Warhammer: The Horus Heresy - mkIIa Phobos Rhino

I'm getting my apologies in in advance on this one, because this post might be a bit more rambling than some of the other ones. With that out of the way, we can begin a tale which starts around 11 years ago, when my brother bought me a copy of the now out of print Forge World Imperial Armour Model Masterclass: Volume One for my birthday. 

For those who haven't had the pleasure of leafing through this book it contained some fantastically detailed step by step guides for creating dioramas and realistic looking vehicles as well as more general information on the tools and techniques that might be used for more advanced modelling projects. While they were no doubt quite familiar to more accomplished hobbyists and model makers, at the time much of the contents of the book were entirely new to me and after spending more than a few hours reading and re-reading it, I knew that I wanted to try and put some of the ideas for weathering tanks that were described within it into practice, but what could I try them out on?

The Deimos Rhino kit had just been released by Forge World, but unfortunately I didn't have a lot of disposable income back then, so a new kit was a little beyond my reach - however, I did have a plastic Rhino lying around from an abandoned project as well as a couple of resin bolters, so an idea began to form. Before we get to that though, please indulge me as we take a short trip a little bit further back in time...

The Ubiquitous Rhino

One could probably make a very reasonable argument that the Rhino Armoured Personnel Carrier is almost as iconic as the Space Marines themselves. It's certainly as old as them, with the very first Rhino kit (now known as the mkIb) being released by Citadel Miniatures in the late 1980s. The kit consisted of two pairs of mirrored sprues so as to help keep production costs down, which not only made it easy to build but also gave it a very distinctive look.

In 2002, a re-imagined Rhino kit was launched (now known as the mkIIc 'Mars' pattern) which, along with the mkIII Land Raider kit saw the inception of the more 'boxy' design aesthetic of Space Marine vehicles that has continued to this day. In fact, as of April 2022, the mkIIc Rhino is still in production with the sprues remaining completely unchanged since launch. The kit was more complex than the mkIb, and much more detailed as well, including an interior troop compartment and hatches that could be opened and closed (though the roof and side hatches would need to be hinged if you wanted to have everything 'openable'). 

The latecomer to the Rhino party, the mkIc Deimos pattern Rhino is a hybrid resin/plastic kit based upon the mkIIc Mars hull and in many ways is the spiritual successor of the mkIb, of which it reimagines many of the iconic features.

'In universe' the Rhino originally began life as the RH1-N-0 Tracked Exploration and Multi-Purpose Defence Vehicle, which was designed to be used by colonists and explorers as Mankind spread throughout the galaxy during the Age of Technology colonising new worlds. Although the design was almost lost during the Age of Strife, careful preservation efforts by the Martian Mechanicum resulted in the design surviving to rise to prominence as one of the most common armoured personnel carriers used by the Imperium during the Great Crusade. 

"Ok, nice whistlestop tour of the Rhino's history" I hear you saying, "what's that got to do with your one?"

Well, tenuous as it is, back in 2011 I reasoned that if there was a 'Mars' pattern Rhino and a 'Deimos' pattern Rhino, then surely there could be a 'Phobos' pattern one as well. Armed with Phobos pattern bolters and with an asymmetric glacis plate, it would nevertheless retain many of the elements of the other patterns which seemed appropriate as the Rhino is based upon a Standard Template Construct (STC). 

The mkIIa Phobos Rhino - mkI 

Number 23 is one of the last known examples of a mkIIa Phobos Rhino. Recovered from the ruins of the Imperial Palace in the aftermath of the Siege of Terra, she is now on display in the Hall of Winged Glory.

The Rhino was fully assembled apart from the tracks and then sprayed a light grey using a rattlecan car primer. I then applied Adeptus Battlegrey to the edges of the panels and other areas which would be bashed, scraped or chipped using some torn sponges from blister packs. Once that was done, I used Ogryn Flesh to pinwash the panel lines and rivets. Once this was dry, to create the rust streaks I went back and added more Ogryn Flesh to individual rivets or panels and then after waiting 20-30 seconds for it to begin drying used a small drybrush to 'drag' the wash downwards, creating natural looking streaks of rust. Where I wanted them to be more prominent I would go back and repeat this method until I was happy with how it looked. While this was time consuming, it was relaxing and enjoyable to do and yielded quite satisfying results.

The tracks were sprayed black and then liberally washed with watered down brown and sand coloured paints before having powdered graphite applied to the raised edges using my fingertips to give a nice and realistic dull metal finish. Each of these techniques came straight from the pages of the Modelling Masterclass book and probably seem quite obvious methods for weathering tanks these days, I was thrilled to have not only 'discovered them' but to have put them into practice.

The mkIIa Phobos Rhino - mkII

In 2019, I had the chance to head to the Horus Heresy Weekender in Nottingham. This would be my second Weekender and after a bit of a rough first try at entering the painting competition at the first one I attended in 2018 with an Imperial Fists Legion Opsequiari Consul, I decided that I would bring something that was hopefully a little more in keeping with the aesthetics of the 31st millenium. So, I dug out 'Number 23' and armed with several more years of hobby experience, some Vallejo and Tamiya weathering powders and an Imperial Fists decal sheet set about adding some more detail to her. 

I used a combination of powders to build up dust along the lower surfaces and running gear of the Rhino as well as using black powder to add built up soot around the exhaust stacks. I also added the Raptor Imperialis decals, additional '23's and 'VII' markings and bedded them in using some sponged grey paint and in a couple of places I reinforced or added new streaks of rust using Vallejo weathering washes.

