The Glorious Works

Oath of Moment

2024-03-20T17:06:00.008+00:00

Chaos Lord with the Mark of Slaanesh

It's been a long while since I've posted anything on here and it will likely be a long time before I do so again. I wanted to signpost to a new blog I've started as I thought I couldn't get on here any more. The plan is to cover lots of my hobby for Age of Sigmar, 40k, and Underworlds plus to get back to useful tutorials and reviews etc in time too.

Winged Daemon Prince with Mark of Slaanesh

Please visit my new Oath of Moment blog to see more of my Creations of Bile and Hedonites of Slaanesh amongst others!

Rilynstra's Doom - The Kabal of the Murderous Refrain

2013-07-22T21:09:00.001+01:00

Been a while since there's been any actual hobby on here! At the moment I'm working on a few 40k armies that go in tandem with one another. They are:

A Dark Eldar army - The Kabal of the Murderous Refrain.
A Craftworld Eldar army - The Felbrineth Kindred of Craftworld Rilynstra
An Eldar Cosair army - The Empyreal Reavers

I've got some fluff worked out to link them all together and as the various projects progress I'll share some snippets of that. To start off with though I have a few WIP pictures of my Archon's second in command that I'm working on at the moment. His name is Indolas Kallixian Hierarch of the Kabal of the Murderous Refrain.

Lots of work to go on him obviously!

I've also written some background about the Kabal:

Nim’ileth broods over a nodal point in the webway. The traffic passing through has seen Nim’ileth swell from the palace of a self-aggrandising Eldar Lord before the fall to a multi-levelled sprawl. Numerous docks line the spires and around this hub of Eldar activity a small city has grown.
Nim’ileth was once a chaotic neutral ground for the disparate lines of the Eldar a race, a semblance of order prevails now under the watch of the Kabal of the Murderous Refrain. Theft and murder are rife but little more could be expected of a den of corsairs and raiders, however the Kabal of the Murderous Refrain are swift in putting down any activities that damage their profit or threaten their hold on Nim’ileth. All of the Pleasure Houses and bars, traders and stores provide a cut to the Kabal whether in the form of goods or information. Likewise those ships that travel through and the outcasts and corsairs that are drawn to Nim’ileth all pay the Kabal’s toll and even those of Commorragh that pass through must pay their way.

Such power that is held by the Kabal of the Murderous Refrain is eyed jealously by the smaller Kabals of Commorragh and those that are outcast or exiled whilst the real power players have little interest in Nim’ileth whilst it has no impact on their own scheming, indeed most look upon the nodal port with either disinterest or outright disdain so far is it from the power games of the Dark City. But those that move against them quickly learn that the Kabal of the Murderous Refrain is not lax in enforcing its control and that the riches passing through their hands have been used to ensure they are equipped to defend what is theirs for their Archon - Lady Alithrae Kallixian guards her power jealously against the ambitions of those around her and those who would see her Kabal destroyed.

Lady Alithrae’s rise to power began with the death of her father. A death met upon her own envenomed swords. Her father, Marquis of the noble House Kallixian, had ruled over a small pocket realm slaved to the city of Commorragh when Asdrubael Vect rose to power. Resisting the designs of the self-proclaimed Tyrant of Commorragh the Marquis had become embroiled in a bloody conflict with the Kabals allied to Vect. Thebattle was costly bleeding House Kallixian of the last vestiges of its true power but where her father was stubborn and inflexible, Alithrae was adaptable and utterly ruthless. All she saw was her inheritance being surrendered step by inevitable step. There was no future in resisting Vect, stronger Houses than Kallixian had already fallen victim to his meteoric rise and his power grew with each new subrealm conquered from his enemies.

In a swift and decisive blow Alithrae and her supporters murdered the Marquis and cut down any that stood to oppose her succession. Alithrae herself went to Vect and of her father’s satellite realm she made a gift to the Overlord. From the ashes of House Kallixian rose the Kabal of the Murderous Refrain. Whilst Alithrae held sway over a Kabal of her own her power had been bought at the cost of all her holdings but Alithrae’s ambitions lay further afield than the Dark City. She knew Vect would only allow a Scion of House Kallixian to survive whilst she was an irrelevance. She’s never gain any real power there as to do so would be to invite a score of daggers to her throat. House Kallixian maintained a modest fleet of ships and it was to these that Lady Alithrae took. Taking her leave of Commorragh the Kabal of the Murderous Refrain set out into the sea of stars.
An age of piracy followed, preying on the fledgling races of the galaxy to great profit but Lady Alithrae’s name only next appeared in the whisperings of Commorragh when the story spread of her having seized Nim’ileth. Alithrae herself rarely returns to Commorragh, when she does so her stay is short and often shrouded in secrecy but the vessels of the Kabals move between the Dark City and Nim’ileth regularly; carrying goods, information and tribute.

High in the spires of the palace of Nim’ileth lies the jewel in the Kabal of the Murderous Refrain’s crown. The Choir, more than anything else the Kabal of the Murderous Refrain possesses, inspires jealous whisperings in Commorragh. Created by the rogue genius Milengeth at the behest of Lady Alithrae. The Choir is a thing of terrible splendour. Concentric circles of cribs restrain row upon row of slaves beneath an array of torture equipment. Each of the slaves has been honoured by the touch of Milengeth’s scalpels, having been the subject of the rogue haemonculus’ surgeries. Their vocal chords are all modified so that they can produce only one perfect note and nothing more. Different slave stock are selected for the natural timbre and tone that their forms provide and then modified to fit the Choir’s needs.

At the touch of a button the subject is wracked with torturous energy from the array above their heads and an amplifier activated to magnify their screams, now at the perfect pitch following the Haemonculus’ ‘tuning’ surgeries. Like a maniacal pianist the Haemonculus moves from button to button blending the screams of his victims into a symphony of pain. When a ‘note’ in the choirc is burnt out another slave will undergo the necessary surgeries to replace them.
Whilst Milengeth is the genius behind the creation of this vile device it was Lady Alithrae that commissioned the Haemonculus’ magnum opus and it is she who basks in the symphony of music and pain that it produces – enervating her and those she honours by inviting them to enjoy a recital.

Recently accepted delivery of the first wave of the Craftworld army too:

Lots to be getting on with! Expect further updates soon!

The Return of the Wrecked Vehicle Markers

2013-07-21T20:19:00.001+01:00

I sold some of these in the past and I've started making these again if anybody is interested.

The ebay listing can be found here

These are hand made so each individual marker can vary slightly in appearance.

A New Blog - WH30K

2012-10-25T09:40:00.003+01:00

We've recently launched a new hobby blog focussing on the Great Crusade / Horus Heresy era. With the release of 'Horus Heresy Book 1: Betrayal' and the continued brilliance of the Horus Heresy series from Black Library its been quite easy to lose ourselves to the background, imagery and scale of war portrayed within. So, we decided to launch a new blog to track our exploits and we have some new contributors with Heresy Era armies of their own.

Check out our progress at WH30K

We're also up on Facebook

and Twitter @WH30K

40k Is Dead! Long Live 30k!

2012-09-25T21:25:00.000+01:00

The Horus Heresy, it's pretty much always been there in the background. It quickly became the anchor of a lot of the background and has since given rise to card games, board games, art books, novels and now at last a Warhammer 40k Expansion.

Games Day UK 2012 saw the limited release of the new Forge World Horus Heresy expansion. Book One: Betrayal. The book and some of the new miniatures will get their full release in the next few weeks. Myself and James were both fortunate to get our hands on a copy of the book on the day.

The first thing that has to be discussed is the book itself. There are some on the forums becrying the cost of this book. Now, whilst I understand that it's quite a hit on the wallet it's worth absolutely every penny of that amount. You'll never own a more beautifully produced and well thought out book as this one (unless you buy the future books in the series). It has the look of one of those old fashioned leather bound encyclopedia series (before Wikipedia etc meant that all you needed was internet access!) which feels very fitting for the subject material. This is a majestic tome talking about the mythical past of the 40k universe, detailing the beginning of a galaxy spanning war between gods and demi-gods, it would have been a crime to make it any less splendid a physical product. The other thing you have to consider is we're talking about a game within the game where a basic Legion Tactical Squad will cost you about £60.00! This is boutique hobby gear, there's no avoiding the fact that this is not for the faint-hearted. But it all depends on just how into this you want to get. There's nothing to stop you buying this book and using your existing minis with the odd differences in equipment loadouts etc but that's only half of this particular strand of the hobby.

So, moving on from what it actually looks like and the cost we can get to the rest thrust of this post. The content of this book and what it means to the hobby. Now the Horus Heresy is the crux of the beautiful creation myth of the grim darkness that becomes the galaxy in Warhammer 40,000. It's not the sort of background that can be glossed over and there's no danger of that. The background to the Heresy itself and then the events of Istvaan III is explored in great detail with lots of background material, quotes, images and maps. There's not a sniff of a rule in this book until page 143 where we're presented with the rules for playing through The Death of Istvaan III Campaign. The background section is amazing. I've only had a chance to skim through and enjoy the artwork so far but it's very evident that a lot of work has gone into collating the background that had already been fleshed out and meshing it together with greater detail to fit the design ethos of this particular book.

The Death of Istvaan III Campaign looks like it'll be very popular amongst the already large following that the Horus Heresy era has amongst wargamers. Split into four phases each with their own rules the campaign follows the unfolding battle on Istvaan III and even if you're playing with two World Eaters forces for example it creates enough distinction as you go along between the Traitors and Heretics in what they're fighting for and how this is represented on the tabletop that by the middle of the campaign they do appear to be very separate forces and the traitors aren't just a soon-to-be-spikier mirror image of their loyalist counterparts. The aim of the campaign is to earn Campaign Points to win each phase, the side that wins a phase benefits from The Rewards of Victory going into the next phase and the ultimate result is determined by the whichever side wins the final phase of the campaign. At the end of the first phase if the Traitors win they have reached The Point of No Return and so baptised in the blood of their brothers all Traitor units with the Legiones Astartes rule gain +1 Leadership for the remainder of the campaign. Whereas if the Loyalists win their Reward is Tenacity and they may take an additional fortification and grant an infantry unit from their primary detachment with the Infiltrate special rule to represent them digging themselves into the fortifications that kept them safe from the Warmaster's Life-Eater Virus attack.

Following on from the campaign are the new Missions and Legendary Battles for Istvaan III. There are 6 deployment types and 6 missions. Then there's a further four Legendary Battles for each phase of the Death of Istvaan III campaign. The 6 missions are similar to what we've seen before but each has a few twists to make them different enough to be well worth a look. The Legendary Battles are a bit more of a break from the norm with special deployment rules and very different victory conditions in some cases. My personal favourite is The Flight Of Truth where the Loyalists have to protect three 'Messengers of Truth' - Remembrancers, iterators, astropaths or other individuals who carry evidence of Horus' treachery - and get them to the Shuttle objectives so they can escape Istvaan III and take word to Terra of the Heresy.

After the missions we move on to the rules for the Legiones Astartes Army List which also includes a new Warlord Traits table and a new Allies matrix. The Allies Matrix is very nice actually with some lovely nods to the fluff and allows for you to play out you own variation of the Heresy too as it allows for any of the legions to fall on the side of the Emperor or the Warmaster. Lots of potential for alternative history gaming such as the Dornian Heresy and the likes.

My concern over the initial rumours of this book containing one Legion army list and the various legions having their own appendix to it was that this would lead to a slightly bland generic representation of the various legions with very little variation between them beyond one extra unit. However, in this respect Forge World have gone above and beyond. The list is highly customisable and that's without factoring in the Legion Appendix that eventually each of the 18 legions will have.

