Sisters 2, Traitors and Heretics 0!

In the last two weeks I've had the Sisters out for two battles. The first one was against my own traitor Guardsmen, commanded by Conscripts Greg and Hugh, and the second was against Conscript Mike's Gun Schwarm / Steel Legion. I'll start with the battle against my traitors.

 

We used 40K 5th edition (the best edition IMHO) for the games, I'd made an 1100 point list from the Renegades and Heretics list in the Forge World book. It had a couple Leman Russes, a Chimera, a bunch of weirdo Guardsmen, a 20-man Mutant Rabble, and some bonus Plague Marines and a Champion. For the Sisters there were two squads in Rhinos, the Canoness and command squad in an Immolator, Uriah Jacobus and some arco-flagellants in a Rhino, a ten-girl Seraphim squad, and an Exorcist.

                                           

We played a three-objective game. Conscript Dave V. assisted me in handling the Sisters - more on that later. The middle objective were the Sisters' crypts in the ruined chapel at centre. You can see the eastern objective at right - the Confessional/Immolation booth.

                                           

Here's the mutant rabble rushing forth.

                                           

Exorcist in the Sisters backfield. We allowed it to indirect fire in the game but corrected that error in game 2.

                                          

Here's the eastern objective overrun by traitor Guard and Mutant Rabble.

 

                                            

A Sisters squad tries to protect the crypt objective.

                                            

Uriah Jacobus and the surviving arco-flagellants rush away from their wrecked Rhino, just out of frame to the left.

                                            

Plague Marines overwhelm the Sisters squad on the centre objective.

                                            

Uriah stares down the Chimera!

                                            

Seraphim pop in to clear out the crypts.

                                            

Meanwhile the western objective is strongly held by the Sisters.

                                            

Seraphim clean off the traitor Troops from the objective. Plague Marines are Elites in that list. You get an idea of where this is going...

The Unfair Advantage for the Sisters in this game was the tactical nous of Conscript Dave. He came up with the plan to use the Seraphim to shoot the Guard Troops off the middle objective and use an unoccupied Rhino to tank-shock the Rabble off the eastern one - in 5th ed only Troop choices can hold objectives. This ploy succeeded admirably and the final tally was one objective held by the Sisters, and two contested. Sisters win.

                                                                                                                     

For the second game Conscript Mike brought over his ex-Greg Guard with many additions of his own, including these excellent tanks from Models and Minis, a German purveyor of resin. The game was Kill Points, each side scored one KP for each enemy unit totally destroyed, unit transports don't count but everything else does.

                                            

Pretty nice eh??

                                            
Dave and I made Mike deploy in the wide-open table quarter while the Sisters took the one with all the terrain. Clever move as will be seen later.

The lists were 1,750 points; I brought three Sisters squads in Rhinos, Canoness and command squad in an Immolator, Uriah and loonies in an Inquisition Rhino, two Penitent Engines, a Retributor squad with heavy flamers and multi-melta, and a Seraphim squad in Reserve. The idea was to bum rush the show.

Sisters advance. I remembered to pop smoke with the Rhinos which helped. Note Retributors and a Sisters squad lining up the Guardsmen in the woods at centre left.

Uh-oh Ogryns!! These guys were pretty tough and took care of "most" of a Sisters squad. 

Heavy flamers and boltguns make quick work of Guardsmen, even when they're dug in. Scratch one squad... I made sure to replace the green woods with charred trunks.

Unfortunately for Mike, he was a bit too aggressive with his deep-striking Kasrkin and they ended up on top of a Sisters Rhino. He rolled "reposition" on the Mishap table so I placed them as far from the action as possible!

Sisters move through the woods and the Seraphim appear at its edge. Dangerous terrain so one Sister perished but they did nought else in the game but be a target for battle cannon templates. Fortunately some survived.

Uriah and loonies lived up to expectations by shredding a Guard platoon command squad. These guys are really good in close combat, especially when led by Uriah or a missionary-type.

