Apocalypse at Warhammer World!

An hours drive up the M1 took the three of us to Warhammer World in Nottingham.  It had been decided that we should have an apocalyptic mega battle to help decide the outcome of the Holbronx campaign, with Perhow and TJ teaming up against my Imperial forces at 8000 points a side.  At such a high points value we needed a huge table, and we were lucky enough to get a place on the excellent J'migan Bridge themed table that measures a whopping 12 x 6 feet!  Warhammer World is undergoing some works at the moment but the staff are no less welcoming and the themed gaming tables are totally awesome.  A visit is most recommended!

Tracked happiness awaits the interpid adventurer

We played end to end, focussing on the bridge as the main objective with each end of the table having a 'home' objective in their own territory, giving six objectives in all with standard secondary objectives.  It took over an hour just to set up over 16000 points of 40k troops, but by lunch time we were in full swing.

The belligerents are poised, ready to seize J'migan bridge

Turn 1

The loyalists rolled to take the first turn and the xenos/chaos pact failed to seize the initiative.  At this point I remember thinking that the first turn advantage might be weak with 48" of no mans land to cover, my misgivings would later turn out to be true as I lost control of many objectives on the last turn... the benefit of hindsight!  The Imperials opened up with a massive artillery bombardment, stunning the traitor tanks that were poised to roll on to the bridge, while on the left flank the Crimson Fist scouts infiltrated across the river bed supported by a drop podding dreadnought they quickly saw off a large mob of cultists.  A second dreadnought scattered off the table to go into ongoing reserves.

In my back lines I spottted a squad of eldar infiltrators, and a space marine assault squad moved forward to interdict them supported by a 'rifleman' dreadnought.  The assault marines ended up successfully holding off the striking scorpions for the entire game, but their exarch managed to kill off the dreadnought by the third turn.  The problems presented by the sheer size of the table started to present themselves, because infantry without transports are very slow!  This really started to hit home later on when my transports started to dwindle thanks to xenos energy beams :(

On the right flank a large contingent of tactical marines mounted in rhinos surged forward with the intention of crossing the river bed.  Supported by devastators, PDF heavy weapons squads and several Leman Russ battle tanks I had high hopes of this flanking force crossing the river bed and securing the enemy side of the bridge head.  However as we shall see the chaos/xenos pact had other ideas!

Elements of the Atrean Star Knights along with the Crimson Fists defend the PDF artillery

The pact appeared to be having trouble on the left after the early successes of the scouts, on the right a large contingent of bikers, both Nurgle plague marines lead by their warlord and Dark Eldar jetbikers rushed forward to try and refuse my massed attack on the right, it soon started looking like a blood bath would ensue on the river bed.  Unbeknownst to me an eldar grav tank that joined the force was carrying a squad of Wraith Knights.  I hadn't encountered these alien constructs before but I can attest to their combat prowess after seeing them in action, and I advise that you do not let them anywhere near your space marines!  The rest of the pact's first turn was uneventful, with their movement on the road blocked by the Landraider that had been stunned by my long range artillery fire I allowed myself to believe that things were going okay.

Turn 2

My first act of the second turn was to use my Officer of the Fleet to use his logistical nous to get me a 2+ reserve roll.  Thanks to his skills, two of my Valkyries, an assault squad, a 10 man terninator squad with a captain and two dreadnoughts all showed up on time.  At this point I decided to concentrate a large force on the enemy home objective, with 11 terminators and two dreads landing nearby I was aiming to silence the enemy macro cannon and butcher the cowardly xenos within.  By turn 4 I would realise the hubris of investing nearly a 1000 points of my elites in such a venture... as they are not actually 'objective secured' the objective was eventually snatched by an eldar skimmer on the last turn and all was for nothing.  Well at least they looked pretty while they were achieving nothing!  The assault squad was tasked with deep striking behind the nurgle bikers and flaming them, but they scattered widely onto the opponents river bank and lobbed a grenade at an enemy tank, which missed.  Aside from the artillery crippling more of the traitor space marine tanks and thinning out the nurgle bikers, it was a desultory turn for the loyalists.

The xenos started to deep strike their skimmers into my rear lines, supporting the eldar striking scorpions already present.  This attack was to shift my attention away from the assault on the bridge which aided the pact hugely.  My devastators and PDF weapons teams who were meant to be covering the advance across the river bed were quickly cut down by deep striking warp spiders accompanied by the xenos warlord, a rather cocky autarch who would meet his comeuppance on the end a my captain's relic blade.  This would be scant compensation however for a series of events that resulted in three squads of tactical marines perishing over the following turns and me losing control of the right flank.

