Epic Death Guard Mastodon

Supported by a maniple of Deredeo dreadnoughts a Mastodon super heavy transport of the Death Guard legion advances into no mans land.

I had never planned to get a big transport model like the Mastodon for my epic Death Guard forces. I had plenty of Land Raiders for ground based assaults, and was planning to get some Thunderhawks and Storm Eagles (and possibly a Stormbird some day) for air assaults. Plus I have this idea of Mortarion crashing into the enemy with a heap of terminators in a couple of Caestus Assault Rams that I want to try out. But then I had this idea that the Mastodon could double as a Plague Tower in Epic 40k era games, so decided to get one.

As you can see, I haven't added any conversion parts to it yet for a Plague Tower, but I'm thinking of adding some sort of removable wooden scaffolding to it, possibly with some mortars, to help it look a little more like the original Plague Tower model in epic.

But for now it is in it's standard 30k era legion finery, and that's how it will stay for a little bit.

There is plenty of detail on the model, and my gritty paint scheme doesn't completely do it justice, but none the less helps it to look fairly rugged and well used, like all Death Guard models should.

Lately I've been reading the Horus Heresy novel Vengeful Spirit, and in that book there are a couple of references to how vehicles and transports for the troops are basically disposable items at the scale of war that the legions fought at. So I don't mind that a rugged vehicle like the Mastodon, that is solid enough to survive a few battles, would have a fairly worn appearance.

This one is armed with a bit  of air defence on top, meaning that it can add a blast marker to enemy air assaults without having to take an upgrade. It might occasionally shoot something down too!

In games I'm not 100% sure how I will use it. It's fairly slow, but adds a fair bit of protection (and mass) to the infantry it supports. I think it will add some fun to my games while I figure out what to do with it.
Fun times ahead!