Back from the wilds!

Greetings Ladies and Gentlemen.
I return from the wilds.

By which I mean, I’ve spent three months moving into my new flat, enjoying christmas and then looking for the cable to plug my camera into my computer.

So I have a bunch of stuff to show off!

The New Flat

I have a new Games Room and hobby desk on which to play and work at home rather than relying on a 30 minute trek into town to do anything. It’s worked wonders on my hobby!

Once the table was set up, I immediately invited some friends to have a game with me, we wound up having a three-sided 3000 points apiece battle. Orks vs Chaos Marines vs 30k Mechanicum.
A grand success with chinese takeaway and beer! I was able to snap a fair few photos over that battle but very few were clear shots of the table without blur.. ah well.
Behold the battlefield!

Warlord Titan

I bought my Warlord Titan!
Previously I only had one gun and the head, the rest of the parts arrived shortly after christmas and I was delighted to be able to take some pictures…

“What have I gotten myself into?”

 

That’s a LOT of parts..

I’m going to get this thing framed…the reaver’s certificate too.

Since these pictures were taken, I’ve partially assembled the torso of the titan

To my minor annoyance, it turns out I hadn’t quite been thorough enough cleaning the parts, so I’ll be going back over these parts to make doubly sure.
That’s the trouble with such large components…
For the curious, the unpainted circle on the side of the chassis is where I had placed another model (with its round base) on the part during spraying.
That whole area is going to be under the shoulder anyway so I figured it didn’t much matter.

Amazingly, the carapace is actually large enough to drive a tank over…

 

In any case, now I’ve got my camera and photobooth set up again, I’ll be updating my blog a LOT more frequently. and with that, I’ll have a lot more impetus to work on the warlord. I’m thinking I’ll dedicate saturday entirely to it.
I won’t leave the house that day. Hoping to get a lot done!

Dark Mechanicum Acolytes

I had a LOT of fun with these, I’ve been slowly building a collection of Daemon Engines for most of the time I’ve had this blog, so long-time readers know exactly what I’m talking about…
I figured it was time I made some infantry to go with the monsters.
But not just any old cultists or marines would do, they’d have to be something dark, gribbly and John Blanchian.
So I turned to my bits box and some spare dark eldar parts…
I hope you’ll agree that the results speak for themselves!

I’m still painting the back three, but the two with their bases done are complete.

I’ve been working on tentative rules, but the basic idea is that these are a Retinue or can take the role of squad-leader for cultists and traitor-skitarii.
They’re highly upgradeable but basically not designed to stand alone. you -can- give them all plasma guns and field them as mobile special weapons teams, or attach them to the cultists as a major bonus to leadership and other bonuses depending on wargear.

Their secondary role is to be used alongside a Heretek Magos to beef out his power and provide a bodyguard.
To make them, I primarily used Dark Eldar Wracks and Skitarii Ruststalkers as parts-sources. some bits and bobs (mostly servo-skulls and the plasma gun) from other kits too.

Next up, the Magos. I’ve picked up the Everchosen Gaunt Summoner, I think I can get some interesting results by adding DEldar and Admech parts to him…

30k Mechanicum

Running alongside everything else, I went to the Horus Heresy Tournament in Nottingham a couple weeks ago. I had a fantastic time (even though I was the bottom of the league) and I’m definitely going again in june/july

However in preparation, I spent some time prepping my army, so now every single model is fully based and painted.
I built a Macrocarid Explorator using the Land Raider Proteus kit, since my existing Mechanicum Land Raider was no longer part of the army list. Happy to report that it was only destroyed once in the five games I played at the tournament.

I also built and painted a Knight Atrapos.

I’ll post pictures of both the Macrocarid and Atrapos in my next post (probably tomorrow evening)

General lessons learned in the tournament; Mechanicum are okay at melee, but benefit from using the right units for it.
I was fielding my Magos as a Malagra (melee assault specialist) with a unit of Ferrox type Thallaxii. The Rage special rule was meant to make them a lot more lethal, but in practice I never really got to take advantage of it properly.
I also learned that I really REALLY need more tech thralls and transports.
So at some stage I’ll be buying some Triaros transports.

