Trying out the Killzone rules

This past weekend a friend of mine and I tried out the rather interesting Killzone rules that the folks over at Galaxy in Flames had put together. I'd been wanting to give them a try as they seemed to be a nice crossover between the full 40k rules, the 3rd and 4th edition Kill Team rules and the significantly thin Kill Team rules presented in the recent Battle Missions book. While we didn't try to do a full-on battle report while trying out the rules for the first time, I did snap some pictures of the table and a couple turns in progress (warning, big ol' pictures, click to embiggen).

As I really enjoy Necromunda where the more terrain the better, I was looking forward to really packing the table. I broke out a couple pieces I don't use too often, including two high-rise, non-rubbled buildings.

  

The first game was an ambush scenario, where my "David and Goliath" team (3 Ogryns and 4 Ratling Snipers) attempted to escape the pincer assault of two teams of Traitor guard, mutants, and other Lost and the Damned troops. While the Ogryns made a valiant effort to protect their smaller abhuman kin, the entire team of snipers were killed. A sole Ogryn made it off the table edge at the end of the battle, the rest of the models were cut down by the combined fire of the traitorous scum.

 

The second battle was (on paper) a little more evenly-matched. I built a 'Faux-Colonel Schaeffer's Last Chancers' team using choices from a veteran squad and a platoon command squad, while my opponent was running an Alpha Legion themed team with a couple marines and a huge pack of chaos hounds. While the guardsmen put up a valiant fight, they too were pulled down and slain by the relentless advance of the traitors.
All in all, a dark day for the Imperium!

Overall we had a good time, and the Killzone rules seemed to be smooth and well thought out. In fact we're considering incorporating some of the rules into our games of regular 40k, notably the difficult terrain movement rules - we both agreed that the 4" movement in difficult terrain sped up the game considerably as my tables generally include a fair bit of difficult/area terrain. We're looking forward to playing more Killzone soon! My thanks to Big Jim and the rest who came up with this rule set - I heartily recommend giving it a try if you haven't already!

Hobby Retrospective - Necromunda, Delaque Gangers

Not a lot of hobby time over the past week, but I did manage to go through my miniature collection and snap some pics of some older models that lurk on the shelves - so today it's time for another Hobby Retrospective. Sadly many of the Specialist Games that GW used to support have been deprecated and it's but once in a blue moon that we see any new models or rules for any of the great games they used to support. One of my personal favorites is Necromunda, the skirmish-level, campaign-centric game of gang wars in the underhives! My local gaming group has played countless games of Necromunda and we still dust off the old minis and terrain occasionally.

My main team is The Azure Serpents, a group of Delaque gangers who these days more often serve as 'generic bad guys' for my Rogue Trader campaign.

The leader of the gang carries a Bolter (to take advantage of his BS:4) and a Stubgun (as the Bolter invariably ammo-checks and runs out of ammo).

A trio of specialists gives the gang some serious punch. The Heavy Stubber and Flamer take the field fairly often, while funding the Lascannon-toting heavy usually requires surviving a number of games to come up with the credits first. Suffice it to say, he doesn't get used that often.

The humble shotgun is truly one of the most versatile weapons in Necromunda, with the ability to fire a number of different shells.

On the other hand, there is no more reliable weapon than the lasgun. Four gangers with lasguns ensure that the group is always ready to lay down fire on their enemies.

The Autogun is also a nice weapon, essentially interchangeable with the Lasguns. These two models usually end up toting around the grenades, as they both have nice big pouches modeled on their backs.

No gang is complete without a group of Juves, the (frankly pathetic) gang initiates who will one day grow up to be fully fledged members - assuming they're not horribly killed in a game before they get the chance!

Lastly, a converted biker model that uses some of the alternate rules that were available in Necromunda/Gang Fight Magazine (briefly). Luckily our group collectively owns nearly all of the expansion magazines and books, so it's not uncommon to see a lot of non-standard models (and entire gangs) take the field...

Heresy-Era Thousand Sons - Faux Mk. I Rhino, Part 1

With the hoopla surrounding Chaperhouse Studio's imminent lawsuit, I picked up a couple of their upgrade kits before they get shut down. Specifically, I was interested in their "Mk. I Rhino" upgrade (downgrade?) kits - the pictures on the site were intriguing, but I wasn't able to find any pictures of how the kit looked actually assembled on a current Rhino. For $12, however, I figured I'd go ahead and give it a shot.

The kit contains two side doors, a choice of two front armor plates, a replacement cupola, and a set of decorative side panels to represent the grilles that the old Rhino sported. All the parts fit the model beautifully! I picked up two kits - one for each of the two Tactical squads that I intend to build for the army, but I'm considering ordering a couple more.

I dug around in my bits box to find one of the older-style dozer blades and trimmed the exhaust pipes off the model. I plan on replacing them with some curved exhaust pipes similar to the old style Rhino, but as yet I haven't found the appropriate bits to do so. I've considered making them out of bent tubing, but my initial attempts to bend the tubing I had on hand resulted in kinks and uneven curves. Back to the drawing board on that front!

