006 Chimera patrol!

So!

Here is something I am actually proud of: my chimeras (or chimerae, as I sometimes call them - possibly erroneously).

Obviously, these aren't part of the light infantry battalion - I'll discuss the role of the light vehicles at some point in the distant future - I just wanted to get these, my salamander and the two hellhounds up on this blog.

Below you'll find a shot of the four chimerae first - they are as follows:

• Vehicle 0 - "Malleus" - T-L heavy bolter (FW);
• Vehicle 1 - "Incus" - T-L heavy bolter (FW);
• Vehicle 2 - "Hurcheon" - autocannon (converted);
• Vehicle 3 - "Equus" - multilaser (also converted - and not T-L, despite appearaces).

These are different views of of Malleus - the HQ vehicle - as an example: the others follow suit in general terms. Each has its own battle honours etc, but the pattern is set. Obviously the unit flash is blue-white-blue.



Next are views of each turret (I've also modelled a couple of spares - not shown - including a heavy flamer and a standard multilaser).



The autocannon turret (not yet varnished - Christ knows why...) is one I quite like. It's based on the FW version, but the ammo's on the port side and it uses Cadian components. It moves.



A word about Vehicle 3 - "Equus" - you may notice the strange turret, hatch and cargo...here's why:

This was my first chimera, and was thrown-in with an order from eBay, in very bad condition. In order to rescue it, I had to saw off the turret, which was cemented in place, and find some hatch doors, as these had been hacked about and destroyed. This was tricky as it was early days of my hobby's resurgence: I had no experience of green stuff or paint removal, and I had no bits box to speak of.

Luckily, I found a hatch for the original rhino model, so I used this. It looked silly, though, so I made a detachable cargo crate which doubles up as an objective marker. Sadly, the photo of this didn't do it justice, so I left it out. The turret was in rag-state, so I had to convert it (using sentinel multilasers - I thought double looked better), a bit of Fimo modelling clay and a sprue rod as a pivot, through a hole drilled with a conventional drill bit (pre pin vise, too!). In order to cover up the mangled pintle mounting, I converted a flamer - which I really like! It's primitive, and it's not perfect, but I like the look of it - and it moves! It has a fuel line going to the prometheum tank which moves with it, too.

Next post: the rest of the 'light vehicles' gang..!