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Well,as some of you are aware,I'm in the process of building a Praetorian IG army.
Now,through great fortune I've secured a very nice arrangement for acquiring all the HW teams I could possibly need to complete that part of my Praetorians,however I find myself woefully undermanned in the rank and file troops department.
I attempted to do some conversions using Canadian bodies and Secret Weapon Pith Helmet heads,and while the results are nice,and I plan to use the minis for filling out Vet and Company Command slots,I find them a bit to large for rank and file when compared to regular Praetorian minis,so I continue to search for minis to fill out my troops needs.
Numerous searches on Ebay do result in locating some Praetorian minis,but the price is a bit high and I rarely find enough,so I'm looking at the idea of purchasing Mordian troops,as they are the same size and style of the Praetorian troops,and simply swapping out heads on them.
The problem is,while I love the Secret Weapon heads,they appear to be just a bit big to properly fit on the Mordian bodies,so I was basically wondering if anyone had an idea as to which line of Pith Helmet heads/from which company would suite my needs the best.
I've looked over a great many variety of "Zulu Wars" variants,but am unsure as to which heads would fit the Mordian bodies.
Thanks for any insight in advance.

Might these be of any use

http://empressminiatures.com/page2.htm

they seem to be 28mm

'claw

black claw 1 wrote:Might these be of any use

http://empressminiatures.com/page2.htm

they seem to be 28mm

'claw

Those,along with the "British Firing line" Minis from Wargames Factory are definitely along the lines of what I'm considering,just a bit concerned in how they size up before I plunk down the cash.

true , they seem to be 28mm ,but what kind of 28mm is another thing.

black claw 1 wrote:true , they seem to be 28mm ,but what kind of 28mm is another thing.

Exactly,The Secret weapons heads,while absolutely fantastic in quality, are 28mm heroic scale,and thus a tad to large for the smaller Mordian bodies.
IIRC the Zulu wars and British firing line heads/minis are true scale...I may just have to bite the bullet and order a few and hope they work.

Yeah , let us know how things go , also why don't you try a recast , using greenstuff.

black claw 1 wrote:Yeah , let us know how things go , also why don't you try a recast , using greenstuff.

Never tried my hand at recasting,not entirely sure how one would even go about the process.

Greenstuff casting really isn't suitable for heads. Not if you want halfway reasonable results without a heck of a lot of messing about.

It's possibly along the right track, though... Pith Helmets are a fairly plain shape, and not too difficult to sculpt. So you could try just lopping off the Mordian's caps and sculpting the helmets yourself. (Which is exactly how the original Praetorians were made )

insaniak wrote:Greenstuff casting really isn't suitable for heads. Not if you want halfway reasonable results without a heck of a lot of messing about.

It's possibly along the right track, though... Pith Helmets are a fairly plain shape, and not too difficult to sculpt. So you could try just lopping off the Mortician's caps and sculpting the helmets yourself. (Which is exactly how the original Praetorians were made )

I've considered attempting to sculpt the pith helmets,but am somewhat hesitant as my sculpting skills are not in the "very talented" relm.
Sure,I can sculpt Nurgles effects like nobody's business,but am unsure that I'm up to the task of sculpting dozens of tiny helmets,of course...I stand to lose nothing by trying,if I can pull it off...great,if not...I can always just lop of the whole head and do the intended head swaps.

If you're relatively new to the whole sculpting thing, don't be put off if the first couple are really hard to get right, or take a while to do... If you're doing multiples of the same thing, it'll get faster and easier once you get a little practice in.

Wargames Factory Minis are true scale so they are most likely too small probably worth a try anyway as the old guard metals were better scale anyway.

The problem with the WF minis isn't so much scale as the fact that their detail is soft and the helmets a little oversized to make them a separate part to the head. So they look a little like burn victims wearing their dads' helmets...

insaniak wrote:The problem with the WF minis isn't so much scale as the fact that their detail is soft and the helmets a little oversized to make them a separate part to the head. So they look a little like burn victims wearing their dads' helmets...

Yeah,that's definitely not the look I'm going for...I suppose I will give sculpting the helmets a go and continue a search for suitable heads in case my sculpting skills fail me.

This may be obvious, but you could do some of them, perhaps two in ten, with bare heads. This would save some cash on the whole project.

The idea is sound, given that mordian and praetorian bodies literally are the same models apart from the heads (you can tell how GW made the two lines separate with head swaps of their own).

As for the praetorian heads, I'd consider learning how to sculpt pith helmets with GS. The more labor intensive route, but you'd get exactly what you want. They could be put onto shaved down cadian and catachan heads which would be easily purchaseable from bitz sites.

Also, have you looked at perry miniatures? I'm under the impression that they recently came out with a Sudan line of british soldiers in 40k scale.

Perry Bros do a big Sudan range in metal.

Just gave the Sudan line a look Ailaros,they look much better than most of the "British firing line" heads I've seen,I may have to pick some of these up.

PM sent, FITZZ.

Definitely appreciate everyone's help,I'll be sure to keep you all posted as to how things turn out.