Xisor's Skitarii Maniple Pi-9-2 and cult auxiliaries

[Xisor]

Abstract

td;dr - I present unfinished, less orthodox, more 'low level' techguard-style skitarii. Also: what's a good way to kitbash electropriests?

 

Exhibits 00000001

9-2-Pi Maniple - combat sufficiency achieved

http://i.imgur.com/RArTieZl.jpg

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9-2-Pi Maniple - Genoguard Alphas

http://i.imgur.com/EKgLZ8Sl.jpg

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9-2-Pi Maniple - Pre-deployment Reclaimator and Genoguards (inc. alpha)

http://i.imgur.com/hitGiRal.jpg

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9-2-Pi Maniple - Magos

http://i.imgur.com/7SRz7xSl.jpg

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9-2-Pi Maniple - First active source rad carbine

http://i.imgur.com/57fR3USl.jpg

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9-2-Pi Maniple - Second active source rad carbine

http://i.imgur.com/PQf3VkUl.jpg

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Inception Notes

 

It occurred to me, early on, in speculating about what I wanted to do with an Adeptus Mechanicus forces, that whilst I like the view and power and very notion of Forge Worlds and their forces, I wanted something that was fundamentally more personal.

 

I know, heresy in the world of Hard Data. Nevertheless.

 

To that end, I'd vaguely themed some of my Harlequins, designs around a Tzeentchian cultist forces, my Salamanders of the Burning Skies (under Captain Dac'tyr), and a hodge-podge Astra Militarum force around the world of Levilnor IV.

 

It seemed abundantly clear that even notionally tying them into the same theme would be satisfying (for myself) and also allow me an easy departure from the work of almost everyone else to-date on Mechanicus forces.

 

Plainly, from the above, you'll notice a fierce lack of 'Martian Red'.

 

Similarly, harking back to my oldest work on the Adeptus Mechanicus (ignore the xenos [cref: demiurg] in the middle...), I had in mind a relatively sombre but, to my mind, agreeable colour scheme - that of space janitors (e.g. lots of browns with some cream for flavour).

 

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b264/Xisor/Demiurg2-1.jpg

 

Add to that the idea that these 'Skitarii' are often barely known as Skitarii at all. Radtroopers was the one that caught my eye, but in one of the short stories I saw the electropriests 'mistaken' for mere elderly tech-pilgrims. Similarly, the Sicarians were noted in the Codex as being colloquially known as 'shivs'. It set into my heart then - I could reject the strictures and nomenclature of Mars!

 

Now, I don't want to style the force as a series heretic (err, heretek) force, nor as even any sort of terrible deviant cult or whatnot - simply that they're wayward when compared to the ultra-orthodoxy of the Forge Worlds.

 

Instead, I wanted to evoke the idea of your 'day to day techguard' - composed of radtroopers and reclaimators and shivs and pilgrims, no corpuscarii and vanguard skitarii and whatnot.

 

Add to that, I also wanted a suggestion that whilst they are ultra-effective killers and soldiers, they're not being utilised as that all the time. Instead, I wanted to present the idea that this might be the sort of 'show of force' that a Magos might bring along as a bodyguard when doing some archaeotech work in the mid-hives - something to scare off trouble-makers and cow the local population, whilst also not being too much of a stuck-up, snooty, overly elaborate force.

 

In short, I wanted private security mixed with space janitors mixed with apocalyptic weaponry. In that last regard, I put a lot of worry into whether I could seriously pull off the 'yellow weapons'. I wanted a sort of hazard-suit feel to the devices, but also a 'long forgotten' and also a 'wielded by people who simply do not care about it looking anything other than a half-arsed warning'. My Astra Militarum have standard-issue red weapons (harking back to the Red Era of the 80s/90s), but as the colour scheme was similar to my Guard, I wanted to give a nice visual cue that these are very different.

 

Finally, I've never quite cared for the really clean, 'beautiful' paint work that my betters are able to achieve. (*insecurity klaxon!*!) That is - emulating it never seemed a great goal for me. My Salamanders always looked too bright when I try to do that, and if not that, then my models look far too crisp and/or busy for the vision I have in my head.

 

That brought me into the world of washes. You'll notice that I've gone slightly... overboard.

 

Project Backlog

- I'm tempted to go ahead with extra (very-bright) blue highlight on all the weapons and packs. Whilst I'm fond of the Temple Guard Blue, it's still slightly one-dimensional and whilst I don't like my 'paint splattered' source lighting with it on the two I have added this highlight to (the "active source" ones, above), I think the effect on the blue itself is markedly better. I'm open to revision on it though.

- Work on mould-lines/joins with any attentiveness at all.

- Devise a method of neatly highlighting these that won't lead them to become too crisp and lovely. 

- Lots of bits are still unpainted or unfinished (notably - eyes, lamp-packs), so these are by no means 'finished', just at a passable 'good enough' standard that I could get away with them on the table-top.

