WIP Reavers and Tiny Tanks

So after a nice break in sunny Spain I'm now back in significantly less sunny England, which makes me sad, but it does mean I can continue to work on my Axiom Maniple for Legio Metalica!

I've now finished what I started before I went away and got the super structure built for the two Reavers Hastati Lux and Victorious Endeavour.  I like the Reaver kit, not least because it comes with more weapons options than the notably lacking Warlord, I found the legs on the Reaver a little more fiddly than Warlord though (I even glued the lower leg sections on backwards on the first one!). 

Please excuse the quality. But, for those interested, yes the Warhound weapons scale well for Reaver carapace weapons.

As you can see Hastati Lux is armed with a twin linked Turbo Laser from the Warhound kit on its carapace.  Because there is no such thing as too much BWEEEEEM!  Tactically it will be rubbish at stripping shields, but it will ruin the day of any Princeps caught with his shields down! The Warhound weapons take a little jiggery pokery to fit the carapace mounts but not too much.

Victorious Endeavour is the more well rounded engine. Where Hastati Lux and Mors Incarnadine will aim to get into firing positions and likely stay put once they do Victorious Endeavour will be much more mobile, advancing ahead alongside the two (yet to be built) Warhounds Borophagus and Aelurodon (paleontological names there for anyone into their prehistoric dog species), closing the gap, stripping shields and, when it has chance, getting in close to BIFF! some unsuspecting engines with the Power Fist (I briefly considered a double fist loadout but decided against it in the end)

The beginnings of my Epic force.

I also managed to get my grubby little paws on some 30k Epic tanks off eBay. The Glaives were meant to be Falchions but due to a mix up at the other end I got Glaives instead.  Oh well, I was planning on getting some at some point anyway so its not a huge issue.

Still very much PIP!

I love these models though, whoever made them has done a fantastic job of translating the FW models to 6mm scale.  Painting tiny hazards stripes though?  I must really hate myself between these and the white/black stripes on the titans!

I haven't got myself a 28mm Mastodon, I will live vicariously through the 6mm version!

I also picked up a Mastodon (and the nice chap sent me a free Land Raider Proteus and Rhino.  The Mastodon is awesome, like the Glaives I can't overstate the amazing job done translating the 28mm model to 6mm.  I just need to get them all finished.

You'll notice a suspicious lack of infantry for my Epic stuff, that's because I want to get my hands on some of the lovely MkIII Tacticals and Breachers I've seen around various blogs/forums. It may take a while, and a lot of patience, but some will surface eventually, and then, they shall be mine! (though in the meantime, if anyone has any leads on some, let me know!).

Right! Need to get the Warhounds built tonight and then I can get the whole lot sprayed and crack on with the painting.

Until next time...

Legio Metalica Walks!

At last! An update with actual models, its been a weird few months and I have been in a bit of a lull.

However, the siren call of the new Adeptus Titanicus proved too strong for my, admittedly poor, impulse control.  And as such, here strides forth [I]Mors Incarnadine[/i] the first of my Legio Metalica engines.

I was a little slow off the mark (and also, too poor) to pick up the Grand Master Edition so I settled for the Warlord Bundle with the titan plus rules. I will say I really like the ruleset, which I know, everybody is saying the same thing. The rules are complex enough that the first time you play you'll find yourself keep going back to the rulebook to check stuff but once you get the majority of the basics set in your head there is a lot of tactical depth.  I wont go too much into detail in this post but I will do a full battle report once the Warhounds are out and we can run full maniples.

Mors Incarnadine and the war on Mycenae

Tasked as they were with the eradication of an Ork Waaagh! splinter which had found itself in the resource rich but otherwise unremarkable Mycenae system the 73rd Expedition fleet petitioned Legio Metalica for aid, given their long history of war against the Greenskins around Charadon it was the logical choice. The lords of Metalica agreed and a Demi Legio of 35 God Engines accompanied the 73rd Expedition to Mycenae.

In the shadow of the great war machine a stranded member of the IV Legion fends off the traitors.

