Clan Brannsar Rises: The Unmakers

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

It's been a while since I've really had a chance to do any mini work, but I just managed to finish assembling the Imperial Fists tactical squad (save for adding grenades / pouches). I ended up doing quite a few small conversions to make them distinct, the main one being converting all their combat blades to shortswords which I felt fit better with the VIIth Legion's stylings, using various power swords from across the two kits in addition to the Sisters of Silence blades and a few Cadian dagger handles.

This would be the last IF unit assembled, but I'm actually gonna go back and retrofit the melta support squad into a combi-bolter seeker unit - I've wanted to convert up my old Vertex combi-bolter idea for ages, and such a sub-optimal wargear choice seems to work better with the Fists, so the meltas will be donated to a Salamanders support squad.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

It still needs some filling / clean-up work, but the prototype Phobos-Vertex is done:

I might reduce the height of the stock, but overall I'm happy with how it looks - hopefully replicating it will be less time consuming now I've figured out how it goes together, and I can retrofit the rest of the melta support squad into seekers.

[Charlo]

Beasty. I love it!

 

What unit can take combis? Or is this purely modelling?

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

Beasty. I love it!

 

What unit can take combis? Or is this purely modelling?

 

I'd argue that they're still combi-weapons so would be available to any unit with the option to take those (so, Seekers & Vets) although they aren't listed alongside the other combi-weapons (and they're a horribly under-powered choice for a combi-weapon). I'm using them with a unit of IF Seekers, in the hope that a BS 6 twin-linked special ammo combo would make the best of a sub-optimal selection (that said, hell would likely freeze over before I ever play a game).

 

If that was an issue or just too overcosted, I might simply have them as bolter Seekers, with the fancy guns representing special issue ammo. Background-wise, the unit (along with the other IF squads) is formed from survivors of a VII^th Legion garrison, with the Seekers in particular assembled from the most bitter survivors into an Ad Hoc execution squad.

[hushrong]

Fantastic log loaded with inspiration!

 

Quite a few things I would like to borrow from you, like that phobos-vertex combi. THat looks suitably more intimidating that any combi out there.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

Well, it was a long & laborious process, but I managed to produce 4 more Vertex combis - they all need a good amount of filling in with putty, but they were done enough to turn the rest of the melta support squad into seekers - a bit of conversion work was needed here to account for the fact that the combi-bolters are significantly chunkier than the standard weapons the arms are designed for, but I'm pretty happy with the overall outcome:

(Apologies for the weird assortment of pics, most of them came out looking like garbage, so I'll endeavour to take some better photos of them in the future)

I'm gonna reward myself for that process by revisiting my attempts to convert the Ahriman mini onto a RG Techmarine - I stalled a while ago (mainly after filling / removing any KSons / Librarian-specific detailing), but I have some good ideas on how to progress, so this should be fun

Fantastic log loaded with inspiration!

Quite a few things I would like to borrow from you, like that phobos-vertex combi. THat looks suitably more intimidating that any combi out there.

Thanks! I really liked the idea of bringing the aesthetic of the combi-bolter closer to a machine-gun style weapon, drawing a lot of inspiration from the rapier quad heavy bolter and FW's Mk IV Ironclad hurricane bolter.

[hushrong]

Interested in seeing plastic ahriman turned techmarine. Those armored plates would look good with some work!

 

Also, great to see more of the Vertex variants. It is a suitably better looking combi bolter than cobbling two bolters side by side. What are you using for the stock? I see some plasticard for padding wbut I cannot place what you used for the combis stock.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

Interested in seeing plastic ahriman turned techmarine. Those armored plates would look good with some work!

 

Also, great to see more of the Vertex variants. It is a suitably better looking combi bolter than cobbling two bolters side by side. What are you using for the stock? I see some plasticard for padding wbut I cannot place what you used for the combis stock.

