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I'm toying with making a US Colonial Marines themed Guard force based on the Aliens, Prometheus and Predator films.

I've just bought a crate of disgustingly sexy Elysian Drop Troops from FW and will be using them to convert the marines. The FOC will run as a clean mech-vets list with Ordo Xenos / Tempestus allies. This is mainly going to be a chance for me to get my painting up to scratch and bash out a couple conversions. I've also ordered the US Colonial Marines Tech Manual which is the holy grail of inspiration and have got my hands on some juicy 28mm M41a Pulse Rifles courtesy of Hasslefree Miniatures

The colour scheme will be the standard olive & drab (Cadian 8th for you old timers)

Here are some ideas so far:
- Navy themed CCS & MoO
- Engineer themed Inqusitor Lord
- Elysian with various Catachan head swaps, bare arms, bandanas, SMGs and M41 rifles
- 28mm Smartgunner (Sgt. Harker proxy)
- Weyland Yutani Commandos (Tempestus Scions)
- Synthetics
- Predator Eversor Assassin
- Xenomorph Arco-Flagellents
- Exo-combat suits and "Power Loaders" (Ogryns or Sentinels?)
- Alien eggs as Objective Markers
- Facehugger Servo-Skulls
- Penal Legionnaires (Aliens 3) & Weyland-Yutani Mercs
- Various tanks, Valkyrie gunships, APCs and Mechas
- LOTS of Sentry Turrets

I saw a few similar threads from a couple years back but it would be great to hear your suggestions too.

Ooh rah!

Have you received your Elysians yet?
They're way too small to take oversized Catachan heads and arms without looking goofy imo.

Elysians are definitely WAY too small for catachan parts, but otherwise the project sounds interesting

Elysians and Catachans really aren't compatible they are even different sizes

as you can see Catachans are much chunkier than the Eyisians. It does sound like an interesting project nevertheless

Right, I agree there is a discrepancy between the two but by Bandana / Catachanesque heads this is what I had in mind:

https://scattereddice.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/10.jpg

https://scattereddice.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/17.jpg

Still not sold on those.
The heads are way too big.

yeah, I am not sold on those heads either they look far too large.
you may have an issue swapping the lasguns out as Elysian are like Cadians were the left arm moulded is holding the lasgun and on the front part of the lasgun is the Right hand and then the right arm is a stump that you have to line up with the hand on the lasgun.

Question for the whole thread here:

How would you make the Colonial Marines

I initially thought a blend of Cadian with Catachan / bare sleeve arms and shoulder lamps. But I'm open to suggestions

The Elysian are all boxed and unopened and FW have sent me a free returns form so I can exchange them for either FW or GW store credit.

I like the Elysian sculpts but they are small and fiddly and hence could be difficult to convert...

Would be good to hear your thoughts

Hasslefree make some not colonial marines, not Newt and not Ripley.

Yeah unfortunately I'll be using them at a few local tournies and would rather stay within the confines of GW / FW

I've found some really nice CDF Troopers on a similar site which look similar scale to Cadian so was thinking of kitbashing some of them with the Cadian / Catachan....

You could try making Cadian heads sleaker by cutting down little sidepanels and nob from the back. Command squad box has pretty good variety in them.

But if you go for 3rd party parts check Anvil Industry out. They have so many variety for heads that are about size of Cadian heads, maybe bit smaller and more realisticly proportioned.