Knights of House Cydonia, Taghmata Omnissiah and Skitarii

[Battybattybats]

Thanks everyone, clearly the Heretek is one of my more popular pieces of work judging from comments and likes, it might be even moreso than putting the Bell on the Knight's rapid-fire battlecannon!

Speaking of which..
The Heretek now has arms and some more paint.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/PICT0313.jpg

The gun i had hoped to use is one cut years ago by my brother from Fabius Bile, but it's a little too big and especially too heavy for the miniature (far too easy to topple!) so i'm going to have to decide on something else.
While a Mad Doc in Necromunda has pretty limited weapon options i can't help but think a Graviton Pistol might be what this Heretek uses to 'obtain' the 'specimens' for 'research'. Suggestions and opinions welcome.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/PICT0315.jpg

I'm still at the early steps of painting the bottles, two haven't any liquid yet. It's very much not my forte so it's not going to be too well done, but one learns by attempting. And there's still a fair bit of other neatening up and finishing to do. The mesh i use on bases is back home so the base won't get finished till next year.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/PICT0317.jpg

I really like the elegant decorative panel with visible wires and an internal organ open to the air on one side.

Meanwhile the Abeyant of my Arch Magos has had the bone and shading worked on and panels glued on.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/PICT0303.jpg

Still lots too do but it's a bit easier to handle now.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/PICT0309.jpg

While many paint the skull half of the huge half-cog opus Mechanica as metal i figures that it'd be either painted or be a more bonelike material that's been screwed onto the machinery there so painted it as bone. I imagine the bone is purpose-grown on a scaffold in a vat of artificial blood in some sacred ionically charged stone chamber at a precise centre point of a pale red stone and oily metal pyramid.
 

And in the background is another handy wargaming tool from Litko.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/PICT0311.jpg

[Battybattybats]

I got something different for christmas from my brother for my Mechanicus.
An MDF product so not official GW but it ties in nicely... here it is partly built.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/IMG_0025.jpg

It has armour panel articulated scales to go down it's back and sides and great spinning cutting/grinding blades for a maw yet to go on too.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/IMG_0040.jpg

I'll use it in friendly games as a counts-as Mawlock rules-wise. I love the cog parts even if MDf is clunky detail-wise.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/IMG_0035.jpg

Background wise this will be a 'root' from a Hive City that endlessly drills and tunnels for water and minerals funnelling them up to the Hive city as part of a semi-autonomous system left over from the Archaeotech which terraformed and built the Hive and part of what keeps it geologically stable. It's machine spirit is ancient cantankerous and stubborn unwilling to be put to tasks other than it's own tasks. So in a situation of dire need it has been roused and bound to the arch-magos' will and directed at the enemy but control is difficult to maintain.

[KBA]

That's a pretty cool model, and even cooler fluff piece. I love the 'root' idea you're running with, and the characterful description of it only wanting to do the task it was built for like a stubborn, old pet.

[Battybattybats]

Thanks KBA.
A Mawlock won't be effected negatively by much of the Come the Apocalypse allies rules and will be running on instinctive behaviour so i'll have to check out how that will operate in 7th (i haven't used my Tyranids in 7th yet and so the latest codex changes are easy to forget) but it should fit the obstinate machine spirit idea pretty well. This won't be a mainstay of my force but i'll use it when narratively appropriate in narrative campaign games with open-minded friendly-game opponents and for joining in on local apocalypse games.

[Argent aquila]

make 3 just to be sure!

[Battybattybats]

So here is what i settled on for my Heretek Doc's weapon.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/IMG_0009.jpg

A nice old pattern plasma pistol. It was handy in my brothers bits box and after he suggested it i couldn't say no, it suits too well.

Of course it's not any old metal plasma pistol...

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/IMG_0020.jpg

The heart on the side (yes, i know it's not so visible as a heart in the pic, sorry) shows the part came originally from Mad Donna Ulanti.

Did the Doc get it in trade? Is she one of his victims? Or has the Geneseed of a particularly unfortunate chapter of Marines have something to do with the diabolical experiments taking place deep in the underhive of Necromunda?

