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Hello all,

You may be familiar with my quest to forge a new narrative in the 40k universe so far. Until recently I have been working on an alternate future Thousand Sons legion who never turned to Chaos, the blog of which can be found here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/413174.page

Needing a change from painting red I have finally started working on my Mechanicus army which is currently under the command of the Thousand Sons. This project has been building up steadily since last year and I have finally made enough progress for it to warrant its own blog.

So far the story building in my mind is that the Thousand Sons Legion (Now staunch followers of the Imperium) have allied themselves with several planets of the Adeptus Mechanicus either through winning their favour or forcing them to contribute troops to their many campaigns across the stars.

First up is my latest painted model, the Castellax. I was going to convert some parts of it but honestly the model is just too nice to chop up!

You will notice the blue and gold paintwork which I chose not just because I didn't want another red army but also because it is very similar to that of the current Thousand Sons thus in-keeping with the theme while also standing out in the crowd.



I should really show off some other angles as there are a few nice details that are hidden. I shall leave that until I decide on what I want their insignia to look like though.

Next up are some Skitarii of my own creation, the Capellan's. You may recognize the Anvil Industry robots which I just had to buy as they fitted perfectly into my army.



For some additional firepower, the Mechanicus utilize automated weapon batteries. I bought these guys of a KS a while back but unfortunately they don't seem to be available any more. What do you think of the paint style of these models? It has changed from that of the Castellax and I am not sure which I prefer...



Now for some real conversions. I wanted to make a scout unit so decided on one based off this image



Here are the results!







While I am pretty pleased with these models, I don't think they are quite finished, any input would be most appreciated.

Lastly here is my current project, a 15mm Dreamforge Leviathan which should fit right in with the army.





Well, I hope you all like what you see, I should be updating again fairly soon as I have a little break from university and plenty of free time to be painting away.

Praise the Omnissiah!

Cain

Here is a quick update on the knight so far. I have added some more layers of colour and plenty of battle damage.

I think it looks very bland so far though. While the colour scheme works on smaller models, something of this size needs a little more. I am thinking about adding some freehand symbols and maybe a different coloured shoulder pad to make it more interesting.



Oh and fear not, this guy is going to have a far more interesting pose once I am finished painting it!

Edit: I just started adding some yellow and it just doubled in awesomeness!

Yes need some color to break that blue. Glyphs, scrollwork, protecting runes, maybe some kind of tutelaries flying over him...

Ooh tutelaries are a good idea, I might just do that!

The knight is finished!

I added a bunch of yellow, created a bit of iconography out of plasticard and added a glowing rune on the shoulder. Much more happy with it now.

The great thing is that the model is still super poseable due to the fact that only one leg is glued down but I'm pretty content with his running and shooting pose.











Well, that's all for now. Next up I think I may tackle a Vorax robot as I have a few hidden away in a drawer.

Cain

Say hello to Vorax #1! Pretty pleased with the results though I think there is too much silver paint going on at the moment. I may try a slightly different scheme with the next one and see how it compares.



I have also started on a Thallax, very fun little thing to paint.



Hope you like 'em!

Cain

Long time no update but I have finally finished the rest of the Thallax!





For the most part during this summer however I have been working on some interesting conversions...

The as of yet unnamed Dreamforge-Anvil Industries drone.



A Taser armed robot for dealing with pesky xenos





And finally some chunky metal robots I picked of a small little kickstarter a while ago. They remind me of the RT dreadnoughts from so many years ago.




Well, that should do me for today. Hope everyone is having a good summer!

Well hello again! University is keeping me pretty busy as are my Thousand Sons who I have been working on for a while (gotta get them all painted in order to justify the new HH board game). Despite this however I have thrown together a bunch more conversions to my rapidly growing Mechanicus force. Behold the army of drones!

First off some old Sedition Wars models, forgot I even had them in my bits box...



I adore these little things. Got the idea to use tank hatches from a fellow Dakkite I believe (the picture that inspired me is lost in time)





Next are some teensy little drones I got with the Dreadnought-type bots in the last post



And lastly we have the big boss drone. I have yet to find a suitable base for him though as it is so freaking huge! While it may look a little messy at the moment I think that a dash of paint will unify all the random bits I found much better.





And of course I need a picture of the whole team! That Pavoni cultist chilling at the back just goes to show how big daddy drone is,,



I may try and get some painting done next but I have a couple of fancy conferences coming up so I may be knee deep in research for the next few weeks. Fortunately writing a paper on pirates is actually super fun!

