Fire of Salvation Conversion, Building Complete

Last week I wrote a post about the the difference in converting Privateer Press models and other gaming miniatures.  In the past, I have done extensive conversions in my Warhammer Fantasy and 40k armies.  However, I have been really interested to find out that converting models for Warmahordes isn't necessarily look upon as good.  This kind of boggles my mind. 

It all stems from the fact that I want to create a Tier 4 eKreoss list.  eKreoss can put out an insanely wicked beatdown when coupling his feat with a ton of Exemplar weaponmaster attacks.  That said, to attain Tier 4, I need the Fire of Salvation heavy warjack.  Unfortunately, Fire of Salvation costs like $52 retail.  So, I have decided to convert up my own.  Fire of Salvation is based on the Crusader chassis, so I think it should be fairly easy to convert.  I even scored a classic Crusader for $12.  In fact, I decided to go a step further and convert the Fire's weapon using the sword from Scourge of Heresy.  The sword gives a more exemplar feel to the jack. Furthermore, if you look at Fire's card, there is nothing special about his weapon except it's ability to give the fire continuous effect. So, here is what I came up with.

So, as you can see. Here he is. You can see his sword complete with flames.  I also made my own back banners for him.  They add a bit more dynamism to the model.

Here's a side view.  Again you can see the flames on the sword blade and the back banners.  The spears come from a GW Warriors of Chaos Marauder Horsemen sprue.  You can also see that I added some extra armor plates to the backs of Fire's hands.  On each is a single greenstuff spike. 

The rear view.  You can see a greenstuff parchment on his right arm.

And the left.  Here you can see an added embellishment to one of the back banners.  I will probably paint it gold.

Here is a closeup of the filler around the menofix.  I tried to replicate it from a picture of Fire. 

So, after posting my conversion article and talking to some other players, I decided that I needed an out should a TO want my Fire's weaponry to look right.  Thus, I broke out the pin vice and drilled out the hand so that I can swap weapons.  For most games, I will shoot for using the sword as it fits the exemplar theme.  Otherwise, I can swap the weapons out for the mace for pickier TOs.

Another view of the mace.  You can see the flames a bit better here.  I think I might need to beef them up a bit.

So, there you have it. Does this look like a suitable Fire of Salvation?  I plan on painting it as it looks in all of the official Privateer Press pics.  Anyway, after seeing the model with the sword, would you allow it?  Do you think it would it be contentious with a TO?  It is obviously not a Crusader and also not Scourge of Heresy, so I thought it would pass well.  Thoughts?

Here are some other Warmachine articles:
Warmachine the Way I See It: Warcaster Study, pKreoss
The Harbinger of Menoth: Model Review
How Important is the Front Arc, Really?
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Conversions and Warmachine

If you follow my blog, it's obvious by now that I am a commission painter. I also convert models, especially my own.  However, when I get into a new gaming system, I am tentative.  Being new to Warmachine, I am a bit edgy about performing in big-time conversions, but at the same time, I want to add a bit of character to my armies.

The crux of the matter is that I don't know how significant things like weapon swaps are in this game.  In my experience with GW games, conversions aren't too big a deal if they reasonably approximate what they are representing, i.e. a bolt pistol shouldn't be counted as a meltagun. 

So, here's the idea.  As part of my eKreoss Tier 4 army I need to add Fire of Salvation.  Well, I have a few issues: 1) The model is like $50 NiB!  I don't like that at all.  It is just a Crusader heavy variant, and I was able to purchase a Crusade for $12.  2) The mace that Fire of Salvation carries isn't all that flashy.  I have ordered Scourge of Heresy's sword as it looks more Exemplar themed and will use it and perhaps greenstuff some flames onto it.

Is this acceptable?  Even though Fire of Salvation carries a mace, there aren't any qualities given to maces specifically, so should modelling a sword matter?  Veteran Warmahorders, what say you?  Please leave me some feedback and let me know.  Thanks.

