Adeptus Mechanicus - Myrmidon Assault Engine Mk. II Complete!

Got a little brush time in this weekend and finished off the detailing on the Myrmidon Assault Engine. Some white cog-wheel edging and some hazard striping and job's a good 'un!

The hazard stripes were a last minute addition. I thought that the red/white/gold with a blue spot color just didn't make a model this large 'pop', and adding the yellow/black stripes gave the model a bit more presence.

Only 5 Legio Cybernetica Robots to go and the entire 3000 point army will be complete, with nearly two weeks to spare before the game. Feels good!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Iron Souls Protectors

The supposed date of the Ad-Mech vs. GK battle grows ever closer and I'm getting rather close to having all 3000 points painted. All that remained was a 5-man squad of Protectors (an HQ retinue unit), 5 more Legio Cybernetica Robots and the Myrmidon. Easily within my grasp!

For the Protectors, I knew I wanted to utilize one of the Space Marine chapters that is associated with the Adeptus Mechanicus, but I wasn't too keen on doing a unit of Iron Hands (though they are obviouly made from Iron Hands bits) - Instead I went with the Iron Souls, a chapter thought up (as far as I know) by Anaerion the Faithful, an artist who I stumbled across on Warseer. He did a comic series called "Rusted" that I really enjoyed, and the black-and-orange paint scheme shown in the comics seemed like it could be fun to try. The Protectors unit are all armed with Plasma weapons and Power Staves, and I thought the blue spot color really stood out nicely against the orange and black.

All in all, a fun little unit to paint, and I was pleased at how quickly they were completed (at least compared with the massive batch painting I've been doing of late). Only 5 more 'infantry' and the Defiler-based Myrmidon to go!

Hobby Retrospective - Necrons

So I haven't had much hobby time as of late, so it's time for another retrospective - today, the Necrons, or "Good lord man, wasn't this blog supposed to be about the Guard or something?". The recent grumblings across the 40k blogosphere whisper tales of an incipient Necrons re-work, which doesn't bode well for my wallet. While I have dabbled in the model range over the years, I've never actually fielded Necrons as a 40k army, I really liked their back story and have woven them into my last Dark Heresy campaign and as such painted up a few models for use with the RPG.

The original sculpts for the Necron models hearken all the way back to the Space Crusade days (the design being a 'chaos android' at the time). The next incarnation of the Necrons was in metal and rather disappointing, and honestly I was never really thrilled with many of the current-era metal models either (the Immortals and Flayed Ones were a PITA to assemble, and the tomb spyder left me cold). I have high hopes about the next wave based on the frankly excellent plastics GW has been releasing these days. As I was pressed for time (aka painting them the morning of the game), these Necrons were given the bog-standard metal-and-green scheme. If I attempt to do a Necron army nowadays, I think I'd try a sandstone and blue scheme instead.

Alas, this Necron Lord and his small force of Warriors and Scarabs has sat idle in the figure cabinet since that day. There may come a time when the Servants of the Star Gods will not be so quiescent...

Mordian 7th Regiment - Company Command Squad Painted. Also, RT-era Space Ninjas!

After painting a couple dozen Praetorians for the Ad-Mech army, I needed a break from the unrelenting red-and-white. That being the case I pulled down the partially-painted command squad for the Mordian 7th reboot and polished them off.

Not a lot remained to be done on the unit - just the final detailing, unit markings and the banner bearer's banner. Unfortunately my fine-point sharpies all appear to be dried up so I haven't been able to fill in the scrollwork on the banner as yet, but for all intents and purposes the unit is table ready!

While I was rooting around in the Closet of Doom I came across a box of old, ooooold models - one of which was this RT-era assassin. I think he'll be an admirable counts-as Sly Marbo for the 7th, as he has a ripper-pistol-looking gun, a poisoned sword on his back, and a meltabomb to represent his demo charge. A similar paint scheme in dark grey, red and gold and he ties in well with the rest of the army!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Praetorians complete!

As I've started the build of the new Hypaspists, the models I've been painting may now officially be considered the Praetorians for the Ad-Mech army. Assuming that the army includes a Skitarii Consul, the Praetorians may be chosen as Troops rather than the Elites slot they ordinarily take up.

While I was batch painting these models, I decided that I didn't want them to all be the same, so I swapped the colors on the cloaks between the two units. It keeps the color theme throughout but helps to distinguish them from one another on the tabletop.

The Tribunes for the units are armed with Power Weapons and Hellpistols, but I'm not completely satisfied with the ones I've built. Subsequent to the contruction of these models I'd picked up some interesting-looking "clockwork weapons" from MaxMini that I thing would be more suitable. As I have half dozen or so extra torsos, I'll likely build some replacements in the future.

