Knights of House Cydonia, Taghmata Omnissiah and Skitarii

[Battybattybats]

Agreed Kurama, but i'm not waiting to find out. Still if they make nice plastic Mechanicus ships and other stuff i'd like i'll be very happy to expand my fleet.

I ordered today from GW some 20mm plastic warhammer bases, i've some BFG mines but i don't want to put them on the 2nd-version epic bases they came with (the strip-like ones that came with bits of ruin on the sprues with them), those i'll use with some of my still unbased epic tyranids one day. The fighter etc counters are 20mm square so i'll put most of the mines on those, 1one per base plus a small group on a round base to mark the centre of a minefield. That should be good for both minefield terrain and also for use with minelayer ships.

I've also got the Regimental Advisors coming. An Astropath, an Imperial Navy Officer.. add to them one of my old 1st ed Commisars as well as the pilot and the crashed lander from Battle For Macragge. My brother also bought me a miniature 2nd hand mislabeled as a 40k Navigator.. turns out it's a Babylon 5 Soul Hunter but i think it'll still make a nice Navigator. Should make for a nice narrative game where the player must rush to the rescue of a beleaguered officers whose lander crashed in hostile territory after their cruisers crew mutinied and marooned them as part of the campaign, and/or to be used as objective targets in Zone Mortalis boarding action games and a great excuse for painting up things i've had sitting unpainted for years or always wanted.

[Battybattybats]

Just some quick snaps before i spray-undercoat some things.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0006_2.jpg

Battlefleet Gothic Mines on 20mm warhammer fantasy bases and the Regimental Advisors to make essential Bridge Crew for Zone Mortalis and narrative games, the Master of Artillery will be painted in Imperial Navy colours as a Vox Officer. I am tempted to paint the Astropath in Red so i can use them with my Mechanicus sometimes.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0011_3.jpg

Of course every Imperial Navy Bridge has it's Commissar to 'guide' the ships Captain. I've been holding onto this Commissar for many years and been meaning to get around to working on him. This campaign is the perfect excuse. On his left is the Babylon 5 Soul Hunter that my brother bought mislabeled as a 40k Navigator that i shall use as such.. perhaps i'll paint them as a Mechanicus Navigator too.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0008_3.jpg

Two of the three Inquisitors i have which will be used in the campaign. Coteaz i bought from a GW store when Finecast was first released, Solomon Lok i got from Forgeworld at a Gamesday in a set, i was mainly after the tech-servitor and scribe-servo-skull but it is a really nice Inquisitor miniature. The third was second hand and is currently in a jar with Uriah Jacobus having their paint stripped.

[Battybattybats]

So if you haven't seen the recent pics GW is doing plastic textured bases that match up with the sector imperialis boards i've been wanting to buy and trying to save up for...

Well i'm glad i haven't started decorating the bases of the Skitarii yet but cutting them back off the bases they are glued on and then re-gluing will be a major pain. I'll keep some with the basing i'd planned, the same mesh slate rubble, rusty cogs and girders and patches of diamondplate that i've already done on many of these miniatures. Some i'll add some of those features to the imperialis style bases. Hopefully that will create enough continuity across them all.

These new bases will also be good for my Deathwatch, Genestealer Cult and Tyranids so i'll get a lot of use out of them even if there's too much repetition for me to use lots of (it's unknown if the leaks show all the designs or just samples of some of them).

And if i didn't have enough on my plate as it is, i also have some things from my old Battle For Macragge set i want to paint to use in this campaign... i'm pretty sure i'll do the crashed Aquila Lander in Mechanicus colours and symbols whether i do the pilot Imperial Navy blue and white or Mechanicus Red....

[Battybattybats]

So this post will be about basing, basing and cybeasts.

First, a new tool. An Olfa circle-cutter.
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0062.jpg

It's a bit tricky using it as it takes a bit of patience to cut through the plasticard neatly, as you can see in the next pic when i tried to speed up it resulted in a less than perfect circle, but some rubble will cover that. A bit more patience and less force and it works well. You'll also see what i did to those Skaven rats.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0033.jpg

Lets get a closer look at those rats

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0061.jpg

The one on the right in the robes will sometimes be used as a cyber-familiar, at other times in Necromunda it will be a Wyrd beastmaster with the others it's beasts. But for the Blackstone VII campaign this will be something else again.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0045.jpg

One aerial is from a spare skitarii backpack, the remainder are all from an Onager, the little stubby ones that look delightfully like old Atari controllers are from the Onager railings. It's clear that there's a difference between the two robed cyber-familiars and the rest, the others much much cruder. The idea being that a Techpriest, wounded and dying, knowing they held vital information that must not be lost nor fall into the wrong hands, has chosen what to them was the lesser of two heresies and has transferred their consciousness and knowledge as best they could into the cyber-familiars which then have made the other cyber-rats both as buffers and additional memory as well as servants, all to preserve some secret and get it to the right people hoping the achievement might earn the Omnissiah's forgiveness.

