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I have been brainstorming a new IG army, with all the great current cadian, upcoming new Cadian, Catachan, & new Stormtroopers, plus Valkyrie, and Stormlord coming out...But I always like to do something different and do easy & simple conversions (like head swaps and weapons swaps). I also am a big fan of WW2 history, especially the Eastern Front & Germans...Think "Cross of Iron" or Stalingrad movies...Now, firstly must state I am not a nazi (I am part cherokee & married to a Russian Jew).

My army will not have any German icons or swastikas at all...Also, keep in mind - Krieg is based off WW1 Germans, Steel Legion is based off WW2 German paratroopers, & Colonel Schaffer is based of the main character of Cross of Iron...Plus many many tanks are German in design....the IG rocket teams are using panzershreks! So this German flare is nothing new to 40k....

I would use 28mm historic ww2 german heads (all metal) (helmeted, helmeted with gas masks, helmeted with netting, m43 caps, and bear heads from the IG 40k line up), I found a company that does 28mm German ww2 weapon sprues (all metal)- so all lasguns will be replaced with mp44s or mp40s, grenade launchers become panzerfausts, heavy bolters are mg34s, etc....And I'd use cobble stone bases with urban rubble on them (pre-made, 12 for $4)...Snipers would get german sniper rifles, and their base would be like in a wheat or tall yellow grass base (also heavy weapons teams would be in tall wheat)...Smocks (jackets) & armour are Camo "spring pattern", white pants (from winter issued white camo which would have still been warn winter/spring 1943 eastern front), black boots...Commissar models from GW are super accurate as German officers....I'd keep power weapons & chainswords....The Valkyrie would be painted like an me-109 with yellow nose, grey body, and yellow tail.....I'd use tanks that are very similar to german tanks....The Stormlord = Stugg III, IMPERIAL GRIFFON HEAVY MORTAR CARRIER forgeworld = halftrack with mortar, ARMAGEDDON PATTERN BASILISK = elephant, DESTROYER TANK = Hetzer, THUNDERER SIEGE TANK = hetzer 2, SALAMANDER SCOUT VEHICLE = like a half track with pak gun on it...

Any and all thoughts are welcomed...

I have a couple of suggestions for you.

First, consider the FG42 as a possible basis for your primary weapon. They weren't ever widely used, but I think the shape lends itself nicely to a quasi-futuristic look, and its design, perhaps with the magazine swapped to the right side, might fit better with the normal positions of IG troopers' hands. (I've been messing around with reposes a lot in the last few weeks, and this is the part I've found to be the most troublesome when changing out their guns) It might even be possible to reshape a Catachan/Mordian-style lasgun to resemble an FG42 by moving the clip. Admittedly, an entire army equipped with MP40-shaped lasguns would look pretty neat - I just think it might be a difficult swap to make.

Second, I suggest using the barrel tip or nozzel from the front of a standard 40K weapon to make it clear what the gun represents (the MG32 gives me some pause here - I'm not sure how you'd make this look more like a heavy bolter unless you used an MG32 from a larger scale than the rest of the parts). I'm not really sure how plasma guns or meltaguns fit into this scheme - they might look all right as variations on panzerschrecks or panzerfausts.

I've been working on a similar idea for years now. Simply shave off the imperial insignia off of the rifles and armor then clip down the muzzles and you have some fairly accurate german looking weapons. Half-tracks can be made using the landspeeder kit and the tracks off of small Ork vehicles, (thanks to lalabox for the idea). Laspistols can be made to look like either the Luger P08 or Mauser C96, so officers and squad leaders have little need for weapon conversions, same with flamers.

If you take my advice about the rifles you could probably make pretty nice looking MP38s/MP40s. FG42s can be made simply by using the Catachan lascarbines, again just shave off the insignia. To make heavy bolters you could easily use Ork shootas to represent MG08s. The hardest weapons would be meltas and plasma guns. I have no idea how to make those look German. Grenade launchers are easy enough, just trim down the ammo canister into a stock. Stick grenades are a fun challenge.

Just some food for thought.

Think AE or DUST style army....Great info by the way, thanks! I'll post my first "conversions" in a week or two.....

Kein Problem Brudermann.

Hier sind einige Bilder von Bit, die ich verwenden werde. (translation - Here are some pictures of bits I'll use.)

Perfect head swap models. Good luck with this project, my gaming group are going IG mad atm.
One is collecting a whole DKoK army, another is doing a conversion army to create traitor guard and I'm making a Red Army theme using the Kolony Militia models and winter head gear heads from Pig Iron:

http://www.pig-iron-productions.com/order.htm#m