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Hi all,

I've been quietly watching everyones efforts here for a little while now and jave been particularly drawn to Migsula et als. =I=munda work (not to mention the Broodheim stuff - all very inspiring!).

I toyed with the idea of doing a little =I=munda stuff myself but didn't really commit to anything and instead got caught up recently in all thngs Ad Mech, particularly the Kaban Project story in the Horus Heresy Collected Visions book (also fetauring in Mechanicus now). With a non-Imperial competition running over at The Great Crusade, I decided to have a go at Remiare, a tech priest assassin mentioned in the Kaban Project story.

Anyway, having posted her progress at Warseer, Mr Malika suggested that the work I was doing on her leant itself to the whole =I=munda ethic, and that I should consider pitching a tent over here and showing her off to you guys. Having already decided to expand my Ad Mech "force" beyond Remiare, but with no intention of doing an army of the blighters (I never get to play these days anyway, so its all about the modelling/painting for me), I thought why not?

So, having armed myself with a blog, I guess I should try and work out what I want to do with it...

I love the whole =I=munda idea, and was a big fan of Necromunda back in the day. I've always been someting of a fluff and background addict for 40k, and played some Inquisitor in my time, and have always enjoyed the specialist niche games more than the straight up battle games. Faceless, nameless hordes of sword and las fodder aren't my cup of tea I guess.

So with that in mind, =I=munda is clearly the right path for me. Though perhaps without going to heavy on the =I=. The best part of Inquisitor for me was coming up with npcs, organisations and suchlike to fill the 40k-verse with. Nando Goltz, purveyor of firearms on the black market with his fearsome guard-xenos Karr, Kirana Ti, Imperial Navy mechanic runaway, accompanied by her faithful ogryn-servitor V'runn, and Goitre Thraxx, pyromaniac heavy-flamer toting mutie scum. The lowlifes and characters that populated whatever world I was developing.

So thats what I'll try and keep in mind for this blog. I'm not too interested in "gangs" or Inquisitorial bands, more the other groups and individuals that might crop up on any given hiveworld.

The exception to this plan is also the starting point of my blog. My Ad Mech. I didn't start these with the intent to do a cioherent group as such, just to explore a few modelling ideas. Since considering the +i+munda theme, I've decided to loosely aim for a group dynamic with the models I have in mind. In particular, I'm planning Remiare (currently being painted), two Kaban-esque robots with a tech priest handler (I'd really like to get hold of the Ad Mech squat mini for this...) plus perhaps 5-6 skitarri to bulk the "gang" out.

On that note, here is Remiare (or at least remiare as she was before I put a few finishing touches to her and started painting her...):





I've also got the first few bits for my robots (Khador Battlegroup!), and pretty much everything I need for my skitarri in the bits box, so hopefully you'll see some wips for those soon.

Getting back to the =I=munda theme, I may look to throw together a band representing the afore-mentioned Nando Goltz, black market gun smuggler, and his various empoyees/lackies. Should make for an interesting and different modelling project I think...

Hopefully I'll drag one or two of you along for the ride.

TTFN,

Anodyr

Very cool that you made it over here! Perhaps you could start a Kaban Project Adeptus Mechanicus "gang", a group sent out by the leaders of the Kaban Project to carry out their dirty job, sort of a Kaban Project kill team? Or perhaps something less "military" as in some tech adept (diplomat?) with a bunch of bodyguards in the form of these robots and assassin.

Did you check out Migsula's stuff by the way?

Cheers Malika. Yeah I've been watching Migsula's logs for a while now, loads of great stuff there.

A Kaban Project Kill Team is probably the best way to look at this - the robots will be mini-Kabans rather than the big K himself, but the overall look of the "gang" should work I think. I can see it being quite a hard-hitting group in gameterms, particularly in ranged combat - the robots will have twin-linked heavy weapons, the skitarri should have hellguns and special weapons, and then theres Remiare herself to get stuck in at close-quarters.

Well, I think you should add lots of servo skulls in the mix, some might count as actual members while the others are just there for scenery. I think that would be really cool on the robots, so have a bunch of Servo Skulls flying around them to monitor them or something along those lines.

Just because these Adeptus Mechanicus Adepts create an AI doesn't mean they fully trust them, so Servo Skulls would fly around to monitor their status and such.

In the game you might even make these robots "unstable", as in that they have a will of their own and do not like to be commanded a lot, some rules which are kind of similar to the Chaos Dreadnought in the 3rd edition Chaos Codex (don't know if they still have those rules nowadays).

you should look in to the space marine servitor rules for that

I like the idea of robots that are "unstable" - I remember the dread rules you mentioned. But for these guys I just see them as normal robots in the style of Kaban rather than representations of Kaban itself.

But I do like the servo skulls idea - I'll definitely have to track a few of those down as they would certainly make characterful additions to the force.

got the first few layers of paint on her now - hopefully I'll get a pic up later today if the daylight quality picks up a bit.

