Another upate on my World Eaters related projects today, because the last weekend has been spent happily kitbashing away at various evil, spiky and bloodthirsty things ;-)

First up, an update on the big guy: Since I first posted my WIP “Thamier pattern” Obliterator, I have spent some more time working on the model, cleaning up the conversion and preparing the model for painting:

Here’s what the Obliterator looked like before:

Since this picture was taken, I have added another round of spiky bitz, worked a bit on the right foot in order to make it look more natural and plugged all remaining holes and crevices with GS. So here’s the model, pretty much ready for a last bubble bath and then some paint:

I also realised that the model needed something to clearly show its allegiance to Khorne, but regular bunny ears were right out due to a lack of space around the collar. So I improvised, using an icon of Khorne instead (an idea stolen from the ever inspirational Wayde Pryce). I also tried yet another head, although I might actually like this one the best so far: It just has a subtly feral quality that I think really fits the bill.

All in all, I am really pleased with this conversion, and I hope that the paintjob will turn the model into a truly awesome piece — now to work up the motivation to actually get painting…

The big guy was not my only project, though: Working on that Helbrute rocket launcher also gave me the motivation to try something I had been thinking about for quite a while: Building an Ursus Claw for my Chaos Helbrute(s).

For those not in the know, an Ursus Claw is a weapons system typical of the World Eaters Legion: It is effectively a harpoon that can be fired at an opponent (preferredly a retreating one), in order to impale him, possibly already creating critical damage, and then reel him back in for the finale. The World Eaters used this weapon system both on their flagship, the Conqueror and on the allied Titans of the Legio Audax, so I thought arming a World Eaters Dreadnought with one of those systems probably wasn’t all that unrealistic. More on the Ursus Claw here, in case you are interested.

Now when I started planning this conversion, I looked around for inspiration and found this image, nestled away deep within my inspiration folder. Unfortunately, the original source has been lost, and I have been unable to retrieve it, so if you recognise your work, definitely let me know!

EDIT: The mystery has been solved: The picture below came from fellow hobbyist sheep. Check out his amazing Khornate models on his blog. Thanks a lot, sheep, for coming forward!

conversion by sheep

The picture actually provided a perfect starting point for my conversion: The psy-weapon CC arm from the Furioso Dreadnought kit. And since Marax the Fallen had been converted from that very kit, I still happened to have the arm in my bitzbox.

The second piece of inspiration came from Forgeworld’s Blood Slaughterer Impaler, because that model is, for all intents and purposes, armed with an Ursus Claw as well. Take a look:

image by Forgeworld

The weapon gave me a pretty good idea for building the chain winch that makes for the truly nasty part of the weapon, allowing the harpoon to be reeled back in.

So with those two ideas in my head and a couple of bitz on my table, I got to work.

And here’s my own WIP Ursus Claw, already provisionally mounted on my model for Marax the Fallen:

As you can see, the arm is pretty much the stock bit, whereas the harpoon mechanism is a combination of the two sources cited above. I fortunately had a perfect chain winch bit from some Ogre Kingdoms kit in my bitzbox, and it was ideal for this conversion. The chain came from another Ogre kit. The housing for the winch is a shaved down part of a Predator Lascannon turret weapon. And, to make things suitably chaotic and to tie in the weapon with the look and feel of my army, the housing was decorated using two Chaos Marauder shields.

Here’s the weapon arm on its own:

One thing I kept going back and forth on is the actual harpoon, because I wasn’t sure whether it needed to be more ostentatious and/or claw like, like the one on the Blood Slaughterer. In the end, though, I decided that a more clawlike appearance would mean that it would be harder to actually recognise the weapon as a harpoon constructed to be launched at the enemy, so I stuck with the simpler design — what do you think?

Anyway, once this Ursus Claw and the kitbashed rocket launcher arm are painted, I will have a pretty exhaustive collection of Dreadnought/Helbrute weapons — as a matter of fact, I built this last arm mostly for fun anyway, rather than for added tactical flexibility. Still, I think it’ a fairly cool option for featuring an element from the World Eaters’ recent fluff in my army!

And finally, one last model to show you: A rather simple kitbash at that, but one I am still rather happy with.

When I picked up my brand new Dark Vengeance boxed set, back when 6th edition hit, I realised the nose of the Chosen champ had been flattened a bit by the sprue of stuff lying above it in the box. So I have wanted to “repair” the model for a long time now. So during an idle hour, I carefully cut off the head and replaced it with one from the FW Space Marine Praetor. I also replaced the maul with a sword, while I was at it. Tale a look:

Both the head and maul were kept intact as much as possible during the cutting, and both will be used on further conversions. As it happens, the head was used on the kitbashed INQ28 Navigator I showed you recently. I think the flattened nose could be explained away as yet another manifestation of the Navigator’s physcial deformity.

Fellow hobbyist dantay_XV pointed out that the model’s calm stare and raised sword worked together quite well, making it look like he was just about to swing the sword forward and give his warriors the command to unleash hell. That was exactly the intended effect, as a matter of fact, and I think that this model will eventually be the Huntmaster in command of the 4th assault company’s Havocs (Teeth of Khorne, in the old fluff), so the pose works doubly well, if you ask me.

So yeah, so much for the World Eaters side of things. As always, let me know what you think — and look forward to some more INQ28 madness pretty soon.

And, of course, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Maybe this should actually rather be part 2.5 of this mini-series, but I am pretty hard at work on the converted Obliterator at the moment, and I thought it would be cool to just show you the model’s current status:

Here’s the – mostly finished – body:

I was initially slightly apprehensive about the slightly rubbery texture of the resin thamier used for casting the parts, as I feared the material might be problematic to paint. It turned out that my worries were entirely unfounded, though — in fact I was pleasantly surprised with painting thamier’s custom parts: They accepted the colour without a hitch and were really almost as easy to paint as stock GW parts.

In any case, I was happy enough with the result to immediately start working on the arms as well, so here’s the model as it looks like right now, with both arms attached:

The model’s still missing its shoulder pads, base and a ton of finishing touches, of course, but I am enormously pleased with it so far. So I thought I’d just share my progress. Expect to see the finished Obliterator rather soon ;-)

Anyway, let me know what you think! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

In one of my recent posts, I promised you an INQ28 update rather soon, and today I intend to make good on that promise! :-)

I already mentioned in a prior post how much I love weirdingway’s Navigator models. In fact, I feel his models make up one of the most creative and interesting 40k/INQ28  projects around at the moment, and one that has been a deep well of inspiration ever since I first came across it.

Now I already kitbashed a Navigator fairly recently, a model that I am pretty happy with:

Building this model was a fun kitbashing experiment as well as an attempt to get my current obsession with weirdingway’s models out of my system – at least a little bit. But ultimately, the Navigator bug had hit me so badly that it became clear to me that I needed to add a couple of additional models in order to make up the Navigator’s personal retinue.

Unlike weirdingway, however, I am not trying to expand this into an army project, so I tried my darnedest to stay focused and only build a handful of additional models. The other big challenge was to make the models more than just cheap knock-offs of weirdingways’s characters — I’ll be honest with you: There was a very real temptation to just copy his awesome kitbashes and be done with it ;-)

I went a bit against my own laziness, however, and now I think I may have come up with a couple of models that share the eclecticism of weirdingway’s retinue, but put a slightly different spin on things.

The background for my Navigatorial House, named House DeVries, is that it is the oldest and most influential Navigator house of the Velsen Sector. The house is unbelievably rich and very much at the height of its political power, which has made its members increasingly haughty and eccentric. At the same time, their genetic makeup of the house has gotten more and more “particular” over the millennia, so that some of the members of the house can never hope to be able to walk among regular humans, while even those who act as representatives of the house will show minor but noticeable signs of deformity (like my Navigator above).

In keeping with the status of House DeVries, I wanted the Navigator’s retainers to be both eclectic and ostentatious enough to look the part. So I grabbed my bitzbox and got to work.

So far I have:

A regular of the DeVries household guard:

This model was based on an WFB Empire Musketeer given to me by PDH. I really liked the model, so I wanted to use it as part of my Navigator retinue — I’ll happily go on record stating that I love using Empire bitz on 40k models! Even the puffy sleeves! Especially the puffy sleeves! Not due to laziness, mind you (though I am pretty lazy, actually), but because, in my idea of the 40k universe, there are lots of puffy sleeves, powdered wigs and strange, anachronistic elements.

In this case, that approach produced a model heavily inspired by a formation like the Pontifical Swiss Guard, which was pretty much what I was going for. In order to prevent the model from looking too fantasy, I added a head and backpack from the Tempestus Scions kit. And even though I really wanted to keep his weapon, I did add the muzzle of a Cadian Lasgun — maybe the weapon is a priceless Longlas? Or maybe it has been expertly crafted to resemble the ancient weapons from Old Terra’s history, due to the whims of the Navigators?

In any case, while this guy might need a tad more work, I already like where he is going!

I also built an an officer of the DeVries household guard, or possibly even its guard captain, based on a Tempestus Scion:

Once again, the Swiss Guard vibe is clearly palpable, isn’t it? The slightly baroque breastplate is really a good match for this particular look. I also wanted to gives the guard officer’s weapons a slightly impractical, very ceremonial look, so he is armed with a very ostentatious (and rather bulky) chainsword and a tower shield that originally came from the Bretonnian Men-at-Arms:

The decoration on the shield consists of an aquila (shaved off a Centurion shoulder pad I used for my Obliterator — waste not, want not and all that) and a parchment from a Marine kit. I also added a feather I had left from converting the Navigator, because I thought it would make for a nice bit of visual consistency to have feathers appear as decoration on several models in the retinue!

All in all, I really love this guy: He has such an “implacable man” vibe going. Plus the head really gives him a slightly sinister aspect, doesn’t it? He may be dressed like a fop, but there is actually no doubt that he could hold his own in a fight…
I also built a Majordomo for House DeVries. The idea for this model developed when I thought about the function of the actual Navigators in the organisation of the house and realised it would be cool if the members of the house were so rich and powerful and in their own little bubble that dealing with everyday matters was completely beneath them. So they would need a servant to coordinate their household and keep their little empire running. And while this servant would not be a trueborn Navigator himself, he would wield some of the authority and power of House DeVries, making him rather powerful and important to everyone other than his masters. So I set out to build a suitably ostentatious model for such a character. Take a look:

The model’s a rather easy kitbash making use of Cadian parts, an Empire Knight’s breastplate and a particularly great head from the WFB Empire Battle Wizard kit: While I think the kit is full of missed opportunities – especially when it comes to the bodies – some of the bitz are simply amazing — this head among them. As you can see, the Majordomo carries a tome of treasured secrets — maybe the travel routes through the warp jealously guarded by House DeVries? Or maybe the genealogic charts of the house?

You may also have noticed the withered claw clutching the book, and there’s a story behind that: In my imagination, while only “pure blooded” children of Navigators will become functional Navigators themselves, I like the idea that the members of House DeVries are known for their voracious “appetites”, really “sowing their wild oats”, so to speak. Now my idea is that House DeVries tends to use the many, many bastards produced by members of the house as household guards, retainers, menials and what have you. Now what if the Majordomo is not pureblooded enough to have been born a Navigator, but very much pureblooded enough to share in some of the deformities of the more exalted members of the house?

In order to represent the fact that he is wielding a portion of his masters’ influence, the Majordomo carries a staff of office crowned by a stylised warp eye:

The staff was constructed by combining a Sanguinary Guard axe haft, a part of the Chaos Terminator Sorcerer’s staff and a piece of Space Marine bling on top ;-) Oh, and to give credit where credit is due: The use and placement of the purity seals on this model was very much inspired by MonkeyBallistic’s wonderful 30k Imperial Navy Captain. Thanks for the inspiration, mate!

In fact, after building a couple of retainers for him, even the original Navigator didn’t escape my attention, and so I added a ring to his right hand:

I really like how the ring serves as a representation of House DeVries’s wealth and creates an interesting visual counterpoint to the somewhat misshapen claw of a hand…

So here’s a look at the entire retinue so far:

Coming up with these models has been brilliant fun so far! And while the fact that I have taken lots of inspiration from weirdingway should be very obvious, I still hope that I was able to put my own spin on things!

Let me know what you think! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Today, I have a pretty huge post for you that will deal with an equally big project of mine. But what is this about? Here’s a first glimpse at this mystery project:

Now who might this be…?

The answer is that I have finally begun working on my own Chaos Knight Titan! I realise that I am rather late to this particular party, especially since I purchased the kit back when it was released, but that gave me the opportunity to collect lots and lots of inspiration for building my own chaos knight — some of the model’s that inspired me were already pointed out in my last post on the Knight model, where I also talked at length about my love for the kit.

The most important influences were definitely Jeff Tibbett’s amazingly, almost obsessively detailed thread, Skrundle87’s mutated Daemon Knight and InsanePsychopath’s Chaos Knights, among others. Each of their Knights is amazing, but even more importantly: Their threads taught me that this is a model where “good enough” is not really an option — you have to give it your all with this big guy!

Hence the model shown above, I suppose: So yeah, that sour looking guy is indeed the pilot for my own Chaos Knight: One Knight Captain Harrowthorne, to be exact. In fact, you’d be amazed by how detailed his backstory is — it was what made me purchase this kit in the first place, to be honest, and after seeing so many hobbyists building pilots for their knights, I knew there was not easy way out of this for me.

Now the obvious thing to do would have been to build a completely mutated pilot fused to its machine, right? But in keeping with the rest of my CSM force, I decided that Baron Harrowthorne would remain surprisingly untainted in body (if not in spirit). While a more detailed background will be forthcoming at some point, let me just give you the gist of it:

Harrowthorne sided with the World Eaters during the Heresy because he felt he owed them a debt of honour for the liberation of his homeworld. That honourable decision, however, cost him dearly as he became a traitor, to his own world as well as to the Imperium at large. His rivals back at home took also this chance to wipe out his entire house and its ancestral holdings, putting themselves in power.
Beside himself with grief, Harrowthorne returned to his world to seek revenge (and presumably his own death). The World Eaters accompanied him and made sure he got the revenge part, at least. Afterwards, his world lay in ruins and everything that was important to him had been destroyed — except for his honour, ironically enough — being damned by your own sense of honour is a bit of a running theme for my World Eaters, in case you hadn’t noticed… Anyway, Harrowthorne was still seething with fury at an Imperium that held a thing like personal honour in so little regard, so he kept following the 4th assault company, fighting with them during the siege of Terra, his only wish to see the world burn.

The 4th assault company made him into a honorary member of the XIIth legion, to give him a new home and band of brothers, so to speak. Ever since, he has been hunting alongside the 4th: In his opinion, all servants of the Throne of Lies deserve to die…

Anyway, here’s a closer look at the Baron:

Even though this character was what originally inspired the whole project, I hadn’t even planned on building a pilot for my Chaos Knight in the first place: Granted, there are quite a few awesome pilot and cockpit conversions floating around the net, but I just couldn’t find an approach that I was confident I could reproduce. That changed when I found the threads of Spamus and Jeromgb, both of which contain awesome ideas for kitbashing a Knight interior. While the former makes excellent use of sentinel bitz to create a very “hands on” pilot, the latter makes the most of some Space Marine Landspeeder parts.

In the end, I decided that it would be awesome if a noble like Baron Harrowthorne were to actually sit on his Throne Mechanicum with an air of authority and majesty instead of looking like a pilot from a mecha animé. I was also particularly inspired by this particular Titan princeps. Plus I have this picture in the back of my head of Harrowthorne laying waste to an entire Imperial army, and then the last thing his opponents see is a transmission of his gaunt, utterly emotionless face when he tells them, in a deadly calm voice: “Pray to your false Emperor. Perhaps he may yet save you.” before cutting contact and obliterating them.

The model itself consists of half the cockpit section of a Space Marine Landspeeder, while the Baron was built using a mix of Cadian and Tempestus Scion bitz. The legs came from the kneeling pair of legs from the Eisenkern Stormtroopers which were perfect to achieve the sitting pose. The head is from one of the Forgeworld Legion Praetors.

Here’s the first, very early mockup I made of the Baron inside the cockpit:

But more about that particular part of the model later in this post…

While Harrowthorne himself may have been the catalyst for this whole project, the next step was to actually deal with the huge, walking deathmachine piloted by him. So let us take a closer look at the part you’re probably most interested in: the actual Knight model.

I started by assembling the general parts of the kit as per the instruction, already adding the first “chaotic” touches along the way:

After spending quite a bit of time with the Imperial Knight kit, here are my two most important observations:

1. The kit itself is extremely well planned and the instructions are extremely well done as well, making sure the kit goes together remarkably easily, especially for such a monster of a model!

