Biggle Bear's tech crew and more

[Biggle_Bear]

Hi there,

This is a new thread for some kit bashing that I plan to do. @CaptainDangerous gifted me a bunch of frostgrave sprue (an awesome gift, thank you. *Rimmer Salut for the captain), and after much deliberation I have decided on a couple of projects.

First off, a generic tech crew using the Spacegrave soldier sprue and the crew sprue.

Tech crew pre-assembly

• Biggle_Bear
• Feb 2, 2023

I want to keep them fairly generic so that they can proxy for several different purposes, such as Van Saar, engineers, etc. To do that I am avoiding melee weapons as they don't port to every gaming system. And arm them with the more ambiguous looking soldier laser rifles. I will give them some tool gubbins too.

Tech crew members 1 to 4 stage 1

• Biggle_Bear
• Feb 2, 2023

Here is the leader, heavy with rpg, female hanger and Male ganger.

 

[Biggle_Bear]

I also started on a chaos marine killteam. Here are the cultists.

Chaos cultists stage 1

• Biggle_Bear
• Feb 2, 2023

The bodies come from the cultists sprue but I armed them all with autoguns from the crew sprue and I am not a fan of the cultist heads or arms from the cultist sprue. Plus I was eager to add sci-fi parts and I think they go well thematically (but the shoulders are different scales)

 

[Biggle_Bear]

The fluff I have for the chapter is that they are khorne aligned but worship him as a god of protection, and live on the planet the locals renamed Mercy. Here they live in peace from the fascist imperium of man. That's why two of the cultists are mutants.

I wanted to give them a look that they are regular people with their own culture, rather than crazed savages with guns. That's why I think these bodies are perfect. They are serfs to their lords, the chaos marines, and willingly live submissive to them.

 

[Biggle_Bear]

For the marines, I wanted to give them a drastic change. So I am starting with the frostgrave demons as the base.

Chaos space marines pre-assembly

• Biggle_Bear
• Feb 2, 2023

I am planning to give them back packs and flaired shins to make them identifiable as 40k marines but otherwise design them closer to medieval knights from thereon. So lots of swords and boltpistols.

One thing I am stumped on are the back packs. I don't want to pay scalpers prices of Ebay but I am struggling to come up with an idea that would include this important signature of chaos space marines.

 

[Tiny]

Nice. I picked up a bunch of these sprues recently so great to see what someone else is doing with them before I assemble mine. Frostgrave demons are super cool looking and I bet they'll kitbash well into futuristic mutant space knight types.

Not sure on a good source of chaos marine style backpacks. Maybe somewhere like Mad Robot, Anvil Industry or Kromlech?

 

[trollmeat]

The fluff I have for the chapter is that they are khorne aligned but worship him as a god of protection, and live on the planet the locals renamed Mercy. Here they live in peace from the fascist imperium of man. That's why two of the cultists are mutants.

I wanted to give them a look that they are regular people with their own culture, rather than crazed savages with guns. That's why I think these bodies are perfect. They are serfs to their lords, the chaos marines, and willingly live submissive to them.

While the good people of “Mercy” see themselves as peaceful and kind, the daily ritual sacrifices, tradition of flaying slaves (so their blood fertilises the fields), and “Rescue Raids” where they “save unbelievers” to replenish their meat markets, are all hints that tell the casual observer that this is indeed a planet to be avoided.

 

[Biggle_Bear]

While the good people of “Mercy” see themselves as peaceful and kind, the daily ritual sacrifices, tradition of flaying slaves (so their blood fertilises the fields), and “Rescue Raids” where they “save unbelievers” to replenish their meat markets, are all hints that tell the casual observer that this is indeed a planet to be avoided.

@trollmeat you have such a deep understanding of where I'm going with this!

 

[Ardavion]

One thing I am stumped on are the back packs. I don't want to pay scalpers prices of Ebay but I am struggling to come up with an idea that would include this important signature of chaos space marines.

Have you got chaos backpack bits you'd quite like to use, and don't mind duplicates? Buy some "blue stuff", make two-part moulds and create copies for personal use out of milliput/green stuff!

Have you got space marine backpacks, wire and green stuff? Modify the space marine backpacks to look more "chaosy"!

Don't care for GW specific backpacks, as long as they work? 3rd party bits (or get STLs printed via one of the various services out there, or a friend)!

 

[sykoholic]

One thing I am stumped on are the back packs. I don't want to pay scalpers prices of Ebay but I am struggling to come up with an idea that would include this important signature of chaos space marines.

Not being all that familiar with CSMs, I did a quick eBay search and the results I got were essentially jump packs with all the various Chaos stylings and trappings (Ie: chains, scalemail, overlapping plates, and lots of spikes) so maybe some appropriately decorated jump packs from Mad Robot?

