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Building and Converting Slaanesh tips, hints and tricks!


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As the great Prince's armies are coming out soon I thought it would be good to have a bit of a show and tell and chat about building and converting them and the common tricks and methods we've all used. Both to share and pool ideas and also to pass them on to others and get some inspiration! 

 

Building tips: 

  1. Deamonettes are quite a curiously advanced kit because they share the exact same build structure across the whole range. Yep the deamonettes from a chariot kit; the seeker riders and from the core troop boxed set all inter change in parts. The arms and head of all of them can swap over pretty much without any limitations.

    They all have the same body proportions and all connect the very same way. So as you're building keep a pile of spare parts or even throw bits into a general pool of bits to pick from. This can give you some really neat options to just change things up or create your own unique looking choices for some of the leader units and heralds on chariots. 
    Note I don't own any hellstriders, but I believe their arms also connect the same way and their heads certainly do. Again this gives you some additional part options within the same line of models. 
    Note 2 the deamonette heads from the chariot kit have helms which can help make them stand out just a little more - ideal for command units. There's also a couple of neat long-claw arms in there. The chariot mounts also have different shoulder positions so can add some appearance variety into your seeker units. 
     
  2. Attaching arms for deamonettes is a pain, a smooth join surface on both arms makes them a bit of a nightmare to line up perfectly. One tip is to place a tiny bit of glue onto the arm join area, then touch the glue onto the join area of the body but don't press them together. This gets some glue onto both surfaces and starts the melting process of the plastic. Then give the arm join area a very quick dab with a finger to remove excess glue and press the two parts together. 

    You're not wiping the glue off the arm, just getting rid of the body of the glue bubble. Note if you've got a pot of glue that has a brush applier then you don't have to do this as you should be able to spread a smooth coating on one or both surfaces, so this tip applies more if you've got one of those precision nozzle glue pots. 
     
  3. The new Fiend kit is fantastic, but the instructions give the impression that its quite static in terms of build choice.  It's important to note that the heads and arms are all totally interchangeable. So you can swap them over however you want between the three bodies.
     
  4. When assembling any of the chariots and using whips keep an eye on how high you mount the whip arms. If you mount them so that the whips are rising up high in the air you might well end up with a nightmare of a model to transport; keep them lower and snaking out just above the model to make transporting a lot easier. 
     
  5. With some models its better to assemble in stages and apply paint before making a final build. Note that many advise to paint heads separate from bodies in general, though this depends on the model somewhat. Most deamonettes should be fine to paint with the head attached, though a few have more elaborate heads and might well be best to paint before attaching the head.  

    Note 1  also that when painting in stages its advised to use superglue not plastic glue when making the joins between painted parts. This is because plastic glue melts the plastic and, unless in a hidden spot, might well cause plastic and paint to run and dribble around the join, something that easily vanishes when painted over, but if you've already painted it it will leave a messy mark. Remember to try and keep the joining surfaces clear of paint, though do feel free to scrape them back to plastic to ensure a plastic to plastic join (so that the superglue is binding to the plastic not the layers of paint on top). 

    Note 2 many people advise using a small drill and putting a rod through the joining area of the model part being painted on its own  and then attaching the base of that rod of metal to something like a cork or other surface. The idea being that you're then giving them a short term "base" to hold whilst you paint them rather than holding the model itself. It also means you can put the model down and not have to worry about paint getting stuck to the surface you lay them on. This helps a lot for heads and riders of seekers.
     
  • The Infernal Enrapturess. This is a slightly complex model to build, but also comes with quite a few interlocking parts. I would advise assembling the harphuman and the enrapturess separate of each other. The way the arms on her work she will still slot into the harp with some careful joining of the two. So apply glue and get them build and then put the paint on them.
    You will have to "dry fit" them together initially (ergo before paint) in order to get her foot placed correctly as it rests between the two models and is glued to the leg of the enrapturess. 
     
