Necromunda Mechanicus Version 2

After two evenings of work, I’ve finished rewriting my Mechanicus ruleset for Necromunda!

I realised that when I first wrote it I formatted it more in the vein of 40k than Necromunda, writing specific profiles for unit-types rather than generic Leader, Champion, Juve and Gangers as is normal.

So this rewrite fixes that and ties in a lot of newer stuff like the Bionics rules, Brutes and Pets, Field Armour and so on.

Most of all, I’ve formatted the actual rules to match how they appear in the Gangs of the Underhive rulebook. It was always meant to be a serious attempt at a plugin for Necromunda, not just shoehorning in my beloved mechanicus.

Grab the PDF here!
Necromunda Mechanicus V2.0a

 

The Saga of Magos Yaena.

There are a few pictures here and there of my custom character model for my Mechanicum Magos
She’s gone through a few iterations. the broad strokes are all based on her character story.

Magos Yaena is an Adeptus Mechanicus diplomat, of sorts. Her role is to interact with the more snobby high society types, the sort who would find the pungent incence, greasy robes and stink of burnt flesh that the average tech priest inflicts on those around them to be horrifying and revolting and refuse to allow them an audience.
To that end, her cybernetics are concealed, and of the highest quality available, artfully made and decorated.
Her robes of office are crafted to fit in (at least a little) with the gowns and function-robes of imperial courts.
She is expected to be the face of the Mechanicum to these people.

So, her model depicts skirts and corsets. Her combat cybernetics resemble medieval armour plates rather than the power-armor of most tech priests.
Her face is concealed behind a protective mask to prevent scars from debris and to protect against gases and toxins in the air. as part of her duties, she doesn’t wear (or have an implanted version for) the respirator that is common to most in her order.

In her story, the forces of Chaos have come to her world, compelling her to take up arms and fight. In the midst of battle, she confronts a chaos sorcerer of Tzeentch who she manages to best in single combat.
As a parting Gift/Curse the sorcerer imbues her with a measure of his power.

Quickly realising the nature of this power and the inevitable consequences of it, she takes ship and flees the planet. Her substantial personal army travels with her.
The battles I play with my Mechanicum army chronicle her unwilling descent into becoming a member of the Dark Mechanicum (or an agent of the Inquisition, depending on the path I feel like telling the story of at any given time)

This story lets me craft dark mechanicum monstrosities as can be seen elsewhere on this blog as well as having a nominally loyalist army when I choose.
In my 30k era battles the Tahgmata Yaena fights for both factions roughly equally though I lean towards loyalist wherever possible.

Her chosen armament in story is between two and four custom crafted plasma pistols, on tabletop I typically choose to have her carry a plasma fusil or two. either way she’s a close-ranged and extremely shooty character with little melee capability.

I have written full rules to represent her story capabilities, however it’s a bit out of date.
The broad strokes are that in her Loyalist pre-renegade status she’s more focused on boosting the coordination and accuracy of her forces.
Post-Renegade, she gains a form of unstable psychic powers (easier to cancel out than normal) and her rules are much more focused on her personal capabilities.

So far I’ve made four versions of her model, The first is based on a Sisters of Battle Hospitalier. with a few bits and bobs (notably a plasma pistol) and some green-stuff.
This fairly adequately represents her non-combat pre-renegade status. it’s a butt-ugly sculpting of green-stuff, not that my later work is substantially better! I’m practicing, but ah well.

The second is based around a Dark Eldar Lhamaean character with a lot of conversion.
I use Dark eldar parts for a lot of my conversions. lots of poses and lots of nice clean lined parts.
I like the idea that this is Yaena in her battlefield pre-renegade role. This is also my tabletop model at the moment, though that’s set to change when Mk4 is finished and painted.

Third is an effort to use the New Neferata model as a basis. I got a pretty satisfactory build out of it, but I haven’t been able to decide what she should be sitting on. the Magos Prime rules say she can have an Abeyant to ride on, but that seems too small for her. I’d like maybe to build some sort of Admech Skimmer.
This build represents her as the mistress of her forces either before or after her turning renegade.

