Heresy Era Questoris Knights - Knight Lancer Takes To The Field!

Managed to get a game in over the holiday weekend, but didn't take a huge number of pictures, had too much fun just playing the game! As preparation for the NOVA Open coming up later in the year, I wanted to get the Dark Angels on the table to start familiarizing myself with the rules, and try out one of the potential army lists. A friend brought over some Space Wolves which makes for the second-most iconic match-up in my mind (just behind Thousand Sons/Space Wolves, of course)!

We rolled up the War of Lies mission (variable VPs for objectives) and setup was determined to be long-ways across the table. The vast majority of the force would arrive from reserve in a trio of Termites, so setup was simple - The Knight Lancer, and a Land Raider set to race forward and smash into the enemy lines. The first wave of termites erupted out of the ground, though in retrospect my positioning of them wasn't the greatest. Play and learn, right?

The Wolves advanced, taking several objectives and weathering the storm of fire from the Dark Angels.

The Knight lopes forward, confident in being able to annihilate the two Predators, and relying on its shield to protect it from the onrushing melta-armed speeder and dreadnought.

Of course, I should have expected this result - Never fails, that brand new, freshly painted model you're excited to field is destroyed in the second turn before accomplishing anything. Hah!

Seemed appropriate to leave him on the field, burning. The shame!

Continuing the theme, the Wolves in the crater made short work of the Dark Angels terminators, who, despite plasma-gunning and charging, were destroyed in close combat quite handily. Rolled nothing but ones and twos for armor saves. Ouch!

The now-unsupported tactical squad managed to melta-bomb one of the predators, but were blasted from the field by return fire from the dread and other predator, not to mention the entire 10-man missile launcher squad from the rooftop above.

In the backfield, two tactical squads fought each over over the burning wreck of the Lancer for control of the rear objective.

Finally, the third Termite arrived delivering the Plasma Repeater squad into the rear area of the Wolves deployment zone, and they straight up deleted the entire squad of veterans and the trio of Terminator-armed characters in a storm of fire. Definitely need to bring these guys on in the first wave going forward - That level of firepower needs to be on the table wrecking things much earlier in the game!

When the dust cleared, the Space Wolved pulled out a 12-9 victory - Losing the Knight gave up three VPs so it was pretty close in the end! Was pretty pleased with how the Termites performed, they're a bit more tactically flexible than a drop pod, but not quite as multi-function as a Dreadclaw. More test games are needed to iron out the kinks and try some other army list ideas, but I'm looking forward to taking the force out to NOVA!

Heresy Era Questoris Knights - House Vyronii Knight Lancer Off The Factory Floor

After building the Lancer I couldn't help but get cracking painting it, and over the last week managed to get the beast up to the usual "off the factory floor" stage where it's ready for waterslides and weathering. However as the transfer sheet is still winging its way to my door this is as far as it can get for now!

The emerald and white of House Vyronii really pops, especially compared to all the really muted blacks and reds on the Dark Angels of late. Added some black and yellow hazard stripes on some of the power cables and a couple panels for some extra snazz and of course gotta work in the usual blue, right?

Really happy with how the pose turned out, one of the best things about the Cerastus knight is just how varied they can be assembled. I really wish GW would re-tool the plastic knight to allow for more/easier posing with their legs.

Another box ticked over to green on the painting chart and was jazzed to see that the force has almost tipped the 3000 points painted mark. Definitely well on the way to the finish line! Got a game in over the holiday weekend, and still sorting through the pics - Another post to follow once I get them all loaded up!

Heresy Era Questoris Knights - House Vyronii Knight Lancer Built

Quick hit this morning, I spent some time yesterday afternoon rummaging around in the Closet of Doom for something to build - I've been doing a ton of painting of late and figured it was time to reward myself by spending a session gluing my fingers together. I'd been considering a Lord of War choice for the Dark Angels when my eye fell on the stack of Knights that have been gathering dust for the last several years. While I'd originally intended to pick up a Glaive for the force, perhaps a Knight would better suit the aesthetic of the Dark Angels a little better!

One of the kits in particular seemed as though it would work well, and after a fair bit of cutting, carving, pinning and not a little swearing, a Knight Lancer marched off the build deck. Tried to go with an "en garde" stance, as though it's fending off a blow on the shield and winding up for a stab with the lance. From a fluff perspective I'm going to be painting it up in House Vyronii colors, a household with an historical affiliation with the Dark Angels, and having a paint scheme that I think will look nice alongside the predominantly black and red of the heresy-era Dark Angels livery!

Heresy Era Dark Angels - Taerrax Termite Tunnelers Complete!

Got a fair bit of hobby time in over the last week and managed to finish off the trio of totally terrifying Taerrax Termite Tunnelers - say that five times fast!

The three of them just baaaaarely fit in to the photo tent - They're larger than you might think from looking at 'em, but not so monstrous that they're going to be hard to transport or play. Tried to get some little splashes of color here and there with some brass on the meltas, some glowy orange-yellow on the Volkites and the usual red weapon housings to help them tie in to the rest of the force.

