Plasma Pistols Were Always Good

The new rules for shooting and close combat in 8th Edition seem to be getting very interesting indeed. A lot of my mates are saying that plasma pistols are finally becoming worth the points cost because of that. Not withstanding that the points costs for everything are probably going to be revised very soon, my own personal take is that plasma pistols were always worth it!

Many of my current models, such as the one below, feature plasma pistols. I frequently use them on raptor or assault style squads for packing an extra punch. 

But that is not the real reason that I grew to like them.

One of the first tournaments that I remember playing in involved me using a chaos space marine lord equipped with a power fist, plasma pistol and a jump pack (or wings!). The guy is pictured below and as can be seen is a very, very old miniature that dates back to when my painting skills were not as honed as they have become over the years. 

In the tournament, I used this HQ selection to "hop" from one squad to another in relative safety -- joining one squad and then another until I was in range to do something with him. As it turned out, I jumped him close to a rhino. The plasma pistol unloaded in to the rear of the rhino and caused it to explode (yes -- it was one of *those* editions of 40k). 

The small squad of space marines had to make an emergency disembarkation. I followed this up by charging right in to them with this chaos lord. He suffered a wound for his troubles before getting to swing with his power fist, obliterating all of them off the board.

Since that day, I've been sold on plasma pistols. Okay, I know full well I got a lucky roll to kill a tank with a plasma pistol. But it worked wonders on the game I was playing at the time as a youngling taking my first forays in to the tournament scene!

Omegon's Man

Deep within a splinter of a Harrowing, Omegon's Man stands ready to lead the Loyalists (or Traitors? We're not entirely sure) of the Alpha Legion to victory.

Featuring a blend of Forge World parts (body of Master of Signals); Chaos Space Marines (head), Space Marines (Arms, Shoulders, weapons) and a shield from Scibor, this guy is effectively going to function as a Praetor (or similar) for Omegon within my Alpha Legion faction. Or perhaps just a squad sergeant for some breachers, or similar. 

The base features a base topper from Anvil Industry, and will eventually get some more attention around the edges with some extra pebbles (etc) to fill in the gap right to the edge of the 32mm base. 

Wargames Gallery: Spinning a Web

Eldar warp spider aspect warriors creep up on Chaos Space Marine raptors to finish them off. Sadly, they lost one of their brethren along the way as they shunted through the warp (the first time I've seen this happen on the tabletop in a long while!). 

CSM in 6th Review: Raptors

The analogue of loyalist assault marines; I have always had a bit of a thing for chaos raptors - particularly from a conversion point of view. The new models however, are gorgeous and may curb my conversion desire somewhat for raptors now.

To be fair, I see raptors as now being a second rate choice for the chaos space marine fast attack slot to chaos bikers.  They do serve two slightly different purposes, but at 3 extra points per model, I'm favouring bikers these days.  But I still love you raptors...

One of the changes that raptors see in the new edition is the automatic inclusion of the fear rule.  Now, fear is a bit useless (during this extended review of the new chaos marine codex, you'll see how many times I've suggested taking an Icon of Despair for instance: which is to say zero) given the meta-game's preponderance of space marines and other fearless units.  It'll occasionally be useful against certain horde armies, but not truly fearsome at all.  They keep their frag and krak grenades (unlike their poorer Warp Talon brethren).

Otherwise, the raptors get a series of common options: two special weapons, champion with access to melee and ranged weapons, gift of mutation and melta bombs; plus the whole range of marks, icons and the veterans rule. So let's have a look at a few permutations of unit possibilities.

5 Raptors, 2 Meltaguns, Raptor Champion with combi-melta, power weapon, Veterans of the Long War (150 points)
A near-vanilla set-up with triple-melta for some tank busting and a limited amount of close combat potential to take on the contents of a transport, or a set of marines behind an Aegis defence line.

