+ Converting Leviathan Terminators +
+ I've spoken very little about the new 10th edition of 40k, though I'm looking forward to trying it out at the next meetup of the PCRC gang. I didn't end up getting a copy of the box – my poor benighted Necrons remain lurking semi-painted; the Death Guard from the previous box too – and I just couldn't face further piling up the cupboard of opportunity with Tyranids, too. +
+ In the end, I'm quite glad I just bought the bits I wanted from box-splitters – the rulebook, mission cards and transfer sheet, plus a few of the marines. In particular, the rulebook and mission cards have since been released separately – but the separate mission cards apparently contain errors not in the Leviathan ones, and the separate rulebook contains none of the Leviathan lore – you have to buy a separate supplement. GW seem to be having more and more problems (or making customer-annoying decisions) with their non-model releases. I hope they manage to pull things together a bit. +
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+ Onto the Terminators +
+ Coo, what lovely models! Half-tempted to build them completely as stock, I couldn't resist adding a few little tweaks here and there to make them fit the Dust of Armageddon project. Happily, they convert well, despite being easy-to-build. Much of the 'converting' here – and I use inverted commas because it's so minor – involved nothing more than chopping off the additional 'stalks' of plastic that help guide the builder to the default build. +
+ Other than that, it's just a case of altering the direction of the heads, swapping the arms around the kit and chopping up 'Garran Branatar' a plastic Salamander Terminator released as part of the Deathwatch: Overkill boxed game. Various parts of his are dotted here and there, diluting out the super-Salamander theme of the original model across the whole squad. +
+ While not a direct copy of the GW studio Salamanders from Codex: Armageddon, the scheme here is what I'll aim for; and it's nice to see quite how closely the new models hew to the original design. It really feels like the best sort of iterative design, giving them a bit more heft and finer detail without throwing out the baby with the bathwater. +
+ Speaking of heft, I thought I'd show the inevitable scale comparison with the various models I'm using. There are lot of very useful examples across the noosphere comparing the Terminators with the old Terminators or Primaris, and they really look the part there. +
+ In comparison with the Fummelfinger sculpts on the left (and printed at 100%, for the record) and my Gravis-based conversions (in the centre), they are perhaps a hint shorter than might be ideal, but I certainly don't think you'll notice on the broader battlefield. These figures really are beefy! +
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+ Exhibit 1 uses none of the Salamander character bits, so is a good 'neutral' example of how these figures look with minimal tweaking. Here, I've used the sergeant's outstretched gun arm in place of the assault cannon, turned the head from the default pose and used one of the other marine's power fists. Half-tempted to convert this into a chainfist to balance the pose a bit more. +
+ Next up a storied old veteran, who has Brantar's helm and back-mounted brazier. He's going to act as the spiritual heart of the squad. This was probably the most complicated conversion, as it involved trimming the head off carefully from the torso front, and removing the 'halo' of armour common to all Terminators. Had I planned things a bit more carefully, I might instead have trimmed this bit of the new Terminator – but the key thing to take away is that the older heads are perhaps a hint larger than the new ones, but fit in nicely. +
+ Our sergeant – and cause of the conversion, as I just didn't like the default pose. Here, I'm going for a stoic, considering posture – the idea being that he's the protégé of the chap above, a rising star of the Chapter who has been marked for promotion and preparing for a command post. +
+ The pose is not hugely exciting, but I think it suits his cool-headed character. Brantar's tilt shield/heraldic charge is used here as a nod to the RT-era sergeant shield. +
+ I really wanted to put the assault cannon on – it looks awesome – but in the end just couldn't resist the draw of the flame. The use of Brantar's heavy flamer is probably the most obvious alteration in the whole squad, and the only one with an in-game effect. +
+ This model required more work than the rest all put together, but to put that in context it was still pretty easy. The arm piece is peculiar in combining the gun, forearm and shoulder pad, but having a void where the elbow, upper arm and shoulder should be. I glued in a spare shoulder trimmed from a Terminator lightning claw arm in my bits box, then packed the void for the upper arm with sprue off-cuts. The pose disguises the additions, with only the shoulder being visible from outside. +
+ I opted to use the unhelmeted head here as an opportunity to paint the inhuman black skin of the Salamanders veterans. The more thought I put into deciding how to paint the skin, the more I think I want some variety. To that end, my head-canon for this project is that the Salamanders' stone-black skin is going to be a gradual process. +
+ Scouts will have human skintones; mostly darker tones like sub-Saharan African, but perhaps one or two lighter tones to represent unusual individuals, like recruits from planets other than Nocturne/Prometheus, or those who – for one reason or another – haven't been exposed so much to the Chapter planet's radiation. Such exceptions will be mainly to allow for narrative notes to explain retconned bits like the light-skinned marine on the cover of the Battle for Armageddon boxed game, or the sergeant from Codex: Armageddon. +
+ By the time marines reach Veteran status, however, the geneseed and effects of Nocturne's radiation will have caused all marines' skin to become like anthracite in colour (and in some cases texture). The Terminators and officers will therefore have very these strange colours. +
+ In between we have the battle brothers from the Battle and Reserve Companies. Because the anthracite skin is the new canon, I think I'll take that approach for the majority of the Battle Company marines – that ensures the overall effect of the army leans towards the modern (or arguably very retro indeed) appearance. For the Reservists, I'll perhaps try to find a midpoint, or have more of a mix. I really enjoy trying to square circles in the lore, and this is a fun opportunity to demonstrate what we mean when we say everything you have been told is a lie! +
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