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Inspired by a lot of the great conversion work I have seen on the forums, i decided to build an army of true scale Space Marines. My early efforts at Lamenter's were less than successful because I got bored with the Loyalist Marine 'Save the world' BS. Then I happened upon the Forgeworld Night Lord heads that removed the semi ridiculous bat wings from their helmets, and I decided I had found my new project.

I had a ton of Khorne Bezerkers in my tool box, as well as some terminators and the remains of the Chaos half of Dark Vengeance. After fleshing out the rough army list I intend to use, the finished army should consist of:
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1 Chaos Lord on Bike, Power Fist, Lightning Claw

1 Dark Apostle, Murder Sword

First Claw: Aspiring Champion, 14 CSM's with Close Combat Weapons

Second Claw: Aspiring Champion, 9 CSMs with Bolters and CCW's, 1 Meltagun

Third Claw: Aspiring Champion, 9 CSMs with Bolters and CCW's, 1 Meltagun

Mortal Servants: 15 Chaos Cultists

Warp Talons: 10 Warp Talons

Biker Claw: 6 Chaos Bikers, that I intend to convert into Jetbikes

2x Dreadclaw Assault Pods

Maulerfiend with Lasher Tendrils

Terminator Squad: 3 Terminators with Lightning Claws
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My goal is to convert nearly every one of these models to true scale, adding roughly 3.5mm to their height and 2mm to their shoulder span.

Let the games begin!




Automatically Appended Next Post:
So here's my initial work on the 2nd Claw. I plan on modelling them in a static firefight pose, without too much movement, as if they've just dropped off on of the Dreadclaws.

First up was my intended squad leader, but since I want an aspiring champion to stand out a bit more, he's kinda been demoted. I was shooting for a pose that made him appear as if he was striding through a cloud of smoke to strike terror into the hearts of his foes.


Up next is one of the bolter armed marines in a fairly static position. While I plan on trying to shy away from too many of the ridiculously long horns on helmets, I've always liked this head...


Add two more to the collection as well, in similiar static poses. I stole a warp talon head to place on the one Marine, as the warp talon heads seem very 'Night Lord' to me anyway.


As far as conversion go for scale, I'm adding 1.5mm into the legs, and 1.5mm into the torso. Then I'm adding 1mm of plasticard in to shoulder joints to kind of broaden their stance and make them appear more intimidating.

Up next: I'm gonna take a break from the second claw's construction, and begin work on the first claw and the boxes of Khorne Bezerkers I have laying around.

looks good, and I can't wait to see them painted, are you just extending the legs, or are you adding materiel in the leg/torso joint as well?

One can never have enough Night Lords. Good luck with your project hopefully you will get it to the end.

Thanks for the kind words and encouragement gents. I'm looking at possibly taking the finished army to Broadside Bash in April, provided they will allow a Dreadclaw drop pod as part of the list.

Today I have six members of the 15 Marine Assault Claw to show off. So without further ado, meet the new Night Lords:

My new favorite conversion, this guy just seemed to 'click', with bits from the Raptors, Chaos Space Marine, and Khorne Bezerkers box.


Using parts from the same kits, this motivator is up next, in what seems like a bit of a crouching Tiger Hidden Night Lord type pose. I need to buy a box of skeleton bits to cover up the removed Khorne symbols on this squad...


Here's a series of pictures with the lads paired together, 6 of them complete today in all.






Not a huge fan of the pose of the last Marine on the right, but I'm gonna leave him alone for the time being...

In response to Brennon's question, I am adding 1.5mm of plasticard into their tors as well, but heating it up and then melting the torso and legs together. The plasticard bubble out a little bit and makes it easier to attack the pouches and grenades that are neccessary to keep the Marines from looking malnourished haha. Pre-melt it looks like this:



My Dark Apostle is going to be a conversion from the Dark Vengeance box set, and is currently on the chopping block. Much to mysuprise I just discovered that Chaos terminators do not come with lightning claws, so it's looking like I am going to need to order some bits...

I really like truescale marines. Nice work you've got going on here.

Nice start. I like what you've got going on right now.

I love night lords and true scale is just icing on the cake. Are you going to build them all now and paint after or complete a unit at a time?

