Caleb from White Metal Games put this conversion guide together for all those Warmasters out there suffering from a lack of equipment courtesy of Games Workshop.
A few weeks ago we sold our first commissioned 40k army. It was a 1500 point list and it was a blind bid. By blind bid I mean we boasted we could do any army the client liked.
Being that the new Chaos codex recently released it should have been no surprise that the client requested a Chaos army list.
In this case, the client wanted not only a bunch of Thousand Sons marines, but also a ton of noise marines! 30 in fact.
The problem is, after placing our bits order through GW we received an email from them stating that the bits we needed (Noise Marine and Thousand Son upgrade packs) were on backorder and wouldn’t be up for sale again until December!!!
What to do what to do? We’ve got a client we promised an army too and no bits in sight!
Fortunately fate had shined on us and given us a great client that was willing to let us experiment. “Just make it look like the real thing, as close as you can get.” Okay, we can handle that.
I looked around for some cheap ways to do noise marines online, to convert sonic weaponry, and didn’t really see anything that blew my mind. Time to get creative and flex the old brain muscle.
I really like the look of Sonic weaponry. There’s an organic quality to it, almost like the marine is joined with his blaster. All the hoses and wires . . . and those little faces on the fronts of the barrels! How was I going to make this work.
My first thought was Tau Weaponry, which had that same sleekness to it that the Sonic Blasters do. But it was too small, too dainty. So I started looking around my shop for something bigger.
My second thought was Necron weapons.
Closer, but still not right. They were certainly bigger, and had enough do dads and wires, but it felt too clean.
Then I stumbled across a devourer bin from my Tyranid bits. THIS COULD WORK!
The conversion itself is actually very simple.
For the Sonic Blaster, beg your Tyranid playing friends for a few spare devourers. You don’t necessarily need both arms, just the gun arm.
Cleanly snip the tip off the devourer (the fleshy lump end) and attach a small Chaos Gargoyle heads from the Vehicle Upgrade Sprue to the end of the barrel. I’m sure you have a gazillion of these lying around.
Glue the gun arm in place and use the should pad to cover up the irregularly fitted tyranid arm. Use the regular Chaos arm that grips the bolter for the lefty and presto, instant Noise marine with sonic blaster!
For the blast master, it’s a bit trickier. Grab a spare Heavy Bolter. You remember these right? They still exist even if no one is using them.
Now grab a Necron player and beg them for a few spares from their bits box, namely, a spare Gauss blaster from the Immortals kit and the piece that cojoins at the back of their neck, the spinal column. Even if you buy them, you can get all the bits you need for a squad of 10 of these for about 10 bucks on ebay.
On the heavy bolter, snip the barrel off, and clean up the port side of the housing, the side facing out when held by the CSM. Now attach the housing cowling from the gauss blaster to the side of the heavy bolter, and use the spinal column to fill in the gap. Attach another gargoyle head to the front of the barrel (I used the longer variant to give a little variety to the figures) and use the normal heavy bolter arms this time. Presto! Instant blast master!
Now, are they as nice as the real Noise Marine upgrade kit? Of course not. But you can’t get the noise marine upgrade kit til Christmas, and most 40k players want their toys NOW NOW NOW!!!
For Thousand Sons, check out the Stygian line from Kromlech miniatures. Outstanding bits for a fair price.
Be sure to check out all our great custom conversions in our ebay store. We do tons of neat conversions like this every week! We are conversions artists for hire!
Do you have your own CSM Cultists conversions you’d like to share? I’d love to see some other Sonic weapons and Rubric marine conversions. Send us your pics, links, whatever!
PUT YOUR MINIS WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS!!!!
Caleb, WMG
About the Author: Caleb Dillon
