The next addition to my latest Inquisitor warband – a band of questionable Magos Biologis and their experiments – including Genetor Vacillus and their stompy Beetle-back retriever.
This is prototype Arco-Flagellant X206 – the product of some late-night radical brainstorming something along these lines:
Designing X206
I knew I wanted a melee monster for the warband. The Zeta-phi “Beetle-back” forms an immovable front line and Magos Vacillus provides ranged support, so I needed something to round out their battlefield roles.
I had lots of Arco-Flagellant bits floating around (hah!) as I never made one for myself. I always found them grossly overpowered for average play, but I loved their horrifying aesthetic.
I ended up with lots of Talos bits left over from building the Zeta-phi servitor, including an uncomfortable amount of neat-looking tentacles. The arms were a perfect fit for the arco-flagellant body, but I wasn’t happy with the running legs. Unless…
The hovering base of the Talos was a perfect fit, and filled with the remaining tentacles and weird fluid vials gave it the perfect Mechanicus side-project aesthetic. It even encouraged me to model it in-flight, as though it was sweeping through the halls like an angry electric squid. Very big Matrix Sentinel vibes.
Very long pins were put through the two tentacles touching the base (with a LOT of superglue) and the resulting pose is surprisingly stable. A little mechanicus backpack covered all the injector holes that come with the torso, and he’s ready for the rattlecan.
A prototype paint scheme
Although I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about painting all that naked flesh (I tossed around the ideas of electoos but seriously, ain’t nobody got time for that), the base colour schemes were already decided by the previous two lads.
The big stinker was figuring out how I was going to do the tentacles without destroying my will to live. I must have done about five or six repaints before settling on the ‘inner glow’ look here.
A few choice pipes were picked out for the yellow/dark grey stripy treatment, as I enjoy hazard stripes as a spot colour (and fits with the Mechanicus aesthetic quite nicely). In the grim darkness of the far future, there are still sacred health and safety tenets that must be unquestioningly followed.
One colour scheme involved lots of electric blue. Although it was different, it was a pig to paint, and really went against the colour scheme. I stuck with the ‘mystery green fluid’ aesthetic that seems to power all the weapons in the warband – the unnatural fit ties everything together visually, as well as reinforces the themes of being powered by something inhuman.
I’ve toyed with some ideas for how he’ll be on the battlefield, but the bottom line is moving fast and hitting hard. His main unique selling point is swimming through the air on electro-aetheric propulsion, so obstacles and pitfalls aren’t really a concern. Unless of course, someone has a haywire grenade…
To balance out his massive mobility, he’ll be significantly toned down from a ‘true’ arco-flagellant. Of course he’ll still be an electric murder machine, but he won’t have all the combat drugs that can be activated to turn him into horrifying 200-something strength monstrosity that melts space marines.
(Also because I don’t like calculating all the new stats on the turn you want them to kill something ayyy lmao)
As for defence, I’m on de fence (hah!). I’ve got two visions for him, and I don’t know which would be more fun to play with/against. The first involves him moving silently – a tentacled horror stalking darkened hallways, barely giving off its presence save for a few dancing lights like a deep sea predator.
The other involves manipulating the unnatural energies into a crackling force field – he’ll be far more resilient but stealth won’t be an option. Instead he’ll be more like a frightening living antibody – an electric nightmare that beelines for its target and doesn’t stop until they are subdued or disintegrated.
The wrap-up
Given how this electric lad sat on my bench for 3-4 years before I got round to finishing him, I’m extremely happy how he turned out. You can see from the WIP photo that he was basically all finished, I just ran out of ideas on how to fill all the little injection holes, whether I’d give him back tentacles, make them from guitar string, whatever. He just needed a little backpack, and that was all the motivation I needed to start slinging some paint on him.
I’m very excited to get him on the tabletop (one day!) as I feel like he rounds the team off nicely. Now all I need to do is finish off the big guy himself…