Assault Destroyer Conversion

How easy is it to turn a chaos space marine raptor into something approaching a Horus Heresy era assault destroyer marine? That's the question that I started out with several weeks ago after raiding the (frankly too large) bits box. 

This marine is built out of a number of kits. Obviously the raptor provided the basis and I've shaved off the chaos growths on the back of the jump pack along with most other things that are too heretical to mention. The right arm comes from the ancient chaos space marine range. The left arm from the more modern assault marines. Shoulder pads from the same along with the "first born" space marine range (I still don't like the term even despite the recent controversy). Grenades at the groin cover up the blank part where I shaved off the chaos star. 

I should probably add a chain sword, but otherwise I think this is done. The helmet seals the deal and makes it look a lot more Heresy era. My intention here is to paint this one up in Thousand Sons colours and see how it looks. Recommendations for paint scheme approaches welcome!

Building Breacher Squad Marines, and What To Do With Part 52

I recently bought the Breacher Squad boxed set, including the marines and the upgrade frame. I really like the look of these squads, even though they are probably more suited to the close confines of Zone Mortalis, I still feel that they have a good role to play in regular Horus Heresy games. The invulnerable save gives them and edge to stay on objectives and also to advance under otherwise horrendous fire. 

For this particular squad, I am aiming to build them up as Iron Hands. The first miniature, and squad sergeant is pictured below. 

Here I have done a simple head swap from the Praetor character to make him look a lot more like an Iron Hands character. The shoulder pad is also a Forge World resin upgrade. And yes: I know it should probably be on the other side, but the shield made it too bulky to fit, so too bad. He is armed with a power fist which is (presumably temporarily switched off) gripping a melta bomb ready to be attached to some enemy armour. 

The Breacher marines themselves are very easy to work with and I am impressed by their quality. They come with a lot of left over pieces as well. But the parts labelled 52 puzzled me a lot at first, as shown in the second image.

These parts are not mentioned in the slightest in the instruction booklet. It took me a little while to puzzle this one out. They are arm guards, or bracers. Effectively these can be used on other armour marks to make them more convincingly look like Breacher Squad members. I think I might use them anyway as conversion pieces on other armour marks to help pick out squad sergeants or marines who otherwise have artificer armour or similar. They are not much use with the marines supplied in the box since they already have these parts moulded on to them naturally. Hence I think this is mostly for Mark 4, 5, or 6 to take advantage of in my opinion. Puzzle solved!

Salamanders Fire Drake Conversion

One of the only options that a Salamanders Fire Drake terminator can take is to replace their shield with a (forge crafted) heavy flamer. There are no resin parts for this, so a conversion is the only way forward at this point in time. 

Sitting in my bits box collection was a heavy flamer from the older chaos space marines range. I decided that I would use this for several reasons. This first is that it looks more ornamental than a regular flamer and that communicates "forge crafted" more readily than other alternatives. Secondly, what if this were a traitor Salamanders anyway (shudder!)? And thirdly, there's also the rule of cool. So I went with it.

The primary issue here is that the part needs to be shaved with some precision to make it flush with the shoulder and billowing drake skin comes down from the shoulder. This is straight forward if you can get hold of a good looking bit of resin to clip. Here I have used Right Arm Part B (hope that makes sense for anyone wanting to follow this pathway). I clipped off the hand and shield attachment, of course. Essentially getting rid of the elbow as well in order that the plastic heavy flamer could then be pinned into position.

My strong recommendation here is to do lots of dry fits and judgments by eye by holding the bits up against each other and seeing where to slice. I went slowly and took off less than was needed at each slice, slowly progressing toward a natural joint. Largely because putting back on bits that had too much chopped off it a severe problem! In terms of conversions, this is a reasonable one to execute, but it did require precision and patience. 

The base meanwhile is supposed to be lots of accumulated battlefield debris. Maybe from the drop site that they fought in. I like the outcome here, but haven't yet painted it. I have the rest of the squad to build first!

Thousand Sons Terminator Praetor Conversion

Tackling my first miniature of the Thousand Sons today and I opted to do things the hard way. I really should have started with something more routine! Too late!

This is a Praetor (or perhaps Centurion). I was originally going to make this a simple kit bash and go for a pair of lightning claws. But no. I had to do things differently! Instead, we have a chain fist (tartaros style) accompanied by a combi-disintegrator (from the regular marine range), legs from the chaos space marine range and the core resin from the Thousand Sons range. The shoulders are from the newer cataphractii range and have slotted over the tartaros arms quite nicely to be honest!

