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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

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.

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!

@ 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.

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.

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 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

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

Alright, please, please, no public beatings over the tardiness of a significant update!

The good news is I have finally settled on my expansion concepts for the army. I decided I am going to build Genswick-hybrid servitors for my count-as storm troopers over skitarii, the reasons being price and availability of Dkok grenadiers as well as (what I feel) a greater unity of the entire army. I'm going to have regular grunt guardsmen, equipment-bedecked grenadiers (vets) with shotguns, explosives, and gasmasks, and the aforementioned servitor bodyguard unit, with the technical stuff being used on the command elements of the army. So, now that I've gotten past this "thinking hump" I should be speeding up assembly.

Thanks for the comments and advice guys! There seems to be a lot of interest in the creation of a home-brewed codex, but I'm not quite sure what this would entail to be honest. I had planned on simply using the Imperial Guard codex since it covers all of the units, but maybe I'm missing what everyone is getting at (this is quite possible! ) My currently-planned 1750 pt army looks like this:

Head Quarters

- Magos Explorator Serraxhon: 133
> Count-as Daemonhunter Inquisitor with Psycannon & CCW, 2 Mystics, Servitor with Plasma Cannon

- Command Platoon: 140
> Commander with Power Sword, Master of Ordnance (30), Sniper Rifle, Regimental Standard, Medical Servitor (Count-as Medpack)


Elites

- Tech Assassin (Count-as Eversor Assassin): 95

- Tech Priest with Servitor Maniple (Count-as Storm Troopers): 205
> 10-man Squad, two Plasma Guns


Troops

- Infantry Platoon: 315
> Command Squad, Power Fist, 3 Flamers
> Infantry Squad, Grenade Launcher
> Infantry Squad, Grenade Launcher
> Heavy Weapon Squad with 3 Mortars
> Heavy Weapon Squad with 2 Autocannons & Lascannon

- Veteran Squad: 185
> 10-man Squad, 3 Meltaguns, Demolitions
> Chimera with Multi-laser and Heavy Flamer


Fast Attack

- Hellhound with Multi-melta: 145
- Mechanicus-pattern Rapid-Deployment Flyer (Count-as Valkyrie): 100


Heavy Support

- Leman Russ: 230
> Executioner, Plasma Cannon Sponsons

- Colossus: 140

- Hydra: 75

Total: 1748


This is pretty much what I had for the largest incarnation of the army, but I'd definitely like to hear what everyone thinks (there may be small errors in the list; I'll probably change it slightly but all of the units are present.

I've been tinkering with the guardsmen, trying to get those two squads finished. Here's some early work on the first squad:














I'm pretty satisfied with the overall look the models. Obviously, they need cleaning and I'll be scuplting their arms on but I'd like to hear what you guys think before I get too far. I'm going to try to brighten up the pictures a bit as well as they still seem a little dark and detracting. I should have the second squad pictures up today, and in the meantime I'll be cleaning these guys and getting them finished as soon as possible.

davetaylor wrote:Looking good! Don't forget to add a pommel on the sergeant's chainsword. Where did you get the chainmail covering the sergeant's face?

Thanks for the comment about the chainsword, I was planning on adding a pommel and some wiring going to his backpack (which unfortunately can't be seen in the picture, but it's a FW Chaos Renegade backpack). The chainmail is from one of the VC Grave Guard heads; its the one with the chain mail hanging off the face (making it easy enough to remove)

Alright, second squad is up as far as early assembly goes, I'm working on GS'ing the first squad and perfecting them, and I'll put their pics up when they're finished.













I'll also put up some back shots when I update the first squad, since some models have a couple details worth showing. Still working on perfecting my camera settings as well...

Thanks for all of the comments guys! I'm shocked to have as much response as I've had, I keep assuming the blog will fall back into the previous couple pages while I stall on updating and every time I check it seems like there's a new comment! Some freak weather has been going on over here; it snowed (I'm sure all of the east coasters are in the same situation!), and I've had a number of tests and work keeping me distracted, but these updates are pushing me to get off my arse and work!!

First and foremost, I'd like to give a HUGE shoutout to fellow Dakkaite Empchild, who so graciously donated to me some fresh dead tissue-- I mean, servitors!



By the way, I'm not sure if you didn't mean to send that arm (which I believe is a FW Elysian arm). Let me know if you need it back!

