I just love the ‘Deimos’ pattern Rhino kit from Forgeworld. It’s practically the poster child for the Heresy game in my humble opinion right up there with MkIII armour and Spartan assault tanks. I just wish they would create a full plastic kit for the ubiquitous transport and retire the hybrid plastic plus conversion parts we have endured for years. That said, the long-standing bundle Forgeworld do of three for £100 GBP is a rarity not only by dint of being a discounted bundle, but also a good one that makes the Deimos not much more costly than the base plastic Mars pattern kit it’s built around. To date I’ve built over a dozen of them and the space wolves have the dubious honour of being my first legion to have three straight out of the gate.

I guess I connect with the Deimos so much at a hobby level because its design is clearly influenced by the original Rhino kit which came in a box of three back in the days of Rogue Trader (yes ‘rogue’ not ‘rouge’ which is a gaudy red … please for the love of the warmaster stop doing that!). The original was such an iconic tank kit and I particularly loved poring over the artwork showing it in different camo schemes for both Astartes and Imperial Guard alike. Back then it could be taken by both in Warhammer 40,000 and Epic. Happy days.

Each has its own distinctive pack markings on the roof hatch, but shares the same palette so that there’s uniformity across the squadron and other armoured units in the force. Two of them make use of the Forgeworld legion specific side doors, which does increase the cost per unit a little I admit, but other than that the rest of the markings are a mix of waterslide transfers (decals) and airbrush stencilling.

Will I add more transports to the space wolves? Possibly but it’s unlikely to be more Rhino variants as it turns out the ‘slayer’ packs can lope along on foot almost as fast as the transport move and still be in a position to charge or counter-charge, which does make the tanks slightly superfluous. They do look cool though so no regrets. There are two more Deimos on the factory floor figuratively speaking, but one is for the VIIth legion defenders of Terra and the other… Well, that one you will have to wait and see as it’s a rather special vintage. Until next time.