Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Been thinking about converting the plastic Dwarves into squats, but having looked at pictures of the sprues I can't see what I could do exactly. I don't want them just to look like fantasy dwarf plastics with guns. I could smooth over the chain mail and replace the helmets. I'd almost be better off with the old Dwarf plastics.

Dwarf Sprue Pics

Ideally, I want something not too distant from this appearance.

Anyone done something similar or got some suggestions on how to proceed?

I made a quick conversion once of 1 dwarf body and head and the cadian helmet and cadian arms. The one I made looked okay, but I lost the fig when the store it was displayed went belly-up...

It did not look like what you want btw, but it was a cool little side-project I did for a evening...

Teching up or swapping the guns of Thunderers works fine. It's what I've seen someone do, as well as using Scout Heavy Bolters with cut down arms.

Guy up here (Ottawa) did a whole army like you are talking about.

With time and effort the army can look amazing. He's won several best painted awards in Tournaments/Grand Tournaments.

He even placed exceptionally high in Bell of lost Souls design your own regiment contest. His were the Golgothan Brotherhood.

Essentially he used Dwarf bodies, Cadian arms, backpacks i think from the Cadian sprues, added searchlights to all their shoulders...and then greenstuffed visors on to them all, looked pretty sweet

He also did Exo-suits counting as Ogryns, made from terminators and heavilly coverted (think lowered, lol), and he modified his tanks to be all low profile.

Essentially for the tanks he removed the turrets and hull mounted all the weapons, then added a tonne of Dwarfish iconography.

And thats not even mentioning the tirkes he did for his Rough Riders, or the mole mortars, or the rapiers as autocannons, etc, etc...

Take some time, play with the sprues a bit, the army is a great oppurtunity to show off modelling skills (trust me, it takes a tonne of conversions and $$ to make the army look nice )

Cheers, good advice. I looked up the "Golgothan Brotherhood" and found a picture of one through google-images. I like it, but will go for a more Adeptus-Mechanus and steampunk feel to them.

Currently I'mm looking at scratch building a Land-train and maybe one of the larger vehicles, maybe a Leviathan. Comparisons within the epic rage make me feel the table area of the Leviathan is not much greater than a baneblade, perhaps half as big again.

But before I get ahead of myself with scratch building vehicles I'd like to start with a box of dwarf figures to get myself in the mood.

It depends on what sort of aesthetic you're going for. The classic Squats had a lot of quilted armor, short beards and suchlike that you won't be able to replicate, but other "looks" are certainly doable from the plastics, though a lot of them involve a lot of removing and replacing detail.

I need a closer picture of the back of the sprue to check but IIRC without the horns some helmets (thunderers?)look like WWII french army helmets. Also as you pointed out GS the chainmail to longcoats and the helmet faceplates to high tech visors.

Don´t use Cadian arms unless you cut them a little bit, too big for the mini, if using thunderers a straight weapon swap might do the trick.

M.