Made Like You And Me

 

Needs must - when you're low on stuff to paint, you get creative. 

Bitz box raid! While I was hunting around in the darker recesses of my spare kit, searching for the missing parts of Delphan Gruss, I came across the shattered parts of several RTB01 beakies. And a couple who were actually intact as well, although I snapped them apart pretty quickly. 

When I made the Alpha Chosen last month, I had leftover torsos and pauldrons from the MKIV armour kit they were based around, and I reckoned I could use the legs from the old plastic kits as a base. Plenty of heads, guns and arms in my spares, enough to improvise a few heavy weapons or Sargeants. Or, well, whatever they want to be, really. Veterans? Minor characters?

Don't look too closely at their waists, is my recommendation. The greenstuffing is not pretty, particularly on the multimelta. He is supposed to have some kind of leather cushion under the gun, but it's really just a rough blob of nonsense that does not bear close inspection. Very much a Raggy Doll ethic at work here, it's all made imperfectly.

Other than that, though, I'm pretty pleased. Scout arms, Terminator close combat weapons, various helmets - a little bit of everything. Especially the last chap, who is an original lead Terminator whose original weapons were long gone. The hammer and shield he used to have had snapped and vanished, and I didn't really fancy drilling or snipping the lead arms to work new ones on. 

So I pulled off his shoulders and gave him heavy bolt pistols instead, like a really cheap storm bolter. Might be he does duty as a custom character with appropriate gunslinging skills, I reckon, the Mantis Warriors may need some unique individuals for their annual campaign. Quite a good look, actually, like a grounded Inceptor!

Lastly comes a new heavy option for the Alpha Legion. For ages, their Chaos Marines have been stuck with the Autocannon that came with the original kit. Nothing wrong with it, exactly, but it's easily the worst pick of the heavy options. Too few shots, too low ap - I guess it's cheap? No, what you really want is a nice Reaper Chain Gun, which is pricy to buy in real life, but cheap to make (here - the butt of a Centurion's arm gun combined with the barrel from an Obliterator). 

I couldn't get the arms to work exactly how I wanted them, hence his rather strained pose. The gun is clearly a bit too heavy even for power armour, plus he's got the last left-handed one in the armoury. Never mind, it's nice and butch as it is, and a damn sight more cost effective!

Sigh - I'd been putting the next batch off, but I'm really out of other options. Scenery time.