A labor of love. Painful, painful love.

[Kaldoth]

One of my absolute favorite sculpts to come out in the last few years is the Master of Executions. Don't know why I like him so much when we've had a whole bunch of cool kits like Abbadon, Ghaz, Be'lakor, and so on come out, but I finally put enough of a dent in my hobby backlog that the missus said I could start restocking the pile of shame :lol: The very first model I decided to get was the MoE. Before I present his pre paint photo, I have to say that hands down, this has been the most infuriating conversion I have ever done. Let me regale you with an incredibly frustrating tale. I don't blame you if you want to skip it, so if listening to a fellow hobbyist's agony isn't your cup of tea, just scroll til you see a photo below.

 

I bought my MoE a little over a month ago. I knew when I got him I wanted to convert him. I started brainstorming ideas to make him a little more thematic, and I realized something you rarely ever see with Chaos armies (or any other "evil" army) are dead Sisters of Battle. Trophies, corpses, female body parts... They are a huge rarity for purchase, but my mind was made up. I knew I'd be hunting some obscure corners of the internet for parts, but fortunately a lot of you guys came through with a lot of good suggestions, so cheers for that ^_^ After waiting over a month, all the parts I ordered finally came in on Monday and I got to kitbashing.

 

The conversion I wanted to do was simple on paper, but turned out to be a nightmare in execution. I wanted to add a back banner littered in body parts, replace the two heads he was holding with Sisters heads, and find a better head for the MoE himself.

 

One of you fine folk suggested the Sack O' Corpses by Secret Weapon minis for a carved up female torso which was perfect! I made a back banner out of two pieces of thin plastic rod and glued the torso to it. I then got the idea to wrap the torso in jewelers chain and hang othe body parts from it. This was the first visit from the good idea fairy that turned out to be an absolute pain.

 

One, plastic rod is way flimsier than I thought it would be. Two, the rod I used was too small to drill a hole in with a pin vise. I notched the top rod and attempted to glue it together. Every time I tried to wrap chain around it, the super glue instantly gave out and the banner snapped.

 

"No problem," I said to myself. I decided to use plastic weld instead. Busted the bottle out, get up to grab a drink, come back to find the bottle spilled over onto my carpet and my cat laughing maniacally at me (in my head at least, but whatever).

 

Drive to two different hobby stores to replace the bottle, out of stock at both. Yay.

 

I get home after driving for an hour plus, sit down, shove the thoughts of murdering my cat back into the deep down place where my feelings go, and after hours of painstakingly regluing this banner together, peeling jewelers chain off of my fingers, and losing these stupid little plastic arms, hands, and skulls, I get the back banner finished. Huzzah!

 

Head swap on the man himself is easy enough. Trim a little of the neck off, jobs a good'un.

 

Now comes the head swaps in his hand. I clipped away the plastic heads and replace them with two resin heads from wargames exclusive. I had to trim down the top of their heads and file the existing hair down to make room for sculpted greenstuff hair. I've never sculpted greenstuff hair. Can't be that hard, right? Wrong. At least if you're not familiar with greenstuff sculpting stuff from scratch. Total time investment for two heads? At least three hours.

 

Finally this thing was ready to be primed. With a sigh of relieved accomplishment, I shake the hell out of my rattle can and take it outside for a quick spray.

 

Know what's awesome until it isn't? Automated sprinkler systems.

 

Three sprays into priming and the stupid automated sprinklers outside go off. These normally get shut off in September where we live, and they were. Turns out the lines weren't drained in September, it got a little colder than expected this week, and the lines in our community froze up, so they had to be repaired and purged. Wouldn't you know it they decided to purge them in the middle of me priming. Instant blast of cold mist hits me, the MoE, and all the primer turns into instant fuzz. Model is ruined and has to be stripped.

 

I put him down for two days.

 

Minus the trip around town, repeat all the above steps again. His head was made of resin. Ruined during stripping. The sisters heads? Also made of resin. Ruined during stripping. Literally all of the work had to be redone from scratch. Luckily I had spare heads left over for both him and the sisters, else I doubt I would have touched him again.

 

Today, he is finally finished for the second time. I decided to snap a photo of him before priming as I am scared out of my effing mind to take him outside for a second spray. Let this serve as a record that I did infact build and convert what I believe to be a super dope looking MoE.

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry if the details are a little hard to make out, but that's him. The primer that's still on him is stuck where it's at. No amount of scrubbing will remove it. I'm hoping it's thin enough that another layer of primer won't fill in all the recessed details. So, before I take him outside and possibly lose my last remnant of sanity priming him, two questions:

 

1. Night Lords paint job or Sons of Malice?

 

2. He needs a name. Something that says "I refuse to be killed," because against all odds, this Master of Executions has been built despite every force in the universe trying to prevent it :lol:

 

Cheers,

 

-Kal

Edited November 5, 2021 by Kaldoth

[dbrollsdice]

That tale of setbacks made my toes curl. Ultimate respect for the perseverance!

 

Beautiful conversion on an already great sculpt.

 

Definitely screams Nightlords to me. Maybe some name inspiration could be found in Stalin era gulag survivors Varlam Shalamov etc, resilient dudes the lot of them.

[Kaldoth]

That tale of setbacks made my toes curl. Ultimate respect for the perseverance!

Beautiful conversion on an already great sculpt.

Definitely screams Nightlords to me. Maybe some name inspiration could be found in Stalin era gulag survivors Varlam Shalamov etc, resilient dudes the lot of them.

