Gobsmasha

A failure of design in almost every category...

The Epic version.

The Gobsmasha (A really cringy pun on the word Gobsmacked) is another super old and super classic Ork vehicle. The Gobsmasha is a type of Ork Battlewagon-style vehicle although its function is more in line with a traditional tank.

The Gobsmasha is armed with either a Battle Cannon or a Plasma Cannon, and features a secondary armament of Big Shootas.

Overview

The Gobsmasha had a really different appearance from both Epic and in White Dwarf, although it is important to remember that both versions are now decades outdated. Although the Orks can lay into the excuse that they don't particularly care about standardization, the upscaled GeeDubs conversion (shown at right) can be quite confusing for the uninformed. The Epic-scale Gobsmasha looks like a a traditional Orkified tank destroyer, with a main gun placed at the front of the gun shield and the hull, which is than supported with four giant fucking wheels. In the White Dwarf conversion model, the Gobsmasha looks like a Mad Max armored car with two strange looking view ports and the addition of two oddly placed frontal hull turrets, while the gun shield is removed and the wheels are now more proportionate with the vehicle. On a side note, the Khornate symbol is not an accident. This was Rogue Trader, i.e. when Orks could join chaos.

Regardless of its exact aesthetic, the Gobsmasha seems to be one built around the idea of speed and maneuverability if the wheels are any indication. This would make the Gobsmasha quite agile for a vehicle of its size. Unfortunately, its absolutely retarded design means that not only does the Gobsmasha have one frontal hull weapon, but three frontal hull weapons; the two hull weapons being anti-infantry. This means that the Gobsmasha has to turn to face the enemy directly and since it has wheels, it just can't turn on the spot like most tracked vehicles can. You would think that the smaller hull weapons underneath the bizarre view ports would have been turrets right?

In its defence, the original Epic entry describes it as a Speed Freek armoured warbuggy used by the Evil Sunz (different Klans had their own unique vehicles back then), essentially a very mobile tank destroyer that can just about keep up with the rest of the buggies & soften up the kind of heavy vehicles than the rest of the Speed Freaks can't crack through hit & runs alone. So it speeds in, at least distracts the larger enemy threats if not actually threaten which creates some space for the rest of the Speed Freaks to do their thing.

Debating about whether the Epic version or the GW conversion was more stupid in appearance is rather pointless, since they are both utterly terrible by 8th Edition standards.