Freshly painted - Archmagos Belisarius Cawl

As I said in my last (rather rambling) post, I have been working on painting up Archmagos Belisarius Cawl to join my Adeptus Mechanicus forces. Well, I'm pleased to present him in all his cybernetic glory!

So many robot arms!

What can I say about this model? It's an incredible vision of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Cawl is festooned with different mechanical arms and legs; it really gives the impression that he has been upgrading himself constantly over thousands of years. As fashions change, he's added some hooves, or some claws or a weird set of shears. Really, all credit to the sculptor for bringing a piece of the 41st millennium to life.

The detail is incredible.

Perhaps understandably, Cawl took me a little while to paint. The level of detail really is intimidating; so much so that when I built his sub-assemblies (back in 2016) I thought 'There's no way I can paint that!' and he was shelved until just recently. Working my way through the Adeptus Mechanicus range gave me the confidence I needed to have a crack at him though and I'm really happy with the finished result.

A whole different set of arms.

As you can see I've gone for the green and beige of my usual Mechanicus scheme rather than the traditional red of Mars. I know Cawl is proudly Martian and should really be all in red, but surely he has some different coloured robes for special occasions? Or maybe it's just wash day??


The colour scheme seemed to work pretty well with the miniature though and I've tried to work in a bit more pink in various places to really make it pop. I think it's worked quite well and I might try to add a little more pink to my Ad Mech models in the future.

The Roomba of Doom-ba.

I particularly like the little metal spider/hoover thing above. There are loads of cool details on this model but I think this thing is my favourite.


So there you have it. Another 240 points added to my ever growing forces and a great model for the collection. I doubt he'll see the tabletop much, mostly because I find his points cost a little hard to swallow, but also because I like to use forgeworld Graia for my army and Cawl forces you to use Mars. Still, I will give him a try sometime soon and perhaps he will surprise me.


Stay tuned for my next post as I slowly creep towards 3000 points!

Hobby Update - What have I been up to this Summer?

Things have been a bit quiet around here lately; I think that's due to a variety of different factors. All the usual mundane stuff, work, home life etc etc. I've been trying to work towards a 3000 point army of combined Adeptus Mechanicus and Knights which has consumed all of my hobby time but has been a lot of fun. All of the knights have appeared on this blog and I've really enjoyed painting these amazing models. However, it has left a bit of an unhealthy bias in my army as I hardly have any painted infantry to stand alongside these leviathans!

Time to paint some infantry then!

In an effort to remedy this, I've added a handful of Skitarii to my 3000 point plan and have begun painting them. I completed the chap above sometime in July along with a few of his comrades but I still have another five to do to complete 'the plan'. I love the Skitarii models to bits, but there's something a little unsatisfying about finishing one and thinking 'well, that's another eight points in the list' when the last model you turned out was worth around 500! Still, I will persevere and get some meaningful blocks of troops on the table!


Speaking of on the table, I've managed to play a few games of 40k which continues to be a heck of a good time. Long live 8th edition! The photo below was taken at my FLGS when my Knight Errant took on 500 points of Orks just for a laugh.

I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew!

This was the situation after a massive mob of 40 Orks used 'da jump' to pounce on my poor unsuspecting knight. Not a situation I could really prevent but it certainly made me laugh. I actually went on to win the game in spite of being assaulted by these guys and a Shokk Attack Gun armed big Mek rolling two volleys with a strength of 10 or higher!


I also went up to Warhammer World for the Specialist Games open day with a bunch of the lads. It was my first visit to Warhammer World and I was certainly not disappointed! Meeting the designers was a lot of fun and I spent quite some time chatting to the guys working on designs for the Horus Heresy and Necromunda. I also got to meet Louise Sugden who is an incredible miniatures painter working for Forgeworld (go follow her instagram if you don't already).

Titan table at WHW.

I got a couple of games in at Warhammer World, one of which was on top of the amazing fallen Warlord Titan pictured above.


The exhibition at Warhammer World is not to be missed and I took hundreds of blurry photos of all the amazing displays which look surprisingly similar to other photos taken by nerds from around the globe. A couple below for your amusement.

Leviathan Dreadnought wrecking face in the Burning of Prospero

Lizardmen Diorama from back in the day.

A bunch of amazing Eldar.

Other than all of that? I've made a start painting the big boy of the Mechanicus himself - none other than Belisarius Cawl. He certainly is a daunting miniature with all his many arms and appendages but I'm making decent progress so far. A couple more photos below in case you don't believe me.

Half of  Big-Boy Belisarius

And most of the other half.

He's progressing pretty well in spite of the complexity of the miniature and I hope to have him finished off in a week or so.


Well there you have it, a brief roundup of my hobbying from the last month or so. Stay tuned for another update next week when I hope to have some proper completed photos of the Archmagos.