Of course Docs in Necromunda don't ussually get such nasty weapons, so i expect it's been heretically tampered with to make it usable as a plasma-cutter for getting through bulkheads or... cauterisation..., with the side effect of some loss of devestating power though gaining precise reliability, becoming a counts-as weaker weapon like a laspistol or the like on the tabletop.

Still a fair bit of work to go, especially on the fluid vials, but at least the weapon situation is resolved.

[Battybattybats]

So, I see today that the Stormfiends from the Skaven range have weird brain-rats on their backs.
I think i'm going to need to make plans for those parts.

[JeffTibbetts]

So, I see today that the Stormfiends from the Skaven range have weird brain-rats on their backs.

I think i'm going to need to make plans for those parts.

 

Right? Is that the coolest bit ever or what? They look a little goofy in the studio pics but I'd like to see what you can do with them. 

[Battybattybats]

Yeah i think it's the face that's the goofiest aspect and that could be altered just by painting alone. The face could easily be replaced by a human one, a skull, a mask, or absence entirely all of which are cool possibilities. With the tail removed and an altered face the result would be more human and more embryonic looking. Something grown or altered in a vat, genetically shifted so that the part most useful, the brain, is overdeveloped and the part least to it's purpose the body is minimised for efficiency. The diametric opposite of the gene-bulking musculature of some Skitarii.

So a grown vehicle pilot perhaps, controlling a Mechanicum Landraider maybe or a knight pilot of especially sacred breeding born inside the machine? Perhaps a Titan Princeps so altered, the next step from the amniotic tanks? Or a Magos of the Lacryma subset responsible for the creation of servitors tech-thralls skitarii and the like who has reshaped their own form using the arts at its own disposal and traversing in a multi-limbed mechanical abeyant.

There are so many options, but first i'll have to get my hands on the bits :)

[JeffTibbetts]

 

a knight pilot of especially sacred breeding born inside the machine? 

 

Oh. My. God.

 

If you DON'T do that now I'm going to be upset. That is one of the coolest ideas I've heard regarding knights so far. Can you imagine opening the top, only to find an embryonic tube containing one of these little creatures, all wired up with tubes and floating in green, translucent jelly? OMG!!! 

[Battybattybats]

Well first i have to get some. Currently one of the dark eldar players in my local gaming group is talking about getting some stormfiends and if so says i can have those bits. I guess i'll have to be patient and wait and see.

I already have my errant and another paladin pilots planned and the Stryix doesn't have an opening hatch. If i leave the whole carapace of the styrix removable i'd need to detail the whole of the torso compartment and that would be a lot of work. So it's a choice between slowing the work down on the styrix immensely and figuring out a whole detailed interior engine and all or shunting one of the other pilots for another future knight and i wasn't sure that i'd get more other than a 2nd paladin and a mageara, and the mageara would have the same difficulty as the styrix.

Hmm the forgeworld carapace does have that long extended middle part rather than the usual vents, so perhaps the crew compartment extends further and rests closer to the surface rather than being as deep, so most of the open area could be dealt with by a surface mass of tubing connected to the pilot-vat rather than by lots of engine parts. And finding a clear container the right size for the brain-rat bits and a way to set it that still leaves the pilot visible may be quite the challenge, unless i go for a flat lid rather than a curved tube. Unless it could fit into a forgeworld zone mortalis specimen container? I'd also be worried about how much weight i add to the model as it will get a lot of table use.

Hmmm much to ponder.

[Battybattybats]

An update on my Cydonian Lady objective marker, and please add comments and suggestions.

I have now the part for her to be sitting on, though I now have to make a big decision.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0017-2.jpg

Now there will be a layer of Agrellan Earth on the top of the cauldron, so she will be resting on top of the dry cracked mud of soil brought from ancient Mars as she watches the Knights battle the enemy as they vy for her attention, an ancient and irreplaceable micro-void-shield protecting the priceless relic of unpolluted soil making a mockery of the field of battle as she watches bloody warfare as if it were a tourney.

In the cup is not wine however.. more on that next update

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0014-2-2.jpg

Now the trouble is she fits quite neatly with her skirt drapery around her feet on the ground. But when i first envisaged this i pictured the cauldron of soil floating with cables etc hanging down, but if i do that her drapery will be flattened against nothing unless there is something under her feet or i attempt sculpting that i am sure i am not going to be skilled enough with.

