The Seven Sided Die: Converted Plague Marines

I worked rather hard on these.

I felt obligated to make seven.

When I started on the squad, 40k was a hobby that was done on a budget or not done at all. I had decided I wanted to have a go at doing a proper Chaos Space Marines army, where everything had the look and feel that I liked. That meant, for example, less spikes on my models and a mix of heresy-era armor and salvaged parts. I figured this would give my force a rag-tag look -- a bunch of dyed-in-the-wool heretics that had been operating without Imperial support for millennia. Their warbands aren't necessarily incapable of producing their own munitions, but driven to recruit and expand and rapidly absorb Imperial worlds.

I'll go back and fix his left eye some day, I promise.

I've always had a habit of playing "the good guys". Initially, I had landed upon the Alpha Legion as my force of choice, but decided that despite my test model looked rather good for my skill level at the time, that Alpha Legion wasn't really challenging my decision to be the bad guys for once. After having a blast immersing myself in some Horus Heresy novels and other resources, I decided to switch to the Word Bearers.

How did I land on these plague marines then? Converting Nurgle models is often viewed as the easiest conversion one can do. However, one runs the risk of doing a laughable job. I was determined to do the best I could do. My plague marines, I decided, would be solid. They would be some of my best work in the hobby, and I would take my time. It was a good project on a budget considering that I had a handful of broken imperial Space Marine parts from being in the hobby for several years. Second hand models. Bartered-for parts. The occasional Chaos kit purchased at the largest discount I could find that I deemed to have the most useful conversion parts. I started painting these lads with the same technique I had used as a starting point for my Word Bearers, but a happy accident led me to this color scheme. I had originally intended to have several Pantheon-specific sub-cults within my Word Bearers offshoot warband. I probably consider these guys allies at this point.

I was losing motivation when I made this guy.
I was pleasantly surprised with how he turned out.

In the future, I intend to show some of my Word Bearers that started as Imperial marines. Turns out they were quite tedious to convert themselves. The process of scraping off Imperial eagles and smoothing out the armor plates was not only difficult work, but one slip and your attempt at saving money could end with a ruined model. Careful knife work was the order of the day, but back to my plague marines.

Why scrape off and shave Imperial eagles when you can simply cover them up? I somehow managed to convince myself that if I acquired the Dark Vengeance starter box at a discount, I could slowly but surely convert all of the Imperial models in to Chaos models and double my take. Quite a bit of work that turned out to be.

I'm not the best miniature painter, but I certainly have my own style and technique that is neat and contrasty. Watching modern painting tutorials on youtube has made me realize that I'm rather stuck in my ways. I came up with this style on my own when I got in to the hobby 23 years ago. There weren't a lot of guides back then. Just White Dwarf as far as I knew, and back then, there were quite a few steps missing in their painting showcases.

These models are made using a combination of several generations of imperial space marines, chaos space marines, a few ork bits, some warhammer fantasy zombies, some "learning the ropes" sculpting and a variety of other little bits and bobs.

So what was the point I was trying to make? Oh, right. The Dark Imperium started set and the new Death Guard models. I split the set with a friend and acquired the Death Guard models, and while I have a few qualms about them, I ultimately enjoy them quite a bit. Now I'm at a crossroads. Do I retire my tediously, lovingly converted plague marines? They look nothing like the newer, modern Dark Imperium plague marines and look rather bizarre next to them. Not to mention, plasma guns and bolters seems pretty bland compared to their overwhelming new options. It seems like a shame considering the time and effort I put in to these guys.

I worked rather hard on these...