Work on my Nurgle marines continues, and this time I had an opportunity to do something I’d never done before – work with Forge World bits. I managed to snag a set of Death Guard conversion bits off of eBay a couple of weeks ago, and this past week I set forth on getting them put into use. Fortunately, I already had a spare Chaos Marine box sitting around, and my bits box was populated with plenty of unused arms and bolters, so I had everything I needed to get the job done.
I gave the bits a nice couple of hours soaking in dish soap and water, and then gave them a nice going-over with a brass brush. Hopefully, that got all the mold release agent off; if not, I’ll find out when I prime them. Then, it was time to de-sprue the bits, and this is where it got interesting. I’m glad that these are Nurgle bits, and thus fine if some of the parts are a little trimmed off and uneven in spots, because getting shoulder pads off the blocks of resin was a challenge. There’s one pad (which shows up twice) featuring a horn coming up near the top of the pad, and in both cases there was a solid piece of flash connecting the horn to the base block. Careful negotiating with a hobby knife and a pair of clippers did the work well enough, but it’s going to take some finer control if I ever decide to do non-Nurgle bits.
Fortunately, that was the last hard portion. Gluing and assembly was simple. I’ve heard stories that certain super glues work better than others with Forge World resin (and of course, plastic glues don’t work at all), but my glue of choice had no issues. For the record, Loctite Professional is one of the greatest super glues ever, and I’d never go back to Zap-a-Gap after working with it.
A couple of hours later (spent simultaneously assembling Plague Marines and watching The Avengers), and I had 10 hybrid plastic/resin bits of Chaos nastiness staring back at me from the table. That gets me up to 17; I’ll probably see if I can kitbash 3 more from additional spare parts for a nice even 20. Right now, I’ve got two with plasma guns, so maybe a couple of flamers would be nice as well. I could do meltaguns, but big teardrops of toxic death seem more appropriate.