I had been contemplating another small floating platform under her feet but i thought the cauldron part was bigger and another hovering machine under her feet may well take too much away from the cauldron of earth i now fear. Also if i raise the cauldron with it's smaller size and add another part beneath her feet there will be balance issues both practically and artistically. So do i set the cauldron down on the ground of the battlefield, where more energy can be directed to the void shield instead of powering a grav-plate so the piece doesn't end up too cluttered?

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/DSCF0006-4-2.jpg

I also have some gubbinz i could add to the cauldron from Dark Eldar Talos, but would it be better to have all of the warp shield tech entirely contained within the cauldron and so much more mysterious and decorative?

 

Edited January 25, 2015 by Battybattybats

[Battybattybats]

Well that's weird, several times now those last pics have disappeared from photobucket but i didn't delete them, so i had to edit that post and repost the re-uploaded pics.

[Battybattybats]

This thread has gone far too long without my adding some fiction. So here's some.
 

The Sphynx.
A tale from the time of the Horus Heresy

The new Archmagos Prelate to the ruling Knight House of New Ares, House Cydonia, repeatedly struck at his black and yellow stripe trimmed red robes with a sense of irritation he had not realised he still had the fleshly capacity to experience, clouds of the clinging orangish red dust scattered about him falling a little more slowly than he was comfortable with, New Ares sharing a similar size as well as appearance to ancient Mars whereas the Forgeworld of St Hoaglands was a metal clad, oil stained and much larger world yet still well within standard human tolerances.

The additional macro sense of his newest eye-lens informing him that the dust was sharp-edged and abrasive, bad for every aspect of him from the delicate skin bleached from almost no sun exposure through his whole life to the finely polished glass lenses, the oiled joints of his mechanical appendages and even to the very threads of the robes.

He would have concluded the discomfort of his journey was an intentional slight designed to put him off-guard if it wasn’t for the clear indications that the strange low sail-powered sand-ships were a common form of locomotion across the sandy desert. The trip had not been a gentle one. Sail power, such an Anachronism let alone on a world meant to be devoted to the Omnissiah but then everywhere he looked there was anachronism.

Peasants with priceless archaeotech augmetics lost to other worlds carried containers of water by hand, the air barely held a hint of the exhalation of industry and yet the pyramid before him of red stone and black oily metal was studded with enough Void Shield generators to make a titan legion envious, Strange cy-beast carcasses hung from meat hooks in markets their metal sold for scrap and their flesh for food alongside traditional dried algae wafers, his ears heard fleshspeak as much as binary, while all about him was an excess of the ritual of the Mechanicum and yet only a little of the industry, small hubs of machinery and life in isolated pockets of vast untouched desolate wilderness patrolled by roving Vorax and the heavy march of glittering Knights.

Forgeworld St Hoagland differed greatly from most others, like here it too had all people and machines bedecked in red, and shared the common practise of wearing skull masks, but New Ares was to St Hoagland in its excess of ritual and symbolism what St Hoagland was to an average Forgeworld.

He stepped out of the weak but discomforting sunlight into the reassuring shadow to a templum to the side and in the shadow of the greatest of the pyramids.

It was in this templum he had been told upon landing he would be received by a member of House Cydonia, which had him on-edge, for it was also the location of the target The Hoagland had sent him to investigate, that his predecessor had been assassinated partly so that he would have that very opportunity.

He was not left waiting in the shadow long, but rather than guard or servant it was a Lady who approached him and bade him enter the templum with an archaic elegant and ritualised hand gesture with her black rubber gloved hand.

She wore a corset of bones over a long red dress, the same black and yellow colours newly appended to his own robes were upon her sleeves, the servo arms extending from her back were medical in nature, her face was flensed to the bone, eye-sockets empty but his advanced active sensor array detected the ornate sun-wheel headdress she wore bore lenses and other senses aplenty, though with some common wavelengths of the fleshes visible spectrum absent she would see well into the ends invisible to the unaugmented eye, it was quite inferior to his own sensor array which lacked no part of the electromagnetic/light spectrum. Her brain was surprisingly augmented, like many he had encountered on this world, with enhanced processing and memory but added in a complex and somewhat heat-inefficient manner to the biological memory systems instead of replacing it. Something that complicated his task.

