To build my terminators, I decided to look elsewhere for the shields, as I felt the standard terminator storm shield is somewhat lacking, I ended up on maxmini.eu where I found these. wonderful riot shield styled storm shields with 5 hammers too. (I also went a bit overboard and purchased the set of Steam Knight helmets, which I have plans for later, watch this space.) I also purchased these Blood Angel Terminator shoulder pads from Forgeworld. With these, I was set.
I received the Grey Knights in the mail today, and we've all heard how awesome the sprues are, so I won't go into it too much, but I will say the detail on these models is amazing, with even the segmented joints of the fingers showing up clearly. The shields and hammers arrived from maxmini and were just as awesome as they looked in the pictures, I will be definitely buying more from these guys.
After browsing the Grey Knight sprues I worked out the iconography was avoidable in most places, only being on two legs, and easily filed smooth and replaced by Blood Angel details. There was one problem though: the front chest pieces. they all had the Grey Knight chapter symbol, and it was too large to be effectively removed. I thought about filing it smooth and trying to sculpt my own Blood Angel icon, but I wasn't sure how well I would do.
After fiddling about in my bits box I found the solution to my problem. I had a Death Company sprue waiting to be built, my inability to decide on what equipment they should have turning out to be a blessing in this case, as I realised with a little filing and green stuff, I'd be able to use those chest pieces instead of the Grey Knight ones.
In order to fit the head in I needed to file down the front half of the neck piece, as it was forcing the head to only look up, and did not give much room for flexibility, with the head in place I used greenstuff to fill the gap in width between the terminator back and death company front.
With this overcome I started construction of what would be my Sergeant, I decided to use the daemon hammer that came with the set as it would separate him from the others, as well as the more ornate shoulder pad from Forgeworld. The large shoulder plates of the terminators allowing the majority of the size in difference to be hidden.
The placing of the shield was simple, partly due to the design of the shield, and the terminators arm being flat where the gauntlet mounted storm bolter was indented to be attached. A little filing was required on the slot for the hand in order for the terminators fist to fit, I also drilled a hole through the fist, using a small section of metal to look more like a handle, than the shield being stuck directly to the arm, I have not joined the two yet, as I intend to paint the shields separately.
Next post I will be going through the process of building the other terminators, and re-shaping shield arms.