The engine designated Mors Incarnadine acquitted itself well in the following four years of war, scoring a total of 8 confirmed Engine Kills on Gargant class Orkiod constructs, but it wasn't until the aftermath of the War that the engine proved its true worth.  Caught on the fringes of Lorgar's Ruinstorm the 73rd found itself isolated and ignorant of events taking place in the galaxy at large.

When a fleet of ships belonging to the XII and XVII Legions broke through the storms the 73rd at first thought reinforcements had arrived.  It quickly became clear that was not the case when the XVII Cruiser Epistle of Fire launched a devastating torpedo salvo detonating the plasma reactor of the Solar Auxillia Bulk Carrier Flame of Jupiter crippling the IV legion Cruiser Thunderhead.

The fleet of the 73rd scattered from the oncoming ships, attempting to extricate themselves from the incoming lance and macrocannon salvos.  While the orbital forces retreated in good order, suffering no further casualties, it allowed a window for the enemy to launch transports and landers onto the planets surface.

One of the most hotly contested zones in the first assault wave were the landing fields on the great crystal plane.  One of the few area in Mycanea's vast deserts open and stable enough to facilitate the landing of Titan and Ordinatus assets.  

When the enemy forces began to land, having received news of the attack from orbit Mors Incarnadine along with its Reaver Class escorts Hastati Lux and Pyroclastia held the landing field, along with support elements from the 208th Praetorian Infantry and a garrison force from the IX Legion, for 7 hours of bitter fighting, buying the defenders in other locations time to prepare their defences.  When it became clear they could not stop the flow of enemy landers the trio of titans were the last defenders to pull back from the landing fields.  Although Pyroclastia suffered catastrophic damage its weapon systems which would see it sidelined from the fighting until the very last days of the war, to have held their ground as long as they did was a truly magnificent feat.

So I still have a little more work to do on the titan, it needs decals and markings etc, though I'm not certain whether to get decals printed from the BOLS Metalica Transfer Sheet or to do a bit of a redesign on the, admittedly dated, Legio icon. We shall see.

Now, something I've been toying with the idea of for a while,  This guy is just the first test paint for the regiment (because why do one militia list when you can do more), but here is the first soldier of the 208th Praetorian Infantry.  The pants came out a bit on the shiny side which was odd but a blast of matt varnish once I've finished the rest of the squad will sort that out.  

Life... uh, finds a way.

So, 2018 has been pretty trash so far if I'm honest.  Between restructures at work, my fiancé leaving me and other stuff I'll be surprised if I make it through the year at this rate. Hence, the lack of updates, I've generally been having some downtime while I got myself back to an even keel.




I've not been entirely unproductive though, I finally finished the Brotherhood unit, finished building a unit of Destroyers and made a start building a second Tactical squad.  All of that to come in another update though.  In this update I want to talk about Jurassic World: Evolution.



Now, I love dinosaurs, always have, from being very little I wanted to be a Palaeontologist, even back when the other kids wanted to be Doctors and Astronauts, and I still love them now, even to the point of considering quitting my job and doing a Palaeontology access course at Uni so the second I saw this game it was a must have for me, plus Jurassic Park has been one of my all time favourite movies since it came out and my mum took me see it all those years ago.

Jurassic World: Evolution is a park management sim sent in the JP/JW canon. Its made by Frontier who also made Planet Coaster(A game which has sat on my wishlist since...forever really) and Elite Dangerous. Think, Zoo Tycoon but with dinosaurs.  Right, blurby bit out of the way.


The premise is pretty straight forward, the game dumps you on Las Cinco Muertes, the Five Deaths, islands from the films, Matanceros, Muerta, Tocano, Pena and Sorna.  The only one they visited in the films, I think, is Sorna which is the setting for both the Lost World and JP3.  Isla Nublar is also available as a sandbox island but I'll talk more about that later.  So the game drops you on the first island, nicely narrated by Jeff Goldblum, and effectively says "build a park".  Parks have a Star rating, between 0-5, better dinosaurs and better facilities means more stars.  Once you 3 Star and island it unlocks the next island.

