The love of my Empire got the better of me and I got back to work on this modified tank I’ve been putting together. It might look familiar if you’ve read a previous post of mine (or of course seen Rogue One) but I’ve added a couple new mods to this mighty Imperial war machine.
That’s an awfully wordy name for a vehicle, isn’t it? Here you can see my modified tank in full. The beam projector cannon is still up top (you can see more close-ups here, excuse the worse camera – I was just starting out) along with its well-protected gunner. I moved the comm antenna around back to free up the weapon/accessory clip up front for the Stormtrooper passengers.
This is a new feature to the customized tank, a weapon I’ve taken to calling an ‘ion mortar.’ These three tubes fire charged ion bursts in an upward and forward arc, which is used to disable ground vehicles. These lobbed ion charges make up for the tank’s lesser speed when compared to a normal ground speeder or speeder bike. The comm antenna was also moved back here and pitched at more of an angle, making it more interesting to look at. It’s a fairly simple build – a hinged piece attached to a 1×2 stud to lift it off the back of the tank and allow the mortar tubes to angle backwards. The 1×1 circle (you can just make it out, look slightly to the left of the binoculars) and the up-facing binoculars in grey are just a bit of greebling for the comm equipment.
Here we have a loyal Imperial tank pilot and heavy weapons specialist – Commander Tanzer of the 606th Ghost Division. Along with his signature customized tank (he filed all the proper documents to allow non-standard weapons on his ‘flagship’ tank) he wields a custom weapon I put together and nicknamed the light disruptor. Despite being an illegal class of weapon, the Ghost Division operates slightly beyond certain Imperial protocols. And beside, the Empire can change the laws when it wishes – they are the ones who wrote them. I’m normally not wild about the stud shooters, but I took a shot at making it look more like a weapon than a megaphone by adding the tap piece for a stock and the lightsaber piece as a scope. The two-tone grey up front just breaks up the all-black color scheme and flows a bit with the ‘trigger’ piece of the stud shooter. Eventually I’ll get around to doing a post on just my custom blasters, because that’s almost a separate hobby unto itself – I LOVE outfitting my Stormtroopers with cool and special weapons.
I wanted to put this little post together for a couple reasons. Number one, I’ve wanted to have my own little armored division of tanks to go with my Lego Stormtroopers forever and this was the perfect set to do it with. I bought three, two to keep normal and a third to modify. That ties into reason number two, which is I wanted to post something related to all this lore I’m taking notes of figuring out for a Lego MOC and photography project I want to get going, and making posts about it just might keep me writing instead of making excuses not to.
But maybe I’ve said too much about the Ghost Division as it is. They are a secret the Empire would like to keep. For now. . .
Thanks for reading fellow Children of the Emperor! Like I said, I’ll be posting when I can due to wedding planning. My next project to tackle isn’t related to Lego, Star Wars, action figures, or any combination of the three, but I have photos prepped for some more Black Series reviews.
So until we meet again. . .it might be a long time ago, or in the not-too-distant future. That is entirely dependent on your point of view. See you next time!
-David
TheEmpiresElite.com 