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Recently I looked at myself and wondered exactly what I was acting up on. All of my current armies are far too mainstream, with Tau and Iron Warriors hardly breaking the mold. So, I thought , I would make an entirely unofficial, extremely obscure army. Squats? No, they've had models, far too easy. Pan Fo? No, I do want to keep my sanity. I came across Adeptus Mechanicus - but it had been done before. So, in keeping with my chaosy theme, I have decided to create an Dark Mechanicus army, one so obscure that it was referenced a couple of times in GW lore, but its existence is even in doubt now.

My inspiration started with this picture:

followed by kaffezombie's WIP thread


And of course Lemmingspawn's awesome robot porn thread, seen here.

I also want to create a artillery battery, similar to the Forgeworld Minotaur, but based on either the Baneblade or Macharius chassis. I am thinking of a hub look, similar to the orks, but with less rivets

I have also come up with a bit of backstory, albiet crappy
The Dark Mechanicus are a wandering Machine Cult, lured into service by The Sons of Horus to try and create a Dark Throne for Horus, before his body was stolen by the Emperors Children for their own reasons. Having failed at their task, they are now wandering the Galaxy, without masters or a cause, trying to find a side that will accept them back, having been expelled by both Renegades and Loyalists. In the meantime they wander the Galaxy, trying to discover lost technology that might help them in their cause.

I am going to make it mostly out of IG bodies, although I can see that I am going to have to get some FW renegade crew The idea is to make it all seem new, although hopefully work well with a counts-as system so that it can be playable. Despite this, there are some awesome Ad-Mech lists available that I can use.

So, what are your thoughts, tips or ideas? I havent seen any Chaos Ad-Mech armies, so if anyone has an example of one I'd be happy to see.


Coming soon: My attempt at a test paint scheme.

It all sounds thoroughly intriguing. Looking forward to watching this take shape.

sounds great maybe you could go for the sort of look lemmingspawn got with riple and connan
that of flesh and machine together

Thanks for the comments

@ Hughzle: I am hoping to make something similar to the knight warden in the first picture, the one on tracks. This will leave me with the Defiler legs, which can be used for some sweet sweet mecha. This would be a good op to try something thats a cross between man and machine.

Anyway, I have my test model painted up. Nothing too fantastic, I just wanted to see how the colours worked together.

What do you think? I'm tempted to make the colours brighter to add more definition, but I don't want to make them Space Smurfs. I also want to do some freehand on the back of the cloak, but i'm not sure what would be a good icon for my army. I'm thinking the 8 sided star covered in rivets and bolts, beginning to rust.

This is looking really great! I've got about 70 knights that I am looking at using for a Adeptus Mechanicus army. I'm looking at using the chaos codex for rules since I am looking at playing this army a little more widespread than just locally. I'm not quite satisfied with the list I have, since I really want to use some of the enginseer models that i have like the great one you have painted above.

I'll be following this one closely.

For the logo try a cog with the eight points coming off it, or from behind it. Really liking the concept for this army.

I thought, based on some fluff I read, the Dark Mechanicus still had red robes like the AdMech but just darker and more of a deep gore color. I think its more brooding than blue.

Really? For some reason I had assumed Dark Mechanicus wore black robes. Haven't a clue why...

@ Smashatron
You may easily be right, I am still learning about their fluff, and blue seemed to be a good colour in the interim. I think that a dark Red wouldn't distinguish them from the normal Ad Mech enough, but I will see what I can do.

I have created a logo for the army, will upload scans tomorrow.

I 2nd the cog. It's logical the 12 tooth one would drop to an 8 tooth one for the 'baddies'

@ ArbitorIan: There was a hearty bit of Dark Mechanicus fluff in Ben Counter's Dark Adeptus. He is a pretty bad author, but I like how he displayed the isolationism of the Adeptus Mechanicus forces is relation with the Inquisition and other branches. Plus the new heresy book, Mechanicus, on the way out should reveal a lot of the past.

@blinky: I wasn't going to imply there was anything wrong with your scheme. Blue is good. I can't wait to see more!

maybe as to distinguish them from normal mechanius you can get some plague zombies
and give them cloaks and mechanical stuff etc
to show they are renegades and tainted by chaos

and with veichules you could do a fleshy metal look to the hull

Hughzle wrote:maybe as to distinguish them from normal mechanius you can get some plague zombies
and give them cloaks and mechanical stuff etc
to show they are renegades and tainted by chaos

and with veichules you could do a fleshy metal look to the hull

Nooooooo!!! No more Nurgley rubbish, there's enough of that spreading around as it is... it's most rubbish of all the chaos forces.... they're so disgusting... What's wrong with a nice bit of Khorne?

Good idea. I got my hands on some plasticard recently and I've started fooling around; I've built a small section of hull and added some green stuff to make it look nasty. Unfortunately I have no idea what it will look like in the end! Ho hum. That's chaos for you. The basic idea is a chaos walker using Leman Russ rules.

Here's an artist I found inspiring, I'm trying to do something similar. Hope it helps, if only a little.
http://www.keiththompsonart.com/pages/panzerfluch.html

sorry its just decomposed robot priests sounds pretty cool to me

but then again you could khorne them up and make them blood crazy

but then they wont be sane enough to build machines

Hey again guys, thanks for the comments.

I have created a logo for these guys, and I'd like to hear your feedback. I don't particuarly like the skull myself, so I think I'll change it. Also to be added is an 8 sided star, or maybe 4 pointed on one of the sides.

To be done tomorrow: Need some Men-at-Arms and IG, ready to be greenstuffed. I'll probably update next week.

cool

and i came up with an idea for a khorne mechanius army

since they are dedicated to the all powerful blood god who sits on his skull throne

maybe they are so dedicated to khorne they build their machinery out of their enemies bones

and their armour is like a exoskeletal sort of thing

sound good?

gotta have a massive metal beast in there somewhere
could be a good project to watch.

like that guys wraitlord conversion