So, as with many wargamers, I have had an idea. It’s and idea that really don’t have the time or money to carry out but I’ve been planning and researching the idea. The main idea came around as additions to my AdMech army, as my Knight has almost finished being magnetised ready for priming and painting. The army at the moment consists of 3 HQ’s, 3 squads of Skitarii and a Skorpius tank. This currently brings it to 1100 points and I would like to push it up to around 1500 points.
There are two things that I would like to add to the army to achieve this, firstly there is another squad of Skitarii vanguard. I currently have 12 models, two of which I cant use as they are a second plasma gunner and a second Sgt. I would need 8 more bodies to fill out this second squad of vanguard. In addition to this I would like to add in two other squads but there is a minor catch to this part. The squads I want to add in are Secutarii Hoplites, however, given the price of these models, around £64 each at GW prices and over 50 elsewhere, they are far to expensive for me to buy outright.
So I’ve come up with a little plan. Initially I was thinking that I would just buy the bits for the Skitarii bodies and then third party bits for the shields and the power mauls, namely Anvil Industries Riot shields and Shock Staves.
However, after some further research and pondering, i decided that this might not be the best way forward. This was for a couple of reasons. The main one being that Secutarii is that they are Forge World units and not in the main codex, meaning that rules interactions and updates may not be as easy to deal with as the other units, secondly, getting the datacards is not going to be as simple as they don’t come in the main pack. Lastly, I want these to be a sort of close combat protection for my big knight, a sort of retinue that follow the lord in the knight and are sworn to protect him and his knight, meaning that I won't them to stand out a bit and be different from the rest of the admech army.
This initially led me to look at some of the Wargames Atlantic models, namely the WW1 french models as these would also be usable with the other project here, the kreig, however, they just didn't have the right vibe for me. Looking at other options, such as Spanish conquistadors or Roman Legionnaires and even the Digital offerings, like the Death Fields Security, future French Foreign Legion and even Trojan War Infantry, none of them really fitted what I wanted. They were either too old fashioned for a Sci-Fi setting or too Sci-Fi for a 40k feudal planet. In the end I actually came down, rather randomly on Genestealer Cult Neophyte Hybrids.
With head and arm swaps, plus a few adjustment to the iconography on the models, I think these will make very good Secutarii stand-ins. The bodies are armoured but to to formally armoured, with a suitably space faring vibe. Combined with the Navy Breachers spare helmeted heads, I think they will not look like GSC models in disguise. The arms and shields will most likely still come from Anvil Industries, as I haven't seen anything else yet that I like the look of. The arms may well.end up being a bit of a hodge podge of arms from the GSC kits, various Wargames Atlantic kits and some other GW kits, such as Cadians. I've yet to figure that bit out.
The last price of the puzzle was what to run them as? As I mentioned above, I don't really want to run them as a forge world unit, but there is a nother option that will fit with the army system and enable me to run them as I want, and that's the Agents of the Imperium Adeptus Arbites Subductor squads. Each is armed with a shock maul and shotpistol, and a 4+ invulnerable save, represented by the shield. This means that I can build them multiple ways, with a mix of shields and shock mauls, shields and pistols, and pistols and mauls. Giving variety and also meaning I need to buy less shields and shock mauls! Bonus!
However, having solved this problem, I'm still left with another. Originally I was planning on using some Wargames Atlantic WW1 french bodies to pull double duty as Secutarii and Krieg, with the 35 models forming two squads of Secutarii and a command squad and standard squad of Krieg. However, with the changes to the Secutarii above, I was left with an issue for the Krieg. I did not need 35 models for the Krieg and the WW1 models were themselves not ideal anyway, they were a good compromise for the two different units. This mean that I could either get proper Krieg, as I only needed them models or I could look to get just some sprues from Wargames Atlantic to build the ten models I needed but from a different kit. Looking around the Grognards are a popular kit to use for Krieg alternatives both as original builds and kitbashes. Having built a few of these, I can see why.
The trouble here is that that come in boxes of 24,which I can pick up locally for around 20 pounds. If I look at buying just enough to build a 10 man squad,it's going to cost around 18 pound to buy the four sprues (each containing 3 bodies) I need. So it just makes sense to buy the whole box, this giving me 24 bodies. I don't know if I have enough bits to build all of them as Kriegsmen but I should be able to build at least a squad, command squad and a character with that lot. Which would fill out my options for the mechanised infantry for e they will be used as.
This is one of the few times that I'm glad GW boxes come with so many options, as it means building additional forces is quite easy with just a few extra bodies.
With the addition of these units to my overall AdMech forces, I should be up to around 1450 points, the addition of some enhancements and an additional Skitarii Marshall, if there are any spare bodies, will push this over my 1500 target with ease.
As for when I will get around to building and painting any of these projects, I have no idea! I'm still planning on bashing some Field Ordnance Batteries from my spare parts and some extra bits plus I have a whole army of Dark Angel successors (the Dark Guardians) I need to paint up.
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