It didn’t take long for me to succumb and take the plunge, converting my very own Archni-rig for the Gellions, my Van Saar gang. In all honesty I wasnt even planning to build one. I love the artwork found in the Gangs book and was settling in for a long wait for a Forge World model.

But something in my head had other ideas. It was whilst I was building this guy…

An idea I had had from the start for a Leader with carapace armour and a servo harness, a mini Arachni-rig if you will. I’ll still be going ahead with this guy, but there’s a lot of work still to be done.

It was whilst building this gent and looking at the Canoptek Wraith kit I used for the ‘arms’ that inspiration struck. After a good wee while building, several expeditions through the bits box, and some finger injuries this is what I came up with…

It is a big one, that’s it sitting on a 65mm base, but as there is no official size and the image in the book is ambiguous on this at best, I’m happy to roll with it.

The main bulk is built from a Tau Stealth Suit and a box of Canoptek Wraiths, using a large proportion of the arms and body peices. There’s also a hell of a lot of random bits that I’ve accumulated over the years, and oh God I’ve just started adding more!

It took a lot of fiddling, cutting and dry fitting to get it looking how I wanted which was suitably high tech for the Van Saar but also with some utility. I see it as an exploration and excavation rig. I even added a ‘web’ cable for the rear…

It also comes with the option of swapping legs out for weapons,a plasma gun and/or a radgun, which I’ve made up for it too…

Those arms aren’t properly attached yet, so I’m going to work on good option for easy swapping.

I’m also going to write some backstory for both of these once they’re finished and painted, to tie them together and into the gangs backstory. I also need to figure out a basing option for this thing, so if you have any ideas I’d love it if you’d let me know.