Converting/proxying/otherwise fixing the sillier looking units

[Evil Eye]

The Space Marine range is a long-running one, and it's had some really iconic kits in its time. The humble Dreadnought and its many variants are absolutely classic, for instance; instantly recognizable and just damn cool. Even more recently, there's been some standout models; the Bladeguard and the Indomitus boxset character models for instance.

 

...And then there are the others.

 

Being as prolific a range as the Space Marines has the downside of there also being quite a few really, uh, not very good looking units. The Desolators are some very recent examples of such (IMO at least) but far from the only ones; Suppressors and Inceptors spring to mind. This isn't going to be a thinly-veiled Primaris-bashing thread either; there's plenty of stinkers from the Firstborn era! Centurions, anyone?

 

So the question is; for those who wanted to field the unit in their army but were put off by the way the models looked, or alternatively just wanted a challenge to make an ugly design look good, what did you do about it? Minor conversions to fix glaring issues? Major kitbashing? Proxied with a custom conversion altogether?

 

I actually have an example to lead with, incidentally, despite not playing (modern) Space Marines. I'd been messing about in Blender again and had the sudden desire to design a tank. You know, as one does. Specifically, a "cruiser tank", slightly smaller and lighter than a Predator but also much faster. I was wondering if it was a bit redundant as the Land Speeder already functions much like a cruiser tank, but then I remembered the existence of one of the Primaris units that fulfilled a similar role, is landbound (thus suitable to be given tracks) and also was widely mocked for looking utterly ridiculous- the Mario Kart-looking farce that is the Invader ATV, complete with its lack of floorpan.

 

So to cut a long story short, I'm currently working on making a printable proxy for the damned thing, that will be a light fast tank (straight out of British interwar doctrine!) instead of, uh, a go-kart.

Spoiler

Not even close to finished yet and still very much in "make it up as I go along" territory (the grille over the engine compartment needs work and I don't know if I'm going to stick with the Crusader/Predator styled turret shape) but I'm quite pleased with it so far. It should be roughly the same size as the Invader, and as a bonus due to being enclosed you can even say it's crewed by Firstborn or homebrew rules for earlier editions using the vehicle design rules or whatever!

Anyway. Over to you!

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I cut the barrels on my Suppressors, the guns on those things are stupidly unwieldy. I also built a plasticard hull extension for the StormRaven and ditched the roof turret for an underslung assault cannon turret from the Stormtalon kit.

[Sir Clausel]

I regularly convert/kitbash myself out of things i dont like about models. 

Like just replacing a barehead with a helmet or cutting something off and Green stuffing somethings. 

Right now im in the process of making some aggressors using heavy intercessors and 3rd party bits and some other kitbash/convertion work. Simply because i dont like their tall "hood" and the way that the guns are mounted on the powerfist. 

[Khornestar]

I’m not sure exactly how I’m gonna do it until I have it in hand, but I’m planning to incorporate the stubbers from the brutalis dreadnought kit into the front plate gun mounts. The dread looks so cool but for those stupid stubbers. May just leave them off altogether if it doesn’t work out.

[Blindhamster]

I used to like extending the legs and abdomens and then bulking out torso and thighs on mine lol.

 

but, that’s being silly and I’m not really being serious.

 

I’ve always just avoided centurions because of how bad they are, that said I’ve seen some really really cool dramatic conversions of them, usually adjusting legs is a big part of what makes them look better.

 

I honestly don’t think suppressors can be saved, they look pretty off, too heavy in the wrong places. Obviously you can do conversions using auto cannons from HH on jump infantry, once new jump infantry for primaris arrive, I would probably seriously consider going that way.

 

desolation squad, I’ve seen a number of great conversions of them now, but honestly I think simply getting rid of the feed helps them a lot. Single rocket on the “rifle” with indirect fire bit moved to backpack looks pretty good too, I like the use of aggressor rockets for the indirect fire element as well