[The Rogue Trader] - Cheap Knights

With the high price of the Grey Knight Strike Squad box I wanted to see if I could stretch the value a little bit.  I'd made a basic strike squad, Justicar with Daemon Hammer, Grey Knight with psycannon, three Grey Knights with Force Swords.  This left me with a good range of option pieces, part of why the set is so expensive.  So I gave some thought to what I'd need to make a second squad out of this set.  A couple of eBay purchases later I was on my way.

To let you know how much this second set of Grey Knights costs, I bought a set of 6 Space Wolf terminator stormbolter arms for $6.50 of which 3 were needed.  I also bought a set of 10 tactical space marines (the basic combat squad box x2) for $17.50 of which 5 were needed.  So $12 for the bits to do this particular kit bash, and another $12 for the bits that will allow me to do it again.  I did also raid my bits box, but only very basically for a couple of SM bare heads and a couple of extra bits for the Justicar and special weapon knight.

The issues I was going to have were how distinct the Grey Knight armor is.  Firstly, the helmets, the easiest problem to solve.  As I mentioned I used bare heads, it gives the squad a consistent look and simply gets around the helmet problem.  Next is storm bolters, and the reason for the SW termie purchase.  The Grey Knight set comes with five and I had one of those left.  Having removed the storm bolters from the terminator arms, cleaned up the SW logos, cut the back off to shorten them, and moved most of the ammo clips to the side, I had a good copy of the needed weapon.  For the chapter logo on the shoulder I had two options, get better with green stuff, or paint it.  I'll be taking the second option.  Lastly, the armor itself with the writing, psychic hood, and Liber Daemonicum.  Not really anything I can do about the writing and the hoods I'm ignoring because of the bare heads.  I could GS some Liber Daemonicums, but for something so small that will disappear behind the arms I decided it wasn't worth the time.

So here they are, at $12 + spare parts for 5 they compare well, 1/3 the cost of the regular Grey Knight box.  We have a Justicar with Force Halberd,  Grey Knight with incinerator, and three Grey Knights with paired Falchions.  190 points if we master craft the Force Halberd.  And of course I have enough left from the eBay purchase to do the same again when I get another Grey Knight Strike Squad box.  And yes, there are some differences between these and how they'd look if they were straight from the box.  Once painted, and by keeping them all in one squad, I think the differences will look minimal on the table and I'll still have $24 for beer.

Marcus