Fluffing it.

So I’ve had a pretty quiet hobby week,  between one thing or another I’ve not got nearly as much done on my ETL Vow as I’d have liked.  In the meantime however I have started working on the background for my army a little more so I thought it would be a good time to discuss army background and what that means to you.

I think we’re quite lucky in the Horus Heresy community.  Not only do we have some amazingly talented modellers & painters, many of whom write amazing backgrounds for their creations (check out Death of a Rubricist for example) but we also seem to have a lot less of the win at all cost type of players prevalent in standard 40k, I’m not saying there aren’t some out there, they’re just less common. 

Also between Black Library and Forgeworld we have an excellent starting point to go from.

 

Something like that…

 

Now obviously the amount of backstory you want to give your army is entirely up to you, you might just want to go as far as their current campaign, a few campaigns worth or (if you’re a bit OCD with it like me) their entire campaign history! And it can be as detailed or vague as you like, especially if its written as a retrospective (in a similar fashion to how FW writes their HH series) as a person reviewing data and records from a time already past, that way gaps in the timeline can be explained as missing or damaged records that you can fill in later.

 

I'm sure it was nothing important.

That’s the approach I’ve taken, I started off with their current campaign and has kinda been working backwards from there.  The other things you’ll want to think about are where your army is fighting, who they’re fighting and one that is less obvious, when.

Where they’re fighting will mostly just dictate your choice of basing, but it will also have an effect on how much source material you have to begin with, if you set your army in the heart of the crusade fleets like the 63^rd for example, there is much, much more information available, which means your slightly more tied down to established events than if you choose the fringes of the expansion which that then gives you more creative freedom, so both have their merits and drawbacks.

Who is an interesting question in the context of the Great Crusade/early Heresy Era, since the Expedition Fleets were conquering worlds over the breadth of the galaxy it really gives you scope to come up with some totally bizarre concepts for enemies and obviously ,the later into the Crusade and then into the Heresy you get your enemies will change again as you inevitably get drawn into the civil war, no matter which side you’re on.

Which brings you finally to when, and not just when in the timeline, if your backstory is part of a campaign, how long has your army been in the field?  If you set your army mid campaign it can make for some interesting list decisions, using odd numbered troops in squads to represent casualties that haven’t yet been replaced or using full squads but with a few members having slightly different markings to represent units that have been amalgamated due to casualties but not yet had time to update their designations.

I like to make work for myself, so I settled on an expedition fleet not mentioned in the books set in an area of space with very little background information.  The locations changed twice, originally it was to be an extended campaign in the Halo Stars, that then moved to the Ghoul Stars (for somewhere a little more remote) and finally to the region known as the Death of Reason to tie in with something I have in mind for the armies future. I did give myself one concession however in that I picked Orks and Eldar as the primary adversaries for my army although I do plan to explore some xenos and human foes for their backstory as I fill in the gaps of the expeditions history.

From reading other people’s backgrounds as well as writing my own I’ve noticed everyone has a slightly different style, much like novel writing, which I suppose isn’t that surprising, it’s still worldbuilding, just within an established canon. I find I work best when I start with broad strokes, for example I decided early on that the company would aid in the defence of Metalica Forge World at some point, thus being joined by a demi-legion of titans from the Legio Metalica, they would also fight at Neverlight, simply because I liked the name and there’ve very little information about it giving me free reign, I knew the company would remain loyalist once news of the Heresy reached them and that in trying to return to the Imperium their journey would take them, battered and a fraction of their former strength, to Macragge,  I had to do a bit of rethinking with dates once Betrayer came out as the ruinstorm would essentially block them from getting to the Ultramarines until the end of the war, so now they arrive around the time that Know no Fear ends.  Sometimes you have to go back and change things, sometimes you don’t have to but you want to because you think of something that appeals to you more, makes more sense, or just works better.

Forgeworlds timeline has been very useful (check out Battle Bunnies for their timeline going back into the Crusade)

 

It’s also worth mentioning as it is in a similar vein, your army is what you choose to make it.  I’ve been criticised in the past that my Iron Warriors don’t have enough siege guns in the list, but the legions are so vast and varied at this point, sure the Iron Warriors might be known for their siegecraft, and in the background I write for them I certainly intend to show that the 6^th can bring the heavy guns out, but their current campaign, fighting small to mid-sized skirmishes against speed freak Orks and fending off intermittent hit and run raids by Eldar, doesn’t call for them.  At least not in the numbers everyone seems to expect me to field.

Ultimately, whatever you choose, there’s no wrong way to flesh out your backstory.

Until next time.

++E Tenebrae Lux++

I love a good challenge.  Especially hobby challenges, they bring out a real community spirit, more so than normal (I’ve found over the years that the Heresy has an amazing community, especially compared to normal 40k). 

