Final Touch Ups

I've was a bit worried about the Iron Guard robots so I ran them by a friend of mine and he suggested I ditch the grey colour on the cables for blue and they've worked brilliantlly!



Now all thats left is to complete the remaining 32 when the summer holidays starts and divide them up into squads and mark them using different types of shoulder mounted equipment.

The Zanatorian's Darker Units?

I noticed a problem with my daemon army the other day which was I have no real unit that can get stuck in and hold an objective, the Iron Guard (horrors) certainly can't do it.

So I need to replace one of the four Iron Guard squads with a close quarters unit. At first I thought of converting Bloodletters into some sort of alien mercenaries that the machine cult had hired, but that seemed out of character I then came across these lovely miniatures.



Their perfect for representing Plaguebearers all I need to do is replace the barrel of the gun on the right arm with a blade and paint it to look like it’s been covered with poison. Plus their appearance links them quite nicely to the Avatar model. So I will certainly be building a unit of 8 of them this summer.

However there is a problem. This army’s first appearance will be at a GW event judging armies that have been painted over the summer; the question is will I be able to use them without getting in trouble for using non GW models. True I can act like their heavily converted from Empire flagellants but there’s always the risk they could be recognized.

Do you think I can use them? If not I need to either build and paint another 8 Iron Guard this summer or only have 3 scoring units?

They look in no way like GW models, Adam. For the sake of the comp, go with what you already have. For gaming, convert up something to look like them. Try High Elf Archer legs (or possibly Dark Elf Warriors) and lots og guitar wire.

I agree, I be able to use them at the club and perhaps most likely at Open War too. But for this single event I use my Nurglings swarms or chariots instead besides this tournament shouldn't be too competitve. And I doubt I'd get them past fraiser.

If I've got time to build the 4th squad I will after everything is completed by right now I'm sick of building them.

Progress

I've had a few people ask for a photo of all the units together and here it is, with the exception of the Avatar who will be uploaded this coming weekend.



It's amazing to see how far this project has developed since the original collection from when I started work on this army in January 2008 and at last it will be hitting the boards at the end of August.

Very nice, Adam.

Avatar Of The Machine God Unleashed!

Well at long last the ulitmate weapon of the Zanatorians: The Avatar is completed and ready to be unleashed against the foes of the machine cult! He'll of course be representing a Lord Of Change for the Daemons and Nightbringer for Necrons. He's one of my best models to date, he's an excellent centre piece for the army.



Special thanks to a friend of mine who instructed and assisted me in the modeling of the green stuff on the model. I've learnt a lot of new skills when making this model another being painting black robes.

Now he is off to GW Lincoln tommorrow to be displayed in the cabinet with the rest of the generals for the summer army painting contest.

Squad Markings & Plaguebearers?

I've found some excellent squad marking for my units that will be added when all the miniatures are painted, ancient autobot.



I've also come up with an alternative model to represent Plaguebearers in my Daemon army as I need to include a objective grabbing unit, I had thought of using the Micro Art techpriests but it doesn't feel right in this army, since everything else is converted. Plus they'll be no problem using them in GW stores.



Basically the model will look similar to this guy but hooded. 1st off green stuff a torned and weathered cloak over a Dark Angel body with some sort of vent on the back and add long robed sleves. At the end of the right arm will be a blade painted to look like its drenched in poison and the left arm will have a robotic hand (either the fist from the old necron immortal or the open hand from the destroyer model)

Problem is coming up with a head for the model that can have a hood put over it, I'm thinking of using the bare space marine head with the breather.

I could come up with an alternative model that suits the rest of the army's appearance as someone did point out that robes on a robot are stupid (with the exception of the avatar) but I only have 2 weeks. So I've decided to look at this unit as more of cyborg warriors that have allied with the Zanatorians rather than being a robotic unit, what do you think?

I saw your Avatar in the GW window, looks awesome!

Zanatorian Machine Cult First Field Report

Well my Mechancius army had their first set of games last week and it worked out pretty well, with a few exceptions.

First they played in a small 600pt tourney at the Newcastle store; I entered with the 2 chariots and 4 squads of 6 horrors, 1 with the changling. I annihilated my first two opponents utterly but the 3rd proved a problem due to the ‘nullzone’ power. If it hadn’t been for that I would have likely won it instead of drawing and coming 2nd.



Then it was on to the big 1750pt games against my friend’s space marine chapter. The army still required some touch ups like squad marking and the plaguebearers has yet to be created, which if I’m lucky you’ll see one tomorrow.

Overall it went okay the flamers earned the points every time as did the princes, the avatar however first game it scattered badly and was destroyed during deep strike and the 2nd game it was destroyed in it’s first combat by some bad rolls and a thunder hammer. But as the week went on I learned how to use the army better, one game I used a small Iron Guard (horrors) unit as bait to lure an expensive assault squad led by a chaplain into an ambush from my flamers and Golem (Daemon Prince).