One of your HQ options is a Legion Praetor, this is your Chapter Master, Wolf Lord, Khan etc. He gets to make two rolls on the new Warlord Traits table and choose which of the results to keep but more importantly he has access to the optional Rites of War. These allow you to customise the nature of your force, they give you certain benefits in exchange for enforcing certain limitations. For example, for those Legions such as Space Wolves and World Eaters who favoured a Drop Pod assault moreso than their brother legions there's the Rite Of War: Orbital Assault. This allows any unit in the army that could normally take a Rhino as a transport to instead select a Drop Pod. Legion Dreadnoughts can have Drop Pods and Legion Contemptors can have Dreadclaw Drop Pods etc, However only units that can Deep Strike or have access to a transport that Deep Strikes can be chosen and you're not allowed any Fortifications. Another is Pride of the Legion which makes Terminators and Veterans troops that have to be selected for your compulsory choices but you risk giving up an extra VP if they're all dead at the end of the battle and you can't take any allies. There's 4 Rites of War at the moment with the promise of more to come and the option of not using a Rite of War also. So that's 5 different builds for the 'generic' Legion list.

I could go into lots of detail about the various units and a breakdown of what they do etc but that'd spoil the fun and it's really not what this blog is about. Instead I'll give a quick rundown of the units in the generic list and then I'll give an example list using the Sons of Horus appendix afterwards so you can get an idea of what is possible with this book.

HQ
Legion Praetor
Legion Centurion (further customiseable into one of another 8 options including Chaplain, Forge Lord and Librarian but plenty more!)
Legion Command Squad (takes up the same slot as a Legion Praetor who they can be bought for)

ELITES
Legion Veteran Tactical Squad
Legion Destroyer Squad (chemical weapons and other shunned technology)
Legion Terminator Squad (either Terminator Armour or Cataphractii Armour)
Techmarine Covenant
Apothecarion Detachment
Legion Dreadnought Talon
Contemptor Dreadnought Talon
Legion Rapier Weapon Battery

TROOPS
Legion Tactical Squad
Legion Assault Squad
Legion Breacher Siege Squad (specialised Boarding troops)
Legion Tactical Support Squad (this is where your special weapons go now, and lots of them too!)
Legion Reconnaissance Squad

FAST ATTACK
Legion Seeker Squad (a sort of Sternguard crack-team with special rules)
Legion Outrider Squa
Legion Attack Bike Squadron
Legion Jetbike Sky Hunter Squadron
Legion Land Speeder Squadron
Legion Storm Eagle Assault Gunship

HEAVY SUPPORT
Legion Heavy Support Squad
Legion Predator Strike Armour Squadron
Legion Land Raider Battle Squadron
Legion Artillery Tank Squadron (Basilisk, Medusa or Whirlwind)
Legion Vindicator
Legion Spartan Assault Tank
Legion Caestus Assault Ram

There's also the Lords of War section and this works slightly differently but it's from this section that you pick Super-Heavies and Primarchs etc from in games of 2000pts or more.

So, a sample Sons of Horus army to give you an idea of how these go together and then I'll give an idea of how the Legion Appendix rules work.

Horus The Warmaster

Ezekyle Abaddon

8 Justaerin Terminators - Reaper Autocannon, Chain Fist, Combi-Melta and Combi-Flamer

9 Legion Tactical Support Marines - 1 Sergeant w/ Artificer Armour, 8 x Plasma Guns

10 Legion Tactical Marines - 1 Sergeant w/ Artificer Armour, 9 x Bolters

Contemptor Dreadnought Talon - 3 x Contemptors each w/ 2 x Kheres Pattern Assault Cannons

3 Legion Jetbike Sky Hunters - Melta Bombs, 1 Sergeant, 1 Multi-Melta

That's just a random thrown-together list of 2500pts. The Justaerin Terminators are a troops choice with Horus leading the army and with him and Abaddon attached they can Deep Strike on a turn of my choosing (after the first) and won't scatter. There's no rhyme or reason to the list there but certainly the Jetbikes and Terminators can deep strike in to take down specific threats whilst the Contemptor Dreadnoughts, Tactical Marines and Tactical Support Marines cross the battlefield putting down enemy infantry and the support squad can pick on tougher targets if neccessary.

So the specific Legion rules - Now, marines don't have ATSKNF in this set of rules. The Legiones Astartes special rule means they can always attempt to regroup regardless of casualties. Depending on which Legion you're using there are then further rules. So to continue with the Sons of Horus example: Units with the rules Legiones Astartes (Sons of Horus) gain the following additional rules: Re-rolling results of a '1' when making Reserve rolls; A bonus attack at Initiative Step 1 from models that have already fought earlier in the combat if the Sons of Horus outnumber their enemy; and Sons of Horus models cannot benefit from the Warlord Trait of an allied character or use an allied Independent Character's Leadership. They also get access to unique units and characters. For the Sons of Horus these are the Justaerin Terminator Squads, Dreadclaw Drop Pods and the characters Ezekyle Abaddon and Garviel Loken.

Obviously each legion also gets their Primarch. There's no denying that these guys are one of the main draws of the entire concept of the Horus Heresy. there are four Primarchs in the book, one for each legion. Horus Lupercal, Mortarian, Fulgrim and obviously Angron who we've even seen the mini for! I'm really quite impressed with how they've done the Primarchs. They're lethal. There's no getting around the fact that they will make a mess of most things they hit. But they're also not invincible. They'll also be a focal point of any game that includes them but they don't look like they'd completely break the game either. The rules really capture the visceral power of the primarchs and also they key facets of each of their characters and methods of warfare.

There really is a lot to see in Horus Heresy Book One: Betrayal. It also gives a great insight into what's to come. There's so much potential with the Legiones Arstates rules and the Rites of War for them to give each of the Legions the individual character that they deserve. There's also plenty of other bits in here such as Mechanicum allies and the Allies Matrix makes mention of Agents of the Emperor and Agents of the Warmaster that can only be used depending on which side the force has fallen on in the galactic civil war.

It's very clear that a lot of work has gone into this book at every stage of its production. The scale of the task put before Alan Bligh and the Forge World studio is monumental but they've so far met it exceedingly well and produced a stunning book that's as pleasing aesthetically as it is in its rich depiction of the background and the clever working of its rules. It's worth every penny to my mind.

Certainly for me, the Horus Heresy is the new hobby. 40k is dead! Long live 30k!

All comments and questions are welcome. What are your thoughts on the new book?

2012-09-24T15:54:00.001+01:00

Since the earliest days of the Great Crusade, Sanguinius – angelic primarch of the IXth Legion – was ever among the closest and most loyal of Horus’s brothers. But the Blood Angels have long kept their true nature hidden from the rest of the Imperium, and when the Warmaster hints that the key to their salvation may lie in the ruins of a conquered world, the sons of Sanguinius race to claim it. Now, as the revelation of their betrayal dawns and the traitors’ hand is revealed, the Blood Angels must face all the warp-spawned armies of Chaos, as well their own personal daemons, upon the blasted plains of Signus Prime...

Long time since I've posted! I've been working on some heresy era Blood Angels, and after visiting UK games day yesterday and picking up the new HH book from Forge World, I've realised I probably "have" to get some Emperors Children in there too. Loyal Tarvitz led ones!

I'd Expect we can all hear from Elazar himself soon with his plans, I don't want to give anything away, but it's going to be epic!

James.

6th Edition Tournament This Weekend

2012-09-11T22:07:00.000+01:00

This weekend will see my Space Wolves taking part in their first tournament since the release of 6th edition.

I've gone through about twelve different drafts of army lists before settling on one I wanted to play.

My Wolf Guard Terminators haven't been as in favour so far as my Grey Hunters (with the odd Terminator leading them) have been enjoying their time in the sun but when it came to writing my list I've eventually gone back to a list similar to the one which got me to 2nd place in the NAG 'Ard Boys tournament back in March.

The list I'm using this weekend is:

Logan Grimnar

Lone Wolf - Terminator Armour, Chainfist, Storm Shield, 2 x Fenrisian Wolves
Lone Wolf - Terminator Armour, Chainfist, Storm Shield, 2 x Fenrisian Wolves
Lone Wolf - Terminator Armour, Chainfist, Storm Shield, 2 x Fenrisian Wolves

7 Wolf Guard Terminators - 1 x Assault Cannon & Power Fist, 1 x Combi-Melta & Power Weapon, 1 x Combi-Flamer & Power Weapon, 4 x Storm Bolter & Power Weapon

7 Wolf Guard Terminators - 1 x Assault Cannon & Power Fist, 1 x Combi-Melta & Power Weapon, 1 x Combi-Flamer & Power Weapon, 4 x Storm Bolter & Power Weapon

7 Wolf Guard Terminators - 1 x Assault Cannon & Power Fist, 2 x Combi-Melta & Power Weapon, 1 x Combi-Flamer & Power Weapon, 3 x Storm Bolter & Power Weapon

6 Long Fangs - 5 x Missile Launcher, 1 x Lascannon
6 Long Fangs - 5 x Missile Launcher, 1 x Lascannon

The plan is the Long Fangs can hopefully focus on anti-tank duties leaving my Wolf Guard free to close the distance nice and quick and then unload all of the anti-infantry firepower they have into anything that vaguely resembles a threat or a scoring unit! The Lone Wolves will hopefully do their job of scaring the living daylights out of any armour lurking in my opponents deployment zone and drawing an inordinate amount of enemy firepower and sparing the other units all of that suffering! In a push the Wolf Guard can chip in with some light anti-tank from their Assault Cannons and Combi-Meltas (backed up by the Tank Hunters rule from Logan) but their primary aim is to capture objectives and slaughter the enemy in the short range warfare they favour!

From what I've seen of 6th Edition so far it seems to have heralded the return of Plasma weapons to the fore so I'm not so sure my Wolf Guard will be able to revel in their relative invulnerability so much on this outing and will perhaps have to play a slightly more patient game than the more risky tactics I was able to get away with last edition at times. Should be an interesting test for them though!

I'll write up how it goes after the event so there will be another blog post after the weekend I'm sure.

Comments welcome of course!

A Few WIP Pictures Of Some Wolf Guard

2012-07-19T19:32:00.001+01:00

All in varying states of not quite ready to be paintedness.

Jarl Vandrad Gorebeard - The Getting There

2012-07-10T09:28:00.001+01:00

I initially posted this bit with yesterdays pictures and then took it down for a separate post so apologies if you've already seen it.

Things got very hectic. They reached such a level of hecticity that there was no time for blogging or anything else. And, it was all my fault. With one week to go before the painting competition I planned on entering Vandrad into I had a complete change of heart - no, I haven't given up on the army already, for all those who've followed my many other blogs!

I was looking at the Arjac mini I had purchased and suddenly realised that he had to be Vandrad. Now in a loyal Great Company perhaps the smartest wolf would lead the pack. But this is a Great Company that has been led to break all of their oaths. Only the biggest and baddest of wolves could lead a pack like that. Plus, there's also the fact that I wanted the biggest Wolf Lord I could have!
*WARNING AWFUL PICTURE ALERT*
So, just so you can see where I was coming from in regards to the scales here

You'll have to excuse the awful picture as the camera chose to focus on the WIP Wulfen in the background rather than either of the potential Vandrad Gorebead minis! But out of focus or not I think it illustrates my point that the Arjac mini is considerably more imposing, especially when you take into account that the FW mini is a good distance above its base as I'd already put pins into its feet!

So with a week to go I suddenly found myself having to build, prepare and paint a character mini. Now I'm a slow painter at the best of times. Glacially slow. I subscribe to some blogs where I am in genuine awe of how quickly people can produce amazing miniatures. In the time so guys paint an army I've base-coated a character! A week was going to be a real challenge and I'm especially proud of myself because I actually managed to get it done!

So, a quick before painting pic of Jarl Vandrad Gorebead just to show a bit of repair work I had to do.

The runestone on his necklace was missing on the sculpt so he main thing I had to do was put an extra stud on his terminator armour as the runestone must have presumably been sculpted to cover up the extra stud there.

