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!