Welcome Back

Real life has stopped me blogging for a couple of weeks, along with gaming and painting. I am hoping that after last nights battle of Tyranids versus Ultramarines I can get myself back on track. The battle last night was something of a surprise choice, I have not played Nids since the v4 Codex and it was only a couple of articles on Bell of Lost should that got me thinking that I should give them a game or two. They recommended playing 10 point Hormagaunts, a basic model upgraded with poison 4+ and furious charge, meaning you can re-roll failed wounds on the charge. They has also been an article on Venomthropes with their cover saving abilities, I am partial to taking a Big Mek with custom forcefield for exactly the same reason so for similar points I took two of them as a unit.


As you will have seen throughout my lists I am a fan of numbers, quantity has a quality of its own as Stalin would say. However yesterday I chose the Swarmlord to lead my army, this was because I thought it could (mistakenly) scout a Troop and would probably be able to slay Marneus Calgar in close combat. Calgar chose to sit this battle out, wisely with hindsight. I also took a 10 man squad of Ymgarl Genestealers for their ability to pop up in terrain and move/ assault as normal. The ability to change characteristics was just icing, my plan was to sacrifice them to destroy any vehicles in their firebase. Rounding the army off was a 200+ point Carnifex, armed with a Str9 Heavy Venom Cannon and regeneration as I had spare points. All in all an Elite army with just 76 models in it, I have played games with more Chaos Space Marines in the list in 1.5k points.

Half the Ultras set up on the table, the remainder were off table ready to deep strike. Myself and my Nid co-player each set-up on a flank and played refused centre as the Ultras seized first turn and got ready to open fire. At least until the Drop Pods started to fall, land in the centre of the table and block line of sight. Two turns of gunfire later I was able to hit the enemy lines, at that point I had lost two wounds on the Swarmlord (he stole one back), a wound on the Hive Guard and seven gaunts bit the dirt; from two turns of gunfire. My gaming buddy got to charge turn one due to drop pods antics his Hormagaunts charged a Tactical squad killed one and were reduced to three models due to being fearless. My worst fears of gaunts were being realised…

To cut a long story short a combination of preferred enemy when fighting Sternguard, reducing the Chaplain and his Terminator Squad to WS1, re-rolling wounds due to poison/ furious charge combo were my highlights of the battle. Squads got annihilated all over the table except those fighting the Genestealers who could not buy a rending if there was a £20 note sticking out of their back pocket. On turn 4 they finally remembered what to do and rended six Marines finishing the squad off. Turn six and the Ultramarines are reduced to one Drop Pod as their last figure, a Captain, dies in the claws of a Hive Tyrant (this after making six consecutive invulnerable saves over the course of the battle).

My losses were limited to around 20 gaunts, three Genestealers and the two wounds on the Swarm Lord/ Tyrant Guard. My Nid buddy had lost a Carnifex; the Trygon was down to its last wound and around 30 gaunts – it was a massacre. I feel inspired to make time to paint and whilst I want to put a few bits together for the Nids I will instead be painting Red for World Eaters and Pink for Emperors Children, and having a look at fixing the newly acquired Hellhammer/ Baneblade.

Space Marine Legions (Part 1)

Whilst forming various armylists for armies that I do not yet own/ built/ painted I noticed that there was a certain synergy between the various first founding Legions. We all know that there are only eighteen of them listed, with two gone missing, so to be boring I will list them:

Alpha Legion
Black Legion (Sons of Horus)
Blood Angels
Dark Angels
Death Guard
Emperors Children
Imperial Fist
Iron Hands
Iron Warriors
Night Lords
Raven Guard
Salamanders
Space Wolves
Thousand Sons
Ultramarines
White Scars
Word Bearers
World Eaters

What I am noticing is that the Loyalist and Traitor Legions line up in two’s; either they have a commonality on their approach to the battlefield, or life philosophy, etc. I have done the deed and matched them all up and briefly why I think they are the result of the Emperor creating redundancy when he created the Primarchs.



Blood Angels vs. World Eaters

An obvious choice to start and we will ignore the fact they now both wear red armour. Both armies thrive on the battlefield up close and personal, hand to hand is were both forces see themselves being most effective. Both armies benefit from Furious Charge and bar Leman Russ who could match Angron or Sanguinius in close combat? Horus used each Legion as Vanguard when attempting tricky assaults, goading each by the exploits of the other. Curiously Angron had implants when he was a gladiator on his home planet, who knows if Angron was really as berserk as he was made out to be?


Dark Angels vs. Word Bearers

This is the first of my unusual match-ups the Word Bearers and Dark Angels. In a word secrets, the Word Bearers secretly worshipped the Emperor as a god and when he turned his back on them they embraced the Chaos gods. The Dark Angels know a thing or two about secrets: failing to mention the Chapter War, Heresy and open worship of the Chaos gods. The Dark Angels always thought that being the first Space Marine Legion made special and somehow closer to the Emperor than any other Legion, whilst the Word Bearers had the Emperor on a pedestal and encouraged others to follow their lead.


