Work in progress - Imperial Guard Leman Russ Assault transport

 

Edit, the painted vehicles can now be seen here: http://kampgruppe-engel.blogspot.com/2022/09/tarasque-leman-russ-assault-transport.html



I have for a really long time wanted to modify a Leman Russ chassis to a troop transport variant.
Initially I looked at the ww2 Sherman Ram Kangaroo for inspiration and played with the idea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_(armoured_personnel_carrier)

Later I looked at the more modern Israeli variants of modified tanks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puma_armored_engineering_vehicle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakpadon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagmachon

Then I toyed with the idea of implementing these on the Leman Russ chassis, lots of lots of sketches and lots of pieces of papercards and plasticards to build different mock up variants.

I later ended up looking much at the Solar Auxilia artillery vehicle that is based on a Leman Russ chassis for the last inspiration.
https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-NO/Solar-Auxilia-Basilisk-Medusa

 And lots and lots of different bits.

As I didnt have near enought of the wanted bits I made a rather large number of Greenstuff pressmoulds of bits from other vehicles and such using instantmould/bluestuff.

So what we are looking at here is a pair of vehicles that have taken a really long time to get them where they are now but its been a fun ride.
Lots of bits, plasticards and 2hand Russes ended up as these monsters...

All the weapons are either magnetised or pinned with metal rods so I can swap around.

Statwise I intend them to have basic Leman Russ stats and options, but giving them the abuility to have two pintle mounted weapons, skipping the main turret and giving them the Transport rules. For the actual transport capacity I'm unsure but it looks like a rather large vehicle with that added transport area at the back as well as the basic Leman Russ hull so at least Transport 10, maybe as transport as a Chimera for simplicity.