The Tohakh dynasty

[Miek]

Hi there! I had a bit of relatively free time today so I decided to write down what I had in mind for my dynasty, hope you'll like it. I'll also use this thread to post pictures of my army as more models are added to the bunch.

Here's my latest family picture (some of them are WiP; I excluded unpainted models):

I might expand the backstory later, probably based on my modeling projects and how my army core evolves (see this thread: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/367747-1k-core-for-the-tohakh-dynasty/).

TLDR: The Tohakh dynasty awakened in a Dyson sphere that wasn't there when they went to sleep, and they're trying to get out (and exploring other ideas).

---

When the Tohakh dynasty completed its preparations for the deep slumber, its tomb world's system was both devoid of inferior lifeforms and rich with common and exotic material. But interstellar empires rise and fall many times over during 60 million years, and the dynasty's phaeron Sanakhan found its tomb world dramatically altered when it emerged from stasis.

Gone were the skies, stars and planetary bodies; the tomb's system could only detect an endless megastructure that extended in every direction. The megastructure appears to be composed of layers of unbreachable material that prevents moving towards its outer shell, if it even exists. The Necrons have long been familiar with the grotesque concept of enormous structures built to capture a star's total energy output, but this one's scale utterly defies logic. Its expansion appears chaotic and purposeless; the unsupervised continuation of a grandiose but long corrupted plan devised by a vanished civilization. The megastructure remains driven by a primitive yet elusive artificial intelligence that succeeded, over the eons, at corrupting and partly assimilating the tomb's own systems. Although every necron awakened from its slumber, some appear changed... especially those that lacked the willpower of the dynasty's glorious nobility.

The canoptek constructs and tomb defense systems were most affected by this corruption; none would answer their phaeron's call or that of its (relatively) trusted crypteks. After its awakening, the Tohakh dynasty spent the first millennia exploring and expanding its hold on the current layer of the megastructure, never encountering any autonomous organism, and developing a weapon able to pierce the previously unbreachable material that prevented them from ascending to other layers.

The Weapon is the Tohakh dynasty's greatest achievement; by consuming a c'tan shard per shot, it emits a destructive beam that distorts space in a straight line hundreds of kilometers long. The cost is enormous, but only this allows the migration to upper megastructure layers and will perhaps eventually allow the dynasty to contact their long lost brethren, which have undoubtedly retaken control of the galaxy after their own awakening.

Sanahkan's forces have now traveled across hundreds of layers and encountered and annihilated almost as many primitive entities, groups and civilizations. None of these seemed to be members or remnants of the ones that created this megastructure; they appeared to be trapped on their own layer, as the Tohakh dynasty was prior to the completion of the Weapon. There is no way of knowing if they are nearing the end of their journey, or if the megastructure’s expansion compensates for their progress. Nonetheless, their relentless advance doesn’t falter, for the Necrons’ persistence is absolute.

Hazardous ideas from the awakening are however being revived, and the everscheming crypteks are lobbying for the subjugation of the megastructure’s artificial intelligence. The nobility considers this perilous path unwise, but recognizes the importance of its potential benefits. The full control of the megastructure would bring unparalleled power to the Tohakh dynasty!

But Sanakhan is troubled by the cryptek’s recent and increasing insistence, and wonders if this may be due to the megastructure’s influence. Even its own actions unsettle it sometimes, including its dedication to eradicating the primitive denizens of the megastructure. Such creatures aren’t worthy of a phaeron’s attention, yet Sanakhan is driven to locate and purge all unworthy lifeforms.

Perhaps escape is unwarranted, and the cryptek’s proposal has more merit than the nobility recognizes. Or perhaps subjugation is already underway, and the proud Tohakh dynasty is - for once - slowly and unawarely losing a war with its greatest foe.

Edited November 19, 2020 by Miek

[NTaW]

Loving the background of your Dynasty and hope to read more. Could the sphere be influencing the engrammic degredation that heralds the onset of the Destroyer Curse?

 

The Codexes (up until 9th I guess? Can't think of seeing it in the new book) have traditionally had little blurbs about historic battles in the faction lore. You could always write short stories about your games and work them in as the various inhabitants of the sphere being eradicated/postponing their eventual eradication at the hands of the Tohakh. I like writing my background through my narrative campaigns personally, tons of fun for me having created the campaign mission tree but not quite knowing how the story will end for my army.

[Miek]

Thanks! I like how it can help inspire and mold future conversion projects, and it was fun to write. Further developing the story as games are played sounds great too!

Though week, but I really enjoyed working on this murderbucket this evening! I'm trying to improve my highlights' finesse and I like the result. I basically used a smaller brush and put up with the fact that it dries in a few milliseconds. Also tried a Payne's grey wash instead of nuln oil and I love the result!

[NTaW]

Grey wash instead of Nuln Oil??!? Blasphemy.

 

...but it does look really good.

 

What's your recipe for that red? I really like how muted it looks and I wish to steal it for my own uses.

 

As for tying games into your lore now all you need is some sphere-type scenery! Somehow I feel like there would be all types of fun stuff in that setting.

Edited November 20, 2020 by NTaW

[Miek]

Happy to:

Mournfang brown base layer, agrax earthshade in recesses, Vallejo flat red glazes, evil sunz scarlet glazes, then highlights.

If I want to speed this up, I replace the red glazes with drybrushing; it worked really well for my latest warriors.

