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Hi All,

I'm in the process of roughing out a kitbash of some SM honour guard. Recently recieved a big bag of random bitz with some good stuff in there which I'm keen to use.

Simple question-SM honour guard come with a power weapon, bolter and bolt pistol as standard wargear. I've got a small heap of GK power armour arms, the ones with the integrated storm bolter, as a result of my new found bounty. What thoughts do people have on using these as the bolter for my HG? Would you accept this conversion for WYSIWYG?

I'm convinced the kitbashed guard will look pretty good, so regardless some are going to get built. I'm more concerned with whether I need to plan on building a couple of extra HG for when I actually want to play.

If you made it clear beforehand what they are, I can't imagine why anyone would have a problem with it.

As above its not as far out as some things ive seen as "counts as" and to befair would look pretty badass!! so you should be ok on the rule of cool haha

GK kits are a wonderful source of bitz to doll up your vanilla marines.

with very little work you should be able to make that storm bolter look like it has a standard barrel instead of the extra wide storm bolter one. That extra effort will win over most conversion resistant folks.

For me though, I need to be able to tell what weapons a dude has at a glance. Or at least his primary weapon. If you are using this bit to represent bolters, you should not use it to represent storm bolters on models that will be painted in the same scheme.

 DJGietzen wrote:
with very little work you should be able to make that storm bolter look like it has a standard barrel instead of the extra wide storm bolter one. That extra effort will win over most conversion resistant folks.

I was declining to comment on this thread because of the flashback I'd have gotten for saying "No, I wouldn't allow it - it's a Storm Bolter, not a Bolter." This is the absolute solution to that. If you have literally no arm mounted storm bolters elsewhere in your army I'd not refuse to play you, but working to get a single barrel instead of a dual would make me instantly say yes.

It probably won't fly in tournaments, but in any normal game I'd have no problem with it. Like above, as long as I can tell what is it (i.e. saying a Plasma counts as a Melta) I wouldnt have a problem with it.

I have done this for my DC. I shaved the sides down, rounded it out and drilled a single hole in the barrel. This way there was no confusion as to what it was.

Since you could equip a Stormbolter in that squad IMO for a competitive game you should make an effort for it to not look like a SB.

if you showed me them and told me what they were representing, i wouldn't have a problem.
hell, I'd probably like that they are different looking from your normal dudes!

Put the bolt pistol (slightly modified) on his wrist instead of the storm bolter, if possible.

The Angelus bolter from the Sanguinary Guard kit might be your friend here!

Hack off the twin barrels.
Cut the end off of a normal bolter.
Glue on face where the twin barrels were.
Pretty-up as you see fit.
WYSIWYG.
Obvious work, looks cool, looks like what it is.
<edit> Trying to remember if a twin-clip is modeled on... if so, hack off and glue in single clip from normal bolter.

 master of asgard wrote:
The Angelus bolter from the Sanguinary Guard kit might be your friend here!

this.

 DJGietzen wrote:
with very little work you should be able to make that storm bolter look like it has a standard barrel instead of the extra wide storm bolter one. That extra effort will win over most conversion resistant folks.

For me though, I need to be able to tell what weapons a dude has at a glance. Or at least his primary weapon. If you are using this bit to represent bolters, you should not use it to represent storm bolters on models that will be painted in the same scheme.

I would not be using the bit for storm bolters on anything else-I literally only have enough to build my HG, and have no intentions on getting more. This is meant to at least in part differentiate my HG from the rest of my army

I was declining to comment on this thread because of the flashback I'd have gotten for saying "No, I wouldn't allow it - it's a Storm Bolter, not a Bolter." This is the absolute solution to that. If you have literally no arm mounted storm bolters elsewhere in your army I'd not refuse to play you, but working to get a single barrel instead of a dual would make me instantly say yes.

As above, it won't be on anything else. But you're right,I could try to make it look more bolter-y, I hadn't considered shaving down the barrel. Not sure how visible the barrel will be anyway, but it can't hurt.

Since you could equip a Stormbolter in that squad IMO for a competitive game you should make an effort for it to not look like a SB.

There is no option to equip HG with storm bolters, which is why I thought this might be ok-the only options to change the loadout are for different CC weapons. But again, a little effort can't hurt


Happy to hear more thoughts, but grateful for what is here so far. Seems the consensus is that it should be fine, provided I a) make it clear at the beginning what the weapons are, b) have no conflicting loadouts in the rest of my army, and c) try my best to make it seem a bit more bolter than storm bolter

 Talizvar wrote:
Hack off the twin barrels.
Cut the end off of a normal bolter.
Glue on face where the twin barrels were.
Pretty-up as you see fit.
WYSIWYG.
Obvious work, looks cool, looks like what it is.
<edit> Trying to remember if a twin-clip is modeled on... if so, hack off and glue in single clip from normal bolter.

