Hello fellow hobbyists!
My name is Black Bear Ivan (ok, not my real name) and I am just an ordinary collector, gamer and hobbyist in the 40k universe. I am also a long time servant and slave to Papa Nurgle, and with the recent (and upcoming) Death Guard releases, I wanted to write a small and quick tutorial on how to incorporate the new signature Death Guard wargear option, the Blight Launcher, onto your models today!
The Blight Launcher is a great weapon on the battlefield and when I first saw its weapon profile I knew that it would be replacing the Plasma Gun as weapon of choice in all my plague marine squads. With the release of the new plague marine models, I was keen to model as many of them as I could to include this new weaponry. The method which I am about to propose is by no means the best or most accurate conversion of the Blight Launcher, but if you have the right parts, it is reasonably convincing and extremely easy to do!
Let’s begin by taking a look at the official Blight Launcher model released by Games Workshop.
Now as you can see, the Blight Launcher appears to be an arm mounted grenade launcher of sorts. I suppose it shoots Blight grenades at the foe. It appears to be mounted on a single arm, but I see no reason why the weapons of the traitor legions should be uniform (~CHAAOOSSSS~).
After raiding my bits box, I found a bit that in my view, closely resembles the look and function of the blight launcher. Who can guess what this is?
On a superficial level, the Grey Knight Psycannon resembles the Blight Launcher in that it possesses a reasonably large bore muzzle, an ammo bin, and in the case of the terminator version, is actually arm mounted! But more importantly, if you have access to the bit, the Psycannon is an extremely easy bit to work with as it does not require much modification and can be used as is. The ordinary Psycannon bit comes as follows, and the Terminator Psycannon bit comes in two parts.
Using these bits, converting the mono-pose plague marines in the Dark Imperium box set is very simple. In most cases, only one or two simple cuts are required (followed by some minor gap filling for neatness). Let’s take a look.
Above, we have the plague marines that come in the Dark Imperium set. The models labeled A, B, C and D I found to be the easiest and most eligible for conversion. For all cuts, I strongly recommend using a model clipper, as this gives you quite a lot more control on the cuts. Don’t worry if the cuts are not very clean as these can always be filed down or filled up with green stuff. I will describe the conversion process below.
“Models A + D”
The 2 models labeled A, actually comprise the same torso and legs and we can approach them similarly. For this model, you only need to make two cuts as follows. The cut at the right wrist is a little tricky but with ordinary model clippers, you should be able to remove that easily. Don’t worry if you damage the wrist gauntlet a little. That can be battle damage, nurgles corrosion, or even covered up with green stuff. For the second cut at the left hand, this is optional, but I found it useful to do so that I can insert a new hand (I used a spare hand from a plaguebearer kit) making it easier to align with the blight launcher. After snipping, use a filing tool to smoothen out the joins and stick on the psycannon! For model D, you may follow the same principles.
“Model B”
The model labeled B is the simplest of all. A simple cut at the wrist and swap in the psycannon bit gets you a ready-to-go blight launcher!
“Model C”
The model labeled C is also simple if you are able to get your hands on the terminator psycannon. The terminator psycannon IS a little bigger than the normal psycannons, and in my mind would be the ideal base for conversion. But you work with what you have! For Model C, all that is required is a simple arm swap! No cutting needed!
And… that’s about it! As you can see, this is a simple conversion, and even without any gap filling and green stuff work, they look reasonably convincing! Heres a shot of the converted blight launchers side by side with the official weapon model.
Of course if you are superstitious or deeply passionate about desecrating sacred imperial
relics, you can always "Nurglify" the Psycannons to demonstrate your dedication to the Plaguefather. Perhaps you will see another tutorial on this in the future!
I hope this was a fun and useful read. Till next time! Happy Hobby-days!