Skorne Cyclops Conversions

 The Skorne Cyclops Savage is one of those models that has a lot of untapped potential for use outside of the game it is designed for. Included with the Skorne starter battlebox, it's a model that very quickly finds itself replaced in most armies and often finds itself buried in the bottom of carrying cases and closets never again to see the light of day. This also means you can get it fairly cheap (over 50% off in most cases),

Skorne Cyclops Savage (plastic kit version)

That said, the body of the Cyclops looks very nice (the weird gorilla arms I'm not a fan of), and is a great base to work from in conversions. Note that the plastic Cyclops is a somewhat different sculpt, and has less detail, so you may want to prioritize the metal ones for conversion. You can see a size comparison below.


 

 

Skorne Cyclops Size Comparison

 As metal models are a pain to work with, it's nice that the arms and head are separated perfectly at the shoulders and neck, making conversion a snap. For example, I've been playing with either using spare Necropolis knight arms (green-stuffing some bulk on the skeleton arms) or seeing how Ogre arms look. Just for fun I sticky-tac'd two of the arms from a spare Cynwall Nova I have on my desk and it looked pretty decent once I placed a Dark Eldar Talos mask on it (those things have a million-and-one uses by the way).

Savage body with two arms from Rackham Confrontation Nova

 I have almost ten Savages (no joke) between various purchases and people giving me extras they didn't want, so I am looking at using some for Dark Eldar Groteques or as champions of some sort in 40K. Not sure, but I like the look of the bodies too much to see them go to waste. If I can find some good looking arms I may even rework my Brute and Raider since I absolutely hate their default monkey limbs.

Preview of my headswapped Skorne (need a better head for EHexy).

Confrontation Conversion: Aberration Prime

Aberration Prime

Base Size: Round 60mm (Rackham bevelled edge).
Plastic Type: Hard Plastic (body, arms, legs) and Flexible Plastic (blades).
Sculpt Detail: Very good (see below).
Prepaint Quality: Very good.
Ease of Disassembly: Very good.
Ease of Removal from Base: Difficult
Strippable: The greenish "wash" can be partly removed, but the main colors are literally baked on and cannot be stripped.
Obvious Count-As: Chaos Daemons (Prince, Bloodcrushers) and Dark Elves (Grotesques).

Aberration Prime Packaging

The Aberration Prime is packaged as a single model. It's an elite model, and represents a signficant investment for the Dirz commander in the Confrontation game. As the model is so easy to disassemble (see below) you may find that the model has come apart inside the box during shipping. In my experience the upraised arm will often become detached from the socket. It's unlikely that this will cause any damage, and as the paint is baked on it's unlikely to mar the model. The blades are made of a flexible, rubbery plastic (similar to D&D/Mage Knight miniatures) and is unlikely to be broken or damaged.

The most important thing to point out about the Aberration Prime is that it not only looks like the original Rackham Aberration Prime plastic boxed set model - IT'S THE SAME MODEL. It's literally the exact same mold - with some very small modifications to the blades (blunted) and arm pistons (glued on). You don't get the boxed set extra arms or heads but it's otherwise IDENTICAL. Even the chestplate is still removable in the prepainted model (sometimes they glue it in but you can pry it off) and you can see the heart and other organs! The only exception is the spine, which is not easily removable on the pre-painted model.

INTERCHANGABLE PARTS WITH OLD BOXED SET
As it's the old plastic kit the parts are also 100% interchangable! Buying a few boxed sets (which is obviously pretty hard these days) opens up a TON of conversion opportunities - and if you combine it with some Chronos/Talos bits from the GW Dark Eldar set you can get some really wild conversions going.



Prepainted parts (on right) next to boxed set parts.



Prepainted Aberration with boxed set arms, head, and chest attached.



Close up of swapped parts.


DISASSEMBLY
This is one of the easist Confrontation prepainted models to disassemble. For most examples you can remove the arms, heads, and chestplate with only minor twisting. On most of mine they were not even glued in. You may get an example where the painter actually applied some glue but this is rare and just requires a bit more force to pop off (the plastic is tough, it won't snap easily).

The upraised arm is the easist to remove and you can work it around the peg to break any paint or glue that is holding it in. The lower arm is on a L-shaped joint and should be pulled straight out or levered out - don't twist it unless you want to mangle the joint! The head is on a peg joint so simply twist and pull to remove it.



Aberration Prime with limbs removed.



The easily separated parts.

 Although it looks similar to the smaller Nemesis Evolution, there is no parts commonality.

Confrontation Corner: Aberration Prime



Aberration Prime Prepaint

 The Aberration Prime was one of the premier kits put out by Rackham before they went completely to pre-painted plastics. Originally appearing as a metal model, it was later redesigned and appeared as a deluxe plastic boxed set. The plastic kit was significantly larger than the old metal version (hence the "Prime"_, and came loaded with extra goodies.


    Old Promo Advertisement    	  Plastic Boxed Set  You can still buy these at LudikBazar.
  Among the goodies were four heads, four arms, two spines, and two ribcage options. Supposedly these all have different effects in the older Confrontation rules according to the box text, but I can find no such reference on the unit card or in the Confrontation 3/3.5 rules.	 Plastic Aberration Prime Unboxed 

Size Comparison with Nemesis Evolution and Clone



Size Comparison with old Daemon Prince and Chaos Marine



Size Comparison with old Daemon Prince and Nemesis Evolution