Friday 3 May 2019

The Path to Damnation (Part 4) - Beastmen

With my Adeptus Arbites out of the way, I can now switch attention back to my Rogue Trader chaos warband. If you recall from my first post about this warband, one of the groups of followers I rolled up was 6 beastmen with autoguns.

This was a little problematic as Citadel only ever released three beastmen for 40k, all Imperial.


One (beast trooper Gaxt) is perfect, needing no modification at all. The packmaster doesn't really fit the brief, whilst the close combat beastman seems to be co-opted from Warhammer Fantasy.



I recruited a Gaxt, and then set about mulling the problem over. The only real solution was to convert up some more beastmen in the style of Gaxt. I figured I could do this by selecting some suitable 40k figures and performing some leg and head swaps, so that's what I did!

Here are the first three beastmen for my chaos renegade's warband:


First up is Gaxt, completely unmodified. He is actually one of my very favourite 40k figures of all time, and this is the second time I've painted him. This time round he received a dark fur / skin tone (as opposed to my original pale skin). I gave him the same grey clothing as the ratlings, but limited the level of red to a single stripe on the shoulder pad. This allows me to interpret it as a unit marking (for an Imperial beastman unit) or allegiance marking (for a newly turned chaotic beastman unit).



Next up are the two converted models. The first was an adapted 40k beastman, whilst the second with the straight horns was converted from a RT Imperial Guardsman and a fantasy beastman.


I removed the Imperial Guardsman's head and legs a the knees, doing the same with the beastman, before joining the parts together. A little sculpted fur and some ragged shorts covered the damage.



I opted for paler colouring on Straight Horns, with a darker muzzle and skin around his hooves. I was worried that the sleeves and gloves wouldn't look feral enough, but actually I quite like him now he's painted up!



The final figure of the trio was given an array of new gear, including braces, shorts, pistol, and of course, his autogun (taken from a Necromunda Redemptionist).



He received the same colour scheme again, just with a touch more red on his loincloth (I figure this guy might be a sergeant, with the plasma pistol packmaster being the ranking officer?). Hopefully the additions have been sufficient to turn him from a fantasy-looking figure to a sci-fi one.



I'm looking forward to showing you the next trio of beastmen, including my heavy weapons trooper!

Renegades pick their way through ruins in search of Imperial foes.

Read more about this warband:

Part 1 - Creating the Warband
Part 2 - Ratling Renegades
Part 3 - Renegade Inquisitor

24 comments:

  1. Better green-stuffing than I can manage. Nicely done.

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    1. Thanks Phil. I think I've hit a bit of a groove with the cut and shut conversions. The greenstuffing is the cosmetic side that covers all the damage!

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  2. They look so much better after the green stuff bits, so well done!

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  3. Oh, splendid! I have several old SpaceLords goat men for similar purposes, but I think I like this even better. Well done!

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    1. The Spacelords range is an excellent alternative. They're ideal really, but I wanted something just a bit closer to RT in look. Cheers!

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  4. Phenomenal work. If you hadn't shown that they were conversions I never would have guessed.

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    1. That's high praise! It's the ideal really that you can't tell it's a conversion. Thanks!

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  5. Looked back through the other posts for this project and I am gobsmacked mate. Like Bill said already, you’ve done a sweet job making all of these Khorne chaps look like stock models. (My fav’s are the ratlings) Excited to see what else you have planned!

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    1. The ratlings are my favourites too. Something about small and nasty really appeals to me!!

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  6. Fantastic. I cannot believe you saw all the opportunities in these minis, that's a touch of genius.

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    1. Thanks Suber! The potential was in there - I just cut them up and reassembled them ;)

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  7. Nice work there - had you considered Phagons at all?

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    1. Thanks Conrad. The Phagons are a great option for filling the niche, but I wanted some figures that matched the RT Imperial Guard aesthetic more closely. The other factor in play is that I will be using these almost exclusively at Warhammer World, so they really need to be Citadel figures.

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  8. great job ! I really aprecciate more and more 80-90 gw miniatures !

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    1. Thanks! I love the 80s and 90s figures myself. They're full of character, even if some of the sculpting might be crude.

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  9. Hey man - great work on the conversions as usual.

    Where did the shoulder-pad on the third beastman come from?

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    1. It's just a kroot shoulder pad - I find them really useful as pretty generic mid-sized pads :)

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  10. Very nicely done on the paint job too to make the green stuff additions come to life.

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    1. Thanks very much! It's sometimes not until the paint goes on that it all hangs together.

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  11. Well that's it! This where I started! I've finally read from the beginning. Your collection is really awe inspiring, and it's been great to gain some insight into how you go about sitting up your photography. Here's to another 9 years of blogging :)

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    1. I'm hugely impressed with your perseverance! Really pleased you've enjoyed reading through the back catalogue and I hope I can keep producing more stuff you like!

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