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Greetings!

As per my army list I put up many moons ago in the army list forum, I am finally starting my log for my 64th Genswick Rifles, strongly based off of Dave Taylor's own 33rd Genswick way back in some 290ish WD. Since I'm a slow modeller, I've tried to build a large percentage of the force already so that painting won't have to be put in it's own log if this one fizzles out. For those of you unfamiliar with Dave Taylor's stunning Genswick Rifles, they are similar in appearance to World War I soldiers, based off of Bretonnian men-at-arm bodies and heads with cadian arms:














Here is the paint scheme I'm going for:





The first time I saw this army, I was stunned at the atmosphere it generated, so gritty and dark, it was something altogether different from the cadian forces I'd seen so many times. It's taken a number of years, but I finally set this down as the army I wanted to build. I wanted something slightly different to lead the army, and decided to create a number of Adeptus Mechanicus units to tie into the army. I developed what I feel is an interesting narrative to go with the army, to further push the strange mix of feudal and high tech that so exemplifies 40k:

The expedition of Explorator Appius Serraxhon led the Tech Magos into the vast frontier regions of space, chasing folktales and whispers of ancient machines as his Mechanicus fleet sought out the lost technologies of Man. Over time, the fleet moved farther and farther into more wild and untapped systems, in the belief that collapsed colony worlds would provide the greatest chance for technological discovery. The Magos felt that, on these worlds, the machines that had laid the foundations of the colonies would still be intact, untouched by human hands over the millennia and overlooked over by marauding fleets uninterested in worlds with no populations to exploit. These silent worlds would be the basis of the Serraxhon’s research, and would bring no small amount of trouble to the Magos in his quest for knowledge.

The lost colony worlds were often not as silent as predicted, and forays into suspected findings often came at a high price from the worlds’ inhabitants, most of which were none too pleased with the expedition’s arrival. Aliens of all manner placed constant pressure on any research teams, resulting in most landings resembling planetary invasions rather than scientific endeavors. Even human settlements posed a threat to the research, as too often the disciples of the Machine God were viewed as aberrations or demons, attacked on sight with no chance for diplomacy. All of these forces placed a severe strain on the defenses of the fleet, until eventually all research efforts were halted, expeditions deemed unsafe without further support. Without the required defense forces, the Mago’s investments were left to wait in their ships, in fear of the precious tools also being destroyed by opposition.

Unperturbed and tenacious as any Magos Explorator, Serraxhon decided to acquire a new army to replace his exhausted Tech Guard. He returned to colonized space and began searching for any large Imperial forces moving through the region. Eventually a number of battleships arrived in a nearby system, resupplying before moving back into Warp Space. This gave the Mechanicus fleet enough time to catch up with the Imperial fleet, and as soon as the ships were in communication range, the Magos alerted the Imperial ships to imminent boarding by delegates of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Serraxhon himself personally led a delegation to the bridge of Imperial battleship The Praxis to lay for his mandate requisitioning the entire fleet to serve as a replacement Tech Guard for his expeditionary mission. Backed by hulking praetorian servitors, the tech lord’s show of force left the Praxis’ commander no ability to argue the validity of Serraxhon’s claim, and so he surrendered fleet control to Mechanicus forces.

Upon analysis of the newly acquired fleet, it appeared the ships were travelling to the Sabbat Worlds as part of an effort to push out the Chaos forces in the region. Assessing the conflict in the region resulted in only a minor chance of system liberation given the forces engaged, and so Serraxhon prepared a message to be sent after the ships entered Warp space indicating problems with the fleet’s Gellar Fields, with the knowledge that the fleet would simply be marked “Lost in the Warp” when it did not arrive at its expected location. With his fleet secure, the Magos took to examine his new forces. The ships carried battalions of Genswick Rifles, soldiers only equivalent to post-feudal technological levels. These guardsmen looked at the tech priests of the Adpetus Mechanicus with a fear not all dissimilar from the lost humans the expedition had encountered on previous worlds, speechless at observing men made more of machine than flesh. While this first appeared disastrous, Serraxhon decided that these soldiers would serve a purpose in providing his expeditions with a more comely face to human colonizes they would inevitably encounter in the future, serving to lessen the losses the defensive forces would face in the coming journeys. The Magos welcomed the bewildered guardsmen into his fleet with open arms, promising they would be serving the Omnissiah, their God Emperor, in more beneficial ways and that they would be gifted for their service. With the scraps recovered from the lost Tech Guard, the battalions were refitted with advanced technologies that would improve the capabilities of the guardsmen, making them a formidable opponent to anything that stood in the way of the Adeptus Mechanicus. With this, Magos Serraxhon moved the fleet deeper into the Segmentum Pacificus, in search of greater treasures further outside the rim.

