Rounds Inbound, Part 1

I stopped by my FLGS this afternoon and picked up a slightly damaged Whirlwind for about half the usual retail price. The Rhino was badly warped, and will end up being terrain fodder, but the launcher was intact. I had been reading the Adeptus Arbites codex from BoLS, and the Black Maria caught my eye. I thought about making one, but I subsequently thought that it would be more useful to use the bits to make a proxy of some sort instead, as it would be easier to justify as part of my guard army. That being the case I decided to use the launcher to make a vehicle that I will use as a proxy Griffon.

By happy coincidence, the panel that the Whirlwind launcher ordinarily attaches to is exactly the same width as the main hull of the Chimera, once turned sideways. A small strip of plasticard was sufficient to cover the gap left over when slotted into the top of the Chimera, other than that the whole kit went together almost as if it was designed to do so!

On the back side I used a couple pieces from the standard Chimera kit which fit almost perfectly, all I had to do was trim off a couple protrusions. I added a rear hatch and a few bits of stowage here and there to cover up some of the open spaces.

In game, I plan on using the model as a proxy Griffon with the armored crew compartment upgrade. I chose the Griffon as the range, template size and damage were all roughly similar to that of the Whirlwind's Vengeance missile option, though the griffon does hit slightly harder (Strength 6 as opposed to Strength 5). I dry fit both missile pod options, and though technically the Vengeance missiles are the larger of the two missile options, I felt the smaller missiles in their racks looked better when mounted to the Chimera chassis.

A super simple conversion, I'll have to make another pair to fill out the squadron!