It came from the Closet of Doom - Ambull and Damsel in Distress

I've been doing some much needed clean-up of the hobby loft recently, organizing the hundreds of miscellaneous models covering nearly every horizontal surface into their respective armies. Well, into loosely affiliated piles is probably a bit more accurate. Naturally, there are quite a few models that defy categorization that ended up in a "miscellaneous" pile. A pair of them caught my eye and I couldn't help but spend an hour or so painting them up. Beauty, and the Beast!

The "beauty" is a model I got from Ramshackle Games along with my order of motorbikes used for my Rough Riders. A bit of a rough sculpt, but perfect for an objective marker for the... less savory armies out there. I think I need to go in and touch up the face a bit - this particular model is somewhat lacking definition in the sculpt, so I'll need to do some false highlighting to give it a bit more zest. This model is one of the oldest in the series Curtis has done, and his newer sculpts are really well done. I heartily recommend Ramshackle games - he's always adding not only new models, but also has an extensive "bits and bobs" section chock full of cool conversion potential!

 

The beast is an old, out of print Ambull - a critter from the Rogue Trader days, that burrows around underground and is a general nuisance creature. Well, a nuisance that stands about 9 feet tall, weighs a quarter ton and has claws capable of digging through solid rock! A colony of Ambulls showed up in one of Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain novels more recently, which definitely got a smile out of me. I'm tempted to add this to my guard army as a "regimental pet" - perhaps as a proxy Nork Deddog... "Who's a good boy?"

Imperial Guard - Re-engaging with the army

With the World Eaters coming to a close, I find myself at a bit of a crossroads. The long-term intent has been to paint up a Heresy era army for each of the "Big Four" traitor legions - the Thousand Sons, the World Eaters, the Emperor's Children, and the Death Guard. However, I'm finding myself rapidly tiring of painting space marines and I've decided that since the next Tempus Fugitives event (for which the Heresy era armies are designed) isn't for another ten months, I have plenty of time to work on something else for a while. The weekly painter's challenge going on over at Dark Future Games has got me looking through all the shelves of half-to-unpainted models and the guard jumped out at me. ...Literally, one of their boxes fell of the shelf and I had to catch it before it started an avalanche in the Closet of Doom!

I pulled out all the models that have been built for the Mordian 7th Regiment, D Company to see what there was to work with. It has been well over a year since I've even looked at the models, and I was somewhat surprised at how little there actually was left to paint. Just a medium-sized infantry platoon and a couple tanks!

First things first - as I'd mentioned in a prior post, the Beastmen had gotten their base colors blocked in earlier in the week, so I finished them off. These would be my entry for this weeks Kill Point challenge over at DFG, and I'm quite looking forward to fielding them soon!

While I was at it I began re-basing some of the models from the previous rendition of the Mordian 7th, in order to get them to match up with the current theme. Thargadd's Thumpers, the Ogryn squad got the treatment first. The Ratlings and Psyker battle squad are up next - plenty of abhumans and such in the 7th, no wonder they are looked at askance by many other Imperial commanders!

Still lost in the depths of the Closet of Doom are a number of un-assembled Chimeras in boxes as well as a Rapier Laser Destroyer. The army feels a little light on tanks, which is something I'll need to rectify. Another couple Leman Russ battle tanks and perhaps a new Macharius as a centerpiece for the army aren't completely out of the question...

The advent of 6th edition has seriously rekindled my enthusiasm for the game, and since the Guard have always been my first love, I think it's high time I started working on them again!

Terrain - Mysterious Forests, Quad Autocannons, and more!

With the advent of 6th edition, there are tons of new terrain types and rules which really piqued my interest and got me foraging through the Closet of Doom to see what I could unearth and add to my painted terrain collection. My local gaming group gives me grief about the fact that the vast majority of my terrain is urban themed, so it was high time to work on a couple stands of trees!