The most discomforting aspect of her appearance for him was the emphasis on her fecundity, all too much flesh on display like some Imperial Lady rather than one dedicated to the Machine-God.

“My appearance distresses you”, her first words to him, issued from a speaker behind her motionless bone jaw. He was certain he had revealed no sign to indicate this, so concluded it must be a common result or intentional, predicting the latter and an intended distraction his wariness increased. He decided to the pretence of playing along.

“The flesh is weak, why display it especially a superfluous and unnecessary feature?”

She paused midstep.
“You think the flesh of my body unnecessary? The flesh of my body is a manufactorum. It creates vital weapon components for one of the most potent weapons on this planet. It creates pilots for Knights.” Her skull-face turned and paused in a pool of light spilling from a glassteel panel in the templum ceiling causing the skull to give a smiling appearance. An intentional effect. Something that must have been minutely calculated. Wasted on one such as him, he internally scoffed at such theatrics.

 After a pause she recommenced walking and the speaker issued her melodic voice once more. ”We do not make most of our Knightly pilots in an amniotic tank, those are reserved only for select individuals a few in a generation, the pilots of those Mageara and Styrix we are blessed to receive.”

“One of? You suggest that there are other weapons you manufacture here the equal of the Knights?”

“We don’t make Knights here, only their pilots.” She said as if correcting him.

“I didn’t say you did nor does that answer my question” he snapped.

“No it doesn’t” she replied obtusely, the disrespect of which was galling. He was about to launch into an admonishment when she spoke again. “The Hoagland proposes a reconsidering of our participation in the war, even in allowing an emissary of the Warmaster to speak to the Synod on the Warmaster’s behalf.”

“How did you..” He began but she cut him off.
“Then there’s something you need to see before your formal role begins.”

With a flourish she broke a light beam causing ornate tall and narrow double-doors to open revealing a green marble clad cog shaped room, roofed in glass-steel with a hologrammatic layer embedded within it so above the peak of the pyramid was struck with lightning and the glass spattered with rain of a dark storm that could have occurred long ago or never actually existed and most certainly was no occurring outside currently, while the floor was green glassteel and his sensors showed him that the water flowing and rippling beneath that was actual rather than hologrammatic.

The centre of the room however held that which the Hoagland had insisted he investigate, a massive machine extending far into the water chamber below, presumably for cooling, the upper part of which was inside a housing of black stone shaped like a Sphynx, the face of which was shrouded by a simple black cloth curtain hung much like a veil. Like too much of this world the data flow of the machine was hidden and shrouded in ways he had not encountered before.

“This” she said with a voice laden with gravitas “is the riddle of the Sphynx, which The Hoagland sent you to investigate.”
That was too much. He quickly checked his system for sign of intrusion, the actions of a rival Data proctor perhaps and finding none, the possibilities dropped to one.
 Clearly he had been set up by The Hoagland and House Cydonia had been warned in advance.
He engaged his higher operations suite and prepared to wipe the datacoils of the Lady, flashburn her bio-memory and make an escape, but she laughed.

“No need for haste Data proctor, you can attack me after you have completed your mission, I will not oppose it. I will even explain to you how I know all I do before you leave if you wish.” She slowly and confidently turned from him and strode towards the Sphynx.

“Why show me now when you denied this to The Hoagland for 90 years? Before and even moreso after he had risen to that supreme rank?”

“Did he not tell you of the stones?”

“No.”

“In most cases there is a ritual before someone who has been through the 9 initiations can be allowed to view the face of the Sphynx. A high priestess takes two stones, one black and one white, and places them randomly in two augery-shoruded bowls. The supplicant must state which stone is in the bowl placed before them.”

“But that is not a solvable riddle for if randomly placed it is not possible to discern so it cannot be known. That is no test it is random.”

“Not so, for the bowl placed before them contains neither the black stone nor the white but a red stone”

“So it is trickery!”

“No it is a test.”

“A test of what?”

“Of capacity to trust in the guidance of the Omnissiah. On occasion someone is truly worthy and sees the test in advance and guesses the stone correctly, but this is very rare. A person not worthy of seeing the Sphynx will not accept it, but hounded by ambition will do all they can to discover the secret outside the rules, and these if caught are denied it. Those who do not try to breach the sanctity of this are later brought here, having passed the test.”