Let me know what you think! This army will be approximately 1250 points worth of material; I'll have a number of tanks backed up by a lot of heavy weapons and some infantry to boot. Hopefully if everything goes well I'll have some actual pictures of my force up soon

Wow! I think you've got a really good concept here, and if you can match the quality of Dave's armies, it'll look awesome, and totally unique.

Good luck man.

Very interesting idea, I like the mix of AdMech and Guardsmen and the fluff blends them together quite well. I'd go with the lighter uniform myself, it's different from most IG color schemes, but will still fit the look of the minis very well. Some dark red highlights like you want to do would contrast this very well, IMHO. Can't wait to see where this goes!

i have some cool WHFB bret / empire bodies that I will be putting up for trade soon - could be used for you're commanders etc.

pm me if interested.

I would love to see what you manage to do with this. A great theme.

Thanks for all the feedback guys! I'm happy that everyone seems intrigued by the concept behind the army.

@ ironKing: Thanks for the offer man, I've actually got everything I need to build this army (which means the log will move at the pace I build things, so I better get movin!)

Here's a couple of close-up pictures of my Leman Russ Executioner:











This tank is only a very minor conversion, as I was pretty happy with the FW Alpha Pattern Leman Russ. It's basically the addition of a converted plasma cannon and some sand bags and some minor details. The FW model is a really attractive tank; it took a love of nerve to cut the battle cannon off of the turret, but don't worry, you'll see it in another model

On a side note, how are the pictures? I'm trying to decide if they're too large/close/etc. and am working on getting my camera skills up for the rest of the army.

the idea is awsome, and I think you are going to be spot on for the modelling. Also btw the pics look fine, just maybe a little more light.

Okay, next tank up! This time it's the Chimera. I know these pictures are still a little dark, but I'll fix that with everything after this (took the Chimera and Leman Russ pictures at the same time).











This tank has a bit more conversion work. I'm going to have sandbags on all of the tanks to create some unity of appearance, since each tank looks different. Personally, I'm quite fond of the open-top look, it reminds me of the landing crafts from D-Day. I do have a mat piece that I can put over the back of the tank, so it's "covered" with a netting, but I'm not sure if I like that as compare to having nothing else on top. I'll try to post a picture of the tank with the netting later on so I can get some advice. Thanks for the feedback so far!

Just as an FYI, there's a cheaper way to get appropriate heads for an army like this than trying to appropriate Bretonnian Men-at-Arms heads (which are typically ridiculously expensive from bitz-sellers because they know lots of people want to do this). Check out my thread here for a review of some good WWI-esque heads (http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/227882.page#528568). The best ones for a Genswick-type project are sold by a company named West Wind Productions (www.westwindproductions.co.uk). They're based in Britain, yes, but purchasing and shipping to the U.S. are quick and easy. I've ordered a bunch of heads from them - in fact, I have too many, PM me if you're interested in buying some!

@ Death By Monkeys: thanks for linking me those heads, those Brit heads with gasmasks look really nice. As of right now I have all the parts I need to finish the entire army, my troops haven't been shown yet because they're not completely finished, and I *may* be ignoring them a bit for finishing up my tanks, but they'll be up soon.

Alright, up next is my "artillery" tank. To be honest, I think it's fairly ambiguous as to which type of artillery it fits, which I actually don't mind. I'm trying to decide if I'd like to run it as a basilisk, medusa, or colossus. I might just have to play some games to get a feel for which option I prefer.










Let me know what you guys think! I really appreciate any feedback.

Also, I tried to brighten up the pictures but I don't think I quite did it. I'll keep adjusting that for future posts.

That Basilisk is pretty damned special

Alright, Tank Update with a relatively large amount of material:

I have completed all of the tanks I will have in my 1250 point army. The last one is the Hydra:








All-in-all, I'm very satisfied with how the tanks turned out. The pictures helped me pinpoint some dirty spots on the tanks that needed to be cleaned up (mold lines, etc.), and I have since cleaned and primed all of them.








