Mordian 7th Regiment

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Magnus the Red complete

2012-01-31T08:49:00.005-07:00

While looking around for something (anything) to do rather than finish up the very last little tiny bit to do on the 2000 point army I'm taking to the Tempus Fugitives event in March, my eye fell upon the Primarch of the Thousand Sons, Magnus the Red. He, too, was partially painted, so it wasn't a big deal to get him finished up, and snap a couple pics of him alongside the recently-completed Sekhmet:

Magnus is described in the various novels as being a giant, even among his fellow Primarchs, and the model certainly doesn't skimp on the size. I ended up having to mount him on a 60mm base, and he's almost 75mm to the tip of his axe! He makes even the massive Sekhmet Terminators look tiny.

I tired to give him a ruddy, reddish skin tone, which turned out all right. Originally I'd painted him up with white robes and red runic script, but they just looked terrible so I did a little repaint and swapped the colors for red robes and white scripts which ended up looking a little better. I also went with a nice big wolf pelt cloak to tweak the nose of our local Space Wolf player. All in all, it's not my favorite Primarch model that's out there, but it's what was available. He won't be part of the army I'm taking to England, but nevertheless it's good to get him done and out of the way!

The rules that I'm using for him are from the Age of the Emperor expansion pack available from the Tempus Fugitives site here:

The Primarch Magnus the Red, the Crimson King

WS BS S T W I A LD Sv

10 4  6 6 6 6 4 10 1+/4++

Upgraded Unit Type: Heavy Infantry

Wargear
• Primarch Armour (The armour provides a 1+ armour save [remembering that a roll of a 1 is always a failure], the Relentless special rule and a 4+ Invulnerable save.)
• The Red Staff (Master crafted force weapon)
• Psychic Hood

Ever Onwards! Magnus can never capture or contest an objective. For him the road to victory rolls ever onwards.

Titanic Might: Such is the power of the Primarch Magnus that he may re-roll all failed rolls to wound with close combat and shooting attacks.

Loss of Control: Should Magnus be slain, a psychic shockwave pulses from the fallen Primarch and his body is magically transported away from the battlefield. The effect on his army is devastating. All Psykers on the battlefield (friend and foe) suffer Perils of the Warp. Beware: The flesh-change affects the Thousand Sons as normal.

Special Rules
• Fearless
• Independent Character
• Eternal Warrior
• Relentless
• Master Psyker (C:SM pg 86)
• Gift of Prescience (C:SM pg 86).
• Surprise Attack (C:SM pg 85)

Psyker Mastery Level X: Knows all Thousand Sons and Librarian psychic powers. Automatically passes all psychic test and cannot be affected by devices that affect psychic powers.

Channel for the Warp: Magnus may cast up to four powers each turn. Each power may be used only once per turn, and only a single power may be used in the assault phase. Such is Magnus' capability that he can use more than one psychic shooting attack per turn; all of which must be directed to the same target.

Cyclops: Because Magnus has a single eye, his lack of depth perception means that even with his post-human abilities he has a Ballistic Skill of 4 and may not re-roll to hit with any shooting attacks.

So he's a beast on the table top, but is a massive liability to the army should he be slain. As it should be, I suppose!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Land Raider Spartan Build

2012-01-28T22:22:00.003-07:00

As I've managed to get virtually the whole 2000 point army painted for the Tempus Fugitives event in March, I thought I'd treat myself to some build time. Recently I came across a fellow on eBay who was selling off a cardstock/foamcore version of a Land Raider Spartan. I thought it looked like it might be pretty neat if I could detail it up a bit.

It showed up in the mail on Friday, and I got stuck in. I started off with chopping up a bunch of half-moon plastic rod to give the tracks that little extra to make them look like the original GW model's style. The Land Raider Spartan in the rule set that I'm using was armed differently than the way the fellow had it modeled, but the seller was nice enough to build one for me without any side or roof weapons so I could arm it as I chose. I needed to mount a Predator's single lascannon sponson on each side, so using a pin vice and an x-acto blade I carefully cut out the shape I needed and trimmed out the foamcore. The sponsons fit right in and I added the other side doors.

While rooting around in the various vehicle bits boxes, I came across an original Rhino's front light bar, so I cleaned up the front of the tank and trimmed the bar down to the correct size before gluing it in place. On the rear, I dug up some exhausts and a grill to give it a bit more character.

Once that was done, I fit it with a dozer blade, and added some power cables similar to the GW kit. The Termpus Fugitives list version of the Spartan is fitted with two Heavy Bolters on the battle deck, so a trimmed down version from a current-era Land Raider seemed to fit the bill. I was originally planning on using the pintle mounted Heavy Bolters from the Fortress of Redemption kit, but alas the Closet of Doom didn't see fit to give them up. Naturally, I'll find them as soon as this tank is painted!

After that I popped off the paper hatch that came with it and replaced it with a current-era Rhino hatch, and added a couple banner poles and called it a day. I'm pretty pleased with how it's turned out thus far, and I think it'll be a nice addition to the Thousand Sons as the transport for one of the 20-man Legion Tactical Squads.

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Whirlwind Complete!

2012-01-25T12:21:00.002-07:00

Not a whole lot of painting time of late, but I did manage to polish off the Whirlwind "Haathor's Breath" last night, and snapped a couple pictures of it over lunch today. Of course, as is always the case it's only after I've sealed it and am looking at the pictures in the blog post that I realize I missed painting some stuff (in particular the power cables leading to the launcher box). Gah! Guess it's not 100% complete!

Pretty straightforward conversion, using a mix of Chapterhouse kits (for the front plate), Tom McBride's kits (the replacement sides) and a bit of plasticard and a pair of 40mm bases (to make the old-school Whirlwind launcher). I wanted to give it a bit of motion, so I added a launching rocket from the current Whirlwind kit, attached via a bit of steel wire and some greenstuff to make the flames. All in all I'm pretty pleased with it!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - A whole mess of infantry painted!

2012-01-19T19:19:00.005-07:00

Nearing completion with the 2000 point army I'm planning on taking to the Tempus Fugitives event in March. Managed to finish painting all the infantry!

First up is the model I'll be using for Chief Librarian Azhek Ahriman. In the TF codex, early on in the Heresy Ahriman is represented by a less-obviously-chaos-influenced statline, and I built a new model to represent him at the onset of the Great Crusade. Armed with a Force Staff and Plasma Pistol, and wearing Artificer Armor, I also modeled him with a floating book and a blue cape to reinforce his status as a psyker. Had to add in a sneaky nod to the Thousand Sons' eventual fall to Chaos with the symbol of Tzeentch on one of the pages of the book... Heh.

Next is the second unit of Terminators for the army (though I'll only be taking the one pictured above to the event). These will represent the Sekhmet, bodyguards to Ahriman. While the other squad (Squad Ankhet) is armed with a prodigious amount of wargear and weaponry, I went with a much more basic wargear load out with the Sekhmet (combi-bolters and power weapons) to keep the points more reasonable.

After that were the remaining 9 Tactical marines and Sergeant Hesyre. In the codex, Hesyre grants the unit to which he is attached specialist ammunition, giving the squad an Inferno Bolts analogue which I felt was appropriate for the Sons of Magnus. He also comes with a rule called "Vulnerable to the Change" which means that if he suffers a perils of the warp check, his unit is far more susceptible to the Flesh Change. In order to represent this, I modeled him with a power fist from the Possessed sprue, and had him looking at the warping fist as if he's thinking "Oh, crap."

Finally are the three objective markers I've built for the army, representing a trio of marines who have succumbed (or are in the process of succumbing) to the Flesh Change. Seemed appropriate! At this point all that remains is the final detail work on the Predator and Whirlwind, followed by the tough decision - do I attempt to create some transfers for the shoulder pads on all the marines, or do I buckle down and free-hand all the insignia? Either one presents its own set of unique challenges, though at the moment I'm leaning towards just painting them, though I'll admit I'm a bit apprehensive about painting 30+ little nova bursts...

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Painting in progress for the last of the 2000 point army

2012-01-16T12:00:00.001-07:00

With the Tempus Fugitives Age of the Emperor event rapidly approaching, I pulled out all the models that remained to be painted and set to work over the weekend. With my buddy Dave cranking out his Blood Angels, I couldn't let him get done before me (especially after giving him so much grief over the last few years about not painting)!

Pretty good forward motion so far - 10 Tac Marines, 5 Terminators, Ahriman and three objective markers are all up to the same state now. There's really not all that much left to be done, the metal on the weapons and the various shading and detail on the power/force weapons, some skin tones and various other bits of detailing. Getting close now!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Falchion superheavy "Eye of Magnus" complete!

2012-01-12T12:10:00.002-07:00

Greetings all! Had a bit of time over the last couple evenings to finish off the detailing on the Falchion-class superheavy "Eye of Magnus" and shot some pics of it over my lunch break while I had some good light.

Went in and did the final highlights on the bone-colored hatches, finished up all the lenses and glowy bits and added in the "XV" markings that I'm adding to all the vehicles to tie them together.

Also cleaned up the various places where I spattered paint here and there, though I realize that I'll still need to go back and clean up the lines on the roman numerals. They're a bit wavy yet. Now if the weather would warm up a bit, I can get it sealed!

While I was about it I pulled out all the miniatures that I'll be taking with me to England for the Tempus Fugitives Age of the Emperor event in early March. All the heavy lifting is done at this point, just need to finish up the detail work on the Whirlwind, and paint up about 20 more infantry. I have a free weekend coming up in a couple days, so all things being equal I'm hoping to have them all done in plenty of time!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Falchion painting nearly complete...

2012-01-09T12:14:00.000-07:00

Got a little more detail work done on the Falchion last night and was able to snap a couple pics in the daylight over lunch:

Adding in a bunch of gold trim, and finished up the glowy-green bits on the power cables and runes along the side skirts. I considered doing up all the (hundreds of) rivets in gold as well, but in the end I thought it may end up looking too busy.

Fairly pleased with how the main targeter array turned out, lots of wet blending which isn't my forte but all in all it turned out to be a fairly smooth gradient. Now it's just a matter of picking out all the little remaining details here and there and hope for a warm day to get it sealed!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Falchion painting in progress, part 1

2012-01-08T10:26:00.000-07:00

The Falchion arrived earlier in the week, and I've been quite eager to get painting! Last night I got the main red of the hull completed and as the last step in the red involves a heavy Baal Red wash, left it overnight to dry.

I made a minor modification to the design and added a pair of magnets in the main barrel so it is removable for transport and storage. It will also help prevent breakage in the event that the barrel is knocked around during a game.

This morning I was able to start blocking in some of the other base colors. Boltgun Metal for the tracks and various detail bits, the medium grey on the legion symbols, and the first of the green for the various glowing pipes and runes.

So far so good! Still a lot of work to do of course, I'm hoping to get some more time to work on it this afternoon, if all goes according to plan!

Pictures from the front lines - Dark Eldar vs Imperial Guard

2012-01-05T14:43:00.000-07:00

Had a good friend of mine at the house over New Years before he flew back to the other side of the planet. On the 31st we managed to get in a game between the recently painted Dark Eldar (Currently up for auction on eBay here), and a selection of Imperial Guard chosen of equivalent points value. As I wanted to get a game in with all the painted DE, the sides worked out to a nice round 2,336 points. Oddly enough, it turned out to be rather simple to hit that number exactly with the guard list without hardly any wargear fiddling. Crazy!

We didn't bother trying to do a full-on battle report, rather we were just playing it fast and loose and having a good time. Just snapped some pics as things happened, and thought I'd share 'em...

Here's the initial table set-up. It was late afternoon and we were already losing the light, so the pics aren't the best I've ever taken. We went with one of the missions out of the Battle Missions book, wherein the deployment zones were full table halves. Up close and personal from the get go!

Raiders zooming all over the table, trying to get their cargoes deployed before being hammered apart by the guard. Didn't work out that way, and they were all immobilized in the first few turns!

The unit of Ogryns held the middle of the table in the face of withering fire from the Venom and Trueborn. The Roughriders advanced through the trees in an attempt to slay the hellions.

Unable to bring it down in the shooting phase, the Ogryns leapt upon the Venom and destroyed it in Hand to Hand, smashing it to flinders with the butts of their ripper guns. The Crimson King and his retinue vainly attempted to destroy the Devil Dog, to no avail.

The Hellions, backed by the Golden Duke and his retinue of Incubi and Haemonculi made short work of the Roughriders, while on the far side the Wyches were forced to slog their way through a hedge of lasrifle fire.

When all was said and done, only one objective was held and that was in the hands of the Guard. The Dark Kin were down to the two Archons and a single Haemonculus, who withdrew from the field in utter defeat. Nevertheless, good times were had, and really isn't that what's important?

It was a good end to 2011, and I'm looking forward to more fun games in 2012!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Falchion build complete!

2012-01-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone had a great New Years Eve! Leading off 2012 are some pics of the Falchion-class Superheavy Eye Of Magnus - I got notification from Tom McBride that he finished the build and will be sending it my way to paint this week. I'm super excited!

First up are some overall shots - He went with rounded side sponsons and turrets to give it a slightly different look from the more angular current-era chassis, and utilized several of the upgrade pieces he's made over the years to give it a heavier feel.

In place of the usual fuel drums on the rear, he made some new dynamo engines which really tie together with the Volcano cannon. The rear exhausts were swapped out with upgrade pieces he does, and the tracks were replaced with a set that more closely matches the old-school design found on the Mk. I Land Raider I have for the army.

I'm really pleased with the little details he added as well - replacing the Aquilas (not in common use during the Heresy other than by the Emperor's Children and the Adeptus Custodes) with some Egyptian styled eyes and scarabs much more suited to the Thousand Sons.

He was also kind enough to add some relief versions of the Thousand Sons old nova/starburst symbol, and what appears to be hundreds of rivets and little extra detail touches which really tie it all together. The result is an absolutely gorgeous piece of work - far and away better than anything I could have built on my own! I can't wait to get my hands on it and start the painting process...

Many of the resin upgrade pieces that went into the construction of the Falchion are currently available in his eBay store (such as the Dynamo and exhausts), if you're looking to add some customization to your own Baneblades/Shadowswords I heartily recommend giving them a look!

Heresy-Era Thousand Sons - Further progress on The Eye Of Magnus

2011-12-30T10:23:00.001-07:00

Got a few more pictures of the Falchion class superheavy from Tom McBride aka Machinator - it's really starting to come together!

Tom's work is exceeding my expectations in every way, and I have to say that while I enjoy doing scratch buit conversions, his skills with greenstuff, resin and plasticard put my talents to shame. I've quite enjoyed seeing it come together and I've been going over the pictures to learn some of his techniques.

I think my Sabre Tank Hunter is going to be experiencing cannon envy!

Tom has been adding some really nice touches to the tank such as the runic script along the side skirts. One side reads "The Eye Of Magnus" while the other reads "The Thousand Sons". It's little details like this that really give the vehicle personality. I'm really excited to see the finished build and get my hands on it to paint it up!

Tom does a whole series of resin-cast upgrades for the Baneblade kits that are simply spectacular. I heartily recommend taking a look through his eBay shop here for inspiration if you're interested in building your own custom super heavy tanks! He also takes commission work and I have to say he's been an absolute pleasure to do business with. Thanks Tom!

The Kabal of the Crimson Woe - Complete!

2011-12-29T10:07:00.000-07:00

After far too much procrastination, I'm happy to say the Kabal of the Crimson Woe is finally finished!

I'm fairly pleased with how they turned out - it's a nice little raiding force that exemplifies the Dark Eldar's swift and merciless way of war.

Here's a series of pics that are a bit more zoomed in. The entire army can start the game either in transports or lurking in reserve.

The last things awaiting paint were the various transports for the army. First up, the Crimson King's Raider. For the two Archons I went with dual sails to represent the Enhanced Aethersails upgrades and to help them stand out as the HQ transports.

The second Raider belongs to Duke Harkanet the Golden, and his Incubi bodyguard. As their armor is all heavily gold, I figured their transport should be similarly themed.

Next up is the custom Venom I'd built when the codex first came out. It transports the Kabalite Trueborn into battle.

Finally are the two Raiders for the Wyches and Warriors. These tow are significantly less blinged out to represent the lower caste of the troops they transport.

All in all I'm quite relieved to be done with the army - while I enjoyed the different play style the Dark Eldar bring to the table, I can't say that they particularly suit my disposition. I much prefer the sledgehammer of the Guard! I'll be putting them up on the auction block in due course, once I get one last game in with them. I always enjoy playing a game with a completely-painted army!

I hope you all have a wonderful New Year!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Sabre Complete, and Falchion started!

2011-12-28T07:32:00.003-07:00

Greetings and salutations everyone - hope that the holidays have been treating you well! I'd like to start of today with a link to my friend's Blood Angel blog Ex Fide Vivo - after a long hiatus he's finally began painting again, and is jumping back in with a vengeance. Definitely worth a look if you're a fan of the Sons of Sanguinius!

I've had a few days off from work which has been spent painting. Lots of Datk Eldar and Thousand Sons in the queue of late, today's post is all about the big guns for the Thousand Sons. I'd picked up a resin upgrade kit for a Sabre Tank Hunter a while back and finally managed to get it finished up:

It's been too cold out to seal anything of late, so I may still go back in and add a few more details here and there as time allows. Moving on however, I thought I'd share the initial pictures of its big brother, the Falchion-class superheavy tank "The Eye of Magnus" that I've commissioned from the amazing Tom McBride aka Machinator (who is the designer behind most of the Rhino variants that I'm using for the army)...

The Falchion is the Heresy Era marine equivalent of the Shadowsword - obviously these are pictures in the very early stages of construction, but I have to say I'm giddy as a schoolboy to see it come together!

I'm really excited to see how it turns out, and very eager to get my hands on it once it's done to get it painted. I'll be sharing more pics as it progresses - More shots of the various Superheavy variants that Machinator has created over the years may be found at the Apocalypse 40k forums here. Definitely worth checking out!

