Marco does something

[MarcoSkoll]

I thought I spotted you at the HF stand but wasn't sure, under-rested and under-caffeinated as I was.

It's possible - I was over there a couple of times (somewhat obviously, given I bought something from them).
First time I was browsing and decided I didn't really need any of it right now, but I did go back after taking a shine to one of the models used in the Open Combat demo (Veda-Ann, specifically).

Nyx looks great - I was sorely tempted by the Cybertronic RPG minis set, but my local FLGS regularly grumbles at length about what an awful company Prodos are, so I had an uncharacteristic attack of morals and decided not to.

I wouldn't trust their Kickstarters as far as I could throw them, based on what I've heard, but being able to pick things straight off the shelf and know I was definitely walking out of there with what I paid for was a somewhat different matter.

I think in future I'll work out a hard budget and shopping list

Although I couldn't call myself a veteran, I try to avoid going to Salute with too much of a shopping list. Although prices at Salute are generally pretty good, I don't really go along to buy things I could have bought at any time.

The Gathering Storm boxes were the only things on my list, with everything else pretty much unplanned - I just wandered round until I saw cool things or remembered stuff I'd seen on gaming news sites.

And you got Gav to sign your rulebook! Brilliant!

Well, when I heard he was going to be there, I decided I'd take it and ask. I wouldn't be surprised if it's one of the most battered books that he's ever been asked to sign, but I suppose that adds authenticity (given it is the same book as I bought off the shelf in GW fifteen and a half years ago).

[MarcoSkoll]

I'll admit that these Sisters are more for Shadow War than Inquisitor (although they may well double as NPCs in a scenario), but I'm taking pretty much the same approach to modelling and narrative as I would for my 28mm Inquisitor, so I hope you'll humour me.

While they're some of the oldest models still in production at GW, I can be nostalgic, and I've had a lot of fun converting models of a similar era before.

So, one new box and a couple of blisters worth of Battle Sisters, plus assorted sizes of Statuesque heads:


The Sister Superior seemed like the natural starting point, as the team leader. I initially started with plans to convert her in the style of the OOP helmeted chainsword version, but (as you will see), I eventually decided that was too basic a plan.


Various head sizes:
Heroic
Heroic Narrow
Finescale (/w crude hair)

I eventually decided that the pulp scale worked best, at least after blu-tack hair was added:



It's perhaps slightly on the small side, but I'm trained on more realistic proportions than GW's heroic style, and I'm happy to justify it as the armour actually having some bulk!
That said, the superior will probably end up with a sculpted head - it wouldn't be a proper MarcoSkoll^TM project if I didn't do that for at least the team leader.

After some rethinking and deciding I wanted to be more adventurous than just a head and weapon swap, this became the working mockup:




Various things need adjusting - the chainsword is too long, I need to sculpt a new style of chest armour (the mastectomy is not permanent), and she needs the custom head, but this gives a broad idea of where I'm going.

[TheNephew]

Love the re-pose, and I think the subtle head-size difference does a nice job of making the armour look more imposing in contrast.

Why swap  the bolter?

[MarcoSkoll]

I'd like to have a mix of different loadouts in the kill team for variety, and the Superior is the natural choice to be equipped for melee, given her stats and equipment options.

Also, I felt the hand needed to be turned inwards for the pose I was going for.

[Radu Lykan]

If it's not all glued now then may I suggest a hand flamer or inferno pistol for rule of cool? Haven't looked at the rules for swa much so not sure if she'd work ruleswise but either of those would add some more variety in a squad that already contains multiple bolt weapons

[MarcoSkoll]

Hand flamers and Inferno pistols are only available to Seraphim, although I will likely be magnetising the hands anyway in order to have the option to upgrade her weapons later in a campaign. Superiors do have access to plasma pistols and power swords, although if I buy those the plan is to do it later in a campaign. (I want to start with plenty of Sisters, because it's harder to recruit new members than buy extra equipment*).

* Rules stuff:
Normally you get to either recruit up to 100 points of new members or buy 100 pts of new equipment between games. (You can't do both. While new members can come with equipment, they can't swap gear with anyone else until after their first game).
Getting to spend more than 100 pts at once requires lucky mission rolls, a trooper who's learned a specific skill or spending Promethium caches (which serve as the game's currency/territory/scoring system).

Sisters are expensive enough that they cannot be recruited with anything other than a knife for 100 points, so the only reliable way of recruiting newcomers (at least until I have a Sister with the Scavenger skill) is sacrificing campaign progress.
However, all equipment except heavy weapons can be easily bought within 100 points, so it makes sense to start with plenty of Sisters and then add any frills I want as I go

Anyway, talking of Seraphim:


I picked these up cheap on eBay because they'd been cut up and had parts missing. However, that works fine for my purposes, because what I really want is a greater variety of poses and some torsos which haven't got bolters held over their chest. While I can, have, and probably will again dissect models in such a fashion and resculpted the detail, this will save me a certain amount of effort in getting more variety in their posing.