Here are some other Warmachine articles:
Warmachine the Way I See It: Warcaster Study, pKreoss
The Harbinger of Menoth: Model Review
How Important is the Front Arc, Really?
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Dynamism and Conversion: How Small Changes can Yield Great Results

**So, I slated this to be published like 4 days ago and just now noticed that it never posted.  yay blogger.....ugh.  Well, better late than never.  Enjoy**

I love painting and converting models.  I hate the fact that after a while all models begin to look the same.  This is a sad unfortunate result of set molds and premade model pieces.  Basically, if all you do is assemble models as they are, you end up with a bunch of guys that ultimately look like some version of this:

courtesy of theshirtlist.com

That is why conversions are such a huge part of making an appealing looking army.  The idea of camouflage comes to mind.  Essentially, when things look the same, our eyes naturally pass over them.  That is why we easily kill deer (that and high power hunting rifles) and why Where's Waldo can be a challenge for some people. To that end, I really try to make each of my models a bit different from the last.  Luckily GW has gotten the idea that dynamic looking models rock and has been doing some wonderful things with its model kits lately, but older things need a few tweeks.  Enter my assault terminators.  I love terminators.  They are totally wicked.  I would hate to encounter one of these guys and be on the business end of a thunder hammer.  That said, for such a dynamic unit (whirlwinds of close combat death), the models are relatively static.  Thus, borrowing some inspiration from the Space Hulk terminators, I set out to remodel some of my assault terminators to make them a bit more dynamic.  Here is a unit of 5 that I had done.

Yeah, it's a crappy picture, but I basically sought to change arm positions so that each model look individualist and interesting. 

This guy is my favorite.  He is inspired by the awesome Space Hulk terminator, Brother Claudio.  Granted, my model isn't nearly as dynamic, but I think this stance shows a lot more dynamism than it previously did.  He looks like he is raising both claws in preparation to make an extremely Wolverine-like X-slash.  I pulled this look off by simply angling the arms and gluing them to hold them in place while I greenstuffed some of the gasketing that occurs at the joints of their armor.  As you can see, I have yet to paint the greenstuff, so it is easily recognizable. 

This guy is my next favorite.  He appears to me to be in the midst of parrying a blow for which storm shields are so famous and getting ready to reverse his hammer for a nasty upward swing. Again, I used a bit of greenstuff to extend the join where arm and torso meet to achieve a more dynamic pose.  

So why does this matter?  

If you are going to paint your models well. You want people to spend time looking at them. If every model looks like this ---------->

They are bound to be overlooked.  We don't want that, so changing things up a bit will get you noticed and this is a good thing if you attend tournaments with soft scores.  It doesn't take a lot of work either.  Try it out. 

Some other useful hobby articles involving basing:
Tutorial: How-to Rock Bases on the Cheap
Live Long and Prosper... Making Vulkan
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Lord of the Thunderhooves

If you have seen any of my Templar Wolves pictures, you know that I have foregone thunderwolf cav for a more theme-y "thunderhoof" cav.  What better way for templar-ish space marines to ride around than to do so on genetically/cybernetically enhances horses, right? 

Since my commission jobs have been piled high and deep for the summer, I have realized that it may be some time before I get my Blood Angels finished.  As a result, a week or two ago I decided to play a game with my Wolves on Vassal.  You can read that report here: Space Wolf Razorspam vs. Horde Orks- a Vassal Report.

That really got my creative juices flowing and I decided to create my counts-as thunderwolf lord.  I don't have a name for him, but the Lord of the Thunderhooves is definitely going to be his title.  I found an interesting model lying around.  It is a reaper miniature called Barros and Tempest. The mode is pretty sweet altogether, but the pegasus is what really drew me in.  First, the model is massive. It really fits the proportion of a genetically engineered horse that a space marine might ride.  Second, the sculpt is beautiful.  With that mentioned, my thunderhoof lord began.  Here he is, very much WiP. 

Notice the scale.  The horse is simply a monster!  I had to cut and resculpt the hooves to make him look like he was rearing up instead of flying, and had to cover the shoulder joints where the wings joined. 

Here is a front view of my LotT.  I came across a new Fantasy Marauder Cav head that looked great for the part.  I really like the braided beard.  Both of his arms are magnetized and I will continue to provide various loadouts for him such as a bolt pistol, thunder hammer, frost weapon, etc.  Right now, though I really like the wolf claw/storm shield/saga of the warrior born setup for extra infantry killy.  The horse's mane does make him look a bit emo, but I will forgive that. 

