Ferrum Aeternum - A brief return - with Paint!

[PowerHungryMonkey]

Cheers Gederas. I have to say, I often prefer to see bare-plastic models when they've been heavily converted, I just love seeing all the work that has gone into them.

I've been busier than normal in the hobby arena recently and have managed to finish off the terminator squad

These guys are BIG. I love it. Like I said, great having a blank slate and such are large model to play around with. It really gave me a chance to make these guys my own. I spent AGES agonising over the tabards and belts on these last few guys as I was running low on bitz and every time I dry-fit something it just didn't look right. Finaly got to a point were I was happy with them all. Here's some single shots of the newbies to show off the detail:

Yes, that is greenstuff! I bit the bullet and did a bit of work on the tabards to join them in better and also used a cast a mate had made for me to get the last chainmail tabard made. I think the mould was sharp enough but that'll have to wait to be proven at the painting stage. I've still gotta try the casts I made of the Crux Terminatus and see if I can get them fitted to the left shoulders of these guys. There's a little bit of patching around the belts still to go and the Sarge's arm needs work but over-all, they're done.

My one major gripe about the Aquilon kits is the power fists. There's only one good one of the 3 in each set. The open-fingered one looks really odd in any other position but down and the raised closed-fist just looks stubby, kinda like a T-Rex trying to punch. I didn't want to rist cutting the fists up too much as I don't have any spare and it was a scary thing doing it for the Sarge's storm bolter arm.

With these guys over to the 'to-be-greenstuffed' pile I can now move on to the Ambots

Cheers,

PHM

[Markus_]

The Terminators look formidable! Great conversionwork.

[BrotherEndcat]

That greenstuffing looks great man! The terminators look ready to lay solid smackdown on heretics!

[hushrong]

*Taking notes to copy this in the next week or two.*

 

The terminators look fantastic! The extra detail is nice and good to know about the powerfists. I bought one with the open fingers. Debating if I’ll keep it or cut it away and replace it with another weapon.

[Pearson73]

These fellas have come out really well and look most imposing, The greenstuff mould looks to have worked really well for that tabard.

[GhostMalone]

Totally digging the feel of this project 10/10

[PowerHungryMonkey]

Thanks for all the kind words guys. There's a little I want to do to the Termis still, just some little details and tweak some stuff (like everything else in the army). Still want to give a big shout-out to Apologist for showing me the way.

 

So, having a bit of a hobby-block right now. I've FINALY gotten round to starting the Ambots/Centurions I've been itching to start since theye were first teased and its just not working I know what I want to do and kinda how to achieve it but its not happening and it driving me nuts. I spent nearly two hours ar the cutting mat last night just sifting through bitz and dry-fitting stuff to no avail. The head isn't quite right and the weapons (flamers and hurricane bolters) aren't fitting were I was hoping they would.

 

Sorry for the rant but I needed to vent. I know these guys can work, I've just gotta find the way there.

 

In other news, I've just picked up a Primaris Apothecary for under half price after holding out on buying one for ages. So I'm thinking I'll side-line the Centurions for a bit and work on the Apothecary. That conversion I know where I'm going with it.

 

There will be an update soon, its just unlikely to be the Siege Robots I was hoping it would be.

 

PHM

[PowerHungryMonkey]

Well, that came together rather faster than I thought. Here's an Apothecary fresh from the forges:

Nothing major. I wanted to harken back to the old Apothecary models more so I gave him the good-ol' Narthecium Gauntlet and a bolt pistol. Also figured out why he was so cheap: recast, hence the blue look to him. Oh well, its good quality at least. EDIT: Yes, before anyone says it, I will do something about his derpy foot. I just don't know what yet...

Got a pic of the Centurion as he stands thus far too:

As you can see, all I've really done so far is change the head slightly (very slightly); other than that, no conversion work at this stage. I put the marine and terminator there for scale. He's a little on the small side for a truescale Centurion but what he lacks in height he makes up for in bulk. I think it'll do, especially as its a robot and not a marine in an exo-suit. I'll keep knuckling away at it and see what I get. Any advice or feedback would be appreciated.

Cheers

PHM

Edited April 9, 2019 by PowerHungryMonkey

[Gederas]

The apothecary looks quite nice. And are you sure it's a recast? That's the same colour as the coloured plastic GW used for the Space Marine models for Kill Team

[Pearson73]

Apothecary looks good, nothing about it that screams recast to me, does it stink when you cut it?

[hushrong]

The apothecary looks great and I am thankful you didn't model him standing on his dead brethren. That base still makes me scratch my head. I also like that this is a recast or a plastic mini. If it works it works though haha.

