Servants of the Omnissiah: Part 2: Skitarii Vanguard

Last time we met the slinking, infiltrating Ruststalkers, today, we have a group that is a touch more "in your face":

The Skitarii Vanguards are the "stormtroopers" of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Straightforward, no-nonsense soldiers... with tons of augmentations. Again, I have to rave a little about just how nice these models are: their weight distribution; their weapon design; the crusted detail; the clever undercut-averting coat design. Gorgeous is what they are. I will say, they are not a fast paint job, nothing with this much detail ever is, but reaaaaally worth it.

I've decided that only those of Tech Priest rank will wear overall red robes so I needed another scheme for these lads. As I worked the metallic areas on to the models I kept looking at the black undercoated overcoats (heh, English for the win there) and realised that some black leather stormcoats would bring the badass quotient right up. It's my usual black leather of Val German Camo Black Brown (a paint I use so often I should just abbreviate it to "that one") with a dash of black added. Shaded with Nuln Oil, highlighted with the original mix. Then I hit the leather with satin varnish and begin the wear. Add some Val Deck Tan - or any vague bone colour, Deck Tan is just so wonderfully flat and desaturated - to the original mix and start scuffing and scratching the edges of the coat with fine lines. Use a couple of lighter tones of the same mix to add variety. The new painted areas will be matte and seem roughened and scuffed. Lovely.

It took ages to figure out how the special weapon "worked". There was a battery pack, a row of vials, a tube of some kind down the middle, a pump action (!), and what was clearly either a pilot light or an injector of some kind. Why did I care? Because it affects how you choose to paint it. In the end I decided that the battery was just to maintain a magnetic field, the pump action pressurises the system before firing, the vials combine to a highly volatile gaseous compound that is flashed to plasma and accelerated by the magnetics. At the last moment the injector fires a catalyst into the plasma stream and sends an incandescent spear of furious energy at the enemy... Or so I think anyway. This led me to decide that a nice glass containment tube as the barrel reinforced by the steel furniture. By the way, check out that lovely specialist backpack. So much little detail on these guys. I decided that the leather pouches would be the same Val German Cam... That One but shaded with Agrax Earthshade and highlighted with a little Off White added. Same colour palette, different shades. Keeps the whole thing subtle and cohesive while allowing differentiation and a tiny bit of contrast.

I went again with the dark glass blade for the power sword. I like the idea that the blades are disposable and replaced after every battle as there is almost nothing sharper than knapped glass. I also decided that a dark wine red lining to the coats would give a tiny pop of colour and thematically tie them as direct servants of the Priesthood.

I find the official backstory for the Vanguard silly in the extreme and frequently contradictory. So I'm ignoring it. Instead, these are simply professional volunteer soldiers. Limbs altered to bionic replacements to function perfectly regardless of temperature or stress. No hand shake, perfect eye-to-hand response for shooting. Enhanced nervous systems and hypnotic combat trances keep them cold and present in the moment, unconcerned by risk or intimidation of the enemy. Able to dispassionately proceed until the battle's end at which point they will have to deal with emotional aftermath. I imagine they communicate entirely in encrypted binaric cant. Short bursts of digital information, difficult to garble, impossible to understand if overheard. Their rifles are not the crude spray and pray lasguns of the guard but precision semi-automatic high-power rifles. Each trigger press sending an aimed round at their target. That their reaction speed makes this process indistinguishable from rapid fired automatics is irrelevant... precision is honour to the Omnissiah.

In short, these are not "characters" like the Ruststalkers seem to be. They are grunts. Front-line, aggressive, relentless... and replaceable.

That's all folks, more soon!

TTFN

Servants of the Omnissiah: Part 1: Sicarian Ruststalkers

"We are the iron fist of the Imperium,

what possible use is there for the velvet glove?"

- Magos Explorator Cynia Breazeal, Cetus Cluster 4.160.834.M41.

Yes folks, today starts a new project just for me. A somewhat shiny, metallic project: A large Skitarii warband designed with Inq28 in mind. All glory to the Omnissiah!

Today's offerings are two Sicarian Ruststalkers. Let me tell ya folks, some of the Adeptus Mechanicus models are the best things GW has made since the Dark Eldar. Much like the Dark Eldar there are some slightly "ho hum" examples among the range (the electro priests having the most Warmachine/Warcraft ugliness for example) but the bits that I like? They are lovely. These Sicarians are delicate, elegant, have gorgeous pierced components giving lots of easy to paint visual interest. In short: Fantastic.

