Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Maggoth End Times 40k Conversion Ideas You can Steal!


TJ here to look at another of the Nurgle End Times models from Warhammer Fantasy from the perspective of a 40k modeller. Last time we looked at the Glottkin and while I think you will struggle to find that kind of value in the Maggoth Lord kit (or any other kit ever), I do think there are some ideas here for a skilled converter who has the desire and ability to stretch the kit out.

FROM Reddit

First off, the Maggoth body itself is an easy swap for a maulerfiend and with little to no modification, a riderless Maggoth can be proxied for a Maulerfiend, leaving you with plenty of head options from the other two Maggoth variants and some conversion fodder from the rider body and the character parts that go with it.

From Forge the Narrative

Now with that said, the body itself can be a great base to use as a torso and head for a Soul Grinder if you happen to have some defiler legs sitting around. I am not sure if most folks do, but it seems like they have just manifested themselves in my bits box over the years. This could net you a convincing Plague Hulk or just a sweet Soul Grinder.



Now let's look at the variants of the model so we can tell where the key differences are that will net us the bits we need to stretch this kit out for our 40k conversion specs.
This variant above has a huge geyser of vomit and while that is appealing, it isn't something I want on my Maulerfiend at all, could possibly be interesting on a Plague Hulk/ Soul Grinder weapon arm or could also be used in various effect-type ways, like having it blasting out of the exhaust of a nurgle biker's ride or coming off of a custom Chaos Knight Titan conversion ect.

Looking past that, we have the rider, who in this case has a face full of maggots and is rather fantasy centric for our Chaos Marines, though his upper body could easy be used in a Demogouge conversion for an IA13 Heretic force or even just as conversion fodder for Daemon Heralds.




Now, you still get a sick weapon as this kit comes with a wealth of great scythes ect. You also should pay attention to the belly (the bellies are all seperate parts here. This belly works well on the model or could be used in other conversions/ scratch builds. I would like to see it used over the back of a rhino and blended in with green stuff to create a gross feel for an otherwise unremarkable troop transport.




Next up we have this warrior sort of character, who has armor and thus can be a good fit for the upper half of a Nurgle Biker Lord, Nurgle Lord or even a Terminator as I have seen floating around the internet. This also shows us the belly-mouth area, which could make an excellent head to start a scratchbuilt Great Unclean one, could be used to make a unique daemon prince, upgrade some huge guns, like a Chaos Knight Titan or similarly large weapon. You could even use it to replace Glottkin's head if you are already buying that kit for conversion fodder, making that model much more fearsome.

An example from reddit





While I am talking about head conversions, the Maggoth heads are all distinct, seperate parts, sharing teeth from what I gather looking at sprues, meaning that you get one head for the body and two heads for whatever.

Now these other heads will be about as big at the base as the large hole where the maulerfiend torso and neck meet, meaning you have opportunities for incredible conversion bits for custom Heldrakes, Maulerfiend conversion ... or if you are ambitious, I think you could build a sort of ground-bursting worm using some sculpting talent and some bits (I would add something meachanical to the mix for 40k).


Essentially, I am looking at experimenting with using at least one head to scratch build a Mauler fiend! In the end, I really think these heads add a lot to your bits box. You could even scratch build a Great Unclean One around one of these outstanding heads.





Here are some close ups of the Chaos Lord. I think he is ready for prime time almost as is and I will likely pair his torso and legs to make him one of my Lords/ Sorcs on bike.



So here is another set of bits in the form of the tongue (just look at what people did with the Slaughterbrute/ Vortex Beast Tentacles and you will see what you could potentially do with the tongue. The head is another nice-to-have bit and all the same information applies. What is interesting here is the belly. I would likely leave that as the belly for a Plague Hulk/ Soulgrinder conversion ro for a scratch Great Unclean One (my money says Plague Hulk though).



Finally, we get to another good peice of conversion fodder! This fellow will make a fantastic Herald for our Chaos Daemons and his scythe could be kindly donated to another model as either a daenomic reward or as a sweet bit to top off a power scythe for a Chaos lord.

All in all, I am looking to build the following with these parts:

A Plague Hulk/ Nurgle Defiler
A mostly scratch built Maulerfiend
A Chaos Biker Lord
A Herald of Nurgle
A Demogouge
Something else with the other head (I already have a great unclean one and two other maulerfiends, so we will see)

Now as opposed to my write up on the Glottkin box, you will need way more bits to complete many of these possible conversions - so I won't put it on the pedestal I put Glottkin on as a kit. That being said, unless you have a healthy bits box or a lot of sculpting talent, this may not be a wise investment for you. I will counter that though by saying if you are just starting out or are looking to expand your Chaos bits box, this is also a good deal for the price as you can really stretch this out across multiple units, making a unified theme and feel for your forces.

What do you all think out there? Have you dove into this box yet? Have you converted anything out of it? Any ideas, opinions or comments are welcome.

8 comments:

  1. How well would it fit on a 60mm Base? I've been considering one for a Great Unclean One conversion, since I don't care for the regular GUcO Model.

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  2. There was one on barter town but they took it down. The model's stride will allow it to fit on the base but half of each foot will hang off. That means you can make it work. He will be enourmous on that base, but it wil make for an intimidating GUO.

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    1. Thanks! That's cool with me if he's enormous. A Greater Daemon should be intimidating and overwhelming :D

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  3. do you know how easy it is to make it riderless? Is it just a question of not adding the saddle, or is there a big hole in the model that needs to e filled?

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  4. So I googled it earlier and found images of it fittng on a 60mm base with the front 50% of thenfront foot hanging over the edge of the base and the same for the back foot, which works well if you want to make it look intimidating and huge. I would say go for it if you have the skills to make it riderless. Then you have access to the left over bits and you get a better GUO than GW currently supplies. I would say it is ia great value because the GUO is like 55 to 60 dollars, then with some bits, you get three clampack type characters and two cool maggoth heads to use in whatever. I would go for it.

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    1. Excellent. At this point, I'm pretty much just waiting for my next paycheque, and then I'm grabbing one of the Pestilent Swarm boxes. Thanks for the answers!

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  5. Hi TJ,

    I actually did something like this over the past few days, then remembered you had also made a post about it...you might be interested in seeing how I did mine:

    http://40ktx.imgur.com/

    http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/300341-hexfleet-virules-nurgle-maulerfiends/

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  6. I've got the basic build together for a Maggoth GUCO. Need to cover up the gap where the rider was still and add some base detail. He fills the 60mm really nicely in my opinion. The only real problem is that I was torn between two of the heads, and after gluing one of them into place, decided I actually preferred the other :P

    I'll try to remember to come over here and link after I get some pics up.

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