After my Orks got pummelled pretty hard in an Apocalypse Game, I realized I need more heavy firepower. Running a ton of Dreads and kanz is cool, and can make a real mess if they get there.

But that's a big IF...

The amount of firepower thrown down at range in an Apocalypse game is pretty rough on an Ork army. If you're not responding in kind, you're going to have a hard day. To that end, I decided to build myself some Orky anti-armor firepower to make those Imperial Guard goons and their fancy Baneblades take notice.
 

As you can see from the rest of my Mek Shop, I've built plenty of stuff from scratch, as well as modifying, bastardizing and kit-bashing a variety of model kits.

For this beast I wanted to use a 1:35 scale Sturmtiger model that has been laying around my workshop for quite a while.

On the left is a shot of the actual tank from WWII. Look at the size of that frikkin' gun! That just screams "Ork".

Here's the initial hull of the model, partially assembled.

I left the gun hardware out of the build, since I'll be converting my own Ork weapon in it's place. You can see a PVC pipe fitting mounted inside the hull, which is where I'll be attaching the BIG gun.

The slab sided look of the model will be built up into a heavier design with plasticard armor plates and other gubbinz.

The track assemblies were tricky to say the least. While there were a few flat pieces in the design that spanned multiple wheels, the track links curving around the drive wheels on the front and back of the tank are all individual pieces.

You can see where I swapped one of the road wheels with a GW wheel to kind of add to the looted Ork look.

Here's a shot of the individual track links. What a pain in the ass!

Word to the wise: Anybody building one of these kits in the future should really look into some of the rubber tracks avaialable from 3rd party retailers. It's basically a rubber band in the shape of the tracks that fits around the wheel assembly and saves you from glueing your fingers together over and over.

Here's a shot from the back. I haven't attached the exhaust pipes, hatches, or ammo loader assemblies.

I'll be modifying the back of this thing to be carrying extra fuel tanks, ammo, and all manner of junk. In addition, I'll be adding to the armor plating to 'beef up' the tank in general.

Here's the initial design for the Kannon. It is made from PVC pipe, Styrene tubing of differendt diameters, and the container you use to clean contact lenses.

Big Enough?

Eh. Maybe :)

At this point the size of the gun looks a bit over the top when compared to the rest of the tank.

Bulking up the armor plating and adding a large dozer blade will help build the tank up a bit to match the gun. It will still be a ridiculously huge weapon, but hopefully it won't look quite so unbalanced.