Crescendae, Emperor's Children Obliterators

For some time now I've been wanting to make some Obliterators for my Emperor's Children. I don't hate the existing official models as much as some people seem to, but in their bulky, heavily mutated shape they simply don't fit in with the Emperor's Children no matter how much you paint them pink and/or add suspicious-looking mammaries. When I saw the new Primaris Aggressors, who to me look a lot like how I always wished Centurions had looked, my eyes lit up somewhat.

Having decided to use the Aggressors, I then had to work out how to turn them into Obliterators. Giving them Daemonette heads was an obvious step, to reflect that they're, er, Daemons, and also to fit them in with the rest of the all (apparently) female 63rd Company. I also wanted them to have sonic weapons, and the auto-launcher on the back of the suit proved an excellent mounting point for the Dirge Caster from the chaos vehicle sprue. Here I got very lucky- an opportunistic visit to a local second-hand wargaming shop (Norfolk Boardgames, Wargames and Collectibles) in search of Daemonettes to butcher yielded a big box of Slaanesh bits and three Dirge Casters for a cheap price, much to my glee. I wasn't able to find the other thing I was looking for- left-over Noise Marine weapons- but on returning to my FLGS just around the corner at Wyldstorm Games to show off my bounty and discuss the project ended up scoring six Fusion Blasters, which with their boxy look and grilles fitted the bill nicely.

It was time to assemble the madness. The bald Daemonette head was fairly easy to attach, with the voids behind and below filled with Green Stuff. Since I'd decided to flatten off the ends of the guns, I had the little discs from the ends of them, which I used with more Green Stuff to add a pair of headphones- these, obviously, amplify the sound of the weapons for the firer. The heads with hair needed the hair trimmed, in the case of the one with less, or the top of the suit cut down in the case of the other, to make them fit, with Green Stuff again employed to tidy up afterwards. I smoothed off the back of each hood to make a little more room for the Dirge Casters (i.e the sub-woofers) and cut away the lower feed hose before mounting them on the auto-launchers- the hose was then reattached in the new position leading down into the suit and a little more Green Stuff filled the gaps.

The trickiest part was mounting the guns. I used standard Chaos Marine arms to hold them, with parts of Chainsword guard to make the grips and grip covers and a little more Green Stuff detail. The pose of each arm was in part dictated by where the power feeds from the backpack wanted to go, which caused much fiddling and dry-fitting and a bit of somewhat brutal bending. The joins were still terrible, and disguised with more Green Stuff for the fittings. I used the hoses for the flamestorm gauntlets since they seemed more suitable than the belts for the bolters. The end of each gun was detailed with a grille made from a cast I took of the Dirge Caster, with the flange on the top added after this had set. Any distortion of these shapes is clearly due to the waves of destructive force coming out of them and not to me being a terrible sculptor.*

I still had some MKIII Emperor's Children shoulder pads, which turned out to be the right size to match the Aggressor pads pretty well. To the other pad, I added various claw parts to make the model look more chaotic- in close combat these claws probably extend out on a tendril and thrash around. The chest eagles were left alone since the Emperor's Children still display the Aquila to irritate the Loyalists.

The smaller tabards came from Daemonettes, and were cut off and attached with yet more Green Stuff to add the extra cloth, whereas the large one is the rear tabard from a Keeper of Secrets (like I said, I got a lot of Slaanesh bits!)

Painting was to my standard scheme, with blue used on the power feeds but not highlighted to allow the hair and glowing eyes to stand apart from them. I also used a little red on the smaller cables, but again left  it dark to distinguish it from the pink.**

I imagine in game that the variable profile of the weapons reflects that rather than stick to the most powerful frequencies, the Crescendae like to constantly change them to avoid getting bored. I keep toying with the idea of making a chart of which artist they sound like at various levels, so for example +1S, -1AP, 1 Damage might be Ed Sheeran whereas +3S, -3AP, 3 Damage is clearly Disaster Area but it would need a lot of entries (27?) and lets face it, weaponised Ed isn't happening so I'd probably have to put someone I like in there. I suppose you could shoot him out of a cannon but that's beside the point and he doesn't really deserve it...

Photography by me, all original miniatures (c) Games Workshop.

*This is either a lie, an excuse, or both.

**and also because I am very lazy.