Building the Desert Lions - Part 3, Robots Great and Small (finally!)

Hi everyone, its been a while since my last hobby update.  I won't bore you with the details but suffice to say my hobby time has been severely limited, partly out of necessity and partly out of choice.  However, I recently found some gaming time at last, and this has inspired me to get building again!  I have at long last created some of the major units for my long term project - The Desert Lions Chapter.  Since most of you probably weren't born (warning: possible exaggeration) when I started this project, check out the links below for a recap.

http://sanguinesons.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/counts-as-purifiers-and-dreadknight.html
http://sanguinesons.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/building-desert-lions-part-1-some.html
http://sanguinesons.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/building-desert-lions-part-2-coteaz.html




First of all we have two squads of Area Lockdown Drones.  These are used as Acolyte Henchmen with no wargear, whose sole purpose is to hold objectives.  Considering they are 4 points each, I am pretty sure they represent the most effort-per-point of any models I have ever made! 

They are made almost entirely from the Space Marine vehicle accessory sprue.  The main disc is obviously the hatch insert, and the thruster is the hunter killer missile front end cut down (see below).  The laspistol come from a shortened Chimera lasgun combined with part of the Marine searchlight.  the close combat weapons are from all sorts of places and provides some much needed variation to the units. 

One of my main concerns when starting this army was that all my counts as units are armed correctly and appropriately sized.  Therefore I took great pains that these guys were all 'man-sized'.  If you check out the comparison shot below you can see the size of the little guys - all pretty much ok if you ask me. 

Next we have the main event.  My army includes a 10 'man' unit of Grey Knight Terminators, which are represented by two Robot Maniples of the Legio Cybernetica.  I wanted these guys to be pretty special because they are the core of the force, both in terms of fluff and playability.  In the end I went for the epic scale Warhound Titans from Forge World, both because of the perfect scale and because they look fantastic.

A note on the weaponry.  The Halberds and Hammers are intended to work in much the same way that the Librarian Dreadnoughts' force weapon works.  It is thrust forward with hydraulics rather than swung or moved with the arm itself.  The sword, being a largely defensive weapon, is larger and stronger and used to block attacks.  As with the Vulkan Megabolters provided (which were perfect Storm Bolters at this scale) I tried to give my own fabricated weapons a good degree of possibility.  

Here are the 10 robots:

Firstly we have one Robot armed with Sword and Storm Bolter, and another armed with Halberd and Psycannon.

 Secondly, two Robots with Halberds and Storm Bolters.

 Thirdly, the two Hammers.  These may need some embellishment but look ok for now. 

 A second Psycannon and Halberd, and another Storm Bolter and Halberd.

Finally, the last Halberd and Storm Bolter and the other Sword and Storm Bolter.  Below is a scale shot showing how the Robots compare to a 'real' Terminator.  Not bad I'd say!

Let me add that these Forge World kits were a dream to put together.  There was no warping, minimal flash and all the moulds were virtually perfect with no air bubbles.  Very refreshing indeed!


So what do people think?  Have I nailed the look or fallen short somewhere?  Does the intended scale of the models work when converted to 40k or do they still look like epic minis? Any thoughts and comments are most welcome.