Adeptus Mechanicus - Prometheus Forge Knight (more or less) painted!

The temperatures have started to soar here in sunny Colorado and my painting loft has started heating up significantly - I've been getting a little bit of painting done in the mornings before heading off to work while it's nice and cool however!

 

The rather excellent Prometheus from Blight Wheel Miniatures is now (more or less) complete! All of the painting is done at this point, and I gave it a hit of sealant prior to the waterslide transfer stage. Once those are on I'm scheming on how I want to weather it, I definitely want to add some chipping around the lower leg guards, and perhaps on the knuckles of the power fist.

 

I pulled out the older Knight Errant and snapped a scale shot, the Prometheus is just a tad bigger but essentially identically scaled, which I like. I thoroughly enjoyed building and painting this kit, and will be adding another one or two more once they replenish their stock!

 

I also figured what the heck - may as well drag out the Leviathan Crusader from Dreamforge for another scale shot! Still just applying the base red to it, but I'm well pleased with how it's turning out so far!

With the advent of the recent Eldar Wraithknight, I'm really interested to see whether we'll see some equivalent scaled Imperial Knights coming our way from GW. Seems as though Forge World is starting to release more and more kits for the Ad-Mech recently (to my wallet's chagrin) so it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility I figure...

Ave Omnissiah!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Prometheus Forge Knight painting in progress

Managed to get a little more paint on the Blight Wheel Miniatures knight over the last few days. I had a bit of an accident with it and fumbled the beast which resulted in a fair bit of damage. Luckily it was all reasonably clean breaks and I was able to put it back together and touch up the parts where the paint was screwed up. You can hardly tell I'm a clumsy oaf unless you specifically know what to look for!

 

Still quite a way to go, but more or less all of the major colors are blocked in and the shading has begun (need to decide on a color for the power fist and shoulder sections though, thinking white to match the other knights I've done). Still pondering how I'm going to work in the heraldry I've done on previous Knights, there aren't as many nice flat open spaces for that as there has been on the other versions. Still, overall I think this model has way more visual interest and detail!

A couple people asked about the scale of the mantis tank, so I snapped a quick pic for comparison. It's big!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Prometheus Knight Titan size comparison

A couple people have asked for a size comparison shot of the Prometheus so I snapped a quick pic before heading out for the day's festivities (It being Star Wars day I'm off to try out the new X-Wing game by FFG). May the 4th be with you!

From base to the top of the carapace, the Prometheus stands just shy of 7", and is 8" to the top of the exhaust stacks. It's slightly larger than the older Knights BigDaddy has done, but still well within the same scale. It's also a bit more heavily armored which gives it quite a bit more mass. They tower over the basic troopers, but aren't nearly as massive as the Dreamforge Leviathan (which I'll be using as a counts-as Warhound, I think).

In other news, this marks my 350th post. Crazy!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Blight Wheel Prometheus Knight Titan build

Today has been my first real day off since the Christmas holiday, and I thought I'd get some build time in! A couple days ago a package arrived from Blight Wheel Miniatures bearing their new Prometheus Knight Titan, and I spent some time getting everything trimmed, cleaned up and washed off.

I've been a long time fan of BigDaddy's work, and own several of his previous iterations of Knight Titans, and I have to say that they just keep getting better. This new kit has tons of great detail and is an incredibly crisp and detailed cast.

 

I started off by gluing up a few CDs to make a base, and built up the legs and torso. The kit allows for a great range of motion and posability, which I really appreciated. The kit also comes with a great looking power fist and thermic cannon, which I magnetized to allow for easier storage and potential swapping of weapon options in the future.

  

The whole kit went together like a dream, and it really has a sense of weight and purpose. Definitely looking forward to getting stuck in painting it!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Knight Errant painted, and BlightWheel order arrives!

It is (more or less) done! The Knight Errant "Ignis Rex" is now ready for the tabletop! The heavy lifting was all done last update, all that remained was the shading and highlighting, and the various decorative bits.

 

I went with a scheme reminiscent of the previous Knight Paladin, though in blue rather than green (allowing for the green to be used for the power cables/power fist). The main colors being red and gold will help tie it in with the rest of the Ad-Mech army nicely as well.

 

In retrospect, I wish I had thought to model a footprint where the left foot is coming off the ground. Never fails that some bit of inspiration will strike long after it being too late to incorporate. Curses!

