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Hey my dudes,

So I'm starting my first CSM army and I'm looking for some guidance on making my guys look a bit more unique. Most of what I'm planning is just basic kitbashing and some light greenstuff. I thought I'd put my ideas up here and see what feedback and advice I get. Maybe you know of a source I can check out for inspiration? Here's what I'm planning.

Cultists.
Mix of standard cultists, flagellants and Catachans with the aquillas crudely scored out. A few head/body/limb swaps.

Jump Pack Sorcerer.
Arms and legs from a Raptpr, head and torso from Possessed (the head with multiple eyes and fanged mouth, and the chest with a mouth in it), and the wings from the Possessed kit.

Obliterators.
CSM Terminators mostly, with some head swaps with Havoks and Possessed, then add a whole mess of extra gun barrels to the arms from my bits box and the Havok kit, greenstuff it together. Possibly using some of the CCW arms from the Possessed kit as a base, but I have a feeling they might be too small for the termi frame. I might just end up using the termi hvy weapon arms as a base.

Winged Daemon Prince.
Looking for ideas for this one, I'll be using Intoxicating Elixir, so maybe some injection vials running down his spine but I don't know where to start here.

Noise Marines.
Looking for suggestions for these guys. I've got nothing so far, other than maybe greenstuffing some speakers into some of their helmet grills.

So yeah, I'd love to hear your comments and advice. Thanks guys.

swapping out any parts on plastic kits is going to be pretty easy. Your Sorc idea seems like it'll work fine. For the Cultists, I found using AOS/WHF Chaos Marauder bits went a long way with Catachan and Cadian base bodies. The Daemon Prince drug system could be taken from some Dark Eldar stuff maybe? Obliterators recipe sounds pretty standard for people wanting half-decent looking models rather than the official ones. Noise Marines? I'd just use the add-on kits from GW, but if you're confident with green stuff, maybe some furry bits or fringes and mohawks to look like the old hair metal Slaanesh marines of days gone by?

If you're up for some light greenstuff work then you could convert 7 regular CSM into Plague Marines. It's fairly easy to do and would give your army a really awesome unit that is totally unique. I did this once with some CSMs I got in a trade and it turned out really well. I think the plog is still here on dakka if you wanted to check it out. I used a sculpting clay to make mine but with greenstuff you could really get some good details.

Edit:. Unless you're going for a single chaos god that is! Lol! One thing you could do with the Noise Marines is make some organ pipe backpacks, that should be simple enough. As for their special weapons, I say as long as it looks cool you can do whatever you want. You could make a sonic cannon out of a multimelta by chopping the barrels off and attaching a barrel from a Dark Eldar gun, that should look spikey enough. In fact I think if you bought a Talos Pain Engine you would be able to use a lot of the bits out of there.

Thx guys. My experience with green stuff at this point is pretty much just filling in gaps, I haven't actually tried any sculpting yet. Cheers for the ideas, I'll check out those kits and see if they'll fit.

Hey man I saw these Alpha legion oblits and fell in love with them, just another idea that you could use my GS skills are badly lacking so anything i could do like this is a winner for me. http://darkfuturegaming.blogspot.co.za/2017/11/alpha-legion-obliterator-conversions.html

This is one of my favorite CSM conversion ideas. Also dirt cheap.

http://fantasygames.com.pl/nurgle-daemonic-skin/

Hot damn! That glue in the microwave idea looks awesome! I think i'll try doing that.

One thing worth pointing out is that Catachan arms are really, really muscly. They will look oversized on cultist and flagellant bodies. Indeed, I have used them on CSM to great effect! I would go with cadians instead, as these are more human-sized. The new Tzaangor upgrade sprue is good if you need autopistols and CCWs.

You guys think Genestealer Neophytes would be a good kit to use as cultists? Seems like the legs/torsos could work, and would be a good source of heavy stubbers and autoguns. The hands might be a bit too alien though.


