From DallasE: Mechanicum Archmagos Prime (Belisarius Cawl) (10 points)

I guess it's nearly 10 years ago now that Games Workshop brought out plastic kits for the Adeptus Mechanicus faction of Warhammer 40K. I was pretty stoked about that, just because of the cool looks of the models and the creepy vibe they exude. So I have (over the last 10 years) painted up a small force of Adeptus Mechanicus models.

As with many of my hobby projects, GregB is to blame for this one. He very kindly sent me a box of Mechanicum Secularis Tech-Thralls Covenant models for Christmas and that's started me down the road of collecting Mechanicum models for the Horus Heresy. I was about to order a third-party resin Archmagos from Tista Minis when I remembered I had bought GW's Belisarius Cawl some years ago, and he (it?) was sitting on sprues in a box. So I busted it out and assembled it for painting. 

As you might be able to tell, it's a pretty intricate model with a lot of parts, and took a couple evenings to assemble. I built it in three assemblies - the legs, the torso, and the right arm. I'm glad I did as I reckon it would've been pretty much impossible to paint had I not left it apart for painting.

As for the paint scheme, you can see I've departed from the traditional Mars scheme and gone in another direction. I really like the charcoal grey and off-white colourway of Forge World Agrippinaa so that's the colours this model got (well the charcoal anyway). It's black with highlights of Vallejo Dark Rubber and Mechanicus Standard Grey, washed with Nuln Oil. The metal parts are Leadbelcher and Nuln Oil, and the brass is mostly Brass Scorpion, washed with Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade.

It's a pretty cool and scary looking model, and as I said it had LOTS of parts to assemble.

It's a pretty large model as well. I'm going to count it as a 54mm infantry model for 10 points.

One 54mm infantry model:  10 points

Total: 10 points

Skulls: 7

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He certainly is a large lad, and is quite the Heroic addition to any AdMech force. To me this series of GW releases really started to transform their 40k range to the new standard 'super detailed' style that can be quite intimidating to tackle. 

Notwithstanding, you've done a cracking job with him Dallas - 10points well earned!

- Paul

From ByronM - Mechanicum and terrain ( 60 points )

First up, I have the last two 30k Mechanicum figures that I am getting done this challenge.  They are 2 more HQ models and are called Magos.

They have given most of their bodies over to the machine god and have very little humanity left.  Which is probably a good thing since the weapon on their side is a Rad Cleanser, which as the name suggests cleans away enemies with radiation.  Lovely, friendly guys, aren't they?

To get command points in 40k you need to fill certain slots in your command structure, so I needed to get to 3 HQ models and hence these guys being added, which allows me to move my auxilia Magos to his true elite spot.  This allows the army to get some additional spiff in game, and each Magos allows nearby robots to re-roll 1's on shooting, and can heal d3+1 wounds to any nearby robot each turn.  This is extremely powerful, especially given that the robots are the core of the army, and I don't get very many of them.

Oh, and for those that wanted a full army view, here you go.  So much for starting this project as a "It would be cool to have 2 or 3 robots to add into out 30k games", a few months later I now have a full other army!!!

Next up, a building I have been working on designing for a while to add to my Middle Eastern set of terrain.  As some of you likely know, I run www.northernlightsterrain.com and did a middle east set to play Spectre on. Some of you may have even seen them at Salute or other conventions as one of the key demo guys from Spectre (Ivan) picked up a full set and did some amazing mods and changes to them to make them look fantastic! One key piece I missed in my initial set was a mosque, and it has been requested a few times.

This piece is fairly large at roughly 10x8x4 and then the towers giving a very small area that is higher.  The roof comes off and it has a tiled interior.  This version has some tile roof sections from green stuff world that I thought would look good, however to me it almost looks like a Taco Bell now...  So, I have made 2 new fronts for it, with either a square door front section so that it looks like a Spanish / Mexican old west church, or a front with a big sign and windows so that you can make your own taco bell.

While the kit is straight plain MDF, as you can see with a little liquitex smeared onto it, and some plasticard tiles, you can add a lot of extra feel to it and it looks a lot less like flat MDF.

There are a few more small posts coming today, but nothing big, so I am pretty sure the top 3 are set for the challenge (unless someone lower than I am does a huge points bomb).  In fact I already sent Noel a message last night letting him know that I didn't have enough things going up today to beat his score and that he should not worry or kill himself in a last minute rush to ensure he stays in the top 3 due to my points.... After all, I never expected to get this much done, and never really worry about points anyway, it's all about getting stuff done.  I can't promise someone else doesn't try to pip him, but I won't be.