The mechanics are solid if a little basic, you send dig teams out to sites to dig up fossils, you extract genomes from the fossils, once you have 50% you are able to incubate that dinosaur.  Once you have your genome you can modify it(various cosmetic skins and improved stats), but modifications reduce how viable the genome is, so higher genome percentages are better. 

Some dig sites are locked to begin with, as a way to keep a feeling of progression certain sites need a certain number of Expedition Centres (the building you send your dig teams out from) in order to be able to look for fossils there, you can only build a single Expedition Centre per island so it means you can't get certain dinosaurs until later in the game. Its a simple system but it does keep you thinking "oh I want to get to the next island to get X".

Once you have your dinosaurs it becomes a game of keeping them happy.  And believe me, that's sometimes not as easy as it sounds.

Ankylosaurs, for example, are not very friendly.

Dinosaurs have a "Comfort" rating which is measured on a few things, access to food and water obviously, whether their enclosure meets their needs which is represented by the "Forest" and "Grassland" traits, this one can be particularly finicky if you have a small enclosure as it may be impossible to meet both needs if the dinosaur requires a lot of both, and their desire for company represented by "Social", how many of its own species it wants, and "Population", how many dinosaurs in total can be in the enclosure. If a dinosaurs "Comfort" falls below a certain point, which differs from species to species, they become unhappy and start smashing fences down. 

Clever girl...

Some dinosaurs aren't fussy, the Edmontosaurus for example is quite happy to be on his own in an enclosure with lots of other dinosaurs, and some are picky little divas! Chasmosaurus I remember being particularly picky as it wanted to be in a group of at least 3 of its own kind, but not more than I think 8 dinosaurs total in the enclosure.  That lead to a string of frustrating breakouts.

Here's some Edmontosaurus being not fussy.

Besides the needs of the dinosaur's you need to juggle three departments, Science, Entertainment and Security,  They'll give you one Mission per island and as many Contracts as you want to do.  These missions and contracts increase your reputation with whichever faction you do them for and, typically, reduce it with the other 2.  Its a real balancing act as if your reputation runs low with a faction there is a chance they will start sabotaging you. 

Dom, get on to recruitment. Get them to look for a security team that can work as a team. They may have to escort the current security team from the building for not acting like a team

So, that's the basics of gameplay, there's a little more nuance in some areas but that is the core things you are working with.  Other factors are Weather, some islands are prone to storms which damage buildings and agitate the dinosaurs and occasionally (or regularly if you are particularly unlucky like me) Twisters which can really ruin your day by blowing holes in fences, taking out your power lines and damaging a lot of buildings.

Is it good?  Well I'm 45 hours in on a game that's been out 10 days so I'd say that speaks for itself.  is it perfect... well, no, it could be, with some tweaks.
 


Before I get into my particular pros/cons however I'd like to law out some caveats:  If you have spent any time on either the SubReddit or the Steam Discussion boards you will have heard JP:OG had this and JP:OG had that,  I've never played Operation Genesis so can't compare it. Perhaps less relevant, I really didn't like Jurassic World, if I had to rate all 5 films they would be in best to worst order: Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Fallen Kingdom, Jurassic Park 3, Jurassic World, so that may give some context, or may not, who knows.

Its like Disney Land, except in perpetual darkness, and Mickey can (and will) swallow you whole.

Pros:


Graphically the game is stunning, like, as good as the films level of gorgeous.  The pictures peppered throughout this article are a mix of screenshots I've taken and promo shots I've nabbed off Google so should give you a good idea of how it looks.

