Warhammer 40,000 - Servitors — Forgone Miniatures

When the Typhon boxset for Kill Team was revealed I knew I wanted to pick up the Adeptus Mechanicus Batttleclade team when they became available separately. Servitors are pretty ubiquitous in the Warhammer 40,000 setting so having a bunch of them I could use as “set dressing” for my photos was certainly an entertaining prospect. However, I was less enthusiastic about firstly having to wait until the set became available separately and secondly having to pay nearly forty to fifty pounds for what would be props. Fortunately, North Star Figures have released a new kit for Stargrave, the Automatons. “A horrific fusion of dead flesh and advanced cybernetics, automaton are drones in thrall to a synthetic intelligence”. Sounds close enough to a servitor to me! As a bonus, the set also costs around half the price of a Kill Team box yet has enough parts to make twenty automatons. Bargain.

Despite having enough plastic to make a small horde of lobotomised machine-slaves I instead, decided to build just five. Essentially the plan was to use just one of the four identical sprues in the box, that way I could put the kit through its paces and still have plenty left over for conversions or other needs later.

For actual options, I pretty much just picked what looked fun and thematic. Obviously, I had to give one of them a flamer. And one of them I gave a pair of drills so that he was a mining Servitor or something. Once I had assembled my five lobotomised machine-slaves they needed just a few tweaks to take them from generic sci-fi to grimdark future. The easiest way to do this is of course a bunch of purity seals. The second easiest way to do this is skulls, so I trimmed down one from the Citadel Skulls box and stuck it onto the chest of one of my Servitors. Lastly for the additions I dug out a little reliquary from (I think) a Space Marine set. I then trimmed down the area behind the head of the flamer Servitor so that it was flat and then stuck down said reliquary. I felt that the combination of religious relic and flame weapon was very Warhammer. With the assembly done I primed them with Colour Forge Standard Grey.

To start things off I base coated the skin with a couple layers of Two Thin Coats Griffon Claw, tidying up where necessary with Two Thin Coats Dungeon Stone. I then gave each model a zenithal highlight with Liquitex Titanium White acrylic ink through the airbrush. I then gave the skin a coat of Sonic Sledgehammer’s “Marine Juice” wash to bring out the texture whilst retaining some warmth in the skin. I go into more detail on this mixture in my Sanctifier’s article, but I highly recommend it.

When I had painted Servitors previously, I had used a black and yellow colour scheme, reminiscent of hazard stripes. Servitors are basically tools after all. With that in mind I painted the clothing with Iyanden Yellow. Any bionics and weapons I first painted with Ratling Grime and then drybrushed with Necron Compound to give it a grimy metallic look. For the parchment and bone details I painted them with Army Painter Skeleton Bone. Any wax seals meanwhile I painted with Army Painter Basilisk Red, and I painted the statue in the reliquary with a couple coats of Scale75 Dwarven Gold. To bring out the texture of the bone, purity seals and gold I washed them with Army Painter Strong Tone. Lastly, I picked out the eye lenses with Evil Sunz Scarlet.

“If found please return this Dox-97/mk24 unit to the Inquisition.”

With the models done I moved onto the bases. As alluded to in the Sanctifier’s article, it was finally time to free myself from the deathly grasp of Citadel Texture paints. I have used Stirland Mud and Valhallan Blizzard for my Imperial forces for a good while now and I can’t even tell you how many pots of each I have had to buy over the years. To start with however, I painted each of the bases with Two Thin Coats Scorched Earth. As I was going to use some Geek Gaming Scenics Base Ready products down the line, I figured that I didn’t need to completely cover the base in texture paste. Unfortunately, as the bases are quite small, I did end up just covering them with Vallejo Dark Earth. In any case, once that was dry, I gave it a wash of Army Painter Strong Tone followed by a drybrush of Tyrant Skull. Next, I dabbed on some PVA glue in patches and sprinkled on the aforementioned Geek Gaming Scenics Base Ready Patchy Plains. To keep this in place I sealed it down with a few spritzes of Geek Gaming Scenics Matt Sealant spray. For the snow effect I mixed Army Painter Snow with some matte medium so that it was a thick paste, then used an old ratty brush to apply it to the bases in patches. Last but by no means least I painted the rims of the bases with Steel Legion Drab.

I’m really pleased with how these have turned out and I’m looking forward to grabbing some more Stargrave kits, or even something from Wargames Atlantic to make some more weird and wonderful characters for my narrative campaigns. Shame I used all the Frostgrave Cultists really.

Warhammer 40,000 - Servitors

Kill Team - Sanctifiers