Thursday, July 17, 2014

Mechanicum - The Thanatar has arrived!


When the mighty Thanatar Siege Automata went on pre-order, I couldn't resist. I placed my order through the FW website, and about a week later the order shipped. It arrived last Friday, and I spent a bit of time over the weekend scrubbing, cleaning and assembling the delightful resin parts that go together to create this excellent robot!

In the photo above, you can see that I'm yet to attach the Plasma Mortar or the Mauler pattern bolt cannon ammo feeds. The feeds will go on before painting, the mortar after.


I wasn't sure what size it would be, so when it came through with the large oval base rather than the Knight base, there was a momentary twinge of disappointment. I took the plastic base and built a "Tech deck" base to match the rest of my army using conversion strips and sheets available from Dragon Forge Design.


It was nice to see that it was a similar size to the "knight" I built last year (primarily from the Grey Knight's Dreadknight kit). So, now I just need a name and rules for the "knight". Anyone want to suggest something based off the Thanatar stats in the Horus Heresy: Extermination book?


While I'm talking about the Mechanicum, I thought it might be a good idea to point out the Suppressor here. This "robot" is about to be unlocked in the Infamy Miniatures Kickstarter, which can be found here.

Looking at the size, this thing could certainly double as a Dreadnought in any number of 30K/40K armies, or even as a walker in other games (like Deadzone, perhaps?). I'm thinking it's the perfect size to represent a Castellax Battle Automata on the tabletop. The price through the Kickstarter is even quite similar.


Cheers
Dave

13 comments:

  1. Awesome, Nice bases! I just got my Thanatar in the mail Tuesday, been prepping the custom decal sheet for them.

    I plan to do mine with the Morter mouth open though, and a lot of OSL in there too look like it's ready to launch.

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    1. Here's the pic I was looking for. Like this.
      http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2014/5/18/614034-Horus%20Heresy.JPG

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    2. I thought I'd seen that mortar flared open, but my kit only came with the closed "mouth". Are you converting it? I'm looking forward to seeing your OSL : )

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    3. Yeah it's an easy conversion, just slicing along the seams. I'm pretty sure in that pic from FW, that's a conversion as well.

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  2. Okay, now I need to order one. That thing is just too damn cool.

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  3. I have been using my Dreadknight converted 'Knight' as a Thanatar, but mine has all shooting weapons.
    I think using the Thanatars base statline/ special rules and giving it different weapons would work.

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  4. Maybe the gun as an Avenger Bolt Cannon and the melee weapon be something like S D / Concussive on the charge?

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    1. Yeah, I was thinking the same baseline, possibly a Kheres assault canon for the gun arm, and I wasn't sure if a D weapon would be "appropriate", perhaps just S10?

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    2. I was just thinking that lance type combat weapons are always way better on the charge and the Thanatar is already S8...
      Also, if you do not want to change the points too much, the plasma mortar is extremely powerful, so anything that replaces it should be quite strong too. Plus it is not too fast, so the D isn't as scary as it is on, say, an Imperial Knight.

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    3. That's a fair call. Strength D in the charge, strength 8 in subsequent rounds. Do you think the shield should provide a bonus to the Atomantic Shielding? Perhaps +1 in combat?

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    4. That sounds very reasonable

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  5. Did you see the Enforcer leg/lower torso set that Puppetswar is selling? Some nice possibilities there, too.

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