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Progress

I've had a few people ask for a photo of all the units together and here it is, with the exception of the Avatar who will be uploaded this coming weekend.



It's amazing to see how far this project has developed since the original collection from when I started work on this army in January 2008 and at last it will be hitting the boards at the end of August.

This army nearly has me pitching a tent in my jeans. Bravo. I love the one servitor that looks like a Geth. Has a really suitably advanced look to it!

Avatar Of The Machine God Unleashed!

Well at long last the ulitmate weapon of the Zanatorians: The Avatar is completed and ready to be unleashed against the foes of the machine cult! He'll of course be representing a Lord Of Change for the Daemons and Nightbringer for Necrons. He's one of my best models to date, he's an excellent centre piece for the army.



Special thanks to a friend of mine who instructed and assisted me in the modeling of the green stuff on the model. I've learnt a lot of new skills when making this model another being painting black robes.

Now he is off to GW Lincoln tommorrow to be displayed in the cabinet with the rest of the generals for the summer army painting contest.

That's awesome

my god, i love the avatar, how did you get the cloak kinda thing? like, how did you do the conversion? and i think the next step is an awesome melee model, kinda like, general grievous, but with power blades whizzing everywhere and more armour, or more ninja like, all small and stealthy but devastating in cc

Edward089 wrote:my god, i love the avatar, how did you get the cloak kinda thing? like, how did you do the conversion? and i think the next step is an awesome melee model, kinda like, general grievous, but with power blades whizzing everywhere and more armour, or more ninja like, all small and stealthy but devastating in cc

The base is the Sauron Necromancer model and a bit of greenstuff, funny enough you sure mention that cause I'm thinking of converting a Inquisitor scale Eversor assassin to a 2nd avatar with wires and a massive blade with the same wings.

Very nice work sir...

very cool indeed, maybe make the wings more blade like? kind of continuing the theme of cc insanity

Squad Markings & Plaguebearers?

I need to come up with a conversion to represent Plaguebearers in my Daemon army as I need to include a objective grabbing unit, I had thought of using the Micro Art techpriests but it doesn't feel right. That and I like to be able to use the army in GWs store which I can't do with those models.

So if anyone could share ideas on robotic conversions what I could use for plaguebearers it be a great help?

Also I've found some excellent squad marking for my units that will be added when all the miniatures are painted, see the attachment.

These just got better, and better, and better!

As for ideas of robotic plaguebearers... maybe some nice converted Servitors will do the job??

Great work!

Cheers,

Jack.

I'd suggest mayber converting some of those plague skaven into maybe hunch backed servitors. You could cut out the face and give them eyes similar to that one red Hal type eye. If you had needle like injection tubes sticking out of their sleeves it could count as the toxins they inject in combat.

Excellent stuff. It's things like this that make the hobby so interesting

I'm with the others; cloaked, hunchback servitors with some kind of toxic goop, or rusty blades maybe?

I've also come up with an alternative model to represent Plaguebearers in my Daemon army as I need to include a objective grabbing unit, I had thought of using the Micro Art techpriests but it doesn't feel right in this army, since everything else is converted. Plus they'll be no problem using them in GW stores.

Basically the model will look similar to this guy but hooded. 1st off green stuff a torned and weathered cloak over a Dark Angel body with some sort of vent on the back and add long robed sleves. At the end of the right arm will be a blade painted to look like its drenched in poison and the left arm will have a robotic hand (either the fist from the old necron immortal or the open hand from the destroyer model)



Problem is coming up with a head for the model that can have a hood put over it, I'm thinking of using the bare space marine head with the breather.

I could come up with an alternative model that suits the rest of the army's appearance as someone did point out that robes on a robot are stupid (with the exception of the avatar) but I only have 2 weeks. So I've decided to look at this unit as more of cyborg warriors that have allied with the Zanatorians rather than being a robotic unit, what do you think?

Zanatorian Robowraiths?

First things first the name ‘Robowraith’ is only a nickname, they soon be given a proper title so feel free to suggest a name for them as I’ll be running a poll tomorrow on my Deviantart page to decide upon what to call them.



I’m very grateful to the person who came up with this conversion idea and helped me create the cloaks for them, sadly I couldn’t come up with a suitable model to represent the plaguebearers that would fit in with the rest of the army myself. So he assembled a mock up miniature and showed it to me, hes now working on his own mechanicus army.

The robots themselves are made from a very durable material which makes them hard to damage and if you look closely at the blade you can see the poison I painted on it using the purple wash. They’ll represent plaguebearers and flayed ones.

I’m now working on a ninth model for my 1750pt army a long with a ratling objective marker called sergeant Baggins lol.

With the final model completed I have put together a small reference sheet for my opponent to avoid any confusion about the models in general.

Those look great!
I love evil flying cloaks.

wow great work all around, and love the conversions. Look forward to seeing more.

Interesting mix of bitz. All the disparate ranges blend together well.

The RoboWraith is stellar! I like the way you've managed to get these conversions into a list as well.

Zanatorian Deathstalkers

Here the full squad of what are now known as the ‘Zanatorian Deathstalker robots’ and one of my best converted squads in the army.



So much so I’m considering making another Zanatorian army based on these darker looking units? But will see how the current army does first?

I think the reference sheet is a great idea, it will probably make more opponents be willing the play you since they don't have to keep asking 'what was this again?'

I like the concept of the deathstalker , however towards the ending of the torso where the wires start flowing out , i think it would look alot better if it doesnt come out so abruptly . ( looks like its just cleanly severed torso )

They could use a tad more color imo. Either on the face or on the blades.

Anung Un Rama wrote:They could use a tad more color imo. Either on the face or on the blades.

see on that I would have to disagree with you as I think for mechanicus they are the perfect color.

