Necromunda - Spyrers, Hired Guns, Hive Scum and Robots!

Howdy folks! Been having some issues getting new pics uploaded to my galleries, but finally got it sorted out and have a whole slew of new pics ready to go! After working on a ton of heresy stuff, I thought I'd take a breather and switch gear to do a mess of Necromunda models who have been lurking on the to-be-painted shelf for months, if not years. Buckle up for a couple weeks worth of painting!

First up is one of the oldest models that have been rattling around the Closet of Doom for decades, the Spyrer Patriarch! I essentially had to paint him in the green and yellow of the classic "Doc Ock" scheme, and I'm going to be hard-pressed not to refer to him as "Apothecary Cephalopod" now!

Figured I ought to take a quick snap of the whole hunt team. Part of me want to see if I can find the alternate poses for each of the four 'basic' spyrers and get them painted up as well!

Next up are a trio of Hired Guns from the recent Forge World releases, Grendl Grendlsen, Belladonna and Eyros Slagmyst. Really enjoyed painting them up, especially Grendl - Had to give him the classic House Mjolnir paint scheme!

As a contrast, I also painted up a trio of old hired guns from the original release back in the day - Biceps McSixpack, Frellin' Tom, and Ever-Ready Evan.

As a callback to a friend's old gang, Eats Bad Fungus the Ratskin Scout got a lick of paint. I always loved this model, it's by far my favorite of the Ratskin sculpts.

Similarly, as an homage to my dubby Dave's old Pit Slave gang, Dr. Whirlygig the Pit Slave Champion is ready to rampage through the underhive!

In other news, I love to trawl the interwebs for likeminded folks who enjoy the old Rogue Trader era minis and aesthetic, and ran across a fellow who had sculpted up some robots based on some art from the 1st edition rulebook. I had to get my mitts on a few!

They're scaled to fit on 40mm bases and I don't really have any use for them in 30k/40k, but they'll work really well as some counts-as Ambots for a planned Necromunda scenario in the near future!

More stuff to come shortly, as I work through the photo backlog!

Heresy Era Mechanicum - Zhao Arkkad Cybernetica force complete!

With NOVA bearing down on me, I had to take stock of what remains to be done - As I'd been working on the Castellax recently (who are pulling double duty in both the Thousand Sons and Mechanicum forces) I figured I ought to pull out the rest of the Zhao Arkkad force and get all the waterslides, glossy faceplates and so forth complete. Once that was done it turns out the whole Cybernetica contingent is ready to go!

1500 points doesn't go very far in a Cybernetica force! This army will form half of the team game force, and will take the field alongside 1500 points of Thousand Sons. Should be good times! They're currently hanging out on a very cool gaming tray made by the inestimable Zab over at Almost Perftec.

I wanted to do something a little different for the Archmagos Dominus, and dug up an old "Telepathica Emancipator" model from the Tempus Fugitives days. I kind of like the "canopic jar" look, I'm envisioning the Magos as being a mummified husk inside (or perhaps it's just sacs of organs)...

Quite happy with how the Castellax Achea turned out - the transfer sheets from Forge World included a couple rather cool banners, and I really dug this one in particular. Added a little touch of the wyrdlight green to help tie them in to the rest of the Thousand Sons force, as they are controlled via a psychic link.

Nothing really new with the Thallax, they were pretty much done already and just needed their faceplates given a going-over with the brush-on gloss varnish.

Similarly the Vorax just got the shiny eye treatment, and the addition of a small Thousand Sons nova in white. Helps to tie them in with the rest of the force, all of whom have the white nova on one shoulder or another. Still my favorite of the new robot re-imaginings from FW, I adore these models (fiddly though they are to assemble)!

The big guy got a similar large transfer on his shoulder as a callback to the imagery on the Castellax banner, and the shiny faceplate treatment. They're all ready to be packed up for transit to the event!

While I was about it I updated the Thousand Sons painting chart. Very close to the finish line now! Trying very hard to stay focused on this project so I don't have to worry about models for NOVA, but have been entertaining thoughts of which project to pick up next - Both the Genestealer Cult and Dark Eldar/Harlequins appeal as a way to dip my toes into 8th edition (which I still haven't had a chance to play), but on the other hand I do really want to start that Sons of Horus army... Decisions, decisions!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Castellax Achea painting begins!

Happy 4th of July to our stateside readers, and I suppose a happy Tuesday to everyone else! Just a quick hit between BBQ and relaxation on the day off - I managed to squeeze in a fair bit of work on the unit of Castellax Achea this morning:

Basic gold, red and blues laid in so far, but heck, that's more than halfway to the finish line, right? Pretty happy with how they're turning out so far, hope to have them done by the end of the week!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Osiron Dreadnought and Castellax-Achea Battle Maniple built!

