GWpertinent Give Away Prize

I got my Old School Sicarius model in the mail this week from Tristan for winning his give away over at GWpertinent for showing off old school 40K models. Nice classic piece still in pretty good shape including slotta base and caped backpack. Plan in to remove the 2 Ultramarine U's and paint him up in Sons of Twilight colors to replace my counts as Cato Sicarius I current have.

Money Saving Tip: Converting SM Special Characters

This model GW is introducing for Vulkan sure is impressive. It will also probably 18 dollars for a single miniature of a space marine. That is pretty pricey. Also he does not look anything like the picture.

The new space marine codex has some great unique characters in it. I personally have yet to play a non combat patrol game without my buddy Pedro. Unfortunately the excellent metal models that GW makes to represent them are generally about 15 dollars each. Since a standard marine plastic is between 3-5 dollars depending on source and a metal veteran is 6-7 dollars you can save 50% or more by building your own versions of the characters. Not only do you get to save money but you get some hobby fun as you explore what you can make out of that bit box. I pay attention to getting things WYSIWYG so if you run into someone very specific about that you are pretty much covered. Here is a list of the ones and the links that I have done.

Belial-No official Metal Model but even a plastic Terminator save 33% over the metal Captain.

Telion-Based on Plastic Scout savings of better than 60%.

Shrike-Plastic Assault Marine with Veterans lightening claws.

Cassius-Made from Old Metal Chaplain with converted Combiflamer.

Pedro-Plastic with leftover bits from Commander Box.

Sicarius-Recycled Metal veteran since I do not need so many with power weapons and plasma pistols.

In the works are Tigurius plastic with tabard, Lysander from plastic assault marines, Khan from dark angels ravenwing with semi functional jetbike, and Vulkan in Mk IV Power armor.

Belial Back Shots

Here are images of the Dark Angel Dreadnought Greaves as shoulder pads. As I said earlier I got this from Matt at ArchAngels but I did mount them the other way with. This choice mainly was determined by the purity seal looking funny on the other arm sort of floating in the air.

Belial Model

Here is the built and based Belial for my Deathwing force. Components are all Plastic: SM Tabard Chest from Black Templars, Black Templar head, Assault Terminator Plastics legs, back and Sergeants claws, Dark Angel Dreadnought Greaves as shoulder pads (Stolen from Matt at ArchAngels). The greenstuff work is poor but fills the gaps in the side and along the collar.

Side view. I tried to make him unique but avoided banners or anything since I only have 5 other assault termis for my normal army, I might be forced to use him just as a normal squad member.

WIP: Belial

Here is my work in progress counts as Belial model for my Dusk Hunters Terminator Army. Plastic Termi with a power armor tabard from the Black Templars upgrade box. Idea of using this will a Termi is from Dave Taylor in WD 310. Filed off the templar cross from belt buckle to be replace with a skull logo. The arms are ready to go but I was not careful enough in cutting the pieces so I have some gaps to fill with a little green stuff. If he was not going to have such an open pose I could probably avoid it but his claws are going to be held somewhat up so the joint will be in full view.

The head is also from the Black Templars box. I really liked that box for these type of more unusual bits. If you are getting ready to start a marine force, it might be useful to get one to make your army stand out.

My Telion

Here is a quick and dirty Telion conversion. I do not plan to use him much but I wanted to have the option to drop him into a list without dropping the cash for the metal model. Four dollars seems better than fifteen for a model just for an occasional game. I like the eye of vengeance rule and think he might be a good addition for games against Eldar to try to pick out upgrade charcters in aspect warrior squads. If Nobs did not have those pesky 2 wounds he would be good for Orks also.

I mainly just cut up a spare sniper rifle from the scout sniper kit to get the silencer for the barrel and the more detailed scope. I put the cloak bundle on the back to represent the stealth skill and the rocket is there to represent the voice of experience rule. His specially balanced rocket helps the youngins find their target. I want to use a normal space marine head from the commander box but I could just not get it cut down correctly to look right so I just used one from the scout biker box.

Shrike

This is my simple counts as Shrike. My goal is not to reproduce the Shrike image but to make a simple version out of the parts I have. Nothing really special. Shrike is actually pretty easy since he probably should not have a lot of extra stuff. Only really interesting thing is that I used the Dark Angels beaky head where the sword is removed. I am considering adding some type of smoke launchers to one of his Talons to represent the See But Not be Seen rule.

My Cassius

I have been working on creating WYSIWYG special characters out of my existing space marine minis. I have already decided that if I was ever going to use a walking Chaplain in power armor the upgrade to Cassius is so small that I would use his rules. I happened to have an older Chaplain with a bionic face so all I need was the combi-flamer. Here I combined a normal bolter with the barrel moved up and ammo clip on the side with a sawed off flamer. The axis of the flamer is slightly off but I think it will work. It should look better once the paint hides the stress marks from the cutting and I drill out the barrels.

Every Chapter Master is Pedro

Here is my work in progress Counts as Pedro. Really no reason not to take Pedro if you are interested in a Chapter Master. Maybe you do not like the I1 of the powerfist but other than that his abilities vs cost compared to a normal Chapter Master are outstanding. Essential get scoring Sternguard, Stubborn, and +1 Attack Banner effect for like 20 points ~ 1 marine.

Added Basing with building bit and ork skull plus drilled out stormbolter. Next step brushed on black basecoat.

Space Marine Unique Characters

The new space marine codex is full of unique characters who give the army wide abilities without even being on the board. GW also decided to open the characters up for use for any chapter and allow for different characters to appear in the same army provided only one chapter tactics is used. Some say that the characters are undercosted which may be true overall but seems especially true is that they are undercosted compared to the generic HQ choices in the codex. These were both increased in cost and decreased in stats and or abilities in the new codex for 5th edition 40K. There seems no reason to ever take a Chaplain on foot who is not Cassius when you essential get T6 and Feel no Pain for 10 points plus have three weapons instead of 2.

Ofcourse you need a proper WYSIWYG model for each character so GW might just be trying to get everyone to have 10 different HQ units to build armies with. I have been trying to repurpose other models to make the characters.

Here is my Pedro. Nothing really special. Left over bits from a Space Marine Commander Kit who just needed a combimelta changed to a Storm Bolter and a Banner to represent the Inspiring Presence ability. I will probably base it with a ork skull I have in my bit box.

Here is the mini I will use for Sicarius. With the new costs for power weapons and plasma pistols, I just could not see the advantage to having 3 veterans with both. So 1 becomes Sicarius with the addition of the Halo. Another lost his power weapon for a chainsword.