New Year / New Army: AM Stygies - Second Patrol Box WIP

[Bouargh]

I succumbed to the charms of the Machine God and started a new army for Stygies.

 

For the moment it is not structured at all. Units are selected on a "I like this one factor" and will not allow anything else than free play. Her is what I have:

- Mago on Abeyant

- Macrotek with its thralls

- Termite

- The old "get started box" with another Seer, a squad of Skitarii and the Skorpius Dunerider

 

So far I started with the 2 first from the list and here is the current state:

 

 

 

More views in my galleries, so, feel free to consult though my profile and share comments and advises.

 

Thanx

Edited February 12, 2023 by Bouargh
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[Brother Carpenter]

Ooh nice.

Admech certainly hits my softspot as well. But funds, wife, time etc

 

Love to see your progress.

[Bouargh]

I spent the week-end building the Termite. As for most of 100% resin FW kits I bought, it proved to be a unpleasant hobbying time. The kit itself is quite straight forward to build up and barely requires instructions. But the parts are bulky and free surface poorly filled in. Result is that Superglue is useless as 2 surface suposed to join and stick are with a gap of half a mm or so. Gap filler thank you.

Quite common in my experience. Bests kits from FW  have always been troops and hybrid plastic/resins that do not have these kind of defaults. Or less.

 

But anyway, after destroying (twice) a small detail of front track guard (the molding carrot lead there and it broke at cutting and even at sawing)... I finally built it. Doors didn´t fit well, I needed to work "en force" and with all the finesse of a ramming bull but in the end they enterred in there places.

So it now have a nice and finely enough detailled resin brick ready for next step. 

 

PS1: I just realized that I did not washed and brushed the parts first; so demoulding liquid will probably cause me issues during painting. I will see if a long bath may resolve this/limit the inconvenience. I cannot believe I missed it. Again... 

 

PS2: BTW, I built the Abeyant only basing me on pics form the site as the "Character series" luxury box cames without instructions. But it came with a QR code and a web adress to download .pdfs; but none were functionals.

Email and short message to FW/GW remained unanswered for the whole past week. I am a little bit pissed off  by this kind of service black hole. Just like if sales channel and customer relashionship has been designed by a teletuby. If you start failing with that kind of easy thing, well, you will fail with everything else. But may be it is a consequence of FW being slowly but surely becoming an empty shell ? 

 

 

[Firedrake Cordova]

Oof, that sucks.  I bought a couple of Aeronautica Imperialis models from Forgeworld last year which came with defects, and they were pretty quick to reply and send replacements - sorry to hear you're experiencing customer service issues  

[Bouargh]

So, an update:

- Termite primed

- Skorpius primed

- Skitariis - I am still hesitating for Vanguard or Rangers. 

 

Engineseer was previously modified to be a proxi for a TecnoArcheologist. It predated th release of the mini form Black Fortress as a stand alone. But truth is I used the axe on a SM Techmarine with C. Beamer...

And here is the TecnoArcheologist in all its glorious greyness...

 

[Bouargh]

An update with the Terrax Pattern Termite, fresh from the work bench:

 

 

As always, no decals so far. I am still delaying this step as this is when I screw it up fully...

 

The Dunerider is also in good progress and might be completed this week.

 

 

[Firedrake Cordova]

It looks good to me  Are you going to apply any weathering once the decals are on? I get the impression it'd look great with some weathering pigment added to the metal bits to represent dirt/dust in the recesses.  

[Bouargh]

It is something I might consider, but as I have zero experience with weathering pigments, I will have to give it a though or two and test/learn on another model first.

[Firedrake Cordova]

That's fair enough  

 

One thing with pigments ... if you're applying them dry (i.e. not making a wash with them), they need fixing with a fixative - if you don't like how they look before you do that, you can just brush/blow the pigments off   

[Bouargh]

DuneRider completed:

 

 

I think I read on Goonhammer or Tales of 4 painters (I don´t really remember where...) that AdMech was a good test bench for fast painting. I would say that in my case it has been the exact opposite approach. I guess I never spent so much effective time on models than on these few AdMechs. The DuneRider alone has been on the bench almost 2 weeks, prepainting parts separately, correcting details...

 

The grey coats are finally not too bad and I guesss the 2 gunners are a good sample of how would the Skitarii look like if I can stay focussed. Stick to the plan...

 

So next step are these 10 SKtitarii. In the end, as I have not been able to choose between Rangers and Vanguards, I will do both. 5 of each. I will increase the units to 10 in the future.