From DaveD Guest Minion - More fine work from you Byron - the full army view is awesome. That also looks a fine building and nicely different to others I have seen too - with the extra work its come up really well  - 60 points to add to your total which will be updated a bit later

From ByronM: Robots, Mecha, and Terrain (120 points)

This week I prepped and worked on a lot of stuff for an upcoming project, and for the theme week entry this weekend, so my submission is a little light.  However, I am keeping on track with something every week, so that's good!

First up, I continue to expand my 30k Mechanicum army (which really was meant to be a small auxiliary force not a full army!) with some fast attack robots.  Here are 6 Vorax class battle-automata.

These things are pretty short range with only dual rotor cannons (light weight versions of assault cannons) and lightning guns.  The rotor cannons are range 30" but only strength 3 so not much to write home about, and the lighting guns are 18" strength 7, so that's where they can cause some pain.  Once they get close they have power blades mounted under their guns that cut through marine armour like butter.

They are fast units with high movement so getting into combat should not be an issue.  Especially since their shooting is not a huge threat, most enemies will be more worried about gunning down the big plasma mortar guys in my backline than these little guys, until it's too late, or at least that's my hope!

I painted them in my normal method (meaning mainly airbrush) but then added some brighter red highlights as I did for the smaller guys I posted recently.  I am now thinking of going back and adding a bit more to some of the bigger guys as well, but we will see.

I did leave a lot of gun/ammo belts off as they were a pain in the $@# to bend correctly to get in place and would have blocked a whole lot of painting access.  I had meant to add them after but I actually like them without the added clutter of an ammo belt from each arm to the back ammo cases and from the back generator up to the lightning gun.  Who knows I might change my mind, but for now they are staying off.

Next up is a piece that has been sitting around for the last 2 years waiting to get done.  I had picked up 2 Tau giant stealth suits a while ago and painted up one for the challenge last year or the year before, then never did the other one.  Since it is such an easy and basic scheme, I banged it out while waiting for washes and stuff to dry on other models over the last few weeks.

It matches the old one pretty closely with lots of mecha style hard highlights and chips.  I then based it with my normal winter basing pattern.

Lastly, a set of Fantasy Flight terrain quonset huts that I picked up a few years ago and just never manage to get too.  I actually have about 4 more sets as they were clearing them out and I got several sets as they were about $10 a set or something.  I had plans to do a summer, winter, and dessert set for myself and then have some spares hanging around but then never got to them.

So here is my summer set, finally done.  Normal army green with highlights, all done with airbrush and all super simple, but effective.

Also, as you can tell I spent some serious time figuring out lighting and camera settings to finally be able to give some better pictures.  I have been getting really tired of putting up pictures that do not look like what I have been doing, colours are wrong, contrasts wrong, which all led things to look no where near as goon as they do in real life.  Hopefully I can continue to make this setup work as to my eye these l look much closer to the real life figure.

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Once again it is such a treat to see these amazing models and so beautifully painted, I'm more than happy to agree your thoughts on the scores, but it was your maths for the terrain that had me roaring with laughter so much so that I'm going to have to share the equation with the group.  Fabulous work Sir.

The inclusion of terrain this year has left a few of us minions scratching their heads:Terrain -They are each 4" long and 2" tall - so 1/2 * π * r squared * 4" = roughly 25.135 cubic inches

A 6" cube = 216 cubic inches = 20 points so.... 1 cubic inch = 0.0923 pointsSo points = 6 * 25.135 * 0.0923 = 13.964 points

From ByronM: Thebian Greeks and 30k Mechanicum (107 points)

This week I once again worked on more ancient Greek figures.  This time they are from Victrix and are the Thebian phalanx models.  I honestly can't tell much difference from the Athenians other than the helmets, but that's ok I still like the models.

I did these in another very simplified paint scheme with mainly white armour with green trim and undershirt.  I then applied some Little Big Men shield decals and called them done.  Super simple and basic, but once again, once ranked up they look at least 2-3x better than individually.  I always tried painting ranked guys to a higher standard before, but Curt explained years ago "It's all about the ranked look, no one looks at a single mode", so I have been cheating on ranked guys ever since.

I based them on 40mm x 60mm bases and used a bunch of tufts from Tajima as with all the other Greeks that I have done.  Almost time to order more!  I've gone through several boxes already this challenge.