I put the canopy on the Chimera, but I'm not positive whether I like the tank with or without it. What do you guys think?








Well, now that I've completed the tanks I'm beginning working on the heavy weapon teams. I'm going to have 3 mortars, 2 autocannons, and a lascannon (2 teams worth of models). That'll be most of the heavy firepower for the army, so from then on it'll be grunts and command squads, where most of my Mechanicus stuff is more prevalent. The Mechanicus element of the army is more "hinted-at" rather than going so far as to robotisize the whole army, so hopefully this won't discourage any interest in the log. Here's an overlook at what my army is going to have:

Head Quarters

- Magos Lord (Counts as Daemonhunter Inquisitor Lord): 104
> Inquisitor with BP & CCW, 2 Mystics, Servitor with Plasma Cannon

- Command Platoon: 110
> Commander with Power Sword, Master of Ordnance (30), Sniper Rifle, Regimental Standard

Elites

- Tech Assassin (Eversor pattern): 95

Troops

- Infantry Platoon: 320
> Command Squad, Power Fist, 4 Flamers
> Infantry Squad, Grenade Launcher
> Infantry Squad, Grenade Launcher
> Heavy Weapon Squad with 3 Mortars
> Heavy Weapon Squad with 2 Autocannons & Lascannon

- Veteran Squad: 175
> 10-man Squad, 2 Meltaguns, Demolitions
> Chimera with Multi-laser and Heavy Flamer

Heavy Support

- Leman Russ: 230
> Executioner, Plasma Cannon Sponsons

- Colossus: 140

- Hydra: 75

Total: 1149


The army is sort of dictated by the box I have, which has just enough room to fit all of the tanks, troops, and heavy weapon teams, so most adjustments that I can make to the list are more about unit arrangement rather than adding altogether new units. Also, I'm currently counting the artillery tank as a Colossus, but if everyone thinks that it's a basilisk, then I might have a hard time forking it as something else to my opponents...in which case it'll become a basilisk!

Hopefully I can keep the pace high and should be posting troops in not too long, because I know the painted figures are what people really want to see more than gray plastic .

As always any sort of feedback is appreciated. If anyone would like to know how I built anything on the tanks, I'd be more than happy to explain anything.

These are some great conversions, I especially like your basilisk. The sandbags piled up add a great deal of character and its shaping up to be as good as Dave's army. Nice work, can't wait to see some of these tanks painted!

-CC

Edit: Forgot to add, I prefer the Chimera with the top left off.

Sick i gota say

Nice stuff there brother but one question...where did you get the helmets from?

r3n3g8b0y wrote:Nice stuff there brother but one question...where did you get the helmets from?

Bret Men At Arms

DUDE that basilisk is fething AWSOME!!!!!!!!!!

No surprise here, but I think they look great!

The tanks are looking really good, although drop the canopy from the Chimera. It definitely looks better without it.

I second Empchild, your artillery piece is AWESOME!!!!!!!
it is certainly a combination of unusual parts that work incredibly well together to create a truly unique piece for the battlefields of the 40K universe.

Keep up the great work!

Cheers
Dave

I'd keep the top on the Chimera. Remove any ambiguity on the table if it's open topped or not.

Also, to complete the look I'd recommend looking at WWII tanks in Europe. Sand bags were common, as was barbed wire, extra armor plates hastily added, mesh barriers to stop HEAT rounds, and even building forms and pouring concrete to add more armor. Something that might look good would be to put barbed wire on the left and right sides of the troop compartment top to prevent people from boarding it.

great work.

Man, I was gone all of today and suddenly I got a whole lot of responses! I feel like I'm already falling behind with the log!

WOW! A response from Dave Taylor himself! That is quite exciting to me, considering I've followed a good number of your armies back in those White Dwarves (Dwarfs? hmm), and the Genswick and Adeptus Mechanicus forces were definitely some of the most inspirational work I found that made me decide that coming up with some really unique twists on the standard models was the way to go. I saw the scratch-built Gorgon you added to the army in your blog, and I'm curious how much the Genswick have expanded since they showed up in that WD.

