State of the Hunt, Week 18/2023: Baby Steps…

Just a small-ish update for today, as I keep taking the smallest, most absurd baby steps on my way of slooowly inching closer back to painting and something resembling actually finished models — and holy heck, I had certainly forgotten how difficult this can be!

But we’ll be getting there in a minute. Before that, let’s get into the swing of things by showing you some fiddly little things I have been doing — and not all of them have been a success. So let’s bring in Exhibit A in the the ongoing series “Conversions I hoped would work”:

I thought I had this really nifty idea for an – optional – helmeted head for one of my Chaos Lords, Bardolf, Lord of the Huntsmen:

The thought at the core of this micro-project was that it would be cool if, in an army where almost everyone is wearing a helmet with one of those bunny ears crests, there’s one commanding officer who goes against the grain. I still wanted the helmet to match the style of the army, though. Anyway, take a look:

The Unmade facemask from Warcry has this wonderful, almost primitive look: You could really imagine it as some kind of deathmask made from hammered bronze, I wanted this to work so much — but I cannot shake the feeling that the actually faceplate is just a bit too small, even after I went through the trouble of grafting it onto an actual CSM helmet:

It’s a bit heartbreaking, really. The helmet would be perfect for the model, if only the mask were a bit bigger. Oh well…

But while we are on the subject of spliced-together helmets, I ditscore a smaller success elsewhere: I painstakingly spliced together an Mk II helmet with a slightly Khornate look, just because I am sometimes completely into dumb detail stuff like this…

And while this was a bit fiddly to pull off, it’s a pretty simple conversion, really: I shaved the helmet crest off a Skullcrusher helmet, carefully scraped away the part between both eye slits, creating the iconic, cyclopic Mk. II visor look. And I grafted some “ears” from a bog standard Space Marine helmet to the sides of the head, bulking it out and creating a shape very close to an actual Astartes helmet. The horsehair crest came from the plastic Mk. III Marines sprue and seemed like a fitting addition for such an ancient armour mark. Here’s what the helmet looks like when added to an actual model (this particular guy just cannot seem to catch a break… 😉 )

And I spliced together one more helmet: I’ve always wanted to do something with one of the “Easy-to-Build” Primaris Reivers helmets I still had in my bitzbox, what with the skull faceplate and everything, so I went for a fairly obvious solution:

The stock helmet itself is maybe a bit too clean, but with the added helmet crest and dangling little skulls, I’d say it almost kinda works — in fact, I really wanted to see whether a paintjob would tie it all together, so I chose this part as my first test run on getting back into painting. Take a look:

It’s nothing special, to be sure, but it’s a start…

And in order to at least keep practicing, I next painted up one of those converted Terminator helmets I posted recently — the orky one:

Again, I think the paintjob at least manages to do a fair job at pulling the different parts of the conversion together, making it look like a unified whole.

Oh, and I also did something I had wanted to try for a while: Adding one of the new GW World Eaters decals to one of my 2019/2020 models:

I know, I know: Not exactly riveting stuff, but really just tiny bits and pieces. Bear with me, though — I am trying to get my mojo back here, as well as my hand-eye-coordination… 😉

I would, of course, love to hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Plastic for the Plastic Throne! Pt. 4

The kitbashing train has no brakes! In all fairness, though: I still had that World Eaters Terminator squad to complete, so…

While the first three Terminators, along with the “salvaged” model wielding twin lightning claws, appeared in the previous post, there were still two more models left to go. So here’s what I came up with:

First of all, let’s take a look at the squad champion (although I really want them all to look equally impressive, so he doesn’t stick out quite as much as he possibly would in a less customised squad):

The most obvious addition here is the left arm from the Lord Zhufor model — I thought this would be a really cool alternative to the model’s standard bolter arm. The – slightly dodgy looking – standard sword was replaced with a weapon from the AoS Varanguard kit. I rather like its blunt, brutal and slightly daemonic look. And I added a helmet crest (from the Skullcrushers) and a World Eaters rebreather head, to round out the WE look.

