Mechanicus Van Saar - Starting Gang Done

 

The starting gang for my Mechanicus counts as Van Saar gang is done.  One leader, two champions, three gangers and one neotek per my earlier post in January.  No real backstory or history written for them at this point.  Just a group of Mechanicus that I imagine are running a bit of a dual mission of searching for archeotech deep in the underhive while doing their bit to defend the interests of the magos masters.

Neoteks and gangers are stock skitarii models while the champions and leaders are Anvil Industries Burning Rose torsos on GW High Elf warrior legs.  The Skitarii arms fit pretty well onto the torsos with no conversion at all needed for the leader with the plasma gun.  An arc rifle was converted into the grav gun while a radium pistol was turned into a las pistol to pair with the other champions plasma pistol.  The Neotek does have one of the excellent Heresy Miniatures pistols that's starting gang life as a laspistol but is chunky enough that it could pass for other pistols types if an upgrade occurs.  All the models have void power plant backpacks from Anvil Industries.

Neotek on his grav cutter.

Gangers with las rifles.

Plasma gun leader, grav gun champion and dual pistol champion.

I even managed to finish a longer ago started ogryn conversion to serve as their first ogryn servitor and to convert a Reaper Bones spider into a cyber-arachnid for when a champion or the leader adds one to their profile.

All in all I'm really happy that I actually built and painted a starting gang in less than two months given my past track record of mostly buying with a fair bit of building and converting but not much else.  I need to work on the next gang and some terrain so I can then start playing some simple scenarios or even just rules testing.  I'd also like to try using the Pulp Alley rules for some games set in the underhive but I'll need to get their 2nd edition rule book to learn more about how that might work.

Mechanicus Van Saar Gang Progress

Work on the starting seven for the Van Saar gang has progressed over the course of January.  All seven are now built and primed with base coats down on almost all the models.  I should be able to finish their painting in the next week or so and then move onto modeling some additions to the core gang. I have the one cyber-arachnid done so far.

I managed to paint ten models in January which is pretty good for me.  Eight underhive civilians, an Escher clan chymist and my Khimerix brute counts as for an Escher gang.

Finally, I made some progress on the terrain tile to accompany the propagandist I'm doing for the Yak Comp #37.  Need to finish construction and get to work on painting it.

 

Van Saar Starting Gang List

When you don't play a game but you build models from it you can do as you please when it comes to equipping and converting them since all you've got to go by is what looks good to you.  When you then decide to transition to potentially playing the game well now you've got to play by the rules, which means learning the rules and learning how those rules may turn a cool looking model into a waste of time and credits destined to die and boost your opponent's campaign prospects.

After a bit of reading in forums and websites about starting gang lists I decided to go with Genghis Cohen's Serious Business Van Saar list.  A basic, solid list with recommendations for upgrades if they live that long and theoretically a list that even if I turn out to be a savant at playing Necromunda shouldn't earn me jeers and disgust when it appears on the table.

The concept for the gang was to use Mechanicus models instead of the actual Van Saar since I have a lot of Mechanicus models/bits and I've never really connected with the Van Saar gang aesthetics either in the original Necromunda or the 2018 version.

The List:

1. Prime (Trick Shot): Plasma Gun, Mesh Armor, Bodyglove (245)

2. Augmek (Gunfighter): Plasma Pistol, Laspistol, Mesh Armor, Bodyglove (180)

3. Augmek (Hip Shooting): Grav Gun, Mesh Armor, Bodyglove (245)

4. Tek (Specialist): Lasgun, Mech Armor, Body Glove (90)

5. Tek: Lasgun, Bodyglove (75)

6. Tek: Lasgun, Bodyglove (75)

7. Neotek: Laspistol, Photon Flash Grenades, Bodyglove (90)

I hope this will be a project that has a lot of potential for both expanding the gang as it changes through a campaign as well as affording modeling opportunities for cool looking converted models that have little to no place in an actual game like the lascannon leader or an archeotek with a spider rig, an energy shield, plasma pistol and cyberteknika to improve their chances in close combat.  That model would be a few hundred credits to still not be the best close combat model in a given game so enjoy the modeling and maybe running them in one off games will be their destiny but that's okay.