I like the idea of robots that are "unstable" - I remember the dread rules you mentioned. But for these guys I just see them as normal robots in the style of Kaban rather than representations of Kaban itself.

How would that change the situation? Are they normal robots in the sense of the Legio Cybernetica which are basically remote controlled robots or are they actual AI who operate fully independently?

But I do like the servo skulls idea - I'll definitely have to track a few of those down as they would certainly make characterful additions to the force.

Plastic skulls, either from a GW skeleton kit or maybe trying to get separate skulls (there have to be other companies who offer skull models) and then add the upgrades with greenstuff and whatever else you can get your hands on.

Yeah, a straightforward Legio Cybernetica robot maniple. Though to be fair, I don't get to play anyway, so it wouldn't really matter too much rules-wise, I could just go with whatevre was mostfun/appropriate for the fluff.

And I was just thinking about converting up some cyber skulls funnilly enough - I've got a few plastic tomb king skulls lying around in my bits box...

As promised, some pip's:

Looking good so far. You might want to get some black/white patterning on the cloth as well, skull and cog symbol if you can, or some other mechanicus stuff.

Right now, I think she´s nicely painted, but she´s bordering on chaos territory, and I think you need something to make her properly Mechanicus.

On looking some more at the picture, I think it may be the dreadlocks/mechadentrites/hair. It looks pretty damn good, but at the same time, it´s quite chaos´y...

No worries though, if I knew she was mechanicus (and I do), there´d be no doubt about it. Good painting.

If I remember correctly the Kaban Project were sided with Horus, so a bit of a Chaos vibe might not be such a bad thing. I'm not so sure about the purple skin, try to pale it up a bit, so more the idea of white skin which almost looks blue/purple instead of the dominantly purple skin.

Oooh, me likey!

Great looking fig. I love the way that "hair" mechadendrite looks. Very effective conversion.

For some reason (dark pics?) I can't make out/understand the lower part of the figure. Is she flying/hovering? Or standing on something? Anyway, despite that little confusion I have, great conversion!

Thanks for the comments chaps.

Malika is right about the Kaban Project being on Horus' side, and Remiare is also one of the converts to the Warmasters cause, ultimately siding with the Dark Adeptus. The mecha dendrites are one of her features as described in the story and the John Blanche artwork, although the hooks were my own addition to try and reinforce her lethality in hand-to-hand. In theory she should have two pistols too, but they looked too bulky when I was assembling her and really wrecked the svelte and sinister look.

None of the painting is complete yet - the skin will be gighlighted further to achieve the pale/dead skin with a purpley shadow look, rather than purple skin. I want the flesh to look redundant and dead without looking decayed. The robes are only basecoated at the moment - I inted to have some freehand designs on there that will make her udoubtedly Ad Mech.
Nothings finished

Col Hammer - basically her feet are supposed to be fused together and augmented with anti-grav units so she flies everywhere (shes basically a skimmer). It has come off looking a little bit like a Back to the Future hoverboard effect, but overall I'm ok with it.

Eeeeexcellent, can´t wait to see what you make of the freehand work anodyr.

I totally got the "flying because I can" vibe off her, haven´t read this book you mentioned, but I get a very sinister vibe here, so I think you´re doing great.

Anodyr wrote:Col Hammer - basically her feet are supposed to be fused together and augmented with anti-grav units so she flies everywhere (shes basically a skimmer). It has come off looking a little bit like a Back to the Future hoverboard effect, but overall I'm ok with it.

Hmm, you might want to put something underneath her "board" (I think a round one based on a Tau drone might be cooler though, heavily modified of course!), like those exhaust things from the Space Marine backpack (not the whole ball, just the "ribbed" parts) to make the thing look a bit more convincing.

Actually there are two space marine exhausts under there, but sadly the plasticard rims have pretty much covered them when you look from the side... :(

I'm glad the flying and sinister vibes are coming across. I imagine her gliding slowly, silently, looking for her targets before exploding into a whirlwind of motion as she strikes.

You might want to give her hoover-board a different colour. Yes, I know she is fused together with that thing, but you can't really see that she is fused together with a hoover-board, meaning that you either have to make it look as if she is standing on that thing by painting it as such or converting it visibly, right now it looks more as if we've got the figure painted all in that way because...well...yah...uhm... Get my drift?

Not meant to offend, just offer some critique.

No offense taken. I'll take another look at it and see what I can do.

Great start!! Going to enjoy following this

Very nice,

i just finished painting a squad of sisters repentia, lovely models to work with...

will keep watching with interest

Anodyr wrote:Col Hammer - basically her feet are supposed to be fused together and augmented with anti-grav units so she flies everywhere (shes basically a skimmer). It has come off looking a little bit like a Back to the Future hoverboard effect, but overall I'm ok with it.

Ok, now it makes sense.

I actually got the hovering/flying idea, but since I wasn't sure from the darkish pictures, I started doubting if that was your intention. Thanks for clearing that up!