Perhaps the hardest point of the miniature was attaching the resin torso to the plastic legs. They really don't want to fit together thanks to the upper outer thigh armour on the legs. Hence, I have torso at a bit of an angle to the legs and pinned on the inside. This works since it looks like the marine is looking down the combi-disintegrator to take a shot, or is otherwise presenting less of a target area to other incoming shots. 

I like this guy overall, he had a certain dynamism about him that the Thousand Sons terminators often lack (for good reason) and can easily imagine him being a sorcerer as well. I like the disintegrator option here for fun and think it might have flexibility. Of course, a force weapon should almost have been the default option, but the chain fist is interesting for different reasons. This is an up close and person praetor who wants to take on your dreadnoughts and isn't afraid to conjure up some psychic might to help along the way. 

Emperors Champion Conversion for Word Bearers

This is a conversion concept that has been bubbling away in the back of my mind for quite some time - which is to say years. I originally wanted to do it with the older sculpt of the Emperor's Champion, but the newer Primaris version really pushed me over the edge. 

One of the core problems with this conversion is to think how it might plausibly slot into Horus Heresy without looking like it is out of kilter with all the other miniatures. The pose actually helps with this. Standing on the rock should make the miniature look taller or more imposing and therefore this helps disguise the Primaris issue at source.

I have shaved off the guards at the top of the knees to make the miniature look more in keeping with Heresy era space marines. Gone also are the shoulder pads and replaced with a set of mark 4 shoulder pads. The helmet has been similarly replaced as although the sculpt was really good, I didn't like the cross on the side of the cheek and couldn't be bothered to green stuff it over. Moreover, the sculpt wasn't strictly Heresy either even if I could get away with it.

The backpack was an item that I really wanted to retain though. Those ribbons of oaths were something I rather liked. But ultimately the backpack itself screams Primaris. Here I have replaced it with an older Chaos Space Marines sergeant back pack which is much more suited. 

In the left hand I have positioned some works of Lorgar! This is from the older Chaos Space Marine Terminators range that I had lying around. The Imperial Eagle has also been shaved off the rosary beads in the left hand to leave the hand free to hold open the book at the desired page. 

The final miniature is one that I am quite happy with even though he still has a mild height issue compared to his Heresy brothers. I'm certain it will fit in though once painted up. I will use him as either a legion centurion or praetor. Clearly, he is traitor aligned. 

Emperor's Children Terminator Lord or Praetor

A conversion that I've been thinking about undertaking for a long time has finally taken shape! This model is an Emperor's Children terminator. Possibly a Praetor for 30k or a chaos lord for 40k. It could work either way (although obviously traitor aligned for the Heresy era). 

The parts used include:

Tail: Daughters of Khaine Blood Sisters (Age of Sigmar)
Body, Head, and Cape: Chaos Terminator Lord
Lightning Claws: Dark Angels
Shoulder Pads: Regular 40k Terminator

The core idea here is that this is a Lord or Praetor who is treading right down the chaos path toward the dark prince. He is clearly mutated already, but his brothers don't care and regard it as perfectly natural, or perhaps a level of perfection for them to all aspire to! 

I might use him along side the thunder hammer and storm shield Emperor's Children Indomitus terminators that I have already assembled and painted. The painting here uses the exact same formulation of my standard approach to the Emperor's Children in Horus Heresy, so he does at least slot in nicely in terms of the colour scheme, but perhaps a bit less so with the mutation! I'm reasonably content with how it turned out, but I do acknowledge that some finer details could do with touching up (e.g., the eye of Horus in the centre of the chest and some more highlighting on the tail perhaps). 

Iron Hands Terminator with Autocannon Conversion

In building up my Iron Hands from something of a Shattered Legions element to something a bit more viable on its own, I decided to go down the terminator route and incorporate some heavy shooting and hitting Tartaros armoured men. This is the first of a siege squad. 

The auto cannon here is borrowed from chaos space marines as can be seen by the spiked chain that is under hanging the main barrels. Some conversion work was required to get this to fit, but the connection is all but invisible underneath the relevant shoulder pad. 

For painting, this follows my standard Iron Hands formulation of a matte black colour achieved with Eshin Grey. For accents, I have opted to go for a contrasting red on the chain fist and leather between the legs. Although almost any colour could likely work for Iron Hands in this regard, the red draws the eye nicely without over-whelming the miniature. Silver accents and highlights coupled with select decal transfers rounds off the miniature and gives the final vibe of a squad leader who is ready to cause some havoc. 

Meteor Hammer Conversion for World Eaters Sergeant

A bit of a conversion piece today in the form of a Meteor Hammer for a World Eaters assault squad sergeant.

