Warhammer 40,000: Forge World Nchurdamz

Put down your ardent cutting-globes, Nbthld. Your Aldmeris has the correct words, but they cannot be properly misinterpreted.
- note in Hanging Gardens of Wasten Coridale

I've wanted to build some Mechanicus models ever since I got into Warhammer again and found out they had a proper army. Like the Custodes, the Machine Cult are such an iconic part of the Imperium of Man that I want to own some. I got an excuse to start by buying a box of Skitarii to get our Rogue Trader Explorator an appropriate backpack, and it sort of took off from there.

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Because I'm entirely too fond of Morrowind, my Skitarii are going to be from forge world Nchurdamz. If I ever use these guys in 40k, I think I'll be going with the Stygies VIII dogma, so I'm painting everyone in the traditional rusty red, with black contrast in keeping with Stygies VIII and the inevitable green because they're my models. Fluffwise, Nchurdamz is a forge world established by Stygies VIII to study the unthinkably ancient xenos ruins in the Acheron sector.

The first unit I made was a minimum-sized squad of Skitarii Rangers with a transuranic arquebus.

Two of the Rangers have Statuesque bionic heads, and one has an Anvil female cultist head. Both work great with the Skitarii miniatures, but the Statuesque bionic heads are especially excellent. The plastic Skitarii kit is also top notch: the models are quite characterful, they're easy to convert, and because there's parts for both Rangers and Vanguard, there's loads of leftover bits. Very good value for money in the current pricing scheme.

I wanted to do something a little bit different for an HQ choice, so I made an Enginseer by combining one of Raging Heroes' Davidians Command with a Zealot power axe. I'm very happy with the result!

So this is already a little patrol detachment of machine cultists! I made the rest of the Skitarii into Vanguards, with a couple more Statuesque heads.

And here's our Explorator all painted up; he can double as an Adeptus Mechanicus HQ if needed.

With two characters and two squads, I'd only need another box of Skitarii for a little 8th ed. battalion detachment. However, what I really want to have is a pair of Kastelan robots. They're very impressive in Gladius, especially if you have the misfortune of encountering them in the early game, and I really like the retro-scifi aesthetic. I went for the triple phosphorous blasters because hey, more is more.

The robots come with a Datasmith. My problem is that these days, anything with a -smith suffix only ever makes me think of the cocksmiths from Oglaf (very NSFW). I still built one, though, with a Statuesque bionic head.

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So here's a tiny little Machine Cult detachment! I'm quite happy with it, and that's another miniature project finished. Although this was fun enough that I might pick up a couple more robots; I've also had my eye on an Onager Dunecrawler for a while...