Here's the Sisters force... anyway I can sum up the game by saying that the Sisters prevailed, 6 KP to one. Mike was unlucky in that he couldn't seem to totally wipe out the Sisters units despite reducing more than one to a single model... but that's the game, no points unless the unit is totally destroyed.

Another fun outing for the Sisters and it reinforced my love for 5th edition. Very fast moving rules, we played a lot of it back in the day and it all came right back. No "command points", "strategems" or any of that other BS that clogs your brain, just straightforward battle. I've even tracked down a 5th ed Tyranid codex so look out Sisters...!

30k in 15mm - More Imperial Fists

Defenders of The Emperor in 15mm - 3D prints courtesy of ByronM.

All of the great hobby settings are best explored in multiple scales...right? At any rate, here is another quick batch of 30k painting from early fall - these are 15mm sized Space Marines in Mark III armour, wearing the colours of the VII Legion Astartes, the Imperial Fists. These are 3D prints from Byron. 

Melta gunner ready to provide some extra firepower up close...

I kicked this sort-of-side-project-that-is-still-really-fun effort in the summer. The "case for 15mm" is well known to most hobbyists - the size allows for a reasonable amount of detail on the models, while providing for much more room to engage on a 6' x 4' wargaming table. This is of particular value in a setting like GW's Horus Heresy, as the "Age of Darkness" is filled with tales of rather large battles that become quite the slog when one tries to recreate even part of them on a 6' x 4', or even 8' x 6' table - not that this stops us from trying...

Funky underslung missile launcher - this is a "Ryza Pattern", I believe...

Gaming this period in 15mm also allows for the weapon ranges to have a bit of a better "look" - all highly subjective, of course, but the 24" range of the basic bolt gun seems a little more appropriate at 15mm than 28mm. 

A view of the detail on the rear of the models.

This little group represents another Veteran Tactical Squad, the classic 10-man unit with a heavy weapon and special weapon. The 3D prints are a lot of fun to paint - they have nice little bits of detail, but not too many, and the shoulder plates offer just enough room for the small water-transfer decals which can be found on many (although sadly not all) of the GW Horus Heresy decal sheets.

Test model of the next phase of 15mm painting...

"Beakie" marines look great in all scales!

Byron has kindly printed a fresh bunch of 15mm 30k stuff for me - and I continue to pester him for more! I have some pictures here of a test model that will give you an idea of some of the 15mm stuff you might expect to see as we head into the late fall, and the next edition of Curt's Analogue Hobbies Winter Painting Challenge approaches...

The latest 10-man squad gathers, ready for the defence of Terra!

Thanks for Byron for the awesome 3D prints. That is all for now - stay tuned for more!

Last of the Seraphim Done

Sick of Sisters of Battle yet? Not me! But here are the last five Seraphim I have to bulk out the squad to 10 Sisters. 

Here's a Seraphim with hand flamers/Inferno Pistols. I think I will consider them the latter, gonna need that S8 to scratch enemy armoured vehicles.

Most of the girls are armed with the traditional pair of bolt pistols of course.

I painted a variety of hair colours, but the rest are the tradtional OML scheme - armour Vallejo Dark Rubber washed with Nuln Oil, steel bits Leadbelcher ditto, gold bits Retributor Armour washed Agrax Earthshade, brass bits Brass Scorpion ditto, cloth Mephiston Red highlighted Evil Sunz Scarlet, gloves and leather Doombull Brown highlighted Skrag Brown or Steel Legion Drab, grenades Castellan Green highlighted Death World Forest, faces Cadian Flesh highlighted Kislev Flesh, edge highlights Celestra Grey, insignia Celestra highlighted Corax White. Done.

So with this the girls are pretty much ready for two battles in the next two weeks - their first outing was a 5th ed "birthday battle" two nights ago against my Renegades and Heretics Guard army (stay tuned for the battle report on that one), then next Thursday a long-anticipated 5th ed battle against Conscript Mike's Imperial Guard Steel Legion!