The meteor hammer is made out of several distinct parts. At the lower end (the meteor part) is the head of a power maul / mace. This works out quite nicely as the heavy end as it communicates the weight nicely even though it is not just a spherical mass. 

Attached to the maul's head is a chain taken from spares of the Noctilith Crown portal scenery piece. These are suitably spike laden (and if you press to hard will indent into your skin - ouch). I've pinned the power maul head to this and also drilled through the sergeant's hands to get the positioning spot on. The other end of the chain is from the same range and terminates in a small spear like tip. 

Joining both hands is a curved chain that I think is from the older chaos range - I can't be certain as it has been sat in my bits box for years on end being unused! Possibly the old chaos tank accessories frame? Again, I'm guessing, but let me know if I'm wrong. 

It took quite a bit of shaving and clipping to get the positioning correct on this curved piece regardless, but I think it connects to the hands quite well after a lot of dry fitting and fiddling around. 

Finally the eagle eyes will notice that the head is also a conversion. Here I've used a head front from an eight bound and the rear of the head from a standard helmet and glued the two together and used green stuff to hide everything. In hind sight, I would not choose to do this again and would buy a regular head from the Khorne range to depict the nails. Still - it works very nicely and I am pleased with the overall result here. 

 

Painted World Eaters Centurion / Praetor Conversion

This one has taken too long to bring to fruition. Here we have the World Eaters conversion that was made with Age of Sigmar arms and weapon combined with Khorne Berserker body and regular Heresy era helmet. He has been painted up in a slightly modified World Eaters colour scheme. 

I have added extra blue accents on the upper end of the gloves, as well as the lower extremity of the greaves. I then got messy. Nuln oil has been applied very inconsistently around the rest of the raised areas - especially noticeable on the top of the greaves / just below the knee, but also in a variety of other locations like the helm. This gives the idea of armour that has been so well used that the owner (or ship crew) have not serviced it in a while. Accumulated grime. Dirt from so many worlds that the killing didn't really stop. Accents of Guilliman Flesh have been applied in number of the joints as well to give variation to the inking. 

The dirty approach is then accented by application of black using a sponge, as well as some silver edge highlights very selectively. The blood meanwhile has a two stage approach. The first is flicking contrast paint to create a spray in different locations. Blood for the Blood god is then applied liberally elsewhere to show collected gore. Some decals have also been applied (prior to this process) for kill counting (right wrist) and the legion numeral (right shoulder pad - not very visible in the image). 

Overall the goal of creating a World Eater who has either been on campaign too long, or who has really started to have the nails bite as their amour steadily turns wholly read by late Heresy is one that I think has been achieved nicely enough. Happy with this one. The next enterprise will be a despoiler squad to deliver him. 

Painted Lorgar Conversion

The full conversion of Lorgar, now painted!

The full conversion has the spirit hosts scattered around the base of Lorgar and seemingly being summoned from the pure willpower. These ghostly apparitions have been painted in a gradient from hex wraith green through to more blue and green contrast paints down to a blue and black mixture. This gives them a very striking and peculiar appearance which hints at a daemonic origin, rather than merely something from the graveyard. 

The greens are reflected in the candle light as well as the runes engraved on the stonework for Lorgar. This has been achieved by inking white into the grooves followed by the hex wraith green to give it the appearance of glowing out of the stonework as the spirits orbit around Lorgar.

As for the Primarch himself, I have chosen to go with a slightly alternate paint scheme. The usual paint scheme is in the grey slate colours. But here I have gone for red contrast paint suggestive of way later in the Heresy. It is accented by the original slate grey as well as selected gold-yellow panels on the knees and elsewhere to provide a visual contrast.

Naturally, his head is painted in gold! This has been followed up by careful application of Colchisian runes onto his shaved skull as is fitting for his lore. On the rear of his cape, I have applied some more runes that I had spare from a decal sheet. 

Very pleased with this! I think my long term goal is to now try to collect most of the Primarchs and get them painted. But this will be a very long term goal indeed due to costs (unless any of you want to Buy Me A Coffee -- see link to the right / below!).

 

 

Primarch Conversions - Lorgar

When Morathi was released for Age of Sigmar, there was a notable up-tick in the community of hobbyists using the lower half of the snake and combining it with the resin Fulgrim to make the ascended Primarch. I've seen a small number of other conversions over the years such as Corax wielding a heavy bolt gun and lacking his pinions (cf., First Edition and the sands of Istvaan). But I've not seen too many people have a kit bash of Lorgar. 

