40K Vehicles Counts as Questions

[elessar2590 18205xp 1]

Hey Guys I’m currently working on my 40K Imperial Guard for the Spring Challenge and I’ve come to a problem.

Spring Cleaning Challenge: Imperial Guard

In the Backstory these guys have a habit of declaring Independence, murdering the Imperial Government and descending into Tribal Civil War every few Centuries so their Guard Regiments have all the big toys withheld from them. Here’s an example of my unfinished “Counts As” Hellhound for reference.

So rather than taking Self Propelled Artillery they would used emplaced Artillery and this is my idea for it. It’s an Arm taken from an Ork Stompa mounted on the Platform of a Forge World Sabre Battery.

Then I figured since it would be representing an Armoured Vehicle (Basilisk) it should have some kind of emplacement. I imagine these as being constantly moved by disassembly and tows so they wouldn’t have a brilliant Concrete Bunker Type Emplacement but with a few dozen “Volunteers” you could pretty easily knock up a wooden “Bunker” to keep most of the small arms fire out. So I found an old abandonned Log Cabin Project and made a quick Dowel Rod “Bunker” both with the exact footprint of a Basilisk.

Then I took the other Sabre Platform and the Two “Turrets” and figure they would make a good counts as Hydra AA Vehicle. Same Concept, Two Guns on a Rotating Platform in a wooden position the same size as the tank.

This isn’t going to be a tournament Army or anything like that but just something fun to look at, write fluff for and play casually every now and then. All that being said what do you guys think is this taking it a bit too far? Would you be happy for these “Counts As” if they showed up in a casual game at your local gaming group? Obviously they won’t ever move during a game and any doubts that arise about line of sight or cover would go in favour of the opponent since I don’t want to model for advantage just for fun. These Emplacements would be based on a piece of plasti-card maybe one or two inches wider with things like Ammunition, Crew, Terrain and all that sort of thing.

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 2]

I think it’s your army so build it how you want.  If I were playing against you as long as you told me up front what they were I wouldn’t be bothered.  I can see why it might cause issues at tournaments or even in some casual “pick up games” at gaming stores.  But for my money if you’re not playing in a GW store or tournament you can (and should) build your army however you want it to be

[limburger 21668xp 0]

@elessar2590

If there is an army that practically screams ‘not standard/improvised’ (besides Orks) it’s the Imperial Guard.
As such the idea of ‘counts as’ vehicles & guns is very thematic for these guys.

The platform looks a bit flimsy for the big gun though.
The Hydra variant looks a bit more *eh* believable.

I think the only ‘problem’ in game will be that moving them during the battle is not so practical (to say the least), but then this sort of stuff probably is set in a fixed position anyway.  I do have to admit that I haven’t played 40k (I’m forever stuck at building/tinkering).

A bit of real world reference material might help :

http://milepegsnt.com/site/improvised-ww2-anti-aircraft-sites-in-the-northern-territory/

[avernosKeymaster 33946xp 0]

there are rules for the emplacements, do they need to be tanks?

[elessar2590 18205xp 0]

@avernos the Guard Codex only has Vehicle mounted Artillery and AA. There’s probably a Forge World equivalent but I’d like to stick with just the plain codex if possible.

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