With Forge World releasing their new take on the famous Spartan Land Raider, I thought I might take a look at the old one, Forge World's new version and my favorite, the good old Proteus.
UPDATED: Here are the FW Experimental rules for this monster!
After a little digging around (Wiki), I found this on its history:
The Spartan was a Land Raider variant designed during the Horus Heresy to carry a full squad of Terminator-armored Marines through the 'Ring of Death' surrounding the city of Aries Primus on Mars. The standard Land Raider at the time could not transport Terminators.
The Spartan design used today features the twin hull-mounted heavy bolters seen on contemporary Land Raider designs, as well as a pair of sponsons fitted with a quad-lascannon battery each. It is able to transport a much larger number of Space Marines in power armour.
Additionally, it is considerably faster than other Land Raider variants despite its increased size, due to its reactor-driven motive drive systems. It is unknown whether this is intended to be a different pattern to the original Spartan, or whether it has replaced it entirely in canon.
Very cool stuff. After getting the FW email, the one picture that really jumped out to me was this one below. The size comparison between a Spartan and a Proteus.
This thing is substantially bigger than it's predecessor. That's not a bad thing either. But I still don't know how I feel about the extended nose. Sometimes it looks cool and sometimes it looks funny to me. I like that they kept it similar to the old school version, but it's not enough for me to go out and buy this monster.
Truthfully, I don't think I play games big enough to warrant buying and putting this into my force. If someone wanted to use a regular Land Raider in place of this for a game, I wouldn't have any problems with that either. All in all, I'm going to say cool looking depending on how you look at her, but not something I'm going to buy.
I think for me, it's the Proteus that I'm sticking with. I've started converting a regular Land Raider chassis to look like the older version. I've got some additional bits on the way for the side sponsons as I plan on magnetizing them so I have all the options.
Mine's not really even a Proteus when you get down to it either. It'll be more like an older version of a MIIB Land Raider with exposed treads instead of covered ones. I think I shall call it a MKIIA. That way I'm safe with converting it into something I want and I can make up my background for it as I see fit.
I'm building it for two reasons, first to see if it can be done without a tremendous amount of work (so far so good) and second, for looks and the coolness factor more than anything else. Rest assured, I'll be posting the whole tutorial on how to do this conversion once I get it done. I just need the rest of my bits to arrive first.
Of course the question remains, can I make a conversion kit so that I could transform my regular land raider into a Spartan if the need arose? Maybe a little plasticard, some new doors for the front and a few magnets... interesting.
Make sure to check out these posts as they might help:
Magnetizing the Rhino STC (2 part article)
Modifying and maximizing your Rhino chassis
The definitive guide to magnetizing a drop pod
