The laputan technocracy rises- How to easily paint Castellax

A while back an ad popped up in the local "buy/sell/trade" section of the Swedish40k forum. Within it there was an offer of buying a bunch of mechanicum models, assembled and only lightly primed with a leadbelcher Spray can. 

As mentioned in my previous post, i've made a "one year commitment" to the Age of darkness podcast and my commitment is that i'm going to roll up a Mechanicum detachment to play beside my Alpha legion army (that's swollen considerably and is now around 3500 points) I've made the assumption that around 1500 pts is a good basis for both an allied force, as well as being a good size for just playing it straight up. 

Now what i have not decided is what form of Mechanicum i want to play. For those that don't know there are basically three kinds of mechanicum forces (very easily broken down) 

ordo reductor 

The siege breakers, the OG's of siegecraft and armor cracking. They get access to a lot of tanks and heavy weaponry plattforms, but are regulated in what sort of 'bots they can roll out 

Legio cybernetica

The 'bot masters, they are locked into taking a lot of bot's and locked out of taking an abundance of tanks, but get bonuses to the Mechanicum psyschic power equivalent, and get better bot's overall

Taghmata omnissiah

Bog standard army, being a combined army representing the might of a forge world host going to war. Myrmidion war sirens call, 'bots are marshalled, tanks are rolled out and Magii are called to perform their grim duties. 

Now i was initially leaning towards Reductor, as i am really enthralled (pun definetly intended ) with the Thallax modell and they are a mainstay of the army. But with the acquisiton of a lot of 'bots i am a bite more suited to run Cybernetica. 

But after some due consideration i've decided to generate my own forgeworld (nothing new here) and with that i am going to forge a path for my "Laputan technocracy"

The story is pretty easy, it's a direct response to Swift's work ,and they are more or less a harmless magos technocracy that are unable to see the need of working with the general populace, and are brutally overthrown and sworn to subordination for my 108'th Alpha legion army. But they will be building their strength and move towards liberating themselves, seeking out forbidden knowledge to free themselves, and in the meanwhile damn them self too far from the wider imperiums graces, and still have room to BUY MORE SHIT when the new Angelus book is released. 

Now, moving on to the castellaxii i bought. 

I knew that what i wanted for my Castellaxes was something that worked with my Thallaxii 

And as such the main colors used would be 

* Copper

* darkened gunmetal 

* black 

The models looked like this when i got them 

A good price AND assembled? BOUGHT

 Just easily painted with leadbelcher, and perfectly assembled in my opinion. Now after that i went over them with my Harder and steenbeck pro with a simple two color combo

i belive i have sung their praises enough

The copper for Shoulderpads, armguards, legguards and the head itself. But i quickly found that the head looked a bit....meh, so i went back and hit it with my new Vallejo acryllic gold

which i had no idea that it was so bright. But still it would need a shade regardless. 

And this is where you will be be pre shading. 

Now you need to go quite liberally with Agrax earthshade for a worn look, and then use some warpainter bronze (or warplock bronze) to do edge highlighting. 

I then hit the two skulls with Vallejo old bone and then agrax and the highlight with old bone. And all the lenses with the "spiritstone red" gemstone color to get a lens like red.

You then simply decide if you want the power core on the back to be "all glowy and shit" this is purely aestetic, and i belive it is supposed to be skull, but with a skull at the front and on the Mauler boltcannon it seemed better to me to be a dormant or active power core. 

I then use some dark red for the back cabling (marries well into the copper) and some metallic blues for other cabling. 

Then for contrast i do one should black.

AND DONE

That is everything, a fairly quick, and good looking modell (in my opinion) I then use variations of martian ironcrust as martian iron earth doesn't work on larger modells. While applying some Mechanicum transfers on the black shoulderpad and the black body. 

now i still need to clean up some small details and do pigments. But this is probably pretty good for tabletop or a bit above. At least i am very happy with it. 

 

Just a quick shotout i simply CANNOT reccommend Microsol and microset sufficiently. Thanks Verangian heresy podcast for reccommending it.

If you've ever used transfers and have been frustrated how the lack of adhering to the shape of the modell, or how it does not "melt" into the modell as a whole Go get some, cheap and TOTALLY worth it. 

Next up is these little badbots