On his back is the cloak of a Fantasy Warrior of Chaos.  I still have some greenstuffing to do on the underside of the it. By the way, the legs are made from terminator legs.  He has a power armor torso and arms.  I'm not sure where the lightning claw came from but it is a power armor claw and is smaller than the terminator ones.  The storm shield is a cleaned up Fantasy Warriors of Chaos shield.  That miniature range is really great for making a gritty warrior look. 

Here is his power pack.  It looks a bit hokey on top of the cloak, but I couldn't figure out a smooth look for it under the cloak.  I think I am going to need to do some greenstuffing to add cables and hoses to attach it to his armor to make it look more believeable. 

And here is the size comparison.  It's my hope that his scale will make it evident that he is a Wolf Lord and not just cav.  The Cav on the left is actually quite big in it's own right, so you can imagine how much more epic this dude looks. 

And here is a front view.  Notice that these two guys are quite similar.  The cav model on the left was my first thunderhoof cav model to make. 

So, there you have my Lord of the Thunderhooves.  Let me know what you think of him.  I hopefully will have some paint applied shortly.

Other useful articles:
Codex Review: Space Wolf Named Characters, The Awesome
Wolves vs. IG
The pups roll marines
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What's this?

What could this be? 

I intentionally blacked out this particular model.  He is going to be my next giveaway project.  I am kind of excited.  This will be my first non-daemon xenos model to paint for 40k.  And that is my first clue as to what it is.  I am sure from the silhouette you can guess what it might be, but I want to throw out a challenge.  Tell me race, unit, and equipment (basic).  Post a comment with your guesses.  I will post more about the contest in the near future. 

Here is the link to my last contest miniature:
Gone to Ground Giveaway: The Prize

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Free....er thing

Alrighty folks.  I have decided what I want to do.  I have alluded to giving away a model that I have painted in some sort of fun way in the near future.  If you have been keeping up, I am working on converting a lone wolf model with a storm shield and a chainfist.  You can see my initial posts here and here.  Well, he is coming along well.  I have gotten most of the painting done.  There are a few things that I need to finish up, though most of them are just visual effects.  Here are the pics of his current condition.

So, you can see that I am sticking with the typical Space Wolf color scheme. 

There is just something about the caution stripes that always gets me.  I love to include them where possible and what better place to go than on the housing of a chainfist!

You can probably see by now that I am trying out some battle damage/wear and tear effects with this model. So far they look okay.

I also love the interplay of red and yellow in the Space Wolf color scheme, so I couldn't hold back on the storm shield. 

There he stands as of right now.  At this point, I need to add a few more wear effects.  I want to stain up his cloak and loincloth, add mud to his feet and legs, and possibly add a bit more battle damage.  Then he will be ready to march his way into a lucky reader's army!

I mentioned above that I figured out what to do, but I am not quite ready to divulge the terms of my first ever giveaway.  Suffice it to say that it is fairly easy, but not a cakewalk. As soon as Skeld (sounds wolf-ish enough) is ready the contest begins!

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Just do it yourself...

So, apparently, apothecary nartheciums are the gold standard in bits alongside cyclone missile launchers.  As a result, I can't get a cheap one anywhere. I can't even find a good deal on a cheap apothecary model.  Thus, I have the option of buying the sanguinary priest model on the GW site for $15, paying more than that for the nartecium via a bits store, or working on making my own.  I am going to go for the last option.  Ultimately, that means I need an arm that looks similar to the apothecary arm and then I need to add some of the extra bits and bobs to it like the saw and the industrial sized drill/needle attachment.  Enter my first attempt at a DiY narthecium:

As you can see, I am using a terminator stormbolter arm.  It is a bit bigger than a normal marine arm, but I think the heft of the narthecium merits a larger arm without seeming unreasonable. 

Here you see my attempts at creating some of the attachments.  I took a chainsword and shaved it down quite a bit to create the saw.  That was a fairly easy conversion.  Above it, you see the drill.  I took a small needle, cut it, and covered it in greenstuff.  I then incised spirals for the bit though I am not sure it looks done enough.

So, the initial step is done.  I need to clean it up and make any fine tuned additions and then this guy will be done. 

What do you folks think?  Does it look passable? Are there any really noticeable pieces that I am missing?  Any advice or criticism is welcome.