Imperial Fist vs. Iron Warriors

Both armies are proponents of siege warfare, either creating fortifications that are nigh unbreakable (the Imperial Palace), or cracking them open. Foresworn enemies, after the rebellion the Iron Warriors nearly succeeded in wiping out the Imperial Fist on Sebastus IV (Iron Cage Incident) on until the Ultramarines arrived for the save. It is rumoured that several parts of the treatise on siege craft in the Index Astartes have been written by Pertuabo. Truth be told, you get the impression that both Primarchs are boring.


Iron Hands vs. Emperors Children

I am sure you are wondering why these two have been matched up, and the reason is that both Legions have a burning desire to achieve perfection of body, if not mind and soul. The Emperors Children was reputed to have flawless geneseed and in Fabius Bile they had a master gene-manipulator who could have pushed the boundaries of what a Space Marine can achieve even further. The Iron Hands seek perfection of body by relinquishing the flesh and replacing it with technology, the flesh is weak machinery strong. This need for perfection is a common bond between Ferrus Manus and Fulgrim, at least until they played Highlander…

Death Guard

I was tidying one of the shelves that I store my W40k stuff last night on when I came across a plastic bag containing an additional ten Plague Marines, nine squad members and another Lord/ Sorcerer. I had put them to one side months ago as a potential squad for The Purge and forgotten about them. So adding them to what I already have I can now play twenty-two Plague Marine Squads so I think I will have to pick up more paint to get them all finished. The squads are very cookie-cutter due in part to the nature of the figures I own and the few options available in the Codex entry for Plague Marines. I am now aiming to put down the following for the big game:


Seven squads of:

7 Plague Marines (2 Melta Guns, Aspiring Champion, Power Weapon)
218 points

Seven squads of:

7 Plague Marines (2 Melta Guns, Aspiring Champion, Powerfist)
228 points

Six squads of:
7 Plague Marines (2 Plasma Guns, Aspiring Champion, Plasma Pistol, Power Weapon)
243 points

Two squads of:

7 Plague Marines (2 Flamers, Aspiring Champion, Powerfist)
218 points

When I added this up it comes to an eye-popping 5016 points in total. It looks like I am going to have to build two Plague Towers to try to improve the transport options of the Plague Marines along with half a dozen Chaos Rhinos. I already have two Chaos Dreadnoughts and a half-completed Defiler who needs a second to join him. Throw in a couple of Chaos Lords and Sorcerers and the points will be creeping up for 8k before I know it. Now where did I put my Rotting Flesh paint…

Operation 500: Week 3

Well last week certainly was the week that was. I managed to paint absolutely no figures at all taking my total of completely painted figures to zero entering my fourth week. It is not all bad news; I have many figures undercoated in their new colours and several more on their way to being built. I have discovered that nail varnish remover takes paint off plastic figures although it is a slow process, which means I may have an additional one hundred Chaos Space Marines waiting to be converted to World Eater Chaos Space Marines, but not in the Berserker incarnation. It does mean that I have two additional Dreadnoughts for the Iron Hands now giving me three of the six required.



Death Guard

Yes they have their own fancy heading because I cracked open the box containing them for the first time in two years and had a look at what it contained. I knew that I had over one hundred semi-painted figures in the old second edition colour scheme of black and dark green. I did much prefer the first edition dirty green colour scheme which was what my first Death Guard army was painted back in the early nineties. Sorting the figures out it become apparent that due to changes in weapon choices for Death Guard from 3.1 to 4.0 (no more Death Guard Havoc squads) I am in a position to field once built/ painted twenty-two seven man squads, each with champion and two special weapons. I will still have a couple of figures left for Chaos Lords and/ or Sorcerers. Somewhere there are seven part-converted Chaos Terminators and Typhus to lead them. That at a quick calculation is over 5k of Death Guard before I add any vehicles.

According to old Index Astartes fluff Death Guard preferred to fight on foot advancing slowly yet implacably across the battlefield. Squads taking Chaos Rhino transports were moved from Troop to Fast Attack. With this in mind I will hopefully manage to gather between five and seven Chaos Rhinos making nearly a third mobile and I am planning on building a Plague Tower which can transport four more squads. The vehicle is severely over pointed at 700 points, but with seven damage points it should never be destroyed in battle, should…

The new paint scheme for Death Guard will consist of Rotting Flesh over most of the armour, highlighted with Bilious Green and blended with Brown Ink. I will see if I have any of the very old Ghoul Grey, which if memory serves me is darker than Codex Grey, to add a little colour to the figures, with weapons and backpack being a mix of dark wood and Tinny Bitz. The ink will disguise all failings on the paint scheme so I should be able to paint them quickly. I need to paint them quickly as I am so far behind in completing actual models. If I can get twenty squads completed quickly I will have over 4k of models completed and be back on track for month one.