This is my first post in some time, but that does not mean that I have not been hobbying, it just means that I have not finished anything in quite some time. But here is at last, the Lord of the Northern Forge with his riding beast.
This is a model that has been years in the making. The idea behind this is that it should represent the Lord of the forge that does all my conversions for the Northern Knights and Northern Ghosts. He is an outcast member of the Mechanicum, banished from Mars because of his tempering with the divine STC designs. He is also an avid collector of arcane technology, be it imperial or xenos. There is a quite complex backstory to all this including the knight world where the forge is located. I might write it down at some point. But this model is supposed to be the centre model for my (dark) Mechanicum forces. So I really wanted it to look the part.
The base model is a Mechanicus Tech-Priest Dominus that I turned around and added a Kataphron torso and head to. This was done a few yeas ago with some left over bits. I also made some back mounted tentakels from the Mauler fiend, but I thought they were a bit to massive so the model got stalled. Then for Christmas this year I got a Lord discordant from my wife (which were the second try as she discovered I already had her first option), but as it turned out I already had one painted up. So she said, why not make a cool conversion of it? This made my thoughts returned to the Forge Lord. One thing was clear, if I were to do this it could not just look like a Lord discorand, but had to be a unique model. So instead of using the rider I decided to see if it was possible to mount the Dominus based model I started with on the back of the Helstalker. As it turned out it is actually quite a good fit with some minor cutting and greens stuff filling. But the main model of the Forge Lord did still lack some gravitas. I tried using different arms with guns, shields etc... but in the end I felt that the Mechanium staff and a power fist with a shield generation worked best. I also added some halos from some electro priest around the shoulders to beef him up. But not even this worked as well as I initially intended. I was missing the tentakel things that were still around in my head, but then I remembered that I had some Canoptek Wraiths that had some thin tentakels in the alternate build that i was not using. After a quick test fit it all came together.
The rest of the build was to make it look more Mechanicum and less Chaos Space Marine. So I cut away all the spikes on the hell stalker and removed the tail which were replaced with some smoke stacks. I also added a lot of cabling to the legs and head to make it look more mechanicum. I used a armiger face plate instead of the more organic chaos one. I also replaced the space marine back mounted weapon with some left over mechanicum Kataphron weapons (dual mount). Once the modified Hell stalker was done I thought it look very cool on its own and decided to make the Forge Lord dismountable and give him an optional base so that I can display him either riding his beast or walking beside it.
Painting was done to resemble the rest of my Mechanicum forces with green armour and red robes. The stalker got a green and rusted metallic look. Basically my standard recipe.
I am very happy with the model, perhaps I could have worked a bit more with the posing but I think it is ok. Next for these guys it to start with his entourage, which should consist of liaison officers from the Northern Ghosts, Northern Knights, Skitarii forces, the Legio Cybernetica, together with his personal aid and chief strategist, and his Domitar body guards.
