Thunder Chiefs Rough Riders Number 8: Ken Haringsbeens

Thunder Chief Kenneth "Ken" Haringsbeens is finally finished, after languishing in partly painted form for a year. As we can see, Ken brings no surprises in painting scheme, using the typical Hungry Ghosts red-black-brass-blue quadrinium. But Ken's half-track motorbike was created with a paella of bits from all regions of the Warhammer universe.

We started with a pile of parts from the various Rogue Trader era Ork Bikes for the basic shape- the back section is built with a pair of Tracks from the Scorcher/Wartrak stuck together with 2 of the Wartrak Gunner's Platform bits. The platforms were lower than the top edge of the tracks, so the small piece of the Imperial Guard Hellhound Turret Plate was added on top of the platforms, which was made to look more like there was an engine somewhere in the bike by adding on top of the turret plate the Fuel Hose from the Hellhound. And for extra sophistication, a little Griffon with Warhammer was attached to the Fuel Hose (from the WFB Empire Organ Gun).

From the rear view we get a better view of the engine-o-bits. And the large amount of gear Ken is carrying on his bike. Using the Banner Poles bit from the Juggernaut of Khorne for support, Ken has a Cadian Las-Gun with the stock chopped off, a few different kinds of grenades, a bedroll, a shovel, and rope (which are mostly obscured from this angle). Where needed, green stuff was used to make straps to keep the gear attached to the poles.

From the left side, we can see that Ken is made of assorted bits just as his cycle is. He started life as Squat Biker 5, one of the Squats with no arms. So Ken's left arm, steering the bike, is made from a cluster of wires cut from the Left Arm of the Inquisitor game character Damien 1427, with a shoulder pad from the Marauders of Chaos sprue. The wires did not quite reach the handlebar, nor did the shoulder pad reach Ken's neck, so they were extended using more green stuff.

Echoing the pattern and color of Ken's arm and the exhaust pipes, Power Tubes were added to both sides of the bike, from Magus Delphan Gruss from the Inquisitor game. These tubes helped remedy the fact that the front and back sections of the half-track were not actually connected to each other. Ken's wire arm also helps keep the bike together, but further strength was provided by slipping some spears under the handlebars that were glued to the front wheel section and the tracks.

Close up we can see Ken's shame: our Chaos Squat was cursed with crippled, ugly little legs (from a Dark Eldar Warp Beast). Despite his attempts to use much armor (from Ork Boys and Chaos Marines sprues) to hide them, his legs splay outward, their horrid pallor exposed to all the world; and providing extra strength to the power tubing holding the bike together.

The other secret is mine, and more difficult to see- Ken is not actually sitting on anything. His back is glued to his seat back nestled between the Juggernaut poles, with a tentacle added for more glue-able surface area, and the armor plating hides the gap below Ken's rear end. Ken's Saurus Warrior Spike Arm prevents anyone from looking too closely.

Finally, the front section of the half-track. The wheel section comes from the old Ork Warbikes as well, but the boring handlebars were cast off along with Ken's boring legs, and replaced with the front section of a Warmaster Undead Bone Thrower. All nice brass and skull and sharp horns, pleasing to Khorne. Khorne was further pleased by the addition of a row of spikes jutting out further than the tire, from the Epic Ork Tanks set.

What became of the rest of that Bone Thrower? Its boney frame became the seat-back that Ken is attached to. From the front, we can also see that Ken's beard was made more majestic with the hair from a plastic Beastman head.

Ken is rolling into battle over the battered corpse of Necromunda Pit Slave 3. Those Pit Slaves make great corpses. We'll see Pit Slaves 1 and 2 soon.

Ken running with the Flesh Hounds

Flesh Hounds take the lead.

Fixing a Hole in the Hungry Ghosts Squadrons

Part 1 of the new Hungry Ghosts painting campaign is to fill in the gaps in the existing squads to give them all the bonus mascots, banner-bearers, corpses, and tombstones.

Legios Moriad XIV Command Squad

The Hungry Ghosts Command Squad was already largely complete, but had no official corpse. This was fixed by adding the Vaporized Troubleshooter miniature from the Paranoia range.

