Home Made Damocles Command Tank

Another day, and a fun conversion. today we have my home-made version of a MK I Damocles Command Tank.

The Damocles is an existing kit from Forge World, based on the MK II Rhino chassis. I am thinking of using one in a tournament coming up in October (Inferno IV, in Brisbane. If you're in Australia, do check it out, it's a lot of fun and a great opportunity to meet a bunch of passionate HH hobbyists) and I decided I needed one. Since the kit is around $115 Australian, I thought instead I could convert one rather than pay all that money for a tank I may not need.

Thus, the MK I Damocles was born.

The old red rhino I repainted had textured paint on it, which meant that I had no option, bar completely stripping the textured paint (which is much harder than regular paint, without plastic dissolving solvents) than to paint some dust and mud onto the tracks. So, I painted some mud and dust onto the tracks. It's not ideal, but it's good enough.

I cast myself a mid-size Iron Warrior emblem for the front visor, as well as making a small scroll for the IVth legion on the opposite side. The hazards had to be worked into the vehicle somewhere, so I put them above the slits. I think it's the perfect spot and it actually complements the vehicle, as opposed to painting them into all the inlays on the side.

The tank has a nice Olympian sounding name and this Greek pattern motif throughout. These are off the Minotaurs Transfer Sheet from Forge World, because I felt my freehand wasn't up to the task of such tiny tiny symbols.

The dish itself is a pair of grates off a Nephallim Fighter from 40k, attached to a chaos searchlight, with a small aquilla from an old Leman Russ kit attached to make it more imperial-y. The assembly is mounted atop a chaos rhino cupola slightly modified to look more like a scanner.

A few spare cables, a filter off a German King Tiger tank and a bit of a hunter killer were combined together for the small generator unit behind the dish.

IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT

Here is the starting Rhino, it was a mess!

  

So, all in all, this is the kind of project that I have come to LOVE about the hobby. A simple idea, for a budget command tank, realised with just parts I had lying around. I think it looks good enough that nobody will complain, well, at least I hope.

~Macca