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Hi.

Had this set of Imperial 'easy to assemble' wall of martyrs ( without SOB, so I doubt the martyrdom a bit...) still in a box . Got time for myself between x-mas activities and the fireworks of new year, opened the box and remembered why I haven't build it right away when I got it. Too many "casualties" as decoration..

Sure its obvious the Imperium armored its fortifications and defensive lines with skulls, the common and widespread source of superior ablative power!

But, what you are going to do if the piles of dead Cadians aren't to your liking?

Like me, who isn't fond of these crumpled bodies in front and behind the lines. To remind the Soldiers of mortality is one thing, to have the casualties rotting around your battlezone .... may happen if CSM have overrun it.
Big if , because we know the line will hold ! /
Who doesn't , there this freindly guy in a black coat , yes over there with the funny hat.


So there is the problem of all these remnants of dead Cadians, spread across the whole set of plastic. Seems easier to cover them then to cut or file.. maybe a bit of rubble instead of them?

And my recent attempt to un-dead-cadifycation would look like this:



A painted piece from the end and an unpainted one to compare them. Used a non-GW supplier, just smalish rocks
( model-railway stuff ) and glue and there will only be skulls to see. Couldn't completly remove those without losing the link to 40k...

More pics:




I think its worth trying this way , but if you got a better idea I would welcome any suggestion
Feel free to add pics of your Solution.



PS: i know I am not the only one who bought this kit. So don't hide it. Let me see yours ..

Edit 1: altered pic address...

Soo no one willing to share..?

Then let me show you the next steps I have taken.
Switching between small rocks and a greyish flock, all "dead upper bodies of Cadians" were covered.
( no legs at all to find... just halved corpses..weird. )

The Bunkers, defensive lines and crossings redone to the common " skulls here and there" style of 40k:



The blue hue is from the glue, won't last as its getting transparent when dry...



The two types of crossings:





The defensive lines:



Has a night to dry and I'll begin painting them ...this year...

Edit 1: pics visibility raised...I hope..

Most of your pics aren't working, but I get the jist of what you're doing. I actually intentionally did not buy the set because of all the casualties, it just didn't look good to me, grimdark or not.

I would suggest some pumice gel maybe to add the turf & grit around the rocks you're adding. Plus, add static grass, post-primer, dispersed all around to help camouflage the changes & you're good.

 Red_Starrise wrote:
Most of your pics aren't working,

Am sorry , "preview" didn't show any trouble. If there are more who experience this, please let me know.


Back to the work at hand:
- Primed half of the parts in a 'granite grey' , something dark grey with a blue/green hue.
- Had to fill gaps in the Bunkers, sadly a lot of the recent Terrain isn't as detailed and precisely fitting as it could be.
- Added bitz from different sources, imperial wargear, xeno gear, vehicle parts, etc.

I like the idea of added grass , beneficial to have something you'll find on the table at your terrain stuff, so in this case I may stick with a rubble / debris / remnants of war theme because most bases are also rather rocky / sandy or cityfight styled.

Will search through boxes and left over sprues ( and the new double use kits leave a lot of bitz..) to make those interchangable parts of the defensive line less similar.


Any good source or idea for spent ammo?
The space marine dread has nice shell cases at the ground, maybe something at this size ( or bigger, its imperial and the guard has no concept of limit shell sizes.. ) could improve the kit..

I can see like 2 of the pics total. I'd love to see what you're doing to this set.

This is really cool - thanks for sharing.
I have not bought this set - but your work is inspiring for me to consider it.

thanks again for the pics....

Seems at least more pics are seen.

Got enough bitz and basing material, but still thinking of a nice ammo source. What about toothpicks? Would be cheap and I'd need another ressource too since they could just act as small ammo.



I'll a provide two pics to: show where I had to fill and how it turned out after the first coat of paint and another one as a example of the flocked and painted flock.

Really nice work. Thanks for getting the pics fixed. I like how you've covered up the bodies and still kept the feel of the pieces intact.

Still painting the walls...

Basic colors mostly done, details worked on. Found some small alu-tube I can use as the medium shell-cases.

But this leaves me with another problem since a lot of possible candidates as small ammo aren't so small...

Maybe wire=bolter/autogun ammo ?









Current state after Looting the sprues and the bitz box:

Wow, the scenery looks much better without a billion dead Cadians scattered around! Nice work dude!

I like what you've done with the place...

But in all seriousness, this will now look great for most armies whereas before there were probably more dead cadians than alive ones in half the veteran lists I see

If I recall correctly, the GW description of this is that the sections of defense line are portable and are dropped by Imperial landers and bolted in place, which makes me wonder... why are they transporting round ornamental decaying Cadians?

Departmento Munitorum - 'Nothing says "Imperium" like a dead Cadian'

Anyway, why don't you check out Anvil Industries? I believe they do a range of Ammunition belts, you could chop these up and litter them round as small arms casings possibly? And you could probably pick up other lasguns and battery packs to add from Ebay. That is of course if you haven't painted it already

Nice work. I have a feeling a lot of people will be doing this.

In a few places it looks a bit like the pile of rubble is defying gravity a bit and it might be better to carry the pile all the way down to ground level, but by and large it looks quite good and is certainly an improvement over the existing kit.

The dead Cadians on the wall of martyrs strikes me as incredibly stupid. I don't think the Imperium is going to leave dead bodies in front of their barricades long enough for them to rot and decay into skeletons.

The irony here is that the dead cadians left to rot means that it's only really suitable for a defensive position for enemies of the Imperium like orks, Chaos or maybe Dark Eldar.