Taurox! How about NO...

Well, the pics and the rules have been doing the rounds on the Internet, and frankly, I'm far from impressed. It just looks to me like the Taurox simply doesn't add anything to the Imperial Guard, excuse me, the Astra Militarum, at all.

Nice model, though. That said, in terms of what it costs in real world money and hobby time versus the tabletop benefits, it's really nothing to shout about. Compared to the trusty Chimera, it has fewer fire points and weaker armour. The Taurox Prime is significantly better, boasting superior speed, weaponry and ballistic skill, but... soddit, I think I've got better things to do with my money.

Oh, yes, please! Well, maybe. I've always loved the fluff for Stormtroopers, but felt they weren't cost-effective enough to stick in a list. Also, there had never been suitable plastic Stormtroopers, until these guys came along. Looking at the rules for Scions, I'm honestly not convinced they warrant a squad in my army. Yet.

So, long story short, the new models are nice, but rules-wise, they simply don't add anything to the Astra Militarum (that I'm willing to invest time and money on). I will wait and see what Codex: Astra Militarum brings. For now, I'm holding on to my money.

Guard needs moar gun...

Adding a little more to the Red Thunder - I've more or less expanded as far as I'm willing in terms of vehicles, so the only thing left is to fill in the infantry element. Those of you who know me will know I'm fairly cautious in collecting. When I choose a model, I generally go for things that:

1. Look good on the tabletop; (I will never field Centurions, Dark Talons, Land Speeder Vengeance, Nemesis Dreadknights...)
2. Pop a can of whupass on said tabletop (admittedly, some units may need a little coordination to achieve said whupass, e.g. the Catachan Devils)
3. Have cool fluff; 
4. Probably won't get nerfed into total uselessness. (Alas, poor Sanguinary Guard...) 
5. Are PLASTIC. Coz I hate how paint chips off metal so easily and Failcast is full of fail. 

So, with that in mind, here's more crew-served dakka for the Red Thunder!

Woot! More dakka!

The as-yet-unnamed Hellhammer just got a little upgrade: Heavy bolters! Now I can try out a strategy of keeping the Hellhammer at arm's length with greater efficacy...

I've also added a teeny bit of weathering: A quick drybrushing around the lower edges with Calthan Brown. 

So, the only question left is... 1 pair of sponsons or 2?

Moar paint!

Because painted model roll better. Mostly. Well, hell, I feel better just not putting naked plastic on the board, all right? Here's what's been cooking...

Got most of the lenses done. That big searchlight turned out a lot better than I'd expected.

Shaded the gauntlets a bit, to give them a little more depth. 

A spare Catachan sergeant. Just in case I'd like to field the Catachans without Sgt Harker. 

Yay! 3 plasmaguns means plasma Veterans! Something nice and mean to pop in a Chimera...

And of course a team of plasma veterans can't go to battle without their buddies, the melta vets... 

And some snipers, to be part of the Company Command, coz they're going to be way in the backfield, plinking shots away while everyone else is out doing the real scrapping. 

Last but not least, more infantry. Coz this is His Divine Majesty's Imperial Guard!

Hellhammerin' a little at a time...

Dabbed a little more paint on the Hellhammer. On further consideration, I also decided to repaint the aquilae white. Looks a lot better, I think:

Of course, that's not really Ceramite White, but Ulthuan Grey. That'll leave me room to highlight later. Also painted in the lens and did a little blacklining with Nuln Oil to deepen the recesses a bit more. And I got round to applying some decals.

I'll be first to confess, I'm not very good at it, but I think the way I use more or less works, though it could use some polish. Here's how I go about it:

1. Matt varnish the area that you're going to put a decal on.
2. Apply said decal. Use tweezers to hold the backing and a small brush to gently nudge the decal onto the right area, then slide out the backing.
3. At this point there should be a little water on and around the decal, so use the brush to poke the decal into exactly the right spot and push out any air bubbles.
4. When the decal is in place, dab away the excess water with a tissue.
5. Now give the whole area a coat of matt varnish again, and that's more or less that!

