Heresy Era Mechanicum - Knight Castigator and Dreamforge Leviathan comparison

A bit of a filler post this week I'm afraid - Turns out my new computer may have fatally compromised its machine spirit and I've had to send it in for repair/replacement. Sadly that means it's become rather challenging to upload new pictures, so I've been forced to fall back on some older pics while I wait.

A few weeks back I was tidying up the hobby loft and ran across the Dreamforge Leviathan that I'd stalled out on. I had been disheartened by how much larger than the GW plastic Paladin it ended up being, but I'd been meaning to see how it stacks up against the far larger FW Castigator. Turns out, surprisingly close!

They're virtually the same height, but the Leviathan is far bulkier. Most of the armor plating on the arms and legs are not strictly required, I'm thinking the Mortis variant may be pretty similarly skeletal. While I love the model though the aesthetic is just too different for me to want to add it to the loyalist Mechanicum, though it may find its way into the Dark Mechanicum army I have slowly coalescing in the Closet of Doom...

It sounds like it'll be another week or more before I regain full service. Will be lighting a votive and praying to the Omnissiah for a swift resolution!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Knight Castigator painting complete!

Not much in the way of hobby time this week, though I did manage to get the waterslide transfers and some weathering on the Knight Castigator, enough that I'm calling it complete!

  

Pretty straightforward - went with the big house Krast symbol on the left shoulder, and the lion on the quartered sections to tie it in with the Paladins. Trimmed down one of the shoulder cog symbols for the left leg, and the crossed reapers to tie in with the armament.

Lastly I wanted to take a 'model's eye view', it's definitely an intimidating looking beast! With all the cool knight kits FW has been showing off of late I'm pretty sure that this won't be the last Knight to join House Krast...

Post #500 Giveaway and a look to the future!

This marks the 500th post to the blog, which calls for a bit of a celebration! As many of you know, I've been playing 40k since its inception back in the late 80s and most of my hobby mojo is based on the old fluff (the core of the Mordian 7th is drawn from the old red-cover 40k Compendium) and game systems such as Adeptus Titanicus and the original Epic Space Marine (where my love for heresy-era gaming took root). In an effort to share my love of old school 40k gaming, I'm giving away one of my soft-cover 1st Ed Rogue Trader Rulebooks to mark the occasion:

Pretty simple, if you're a follower of my blog and leave a comment below, your name will be entered into the drawing which will take place on September 15th. Couldn't be easier!

Figured it was a good time to look at what's on the horizon hobby-wise as well. I have to admit that my interest in 40k has been on the wane for quite some time, and I've been giving serious consideration to selling off the current iteration of the Mordian 7th either as one big apocalypse army set, or in smaller lots (possibly keeping a few units for sentimental reasons). It's been sitting unused in the Closet of Doom for well over a year, and I have no real plan to play them any time soon. I've long said that 'the building and the painting is more fun than the having', and besides if I get rid of 'em, that gives me an excuse to re-create them once again in the future, right?

Now that's not to say that I'm looking to get out of the hobby entirely, by any means! My interest in Heresy-era gaming has never been stronger, and I have been up to my ears in the Thousand Sons for months. Sadly, I'm reaching the finish line with them, and they're going to be shelved for a bit while we await the release of the Prospero book. I've more or less built all of the 'generic' units I can for the army, and I want to hold off on the rest until there's actual rules and models (cannot WAIT to see what FW does for Magnus the Red)!

So that means I have a few other projects in line to keep me occupied. As I mentioned in the previous post, I'm planning on a Geno Five-Two Chiliad army with some Alpha Legion allies, and since I have to wait for Conquest to arrive later this year to do the guard portion, I got started on a test unit of Alpha Legion over the past long weekend!

Didn't really take many in progress pics on these, but they started off with a Jade Green basecoat, followed by 3-4 passes with a Guilliman Blue glaze. This is the first time I'd tried a controlled multi-application of a glaze/wash to tint a color overall rather than just using them for a one-shot shade, and while it was very time consuming (had to wait an hour between coats to let the glaze dry) I quite like the end result!

 

But that's not all! I always have a force of Ad-Mech lurking in one form or another on the shelves, and with the most recent book Extermination, there is finally a rather flexible set of army rules and a bunch of cool models, such as the Thanatar that I picked up at Gencon and assembled over the holiday weekend as well.

 

Taking a cue from Eye of Error, I went with the 'unfolded petals' on the plasma mortar, and spent an inordinate amount of time hot-water bending the ammo feeds to get the mauler bolt cannons into a bit more of a dynamic pose. Quite looking forward to getting some paint on this beast!

 

...And speaking of painting a beast, over the past weekend I managed to get the Castigator painted up to the point where I could get a coat of sealant on it in preparation for waterslide transfers and weathering! Tried out a green on the power sword initially but found it looked a little off-balance so I went with an alternate blue such that it both ties together with, and stands apart from, the main blue of the armour plates. So, between the work to finish off the Castigator, a couple remaining Thousand Sons units, some planned Alpha Legion units, and a mess of Ad Mech there's plenty to keep me occupied for the foreseeable future, no doubt about that!