The only downside to the week was out of the 5 players I faced 1 found the army too confusing which clearly made the game less enjoyable for him. This is what I feared would happen. Now I wonder if I should just use the daemon army for games at my gaming club and not use them at competitive tournaments until the Necron codex comes out. Anyway will see how the army plays at Warhammer World on Thursday at the summer war tournament. If it goes well and no problems occur I’ll use it at the Open War tournament in October.

Tomorrow: The Black Ghosts

Zanatorian Robowraiths?

First things first the name ‘Robowraith’ is only a nickname, they soon be given a proper title so feel free to suggest a name for them as I’ll be running a poll tomorrow on my Deviantart page to decide upon what to call them.



I’m very grateful to Matthew who came up with this conversion idea and helped me create the cloaks for them, sadly I couldn’t come up with a suitable model to represent the plaguebearers that would fit in with the rest of the army myself. So he assembled a mock up miniature and showed it to me, hes now working on his own mechanicus army.

The robots themselves are made from a very durable material which makes them hard to damage and if you look closely at the blade you can see the poison I painted on it using the purple wash. They’ll represent plaguebearers and flayed ones.

I’m now working on a ninth model for my 1750pt army a long with a ratling objective marker called sergeant Baggins lol.

With the final model completed I have put together a small reference sheet for my opponent to avoid any confusion about the models in general.

Zanatorian Deathstalkers

Here the full squad of what are now known as the ‘Zanatorian Deathstalker robots’ and one of my best converted squads in the army.



So much so I’m considering making another Zanatorian army based on these darker looking units? But will see how the current army does first?

Just looking at your reference sheet, you've got two units called Zanatorian Flamers.

Zanatorian Update



THEY WON BEST PRIZE AT THE SUMMER WAR TOURNAMENT AT WARHAMMER WORLD! AS WELL AS COMING 2ND PLACE JUST A FEW PTS BEHIND THE WINNER

It was a great day, allowing me to test the army's performance and see how people reacted to it. Everyone loved the army and best of all no one had a problem with the 'counts as' rule that the army is built around. Most importantly the judges for Open War which is the tournament this army was built for loved the models and couldn't wait to see them appear in their tournament.

The Games
The army's performance was excellent! I had made some changes to the original list. 1st off was I had downgraded the Lord Of Change to a winged daemon prince as all I was after was a nasty combat unit to defend my fragile units from close combat and the LOC wasn’t built for that, it also freed up an extra 110pts. The next change was shifting the icons from the horror squads because the conversions looked awful to the chariot and plaguebearers allowing me to have one icon on offense and have another zipping round the board at 12 inches a turn allowing me to spread out my forces better.

In the first round I wiped out a whole Eldar army with the exception of the Avatar which I avoided altogether. The Robot of the round had to be the flamers who annihilated 9 striking scorpions upon deep striking in the first turn and held up the champion and avatar for 2 turns with their inv saves.

Second round I was up against some orks which I thought was going to be interesting as I my army’s weapons will cut down orks easy but if they get into combat with me it could turn nasty. But once again the army shined losing only 1 squad of horrors to a 30 boy dog pile on an objective I was holding I managed to wipe out the entire ork army. Robots of the round this time was the Deathstalkers (Plaguebearers) who put up a fantastic fight against a large mob of storm boyz and Zagstruk for 3 turns before I threw in a prince to finish up.

Now in the 3rd round I fought against an army led by the raven guard special character and it quite scary to see 10 assault terminators fleeting across the board towards my lines. First off I threw my flamers at them and only killed 1 terminator the captain broke off and charged them while the terminators continued towards my lines. He was later cut down by a shot from the chariot when he failed his fleet roll and was left in the open. The rest of his army wasn’t the problem and the deathstalkers and avatar were already closing in on his objective, whilst the horrors were shooting down any marines that go close to mine.
I was eventually able to slow the terminators down with the Nurglings who kept them back for 2 turns and even killed 2 of them allowing me to bring my princes around to cut down their enemy squad.

A very successful first day for the Zanatorian Machine Cult!

Now all that is left is squad markings and 2 flamers 2 horrors and 1 plaguebearer to bolster up the ranks for 1750pt game plus the Ratling Frodo objective.

Zanatorian Objectives

Well the project is almost completed; hopefully next week I’ll upload a selection of photographs of the miniature in action on the tabletop.

But for now I have constructed a themed set of objective markers.



For Seize Ground missions you've got the two pieces of ancient tech and for Capture and Control you have the Machine Lord himself, overseeing his creations in action. I've also made a small tower from bits when I was bored one evening. (Can anyone name the RTS game it’s clearly inspired by?)

Tomorrow I’ll upload the Natural Objectives set which I make for my opponents to use, one of which is an Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor to be used by Imperial opponents in Capture and Control missions when I use my Machine Lord objective.