Oldifying 40k Minis for 30k

[SlickSamos]

Hi all!

What are the most important mods to do to transport them back in time?

From listening to various YouTubers I've began pulling a list of things together in preparation of butchering my current collection of 'firstborn' into HH era DA.  The most important things seem to be:

• 'Authentic' paint job
• Swap helmets 
• Swap backpacks
• Swap or modify weapons

• Remove all purity seals (or all but one)
• File off excessive iconography
• Modding the legs, chest plate & feet seem to be slightly lower priority but let me know if you think differently!

However one thing I keep running into has been struggling to identify which parts I have are Mk. VI or earlier...  I would really appreciate any advice but I also have some specific questions below:

• A Grey Knight's / SM Champion's head looks older than Mk VII - but is it like a Mk III variant or actually a post heresy weird mark?
• What differentiates Mk VII power pack from the Mk VI, V or IV?  From the front of the model they all look the same and I'm guessing I have some Mk VI's in my bitz box...
• Can I use the 40k Jump Packs on Mk VI models or should I use the 'Twin Turbine' version?
• Also on Jump Packs are the Single- or Twin-Turbine variants tied to specific Armour Marks?  Forge World have got Twin on Mk III & V, but single on Mk IV?  
• Bikes - I'm assuming the 40k variant is okay for 30k as CSM basically have the same model (though with more spikes obvs)

Again any advice appreciated outside of the above questions as well as useful links!

Thanks in advance,

Slick Samos

[MARK0SIAN]

The Grey Knights helmets are specific to them as a kind of custom armour variant but enough 30k stuff looks similar enough that they wouldn’t look out of place or weird. Really the only helmet that screams 40K instead of either/or is the classic mk7 one with the mouth grill. 
 

As for Jump packs, I’ve used 40K jump packs for my Blood Angels and they don’t look out of place. I wouldn’t worry about trying to match specific jump packs to armour marks unless you want to stay totally true to the forgeworld visuals in terms of their models. If you’re using the mkvi marines the more ‘modern’ jump pack might even make more sense as a prototype. 

The backpacks aren’t radically different once you get past the mk3 ones, they just tend to be a bit more uniform and unadorned compared to 40K ones. If you do want specific packs though you can find sellers on eBay who will just sell you specific packs, helmets, torsos etc.

I’ve used the 40K bikes for some white scars. I just put mk4 torsos, helmets, backpacks and shoulder pads on the riders to make them look more era appropriate. I went with mk4 because you still need to use the 40K arms for holding the bike handlebars and they match up with the mk4 armour better than the mk3 stuff.

In terms of general advice, people tend to appreciate the effort you’ve gone to with conversions over the exact bits you’ve used so don’t stress too much about getting everything totally right, lots of my stuff would fall short of total accuracy. 
 

Depending on which legion you are doing a lot of the 40K kits are a goldmine for 30k so see what you can find in the range. If not, ebay is great for specific bits.

Hope this helps 

[sarabando]

The 40k jump pack is referred to being older than the single turbine "angelus" pattern. Used by mk4 marines so it's good to go. 

Mk7 power packs are fine there's little to no difference. 

Mk7 legs can be made into mk5 by adding cabling on the thighs and battle acne along the lower legs or into mk4 by squaring off the knees. 

I've got some mk7 in my fists as they are late war, I've swapped out packs and bolters to make the ABIT more heresy. 

 

[Noserenda]

So from the old days where we had to scratch build everything you are pretty much on the right track, that said, everything the 40k marines use is present and in use in 30k with very rare exceptions. Mk7 power armour and razorbacks are trhe main offenders and even the latter could be run as predator or lost rhino variants with a little work. 

Some of it is aspirational too, like, nobody cares about tactical marines unless you have done a godly job on the whole army, headswap off the Mk 7 lids and have them in the right colours and you are golden.  You can get more involved with characters and veterans but bear in mind fancy armour and decoration is exactly as common in 30k in some legions so that can save you a lot of work too.

Personally the initial Alpha legion i built roughly follow that and they still hold up fairly well i think. Well, i used a lot of the old Red scorpion kit so authentic heads and torsos, with essentially mk7 arms, legs and packs.