The Vaporized Troobleshooter is a small miniature, so it was given some additional bulk by gluing it first to a GorkaMorka base, and gluing that GorkaMorka base to a WFB small square base. This gave some space to add detail to the pile of rubble. The computer and lasgun muzzle were already part of the mini, so more dead trooper was added in the form of the pelvis and partial legs of one of the Skeletons from the Skeleton Horde set.

On the right side, we can see the boot and strap molded to the mini. Another slice of bloody leg was added under the computer, and assorted metallic bits were mixed in with the usual black gravel added to the base.

Iron Claws Special Weapons

Another small couple of jobs for the Iron Claws Special Weapons Squad from the Rotted Hearth Infantry Platoon. As with the Black Stars Special Weapons Squad, the Iron Claws were joined by one of the Necromunda Giant Mutant Rats. This rat was painted with an orange-brown pelt to blend with the bright colors used for the Iron Claws troopers.

The Iron Claws also needed a Tombstone. Theirs was made more battered and blasted than most, evidence of the combat that resulted in the many dead Space Marines bits on the Squats' bases (which count as the Corpse for the Iron Claws.

The Underdeepers Banner-Bearer

The Underdeepers Infantry Squad from the Rotted Hearth Platoon was also already mostly complete, but had no Banner-Bearer. This was fixed by providing a Dark Eldar Raider banner bit to Trooper Eeg Niner, The banner was painted in a typical scheme for the Hungry Ghosts of red and Beaten Copper, bearing the Legios Moriad regimental number XIV.

The banner was made pleasing to the Skull God with the addition of a Skaven Stormvermin Skull standard top.

From the back, we can see that the banner has been planted in the base of Eeg Niner rather than directly attached to him. Didn't feel like breaking out the green stuff.

Fall Preview: The Mouth of Madness and More Chaos Squat Conversions

Hungry Ghosts has now relocated on the Red Line betwixt the Alewife and the Braintree. Seriously, not making that up. HP Lovecraft territory. Hungry Ghosts is still settling down to business, but has mostly repaired the damage done to dwarfs flying over Detroit.

Hungry Ghosts has also been a busy little list-maker, and has finally found a way to cram all of his Squats into the Hungry Ghosts army list. The Legios Moriad XIV Squats of Citadel have also been joined by almost all of his non-Citadel Space Dwarfs, except for the truly daunting hordes of Bob Olley's Scrunts.

Hungry Ghosts has also reneged on his Catachan-character plan, and selected and/or converted Squats to fit most of the options in the Imperial Guard army list. But that was not enough. As some readers may have noticed, technology has led to the production of many more interesting bits than in the past, especially heads. So, much like in the classic film Hardware, the bits bins at Hungry Ghosts HQ were used to cobble together bodies to suit our extra heads. So here we will have a brief tour of some of the upcoming conversions.

First, the Mouth of Madness. Which Hungry Ghosts just watched again last night.

Hungry Ghosts is obsessive enough to assign each squadron a useful Vox-Caster communications trooper where available in the army list. Each squadron as well receives a totally-irrelevant-in-game-terms Banner-Bearer trooper. The Squads of Squats are then joined by a mascot of some sort (lots of giant rats!), a corpse model, and those cute little tombstones bearing the name of the squadron.

For the 2nd Command Unit of the Legios Moriad XIV, the roles of Vox-Caster, Banner-Bearer, and corpse have been combined. Thus was created this monstrosity named Lt. Hoorn Lawaaierig. Hoorn's Squat part is made from the Iron Claw Casualty with Helmet. As HG tries to avoid using any individual minis more than once (except for those awesome Chaos Squats in Power Armor and Irn-Bonce (whose 25th birthday was celebrated this year)) the second ICCwH was disguised with the cyborg head from the Chaos Marines Defiler. And a bunch of antennae. If Robotech taught us anything, it was that you can never have too many antennae.

Lt. Lawaaierig's ambulatory half is a rather surly looking robot from Citadel's ancient Paranoia miniatures series, who is also packing the Las-Power (Space Marine Close Combat Sprue). The 'bot is also bearing the command unit's banner upon its head.