6 Raptors, Mark of Slaanesh, 2 Flamers, Veterans of the Long War, Icon of Excess, Raptor Champion with Lightning Claw and melta bombs (196 points)
A fluffy Slaaneshi squad to go after hordes and foot infantry and take on their lower initiative marine cousins in close combat.  The lightning claw takes advantage of this higher initiative, but feel free to add a second one to taste.  The Icon of Excess provides the squad with a better survivability quotient. Go forth and engage.

7 Raptors, Mark of Nurgle, 1 Flamer, 1 Meltagun, Champion with Powerfist (190 points)
A generalist squad built for speed and durability.  It has the flexibility to go after both small hordes and tanks, backed up with a champion with a powerfist for increased threat across the board.

8 Raptors, Mark of Khorne, Champion with power weapon and melta bombs, Icon of Wrath, Veterans of the Long War (213 points)
Chaaaarrrrgggge!  Add some plasma guns to taste?

5 Raptors, 2 Plasmaguns, Raptor champion with combi-plasma and power fist (160 points)
A re-positionable plasma soak unit.  Once the combi-plasma has been expended, head directly for the rear-face of a transport, try to plasma it, if not, use the powerfist.  Not terrific, but a potentially interesting choice of loadout.

Apocalypse Homebrew: Vuldant the Reaper

The defiler of Cranthia VI, Imperial Shrine World and tomb of Saint Anthei of the knife, Vuldant the Reaper and his warbands have ploughed a swathe of destruction against Imperial Shrines in the Chorus Celestia subsector.  Local forces report his attacks come without warning, as if the winged horror had been invisibly reconnoitring the area for weeks ahead of time.  The truth is probably darker and sceptics point to his daemonic visage...

WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
6  4  6 4 3 5 3 10 3+/5+

175 points.

Wargear: Power armour, wings, bolt pistol, master-crafted power maul
Special Rules: Daemon kin, infiltrate, scout, independent character, winged charge

Winged Charge: Vuldant may charge up to 12" in to combat.

Painted Possessed Raptor Lord

The New Year possessed raptor lord is fully painted in the Black Legion colours. I chose the Black Legion for its generic usage as an HQ.  Being an ensemble of forces, this legion's colour could readily fit in with my Khorne and Nurgle forces, in a command sense.

For the painting, I started with the reds (torso, head and wings).  They were base coated in mechrite red followed by a double wash of black.  The colours were then highlighted with progressively lighter tones (blood red through to near orange) to bring out the natural ridges present in the sculpt.  The head in particular was pleasing to see finished here as I'd spent extra effort to ensure that ridges along the brows (etc) were properly picked out.  The rest of the model was painted in slightly off-black.  This was followed by a gentle dusting of grey/black mixture before washing it back down with black to blend it all together.  The ridges of the armour and the knee-caps were picked out with shining gold (I didn't really want to bother with none-metallic metallics here). The weaponry was given a drybrushing of boltgun metal, before I started to pick out the power maul/mace.  I opted here to attempt an inverse painting (partly in response to the great feedback from ghost knight test painting I received).  Following a basecoat of white, I steadily picked out the darker bits with deepening blues; starting with electric blue and working my way through ultramarine blue to a dark blue on the outermost edges.  To create a feeling of glow, I highlighted selected portions of the arm that I thought might be highlighted by the glow from the maul -- in particular: parts of the handle of the weapon, parts of the arm itself and the glove especially. Perhaps part of the inner wing should have also got a little shine, but I didn't go that far. 

The only thing left to do is to base this guy up to finish him off.  I might try one of the back2basix temple bases I painted up a while back.

A New Raptor Lord for 2012

With the New Year, I felt it was time to design a new Raptor Lord for the chaos armies I field.  Although raptors aren't such an often-seen choice on the gaming table, I still enjoy running a small squad of raptors from time to time and in the past have given plenty of thought to what chaos mark they should benefit from.  This miniature is an update for my old snake-headed raptor lord.  But instead of a power fist, this guy has an ugly looking mace.  In-game, this could be either a power weapon, or a force weapon if I were to run this fellow as a sorcerer.