The Aegis defense lines and bastions each come with the option to buy a quad autocannon emplacement, and as I had several built and primered it was a simple thing to give 'em a quick drybrush and wash to get them table ready. As they're usable by more or less any faction, I decided to leave them very simple and generic so they'd fit in with whomever happened to be firing them at the time.

Lastly I knocked together a couple pieces that could be used as generic objective markers, or as scatter terrain with specific rules. From left to right, an ammo dump, a comms relay and an Imperial shrine. Each of them are useful in their own way, and add a little visual pop to the battlefields!

Working on little terrain projects like this provide a nice break between painting unit after unit of an army, and helps keep the creative juices flowing! Now back to the grind...

July 4th Rumble - 1st 6th edition game!

Over the 4th of July a buddy of mine and I got together to try out the new 6th edition rules. We agreed to try to do a fully-painted game, with him bringing his Blood Angels to face off against my Heresy-era World Eaters. It seemed only appropriate that on Independence Day the armies would be Red, White and Blue! Hah! 

The Armies

We decided to keep things reasonably small as we knew we'd be spending just as much time flipping through the rules as we would pushing lead, so 1500 points seemed like a reasonable number. Neither of us took allies or fortifications for our first game out, though we both discussed the various pros and cons of both prior to the game.

World Eaters:

Terminator Company Captain (Lightning Claw and Combi-Melta, makes Terminators Troops)
4 Cataphract Terminators (Lightning Claws and Combi-Meltas)
Bale, Berzerker Dreadnought (Drop Pod)
10-man Tactical Squad (Missile Launcher, Flamer)
16-man Berzerker Squad (Chainaxe, bolt pistol)
Land Raider Phobos
Storm Eagle (Lascannons, Heavy Bolter, Vengeance Launcher)

Blood Angels:

Codicier Librarian
Epistolary Librarian
2x Sanguinary Priests
10-man Assault Squad
10-man Assault Squad
10-man Tactical Squad
Land Raider Redeemer
Baal Predator
'Vanilla' Predator

Table Setup

 

I decided to do a narrative table setup, with one side of the table being the ruined outskirts of a city, and the other side being more open hilly/forested terrain. I added a number of various scatter terrain pieces including a couple quad-cannons, some ammo and fuel dumps and a comms relay. I really like the fact that they've added in rules for all sorts of fun little terrain pieces, it really makes the battlefield more interactive and 'alive'.

We rolled off for deployment and Dave won the roll, choosing to go second. We also rolled for Warlord Traits with the World Eater Terminators getting Move Through Cover and the Blood Angels forcing the game to start using the Night Fighting rules. We also rolled for mission and table setup, coming up with The Relic mission, played long-ways on the table. We both agreed that the various missions all sounded pretty neat and dove in!

World Eaters Deployment

The World Eaters deployed their Tactical Squad and Land Raider in the ruins of the city, reserving the Drop Pod, Terminators and Storm Eagle.

Blood Angels Deployment

The Blood Angels invest the forest with the Redeemer, while the two predators lurk on the right flank. The two squads of Assault Marines remain in reserve.

World Eaters Turn 1

 

Bale Drop Pods in, behind the forest nearest the Redeemer. The Land Raider moves up and fires on the Baal Predator, failing to damage the vehicle while the Tactical Squad advance into the cover of the ruins.

Blood Angels Turn 1

Vehicles all advance, the Baal Predator flanks the tactical squad, killing the missile launcher - earning the first blood VP, and demonstrating more thought needs to be given to individual model placement, which I quite like. Of course, the shot also removed the unit's primary means of dealing with the Predator... The Redeemer's assault cannon fires on the tactical squad, but the combination of cover and the night fighting range modifiers, they are unscathed. Similarly, the machine spirit of the Redeemer fired the multi-melta also to no effect.

World Eaters Turn 2

No reserves arrive to support the World Eaters advance. Bale enters the mysterious forest, nothing remarkable occurs however, and the dreadnought thunders through the undergrowth. The Land Raider fired its lascannons, penetrating and destroying the 'vanilla' Predator. However, the ensuing explosion kills a further 2 tactical marines! Bale charges the Redeemer, but doesn't so much as scratch the paint.