Well Gents, hope you all had an enjoyable and productive weekend. Mine wasn't too bad, and I've managed to make some progress on various bits and pieces of the army. First and perhaps more importantly, the Dreadclaw was approved for use in the Broadside Bash! I'm excited since this is kinda gonna be a centerpiece to my army. Unfortunately there is a 1 CAD max, so there's only gonna be one Dreadclaw, and I'm going to end up using a Rhino for the second squad. $140.00 at Forge World later, and some Mk III Shoulder pads, an Anvillus pattern dreadnought, and Night Lords Rhino doors are one their way!

First up is my converted Dark Apostle. The Dark Vengeance Chaos lord was used as his base, and all the Dark Vengeance CSM's seem to be pretty close to true scale already. He's a work in progress, all that's left is his left hand. I'm debating whether or not to use a Space Marine hand pointing, or give him a nasty looking lightning claw... Choices choices. Head is from the Forge World terror squad pack:


I also did some work on the Assault Claw as well. Some of these guys are missing shoulder pads as I am waiting on some from Forge World to show up. I'm also discovering I either love or hate the poses that come out of Khorne Bezerker packs. Some look cool, others look too stiff. I think I'm gonna buy one more box of CSM's for the parts, and then make one of my 10 man claws into a running/maneuvering tac squad...

Two more Night lords. Guy on the left got voluntold into one of the bolter squads when his CCW poses came out looking like crap. I really like the dude on the right though:


Another ASsault Claw Marine, the Raptors CCW's are pretty friggin awesome, and will be showing up through most of the army most likely.


Here's what I mean about Khorne bezerkers coming out stiff and unnatural looking. He may turn into a running bolter Marine too, as I'm not really happy with the pose...


And finally I have some WIP Warp talons. I did a lot of debating with these guys as to how to true scale them, and ultimately decided to to do anything with the legs for two reasons. First, they're already stretched out in the pose, and I was worried they'd look too lanky. Secondly, it would have required a ton of green stuff to get their armor looking right on the legs, and I'm not convinced I have those sorts of skills haha.

I'm been doing a ton of assembly lately because I was out of primer this past week, and I need to go get a very small brush for the lightning bolts on the armor. I'm going to start gradually painting them and assembly them at the same time, some days I've got the patience for lightning on the armor, and some days I don't haha.

Thanks for dropping by VetSgt! Your 'Leave no Marine unconverted' P&M Blog was what helped inspire this little bit of madness!

Looks great! Makes me wanna pick up a box of Raptors for the bitz alone. Could you take a pick with a regular marine and your Night Lords? It would be nice to see how much diffrence the plasticards make

 Limbo wrote:
Looks great! Makes me wanna pick up a box of Raptors for the bitz alone. Could you take a pick with a regular marine and your Night Lords? It would be nice to see how much diffrence the plasticards make

Absolutely, let me dig around and find some loyalist scum in my boxes... The stock loyalists I have kinda got sacrificed to the dark gods as bits... haha.

I am really diggin' this! Well done, and I can't wait to see you get em painted up! Keep us posted!

I keep back burnering this very same project, very nice (and inspirational) work! I'll get started after...well, after I get further along with my Lamenters Or if there is a new box set...

I did a test paint of my own, and it's a lot of work and does require you to be in the mood. I've also got a lightning thing going on with my Necrons, which makes it harder to do the process twice.

Gents,

Project is still going, I've got second claw and the Maulerfiend on the painting table right now, but I don't really want to start showing off painted stuff until I can base them too so they don't look half assed.

Probably have an update Thursday or Friday, along with the comparison picture.

And I'm back, with more of the Night Haunters descendants, including my first painted miniatures. I was asked for some comparison shots of true-scale next to a standard scale Marine, so here's two of my Night Lords next to one of my space pups:




And here's the same space pup next to my work in progress Night Lord terminator:



Speaking of terminators, the army calls for three of them, and I finally got the guts to start converting them to true scale… There's gonna be a lot of green stuff methinks….




They're gonna be a very gradual work haha. I was, however pleasantly surprised to find the Raptor Heads I had gotten off eBay in the mail yesterday, though expected delivery wasn't until April! That said, I knocked out the rest of the first half of my warp talon squad:

Close up of two of the members:


Before those arrived, I also assembled a squad of cultists. Didn't do too much crazy converting here, but a couple of head swaps were used to keep the squad looking a tad different.







