Making boltguns into other weapons?

[Urauloth]

Quite a long time ago there was a discussion online (it may even have been on this forum, but I can't find it) about how a number of early WH40k special weapon sculpts started their life as boltguns, the basic frame of which could still be seen in their outline. I think about that sometimes when I look at a meltagun, because they still have a lot of design elements in common. Besides the theoretical of miniature design history (which is a glorious topic and forays into it are more than welcome if anyone has relevant information to share) it suggests the practical of cutting certain features off a boltgun and sticking other stuff onto it to make a new weapon, which is what I'm looking to do here.

 

I believe people have done this before - I vaguely remember meltas being "meta" many editions ago, and people kitbashing them for veteran squads or... something. I think I was playing BFG or Mordheim at the time, though, so it wasn't a trick I picked up.

 

The reason I want to do it now is pretty simple: In a box of Plague Marines, you get one guy who can be built stock with a choice of special weapon, and it's going to get dull if all my gunners are made from the same body. It's possible to cut the tabs and swap quite a few of the stock-build arm/body pairings in the kit, but the gunner is awkward because it's hard to make his weapon line up around the generous proportions of Mortarion's rounder sons. There's a ton of boltguns, though, including several held one-handed and even (a gorgeous component) one slung on strap. That's a cornucopia of posing options if you could turn some of them into other things.

 

So, has anyone done anything like this?
How difficult was it?
What did you use, and how were the results?

[apologist]

Plague Marines lend themselves nicely to conversion. Not only are there loads of options between the various three-man kits, but gaps can be covered easily, or filled with nothing more sophisticated than rounded blobs of greenstuff (or if you want a real blast from the past, even plasticene coated in superglue) or suitable gribbly bits from other kits. The examples below used nothing apart from spare sprue shavings and poly cement to fill the gaps (and apologies that they aren't more detailed and close-up – I'm using old photos from my blog to illustrate things).

 

With that said, the kit has lots of pegs and guides – useful to help avoid poses that won't work without conversion (a boltgun across a chest bursting with tentacles that physically block the other arm, for example) – but an annoyance for more substantial conversion work, as you have to trim them away to free up the limbs.

 

On the positive side, the kit provides a lot of spare special weapons that don't need much work to be 'liberated' from their intended body and transplanted onto another. This WIP shot shows the plague spewer being used on another body – if you're happy with single-handed poses, models like this are very simple.

 

 

 

In terms of specifics on converting special weapons directly from boltguns, that's possible. For the most straightforward approach, you'd need to make a straight vertical cut through the weapon just in front of the trigger, then make a matching cut on the weapon. The parts can then be neatly mated with a little polystyrene cement and clean-up work – and again a little mutation, texture or battle damage isn't the problem that it would be on other factions.

 

 

The melta gun here is a good example of where the cut can be made – you can see that the part of the gun directly above the trigger mechanism housing (or handle!) and hand is very similar to a boltgun.

 

Where you want the weapons to be held in two hands to fit across the body, then I'd suggest constructing the arms and weapon separately, then dry fitting on the body. You can then gradually file down the back of the weapon and front of the body until you get a neat fit. The plague spewer on the right here is a good example – you can see I've used the plastic kit spares on a second-hand Dark Imperium model.

 

 

However, I'd suggest that you'd be better off picking up some spare Mark 3 arms from a reseller, and using those to replace the Plague Marine arms entirely. That will allow you much more freedom in posing, and you can happily cut around the weapon, destroying the attached arm where necessary. The charming fellow third from left is an example – a Primaris arm, in this case, showing that a bit of chopping makes most things useable:

 

 

 

... and here are some more gratuitous shots to show the sort of variety you can get with surprisingly simple conversion work:

 

 

A mix of parts from the main kit, Dark Imperium and easy-builds. Some – like the champion here – are so distinctive that kitbashing will never hide their origin. You can either go more ambitious with conversion, or just accept a little homogeneity. Personally, I don't mind a little duplication: you can do a lot to make things distinct with painting.

 

 

As I built the Plague Marine kit, I incorporated pats of the Dark Imperium easy-build versions, too. It's a quick way to create more variety – particularly useful for a kit with such fixed poses. Head swaps and trimming extraneous details goes a long way to making models more individual and preventing duplication.

 

 

The three-man easy builds have flooded the second-hand market, and you can buy them very cheaply. With just a few tweaks, you can make some models that hide the origin nicely. My favourite conversion here is the chap on the right. I think the base model, from the Dark Imperium set, looks great, but is very distinctive. Changing his arms gives a very different feel.

 

 

 

Some more specialist models here. Two with plasma guns, one with a flail. Note the scattering of green easy-build parts alongside the standard kit. I've aimed to slightly tone down the spikiness – I've used quite a few 'plain' parts from the Mark III kit, too – but chaos isn't chaos if you completely clean it up. By leaving some more flamboyant parts, you improve the look of the force en-masse.

 

Hope that helps – and for no other reason than to show I have painted at least one(!), here's a final shot:

 

 

 

Edited April 2 by apologist