[Gamiel]

White Dwarf #464 have an article about the Fallen, including how to make them, I would say that the discussion and examples given are good inspiration for kitbashing and what could work.

 

Colours were not as standardised in 30k as in 40k, so you can paint them in notable variants of the standard pattern.

 

The DA loves symbols showing of stuff (even when only a handful others know the meaning) so you can easily keep keep the excessive iconography.

 

The CSM box is gold for stuff that says "we have had to improvise a little", is decorative, or scratched.

 

The Legions were spread out and even when they supposedly only recruited from one world was there likely recruiting going on from other areas, specially after everything went down hill and there was a great need of new bodies. All sides looted, the traitors were (mostly) not as tainted as they will be, so there was usually no problem in taking their wargear. There is also that fallen allies wargear was repurposed. All this means that you can have some very un-DA looking DA:s running around if you want to - the Grey Hunters box is gold for barbaric furs and bling if you want to go that route.

Edited October 8, 2022 by Gamiel

[SlickSamos]

You guys gave me a lot to think about!  

I've also spent a lot of time this weekend skimming though bitz sites which have marked up which mark of armour individual pieces are from (e.g. here) as well as looking at pretty pictures of space marines and have come to the following conclusions about what I want to do:

• Avoid the 'grill' helmets outside of World Eaters (Suram variant) and Mk V (which I have trouble telling from the Mk VII, so I'll probably avoid grills altogether)
• I'll use the Mk VII style Jump Packs for Mk VI armour - though from the new Dominion Zephon they might be going for the old-school CSM Raptor style with Mk VI, but looking at the RG Furies they have a modified single turbine variant with their Mk VI armour which is associated with Mk IV (as Sarabando pointed out) - ah actually I don't know...  Probably going to end up with a mix of VII, IV & III/V unless they preview some Mk VI assault marines within the next couple of months
• I'm going to use the normal 40k bikes - but update the armour of the riders (or rather 'down'-date? idk) to a mixture of Mk IV through VI
• Back packs - I'm going to do a bit more research before committing - but I think I will use Mk VII on both Mk IV & V models - but Mk VI are too distinct for me to ignore the difference (Mk II & III even more so)

Also I've found a cool Easter Egg! - you can make a 100% Mk VI marine from the Assault Squad kit using any of the beakie heads, either pair of 'knee-less' legs, chest plate #11, shoulder pads 50 & 51 and backpack #56 (using the numbers on the sprue - link).  Asides from the weapons I don't think you'd be able to tell it apart from the new HH plastic Mk VI's.  

I also think you are able to do all but backpack Mk VI from the Tactical Squad kit and there are a couple of older Mk IV bits in there too (2 chests & one legs).  Also the Death Company squad has a Mk III chest plate and Mk IV head - I don't think any other plastic kit has an 'older' part in.  

Which basically means that to get the most out of the marines/bitz I already have I need to focus on pooling together some Mk VI's which will amount to about 5 men (doh!)...  Which means I will be buying some 30k plastic marines & lots of bitz!  I'm fairly sure I can turn 20 Mk IV & 20 Mk VI HH marines into about 60 with the parts I already have, then with bitz a further 20 or so, for a total of around 80 marines.  This project is looking very feasible for getting to 2,500 points in about a year?  Hmm I'll post progress when it happens (first update likely by end of Nov)

Thanks for you help & I'm really looking forward to doing this project!

[lansalt]

Do not use the current MkVII plastic backpacks or jump packs, because despite what others have said those are supposed to be M37+ patterns per the 3rd edition rulebook. There's a confusion about it because originally the 2nd edition mkVII marines were suppplied with the early type of mkIV backpacks (FW used those in their MkIV resin marines), and the original metal jumppacks with square air intakes were based on those too, being different from behind compared to the modern plastic version. The same applies to the single engine jump pack, there's more than one version and the quote about it being "newer" applies only to the Angelus pattern made in Baal.

The fact that FW used those m37 mkVII backpacks in a few studio/staff kitbashed models that appear in background art muddled the issue (I put those in the same category as the SW inverted bolters), but if you look at the official studio models and kits, they're never used. The closest may be the new Zephon model with a jump pack design that seems the one we will get in a future MkVI assault squad.