Four of the seven are shown below.  Trying to differentiate leader and champions by giving them non-ranger bodies including Anvil Industries torsos and backpacks.  Need to figure out how to do the hoverboard for the neotek.

Dibs and Dabs

Assembled my second Mechanicus Armiger and painting a bit more with quick visits to random miniatures I've bought over the years because I like the model or thought a conversion might be cool to do.  Little interest in batch painting so the poor Steel Legion linger and every other set of many models for different armies waits their turn to move from dusty and poorly primed to decently primed to a model/unit getting painted.

Armigers with carapace and cc arms from Iron Wolf Miniatures for a more Mechanicus look.

Inquisitorial retinue members, Inq28 characters, NPCs for Pulp Alley games of a 40K bent...

Special weapon servitors and an ammo caddy for clearing out that derelict ship all on your own...looking at you Deathwatch Brother Agemus.

Tiniest of progress towards actual Pulp Alley pulp gaming and recreating a Scooby Doo episode or two.

A Week of Doing Little

A week of intensive painting effort, for me, has been followed up by a typical hobby week.  Minimal modeling, some basing work to see if doing it before painting makes the process go any better or easier and a smattering of base coating on long primed models.

Basing on the remainder of the Steel Legion platoon and company command squad was completed last weekend with mixed results.  Watered down glue doesn't seem to hold the modeling grit I've been using on their bases when initially applied.  Coming back with a second coat to seal the grit to the base was equally uninspiring with clumps coming off the base to stick to the brush.  Put my first tufts onto a few bases as well as painting all of the base rims black.  Now I need to clean up the feet of the models that have grit on them and paint them.

I did paint the trousers of the unpainted models and added a wash to the bases of the painted models.

Base coat colors were applied to several of the Mechanicus drone or hovering special weapon servitors I've converted weeks or months ago.  Second heavy bolter drone has been built from bits that have sat on my hobby desk for a long time.  I think they were intended to be the gun portion of heavy weapon teams for a tech guard IG army or some such thing.  They'd be accompanied by an ammo servitor on the 60mm base.

I was never brave enough to buy the previous version of the penitent engines due to all the horror stories I read or watched on Youtube about how difficult those models were to build and keep in one piece.  New versions are chock full of detail and allow you to build two units so I did a bit of reading and will build my initial models as Mortifiers and not normal penitent engines.  Don't really play 40K but might as well have some effective in game models if I do.

 I did come up with a plastic counts as penitent engine awhile back using Sentinel and Ork Killa Kan arms as part of a SOB counts as ally force for my Arbites.  Prisoners as arco flagellants and penitent engines along with other units to buff the main Arbites army using the Astra Militarum codex.

Incaladion Skitarii Vanguard Unit

Incaladion Vanguard

When the Skitarii Ranger/Vanguard models were released I loved the Rangers with their hoods and couldn't get excited by the Vanguard.  Sure, their radiation weapons made for an even grimmer fate than the Rangers, but I couldn't bring myself to make any of the models.

Eventually I decided to put the Vanguard bits to work so I used third party greatcoat bodies (thinly lead lined to extend the operational effectiveness of the troops I reasoned) to make the alpha and radium carbine models. but all of my special weapons had been committed to the Rangers so the unit sat waiting to be completed.

  

Eventually, when the Nighthaunt models were released I managed to come up with a conversion idea that would let me buy some while also completing the Vanguard unit.  Rad troops should be among the worst of the stock Mechanicus units a foe would face so the idea of horse skulled, tumor laden near corpses accompanying the Vanguard seemed about right.  If I were a better modeler then one or more with the robes burned off could make for a truly repugnant conversion.

Having also read up a bit more on the Incaladion forgeworld, the idea of a Magos with even more ferociously recycled units than the norm kind of fits.  Since I intend to paint my Mechanicus in the Mars color scheme, Magos Thule Garman and his forges on Incaladion will be loyalists working to both quell remaining rebellious forges and defend the world from all of the outside attention it receives.