The Kabal of the Crimson Woe - Reaver Jetbikes complete

2011-12-25T13:30:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone is having a happy holiday! These last few months have been just hectic as all get-out so I haven't had much time to paint, but with a little holiday break I was able to finish off a few models...

Up today are the last of the small models for the Dark Eldar army I'm struggling to finish - a half dozen Reaver jetbikes. For ease of identification on the tabletop, the two bikes armed with Heat Lances were given a white stripe down the fuselage. I really like the new models, they really have a sense of speed and lethality. In point of fact, I stabbed myself good a few times on the little spiky bits while painting them, gotta have a little blood sacrifice to Khaine, I suppose!

Once they were done I turned my attention to a few Thousand Sons vehicles, pics to follow!

Have a great holiday and a happy New Year, everyone!

Not all that quiet on the western front

2011-12-14T20:16:00.002-07:00

Apologies for the lack of posts of late, it's been a rather interesting couple of weeks out this way. Due to a combination of severely icy conditions, rather bald tires and lack of talent on my part I managed to put my car in the ditch and ended up having to lay out some significant cash to rectify the situation. No injuries sustained, other than the sharp stabbing pain in my wallet. Unfortunately that means the plans I had for the trip to England coming up in March were put into financial peril, so I've been casting about the Closet of Doom for some things to put up on the ol' auction block.

It's not all bad news though - In my other life as a bassist, over the last month my band has been working on getting our first CD finished up which has been a great deal of fun. While not strictly 40k related, it is another hobby of mine - If you're interested in some free music, you can check out the penultimate cuts here. Still a bit left to do to clean them up, but hey, free music!

Anyway - back to the 40k side of things. Much as I hate to have to do so, I am putting up a selection of flyers that I've built and painted over the years, which can be seen on eBay here.

First up is the Vulture Gunship...

Followed by an Aquila Lander...

A Thunderbolt Heavy Fighter...

...And last but not least, an Inquisitorial Stormraven Gunship.

I'm also in the final stages of finishing off the Dark Eldar army I've been procrastinating on - blog post to follow. I'm bummed to have to sell these models off, but needs must when finances dictate I suppose...

Mordian 7th - 5th Platoon Rough Riders complete!

2011-11-24T10:39:00.004-07:00

Happy Thanksgiving to those readers in the States today - among other things, I'm quite thankful for having the day off! Not having to go in to work at 6 in the morning, and having no other pressing demands (hooray!), I was able to finish off the Rough Riders this morning!

The Mordian 7th originally included an entire platoon of Rough Riders, let by Captain Hilts. While on extended recon patrol on Flotis III, the vast majority of the units horses were stolen (and presumably eaten) during a daring raid by Ork Kommandos. Captain Hilts led his men in a attempt to rendezvous with the rest of the regiment, afoot through Ork-held territory. Over two thirds of the unit were slain en-route by harassing attacks by Evil Sunz Speedfreeks, and Captain Hilts himself was savagely wounded after being set afire by an Ork Skorcha. Vowing to kill the Orks responsible and 'give them a taste of their own medicine', Captain Hilts requisitioned a number of bikes and several flamers, declaring he would forgo the stealth and range provided by riding horseback to the savagery and fire that he and his unit had experienced at the hands of the Orks. Captain Hilts generally hides his burned face behind a combination hood and rebreather, giving him a rather unsettling appearance. His hatred for Orks knows no bounds, though it's whispered among other units in the 7th that Hilts is every bit the savage now as any Ork, and that the 'breathing canisters' he uses contain not only oxygen, but Frenzon or some other combat drug..

I was worried that as all the bikes are identical, the whole unit would end up looking a bit monotonous, so I really tried to ensure the torso and arms for each model was significantly different. Overall I think it gives the unit a sense of motion and vibrancy.

The unit was designed such that it could be used as two 5-man units. The first half includes the standard lance-armed models and a sergeant...

...while the other half includes all the specialty models. A pair of flamers gives the unit a bit more anti-horde, while the other two models simply count as lance-armed guardsmen (well, discarding the remains of a lance in the case of the fellow on the far right). The masked man in the middle of the picture represents Captain Hilts, with his various tanks of combat drugs and an Ork Choppa. On the tabletop I plan to use him as a counts-as Mogul Kamir.

Another unit complete, and the Mordian 7th Painting Chart is turning green! Not looking forward to tackling the 35 infantry models in the 1st platoon, though. Oof.

Mordian 7th - 5th Platoon Rough Riders in progress

2011-11-23T21:29:00.000-07:00

With a bit of a holiday weekend ahead I'm planning on finishing off the unit of Rough Riders that I pulled out for the Cavember contest that Col. Gravis is holding. It's been crazy with work of late, so I've only managed to block in the basic colors thus far - but hey, a little progress is better than no progress at all!

Now that there's a bit of paint on, it's easier to point out what all is in the unit. For special weapons, I went with a pair of flamers, and added enough lance-armed models to drive home the idea that the unit is armed with Hunting Lances. The unit is led by a counts-as Mogul Kamir, but I have included a chainsword-armed model as well to act as a normal sergeant for smaller games. The unit also includes a standard, though much like the one in the veterans squad, it's just there for flavor and has no in-game effect. In the original Mordian 7th, there was an entire platoon of Rough Riders, including a mounted command squad, so in this incarnation I'm going with these are the last remnants of the platoon, and one of the men has managed to keep the standard aloft throughout their winnowing.

With a couple days off coming up, I'm quite confident that I'll be able to get them done in time for the deadline!

Cavember Painting Contest Expanded!

2011-11-18T07:55:00.002-07:00

Col. Gravis is having a painting contest centering around Rough Riders based on a post from the excellent Col. Ackland regarding what he's calling Cavember - originally it was centered around Praetorian Rough Riders in particular, as Col. Gravis makes some spectacular kits for the army. I'm a huge fan of both the Praetorians and Rough Riders in general, so I have been excited to see the various renditions folks come up with. Recently however, he's opened the contest up to Rough Riders of any regiment which has given me some impetus to get a little more work done on my own Mordian 7th!

I've included a unit of Rough Riders in every incarnation of the glorious 7th that I've done all the way back to the RT era. I started off using the original Imperial Guard Rough Riders on horseback, though in recent years I've gone for a Mechanized Rough Rider on motorbikes instead. The unit above was from my 3rd-4th edition days, and were made from a combination of the old Dark Eldar jetbikes and various bits taken from the Imperial Guard Heavy Weapons sprues. The original how-to was on the GW site yoinks ago in the "Dok Butcha's Konvershun Klinic" articles they used to do. I posted a walk-through on their construction a while back here as well...

My previous version in 5th edition utilized the fantastic bikes available from Ramshackle Games and the unit I'm going to be painting up is built using much the same process as those shown above.

At the moment they're just assembled and primered, so they aren't all that photogenic thus far. With the contest just being opened up to a wider audience I've got my work cut out for me - only 12 days to go before the deadline, and with a full 10-strong unit I'd better get cracking!

Battle Report - Dark Eldar vs. Blood Angels

2011-11-10T09:05:00.002-07:00

Haven't had a lot of hobby time of late, and as such I haven't had much in the way of interesting pictures to share. Time to remedy that with a whole MESS of pictures from a test game a friend of mine and I played in preparation for the Tempus Fugitives event coming up in March!

Skyhook Playtest Series, Game 1: Blood Angels vs. Dark Eldar - 1000 points, Annihilation

After collecting PalpaDave, he laid out his force:

The army stayed there for longer than I expected!

DEPLOYMENT

We went with the standard halved table setup and the Annihilation type, and rolled off. Dave won the roll and the Blood Angels chose to go second.

The Dark Eldar deployed the Venom and Jetbikes on the left flank:

While the Raider and Hellions took up station in the middle of the DE deployment zone:

The Blood Angels deployed... Nothing! As his entire force was capable of Deep Strike, that ended the segment.

TURN ONE

The Dark Eldar don't move.

The Blood Angels cannot yet arrive.

TURN TWO

The Dark Eldar don't move.

...A tumbleweed rolls by.

With a roar, the two Blood Angel assault squads arrive, and the Dark Eldar were so dismissive of the event at this point that I apparently failed to take a picture of it. The two squads arrive roughly a quarter of the way in from each short table edge, roughly at the centerline of the table.

The foolish Mon-keigh deployed outside their effective weapons range and turn two ends. Elapsed time from the end of deployment: about three minutes.

TURN THREE

The Dark Eldar pounce on the Assault squad on the left flank, while the Raider and Hellions also swing out to the left to assist. A volley of splinter weapons accounted for a fair number of assault marines, though not enough to break their resolve.

This left the second assault squad rather far out of position, though being jump infantry the dark kin knew they wouldn't be out of the action for long.

The Blood Angels responded by destroying the Venom with a volley of Melta fire. The Crimson King and his unit dismissively rode out the blast, and accepted the charge of the assault marines. A furious melee ensued, with the preternaturally fast Archon laying out a number of marines with his Agonizer. The Blood Angels retaliation slew the Trueborn, leaving only the Crimson King and his Haemunculus,

On the right flank, the second Assault squad bounded forward, and turn three drew to a close.

TURN FOUR

The Raider and Hellions move in to assist the Crimson King while the Reaver jetbikes arrow off to attack Captain Furioso, and with contemtuous ease, the Crimson King slaughters a further four marines, with their return attacks nullified by a combination of eldritch techno sorcery and frightful bio-engineering. The Blood Angels grimly fight on.

In the Blood Angels phase however, the tables suddenly turned! A lucky strike by Perada was not intercepted by the Crimson King's shadowfield, and he was skeyered by the Blood Angel's relic blade.

At the same time, it became apparent that the Reavers had sorely misjudged the effective threat range of Captain Furioso. Fully half the squad was snatched from the air and crushed into scrap by the Captain's power fists, and his ceramite battle plate and martial skill was proof against the vile Xenos' counterattack.

The second Assault squad continued its advance, and turn four came to an end.

TURN FIVE

The Haemonculus' lashed out with his Huskblade and the true nature of the Dark Eldar's reality-bending technology became apparent:

...And from another angle.

Unfortunately the sole hit was taken by the remaining assault marine, leaving Perada unharmed. The Haemonculus was wounded in the melee, but wasn't out of the fight yet!

The Reavers proved completly ineffectual and were destroyed with contemptuous ease by Captain Furioso.

The Hellions and Kabalite warriors aboard the Raider unleased a flurry of shots from their splinter Weaponry, but only managed a bare handful of casualties. The Hellions arrogantly assaulted the second squad, but while they were able to account for a number of the marines they were badly mauled by the marines' retaliation. The sole survivor peeled off, easily outrunning the sweeping advance.

In the Blood Angels phase, the duel continued between Perada and the Haemonculus, with neither side able to gain the upper hand. Captain Furioso was moving in to support however...

The second Assault squad shot the Raider out of the sky, the Dark Eldar dismounting and landing lightly on their feet. With that, turn five drew to a close.

We rolled to see if there would be further turns, but the dice said there was not, and the game ended. We tallied up the Victory Points and the Blood Angels won, 32 to 13.

The battle was really quick and quite a lot of fun. Both armies were designed to avoid the Unstable Footing rules, so at any given time, the Dark Eldar were only rolling two or three dice for the archon and haemonculus at the beginning of a couple turns. The Kabalite Warriors would have had to roll had there been a turn six. Overall, a very enjoyable experience - a nice quick 1000 point game was just the thing to take the edge off a challenging stretch at work!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Motor Pool Painting In Progress

2011-10-31T12:19:00.003-06:00

As I'd just painted a mess of guard infantry I thought it was time to work on some vehicles. There are a number of Thousand Sons transports and whatnot that have been languishing in various states of disarray, so I settled in to get all of them brought up to the same level of painting.

First up is the group shot. Quite a few vehicles being batch painted at once, but the heavy lifting (the reds) is done, so now it's just a matter of doing all the detail work. Still need to add the Bone and White, but after that they'll be nearly complete!

A pair of Dreadclaw-styled drop pods for the infantry, based on the excellent tutorial by Old School Terminator over at Dark Future Games. The build on these is super simple, and ends up being a rather passable adaptation of the FW variant. ...And half the cost!

I also built two more Rhino chassis using the excellent add-on kit from Machinator over at Blood and Skulls Industry. Unlike the previous Rhino, I wanted to allow for some armament swaps, so I left the top hatches separate, and added some magnetized havok missile launchers (allowed in the TF Age of the Emperor codex I'm using).

I wanted to add a Whirlwind to the force (as the upcoming event is set early in the heresy and will pit the still-all-loyalist Marines against a myriad of foes), and went with an old-school approach based on an old White Dwarf set of instructions to build a Whirlwind Launcher out of some plasticard and a pair of 40mm bases. Some decorations and a missile launch in progress, and it turned out pretty decent!

The second Rhino will likely serve as a transport, but I included another ringed top hatch for use in the future (or as a turret ring for the previously built Predator, for those times I don't wish to include side sponsons).

All in all, a fair bit of forward progress. Once these are done, all that remains are a further 20 infantry, a pair of Contemptor Dreadnoughts and Magnus the Red himself!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - The March To Godhammer

2011-10-25T08:42:00.002-06:00

The fine folks over at the Tempus Fugitives have released the initial mission pack for the campaign weekend in March - "Hammer of the Gods". Set on the recently-rediscovered Machine World of Godhammer, several factions will battle for supremacy over the planet. The weekend will consist of a number of battles both on the surface, and on/around the series of space elevators known as Skyhooks, with the results of the battles affecting the outcome of subsequent battles (and as I understand it, subsequent campaign weekends set on the same planet).

That said, I pulled all the Thousand Sons out to see exactly where things stand, and decide what I wanted to take for the campaign weekend. I was pleased to note that I'm well past the half-way point on getting the army painted!

The first mission outlined in the campaign pack is the "Skyhook" mission, in which small forces (1000pts) vie for control of the space elevators, which will allow for easier deployment of the ground assault force missions subsequently. There are some restrictions to the army choices however:

Only units entering play via Deep Strike may be held in reserve.
The following units may be used in a Skyhook battle without any additional rules – Jetbikes; Jump Infantry; Jet Infantry; Beasts; Skimmers
The following units may be used in a Skyhook battle but suffer from the ‘unstable footing’ special rule – Infantry; Heavy Infantry; Bike Infantry; Cavalry; Monstrous Creatures; Walkers.
Your Skyhook army may NOT include flyers, units with Structure points, Gargantuan Creatures or any Apocalypse Formations. Vehicles detailed only in Forge World's Imperial Armour publications may be used. If a vehicle is described in more than one publication the most recent version must be used.
UNSTABLE FOOTING: Models affected by this rule must take a Dangerous Terrain test at the start of each turn. Wounds suffered cause Instant Death. This represents the rapidly moving and unstable platform on which they are fighting slipping from beneath them and pitching them headlong over the edge.

Unfortunately, my Thousand Sons are more of a heavy assault force, with most units either not allowed for use in the Skyhook game (Tanks primarily), or subject to the Unstable Footing rule. That said, my initial run at a thousand point list that was as little affected by Unstable Footing ended up pretty thin:

I'm not 100% sold on this list - while it utilized the Assault Vets and Jetbikes, it does feel a bit too "all the eggs in one basket" for my tastes, so I may cut down on the Vets a bit and add in some regular Tactical marines to give the list some flexibility (at the risk of more models plummeting to their doom each round).

The second mission type is "Invasion Team Battles" wherein two players join forces, each bringing 2000 points following the standard FOC, though one player on the team may include a single Superheavy. As I have a Falchion (legion Shadowsword) in the works, I'm hoping I can find a suitable partner for this portion of the event, though I'll be making a second list sans Superheavy. In the meantime, the list looks like this:

Alternately, instead of playing a doubles game, one of the options is to take a single 4000 point army including a single superheavy, so I took a pencil to it and came up with a first cut at the Big List:

Pretty much uses up every model that I've build for the Thousand Sons so far, with the exception of Magnus the Red, and a pair of Contemptor Dreadnoughts. I'm waiting to find out what the FOC restrictions are for the 4000 point option however. If it's designed such that I need to essentially build two separate 2000 point armies I won't be able to do it as I don't have the mandatory 4 Troops choices. I could get around it by building another ten Tactical marines and running them as four separate ten man squads, but I'm hoping to avoid buying and building any more models for the army. On the other hand, it may behoove me to just focus on doing the 2000 point game - that way there's less that I need to finish painting, as well as fewer models to have to package and send across the ocean risking damage or loss...

Given the above 4000 point list as the options from which I may pick and choose for the Skyhook or Invasion Team missions, I'd be happy to receive any suggestions about alternate army selections for those missions!

Mordian 7th Regiment - Veterans painted, advisors rebased

2011-10-21T06:05:00.001-06:00

It's been crazy busy at work of late, but I did manage to find a little time to polish off the Veteran squads.

2nd Platoon, 1st Squad - The heavy infantry killers, armed with a trio of plasma guns, a plasma pistol and poweraxe-toting sergeant, and the 2nd platoon standard. It has no in-game effect, just a decorative addition.

2nd Platoon, 2nd Squad - The Anti-tank squad, armed with three melta gunss, a sergeant with a power fist and the squad demolitions upgrade.

While I was about it, I started rebasing the older models that are being folded into the new army. In this case the advisers - I decided the regimental command staff seconded to D company would wear red armor to help them stand out a bit. There's a fair number of models from the older version of the army that will be getting rebased. Luckily it's a simple matter of repainting them from grey to earth tones and adding a bit of static grass. Easy peasy!

Mordian 7th Regiment - Veterans painting in progress

2011-10-12T09:32:00.000-06:00

After the better part of two months hammering away at my Thousand Sons, I decided I needed a change of pace color-wise to keep me sane. So much crimson and gold! That said I risked a foray into the Closet of Doom and pulled out some of the glorious 7th that have been languishing in a primered state since earlier this summer, and got cracking.

