Chaos space marine conversions from dark vengeance

Greetings all.

I have now finished converting 1 and a bit sets of chosen and now need to get my hands on one more to convert to give me the finished product - 5 chosen, 10 CSM and 5 havocs. Please note that some still need some greenstuff sculpting finished on them.

These are the first 3 of 5 Alpha legion Havocs - they will all be armed with plasma. I aimed to de-chaos them a bit as they have spent less time in the warp than the rest of the warband.

These are the standard chosen from the set plus one who was converted using raptor parts and some sculpting to carry a power sword. This gives the unit a complete set of special close combat weapons.

These 5 are to be a unit of 10 chaos space marines. While they appear no less chaotic than the chosen, the weapon loadout serves to distinguish them as they wield bolters and BP/CCW. Head and backpack swaps serve to add further distinction to the models, so that no two look alike. When I obtain the last 6 chosen, 4 will be added to this squad and two to the alpha legion havocs. The chosen champion individual plastic model will lead the squad.

Dark vengeance chaos cultist conversions part 2

Just a brief update. I finally got the blighters finished. Was a couple of arms down in the end - used an IG arm and some green stuff for a tentacle (quick and simple chaos fix!) to compensate. I think it's safe to say that I've exhausted my creative potential converting all these guys to be completely unique and that I'll wait for a proper cultist release (should it ever come) to expand the squads one day. Painted guys are the unconverted originals BTW. Enjoy.

Chaos cult army list thoughts part 4 - Death Guard

Finally in the series we come to my personal favourites – the Death Guard. Firstly, plague marines have a lot going for them in the codex with the ability to take 2 special weapons in small squads, some close combat advantages (blight grenades, plague knife) and of course the durability factor with toughness 5 and FnP. Not only that, but we have another great advantage in that Typhus allows cultists to be zombies who also have FnP and fearless (and have now been FAQd so you can take large squads). Vehicles aside, who don’t seem to have had a lot of mark love this edition, almost everything can be marked in the codex. Sounds great right? Well, it’s a little but more complex than that and, IMO, one of the most disappointing things about the new codex. 

For starters we have mark of nurgle, which boosts every unit to +1 toughness as you would expect. This can make some units downright nasty, such as bikers (T6!) and obliterators/mutilators (T5, 2W). Makes for a great nurgle theme army so far, conjuring up visions of an encrusted, pustulant army trudging relentlessly across the battlefield with endless shots ricocheting off armour or simply passing straight through them. Unstoppable and terrifying. This is where problems start to creep in.

I personally love the look of death guard terminators and was hoping to add a unit into my army courtesy of Kromlech (legs) and forgeworld (torsos). All the Death guard were turned to Nurgle at the same time so it makes perfect sense that they should all be as durable as each other, whether they are power armoured, terminator armoured etc. I loved the idea of being able to field nigh unstoppable warriors, whatever the points costs, who do everything their little power armour pals do just much better. After all, GK get paladins with FnP, Blood angels get priests to grant their terminators FC and FnP. Surely there will be a way in the Chaos codex to grant your Death Guard terminators Feel no pain? Wrong.

I know a lot of people are moaning about this point, and I’m sorry to say I have to join them. I can see why Phil Kelly may not have wanted to add in FnP as a banner trait for MoN models – quite simply the combos with bikes, oblits/mutils and terminators may have been too powerful. But lets face it, balancing points costs across the board i.e. making them so darn expensive that any advantage in numbers is lost to durability would have sufficed IMO. Even if pairing these units up with Zombie blobs was also considered too powerful, it would have been nice to have been able to at least have the option. I’m certain there are ways of balancing points costs to compensate – other codexes seem to manage i.e. the price of sanguinary priests or apothecary upgrades for paladins, so why not this one?

There is also the problem that the icon of excess does pretty much the same thing as we hoped the nurgle icon would. It does make me wonder if unrestricting the Icons would have been a good idea and just rebalancing the points costs slightly to compensate. For example, making an icon that represented the power and favour of the Chaos Gods and the effect it has on that unit, driving it to perform all acts in servitude no matter the cost. This icon grants the unit feel no pain. You get the idea. Maybe I’m just wishlisting but as one of the armies I was condsidering making (and with more than just plague marines and zombies) I’m rather gutted that I can’t equip any other units with blight grenades, poisoned weapons and especially feel no pain. The only unit you can kind of get around this with are the ever useful bikes – just give them MoS and IoE and call them T5/FnP nurgle bikers. I’m also seriously considering using mutilators as stand ins for terminators with the 2W making them a little more durable as death Guard terminators should be. Here’s the list I would try and run at 2000 points:

Typhus	1
Mutilators	3	MoN
Helbrute	1	reaper, scourge, Heavy flamer,
Plague marines	10	rhino, 2 flamer, fist
Plague marines	10	rhino, 2 melta, axe
Plague marines	10	rhino, 2 plasma, axe
Zombies	32
Zombies	32
Land raider	1	Possession, dirge

Well, this marks the end of the 4-part series with me concluding that the new codex allows the following fluffy armies to be made. Slaanesh comes out in first place with the ability to make a full army of cult themed marines. In a close second place is Khorne which also allows most of the traits of beserkers to be spread around the army. Third place is Tzeentch with terminators mainly letting the side down. Last place in Nurgle, with the lack of ‘feel no pain’ leaving many units with plague marine envy. It’s been fun writing these articles and getting a good idea myself of how to approach army builds around cults. I hope to do the same for the other 5 legions in due course to see what the new codex has to offer them also. Cheers.   

Dark vengeance chaos cultist conversions part 1

Greetings. I wanted to wait until I had all 40 of these guys ready but with time limited at the moment I'm not sure how long that will be and thus decided to post up the first half now. When I got my two Dark Vengeance copies I pledged that I would convert them so that there were no duplicate models in either the Dark Angel or Chaos armies. With two sets of two duplicates between the two sets that meant I would have to do lots of head and arm swaps. With the aid of some patience and a little greenstuff however the models are now almost all converted. They are such versatile and beautiful models and lend themselves well to converting. I will post the others ASAP. Enjoy.

Chaos cult army list thoughts part 3 - Emperors children

Hi all, we now come to the third part of the cult unit analysis which looks at, in my opinion, the stand out unit of the four: Slaanesh Noise Marines. Looking down the army lists these guys just seem to gel so well with the rest of the list to create a unified Slaanesh army. I think simplicity is the key here, as only three things really distinguish them from the rank and file, namely fearless, +1 initiative and their weapon options. Let’s look at those one at a time. 

Fearless is an attribute you can give to most of the regular squads in the list should you really want to by paying for an icon of vengeance, though this would restrict you from taking an icon of excess which I’ll come back to later. Fearless is a pretty useful trait in this edition especially as chaos are not as reliable as their loyalist brethren when it comes to rallying and getting stuck back in. It also makes you more durable in an assault, not that you really want to be getting your noise marines into assaults though.

From a fluff perspective, you can choose to give any of your units VOTLW in order to represent them being of Legion or renegade descent, which is a nice touch should you wish to distinguish an Emperors Children warband from some more recent converts. I like to view those with the mark of Slaanesh as converts to the cause whether they are noise marines or not. Their God had blessed them with heightened senses, represented in game by the higher initiative. Those which are noise marines (and thus also fearless) I class as those who are too far gone, their sanity warped by their use of the twisted instruments of slaanesh, hence why they would be fearless and why they would use the specialised weapons where others don’t. After all, In the Horus Heresy series, not all Emperors Children took to using the instruments.

Last point is regarding the banner options. As mentioned you can take a banner of vengeance if you want the units to be fearless, but instead (and also for the noise marines) there is the banner of excess option to grant feel no pain. This is a great option (Nurgle players wish they had) that is a great representation of the euphoria the disciples of Slaanesh experience and, IMO, is worth taking especially in larger units where you get more benefit from your investment. Any unit in the codex is potentially a good Slaanesh one, with bikes standing out as a good investment. (T5, I5, FnP, yes please!) Dirge casters on vehicles may also be a good shout, although initially they struck me as more of a word bearer thing. Here’s a sample 2000pt list making full use of large units with icons of excess:

Lucius	1
Noise marines	10	rhino, IoE, doom siren, mutation, blastmaster, 8 SBs
Noise marines	10	rhino, IoE, doom siren, mutation, blastmaster, 8 SBs
Noise marines	20	IoE, doom siren, mutation, 2 blastmaster, 16 SBs
Bikes	10	2 melta, MoS, IoE, VotLW, Power axe, MBs
Raptors	14	2 melta, MoS, IoE, VotLW, Power axe

How to magnetise a forgefiend / maulerfiend - a tutorial

Hey folks,

Thought I would share this with people as it's bound to be useful. I set my self the challenge of magnetising the fiend and to mys surprise it wasn't actually that hard. I think I probably spent 2 hours total on it in the end and so it should take someone following this tutorial even less. Without further ado here we go:

Tools:

Files
Knife
clippers
Pin vice + bits
Some wire to make pins
Magnets - 4 large, 22 small*

Greenstuff
Superglue

 * The two neodymium magnet sizes I used are 3x8 (large; cylindrical) and 4x0.5 (small, flat)

Assembly:

Before you start to magnetise, assemble the main body and back legs, using the hoofs for the back legs. Try to assemble the fiend on the base so that it is approximately this height:

Head:

The head is relatively easy. Slice a thin part off the end of the neck stump, slightly larger than the diameter of the small, thinner magnets (so about 8mm diameter but precision not necessary). Superglue a small magnet to the stump and once it dries, take another magnet and pop it on the first. Then, take a small blob of greenstuff and place it in the head cavity. Push the head onto the stump and leave it about 20 seconds. When you try to remove the stump you should find the second magnet now embedded in the greenstuff inside the head. If not, detach it from the first magnet making sure you orientate the poles correctly and place it on the greenstuff manually, using the rubber end of your clipper handles or files to smooth it onto the greenstuff. Repeat for the other head. 