 

Yeah it's a fun side project - a lot of filling / cutting required to obfuscate the KSons stuff, but I couldn't let him go to waste (I'll probably be finishing him off tonight)

 

Tell you what, might as well give you a brief rundown of the components & process of how to build the Vertex:

 

Building Vertex Combi-Bolters:

 

You will need:

• 2 Phobos bolters (found in the Mk III set)
• 1 Tigirus combi-bolter (found in the Tartaros terminator set)
• 1/2 an Imperial Guard heavy weapon shield - one will provide for 2 bolters (found in the Cadian / Catchan heavy weapon team sets)
• 1/2 an Imperial Guard heavy bolter ammo box - one will provide for 2 bolters (found in the Cadian / Catchan heavy weapon team sets)
• Thin plasticard
• Sprue / any plastic off-cut of relevant size (for my purposes, the 'feet' of the IG heavy weapon tripod was useful)

Process:

• Cut off the ammo boxes from the tigirus combi-bolter - you'll want to completely shave down the sides of the box so they're flat, and leave the bottom lip of the ejection port intact above the box, so there's something to connect it to the gun - plus, shave off the section at the rear of the box that usually joins the two boxes - you want them to sit flush, so they look like one large, double-sided ammo box
• Take one phobos bolter and shave down the top so it's flat with the main casing of the gun
• Cut the same bolter vertically where the mag housing joins the barrel - the front half should just be the barrel
• With the back half, make a horizontal cut under the ejection port, and a verticall cut just forward of the ejection port's rear (so you're leaving a little of the mag housing next to the trigger) - this should allow you to glue the box mag in place of the old magazine relatively flush with where you cut the gun in half
• Take the second phobos bolter, and remove the lower parts of the gun so you have a flat surface just in line with the lower lip of the inset that's around the end of the barrel
• Take the back half of the lower gun and glue the two together so all the details line up vertically - they're in exactly the same place
• Then stick the front half of the lower gun to the upper so that the inner vent on the lower gun barrel lines up vertically with the outer vent of the upper barrel (you'll also want to cut off the laser sight on the lower barrel at this stage)
• This should leave you with a double height phobos bolter, with the lower barrel sticking forward of the top, leaving a gap between the ammo box and the lower barrel casing - this is where your odd bit of sprue comes in - just cut something to size that'll fill the space adequately (it'll be covered by one hand anyway) and fill in any gaps with putty
• Then, shave down the casing of the upper barrel so there's a vertical edge extending up from the diagonal edge of the casing below - you'll also want to cut off the back of the upper gun so that it also forms a vertical edge up from the angled offcut of the lower gun
• Next, take the thick half of the heavy weapon shield so that the thin rim is at the top, and cut one side to a shape that matches the back of the existing gun assembly (this'll take some doing), with the other side at an angle that will allow the stock to connect diagonally to the very rearmost point of the bottom gun, and glue this to the current assembly
• Then, take the lid of the heavy bolter box mag, and cut it in half so it forms two long strips (keep one for another vertex) - this should be an appropriate width to form the stock, so just trim it to fit the existing assembly
• Cut off a plasticard strip so it's just smaller than the existing stock, and cut out some indentations to imitate padding
• Finally, cut out a section of the heavy bolter box's ammo feed (4 rounds seems to fit best) and shave down the inner edge so it sits flat between the box mag on the inner side of the gun and an approximation of where the ejection port lines up on the other side
• If you're anything like me, it *will* look messy as all hell, so file rough edges / fill in gaps where appropriate

Edited August 20, 2018 by Iron Hands Fanatic

[hushrong]

Awesome! Thanks for sharing that!

 

I've got two bolter marines left to build for the astartes part of my CSM kill team and I think I will be giving them these vertex combis. Sure they can only have bolters in the rules but I cannot pass on giving them cooler looking weapons!

