Warps Fiend CSM - Noise Marines

Here are the latest fruits of my labour, a six strong squad of Noise marines.

I picked up these minis second hand on eBay mainly as all six had noise marine sonic backpacks, including one of the large doom siren packs from the emperors children Lord mini.

The picture wasn't great but at the end of the day I was getting five of the current design of metal sonic blasters, a blastmaster and the aforementioned backpacks at a reasonable price.

The second generation of noise marines were multi part metals with 'all-slaaneshi' parts, I have managed to pick up a couple of these for the cool bits, a champion body was used in the CSM squad in my previous post, and some bits I used in this squad.

Unfortunately the way games workshop packages noise marines these days is either a arm/weapon pack of sonic blasters and a blastmaster, or alternatively a bits pack with one paltry backpack to represent a doom siren, one of each sonic gun, a power sword, three heads and a torso. This, for me anyway, would be prohibitively expensive to create a squad with enough of the 'good stuff' to look how I wanted.

I decided to take the plunge, if the bodies were junk (there was no way of knowing from the fuzzy snap) I would still have a nice horde of slaaneshi bits, but when the box arrived I was in for a pleasant surprise...

The miniatures had been skilfully chopped about with some great conversion work seamlessly mixing chaos and loyalist bits but had not been painted. Each marine also had a nice touch in the form of an 'eye of horus' / black legion pauldron which doesnt really match the imagined fluff for this warband but who cares!

The champion had a cool left handed sonic blaster conversion, which unfortunately appears not to be a legal option in the current codex.

Of course to make them feel 'my own' I had to do a bit more conversion work, admittedly much more minor bits and bobs but hopefully enough to make something personal and slightly more in keeping with the look I had originally envisioned for the squad.

Sorry for the long preamble but I didn't feel right taking all the credit for some nice conversion work by someone with much more talent by me!

First up are two noise marines with sonic blasters that I left alone and just painted up as I received them, Im not sure which chaos mini the flayed skin face body is from (fabius biles enhanced bodyguard perhaps?) but I like it a lot, the other guy has the amusing gimp mask head.

Next is the champion, originally he was the squads icon bearer, with a well executed single handed pose for his sonic blaster, which I used on one of the following marines, and a weird blindfolded head. 

I tilted the model forward changing the pose from leaning backwards, supported by the pole to charging forwards, added the big doom siren pack, along with a doom siren head from the older generation mini, a bolt pistol arm and the tip from an old rogue trader grey knight terminator halberd to make a power lance out of the banner pole. 

The power lance seems like a particularly apt weapon for a slaaneshi warrior, both aesthetically and rules wise.

Next up the squads blastmaster, all I did with him was to change the backpack to the older generation version, the look I was going for being a specific backpack for each type of sonic weapon, it also helps to differentiate him from the regular dudes.

The first of the final two noise marines just received a different head from the older generation, needing a little ball of greenstuff to act as a neck. The second marine was the previous owners champion, with the doom siren pack and a cool if a little unbalanced looking left handed sonic blaster, held outstretched like a pistol, I removed these and I put on a different backpack and the converted sonic blaster arm from the standard bearer, along with a bolt pistol wielding lower left arm.

I was somewhat apprehensive when it came to painting these guys not only due to the sheer amount of trim and detail on the models but also in my ability to create a bright and contrasting colour scheme that didn't look an utter mess! 

It seems to me that when it comes to painting slaanesh there's a very fine line between what works and what looks frankly silly but In the end I chickened out and painted them in a very similar scheme to the rest of my Warp fiends, but with less black armour and lighter blues, purples and pinks, as a squad I'm pretty happy with the result but an unintended side effect is that at a gaming distance they have less obvious contrasting colours and actually look a lot less bright and colourful than my quickly and shoddily painted Havocs, which wasn't the idea at all.... Oh well, I'm not too annoyed about the warband lacking uniformity across different squads as, well, it's kinda fitting and chaotic isn't it?

"Right then brothers, we have decided to cast aside our vows to the emperor, and instead dedicate our lives to destroying all order wherever it can be found and worshipping pure, unbridled chaos.....Now everyone repaint your armour red and black..."

Anyway completing this squad also marks a milestone for the warp fiends... I now have a playable force, albeit only at a 750pt skirmish level, with a HQ, two troops and two heavy support; and to prove it I have a list (!) and a crappy flash group shot...

-1- Chaos lord (65) w/ mark of slaanesh (15) terminator armour (40) combi melta (7) & lightning claw ( 5) - 132pts

-2- Noise Marines x6 (112) champion w/ gift of mutation (10) power lance (15) & doom siren (15) blast master (30) x3 sonic blasters (6) - 191pts

-3- Chaos Marines x6 (88) Meltagun (10) mark of slaanesh (12) - 110pts

-4- Havocs x6 (88) champion w/power sword (15) x3 Lascannon (60) Missile launcher (15) & x1 close combat weapon (2) - 180pts

-5- Havocs x6 (88) champion w/plasma pistol (15) x2 Heavy bolters (20) Autocannon (10) Plasma gun (15) -  148pts

Total - 761pts

Next stop Nuclear renaissance...