 

The ambull also looks sweet. I like the use of that mini with marines as it makes me think of the HH goodness where Astartes Legions had maniples (right word?) of war machines that even bore their colors and heraldry.

[PowerHungryMonkey]

The apothecary looks quite nice. And are you sure it's a recast? That's the same colour as the coloured plastic GW used for the Space Marine models for Kill Team

 

Apothecary looks good, nothing about it that screams recast to me, does it stink when you cut it?

 

Thanks guys. It's definatly a recast. Its resin and more brittle than plastic. That said, its really good resin and a really sharp cast so nothing to complain about

 

The apothecary looks great and I am thankful you didn't model him standing on his dead brethren. That base still makes me scratch my head. I also like that this is a recast or a plastic mini. If it works it works though haha.

 

The ambull also looks sweet. I like the use of that mini with marines as it makes me think of the HH goodness where Astartes Legions had maniples (right word?) of war machines that even bore their colors and heraldry.

 

Thanks Hush. I was never gonna have him on the dead marine for a good reason: it would have looked really weird having a dead guy sinking into steel decking. Problem is the foot and leg are tilted on an odd angle to suit the marine's chest and that doesnt translate well to a flat base. I'll figure it out.

 

As for the Ambout/Centurion, that was exactly my thinking. If there's gonna be any chapter that still employs battle robots it'd be the Iron Hands. No qualms at all about using machines. They'll be a maniple of Seige Automata. Tempted to model a techmarine handler to go with them but not sure.

[hushrong]

I wonder if you can add debris to the base and tuck some under his feet. Piping, cabling, blasted rockrete. Or if you have spare legs from another primaris you can carve and swap with. To me I just thought it was beyond weird that a medic of all soldiers would put stamp onto a dead comrade.

 

I also think a techamarine handler would be very cool if you get the time and have the parts.

[PowerHungryMonkey]

Ok. So, Project Ambot is a fail. I just can’t seem to make it work. Everything I do looks wrong and it’s gonna look too chunky once I’ve fitted all the weapons on even if I can figure out how to do that. So, they’re being shelved for good. At least as Centurion stand-ins. They may pop up here again but not sure in what form.

 

As sad a this defeat is for me (I really love the models), it has opened the way for a whole new way to use robots in the army. I’ve mentioned before about using a bunch of FW Mechanicum bots in the army to count-as other Marine units. The idea has always been a bit half-assed and I’ll-formed but now it’s crystallised. Since I’m using the Primaris marines as a base for all my true-scale stuff, that kinda negated the option of making any actual Primaris units. Well not anymore. Anything Primaris will now be bots! It perfect. I can easily differentiate between standard and Primaris units now and I still get to have a heap of robots in my army

 

This is how I see it working out: Thallaxii as Intercessors and Hellblasters. Maybe even Reivers if I kit them out for combat. Ursuraxii as Inceptors, Castelaxii as Aggressors and a Thanatar-calix as a Redemptor. The scales aren’t exactly right but the Thallaxii come out a little taller than a Primaris marine and even tho the Castelaxii are BIG, they should look right for a true-scale Aggressor.

 

I know this a SUPER expensive idea so it’ll be a long time till it gets from concept to actuality but what do you all think? Is this the way forward?

 

Let me know what you think. Cheers

PHM

[hushrong]

Sucks to hear about the ambot. Hopefully we will see it put to use one day. I wonder if there was a way to pass it off as a dreadnought. Would it be too small without bulking it up?

 

The idea for count as sounds cool and I’d love to see it. It’d be very neat to see a space marine force that still used their mechanicus bots to extensive use.

[PowerHungryMonkey]

Cheers Hush. I'm sad about the Ambots too but it seems it was just not meant to be. As for the Dreadnought idea, nah, waaaayyy too small. At least for my army considering I'm using a Leviathan as my Ironclad

But, like I said, the loss of the Ambots has paved the way for the Primaris Robot detachment. I'm really stoked about the idea, really getting the hobby brain going again. And now GW throws this curve-ball from nowhere:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I have a FREAKING cool named character to lead my band of misfit robots!

I love it when a plan comes together

[Trokair]

The Castellaxis probably way too big to be an Aggressor, even in scale to Thallax/Urserax as Primaris.

 

The Amobto however would make a pretty good Aggressor in that scale, much bulkier than Tallax/Ursarax but sharing some common design themes. On the one you have built replace the min grave pistol thing with a normal bolter/stormbolter or flamer and then add a grenade launcher thing on the top for the non flamer aggressors. You could even work the grenade heads in the two slots where the rope thingies go above the head. When I was considering converting Amobtss to centurions I toyed with the idea of putting the hurricane bolters in that space.

