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 - Skitarii Rangers painted

As of last week the company I work for moved their headquarters and suddenly instead of a 5 minute commute I have a 45 minute commute. I'm finding that stolen hour and a half of each day is sadly eating into my hobby time - no more getting up an hour early in the morning and paint, it's get up an hour early just to get to work on time. Nevertheless, I did manage to get the Skitarii rangers up to the pre-transfers-and-weathering stage, marking the final unit that remained unpainted, and the goal line to indulge in some build time!

While they'll all get some ad-mech waterslide transfers, I decided to leave the base troopers coats fairly bare and keep the cog-tooth pattern for the leader to help him stand out a bit. They still feel a little monochrome, but the green static grass should really help 'em pop once we get to that stage.

Felt good to flip the colors over from yellow to green, now I get to reward myself with some build time - gonna finish up the two final units of infantry (the Vanguard and the Infiltrators), and do the Knight at the very end as a capstone to the army. Still on track for an end-of-August finish date!

While I was poking around up in the hobby loft I pulled a selection of models from the "this would be a good Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader RPG model" shelf, with an eye towards painting up an Inquisitor warband. No real plan as yet, but I think it'll be fun to come up with some backstory for 'em, and it's a nice varied set of minis to dabble with when I need a brief breather from the army painting process - more to come on this little project in the future!

40k Adeptus Mechanicus - Dunecrawler painted

Got a relatively free weekend and jumped on the Dunecrawler this morning, and it came together surprisingly quickly!

Kept on with the red, gold and bone - got me feeling like I was painting Thousand Sons again! The model has all sorts of cool little detailing, the little manipulator arm is pretty cool.

I tried a little lightning crackle on the barrel of the neutron laser but the overhead light sort of washes it out. Will try to get some better pics once it's finalized with the weathering and whatnot.

Once the transfers and weathering are in place, the bases will all get some static grass as well - giving the models a little green on the base should set off nicely against the reds of the models!

Next up, the last of the built models - a unit of Skitarii Rangers. Once they're done, I need to build a unit of Skitarii Vanguard and a unit of Infiltrators, then lastly the knight. Looking forward to that for sure!

40k Adeptus Mechanicus - Kataphron Breachers painted

Quick hit this evening - Little bit of morning painting time over the past week, and got the Kataphron Breachers up to the pre-transfers-and-weathering stage.

I really enjoyed building and painting these models - definitely dig the 'heavy battle servitor' vibe, and the kit is chock full of cool leftover bits for future conversions. Next up on the block is the Dunecrawler, should be fun!

40k Adeptus Mechanicus - Kataphron Breachers painting begins

Was in the zone this weekend and after finishing the base paint jobs on the Electro-Priests I continued on and got cracking on the Kataphron Breachers as well!

The whole model got a heavy drybrushing of Boltgun Metal followed by a dirty brown wash to give 'em a hard-worn oily look. Once that dried I laid in the reds and got all the gold/brass trim sorted out, and gave the skin an unhealthy greenish pallor befitting their servitor status. Next up are all the innumerable power cables, lenses and whatnot. So far, so good!

40k Adeptus Mechanicus - Electro-Priests Painted

It's come to light that the new computer draws a lot more power than the old one, and coupled with the fact that both it and my in-window air conditioning unit are on the same circuit it's become apparent that they can't both be on at the same time without popping the breaker. So with the heat being opressive and the AC being requisite it's meant that my main distraction machine has been powered down and I've gotten a fair bit of painting done over the last couple days!

The Electro-Priests were the first unit up on the painting desk, and they came together surprisingly quickly. As I'd mentioned previously, I'm getting the models up to the "pre-waterslide-and-weathering" step so I can do all of the models in the army at once to ensure they all match up thematically. Got a couple sets of the new Ad-Mech sheets on the way, looking forward to seeing what all is on 'em!

I'm digging the rear of the models, the big power generators and Opus Machina mean they're also interesting to look at as a player when they're facing the enemy! Next up on deck are the Kataphron Breachers, already got the base metallics in place...

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!

40k Adeptus Mechanicus - Magi painting begins!

Not entirely switched over to the summer schedule yet, so only getting a little painting done in the mornings before work while I adjust to getting up earlier than usual. Nevertheless, pressing onwards and laid in the base colors for the two Magos models!

As envisioned earlier, red robes on the magos dominus and white for the archmagos. I also decided to take a whack at reversing the gold/silver on them as well, with the archmagos being predominately gold with silver trim to go along with the white robes. Still a ways to go yet, but so far, so good!

In other news I'm due to get my main cogitator back at the end of the week, praise be unto the Omnissiah!

40k Adeptus Mechanicus - Magi built

Fairly busy weekend, but I did get some build time in where I took a crack at the new Magos Dominus model. Two of them, to be accurate!