Dinosaur variety, the game launched with 37 species of dinosaur, 42 if you bought the deluxe edition(which I did, obviously!), now today the Fallen Kingdom patch has landed giving another 6 species for free, so now we are at 48.  As someone really into dinosaurs this is brilliant,  with the exception of compsognathus all dinosaurs from the movies are in the game, plus others. Currently the game is missing Pterosaurs and Aquatic Reptiles but the developers have hinted that it could be something they look at down the line.  Are there dinosaurs missing I'd like to see?  Of course, Iguanadon, Ornitholestes and Amargasaurus to name a few, but with so many dinosaurs out there there are bound to be species not in the game that people want, but Frontier has a good track record with supporting their game post launch. I wouldn't be surprised if after all is said and done the roster is more like 85-90.

Rar Rar Rar...Grrr

Challenge, although the mechanics are relatively simple the game still offers a challenge.  The usual thing to happen, to me at least, is a cascade failure, its all going fine and you're keeping everything ticking over then suddenly its sabotage, then dinosaurs are out, then a storm hits, then by the time you get dinosaurs back in their enclosures the more social ones are annoyed and breaking down the fence, then the Science department sabotages you again because I'm sorry Dr Dua but can you not see I haven't been able to do whatever it is you've asked because shit went south when you decided to open all the gates last time!  Two and a half hours later you've got the dinosaurs back in their enclosures, everyone is happy and it all goes back to normal. And you're wondering in your head if you could ask the Security division to march the Science guys out back and shoot them all...


Cons:
AI,  the AI is...strange, to say the least, dinosaurs wander about, eat grass, hunt goats, whatever.  Herbivores, don't herd, even the ones that say they want lots of their own kind around (I'm looking at you Parasaurolophus), Raptors don't become a pack oh and if you put a carnivore in with herbivores it will kill and kill and kill until something kills it in return.  Now you're probably thinking, regarding the carnivores, that makes sense, which it does, sorta... except they don't kill because they're hungry, its almost like they're killing for sport! (Gotta get those quotes in). A good example is (mild spoiler), on Isla Sorna, when you first get to the map there are dinosaurs already on the island, there is a Spinosaurus and 15 Stegosaurus, the Spinosaurus will make its way from Stegosaur to Stegosaur not even missing a beat from killing one to the next until (about 4 Stegosaurs in) it dies.  And I restarted that island 4-5 times to see if it played out the same each time, and it did.  I dunno how easy it would be but really it should be tied into the Hunger stat, if its not hungry, it wont hunt, unless its the Indominus...

On a similar note, Comfort needs to be switched to go off the size of the enclosure, its currently a radius bubble around the dinosaur, or they need to be tweaked to search out comfort in their enclosure before breaking the walls down.  I've had dinosaurs wander into one corner of the enclosure, get annoyed because they don't have any friends (despite 6 of the same species being in there), or there's not enough forest (despite the enclosure being half trees) etc and then kick the fence down.  While we are talking about that, can we get a notification when a dinosaur is attacking a fence? The first we know at the moment is when it goes "Fence Broken!" "Dinosaur Threat!", which is rarely useful.

Terrain constraints, each of the "campaign" islands offers a unique challenge, so smaller maps for those, I'm totally fine with, but for the sandbox, I'd really love a truly massive map!  Isla Nublar, as it is, isn't that big,  if you're clever with your enclosures then you will be able to fit all the dinosaurs in, but you do have to be clever about it.  I'd love to see either custom maps or a random generator.  Also, the terrain tools can be a bit of a diva, once you get the hang of them they are ok, but I would like to see smaller brush sizes for the tree/water placement and maybe a few more terrain deform options.

Automation,  one thing I love about sim games is automation, I've played a lot of Surviving Mars and I love getting a colony to the point where it can almost run itself and I only need to step in if birth rates are up and I need a new dome or something.  JW:E has nothing in the way of automation,  you need to manually tell your ranger teams to go refill the feeders, send helicopters to remove dinosaurs who have died, even manually release dinosaurs when you incubate them which forces you into a little cinematic as it leaves the incubation lab, which is lovely, the first time you see it for each species, but thank you very much I've hatched dozens of Struthiomimus, I don't need to see it again.  You can skip the cinematic but only once its started, I'd rather you just had a remote release option so you could carry on whatever you are doing elsewhere.  I'd even be happy to use an upgrade slot on my ranger station to give them a radius in which they will automatically refill feeders and medicate dinosaurs.    