 

[Punktaku]

I ran out of CSM backpacks when I made my Khorne berserkers ages ago, so i used extra marine backpacks and snipped the vents off and replaced them with chaos bits and undead bits.

 

[Biggle_Bear]

Unfortunately no dice on the space marine back packs either. I was considering to use the shields on the demon sprue and model some vent out the sides but them shields are HUGH! They stick out the sides and get in the way of elbows.

I like the price @sykoholic but not the right style or side of the pond, unless I put in the extra effort to win the comp and get that free shipping!

 

[sykoholic]

Spellcrow Space Knights Backpacks?

 

[Biggle_Bear]

Yesterday's progress...

First the tech crew leader. He has a bone through his hair and a nose chain. I need to neaten up the green stuff then on to painting.

Tech crew leader stage 2

• Biggle_Bear
• Feb 5, 2023

Next, a mock up of a chaos space marine.

Chaos space marines stage bluetack front

• Biggle_Bear
• Feb 5, 2023

Chaos space marines stage bluetack back

• Biggle_Bear
• Feb 5, 2023

Last, I really like the frostgrave barbarian sprue. I will make 3 of 5 into pit fighters for Necromunda but I wanted at least 1 to be purely from that sprue. In my mind this guy is a ranger, as I've been listening to a lot about larp and rangers are a popular aesthetic.

Random ranger

• Biggle_Bear
• Feb 5, 2023

 

[trollmeat]

Next, a mock up of a chaos space marine.

Looking great, but you clearly meant to say “loyal to the true merciful god emperor”

With those bits it isn’t translating, for me, to being a feudal space marine. Might be the lack of backpack jet nubbins and/or oversized shoulder pads *shrugs emoji*

ps: Would be cool to have a lil tube going from the mouth.

 

[Biggle_Bear]

Looking great, but you clearly meant to say “loyal to the true merciful god emperor”

With those bits it isn’t translating, for me, to being a feudal space marine. Might be the lack of backpack jet nubbins and/or oversized shoulder pads *shrugs emoji*

ps: Would be cool to have a lil tube going from the mouth.

Back packs with the extended exhausts are a must. I want to try it with more modest shoulder pads. And I want to modify the helmets, especially the respirator, but I want to start with a modern tactical helmet as the base.

 

[Tiktaalik]

The chaos marine looks pretty good. He is proportioned well and the armor fits. Hats off to you. I tried making a true scale marine (or tried to make him bigger than a baseline human) and it is not easy. If I had a critique it would be that the pistol is oversized.

 

[Biggle_Bear]

Sorry for the lack of WIP photos. I rarely get good light for photos and it is often a fight to get hobby time in. I have almost done the tech crew. I just need to do the bases and give them a grimey colour wash stage. Then obviously good photos, not late night camera flash photos.

Tech crew almost done

• Biggle_Bear
• Apr 28, 2023

I like describing my choices but I will do that in the final post.

After this I will give minis a rest, and get some scenery done on my other threads. I'm hoping to have these guys and my delaques duke it out on YouTube at some point.

 

[Biggle_Bear]

Introducing...

THE TECH CREW!!!

Tech crew - finished

• Biggle_Bear
• May 19, 2023

Tech crew - finished leader and heavy

• Biggle_Bear
• May 19, 2023

Tech crew - finished 3 juves

• Biggle_Bear
• May 19, 2023

Tech crew - finished 3 gangers

• Biggle_Bear
• May 19, 2023

Tech crew - finished 2 gangers

• Biggle_Bear
• May 19, 2023

This is my attempt to make a generic scifi technician crew, obviously armed, otherwise they would be unplayable.

I made them using the Stargrave soldier and crew sprues. Because I wanted them to be system agnostic (if that is the word I'm thinking of) I armed them mostly with the soldier rifles as I feel they look more ambiguous. I don't think they will cause a problem being laser blasters, or cyberpunk assault rifles, or even as high tech shotguns.

I didn't have enough bases for them and so instead of buying bases I used draughts pieces, which give a nice border and are recessed so they need to be filled up with base decor.

Painting-wise I started with blue overalls just to contrast with my delaques. I then gave them yellow 'safety' harnesses, then realised that I painted them as Fallout characters. I considered changing it but then decided to leave it. The rest of the colours are grey, off white, black or metal. Washed in a brow/ grey.

The back drop is from a happy meal, but my little one hasn't seen spiderman so I helped her to misplace it.

 

[Biggle_Bear]

Tech crew stand off against the Delaque mafia

• Biggle_Bear
• May 19, 2023

And here is a pick of the leaders meeting on a New York rooftop.

 

[Tiktaalik]

Thanks for sharing assembled stargrave plastic figures. they look like something in between perfectly proportioned figures and heroic scale.