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hi all. i have collected exo armour squats for more than ten years. at one point i had more than 40. they were my favourite sculpt from GW and I was super keen to do something with them over time, i sold a few, started and stopped a few projects, and generally just kept them in a drawer i've been on a bit of a hobby revival recently (no doubt connected to taking antidepressants for the first time in my life) and it's motivated me to seeing a project through with the little guys so, the plan generally, people near me play 9th edition 40k. it's also the obvious choice for venturing out in the wider world to play. therefore, i am going to try and build something for the current edition how to execute it 1 - the models as you already know, GW put out 3 exo sculpts. 5 if you count heretic ones. that gives us 5 variations to work with, but we probably need variety to keep things visually interesting and not repeat the same models. therefore, we need to do some surgery: some/most of these will have details filed off like the above. the intention is for each individual to be a bit... well... individual. sacrilege to some to tamper with old lead, but it will be OK if numbers start to run low, i have a plan b these cracking models are by Wereweevil Miniatures and really capture the classic "egg with legs" feel how to execute it 2 - the crunch the standard modern proxy unit for exos in 40k these days is Terminators, so let's go with that. unfortunately, though, Terminators are generally equipped with storm bolters and power fists (or chain fists for a few more points) so that might a problem?! how to execute it 3 - the fluff we know we want to personalise the models, we know we want to bring their loadout closer to Terminators, but we need a story. this will guide everything else: how they're converted, how they're painted, how we explain their equipment in-universe. we'll also probably also encounter jokes about how the tyranids ate the squats, so it would be nice to fit that in somewhere. how about...... these squats are part of an itinerant mining brotherhood. away from the homeworlds when the unnamed hive fleet nommed their brethren, they now continue with their mining/merchant ways, moonlighting as mercenaries whenever needed. for safety and identification when underground they favour fluorescent "safety" colours. greens, yellows, etc. the need to exterminate gribblies while mining means they maintain high-end imperial weaponry. their mining tools are also pretty good for this! how to execute it 4 - bringing it all together OK, so we know we want exos, we know what their story is, and we know what we want to play them as. the final hurdle is that the "official" exo armour loadout is not all that great. your options are power swords, bolters, power lances, and a chainsword if you're feeling heretical. ideally, we want to use storm bolters and something we can proxy for a power fist/chainfist to cut a long story short, i have wrecked a good number of exo armour arms trying to convert them, or pry them free from superglue trying to strip paint from things bought from ebay, so i'm a bit short on arms. 3d printing has also exploded in popularity recently, and now there's all sorts of people who will bring your ideas to life in exchange for cash. therefore, i made some connections, spoke to a very talented 3d artist, and they came up with this: the bits still needs a few tweaks, but you're looking at the world's first ever exo armour holding a storm bolter and power drill. cool! anyway that's all i have so far, next steps are to move the idea forward a little more and recover from the cost of my commission happy to share more photos or explain more about what i've written so far, but leaving it here for now (p.s.: i checked wth Brother Tyler that this was OK to post)