Next up is a small addition to my 30k Mechanicum force, a Magos Auxilia and a squad of Servo-Automata.  This gentlemen is mainly machine as his body has slowly been replaced with parts more worthy of someone who worships the machine god.  He is an elite choice that helps upkeep the machines in battle by repairing wounds on them each turn.

His Servo-Automata help by adding extra wounds back if they are close enough.  These should help keep some of the big stompy robots in the list active for a bit longer.  After all being able to return d3+1 wounds a turn to a 12 wound toughness 8 robot is not insignificant!

Most of the rest of the week was spent working on my next theme week entry as it is rather large and I needed some serious time to work on it!  See you next week with more cool toys.

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My apologies Byron, I nearly missed these!  The Greeks are looking really impressive with their shield decals, but I am mesmerised with the 30K stuff again.  The colouring is just superb and I imagine that these are incredibly fiddly to put together.  I am adding a couple of bonus points for the complexity of the models and therefore the intricacy of painting required, making this another 107 points to the tally.

From ByronM: 30k Mechanicum Thallax (65 Points)

When I started my 30k Mechanicum army / project it was just to get a few cool looking robots on the battlefield.  I made sure Greg was OK with me adding them into our local 30k games as just an add on force since I had no real plans to do enough of them for a full army.  He said sure go ahead, since the games are anything but serious, hell they don't even follow half the rules, so what would a made up force matter.

Well, I wanted to do some because they looked cool, but once I started working on them, I fell even more in love with their cool / bonkers aesthetic and have been sucked down another hobby ADHD related rabbit hole and am doing a full force of them.

Here is the first of several unplanned units that I have got since the challenge started....

This unit is made up of 9 Thallax jump troopers.  While these may look like more normal infantry sized units, they are not!  They are Ogryn sized troops on 40mm bases that while they don't necessarily tower over normal infantry, they are taller and much wider and bulkier.  Here is a comparison shot of one with a normal 32mm Infinity figure next to it for scale.

I was initially sort of so-so on these models, sure they looked cool-ish, but why on earth would you want little robots when you could have big robots?  Then I found out they were jump troops!  Yeah, towering 10' tall 700lb robots flying through the sky towards the enemy carrying lightning guns and phased plasma-fusils?  On top of that they have something called djinn-sight, that essentially removes all cover from enemies as they can see through anything and pick the best target locations and allows them to hit on 2+ almost all the time. Sign me up!

 

Technically, I can field these 9 as 3 units of 3, but I like the idea of setting them up as one massive unit that will actually live to get to the other side of the table and pump out enough shots to matter.  Oh and those shots are nasty.  Lightning Guns are short range high strength shots and the phased plasma-fusils are multi-shot long range plasma guns.  Lots of nastiness to go around.  You are only allowed one special weapon replacement per 3 models though, so they are mainly lightning guns.

The models themselves have several jets and boosters on them as you can see above.  Each has 6 different nozzles to help them wing their way to their enemies on clouds of black smokey death (I am pretty sure the Mechanicum has not bought into green energy and still uses either coal or human corpses for fuel).

While I followed my normal method for painting these guys, and you will recognize them as being done the same simple utilitarian way as all the rest, I did have to do the red differently.  I started with the same airbrush method and they looked the same as the rest, but just lacked something.  Many people talk about colour and scale, and how when you get smaller you need more contrast to look the same, well, that's exactly what happened here.  On the bigger canvas area of the larger robots, the reds and layers looked fine and still looked red and had depth.  On these smaller ones, the reds lost something and still looked muted and brownish.  So, I have to come back in after and add more highlight using a brush to key areas to help make the reds really pop at this smaller scale.

Additionally, I kept the masks bronze/brass despite the fluff saying that the djinn-sight masks are all jet black.  I tried that to start, but just didn't like it next to the rest of the force.  Fluff be damned, they have bronze masks like everyone else.

The rest of the models were the same as always though, right down to some high contrast blue/white energy blooms to set off the model and give some additional colour.  I know they are not to everyone's liking as it shows the weapon as always being hot (and I normally don't use them for that reason as well) but the models just lack something without more than just reds and metals. 

Watch out as the forces of Mars continue to expand in the coming weeks...

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Now before this challenge I knew nothing about a 30k Mechanicum army, to be fair I still don't know very much, but what I do know is that they look so very cool!  The more I see of this project Byron, the more I want to hear of how they perform on the table.  Amazing work again and given their scale I am going to count them as 40mm Infantry and add a couple of extra points to round the submission up to 65 points. 

