Putting the brute into Helbrute

To me, a staunch square-base loyalist, Age of Sigmar is largely something that happened to other people. But when I saw the Khorgorath model, I had an idea that it could be used as a Chaos Dreadnought/Helbrute (largely because it seemed to be a CAD rework of the Dark Vengeance Helbrute). I then promptly forgot the idea until late 2017.

The 8th edition reawoke my love of 40k, and with that came the desire to make the Helbrute. I ordered one off of eBay and did a few sketches.

Helbrutes are interesting beasties. Conceptually, they're quite different from the old 'Chaos Dreadnought' idea, even if they're representing the same thing. A Chaos Dreadnought is a nightmare of claustrophobia, a miserable metal tomb where a Traitor Marine slowly drifts into madness from his living entombment. But a Helbrute is depicted as a more vital, active creature, a constant battle between the mechanisms and the rampant flesh growths. My Helbrute represents the idea that the flesh has all but triumphed, devouring the Helbrute from within until the metal seems to be desperately trying to fight its way free. It unpleasantly made me think of some sort of appalling, daemonic cancer which has metastasised and overcome the original construction. It was a horrible thought. But then, that's Chaos: the insane, the demented, the wrong and the abhorrent. Chaos is not your friend. Chaos is hell, walking about with an idiot grin on its face trying to convince you it loves you.

I removed both of the fists, the uninspiring head and the loincloth. First I had to tackle the trunk of the body: it was far too muscular, and the mark of Khorne was a bit too clear. I filed down the mark of Khorne until it was much less visible and could be passed off as ripped skin. For the stomach, I added the open guts that I had spare from a Maggoth kit. I used poly cement and pins to ensure that it stayed in place - the fit was good but not great, and there were gaps. I filled these by mixing PVA glue with tissue and creating a kind of adhesive padding. When this dried out, I coated it with liquid green stuff to ensure robustness.

The head was easy: I took the head of a Rot Fly and added antlers from a Plaguebearer head to gift it more width. Now, the long proboscis of the Rot Fly was looking like it would come down too far and draw attention from the centre of the model. So I removed the end of the proboscis and instead put one of the Alien reminiscent mouthed tail from a Rot Fly on there. Again I used pins, poly cement and liquid green stuff to create a nice join.

The weapon arm was easy too: I used the drill from an Ork Killer Kan was this. It looked suitably nasty and scaled well. The cannon arm wasn't quite as simple. The component is a cannon from a Forgefiend. The problem I discovered was that the weapon was too long and looked silly. I had to saw the arm at the elbow and take some of the gun's housing off. Then it was a bit of crude pin and cement job, followed by the filling method described above.

And there you have it! A brutal Helbrute who stands out, looks very menacing on the table and... well... even if you don't have the bits lying around, will probably still cost less than the official model!