I didn't want to jump in on the huge mass of vanilla troopers, but did want to get a chunk of infantry on the painting desk, so I figured the two Veteran squads would fit the bill. The first squad is the heavy infantry killer squad, armed with a trio of plasma guns, and a plasma pistol/power axe wielding sergeant. As both squads are intended to be carried into battle via Valkyrie/Vendettas, they all got Grav Chutes from Forge World. In addition I tried to add a bit more personality to the units, using a mix of Catachan bare arms, FW respirator helmets, and plenty of extra pouches and gear (hard to see in the partially-painted state though). Essentially I was going for a more rough-and-tumble look for the veterans to contrast with the more uniform look of the regular troopers. Still a lot of work to do on these of course, for the most part each color only has two or three of four stages complete. Lots of highlighting and details yet to add!

The second Veterans squad are the Demolitions/Tank Hunters squad, with a trio of Melta guns, demolition charges, krak grenades and so on. The Sergeants in the two units pictured (as well as the rest of the officers in the army) have breastplates taken from the Fantasy Empire Greatswords kit, to hearken back to the old RT-era officers look. Plenty left to do of course, adding the red piping on the tunics and trousers, as well as the yellow for the weapons casings should hopefully help the models pop. At the moment they're rather monochromatic.

Hoping I can find some time to finish these off over the upcoming weekend!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Jetbikes and Scouts painted

2011-10-03T09:43:00.003-06:00

Managed to finish up the basic paint jobs on the Jetbikes and Scouts over the weekend and snapped a couple pictures to share!

Here's the whole unit - I scrounged through my bits box for a number of different lengths of flying stand so the unit has a bit of a sense of motion to it. The flying stands have all been trimmed, drilled and pinned to the models for stability.

The models were originally built prior to the newest version of the codex for the Tempus Fugitives events - in previous incarnations, the Thousand Sons were allowed to buy sorcerer sergeants for various squads though some of those options have been removed in the more recent version. Originally he was to be armed with a force weapon (hence the khopesh style sword) but at this point he's only allowed a power weapon. That being the case, this one (and the one on the Terminator sergeant) have been painted in the blue power weapon colors that I use as opposed to the green force weapon color. This allows me to quickly identify what the model is armed with on the table even if the actual weapons are the same style.

Can't go wrong with a pair of melta guns in your jet bike squadron, now can you? The squad serves a dual purpose - one, to deliver the melta guns into position to melt down some tanks, and two to act as a locator beacon for deep striking or teleporting models (of which the Thousand Sons have a lot)!

Two vanilla marines to round out the squad. It was only after taking the pictures that I noticed that I have a little splotch of gold on the front of one of the bikes. Curses! Gotta fix that.

Finally, the five man Recon Marine (aka Scout) squad. Fairly straightforward head swap and the addition of the old-style missile launcher and they're good to go.

Battle report(ish) - Thousand Sons vs Blood Angels

2011-09-26T13:52:00.001-06:00

Over the weekend my Blood Angel playing friend and I took a whack at a 1500 point game using the Age of the Emperor rules for the campaign weekend we're planning on attending this coming March. Our intent was to try out the lists as well as get a feel for speed of play, knowing that the rounds in the campaign weekend are roughly two hours.

That said, I didn't take the time to meticulously document the game, but just snapped some pictures here and there of things that looked interesting and I thought I'd share the results.

We set up a standard 6'x4' table, and I tries to simulate the terrain setup based on pictures from previous events. Compared to my usual style of setup, the table seemed really barren so I added a couple craters and fences just to give it a better look. We rolled off and got the spearhead deployment (table quarters) and 4 objectives with the Seize Ground mission. An interceptor gun in the center counted as the first objective, and the remaining objectives were represented by a trio of Flesh-changed Thousand Sons that I'd banged together out of some Possessed sprue leftovers.

The Thousand Sons castled up around one building and objective on my right flank, while the Blood Angels gathered around the leading edge of his deployment zone, eager to get to grips with my army. We each had a number of units in reserve, and both happened to take our Sabre Tank Hunters. Looked to be a duel of the big guns on that front!

In my first turn, the Jet Bikes turbo boosted forward to contest one of the objectives on the far side of the table. My intent was to use their Locator Beacon in combination with the Sorcerous Portal psychic power to teleport a Tactical squad over and hold the objective, but due to poor deployment on my part, this didn't actually work out as planned. On the other hand, that's exactly the sort of thing we were playing this game to discover - what works, what doesn't, what needs to happen in what order, etc.

In the Blood Angel's turn, he managed to get a Furioso in my backfield via drop pod, and with a combination of magna-grapple and meltagun blew the Sabre's cannon apart. Left with no weapon, it was relegated to mobile cover status for the remainder of the game. In retaliation, Ahriman and his bodyguard of chainfist-wielding Terminators managed to destroy the Furioso. Mostly lucky dice on my part though, that combat could have easily gone the other way!

A squad of Blood Angel assault marines did a pinpoint drop and in a single round of shooting managed to completely annihilate the jet bikes. A unit that I'd just finished painting the day before and that I was rather proud of, washed off the table in the second turn. Seems like that's how it always works!

On the heels of that devastation, he also Outflanked with his Baal predator, right into the side of the rhino carrying my second tac squad. Tzeentch was with me however, and he failed to damage the rhino with the assault cannons, heavy bolters or the storm bolter. In the following turn the tac squad disembarked and got a lucky shot in with a krak grenade in the assault phase (after the meltagun missed from an inch away), destroying the Baal, much to his surprise.

Ahriman used his Gate of Infinity power to pound forward, and weathered an absolute HAIL of fire from the heavy bolter-toting devastator Squad, absorbing something on the order of 20 hits for the loss of a single terminator. The intent was to continue to bound forward and get the chainfists into contact with his Sabre in a subsequent turn.

The Blood Angel assault squad continued forward, valiantly holding their ground and perfectly executing a Death or Glory attack on the neutered Sabre which attempted to Tank Shock them. Melta bomb, max penetration roll, 6 on the damage chart. Kaboom!

Tzeentch's favor turned against me for the remainder of the game unfortunately. Ahriman and his terminators scattered 11" away from their intended arrival point, putting them well away from their target. I forgot the Thousand Sons assault veterans could use Heroic Intervention, so instead they landed and completely failed to damage the Devastator squad that was their target with some desultory bolt pistol fire.

The Blood Angel Sabre pivoted to bring its Neutron Laser to bear on Ahriman, and the devastators casually spun in place to mow down the Thousand Sons assault squad. Another terminator was reduced to molten slag, and nearly all the assault marines were cut down in a hail of heavy bolter fire.

The slaughter continued on the right flank. The Blood Angel's last assault squad had been lurking in reserve for three turns but finally was able to enter the fray, dropping into the backfield - another thing that I failed to do during the game was to destroy the drop pod, whose locator beacon allowed the assault squad to come down with pinpoint accuracy. Doh! The squad did massive damage to the Thousand Sons investing the building, and they broke and fled from their assault.

At that point we had to call the game at 2 hours. Well, technically we managed to get 4 full turns done in 1 hour and 50 minutes which we both agreed was a bit too slow and was a function of not knowing the lists as well as we needed to. Not too bad though - with a little practice and some cheat sheets to help me remember what phases the numerous psychic powers need to be done in, we should be able to bring the time-per-turn down to the point it needs to be.

The end result was a complete and utter Massacre of the Thousand Sons. Given another turn I may have been able to take one of the objectives on the left flank that was more or less unguarded, but the Blood Angels had two objectives in hand and uncontested. Not the most auspicious beginning for the tabletop career of my Thousand Sons, but I claim a moral victory as nearly all of my models were painted (or at least had SOME paint on 'em)!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - You've got red on you...

2011-09-21T15:32:00.008-06:00

The Shaun of the Dead quote is apropos for this post! A couple readers have asked how I do the red on the Thousand Sons, and as I had a free evening yesterday I documented the process - hopefully it'll be of use!

To start with, this is my work area. I usually paint 10-20 miniatures at a time, so I'll lay out what I have in a semi-ordered grid, and pull out all the paints that will be going on them. In the back of the first picture you can see all the various colors that go into the Thousand Sons. Between each major color I'll change out my rinse water - I use a pair of cheapo plastic containers, for a basic two-rinse system (first rinse gets rid of the majority of the paint, and the second rinses out whatever's left from the first rinse). I've been using a wet palette for a little while now and I absolutely love it - I used to menace my more painterly friend by painting straight from the pot, but I have to admit, the control and consistency of the paint is so much better with a wet palette. Speaking of travesties in painting technique, those of you with weak stomachs should look away, for these are the brushes I use to paint the red on this army:

The horror! Now to be perfectly fair, these are particularly egregious examples of beaten-up brushes, but for the purposes to which I will be putting them, they really are exactly what I need.

The whole process starts with a Dark Flesh undercoat on the armor plates that will be red, as well as anything that will eventually end up being gold. I find painting gold directly over a black undercoat ends up looking rather patchy, but the red hue of the dark flesh gives any gold applied over the top a nice rich tone. I used the old beaten up Number 1 to block in the color, and I'm not particularly concerned if I get a little spillover, as at the end I go back in with Chaos Black to clean up any place that needs it.

Now that horror show of a tank brush comes into play! [Ominous Horns!] The next step is drybrushing Red Gore onto the models. For the jetbikes and other larger vehicles, I use the big brush, as the splayed hairs add a little bit of a stippling effects which is good for larger smooth areas. For the scouts it's all done with the same #1 used in the basecoat. In the pictures above you can see a basecoated model on the left, and the Red Gore drybrushed model on the right. At this point I'm giving the entire basecoated area an even drybrush, to bring the red up a bit overall. Interestingly enough, it turns out that painting the initial basecoat of Dark Flesh actually takes longer than the rest of the red steps combined - once you make it to this point, rest assured, the end is near!

An overhead shot of the group shows how the Red Gore brightens up the whole unit. The next step changes things up a little bit and really helps the models start to come into focus.

Next up is a more directed drybrush of Blood Red as shown on the right of the pictures as compared to a model from the previous step on the left. In general I follow a process similar to the Zenithal Highlighting tutorial that Ron at From The Warp posted recently - I just didn't know there was a name for it! Essentially, before drybrushing the Blood Red on, I take a look at the model from above and focus the drybrushing primarily on the parts that I can see from that vantage. As that's where the light source would be coming from, those planes and angles get the Blood Red treatment, whereas the underside relies more on the prior Red Gore drybrush and Dark Flesh undertone.

I tried to get a decent shot of the model from a couple angles to show what I mean. The upper planes of the marine's armor and the jet bike are a fairly bright red, whereas the underside is a bit more shadowed, though still distinctly red.

The units are significantly bright at this point, and would be more or less where I'd stop if I was doing Adeptus Mechanicus or World Eaters. I'd probably do one final light highlight of Blazing Orange on the extreme edges in that case. However, it's time to bring it all down a bit and tie it together instead!

The next step is a Baal Red wash over the entire red area. In general I start at the top and work my way down the model. The wash takes longer to dry than the paint, so definitely give it time to completely dry before moving on to another step. In the pictures above, the models are still a bit awash with, well, wash which I'll go in with a clean brush and absorb as needed.

The group shot shows them all drying, which is where I left off for the evening. I usually let the washes dry for an hour or more before I work with the models again, but at this point it was time to call it a night. Hopefully that info is helpful, the process is really rather simple, but it seems to result in a neat look in the end. It's definitely messy though, suffice it to say my fingers, knuckles and a fair bit of the painting station were all various shades of crimson by the time I was done!

This morning before work I had an hour to mess around so I went in and added the Graveyard Earth to the bases, and anything that will end up being cloth on the models. The dirt and cracks in the paving stones were given a pass of Devlan Mud, as were the cloaks on the Scouts (they'll be getting a camo pattern to match the bases, as seems appropriate.

One further little update -I'd finally gotten around to building the bottom section for the faux Dreadclaw Drop Pods, and I got the initial metal colors onto and affixed in place. I made sure to find bits that I knew I had plenty of, so I could replicate it on the other one I've yet to build.

Wow, that was a long one. Thanks for reading!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - HQ and Elites get some brush time

2011-09-19T14:31:00.003-06:00

Pretty full weekend of hobby goodness - now that the temperatures are starting to drop, we were able to play some Rogue Trader in the hobby loft on Saturday without succumbing to heat stroke. That evening my band had a gig which is always a hoot, though during the last song I managed to break a bass string. Of course, my first thought was "hey, more conversion fodder!" but my second thought was "Ah crap, gotta transpose everything to a different string". Gotta have the proper priorities after all! Sunday was spent doing a little painting, I decided I wanted to get cracking on some of the HQ and Elite slot's infantry:

I ended up painting all of the models shown here at the same time, but photographed them separately for organization's sake. Leading off with the model I've built to represent Chief Librarian Azhek Ahriman, he got the basic Dark Flesh/Red Gore/Blood Red/Baal Red Wash and then I started picking out the details. Going with a blue cloak (see below under the Sorcerer Coven) and the Force Weapon and little ball o' fire were blocked in with a Jade Green basecoat. The purity seals and loin cloth were based in Graveyard Earth, followed by Kommando Khaki and Bleached Bone highlights.

The Scarab Occult are the Honor Guard unit that accompanies Ahriman, and follow the same basic painting recipe. In general I'll only be running a 5-man squad, so I have an extra if I don't want to spend the points on a company banner in a given game. The Company Champion was given purple robes to help distinguish him on the table top from the rest of the squad, as they're all identically armed. Not sure if the purple works for me, though. Once I get the gold on I'll have a better feel for it I suppose...

The Sorceror Coven all have blue and gold robes, partially to tie in to the fact that in the current era, Librarians generally wear blue, and partially to tie in with Tzeentch's colors. I'll be adding a bunch of runic script to the cloaks to tie them in with what I'd done with Seraphis, the Librarian Dread. Still quite a lot of work to go on all of these models - the gold filigree will definitely help them 'pop' more than they do so far.

In the Age of the Emperor codex pack I'm using to build this army, one of the Legion Tactical Squads may be led by an upgrade character by the name of Sergeant Hesyre. He has a couple special rules - one of which grants the squad Specialist Ammunition so they get a decent Inferno Bolts analogue, but counteracting that is a rule called "vulnerable to the change" which causes his squad to have a sympathetic reaction to friendly units that test for Perils of the Warp. From a modeling perspective to show the effects of the rule, I went with one of the arms off the Possessed sprue to show him in the beginning stages of flux. I also built a trio of objective markers out of the possessed bits as Thousand Sons who have succumbed to the change and need to be recovered to hide the chapter flaw.

That done, nearly all of the models in the army have at least some paint on them, and I'm planning a smallish (1500 point) game with them against my buddy Dave's Blood Angels next weekend. I'll definitely snap some pics of the game, it's bound to be a table full of red models!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Tactical Marines nearly complete

2011-09-12T07:58:00.001-06:00

Part of the Tempus Fugitives Age Of The Emperor codex is the idea that during the Crusade/Heresy Eras, the Space Marine legions could field much larger armies than they can in the 'current' era. On the table, this is represented by squads being allowed to take up to 20 marines rather than the standard 10. That being the case, I cranked out the basic paint job on a number of Tactical Marines. I started off with a pair of 10 man squads, just to get a feel for the paint scheme.

At the 10-man level, the unit is allowed a 'Designated Squad Leader' who is allowed a limited selection of wargear, including a back banner. At the 20-man level, the unit may include a Veteran Sergeant (most legions also include a number of upgrade characters as well).

The marines are a mix of kits - the heads from MaxMini are very reminiscent of the artwork in the Visions of Heresy art books and really help set the tone. The Bolters, Melta Guns and Missile Launchers are from Forge World, and the bodies are a mix of Chaos and Loyalist Marine bits. All of the legs for the infantry are of the same style, with the solid shin-and-knee guards, and all of the torsos are lacking the Aquila (though the squad leaders do have a winged shield). With the loyalist backpacks and shoulder pads, the smattering of Chaos bits is downplayed, and simply give the models a bit of decoration rather than being awash with iconography.

All that remains are to do the shoulder pad decorations. I'm a bit torn on what I want to do however - While the nova starburst symbol is a given on the left shoulder, the artwork is not particularly consistent regarding what the right shoulder pad has. Certain pictures seem to indicate they follow the standard Marine iconograpy (Arrow for Tac, "X" for Assault, etc.), while other pictures show alternate iconography such as scarabs, flames, etc. I'm open to suggestions!

Over the weekend I built a few more marines to round out the squads, more pics to follow!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Contemptor Dreadnoughts painting in process

2011-09-09T12:28:00.004-06:00

I've had these assembled and primed for a couple weeks now but just got around to getting a little paint on them and snapped a few pics (black primed models don't photograph particularly well).

I decided I'd do one 'furioso' style with twin DCCWs and one with a single DCCW and a magnetized weapon arm to take advantage of the upcoming (at the time) alternate weapons. Since then Forge World has released/put up for pre-order a number of other options that I'll be picking up at some point in the future. For now a twin linked Lascannon should do the trick!

For the twin DCCW variant I wanted to pose it in a dynamic running pose to show it has Fleet, and I was really pleased with the options the Contemptor kit gave me. The model has joints at the ankle, knee, hip, waist, torso, shoulder, elbow and wrist, so it could be posed pretty much any way I could imagine. I went with a storm bolter in the left fist, and a heavy flamer in the right, and posed it such that it appears it is thrusting the right arm out prior to unleashing a gout of flame over its opponents.

The ranged variant I built with a bit more of a static pose, as though it is bracing itself to fire the Lascannons. Overall the models were a blast to assemble and thus far I'm enjoying painting them quite a bit. I am going with a mirrored paint scheme on the two of them though at the moment all I've done is block in the alternating shoulder and knee pads. Further pics as progress allows!

Post #200 - An excursion into the depths of the Closet of DOOM!!