From ByronM: 30k Mechanicum Archmagos Prime and Greek Unarmoured Phalanx (102 points)

This week my hobby induced ADD took me in way to many directions, so I have about 6 different things all started but not finished, heck I haven't even started next weeks theme entry or figured out what to do for it!  So, I only have 2 smallish entries to put up today.

First up is the Archmagos Prime on Abeyant for my 30k Mechanicum army, which now makes it an actual legal force to play with an HQ.

The model itself is pretty cool as an Archmagos Prime is one of the highest members of the cult of the Omnimessiah and has given their body over to the machine.  There is very little left that is even remotely human on this model.

Then there is the Abeyant, his transport and control unit.  The model for it looks like either a pulpit for him to preach the ways of the machine God from or some kind of cyber organ or synthesizer, at least to me.  The transport is made to hold his custom base so that you can have him on or off the transport.

Now that it is a valid force, I have also provided an overall picture of the army so far.  This is in-fact all that I bought initially to do for the force, but I have of course fallen in love with them, and more are on the way....

The other models I actually got completed this week are another 16 Greeks.  This time more unarmoured Greek hoplites that I did as a support unit of mercenaries or militia for either side that I am working on.

These are once again more of the Warlord (Immortal) figures as I continue to move work through them before going on to others in any meaningful way.  I still have at least 4 more units of them, but hope to get at least 2-3 done next week so that I am closer to being able to paint the Victrix ones that I have up next.

Nothing fancy with these guys, as I did them all in robes, so very little armour to paint up.  While simple individually, I think they work as a group so am calling them done.

That's it for this week, hope everyone has a good week.

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Wow Bryon, you are really producing some amazing work for this year's challenge.  I am going to count the Archmagos as a vehicle, but with a crew and an additional couple of points for the increased scale of the piece, so 102 points in total, another fabulous week's work Sir. 

From ByronM: More Greeks and Mechanicum (140 points)

Hello everyone, I am once again back with more entries to two out of three of my big projects this winter, Greeks and 30k Mechanicum.  I had planned some 30k Death Guard for this week but fell behind a bit, but am madly trying to finish them off today, so I may yet get them in later tonight...

First up this week though are 4 more Castellax Battle-Automata, these ones armed with the much more basic mauler bolt cannon.

Even though the gun is more basic than the others that I have done, it is still an upgraded version of a heavy bolter that is capable of cutting space marines down without a save.  The model also is pretty damn cool with a huge belt feed going to the gun which looks awesome!  The issue with it is the belt feed looks like it holds about 3x more rounds than the ammo box does that is mounted to their backside.... sigh.  Regardless of that, I still love the look of feel of these giant robots of death!

This brings my Mechanicum force to 8 Castellax completed already, and at roughly 100 points each that's already almost 1/2 an army done!  Expect more to come soon.

Next up this week is another unit of 16 Greek hoplites.  Once again these are the very poor Warlord (Immortal) figures, but I have been forcing myself to work through the pile of these before going onto the better Victrix and Foundry figures that have been arriving from various orders, as I don't think I could force myself to come back to these things after working on better figures.

This batch I painted up in white and blue in various patterns and am picturing them as an Athenian unit.  I realize that most units would be more mixed with colours and styles historically, but am choosing to simplify at least a few units so that they look like units and are easy to keep straight on the battle field.  I know, not very historical, but I play more for the look and tactics than any real historical recreation reason, I don't have a burning need or desire to be 100% accurate.

 

I respect those that make sure it's all accurate, but despise those that berate people that take it to the level of "That shade of green was not used until 1941 and your figures represent men from 1939 and therefore I won't play with you", which there is a lot of around my area, and one of the reasons I never wanted to play historical for the longest time (Until I met and started playing with Curt, Greg, Dallas and a few others in the area).  As long as you don't do something like paint your Panzers pink, I could care less.

OK, rant mode over and back on topic...  While the unit may not be perfectly accurate, I think they look good as a unit and will make it simple for people to tell them apart from other units where every figure essentially has the same pose. Once again, these were done to a very basic wargame / tabletop level with only colours blocked in, a wash, and a highlight.  On the table they look pretty solid and I am happy with them, when I pick them up and look closely, I kinda cringe, but again I have too many units of them to get done to take much more time than this on them.

Back to work now, and hopefully I will talk to you all again late tonight with another last minute submission this week.  If not, I hope everyone has a great week and keep those brushes flying until next week, I am loving all the great submissions everyone is putting in!  They are keeping me hugely motivated this year trying to keep up with some of you other amazing artists.

