Legio Cybernetica Cohort - Thallax Update

Hello there,

So I finally got some of my hobby stuff unpacked and got back to work on my Mechanicum. I've got a week on Saturday to have them all done. The field is a confirmed 60 strong and the painting is always top class, so my main aim with these guys is just to get into the judges picks, which then go forward to participant voting, I would be very pleased with that level of recognition. 

The main not coming back from my last update was a light blue OSL instead of something darker or plainer on the Thallax lightening guns. I was umming and ahhing to begin with on the blue and you fine people helped assure me it was a good choice. I also decided to add some OSL to the jet pack to give the colours a bit more life. I've decided  not to add Hazard stripes to these guys and save that for Battle Automata. 

Anyway, here's my Thallax done for the tournament except bases. I still want to weather them more though like the Castellax also:

Squad 1:

Squad 2:

Squad 3:

Tomorrow I am hoping to get the final Castellax completed, the priming of my Two Thanatars complete and also get the mesh down on all the Thallax bases. I'm going to need to put some fair time into these guys over the next 12 days to have them ready!

Thoughts?


Peace out,

Rob

Mechanicum Update 2 - Thallax and Castellax

Evening everyone,

In the midst of packing our house away for a move I have stolen some time to get some more work done on my Mechanicum. The army list for the tournament is due on Friday and I would like to have the 3 Castellax and all the Thallax pretty much done by then. I'm confident I could do the two Thanatars, my Archmagos and the final Castellax in the two remaining weeks till the tournament, even with unpacking. I shall just have to deny myself any social pleasures... Not that I'm bothered by being locked up with my models y'know...

Anyway, today I have 3 Thallax that are pretty much done. I just want to ask you guys about the guns. What are your opinions on:

A) Leaving them as they are

B) Adding OSL effect (probably blue) to the power grills

C) Adding the blood effect mixed with black over the grills to tie it in to the cable and faceplate?

And here is also a quick shot of 3 Castellax you have seen before, but the Hazard stripes are now complete and I have begun working on their bases!

So, thoughts on the gun situation would be kindly welcomed and the bases two! I'm going for a mesh floor industrial look. Need to add rivets to any of the black floor spaces to make it look more metal like and some additional detail gubbins from my bits box.

Expect updates to be much like this through the week! Though I will put up my tournament army list tomorrow for you to have a look at. Its not going to win but it should be very fun to play :)

Peace out,

Rob

Thallax - More progress

Good Afternoon mi amigos,

I'm afraid its going to be a starter of Thallax, followed by Thallax with a side order of Thallax for this week, though if you're lucky you will be getting a desert of Castellax with a coulis of Death Company towards the end. Plus there will be a sprinkle of the Ordo Reductor getting reviewed as well.

Last post you saw these chaps in this state of undress:

And since then, all the metals have been washed and highlighted as well as the black visor being covered in blood for the blood god. I'm not terribly good at using that as a blood effect but it gives a lovely creepy finish to these visors. To my mind it is almost membrane like and help enforce the idea that there is living squishy tissue inside of these metallic bodies. I've begun adding a very slight touch of verdigris to the bronzed/copper metallics which you might be able to pick up on the front left Thallax in the back shot, but I will be keeping it very low key. 

I've also undercoated the arms, guns and cables though the white can did die on me in a big fat wet fart of splatter annoyingly. But as a lot of the arms/guns will be painted metallic that shouldn't be an issue. 

So tonight I should begin work on the arms and I think I will also begin to build the bases! Though I need to pick up a new can of black undercoat for that and my money is tight right now, mostly because I keep buying things.... Also, depending on the post man we may be seeing a new addition to the battle Automata family this week...

Peace out,

Rob

30k Thallax Update and General Blog Thoughts

Good afternoon fine cats,

Today I have a quick update on painting progress with my Thallax which has been a bit slower than I hoped, mostly because I got up at 1pm today.. the shame the shame... the wonderfully comfortable bed... And I also have a few thoughts on my blog at the current time. Firstly some blog stuff. 

Blog Housekeeping

Mostly today I wanted to acknowledge that particularly in the realm of comments I have been very tardy in terms of replying to everyone, this is simply due to work commitments really draining me as of the present and a few minor health issued which are refusing to remain dead and buried. This coupled with trying to make swift progress on painting for tournaments and the like has been quite the limiter on mental fortitude regarding sitting down to write replies. 