Had to get a little of the signature blue on 'em somewhere, right? There's some power conduits on the back that got the usual recipe! Added on some waterslide transfers and some sponge weathering, seems as though the sheets I used for the symbols were reasonably old and as such show up a little more than I'd like sheen-wise, even with some generous application of Micro-Sol. While it's more apparent in the pics than it is in person, I think I'm still going to go back in and touch them up with a little paint around the edges of the DA symbols and the numbers. Overall however, they're table ready!

The paint chart keeps on flipping over to green, which is a real nice feeling. Not too much left to go yet, after all the painting I think I can reward myself with some build time, and am considering whether it's the last 10-man Volkite support squad or the two remaining Sicaran variants that will get assembled next. Probably ought to bang out the last of the infantry...

Well ahead of schedule to get the force done for the NOVA Open coming up later in the year, but that deadline is bearing down on me rather fast!

Heresy Era Dark Angels - Vigilator built!

Not a huge amount of hobby time over the last week, but did manage to squeeze in a build for another character for the Dark Angels. I thought a Vigilator could be a cool addition to the force, if for no other reason than I've never done one before in any of the other heresy armies!

Based on the new Cypher model (obviously), I built a sniper-pattern bolter for him using some styrene rod and a scope, and tried to clean up the cloak a little bit using some ham-fisted greenstuff work to patch up some of the more egregious rents and tears in the cloak, as well as cover over the removal of the Lion's Sword from the back. There's several passes of liquid greenstuff to smooth things out as well, it's interesting how rough it looks in the photo when it's rather smooth in the flesh. We'll see how it turns out after primering, I suppose!

Part of the reason for the lack of hobby progress was down to a weekend concert and hangout with some old friends down at the always-spectactular Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, CO. Hands down the most breathtaking place to see a concert in Colorado, and perhaps the nation! Beautiful weather, awesome views and good friends - How can you go wrong?

If you're gonna tailgate before a show, sometimes you gotta take it up a notch! Some perfectly medium-rare beef tenderloin, asparagus, and cheesecake (not to mention some quality beer, cider and scotch for afters)? Yes please!

Ended up having pretty darn good seats for the show, the lineup of the evening was the thunderous Mastodon (somewhat less spectacular visually for playing before sundown, but they rocked), followed by my favorite band of all time, Primus! All in all an absolutely top-notch way to spend a Sunday!

In other, other news, my good buddy Matt Dougherty did up some art prints to celebrate Star Wars day and I was happy to get a hold of the 1st print. Got it framed and it'll have pride of place up in the hobby loft with some of my other nerdy art!

Heresy Era Dark Angels - Vortigern's Pride Painted!

Once the painting servitor completed the Iron Warriors I gave some thought into what would come next. More infantry, it turns out! I had gotten the greens down on the terminators a while back and rather than start something afresh I figured I ought to finish 'em off. After two near back-to-back 30-strong batches, painting a mere 11 minis was bliss!

The terminator complement of the warhost is known as Vortigern's Pride, and consists of the inner circle of the force. At the end of the Heresy, they all stood aligned with Vortigern as he sided with the traitors. Though the Lost Lions warhost's activities during the Scouring and the Legion Wars can only be speculated upon, they appear in the chronicles of the Imperial Fists as sailing with the arch-traitor Abbadon at the outset of the First Black Crusade.

Vortigern is shown here in Cataphractii warplate, bearing a Terranic Greatsword and a combi-plasma. I was really pleased with how well the cloak fits the model - Definitely going to scavenge a few more for future projects!

Vortigern's Pride is led by Brother Arvelan, accompanied here by the two specialists of the unit both bearing plasma blasters. Arvelan wields a Calibanite Warblade and a combi-plasma. Starting to sense a theme here?

My favorite thing about terminators is the chainfist! I think any self-respecting unit ought to have at least one. Vortigern's Pride features three - No plasma here though, just basic combi-bolters.

Four more combi-plasmas round out the squad loadout, mostly out of a sense of symmetry. At 7 points each I needed to work five in total into the squad so it comes out as a nice 'even' 35 points.

The painting chart is starting to get colorful now! Got a viable 2000 point army painted already which is a nice milestone. Well, viable as in "Conforms to the Age of Darkness FOC", not "This is an effective force". Hah!

NOVA 2018 Charity Army Painting - Iron Warriors Complete!

Been a little quiet on the blog of late, been head down furiously batch painting Iron Warriors for the NOVA Open Charitable Foundation auctions coming up, but the interstitial pictures just weren't all that interesting. After cranking out 30 Dark Angel tac marines, I'll admit feeling a little trepidation over diving right back in and painting 30 more marines - but it's for a great cause and they ended up being more fun than I expected!

The recipes were provided by the team lead, and I was pretty stoked to see how they turned out. The metals on the armour have a lot of depth, and all the hazard stripes definitely make for a striking look!

I'll admit that a bunch of tac marines aren't the most thrilling aspect of a Heresy army, but they are the backbone of any self-respecting force, and I was happy to take care of the more mundane Troops choices and let the other very talented folks work on the the cool stuff!

The veterans were definitely my favorites to work on as they had a bit more character than their tac squad counterparts. They all got a bit more bling and equipment, and the sergeant got a red-and-white helmet crest to help distinguish them on the tabletop.

All in all they were a hoot to work on, but I don't know that it was enough to kindle a desire to do a full Iron Warriors force of my own (for which my wallet is grateful). Expect to see some pics of the full army and links to the raffle as they go live!