Thanks a ton man! I've already begun a thorough examination of the miniatures, trying to figure out how to best utilize them. I only hope I can recreate them at a skill level that will make you proud.

davetaylor wrote:I'm thinking I might steal your grenade launcher look for my Blood Pact stormtroopers, AP3 scatterguns anyone ; )
Cheers
Dave

Dave, I'm definitely looking forward to what craziness spawns from that conversion. Let me know when you get around to doing it!

smeezilla wrote:Extremely well done soldiers, I am normally not a fan of the older looking guard armies, but theses are fantastic. I just have one question where did you get the revolver that one of your troops is holding?

I believe that pistol came from one of the old Necromunda weapon sets as Death by Monkey said. Well, either that or the new redemptionists box set, I'm not entirely sure unfortunately

Llamahead wrote:Some brilliant stuff here can't help but think that Skitarii would be more like normal troopers and make more sense as Stormtroopers than Servitors myself. However you'll certainly make cool lucking servitors and I guess the line would be pretty blurred between them anyway! I'd alos like to recommend this website Landships to you theirs some lovely period photographs and information there. http://www.landships.freeservers.com/ An exceptionally WW1 element to consider for your vehicles would be to have them carrying fascines on top of themselves somehow. Can't wait to see more especially the Admech stuff!

Llamahead, thanks a ton for that website! I've been perusing it and there is a wealth of photos there, definitely inspirational stuff! I wish I had seen it earlier so it could have influenced my army more! Haha

Yeah, there seems to be a consensus of a bit of disappointment over scratching the Skitarii idea, and I think that might be in part because I didn't quite show what I was getting at, and so I will try to fix that now. I've got some pics of my wip veterans/combat engineers:


















On a side note, I changed the settings on my camera and took some back shots as well, so please let me know if these are improvements


These guys obviously need a lot of work as too, I'm going to give them more bags, grenades, equipment, etc. to really push the combat engineer appearance. I wouldn't recommend the FW Renegade head conversion, as it's quite expensive, and was not the original purpose for them when I first purchased them. These guys will be mounted in the chimera in the earlier pics.

So....onto my thoughts about the servitors. I'm going to have the regular guardsmen, this 10-man combat engineer squad, and then *stormtroopers*. I'm really undecided on what I should do with them. I can certainly see what everyone is getting at about servitors not fitting the bill for stormtroopers, so maybe Skitarii would be the more logical route. I suppose when I decided earlier I was thinking strongly about consistency:



I know that servitor is still really really WIP, he definitely needs buffing as people have stated previously, he's just for visualization purposes

This gives me a progression of 3 different troop styles for my army which will be either 1500 or 1750 points (haven't really set that down yet, my current assets are about 1300 points). So I want to know what you guys think:

Would this plan of regular grunts, geared combat engineers, and heavily equipped servitors create a good look? The other idea I have is to turn the servitor squad into regular guardsmen, and have the Dkok Grenadiers (if I can find them somewhere! I might have to get them from FW, argh) as the storm troopers for the army, which would give me perhaps a bit less unity but its impossible to deny the coolness of the idea.

Well, I hope this update is enough to satiate interest of a day or so . I'm sorry to say that I will probably drag my feet on painting until I get everything assembled. I don't have much of a work space to build and paint, and that (coupled with a perfectionist nature) is making me want to get everything built and done, and then massive painting wil begin.

CadianXV wrote:What are, and where did you get, those canisters on the meltagunners?

They are from the FW Chaos Renegade models. I had to take them off the backs of their torsos (so definitely not recommending repeating this unless you're like me and are great at destroying expensive pieces )

Damn! My plans of letting the blog fade into obscurity while I make up for lost time during the holiday is foiled! Sorry folks, between starting two new jobs and the holidays I haven't gotten a ton of work done. I have, however, been doing a lot of thinking and I'll share that (with the work I've gotten done) to keep this thing off of life support. I'll go ahead and put up the terrain I've been working on. I apologize about the poor lighting in advance; I wanted to get pics up today and didn't get to it until it had already started getting dark, so I lost some of my background lighting...also, I noticed that the buildings are bit dusty from sitting up in my closet, so I purchased a large contained to keep them in from now on to get rid of that problem, but I think it make the buildings look grainier than they are. I'll have these, and those elevated trench walls from the Aegis defense line kit, to make up the total of my terrain:






























I believe I've finally come up with the solution to my servitor/skitarii debacle-- I'm going to do both!, although the ideas have changed a bit. I decided that the current storm trooper rules aren't my favorite, and I feel that my original plan of skitarii teleporting into battle, though very cool, was a bit at odds with the rest of the army. As such, my skitarii are going to count as veterans, who will ride in a teched-up chimera, which I feel will help keep consistency. I'm constructing the chimera right now, I'll just say I borrowed heavily from endtransmission's Junos Moles chimera idea. As for servitors, I think I will relegate them to manning the heavy weapon teams , something that I've seen in old rogue trader art. Since I don't need skitarii with the prowess of storm troopers, I decided to steal ANOTHER idea from Dave Taylor, this time from his Adeptus Mechanicus army (I'm talking about the squad at the top of the page):





