My Cephalyx Army

Exulon Thexus - Master of Puppets

Exulon Thexus is the Cephalyx Warcaster. I primed him in black and tried out some colors I have wanted to use for a long time. I'm glad the purple worked pretty well with the Cryx Bane Green and the Coal Black.

I washed the green with a mix of Cryx Bane Green and some armor wash. I decided to pick out his metal orbs with gold. He's the only model for Cephalyx that has any ornate elements like that, so I figured I'd go for it.

I tried to really detail out the arms with a lot of variation to the metal types. But eventually I got lazy and did bigger areas as one metal type.

Using the Cephalyx core book as a guide for the metal I did the base paint of the blades for my Cephalyx in Cold Steel. This was to simulate a more surgical steel look for the weapons. Considering the theme, I thought that was a cool idea. Shading will be done with a mix of German Grey and Bastion Grey.

I don't have any early progress pictures of my Monstrosities, but I followed the core book's painting tips for them with slight variations on the colors to add more red and pink hues. I wanted them to look heavily beaten and bruised as well as fleshy. I always thought the standard paint scheme was a little too undead-ish.

The Warden came together much quicker and I accomplished a way cleaner look to the model. I have been experimenting with colors for my front arc marker. A lot of work still to do, but this is pretty much my Cephalyx battlegroup.

The Cephalyx Dominator is a Unit Attachment model. His ability allows him to "recruit" any small or med base Merc unit to the Cephalyx. You get all the benefits of the unit plus they all become Cephalyx models. The Dominator acts like a lot of the other "hive-minds," in that it can sacrifice models in it's unit to ranged attacks against it and that the unit takes a big hit when he dies.

Once I knew I liked the color  scheme, I had fun with getting into the lore and fluff. The Cephalyx are a hive structure army with tiers of "hive-minds" controlling thier respective tiers of "mind-slaves." Exulon Thexus, as the master "hive-mind," controls the mindless, beefy Monstrosities to lead the army as a battle group. As for the infantry, they are controlled by various lesser "hive-minds" called Dominators, Mind Slavers and Mind Benders. I don't have the Mind Slaver unit yet.

The lore behind the Cephalyx, is that the Exulon's surgically modify themselves with their most powerful enhancements and give the less powerful enhancements to these lesser "hive-minds." I chose to play the same idea into my color selection for these models. My armies main colors are going to be the Coal Black you see on Thexus's body and the purple of his robes. I chose to make the Coal Black my main for the majority of my unit leaders, with accents of purple draping and dark brown leather trim.

Infantry Leaders - Pulling the Strings

The Cephalyx Dominator is a unit attachment that allows you to field any small or medium based mercenary unit in your Cephalyx army. The models retain all the abilities of the original unit, but gain fearless, tough and become Cephalyx models. Pretty cool idea. I am going to use Boomhowler and Co. for my merc unit. It wastes the tough upgrade from the Dominator, but with Boomhowlers 4+ tough boost I think they will blend really well into the army. Also, there is no Cephalyx models with non-spray ranged attacks, except the Subduer, so I wanted to add a unit with some range attacks. I haven't started painting Boomhowler and Co. yet.

Leading the Drudges

The Mind Bender is one of the unit leaders of the drudges. His unit is already tough, fearless and obviously Ceohalyx models. This unit is very dependent on the leaders. The Mind Bender can use the drudges as arc nodes for his magic attacks, as well as boost the strength and attack abilities of them. Very versatile unit with surprising survivability.

Drudges - The Fists and Punching Bags

The Drudges are the fists of the Cephalyx army. Numerous, expendable and pretty underwhelming by themselves. They become pretty beefy, pretty quickly, when you start to combo up buffs and use them to extend range of the Mind Bender's magic attacks. With the cheap cost of the unit, they definitely pull their wight in points.

Solos - Pushing the Strings

The Agitators are probably the most useful addition to the Cephalyx forces. They have the ability to buff both Monstrosities and Drudges that are within five inches of them, they have decent speed with pathfinder and you can have three of them per Warcaster in your army. Add the spray 8 attack and sacrificial pawn and you have another 3 very versatile additions to the army.