Whirlybirds

I decided in the latter half of last year, that the models i was working on at that stage, since they all had large bases, deserved scenic bases. My first thought was to have them standing over wrecks from armies that other players in my regular gaming group played. In the end, i decided against that, as it'd involve trying to colour match a different scheme on each of the 6 bases, while still tying them together. Instead the idea came to me to do them in something entirely different, like swamp/marsh, since, while they could be used with other forces, they could be used as a force on their own,  so, that's what I did.

My Imperial Knights, House-Emeritus Johann, formerly of Elmo, were mounted on bases showing industrial construction slowly sinking into swamp waters.

Since then, I've been slowly working on working out what an accompanying set of terrain would be like. A month or so back, the idea of an accompanying Guard division cropped up, hardened forest/swamp dwellers, used to wading through the shallows and clambering through the vegetation.

Initially my thoughts focused on the key elements of devising a list: Doctrine, special weapons, heavy weapons, etc. That's still something I'm undecided on, and probably will be until I get a table set up of marsh, and get some games played on it. The last week or so, my idle thoughts have strayed instead to the vehicles.

While tanks can, at least theoretically, handle shallow water and deep mud, combining those with dense, submerged vegetation is just asking for trouble. Thus, any vehicles would be best being airborne or waterborne. The idea of Guard with land speeders appeals to my nostalgia, and I might well add some for friendly games, but really isn't going to fly (pun intended) in the mainstream meta. True flyers, like the Valkyrie and Vendetta would struggle with the canopy. The idea that  i might go with came to me semi randomly last night.

Sentinels.

Sentinels are light walkers, originally designed to provide heavy weapons support for Rough Riders and bikers. Walkers, however, will really struggle in the terrain. In third/fourth edition, the Guard had a vehicle upgrade called Rough Terrain Modifications. For the most part, this was bulldozer blades for tanks, but the Sentinels got a chainsaw for the same. A chainsaw isn't going to cut it in the terrain in question (i know, another bad pun), but the Sentinel is small enough that its RTM could, literally, be turning them into gyrocopters. They have appropriately poor armour, etc. It just seems to fit.

So, my point here is, rather than using a VDR to create a vehicle you want to build, sometimes a simple bit of lateral thinking can make the vehicle fit within the existing rules.