And of course I couldn’t resist the temptation of turning the last model into an icon bearer:

Now this guy uses the actual Lord Zhufor helmet (although I have had to replace the tusks, due to a small accident). The banner pole and the hand holding it came from the AoS Blood Warriors — the bit was carefully grafted onto the existing Terminator arm. The Caedere Remissum crest once again came from the Skullcrushers.

Now this guy actually made for an interesting challenge, because I had to find the right banner for him: I wanted him to be carrying the IVth assault company’s battle standard, and none of the options I found in my bitzbox completely managed to win me over:

The first option was a Skullcrusher banner — a lovely piece in and of itself, make no mistake. But it’s also very monothematic, with that Khorne symbol on top AND that massive Khornate rune dead centre. What I was looking for, however, was more of an old company standard, complete with a legion symbol, and maybe some of the IVth’s battle honours, and the only way to create that from this bit would have been to to painstakingly shave off the rune, with a very high probability of ruining the piece altogether.

The second option was an actual, blank Space Marine standard — a real rarity these days 😉
What I really liked about this was how it would have allowed me to actually make the standard look like an age-old relic. But the main downside was how very, very clean it looks — and I wasn’t quite sure whether I would be able to make it look suitably distressed and brutal for a World Eaters standard.

The third option – a Bloodletter banner – had quite a few things going on in its favour: It’s suitably Khornate and chaotic. It’s also suitably tattered, while still leaving enough of a “blank canvas” for me to get creative. What wasn not really sold on, however, was the somewhat organic look of the crosspost. It also seemed like a very safe choice — and I guess that’s what I ultimately found the most off-putting about it.

And then there was this final option:

A WFB plastic Minotaur banner, if I remember correctly. I had actually wanted to use this as the IVth’s standard before: The way it seems like a mix of banner and trophy display really ties into the theme of the Eternal Hunt. But also maybe seemed a bit too big, a bit too much: I was afraid that it might overpower the model and cover up too much of it.

Ultimately, the feedback I received over at The Bolter & Chainsword supported my assumption that the minotaur standard really deserved another chance. So the next step was to turn it into something that would make for both a suitably grisly, Khornate banner for AND would still read as something that had, at one point, been an Astartes battle standard. So I carefully chose some elements to add to the banner:

I really wanted some kind of shout out to (Pre-)Heresy times, and in the end I realised that actually using a (shaved down) 30k Vexilla piece might just do the trick. It even has a little space for an obvious Heresy callback, such as a red WE symbol (or XII numeral) on white — or maybe even a War Hounds icon? Beyond that, I added some skulls and talismans. Not everything had been glued in place at this moment, and in fact I would end up making a few smaller tweaks down the road — as you’ll be seeing in a minute.

In the meantime, the entire Terminator squad also went through another round of detailing: While I like the sense of bulk and menace about the “new” Chaos Terminator kit, it is also incredibly vanilla-flavoured, so my main challenge was to really, really make these guys read as World Eaters. Good thing I found Wade Pryce’s notes on his own Terminators in the – fairly recent – issue of WD that had the preliminary World Eaters Index/Codex, and he talked about shaving off some symbols off leftover Blood Warrior parts and gluing them to the Terminators. Brilliant! So that’s what I did.
I also made some smaller tweaks to other areas, such as the headcrests on the champion and icon bearer, for example. Here’s a look at all the squad members as they are looking at the moment:

I’m not going to lie to you — I am pretty darn happy with the way this squad is shaping up! 🙂

And as for the icon bearer, here’s what he looks like with the finished (?!) banner provisionally tacked on:

I will still need to tweak it all a bit and make sure everything lines up correctly, but I am pretty happy with the model — in fact, one small touch that makes me almost stupidly happy, even though it is of small consequence, is the fact that the icon bearer is now actually wearing his gun mag-locked to his armour (and doubly secured with a little chain):

I carefully carved a concave shape into the inner half of the weapon casing, to make sure it conforms to the curvature of the armour underneath and doesn’t end up messing up the model’s entire silhouette.

So that’s it for this week! Before I started working on these Terminators, I actually feared I might not be able to put an original spin on them, given the crazy cool conversations floating around out there. But I am actually pretty happy with the squad so far:

And, of course, I would love to hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Plastic for the Plastic Throne! Pt. 3

Yet more conversion and kitbashing hijinks for today’s update — I know, I know: I will eventually have to get back to painting! Bear with me, though, I have some pretty cool things lined up for today’s post.

