40K Battle Report - First Foray into Heresy

Well, as every reader of the blog well knows, Horus Heresy fever has bit us hard for the last year or so. Byron and Greg have been madly accumulating and painting Forge World resin Space Marines of various antique specifications, and I kid myself that my vintage all-metal Howling Griffons more-or-less qualify as combatants of the 30th millennium of man. They have MKII Rhinos for Pete's sake!

Anyway, I thought it might be fun to wheel out some of these models for a game. Greg came up with the backstory:

"A group of World Eaters, with a few Sons of Horus and Death Guard, are part of a small Crusade stub force that was re-assembling and re-fitting on Toxo IV. They were waiting for new heavy equipment to be delivered - all the other fully assembled units had gone off to Istvaan already - when word of the “developments” on Istvaan arrives.

They move to seize control of the planet.

These “traitors” lack much heavy equipment, so one of their first objectives is a raid on a Planetary Defence Force armoury to steal some tanks. With the support of a lone Sicarian tank, they assault the PDF armoury - their goal will be to activate various tanks and armoured vehicles found there and get them off the table in one piece. A reaction force of Ultramarines also stationed on Toxo IV (the Howling Griffons company) arrives to block their plan."

We set up the opposing forces diagonally in deployment areas 24" apart. I chose a list from the new Forge World "Crusade" army book; two squads of 10 Marines in Rhinos, heavy weapon squad of 5 with lascannons, squad of 5 Terminators, a 7 or 8 man Destroyer squad with jump packs, and a Land Raider Armoured Proteus.

Greg and Byron lined up several giant squads of Space Marines with ridiculously broken weapon combos :-) plus a Legion Sicaran battle tank, a squad of Marines with multimeltas, some guys with Volkite Calivers (nasty), etc...

Byron did a very nice job on the Sicaran tank. Unfortunately its weaponry wasn't quite strong enough to damage the Land Raider, but that turned out not to be a huge problem...

Melta-dudes...

I advanced my line of troops (upper left) trying to refuse a flank and block the melta-goons from getting shots at my Raider. At the same time I dropped the Destroyer squad and Terminators into the backfield to try to hose off the melta guys.

This is about half of what I was facing to my front - pretty strong stuff!

I had some success against the green guys, nearly wiping out the squad, but my own forces were suffering heavily. It was a straight kill-points game so I needed to kill squads, but was falling behind...

Destroyers and Terminators were wiped out. 2 more VPs for Greg and Byron...

Greg's command squad rolled up another of my Marine squads - +1 more VP for the bad/good guys.

But a clash of Titans was imminent as my command squad disembarked from the Raider...

In the middle the two opposing commanders clashed. Artificer armour with 2+ save and the new power weapon rules (AP3) meant the combat was loooong and drawn out. My boss eventually killed Greg's, salvaging a VP for me as a warlord kill. I think they both got so tired that Greg's boss just gave up.

Gilles doing his impression of Greg's traitor warlord

In the end the Griffons got trounced, about 7VPs to 3. Volkite Calivers are nasty but the special SM Legion bolter rule (double shots) and 20-man squads are even nastier. Obviously, escalation in the form of Reaver Titans is in order...

 

Thanks to Conscripts Greg and Byron for bringing out their cool new toys and to Greg for the scenario. The fun factor of 40K is almost entirely dependent on your opponents and the spirit in which the game is played, and we are lucky to all be of similar minds on that!  

Howling Griffons 40K Rogue Trader Reinforcements!

After an exciting game against Greg's Tau a couple weeks ago, I've been blasting away at some reinforcements for my Howling Griffons Space Marine army. The army is "all metal" and consists almost exclusively of models from what is for me the Golden Age of Citadel Miniatures - the late 1980s. I make a certain exception for the new Land Raider Armoured Proteus from Forge World, of course, and wouldn't discount the possibility of adding a Contemptor dreadnought or the like, but as far as the army goes, I like to field essentially what could've been on the table in the early days of Rogue Trader.
 

Which brings me to this update... a few months ago I found an incomplete Space Marine "Black Shadow" bike in a bits box at the FLGS. Bought it for cheap (as you do) hoping that I'd come across the bits required to complete it. I've now given up hope that this will happen and resolved to scratch-build the required parts.

You can see half an ammo drum on the back, with an Imperial sigil plate (part of an IG ammo box I think) along with the rider's holstered bolt pistol and an ammo pouch.

At the front I used a piece of thick florist's wire for handlebars, and cut up a smoke launcher for the gauge pod. A launcher barrel was placed on either side of the pod (brake and clutch master cylinders, maybe?) and a headlight bucket was made of greenstuff.

Here's the finished model - the mounted Captain with power fist. I was torn between whether to give him a bolt pistol or the power fist... my wife thought the fist looked tougher and I agree ;-)

The model was painted in my standard HG scheme - Iyanden Darksun and Dark Flesh camo, washed with copious Devlan Mud. Metal parts are Boltgun Metal/Badab Black and gold craft paint/Devlan Mud. As these models were sometimes known in the catalog as the "Vincent Black Shadow" I added tiny tank badges on either side. Headlight is just white for now - any ideas on how to finish it??