Now for the Sector Imperialis bases, subject of some concern about the quality and details.
Here's the 40mm ones:
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0058_1.jpg

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0056.jpg

Now the 25mm

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0024.jpg

And from the opposite corner

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0025.jpg

As you can see from this angle the level of depth varies a lot. Some skulls have less detail than others, but then some are after all decorations on roads which will get worn down by tires and tracks and feet. Anyone really upset by that could always drill out those and glue the full skulls into there. Overall i think these are great and with some of the same slate rubble and other bits should hopefully flow well into my slate and rusty mesh and rusty detritus bases especially with the diamondplate plasticard.

Now onto the large basing detail kit, and alas the light was failing me when i got to these.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0048.jpg

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0029_1.jpg

Now these do have a more blurred edge to a number of parts than the bases, the nuts and bolts on the metal frame of the road sections for example are clearly more blob-like. They should still paint up ok with a bit of extra weathering and rust though.

Look closely at the barrel

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0027_2.jpg

you can still see the lines from it's cad construction, seems they used too few polygons or some such. But i do like that it looks to match the ones from the armored crate kit coming, and there's some of the boxes from that set too, angled to be half-buried/submerged, perhaps trod on by something quite heavy pushing it into the ground.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0031.jpg

Still i would not call these terrible. Frankly i find them much better than the resin parts of the resin basing kits which often had far too much thickness and so stood too high from bases and was a pain to get to fit with anything else. My biggest beef with the detail kit isn't the blurry bits but actually that there's too much of the stonework, no pieces of the guttering and nowhere near enough of the metal footpath plates and metal foundations. The stone reliefs are only a small part of one of the two sector imperialis board panels, so it really strongly situates the model in a specific place on the board. I think they should have given us more of the more common texture features to spread across our Knights, Onager and Dragoons etc.

I'm happy to have bought these. I will be getting more of the 25/40mm bases and more of the other sets, as for the large basing detail set i'll get plenty of use out of it, i'll just have to see how well it spreads across the large bases i have yet to do.

[Mithrilforge]

Thanks for the write up BBB, and also for showing the circle cutter   Q- does it make a hole in the centre of your circle??? as I'm not wanting that ...

 

cheers Mithril

[Battybattybats]

Well it can, it has a point like a compass, but also comes with a little non-slip pad that can be used to protect the object. I didn't use it in this case to see what the result was and partly because the extra height would change the angle of the blade, and so my use did leave a pinsized hole, which is small and i hope will be easy enough for me to cover with some liquid greenstuff.

[JeffTibbetts]

I've heard complaints about the bases, but your pics make me think the reaction is a bit overblown. These are just bases, after all. Considering most of the stuff we throw on bases these seem like a huge step up. I don't really like resin bases either, and while I have my own basing theme I think these look pretty good.

[Battybattybats]

Yeah the base quality matches that of the plastic warhammer fantasy miniatures (Vampire counts banshee, wraith and necromancer) i've got that came with decorated bases as part of their sprue. I wonder if the critics haven't had a good look at those?

The large basing kit does definitely have it's flaws, comparing the road bolts on it's bits and the 40mm bases is stark, the diamondplate less so but still noticeable but it still should work well enough, it's not like we don't still have aspects of most plastic miniatures where we have to paint on details, carve or drill something or distract the eye from a flaw caused by two-part molding without the undercut flexibility metal used to have, and this just might be a matter of where to put the typhus corrossion and how thick to drybrush, it should still paint up fine i think.

[BrotherCaptainArkhan]

Great description of the bases, and as Jeff said, your measured analysis does leave me thinking the negative reaction was a little undeserved. Not perfect, perhaps, but very usable as long as they're painted carefully.

