Touched by the Warp…

Some time ago, dear cousin Andy gave me the WFB Chaos Lord on Manticore for my birthday, which was quite an excellent present, since it’s one of those kits that I was always drawn to but would probably never have purchased myself. Because, no matter how you cut it, there’s not that much use for a Manticore in a 40k army in the first place. But while I am still figuring out a use for the beast in question (trust me, I have a couple of ideas…), the kit is very much worth it for the rider bits alone:

You see, the kit comes with enough parts to build two riders for the Manticore: one heavily armoured Chaos Lord and an equally imposing (and quite menacing) Chaos Sorcerer, both with several weapon and head options. While I immediately squirreled away the Chaos Lord for a conversion involving a juggernaut (which you’ll be seeing on this blog sooner rather than later, especially since lords on juggers are so very useful now), the sorcerer was somewhat less essential to me: As you may have gathered, Khorne isn’t too down with that whole psyker thing…

The obvious solution was to make the sorcerer into a member of my Traitor Guard. Already having built a Company Commander and Lord Commissar for my traitors, it was high time to add a traitorous Primaris Pskyer as well.

For this conversion, I took a page from OST’s sorcerer conversion that he did for his Iron Warriors. I was quite inspired by that model, and so I sat down to build my own chaotic Psyker. Take a look:

As you can see, the basic conversion is very similar to OST’s sorcerer, although I made a few small changes: First of all, I didn’t use the chain cloak on the model since I wanted to keep it for a World Eaters conversion (The new Horus Heresy book also tells us that chains do play quite a big role in the World Eaters’ iconography, so that decision turned out to be spot-on). I also wanted the sorcerer to look like he was just about to unleash the powers of the Warp, so I posed his left hand to reflect that. Most of the other parts are directly from the original kit, with only some bits and bobs added to “40k-ify” the model a bit.

The rock formation on the base came from the Chaos Lord in Terminator armour. I added half an old WFB skeleton for some additional flavour. I also wanted to make it look like the model was floating, so I used some deft gluing to create that illusion. Take a look:

When it came to painting the model, I made sure to have the colours fit the rest of my Traitor Guard. I also added the trademark crude chaos symbols to the model’s cloak. Overall, the paintjob is a bit cleaner and less ragtag though, in order to make the model look more dignified and regal.

I really think these bitz are some of the best GW has ever put out: Just look at that menacing facemask. Brilliant!

To show how the sorcerer is channeling the powers of the Warp, I added simple OSL effects to the runes all over his equipment as well as to the open palm of his left hand:

The hand was more of a spontaneous idea, but I think it really works.

As for the potential uses of this model, the most obvious role it could play would be that of a Primaris Psyker. However, given the model’s imposing frame, I think it could work reasonably well as a CSM Sorcerer as well. And finally, it may even serve double-duty as a cult leader in games of INQ28 as well: As a matter of fact, this guy looks so cool together with the Dark Vengeance cultists that I am considering adding on of the small, cog-like chaos icons worn by them to this model to tie them together even more.

As with the rest of my Traitor Guard, there’s very little background in place at this point. However, the myterious and menacing nature of the model makes me think that this sorcerer may have been instrumental in the original regiment’s fall to the Ruinous Powers. Hmm….

Anyway, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!