Let’s begin with a bit of an “appetiser”, if you will: You’ll probably still remember this conversion from my previous post:

I have finally committed to the conversion for good, gluing the Blood Warrior mid-section to the Skullreaper/Wrathmonger legs (the actual torso remains only tacked-on for now, but mostly to make the painting process easier). I have also thrown together a belt buckle/belly plate with a leftover bit from an AoS Slaughterpriest and the dangling skull from Abaddon’s loincloth (the thing just snapped off, so I thought I might as well use it here):

Some cleanup remains, but I am fairly happy with this conversion! From a background perspective, I want this guy to represent Syrax, a shampion of the Harriers – the fourth assault company’s own brand of Raptors – and right-hand-man to a certain character named “Charun, Lord of the Harriers”, if anyone should still remember him from the earlier days of this blog…

As for today’s “main course”: You all should know by now that I have never learned to resist the utterly dreadful “Ohh! Shiny!” syndrome, so working on this model…

…really gave me an appetite for working on some more updated Terminators. Ultimately, I decided this with an impeccable sense of timing, buying a box of the “new” Chaos Space Marine Terminators just a week or so before the re-scaled loyalist Terminators were announced. Oh well…

But anyway, I was still looking forward to my first experiences working with the new 2019/2020 (?!) Chaos Terminators. They are a great update on the older kit (which, let’s face it, does seem slightly dodgy from a modern perspective). The updated kit is not without its quirks, but its more organic shapes and bulkier armour really do a great job when it comes to making Chaos Space Marine Terminators like lumbering, threatening behemoths (even if, as seems to be the standard with GW’s modern kits, each of the bodies only goes together in one specific way).

At the same time, the conversion standard for these models has become rather crazy while I wasn’t looking, with many hobbyists coming up with brilliant World Eaters Terminators! One source that I found particularly inspiring, if not downright intimidating, were fellow hobbyist RocPSU’s fantastic Terminator conversions — so I knew I would have to up my game for this project 😉

My objective with the new Terminators was threefold:

• turn every one into an individual, because these are ancient veterans of the Long War and deserve to look the part
• believably turn each of them into a World Eater
• have them still read as Terminators: Now this sounds like it wouldn’t be a big deal, but you can really end up converting Terminators so much that you lose a huge chunk of the classic look that actually clearly makes them come across as Terminators, so I needed to keep a balance between creating cool conversions while maintaining the iconic look.

So here’s what I have so far:

You have already seen the gentleman with the twin lightning claws, of course. For my first “test model”, I tried to hammer out the general look I wanted to achieve, in some shape or form, for the whole squad:

Nothing too crazy here, just an attempt at making the model clearly read as a World Eater: The addition of a rebreather head from the new berzerker kit already did most of the work, and adding a Caedere Remissum crest to the top of the armour (courtesy of the blades from a weird Skullreaper/Wrathmonger weapon) was obviously the first oder of the day. Apart from this, I exhanged the head of the stock power maul with an axe blade from another Skullreaper/Wrathmonger weapon. And I added a small World Eaters legion symbol-like medal as well as a Khorne rune to the breastplate. Oh, and a heraldic tilting plate is a bit of an experiment for now — although I really like the idea that some squad members would be holding on to some remnants of their personal heraldry and/or squad markings from the Heresy…

Next up, the heavy weapons guy. For me, the silhouette of the massive autocannon is so very iconic of Chaos Terminators that I knew I had to use that gun. Beyond that, it was, once again, mostly a matter of adding some visual flourishes to make this guy look like a World Eater:

The (Forgeworld) World Eaters shoulder pad is the most obvious addition here. The helmet crest came from the Skullcrushers this time around, and was added on top of the armour, rather than being stuck directly to the neck seal. The shield is, once again, a bit of an experiment, but it’s an element that keeps appearing throughout my army to represent the World Eaters’ gladiatorial leanings, so I think it might be a cool little detail here. Oh, and I also did some work on the model’s breastplate:

And the final model so far: What is probably my least favourite body pose from the kit ended up turning into my favourite conversion:

Another helmet crest, this time from the Blood Warriors (arguably the best and most consistent source for this kind of bit at the moment). The small, Khornate tilting plate is another touch of personal heraldry (and came from the Skullcrushers). The power axe was spiced up a bit by swapping in the blade of a two-handed Necromunda Goliath chainweapon — to be perfectly honest, I’ve been looking forward to using that weapon ever since the new Necromunda came out 😉

Oh, and I carefully shaved off the little air intake/exhaust from the centre of the breastplate and replaced it with a legion symbol.