As for the original FW mini I was going to use for Vandrad, he'll still be getting used but instead to make my counts as Arjac (confused yet?) - Halvor Ulf Halvorssen. Then there's a lot of Wolf Guard and Grey Hunters to be sorting out!

Jarl Vandrad Gorebeard

2012-07-09T19:46:00.000+01:00

Vandrad Alfgeir Kollsvein
Jarl of For-Twa, Gorebeard, Wulfen King

Thoughts, feedback, questions, etc. all gratefully received!

Jarl Vandrad Gorebeard - Early WIP

2012-06-21T18:27:00.001+01:00

I've started working on Jarl Vandrad Gorebeard, leader of my Renegade Great Company and counts as Logan Grimnar.

Still very early days for this one yet. I've done a bit more work since the pic above, which I'll get to in a moment but first I'll show some unpainted pics in full so you can see how he's been put together.

The torso is one of the Forge World Terminators conversion kit torsos (the head is part of the same sculpt). The legs are from the plastic Chaos Terminator Lord and the weapon arms are from the plastic Wolf Guard kit. The axe was originally a Thunder Hammer but I cut the hammer head off and swapped it for an axe head to get a nice open pose and a lengthy axe haft to imply that it can be used one or two handed as per the rules for Logan's Axe Morkai. The cloak is also from the Wolf Guard kit but I've trimmed it down as I thought it was too long, regal and generally unbarbarian like so I shortened it and cut parts out so it's more like the cloaks used on the fantasy chaos warriors etc.

These last two pics show roughly where I am with the painting at the moment. Still a long way to go, tidying some bits up as I go as well so it's all a little messy for now. Finished blocking in the main armour colour and have done about 3 layers of shading so will move on to the highlights once I've started blocking in some of the other colours (had a go at the red on the shoulder pad just to get a feel for the contrast between the colours there). Lots and lots and lots still to do but I'll try and keep the updates coming!

In between that my Space Wolves have received some reinforcements and this time only one of them is wearing Terminator armour! Got lots to be getting on with once Vandrad is painted. There's a painting competition on July 1st that he needs to be ready for!

Assault on Antissa IV - Niflheim Scenario 1 Battle Report

2012-06-09T12:43:00.002+01:00

The first game of the campaign proved to be brief, bloody and ultimately very one-sided.

Blood Angels:
Mephiston Lord of Death
6 Assault Terminators - 2 w/ LC, 4 w/ TH & SS
5 Assault Terminators - 1 w/ LC 4 w/ TH & SS

Space Wolves Terminators
Hauk Greyfell - w/ WC & SS
3 Wolf Guard - 1 w/ Combi-Melta & PW, 1 w/ Combi-Flamer & PW, 1 w/ SB & PF
3 Wolf Guard - 1 w/ Combi-Melta & PW, 1 w/ Combi-Flamer & PW, 1 w/ SB & PF
4 Wolf Guard - 1 w/ Combi-Melta & PW, 1 w/ Combi-Flamer & PW, 2 w/ SB & PW
5 Wolf Guard - 1 w/ Heavy Flamer & PW, 1 w/ Combi-Melta & PW, 1 w/ SB & PF, 2 w/ SB & PW

Deployment

Hauk Greyfell and 3 Wolf Guard deployed close to the bridge and the squad of 5 Wolf Guard deployed ready to enter the board in their first turn. The two Blood Angels Terminator squads deployed ready to use the entry points closest to the bridge and Mephiston chose the remaining entry point furthest from the Bridge.

Blood Angels Turn 1

Mephiston used his Wings of Sanguinius psychic power to quickly make his way on to the board and towards the closest room which contained an objective. He paused at the bulkhead ready to break through this in the assault phase. The two Terminator squads moved up to the first bulkheads blocking their route through the ship. In the assault phase Mephiston tore through the bulkhead and burst into the room containing one of the key objectives. The Blood Angels Terminators at the top of the board couldn't break through the bulkhead barring their way but the squad at the bottom of the board broke through, their Thunder Hammers making short work of the obstacle.

Space Wolves Turn 1

Hauk Greyfell and his bodyguard moved as fast as they could towards the Blood Angels pouring onto the board from the entrance beneath the Bridge but only managed to run a short distance in the shooting phase. The large Wolf Guard squad moved up through the corridor bracing themselves for the inevitable assault that they knew was coming in the following turn.

Blood Angels Turn 2

Mephiston, seemingly giving in to the Red Thirst abandoned the objective he had been set to destroy and instead swooped down the corridors and prepared to launch an assault at the 5 Wolf Guard. The Wolf Guard passed their initiative test for Reaction Fire and tried to pummel The Lord of Death with but Mephiston shrugged off the attentions of the Heavy Flamer, Storm Bolters and Combi-Melta and launched into the assault. Mephiston made short work of the Wolf Guard, their Terminator armour unable to repel the ferocity of his attacks. Elsewhere, the Blood Angels at the top of the board broke through the stubborn bulkhead blocking their way whilst the other squad a the bottom of the board destroyed the first objective of the game.

Space Wolves Turn 2

Hauk Greyfell and his bodyguard spent the turn making up the ground between themselves and the Blood Angels Terminators that had just destroyed one of the objectives. Another Wolf Guard squad arrived from reserve, moving onto the board to confront Mephiston. In their shooting phase the combi-flamer carried by one of the Wolf Guard managed to score a wound against Mephiston, the reroll granted by the deadliness of template weapons in the close confines of the ship proving invaluable.

Blood Angels Turn 3

At the top of the board, the Blood Angels destroyed a second objective, the squad there free to make their way through the ship unopposed. The Blood Angels Terminators at the bottom of the board launched an assault against Hauk Greyfell and his bodyguard. Hauk flew into the assault but the Storm Shields of the Terminators opposing him protected them from the worst of his onslaught and the wyrd was cruel when the Lightning Claws of his prey managed to defeat the power field of his own Storm Shield and fell him. Greyfell's bodyguard stepped over their stricken leader and took the fight to the Blood Angels, felling one and losing one of their own.
Mephiston launched into the assault with the three Wolf Guard that had wounded him, felling them all with contemptuous ease.

Space Wolves Turn 3

The last squad of Wolf Guard arrived from reserve and wasted no time getting stuck into the battle. Their shooting proved ineffective against Mephiston so in the headstrong manner of the Vlka Fenryka they launched into the assault. Once more Mephiston batted the Wolf Guard aside with contemptuous ease. That particular corridor of the Wulfen's Fang would be impassable for the mound of Terminator armoured corpses littering it!
At the bottom of the board the Wolf Guard continued their battle with the Blood Angels Terminators but the numbers advantage fell to their foe and the Wolf Guard were cut down.

Blood Angels Turn 4

The Blood Angels had rid the Wulfen's Fang's command deck of their foe. Mephiston destroyed one more objective to confirm their victory.

The victory for the Blood Angels means that in the next battle they will gain a slight advantage as reward.

Assault on Antissa IV - Jarl Vandrad Gorebeard + Hauk Greyfell WIP

2012-05-26T10:57:00.000+01:00

Jarl Vandrad Gorebeard

Part 1

The 8th Great Company of the Rout, Jarl Vandrad Alfgeir Kollsvein’s Great Company had been making warp transit to the Antissa system in response to an arch-enemy incursion. The Thousand Sons had assaulted the system’s primary planet and the Vlka Fenryka were quick to make a response to calls for aid, their hatred of Magnus’ spawn no small factor in their decision. Somewhere along their course through the sea of souls they’d strayed too close to a warp anomaly known as the Pirices Gap. The warp was uncharacteristically calm around the Pirices Gap, the cause of this was unknown but the Navis Nobilite knew to keep a wide berth of the area. Some cruel machination of fate had seen Jarl Vandrad’s Strike Cruiser, The Wulfen’s Fang shunted into the Pirices Gap when the navigator on rotation had suffered a violent and ultimately fatal seizure whilst interfaced with the cruiser’s warp drives. Its warp drives misfiring The Wulfen’s Fang found itself becalmed in the depths of the warp. Lost and alone.

An iron discipline was maintained for the first few days in which the ship was stranded. The next few days were punctuated by a series of brutal murders on those decks reserved for the multitudes of human ship serfs and Kaerls. These were nothing in comparison to the hunts carried out by their post-human masters. An attempt to restore order perverted into cruel, violent sport wasting a great many innocent lives. Those not already caught up in the violence found their dreams haunted by it. Grey Hunter and Blood Claw alike dreamt of rage-fuelled rampages, bloody hunts and feasting on the warm flesh of their prey.

The navigators sealed themselves in their chambers, terrified of what might happen if they remained trapped much longer. The malevolent intentions of the warp were clearly pervading all aboard the ship despite the tranquillity of the warp around them. They laboured to get the warp drives to respond to their psychic coaxing to either get them underway or translate back to realspace.
On what this ships chronometers record as the first day of the 10th week since the ship was first becalmed, Jarl Vandrad took decisive action. After so many weeks of violence and bloodshed aboard The Wulfen’s Fang, Vandrad’s acts at this point seem trivial in their morality but it was the darker purpose they served that sees them held in infamy now.

Vandrad forced his way into the navigators’ chambers. The three surviving navigators were already resigned to their fate, kneeling and accepting of their deaths, by the time the bulkhead finally buckled. The horrendous peal of agonised metal being hammered repeatedly by the ceramite bulk of Vandrad’s terminator armour had been ample warning of his murderous intent.
Once he gained access, the Wolf Lord butchered the navigators – offering up their souls to Khorne, the name that had haunted his violent dreams for weeks. He feasted on their organs and made a shrine of their skulls in gory ritual.

The psychic screams issued by the navigators in the death throes caused a series of ripples within the warp. Sat at the epicentre of this warp activity Vandrad ordered the warp drives of The Wulfen’s Fang re-engaged. The ripples were enough to finally propel The Wulfen’s Fang out of the Pirices Gap. Vandrad took the very dangerous option of continuing upon the cruiser’s previous course. Sailing the sea of souls blindly without the eyes of its navigators to steer it the ship was subjected to the full ferocity of the warp’s roiling storms. Eventually an emergency translation was ordered as the Gellar Field had gotten dangerously close to being breached as it strained against the predations of the daemons swimming the warp. Despite the risks involved The Wulfen’s Fang translated relatively close to its intended target, re-emerging into realspace at the farthest edge of the Antissa system.

Vandrad pledged his loyalty to Khorne. The Imperium had spat on the Wolves for centuries, treating them with suspicion and scorn in equal measure. Vandrad had found a master that accepted them for what they were, that nurtured their urge for the hunt, that cultivated the violence blooming in their souls. It was a far from universally accepted truth that it had been Khorne that saved them being stranded in the warp but those that were vocal in their disbelief were quickly put down. The only remaining opposition were the Rune Priests aboard The Wulfen’s Fang, already ostracised from their battle brothers by their use of the Wyrd they were relatively easy prey for Vandrad and his Wolf Guard. By the time The Wulfen’s Fang came into auspex range of Antissa IV the serfs, Kaerls and the remaining Space Wolves had sworn new oaths to Jarl Vandrad and Khorne.

Also got a quick WIP of Hauk Greyfell.

Lots to do still, not least all the extra trophies and fetishes he'll need! But I'm very much in love with the Forge World bits, can't wait to make a start on Vandrad Gorebeard himself! But in the mean time I'm trying to get Hauk and his Wolf Guard built up for tomorrow so that they can see to clearing The Wulfen's Fang of all those pesky Blood Angels!

Assault on Antissa IV - Niflheim (A Narrative Campaign)

2012-05-22T20:31:00.000+01:00

Myself and James are playing out a little narrative campaign over the coming weeks. All the details will be going on here. So there will be fluff, rules, battle reports and minis all being posted up (hopefully!)