Of course, you don't have to stop here - you can always paint on the decal after the varnish has dried to clean it up a bit or make it more interesting. Here I've cleaned up the decals a bit (Khornate Red almost perfectly matches Krylon Burgundy!) and highlighted the red lightning bolt in the gauntlet.

At some point, I might want to go a little further and paint the gauntlet in shades of grey, too. Anyway, when I get round to that, there'll be pictures. Until next time, happy wargaming...

Ready to unleash 15 barrels of hell!

So, I took a look at the Escalation rules a while ago and quietly watched the great storm of criticism that it kicked up. And I decided to jump in. Of my armies, the least developed is my Imperial Guard, and I figured that was reason enough to give them a nice big push in the form of this:

Nooo, not a Baneblade, as many are wont to exclaim. A Hellhammer; the Baneblade's brutal, close-range cousin. I reasoned that the Baneblade, iconic though it is, is somewhat wasted in 1,750 pt games on a 6' x 4' table. The Baneblade cannon has a range of 72", while its Demolisher cannon has a range of 24". That's a bit mismatched, and suffers the IG big-gun flaw of being a big (10"!!!) template which still lets the opponent have a cover save. Not much use to me. The Hellhammer, however, carries a gun that does what no other big, nasty gun in my army does - it ignores cover. And with a 36" range, that perfectly adequate for wading right into a 6' x 4' battlefield and wreaking all sorts of havoc. So, meet the newest addition to the Red Thunder...

Big daddy has arrived!

Loads of little details on this magnificent machine... 

Now that I look at it again... There's a hell of a lot more to do. Moar paint means better luck with the dice!

For sponsons, I elected to use twin-linked heavy flamer sponsons rather than heavy bolters, reasoning that this is a tank for getting close and personal anyway. So, theoryhammer aside, I picked it up last Sunday and a week later, it's mostly painted up and I just got 2 games in. Read on for a quick overview of how they went...

SOON...

Batrep: IG Vs IG & Space Marines, 1,750 pts

It's been a long, long time since I cobbled together a batrep, so here's a quick one. I got a game in against Wong's IG with Ultramarine allies at the exceedingly awesome Wira Games & Hobbies. If you haven't been there yet, do check it out. Anyway, my list is here. I rolled Night Attacker for my Warlord Trait. And here's Wong's list, as I remember it:

Company Command Squad with Astropath, plasmagun and autocannon, in a Chimera
Sly Marbo (my own Sly Marbo will be referred to as O'Bram in this battle, in deference to the seniority of Wong's Marbo)
Veteran squad with 3 plasmaguns in a Chimera
Platoon command squad with Chenkov
Infantry squad with Autocannon
Infantry squad with Autocannon
20 Conscripts with Send in the Next Wave
Vendetta gunship
Vendetta gunship
Imperial Bastion

Chief Librarian Tigurius
10 Scouts with bolt pistols and combat knives, meltabombs for the Sgt
Stormtalon with Typhoon launchers
Land Raider

Warlord Trait: Strategic Genius

This comes to 1,760 pts. At first, Wong wasn't so sure about this list's ability to handle my list's large number of armoured vehicles. These fears, as it turned out, were quite unfounded.

Mission: Crusade - 4 objectives
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil. I won the roll off and went first. Night Fighting was not active on the first turn.

Here's how the board looked after deployment. Stupid me, since I had the first turn, I expected to surge forward most aggressively, inflicting much violence and (hopefully) come out on top to claim objectives. I mean, is that an unreasonable expectation with 4 big horrible Leman Russes at one's disposal? That's why I plonked my 2 objectives on Wong's side of the board. Wong took a more conservative approach, keeping his objectives close, with loads of troops to keep a firm hold of them.

At first glance, I was pretty optimistic. To the right were all his vehicles, all clustered and waiting for my Manticore to inflict great and unholy violence on them. In the middle, a bunch of squishy infantry for my armour to maul. On the left, beside the big rock spire, stood Chenkov and his platoon command section, a clear and easy target for O'Bram.