I'm glad everyone likes that Basilisk/artillery tank! It is probably one of my more unique units and came about from some mistakes from building another model rather than actual planning. I built about 80% of a standard hellhound, decided I wasn't going to field a hellhound and instead add an artillery, gutted the fuel tanks and rear, and found myself with a pretty messed up-looking tank. I knew I wanted to turn it into an artillery but had no idea how to do it, other than having the cannon from the FW Leman Russ. After I picked up the Aegis Defense line set (to build my Hydra), I realized how good the autocannon foundation pieces would look with a cannon sticking out as a large mortar, and eventually (and with a LOT of tinkering), I came up with the monstrosity you see now.

It seems there is a tendency towards the Chimera without the roof, and I'm wondering if it's because the roof looks stupid (which I realize now that is does haha) or it would simply look better without any form of roof. I was looking at a picture of a wooden triangular roof on an old Mark IV tank:





Would this sort of roof improve the look of the chimera (wooden frame with mesh overlayed), or would the Chimera still look better without any roof?

Tyvr has some interesting ideas about tinkering with the tanks that I'm considering. I think, as far as era in concerned, that the Genswick are supposed to be more reminiscent of World War I rather than World War II (I think the troops show this much better than my tanks), and I'm wondering if that would affect the amount of material on the tanks themselves. Given, one restriction I have to hold to is the tanks cannot be much taller than the chasis (the turrets are all detachable, so when they are in the storage box they are turretless and surrounded with foam). But I am considering the addition of more sand bags or barbed wire. I'm afraid I would probably botch adding armor as my GS skills are lacking. The other thing that is on my mind is if the tanks will become too convoluted with excessive detail by adding a lot more bags and wire.

Please let me know what you guys think! All the advice and support has really helped a ton so far. I'm going to try to finish up some heavy weapon teams tomorrow and if the weather permits I'll have some photos to show in not too long!

i vote no roof, although i get the feeling that you conceived the chimera with a canopy of some kind and want to maintain that look... i think the hard roof makes it look too boxy. even the triangular configuration won't solve that. one thing you could try if you want too maintain the look without using more plasticard and GS would be to create the look of camo netting hung across the open area to obscure the cabin area from any body trying to peer in. i did a quick search in google and couldn't find an example of what i mean but i think you get the idea. instead of a hard roof, the troops would just hang the netting to prevent any sniper from being able easily pick off anybody within the open cabin, but of course troops inside would be able to see through the netting easily. just a thought, make your chimera a soft top instead of a hard top.
anyway i love your stuff, can't wait to see some of the troops!

I apologize for the delay in updating the log, I've been a bit busy with holiday things and haven't had a chance to finish a lot of models to put up pictures. But I can assure you, this log will not stop until I have a completed (i.e. painted) army of Genswick soldiers at my disposal.

@kukuchik: I have come to the conclusion to not have a roof on the chimera. The problem wasn't so much that I wanted a roof, but that I was worried about people complaining that the chimera should be open-topped as per WYSIWYG. That camo netting idea isn't half bad either, but the more I look at the tank, the more I remember that I built it with the intention of it looking like a landing craft, and I doubt anyone would give me that hard of a time about the tank, I mean, it's just a chimera haha.

Well, whilst perusing a local gaming store, I saw they had a 1750 pt tournament going on. A lot of the armies were pretty cool, and they didn't seem that much bigger than the 1250 pt force I have (but then again, I'm playing guard so that should be expected ) and now I'm contemplating the idea of adding 500 points to the army. Since this is my only ever planned army, I've pretty much coaxed myself into going ahead and finishing this force so that I can play a wider range of games, and I have decided to add a Hellhound (since I planned on this originally, I might as well go ahead and get it), a Valkyrie and storm trooper squad.

Upon reading this, I'm sure everyone is thinking "Genswick Valkyrie?"but that I have something different in mind. As per the fluff I came up with, I imagine my army being mostly Genswick soldiers with some Mechanicus elements running the show. Recently I thought that it would interesting to have more Mechanicus stuff in the army rather than just some servitors, tech priests, and bionics, so I came up with this: add an Adeptus Mechanicus valkyrie, which would be some sort of reseach vessel, and load it up with a tech priest and either skitarii or servitors!

