Assault Terminator Conversions

Thunder Hammer and Storm Shields

After being hammered (pardon the pun) by a bunch of Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield wielding Terminators I decided I wanted a piece of that pie. I've never been a fan of Terminators, they are an expensive units and with the amount of weapons that can punch through their armour I didn't like having a 200+ point unit that drops like flies sprayed with Raid. 

Coming back to the game after a long hiatus from playing and modelling I found they changed the rules for Storm Shields in 5th Edition 40k, still not convinced it took a single game of getting pounded into the ground for me to realise their potential. Dangerous and durable, they make for some excellent assault troops that aren't left with their thumbs up their arses after a successful assault (changes to sweeping advances also made my Assault Marines cry).

So the answer, build some Terminators. But looked at the new Storm Shields, bah! That's not fitting for a Blood Angel. A brief search of some of the new models and I quickly set my eyes on the Sanguiniary Guard's Wings to use as Storm Shields. 

(Courtesy of GW website)

It was a bit of a jump and I had my own doubts whether it would work. The wings were relatively tall and I was concerned it might overshadow the Terminator or just make them look unwieldy. My curiosity (as always) won and I got myself a set of the models to see if my idea could pan out. I think it worked out quite reasonably.

I decided to go the full nine yards and go for a solid block of 10 Terminators. I actually made 5 of them out of Grey Knight Terminators to give one squad a bit more 'flash'. A single box of Sanguinary Guard yielded 10 wings, unfortunately this was split into 5 right handed and 5 left handed wings. This meant I needed some left handed Thunder Hammers, which don't really exist in pre-existing kits. Well, back to bitz hunting.

The answer came in the form of the Chaos Terminator power weapons, with a simple weapon swap I got my left Terminator arm with Thunderhammer. There was some clean up needed to make the Chaos arm a bit more Imperial friendly.

The Terminators themselves were relatively simple to assemble. Unfortunately I had to 'wrist-mount' my Storm Shields, this meant that on close inspect the Storm Shield looks 'glued' to the marine's arm. I know as a converter this little detail should be addressed, a friend even offered to give me a mould for Storm Shield hands to fix it. I reluctantly had to decline, I hate leaving models with tiny detail like this omitted but if I tried to replace all the hands I know I'll never get round to it. The compromise was for the greater good.

Onwards to the painting! For the shields I had an idea that stuck in my head. As the shields were feathers I wanted to go for a flame type effect, mimicking a Phoenix wing. I don't know whether this was a good or bad idea, I'm on the precipice of rejecting and keeping it. The other scheme I had was to paint it blue to signify the energy field around the shield. Since the armour is red anyways I thought a stark blue shield might distinguish the model a bit. I don't know, maybe someone will comment before I glue everything together.

This is the prototype, the others have yet to be finished but at least I know what I'm aiming for. 1 down, 9 to go!

P.S. Since taking the picture of the unfinished Terminator I had decided to swap the orientation of the shield/wing on the arm.

AdMech Conversions

Being an Adeptus Mechanicus nut I always wanted my very own army to represent this secluded and relatively unknown faction of the Imperial alliance. Previous attempts at making an AdMech force was met with failure as the procedure to convert viable models was long, labourous and quite difficult to replicate consistantly (usually consistency is not a problem for the AdMech but I wanted some coherency to my force).

The Trooper

The kitbash I settled for was a conglomeration of the Tau Firewarriors,  Imperial Guard and Forgeworld bits. Simple head and body swaps (or arm and head swaps depending how you look at it).

The breakdown of these little troopers are as follows:

Head - Forgeworld Elysian drop troop head

Torso - Tau Fire Warrior (with the standard backpack)

Arms - Imperial Guard Cadian arms

Weapons - Lasguns with the barrel replaced with the Tau grenades

Legs - Tau Fire Warrior

Very simple kitbash with promising results. The only crux is that the Tau Fire Warrior torso is slightly weedy compared to the common man and as a result the Imperial Guard weapon arms do not match up perfectly in every case; some tiny cutting of the sleeves usually solves this but it is difficult to get a snug fit everytime (good thing it is easily hidden away).

Like a Boss (I really need some explosions in the background)

Heavy Weapons 'Team'

All foot sloggers need some fire support, and initially I had based the AdMech army on the Imperial Guard Codex this meant the support came in the form of Heavy Weapon Teams. The Mechanicum's love for walkers was what made me make this cute beastie. 