“And if they are not caught?”

“Ingenuity is a valid path to wisdom, sometimes ambition deserves reward even when it breaks taboos in the process. The Hoagland failed this test back when he was the Primus Lacryma, and has sent many a data proctor like yourself or other agents. We have become quite used to it now.”

“Why were they not successful?” he asked as he stood before the cloth-shrouded black stone sphinx, wary, certain that the jaws of a trap had already closed about his neck before ever he set foot on the cursed rocky plains and shifting sands of New Ares.

“They all were.”

His face suddenly ached as what little was left of flesh upon his skull was wrenched into the distorted array of an expression of astonishment.

“Then why has he needed to send more?”

“Because none of them chose to report to him what they found.”

“None?”

“None. They were not silenced nor killed nor their experiences erased in any way.”

“How do you explain the universality of their choice?”

“It is a facet of the Enlightenment that the First Hoagland, Binaric Apostle of that name, brought to New Ares. SomaTransGnosis. The knowledge which once known changes who we are.”

“I do not understand….” He said warily taking a half-step back from the shrouded hidden face of the Sphinx, its cloth billowing gently in the wafting breeze of the air filtration system and the venting of the great machine below as if the stone cat were breathing.

“Honestly nor do I. It is a mystery I know of, but having not experienced do not understand.”

“You have not looked at the face of the Sphynx yourself?”

“No, I am it’s keeper but have never stepped forward as a supplicant.”

“Why am I and the others before me allowed then to see it without having passed your test?” He demanded.

“Tradition” she answered nebulously.

“What specific tradition?” He snarled, infuriated by the excessive and impractical ritual so foreign to the rest of the Mechanicum even on neighbouring Forgeworld St Hoagland.

“If The Hoagland sends someone to meet the Sphynx then they are permitted to.”

“And if he sends himself?”

“He would be permitted, but he would have to send himself as his own emissary”

“And in all these years no-one has told him this?”

“No”.

The bureaucratic pedantry appalled him, even for someone used to the machinations and rules-twisting of the St Hoagland Synod. There was clearly much here that was not being said, if it were a trap why not allow The Hoagland to be so entrapped and if it were knowledge of great power why allow anyone sent to gain knowledge of it to do so? New Ares seemed a world of madness, where all things were illogical and the diametric opposite of efficient. He must know, but he must take a precaution.

“You first” he said coldly.

“First to do what?”

“View the Sphynx.”

“But I have not asked to.”

“I’m delegating you to as the representative of the representative of The Hoagland. When you have reported to me then I shall observe it myself.” Would she betray the trap, or would she simply step into it out of loyalty, either way he should be safe.

“Very well” she stated calmly. He nearly had to dive away behind the black stone sphinx before she swung open the curtain. She impassively stared at whatever it was she saw. He monitored her bio-signs and other than a little increase in neuroactivity appropriate to a simple analysis of something of interest there was no change.

“What do you see?” He insisted.

“A stasis field, holding a living being frozen securely in time.”

That was it? How could that be it? How could that be all that such fuss was over? The stasis field explained why there was no dataflow from the machine, the data itself was frozen in time. There must be something remarkable about the being to explain the value of the secrecy. But what could it be?

“What or who is in the stasis field?”

“Enuncias Vox, the first to hold the position you hold now, the Archmagos Prelate between House Cydonia and the first Synod of Forgeworld St Hoagland when the Hoagland first of and saint of that name was Fabricator General of Forgeworld St Hoagland.”

A valuable relic certainly but still the import was inexplicable. What practical value has a relic when its ownership is kept secret? The Lady showed no sign of any kind of threat to her flesh or mechanical parts or her data. And she didn’t seem to recognise let alone impart to him whatever must be relevant.

He strode around cautiously to see for himself.

In the centre of the Sphynx’s head was a portion of an ancient techpriest, lit by the weak almost flickering light characteristic of a stasis field. His face flensed to the bone but unlike the woman beside him one flesh eye and its musculature was retained while machinery encased and replaced the other eye giving a visage like that of the depiction of the Omnissiah in the Opus Mechanicum. From the top three vertebrae down there was only some life support machinery that must have been keeping the brain alive till such time as it was frozen n the field outside of the flow of time.