Build 4 represents her post-renegade status, she’s carrying a corposant stave, two plasma pistols (or a single plasma fusil if I want to follow the actual ruleset) and a rad grenade.
Her backpack (and Mk3’s backpack) are intended to be teleport/jet packs.
Her custom ruleset mimics the Magos in the Horus Heresy books whose rule allow him to negate victory points for killing him, he is considered to have teleported to his ship in orbit at the last moment.
I’m rather pleased with the result of this sculpt, I’m using parts from a second Neferata kit (traded from a friend) and the lower half of Isabella Von Carstein. Plus parts from a Dark Eldar Scourge kit, some 40k Cult Mechanicus/Skitarii kits and the backpack of a Grey Knights Interceptor. (interestingly, also a teleport pack, so that fits in)

On her base is her Cyber Familiar. made using a few clipped parts from the guns and backpack, as well as a couple Ruststalker hands.
I’m quite happy with how gribbly it turned out!

As to her green-stuff, I’ll be smoothing it out a bit and generally improving the sculpt later. but these are the WIP pictures.

Finally, I’ve also bought a Solar Auxilia Command squad. Just finished assembling them this evening and looking forward to painting them. Lovely models with an amazing level of detail.

Interesting tidbit. the Lord Marshal’s cloak is actually provided in two parts. but because of the clever way it’s designed it doesn’t require any green-stuff to blend it together and hide seamlines.
The collar of the cloak is part of the body and overhangs the area where the top of the cloak meets the model, so that seam is hidden, and the center-line seam down the middle of the cloak is a) very closely fitted and b) made into a feature with a lot of detail mouldings there.
I was delighted by this little bit of clever design work, whoever sculpted these guys knew what he or she was doing!

Maybe I’ll get a chance to find out, I’m going down to Nottingham on Wednesday for my Birthday! Planning to bring back a few new projects..maybe even the rest of the Warlord Titan!

Dark Mechanicum Warpstrider

After my last post, some may be curious how my last project went…

Well, I’m pleased to show off the completed Warp-Strider Daemon Engine.

On tabletop it’s either a Hellbrute (twin linked lascannon + Heavy Flamer) or my own ruleset.

WS3, BS3, S6, F12, S12, R11, I3, A2, HP3
Unit-Type: Walker
Unit Composition: 1 – 3 Warpstriders

Weapons: Twin linked Lascannon, Two Heavy Flamers
Special Rules: Daemon, DaemonForge, Move Through Cover, It Will Not Die, Warpstrider, Soul Fire

Warpstrider – Arcane coils translate the clanking monstrosities through the warp in a flare of actinic light, etching the retinas of all who behold their movements

During the shooting phase, the Warpstrider may opt instead to Run up to 18″.
Any intervening units between its start and end positions must take a Blind Test

————————————–

Reaver Laser Blaster

My experiences with my Reaver Titan so far have been…great fun, but I’ve been pretty unreliable on actual combat-effectiveness.
My Reaver has been destroyed in every battle and its most effective weapon was the one I originally tacked on as an afterthought, namely the Apocalypse Missile Launcher.

With the new additional rules in HH5: Tempest, the Reaver is now effectively immune to melee, so now my only real concern is being outgunned by another titan, or being cherrytapped by lascannons or meltaguns.

So, durability is not a problem, my weapons however are wildly sub-par

Here’s a Weapon Breakdown:
Power Fist – So far, it hasn’t killed anything with this weapon, I’m definitely still hoping to get some use out of it, it’s visually the coolest weapon the reaver carries and it’d be a pity to replace it.

Apocalypse Missile Launcher – So far my most effective choice, a barrage of AP3 large blasts across an enemy gunline is very reliable for killing pretty much any non-terminator enemies.

Melta Cannon – I think my target-priority skills need work, I keep targeting things that the melta cannon isn’t built for, like superheavy tanks. Maybe it’d be more effective against regular armor like Leman Russes.

Laser Blaster – I’ve finally finished assembling mine, but my experiences with a double-barrelled turbolaser have been pretty intimidating, I figure an extra shot of the same profile can’t go amiss!

—————————————————-

After the realisation that I now have five daemon engines of various kinds and no actual army to put them in, I’ve bought some chaos raptors/warp talons to convert into Dark Mechanicum themed infantry

I’m especially pleased with the one on the left, I put a spare set of toes from a warp-talon under a shoulder-plate, the result reminds me of a leech.

———————————————————-

Arvus Lighter

I don’t actually have any photos of this in progress, but I’ll post up some photos of the whole thing next post.

