Adeptus Mechanicus: Praetorians and Heavy Servitors

Tyracron stuff is in the pipeline (more accurately, on the drawing board) and I'm not even going to delve into the whole Storm Raven speculation thing (partly because of $$$, partly b/c the real thing is probably going to be ass anyway) so today it's AdMech, and specialty units, at that. The above units are conversions of Micro Arts' lovely resin models. I had meant to get ten of the things to form a single unit, but these suffice for the time being (I still want four more, just to even out the numbers....) . If I ever use them as Heavy Weapons Squads in anything but friendly 40k games, I should re-mount them on 60mm bases with minders and/or flavorful terrain. I know IG HWT's don't lug multi-meltas around, but in the eventuality that decent Praetorian rules come out, I wanted to plan for any eventuality. I guess I'm just living in hope for some FW codex content for them...

I think Ogryns get a bum rap, largely due to their comparatively huge points cost. They're fun  to use and kick a lot of butt in assault, even if they don't have good anti-armor ability. These heavy servitors were inspired by Dave Taylor's, and originally slated (in their raw Ogre state) to be Dogs of War Ogres for my WHF Dwarves. One thing led to another and, well, they joined the Adeptus Mechanicus as Heavy Servitors. I found some ork power klaws and bike bitz on eBay ultra-cheap, and, with some other bits, set about making giant dumb cyborgs. The Ork weapons are rather amorphous, design-wise, and so stand in for a variety of possible weapons (autocannons and heavy bolters, not to mention Ripper guns). Sharp eyes will notice the profusion of Necron bits, mainly scarabs and old Warrior heads. Yes, it's all part of the conspiracy, I'm afraid. These big chaps are smarter than they let on (and some are controlled by the heads in their gut plates). I had some epic-scale termite drills and turret-gunner bits, which made lovely mining implements.  I'm particularly fond of the Diving Helmet chap (top row, middle).

Ork bits really make for some characterful conversion parts, even though I for one am sick and tired of FW and GW spending so much damn time on new ork krap to the point of neglecting better projects (Storm Ravens, Thunderwolves, etc). I suppose it's a form of rebellion for me to use them on an Imperial army, albeit a fringe one. Like the Praetorians, these last saw combat as Heavy Weapons team stand-ins, although I could probably have used a bunch of power-claw swinging, assault weapon firing giants in that game, too. I made sure to space them far apart enough for them to theoretically be on 60mm bases, for fairness sake.