Renegade Mechanicus Army Project Log

[Proiteus]

Most of you will have seen my previous armies such as the 'Darkmakers' and their undead Ultramarines to the prize winning Grot Rebellion

I’m now working on my latest project which is an army with a Mechanicus theme that I’ve wanted to do for a long time. For this project I plan to keep a log of my process for all of you guys to see. So let’s get started.

The Theme

Like all of my armies this one started with a simple conversion which was a robotic drone for the game ‘Inquisitor’ called the ‘Dragoon’ it was small fast and very hard to hit. So I built 3 more of them and my war band ended up consisting of a techpriest controlling 4 small drones, it was awesome.

After a few years most players had grown tired of Inquisitor and my ‘Dragoons’ where gathering dust. It was then the thought occurred to me: “How cool would it be to build an army for 40k based on this concept?” It was then that I decided to create a Mechanicus cult army called the ‘Zanatorians’.

The fluff behind the Zanatorians is solid they are a renegade group of techpriests who believe that mankind must evolve to a new level of evolution in order to survive the inevitable fall of the Imperium, this can only be achieved through the use of powerful technology. The Zanatorians originally claimed independence from the Imperium and settled on a small system on the outskirts of Imperial space where they founded a small highly technologically advanced civilisation. However it wasn’t long before the Imperium located them and carried out a great purge of the system.

Despite this the Zanatorians survived and now exist in secret continuing their research towards robotics and other forbidden technology. Most of them are housed in colossal sized spaceships which they call ‘Sanctuary Worlds’. The leaders of the cult are the Machine Lords often working in pairs to fulfil their overall objective.
“To save mankind from its own destruction!”

The Army

First thing was choosing the best list for the theme, at first I’d looked at Witch-Hunters: Converting the sisters into cybernetic warriors and having acts of faith represent ‘Acts of the Machine God’ overall it sounded pretty solid.

Then the Blood Angels codex was released and the idea of having the Dragoons flying round with the techpriest was excellent. However the Dragoon model was far too small to represent a space marine so it was back to the drawing board.

I then settled on using the Necron Codex, what better list for an army of robots. So it was then on to the next step, the miniatures.

The Mock Models

Going from the left...

The Machine Lord

I had a bit of trouble in thinking of a good looking miniature that looked like a Techpriest by still looked…. Necrony? Luckily I came up with this dark mysterious miniature that supports my warrior squads at the far back of the field.

The Harbingers (Immortals)

This was my favourite conversion out the lot it looked unique and was not bad considering it was made from metal.

The Dragoons (Warriors)

As I’ve mentioned this is where the idea of the Zanatorian Machine Cult came from, The Warriors were the hardest to covert they either looked too much like a heavy battle droid from star wars or something from IROBOT they just didn’t look unique so I decided to use my old Dragoon design.

The Destroyer Tank (Destroyers)

All plastic, cheap, easy to build and look fantastic!

Models that were not yet completed

The Mobile War Factory/Citadel (Monolith)
For this conversion I plan to use two Monolith bases and sandwich the parts from the Manufactorum building in between them mounting the turrets on the top half with the powerful tesla coil like weapon built in the middle. With any luck this will be one of the best models I’ve ever made.

Iron Forger (Tomb Spyders)

The idea is still up on the drawing board so far I thought of using the tomb Spyders legs and a Tau drone to create the lower body: Tau Online - Crayfish I also plan to use the Spyder’s arms problem is, what to use a torso that would fit and suit the lower torso, suggestions anyone?
Another more recent idea is to use one of the old Rogue Trader dreads seen here: http://www.solegends.com/citcat88/41...marines-01.jpg as the base for the conversion replacing the arms with that of a tomb Spyder and perhaps mounting it on tracks.

DISASTER!

These were the models and I was very happy with them and ready to start construction of the army in February last year, then disaster! The bits discontinuation happened without warning and the entire project was shattered! I stopped working on the Zanatorians for a while hoping to come up with a solution that didn’t rely on metal or non gw bits. During this time however I created the Darkmakers but unlike the Grots despite being a heavily converted and well painted army they did not win an award for Best Army, this made me more deter mended to make the Mechanicus my best army yet!

"That’s the end of the first part, feel free to critique my work so far. I will upload a new part in a few days."

[Daston]

very interested to see how this pans out and your view on stuff, as I am planning a loyal force lol

[Proiteus]

Part 2: Back To The Drawing Board

Thanks to Games Workshop I was now back to the Drawing board on one of the most difficult conversions in the army’s theme. While the conversions for the most of the Necron units were brilliant, it was still proving very hard to convert a model to represent the Necron Warrior without it looking too much like a marine or something from IROBOT.

At first I sought to create a replacement for the Tomb Spyder head and had a model sculpted based on a 3D concept I had created...

