GW Borrowed This 1960’s Toy To Make The Leman Russ!

By Travis Pasch | March 1st, 2024 | Categories: 40k News & Articles, astra militarum, Editorials, Games Workshop, Imperial Guard, Tabletop Gaming News & Rumors

This 1960s toy may have inspired the design of the Leman Russ tank, as Games Workshop has “borrowed” many ideas for their miniatures…

We recently took a look at where some of GW’s designs came from, and an astute community member, Michael von Glahn, pointed out this near-identical inspiration for the Leman Russ. Whoever designed the current Leman Russ may have played with this as a kid because it’s so close to the design that it can’t be a coincidence. It’s just really fun to take a look at where GW gets their designs from for the background of Warhammer 40k ( **cough** Dune, 2000 AD, Star Wars ***cough** **cough**) to the equipment and vehicles.

GW Borrowed This 1960’s Toy To Make The Leman Russ!

These pics come from a sale listing on eBay, and man; these old toys look so much like the Leman Russ; it’s wild!

World War 1 playset Tanks made by Remco in the 1960s. These are vintage originals. Remco made some great army playsets. Tanks are about 6.5 inches long, 3.5 inches high. Both tanks are in very nice shape and are unbroken. Both tanks will fire the original shell ( one included, there are more in my other auctions running currently). These tanks actually fire the shell fairly far (about 7 feet on my test fires). The tow hooks are in great shape and amazingly the side guns are perfect and pivot left and right. All wheels are intact and roll and both of the tanks really have almost no playwear, no need for an upgrade from these. The flags which are removable are not original, but fit into the flag holes on the deck of the tanks. These are kind of like the tank in the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade movies. WW1 playset toys in plastic are harder to come by, get this set while you can.

Especially when you look from the top, it’s quite clear they had to take some serious inspiration from them. If they somehow never saw these WW1-style tanks, it’s quite a coincidence. The dimensions aren’t even super different, as they were about 6.5 inches long and 3.5 inches high. The one thing the old tanks had over the new ones, they actually fired little shells!

You could even get them to shoot up to around 7 feet!