- For my Magos I'm still undecided - will she get a full oiling like the rest of the force, or do I want to keep her clean and crisp, with a proper round of shading and highlights to have her stand apart?

- Devise a colour-scheme for a plan to have 5 units of Sicarians (inc. 'Children of Atom' - priestly infiltrators carrying the Pater Radium)

- Devise a kitbash to allow some electro-priests, but aligning more with Fantasy's flagellants than 'just' the electropriests. (Another idea was to use electro-priest arms on Skitarii bodies - has anyone tried it? Would it work?)

- Worry about how I'll modify this paint-job for use on servitors, dunecrawlers and kastellans.

 

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Comments, criticisms, suggestions very welcome.

Edited September 19, 2017 by Xisor

[WarriorFish]

I like the yellow weapons, they work well with the orange robes too :)

[Xisor]

Cheers, WF! (Something of a delay, I know...)

 

I acquired the big Mech box at Christmas and am setting about augmenting the force.

 

Foremost, as I mentioned in the electropriest thread, and originally in the above OP, I had intended to convert my electropriests as something more... interesting than the base models. (They're not hilariously bad or such, just they don't quite work for me.)

 

So, without further ado, some progress:

http://i.imgur.com/poZkFzll.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/lz6GGTvl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/cm7ajaal.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/xp2Wtjrl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Z9DLYYVl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/j5rBbdzl.jpg

 

I've enough parts,I think, to make a solid fifteen of these guys. So I'm looking forward to more work, and adding a few of the more serious Mechanicus details.

 

They're slightly odd sizes, as the EP originals are giants compared to the Flagellant pieces, but as they're due to look weird anyway, it's not a huge issue.

 

One detail that is massively annoying: they're all male. So I'm considering options to add some balance too, but obviously is not going to be immediately easy where kitbashing is concerned. Nevertheless!

 

---

 

I'd always fancied some Sicarians all with the 'cloaks' (I'd need five boxes of Sicarians to pull that off, so could take a flwhile...) and have them carrying the Pater Radium, and so have the 'rabble' of my collection all be slightly themed along the lines of the Children of Atom out of Fallout 3. Maybe even a few bright yellow ragged hazmat bits too...

Edited January 29, 2017 by Xisor

[Xisor]

I've been doing a spot of extra painting recently. Foremost, the idea occurred to me that, fundamentally, whatever my Skitarii are up to, whatever my Dominus is up to, whatever my electro-priests are up-to, (and for others, I've not got that far - whatever my Titans and Knights are up to), these are all massively separate organisations. It's like a force of Iron Hands, Steel Legion, Knights, Ecclessiarchy Priests and Assassins having a shared colour-scheme...

 

Well, of course the parallel isn't exact. But the idea occurred to me nevertheless: the Legion Cybernetica robots should, really, be somewhat visually distinct from the rest of the force. I probably won't press it too heavily in distinguishing the Cult elements from the Skitarii elements (helped by focussing on the Skitarii robes being brown, not necessarily all of their other elements), and with a focus on yellow 'hazard' markings throughout, indicating that it might not be an entirely conventional, unified military force.

 

(As I've said before: space janitors is one of the major themes I had in my head. Even though there's an edge of Riza to the scheme...!)

 

Now, with all that in mind, I've got some of the preliminary work done.

 

Foremost: The robot. Still not decided on details for him and his pal yet, save to suppose that some light graffi will be used to break up the 'plainness' of them. (Though I really am quite pleased with the relatively 'clean' celestra grey and the hazard markings - even better when I tidy it all up. I was worried they'd go a bit boring 'Specialist Games Tau' fleet.)

http://i.imgur.com/ugxc4NDl.jpg

 

And, here, with context on the hazard-yellow being put on the battle servitors. Striking in the black and yellow, but I'm pretty confident the servitors will get quite busy and garish soon enough.

http://i.imgur.com/KwN33e5l.jpg

 

Here, to provide some context, is an assortment of folk beside big 'un. There's some scuttlings (very fuzzy), old firehat the electro priest, my partially-done data smith, my first Storm Giant effort, the robot and the servitor.

http://i.imgur.com/ENSB36rl.jpg

 

It happens that I'm proceeding slowly too, as you might spot - there's some artefacts of the Silver Tower in amongst there.

 

Nevertheless. I'm looking forward to perhaps getting to spend some time fixing 'em up over the next couple of weekends.

[Charlo]

I like the yellow weapons, they work well with the orange robes too

 

Second the yellow weapons!

[Xisor]

Summary: Introducing an array of operational-grade additions to the dig on Levilnor IV. Scroll for pictures.

 

Preamble: More than that, after some hearty analysis of the organisation of various bits of the Adeptus Mechanics (hopefully not overturned by this Saturday's release of the unified codex...).