I think he turned out OK, I'm just waiting on some more HG decals to complete the model. I'm looking forward to smiting enemies of the Emperor with a drive-by fisting ;-)

Also on the table were a bunch more Griffons infantry, all painted in the "Sigmar VI Insurgency Force" camo scheme. Certainly enough lascannons here to wipe the smile off a Guard tanker's mug...

Next is an assault squad with jump packs from Maxmini.eu. I dig the huge turbofan look. These guys are considered to be armed with bolt pistols and close combat weapons, and one plasma pistol and power fist.

Even painted the eyes on a couple of these frothing maniacs...

Here's an unusual model - RT Marine with flamer.

A group of regular grunts armed with bolters and autoguns (!) plus the previously pictured flamer.

This is a conversion of the mohawked assault trooper with the plasma pistol shown above. His head was replaced with a plastic RTB-01 "beaky" helmet and the hand flamer swapped out for a bolter from the RTB-01 frame - thanks Greg!

The newly-recruited reinforcements en masse, ready for a progenoid-gland inspection. They need to have their Griffon shoulder pad decals applied but are otherwise ready for battle.

I also painted a couple of crew figures for the Land Raider. Above is a modern Marine crewman with a pintle-mounted multi-melta. Crew figure and weapon are one piece and lift straight out of the cupola.

If I want to go old-school I can use a plastic Marine crewman I converted.

Ready to rock and roll - maybe it will last longer than one turn in the next game???

Anyway, that's the 40K update for now. I've got two more Rhinos primed and ready for the paint shop, and a Razorback turret is on the way from Puppets War to finish, and at that point I reckon the army will exceed 1500 points easily, maybe even 2K.

I know that the army is by no means "optimized" (not a meltagun to be found, sheesh) but I just love the character (and heft!) of the old metal RT models. Even if it's not super-competitive in today's 40K scene, at least the army looks cool and is different, and for me, that's what the 40K aesthetic is all about.

Peanut Allergy - RT Dreadnoughts!

 

This week I finished off the Rogue Trader-era dreadnoughts for my Howling Griffons force. They had come as a lot from an eBay seller in the UK, and I got a pretty good deal on two of 'em as the models were missing one left arm/weapon. This didn't pose a problem in my mind as I'd intended to use modern weapons on the models anyway.

Here's one with the "two Dreadnought close-combat weapons" combo.

 CCW and lascannon.

 Different view of the same model.

 CCW and multi-melta.

 Another view.

 Rear view of #3.

 CCW and "old school" missile launcher.

A very versatile chassis, eh? Decals were pinched from the Syrian MiG kit I just built for Greg's Golan Heights project.

Here's the variety of weapons I can deploy. All are magnetized and easily swappable, and each weapon fits on any of the three Dreads.

Looking forward to rolling these guys out; I think we will need to play an Apocalypse-style game... the Howling Griffons must be nearing 2,500 points now.

Howling Griffons???

Painted up a test model tonight for my Rogue Trader Space Marine force (I hesitate to call it an "army" when I only have 25 models or so).

I had always liked the Osprey-esque colour plates from the old 40K Compendium that illustrated the Space Marine chapters involved in the "Badab War", especially the kewl kamo on the Howling Griffons marine. So I broke out one of the RT metal Marines I'd primed earlier and tried it out.

Not bad, but didn't knock my socks off either. Certainly easy enough to paint - basecoat yellow, Dark Flesh and black for the camo, drybrush Boltgun Metal, Badab Black (fitting) wash on the metal, Devlan Mud wash on the rest, done. I think I'll try a model in the traditional quartered yellow and red scheme to see which I like better.

Your thoughts are welcome, too ;-)

Armies on Parade - Howling Griffons Rogue Trader Marines

As threatened, yesterday I took the lads out into the yard for an impromptu photo shoot of my entire RT Howling Griffons Space Marine army. Not quite to the level of Fred Reed yet, but unlike Fred's, mine are all metal ;-)

Here's the commander. Haven't gooten a name for him yet. I do have an unpainted Perry twins' Imperial Commander diorama that I'm planning to paint as Orlando Furioso, Chapter Master. In camouflage of course!! Behind him stand the Chaplain, Apothecary, and a Space Marine Tech Support trooper.

Here's the Terminator squad, with Devastators behind.

Brother Marines.

Rhino 5 with Space Marine tank rider.

Newly painted Landspeeder, all metal of course ;-)

The amazing changing AFV... one minute it's a Rhino, the next minute a Predator (see below)... right now it's a Razorback with twin lascannons. Resin turret is from Puppets War in Poland. Great stuff.

Assault squad with insane turbofan jump packs from Max Mini.

Commander on bike, with power fist of course!

More of the Brother marines.

Land Raider Armoured Proteus with a new commander model, converted from a metal Space Marine.

Landspeeder again. I love this model. So... Rogue Trader-y.

Rhino/Razorback with Predator turret.

Overhead shot of the lads. Can hardly wait to get them all out for a 6th Edition game. Must be 1500 points here easy - on a point-per-weight basis anyway!! Still a bit to add though - I'm thinking Dreadnought(s). Modern style? FW Contemptor? Mr. Peanut? Watch for a new poll question!