Slowly a strange unease crept over him, a discomfort of the senses. For a moment there was a flash or flicker of his vision. He tried to move but the room seemed to lean and his head could not move from off the grinning half-skull. The flicker increased like a strobing.

“Whaaaaat” the word came out in a long drawn slurry of sound like an overtaxed machine barely able to perform a simple function, which is what he realised he was.

“Enuncias was frozen at a very precise time. The precise instant where he emitted a burst-communication. The wave of the signal is ever present, but like the light reflected from his face it is only extending outside the stasis field when it is observed and exists in a quantum state where the wave does and does not exist simultaneously.”

She stood beside the stasis-shrouded head being careful not to interrupt his sight, turned her skull face to him. “The signal is distinct but hard for your conscious processors to recognise at first, but if you focus on it, it will become more visible to you. The commands within it though merely needed your basic process system to inload it, and so it bypasses your data parsing systems.”

Even as she spoke the signal became clearer, a hologramatic data burst of massive proportions projecting from the mechanical eye. Not only was it full of the advanced secret system commands that were part of a data proctors stock and trade but there were other commands that cut right through his firewall, admin access and command codes that he hadn’t even seen in his own scrutinising of his own code subroutines activating hardwired processes in the basic wiring of his every system that he had never suspected even existed.

“Enuncias as you can see understood things about the technology we all rely upon that few others of his era did and long since forgot. He was after all a servant to a Binaric Saint, that he would hold miracles in his everlasting lifeless life should not be surprising surely. Shortly some of your systems will begin to reboot, this may be distressing for you but you shall not be harmed. You are being blessed and upgraded but not harmed.”

For a moment his metal heart stopped, only to restart a half-second later, others of his organs and systems followed in kind.

She continued talking while he struggled to work out what was being done to him by the invasive code of the quantum signal. “When the Hoagland came to New Ares we learned that the Throne Mechanicum of Knights conditions its users. Something kept secret from the other Knight worlds who might resent this. But we embraced it. The conditioning ensured our survival when destruction reigned around us. It made our rulers strong and wise. We realised it upgraded the noble pilots, augmented them. We asked how this was done that we might share it… with the worthy.”

It was already too late, as his systems came back online he felt the fire in his head of key sections of nerve being burned away or altered. The very kind of process he had intended to use on the Lady’s biological memory systems were being used by his own brain augmentations but with a much finer precision. All the more easy with the amount of his brain that was mechanical, Machine code rewriting even easier than nerve clusters, his engrams altering to impose the new personality strictures into the core of his mind, metal and flesh.

“This is a much faster and more extensive change than what a Knight pilot experiences, you are gaining 3 generations of Knightly conditioning in one hour. The Loyalty, the Tenacity, the Nobility, all of the graces that the Omnissiah bestows upon the warriors of the House are now being bestowed on you. Noblesse Oblige.”

“Noblesse Oblige” he found himself echoing as the word in a hundred languages danced like flickering flame through his vision. He could still not turn his head, but the rationale of it was making sense, it was a trap and power at the same time, logical and practical. “But why didn’t this happen to you?” he managed to ask.

“There is a place for all things within the machinery of the Omnissiah. And for all that it is good to have those conditioned to nobility so too is it vital to have hands unrestrained by rules of honour. Which is why I have no eyes that see the wavelengths of light of the signal that you have seen. I can know what is in the message but never see it. I can know it but not experience it. You have now an understanding I will never have, and I envy that. My SomaTransGnosis is not yours, for the obligation of my noble role is different.”

“Noblesse Oblige” he said with deeper understanding, straightening up and regaining his composure. Feeling more driven and purposeful than ever before.

He would not tell the murderous and unworthy usurper of the position of The Hoagland what he had found, nor support his plan to turn House Cydonia and the forces of Forgeworld St Hoagland to the side of Horus. He was now honour-bound to the oaths of Allegiance to House Cydonia and the oaths that the head of House Cydonia had sworn. He would protect the House and the world of New Ares with all his skill and power till there was no more life within him.

Just like the others had.