 
Middle limbs:

(read 'a note on poles' below first if you are new to magnets) These will be different for each build but the principle is the same. Drill out a hole in the centre of each leg cavity in the main body. This should be the right diameter to make a tight fit for two of you large magnets. Slide each of them in place so they are flush with the recess. Don't do the upper limbs yet as they are a bit more complex and are covered later.

Next, take each weapon you wish to magnetise to that slot and slice the end off the weapon stump so that a small magnet will fit in place of the slice - aim for about a 4-5mm flat surface to put the magnet on. Either glue the magnet straight on to the weapon making sure you have the poles correct, or place the magnet onto the larger magnet on the body, put a blob of glue onto the sliced weapon tip and attach that way, making sure not to accidentally glue the magnets together.

Note on poles - I try to make the poles of magnets aligned so that the limbs will only magnetise on the correct side. This is usually very simple if you follow a set method. First, place one of the large magnets in place in the middle limb recess. Then, magnetise a small magnet to it, then another large magnet, so you have a small magnet between to two. Remove the second large magnet with the small one still attached and then place the second large one in the hole on the other side, again with the small magnet still attached and protruding. Now both sides are the opposite polarity and whatever you attach to them will only work on that side. A good way to check this is to take a pair of magnetised weapons and put them together - if the polarities are opposite they should attract rather than repel:

Forelimbs:

This is where things get a bit more complex and so I will break them down into categories.

Maulerfiend arms:

These are the simpler ones to start with. There are two convenient slots in each of the arms just the right size for a 4mm magnet so glue one into each making sure the poles are opposites as before (so the arms should stick together, not repel). Here's where it starts to get tricky. Put the arm in place in the shoulder joint and try to get an idea as to the direction the magnet is facing inside the joint. Take your time with this, and when you think you have it right, drill into the shoulder socket and place a large magnet in as before. The left one should be more in the 9 o'clock position and the right in the 6 o'clock, rather than centrally as with the middle limbs. (note, the picture below shows the leg from earlier and the arm, refer back to the picture of the magnetised body joints to see the position of the right hand upper magnet relative to the middle one) 

Note, in order to accomodate the middle legs for the forgefiend, the maulerfiends arm that should be in contact with the ground will instead be free-floating the distance represented by blu-tack in the pictures below. I intend to get around this very simply by adding some scenery/wreckage to the base and would recommend the same.

 Shoulder armour:

This also needs to be magnetised in order to swap between the two variants of the kit. On the inside of the armour there should be two rounded stumps. Start by taking a slice off of the larger one as this will be the attachment point to the arm. Glue a small magnet onto this stump and then try to place it onto the arm. You will notice it will no longer fit in place as the magnet is too large and flat. Gouge the recess on the arm liberally until the shoulder armour easily fits in the gap and lines up nicely. Add some green stuff to the gouged area on the arm and place a second small magnet atop the other on the armour. Join the two together for a nice fit and then after 20-30 seconds take them apart again. If all goes well the second magnet should now be embedded in the green stuff on the arm. When it has started to dry but is not fully set, go back and check you still get a nice, tight fit of the shoulder armour to the arm. Repeat for the other side. 

Forgefiend weapon arm:

This is the most complex part and has several steps so try to bear with me. There are three parts to the joint: body to shoulder, shoulder to armour and shoulder to weapon.

Body to shoulder:

This is the reverse of the step used to attach the maulerfiend arm magnets to the body. Take the shoulder joint and place it in the already magnetised recess. Now you will have to make a best guess as to where to cut a slice off in order to attach a magnet that will line up with the large magnet in the joint. If you do take too much off by accident then you can always fill the gap with greenstuff, so just take your time and try to get an accurate idea of where things line up. One trick to make this easier is to put a big blob of paint on the large magnet, then place the shoulder joint in the recess. Remove it and you should find the paint now on your shoulder joint, showing you exactly where to cut and attach the magnet (don't forget to wipe the paint off the large magnet before it dries).

