Squat Pirate Heavy Support - the Annihilator

I'm confident that if I did a quick poll on 'The Most Likely Heavy Support Option For Squat Pirates', a giant mechanised walking skull with guns in its eyes would come pretty high up on the results. Happily for me, Mammoth Miniatures recently released the Grobnik Annihilator from the Gardens of Hecate range.

The model was sculpted by Ana Polanšćak and is cast in resin. The kit is pretty simple - a single casting for the main body and legs, with a separate sprue for the 4 guns. The sculpting is nicely old-school in feel (although one or two of the details would benefit from being a fraction sharper). The guns are very fine and brittle though - I managed to break two when deflashing / removing from the sprue, and have had several repeat breaks since. They would definitely benefit from being cast in metal or thickening up.

The model is roughly dreadnought-sized, and perfectly suited to a squat pilot.

I was undecided on the colour scheme for a little while. I'm still not sure that I made the right decision to go with the white skull rather than black, but I wanted the weathering to be prominent and to knock down some of the toy quality of the model.

I agonised over the colour of the mouth grill. The details are sadly a little shallow so it looks a bit more lip-like rather than teeth-like!

I decided that the little triangular panels on the shoulders should be weapon or warning markings.

From the rear there's more of an ork dreadnought vibe.

Note the pirate symbol on the leg - I've used this on a couple of other of the crew.

My squat pirates are delighted to have something even bigger and scarier than their ogryn as part of their crew!