 

I am really keen to see your Zone Mortalis stuff continue, particularly the bridge crew - I've a few models lying around I intend to use for exactly the same thing, so will be fascinated to see how your project develops.

 

Arkhan

[GhostMalone]

Good stuff girl! But I want more knights you should definitely do more knights

[Battybattybats]

Don't worry Kurama, not only do i have the Knight Errant sitting ready for paint to start and i also still have a Styrix to work on but i went and bought Renegade so that's a Warden for sure and if i can find someone with a spare Avenger cannon to trade i'll make a Crusader from the last. The early stage of the campaign i'll be focussing on BFG, NPCs and rebasing and basing my Skitarii but as the games get bigger i'll be adding to the House Cydonia force. I have 5 knights already, just need to build the other 3 and start painting the 2nd.

If i wasn't planning to get a Sector Imperialis board soon i'd be trying to get an Atrapos and some more Mechanicum.. though the Mechanicus Cerastus heads makes me wonder if we'll see the option for Mechanicus heads and armour for the other forgeworld cerastus knights later in the year which will make it a tough choice.

[GhostMalone]

Spare Avenger Gattling cannon aye! I have one if your keen can post it tomorrow if you want

[Battybattybats]

Ok so thanks to Kurama being a super-awesome person the Crusader will totally be built :)

[GhostMalone]

Damn straight and who knows you might join us in the maintenance bay where we're knight crazy

[Battybattybats]

No pics just yet, but i've got the bases done for the cy-beast rats, got some work done on the Steel Wyrm which is almost fully assembled now other than the scales which have to wait for more painting to be done, built the buildings that came with the Renegade box (as two small buildings), and my Sector Imperialis realm of battle board arrived today so i have a ton of painting ahead of me.

[Battybattybats]

So some quick pics!
Some of my terrain on a sector imperialis board

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0002_4.jpg

My little cy-beasts all based on the homemade bases (the GW ones will be mixed into the Skitarii with home-made ones, as well as used on Deathwatch Overkill) and ready for undercoat

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0005_4.jpg

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0006_3.jpg

And as you may have noticed behind them is the Steel Wyrm

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0008_4.jpg

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0010_3.jpg

Note i cut up some of the scales so the lowest rung of scales inside the crater has some on it, alas this puts me down 5 scales so i'll have a few scales missing here and there when i put all the scales on after shading the rest with washes.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0012_2.jpg

I have a ton of things to work on, but playing on this board even while it and the buildings are unpainted is going to be sweet.

[Battybattybats]

Posts have been slow but i've been busy on a lot of things many of which are still in early stages. But i'll just share a couple for now.

Firstly another old old miniature, a 2nd edition 'Skullz' Techpriest i was very happy to get my hands upon some years ago.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0017_2.jpg

I'm considering doing something more with the dataspike but i don't want to have it overly dominate the miniature, so i might just do the cog setting for it in the same old gold.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0018_3.jpg

Because the servo-arm backpack was so chunky i didn't want to leave it all metal, so it got a scuffed paintjob, though the Storm Bolter (which i will have to make counts-as) i wanted to show being much more crisp and newly painted.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0021.jpg

I really love the smaller secondary arm too.

I also added yet another project to my pile, because i just could not resist picking up Lost Patrol!
Rather than my normal paint-as-i-assemble i want to use these well before i get around to painting them so i sacrificed some level of detail by gluing them up first. I also decided that while i have the Blood Angels from Deathstorm to get around to one day i wasn't going to worry about putting these together to be 40k-legal but instead wanted a more action-movie feel.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0004_5.jpg

In game terms you need a heavy bolter guy and a sergeant, the others have identical stats no matter the weapons you give them. So to differentiate them, especially with the infamously similar sculpts of their faces, i went with one of each.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0006_4.jpg

I really like them and am happy i've managed to give each some character (i'm still deciding who i might give the sheathed blade to though). I'm thinking that like the more recent editions of Space Hulk it will make the game even more fun when each marine is distinct and i should come up with some names for each of them.

[JeffTibbetts]

Nice update! That old priest holds up very well and blends in nicely with your matching color scheme. What did you have in mind for the spike? I think you could give it some attention without hosing the unity of the piece.

 

Also, that scout squad looks pretty good mixed! I don't think it would have occurred to me to do that, but if the stats are the same why not?

[Battybattybats]

Thanks Jeff :D
I recently got the gem paints and haven't used them yet and was considering seeing how they might go on the dataspike, blue or green, but i'm still in a ponder about it and i should give them a try on something else first.