Retribution from the Blood Angels was swift and entirely without warning. As soon as the Blood Angels Strike Cruiser Vangelus emerged from the warp it powered up its weapon batteries and proceeded to pummel the flotilla of ships in orbit around Antissa IV. The enemy flotilla was made up on the most part of small escort ships gathered around the flagship of the rogue Wolf Lord Vandrad Gorebeard, a Strike Cruiser named Wulfen’s Fang. Some of the smaller ships peeled away from the battle as it erupted, clearly favouring their chances in fleeing to the Maelstrom rather than staying to face the wrath of the Blood Angels. The Vangelus ignored the smallest ships slinking away from the combat; instead it focussed its attentions wholly on battering the void shields of the Wulfen’s Fang and neutralising those escort ships that it considered a potential threat.

Vandrad Gorebeard and the Great Company he’d taken with him were reavers. Formally of the Space Wolves they’d descended to piracy and chaos worship. They had a long and bloody history and were certainly no slouches when it came to void warfare. However, the suddenness and ferocity of the assault caught them off guard. To make matters worse the Wulfen’s Fang was operating with a skeleton crew, the most part of its personnel planet-side with the Wolf Lord. They were severely outmatched before they’d even realised there was a battle.

The fury of the Blood Angels was to be expected. Vandred’s fleet had been a constant threat to shipping within Blood Angels protected space and on two separate occasions had engaged and captured Gladius patrol ships previously belonging to the Blood Angels. Vandrad Gorebeard though hadn’t expected the Blood Angels to seek to settle the score quite so soon.

A final barrage of fire saw the Wulfen’s Fang’s bruised void shields light up in one last protest before they collapsed entirely, leaving the Strike Cruiser prone. The Vangelus wasted little time in firing a salvo of boarding torpedoes as soon as their sensors picked up the failure of the opposing ship’s shields. At the same time a swarm of Thunderhawk Gunships spewed from The Vangelus’ flight deck making their way to the surface of Antissa IV, or Niflheim as the Space Wolves had 'affectionately' taken to calling it after the mythical land of Fenrisian legends.

The defensive weapons of the Wulfen’s Fang attempted to thin the numbers of the boarding torpedoes. A great many were cut down in the scything tracer fire, their power armoured cargo spilt out into cold of the void. A significant number managed to evade the attentions of the servitor-manned guns and breach the vessel though.

Trusting the capability of the boarders it had dispatched the Vangelus was able to turn its full attention to eradicating those escort vessels that still remained to put up a fight. Many of the Gladius class escorts had engaged in the sport of shooting down as many Thunderhawk Gunships as their targeting systems could lock on to but the Vangelus responded with all the fury of an enraged larger sibling protecting its kin and ensuring enough of the flight of Gunships would survive to make planet fall.

Hauk Greyfell growled with bestial rage. It was a primal sound that sent chills down the spines of those humans Kaerls still serving on the bridge crew.
“All hands, repel boarders!” he snarled over the vox. He was not going to surrender Lord Vandrad’s ship willingly.
The air on the bridge grew charged as Hauk activated the power-field on the vicious Wolf Claw on his right gauntlet. He snapped orders to the Wolf Guard Terminators stood at the bulkhead leading off the bridge and then turned back to the bridge crew.
“Seal all the bulkheads!” he snapped. “And if you open them for anyone but us I’ll come back and cut your threads myself!”
As he led his personal guard through the corridors of the command deck he savoured the growing hunger within himself. His muscles ached to begin the murder-make. It felt like an age since he’d enjoyed the rush of battle, the delicious scent of blood in the air and the coppery tang of it on his tongue. The auspex scanner one of his guards was carrying chimed with a contact. He quickly picked up his pace, pounding down the corridors the sound of his footfalls like peels of thunder. He let out a blood-curdling howl that echoed menacingly within the confined walkway even more so when the Wolf Guard picked up the howl too. They would place a great many skulls at the foot of the Blood God’s throne today.

Scenario 1: Boarding Action

The Blood Angels boarding parties on the Wulfen’s Fang are looking to destroy key systems to remove the threat the Strike Cruiser poses to their own ship the Vangelus and to the forces being deployed on the planet. Those Space Wolves still on the Wulfen’s Fang are hurrying to repel the boarders whilst maintenance crews work to reactivate the ship’s void shields and ready it to respond in kind to the Vangelus.

FORCE SELECTION
There is no force organisation chart for this battle. Units can be chosen freely from the army list up to 750pts.

Forces should be chosen from their codex as normal with the following exceptions:
• Units may not select Dedicated Transport options.
• No unit may have a starting size greater than 10 models, before being joined by Independent Characters.
• Units must not have models on a base size larger than 40mm

For this battle the Blood Angels are the attackers and the Space Wolves are the defenders.

TABLE SET-UP
The Wulfen’s Fang is a tangled labyrinth of passageways and chambers and should be represented appropriately. The board may be either laid out in an agreed fashion or the players may take turns placing board pieces so that they take up the playing area, making sure that each table edge has at least one clear entry/exit point. The defender will pick one room towards the centre of the table to represent the bridge of the Wulfen’s Fang. All bulkheads on the board follow the rules for controlled bulkeads and are controlled by the defender.

SABOTAGE
The Attacker’s goal is to destroy vital systems within the Wulfen’s Fang. The Defender places D3+2 sabotage objective markers on the table. These markers represent control panels and systems junctions vital to this area. The markers may be placed anywhere on the table other than within 6" of an entry/exit point or 12" of each other. They also may not be placed in impassable terrain. One marker must be placed within the bridge representing those systems and controls key to getting the Wulfen’s Fang battle ready once more.
The Attacker must attempt to destroy these objectives by any means they can. Each has an armour value of 11, and will be destroyed by any successful glancing hit or penetrating hit scored against them. Because their Attackers cannot be certain of destroying them properly at distance, these objectives count as having a 4+ Invulnerable save against any shooting attack or blast damage they suffer and cannot be harmed by events on the Catastrophic Damage table.
At the end of the game, the Attackers gain 1 Victory point for each sabotage objective destroyed, and the Defenders 1 Victory point for each sabotage objective still on the table. The side with the most Victory points is the winner.

DEPLOYMENT
The defender places one unit within 12” of the room designated as the bridge of the Wulfen’s Fang, Hauk Greyfell must join this unit and be deployed with it. The attacker then chooses an entry point and ‘deploys’ a unit ready to enter the table from that entry point on Turn 1. The defender chooses another entry point and ‘deploys’ a unit to enter from there on turn 1. The attacker and defender keep choosing entry points alternately from here on until there are none left. The defender cannot deploy any more units to arrive on turn 1 and must wait for them to arrive from reserves. The attacker can deploy one unit per entry point chosen as their own but does not have to. Any units not deployed from either side are held in reserve.
Reserves arrive normally, entering the board from any entry point under that player’s control.

FIRST TURN
The attacker gets the first turn. In the first turn all units that were deployed ready to enter the board move onto the table from their chosen entry point using the normal rules for reserves.

ENDING THE GAME
The game has a variable game length as per a Standard Mission (see page 90 of the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook).

WIPE-OUT!
Regardless of any other condition, if at the end of the game your enemy has no units left on the table then you are victorious!

This scenario uses the following special rules:

BULKHEAD DOORS & AIRLOCKS
Chambers and corridors may be sealed off by the use of armoured bulkhead doors and airlocks. These doors may be locked, accessible or controlled. These doors should be represented on the table and moved to show whether they are open or closed at any given time. A closed bulkhead door blocks line of sight and assaults may not be made through them.
• Locked: A locked door is inaccessible except by destroying it or forcing or overcoming the lock in some way. In most cases only direct force will do. Once a bulkhead door has been destroyed, remove it from play.
• Accessible: An accessible door may be either opened or closed by the first unit that moves into contact with it in a particular turn, allowing a unit to pass through it, or shut it behind them. A bulkhead door may only be used once per turn (either opened or closed), but may be destroyed at any time.
• Controlled: In the case of a particular door or doors being controlled by one side in the game (as might commonly be the case where one side represents a force defending the Zone Mortalis area from an attacker), the side which controls the doors treats them as accessible by their units, but units belonging to other forces treat them as being locked.

Destroying Doors: Bulkhead doors and airlocks are armoured and reinforced structures and therefore difficult to destroy. All bulkhead doors and airlocks are treated as being Armour Value 13, and require a single glancing or penetrating hit to destroy.

RESERVES AND DEEP STRIKING
The rules for Reserves, Scouts and Infiltrators remain unchanged, but entrance and exit points are the only way these units can enter the Zone Mortalis.
Only units which are described as being able to teleport or materialise from the Warp may use the Deep Strike special rules. Any unit that deep strikes into a bulkhead suffers a Deep Strike mishap – this makes deepstriking into a Zone Mortalis a dangerous proposition!
Barrage weapons cannot be used to fire indirectly within, into, or out of Zone Mortalis areas at all; only direct fire can be used.

FIRESTORM & SHRAPNEL
The confined spaces of the Zone Mortalis can prove to be death traps to the unwary and certain types of weapons have their effectiveness increased by the environment, while others become more unpredictable.
Weapons with blast markers and templates may re-roll failed rolls to wound inside the confines of a Zone Mortalis, reflecting the lethal effect of explosives, flaming liquid and shrapnel in confinement. Additionally, if a Scatter roll takes a blast marker’s centre point into contact with a bulkhead wall, it detonates on contact with the wall; resolve the weapon’s effect from this spot. The portion of the blast that crosses and lies beyond the line of the wall is lost.

NOWHERE TO HIDE
Units that break and flee from combat within the confines of a Zone Mortalis are far more likely than in most games of Warhammer 40,000 to be trapped in areas where their avenues of retreat are entirely cut off, and due to the confusion of corridors and passageways that may surround them, falling back may be a particularly deadly affair.
Contrary to the usual rules for falling back, immediately on failing a Morale test, a unit’s first fall back move is directly away from the enemy, and subsequent moves are towards the nearest exit unblocked by the presence of enemy models. If a unit is trapped while falling back by enemy models and cannot escape, then it is immediately destroyed.

Blind Panic: If while falling back a unit moves through (i.e.within 1" of) another of the player’s own units, the unit moved through must take an immediate Morale test or fall back themselves. Fearless units are not subject to this.

REACTION FIRE
The confined spaces of a Zone Mortalis make for deadly, close range fire-fights, where a split second reaction may be enough to gun down an enemy rushing out from the darkness before death strikes you down. In order to represent this, this special rule allows units being assaulted a chance to fire their shooting weapons when they are assaulted — if they’re fast enough!
• Only units not already engaged in close combat may attempt reaction fire.
• Only pistol, assault and rapid fire weapons may be used for reaction fire attacks. Heavy weapons may only be used for reaction fire attacks if the model carrying them has the Relentless special rule.
• A unit may only make a single reaction fire attack against the first unit they are assaulted by in any given turn.
• A reaction fire attack is made after an assault is declared, but before assaulting models have moved. Casualties resulting from reaction fire may cause an assault to fail.
Making a Reaction Fire Attack: In order to make a reaction fire attack, the unit in question must first roll equal to or under its majority Initiative score on a D6. If successful it may fire its weapons at the assaulting enemy, just as it would in the Shooting phase but at -1 BS (minimum BS 1). Template weapons are used as normal if the Initiative test is successful.
A unit may not use the Counter Attack special rule if it has used reaction fire.

NAG Ard Boyz 2012 Tournament Army

2012-04-29T17:59:00.000+01:00

Last month I took part in the NAG 2012 Ard Boyz tournament using an all Terminator Space Wolf list.
I was putting together an army of chaos terminator minis specially for this and luckily there was no painted requirement so I was able to get by with a largely WIP army!

The army did really well and I finished in 2nd place overall!