The parts to make this miniature conversion derive from a number of sources.  The head, torso and wings are clearly from the possessed chaos space marine sprues.  The bolt pistol arm is a standard chaos space marine weapon.  The mace and shoulder pads source from Dark Angels bits and regular space marine pads.  Meanwhile the legs are cunningly from a loyalist terminator who no longer needed them.  The longer, somewhat bulkier legs give an exaggerated height to the space marine which adds to the menace when he towers over the grots and points his mace in their general direction.

Dark Eldar: A Cause for Re-Thinking Marks of Chaos on Raptors?

For a squad of chaos raptors, an icon of Khorne seems optimal from a previous analysis (see: parts I and II).

However, in recent times, the advent of dark eldar has got me re-thinking this conclusion.  Lots more players are taking dark eldar (and there's still the die-hard eldar fans ... much like I'm a die-hard chaos marine and daemons player - kindred spirits). So, should I reconsider the Icon of Khorne?

I'll resurrect the three options that I was toying with originally: the raptor champion armed with a power fist, twin lightning claws, or simple baseline raptors.  I'll put them up against ten dark eldar cabalite warriors instead of the usual space marines).

Let's look at each Icons in turn, and assuming that the raptors get the charge in.

Khorne.

With a Khorne Icon, the raptors gain an extra attack each, but they strike second.

Khorne Case 1: Baseline Raptors.

The kabalite warriors need 4+ to hit and 5+ to wound from 9 attacks.  This results in 1.5 wounds, of which, 0.5 stick.  The sybarite has a power weapon with 2 attacks.  S/He also hits on 4+ and wounds (without a save) on 5+.  That results in 0.33 more wounds, making 0.83 total.

The raptors hit on 4+ and wound on 3+ from 41 "normal" attacks (total) if everyone was still alive.  Let's assume one is dead from the dark eldar.  That means there are (only!) 37 attacks.  That gives 8.22 wounds.  (i.e. dW = 7.39).

Khorne Case 2: Power Fist.

Again, 0.83 wounds incoming from the first-striking dark eldar kabalite warriors.  Assuming that one of the regular raptors perished, they get 8x4 attacks on the charge that results in a total of 7.11 wounds. The aspiring raptor champion gets 4 attacks (2 base, 1 charging, 1 from the icon), of which 2 hit and 1.67 kill.  This gives 8.78 wounds (and dW = 7.95).

Khorne Case 3: Lightning Claws.

As above, but the champion has 5 attacks and 2.5 hit. They wound on 3+ with a re-roll for failed wounding rolls. This gives 2.22 more wounds for a total of 9.33 (and dW = 8.5).

Slaanesh.

For a Slaaneshi Icon, the chaos raptors strike simultaneously with the dark eldar.

Slaanesh Case 1: Baseline Raptors.

The raptors are still taking 0.83 wounds, but now strike back without losing anyone.  On the charge, they get (9x3)+4 = 31 attacks.  That gives 6.89 wounds (and dW = 6.06).

Slaanesh Case 2: Power Fist.

Assuming the aspiring champion survives, the raptors get 9x3 regular attacks, plus 3 power fist attacks.  The regular attacks cause 6 wounds; the power fist yields 1.25 wounds.  That's 7.25 wounds in total (dW = 6.42).

Slaanesh Case 3: Lightning Claws.

Again, we'll assume the champion survives.  The regular attacks again cause 6 wounds. The lightning claws have 4 attacks, of which 2 hit and 1.78 kill.  That gives 7.78 wounds (and dW = 6.95).

Conclusion.

The Icon of Khone is still superior.  The extra attack still outweighs the increased initiative.  Good job since I've already modelled the Icon of Khorne and don't particularly want to change!

An Old Raptor Lord

Many years ago, I fielded this chap in a conflict style tournament (750 points limit) and I thought I'd share him here to show how far along my painting has moved.  He is painted up in Warp Hornets colours (my very old, yellow!, chaos marine chapter) and was the forerunner and initial inspiration for my more modern raptor conversions.

