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Now that my production of standard lasgun-argmed guardsmen is well underway, I'm ready to start working on special and heavy weapons for my squads. I see that heavy weapons come in a wide variety of kits (single weapon team, three-team box, etc), while special weapons appear limited to a few metal sets. (I'm trying really hard to avoid using any of the metal ones - I'm doing too many conversions to deal with them.) Is there any consensus on the most cost-efficient way to purchase these? I'm mainly looking for lascannons and plasma guns, but I'd like to use autocannons as well (for combat patrol games that are unlikely to include heavy vehicles), and I assume that I'll eventually want some meltaguns. I've heard a few people suggest that plasma guns in particular might be more easily obtained from non-guard kits.

Marine and Chaos Marine kits are your easiest source of plastic plas/melta. You may need to chop them down slightly (unless you're using catachan's) but its an easy conversion.

I'd just trade beer/food for bits with any SM or CSM players you can find IMHO!

There are no plastic IG plasma or melta bits available, but as Calvin said, they are widely available in SM Tactical and Command boxes, as well as Chaos Marine boxes.

the war store sells them under their Battlewagon bitz program, or you can trade for them.

I've been trying to outfit my IG army with special weapons for a couple months now and here's what I've found:

- If you want plastic special weapons, you're looking at paying between $2.50 and $3.50 per plasma gun and $2.00 to $3.00 per melta gun if you're buying from a Bitz dealer on Ebay or from places like Battlewagon Bitz or The Warstore. These are the only places you can reliably get plastic special weapons in bulk.

- As Chimera_Calvin and Polonius said, you can trade for them. If you do this, you can often buy them off of folks for cash value of $0.75 to $2.00 per special weapon, although it depends on how aware the traders are of the bitz value on the places mentioned above. If you're insisting on plastics, this is the cheapest way to go, although it will take you longer to get all the bitz you need as you can rarely find someone with enough of the weapons you need in one place.

- If you're willing to go with metal Plasma and Melta Guns, GW just started offering Plasma and Melta Gun bitz packs with 5 guns for $6.00. If I hadn't already dumped a bunch of money with a bitz seller on Ebay, this is what I would've done as it comes out to $1.20 a weapon - better than a lot of deals you'll get trading on places like Dakka's Swapshop or Bartertown.

This article might help you:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Converting_Plasma_Guns

Meltas are a bit more problematic.

Hmmm. The solution I used for my Marines ages ago was to hack apart Ork shootas to something uniform, and explain they were a 'counts as' for the plasmas.
Otherwise, SM/chaos collectors. Trade them fancy bits that they can't get easily in their own kits, such as heavy weapons, helmets, and so forth.

All else fails, improvise and create something unique and distinctive.

Thanks for the advice. The plasma gun situation seems kind of grim (unless there are lots of marine players out there who happen to be really desperate for loose aquila-emblazoned canteens). That article on conversion is great, but it looks like getting the nozzle/coil section the conversions are based on is a lot of work for such a small part. I assume I'd end up cutting the metal ones the same way even if I used them, just to get the guardsmens' hands on the grip. Does anyone know how difficult that would be? (I'm guessing it takes a reciprocating saw or some sort of abrasive rotary attachment for a drill.)

Alternatively, has anyone found a good way to make recognizable plasma weapons (or just the nozzle and coil sections) from scratch? I think I could carve the coil out of putty, but the tapered nozzle with the horizontal vent slits looks difficult. I'll probably try a few things with some spare grenade launchers later - I seem to have a lot of those (and that neat ammo drum has to be good for something).

How about heavy weapons? Are the guard kits for those the way to go? Do the multi-team kits come with more than one weapon of each type? (If not, would it work to pull the alternative heavy guns off the marine sprues too? If so, would Devestators provide both the plasma and heavy parts in greater numbers?)

Actually, a decent razor saw (http://www.amazon.com/Xacto-X75300-Precision-Razor-Saw/dp/B00004Z2U4 - $8.35 from Amazon - or around $10 from a local hobby shop) will cut through a metal plasma or melta gun right quick without too terribly much effort.

As far as the Heavy Weapons go, each Heavy Weapons Team comes with 2 Guard models, 1 heavy bolter, 1 autocannon, 1 mortar, 1 missile launcher, and 1 lascannon. Although, IMHO, if you want to go lascannon heavy, the best thing to do is find folks with Land Raider Crusaders and trade them for their 4 lascannons. You can bodge up a tripod on your own pretty easily for it. Land Raider and Predator lascannons are actually pretty easy to come by and work fine for Guard Heavy Weapon teams with a little work. But really, depending on how many Heavy Bolters, Missile Launchers, Mortars, and Autocannons you want, the set is actually pretty good. The kits are really great, because you don't really need anything special other than the ML arms for the ML, so if you've got extra Cadians, you can use the bits with them. Similarly with the mortar. With the autocannon, heavy bolter, and lascannon, you probably want kneeling legs and arms fitted to be firing the weapon, but you can buy extras of those bits on ebay for fairly cheap. So, one heavy weapon kit gives you a lot of flexibility.

Quidlon wrote:Thanks for the advice. The plasma gun situation seems kind of grim (unless there are lots of marine players out there who happen to be really desperate for loose aquila-emblazoned canteens). That article on conversion is great, but it looks like getting the nozzle/coil section the conversions are based on is a lot of work for such a small part.

Cost/Quality/Time. Choose two, because you really can't get all three. The problem here is that you can get cheap and good at the expense of time, or get cheap and quick at the expense of the quailty, or you can just pay for it, and lose some $$$. Your choice. Not trying to be harsh, but that's the reality of it.

That being said, the only tools I used were a sharp hobby knife, some fine sand paper, green stuff, and an old gw sculpting tool.

Death By Monkeys wrote: Similarly with the mortar. With the autocannon, heavy bolter, and lascannon, you probably want kneeling legs and arms fitted to be firing the weapon, but you can buy extras of those bits on ebay for fairly cheap. So, one heavy weapon kit gives you a lot of flexibility.

Someone mentioned using a standing cadian as your loader, then you can keep the other ones to crew more HW. Also, never underestimate the power of the scenic base to allow you to use sandbags, etc. instead of the tripod/bi-pod bit.

Valhallan42nd wrote:Someone mentioned using a standing cadian as your loader, then you can keep the other ones to crew more HW. Also, never underestimate the power of the scenic base to allow you to use sandbags, etc. instead of the tripod/bi-pod bit.

Tru dat, yo.

i've made melta guns out of catachan flamers, If you cut out the fuel tank,the trigger and the lower half of the nozel you can turn the whole thing upside down and it becomes a melta

I nicked this picture of the other thread...

That's a good point - check out Stelek's army blog in the P&M blogs to see how he's made meltas out of IG flamers (http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/60/213337.page).