My feeling is that the Ferrox was largely wasted, so I’ve purchased some Scyllax guardian automata to fill the role. uncertain how they’ll mesh with my army since I normally field my Magos with a jetpack. perhaps they’ll play nice with her if I remove the jetpack and replace it with something else…

Solar Auxilia

I actually got a game against the solar auxilia while I was at the tournament, my first proper encounter with them. My previous meetings were when they were attached as allies to a Sons of Horus army so I never really got a sense for what they were good at.

As I’m sure my dear readers are aware, I’m aiming to build a Solar Auxilia army and currently have a command squad/legate-commander, Storm Section and an Arvus Lighter built for them.
After the tournament was over, I bought Book 4 and a pack of Ogryn Charonites to really kick off my army.

I adore the charonite models. They go together with a nice snug fit on all parts and no messing around with bending anything, even those pipes are the right shape to fit as long as you use the correct numbered parts!
They’re also big, a Lot bigger than you might think.
Guard players may be mislead about their size by comparing them to 40k era ogryns.
These are not your regular ogryn in a space suit, they’ve been gene-bulked and given augmetic surgeries. they’re a LOT scarier. They are to 40k ogryns what 40k ogryns are to guardsmen.

I mean wow, they make regular ogryns look puny!

This Ogryn isn’t finished yet, still quite a bit to do on him, but you get the idea of how I’m painting them. The vibrant orange is very striking, I’m having a great time with this army so far!
Hoping when I get to the infantry tercios I won’t get so bogged down I lose the sense of fun with them.

Imperial Assassins

Some may recall my previous posts in which I showed off my Culexus and Callidus assassins?
Well, the new models showed up and I decided I liked the look of the eversor and vindicaire more than my own rough attempts. So I went ahead and bought them.

Nothing much to say, I’ve painted them with the same style as my previous models and I’m very pleased with the results.
Special mention goes to the vindicaire’s glowing eyes and blended camoleoline suit.

 

Anyway, that’s all for now. It’s been a busy couple months!

Somewhere in there I fitted moving house and christmas…

 

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

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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!

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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.

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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.

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!

Another Dark-mech Dunecrawler!

Since the first one was such a roaring success, I decided to build it a brother!

Nothing much to say on construction, it’s pretty nigh identically built.
I had to buy a bunch more stuff to do it, but I’m not the slightest bit regretting the decision 😛
Bonus points: I get a new Deathstrike to pair with the first one!

I’ll figure out what to do with two helldrakes worth of wing and head parts later.
Maybe some terrain pieces…

Pictures!

the new one is the one on the left with the silvery base rim.

As far as painting went: I didn’t quite manage to keep the smoothness on the plates. I think that was my primary mistake, the result looks like it has too much paint on it.
I added too much typhus corrosion to the model and it gave it a grainy effect all over.
Should of just done it on the exposed workings and left the plates alone.
Ah well, live and learn, maybe if I make another I’ll remember this 😛

I’m thinking I need a warpsmith to go with these guys 🙂

Dark Mechanicum – Dunecrawler Painted!

Following on from yesterday’s dramatic foray into the realms of the Dark Mechanicum.

Here are the fruits of my labours this afternoon.
Total painting time, approximately four hours.

Dark Mechanicum

With the release of so many new constructs, my poor mind has been dreadfully strained. so much work, so many new constructs and warriors to craft and prepare for war…

It was inevitable I’d crack really.
It was the Onager Dunecrawler’s legs that finally broke me of the chains of Mars
Dem Legs. They go all the way up.

And so, I worked long through the witching hour and created my first Daemon Engine.

Behold! The First of many warp-fueled monstrosities I shall craft in the name of the dark gods!

on the tabletop, it counts broadly as an Onager Dunecrawler with neutron laser and the servo-arm upgrade. depending on the opposition, WYSIWYG may apply and it actually gets to use the twin linked heavy bolter too 😛

I was delighted to discover that the gun assembly to the Particle Cannon/ Heat Ray of a necron triarch stalker actually fits -perfectly- to the neutron laser. there’s no chopping there, the tab literally fits in the hole correctly. tight enough it didn’t actually need glue to hold it in place…
So that’s going to be used again for future projects 😛