tech priest auxilia take 2

I have been informed by one of my friends that the photos I took of the tech priest auxilia were a touch out of focus and blurry and did not really convey the real look of them so here we go again - hopefully these are better.

  and now some details of the magos within the tech priest auxilia

 and then we get some close up shots of a couple of the servo automata - the multi-meltas do feel somewhat large on the models, I have to admit when I first read about the unit I assumed the servo automata would be more akin to 40k servitors but this is what forge world have released and they certainly have a gribbly techno beast feel to them, just a little smaller than I was expecting.

 The overhead shots are trying to capture the candy coat metallic red effect I am trying to create on my automata, hopefully it should be even more obvious and visually impactful on the larger constructs as well as the knight and the tanks.
And now as an added bonus here is my archmagos dominus, just using the normal magos dominus model for this character but it is such a nice model I have no problems promoting him in my army to lead my legio cybernetica cohort.

 Again he has the candy coat effect on his head piece and I think it has turned out really nice, it is good to add another character to the army just to give my poor archmagos some support.

Currently in progress are four myrmidon destructors, 1 bombard, 12 thallax and 3 vorax as well as making a start on the 40k tech priest dominus who is going to serve as an archmagos reductor for my army to combine with the thallax to give me a ordo reductor element to the force. I feel the Vorax though when deployed in the legio cybernetica force and thus getting +1 initiative have the potential to absolutely decimate enemies in close combat, something I have until now been relying on the tech thralls to achieve.

Tech Priest Auxilia

So my friends and I have started making arrangments for another apocalypse battle, this one planned to be slightly more epic in scale as we are going to get as close to every model in our collections - due to this I now have a massive 'to paint' list which needs to be done in short order. With that in mind I have been painting some more mechanicum as well as assembling the plastics from my battle at calth boxed set (I have to admit these plastics are awesome and amazing value for money)
Here is the first results of this painting drive.

So that's a tech priest auxilia with 1 adept, 1 magos (third servo arm), 8 servo automata of which five are armed with multi-meltas and they are typically reductor to give them all tank hunters just to make those multi-meltas as efficient as possible.

I am also working on the magos dominus model who is going to act as the archmagos dominus within my legio cybernetica aspect of the mechanicum as well as four myrmidon destructors generally because they are about the best things in the mechanicum army. I have a bombard under way as well but that is a fair way off completion.

I have started assembly of the next set of models to be worked on, this is going to be 12 thallax and 3 vorax as well as continuing to work on the bombard and starting to paint the titan tech priest I recently picked up who will act as a magos prime in the army.

In terms of the plastics, these are going to form the core of my iron warriors army I am planning, they are the perfect allies for the mechanicum as well as being on the same side as the night lords bringing everything in to a coherent whole all with the sole purpose of bringing death to the false emperor.
I am planning on getting a couple more of the battle at calth sets, the economy of the models is really good, in fact I think it is overall better value than normal plastcs, especially when purchased from a local games store which is offering discounts for various reasons such as the one I use.

Tyrant siege terminators in all of their glory, the missile packs from anvil industries are perfect in my opinion for turning the terminators from the boxed set in to these bad arses and luckily the weapon options from the boxed set include more than enough power fists and chainfists to make the correct weapon selection for the unit. The characters are really nice models and I can see a unit of 19 tactical marines led by a chaplain as being quite a brutal force on the battlefield, I had not really appreciated the power of zealot until I was considering what to do with the chaplain model from this set and really read the rules properly.

There will be more posts incoming, I am for the moment getting painting in every day and thus making progress, I am not currently sure the rate of progress is fast enough to get everything I want ready for the apocalypse battle but I am hoping that the promise of this evennt will be enough to keep the focus in place so when I attend it is going to be with something close to 15,000 points of models including a reaver titan and a couple of primarchs.

I am still here

Sorry for not posting for a while, been rather busy with personal matters but with Christmas out of the way I am now back and intending to make some progress with my collected armies.
I am currently in discussion with my gaming group about staging anothing warhammer world apocalypse battle in a few months and I am trying to sort out my plans for what I need to prioritise in terms of assembly and painting in order to have the best possible force for the battle.