Blood Angels Turn 2

 

Both of the Blood Angel assault squads arrived, but due to a wonky reading of the descent of angels rule combined with IC's with jump packs, one of the units suffered a deep strike mishap and was destroyed. In the after battle review, that misunderstanding was corrected, so in the future they take better advantage of the reduced scatter. The Baal Predator continued to lay waste to the tactical marines, killing a further 3 World Eaters. They steadfastly refuse to break under the withering firepower, however. In the forest, the Redeemer threw its drive into reverse, and focused its weapons on Bale. The multi-melta reduced the dreadnought to a molten pool.

World Eaters Turn 3

 

Reinforcements arrive! The Storm Eagle zooms across the board, while the Terminators teleport next to the locator beacon in the drop pod. I was hoping to be able to teleport more or less right on top of the Relic, but the fact that the fences were dangerous terrain kept me from attempting it. Instead they direct their bolter fire at the assault marines, slaying 2 of them. The Land Raider pivots in place and unloads a hail of lascannon and heavy bolter fire into the assault marines. When the dust settles, a single marine topples over dead. The remainder of the squad jeers at the ineffectualness of it all.

Blood Angels Turn 3

  

The Redeemer drives around to disgorge a unit of tactical marines, while the assault marines move to flank the Land Raider. The Baal Predator mercilessly annihilates the remainder of the World Eater tactical squad. This pales in comparison however to the Tactical squad, led by a Librarian.

They opened up on the Terminators with 14 bolter shots, a melta gun and a max roll Smite, which managed to kill all four of the Captain's terminator bodyguard - the final terminator leapt in front of the melta shot that would have killed the Captain. I thought that was definitely a fun mechanic. The Captain was unfazed by the carnage however.

World Eaters Turn 4

 

The Land Raider goes hunting for the Baal Predator, and manages to strip a hull point off of it. The Storm Eagle enters Hover mode and fires its Lascannons into the Redeemer, also removing a hull point. The Vengeance launchers miss pathetically. The Terminator Captain decides discretion is the better part of valor and moves with intent toward the Relic.

Blood Angels Turn 4

The Baal Predator moves to flank the Storm Eagle now that it's acting as a skimmer, but fails to damage it. The Redeemer however does manage to strip a hull point. The Tactical squad moves up and unleashes another torrent of fire into the Captain, reducing him down to a single wound.

World Eaters Turn 5

 

The Berzerkers disembark and move towards the Relic, while the now grievously wounded Captain takes refuge in the nearby Land Raider, which then pops smoke. The Storm Eagle pivots and obliterates the Baal Predator. Vengeance!

Blood Angels Turn 5

 

The Assault squad ignites their jump packs and land on the Relic, while the Redeemer moves up to unleash twin gouts of flame over the encroaching Berzerkers. 4 World Eaters are slain. The Tactical squad also unleash their frankly terrifying volume of fire into the Berzerkers, but Khorne protects the World Eaters and not a single wound is caused.

At this point the die is rolled for extra turns and turn 6 is played!

World Eaters Turn 6

The World Eaters had a chance to wrest the Relic from the hands of the assault squad, and though the Berzerkers roll a simply terrifying number of attack dice, they only manage to cut down 5 of the assault marines. The Assault marines manage to slay two of the Berzerkers in return. The morale check is passed and they fight on.

Blood Angels Turn 6

The assault marines are whittled down to a single battle brother, but manage to inflict so many casualties in return that it is the Berzerkers who must pass a Morale check. They do so and they remain locked in combat.


The final die is rolled to see if there is a turn 7... But there is not!

