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The Series continues with the finished Kataphrons taken out of this second Patrol Box. I should say from this ooP (or soon to be) Patrol Box as anew one has been announced. BTW, what are we goint to find in this new Patrol box?: One Manipulus Five Pteraxii Three Serberys One battleline squad of Skitarii. I already commented in the forums that it is IMHO a significant change into the structure of the "Patrol" type of content vs. the previous one we got for AdMech: A change toward a more useful character The loss of a Tank and Kataphron delete most of the gunline feature of current AdMech Patrol The inclusion of Serberys and Pteraxii put the focus on combined arm approach - in the mood of the 10th Ed Index For me this is a huge change in the design of the Box vs. current way of gathering forces for AdMech. In fact I tend to think that this box is not a good way at all to start a new army. I see it, because of the units proposed, being more indicated for a second or third levy rather than for a core building of an AdMech force. Do not misunderstood me: I do like the composition and I will probably grab one for myself but I am a little bit confused about its potential for new AdMech players... The maths were also done and shared by various contributors, and can be summarized as: a. the new patrol box would represent a less interesting absolute discount as current cost of individual sets is about 175€ in the new configuration vs. 187,5€ for the current one; should it be sold at 125€ the discount will be lower. b. the new patrol box would represent a smaller army point value, rounding the 275 pts max in the new configuration vs. 415 pts for the current one. For sake of comparison, the SM Patrol box is about 440pts worth atm... I wonder how the patrol rules will equilibrate this... Anyway, back to the actual and current Patrol box I am painting. Here are the completed 3 Kataphrons: As promised, in the same mood and trend as the previous ones. These can be aligned as a self standing unit or join the existing one into a big 6 Servitors strong unit. With these bases, these use a lot of space on the tabletop... That´s all folks. Until next time. I will go back to the bench and keep on painting the SKitarii, or rather prepaint them by parts, until I am decided on how to tool them. Codex to be relesaed soon will play a decisive role (obviously) in the decision making. So, do not expect anything related to AdMech until the release of the Book of Mars.

After a few days away I finally completed the final steps of assembly of my 2 Kataphons´ Units from my Extermination Maniple - one Destroyer and one Breacher. The Breachers scheme is finally not as convincing as I initially thought. Getting armour plates reds and tracks grey makes that the visual impact of the armour is a little bit too present I feel. On the other hand they are quite in synthony with the rest of the army, especially the Priests and Robots, but I do feel lak there is a lack of subtility. Anyway, I will not repaint them, so, they I will have to convince myself they are OK in the big picture... May be a vertical red stipe on the front shield armour would improve the whole aspect and unify the transition from red to grey? As for the Destroyers, they are more classic in their style and the red plates, even if they are still there, are not so over present. I am still waiting for my Patrol box, ordered since July 24th... When it will be delivered, I will increase the size of the Destroyers, with the same tooling, increasing the unit size to 6. As usual, some additional pics can be found in my galleries and comments are more than welcomed. This is by the way an important milestone too: as of today it only remains in my W40k pile of shame/accumulated minis: - 10 half built guardians, - 2 kit bashed tanks - 1 esher ganger - 3 IG heavy weapon teams I may add 5 ooP rhinos chassis to repaint and 6 wolves, but these ones are also used for Goblins´ carts in my old WFB... But it means I do not have any model left on sprues. Even if there are a lot of bitz on sprues now. It looks like I see the end of the tunnel since I resumed my painting at start of Covid. Might be worth a dedicated post in the future.

While summer was passing by, I spent most of my time painting for the Call to Arm 2023 Challenge, tooking the opportunity of it to repaint oldies, paint Aeldarii left in a box for almost 20 years and an even older Squat trike. Spent the summer painting, AND waiting for delivery of some ordered goods for my Admech Army. First an ooP Extermination Maniple, left forgotten in a remote FLGS. This box was supposed to be completed by a Combat Patrol; but it never showed off. It is still listed in the bill of material from GW warehouses. For 68 days now. Anyway, I have this Maniple to be painted. Some models were enlisted in the CTA23 challenge, but not the Kataphron. Glutony has its limits. I started them on duty day spare time in late Sept, knowing that I could not manage completing them before Sept. 30. Anyway, as of today, here is the status of these WIP units. 1. Kataphron Destroyers: Track units are done and based. I reproduced the same scheme I used for a prior unit. The upper body will be this time Blaster and Plasma Culverin. 2. Kataphron Breacher: Track units are done and based. I sticked to the colour scheme of other Kataphrons and there are some reminders of my Crawler tank too. The accesories used to personalize the Breacher type are really a nice addition to the kit. They bring it to another level, making the track unit quite coherent with its "tank" character. The front armour plate will be grey too. The upper body will be with haywire and hydraulic claw. I do like the so specific and exotic outlook of the haywire. I follow rule of cool, most of the time. Next update will be with bodies. For one or the other unit. Or may be for both. But I have no pressure to deliver atm (and anyway other commitments will keep me away from the workbench quite a lot). So I will take my time for these... More soon, but not too soon. PS - I would perfectly see an AdMech unit based on these track Units - some Bombots maybe?