u/DraculaHasAMustache

In the comments of the recent post about what people want for future releases a couple people mentioned crossbowmen, and it conjured some visuals in my head that I had to get out of there somehow, so slapped together some very messy concept art essentially.

Sticks fairly close to a regular warrior, but a little lighter on the armour, bigger cloak with a hood, and bringing back that wicked skull helmet that the old warriors had.

Gave up on trying to draw a decent crossbow so I just slapped the one from the nighthaunts on there and drew some spikes on it. A proper one would probably be a little more ornate to match the style of warrior weapons but it gets the idea across well enough.

Turns out their poses lend themselves well to two-handed weapons! All I've done here is rotate the already separate lower arms and adjust one of the wrists slightly in order to line up the hafts of the weapons. I did have to cut a notch out of one one the shoulder pads as well but other than that, no edits to the upper arms or elbows etc.

This seems very intentional, I feel pretty sure that there's a new upgrade set coming at some point.

It also means that it's a completely doable conversion for those who like me are a little impatient. Only tricky part besides the general fiddlyness of small parts is being able to drill a relatively straight hole through the hands carefully enough to not lose fingers.

You'll also want to cut the keying parts of the arms off and glue those on on their own so the gauntlets can be rotated against a flat surface. The backmost hand on the guy to the left is using the mace arm which already had a good wrist angle, but the one on the left did need the angle of his wrist adjusted slightly since none of the arms came angled like that already.

I've only done it on these two so far but from what I can tell the body that builds the musician should be equally possible. The unit leader has his axe, arm and leg all in one bit which they could replace the entirety of for the potential upgrade kit. (and for converting the easiest thing is just having him hold up a two handed sword, keeping the bottom of the existing axe handle, but could also be turned into one where he's resting his weapon against the ground relatively easily.)

The body that builds the standard bearer doesn't seem to have a straight shot from one hand to the other, the torso gets in the way slightly, but it could still work with either a bent haft or some slight futzing with the elbow angle I reckon.

(Pardon the round bases, I'm converting mine for use as Chosen in AoS)

From this post, which also has a comparison with Be'lakor and some others. They also do some comparisons in their unboxing video. I think we already had a pretty good idea of how close in size it was to Archaon, but I know some people prefer to see actual side-by-side photos. It seems like a really solid option for folks who aren't too keen on Archaon's design. He never appealed much to me so I'm definitely a lot more interested in this Chaos Dragon personally.

Might need to cut the peg off to fit them properly but other than that fully compatible!

Some kind of strange tail?

Seeing as today may be our last opportunity to speculate, and so much of the info/pictures are spread across multiple posts, here's a haphazard compilation of what we know so far. Confirmed models with some context, models we've seen but not had any official reveals of, and the remaining rumours and similar unconfirmed stuff.

If I missed anything please share!

Nobz spotted by BebbLord_Tax6889 in this post.

Boyz Spotted by Temporary_Ad_6572 in this post.

The rumours mentioned came via Valrak.

Before I start rambling about this conversion I'd like to ask which boss pole you think is better, SKULL or NO SKULL?

I wanted something that resembled the horns of the standard Bigboss, and these were the two best bits I had for it. I like both for different reasons. The two horns has a nice simple shape that flows well with the rest of the miniature, but the one with the skull could potentially tie into the fact that someone else’s head used to be attached to this body.

Now for the rambling: Had been unsure what to do with my Ufthak Blackhawk. I got it with the intention of converting it into something since I wasn't that big of a fan of the mini as a whole but liked a lot of the individual bits. He looked a little too scrawny to be an actual Warboss for my Goffs, but there wasn't really much else for him to be at the time so I left him sitting.

Now with the introduction of the Bigboss there's a perfect role for him! And I think he lends himself very well to it. Getting rid of the giant gun I think helped balance the whole composition and made him look less small, and having a longer axe planted on the ground like this makes for a very nice pose.

I tried to pick bits that followed similar proportions as the new orks, like the slightly smaller hands than he had before, which helps him fit in standing next to the new Warboss.

The piece of plasticard he's leaning against is planned to be turned into some piece of scrap sticking up out of the ground.

The axe is perhaps long enough as to be silly. I might try to find/make an axehead that goes down and around his hand more to help with that, or take the bottom off it and perch it on some rubble. But I'm not too bothered either, I think he looks like enough of a showoff to get an ridiculous axe just for the sake of it.

Lore-wise I'm imagining him having been an especially kunnin' nob who helped thwart a mutiny against the current Warboss, and in return for his loyalty he got to have his own head grafted onto the would-be usurpers body. Making him the new second biggest. He doesn't necessarily have his eye on the top position, for now he's just savoring his status.

Parts used:

• Body: Ufthak Blackhawk
• Head: Painboss
• Hand with cigar: Flash Gitz
• Bracer for cigar arm: Nobz
• Bracer for axe arm: Ogor Beastriders
• Hand holding axe: Kommando Nob
• Axe head: Boyz (2021)
• Axe handle (long): Ogroid Theridons
• Axe handle (bottom): Big choppa from Nobz
• Crotch skull: Warboss in Mega Armour
• Holstered Slugga: Gretchin Runtherd
• Boss pole (skull): Warhammer+ Megaboss
• Boss pole (horns): Stikka from Savage Orcs/Orruks

Strange, I hope this doesn't mean we're not even getting a new proper gretchin kit...

Very appreciative of all the great ideas on my last post about this. I ultimately decided to go for sticking the shoota on the hammer, custodes-style. It made sense to me that this guy wouldn't want to put his hammer away to shoot, and it feels like the sort of kustom weaponry that a boss would get made.

I'm imagining he'd toss the whole thing over the klaw to aim, and fire it with the throttle at the back (which was originally on there because it used to have a deff dread saw for a head before the hammer.)

I also really like the final look of the hammer. I think I managed to arrange the shoot bits in a way that distributed the details nicely as well as keeping the overall shape interesting and not just one solid block of stuff. I got the idea for the lever handle from one in the Wrecka Crew/Breaka Boyz kit.

I'd love some suggestions on a more proper name for this as well, as I can't decide on what sort of amalgam of the words kustom, kombi, shoota, hammer etc. to use.

I'll also take this time to do a proper bits-breakdown on this whole guy:

• Base kit: Megaboss (AoS)
• Head (Upper): Big Mek in Mega Armour/Meganobz
• Head (Lower): Rockgut Troggoth (AoS)
• Klaw arm: Warboss/Grukk Face-Rippa 2014
• Klaw arm shoulder pad: Mangler Squigs. Face armour (AoS)
• Boss pole: Warboss in Mega Armour
• Tiny skull glyph: Meganobz
• Bolts: "Micro Rivets - Hexagon" (greenstuffworld)

Hammer:

• Throttle: Boyz 2018. Boss Nob choppa
• Hammer head: Ufthack Blackhawk
• Battery pack: Boyz 2008. Rokkit Launcha
• Shoota: Boyz 2018. Front and magazine from one boy, the back from another
• Barrel/heatshield: Plaguemarines (Dark Imperium) Backpack smokestacks
• Lever: Beastboss on Squigosaur

One trio and three duos, where either arms/legs go on either body. Heads seemingly fully interchangeable. Pretty clever way of squeezing more variety out of limited sprue space.

Supposedly it will be bigger and "more orky".

I wasn't expecting this one, personally. It seems to hold up pretty well and it's a fairly involved kit so there'd be a lot to live up to. I guess it is from 2009 so it's not exactly new though.

Video with timestamp to relevant part: https://youtu.be/AaX5Q1rc6No?si=VtAhZd4nwtYZqV5j&t=112