Renegade Ogryn Transport

How six Ogryn will fit in a standard Chimera is anyone's guess.  I wanted my own transport to have a little extra leg room...
When I look at the Forgeworld Renegade Ogryn models,  I see bloodthirsty, chemically enraged berserkers.  The idea that these monsters would line up nicely, and sit in the back of a transport vehicle, seemed a bit silly to me.  I decided that my Ogryn transport would not only be larger, but appear to be the kind of vehicle that the Militiamen could pull up to the enemy lines, drop open a back hatch, and dump out the Ogryn, implying the Militiamen themselves were terrified of them.  Again, narrative in modeling: I dig it.


The picture above is a bit off, color-wise, as I am still tweaking my photo taking process.  However, I didn't want to post pics of my Ogryn, then have tons of time pass before I could share their transport as well.  That being said, let's talk about the conversion base:

I started with the chassis for an Ork Battlewagon.  As you can see, I used two sets of tank treads, clipped and modded together to give the vehicle treads that ran the entire length of the body.  Next, I attached the rear portion of a Baneblade turret to the front of the cab, in an effort to break up the profile of the original Ork Battlewagon, and hide my handiwork.  To this newly extended "hood", I pinned the grill from the engine hatches to a Baneblade.  Next, I carefully cut lots plastic card  to "plate" the entire vehicle with.  While it is true that this addition bulked-out some portions of the frame, I was ok with this effect.  Again, I was hoping to make something that could actually fit six Ogryn inside.  I also wanted to cover as much of the "Ork Ramshackle Welded Plates" as I could, to make the model more unique.  After these cards were glued in place, I used light weight spackle to fill in all cracks and crevices.  I like light weight spackle, as you can sand and mold the material with your bare fingers.

Once the body of the vehicle had been established, I began adding bits.  I added a defiler's twin-linked autocannon in a turret, much the same as my Chimera turrets.  To the hull, in the "windshield" area, I added a heavy flamer and a chaos vehicle turret hatch.  Along the sides of the vehicle, I added fuel tanks, etched brass chaos icons, industrial components and instruments.  On the far side of the model, I even added a ladder leading up to a "feeding hatch" for the Ogryn.  The top of the Ogryn container was built with a "window" of sorts, to which I added some mesh screen, to reinforce the idea of a cage full of destructive psychopaths.  Lastly, I added a large "dump-truck" door to the rear of the vehicle, to represent the hatch from which the beasts would be released.

While not a perfectly illustrated walk-through of my conversion, I hope that this at least gives you a good idea of my vision.  While the finished product is far larger than a standard Chimera, and certainly appears to be more heavily armored than the usual model, I think that the model is a success.  Sure, it isn't as easy to hide on the battlefield, but then as you know, for me, the appearance of a unit is far more important than it's tactical viability.  After all, we are talking about transporting Ogryn; one of the "worst units in 40k".

Thanks for stopping by, and thank you for overlooking my ongoing photography issues.  I hope you all have a nice Thanksgiving holiday, unless you are outside of the US, in which case just have a normal Thursday.  Maybe just eat a turkey sandwich.