Painting Challenge Submission 16 - Plastic Death Korps of Kreig

A squad of "Death Korps of Krieg" troops - plastic from GW.

Continuing with my wrap-up/catch-up posts of final AHPC submissions, we have a selection of cheerful fellows to represent a squad of troopers from the "Death Korps of Krieg", a military unit set in Games Workshop's "Warhammer 40k" universe. With a name like that, you know they MUST be happy chaps, right? These are multi-part plastic 28mm figures from GW.

The "Death Korps" have a specific story in the lore of the 40k setting, but it's a bit TL/DR. Suffice to say the setting offered the sculptors at Forge World, (the sort-of-associated-but-not-totally-coordinated-but-still-wholly-owned-or-something GW studio) a chance to explore a particular design theme for the "Imperial Army" troops - that theme is "World War I, but, you know, in the year 40,000". This sort of look had been attempted by others, but the Forge World sculptors at the time hit it out of the park with the "Death Korps of Krieg" - a full range of figures blending the kit, look and despair of troops on the western front in 1916 with certain 40k flourishes (skullz!).

Lots of detail on the kit.

Can you spot the small skullz?

The Krieg sculpts from Forge World were amazing. They were - and still are - a stark contrast to the plastic offerings of the day (either the deeply uninspiring Cadians, or, much worse, the complete-crap Catachans). As nice as they were, however, they were only available from Forge World, and so were seldom seen on gaming tables.

Communications trooper.

Love the flare pistol.

Another comms trooper...not sure what I was thinking by doing two of them...oh well...

Really like this pose.

Fast forward to summer 2021, and the release of a new edition of the "Kill Team" rules from GW. The new box set had guardsmen from the "Death Korps of Krieg" - and they were plastic! I picked up a set, and wow, I think this might be the start of something...the figures are so cool, with lots of options for assembly.  I built this unit mostly to represent a basic infantry squad (one sergeant, one special-weapon trooper), but I did mix in a couple of specialists with comms equipment for use with "Kill Team".

The grenadier is fantastic, loading another round...

Suitably action-ish pose for the officer.

It would make sense for GW to add a couple of more plastic sets for the Krieg troopers - all they need are heavy weapon crews, and some officer sets. That said, GW's moves often don't...make much sense? We'll see. But I certainly am going to track down a few more boxes of these fellows, it will be a fun new-project for the future!

A couple of the regular chaps aiming their laser rifles.

I loved working on these figures. It will take a bit of time, but watch for more to appear in this space, as I don't think I will be satisfied with just one squad...thanks for reading!

Painting Challenge Super Post!

 I haven't posted here in a while due to the analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. I kept meaning to copy my posts from there to this blog, but I kept putting it off until there were too many entries to get through. I decided to create one super post with all my entries to this date, plus a bonus entry that doesn't qualify for the challenge because they were partially painted before it began.

I also slowly completed a tactical squad for my delayed, but not forgotten 9th edition Minotaurs project

 

Painting Challenge Submission 8 - "Tolerance", Inquisition Public Affairs Specialist

Meet "Tolerance", Inquisition Team Member.

We are well underway with this edition of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, and I am late with my "entry figure", the so-called "Curtgeld". The "fee" of a single figure to participate in the Challenge is a well-established tradition, but lately Curt has taken to encouraging the participants to paint these up as rewards to others who complete the map-related tasks in the Challenge. It is a fun way to encourage each other along as we proceed in the Challenge.

Anyway, I was late getting this figure painted, as it really should be done within the first month of the Challenge (which was a couple weeks ago). This is pretty shameful on my part, but lucky for me, I had already set aside the figure in question well in advance of this edition of the AHPC, and the theme lined up well. MikeF has been painting up a fantastic Inquisitorial band for his 40k collection - so to hopefully inspire him further, I thought I would paint this figure for him, to join the retinue of his terrifying 40k Inquisitor Grayfax.  Thus I present "Tolerance", Inquisitorial Assassin Public Affairs Specialist.

