Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Land Raider Spartan Build

As I've managed to get virtually the whole 2000 point army painted for the Tempus Fugitives event in March, I thought I'd treat myself to some build time. Recently I came across a fellow on eBay who was selling off a cardstock/foamcore version of a Land Raider Spartan. I thought it looked like it might be pretty neat if I could detail it up a bit.

 

It showed up in the mail on Friday, and I got stuck in. I started off with chopping up a bunch of half-moon plastic rod to give the tracks that little extra to make them look like the original GW model's style. The Land Raider Spartan in the rule set that I'm using was armed differently than the way the fellow had it modeled, but the seller was nice enough to build one for me without any side or roof weapons so I could arm it as I chose. I needed to mount a Predator's single lascannon sponson on each side, so using a pin vice and an x-acto blade I carefully cut out the shape I needed and trimmed out the foamcore. The sponsons fit right in and I added the other side doors.

 

While rooting around in the various vehicle bits boxes, I came across an original Rhino's front light bar, so I cleaned up the front of the tank and trimmed the bar down to the correct size before gluing it in place. On the rear, I dug up some exhausts and a grill to give it a bit more character.

  

Once that was done, I fit it with a dozer blade, and added some power cables similar to the GW kit. The Termpus Fugitives list version of the Spartan is fitted with two Heavy Bolters on the battle deck, so a trimmed down version from a current-era Land Raider seemed to fit the bill. I was originally planning on using the pintle mounted Heavy Bolters from the Fortress of Redemption kit, but alas the Closet of Doom didn't see fit to give them up. Naturally, I'll find them as soon as this tank is painted!

 

After that I popped off the paper hatch that came with it and replaced it with a current-era Rhino hatch, and added a couple banner poles and called it a day. I'm pretty pleased with how it's turned out thus far, and I think it'll be a nice addition to the Thousand Sons as the transport for one of the 20-man Legion Tactical Squads.