All of these changes were not my favourite part of the model, however: What is perhaps most noticeable is the helmet:

I had this weird desire to find out whether I might be able to re-create a plastic version of the vicious-looking, slightly Predator-like, mawed Terminator faceplate that can be seen on Forge World’s Lord Zhufor model:

Image source: Forge World

I used a skull from the box of plastic skulls for this, carefully shaving and gluing until I had what I would say is a pretty promising prototype:

That was not the end of it, however: Fellow Reddit user Money_Cost6121 suggested maybe using an ork skull for that grafted-on faceplate conversion, and while I originally discarded the idea as possibly ending up looking …too orky, I was still intrigued. So down the rabbit hole I went and created two more options. Here’s a comparison shot with all three versions I made:

Not going to lie: In hindsight, I feel a bit foolish for only trying the most obvious option (using a Bloodletter face) last… 😉

They all have their merits: Personally speaking, the Ork-version seems almost too monstrous, ogre-like to me. The Bloodletter probably looks like the most natural and refined option, although I have to admit that it ended up being just as finicky as the other two, and really mostly came together through sheer, dumb luck.

That being said, the conversion process is really not that complicated: For all three versions, you bascially just cut away the “face” from any given skull at a slight angle, starting at the bridge of the nose and cutting down. Then you carefully cut and shave away the lowest part of the faceplate from the Terminator helmet, trying to create a soft, concave curve. And then it’s a matter of careful test fitting, shaving and gluing — I might have to write up a mini-tutorial for this in an upcoming post… 😉

In any case, I think the results so far a pretty promising!

Oh, and because this question came up regarding the twin LC Terminator Lord in a comment to my previous post, here’s a scale comparison with one of the new Terminators:

As you can see, they work fairly well together: The older Terminator body seems a bit lankier (with a weirdly narrow torso piece), while the new Terminators are much bulkier and seem more ponderous. Even so, the models should look quite alright together, once everything has been painted, in 2034 or so 😉

And that’s another update in the bag! Once again, I would love to hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Plastic for the Plastic Throne! Pt. 2

Another round of World Eaters conversions for today, although I’ll be focusing on the actual new berzerker kit a bit more. At the same time, I also have some converted characters to round out the post. We’ll be getting to that in a minute!

For the sake of completeness, let me point out that I actually treated myself to the limited edition of the World Eaters Codex, during the ridiculously short period of time when it was up for grabs:

I cannot (and will not) really say anything much about the rules, mostly because those concerns are mainly behind me these days. As for the flavour text and production values, I’d say it’s a rather nice little book: Where the army background is concerned, it offers a pleasant enough collection of texts, containing a nice, concise (and newly written!) writeup of the World Eaters entire legion history so far, plus enough little vignettes and warband descriptions to serve as inspiration and food for thought — even if Gladiator Cadre 331 basically cribs half of the backstory of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt, if you ask me… 😉

I said I wasn’t going to talk about rules, but one thing that stuck out to me is how, in its background text, the book actually goes out of its way to allow for all kinds of variety in the shape and form of World Eaters warbands, describing warbands holding on to a concept of personal honour, or those strongly based on vehicle use or on heavy weapons, when the actual rules present in the book only really allow for one type of army: One that does allows for nothing but close quarters combat. I certainly hope that a future wave of releases may yet round out the army a bit more, or at least open the way towards some of the interesting options that already appear in the fluff.

But I am honestly rather happy with the way “my” legion gets presented in the flavour text: There’s enough craziness and bloodshed, yes, but there’s also no small amount of hints at Angron’s and the legion’s tragic backstory. Oh, and I also really LOVE the cover artwork, especially since it features all kinds of interesting characters. Not something we sell too often these days, when a lot of GW’s artwork is strongly geared towards showing off only those characters and units that have actual kits, and precious few of the crazy, intricate and inspirational tableaux of yore.

