Warzone Resurrection: Cybertronic Enhanced Machinators (Prodos Games)

Warzone Resurrection: Cybertronic Enhanced Machinators, Prodos Games

I played and enjoyed the original iteration of WarZone, by Heartbreaker hobbiers back in the day, but due to a lack of clarity in their Kickstarter’s pledge manager, I never ended up going all-in as I’d planned on Prodos’ reboot of WarZone resurrection and in fact didn’t get anything at all. I did however, pick up a bunch of WarZone models cheap on clearance with an eye of using them in some form with my Iron Warriors. And of course, if I ever play 1st Edition (or second) WarZone again, I’ve got some pretty sweet models to do so with. Yes, I know people’s first reaction to skull-headed miniature terminator-ripoff models is “Necrons”, but those fuckers have their own range, and, I mean, the Icon of the Iron Warriors is literally an Iron Skull. So it makes sense to me that they would have combat servitors and mechanicals in that image. Which is why I’ve re-finished my 1st edition WarZone Cybertronic lads as Iron Warriors, as well as designated my Legions of Steel Nightmares and Terminator Genesys T-800 models as IW cultists. As well as the Atilla from the same recent range.

I should probably dig out the rest of my half-finished original Cybertronic and finish them as IW cultists as well.

Warzone Resurrection: Cybertronic Enhanced Machinators, Prodos Games

Anyway, like msot of what I finished this month, these three had been sitting around, part-painted for literally years until I selected them from a tub of part-painted models and made myself finish them off. The Iron Warriors iconography is all freehand, and I feel like if I use these guys in 40k it will tie themn to that force pretty well, while also being kinda generic enough in a lot of ways to not make the models look like they’ve been ripped from 40k should I ever want to use them in (an)other game(s). They’re a bit grungier than the Atilla I painted a couple of years ago, and frankly, I think the extra tonality looks better. I may even revisit the Atilla and add a bit of the grunge to it as well, while also keeping some of those large panels clean.

Warzone Resurrection: Cybertronic Enhanced Machinators, Atilla MKI Exterminator, Prodos Games, Iron Warrior

Here they are alongside the Atilla. I started the four of them at the same time and finished the Atilla 2 years ago – and even then the Atilla took a couple of years to paint. Fuck me, I’m slow at this sometimes. I’ve also included an Iron Warrior for scale and for… an army visual cohesion demonstration.

As with everything else painted this month and next, it goes toward my tally for Dave Stone’s Paint What You Got Challenge.

WarZone 1st Edition: Dark Legion Gomorrian Emasculator – TG9696PB + Contrast Paint Experiment #6

WarZone 1st Edition, Dark Legion Gomorrian Emasculator, TG9696PB

Another of my old and neglected WarZone 1st edition models completed. This one is a Dark Legion Gomorrian Emasculator (yes, I had to look it up). This one had pretty much been sitting for years, with only the skin and metal basecoated. While the sculpting is technically quite adept, the overall design of the model is basically pretty shithouse. Which pretty much gives the simple and straightforward explanation of why it took me so long to get back to, and also why it’s still easily available today for not much money.

WarZone 1st Edition, Dark Legion Gomorrian Emasculator, TG9696PB

I think my initial motivation for starting to paint it was to use it as a Chaos Spawn-type thing in the first iteration of my Nurgle force, which was to be a Lost the the Damned-type army. Anyhow, it’s now finished. The final motivation being to just knucle down and get the fucking thing off my painting desk. I kept to the cow-brown aesthetic and just highlighted the flesh so it could pass for either oily/sweaty skin or a kind of horse-fur-sheen, and pinked-up some scarred tissue around the edges of the metal implants.

WarZone 1st Edition, Dark Legion Gomorrian Emasculator, TG9696PB

“Buff Dudes” goes a little off the rails.

Given the size of it, I suppose I could theoretically use it as an Obliterator proxy in the right kind of Chaos force, but for now, it’s just another hunk of painted lead off my desk and out of the backlog. I don’t hate the model. The sculpt is odd and badly-proportioned and it’s a bad design, but it’s got a dorky charm to it somehow. I’m also good with my paint on it. Nothing amazing, but a solid, decent paintjob, and about as much as the model deserves. As with a lot of my current models, there’s some use of thinned Contrast paint used in the shading of the musculature, on the horns, teeth, hooves, etc. I find that used like this it gives a bit more control than using a traditional wash, and the outcome is quite decent.