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Greetings guys,

I decided I'd like to build a highly converted/modded army and I'm going with the Death Skulls. I plan to use alot of vehicles/weapons and bitz from other armies to really bring out the "we loot everthin" mentality of the army. I have a 1850 point list thought up and while i won't bore you with the list itself i'd like some advice on some of the conversion ideas i have. Mostly i want to know if anyone has any other ideas, or if they think these mods would be a problem at tourney. Would i have an issue using vehicles who's models hoover to represent vehicles that are wheeled?

Looted Wagon: I already have a leman russ painted up for this. seemed a no-brainer for me.

Trukk: I need a trukk for my unit of mega-nobz. I was thinking about using either a chimera or maybe a dark eldar raider. Any thoughts? If i went with the chimera I would model it with the roof torn off the top and the nobz sitting in the back, or on the roof.

Battlewagon: I already have one GW standard battlewagon but plan to make the second one in my army as a converted looted vehicle. I'm leaning towards doing a predator, though I'm not sure how i would model this as an opened top vehicle. The Ravager might be another option I could go with.

Deff Dread: I'll be using a standard deff model but I'm going to try to add on some chainsaws from some sentinels for the extra power weapons. I don't have a Deff model yet but does anyone know how well the chainsaws will fit or if they will look too small? I'd love to throw on some actual dreadnought arms but i don't want to shell out the money just for the arms. I guess i could e-bay some if i had too, but i already have the sent bitz.

Biker Nobz. I plan to have 2 of the bikers standard ork bikes. The other two I am torn between eldar hoover bikes or space marine bikes for the other three.

Killa Kans: i plan to make up some killa kans even though they do not fit in my list (too many heavy's) but i plan to use alot of sentinel parts for these guys. Though if anyone can think of any better walkers feel free to suggest them.

Finally i'll be making up lootaz with extensive imperial guard heavy weapons as their Deffguns.

Thanks ahead of time for any imput.

Yes, looting everyone else's models makes the deff skulls the funnest army to model

Trukk: a chimera or rhino with the roof cut off and hatches missing (to better represent the trukk's lower armour and open top) is the simplest option. A DE raider would need a little more work to remove the 'hovering' look, I'd suggest bolting lots of orky bits to the engines to represent semi-successful repairs, and model it scraping along the ground (perhaps literally dragging along bits of junk from the ground) instead of hovering.

Battlewagon: a predator would be a bit too small unless you can extend the hull somehow. A land raider might be a more suitable conversion base?

Deff Dredd: yes, sentinel chainsaws should look fine as replacement dredd 'hands' on the end of the 'arms'.

Biker Nobz: also consider chaos bikes and scout bikes? Regardless of what mount you choose, prepare for some serious leg surgery to make the ork riders sit properly.

The only problem with converting sentinels to kans (other than shortening the legs) is that it's rather expensive. Have you seen the grot tanks at http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Orks/GROT-TANKS.html ? I'm doing simiilar conversions to count-as kanz in my army - it's a great way to use up the bits box.

I have similar concerns to Clang regarding the Battlewagon. WYSIWYG infractions and cries of "modeling for advantage" are going to rise exponentially at a tourney, as opposed to a normal day at the FLGS. You already have a stock BW for comparison, so build the thing out of whatever you like to look however you like, but try to A) model all of the appropriate options and B) match the size relatively closely.

This goes for anything you're converting, really, but the BW plan is the one that sticks out as most problematic. I'd say you don't even have to mimic the shape, just get a similar footprint and maximum height. If yours comes out a bit shorter and wider and has a lower profile overall, but a tower on the howda reaches as high as a stock BW I wouldn't have any problems with it, game-wise, as it would play about the same in terms of cover it gives/receives, ease of hitting side/rear armor, etc.

Yes, I should have mentioned that - the number one rule for all conversions is to build something _close_ to the same dimensions as the standard GW model, it saves so many arguments, whines and tantrums. It's not hard to build that way so long as you plan, as orks think nothing of whipping out a welding torch to remove any 'unwanted' or unrepairable bits and then bolting on more bits to repair or improve other bits.

You can probably keep the predator idea but just stick lots of extra bitz on (orky in itself). Just get the tape measure and make sure what you add to it brings it up to the size of the stock GW battlewagon.

Thanks for all the advice guys. I do plan to try to get everything as close to WYSIWYG since I know the value of that rule (it just adds an extra challenge to the modeling).

Does anyone know how big the DE raider is (i've never seen one built that i can remember). I like the idea of using one as a trukk for the meganobs with some wheels thrown on and the back sort of just dragging along. I figure with the ork teknologee they might get the back end of the raider to at least bounce in and our of hover while they throw some tracks on the front end. Anyone know how the size of it compares to the ork trukk? I figure I can chop off the large spikes in the front and back to cut it down a bit, and why das it needz a sail? That just slows em down.

I also like the chaos bikes for the nobz, had not looked at them before. I anticipate my biggest struggles there will be getting the powerklaws to look good.

Thanks again, i'll get some pictures up once i get started with the army so everyone can see how it's coming.