And seeing how I had already gone all-in on the Codex, I also made sure to pick up the World Eaters collector’s coin during a recent visit to my local Warhammer store:

An indulgence, certainly, just like the limited edition codex. But on the other hand, I have been playing, building and painting World Eaters for almost thirty years at this point, so it would have felt even more stupid NOT to add these items to my collection… 😉

So, anyway, on to the actual models: Here’s a look at the Khorne Berzerkers I have been building using the new berzerker kit:

I might have to write up my thoughts on the new kit(s) in a more detailed shape and form at some point, because there’s really a lot to talk about. For now, suffice it to say that I like the new Khorne Berzerkers kit a great deal, especially the many shout outs to the earlier plastic kits AND the metal miniatures that came before. At the same time, the look of these models has been thoroughly modernised and nicely refined.

I do have some minor quibbles with the kit: For one, while it is more versatile than many of GW’s recent kits, it is maybe not quite as versatile as it seems at first: The bodies only ever really go together in one specific way, for instance, although that is not such a big deal, given the fact that you actually get ten unique bodies in the kit. A more immediate problem is the fact that you get two different types of gloves on the hands – standard CSM gauntlet and a modernised version of the classic berzerker leather gloves (looking far less clownish this time around) – and while I love the inclusion of the latter, this also means that you cannot simply combine any two arms from the kit without the result ending up looking a bit dodgy.

But anyway, I am still feeling my way around the kit, which is why the first couple of models have been mostly built “by the book”, so to speak:

Sure, I have subtly tweaked a pose here and there, but so far, the models are still fairly cookie cutter, which is really the biggest problem right now, as I still want them to feel like unique characters. So I will yet have to make a few tweaks and adjustment, find the perfect heads and helmets for these,… all in an effort to make them more unique. But I think I’ll be getting there in the end.

Then there’s this guy that I keep coming back to:

The original plan was to build a model stepping forward in a challenging way and bellowing out a challenge. I really wanted to use one of the shouting, bare heads for this, but as it turns out, they are not entirely unproblematic: Due to the way they are built, they can end up looking a bit strange when used on actual models (the open mouths resulting in a bit of an elongated neck). So I’ve fallen back on using a rebreather head for now, but of course this means you lose some of the intended viciousness.

One smaller breakthrough was to actually ditch the stock Berzerker backpack and swap in an Mk. III backpack: I think its more concentrated bulk works a lot better with the outline and mass of the model. But in any case, expect the pose & bitz on this chap to still change quite a bit before we are done 😉

The one case where I have already committed to a slightly more involved conversion is the squad’s vexilla/icon bearer:

Look, I am old skool to the bone: Backpack mounted banners and trophies are strictly for champions in my book. The icon bearer needs to be lugging around an actual icon: I love the idea that even the World Eaters will take it upon themselves to carry banners and icons into battle, all in an attempt to bring more glory to Khorne — they absolutely need to look suitably vicious, of course, so they could believably be used as weapons in their own right, should push come to shove.

I also like it when every squad has their own, original icon, so I am working towards that goal as well.

The icon bit itself came from the 1st edition Age of Sigmar Blood Reavers. I really liked its vicious, barbed look, and it has a lot of skulls, which is always a plus. I had to shave off the – slightly too reedy – Blood Reaver arm holding it. That area was covered up with yet more skulls, and a Wrathmonger arm was swapped in for its added mass:

So that’s how far I have come with the new berzerker kit so far. On a more general note, this should not come as a surprise, but the kit, and the models resulting from it, work very well alongside the more recent chaos kits, like the vanilla Chaos Space Marines. Here’s a quick side-by-side comparison with two berzerkers, one made completely from the new kit, while the other one almost exclusively uses Vanilla CSM and Blood Warrior parts:

Granted, the new berzerkers may be slightly taller (and wider!), but not too noticeably so. By the same token, all of the bitz can also be safely mixed into other conversions: Here’s a guy I just quickly tacked together from leftovers, using bitz from the berzerkers, vanilla CSM and Blood Warriors:

Works pretty well, doesn’t it? Alas, the poor chap has already been torn apart again, in an attempt to create an extra World Eater wielding a two-handed eviscerator for one of the old squads. Another kitbash made purely from leftovers, so to speak. Take a look:

The body is one of my usual mixes of vanilla CSM legs and a Blood Warrior torso. The arms are those of an AoS Slaughterpriest of Khorne (actually the very same model I used to build my gladiatorial version of Angron). I think the leftover weapon works fairly well as an eviscerator. The arms are maybe a bit too long, but I think we can just chalk that up to mutations 😉

Beyond that, there’s a backpack from the Dark Vengeance Chosen, a head from the vanilla CSM kit, a Blood Warrior shoulder pad on the left arm and an old FW World Eaters shoulder pad on the right.

My original idea for the axeman was to use a set of legs from the – supremely ungainly – Wrathmongers/Skullcrushers kit, but while the pose worked really well, the proportions were completely off, making the model look almost twice as tall as its intended squadmates. But I wasn’t quite done with those Wrathmonger legs yet, so I tried using them to build some kind of Raptor champion:

(Yes, I realise that Raptors are no longer an official part of the army — but frankly, who cares?)

The legs arguably work much better here. The scale problem is still there, but you can explain it away with the model just landing, so it almost, kinda works…

Before I tune out for today, I promised you some converted characters, right? So here goes: Two old acquaintances:

First up, some long time readers may remember the Terminator Lord wielding twin lightning claws that I built a long time ago, then kept tweaking for years:

I always wanted the model to be in something resembling a very classic “Wolverine” pose (you can almost hear those claws going “SNIKT!”, am I right?), and I was still pretty happy with that part of the model. so I really wanted to salvage this guy for the latest incarnation of my World Eaters. However, the slightly dodgy old Termie Lord legs no longer worked all that well, in my opinion. Well, some problems call for drastic measures. So here’s the reborn version of this particular model:

Yes, I tore apart two models to make a tweaked, new one — completely normal, nothing to see here. In my defense, the new legs (originally from Forge World’s Lord Zhufor model) work much better, wouldn’t you agree? And while this change may seem supremely wasteful, I would argue that both models had just been sitting there unused and unpainted for years, so some bold action was needed!

Yet another rebreather head from the Khorne Berzerkers is also doing a great job here — those heads are, in fact, one of the high points of the kit for me.

Funnily enough, while comparing the model to one of the new Khorne Berzerkers, I realised that the new berzerker torso pieces are actually wider than the older Terminator chest pieces! So I added those small pieces of swinging chain links, not only to support the model’s sense of dynamism, but also in order to visually stretch the torso — it’s a cheap trick, admittedly, but I think it works well enough.

And here’s one last WIP model for today: A long time ago I painstakingly created this model here. Huntmasker Alrik Skarn, Captain Lorimar’s second-in-command:

Back in the day, the model was inspired by a fantastic conversion on a – now defunct?1 – hobby blog called “Prophet Miniatures”. Come to think of it, the model must actually have been built about ten years ago, give or take, and it seemed like such a towering achievement back then. But I didn’t get around to painting Skarn, as is so often the case for me, and then the model’s time kinda came and went: I did make a couple of attempts to tweak him and bring him back in line with the rest of the army, adding different helmets and swapping in new chainswords, but for some reason, the magic spark had just gone out of the model. I still kept thinking of a way way to re-create or update the character, though.

This character was also on my mind when I started to work with the new CSM kits, back in 2019/2020, but I have held off on building a new version of Skarn until now. Well, no longer! Here’s what I have so far:

To be fair, this is still a fairly early build, but having danced around this particular project for years at this point, I finally had this “Eureka!” moment, and I already like him quite a bit! What do you guys think?

And with that, today’s kitbashing extravaganza concludes. Once again, I would love to hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!

Plastic for the Plastic Throne! Pt. 1

…Okay, let’s finally get down to brass tacks, so to speak: Time to show you some of the kitbashes I have been working on recently. Be ye warned, though: There be lots of unpainted plastic and crude WIPs ahead 😉

Now when the World Eaters release was first teased by GW, I was relieved to see that all of my most recent, painted World Eaters stuff – from back in 2019/2020 – would probably still make the cut when placed next to the new models. It’s good to know that “The Hateful Eight” have not been made obsolete by the new release!

