Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Hardened Valhallan Vets: Kitbash (and Forge World scanner and GW Objectives)



Here are some Hardened Vets I recently made for an event I couldn't attend. Awesome.

These guys are a kitbash of GW Cadian arms, lasguns and metal SM meltas plus some Maxmini torsos that I built backwards so they became what looks like chest rigs facing forward. I had to trim the collars off to make room for the Pig Iron Colony Militia heads and greenstuff neck/cloth.

All models needed neck sculpting to give the new head purchase and blend cosmetically
Of the chest pouches and weapons there was much trimming and filing where weapons met the chest as well filling voids with sculpted greentstuff. Torsos were positioned first and either pinned or just gap filled with greenstuff.  The legs are Maxmini Greatcoat legs as well.


The heavy flamer is part AM unit from sprue married to SM flamer with brass rods and a tank/rebreather on the side as a pump/primer. Most of the packs are Pig Iron, as are some pouches.



The Sgt. is an older GW tank commander with the head removed and replaced with a Pig Iron head. His left hand was removed and replaced with a gripped fist from the side of a flamer on the AM Cadian sprue. I fit a las pistol on there from the older IG tank sprue, I think.

Overall, I really like how they came out though the casts on the legs were probably the worst I've seen on models, maybe ever. Had I noticed that  I may have even chucked them but as it was I put in time and made them passable thanks to a round rasp and Led Zepp on Spotify. These vets scale well with my Valhallans though they trend the slightest bit smaller (hence the extra kit to bulk them up).


The auspex/master VOX or whatever is Forge World, thrown together at the last minute on a whim, thinking it's be an asset in the game, objective or just nice scenery.


Finally, I mounted the GW objective markers that hold dice onto bases and painted them up.  I boiled the programming outta these servo skulls to soften the plastic and re-bend them to actually grip dice.

That's all the 40k I got for now. Up next some Star Wars X Wing miniatures repaints and some Bushido Ito clan!

9 comments:

greggles said...

I really like these guys. They have a lot of character, and the colors stand out on the tabletop. Sorry you couldn't attend the event, as I'm sure they would have received a lot of praise!

Joe Kopena said...

These guys look awesome. I'm super partial to the flame thrower, looks great. The overloaded front chest packs are a very clever reverse, I love the look.

Great photos also. How are you lighting these? I still can't get mine quite how I want it.

Tiberius Primaris said...

Very nice, well kitted out Vets.

Yeti's Yell said...

Greg,

Thanks! I am sure they will wow somebody soon when they hit the table, draw a crazy amount of fire or rending weapon hits, die and sit in the dead tray :)

Joe,

Thanks man. Lighting: I either shoot them in front of a piece of paper, black or white, under an Ott light OR I shoot under a bright florescent and adjust the levels in Photobucket, usually adjusting the contrast. In this case, the lighting was good as-is. I typically only really try and shoot the shadow cast by the mini directly behind it and not in camera frame. I light the scene so I do not need a fill flash. Macro mode sometimes leads to the best flashless, light-fill-free shots. Let me know if you want some help next shoot, be glad to come over.

Tiberius,

Thanks man. It was fun debating the loadout before I built them. I almost went 3 meltas or some plasma but I'll be damned if my plasma gunners don't take them selves out somehow everytime. We'll see if it pays off in kills.

Best,

Yeti

Paul O'G said...

Nice work! Those figs would make a nice Imperial Russian Siberian unit for In Her Majesty's Name!

Yeti's Yell said...

Thanks Paul and you are right! In fact, I still have sprues of old GW weapons for Necromunda. I wanted these guys to have autoguns instead of what equates to batteries in their weapons because of the extreme cold but I simply didn't have the time. If I did that then they'd look even better for IHMN.

-Yeti

Unknown said...

They look great, just wondering where you got the canteens. Not an IG player so excuse me if they are a basic accessory found in virtually every set, but they look so much like the ones on the old metal Valhallans.

Yeti's Yell said...

Hey Joel,

The canteens are from the 40k Cadian Imperial Guard sprues. There are some "belt fluff" bits that you can add to the wasetline which include grenades, las rifle magazine spares, bayonettes and like here, a canteen.

I agree, they marry well with the old metal aesthetics.

Best,

Yeti

James Dean said...

Thhis is a great post thanks