I've seen people talking on the SubReddit about more cosmetic options, different building skins, small decorations for park (like benches, signs etc) which, I agree would be nice, but I think we will definitely see them patched in later so I'm not raising them specifically as an issue... yet.

Finally, bugs, I've been really lucky and only really encountered one so far, where I tranquilised a dinosaur too close to the incubation lab and when m transport team tried to move it it stayed on the ground while the helicopter chugged off into the distance dragging its lines across the map until eventually it pinged out of existence and the dinosaur woke up exactly where it had been tranquilised so I had to start over getting it into its enclosure.  Its a minor thing and hadn't happened on any of my previous islands.  I have read of a few others online, one interesting one is that Dinosaur Visibility doesn't, currently, effect your parks rating, so someone managed to make a 5 star park where the guests couldn't see a single dinosaurs.  That something I suspect will be fixed fairly quick though.


All in all its a good game that I'm having a lot of fun with, its not perfect, but then again, most games aren't these days, and I think with a little polish it could be one of the greatest dinosaur games ever!  

Continuing the Brotherhood and Weekender thoughts

It’s been a sparse hobby week this week, then a busy weekend of craft fairs and zoo visits hasn’t lent a lot of time to doing hobby things.

 

I did, however, get the remaining 15 Squats for the Infantry Platoon built and primed.

 

Not very impressive I know but proof I did something!

 

 I did start painting them but the progress isn’t really worth showing yet.  I decided in the end to prep them all and get them painted without their pistols and then I can paint and add the guns on as and when I can get hold of them.

 

I haven’t been entirely idle though and I thought I’d show a bit of what I’m working on behind the scenes for these guys:

 

I’m working on a background book/pdf.  I’ve been furiously squirrelling away all the information I can find on the Squats background and I’m in the process of trying to bring their fluff up to date.  When I started this I hadn’t realised how difficult that was going to be, it’s a lot harder rewriting/adapting someone else’s work than it is to write your own and that surprised me.  All the units are going to fit in to the Militia list with the exception of the last few:

 

Anything with [] around them I haven't decided on names for.

I’m going to attempt to create apocalypse data sheets for the Colossus, Cyclops, Leviathan and Land Train.  I’ve seen a few that people have made for the Leviathan and one for the Colossus, but they are definitely made with the Imperial Guard in mind and I what a definite Squat feel to these.  I am considering dropping the Land Train from the list though, I don’t know, I’m struggling with it a bit.

 

Moving on though, I’m excited!  It was the Horus Heresy & Necromunda Weekender this weekend, and although I couldn’t be there myself I have been living vicariously through some of the other blogs that did have people in attendance, mostly Recalcitrant Daze and Battle Bunnies (both excellent blogs that you should check out) who I have totally stolen these pics from.

 

There has been some awesome stuff previewed and available at the event and a few things in particular that have caught my eye.

 

First, and most obviously, the Squat Bounty Hunter for Necromunda, GW gave a sneak peak of this on Friday(as well as showing they are aware that people want plastic SOB and Thunderhawks) but people got to see the mini in the flesh… err, resin, at the show. 

 

I don't remember the old Squats having quite so big bears though?  Meh, I still love it!

I have to say it looks amazing, I fully intend to pick one up, he’s probably not going to fit in aesthetically with my army but I certainly want to just paint him up.  He definitely has the retro squat look going on.  Who knows though, I’ve heard the reaction to him has been overwhelming on social media so maybe GW will take the hint and we’ll get a new faction.

 

One of the other things that really made me go ooooh, was the Termite.

 

I’m not sure what the rules are going to be for this, I’ve seen conflicting reports going from it being Legion only to it being available for all forces and everywhere in between.  If it is legion only though, perhaps Forgeworld would be kind enough to FAQ Survivors of the Dark Age to allow its use alongside Rhinos and Land Raiders?

 

Please?

