cheap they're tempting just as bits box contributors.  Don't think they've raised their prices since those things came out in...the late 80s?  Early 90s?  I kind of love RAFM, they've been around forever and never seem to formally retire anything.  Been at least two times over the last twenty years where I contacted them about something that I'd seen in an old print catalog to see if it was available and they found the mold buried and forgotten in the warehouse and put it back into production.  That's my kind of casting company, like a really good used bookstore only for minis.

[Bearwoodman]

Chief Lackey Rich: They do indeed sound like a great company and your point about contributing to the bits box is a good one.  I will have another browse of their website.

FramFramson: The SHODDY designers knew that if they were going to appeal to the refined and sophisticated taste of the Eldar they would have to pull out all the stops and produce something that really had the "wow!" factor. Where else better to look for inspiration than St Chamond, a true design icon with a haughty (some might say even regal) air.

gamer Mac: Your rather disparaging verdict almost had the SHODDY Design Director in tears (and the Sales Director in fear of his bonus) - but then they remembered that you have only seen the bare plastic/cardboard mock up. You were not to know that the lads in the paint shed have been supplied with some new pigments (in vibrant shades of yellow, red and turquoise) along with some diamond-shaped stencils and been told to paint the vehicle and not to restrain their artistic urges! Once they are finished no red-blooded Harlequin tank commander will be able to resist!  The look on a Troupe Master's face when he is told that actually it is a tank designed by humans will be priceless!

[Moriarty]

That STI Carrier with Mk1 turret on the flat bed really takes the biscuit.

_Of course_ the turret would hamper the suspension (gives the commander a superior view - add a block underneath the hull to lift the front track off the floor?).

_Of course_ the commanders position would be higher than the firing position (better give him a tin hat).

_Of course_ the whole thing tips when firing a broadside (obviously an anti aircraft feature at no extra cost).

_Of course_ it has what looks like a Perry Buoy mounted on the turret (if it’s not - make it so :-) ).

If only real world designers had this flair. Oh, wait.