Double Trouble - 750 points Mechanicum Army

Hey Gang,

I'm going to be heading to Double Trouble, an excellent sounding doubles tournament run by Alex at From the Fang. I'll be heading up with Dan a guy from my local club and  several other blogger mates are going to such as Mike, Nathaniel and Dave from St Andrews Wargaming, Objective Secured and 40K Addict respectively. So all in all much merriment shall occur!

The List I am taking is not the most competitive but I really enjoy playing it and I hope my army will do well in one of the painting competitions. Though with the above guys going I am not stuck for amazing competition!

HQ

Archmagos Prime Ordinator - This guy is survivable with 3 toughness 5 wounds behind a 2+/3++ save. Additionally he can call a large blast S8 AP3 ordnance shot down like a chapter master, except he gets D3 shots. Plus as he is relentless he can do it on the move. He will be accompanying the Scyllax and should be able to tank wound for them as they move to the enemy. 

Troops

Scyllax Guardian Automata - These buggers number 4 and are just stock except with frag grenades to get them through cover better. They pump out a decent number of attacks and can basically opt for a S7 smash at initiative 1 that will double out T4 creatures due to rad effects. T5 gives them fair survivability especially when the Magos Tanks,

Thallax - Six Thallax with no additional extras. Leadership 8 stubborn jet pack infantry with T5 and 18 wounds all in, these guys are hardy even with a 4+ save and a 6+ FNP as their defence. Six S7 rending shred shots is nothing to sniff at, neither is 18 S5 attacks on the charge!

Heavy Support

Krios Venator - One of these give me a four shot S9 AP2 tank with effectively AV14 on the front hull due to its flare shield. Whilst the rest of the army is generally geared for moving forward and engaging, this guys wants to sit back and shoot all day long!

Overall

A very small elite army that will do well with a partner that has more mobility and numbers. Short of Strength 10 weaponry though, these guys will take A LOT of shifting. That is also an 18 wound majority toughness 5 OBJECTIVE SECURED unit. Woop! 

However if my partner is similarly elite, that will probably spell trouble. Should be good fun all round though :)

Army Pictures

In the above picture you can the finally finished pilots of the Krios Venators in their yellow bedecked glory also!

Peace out,

Rob

Converted Vorax Battle Automata - Painted

Good day all,

Today I have my finished and painted Vorax Battle Automata that I converted out of a bits box forage. I consider this very much my first successful full conversion, as opposed to modification conversions. I'm pretty please with how the conversion turned out and the paint job is OK as well!

My to do list for my Mechanicum now is to finish 4 Scyllax, the Imperial Knight, and start the Calix Class Thanatar. I also have a possible little project converting a tank into a medusa/mars bombard in case I want to field a Reductor army.

Peace out,

Rob

Legion of the Damned - 4 Down and 6 To Go!

Afternoon,

Another minor update on my burgeoning Legion of the Damned Squad. Struggling for cosnistency with the flames and will likely go over all of them when I am done with the squad to try and even them all out. Touching up the black around them shouldn't be a problem.

Only as I was uploading this post did I remember that Greggles suggested a grey back ground for these guys DOH! Next time I will remember!

Peace out,

Rob

Scyllax Guardian-Automata - Finished

Well how are we all?

More successful Mechanicum painting! Here we have my 4 finished Scyllax Automata for you to engorge with your eyes. Go on. GORGE.

Coming up soon I will have a little group shot of a 750 points Mechanicum force that I am taking to a doubles tournaments. After that I hope to get round to a big force picture like I did with my Blood Angels.

Peace out,

Rob

Horus Heresy Review: Legion Kharybdis Assault Claw

Bonjourno,

Today I am going to review the Kharybdis Assault Claw (or KAC for short so I don't have to type it all the time), the big brother of the Anvillus Pattern Dreadclaw. This is a unit that I have long admired for its looks as much as what it can do on the table. If I could afford four of these you bet I would field them all. Or even one surrounded by little Anvillus offspring. I can dream!

Anyway lets leap in shall we?

Unit Stats

The Kharybdis has a drop pod standard stats line ON STEROIDS:

BS  Front   Side   Rear   HP

 4      12        12      12     5

A whopping transport capacity of 20 models!! Or this can carry a dreadnought of any type, so that includes Leviathans... or it can carry a unit of rapier carrier teams. Already giving you a large amount of flexibility in how you utilise this beast.

The access point for the claw is underneath its hull, in practice they just disembark from the hull at ground level though.

Overview - A resilient 5HP coupled with decent enough AV and a large malleable transport capacity makes this thing an exciting prospect indeed.

Special Rules

Plenty of special rules makes this  monster much much more than your usual drop pod (the payload of guns helps too).

Drop Pod Assault - Like a normal drop pod and makes sure it can come in turn 1

Flyer, Transport, Hover - This is incredibly important in terms of how you use the Kharybdis as a delivery system for its payload.

Assault Vehicle - Critical rule when coupled with the above hovering flyer rule, see Utilisation for more explanation on this.