2. However, due to both the various modifications I am planning and the planned way of painting this thing, working on the model can get a little frustraing, because I just cannot glue the bigger sub-assemblies together just yet, and a model of this size is nearly impossible to temporarily tack together with modeling putty: You sometimes have a minute at most, before the separate sub-assemblies start pulling themselves apart under the combined influence of gravity and the hateful, spiteful machine ghost that doubtlessly already sleeps withing the god machine…

As you can see, the top of the carapace now sports several trophy racks, which makes for a silhouette that is instantly recognisable as chaotic. At the same time, going for several smaller trophy poles like this seems more practical than adding that enormous chaos icon from the warshrine, as several people have done.

Speaking of the warshrine, many people have used it to great effect on their chaos knight conversions, although I’ve only ever seen the huge, stylised daemon face used either on top of the upper carapace or, in one noteable instance, as a decoration for the knight’s shoulder pad. I knew from the start that I wanted to use it as a breastplate, and while working on this part of the model, I realised that, adding the lower half of a standard from the Ogre Kingdom’s Ironbreakers creates something looking like a complete daemon face, if seen from the right angle:

I am seriously happy with that incidental idea at the moment!

Regarding the Knight’s head, I realise that the skull face plate seems like a bit of a no brainer for a Khornate Knight, but the longer I thought about it, the more it felt like the slightly more sinister of the two knightly faceplates might actually be a better choice for a disillusioned fallen hero of the Imperium like Baron Harrowthorne…

I also started adding various armour plates to the legs, using both stock parts from the Knight kit (with some added spiky bitz) as well as armour plates from different kits (Ogre gut plates and fiend armour plates, mostly):

The main issue here was the position of the thigh armour: The fiend armour plates I used fit the Knight legs beautifully…right up to the point were I added the leg pistons and attached the legs to the pelvis, which seriously messed with their arrangement. So I buckled up and shaved off quite a bit of the armour plates. They now fit much better, I think:

As you can see, I also cut off the lower part of the “crotch plate”, because I wanted the slightly chaotic decoration on the exchanged banner to be visible.

Then I began assembling the Knight’s chainsword arm. While this may be disappointing to some of you, I’ll definitely stick with the standard weaponry that comes with the kit because the combination of a cannon of some sort and a huge chainsword is such an iconic part of Knight Titans for me. That said, both arms will of course get decorations to make them look more chaotic. Oh, and let me also add that the construction of those arms is extremely clever, making them very poseable and easily attachable to the model without a drop of glue!

Afterwards, the next step was to add a couple of details, so I broke out the etched brass and spiky bitz. Here’s the Knight as it stands right now:

The most noticeable addition is the use of the etched brass symbols: A small Khorne rune for the face plate, a World Eaters legion badge for the heraldic tilting plate and a bigger Khornate symbol for the hatch leading to the cockpit:

I also worked on the left shoulder pad. Here’s what it looks like now:

So, with the Knight himself coming along rather nicely, I was free to take a closer look at the model’s hollow interior and tackle what has been the most fiddly part of this project so far: the actual cockpit.

Thanks to a bitz donation from fellow hobbyist Belphoebe that arrived earlier this week, I was finally able to start working on this part of the model. And while it felt like I was getting nowhere for several hours, I am now really happy with the result. Let us take a closer look and peel back the layers of the onion, so to speak:

Here’s the Knight’s torso once again:

Now let’s remove the top hatch:

Why look, it’s Baron Harrowthorne!

As you can see, the Baron is perfectly visible through the open hatch — just as planned!

Now let’s remove that carapace plate:

In front: Harrowthorne in his completely scratchbuilt cockpit. And in the back: The Knight’s engine block.

Now let me tell you one thing: The hollow interior of the Knight may seem huge at first glance, but if you’re endeavouring to add both a pilot and engine, you’ll find yourself running out of room very quickly! Figuring out where to put what was probably one of the most difficult things about this conversion!

Another look from the front:

As you can see, Harrowthorne fits in rather nicely — although it is a slightly tight fit

Now let’s take a closer look at the actual conversion work, warts and all:

The cockpit itself was mainly constructed from Land Raider parts: The floor is a shaved down Land Raider turret hatch, while the screens came from one of the inside panels from the same kit. The cockpit’s back wall was made from plasticard, and a couple of additional bitz were used to blend in the seams of the conversion.

The engine block is a cut down Land Raider engine. As you can see, the engine compartment is mostly hollow, except for a lonely support strut made from leftover sprue…

This all looks so nice and tidy now (at least for my usual, sloppy standard), but figuring out a configuration that worked almost drove me up the wall!

Here’s a look from a different perspective:

I’ve left the Baron himself removable for now, both in order to have an easier time painting him and to be able to take him out and glance lovingly at the model, every now and then ;) Here’s the cockpit without him:

A piece of sprue was glued to the floor to help position the Baron. Etched brass grating from the 40k basing set was used to detail the cockpit’s floor.

Now this part of the model was really a pain in the behind to get right, but having finished this also fills me with a real sense of achievement. I’ll gladly admit that I am standing on the shoulders of giants here, though: I’d never have been able to build this without taking inspiration from projects like Jeromgb’s and Spamus’s Knight conversions (which I linked further up in this thread) and Nicorex’ wonderful Black Templar Knight.

So, while I have liked the Knight model from the start, it’s now actually starting to feel like this could be a pretty awesome centrepiece model. Wish me luck! ;-)

One last thing I would like to share with you: Fellow Dakkanaut dantay_xv came up with an amazing idea for Barrow Harrowthorne’s background. To quote dantay himself:

The other idea I had, but again might not work would be bloody hand prints on the lower limbs and small totems or skulls at the feet of the knight like offerings or devotions

As the 4th company go to war, they walk by Harrowthornes Knight & touch a bloody hand to its armour in the hope of receiving Khorne’s blessing for a good hunt etc before going to battle.

Harrowthorne despises the men of the 4th Company for such acts of brutish superstition, but by their simple acts, his pride has been rekindled by regaining a small measure of the power he lost when honouring his debts to Angron and his World Eaters.

Like the Lord of War that the Baron is he, strides forth amongst his “charges” and reaps terror and discord on the weak and pitiful worshippers of the Corpse God.

However, the aloof-ness of the Baron, plus  the veneration which some of his men heap upon the Knight is beginning to grate on the Huntmasters nerves and some speculate that there will come a time when the 4th are called upon to go big game hunting before the Baron’s hubris becomes a threat to the Huntmasters’ rule.

 

I think this is an absolutely fantastic idea, and something that would perfectly fit my World Eaters! I may have to do one or two small adjustments in order to make the fluff fit my idea of Harrowthorne (there is no actual hubris to him, for instance, at least not when dealing with the legionaries of the 4th, and I also don’t see any emnity between him and Lord Captain Lorimar), but I’ll definitely adopt this overall concept into the “official” lore of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt

So yeah, so much for my rather obsessive work on the Chaos Knight so far. I would love to hear any feedback you might have! I have to give you fair warning here, though: I’ll only ever realistically build one of these beasts, so I will definitely take my sweet time with this! I cannot guarantee that this project will get finished quickly — so bear with me here, okay?

In any case, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Work on my Chaos Knight continues apace: I have finally started to build the model’s second arm, and have also added some additional bitz and bobs here and there. The Knight is now rapidly approaching completion, and I think it shows:

What I really like about the model right now is that, while it’s still clearly identifiable as a Knight Titan, the various chaotic details and added armour have managed to alter the model’s silhouette quite a bit. Let’s have a look at a couple of different angles:

As you can see in the pictures below, the braziers from the warshrine kit were added to the Knight’s back:

I would have loved to use these to replace (or complement) the Knight’s regular exhausts, but that would have rendered the top carapace plate impossible to take off, and I really wanted to keep it flexible (so one can take a closer look at Baron Harrowthorne in his cockpit and the engine block). So the only compromise left to me was to add them to the Knight’s back at an angle that wouldn’t interfere with the carapace. That said, I don’t actually see them as braziers so much, but rather as extra exhausts that are there to vent some heat/warp energy/whatever when the Knight goes into overdrive mode.

As you can see in the pictures, I also added some bitz to the right shoulder pad at last. While the left one already sports a huge icon of Khorne, I want to use a World Eaters decal on the right one:

Of course this means that whatever I wanted to add to the pad at this point must not interfere with the position of the decal, which complicated things a bit. I tacked some spikes in the area surrounding the space where the decal will be:

Since I rather liked the effect, the spikes have already been glued to the shoulder pad:

I may still add some additional detail on top of the decal at some point — a chain of dangling skull trophies, for example. However, I will only be able to sort this out once the model has been painted.

I also realised by sheer coincidence that the standard from the Ogre Mournfang Cavalry would actually make a pretty cool banner for the Knight:

That hole at the centre of the carapace certainly looks like it was intended for something like this!  One thing I will need to do, however, is to add some kind of chaos icon to the top of the banner in order to give it a more distinct visual footprint when seen from the front:

I am not sure whether I like this element enough to make it a permanent addition to the model, but it might be a fun optional bit, to be added whenever I feel like it? We’ll see…

All those small additions notwithstanding, I am very aware that there’s a danger of overcluttering the model which would make it lose visual coherency. Therefore, I will try to restrain myself and only add a couple of bitz to the weapon arms in order to tie them together with the rest of the model. And then it’s time to call this conversion finished and get this big boy painted, I guess – a prospect that fills me with equal parts anticipation and dread, to be honest…

One thing I realised is how this model – and the last two years in the hobby, really – have changed my outlook on conversion projects, especially when it comes to big models:

When I got back into the hobby in 2010, I was mostly used to working with regular, infantry sized models. A Terminator seemed huge to me back then, and I remember that converting and painting my first Dreadnought seemed like an enormous undertaking. Then came a Defiler, a Basilisk, a Heldrake, the Wargrinder, and, lastly, the Knight, and without even noticing it, I grew more and more comfortable working with bigger models.

Now when I recently picked up a Black Reach Dreadnought in an ebay auction, I realised that it took me about fifteen minutes of messing around with a couple of bitz to produce something that would have taken me ages to complete a couple of years ago:

Now this guy is very, very WIP at the moment, and none of this has been glued together yet. In fact, I am not even sure whether the completed Dread will end up looking like this or completely different. I am just showing it to you to illustrate my point: That things that used to feel like the absolute pinnacle of my hobby achievements can now be accomplished in a short break between working on bigger things — a pretty cool feeling, actually ;-)

So, I would be very interested in hearing any feedback on my Chaos Knight you might have! Just drop me a comment!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

EDIT: David Grundy raised an excellent point in the comments about the “white space” above the Knight’s head, created by the too clean armour plate. I started working on that area right away, using some leftover parts from the warhshrine kit. Take a look:

Not only does the armour plate appear less empty and clean now, but the decoration also repeats a visual element that already appears on the model (on the shoulder pads, to be precise). Cheers for pointing this out, David! Hope you like the solution! ;)

So, another small update today: Having converted that big Chaos Knight model, I thought I’d work on something a tad smaller in order to relax a bit. So I went back to a couple of models I had built earlier, making an addition here and there and touching them up a bit. Today, I’d like to show you two of those models that share quite a few characteristics: Both are Chaos Lords in Terminator armour, both share quite a few common bitz and both are wielding pretty huge hammers — hence the title of this post. So, let’s take a closer look:
First up, an Iron Warriors Warsmith I converted a rather long time ago (back when Warsmiths were still a thing and Warpsmiths did not yet exist). Here’s the old version of the model:

This guy was based on the stock Chaos Lord in Terminator armour, obviously, with a couple of custom additions: My idea was to add a few touches that would make the Lord’s allegiance to the Iron Warriors obvious. Among those touches was a huge hammer, built by combining the staff that comes with the Chaos Lord kit and a hammer head from the Ogre Kingdom’s Ironbreakers: My idea was that the stone at the centre of the hammer head had been taken from some fortress razed by the Warsmith — maybe even from the Imperial Palace on Terra?

The other slightly eclectic choice was to add a Dark Eldar Talos claw to the model’s right arm: Though the sinister, augmetic look was rather nice, the hand did end up looking a bit too big…

Anyway, when I recently came across the model, I realised that both of those ideas had been pretty cool, but that I could do better, replacing those slightly eclectic elements with bitz that would keep the overall look but fit the model better. So here’s the touched up model for you:

The Talos claw was replaced with a very cool power claw from the Raptor kit. It may be ever so slightly less sinister, but the proportions seem far more plausible now! The new hammer head came from the Dragon Ogres, and while the weapon still looks like its head could have been cut from the remains of a razed fortress, I think the weapon is now far more befitting a commander of the IV legion.

All in all, the model seems like a more seamless kitbash now, and I am rather happy with that — I should probably make some time for getting this chap painted, come to think of it…

The second model isn’t quite as old: Some of you might remember my attempt to build a model wearing armour inspired by Mk 1 Tactical Dreadnought Armour earlier this year. Here’s the model that came from that attempt:

When we last saw this guy, quite a few parts of him were still provisionally tacked together with modelling putty. I also wasn’t perfectly sure about the weapon in his right hand.

Anyway, I am really happy to say that I have finally sorted out the last few rough patches on the model and can present the mostly finished conversion to you today. Take a look:

I do of course realise that the armour does not perfectly represent Mk 1 armour, but I still think the sloped shoulder pads serve as a very strong callback to that particular design. In any case, I just wanted to make this armour look like an ancient, artificer crafted piece of equipment, a true relic from the earliest days of the Great Crusade.

Beyond the shoulder pads, I tried to incorporate several elements recalling older armour marks, such as the crest of horse hair atop the armour (a callback to the older Cataphractii artwork). I also built a weapon system resembling that seen on the Talon of Horus for the left hand — basically for the heck of it, to tell you the truth, but also because I like the idea that an immensely old and valuable suit of warplate such as this would feature equally impressive integrated weapons.

Oh, and you will have realised that the DA maul has been replaced with a Space Wolves thunder hammer: My reasoning behind this is that the stylised wolf head on the weapon would work equally well as a representation of the War Hounds, the original identity of the XII legion. So the hammer is an ancient relic of the legion as well, predating its name change and descent into madness.

I also worked on the model’s back quite a bit, using a shaved down old CSM backpack in order to make the armour’s back resemble the reactor section that can be seen on FW’s Cataphractii models:

It has taken a very long time to finish this model, but I am really happy with the result: I imagine this guy to be Lord Captain Lorimar’s taciturn bodyguard, called “The Doomwall”. I actually already have quite a bit of backstory for this guy in the back of my head, but all in its good time. For now, I am more than happy with the hulking, implacable look I have managed to create on the model!
Here are both models next to each other:

Even though both are based on the same model, I think I have managed to make them look reasonably different, don’t you think?

Anyway, working on these has been rather refreshing after working on that huge Knight model ;)

Feel free to let me know any feedback or suggestions you might have! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Just a short – and belated – post for today, but one that is still very close to my heart: Thanks to the feedback of my fellow converters and kitbashers, I have been able to improve my recent model for the Doomwall. So here’s where we left off last time:

First up, fellow hobbyist Moltar suggested adding an ammo feed to the “Not-Talon of Horus”, and he was totally right, of course. Good thing I still had an ammo feed from an old CSM heavy bolter lying around, which made this addition a very easy one! Here’s the result:

I also realised that an earlier, tacked-together incarnation of the model had sported a shaved down chaos knight pauldron above its head as an additional cowl:

The original idea behind this was to make the head look more recessed, creating an even closer resemblance to the actual Mk 1 Terminator artwork:

When I tidied up the conversion last week, this element just fell by the wayside at first, because it seemed like there was no space for the cowl. But after a bit of deliberation, I tried to incorporate it once more. Which ended up looking like this:

I was already pretty pleased with the even more bulky, hulking look created by the cowl. But there was also a problem: The added element slightly changed the alignment of the shoulder pads, so it became more obvious that they were basically hollow if one looked at the model from straight above:

Not the biggest problem in the world, certainly, but as Moltar very succinctly pointed out:

I like the idea, but hate the hollow holes. They would eat away at my soul every time I notice them.

And while this may sound slightly overdramatic, he was totally right of course: It’s little things like these that distinguish a fairly cool model from a great one, so I realised I had to address this problem — or feel utterly defeated every time I looked at the model from the wrong angle…

Fortunately enough, help arrived from the online community once again, with Obsidian Raven making an excellent point:

To fix the issue of his pauldrons appearing hollow from the top,why not use some well-sized plasticard Rod to add visible Struts to the interior of the pauldron, so that it seems like its deliberately raised off the shoulder as part of the armour design?

With this idea in mind, I dug around the old tool shed in order to find something that would help me. And lo and behold, I came across this:

And, for some reason that probably hits at something severely wrong with my neuro-chemistry, I was immediately reminded of the support struts appearing in various pieces of Mk 1 artwork. So maybe plugging those holes in the shoulder pads would actually lead to a chance at making the armour look even more accurate?