I am going to be centering the force on the mechanicum, while I love the night lords I feel the mechanicum is the more rounded army and better suited to facing off against my standard 40k opposition.
I have been making some purchases in the last couple of months towards rounding out my forces, i have picked up a copy of the battle at calth boxed set which is a really impressive collection of models for the money and when I get round to it will serve as the basis of the Iron Warrior contingent I am planning to sort out. I have also purchased the following additions to the mechanicum army...
1 x magos dominus
4 x box of skitarii to serve as tech thralls (to give another 2 units of 20 models)
2 x thallax with multi-melta
2 x mars-colossus bombard

I am going to be building up the mechanicum in to three core components, the ordo reductor is what I am working on at the moment since the artillery it brings is an awesome addition to the army and it will allow me to sort out and repaint my medusa and basilisk as well for a massive surge in ranged firepower. The thallax were purchased with that in mind as they are the required troops for that force. I am then planning to have a legio cybernetica aspect featuring the castellax, thanatar and then some Vorax along with some tech thralls and tech priest auxilia.
The final aspect will be the core taghmata omnissiah force which will be continuing to be based around the tech thralls boosted to be as durable as possible.

While I have not achieved much in the way of painting I have managed to get some miniature assembly completed as shown in the pictures below.

So there is the mighty Perturabo as my second primarch and one who adds a very potent option to my force in terms of changed play style, 1st turn ability to roll for reserves is massive and the firepower he offers from his wrist cannon and orbital bombardment is very useful. I will be adding some tyrant siege terminators and a damocles command rhino to the iron warriors army to maximise the potential for the turn one precision alpha strike which should in theory compliment the resilient firebase offered by the mechanicum.
The Bombard is a wonderful model, one I have wanted for some time and one which was really nice and easy to put together, I feel in the metallic red candy coat that I have been using for the rest of the mechanicum force will look awesome on them.

So with that I will close out this entry but I aim to be posting again soon with some more progress, I am currently working on the first unit of tech priest auxilia, this one will be a reductor unit so they have tank hunters and they will be armed with five multi-meltas on the servo automata, the addition of the heavy firepower is always useful in balancing out the numbers of tech thralls. I am also working on the myrmidon destructors in order to bring them towards two complete units of three of them with volkite culverins and anoter three with irradiation engines. The ones officially armed with conversion beamers will be converted in to having graviton imploders, I also have another pack of myrmidons destructors to bring each unit up to four strong - these are possibly the most effective units within the mechanicum army and maximising their effectiveness will make the army as brutal as possible.

See you all soon for another update.

Knight - almost complete

So it has been some time since my last post, I have to admit I was not painting for some time but I have gotten back in to action and the knight is approaching completion. Here are some pictures of the current state of the model.

Still needs some work but I definitely think it is coming along, I am intending to add some snow and ice to the base - I have always wanted an army based up in something akin to the Stalingrad tone and the mechanicum feels like a perfect force this, laying waste to populated zones without caring about the collateral damage.

Mechanicum Knight - early view

So after applying the fifth layer of clear red I did a partial assembly of the knight and took some photo's which I thought I should share.
Still need to apply more coats of clear red and then do an dark oil paint layer to add dark edging to the armour plates before working on all of the trim, decals, detail work and the like so the knight is still a fair way from completion but I should be taking him along in this relatively early stage to a battle this weekend where my mechanicum will be allying with some blood angels against an Ork host featuring a stompa which could be something of an epic showdown.

 

For the weekend battle I will be making use of blu-tack to attach all of the armour plates to allow me to get a better idea of what the complete model will look like, but as it stands I think this guy is starting to look pretty intimidating and the gloosy red armour plates are working quite well at the moment. 

When I have been able to darken them up and clean up the trim the contrast will be a lot stronger and some decals and weathering effects should break up the two tone look of the model but for the time being I feel there is definitely potential there and that I am going in the right direction with him.

As you can see this is the knight warden variant which while technically not part of the mechanicum 30k list is the variant I love for the gatling cannon power fist combo which I feel is awesome, the 12 shot cannon offers enough firepower to worry all opponents and the thunderstrike gauntlet simply is cool and I cannot wait for the chance to pick up an enemy tank and throw it across the battle field - I know it is not the most powerful build but if has weapons which I really like which is the most important aspect.

I am assembling this model with a number of magnets to allow the shoulder pads and the gauntlet to be removed, since the shoulder pads come off the arm assemblies can also be detached which means eventually I can look to getting all of the other weapon options set up for him as well as making transportation a lot easier.

Triaros/Knight phase three

So continuing to progress with the Knight and Triaros, here are the latest photo's. I am currently up to four coats of clear red, still a ways to go but I think it is definitely coming along slowly.

 

I have taken some early pictures of the Triaros as I have to admit this is an excellent model to work on and as I have seen so far this colour scheme really works well on curved armour plates mainly because I am sure that the base coat does not layer on as consistently as it would otherwise be which gives the clear red coat a more varied tone which adds to the end effect.