I think these more ragged skitarii would gel well with the army too; they look like they were taken right out of the Genswick and initiated into the Machine Cult. So far, the only thing I have for that squad is this tech priest:











This guy is one of my favorite models to be honest, and I hope the pictures show him well enough. I'm planning on having him either lead the skitarii squad, or count as the Inquisitor Lord.


Here's how my ENTIRE army is going to look when it's finished:

1850 Pt List (Currently 1845)

Head Quarters

- Tech Priest Retinue: 125
> Count-as Inqusitor Lord with Bolter, CCW, Psychic Hood
> 2 Mystics, Servitor with Plasma Cannon

- Command Platoon: 190
>Magos Serraxhon (Count-as Straken), Standard, Medical Servitor (Count as guardsman with medi-pack)


Elites

- Tech Assassin (Count-as Eversor assassin): 95

- Ratlings: 50

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: 185
> 3 Meltaguns, Demolitions
> Chimera with Multi-laser and Heavy Bolter

- Skitarii Squad (Count Veteran Squad: 155
> (Count as Veteran Squad with 2 Plasma Guns
> Chimera with Multi-laser and Heavy Bolter

Fast Attack

- Hellhound with Multi-melta: 145

- Robot (Count-as Armored Sentinel with Plasma Cannon): 75


- Rough Riders: 75
> 5-man Squad, 2 Meltaguns

Heavy Support

- Leman Russ: 230
> Executioner with Plasma Cannon Sponsons

- Basilisk: 125

- Hydra: 75

Now, you guys might have noticed a ROBOT in the fast attack. I stumbed across this picture the other day, and felt I needed to have this in my army:





It has a nice 1950's vibe to it, and I imagine Magos Serraxhon might have one of these in his personal collection, to have survived the tribulations of past expeditions and serve a potent symbol to strike fear into the enemies of the Machine God. I've done some prototype work on it, but it's only in very early stages of development. I still have a number of other things to work on, including a hellhound, Genswickifying some ratlings, make Dave Taylor-esque Rough Riders (by the time I finish this blog, his attorney's going to be after me for idea infringment! ), so I hope I can pump out some good stuff soon. I'd like to get the army built by the end of the month.

More to come, I hope everyone had a happy holiday and good new year!

No trouble whatsoever CadianXV, I'll explain the method behind the madness.

Originally, I had built this piece with the idea of it being a small landing bay inside of a hive city, for small flyers to land and drop off supplies through the city. There's already a bunch of supplies sitting on top of the small landing spot, and there's a machine that takes the supplies and puts them on the conveyor belt, that leads into the darkness (i.e., probably it just goes down a level to storage or something)

This piece admittedly is the only thing I have that has non-GW parts in it; my rational was needing parts that I could not get from GW and the fact that terrain has no bearings on my ability to play in a tournament. I hope that explains it for the most part, it's mostly 40k parts, mixed with a few pieces from a Pegasus construction set, all set on top of a foam board cut to size.

Well, I've gotten a bit work done over the last couple days. It's been hard to get a lot of progress done trying to balance two jobs, but I really want to accomplish my goal of seeing this army on the table. With this last bit of work, I'm considering whether I should leave the army at 1500 points or buy the materials I need to finish the last couple units. I still need to construct 5 rough riders, a AM chimera, and a squad of Skitarii, plus all of the other tweaking and conversion work needed to finish up other units, and the task seems monumental, plus I don't know if I want that much stuff! (I'm a bit of a minimalist)

I think this last bit of work will help me determine if I want to sit at 1500 or 1850. As usual all of the work is fairly prototype and needs bit addition, part swapping, cleaning, etc. Here's some pictures of my command squad:











and here is Mago Serraxhon himself!











He's an older pewter model, so he shows up kind of funny in the pictures, but I like having him since he's such a unique model.

As with the machine element of the army, I've begun construction on some of these elements to see how well they gel with the Genswick units. Here is my tech assassin (counts at an Eversor assassin).











I'm sorry if the photos are a bit poor on him. I couldn't get an angle that really showed the entire model since it's in such a dynamic position, and at any farther distance he starts to just look tiny in the photos, and I'm not sure if that is because he is too busy-looking or what.

