What to buy and how to convert?

[the_forgefather]

I have a Salamander Space Marine army and I am wanting to buy a Librarian and a Captain in Terminator Armor and this is what I want to do with them:

 

The Librarian is going to be on a small dragon (without wings or removed wings) or lizard to count as a Bike and I would make him an Epistolary with Might of the Ancients and The Avenger psychic powers. I was thinking of using the Librarian with the staff and book or the one with the Plasma Pistol and axe.

 

For the Captain, I want him to have dual Thunder Hammers and for him to be in some epic pose (I was thinking of the Chaos Terminator Lord since he looks cool and has that rock platform).

 

Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

I was think of some simple conversions, nothing too fancy, as in just clipping and/or shaving things off and gluing/green stuffing where the holes are. But if these would prove to be more than simple I would still like to hear suggestions.

[Power Hungry Monkey]

Hey Forgefather,

 

Both of these conversions seem simple enough if you have a bit of patience. The librarian one will involve cutting the libi model at the waist and pinning the top section to either some biker legs or normal marine legs depending on what you use for the mount. For lizards that would work as a mount really the best way to go is the Dark Elf Cold Ones from WHFB or if you want to give your Libi something really big the Lizardman Carnasaur. Both of these are fairly easy to do a rider-swap on as the riders and saddles are loose on both kits. Simply get some plastic space marine legs, cut cut off each leg at the groin and pin the groin to the desired spot on the Cold One/Carnasaur, once the groin is placed you can glue the legs to the side of the mount and line them up with the groin. The gap can be filled with green stuff and made to look like the rubber bewteen the armour segments. Then choose whatever Librarian model you like, get a hobby saw and cut it off at the waist bellow the belt line. You can then pin this torse to the plastic legs you have on your mount, again fixing any gaps with GS or pouches/grenades/tabbards/ect. You could also just make your Libi totally out of plastic if you have a big enough Bitz Box to draw from.

 

I would go fot the Cold Ones personally for a few reasons A) they're cheaper and you get more for your money incase you mess one up, :lol: they're plastic instead of metal so much easier to convert and C) they are a better size for a counts-as bike; the Carnasaur is still ok for it but it makes the Libi a very visible target on the battlefield.

 

For the Commander the Chaos Terminator Lord is a great model to use as the base. I've used that as a base-model for all my Space Wolf characters because it has a lot of movemnt in the pose, plenty of bitz for converting and (as you said) comes with a great base piece that makes him look huge. Twin-thunderhammers is pretty easy to pull off with all the plastic kits these days. Best bet is to grab some from the Terminator Assault squad kits. You'll need two of these and the power axe arm from the chaos lord. The RH hammer is easy, just attach the plastic arm to the model in a pose that you like. The LH is a bit harder but still pretty easy to pull off. Get the power axe arm and cut off the axe-head just bellow the power-plant thingy at the top of the handle. USe a hobby knife so you have a nice cleane cut. Then get your second thunder hammer arm and cut off the hammer-head in the same spot. Now you simply stick the hammer head to the axe handle/arm and you have a left-handed thunder hammer. I would reccomend pinning the head to the handle to stop it snapping off at a later date but this can be tricky if you havnt tried it before.

 

The rest of the model you can do with as you like. Some good bitz to get are off the Lizardman Saurus Warriors and Dark Elf Black Ark Corsairs from WHFB. Both these kits have heaps of lizard-scale stuff like shields and cloaks that work great on Slamanders. If you're up for something a bit harder you can try extending and bulking our the armour with plasticard but again this requires a bit of practice. If you'd liek to give it a go let me know and I'll run you through some ways of doing it.

 

Good luck and look forward to seeing these guys when they're done

[the_forgefather]

Thanks for your advice. I don't know how to pin things though :lol:

[jlmb_123]

Here's a bit on pinning from GW.

[Seregon]

For anyone making a salamander army, I'd recomend checking out Chapterhouse Studios for conversion bits for both infantry and vehicles.

http://chapterhousestudios.com

[hendrik]

for the captain you can aso buy the space wolves terminator wolf guard box, it's filled with weapons;)

[Replica]

for the librarian, i'd think about doing him in all plastic, if your confident with green stuff. You might even be able to get away without having to sculpt anything if you used some guitar wire or something.

 

Theres plenty of sellers on ebay who just sell parts, makes it very easy to do just about anything in plastic wich is much, much easier than metal.