**Update: Here is a picture of the real narthecium for comparison.  I do notice that it has more gadgets.  Now that I look at it, mine doesn't look too bad, but the shoulder pad does look a bit bulky.

Weekend Update

Howdy folks.  I have had a somewhat eventful week Warhammer-wise.  This week, I have gotten the pieces to make a devestator squad, 2 units of sanuingary guard, 2 landspeeders, and mephiston, some of which are still coming.  I was also able to procure the economy sized tube of greenstuff. Once that came in, I was back on track to work on converting up my lone wolf model to show off with a Dragon Forge base.  If you read back here, you can see that Jeff over at Dragon Forge was super generous and sent me a handful of bases to try out for various modelling experiments. 

So, our Lone Wolf model is coming along. Last night, I was able to hammer out a few small details.  Here are the pictures with descriptions of various sculpting work I have done. Forgive my shoddy camera.  I am hoping to work out some editing.

Here you see our trusty lonewolf standing on his Lost Empire base. I like the imposing feel he has as he marches stoically forward to kill stuff.

Here you can see the details on the shield.  I added a space wolf dreadnought icon, I found laying around in my bitz box.  Below it I added a piece of wolf pelt nailed to his shield.  On the inside of the shield, I have added a shield handle and wrist strap.

Circling around his chest and shoulders is a chain to hold his wolf pelt in place on his back (see below).  To the front I added a few wolf teeth hanging from the chain. I also added a loincloth.  This is actually a WFB cloak that I hacked up and heated a bit to bend into position.

On the shoulder pad I added a howling wolf symbol.

Here is the wolf pelt.  When I heated this to bend it around, I got it a little too hot.  Some of the fur details melted together leaving a weird, smooth texture. So, I had to go back and sculpt some fur and ears for our poor wolf. 

Finally, I added the fanged skull motif to the chainfist hand.   It worked out pretty well and adds a bit more detail to the model. 

So, next I have to smooth out details and file down some greenstuff edges and then I am ready to prime and paint.  Stay tuned for more updates and while you're at it, check out Dragon Forge for cool bases and conversion pieces.

In other news, today I learned that Vulkan Marine with no libby are terribly outmatched by Grey Knights.  Ugghh. 

Money Saving Shout-out

Low and behold, Dethtron isn't the only one spending his time coming up with ways to save money.  Check out this post by Marcus that appears on the Miniature Wargame Conversions blog.  It is an excellent post on how to take excess GK Strike Squad bits and through some additional cheap bits make additional models for your GK army.  I really like this.  I do this all the time as it costs far less money to buy some additional tac squad bodies and convert them than the real McCoy. Excellent article. 

Converting: One Man's Trash...

I love a good deal.  I love re-purposing things.  I love finding value in things that could be considered junk by other people.  For that reason, I love converting models.  It is fun to create models that stand out and more closely resemble the excellent pictures provided by GW in their fluff. 

It's also a challenge.  Finding the right pieces, fitting them together to make believeable, dynamic poses, and creating a model that stands out can be a challenge, but one that pays off. 

To that end, there are many great places to find cheap bits to work with.  I use thewarstore.com a lot.  It is a bit more pricey, but has the most readily available new bits.  I have also heard good things about bitzbarn.com .  Finally, I absolutely love bartertown.  It is very easy to place an advert for what you need and allow fellow gamers to supply the models or pieces for trades or money.

Once you have your bits, it is all about vision.  Bringing the pieces together to create a model that doesn't look cobbled together from junk can be daunting, so a clear vision is necessary.  I occasionally, draw a picture or go by an already created picture for my inspiration.  From there, it is just a matter of cutting, scraping, gluing, and sculpting your way to a nice model.

Here are a few models that I have recently converted. 

My most famous conversion is my take on twinlinked autocannon arms for dreadnoughts.  You can check out my tutorial here.

Here is my take on Logan Grimnar.  He strides forward with a deadly purpose.

Here are my much debated "thunderhoof" cavalry.

Here is a rune priest that uses many warhammer fantasy pieces.

My most recently converted project is Vulkan.

Converting is fun, it helps us come up with models that GW doesn't currently have in production and it allows us to use our creativity to create characterful models for our armies.  One man's trash is another man's treasure.