Trech Crusade’s popularity is undeniable and it was only time until I picked up some models to paint for it, regardless of the likliehood (or lack thereof) of me playing it at all. The setting’s aesthetic is striking and lends itself well to kitbashes and conversions.That’s not something I typically do at all, most often simply building kits as intended with some minor cutting for different poses on occassion.
Originally I painted a Trench Pilgrim warband, the official models, in brighter-than-normal colours and then decided I should probably read some rules. Thankfully,my existing models that I put together, somehwat haphazardly, probably work out as a legal warband. Probably. I found out that each faction also has a series of sub-factions that add various restrictions but also new options. The one that immediately caught my eye by name was the Heretic Legion’s Trench Ghosts. That just sounds rad as hell. I had a mental image of ghosts floating around no man’s land. Grey whisps floating across the battlefield wielding the arms and wearing the bits of armour or gear that they died with. Uncertainty creeps in to the mind about just how “real” these beings are.
So obviously I had to make this happen. The best part is that these 11 models cost me a whopping £15 to buy, with postage, across just two simple sprues. The perfect project: cheap, simple, and incredibly cool.
Kits Used
Age of Sigmar’s Nighthaunt range is an easy pick for the ghost-bits. They’re great looking models, scale perfectly with “real” Trench Crusade minis, and sprues can be very easy to find on the cheap. Chainrasps, especially, is a unit that Nighthaunt players have historically been inundated with; they’ve been in starter sets and Hachette partwork’s magazine. I won’t tell you how to buy them but have a look around and I’m sure you’ll find a cheap sprue somewhere.
For all of the gas masks, weapons, and equipment I turned to our historicals crew to find out where the best sprue might be to kitbash with. Specifically what sprue might have plenty of gas masks. Unsurprisingly the answer was a WW1 kit from Wargames Atlantic of which there are plenty of options between British, German, French, and Russian each with their own unique bits of kit. Based on the gas mask shape alone I went with the German kit. I didn’t need a whole box, though, and many shops online split them down and sell individual sprues. I decided that just one would be plenty with 6 gas masks, lots of other helmets, some spiffy hats, and plenty of guns and grenades.
I was especially pleased that I’d be able to make up ghosts with a machine gun and smg as well off of this one frame! No clue how useful either of these would be to have in game on ghosts, but they’re cool and it’s nice to have variety!
Basing the Kits
I really wasn’t sure how this was going to go, so I didn’t document with photos each step, being then pleasantly surprised that they all just worked out in the end. I really, really, was not expecting that I’d be able to make this work. The Chainrasp sprue is only meant to build 10 guys with the ghost in stockade sharing parts with the one holding up the big candle stick; thankfully they’re ghosts so missing part of their body doesn’t actually mean much and you get a “full” eleven guys out of this. Look, I still have no idea how many you want in a game, maybe you want more? No clue. Eleven seems like a good number for what’s meant to be a skirmish game. Right?
Anyway, I started off by just building the Chainrasps as they are, cause I’m using most of these models anyways. Then figuring out what bits would fit best where: who gets a gun, who’s melee weapon head is being replaced by a stick grenade head, what arms will fit on best with minimal cutting involved, and so on. This was done, more or less, just model by model picking up a ghost and then seeing which bits would work on it. The German hands are slightly smaller than the Chainrasp hands but it’s such a minor difference that they look fine together. Also, these are ghosts, it’s all fictional.
Then, cutting off the heads of the ghosts and replacing them with either full-on gas masks (where I cut much lower on the head/cloak) or with just a helment where I cut off just the top half of the ghost head and glued a helmet down. This worked out much better than I anticipated. Thankfully these sprues are two different colours so you can see exactly where I cut and what kit is used where! Enjoy the slideshow of each, folks:
Of course that’s only ten of them, where’s our stockade ghost friend? I really was at a loss of what to do with him, so I went back to the rules PDF to see if they all needed to have a weapon or what the deal was exactly to at least make the models somewhat playable. Upon this reading I saw that Sarcophagus Mines are a thing; they explode when enemies stray too close and they’re not allowed any other weapons. No clue what they’re meant to look like, but it seems like it’s a dude strapped to the teeth with explosives floating around, and who better to stick a load of grenades to other than stockade-guy. Poor ghost, even in death he’s just having a real rough time. This isn’t perfect and the back looks exactly what you’d expect: rather empty, a bit of cloak, and a ghostly arm holding a grenade; I added a helmet hanging off the back which is that little bit of grey poking over the top that you can see. It’s not perfect but it works!
