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I would love to include a few new units in my Militarum Tempestus army, but I want to keep it all to a coherant theme. For example I don't want to use Cadian Weapons Teams etc. I'm just wondering on what to convert them as and would like advice on what you think is acceptable in theme and on the tabletop. What I'd really like is any examples of conversions for these units and any ideas you guys have.

Heavy Weapons Teams

Ogryn Gun Luggers - Ogryns carrying a heavy weapon, they're mentioned in lore but have no tabletop model and it'd be hard making the heavy weapons fit into the Ogryn hands. My army has Ogryns though so it'd fit in easily.
Mini-tanks - I don't use a lot of tanks and outside of third party bits this would be impossible.
Kataphron Servitors - Will probably look out of place but the armor style is somewhat similar to the Scions, it'd also be easier and potentially cheaper to convert these.

Rough Riders

Decided in my Rough Riders. These guys are made from a mix of bits, Marauder Horsemen legs and steeds, with cadian torsos to represent the lighter armor, and finished off with scion arms, bits and heads. All I did was roughly shave the chaos icons off and glue some Scion bits over the top, remove the larger spikes. I opted for Chainswords rather than spears just for simplicity's sake and plopped some las pistols in their hands too, somewhat Empire pistolier in style. The grenade launchers were made with the medic gun arm, just cut off the hand on each and stick em on. I used the medipack hand however and some spare plastic bits to make one of them look like he's gripping the harness of the horse. Plastic glue fills in any gaps after a while although it's not a smooth finish. Going to add 5 more rough riders to the squad, just with chain swords and pistols. Can position the hands in various ways by using all the spare bits from the Scions box set.

Why Marauder horses? I think they look a lot better than any of the others available. The marauder horses are very detailed and have a lot of armor and harness on them where you can stick 40k bits. Next to the rest of my army they don't look out of place so I think they came out great.

Since you dont like Cadia HW teams maybe try finding some old school metal ones?
(pic from ArbitorIan's army)

You could also buy the Cadian HWT arms separate, at least the ones holding the spade grips, and use them on a MT model with a more advanced mount under the gun - Anvil Industries has a few that might fit with an Advanced/Elite type army.

Heavy weapons: Check out Anvil Industries heavies and gothic void torsos

Rough riders: Forpost d6 and Mad Robot have motorcycles and other "bikes". Mad Robot also makes riders.

The problem is that I just generally don't like the Weapon Team look. It doesn't seem to fit with a rapid mobile deployment force like the Scions when the weapons are wheeled with shields.

As for those rough riders from Forpost and Mad Robot - I'm really not keen on the Mad Robot style of bike but they have the rider legs and arms that are useful, I also saw that they have guard compatible jump packs that look pretty cool, Forpost bikes look a lot better but are hella expensive and come in packs of 3.

For the heavy weapon guys, the stand is one model so you can kinda do what you want.

Start off with 3 guys.

Put magnet in tri-pod, run lascannon wires to a "terminal"/controls where a kneeling guy looks like he is operating it.

Attach the battery pack or ammo to the weapon itself (HB, AC, LC).
I would look at attaching a drop pod harness on the side of the gun to show at least the weapon is "man-portable". I never install harnesses, it looks like no room (why not mag-bolt on floor and get power armor to "compensate for impact"?)
Shave off or remove any plates or anything that looks extra other than the gun.
I would make the occasional stand modeling the three guys carrying the equipment (maybe 2 just to convey the gist).

Missile launcher, keep the same but cut the plate off (keep the scope or whatever it is), do not use the stand, just shoulder mount and have guy nearby with the long missile in hand or on backpack.

Mortar, well, they were designed to be portable so no mods needed.

Hope that helps.

Make them automated or have a pair of Guardsmen behind them.

Heavy Bolters


Lascannons


Tutorial on how to make them in my Elysian PLOG.

Cheers,

CB

I really like those sentry turrets. I thought about doing something like that but Tarantula Turrets exist in the game already so I think there'd be some confusion.

@Talizvar

That's a pretty good idea, but it's so hard finding those drop pod harnesses. Although, so many 3rd party companies do missile launchers (or even GW launchers will do) that would fit with Scions miniatures and I could just model them as 2 seperate dudes, as you suggested. There wouldn't be much conversion needed.

 RyanAvx wrote:
Heavy Weapons Teams Ogryn Gun Luggers - Ogryns carrying a heavy weapon, they're mentioned in lore but have no tabletop model and it'd be hard making the heavy weapons fit into the Ogryn hands.

I'll be trying this later on. Thanks for the idea.

 RyanAvx wrote:
@Talizvar
That's a pretty good idea, but it's so hard finding those drop pod harnesses.

