TL;DR - Me make tank. Tank available on Thursday. Print good. Use magnet. Ug ug.
Something that's bugged me about 40k for the last decade or so is how everything gradually starts to look exactly the same. Let's call it the "Star Wars-ification" of a setting, where there are thousands of planets and yet somehow we always wind up coming back to Tatooine or a place that looks just like it.
In that same way, 40k has basically one battle tank configuration, and even when people make proxies for it they're pretty much just the same thing with a few shifts for legal reasons. (Yeah, I know, STC is a built in excuse, but it's a boring one and just that: an excuse.)
Reading Gaunt's Ghosts back in the early 00s I can clearly remember the first time I read about Urdeshi armor. Lower-quality STCs that were roughly analogous to more common Imperial vehicles, supplied to the forces of the Archon for his renegade legions of guardsmen. It gave them a more unique, unified and interesting feeling, like they were a real army and not just a mirror match with red paint.
Imagine my dismay when seeking concept fan art of the Urdeshi Reaver tank and finding that the best anyone came up with was.... just a Leman Russ but a little shorter.
Well, here's my interpretation of the venerable and beleagured Reaver main battle tank, fresh off the assembly lines and complete with modular options.
I've made the final tweaks today, and I'll be packaging it up and putting it up for sale on the site on Thursday, with "Renegade" optional components already in the works and soon to follow!
Gaunt's Ghosts remains some of my favorite storytelling in the 40k setting. Let's face it, most of the Black Library is low quality pulp at best, Abnett is at least high quality pulp.
What about you? Is there a schlocky sci-fi pulp novel series you always come back to?