From above, we can see that our dead Squat is in a state of unholy animation through the servo-arm of the robot. And that the banner itself bears a repulsive snout.

For those who cannot resist knowing all of the bits, Hoorn has an Orc's Hair-Squig for a beard. Sticking out of his head are a Lizardman Saurus club, a Battlefleet Gothic Space Cruiser Large Antenna with a slice of an Epic Chaos Champion Bolter Gun stuck on the top, 3 smaller BFG antennae, and 2 Epic Banner Poles from when Epic 40K used square bases (one jutting out on top left, one bottom right). His right shoulder has a Dark Eldar rifle barrel poking up, and his left hand is accessorized with the bottom part of an Epic Space Marine Drop-Pod Deathwind Cargo bit with yet another BFG 'tenner, which is joined to his body by part of an Imperial Guard Las-Cannon thick wire bit. Hoorn's flat casualty back is jazzed-up by a skull and crossbones symbol from the WFB general evil-critter shield-emblem sprue.

The Paranoia Robot is embellished with a bit of tubing in the front, which is not detailed enough to figure out where it came from, an extra-long antenna which is actually a railing from the old version of the Rhino, the bottom part of the haft of a Chaos sword, a Tau Fire Warrior antenna, and half of a set of binoculars from the Space Marines Scouts (I think). The banner is an Imperial Guard Tank Antenna topped by a Tomb Kings Standard top, with the snout from a Tyranid Biomorph I-don't-remember-what-it-is weapon.

Now Burnt Scorpions Lammoth and Gundabad

The Mouth of Madness was quite the bits-o-rama, so we will finish this Hungry Ghosts entry with a couple of less insane conversions.

First is Specialist Sruihoth Lammoth and his Plasma Gun. We have seen a bit of him before, but now he is fully assembled. Spc Lammoth is based on the Marauder Chaos Dwarf with the separate Crossbow bit, and was converted in a way that did not remove any bits of the mini, since he is a bit rare.

In place of the crossbow, Lammoth has a large Plasma Gun constructed from part of an Epic 40K plastic Knight Paladin gun arm. It has been supplemented with the tip of an Eldar Fusion Gun and two Fusion Gun ammunition bulbs. The tubing extending from the rear of the Plasma Gun is made from Skaven Night Runners tails, and a couple of generic curved blades were added to the front to go along with the horns added to his head and increase general spikiness.

In addition to the horns, Lammoth has been given a Big Hat echoing the style of the Chaos Dwarfs from the mid-1990s. Big Hat comes from the WFB Empire Wizards sprues, with an Orc Hair Squig to give a Fez-type appearance.

From the left side, we can see that Lammoth is craftily aiming his Las-Pistol at the enemy as well as his Plasma Gun. The Las-Pistol is also from the Eldar Weapons sprue, and the hand is also Eldar, from the early 90s sprue with wiring extending to his elbow, which features (surprise!) another Tau Antenna.

Lammoth is joined by another plastic Skaven rat, with a spined back to go along with Lammoth's horns and weapons. Our rat is also embiggened with a very big spike on his head (part of an Ogre hand) and a bloated engorged eye (Chaos Spawn).

Decorating the base is a thin spiny branch from the Wood Elf Dryads sprues, one growing through a human ribcage and skull. The branch was planted in an Imperial Guard boot, to suggest that it is the upper torso of the Guardsman intertwined with the Dryad branch.

One last look from Elf-height.

Storm Trooper Wuakanda Gundabad, the last of the 10 Burnt Scorpions, is a much simpler conversion. Gundabad has the body of the Squats Hearth Guard Warlord, with large horns and ribbed ridges. To continue with the ribbed ridges of the body, Gundabad's right arm was made from a spiked Ogre Fist and an ancient Eldar Lasgun (RT04 Space Elf Mael Nightwing).

Gundabad's left arm is long and spikey, like his horns. It is from the Skaven Abomination sprues. And Gundabad is joined by the 4th, and last, variant of the 1980s Dark Horse Miniatures Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mousers.

Next time miniatures that are actually painted!