 

I used some rather old water-slide transfers that I've had lurking around rather than try and paint a rearing griffon with my sausage fingers. Overall the white transfer over the blue worked well, but the carrier film had yellowed somewhat on the transfer I used on the white power fist. I tried to paint over the worst of it to help blend it in, but there's still a bit around the edges. It's not as noticeable in real life as the picture makes it seem though. I do want to go back in and clean up the name on the scroll, it's a little sloppy. Overall however, I'm well pleased with how the Knight Errant turned out!

 

On Friday the order I'd made from Blight Wheel miniatures arrived and I set to cleaning them up, so I snapped a couple pictures of the pieces before I started assembly. Overall I'm rather pleased - very crisp casts, and they definitely capture the Ad-Mech feel rather well. My plan is to do one loyalist and one traitor Magos - the one on the left will become my loyalist magos, and will be getting a Servo-Harness, and be toting a Conversion Beamer and Omnissian Axe. The model on the right is going to be used as Urtzi Malevolus, the Despoiler of Mars - the picture below is from the Visions of Heresy book, and it's a pretty darn close match!

Now if it would only stop being 100 degrees every darn day. Paints drying up and my wet palate needs to be topped off every couple hours while working up in the hobby loft. Oof!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Knight Errant painting in progress

A bit more forward motion on the Knight Errant over the last few days - been blocking in the main colors. I decided on a similar paint scheme to the Knight Paladin I did several years back, swapping the green for blue instead but otherwise keeping much the same pattern of quartered panels.

 

At the moment all the colors still need to be shaded and highlighted, and there's a lot of detail work yet to add. I'm planning on using some white rampant griffon transfers on the upper left quadrant of the shoulder and shin plates, and a larger blue griffon and some scroll-work on the back of the power fist.

 

Overall I'm quite pleased with how it's coming along - I'm always surprised how quickly large models like this paint up. Definitely looking forward to finishing it off, it'll be a nice centerpiece for the upcoming Ad-Mech army I'm working on behind the scenes!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Knight Errant built

My plans for the hobby have been altered fairly dramatically of late, with the World Eaters army project coming to a premature halt. Nevertheless, my enthusiasm for the hobby continues unabated! After doing a mess of Thousand Sons and more recently a mess of World Eaters, I have to admit I'm a bit ambivalent about painting any more marines in the near term. The fact that I'm forced to pillage my hobby fund account to help offset the IRS bill means that I'm not buying much in the near future either. So, into the depths of the Closet of Doom for project fodder I went and my eye fell on a couple boxes marked "Ad-Mech Bits"...

The continually amazing Ulfhedin and company over at the Tempus Fugitives forums have been hard at work updating the various codexes they've done for the Age of the Emperor events. Most recent of which has been a massive update to the Cult Mechanicus codex, which I've rather enjoyed reading and has gotten me fired up to work on the cogboys for a while!

At the moment I'm still pawing through the bits boxes sorting out what's going to be used on what models/vehicles, but one bag in particular stood out. Several years back I'd worked on a pair of Knight Paladins from two different sculptors. The one done by BigDaddy (now of Blight Wheel Miniatures) was by far my favorite, and at the time I'd also purchased a Knight Errant from him. However it has just sat in a box in the Closet of Doom for the past two and a half years. But no longer!

 

The Knight Errant is designed as a close-range mauler with its power fist and Thermic Cannon. In the context of the Tempus Fugitives rule set, it's treated as a Walker with 4 hull points and armor of 14/13/12 (with a few various special rules) and runs about 265 points as shown here. In previous incarnations it was treated as a Superheavy, but at this point it's more of a large vehicle. It's far less resilient than it was in the previous TF codex, but far more reasonable for normal play.

 

The kit was a joy to assemble, with multiple hinges and joints which allow for some dynamic posing. I tried to give it a real sense of motion as it strides across the battlefield, and I'm really looking forward to painting it! I'm bummed that I didn't pick up a few more of these when they were available, but unfortunately due to rampant re-casting and people trying to profit off his hard work, BigDaddy discontinued production of these years ago. Nevertheless, his sculpting talents are being put to excellent use over at Blight Wheel Miniatures, and while the range is limited, it's definitely worth looking through their store!