Techmarine with Conversion Beamer

Buenos dias, Ninjabread readers. Today my Mexican-flavoured vintage Space Marine army gets some Adeptus Mechanicus reinforcements. An “Adeptus Mexicanicus”, if you will.

I’m gonna paint all my Techmarines with that big blue hand symbol so they can rub banners with each other while solemnly chanting “high five” in High Gothic.

This Marine is one of the vintage Mark Copplestone designs, wearing a modified suit of Mk 6 power armour – instantly recognisable from its chest cabling and beaked helmet. What makes the Copplestone Techmarines really stand out is the wealth of bonus tech details – the toolbox, the magnifying lenses, the drillbit and equipment mounted on the belt. They’re a joy to paint.

“A day like today is not a day for soundbites, we can leave those at home, but I feel the hand of history upon our shoulder with respect to this, I really do.”

The gnarly witch hand sculpted onto the right shoulder is the original symbol of the Adeptus Mechanicus, before it changed to the skull cog of today.

Check out the standard Mk 6 backpack, before Techmarines started on their journey to becoming grimdark Doctor Octopuses festooned in servo-arms and mechadendrites.

Back in the olden days, Techmarines were just basic lads with a bolt pistol, who you had to field one for each vehicle or support weapon in your army. Over the years they’ve grown in stature and are now mighty HQ choices striding around the battlefield with an exotic array of wargear and special rules. So that I can field this miniature in modern games of 8th edition Warhammer 40,000 and still have it backwards compatible for Rogue Trader, I modelled his modern wargear as a separate little drone.

Three more of the planned 36 Techmarines this army will feature.

The drone’s chassis started life as an upside-down 6mm Epic-scale Land Raider with the smoke launchers and sponsons sliced away. The weapon is the business end of the standard Rogue Trader Imperial Conversion Beamer, mounted on the much meatier body of a Eldar D-Cannon.

To descale it, I added big chunky rivets made from sliced down plastic tubing, and a big fat radio-control antenna with a pennant with the classic Beamer identification symbol.

Techmarine with Conversion Beamer
Crimson Fists Techmarine happy to see action. “Positively beaming”, you could say.

In games of Warhammer 40,000 he’s been great at zapping enemies, but has yet to unlock his full potential as the army has precisely zero vehicles for him to repair. But I plan to remedy that soon with some solid lead Dreadnoughts, Landspeeders and support weapons!

Ninjabread communication complete!

Curis

Curis has painted for Games Workshop, Forge World, Warlord Games, Mantic Games, Avatars of War, Wargames Foundry, Studio McVey and many others. He's won at Golden Demon and Salute. He publishes monthly painting tutorials on Patreon.

23 thoughts on “Techmarine with Conversion Beamer

  • November 4, 2019 at 2:24 pm
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    Love all the little bits of graffiti, and the Tech’s toolbox is perfect! Lovely post Curis! We need high five banners for Boyl next year. ;)

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    • November 4, 2019 at 8:17 pm
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      Thanks Grove! It’s really a graffiti project with some incidental Space Marines.

      Reply
  • November 4, 2019 at 2:43 pm
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    Well that’s pretty awesome, I love the cross compatibility of the model with the seperated weapon. Techmarines are usually half the troops in any good SM army so this will definitely be a treat !

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    • November 4, 2019 at 8:45 pm
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      Thanks JB! I am always loathe to chop up a vintage model for modern wargear shenannigans, so I was glad to find a workaround.

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  • November 4, 2019 at 3:00 pm
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    Brilliant job with the original Conversion Beamer, I mounted mine on a Bike and Sidecar Attack Bike (when Techmarines, albeit Master of the Forge existed and could have bikes to stay 72in from choice of target) and used an old school Techmarine Biker too.

    Love the D-cannon body and the epic LR as a ‘cyclops’ type vehicle. Inspired choice!

    My “Master of the Forge” – https://weemen.blogspot.com/2011/06/hi-all-i-have-finished-my-not-so-secret.html

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    • November 5, 2019 at 12:49 am
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      That’s cracking, I really like how you’ve used the angled torso of the rider to work in the servo-arm. Really cool use of pieces to make a distinctive character.

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  • November 4, 2019 at 3:24 pm
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    You’re ticking all the RT boxes for me here. The graffiti, the banners, parts choices, when combined with those gorgeous paint jobs give me a lovely warm feeling in my tumtum.

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    • November 7, 2019 at 1:08 pm
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      Cheers Dave! Just another 35 to paint before I can enjoy the full Rogue Trader Techmarine experience.

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  • November 4, 2019 at 3:39 pm
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    fantastic…It reminds me of the old WWII Goliath that the Germans used. Really a cool piece.

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    • November 7, 2019 at 1:09 pm
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      Cheers Bloo. Be fun to model the next one with a wire out the back going all the way to the Techmarine controller, proper WW2 style.

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  • November 4, 2019 at 5:20 pm
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    I know the Techmarine is technically the star of the show, but his tracked conversion beamer is my favourite element of the whole ensemble! It not only looks cool, but has bonus points for evoking actual 40k remote tracked devices (like the C.A.T and Cyclops). And more bonus points for the heavy duty gun which is a clever, seamless creation. Oh, and more bonus points for taking a cool 6mm tank and making it work as a cool tiny 28mm tank. And then you added the slogans…

    Smashing work!

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  • November 5, 2019 at 7:01 am
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    I’ve never played EPIC or had the chance to look at the minis in the flesh, but that conversion has piqued my interest for the potential of other 6mm mini uses in 28mm gaming.

    Well done Chris! Another stellar creation and PJ :)

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    • November 12, 2019 at 7:24 pm
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      Thanks Papa! As soon as you get a familiarity with the 6mm range you’ll spot all sorts of things going down in the old White Dwarf and hte like. It’s a fascinating range, as it was deliberately designed to look not-40K, where the weapons have a much more refined and spindly feel to impress the scale of the setting on you.

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    • November 12, 2019 at 7:24 pm
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      Thanks riot!

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  • November 7, 2019 at 11:00 pm
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    I love the Techmarine guy and the way you integrated all the elements (for me it’s a pain to make that giant hand on the shoulderpad work -but you did it!). I particularly like the banner, the vibe, the way you envisioned it all. But the conversion beamer is stealing the show! That’s truly brilliant!
    Fantastic work.

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    • November 12, 2019 at 7:30 pm
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      Thanks Suber! I didn’t like the hand at first, then I spotted a line in the Space Marine Painting Guide about the Space Marine specialists having their shoulder pads moulded into shapes to reflect their role – and Chaplains had the same thing going on with their shoulderpads and skulls. So it doesn’t seem weird any more.

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  • November 11, 2019 at 12:34 am
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    Brilliant. I love those weird old techmarines and the drone is perfect! Great stuff.

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    • November 12, 2019 at 7:32 pm
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      Thanks Warburton!

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  • November 14, 2019 at 7:50 pm
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    This is a Mark Copplestone sculpt?! I did not know that. I actually have one of these fixy bois in my lead pile somewhere, along with two other Techmarines.

    Your version is top quality, of course! Very inspiring!

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    • November 17, 2019 at 4:08 pm
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      Thanks Allison! Yeah, it’s Copplestone. He also did the Devestators Marines from Rogue Trader and one or two other pieces that had really clean lines and sharp symmetry.

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  • November 18, 2023 at 2:07 pm
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    “Altus qinqe”
    “Altus qinqe”
    “Altus qinqe”
    the techmarines were performing a ritual, he surmised.

    Reply

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