Tallying up the VPs, the game went 4-0 to the Blood Angels - First Blood (+1) and Control of the Relic (3) to the boys in red. Neither of us accomplished the Slay the Warlord objective however.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I had an absolute blast with the new rules! The game took us the better part of 5 hours, but that was primarily due to us going through the rules with a fine toothed comb for every phase and every question. There were a number of times we started to do something using the 5th ed. rules but stopped to double-check how it worked in the new edition. While many things remain the same, there are a lot of subtle changes as well. Now that I've had a chance to see how the game plays out, some of the little changes that seemed odd on their own make perfect sense in context with the other little changes here and there.

While I can see that the new edition may throw the competitive world into a frenzy, as far as just having a fun game with friends goes I definitely thing this new rule set is absolutely fantastic, and I'm really looking forward to playing more games in 6th edition!

Imperial Guard - Beastmen painting in progress

What's this? Actually working on models for the army the blog is named for? Unbelievable! With the fluff section of the new rulebook mentioning various Abhumans, it seemed like an ideal time to pull out a unit that has been lurking in the Closet of Doom for literally over three years now. Beastmen!

The original Mordian 7th D Company actually contained two units of Beastmen, led by Packmasters Org and Raakt. In the current build however I've just built a single unit. In-game I run them as Penal Legion with the Knife Fighters skill, at the cost of having no ranged weapons. At this point they've just gotten the fur complete and I've just started blocking in the rest of the main colors.

In other news, a buddy of mine and I had our first game of 40k using the new rules on the 4th of July, so a post battle report will be coming shortly! Still organizing pics and doing the write up. Suffice it to say it was definitely Red, White and Blue!

Iron Hands - Iron Father on Bike and Bike Squad painted

The weekly Kill Point challenge continues this week - be sure to check out Dark Future Games for all the other cool work that's being done, and by all means, join in! The more the merrier!

I've really been struggling to keep motivated on the World Eaters of late, and that's gotten me rooting around in the Closet of Doom for other things to work on. This time around, it's a unit of Iron Hands that were given to me by a good friend of mine - he's been gallivanting around the world for the last several years and has had to more or less give up the miniatures hobby. Like me, he also had a predilection with the Adeptus Mechanicus, and had built quite a significant amount of Iron Hands as they are closely aligned with the Red Priests of Mars. This unit was mostly built but unprimered when I got a hold of them, and after a bit of re-basing and minor repairs/tweaks, I set to painting!

The unit consists of an Iron Father on a bike, five bikers and an assault bike. The Iron Father is made primarily from a biker Chaplain model, with the addition of a Servo-arm and a bit of a cog update to his Crozius.

 

The bike squad is led by a sergeant with a power axe - again, the cog-themed bits help tie them in with the Adeptus Mechanicus, and apparently in 6th edition the power axe is a fairly nasty weapon!

 

The specialists in the bike squad are armed with a meltagun and a plasma gun, respectively. The meltagunner is fairly standard, while the plasma gunner is represented by an arm off a Servo-harness which I thought made for a neat look.

 

The attack bike driver has a buzzsaw arm from a Necromunda Pit Slave, and while it may not have any particular effect on the tabletop, it does look fairly threatening!

 

Definitely a fun little diversion from the unrelenting white and blue. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with this unit - I have no real plan to make an Iron Hands army, so they'll likely just end up going on the auction block. After all, I need to build up the hobby fund a bit after nearly emptying it out upgradung to 6th edition!

Terrain Projects - Skullvane Defense Laser

Been eagerly devouring the new 6th edition rules and am really quite excited about it. One of the things I really like is all the varied new terrain options, which got me fired up to make some new buildings!

A while back I got a great deal on the Skullvane Manse set, which I'd schemed on making into a defense laser emplacement. And a rummage through the bits boxes provided the basis for a big power generator and some various aerials.

 

One of the things I've always liked is the contrast of medieval architecture and modern tech that is seen in a lot of the artwork, and I tried to capture the feeling that it's just an ancient building that has been re-purposed, rather than a purpose-built emplacement.

There are several other large terrain pieces lurking the the Closet of Doom, and the renewed enthusiasm 6th has stirred up means they might see a paintbrush soon as well!