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Fabulous Byron and once again thank you for reminding me that not everyone is having a beer when I am.  Cracking work Sir and I just love your work, the painting is brilliant and I love the full armour vibe that is going through your posts. 

From ByronM: 30k Mechanicum Automata - The First Salvo (30 Points)

One of the projects that I have most been looking forward too this year is the creation of a Mechanicum army for Warhammer 30k.   I have looked at the Mechanicum force for years and loved the overall look of the robot portion of the army, but just hated other portions of it.  Enter the Legio Cybernetica list this past year, which is a Taghmata variant that focuses on robots!  Hurray!  I can make a list with just robots, sign me up!

The project is a little strange though, as I really dislike both V7 and V8 of Warhammer 30k/40k and think the rules and balance are insanely bad.  They are bad to the point that I believe someone had to actively try to make them as bad as they are on a bet....  I can see the hive mind that is GW corporate sitting in an office going "Let's prove to the public that we can do whatever the F!@$ we want, make the rules complete sh*t, and people will still buy our models."  Well, case proven GW.

Anyway, enough on the rules, the models rock!  I love the bonkers look of these walking death machines, and love the fluff even more.  You basically have the masters of technology sitting on Mars thinking that people are idiots and machines are great, so lets turn people into machines.  Sounds great to me, since as a techie I trust machines far more than I trust people!

This is the first batch of two Castellax Class Battle-Automata that I finished and they are wielding the evil looking Dark Fire Cannon.  I honestly have no idea WTF they do in the game, I just got them because I liked the look of them!  Once the force is done and they have to go on the table, I will have to look them up.

Overall I am just aiming for effect on these and not going to spent a ton of time on them.  I am aiming for game pieces not show pieces so a lot of the details are not getting painted, I am using a lot of shortcuts and quick steps on them, nothing special close up, but hopefully good looking on the game table.

I wanted the entire force to look the same, especially with the reds which I find very hard to get looking right, so I have airbrushed all of them at once, and will be working on the details over the course of the challenge.  I wanted a dark brick red base, but wanted highlights to show on all the larger pieces, so started with a dark hull red base, then worked up to a gory red, then a light glaze of red, and finally an even lighter coat of sunny skintone to lighten the very center of the panels.

I see these robots as basic machines with lots of metal and therefore did all the mechanical bits as black, then oily steel, highlighted with silver, then washed down with engine grime from the AK line.  I painted the central canopy / head area / whatever it is bronze, then highlighted with copper, and then washed it down with a brown wash.

At this point I was almost done, but something just didn't look right.  There was too much silver and red and no contrast colours.  While I had not planned on any other colours, I felt it needed something so went back and added some quick energy blooms on the weapons in a blue to white fade to try and show high energy expenditure. Not sure if blue / white was the right colour choice or not, but it certainly stands out, which is what I was looking for.

Last up was the bases.  I had initially planned a red martian soil base, but thought it would just blend the model to the base rather than making it stand out.  I changed it last minute to a simple black / grey rubble base using cork, bits of sprue, guitar string, plasticard, and liquitex.

Expect more of these robots as the challenge goes on.

Also, I haven't figured out for sure if I want to do chipping or scratches on the armour plates, so I may do that later.  The same with weathering powders on the legs, but I want to get all of them done before doing that so that they all have the same mixes of powders on them.  If I decide to do that, I will post some more images once everything is done.  Until then, let me know your thoughts on those two things, should I chip them up and dirty them up, or should I leave them clean?

Anyway, belated Merry Christmas everyone, hope everyone had a good holiday with family and friends yesterday.  I am now back to the brushes trying to get another entry done today before going out to my Mom's cabin for a few days. 

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Welcome back to the Challenge, Byron!

These Automata look excellent. The red armoured carapace turned out very nice, but you're right, the heat-bloom of the energy weapons really helps them pop - a very cool effect. I have a 6mm Mechanicus force for Epic and agree with you on the overall aesthetic: the robots, titans and vehicles look brilliant, but the cybernetic stuff needs to be closer to John Blanche's original vision of them being a horrific, quasi-skeletal/insectoid blend of machine and human. I look forward to seeing more of your emerging Taghmata in the coming months.

We've been scoring things like Warjacks and Dreadnoughts as vehicles recently, so we'll stick with that. That makes it 30 points for the pair. Well done, Byron!