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Hello, Dakka! It's been a long time since I've posted here regularly, but I've still been hard at work in the hobby over the years. Today I'll be sharing a huge project my brother and I started (though I'm only posting my own work currently) called STARHAMMER. Basically, my brother wanted to start a space marine army, but he and I have never liked the lore surrounding them, how they're essentially genocidal space fascists. (I know, I know, I don't want to get in an argument about this. Moving on.) So two years ago, we decided to create our own setting and universe for our games to take place in, and a different visual goal for this army to aim for. Eventually it became more my project than his, but what we were going for is a more Starcraft inspired 40k. Thus, Starhammer.

I'll start with posting some sketches I started with before we started building.



The first thing we wanted to do to separate ourselves from 40k's space marines is getting rid of the gothic imagery and imperial eagles and such. The underlying tech look is really smooth on its own, so I wanted that to shine. The other thing is that these power armor suits are just that, suits. Exosuits. These aren't supersoldiers, they're just people wearing bulky armor to fight. And so we also incorporated (as you can see above) female marines.

Here are some decal ideas to start building some flavor around the attitude of these marines.











Eventually I started putting more thought toward who they are within the universe they occupy, and my brother and I landed on these guys being the inhabitants of industrial colonies on the moon, who were mistreated and used by the Earth government. Eventually, striking turned into utilizing their industrial machinery for building their own military equipment in armed revolt.

And thus The War of Lunar Independence began.





Meanwhile, the Earth government (name still kinda up in the air) don't recognize the Confederated Colonies of Luna as a legitimate government, and still view the lunar colonies as theirs. They view the war as a temporary setback.

Anyway! You came here to see miniatures. Let's get started.

This is the original first squad I made two years ago. All of what I'll be posting here today is older and has been finished for some time. After some big real life upheaval, I'm finally now getting back to this project. I have new stuff I'll post soon, this is all I felt like photographing today.











I also created my own design for their backpacks, to further set them apart from GW's marines.







This was a pretty extensive conversion I'm still pretty proud of, it's a medic pulling an injured soldier out of her exosuit. I wrote a short story about these two actually.













I tried my hand at Flinty's formula for SC Terran Terminators but I found it really difficult, so I only have one so far. I do intend to make a full five of them, though.



I also loved the Bullgryn kit when it came out, but I found it really hard to get them to hold the rifles over the bulky armor, so I only got one done. Any tips on that?

Speaking of Ogres, I wanted the space ogres in Starhammer to be something better than the 40k ogryns. I don't like how they're sort of just big "me no talk good" dumb brutes. I don't know much about the Ogre Kingdoms from WHFB but my understanding of the Maneaters is something that really intrigued me, with these ogres going out across the world to learn other ways of combat. So that's what I based my space ogres on. All ogres lead a nomadic lifestyle, fighting as mercenaries alongside various races and factions to learn their skills and better themselves, so that they can one day return home and share their wisdom. In that vein, here's my cyberpunk ninja space ogre.













Before I move onto the last heavy conversions, I'll just put these few pics here. The Starhammer army also features a Mantic Warpath Strider and some converted Eisenkern soldiers from Dreamforge (they looked like Starcraft's ghosts to me).





(One of them, er, lost his head.)



I tried to get this guy's head to show as much as I could, but he's a Reaper Bones Nick Stone.

Finally, here is my Techmarine and his deck crew (servitors).

















I'd forgotten about this guy... I'll need to finish him I suppose.





Let me know what you guys think! I've got more I can show off, but this felt like a lot for today.

Wow. Lots of work here. Looking good. That Ogryn, though. Great GS work. So Bane.

Thanks! That guy took MONTHS. But it was worth it, I'm proud of the way it came out.

I love this so much! I can tell how much hard work you put into this project and it looks amazing.
Keep up the great work!

Excellent conversion work! Can't wait to see more

Thanks, guys! I'll try to take some more pics tomorrow.

These guys look great. Rogue Trader had marines with some of the look you're going for as well (the 'your ass here' marine reminded me) from before the gothic aesthetic was set in stone.

I saw a reddit thread a billion years ago with some flags for lunar colonies... okay, there are heaps (google "moon vexillology reddit") if you're after more flag ideas.

Anyway this is great and you're great.

Very interesting and inspirational work!

Hello everyone! Time for some more pics.

I have more Starhammer marines to show, but today I thought I'd show off some other corners of my budding Starhammer universe.

So, I mentioned that this is a Starcraft-inspired universe... And what Starcraft-inspired Warhammer project would be complete without ZERG?!

So far I just have a basic Zergling conversion I haven't put too much work into.





I plan to fill the gaps between the head and body with green stuff making the carapace all go together. But so far I've built only four of these guys. My sister has helped some, since it's a fairly simple conversion and she's new to the hobby.

As for the rest of the forces, so far they make up mostly Mantic Plague Zombies, and a few specially converted infested human soldiers.





Headcrabs!! Look, I'm playing fast and loose with the universe barriers here. I'm a fan of all parasitic aliens.



