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I'm thinking of starting a small army with a crusade theme - lots of guardsmen, Marines, Sisters etc united under a fanatical commissar who claims to be Macharius reborn. So conversions are a thing I want to do. I'm looking for kits, GW or not I can use together with a Cadian box to build cool looking "crusaders". Thanks for all ideas!

When you say 'Crusaders' what sort of aesthetic are you looking for? Like things drawing from the actual Crusades or what?

As with all things Guard, Anvil Industries' Regiments range is the place to start. They have a few parts that might work, particular these Medieval helmets and torsos that have a suitable crusadey look.
http://anvilindustry.co.uk/regiments-medieval-torso?search=medieval
http://anvilindustry.co.uk/regiments-medieval-helmet?search=medieval

Can be ordered together as a conversion set with 10 of any head/torso:
http://anvilindustry.co.uk/Regiments/Infantry-Heads-Helmets/regiments-conversion-kit-for-28mm-plastic-guard-miniatures


There's also a pack of purity seals and parchments that might be of use:
http://anvilindustry.co.uk/Wax-Seals-Parchment?search=parchment&description=true


As for GW, try and get hold of some Empire plastics. Flagellants, Knights, State Troops, Militia, all will have some useful stuff.

I love the 3D Regiments Designer...

http://anvilindustry.co.uk/Regiments/Regiments-Custom-Squad-Builder/regiments-custom-platoon-builder

 TheManWithNoPlan wrote:
When you say 'Crusaders' what sort of aesthetic are you looking for? Like things drawing from the actual Crusades or what?

I'm actually not sure - Not really a specific aesthetic, maybe a semi-medieval one? 'Crusade' might be a bad word for it, I pretty much want a collection of Guardsmen/Marines from several different regiments/chapters united under one fanatical leader.

I really love Anvil, the only problem is that they are pretty expensive for what I'm looking for. Sorry, they're great, but a bit too much.

I've had a look at Warlord Games' Pike and Shotte range: great looking 17th-18th century models. I'm not sure if they're the right size though, both the Bolt Action and Hail Caesar models I own are slightly too small for any Guardsmen bits. I'd love to have a Rough RIder unit made of either their Swedish Cavalry (with accompanying infantry!) or their generic cavalry box.

I hear ya on prices, but you are totally right about the scale. You can often wind up spending on a ton on historical kits to get only a few useable parts due to the scale problem.

Warlord is "true scale". Doesn't mesh well at all with 40k stuff.

Hmm. I guess I'll just have to take pistoliers as rough riders then

 Matthew wrote:
Hmm. I guess I'll just have to take pistoliers as rough riders then

Mad Robot has some sci-fi horsemen. I'm considering them for my Rough Riders.

I lucked out! I won an auction for five Bretonnian knights for the equivalent of a Subway sandwich, and the woman I bought them from asked "Hey, I've got a few more miniatures and these sprues... wanna take a look?" So i came home yesterday with 10 Bretonnian knights and pistoliers, around 20 assembled Empire infantry, 6 sprues of Handgunners, infantrymen and bitz, artillery crew, bitz and everything, for the equivalent price of three meals at McDonald's and a few weeks worth of energy drinks from the store next to my school. I'm a happy person to say the least, and now I have a box of Guardsmen, a box of Tau FW and all the Empire bitz to build my army from.

It's obviously not going to be optimal: I'll have close to no armour (right now at least) and 2 5-man squads of Rough Riders. Only dilemma is that I have more sword/spear arms than musket/crossbow/lasgun arms! I've thought of using swordsmen/Spearmen as conscripts.

It's a shame I can't have an HQ on a horse, I got a beautifully painted Bretonnian knight that would be perfect, but I guess I'll have to pick the infantrymen with the fanciest armour.

Also, a bit of a moral dilemma: two or three of the horsemen plus some of the infantrymen (and a few of the random other figures I got) are really well painted. Like, almost beautifully, including some of them models I'd like to strip and repaint. I feel like it would be a bit rude almost to the woman's (presumably) dead brother to remove his beautiful paintjob. Maybe I'll keep two or three models in their original paintjob and strip the rest?

It's a crusading army, right? A combination of many different units? Use those horsemen as the last survivors of their regiment that have been absorbed into other units. Problem solved. Diversity is your friend in this case.

I kind of need help deciding a scheme: Red will unfortunately not work since two out of the three other Guard armies at my club are in red, so I'm a bit anxious over how I should paint them. I've thought of a russian green or a bright purple, or maybe a leadbelcher for the armour? I don't know, I could really use some suggestions

White red ala historical crusaders should keep the red minimal enough it won't be too similar to other ig army and i don't recall seeing too many white and red ig armies.

Unfortunately white red is the colour scheme of another Guard army based on Empire conversions, so unfortunately off the ccharts. A dawnstone grey is the lightest colour I'll go

Maybe go with something like the Knights Hospitaller?

Yeah, I'd pay homage to Black Templar schemes, personally.

Wouldn't black be a bit... boring? The majority of all guardsmen will have little to no (visual) armour, only clothes. Black would be cool but a bit dull on plain clothes. I'm not trying to put down your suggestions, I'm just really, *really* unsure on how to paint them.

Go with good old urban camo off a black base. Easy

That looks amazing but it might be strange on a feudal looking force

Well, I paint Raven Guard, which are almost entirely black with white accents, so I don't find it boring

Maybe go black with the armored pieces being white?

I think "Ye Olde Tyme" style clothing in ultra-modern urban camo would be awesome. Just about the 40kiest thing possible. Realistically, 40k is just fantasy...IN SPACE! so the mix would be right at home.

How about look into official empire or bretonnia uniform schemes?

Eg.