In game, he is a regular chaos lord with a jump pack (metal wings), power fist and plasma pistol.  My favourite moment with him would be blowing up a rhino to smithereens with his pistol and then surviving the inevitible charge from the (other traitor) marines who were inside to be the last man standing.  He was later backed up by his own troops to secure victory and rout the remaining opposition off the board.

Wargames Gallery: Clash of the Raptors

From behind the tree line, a Dark Angels assault squad blazes a trail toward my winged chaos raptors squad.

The trees seen around the image are of my own design -- see the tree making tutorial for details on this if you're interested in creating some.

Apocalypse Datasheet: Relentless Raptor Swarm

"At first we thought that the Great Devourer, the Tyranid Beasts, had returned to finish what they had started a few cycles ago. The sky was dark with their forms coming in from the sky. We soon learnt that it was a new threat. Night Haunter's legion had come for us."

Squad of Winged Chaos Raptors

Some of you have been waiting for this for a while. Here it is: the completed squad of converted, winged chaos raptors.
The total in-game points cost for this squad of 10 comes out at 290 by my reckoning (including 1 champion with power fist, 2 melta guns and 1 icon of Khorne).

To put that in context, I could purchase a squad of 13.3 "normal" chaos space marines that have the same upgrades, minus the wings. Or, 10 standard plague marines with the same upgrades (champion with power fist and 2 meltas), minus the wings and the icon.

Related articles on my raptors can be found by clicking on the "raptors" label.

Raptor Painting and Conversion Update

Today's short posting is an update on the winged chaos marine raptor squad that I've been working on recently, in pictorial form. There are now 2 raptors with melta guns, an icon bearer (Khorne), and a flying raptor. Total points cost for these 4, in addition to the aspiring champion with power fist that I already had, works out at 190 points painted so far. I'll be making up a few more raptors to add to this squad in the future. But for now here's the update picture:


I like these models! They're not quite as cool as the raptor lord with the chaos arm bit for a head, but that's all good since they will help that miniature to stand out a bit more from the crowd. Even without the mark of Khorne, these raptors are all set for tank and dreadnought hunting duties on the tabletop.

Previous postings concerning these models can be found here: Lord of the Raptors, Statistics-1 and Statistics-2.

Mark of the Raptors: Part II

This is the second and (probably) final part to the Mark of the Raptors series and follows directly on from part one.

Today we're going to get to the heart of the matter: how does dW change for different icons (in 5th ed.)?

Firstly, the near-trivial case of an icon of chaos glory. This one has no bearing on the outcome of a round of close combat -- it simply gives the raptors (a sometime very precious) second roll of the dice against fleeing. Let's have a look at the others.

Slaanesh
This icon will ensure that the raptors strike before their imperial brothers (apart from the power fist equipped aspiring champion who'll still strike last).

Slaanesh Case 1: Baseline raptors.
Here, we have 10 raptors all hitting before the imperials. They'll cause 2.583 unsaved wounds on the imperials. So, we'll assume that the imperial sergeant is still around (worst luck!) after the raptors strike, but there are now only him and 6.417 ordinary marines left over. The total number of attacks from the imperials is therefore reduced to (2x6.417)+3 = 15.834. These will be expected to cause 1.320 unsaved wounds. Hence dW is increased from 0.833 to 1.218 (an increase of some 46%)

Slaanesh Case 2: Power fist.
This case reduces to 9 ordinary raptors hitting first on the charge, the imperials striking back, and then the power fist. The 9 raptors will inflict an average of 2.250 unsaved wounds on the imperials. Striking back (again, with the sergeant still alive), the imperials then inflict (2x6.75)+3 = 16.5 attacks that cause 1.375 wounds. The aspiring champion (whom we'll assume is still alive) causes an additional 1.250 unsaved wounds. The value of dW increases from 1.750 to 2.125 (21% increase) simply by having this icon.

