Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Mutant auxiliaries

o/

I went out of town this past weekend, so nothing happened on the hobby front. However I don't post everything that I work on for just this sort of situation. One such item is my mutant auxiliary test model.

The Imperial Guard has conscripts (sometimes called 'White Shields'), the Vraks list has the 'Worker's Rabble' and the Tyrant's Legion has the 'Legion Auxilia'. Regardless of name, these units are essentially the same, piss poor BS:2 cannon fodder. Sometimes they can have mixed weaponry, and the occasional special or heavy weapon, but for the most part they just come with las/auto guns.

Generally I use Cawdor gangers from Necromunda. They're easily the best 'counts as' minis GW ever made (well, make that a distant second to the bare plastic Space Marine). However, while having 20+ Cawdor minis, I don't have enough with auto/lasguns and often proxy shotguns as such (and the proxies are always the first to die). Buying new (or even used) Cawdor guys is prohibitively expensive, so I went looking for an alternative.

I've seen plenty of beastmen/IG conversions online I figured that would work easily enough, and indeed it has. Usually I see Gor bodies used but that always struck me as being a bit out of proportion (which is an amusing concept when considering that these are mutants...). So I used Ungor with Catachan arms. No cutting, filing, or green stuff required, it was a perfect fit! To call this a conversion almost seems untruthful. I gave it a quick & simple paint job, slather it in Ogryn Flesh wash, and a quick drybrush when done. As such, I figure that I can crank these out in short order. The longest part of the process is waiting on the wash to dry.

So I asked the FLGS to order me two Ungor boxes, while I've been acquiring Catachan arm/gun bitz on ebay. I don't know if I'll bother with any special weapons for these guys or not. With a BS of 2, its probably not worth it. Probably not even enough chance to hit to convince a dreadnought to steer clear of them really. I dunno, will see.

3 comments:

  1. Nice idea. I believe IG used to have beastmen back in the day (Rogue Trader, before my time), though it seems a bit contrary to fluff these days.

    Regarding implementation though, I'd say the arms look a bit too burly on the puny ungor body. Maybe it's just the angle. I guess you can get away with it, them being mutants!

    If you're buying the ungor anyway, then Empire flagellants would be another option - and maybe fit better with your Cawdor.

    Oh and BS 2 is crying out for some flamers surely?

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  2. Yeah I've heard of the the IG using beast men way back when, it was before my time as well though. However seeing as how I have Chaos guardsmen, they'll fit right in.

    As for the bodies, I think they look too small on Gors, so its kindova catch 22. I've already ordered the Ungor so I'll just go with them as is.

    And yes flamers if anything. Grenade launcher might work if I were to use them as a stand off unit. However as cannon fodder, it only makes sense to run them forward. Now that I think of it, some of the Catachan bitz that I've ordered conveniently came with flamers.

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  3. Nice work. Calling it a conversion or not, it works for your army and its quick like you said. If waiting for the wash to dry is the longest part, you're onto something here.

    This looks like a win to me.
    Ron, FTW

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