++++INLOADING DATAFILE 81++++ Dark Skitarii Rangers WIP 1.0

Sorry for the derth of posts, I've been otherwise engaged of late.  That said I for one am very excited for the new Adeptus Mechanicus codex which should be coming out soon, as well as the Skitarii book coming just before it.  I'm interested to see whether this will be the first book which truly works to unify a GW and Forgeworld range as has been suggested by some to be the new model for the upcoming 30k plastic range.

After I bought my first White Dwarf in a few years (I had a subscription for over 10 years ago.) I was quite impressed by the rules for the Vanguard and Ranger units.  Both are well costed, neither is brokenly good or bad, and they each have workable weapons with different mechanics between the units.  The Vanguard's rad weapons are very neat, while they differ substantially from Rad weapons in 30k I prefer this version.  The 30k rad weapon effect only matters AFTER a multiwound model has failed to save a wound it has been dealt by a rad weapon, which is situational in the extreme.  The new "double wound" effect is cool, and it works well with the weapon's low str of 3 and high rate of fire.

Skitarii Rangers actually strike me as being the more conventional of the two units, as they are essentially just equipped with Kraken Bolters.  A while ago I converted a bunch of Skitarii for my Dark Mechanicum army but at the time there were no rules for them and I used them as Adsecularis Tech Thralls.  Right after reading the new rules I started reconverting them into Skitarii rangers, all it took was swapping the lasgun barrels on their guns for more Sniper esk ones and adding some scopes.

Galvanic Rifles group 1

  

Yes the bayonets aren't long enough to be useful, but they look neat.  The guns are based upon ancient Warzone minis I picked up years ago and turned into my Renegade Militia (lots of greenstuff to make those crummy models look nice, but hey they were $0.50 per and I got almost 100).  The backpacks are from Anvil Industries, as are most of the bionic arms.

Galvanic Rifles group 2

If you wanted to know how to do this style of tech head its really simple.  First take a spare space marine helmet and cut away everything but the mouth grill, accept any bionics it might have.  Then take a spare scout head, I used Space Wolf scout heads as I had a ton of those spare, and cut it off below the nose.  Slap them both together and you have a cool bionic face, you just need to cover the rest of the head with a green stuffed hood and bam you have a skitarii.

 Skitarii Alphas

Why can't I take a damned power axe for these guys?  Seriously why not?  I armed them with arc pistols for two extra Haywire shots.  At str 6 they are great even against non-vehicle units!

Arc Rifles

I think the guns came from old Hasslefree miniatures, but I could be mistaken on the brand.  Again I got the models second hand and was disappointed with the bodies.  I traded them to a friend and kept some of the guns though.  On the 6th guy I ran out of bits for the barrels so I will need to green stuff the fluting on him.

 I need to swap out the tiny backpacks all for bigger ones.

I'm looking forward to seeing how these guys perform on the tabletop.  The squads each clock in at 190 points bringing 4 str 6 haywire shots to the party, which my army sorely needs as I so far lack much anti-vehicle firepower.

Obviously these guys need some finishing touches but they are coming along quite well I think.  I might convert some more basic rangers and add a third squad splitting up the Arc rifles a bit to make them less vulnerable but we will see. I'm actually almost out of cultist minis to use as a base for them, I think I just have 3 left.

Any recommendations?