The 1750pt list I took was:

Logan Grimnar

10 Wolf Guard Terminators
2 w/ Combi-Meltas & Power Weapons
2 w/ Cyclone Missile Launchers, Storm Bolters & Power Weapons
6 w/ Storm Bolters & Power Weapons
(Logan joins this squad negating the need for a Powerfist here)

10 Wolf Guard Terminators
2 w/ Combi-Meltas & Power Weapons
2 w/ Cyclone Missle Launchers, Storm Bolters & Power Weapons
5 w/ Storm Bolters & Power Weapons
1 w/ Storm Bolter & Powerfist

10 Wolf Guard Terminators
2 w/ Combi-Meltas & Power Weapons
2 w/ Cyclone Missle Launchers, Storm Bolters & Power Weapons
5 w/ Storm Bolters & Power Weapons
1 w/ Storm Bolter & Powerfist

Lone Wolf Terminator
w/ Chainfist & Storm Shield

Lone Wolf Terminator
w/ Chainfist & Storm Shield

Lone Wolf Terminator
w/ Chainfist & Storm Shield

The general theme for the list in games was to use the Lone Wolves as a fire-magnet to cover the advance of the large terminator squads. Pointing them at valuable vehicles and forcing the enemy to engage them somehow sparing the squads unwanted attention as they moved into position to carry out the mission objectives. With the Cyclone Missile Launchers there was plenty of range to be able to sit back as required and with so many power weapons & counter-attack getting dragged into assaults was never a real concern.
Something to not be underestimated is the psychological impact of quite so many Terminators being deployed across the table and then the Lone Wolves did an exceptionally good job of passing their saves and Feel No Pain rolls to really add make it feel like an uphill struggle to make a dent on the army.

The tournament used special non-rulebook scenarios throughout which provided a fun and different challenge to the norm.

The scoring system was as follows:

Scoring
Base battle points should be determined by the chart below.
Result Winner Loser
Massacre 20 0
Major Victory 17 3
Minor Victory 13 7
Draw 10 10

Parameters to determine the base battle will be explicit in each scenario.
In addition, each scenario will have additional battle points possible.

The battles...

40K Ard Boyz Scenario 1:
Kaptur da Flag!

Mission:The Warboss has planted a flag in the center of the table. It is your job to make sure it stays his.

Objective: Place an objective marker in the exact center of the board. At the end of the game the player with the most
scoring units with at least one member within six inches of the objective marker wins.

Deployment: Use Pitched Battle as per page 92 of the main rulebook.

Length of Game:Use random game length as per page 90 of the main rulebook, or until time is called. Do not begin another
game turn unless both players can finish their player turn.

Special Rules:
Infiltrate (page 92)
Deep Strike (page 95)
Outflank (Page 94)
Reserves (page 94)
Seize the Initiative (Page 92)

Massacre:
Have 5 more scoring units within six inches of the objective than your opponent.

Major Victory:
Have 3 more scoring units within six inches of the objective than your opponent.

Minor Victory:
Have 1 more scoring unit within six inches of the objective than your opponent.

Draw:
Both players have the same amount of scoring units within six inches of the center.

Battle Point Modifiers:
+1 If your most expensive HQ choice is within six inches of the objective.
+1 if you have none of your units completely or partially in your deployment zone at the end of the game.
+1 If you kill an enemy HQ
+1 If you control more terrain than your opponent. (To control you need a scoring unit fully within 3” of a piece
of terrain)

This one was played against an Eldar army. This scenario suited my Terminator army quite well and so the aim for the game was to pile as many Terminators into the crater in the centre of the table that ended up housing the objective and making as quick work as possible of anything that got too close. The Eldar Avatar caused some concerns when it survived a total of 24 Krak missiles and then two rounds of assault before it was finally toppled by my counts as Logan Grimnar! Otherwise the Cyclones made short work of the Eldar Falcons and Wave Serpents slowing the army right down and allowing me to deal with them piece-meal. Otherwise the Terminators had to survive the shooting of the Eldar Rangers whilst they waited for the Lone Wolves to catch up to them. I ended up with 20 tournament points from this first game to get me off to a great start!

40K Ard Boyz Scenario 2:
Head of Da Snake!

Mission:Destroy the Enemy HQ while keeping yours alive.

Objective:This scenario uses victory points. See page 300 of the rulebook for victory points rules. Each player must nominate a single HQ choice to be your army general. This choice is worth double victory points for this mission.

Deployment:
Dawn of War [table halves]

Length of Game: Use random game length as per page 90 of the main rulebook. Or until time is called, so that each player completes the same number of turns.

Special Rules:
Deep Strike (page 95)
Outflank (Page 94)
Reserves (Page 94)
Seize the Initiative (page 92)

Massacre:
1126 to 1750 victory points more than your opponent.

Major Victory:
751 to 1125 victory points more than your opponent.

Minor Victory:
376 to 750 victory points more than your opponent.

Draw:
Your total is within 375 victory points of your opponent.

Battle point modifiers:
+1 if you killed all of your opponents troop
+1 if your General is alive at the end of the game

This one was a tough game! My opponent was an experienced tournament and Dark Eldar player who went on to win the whole event. For this one I was really relying on the fact that it was going to take a lot of kills to collect the points on my expensive Terminator units. Things didn't quite go to plan when within the first few turns the ludicrous amount of Dark Lances and Splinter Cannons being fired at my Terminators managed to remove the best part of two squads leaving me with my Lone Wolves and Logan's squad as the only real combat elements. In this game the Lone Wolves really earned their keep. After one flank of the army collapsed it fell to the Lone Wolves to keep approximately 5 Venoms and their passengers busy for long enough that Logan and his squad could survive. It took the rest of the game for the Dark Eldar to shift the Lone Wolves having to eventually resort to throwing a squad of Wracks at the last Lone Wolf to remove him from play. Meanwhile Logan's squad got to work on trying to restore the balance. They didn't do a bad job, wiping out a couple of Ravagers and two Raiders. The Dark Eldar Archon and his squad of Wyches had made an attempt to close the gap with Logan's squad but quickly ducked down into cover after a barrage of shooting saw a chunk of the squad blown apart by some unerringly accurate Frag missile fire. 3 hits rolled and one a scatter of 3 inches ignored for their BS! The game finished as a Minor Victory to the Dark Eldar player. So I walked away from this one with an additional 8 tournament points and a valuable lesson learned about the danger of poisoned weapons!

40K Ard Boyz Scenario 3:
Total Domination!

Mission:Control table quarters while annihilating your opponent.

Objective:You must control more table quarters than your opponent. To control a table quarter you must have more scoring units inside the table quarter than your enemy in the same table quarter. No unit can control more than 1 table quarter at a time. If a unit is in more than 1 table quarter the unit cannot score any quarters.

Deployment:Use Spearhead as per page 92 of the main rulebook.

Length of game:Use random game length as per page 90 of the main rulebook, or until time is called so that each player completes the same number of turns.

Special Rules:
Infiltrate (page 92)
Deep Strike (page 95)
Outflank (Page 94)
Reserves (page 94
Seize the Initiative (Page 92)

Massacre:
If a player controls 3 more table quarters than his opponent.

Major Victory:
If a player controls 2 more table quarters than his opponent.

Minor Victory:
If a player controls 1 more table quarters than his opponent.

Draw:
If both players have the same number of table quarters then the game is a draw.

Battle point Modifiers:
+1 if you have at least 1 scoring unit completely in your enemy’s deployment zone.
+1 If you have destroyed all of your enemies scoring units.

This was one I was quite concerned about going into the tournament. With only 3 troops squads I knew this was going to always be a difficult one to pull off. I ended up against a Vanilla Marines player. Seeing that he had a Vindicator, a Land Raider, two Razorbacks, a Predator and a squad of bikers I realised that it was going to be a tough job to chase them all down so I ended up deploying my army out of sight with the exception of Logan's squad who I deployed in a purposely aggressive position within my quarter to try and draw attention of the bigger tanks to take advantage of his ability to pass on the Tank Hunter rule to his squad. With second turn I was able to force the Vindicator to have to focus on relocating to be able to shoot in the next turn. Thankfully this was all the time I needed and the Vindicator was silenced with a few Krak missiles from the Cyclone Missile Launchers in Logan's squad. In the following turn the Land Raider raced aggressively towards Logan's squad and deployed a unit of Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield armed Terminators. Meanwhile a Drop Pod landed to dispatch a Dreadnought with a Multi-Melta into my midst. I was just grateful it wasn't armed with a Plasma Cannon!
The next turn Logan's squad fell back from the enemy terminators subjecting them to a barrage of botler shells and frag missiles to reduce the squad down to a manageable size. The Dreadnought was brought down by a Lone Wolf and another Lone Wolf finished off the Predator. In the next turn the Terminators assaulted Logan's squad but Logan took advantage of his higher initiative, the counter attack rule and his own The High King rule to throw a massive 7 attacks at the Terminators wiping them out before they had a chance to strike! The rest of the game was spent trying to mop up the small squads of Space Marines that had scattered across the board and then trying to take control of the table quarters. The battle ended up being a Major Victory to myself.

40K Ard Boyz Scenario 4:
Red Rum!

Mission:Kill em all, Kill em good! Destroy your enemy while keeping your force alive.

Objective: Use the Annihilation scenario found on page 91 of the rulebook.

Deployment:Use Pitched Battle found on page 92 of the rulebook.

Length of Game:Use random game length as per page 90 of the main rulebook, or until time is called so that each player
completes the same number of turns.

Special Rules:
Infiltrate (page 92)
Deep Strike (page 95)
Outflank (Page 94)
Reserves (page 94)
Night Fight (Turn 1 only)
Seize the Initiative (Page 92)

Massacre:
If a player has 5 more kill points than his opponent.

Major Victory:
If a player has 3 more kill points than his opponent.

Minor Victory:
If a player has more kill points than his opponent.

Draw:
If both players have the same kill points.

Battle Point Modifiers:
+1 If you kill an enemy HQ
+1 If you control at least one piece of terrain. (To control you need a scoring unit completely within a piece of
terrain)
+1 If no enemy units are completely in your deployment zone.

Going into the tournament this had been the game I was looking forward to the most. Killpoints really favoured my army with only 4 up for grabs in my army although that was tempered slightly by the special Killpoints rules around the Lone Wolves. I ended up drawing a Draigo led Grey Knight Terminator army though and saw my main advantage countered before deployment! Still it promised to be a brutal match-up and in that respect it certainly didn't disappoint! There's less to report on this one as essentially the game consisted of the Lone Wolves charging forwards to sell their lives as dearly as possible whilst the Terminators kept as large a distance as they could between themselves and the Grey Knights whilst they popped the 'easy' kill points like the Dreadnought and Storm Raven on the table. Once the two armies got into assault range it turned into a bloodbath. So many Power Weapons made the Terminators largely insignificant. Logan put up a valiant last stand taking a squad of Grey Knights down with him as his own bodyguards were cut down. The assaults continued on in this theme and eventually the game ground out to hard fought draw of 3 killpoints a piece. The Paladins and the Grey Knight characters proved especially difficult to shift and in the end I was grateful the game ended when it did or it would have swung from a draw to a massacre against with an extra turn! The draw though proved enough to bag me second place!

The tournament was great fun and there were a lot of very tough armies on display and the top of the table was very, very close after first place who was comfortably ahead!

The final top 10 ended up being:

1: Dark Eldar, 69 points. (my opponent for game 2)
2: My Army! 56 points.
3: Dark Eldar, 53 points.
4: Grey Knights, 52 points. (my opponent for game 4)
5: Chaos Marines, 50 points.
6: Space Wolves, 48 points.
7: Space Marines, 45 points. (my opponent for game 3)
8: Chaos Marines, 44 points.
9: Imperial Guard, 40 points.
10: Space Marines, 38 Points.

