Tutorial: Converting an Umbra Pattern boltgun

From top to bottom: Primaris Auto Bolt Rifle, Umbra Pattern Bolter (MKVI HH marines), converted Umbra Bolter.

Over the years I have converted multiple more realistically-scaled boltguns, including a SMG styled one based on a Delaque flechette pistol and one from a Primaris heavy bolt pistol. I even created a tutorial showing how to convert a boltgun scaled to suit a Sister of Battle. Despite all of these conversions, I never actually made a tutorial showing how to create a boltgun variant for Space Marines. With the recent release of the Horus Heresy MKVI Space Marines, I thought it would be a great opportunity to take one of the new beakie marines and convert their Umbra pattern bolter to be smaller and ultimately more sensible.

Tutorial: Converting a Sister of Battle Bolter

How to convert this bolter!

I recently converted a plastic Sister of Battle, with the main focus on creating a more reasonably scaled bolter. To help others do a similar conversion, I wanted to create a tutorial showing how I converted the bolter! While the conversion is relatively straight-foward, it is fairly extensive. Not all of the steps are absolutely necessary, however, so feel free to modify any of these steps as you see fit to create better looking bolters!

Conversion Corner: Sister of Battle

#New40k

When Games Workshop finally redesigned the Sisters of Battle range of models in plastic, we were generally impressed with their ability to update the classic look while adding some variety to the models, in terms of corsets and different head options. Most of these options were not present in the initial Sister of Battle army boxed set, which we were fortunate enough to get a copy of. Eric has already painted a few of the models directly from the set, and after recently converting a Primaris Space Marine into a regular, true-scale Space Marine, it seemed a good time to convert one of the Sisters of Battle models to better fit our aesthetic of scale.

Conversion Corner - Space Marine Operative

The Happenin' Habber stands next to her newest Space Marine friend.

For the second installment of Conversion Corner, I decided to focus my attention on converting a Space Marine operative. I have been exploring the design for Space Marine weapons, namely the bolter (True-Scale Marine, Elder One Othalanga; Primaris Marine) for a while now. For this marine I wanted to delve even further into creating a sub-machine gun (SMG) variant of the bolter (and challenge the commonly perceived size of such a weapon). Additionally, I wanted to experiment with equipping a marine with one of the Genestealer cultist shotguns. Since their release, I always thought they would work perfectly on Space Marines, particularly the Primaris-scaled Marines.

Primaris Space Marines: First Impressions

Hope is a mistake.

Over the years, we have become increasingly critical of the miniature design of Space Marines, and the discrepancies between them and much of the artwork. Many of the awkward elements of their anatomy, and diminutive size compared to other human models in the game, pushed us to begin converting some “true-scale” Space Marines. To our surprise, shortly after creating some of these larger marines, it was revealed that Games Workshop was releasing a line of new larger Space Marines, called Primaris Space Marines. Many were quick to claim that GW had finally made their own true-scale Space Marines with the models, and we were eager to get our hands on some to make our own judgement, and to see if they corrected some of our issues with Space Marines. Mr_Pink (from the excellent Modern Synthesist blog) generously provided us one of the new marines, and wanted to tell you some of our thoughts on the quality of them, and their place next to their “normal” brethren.