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I recently picked up a box of plastic Cadians, more as a modeling experience than for actual gaming(haven't played 40K in 6 years), and was thinking it might be interesting to model them as traitor guard.

Problem is, I'm a bit stumped on the best way to go about doing that. I know Forgeworld makes some renegade guard, but I don't really want to shell out the cash for that. I don't necessarily want to go the all-out Ruinous Powers route either, with tentacles, extra heads, deformities, etc. I suppose what I'm seeking is a traitor guard regiment that hasn't been traitor long enough for Chaos to work it's full power upon them. I was also trying to think of ways to make them a bit like the excubitors of Dan Abnett's Chaos-held Gereon, but not having much luck in figuring out how to go about doing that...

As my inspiration, I was looking at basing them on a forge world enveloped by a warp storm for several centuries, which ends up turning to Chaos in light of their "abandonment" by the Emperor. Flashes of ideas come from the trailer for the movie "9"(specifically, the Sentinel-esque walker machines), steampunk machinery, augmentations, and the idea that the machine(of war, of industry, etc) can always be relied on, even if the flesh is weak.

Does anyone have any thoughts/suggestions/tips? Thanks!

Head swaps are always a good place to start, Pig Iron is THE place to go for alternate sci-fi heads (the warstore had them), westwind has some WWI, WWII and historical heads that would work too.

Flagellent heads, zombie heads and chaos marauder heads are also good.

Kroot and CSMs have some good evil-looking bitz to add, leather sacks, bones, pouches and so on. You should be able to trade for some or buy them from battlewagon bitz or other sources.

Spikes are pretty easy to make and can be added to shoulder pads or helmets.

Traitor-Guard player here (formerly LATD). Here's some ideas:

-I've made a practice to remove every aquila and other imperial symbol on the gear of my traitors. I typically clip them off then file the surface down. In fluff terms, this implies the symbols were mindfully removed, or forged by a traitor faction. Alternatively you could score them with a hobby knife or mangle them in some other way, implying a more recent or sudden rejection of the empire (or poorly maintained equipment).

- Pay close attention to modifications you could make to the weapons of the soldiers. Making shotguns (for veterans) is extremely easy w/ catachan pattern lasguns, and pretty easy w/ cadian pattern lasguns. Also if you have spare Chimera hull-lasguns lying around, combining them w/ lasguns can make quick and easy sniper rifles. Little mods to lasguns which don't change what they count as can be fun. Eg: To make an MG34 style heat-shield, round out the foregrip on a lasgun with a file, then use a pin vice to drill divots into it.

- I haven't tried it yet, but greenstuffing various masks and hoods could work very nicely.
--- The forgeworld burlap-sack-over-the-head (ala Chris Nolan's portrayal of Scarecrow or oldschool gas masks) style is awesome and probably easy to scuplt, but may be "played out".
--- Dave Taylor has some awesome Blood Pact guardsmen with masks. Greenstuff or kitbashing are options here.
--- Greenstuffing gas masks onto cadians is probably far easier than doing the same to Catachans. After this post I'm probably going to go see if my GS is still good and give it a shot. Will report back.

In case you're planning on buying more models:
- Kitbashing Catachans and WFB Chaos Marauders works surprisingly well (as shown in the Eye of Terror 'dex), but of course if you just bought some Cadians I'm sure you don't want to spend the extra cash.
- I have a handful of WFB Beastmen slightly converted to hold various firearms (formerly fielded as LATD mutants, now fielded as either penal legion or vets with shotguns). This could be a fun way to distinguish your units or add flavor/fluff.

Good luck!

A little something that is a nice detail is scraping off aquillas and using a scalpel to repeatedly score into the gun or armor so that it looks like they have used whatever sharp instrument has come to hand to removed the symbol of those who have betrayed them.

Another idea is to replace the guns entirely. Pig Iron and Hasslefree both make some sci fi gun packs in metal.

Dragon makes 1/35 scale boxes of AK47s that make for good las guns and look cruder and more evil (at least to my child of the cold war eyes).

You could also buy a few boxes of the Empire Flanglites <sp?> to mix and match parts to get a particularly decrepit looking guard.

Being cut off from fresh supplies you could also model battle damage onto your tanks, and then rough looking patch plates. Added to painting your tanks in a rusty theme this could look grimy enough for traitors.

You might also use some green-stuff to model on bandages, uniform rips and such. If they have been cut off (even on a forge world) for awhile, some items will become scarce and hard to replace.

Great ideas, thanks!

I've looked into the Pig Iron heads, and that may actually be the quickest/easiest option for Traitor-ising my Guard. Unfortunately, the Warstore currently has none in stock. =\

Another idea was to see if I can mod the existing heads to give them a similar look to the army guys in the webcomic Gone with the Blastwave: http://www.blastwavecomic.com/

I like the idea of masks and goggles to emphasize the "faceless" elements...

Off topic, but thanks for revealing the existence of that comic. It was quite good.

Shockingly self promoting, but... http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-14062-2449_Darkkt%27s%20Traitor%20Guard.html

I had very much the same idea, I wanted LatD Guard that looked 'spikey', but was not mistakable for my 'mutants'.

- removing acquilla is essential - you have rejected the emperor, deny him by scraping off the marks.
- add lots of chaos spikes to your vehicles - ebay should have heaps of these, CSM's give you heaps!
- I added skeletons to certain dozer blades 'Reaper' style
- I also shaved off the shoulderpads, and added greenstuff to add chaos marks like skulls, and the chaos symbol


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I would love to see what you come up with!