So the plan was simple: Nuke the vehicles on the right ASAP with my pie plates of ludicrous ordnance and death, then inflict the Catachan Devils to severely maul whatever spills out. If those tanks on the right were cracked open, there'd have been little to stop my tanks smashing apart everything else on the board with ordnance, then surge ahead to clean up the pitiful remnants with my Armoured Fist platoon. I wasn't too worried about Wong's aerial assets as I had my own guns in the sky waiting to cause some pain or at least tie up Wong's Flyers. Sounds good, right? Read on for what happened...

My first IG, the Red Thunder

So, at long last, after years and years of prevaricating, I've finally put together a semblance of 1,750 pts of solid, proper Imperial Guard. Here's the list:

Still needs some paint, but it looks mean enough on the table... 

Commissar Lord with carapace armour, power sword and meltabombs
Sly Marbo
Veteran squad with 2 flamers, 1 heavy flamer, Demolitions doctrine and Sgt Harker
Platoon command with 3 flamers, 1 heavy flamer and krak grenades, in a Chimera with heavy flamer
Infantry squad with grenade launcher and krak grenades, in a Chimera with heavy flamer
Infantry squad with grenade launcher and krak grenades, in a Chimera with heavy bolter
2 Vendetta gunships
Squadron of 2 Leman Russ Battletanks with hull-mounted heavy bolters
Squadron of 2 Leman Russ Demolishers with hull-mounted heavy bolters
Manticore

Nothing subtle here, just a list designed to achieve victory through crushing amounts of firepower. 3 vehicles throwing out S10 pie plates is scary for any army. Supporting that are the 2 plain Leman Russes, placed off to one side to make good use of their superior range. Anything that can hide from all that most certainly can't hide from Marbo, who'll make a fine nuisance of himself. The armoured fist platoon is typical of any army I have played thus far, keeping the whole army mobile, because mobility means more options. The Vendettas are there for aerial superiority and miscellaneous troubleshooting. And last but not least, the mighty Catachan Devils (oh, but I do have a soft spot for them) ride in one of the Vendettas, waiting to pop out and maul a troublesome unit when the time is right.

Let's look at the checklist:

• How to deal with hordes? PIE PLATES! And lotsa flaming death. 
• How to deal with high AV vehicles? PIE PLATES! And Vendettas. 
• How to deal with Monstrous Creatures? PIE PLATES! And Vendettas.
• How to deal with Death Stars? PIE PLATES! And high volume of wound output from the flamers.
• How to deal with Flyers? Vendettas!
• Scoring? 3 units in Chimeras, one zooming about in a Vendetta. 

Yeah, I love solving problems with pie plates. Having engaged the Imperial Guard before, I'd learnt to fear the occasional lucky pie plate, so I figured I'd go a little further and use paired Leman Russes and Demolishers, significantly increasing my chances of inflicting serious damage with them. Besides, I don't really put much faith in BS3, so lots of templates for everyone!

This isn't theoryhammer, mind you. I just had the opportunity to inflict this list against an Ork horde and it performed magnificently. Vehicles were shattered by my tanks, Marbo did his thing, chucking a big bomb into the midst of some Lootas, and oh, man, the Manticore got to work, annihilating a squad of Flash Gitz, exposing the big, stompy Warboss to the tender mercies of a pair of Demolisher cannons. The Catachan Devils got to work, slaying 13 Slugga Boyz in their first salvo, then battling their way to the enemy objective. And the Lord Commissar even survived!

A large one had S7, T7, W8, I8 and up to 11 Attacks. Ah, those were the days... 

I was pleased with the performance. As such, this is a list I'll be inflicting a few more times before I consider any tweaks.

4 years of grimdark - HQ showcase!

It's been quite a while since I started 40k, and I just felt like looking back to my earlier forays into the grimdark. I always knew that I wouldn't have the discipline to paint every miniature in my armies to the very best of my abilities, but that said, I would most certainly lavish a bit more love on the HQ units. This post is a collection of the minis which have led my armies to glory or defeat since I got into the hobby.