Here's some early prototype work on my robot, the count-as armored sentinel. He looks similar to the art I showed in my last post, but I feel he is a bit more 40k-ified compared to art.














That's all I have for now. I'd definitely like some advice on how these models are coming along since they serve as centerpieces for the army. I'm a bit weary of how the mix of high-tech AM stuff mixed with WWI-era soldiers is looking (i.e. the assassin seems like he's part of another army), so I'd be very grateful to hear any comments about that. I'm hoping that I can create a look of ancient, but high-tech machines (the robot I think fits this bill) that tie into the army.

But anyway, enough of my rambling, I want to hear your thoughts! Thanks for all of the advice so far guys, I think it's definitely helped shape the army in its progression so far.

(On a side-note, I realize my pictures have gotten a bit dark again and I think that's probably due to my bulbs going bad. I'll go ahead and replace those before the new pics)

Malika2 wrote:How did you build that robot?

Okay, Robot breakdown:

Head

- Torso joint of a dreadnought (the ball socket that connects to the dreadnought core is the head), with the legs removed
- Dreadnought visor for the robot's own visor

Torso

- Space Marine terminator shoulder pads flipped on their sides for shoulders
- The dreadnought joint goes down to about the middle of the chest, after which there is a autocannon ammo case
- To bulk out the body, I used the cannon from the Hellhound, and put one piece on each side
- The back is a Space Marine Techmarine backpack

Arms

- There are chimera side-port guns inside of the shoulder pad joints with their lasguns removed
- The gun is a big shoota I believe, with an autocannon clip and barrel
- The machine arm is a servo arm from the Space Marine Techmarine

Legs

- The joint is made from a Battle for Macragge electric fence-thing, with the post removed and the power unit thinned down
- The thighs are made from parts from a Leman Russ dozer blade, I believe
- The ankles are made from a part from the Hellhound; I'm not sure what it's exact purpose was in the original model but they are basically unmodified from their original appearance
- Two Space Marine terminator shoulder pad heraldry markers (that's the best name I could come up with) are the knee caps
- The feet are from the Hellhound kit; they are the covers that go over the barrels, with a couple extensions removed to make them more resemble feet

Hopefully that explanation is relatively clear, I am certainly not skilled enough to write directions for Legos


Thanks for that advice CadianXV, you definitely made some good points about consistent painting. I think I was too worried about consistent modelling, and I know painting will go a long way to unify everything.

Well, I'm feeling galvanized to work again, with better time-management the project should start moving ahead again. Thanks for all the compliments guys, I'm overjoyed to see such a positive response to all of the things I've put up. I'm really trying to bust out some work so I can get to the thing I know everyone wants to see: painted models

After a month and a half of slumber, my blog has returned...like the Govenator, you can slow its progess but it cannot be stopped.

Okay, that is more dramatic than reality...I've been quite busy working about 55 hours a week and applying to grad school, and the free time I've had in between has been largely squandered. But that does not mean that I've abandoned work on the army; merely, I've just felt I haven't produced enough material to merit an update. But I do have some stuff to show you guys, and there is certainly more to come. The good news is every unit has been fleshed out to some degree, and now its largely a matter of doing minor gs work, cleaning moldlines, etc.

Anyway, here's two units I've been working on; not quite finished but far enough along for me to post:


Hellhound:










Adeptus Mechanicus Chimera (rather WiP)














The AM Chimera is Magos Serraxhon's personal transport in the battles that he is fielded in (1750pt battles). There is a noticeably larger AM influence in the command squads as compared to the troopers, which actually works out really well for making the leadership elements more centerpiece in the army.

I have an idea in my head, as far as continued fluff goes, that I'm going to call the army the Genswick 64th Engineer Corp. The reasoning behind this is, as per the original material, Magos Serraxhon has "acquired" this army from a passerby Imperial Fleet. I can picture him going to great lengths to forge documents and records to keep this a secret, even disguising the entire Mechanicus control by explaining the large amount of AM stuff in the fleet as a support element for the large engineer contingent. The fleet commander is just a puppet-leader, reporting in secret to Serraxhon, leading anyone who encounters the fleet to believe it is an Imperial expedition fleet exploring untapped regions of space. All very sneaky stuff...it even sounds a bit heretical! But I think it makes for very interesting fluff and certainly allows for an ease of explanation (calling them the 64th Genswick Engineer Corp is certainly easier than explaining the whole AM bit)

I've gotten a good amount of work done on my rough riders, ratlings, and heavy weapon teams so I hope so show them soon. Let me know what you guys think so far, I'm glad to be back posting in Dakka!

