Conversion Corner: Creating the Happenin' Habber

The Happenin’ Habber stands tall next to a Cadian Shock Trooper.

Converting models is one of our favorite aspects of this hobby; it offers an unprecedented ability to explore Games Workshop’s settings, unfettered by rules or the imagination of the original sculptor. Within the last few years, Games Workshop has made converting models much easier, due to their rapid release schedule and releasing virtually all of their models in plastic. This has also made it possible to make many convincing conversions by splicing together various kits with minimal need for modeling putty. Over the years, however, we have started spend more and more time sculpting things and using green stuff to make minor changes to models to get them exactly to our liking. While this is fun, it is also incredibly time consuming (our infiltration expert took weeks to create, for example), reducing the amount of models we create. With this in mind, we wanted to start a regular feature on the blog (hopefully once a month or every other month), that we push ourselves to convert a model within a few sittings, without extensive green stuff work. We hope it will allow us to attempt new things, gets some use out of models that have sat unused on our shelves, and ultimately convert more models!

With relatively minor conversion work, we think the Delaque models can be improved, better fitting the stealthy image that was intended.

The plastic Delaque gang for Necromunda was just released, and it seemed ideal for creating the first model in this series. We talked at length about the base models on our podcast, praising their less heroically scaled proportions, but also criticizing their oversized weapons. This seemed like a good opportunity to show how the models could be strengthened by doing only minor conversion work, particularly replacing the weapons with ones scaled more appropriately.

The Delaque models have a separate piece for the neck, making it relatively easy to replace the models’ heads.

The first modification I made was replacing the model’s weapons. Thankfully, the weapons I designed and cast for the Imperial Guard I converted this year were scaled well for the Delaque models. As a result, I was able to replace the model’s hands with one holding a knife, the other a substantially smaller pistol, both of which I designed. It is worth noting that since the Delaque models are less heroically scaled, their arms and hands are smaller than many other standard Games Workshop human models. For example, the Genestealer cultist arms are too large to fit well with the Delaque models, the smaller Forge World Elysian models’ arms/hands work well, however.

I replaced the Delaque weapons with better scaled variants that I had converted for my Imperial Guard.

While the rest of the model did not need major modifications, I removed the rebreather that dominated the chest of the model, as well as a large belt buckle. Instead of using a head included, I opted for a female head from the Stormcast Evocators. Although creating a female model, I decided not to use the “female” body included in the Delaque set. While I appreciate that a dedicated female body was included in the boxed set, I feel it is a little overdone considering how heavy the coats they are wearing are. Despite wanting this to be a quick conversion, I could not resist doing some green stuff work on the model, primarily fixing seams and redoing small parts of cloth on the model’s coat.

I added a holster for her pistol as well as some small pouches to hold additional magazines.

The Delaque models are quite tall, almost as tall as one of the new Death Guard, and a head taller than the older Cadian models.

When coming up with the idea of creating a new recurring post about quick conversions, my brothers and I joked that first model should be an Imperial citizen from a bustling hive city, affectionately named the Happenin’ Habber. With this name in mind, we knew we needed to create a model to fit it, and to be a sort of mascot for the entire series. We think this Delaque model conversion fits this vision, and thus the Happenin’ Habber is born! You are sure to see more of her, alongside any upcoming conversions from this series. Let us know what you think of her!

- Adam Wier