The first HQ unit I painted was this Blood Angel Captain. I bought and assembled him based more on how cool he looks as a model rather than how much pain he can dish out on the battlefield. I really hadn't played that many games at the time, mind you. The thing was, by the time I'd gotten the rest of the army to a reasonable standard, I realized how bloody useless he was compared to the Reclusiarch and Librarian, so this is one mini which has never been fielded in combat...

I got the Lemartes model and decided against ever using him as Lemartes, simply because Death Company with jump packs is ludicrously expensive. With all the Blood Angel iconography on him, though, he made an ideal Reclusiarch, and as such has led my Death Company into absurdly violent and destructive charges.

While a Reclusiarch or Chaplain truly shines when he leads the Death Company, Librarians have far greater utility, especially now in 6th edition, with access to the Divination psychic powers. Even back in 5th, the Unleash Rage power worked just as well as Prescience (at least in close combat) and my Librarians often found themselves leading Assault Terminators into battle. Now he finds himself going to war alongside my Sternguard, lending his plasma pistol to their devastating salvos.

Here's another Librarian I painted up, for the sake of WYSIWYG when I don't have the points to have him toting a plasma pistol. That staff took bloody ages...

I made a half-hearted foray into Grey Knights, once upon a time. The things that stopped me from getting into them more seriously were the Dreadknight (one of the most stupid-looking models I've ever seen, in my opinion) and the simple fact that after painting up a few Grey Knight Terminators, I couldn't really be bothered to make it happen. This guy's my take on the Brotherhood Champion. I figured one long Nemesis Force Sword didn't quite feel like it could pull off such cool abilities as Blade Shield and Sword Storm, so I snipped up some falchions and came up with this guy. I'm pretty pleased with the result, and every so often I still toy with the idea of a Grey Knight allied contingent.

A throwback from 5th edition, my Librarian with a jump pack led my Descent of Angels army. In 5th, there was much to be said for null deployment, coupled with the Blood Angels jump infantry's unparalleled reliability in Deep Striking. These days, not so much, and 6th is really not kind at all to squads of jump infantry having to get across the board the old-fashioned way, even with their jump packs. Maybe I'll cobble something together again sometime and give it a whirl...

Ah, the Crimson King... Master of the most consistent of my armies. Since I got my hands on a pair of Necron fliers, the Crimson King has rarely known defeat. Mind you, it took a few defeats in the early days of the Necron codex before I learnt how to properly wield the 20 Warriors who walk with him, the Crimson Guard. I love his pose. Body upright, strong and proud, in contrast to his hunched Warriors. One arm bearing his custom-built Warscythe, commanding his legions onward, the other clutching his precious Resurrection Orb close to him, and his head very slightly tilted back in utter contempt for his foes.

My nameless and cursed Chaos Lord onna Bike. To be sure, he has performed spectacular feats of martial prowess, killing monstrous creatures, battlesuits, Terminators, Obliterators and Leman Russes with the reckless abandon that Khornate champions are wont to display. The thing is, he has never, EVER ascended to Daemonhood. Turned into a Spawn twice and got gunned down shortly after, though. His quest continues...

Belial, Master of the Deathwing, leader of what is by far the most stressful of all my armies. Deathwing is what I field when I want to travel light and have a radically different experience of 40k. I don't know about the rest of you, but in 6th edition, this army strikes me as playing in Hard mode. The simple reason is 6th edition is the edition of the gun. As they say, everything counts in large amounts, and in this edition, I feel we're seeing more models on the board, more guns and certainly more anti-infantry firepower. Not good news for Terminators and man, it stings when every little casualty counts.

"Glory for the first man to die!" In an age of gene-enhanced super-soldiers, fearsome aliens and traitors in league with unspeakable horrors, there's a special kind of charm to the humble human in all his frailty. I decided I needed a right hardass to lead the army of Men to glory, and nothing was quite as fitting in my eyes as a Lord Commissar. I'd been reading a bit too much of Gaunt's Ghosts, I think. Given my general loathing of metal and resin, I used the little officer dude that came with the Baneblade kit, seeing as he had a nice big commissar-esque hat. No, I don't have a Baneblade (yet), I just picked this guy up separately off eBay.