With that, Bolter & Chainsword has started their E Tenebrae Lux painting challenge.  For those not familiar it’s an inter subforum painting challenge. Each subforum (Chaos, Space Marines, Horus Heresy etc) collects vows from its members (up to 5 vows of up to 3k each) and then the challenge begins, paint your vowed models before the challenge ends and your team gets the points equal to what you’ve painted, if you fail then you lose the points not only for that vow but for all your vows.  So vow carefully! 

I must admit I watched the challenge last year,  I was having a bit of a hobby lull at the time and didn’t really feel up to it anyway.  This year though I’m ready (well, ish) and really looking forward to it.  If anyone’s thinking of entering, remember your vows need to be in before the 1^st of June so you have 10 days to decide! 

My first vow is:

 “I Rolltonotdie rise to the challenge of E TENEBRAE LUX and vow to complete:

Legion Moritat with Volkite Charger, 2x Volkite Serpenta & Refractor Field (125pts)

Legion Heavy Support Squad with Nuncio Vox, Augury Scanner, Power Weapon & 9x Volkite Culverins (240pts)

Legion Contemptor Dreadnought with Plasma Cannon & Plasma Blaster (205pts)

Legion Typhon Siege Tank with Lascannons, Armoured Ceramite & Havoc Launcher (425pts)

from The Legions Astartes Crusade Armylist of total value 995 points on or before August 1st, 2015. Success will bring eternal glory to The IVth Legion and failure will doom me to bear the Badge of the Oathbreaker until the year-end!”

and here’s how that looks!

 

Pizza box is not part of pledge... 

I just finished putting the Culverins together last night, which was awful, getting those belt feeds to line up and not snap was a singularly painful experience but I’m glad the units done, if only so I never have to go through that again! 

I quickly primed them this morning so here’s a few primed shots:

 

 

 

 

 

You’ve probably noticed a lot of volkite love in my force so far (I’ve also got a Tactical Support Squad with Calivers in the pipeline),  a strange choice for the primarily siege focussed IVth Legion.  I’ve been writing background for this force for a long time based around my regular opponents, the main one being Orks so I figured even the notoriously stubborn Iron Warriors wouldn’t ignore the obvious benefits of Volkite weaponry against the relatively unarmoured Orks and so a Volkite toting Moritat, two Volkite armed squads and even this contemptor was originally meant to be armed with a Volkite Culverin.

 

Hopefully I’ll see some of you over on B&C!

 

Until next time!

Masters of the Mechanicum

Well, my plans for the weekend didn’t quite work out.  Between people turning up un-announced and people I knew were coming arriving early I didn’t get as much hobby time as I’d have liked.

 One good thing to happen though was the post man brought me (most of) the parts I was waiting for to start working on my Archmagos Prime’s Abeyant.  That’s not to say I don’t like the FW Abeyant, ‘coz I do,  it just doesn’t fit my Archmagos.  As an Ordinator I wanted something that looked a bit more capable of mounting heavy weapons. Crappy phone pics are crappy but I was short on time!

 

 

So its still an early WIP,  most of it is just pinned at this point while I figure out where everything is going to go.  I also need to decide on how to make its primary armament, a Graviton Imploder!

 

The Rotor cannon is taken from the Taurox kit and a MkIV Dreads Assault Drill but I think works quite well.

 

I’d had the idea for the grav plates for a while, using the central console from a drop pod surrounded by the hanging lamps from the cities of death buildings, obviously there’s still quite a bit of work to do, lots of cables and whatnot to connect it to the main chassis but It’s looking just like I wanted to so I’m happy at this stage.

I think I need to trim the back one a bit.

The Magos itself is really the only bit I’m not certain of at the moment, but there’s a lot of greenstuff work to do so maybe I’ll feel better when its closer to done.

I’ve also checked together this chap on a whim:

 

 

I’m not sure yet if he’s destined for one of my INQ28 warbands (which I will get round to photographing this week) or as a lesser magos in my Mechanicum force which is why he's not on a base yet.  Again he’s early WIP so I’ll probably decide as I work on him more.

Until next time!

Bulkhead Breached & Sparkleburst!

The first five Breachers are done! Well, they’re not weathered yet but I think I’ll do that in batches, maybe when I’ve done the other five? I dunno, I’ll see how it pans out.
 

 

 

 

 

The shields look really bare to me at the moment but I can’t decide what to do with them to break up the big black block.  A stripe maybe? Quarter it?  Any suggestions?

Next up on the Iron Warriors is going to be the Cataphracts with power axes.  I’ve not made any real progress on them yet so no pics for now.

In other gaming news I’m expecting the imminent arrival of my Super Dungeon Explore: Forgotten King set so in preparation I’ve dragged out my SDE base set to crack on with painting it, I think I’ll alternate between this and my IW’s for a while, should stop me getting bored of either. 