 

Recall: these are more tech-guard than typical skitarii. Logically, I imagine that there's an Explorator Fleet (The Hovid Ecumenacy) of which this is only a tiny sliver. I envisage the resources to contain roughly three-thousand macroclades (of which each is roughly twelve maniples organised into three cohorts, assuming the skitarii general structure can be extended outwards), of which the vast bulk (2000+) are battle-servitor macroclades, a further 800 are Skitarii Auxiliary Macroclades (e.g. tech-guard/machine-cultists/abhumans), a further 140 are proper Skitarii (e.g. these), 50 are essentially ordained formations (electropriests, secutors etc) and the remaining ten are Legio Cybernetica forces (which, if a maniple is roughly four robots and a data smith, then that only tallies 480 robots amongst a gargantuan force of millions of servitors and tech-cultists).

 

I digress.

 

Introducing the active elements.

Pi-9-2 Sigma-Saturation, Rad-Beamer Onager

 

Lopek-7 and Avowal-5, attached from Attatorium Maniple, Legio Cybernetica.

 

Techlimator Aneli-Chi Noether, Magos Explorador Tertian of the Hovid Explorator Ecumenacy - overseer and architect of the dig "Aexcavation 7731-Q" on Levilnor IV, Maniple Pi-9-2 (+ aux.) assigned and in attendance.

 

Disciples of Onnes, corpuscarite clergy attached to Maniple Pi-9-2.

 

 

'Shiv Princeps' and the rest of Pi-9-2 Phi-Atomicity, lay cyborg auxiliaries of the Children of Radium

 

 

Aleph 73 Maniple 'Praetor' Battle Servitors (breachers with dual-arc weapons) of the 1337 Servitoria Macroclade, attached to Maniple Pi-9-2.

 

Categorisation: Levites, fulgurian mission attached to Maniple Pi-9-2.

 

Tantalising Throw-Forward

I've got plans to include work-teams of tech-guard auxilliaries (likely using Imperial Guard rules):

- My Chaos Cultists (form Dark Vengeance and Execution Force) as an indentured force

- My Genestealer Cultists (from Deathwatch: Overkill) as a mutant force

- Forthcoming Kharadron Overlord Arkanaut Company (or more) as an abhuman force

 

With the relative success of the scheme on the bright-yellow onager, I've intention of getting a few more vehicles to round out the force. Principally:

- 3 Goliath Trucks to shuttle the radtrooper forces (3x10 Vanguard)

- 2 Goliath Rockgrinders to ferry the reclaimators (2x5 Rangers)

- +2 Onagers with Radbeamers (to go alongside the initial one, scouring/clearing the dig-site)

- +1 Onager with Icarus load as a sentry

 

And finally, I really fancy rounding out the robot maniple with an extra two robots (likely flamer-fist combinations).

 

Indeed, I might even manage to get a few games in soon enough!

[Magos Takatus]

I really like the yellow and black on the Breachers in particular. It looks very strong combination.

[Prot]

Love the blue energy colour contrast with the yellow. I'm not braves enough for that but the beauty is a choice of Dogmas. :tu:

[MithrilForge]

i will add the yellow weapons are very much a standout for me ! well done 

The children of radium reminds me of fallout 4 and the "children of Atom" 

cheers, Mithril

[Xisor]

Cheers guys! @Mithril - that's exactly what I was thinking. Especially inspired by Seventh Edition's much-missed Pater Radium relic!

 

I've got a little preview of some reinforcements for these lovely Mechanicals. I've also acquired two more robots and got to work on a bit of graffiti for them, but my biggest pleasure of late is a bit of kit bashing!

 

As such: introducing my three new characters - the side two 'count as' Magi Dominum, but they are rendered as Skitarii, whilst the middle one is a Sicarian of some form, who's my first effort at an infiltrator-y type. I'm vaguely considering a kitbash/conversion for Cawl too - but as I've little interest in playing as Mars, I'm not too fussed.

 

I'm also setting about touching ups lot of the paint jobs on these guys - tidying them up, seating things, bolding the colours where needed, and for the bulk of the Skitarii - actually properly basing them!

 

Nevertheless, without further ado:

 

 

Left to right, that's:

Alpha Exorcist Secutarion: Porr Xantech Exaclatoria (as Magos Dominum)

Princeps Minoris: Raddi Hovinfeen (as Sly Marbo/Magos Dominum)

Alpha Lector Explorator: Kree bin Tousas (as Magos Dominum)

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Good job on the models.

[Tyriks]

Very nice models!

[Ammonius]

Excellent, characterful work!

I'm glad to see that basing is on your task list, while reviewing this thread from the beginning, that's the thing that sticks out the most.

 

Keep it up! Having lore-based reasons for how your force is put together is very cool!

[Subtle Discord]

Isn't all the extra bits one of the best parts about Mechanicus? The larger the collection the more opportunities to change things up and create unique models.