So the gang is all here ready for paint. I gotta be honest, I’m actually incredibly pleased with myself on these. They’re dead simple but they fit my vision perfectly. You also might be wondering what the basing material is and it’s just a tub of sand and mixed grit of varying sizes that I bought over five years ago, no clue where from, that has no label. Mod podge (matte) is the best stuff for sticking down basing material, too, since it’s a stronger bond than normal PVA.
Painting Them
Thankfully this was even simpler than the building part! I wanted them to be ghostly bluish-grey things floating across no man’s land with real, old and worn, equipment. So starting off I sprayed them with Wolfkin Grey cause I had that laying around, it’s a colour match to Games Workshop’s The Fang colour, and it worked great. Just look at that great start.
Next up: drybrushing. First with Thunderhawk Blue nice and heavy followed by a lighter dryrbush of Mechanicus Standard Grey and finished off with a very light Dawnstone drybrush. Easy! Then painted the not-skin with Pro Acryl Dark Ivory to be a nice off-white, standing out against the darker cloaks. That was done on the bits of face on the models that have it, too.
I forgot to photograph a few steps so this is almost a “paint the rest of the owl” but in order I did:
- Chains, guns, helmets in Pro Acryl Steel
- Gas mask in Pro Acryl Warm Brown
- Gun stocks, stick grenades, and other wooden bits in Pro Acryl Drab Brown
- Gravestones in Mechanicus Standard Grey with a Dawnstone drybrush
- Wash all of that with Pro Acryl Black Wash
- Gas mask eyes painted Grey Seer then painted over with Tesseract Glow
The only parts left to do is adding all of that wonderful rust and the basing! Both being incredibly simple steps. I love love love the Dirty Down Rust stuff. It’s highly toxic, smells terrible, and ruins brushes but that’s ok because it looks wonderful! I apply it to the metals somewhat thickly and then wet my brush with a bit of water and spread it around a bit. The thicker parts dry darker and the lighter adds some discolouration around the rust so it’s not such a sudden change between that and the silver. I love how the orange of the rust contrasts nicely against the blue-grey of the robes adding a sense of the reality and physicality to parts of the ghost models.
Lastly then are the bases: Pro Acryl Mahogany drybrushed with Steel Legion Drab and some stones picked out with Dawnstone. Then just cover it all in a brown wash of your choosing, I used Pro Acryl Brown Wash. Simple, effective.
Finished Ghosts
These came together within about 6 hours total hobby time of snipping, gluing, and painting. I have some ideas of adding a “Tank Palanquin” by using the Nighthaunt Awlrach model as a base but then that starts to move this project away from “incredibly cheap” to “actual project” and that’s not a step that I am yet willing to take. Maybe if I play a few games of Trech Crusade then I’d go and make up some more. For now I’m incredibly pleased with these elevel ghosts, am very glad I made this project come through to fruition within four days of it spawning in my head, and they look great sitting on my shelf next to my desk. This game and setting is just perfect for this kind of hobby fun and it might be one of the projects that I’ve enjoyed most!
I also dug out my turntable and got them spinning around on it so that you can see the various angles and the back of that poor, poor, stockade ghost. Uploaded onto my instagram:
Tell me about your conversions or kitbashes for Trench Crusade warbands! What kits did you use? Did it turn out as well as you expected? If you have any ideas rattling around in your head and not sure how it’ll turn out just try it! Get those sprues, hobby knife, and glue and get to it.
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