Anyway,  here’s what I’ve got painted so far from the 1^st Ed base set and expansions:

 

 

 

 

 

I should probably start working on the spawn points…

 

Not a big update today, thought I’d keep it short and sweet but I’m hoping to get quite a bit done over the weekend so more pics next week!

Until next time…

Shatterer finished! Arm breaching charges & Xenos Sighted!

It was close, very very close but I finished the Shatterer pattern Contemptor in time for the completion over on The First Expedition.  I’m pretty happy with how he turned out.  I’m just waiting for transfers to arrive to finish him off now.

 

Ancient Caranore

A veteran of the final wars for Unification on Terra Caranore has truly earned his honorific title as an ancient of the 6^th Grand Battalion. Inducted into the IVth Legion from Albion stock Caranore found his place first among the Despoiler and later the Breacher cadres, naturally aggressive but not reckless he had a good tactical sense and was able to read the shifting battlefield with sometimes frightening accuracy. He swiftly moved up the ranks first becoming a Sergeant before being inducted into legion command as a detachment and then company commander, briefly spending time as a Siegebreaker before finally ascending to command of a Grand Battallion.

 

 

Caranore led the 6^th capably if unexceptionally on five system level compliances and a single sector level compliance, bringing, in total, twenty six worlds into the Imperium’s illumination.  He also held the company together through their reunion with their Primarch Perturabo and the brutal punishment he inflicted for their perceived failings as a legion.  Caranore had no particular love for his Primarch, the father he had never known seemed cold and distant, so it was that Caranore turned his gaze back to the Emperor, who had been much more of an inspirational figurehead to him than his own Primarch had been. 

 

Caranore finally fell on the during the Ork wars on Charadon, caught in a stray shell blast from xenos artillery even as the battle reached its final minutes.  Caranore clung to life but there was little the apothecarion could do to save his ruined body. Instead Caranore was interred into the shell of a Contemptor, one of the few Shatterer patterns the company still possessed and was given life anew.

 

  

Now that he’s complete I’ve started working on some infantry,  I had to respray the Cataphracts as I’d somehow managed to miss a large bit of them when I sprayed them so while I was at it I sprayed the first five marines of a Breacher squad, designated Squad Hesperus.  The second pic came out a bit blurry but there’s not a massive amount to see at this point so I’m not too worried, I’ll take better ones of the whole squad when they’re finished.

 

 

 

And finally, not related to my Iron Warriors, but still tied into my projects as once I get round to writing the campaign fluff for my IW’s this will be one of the antagonists,  I’ve been working on an Autarch for my Eldar.  She needs a lot of GS work but I’m happy with where she’s headed.  Speaking of headsd, she has 2 and I can’t decide whether to use the helmeted or unhelmeted one, both are WIP so still need some GS work to finish off but I’m looking for opinions on both.

 

 

 

 

So which do you think I should go for?

Until next time!

Ironclad

I thought I’d start the ball rolling with a few WIP shots of some things I’m working on at the moment. But I thought I should also give you an idea of how the army ended up where it is today. 

I started my Iron Warriors back in 2008/09 when the Tempus Fugitives held their first Age of the Emperor event down at Warhammer World,  prior to that I’d been into Pre-Heresy  since the Index Astartes articles in WD but hadn’t put together a full army, I’d done a few characters of different legions and a squad here and there but nothing cohesive.

Good times. 

With the Age of the Emperor pack we had our first real Heresy era list and what was the Great Crusade forum had decided we were going down, so then I had to pick a legion.  My first choice had been Death Guard,  I’d always liked the way the IA article portrayed them and the legions character in general appealed to me,  the problem was that this was around the time Galaxy in Flames/Flight of the Eisenstien were released and there were a LOT of people doing Death Guard, along with Sons of Horus, Emperors Children and World Eaters.  So I wanted to be different, I didn’t want to be “another Death Guard player”, so a different legion then,  I boiled it down to the IV, X or XVII Legions since they seemed to be the under represented legions.  I wanted, really, to play a loyalist contingent of a traitor legion, something I think which had drawn me to the Death Guard in the first place being the story of Garro’s defection from his legion, so I settled on the Iron Warriors.

Once I read a bit more into them I realised they weren’t so far from the traits that had first drawn me to the Death Guard, with one major difference, they never got the same recognition the XIV did,  in effect they were the forgotten legion, always there being thrown at the worst warzones the Great Crusade had but never getting any of the glory.  That suited me just fine.  And so the 6^th Grand Company under Warsmith Arsen Thaddea was born.

 

My painting wasn't great back then... 

The first incarnation of the army was, as all Heresy Era armies were then, almost completely converted.  I used the old metal upgrade kits, FW red scorpions & plastic SM/CSM boxes to build an army in entirely Heresy era gear, not an easy task, but satisfying once done. It was a rush to get everything finished and I remember sitting in the hotel room on the Friday night furiously painting the last members of a Devastator squad ready for morning.  My painting work back then was a bit shoddy, but we all have to start somewhere.