  • Chariots - these are a complicated monster of a model. It would be advisable to leave them in parts when painting.

i) The instructions actually advise painting all the wheel spikes on their own (after removing from the sprue of course - and cleaning mould lines) and then assembling them into the spike bars, though you can assemble them into spike bars and then paint them if you desire (mostly depends on how complex a scheme you're going for).

ii) The body of the chariot. Note for the exalted this might end up in two stages. 

iii) The seeker mounts. Note there's an overhang part of the seeker body that locks the bars from the chariot onto them. You might paint both seeker and chariot and then connect these parts and then paint the harness on the seekers last. Or attach the top part to the chariot only (dry mount the seeker underneath to position things correctly). 

iiii) The heralds/riders/deamonettes. Yep paint all of them on their own before attaching them to the chariot. 

  • The Contorted Epitome. Again assemble the deamonettes separate from the mirror and paint up all three then combine together once done.

  • Syll'Esske. Note I don't own this model at this stage, but looking at the sprue on the GW website store it appears that the feet for the deamonette are part of the back plate for the prince. I would advise thus painting the model in two stages with one being the back plate of blades and herald, the other being the prince himself (since the backplate of spikes attaches at a single point to the prince). You might also find it important to paint the princes head on its own because of the spikes that rise up around it from his collar on the body. 

  • Seeker and hellstriders. Assemble the mounts and riders and paint them separate from each other. The riders just drop into the saddles so this is a pretty easy one to do.

 

Note - I'd be interested to hear form anyone who has magnetized the chariot kits. From what I can see the standing areas on them are too open and thin to give a nice mounting point for a magnet without the magnet sticking out on the model and detracting from the overall look. It's one big weakness to the chariot kits in that you can't easily set them up for magnetic characters on top. 

 

 

 

 

Conversions and proxies:.


Proxies (models that stand in for something else). Note that these are not "official" but that I would wager most tournaments/players would not have an issue with either provided you put them on the correct base. 

  • Old metal Greater Demon. If you've one of the old kits or grab one second hand then note that they are pretty much the same size as a regular demon prince from slaves to darkness. So you can easily use that model as a proxy (since the new keeper is many times bigger). The only thing they miss out on is wings, however there are loads of plastic wings around these days so you can likely easily find a set to convert onto them. It will be interesting to see in the coming months if anyone does this conversion and shares it, though it might be prudent to wait before adding wings and see what the new Slaves to Darkness Battletome does to princes (note its not yet hinted at but is expected to arrive and I would be surprised if it doesn't appear in 2019)
  • Old metal Mortal Champion on foot and on mount. Both these old models were retired at the launch of the new Battletome. They are ideally suited to being proxied for mortal champions (on foot or on mount) from Slaves to Darkness with a mark of Slaanesh. Indeed they make an ideal option for those choices. Note that as mortals weren't a big part of the recent battletome there is every chance that we might see these model concepts return in the future (though some years off yet I would estimate). Though of course if they returned they'd have new models. 

 

Conversions:

Again please feel free to add your own thoughts to the above! The more we add the more we can help each other develop ideas and concepts! 

Edited by Overread
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Just as a word of caution on newer players and painting in sub assemblies: for the most part unless you're aiming for competition level painting it really isn't worth the effort and the risk of making a mistake. Generally if you can see it then you can reach it with a brush.

That being said in the last 18 or so years of painting, the exalted chariot is the only model I've felt I needed to keep things separate to actually reach some areas. I assembled the chariot and steeds fully, did my basing, painted the frame and scythes on the chariot, glued the chariot down and painted the rest of it, then painted the riders and attached them. Definitely made life significantly easier getting at the back middle blades. Other than that, I don't really see any model in the range that can't just be fully assembled and painted, including the other variations of chariot. 

Edited by Grimrock
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I have recently just started up a slaanesh army. But I’m planning on doing some pretty big kitbashing. Such as adding a few mortal units. I plan to use ungors as mauraders as they are the same scale as demonettes and yea DNA’s arm swaps should be fairly easy to do with these kits. I can post here once I’m done if anyone is interested.  

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On 7/25/2019 at 1:43 PM, Asgog said:

I have recently just started up a slaanesh army. But I’m planning on doing some pretty big kitbashing. Such as adding a few mortal units. I plan to use ungors as mauraders as they are the same scale as demonettes and yea DNA’s arm swaps should be fairly easy to do with these kits. I can post here once I’m done if anyone is interested.  

It would be fantastic to see those conversions please do show them off once you've done them. And welcome to the site @Asgog

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