 

The Aurox is an interesting little kit,  I’ve seen people describing it as a prototype Chimera for the Solar Auxila and Militia but I’m not sure,  I get more of a Dracosan vibe from it. 

 

Perhaps the idea is it’s the step between a Dracosan and a Chimera?  I don’t know, I like it though, and if it is available for Militia it fills the much needed transport gap between a 40 man Gorgon and 12 man Arvus, I like the idea of the Arvus but it’s got paper armour and rubbish guns so if you put your command section in there it’s going to get blown out of the sky!

 

The Final interesting thing is the Ordinatus Mole.

 

With it being an Ordinatus I suspect it will only be available to the Mechanicum, which makes me sad.  I’ll still get one even if I can’t use it!  (with me squats anyway, my Taghmata force might get some use out of it though). 

 

Hopefully I’ll get these last 15 Brotherhood Warriors painted this week and I can actually post a meaningful update!

Until next time!

Brotherhood update

Just a quick post today,  I got some paint on the 5 Brotherhood warriors that have weapons!

I kept the scheme pretty simple as I am still going with the theme that most of their gear is dual purpose and is, largely, drawn from their mining equipment.  I think the Akanauts fit that theme really well, with the small packs on their back that resemble air filters and their boiler suits.

These five are almost done, I've missed a few details that I've noticed that just need touching up before I get their bases sorted. After that its weathering.

The other reason for keeping the scheme simple is the sheer number of these guys I will be painting.  I've not settled on a complete list yet but already in a 1500pt list I will need over a hundred of them and if I'd made the scheme too convoluted I would quickly lose interest in painting that many.

I've been thinking on my weapon problem as well. I'm thinking the best way forward for now is to get the whole squad painted up, sans weapons, and then as and when I can get hold of them to paint the guns up separately and add them later.  Otherwise, at the rate the weapons are coming up on eBay, its going to be next Christmas before the squad is finished!


Anyway, that's all for now.


Until next time!

Squat brotherho... *cough* Militia Infantry Squad

Only a small update today.  We had 2 parties to go to at weekend (and 18th and a 30th) so by Sunday I was a little bit knackered! It was nice to get out and pretend to be a human though so its ok.


One of the armies I'll be focusing on this year are my Squat/Imperialis Militia.  I decided once the Kharadron Overlords came out how I was going to work the army (mostly), I'm still mulling over tanks but they'll come later. First up I needed infantry, now, the Survivors of the Dark Age provenance does mean that my compulsory troops have to be Grenadiers, which is fine, but I do intend on having some of the more basic infantry too.


 With that said, here are the first 5 (of 20) Infantry.



I'll, eventually, be fielding 4 20 man units with close combat weapons and 2 with Lasrifles(and Advanced Weapons for the extra punch).  The Arkanauts themselves don't require a huge amount of converting, since the description of Auxila Pistols is pretty vague you could even get away with leaving them as is, but I wanted to swap out the guns for something a little more recognisable.

In my hubris I thought the Renegade Militia Las/Auto pistols would be a good choice which, visually at least, they are but by Christ are they hard to get hold of.  This is why at the moment there's only 5 guys with guns, and one of them is the sergeant with a Bolt Pistol!

 Oh well, I'll get there in the end with them, it might just take some time.  with the next batch of guys I may customise them a little more, mix in the vanilla models with some more flashy ones since, in theory at least, each Squat is responsible for his own gear so I imagine there would be a decent amount of custom modding going on.


 As for the army list, its not really possible to represent everything the Squats used to have but you can get a good amount of them.  For now my 1 to 1 comparison is something like this:


Force Commander -  Warlord: Fairly straight forward, he's got a decent range of equipment to allow for a pretty unique Warlord.  No way of getting him into Exo-armour unfortunately but its a small gripe. You've already seen my Force Commander in the last update so I wont post him again. Yet.


