Solar Auxilia - Dracosan Transport (part 1 - rebuilding)

I semi-accidentally seem to have fallen into building a Warhammer 30K/Horus Heresy army.

I was looking for transport options for my Imperial Guard/Astra Militarum army and found a tank up for grabs on eBay for a snip. I grabbed it up before I realised that it was actually a Solar Auxilia Heresy-era tank.

It was in a shocking state when I got it; Mis-built, parts missing etc.

I knew very little about this tank when I got the model. A bit of research told me that it could carry 10 troops if fitted with a demolisher cannon, or 20 if fitted with a twin-linked lascannon. When it arrived, it had neither. In it's place was some sort of control-panel gizmo which as near as I can tell has nothing to do with this model.

The model should also have a searchlight (missing) and a pintle-mounted weapon (missing).

Also missing was the gunner's head.

Off to the bitzbox!

I wanted to be able to carry 20 troops so I went for the tl-lascannon option. I had a couple of old metal space-marine shoulder-mounted lascannon that I glued together. I then removed the control-panel doohickey and routed out a hole in the model and glued them in place, covering the join with green-stuff to represent a flexible cowling like on Chimera hull-mounted weapons.

I had an old flamer which I cobbled together with an old pintle-mounted storm bolter to make a pintle-mounted flamer. An old searchlight was added and the gunner's head came from one of the free-standing pilot models that come in the Valkyrie set.

Judging by the casting quality and the quality of the resin I don't think this is a Forgeworld original. It's a telling sign that it came in a box festooned with Chinese characters too, I think. As such there was a fair bit of warping so some green-stuff filling was required too.

There's not much I can do about the missing rockers from the back.

Still - it's shaping up!

The model with all my repairs complete, basecoated & tracks drybrushed.