The Nurglings are revolting!

A pack of Nurglings saw my Knight. They wanted one of their own.

This was such an easy conversion. I was a bit knackered from the Knight and wanted to do something a bit silly. So, the base was an incomplete dreadnought from my bits box. I was missing the shinguards so I replaced them with some of the spare chest plates from the Plague Marines kit. The helmet from the sarcophagus had gone walkabout somewhere, which saved me from removing it. Instead, I put the Nurgling head from the Maggoth kit in there. I drilled a few corrosion holes in the hull. Lastly for the body, I was missed the backplate. I therefore built up a bit of green stuff around the hole in the back and had a random zombie arm emerging - the corpse of the Imperial hero whose final resting place has been so rudely hijacked. 

Now, I wanted there to be a Nurgling in charge - specifically the sword-wielder from the Great Unclean One kit. I wanted him to have a vastly overblown throne to stand on. I salvaged a hull part from an Ork Trukk from my bitz and pinned it to the top of the hull, and then created a gantry from a second piece. A Nurgle icon from the Plaguebearers kit helped to give it some body. Then I added the Nurglings, using very specifically Nurglings with open hands. Into these I threaded garden string to form the big grisly cables which would move the limbs. I added similar strings to the sarcophagus and winding down to the legs, to give the impression of the pilot pulling on them. 

It was looking very tall and a bit thin, so I decided to add another hare-brained device on the base. I got a spare Blight Launcher and removed the Plague Marine's hand. Then I glued a Nurgling on top as if it were his palanquin. I put the Cheeky Nurgling at the back, holing it up with his feet. At the front I got the one from the Plaguebearers kit who is waving his hands about. I had to cut the hands off and reverse their direction, then glued them so as to have them hold the strange contraption up.

I chose to paint it as an Imperial Fist dreadnought because my army is a bit... manky. I thought a splash of colour was in order!

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!