Platoon Command Cadre - Hearthguard: I backed and forthed for a while whether to make these part of the main Brotherhood troops of the Hearthguard, they are only BS3 so hardly fitting of the Hearthguard but then the way Squat society is set up it didn't make sense that the commanders would be standard Brotherhood.  Either way, with Advanced Weapons you can give them Carapace Armour and Laslocks for a 3+ save and Str 5 shots (even if they don't have any AP) and throw them in a Rhino(or a counts as Rhino, we'll come back to that). I'm still not 100% settled on this so it may change.


Rogue Psyker - Living Ancestor: But Amy! Your army is Loyalist! I know, I know, but its the only way of getting a Living Ancestor in.  I'm not saying I'm going to use one, but its nice to have the option.  As long as you're fluffy with your choices of Psychic Disciplines I don't think most players would have a problem with you taking one.


Militia Infantry Squad/Fire Support Squad/Recon Squad - Brotherhood:  The backbone of Squat forces are the Brotherhoods, Between these three squads you've got a decent layout of options, Infantry squads can be melee orientated (as above) or ranged with Lasrifles or Laslocks, Fire support squads give you your heavy weapons, I plan on using the FW shoulder mounted ones as much as possible for a real RT era feel, shame the squad cant take Plasma Cannons but oh well and Recon squads can either be Snipers or close assault Shotgunners (I'll be using the DKOK Engineer Shotguns if I make some of these!).  These will all use the Arkanaut Company models as they only have Flak Armour (although with SOTDA its at least a 4+ save).


Inducted Levy Squads - Cyber Slayers:  This one is a bit of a stretch, I'll be honest, but again, its the only way I can think of to fit these in.  Give them two close combat weapons and Discipline Collars.  I'll be using the plastic Slayers an hacking arms/legs/whatever off and giving them a Servitor esque look with lots of bionics.


Grenadier Squads - Hearthguard: Their Carapace Armour gives them 3+ saves(thanks to SOTDA) they're BS4 and with Laslocks they have Str 5 shots. they have a decent amount of options for other gear including Boltguns if you want some AP shots, they can also take up to 2 guys I nthe squad with special weapons from Rotor Cannons(Which with advanced weapons is Str 4 AP 6 Salve, not shabby) to Plasma Guns.  There was no way these weren't going to be the Elite Hearthguard, it even says in the description for Grenadiers that they are often the "retainers of the Commander's Houshold".


 Ogryn Brute Squad - Exo-armour: Ok so its not a perfect analogy, especially with Ogryns low LD but, it does make them a T6, W2 hard hitting unit.  BS2 isn't great but kit them out with Close Combat Weapons, Power Axes and Boarding Shields etc and then it doesn't matter when you slam them into combat. I'll be using my converted Centurions to represent these.


Enginseer Auxillia/Rapier Battery - Engineers Guild/Trikes: I keep seeing people bemoan the like of Bikes/Rough Riders in the Militia list, and Ok, I would like Rough Riders if only so that when I do my Imperial Beastmen somewhere down the line I can use Centigors to represent them, but I digress, the Enginseers are the obvious choice to represent the Engineers Guild, and I've already started changing my old Force Commander into the first of an Enginseer detachment.  Trikes we're a little harder to get into the army in a justifiable way, in the end I settled on Rapiers, they'll represent slow moving "Trikes" that rather than being fast transports for Engineers are actually more like heavy mining equipment that the Squats have mounted on a platform with one driving and one manning the gun.  its not perfect, but it will do.


So that's my ideas for the Infantry, As I said I'm still torn on Tanks but it will be a while before I get there.  I mentioned "Counts As" Rhino's earlier,  I'm not going to spoil that one just yet so you will have to wait for the next update on that front.  In the meantime, if anyone has any of the Renegade Laspistol or autopistol arms lying around then let me know and we can sort out a trade or something!


Until next time!

The S Word & New Custodes

Cards on the table, I didn't finish the Custodes.  I almost did, but then I got distracted. They've got their bases and most of the detail now, I just need to do one more highlight on the armour and the gems.