2011-09-08T08:57:00.002-06:00

The time has finally come - the 200th post! I figured it was a good time to take a look at the state of the hobby and take some time to thank all of you readers for your encouragement and awesome suggestions and advice, as well as a thank you to the 40k bloggers community at large, there's so many great sources of inspiration out there that it's impossible to list them all (Though Ron over at FTW does a respectable job trying)! A couple quick shout outs though:

Admiral Drax for being the inspiration for me starting a blog in the first place.
From The Warp for not only being chock full of fantastic ideas and tutorials but also being the gateway to hundreds upon hundreds of other awesome blogs.
Oink's Overambitious Terrain Projects as my favorite new blogger from 2011, his weathering techniques and conversions are top notch!
Eye of Error makes me despair of finishing my own Dark Eldar out of envy of his work, and also deserves a thank you for being the designer of the fancy new blog banner and the various banners for my Heresy-Era Thousand sons.
And last but not least, Ex Fide Vivo, a brand new blog started by my buddy Dave - only a couple posts so far, but he's a hell of a painter and modeler, and I'm excited to see his stuff online!

I reference the Closet of Doom in a number of posts, but really haven't documented the full extent of what it entails. Below are a couple pictures of my hobby loft, in it's natural state of disarray in the midst of a project. At the moment the entire 4x8 table is covered in the detritus of the Thousand Sons army I'm working on. However to the left looms the gateway to madness. MADNESS!

Opening the blinds (no I don't know why the previous tenant had blinds installed rather than doors) reveals the looming shelves full of 20+ years worth of the hobby. Boxes and boxes of bits, drawers full of more bits, shelves of terrain and half finished projects and quite possibly the missing bodies of Jimmy Hoffa and Amelia Earhart and the gateway to lost Rl'yeh for all I know.

The shelves continue on to hold a bewildering array of boxes of conversion fodder, from old Robogear models to a selection of fantasy units and even yet more terrain. Down in the very bottom corner of the shelves are a few boxes that miraculously don't hold hobby stuff. I really should get those out of there...

Against the opposite wall is yet another small shelf, this time stacked with battlefoam trays of models in various states of assembly and painting. It is here that a number of the half-finished projects languish in despair of seeing completion - I really do intend to finish a project someday, honest. Against the far wall is the door to the Attic of Oblivion (and you thought the Closet of Doom was bad)!

I was able to extricate myself from the Closet's evil clutches and thought that it's a good time to take stock of all the projects that I have going at the moment and figure out where the hobby will be taking me in 2012. Of course, the guard is my first love, and packed up in trays is the glorious Mordian 7th. I recently rebuilt the core of the army and more or less packed them up right after the primer dried. At the moment it's about half painted, but another project has me in its grasp:

The Heresy Era Thousand Sons army I've been working on of late has, to the exclusion of all other projects, taken control of the hobby loft. The main reason for this is the fact that in March of 2012 my buddy Dave and I are planning a trip across the pond to attend the Tempus Fugitives Age of the Emperor event being put on at Maelstrom Games in Mansfield, UK as well as seeing the GW offices and Warhammer World in Nottingham (and a few days of other standard tourist-y stuff around the UK too). There's a lot of pre-planning going on at the moment with further details to follow as our plans firm up, but I'm really looking forward to meeting the awesome folks involved in the TF events, and would love to lift a pint and have a chat with any readers in the general Mansfield/Nottingham area when the time comes!

The Kabal of the Crimson Woe is just inches away from completion but I came down with a terrible case of Army Painters fatigue in the home stretch. All of the models in yellow on the chart are 50%+ painted, but I am having a really hard time finding the motivation to finish them off. Soon enough though I'll get over it, polish them off and get 'em up on eBay. They were an interesting experiment, but I found that I didn't enjoy playing them as much as I do the Guard or the Thousand Sons. They are a bit too fragile for my ham-fisted command, I suppose!

Finally, there are still a smattering of Orks lurking on the shelves of the Closet of Doom, forming the seed of what will undoubtedly be yet another Waaagh in the future...

In any case, I want to say thanks once again to all of my readers, your input and support have been invaluable to me over the years, and I hope to continue entertaining you all!

Cheers!

Mordian7th

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Land Raider and Rhino Complete, Predator Pics in Progress

2011-08-30T12:54:00.003-06:00

To start with - Holy cow, this is post #199! I'll have to think up something cool for 200...

A little bit of brush time allowed me to finish off the Land Raider and Rhino that I've been working on for the Thousand Sons, as well as getting the Predator almost caught up.

At the moment I tend to paint all of my models as though they just came off the showroom floor, but seeing such awesome weathering techniques displayed by Several Awesome Bloggers, I'm rather tempted to delve into utilizing some weathering powders and such. Still a bit hesitant to do so, but I'm planning on picking up the Forge World Imperial Armor Model Mastercraft book as I hear it's an excellent resource.

I utilized the advice from Ron over at From The Warp regarding transferring a printed symbol onto a model as a template for painting. I printed out a sheet of Thousand Sons symbols from the BoLS .pdf download section, and cut one out that was the appropriate size. Once I coated the back of it with graphite (aka scribbled all over it with a pencil) I then flipped it over onto the top hatch and traced over the symbol with a ball point pen. The graphite was transferred to the hatch and I was able to use it as the template to paint in the symbol. Not perfect, but from across the table it looks pretty decent. I'll be honing that technique quite a bit over the course of the army I'm sure!

Finally, the Predator is almost done. I still need to work on some detailing (the scroll, a couple lenses, etc.), and figure out where I'm going to put the legion symbol. It was suggested to me to try and set one over and across the two front hatches, but the attempts I made looked pretty terrible and I ended up erasing/painting over the pencil lines. I may just do the bit nova on the rear hatch and a smaller one on the white mantlet on the turret autocannon.

I'm definitely enjoying the paint scheme more and more, and one of the best things about painting tanks is how, when you're done, it appears that a huge chunk of the army has paint on it! ...Of course I'm sure I'll be grumbling about the scheme when I'm up to my ears in 40 tactical marines. Heh.

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - The Big Picture, part 1

2011-08-26T10:37:00.002-06:00

As I'm starting to get excited about getting the Thousand Sons going, I rooted around in the Closet of Doom and pulled out all the various boxes of bits and kits and whatnot that I've been squirreling away over the last year and started laying it out.

As you can see, there's more unbuilt in boxes than there is built. I've been going with the "Paint some before building more" technique to keep myself motivated, but I'm starting to get to the point where I want to try some test games, which means I need to build a mess of infantry. The 40 Dragonforge bases in the back will be Tactical squads (bits in the two battle force boxes and the orange shoebox) and the ten in front of those two big blocks will be the Devastator squad. Four more Jump Veterans will round out the Assault squad, after which it's all transports and tanks - a Drop Pod, 3 more Rhinos, a Whirlwind, and the Storm Tank. I've commissioned Machinator (who made the Rhino Kits and is well known for his Fellblades of Renown) to build a Falchion Superheavy Tank for the army - that being the Heresy-Era Marine version of the Shadowsword.

The painting chart is rather colorful at the moment, I took stock of all the bits and found I was actually short a few things that I'll need to finalize one of the Tactical squads. Looks like another MaxMini order is in the pipe to get more Steam Knight heads. When I first started I figured 50 would be plenty, but I guess that was wishful thinking!

...Man the size of these projects can get out of hand. My initial intent was to do a small 2500 point boutique army, and it's bloomed into a 4000+ point monster!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Sekhmet Terminators painted, and Sabre Tank Hunter built

2011-08-24T13:15:00.003-06:00

Managed to get a little brush time in over the last couple days and finished up the Sekhmet Terminators for the Thousand Sons. Fairly straightforward update from the last post, I added loincloths to the models that could take them, and finished up the highlighting. I'm going with a bone-white color for the army using a Graveyard Earth > Kommando Khaki > Bleached Bone > White progression which, along with the crimson and gold, I think ties in well with the pseudo-Egyptian theme. Ordinarily I use a Shadow Grey > Fortress Grey > White progression which gives a 'cooler' white, but for these I like the warmer tone building up from an earthtone gives the models.

With another unit painted, I rewarded myself with some build time as well. Yet another tank to accompany the armored complement of the army, this is a Sabre Tank Hunter, armed with a Neutron Pulse Laser. During the Heresy, these tanks were rightly feared by opposing tank commanders, however due to their high technological requirements to maintain, many Sabres were re-armed as the more common Vindicator variant as the Heresy progressed.

The resin add-on bits were procured from a fellow Tempus Fugitive who goes by the name 'Da Vinci', whose work can be seen on several forums besides the TF boards, and he was a true pleasure to work with. I picked up a couple of these Sabre upgrade kits as well as a pair of Olympia Storm Tanks which are currently lurking in a box in the Closet of Doom. I'm really looking forward to building them!

For those of you interested in Heresy-Era gaming, Ulfhedin has been diligently working on a MASSIVE fandex for use during their campaign weekends that runs the gamut from the Great Crusade era all the way through The Scourging. At a whopping 103 pages (and counting) it's a fantastic resource for folks who are more interested in friendly games than hardcore tournament players. The penultimate edition is currently available for download HERE, and the campaign weekend pack that details the specifics of the games they'll be running on October 14th-16th is HERE. The campaign weekend takes place at Maelstrom Games in Mansfield, near Nottingham in England. I'm quite sad not to be able to attend this year (being a damned dirty Yank), but I've been scrimping and saving for a trip across the pond to participate next year!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Predator and Rhino painting in progress, part 1

2011-08-20T08:47:00.002-06:00

While I was about it, I got the red on the Mk.1c Predator and Rhino kits I'd picked up from Machinator at Blood and Skulls Industries. The red followed the same recipe (Dark Flesh, Red Gore, Blood Red, Baal Red), I am quite pleased at how well these hearken back to the original kits, while maintaining the somewhat more 'chunky' current-era models.

At this point all three tanks are at the same stage, next up is going in and re-blacking all the appropriate areas, then start the detailing process on the trim and doors. I'm still pondering how best to distribute the white and gold trim colors however.

I find if I go with too much gold, they start to look more like Word Bearers, so I guess I need to ensure there's sufficient fields of white to balance it out. On the Rhino, I can do up the side doors in white with the red starburst symbol, but I'm not sure about the Predator. Definitely open to suggestions at this point!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Land Raider Phobos Painting in progress, part 1

2011-08-18T20:29:00.004-06:00

I couldn't wait to get some paint back on the Land Raider, as well as spend a little time with the tank banner that LuckyNo.5 made for me. I went one more round with a small dental pick to get what last little bit of old paint I could, then gave it a hit of primer.

For the red on my Thousand Sons, I start with a Dark Flesh basecoat, followed by a heavy drybrush of Red Gore, and a final light drybrush of Blood Red on the extreme edges. Once that's done, the whole thing gets a medium wash of Baal Red to tie it all together and bring down the harsh highlights. Now that the main armor is done, I'll need to go back over all the remaining parts with Chaos Black before the next stage of colors are applied.

After the excellent work LuckyNo.5 did on my blog banner, I asked him if he'd be interested in doing some 'real' banners for my army, and he came back with the design above, in both a color and black and white version. Ordinarily I'd just paint everything onto the black and white template, but the colored version ended up looking so nice that I decided that I'd just paint onto it. Basically I only painted in the red sections, and went over the text with a micon pen here and there. Overall I'm thrilled with how it turned out (though there's still a little touch-up required here and there before it's done).

At this point I'm debating how I want to apply the trim colors. At the moment I'm thinking white doors with the red starburst symbol, and gold for the rest of the trim, as the Land Raider is designed to carry Magnus and his honor guard Terminators, and it seems that most of the veterans in the army are painted red and gold, contrasting with the red and white of the rank-and-file troops. That being the case, for the Rhinos and Predators however I believe I'll go with predominately white trim with minor gold detail here and there. All in all, I'm really happy with how the tank is turning out, and I'm pretty jazzed about painting the army as a whole.

....I'm sure that will fade when I'm painting the 30th tactical marine. Heh.

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Mk. 1 Land Raider, recovery and rebuild

2011-08-16T14:52:00.007-06:00

First things first - LuckyNo.5 over at Eye of Error recently posted about his Will Design For Models business and I took him up on it (as my previous banner of the last three years was a hack MSPaint job). He solicited some ideas from me - I knew that I wanted to incorporate the 'real' picture of the 7th that I'd used previously, but other than that I gave him free reign. He provided me with several initial design ideas, one of which was more or less ideal and after a couple iterations he came up with the new banner proudly gracing the top of my blog! I was extremely pleased with the results - LuckyNo.5 was an absolute pleasure to work with, and I heartily recommend getting in contact with him if you're interested in a new banner! I was so pleased that I've commissioned a graphic to use for the banner on the tank below as well!

I've been keeping an eye out on ebay for an old Rogue Trader era Land Raider that wasn't ridiculously expensive, and was finally able to score one for a rather reasonable price. On the downside it definitely needed a little TLC before it would be usable for my Thousand Sons. Once it arrived it was obvious that it needed a thorough soak in Simple Green to remove the rather thickly-applied paint - after three days of alternating between soaking and scrubbing it came to light that the tank had been painted and repainted no less than three times!

No matter how long you soak and scrub however, there's always a wee bit of paint that stubbornly refuses to come off. Nevertheless, this is much, much cleaner than I was expecting. The Lascannons and Heavy Bolters that came with the original kit were a bit too bent and/or broken, so I took a queue from Ron's Deathwing Land Raider and re-purposed some current-era bits to re-arm the tank appropriately.

The side sponsons are a combination of Predator and Land Raider bits, while the Heavy Bolters are leftovers from the countless Chimeras I've built over the years. With the addition of some brass rod to act as a banner pole, it's more or less ready for primer!

Mordian 7th Regiment - Compendium History

2011-08-11T08:59:00.002-06:00

I'm commissioning a new banner from LuckyNo.5 over at Eye of Error, which got me rooting around in the depths of my personal cogitator for the picts scanned from the old red Compendium. I've referenced the history in my posts in the past, but had never shared the actual pages. So, for those who haven't ever flipped through the old RT era books and for old hands who remember the old days, here's a bit of a blast from the past!

This page has the history of the regiment, as well as the organizational table for D Company, which has been the seed and inspiration for my guard over the years. This current go-around I'm not planning on slavishly recreating the entire company as it's a) not particularly competitive in the current edition and b) vast chunks of the list have been invalidated or changed significantly by the current codex. Eagle-eyed readers will note the planet the regiment was raised from is spelled "Mordion" but the references to the Hive Cities and the swift and orderly reprisal against the Night Rippers attempts to take over leads me to believe the current day Mordians can trace their history to this article. It is for this reason that "my" Mordians don't wear the customary dress blues that most of the units drawn from Mordia do - the ganger background means they are a bit less rigid than most of the regiments drawn from that world.

The next two pages have an illustration of D company (by the awesome Pete Knifton), as well as some flavor text describing the various units. I've tried to incorporate elements of this history into my own armies, with varying degrees of success. This current go-around I'm sticking much closer to the described colors and symbols the 7th uses on their uniforms and vehicles, including the fist-and-knife emblem. I've pulled out a few squads and vehicles from the guard and will hopefully have some brush time over the weekend...

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Librarian Dread Completed-er. Also, GenCon!

2011-08-03T06:15:00.004-06:00

Based on #2501's excellent suggestion (from Musings of a Metal Mind), I went back and added the Thousand Sons legion symbol to the loincloth which definitely helped break up the 'huge field of white' issue. So, the model is now... Completed-er? I guess we'll see if there ends up being a 'Completed-est' post on down the road...

In other news, I'm off to GenCon tomorrow for a nice long weekend of geekery! Not participating in the 40k tournament, although I am hoping to have time to swing by and snap some pictures of the event. On the gaming front for the weekend, several friends of mine all gather there each year to participate in a living Star Wars RPG campaign which uses the old D6 WEG rules - an elegant system from a more civilized age...

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Sekhmet Terminators in progress

2011-07-28T11:56:00.006-06:00

After messing around with the Librarian Dread to get a feel for the colors, I decided to take a crack at the Sekhmet Terminators for the Thousand Sons.

The initial build utilized a mix of Chaos and Loyalist terminator bits, plus some Chapterhouse Scarab Terminator shoulder pads. In the novel 'A Thousand Sons' there is a section which talks about the fact that the Thousand Sons were starting to be issued the new Assault Cannons, although they decided to continue to refer to them as 'Reapers' as the name has power. That being the case, I cut the Autocannons from the standard Reaper and fitted an Assault Cannon in their place. The heads were cut down from the Loyalist helmet and it looked fairly decent in the build phase, but once I started laying some paint on them, the gold and red made them look like fairly vanilla Khornate Terminators. Out came the needle-nose pliers, off came the heads and a selection of the resin Egyptian-themed heads were added in their stead.

This really helped solidify the look of the Thousand Sons, and I'm quite pleased with how they are turning out. It was at this point I really started thinking about the overall paint scheme for the army as a whole. According to my research, the standard rank-and-file infantry are red armor with white edging/trim and gold accents. For the veterans however, I decided I'd be going red armor with gold edging/trim and white accents. That being the case, the shoulder pads for the Sekhmet are done in a light bone-white to offset all the gold and with the blue spot color on the power weapons they're starting to look more cohesive. This also ties them together with the Blood Ravens paint scheme (as they are rumored to be a successor chapter to the Thousand Sons).

Not a whole lot left to do on these guys, highlighting on the blues, some minor detailing and the bases and they're good as done!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Seraphis, Librarian Dreadnought Complete!

2011-07-22T12:07:00.001-06:00

I'd solicited some advice from you lovely readers regarding what else Seraphis needed to make him stand out a bit, and The Inner Geek made the excellent suggestion that he needed a bit more scroll work and so forth on the armor plates to make them a bit more interesting to look at.

I took this to heart and dug out my old Realm of Chaos books to find some inspiration on mystic runes I could use. With those as a guide I broke out the paint and set to work adding a mess of runes and appropriately eldritch looking squiggles.