Unfortunately, Number 23 didn't place at the 2019 painting competition, but I was able to get some great feedback from the legendary Mark Bedford, who suggested that it would be good to add a stripe or marking to the roof hatches to make better visual use of the empty space and that in reality, dirt and dust would build up on more of the upper surfaces of the tank as well.

The mkIIa Phobos Rhino - mkIII

Earlier this week I was lucky enough to grab a ticket for the Horus Heresy Open Day in May. There's an open format painting competition being run alongside the previews and participation games, but unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to paint up anything from scratch for it in time. However, armed with the feedback from Mr Bedford to make some improvements on the previous iteration of Number 23, I thought I might take it down with me and see how it gets on.

The first thing I did was start to carefully dust on some Vallejo weathering powder in and around areas like the recesses of the glacis plate, the headlights, the rear mudguards, the ablative armour panel on the vision port - areas where dust would accumulate on the hull if Number 23 was churning about the forlorn surface of Terra in the far future.

 

I then carefully masked off the stripe on the roof hatch using some Tamiya tape and then sponged on some Citadel White Scar. After carefully removing the mask, I then added chips and wear back to the edges using some dark grey applied with a fine brush and a smaller chunk of sponge. Finally, I thinned down some Skrag Brown with some Lahmian Medium and then carefully painted it around the rivets on the roof hatch to recreate the impression that rust, dirt or grime has formed/accumulated around them.

Once the stripe was finished, I returned to the weathering powder and set about dusting and brushing it around the surfaces and details of the upper hull, like the hatch hinges, the ventilation and comms gear at the rear, the bolters and the exhaust shrouds. I also added a little around the teeth of the side and rear hatches as well as some of the panels and recesses around the hatches.

I don't think I'm going to tweak anything else on Number 23 just now, but I think she looks a little more 'realistic' with the new additions and it'll be interesting to see how she gets on at Warhammer World next month!

Rumours of mkIIe? 

There are some sources, such as the notorious To Walk Among Demigods. A Treatise Upon the Nature of the Argyntum Stellae and the more reputable A History of the Many and Varied War Machines of the Imperium of Mankind Volume Two: The Ubiquitous Rhino and it's variants that suggest the mkIIa wasn't the only pattern of Rhino produced by Phobos and that at least one other version codified as the mkIIe may also have been constructed in limited numbers, however, when everything you have been told is a lie, it can be difficult to be sure how much veracity one should attribute to such things...

Making Your Own mkIIa Rhino

If after reading this far, you're thinking "cool, how would I go about making my own Phobos pattern Rhino?" then first of all, thanks for reading this far and secondly, stay tuned and I'll tell you what I used so you can recreate the variant in the comfort and safety of your own hobby space!

For starters, you'll need a mkIIc Rhino kit as this forms the basis of the kitbash.

You'll also need:

• Two Phobos Bolters (the plastic ones from the mkIII kit are perfect for this)
• Two Rhino side hatches without the integral ladders
• Two Rhino 'blanking plates' (the wee round plates you can use where the hatches would go) 
• One Baal Predator glacis plate and armour panel
• Plasticard, plastic rod and/or discs cut from plastic sprues

For the most part it will be fairly obvious how you combine these with the Rhino kit to create the hull - the Baal glacis plate replaces the mkIIc one and the side hatches, go on the sides! The less obvious bit is the bolters, but essentially, you want to remove the magazines and the lower portion of the receiver (1) and then remove the hand, pistol grip and trigger assembly (2). It'll also be easiest to drill out the barrel just now as well rather than waiting until later.

With these areas removed from the bolters, you can begin to prep the blanking plates. Once the mould lines are removed, you'll need to remove the raised details from the underside of both hatches (1) and then the wee raised square from the top (2). 

Once this is done, you'll almost be ready to mount the bolters on the 'blanking plates'. Before you grab the polycement though, if you do a dry fit of the bolter and the blanking plate you'll notice that there's a gap between them where the trigger assembly and pistol grip was. This is where you can use plasticard, plastic rod or a disc cut from a plastic sprue to fill the gap. I used plasticard on the bolters of Number 23 and some sprue for the example below - essentially though you just want to make sure that it looks like the bolter can be triggered remotely by the driver, so whatever works best for you is fine. You should end up with something that looks like this though:

' The final thing left to do is to use some plasticard to create a spacer that will raise the blanking plate that goes into the hatch port on the right (as you're looking at the Rhino head on) because that one is roughly 2mm deeper than the left hand one. 2mm plasticard is perfect for this and you just need to add a couple of strips in a similar position to the red lines below:

 

Once you've done this, you're good to go! You could also consider modifying the exhaust stacks and heatshields if you want to make a mkIIe - for the one I made last year I used some of the curved pipe sections from the Adeptus Titanicus Manufactorum Imperialis set, but you could also use exhausts from the Leman Russ kit.

Conclusions

Phew! I did say this would be a longer more rambly one, but I've really enjoyed doing a sort of retrospective on one of my oldest, technically still ongoing projects and I hope that reading through where and how it originated has been enjoyable for you as well. I also hope that it might inspire you to have a go at your own kitbashes as there will have been innumerable patterns and variants of war machines developed and deployed during the millenia prior to the Master of Mankind's rise to power, during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy or since the Emperor's interment into the Golden Throne and who knows what designs might be waiting to be unearthed from creaking datastacks or corroding memorybanks and brought to bear upon the battlefield?