Deep striking xenos and traitor units wreck the imperial ambitions on the right flank.

To make matters worse, three squads of terminators materialised on the dried up river bed, they would be the anvil against which my marines would be smashed by the xenos hammer.

Turn 3

Recognising the threat from the deep striking xenos in the rear, Pedro Kantor signalled his honour guard forward along with 20 sternguard.  Low difficult terrain rolls for the sternguard left Kantor and his honour guard badly exposed, but I hoped to get Pedro into combat where he would be safer, only for him to take wounds from overwatch fire then fail his charge roll.  Things were getting a little frustrating now and I could feel victory slipping between my fingers.  I later found out that I had been making my difficult terrain rolls on 1 dice when it should be two and pick the highest! That's a real 'rules 101' mistake that may have helped my game quite a bit, oh well.

The terminators and dreadnoughts attacking the enemy macro cannon, a full 6 feet behind enemy lines, finally managed to silence the weapon and kill the eldar wracks hiding inside.  They moved onto the objective and took cover in the ruins.  Back in the imperial sector the valkyries strafed the dark eldar raiders with their twin linked lascannons but didn't manage to actually destroy anything.

The PDF armour, now somewhat beaten and battered, continued to advance onto the bridge.  The second remaining squad of Crimson Fist terminators teleported onto the mid section of the bridge, hoping to protect the PDF armour from assaults.  My only consolation from this turn was that I finally managed to kill the nurgle warlord on his bike with artillery fire, but the tide had already turned to a point where the traitor's combat prowess wasn't really needed.

The traitors, sensing victory, pushed forward onto the imperial river bank and the Heldrake washed the river bank with warp flame, killing more power armoured space marines.  Their xenos comrades continued to catch the space marines in a withering cross fire from behind, using their monofilament weapons, shurikens and d-weapons the river bank was reduced to a steaming abbatoir.  Pretty much the only warrior left standing was the enraged company captain, who accepted the challenge of the eldar autarch, the autarch flounced into combat muttering arrogant alien insults, while the captain remained taciturn and waited for his opening the eldar did some showboating with his blade.  When the captain had seen enough he hewed downward with a single brutal strike from his relic clade, a strike that even the agile eldar couldn't avoid.  Cut in two the alien flopped to the ground, the captain had avenged his murdered brothers, but he knew the battle was already lost.

Kantor is surrounded without the support of his brothers.

 A further two Leman Russ battle tanks went up in flames then to make matters worse an eldar Wraithknight appeared and efficiently vaporised the terminators on the bridge.  The spelled disaster for the imperial armour as they were unsupported by infantry and open to assault by the traitor terminators.

In the imperial sector the cackling xenos opened up on Pedro and his honour guard and they were cut down to a man, his sternguard moved forward to protect their chapter master's stricken form and teleport him to the medicae bays on the battle barge.

Things looked grimmer than ever for the Imperials!

Turn 4

We had just about enough time to play a 4th turn and from my point of view this turn would be about damage limitation.  I still had several thousand points worth of forces on the board but nothing that was within striking distance of the objectives.  I desperately shelled the enemy bridge head with everything I had, killing dozens of traitor space marines, but to no avail.  The survivors trudged on through the carnage to secure the bridge.  To add insult to injury a xenos fast skimmer moved back to secure the pact's home objective, making the efforts of the first company completely futile!  After some discussion we decided to end it there, a full 6 hours of gaming managed to get us four turns, but we had to stop there as warhammer world wanted to close.  A further turn may have seen me recover some of the bridge, but it would have required no small amount of luck on my part to prize those objectives back.  A solid win for the xenos and traitors.

Result:

Traitor/ xenos pact   18vp

PDF/Space marines   6vp

A win for the pact!  They get 3 vp's toward the campaign total, though how they are shared out remains to be seen, it was an uneasy alliance at best!  

Conclusion

Playing such a huge game was great fun and a memorable experience, though it made me realise that there is a limit to how much one can remember when responsible for moving and shooting 8000 points worth of miniatures.  I think next time at this amount of points I might recruit a leuitenant or two to get on with the minor stuff while I take the command throne and concentrate on the big picture.  It was really challenging coming up against two experienced 40k players in TJ and Howard and unlike in smaller games where you can feel unlucky over a dice roll or two, in a game this size everything averages out and I can say that I was definitely outplayed through the superior sneaky tactics of my opponents. Well done to Perhow and TJ, top game lads.

We had a '3 colours' painted rule for this game and everything looked spot on when set up on the table, I even got to dig out some of my old rogue trader beakies, (who incidentally showed Pedro's lads how it was done) it was really cool to see all that painted 40k stuff on the table together, it isn't often we get to use all our toys at once is it?