I'm thinking that the Seraphim are a good start for emulating the confident pose of the Sister in the centre:


I might keep a couple back to be actual Seraphim (who are available to Sisters kill teams as Special Operatives/Hired Guns), but then as you can see slightly earlier in this thread, I also have the plastic not-quite-Seraphim from the Gathering Storm waiting in the wings (pun not intended)...

[mcjomar]

I've got a similar project in mind, but not nearly as much effort.
Mostly because I have one (as yet unbuilt) Veridyan model, and I want some manner of excuse to deploy her. SW:A fits the bill nicely, and I have an evil plan as to how I can do it too.
I just need to afford the models now 

[MarcoSkoll]

Yeah, I could just about stomach the pricing on the Sisters when I only needed one squad and a couple of add-ons for SWA, but it's obscene as far as the possibility of collecting an entire army.

I honestly can't imagine anyone shelling out to put together an army of mostly 20 year-old models. The faction isn't going to sell well until GW actually get their act together and update the range (at which point I imagine they could have the same kind of revival as the Genestealer Cults and Mechanicus). In fact, so far, I'm one of the few people I've seen approaching Shadow War with the existing Sisters models, rather than conversions of the Sisters of Silence or 3rd party models.

[mcjomar]

I'll be one of the others.
I've got two bolter sisters off ebay so far (so that's the SW:A minimum of three achieved).
I just need two suitable heavy sisters, and the GW box of 5 more bolter sisters, and I should be "good enough".
However, I probably want a few extra specialist sisters so that I have flexibility for the SW:A unit.

[MarcoSkoll]

A mini-update. (Updates might be a little slow for a few days, as some of my spare time is going into helping set-up for a charity concert).

I decided that the bolt pistol I mocked up my Superior's pose with looked too big, so I spent a while slicing it up to make it a little smaller. (Which is probably difficult to see, but hopefully the markings on my cutting mat make it a little easier to see the difference against an unmodified one).



It was mostly done with a saw, so just cutting in the right places and gluing it back together made it smaller by the width of the cut.
There's actually 14 separate pieces, because a cut down the middle (to make it a little thinner) basically doubled the count.

The end result is a little messy (I don't really like doing conversion work in plastic, the glue runs everywhere), so I'll probably need to do some clean-up with a scalpel and maybe some green stuff (but that, fortunately, is a material I can work with without making a total hash of it).

I'll be one of the others.

Hooray!

However, I probably want a few extra specialist sisters so that I have flexibility for the SW:A unit.

There's not a massive variety available in the Sisters list outside what you arm your Superior and Specialists with, so I'd recommend having the options where they exist.

[MarcoSkoll]

Although I was rather tired this evening, I felt fairly motivated to get some actual green stuff work done on my Superior.




I also magnetised the chainsword blade (it was previously pinned) so that weapons can be swapped around during or between campaigns.
(And shortened it from before, but that won't be particularly obvious from these angles).

[RobSkib]

Gosh that's looking very nice, your GS work has come on in leaps and bounds since those first projects you posted up many many years ago. I've used those heads for a project of my own recently as well, they're very good! I did notice that they had some sneaky mould lines running across the head though, many of which I didn't notice until after basecoating :/

[MarcoSkoll]

That is most of nine years, so I'd be slightly grumpy if I hadn't improved a bit since then.

As far as the head, it's a placeholder for the moment. While I will be using the Statuesque heads for most of the kill team, the kill team leader deserves a scratch sculpted head.

[MarcoSkoll]

A foolish failure to bring any brass wire with me to the gaming club last night meant I couldn't work properly on my metal sisters and instead went about reminding myself how uncomfortable I am working in this newfangled plastic stuff.

I will at some point probably want to use a Seraphim special operative, so I started a conversion of one of the Geminae (Eleanor, I believe) from the Gathering Storm box. Although it's perhaps not the most iconic illustration, I'm aiming to match the Seraphim art from the Dark Heresy "Blood of Martyrs" supplement, which I quite like.

[mcjomar]

A question:
Given that we're now getting Inquisition (and Sororitas) in SW:A, is it worth putting together a secondary board for that game/thread?
Or should we just classify it as also being 28mm Inquisitor?
Reason I ask is that I've finally got the models for the core of my own SW:A Sororitas team.
Not sure if they'll crop up in any 28mm games, but in any event, I thought the question might be worth asking, given its relevancy to the fantastic progress you've made in this thread.