Lexington's Word Bearers - [4.19.19 - CSMs and Dreads!]

[Lexington]

Lovely work on the Contemptor. Tempted to start a Chaos army again so I can do some of this sort of modeling again... hm...

Gods damn it, Lexington.

Look, if I can't convert people, what the hell good am I as a Word Bearer?

Absolutely lovely stuff! Especially the Plague Marines with the gladiator heads

Thanks! Those guys seem to be pretty popular. I'll be getting back to them soon, including the Plague Mage that now leads them.

Which contemptor is it based on? I'm not that familiar with the fw models

The Night Lords Contemptor, but it's not too easy to spot - I filed away all the detailing, so only the angular chest armor's still visible in the pictures. From the sides, it's much more obvious with all of the bones and stretched human skin. Speaking of skulls, I've kept the original head from this guy, and will be making a Chaplain Contemptor soon that also acts as a tribute to an old favorite. Watch this space!

Update time! Finished up the basic pose and weaponry:

Here's a close-up of the mildly-converted Butcher Cannon (still needs some work to blend it in w/ the weapon) and the custom mounting. Pretty happy with it so far!

Both arm weapons are attached by magnets, so I'm experimenting a bit on exactly how they'll be rotated. Suggestions welcome!

Edited November 14, 2017 by Lexington

[malcharion]

Hi ! Really nice conversion in this thread and the contemptor look perfect !

Really good job on this !

 

Malchy

[Lord Commander Eidolon]

Awesome work! A really nice well thought out conversion, very characterful. Great use of bits and the butcher cannon is spot on!

[ChromeZephyr]

Man, that Helbrute bit just adds a ton of character to that chassis.  Seamlessly blended in, too.  I'll be saving that for the future.

[ElDuderino]

I think the lower mount for the weapon looks cool, almost like the underslung plasma cannon on the DA termies. Sweet look.

 

And thanks for posting the link to heinrich's thread, really cool to see them again

[Khornestar]

Hell yeah, Lexington! Very happy to see all your work here. I didn't know about this thread until I was searching for inspiration for my Word Bearers.

 

Everything I see is great, but I was especially excited by your use of Rubricae legs and the modified Butcher Cannon on the contemptor. Both are things I wanted to try but was curious about the results. The verdict: AWESOME!

 

Bear the word, brother.

[Lexington]

Thanks! Those Rubric and Deathwatch legs are a god(s)send, they make this upscaling work about a billion times easier.

Realizing now how bad I've been about keeping this thing updated despite having made some major progress on several units recently. I'll try to get better photos in the near future, but for now, here's a very loose WIP of Lord Esarhaddon, the leader of this horrorshow:

I'm finally pulling him out of the box and finishing him up for Grotmasha's Warlord Conversion Challenge, putting paid to years of occasional fumblings lofty plans. He's coming together pretty well, I think, though there'll be some challenges ahead.

[Khornestar]

Cool, I was pretty sure you were spacing the terminator torsos a bit. I saw the legs on your power armored dudes as well. Do you just cut a piece of plasticard, glue it in place, then trim to be flush with their thigh?

[Lexington]

Yeah, the Terminators have a slight bit of spacer added at big the waist and at the back of the knees. The latter is actually partially made from the back of some old Black Reach Termies' legs. Ah, the days when plastic Terminators were plentiful and cheap.

 

You've pretty much got it on the power armor spacers - typically, I'll judge from the mini whether the spacer should go on the thigh or the shin, saw it apart, glue them together with a rough square of card, then trim it down to the appropriate shape - first with clippers, then with a very sharp knife blade. After they're flush, a thin layer of plastic glue at the join on both sides smooths out any rough edges or gaps. Depending on the width of plasticard you're using, this gets legs to just about the same height as the "new" scale legs from the DW/Rubrics.

[ElDuderino]

Now that is some creative cutting! What is that torso? Can't quite place it. Really looking forward to seeing how you fill the gaps!

[Lexington]

The torso's from an ancient 3rd party ripoff Horus model by a place called Ronin Miniatures. Think it's been out of print for a good decade or so now. Always thought it was nice and atmospheric:

[Rogan]

That Contemptor is INSANE!