Crimson Fists Dreadnought 2

 I've been looking to add some elite and heavy choices to my Crimson Fists and following a search on eBay I found an incomplete 'bjorn' dreadnought going for a very cheap price.  The claw part of Bjorn's left arm was missing so after a trip to the paint stripping bath I modelled a new power claw on using green stuff and plasticard.  The new dread now has a Crimson Fists paint job and he has been re-christened 'Sergio'.  The wolf pelt was awarded by the Space Wolves after Sergio rescued some wolf scouts from a tricky situation and he proudly wears it over his left arm.  Any similarities to the old Bjorn are therefore purely coincidental.  The photo shows him on the right, alongside his ancient comrade, brother Antal.

Holbronx: prologue

While the campaign for Holbronx is hotting up we decided to play a final game in the prologue to the campaign.

After the initial occupation of the planet by the Dark Eldar, the beleaguered PDF were reduced to defending themselves from the night time terror tactics of the xenos who could at this point move around the surface of the planet pretty much unhindered, enabling them to harvest human slaves and spread misery at will.  After the desperate rescue of the astropaths by a courageous special forces group the imperials were able to send for help, and fortunately this arrived quickly in the form of a detachment from the Crimson Fists chapter.

The arrival of the Astartes provided a much needed boost to imperial morale as well as the required leadership to turn the tide.  Master Kantor however was confronted by the same problem: how to bring the highly mobile eldar into a pitched battle so he could destroy them.  Realising that the enemy would only attack where the imperials appeared weakest he assigned an Astartes detachment to wait in orbit ready to land at a few minutes notice, while keeping an apparently weak imperial patrol on the ground.

The eldar took the bait, advancing in force on a weakly held outpost they seemed poised to overwhelm the PDF defenders with their scattering of space marine allies, but the trap was sprung as drop pods came from the sky and unleashed their cargo.  The imperials inflicted grievous losses on the enemy, destroying dozens of eldar vehicles in several similar engagements the imperials had managed to break the back of the occupation.

The Dark Eldar are poised to dash forward into a deadly ambush, a taste of their own medicine!

The victory however rang hollow for some, the drop pod of Captain Jorge had scattered deep into enemy lines away from any chance of imperial fire support.  The vile leader of the Eldar, known colloquially as 'Vicious' killed the captain in single combat and was seen decamping from the battlefield, holding the severed head of the battle captain aloft while cackling in his incoherent alien tongue.

These events poised the imperials for a final victory, were it not for the arrival of the Blood Angels and their own selfish motivations.

Crimson Fists Rhino

Half way into my week off and i've finally got round to picking up my paintbrush. I've just about finish this Rhino, one of two for my fists. Just the lights and lenses to paint then some varnish and it's done. I decided to weather these pretty heavily for the 'on campaign' look. I used paint chipping, oil paint shading and brushed on pastels to make it look a bit dusty.
One tip when using transfers is to distress them a bit with a scalpel to avoid the factory fresh look... unless that's what you're actually after of course.

Crimson Fists Land Speeder

I decided to finish this item that has been sat around for a while.  It started life in my younger bro's Black Templars army and it had a pretty thick layer of black spray primer on it which I removed by putting the model in a bath of brake fluid for a few days.  Consequently the surface is puckered where the solvents ate into the plastic, but for a free fast attack choice I can't complain.  I think I'll pair this up with a tempest to make a nice anti-tank reserve choice.

I gently sponged on grey paint on edges and vulnerable areas to simulate paint chips, and chainmail to a lesser degree on extreme edges where paint would be totally removed.

The transfers were applied over a brush painted gloss varnish- you only need to do the part that will be covered by the transfer.  They all had Micro-Sol applied to help the transfer to the surface, on the shoulder pads this took something like 15 applications over a few days so it takes patience, but the end results are worth it as the markings really add to the overall effect.

Sternguard on a budget

Evening all, this week I have been working towards constructing my first wave of Sternguard.  As a Crimson Fists player, the elites choice of Sternguard is a no brainer, the combination of nice fluff and a very flexible codex listing and Pedro Kantor's Sternguard buffing abilities means any 'Fists player should have at least a squad of them.

I've got it into my head that it would be nice to at least have the option of fielding three full squads of sternies if the situation allows, and that situation would have to be at least a 1200 point battle if it's going to be legal with a HQ and two troops choices.

Lovely as the GW releases are, buying six boxes of the latest Sternguard plastics at £30 each would cost me £180, which frankly is too much for my hobby, I probably spend that on minis in a year so i need another way.