Finally, just a quick shot of Second Claw's Meltagun wielding Brother Citrio. Really happy with this pose:


I'm painting and basing 2nd claw through the remainder of this week, hopefully have some pictures by the weekend. I have also begun converting my Chaos bikers into Night Lord Jet bikers… Some nasty looking minis are in the works… I'm pretty excited.

Well, I lied. Neither second claw or the Mauler Fiend got finished this weekend. I'm gonna mostly blame the whiskey... and the fact the a box arrived from Forge World on Saturday, and I got distracted with the second claw Rhino. What's a guy to do?

Started off doing a little bit of added trim to give it a slightly more Chaotic feel:





And then I primed it... and base coated it... and got carried away so this happened today:






But not to neglect the Mauler Fiend, here's the work I did this weekend on his scenic base:



Finally, after two nights of flipping through the Forge World catalog, I lost my sanity and ordered a Fire Raptor Gunship. I'm now tweeking the army list to fit it in, I think the Termies are gonna vanish, and maybe 1 biker. The more I read of the rules, the more I figured it might be the answer to a lot of my tactical problems in the future... The fact that it is a sexy model had nothing to do with it I swear...

Really great conversions and some pretty great poses too, I especially like the Assault Claw Marine with the raptor power sword (really need to get some of those) and the marine with melta. Very impressive.

Some really cool stuff dude.

Really like paint job on that rhino.

Wow, the paint job on that rhino is awesome! Did you airbrush or paint by hand? The transistion from light to dark blue is just great and the lightning really ties it all togheter nicely.

Nice job on the rhino. Have you thought about using the terminator bits for truescaling the marines? I don't know if that easier technique works for chaos but it does give the marines a bit chunkier and taller look for imperials at least.

Limbo wrote:Wow, the paint job on that rhino is awesome! Did you airbrush or paint by hand? The transistion from light to dark blue is just great and the lightning really ties it all togheter nicely.

Technically neither, this is some sneaky git stuff I've started doing. I'm too cheap to buy an airbrush (says the guy that just ordered a FW fire raptor... ) I basecoated a dark blue color with a can of Model MAster spray paint. I then masking taped some cotton balls onto the doors and hatches that I wanted to remain dark blue, and sprayed a lighter blue dusting onto the rest of the model. Works really well for tanks, the dreadclaw has kind of been a bit oif a miss just cause of the style of model.

warboss wrote:Nice job on the rhino. Have you thought about using the terminator bits for truescaling the marines? I don't know if that easier technique works for chaos but it does give the marines a bit chunkier and taller look for imperials at least.

Another guy at my local GW store has been doing this. I really liked the scale, but not the overall look. I also had 2 boxes of Bezerkers already laying around my house, so was kinda drawn to just use what I had haha.

Thanks for the kind comments! The motivation is much appreciated!

The marines look good, I think I prefer this teqnique to using terminator legs, they don't look as over proportioned, sleeker and more mobile. If that makes any sense?

Well gents, I managed to pick up a few weeks of full time work, so I've been rather busy. I'm now worried that I might not get this project done in three weeks for the Broadside Bash, but I'm not exactly one to give up.

In repayment for my lack of updates, I give you Chaos Space Marine Jet Bikes!

Six of them together:


My aspiring champion with power lance:




My Icon Bearer:


One of the Marines:


Basic Chaos bike kit, and then plasticard, with some warp talon wings and CSM shoulder pads for the Nose piece. Weapons are from the Chaos Knights Kit, Warp Talons Box, and some Chaos Warriors Weapons. Took quite a lot of work but I'm pretty excited with how they came out, and would love to hear some feedback!

These are fantastic conversions! They look really awesome, like a combination of chaos and star wars. Neat!

Well, in theory I am a week out from Broadside Bash, and hitting crunch time. I'm honestly not sure if I'm going to have the army painted in time, though I'm trying my hardest.

Today's update features my painted Fire Raptor Gunship, and the Maulerfiend. I'm speed painting the lightning right now, and will be going back to add the second set of highlights time permitting, so go easy on me...

First up, my Fire Raptor. This is the biggest model/kit I've done in a long time, and I do sorely wish I had a nice airbrush for it, as it's a great model. I did the best with what I had though, and I think it came out alright. I also did some more (mediocre) free hand work to add the chapter emblem to it.







And the Mauler Fiend:



Any and all comments, suggestions, criticism and encouragement is welcome!