Thanks for the comments everyone.

Small update of the wip/pip with some slightly different angles:







I've made a few modifications since you last saw her - I've greenstuffed a metal spar between her shins to try and get the impression across that her feet are joined together, and I've added a bunch of power cables running from the hole I'd drilled in her forearm to her powersword. I used picture hanging wire for this, which was a lot easier to position than the guitar wire and also has a nice cable bundle appearance. Couple of greenstuff bindings were added to the cables et voila!

On the more generic =I=munda front, got an ebay win through the post today and paid for another - 5 of the old Confrontation hive ganger minis (2 "hunters", 3 (admittedly identical) brats). I love the Confrontation minis, much more fitting for the 40K verse imo than the cartoony Necromunda releases (though they weren't all bad...) and these guys will either become a small underhive gang, or "associates" of my Black Market gun dealer.

On a related note, I discovered the joys of using Fairy Power Spray as a paint stripper today! All UK members take note - this stuff is absolutely brilliant!

While I'll admit that the Confrontation minis definitely rock, you think they're that much better than the Necro minis? The Goliaths certainly - but the Eschers are pure win. And geez, compared to 40k IG, Necro minis look positively realistic.

I did say they weren't all bad - like you said the Goliaths were bad (the scavvies were worse), but it wasn't just about the models - it was more the concepts. Musclebound meatheads, punky girls, sneaks in trenchcoats... there was just no room for individuality within a gang, and each gang was so strongly themed that any attempt to alter a gangs image meant crossing into another gangs territory. With Confrontation you had the gangs premise (e.g. techheads, spoilt and cruel uphivers, ragged scavvies...) but beyond the very limited range of models there was very little set in stone as to what your gang should look like. I guess I found the Necromunda House setup more limitting. A combination of the two games would probably suit me more, where Van Saar would be a particularly characterful example of a tech gang, but other techgangs might vary considerably (bring on the Ad Mech explorator force!).

My favourite gang for necromunda were the borg-esque Van Saars that were featured in White Dwarfs revisit to Necromunda. I think that was the first and best example of someone thinking outside the box with their gang design.

Point very well taken - most of the Necro gangs didn't leave much room for deviation from the theme of that gang, although that's what I really liked about the Bounty Hunters and Scum - good generic models. A pity GW doesn't really offer them anymore.

Anodyr wrote:I did say they weren't all bad - like you said the Goliaths were bad (the scavvies were worse), but it wasn't just about the models - it was more the concepts. Musclebound meatheads, punky girls, sneaks in trenchcoats... there was just no room for individuality within a gang, and each gang was so strongly themed that any attempt to alter a gangs image meant crossing into another gangs territory. With Confrontation you had the gangs premise (e.g. techheads, spoilt and cruel uphivers, ragged scavvies...) but beyond the very limited range of models there was very little set in stone as to what your gang should look like. I guess I found the Necromunda House setup more limitting. A combination of the two games would probably suit me more, where Van Saar would be a particularly characterful example of a tech gang, but other techgangs might vary considerably (bring on the Ad Mech explorator force!).

My favourite gang for necromunda were the borg-esque Van Saars that were featured in White Dwarfs revisit to Necromunda. I think that was the first and best example of someone thinking outside the box with their gang design.

I guess it was a simple attempt to add some cyberpunk/post apocalyptic/Mad Max elements into GW so they could appeal to that audience. I think =I=munda is great partly because it tries to achieve the whole skirmish game from a 40k point of view, not to attract that cyberpunk audience.

Fair point.

To be honest, it didnt bother me back when it came out - I played Escher against my friends Goliaths and we had a great time. It's only as the years have gone by and I've looked for more from the background that its begun to bother me.

Well, Remiare is pretty much done. Shes destined for a forum comp and with various pre-xmas chores staring at me, I've done as much as I can expect to do before the comp deadline arrives. Hopefully I'll get round to doing a little more work on the fine details, freehand and base once xmas is over. Remiare turned out to be a fairly extensive conversion in the end, with mechadendrites, cables, bionics, a weapon swap, greenstuff and pinning all going into the mix, and I'm feeling really happy with how she turned out. Also had a go at some freehand for her skirty bits, which could be better, but for a first try I'm fairly happy. I'm also happy with the pose (aside from the fact that she exhibits a slight lean to one side...) and I see her gliding slowly forward, blade extended, head turning from side to side as she hunts her prey, before locating her target and expoding into a whirling dervish of violence.

Anyway, I present Remiare, Tech Priest Assassin of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

+++ He leapt from the driver's seat and dropped to a crouch as he saw the red blur flicker through the clouds above him. He squinted through the particulate air and saw a lthe figure in red zip towards the transporter, a long energy blade held extended before it. though he had never seen such a being before, he knew enough to recognise that his attacker was a tech-priest assassin. +++

- The Kaban Project, Graham McNeill













Comments and crit more than welcome. Time to dig out the warjacks methinks...

-Anodyr

Interesting indeed...