Afternoon Project - Imperial Bastion Lascannon

You know how you have stuff hanging around from projects? Well, this bit was left over from the Imperial Bastion that I built in, oh, about 2013. I finally got sick enough of seeing it in the terrain drawer that I decided to take an hour or so and just paint the dam' thing. It was even already primed!

Basecoat Castellan Green and Leadbelcher. Highlight with a mix of Castellan and Camo Green. Wash with Agrax Earthshade. Apply decals from bits box, apply sponge chipping with a mix of craft black and Rhinox Hide. Chip lightly with Leadbelcher.

Paint lenses in the usual way, spray with Testor's Dullcote. Apply gloss 'Ardcoat to lenses. Done.

I actually really like this model, simple as it is. It'll be great for a sentry gun or the like in a Rogue Trader game, or as part of the Imperial Bastion model or an Aegis Defence Line.

Flight To The Truth - Horus Heresy 7th Edition Battle Report

The opening stages of the Horus Heresy - Death Guard vs. World Eaters on Istvaan III

Last week Conscript Byron was kind enough to host a small gaming evening.  I wanted to continue with the recent Horus Heresy theme that has been dominating my painting efforts.  Byron has a small force of Legion-era Death Guard figures, and patched together with the various Legion bits and bobs I have painted so far we were able to get a small Horus Heresy game together.

The World Eaters (strung along the left side) need to make it to that Valkyrie model...should be a piece of cake, right?

We played a scenario from Forge World's "Horus Heresy Book One: Betrayal".  The scenario is called "Flight to the Truth".  It is set on Istvaan III, where Horus has launched his open rebellion against the Emperor.  The first stage of his plan is to purge his own Legions of "unreliables" - Marines who would never go along with his plan.  They are sent down to Istvaan III, ostensibly to suppress a rebellion, but they are stabbed in the back by Horus, who attempts to obliterate them from orbit, and then comes down to go after the survivors.

An imposing battle line of Legion Marines from the World Eaters

This scenario feature three "remembrancers", people who would be reliable witnesses of Horus' betrayal.  The Loyalist side is trying to get these three to a shuttle they have located, in the hopes they can travel through warp space and raise the alarm in the Imperium about Horus' dastardly plans.

World Eaters Centurion & command group

We played roughly 1,000 points per side using the 7th Edition Warhammer 40k rules.  Byron played the traitor side, with elements of the Death Guard and the Sons of Horus: Calas Typhon, a squad of "Deathshroud" Terminators, two 10-man tactical squads, a five man support squad with plasma guns and a five man heavy support squad with heavy bolters.

Sons of Horus bolster the Traitor cause?

Is it fun to have five heavy bolters in one squad? Turns out "yes"

I used my World Eaters to represent the loyalist side - a Centurion with a Legion Champion, an apothecary and a command group, two 10-man tactical squads, a 10-man support squad with volkite calivers and a five-man heavy support squad with multi-meltas.

A 10-man tactical squad - what could go wrong?

The table was a 4'x4', divided into quadrants. While the scenario calls for a ruined urban hellscape for terrain, we went with generic green just to keep things simple as we wanted to just try out the scenario.  The entire Loyalist force started the game on the table, while the Traitors only got a couple of units, with the rest coming in reserve.  I placed my Loyalists as close as possible to the Valkyrie model that represented the shuttle - my plan was just to plain bull right through.

Our one chance to open fire and bring down a few of the Deathshroud Terminators who have just warped in, visible at the top of the photo...

My plan didn't even make it to the first turn, as Byron stole the initiative - !#!#@#!!!  And we basically never recovered.  Both of my tactical squads were soon mulched, and once the super ominous Death Guard Terminators arrived, it was kind of over.  Oh, we fought a few turns and made it look all violent, but we didn't kill a single Terminator, and Byron's red-hot die-rolling didn't help!!

Very, very scary troops - Bryon did an amazing job on these figures

While Warhammer 40k remains a deeply flawed game system, I have to say this was pretty fun. Rules like "Fury of the Legion" make the plain tactical marines quite scary, and the configuration of the Space Marine Legion lists makes for some pretty over-the-top violence on the table - like five heavy bolters, just to take one example - ouch! It was five turns of brutal fighting, and it really had a good "feel" to match the period as you read it, if that makes sense.

