Stalker Pattern Bolter Conversion

So a shorter post today. I'm going to be conducting a short series on the conversions I've been performing on my units to give them that Spec Ops look. First up is how i've been creating the designated marksman's rifle, AKA the stalker pattern bolter. If you've ever played the Relic space marine game you'll know that the chaos version of the stalker is referred to as the daemon eye bolter. I'm being purely semantic at this point.

So there's a few things you're going to need to make this work. Most obviously is a bolter. I prefer the chaos model, theres more character to it.

The other things you're going to need is a scope from the normal tactical squad box and a guardsman's rifle.

Alternately, and this is preferable (although requires a harder to find part) a spare sniper rifle from the space marine scout sprue will supply all our required parts.

Now before we start any sawing it's critically important that we drill the holes for the barrel of our gun and the flash holes on the muzzle. you could do this stop later with the completed conversion, but its harder than doing it now.

Once the holes are drilled carefully saw the silencer off the sniper rifle. If you do this with care and preserve the small attachment detail on the other side you will need to shave it down slightly to have it fit on the bolters barrel neatly. If you don't have access to the sniper rifle then evergreen plasticard produces tubes in 1/8" sizing that is close in scale.

The next step is the scope. the tactical marine sprues scope is smaller in size than the one on the sniper rifle but is easier to attatch. Since i want that bigger look ive careffuly sawn off the scope from the sniper sprue and then using a very sharp X-Acto blade removed any additional plastic and attatched the scope to the top of the bolter.

As a final addition i have attatched the but of the rifle/lasgun to the bolter to help balance it out. If you decide to do this i would highly recommend atttatching it upside down as pictured below so that it fits on your marines properly.

Telion will be jealous

Here is the finished model. Please forgive the poor lighting, it's a little late right now. You should be able to clearly see however how the two pieces have been used together.

Fire Team Bravo

So i was feeling a little burnt out after having painted up fire team alpha and the Warsmith (finished pictures coming soon) so i took a bit of a break from the army for a week or so. I want to do this project on my time frame, not someone else's. Fortunately, the muse returned, and I jumped back into the second half of the chaos squad with far more intensity than the first.

This squad took less time to complete than the first, having completed a proof of concept of each SWAT archetype. In that regards, the only "new" model here is the squads second in command/comms guy. I decided for game purposes it wasn't viable to have two models that looked like sergeants so I created a new role to delineate them as models.

So without further ado i present the second half of my first Chaos Space Marine Squad.

Fire Team Bravo

Designated Marksman. I wasn't sure what this model was going to be initially, i just knew i wanted him griping a pistol in that classic two handed pose. From here, the large bulky  stalker pattern bolter seemed like the best fit with the rest of the model.

I'm not 100% happy with how this model turned out, but the bolter is better than my first attempt at it. It might be hard to see, but i've used a sniper scouts scope for this rifle which i think really helps differentiate this from other scoped bolters.

Demolitions Expert. I've used a head from the new Warp Talons/Raptors sprue that a friend kindly donated. I like the look of the head, it's slightly MkIV if i'm not mistaken. The meltagun is a spare imperial version i had lying around, so the addition of a spiked chain helps chaos-ify it. I think the gun requires more spikes however... The model also has a melta bomb and various other grenades and explosives on his person.

Second in Command/Comms. I'm really happy with how this models turned out. Essentially I've cut a cadian comms pack into a chaos backpack. Like a heretical version of the forgeworld model. Binoculars on his right calf and a strap slung drum barrel bolter round him out. the strap was taken from the slaneeshi icon in the chaos squad box.






Another angle of the Comms Officer. The shovel on the backpack is from an imperial guard heavy weapons team. In Graham mcNeil's "Iron Warriors Omnibus" the Warsmith Honsou discuss siege craft with a fellow iron warriors and mentions their trenching tools. I thought this was a great piece of character for the legion and have been adding them to models throughout the army.

 Hells Yeah! I love this guy. He's going to need a tiny bit more work to fill gaps and such, but overall he is a big win for me. Inspiration came from my old world of warcraft days and one of the most attractive armour sets of vanilla wow.
http://www.wowhead.com/itemset=209/battlegear-of-might#screenshots:id=320988
That's right, Battlegear of Might. I collected this set on my warrior purely for the aesthetics and I'm glad i was able to capture the feel here.

The Gorget was made from an orc boyz jaw plate that i cut to fit. i also sharpened the "teeth" to make them more uniformal and less haphazardly orcish.
The tassets are a pair of kroot shoulder plates layered ontop of one another and the chest piece comes from the chaos vehicle sprue (love that sprue)

The siege shield had its imperial eagle scrapped off and replaced with a bit from the chaos vehicle sprue.

Suppression Fire. Nothing special here honestly. theres a shovel on his backpack and some other bits and pieces, but i honestly prefer the first heavy bolter marine that i put together. Bandoleers are bad ass and i'm feeling the lack of one here. I'll remember that for next time






So that's an HQ and one troop choice down. What's next? Obviously some paint is in order. Hopefully I'll be able to smash that out oveer the coming weekend. and after that? A Rhino seems in order.