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They are legal in codex, SW and BA, just not DA or BT


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WTF, I cant see my own post(s)?!?! But I know its there, im the last respondent!

Considering your skills...

Well, for the sternguard I need 3 guys with combi-meltas, two heavy flamers and a sergeant (decided to use the fancy guy as a chapter champion or standard bearer) with a combi-weapon (flamer or melta) and a power weapon of some sort. I have all the bits needed, including extra meltas and heavy flamers.

Of course there's the vanguard with the mantis-like arms too... though it's going to take some fiddling with the design yet to get it right.

The only "standard greens" I've got in the que are a squad of dev's and some veterans for my command squad. I've got the 4 old ML's for the dev squad, but nothing else lined up.

Consider it all fair game.

Yeah, it's legal. Ven. dread army list entry states that you can take an autocannon for the multi-melta arm and replace the dread cc arm with an autocannon.

Ok, I've got some cool ideas in my head. I go on vacation on Wed, but once I get back, Ill let ya know and we can get crackin!

That Autocannon dread looks hot man, I may have to bite ther bullet and build one myself

Wow... I didn't see any of the follow-up posts until just now... they all got lost in the page roll-over.

@Generalstoner: Yeah, the double autocannon version really does look like a rifleman, good call.

@Gamble: I use valejo "pale wash". Here's a shot from my gallery, it's a photo of one of my son's terminators that has the pale wash on larger white areas... I think it worked quite well. And yes, the pale wash works better on larger surface areas.


And as several people have already mentioned, double autocannons are indeed legal in the vanilla marine dex.

Here's a quick shot of the final pose (keeping in mind that I can trade out the arms as needed). I'll probably put a heavy flamer under the assault drill eventually (will just count it as CCW, but love the look of the drill). There will be more stuff added to the dread, this is just the basic build. I like poses that show motion, and this dread will have it before it's all over. You guys know by now that I just can't stand to field a "stock" model if there's any possibility of fiddling with it...



The leg orientation to the body in this shot is actually what I was aiming for in the beginning... just had to wait until I was ready to glue it together.

Wow, that's really neat. Are you going to use the same grass in this dread as you used in the snipers? I think it would look pretty cool next to the arm

Yep, the base will be consistent with the tranquility sniper bases... just added the big rocks for some interest on the big base. Should be a lot of fun to do and a good compliment to the sternguard unit. Think I'll finish up painting the last two sternguard before I tackle this puppy... going to be a lot of fun to do, especially if I do a good job on the extras.

Vitruvian XVII wrote:Why are the autocannons not legal, i'm pretty sure they're bang on. Look awesome too!

The autocannons are legal, if you have two of the twin-linked autocannons, the dreadnought is called a Rifleman Dreadnought.

Im really getting to like the mantis warriors, I like the venerable dreadnaught.

Like the pose alot. the gun forward and weight on the back leg gives the feeling that it is setting up a shot. like spear fighters do in a line formation

You said you took the AC of the Aegis defense Line set. so you have any spares. I'd like to do something simular

Unfortunately you only get one pair of guns in the aegis set, and I was hoping to keep the other gun so I could do the double armed auto-cannon thing if I wanted to.... (as posted in the earlier shots). If it looks like I'll never use it that way, I'd be happy to share the other gun... but at the moment I think I'm going to hang on to it.

your mantis warriors kick ass. i love the snipers and the vanguard. was the venerable dread hard to put together or does the AC from the aegis set fit together easily?

Thanks Dragoons!

To make the AC fit right against the body takes a bit of work, especially if you add magnets into the mix. If you were just going to pin them in place & glue them it would be no big deal, but if you magnetize them like I did, you need to route out depressions to hold the magnets so everything lines up appropriately. I just finished realigning both ACs and now the "rifleman" variation looks sweet!

Awesome, i'd love to see some pics of where the magnets are placed. and the finished painted dread.... and the rest of the army... no pressure lol

Sure Dragoons, here's a few pics & my notes on the process.


When making something an linear as the "Rifleman" variation it's very important to try and keep things as parallel and perpendicular (relatively speaking) as possible. Under normal circumstances, you don't have to worry about this as the pegs and recesses in a normal dreadnought and weapons take care of this for you. If you're going to go "off the reservation" however, these simple tasks can present considerable challenges. I don't offer this as a tutorial for reasons that will soon become apparent, but perhaps you can learn from my mistakes. While my first build looked good from certain angles, it really had some glaring issues with gun alignment, so I decided to attack it again.