Ruststalker 985.Rho.14

Now, I shall level with you guys, I find some of the fluff for the Skitarii forces a little... silly. Very overblown and emphasising the ultra fanatical end of the Mechanicus spectrum. Thus I am choosing to ignore certain elements. The Ruststalkers though? They make sense, assassin cyborgs, what's not to like huh? I see these two as being infiltrating killers. Thin and agile, able to crawl through tight spaces and leap about. Anyone who has seen the Clone Wars cartoon series: I'm imagining the way the commando droids move in that. The kits have more variety than they first appear to have. The the extent that I could represent one Ruststalker favouring an Okinawan-style two sword technique (985.Rho.14) and the other (656.Rho.14) preferring a blade and main gauche dagger duelling style.

Ruststalker 656.Rho.14

Finally, lets actually talk painting! These two chaps were very much test models for the rest of the Skitarii warband so I was paying more attention to the overall impact than I was to what exact colours I was using, but, what I remember is: All of the Mechanicus models will almost certainly start with sequential drybrushes of steel colours all the way up to silver. In this case I also used a dark brown and german grey before I washed the whole thing in black ink to get nice black fatigues and dark brown leather. I wanted a very different vibe to the studio scheme, so no bright reds - only Tech priests are getting red robes - and no shining lights because, well, assassins right? I used bronze as the contrast for the armour and decided that I quite liked the dark glass-like blades the studio did. Dark Reaper shaded with black and highlighted through Thunderhawk Blue to almost white then glazed blue-green did the job. I finished it off by greasing and oiling the joints with Ammo Oil enamel paint. Exposed oily joints don't make a lot of sense in this context as it would just pick up sand and dirt but it looks cool and we'll assume the Mechanicus has solutions to that issue... totes.

I really like how these turned out. The basing was an experiment too, I wanted a scheme that would work in both urban and rural settings so went for "long collapsed overgrown rubble" with Baneblade Brown edging as the pale brown looks like the thin, sick soil you see in urban waste-grounds. I've got the next five - Skitarii Vanguard - on the workbench for evening and weekend sessions so there'll be more very soon. Until then

TTFN

Mechanicus Techno Barbarians!

Hi folks, something just a little off the wall for you all today:

These models (which haven't photographed terribly well) are part of another of the Inq28 warbands I'm finishing. I have not one clue where most of them are from so I shall await a knowledgeable soul in the comments to enlighten me! As usual when painting, I put together a little narrative for these guys in my head. To me they felt like a gang of partial servitors from some mechanicus outpost. Maybe a form of techno-pagan cult of the omnisiah, barbarians fighting over modifications and upgrades amongst the foothills of the hive factories... or something.

The big chap is weird enough proportioned that you can imagine some form of modified, vat grown slave with more muscle grafted on, surgeries to lengthen bones and the like. His tiny head makes him look modified rather than naturally that large so it works well. I decided early on that very, very pale skin, grown beneath a steel sky or beneath a constant blanket of sun choking pollution, would be a win. The process is essentially Rakarth Flesh, washed with Reikland Fleshtone and then highlighted with increasing amounts of Pallid Wych Flesh. On the big guys with the sacks'o'footballs sculpted musculature I added striations of corded muscle through streaks of highlight. It helps to overcome the plastic-ey cartoonish sculpting.

The two girls were fairly similar to one another, both smoothed out in an almost android sort of way so I thought I would emphasise that impression with the bright, artificial hair. Of all of the models, these somehow feel the least human, eyes hidden, bodies smoothed over. Very robot.

The bionics, of which this chap just wins the bonanza prize, I knew I could treat one of two ways. I could have gone very high tech, almost eldar, with coloured outer plates and clean mechanisms. But that didn't scream Imperial and certainly not techno-barbarian. So I went to a go to of chipped and worn hazard lines and oily steel. Much, much more Imperial.

The last one is a hodge-podge conversion of a marauder with a dark angel backpack and head & arms from - again - I know not where (client did all building and modifications see). With this chap I knew that the backpack could become quite dominant on the model if I let it. Too much colour and it would have looked tagged on rather than an integral feature. Thus it got the same oily steel and just a little dull brass for the details. Carrying the hazard stripes and the like over helped make this figure, that before painting stood out a bit, fall into place naturally with the rest of the group.

That's all folks, have a splendid weekend.

TTFN

More Inq 28 Goodies

Hi folks, bit of a disjointed one for you today, four more members of various Inquisitor warbands for the Inq28 commission. Starting with one of my very favourite 40k figures:

This is the second one of these that I've painted in recent times (the first can be found here). I love this figure. It just screams "Warhammer 40,000" to me, a man whose body has been more and more replaced until the only organic component remaining is the brain and a face (fleshmask in mechanicus parlance). I used more or less the same techniques as the first one just using Val Russian Uniform green to bind him to the rest of the girls in the same warband. Speaking of the girls...