Alright, more Genswick fun!

The robot has improved a great deal since I last showed him; he just needs a cleaning (yes, I noticed the flash on the plasma cannon haha), minor gs work, and he'll be primed and ready to paint. Here's some shots of him with a guardsman for scale purposes:












(Sort of a menacing shot with the robot approaching the grenade-lobbing guardsmen, although in all honesty he's just an armored sentinel with a plasma cannon, so a krak-armed guardsman could actually take him down...)

In addition, my rough riders are pretty far along so I wanted to put some shots up. These guys are a straight take from Dave Taylor's army; in fact, they're even simpler! (Dave's horses are equipped with gas masks...something I'm not brave enough to approach with GS) Still, I really like how they turned out; very characteristic of the army overall.

















These guys are about done too; I plan to perfect the rough riders, "sentinel", chimera, and hellhound and get them primed and ready for painting, and then move on to the remaining units, which include the command squads, tech priest, heavy weapon teams, ratlings and grenadiers (vets). I'll put up finished shots of each before they get primed. The whole army will be completely finished before painting even begins (this is both a quirk of my personality and part of my limitation in space; I don't have enough room for paint and bits on my tiny work table).

The FW Chaos Renegade torsos really came in handy for accentuating sergeants, leaders etc, even if all I did was take the heads and backpacks. They kind of help create an AM influence in the army, while still maintaining a gritty appearance of the Genswick Rifles. I'm excited how far the project has come. Even in the stage it is now, there is a very unified look to the whole group together; I'll make sure to put up pictures of the whole army when it's finished. In the meantime, while I'm finishing up modeling, I'm going to start doing more research on painting so my plans there will be consistent and effective by the time they are implemented. As always I appreciate the remarks I've been getting, let me know if you guys have any critiques!

@ Llamahead: Thanks for the suggesions on painting. That scheme is a pretty good one and I'm adding it to my list of possible schemes. I'm worried that painting them with too much red will be boring in a sort of typical AM army (though they will definitely have SOME red since a lot of them are AM units) or make them look like a traitor army. The other scheme I had in mind was from those WWI French troops I have on the first page, painting the soldiers in a blue-grey scheme with the main palette being that blue-grey and brown, and using a dark AM red as a highlight. I'm curious what everyone thinks about those schemes...I actually might go ahead and set up a poll a little closer to painting time

@ Empchild: Thanks as always! Yeah, the robot is just going to be an armored sentinel with a plasma cannon. Typically, he'll be following around a tech priest (as some extreme sort of retinue), which will hopefully allow for some protection for the tech priest and offer the robot some possibility of repair (if he doesn't just get blown to bits, that is)

@ loofacop: Yep, I'm definitely following your thinking! The halbreds actually already have grenades strapped to them, although they are pretty hard to see in the pictures. The back of the halbred has the grip of an auspex with two krak grenades immediately below it, which gives them the appearance of make-shift charges (atleast, when you see them up close).

Llamahead wrote:I'm not quite sure how you plan to highlight with 2 completely different colours but the Shadow Grey with Red detailing would definitely work.

Sorry about that, I didn't really explain the color palette correctly. Here's a more in-depth take:



What I've had in mind is that very light, blue-grey color for the coats and clothing, with brown satchels, backpacks, etc...and a mix of a few other earthly colors. The details (lenses, Mechanicus robes or insignia, other markings) would be a dark red, which is originally what I meant by using red as a highlight color. In this way I envision the main troops looking very much like the the soldier above, with the accompanying servitor-manned heavy weapon teams having more red mixed in with the palette. As you would move up in ranks towards the command squads, tech priest, and robot, there would be more red (as these units would be pure AM forces rather than actual Genswick soldiers).

I'm contemplating painting the tanks in a very earthly brown color, probably the same brown as the one used on the troops. Red would be used on these tanks mainly for picking out lenses, fuel tanks, high-tech equipment...something that would give the tanks the appearance of being old tanks that have been refitted with advanced technology.

At the same time, your paint scheme sounds pretty good too, so I'm a bit torn between the two of these and will hopefully make a decision shortly on which direction I want to (that, or put a poll up)

Thanks for all of the positive feedback guys, glad to see I'm still moving in the right direction with the army!

@ Wolfs16: Thank you very much for the gracious comments Wolf! I'm very happy that I could inspire others with the army I'm putting together, and hopefully I can continue to do so as I unveil more of the remaining units.