When all is said and done however, I want to say a HUGE THANK YOU to all of you readers out there. Your comments, suggestions and encouragement over the years has been instrumental in getting me to this point, and I am always humbled by all your kind words. Cheers everyone, and here's to another 500 posts in the future!

Be sure to leave a comment (and be a follower of the blog) to be entered for a chance to win the Rogue Trader rulebook!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Knight Castigator painting begins!

Pretty busy this week with Real Life(tm), however I snuck in some paint time Saturday afternoon and got the main colors blocked in on the Castigator, and got the armour plate secured in place:

  

In keeping with the general heraldic color scheme found on the two Paladins, I alternated blue and yellow panels - the yellow shoulder pad and shin plate will get the quartered red-and-white-striped motif as well.

  

I'm still coming up with some fluff for him, but I knew that I wanted his nickname to be "The Bastard Baron". As such, he got the house colors as a bar sinister across his upper carapace, and I'm thinking I'll repeat that on the blue shinguard as well. Cleaned up the metal trim, which will be getting a shiny silver drybrush to help it stand out from the more oily steel undercarriage. All the hoses and gold trim need highlights and shading yet, as does the sword. I'm not totally sold on the alternate blue power-weapon color, I may instead go with the green of the miscellaneous power hoses. Thoughts?

Finally, a pic with the Castigator alongside one of its Paladin squires. So far so good, but lots of work yet to go!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Knight Castigator build complete

Managed to get the Castigator built up to the point that it's ready for primer! I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed building this kit, though there are a couple things I'd do differently next time around knowing what I know from the initial build.

I kept all of the armour plates separate for the time being, which will allow me greater access to the under-chassis of the model and facilitate painting. That means the model is a little skeletal looking at the moment, but once the plates are on it definitely bulks up! The model is currently separate at the waist as well (currently just held in place by a big ol' honkin' pin), though the arms are permanently attached.

  

Quite pleased with the overall pose, opening up the arms from the body and rotating the torso and head gives it an interesting sense of forward motion - not running as I'd likely do the Lancer (and I am much more inclined to pick one up now), but a solid advance while mowing down infantry with the gatling bolter. I was slightly disappointed that the sword arm is solid at the wrist, so you're pretty much stuck with elbow and shoulder for posing on that side. Nevertheless, I like it as a counterpoint to the reaper chainswords on the Paladins.

 

Now THAT'S an ammo hopper! In retrospect I would have actually been better off building the left leg bent at the knee and the right leg straight, as I found the more extended rearward placement of the leg interfered somewhat with the available torso rotation options due to the ammo belt hanging so far down. As I'd cocked the gun outwards about 25 degrees I ended up needing to hot-water bend the ammo belt into place to fit the two receiver sockets anyway, so incorporating the leg position wasn't a dealbreaker. With the leg up and out of the way however, I think one could get some really interesting posing out of the gun arm.

Here's a scale shot of the Baron compared to the paladin model - definitely think the two paladins acting as Squires is fitting scale-wise when they're on the table, though I do still contend that either the FW knights are slightly too big, or the GW knights are slightly too small. The Castigator is nearly the height of the 25mm Dreamforge leviathan!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Knight Castigator build begins!

After getting home on Sunday late afternoon, I immediately pulled out all the FW goodies and got 'em into some warm soapy water for an overnight soak. Yesterday morning I got them all scrubbed and laid out to dry and got a jump on assembling the Castigator that will be used as the Baron for my knight household!

I knew from the outset that I wanted to have the model be in as dynamic a pose as I could manage, after being disappointed with the somewhat static leg positioning of the paladin/errant kit I was delighted to see that the FW kit allowed for all sorts of posing options! I started off by building a little damaged pumping station that I could have one foot standing on, then got started posing and pinning until I came up with the stance shown. After that it was a surprisingly simple matter of attaching all the various pistons and cables, most of which went on very easily, though I did need to extent the hip piston on the upraised leg slightly.

On the rear however I found that some of the cabling will require a fair bit of hot water bending to allow them to attach to the extended pose, but that should be fairly painless. The way the instructions for the upper torso and weapons are written seems to indicate that the left-arm gatling cannon has much less of a range of motion available than the right-arm sword, so I kept the left leg straight and out of the way in order to give the ammo feeds as much room as possible. The intent is to have it splayed around to the left a bit and the sword in a sweeping motion up and over the raised right leg. We'll see how that goes, I suppose!

I'm still not entirely sold on the scale differential between the Cerastus pattern knights and the plastic paladin/errant kit but with the Castigator intended to act as the Baron for the household I thought it would be appropriate for him to be a bit more imposing than his squires (represented by the two paladins). Nevertheless, he's gonna be BIG! Hoping to get the torso and weapons built over the next few days - assuming I ever get out of work. Being gone for a week means that I have some drifting piles of email to wade through and work to catch up on. Oof!