[Battybattybats]

So with my Genestealers mainly unfinished but playable (i actually just used blank bases at times) i played my 1st two games of Lost Patrol. The first i played the Genestealers and the Scouts got through a solid 18 tiles before the last died.

Then i tried the scouts and here's a picture.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/13775496_1093262710721293_8233041471740363593_n.jpg

Now take a closer look at my Sergeant..

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/13718515_1093262924054605_4534163444743100035_n.jpg

Yes, 3 scouts left and i'm on the last tile! The Dropship tile! From two amazing fluke combat draws pushing me back advantageously i actually managed a chance at winning this notoriously impossible game on my 1st ever play as the scouts!

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/13707685_1093262850721279_500459081755150518_n.jpg

So here is my brave Blood Angel scout Sergeant who has stumbled on the Dropship. All he needs to do is to survive one round against the Genestealers. His comrades were pushed away from him, they cannot help him, he must do this himself but he is the Sergeant, the best alone in hand to hand. All he needs is a 5+ and i win the game! The notoriously difficult game! On my first try! A 1 in 3 chance of victory! The green dice rolls onto the table and...

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/13769441_1093262627387968_5068968136314738522_n.jpg

Well that's the brutality of Lost Patrol for you! He's torn to shreds at the very edge of victory!  And i seriously doubt i'll ever get this close again.

[Battybattybats]

Ok, back to work. I've made some major headway on the Steel Wyrm.

First i spent hours on a quick version (basically just being more sloppy and doing it straight onto silver not silver streaked black) of my scuffed red paint technique on the scales.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0001%202.jpg

Then i added the scales. Note the gap, where some scales will be missing. The price of making the half-scales at the bottom.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0008%202_2.jpg

I also leave off on on the back where the rings bunch as recommended in the instructions.
So how does it go?

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0017%202_1.jpg

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0010%202_1.jpg

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0029_2.jpg

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0027_3.jpg

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0032_2.jpg

Still not finished of course, i have to finish the base and i'll likely get some dirt on the claws and perhaps some rust where the scales are missing. But as a cheap laser-cut MDF piece that i didn't put my full effort into that i'll only use in some special scenarios and on rare occasions with Mawlock rules in an unbound force i'm thinking this looks pretty darn magnificent.

[Battybattybats]

Every so often i get very happy for my slow pace of progress (partly cause i work on so many things at once) and this is one of those times.

The pausing of the knights i'm working on means that i'll be getting to use some of these when they come out

http://runebrush.pa-sy.com/static/uploads/2016/07/Forge-World-Open-Day-2016-8-Questoris-Knight-Alternative-Heads.jpg

I'm thinking the 2nd from the right, top row. With it's skull/cylon look and mechadendrites.
 

[GhostMalone]

I'm loving it batty you crazy lady you

[Battybattybats]

No new pics of my work yet, but to let you know what i'm working on: i'm assembling more buildings for my board, putting some vengeance weapon batteries together which i think will look great in weathered red, painting the plastic Magos Dominus, painting some Necromunda Spyrers i've had sitting around since they came out (which i used aplenty unpainted back in the day), painting the cyber-rats, i bought a 3rd Dragoon so will soon return to work on the 2nd and work on the 3rd together, bought the quake canon craters to match the board too and to top off the spending spree i just saw that the cover of the latest The Beast books with the Skitarii on the cover is available as a limited gallery print so i just ordered one! http://www.blacklibrary.com/all-products/the-beast-must-die-print.html

http://www.blacklibrary.com/Images/Product/AlternativeBL/xlarge/BLPROCESSED-beast-must-die-print-1.jpg

[Battybattybats]

So the first game of the Blackstone VII campaign has been played, and i got some quick pics though i'll have to get some nice close-ups of some of the minis i used.

At last my Skitarii get onto a table, alongside my plastic techpriest Morthren 3



My mechanicus arrived proclaiming their monopoly on all ancient technology (i used a voice-changer for the role-play elements of the game, much fun!)

Most of the buildings are mine but the painted ones and statues belong to another player.



Who is this Astropath and why are Tyranids and Spyrers after him? All will be revealed eventually.



I painted up the Astropath just days before the game and think they came up well. I went with red robes with very dark green sleeves so i can use them later in my Mechanicus forces.