Iron Hands army gallery

Finally I've managed to take some photos and write a quick blurb about the Iron hands army which won me best painted army at Blog wars 3 a little over a week ago. The overall theme for the army was of course much in the way of bionics and with an industrial themed set of resin bases. I also tried where possible to write any murals or inscriptions in what resembled a binary format reflecting their ties with the mechanicus. Newly for this army but a technique I intend to use for other armies is that of gloss varnishing windows, eye lenses, screens, tyres etc once the matt varnish has dried.


















HQ

The first  of my HQ choices was a master of the forge which seemed only fitting given the army theme. The second was a converted Chaplain Cassius counts-as which used several forgeworld and techmarine parts. Despite some nice conversion parts, Cassius is rather bland and I never had any hopes of him taking best special character.

 Elites

 The army list I took to Blog wars had a single elite choice consisting of assault terminators in a Land raider. The terminators have a couple of bionic parts on them but the most striking element is the storm shields that three of them carry courtesy of chapterhouse studios.

As for the land raider, it was a salvage project from a templars army I picked up off ebay and so it needed a lot of attention to smooth the paintwork before painting. However, to make it that extra bit special I grabbed a spare set of tracks from Ebay and went about removing the dorsal track covers and replacing them with exposed tracks. And so the 'Ferrus Eternum' was born.

Troops

For my troops choices I had 3 tactical squads; two mechanised and one footslogging for ranged support. There are a few nice conversions in there but I'll let the pictures explain.

 Fast Attack

For Fast attack I had a unit of bikes with a multi-melta attack-quad conversion built from a  devastator, 2 junk bikes and an Ork turret. Really pleased with how it turned out in the end.

Heavy Support

For heavy support I included two armoured units; a whirlwind and a predator. The whirlwind was a normal rhino chassis with a second edition launcher fitted to the rear. The predator, in the same style, was a modern chassis with a custom-built front and second/third edition turret and sponsons fitted.

Finally, having completed the 1750pt army pictured above for blog wars 3 I should mention that there are a few other components to the army not yet finished. I converted a marneus calgar counts-as as an alternative HQ choice and also a techmarine/MoTF on bike. ALso, there is a a venerable dreadnought. Two final elements remain in the form of a drop pod for the dreadnought and a vindicator, both of which I have the parts for. The vindicator especially should be fun as I have some second-edition metal parts to go with it and hope to hybridise it in the same way as the
predator and whirlwind.

So, although the Iron hands are for the moment complete this is not the end for them and at some point in the future I will finish the last 5 models taking them up to just over 2000pts with a few alternative builds. For now my attention will be on getting the Whitescars up to scratch for Blog wars 4 in October; a project on a similar scale to that of the Iron Hands but hopefully one I won't have to rush at the end so  much and can actually enjoy painting this time.

Cheers.