One more to add to that warband. This one a smidgeon more armoured! This fine lady is a Sister Hospitalier of the Adepta Sororitas - the Sisters of Battle. Nuns with guns in power armour effectively. This is what one of their doctors look like. I knew I wanted the green robes and was musing as to what the other colours would be. Gold seemed to be a decent bet, but what about the armour? There are three colours associated with the Sisters. Red, black and white. Red and green make for a christmas elf unless you are very careful. Black would have made for a very dark scheme and somehow didn't fit "doctor" in my mind. White it was then! Fortunately, there was rather a lot of red and black coming up to make up for picking a very tricky colour on this one.

This poor chap is a forgeworld servitor. He really isn't a tech priest. More like a walking computer strapped to a socket wrench. The Mechanicum is very fond of red so that was an easy choice and the comparative lack of detail meant red was kinda... it. I have to say, I'm not sold on this model. The spindly hand looks weak, while the trailing cables would drag in the ground. There's lots of dials and readouts but nothing seems designed to "do something". He's still a decent servitor but unlike the first cyborg in this post which has a lovely "story" and seems to "work" this one doesn't so much. Just a personal opinion.

Next up is another of Brother Vinni's Fallout inspired miniatures. This one a Brotherhood of Steel character re-purposed as a tech adept. As I've mentioned before, Brother Vinni does very well executed "inspired by" stuff and this chap is no exception. I plumbed for red and black mechanicus colours again with a splash of yellow in the power cords recharging his laser. The pipboy (a wrist mounted computer) got the best readout looking thing I could manage considering the size and with that, he was pretty much done. I've actually painted a bunch of Brother Vinni stuff this week but a lot of them are a bit too NSFW for this blog ;)

Finally we have the servo skull affectionately known in wargaming circles as the flying toilet roll holder. It is really tough to avoid that impression so I kinda just surrendered to the inevitable and made sure there was lots of script on there that the transcribing arms are writing (I figure its a stenographer) in an attempt to avert too much loo-roll-ness.

With that we are done, just a quick dash around the painting table today really! See you all later in the week.

TTFN

He's more Machine than Man...

Eyup folks, yeah couldn't resist the Star Wars reference. Today I thought I'd share the next in the growing retinue of my Grey Knights Inquisitor. I painted this techpriest a few days ago in drying times but forgot to photograph him with the bushido batch. Anyway, here he is!

Some of you might be asking, why is there a techpriest in your Inquisitor's retinue Jeff? That's not an option right? Nope, it's not, but I wanted a Jokero Weaponsmith in the retinue but didn't really want to pay £8 for a space Orang-Utan. A few moments thought on what else could modify weapons and fire wierd guns led me inexorably to... semi-renegade (likes to fiddle with and improve upon the sacred schematics, tut tut) tech priest. So here he is:

oddly the gun looks wonkier in this picture than in real life

It's the forgeworld titan tech priest. Now I need to say a few words here. First, this is the only crew member missing from the warhound titan. Second if you wanted to add one to a warhound titan you wouldn't want him on a base right? So why in the name of sanity did forgeworld sculpt a cast-on rocky earth base? Seriously, it makes no sense at all and the base isn't even the normal size, it's a little smaller! Mystifying, absolutely mystifying. Anyway, those familiar with the normal model will know that he has a girt great axe in his right hand. I wanted a more ranged-style tech priest in order to fit with the vibe of the Jokero rules. So, in a fit of converting frenzy I hacked up the axe, a lasgun, a space marine missile and a mortar shell of all things to create what I am calling a graviton gun for the sake of completeness. Painting is fairly straightforward, I used a brown wash on the red rather than the more normal, well, red to create a rustier red. I painted the power bayonette to match the grey knights nemesis weapons and added a lot of bronze twiddly bits to the skin of the graviton gun to appear as patterns of circuitry on the furniture.

With the techpriest finished I move closer to getting the retinue of the Inquisitor finished, soon be time to paint the big man himself. The more I do of this retinue the more it feels like an Inquisitor (the game) Warband. I've recently discovered the concept of Inq28 (28mm scale Inquisitor gaming) and it was like a lightbulb lit up. Why the hell was I ever playing with the 54mm scale models, oh sure they were pretty but so, so hard to effectively convert and customise, a limited range and expensive to boot. With this in mind I will be expanding the retinue a little beyond it's battlefield participants to include a few characters more suited to the Inquisition's mandate. As always, I'll keep you in the loop.

TTFN