I've never been a fan of the stubby appearance of firstborn marines. They're certainly stylised and have their place within the traditional 40K art style but with more and more Primaris marine kits releasing, the announcement of the new 'Beastsnagga' orks and the more realistic appearance of the newly announced 'Gaunt's Ghosts' black library guard models, truescale is definitely the in thing right now and I am completely okay with it. However, I'm not just a collector. I like to play with my toy soldiers and limiting myself to Primaris would lock me out of all sorts of cool models and strategy opportunities. There was only one thing to do. I had to kitbash a middle ground.
As someone who is relatively new to the 40K hobby, as well as being a broke student, the thought of cutting up £50-100 worth of kits for the sake of one unit was a daunting one. That being said, the thought of having stubby little baby marines amongst my 2000pt strong crusade of Primaris brought even more fear to my soul. I knew I wouldn't be able to handle that sort of inconsistency without hating both the models and myself. As such, I bit the bolter.
I started by picking up a box of 10 Assault Intercessors from Games Workshop. The dynamic running poses and Primaris-scale parts made for an excellent baseline in my conversion, while being fairly cost-effective. It also meant that I could acquire the Assault Intercessor Sergeant's alternate weapon loadout options for the ones from the Indomitus boxset, whom I had already magnetized in anticipation for their full kit release.
My next purchase was the original Vanguard Veterans kit from Games Workshop. This seemed like the most obvious course of action for making Vanguard Veterans. I could think of few better methods of obtaining all the required loadout options and jump-packs for these fellas at this good a price. The helmets would also help in giving the Vanguards a noticeably firstborn appearance while still maintaining the more realistic proportions of their Primaris brothers (more on this later).
While I don't have pictures, as this project was started and subsequently finished, before this blog was created, over the course of about 2 weeks, with the bulk of it being the drilling and magnetising of every arm and weapon (this step is obviously optional), I do have pictures of the current un-primed, 90% finished, first-attempts and I'm happy with how they turned out.
I began by assembling the assault intercessor's torso and legs. As the legs and torso are fairly mono-pose, these fit together in specific sets assigned by the instructions they came with. It was as easy as reading which bits needed to go with which. At this point, I tested the Vanguard arms and helmet on my intercessor body and legs and noticed a problem. It looked too much like an Intercessor and not enough like a firstborn, let alone a Vanguard Veteran. I pondered this for some time before the answer slapped me in the face. I had all the torsos I needed in the Vanguard kit.
With care, precision, and numerous scalpel holes in my thumb, I detached every Intercessor torso from it's legs, just above the 'abdomen plate' (See picture). I then cut and scraped the waist section of the Firstborn torsos down so so that the bottom of the torso was a smooth curve and test fitted onto the Primaris torsos. It would need some more back and forth with a file and scalpel but it looked alright.
Do note that while some of the torsos didn't fit together perfectly, a blob of green stuff inside the abdomen, along with some trusty superglue, will help them fit together a lot easier and hold them long enough for you to at least get an idea. This did, however leave some gaps in the backs which I still haven't gotten round to filling all of. Perhaps more careful cuts can prevent this. Measure twice, cut once, as they say.
It was at this point, that I drilled 3mm magnets into the torsos, on each side, making sure to check the polarities so that any arm would accept any weapon for it's 'side', and glued on the jump packs and helmets. Note that while I could probably magnetized the jump packs to be replaceable with standard power packs, who the hell run's their Vanguard Veterans without jump packs? Clearly GW feel the same as I do because no standard power packs are included in the Vanguard Veteran kit.
I do slightly wish I hadn't attached the heads this early as this was before I had glued them to their bases and the forward leans of some of the Assault Intercessor poses combined with the static positioning of their heads makes the finished products look like they've dropped a contact. Bare this in mind if following along at home.
All that was left to do was drill all the required magnet holes in the weapons and arms. This is entirely optional if you have the money or balls to commit to decision on your loadouts. I envy your decisiveness but I'm a little bitch. It took almost a week of afternoons spent drilling and gluing magnets and magnet holes and left me with an impressive zip-lock of interchangeable arms and weapons I can attach to my vanguard vets in almost any array.
I made a point not to bother with pistols, as anyone who runs Vanguard vets with pistols likely has a soft patch on their head and at this point I was sick to death of drilling and magnets, but it paid off. There was one exception, however. As an avid fan of not dying, I like to give all my VVs storm shields most of the time. This caused problems later on when I found that the VV kit only contained 4, despite having 5 dudes inside. I ended up cutting the hand off an arm I had in my bits box and slipping it's fingers under the bendy 3d-printed indomitus shield I purchased off of ebay a few weeks prior and needless to say it looks bloody brilliant in my own unbiased opinion. The larger storm shield helps set the sergeant apart from his squad (If they're all veterans, why are there even sergeants? I digress).
Regardless, here are the finished fellas (See the 'contact lens' problem?). Again, I will mention that their arms and weapon options are fully magnetised so I'll be painting weapons and arms for weeks but it's all worth it for that sweet sweet WYSIWYG we all know and love.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed my first real forum post here on Fistful of Beans.
-Ryan
