After a brief flirtation with the alien menace that is the Tyranids, I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that I wanted to return to an army from the Imperium. I’ve played with Marine armies in the past (most recently a Horus Heresy Ultramarines force) and I’ve dabbled with the Astra Militarium. But I wanted to collect and build something new, something I hadn’t played before.

When Shadow Wars: Armageddon arrived I decided to pick up a unit of Skitarri Rangers to build and paint to use in smaller Shadow Wars games. As I started to paint the red cloaks of the not-quite human rangers I suddenly started envisioning changing these 5 rangers into a fully fledged army.

The start of a new force!

And so, the decision was made to start an Adeptus Mechanicus army.

So, I already had a unit of Rangers, what did I need to purchase first to really kick start this project. A fairly easy decision really, the Start Collecting boxes for most of the armies offer great value for money, and the Ad Mech are no different. In fact, I’d probably say it’s one of the best available, offering a HQ choice, a troops choice and a heavy support.

I really liked the look of the Rangers, so I decided to build the included troops choice in the Start Collecting box as a second unit of Rangers. The Tech Preist Dominus was a straight forward build. The Dunecrawler however, I was unsure what weapon load out to give it. The Icarus Array was tempting, even if it meant -1 to hit most units, unless they had the fly keyword. The amount of different shots you got from the array however seemed to make up for it. In the end I went for a good ole fashioned high strength, armour piercing gun, the neutron laser. Strength 10, -4 AP? Yes please! That’ll deal with any enemy armour!

Before I thought about adding to this force I decided, as I can be really lazy when it comes to painting, that I wasn’t going to purchase anything else until I painted the contents of the start collecting box. I’m not a great painter I admit, although I am enjoying it more and more. These models were really fun to paint. I used Warhammer TV’s Duncan for a little inspiration on how I was going to paint these guys. While I will probably return to them at one point to add further details, I’m really happy with how they’ve turned out, especially the Dunecrawler.

If I was going to build an Ad Mech army I just had to include an Imperial Knight. For far too long I had a half painted Knight Errant sitting, unused, un-loved. Well, no more! This big guy was going to get the paint treatment.

Seriously, painting the Knight almost made me consider building an entirely Knight army! I’m not great with small models, but with lots of large open armour and I just couldn’t put him down until I’d finished. He still needs transfer, and possibly a little tidying up, but he looks awesome!

To add another character to my force I picked up the plastic Tech Priest, who I intend to keep very close to my Dunecrawler(s). Again, I probably need to do something additional details but he’s looking pretty cool.

Engineering!

That brings me to now. I already had Belisarius Cawl from the Triumvirate of the Imperium as I really wanted the Inquisitor Greyfax model. He was a fiddly build, but the finished article just looks amazing. A suitable leader for my Mars Ad Mech army. He is next to get the painting treatment. Once I’m finished with him I’ll be moving onto my second unit of Rangers.

One thing the Ad Mech misses out on is the psychic phase. I’ve always been a fan of the Inquisition, so I’ve decided, for now anyway, to include Greyfax in my army. I’d already made a start on her a little while back. She needs some additional work, which I hope to get completed soon.

So that is where I am at with painting so far. Now to talk gaming.

I’ve had a few games so far with them, ranging from 1000 point to 2500 points matches (Matt allowed me to use the services of his Ad Mech army to make up the numbers!). The army, is of course, very ‘shooting’ orientated. I’ve not done too badly with them so far.

Matt’s Death Guard have proved to be very very tricky. I’ve pushed him close on a couple of occasions but he’s always managed to hold on for victory. I did have one game against the Space Marines, which saw my shooting rolls at their very best, leaving barely a Ultramarine standing! Against the Orks however I just couldn’t do enough damage to them in the opening turn or two. Once the Boyz jumped out of their vehicles and charged into combat only Cawl could provide some resistance.

I’ve now got a copy of the book, although I haven’t used the army since its release. Not a great deal has changed compared to the indexes, but its great to have my own rulebook instead of flicking through the index! I’ll talk more about the new codex in a different post.

Can’t wait to us these!

So with that, I’ll leave this post here. As mentioned, Cawl and a unit of Rangers are up next on the painting table.

The goal is to have this army painted and ready to roll for our trip to Warhammer World in December. You can read about our upcoming event by following this link.

Surrounded by Death Guard!

Published by David Jennings

Born and raised in Crewe in Cheshire, Dave is a geek through and through. Enjoys designing and managing websites. View all posts by David Jennings