A conversion project (3)

I finished my little conversion - an 80s space marine mountd on an alien-like creature (see here and here).

I'm quite pleased with how the figure turned out. I am not the greatest painter, but I like painting in a somewhat simple style (base, wash, drybrush). This figure will be the commander of our Starmarine forces in our Antares scifi campaign. When he will see the table remains to be seen ...

In case you wonder, the rune on his right shoulder pad is the symbol we use for our Starmarine force. I know it is the Wolfsangel rune that was used by a.o. the Das Reich SS Waffen division in WW2, but I often choose runes to use on vehicles or units because there are easy to paint. I think of them als older heraldic signs, or Dwarven runes (I'm also a big Tolkien fan), and certainly do not support any other meaning people might give them.

A conversion project (2)

I did some more work on my conversion of mounting a space marine onto an alien mount, to be used in our ongoing scifi campaign. This figure will depict "Bacchus Mahoney", commander of SpecOps.

I mounted the figure on the lizardlike alien, and added some bits and bobs. I opted for an arm with a powerfist, rather than the one holding a pistol, since I felt that gave the figure a more believable pose. It also allowed me to attach a pistol on his left leg.

I might still attach some reins, to be decided later.

The photos were taken with flash setting on, but anyway, they give a good impression of the composition of the figure.

A conversion project

The academic year at my university has finally ended, so I have some time to relax, work in the garden, but also do some wargaming stuff. Or at least, that's what I hope for!

One of the little projects I want to complete is a conversion for our Antares 2401 campaign. The campaign has been dormant for a while, but I think we should start it up again. The campaign puts each player in control of a squad of StarMarines, with the GM controlling the opposition. The general commander of the StarMarines is Bacchus Mahoney, who has only been mentioned in the campaign reports so far, but does not have a figure representing him.

The overall tone of the campaign is more Rogue Trooper/Strontium Dog/original Rogue Trader 40K, rather than the gothic version 40K has become today. So I don't feel constrained at all to use figures as I see fit, and to make up some fun but perhaps weird combinations.

Anyway, this is the project:

Bacchus Mahoney will be represented on the battlefield riding an alien-like mount, which fits in with some of the characters that already saw some action (K'z'r'x, a drafted mercenary, represented by an original Tyranid/ Hunter Slayer miniature).

• The mount is a Raptor from Harlequin miniatures, and was originally intended as a steed for Shadow Elves.
• The rider will be an old 40K chaplain on a jetbike. I already removed his right arm, and will replace it with a plastic original Mk 6 Space Marine arm, most likely the pistol, since that will give him a more dynamic pose.
• I already filed away some of the skulls on the figure, but still want to work on the banner a bit, probably replacing the skull on the banner with the imperial eagle from another plastic banner. The skulls on the kneecap also will be removed.
• Some smaller items (also from the original Mk 6 Space Marine box) will be used to embellish the model here and there. 

I think it will turn out to be a very cool figure, and it might turn our attention back to our dormant SciFi campaign.

Some chaotic conversions (2)

Earlier I reported on some conversions I was working on ... chaos knights with mutated slithering insect bodies. Here they are painted

The base is kept rather simple - green grass as I use for all my fantasy figures. I had to contrast the green body of the snake-like figure, so I decided to surround him with a glossy shade of greenish blue. I also had 2 Nurglings lying around, so I added them also to the base of the figure.

Some chaotic conversions

I made a few quick conversions today - some slithering Nurgle Chaos Champions - from old parts I had lying around.

The first photograph shows the various parts.  The bodies of the Chaos Knights are from Citadel, and were once sold as leg-body pairs (see their old catalogue pages here). The bodies are (from left to right): A Lord of Atlantis figure from Heartbreaker's Magic the Gathering range; a termicatus body from Demonworld; and a spider body from Marauder miniatures.

Given the insect-like or slimy nature of the body parts, Nurgle seems an appropriate team, so the main colour will be green.

Individual body parts

Holes drilled and wire (still to be clipped) glued in,

Bodies attached.

Green stuff (not very visible) to fill up holes in the body-body joint.

Addendum:

This blogpost shows them painted.

Cataloguing the collection ... (7)

Some minor additions this time ... total now at 1140. I estimate I am about two-thirds through the fantasy stuff, although my large army of Skaven still have to be entered.

Some highlights from this round are shown below.

The first photograph is a Slaanesh Champion of Chaos. I must have painted this figures during the early nineties.

The 2nd figure is one of my early conversions - and an attempt to make a heavily mutated Chaos champion. The body is that of a plastic Genestealer from the 1st edition Spacehulk box, Head is from a giant rat, arms and halberd from a skaven. Wings and long tail are from plastic toy animals.

Cool website ...

Sometimes one stumbles across a wargaming website never seen before. The site of Irrational Number Line Games is a site I discovered yesterday. One of the nice things is that they have a "good ideas archive", many of which are conversions and clever modeling. Some highlights (pictures from their website):

• Under The Sea Conversions

•  Wormmen

•  Shadow Monsters

• SciFi Complex

Skaven and the Escargotaurus

Way back, when Warhammer Fantasy Battles was still in its 3rd edition (1987-1991), I played Warhammer a lot. One of the nice features that was available in the Realm of Chaos books, was to give units chaos mutations. Skaven were one of the races that could receive chaos mutations, and it was encouraged to actually modify your miniatures such that they reflected physical the mutations.

The unit shown below is one of the units that featured in my skaven army. Besides some non-physical mutations, the unit received an alternate head mutation, and a changed forelimb. I tried to work that theme into the miniatures by replacing some heads, as well as some arms.

The skaven bodies are all from the Warhammer Regiments box, except one giant rat (giant rat 1) body (front right) and a skaven character (verminlord with halberd) (far left). The head mutations are (from left to right and back to front): unchanged skaven head on character model, goat's head from Chimera model, fly from a plastic toy, added horns to skaven head, genestealer (Spacehulk model), horse (plastic toy), pelican (plastic toy), lizard (plastic GW), deer (plastic toy), chaos hound, a very weird head mutation -- tail from the same chimera and finally a dragon head (also from chimera, he served well!) on chaos spawn.
The arms are the following: genestealer, no change, genestealer, space marine bionic arm, crab's claw (plastic toy), no change, no change, changed weapon, no change, skeleton arm, no change, and the chaos spawn doesn't have any arms.

A second model that was a conversion for my chaos forces was the model I dubbed the Escargotaurus. A cross-breed between a giant snail (from a plastic toy model) and a minotaurus was the focal model of my army. The minotaur body is from Advanced Heroquest, the wings (which were there to help the creature to keep itsbody straight) are from the same chimera model mentioned above.

I must say I had fun creating these models. I don't know whether such models would still be allowed under the current WFB rules, but they served me well on the battlefield many years ago!