With these done, it means that a vast majority of the models I have built for the army have been painted - all the more reason the build more models!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Mk II Hypaspist test models

As I'd mentioned previously my intention has been to use the models I'm currently in the process of painting as the Praetorians in the Ad-Mech army, and build some other models for use as the Hypaspists (tech guard). While I was between colors, I banged out a couple test models to see how they'd look.

The bodies are Wargames Factory's Greatcoat Troopers, the heads are from Pig Iron, and the rest is GW Cadian guard bits. To represent the hellguns, I went with a replacement muzzle for the standard lasgun which is the lower portion of the main aerial trimmed from a Voxcaster. A couple other pieces are shaved from the Vox and is inverted as the model's backpack/power pack. I want to run cabling from the gun to the pack, but don't relish the thought of using guitar wire on 36 models. I think this may be the ideal time to try out the Dragon Forge cables, as I've heard nothing but good things about them!

More messing about with Heresy-Era models

Still plugging away at the Hypaspists, but in between batches of color I took a little time to do some building and some cleanup on an existing model.

First up I went back and repainted the base for good ol' Sanguinius. I wasn't happy with the sandstone base I'd originally done, so I went back through and attempted a greenish marbled look. Better, but not perfect - I like the overall effect, but I think I was a little heavy handed with the white marbling. Practice makes perfect I suppose! Of course, as I'll never actually use this model, it's gone up on eBay.

With the release of the new Grey Knight plastics, I rummaged around in the Closet of Doom and pulled out the 5 Custodes Terminator bodies I'd picked up years and years ago. I decided that I'd kit them out as counts-as Paladins and armed them accordingly. While the Incinerator may not be the 'best' weapon upgrade available, it is the one that shows up in the artwork and therefore is the one I went with. Style before Purpose, I say!

In addition, I reclaimed an old, old Mk. IIb Land Raider for use as the Custodes Terminator Transport. It was very dusty so I gave it a bit of a wash and brush down, though it still looks fairly dirty. Another bath may be in order...

The Kabal of the Crimson Woe - Duke Harkanet completed

I had to take a break from the assembly-line painting for a bit, and finished up the second Dark Eldar Archon - Duke Harkanet.

Duke Harkanet is the Crimson King's second in command, and takes to the field with his bodyguard of Incubi, and as such wears similar colors. Armed with a Soul Trap and a Husk Blade, he's used to hunt down enemy ICs which grant him a strength boost for every one he kills

The Incubi have been posted before, but I thought I'd include a pic again to show how the Archon ties in with the unit. Eventually I'll be building four more Incubi to fill up the Raider, though the squad can also be cut down to 4 and put them and Duke Harkanet in a Venom... It's good to have options!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Hypaspists in progress

A little forward progress on the Hypaspist units over the past week. With 24 of them to do at once, I really start to notice how similar the various casts are. While they are nice models and I'm not complaining about the detail, there are only three variants, and to be honest at arms length they do all look about the same. Eventually these models will become the Praetorians for the Army and I'm scheming on how I'm going to build the replacements. I have several boxes of the Wargames Workshop Greatcoat Troopers, and at 18 in a box, the two boxes will allow me to build three 12-man units. I'm hoping that with the judicious application of Cadian arms and Pig Iron heads, the to-be-build Hypaspists will end up looking a bit more dynamic than these Iron Brotherhood sculpts.

...But back to the task at hand - the Iron Brotherhood models from MicroArt Studios. In order to keep myself from going completely insane while batch painting them, I decided that I would alternate the cloak and trim colors between the two units. One squad would have red cloaks with white cog trim and one would have white cloaks with red cog trim. Holy cow does painting all those little cogs ever get tedious! I still have the white cogs to do on the first unit, and then an entire pass of highlight red and while for all 24 models. Once that's done however, the rest of the detail work shouldn't take much time at all - the various hoses and lenses, some gold details on the bionics and I think I can call them done!

Our local gaming group recently kicked off a Special Operations: Killzone campaign, so I took a little time and banged out a small campaign map. We're keeping the map campaign rules extremely simple for this initial go - the tiles are simply a means for us to keep score. After 8-10 strategic turns the player who holds the most hexes (via winning games as the attacker) wins. Depending on how that goes, the next go-around we may try to add a bit more flavor to the campaign map with various tiles providing bonuses or detriments, as well as including add-ons such as the bastions, power generators, etc. that come with the Planetary Empires box...