Despite my recent rantings and ravings regarding my mixed feelings towards 40K, GW and tabletop gaming in general, I still wanted to get this project finished. I have been titting about with it for a couple of years now and considering the number of decades I have been associated with the hobby, I am ashamed to say I have never had a 100% completed army. So with themodest aim of having a 1000 points worth of Wolves ready by Dark Throne accomplished, I felt somewhat bolstered to move forward with my army and add some more units. In the wake of the recent unleashing of  40K 7th Edition  came  a new Codex for the Space Wolves. Whilst the prospect of new toys is always exciting, I couldn’t really justify buying a load of new shit whilst I still had a pile of bare plastic to wade through.

As it turned out the new Space Wolf stuff was, by and large, a bunch of utter shit, which saved me forking out. Result.  However the pile of shame was still lurking in my loft like the unspoken family secret so I set about working on a small project within a project by using up all the various bits and pieces that I’ve accumulated over the last 18 months. I suppose its a bit like when you’ve got a big shop due and you have to make meals out of whatever dry old pasta and tins of mixed beans  you’ve got lingering in the cupboards. With that approach in mind I set about my new project with renewed zeal: The Wolves Of Terra.

I had recently acquired a couple of additional sets of Dark Angels from the DV box set from my esteemed colleagues Pete Falkous and Clarke Meades. Even though I don’t play Dark Angels I think the models in that kit really are a step up in terms of design and aesthetic. I had a massive stack of bikes, terminators and tactical marines along with the highly detailed character models. For those unfamiliar with the casts of these models, whilst the detail is spectacular, they are monopose pushfit figures with full moulds making them very difficult to convert. They have loads of moulded on details and Dark Angel iconography which is a nuisance for anyone wanting to convert as it’s not as though you can simply swap out a shoulder pad or exchange a head with any real ease. There is much cutting, pinning and inevitably swearing involved.

Couple of fellas

Stubborn prick that I am, I decided I wanted to make use of all these Marines and since I had neither time nor inclination to start a DA army, I figured that I’d convert these guys into Space Wolves. Somehow. I decided that due to the somewhat devout design of Dark Angels models they might work well as Terran veterans of the 13th Company. Brothers who don’t have the same cultural connection to Fenris but have adopted some aesthetic aspects in order to bond with their Primarch and the locals.

The bog standard tactical marines would be fairly straight forward if a little tiresome, simply a case of filing off the iconography and throwing some wolfy bits and pieces on them. I don’t have many regular looking helmeted astartes in my army so far and I almost relished having some conveyor belt rank and file dudes for once.

WIP on two grunts. Shit picture CBA

The Veteran Seargant is a particularly nice little model and was the first one to fall beneath my blade. I really like the head and pose and figured that given his choice of fire arm and pious garb he’d serve as yet another Rune Priest. I neatly removed the chain sword at the base of the hilt and replaced it with an old frost axe blade. I clipped off the Dark Angel / rosary bullshit round his waste and replaced it with some runic fetishes from a Space Wolf torso to give him a shamanic flavour. I used a little green stuff to sculpt on some hair and a beard as I wanted to keep the characters face. Lick of paint and he’s ready to conjure the wyrd despite bearing striking resemblance to Father Christmas.

Right- Original model. Left – After his makeover

Next out of the box were the Death Wing Terminators. Once again, great sculpts full of dynamism and drama but sadly covered with intolerable space catholic affectations. I liked the raven feathers that were hanging off them in various places and decided to keep them on given the symbolism of ravens in Norse mythology. The work on these guys was a little bit more involved and challenging than the Seargent. I am still really new to this aspect of the hobby but it’s definitely the thing I enjoy most. My painting is average at best, good enough for tabletop standard but still miles behind some of my compatriots, so I spend more time playing with green stuff and looking at models and how I can reshape them to suit my needs and aesthetic taste. I’ve had some success with a few other kit bashes, most notably my two Terminator rune priests that received some very flattering commentary on Twitter and the like.

Snikt!

Those two models were easier to work with given the modular nature of the kits involved. These however are a lot more static and I can assure you there was a lot more swearing and bleeding fingers involved this time around! I decided I wanted to turn the bog standard guys into hammer wielders or lightning claw dudes. These sculpts have some really cool poses that lend themselves well to ferocious close combat guys. As before I shaved off the most obvious DA iconography and filed down or obscured the rest with purity seals, armour plate and bits & pieces from the Space Wolf sprue.  I avoided cloaks on these guys as I figured they’d just be an obstruction when they are trieing to dole out the punishment up close and personal.

To make the Wolf Guard squad leader I took one of the more ornate Terminators with the studs on his legs and reworked him a little. I gave him the Captains cloak from the Wolf Guard box set and a Thunder Hammer. I trimmed off the power fist and replaced it with a large Scibor celtic shield and posed him as though he were brimming with braggadocio and offering a challenge. ‘Come at me bro’ to use a popular parlance of our times.

The next challenge was the sword wielding Deathwing Captain. He is an amazing looking model but I was initially stumped at how I could best fashion him to suit my purposes. This guy has a lot of ornamentation on him, Dark Angels, despite their pious nature love some ostentatious clobber. Typical religious types. I figured since he had the robes he would work as another Rune Priest (you might be starting to pick up on a theme here) After a rummage through the bits box I found some Grey Knights parts, and a wolf cloak that would work and began to channel my inner iconoclast.

I cut the Deathwing banners off and removed the front part of the torso fairly simply. After that, using my craft knife I neatly removed the sword blade and the hand that grasped it, but kept the positioning of the remainder of the arm. I then fitted a generic terminator torso front into the cavity and filled the gap around the hood with green stuff. whipped a hand off an old plastic Space Hulk Genestealer and then, using green stuff, fashioned some fur and pinned the hand in an upturned position. I then slipped a Grey Knight helmet into place and positioned so it appeared he was looking up at his hand somewhat dramatically, horrified at the skinchange taking place on his hand.

For his other hand I used the Grey Knight halberd just because I think it looks cool and I’d run out of big axe heads. On his back I fitted a Kromlech cloak. It was standard marine size so I accentuated it with additional green stuff so it fit him a little more adequately. I made a small clasp tpo hold it in place from a Terminator seal from the box set. Finally I attatched a filed down Chaos Beastman shield to his back to provide a totemic connection to his cultural past.

I then sent the finished models over to my man Mr Paul Mawdsley to paint.I traded him some William Elliot Whitmore and Nine Inch Nails to serve as payment for his task and I think we were both happy with that arrangement. He is a miserable goth and I can’t be arsed painting all of my army so everyones a winner. Paul did a bang up job as you can see. Good times.

There will be a final part to this Oath Of Moment which will manifest to coincide with an interview with commission painter and all round top bloke Ray Perry who helped me out with another unit in the army. More on that next time but for now please inspect his work on Instagram @je_suis_un_geek  and Facebook HERE.