I figured I'd do a Magos and an Archmagos, utilizing the various options in the kit - one built bog standard, and the other with the alternate head and weapon options. I also swapped out the servo-skull with the slightly more ornate one from the Scions kit. I experimented with the arms a bit, but the design is such that it would require some serious cutting and greenstuff to change the posing.

I'm thinking I'll do the basic Magos with red robes and white detailing, and the Archmagos with the reversed color scheme to help differentiate them a bit further. Quite looking forward to getting stuck in, this sculpt is absolutely fantastic!

40k Adeptus Mechanicus - Army underway!

Sadly my main cogitator has been handed over to some specialist magos for rehabilitation, as my dabbling in tech-heresy (thou shalt not attempt to improve upon the workings of the machine) has once again proven near-fatal to the device. So, one-picture posts it is for a little while longer! I'd decided to take a little break from the tidal wave of yellow and settled in for a nice protracted ad-mech build session, where I knocked together a pair of dragoons, a unit of ruststalkers and a box of the kastellan robots.

...Then jumped right in to getting paint on 'em! Without my main distraction machine around, I've been getting in a good amount of brush time, and have essentially been batch painting the lot! Still a ways to go yet, but they're coming along nicely so far. Really been digging the look of the new GW sculpts overall, and for the first time in years I'm finding that in many cases I actually prefer the GW aesthetic to FW's take on the Mechanicum - the Robots being the main exception, the FW versions have been phenomenal while the GW ones leave me a little cold. They're not bad by any means (and I feel they're much better in person than they seem in photographs), but the Castellax and Vorax are just light-years better sculpts. The Skitarii as basic troops are far nicer models than the tech thralls (granted, the thralls should be less menacing being armed rabble), and the upcoming magos model in the GW line I find far cooler than the slug magos on the FW side. It's cool and creepy, but just doesn't grab me. When all is said and done, I think there's room for both - they're intended to be radically different things and as a long time servant of the Machine God I'm ecstatic that for the first time in 30 years not only are there official models now, but there's two danged armies worth of 'em! Hah!

More to come soon!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Batch painting continues

Snuck in a little more brush time last night and got the next two colors onto the Spireguard. All of the straps, harness and pouches got a layer of Vallejo's (Graveyard) Earth, while the interior of the coats, the cuffs and collars all got a layer of (Kommando) Khaki. All the little fiddly bits ended up taking a surprising amount of time due to having to be very careful not to slop over onto previously-painted areas, so these two colors ended up adding another hour and a half to the clock.

Getting very near the finish line now! Both the Earth and Khaki areas will get a Strong Tone wash to help give them a bit more definition, then it's just a matter of getting the metallics done, and then the bases! There's rumors floating around that the next FW Heresy book may drop next month, fingers crossed!

A couple folks asked for some closeups of the Adsecularis builds, but unfortunately I'd primered them (and black primed models don't photograph well) since I'd last photographed the models. However I was able to re-edit the original photo and get a decent zoom on a selection of the models in the build stage. Definitely looking forward to getting some paint on 'em soon!

Giveaway results! ...And some old Ad-Mech goodness.

I wanted to say thank you all once again for all the kind words and encouragement over the years, and the outpouring of comments and congratulations on the 500th post was truly humbling. You folks are awesome, and I'm truly glad that my inane scribblings have provided entertainment and inspiration! I went through the list of commenters and fed them into the randomization cogitator to determine who gets the Rogue Trader rule book and the winner is...

Craig Bowles!

Drop me an email at moonlight (at) cold-moon.com with your address and I'll pop the book in the mail to ya!

In other news, I finally finished up some models I've been sort of dilly-dallying over for quite a while. A whole mess of old models in fact, forming the basis of the Magos Covenant for the ever-growing Taghmata Omnissiah force.

The majority of them are from the old Skullz promotional set, plus a couple old metal tech-priests that had been lurking on the shelves for ages. At this point there's actually a viable painted army taking shape, with HQ and Troops models completed - still quite a lot to do though! I recently ordered up a mess of bits from various companies (Anvil, MaxMini, Blight Wheel and more) to come up with a couple large units of Tech-Thrall Adsecularis - the basic cannon-fodder rabble that gladly give their lives for the glory of the Omnissiah. Forge World has also been showing off a bunch of new Mechanicus models that have my wallet cringing in fear... Might be an expensive 4th quarter!

Back from GenCon!

Just got back from a long weekend out in Indy at GenCon - Great times, fun games, old friends, waaaaay too much to eat and drink. It was glorious! It was also, as always, insanely crowded:

That's the line to get into the dealer's hall on the second day. I didn't make it to the first day's initial opening but I'm reliably told they were stacked three deep and rappelling in from the ceiling as well. Speaking of the dealer's room, this turned out to be a very, very expensive trip for me. First up, I swung by the Fantasy Flight booth to pick up some of the new X-Wing miniatures as a gift for for my buddy Dave, and with malice aforethought and devious designs upon the contents of my wallet they had put the racks of 40K:RP books right next to the checkout line. Ended up picking up a couple Rogue Trader books that I hadn't seen, both of which appear to be chock full of good GM's stuff. Though not found at the FFG booth, I also scored a copy of The Imperial Truth at the Black Library table, apparently it was a limited release that I wasn't aware of, but it sounds fantastic!