I've got a small update today, I finished construction on my mortar teams. Theses guys are another straight transplant from Dave Taylor's army: they're the same Ork cannons retilted towards a higher trajectory, on 60mm bases with Genswick operators. The only real difference is the guardsmen themselves, but that's negligible. Honestly, some of Dave's units were so perfect there was no way I could improve on them! (mortars and rough riders being the big ones)














I've come up with a good plan on getting through my army construction and moving onto painting. It's going to break down like this:

CONSTRUCTION PHASE: Get the units completed assembled with all bits and positioning correct. A lot of units have passed this phase (all of the ones pictured), and as the remaining units complete construction, I'll put their pictures up too. Finishing construction will allow me to clean off my tabletop and remove all of my bit boxes (which take up a majority of my working space), sell those bits (since this is my only projected army), and get building finally out of my head! I remember reading an article about Dave Taylor's Adeptus Custodes (if you haven't figure it out, he's my biggest inspiration ), and he said something along the lines of having a hard time putting down his tools and going on to completion, and I identify with that all too well. However, I think this plan will help push me with some self-discipline, so we can all actually see this army painted before 2012 (gotta finish before the end of the world )

PREPARATION PHASE: This phase, which unfortunately will not entail that many pictures, should be admittedly short. I'm going to spend this time preparing my painting tools, techniques, paints, etc. which will take a bit of time to do all of the research and order everything I need. During that time, I will finish any GS work (anything significant will get a picture put up, but there shouldn't be a lot of significant stuff since my GS work is pretty minor), and I'll put an entire army picture up so everyone can see the whole thing on one table (I've done it before when some units were just bases, and the size was quite impressive in my mind). Now, if I work really fast, I can still be putting up pictures of recently finished units while on this phase, so I'll have to shoot for that!

PAINTING PHASE: Not much to explain about this. I'm planning to paint the army with playing it in mind, so I'll start with the troops, heavy weapons, small command squad, few tanks, etc. and work up to the expensive stuff. Well, back to work for me! The biggest change I'm trying right now is not leaving any of my time to idleness; if I'm not at work, I'm doing something else important, and finishing this damn army is important!!

Very small update here, just adding a picture of my Genswick-ified ratlings.





Not too much to say here; I'm a fan of the current ratling models (well, at first they were more just a curiousity, and as time went on I started to actually like them). I think they looked pretty good as the base models, and just added a couple of Genswick helmets to help tie them into the army (still need GS work to fit the helmets on perfectly), and they were good to go!

Thanks for all the support guys, I'm glad that everyone is so thrilled about the work in the army. I think the best thing about the army as far as inspiration goes is that most everything I've built is unique by its combination of bits rather than raw sculpting skill (since all of my GS work is sculpting arms, hoods, and sandbags), so the ideas are pretty readily transferable to anyone who might wish to copy them, and I certainly hope that everyone can benefit from what I've been working on!

@Llama: haha, good point about the ratlings. I was almost leaning towards leaving them as they were when I got them, but I think I wanted to give them at least something small to identify them with the army, plus that Bretonnian helmet with the pigeon tied on fit perfectly with these guys!

@ Da Big Mek: Now that would be a battle I'll be looking forward to! Once I get my army finally completed, I'll have to try to find someone with a Dkok army, as I'm sure that'll look quite impressive on the table

@ Somnicide: Don't worry, you'll come around to the IG sooner or later

In other news, I finally decided to pick up a second GW case, which was a fairly big investment in my mind. I've had one case for probably at least 6-7 years and I've never had problems with it, so I hope the second case is as good as that one. I originally had a microphone case with the GW case in hopes of fitting my whole army between the two, but once I started packing away all my HQ and special units that have been sitting on my shelf, I realized they wouldn't all fit! So now I've converted my old case into a tank case (it already had four tanks in the bottom with a make-shift foam guard, so the last couple vehicles, sentinel, and heavy weapon teams will be adde to fill the case out), and my new case will cary all of my troops (and my microphone case went to my brother to hold his small collection of 40k models, so it didn't go to waste). I think this will make transport fairly easy as I can just switch trays out between the cases when I want a smaller army.

Well, as I said previously I'll try to leave you guys with a picture every couple of days or so, so here's a shot of my Techpriest and his servitor retinue:








I realize the techpriest hasn't changed (he's one of my favorite models!), but I did add a servitor retinue to assist him in battle. The cyber mastiff is an awesome model, it's a shame it's not easier to get because I could imagine a lot of people with it in their army. The servitor is just a SM servitor with a Sentinel chainsaw. I'm really fond of this group, so hopefully they perform well enough for me to make good use of them in the army. If not, I'm sure I can always find an excuse to spend the points on just the Techpriest.