 

Then it happened, Forgeworld answered so many of our prayers with the first releases of the Mk II, III, IV, V & VI kits and I began the laborious task of converting my old army to the new armours.  As much as I liked what I’d done with the army it wasn’t quite the look I wanted, but time had constrained me to work with what I had.  With the armour kits I could do what I really wanted, an army entirely in MkIII armour with individual marines looking completely faceless and only distinguishable by the equipment they carry.  

An improvement over his predecessor! 

The Horus Heresy rulebooks quickly followed so the list got rewritten a few times until I was happy with it and now, here we are.

 

Needs paint but you get the idea.

 

And here’s the army as it currently stands:

 

I really need to finish that warhound...

 

And that, sortof, brings me nicely into the new additions to the army, still WIP but I’ll start with:

 

 

This is my entry for the current painting competition over at The First Expedition, still a WIP but nearly ready (good thing too since we’ve only got a week left).  I never understood why the Contemptor Chassis didn’t have the assault drill option that the MkIV Ironclad/Siege Dreadnought does,  then I saw this in Massacre.

 

Why are Contemptor drill hands not a thing?

 So I set about making my own.  In game terms he’s nothing special, with 2 Chainfists with Graviton Guns, Extra Armour and a Havoc Launcher, he’ll ruin most vehicles days if he gets into combat but other than that he’s more a fluff piece than anything.  Speaking of fluff I started writing some for it.

 

 

Created as a joint effort between the IVth and Xth Legions the Shatterer pattern Dreadnought used the more powerful Contemptor chassis to enable it to close rapidly on enemy fortifications.   Typically the chassis would be up armoured by the addition of layers of ceramite and plasteel sheets with additional armour also fitted to the leg and shoulder units, finally the installation of a Flare Shield generator on the dreadnoughts chassis further increases its ability to soak up the punishment usually dealt out to forward units in a siege engagement.

 Offensively the dreadnoughts power fists/claws are replaced with siege assault drills allowing it to tear through most fortifications with relative ease.  The drills are capable of mounting any of the usual internal weapon systems available to the Contemptor, however, due to its specialised role Graviton and Melta weapons are usually favoured.  The Shatterer also mounts a Havoc Assault Launcher on a specialised servo arm which extends above the dreadnoughts shoulder on a swivel mount allowing it to engage periphery targets whilst the dreadnought focuses on enemy fortifications.  The dreadnought also mounts Frag Assault Launchers on its shoulder units for point defence, able to clear a rampart or force defenders to keep their heads down while the dreadnought closes on its target.

 

 

Hopefully I can get it finished this week before the competition closes!  Next up I’m working on a unit of Cataphract Terminators inspired by this artwork:

 

Honestly, this is just cool.

 One of my favourite pieces from Visons of Heresy.  I’ve got one guy nearly finished and the rest of the squad is basecoated:

 

He just needs final detail and weathering

 

They need more.

I like the power axes much more than the chainaxes Cataphracts normally come with.  I’m not sure why, I just kinda do!  Finally I’ve got a new addition for my Taghmata force, a very early WIP of a, as yet unnamed, Magos Malagra:

 

Is four overcompensating?

 

 

 

I think I must have been channelling a bit of General Grievous when I made her but hey, rule of cool, and if your going to be assassinating enemy characters what’s better than a power sword, four power swords!

 

That’s me for today, I picked up Cthulhu Wars while out for lunch so I’ll be doing a mini unboxing/review  either later tonight or tomorrow!

 

Until next time!

Prereamble.

So.  A blog. I’ve been meaning to do one for a while,  I have a couple of Plogs on various forums but I thought it’s about time I had something more cohesive, plus it also gives me a platform to air my views on various gaming topics, releases and news.

My main hobby focus (at the moment, I grasshop between projects) is my Age of Darkness Iron Warriors, I also have a small (but quickly expanding) Tagmahta force and a Death Korps project which has somewhat stalled until we see some rules for the Imperial Army.  I’ve also just got my hands on new the Skitarrii Codex so I’ll be adding a cohort into the mix to escort my Titan.

 In the ever lengthening painting queue I’ve also got most of the first Reaper Bones Kickstarter,  4 of the 6 Relic Knights Factions,  the entire line of Super Dungeon Explore models plus assorted Reaper metals, Impact Chibi’s and god knows what else and I’m still waiting on the arrival of SDE: Forgotten King and Kingdom Death Monster to add even more to the list…

 

 

Outside of miniature gaming I love board/card games and I’m in the process of building a nice collection of my own (rather than bumming off everyone else’s copies).

 
So I’m going to keep this first post short and hopefully you’ll join me as I wax lyrical on all things gaming in future posts!

Until next time!