Work In Progress - Stormwolf Base

In the interesting world of my mind, I have decided that an interesting base will improve the model it is hosting. It is with this theory in mind that I have started on an ambitious project of creating a scenic base for my Stormwolf to be flying over.

The idea is that it will, eventually, be a rocky outcrop with a flow of water over it. The drop will provide a waterfall down to the base level. Confidence levels are high on the painting side of things, not so sure on the water creation but we all have to start somewhere hey!

The last shot above shows the position of the Stormwolf in relation to the scenery on the base, which keeps it a good bit clear of it!

Thanks for looking.
 

Space Wolves - Ulrik the Slayer

I had an unbuilt Ulrik model lying around and then a Primaris Apothocary model came in to my possession and an idea instantly sprung to mind - the old Wolf Priest was going to get Primarised.

Thanks for looking.

Grotesque Conversions

Another quick post today to show you a couple of the Grotesques I have converted for my Dark Eldar army, having been inspired from what I have seen on other blogs and in general around the internet. It is also a much cheaper alternative than buying a new Grotesque each time I want to expand the unit.

Both of these two are from the Island of Blood Skaven Rat Ogre set, with the chap on the right just taking a mask from the Talos/Cronos kit, while the beast on the right gets a new hand, some armour and a mask from the same kit.

Very much looking forward to getting these guys (and the three other regular Grotesques) painted up through the rest of the year.

GW Price Rises - It's Conversion Time!

So, we have all seen the price rises now and have had time to digest them a bit. We all have our own thoughts on the matter, but this post is not about complaining about the price rises, but more about my aim to find convertible units to go in my Dark Eldar army that will work out being slightly more economical than going solely down the GW route.

Firstly I would like to say that I have no intention of playing in any tournaments and generally just play with friends in a very relaxed, anything goes, setting. Thanks to this it opens up the possibilities of using anything possible to represent the unit I want it to (Coke can as a Drop Pod anyone?). This also opens up the chances to create any unit can think of from anything available to the miniature wargaming community.

As part of my Dark Eldar army, I am hoping to expand my Grotesque unit from 3 Grots up to the 7 or 8 mark. Now, with the new price rise in effect that leaves me looking at around £80 spend on 5 models. It is really not something I would like to do, no matter how much I enjoy the hobby. The only other option is to create my own Grotesques from something else. But where do we start?

After a quick search I found an article over at Eye of Error which uses a unit from Hordes, a Legion of Everblight Warspears unit, to create their Grotesques using leftover bits from a Talos Pain Engine and the Warspears unit as well as a touch of greenstuff. All of this seems largely possible and has the added bonus of having my Grotesques in a couple of different positions, all for £27, which is a fair old saving and would also give me the number of Grotesques I want.

Having read through the article and looked into these Warspears units, I also took a look into other units available in the Hordes range. A friend also mentioned that I should look through the Warmachines Cryx stuff as well. Looking through the Cryx range I came across another unit called Cephalyx Slaver and Drudge Mind Slaves. To me they scream Haemonculus with 5 Wracks and save me a few quid on buying the official models.

All I need is to crack out the greenstuff and my bits box to see what I can use to create the monstrosities that my Haemonculi are to be blamed for. It has been a while since I lasted completed any serious amount of conversion work, but the uniqueness of converting these models for my Dark Eldar make the idea a very intriguing one for me.

As I progress with these ideas or if any other possible conversions spring to mind, I will update accordingly.

Conversion - Cyclone Missile Launcher

This cyclone missile launcher conversion is one of the simplest conversions I have done. All you need is a typhoon missile launcher from the Space Marine Land Speeder box and some green stuff. So as long as you don't require a Typhoon-pattern speeder, or you have a friend who doesn't want that type of speeder, you are on to a winner!

For the next stage we need to assemble the missile launcher and trim the missile feed to the launcher down to a suitable height. With my launcher I left a couple of the missiles visible in the feed in place. It is possible to take it right down, but all modelling is down to your own preferences and how you want your own models to look.

The last and final stage is to use the green stuff to create a lid to the missile feed to close it off and to hide the cut edge from trimming down the feed. Leave the green stuff to go solid and voila, a cyclone missile launcher. With mine I have used a magnet in the bottom of it and the top of the terminator so that I can have a bit of flexibility in list writing depending on what I want to do.

And that's the sum of it. There really is nothing more to it than that, apart from adding on insignias of your own army and painting it up. So go forth now, and let those missiles cleanse the enemies of Humanity.

Magnets

Magnets. They are like glue that you can separate at any time. Exactly what you need to make an army that can take on anyone with little prior notice.

