Unit Name: Corrupted STC Printer
Unit Type: Warp Rift
Org Slot: N/A
Model Bucket: Unique
Army List: Daemons of the Ruinstorm (Mechanicum Themed)
Model Concept
So, the Daemons of the Ruinstorm have a unique mechanic by which they are deployed. The “Infantry” unit (Marines and Guardsmen) are deployed normally on the table according to standard setup guidelines, but the rest of your army is in reserve and arrives on turn 1, or after (depending on some factors). These models are deployed from 1-3 5″ markers on the table called “Warp Rifts” that you place after normal deployment, but before Infiltrators and Scout moves are made. They markers have deployment restrictions, and in general can really mess up someone’s plans, but they help facilitate a cool modelling opportunity that I have been looking to exploit.
The idea I came up with IG was that the Daemon elements in the material plane would drop these devices onto the planet, in preparation for an attack. The device was both a manufacturing system and a teleport homer that allowed the heavier mechs to instantly teleport to these devices. The result is a horrible mutation of the STC Printer concept inherent within the universe that is made to deploy weapons of war on the fly.
Model Conversion
The rules for the Warp Rifts are simple, they are a 5″ marker that counts as impassible terrain and do not block line of sight (but shots made through it count as having fired through intervening models). Originally, this should be a 5″ blast marker, but that is no fun. This meant I had a few options and I thought back to my “Daemonic Droppod” from 7th edition that was a Gift you could give a Herald. I had not solidified a design for the Warp Rift until one of the guys from the Facebook chat (Sean!!!) mentioned I should use my new 3D printer to make a mini 3D printer that my army uses to deploy. Initially this sounded ridiculous, but very quickly I realized I could make something very cool out of this outlandish idea.
I set to work finding a crater and sizing it to exactly 5″. I then found a sufficiently cool crate to embed in the crater for my printing. Next I found a trio of conveyor belts to attach to the front of it. Like most of my projects for this army, I would start with a design concept and then the real fun came to when I put it into motion and starting adding weird details to it. This would be no different.
I filled the opening in the crate with scrap from my “Daemons box” and then added PVA glue to give it the appearance of some kind of fleshmetal slurry. I put a pair of arms appearing to be grabbing the edges of the crate for leverage and a face that could add more to the horrific appearance. This part of the model almost builds itself once the glue dries and I can assess what is still needed for that. I thought about adding a half made unit to the model, but I might work on that for the next one (planning 3 of these things and each one having a slight variation of the others).
Painting The Model
First and foremost, I chose to use the fleshmetal as an additive to the model, instead of coating it all over. The crater is painted in the usual way that I paint a crater, brown for the base and highlight with grays and blacks. The interesting part came in figuring out which parts of the model would have fleshmetal leaking onto it. Since inside the crate is the source of it, I chose to paint the crate in rusted fashion showing that it was barely being kept together (same as my heavier mechs in the army). some highlighting here and there and some detail work makes each one have a bit of a unique paintjob despite all being the same basic model.
The edges of the conveyor belts came to have the same appearance as the crate, though the belts themselves were done in the fashion of the fleshmetal. I chose to add spillage to the crater to represent that this device was not clean and certainly caused a mess, so overflow on the edges of the crater where the conveyor belts ended just made sense. In addition, this helped to mask any irregularities in their connection to the edges of the crater.
Adding a bit of Black Templar contrast paint to some of the arms sticking out and then dry brushing with Mournfang brown, I made them look more akin to the Lesser Daemons. In this way I made a direct connection between models in the army and these pieces to showcase that they certainly came from within.
143rd Expeditionary Fleet 