The new Chaos Space Marine Helbrute from GW is not only terrific for its own sake, it’s also great for the extra conversion bits it provides.
For those of us with multiple Dark Vengeance (DV) starter set Helbrutes the extra arms and heads allow us to convert multiple variants of that model.
When I purchased the new Helbrute multi-part kit I was more excited about seeing how the arms and heads would fit on a DV Helbrute than I was about building the actual kit. I immediately set about seeing how I could change an arm and head on the starter set model.
The first thing I did on purchasing the multi-part Helbrute was to decide which head and arms were going on it. The next thing that I did was choose a head and arm to fit to a DV Helbrute. I set about attaching the chosen head to the inside of the torso. I used a piece of sprue and plastic glue to secure the head in place.
 |
| A piece of sprue secures the conversion head in place. |
From the front the head is seen looking off toward the Helbrute’s right. It’s gaze will eventually follow the angle of the right arm.
 |
| The conversion head seen from the front. |
Next I built that awesome looking plasma cannon from the new Helbrute and experiment with fitting it to the DV Helbrute. I used a modeling knife and flush cutting sprue nippers to remove the parts of the existing multi-melta arm that will be replaced.
 |
| The multi-melta molded arm has been removed. |
The new plasma cannon arm has been fitted where the stock multi-melta arm used to sit. The new arm fit quite snugly and I only had small gaps to fill. I used tiny slivers of scrap plastic from the offcuts along with plastic glue to fill the gaps.
 |
| The new plasma cannon arm fully attached. |
The converted Helbrute is attached to its base and is nearly complete.
 |
| Conversion complete with new head and arm. |
The converted Helbrute is fully converted, assembled and primed and painting has begun.
 |
| Fully converted, assembled and ready for painting. |
As of now I’m planning to paint this Helbrute in my renegade Chaos legion colors. You can see this color scheme on my Heldrake, Maulerfiend and Forgefiend.
 |
| A trio of painted daemon engines from my Chaos Marine legion. |
In spite of the controversy over the usefulness of Chaos Helbrute Dreadnoughts in the current version of Warhammer 40,000 I think most would agree that their background story and the current plastic models for them are extremely evocative and fun to model and paint.
I have every version of Chaos Dreadnought by Games Workshop starting with the first one made of lead and have built and converted many different versions of Chaos Dreadnoughts over more than two decades. I’ll be painting at least three or four more of these monsters utilizing the new plastic versions. I already had a blast converting the new plastic starter set Helbrute as soon as it was released a couple years ago. You can see that article with work-in-progress photos here: Blood for the Hellbrute, Skulls for Khorne!
 |
| My Khorne Helbrute with Juggernaut head and buzz-saw hands. |
I’m currently painting three Helbrutes, the conversion featured here, a stock starter set model and the multi-part model built from the recently released kit.