[Pearson73]

Wow, those Vertex pattern combi-bolters look really heavy duty, much more like proper machine guns. I really like what you've done there and thanks for providing the rundown on the what and how.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

Raven Guard Techmarine / Forge Lord is done conversion wise - as per, he needs a *ton* of filling, but I'm happy with the overall look. The components are a bit of a haphazard mismatch (he has components every mark of power armour from III to VI), but I figured as a Dropsite survivor, a scavenger aesthetic was appropriate, plus hopefully a decent paint scheme will help tie him together a bit. Photos didn't come out all that great (I'll try to take some better ones in daylight tomorrow), but here's a rough showcase of how he looks:

And before any loyalists out there loose it, *yes* that is a Custodes head on the base, but no, it isn't from a dead Custodian Guard - there's no way I could narratively justify having Custodes in my force, so they're broken statues that'll be scattered across bases - the B@C Dread might even get a full pedestal!

Awesome! Thanks for sharing that!

I've got two bolter marines left to build for the astartes part of my CSM kill team and I think I will be giving them these vertex combis. Sure they can only have bolters in the rules but I cannot pass on giving them cooler looking weapons!

That's super cool, and it's awesome you think they look good enough to replicate - you gonna use phobos bolters (I'm curious what a similar approach would look like on other patterns of boltgun)?

Wow, those Vertex pattern combi-bolters look really heavy duty, much more like proper machine guns. I really like what you've done there and thanks for providing the rundown on the what and how.

Thanks - I had the idea for the original design ages ago (hence the photoshopped image), but since the AL Headhunters have vertically stacked combis (and they're the only 30k-era power armour marines that come with them) I figured it was thematically appropriate

[hushrong]

That conversion looks great. I am definitely looking forward to more pics of him. Did you add anything to the back?

 

As for the combi bolters I am going to copy you best I can. I am actually going to make three marines (one more since I am dropping three cultists for aesthetic reasons) so I want each of them armed with a vertex. I was going to go with a phobos bolters as I like the look so to convert them into a sweet combi bolter is a plus!

[Pearson73]

Nice work with the Techmarine conversion. I must admit that when you mentioned it, I really couldn't picture it working with Ahriman as a base, but it's come out really well.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

That conversion looks great. I am definitely looking forward to more pics of him. Did you add anything to the back?

 

As for the combi bolters I am going to copy you best I can. I am actually going to make three marines (one more since I am dropping three cultists for aesthetic reasons) so I want each of them armed with a vertex. I was going to go with a phobos bolters as I like the look so to convert them into a sweet combi bolter is a plus!

 

The backpack I left relatively simple considering how complex the servo-arm was to assemble - I just used the MkIV missile launcher backpack from B@C 'cause it already had a vent removed, added the arm, and glued on some bundled cabling (obtained from a cadian lascannon team, same as that on the front) to represent interface cables - these tend to feature on the back of a lot of Techmarine minis. As for the main body, all I really did on the back was cut away any KSons specific detailing and glue on some pouches to cover the mess where a bunch of scrolls had been on his belt.

 

That sounds real cool, definitely give me a shout whenever you make a start

 

Nice work with the Techmarine conversion. I must admit that when you mentioned it, I really couldn't picture it working with Ahriman as a base, but it's come out really well.

 

Thanks, and I know what you mean - I really didn't want to waste the Ahriman mini, but it took me a long time to figure out a way to use it well. Thankfully my Geigor conversion was a success, so it prompted me to be a bit more ambitious with this one. It's still messy as hell, and there's a ton of rough edges I have to clean up, but I'm taking a break to put together a squad of MkIV RG recon marines before I go back and get him looking a bit cleaner.

[STC Logisengine]

This looks really good, I am glad you took a crack at making the combibolters too, they are realy cool.

Once we get 8th (aany year now) they will be a lot more viable, special issue munitions and rapid fire 2 (4 shots at 12") will be really nasty ^_^

[hushrong]

That sounds like good ideas for the rear of the techmarine. I'm thinking back to the old metal techmarine with the servo harness and as how cool it looked I kept bending them, snapping them off, and getting frustrated with them. Plus, looking at the front of the Forge Lord there is no doubt of his profession.

 

I did start gathering bits and it looks like I will be making a knock-off variant of the vertex.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

This looks really good, I am glad you took a crack at making the combibolters too, they are realy cool.