For £40 i've amassed enough bits, bodies and guns to equip 30ish Sternguard, many of the parts came from my bits box but if a bits box isn't there to furnish an epic project such as this then what is it actually for? Trawling ebay got me 20x old Death Company metals for £17 (look out for late night auctions when most people are not online), and the rest was spent on various bits websites purchasing weapons and terminator honours shoulder pads.  Add a paint stripped tactical squad from my brother's foray into 40k and that makes 30 bodies.

The marine on the left is a standard tactical marine with a swapped in Crux Terminatus pad, and one of my home made combi weapons.  For the combi-flamer you need a bolter, imperial guard grenade launcher and imperial guard flamer.  The heavy flamer is carved from an old terminator and I added a wire grab handle to the top, he also has a metal crux terminatus.... all of my sternguard will have terminator shoulder pads to mark them out from the rank and file marines.

The next four marines are a plasma gun and three combi plasmas each made from a bolt gun, storm bolter magazine and a plasma pistol nozzle.  The addition of termi honours and extra general bling should add to the final effect, I want my veterans to look well equipped and individual, so I'm getting a little excited with the purity seals.  The old metal death company marines are a little weedy next to the modern plastics so I drill out the head starting with a 1mm bit and gradually working up to a 6mm then trim off any excess metal with a knife and needle files.  This is a tricky operation and not to be rushed!  I can then add a newer head and make him a bit taller in the process.

Two more minor conversions, the old veteran on the left has the addition of a box magazine to beef up his bolter, and to the back i have attached a helmet (my pet space marine peeve is bare headed dudes not at least carrying a helmet).  The guy on the right is a salvaged tactical with drilled out head and added 2013 sternguard bare- head as well as the usual termi honours and sternie bolter.

Here are the next three combi- flamers, two with grenade launcher mags and one with a box mag.

The overall plan is to have 15 special weapon/ combi weapon dudes with 5 each of melta, plasma and flamer, then the rest with sternguard special issue bolters. You can see the results of my plasma efforts above.  I've made about 14 men so far, some may have heavy weapons although I'm not sure about this, but with so many I'll be able to pick and choose for my games of 40k.

30 Sternguard at about £1.30 each, that's one reason to be cheerful :)

Crimson Fists Captain Jorge

After a fairly large break in my painting I've been hankering after trying out my painting skills to 'benchmark' them and see what I'm capable of.  When you're painting loads of rank and file troops for an army it's easy to forget about the more sophisticated painting techniques that are saved for special characters and commissions.   So I broke out this plastic Space Marine captain to really flex my painting muscles and here is the result....

One thing I really wanted to try was NMM- that's non metallic metal, and I used this technique on the sword.  As you can see I've used conventional metallic paints elsewhere and it seems to hang together.  The sword is just Revell dark grey blended up to GW Skull White in a way to mimic shining steel.  I'm fairly happy with the result and will incorporate it into future projects.

I'm really trying to up my game when it comes to painting as I felt for a while I'd got into a rut (painting an Imperial Guard infantry company, over a hundred guys in brown overalls was a killer!!) so it's nice to show off a bit and remember that painting minis is meant to be an enjoyable experience!

Crimson Fists Tactical Squad with vintage minis

After another hiatus from blogging I thought I'd show you my most recent paint job... these Crimson Fists are assembled from a motley crew of vintage metal Space Marines and painted to my normal spec Crimson Fists paint scheme that is visible elsewhere on this blog.  I haven't painted much in the last 18 months as my hobby stuff has been packed away in a loft after a succession of house moves,  life keeps getting in the way of the Emperors work, Gah!!

The minis in this squad cover a range of eras, with the smaller looking 'Aquila' Armour guys actually being the first next gen marines that were released in something like 1992.  They were initially available as a boxed set of 15 bolter armed marines called the 'Strike Force', the other figures include some old Blood Angels and cetre stage in the bottom row is a Mk8 Mentor Armoured marine, now that too is a pretty old figure but it's a nice example of Jes Goodwin's exemplary sculpting technique when Games Workshop started going from the standard 28mm scale to the more familiar 28mm' Heroic' scale.  I love the pose on the Mentor armoured marine, he's giving out some tough vibes for sure.

I remember when this boxed set came out (yes I am a wizened veteran) and for my birthday I had the choice between this box and the Terminator boxed set, in the end I went for the Terminators because I already had something like four squads of beakies painted up as Blood Angels by then, but it reminds me of how back then everyone who collected marines had a hotch potch of different minis sculpted in many different styles.  While at the time it was frustrating, it also looked pretty cool, as up to 2nd Edition Warhammer 40k everything tended to have a more anarchic look and feel.