WIP Counts-As Logan Grimnar

2012-03-13T19:51:00.000+00:00

I'm putting together a new Terminator army from the Space Wolves codex (but using the Chaos Terminator minis). They're all in various states of being built (the majority held together by blu-tack!)

First WIP picture is my counts-as Logan Grimnar

Logan Grimnar has a storm bolter and the Axe Morkai which can be used to make attacks as either a Frost Blade or a Power Fist. I figured an interesting way to represent this would be to combine the Frost Blade and Storm Bolter into a single weapon and use a powerfist for his off-hand. I made the custodes warspear/ halberd style weapon by chopping up a few bits and pieces. The main part of the haft and the arm are an Imperial Terminator Thunder Hammer. I cut the ring from the bottom of the Thunder Hammer and added a section from the Chaos Sorcerers staff to lengthen it. A Chaos Combi-Bolter replaced the hammer head with the grip and iron sight etc removed and the blade from a Combi-Flamer stuck to the top of the bolter/rear of the weapon.
Will be adding some extra bits and pieces to the mini when I get to putting it together properly to make him stand out as the leader of the force.

I'll post some background for the army soon once I've settled on exactly what I'm going with!

Playing with colour schemes at the minute which is essentially a great excuse for messing about with this!

Top 5 Minis I've Not Gotten To Yet!

2012-02-06T21:12:00.002+00:00

Been a little longer coming than I'd hoped but I wanted to do a post of the top 5 ideas in my head for minis or armies I want to build/paint but haven't gotten around to for whatever reason! I'm starting at number 1 for these... just because I can!

1. Slaaneshi Raptors

Image by kriegsmachine14 on deviantART

I really love the imagery and fluff for Chaos Raptors. The current minis are really nice but with previously only the metal minis to represent them I've never taken that step into making an army of them as I'd like to! The Finecast box makes it a little more tempting as the Finecast resin would make it much easier to convert them but there's still not really enough variety here to make an army. If the rumoured plastic Raptors end up becoming a reality and they've kept the feel of the current guys then there's a very real chance that I'll grab a load of them and try and put this force together!

2. Corrupted Eldar Avatar

Image by Beckjann on deviantART

The current Chaos Daemons codex has a brilliant little fluff snippet titled The Fall Of Kher-Ys and it tells the tale of a Keeper of Secrets beguiling an Eldar maiden so that the daemonic legions of Slaanesh can gain access to the craftworld and harvest the souls of the race that birthed She Who Thirsts. At the end of the fluff snippet it describes the Keeper of Secrets possessing the Avatar of Khaine and leading the daemons of Slaanesh using the form of the Eldar's own demi-god. I would really love to convert and paint an Avatar being corrupted from within by a Greater Daemon of Slaanesh. A mono-Slaanesh daemon army always lurks as a lingering want at the back of my mind and certainly even as a one-off mini I'd love to make this conversion.

3. The Dornian Heresy

Post Heresy Blood Angel by Madscuzzy

This is quite a vague one granted. First off, if you don't know what the Dornian Heresy is then you need to go here. The Dornian Heresy is full of lots of great ideas for alternative Space Marine forces. I always fall more to the chaotic side of things so for me the big draws are forces like the Nurgle worshipping Blood Angels above, Slaaneshi White Scars, Tzeentchian Raven Guard or the Khornate Space Wolves. Any and all of these hold some temptation for me as far as modelling and painting projects go and at some point I might try putting together a squad of each just for fun!

4. Beastmen

Image property of Games Worskhop

Again another vague heading here. As I mentioned in the last post I really love the Beastmen minis but find the Beastmen army in fantasy as it currently stands rather dull. I'm desperately trying to shoe-horn Beastmen minis into an army project, any army project. The two front-runners in my mind right now are Daemons using only Beastmen minis or Beastmen converted to be Imperial Guardsmen. Both ideas seem pretty fun in my head but both if pushed to the army level would probably require quite a lot of minis and seeing as how I'm quite poor currently at sticking to a project this is an idea probably best saved for another one-off unit etc!

5. A Primarch

The Primarchs property of The Black Library

I'm guessing almost everybody would put one of these guys on their list! Not sure which one I'd like to model and paint most. Probably Angron or perhaps tie it in with the Dornian Heresy stuff and do Sanguinius or Corax! Anyway, this is certainly more in the one off category as there's unlikely to be a great deal of use for a Primarch mini in an army but I'm still a long way off in my hobby skills from being able to do justice to any of the primarchs so this is certainly a future project!

Granted this is a rather vague post a lot of the time but I thought I'd share a few ideas that are going around in my head. Perhaps they'll inspire somebody or somebody has already done some of them and wants to share what they've created! All comments are very welcome!

My 5 Favourite Minis

2012-01-22T19:51:00.001+00:00

As regulars to my blog might have noticed I've been chopping and changing armies quite a lot as of late.

I've always been more drawn to the hobby side of things and also the background stories to armies/characters/etc. I do really enjoy gaming but gaming but for me it's secondary to the hobby. Having said that, I'll not hold onto minis I love for an army I don't enjoy playing or vice versa.
The problem at the minute is I've yet to find that balance in my own hobby triangle between miniatures, fluff and rules.
Some armies I've started as I love the visual theme in my mind but can't get into the background or can't put together a working army list that fits that theme.
Others I'll have a brilliant army list idea but just can't bring myself to enjoy the minis no matter how hard I try to.
Then sometimes the fluff is great and I really enjoy it but can't quite work one or both of the other factors into the equation!

I don't currently have an army for any of the game systems I consider myself to play. I'm currently painting my converted Harry The Hammer but I lost interest in the rest of the Warriors of Chaos I grabbed as they never managed to recapture the love I had for them when I returned to the hobby a few years ago.

So whilst trying to decide on what to do next I've been giving a lot of thought to what I've done before that I particularly liked or was especially pleased with the results of so that's what got me to this post about my 5 favourite minis.

5. Chaos Knight Champion

The oldest of the minis in my top 5. I've painted others better but I really liked how this one turned out and he also marked the point at which my colour scheme started to really develop as I'd had a vague idea for the minis I painted before hand but the bone, gold and purple went together for this one and set the tone!

4.Beastman Gor

I did this one for a unit champion painting contest at my gaming club and the idea was that a Beastmen army would follow suit behind him as I knew the new army book was on the horizon at the time. I really love the Beastmen minis, not sure what it is about them but they have a charm I've never managed to put my finger on. When the army book came out I couldn't have been more disappointed as gone had the old Raiders rule that made the army so unique and characterful and we were left with an army of furry Orcs & Goblins. Ok, perhaps a bit melodramatic, but certainly the character of the army went a little with that rule!

3. Keeper of Secrets - Mardumesh Painweaver

This guy was huge and I absolutely loathed him at points whilst painting him as there just seemed to be no end in sight once I'd started! It was a conversion I'd wanted to do from the very first moment I saw the Arachnarok in previews but it took me a while to get around to it. I had planned an army around him but that never came to be. I love the concept and fluff for all of the Daemons but I think the current codex is pretty poor for representing them.

2. World Eater Lord - Slaughter-Lord Kaldor Foe-Render

I really loved this mini and I loved the army that he ended up leading. I think I possibly painted this mini a little better than the one that's pipped it to the top spot on my list. Game wise he was my counts-as Logan Grimnar and he and the rest of The Gorewing actually did pretty well on the tabletop!

1. Warriors of Chaos BSB - Harkaitz The Herald

This is my favourite of the minis I've painted. I love the base mini itself and the conversion work went pretty much how I'd imagined it. The pose is very aloof and he became the centrepiece for my Warriors of Chaos army. The real issue with him is I shouldn't have made him my BSB! I never managed to settle on a miniature for my general that I liked as I couldn't create anything to compete with how much Harkaitz captured the feel I wanted for my army.

That's our visual trip down memory lane finished. I wanted to go over them to see if they'd spark any ideas as to what army to toy with next. I have a few vague ideas that I might explore but not sure yet. Next I'm going to do a top 5 minis I want to build/paint...

Heralds Of The Storm - Some Early WIP Pics

2011-11-16T22:01:00.001+00:00

I've really struggled to get anything done for these lately as I had been working evenings and with the kids evenings (once they're all settled into bed) are then only time I ever get to actually build or paint my minis generally. Luckily I've gotten on to the day shift at work now so I have my evenings back which means I have my hobby back!

Been playing in a fantasy campaign at my gaming club which starts out with 500pts armies and even that's a woeful unpainted mass of half-built proxy miniatures so I'm eager to try and get some of these guys done. I also really want to paint my first character to try and enter the COTEC painting competition but I'm going to be tight for time on that now I think so will have to see how it goes!

Some WIP Chaos warriors with halberds, got another 16 of these to build for this unit yet!

The character I'm working on - Tarkal Khagan - I really love the Harry The Hammer miniature and I was glad to get my hands on another one after converting him and using bits of him to make my BSB for the Devotees of Elazar way back when! Itching to try out the colour scheme for this army on him (or any mini for that matter!) so will hopefully get him started in the next couple of nights!

In the background you'll spot a load of great weapon wielding marauders. They're all mostly with the exception of the all need heads on their weapons as they're currently just running around with big sticks! Then with a bit of tidying up and some GS they'll be ready to paint!

Hopefully there'll not be anywhere near as long between updates this time and I'll have some more to show off soon!

Wayland Games Free Shipping Offer!

2011-10-26T12:00:00.000+01:00

Free standard shipping on orders over £40 with the following voucher code:

GETSOME

Great for those new Necron advanced orders!

Heralds Of The Storm - Getting Started

2011-10-09T22:46:00.000+01:00

First off, it's shocking that there's not been an update on The Glorious Works since June! A lot has happened in that time with a new baby and a new job so I'm only just now starting to get my hobby time back!
They say that everything goes around in a circle and so it seems as here I am starting a new Warriors of Chaos army. This one actually kind of follows on as the background ties in with the old Devotees of Elazar, and in particular with the Storm God narrative campaign that I wrote...
So first off some new fluff!