Once I was relatively satisfied with the coverage, I went back over the plates with a Baal Red wash to tone them down a bit and help blend them in. I'm really pleased with how it turned out - the red of the runes brightened up the model overall, bringing it more in line with the brighter red shown in the Horus Heresy art books but still keeping the slightly darker tone I am going for. Thanks to The Inner Geek for this excellent suggestion!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Seraphis, Librarian Dreadnought Painted

2011-07-19T18:21:00.001-06:00

I've been dabbling a bit with paint schemes for the Heresy-Era Thousand Sons, and I believe I've settled on the crimson I'll be using. I've been a bit tired of painting infantry models, so I thought I'd take a crack at the Librarian Dreadnought for the army - Seraphis is a 'named character' dreadnought for the Thousand Sons in the Tempus Fugitives codex.

Armed with a Plasma Cannon and a Force Weapon, and as a member of the Athaenean Cult, he has access to a number of psychic powers that can turn the tide of battle to the Thousand Sons' advantage.

The model itself is 90% constructed from the Venerable Dreadnought kit, with a few add-ons from other sources - the loincloth, for example, is made from parts of an Inquisitor-scale model's coat. I'm still thinking about what extra detail work needs to be painted on, there's a fair bit of open space yet that I feel may require some eldritch symbols and further scroll work...

Adeptus Mechanicus on the auction block

2011-07-16T18:45:00.002-06:00

Unfortunately due to some unforeseen expenses that have bitten deep into my vacation funds, I've been forced into selling off some of my collection to help fund the upcoming trip to GenCon. That being the case, over the next couple weeks I'm going to be auctioning off a number of units. To lead off with I've put the Adaptus Mechanicus up for auction on eBay. As it's currently all packed up in a set of Battlefoam trays, I figured I'd see if I could sell off the entire army at a single auction, but if that doesn't work out, I'll be parceling it out into individual auctions.

The Adeptus Mechanicus army that's going on the block is probably the most conversion-heavy army I've sold in a long, long time - nearly every unit is either Out Of Print, converted in some way, or made from custom after-market models. All told, it points out at around 3500 points and is comprised of the following units:

Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator Force Psi Phi
(click the pictures to enlarge, as usual)

OOP Skulls Techmarines Set

5-man Iron Souls Protectors unit

1x Custom Built Archmagos Veneratus

12-man Skitarii Maniple (Red)

12-man Skitarii Maniple (White)

5x Robots (Red/White)

5x Robots (Grey/Yellow)

1x Custom Built Myrmidon Assault Engine

3x Termites (Ramshackle Games Boring Machines)

1x King Russ Executioner w/swappable sponsons

1x King Russ Vanquisher

1x King Russ Punisher w/additional Battlecannon turret

1x Knight Paladin (BigDaddy miniatures, includes Knight Pilot)

The current auction listing may be found here. As the two boxes that contain all these models are both large and heavy, at the moment the auction is restricted to US and Canadian bidders only (as the cost of shipping the boxes overseas would be hundreds of dollars. I apologize for that restriction, but should the army not sell, I'll be opening up the individual units for sale to a more world-wide audience. I'm a little saddened to have to let these guys go, but when all is said and done I enjoy the 'building and painting' more than the 'having', and as I have plenty more Ad-Mech bits in the Closet of Doom, it simply means I can start building another Ad-Mech army in the future!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Jetbikes build complete

2011-07-15T10:12:00.002-06:00

I've been in the grip of the 'build stuff' bug of late, and rooting around in the box of bits I've been collecting for the Thousand Sons uncovered the jet-bikes I'd purchased a long time ago from Zealot Miniatures (though not long after I'd placed the order, they discontinued the models). I'm only doing a small squad of 5, so it was only a few hours' worth of build time to get them all cleaned and glued up.

For the Sorcerer Sergeant I went with a pair of legs from the Ravenwing upgrade sprues, and the torso and head from the Egyptian-themed marine bits I've been using heavily throughout the army. The Khopesh is from MaxMini, and the wings added to the front fairing were donated by a friend of mine's box of Sanguinary Guard that he wasn't planning on using.

The unit is primarily designed to be a rapid response meltagun delivery system, so next up were a pair of Thousand Sons armed with the Heresy-Era meltaguns from Forge World. The heads are MaxMini 'Steam Knight #1' heads which will be used on almost all of the infantry. I'd ordered up 50 of them but I'm starting to think that won't be sufficient!

To round out the squad a pair of vanilla bikers were built as well. Not much to be said about them honestly. MaxMini heads, Sanguinary Guard wings, marine biker bits. Done.

...And a quick shot of the unit. All of them will eventually be on flying stands mounted to DragonForge bases (as shown in the sergeant picture) but at the time of this picture I hadn't drilled out the bases and stands. With these guys built, all that's really left is a trio of Tactical squads and a Devastator squad. I've definitely been enjoying the build process, I guess we'll see how much of a slog painting them all will be!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Azhek Ahriman built

2011-07-12T09:24:00.003-06:00

Had a chance to snap a few pics of the Heresy-Era Ahriman model I've built for my Thousand Sons, and thought I'd enter it in the Minature Wargames Conversions Miniature Conversion Contest as well.

In the heresy-era codex that I'm using, Ahriman wears a suit of artificer armor so I started with one of the front chest plates from a venerable dreadnought as I felt it looked suitably ornate. The helmet and backpack were from the same set of Egyptian-themed resin cast bits that I used on Besenmut - Ahriman will be unique in the army inasmuch as he wears a 'chaos' backpack however. The rest of the infantry will be wearing the standard marine backpack in keeping with the timeframe.

I went with some more ornate shoulder pads from MaxMini, and will be painting scarabs on them to match the others scattered around the model. The force weapon is also from MaxMini - all of the force weapons match this halberd look (including the one carried by Seraphis, a named-character LibrarianDreadnought I built a while back), while all the power weapons will be khopesh-style single handed blades, which will help me distinguish who is armed with what easily n the tabletop. Most of the purity seals and scrolls come from the Ravenwing upgrade kit, and were trimmed and bent into position to hide some of the more unsightly seams and gaps.

Lastly I tried my hand at sculpting a greenstuff cloak using a number of techniques I've read about (but up to this point had never put into practice), so of everything on the model it is what I'm least happy with. I started off with a thin card template which I'd glued in place and coated with a thin layer of superglue to turn it into poor man's plasticard. From there I mixed up some GS using the same template shape and teased it into place. I then set about totally ruining it by adding way too many thin folds, to the point it started to look like fur. It was a relatively thin layer so I just let it cure and came back the next day.

For the second pass I mixed up some GS with a much higher percentage of blue which I've read helps when attempting to make sharper edges. I applied this mix and smoothed it into the existing cloak, and set about sculpting some more reserved folds, with reasonable success. I definitely learned a bit about what NOT to do in this first attempt, but the final result is passable enough not to want to basically demolish the whole model to remove it and start anew! I finished up with a few details - I knew I wanted the Book of Ahriman to be floating nearby as if he was casting from it. The book again comes from the Ravenwing upgrade sprue, with a bunch of the DA iconography filed off and cut away. Lastly I added a small ball of energy just hovering in front of his outstretched palm, as though he was gathering power for some eldritch blast. I'm planning on trying a little OSL on the energy ball and the palm of his hand, I guess we'll see how that goes!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Assault Captain Besenmut built

2011-07-10T07:17:00.006-06:00

Well the Miniature Wargames Conversions Miniature Conversion Contest (say that ten times fast) got me in the building mood, so I hauled out the box of Thousand Sons bits from the depths of the Closet of Doom and did a little building. In the codex that I'm using, only one assault squad is allowed to have jump packs, so I figured that the Vanguard Veterans squad would be the ones equipped with them. This also has the added benefit of a upgrading the veteran sergeant to Assault Captain Besenmut, who is armed with a Relic Blade and an Iron Halo and has one better WS and W than the sergeant he replaces.

The Vanguard Veterans were built using a number of bits from the ornate Egyptian-themed marine bits I'd picked up from eBay and so Besenmut really needed something to distinguish him from the rest of the unit. My eye fell upon the marine casualties I'd planned on using for objective markers and immediately decided a little vingette was in order, with Besenmut landing on a wounded marine.

A few other things were added to help him stand out - to represent his Relic Blade he was given a Khopesh-styled power sword from MaxMini, and to help represent his Iron Halo, he was also given one of the more ornate helmets from the Egyptian-themed bits. I figured one of the helmets with wings would be suited to the assault captain.

With the weight of the base, I was able to off-set Besenmut from the base a little, even with the metal jet pack. The original positioning was a little off so the steel wire got a little bend to bring the model into a more dynamic position. All in all a fun model to build and I'm looking forward to painting it. It's a fair bet that the marine on the ground will end up being a Space Wolf. It's only appropriate after all!

4th of July Rumble - 3000 points BA/SoB vs. IG/Nids

2011-07-05T10:58:00.000-06:00

So it was a long weekend for us Yanks and a few friends got together to do a 2-on-2 battle on the 4th of July. The teams ended up being Blood Angels and Sisters of Battle vs. Tyranids and Imperial Guard (mostly because of the three 'good' armies, the guard are the most likely to be heretical). We were each given 1500 points to spend and I decided I wanted to try to make a themed army list - in particular a genestealer cult-ish sort of thing.

As I felt that any command structure would have been eliminated in a cult uprising, my list ended up being led by an (un)Sanctioned Psyker. I wanted to include as many abhumans, mutants and scum as possible, so the army included a unit of Ogryns, a unit of Ratlings, and a Beastman Attack Squad (Penitents). I also brought in a unit of Rough Riders, a couple Veteran squads, a Leman Russ Vanquisher, a Medusa Emplacement and the Manticore. My compatriot went with a serious horde of bugs, and we chose to go second, deploying after our opponents which gave us a good change to set up in a threatening manner.

I'd brought along my camera, but we didn't really do a fully documented battle report, but I thought I'd share the pictures that were taken. Our opponents went with more of a split deployment (compared with our intermingling of units) with the Sisters taking their left flank and the Blood Angels on the right.

An epic battle developed on the left flank with a Blood Angels dreadnought steaming across the table and engaging a large unit of 'stealers. While they clawed (mostly) futilely at the dread's armor, it methodically began squashing them left and right. A huge unit of hormagaunts skittered forward to support, but in a series of amazing rolls, one of the 'stealers managed to find a weak point, rending the dreadnought and causing a serious explosion!

In the middle, the Blood Angels deployed an assault squad dangerously close to several objectives, but due to some unfortunate dice rolls, they were mauled in the heretic shooting phase and finished off in close combat. A dark day indeed for the Blood Angels. On the heretic right flank, the bugs began pouring forward through the gap, and entered the village contested by the sisters.

In retribution for the loss of their assault squad, a Baal Predator managed to outflank and completely obliterate the Leman Russ Vanquisher that was dominating the left. The remaining troops on the left fled from the assault-cannons!

At the bottom of turn four, the Sisters made a last ditch run at contesting one of the objectives on the Heretic side, while the massive swarm of hormagaunts attempted to do the same to the SoB objective. In the end the game was a tie with one objective held on each side and the third objective contested. Overall a tense battle with some major see-sawing back and forth. Good times were had, though - and that's what's important!

Hope you all had a great 4th of July weekend (unless you're not a Yank, in which case I hope you had a decent monday)!

Mordian 7th Regiment - New Chimera test build and Leman Russ Vanquisher

2011-06-30T12:34:00.001-06:00

Time to squeeze one last blog post in before the month ends! After my previous experience building the Mk. 1 Rhino upgrade kits from Blood and Skulls Industry I was chatting with Tom about the other kits he's made recently. I was excited to hear that I could still order the Chimera upgrade kit he'd made a while back as it's very similar to the Wyvern Pattern Chimeras I'd kitbashed (scroll down a bit) for use with the last iteration of the glorious 7th. For a quite reasonable $15, he offers a replacement top plate, turret and hatch that quite nicely approximates what I'd done before with the added bonus that it requires almost nothing in the way of cutting and trimming like the kitbash versions I'd made did. A week or so after I'd placed the order, a box arrived with 5 of the kits. After trimming away the minimal flash and a quick wash, I snapped a picture of what exactly comes with the upgrade kit:

I especially like the viewports he's used in place of the ball-and-socket lasguns from the standard Chimera, and the low-profile turret is designed to accept the multi-laser from the original kit, as well as giving one room to add whatever turret armament one may desire. I cracked open one of the old-style Chimera kits I've been hoarding in the Closet of Doom and did a test build with the first of the five kits I'd ordered.

The kit went together smoothly (well as smoothly as assembling an old-style Chimera kit ever does) and I decided to build an Autocannon turret as well as a Multi-laser turret (as he'd included a spare turret in the package). I decided that as part of the overall sleeker aesthetic provided by the turret and new hull, that I'd leave off the big boxy side armor plates that come with the old kit and instead just add some stowage and whatnot to the sides. Overall I'm quite pleased and I'm looking forward to building the rest of the kits!

While I was about it I knocked together one of the newer Leman Russ kits that I picked up at my FLGS. My intent was to build it such that it could be used as either a 'vanilla' Leman Russ or a Vanquisher (I do really like the push-fit weapon options on the new kit), though I decided against adding side sponsons to it. I may add another Leman Russ in the future, but for now the other two heavy support slots for the army will be taken up by a Medusa Emplacement and a Manticore. I loves me some heavy artillery after all!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Mk. 1 Rhino/Predator kits, first builds

2011-06-20T20:45:00.004-06:00

As I've felt that I've made great strides in painting the Dark Eldar, I rewarded myself with some build time! Over the last year or so I've been gathering bits and pieces for use in the Heresy-Era Thousand Sons that I have planned. Recently I picked up some rather brilliant resin add-on kits from Blood and Skulls Industry to turn a current-era Rhino into a nice approximation of the old Mk. 1 version.

I ordered five of the Rhino upgrade kits (which are a limited run not sold on the eBay store, contact the seller for info and availability) as well as a trio of Predator kits (Also known as "Liberator" turrets and sponsons on the Blood and Skulls Industry site), and set about cleaning up the extremely manageable flash and gave 'em a good wash. The Rhino kit consists of two replacement side plates, a new front plate, a pair of hatches each mounting a bolter(ish), and the iconic round doors and exposed exhausts. The Predator Kits had a pair of side sponsons designed to interface with the Rhino kit side plates, and a rounded top turret very reminiscent of the original Mk.1 Predator kit. The sponsons and turret also have pre-moulded spaces for rare-earth magnets for ease of weapon swaps.

Unlike the Chapterhouse kits, these kits did require a bit of work on the modeller's part to prepare the Rhino for the side plates. This means the existing exhausts must be cut away. I used a very thin-bladed and tiny-toothed hobby saw, which for the most part cleanly cut away the exhausts. After that it just needed a bit of a sanding to smooth out the various rivets and the side plates are mounted flush to the newly-flat panel..

Once that was taken care of however, the rest of the kit goes together like a dream. I decided to go ahead and permanently mount the Lascannons and Autocannon armaments to the two turrets, but will be magnetizing the side sponson guns (onse I get a pack of the proper-sized magnets). The one thing that I do really like about the chapterhouse kit that isn't included in these kits are the front and rear grillwork that really help drive the Mk. 1 look home. Luckily I have several sets to pull bits from.

I realized that one of the things I failed to buy prior to the recent price hikes are, unfortunately, enough Rhino kits to apply these upgrade kits to. That being the case, I decided I'd just start off with one Rhino and one Predator until I can take out a bank loan to buy another three Rhinos...

Mordian 7th Regiment, D Company - Planning and build nearly complete.

2011-06-16T14:47:00.003-06:00

So once upon a time, I started a blog that was all about the glorious Mordian 7th Regiment with the intent that it would keep me on target with my hobby work and allow me to solicit feedback from all you awesome readers. That worked for a while, but about a year ago I finally became fed up with all the little problems that I'd introduced into the army and I sold off a goodly chunk of it with the intention of starting over from scratch. In the mean time I've been all over the map with Orks and Ad-Mech and Dark Eldar (oh my!). Nevertheless, behind the scenes over the last year I've been slowly buying the odd box set of guard models and tucking them away in the Closet of Doom, and I've fiddled around with various army lists, knowing that the "original" Mordian 7th list is neither competitive, interesting from a modeling perspective, or in certain unit's cases even possible with the current codex. That being the case I've decided to toss out the plan of meticulously re-creating the original list and instead come up with a blended list that a) includes most of the 'signature' units from the original, b) would be fun to build and paint, and c) actually be a feasible army in the current edition.

I sat down, cracked open the painting chart (thanks to Admiral Drax once again for this fabulous idea) and set to mixing and matching what I thought would be a fun army to build and paint. Luckily I kept a number of units from the previous army, so a seed of already-painted models exists for me to structure the rest of the army around. I started from the top and worked down the army list...

Leading from the front is Company Commander Evin Eldro and his command squad. In game, I utilize Creed's rules to represent Evin's years of service, fiery temperament and superior tactical acumen. Though shouting "Eldrooooo!" is not quite as satisfying as "Creeeeeeed!"

The HQ slots are further filled with Lord Commissar Fidel Arden (shown here leading the rest of the members of the Commissariat assigned to the Mordian 7th)...

...and Sanctioned Psyker Morrin Dannel (taking refuge with the rest of the psykers that accompany the glorious 7th). There is also a small detachment of Techpriests assigned to the Mordian 7th as well, though I have no pictures of them at the moment.

Filling in the Elites slots are a number of Abhuman units - the Mordian 7th is well known (and a bit infamous) in their use of Abhumans. First and most often seen taking the field are 3rd Platoon, a.k.a. "Thargadd's Thumpers", a unit of Ogryns who have accompanied the 7th since its inception.

As diminutive (and sneaky) as the Ogryns are large (and smelly), Dunno's Deadeyes are the 7th's unit of Ratling Snipers.

Nicodemus is a disgraced Imperial Assassin that has thrown in his lot with Commander Eldro and is often sent on insanely dangerous missions, which seems to suit his need for atonement. In game, he counts-as Guardsman Marbo and is armed and modeled accordingly.

