I started simple – a sprue of WW1 German Infantry from Wargames Atlantic and a Nighthaunts Chainrasps kit. This is not an original idea, but one I first saw either on Goonhammer or on Reddit (there are loads of threads, but I cannot find the one I originally saw, which is frustrating as whoever posted it had carried off the idea with a bit more finesse in my view).
Anyway, this is what we’re working with:
I’ve always loved the look of the Chainrasps (and the Nighthaunt more generally). They’re cheesy AF, but beautiful kits. The challenge will be how to get some of these models to hold rifles, and perhaps how to make them look a bit less comical.
This isn’t my first foray into historical modelling (I started an ill fated Napoleonic french contingent once, intending to join a campaign, which coincided with me reading a lot of Napoleonic era history. I had a bit of fun painting some cavalry, but soon lost interest). If it was, I’d probably have been surprised by how small everything is compared to GW kits (overall, and in particular the weaponry) and how the detail is just nowhere near as crisp. Still, a decent selection of options here.
This droog shows the basics of this kitbash – lop off the skull of the Nighthaunt, replace it with a gasmask WW1 helmet, and use one or two of whatever one handed weapon options you can get your hands on (here, a slung rifle), which means you needn’t worry about working out how to get a ghost figure to hold a rifle.
Here’s an evolution that I landed on quite quickly. Instead of a full gasmask face, how does it look if I shape the skull and helmet to fit in a way that looks like the ghost has a helmet without a gas mask? Pretty good in my view. So good, I ended up making more Trench Ghosts like this than with gas masks.
This guy comes from the Chainrasp on the right. I was a big fan of this sword arm, so I save that for later. I’m still sticking to a one handed weapon, though with a little more ambition here as a ghoul hand from another kit is used to grasp the rifle.
The blue colour at the joints is “sprue goo filler” i.e. a small amount of sprue melted in liquid polycement and painted on to smooth narrow joints.
Obviously it didn’t take long for me to take on that two handed rifle challenge. I have to say blending these two handed rifles with the Chainrasp kits is some of the most challenging and satisfying kitbashing I can recall.
In this case I have kept the hands of the German soldier clasping the rifle, and shaved down his cuffs and wrists so they would match the spindly Chainrasp arms. I have then perfomed some sort of magic that I can’t recall to relocate the arms in a way they look natural and mate well with the wrist joints, before smoothing out any joins with a bit of plastic solvent and/or greenstuff.
Pretty sure the base Chainrasp model for the one above is this axe wielding maniac on the right. That helps to envision the process here – remove hands > remove what’s left of axe arm > mount rifle to left wrist > glue remains of axe arm back such that right wrist meets rifle hand > fill and smooth joins.
Here’s something a bit more ambitious still. There’s an option in the Trench Ghosts list to equip some of the infantry with a “sarcophagus mine”. This basically causes the model to turn into a walking (or floating) bomb that goes off with proximity to the enemy. I didn’t really have a good picture of what this really could look like until I saw a 3d model someone had made of a ghost emanating from a massive artillery shell. As you can see, I have definitely worked very hard to put my own unique spin on this idea.
What I can say I added that I think is a nice touch is to have some of the ghostl robes emanating from the pitted metal of the shell itself, and have the chains physically binding the ghost to the shell. The actual ghost is a stock model apart from the helmet and it’s joining with the shell. I think the plaintive left hand really adds an appropriate air of helplessness to the whole piece. As if to say “what the hell did I do?”.