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The Dark Skitarii are representing just normal imperial guardsmen, I'm thinking of maybe just using Cadians with some pig iron heads on them, and I'm going to use some of the Iron Brotherhood, but I really don't want to buy 400$ worth of these things for such an unimportant unit.

I really am looking to try and build a very mechanical feel to all the troops too.

So dakka, any ideas?

Dont do Cadians with Pig Iron heads. No offense, but those are probably the most boring armies at the moment. Everybody has a Cadian army with Pig iron heads.

How are your greenstuff skills?

If you want to go for robed skitarri you might want to combine Cadian torsos with high elf legs, or perhaps use the bodies of the brettonian men at arms. Add a lot of bionics and some mutations and spikes here and there.

You could also go for a more savage look, I remember seeing some Skitarii artwork for Inquisitor which portrayed them more feral looking, so what about using Marauder models but adding a lot of bionics to them?

Dark Skitarii definitely need to be brutal looking and decadent at the same time. If I was making a Dark Mechanicus force I'd maybe try like has been done in the past using cadian models with green stuff robe/hoods. Then also make bionic melee and ranged weapons along with guitar/bass strings if you want a good material for wires coming out of bodies. The skies the limit really for conversions with a force like this as they can have alot of non standardized "Personal Upgrades" installed and make a for a striking look. So you can always mix in catachan, marauder and even other games parts to the mix.

Personally I think a squad of iron brotherhood would make a great veterans squad or stormtroopers. As they definitely fit the look of elite troops. As a nice addition to a mechanicus force. So in the end whatever you do keep it varied, brutal and mystical. Dark mechanicus in history have a lack of standard resources and precision the Adeptus have I think. So they'll constantly be experimenting, tinkering and self administering upgrades you likely wouldn't see in the imperium. All this will be tempered with a dark, corrupted, methodical, relentless nature. If I wasn't in the midst of making another style of guard army up I'd definitely be making a mechanicus army.

I think the Pig iron heads are fine. The style you've chosen aren't the ones that you regularly see, plus they look very skitari. Being obsessed with machinery I can't image bare heads. With any kind of mechanicus you really need to include cloaks, just keep in mind they fill a priest-ish role. Also a must have for Dark mech is warping between organic and mechanical as thats the sort of experiments they do.

I think you'll probably want to choose a different base than cadians as there are some robed bodies that would look cool. Brettonian men at arms with pig iron heads, lasguns and Greenstuff hoods would look cool. Try to make the models all very different as they won't have a set of standard equipment

If you use bodies without much clothing make sure that you show that much of their body is machine.

P.s. Try not to use spikes, there are much more disturbing ways to make them look chaosy. They spend their whole lives on deamon worlds binding deamons into robots, so I am sure they are pretty warped.

Anyway I hope you do continue this as it could end up looking very good. I just hope you convert up some deamonic machines as sentinels, they always look good.

On the daemonic sentinel idea. I always thought the witch hunters penitent engine is just asking to be made into a dark mechanicus walker. Like having a rogue psyker/daemonhost bonded into the machine. many possibilities.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat1300168&prodId=prod1090153

Use zombie and servitor and flagellant heads and replace bionics all over the minis. Like borg assimilated imperial guard.