Thursday, September 8, 2016

Curse of the Alabaster: Arbites assemble!

Into the breach...

Having finished assembling the first two arbites with shotguns, I was excited to start building a few more for the Alabaster project.  For the others, I wanted to create some different weapons suitable for long-term operations, while maintaining the compact nature seen with the shotguns. Additionally, I was interested in exploring the idea of giving the different team members unique specializations; after all, the team was formed from members of Adeptus Arbites precincts all over the planet.



First up was a close-quarters specialist that would serve as the leader of the squad. Not wanting to break the aesthetic of squad, I decided not to give her any additional close combat weapons outside of the combat daggers that the others have. She would carry a heavy caliber revolver (Tronsvasse .44) as her primary weapon. Fortunately, I was able to find a suitable revolver for the model without resorting to a complicated conversion. The revolver used was taken from a model in Corvus Belli’s Infinity range, specifically Captain Roger Van Zant. Corvus Belli does an admirable job of creating smaller, more believably-scaled firearms. The revolver is still a little on the large side, but I like to think of it as something akin to Dirty Harry’s Smith & Wesson Model 29 (something to inspire a little fear in criminals, ha ha). Due to the revolver’s size, the converted holster was mounted under the Arbite’s arm with an attachment point on her body armor.

The sergeant has a large caliber revolver in place of a rifle.

Giving her such a large revolver, I knew that I had to add a holster for it, and settled on having it braced at her side.

Despite her revolver, she still has a trusty sidearm, this one an automatic.

Following the close-quarters specialist, I wanted to build a field medic. No team on such a protracted mission would be fit without one! There is not too much to differentiate the medic from the other members of the unit save an additional pouch containing medical necessities. For a primary weapon, I decided on a small las carbine, perfect for medium and short range firefights. I converted the weapon from one of the Death Korp Grenadier hellguns; substantially shortening the barrel, forward grip, and the receiver. I replaced the rifle’s original scope with iron sights and used greenstuff to sculpt a small powercell.

I took special effort to make his lasgun very short, something that would not get in his way when in the field.

I added a few extra pouches for medical supplies.

I really like the model's pose, carefully stalking though derelict hive sinks.

For the final squad member, I wanted some form of a sniper. After a little thought, I realized that with some subtle changes I could modify one of my earlier Imperial Guard snipers into an Arbitrator of the Adeptus Arbites!


I did not need to do too much work to get the sniper to fit with the other Arbites. 

Her rifle was modified to have solid rounds, and look a lot like an M14.

With these last three models, I believe that I have finished the group, a small but elite and heavily armed group of Adeptus Arbites.  While 5 models is not a lot, it will allow each to be allotted more points when designing their rules (using Migsula’s Dozen system).  I will have to be careful how the points are spent, because at the end of the day, they are still just humans (so no increasing Toughness).  Now I just have to think about painting them...

The entire group!


-Adam Wier

15 comments:

  1. Awesome group. Simple in concept but really very very nice in execution. I'm looking forward to seeing some paint on them!

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    1. Thanks! Our mentality is that simple is almost always superior to overwrought complexity. Having properly scaled weapons and equipment help a lot towards this end. It helps makes models not seem cluttered, with elements just tacked on. Also, paint should be coming soon!

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  2. Amazing job on the weapons, as usual! This is a great looking group.

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    1. Thanks, I think they came together quite well. I am particularly happy with the compact lasgun :D

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  3. Goes without saying that I love them.

    Particularly like the revolver sergeant, and the sniper remodel is perfect. Weapons are such a key part of a miniature, and yours look both plausible, and yet still in keeping with the intent of the figures.

    What about a few more members with classic arbite weapons? A webber would come in useful for psyker restraining, and the classic powermaul and shield combo would allow for a bit more "color" in your squad... some chevrons or caution stripe.

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    1. Yeah, the weapons are always a key part of the models, but there is a fine line between too much, something I think GW tends to cross a lot, he he.

      As for making a few more, that is certainly a possibility, but due to time constraints, I think Adam is going to focus on painting these ones first. The classic power maul and riot shield would be pretty rad...

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  4. Very nice! I have not looked at the infinity range in a long while but that revolver is very nice! As I mentioned on Instagram I am really impressed with how solid these look and really enjoy the lack of Scion components, these are the first Arbites I have seen since their release that doesnt use them for most of the conversions and before that they were usually Space Marine Scout conversions. Very unique take on the boys in black

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    1. Thanks again! I am glad you like them as much as we do. Scout and now scion conversions for arbites are fairly ubiquitous. And while they can be pretty good for arbites, I find they are often hard to make look like anything other than the base model.

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  5. Wonderful work as always eric. Your conversions and touches on the models make them so unique and better then their original sculpts!

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    1. Thanks for the high praise! I am grateful that Simon Egan made such great models, allowing my brothers and I to modify and convert them like this. Without his vision and talent, it would have been far harder to make such tactical and convincing arbites.

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  6. Excellent group and one you can really imagine working from room to room! However I do feel that the group as a whole would benefit from having some kind of vehicle. Maybe a motorbike, a small thopter or a van to deploy and extract. In combination said vehicle would slot in and fill the "big guy" position while still being true to your approach. Just my two Norwegian kroner ;)

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    1. Yeah, I agree on your assessment of a vehicle. For a while we were going to build a valkyrie for the group, but such vehicles are a little beyond the scope of the games that are going to be played for the Alabaster event. Because of this, we put that idea of creating a larger vehicle on hold, but would like to try to build something like it sometime in the future.

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    2. You could use the valkyrie as the basis to make a small shuttle like I did for my Nestorian INQ.

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    3. That is a good call! Your shuttle is pretty rad!

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    4. Though at heart I'm still hoping for bikes :D

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