So I cut off some short sections from the whole and glued them to the underside of the pauldrons. My hope is that, when painted silver, they will actually suggest the support structure underneath the pauldrons. Here’s what the result looks like:

As you can see, the red parts do a pretty good job of filling the empty space. Plus they could reasonably pass for some hydraulic struts hidden underneath the armour.

Now in a perfect world, I would have had this idea before the topknot had been glued in place, so I would have had the chance to build something approximating the “spine” you can see running along the back of the armour in the piece of artwork above. But maybe it’s for the best I didn’t: I really like the topknot, and it’s an element I definitely wanted to include, yet it would probably have interfered with the armour spine.

Anyway, here’s the model as it looks like now:

Of course it does look a little strange now, with those bright red parts visible on top. So here’s a greyscale image for you, to better appreciate the conversion:

Granted, fussing over minuscule details like this might seem a bit overly obsessed. But then, precisely because the model doesn’t wear perfectly accurate Mk 1 armour, it’s all the more important to get enough of the key visual cues right to make it suitably believable. And, once again, I am indebted to the great feedback I’ve received from fellow hobbyists online!

The last thing left to sort out is the hammer: Several people have pointed out that the SW runes are slightly distracting on a Khornate model, and I already have a couple of small brass Khorne runes set aside to be glued to the sides of the weapon. And after that, it’s off to the painting table for the Doomwall, I suppose.

Until then, though, feel free to share any feedback, suggestions or questions you might have! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

I realise this week’s update is late again, plus it might be slightly less substantial than I would have liked. But since I’ve been suffering from a bad back for the last two days, I wasn’t really in shape for any earth-shattering content, so all I can offer you today is a small update on my various chaos projects — I hope you won’t mind ;-)

So anyway, let’s take a look at what’s on my desk right now:

I. Hey, it’s that guy again…

This will be our last look at the unpainted model for the Doomwall, promise ;) I added some chaotic decoration to his warhammer, and with that the model is finished:

Like I said before, I am super happy with how this model turned out, and I will hopefully start painting this big guy as soon as my back stops acting up!

II. Red Butcher

While I was working on a Terminator model anyway, I took the chance to also revisit another model in TDA: You may remember the two Red Butchers I purchased a while ago. One became a character named Raas the Butcher:

And the other one looked like this when we last saw him:

However, there was a problem with this guy: I want all of the Terminators in Captain Lorimar’s retinue to be fairly unique characters. And this guy shared exactly the same face mask as Raas the Butcher above — actually one of my main gripes with the Red Butchers in the first place! What’s more, in this case the mask really seemed to work against the model’s overall pose, leading to a model that’s neither here or there composition-wise. So I carefully started cutting (and also swapped in a new arm). Here’s what the WIP looks like right now:

Both the face and arms may still be subject to change at this point, but I feel like getting rid of the original head was the right decision!

III. Knight Fever

And finally, a look at the current state of my very own Chaos Knight. As you may remember, the overall conversion was basically finished last time, so only a bit of detail work remained.

So I only made some minor changes to the prior version of the model: Thanks to a bitz drop from my buddy Biohazard, I was able to use a defiler bit as a muzzle on the Knight’s main cannon — the part is just a perfect fit for that! I also added some spikes to the gun barrel in order to make it look slightly less plain. And a chain was added to the Knight’s left greave, bringing it more in line with the pauldron on the same side.

Anyway, this is what the pretty much finished Knight looks like now:

The one thing still missing at this point are some dangling chains that I want to add to the weapons and arms, and after that, I suppose I don’t have any more excuses to put off painting this guy any longer?! Speaking of which, I am already making plans for one particular area of the paintjob, at least:

Those of you who have been following my work on this model so far might remember one particular idea supplied by fellow hobbyist dantay_XV. In his own words:

The other idea I had, but again might not work would be bloody hand prints on the lower limbs and small totems or skulls at the feet of the knight like offerings or devotions. As the 4th company go to war, they walk by Harrowthorne’s Knight & touch a bloody hand to its armour in the hope of receiving Khorne’s blessing for a good hunt etc before going to battle.

Not only did this seem like a beautifully fluffy addition to the Baron’s background, but I also began asking myself whether it would be possible to incorporate the bloody handprints on the actual model. So here’s what I did: I used a GW plastic hand trophy (from the old Night Goblin kit, if memory serves) and made a simple press mold from it, using GS. The two hands were made, using more GS. And these were then coated with Tamiya Clear Red to be used as some kind of “stamp”, so to speak:

So far, my attempts at creating the “bloody handprint” effect have been limited to paper, though. Here are the first results:

As you can see, while some of the handprints do look pretty convincing, I am not yet able to make sure that this effect works 100% of the time. So I’ll need to work on the process a bit, in order to make sure it’s more or less foolproof, lest I ruin a very expensive model. But the results so far definitely merit some further exploration, don’t you think?

IV. A new home for the XIIth

And finally, a shout out to a thread you might find interesting: All those of you who either contemplate starting their own World Eaters force or who already are commanders of the Eaters of Worlds (both in their Heresy and post-Heresy incarnations), let me just point you towards a little community topic recently started over at The Bolter and Chainsword by renowned Skull Championess Flint13, with a little support from some other blood crazy maniacs, including yours truly:

The World Eaters players over there are having a little roll call to assemble all the various companies and warbands of our glorious legion, and we are hoping this topic can become a new home for the forumites at B&C for discussing topics relevant for our great legion, as well as a way of assembling the full might of the XIIth. So whether you want to join the ranks of the World Eaters, already own a warband or are just looking for some inspiration, it’s all in good fun, so head over there and go take a look:

And with that, our little emergency update is complete. Wish me a speedy recovery, people ;-) And feel free to let me hear any feedback you might have.

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Kitbashing seems to be my most productive hobby activity at the moment: While converting plastic models has been my favourite part of the hobby for a long time, I seem to have worked myself into a bit of a kitbashing frenzy right now, using my work on various conversions as a means to relax. This might be a disappointment to those of you who would like to see some painted plastic on this blog, for a change — I can merely ask you to bear with me here: I will get around to doing some painting eventually, promise ;)

In the meantime, I do have to show a number of new kitbashes to show you: Three wildly different projects from opposite ends of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, so to speak. Here we go:

1. Golden Boys

Granted, it has been some time since we last heard of my kitbashed Legio Custodes army — but the project is far from dead, I assure you! By way of proof, let me show you two (fairly) recent kitbashes I made for this project:

First of, a conversion I am extremely happy with: Meet Constantin Valdor, Chief-Custodian and Captain General of the Legio Custodes:

Even though it’s only a Space Marine based kitbash, I believe most of the visual cues are there to make the model a reasonable approximation of the artwork for Valdor. While most conversions have him running forward, however, this one is clearly more static, resembling his appearance in this piece of artwork.

As you can see, most of the bitz for the conversion came from the Sternguard kit, which is basically your go-to source when it comes to building ostentatious looking Marine characters. The kit has also given me the chance to touch up a couple of earlier conversions, among them one of the Marines for my squad in various marks of power armour. Here’s the old version of the model in question:

I think we can all agree that the legs on this guy were a little iffy. Fortunately, one of the beautiful leg pairs from the Sternguard kit allowed me to give this guy a bit more presence. Take a look:

The model now looks quite a bit more massive than before, which I think is a rather nice fit for the slightly clunky, archaic looking armour on the upper body.

So here are the two models together:

My small Custodes project may be far from finished, but it’s a great little sandbox I can always return to in order to tinker away on a model or two for a while. It also helps me get the urge to build blinged-out loyalists out of my system, which is a great help when I need to stay focused on my more chaotic projects ;)

2. Lord of the Fallen

Next up, a very recent kitbash: Last Sunday evening, I sat down and converted my own version of Cypher, apropos of nothing. I didn’t even need the model from a gameplay perspective, mind you: I just felt that Cypher had been a staple of the CSM background for so long that I needed to build my own version. Here it is:

As you can see, the conversion was based on the model for Interrogator Chaplain Seraphicus from the Dark Vengeance limited edition set I purchased back in 2012. It did feel kind of sacrilegious to cut apart a limited edition model like this, to be honest, but I figured it wouldn’t do any good to leave the model lying around for another two years — plus I will need those lovely smokestacks from Seraphicus’s backpack when I eventually convert the 4th assault company’s Apothecary, so that made the decision a bit easier ;) What’s more, fellow hobbyist and Skull-Championess Flint13 pointed out that desecrating an Interrogator Chaplain by converting him into the Dark Angels’ worst enemy was strangely fitting, in a way…

Beyond those considerations, the conversion is fairly straightforward from a structural perspective, which gave me the liberty of lavishing some extra work on a couple of small details: I originally considered having him in a more static pose, with the arms held down. But when it came to building the model, I just couldn’t resist spacing his arms as far apart as I did, making it look like he’s covering a huge area with his shots — it’s just the way I imagine him in the midst of battle, guns blazing, and it works for me. I also obsessed over which pistols to use for the conversion for quite a while (and I am really happy with my eventual choice). And I spent far more work on that backpack than I would care to admit…

3.  A daemonic gladiator

And finally, as if to prove that I haven’t forgotten my World Eaters, a very early WIP I am currently working on:
I have gone on record saying that I am not a huge fan of the fairly underwhelming plastic Daemon Prince kit. In fact, I kitbashed my first own Daemon Prince at one point, partly out of a desire to avoid having to use the “official” model. But as karma would have it, I did still have a mostly complete Daemon Prince kit lying around, and I felt the urge to challenge myself with trying to come up with a version of the model that fits the gladiatorial look and feel of the World Eaters more closely, while trying to dial back some of the cartoon villain look. Here’s the result:

The model’s nowhere near finished, of course: What you see above was only started yesterday afternoon, but I think I may be on to something here…?

Anyway, so far for my current kitbashes — they really serve as a great way to relax for me, funnily enough, and as the one part of the hobby that I never seem to tire of.

So, let me know whatever feedback or suggestions you might have in the comments! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

You might feel inclined to call my scheduling slightly scattershot – and you’d be right – but I already have an update to my last post, further eloborating on each of the respective conversion projects, and I simply want to share the results with you, so let’s take a look: ;)

1. Custodes

Certainly the smallest of the updates, but even after showing you this Custodian in archaic power armour…

…I just couldn’t stop myself from tweaking the kitbash even further. The photo above made me realise that the model’s waist seemed rather waspish, for one, so I tried bulking it out a little:

I used some leftover Terminator armour plates for this task, and I have to say I rather like the added bulk! And while I was added, I could not resist replacing the left shoulder pad with a studded one from the Sternguard kit, mirroring the studded leg armour on that side — in fact, I should probably have done this from the get go!

Just some small changes, admittedly, but they help me homing in on what I want the finished model to look like!

2. More Fallen Angels

I should have known before that converting my own version of Cypher wouldn’t be the actual end of this particular project. As a matter of fact, it only took a small remark from fellow hobbyist ghosty over on Dakka to provide me with the urge to kitbash some additional Fallen Angels — stupid hobby ADD!

Fortunately enough, I still did have quite a few DA bitz as well as some leftover Dark Angels from the Dark Vengeance boxed set lying around, so indulging my fancy was really easy enough ;)

So I built two test models for a small squad (or Kill Team) of Fallen Angels. Take a look:

This first model was built from the DA Sergeant that came with Dark Vengeance. I simply replaced his weapons and head and added some additional bitz and bobs.

The second model was mainly a kitbash from different Space Marine bitz with a chaos bit or two thrown into the mix:

One thing that was important to me was that these guys’ allegiance was supposed to be somewhat ambiguous. Yes, they are more ragged and more sinister than your average Dark Angel, but even if they are followers of chaos at this point, it’s out of necessity rather than conviction. That’s why I restrained myself when it came to adding chaotic and spiky bitz. They’ll also fit together nicely with my Cypher conversion, I believe.

I also started working on a Fallen in Terminator armour to accompany these guys. Once again, instead of going for straight out chaotic spikyness, I tried to achieve the brooding, sinister look you see in some of GW’s own artwork for Fallen Angels, with only some slightly heretical touches here and there…

Granted, the huge daemon sword is a bit of a giveaway, but again, I like the idea that this is a weapon that the Fallen picked up by necessity rather than inclination. I also have to admit that the helmet remains a bit of an experiment at this point — feel free to let me know what you think!

Here are all of my Fallen together:

3.  World Eaters Daemon Prince

Some more work went into my World Eaters Daemon Prince, in order to tidy up the conversion a bit.

The main addition is a tangle of Butcher’s Nails implants on the model’s back:

I am pretty happy with how that turned out!

my original plan for the huge collar the Daemon Prince wore in the previous post was to place it around the model’s neck and have it rest atop the crest of cables — but that didn’t end up looking quite as cool as I had hoped. So I tried a slightly different approach, halving the collar and using it almost like a heretical version of the Space Marines’ Iron Halo:

One last thing I did was to try adding the wings from the Daemon Prince kit. I wasn’t even sure whether I wanted to add any wings to this guy, to be honest, but I at least wanted to find out how the model would look with them:

And to be perfectly honest with you, I really rather like the bulk and presence they add to the model — what do you think?

So yeah, those are the three kitbashing projects that have kept me occupied this weekend. I would love to hear any feedback you might have! Oh, and a warning in advance: The next update might be slightly late for work related reasons, so use this one to tide you over until then, alright? ;)

In any case, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Right, let me start by apologising for missing an update last week. Truth be told, I am just a bit burned out on blogging at the moment, sometimes struggling to come up with a post I consider up to my quality standards — whatever those may be ;) While I could probably merrily kitbash new models all day, it’s sometimes a challenge to actually sit down and write about them as well, but at the same time, I feel I want the posts on this blog to at least have a certain substance to them. Maybe I just need my own Remembrancer to chronicle my hobby work?

Anyway, to make a long story short: Don’t fret if the updating schedule gets a little scattershot for a while — I don’t want this to feel like work, but rather like a fun activity, and if missing a weekly update or two is what it takes to prevent this blog from turning into yet another deadline I have to meet, then that’s the way it’s got to be.

So, with that out of the way, let’s move on to more interesting topics, because I do in fact have something new to show you:

It’s been quite a while since I last posted anything related to the world of INQ28, so I think it’s high time I changed that. So let me share the progress on some of my INQ28 projects with you today.

I. Finally — paint!

Let’s start with something we haven’t seen in a while: Some actually painted models — yay! ;)

First up, a model I already posted on this blog a while ago: A servitor/savant model that will be used as a painter in my planned mini-diorama of an Imperial Lord Militant having his portrait painted. See the original story here.

As you can see, the base model in this case was an older GW Savant model — which is easily one of my favourite Inquisitorial models. Unfortunately, the model’s face suffered from a rather serious miscast that I had to repair by adding a bionic eye. However, since the model came pre-undercoated, I only learned precisely how damaged the face was during painting. I did my best to return some of the lost detail through the deft appliance of washes and highlights, but there was only so much I could do.

One thing I am really happy with is the writing on the parchment: This was achieved by carefully applying a decal from the (very nice) Sisters of Battle decal sheet.

Oh, and the model’s base was left completely bare for now, seeing how the model will ultimately become a part of the aforementioned mini-diorama, so before I do anything with the base, I will first need to work out a recipe for the diorama’s “floor”.

The other model I managed to paint is a Sanctioned Psyker that I started working on a rather long time ago. For some reason, the model took me ages to paint, but it’s finally finished now:

Not award winning material, certainly, but I am rather fond of this guy, to be honest: I wanted him to look like a professional soldier, and I think it worked. No transhuman demi-god in baroque armour for once, just a guy doing his job — while the entire rest of his regiment hates him for being an abomination, no less ;)

While I don’t yet have a perfectly worked out background for this character, the rusty and dilapidated stuff on his base shows that he will most likely end up in Inquisitor Alvar’s retinue: My current idea is that the Sanctioned Psyker assisted Alvar during a mission to investigate a Xenos artifact, and seeing a) how much the man was subjected to the disgust and fear of his fellow Guardsmen and b) how much of an asset he could be, Alvar decided to requisition him for his retinue.

II. A man and his bird

Next up, an idea I copied from a fellow hobbyist’s thread: I used a leftover eagle from Inquisitor Coteaz to build a familiar/objective marker. A simple but rather effective idea:

Following hot on the eagle’s heels is just the guy who would be using an ostentatious familar like this: An Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor I’ve already posted on this thread several times. Even though the model was basically finished last time, I just kept coming back to it for another round of detailing:

It has taken several touchups to get to this point, but with the last bitz in place, the model now finally has the presence and ostentatiousness I was going for. You may call me silly, but I think the flowing purity seals (mostly taken from the Imperial Knight kit) and new belt buckle (from the Space Marine Centurions) really make a world of difference.