In the other hand, you should be able to mix those mkV and "mkVII" torsos without imperialis or aquilas freely with mkIV and MkVI legs, as there's plenty of evidence about those being common combinations (look at the AL praetor, for example). Just don't use the mkVII shoulder pads, as those apparently weren't in use before mkVII, which seems to have been a standarized mix of previously avaliable parts plus a few extra changes.

 

[Noserenda]

3 hours ago, lansalt said:

Do not use the current MkVII plastic backpacks or jump packs, because despite what others have said those are supposed to be M37+ patterns per the 3rd edition rulebook.

 

Ok now i dont recall that book having a breakdown on heresy armour patterns, can you share this groundbreaking info that scores of people poring through books managed to miss? Or are you assuming for some reason Mk7 used a different and heretofore unknown power plant for six thousand years after its introduction? 

Not to mention the art and models showing both the backpack and jump pack in places. Trying to judge something purely from the studio models is ridiculous, those are by their very nature off the shelf kits, though id be surprised if a few minis using the red scorpion upgrade havent made it in from time to time.

[lansalt]

When MkVII armour was introduced in 1989-90, it came with a backpack design that was used in all SM minis up to 3rd Edition in 1998, where it was named as "MkIV" along a marine with the old 2e MkVII helmet with a narrow sensor/ar intake. The 3e  SM codex named "M.37" the newer design which was used until Primaris. When Forgeworld designed their resin Maximus armour in the late 2000s, they used the same original "MkIV" backpack in their mkIV marines until Betrayal at Calth came with new plastic MKIV marines and slightly retouched backpacks.

So it seems to me that the intention here was clearly to imply that MkIV backpacks were pretty much standard in MkVII marines until around M37, which also fits nicely with all the other stuff like Razorbacks, etc that were introduced in universe in that era after the Age of Apostasy (Perhaps the AdMech was forced to be less stingy for a while)

 

[Gamiel]

I can't comment on the backpack marks but regarding backpacks so are the CSM backpack HH compatible. So you can use them for your figures if you want.

[sarabando]

4 hours ago, Gamiel said:

I can't comment on the backpack marks but regarding backpacks so are the CSM backpack HH compatible. So you can use them for your figures if you want.

back in the day we would also take CSM packs, remove the "wings" and then put the nozzles back on for Heresy era packs. 

[SlickSamos]

Thanks for all of the information guys - I think the main bases of kitbashing are now covered w.r.t. the space marine armour and power/jump packs.  (As it's like the same price to by 2x Sanguinary Guard kits & 1x Mk IV kit or 2x Raptors kits & 1x Mk III kit as 2x Assault Squads from Forge World I know which route I'm going to go down!)

 

With respect to converting, how would you go about converting Mk VII parts HH era ones?  As my intent is to save money - not spend loads more XD

[MegaVolt87]

The mk VI 20 man box saves you money vs buying the 40k 10 man ones. Its easy to see, divide 20 man box price by 2, compare price to 10 man 40k kit. Even in Australia its cheaper now to buy the 20 man boxes vs the 10 man ones and they work out cheaper again vs the old HH 10 man box versions. Mk VI is compatible with the 40k mk VII, the III and IV are good to kitbash together for field mk V/ custom suits like the SoH with mk IV and III. Even the x10 man termi's work out cheaper. 

[Jolemai]

Sadly, most of the pictures from the following thread have vanished, but some remain from page five onwards. It may still be of some use:

 

 

[suxdavide]

Does anybody have a nice tutorial (or hints) for converting MK7 arms to either MK3, 4 or 6?

 

I've seen various images about the legs but I'm having difficulties for the arms :)

[Xenith]

5 minutes ago, suxdavide said:

Does anybody have a nice tutorial (or hints) for converting MK7 arms to either MK3, 4 or 6?

 

I've seen various images about the legs but I'm having difficulties for the arms :)

 

Mk7 to mk6 arms I wouldn't bother with, they're near identical. Maybe slice some of the pad away?

Mk7 to mk4 - I did this by shaving off the wrist-cuff, glue the hand to the arm, then green stuff a wrist protector from the armour over the back of the hand. 

You can see what I did here:

 

Spoiler