I used the largest magnets I had (1/4" I think) so I wouldn't have issues with the arms sliding to their natural balance point. On the left arm, I started by simply gluing a magnet onto the body at weapon mount.


I then had to recess the opposing weapon magnet into the body of the weapon. I have a roto-tool that allows me to do this fairly easily, but it still takes a bit of careful work to enlarge and deepen the recess for the magnet.


On the right side (from the dreadnought's perspective), I got smart and decided to sink the magnet near flush with the weapon mount as there is a lot of material to work with here (resin model).


The original magnet on the gun was a fairly simple install with just a little of the gun's structure removed to accommodate the magnet & a little green stuff to bolster the middle, however I'd mounted at an angle, and my mounting of the body magnet was also at a considerable angle (I know it doesn't look like it in the photo above, but every degree off gets magnified by those long guns) so I had to remove the old magnet and rout out enough material to compensate for the angle of the body magnet. By the time all was said and done, the weapon magnet was recessed so much that I actually had to add a second magnet to the weapon to get the spacing right. Not my brightest moment... If you're curious as to the black paint on the magnets, I found that they reflected light so brightly that it fooled me into thinking they were more prominent that they actually were, which was complicating the whole process.


Here's the top view of the finished product... pretty close. the right gun is kicked out a little bit on top but you don't notice it under normal circumstances. The paint job should "confuse" the visual picture enough that minor issues like this effectively disappear.


And here... is the money shot. Too bad no one will ever see it from this angle, think it shows the pose and rifleman configuration off to it's greatest advantage. I think the right arm is slightly lower than the left... I suppose if I'd actually PLAN things out rather than just diving into them I'd have less alignment issues... but it's my nature... What can you do? *shrug*

That dread is awesome... man thats alot of autocannons to deal with keep it up man great thread.

It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to look cool, and i have to say that you've achieved that goal. Keep going, your mantis warriors look awesome!

First installment of the fluff for my MoTF...


Davion Firth – Master of the Forge, Mantis Warriors

Davion Firth was, by anyone’s estimation… a giant. Not the 40’ high monstrosity of legend, or a misshapen, mindless hulk like the ogryn used by the Imperial Guard. Firth was a perfectly formed human being…. Just one that stood near 8’ tall, with breadth and girth to match. While this may sound unusual, in truth it was not all that surprising. Firth came from a small human colony on a remote planet in the Rassnar sector. Due to a combination of low gravity, unusual solar radiation and certain nutrients in the soil… each successive generation of colonists grew slightly larger than the last. While the colonists stopped “enlarging” many generations ago, they now stand a proportionate 2’ taller than a normal human.

While this would seem like a perfect fit for space marine recruiting, it is the low gravity of the planet that makes giantism viable for the colonists. Once taken off-world, they weaken quickly, and if pressed physically… have a tendency to die of heart failure. About once a generation however, a colonist is born which such toughness and resilience that they can function in full gravity. Their heroic feats amongst their own people become legendary, and a call is sent out to the Mantis Warriors that a new space marine has been found. Davion Firth, was such a man.

While Firth was not the first colonist to attempt to join the Mantis Warriors, he was the first to survive the trials of initiation and surgical alterations to become an actual marine. His custom made space marine armor included special panels which provided doses of radiation similar to that of his home world as well as special dietary supplements also from his home world. These kept his body from weakening and deteriorating in full gravity. His natural size, augmented and reinforced by surgery and power armor made him a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield. It was assumed that one day Firth would join the Vanguard, as he was a monster in close combat. His natural size and strength augmented by his armor, extra glands, etc… set him apart even amongst The Emperor’s Finest.

It became quite clear however that Firth had other talents besides slaying the foes of the Imperium. His armor, unusual in its size and function proved to be quite a fiddly bit, and had more performance issues than the standard armor configuration. Weather it was simple self-preservation or true interest in mechanics, Firth was often seen making field repairs to his own armor, tweaking it, adjusting it, making it more adaptable and versatile. While no one thought twice about the field repairs, when firth started altering the armor from its original configuration to something new, it started to raise eyebrows, and amongst certain members of the Adeptus Mechanicus were rumblings of heresy.

