WIP: Dark Skitarii Mantiple (Part One)

The Mechanicum has always been a fascinating army to me. They come across as the anti-hero: an organisation which will help humanity, but only if it supports their own hidden agenda. And then there's the Dark Mechanicum, a splinter group who have removed the shackles of the Mars doctrine, and are free to discover and create all that their artificial hearts desire. Often this leads to daemon-crafting, but it is a liberating view, which Imperialist dogs call heresy. Anyway, onto some models.



I've been tempted into creating a small Skitrii force for my Chaos Space Marines to ally with. Now, I am totally aware that under normal circumstances, I am not able to ally the two without serious penaltes. That is fine, they will mostly come out to play for friendly games (with some altered allies rules), be proxied as Renegades and Heretics models (with the Dark Magos upgrade) or as a standalone force in skirmish games.


The first unit is one made from the review set from earlier this week: basic Skitarii. They have been built up as Rangers; armed with the lethally accurate Galvanic Rifles. A Transuranic Arquebus acts as the units anti-armour.


The unit Alpha was a simple but effective conversion. I am going for a recently fallen look, and this a simple head swap and a few small horns was enough to transform the model. This terrifying skull-mask is from a Warzone: Resurrection model (Mars assassins come to mind, a coincidence perhaps?) and makes for a scary alien-but-familiar visage.



Squad members two to ten are fairly straightforward, and for the most part are build using just the box components. Since they are recent traitors, I want most of the evil appearance to come from the painting, not from a mass of tentacles and mutations. Also, it's not the Mechancus style.


As well as the standard unit, a second unit, this time Vanguard, is in the works. They are based on leftover Krieg Grenadier bodies, with the spare rad-guns from the Skitarii kit.


The army will probably stay quite small after these units are built. They will be supported by either a pair of Dragoons or an Onager. Maybe both if I ever decide to make it a fully-blown army.