From ByronM: 30k Mechanicum and 30k Death Guards (55 points)

My first regular submission is going to be a small one as I started way too many different projects this week and most of them are sitting at about 75% done.  So while this one is small, next week's should make up for it.

Let's start of with two more Castellax Class Battle-Automata, this time armed with multi-meltas, flamers, and close combat saw blades!  They were done as my first entry of them was (30k Mechanicum Automata - The First Salvo) starting with an airbrushed base colour setup and then hand painted details.

The bases are hand made using liquitex, cork board, cut up sprue, guitar wire, and copper pipe bits.  I tried to give them an urban rubble look without going overboard as I find a lot of cast resin rubble bases have too much on them and you wonder how the hell the model is moving through it.

I also kept with the blue glow as a colour accent to keep in theme with the last batch, even though I tend to think of melta as a red/orange glow.  My thought being that it just would look like more of the same base red armour colour if I did that.

Next up is a Death Guard Anvillus pattern drop pod that I had started doing up for this weeks "flight" theme just in case I didn't get the piece that I really wanted to get done completed.  I did though, so here is the drop pod as a regular submission.

This bad boy transports a unit of 10 marines into combat.  It is meant to hold teams like last weeks Breacher Squad as they rocket towards enemy space craft and then latch onto them with their clawed equipped bottoms.  The drop pod then uses powerful plasma thrusters and cutters to burn through the hull of the enemy ship to disgorge the attacking marines into it's target.

While that is what the Anvillus was designed for, the Space Marines they were entrusted to quickly found another use for their plasma cutters.  They now use them to set down in the middle of a combat zone and fire the flame up to 11 as they land, causing auto hits to everything within d3+3" of the hull (and it is bloody big at almost 5" across) at S6 AP5 no cover saves.  Once the fire kills everything nearby, or at least distracts them, the marines leap out and slaughter the remnants of the enemy.  Can you think of anything more 30k than that?  Using space ships to burn the enemy on a planet!

While the drop pod can fly around the table on a flight stand, I really dislike the mounting mechanic as it is simple a little resin piece that glues to a flight stand and the drop pod rests in it.  I included a picture from the Forge World web site to show you, but I am not using it, I am just going to sit the model where it is. The model is a pain in the #%$ to assemble and would likely shatter into its 50+ component pieces if it ever slipped off of its mount and fell even the 6" of height to the table.

The drop pod was painted the same way I have been doing all of my Death Guard vehicles, making heavy use of Mig products.  I base coated it black, applied chipping solution, painted the off white colour with an airbrush and then once dry wet it with water and started chipping the paint off.  It gives a completely random and organic look to it, you just have to give up control though as you can go light or hard on the brushing to control it a bit, but sometimes it just comes off in big sections and sometimes it sticks and you can't get any chips, so you just go with it.  I then apply decals and clear coat it, then come back with Mig streaking products and oil brushers and make it a mess with multiple different browns, blacks, and rust colours.  Apply a bit of each, let set for a bit, then use thinner or white spirits to spread it around and cause the streaks, or to clean up areas that got to much.

While I mentioned I was not sure about the look on the infantry in a previous post (and I still am not sure), I do love the look on vehicles.

The Breachers in the image are just to show scale and have already been scored.

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Bryon, great to hear from and what a post!  I am more than happy to honour the previous scores for the Castellan, but the Anvils is something else, certainly not your average vehicle so I'm saying 55 points for the lot!