Now I'd sold off nearly all of the Troops choices for the army and have been re-building them. At the moment, no pictures, but it includes the following:

1st (Tactical) Platoon
HQ squad w/ Chimera
3x Squads of Guardsmen with Grenade Launchers, Missile Launchers and Chimeras
3x Lascannon-armed Heavy Weapons Teams.

2nd (Assault) Platoon
1x Veterans Squad w/ 3x Plasma Guns and Valkyrie (anti-infantry squad)
1x Veterans Squad w/ 3x Meltas, Demolitions and Vendetta (anti-tank squad)
In the original list, all of these models used to be equipped with laspistols, CCWs and Jump Packs which is no longer an option. Instead I've kited them out with Grav Chutes and mounted them in Valkyrie/Vendettas which I feel is a fair approximation.

4th (Beastman) Platoon
10x Beastmen armed with two hand weapons. Packmaster Raakt is armed with a pair of Chainswords, but the remainder of the unit carries basic axes and swords.
In the original list, Beastmen were a valid unit choice. To represent them in the current edition, I utilize them as a Penal Legion who always have the "Knife Fighters" option and forfeit their lasguns. They are made from fantasy beastmen who have had their torsos replaced with Cadian torsos and occasional bits of equipment (canteens, grenades and the like).

6th (Penitents) Platoon
10x Penal Legionnaires w/ Lasguns
Very simple unit - the 7th is primarily modeled using Cadians but the Penitents utilize Catachan models to represent a more buffed-out criminal look. Painted in prison orange, complete but apparently I've never taken pictures of them...

On the Fast Attack front, the army includes a Bane Wolf, a trio of Mars-Pattern Sentinels (currently unbuilt) and a 10-strong unit of Rough Riders. Instead of horses however, the Rough Riders are all mounted on motorcycles and are led by Captain Hilts who is a counts-as Mogul Kamir (bonus points if you get the Captain Hilts reference).

As mentioned in the Troops section, the Imperial Navy has supplied the 7th with several aircraft. The Valkyrie has been assembled and painted for some time now, but the Vendetta still languishes in a box in the Closet of Doom...

On the heavy support front, the Thudd Gun that used to accompany the 7th has been replaced by a Medusa Emplacement. Hands down one of my favorite FW models of all time. I could have sworn I had a picture of the completed model, but apparently the only shot I have is an old in-progress picture.

The Rapier Laser Destroyer has accompanied the 7th for decades as well, and is usually watched over by one of the two Techpriests that are part of the army.

One can never have enough artillery, so a Manticore has been seconded into the army as well. My intention is to also include one (maybe two) Leman Russ tanks, I'm planning on a heavily magnetized version to allow for as much flexibility and options as I can.

The Imperial Navy also provides the 7th with significant air support in the form of an Imperial Thunderbolt...

...And a Vulture Gunship armed with twin-linked Punisher cannons. If all else fails, I guess I'll be more or less ready for the vaunted "Summer of Flyers"!

All told the army comes out to just a hair over 4,000 points as listed. Now all I need to do is paint about 80 infantry and 7 vehicles, as well as re-base nearly all the currently-painted models so the bases match my current theme. Looks like I have my work cut out for me!

The Kabal of the Crimson Woe - Hellions unit completed

2011-06-14T10:28:00.000-06:00

The last few weeks have been tough on the hobby front, mostly due to the home remodeling - since I had to pull the A/C unit out of the window in my hobby loft, it's been well over 95 degrees Fahrenheit up there. Not ideal! Luckily, one of my gaming buddies offered to let me do some painting and whatnot at his place in the interim, and I've managed to crank out a few more models:

Most recently I've managed to polish off a small unit of Hellions - nothing too fancy, I stuck with the same scheme that I used on my Wyches - Off-white leathers, red armor, gold trim, blue hair. Quick and easy. I've got the 6-man Reaver unit about half done as well, and once those are done all that remains are the sails and crew for the Raiders. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

In other news, I'm slowly getting things squared away for the next rendition of the Mordian 7th. I've assembled and primered 60-something guardsmen and worked a little bit on painting the Manticore. I swear, the blog used to be all about the guard, really!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Magnus The Red painting in progress

2011-06-12T09:58:00.003-06:00

Still waiting for the renovations around my condo to be completed, with summer in full force around here the temperatures in my hobby loft have hit over 95 degrees (good thing I don't have any finecast! [rimshot]), so I haven't gotten much done up there of late. This is a piece that I'd worked on a few weeks back for my Heresy-Era Thousand Sons - The Primarch Magnus the Red.

Magnus is described as a crimson-skinned giant of a man in several stories, and I tried to capture a reddish/ruddy hued skin which turned out fairly decent - It's a simple coat of Dwarf Flesh, a light wash of Baal Red and a highlight of Dwarf Flesh and Elf Flesh. As far as him being a giant, I didn't include a model for scale, but suffice it to say that that's a 60mm base he's standing on!

As there's more than a bit on animosity between the Sons of Russ and the Sons of Magnus, I thought it would be only appropriate to have Magnus wear a wolf-skin pelt. The model required quite a bit of greenstuffing to mask various joins and gaps, and unfortunately while painting the model I've discovered several places where my GS skills left quite a bit to be desired. I'm not sure how to go about repairing the remaining gaps, I guess I'll have to try and use a bit more GS here and there and hope I can paint over it without the paint flaking off or something...

I'm in the home stretch with a unit of Hellion and Reavers after a friend of mine graciously offered to let me do some painting over at his place where it's much, much cooler than the oven of my hobby loft. Pics soon!

Adeptus Custodes Terminators

2011-06-01T08:09:00.004-06:00

Not a huge amount of forward progress on the Dark Eldar of late, I've been working on batch painting four Raiders and a Venom all at the same time. That's been more than a little tedious, so I decided to take a break from the red and gold paint scheme and instead paint something... gold... and red. Argh.

I'd picked up these Custodes Terminators years and years ago and they have patiently waited in the Closet of Doom until the recent release of the new Grey Knights. After reading through the codex, I figured that they would be well-represented on the tabletop as a unit of Paladins, and set about building them accordingly utilizing a mix of the GK Terminator arms, and the arms that came with the Custodes originally.

As there isn't really a 'Sergeant' for the unit, I went with a slightly-more-ornate Nemesis Force Halberd for one of the models.

Though it's not nearly as powerful as the almighty Psycannon, the artwork for the Custodes clearly shows them carrying a flame lance, so I've included one in the unit as a counts-as Incinerator.

Rounding out the unit are three more NFH-armed terminators. Unfortunately all of the main bodies for the Custodes are identical, so I tried to utilize the varied arm poses to try and get them to look a bit more individual. As I have no plans to run a GK army, these models will be going on eBay this coming weekend...

As mentioned earlier, I'm in the midst of batch painting all the transports for the Dark Eldar, and snapped a quick picture of them while I was about it. Still a ways to go, but at least all the main colors have been blocked in!

Hobby Retrospective - Billboards

2011-05-30T08:46:00.000-06:00

Unfortunately due to some home renovations, my hobby loft has been more or less unbearable, and as such I haven't accomplished nearly as much as I would have liked to these past few weeks. So, that means it's time ~~to poke through my photo archives for post fodder~~ for another Hobby Retrospective!

I got a few emails about the terrain from the recent battle report and people seemed to get a chuckle out of the billboards. I'm a big fan of adding little humorous touches to the battlefields (especially when playing Necromunda), and I'd thought I'd show the other billboards in the collection.

Long ago there was a 40k webcomic called 'Lost In Space', and I made a few faux-advertising billboards using the characters. After I'd printed them out, I used a spray adhesive and monted them on some thick card stock. Later on I thought I'd try my hand at painting them, as well. Mixed results, in retrospect I should have just used colored markers.

It's not all strictly Imperial propaganda - advertising is all about targeting the wider markets!

Of course, the Inquisition, a group which concerns itself with rooting out wickedness and heresy obviously should have the most racy billboard...

Last but not least, the Slurm billboard. As I'd mentioned in an earlier post, I really think Slurm fits right in with the 40k universe. Just don't mention it to the Ordo Xenos.

Today's Hobby Retrospective brought to you by Thompsons Teeth - Tell me that's not a smile you can trust!

Battle Report: Adeptus Mechanicus vs. Sir Biscuit's Crusade Marines!

2011-05-16T16:41:00.004-06:00

A week ago Saturday Sir Biscuit and I settled in for a 3000 point battle, his Crusade Marines vs. my Adeptus Mechanicus. We took a bunch of pictures, rolled a bunch of dice, and a good time was had by all! Over the last week we've collaborated on a battle report (Sir Biscuit's comments in red) and here's how it turned out!

Table Setup

Setting up the table took place several days before the actual game, and is described in detail here (http://mordian7th.blogspot.com/2011/05/battle-report-adeptus-mechanicus-vs.html).

Sir Biscuit: That is one hot table. This kind of board is actually my favorite kind to play on, as it has a lot of line of sight blocking, making the game less about target priority and more about maneuver.

I spent some time clearing off one of my side tables to give me room to hold the models pre-deployment, and also to have some space to place the inevitable casualties. The army in question was as follows:

The Armies

+++++

Mordian7th’s Legio Cybernetica Explorator Force

HQ
Archmagos Veneratus Kane
Archmagos Prime with Iron Souls Protectors Retinue in Termite Tunneler

Elites
5-strong Legio Cybernetica Robot Maniple
5-strong Legio Cybernetica Robot Maniple
Myrmidon Magnus Assault Engine

Troops
12-man Hypaspist Maniple in Termite Tunneler
12-man Hypaspist Maniple in Termite Tunneler
6-man Electro Priest Maniple
4-man Servitor Maniple (non-scoring)

Heavy Support
Ordo Reductor King Russ Maniple – LR:MBT, LR:Vanquisher, LR:Executioner
Ordo Reductor Rapier Laser Destroyer

+++++

Around 10:30 Sir Biscuit arrived and he set to laying out his forces prior to setup.

+++++
Sir Biscuit’s Crusading Marines

HQ
Marneus Calgar (Terminator armor)
Librarian in Terminator Armor, Storm Shield, Null Zone, The Avenger

Elites
Rifleman Dreadnought
Rifleman Dreadnought
10-man Terminator Assault Squad in Land Raider Redeemer (Half in redeemer with Calgar, half on foot with Librarian)

Troops
5-man Tactical Combat Squad in Las/Plas Razorback
5-man Tactical Combat Squad in Las/Plas Razorback
10-man Tactical Squad in Rhino
10-man Tactical Squad in Rhino
10-man Tactical Squad in Rhino

Fast Attack
3 x Land Speeders

Heavy Support
3 x Vindicators

Sir Biscuit: It's a bit odd, but has all the hallmarks of your standard competitive marine list, in a collection stretched to 3000 points. Built to shoot the hell out of the opponent while they deal with the terminators, and the full Tactical squads can easily mop up surviving weakened units.

+++++

Deployment

We decided on playing long table edges with 5 objectives, and Sir Biscuit won the roll-off for both the objective deployment and the first turn setup. It was at this point I realized that my army was seriously skewed to the Elites and Heavy Support choices. With 5 objectives to hold and only three Troops choices to do it with (and in the face of a passel of Space Marines, no less), I knew I was going to be in for a beating. No fear though, as I always say – “I may lose the battle, but my opponents will know they’ve been in a fight!”

Following a bit of a mix-up about combat squadding and reserves, Sir Biscuit deployed his entire force on the board, with his Redeemer holding the center board providing AV14 cover to several Rhinos and Vindicators. His left flank was held by the pair of Razorbacks, a Dreadnought and another Vindicator, while his right flank was a bit sparsely-defended by the trio of Land Speeders, half the Terminators, and the remaining Rifleman Dread.

Once the marines were deployed, I laid out the defending Adeptus Mechanicus forces. Unlike the Marines, I had a significant amount of reserves, with all three Termite-equipped units and the King Russ Executioner remaining off-board to start. The center was held by the Vanquisher and standard King Russ (the tanks are bought as a Maniple, but may deploy and act independently), as well as one of the Robot Maniples and the Rapier Laser Destroyer which took up a position in one of the ruined buildings. On my right flank Archmagos Veneratus Kane, his attendant unit of Servitors and the remaining Robot Maniple took up an overwatch position. On my left flank the Electro Priests began working themselves into a frenzy in the shadow of the Myrmidon Magnus.

A failed attempt at seizing the initiative, and the game began!

Sir Biscuit: I won the roll off for objectives, which was actually pretty huge. What was even bigger was that Joel placed his 2 on the same side as my 3- when I won the roll off I got to deploy practically on top of 4 of the 5 objectives. That meant that Joel had to shift me; not an easy task given the terminators and large amount of Tactical marines.

There were only really 2 streets that lead to me, and I made these my choke points. In the middle I had my raider, terminators, and full Tactical squads, enough to repulse an attack and claim the 3 objectives there. On the left I concentrated a large amount of firepower, I wasn't sure I could claim that objective but I sure as hell wasn't losing it. I conceded the right objective from the start, as I was much better off focusing my force. I only deployed a rifleman dread over there (to take advantage of good open angles) and the land speeders, which could rapidly redeploy.

Turn 1

In the center, the Marine Land Raider and Rhinos rumbled forward in an attempt to gain cover from the Ad-Mech’s guns, while one of the Vindicators peeled off to cover the objective on the right flank. On the left flank the Land Speeders soared overhead to a position atop one of the few intact buildings in the sector. A torrent of Lascannon and Assault Cannon fire washed the Rapier Laser Destroyer out of its cover in the ruined building, but otherwise the spirit of the Omnissiah watched over the forces of the Machine God and no further casualties were sustained.

With an earth-shaking rumble, a pair of Termite tunnelers erupted from the ground near the objective on the right flank, dozens of Hypaspists taking cover and drawing a bead on the Marine interlopers and destroying one of the Vindicators with hissing beams of Melta fire. The two King Russ tanks rumbled forwards, the Vanquisher detonating one of the fragile Rhino Transports, scattering marines in all directions. Archmagos Veneratus Kane turned his conversion beamer on the Land Raider, but the mighty armor of the vehicle protected it from harm. On the left flank, Robot Maniple Psi Phi unleashed a hell storm of heavy weapons fire, accounting for a trio of Marine Terminator casualties. The Myrmidon and Electro Priests moved up toward the objective nestled within the Shrine of the Aquila.

Sir Biscuit: This was a solid turn. I expected Joel to force one of my flanks more, but he deployed kind of spread out, which gave me a lot more freedom to pick my targets. He was light on antitank, so I wasn't too worried about the Redeemer, and I used it as a shield in the center to protect my advance. On the left, I just shot what was in range and tried to stall the advance. I definitely had the momentum at the end of the turn and Joel was really going to have to take out some of my bigger threats fast if he was going to come back.

Turn 2

On the left flank, the Land Speeders attempted to move to a position where they could bring their weapons to bear on the lightly armored sides and rear of the King Russ and Myrmidon. Unfortunately, one of the skimmers managed to foul its thrusters on the roof of the building and would remain stranded there for the remainder of the game. The other two speeders moved to position but failed to damage either of the Adeptus Mechanicus’ vehicles. On the right flank the remaining pair of Vindicators opened fire on the Hypaspists sheltering around their Termites. As inured to the sights and sounds of artillery and explosions as they may be, the savage destruction wreaked upon the two units was more than they could bear and one unit of the survivors of the shelling fled towards the safety of the nearby buildings. Marneus Calgar contemptuously dismounted from his Land Raider to deal with the surviving Hypaspists and slew several before they, too, fled from the God of War. while the remaining Terminators were disgorged and began working their way towards the threatening King Russ Vanquisher.

In the center, the remaining Termite bearing the Archmagos Prime and his retinue of Iron Souls Protectors surfaced, and the Iron Souls regretfully turned their plasma weapons on their Terminator-clad brethren, annihilating all but one of them. Unfortunately, the wrath of the Omnissiah backlashed on the Iron Souls and one of the plasma gunners was killed as his weapon overheated spectacularly. Archmagos Veneratus Kane glanced a hit off the side armor of a Rhino, stunning the crew into insensibility.

Sir Biscuit: The biggest advantage Eternal Warrior characters have over their peers is that they can reasonably detach from their squad and go smash something without worrying about getting splatted. Calgar wasn't needed to add more overkill to the terminators, and he alone could handle my melee needs on the left flank. (Mostly, to deal with the robots, but forcing a lot of fleeing soldiers was nice.) The remaining terminators in the raider I shot right up the middle- enough to kill the robots and ensure that he wouldn't be advancing until they were dealt with.

The termites really came up in a bad position- they had cover but you don't want to be bunched up around your vehicle when you're facing 3 Vindicators. They didn't have a chance of taking the flank on their own, and they crumbled to the return fire they were facing.

Turn 3

Marneus Calgar crashed into the Robot Maniple on the right flank, easily rending several of the 10 foot robots limb from limb, though taking several grievous wounds in the process. The Land Raider Redeemer unleashed a torrent of flame over the Iron Souls who had so devastated its passengers, slaying nearly all of them and driving the Archmagos Prime back from the flames. The sole remaining assault Terminator strode confidently towards the Vanquisher, but the mighty armor of the vehicle was proof against his attack. The Landspeeder continued its attempt to find a weak point in the side armor, but the prayers to the Omnissiah kept the war machine safe from harm. The Vindicator on the left flank attempted a shot at the King Russ, but the shot was deflected and fell well short.

The standard King Russ reversed into cover after coming under fire from the Vindicator, and instead trained its weaponry upon the Land Raider looming in front of it. However, the favor of the Omnissiah began to wane, and the adamantium skin was proof against the shells. On the right flank the King Russ Executioner rumbled into play, demolishing several barricades and unleashing a scintillating hail of plasma fire, but this too was either absorbed by the armor of the vehicles or spalling off in the intervening cover.