Crimson Fists Dreadnought- Weathered.

Hello everyone. Sorry for the lack of posts recently, looking for a new job and other multitudinous 'life administration' tasks have been getting in the way of my beloved wargaming. My recent painting activity has centered around trying to finish my Crimson Fists, and they would have been finished by now if i hadn't decided to start experimenting with weathering techniques.

My thinking is that, as the galaxies elite warriors, Space Marines would 'honour their wargear' and would look pretty immaculate at all times, until that is, they contact the enemy. It is said that the best battle plan will not survive contact with the enemy, and the same could be said of immaculately buffed power armour! As my Crimson Fists force is set just after the Rynns World disaster it is meant to depict a band of desperate warriors who have just had their Fortress Monastery destroyed and are fighting a valiant guerilla war behind enemy lines in order to link up with their allies in New Rynn City. That's where the weathering comes in. I wanted the Dreadnought to look as if having slogged hundreds of miles across the grassy plains, through skirmishes and plain bad luck.

The painting technique is the same as outlined below for the Tactical Marines, with the addition of paint chips done by adding Codex Grey areas with spots and scratches of Boltgun Metal in the middle. The grey is meant to represent undercoat/ primer that is exposed by bashes and repeated contact and the metal represent the metal underneath (of course). I also brushed on ochre and grey pastels, you can get these from any art shop and scrape a small amount onto a palette then use an old brush to sweep the 'muck' into corners and recesses, especially on the lower parts of the model. I'm fairly pleased with the results but with weathering part of the trick is to know when to stop- overcook it and your model can end up looking like a spawn of nurgle.

Crimson Fist Terminators

This weeks bout of frantic daubing has delivered a squad of six Crimson Fist Terminators (the Black Reach termis plus an assault cannon from the plastic set for added flexibility). All in I think spent about six hours on painting these boys. I followed the same reduced scheme as for the Tactical squad outlined below, with the addition that the Crux Terminatus markings are a simple wash of Devlan Mud over Bleached Bone. Keeping the colour palette to a minimum means that I should have no problems in fielding a 1000 points soon after Christmas, a welcome antidote to my slow progress on my other projects!


You will notice that few of the minis I post up on here are actually based, well for me that is the very last thing I do on an army, it's a kind of ritual that clears my bench off and allows me to start thinking of the next project. Bearing that in mind though I am preparing a backdrop for photos on this blog that will make things a bit more aesthetically pleasing than a paint spattered cutting mat.

So next up to tackle is the dreadnought, and a metal tactical squad is waiting for some custom shoulder pads from GW....

Crimson Fists

This week GW have released some cool detailing kits for the Crimson Fists chapter, an unexpected boon for me since I only decided to do Crimson Fists a few weeks ago myself! The first ever 'official' space marine chapter to be described by GW was unarguably the Crimson Fists, adorning the cover of the Rogue Trader manual all those years ago. The 'battle at the farm' scenario inside the book also introduced one of 40k's first ever special characters- Chapter Master Pedro Kantor, named jokingly after Pete Cantor who was one of the original developers.

Back then, although I admired the cool colour scheme of the 'Fists I wanted to do something a bit different and opted to paint my marines in Blood Angels colours, and carried on collecting as the Blood Angels evolved into the blood sucking close assault nutters they are today. All that time though the seed has been there and upon getting the Black Reach boxed set i decided it was time to daub blue and crimson on these 'marines.

My aim is to get a small army up and running pretty quickly, while my Knights of Atreus are a longer term project i want to get the Crimson Fists up and running asap. It also gives me a break from putting three levels of highlights on RTB01 plastics and lets me paint something from this millenium.

The paint scheme is a quick and simplified version of the one currently up on the GW website. Starting with a black undercoat the armour is painted in Regal Blue, followed by a Badab Black wash, then when completely dry drybrush the mini with Enchanted Blue. This provides enough depth for a simple gaming standard but I then added a single line highlight of 50:50 Enchanted Blue/Spacewolf Grey. The red bits... Mechrite red, wash Devlan Mud, Blood Red, Blazing Orange highlight. The metals are simply Bolt Gun Metal washed Badab Black then a minor highlight with Boltgun Metal again.

That sergeant looks a bit peeved, must be because someone nuked his fortress monastery.

Once the rest, and Pedro are painted I'll be doing a mini campaign detailing the escape and subsequent reinforcement of New Rynn city following the destruction of the fortress monastery. Of course that will have to include the 'battle at the farm' from the RT book....