 

The arms for the Urserax fit on Thallax, so you could use one claw arm per Thallax as Reivers. Or alternativley go full Thallax style and give them bolt weapons and attach the Tallax chainblade to the end.

 

The Thanatar as Redemptor should work with a bit of converting.

 

If you need some size comparison I have plenty of primaries (aside from shadow spear) and lots of 30k Mech and could take some side by side shots for you.

[PowerHungryMonkey]

The Castellaxis probably way too big to be an Aggressor, even in scale to Thallax/Urserax as Primaris.

 

The Amobto however would make a pretty good Aggressor in that scale, much bulkier than Tallax/Ursarax but sharing some common design themes. On the one you have built replace the min grave pistol thing with a normal bolter/stormbolter or flamer and then add a grenade launcher thing on the top for the non flamer aggressors. You could even work the grenade heads in the two slots where the rope thingies go above the head. When I was considering converting Amobtss to centurions I toyed with the idea of putting the hurricane bolters in that space.

 

The arms for the Urserax fit on Thallax, so you could use one claw arm per Thallax as Reivers. Or alternativley go full Thallax style and give them bolt weapons and attach the Tallax chainblade to the end.

 

The Thanatar as Redemptor should work with a bit of converting.

 

If you need some size comparison I have plenty of primaries (aside from shadow spear) and lots of 30k Mech and could take some side by side shots for you.

 

Trokair, what you said about the hurricane bolters for the Ambots is exactly what I was planning when I first had the Centurion idea. Alas the scale is just not right, no way can you fit 3 bolter barrles in those two top winch sections.

 

As for the Aggressor idea, DUH! Of course! Really not sure how I didn't see that myself. I think maybe I was locked on the imagery of the Mechanium bots and the Ambots just seemed too far off the mark. The more I think about it tho the more I realise how perfect it is. Thank you! I owe you a debt good sir, I had litterly just sold the Ambots to a mate when I read your comment, luckily no money had passed and he was happy to cancel the deal.

 

Now I have the Aggressors sorted and I can get on to them straight away. Hopefully some non-text-based updates soon for you all.

 

PHM

Edited May 5, 2019 by PowerHungryMonkey

[Trokair]

Glad I could help.

 

If you have not built the other ambots yet, you could try to leave out part 5 and do a bit of cutting and fit a normal aggressor/marine head in there. It would look a bit odd but could show that they are mini dreads with only the marines head still in there.

[PowerHungryMonkey]

Fianlly I have an update with pics and some proper progress on the Ambots:

Yes! So happy with this guy. After agonising over the Ambots and what to do with themfor soooo long, then to give up and very nearly sell them off, I'm happy to see these guys come together. He's got a little mate too:

So, instead of going with the original idea of using these guys as Centurion stand-ins I'm going with the brilliant and obvious (yet I somehow missed it) idea by Trokair; these guys will now be the first robots in my "Primaris" detachment of battle robots. They're counts-as Aggressors with Flamestorm Gauntlets. Moving forward from here, anything that's a Primaris unit will be a battle robot. As mentioned before, I have plans to use the Thallaxii units heavily as base models for the Intercessors, Hellblasters and Reivers while the Ursuraxii and Thanatar should work nicely as Inceptors and a Redemptor respectively. The whole detachment will be lead by the stonkingly cool new IH character that's just been previewd as a Forge Lord with control over the Cybernetica Cohort. Really kinda all fell into place at the same time No plans yet for anything out of Shadowspear and still toying with the idea of any other characters. Maybe some Lieutenants as Alpha-designation robots, maybe like realy points for the Techmarine's commands? Kinda like a synapse creature for 'Nids.

I've got another Ambot to make up but unfortunatly am out of Flamestorm Gauntlets so I'll have to do some begging/borrowing/stealing from the local hobby boys to finish off the unit. I'm also still trying to find the right gubbinz to put in place of the winches on the upper carapace. Can't really see the Mechanicus or the IH using such primative things as "rope" and such. There's also a lot of patching (as always) around the gauntlet and I've got to add piping/cabling/fuel lines going into the body somewhere from the flamers.