Slaanesh Case 3: Lightning claws.
The 9 ordinary raptors are still striking first and causing 2.250 unsaved wounds. The aspiring champion also gets in on the act early here, causing an additional 1.500 unsaved wounds for a total of 3.75. The slightly bewildered looking marines then take their turn, with (2x5.25)+3 attacks that only cause 1.125 unsaved wounds. So, dW changes from 2.000 to 2.625 (a 31% increase).

Conclusion: The Slaaneshi icon works best with lightning claws.

Khorne
More attacks must mean more damage! But how much more?

Khorne Case 1: Baseline raptors.
Here, all the combatants strike simultaneously. The imperials are still therefore inflicting 1.750 unsaved wounds after being charged. But now, the raptors are getting an impressive (9x4)+5 = 41 attacks. These will cause 10.25 wounds, of which 3.417 will go unsaved. Hence dW increases from 0.833 to 1.667 (a 100% increase and much better than with the Slaanesh icon.

Khorne Case 2: Power fist.
Again, 1.750 wounds from the imperials. The 9 ordinary raptors have 9x4 attacks on the charge enables them to cause 3 unsaved wounds. The aspiring champion then hits 2.0 times, causing 1.667 unsavable wounds. That makes dW increase from 1.750 to 2.917 (67% increase).

Khorne Case 3: Lightning claws.
All striking at the same time, the poor imperials are still only causing 1.750 unsaved wounds on the charging raptors. The ordinary raptors still give 3 unsaved wounds. But now, the lightning clawed aspiring champion dishes out 5 attack, of which 2.5 hit. That means 1.875 more unsaved wounds for a total of 4.875. Here, dW increases from 2.000 to 3.125 (or, 56%).

Conclusion: The Khornate icon works marginally better with lightning claws.

Nurgle
The action of a Nurgle icon is more subtle and changes the dynamics of the melee: the imperials find it tougher to wound the raptors -- from 50% probability to 33%.

Nurgle Case 1: Baseline raptors.
The Nurgle icon does nothing to affect the raptors wounding ability -- they still cause 2.583 unsaved wounds on the charge. But now, the imperials with 21 attacks will only be expected to cause 1.167 unsaved wounds in return. Hence dW goes up from 0.833 to 1.416 (70%).

Nurgle Case 2: Power fist.
Again, our raptors are causing 3.500 unsaved wounds and their opposition are inflicting 1.167 in exchange. So here, dW goes up from 1.750 to 2.333 (33%), making the Nurgle icon better than a Slaanesh icon.

Nurgle Case 3: Lightning claws.
Another simple case: the raptors cause 3.750 unsaved wounds in exchange of 1.167 from their counterparts. That increases dW from 2.00 to 2.583 (29%). That is almost as good as a Slaanesh icon!

Conclusion: The Nurgle icon works best with lightning claws. However, this really is not the reason that we'd want the nurgle icon: it is to increase the overall survivability of the raptors over the whole game, rather than just in close combat. So this analysis is only a small snippet of what this squad would be capable of enduring. In close combat it is the equal of a Slaanesh icon - this is perhaps the most surprising and over-looked consequence of this icon.

Tzeentch
We have only considered a basic opposition whose aspiring champion loyalist counterpart is not equipped with anything fancy. The Tzeentch icon comes in to its own when trying to fend off attacks from such weaponry and other ranged ordnance that typically voids the power armour's save. As such, in this incomplete example, the Tzeentch icon will do nothing over and above the baseline.

Conclusion: a Tzeentch icon should be used with a purpose other than close combat in mind for the raptors, or in a pure Tzeentch army.

Summary and Final Thoughts.
I hope that you've followed most of the above and that I've got my sums correct. Let me know of any glaring errors - I'll be the first to admit that I do get things wrong and I'd like this posting to be accurate.

Clearly this analysis has been superficial and much more could have been done (e.g. considering upgrading the opposition's armaments; having smaller numbers of raptors against larger opposition numbers and generally tweaking my assumptions; thinking about what happens if the squad shoots before charging; or if the opposition rapid fires on them in the previous turn; and so on). There wasn't any real surprises in testing out my pre-conceived ideas that a Slaanesh icon goes with lightning claws and a Khorne one goes with either in general. But the real surprise to me was just how good the Nurgle icon is: it is almost the equal of the Slaanesh icon in close combat. On top of that, the Nurgle icon offers so much more in terms of survivability: that extra point of toughness is wonderful all through the game and not just in rounds of close combat; hence the points value.