Some reinforcements arrived from Zhao-Arkkad, and since I've managed to get a fair bit of painting done recently I decided to reward myself with some time gluing my fingers together and cranked out some new models for the force, starting with the Castellax-Achea Battle Maniple:

In the sorting and cleaning process I managed to lose a couple of the claw talons, so in order to hide a bit of a bodge job, one of the Castellax is carrying a legion banner. Doesn't do anything in-game, but thought it could be a neat look and a good focal point for the unit!

  

Next up was an Osiron Contemptor. My original Great Crusade era Thousand Sons force included a Casteferrum Dread armed with a force weapon and a plasma cannon, so as an homage to that old model I present Seraphis, Revenant Primaris of the Khamasiin's cohort of the dead. I have plans for a further pair of 'vanilla' Thousand Sons Contemptors who will act as Seraphis' bodyguards, though I'm unsure how I'm going to arm them just yet. I sort of want to come up with some large Heqa staffs or the like...

Heresy Era Mechanicum - Thanatar and Vorax almost complete!

I was going through the pictures I've taken over the last couple weeks and realized I'd never posted the shots of the Thanatar and Vorax fresh off the paint line! They were spray sealed before I left for Adepticon and are awaiting the addition of some waterslide transfers and weathering, but are table ready otherwise!

 

Rather happy with how the Thanatar turned out, the red ended up a little mottled but in the end I sort of like it! Carried on with the black weapon housings and the usual electric blue gives it some nice spot color.

The Vorax are by far my favorite of the robot range, they just exude menace. Haven't glossed up the eyes yet (or the faceplate on the Thanatar), as they'll be getting another matte pass following the addition of the transfers and weathering.

  

FW recently put up another preview of the Achean Castellax and the Osiron dreadnought, and the force will be getting at least three of each weapon loadout! Going to be an expensive day once those go up for pre-order...

Heresy Era Mechanicum - Robots rolling through the manufactorum...

Real Life(tm) has been kicking my butt recently, but there was time to put brush to model here and there as a way to unwind, so I fired up the painting servitor and got cracking!

The Thallax got painted up to the "Off the factory floor" stage prior to waterslides and weathering, thinking some hieroglyphics on the offhand shoulder would be a good way to go! Went with the brush-on gloss on the faceplates to give them a nice shine, though the lighting is a little poor to get the full effect in these in-progress shots.

Quite enjoyed painting the Thallax, so the Vorax were the next on deck - keep that momentum going! Just the antiqued gold/brass and laid in the basecoat for the red so far, but already liking how they're shaping up!

Since three models don't really make for much of a batch, the Thanatar got the same treatment. He's a beast - definitely glad I left him separated at the waist to facilitate painting! Got a whole mess of Thousand Sons basecoated in red, so expect a tidal wave of the Sons of Magnus in short order - Really excited to get stuck in with 'em, something a little different in store for the army this time around...

Heresy Era Mechanicum - The Flesh Is Weak!

The fallible flesh components of the painting servitor succumbed to the touch of Nurgle so I did a half day today - Between sneezing fits managed to get several nearly-built models constructed and even start laying in a little paint on a few models!

First up is the heavy hitter of the Cybernetica force, the Thanatar. Armed with a fearsome Hellex Plasma Wave mortar and Mauler Bolt Cannons, it's just a beast! I expect it to take a ton of fire, so it gets the Paragon of Metal special rule, granting it some much needed extra survivability!

Next were some of the most challenging models in the Mechanicum line to build in my opinion, but also the one whose look I enjoy most of all - The Vorax! A worthy re-imagining of the old Crusader robot, I love the insectile look and think they'll tie in nicely with the scarab motif of the Thousand Sons they'll be fighting alongside!

Finally, a bit of paint! As a departure from the normal gunmetal skeletal structure, the various bots of the Zhao Arkkad Cybernetica will be getting an antiqued gold/bronze color, which when tied together with the red armor plates and black weapon housings should give them a nice complimentary color scheme to the Thousand Sons as well. Just laying in the basecoats for the reds to get a feel for what panels I want to do, and of course at some point they're all going to get a hit of my usual blue as a spot color - should really make 'em pop!

Heresy Era Mechanicum - Zhao Arkkad Legio Cybernetica begins!

Wait! Put down the pitchforks and torches, it's technically part of the Thousand Sons project, I swear!

One of the things that I rather liked in the book A Thousand Sons were the Legio Cybernetica robots embedded with psycho-reactive crystal matrices, allowing Khalophis to direct them on the battlefield. Turns out the folks at FW liked that idea as well and worked that aspect into the rules, and showed off some rather cool Castellax variants at the recent Heresy Weekender. They are going to be a must-buy as soon as they're released!

