The True Mechanicum and the Problem of Khorne

Setting up the photography for the other project I mentioned is taking longer than I expected, and this thing is almost done, so I figured I'd post it. Still needs some touch up, and then Nuln Oil Gloss over just about everything. 

While deciding how to paint my True Mechanicum Robots, I ran into a bit of a problem. The obvious approach is to just do a darker version of the standard Adeptus Mechanicus look of red and brass. The problem is that, while red and brass and Imperial says AdMech, red and brass and rebelling against the Imperium says Khorne, and I didn't really want them to be super Chaos tainted, focusing more on Silica Animus, Xenos tech, and forbidden stuff like Phosphex. I figure they've ended up with some Chaos effects, because it's really hard to avoid that in 40K, but I don't want it to be the main thing here. Hopefully the red and steel with a few brass details manages to thread the needle there. 

The other problem with True Mechanicum is getting them to look creepier than the regular AdMech stuff, which is a job of work, since those guys are already creepy as hell. 

I kept the cogs on, but did them in a single colour instead of the usual split, which I believe is intended to symbolize the duality of the Omnissiah and the Emperor, and of the Adeptus Mechanicus themselves and the Imperium as a whole. The True Mechanicum reject the Emperor and the Imperium entirely, and do their cog icons in a single colour to symbolize the singular nature of the Omnissiah. 

The inverted skull here, similarly, represents... Ok, no, I admit it: it's just like that because I didn't notice in time to fix it. Pretend I was able to come up with something suitably deep. 

Oddly, despite being where most Dreads or Robots mount their primary weapon, the Fuckoff Huge™ Flamer is tertiary, mostly there in case some infantry try to object to the Colossus pulverizing their fortifications. 

With all the Gauss Blasters on top, it reminds me of a late-90s Warlord Titan, but chonkier. It felt kinda weird painting the Gauss, because the few actual Necrons I've painted have been Thokt Dynasty, but the story I have for these is way over on the other side of the Galaxy, so I went with the more standard green. 

The Gravitic Singularity Lance on the left arm is the main weapon for its primary role, and it's actually a close combat weapon, not a gun. It's very unwieldy, but since the Colossus is a Siege robot, intended to hit large stationary things, the sheer destructive power is far more important. It creates a miniature black hole at the tip of the lance, and then thrusts it into the target, with generally catastrophic results, especially against things that have already been destabilized and weakened by the Gauss beams. 

Hopefully I'll be back soon with this thing finished, some work on the SC Dread, and/or some 40K civilians. Until then, y'all have a good one, y'hear! 

Alternate Fiend of Slaanesh and Flesh Hound Models from FFG

Fiends of Slaanesh are a really cool design and concept, but with only a single sculpt available, in resin, at US$25 each, they're kind of awkward to fit into an Army, and they look sort of wimpy next to their counterparts that have been updated to plastic kits, like the Beasts of Nurgle and Bloodcrushers. Flesh Hounds are in somewhat better shape, with 5 sculpts in the box, and a couple of plastic ones teased along with Korghos Khul and Magore's Fiends, but are still US$10 each on their own, in resin only.

A while ago, I stumbled across the Uthuk Y'llan for FFG's Runewars Miniatures Game, and was struck by the potential in some of their options for use as Chaos Daemons, particularly the ones I'm discussing here. It's not entirely surprising, as the Uthuk Y'llan make use of a great many summoned daemons (tho they call them other things), and almost certainly took inspiration from some of the same places GW did.

First up, we have the Spined Threshers, which feel pretty much perfect as an update for the Fiends of Slaanesh. Not as much of an improvement as I might like in terms of variety and price, since the two available sculpts are designed to be built one way, and the plastic used is very hard, but they are still an improvement in those regards, and their size and presence are vastly better.

Apparently in the Runewars fluff, they're made from multiple summoned daemons bound together into a single form, which is why they have multiple mouths all over the place. One mouth remains for each daemon that was bound into a given Thresher, I guess so they can individually feed or something. IDK, I haven't actually paid much attention to Runewars except for the Models.