But of course my first action was to go through the as-of-yet-unpainted models and see whether I might be able to tweak and improve them a bit. To be perfectly honest, not only did I do this to bring them up to the level of the new models, but also as a substitute for actually getting to work on the new bitz, as I was still waiting for my first box of new Khorne Berzerkers to be delivered at this point 😉

First up on the table were these three gentlemen:

All of these have been tweaked a bit, but without using any of the new parts. This was really mostly about bringing the existing conversions up to snuff and about straightening out any remaining kinks and areas I didn’t like. Let’s take this model, for instance:

I must have tweaked and re-tweaked this particular kitbash half a dozen times by now, but now I am finally happy with the conversion: The model combines the head, torso, upper thighs (and half of a weapon arm) of an AoS Blood Warrior with the lower legs from the plastic Mk. III Marines. I threw in shoulder pads from the vanilla Chaos Space Marines and the old FW World Eaters conversion kit. What really sells the conversion, in my opinion, is the left arm (from the Age of Sigmar first edition starter box Blood Reavers): I knew I needed at least one berzerker to carry some freshly taken heads, and now this noble task falls to this particular gentleman.

Next up is a model I was already very happy with back in 2020:

The original plan here was to build a World Eater wearing massive, archaic & spiky Mk. III armour, and the plastic Plague Marines presented me with the perfect body for that look. The shoulder pads and left arm came from the vanilla CSM; while the right hand gripping an axe came from the Blood Warriors included in the old AoS starter box. The one tweak I chose to make was to exchange the somewhat dodgy FW Red Butcher axe the model had before…

…for the Chaos Space Marine chainsword you can see above. I’m not quite sure yet whether I want to keep this version — we’ll see.

The other fun thing I did for this model was to convert a helmet for it: I found myself wondering what a suitable helmet for this massive set of warplate might look like, and then inspiration struck. Here’s what I came up with:

The blunt, brutish helmet from an easy-to-build plastic Plague Marine made for an almost perfect design, with an ancient, Mk. II-ish look, and the bladed crest added character to the helmet, making it suitably vicious and gladiatorial for a World Eater. And while I will definitely keep the bare head for the model (it’s from the plastic Custodians, but I think it just works so well), I am now thinking about maybe keeping the head exchangeable — my original plan was to merely put the helmet on the model’s belt, but it actually seems much too cool for that. So maybe I will just keep both heads optional, so I can swap between them whenever I feel like it 😉

Finally, there’s this gent here:

Another 2020 conversion, this one. This is what he looked like before I worked on him:

Granted, the model seems cool enough in that photo, but the proportions were really all over the place, with a right leg that was MUCH too long. The model seemed cool at first glance but became dodgier and dodgier the longer I looked at it. So the right leg was shortened, leading to a slightly different pose. The infuriating thing is that it’s now much harder to find the right angle to show off how the model has been improved, as the legionary is aggressively thrusting forward his chest. It works really well when seen firsthand but is a lot of trouble to photograph right…

The conversion was, once again, based on one of the Blood Warriors from the AoS 1st edition starter box, and I think the armour works really well for a World Eater, looking much more archaic and gladiatorial than standard Astartes warplate. In this case, I didn’t replace either of the shoulder pads, because I really wanted to embrace the gladiatorial look.

The one thing I added to bring the model more into the 40k universe was to add some GS Butcher’s Nails to its head:

Granted, compared to the new stock heads, these nails seem pretty crude, but I think the model still works pretty well overall. The model still needs a bit of cleanup and gap-filling, but I think the look I want for the character is clearly there now.

Then there’s this converted Khorne Berzerker champion, built around some parts from the – somewhat problematic – Wrathmongers/Skullreapers. It remains a slightly dodgy conversion, but I am still fond of the sense of brutality it exudes. I’ve added a Blood Warrior shoulder pad to the left arm which definitely makes a big difference, even though it’s such a small detail.