The Mantis Warrior hierarchy contemplated and debated, along with input from Firth’s commanders, the company chaplains and tech marines. Finally a compromise was reached. While there was no indication that Firth’s actions had heretical intent, they were on the surface… unacceptable. Therefore, in order to ensure that his natural tendencies did not develop into heresy, Firth would be trained as a full Tech Marine… with all the attendant indoctrination and instruction that goes with it. In that way, his skills and abilities are not lost to the chapter… and the discipline and methods he learns will keep him from straying off the “approved” path.

hey Git, I like the fluff but you may have to change your numbers. Space Marines are already more then 8' tall. If you want your guy to be a giant in space marine terms he needs to be a lot larger then that. I am trying to remember how tall they are already, I want to say its like 3 meters tall or something. In a lot of the stories normal humans only come up to their chests. Wouldn't 3 meters almost be 10' tall?

Any ways, i dont want to nitpick I just thought I'd throw in my two cents.

By the way I just finished up that deathwatch book. It's an alright book, I think the Mantis Warrior side of the story was the best part. You should check it out. It's a quick read only like 200 pages.

Good point... I can amend the fluff accordingly... but space marines don't start their lives that tall... they get that way through augmentation. I figure if he started the process a good 2 feet taller the average, after augmentation he'd probably be 2-3' taller than a normal marine. Should have made that more clear in the story... thanks for pointing it out.

Does kind of make the "true scale" point though doesn't it. Seeing appropriately sized space marines on the table towering over their opposition would really be an impressive site, and would be a psychological boost when spending lots of points for them (even if you didn't perform any differently than normal). Just too much work to do the conversions... though I hold Sons of Orar in highest regard for the work he's done.


Still haven't gotten that book, will have to order it online as the FLGS doesn't carry black library as a matter of course. It's been mentioned that Goto isn't the best author, but I'll reserve my judgement until I read his tale. :-)

A very nice thread, i finally made it to page 17 and it was worth it, looking forward to seeing more of the minis painted, especially the mantis chainsword dude keep up the good work

@Young_Logan: Thanks! Nice to see the thread is still worth muddling through. There will be plenty more painted mini's... I just needed a bit of a break from painting. I'm not "professional" enough to be able to crank these out day after day. Need just a little bit of inspiration to keep me going, which occasionally requires that I set things aside and do something else (fishing with the kids, spending a day with the smoker making brisket and ribs), you know... normal people stuff. Think I've re-charged my batteries enough over the last few days to dive back into my painting... so I hope to have something fun to show over the next few days.

I know the feeling, even though it is my favorite part of the hobby

"normal people stuff"? HERESY!!!

on the more serious side, though, fluff sounds good. can't wait to see the MoTF. What "mantis-warrior-y" changes can we expect to see

I'll be honest... there's nothing much "preying mantis-like" in my current ideas for the MoTF. I know that'll disappoint a lot of you who've been looking forward to some kind of fantastical mechanized insect to appear, but at least for this character, I have something else in mind. I think I have a good story, plausible background, and a very unique fig and build in mind that to my knowledge no one else has done before (at least I can't find examples in the dakka archives). As such, I'm going to keep the details to myself at least until the build is underway. There will probably be one more piece of fluff, then I'll hold off until I'm ready to begin construction. I have no idea if I can pull the build off or not... so I hope I'm not building up expectations for a big let-down later, but I will do my level best and believe the MoTF will be a very fluffy and characterful addition to the chapter... if not a particularly insectoid one. You guys will just have to trust me on this one.

You know, having modified a servo harness for a Big Mek, I think a techmarine would be a *perfect* opportunity for something more preying mantis like.

I don't disagree... and I will have at least one other techmarine in the chapter that will see the field frequently... so as my modeling skills improve... who knows what the future may hold? ;-)

Finally, a little bit of progress. Got up early this morning and got the primary armor color down on one of the sternguard (on the right). Takes 2-3 dilute coats to get to this point... about 35 min of painting time I guess. Have it next to WM360's which has the base & wash but not the color-up yet for comparison. Once again, I haven't added any of the spikey bitz yet, they'll come later after the blending and camo are done.



For some reason this shot reminds me of the opening artwork for the old detective series "Charlie's Angels". All I need is Kate in the back & we'd be all set. I had the *worst* crush on Jacqueline Smith... oy!