They will open up your units to every option available in its codex as you can remove arms and weapons, replacing them with whatever option you prefer. It also removes the dilemma of what weapons will go straight into your bits box as all options can be magnetised and used at any time.

The magnets available out there are all relatively cheap and come in a vast range of sizes. I have found that a magnet 3mm in diameter by 1 or 2mm thick is sufficient for marines, terminators and any marine vehicle. I am a huge advocate of using the magnets in my marine armies and installing them is pretty straight forward as long as you glue the magnets in the right way round, so you have the correct polarities facing each other.

So there we are, a few quick thoughts on using magnets. I love them as it allows me to switch between options on my units in seconds, without having to break the bank buying entirely new boxes to create an additional weapons choice, whilst allowing me to remain wysiwyg. Please feel free to let me know your thoughts on magnets as well.

Conversion - Combi-Weapon

Storm Bolter, Flamer, Shoulder Pad

Pretty much every marine army will have combi-weapons in some capacity or other, but the availability of these weapons is pretty rare and can be expensive. The simple solution is to create your own combi-weapons.

We will take a a storm bolter, flamer and shoulder pad to make a combi-flamer for a terminator in this instance, but the method behind it is quite easily transferred across to make either a combi-melta or combi-plasma.



We will begin by taking the storm bolter and trimming off the barrel and all associated bits on the front of the bolter so that we have room to fit the flamer barrel and a repositioned bolter barrel on the front of the weapon. if you manage to remove the barrel cleanly you may want to keep it so that it can be reused as the barrel on the new weapon. Once this is done, clean up the weapon with any necessary filing and place to one side for the moment.

For the next stage we will cut the end from the flamer weapon we have, filing off all uneven edges so that the end section will sit nice and flat on the end of the storm bolter body we have just trimmed and prepared. When they are to our satisfaction we will use plastic glue to join the two bits. The plastic glue doesn't set instantly like super glue and as such gives us some time to reposition the flamer section as we require.

Once the flamer section has been fixed in place we will need to add a bolter barrel to the weapon to finish it off. We can either take a boltgun and trim the barrel from there or use the barrel we cut off earlier and fashion it down to a single barrel. The piece of the barrel will be very small, so be careful not to drop it as finding it again can be incredibly frustrating. This piece can then be added to the front of the storm bolter base.

We can even add in the flamers fuel store by trimming it from the flamer and attaching it in a position you want on the combi-flamer depending on the bolter you are using as your base.

The combi-weapon creation process can be applied to both combi-plasma and comnbi-melta weapons as simply as the combi-flamer. Take the distinctive parts of the special weapon and then mould them into positions on your bolter base. It is quite possible to create any number of different looking combi-weapons, all of which are equally valid within the game itself, so kick back, relax and make the coolest looking combi-weapon you can imagine.

Conversion - Right Handed Storm Shield

Wolf Claw, Storm Shield and Shoulder Pad

For many Space Wolves players the Lone Wolf has a quite popular set up of either thunder hammer and storm shield, or chainfist and storm shield. The first option is not a problem for any player out there. However the second option leaves you with two left-armed weapons on one model. At this point we will have to reach for our trusted craft knife, nail files and a tube of glue.



We will start by collecting together the bits we need for the conversion, which are a storm shield, a right handed lightning/wolf claw and a shoulder pad. We will then take the claw and slice off all of the blades, leaving the arm as shown. Once all lines have been filed and smoothed down we will move on to the storm shield.

We are aiming to remove the entirety of the hand from the back of the shield. To do this we must take care when slicing down through the hand area for two reasons. 1. We don't want to damage any of the rest of the shield, only the section we are removing and more importantly 2. The craft knife should be quite sharp and we really don't want to be slicing through our fingers with it.

If the section is removed in thin slithers, it should be relatively easy to keep control over what we are removing and keeping the rest of the shield in as good a condition as possible.

Once we are satisfied that enough of the left hand section has been removed from the storm shield, we will need to check that the shield and the right arm are laying flat against each other in position before we glue them in place. If this is not the case, we will file down the arm as necessary to get the two items as neatly together as possible.

Once the filing is complete and we are satisfied with the positions of the storm shield and arm in relation to each other, we can use some plastic glue (or superglue if you would prefer) to fix the shield on the arm. I prefer using the plastic glue as it takes a little while to set, giving me time to adjust the shield on the arm as necessary, where superglue sets in seconds leaving very little adjustment time.

Once the glue has set you can mix up some green stuff and fill in any gaps that couldn't otherwise be filled in, or to repair details that were damaged during the conversion work.

Aside from the awkwardness of cleaning up the storm shield this is quite a simple and straightforward conversion. Let me know if you have a different method, or ideas on how to improve the process.