What distracted me? Well, remember a little while back I was working on some Squats for my Imperialis Militia list, well, almost as soon as I got a feel for what I was going to do with them GW went and released the Kharadron Overlords which appeared to be their way of saying "Here are some Squats but not really" so I picked up the Admiral and a unit of the Arkanaut Company while I mulled over my options and then there they sat... until now!


Well, ish, the Arkanaut Company is assembled, mostly, but lacks pistols as I wanted to change the ones they had but I'm not sure what to replace them. I'll have a think and see what happens.


What I did do was the Admiral,  now I had done a model for my Force Commander already done, but he's been summarily demoted to an Enginseer, poor chap, a few dashes of red and a Servo arm and he should be ready to go.  Now for his replacement:

I really like the base model so didn't want to do a lot to change it, I still want to stick with the theme of a chunk of the Squat equipment being repurposed mining gear so I decided not to change the armour except to remove the huge backpack and replace it with something a bit smaller.

I like the idea of this armour being the middle step between the Grenadiers (Carapace Armour) using the Ironbreakers and the Exosuits (Ogryns counts as) converted from Centurions. The Arkanaut Company will represent those troops wearing Flak Armour.  I swapped his head for one from the Slayers box as I felt with the full face helmet (which I kept mag-locked to the back of his armour) he might have lost some character and looked a little too much like the base model. He's armed with a plasma pistol which at first I took from the Death Korps upgrade pack, but that felt far too small so he got an upgrade to a Legion one.

His backpack is the same modified one from the Skitarii box with the extra pipes and bits cut off and an overshoulder lamp added from the Grey Knight Terminator Apothecary.  I really wasn't sure about the lamp at first but once I painted it I'm really happy with how the model feels, the armours nice and chunky and industrial and once he's been weathered I'm sure he will look like he's spent years down the mines in it.  The Hammer was my only concern, as the Force Commander doesn't have the option for a Thunder Hammer, but it was too nice and detailed to cut off, for the purposes of rules I am going to count it as a Power Fist, which seems fitting I think. 

Overall I'm really happy with how he's turned out, I just need to finish up his face (god I hate painting faces) and weather him up a bit and he'll be good to go...well, once he has some troops to lead!  I'll post a bit of background for him once he's finished.

In other news, they announced new Custodes models over the weekend and I've come away from the release with a resounding... meh.  Which is disappointing, as I said in my last post, I love the Custodes kits, I mean, I don't hate the new stuff, but very little from it grabs me really.  I didn't take these pictures but nabbed them from google so credit to the original photographer.

The Veterans are probably my favourite of the lot, on one hand I like the addition of the robes as it brings it closer to the artwork, but on the other hand I'm worried there's not going to be a lot of variety to the poses, the two guys on the right of the picture look basically identical except ones got a spear and ones got an axe. I'll probably grab some to use as Hetaeron Guard since I'll only want 5 as a guard for my Shield Captain 

Jetbikes, I like the bikes themselves (again, they're closer to the artwork) but what is going on with the riders torso? those gorget wings just look silly. The one bonus I can see of these over the FW ones is they are likely to be significantly less expensive.  Maybe I'll see if I can swap out the bodies for the normal Custodes body.

Shield Captain, the most meh of the bunch he's got no real character about him, his armour somehow feels less fancy than normal Custodes bar the addition of a cloak, he's really static too.  So yeah, meh... 

Terminators.  Hey look, lets give the Custodes Terminators! But, FW already do some god damn beautiful kits for them. Good point, but lets give them Terminators and make them shittier than the FW ones!  As you can guess, I'm not a fan, compared to the Aquilon Terminators these look like conversions, and not even good ones. I will definitely not be picking up any of these. I get that in the 10,000+ years since the Heresy they would have had upgrades, and they're clearly meant to give a fell of the Grey Knight Terminators but god are they ugly! and also, what exactly is the point in having a wrist mounted gun when the one built in to your main weapon takes two hands to fire?  or did no one think of that? *sigh*

Not a massive update, and apologies for the Terminator rant! I'll have more to show next time.

Until next time!