Warlord Titan: Part 2 – The Crew

Some may be aware that I’ve long owned the seperate titan princeps and moderatii box, as well as the Titan Tech Priest. they’re technically intended for the Reaver, but since moderatii are identical in both..I figured I’d paint them appropriately for the Warlord.
The Warlord’s head comes with an extra Princeps-Alpha for tabletop use, so I figured I’d make a Thing out of painting the entire crew.

Behold!

For the Princeps, I’ve added a Cognis-Signum badge to his base, GW went through a bout of providing them for free in every mail order when the Admech and skitarii came out, so I naturally have quite a few!
I’m still waiting on word about my new flat, so I’m unwilling to buy the rest of the titan until that’s all sorted in (hopefully) a few weeks. Plenty of time to handle my other projects!
To-Wit, my entire WIP-box, containing as it does four entire squads of various types of Admech and half a squad of Solar Auxilia…

Warlord Titan: Part 1

For those not aware, as soon as I saw the release announcement of the Warlord Titan some months ago I made the declaration on the spot, I must have it. Did some figuring, worked out that I could afford it and had the space/tools/willpower to complete it.
Some complication is to be had by the fact that I will be moving house over the next month or so, so rather than have the box sitting under my desk taunting me for the whole move, I decided to invest in just the Head of the titan to start. It should take me a week or so to get it done, from there I should be well settled into the routine of moving house.
I’ll order the rest of the titan when I have a workspace to build it again 🙂

My package arrived in the mail this morning!
I was kind of lucky to live in a house-share because I was fast asleep at the ridiculous hour of the morning they delivered it..
But in any case, I woke up, discovered the package waiting for me, unboxed, cleansed the parts and anointed them with the holy Abaddon Black Spray Paint…
Then I went out to Games Workshop and set to work.
While everyone else celebrated the official release of Age of Sigmar, I painted and painted and painted..
So far, so good!

The plan broadly is that the head will be orange and white as shown, and most of the armour plates will be blue.
At least a couple plates will be done in red and dedicated to the Mechanicum with cogs and cognis-mechanicum logos.
Armaments’wise I plan to have a volcano cannon, two apocalypse missile launchers and a Saturnine Lascutter to start, I may invest in other weapons depending on performance in battles.
For now though, just the head. On with the new adventures!

Warhammer World!

It’s been a pretty eventful week or two!

I and a friend travelled down to Nottingham to see Warhammer World for the first time.

I’m totally blown away by the experience, it was utterly fantastic.
We did everything but play a game while we were there, I’ve literally got the T-shirt (the burgundy Mechanicum logo one)
Brought back a bunch of “souvenirs” too.
Not started working on them yet but in the bags are:
A pack of Thallaxii with a Photon Thruster to round out my existing squads
A pack of Myrmidon Secutors to expand my existing squad
And a pack of a Solar Auxilia Veletaris Storm Section. I love the look of them and decided I really wanted a squad of them!

They’ll have to wait though, because I’m working my way through a pack of Vorax Battle Automata and Kataphron Destroyers.

I have one of each done!

Amazingly, I was able to paint the Kataphron in only 25 minutes! This bodes well for getting a whole unit of them together for my Cult Mechanicus forces…

I was also able to get around to painting my Hellbrute conversion shown in my last post.
Thoroughly pleased with the results

With all the stuff on my plate, you’d think that’d be enough, but after seeing the Warlords that they have at Warhammer World, I’ve also ordered the Head of one to start me off. it should be here Today! (omg, totally forgot it was coming in all the chaos. now I’m gonna have to reorganise my plans for the weekend again :P)
I’m expecting to get the keys to my new flat in the next week or two as well as the Manchester public transport being heavily disrupted for a few months. so my hobby may be likewise disrupted. I do my best work in the store where there’s fewer distractions…

Ah well. it should all work out.
But in any case, after I’m settled into my new place, I intend to order the rest of the Warlord, I’m hoping the specific weapons I want to fit it with will have been released by the time I’m ready for them, I’m planning on the Apocalypse Missiles (confirmed as the next release for it), a volcano cannon, and the Saturnine Claw. (A hellstorm template attack with a powerful melee that re-rolls armour penetration too! picture a blowtorch for a fist, the size of a tank.)