Now, as I've mentioned, and as shown in the pic at the top of this post, they are much bigger than the current Fiends. But they are about the same size as the current Beasts of Nurgle, which were formerly close to the Fiends in size. So I feel like they'll make a pretty good alternate. I plan on knocking half an inch off any measurements where the larger base would benefit me, and since they have no shooting attacks, the greater height and profile are pure disadvantage. They can actually just barely squeeze onto 40mm bases, but it looked stupid, so I put them on 60s.

Flesh Hounds, as I said at the start, are in better shape, but can really suffer from lack of variety, especially when running multiple packs at once. I like to use a ton of them in minimum-sized packs, so I've made a practice of getting as many possible varieties as I can, to help keep them sorted out. The Flesh Rippers summoned by the Uthuk Y'llan seemed about perfect to form up another pack, since they have an aesthetic that's entirely compatible with Khornate stuff, but are distinctly different from any of the specific GW designs. They also cost about 60% of what the GW ones do.

Unfortunately, there are again only two sculpts, but they actually mix up fairly nicely when not ranked up, and it should be less noticeable when they're one of 8 Packs on the table. The other disadvantage is that they come attached to the rectangular bases you see here, but those are much softer plastic than the Models themselves, and so relatively easy to cut away. In terms of size, they match up quite nicely with GW Flesh Hounds.

Thinking about it just now, they'd probably also make good alternatives for Drukhari Khymerae as well. I'm looking forward to getting both lots of these painted up, but since (as usual) I have far too many projects going on, who knows when I'll get to them. When I do, I will put pics up here.

I have a couple more of the Heroes from Silver Tower ready to go, and several of the monsters very close to completion, so hopefully I'll get them wrapped up and photographed soon, and then I'll do another post of those to wrap up Neglected Model September. I'm also working on building and priming the stuff from the Rogue Trader boxed set and the Heresy Girls Kickstarter, so those are going to be my major goals for October. Until next time, y'all have a good one, y'hear!

Fiends!

So, fucking finally, I actually finished something. Actually, they still want a little more gloss on the water, and maybe some little clumps of static grass, but I took them to a Tournament and got 2nd in Best Painted, so I think I can call them done. Which makes Magore's Fiends my first completed project so far this year, and in time to count for Azazel's June-Unit Challenge, making them also the first hobby challenge I've completed so far this year. Anyhow, on to the shinies!

Magore himself! I played around a bit with using some different inks on the Daemon and Orruk skulls

I also decided to add some freehand, since that's a substantial part of the painting rubric for these events. Not 100% happy with the Mark of Khorne there, but I am very happy with the tiger stripes

Puppy! Riptooth is so great. One of my favourite Fighters in Shadespire, fast and deadly. He looks brighter here than in person, something about the way Blood for the Blood God interacts with the flash, I think.

I use BftBG as the main colour on all my Khorne Daemons, with the idea being that they're outright made of blood and brass. I tried to get the Mark of Khorne branded on his shoulder to look like clotted blood, but had trouble getting it to stand out.

A look at the basing. One more layer of that gloss brown ink will really give the muddy water a nice sheen.

Ghartok Flayskull. I converted him to have a helmet, but it may have been a poor decision, since now I really have trouble telling him apart from Zharkus

And here's Zharkus the Bloodsighted. He and Ghartok are almost, but not quite, identical rules-wise, which doesn't help when trying to keep them sorted out

The whole Warband together. I'm very happy with how these guys came out, even if I do see a bunch of stuff that wants touch up now that I'm looking at the zoomed in pics

Overall, they were pretty fun to paint, especially since I managed to learn from my mistakes with some of the other Warbands, and didn't glue them to their bases until I was more or less done. Made it much easier to get all the detail sculpted on the bases painted up.

They're really fun to play, too, and very effective. The only games I've lost with them were in a mirror match where my Opponent had a better-tuned Objective deck. As well as their hitting power, their Faction-specific Objective cards really help push them up toward the top, with 5 "Score Immediately" cards, almost as many as any two other Factions put together. None of them are particularly hard to accomplish, either, and a couple are almost trivial in a lot of matchups. I plan to do a bit more of a write-up on deck building for them at some point, but wanted to keep this focused on the painting.

Until next time, y'all have a good one, y'hear!