Heresy-Era Thousand Sons - Seraphis, Librarian Dreadnought Part 1

On today's episode of "what the hell man, ANOTHER project?" we take a look at one of the models I've been working on for the planned Heresy-Era Thousand Sons army. I had been going back and forth on what codex I wanted to use and finally decided that the Tempus Fugitives Horus Heresy codex would be what I'd use. Since I only play games with friends I'm not super concerned about making something 100% tournament legal - fluff at all costs, that's me!

One of the units in the TF list is Seraphis, a Librarian Dreadnought armed with a Force Halberd and a Plasma Cannon (as well as a couple psychic powers). With the release of the new Furioso dreadnought kit, I knew that I wanted to utilize the new force halberd, but I wasn't completely sold on the pneumatic-ram arm they provide. Instead I decided on mixing-and-matching bits from the Venerable Dreadnought kit and the new Furioso kit, plus some odds and ends in my bits boxes. I decided that the model would be holding the halberd with the fist provided in the Venerable kit, and was pleased to note that it fit in the hand without any need for cutting or drilling!

I knew I wanted to add a large tabard/loincloth to the model to tie it in with the rest of the Thousand Sons and make it a bit more ornate, and rooting around in the bits boxes provided a pair of metal coat-tails from an old Inquisitor-scale model that seemed to be made for the job. Never throw any unused bit away - you never know when it may come in handy!

I decided to use the 'Anubis/Jackal' head from a set of alternate Thousand Sons models I picked up on eBay, and went with the exposed torso on the sarcophagus. I initially planned on using the Librarian sarcophagus from the Furioso kit, but decided that it just had too much Blood Angel iconography that would require scraping, and the alternate head wouldn't have fit. I still have a bit more decoration to add, as well as the storm bolter that attaches under the power fist, but it's more or less ready to go. Too bad it's been 10-20 degrees below zero Fahrenheit for the last week - not a lot of primering going on recently!

Sanguinius - Primarch of the Blood Angels

A while back I had the opportunity to pick up a couple Primarch models - Magnus the Red would eventually lead the Heresy-Era Thousand Sons I'm slowly collecting bits for, the Leman Russ was handed off to the Space Wolf player in our group (who also painted the Deathwatch marine in the picture), and I'd picked up a Sanguinius for a friend who played Blood Angels. However, between when I'd placed the order and when I actually received it he decided to abandon the Blood Angels which meant ol' Sanguinius was suddenly superfluous. That being the case I figured I'd just paint it myself!

Unfortunately, there are a couple things about it that I absolutely don't like, now that I've had a chance to ponder the model. Most importantly is the fact that he ended up looking a little cross-eyed. I'll be rectifying that soon! Secondly, I was aiming for a marble-esque look on the base, but I more or less failed completely and it will be getting redone using an interesting tutorial I found here. I think the greenish marble effect shown on that tutorial will probably make the rest of the model 'pop' better than the quasi sandstone that I'd originally done. Finally, I think his hair needs to be a little more blond than it turned out here. Luckily it's been so cold and snowy of late that the model has yet to be sealed, so touching up the paint job should be relatively painless!

Terrain Project - Hills and Toxic Pools

It's a running joke that games at my place invariably are set in urban environments, so a woodworking friend of mine made a set of hills and sludge pits for my tables to change things up a bit.

There's enough to comfortably cover a full 4x8 table (this shot is it all condensed in to a 4x4 space), and they definitely will come in handy to give my battlefields a little more flavor. They're all made from very sturdy plywood, sanded and finished to withstand some serious gaming. I particularly like the sludge pools - he used a couple different techniques on the water effects and they turned out looking really toxic.

Anathema Assault Tank, Part 3 - Initial basecoats

As I'd mentioned in my last post, I decided to paint the Anathema and the Myrmidon simultaneously. I'm going with the basic metal and red scheme on both of vehicles, and as such started off with a heavy drybrush of Boltgun Metal followed by a Badab Black wash. Eventually I'll hit some of the higher edges with another pass of Boltgun Metal and a light pass of Chainmail, although that hasn't happened as yet.

I decided to trim down the roller pins to recover the caps which I then glued in place on the wheels. Still a little disappointed in that aspect of the kit, but overall I think it turned out fairly well. It ends up looking suitably heavy yet slightly ramshackle.

There's definitely more red armor plate space on the Anathema than there is on the Myrmidon. After I'd gotten the red undercoat on this tank, I reconsidered how spare the red was on the walker. This is just the Dark Flesh step - the models will both get a coat of Red Gore followed by highlights of Blood Red and Blazing Orange on the extreme edges. Once that's done I'll be going back through and adding the white cog-wheel edging on certain areas.

All in all I think it's going to be a fun project to finish up - it's just such an absurd vehicle!