Until we meet again,

Cain

This is awesome, can't wait to see more!

I'm back!

First off, apologies for my long absence, I have been travelling around parts of Asia and Canada for the last few months so have been pretty busy for a while now. However, I am free for the next few months so hope to get some painting done before I go off on another adventure.

This morning two boxes of Skitarii arrived on my doorstep (because I totally need more miniatures..) and I have been busy building them and also making full use of the many spare bits that the sprue contains.

First of is a pic of the base model, doesn't need any converting as it is already perfect!



Next is a Dreamforge trooper with a head and weapon swap. I love these models and have been waiting to find the perfect bits to fit them into my mechanicus army for ages now. Thoughts?



And here is a pic of the original for those of you who have not seen the model, I highly recommend them, best infantry kit I have ever bought, hence why I bought 5 of them..



This blog also desperately needed an infusion of colour so I quickly whipped up a servitor and finished off the dreadnought bot. Hope you like them!



This fella is suffering from the same blandness as the knight so I may add some yellow patches at some point.



With all the bits in the Skitarii set I now have enough bits to make another 50 models so I am going to be busy scraping mold lines for a while but I will probably post a full army pic once they are done. I also have some drone heads in the mail to make more of the chunky Dreamforge troopers. This army just tripled in size which is rather scary!

Sorry again for the lack of updates, I plan on posting more regularly now so stay tuned.

Cain

Some fantastic conversion work there!

I've gotten the dreamforge models as well and have used the skitarii vanguard heads with them. I think those items mesh well together. However, I'm not sure if the skitarii arms go well with the body. It comes off a little weird that the arms have some robes and clothes instead of the more polished armor look.

Would love to see how a painted one turns out.

Thanks! Nice to see that I was not the only one to mix up those two kits, they were made for each other. And yeah the robed arms are a bit of a problem. My plan is either to paint some of the torso as if it were cloth or attempt to sculpt some robes on them.

Here's the (very blurry) army shot as promised!

I somehow manages to create 5 units of Skitarii out of two boxes and the dreamforge troopers. Also pictured that I haven't shown yet is the steadily growing command unit in the center and some large robots that will serve as terminators in the army.

Not pictured is another unit of wip Skitarii, three heavy weapons teams and three squads of the bulky Dreamforge troopers converted into drones. All in total that brings the army to about 170 models...

I would really like to add some vehicles to the army but don't know what to use. I am not a fan of the forgeworld ones or the GW dunecrawler. Maybe a heavily converted chimera is the answer?




Looks like I have plenty of painting to do for now. Maybe once I have made enough progress I will set up my green screen and get some good cinematic shots of them all!

Great work on all of these conversions and kitbashes! That's one hell of a unique looking army on display. I can't wait to see it get painted!

This is a pretty teensy update but here is the wip command squad. Any thoughts on what the carriers should be loaded with? I'm thinking spare parts for various robots, maybe have them piled really high with rope tying them down.

I decided to take a break from painting my Thousand Sons to work on building some more Mechanicus troops. Having already discovered a bunch of heavy weapon teams in a box I started to add some techy bits to them. I have yet to decide on a paint scheme for these guys as they are mostly armour and I think they would look a little silly all blue..




Expect a couple of more substantial updates soonish as I have emptied my bitz box over the desk and as those following my other blog will know, I am planning on doing some huge kitbashes at a later date!

It really is amazing what you can do with a few bits of junk laying around in some cupboards! I found a few little drone type things so made them a little swarm base to house them. They'll make a great addition to the drone sub-faction that seems to be forming.



For some real kitbashing though I created this bipedal that looks like it walked straight out of a Boston Dynamics lab. I will probably try and scrounge up enough bits to give him a friend or two as it was a fun and simple little build!






Stay tuned for more!

Cain

Another kitbash all finished! This one reminds me a little of one of the droids from A New Hope with all the arms. I have a couple more of the track units left so I shall have to try and make some different flavours of this fella.

Great work, Edit: just realized I posted in the wrong topic! --- Great work still stands!

Betraying the machine god? This is heresy! Sweet, sweet heresy. Love the conversion work, keep ‘em coming!

Wow, some really unique and cool conversions on here, great work.
Actually looks like the sort of strange creative tinkerings you'd get with a mad genius in the setting.
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Lots of fun conversions happening here! The color scheme and alternate takes reminded me of this recent release from D&D: https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-march-2023-atlantean-legion-5e-278485