Shoulder to armour:

This again is more complex than the maulerfiend equivalent. You will already have the armour magnetised, so the only real thing do do is gouge away at the shoulder mount until you can fit the armour on flush. I then used a large blob of greenstuff to fit the magnet in as before with the maulerfiend arm. Only difference here is that there is nothing to mount half the magnet onto. I think that overcompensating with green stuff to fill the void is fine, but if you want something more secure then you can glue a small piece of plastic sprue for the greenstuff to bed in to. 

 

Shoulder to weapon:

This is pretty much the same as how we did the head way back when, by slicing a small part off the shoulder stump (4-5mm) and attaching a magnet to our flat surface. After that, place some greenstuff in the weapon joint and push a second magnet joined to the first into the greenstuff. The big difference here is that the weapons are just too heavy to be held in place by a magnet of that size and will sag towards the floor. The simple solution is to drill a small hole above the magnet on both the weapon and shoulder sides of the joint. Into the shoulder side, glue a small length of wire (4mm) into the hole so that half of it still protrudes. If you've lined the two holes up correctly (several attempts may be needed) then your wire should insert into the hole on the weapon side, stabilising the joint enough to let the magnet hold it in place without sagging. Repeat this for the other weapons. 

Well that about sums it up. I hope you have enjoyed the tutorial and that it helps some people who can't decide which version of the kit to build and/or don't want to invest in two kits like me. Any questions please comment below or contact me. Cheers.

Chaos cult army list thoughts part 2 - World Eaters

Hi chaps, time for part 2 of my cult army analysis. This time we will be focussing on Khorne as a cult and as before I should emphasise this will focus more on fluff than balance/gemeplay etc. One point to make relating to the Thousand Sons article first. I emphasised the fact that I was trying to build a Thousand sons army rather than a Tzeentch army. Obviously you can build a Tzeentch army including all manner of units in order to represent various followers of the God. TS are special in that case as they were psychically attuned before succumbing to Chaos and also are unique due to the rubric. The aim therefore was to build an army list representing the TS specifically, which the codex just about manages with restrictions. 

On to Khorne now. I will say that this could be a specific World eaters (WE) army or alternatively a generic Khorne army, as the main point is to reconcile both the fluff and rules between the cult units and the rest of the army. Beserkers are fearless, furious charge, MoK (rage and counter attack) with options for an icon of wrath (FC and reroll charge range) and VOTLW. They also only come with BP and CCW with options to upgrade to an AP4 chainaxe. Lastly, they get the typical stat boost for a cult unit with WS5. As a general point I like the fact VOTLW is optional even on cult units (TS being the exception) as it follows the fluff in that cult units may be from renegade chapters rather than the legions of old.

Unlike Thousand Sons it is my opinion that the cult units reconcile rather well with the rest of the army when trying to build a World eaters or Khorne army. The main exception to this is, as will become a running theme throughout the articles, terminators. When we look at say the basic CSM, it is possible to represent a beserker for the most part. Replace the bolter for a CCW at no cost, add a mark of khorne and icon of wrath and you mostly have a beserker squad. All you are missing is fearless and WS5. From a fluff perspective this is not so big a deal. What you have is the difference essentially between a standard WE/khorne trooper and a totally devout veteran. Even if you decide to give chainaxes as upgrades it again represents the veterans, in this case the cult units, getting the pick of the wargear. With Thousand Sons it was a lot harder to reconcile this as there’s little reason Rubricae marines in terminator armour (surely the more experienced veterans) would not have inferno bolts while the standard infantry do.

Speaking of terminator armour, the terminators are again granted the same options as normal marines, yet the thing bothering me with this is again why the esteemed veterans in terminator armour are of a lower weapon skill than their beserker comrades. It can be justified in fluff to an extent with the more bloodthirsty and devout marines not wanting to be slowed by terminator armour but still it would have been nice to have the option. Raptors also make nice ‘almost beserkers’ and add to the overall theme of a brutal assault army, as do bikes.

In conclusion the World Eaters army fits better with the new codex than a Thousand Sons army does. However, one of the standout errors in the book for me so far upon looking into things in depth is that it would have been a much better choice IMO to remove terminators from the book entirely, leaving terminator armour options on the chosen and cult marines, simply ruling that cult marines in TDA couldn’t score. (Would also have allowed Abbadonwing) Again, the deed is done so no point complaining about it – I just see some missed oppurtunities. Here’s a 2000pt example World Eaters list:

Kharn 1 Lord 1 Terminator armour, Axe of blind fury, MoK Terminators 5 MoK, IoW, 2 Combi, H. flamer, LC, Chainfist. Mutilators 3 MoK Beserkers 15 Power axe, plasma pistol Beserkers 15 Power axe, plasma pistol Beserkers 15 Power axe, plasma pistol Beserkers 14 Power axe, plasma pistol Raptors 10 MoK, 2 meltas, IoW, power axe Maulerfiend 1