Cultists and Marauders

Hey, I haven’t had a chance to get back to the Leman Russ/ Destroyer (got a pile of edits that needed my attention) but I wanted to share something else I’ve been working on. Sort of an ongoing background project.

As I’ve mentioned here once or thrice, my biggest 40K army is the Alpha Legion.  I was a fan and follower of the 20th Legion since back when they were just the Napoleons of Chaos, long before THQ and  Dan Abnett made it cool to like them.  And as such, I’ve always had a place for cultists in my army. 

Alas, for years, the only cultist models were half a dozen or so metal ones, half of which were leaders or special weapons.  That’s not a lot of options.  Plus, they were metal, so they could cost three or four dollars apiece!  Can you imagine that?  Paying four dollars for a single GW figure?  What craziness.  Thank goodness for Finecast, am I right...?

Anyway...

Like most folks, I solved the problem by mashing things together. A good mix of Catachan parts and Fantasy Marauders gave me a nice group of post-apocalyptic looking cultists.  Mix in a few Kroot accessories and they looked great.  And these guys worked fine for many years.  Then Dark Vengeanceshowed up and there were real cultist models. Not too posable, but lots of variety. Also space to add on the odd bit of individual detail here and there. Plus, through the miracle of eBay, I was able to get a bunch of them for less than two dollars each...

But this still left me with all my old, homemade cultists in their horned helmets and headbands.  They just don’t mesh well with the new ones.  Sooooo... what to do with about forty figures?  And then it struck me that, in Age of Sigmar, it’s possible to field just one or two units and play like that. So what if I just turned the mostly-Marauder ones back into regular Chaos Marauders?

I went through all of the old cultists and sorted them into mostly Catachan and mostly Marauder.  In a few cases, I found complementary pairs where I could swap legs and they’d make a more-complete figure.  Then, I began to disassemble them.

Helpful Hint—The idea of cutting up figs like this might seem intimidating.  Just make sure you’ve got a really sharp, clean blade, a good cutting surface, and plenty of light (the seams can vanish in shadows, and I want to be cutting between components, not through components).

It took about an hour to separate them all and scrape off any of the white “soft spots” left from the glue.  Then I dug up all the leftover Marauder parts and made a good-sized squad of fifteen armed with axes and shields.

I also discovered I had enough bits sitting around to make one more figure, and after a bit I decided I might make someone I could use as a Darkoath Chieftain, using the Age of Sigmar rules that GW put up to go with some of the Silver Tower figures.  More on that later, depending on how it turns out...

And as for the leftover, mostly-Catachan models...  Well, as it happens a while back I also ended up with a bunch of the hooded Adeptus Mechanicus heads.  A few head swaps, a few details from the Marauders and the Kroot, and now these figs will blend in much better with the newer Alpha Legion cultists.

So don’t be afraid to cut up old figs and repurpose them. It can save you a couple bucks and turn units you don’t use into units you do. Heck, it might even give you something to play a new game with.

And I'm just adding this one last guy with the flagellant body and a flamer because I really liked how he turned out...