Sir Biscuit: With almost all the heavy weapons destroyed, the only real threat to the redeemer was the Vanquisher, and I do not fear BS3. At this point, Joel had to get a lucky shot or the middle was lost to him - and the 3 objectives that it contained. I simply had too much stuff ready to kill any advancing unit. His offensive on my left was being contained, and the middle was breaking. Things simply weren't looking good for him at this point.

Turn 4

In response to the plasma tank threatening the right flank, the Marines moved their vehicles forward and took the Executioner under fire with both Vindicators and the Lascannon on a Razorback. The Executioner weathered the fire, but on the left flank the Vanquisher was not as lucky. With a mighty blow, the tank was destroyed by the Thunder Hammer of the sole remaining Assault Terminator. In the center, the punishment continued with the remaining Leman Russ being shaken into immobility by the Assault Cannons on the Land Raider. Marneus Calgar rendered the last of the robots down into scrap metal , though at a terrible cost to his own health.

On the right flank, the Myrmidon and Land Speeder (both immobilized for some time, scant inches from one another) continued to fire upon one another rather ineffectually, while the Electro Priests continued their movement towards the objective. Archmagos Veneratus Kane, incensed by the destruction of his Legio Cybernetica cohorts, began moving forward to exact his retribution upon the unsuspecting Calgar. The remaining tanks and infantry of the Adeptus Mechanicus exchanged desultory fire with the Marines, but to no real effect.

Sir Biscuit: haha, the myrmidon and the speeder. Those guys could go all day! Not much to say about this turn, at this point I was running a bit amuck.

Turn 5

Through the simple expedient of destroying everything in sight, the Marines moved towards the final mop-up of the Adeptus Mechanicus. For lack of a better target, Marneus Calgar spitefully destroyed a Termite, while the Land Raider blew the main Battlecannon off the King Russ in the center. Several marine unites moved into position to capture their objectives and settled in to defend them.

At this point Archmagos Veneratus Kane exacted his revenge, targeting Marneus Calgar with his Multi-Melta. There was a roar of superheated air, and the mighty lord was reduced to steaming ashes, his archeotech armor no match for the terrible energies turned upon it. Though the Electro Priests managed to capture their objective, the Archmagos signaled the retreat in the face of the Marines bearing down upon them.

Sir Biscuit: At this point, Joel winning would have been impossible. I simply had too much armor on the table, and I controlled all the lanes of advance. I do find it funny though, that Calgar died while almost none of my other big threats did. Hope those objectives were worth the chapter master's life!

Aftermath

Though the game would have gone another turn after 5, I conceded the game to Sir Biscuit at this point. I was down to a single six-man scoring unit (the Electro Priests) where Sir Biscuit had thrice that in unscathed tactical squads. All in all it was a great game, though it definitely pointed out some weaknesses in the army list that I brought. In the future I will likely only run a single unit of Robots as they are extremely expensive and the points would be better spent on more Troops. The Termites performed admirably, but were let down somewhat by the standard Hypaspists they carried into battle. I think that for future games I would fill the Termites with Praetorians (more resilient and better armed) and run the Hypaspists on foot to screen vehicles and occupy buildings instead.

It was really nice to play a game where the vast majority of the models were painted, and I’m looking forward to doing so again once I get the Kabal of the Crimson Woe finished up this month!

Sir Biscuit: Joel is always a pleasure to play, and I did really enjoy the game. His list was definitely weak against mine, simply because he didn't have enough anti-armor spread through the list- most of it was mounted on single units, the robots, rapier battery, and vanquisher, so once I had sniped those I pretty much had the game in the bag. It really shows the importance of not overspending on single big units, and spreading out to have lots of cheap, light antitank.

Ideally, Joel should have come at me from one of my flanks. When attacking an opponent in a position of strength, you should concentrate force and try to make a breakthrough, instead of spreading across the field and going for control. Reserving the Executioner was also a mistake, as I had nothing that could deal with AV14 at 36", and it would have been quite nice to have firing in the first few turns.

Definitely a good time though, and I'm looking forward to once more fighting the Kabal- last time, we butchered each other down to 4 infantry models per side! I'd like to thank Joel for all his hard work and for putting the game together as well. (Now if I can just figure out a way to steal that awesome table...)

...And that's a wrap! I jokingly referred to the game as "Tournament Powergamer vs. Fluff Weenie", but that's meant in the best way. Sir Biscuit is a fantastic sport and a patient and gracious opponent, and while I've been painting and playing 40k for more years than he's been alive, he's undoubtedly the superior player and I always learn a lot about 5th edition by playing against him (5 editions of rules tend to get jumbled up in my mind). His points regarding my army composition are all quite valid, though to be fair it was more down to fielding the models I had painted than any particular cohesive army synergy. While I went into the game with a plan, and executed my turns according to the plan, it turns out it wasn't a particularly good plan! Nevertheless, I enjoyed the game thoroughly and after all, isn't that what it's supposed to be about?

Thanks again to Sir Biscuit for a great game!

Stylish Blogger Award? Obviously they've never seen how I usually dress...

2011-05-10T09:35:00.002-06:00

Hello folks! I have been away from the blogosphere for several days, and in the interim it appears I've been nominated for a Stylish Blogger Award by several awesome bloggers. I wanted to take the time to thank all of you for the nomination - Klaus from Dei Greci John from John's Toy Soldiers, CounterFett from All Things Fett, Musings of a Smurf from, well Musings of a Smurf, and #2501 from Musings of a Metal Mind (that's a whole lot of musing!). I'm honored that the folks responsible for such amazing work think that my little corner of the web has some worthy stuff on it. Thank you all! I'm always pleasantly surprised by the overall positive feedback and sense of camraderie to be found out in the blogosphere, and I'm proud to be a part of it!

The rules;
    Thank and link back to the person giving you the award
    Share seven things about yourself
    Select 10-15 blogs who you think deserve this award
    Contact these bloggers and let them know about the award.

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Some things about me:
1. I've been painting and playing 40k since 1987 with the release of 1st edition, prompting me to realize that 40,000 isn't just the year in which our favorite game is set, but it's sadly a decent estimation of how much money I've spent on the game in the last 24 years!

2. I play the electric bass in a prog rock band. We know we're never going to be big rock stars, but it's great fun and a wonderful creative outlet.

3. I have terrible hobby ADD. Just when I'm getting close to finishing an army I HEY LOOK AT THE NEW MINIS! GOTTA HAVE 'EM! Sigh...

4. In addition to the occasional game of 40k/Necromunda/Killzone, I run a Rogue Trader campaign for my local gaming group as one of the games for our twice-monthly RPG gatherings. On the opposite weekends I play in a D&D campaign that a friend runs for us. It can't all be bolters and chainswords after all!

5. Over the years I've probably spilled more paint than has been painted onto my miniatures. My hobby desk is covered in multi-colored spatters!

6. I'm a Colorado native and have yet to find a place I'd rather live than here. It's hard to beat 300+ days of sunshine a year!

7. fnord.

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Other blogs who I feed deserve some recognition - Granted, a number of these blogs have been nominated already, but they're ones that I find the most inspiring!

A Gentleman's Ones - Brian has created some of the most awesome looking terrain that I've seen in a long time, using simple household materials. In addition, his Book Wardens are beautifully painted and have an awesome backstory.

Admiral Drax - Admiral Drax was the inspiration for me to get into blogging in the first place, and is a constant source of inspiration with his guard.

Cyborg Trucker's Roleplaying and Wargaming - More awesome conversions, not to mention his work with a C&C machine is epic!

Dreamforge Games - The most beautiful resin-cast steampunk titans I've ever seen. Hands down. My wallet is DOOMED.

From the Warp - Not only is it chock full of amazing articles by Ron, but the blogrolls are a constant stream of amazing!

Galaxy in Flames - Killzone. KILLZONE! If you haven't played it, play it. It's awesome.

Le blog de Bigdaddy - (In french) One of my favorite resinworkers, Bigdaddy was the sculptor of my Knight Paladin.

Musings of a Metal Mind - His Adeptus Mechanicus and Tyracrons are things of terrible beauty. Some of my very favorite conversions of all time are to be found here.

Ricalopia - I am blown away by the painting style and color choices, absolutely beautiful conversions as well.

The Anarchy of Anton - Another top notch converter. I based my Venoms on his designs, which went together like a dream!

The Magnet Pro - As a fellow Ad-Mech enthusiast, I'm really enjoying the fandex and conversion tips Lantz has been sharing.

The Warmaster's Revenge - Beautiful paint jobs, tutorials, and interesting color palate ideas!

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Thanks again to everyone who nominated me, and thanks to all of you listed above for all the awesome inspiration you've given me over the years!

I'm working on the battle report for the game I hosted last Saturday, but here's a teaser of how things went... Heh.

Battle Report - Adeptus Mechanicus vs Space Marines, Part 1

2011-05-05T17:04:00.002-06:00

The game is afoot! I received confirmation that the game against Sir Biscuit would be proceeding as planned, and given that the next few evenings are being assailed by Real Life(tm) I decided to set up the table last night and snap some shots of it over my lunch hour today.

To absolutely no-one's surprise, I've set up an urban-themed table and I decided as all the miniatures are to be painted (painted miniatures should gain Preferred Enemy over un-painted miniatures, dammit!), all the terrain ought to be painted as well. When setting up a city, I generally start by laying down a crossed section of road at a diagonal to the long edges of the table, place a series of buildings in the intersections, then lay out the next section of roads to form city blocks. Another set of buildings followed bu more roads, etc. until the table is sufficiently covered. Similarly when I use rivers or hills, they are always placed first, followed by roads, then buildings - this helps to ensure that the table looks 'organic',

I find the diagonal set up not only breaks up sight lines across the table, but also ends up giving the impression that it's just a section of a larger city. I brought out a few buildings that I haven't used in a while - mostly pieces we use for Necromunda. Bless those old plastic bulkheads! I also like to include several levels of cover. For the game on Saturday, the intact buildings will provide a 3+ save, the ruined buildings 4+, and the craters 5+. There are also some smaller barricades which provide a 6+ save but are destroyed if moved over by any vehicle. I have a further set of craters I'm hoping to have painted by Saturday to represent my vehicles as they are inevitably destroyed.

I like to include some little humorous decorative bits to the tables, and I would imagine that Slurm would fit right in to the 40k universe. Of course, the Ordo Xenos may have some issues with their production methods...

Adeptus Mechanicus - Explorator Force Psi Phi Army Shots

2011-05-03T08:04:00.001-06:00

One of the best things about hitting a painting goal is being able to get a good shot of the army, and so I pulled out all the models that were part of the 3000 points that I've been working on of late:

Explorator Force Psi Phi gathers for battle! The army is light on numbers but heavy on firepower, the force is geared towards setting up multiple overlapping fields of fire with the Rapier Laser Destroyer, Robot maniples and King Russ battle tanks, which cover the advance of the Hypaspists and Protectors that arrive via Termite Tunneler. The Electro Priests are generally used for backfield objective holding and the Myrmidon and Archmagos Veneratus provide mid-field fire support and close combat threat against flanking enemies. The King Russ tanks each have their specified roles - The Executioner with its massed plasma fire is a Terminator-killer, the Vanquisher is a tank hunter more than capable of punching a hole through a Land Raider lengthwise, and the standard Russ variant carries a trio of Heavy Bolters and a Battlecannon for dealing with massed infantry.

I'd set up a painting chart to track my progress for the 3000 point army, and I have to say it felt good coloring in those last few green boxes!

A couple close-up(ish) shots of the army as well - all in all I think it turned out rather well! Well, except for some obvious focal plane issues on the part of my photo-taking.

Of course, this is just about half of the actual final planned army. There still remains a further 3000-ish points worth of models and bits in boxes in the Closet of Doom. Granted, a goodly chunk of those points are tied up in a pair of Knights and an 800 point Ordo Reductor Ordinatus Minoris...

I'm definitely feeling as though I'm back in fighting trim as far as painting goes, and finishing of this 3k has got me excited to knock out the next 3k worth of models. In fact I'm just getting ready to kick off a month of May-hem (get it?) wherein I plan on finishing off 3000 points worth of Dark Eldar over the next month. This is important, as if I can get them painted and sold before the next wave of DE models arrives, I can avoid being dragged back into the pits of Comorragh (i.e. I won't be tempted to buy more models)!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Legio Cybernetica Robot Maniples complete

2011-05-02T12:51:00.000-06:00

Victory for the forces of the Omnissiah - as of this moment, the 3000 point army I'm intending to use in an upcoming battle is now complete! The last unit to be finished was the second of two Legio Cybernetica Robot Maniples.

The second maniple includes one each of the five original Robots released way back in the day. From left to right: Crusader, Conqueror, Colossus, Castellan and Cataphract. I wanted to paint them up in a different motif from the first maniple, and went with a blue/grey scheme with yellow panels on the right thigh and left shoulder. I was going to go with yellow and black hazard stripes, but they ended up looking poor so they were taken back to a solid yellow instead.

The first maniple I'd painted a while back got a few touch-ups to bring them in line with the new ones (notably the color of the visors/power cables), and was re-based from the old grey rubble to the new dirt and grass motif. It occurred to me while doing so that there are a few odd models in the army that will also require the re-basing treatment, but thankfully it's less than a dozen all told. Once I get them all re-based, I'll pull out all the miniatures and get a full army shot!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Myrmidon Assault Engine Mk. II Complete!

2011-04-25T12:16:00.000-06:00

Got a little brush time in this weekend and finished off the detailing on the Myrmidon Assault Engine. Some white cog-wheel edging and some hazard striping and job's a good 'un!

The hazard stripes were a last minute addition. I thought that the red/white/gold with a blue spot color just didn't make a model this large 'pop', and adding the yellow/black stripes gave the model a bit more presence.

Only 5 Legio Cybernetica Robots to go and the entire 3000 point army will be complete, with nearly two weeks to spare before the game. Feels good!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Iron Souls Protectors

2011-04-22T15:53:00.000-06:00

The supposed date of the Ad-Mech vs. GK battle grows ever closer and I'm getting rather close to having all 3000 points painted. All that remained was a 5-man squad of Protectors (an HQ retinue unit), 5 more Legio Cybernetica Robots and the Myrmidon. Easily within my grasp!

For the Protectors, I knew I wanted to utilize one of the Space Marine chapters that is associated with the Adeptus Mechanicus, but I wasn't too keen on doing a unit of Iron Hands (though they are obviouly made from Iron Hands bits) - Instead I went with the Iron Souls, a chapter thought up (as far as I know) by Anaerion the Faithful, an artist who I stumbled across on Warseer. He did a comic series called "Rusted" that I really enjoyed, and the black-and-orange paint scheme shown in the comics seemed like it could be fun to try. The Protectors unit are all armed with Plasma weapons and Power Staves, and I thought the blue spot color really stood out nicely against the orange and black.

All in all, a fun little unit to paint, and I was pleased at how quickly they were completed (at least compared with the massive batch painting I've been doing of late). Only 5 more 'infantry' and the Defiler-based Myrmidon to go!

Hobby Retrospective - Necrons

2011-04-19T17:35:00.000-06:00

So I haven't had much hobby time as of late, so it's time for another retrospective - today, the Necrons, or "Good lord man, wasn't this blog supposed to be about the Guard or something?". The recent grumblings across the 40k blogosphere whisper tales of an incipient Necrons re-work, which doesn't bode well for my wallet. While I have dabbled in the model range over the years, I've never actually fielded Necrons as a 40k army, I really liked their back story and have woven them into my last Dark Heresy campaign and as such painted up a few models for use with the RPG.

The original sculpts for the Necron models hearken all the way back to the Space Crusade days (the design being a 'chaos android' at the time). The next incarnation of the Necrons was in metal and rather disappointing, and honestly I was never really thrilled with many of the current-era metal models either (the Immortals and Flayed Ones were a PITA to assemble, and the tomb spyder left me cold). I have high hopes about the next wave based on the frankly excellent plastics GW has been releasing these days. As I was pressed for time (aka painting them the morning of the game), these Necrons were given the bog-standard metal-and-green scheme. If I attempt to do a Necron army nowadays, I think I'd try a sandstone and blue scheme instead.

Alas, this Necron Lord and his small force of Warriors and Scarabs has sat idle in the figure cabinet since that day. There may come a time when the Servants of the Star Gods will not be so quiescent...

Mordian 7th Regiment - Company Command Squad Painted. Also, RT-era Space Ninjas!

2011-04-13T09:35:00.001-06:00

After painting a couple dozen Praetorians for the Ad-Mech army, I needed a break from the unrelenting red-and-white. That being the case I pulled down the partially-painted command squad for the Mordian 7th reboot and polished them off.

Not a lot remained to be done on the unit - just the final detailing, unit markings and the banner bearer's banner. Unfortunately my fine-point sharpies all appear to be dried up so I haven't been able to fill in the scrollwork on the banner as yet, but for all intents and purposes the unit is table ready!

While I was rooting around in the Closet of Doom I came across a box of old, ooooold models - one of which was this RT-era assassin. I think he'll be an admirable counts-as Sly Marbo for the 7th, as he has a ripper-pistol-looking gun, a poisoned sword on his back, and a meltabomb to represent his demo charge. A similar paint scheme in dark grey, red and gold and he ties in well with the rest of the army!

Alas, models going on the auction block...

2011-04-12T09:08:00.002-06:00

Well there's been some financial issues that have raised their heads of late and as much as it saddens me to do so, I find myself looking over my collection for models that I can let go. I don't like to use my blog for shameless sales promotions, but sometimes it's what I have to do...

First up is the squad of mechanized Rough Riders. I plan on building more for the rebooted Mordian 7th, and as such these are now superfluous. The bikes are from Ramshackle Games, and come in multiple styles with and without integral rider's legs. I really enjoy the various models Curtis over at Ramshackle has done - he's a joy to work with and his prices are very reasonable! LINK TO EBAY AUCTION

And the one that pains me the most - The Anathema Assault Tank is going on the auction block. I was vacillating whether I'd keep it and finish painting it in the colors of the Ad-Mech, but in all honestly I'll never really field it with my local gaming group and I'd rather have it go to someone who will use it (and to be fair, I still have three more King Russ tanks in a box to add to the Ad Mech army). LINK TO EBAY AUCTION

There will likely be some more auctions over the next month or so, depending on what I can get painted and what I can bear to part with...

