Workbench: Gathering The Troops

About a month and a half ago (that long? really?) I mentioned that I was going to make some proxy Trenchers to field with Magnus.  There was some unexpected training thrown into the middle of all of this so I haven't made a ton of progress but I have been able to get some work done on them.

Apologies for the somewhat washed out photo but I'm working with an iPhone camera with florescent lights.  It still gives you an idea how they are coming out though.  The main problem that I've encountered assembling them has been the left hand.  For some reason they sculpted it so that it rests on top of the rifle as you can see with the trooper on the left which looks pretty awkward.  The guns are quite heavy in the front so how exactly they are supposed to hold these things up to aim is a little bit of a mystery.  I could see some kind of a shoulder strap being used to help brace it but I don't really feel like trying to fashion twenty plus fiddly little straps.

Instead I've started cutting off the left hand at the wrist and flipping it over.  This lets me position the arm so that the hand it under the magazine as you can see on the right.  This puts the gun too high to have it in a firing position but does look a little more natural in my opinion.  Plus is also lets me throw in another pose which is always a good thing.

I'm also pretty happy with how their size compares to regular Warmachine minis.  Here is one of the Trenchers with a mechanithrall to give you an idea.

 

The proportions do seem to be a bit smaller but overall I think they are close enough to work as a good replacement.  Now I just need to finish converting the rest of the regular troops and figure out how I'm going to represent the grenade porters, sniper, and captain.  The last two should be the easiest ones just by using bits from the original Trencher minis but I'm still debating how to best represent the grenade porters.  I do have some ideas but I need to pick up some bits first to see how they work out but more on that later.  Until next time...