I'm not really done experimenting with highlights, but I'm mixing flat red with flat flesh and screaming skull to get to the desired color. The highest highlights usually stop at 100% screaming skull, but I went pretty close to pure white on my tesseract ark. I think it's fine for bigger models (ex.: vehicles), but it's too much for smaller models; screaming skull is bright enough for those.

[Miek]

Getting there, just need to finish the turquoise bits and edge highlights:

I bought a few army painter tufts and they're pretty sweet; I'm alternating between those and my yards dried out seeds.

Edited November 22, 2020 by Miek

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Good job on the Necrons.

[Miek]

Immortals and Cryptothralls done! Next: 40 new bases for my previous vows:

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Again, good job, Miek.

[Miek]

Thanks Bjorn!

 

I really regret not patching up the shoulders now, but it'll serve as a reminder.

[NTaW]

I'm so used to seeing the cracks there I had to look again to see that you have filled some of them, so I'm not sure it matters too much. Of course I have ripped apart fully painted models to repose/reequip/harvest parts for conversions so you know...do what you gotta do! How hard would it be to paint just the shoulders with the rest of the model finished? Edited November 24, 2020 by NTaW

[Miek]

Hummmm you're right, it would be quite easy. Do you think carefully applied & sanded super glue would work well for this?

 

I'd rather not buy another pot of liquid green stuff, my last one dried in the pot while almost full.

[NTaW]

I straight use green stuff (kneadatite) for this sort of thing and employ a silicone colour shaper to press in, back of knife to remove excess, then back to the silicone to smooth it out. Liquid green stuff and I didn't get along too well :lol:

[Miek]

WIP stuff will be moved here: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/368072-mieks-wip/

The new bases are coming together:



...and I'm working on my new flayed one count as. It appears to have dropped in quality when I converted it to STL (bad parameters I guess - was distracted) but the detail level will be high enough to see the symbol clearly on the chest. Thoughts?



I did another one with Skorpekh legs (scaled down to the correct dimensions), but it only looked like a baby skorpekh so I chose this variant.

I'll probably do 5 different poses and print them in one piece.

Yeah pieces are clearly missing, the spine is gone. Anyways, here's a screenshot from the back:



Edit: I'm very much open to feedback and suggestions BTW, I have access to pretty much every model so I can use bits from others. I'm currently trying to add an acanthrite's tail and canoptek legs to see if it looks better.

Edited December 7, 2020 by Miek

[Miek]

WIP stuff will be moved here: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/368072-mieks-wip/

Hehe this is fun:

Edit: Ok, I think I got the concept I like the most:

Edited December 7, 2020 by Miek

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Edit: Ok, I think I got the concept I like the most:

He looks like Grievous, from Revenge of the Sith. Add two wing-like crystals and a tail, and he'll look like Cocytus.

[Miek]

WIP stuff will be moved here: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/368072-mieks-wip/

First print test:





I didn't clean it up, but I can tell this is going to work for me! Next, I'll:

- Scale it up a bit, to get to the warrior's height;
- Make limbs and weapons thicker and adjust proportions (head is too small);
- Do 5 different poses for a full MSU. Hum I could vary weapons as well... Food for thought.

It's not obvious on the pictures, especially since I didn't clean it up, but details are pretty well preserved (fingers, symbol, lines in the blades, etc.). Making it bigger will obviously help further.

I've also printed a first gravitational beam emitter for Sanakhan as well as a few SoB heads to test scale and such; no pic quite yet though!

Edited December 7, 2020 by Miek

[Miek]

WIP stuff will be moved here: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/368072-mieks-wip/

Two first flayed ones (the previous one was just a prototype). A third one coming out of an old well is printing. The one on the left still needs some cleanup.

Edited December 7, 2020 by Miek

[Miek]

Finished my flayed ones count as! Really happy with how they turned out, especially the teleporting one:

[Miek]

Finished Sanakhan, the Tohakh dynasty's phaerakh. She wields a gravitational beam emitter (relic arrow count as) to piece holes into the megastructure and her (insignificant) foes:

There are more details on my WiP thread. Honestly I'm not 100% happy with how her head turned out, but still very happy with the overall model. It's the first time I consciously try doing non metallic metal and I love how her body turned out. I also love the lightning effect on the gun.

I started "rescuing" one of my ghost arks; it was very poorly assembled, not cleaned up, not magnetized and never painted. I put it in the freezer, broke it apart and started working on it.

[Miek]

Decided to paint a few more warriors before the ghost ark, but it's next (for real):

Edit: Better picture:

Edited February 2, 2021 by Miek

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The warriors are well-painted.

[Miek]

This one's done! Next up is my Tesseract ark, I haven't given it a driver and weapon options yet, so I'll remedy that by the end of the month:

[Miek]

I have progressed a bit more with my necrons in the past few months, although the next few should be dedicated to my space Skavens (will add a link to my signature). I have finally added a pilot and guns to my Tesseract Ark (I love this vehicle):

And I've just completed 6 tomb blades:

I'm not sure what I'd paint next for my necrons, but I'll probably look at my lists and see if anything I plan on using is unpainted. Probably either of the following:

- CCB / AB

- Night / Doom Scythe

- Canoptek Wraiths (would reprint)

- Canoptek Tomb Stalker / Sentinel (would reprint)

We'll see. People are finally getting vaccinated, so hopefully I'll be able to play a real game in the next few months.

Edit: Hah, I don't even have 9 fully painted and based scarab swarms... That's unacceptable!

Edited May 1, 2021 by Miek

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The paint, details, and lighting effects are well done.