Bringin’ the Bots to Battle
When it comes down to it, I would like to think that I am aware of my, let’s say, personality quirks. That sounds better than neurosis, right? Anyway. Knowing how I tend to be, I should have known better than to ever have painted some Mechanicum models for Heresy.
Or maybe I did know better. Either way, fuck me I did it. This just isn’t going to end well for me…
But this is not an article about the future devastations that will inevitably ruin my band account. This is about the new Iron Hands unit I painted, a resin character and a new well designed plastic kit.
Engineering Club Nerd
One of the things I enjoy most about games of Horus Heresy is just how much minutiae that exists within the aspect of list building. While you can just include a fairly generic Centurion character, representing a field officer or captain , you can choose a job for that model. These are known as Consul upgrades. The Praevian is one such upgrade that I was always interested in and unsure how to execute it. I convinced myself that it wasn’t worth the trouble of attaining one, since I had little to no interest in building some Forgeworld resin Mech kits.
Games Workshop revealed the Mechanicum launch box. I don’t have any interest in the thralls included, or the tank that they go in. So, again, I was able to talk myself out of getting the box. Temporarily that is.
Then Connor asked if I wanted to split a box. So. Yeah. You guessed it. I ended up with Thallax and Castellax anyway. Plus, I ordered a Praevian. He controls the robo murder machines.
The resin bits went together well, considering just how tedious they can be sometimes. There is so much chrome across the model that I primed him Leadbelcher, dry brushed him with Necron Compound and painted the armor panels black, then I layered some of that black that is almost black but not quite. I followed by washing him with the same Nuln oil and Athonian Camoshade wash mix as the regular marines I have painted: it’s about one part Camoshade to four parts Nuln oil. It ends up with a slightly oily sheen that I enjoy.
After that a bit of flesh and a few glowing green eye lenses and shit and he was done. Martian earth was applied to the base, and some old Secret Weapon weathering powder was applied to his legs to visually set him in the base better.
It took so little time that it almost felt like cheating, but, with two glorious lookin’ robots to work on, I left him and moved on.
Battle Bots
The Praevian came together rather easily and it was time to move onto the Castellax maniple. The building process was simple, but tedious. While the kit is well designed, it also seemed a bit over-engineered: so many small pieces. Somehow I managed to build, prime and paint both bots before I realized that I failed to even build the forearm guards and integrated weapons for the buzz-saw armed model. Digging through an epic pile of sprues, I was eventually able to find the bits, build and paint them separately. Not sure how I failed here but at least I was able to remedy the mistake.
If you want the bolt cannons on your Castellax, all will be well. If, on the otherhand, you want a more exotic shoulder-mounted ranged weapon, you’re in limited luck: they only include one Darkfire Cannon and one Multi-melta. I originally left these unattached, as I initially wanted to arm them both with Darkfire weapons. I was going to try to trade a multi-melta. Then I went for Fuck-it and ordered another set of them on ebay, as it was already clear to me that I would eventually build more.
As these Castellax were planned to be included within an Iron Hands army, I decided to paint them in the same colors. With so much black and silver, with a touch of white, I was worried that they might look comical if they were bright mech red or some other garish color. The primary and accent colors were inverted and I ended up with white armor panels with black accent colors on the shoulders.
The lenses were done with the same series of bright to brighter greens as I did with the Marines in the army. I also used the same wash mixture, using it to dirty up the while panels, and then roughly cleaning up the edges as a replacement for a highlight
Initially, my plan was to make a Mech ally for my Ultramarines based out of Forge World Konor. They would be painted red, with blue shoulders with the Ultima logo. I will still paint up some Thallax this way to accompany a Forge Lord which Connor kitbashed for me. But, I enjoyed the ease and result of these Castellax that now I intend to create an ally of them. They are better aligned with the Iron Hands on the buddy-buddy chart and should be fun to build. Yes. That’s right, I initially planned the 10th Legion as an ally for my Ultramarines, and now I am planning ally detachments for them. Ha.
That Connor guy. Man. Every time we hang out I end up spending more money as we discuss wonderfully terrible ideas, and I will be showing off several units he has built for me from both of our collections of kits and bits. The Iron Hands Morlocks squad (first of two, actually) are on the painting table right now. You’ll see them here soon enough. Until then…
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Tyson
Obsessive and neurotic collector of little plastic men, novels about the same little plastic men and paints to make the little plastic men pretty. Married to Kera, who puts up with him and pretends that she doesn’t hear him speaking to the little plastic men in between making pew pew noises in the hobby room. Requires adult supervision. A menace to himself but rarely to others. More beard than man