May the Emperor protect and keep you! 

Skaven Warp Lightning Cannon

So in the aftermath of the recent disastrous outing for the Skaven against Conscript Mike's Bretonnians, I decided to put the Warp Lightning Cannon on a base to match the other war machines in the army. This wasn't as straightforward as it sounds though, because the second-hand cannon in my collection was missing one of its crew, and THIS. WOULD. NOT. DO. 

So off to ebay I went to find the missing crewman, he's in the photo above. Of course no-one was selling a single crew model so I had to buy the pair at an exorbitant price... having said this, if you have a Warp Lightning Cannon missing the left-hand side crewman I will make you a good deal.

The other fun thing I did was put a little cat vs. rat vignette on the diorama base. The models are nominally 1/48 scale 3D prints from Green Stuff World that come in 25-rat or 15-cat packages for about $6USD. I got mine at Games Plus on my recent trip to Chicago. They're great little models but it's too bad the rats aren't a smidge bigger - they really are regular rat size for the scale.

Of course I have two grey cats so I painted this one as "Gilles", the male. This probably explains (ex-post-facto) the sub-par outing against the Bretonnians as Gilles was obviously a Bretonnian saboteur!

I based the Skavenslave crew on 20mm square bases, mainly because that was the way the kit was originally designed... I'd intended to put the slaves right on the cannon base but they needed the extra height of the slottabase for the cast-on poles to fit into their mount on the cannon body.

Anyway that was a fun little project, hopefully Warhammer; The Old World will come along soon to reinvigorate interest in fantasy battles!   

ps Now that I'm looking at the pics I might actually paint some more tiny rats for the base :-)

Yet More Sisters of Battle!

So Conscript Mike F. has been posting about the new vehicles he's painting for his Gun Schwarm/40K Steel Legion, and this is troubling me somewhat. This is because we're gearing up for a 40K game in about two weeks pitting his Guard against my old-school Sisters of Battle army. What's making me nervous? Well, the Sisters, while full of faith and boltguns, lack any meaningful anti-tank capability (well unless you count Inferno pistols). So they may have a tough go against Mike's tanks. But I digress... 

Anyway I've painted 18 more Sisters (including two Sisters Superior) for the army, and this is the end of them. I have around 50 Sisters painted now and I think that's likely enough. 

The models are the old metal Sisters from 1996 or a bit later, like those I've painted dozens of before. I did give the girls different coloured hair and left the white bobs for the Sisters Superior.

There's one melta-gunner in the group. She'll be looked to for some support against Guard armour.

The gal biting the pin off the grenade is one of my favourite models in the group!

Anyway that's it for the Sisters for now. I'm going to try and get five more Seraphim painted for the game but faith will have to sustain us. Until then, may the light of the Emperor illuminate your path!

ps Sorry about the messed-up formatting but Blogger is being Blogger today :-|

Steel Legion Vehicles

 I’ve been painting lots of guardsmen since the summer and it’s a sizeable force now. The only problem is they lack any vehicles, which is a problem for Imperial Guard. Ive had numerous tanks assembled, but I’ve struggled with what paint scheme to give them. I experimented with several camo schemes, but I just don’t have any interest in painting camouflage anymore. I thought about going desert sand colour to match the helmets, but I couldn’t get fired up about that either. In the end I settled on early war panzer grey to complement the german uniform greatcoats the infantry wear. This isn’t the most exciting, but it is quick and the tanks look good clumped together on the table. I completed 2 chimera’s for the Infantry platoons, 1 Armageddon Basilisk and manticore with upgrade bits from Models and Minis in the US.

I love this add-on. The missiles are contained in the rear launcher.

Very well designed!

A real pain to put together and required lots of boiling water.

Now off to paint some battle tanks!

Thanks for visiting!