So, that's it from me for now. Next up, a closer look at my lovely Imperial Guard army, the Red Thunder!

Red Thunder, First Armoured Fist Platoon reporting!

Just got these guys done and based and ready for battle!

Also got round to marking their Chimeras. Black for the command vehicle, grey for the rank and file, just like the rest of the Armoured Battlegroup.

For the moment, I'm thinking infantry-wise, I'm going to keep to just one platoon, altering its size as needed, then fill up the other Troops choices with Veteran squads. I'm thinking pretty much every pair of boots in my army will go forth in transports of some sort, so either they join the Armoured Fist platoon, or they are Veterans in a Chimera, Veterans coming in on the Vendettas (space for 2 sqauds!) or they could do the Catachan Devil thing and Infiltrate or Outflank.

In other news, I just got a new thumbdrive and figured I'd put some neglected decals to good use...

Before anyone says what a good idea this is, wait about 3 months for what some wear and tear does to it. It's been coated with several layers of varnish, so let's see what happens, eh?

Armour's for pansies!

Real men - not genetically engineered freaks - hurl themselves into the nightmare battlefields of the 41st millennium clad in nothing but camo fatigues and sheer BRAWN! The Catachan Devils are ready to rumble!

Still a couple of little details to sort out. Some shading here, some highlighting there...

That said, the boys are totally ready for the tabletop. I wonder who'll be the first victims of the humble shotguns...?

Catachan Veterans

Always had a soft spot for the Catachan Devils, so I'm currently painting up a squad of them. Led by Sgt Harker, toting shotguns and flame weapons, this squad is kitted to get close and seriously brutalize a unit of infantry with sheer volume of wounds. The concept, I felt was sound enough for me to put this squad together without any playtesting. I remember only too well a glorious moment involving my Sternguard, in which a unit comprising 3 Chaos Bikers and a Lord on a Juggernaut were wiped out when a team of 5 Sternguard incinerated them with 2 Heavy Flamers and 2 combi-flamers. The Catachans here won't kick nearly as hard, but for 155pts, I feel this is would be pretty decent and characterful scoring unit.

I started out by base coating them with Krylon Woodland Light Green. In retrospect, it doesn't really save all that much effort, but hell, it looks good with an Agrax Earthshade wash.

The shotguns were borrowed from the Space Marine Scouts kit. They fit significantly better than I thought they would.

The business end of the unit, 2 flamers and a heavy flamer.

Another pic of the stars of the small Catachan contingent, Sly Marbo and Sgt Harker.

Guardsmen done quick.

I do not paint prettily. I'll be first to admit that. I won't be winning any contests with my painting anytime soon, not least because of my aversion to participating in competitions of any sort. That having been said, I do like the sight of a painted army on the board, and I've a lot of Guardsmen to paint. Here's a little thing about how I get my armies painted; I mostly pick my armies based on what convenient spray paint colour I can get my hands on. And this here is the core of my Imperial Guard:

Ah, Krylon, what would I do without you... So, here's how I paint up my grunts...

It isn't anything as pretty as my Blood Angels, but hell, it gets the job done. Flesh looks like flesh. The flak armour is clearly a different shade from the cloth, and there are shiny bits on the weapons to make it look pretty. Will post a pic of what this looks like with more Guardsmen as soon as I make them happen...

What a mess...

Word to the wise: This is NOT how to keep your hobby workbench...

What can I say, I'm enthusiastic about the expansion of my Imperial Guard force. Having pondered the matter for bloody ages, I've decided that I'm going to cap the number of my armies at 5 and leave it at that, ie.:

1. Blood Angels
2. Necrons
3. Chaos Space Marines
4. Deathwing
5. Imperial Guard

This pleases me. The Guard have a lot of potential to be a really characterful and satisfying army that will look quite spectacular on the game board. Just gotta have a little more discipline, lest I swamp myself and end up making far less progress than I could. So, yeah, as it stands, I can field the Armoured Battlegroup, but right now I'm working on putting together enough Guardsmen to function as a mechanized force, then as a mostly infantry force.