Adeptus Mechanicus - Praetorians complete!

2011-04-10T16:59:00.000-06:00

As I've started the build of the new Hypaspists, the models I've been painting may now officially be considered the Praetorians for the Ad-Mech army. Assuming that the army includes a Skitarii Consul, the Praetorians may be chosen as Troops rather than the Elites slot they ordinarily take up.

While I was batch painting these models, I decided that I didn't want them to all be the same, so I swapped the colors on the cloaks between the two units. It keeps the color theme throughout but helps to distinguish them from one another on the tabletop.

The Tribunes for the units are armed with Power Weapons and Hellpistols, but I'm not completely satisfied with the ones I've built. Subsequent to the contruction of these models I'd picked up some interesting-looking "clockwork weapons" from MaxMini that I thing would be more suitable. As I have half dozen or so extra torsos, I'll likely build some replacements in the future.

With these done, it means that a vast majority of the models I have built for the army have been painted - all the more reason the build more models!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Mk II Hypaspist test models

2011-04-09T08:27:00.000-06:00

As I'd mentioned previously my intention has been to use the models I'm currently in the process of painting as the Praetorians in the Ad-Mech army, and build some other models for use as the Hypaspists (tech guard). While I was between colors, I banged out a couple test models to see how they'd look.

The bodies are Wargames Factory's Greatcoat Troopers, the heads are from Pig Iron, and the rest is GW Cadian guard bits. To represent the hellguns, I went with a replacement muzzle for the standard lasgun which is the lower portion of the main aerial trimmed from a Voxcaster. A couple other pieces are shaved from the Vox and is inverted as the model's backpack/power pack. I want to run cabling from the gun to the pack, but don't relish the thought of using guitar wire on 36 models. I think this may be the ideal time to try out the Dragon Forge cables, as I've heard nothing but good things about them!

More messing about with Heresy-Era models

2011-04-07T09:01:00.000-06:00

Still plugging away at the Hypaspists, but in between batches of color I took a little time to do some building and some cleanup on an existing model.

First up I went back and repainted the base for good ol' Sanguinius. I wasn't happy with the sandstone base I'd originally done, so I went back through and attempted a greenish marbled look. Better, but not perfect - I like the overall effect, but I think I was a little heavy handed with the white marbling. Practice makes perfect I suppose! Of course, as I'll never actually use this model, it's gone up on eBay.

With the release of the new Grey Knight plastics, I rummaged around in the Closet of Doom and pulled out the 5 Custodes Terminator bodies I'd picked up years and years ago. I decided that I'd kit them out as counts-as Paladins and armed them accordingly. While the Incinerator may not be the 'best' weapon upgrade available, it is the one that shows up in the artwork and therefore is the one I went with. Style before Purpose, I say!

In addition, I reclaimed an old, old Mk. IIb Land Raider for use as the Custodes Terminator Transport. It was very dusty so I gave it a bit of a wash and brush down, though it still looks fairly dirty. Another bath may be in order...

The Kabal of the Crimson Woe - Duke Harkanet completed

2011-04-06T08:59:00.001-06:00

I had to take a break from the assembly-line painting for a bit, and finished up the second Dark Eldar Archon - Duke Harkanet.

Duke Harkanet is the Crimson King's second in command, and takes to the field with his bodyguard of Incubi, and as such wears similar colors. Armed with a Soul Trap and a Husk Blade, he's used to hunt down enemy ICs which grant him a strength boost for every one he kills

The Incubi have been posted before, but I thought I'd include a pic again to show how the Archon ties in with the unit. Eventually I'll be building four more Incubi to fill up the Raider, though the squad can also be cut down to 4 and put them and Duke Harkanet in a Venom... It's good to have options!

Adeptus Mechanicus - Hypaspists in progress

2011-04-04T21:52:00.001-06:00

A little forward progress on the Hypaspist units over the past week. With 24 of them to do at once, I really start to notice how similar the various casts are. While they are nice models and I'm not complaining about the detail, there are only three variants, and to be honest at arms length they do all look about the same. Eventually these models will become the Praetorians for the Army and I'm scheming on how I'm going to build the replacements. I have several boxes of the Wargames Workshop Greatcoat Troopers, and at 18 in a box, the two boxes will allow me to build three 12-man units. I'm hoping that with the judicious application of Cadian arms and Pig Iron heads, the to-be-build Hypaspists will end up looking a bit more dynamic than these Iron Brotherhood sculpts.

...But back to the task at hand - the Iron Brotherhood models from MicroArt Studios. In order to keep myself from going completely insane while batch painting them, I decided that I would alternate the cloak and trim colors between the two units. One squad would have red cloaks with white cog trim and one would have white cloaks with red cog trim. Holy cow does painting all those little cogs ever get tedious! I still have the white cogs to do on the first unit, and then an entire pass of highlight red and while for all 24 models. Once that's done however, the rest of the detail work shouldn't take much time at all - the various hoses and lenses, some gold details on the bionics and I think I can call them done!

Our local gaming group recently kicked off a Special Operations: Killzone campaign, so I took a little time and banged out a small campaign map. We're keeping the map campaign rules extremely simple for this initial go - the tiles are simply a means for us to keep score. After 8-10 strategic turns the player who holds the most hexes (via winning games as the attacker) wins. Depending on how that goes, the next go-around we may try to add a bit more flavor to the campaign map with various tiles providing bonuses or detriments, as well as including add-ons such as the bastions, power generators, etc. that come with the Planetary Empires box...

Adeptus Mechanicus Army review

2011-03-29T15:19:00.002-06:00

I recently played a game with my Dark Eldar against SirBiscuit's Grey Knights. The game was great fun, but we didn't attempt to document an actual battle report. Following the game I threw down the gauntlet for a rematch. I, as many of you know, am primarily a hobby gamer whereas SirBiscuit is definitely a tournament player. That being the case I suggested a "WAAC Powergamer vs. Fluff Weenie" match at some point in the future. As an avowed Fluff Weenie, I offered to play my Adeptus Mechanicus, and figured that I'd pull the models out of their various boxes and shelves and see exactly where things stand.

It turns out there's a touch over 3500 points assembled and in various states of painting. There's still quite a bit lurking in pieces in the Closet of Doom, but I was pleased to note that of what there is assembled, there's really not all that much remaining to be painted. While I was at it I realized there were several units that I've never actually taken pictures of. Time to remedy that!

In addition to the previously-completed Archmagos Veneratus and Archmagos Prime and his Tech Magos Cabal, I have a fair number of other techpriest models that I've collected over the years. Enough in fact for another Archmagos Secundus and Cabal.. You can't really have TOO many Tech Priests after all!

The final HQ choice is a Skitarii Consul and his unit of Protectors. The Consul is made from the body of the Thunderfire Techpriest (whose arms and servo harness were rendered down for bits), and the Protectors are a mix of Iron Hands and other bits. Each of them is heavily bionic, and I'm considering painting them up as Iron Souls from the Rusted comics.

The Explorator force is heavily influenced by the Legio Cybernetica, and includes two maniples of Robots. The first unit, Maniple Psi Phi has been painted for quite some time. The second maniple includes one each of the five original Robots, which I've dubbed Maniple Chi Xi.

I've had the Luminen unit painted for quite some time, though they still need to be based. For a small 6-man unit, the Electro Priests are a rather scary assault unit.

While I was at it I did a little more work on the Myrmidon - Finished up the reds and started blocking in the cog patterns on the leg armor plates. I'm still deciding where else on the model I'm going to add the cogs - I'm thinking along the top 'neck' armor would be appropriate.

There's only about 40 models remaining to be painted, and I'd like to be able to field an entirely painted army for the incipient battle report, so I'm gearing up to batch paint all the remaining infantry. Oof.

Mordian 7th Regiment, the rebirth!

2011-03-23T17:26:00.001-06:00

I know this may come as a shock, but I actually did some work on my guard! I'll pause briefly while you recover from this stunning development.

To recap my history with the Mordian 7th Regiment - Ever since the Rogue Trader era, I've been enamored with the Imperial Guard, and my very first guard army was an attempt to recreate the army listed in the 40k Compendium. Since then the mighty 7th has held a special place in my heart, though I've never quite managed to complete the list in its entirety. The last version came very, very close however, though it was beleaguered by small hobby missteps that eventually culminated in my selling off the majority of it - It got to the point where I felt it would be more fun to rebuild than to repaint!

Chief among these is the fact that I didn't give them the correct paint scheme. Early on in the painting process I was (still) working on the Adeptus Mechanicus, and I cunningly decided that I could use the guard as Skitarii if I went with red and grey. According to the Compendium however the Mordian 7th's livery consisted of black fatigues trimmed in red to represent their hive ganger origins and their company motto "In the dark, blood will flow").

So I assembled a new Commander Evin Eldro and his command squad and set about trying out the 'correct' paint scheme. So far I'm pleased with how they're coming along. The dark blue/black fatigues with the red piping is reminiscent of the dress blues worn by the majority of the Mordian Iron Guard, and gives the impression of what they would look like if they donned standard guard flak armor. The breastplates on the Commander and the Standard Bearer are from the Empire Greatswords kit, and were chosen in an attempt to mimic the Rogue Trader-era guard command miniatures. I think I'm going to paint the medic's flak armor white to help distinguish him as the medic a bit better than he is now.

The tanks will be painted in a black and red scheme as well, as shown by the Bane Wold I'd painted a while back, and I think I'm going to keep the tank crews in red.. All in all I'm actually looking forward to dive back in to the guard!

Anathema Assault Tank, Part 4 - Painted!

2011-03-22T17:47:00.001-06:00

A bit more forward progress on the Anathema recently. Nothing too exciting, just finished up the red on the hull and started picking out some of the details.

I'm still trying to decide what other details I can add - the model doesn't really have a lot of large open spaces for unit markings.I think that somewhere on the model I want to add some white cog patterns to really tie it in to the Adeptus Mechanicus theme.

It really ends up looking fairly imposing, it is quite a large model in comparison to the 'standard' tanks. All in all it will be a suitable stand in for the Malcador Defender that it will be proxying.

All-in-all, I'd say that I'm 90% pleased with it as-is, but I'm still scratching my head as to what else it needs. Any suggestions, folks?

Inquisitorial Storm Raven, Complete!

2011-03-15T12:16:00.001-06:00

Now that the lion's share of the Dark Eldar are done, I wanted to switch gears and paint something else for a bit. The closest model to the painting desk at the time was the Storm Raven, so I figured I'd knock it out:

Nothing too special about it really, just your basic black and red scheme with gold details here and there. Some Boltgun metal on the engines and weapons, a quick bit of blue on the Plasma Cannons and cockpit, and white-tipped rockets and I called it good.

Unfortunately I had a bit of an issue with the sealant (for the first time in a long while). No frosting, thank the Emperor, but there was a bit of a 'crinkle' effect here and there on the fuselage. It's not super noticable in the picture, but just above the red flap on the wing you can sort of see it. A friend has suggested that a little wet sanding may be able to remove it, and even if it removes the paint it should be relatively simple to repaint the black area. Ah well.

In any case, my Inquisitors now have a new ride that is much more robust than the Aquila lander they used to use!

The Kabal of the Crimson Woe, Part 10 - Assembly line painting complete!

2011-03-10T21:10:00.003-07:00

After a couple weeks worth of slogging through the Assembly Line painting, not one, not two, but FIVE Dark Eldar units are finally completed! I suppose I could have staggered out the pictures over several days worth of blog posts, but I figured 'hey, I painted them all at once, I ought to post them all at once'!

To lead off with, the first of the two requisite troops choices for the army - a unit of Warriors. Nothing much to say about them, other than they're the unit that defined the colors for the army as a whole - red armor with brass/gold trim and blue tabards and eyes. The Sybarite's Agonizer got the green treatment to really make his weapon stand out.

The Wyches were a bit of a stumbling block initially. There are two other colors that go into their paint scheme - the pallid flesh tone (as all the Warriors are fully enclosed in their army and had no skin showing), and the leather bodysuits they wear. I didn't want to go with black leather, and had experimented with (but was ultimately dissatisfied by) brown leather on the Medusae, so I decided to try a dirty white color instead. The pictures don't show it off particularly well, but the purple-ish skin tone is distinguishable from the white leathers where the two meet. I carried the blue spot color through into their hair and the green into the specialist weapons and the Agonizer. From a modeling perspective I used bits from two boxes to ensure that all of the Wyches were female.

While I was halfway through the painting process I remembered that there were a few other infantry models that I'd built but hadn't included in the batch painting line-up. I quickly brought them up to speed and inserted them into the assembly line, in this instance the two Wyches with Shardnets (should I wish to swap them out for the Hydra Gauntlets), and Lileath Hesperax which I plan on just using as a Succubus in most games.

Next up is the five-man Trueborn unit, armed with Blasters. They'll cruise around in a Venom, while the Wyches and Warriors each have their own Raider. I really like how these models turned out, the mirrored helmets really give them a sense of menace and distinguish them from the Warriors. As they are the nobles of the Kabal, their armor received more gold plates to indicate their status.

Another unit I decided to add to the assembly line were the Incubi. I'd initially considered going with the 'standard' black armor and white helmets, but settled on carrying through the army colors instead. As they are significantly higher on the totem pole in the Kabal, I decided to carry the 'more gold than red' theme to its natural conclusion. The blue tabards and green specialist weapons tie them to the army paint scheme as well. Overall I'm pleased with how they turned out.

The final three models that were added to the queue were a trio of Privateer Press 'Cephalyx Overlord' models that I'm using for Haemonculi. They each hover over their bases on a small piece of steel wire and were almost ideal right out of the box, with the surgical apparatus sprouting from their shoulders. I added a Husk Blade from the Archon model to one of them to indicate it is the Haemonculus Ancient. They give off the twisted surgeon vibe quite nicely in my opinion. While I really love the new Urien Rackarth model and am quite looking forward to seeing what GW does for a new 'standard' Haemonculi, I really don't care for the current old-style models, and feel these suit the army quite well.

So, 36 models done in one fell swoop! Well, a two-week swoop. ...More of a casual float really. On the up side getting them finished dramatically updated the painting chart, which is always heartening. I've managed to stick to my guns about not building any more Dark Eldar until what I have assembled is completed, which means that at the moment all that remains assembled and awaiting paint are four Raiders, a Venom and five Reavers. Should be a snap after painting all that infantry! Once they're done I can crack open the Ravagers and the Hellions, which I'm really looking forward to building!

Heresy-Era Thousand Sons - Dreadclaw Drop Pod Conversion, Part 1

2011-03-03T13:03:00.002-07:00

I know that I want to include at least one Drop Pod in the Heresy-Era Thousand Sons army I'm slowly building, with the intent that it would carry Azhek Ahriman and his Red Sorcerer Coven into combat. Ideally I wanted to go with a Dreadclaw, but the one available from Forge World is a bit too Chaos-y for my purposes. That said, Old School Terminator over at Dark Future Games converted his own version using the standard plastic Drop Pod model and it works a treat!

I essentially followed his instructions and the whole model went together as though it was designed to be built this way. In fact, it was actually EASIER to build it like this than the 'real' way to do it! I was a bit premature in priming it, in retrospect I should have added a bit more decoration than I did. No fear though, a couple extra bits and another quick hit of primer and we'll be in business!

Hobby Retrospective - Necromunda, Spyre Hunters

2011-03-02T17:04:00.003-07:00

As many folks are contributing to the "Old Stuff Day" theme, I figured it would be a good time for another Hobby Retrospective (that, and I haven't got much done that's picture-worthy recently), this time around is a look at the last of my Necromunda gangs - The Spyre Hunters. Necromunda is arguably the cheapest way to game in the 40k tabletop universe, and no gang is more economical than the Spyre Hunters. Where most gangs consist of 8-12 models at initial creation, Spyre Hunters are commonly found hunting in groups of 4-5 (or even fewer)!

These are some of the oldest, and most-repainted models I still own. Over the years these four models have been stripped and repainted three times, and were purchased new when they were first released back in 1996-ish. I usually run a team with one each of the 4 Spire Houses - (from left to right) Jakara, Yeld, Orrus, and Malcadon. Unlike any other gang, any points not spent purchasing models is spent on additional starting experience, so usually I could rely on each of the Spyrers to begin their careers with an upgrade or two.

Of course, it wasn't uncommon to have a hunt team of ONE just for the opportunity to roll up an absolute monster for a one-off game. A fully tuned up Jakara or Malcadon can be pretty scary!

Inquisitorial Storm Raven, Part 2

2011-02-24T12:03:00.000-07:00

While I was working on the Dark Eldar, I also had the Storm Raven out on the desk and as such it got a little paint slapped on it to start blocking out the colors. I knew I wanted it to be predominantly black, so I started by giving it a quick drybrush of shadow grey along the edges and picked out a few panels in Dark Flesh, which acts as a base color for the intended red.

I also went over the model and picked out most of the decorative bits in Shining Gold followed by an Ogryn Flesh wash. The cockpit glass got a Midnight Blue coat while I was at it.

Some of the gold ended up running a bit (such as the =I= symbol on the back of the Hurricane Bolters) but those sections will be cleaned up with a black touch-up pass later on in the process.

I took a crack at painting the interior of the Storm Raven before I assembled it, mostly a quick Boltgun metal drybrush, some leather seats and green monitor screens. However I've found that once it's assembled, there's not a lot of light that makes it into the interior even with both hatches open and the top turret removed. Ah well, at least I didn't accidentally glue it shut for a change!

There's still quite a long way to go on this model, but thus far I'm pleased with the black and red scheme. It definitely comes off looking pretty menacing!