Converting Dark Imperium Plague Marines

Nurgle seems to be getting some love these days, but what about everyone else? If there's one thing that a decade of collecting Chaos has taught me, it's that if you sit back and wait for nice new models to come out for your faction, you might be waiting a while.

With that in mind, I picked up some of the new Plague Marines on eBay (from Troll Trader). For those who don't know, I have a very themed force of Emperor's Children, with only Slaanesh units. Needless to say, I wasn't interested in using them as Plague Marines, but mostly in putting together a new unit of standard Chaos Space Marines that would be cooler than the ones that you buy off the shelf.

There were a few things that worked in my favour; namely that there are some similarities in the Nurgle and Slaanesh aesthetic. Mostly in the form of gribbly tentacles, and a few bells doesn't hurt on your Slaanesh either (although you have to be a bit careful). The main part that obviously had to be changed was the Nurgle icons and a few of the puss-ier details. The other obvious choice was to change their heads to some more standard Chaosy ones. Handily, eBay has a wide selection of bits up for grabs, and I picked up some Raptor and Warp Talon Helms, which are excellent parts to use in Chaos conversions like these. I also had a few parts from one of the Silver Tower kits (Karric Acolytes?) in my bits box, and they were also a good source of parts.

The other thing that concerned me was the scale. I'd seen some pictures of the plague marines that made them look pretty big compared to regular marines. It was a relief when they turned up, and they were almost exactly the same scale as the Dark Vengeance Chosen minis, as I knew that they would work with what I had.

With the talking part done, here are some pictures of the miniatures that I've come up with so far. In the end, I had to swap out a few shoulder pads and bits too, as well as combat weapons. I still need to greenstuff them, but I think that the squad is looking great. They're really nice minis to work with and handily, they weren't too difficult to convert if you're willing to put in a bit of extra time and effort.

The Lascannon guy is still in need of quite a bit of work, but he looks pretty badass so far, so I'm looking forward to adding the finishing touches to him.

Well, that rounds out day 2. I've got more painting on the table next, so check back tomorrow to see what I've been working on.