This is more or less what I was gonna say. This would create enough clear distinction between them and actual storm bolters that it should fly. of course, that' comp play. for casual games, I'd just say be consistent. If you're saying "this whole squad as bolters, not storm bolters" that's grand (I mean, everyone has to proxy things some times), it's only an issue when you start in with the "this storm bolter is a combi-melta, and this one is a plasma pistol, and this one is an assault cannon, and this one...", that it becomes a problem.

AnFéasógMór wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:
Hack off the twin barrels.
Cut the end off of a normal bolter.
Glue on face where the twin barrels were.
Pretty-up as you see fit.
WYSIWYG.
Obvious work, looks cool, looks like what it is.
<edit> Trying to remember if a twin-clip is modeled on... if so, hack off and glue in single clip from normal bolter.

This is more or less what I was gonna say. This would create enough clear distinction between them and actual storm bolters that it should fly. of course, that' comp play. for casual games, I'd just say be consistent. If you're saying "this whole squad as bolters, not storm bolters" that's grand (I mean, everyone has to proxy things some times), it's only an issue when you start in with the "this storm bolter is a combi-melta, and this one is a plasma pistol, and this one is an assault cannon, and this one...", that it becomes a problem.

Worth trying. Clips aren't modelled on (it looks as though there's a bit which would connect as the clip that I don't have), so I can add a standard bolter clip no problem. I'm seeing this more as a casual game squad, but doesn't hurt to make things WYSIWYG, particularly when there aren't many models in the squad.

skolirvarden wrote:

Since you could equip a Stormbolter in that squad IMO for a competitive game you should make an effort for it to not look like a SB.

There is no option to equip HG with storm bolters, which is why I thought this might be ok-the only options to change the loadout are for different CC weapons. But again, a little effort can't hurt


Happy to hear more thoughts, but grateful for what is here so far. Seems the consensus is that it should be fine, provided I a) make it clear at the beginning what the weapons are, b) have no conflicting loadouts in the rest of my army, and c) try my best to make it seem a bit more bolter than storm bolter

You are absolutely correct. If this is the case then I have no issues. For the record DC can't take SB either but I'm anal when it comes to WYSIWYG

as long as you told me they were bolters not storm bolters, sure. and rule of cool should dictate most oppinions on the matter, I think.

Rule of cool tends to discourage arguments from people with some "class" because it is a pleasure to see some effort put into models on the other side of the table.
It is also nice contrast to cookie-cutter looking armies.

WYSIWYG gets rid of the other arguments with the question: "Does it look like what it is supposed to be without it actually being the model?".
People who argue this line of thought are opposed to scratch builds or modifications and need to be ejected forcibly from the hobby....

I think with this particular conversion be careful not to get mixed up with two-handed weapon rules so "modelling for advantage" is not claimed: "See he is not using his hands for using the bolter! LOL's!!!".

I am sorry, I have played so many TFG people I carry a piece of them with me wherever I go, I keep trying to pound them into dust but you can only tilt at so many windmills until you go nuts.

 Talizvar wrote:
WYSIWYG gets rid of the other arguments with the question: "Does it look like what it is supposed to be without it actually being the model?".
People who argue this line of thought are opposed to scratch builds or modifications and need to be ejected forcibly from the hobby....

WYSIWYG isn't about being opposed to anything. It's about being polite to your opponent.
If I look at a dude and see Storm Bolters, I expect an Assault 2 S4AP5 weapon. I don't expect normal Bolter fire.
Do you expect me to have my opponents codex and army list memorized?

People demanding that they be able to model anything they want to look like anything they want and "counts as" whatever they want need to be forcibly ejected from the hobby....

rigeld2 wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:
WYSIWYG gets rid of the other arguments with the question: "Does it look like what it is supposed to be without it actually being the model?".
People who argue this line of thought are opposed to scratch builds or modifications and need to be ejected forcibly from the hobby....

WYSIWYG isn't about being opposed to anything. It's about being polite to your opponent.
If I look at a dude and see Storm Bolters, I expect an Assault 2 S4AP5 weapon. I don't expect normal Bolter fire.
Do you expect me to have my opponents codex and army list memorized?

People demanding that they be able to model anything they want to look like anything they want and "counts as" whatever they want need to be forcibly ejected from the hobby....

! i'm sure you don't really mean that, but i'm totally onside when it comes to bad scratch-builds.
i hate to pass judgement like this, but i have seen some 'scratch-builds' in the dakka gallery that look really terrible (-cough-tau battlesuit-cough-) to the point i cant decide whether or not it was intentionally done really badly as an ironic statement..