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.

With the new Imperial Guard codex there are a few more options for the line Infantry Squad. One being Sniper Rifles as a Special Weapons option. After some play testing using proxies, I have found them to be quite useful. Being cheaper than Plasma Guns and not prone to killing the user, longer ranged than all the other Special weapons. However, I play an Armageddon Steel Legion army, which does not have a readily available sniper model. This leads me to the conversion table.

Seeing my number of "Shooter" Guardsmen is low and indisposed as variable members of squads, I need to look for other alternatives. So, what do I have a plethora of and little use for? Grenade Launcher Guardsmen.



I have ten of these figures to do, so I'd like something simple with as little sculpting as possible. I would also like whatever I do be uniform model to model. I have a number of Catachan lasguns to convert to longlas rifles, so assume I will be using Catachan lasguns.

Any help will be appreciated, from your own creativity or citing previous modelers.

Here's an idea that I came up with, you'll need to buy some plastic rod/tube of various thicknesses, but it has the advantage that you don't need to change the model much and plastic rod is very easy to work with:

Add the barrel to the end of the original, knock off the block sight and attach the Space Marine scope, then green stuff in a stock to the shoulder. I can add tips to the cans to make them look like the extra rounds. Simple, neat, no need for hacking out much more in case GW makes Grenade Launchers worth taking over rifles.

Good inspiration Mr. Unistoo, thank you.

Yes indeed, that was a very clever way to fix this problem. Thumbs up to you sir!

Here are two versions of my take on Unistoo's idea. In this way, I have a sturdy barrel and no major modification to the existing model.



I simply drilled the barrel out a bit more, added a solid plastic rod, trimmed to length, drilled out another rod to fit over for the end cap (it was already a hollow tobe, but it did not fit over the other rod). A smaller diameter rod was used to make the body of the tube stock and green stuff was applied around it and to the shoulder to appear as a stock. The scopes were recessed and trimmed then glued in place.

I can not seem to remember where I got the scope on the model on the right, however, but I prefer that one to the other.

Those came out nice. I have quite a few of these guys as well so I might give this a shot.

One thing to consider would be the position of the shooter is kind of weird for a sniper. He looks like he is stepping forward and not bracing for a shot.

It would look pretty cool to give them a scenic base to make it look like they are leaning up against something (a ruined wall or maybe a tank trap of some sort). Just a thought.

The only positional problem for taking a shot is actually from the waist down with this model. However, there isn't much I can do about that. Preferably, I would have used the actual shooting model from the basic trooper squad. But I do not have enough extra of them to makeup the numbers for the missing launchers.

I may do something with the back foot, but besides that, there isn't much room on the base to do something convincing, unless I wanted to move up to 40mm bases, which I don't.

you could always take some basic troopers and cut them at the waist and put them on these guys, and take the legs from these and put them on a trooper so he looks like advancing and shooting. You'd get 2 custom troops and they'd both look better.

The only problem with that is they are pewter models, which are difficult to cut, and the purpose of this conversion is to reduce the number of steps/difficulty of the steps to compeltion.

Steel Legion models also have another limitation for torso swaps in that they have an assortment of gear around their waist that is not standard from model to model, especially on the Grenade Launcher models. To fit two different leg and torso combination together would require more green stuff work, which is not what I want to do. Quick and clean is the objective here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I have completed seven of these conversions in short time. I will be painting several of them today and will post them for your viewing pleasure.

Painted up, just needs finishing basing.