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Looking at the Exalted Sorcerer kit. I might use some of the bits from there instead of Raptor legs/arms. A lot of those bits are too Thousand Sons/Tzeenchian for what I'm going for though.

the_Jakman wrote:
Hey my dudes,

So I'm starting my first CSM army and I'm looking for some guidance on making my guys look a bit more unique. Most of what I'm planning is just basic kitbashing and some light greenstuff. I thought I'd put my ideas up here and see what feedback and advice I get. Maybe you know of a source I can check out for inspiration? Here's what I'm planning.

Cultists.
Mix of standard cultists, flagellants and Catachans with the aquillas crudely scored out. A few head/body/limb swaps.

Jump Pack Sorcerer.
Arms and legs from a Raptpr, head and torso from Possessed (the head with multiple eyes and fanged mouth, and the chest with a mouth in it), and the wings from the Possessed kit.

Obliterators.
CSM Terminators mostly, with some head swaps with Havoks and Possessed, then add a whole mess of extra gun barrels to the arms from my bits box and the Havok kit, greenstuff it together. Possibly using some of the CCW arms from the Possessed kit as a base, but I have a feeling they might be too small for the termi frame. I might just end up using the termi hvy weapon arms as a base.

Winged Daemon Prince.
Looking for ideas for this one, I'll be using Intoxicating Elixir, so maybe some injection vials running down his spine but I don't know where to start here.

Noise Marines.
Looking for suggestions for these guys. I've got nothing so far, other than maybe greenstuffing some speakers into some of their helmet grills.

So yeah, I'd love to hear your comments and advice. Thanks guys.

It turns out that obliterators are considerably more bulky than terminators. As such, may I suggest you create a little spacer between the front and back body pieces (using greenstuff or whatever) and possibly a small spacer between the arms and body to help emphasize the bulk of the model. Chaos spawn pieces are a better fit than possessed for their combat weapons.

For the drugged up Daemon Prince, the Dark Eldar Talos may be a good start.

If you do get a box of spawn of your oblitinators, the daemon prince might be a good use for some of the elgs (skipped leg day hulk!) ... The spawn bodies could make decent bodies for the oblits too, now I think about it!

the_Jakman wrote:
You guys think Genestealer Neophytes would be a good kit to use as cultists? Seems like the legs/torsos could work, and would be a good source of heavy stubbers and autoguns. The hands might be a bit too alien though..

The GSC models have a lot in common with the chaos cultist aesthetic. Notable differences are the hands and the faces. A lot of the faces are quite distinctively 'genestealer'. I have used some of the models to make chaos cultists, but I shied away from using the whole kit. However, given your predisposition towards kitbashing, I think you'll be fine if you mix the neophyte kit with other kits.

Make sure you have a look at the Forge World conversion bitz before you make a decision!
https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-FI/searchResults?_dyncharset=UTF-8&_dynSessConf=-7628337624931188355&qty=&sorting=&view=&Ntt=renegade+militia

What legion are you playing your CSM as?

Dark eldar talos/chronos kit is a good source of vikes and tubes for your demon prince.

Really appreciate the feedback guys, thanks.

I think the Talos and the Grotesque models have some perfect vials/injection tubes. I'm a bit hesitant to buy those models just to cut off some small bits though. Unlike the Exalted Sorcerer/Possessed kits, I'm not going to be able to use the leftovers for much. If i can find some cheap 2nd hand ones that'll be great! Any ideas what I can use as a substitute? Maybe plasticard tubes, but I've no experience doing anything like that. Can't be too hard, right?

I'm pretty sold on using Genestealer Neophytes with some head swaps, avoiding the more alien looking hands, and filing off the Tyranid symbols. I'll be able to use the heavy weapons on the Obliterators, and the heavy stubber and flamer would go on Cultists.