FerrumIgnatus wrote:Secondly, your Rough Riders are ace! Way better looking then GW's aweful approach. Maybe it's a tad to late for it, but perhaps a couple of those horses could have some of their legs replaced by bionic ones?

I'll have to look into that idea Ferrum. As it stands my bits box has been cleaned up, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to, but I've certainly seen a couple executions of bionic horse legs and they've always looked good.

Lexx wrote:\Where do you get the red tubes/wires from by the way?

The red tubes I bought at Radio Shack (small US electronics store for anyone not familiar with it), but basically it was just a spool of electrical wiring, the smallest diameter tubing I could find at the time. There's some copper wiring inside of it, so it provides a nice support for bending the wire into a position you prefer, and it glues on well enough to plastic and metal. The only problem I generally have with it is the size, which means I generally leave it for large tubing.

Thanks for the immense approval guys, I'm very happy that people find that much value of scrolling through what I've been working on. The excitement's getting to me as I get closer to painting. I wish I could move faster but most days I work from 8am to 9pm, so I find little time to get the type of work I want to do. But I'll keep plugging away as fast as I can! The proposition of actually playing with this army is too good to pass up

Lexx wrote:Thanks for the info accolade. Ill have to go to a local hardware store sometime and see what they have. Ive tried using guitar wire in the past for similar things but it hasn't turned out how I like. Think for when I get round to my Genswicks I might go for a Mechanized unit. Needless to say your force has given lots of inspiration for that.

Also what knights did you use for the lower parts of your rough riders? Grail or knights errant/realm?

Yeah, I had worked with guitar wire in the past, but I hadn't had much success with it. The electrical wire was nice because of how well it bent. I sat in Radio Shack going through the different wire spools they had, mentally gauging their diameter and seeing how they bent...needless to say, I'm sure I probably creeped the clerk out!

I used Knights of the Realm for the rough riders. They were actually leftover units from a small Bretonnian force I was putting together a long time ago (as were the men-at-arms), and they really didn't require a whole lot of modification; it was basically taking the torso section of a man-at-arms and putting in on top of the knight legs and GS'ing the area between.


Okay, for Sunday I have some shots of my remaining heavy weapon teams, though I must say that these guys are going to need a LOT of cleaning and GS work, so don't beat me up to much for their shoddy state...well, that, and the competing areas of focus coupled with the metal and plastic on the models made some of the pictures not turn out so well. I'm sure they'll photograph much better when painted, but here's how they stand basically finished in construction:
















I saw some old Rogue Trader artwork a while back with servitors loading some heavy weapons (I believe it was AM laser destroyers and other odd weapons), and immediately decided I wanted to put some servitors on the heavy weapon teams. Luckily, Empchild donated to me a nice number of servitors that were largely put to use in these squads, so I am very thankful for that!

As with keeping to the mixed technology feel, I made sure to put a guardsmen on two of the teams, and I removed the legs of all of the servitors and added the Genswick leg sections (which were just sitting around after I took the torsos to make the rough riders). When I put up pictures of that original servitor on the first page of the blog, some people commented that it looked a bit too top heavy, so I went ahead and added bigger shoes to all of the servitor, which I think this offset the problem...but you guys will have to let me know what you think!

CadianXV wrote:Brilliant work, as always- any chance of a group shot of what you have so far?

I'll be posting the whole army pretty soon. I want to get pictures of all of the units up on Dakka before I post the group shot. That should give me some time to try to base, clean, and prime a couple more units before it's time to put up the big picture.

In other news, I'm going to try to play a combat patrol with this army on the upcoming Sunday the 13th at a local game store called Parker, Banner, Wayne, and Kent in order to start getting used to how the army plays. I believe some Dakkaites live in the Charlotte area, so I'm going to see if I have any luck finding one who would like get a game in. I'll put a post up in the Find a Game forum, but if anyone lives around Charlotte and would like to help me play this army, let me know!

Commissar Agro wrote:hey Accolade, i wa wondering what you used for the roof of the Genswick chimera, if you dont remeber it dosnt matter,
nice heavy weapons
you continue to amaze

The old rooftop for the chimera that I believe you're referring to Agro is an odd item I bought off of Ebay. I had done some searching for patterned plastic sheets to build flooring for a number of buildings I had in the past and found that item when I was searching. I unfortunately can't think of a better name for it, but it should be adequate to help you get started. If anyone else has a better name for it I'd like to know myself! Now, if you were talking about another part of the construction of the chimera, let me know and I'll get into more depth.