Oh, and since Michael LeBaron requested a parts breakdown for this particular conversion, here it is:

• head: Dark Angels Ravenwing sprue (old)
• torso: Space Marines command squad torso with an Inquisitorial symbol shaved off Inquisitor Coteaz’ codpiece (no, really!) added on top
• left arm: Sanguinary Guard arm with an IG flamer muzzle. The shoulder pad came from the WFB Chaos Knights
• right arm: a regular CSM arm with the Grey Knight Terminator Justicar’s sword. The pauldron is a radar dish from the Space Marine vehicle sprue, IIRC
• legs: WFB Warriors of Chaos, with lots and lots of purity seals added on top. Like I said, most came from the Imperial Knight kit, while the belt buckle came from the Centurions
• odds and ends: part of a tabard from the WFB Chaos Lord on Manticore was used as a half cape across the model’s back. The shield came from the GK Nemesis Dreadknight.

Hope this helps! :)

III. Femmes militantes

I am sure many INQ28 aficionados will agree with me that coming up with female members for Inquisitorial retinues can be a bit of a challenge, partly due to GW’s somewhat spotty record when it comes to female models. That said, making sure that there is a certain gender diversity in my warbands has become a fun little challenge, and I am happy to be able to present you WIPs for two more Femmes Militantes, if I may just borrow the name of  a particularly great and eclectic series of designs by John Blanche ;)

First up, here’s someone who would fight right into the retinue of such an imposing servant of the Ordo Hereticus: A female operative that could be used as a Crusader type or even an Interrogator:

The model is based on a – severely damaged – Sister of Battle PDH let me have as part of a rather impressive bitz drop (come to think of it, this is already the second time Peter gave me a model missing its lower legs — maybe there’s a story behind that… ;) ). I provided the lady with some new feet (courtesy of a Dark Eldar model) and a new head (from the Wood Elves Glade Guard). I think she would really work as an associate of the Hereticus Inquisitor above. And I have a feeling that she would look really dashing in crimson armour — we will see…

And, last but definitely not least, a little project made possible by a donation: A while ago, fellow hobbyist Steifer let me have two of his very nice female sculpts for experimentation purposes (that did sound pretty weird, come to think of it…):

So far, this is what I have come up with for the first of them:

As you can see, I have given the – very nice – base model some arms and a head of hair. I actually took a stab at sculpting the hair myself, thanks to some gentle nudging from DexterKong. While it’s far from a spectacular effort, I am reasonably happy with the result:

As for the model’s background, I see her as a professional assassin specialised on working from within Imperial high society — like a grimdark Femme Nikita, if you will ;) The model is still WIP at the moment, of course, but I think I may be on to something here!

So, as you can see, I am not dead — and neither are my INQ28 projects! As always, I’d be happy to hear any feedback and suggestions you might have! Thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

I almost feel bad for making you look at yet more unpainted plastic, but what can I say: Kitbashing’s just my favourite hobby activity, and certainly the most productive one right now! So let me share my latest chaotic projects, some of them further iterations of conversions you’ve seen before, some entirely new models. Step this way to my lab:

I. An Angel revisited

Some time ago, I showed you a couple of Fallen Angels I had kitbashed to accompany my Cypher conversion. The last of these was a champion in Terminator armour, and I have added some finishing touches to the model since you last saw it:

As you can see, I added a couple of bitz in order to make the armour look even more ostentatious, among them a heraldic shield and something resembling an Iron Halo (but also strangely close to a chaos star…). The main change to the model, however, was the head: While the helmet still sports a sword, I swapped in a far smaller blade that better fits the facemask, in my opinion:

All in all, I wanted this model to look like a brooding black knight figure, and I think I can consider that mission accomplished, don’t you think?

II. An Avatar of the Blood God

From the abiguously fallen to the downright chaotic: I also put the finishing conversion touches on my gladiatorial daemon prince. Take a look:

Most of the work left to do was gap filling and cleaning up the conversion. I did spend quite some time on the daemon’s belt, though, because I wanted to add some armour plates and skulls in order to camouflage the somewhat wonky connection between the torso and legs as well as, well, the daemon’s bare butt cheeks…

I am really very happy with this model, especially since I wasn’t really sold on the stock Daemon Prince kit as all — but now, I think that the kit can really be reworked into something rather cool with a  bit of thought and an influx of suitable bitz!. I’ll also likely keep the wings, because I like the added bulk and presence they create — plus I already have a wingless daemon prince, so having both options in my collection seems like the sensible approach here.

III. An Apothecary…and how to deal with collateral damage

Those of you who have been following this blog for any measure of time will know that I love building new characters for Khorne’s Eternal Hunt. And I like coming up with models that work both as a character as well as a special unit type — even in those cases where it doesn’t even make that much of a difference from a rules perspective.

Case in point, my recent project to convert the 4th assault company’s Apothecary: Sure, Apothecaries cannot be used in CSM armies, but I’ve had a couple of ideas regarding this character’s background for a long time, and I think an Apothecary would be instrumental to the 4th assault company’s attempt at keeping corruption and madness at bay.

Those tasks fall to Brother Dumah, Keeper of the Seed and Chooser of the Slain. And now I have finally converted a character to represent Dumah:

Dumah was created by combining the upper half of a Ravenwing biker sergeant from Dark Vengeance with the legs from a CSM Chosen from the same kit. I wanted Dumah to wear a robe, both as a sign of office as well as an element resembling a slightly sinister, Grim Reaper like figure, and this particular combination of parts allowed me to create the intended effect. The left arm with the Narthecium gauntlet came from the same Chosen, with the tools from a GK Terminator Apothecary added to the powerfist (a surprisingly good fit!). The left arm came from a different Chosen model (I really went all out on this guy), with a spear from the WFB plastic Chaos Lord. I’ll admit the spear was a bit of an experiment: The first idea was to give Dumah a scythe (for an even more Grim Reaper like look), but that didn’t really work all that well. I did want a weapon with a longer handle, and his epithet “Chooser of the Slain” made me think of the mythologic character that goes by the same name: Valkyries. Hence the spear.

The various vials and doodads were carefully cut off a Space Marine Apothecary’s torso and added to the model, and two icons of Khorne were used as additional decoration. The backpack came from the Chosen yet again, with the incense burners from the limited edition Interrogator Chaplain Seraphicus added on top — it just seemed right to me ;)

All in all, while Dumah turned out quite different from what I had originally imagined, and while it was a rather fiddly conversion at first, I am still immensely happy with the outcome: Dumah can certainly hold his own against his fellow Huntmasters from a coolness perspective, and I think he has a focused, slightly sinister look that perfectly fits my idea of his character. Come to think of it, he could probably be used as my own version of Fabius Bile, don’t you think?

In an awesome turn of events, the conversion inspired fellow hobbyist Hruotland over on Dakka to post a small piece of background about World Eaters Apothecaries. Check it out:

The battle tide was ebbing for a while. In the distance the mortars were still thundering, their rythmic bass accentuated by the staccato of rapid-fire. Like lost souls, the high-pitched artillery artillery grenades screamed. The rustle of the brazen forest, the fiery rain on the scarlet fields. One of his more introverted squadmates had once written a sonnet about it in the long silent hours of the Between, while the battle barge plunged the void from one hunting ground to the next.

On this side of the battle fields there was another such a moment between. Maybe that was the reason his thoughts went this direction, Zighurt mused. The fury in his veins had ebbed now, like the battle around him. Soon it would rise again, and he would be on the hunt once more, drowning the world in a tide of crimson and fire.

In the clearing before him there was a small spring. Somehow it had evaded the flood of body liquids and intestines turning the ashen soil into black mud everywhere else. After a short lookaround Zighurd knelt down and took off the horned helmet, Carefully he laid his trusted chainsword beside him, then he formed a cup out of his gloved hands and ladled some of the water. Even the enhanced and blessed body of a khornate marine had it’s needs, had to fuel up in order to burn in rage. Zhigurd took another sip -

The tip of a spear,thrown from behind, protruded from his chest. Zhigurd looked down in wonder. Then came the pain.

Slowly the now liveless carcass tilted forward, his tribute to his god spiraling into the depths of the pond, Already the water had turned to pink. From the shady glen another marine emerged, also bearing the mark of the World Eaters. His boot came down on Zighurds back, then with a decisive pull he retrieved his spear.

Hagen looked down on his prey. “The hunt never ends, Zighurd. Khorne WILL have your offering, He will not allow you to diminish it by dwindling away!” This was the way of the hunt. The predator would rise in it’s terrible glory, gathering strength and cunningness, until it was on the zenith. Then inevitably would come the moment of weakness. The former king would fall, would turn prey to it’s rivals, maybe end on the antlers of a not-so-easy kill or just find out there was always a mightier raptor. A good hunter would spare the glorious ones the humilation of the decline.

Hagens glovesaw screamed, as he took the legion’s toll, then what belonged to his grim God. “Blood for the Blood God” the Apothecarius intoned, dipping his index into the hole he had driven into Zhigurds power armor. “Skulls for the Skull Throne!” he completed the invocation, while he drove his spear into the detached head of his former comrade. Without looking back he walked away, his macabre trophy staring into the skies from broken eyes.

Now while my own ideas for Dumah are somewhat different, I still thought this a great read and wanted to share this with you. Thanks a lot, Hruotland!
One problem about the model was that it made me end up with two badly cut up Chosen models as “collateral damage”. Never one to pass up an opportunity for kitbashing, however, I started working on those two fallen soldiers, breathing new life into them:

The first one received some new arms and a new head and will probably become a Chosen of Khorne, a Skull Champion or something similar:

I am not quite sure regarding the head yet, so I also tried a helmeted version:

As you should know, I am a huge fan of shoutly bald guys in my army, but I also like the “faceless killer” look created by the second helmet — which version do you prefer?

For the other damaged Chosen, I was feeling a little more adventurous, plus some desparate measures were in order, seeing how the model was missing its lower half. So I combined the Chosen upper body with a pair of legs from the WFB warshrine priest and added some bitz in order to create a Nurglite sorcerer. Take a look:

As you can see, the right hand was replaced in order to make it look like the sorcerer was just channeling his psionic powers. I also gave him a staff — and then couldn’t resist turning it into a hideous, semi-organic scythe — after all, this is Nurgle we are talking about ;)

This model is a personal favourite of mine at the moment, because it really started out as a happy accident: Combining the body and legs was just me messing around, but I am really happy with the result.

This guy will probably be painted to fit in with my squad of Plague Marines:

I think he’ll make a great leader for them!

IV. A Lone Wolf

And finally, one last kitbash that just came together rather organically one evening after work: A champion for my traitorous Space Wolves, making rather heavy use of bitz from the WFB chaos catalogue:

I have told you time and time again that kitbashing is my favourite part of the hobby, and I suppose this is because it’s such a versatile activity: Whether I keep coming back to a conversion I have been working on for a long time, tweaking it until everything is just so, just create something totally without planning in half an hour, or keep messing around with bitz until something just clicks, kitbashing is just perfectly relaxing to me — hence my rather huge output, I suppose…especially when compared to the models I actually manage to get painted…

Anyway, I hope you like my new chaotic kitbashes! Please let me know any suggestions or feedback you might have! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Alright, everyone: There’s quite a bit going on at the moment, so let me give you a rundown of my current projects. Most of these are chaotic in nature — in more than one sense, I suppose ;) Anyway, here goes:

1. The Call of Chaos

In a rather uncharacteristic move, I have decided to join the VIIth Call of Chaos over at The Bolter & Chainsword, vowing to paint four new units for my World Eaters before January 15th. I am using this occasion to force myself to finally get a couple of things that I really want to see finished painted, but make no mistake: I am such a huge hobby butterfly that participating in a vow like this is quite a challenge for me. There’s a very real danger of failing this thing, so if you have any fingers left, keep them crossed for me, okay?

Anyway, which models are part of my Call of Chaos vow, you ask? Well, let me walk you through them. The first two should already be known to you:

First up, I am finally going to complete the Forgefiend I built and undercoated what feels like ages ago:

Since then, the poor thing has remained completely untouched, and it’s definitely time to change that!

The next model is a character I am really looking forward to seeing finished:

“The Doomwall”, my World Eaters Terminator Lord in Mk 1-ish armour. I am still extremely happy with this conversion, and I hope I’ll be able to make the model look even cooler when painted!

But I am not limiting myself to models you already know for this challenge: I will also paint two model’s you haven’t seen yet:

First up is a Chaos Dreadnought/Helbrute that I recently converted, using the AOBR Dreadnought as a base. I wanted another Dread because I’ve built so many different interchangeable weapon arms for my existing Dreadnoughts that it only felt logical to have another model that could make use of them. Plus I really enjoy converting Dreadnoughts for some reason. Anyway, here’s the model:

It actually took me quite a while to wrap up this conversion, because the AOBR Dread is a rather limiting base model to use. I also couldn’t get too crazy with the pose, because the model needed to be flexible enough to be able to use all (or at least most) of the extra weapon arms I had built. I kept messing around with various parts, but the model just refused to come together — as it turned out, what I needed in order to finally make this Dread happen was an idea about him as a character: I needed to figure out what kind of guy he was.

In the end, I decided that he is a former Breacher Sergeant whose calling is still reflected in some elements of his ironform — the Mk. 3-ish helmet, the shield on his left arm recalling a stylised boarding shield and the melta, for example. And that was the spark of inspiration that made the whole thing happen.

One thing I am pretty happy with is the brutal looking siege claw on his left arm: The standard powerfist was just looking so boring, so I just tried adding some spiky bitz from the wheels of the WFB Chaos Chariot — and I think the result really works!

The final part of my Call of Chaos vow will be an old acquaintance, in a way. Take a look:

It should be pretty obvious who this is supposed to be, right? ;) As it happens, the model was actually built for the latest Painting/Converting contest over at Throne of Skulls: The theme of the contest was to take one of the Khornate characters from among the 40k and WFB universes and build a better/updated/reimagined version of them — and what better character to choose for that than dear old Kharn the Betrayer?

Since this is going to be a piece for the contest, above all else, I took the liberty of truescaling Kharn a bit, and I think he wears it well ;)

Oh, the head was, once again, very kindly provided by my fellow hobbyist Belphoebe, by the way. Thanks a lot, mate!

So, like I said, I’ll be trying to get these painted until January 15th. I am slightly scared. Wish me luck, boys and girls! ;)

2. The art of chaos

And while we’re still on the matter of The Bolter & Chainsword, I am supremely happy to announce that I am one of the winners of a recent challenge by fellow hobbyist Greyall. If you don’t know his thread, you should check it out right away: Greyall does incredibly detailed and intricate drawings of (Chaos) Space Marine characters in black and white, and he held a little conversion challenge where all the board members could enter one of their converted models, and Greyall would draw a number of them. I entered my conversion for Lord Captain Lorimar…

…and guess what: I am one of the chosen few. I am so happy! Especially since the competition was absolutely amazing. Definitely make sure to head over there and check out those models! Anyway, I can hardly wait to see Lorimar rendered in Greyall’s trademark style — this will be SO awesome!

3. Creeping Rot

Like I said, I am a hobby butterfly of the first order, so I couldn’t resist opening yet another can of worms…literally: You’ll probably have seen GW’s recently released Putrid Blightkings. Well, one look at the models was enough to decide that I needed a box of these, and I finally picked them up late last week.

So far, I’ve only spent a bit of time with the models due to having been super buys last week, but allow me to share some initial observations:

• the level of detail in this kit has to be seen to be believed! Seriously, those guys are every bit as spectacular as they looked in WD Weekly
• the amount of bitz you get is equally impressive: Even after building five complete models, you should have lots and lots of leftovers for the rest of your Nurglite conversion needs: The amount of heads, rusty weapons and armour plates alone is staggering!
• the kit is pretty flexible, and you’ll be getting quite a few very different looking models out of this one — however, the kit is not as flexible as many “classic” multi part plastic kits (most of the (Chaos) Space Marine range comes to mind), due to the way the models are put together. This is not a problem per se, but it does mean you’ll need to plan ahead in order to convert these guys…
• …speaking of which: (Chaos) Terminator parts will work great on these, from a size perspective.

This last point is pretty important, I think, because many people planning to use these models in 40k seem to be unsure as to their actual size: I’ve seen speculations that the Blightkings are Ogre/Ogryn-sized, and I’ve snapped a quick comparison shot for you:

As you can see, these guys are definitely NOT Ogryn-sized. In fact, they are slightly smaller than Terminators. In my opinion, that makes them useful as stand-ins for Chaos Terminators (probably what I am going to do), true scale Death Guard Marines or something of the sort.

In fact, I have made a few – very early – attempts at “40k-i-fying” the Blightkings:

Nothing huge so far, just messing around with a few 40k parts and seeing what works. A more involved conversion was trying to add a breastplate to the one Blightking in the set that normally HAS to be assembled with a bare belly:

That did take quite a bit of cutting (and the model still needs some serious gap-filling).

