Adding a maniple of murder bots to my Legion forces. These remind me so much of the old Titanicus (epic) scale ‘Crusader’ robots, probably why I was drawn to adding a maniple of the fast murder machines to my Ultramarines a few years back. They are great kits purely down to the amount of poseability they offer. Unlike automata in the ranks if the mechanicum, these are sanctioned hunter killers assigned to the legion under the control of a Consul Praevian.

I wanted to exploit all of that articulation modelling the Vorax as loping pack hunters, stooped low with rotor cannons and head sensors sweeping for targets. My favourite by a long margin was the one leaping a resin Dragon’s Tooth tank trap, one of Forgeworld’s old terrain pieces I had in a bits box. It was part of a row of three, but I broke one off to use on the base and repositioned the claws on the left foot to grasp the fractured rockrete as the robot moved over it. Along with the other two Vorax they are simple to pose as weapon ammo feeds and cables can be heated up and bent into position with relative ease

Orange is the new blue

The Vorax are assigned to the legion by the Mechanicum rather than just being considered an allied unit. I wanted to represent them as such, but at the same time didn’t want to just paint them in the exact same Ultramarine scheme as the rest of the force. Instead I opted to do them in a mechanicum orange, but include the Ultramarine’s signature cobalt blue in the form of carapace unit markings and head colour. As both colours compliment each other it worked out really well helping make the Vorax stand out from other units in the force whilst at the same time clearly integrated.

Although I think it’s possible to take another three and increase the unit to six Vorax I personally feel it would be overkill and if I was to add any more automata to the Ultramarines I would rather add a different class for variety. Either way these have been one of my favourite units to both construct and paint. Fiddly yes, but super rewarding.