Anung Un Rama wrote:They could use a tad more color imo. Either on the face or on the blades.

If it were me, I would have glowed-up the blades myself (scorpion green ftw), so since plaguers don't have power weapons perhaps solid alloy is the way to go ... The hoses on the 'cron torso itself (the "guts" part) might be a place to put in a little muted color, though frankly they do look pretty spooky as is.

Overall though, amazing project Proiteus, I'm really impressed with everything you've got going on

- Salvage

Zanatorian Update



THEY WON BEST PRIZE AT THE SUMMER WAR TOURNAMENT AT WARHAMMER WORLD! AS WELL AS COMING 2ND PLACE JUST A FEW PTS BEHIND THE WINNER

It was a great day, allowing me to test the army's performance and see how people reacted to it. Everyone loved the army and best of all no one had a problem with the 'counts as' rule that the army is built around. Most importantly the judges for Open War which is the tournament this army was built for loved the models and couldn't wait to see them appear in their tournament.

The Games
The army's performance was excellent! I had made some changes to the original list. 1st off was I had downgraded the Lord Of Change to a winged daemon prince as all I was after was a nasty combat unit to defend my fragile units from close combat and the LOC wasn’t built for that, it also freed up an extra 110pts. The next change was shifting the icons from the horror squads because the conversions looked awful to the chariot and plaguebearers allowing me to have one icon on offense and have another zipping round the board at 12 inches a turn allowing me to spread out my forces better.

In the first round I wiped out a whole Eldar army with the exception of the Avatar which I avoided altogether. The Robot of the round had to be the flamers who annihilated 9 striking scorpions upon deep striking in the first turn and held up the champion and avatar for 2 turns with their inv saves.

Second round I was up against some orks which I thought was going to be interesting as I my army’s weapons will cut down orks easy but if they get into combat with me it could turn nasty. But once again the army shined losing only 1 squad of horrors to a 30 boy dog pile on an objective I was holding I managed to wipe out the entire ork army. Robots of the round this time was the Deathstalkers (Plaguebearers) who put up a fantastic fight against a large mob of storm boyz and Zagstruk for 3 turns before I threw in a prince to finish up.

Now in the 3rd round I fought against an army led by the raven guard special character and it quite scary to see 10 assault terminators fleeting across the board towards my lines. First off I threw my flamers at them and only killed 1 terminator the captain broke off and charged them while the terminators continued towards my lines. He was later cut down by a shot from the chariot when he failed his fleet roll and was left in the open. The rest of his army wasn’t the problem and the deathstalkers and avatar were already closing in on his objective, whilst the horrors were shooting down any marines that go close to mine.
I was eventually able to slow the terminators down with the Nurglings who kept them back for 2 turns and even killed 2 of them allowing me to bring my princes around to cut down their enemy squad.

A very successful first day for the Zanatorian Machine Cult!

Now all that is left is squad markings and 2 flamers 2 horrors and 1 plaguebearer to bolster up the ranks for 1750pt game plus the Ratling Frodo objective.

Objectives

Well the project is almost completed; hopefully next week I’ll upload a selection of photographs of the miniature in action on the tabletop.

But for now I have constructed a themed set of objective markers.



For Seize Ground missions you've got the two pieces of ancient tech and for Capture and Control you have the Machine Lord himself, overseeing his creations in action. I've also made a small tower from bits when I was bored one evening. (Can anyone name the RTS game it’s clearly inspired by?)

ow that you've seen the themed objective markers I thought I'd show you my Neutral objectives that are designed to look like something most races would fight over.



As you can see they're a lot of cool stuff, I'm tempted to create a whole set for the crystal objective and make some crystals on 25mm bases.

But my favourite has to be the Inquisitor.



I have a grot army with imperial wargear, sorcerers who reanimate their enemy’s corpses to serve them and a renegade machine cult. And yet I’ve never faced an Inquisitor on the board.

So I decided to create an Inquisitor objective marker for Capture and control missions for opponents with Imperial armies to use. He is also an excellent opposing objective for the Zanatorian Machine Lord objective.

Squad Markings & Codex Cover

All armies need squad markings in tournaments to allow my opponent to figure out which squad is which, like yesterday during a game where 4 monstrous creatures and a broodlord was closing in on some surving Iron Guard bots, nasty story.

Anyway some of you may remember my original post about squad markings: Squad Markings

Well here they are ancient autobot squad markings.



Also although this model was one of the first models to be created it was later edited to make look more suited for representing a Tzeentch Flamer as opposed to the Necron Immortal that it was going to represent originally.



There were 2 small changes to that were made to the model. The first alteration was the jumpback exhaust made from the Baneblade flamer tip as the Tzeentch Flamer has jumpback movement, this inspired the 2nd change which was replacing the small Epic Knight feet with Sentinel toes since it would require a large feet to make a stable landing.

You can see here for original for comparison: Original Model
Also I decided to call them Flamers because that’s what they are.


Also with the army nearly completed at 1750pts and with 2 weeks to go before the Open War tournament aka judgement day, I'm getting in as much practice as possible for it. I've also had someone create a codex cover for them as well. Check it out...



Created by Tim Divar, some of you may have seen his works in the Firebase Warseer mag.

The next and final post will be a report on how the army preformed at Open War on the 31st october. Hope it's good news.

The objective markers are excellent!

They are a source of inspiration and kick in the backside for me to get to work and build some for myself to battle for instead of the usual empty bases.

Proiteus, thsi army has truly come together in an amazing way. Awe inspiring, so full of style and completely original. I dont know if we would ever get to play, with the you know, atlantic ocean in the way, but I would absolutely LOVE to play this army with my DOOM nids. Good luck with the final touches!

Love the Zanatorian Deathstalkers.
What did you use for the swords and the heads?

Everything is looking pretty sexy.