But those are just a few brief initial impressions — I guess you may expect a more in-depth writeup about the ins and outs of this kit at some point in the near future ;)

4. Pretty pictures

To wind up this post, let me share one more thing with you: Since messing around with pictures of my models and some image editing software turned out to be so much fun (see my last post), I gave it another try and tackled some more involved photomontages.

First up, a picture of the Hellrazor in action:

I used both Pixlr and Photoshop to create this image, and while there may be a lot of stuff that can be improved, I am still reasonably happy with the outcome.

I also found this very interesting post over at Tyler Mengel’s blog and decided I needed to try something similar. So here’s a composite picture of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt having some fun on the plains of a conquered Hive World:

Once again, both Pixlr and Photoshop were used in the creation of the image. I also found out that Pixlr is great for quickly obscuring rough areas noticeable seams between different parts of a composite picture.

Granted, I still have much to learn, but I definitely like where this is going!

Anyway, so much for my current chaotic projects. I’d love to hear any feedback you might have in the comments section! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

There I was last week, talking about my ambitious goals for this year’s Call of Chaos — and already, I have been distracted. But worry not: I am still reasonably optimistic about my ability to go through with my vow, and there’s also the fact that the new Putrid Blightkings are the kind of kit you just have to start working on right away — and I would like to show you the results of that work today:

The basic idea with these guys seems to have been to collect all the best elements and details from every cool Nurgle model and piece of artwork so far and mash them into one box of plastic crack, thereby creating a bit of a “Best Of” collection. It works surprisingly well, though, finally giving us a way to emulate the hulking, pustulent characters that have only ever appeared in the artwork so far.

When it comes to actually reviewing the kit itself, Eric Wier of Between the Bolter And Me has put together a very concise and informative piece that I can only recommend. So with the hard work of reviewing the kit already out of the way, I am free to get my hands dirty and dive right in! Before we do that, though, I’d like to add a few observations of my own (in some cases reiterating what I said in my last post):

First up, I already commented on the size of these guys, and if anything, this aspect seems to have become even more relevant since my last post: It looks like many people were planning to use the Blightkings either as Plague Ogres and/or chaos spawn, yet the scale comparison below shows that they are not all that well suited to either function:

Many people seem to be disappointed about this. And, indeed, if you are looking for a way of converting Plague Ogryns, I’d suggest looking elsewhere: It would be far easier to just get a box of Ogres or Ogryns, the mutants from the WFB Warshrine of Chaos or a couple of Blood Island Rat Ogres and convert them accordingly. Some of the weapons and armour plates from the Blightking kit might come in handy for that kind of conversion, but I don’t really see a readily apparent way of making the heads, bodies and most of the arms fit Ogryn scale — unless you’re going for vestigial and/or atrophied limbs, that is…

But in my opinion, the glass is really half full rather than half empty: We really have enough possible conversion fodder of Ogryn/chaos spawn size readily available, as it stands! The Blightkings, however, are interesting in that they provide models that would work well as alternate Plague Terminators or, and this may just be the most interesting option, true scale Plague Marines — and without much need for making them bigger or bulkier. In fact, that’s the route I’ll be taking for my own Blightkings for now.

As people are beginning to work with the new kits, the first conversions are beginning to roll in: The spectacularly talented Jeff Vader has been working on some truly excellent Blightking conversions of his own that have been a huge inspiration for me. PDH has built some equally awesome Blightkings as an addition to his Realms of Chaos Nurgle warband (which, by the way, gets a feature in this month’s Blanchitsu, if the teaser on the GW website is to be believed) — I hope Peter will be showing his models to the general public soon. And I imagine other talented artists, such as JRN, migsula and the Spiky Rats, won’t be too far behind — I think we can look forward to a world of rot ;)

So, allow me to add my own pound of (maggotty) flesh: Let me walk you through my first couple of (mostly) finished Blightking conversions.

It shouldn’t surprise you that my basic approach was to bring the models into the 40k universe. I am not 100% sure what the function of these will be (or whether or not they’ll ever see the gaming table), but for now, simply exploring the kit and trying to bring it into my favourite grimdark universe is very much its own reward. So, without further ado, some pictures:

Here’s my first Blightking model. You already know an earlier incarnation of this guy:

This may still be my favourite of the bunch, although that doesn’t have anything to do with my conversion, but rather with the fact that the champion model is pretty much pitch perfect right out of the box. I chose a helmeted head (easily the coolest head in the kit) over the Plaguebearer face, because I liked the ominous look created by the helmet. Apart from that, the model was mostly assembled according to the instructions that came with the kit. To be honest, I did struggle a bit when it came to making this guy look more like a 40k model, but in the end, I think I came up with a pretty good idea: I added a cracked CSM breastplate to the model, making it look like the armour had burst under some hideous internal pressure. I am really happy with the result, because it adds a 40k element, leaves the hideously wonderful belly completely visible and, if anything, makes the model even more gross!

I also gave this guy a slightly modified backpack from the Dark Vengeance Chosen. I think the slightly twisted look is a great match for the overall Blightking aesthetic, plus the champ now has a bolter:

Several people have suggested using more futuristic weapons — but in the end, I just couldn’t go through with it. There’s just something about the sword and axe combo that I really like, and I just couldn’t bring myself to cut them apart…

The second model started out similar to one of Jeff Vader’s conversions, although I tried to take it into a slightly different direction. Take a look:

The base for this conversion was one of the (almost) fully armoured Blightkings, which made it much easier to turn this guy into a 40k model: The right arm was replaced with a Chaos Terminator arm (which also provided the gun). The left arm is from the Blightkings kit (although I used a bone from the WFB Crypt Ghouls to add a crossguard to the sword).

After quite a bit of deliberation, I chose a WFB chaos warrior head for the model: Not only is this one of my favourite heads, but it also fits Nurgle rather nicely, I think. Several people pointed out that the head was a bit of a missed opportunity, because a more Marine-like head would have helped making the model more futuristic. While I did want to keep the head, I also agreed with their point to some degree, so I added an array of tubes and pipes to the helmet, with some of them feeding into a custom backpack that I spliced together for the model:

It goes without saying that the backpack does have an ominous tank on top — par for the course with Death Guard models, really ;)

I also added some more detail to root the model more firmly in the 40k universe: some grenades and gear as well as a washer screw (painstakingly shaved off an Ork boy weapon). All in all, while the model still retains quite a medieval look and feel, I think it’s definitely futuristic enough to work in the context of 40k!

And finally, my third model so far, and possibly the most involved conversion of the three:

Once again, Jeff Vader provided the inspiration here (I shudder at my derivativeness… ;) ): I wanted to build a Blightking conversion wielding a heavy weapon — but I did want it to look markedly different from Jeff’s approach, rather going for the classic pose of a heavy bolter being held in front of the body. Now let me tell you: The Blightking kit does not exactly lend itself spectacularly well to shenanigans like that, and getting the arms and pose to work out turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. I persevered, however, and after much cutting and gluing, I ended up with this:

The model ist still missing quite a few details, but I think it already gives you a good idea of what the finished model will look like. The arms holding the heavy bolter were painstakingly spliced together, using bitz from no less than four different sources (a WFB Chaos Knights right arm, Space Marine Sternguard heavy bolter, Space Marine Terminator left upper arm and, finally, the actual Blightking’s shield arm. All in all, I am really extremely happy that I went through with this idea, even though it was a lot of work! And even though I only realised it after the fact, the model could even be seen as a small tribute to this illustration by Adrian Smith.

I also think that the clunky heavy bolter backpack does a nice job of bulking out the model. I have begun converting it into a more Nurglite form, with yet more tanks welded on beneath the main body of the pack:

This is certainly the most WIP of the three models at this point, so there’ll be more details to come. But, again, I am really happy with this guy.

All in all, I’d like to quote an excellent point made by Eric in his review of the Blightking kit:

Games Workshop’s new approach  with the Blightkings provides some freedom to the consumer, while also letting the sculptors truly explore and convey their own creative vision.  And while some may argue that it makes conversions more difficult because you cannot simply swap an arm or body, I think it just encourages people to step out of their comfort zone and attempt more elaborate conversions, ones that are more than simply kitbashes.

This is so true! It took me quite a while to get started with these models, because the specific way the models were constructed seemed a bit intimidating. I was also forced to come up with at least a rough idea beforehand, instead of just seeing where the conversion took me. But in the end, this more involved and conscious way of working was a lot of fun, and I am really happy with the models I have managed to produce so far:

You can probably guess my verdict: These guys are excellent, and quite a lot of fun to work with. That said, they demand more work and more planning ahead if you want to make the most of them than, say, a Space Marine kit. They are a very interesting resource for true scale (Chaos) Space Marines. And they’ll give you a huge pile of Nurgle-y bitz (and then some) that you can use on your Death Guard or Chaos Daemons. Oh, and just a word of warning, perhaps: Once you’ve hit your stride, working with them gets quite addictive ;)

As for my own models, so far I’ve managed to come up with three characters that I am thoroughly pleased with. I am not sure whether these will be used as counts as Terminators in a small Death Guard detachment, as villains for INQ28, a Killteam or if I am just going to build an paint them for the heck of it, but when has that ever stopped me from kitbashing and converting, right?

It goes without saying that I would love to hear any feedback you might have in the comments section! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

In my last post, I promised you an account of my first practical experiences with the new Bloodthirster and Skullreaper/Wrathmonger kits, and today’s post will deal with just this subject. So you may look forward to quite a bit of kitbashing. Huzzah! ;)

But all in good order: Before we do anything else, there’s something that I absolutely need to share with you guys. It would probably be far more modest and professional not to talk about it at all, but I am just too much of a blabbermouth — sorry! ;)

So yeah, here’s what happened over at Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s blog a while ago:

I was chuffed to bits, as you can probably imagine! Unbelievable! I just couldn’t stop grinning afterwards!

But enough about my ego: I promised you Khornate WIPs, and you shall have them. So allow me to show you what’s been happily bubbling away in the depths of my kitbashing laboratory for the last days and weeks. One last warning, though: Beware ye, who enter here: There be lots of unpainted grey plastic ahead!

I. Bloodthirster

I bought my own Bloodthirster on the day of the release, although I hadn’t even planned to: I just couldn’t resist when seeing the box at my FLGS, and seeing how there was still one of the kits available for purchase, I jumped right in. So far, building this model has been a lot of fun, since it continues the trend of well-planned huge kits begun with the Imperial Knight. But let’s take a look at some pictures, shall we?

This is my Bloodthirster after an hour or so. Now I did take it fairly slow, even though it may not look like it: Like I said, it’s a wonderfully engineered kit, and it went together extremely well, for the most part.

For those of of wondering about the size of the model, here he is, next to a standard Space Marine:

The Bloodthirster could always have been bigger, of course, but I am rather happy with the model’s size and bulk. There’s also a very handy scale conversion pic here, for those of you who want to know how the model measures up next to the other Bloodthirster models released so far.

One interesting thing is that nobody forces you to build your Bloodthirster all armoured up: Here’s what he looks like with all the armour plates removed:

In fact, Noctus Cornix’ Bloodthirster conversion (which I already recommended you check out in my last post) goes for a mostly unarmoured look, and it works like a charm!

The only armour you will positively need is that belly plate, since he’ll have a pretty big hole in his torso, otherwise.

Oh, and I know you all want to know about the size of that axe, so here’s another scale comparison for you:

Pretty big, huh? I added some measurements, for those of you who are planning a conversion involving the axe:

So, what’s in the kit beyond that? First and foremost, you’ll get the option to build either of the three advertised variants, of course. You also get to mix and match between them to a certain degree. I suppose it should even be possible to create new weapons setups (twin axes, for example) with a bit of cutting and gluing. Now when it comes to extra bitz, here’s a a quick overwiev of my observations so far:

• You get an additional set of arms (for the two handed axe) plus an additional left arm, depending on whether you go with the whip or that – very ridiculous – meteor hammer.
• There’s an alternate breastplate, loincloth and belly plate. You can mix and match between different setups with these.
• You get three complete heads (except for a tongue bit that is shared between two of the designs). The leftover heads are slightly larger than those in the plastic Daemon Prince kit, so they might even be usable on your DP conversions.
• There’s a bunch of chains and talismans of Khorne that you can use on the wings or be used on different models
• you get two axe heads for the one-handed axe.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the bitz:

I. The optional skull shoulder pad is interesting in that it would possibly work as a facemask on a daemon engine or *gasp* even an Imperial Knight conversion (it works fairly well on an Imperial Knight head — I checked ;) ).

II. If – like me – you think that flame pillar is a stupid way to elevate the model on the base, you’ll get it as a leftover bit that might make a cool objective marker or something similar…

III. Here’s the alternate armour set you get: Those belly plates work pretty well as bespoke pauldrons for Chaos Terminators. And the breastplate could be used for an Imperial Knight, with a tiny bit of bending.

IV. The chains and talismans for the wings — I think I’ll rather be using these on a couple of different models, as the Bloodthirster seems cluttered enough for my taste ;)

In closing, let me point out two more interesting bitz:

First up, the chaos icon used on the Bloodthirster’s whip:

I think this would make for an excellent squad standard or a back-banner. I also decided not to use it on my Bloodthirster, because I preferred a whip without a bulky object on its end, but the part is still very cool on its own. More on this in a minute!

There’s also the Rogue Trader-era styled bone crown:

As you can see, it comes as a separate bit, so you could also use it on your DPs, juggernauts or even on a Terminator lord (it almost looks like the top of a Terminator torso front anway…).

So, what about my own Bloodthirster, then?

The model is still in its building stage, and I have settled on the axe/whip combo now, because it’s just so brilliantly iconic that I couldn’t resist it. Here’s what the model currently looks like:

I’ve glued the model to the fantasy base for now, so I can have it upright. A couple of observations:

• As you can see, this guy is fairly massive, even without his wings. I really like that!
• After much deliberation, I chose the asymmetrical axe head: While the other axe is beautifully designed, it just looks slightly wrong to me, held at that particular angle — more like the ‘Thirster is presenting it to the audience. The asymmetrical version doesn’t have that problem, at least not to the same degree, and looks like he is actually preparing for a swing, so it was definitely the way to go for me.
• You wouldn’t believe how much messing around it took to sort out that whip arm — the instructions are slightly ambiguous, with pictures that aren’t all that helpful, so getting the whip into a position where it both cleared the floor and didn’t interfere with the head did take some doing. In all fairness, however, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem if you use something to elevate the model a bit on its base. As you can see, I also left off the chaos star, shaving down the whip so it tapers down into a pointy end instead — this seems more natural and plausible to me, plus I got to keep that burning chaos star for something else ;)

Most of the assembly work has been completed at this point: Only the wings remain, and they seem like a fairly straightforward affair. All in all, the model really went together very well for such a huge piece, with well-planned seams making the model look organic and natural — well, as natural as a daemonic killing machine the size of a house could ever realistically look, at least…

That’s not all though: At the same time, I have also been using some leftover bitz on some other projects:

Since I knew I wasn’t going to use the meteor hammer weapon, no matter what, I used the chain from it to add a final, gladiatorial dash to one of my Daemon Princes:

Some leftover icons of Khorne (and two runes from the vambrace of a leftover Bloodthirster arm) were used to add some extra oomph to his armour and make him look more Khornate. The main attraction is his weapon, though: Both hookswords are now joined by a length of daemonic chain, courtesy of the Bloodthirster’s meteor hammer:

I think this pushes the gladiatorial look even further, which I really like! And while we are at it, here’s a scale comparison picture with the WIP Bloodthirster and the Daemon Prince:

I also promised you that I would be using that flaming chaos star for a conversion, right? Well, I did:

As you can see, it makes for a teriffic Crozius Maul for my Word Bearers Dark Apostle, Belzas Azalon (I also touched up the right shoulder pad, while I was at it).

So in addition to the Bloodthirster itself, the kit has already provided me with a way to make two models considerably cooler — very nice! ;)

II: Skullreapers/Wrathmongers

I have also started experimenting with the Wrathmonger/Skullreaper kit.

First up, take a look at this scale comparison between a (slightly modified) Chosen model and a Wrathmonger:

While the Wrathmonger may be slightly taller, the scale is still pretty similar — so similar, in fact, that parts from the Chosen will fit the new models without much of a hitch. It’s also important to stress that the guy on the right doesn’t even qualify as an early WIP — I just tacked together some bitz, in order to show you the scale.

I also find it interesting that some of the – almost comically brutish – Skullreaper heads work much better when used on “regular” CSM models. Take a look:

Much better, don’t you think? I’ve merely shaved off those stupid “cheek horns”, but now the head makes for a very fitting World Eaters berzerker!

Oh, and one thing that really excites me is that you basically get twice as many torso pieces as you need: One set for the Skullreapers and one for the Wrathmongers. And each of those pieces has its own breastplate, which can be used as intended or cut apart to use on your other WoC/CSM models — all in all, this kit provides an enormous pile of leftover bitz for conversions, which makes it a pretty good purchase, if you are not totally disgusted by the look of these guys.

