Thank you all!  ?I have to admit that a lot of the modifications are probably unnecessary and you could definitely get away without shortening the tail, legs and waist, or lengthening the dorsal carapace.
Con: watch this space. 
Mageboltrat: I added forearm plates as with the old monstrous talons, which caused me a few problems. ?Then I noticed the new talons don't have them, so I won't be trying them again!
The plates over the actual talon were a lot easier - I think partly due to the putty mix (it's 2:1:1 apoxie sculpt, brown stuff and procreate, FYI. ?It worked well for me, but most putties or mixes that hold decent edges should work okay) and the fact I left it to firm up for about half an hour.
I rolled it into four roughly equal, roughly conical pieces about 2/3rds the length of the talon. ?I pushed each piece onto a talon, pressed it all around to shape and anchor it, and smoothed it into a vaguely semicircular cross-section (the pro-c and firmness helped a lot with smoothing, IMO). ?Then I took a sharp hobby knife and carefully cut away the excess (again, firmness helped ) at the base, 2/3 of the distance to the tip, and in curving lines just above the line of the 'dimple' in the side.
I retouched any irregularities that cutting caused, and pushed both ends of the putty into v-shapes. ?Then I sculpted the edges of the individual plates, pushing the putty in and back to create eight diagonal ridges on one side (my favourite tool has a leaf-shaped head, which made the curves a little easier). ?Then I flipped the talon over and did the same, making sure the lines met up in the middle. ?After this the whole thing needed a little smoothing and pointing.
Lastly, the corners of the plates had strange spoon-shapes instead of sharp corners and overlaps, thanks to the way I pushed in the ridges. ?I let the putty cure fully and cut them away, leaving v-shapes for the overlaps. ?You can see where I wasn't completely accurate in photo 03.
That was a bit exhaustive! ?But hopefully I explained it okay, and a tutorial with photos should make it easier.
One thing: maybe I'm being patronising and offending you all (I don't mean to!), but when I say that I push and smooth the putty etc., I don't mean in long continuous movements. ?Rather in small, quick increments, so I can fix anything before it goes wrong, or too wrong. ?And also so that the putty has less chance to stick to the tool.
Ragnarok: Yup! ?That's another little tutorial that I shelved a long time ago, because I didn't have the digital camera that I thought I needed. ?I was going to try out my own pre-4th-ed-40K design (which you can see elsewhere in the HF Atropos folder), but I'll probably make it up like the new guard minis. ?Except upright.
Firestorm: Sculpting - if I can! ?Casting - there are a lot of others who know a lot more about that than me. ?On the casting yahoogroup, e.g.
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), it zapped me with enough inspiration to get up and try something myself.
