The Coven of Verminlord Skrax - Painted Models Part 4

I'm getting to the final stretch of my Haemonculus Covens army as all the remainder of the models are finished getting painted and the whole army is coming together. The next few updates are going to showcase the rest of my painted Coven.

These Talos make up the Corpsthief Claw formation, which is a big chunk of points in my army, but a very strong unit. I really think they came together as a whole, these giant mutant rat creatures.

This particular Talos will be running in the Dark Artisan formation with the Cronos and Haemonculus. This is to be Verminlord Skrax' most prized creation. The achievement that has no equal in his army. Where many haemonculi before have failed, he has succeeded (although after hundreds of failures), he has hybridized some Tyranid DNA with one of his subjects. It is a slaughtering fiend of barely contained savagery.

The Coven of Verminlord Skrax - WIP Talos (Taloi?)

The Talos are to be the main brunt of this army. These are the Sigcourax' greatest creations. I plan on running 2 formations with them: the Corpsthief Claw (5 talos all in one squad, with scout and the ability to generate VP when they kill things in combat - essentially a Dark Eldar deathstar) and the Dark Artisan (a talos, cronos, and haemonculus in one squad, granting all sorts of benefits - amazing protection for a haemonculus warlord).

First up are the 5 talos making the Corpsthief Claw formation. A lot of conversions went into these. Their base is the Skaven Stormfiends kit. The stormfiends are about the right size as a Talos on floating base from my research, so this should work out. What's better is the stormfiend box comes with 3. So you take that and a bunch of Dark Eldar bits (like the twin-linked Haywire Basters jutting from their backs) and some creative greenstuffing to finish belts, straps, and cover blank areas. The large cables I am proud of. I took data cable twisted wire, and cut up plasticard tubes into several tiny little sections, and glued them spaced out on the wire. This type of conversion, making talos from stormfiends, isn't new. But generally people replace the rat heads with Talos heads. I am glad I get to keep the rat heads on these kits, because they are beautiful.

Then the talos that will be going with the Dark Artisan formation. This is to be Sigcourax' proudest achievment, a hybrid with Tyranid strains, having found the way to keep it stable and controllable. I wanted to go for minimal technology and get the mostly muscly and protruding bone look of the tyranid. This picture I am still working on the greenstuff, but this project reminded me a lot of doing the Extreme Carnivean project. Some subtle conversions I like is repositioning the jaw so the mouth opens a little wider, create a leaping pose, larger raptor-like talons on the feet, and the not-so-subtle greenstuffing on the back to create the enhanced spine. I really had to channel my inner H.R. Giger when sculpting that, and I'm so excited to get it painted.