I also decided to follow my idea above, playing around with a combination of Skullreaper/Wrathmonger parts and Dark Vengeance Chosen. Let’s start with something boring: The same Wrathmonger pictured above, now with a tacked on Chosen arm:

Everything’s just tacked together for now, in order to show you how well those Chosen arms work with the models.

And here’s something more involved: A mix of Wrathmonger/Skullreaper and Chosen parts:

Once again, all the parts have only been tacked together with modeling putty for now, but there’s something suitably gladiatorial and feral about this guy that I like. I also think the model serves as proof that those leftover Wrathmonger chests can really be put to good use!

One important thing, though: Once again, the stock Wrathmongers/Skullreapers are a bit taller than the DV Chosen:

So the best approach would probably be to save the Wrathmongers/Skullreapers for unit champs, Chaos Lords etc. Or you could choose an approach similar to that of Wonkobaggins and use the Skullreapers as counts as chaos spawn and/or Red Butchers. Check out his first experiments with the kit here.

One last thing I did was to play around with the reverse-jointed set of legs for a while: I think it would make for an excellent start for building a plastic Herald of Khorne — or even a counts as Skulltaker! After a bit of messing around, here’s what I ended up with:

All in all, this has been a surprisingly easy conversion: Most of the model is simply a stock Skullreaper, with the arms and head replaced with Bloodletter (and Bloodcrusher) bits. The body already has the characteristic, pocked skin, so it looks like it belongs to a Bloodletter anyway. And the armour is jagged and organic enough to pass for daemonic, don’t you think? One thing I did was to graft on a Bloodletter neck, so I would have a more natural way of attaching the head.

I am still thinking about adding a cape like the one the original Skulltaker has: On the one hand, it seems like a fun challenge (and I do have an idea that might work), but on the other hand, I am really happy with the dynamic posing and striking silhouette the model has right now, and I fear an added cape would just overclutter the model…

And finally, in an act of nearly unprecedented heresy, at least for my own standards, I used some of the hip plates from the Skullreapers’ armour in order to make the armour of a true scaled Slaaneshi Marine I built at an earlier point look more, well, Slaaneshi:

So far for my first round of experiments with the Skullreaper/Wrathmonger kit. In any case, I’d like to point out that I am really going to take my time with these guys, so it will probably be a good long while before I complete all five models. Even so, I’ll be using some of the additional bitz from the kit for all kinds of projects, so you’ll be seeing a lot of stuff from this kit making an appearance in Khorne’s Eternal Hunt! ;)

III. Generosity

In a move of nearly unbelievable generosity, Commissar Molotov recently sent me a huge pile of stuff, including a lot of leftover Dark Vengeance Chosen and Chosen parts. It’s his generosity that has made my experiments above possible, for which I am very thankful. But that’s not even all: Mol provided an amazing bitz drop with lots and lots of fantastic contents. For instance, he sent me this wonderful Kharn conversion: Malthus Dire, a champion of Khorne:

Model converted by Commissar Molotov

Mol informed me that this conversion is actually about ten years old! Which goes to show that good, clean conversion work never goes out of style. It also goes without saying that I’ll make sure to paint him up to the best of my abilities, in Mol’s honour!

I have also used yet another Chosen from the batch he sent me for a different conversion: Taking inspiration from DexterKong’s brilliant World Eaters counts as Huron Blackheart, I have created my own version of the character for Khorne’s Eternal Hunt. Now my version is certainly somewhat less impressive than Dexter’s, and it’s not a true scale model either, seeing how it needs to be scaled correctly to fit the rest of my army, but I am nevertheless very happy with it. Take a look:

As you can see, most of stock Huron’s characteristic elements are there — I even got a bit of a kick out of having the model in a pose similar to that of the stock model, albeit more dynamic. Oh, and let me just add that the axe was inspired by a similar (albeit much more elegant) weapon conversion done by Biohazard!

One thing I really like is how carefully shaving off the original head allowed me to keep some of the cabling from the stock head and make it look like they are feeding into the bionic side of the head:

The model’s pretty much finished at this point — although I am still considering whether or not to add some longer claws to the left fist…

So, as you can see, the great forges of the Blood God are running hot right now! I’d be happy to hear any feedback you might have about these models! Just drop me a comment and feel free to share suggestions or ideas of your own! And expect more Khornate madness soon ;)

Until then, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

As you will probably have gathered from the post’s title, today will deal with the IV Legion Astartes, the Iron Warriors. Confession time: The Iron Warriors are actually one of my favourite traitor legions, and if I didn’t love the World Eaters so much, I could easily see myself starting and Iron Warriors army instead. I just love that the legion has basically remained unchanged in their outlook over the last ten millennia: They were already fairly disillusioned and fatalistic before the heresy, with very little actual conviction in the Emperor’s bigger vision, merely bound to his orders by a grim fatalism and soldierly loyalty, above all else. Nowadays, their allegiance to the Ruinous Powers is very similar to that, so the only thing that has changed for them is their employer, in a way. There’s something pretty cool about that. Plus their colour scheme of silver and gold – with the iconic yellow and black hazard stripes as a point of contrast – just rocks!

But why talk about Iron Warriors all of a sudden? Well, I have recently joined the “E Tenebrae Lux IV” event over at The Bolter & Chainsword, both because I find events like this to be very conductive to my painting morale and us Chaos players really need to show it to those loyalist dogs! ;) The ETL provides me with the perfet incentive for finally painting my Chaos Knight conversion — at long last!

But the scope of the project means I will need a plan to streamline my work a bit, and one tool that could become very handy for that is GW’s recently released Leadbelcher spray paint: I think this could be really helpful when it comes to undercoating/basecoating the many metallic areas on my Knight. But I wanted a way to safely test the properties of the new paint without having to potentially ruin a 100+ Euros kit. Which is where the Iron Warriors come in:

Enter a converted Iron Warriors Warsmith I built quite a while ago. You may remember the model’s earliest incarnation:

Definitely some pretty bold ideas on display: The shoulder pads were made from Chaos Marauder drums, and I wanted them to have a Pre Heresy look (back when no actual Heresy era Terminator pauldrons were available). I still think it was a pretty clever concept, given the lack of suitable material when I built the model. The hammer was converted using a weapon from the Ogre Kingdoms’ Ironbreakers: I wanted the weapon to look like it had actually been built from the remains of a razed fortress — maybe it’s even a stone from the Imperial Palace, collected during the Siege of Terra?

And finally, that massive Dark Eldar Talos claw: That was just one of those “Why the heck not?” moments. But let’s face it, the claw is awesome, but it just seems too big…

Which is why I went back to the model about a year ago and made some changes. Here’s the Warsmith’s second incarnation:

As you can see, both the claw and hammer were replaced, with a lightning claw from the Warp Talons and a Dragon Ogre weapon, respectively. Both parts may lack the zaniness of the earlier version, but still make for a more balanced, plausible model, if you ask me.

This just seemed like the perfect model to test the new Leadbelcher spray while also getting a cool result out of the deal, so I made this guy a part of my ETL vow and prepared to start with him. After all, after having seen several revisions, you would expect this model to be ready for painting at this point, right?

Well, almost: The pauldrons that had seemed so clever to me before just didn’t cut it any more: They may have been a cool touch in a world before the actual heresy era armour variants were released, but they just seemed a little silly now. So I made one last change to the model and ended up with this final (I promise! ;) incarnation:

I used two armour plates from a BA Dreadnought kit as the new shoulder pads, and I really like the rounded look, both because it’s decidely non-standard, but also because it recalls the design of Heresy era Terminator armour without being too “on the nose” about it. Plus it would give me a brilliant occasion for painting hazard stripes and adding some decals to the model’s shoulder pads.

So after a couple of years and several revisions, the model was finally ready for painting. Quite a big production for a mere Termie lord, eh? ;)

I undercoated the model with Chaos Black spray, as usual. After everything was dry, the Leadbelcher spray went on top of the black. And I was seriously surprised by the product: It went on like a dream and produced a near perfect coverage — I didn’t even need to clean up the silver anywhere, since the whole model had a very nice, even coat of metallic paint. Very nice!

If there is one small disadvantage to the Leadbelcher spray, it is that it’s very bright. So unless you’re going for goody two shoes loyalist Marines, you may find it a bit too bright and clean for your taste. However, that is nothing a coat or two of washes won’t solve. For a very helpful in-depth look at how the colour performs, check out this excellent post by InsanePsychopath.

My very successful experiments with the new spray paint provided me with a lot of inspiration to quickly finish the model, and the model basically painted itself. Which is why it took me only a pretty short time to get it to this stage:

The silver areas were actually washed with GW Gryphonne Sepia and then with two generous passes of black wash, which provided exactly the kind of look I wanted. And as you can see, those smooth, curved shoulder pads were excellent areas for the classic hazard stripe treatment — but more on that in a minute.

While the final details on the model were drying, I spent some time on the base. Since the model was planned as a one-off project, I took the liberty of making the base as trench-warefare-ish as I could (taking quite a few cues from EdT’s fantastic tutorial here), instead of making it resemble the bases on my World Eaters. Anyway, here’s the finished base:

As you can see, the base comes complete with a broken Imperial Fists icon, courtesy of a bitz donation by fellow hobbyist Sagal.
I also used quite a bit of gloss varnish to make the mud look suitably wet and…well, muddy:

And finally, I am rather happy with that Imperial Fists helmet:

It’s just a very minor detail, of course, but it just came out rather well, if you ask me. All in all, going for the trench warfare look seemed very fitting for the Iron Warriors, and I am really very happy with the finished base!

So all that remained was to combine model and base and finish the last remaining details, but that was quick work. So here’s the finished model, Warsmith Greimolt Sturm of the Iron Warriors:

The shield slung over the model’s shoulder was mostly placed there as an excuse for painting some more hazard stripes: Yellow areas like this are a pain to finish, but they do look pretty cool in the end, don’t they?

Speaking of which, I am quite happy with the model, although you might notice that the chevron pattern seems slightly different across the two pauldrons — that’s just me being too dense to realise that I should have inverted the pattern between the different pauldrons. Oh well…

I did add a little additional flourish to the shoulder pads, though, in the shape of two decals. One of them shows the legion badge:

I actually used on of the 90s decals for this, as I like them far better than their more modern counterpart.

The other shoulder pad received a Roman numeral “IV”, for obvious reasons ;)

So not only did I get the experimental data I needed on that Leadbelcher spray (which I believe will work beautifully on the metallic parts of my Chaos Knight), but I also ended up with a cool new Terminator Lord — and managed to finish a long term project, so what’s not to like?

“Lorimar, the man who killed Voss.”
“Voss died well. That is more than can be said for most of us. What was he to you, Iron Warrior?”
“You should rather ask what I was to him, World Eater. A brother. More of a brother than you, at least. What kind of man kills his own brethren like that?”
“The kind that survived Isstvaan. The kind that survived Terra. The kind that survived Skalathrax.”

Lord Captain Lorimar and Warsmith Sturm

So, all’s well that ends well? Yes, mostly. There’s just one thing, though: Painting this model was such a blast that I immediately felt the need to create yet another Iron Warrior, even though I don’t strictly have any use for IW models and don’t want to get sidetracked yet again — What I really hate about one-off projects is how they never seem to stay one-off. At least for me ;)

But I indulged myself anyway and tried to convert the coolest, most badass IW champ I could come up with:

As you can see, I gave him quite a bit of wargear, because that creates the workmanlike look I think is so cool about the Iron Warriors: A World Eater will stab you in the eye with a broken bone and tear you apart with his bare hands. An Iron Warrior could do that as well, but he is too well-armed and too crazy-prepared to ever let it come to that ;) Anyway, I really wanted the model to immediately be recognisable as an Iron Warrior, which I think I succeeded with.

Here’s the model already undercoated (this is what the silver will look like before any washes have been applied, btw):

I am actually really psyched to get this guy painted next — let’s just hope I can get a grip on myself afterwards, instead of jumping right into the next hobby project. Still, a highly converted Iron Warriors killteam seems like a pretty cool hobby endeavour. Must. Resist… ;)

In any case, it’s great when a project not only serves to test a product without the risk of ruining a pricy kit but also produces a cool result like this — I suppose this is the kind of happy incident that helps keeping me motivated ;)

So, what do you think about these latest models? I’d love to hear from you in the comments section! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

When I recently showed you my Iron Warriors Warsmith, I already mentioned the temptation of building and painting a small Iron Warriors Killteam and, well, what can I say? I am a huge hobby butterfly, which is why I am already hard at work on the various models that will make up the team ;)

On the one hand, this is yet another instance of me getting sidetracked by another project. On the other hand, trying to build models that are Chaos Space Marines, yet fairly different in design from my World Eaters, is quite an educational and enjoyable experience. So allow me to share the results of my work with you today ;)

The idea behind this Killteam is to build the models to be immediately recognisable as Iron Warriors, so I thought about which visual archetypes I wanted to include. The Iron Warriors, to me, are characterised by their cold efficiency and bitterness: a reliance on superior strategy and wargear and the will to sacrifice as many lives as it will take to vanquish the foe. I wanted the models to exude a sense of cold and sinister brutality, a menace born of the disregard for human lives. I’ll let you be the judge as to whether or not I have succeeded.

Before we get to actually take a look at the model, let me mention two resources that made this project possible in the first place:

The first is the batch of Dark Vengeance Chosen models kindly given to me by Commissar Molotov: The Chosen had just the amount of bulk and presence I needed to make my Iron Warriors look like actual, bitter veterans of the Long War instead of just some more CSM flunkies. So many thanks again to Mol for his generosity!

The other thing that really helped were the Iron Warrior torso pieces (from the old IW conversion kit) I managed to pick up as part of an ebay auction some time ago: These are still excellent, and their bulk and uniformity provide an excellent visual backbone for the Killteam. They would also work exceptionally well for Iron Hands, come to think of it…

Anyway, enough talk! Time for the models! ;)

I. Testing the waters

There actually exists an Iron Warriors model beyond the recently completed Warsmith in my collection: An Iron Warriors test model I just painted for the heck of it what feels like ages ago. Here it is:

While certainly nothing special by today’s standard, I didn’t simply want to leave this guy behind, so I decided to give him a bit of a facelift. The clunky icon was replaced with a DV Chosen bolter. And while I didn’t completely repaint the model, I used it to test some new painting techniques of mine, especially on the hazard stripes.

So here’s the touched-up version:

Having this model as a test piece allowed me to figure out a way to include the legion number on one of the pauldrons (by using a cut out and inverted Cadian decal, incidentally).

Granted, he certainly isn’t contest winning material, even with the touchups and all, but it feels good to finally have found a new home for the model ;)

II. The Champion

You should still remember this guy from the last Iron Warriors related post. Here’s what he looked like when we last saw him:

I am still really happy with the conversion, so I was actually pretty psyched to get some more paint on this guy! And painting him turned out to be a rather enjoyable experience too, since the Leadbelcher basecoat worked extremely well! I washed it with GW Gryphonne Sepia once and with black twice, and all that remained afterwards was to block out the details and add some final touches. Granted, it was a bit more complicated in reality, but it certainly didn’t feel like it ;)

Anyway, here’s the finished model:

All in all, I think the model makes for an excellent IW squad leader, if I do say so myself. There’s something dark and brooding about him that seems really fitting! And although it seems a bit blasphemous that I had to cut up a Skullcrusher helmet to build the model, it’s probably the best possible helmet for an IW champion — many thanks to Oldschoolsoviet for giving me this idea!

III. The Apothecary

So, which Iron Warriors archetype to tackle next? Before I could stop myself, I was thinking “If I were to build an Iron Warriors Killteam, one of them would have to be an Apothecary, due to the IW’s well-documented history of scavengin geneseed…” The model was already halfway done before I realised what I was doing ;)

Anyway, here’s the finished Apothecary conversion:

On this model, the biggest challenge was to maintain the balance between having the character look like a Chaos Space Marine (and an Iron Warrior, at that), while also seeming businesslike enough to work as an Apothecary. In the end, the bit that really makes the conversion is a bare, augmented head from the Skitarii Ranger/Vanguard kit. It just fits so well, don’t you think?

By the way, the first version of the model was carrying a plasma pistol, rather than an axe, but I felt the axe added a subtle executioner look to the character, and that’s certainly an aspect of his role as an Apothecary, don’t you think?

IV. The Breacher

The next archetype was pretty easy to figure out, because you cannot have an Iron Warriors Killteam without a massive Breacher guy, can you? I wanted this next character to be more dynamic and aggressive than the prior models, so I chose the running Chosen legs and made his pose pretty dynamic. Take a look:

As you can see, some WFB chaos bitz proved to be a great help here, allowing me to arm the Breacher with a massive mace and boarding shield. I also added a holstered bolter, though — this guy is a crazy prepared Iron Warrior, after all.