And of course, there's the lure of new codex awesomeness looming in a few months...

Gaaaahplastic crack overdose!!

Sooo, a lovely new FLGS with exceedingly attractive prices opened veeery conveniently not 2 minutes walk from where I work. And the lovely new Codex Space Marines has finally turned up!

The majesty... 

After nearly 5 years of faithful service, the old 5th ed Space Marine Codex is making way for the lovely bundle of 176-page hardback awesome that will breathe new life into the good old Space Marine and his trusty bolter. Or will it? Whatever the case may be, the Blood Angels are coming back!

Knight Commander who?

Soooo, I've tried the Imperial Armour 1 Armoured Battlegroup army list 3 times now...

Game 1 vs John's Eldar: The tank company was taken apart most horribly. It takes ONE lucky warlock on a jetbike with a Singing Spear amidst my tanks to ruin my day. Admittedly, I rolled horrifically this game, so I daresay I'm very willing to give this another go. I blame these dice, which I had acquired just before the battle and I thought just looked too good to pass up...

Note to self: Never use these guys again except when I'm putting Chaos on the board...  

Game 2 vs CK's Iron Warriors: On turn 1, CK had 2 Forgefiends, 2 Rhinos full of Chaos Marines and a Hellbrute hiding behind a ruin, at night, while I fired the first salvo. Pretty much wiped out his army for almost no losses, but CK's list very ill equipped to take on mine, with only Raptors with meltaguns and a team of Obliterators being the only real threat to my tanks. It was an objective game, and CK could conceivably have won had some Chaos Marines crawled deep into a ruin to camp an objective for the rest of the game, but seriously, what kind of game would it be if you had one beleaguered squad sitting in a hole, while the rest of your army got blasted apart by a collection of guns mostly meant for games of Epic 40k?

Game 3 vs Ian's Orks: I say again: ORKS. A marvellously fluffy game: A tide of green hurling themselves at the armoured might of His Divine Majesty's Imperial Guard. It was a Kill Point game so it really came down to whether I had the firepower to keep the greenskins away from my soft squishy rear armour. Ian's list had undergone some tweaks, adding bikes and trukks for some serious mobility. Fortunately, I had 3 things working for me: First, Hammer and Anvil deployment, which gave me a little more room to back away and shoot up more Orks. That having been said, it also made it more difficult to maneuver into a position to bring more guns to bear on trouble spots. Second: I had the first turn, which I promptly spent blowing away 3 vehicles full of nasty greenskins. Third: His primary ranged armour-busting unit, the Tankbustas with their Weirdboy, spent most of the game cowering in a forest due to the Weirdboy's destructive fits.

Troll wargamer shirt, courtesy of my dear fiancee... 

In the last game, the Commisar Tanks really shone, showing what an Exterminator with 3 heavy bolters and BS4 could do. This was also aided greatly by the Command Tanks issuing orders to force opponents to reroll successful cover saves. I often get asked why I don't used Leman Russ Eradicators, and the reason is simple: When your tanks are threatened by a single model, even a Demolisher Cannon can, at most, force him to make one save. A Terminator with his Powerfist, or a Nob with a powerklaw skulking in a forest, if he's in charge range, can quite reliably be expected to take down a Leman Russ of any flavour. But an Exterminator with its sponsons can quite easily sort the problem out by forcing such a troublemaker to make an unreasonable amount of saves...

The Beast Hunter shells were also absolute gold, and really plug a serious weakness in the armoured company. That dinky blast makes a big difference when all my guns are turned to the task of blowing up swarms of infantry before they reach my lines. I've yet to inflict it on a Monstrous Creature, though...

Anyway, I am pleased as Punch with this list. It's interesting, it hits stupidly hard, it's fluffy, and, most important, it's a completely different playstyle to ALL my previous lists, and achieves on old ambition of mine, that is, establishing a true, 100% gunishment army, with the added bonus of me not actually having to paint a single infantry model (though I suppose I'll paint one for my Warlord Command Tank).

So, that's it from me. Until next time, happy wargaming...