This Saturday my local hobby store 31st Century Games & Hobbies is hosting a 40k team tournament. The stipulations are that each team member should bring a list not in excess of 750 points and are obliged to include the compulsory HQ and two troops choices. That's nothing out of the ordinary, but what is is that full interaction will be allowed between team members' armies.. yes, you can buff your teammates units, your models can ride in their transports, and independent characters can join any squad they so choose (all these interactions hinge upon the letter of the rule in each codex). The possibilities are huge.
Nearly a month ago my brother and I got wind of this and began to hatch our plans. We decided that I would field Eldar and he chaos marines, lots of shooting and bad-A close combat. We even played a practice game against a mutual friend, which we resoundingly won.
Our scheme was set, but after a night of New Year's drinking and dice rolling (not of a hobby gaming nature for a change) he proposed an idea that smacked of true genius...
But sadly I can't tell you here what he hatched that night because it would tip our hand too early before the tournament. What I can do is show you a model I converted specially for him and the occasion.
This is Belial, Master of the Deathwing. For those who aren't familiar with Dark Angels, Belial is the special character in the army that unlocks terminators as troop choices.
Ok, so this may not the Belial you might have been expecting. This model represents Belial's turncoat counterpart (name pending), as my brother will be fielding a deathwing terminator army for his half of our 1,500pts.
The base model for the conversion ultimately fell to either Lysander's or Driago's models. I suggested that Driago's knightly heraldry and book/sword motifs would mirror nicely the same heraldry as the Dark Angels, so we went with him.
With the model in hand, the first order of business was to shave off or green stuff fill anything that either appeared too Grey Knighty or too loyalist.
Driago's model was an ideal fit because "Belial" will also be armed with a thunder hammer and storm shield. Still, Driago is armed with a force weapon/storm bolter on the arm he should be holding his hammer with, so a bit of conversion was in order. I thought that I would deviate from the typical hammer design and represent something a little more majestic and possibly a tad more sinister. I decided upon a spiked mace that incorporates an odd mixture of order and chaos elements.
To create the mace I built its base upon a brass pinning rod and Dark Angels' censer. To create the spikes I trimmed pieces of excess Citadel Finecast sprue down to a number of varied points, first by cutting with an xacto blade them filing them with a hobby file. With the chaotic portion taken care of, I added either a dreadnought or terminator statue (I'm not sure from which) to the top of the mace and attached a flowing streamer to the haft. The streamer is a piece of a wizard's robe from the Empire Wizard's boxed set. To create the power cell I cut a Tau Fire Warrior belt accessory in two and filed its side to fit the brass rod. A little green stuffing finished where I cleaned off Driago's storm bolter and connected the mace to Belial's arm.
If all goes according to plan, "Belial" and his nefarious confederates will be putting the hammer down on our opponents this weekend (quite literally).
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