The Age of Sigmar megaboss is a fantastic sculpt, and one I’ve seen converted into
an ork warboss quite a bit. Which is not surprising considering what the current official GW warboss
looks like. My favorite conversion is this one by Megzike here on Youtube. It’s crazy
good and the concept of a blood axe warboss who’s trying to ape a space marines is a
lot of fun. So when it came time to convert my megaboss I decided to use it as a guide.
While my megaboss started out as a carbon copy of Megzike’s he slowly diverged into
very much his own thing as the build went on.
Before I started filming I’d already cut off the huge dragon skull pauldron and started
clipping down the gorget of the megaboss to a more reasonable and space marine-y level.
A few conversions leave both elements in place, but I personally don’t love how they look
even in Age of Sigmar’s fantasy setting. They’re too huge, and a little cartoony
looking to me.
I don’t have the assault on black reach warboss gun that Megzike uses for his conversion,
but I figured this nob rifle was a good substitute. It originally had a burner at the bottom,
but I snipped it off to give it a more streamlined silhouette. For the scope I snipped one off
a primaris marine’s bolter and glued it to the top of the gun where it looked hilariously
tiny.
I drilled out a hole in the barrel of the gun and glued in wire to attach plasticard
tubing to make a silencer for it. The nobz original hand was just a touch too small for
the megaboss, so I swapped it out for the one he uses to hold his huge axe. I originally
wanted to keep the wire attached to the base of the wrist, but I couldn’t quite get it
to look right so I ended up just snipping it off.
Posing the gun in place also made me realize that as mad cool as the silencer was, it made
the gun too long and would be stabbing into the ground. In the original video Megzike
shifts the arm to be more horizontal, but I liked the original pose so I just took the
silencer off and added a triangle of plasticard to make sure the gun was held at the right
angle.
The thing I like most about Megzike’s warboss is the way he’s trying to ape a space marine,
and one of the touches to tell that story that Megzike added was glueing on one of those
space marine shoulder shield things whose name I always forget. I liked the idea, but
wanted to take it one step further by scraping off the original imperial design, in this
case some chapter insignia, and replacing it with an orky skull glyph. I don’t remember
what kit it’s originally from, but I really liked it and it fit perfectly, just adding
a little bit of emphasis to the idea that the warboss was trying to make the armor his
own.
Megzike’s original warboss has a pole coming out of his stolen marine power pack, but I
decided to just leave mine without it. The pole standards on orks have always seemed
a bit silly looking to me, so I just glued the space marine power pack in place and decided
to leave it at that.
With all those elements in place, I now ran into the problem I’d been putting off how
to fix since I first wanted to try my hand at Megzike’s build. The problem is very
simply that he’s a fantastically gifted sculptor, and I’m not. While I love the
element of the warboss shouting to a hologram of one of his lietants out in the field, there
was no way I was going to be able to sculpt my own half a thumbnail sized hologram.
One idea I had was to replace the hologram with a vox caster that he could be shouting
into instead, but I eventually decided instead to skip that aspect of the model and go with
giving him an Ogryn knife in his left hand. I feel like this actually works really well.
The knife is enough like a space marine’s that it reinforces the concept of him trying
to be tacticool and copy one, while also matching his size and bulk. I didn’t actually attach
it till later though, so you won’t see it in the video for a bit.
This is the point where I started to really diverge from Megzike’s original build. One
thing that I wanted to try and add was the sense that the megaboss’s suit was powered
just like a marine’s to enhance his strength. This is the collar to a centurion suit. I’ve
always really liked it as it gives the impression of corded and bulging muscle, and in terms
of size fits almost perfectly into the megaboss’s collar with just a little snipping and shaving.
To get the centurion piston collar to fit required me to snip off my megaboss’s neck
and extend it out a touch. I like how his tongue makes him look like he’s roaring
though, so I just glued that bit into the back of his head so I wouldn’t lose it.
One of the challenges with power armor of any type is that the pistons or rotors that
power it would logically be underneath the armor plates to protect them, and so the armor
just ends up just looking normal and unpowered. As the centurion pistons fit around the neck,
I decided to extend the crossbar on top to fit under the shoulder pads, which made me
realize that I could hint at the mechanical musculature under the armor by having it peak
out at certain key points.
At this point in the project I seriously considered for a hot minute about adding centurion armor
plates unto my megaboss to give him a more space marine-y look. They actually fit really
well and while this would certainly have looked good, it seemed like a waste to scrape off
all the cool armor he had originally, even if that armor reads as very medieval. Ultimately
what decided me against it is that I can simply save the centurion plates and use them on
a different ork that’s a less expensive sculpt.
Getting back to the pistons as musculature peaking out from the armor idea, I carefully
shaved off portions of the back of his shoulder armor and muscle so that some of the power
pistons from the centurion kit could sit flush against them. Once I’d figured out the correct
length for the pistons, I snipped them so they’d look like they were anchored somewhere
under my megaboss’s bracer. As a side bonus, doing so sorta helps explain why they flare
up that much in the back to begin with.
I then did the same to the other side, though that required more shaving off of the pauldron.
One of the great things about the stone or hammered metal texture of the megaboss’s
armor is that it’s really easy to make any edge you cut or portion you scrape off look
like it was meant to be that way, which is a real blessing when converting like this.