My favourite detail, apart from the pose, is the helmet: I really enjoy the “expressionless”, utterly inhuman look of that particular helmet from the WFB Chaos chariot crew, and I added some tech-y gubbins to the helmet to make it look slightly more modern.

V. The Trencher

Seeing how my IW killteam is built around what I consider the big Iron Warrior archetypes, there were two ideas I wanted to use on this model: The first is the Marine’s CC weapon, which represents an Iron Warriors entrenching tool. The other was the use of a bionic limb, seeing how the Iron Warriors are known to replace mutated (or damaged) limbs with sophisticated augmetic parts. Here’s what I came up with, based on those two ideas:

The entrenching tool is a weapon from the WFB Skaven Stormvermin kit, and easily one of my favourite plastic weapons, simply because it’s so vicious-looking! I have wanted to use this particular part for quite a while, and this model turned out to be the perfect occasion.

As for the bionic limb, I settled on replacing the model’s right leg, mostly because I used Kranon’s legs, and the right leg is only partially formed anyway (because the model’s cape normally obscures it). Now I do realise that some may see my design choice as a bit of a divisive feature, because I went for a – fairly thin – Skitarii leg. However, this was a rather conscious choice, because I wanted to achieve a slightly peg-legged look: Seeing how the entire armour will be silver, a leg painted in silver wouldn’t stand out too much, which is why I went for the Skitarii part. Plus I was also inspired by a scene in Graham McNeill’s Storm of Iron, where a veteran Iron Warrior actually experiences difficulties due to his leg replacement — I wanted the leg to be both at once: a highly sophisticated replacement, but also a possible weakness, and I think the Skitarii leg does a great job embodying that particular duality.

VI. Anything else…?

So far for the finished conversions, but are there any more plans for this particular Killteam? Right now, I think there will be two more members: A heavy weapons specialist (I am leaning towards arming him with a rocket launcher) will be one of the additional members. I already have most of the bitz I’ll need for the conversion.

And there may also be one final model for the Killteam that will be rather different in size and nature from its peers. I’ll just leave you with a little teaser for now…

But that’s basically all for today, folks. Here are the finished models for the Killteam so far:

And the entire Killteam, including the unpainted models:

Like I said, this has been a very rewarding mini-project so far, and I think I have learned quite a few days that will ultimately also benefit my World Eaters.

So, what do you think? Any ideas for additional members of suggestions regarding the existing models? I’d be happy to hear any feedback you might have — just drop me a comment. In closing, I’ve also made a small “glamour shot” of the finished Iron Warriors, which should make an excellent finale for this post ;)

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

The original plan for this week was to present to you an in-depth look at the recent Cult Mechanicus release, but unfortunately some RL related issues are currently wreaking havoc on my hobby mojo, so that particular post will yet have to wait for a while — please bear with me ;)

But we cannot have a week without some fresh content, of course, so let me whip up a small consolation price: My latest set of Khornate kitbashes, never before shown on this blog. I hope you’ll find something to like about these, even if they are not AdMech. So, shall we…?

I. Chosen by Khorne

As you have seen in my recent Iron Warriors related post, I’ve been rather enthusiastically cutting up some of those Dark Vengeance Chosen models. Now they are beautiful models, make no mistake, but after an initial reluctance to cut them apart and convert them, they have turned out to be a remarkable source of kitbashing fun. Which is why I not only use them as a base for my Iron Warriors Killteam, but also for some World Eaters:

Let’s start with a model that was actually inspired by a piece of art from Fantasy Flight’s Tome of Blood: Ever since I saw this piece by Diegogisbertllorens, I wanted to convert a model resembling the berzerker in that illustration. So I cut up one of my leftover Chosen models and started to experiment. Here’s what I came up with:

As you can see, the model diverges from the art in some places, but the inspiration is still pretty obvious. And even the parts that do diverge from the source material have been a conscious choice. For one, several people have pointed out that one of the FW berzerker heads with a rebreather would have been a much closer match for the artwork, and I actually tried it on the model. But it did feel a bit much: He already has the spiky and warped Chosen armour, and he ended up looking a tad too monstrous, if that makes any sense. I also tried all the other rebreather heads I had in my collection (loyal and chaos Terminators, the rebreather head from the Raptors with shaved down horns,…), but none of them worked for me quite as well as the one I ultimately chose: A humble rebreather head from the very first version of the 90s multipart plastic Space Marines:

It’s heavily scarred (maybe not easy to make out in the picture), which is a plus. But it also has a special, almost – dare I say it – forlorn quality to it that I think serves as a nice counterpoint to the rest of the model. This is clearly not a berzerker running at his next victim, but rather a guy who slowly advances. Sure, there’ll be bloodshed and murder at the end, but I like the very slight ambiguity created by the head. As if he’s saying “I cannot help what I am, so let’s get this over with.” The smaller hatchet held in his right hand underlines the effect even further, lending the model a workmanlike quality, if you ask me: Only a truly fearsome fighter would step onto the battlefields of th 41st millennium wielding a relatively diminutive weapon like that… ;)

On a related note, this conversion actually led straight into the next small project, because the head transplant on the Chosen left me with half a chopped-off head, and since I am always careful not to throw away anything the might yet prove useful, I tried my best to repair that helmet for future use. The solution was to splice it together with the jaw of a WFB Cairn Wraith skull. Take a look:

I was just stupidly happy with this for some reason…

Working from there, the combination of my fellow World Eater Biohazard’s feedback, browsing through Wade Pryce’s excellent World Eaters again and the memory of a certain piece of Adrian Smith artwork from the 3.5 codex made me realise that there was just one way to go for this helmet:

And while I was super-happy with the helmet, the usual routine of dry-fitting it to a couple of possible bodies I had lying around didn’t really work out all that well: The head just looked too “special”, for lack of a better word, to be squandered on yet another Chaos Space Marine. But then, fate intervened, because I still had a spare Kranon the Relentless model. I had picked this up a while ago from a fellow forumite, but the problem was that the previous owner seems to have been very fond of the old superglue, and while the regular Chosen are easy enough to cut apart, even once assembled, the way Kranon is designed has really prevented me from working with the model so far — all that superglue really made it impossible to take the model apart. So it basically went to the bottom of the pile, with very little chance of ever seeing the light of day again.

But lo and behold, it turned out to be the perfect base for a conversion using the newly converted head. And so, a short while later, I had the following model. Let’s call him “Huntmaster Korann” or “Kornan” or whatever anagram of Kranon we can think of, for now:

Getting the pose and details on this model just so took a bit of doing — and I am very much indebted to the feedback of many fellow hobbyists over at The Bolter & Chainsword for providing feedback on this model. It nearly drew me up the wall at the time, but in the end all those suggestions really were for the best ;)

I also built yet another Huntmaster for Khorne’s Eternal Hunt: Barras Ergha, the 4th assault company’s Master of Signal:

Granted, Master of Signal may not be the most obvious battlefield role for a World Eaters, but seeing how I imagine the 4th to be a bit more disciplined and focused than your average force of bloodcrazed madmen, I thought it was fun to have them retain some of the command structure of a Pre-Heresy legion, including the various specialists. The fact that one of Flint13’s coolest Night Lords characters is also a Master of Signal may have had some influence on my decision as well…

At the same time, this guy is still a World Eater, so he needed to look like a true warrior. I think I’ve managed a pretty good balance.

Once more, this conversion was made possible by Commissar Molotov’s recent bitz drop, since the right arm, head and legs came from his little care package — the legs are even from one of the web-exclusive Space Marine Captains released a while ago!

Some of you may have noticed the helmet mag-locked to his belt. I added it because, even though I am a huge fan of bareheaded Marines, it seemed sensible for a comms-officer to have the option of donning a helmet that certainly has some additional sensors and communications functionality. Speaking of which, I lost my marbles a bit and obsessively added some comms-equipment and additional sensors to the helmet to make it look more plausible:

II. More Skullreaper Shenanigans

It goes without saying that I didn’t forget about all those wonderful Skullreaper/Wrathmonger bitz I still had lying around either. For instance, I finished the conversion of my plastic Herald of Khorne/Counts as Skulltaker. You may remember the model from a while ago:

I was still considering a cape for the model at this point, to bring it closer in line with the stock model for Skulltaker. After quite a bit of deliberation, however, I ultimately decided against it: A cape would have destroyed the dynamic, lithe look of the model, which is basically my favourite part of the conversion. It might have worked better on a more static, bulky model like the original Skulltaker. In the end, though, I rather wanted to end up with a model that I like than with a model that instantly reads as a Skulltaker counts as.

That said, the model’s back did seem a bit barren, so what to do? Funnily enough, trying to give this guy some wings was as easy as digging out some Vargheist leftovers from my bitzbox, because a pair of vestigial wings is included with the kit. Take a look:

Here’s the thing, though: While it did look alright, it just wasn’t what I was looking for for the character. I love how the model seems to be running towards its next prey, and the winged version somehow loses that feeling — plus the wings really messed up the model’s silhouette. So back into the bitzbox they went (just for a short while, though — we’ll be getting to that in a minute…).

But what about some kind of trophy pole? Sure, most standard trophy poles were straight out, because the model’s elongated skull would make a normal trophy pole impossible: Even if I had managed to find a position where both elements didn’t interfere with one another, the model would still have ended up wearing a trophy pole that prevents it from turning its head. Ouch!

I did have a trophy rack from the Dark Eldar Kabalite warriors, though — and I think it really works! Take a look:

It doesn’t interfere with the skull, plus I like the blade-like look it has. It even has some 40k bric-a-brac dangling from it, which is nice as well. I think we may finally consider this conversion finished!

But wait, there’s more: Ever since I first saw those Skullreapers, I wondered whether it would be possible to use them as a base for truescaled World Eaters, so that was definitely something I wanted to try! It was Martox’ true scale Khornate Marine that provided me with the inspiration I needed for my own conversion, and I chose a similar approach to come up with this model:

Just like Martox, I used a Chaos Terminator torso for the upper body, but I shaved mine down until it worked (and until the original Skullreaper breastplate fit over it). The axe was spliced together from a Chaos Terminator weapon and an axe from the Skullreaper kit. And the right pauldron came from a very sweet bitz package Augustus b’Raass sent me a while ago (cheers, mate!).

As for the model’s size, here’s a scale comparison shot showing the WIP World Eater next to my (pretty big) true scaled model for Praetor Janus Auriga:

III. “Don’t call me Firefist!”

Those of you who have read Aaaron Dembski-Bowden’s (highly recommended) novel “Talon of Horus” may remember one Lheorvine “Firefist” Ukris, a World Eater who steals every scene he’s in.  There’s even a piece of artwork representing Lheor:

I liked the character so much that I definitely wanted to build him in miniature form, as some kind of cameo character for my World Eaters, so to speak. Granted, building Lheor seemed a bit derivative, seeing how both InsanePsychopath and Flint13 have come up with stunning interpretations of the character, but then those two models were what inspired me to go for it in the first place — I just couldn’t resist.

So here’s my interpretation of the character (still slightly WIP):

Some parts of the model try to faithfully recreate the depiction of the character in the novel and accompanying artwork, but I did take some liberties: For instance, I ditched the aquila breastplate, because…well, screw aquila breastplates, alright? ;)  Seriously, I just loved the “Great Crusade” look created by that particular torso, so I just rolled with it.

IV. Let loose the dogs of war

And last, but definitely not least: A conversion I am really proud of, and a project that came about very spontaneously: I was looking at some WFB Dragon Ogre bitz and one of the leftover heads from the plastic Bloodthirster a while ago, and before I knew what I was doing, I had made this:

The beginnings of a rather huge Flesh Hound of Khorne: I have always loved the Flesh Hound concept and design, and the creatures are certainly a fantastic fit for an army designed as a hunting party. I really hate the most recent models, though, since they seem so clunky and ill-proportioned.

Using the leftover Bloodthirster head was a spontaneous idea, when I realised it should fit the Dragon Ogre bodies rather well. In the end, it took very little shaving (and the addition of a plastic Daemon Prince neck) to create the basic construction.

With the basic construction worked out, I added the characteristic neck frills and collar of Khorne — both indispensable parts of the Flesh Hound archetype, of course:

As a matter of fact, those frills are the same vestigial Vargheist wings that didn’t make the cut on the Skulltaker model shown further up in this post — waste not want not, and all that… ;)

And here’s a comparison picture showing both the kitbashed Flesh Hound and a standard Space Marine:

As you can see, this guy is roughly the same size as a juggernaut (albeit a bit less bulky), so he could be used as a mount for a Marine. I think I’ll rather be using him as one of Lorimar’s hunting dogs, however. Oh, and those front legs will probably be gripping some kind of rocky outcrop, with a mangled Astartes corpse right below the creature’s head — at least that’s the plan for now

So yeah, so much for my recent Khornate kitbashing activities. When any of these will actually be painted is anyone’s guess of course — but I would still love to hear any feedback you might have! Just drop me a comment!

And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

After the recent post showcasing the current status of my World Eaters army, I thought it might be fun to prepare a similar post about my INQ28 collection — after all, the World Eaters and my Inquisitor-themed models have certainly been my two biggest projects, ever since I got back into the hobby: To me, the world of the Battle for the Emperor’s Soul continues to be one of the most fascinating parts of the hobby, and one that I always return to when looking for an outlet for my creativity.

Which makes it all the more regrettable that 2014 wasn’t a very productive year in that respect — at least not when it comes to finished models: I only managed to complete four pieces for INQ28:

And while I like each of the models well enough in their way, one of my hobby resolutions for 2015 was to get more paint on my huge collection of INQ28 kitbashes. And while I am just as much of a lazy bum this year as I was in 2014, I have been reasonably successful with that:

Let’s start with the latest INQ28 model I have managed to finish, and one I am pretty proud of, mostly because it has been in my collection for such a long time: Quite a while ago, my cousin Andy let me have the pilot model from the “Battle for Maccrage” 4th edition boxed set, easily one of my favourite one-off special models produced by GW. I used the model to convert a Enforcer type of character:

This may not seem like the most obvious use for this particular model, but my inspiration came from one of the illustrations John Blanche made back when Inquisitor was first released. Take a look at his Enforcer design:

I think we can all agree that the resemblance is rather uncanny — which is why I decided to turn the pilot into an Enforcer: A tough Hive Cop who has walked the beat on the wrong side of the monorail tracks a thousand times and knows the shadier parts of the Hive City like the back of his hand. As you can see, giving him one of the characteristic power mauls was really easy, and I also added some gloves on his belt, because I really liked the idea of him wearing some kind of riot cop gear for tough arrests.

But then it took me ages to actually settle on a colour scheme for the model. Maybe it was the fact that I knew I would probably not get my hands on another of those pilots, so I had to get it right the first time around? Anyway, it took my until fairly recently to come up with an approach that I think might work. But I did it, I finally sat down and painted the guy. And here’s the finished model:

I went for a look resembling a steampunk 19th century Nightwatchman, since that seemed to fit both the character and the eclecticism of 40k. I also made one last addition to the model, as I felt a Skitarii Vanguard helmet would nicely complement the rest of his gear, so I added one to his belt. All in all, I am really happy with the model: The look I wanted is clearly there, and there is a weight of years and experience to him that I really like. I’ve already started to think of him as a character, which is always a good sign: This is Remus Ingram, veteran of the Riftyr Hiveguard on Saarthen IV, capital world of the Metyan Subsector of Velsen. After long years spent in the perpetually gloomy and rainy underhive settlement known as “Ashertown”, Ingram was recruited by Inquisitor Erasmus Gotthardt after a joint operation in the depths of the Hive.

Speaking of which, completing this model also means that Inquisitor Gotthardt’s warband now has one more fully painted member…well, two more fully painted members, to be exact:

The warband is far from finished, of course, with four characters still unpainted, but it’s getting there. To the left, you can make out another of my very first INQ28 characters: Captain Esteban Revas, former regimental champion of the 126th Haaruthian Dragoons. He’ll be getting a post of his own at some point in the near future, complete with a look at his backstory, which – interestingly enough – is probably the most expansive fluff I have come up with yet…

All in all, I am really happy to say that, when it comes to INQ28, I have already been more productive in the first half of 2015 than I was in the entirety of 2014. Case in point, here are the latest additions to my collection of INQ28 models:

The obvious star of the show here is Praetor Janus Auriga, my true scale Marine. I am still extremely happy with this model! There’s also Sister Euphrati Eisen, of the Order of the Martyred Sword. And let’s not forget Inquisitor Brynn Yulner (the model that re-invigorated my passion for painting INQ28 characters), the wonderful, custom Arch-Deaconne Drone 21c donated to my cause and the brilliant Astropath conversion Ron Saikowski sent me (including that last model is a bit of cheating on my part, seeing how it already came beautifully painted). To learn more about these last three characters, head over here.