So I guess our shooting didn't work out...but hey, I'm sure those huge, bulky power scythes worn't do anything in close combat, right?

Where did everyone go? See the blurry figures at the top right? Those are the Sons of Horus heavy bolters evaporating this tactical squad

This scenario specifies no vehicles on either side, so that is great, because between us Byron and I still have just one vehicle painted (Byron has finished one - not me).  I'm hoping to add vehicles to these forces (well, other than Titans or Knights) but for now there is still a lot more infantry waiting in the painting queue.

Death Guard tactical squad appears to help mop up...Byron's only bad rolling involved checking for these guys in reserves, and by the time they showed up their wasn't much for them to do

Big thank you to Byron for hosting - his Death Guard look absolutely fabulous, these photos don't do them justice.  His Deathshroud Terminators in particular look spooky as hell, very well done. Hopefully we can set this one up again sometime for the whole group.

Raid on the Titan Yards - Horus Heresy Rogue Trader Battle Report

To celebrate the completion of our two Reaver Battle Titans, Conscript Greg and I decided to stage a Rogue Trader game with the titans as featured players. No, we didn't troll old White Dwarfs for Reaver stats or anything like that - we fully recognized that these are not models you want to play with in RT; they're much better used as scenery or objectives. So Greg devised a scenario to take place on Isstvaan III, with loyalist Space Marines (ironically, from the Sons of Horus legion) and Solar Auxilia raiding a rebel-held Titan Yard, with the objective of destroying the Titans housed there for repair.

The loyalists were armed with a mobile Void-bomb vehicle - represented on the tabletop by a 1/48 Goliath from WWII. Their goal was to get it as close as possible to the Titans before detonating it, hopefully catching the colossal god-machines with their void-shields down. The traitor World Eater Marines defending the Titan yard had to stop this from happening.

A great opportunity to use some massive terrain pieces - the styro-crete walls, Imperial Bastion, Aegis Defence Line and Skyshield LED pad were all deployed. Plus of course the Titans!

The view from the loyalist table edge.

Traitor squads can be seen deployed at top right behind the Aegis lines.

Traitors deployed their Volkite Caliver support squad in high cover.

"Hark! Followers of the false Emperor doth approach! Let us terminate their miserable existence with extreme prejudice!"

Loyalists advance in typical cowardly fashion, with cannon fodder meatshield well to the forefront. Weaklings!!!

As the Solar Auxilia advanced, the traitors started to swing the gate...

 

Loyalist Marines hiding behind cover. Their cowardice will not save them from the final reckoning with the followers of Warmaster Horus!!

 

Some of the Volkite dudes got picked off. Their faith was lacking...

Loyalist bolter fire finally began to tell on the ranks of the Solar Auxilia as they failed their morale check and fled.

Later, the Solar Auxilia would need to rally. Conscript Indo was trash talking from the Warmaster's side... "they'll never be able to rally. May as well just take them off!" The dice were rolled and...

"Should've listened to Indo!"

With the Solar Auxilia on a permanent vacation, the remaining loyalist Marines pushed forward on their futile suicide mission...

...not realizing that the traitor captain was lying in wait.

He charges in and close combat is joined! The air crackles with power as the two giants trade mighty blows. Faces are punched mercilessly as the follower of the false Emperor and the heroic servant of Mankind's Last Hope, the valiant Warmaster, strive mightily in combat. Nearby, a Techmarine nervously adjusts some dials...

This is the last known pict-transmission received from Titan Maintenance Facility Omega Seven on Isstvaan III. The Adeptus Mechanicus adjuncts to the Collegia Titanicus had of course evacuated the facility, but from their vantage in low orbit they recorded wave radiation consistent with detonation of an Armageddon-Class Void Device.

Dice were rolled to randomize the radius of obliteration and the roll was sufficient to destroy Ferrum Mori and damage the other Titan. Of course the loyalist Marines were reduced to their component atoms in the process as well, but that's how things go in the Horus Heresy. And these are early days yet!

