High Utility Conscripts, part 1
Ever since the new Necromunda kits started coming out I’ve
been eyeing them up for their potential in Warhammer 40k. Having easy to get
plastic kits of diverse human thugs is a boon to converters, especially those
who dream of seeing new and creative armies of the Astra Militarum fill
tournament tables. Now that all six of the classic gangs have kits, I have
started an adventure, taking minis from each kit and converting them for
Warhammer. I intend for this article series to act as a guide, showing some of
the potential each kit has. Each article will be split into three sections:
Paint, Head Swap, and Kit Bash, in order to showcase various levels of
complexity.
Paint: Long Live the Fighters (Van Saar)
The Van Saar kit is a boon to 40k overall,
because it provides a base for modelling something that has long been part of
the 40k lore, but until now rarely presented in model form: the armored
bodyglove. Obviously taking a nod from the stilsuits from Dune, I thought a Fremen-style army of Astra Militarum would be
cool.
To
this end, I simply assembled the model (using one of the GW Shattered Dominion
bases), painted it in brown and black, and applied a desert/wasteland palette
to the base. My only regret is the mechandrite/ponytail thing, I think that’s
so distinctive to the Van Saars that it distracts from my intent (if I were to
expand this project I would leave subsequent ponytails off). That said, I’m
very happy with the results – just by changing up the paint scheme and
(especially) the base, the Van Saars can transform from pseudo-mechanicus hive
dwellers into tough-looking death world warriors.
As
for the kit itself, Van Saars are an excellent proxy for Astra Militarum. The
box contains ten bodies, and each model can be armed with a lasgun (or las
carbine, which is just a stumpier SMG-looking version of the lasgun).
For
special/heavy weapon potential there are two interesting opportunities. One is
the “heavy” of the gang, which consists of a guy holding a large laser bazooka
thing on one shoulder. This could easily stand in for a lascannon, though it
lacks the distinctive muzzle of that weapon. There is also a combi-las/melta
gun in the kit, which if you snip off the las-barrel, looks just like a fancy
bullpup meltagun! There are some pistols in the kit too – laspistols and plasma
pistols, namely – for building a sergeant, but the only close combat weapon in
the kit is the techno-wizard staff pictured above. Pistol/rod works just fine
for a sergeant, but I’m vaguely saddened that there isn’t a sleek chainsabre in
the kit.
So, with no other bits or kits required (except for the 60mm base for a heavy weapon
team – ed) the Van Saar gang is an excellent base for an Astra Militarum
Regiment.
Head Swap: Cult of the Yawning Maw (Orlocks)
I was a little underwhelmed when I first saw the new Orlock
kit. The bodies are blocky, the arms are lanky, the boots are huge, and the
heads are tiny. Frankly I think it’s the worst-looking of the new Necromunda
kits… which is to say, it’s a fine kit, containing lots of cool bits and conversion
potential. I feel like my hobby is an embarrassment of riches sometimes! For
this mini I decided to change the character of the sculpt through a simple head
swap. Orlocks are a good choice for this, as unlike some of the other kits
their neck joint can easily take heads from other kits. Looking at the Orlocks
and their “blue collar workman” aesthetic, I formed a sympathetic bond in my
mind between their look, and the genestealer cultists. Both have a mining
theme, both are wearing hazard gear and fighting with improvised weapons, and
they have a similar “bulkiness” to them that gives them a thematic similarity.
So I did a simple head swap. I used one of the heads from
the Genestealer Cult Upgrade Pack. Though meant to be used with Cadians, the
heads fit onto the Orlock bodies like a dream (though to be honest I still feel
they’re a little small compared to the large blocky bodies). I will note here
that I initially looked at using heads from the actual Genestealer Cultist box,
but those heads will not fit without significant trimming, as the bulbous
“necks” are made to fit in the very deep spacesuit cradles.