And what about the big picture? Well, here’s the collection of painted models I have managed to complete since circa 2011:

Not a massive pile of miniatures, certainly: Merely some thirty models. But still, I am really happy with these, because each of them is a handcrafted character exploring a particular part of the 40k lore. And they make for a rather interesting menagerie, don’t you think?

The bad news, obviously, is that there are just as many, if not more, unpainted INQ28 models in my cupboard of shame:

But I think all that I can do is to slowly keep working away at these, completing one model at a time — after all, INQ28 isn’t about huge model counts for me, but rather about tweaking each and every conversion and paintjob until I am happy with them. These are characters, first and foremost, and not merely playing pieces.

At the same time, the fact that kitbashing new INQ28 models can be so much fun certainly doesn’t make the task any easier. Just let me show you some of my recent kitbashes, starting with some quick and dirty projects like this Hive Ganger/Punkette,…

…a Mutant Witch Doctor from the underhive…

…or this Cyber-Famililar that just came together in about half an hour one day:

I actually really love familiars, cherubs and servo-skulls, because they are such an integral part of the 40k lore and imagery. Which is why I am slowly assembling a small collection of these critters, I suppose…

On the other side of the spectrum, we have conversions that are quite a bit more involved and take more time to come together. Like my recent attempt at kitbashing an Adeptus Arbites Enforcer, based on Tempestus Scions parts:

There were several parts of the model I really liked: the (Skitarii) power maul, the spliced-together head, complete with a classic lantern jaw of justice and the riot shield. Yet the model just didn’t seem to come together, becoming less than the sum of its parts. It took several attempts and some feedback by the awesome people over at the Ammobunker’s INQ28 board until I ended up with a model I was much happier with: A blend of 2nd edition Arbites and Judge Dredd elements that I think really works for me:

Big and small projects like these are really one of my absolute favourite parts of our hobby, because they give me the chance to figure out new and interesting ways to use all the plastic crack GW gives us — at the same time, these projects also lead to a neverending stream of unpainted models, but that cannot be helped, I guess ;) And we haven’t even talked about the AdMech kits — although we’ll be getting to that in a future post. After all, I am already hard at work, producing yet more models I will have to paint eventually ;)

For now, while my productivity may wax and wane, I am still pretty pleased with my INQ28 collection, both when it comes to the painted and unpainted parts. Coming back to these models is always a blast, even if it takes years. And working on a single character until everything just falls into place always feels like a breath of fresh air!

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

In ancient times, men built wonders, laid claim to the stars and sought to better themselves for the good of all. But we are much wiser now.
“Speculations On Pre-Imperial History”

Given my gushing and rather wordy reviews of the Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus releases, you may have wondered why I haven’t actually boarded the AdMech train yet, at least when it comes to conversion and painting projects. The reasons for this are simple: I only wanted to start showing my own AdMech models once I had managed to come up with something that doesn’t feel like a cheap knock-off of Jeff Vader’s fantastic recent projects, for one. The other reason is that working with some of these kits requires quite a bit of planning beforehand: The Skitarii Vanguard/Rangers, for instance, are wonderfully sculpted models, yet their construction means that any and all conversion projects involving the kit require some thought. The same goes for the Kastelan robots: While the models themselves are spectacularly versatile, it behooves the converter to know where he’s going with these models before getting out the modeling knife ;)

Anyway, to make a long story short, I have finally arrived at the point where I am comfortable with showing you some of my AdMech conversions. So allow me to share some of the things I am currently working on:

1. “Wir sind die Roboter”

I have gone on record stating that the Kastelan robots are possibly one of the most promising parts of the recent Cult Mechanicus release — and indeed, they were the first kit from that release I actually picked up. I started messing around with the kit with the vague plan of building one or two walkers for my World Eaters and/or Iron Warriors Killteam — to give credit where credit is due, TJ Atwell’s idea to use the kit in order to build a plastic Contemptor was what originally led me down this road.

After giving the matter a bit of thought, I decided that I didn’t want to build a straight-up Contemptor: Doing so would have required a fair bit of sculpting and/or plasticard work, for starters, and there was also the fact that the more humanoid look of the robots appealed to me. So my plan was to embrace the basic look of the models and see whether I could make them seem more baroque and chaotic.

The first step towards this end was to find out how to replace the heads. While I don’t hate the blank 50s SciFi robot heads, it didn’t seem like the right choice for a Chaos walker. Nehekare’s very helpful thread over at The Bolter & Chainsword really helped me out, though, because it showed me that the options for alternate heads I had been considering would work really well. And so a short while later, I had these early mockups:

As you can see, it’s really easy to replace the stock heads. The “head” and faceplates from the Defiler kit work really well, as does the head from the Tomb Kings Necrosphinx (seen on the right). In both cases, a plate from a CSM Rhino turret hatch was glued inside the Kastelan’s chest cavity, with the head added on top.

The next goal I had was to go for a slightly more involved pose than what you see on the stock Kastelans. Because the kit is really amazingly versatile when it comes to posing the legs: I don’t understand why GW doesn’t make a bigger fuss about this particular feature, but once you cut off the little nubs that lock the legs into a certain position, the world’s your oyster. As you can see, I have gone for a running pose, and it was really easy to achieve! I also added some early bitz in order to transform my Kastelan robot into a Khornate killing machine, as you can see:

Fortunately enough, there were a couple of very happy coincidences that helped me with this conversion:

• the hammer-wielding hand from the Nemesis Dreadknight turned out to be a pretty perfect fit for the Kastelan. What’s more, the hammer head I still had left from the Bloodthirster kit provided the perfect replacement for the stock hammer head, so I ended up with a suitably Khornate weapon!
• I realised that one of the breastplates from the Bloodthirster kit was a pretty good fit for the Kastelan torso, so I cut it to size and bent it around the torso, in order to make it fit more snugly.
• I was able to use various armour plates from the Skullreaper/Wrathmonger kit to make the rest of the Kastelan’s body look more baroque and fittingly chaotic and to get rid of some of the rounded, clean aesthetic of the stock model.

All of this quickly led to my first finished Kastelan. Here’s the model I ended up with:

As you can see, I snuckin a few additional touches along the way: Some GS was used to fill in the various recesses on the head. and to extend the middle section a bit, in order to make the model slightly less tubby (an excellent suggestion by Bruticus, that last bit!). The arms were slightly extended as well, mostly by attaching the hands at a lower point.

As for the various details, I really wanted to keep one of the stock model’s “Contemptor-esque” fists, yet I added a weapon muzzle inside the palm, to hint at some kind of integrated flamethrower. And the empty eye sockets of the Necrosphinx skull were filled with proper optical lenses — I hope these will end up looking pretty stunning when painted in bright blue.

And finally, I’ve made a simple press mold of the Bloodthirster’s hoof print and tried to duplicate the Khornate rune on the Kastelan’s left sole:

This element will require some cleanup work, but I think it should look pretty cool in the end.

All in all, I am really pretty happy with the way the model has turned out: This guy should be a pretty excellent addition to my menagerie of chaotic walkers, as he towers over a regular Dreadnought — Alpha Helbrute, anyone?

As for the other Kastelan, I am still committed to turning him into a member of my Iron Warriors Killteam, and a recent conversion by Jeff Vader, attempting to bring the Kastelan more in line with Jes Goodwin’s vintage drawings for the Colossus robot, have provided me with all the inspiration I need. Watch this space…

2. The Adeptus Mechanicus Velsen

It’s not all about the chaotic side of things, however! I have been a fan of the Adeptus Mechanicus for a rather long time, so it would be heresy to merely use the new kits for chaotic conversions. Because of that, I have also been working on a small collection of actual Mechanicus models. Here’s the first early family portrait of what may or may not become a dedicated AdMech warband for the wonderful world of INQ28:

Like I said, I am not sure yet whether this will become an actual warband. Maybe the models will end up in various INQ28 warbands. That said, I really like the idea of a warband representing a gathering of high-ranking Magi from the Velsen Sector’s resident Forgeworld of Korhold and a few of their Skitarii bodyguards. One image from the 40k lore that really speaks to me is the idea of a small team of Tech Priests where each of the Magi looks quite distinct (and rather inhuman), and the one thing where I think the AdMech releases have let us down a little is how they haven’t actually given us all that many actual Tech Priests. So that was what I wanted to rectify. Let’s take a closer look at the models I’ve come up with:

Something simple for starters: I picked up this Forgeworld servitor a while ago, because I think he makes for an excellent Tech-Priest (I want him to be a Magos Xenobiologis). I switched his original left hand with a creepy claw from the Datasmith model, and while it’s a very small detail, I really like the change: In spite of his slack face, he looks rather keen to dissect come Xenos, doesn’t he?
Maybe I should remove the Inquisitorial symbol on his breastplate, but I am also partial to the idea that he has been closely working with an Inquisitor for so long as to almost be seen as a traitor by his fellow Tech-Priests? Anyway, we will see…

Next up, the Datasmith from the Kastelan kit. Now I already pointed out in my review how much this guy reminds me both of the artwork for Delphan Gruss and of a piece of artwork depicting a Magos Explorator, so that’s what he will be used as: The model’s bulk and extensive weaponry really fit the life of a Magos Explorator, dedicated to rediscover lost knowledge in long forgotten (and dangerous) places.

I actually didn’t convert the model beyond an attempt at uncluttering it a bit: I got rid of the smaller servo-arm on the chest as well as the cable connecting the chest apparatus to the head. Both elements seemed a bit too clunky for my taste, and I like the cleaner silhouette created by these alterations. A lovely model all in all — painting him should be a treat!

I also simply had to pick up the Tech-Priest Dominus, because I simply love the model. I have started assembling it, and this is what it looks like right now:

I’ve only made two very small changes so far: I clipped off the proboscis-like piece of tech dangling from the Tech-Priest’s facemask, because I like it better that way. And I am considering swapping out his right weapon arm with a kitbashed forearm with a converted Necron hand, because the gun option seems rather OTT for an INQ28 character. What do you think, should I keep the arm I have or go back to one of the guns after all?

The Tech-Priests will also be accompanied by their bodyguard, so I have started working on a couple of Skitarii models. Here’s the first test model:

To be perfectly honest, the recipe for this guy was stolen wholesale from one of Dave Taylor’s Skitarii. I am normally opposed to lifting entire conversions from fellow hobbyists like this, but what can I say? Dave’s model was just perfect, and I wanted a guy like that in my own AdMech warband…

So, nothing all that interesting yet, eh? Well, I tried to be a bit more adventurous with my first two kitbashed Tech-Priest models:

First up, I wanted to try whether I could come up with a Tech-Priest mostly based on Skitarii parts. In order to achieve the robed look I consider compulsory for Magi of the Adeptus Mechanicus, I used a slightly shaved-down Empire Wizard set of legs I still had in the old bitzbox. Here’s the result:

As you can see, the conversion is fairly straightforward, although I did want to make sure the model read as something more than just any old Skitarius. Which is why I built a custom axe from a Dark Vengeance cultist axe, the condensator unit from the arc pistol, an Empire flagellant staff and some cabling.

The pistol, on the other hand, was a weapon I had originally converted for Brynn Yulner. After shortening the barrel a bit, it ended up looking pretty cool on the Tech-Priest — like an archeotech raygun of sorts (think Marvin the Martian ;) ), with all of the weapon’s mechanisms completely internalised and hidden beneath a curved casing. Something not often seen in the 40k setting!

Oh, and maybe my favourite part of the conversion is how I replaced the original foot with a Skitarii foot. Not very flashy, but a nice detail, don’t you think? ;)

I also made some changes to the backpack in an attempt to make it look less like standard Skitarii issue:

I added a lantern, simply because I thought it might look pretty eerie and cool when painted with subtle blue glow. Speaking of which, I decided that I wanted this model to become my first test model for a possible AdMech painting recipe, so I started painting it right away. And here’s the painted model as it looked only a short while later:

I would have been happy enough with the model, but Jeff Vader suggested adding some kind of decorative trim in the cog style typical of the Adeptus Mechanicus. And while I couldn’t possibly have freehanded anything convincing, the Skitarii decal sheet had just the design I needed. So I added it and it really adds something to the model, if you ask me.

Here’s the finished Tech-Priest, Magos Zoltan Phract:

Zoltan Phract is a Tech-Priest of the Velsian Adeptus Mechanicus, whose recent accomplishments have made him a rising star within this secretive order, in spite of his relative youth. His rise to prominence began during his tenure as representative of the Adeptus Mechanicus in the directorate controlling the ore-rich mining world of Silon Minoris. When the mutant workers of the world raised up their arms in protest against their life of slavery, it was Magos Phract’s decisive and, some would say, chillingly efficient chain of countermeasures that ended the workers’ revolt and insured the mines didn’t suffer from a noticeable decrease in productivity.

All in all, I was really very happy with this first test model, because it looked like I had found a good recipe for my AdMech models. But Phract ended up looking very much like the archetypal Tech-Priest: A slender, robed figure — yet still fairly human, at least with regard to his anatomy. I also wanted to explore the more deranged side of the Adeptus Mechanicus, however, so the next Tech-Priest I built was a floating Magos Genetor without a lower body, and I went for a creepier look this time around:

My favourite part about the model is that it was basically converted using nothing but leftovers: The head is the face from the plastic Commisar model with lots of added cabling from various kits. The upper body came from the Skaven Stormvermin, while the arms are from the Skitarii and Tech-Priest Dominus kits. And the cloak is a piece of cloth from the WFB Vampire Counts Coven Throne. All in all, these bitz made for a fairly creepy and original character, don’t you think?

In-universe, I imagine the lack of a lower body means that he can easily connect himself to the massive machine that makes up the centre piece of his surgical theatre via the cabling dangling from his torso. And when he decides to venture out of his lab, a set of antigrav stabilisers keep him floating,  his hanging robes working as an attempt at passing as a halfway-human figure when he has to deal with regular, unaugmented persons.

I was really happy with the conversion and started painting the model right away. Since Magos Phract had turned out so well, I basically used the exact same approach. So here’s the finished model:

A mix of Ecclesiarchy and Skitarii decals was used to add some holy AdMech scripture to the parchment dangling from the Genetor’s back:

“There are those within our order who consider my fascination with the organic a waste of time or even misguided. To those I reply: There can be no question as to the superiority of the divine machine over the frailties of the flesh. Yet it is only by considering the flawed, organic machines willed into being by this universe, that we may find the tools necessary to mend that which was created broken.”

Genetor Karras Grendel, Discourses on the Merits of the Organic

Grendel is a model I am really happy with, because he comes so close to the archetypal picture of a mad scientist in the back of my head: There are several more or less conscious inspirations for him (such as the villain from City of Lost Children, for instance), but when all is said and done, he seems fairly human at first and becomes pereptually less so the closer you look at him. What can I say, I really achieved the look I wanted on this model ;)

And finally, one last AdMech work in progress before we tune out for this week:

Did you ever have that feeling where you just want to build something cool, and you start aimlessly messing around with some bitz, but then things kinda get out of hand, and next thing you know, you’ve build a biomechanic monstrosity? Yeah, well, what can I say. This kinda happened:

So, whatever is the deal with this thing? All I can say is that the general plan was to build a huge, monstrous combat servitor of some sort. Maybe working on Genetor Grendel made me consider a more radical, disgusting approach, but there you have it. I had picked up the Blood Island rat ogred ages ago, with some half-formed ideas for converting them into Dark Eldar Grotesques or big mutants, but I never got around to using them. When the new AdMech models came out, I actually realised that they share some common ground with the rat ogres (those metallic tanks on the model’s back are fairly close to the tanks the Tech-Priest Dominus has, for example), so I thought I’d give them another look. The other thing that inspired this conversion was an illustration from the Inquisitor rulebook, where some monstrous, heavily augmented servitors can just be glimpsed through the fog.

Anyway, in spite of these ideas, the model really came together quite organically: I wanted to replace the lower legs with sharp augmetic stilts (originally Heldrake claws), and the expressionless facemask (from the Blood Angels Librarian Dreadnought) just seemed more interesting than yet another monstrous face. In fact, Neil101 pointed out that the mask gives the model a golem-like quality, which I like quite a bit!

After seeing how well the Kastelan power fist worked on the servitor, I changed the other hand to a Kastelan fist as well, only I used one of the guns this time around. I also added some cabling and cleaned up some details, and here’s what my “Chimeric Servitor” looks like right now:

As you can see, the model has had another augmetic leg grafted on — I thought this was a cool way of making the servitor look even more disturbing and less human. The kind of thing you only come up with in the middle of a kitbashing spree, eh…? ;)
Anyway, so much for my first few conversions involving the new AdMech kits! I hope you like some of these — I think I can safely say that we’ll be seeing more of this particular project in the near future. Until then, feel free to let me know any feedback you might have. And in closing, let me share another picture of Genetor Grendel and Magos Phract — in a a way, these guys are pretty much on the opposite ends on the craziness spectrum, but I just love them both.

As always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!