However I later realized that it looked more like a robot build for construction and repair rather than for fighting purposes. Plus although original it was lacking in detail and I thought it best to save it for a representing a new unit in the new Necron codex (which I thought would be out Xmas last year).

Another concept for the warrior conversions came from a friend of mine on the site Deviantart who converted for me an interesting spider like robot.

I loved it as it reminded me of the ‘Tachikoma’ robots from a favourite anime series of mine called ‘Ghost In The Shell’. But then another obstacle for the project appeared which were the 5th edition rules. This caused me to ditch the spider robot because with the true line of sight rules a robot that short would be a nuisance for both me and my opponent.

None of my ideas for the warrior conversion were showing any signs of success and it was beginning to prove impossible being restricted from using non GW miniatures and metal components.

Zanatorian Interceptors
However during this time I was able to create the model that would represent the Scarabs using the BFG Dreadclaw Assault Pods from Forgeworld, which I was quite pleased with.

However I still had to come up with a conversion for the warrior!

In the next part I’ll reveal how I finally came up with a conversion to represent the Warriors.

[warhammer madman]

comon your conversions are amazing!

and i love the concepts of your armyies!

its a REP from me...

[Zeewulf]

OOoo, project is coming along nicely, I see!

[UberGeit3000]

mobil war factoryies sound very... very intreresting
Nice conversions and good idea & fluff!

[Proiteus]

Part Three: The Warriors Emerge

As mentioned in my pervious entries I was having trouble coming up with an interesting conversion that would represent a Necron warrior in my renegade Mechanicus army. Previous concepts were faulted due to poor availability, high and looking too much like another miniature.

I continued to search for inspiration in films, games and books. The Horus Heresy Art Books were a great help and I soon came across this piece of artwork for a Mechanicus robotic unit.

Artwork Copyrighted to GW

It was then I remembered the old knight titan models from the old epic range, they were the perfect base for converting a robotic warrior and because they were plastic they’d be easier to convert.

First thing I did was replace its weapons with a pair of Gauss Blasters both were shortened down and while one had the gun barrel attached to represent the ranged weapon the other had two Necron feet either side to create a claw like weapon, which I thought was a stroke of genius.
Another good idea was for the head, the epic knights all had a fixed head facing forwards which looked awful. I thought over whether or not to take the chance and cut it off with a model saw and replace it altogether with a head that could be posed. Then while looking through my bits box I came across an empty Cadian helmet and I placed it over the head facing down. It worked a treat! It was just lose enough to pose and had space for robotic eyes to be added which I used the space marine scout visor for and it suited the rest of the model perfectly.

Overall it didn’t look right the eyes looked goofy and the thought of having 30 of them in the same stance wasn’t going to look good at all.
Some people also noticed how it looked similar to the robot from Lost in Space which is correct; he has always been my favourite robot so he has had a lot of influence on the army’s design such as the blue metallic color scheme.

I immediately went about improving the robot’s eyes and legs. The eyes were easy as I replaced the goofy scout visor with the tip of a Tau rifle,which I placed it on vertically instead of horizontally to appear less human that the other one.
The legs however were a challenge, at first I thought about making them hover with some wires hanging beneath them. But in the end it proved too difficult to model successfully, especially since I’d have to do it 30 times. I then decided to go with the simple solution of replacing the top part of the legs with that of the Necron warriors. I used green stuff to model wires on the back to help improve it a bit. By doing this I would be able to pose the legs slightly so not every robot would be in the same pose. I also replaced the bolter scope on the shoulder with a part leftover from the titan’s original weaponry.

The end result was a fantastic and original miniature that I’m very proud of. The Iron Guard Robot was born

However I did have two main problems with the final model: 1. The model was very short so I had to buy some resin bases to increase their height to avoid them being overshadowed by guardsmen. 2. Epic Knights are very expensive to get a hold of, overall I believe I’ve spend £60 getting 32 of them off eBay but in the end I’ll have a truly unique looking army so it will be worth it.

Although I don’t have time to construct the full army at the moment due to university work, I’m currently working on improving the army’s overall appearance. This includes improving my painting skills and making big changes to the Destroyer and Lord model, all of which you’ll see in the next part.

[RexTalon]

While I don't like cavorting with the enemy, I must say that I like your conversions so far. Very nice.

I have some of those knight bodies (minus weapons). I want some of the weapon arms. Perhaps we can work out a trade?

[Lord_matt]

these are pretty badass, i love the idea, and the dragoons are awesome. definite rep worthiness...

[Chaplain_TyphonII]

Ironguard Robots look great but i have an idea that will make them taller. Take the chest and legs from space marine terminators and then use immortal for the metal looking *mainly the shoulder pads* then u could simple convert random weapons you feel desireable with