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After being asked by another user how I converted a metal Stormtrooper to carry a heavy bolter I thought I would put up a tutorial for it. I use these guys as counts as heavy bolter servitors in my Inquisitor army as they look a hell of a lot better than the classic gun servitors and tie in better with the Inquisitorial Stormtroopers I use.

To start with you will need a stormtrooper to convert, I use the grenade launcher guy that comes in the box as I don't use him in the army and his left arm is in a high position and means the heavy bolter won't be pointing down when you are finished.



You will also need the heavy bolter from the space marine devastator box. I have been using the metal ones as I can pick them up cheap second hand but I would imagine that the plastic ones are probably easier to work with. My only other thought on alternate parts is using the ammo backpack from the space marine servitors as they are smaller than the devestator ones but as they dont have the same ammo feed setup it would require a lot more greenstuff work and buying yet another model to convert this one seems a waste of money.



Then comes the hardest part of the process, the clipping! You have to take the entire grenade launcher of the stormtrooper model as well as the left arm at the wrist and the right arm directly below the shoulder pad. the chest and armpits will need a bit of shaping and smoothing as they will be more visible than before as well but you can always clean it up with Greenstuff. You should end up with something like this.





Next is preparing the heavy bolter parts to fit the stormtrooper. You will need to clip off the space marine shoulder pad above the elbow armor and bend the end of the ammo feed back toward the gun so that it will meet up with the ammo backpack, this will require a bit of fiddling to get the fit right and the stormtrooper may need further filing on the stomach and chest for the bolter to fight right. If everything works out the left wrist should meet up nicely with the space marine hand at the top of the bolter, the right elbow should meet the bottom of the stormtrooper shoulder pad and the ammo feed will tuck up under the arm it to meet the ammo backlpack. At this point I also clip off the backpack's booster/jet/vent things as they dont really match the stormtrooper look ( I am still thinking of something to cover the area that will look the part)



Time to fit it all together, as I said it will require a bit of dryfitting and blutaking to get the fit but there is little size difference between the space marine and stormtrooper torso so its not too hard and after pinning and gluing the bolter and backpack on a bit of greenstuff cleans up the joins fine. I realize that the right arm is now encased in space marine armor but I expain it away as a reinforced arm to hold up the heavy bolter. This is what you should end up with.



Now all he needs is a paint job to match your Inquisition forces and he's ready to rain heavy bolter death on your enemies.

it looks good!
but it looks a bit out of proportion.

Great idea. I think trying this with a scout's Heavy bolter would work and look a bit better. Great idea.

Yeah I realise there is a proportion issue and to be honest I never considered the scout bolter, though I really like the look of the cables and ammo feed on the SM bolter.Besides idea of the trooper lugging around a massive cannon is pretty cool.

Yeah it does look pretty massice on a normal human! the scout one would defiantly look better as it is kitted down a bit, great looking conversion anyway though

Hahaha, the Storm trooper looks dwarfed with the heavy bolter. I like the idea, but, I think the turn out would be better if you did the conversion before painting the Storm trooper.

Thanks for the feedback guys, though I have picked up on the proportion issue

@branmnero - The trooper was one I had already painted for my inquisition army hence it being painted before the conversion.

I have noticed though that I paint my figures differently to most in that I paint them on the sprues and in pieces before glueing them together. I find that it allows for quicker batch painting and I can make sure I paint all the nooks and crannies that are harder to get when the figure is assembled.

cheers

really interesting idea, maybe the chaos heavy bolter would work better since this one def dwarfs the model a bit.

I like big guns

Who doesn't?