Horus Heresy - Minis Hidden in Plain Sight?

[Bigred]

Longtime BoLS friend Florian asked us to repost his findings...

via florian:

While browsing Betrayal for large 'hidden-in-plain-sight' models, as is often the habit of GW/BL in their publications, i found none but a few strikingly different minis, perhaps due to personal conversions (as the studio guys love to include in their books, viz. The Red Wake in the Badab books) or to 'sanctioned' stuff we haven't yet been shown at GDUK, which wouldn't surprise me at all.
I'll let you make your own mind upon closer inspection of the following pics, all the while bearing in mind the above-mentioned elements as well as FW's habit to shoop their minis when compositing their final pictures (sometimes to the utter crushing of our hopes :P).

Exhibit A1 & A2: Death Guard specific (?) helmets on MkIII & IV plates.



Exhibit B: Emperor's Children specific Relic Contemptor with a single headed aquila on breastplate? The honour escutcheon bearing a Roman III leads me to believe this is indeed an EC addition. Resculpted or 'shopped ???



Exhibit C: 'Hero'-sized MkII astartes? The helmet seems oddly stunted but proportions are not the ones of the current MkII mini. Note that the vambrace/gauntlet sports studs while the current MkII doesn't. On the opposite, the hand plate here has only two studs when the current model shows four. Finally,the miniature shown here has no neck-guard contrarily to the model so far sold by FW. I suspect a personal conversion or some photo-manipulation again, but you never know...

[DrLove42]

B....i feel conversion. Its just a relic with a one head. Far too slight a change to be worthy of a individual model.

A....maybe.

C...again maybe. It certainly does look wrong

[wittdooley]

Hey wait....isn't that a Max Mini helmet....

But in all seriousness, I Agree with the good doctor. We already know that Legion Specific Contempors are coming, and I have to think that they'll look significantly different from the present one. Well, at least I hope.

[Mike X]

Honestly I don't see anything in those pictures that even remotely resembles "true-scale" minis. Dude has too much time on his hands.

[Tobias Rau]

I think that two of the death guard heads in exhibit A1 are actually the bare heads of the mark II vehicle crews.

[Cpt Codpiece]

the 1st pic, either the bare head vehicle guys, as mentioned or those silly grey knight heads.

the 2nd one im sure is a chaos champion from CSM box with horns removed and face slit filled and drilled

the contemptor looks like the eagle looking to the past was cut off, that is all.

and the last one looks plain weird, i think its the angle it has been taken as the legs and arm look huge! though the arms are not something i recognise.

[Lleman]

'Dude-with-too-much-time-on-his-hands' here.
Well, as some of my fellows at RelicNews pointed there seems to be some 'limp-mohawk' specific heads in the DG pic. However some are apparently from another stock. Remains to be proven if they're simply conversions or not.
Another of my RN forums mate disclosed some infos he's gotten about the MkII:

As for the armour marks, Will Hayes has apparantly stealth reworked the armour kits, and the pictures havent been updated on the site yet, so could be that.

And yes, Mike X, i find it weird myself to have that much time indeed; i must be tainted.

[thomas40kfanboy]

A) legion armour upgrade sets were on show at GD:UK including emperor's children and death guard.
B) no simply a normal relic Contemptor without the second head on it. the emperor's children Contemptor body will be lavish and showy as fitting their 'style'
C) the armour sets have been upgraded and this is more than likely a mix of not reconsigning the new parts and the camera angle.

[frommage]

The mystery is called Photoshop and it can give my girlfriend huge hooters

[Lukas The Trickster]

Just my tuppence worth, but I reckon that the helmets on the Death Guard models have been taken from FW's Red Scorpion honour guard. Unconvinced about any of the others being new models, I think they are just conversions.