The line for the FFG booth was insane, with literally hundreds of people in line waiting for hours. Next up was a pass through the Catalyst Games booth where I picked up the new rulebook for Shadowrun, of which I managed to play several games over the weekend in the Living campaign. My buddy Dave is kicking off a local campaign soon as well. Should be a hoot!

Then came the brutal stop. I'd placed a reservation for some stuff from Forge World and they brought it to the con. Sharp stabbing sensation in the wallet!
 

 

First up is the Macharius Omega - the plasma blastgun variant of the standard Macharius, which I thought would go well with the plasma-heavy theme I have going with the 7th at the moment (Executioner, plasma vets, plasma cannons on the Sentinels, etc.).

Next up was an offering to the Omnissiah - a bundle pack of Thallax Cohort, for a unit of 9 of 'em. I was joking with Dave that I was initially surprised by how few parts comprised the Omega, and again by how MANY made up the Thallax!

...But then there was an incident.

I was joking with my friends out there that there was a problem with going to the Forge World booth, namely that once I went to pick up my order I would then actually BE AT THE FORGEWORLD BOOTH.

It can't be all that bad, right..?

...Dammit.


More pics to come!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Prometheus Forge Knight (more or less) painted!

The temperatures have started to soar here in sunny Colorado and my painting loft has started heating up significantly - I've been getting a little bit of painting done in the mornings before heading off to work while it's nice and cool however!

 

The rather excellent Prometheus from Blight Wheel Miniatures is now (more or less) complete! All of the painting is done at this point, and I gave it a hit of sealant prior to the waterslide transfer stage. Once those are on I'm scheming on how I want to weather it, I definitely want to add some chipping around the lower leg guards, and perhaps on the knuckles of the power fist.

 

I pulled out the older Knight Errant and snapped a scale shot, the Prometheus is just a tad bigger but essentially identically scaled, which I like. I thoroughly enjoyed building and painting this kit, and will be adding another one or two more once they replenish their stock!

 

I also figured what the heck - may as well drag out the Leviathan Crusader from Dreamforge for another scale shot! Still just applying the base red to it, but I'm well pleased with how it's turning out so far!

With the advent of the recent Eldar Wraithknight, I'm really interested to see whether we'll see some equivalent scaled Imperial Knights coming our way from GW. Seems as though Forge World is starting to release more and more kits for the Ad-Mech recently (to my wallet's chagrin) so it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility I figure...

Ave Omnissiah!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Prometheus Forge Knight painting in progress

Managed to get a little more paint on the Blight Wheel Miniatures knight over the last few days. I had a bit of an accident with it and fumbled the beast which resulted in a fair bit of damage. Luckily it was all reasonably clean breaks and I was able to put it back together and touch up the parts where the paint was screwed up. You can hardly tell I'm a clumsy oaf unless you specifically know what to look for!

 

Still quite a way to go, but more or less all of the major colors are blocked in and the shading has begun (need to decide on a color for the power fist and shoulder sections though, thinking white to match the other knights I've done). Still pondering how I'm going to work in the heraldry I've done on previous Knights, there aren't as many nice flat open spaces for that as there has been on the other versions. Still, overall I think this model has way more visual interest and detail!

A couple people asked about the scale of the mantis tank, so I snapped a quick pic for comparison. It's big!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Dabbling in Dark Mechanicus

Well it's been a crazy week, lots of long hours at work (though still getting laid off, figure that out), and spending a good deal of time getting some tunes recorded with the band hasn't left a great deal of hobby time. However, since I had the red paint out for the Prometheus I figured I'd get some colors blocked in on another ad-mech model that has been lurking on the shelf for years.

This is a "Mantis Tank", another awesome model from Blight Wheel Miniatures (same folks who made the Knight), which I'm thinking is probably a bit more suited to the Dark Mechanicus sect festering in the midst of my loyalist Ad-Mech. After all, I have an Urtzi Malevolus model in the army, so I'm more or less destined to have some creepy-crawlies!

Not entirely sure what/how I'm going to run it on the table-top. My recent thought has been to try and build the army such that it can be used as a Necron/CSM counts-as army in which case, this will likely be run as a counts-as Defiler. It's certainly big enough - the base that it's on is one of the large flying bases!

Definitely a creepy model, and I'm definitely looking forward to doing some more work on it. I got a wild hair to work on the guard Leviathan Command Carrier again as well, so there will be some pics of that coming up soon too!