[Paradogmatic]

Lovely work on the Contemptor. Tempted to start a Chaos army again so I can do some of this sort of modeling again... hm...

Gods damn it, Lexington.

Look, if I can't convert people, what the hell good am I as a Word Bearer?

Absolutely lovely stuff! Especially the Plague Marines with the gladiator heads

Thanks! Those guys seem to be pretty popular. I'll be getting back to them soon, including the Plague Mage that now leads them.

Which contemptor is it based on? I'm not that familiar with the fw models

The Night Lords Contemptor, but it's not too easy to spot - I filed away all the detailing, so only the angular chest armor's still visible in the pictures. From the sides, it's much more obvious with all of the bones and stretched human skin. Speaking of skulls, I've kept the original head from this guy, and will be making a Chaplain Contemptor soon that also acts as a tribute to an old favorite. Watch this space!

Update time! Finished up the basic pose and weaponry:

Here's a close-up of the mildly-converted Butcher Cannon (still needs some work to blend it in w/ the weapon) and the custom mounting. Pretty happy with it so far!

Both arm weapons are attached by magnets, so I'm experimenting a bit on exactly how they'll be rotated. Suggestions welcome!

I love the cannon -- plays right into the classic Reaper autocannon look.

[KrautScientist]

I love what you've done with the Contemptor, and the Chaos Lord is looking so very promising -- even as a very early kitbash. I didn't recognise the specific model the torso came from before you posted it, but I felt instantly reminded of Horus :)

 

Keep up the excellent work! :)

[Lexington]

That Contemptor is INSANE!

God, you don't know the half of it. Dude does not hold back. It's like Pigpen from "Peanuts," but with endless gallons of innocent blood. You do not envy that clean-up crew, let me tell you.

(Thanks!)

I love the cannon -- plays right into the classic Reaper autocannon look.

That's exactly what inspired it! The blade attachment on the Butcher Cannon is enormous in a way that looks ridiculous on the Contemptor chassis, but the barrels alone are kind of puny, so it ended up being a solid middle ground.

I love what you've done with the Contemptor, and the Chaos Lord is looking so very promising -- even as a very early kitbash. I didn't recognise the specific model the torso came from before you posted it, but I felt instantly reminded of Horus

Keep up the excellent work!

Woah, praise from Caesar! The Hunt's a longtime inspiration for me, KS. Really flattered to hear this from you.

So, I never put up the "full" finished version of the Contemptor, who's been saddled with the moniker "Tanggal, the Murderous Hand":

I was fortunate enough to take the top prize in BCK's Conversion Challenge for November with this model, which I'm still pretty giddy about. Top prize was, in fact, another Contemptor, this time of the Death Guard variety. It arrived a few weeks ago, and I immediately got inspired, cranking out a creakier-looking brotherly murder machine for Tangaal in just a day or so:

Don't really have a name for this guy at the moment, so he's going by "Ironfist" for the time being. With these two completed, the Sicarii's total Dreadnought comes out to four:

As said earlier, there's a third Contemptor coming eventually, based on Brother H's incredible Gevaudas, as well as a third (and very difficult) traditional Dread that'll eventually round out the family to an even six. There's one final Dead Walker in the mix as well, and if you'd like a hint as to what type...well, take a gander at Iron Fist's head.

Finally, a very small Esarhaddon update. I've made some pretty significant progress on the model over the last few days, but it's mostly in the "chop things up so they go together proper" variety, which doesn't make for fantastic pictures. Did finish up one bit that I'm happy with, tho:

As a bit of history, Esarhaddon was originally created as a villain for the last of the 40K"Big Games" that my college group did about ten years back. We ended up writing mounds of background material for these things, and this particular game ended with Big E getting lanced through the chest by a burning hot shard of exploding daemonic sword. The impetus behind returning to the Word Bearers was to get them up to snuff for a new Big Game that we're doing this summer, and I wanted to reflect that wound on Esarhaddon's new model. Ran across a Fabius Bile model in my bitz box a few months ago, and inspiration struck. So, here we are!

Edited February 15, 2018 by Lexington

[Vairocanum]

Wow all those dreadnoughts, Ironfist is looking really nice. I think using that old Horus as a base for your lord is really cool, definitely looking forward to seeing the full model completed!