I don't for a second think any of you wonderful people who do take the time to comment are fussed by my rate of reply, but I do like to give everyone proper time and thought as some of your comments are very important beyond encouraging me with factual inaccuracies in my review posts being pointed out as well as great hints and tips around model painting, tactics and army composition for example, factoring directly into my hobby. Therefore this is just by way of an apology!

I also wanted to point out that some time in the past week I surpassed 1000 comments as well as 1'000'000 Google+ views and thank you all for that as well! 

Other than that I think I my life and therefore blog time should settle down significantly in the first half of April after I have moved house and completed a couple of very time intensive experiments, so I am greatly looking forward to having more structured posts as well as posting at regular times again!

Thallax Progress

In more blog focussed and less serious news I have made movement on my Thallax! Below is how you last saw them:

And here we have them after the metallics have been added, the black under layer for the red face plate, as well as screaming skull highlights on the yellow and using it as the base layer on the skull of the chest piece. I lightened the yellow a little too much and so added some seraphim sepia to blend it back to a level I'm happy with, though I have a few "tide marks" I need to correct:

Nuln oil wash is now needed on all metallics and then highlights plus colouring of the cables that will be red with black. Then the face plate and black cables will have blood for the blood god added to them and these guys are done!

Tonight I should have time to blue tack up all the arms and guns for undercoating and washing and hopefully get over half way done with them tomorrow. I also have plans to start basecoating the final 6 Death Company and start yellow highlighting the three Castellax.

Peace out,

Rob

Horus Heresy Review - Thallax

Good Afternoon,

Following on from my update on Thallax painting progress, today I am going to review them as a unit that fulfils an excellent troop slot in any 30k Mechanicum army. These are some absolutely fantastic troops that have toughness, mobility and a good swiss army knife of options to tailor them for specific goals. 

Stats

Thallax are mini monstrous creatures with an excellent strength and toughness coupled with 3 whole wounds! As a basic troop! They are pricey at 40 points each with only a 4+ save, but they also have a 6+ FNP to mitigate that somewhat as well as their base toughness making them harder to wound and multiple wounds requiring some seriously dedicated fire power to take them out. Bear in mind they will also only be insta-killed by S10 weaponry or instant death/remove from play special rules. 

WS  BS  S  T  W  I  A  LD  Sv

  3     4    5  5   3   2  2   8     4+

Thallax also come with the stubborn special rule, so with a marine competent level of leadership 8 they will not often be breaking. As jet pack infantry they are also bulky, which has little pertinence unless you are considering taking them in a Triaros armoured conveyor, however I will cover this build in a separate post for the Triaros.

Finally its worth noting that with some of the special rules and equipment upgrades available to this unit, they can be pretty decent in close combat with 2 attacks base. A base squad of 3 will put out 9 strength 5 hits on the charge which is nothing to sniff at in a pinch, even before you upgrade them. If you just add additional bodies, of which 6 can be taken, then they will do a fair number!

Equipment

Baseline equipment for the Thallax are the Lightning Gun and Djinn-sight. Djinn-sight represents their enhanced sensory system which is boosted through their augmetic helm. This beautiful piece of equipment causes -2 (2!!!!) to your opponents cover save when you shoot at them. This is absolutely fantastic and is key to how you utilise the Thallax. In terms of their basic guns, they have the following profile

Lighting Gun - S7, AP5, Heavy 1, Shred, Rending, 18" range.

At strength 7 you will be wounding most things on a 2 with a re-roll. Albeit this is a low rate of fire, but on a 6 you will ignore any armour. These guns don't excel at a great deal to be honest and so you will invariably want to give them some upgrades. Available to the Thallax are melta bombs (whole squad), a Photon Thruster, Phased plasma-fusil, multi-melta, multi-laser and an Irad-cleanser (1 per 3). The multi-melta and multi-laser are as standard but the other profiles are as follows:

Phased Plasma-fusil - S6, AP3, Salvo 2/3, 24" range.

Photon Thruster - S6, AP2, Heavy 2, Lance, Blind, Gets hot, 48" range. 

Irad-cleanser - S2, AP5, Assault 1, fleshbane, Rad Phage, Template.