Dark Mechanicum – ‘Uni-nought’

I’ve been wanting to do something like this for a while.
The basic premise is in the vein of a dreadnought with a single wheel rather than two legs.

I have an alternate plan in mind later to make a “Treadnought” using the Forgeworld Rapier battery and an ironclad dreadnought.

So, for this project, it’s a simple conversion, I take a Hellbrute, and I take the front wheel off of a Blood Throne of Khorne. and I mash them together…

Pretty pleased with the results 🙂
Tomorrow I’m going to paint it up! should only take a few hours

Dark Mechanicum Daemon Prince Conversion

Browsing the internet (as one does) for ideas, I ran across some particularly inspiring examples…After a few moments I realised I had nearly all the parts needed in my bitz collection and immediately picked up the last few things needed and cranked out this conversion in two evenings, painted it in an afternoon.

Behold! My Dark Mechanicum Daemon Prince counts-as conversion!

Icarus Dunecrawler + first of the Electro Priests

After returning from a family reunion, I’ve taken the time to spray up and paint my next Onager Dunecrawler. I had finished its assembly on thursday, sprayed it today and painted it this afternoon!

I’m missing a few details, unit markings and lights for the most part. and a few bits could do with cleaning up. but I’m happy with today’s progress!

Also on Thursday, I painted one of my Electro-Priests. I believe these are the Corpuscarii type, they shoot lighting from their hands and probably make horribly bad puns every time.

Photos To follow!

I’m also really happy with a tiny little bit of conversion, I drilled out the hatch’s hinge, pinned it and it now opens and closes. I can then put the pintle gunner in if I want to field it that way.

Another week of Painting

So it’s been a pretty busy week.

The last of the Cult Mechanicus releases came out this weekend and I spent a good deal of time making and painting stuff.
To-wit, I finished my Kastellan robots and their Data-smith, I finally(!) got around to finishing the Onager Dunecrawler. somehow after all that conversion with the Dark Admech stuff I didn’t actually finish painting either of the two I bought for my army…still got the other one to finish assembling but this one’s done

And since we had the fantastic release of the plastic Tech-Priest Dominus kit, I had to do that this weekend 🙂

I’m quite happy with how everything’s turning out.

I’ve acquired the special editions to both Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus codices, serial numbers 32 and 10 respectively 🙂

Painting-wise, I’ve shifted the colours for my Admech. anything new I do will be in blue rather than the red I’ve historically been using. my Tech Guard and 30k admech are in red, the skitarii and cult mechanicum will be mostly blues.
I’ll continue to tie in with red parts here and there, but I want to differentiate my army from the other admech forces out there. with the admech going mainstream (as opposed to the preserve of conversions and theme armies) there’s a lot of people making them now and just being red with white cogs won’t be unusual anymore…
I have my conceits, I like to be different. There are no blue Admech forces in either of the codexes.

Photospam!

On other news.

Horus Heresy 5: Tempest arrived, I took a good look at the rules for the Warlord
Oh boy XD

For slightly under 3000 points, you get a warmachine that has 30 hullpoints and 6 void shields.

New Titan rules say that the reaver and warlord (and presumably Imperator) can only be hit in melee on a 6 unless you’re a superheavy walker or a gargantuan creature..in which case you hit on a 5.
This represents the fact that there are very few fragile systems at ankle-level and nearly everything there is entirely made out of armor.

No more terminators with thunder-hammers walking up and beating in the titan’s ankles.

The warlord itself is AV15 on front and sides, 14 on the back.
making it utterly immune to anything short of a lascannon unless you flank it, in which case you need a melta gun to do anything.
And if you flank it, you still have to face its tertiary weapon systems. comprising a pair of twin-linked lascannon emplacements at the back, and twin linked mauler bolt-cannons at the front.
Because the giant guns on the arms and carapace are worthless against close-in targets.

Interestingly, the carapace weapons come in pairs. you can’t field it with mixed carapace armaments. no giving it a vortex missile and a laser blaster, it’s two missiles or two laser blasters.

There’s actually a pretty huge array of possible weapons, I’m hoping they don’t leave the options fallow on the store for too long since I have specific ideas about what I want to do with it!
Fortunately, my reaver has sold me entirely on the idea of two apocalypse missile launchers, which I know for certain will be among the weapons on release.

I think I might have to buy the apocalypse templates…

And to show off my current project…