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

I like how your dreads are all shot up and beat to hell, like a fire magnet should be. 

[ElDuderino]

Have you thought about using another helbrute head for your new dread? It'd tie them together nicely (I prefer the smaller heads generally but that's a matter of opinion of course)

[Lexington]

Wow all those dreadnoughts, Ironfist is looking really nice. I think using that old Horus as a base for your lord is really cool, definitely looking forward to seeing the full model completed!

Thanks! I love Dreadnoughts/Walkers, and always end up finding an excuse to work on them. This goes double for the Contemptor, which has an unbelievable flexibility for posing.

I like how your dreads are all shot up and beat to hell, like a fire magnet should be.

Hah, glad to hear. I try to get at least a bit of wear and tear on every model from the army just to show how ancient they are. Was actually really worried at first that I'd gone overboard on Iron Fist - he's got double or triple the amount of damage that Tanggal and the others do. Now that it's been a bit, tho, I'm thinking it gives the model a unique look, since it's otherwise not distinguished much from the standard Contemptor pattern.

Background-wise, I've decided that he's just gone a bit crazier over the years than his kin, so the Sicarii just unleash him on the enemy anymore and kind of hope he doesn't come back, since he's a huge pain to corral back into stasis. Hasn't worked yet, but they're persistent, those Word Bearers.

Have you thought about using another helbrute head for your new dread? It'd tie them together nicely (I prefer the smaller heads generally but that's a matter of opinion of course)

Well, given the chassis, it'd be...a little difficult:

As said, I've been making a lot of progress on this army behind the scenes, so it's time to show off a bit of that. First off, I showed one model from this unit before, but I've actually finished up all twenty Poxwalkers:

For thematic reasons, I didn't really want to use the Dark Imperium Poxwalkers in my army, but ended up stuck with them after buying the box. Saw some conversions John Blanche did with them on his Instagram, and decided a similar unit of Cultists would be a good thing to do with these poor jerks. Here's the test model:

Liked him enough that most of the rest of the squad is now converted, and just awaiting hoods/coverings. I imagine these guys are the remnants of some unfortunate Mechanicus Explorator team that was scooped up by the Sicarii and made to work on low-level engineering duties in the fleet's more dangerous and irradiated engine sections. Occasionally, they get forced leave to go stand in front of the Chaos Marines during battle in order to catch Imperial bullets.

They're so nice, these Word Bearers.

Finally, there's the start of a Havoc Squad. Found this fearsome-looking Autocannon on Shapeways a while back, so that'll be the squad's main armament. I haven't gotten around to fitting these on any Marines properly yet, so here's the Champion and a couple of Bolter-toting mooks:

I'm really pleased with the Champion, who's based on one of my very favorite Space Marine models of any variety. He was hell to convert up, what with having to remove and replace a lot of those tiny, tiny spikes, but he ended up working out pretty well. Here's a close up:

...which, of course, reveals a pesky and very notable mold-line on the axe that needs removing.

Esarhaddon's coming together now, should have pictures in a few days. Thanks for the comments and the likes, y'all, they warm the black, ancient depths of my cold robot heart.

Edited February 17, 2018 by Lexington

[Khornestar]

:cuss those legs are just so dang perfect! You utilize them so well, brother.

[Dagoth Ur]

Man, everytime I check into this thread there is so much chaotic goodness. Keep up the amazing work!

[KrautScientist]

Have you thought about using another helbrute head for your new dread? It'd tie them together nicely (I prefer the smaller heads generally but that's a matter of opinion of course)

Well, given the chassis, it'd be...a little difficult:

Pfft, where there's a will, there's a way: You can always just add an alternate head on top of the refridgerator-style Sarcophagus:

Still in love with Esarhaddon! Excellent work all around! :)

[Pearson73]

The new havocs look great, I completely agree with the SoH commander being a fantastic model; he's a firm favourite of mine too.

[ElDuderino]

Both the cultist test model and the new champ are simply breathtaking. The cultist look Blanchesque as hell

[Hungry Nostraman Lizard]

This stuff is awesome sauce.