Scratchbuilt "Rhino" proxy (Chaos Marine transport vehicle)

 As I mentioned last time, things have been kinda rough lately -- but creativity has been a source of great comfort. In particular, despite a hectic year, I've been working on my goal to make 2024 a year of "upping my game" when it comes to crafting. 

Here's a WIP shot of a recent project. My WIP Warhammer Chaos Marine warband, the "Knights Aberrant," were in need of a transport vehicle. Since I have no Rhino or Land Raider model in the right scale, and since I didn't fancy shelling out $$$ for an official kit, I crafted this thing entirely from household junk, bits of old toys or dollar-store crud, hobby supplies, and a really obscene amount of glue and gap-fillers. I still plan to add spikes for the "dozer blade" and a few other bits, but this is pretty much the whole shebang -- sans paint, of course. I'd love to spraypaint this immediately, but below-freezing temps and soaring humidity stats this week don't look very conducive to that goal. Usually, these sorts of things look much better once they have a uniform coat of paint or primer.

This has some rough spots, but I really like it. It's always satisfying to have an ambitious build like this come together ok. 

Initially, I planned to use a larger, used toy vehicle (from the thrift store) and add bits on to make the proxy vehicle. In the end, I decided that other one would be too large. My secret, evil plan is to use these 28mm Chaos Marines as "true-scale" Astartes in games where "mortal" humans, like cultists and imperial guard troopers, come in 1/72 scale. I've been monkeying with the possibilities quite a bit, and I'm very enthusiastic. This lets one deploy a couple stands of multi-based, cheap plastic infantry as a unit, and then use a single Space Marine figure as a "counts-as" squad of its own -- and suddenly, you're saving money, making room for bigger battles, AND making Space Marines finally look and act on the table the way they're "supposed to" in the (contemporary) lore. The plan is to use some of the advanced options in Grimdark Future, which have us covered for this sort of thing (that's an affiliate link, btw). 

Happy gaming!