I'll be modelling a Khorne icon on my raptor squad given that the aspiring champion is armed with a power fist.

Mark of the Raptors: Part I

Which chaos icon is statistically the best? Following on from my Lord of the Raptors posting, I now want to know which chaos mark (i.e. icon) would be optimal to give to my unit of chaos raptors? More generally, I'd also like to know which icon would work best as the armament of the aspiring champion varies? In this series of two postings, I'll be looking at some mathematical analysis!

In passing, it's worth noting that much of this article can be mathematically translated to ordinary troop selections, but I wanted to know especially about raptors as they can be a significant investment of points in a chaos space marine army and I don't want them to go to waste. I'll also point out that this text was written down in note format over 6 months ago when 4th edition was current, but the conclusions are still valid.

Assumptions.
We need to start somewhere, so let's assume that we've got a 10 strong squad of raptors. In this article, I want to consider the differences between equipping this squad with the various icons (Chaos Glory, Slaanesh, Khorne, Tzeentch & Nurgle) and arming the aspiring champion with no upgrades, a power fist, and a pair of lightning claws. My naive assumption is that a power fist should be paired with a Khornate icon and lightning claws with a Slanneshi one.

To evaluate the impact of this squad, let's have it go up against some Imperial counterparts: a 10 man assault squad with a sergeant who has two close combat weapons. I'll state from the outset that these assumptions are limited in scope and concentrate only on the close combat phase.

Baseline.
The first lesson is to make sure that our raptors are the ones doing the charging. This should be readily engineered against a pure tactical squad who move slower than the raptors, but some thought might want to be applied when looking to charge an assault squad with jet packs.

Let's look at what happens when the raptors charge their Imperial cousins. Without any upgrades, all marines will strike simultaneously and will hit 50% of the time and wound 50% of the time -- this means we have an expectation of 0.25 wounds being caused for every attack. On the charge, our squad of 10 raptors has 31 attacks (9 lots of 2+1 attacks and 1 lot of 3+1 attack from the champion -- the +1 representing the charge and the base 2 attacks sourced from using two close combat weapons). This means it'll cause 7.750 wounds on average. With power armour, the opposition will save two thirds of those wounds, resulting in an average 2.583 unsaved wounds.

If they don't get the charge, then the raptors will be reduced to 21 attacks, which we expect to cause an average of 5.250 wounds, of which 1.750 will remain unsaved. Therefore by charging, the 10 strong squad of raptors stand to cause just under 1 extra unsaved wound. The self-same argument can be applied to Imperial Assault Marines and the lesson is the same: be the one charging!

Power Fist.
How many more unsaved wounds above 2.583 on the charge will our raptors inflict if the aspiring champion is equipped with a power fist?

The only change in the dynamic now is that the power fist champion attacks last (and must avoid being removed when all other combatants strike) and now causes unsavable instant-kill wounds on 2+.

Of the 31 attacks on the charge, 27 will take place with "normal" weapons. They inflict an average of 6.750 wounds which we expect 2.250 will go unsaved. The four attacks from the champion will be expected to have 2 hits and inflict 1.667 unsaved wounds. That adds up to 3.917 unsaved wounds -- an increase of 1.334 compared to without the power fist.

Following similar logic, but without the charge, they're causing 2.750 unsaved wounds (an increase of 1.000 compared to without the power fist).

Lightning Claws.
No save and re-roll failing to-wound rolls -- not a bad prospect! But how does it pan out in game terms?

On the charge, the 9 ordinary members of the squad are still inflicting 2.250 unsaved wounds. The aspiring champion with 4 attacks will hit twice on average. One of those two hits will wound (no save). The second is expected to miss, but be successfully re-rolled half of the time. So the expectation is that the aspiring champion will cause 1.500 unsaved wounds. That adds up to a total of 3.750 unsaved wounds -- an increase of 1.167 compared to the baseline. Not quite as good as a power fist (by 0.167 unsaved wounds), but that shouldn't be surprising.