But before, I will do a pause, shifting to scenery: I have a half finished Sanctum Administratus and a primed Sacristan Forgeshrine in the waiting list... 

[Firedrake Cordova]

It looks like you're off to a good start!  

 

I'm not sure why someone would say the Adeptus Mechanicus are good for speed painting - there's lots of cables and greebles that need picking out on them. You can probably do the metals with wash-and-drybrush, but then there's the rest of the model... 

Edited March 2, 2023 by Firedrake Cordova

[Bouargh]

1 hour ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

I'm not sure why someone would say the Adeptus Mechanicus are good for speed painting - there's lots of cables and greebles that need picking out on them. You can probably do the metals with wash-and-drybrush, but then there's the rest of the model... 

 

Well I simplified it a little bit maybe... the blogger was refering to the fact it is the first time he used contrast paints in order to skip enhancment steps (lavis washing, highlighting...)

[Firedrake Cordova]

Ah, that makes more sense.  There are definitely some parts of the models that would respond well to Contrast paints!

[Bouargh]

This will be the ultimate update, as I painted all the AdMechs models I have. Ultimate until getting some reinforcements. Sooner or later. And being able to reach a playable army.

 

Skitarii Vanguards - fitted with arc weaponery theme:

 

Skitarri Rangers - fitted as a fire support / sniping:

 

 

The idea is to increas them to 10 models strong units, sticking with the roles defined. And maybe then add another 10 men strong Vanguard designed to face MEQ - think 2 plasma guns basicaly.

 

Next moves will depend of my local store stocks - for the moment it is low and may eventually focus on Serberis or electropriests as these boxedsets are among the few ones that remain. Unless I can place en order for other things. Up to 2 Patrols boxes are a nice idea, leading to the 20 more skitarii I´d like + 2 Kataphron units (one of each flavour) and 2 Onagres. A very decent force, even if a little bit light on HtH and shock troops... 

 

I will have to give it a though.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Bouargh
tipos

[Bouargh]

So, although not on my schedule, I raided a FLGS (local meant 2 hours drive this time... but I was not really heading there specificaly, let say I took the opportunity to add a stop) and took... what remained available there for AdMechs:

- a Patrol box

- a tech-priest manipulus

 

Not much remained for the enhanced sociopaths called skitarii... so these are my inbound reinforcement for the moment.

I should be around 1k points with this, but first let´s build and paint.

 

Most sprues are primed already and both manipulus and the seer are built. The manipulus is rather a complicated model to build. Not recommended for rookie hobbyists.

As I seriously slowed doown my painting productivity I guess I will need a month or two to complete all the stuff. Laetly I have been able to (almost - basing under progress) complete 12 Orks from the GorkaMorka box in 3 weeks, definitively not my top velocity...

[Boc]

2 hours ago, Bouargh said:

I raided a FLGS (local meant 2 hours drive this time

Good lord that's a haul. Definitely would throw a damper on my impulse buying lol

[Bouargh]

9 hours ago, Boc said:

Good lord that's a haul. Definitely would throw a damper on my impulse buying lol

 

Sure, Covid left deep impact and we suffered a lot a business closing down for everything related to Hobby (GW, other games, modelling supplies...) - going from 3 resellers to zero in the area. 

[Bouargh]

And here comes the freshly painted and based Manipulus and his Engineseer acolyte:

 

 

As well a a status report on the Onager (Neutron laser configuration) - still very WIP:

 

 

I will do the underneath parts and legs in the cream scheme of Mars parttern vehicles. the rest will stick the the grey I used for the Dunerider and the Termite (as well as all long coats and robes btw...)

 

As for the base, well, will be a small rocky slop with sand deposits - for the moment you see the underneath stucture taht I will cover with putty later in the coming days.

 

As always comments and advises are more than welcomed.

[Bouargh]

Just completed the DuneCrawler. I set it on a slightly scenified base in order to add a little bit of relief under the form of a very smooth "sand stone" platform. OK, so smooth you have to really pay attention to see it as my poor lighting do not help getting enough contrast on the pics... But believe it or not, there is almost 1 cm height difference.

 

I stayed faithful with the scheme applied to other vehicles but with a small evolution in terms of bony colour for the legs. once agin not too visible a 10 p.m. and in half dark pics...

 

 

Next step is Kataphron destroyers: track units are already done but I still haven´t built the bodies. Should also think about the bases to add some touches on these 60 mm diameter saucers...