Plastic figure from GW's "Elucidian Starstriders" set.

This is a 28mm plastic figure from GW. I believe it was part of some kind of Kill Team set...the Elucidian Starstriders. I was never into the background of any "Kill Teams", but I thought these figures were so cool so I picked some up, as there are many neat character-types that will be fun for 30k and 40k gaming. This specific figure is a member of a Death Cult Local Climate Justice Awareness Council. Given the spirit of our times, and hers, I am ditching the GW name and designating her as "Tolerance" instead, as she would appear to capture the spirit of this sentiment in her times...and increasingly ours. 

Not sure what is up with that body suit, but I assume that provides...lumbar support?

When painting a one-off figure like this, it is fun to experiment. So for this figure, I thought I would give GW's new "Contrast" paints a try. Oh, I've used them here and there on small, specific spots (like coloured hoses for Titans etc.), but this is the first figure I have painted where nearly all of it was done with Contrast Paints. Or, I should say, it was supposed to be...I find the effect of the Contrast Paints can be interesting, but also terrifically underwhelming in some ways, so there are a few spots where my more standard painting techniques were used. Still, it was fun to try something new - it is a painting "Challenge" after all. Many folks are coming up with some pretty neat results using these new paints...I just need to practice more!

Good luck with the Snow Lord's Challenge!

So Mike, I hope "Tolerance" here can inspire you to complete the Snow Lord's Challenge, and then help Inquisitor Grayfax impose the Emperor's Social Justice on wargaming tables set in the grim darkness of the far future. 

Cheers everyone - thanks for reading! Stay sane!

Kill Team, Heresy Style

A couple Thursdays back we decided to dust off the Heresy armies for a game of GW's new opus, Kill Team. For those who've been living under a rock, KT lets players field real skirmish forces of 3-20 models and is a skosh more detailed in its gameplay than 40K. In truth, it's meant to be a gateway drug for new players... collect and paint a Kill Team and you're on the way to having a 40K army, or something like that... Of course, for grognards like us, Kill Team is more a matter of picking out some models from the 10-or-more 40K armies we already have, and playing a game with those. Not much danger of KT escalation hereabouts.

Anyway, Conscript Greg and I ended up picking very similar Kill Teams - his, Sons of Horus and mine, Iron Warriors. The scenario involved a very lost Herald of the Warmaster who needed to be picked up and "protected".

I laid out a congested urban table 4 feet square. We deployed in opposite corners. Four markers were placed near the centre of the table as possible locations for the Herald. The Kill Teams were tasked with finding the Herald and escorting him off the table. Above you can see some of the initial Iron Warriors deployment. We also placed a Marine with Missile Launcher on the third storey of the red-brick building at upper right.

Sons of Horus deployed on the street ready to rush the objective markers/tune up Iron Warriors...

View from the SoH side. IW missile dude is in the building at centre top.

The battlefield as seen through the sights of an IW missile launcher.

The first turn saw the ML score a counter-sniper hit on SoH heavy weapons Marine hidden in building behind their lines.

Iron Warriors rush to check markers in no-man's-land. Unfortunately for them the SoH had set up in overwatch and after a furious gun battle the Iron Warriors were down!

The other three markers having been confirmed as duds, the remaining Iron Warriors close in on the confirmed location of the Herald. SoH Marines are all around - on overwatch at top centre and out of sight by the wall at centre left and behind the building at centre right.

SoH boss closes on the objective, with a minion just behind the building in support. IW trooper did not live long but help was on the way!

Oooof... that didn't work either as the SoH boss took out the "help"...

Never fear, here comes the IW boss... but the SoH leader took him out too.

Sons of Horus escape with the Herald in tow!

That was a fun game with a real ebb and flow of fortune. With only 6 models per side, taking out one or two models really makes a difference! Note the "flesh wounds" being carried by the SoH boss in the pic above... I got pretty unlucky with Greg's wounding rolls but them's the breaks! I really enjoy Kill Team as a skirmish game as the departure from strict IGO-UGO is really fun.