As for the Intercessor stand-ins, while I only have a few parts from the butchered Thallaxii kits now (the rest having gone to bionic limbs for the IH and heads for the Aggressors), I did still have some lightning guns to play with and try to mock-up as Bolt Rifles:

What do you akk think? Not sure about either version so far but I'm thinking the longet is the way to go. Also what do you think og the drum mag? Since they won't be Auto-Bolt Rifles should I change them out to the sickle mag to make it more obvious? Or make it really hard for myself and do back-mounted drum mags and feed belts going to the guns? Not sure how I'd go about that last option at this stage.

Anyway, hope you like the killer robots and feed-back on the lightning guns-cum-Bolt Rifles would be appreciated.

Cheers,

PHM

Edited May 9, 2019 by PowerHungryMonkey

[noigrim]

This will be an expensive primaris army!

[hushrong]

Awesome start to the primaris count as. Happy to see the ambots put to use and looking forward to seeing what you do for the intercessors.

 

Cool idea with this army is you can use the 40k codex with marines and your primaris count as, then flip it around to 30k and have marines supported by mechanicus cohorts.

[Trokair]

Nice to see these.

In regards to the lightning gun bolters, the long one feels better to me as a Thallax fan, but the short feels more bolterish. I think drum ammo is fine as it in the place that you have it.

As for where the rope gubbinz go, why not put additional sensors/headlights.

For other charaters a good starting point might be the spare set of Legs from the Amobt kit, you would just need to find a torso and up, maybe an aggressor torso/ DI captain if you have any (especially with a Thallax head I imagine) for that part priamirs part robot feel. Here is an example of what I used one set spare Ambot legs as:

In this picture I was considering two different heads, I went with the Skitarrie head in the end.

Edited May 9, 2019 by Trokair

[PowerHungryMonkey]

This will be an expensive primaris army!

Yes. Yes it will. Becuase of that it will also be an extremely slow army, heh. I've still got units to add to actual marine army like more tactical squads, a second dread, etc. so I'm in no hurry to move on to a full robot army yet. I am eager to try out either the Intercessors or Hellblasters tho and I'm strangely keen to try out the Reivers too even tho I don't think the feel right in an IH army in my opinion.

Awesome start to the primaris count as. Happy to see the ambots put to use and looking forward to seeing what you do for the intercessors.

Cool idea with this army is you can use the 40k codex with marines and your primaris count as, then flip it around to 30k and have marines supported by mechanicus cohorts.

The Intercessors will be a bit of a way off for now. They won't be anyhting too flash, just a bit of a weapon conversion and that's about it I'm thinking.

Nice to see these.

In regards to the lightning gun bolters, the long one feels better to me as a Thallax fan, but the short feels more bolterish. I think drum ammo is fine as it in the place that you have it.

As for where the rope gubbinz go, why not put additional sensors/headlights.

For other charaters a good starting point might be the spare set of Legs from the Amobt kit, you would just need to find a torso and up, maybe an aggressor torso/ DI captain if you have any (especially with a Thallax head I imagine) for that part priamirs part robot feel. Here is an example of what I used one set spare Ambot legs as:

In this picture I was considering two different heads, I went with the Skitarrie head in the end.

I'm leaning towards long guns too but you're right, the shorter does feel more 'bolter.' I'll have to see how they look on the Thallax bodies. Maybe the short will be the way to go to really make them look different to normal Thallaxii. Changing the profile and outline of a model can make a huge difference.

The rope sections will definatly be changed into more sensors and stuff, I've just got to find the right bitz in my boxes to do it with.

As for the robot characters, I like what you've done with the Ambot legs but that's not the way I want to go. The only 'marine' will be the Forge Lord controller while any other characters will be full robots. Better robots, but still just robots. I was thiking of maybe using the Myrmidons as Lieutenants. Give them a bit of size over the lesser bots and the robes too, help them to stand out as more advanced and such. I'd change out the heads and any fleshy parts (which I think there is very little if any) and obviously change out the weapons to suit. Going this route would also mean no 'fancy' charcaters like Librarians or Chaplains. I'm thinking just Lieutenants and the Forge Lord.

Thanks to you all for the kind words and feedback. Once I get the detailing done like the fuel lines and some greenstuffing I'll post more pics of them. Also when I get the third bot done.

Cheers,

PHM

[PowerHungryMonkey]

Hi all! A bit of a deviation from the current Iron Hands project but I have a treat for you. I just found some old potato pics of a project I did around 10+ years ago. Its still IH related so I thought I'd share with you guys:

I give you the Never-Finished Inq-Scale Iron Hands Iron Father!!!

Sadly this guy is long-dead after lamenting in a box for who-knows how long and slowly crumbling into his component parts. His memory lives on tho and as you can see, I've always been a mad IH player. We'll return to out regular schedualed plog next time.

Cheers,

PHM