Next suggestion is look for a logical cut/split of the barrel / front end of the weapon and so it can be 2 parts.
Then arrange to be carried in a backpack harness, maybe some minor plasticard kung-fu.
The full gun assemblies do seem a bit much to carry whole for a guard/Scion.

Puppets war do a tracked gun carriage that you can fit with various heavy weapons.

https://puppetswar.eu/product.php?id_product=383

I just found this conversion here, does anyone know what bits this is made from?

https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/742388-.html

There's a lot of Sentinel bits in that, and the body box off a Venerable Dreadnought. The arm looks like more sentinel bits, the gun looks like the one off the Sentinel.

To the point of the Ogryns, their kit is actually quite conducive to converting! Just replace the barrel of the gun and the ammunition cartridge. Here's my conversion of Ogryns with Grav cannons for an ad mech army.

Two articles from the WAYBACK MACHINE that might interest you.

http://web.archive.org/web/20060714042823/http://us.games-workshop.com:80/games/40k/imperialguard/painting/ogryns/default.htm

http://web.archive.org/web/20070125162402/http://us.games-workshop.com:80/games/40k/imperialguard/painting/tankette/3.htm

The first one is about how to convert Ogryns from plastic Ogre (or as they're known now, Ogors) sets. Amazingly cheap and easy to convert. Just replace the metal ripper guns with whatever heavy weapon you want.

The second one is a link to a conversion guide for a tiny IG tank (which has been recommended to be used as a Sentinel but can work as a Weapons team too). The only issue is that one has been lost to the aether and the pics don't work now. However if you can follow the written guide it might help inspire you a bit. Basically he cut a chimera in half lengthwise and then again in height and made something like a mini-russ.

I wish I had not sold this guard army

And if you don't like the Ogryn heads, you can replace them with the heads from the AoS Ogres.

Some great ideas here, thanks guys. I'm happy that Ogryns are easy to convert and I love the idea of using man portable heavy weapons too. In the meantime, I'm still struggling on ideas for Rough Riders, and, I think, have decided on something for Sentinels.

What would you think to a slightly altered Kastelan Robot as a Sentinel? Just take off the head and have a pilot from a taurox poking his upper torso out, and cut one arm off at the gauntlet and plop a heavy weapon, contemptor dread style.

 RyanAvx wrote:
Some great ideas here, thanks guys. I'm happy that Ogryns are easy to convert and I love the idea of using man portable heavy weapons too. In the meantime, I'm still struggling on ideas for Rough Riders, and, I think, have decided on something for Sentinels.
What would you think to a slightly altered Kastelan Robot as a Sentinel? Just take off the head and have a pilot from a taurox poking his upper torso out, and cut one arm off at the gauntlet and plop a heavy weapon, contemptor dread style.

Maybe these guys:

They look pretty self-contained as a means of transport and a suitably fancy lance could be carved into this.
I would suggest keeping the plates just below the chest and having a guardsman pilot the thing.
Seems like one of the "cheaper" options of what to pick.

<edit>This option would work for heavy weapons too.
<edit,edit>This could be a "common" chassis for many units like SM's and their Rhinos.

I've ended up just going for a bog standard Rough Riders idea. Using Chaos Marauder horses as they are more dynamic and recent than other horses, along with cadian torsos and scion arms. Will actually break up the monotomy of the army too with something different.

On the Weapons Teams I think I might end up with Kataphron conversions.Maybe using Talizvar's idea of having a guardsmen poke his head out while a weapon is strapped to the back.

I built heavy weapon carriages inspired by the DKoK ones from assorted bits of plastic.

Decided on my rough riders guys, updated first post with details but here are some extra pictures of them. Still wondering what to do for Weapons Teams but leaning heavily in favour of either Ogryn Gun Luggers or Kataphron mini-tanks.

If you are still going for a single large base mini then why not just go smaller, the steel legion bolter team and Elysian stuff for example. For 'Advancing' have one mini carrying the weapon and the other a small bipod/tripod and some large ammo boxes.

The smallest official heavy weapons are the Horus Heresy Legione astartes ones. These Lascannons for example are Minute https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-EU/Ryza-Pattern-Lascannon-Set and darn cool looking imo with an 'Integrated' look to them. You wouldn't need to get that creative, those Marine Lascannon powerplants look easily convertible into something the other guy could occupy himself with. A trimmed cadian mortar bipod on the muzzle (folded horizaontally down the barrel for transport, like an M60).

For me personally the ogryn and mega droid ideas are WAAAY beyond the scope of the original model, those tracked mega droids look like they have a 2+, Toughness 6 and 3 wounds. That sentinel thing, is just that; a sentinel imo.

I'm also working on some nice Marauder Horsemen rough riders. Still a work in progress at the moment (want to do a full 10 and add horse gas masks to emulate the death korps ones). Head swaps from Anvil Industries, lances are empire knights etc.