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So, I had four pro-painted Raiders that came from Ebay. Part of the package is that all of the crew comes painted.
I have ZERO desire to have a bunch of crew models hanging off of my Raiders, so they were just sitting around.

I hated the idea of them going to waste, so I decided I'd try to make them so that they can be used on the tabletop.
I threw together some bases and painted them up. The tile colors match the colors I'm using on my resin Dragonforge bases.

Here's what I came up with. Eight Warriors ready to go:






So, if you're wondering what to do with your existing crew models.... Here you go.

Note that I did not paint or assemble the actual Warrior models, just the bases. Had I assembled the models, they'd have splinter rifles.


Eric

Cool stuff!

I found myself in possession of excess Raider crew too, because I am running a Wych cult and I didn't want Warriors tainting my air limos. I decided to turn a couple of the Raider crew members into casualties which I will either work into some terrain projects or use as objective markers. The pose of your female Warrior with the spear is particularly good for portraying a dead soldier if you leave the back torso bit off and glue it down to a base.

Anyway, nice paint jobs and cool conversion idea. Maximizing the return on our minis is the name of the game!

I actually have a Raider kit that i've made 4 pieces of terrain out of to replace destroyed vehicles with. On one of them, I did just that. Dead center of the piece has that one laid out. I've got the right leg splayed out behind her in a weird position.

Eric

This is a good idea. I've been turning my excess hangers-on into Trueborn. You have to saw off one of the arms, but it's worth it!

This is the Dracon, should I ever actually use one.

These are the various trueborn with Blasters or Splinter Cannons.

I can't view photobucket from work. I'll have to check 'em out later.
Thanks for sharing the links!

I strongly agree with the idea of converting them to other things. If it wasn't for the fact that they were already assembled and painted, I'd have converted them to be holding splinter rifles instead of HtH weapons.

Eric

Slick conversions man! I may have to try converting some of my crew once the raiders get here. (yay mail)

If you want to do something like this, I say to use the "gripping" arm, but to use a Splinter Rifle arm, instead.

Don't recall if the Raider kit comes with them but, if not, loot them from a Warrior kit!

Eric

Thats some slick converting you have done.
The very top left pic looks like they are whispering to each other. I like these a lot.

Brother Azul wrote:Thats some slick converting you have done.
The very top left pic looks like they are whispering to each other. I like these a lot.

"Here's the plan: we jump down off this wall above those Space Marines' heads and drive our spears all the way from the rooter to the tooter!"



Automatically Appended Next Post:

MagickalMemories wrote:I can't view photobucket from work. I'll have to check 'em out later.
Thanks for sharing the links!

I strongly agree with the idea of converting them to other things. If it wasn't for the fact that they were already assembled and painted, I'd have converted them to be holding splinter rifles instead of HtH weapons.

Eric

Yeah, I doubt I would have taken apart fully-painted models either. What did you use for the walls? They're excellent.

Foo wrote:"Here's the plan: we jump down off this wall above those Space Marines' heads and drive our spears all the way from the rooter to the tooter!"

"But you've got that big spear. I've only got this knife. I have to focus on the rooter *or* the tooter!"

Foo wrote:Yeah, I doubt I would have taken apart fully-painted models either. What did you use for the walls? They're excellent.

The walls are all CoD bits. I have a TON of unbuilt buildings on sprue. I went through them and found pieces that looked like they'd work, cut them from the sprue, then tried it. If it fit -or could be made to fit- then I used it.
Once I had my parts, I used a modeling saw, snippers and an exacto knife to trim the wall bits down to a manageable size to fit on the 25mm bases (which were based with "tiled" plasticard first).
Interesting note: The "spear" Warriors and "knife" warriors can NOT interchange bases. Each has it's own needs. All of the "knife" bases have a "K" scratched into the bottom, so I didn't get them mixed up & screw something up.

@Foo.
I like what you did with the models. Two questions;
What are you going to to with the unbased trueborn? How are you going to base him?
What are you using for basing material? It almost looks like "Sugar in the raw."


Thanks for the comments, guys.

Eric

I haven't based any of the Trueborn yet. I'm doing some rubble and metal sort of thing. Here are some pictures of the bases (in progress):
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v62/evilmark/Games/BasesP1020667.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v62/evilmark/Games/BasesP1020666.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v62/evilmark/Games/BasesP1020665.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v62/evilmark/Games/BasesP1020664.jpg
(Links, so I don't clog up your thread with my stuff!)

They're covered in bits of rubble so I can have the Trueborn stepping on things, since their feet are mostly not flat. The techniques for the bases are a combination of a tarmac tutorial I found, this thread about making rubble, and me experimenting with stuff.


Oh, about the other bases: they are just covered in actual sand I bought from Michaels. It was like 2lbs for $5.

I like them except for the colors used on the tiles on the base, which makes them look like they're in some grimdark 50's throwback diner.

The tiles detract quite a lot of attention from the model itself, the brightness and contrast makes my eyes wander downwards when looking at the actual figure.

But apart from that, it's an excellent use of otherwise wasted models.

I recommend the dakka gallery over photo bucket.

ArmorOfContempt wrote:I like them except for the colors used on the tiles on the base, which makes them look like they're in some grimdark 50's throwback diner.

The problem is that I needed them to match my other bases as best possible.

Right now, I'm using these on the rest of my army (well... I'm in the process of painting them and switching as I go):


Dragonforge's "Lost Empires" bases.

My color scheme is similar to his.
My white is a "pure" looking white, as opposed to the "dingy" look, and my accent color is the same as what's on the bases.

It didn't look right to only have one or 2 tiles in the "accent" color on the converted bases, so I went with checkerboard. I had to sacrifice that bit to get what I wanted (8 warriors with bases that would semi-match the rest of the army).

ph34r wrote:I recommend the dakka gallery over photo bucket.

I put finished stuff up there, but Photobucket's much quicker otherwise.