*

Rumpolt Staudinger panicked as he tripped over a rock underfoot. At one time he’d been weary of his drawn out existence but now suddenly faced with his potential mortality he found himself desperate to survive. The daemon Elazar had used him as a pawn and as a chronicler of all of the being’s nefarious deeds and to aid him in this task he’d extended and twisted the old man’s life out for a great many generations more than he should ever have seen. And now in hindsight he realised it had all been destined to lead to that one specific point in time. Elazar had sent Rumpolt into the north to a massive cleft in the earth at the foot of which The Storm God slumbered. An ancient Shaggoth, kin to those other names dreaded of their kind - Krakanrok The Black and Kholek Suneater. Aarakturious Stormfather had spent centuries in hibernation, awaiting the great storm that would summon him to war once more.
A being aflame with ambition Elazar The Glorified sought to summon the very storm that would awaken Aarakturious. Alongside a coven of sorcerers sworn to his service they channelled vast energies to birth vast black clouds that crackled with the pent up fury of the storm. The summoning destroyed the minds of the sorcerers and the chaos energies warped their forms into hideous mutated spawn but for a Daemon Prince of Elazar’s standing the energies were easy to bear with very little strain.
The terrible storm that followed was a thing of nightmares. Thunderclaps sounded and the world shook at their roars as if the sky was splintering overhead under such tremendous force. Hail and lightning lashed the land amidst such chaos the Storm God stirred. The Daemon Prince Elazar demanded fealty of the ancient Shaggoth and Aarakturious responded with a deafening roar that made the thunder overhead seem tame. The Shaggoth climbed from the cleft in which he’d slumbered to the cliff tops above. Again the Daemon Prince demanded the fealty of the Storm God and was in turn swatted aside with contemptuous ease. The tribes that surrounded the lands where the Storm God slumbered had built a temple to the sleeping behemoth and the chaos gods that he served and to this temple Aarakturious strode bathing in the lightning that now struck repeatedly at his titanic form.
His pride now a stinging wound in his daemonic heart, Elazar The Glorified soared to the temple built to honour Aarakturious and the ground shook as the two beings duelled amidst the great pillars risen by the tribes in tribute to their infernal patrons. The Chaos Gods watched the contest, the storm had drawn their attention but the combat that raged between Elazar and Aarakturious now held their gaze.
In Aarakturious Tzeentch saw the changes that would be wrought upon the world by his armies and he spied all the paths of fate leading to and from this moment plotting their course. Slaanesh bathed in the ancient pride of the Shaggoth and could already sense the great torrents of fear that would drown his foes. Nurgle sensed the despair in mortal hearts at the Storm God’s reawakening and knew that in their wake his armies would leave fields of carrion to be tended by flocks of crows and swarms of flies, each host to plagues and diseases beyond counting. Khorne could feel the endless rage of the storm, the infinite hatred of the dread Shaggoth and knew that towers of skulls would be heaped at the foot of his great brass throne in offering.
In that moment Aarakturious carried the blessing of each of the Ruinous Powers and Elazar felt only the scorn of his own beloved patron. With a ferocious strike Aarakturious destroyed the Daemon Prince’s physical form banishing him back to the realm of chaos. The storm overhead swelled with power as the chaos gods fed its power to herald the awakening of their new champion.
The Devotees of Elazar had borne witness as events unfolded before them, helpless to intercede as their beloved leader was destroyed. With a roar Aarakturious summoned his own followers to war and those tribes that had journeyed to witness the awakening of the Storm God descended upon the Devotees. But, for all the ferocity of the Astragar, Kavakh and Mulghar men it was the egos of the champions of the Devotees of Elazar that spelled their doom. Each keen to ascend in Elazar’s place they killed their own just as readily as the Storm God’s followers sought to slay them. Some such as Harkaitz made their stand and were cut down by the tide of tribesmen whilst others like Endika Fleshtearer fled to escape their doom.
Amidst the chaos Rumpolt Staudinger had thought he’d made good his escape until he glanced back and spotted the half-dozen riders dogging his steps. In an instant the fight was gone from him, he felt the years of his extraordinarily long life catching up with him all at once. Resigned to his fate he hobbled over to a rocky outcrop and sat himself down.
The riders sensed an end to their sport so quickly covered the ground between themselves and the old man. All six of them were Mulghar men. They were each frightful in their own way bearing slight mutations that marked them as servants of the dark gods but it was the man that rode at their head that scared Rumpolt. He wore a helm and armour on is right arm that seemed alive with the electricity of the storm that still raged overhead. Arcs of lightning played over its surface with an audible crackle but the man himself seemed not only unharmed but unfazed by them. On his chest a brand of a lightning bolt had been burnt into the skin, marking him as a servant of the ascendant Storm God. The man leapt down from his mount, a beast clearly touched by the warping energies of chaos, and then hoisted Rumpolt to his feet. He said something in his own tongue that Rumpolt didn’t understand and within seconds the other five men had leapt down from their steeds and began to bind spears together with twine. The man stood watching Rumpolt as the men in his thrall set busily to whatever task he had set them. His face was hidden behind his helm which he’d topped with the skull of some beast. Even without being able to see the man’s face though Rumpolt could feel the barely contained rage which seemed to charge the air around him, the fury of the storm above them seemed to echo in the heart of that man and Rumpolt felt only dread as he regarded him.
When the Mulghars had finished they had bound together dozens of spears in the image of the eight pointed star of chaos. Another shout from their leader saw the men grab Rumpolt and drag him struggling to the chaos star and bind him to it. Rumpolt alternated between howling in fear and pleading with the but if they understood his words the made no outward show of it. With two thick ropes they raised the start upright and into a hole they’d dug into the ground to plant it.
“The storm will decide your fate,” the armoured man said his voice iron as it sounded from behind his helm.
As the men mounted their horses and continued southwards riding ahead of the storm their leader glanced back over his shoulder and watched the lightning raking the ground around the chaos start they’d erected and then saw it catch light as another bolt struck it and it burst into flames, a fiery sigil of chaos against the black clouds that stretched back on the horizon. He thought he heard the old man’s agonised screams for a moment but the thunder drowned out the sound like cruel rumbling laughter.

*

This is going to be an Undivided Chaos force. The followers of the Storm God worship the four ruinous powers as well as the Storm God as the gods' chosen champion.

I was inspired by The Temple of Skulls shown in White Dwarf 381. My wargames club has just bought one so I painted it similarly so that there's now some themed terrain where I play all my games! Just need to build and paint the army now!

I've also put together some mock-ups of for my chaos ogres. I saw a great Ogre Kingdoms army using the Minotaurs somewhere on blogger. Their owner had sculpted pants etc to make them Ogre bulls but I figure the chaotic feral feel of the Minotaurs is perfect as is for some very raw looking Chaos Ogres.

The Rapturous Angels - Some WIP Pictures

2011-06-24T19:30:00.000+01:00

A few WIP pictures of a few things I'm working on:
First up is Mithridates The Torturer my counts as Space Marine Captain on bike. Those who following the twitter feed - @gloriousworks - might have already seen him...

Still a lot to do to him but the greenstuff has been tidied up a great deal since and made to look like the join flexi-armour. Waiting on a few bits and pieces arriving so I can finish building him and start painting! For those who are interested some background on Mithridates and the Rapturous Angels in general can be found in the Index Astartes - Rapturous Angels post.

I've made a start on painting the first of my Land Speeders. Not much to see yet but most of the way done with the cockpit. Gives a chance to see a little of how the colour scheme will look although you'll have to use a bit of imagination as the picture is awful and the marines are missing something...

The cockpit is finished now so I can get on with painting (and building!) the rest of the Speeder so hopefully more updates on that soon.

Lastly is Pharnaces my counts as Librarian. Thought I'd put him together as something of an insurance policy for the Tale of Five 40k Gamers. An expensive character for if I have a bad month with very little painting time.

Still needs plenty of work and throws up some question marks over the colour scheme when you throw the robes into the mix!

Tale Of Five 40K Gamers

2011-06-23T22:47:00.001+01:00

[Late] Mid-month update...

As we near the the deadline for the first month's target we caught up with the gamers to see how they are getting on so far. Some of the guys were also kind enough to each put together a trail army list for their respective armies, so that we can all keep an eye on how their lists evolve over the course of the project.

**********************************************************

James

Eldar

I managed to catch up with James on Sunday as he prepared to take on Steven's Dark Elder in a 1000 point game of 40k. By all accounts he hasn't started painting anything as of yet, but he has promised me that there will be a surprise in store for the readers come the day of the first deadline. I wonder what it is he has planned...

Regardless of what he has in store I took the opportunity to take some photographs of James in action, in a game that was pretty much won and lost in the first turn! Better luck next time, eh?

Though James' Eldar got a right hammering, he still managed to die with a smile on his face!

HQ:

Maugan Ra's Council of Death:
Maugan Ra: 195 pts.
Farseer: spirit stones, Doom, Eldritch storm, Mind War: 140 pts.
10 Warlocks, 4 x Destructor, Embolden, Enhance, 4 singing spears: 310 pts.

Troops:
5 Pathfinders: 120 pts.
10 Dire Avengers: Exarch, Bladestorm, Defend, power weapon + shimmershield: 177.

Elites:
8 Striking scorpions: Exarch, Scorpions Claw, Shadowstrike: 175 pts.
6 Howling Banshees: Exarch, Exacutioner, Warshout, Acrobatics: 128 pts.
6 Fire Dragons: Exarch, Firepike, Tank hunters: 131 pts.

Heavy Support:
5 Dark Reapers: Exarch, Tempest launcher, Fast Shot: 217 pts.
Wraithlord: Brightlance, Wraithsword: 140 pts.

Total: 1733 points

**********************************************************

Elazar

Rapturous Angels

JT: "You've not yet started painting any models, James, but do you think you'll manage turn it around in time?

JM: "I think so. Not started painting yet but I know exactly what I'm doing this month. I'll hopefully be able to get to work on things come the weekend, in the meantime I have this lot staring at me begging for my attention. Or perhaps it's me staring at them begging to play with my new toys!".

You can almost hear them calling to be played with...

JT:" You mentioned that you'd been messing round with some different paint schemes, have you actually settled on one yet or is it still up in the air at the moment?"

JM: "I have. Well I've settled on two. I can't plan out Space Marines without wanting to hark back to the imagery of them that brought me into the hobby. The likes of the Space Crusade cover art and it's always stuck in my mind how cool the captain in the white power armour looked amidst the red armoured Blood Angels under his command. So I wanted to do something similar. All the characters, champions, veterans etc. in the army will have an inverted colour scheme to the 'rank & file' marines. It'll hopefully create a nice contrast but still maintain a unified look across the army."

Rapturous Angels Champion & Marine Armour

JT: "On the other hand, though, you have managed to put together some really cool background for your army [which the readers can check out below!]. I get the sense that the 'fluff' is just as integral a part of the army building process as the painting or building is, am I correct?

JM: For me it definitely is. Without the fluff it's all a bit soulless. The fluff is what makes it all go together, it provides the ideas for putting the mini together and for painting it and to an extent for the composition of the army and how it plays! Certainly I think I'd really struggle to build, paint or play an army if I didn't have a background for it. It'd just be plastic!"

*************************************

Origins

The Rapturous Angels are a motley crew of renegades and degenerates. Some have been Chaos Space Marines for all of their cursed existence and others betrayed their former battle-brothers to join the warband. Some were created into their service and others were recruited from amongst their defeated foes. The core of the warband, and indeed their leader are traitors, previously of the Angels Exemplar chapter. After they turned against their own they fled with their leader, Mithridates The Torturer, into the Eye of Terror. His cadre of supporters formed the foundations of the Rapturous Angels, their souls already lost to Slaanesh, they attracted like-minded individuals amongst the heathens calling the Eye of Terror their home. There is a high prevalence of combat drug usage amongst their members, presumably orchestrated by Mithridates, drawing upon his experience as a former Chief Apothecary. Occasionally the Rapturous Angels recruit candidates to create new marines. The gene-seed they use is harvested from enemies and fallen comrades alike and the vast majority of it is very unstable, in part because of the rampant warp energies it is subjected to. Mixed with the warband's tendencies towards the overuse of combat stimulants and narcotics they create psychopathic mutants at best, the taint of chaos running through them. All those in the warband though share their addiction to combat stimulants and an increasingly devoted worship of Slaanesh.

The Betrayal

Mithridates The Torturer delights in inflicting excruciating torment upon his victims even more than he enjoys inflicting it upon himself but it had not always been so. He has long since lost interest in preserving lives but he was once Chief-Apothecary Mithridates of The Angels Exemplar.

He had risen through the ranks to become master of the Apothercarian through dedication to his work and to his Chapter. His speciality had always been in the field of combat drugs and he devoted an age to study and experimentation aiming to create perfect combat stimulants that amplified the already impressive traits of the Space Marines without any of the negative side-effects commonly associated with their use. Chapter Master Xiphares allowed for Mithridates to test his various concoctions on the fatally wounded that he treated so that he could better document his progress. (Xiphares name has since been stricken from the records of The Angels Exemplar, his treachery in allowing the possible contamination of the chapter's precious gene-seed and, indeed, allowing Mithridates' heresy to take root have made him a shame upon their brotherhood). When Chapter Master Xiphares was slain in battle and Chapter Master Polemon took on his mantle, he saw the successive failures of Mithridates in his endeavour as good reason to redirect the Apothecarions energies into other matters. He also took a dim view on his predecessor's controversial decision to allow testing on battle brothers whose gene-seed had not yet been harvested. Mithridates though had dedicated himself to his trials and believed he was close to the answers he sought so he continued to experiment. With no further access to test subjects he began the insane practice of experimenting upon himself, injecting numerous amounts of his creations into his bloodstream. This birthed an addiction to stimulants which in turn attracted the attention of the chaos god Slaanesh.