The game was great fun and looked good too. Greg's 30K models are awesome and the Solar Auxilia look fantastic. Thanks for bringing them out to play!

Rise of the God-Machines!

 

As alluded to in Conscript Greg's original post on Ferrum Mori, I'm largely responsible for Titan Escalation. I always loved the old Armorcast Reaver Battle Titan, being that it was so closely based on GW's own Epic-scale titan models. Greg's progress on his Titan spurred me on to get mine completed as well.

Last week Greg brought over old Ferrum Mori for the Rogue Trader game (battle report forthcoming) and asked if I could a bit of a photoshoot with our two Titans together, so here goes...

As Greg noted in his post, his Titan is painted in the livery of the Legio Mortis, a Titan legion that turned traitor alongside Warmaster Horus. However, clearly it's early days yet for Ferrum Mori, since Imperial livery is still clearly in evidence alongside Sons of Horus iconography. No tentacles yet either ;-)

Apocalypse-class missile launcher and shoulder pauldron bear Imperial icons.

Decorated powerfist.

Greg did a nice job on the paintwork. He told me he went for a "cleaner" look as opposed to the dinged-up battle damaged look you'll see on my Legio Metalica titan.

"Horus promised to get us a bigger banner if we joined his team."

The Imperial Knight decal sheet included an awesome "VIN plate" transfer which Greg has used to good effect here.

Here's my Legio Metalica Reaver Battle Titan marching as to war.  I chose Legio Metalica (or "Iron Skulls"), a loyalist legion,  for my Titan since Greg was going traitor with his. I also went in a bit of a different direction from Greg's build, with heavier weathering, combined with the traditional Epic-style banners.

Sponge-chipping on the top carapace combined with spot application of Leadbelcher paint to simulate deeper chips.

The banners were downloaded from Bell of Lost Souls - helpfully made available by another Armorcast Reaver enthusiast. You can see his gorgeous Titan here.

Can't have a huge-ass Titan weapon without a kill banner, can you?

Leg armour displays Imperial livery with traditional tabard. I cut two small rectangles of plasticard and superglued the chain to them, then superglued the plasticard to the Titan. The banner top was wrapped around a spare piece of narrow gauge plastic rod. The banner support rod is suspended from the chains, then two skulls from the bits box were attached, one to each end of the support rod. It was a bit tricky to put this together but I think it looks good.

**OMG - I just realized I used the "reversed" banner!! Will have to address this...Jeez **

I made the banner pole from the same gauge rod as the tabard support, painted it and attached the banner with white glue. The Imperial eagle finial is from the bits box as well.

VIN plate from Imperial Knight decal sheet indicates construction on the Forge World of Metalica.

Here's a better view of the banner with Legio Metalica and Collegia Titanica iconography. The pole is removable.

Kill banner is also suspended from a removable chain, so I can switch it over to the Vulcan Mega-Bolter if necessary.

L-R: Ork Stompa, Leman Russ, Shadowsword, Imperial Knight, Land Raider

Here's a group shot with some of the other heavy hitters in my collection, just to show scale. The Reavers are significantly taller and larger than anything else out there. I really like these Armorcast kits - they are big, sturdy and great looking. Unlike Greg, I magnetized the arms using massive rare-earth magnets. This works well but was a bit of a pain, requiring major surgery to the resin. The Titan arms are very heavy and the resin is super-tough.

I really enjoyed working on the Reaver. It's really an iconic model and a great throwback to an earlier era of 40K... a more innocent time, if you will. Enthusiasts like Armorcast founder Mike Biasi came up with a cool project, pitched it to GW, and lo and behold, got a license to produce their fan resin. Contrast with today where fan resin producers get cease-and-desist orders and lawsuits pitched at them. But even if the fan in me doesn't agree, I understand. GW has Forge World in-house now, and doesn't need fan resin. There is more money to be made by selling a $1,000 Titan model themselves than there is in licensing a third-party to sell one for $400.  

I'm just looking forward to seeing these two god-machines go toe-to-toe in a massive Heresy battle. Now THAT will be impressive!