Greetings! So, the army was slowly taking shape, but, ask any guard player and they will tell you that the humble Chimera is your friend, whether moving your troops around in comparative safety, or acting as a mobile command bunker for your ordering units. Also, under the old codex you could have 5 passengers firing out of the top hatch, making the Chimera a superb gunboat! I knew that I wanted a goodly number of them in my army, but I also planned to make them dual purpose by having the roof pop off so that I could drop an artillery piece in the back. I also wanted them to look suitably steampunky (punkish? Punkesque?)…
So, full of confidence from my Russ conversion, I went straight to the Dystopian Legions range for ideas. I was immediately drawn to the Prussian Sturmwagen halftrack, and decided to pick up a kit and try to blend it with a GW Chimera. When I examined the kit I saw that the Sturmwagen engine & driver compartment was just a smidge wider that the Chimera driver section, so I decided to try and keep that element in the final piece. There was a hell of a lot of cutting, filing and general ‘fettling’ involved, (in fact, only the Chimera rear door didn’t get chopped up in some way or another), but I was really pleased with the final result. Hopefully this will give you an idea of the process:
Once I got to this point I ended up trimming the guide lip from the outside of the Chimera side plates, which were very visible in the final build. I then added some detail, including gluing the on the edging from the Chimera outer plate, a side pannier and a few other bits and bobs, then I went to town on the interior (using plenty of left-over Sentinal parts from the Hydra builds). Finally, I gave it my usual paint job:
And then repeated the process (which did become easier with each build):
I’m really chuffed with the final result, they are recognisable as Chimeras, but suitably Steampunk for the army theme without (I hope) crossing into Orky territory. What do you think? Feel free to comment, like/dislike etc :-)
Leadballoony - It's a lead thing 
Mate you need to re-post these, maybe people missed them or something. So sooo good. I really like the details on the controls etc. Great colour scheme.
Thanks dude – yeah… maybe I should!
Reblogged this on imperial rebel ork and commented:
I’ve never reblogged before so I hope this works. I have been looking at some archives of fellow bloggers and came across Young Alex’s here. Excellent work that needs a whole lot more appreciation. Fantastic. Keep up the good work.
I’m impressed. They look fantastic. As you’ve said, very steampunk while still being very much Chimeras. It’s just the kind of project that would take me forever (literally – I’d never get it finished) for one alone, never mind a whole platoon and command vehicle.
Hehe – it was a while ago mate, I kinda got burned out on the whole army thing tbh, it stopped being fun! I’m proud of my Praetorians, but I’m enjoying the hobby much more now :-)
I know what you mean. I can only seem to build armies a unit at a time, and then I move to a different army’s unit, etc. Being able to use 12 models for “20” in KoW makes it much easier to do so, ad I can paint a dozen much more easily than a score at a time.
I’d forgotten about Dystopian. Going to have a look at their range again. Love, love, LOVE these.
Good luck getting them now mate – I’m pretty sure the range got discontinued :-/