So this is where my dilemma lies, what exactly do I make? Servitors or skitarii? I have three ideas I want to run past everyone, simply b/c I can't come to a decision myself:

Idea 1: Skitarii made from Death Korps Grenadiers
This is certainly not my own original concept; and I've seen pics of this floating around. I found this picture in another log (though I unfortunately could not find it again to credit the original creator, which I apologize for), and it would be close to what I'm envisioning





As previously stated, this is not my model, but it does capture the image I have in my head
Pros: very sinister in appearance, only requires modification of helmet into hood
Cons: expensive, possible scale difference between regular soldiers and Death Korps
Other: fairly uniform in appearance


Idea 2: Skitarii made from Vostroyans
This idea is pretty similar to the Death Korps idea; I would scuplt hoods on, modify the rifles, and generally tech-up the soldiers
Pros: Cheaper, on scale with Genswick, more similar in appearance
Cons: Metal, require more modification
Other: less uniform in appearance

Idea 3: Servitors
This idea is going in a bit of a different direction, but I don't think it's a bad one, and it's more fleshed-out than the previous ideas.





What I would do is get about 10 servitors, mount them on Men-at-arms legs to tie them in better to the Genswick, and equip each of them with a mounted hellgun and a mounted senesor arm, very similar to the previous picture of a work-in-progress servitor I have.
Pros: Cheap (since I only need about 4 more servitors if I take the servitors off the heavy weapon teams), more fluffy to image of a resourece-exhausted Tech Magos who is having to rig his servitors to fight
Cons: require the most modification, not as idenfifiable as storm troopers

Those tanks are awesome, great job. I especially like the Hydra and Chimera.

As for the Servitor/Skitarii choice... personally I like the Skitarii made from Death Corps, though they do look like they are teenagers in hoodies and halloween masks out to scare some old lady! It just needs a cap peaking out from inside the hood to complete the look

If you go the servitor route, I'd try and tie the legs and body together a little more as there's a slight size/bulk difference between them. I'd almost be tempted to just use the men at arms bodies, but have lots of wiring and bionics over the top to make it look like the Magos has taken the dying Genswick troops and re-purposed them. A guitar wire would do that much cheaper than buying 4 more servitors

Dude you are just getting better by the posts here. I love the mechanicus fellas, and definately the krieg grenadier converted. Good job im sending you a pm btw.

Wow! What a fantastic idea for an army! Gotta say I'm loving what you're doing here.

For the Chimera, have you considered adding some roll bars? Some bits of sprue would work fine, and make the model seem more complete, IMO.

There is so much brilliant stuff going on here- that Hydra conversion is the first I've seen to use the Aegis cannons without seeming a little insubstantial, and the executioner turret may be pinched when I get round to my Armoured Company idea...

I'd vote scary Skitarii guy- really sinister, and exactly the kind of men that would intimidate a guard commander. Failing that, have you considered using WHFB Ogres with dreadnought power fists as Heavy-Class servitors? Some guitar string and green stuff would easily tech them up, and the ripper guns could be incorporated in their arms, or underslung.

Thanks for the comments guys!

@ endtransmission: Haha, I definitely see what you mean about them looking like Haloween punks! I'll have to make sure if I do obtain some that I steer away from that look! Thanks for the advice about the servitors, I've been brainstorming the servitor idea right now on how to best do it

Everyone seems to like the Dkok Grenadiers idea, so I think I'm going to try to obtain some. With my idea to expand the army to 1750 points, I've been gung-ho on trying to obtain the new stuff while I'm still building the army...I like to have everything at once so I can mix and match more bits, even though it has put a big halt to my progress, which I need to fix...

As such, I put up some of my older stuff in the Swap shop, so if anyone is interested in picking up some random models, here is the link:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/269227.page

I apologize if posting that is bad thread etiquette, I didn't see anything indicating I shouldn't do it in the rules but I could be wrong. At the least, it gives you guys an idea of what I've been working on over the last week. I'll be updating the log with some actual Genswick stuff within the next couple days, and I think that once I get past this "army expansion" hump, things will start chugging along at a much, much faster rate

Your stuff is pretty incredible, I love the Chimera and I think my next one I get I might attempt at making one like yours. I also think the basilisk is really well done some with the hydra. But honestly I do think that you could do better with the Leaman Russ Executioner. It the gun is alright but I think having something like a Vanquisher turret with a camo net on it would go much better with the theme of your army, oh and definitely put a camo net on your Basilisk. Still your work is fantastic keep it up I want to see more pics this stuff really gets my mind spinning on conversion possibilities.

beautiful is all i can say....the tanks look awesome too good luck with the rest mate!

Will their be an homemade codex attached to this army?