So here's my interpretation.

Lorgar's left hand can be rotated and re-positioned in a reasonably lossless manner to have him look like he is either gesturing, or holding something. This is exactly what I've done with the resin here and I have positioned the palm face up (frankly the cape is much more hassle than going this if I'm honest - I had to pin the cape). 

In his open left hand, I have added some Age of Sigmar night haunt spirit hosts. There's some green stuff added to give the spirit a smooth tail end, but otherwise the conversion is actually rather straight forward. 

The idea here is that Lorgar is not merely his early crusade self, but more mid to late Heresy era. Perhaps even a more ascended form where he has let rip with his psychic powers (cf., First Edition, and his ascended form). Here we see him either summoning some daemonic forms, or being surrounded by a daemonic tutelary. He has long been in alignment and allied with the darker powers and is regularly summoning and binding them to his will.

In Third Edition, he gets to directly summon Daemons which is a nice touch (more Word Bearer reviews eventually - promise). Hence I think this sort of interpretation still works very nicely! This represents my first Primarch conversion and I actually quite like it. 

Iron Father Conversion

By a good margin, this is the most audacious, and slightly ridiculous conversion that I have attempted in a long while! But somehow, it has come together to create something very unique and fitting with the vision that I wanted, whilst having something of an over-the-top aura suited to a slightly older school warhammer vibe. 

There are two major parts to this Iron Father conversion. The first is the left arm to give the Iron Father a Paragon Weapon in the form of a chaos warrior spear. This comes from the old school mounted chaos warriors set. Here, I have used a chaos space marine left arm and pierced it with a pin right through. The pin goes a good way into both ends of the paragon weapon or spear and gives it a long length. It looks suitably deadly, but hopefully the praetor will ditch the graviton pistol and hold it in two hands when wielding it. 

The second item to tackle was a servo arm. But I didn't really want a "usual" arm for this. I wanted something to suggest that this Iron Father has plundered technologies that he probably should have. Maybe he opened those vaults once Ferrus Manus had gone. Regardless, I've used necron parts for the servo arm. Although it is clearly sourced from a ranged weapon, the front flange of the weapon is odd looking enough that it can be interpreted as a grabber of some kind which suits the arm configuration. This also gives the suggestion of plundering those long forbidden vaults as well, with a slight nod toward the Dornian Heresy storyline as well. Illegal technology indeed!

The overall miniature is certainly the craziest that I've done in a long while. And it gave me a giggle on an otherwise dull and vexing day to pull this off. Hope you like it and feel inspired!

World Eaters Praetor / Centurion Conversion

For my growing World Eaters detachment, it is clear that I need Praetor or Centurion to make the force a little bit more rounded by opening up the force organisation chart for third edition. This conversion is what I came up with. 

The body is from the newer range of Khorne Berzerkers, but carefully chosen so that there are zero symbols of Khorne or Chaos anywhere on the miniature. It certainly communicates the character that I am aiming for here. The mace (power maul, or potentially a paragon weapon for a praetor) comes from the Age of Sigmar and is from the Storm Cast range itself. Specifically, a Stormcast Eternal Reclusian two handed mace. The tricky bit here is the right shoulder which needs significantly shaved down in order to fit a shoulder pad over it. The other arm lacks a shoulder altogether and I had to substitute a regular power armour arm to fill in the gap to the elbow. The shoulders here are one from the Berzerkers range (left shoulder pad) which features on the World Eaters symbol, and one from the chaos terminators range (right shoulder pad) which is a blank for me to apply a transfer later on. 

For the head, I have a commander's helm from the Mark II range of the Saturnine boxed set. The base is rounded off with some off cast bits from the old scenery range which I've sawed down to fit on a regular 32mm base. The backpack is an old fashion chaos space marines backpack which is a nod to the forge worlds associated with the traitors - i.e., Anvilus.  

Skyhunter

A bit of a hobby day today, and first off the table is a skyhunter. 

This particular chap is going to be an Emperor's Children squad sergeant. The build was very simple overall - and remarkably this is also the first sky hunter that I've assembled. I've put the multi melta in place for the weapon as I wanted a squad that could ride up and try to pop tanks up close and personal. In third edition, this is more challenging, but I still like the concept of doing this (that, and the low AP from second edition for plasma cannons has long gone now sadly). The left arm for the sergeant is from the new Warhammer 40k Emperor's Children range and features a jagged power sword which looks suitably vicious. The head meanwhile is from the older chaos space marine range. Overall, the vibe I'm going for is one of pre-fall Emperor's Children who might just be toying with some of the lighter range of excess that the legion would later be known for. Obviously the base needs work yet, and painting is yet to come, but I think the dynamic and the features are communicating the right ideas here for me. 

