The Warner - an experiment in kitbashing

Whether you like GW or not, you have to admit that their customer experience is great. If you collect anything from their products, you are always welcome to a great variety of events. My favourite is the kitbash: you bring a set of your own, and they allow you to fish into a large box of spare bits for 5 minutes to chose 10 bits, which will be used to kitbash your set.

There is usually a nice crowd, at least in my local shop, and it's always interesting to trade bits and exchange ideas and tips, as you build your Frankenstein monster during the afternoon.

My first kitbash happened during Christmas holidays a couple of years ago. I purchased a very basic set, the Chaos Sorcerer Lord.

Image from GW website

It's a simple, cheap and versatile figure that can be easily expanded with random parts from other sets. Unfortunately, I wasn't very lucky with the choice of bitz - besides some WH40K stuff that I avoided, the box contained some really old white metal Orcs and several sprues from the Arakhnarok and Durthu sets. I managed to put together a good number of twigs and a horse skull, nothing more. There was nothing remotely chaotic to take.

Eventually I decided to focus on the base rather than the figure. I swapped the head with the horse skull and an arm with a twig, and set it on a dead log riddled with spiders. To help it stand, I added an extra branch with greenstuff, following instructions from the guy sitting next to me - I learned a lot from him!

Still, I could see the people around were not impressed - I had to work a lot on this to make it passable. Paint it and work on the base, that is.

The result is not too bad, hopefully. I am quite happy with it, especially since it pushed me to try new things - greenstuff and forest undergrowth. 

The Warner is meant to represent a construct, a scarecrow made from the dead remains of a Chaos sorcerer, set by the powers of the forest to warn intruders of the peril ahead. It can't do much except stand, make eerie sounds and make his eyes glow, but it's enough to change the mind of a lot of hunters and trappers. Not particularly useful in a battle, but it could make a nice encounter in a role-playing game. I might even let it act as a focus for a magical creature, e.g. a giant spider, who might speak through the Warner without revealing itself to the party.

What's your experience with kitbashing? Any useful tips?