Once we get 8th (aany year now) they will be a lot more viable, special issue munitions and rapid fire 2 (4 shots at 12") will be really nasty

 

Thanks Logis, I don't have your modelling or plasticard skills, so they aren't nearly as faithful to the original design as your rendition, but it was nice to have a crack at something of my own design.

 

Ha, I'll look forward to it - honestly, I'm on the fence about the whole 7th / 8th ed. for the Heresy debate. I love that 8th's more streamlines approach is easier & faster to play - with plastic heresy kits available, any means of removing barriers of entry to 30k is great, hopefully helping to diversify the player base. That said, I love that the Heresy's current setup has background baked into the rules (background text in special rules / equipment etc.) and to some extent, having that granularity in the ruleset provides enough context to demonstrate why these marines aren't the same ones in 40k - if it did transition to 8th, I'd hope the Heresy would have a bespoke datasheet format that would incorporate some degree of background. Maybe a hybrid system would be best? I have no clue.

 

The one thing I *definately* want is 8th's custom detachments - the specialist divisions within the Legions / wider Heresy forces are so perfectly matched to special force organisation charts (although RoWs would probably need a significant re-haul to work with them).

 

That sounds like good ideas for the rear of the techmarine. I'm thinking back to the old metal techmarine with the servo harness and as how cool it looked I kept bending them, snapping them off, and getting frustrated with them. Plus, looking at the front of the Forge Lord there is no doubt of his profession.

 

I did start gathering bits and it looks like I will be making a knock-off variant of the vertex.

 

That's awesome - if you check out STC's threads, they've made a version of the Vertex that's pretty much identical to the original design - I think part of the fun is just trying to make a decent looking weapon with whatever kits you have available (if you didn't want to demolish half a Cadian heavy weapons kit for example  )

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

I'm pretty close to finishing up the Raven Guard recon squad - all I've really got left to do is clean up the sniper scopes with milliput and attempt giving them some camo-cloaks (I'm planning on following BCK's tissue cape tutorial). I wasn't able to perfectly imitate the FW reconnaissance squad, but I'm happy with the aesthetic I've found - they're piled with additional pouches, and I've added baffling to their backpacks similar to that on the FW models. I didn't really have the tools or parts to fully imitate the FW sniper rifles, so I like the idea that rather than a dedicated sub-pattern of the Tigirus bolters, these are attachments used to turn the standard boltrifles into longer-ranged gear - lore wise I'm gonna say these Legionaries (all Dropsite vets) weren't actually Recon marines before the Isstvan V, so basically had to retrofit their equipment into a recon-appropriate loadout.

[hushrong]

Recon squad looks great. Nice conversions and use of bits. The camo cloaks are going to make them go above and beyond for their role.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

I'm really happy with how the capes turned out & they were really easy to do - the gossamer-thin aesthetic wouldn't work for a lot of stuff, but I think they're a really good match for camo capes - plus it means I won't actually have to bother painting all thous pouches I put on the recon marines

[STC Logisengine]

 I like these, the capes are really nice ^_^

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

Recon squad looks great. Nice conversions and use of bits. The camo cloaks are going to make them go above and beyond for their role.

 

Thanks, it was nice to do a unit that was a bit more characterful on the modelling front - I purposely left the Imperial Fists kinda 'default', so going bits-heavy was fun

 

 I like these, the capes are really nice

 

Thanks Logis, BCK's tutorial for them is here: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/278032-bcks-thread-of-stuff-death-guard-kill-team/?p=3574931

[hushrong]

The capes are looking good. Are they pretty durable once they've dried?

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

Yeah they're pretty solid, but anything that thin can only be so tough - after they'd dried I went over them with a coat of undiluted PVA just to help toughen it up a bit, and I'm pretty sure the tissue I used was thinner than BCK's (from the tutorial) - hence why it's translucent in some places. Adding additional layers of tissue would be pretty easy if you weren't sure though - it's a fast process.

[hushrong]

That's pretty nice! I'm looking forward to seeing it painted up!

 

I also just noticed. Did you use part of the missile launcher arm (the left one) with the target as a sight?