An aside: Conversions in the age of 'collectability'. And some Chaos Dwarves.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll probably be well aware I don't hold much of a 'reverence' towards the models I collect and paint. In my opinion they're just toy soldiers, and at the end of the day there are very few models that could actually be classed as 'rare', regardless of what the 'Buy It Now' twat resellers would have you believe on eBay.

Because of this attitude towards them, I'm perfectly happy to chop up old metal, much to the horror of some purists on the scene, and my current Chaos Dwarf project is such an example:

More photos and opinionated waffling after the break...




I've picked up a bunch of Chaos Dwarves over the years in various lots, but I've never really thought about doing much with them, as Dwarves aren't really my favourite race, but they're such nice sculpts I've never bothered trading/selling them on. My chaos warband project gave me the idea of doing them as a self-contained Chaos Ally force from the Warhammer Armies book, as it allows for single-race contingents. I was originally going to do it as Chaos Undivided, but changed my mind and have decided to go with them as a Nurgle detachment. This is for two reasons, firstly I like painting and converting Nurgle-themed models, and secondly, as Tzeench is my least favourite of the four Chaos powers, it will allow them to ally with three of my four planned warbands. As I'm doing the Tzeench one for completion's sake, it really doesn't bother me too much that they won't be able to fight with them.

Anyway, on to the conversions, As you'd expect with picking them up in bulk lots etc, I've ended up with a few duplicates, particularly I ended up with three of this guy:

I mean, he's a nice enough model, but three of them just looks a bit incongruous in a force full of mutations, so I decided to do a bit of hacking:

The guy on the right is a very straightforward conversion, just a weapon swap (from a Marauder Witch Elf) and bending his horns into a different shape. It's enough of a change to make him look different in the force, a different paint job and shield to the other guy and they hopefully won't look too similar.

The centre guy is a much more involved conversion, with a spider body under him, a bunch of spider legs, a weapon change (a halberd blade from a Skeleton warrior) and a lance (from god knows where!). I've also added a Nurgle symbol on his armour in greenstuff to dedicate him to his God.

This is the whole reason I love chopping up old models, literally no one else on the planet has this model, it's unique and fun, whereas otherwise I'd have had a wonky looking chaos warband with three identical chaos warriors in it.

Next up is a guy I had two of:

Again, a weapon swap stops him looking identical, and I resculpted his face to make him look more diseased and Nurglesque. I may yet add a Plaguebearer style single horn, I've not decided yet.

One thing I love about Nurgle is that sculpting suitable things is very easy, I really like doing Nurgle Shields for example:

There's nothing particularly complex, it's just poking putty with a needle and pushing it around, the tentacles are just rolled and poked in. They're great fun to make!

Finally there are a few ordinary dwarves that I've used to increase my Chaos Dwarves:

These are all old Norse Dwarves I believe. left guy has just had a tentacle added, centre guy is now a standard bearer (and has a Nurgling unceremoniously sat on his head!), right guy is a Bob Olley sculpt so already looked pretty chaos-ey, I just converted his helmet with a skull and changed his weapon to one from another Chaos Dwarf.

Finally I needed a Chaos Mage for the force, and didn't own a suitable model. To remedy that, I endwarfened a Chaos Warrior mage:

I basically chopped his legs off and replaced them with the legs I cut off the Spider Warlord, along with a bit of greenstuff to replace the robes and cover it all up. Must admit, I'm particularly pleased with this conversion, it's fairly simple but I think it worked really well. I'll probably add a small dagger to his left hand, or perhaps a wand.

Finally a group shot of my current conversions:

There's a final Norse dwarf on the left that I forgot to photo, again with a weapon swap and holding an unfortunate victim's head. I've still got a few more Chaos Dwarves bathing in Dettol ready to strip, so there may be another couple of conversions to do once I work out how many Dwarves I need to create units in multiples of seven, Papa Nurgle's favourite number.

So, there you go, a bunch of hacked up 30+ year old lead. Have I reduced it's 'value' on the open market? Almost certainly. Do I care? Not in the slightest. The fact that people treat these things as some kind of sacred piece of art really annoys me. They're not even particularly rare. Mind you, I don't mind hacking up rare stuff, you can see my Slann for examples of that!

This idea that they're rare and scarce is what is putting up the prices in the market, it's nearly all artificially inflated by the resellers and becomes a self referential bubble of inflation. As an example, i recently bought an original Keeper of Secrets for my Slaanesh warband on eBay, for £14 at auction, i.e it was bid up to that by myself and other people. That's actually what it's worth on the open market, but the resellers are trying to tell you they're worth a minimum of £30, and up to £75 for the identical model! It's stupid and irritating. Anyway, enough bitching, I've got cobbles to lay and Chaos Dwarves to paint!

Go forth and cut up your models, you'll be happier for it!