The Lady and Enuncias Vox shared a fleshless smile as she led the Archmagos Prelate to his first meeting with the warrior-priest Knight pilots of House Cydonia.

[deathspectersgt7]

Nice fluff. 

[Battybattybats]

Glad that you liked it deathspectersgt7!

Small update on my Lady of House Cydonia.
Having the cauldron of Martian soil sitting on the ground just bugged me far too much, so as i type this some mechanical arms taken from the dark eldar talos vestigial arms bits that the additional limbs of the Lady came from are gluing in place to hang down below the cauldron.
I'm using a plastic cog from a bag of them i got for basing as the basis of the platform beneath her feet with some more gubbins to make it float.
Some plastic cables shall attach it all to the base and if that's not secure enough i'll add some metal wires.

I'll get pics when i can.

[Battybattybats]

So here is where my Lady of House Cydonia has got. A lot of work and bits for an objective marker but she could also be an Archmagos on Abeyant or Magos Dominos.

First, the cauldron pretty much exactly as i originally envisaged it other that the machine resting on the ground which i had planned to make from other parts but this just worked too well.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/IMG_0001.jpg

I put a fair bit into the view from different angles for this so will show multiple angles :)

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/IMG_0003.jpg

Now to the dillema of the drapery and the flat surface, and how she looks on the properly levitating cauldron

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/IMG_0008.jpg

Some parts are still blu-tacked of course for painting.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/IMG_0012.jpg

She's just sitting roughly in position. Once the agrellan earth is down she should sit slightly better and will be positioned a little more snugly against the edge of the cauldron

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/IMG_0013.jpg

Hopefully the plastic will handle the weight, if not i'll add some thick metal wiring hanging down.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/IMG_0014.jpg

The Male Knight Pilots are vying for her as their consort, considering the size of that syringe, those spikes and blades you might think they'd be more wary.

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/IMG_0017.jpg

I'm quite pleased with how the floating cog footrest came out. positioning it so it felt 'right' with the folds in the skirt about her feet (or whatever machinery she might have in place of feet) was the trick

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f250/supreme_martian_overlord/IMG_0022.jpg

Now isn't that much better than just sitting the bowl of sacred martian soil on the ground?
I'm happy that i stuck with my original plan despite the doubts i'd had. :)

[Kierdale]

Creepy. Seriously creepy.

I love it.

[Argent aquila]

 Love it and the writing!

[Teetengee]

Fantastic!

[Battybattybats]

Glad you like it :) Hopefully i'll get the chance to get some better pics and start painting soon.

Alas i have so many projects on at once and Forgeworld keep releasing things so quickly. I haven't even got the Secutors or Vorax or the other weapon Castellax yet let alone finished building my other two started knights and Forgeworld just posted this

 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HHJx-uxr4vU/VNJpoTtYb_I/AAAAAAAAvk4/5yq058pN0Cs/s1600/Mech-scyllax.jpg

Which despite the pain that moldlines over that cable detail can be i will clealry HAVE to purchase once they hit general availability (Why did Gamesday Sydney need to stop drat it! All those event-only Mechganicum/Knight things i cannot get).

These don't have stats/rules released yet (Ursurax fans will be miffed that they have to wait for their minis) So people are already speculating these will be a unit of bodyguards that could be attached to an archmagos or magos dominos in which case they might become auto-includes for many (even though the archmagos is already quite expensive pointswise when tooled up, but the machinator array and abeyant are too good not to take!) and for me, well i'm trying to keep the model-count for my army low but just look at them! Though those servo arms do look on the fragile side so care will need to be taken (and much growling to be done at my opponents who are less gentle with models when they move in to assault)

[deathspectersgt7]

Very Cool.

[JeffTibbetts]

I'm gonna be honest. I didn't think the lady on the cauldron would look cool. I have all kinds of faith in you based on the work you've done, but it sounded like it would be a little lame. I'm so happy to see you've proven me wrong. That looks all sorts of freaking perfect. Why would the cauldron have tiny scalpel blades sticking out of it? Mechanicus, that's why. Even the footstool part is perfect, since it looks like she stands on it to float up to her sacred dirt chair. I think it'a utterly fantastic. Bravo.