Despoiler Test Model

I've still got a few Mark 6 marines left to build before the new boxed set goes on pre-order for the mark 2 marines. I've therefore decided to assemble them as Despoilers. This is the first test model, and also the squad leader.

The backpack and head are from the chaos space marines range, but is a nod to the forge world that supplies the World Eaters in general. The power fist and bolt pistol are left overs from the assault squad range, where as the base features another barrel that I chopped up to make the miniature have a more dynamic feel. I like this overall and am now intending to round out the rest of the squad soon. Small goals!

World Eaters Loyalist Overseer Painted

Hi readers, I have completed painting the loyalist World Eaters Overseer model which I converted a few weeks ago to be holding a nemesis bolt gun. Of course, the one handed pose isn't perfect for the kick back, but I'm supposing the power armour servos will help him out with this. Either than, or he is just pointing it to indicate what direction to fire in for the las rifle section. 

The painting scheme follows the standard pattern for my World Eaters with whites and blues in the right locations followed by a lot of fun with a sponge applied black and grey, and then red contrast paint followed by blood for the blood god to add to the goriness. Hopefully the splatter comes from a distance here, but it really does add to the vibe regardless. 

I now have to decide how to paint up the las rifle section. Whites and blues are appealing here, it has to be said, over and above the paint schemes presented in the rule books and online. Not sure, but comments welcome. 

Overseer Conversion Fully Constructed

Hey readers, the Overseer conversion has now been completed - including the nemesis bolt gun! And it is massive!

But to be honest, I regret nothing! The barrel if it were to be slung across the marine's chest would actually be absolutely fine and appropriate for a sniper. With this pose however, the marine really looks dynamic and a little bit like he just doesn't care how he snipes his targets. 

This is good, because I'm thinking this is either going to be Alpha Legion or World Eaters. I'm tilting toward the latter right now. 

The miniature itself was easy to construct, but as I thought, the back banner is a little fiddly to get sitting right on the backpack itself. The join it just a little too thin for my tastes, but I can live with it. I need to also tidy up the scepter a little bit, but its basically done at this point. 

Nemesis Bolter Conversion Concept

Following on from my Alpha Legion recon squad that were armed with Necron weaponry, I had a bit of an idea about a Nemesis Bolter conversion...

The basis of the nemesis bolt gun is a Mark III bolter. I have shaved off the original barrel from the weapon and glued on instead a long length of the Necron weapon. This is rounded out by a scope on the top from the modern space marine range. 

Admittedly, the weapon is long. Very long. It rivals Exodus' weapon even. However, it certainly has a certain something about it which is hard to mistake for anything other than a long range sniper rifle in my personal opinion. I'm intending to use this on my new acquisition of the resin Overseer loyalist model that recently arrived. More on that project soon no doubt!

Tartaros Terminator with Power Maul / Mace

I've borrowed a little bit of inspiration - and bits - from the Dark Angels range for this terminator conversion. The basis is a normal Tartaros Terminator in plastic, but with a right hand swap for a Dark Angels power weapon. 

The difficult part of the conversion is the ranged weapon. Here, I have taken the combi-bolter and attached it to the left hand of the sergeant's power sword hand in order to create a left handed ranged weapon. This involved some careful slicing of the hand away from the power sword, and disguising it through an appropriate pose where the focus is on the melee power weapon.

This marine will be part of my World Eaters force (allied detachment) that I am constructing. 

World Eaters Assault Squad Assemble!

Finally had time to make progress on my World Eaters allied detachment. These are the main troops of the detachment - a squad of jump pack assault marines.

The most obvious thing here are the chain axes and other bits - sourced from an eBay vendor. I'm very happy with these - particularly the arm options which might not be so obvious at first glance.

The sergeant sports a pair of falax blades and - like some of his brothers - is positioned on top of a barrel ready to make the next leap and strike. On the left is the brute with the power maul taken from the Dark Angels terminator range. And on the right is one with a power spear. You may well ask why this arrangement. Largely the answer is the rule of cool and I wanted a squad that communicated disorganized weapons like a bunch of gladiators that have just scooped up whatever they had to hand and are using them very freely. This is emphasized by the left and right handedness of the rest of the squad wherein the chain axes are evenly being used in the left and right hands. 

All told, a bit of a mob of braying marines ready to jump at the next target as the nails bite into their heads - and a story told with dynamism while keeping a relatively consistent basing policy to bring it all together.