The phased plasma-fusil is essentially 24" assault 3 due to jet pack infantry being relentless and so is an excellent troop killer with that AP3 and relatively high rate of fire. Its range is short but better than your standard guns which plus your mobility shouldn't be an issue. The Photon thruster has excellent range and a brilliant AP2 but you can ignore lance as you shouldn't be shooting at anything above AV12 and gets hot makes it a no-no for me. You can bleed wounds on a heavy 2 with only a 4+ save. Unlike battle-automata such as the Castellax with a Darkfire cannon you can't regain wounds. 

The irad cleanser is beautiful, yes it has a low AP5 but fleshbane you will wound on 2+ and rad phage will PERMANENTLY lower S and T by -1 for the rest of the game!

The multi laser adds a nice rate of fire to the squad but the multi melta should be skipped as melta bombs are better, with 3 attacks and circumventing armoured ceramite. You also have the option to take heavy chainblades for each thallax to increase their attacks to S7 and AP4. 

Thallax also have the option of an augment upgrade which gives them additional rules to help specialise their role, these range from 10-25 points:

Icarian: If stationary the Thallax gain skyfire and move to heavy support instead of troops. This doesn't sound amazing to begin with on basic troops, but even with the lightning guns you have to remember that you are putting -2 to there cover save so jinking on a 5+ at best! that will be 3 to glance the weakest vehicles and so they make a great little anti-air threat in a list low on flyers.

Ferrox: Grants rage and rending to close combat attacks. This gives them 4 S5 rending attacks on the charge. Though they now can't upgrade their lightning guns.

Destructor: Grants Tank Hunter special rule, brilliant when you give them melta bombs to ensure a big bang.

Empyrite: Gains a teleportation deep strike, which plays a role in Zone Mortalis but can be ignored here really. 

Overview - Thallax have a whole host of options and permutations open to them that allow you to really customise them as a unit. This is great but also can lead to the trap of investing to many points on a unit that only has a 4+ save.

Utilising

Personally I like to keep these squads small with 3-5 members and relatively low on upgrades. Melta bombs and Ferrox put a 3 man squad at 175 points. But they can literally threaten everything now, even charging a blob will put out 12 attacks, they can take pot shots at high toughness units and can melta bomb any vehicle into non-existence. If you have the points however, 6 man squad with plasma-fusils is a nice build. The 4 Thallax with lightning guns can still rend and take out 2+ saves and you have 6 S6 Ap3 shots pumping out of this unit. Icarian as an upgrade really does add some much needed skyfire ability to this list and any of the high rate of fire guns like the phased plasma-fusil/multilaser will help saturate flyers with their reduced jink saves. Though icarian plus melta bombs does allow you to tickle flyers as well as take out tanks. 

Overview - Much more so than Castellax, Thallax are a pick and mix unit and I couldn't possibly cover the whole scope of builds possible with them, but I would always suggest that you keep them focused on one priority with contingency for another, melta bombs are I think the best contingency as they will always present a threat to tanks on such a mobile unit, beyond that you can choose as you like. 

Peace out,

Rob

Thallax - Progress on batch painting!

Afternoon True-believers!

So last night I had some spare time to make headway on batch painting my 30k mechanicus force in an attempt to have them ready in 1 month! That might sound like a stretch painting an army in 1 month but bear in mind there are less than 20 models in it... Plus I can skip out the weathering of all the models until afterwards if need be! I plan on painting them all up to the same standard as this chap:

Before I move on to adding any damage/weathering effects to them with sponge and brown! So I have 9 Thallax and 3 more Castellax built and i decided to crack on with the Thallax first. Last you saw these guys they were in this state:

And after last nights efforts I have no got them all up to the point of being washed and the first two layers of yellow highlights applied:

Its not immediately obvious because of the flash in the "before" photo but these guys are A LOT lighter now. They still however need a final highlight of screaming skull before I paint the mettalic areas with either leadbelcher or warp..something bronze. Those areas will then get a wash of nuln oil and a highlight, then the red glossy parts need a coat of Abaddon black before the blood for the blood god technical paint is applied to them.

After all that I will decide how I want to mark them ala hazard stripes or weather I will just paint a single shoulder pad black to differentiate them from the Castellax. Any thoughts on this will be much appreciated! Finally I need to repeat that with the arms which are sat still in resin at the moment!

Thats all for todays quick update!

Peace out,

Rob