Imperial Guard Landspeeder?

I've mentioned these a few times already. I'm in the middle of converting some space marine land speeders to Tauros assault and Venator jeeps for my Guard (since Forgeworld has discontinued the official models). With all of that, it's probably only a matter of time until I decide to convert some Imperial Guard Landspeeders.

The thing is, they haven't any rules, or any equivalent vehicle to base them on, so, how would i handle them, rules-wise?

In first edition, if you somehow managed to roll enough tech priests (you could take 0-D6, per 3,000 points, and needed one per speeder), you could mount a platoon on Landspeeders. This meant that, between an officer, a 5 model command section and a minimum of 1 infantry squad (16 models, minimum), you'd need 8 speeders, and so would need 8 tech priests, and so this would only be available in very large games. These Landspeeders came with a heavy plasma gun on a dorsal mount and a heavy bolter on a fixed, underslung mount. The model could take the dorsal multimelta from the marine variant, and the heavy bolter was on an arm mounted over the muzzle of the meltagun (that pretty much everyone used as a heavy flamer).

Second edition changed things up. Landspeeders were no longer an upgrade to a platoon, but, instead, a stand-alone support option (until the Codex came out). The model wasn't updated, but the "datafax", the card that was equivalent to a modern "datasheet", swapped the guns around, replacing the dorsal heavy plasma gun with a multilaser and putting the heavy plasma gun on the underslung mount, where it could be replaced with a lascannon or missile launcher. As with a lot of the first edition things, poor proof reading and slapdash rehashes meant that a lot of options were simply infeasible, and so the Guard Landspeeders didn't sell and, like Beastmen and Assault squads, were dropped from the Codex. Significantly too late, the Citadel Journal volume 2 or Inquisitor did provide a datafax for the original armament, allowing the heavy plasma gun to be replaced with a lascannon or missile launcher.

So, we've a confusing, tangled mish-mash of armament options. The dorsal mount (equivalent to the rail mount on the modern kit) could, thus have: a heavy plasma gun (nowadays a plasma cannon), a multilaser, a lascannon, or a missile launcher (pity the crew firing that from the rail), or, technically, a multimelta.  The underslung could have: a heavy bolter, a plasma cannon, a heavy flamer, a lascannon or a missile launcher. This gives a ridiculous range of armaments (25 different combinations, including 2 missile launchers, lascannon or plasma cannon, although none of those appeared on the same datafax). The modern, marine datasheet has 15 options, so, some trimming is necessary.

The basic marine speeder comes in a squadron of 1-3. While this could work for the Guard as well, i think I'd up that to 1-5, like the Ravenwing squadrons, mostly for the idea of Guard defaulting to 10 man units. Of course, heavy and special weapons squads are 6 strong, so the case could be argued for sticking to the 1-3.

In Index Imperium 1, at least, the basic marine Landspeeders come, stock, with a rail mounted heavy bolter that can be upgraded to a multimelta or heavy flamer, and can take a supplementary mounting of an assault cannon, heavy flamer, Typhoon missile launcher, heavy bolter or multimelta. A number of these options don't match up with the old options for the Guard variants, but we can work around the structure. Let's replace the stock heavy bolter with a multilaser, and it's already seeming a lot more Guard. If we then swap multimeltas for plasma cannon, and replace assault cannon with lascannon, we have most of the options covered.

So, we have a Landspeeders squadron of 1-3, or 1-5, coming with a rail mounted multilaser each. Any model may replace its multilaser with a plasma cannon or a heavy flamer (I'd possibly swap this for a lascannon, but i like the idea of flamer spam speeders for Guard, and lascannon spam, while fully in keeping with the Guard of firs edition just feels overpowered). Any model may take a lascannon, a heavy flamer, a Typhoon missile launcher, a heavy bolter or a plasma cannon. So, 15 variants that are distinctly Guard.

Profile-wise, we need to do some work. Let's start with WS and BS, where we really need to drop the 3+ to a 4+, since these are Guard crews. Similarly, we might want to drop the S to 3, depending on whether we see the strength as a result of the vehicle ramming the opponent, or the crew stabbing them with knives. Lastly, let's drop that save: the crew aren't wearing power armour, so 3+ is excessive; we could drop it to 4+, like the Land Speeder Storm, but, again, that's representing a vehicle crewed by Scouts in carapace, so, maybe we should drop it to the Guard infantry's 5+, but the Scout Sentinel provides a similar amount of protection to its crew and is 4+, so let's stick with that. We obviously need to ditch the "And they shall know no fear"/"Angels of Death" rules, again, since the crew aren't marines, and, for the same reason, Jink, if we're running from the Ravenwing variant. Keyword changes are fairly straightforward Adeptus Astartes <Chapter> or Dark Angels or whatever, becoming Astra Militarum, <Regiment>.

Points-wise, we have a significantly reduced profile compared to the marine version, but, on the other hand, a vehicle that is very different from most of the rest of the Guard, so I'd say that the Index cost of 80+weapons could be used as a starting point. Of course, marines have seen that drop to 50+weapons, and with a far superior profile, so it could be argued that that would be a better option, especially since 80 is the price of a Taurox Prime without weapons, which is tougher, and better in most stats. Ultimately, my Guard Landspeeders would only be used in casual, friendly games, so I'd debate which cost to use with my opponent well in advance.

Now, of course, back in first edition, any Imperial force had access to the  Imperial Grav-Attack Vehicle, converted from a roll-on deodorant case, fitting a multilaser, 2 bolters and able to transport 5 models, and, like the Rhino, available as a mount for a platoon as long as you had a Servitor or tech priest for each (up to 3 servitors per each of your 0-D6 tech priests), so much more feasible than Landspeeders. This seems familiar. A hover vehicle with a transport capacity of 5, a heavy weapon and a pair of bolters. The marines had the same variant, but the original armament, from a few issues earlier (or 15 or 29 pages earlier in the Compendium) had it armed with a lascannon and a missile launcher.

Hmm... Land Speeder Storms, with the stock heavy bolter replaced with a multilaser, and the same changes to the options as the standard speeders' rail mount. We could even make the Cerberus missile launcher an optional upgrade, or have the option to replace it with a storm bolter (better range, and Rapid Fire 2 rather than Heavy D6, making it more useful in some respects, and more reliable in others), or a generic missile launcher (the same or better profile pretty much across the board). Of course, a transport capacity of 5 is a limiting factor for its utility, but the same applies to the Centaur.

So, if, or more likely when, Games Workshop decide to retire the traditional marines, and with them their vehicles, the thousands of Land Speeders out in the wild could, with a bit of work, be repurposed into the Guard.

...and now i want to start making a squadron, or platoon of Guard Landspeeders. Thank goodness for a well stocked bits box and the Revell Build and Paint Warhammer 40,000 range, with its Speeder Strike, giving a cheaper way to get the basic speeder, and all the spare crew and torsos you can collect from building Guard. Hmm, camouflage speeders...