 

Also, believe it or not when I saw those FW drone things I thought of you in like half a second. Yes, you do need those.

[Battybattybats]

Thanks JeffTibbetts! And hey, always feel free to give honest direct feedback.

I'll explain the whole soil thing now rather than waiting for when it's painted. I was thinking about the various symbolism that was building up and that in the source material i was drawing on. Arthurian courtly romance of course, Pagan Europe, Mediteranean cultures, North Africa especially Egypt of course, Medieval Alchemy etc and the role a consort plays. But what would the lady of the waters role be in a desert? Well of course the fertility goddess and ritual in many agrarian lands is less about the water and more the soil and crop. The carrying of fertile soil from Mars by the original expedition would have been both symbolic and a little practical, in that it would provide a baseline of comparison for testing that of the new world they reached and for terraforming while also maintaining a connection to the land of their origins (and perhaps a little of the Dracula's rest notion too).

When they arrived on New Ares and discovered a pristine wilderness looking extremely similar to Mars before it's colonisation they decided to only minimally terraform the world, to keep it more wild compared to the metropolis-studded Mars they had left behind. As things became more and more ritualised the soil would symbolise the life yet to lead, the possibility of harvest/success/prosperity in life, as well as fertility and the promise of progeny and eternity through generational continuance and renewal. So at first some of the soil would be used in marriage ceremonies, a kind of baptismal font for blessing the union. The discovery millennia later that Ancient Mars was now a polluted industrialised wasteland rebuilt as a mechanised largely metal-clad forgeworld barely recognisable compared to the thriving world their ancestors had left would have magnified their connection to the ancient soil samples, magnifying the potency of the symbolism that had already grown about it. These were the last traces of the original Mars untainted by the tragedy of the fall of Old Night. Connecting House Cydonia and New Ares directly to that age and the Omnissiah as strongly or even more, in their minds, than the pieces of Archaetech sitting in the vaults and that half-utilised terraforming ship.

Seeing each marriage as being blessed by the untainted soil of Mars and so each generation as the seeds that grew from that soil, as the children of Mars itself, bred a fierce arrogance and weight of duty and responsibility into the Houses of New Ares.

The most powerful void field generators they had were re-purposed in a way that would send the most conservative of Archmagos into fatal apoplexy to protect the remaining soil bequethed to each Noble line. Atomic sifter energy fields used in the terraforming process to strip excess toxins out of the air and water now ensure that not a molecule of the soil escapes the field and is returned to the cauldron, and unwelcome impurities periodically removed. Priceless irreplaceable technology is used to preserve a priceless irreplaceable treasure beyond compare and a priceless irreplaceable tradition at the heart of the ritual of the noble families.

So now when evaluating a prospective match, once the field has been narrowed by statistical calculation genetic compatibility and the reading of signs and portents, the consort-to-be takes to the field to view the martial prowess of the final candidates first-hand. Sitting atop the sacred soil that is a part of the very promise of success. In her hand she carries a goblet of purified and blessed water. When a great deed is performed that impresses her she will pour some of that water upon the parched dry soil. When the last drop is spilled from it and absorbed within the dirt her decision has been made between them. However it is refilled between each battle and so it may take an entire campaign and truly impressive feats for one to prove their worth. And to the victor then upon that Martian soil they will be wed, while the remainder will have to strive for another's hand.

So there we have the traditional competition of the Knights spurred on to greater feats in battle, the ladies favour no longer a piece of cloth but instead a splash of life giving water irrigating the soil and the role of the Lady in the choosing of the Knight and the political power of the consorts within the archaic tradition-burdened Knight-world system.

[Battybattybats]

Well the agrellan earth worked well first try. Now i just have to figure out a good colour scheme for Martian soil. Any suggestions?

I'm thinking something like the colour of the soil of the little town where I spent 6 years of my childhood, though for 3 of those years it was the latter half of a five year drought so picture this with much less grass and with much of the dirt cracked like dried mud and cracked so deep in parts you could lose a pencil into the earth and the dust devils were big and vicious!

http://cdn1.rwaws.com/s3/rw-media/propertyphotos/2014/10/28/S0934-18630-OkehSilocropped.jpg

So heavy layering of drybrush of Ryza rust for the highlights but what for the basecoat and wash?