And I also built one additional model, mostly by combining CSM and Blood Warrior parts in the already well established way. However, this model was mostly conceived as a vehicle, so to speak, for one particular bit: Its head:

This particular head was a gift from fellow hobbyist Drone21c — and from all the way back in 2015, if you can believe it! I’ve had this part in my bitzbox for so many years that it was finally time to build a model around it. The helmet itself was converted by adding berzerker “bunny ears” to an old Chaos Warrior helmet, I believe, with some customisation and GS cabling making the design look even more original. The body, meanwhile, was my usual combination of CSM and Blood Warrior parts, with arms from the CSM Raptors.

My idea for this character was a legionary who takes a moment to aim a bolt pistol shot at the enemy while advancing, and I think the pose sells that idea well enough:

The next two models were also originally built in 2020, but in these cases, I actually tweaked them by using some parts from the new berzerker kit:

The guy on the left, with his Corpse Grinder Cult circular saw (a bitz donation from my buddy Augustus b’Raass, by the way) originally used a rebreather head from some Primaris kit or other:

Nice enough in its way, but I think you’ll agree with me that the model has really been transformed simply by giving it a “proper” new World Eaters head:

There’s an added element of viciousness to the model that was really missing before. And there’s something subtly feral about those fanged rebreathers that I just love. This is definitely a case where a single bit has managed to enhance an entire model!

The second model was already really close in concept to the new Khorne Berzerkers, albeit converted from CSM and Blood Warrior parts:

I only really swapped in a different sword arm, as it turned out one of the Berzerker chainsword arms worked a bit better than the vanilla CSM arm I had originally used — although this also has the cool side-effect of leaving the model with one of the rather vicious, hacksaw-like Berzerker chainswords now:

Which invariably leads us to the models that were built using only (or mostly) the new Khorne Berzerker bits — but I’ll be saving those for the next update. Before we wind up this post, let me show you one last fun thing, though:

While I am very much in love with the new Khorne Berzerker kit (more thoughts on that will follow in a future update), I have a few small, almost microscopic, gripes with it. For one, I think it’s a bit of a shame that the new kit doesn’t feature a modern interpretation of the “Arx Death Helm”, as it was called in the 3rd edition Codex:

The helmet design wasn’t only a throwaway line in the Codex, however — it actually existed in model form: You might remember the berzerker helmet with a skull-shaped faceplate, as seen on this older model here:

Granted, the design may seem a little hokey by modern standards, but I still think it was a bit of a shame for it not to receive an update. Which is when I came across the model for something called an “Aspiring Deathbringer” in my bitzbox. I picked it up when I bought the one-off game “Gorechosen” at a very good price a couple of years ago:

The model itself is easily the dodgiest, most awkward sculpt from that box, and not easy to completely convert into a 40k character, not least due to the enormous lenght of its legs 😉 But upon closer examination, the head definitely warranted a bit of attention: I couldn’t help wondering if I might be able to turn this into something really cool…

So a few precise cuts later, I had this:

A simple enough conversion, really: The lower part of the head (i.e. the mouth and neck area) were carefully cut off and replaced with the lower part of an Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii Vanguard helmet: I could have used a CSM head as well, but the Skitarii heads have the huge advantage of being really easy to cut apart cleanly right above the breathing apparatus. Afterwards, the two parts were carefully glued together, and I must say I am pretty happy with the result!

I don’t even have any plans for the head yet: The truth is that I sometimes just enjoy making involved conversions on one small part that I then just keep around until its big day comes. Which may be next week, in four years…or never. Here it is on a “borrowed” body, though:

As you can see, I decided to get rid of the massive amount of dead space in the middle of the helmet crest by gluing on a medal from the old Khorne Berzerker kit.

Oh, and one of my favourite parts of the head is how, even though it’s originally an Age of Sigmar bit, it does have those grooves running across the top of the head that really look like an artistic representation of the Butcher’s Nails:

Anyway, so much for taking stock of my existing models — and of bringing them into the year 2023. Next time, we’ll be looking at the first models I have actually built from the new Khorne Berzerker box. And we’ll be meeting another old aqcuaintance that has received a rather substantial makeover.

For now, however, I would just love to hear your feedback or questions about these models, so please feel free to let me hear any thoughts and suggestions you might have. And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!