The Orlock kit comes with a variety of slug-thrower weapons:
4 autoguns and 6 shotguns, though the only thing characterizing the shotguns is
an extra tube beneath the barrel, so having one “count as” the other is pretty
trivial, as they are already so similar looking. You also get arms for two
heavies, who can be armed either with a heavy stubber (convenient for cultist
squads) or a grappling spear-launcher thing, which could reasonably be a
“counts as” sort of weapon. As for flamers, web-guns, or any of the other
cultist special weapons you’re out of luck.
If you have a specific idea for an “autoguns and heavy
stubbers” sort of neophyte squad, the Orlock box can handle that with aplomb,
with the only additional bits being a genestealer cult upgrade sprue. You could
also field such Orlock/Cultist conversions alongside the regular neophyte
hybrids, without a break in aesthetics. Looks good and easy to do!
Kitbash: Muscle Scouts (Goliaths)
I’ll be the first to admit I did not come up with this idea.
It’s been floating around since the Goliaths first got previewed, but it wasn’t
until I got the kit in my hands that I really saw the potential. When put next
to normal space marines the Goliaths look like enormous mutants, the
muscle-bloated swole-bros of Khorne’s nightmares. But when set next to Primaris
Marines? Well, they just kinda look like what you imagine Primaris marines look
like when not in their armor.
So here we have it: Goliath gangers kitbashed up with some
space marine scouts, intended to be fielded as scouts in an all-primaris army.
This provides the double advantage of providing some diversity to the
tragically same-y primaris models, as well as the tactical boon of including
scouts in your army. So with clippers, knife, glue, and (sadly) greenstuff in
hand, I took to turning the biggest, loudest, thuggiest necromunda gang into
the sleekest, quietest, and most subtle of space marine warriors. Was I
successful?
I would say “mostly.” There are two ways to do the head swap, either by
dropping the scout head directly into the cradle in the Goliath torso, or by
chopping and pasting the scout head to fit the Goliath neck, which comes as a
separate bit. I’ve done the latter here, which makes the model look more
proportioned and natural (the former technique is easier, but makes the scout
look a bit squat and turtle-like). The scout hands do not fit onto the Goliath
wrists without a lot of cutting and fitting – on this model I had to use green
stuff to patch gaps, and the right wrist is an absolutely ugly mess up close.
Also, the Goliath armor is covered with spikes, rims, and vials of chemicals,
some of which I had to trim and file down in order to make it look more like
military armor. I played around with the idea of placing shoulder pads on the
mini to make them more closely resemble the official scout minis, but
eventually I decided to leave them off. If you happen to have extra space
marine shoulder pads, though, they fit on pretty well.
Like all kitbash projects, this one involves buying multiple
kits, which leads to a bad money/models ratio. That said, this kitbash is far
better than most, as a single box of scouts (which is meant to make 5 models)
provides almost enough bits to
convert all 10 Goliaths. The scout box comes with 5 boltguns, 5 shotguns, and 5
bolt pistol/close combat weapons, which means you can make two squads with
different armaments. The only issue is heads – only 6 heads come in the scout
box. Goliath heads might make for a clash of aesthetics in the squad, but you could
get away with some of them. The scout box also provides some grenades and
pouches which you can use to further tie the conversion together, like I’ve
done on the model’s right shoulder, above.
Using this kitbash will leave you with all the Goliath
weapons and the Scout bodies, which will just go into your bits box. A
necessary casualty of the kit-basher’s grisly work.
Overall I’m happy with this conversion, though it’s hard for
me to judge the Goliath box overall. They’re pretty unsuitable for standard
Guardsman/cultist conversions (they stand on the larger 30mm space marine
bases), but I would be happy to be proved wrong. I suppose they could make a
splash as Khornate chaos cultists, but the issue there is WYSIWYG – there is a
tragic dearth of pistols in the Goliath box (just two stub guns. TWO!) The
gnarly axes and repurposed tools put me in mind of some genestealer hybrid
potential, but that will take further experimentation.
In conclusion, I am very excited about the Necromunda gang
boxes. I have more examples of potential painting, head swapping, and
kit-bashing on my table, and will present them (as well as further analysis of
the kits used) in the future.