To prove I have been working on the project, I have a shot of my guardsmen who have all received their basing:




As an aside, that picture shows about half of my working space!! Not too much area to spread out at all.

These guys are fresh from basing, so I need to flick off the excess material. That's actually about half of my overall troop force, and I plan on trying to finish basing the rest of the units tonight, which would be a pretty big accomplishment for me to get all of that done in a day. This shot is three squads of guardsmen (without their heavy weapon teams), my ratlings, and my veterans. The basing does wonders for creating unity throughout the army, so I'm really hyped to see how everything looks when it's all laid out. More to come soon!

Hey Guys,

I've got up an update for the blog. First off, here is my (first) company command squad. This is where things get a little more Mechanicus...




Company Commander & Female Techpriest (got the idea from Commissar Molotov, although the model is only *barely* noticeably female...which is probably better than a typical female model). She has a skull masl under the hood and wields a plasma gun, though she just counts as a veteran.









The big hovering relay counts as a Master of Ordnance. The guardsman was originally my Master of Ordnance, but now he just has a vox.



The hovering cloaked servo-skull just counts as a veteran as well (I wasn't really sure what else to run him as and I'd like to actually have a purpose for him rather than just being decorative). The guardsman is obviously a sniper



I'm pretty satisfied with how these guys came out. The commander is the Forge World Titan Princeps. When I first got him I was a little frustrated with his more realistic scale, which put him a head above most of his compatriots and he is much thinner to boot. I think the base and the few GW bits I put him helped balance him out with the squad, and he's a cool model to boot!

I played my first game on Sunday with the army, which was a blast. It was just a combat patrol, which was fine with me because it allowed me to get more used to the 5th edition (I still think in the 4th edition, and luckily my opponent was very willing to help me adjust). Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera and didn't take any pictures, but it probably worked better because I spent some time picking up new rules. My opponent brought a demon army he was preparing for Adepticon, so he wiped the table with me in the first game (without making me feel like crap). The second game he went out of his way to help me run my army better, and that went pretty well until the store closed and we had to call it quits. I'm going to try to keep playing combat patrols and small games to get into the swing of things, and hopefully I'll be able to play effectively in the near future.

Playing also makes me want to have my army painted so it can look much more impressive, which I think will help me get along faster. I finished doing my last couple pieces of terrain and basing is complete, so now I need to get all of the models ready for spray painting.

As per the requests, I'll leave you guys with a couple of shots of the entire army, laid out on my kitchen table:

No problem JB! I'm surprised somebody dug this up while I've been on hiatus working towards having enough new stuff to merit an update.

Since this has been brought back to the forefront of the blogs, I should include a little bit of info on what I've been doing...

Let's see, first off, the ratlings are probably out as far as my max 1850 list is concerned. I'm picking up a couple Vostroyan snipers to add to my Company Command Squad, which will run cheap in smaller games with 3 snipers, a regimental standard/vox, and camo cloaks. I hadn't had much success with the ratlings, so they might just be cut and sold off. I added another veteran squad to my big list, and I'm going to take the servitors off of the heavy weapons and make them vets with plasma guns. More details have been scupted, models have been cleaned, etc. Mainly, I'm just waiting to get in a couple of bits to finish off building that last couple things. I'll put up pictures of units that have changed, though I made hold off until they're painted so the posts will be really worthwhile.

I've been playing some combat patrols with the army, and they've been going really well. I think I've set down a really competitive list, that has been doing well against all of the armies I've fought (except daemons, which decimated me ). I've been having a lot of fun playing and there haven't been any big count-as confusions, which is very good news in my mind.

Finally, I've been looking at pictures of Adepticon 2010 and I must say, the stuff coming out from it looks AMAZING. I want to make my goal to have this army completely finished down to the smallest detail by next year, because I'd really like to go that event. Now all I have to do is get the color scheme set down...I'll post up a little later on my ideas for schemes, and have people vote on that.

Thanks for the comments guys! I appreciate all of it as always, it helps me keep this project on track when it is so easily derailed due to time constraints.

Well, with almost all construction completed (some slight changes and a second squad of veterans are on their way), I'm getting into the mindset of painting...and that's where you guys come in! I've been brainstorming this a lot, but I really haven't been able to come up with a decision on how I should paint this army. I put a poll up on the first page with information about each scheme in an update on the first post, so I'd really like to hear anyone's advice on how these fellows should look! I put an "Other" option on there, because I half-expect someone to shoot out an amazing new scheme that I haven't even thought of! (that, and the schemes are all open to tweaking)

Let me know what you guys think! I'm going to get on to purchasing my painting supplies!