Cutting this deeply into the pauldron wouldn’t work on a space marine, but for an ork it
actually looks pretty good, and gives the megaboss the sense that his armor has been
chipped and pitted away over the years, almost like a crab who’s shell has chipped away
to reveal a hint of the ligaments beneath.
For the legs I wanted to keep the under the armor look I’d managed so far, so instead
of bolting the piston on top of the armor I instead fitted it to this little nook between
armor plates. One of the things I realized at this point was to get the desired effect
it was important that the pistons only ever slightly rise above the silhouette already
created by the armor, or they’d overpower it. For the right leg there wasn’t really
any space for a piston, so I just put in a little round thing I’d snipped off earlier
to show where it was retracting into.
Thinking I was done with the pistons, I decided to go ahead and finish up the model and add
the final touches. That meant attaching the ogryn knife, and filling the holes I’d made
when fitting in the pistons. The megaboss is a mostly hollow sculpt, so any real carving
leaves holes. I wasn’t that worried though as those portions would be mostly under the
pistons, and like I mentioned the original armor is pretty easy to replicate.
I also decided to replace the punny intercessor scope I’d originally put on his gun with
one from a marine scout sniper rifle which fit the scale much, much better. I’m loath
to waste bits though, so I did end up glueing the little scope to the side of the muzzle
so it can look like a laser or flashlight or something.
The right leg of the megaboss has always looked a little undersized to me, so I decided to
bulk it out with the pouch and grenade from an ogryn kit. Finally, I attached the shoulder
shield thing.
Looking over the pistons I had left over from the centurion legs, I decided to undo all
the work I’d done green stuffing by adding a second piston to both the shoulders and
legs. This meant a lot of carving into the pauldrons and would’ve been much easier
if I just did it from the beginning, but alas for me conversion is an iterative process.
Speaking of, unable to leave good enough alone I decided to shorten the original pistons
so there wasn’t any angle and they were instead straight. While this took a bit of
work, I actually think it looks significantly better this way, the silhouette easier to
read and more powerful.
I also decided to take this chance and fix an aspect of the original sculpt that’s
always bugged me, which is the way the armor on the back juts out. To me it looks a little
beetle or roach like, and just wasn’t a silhouette I liked. I wanted to try and fix
it with the least damage possible though, so I just carefully went in and cut off the
excess from them. To replace the whole it left I actually could’ve just reattached
it at a flatter angle, but instead opted to use the back plate from an orruk brute which
has an identical hammered metal texture. It’s actually a little weird how well it fits with
just a little snipping and shaving and green stuffing. I could’ve just left the space
marine powerpack off, there’s a lot going on there now, but I liked it so much I cut
off the edge of the backplate to make it fit.
I thought about adding another piston to connect the back plate to the chestplate, but that
actually doesn’t make any sense since there’s no articulation there. If I wanted to, I could’ve
added straps, but I actually like the hint of the original sculpt’s muscle that shows
through without anything there.
I also played around with adding pistons in the front of the megaboss. There’s this
weird gap between the chestplate and the armored girdle beneath, and I thought it would be
cool to fill it either with pistons or cables just like a marine’s is, adding more connection
visually between the two. Instead though, I decided to do something way more finicky,
which was to fit in underneath a bandolier of ammo pouches just like real soldiers do
sometimes.
Luck for me the chestplate of the sculpt actually lifts out entirely, so I snapped it out and
started lightly shaving off the waist armor so the pouches could fit snug between the
two. The intercessor pouches that I wanted to use are of different heights which didn’t
look good, so I went through and snipped off the shorter ones from a couple and glued those
together in a bandolier.
The trick with fitting it underneath I realized was to not have the pouches exceed the edges
of the armor, and actually pull them up a bit so the original chesplate’s upward curve
is still there. This was by far the fiddliest part of the build to get right, but I’m
utterly in love with how it ended up working and I think it pulls the whole tacticool look
together. One of the challenges with adding pouches and grenades to him was that he started
to look less tacticool and more packrat, but by putting them in the gap of the chestplate
it really integrated them into his whole look.
At this point in the project I realized that without meaning too I’d bulked my megaboss
out by a lot: his back is rounded and filled out, the chest gap isn’t there anymore,
and his legs are thicker. This was all fine and good, but it had the weird side effect
of making his head too small now. He was looking a bit like a snapping turtle, which wasn’t
quite what I was going for. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any head swaps that worked
better. I really love the original sculpt’s head, and none of the other ones I tried looked
quite right, all some combination of too small or cartoony or just made him lose all his
personality.
I’d just about given up on finding a solution, and even primed and then stripped the paint
from my megaboss, when I got in a shipment of maxmini’s tech freak heads who are all
significantly bigger than any of the other options I had. They’re great sculpts, and
this one is by far my favorite. It’s a bit too big for the megaboss, but I sculpted the
back of a head for him and that helped smooth it in a little bit, and overly large heads
is a very ork thing anyway.
And with that my megaboss was done. I’m honestly really proud of how he turned out.
He really came into his own as the project went on, and looks like a vicious and snarling
warboss any ork would be proud to follow into combat, while still being visually distinct
from most other warbosses. If you enjoyed this video hit the like button, subscribe,
or check out some of the other conversions I’ve done. Have you tried converting the
megaboss? Seen any conversion you like? Let me know in the comments. Thanks for watching.