Appreciate it! Definitely a tale of triumph :lol:

 

Originally I had envisioned him as a Night Lord, but the more I put into him the more he started looking like a blood crazed butcher over a fear inducing psychopath. Always had a soft spot for the Sons of Malice. They're a pretty bloodthirsty chapter, they've got canonical beef with the Sisters, and you never see them either, so I figured I'd throw them in the pool for a vote. One for Night Lords on the board!

 

Either way, I definitely think I'll be taking your suggestion of going in a slavic direction with his name.

Edited November 5, 2021 by Kaldoth

[Khornestar]

Wow I had a remarkably similar setback building a jump lord a few weeks ago, but unlike me, you persevered. Props for that, and props for the slick work. He looks super cool.

 

If you have an army planned to go along with him I think sons of malice could be very cool, but if it were I, he’d be a terror loving Night Lord.

[WarriorFish]

I see you sorted your Sister heads too :) Obstacles on your journey are there to make the end more purposeful, right? I've stripped models that didn't quite budge the recesses but you should be ok here as after the unscheduled wash it's probably thinner for it plus don't forget a primer is help your paint stick. It doesn't need to perfectly cover every millimetre of the model to do it's job so a careful lighter priming should see you through.

 

I'd also recommend you be careful with the coats while painting to be on the safe side, but I expect you'd do that anyway after putting so much effort into assembly and conversion Don't forget to update with the finished model once you finally overcome all that's thrown at you (a test from the Dark Gods no doubt!), he looks great already so I'm looking forward to seeing him painted

 

As to names, his actual name is something you should decide but if you're after titles and the like here's a few off the top of my head:

• the Unbowed
• the Relentless
• Godschosen
• the Deathless

Hope these at least get the grey matter going, a name is an important thing especially for a champion of the gods...

[Cerberus1775]

Going in a Slavic direction you say?  A name that has carried through generations you say?  One that works with one of the suggestions that WarriorFish gave?

 

"Vlad the Deathless, Impaler of Imperial Lackeys"    Pretty obvious reference there. 

 

or

 

"Apis the Relentless Deaths Hand"   "Apis" being the code name of the Serbian secret service head that arranged having the anarchists' assonate Arch Duke Ferdinand that eventually set off the First World War.  And if that wasnt a master of executions I dont know who is.

[Doctor Perils]

Glad you persevered on him, he looks great!

I'm not sure I like the colour scheme for the sons of malice, so I'd automatically answer Night Lords. Plus you can easily get blood crazed butchers in the night lords. Is he meant for a full army project or more of a one-off?

[Kaldoth]

Glad you persevered on him, he looks great!

I'm not sure I like the colour scheme for the sons of malice, so I'd automatically answer Night Lords. Plus you can easily get blood crazed butchers in the night lords. Is he meant for a full army project or more of a one-off?

And there's the conundrum!l I had a pretty impressive chaos army at one point. About 2k points of Emperors Children and 1500 of Night Lords. I definitely plan on restarting my army, but between NLs and SoM, I can't decide which one to go with. NLs have been my favorite Legion since I was a kid first starting 40k. Everything about them (IMO) is so unique compared to all the other Chaos Legions. Plus, they're the only Legion that still kind of clings on to that early GW 80s/90s feel. Let's face it, the lightning and the bat wings are super metal :lol: But the SoM are such a unique force. They've got just enough lore to give you a foundation, but the creative freedom they afford is so vast on top of a dope color scheme. Malice/Malal as a concept is super cool. And if you pay attention, there are loads of hidden references to Malal in the lore. Be'lakor for example. Read it backwards and drop the or, you get Kaleb... Edited November 7, 2021 by Kaldoth

[Doctor Perils]

So, how about you merge the Night Lords and Malal aspects you like so much, and create a chapter of the Night Lords who worship Malal? Granted it wouldn't be Sons of Malice, but you'd also get the creative freedom that you value

[Kaldoth]

So, how about you merge the Night Lords and Malal aspects you like so much, and create a chapter of the Night Lords who worship Malal? Granted it wouldn't be Sons of Malice, but you'd also get the creative freedom that you value

Because one of the best things about the Night Lords is they don't worship chaos. Of course there might be a few warbands here and there that do, but as a whole they're against it. I like that about them, and if I did a Night Lords army I wouldn't want them to be chaos worshippers of any kind.

 

Maybe I'll just ask the wife what to do. She's good at making decisions for me :rolleyes: :lol:

[WarriorFish]

There's a simple way to both decide and know what you want: throw a die. If you feel disappointed with the result, you know to pick the other one

[Doctor Perils]

 

So, how about you merge the Night Lords and Malal aspects you like so much, and create a chapter of the Night Lords who worship Malal? Granted it wouldn't be Sons of Malice, but you'd also get the creative freedom that you value

Because one of the best things about the Night Lords is they don't worship chaos. Of course there might be a few warbands here and there that do, but as a whole they're against it. I like that about them, and if I did a Night Lords army I wouldn't want them to be chaos worshippers of any kind.

 

Maybe I'll just ask the wife what to do. She's good at making decisions for me :rolleyes: :lol:

On the other hand, what is a better way to show you don't worship chaos than by serving the chaos god who wants to bring chaos down :P but I understand perfectly how you'd be reticent.

Warriorfish's method is also surprisingly sound :)

[Khornestar]

“Which one costs less to do?” - Wife, maybe. :P