Crossing The Rubicon Nostalgius Pt. XI – Techmarines

And so it has come to pass…. I have procrastinated as long as humanly possible after the MASSIVE disappointment of the Command Group – where, astonishingly, my never-before-practiced freehand skills proved to be abysmal – but after the lads got (spoiler) a kicking in their first outing, it was clear that some armour was necessary before we attempt to rescue Captain Tycho from Da Black Ork Cav’s lair…

Now, in fairness, I do actually have some armour, but according to the laws of 2nd Ed 40K I’m not allowed to use them unless I have a Techmarine in the force… and according to the list in White Dwarf 139, I should have 5. So.. I scraped around the remaining bits from my 2020 eBay haul and put together 5 monopose “I LOVE MY BOLTER” models.

Except, of course, they don’t get bolters, they get.. some sort of weird, gothic, super high tech wrenches and spanners. Of which I had none. But what I did have was a lot of sprue – so, I chopped some suitably byzantine looking shapes (also converted one flamer to an oxyacetalene welder with a bit of paperclip) and using blobs of greenstuff, sculpted some hands on to them. Now, these aren’t going to win any prizes – so don’t go looking TOO closely. That said, they are roughly the right size, with the right number of fingers on them, so yeah, I’ll take that. Techmarines tend to have some sort of bionic gubbins around the eyes too, so each of these lads got a little blob of greenstuff shaped and prodded into something that looks like a bionic eye if you squint a bit.

Painting was the usual – white prime, Vallejo Hot Orange, Red Ink and drybrush – the main difference was painting the left kneepad with bone to facilitate a yellow with black hazard stripes.

Pics, you say? Very well….

Ready for some serious combat welding

Stood at the back of the class with his massive tool out.. oh, like I wasn’t going to make that joke.

Mmm. Close up they do still look like a three year old painted them with crayon, but you’ll have to trust me when I say that from two feet away they’re actually not bad. Apologies for the background – the game table is in use (stay tuned) and the good lady has commandeered the table in preparation for New Year’s Eve feast and was (direct quote) “buggered if she’s going to move it all around for your toy soldiers”.

Which is fair enough. The Emperor knows and sees all, but it’s Cath who does the cooking.

And with that, allow Jim & I to wish you all out there a very happy 2023 – let’s hope that at some point, this decade gets its sh*t together and that sanity returns to the world at large.. and in the meantime, let’s make the most of socially acceptable daytime drinking!

Stay safe, stay thrifty, a happy (and peaceful) New Year