Wolf Lord Manton Conversion Tutorial

The newest edition of 40k is what a few people are calling a “sandbox” rules set. This is the best example yet of Games Workshop's push to get their players to “forge the narrative”. Basically they've decided that their strongest product is the wealth of fluff that they've built over the past 25 or so years and so they've given us this large expansive set of rules that lets us, the players, play the games we want to play. If you want to play a small skirmish between two rival warbands; you can do it. If you want to see massive technologically questionable machines battle giant xeno-beasts, wiping out ground troops like the expendable fodder they are; you can do that too.

In light of this my friend Jimzan the Everliving and I have decided to forge our own narrative in an upcoming campaign that will shape the saga of my own Wolf Lord, Manton “the Destroyer” Wolfen-wolf, and his Necron Destroyer-lord Jimzan the Everliving. Naturally that means creating our own characters and converting models to represent us on the fields of war.

Without any further ado, I bring you Lord Manton “The Destroyer” Wolfen-Wolf.

This guy is going to represent me on the battlefield so he has to look as brutal as possible. He started out a long time ago before my modelling skills got up to scratch. Now that the new Wolves' codex is out and just before my Wolves battle Jimzan the Everliving's Necrons, I though it was time to spruce him up and make him a truly brutal-looking dude.

Bits

For anyone interested in how it was done, I started with Archaon, the Lord of End Times. I thought his archaic armour would be a good fit for an ancient suit of terminator armour, and with that big, billowing cloak and wolf pelt over his shoulders, he was a natural candidate for Wold-Lordicising.

I cut the sword off under the hilt and trimmed back the Chaos star on his chest. I then picked out the Wolf Guard terminator legs that looked the most lord-like, found the shield I wanted and the right thunder hammer. I went with the one from the power armour box, I like the “Morkai” pattern. The head is from the Space Wolf power armour box too. You can't call yourself Manton without a moustache, so naturally this head was the one for me. The “Belt of Russ” came from the power armour kit as well. The rest of the bits are just gubbins that I had laying around, mostly stuff coming from the various Space Wolf kits.

I found an old sculpted base from Games Workshop's 40k basing kit that came out a while back. I figure my warlord should be mounted a little-bit higher than his brethren, just to add a bit of presence on the battlefield.

Tools

Scalpel, razor saw, drill-bit and paper clip for pinning, clippers for clipping, file(not pictured), sculpting tool (also not pictured) for those fiddly green stuff bits, said green stuff, super glue and plastic glue.

Process

First up I had to clip off the pin sculpted onto the bottom of Archaon's torso to get a nice flush fit against the legs. I then used the razor saw to cut off the terminator's belly, just above the belt, being careful not to saw off the hip armour or the belt itself (even though it was covered up eventually).

I also had to saw off the terminator's booty armour as it was just too big and didn't fit in under the cloak.

Then I drilled a hole in the middle of the legs and glued a bit of the paper clip in the hole. I drilled a matching hole in the bottom of the torso. After doing a dry-fit (an essential part of any conversion process) I realised there was quite a gap as the torso and legs didn't line up quite right. So I put a little croissant of green stuff in there to fill up the gap and give the super glue something to stick to.

After gluing the torso to the legs, I cut a small gap into the top of the Belt of Russ piece so it would fit under the ram's skull. The belt was then glued to the front. I used a bit of green stuff to line the belt up with Manton's waist, rather than just sticking out from his groin.

I clipped the hammer off at the hand and trimmed away a bit of the cabling so it would look like it “flowed” naturally. The next bit was a bit fiddly. I isolated the wolf-tooth necklace part from a different hammer's cabling, and then used the left over bits of cable and glued them so they would flow from the hammer into the recess under the cloak. There was a gap there that I filled with green stuff and sculpted it (at least tried to) to look like a part of his armour that would act as a coupling point for the cable.

After that was all done and dried up, for solidity, I pinned Manton to his base. I clipped the hand out from behind the storm shield. As Archaon holds a shield, it was pretty easy to just glue the new shield onto the original mounting point. I had to fill the neck-hole with green stuff to make it flush. I then clipped the rounded neck off of the dude's head and glued the bits together. After that it was as simple as adding little bits and bobs to make him look a little more lordly and a row of pouches to his belt to hide some unsightly sculpting attempts.

All in all I'm pretty happy with how Lord Manton MkII turned out. The torso is a big ol' hunk of old school metal so the drilling and filing was a bit more difficult than it would have been with a finecast model, but I like the weight that metal models have; it makes them feel that much more important. Now I just have to wait for the green stuff and glue to properly set and then I can give him a lick of paint and really see how he's turned out.

Thanks for reading. Any advice, comments and criticisms are appreciated as long as they're not mean.