Definitely gone off using Catachans, some of those faces look like warmed up dog turds. And yea, I don't think the arms will fit.

nareik, I had a bad feeling that straight up termies would be a bit small. Spacing out the torso's, arms and greenstuffing the gaps is a good idea but it seems like a bit of a ball ache. I'm not sure, but aren't Spawn torsos a bit too big? I'll be getting some eventually anyway, so it's an option. What do you think about using Primaris Agressors as a base? File off all the wretched loyalist icons and add spawn/posessed bits and spikes?

mrhappyface the rampaging khorne dreadnought ... that's bloody awesome, got a good laugh from that! I'm planning on running Alpha Legion with a Slaanesh flavour. At 1500pts I'm thinking of running this.
Winged Daemon Prince
Jump Sorcerer
20x Noise Marines in Kharbdis Pod
Obliterators
Bunch'O Cultists

I was more suggesting using the Talos as the base for your DP model;

Give it some legs and a hand swap: you're set!



I'm not that sure on the size of Primaris Agressors, but I think you might be on to a good idea with that. I wish I hadn't lost my camera or I could line up a picture of a terminator with a mutilator (which is basically just an obliterator model but with 2 ccw arms) and a scratch built mutilator using a spawn body.


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I found some old pics for you though!

This is an obliterator I made from a terminator. I built up his torso a bit by spacing it out with some flamer and melta pieces.



I apologies for the poor painting and photography hiding the detail, but I hope it gives an idea of what can be done mixing up the spawn kit with terminators.


The plasma weapon was a lightning claw with a couple of plasma pistol barrels stuck together and a possessed(?) thumb. Not greatly executed, but the idea is there.



This is a stock mutilator (well, with head swap). It uses the same legs/body as an obliterator, and you can see how it fillus up a 40mm base. Also note how huge the shoulders are (oblits and mutis have similar sized shoulder pads, iirc).

the_Jakman wrote:
mrhappyface the rampaging khorne dreadnought ... that's bloody awesome, got a good laugh from that! I'm planning on running Alpha Legion with a Slaanesh flavour. At 1500pts I'm thinking of running this.
Winged Daemon Prince
Jump Sorcerer
20x Noise Marines in Kharbdis Pod
Obliterators
Bunch'O Cultists

One thing to think about if you're going Alpha Legion is their fluff: AL are generally not that daemonically corrupted, their strength comes from sneaky/subversive tactics and insighting rebellion upon worlds. This isn't to say you can't have corrupted AL members, just try to keep the corruption more subtle rather than overt.

Aggressors are plenty big enough. Bigger than terminators. Was going to say get on a bits store but don’t know what it’s like in Australia hear crazy things price wise down there.

nareik, Ahh I get you now, that's a really good idea with the Talos, I'll have a bit of a closer look at the sprues and see if I can put something together in my head.Thank's for the pics as well, I definitely see what you mean by the termies being too small, even with the spacing they don't quite look bulky enough. That plasma pistol claw looks cool, I might try that.

mrhappyface, I was pretty much going AL for gamey reasons. I've been grinding my way through the Chaos tactica, trying to build something that's relatively competitive. Emperor's Children would be a better fit fluff wise, I like the idea of heavily mutated marines and spawn. But that -1 to hit, infiltrating and the warlord trait are hard to pass up on.

Andykp, don't even get me bloody started on prices here mate! Not even just Warhammer, but everything from video games to food and fuel has a 20%-30% price hike compared to US and EU, just cos Australia is so far from anywhere. To top it off, I live on the west coast, in literally the most isolated major city on the planet. It's a 25 hour drive to the next city over (and that's only halfway to Sydney). Getting stuff shipped here is a nightmare.


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So if I decide to change to Black Legion, I'll probably use Abbadon, but I think the model is a bit naff. How would you guys make a custom one? Obviously use the Termie Chaos Lord as a base, but where would be a good place to find an appropriate sword and claw?

Get an old abbadon model and and use them off that. The forgeworld abbadon could be a starting place but needs spiking up a bit. If you Google abbadon conversions loads of ideas to pinch on there. I really like this one based on Roboute. Don't know if it's too big but looks ace.

That is badass! Bit above my pay grade though.


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Forgeworlds Abbadon is so much cooler than the GW one. Thanks for pointing that out. I might use that. The only thing that I don't like about it is the top knot. I know it's his thing, I just think its a bit dumb.

Wargames Exclusive does a pretty slick Abaddon as well.