[Bouargh]

One more unit added to the list with these Kataphron Destroyers - fitted with grav cannon and Cognis flamer. A little bit unusual configuration  maybe but I am making a bet vs. weapons in 10th there. I expect this combination to be useful. Future will say.

 

 

 

As always, Coments and Advices welcomed.

 

Next step is the Skitarii (still on sprues), and I will have every thing done fron this second batch of miniatures. They will complet the ranks of the existing 2 MSU built from the initial box, leading to 2 10 men strong units (one of Vanguards and one of Rangers)

 

But before I will paint these few Long Fangs (from the 1st metal boxed set) I rediscovered in a shoe crate. I didnot found the weapons so I managed with plastic extras from the Devastator set... More later. 

 

[Bouargh]

Just completed 10 footsloggers to make-up the previous 2 small squads of Vanguards and Rangers into 10 men strong units. And here they are:

 

 

 

So this 2nd batch of AdMech is now complete (and reaches 1028 pts before any Holy Order upgrade) and I run again out of new/recent purchases. Will be a good oportunity to retake some Gantries and scenery waiting nearby and keep on cleaning the pile of shame of mine. May be moving to these fantasy dwarves from Battle of Skull Pass starter...

 

In parallel it will give me some time to think about AdMech 3rd round - what to priorize from my wish list?... A knight (of the Cog)? More troops (A second Patrol would add some nice, even if not so exciting, options)? Cerberys and Marshall? Doubts, doubts, doubts... 

Edited April 22, 2023 by Bouargh
pt value

[Firedrake Cordova]

Personally, I've always thought there was more motivation in assembling and painting models you loved, rather than models you had because the rules for them were good (or where the rules said you had to take them), so ... are there any models in the Adeptus Mechanicus range which you particularly like but don't have yet, or ones where you'd really like to have another?

 

I've no idea what they're like in-game, but my favourites from the range are the Skitarii Rangers, Serberys riders, Sicarans, Pteraxii, Onager Dunecrawler, and Kastellans...  

[Grotsmasha]

I also just paint stuff I like the look of. Since you'd like to play them, I'd consider your play-style and what you like about AdMech, and then choose something that matches, but fills a gap in your list. 

For me personally, I'd love to pick up some Kastelans and some Ironstriders / Dragoons.

[Bouargh]

2 hours ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

Personally, I've always thought there was more motivation in assembling and painting models you loved, rather than models you had because the rules for them were good (or where the rules said you had to take them), so ... are there any models in the Adeptus Mechanicus range which you particularly like but don't have yet, or ones where you'd really like to have another?

 

I've no idea what they're like in-game, but my favourites from the range are the Skitarii Rangers, Serberys riders, Sicarans, Pteraxii, Onager Dunecrawler, and Kastellans...  

 

Fair enough. I started the collection on this basis, but I feel like I´d like to get next step to make the force a little bit more playable, without accumulating to much. A kind of drop in army for casual game, where you do not need touching army list and you can set on the table to have a good time without complications in friendly games.   

 

If I shall let me guided be looky-look, I find that Serberys riders are really gorgeous. Dito for the AdMech Questoris Knight Styrix or Vultarax Stratos Automata (to be used as a proxy Archaeopter Fusilave). 

In that sense a knight may be a good idea: you reach more rapidely in point valus (with a single min a 450-550 pts....) and can get the 2000 pts target I have in mind with a relatively low investment. And it is central model... of course it is going to define (and limit) the tactical option I will have...

 

49 minutes ago, Grotsmasha said:

I also just paint stuff I like the look of. Since you'd like to play them, I'd consider your play-style and what you like about AdMech, and then choose something that matches, but fills a gap in your list. 

For me personally, I'd love to pick up some Kastelans and some Ironstriders / Dragoons.

 

Ironstriders as support for Serberys is something I considered but it is relativly expensive kit for what´s worth...

 

Kastellans Are nice, would briing some HtH power, but their head is... well, I don´t match. Sure I could go for a C-Type 3D printed head... 

 

 

C-type head is not that bad and gives a good Heresy outlook... 

Edited April 23, 2023 by Firedrake Cordova
Fix broken quote block

[Firedrake Cordova]

That's completely understandable.  Would it be worth dropping a post into the Adeptus Mechanicus forum, saying what you've got, what models you like, your target army size, and asking what would be a good set of purchases to fill the army out up to that size?