Obliterators.

They’re not good models, and we all know this. The current models aren’t that old, but they’re old enough to have been retired and replaced with models that aren’t shit. These models are less shit than the original ones – those are really shit, but these ones are shit too. Just less so. Still, I updated/resurrected my original pair just over a year ago, and they’re obviously a thing in the new Chaos army, just as they were before, so I finally forced myself to find and dig out another one of them to complete the squad, since these days they’re entirely bought in sets of three.

I did change out the head (again) in order to make the model look a little more “Iron Warriors” and a little less “hot garbage”. This is a MKIII head from Forge World. I think it was from an Iron Hands kit. I do think it improves the appearance of the model significantly.

Just as I mentioned last time, I really dislike the random weapon-spam look of their arms, and so just as I was a bit more judicious with the others I assembled over a decade ago, I was again with this one. Twin-linked bolters on one arm, with ammunition magazines sticking out of the side. (Wait.. so how does he reload? Shh.. don’t think. The model is awful. It’s a meat-man. Don’t think. Don’t use your brain here…)

There might have originally been a decent sculpt underneath all of that, before the sculptor covered their sculpt in too much greenstuff. I will say that I think painting it like meat makes it look less bad than GW’s go-to of pinkish flesh. Which isn’t to say that this is good looking. If you look carefully, you can see the dented left shoulder where I accidentally dropped the model wen in the final stages of finishing it. Somehow it dented the shoulder without damaging the paint. It’s certainly a heavy hunk of metal, in any case.

…and the left arm. Again I’ve gone both minimalist and attempted to make the arm look less rubbish. In this case by using two melta barrel ends I found in a bits box – from converting metal Imperial Guardsmen back in the 1990’s. It actually kinda almost looks okay here, and as I’ve mentioned I’ve been practising a few times lately – another couple of heat-discoloured weapon barrels.

So now I have a trio. The three models required to legally field the Obliterators as a unit in 8th edition Warhammer 40,000. I’ve got more of these models. A bunch of finecast ones bought cheaply secondhand. I planned to make them into Mutilators, but I’m not sure if:

a) Mutilators are worthwhile in 8th

b) I can really be bothered to build and mildly convert them into something passable. I guess I have some spare parts from Ork Mega Armoured Nobz.

c) Which army to build them for. Despite the confluence of the Iron Warriors and the (groan) Obliterator Virus in the lore, I feel like they’re a bit gribbly for my Iron Warriors. Or to have to many of in my Iron Warriors. I’ve also got all those Dark Vengeance models that are a bit too …Chaosy for my Iron Warriors, so I need to decide on a Non-Mono-aligned Fallen Legion to go with my Traitor Legion. Which I guess will be Word Bearers, since I’m disqualifying the four Chosen Legions, I already have the IW, I have specific plans for a small force of Alphas and Black Legion, and I don’t really connect with the Night Lords (and they’re in many ways more murder-y than chaos-y).

If I loved the models, then a) and b) would not be an issue. As it happens, it’s much more the case of “I’ve got them, let’s see if I can be motivated to assemble and paint them.” So… yeah.