The main body and legs come from the Forgeworld Necron Tomb Stalker model, the weapon was raised so that it ran parallel with the body using Green Stuff and this was attached to the back 'spine' of the Tomb Stalker body segment. 

The GS section is a bit ugly but as a prototype it shows that the kitbash can work and soon a multitude of these guys will be gracing future battlefields. Further improvement planned is to magnetise the weapons so that I can swap the load outs for a bit more versatility.

Other areas for improvement is the front of the body segment, as it looks very bare. I was thinking of covering it up with purity seals and scrolls to hide the fact I can't sculpt. 

Other Source Material

A great resource for Adeptus Mechanicus conversions and scratch built Titans.

Dakka Dakka is always a good place for inspirational material.

How To: Bone Breaker Conversion

The Pi-rat Warlord

Skaven pirates, what's not to like? This conversion was done to represent Capt'n Squeak Fleet of Clan Rickets with his trusty Bone Breaker (and honorary First-Mate) Planks.

The base for the Bone Breaker was made from the Rat Ogres that come with the Warhammer Fantasy Isle of Blood box set. These awesome ogres put the standard Rat Ogres to shame. Before starting this conversion I made a list of everything that Planks needed to have befitting the Pi-rat Warlord:

• Removable platform for the Warlord
• Hat
• Hook
• Pirate Flag

All Check (Hook was WIP in this picture).

The platform for the Warlord was actually made from old bits of sprue glued together with a piece underneath for reinforcement. The railing was made from old paperclips. To fit the assembly the Rat Ogre needed a bit of smoothing out on the back as some fur was getting in the way of a snug fit for the platform.

The flag is a regular battle standard from the Storm Vermin set; the main shaft was drilled out so that it could be pinned straight into the Rat Ogre's back. Without glue this had the added benefit of pinning the platform into place which made the whole thing removable.

For the Warlord himself I wanted a pistol tooting maniac with a pirate hate, simple. I tried a great many number of models which were not so simple. First I tried the standard Skaven Warlord with Dwarven head for a banner pole. I found the platform I made was actually too narrow to fit him on so that was a dead end. The next candidate for a seat on Planks was Queek Headtaker, however, although a really nice model, the pose on the platform I constructed did not suit him and he didn't look anything like the Pi-rat Warlord I had in mind.
Finally I settled on a regular Storm Vermin Model. The arms simple weapon swaps with those found in the Empire Pistolier set.
Pirate hats made from Green Stuff (Sorry, no pics of this). This was done cutting a flat circle of GS as the base for the hat, a ball of GS was put in the middle and the circle was closed around the ball, then trimmed to fit. The tricorne hat for the Warlord was done in the same manner but bent up in three positions.

Close up of the Warlord, I opted for two pistols (for show) so he can rain down bullets on his enemies (and friends) from his pedestal of command. What a smug bastard.

With this warlord I was trying a new paint scheme that could be applied to any Skaven that I would complete in the future. That meant the more simple the procedure the better. I decided for a very simple basecoat-wash-drybrush approach.
Here is the Model with the base colours. The flesh was painted GW snakebite leather; the red clothes, GW mecharite red.

Here is the finished model as it is. The whole model was given a liberal wash of GW devlan mud (two coats in parts to get that depth). Then it was a quick drybrush to lighten the raised areas of the model and extra bits like verdigris on the copper and rust on anything made of steel. It's not going to win any painting prizes but good enough for the table and most importantly it was quick and easy (only took 5 hours to complete, that's quick for me).
The banner was a bit of freehand; copying the Skaven rat symbol and adding in a crossed bones motif. It's quite badly painted but my excuse is a rat-man painted it, blame him.
Planks right hand seemed a little bare and I was tempted to give him maybe a battered spyglass or a dead slave to use a club but could not find the right bits to use. Scratch building a spyglass would have been simple enough but I opted out of the extra club for Planks to keep things simple and less cluttered.

And that's the Pi-rat Warlord Squeak Fleet with his First-Mate Planks. The base was made from old lollipop sticks (the best part of doing this project... yummy).
So that's my attempt at converting a Bone Breaker, there's a whole archive of awesome Bone Breaker conversions out there but I hope this simple kit bash would give others some confidence that you don't need expert GS skills to make a reasonable conversion (The only GS work done was filling holes and the hats).