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When the Skaven and Space Wolf codices came out, I joked a little bit about making Space Werewolves. Well, last weekend I ended up getting a box of Stormskaven out of curiosity and being given a Doomwheel, and the ideas for the project have finally come together.

Starting out with some test figures to see how the basic head swap looks, and how much work is needed to get that to look good and get some test poses. Included in the test figures are three other trials: CSM torso with head, arms and legs from the previous version Clan Rat plastic; head swap with the old Clanrat head; and a Stormvermin champion (I think) head and the lower half of the Stormvermin body.

I'm still trying to figure out how much Skaven and how much CSM to use for the figures. I just really like how the Stormskaven body looks, I'd really like to figure out a way of incorporating that look into the finished figures.

The troops are going to be part one of the project. Part two is going to be to convert Fabius Bile into Fabius the Vile, mutant rat lord. Part three is going to be to take two rhinos, cut the wheeled sides off (so that there's a complete hull left, since the interior walls and hatchway are on that part of the sprues and not actually on the "hull" sprue) and attach the wheels from the Doomwheel on each side. Fear the armored cages! Fear them!

Disclaimer: I could swear that the "Skaven in powered armor" shtick has been done before, but I don't know whether anyone's been daft enough to start cutting up rhinos for it. I'm sure I'll get straightened out. I'm really conflicted as to whether the fact that the test figures look "reasonable" says good or bad things about the proportions of the CSM and Skaven figures.

The photos:










After uploading all of these, I realized that I left out a seventh trial figure with a Skaven Packmaster head. Oh, well, he'll probably show up in the assembly trials.

Mutated "lab rats," very smart. "Master Splinter watch out! Your evil brothers are coming to get you."

looks funny, i will be watching this thread

Looking good I will watch this thread.

The rat heads look real good on those marine bodies, especially the one with the champion's head. Nice find!

I do like them, lets see some more

Hey, this is a cool concept! I'll be interested in seeing how these turn out. Good luck!

Just a minor update so far. Three things happened:

1. Work on the test figures was delayed due to random mail delays. I ordered two lots of bits that were mailed with a day of each other. One arrived two days later, and the other arrived a week later. Guess which lot had the bits I wanted for the rats?

2. Dug out the Fabius Bile figure to work on planning, and discovered that Fabius Bile doesn't have Space Marine body proportions. I didn't think they made power armor in a size Small.

3. Ended up doing some cutting on the first rhino to work on making one of the rat cages. Two important lessons: First, I don't know how I got by so long without a craft saw. Second, the conversion would have been a lot easier if I wasn't using an assembled rhino.

Here's what it looks like when someone stops part way through doing unspeakable things to an assembled rhino.


Removing the treads from a rhino while still keeping the main hull (and the interior compartment) intact is a surprising amount of work.

That looks sweet, cant wait to see the finished product!!

Well, when I'll start CSM army, consider your ideal stolen

It looks like someone just shoved a wheel on the tank I'd put a little electricity box and wiring for realisitcally

Oooh
As a skaven and a chaos player I'll be watching this

-=Scar=- wrote:It looks like someone just shoved a wheel on the tank I'd put a little electricity box and wiring for realisitcally

What I have in mind is to use the two wheel sections from the Skaven Doomwheel to replace the tracked wheels on the rhino. For the time being, the test rhino still has the side "airlock" doors on because that looks more reasonable. My current thoughts are to put down a layer of greenstuff to even out the hull (the interior wall pushes out a bit because of the fancy interior details), and I might end up using the treads to build some smaller secondary wheels. At the same time, the sides on the side doorway are going to get filled in a bit.

I'll have to fiddle around a bit to see whether wires or gears end up looking better.

Two quick images of the continuing rhino work. This is the result of filling in the gaps on one side of the rhino, doing a test fitting and then realizing that I need to fill in more so that the sides are flush with the top piece of the hull (the top's not glued on yet, because I want to paint the interior.) The hull of the vehicle is being held up by four Chessex dice, so the wheels are resting at the wrong height.

Front view:


Side view:


The Doomwheel kit includes a few braces for holding the parts of the wheel together, I'm thinking that parts of those braces are going to be added around the wheel so that there's something visible holding the wheels on the tank.

Consider my interest piqued.

I will be watching you. I will always be watching you.....

Nice this is gonna be awesome when it comes together

I would add a second set of wheels in back, or maybe just one wheel in the front, otherwise it looks a bit weird. With the third wheel, you would have turned your rhino into a TRICYCLE OF DOOM!