Here's my first Infested Marine, which I'm very proud of. It's still unfinished, but getting close.







In lieu of a Queen of Blades model, I call this guy the King of Bones...







Here's an infested Starship Troopers marine. There's a real mini like that out there somewhere, but I couldn't remember what it was called, and thus couldn't find it to post a comparison.

Speaking of Starship Troopers, I (obviously) bought the Mobile Infantry kit, I figure they look well more advanced than my lunar rebel marines, so they could stand in for the oppressive Earth government.

And speaking of the Earth government, I wrote some lore about them back when I was working on this project originally (I should mention again that I started this project about 3 years ago, and only recently picked it back up. Most of this work was done 3 years ago).

You can read that HERE, if you'd like. It's, uh, obviously not finished.

But anyway, here's what I have of the Earth faction's forces so far.



I'm thinking of having cloned soldiers based on these Heroclix Metropolis SCU (I have 18 of them), since it'd be an excuse not to have to repose them. I used the head for something else.



In fact, here's one being beaten to death by a plague zombie!



Otherwise, this is my current plan to bulk out the Terran forces a bit...



(It, uh, came out sideways. Sorry.)



I've also been tasked with turning these into Vulture bikes from Starcraft. We didn't like how hugely bulky the riders are, so I'm trying to fit SM Scout riders on there.



Minimal progress on that so far, but we'll see where it goes.

Here's some miscellaneous pirates I found, who would work as mercenaries for the Lunar Rebels. (Again, I made these guys 3 years ago.)





Here are the two main characters from a story I was writing set in the Starhammer universe about a prison breakout. On the left is Inoue, on the right is Parker. You can read that story HERE, if you like. (It's unfinished, so be prepared to be unsatisfied.)

While I'm on fiction, HERE is a much shorter one about that model from the original post of the Medic pulling the soldier out of her exosuit.





Here is a prototype model for a new race I came up with. The idea is that there's this massive, powerful machine sentience, I'm thinking of something roughly the size of a sun, that consumes all life on a planet, absorbing it as information. Its eventual goal is to collect all information in the universe (thus destroying all life). So this model represents one of a synthetic race, formerly servants to a race of aliens, that sold out their alien masters to the machine intelligence. They're basically an entire race serving a combination of Galactus and Grant Morrison's Brainiac. Additionally, there are organic beings that have pledged themselves to the machine god, opting to slowly replace their flesh bodies with machines until they are one with the holy machine. The machine sentience allows this on the promise that these organic servants will deliver more worlds to it.

As for the model itself, it's obviously based on a Necron, using the scarab as the head, and I followed a guide for making upright Necrons that doesn't seem to exist anymore (though there are others out there). And as for the organic/cyborg servants, I was trying to make something for them out of the Skitarii when they first came out, but I didn't have a lot of luck getting them to look unique; it's not even worth taking any pictures. I want to give it another shot some time, though.

Here's another original race!

They are the Khalari. You can read their lore HERE. (You'll note that it mentions the Tau Empire... At this point I wanted to keep my Tau army and just import that whole race into Starhammer's universe, but I'm considering selling my army now, so I'm not sure I'll keep the Tau as part of Starhammer. It's up in the air.)

Anyway, models!

First, the Khavok. There are only 3, and they're based on some Dust Tactics robotic gorillas, but HEAVILY modified.





















Here are the ordinary soldiers. Much less far along. They're made from Beastmen.













And that's all for today. Peep my OTHER THREAD for some Protoss, though!

Wow, love this stuff. Very original, very neat, lots of ideas usable in any universe. : ) The medic vignette is particularly excellent.

Thanks! I'm really proud of it. I have to admit, I was hoping for more of a response with all the work I've done, but I suppose it can't be helped.

Oooooooh, really interesting! This is very cool.

Every thing about this plog is amazing!

Top work!

EDC

Thanks guys! I'll have more to post soon. I'm working on a command squad for the lunar marines right now.

I love the theme for Starhammer. I've actually been working on a few Zerg unit my self. I'll post a few links for you to look at if youre interested.

http://imgur.com/gallery/hbimK
http://imgur.com/lUhsybl

And those hairy aliens remind me a lot of the the brutes from the covenant I cant wait to see more of your conversions

Oh, hell yeah! I love your swarm host! And your zergling looks more like the real deal than mine do, haha. Good work!

Yeah, when I was searching for more gorilla minis to use for the Khalari soldiers beyond the original 3 Dust Tactics gorillas, I considered using Covenant Brute heroclix, but Beastmen give me more freedom.

You know Starcraft was inspired by Warhammer?

Still cool to see the reverse-engineered Starhammer.

Yup! As I understand it, Warcraft was actually supposed to be a Warhammer game, but the rights fell through or something, but Starcraft just took inspiration from it rather than being based on it from the start. (Obviously, the zerg being the most directly lifted concept.)

That's how I arrived at the name! Warcraft -> Warhammer, Starcraft -> Starhammer.

Great work - there;s some really nice builds here.