Inertial Guidance System - Like a normal drop pod

Heat Blast - Thermal jets beneath the Kharybdis allow it to perform offensive manoeuvers both as it deep strikes and as it flys through the air.

Heat Blast (Deep Strike) - Measuring D3+3" from the hull, all models in the blast radius suffer

a S6 AP5 hit that counts as a flamer attack and hits vehicles on their weakest facing

Heat Blast (Fire Sweep) - You may opt to inflict D6 S5 AP5 hits on each unit you pass

over with the Kharybdis as it flys around the table. A flamer attack as above and also

hits weakest armour of vehicles. Hits are distributed by your opponent so can be tanked

and every time you make the attack (I read it as per unit hit) roll a D6, 

on a 1 you suffer a penetrating hit.

Independent Machine-spirits - Each weapon on the Kharybdis can target independently (like the Deathstorm I reviewed recently). Which is very nice once you see its armaments.

Overview - All these rules are really important apart from the Heat Blast attacks. The deep strike one is safe enough  but I don't see any reason to risk a penetrating hit for AP5 wounds. Don't be fooled into it just because it is super cool!

Equipment

As standard the Kharybdis comes with the following:

Five Kharybdis Storm Launchers - 24", S6, AP5, Heavy 2, twin-linked, Pinning.

This weapon is very decent as an additional component of essentially a very good delivery system. 8 hits on average out of 10 shots wounding on 2's isn't too shabby, especially as it can glance AV12 and has a decent chance of penning AV10. Given the multiple firing arcs you might be able to see AV10 once in a while. But this is just a cherry on top of your transport, you didn't take it for this.

Melta Ram - This allows the kharybdis to ram tanks! Not on the turn it arrives or any turn it uses its heat blast (which as discussed - Don't) AND it can't ram flyers. But this is not a bad option to take, ramming doesn't occur anywhere near often enough!

Frag Assault Launchers - Oh yes, assault flyer/hover vehicle with frag for the happy days...

Overview - That's it for its standard load out, but as you'll see from the option below it can offer more!

Options

NONE!

Utilisation

The most important aspect to remember with this 260 point drop pod is that it isn't immobile! On the turn you deep strike you can still flat out as any vehicle can in the shooting phase, this allows you to drop in - scatter - boost towards where you want your payload to appear next turn and then JINK like hell in your opponent shooting phase. You should hopefully weather the storm that comes.

In your second turn you can now move an additional 6", disembark your squad and assault. And you get to fire 10 x S6 shots in very wide arcs of fire. Provided you survive your opponents shooting phase, which with jink and decent LoS blocking terrain isn't a fantasy by any means, the Kharybdis is the ultimate delivery system for a potent assaulting unit.

Much like with the Caestus Assault Ram, the real value of the Kharybdis comes with what you put inside of it, and again like the Caestus, the combined cost of this unit will make it a centre piece of your army in all but the biggest games. Yes you could load a 20 man tactical squad in here, but what great advantage do you get out of giving such a squad a 260 point pimped up drop pod? You'd save yourself 60 points by putting 2 x 10 man squads in Anvillus Dreadclaws for one and achieve much the same effect.

No, the Kharybdis only makes sense as an investment if you put a killer unit in it. This could be a Primarch with a retinue of terminators, or just a big squad of super resilient Salamander Fire Drakes. obviously you will tailor this to your own army but the general principal for the Kharybdis remains the same and it is awesome. Plus it looks fucking cool.

Overall - One of my favourite transport options in the Heresy. I have plans to build a thematic Imperial Fists/Blood Angels force that represents the boarding action fighting that occurs during the assault on Holy Terra, with the Emperor's own Champion Sigismund leading the force into the fray.

Peace out,

Rob

Armillus Dynat and Autilon Skorr - Converted Alpha Legion

Goodo!

FINALLY! I give some love to my long overdue Alpha Legion Army. I am planning on having the whole army built and undercoated before the end of the June. Recently I sat down to convert Autilon Skorr for my Alphas and ended up building Armillus Dynat... Then I went back and built Autilon as well!

Armillus Dynat

Before I show the conversion I will show what the official model should like for Armillus:

And here is my conversion (keeping in my mind I don't do bare heads if I have the option)

I'm pretty pleased with how he looks in the end. Certainly the cloak gives him a more imposing presence... The right arm is a little "eh" but not so much I'm bothered.

Autilon Skorr

Now the official model for Autilon Skorr:

And my Conversion. I went heavy on the Executioner/Headhunter theme.

I really like the skull theme and his make shift little staff. Almost Chaplain like. Overall my favoured of the two conversion but I'm happy with both overall.

Coming Up

Coming soon I should have the Leviathan Dreadnought full built with weapon options magnetised, as well as the first Fire Raptor done. Then I just need the 20 veterans built and the second Fire Raptor too! The Veterans are already bagged up in their pieces (very organised of me) so shouldn't take long for them, but I am dreading building the second Fire Raptor!