Today we celebrate 35 years of Warhammer 40k as part of the Warhammer Day Celebrations – while lots has changed within that time, some of those early models are imprinted on our minds and Games Workshop have done some magic with nostalgia in the form of the recently released Warhammer The Horus Heresy.

Today the new plastic Land Raider Proteus is up for pre order giving collectors a chance to recreate these tanks from a time past! In today’s post we will be unboxing the kit, checking out the components and getting one painted up to show off what it looks like

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us a free review copy a little ahead of time to check out on the site. If you would like to support the site then why not order your Proteus through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too!

I have also filmed a full unboxing which you can see below or over on YouTube

So let’s check out the new kit!

One of my favourite kits of all time is the classic RTB05 Land Raider

Yes, it looks a little dated now, and those who started playing since the current plastic Land Raider was released might not have the same nostalgic attachment to it, but for me this tank just screams Warhammer 40,000.

So when we got sent the new Proteus I just had to be the one to rip open the box and put it together!

A nice blend of classic and new, the Proteus has both elements of the original RTB05 while in it’s Explorator loadout, but also elements of the current Land Raider with the optional alternate build of the Carrier. The kit actually builds a third option. that of an Explorator with a hull mounted weapon too

With their new 2nd Edition Horus Heresy kits Games Workshop have been very clever in the way they have optimised kits so that shared frames can be used across as many different vehicles as possible while limiting each variant to a sprue or two – this makes it much easier to put out lots of different loadouts of tanks by sharing core frames across a tank chassis

In the case of the Land Raider Proteus, this is essentially the same core kits as the Spartan, but with an additional sprue that changes the silhouette of the model with Proteus specific parts. This is a genius idea and means that in future they could even invent additional new tank variations and re-release the kit with an extra sprue, in the same way that a lot of older Forge World Heresy kits simply had resin upgrade parts for standard 40k vehicles – obviously as this is plastic however it makes it much easier to work with for any hobbyist!

As a sucker for nostalgia, I had to build up the classic Land Raider shape, and even passed on the hull mounted weapons in order to make the profile copy the original model as much as possible – and I had an absolute dream building and painting this! Some kits are frustrating or a chore, but this just had me grinning from start to finish! Painted up for the World Eaters armoured force, I need to go back in with some decals and detailing here and there, but really happy with how it is looking so far!

The kit is bigger than a Predator and is a suitably impressive tank for the £52.50 price tag – may have to build some more with the carrier loadout to bring my World Eaters into battle!

If you are a fan of The Horus Heresy, or even classic Warhammer 40k in general, then this is a kit that needs to be built and painted just for the fun of the hobby regardless of any rules! From a gaming point of view it’s also nice that we get alternate hull sections for 3 different looks, from the nostalgic above, to the hull mounted guns of the MK2B all the way through to the more modern assault ramp version!

The Land Raider Proteus is up for pre order today and is released Saturday 15th October

Games Workshop sent Sprues and Brews a free set for review purposes

Published by Matt Crowther

View all posts by Matt Crowther