Battle Bunnies Custodes fight, 3d printed Necromunda Lift, Ambots!

Have been loving the attention given to 30k at the weekender, and celebrated by playing my first game against a Custodes army with Darien from the Battle Bunnies. 

SumpKroc, many Necromunda games played, Escher take to the field, Armigers are good in Heresy!

He’s green and mean and looks far too clean…Its Krocka my Goliath Sump Kroc! I’ve currently got 2 Goliath gangs running in 2 separate campaigns, and only just managed to afford this charmer in one.

Painting this guy was fairly easy, and I didn’t nearly apply as much attention as I should have (plus the camera washes everything out)

Arvus Lighter Conversion

I call it the 'Bug'.
That might be because its a 'bugabout' to get from A-Z, could be the mandible-like cabin,  could be because its small and flits around the place, but for whatever reason, when I look at this thing I think 'Bug'

 

So while having a look at ways to expand my Mortalis set I realised that I liked the idea of a landing bay and the associated debris and things that would come with it (and will look to get the Forgeworld one). Central to any landing bay however is something landed! Here is my Mechanicum Shuttle, come Arvus Lighter, that I'm halfway completed.

Convert all the things!

All I wanted to add today was a gif showing all my converted Thralls, all 40 of these converted beauties.

Weekly progress; Sawing Realm of Battle boards. Sons of Horus Tactical Squad, Castellax and thralls.

This week, I've fallen in love with POWER SAWS!

A friend of mine requested some work for a project of his, whereby he was populating the inside of the tile of battle with actual scenery. Neither he nor I had the capacity to remove sections of the tile without cutting in from an edge. CUE POWER SAW. The realm of Battle board moulds are almost an inch thick in some places so heavy duty is needed. We were able to take the top off with a conventional saw, but the detail removal was important.

State of the Desk, Adsecularis and early Sons of Horus teardown

Last month I managed to get 25 of these guys converted from a combination of the Mechanicus Vanguard and a selection of Chaos Cultists that I had. 

State of the Desk; Snow Testing and Characters

So my first focus this week has been making my Mechanicum a bit more durable in their basing as I left my Imperial guard in the car for a week, and the vibrations shook loose a lot of snow. So I have a to get tougher with the snow product I use. Cue testing.

I wanted something that would retain the finish of the snow, but lock it better in place. I tried out Woodland Scenics Water Effects, but as you can’t really dilute the product without diluting the effect, it was a fairly wasted endeavour. I will be using it for footprints however and maybe on some tank hulls as this stuff looks fun.

Used liberally it did give the snow an icy look. Hmmm, not good for this scenario at least.

Converted 30k Ursarax

Ursarax! They've just released the models for these! Yay!
These guys are a great variation of the Thallax, and liked the idea of these close combat beasties being very Dark and Spindly (Remember Dan Abnetts Shockroaches?)

I found a starting point in the 41st Millennia in these Ruststalkers and so set about doing some minor modifications. I wanted to give these guys a similar aesthetic to that of the Thallax but didn't want to lose the original awesome look of the Ruststalkers, nor did I want to dilute the feeling of the Dark Mechanicus.

State of the desk; More Dark Mechanicus

This has been a dark winter. Long and filled with the ichor of corruption...

In an attempt to stop turning up to games with half or quarter painted miniatures I started to put more effort into getting the Dark Mechanicus completed. What that means is that I need to get cracking and get the correct bits completed in bulk.
Batches helps. In order of intent.

Dark Mechanicus Adsecularis/Dark Skitarii

Options for Dark Mechanicus are limited when it comes to easy 'out of the box' troops. This should hopefully cover some of the missing bodies from the army. Here follows a whistle stop run through of the guys that I've put together.

I mixed 2 packs of Chaos Cultists with the standard Vanguard box, as I wanted a very Mechanicus feel, and not veer too far from the standard elements that you would expect to see in the army. 

State of the Desk; Sons of Sek TAAAAANKS, some scenery, and some non GW beauties

Tanks have been the focus over the last few weeks. Love em! In an effort to get as many of the core Sons of Sek guys painted I wanted to get these finished and working away. 

Soon I'll put together a picture spread to showcase what these guys should look like. Aggressive!

I'm trying a new paint scheme with my Chimera and Wyvern chassis' that took a lot of work. And in the end I'm not sure whether I'm convinced it was worth it. Wyvern first.

State of the desk; Mortalis, Dark Mech, Stormtroopers, Apocalypse

So the desk this week has had a nice tidy after a busy couple of days,

First things first, Mortalis. This was a real “I'm not sure what to paint next. Let’s paint that”, moment. There have been some ridiculously nice colour schemes for Mortalis. See here for the eventual aim (landing bay).

I went the route that suited me best. I wanted dirty, rusted and oiled, but with some semblance of unity. Black and silver looks great as the internal corridors of a ship, but with a little extra work I hoped I could add some more character to it so that it could be other things as well, a bunker complex, the bridge of a ship rather than the bowels, laboratory etc.

I also didn't want to take forever, I have 7 more of these sections to do.

State of the Desk: mostly Dark Mechanicus

New toys! Dark Mechanicum 3 full squads completed.

As I’m used to Guard this was a nice change of pace to get 600 odd points painted relatively quickly.

State of the Desk: Dark Mechanicus

Desk in Progress. Update on the random stuff going on...

Here I have some easy Scyllax Guardian Automata that I’ve knocked together with a good friend Den’s cast-offs from the new Mechanicus Kataphron sprues, these can also be used as Servitors/ Servo-Automata as needed.

Magnetise your Knight Titan

I was so looking forwards to having a brand new toybox when I learned how easy magnets were. I imagined every tank having a host of swappable bits that would give my armies a new lease of life..

In truth; 

pfffffttttssplaaateeek....

Magnets. They are useful. They are also pain in the arse to use constantly. 

General observation? YOU WILL NOT USE THEM AS MUCH AS YOU THINK YOU WILL.
I realised that I barely used any of the magnetised troops that I went to the effort of creating. Most of the people I've given alternative loadouts I instead simply use their stock load out, or stick them with blu-tac.

Dark Mechanicus; getting a force going

(Of course my new army is corrupted in some way!) How would you theme them? Would you buy a chockload of Chaos parts, perhaps a Hellbrute or a Maulerfiend and start making the ‘shockroaches’? Would you mix pieces with the Necrons, with the Skaven? Green stuff the entire bunch so that they all are unique? Would you attempt to give them a unique feel that no one else had tried?

Especially when this lands on my desk as a present from my eldest brother.

Bloody hell Nick that’s generous! Now to make it fit. This thing has to be charging, it cannot be static.