Slaanesh whispered to the Apothecary, promising that he'd give him the formula he sought if he offered up his soul in exchange. Still relatively sound of mind Mithridates declined the chaos god's offer and whispered prayers to the Emperor of Mankind to safeguard his soul. So Slaanesh turned his gaze elsewhere. Desperate to find the answer himself Mithridates began adding all manner of strange substances to his creations. Over time few of them were added to improve the effectiveness of the mixtures but more so to satisfy his addiction to stimulants. He began field-testing his experiments and it was not long before his brothers in arms quietly remarked on the visible improvement in his martial abilities, his impetuousness and need to be in the fray. He regularly took to the field on a bike so that he could quicker meet the foe in battle. The rush of combat a stimulant in its own right. From then on, when his brothers fell in battle, he would attend them using chemicals and substances, often of his own creation, to either mend their wounds or dull their minds to them. They were seemingly all highly addictive in their nature as Mithridates rapidly developed a core of supporters, dependants who required the continued survival of the Apothecary so that he could manufacture and provide their next fix of stimulants! These devotees ride with Mithridates to this day but their tastes have long since moved on from just mere combat drugs.

As Mithridates descended further into his addiction and created a vast list of crimes to which he would one day have to be held accountable for. Slaanesh spoke to him once again. Again, dark whispers promised to tell him the secret he longed to know. This time Mithridates relented, his soul seemed a small price for such a potent chemical, something that would reawaken his drug-dulled senses once more. In a possessed state he manufactured a single dose of the chemical and, desperate to feel its effects, injected it into his system. His senses were magnified far beyond the super-human level they already operated at, his body manufactured adrenalin to extreme levels, his strength was multiplied and his muscles worked his frame at a blistering pace that no mortal could ever hope to match. Although potent beyond what Mithridates could have hoped for it was short lived and all that it had brought had been wasted in the gloom of his study within the Apothercarion. He tried to manufacture a second dose but he had no recollection of what ingredients he'd used or their quantities. He beseeched the Dark Prince for the formula once more. Slaanesh agreed to allow Mithridates to manufacture another dose but only in exchange for a gift of one hundred souls. So it was that Mithridates' fall was complete. He barely considered his actions such was his need for the drug. He summoned those loyal to him to the Apothercarion in secret and then revealed his treachery. Promising the souls of all those on board the company's Strike Cruiser to Slaanesh, he released a neurotoxin into the the Aeration Systems. The neurotoxin was a side product of a failed experiment of his that had led to a separate more deadly use for the chemicals he created. Even the advanced physiology of a Space Marine couldn't fend off the affects of the neurotoxin without aid. His battle-brothers died in droves as the toxin attacked their nervous system causing violent convulsions until asphyxiation killed them. The advanced systems within marine power armour easily warded off the toxin but so few of the marines on board the strike cruiser donned their armour whilst in transit. Mithridates and his followers wore theirs and they were easily able to mop up those that survived the toxin amidst the confusion. Only those that swore their souls in service to Slaanesh were spared from death. Slaanesh held his end of the bargain and Mithridates was able to manufacture another dose of the chemical he craved. He enjoyed its powerful effects as his followers set the strike cruiser on a course for the Eye of Terror, fleeing the violent retribution they knew would follow them otherwise.

Since that day Slaanesh has strung Mithridates along, demanding exponentially greater numbers sacrificed in his name for each new dose. Mithridates' mind is now completely broken by his addiction. Now he is a creature devoted to achieving new levels of stimulation, ever injecting himself with stimulatns and toxins for the sensations they inflict on him. As his altered physique adapts to the poisons he increases the dosage or creates new ones. He now though finds an even greater joy in sharing these toxins with his victims.

Organisation

The Rapturous Angels organise themselves into packs. The strongest of their number championing and leading these packs into battle. The packs are always 6 bikes strong in tribute to the Dark Prince. Many of them count an attack bike as one of their number and the position of gunner on these often given to the weakest of their number as punishment, denying them the right to ride their own bike to war. Their bitterness makes them cruel beyond compare and ironically makes them the perfect candidates to wield the devastating weaponry at their fingertips.

Leading the packs to war will be Mithridates The Torturer, often with his own entourage of former Angels Exemplar veterans, those that turned with him. Mithridates has any number of lieutenants eager to lead in his absence but it is indeed very rare for him not to be drawn out by the sound of war and the scent of fear. The warband's Land Speeders, in theory, form their own separate pack but such is the headstrong nature of their pilots that any organisation is quickly abandoned upon contact with the enemy.

Combat Doctrine

The Rapturous Angels almost exclusively conduct warfare from the saddles of their bikes. So lost are they to sensation and excess, that even the cacophony of emotions, sights and sounds that is war carries a limited thrill for them. When conducted at breakneck speeds and as a disorienting dance of death it can still hold some appeal. The use of combat drugs to enhance all of this is a common trait amongst the heathens that make up their number. Exponents of hit and run warfare, they work to confuse and overwhelm their foe. They love nothing more than the panic their attacks breed amongst their foes and often avoid the "quick kill" tactics employed by many imperial commanders, preferring to extend their prey's agony for as long as possible. Letting the anticipation reach fever pitch or allowing fear and stress to overthrow reason so that their foes turn upon their own in their terror. Occasionally this tactic fails and their actions only strengthen the resolve of their enemies. To the Rapturous Angels though this is of little consequence. Pain and death are new experiences to be explored to their fullest just as much as the infliction of them should be.

One thing that sets the Rapturous Angels apart from many renegade warbands is their continued use of Land Speeders. Normally these machines require far too much maintenance to be practical for the disjointed bands within the Eye of Terror. The Rapturous Angels take great pride in keeping a wing of these fast vehicles operational. Entire campaigns have been fought for resources so that this can remain the case. A team of Techmarines and adepts of the Dark Mechanicum take care of the Land Speeders. The most advanced practitioners of daemon-technology sought to attach themselves to the Rapturous Angels for the chance to work with technology so rarely seen within The Eye. This has made many warbands envious and more than once have attempts to steal these Land Speeders been fought off. The pilots of these craft are obsessed by their vessels and are amongst the most unhinged members of the warband. Perhaps the greatest risk to the survival of the warband's Land Speeders though are these pilots themselves. The combat drug addled, thrill-seeking maniacs are reckless beyond measure, initiating suicide dives and lightning attacks with equal fervour and constantly striving to push themselves and their craft to the limit. It is not unknown for these pilots to fly their craft straight through enemy formations, firing their deadly weaponry at point blank range and engaging foes in hand to hand combat from their cockpit before accelerating away through them, howling with maddened glee all the while!

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Buzz

Grey Knights

JT: "I hear you've gotten off to a really good start with your painting, what have you done so far?"

LH: “So far I've painted five Terminators and Castelan Crowe, although I still have work to do on their bases. For my first months entry, however, I've just finished painting a Stormraven.

Buzz works hard trying to complete his challenge of 250 points of painted models

HQ:
Librarian: Nemisis Warding Stave, x2 Servo Skulls, Quicksilver, Might of Titan, Summoning, Sanctuary: 215 pts.

TROOPS:
5 Terminators: Daemon Hammer, Incinerator: 205 pts.
10 Strike marines: Psycannon, Incinerator, x6 Halberds: 260 pts.
10 Strike marines. Psycannon, Psilencer, x6 Halberds, Thunder Hammer: 250 pts.

FAST ATTACK:
Stormraven: Twin-Linked Bolter Side Sponsons, Multi-Melta, Twin-Linked Assault Cannon, Mindstrike Missles: 235 pts.

HEAVY SUPPORT:
Dreadknight Nemisis Daemon Hammer, Heavy Incinerator, Gatling Psilencer: 205 pts.
Dreadnought: Assault Cannon, Psybolt Ammunition: 130 pts.

Total: 1500 points.

JT: "Tell us little bit about your trail army list, do you you think it's working for you or not?"

LH: “Not at all. I just can't seem to get enough troops! When I include a standard amount of troop choices I find it very difficult to fit much else into the list. It looks like I'm going to have to design a list that is purely for fun or just full of craziness!”

JT: "Do you think you'll have much to chop and change before you know whether or not the list is right for you?

LH: “ Well, I've been playing around with no less than eleven different lists. So I'm absolutely, positively sure there will be changing plenty adjustments made to the list as the project wears on.

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John

Raven Guard

JM: "So, you'll be painting a lot of black for this project. It's often seen as a difficult colour to get right and people have many different tricks they use to make it work. Care to share your method?"

JT: "It's actually really simple! It's maybe slightly more unusual compared to the way some people might do it, but I personally like the effect. I first started with a base coat of Chaos Black, which was then highlighted with 1:1 mix of Chaos Black and Shadow Grey. I then highlighted the armour twice more, each time adding a a little more Shadow Grey into the mix. After that I carefully painted a watered down mix of Macharius Solar Orange and Dark flesh into the recesses of the armour. Finally, I gave the armour a light wash using Badab black. What's more, though, it seems to capture the worn, earthy look that I envision the Raven Guard to have when they're at war."

John's first Assault Squad ready almost ready for action

JM: Codex Space Marine chapters can sometimes be quite similar, do you have any plans for this one to really put your own mark on it?

JT: "When you take a chapter-specific character in your army it automatically gains additional abilities that you wouldn't normally benefit from using a standard HQ choice from the codex. So, I suppose the inclusion of Shrike will alter the dynamics of the army in way that will allow me to play slightly differently from other players who use Space Marines at the club. I've also chosen units that will be tasked with carrying out specific roles on the battlefield - in keeping the 'fluff' wherever possible - so, again, that will also determine how my force operates as a whole."

JM: In the past we saw a nice snippet of 'fluff' you posted for your Raven Guard after an encounter with Khornate Daemons. Can we expect to see some more of this as you build the army up?

JT: "Yeah, I think that might be doable. But I think It'll be based solely on key or epic moments that take place in my games."

Now get their bases finished!

JM: "Will we be seeing a Raven Guard conversion similar to the artwork you chose to represent your army for the Tale?"

JT: "Probably not. Although I do fancy kitting up some of the Sargents with lightning claws. But, of course, getting hold of them is like trying to find hen's teeth!"

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Kelly

JT: "You've completed your first challenge without any problem. What do you have in store for us next month?"

KW: "Next month I hope to have another squad of Kabalite Warriors ready along with a squad of Reaver Jetbikes, I haven't tallied up the points of these two squads yet, but if I'm short of the 250 points mark I could add a Raider which I have already built and base coated."

A squad of menacing Kabalite Warrors ready to do battle!

Lelith Hesperax

JT: "Games Workshop have just released yet another wave of Dark Eldar figures; what are you looking to include in your army?"

KW: "I've already purchased a Razorwing from the new collection of figures but I'd really like to include some Wracks as an Elite choice later on. I've used them before and they can be very useful if you can get into close combat straight away."

Kelly smiles for the camera whilst preparing some of her models for the Tale...

JT: “Recently you played your first game of 40k for a while, how did it go?”

KW: "It went a lot better than I anticipated to be honest. Admittedly, it was played at home against my son and I had requested that he use some Terminators in his army list, which ate up a considerable amount of points on his part. I did this because if, and when, I do come up against Grey Knights they have terminator armour as standard. It was a Capture and Control game which I won because I managed to eliminate the troops that could hold the Objectives, but to be fare I did very little damage to the Terminators."

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Index Astartes - The Rapturous Angels

2011-06-22T10:31:00.000+01:00

Origins

The Betrayal

Rapturous Angels Marine

Organisation

Rapturous Angels Champion

Combat Doctrine

Mardumesh Painweaver - Finished...

2011-06-18T18:13:00.001+01:00

And up on ebay!