Now for something different – we have a guest blog by a mate of mine… its still 30k related so its ok! Be gentle with him, he is popping his cherry on Blog posting with this one!
Greetings! Danger Rod (not my real name…) here, for my very first guest blog entry. Some of you may know me from Massaen’s previous entry Terrain Super Build as the builder of a some of the terrain for the Upcoming Western Australia 40k Masters Event. Some may now me from playing 40k tournaments around Perth since 2012 and the Australian Team Championship for the last two years. Some people may just know me…..
Not to get too bogged down in introductions, I’m a tournament player foremost, as well as a hobbyist and a commission painter/builder. Also, like many hobbyists, I’ve got far too many projects and commissions on the go at once including a Warhound Titan that’s quietly boxed away…..but whispering like the dark gods at my subconscious telling me to build it!
But, for my first guest entry I wanted to talk Mechanicum, specifically Heresy Mechanicum. Massaen’s been talking about getting some battle reports in with fully painted armies up on the blog for some time now, and he’s asked me (no I told you! – ed) to finally get my act in to gear and build and paint up a Heresy army to smash face against his Word Bearers. So I decided to finally get my Mechanicum army built, although I was originally intending to build an Iron Hands army. I’m going to wait until a certain new box set drops before buying any Heresy marines!
Over the last year I’ve picked up some Mechanicum stuff using the “rule of cool” method. I also managed to get “paid” in models and cash last year for a Warhound Commssion!
So, with a general idea of what I want my list to look like and with a pile of washed Forgeworld resin in front of me yesterday, I finally sat down and built some Thallax Cohorts, Castellax Battle Automata and Vorax Battle Automata. And wow, these models are awesome!
First off the Thallax Cohorts, which will form the back bone of my force. These were so easy to build, you don’t get a lot of poses, but they look so intimidating with their blank expressionless heads. At this stage I’m only planning on kitting them out with their standard Lightning gun as it’s an awesome weapon to have with basic troops, but I am tempted to get some running with Multi-meltas so I’ve got a way to deal with armour. With minimal mold lines and few parts they were a pleasure to build. Quick and easy, just what you want for core troops! Six down, nine to go.
Next it was on the Castellax Battle Automata with Dark Fire Cannons, the Thallax’s bigger meaner brother! Another fairly static model, but after building two, I think I can covert them to add some motion in any future models. I found these slightly more time consuming to build, I had some issues with the super glue not “biting” with the resin, it almost seemed like the resin on these two was more porous and softer. Also, the two I had weren’t the cleanest of casts, plenty of annoying mold lines and shifts that need cleaning, but the end result is some badass robots with 70mm long Darkfire cannons mounted to the upper torso! The next batch with have mauler cannons, perfect for putting down marines! These guys are really bulky and fill out the 60mm bases well!
Last to build was the Vorax Battle Automata, I love these! They look cool, and are armed to the teeth with guns! But what nightmare to build! You need a lot of patience with these, the legs can be very tricky! The final position of the legs determines where the arms go, so you can end up with a very odd looking finished model if you don’t get them right. Also the legs are very flimsy, so for the next batch I’m going to have at least two points of contact with the base per model. I had some major mold lines on this batch, and all through the wrong areas, I did well to hide them, but when it comes to paint them I’ll have to work out a way to draw the eyes away from them. In the end, they really are worth it, look at how big they are!
All I have to build now is another unit of Vorax, Castellax and some Thallax…..then it’s on to a Thanatar Seige Automata and then this guy….
I just need to work out how to build him so I can swap his head….I don’t want to be a heretic all the time! I am sure I have a few magnets here some where!