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Hey guys,

I ordered these meltaguns off of GW:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod1400031&rootCatGameStyle=

As you may be able to see, they have SM hands attached and I am not sure what to do...

I am pretty much clueless about how to get these attached to guard anyway, I've been saving the left arm that holds a gun from underneath, but I have no idea what to do for a right arm: Should I use a lasgun arm and just clip off the lasgun? Should I find an arm I can snip a hand off of and just have a guardsman holding the gun upward? Neurgh, I really *am* clueless.

Any tips?

Pics would be great!

I am guessing you are using cadians.

Take the lasgun arm with only the right hand on the gun(left is seperate and empty but cradling nothing... the left you indicate you have). snip off the lasgun leavin the stock in place(simple razor carving will do here).

Trim the stock off the melta guns.

Replace the lasgun with the melta gun.

Glue the cradling left arm in place.

Profit.

I am planning through the same scenario as you, I will let you know how I do it when I build it. Currently I am painting mindset but I think I will get to it sometime this week. An Idea though, green stuff the arms after trimming to give the guard " bracers " and it will serve as a heavy weapons protection armor or something to that nature. also gives a little more detail to your mini.

Be prepared for the change in the model's center of gravity as well. I did this and now I have a case of tipsy meltavets. Someday I'll get around to putting weights on the base.

Kommissar Kel wrote:I am guessing you are using cadians.

Take the lasgun arm with only the right hand on the gun(left is seperate and empty but cradling nothing... the left you indicate you have). snip off the lasgun leavin the stock in place(simple razor carving will do here).

Trim the stock off the melta guns.

Replace the lasgun with the melta gun.

Glue the cradling left arm in place.

Profit.

Hrm I'll try that on a test model... though I do prefer the stock on the actual gun (oh well), thanks

xipetotec wrote:Be prepared for the change in the model's center of gravity as well. I did this and now I have a case of tipsy meltavets. Someday I'll get around to putting weights on the base.

I assume glueing a coin under the base works?

Fishing weights work better. Have you tried to file down the SM hand with a metal file? It might be alot of work but it will save you from having to cut up the meltagun.

I'll give it a try, worth a shot if the alternative is to cut it off anyway...

I would clip off the marine hand, and use the Grenade Launcher or Flamer arms, if you're using Cadians.

I used the grenade launcer arms and clipped off the grenade laucher, hand and the shoulder of the meltagun so that it fit better. I guess you could cut off the space marine hand instead too.

I bought the same set of guns to fit to my catachans. I have taken a few photos to show how I fitted them. Basically I cut off the hand grip and stock of the melta guns then glued them into the spaces normally taken by lasguns. The arm holding the rifle stock works ok as replacement stock on the melta, the other hand just supports the gun in an open hand. These are plastic catachans and there in no need to weight the bases (but when I do I use a UK penny, fits great). Not sure as I havent done Cadian plastics for a few years but fairly certain the lasgun arms are very similar (just less Ramboesque!) Hope this helps.

One tip for cleanly clipping off the marine hand. Don't use clipers! A razor saw will quickly and neatly saw that hand right off. After that simply attach as has been described.

What works best for me is disgarding the handle and holding the saw in my palm as I cut for better control. Skip the GW hobby saw. I get mine at hobby lobby and they have several varieties.

I'm with Insaniak on this one - for Cadians, use the grenade launcher arms (the flamer arms are a little funny), but the fit of the side handle works well with the GL arms and the melta.

General Mayhem wrote: Not sure as I havent done Cadian plastics for a few years but fairly certain the lasgun arms are very similar

The big difference (which is the killer for these sorts of conversions) is that Cadians have the left hand moulded onto the lasrifle. Hence the suggestion to use the Grenade Launcher or Flamer arms instead, which have the separate left arm with a handle to attach to the side of the weapon.

The suggestion to use the Grenade Launcher arm did hit me as a sensible one, but then it occurred to me that the gun's handle would be facing the wrong way if I used a lasgun arm (I've used all my GLs)... So I've ended up just using the lasgun arms which has the left hand left on the left arm (how many times have you seen left used in one sentence?), I snipped off the butts of both the lasgun and meltagun (IG meltas don't seem to have butts anyway and this was just easier).

So they are holding them like they would their lasguns... I guess I would just say that they're a different pattern of meltagun: Varieties do exist after all!

My only problem is that the left hands don't quite fit the base of the meltagun... (those catachans look great fitting-wise) and so the gun is "hovering" a bit, but I didn't want to make room by cutting off the thumb and green stuffing a new one as that struck me as the kind of thing I'd fudge up, so I've left them that way... I am sure that when it's all painted it won't look emphasised.

Thanks for the tips everyone

I guess the big hint that I'd give to anyone else trying this is to greenstuff the arms onto the torso rather than gluing... means you can do a lot more fiddling as though it were a dry fit.

insaniak wrote:
The big difference (which is the killer for these sorts of conversions) is that Cadians have the left hand moulded onto the lasrifle. Hence the suggestion to use the Grenade Launcher or Flamer arms instead, which have the separate left arm with a handle to attach to the side of the weapon.

This is mostly true, but one set of arms per cadian infantry sprue has the right arm and hand attached to the rifle and the left arm completely free. I used this set of arms when I put plastic marine meltas on my veteran guardsmen. I don't have any pictures to show, but it worked just fine for me for two of them.

For the third, I took an open palm left hand cut from a heavy wapons sprue arm, glued it to the cadian left arm (one with no hand) and it worked fine also.

There's a number of ways to do it, but they're all quite easy. Most cadian players have enough extras to do one or both of the above versions.