Watchdogs

 They'll watch you, follow you just a few steps behind. They'll never bite or bark, but they'll always be there, silent, emotionless. Even if you hide from one there will always be another already watching you. They will watch your every move and report to their master.

Felt the need of something creepy and came out with this. It's still a wip, but I'm happy so far! Maybe I manage to convert all five wolves... 

Lexmechanic

A tiny guy.

A lexmechanic for the slowly growing AdMech warband. Lexmechanics are among the lowliest ranks among the Adeptus Mechanicus: they are basically bureucrats with computer speed and accuracy. They compile all data so that it can be stored and used as needed. 

This guy has been seconded to the explorator squad to function as a walking encyclopedia, both recording every step of the squad while they venture down the underhive and retrieving useful information about the hive city. Augmentations and years of grinding task left him as little more than a servitor, devoid of emotions and basically enslaved to the magos. If left alone he would mindlessly wander, shuffling around trying to catalogue everything.

I'm very proud of this little guy (seriously, that's a 25mm base)! Not only it turned out exactly like I imagined, but it has been a good exercise in painting clothes: all shadows (like under the shoulders, or where the legs are bent, the various crevices and folds) and lights on the red have been carefully painted by hand, and without washes either. 

 

More updates

 More bases done, this time for the tiny mutants. 

I finally decided how the area of the underhive they stalk should be. I imagine ruins millennia old, of what was part of the industrial belly of the underhive. Now the old complex is completely in ruin, an infinite labyrinth of debris, pipes and machines under an impossibly high dome. Tunnels and burrows have been dug by scavengers and mutants, deep canyons run between the buildings, pipes run in and out for miles like worms. Entering the Maze, as people call it, is like entering a cave: you'll never see a light over your head, only the darkness ahead. And here mutants and derelict live a life of scavenge, hunting whatever they can. Some intrepid - one could say crazy - explorers venture down there in search of lost tech and resources, but rarely return. For the most part, known entrances are either guarded or sealed shut. Some gangs though installed heavy vault-like doors to the entrances in their territory...

More about them: https://slightlyhereticalcreations.blogspot.com/2018/10/more-mutants.html 

Update on Uncle Istvan

 

An update of Uncle Istvan. https://slightlyhereticalcreations.blogspot.com/2018/09/uncle-istvan.html I gave him a nice base!

Geist-Servitor

Sometimes you just need a good light.

Geist-servitors are little more than upgraded servo-skulls. They float around being basically flying tools, and they have the added benefit of serving as eyes and ears of the magi. This one carries lamps on its back to illuminate excavation sites and better explore hard to reach places. 

Despite the lack of weapons the geist-servitor can be also used in combat, revealing enemies in cover with its spotlight and tracking them so the servants of the Omnissiah can triangulate shots with extreme precision. They haunt single targets like ominous spirits, stripping them of any cover.

This is an older model, made before the heavy duty servitor. I like the weirdness of it, and the pose that makes it look like it's drifting in the breeze! 

Heavy Duty Servitor

Time to try this blog thing again I guess...

Here's one of the elements of my Mechanicus Explorator warband: a heavy duty servitor converted from a Necromunda Ambot.

An adaptation of the Luther-pattern excavation automata commonly found throughout the Imperium, the Graia-pattern heavy duty servitor is employed when operations require a much sturdier frame than the normal humanoid servitors. Keeping the chassis almost unaltered, the ambull cortex is replaced by a servitor brain, making it far easier to control and reprogram. They're usually fitted with much more powerful tools than common servitors and, as befits a warlike world like Graia, they can be turned from assistant to warrior with a single thought, their heavy duty tools and sturdy frame making them powerful battering rams.

This servitor is fitted with a heavy rock saw and a multi-melta, allowing it to tear through rockcrete and steel with ease, cracking open the old vaults forgotten under the hive city so that the techpriests can prey upon the treasures that lay within. 

I like how this guy came out. Especially the saw arm, that emphasises the already hulking pose even more and had been so much fun to realise. I wanted to give the idea of an industrial tool that could be fitted or detached as needed - and there's still the option to manually operate it in case of problems. 

And the tiny skull head too!

The Steel Skulls

The Steel Skulls are models I began working on two years ago, I think. And in some cases the quality of painting is showing. But I still like them, so I'll leave them as they are until I'll work on the rest of the squad - then I'll update the others.

The Steel Skulls are an underhive gang of tech-scrappers. They are adept at salvaging and repurposing. They all show some form of technological augmentation, more or less extensive depending on rank and role. Implants vary from a simple bionic eye to rebreathers and cybernetic limbs. Most notably, all Steel Skulls have implants on their heads, trait from which derives their name: head augmentations are the symbol of gang membership, and the first ones to be grafted upon induction in their ranks. 

The Steel Skulls dwell under the more populated layers of the hive. From there, they launch raiding parties to pillage more technology, hoarding tech to become more and more powerful. They are extremely talented technicians, and their most expert members serve both as field medics and engineers, repairing both their comrades' flesh and tech. For all these reasons, Techpriests despise them, seeing them as heretics, and actively hunt them down at every opportunity. At the same time, though, a Techpriest is a prized prey, for in the eyes of a Steel Skull it's like a bag full of shiny toys.

They favor fighting in environments that put others to severe disadvantage. Their favored tactic is striking in pitch black darkness: their enemies usually don't realize they're being stalked, until they see a pair of glowing green eyes in the dark - but then it's already too late.

This is one of their medic-engineers. As you can see, he's equipped with a multipurpose tool, that can work either as a medical or technical tool, and a case which is surely full of shiny gadgets to keep everyone (or everything) alive. Plus the ubiquitus head implants.
You can also see that skull dangling from a chain: it's a literal steel skull, that serves as the gang's badge.

The colour scheme is simple, favoring black and dark grey together with steel and grey-ish skin, so that the only focus was on the many green lights.