To kick things off... An existing model of mine

[Adam]

I have a slight problem here in that I play Tyranids in 40K. Thus no mechs. I also sold my Eldar Wraithlords recently, which saddened me but oh well, they'll be remade in plastic one day.

However, I do have one potential mech. Ghallen is a daemonic Chaos Dreadnought I made for a competition after a friend gave me half his Chaos army (for a force I still haven't gotten round to starting). The model is made from GW stuff: a Daemon Prince, some Dreadnought bits, the head from Malus Darkblade's Cold One. With the addition of a pen top, some plasticard and a lot of Green Stuff I created this monster:



(The pen top is the basis for the plasma cannon, if you didn't guess.)

Ghallen is a little bit too alive for DoS really. However, this is where daemonheart engines come in. Chaos, Cryx and Combined Army players of the world unite! If you have a miniature you'd like to convert or use, but it looks a tiny bit too alive to really work as a mech, give it a daemonheart or regenamer. If that's not enough really, as is the case with Ghallen, give it both. The combination of the Etherium's satanic, cursed engines with their odd aura of mind-twisting evil (who knows whether they really contain daemons or not?) and the self-healing regenamer material can often twist a mech into a loathsome parody of itself. As may have happened here.

Ghallen's pilot, if it still has a pilot, is evidently somewhere in the torso. The mech isn't that heavily armed by normal mech standards, and is more likely to be a close combat slugger, although that plasma cannon is definitely a gigaweapon, meaning he's got one utterly kick-ass gun at least. I'd use Ghallen as a heavyweight myself, as it looks a bit too lithe to be a super-heavy and it's closer to the height I've suggested (in the rulebook) for heavies' miniatures.

I'm going to post rules for him in the designs board, which'll act as something of a teaser preview before I finish updating the main rules and find somewhere on the internet to offer them as a pdf file. Enjoy ;D

[Casinha]

Looks good. Did you win the competition?

Alien mechs would be cool, so long as your love for Tyranids and all things vile, evil and foul doesn't give them a strategical boost.

Really, really, really want to integrate steam-punk into this, because I love it. Mind if I try out an idea for my own faction?

[Adam]

Do go on ahead. I have a bunch of factions but more will be fine.

...Well, when I say factions... Duel of Steel doesn't have army lists. But I will include rules for a number of factions, beliefs, organisations etc, which you can apply to a team.

Alien mechs? Well that's not hard to build really, some of the upgrades lend themselves fairly well to alien tech. It's the alien *weapons* that are more common and considerably awesome. But anyone can have them.

And no, I didn't win. It was for an Epic Titan competition actually, I guess the rules I wrote for him weren't that good (I'm not an Epic player). However it did give me one of my favourite models, so I don't mind. ;D

[thebug]

Nice! I see a converted 40k daemon prince arm and a hive tyrant tail with a ripper head! I'm liking it!

[Adam]

More importantly, that hive tyrant tail has a gun on it.

Yeah, the whole thing's based on a Daemon Prince, with extended legs, a head swap and GS neck, sword replaced with a plasma cannon, and the body extended via a new lower torso made of Green Stuff. Combining into one ugly (but cool!) mofo! I like the claw arm most myself, I'm very pleased with the way the three fingers came out (with giant talons made from Hormagaunt scythes, you'll be pleased to learn). Oh, and his head; half an hour of searching GW's website for the best monster head they had turned out well worth it. I couldn't resist giving him metal teeth.

Oh, and if anyone hadn't guessed, the shoulder weapons are heavy bolters stuck on where the Daemon's big sticky-out-skull-things are, with deathspitter barrel ends; the tail has a Ripper head and the barrel of a splinter rifle on it.

The feet, btw, were actually made out of Scarabs and Tyranid limb pieces. A cut down Scarab forms the body of each foot, with a mound of GS on top of it and three wires in a four-toe shape stuck to the bottom securely. I then pinned in Tyranid Gaunt leg segments, still with the feet on (the feet form his toe claws), bent them into shape and GSed the whole thing into obedience. 'Chaos flesh' as I call it is actually really easy to sculpt, and not hard to paint either.

The second tail was added on a whim out of a wire and some spare Milliput. It's Chaos, why the hell not.