Of course, that just means I am going to have to do an entire army of allied Mechanicum, right? There is a method to the madness - At NOVA 2017 there's a 1500 point-per-person team event, and a friend of mine who is attending and I are doing a bit of a collaboration. He'll been helping me out with the airbrushing of the metallics, and I'll be doing all the traditional brushwork and modelling. On the up side, with the recent sale of the previous incarnation of the Thousand Sons I was able to add in pretty much all of the models for the force in the recent order - all that remains are the yet-to-be-released Castellax, which I sincerely hope will be made available in time for the event...

I did spend a little time assembling the two Thallax cohorts, I really dig these models and was looking forward to building 'em. Next up on deck is the Belisarius Cawl model, who I think will make for an excellent Archmagos Dominus. He's about half built at this point, but is all in sections to facilitate painting - managed to restrain myself from building it all only to find it becomes nigh-impossible to paint fully assembled!

When all is said and done the whole force will be 15 models, which should hopefully make it reasonably easy to build, paint and (above all) transport to the event!

40k Adeptus Mechanicus - A whole mess of models finished. Finished-er?

Finished-est?

Well my cunning plan to paint up a whole big Ad-Mech army has fallen apart - turns out I miscalculated and need to come up with some extra funds a bit earlier than I'd originally anticipated (surprise car costs related to the sudden duodecupling of my drive time). So over the past weekend in addition to building the Stormhammer, I also went in and cleaned up the various things on the Ad-mech models that I'd noticed in the last batch of pics, added some waterslide transfers and got the static grass on and re-sealed. Before I put 'em up on eBay however I figured I'd see if anyone has interest in 'em here - pics and prices below (generally retail plus a couple bucks for the build and painting time): EDIT: All sold!

Tech Priest Dominus - $38

 Skitarii Rangers - $45

 Kataphron Breachers - $120

 Fulgurite Electropriests - $85

 Kastelan Robots - $70

 Sicaran Ruststalkers - $48

 Sydonian Dragoons - $100

 Onager Dunecrawler - $68

If you're interested in one or more of these units, drop me an email at moonlight at cold-moon dot com, and we'll sort out total costs and shipping on a first-come-first served basis. I figure on putting whatever isn't spoken for onto eBay this coming weekend. As usual once it goes up on eBay they'll be U.S. only, but I'm open to overseas buyers from blog members with the understanding that shipping overseas gets pretty expensive (it hits $30-$60+ dismayingly quickly). EDIT: All sold!

Still plan on building and painting the remaining models on deck, but they're going to have to wait a little longer than I'd originally planned.

40k Adeptus Mechanicus - A deadline and a plan

Gearing up for the convention/vacation season (as evidenced by the recent flurry of ebay sales), but that doesn't mean the hobby train is slowing down! Over the last few months I've been squirreling away the new Adeptus Mechanicus releases GW has come out with, and now that the Imperial fists are done it's time to fire up the forges.

I've once again said to myself "I'll just do a little boutique army", but this time I'm sticking to it (no, really) - in one of the recent White Dwarf there was a formation called the Adeptus Mechanicus War Convocation that is comprised of a little bit of everything released recently so I totted it all up and picked up the models to fulfill the formation!

I'd painted some stuff up already (well, up to the point where they're ready for transfers and weathering), built and primered a few other units, and have just a handful of units that still need to be built. The plan is to get the primered stuff painted up to the same level as the currently painted stuff before doing any more building, and saving the Knight for last as a reward (really looking forward to building the new weapon options).

I've always loved the idea of the Electro-Priests and decided to go with a big unit of Fulgurites, of the two options in the kit they're the ones I like the look of the most. I was really pleased with how well they went together, but they suffer somewhat in my opinion with the downside to CAD-created models - they go together brilliantly but really they only go together one way, so you end up with 'repeat' models.

A couple units of Kataphron Breachers join the force, again these were built primarily because I like the look - the Torsion Cannons seem pretty nasty on paper as well! I do like the vague commonalities with these models and the Necron Destroyers, as though the Void Dragon is subtly influencing their design...

Really dig the Dunecrawler model as well - I can totally see how this design is utilized by the Dark Mechanicus to create Defilers. Hard to go wrong with a big ol' Neutron Laser, giving the army some much needed anti-tank firepower.

So here's where things stand at the top of July. The plan of attack is to get the army done by the end of August, which should be a reasonable deadline - ideally I can get 'em done in time to get 'em out the door before taking the trip out to Italy. Looking forward to getting some brush time in on 'em!