Following similar logic, but without the charge, they're causing 2.625 unsaved wounds (an increase of 0.875 compared to without the lightning claws).

The first conclusion to be drawn is that points could be saved on a power fist by purchasing lightning claws if our raptors are purely an anti-infantry unit. Take the power fist for a dual anti-armour role.

Margins.
We'll now define the margin of victory as the difference in the number of wounds caused. This'll be referred to as dW herein.

Let's summarize what we have so far:
dW=0.000 for baseline raptors vs. baseline assault marines (or indeed, for similarly equipped units against each other).
dW=0.833 for baseline raptors charging baseline assault marines (the inverse is also true).
dW=2.167 for power fist aspiring champion raptor charging baseline assault marines.
dW=2.000 for lightning claws aspiring champion raptor charging baseline assault marines.

In Part II, coming soon, we'll get to the heart of the matter: how does dW change for different icons?

Lord of the Raptors

In the previous version of the chaos space marine codex, raptors were defined as having daemonic flight and daemonic visage. This got me thinking about a couple of conversion ideas to use in place of (under the counts as rule) regular raptors.

Aims & Model.
Basically, I wanted to build a unit of raptors that weren't the same as the metal models. I wanted them to have wings. I wanted them to have leering daemonic faces. I wanted to to look suitably chaotic and mutated. Before this model, I did create another one as an HQ experiment, but it doesn't look as good as this model.

This model consists of a number of parts sourced from several sprues. The base is a regular plastic base with a rhino door stuck in to some green stuff. The legs are a from a standard space marine. The right arm is a chaos space marine bolt pistol, but the shoulder pad is a veteran space marines studded variety. For the left arm, I used a chaos terminator power fist and a loyalist (blank) shoulder pad. The wings are metal and from a warhammer fantasy harpy. The accessories (krak & frag grenades) are from loyalist marines. The head is taken from the plastic chaos mutations sprue and suitably filed down and angled to fit in to the head groove. The model uses no back piece -- the wings are directly stuck in to the rear of the front chaos space marine chest plate with green stuff. Although fiddly in parts, the assembly was straight forward and done from the base up in order to make sure that the miniature balanced evenly without falling over.

Painting.
When creating a new unit that doesn't have a pre-defined colour scheme, I'm always torn between several different concepts that I think might work well. For this one, I went with a purple scheme.

The first bits to be painted on top of the black undercoat were the recessed metallic areas (arm joints and the like) which received a silver drybrushing. The purple power armour was the next phase. Carefully, the purple was applied such that it didn't cover the entirety of every surface: if you look closely, you'll see that I've left some of the black undercoat showing through (e.g. on the power fist there is a black edging or buffer around the purple before it hits the bleached bone). The purple was inked and then highlighted appropriately.

For the wings and head, a goblin green basecoat was applied, inked in dark green and highlighted. The next phase was with the bleached bone detailing around the edges of the power fist and bolt pistol arm (etc.). In some areas, this takes a steady hand as the raised portions can tend to get very thin. The bolt pistol and the head were finished off next using reds and whites.

In the final touches, the grenades were painted almost entirely silver and a decal featuring a single skull was applied to the terminator shoulder pad. To make it look more like an ex-loyalist marine, four arrows were painted around the skull to imitate an assault squad symbol.

Evaluation.
Positives: Effectively being created out of bits and spare parts, this model cost much less than the metal variety of raptor, and (I think) it looks better. I note in passing that this figure could also be used as an HQ choice. But as can be seen below from the teaser, I've started on the rest of the squad of raptors to which this figure will be an aspiring champion...
Negatives: The use of the terminator power fist makes the model look like his arms are ill proportioned with one another; then again this is a chaos model, so I'm not bothered. I now just need to come up with a name for this fellow and his squad.