Imperial Militia Command Squad - WIP

Good Afternoon al,l,

I've been hard at work recently trying to really get some good progress on building all the remaining models I have for my larger Heresy army projects. This involves Belisarius Cawl, who is currently still in various states of sub assembly before I get round to under coating him (crappy weather getting in the way), AND building my all raging heroes Imperial Militia. 

I have a total of 43 Infantry models for my Imperial Militia, 3 Tanks (currently) and 9 laser destroyer arrays. Two of the Tanks are built and painted, the Laser arrays are built but need a few bits of green stuffing magnet holes that were pre drilled, and now I have my entire command Squad built. 

The command Squad will have the Force Commander (sword pointing out), the Platoon Commander (sword pointing down), the Standard Bearer, Vox Operator (only one without a helmet) and 6 Grenade Launchers in it! These will all be in one of the counts as Proteus tanks I've shown you before. 

Part of the reason that I have been so determined to make headway on these has been the upcoming advent of 8th Edition, where I'd like to give a lot of my attention over to that, but mostly it has been because April was my designated off month from working on Commissions. I have just one customer right now, but boy do I have A LOT of stuff to do for him. 

As well as finish off the Dark Angels I already have built and ready to go under the paint brush, I have a WHOLE Ravenwing army to build and paint, plus some greenwing as well. This will keep me busy up till October which is the deadline for getting this done. I very kindly have permission to play with this army as well, so hopefully I will be able to get some games of 40k in when the new rules drop and see how it plays.

Expect to see a lot of Dark Angels over the coming months, as well as continued progress on the Militia, Cawl and also another Tank for my Solar Auxilia. Whilst I had been done with them, I now have decided to move a Tank that was for the Militia over to the Auxilia, as I want ALL of my Militia tanks to be walking tanks. 

Have a great weekend,

Peace out,

Rob

Kromlech Releases - Chaos Winged Jump Pack

Hey all,

As I often do, rambling my way around the internet and looking in nooks and crannies for third party miniature bits, I come to Kromlech, and something always catches my eye! In this case, they have released some rather demonic looking jump packs designed for chaos forces. 

These would do very well for a Night Lords army to my mind, or as an addition to any Warp Talon or Raptor squad. Bear in mind that these are resin, so a little bit of hot water should allow you to bend the wings to achieve less flat posing. 

In the event of 8th Edition 40k rewarding themed armies, hopefully we'll be seeing more Night Lords armies and Raptors in general!

Peace out,

Rob

Imperial Militia Commanders - Raging Heroes Iron Empire

Hey all,

Whilst the fr8 train of warhammer 40k thunders on (did you see what I did there, did you!??) I've been whacking some more time into my Imperial militia using Raging heroes miniatures. As said before, I'm really trying to churn these out, which means that I have rather a lot to photograph with only a small light box. So I'm just going to give you odd tasters and then drop some big group pictures whenever I get a chance to take my gaming table out. 

I have a cat now that likes to make its presence known, so this will not be as often as it was... I wonder what stats it will get in 8th edition...

Anyway, here we have the undercoated miniatures I'll be using for my force commander and the standard bearer of the command squad :) I've also got another painted up sniper showing off one of the other poses, but I've actually knocked out 15 of these gals all painted up now in the simple, blue/white/camo scheme. Progress! I have a second tank painted up as well. A third to go and about 40 miniatures in total, plus 6 laser arrays before I have to make some more purchases.

Oh What to Collect - 8th Edition 40k

Hey all,

As you can see, I have the obligatory 8th edition picture up, so you all know I mean business! There have already been several excellent posts looking at the changes we know are coming in 40k, From the Fang, The Burning Eye, Warpstone Flux, StandWargaming to name a few. Plus if you visit Faeit212 you'll find the latest updates on information as it comes out, or of course the new shiny Warhammer Community website. 

So instead of cycling through all these changes, as they will come whatever my opinion, I have decided to look at the armies represented in 40k and what this means for me and my collections. Regular visitors will know that I was bought the Triumverate of Ynnead not long ago, and I painted up the Yncarne quick sharp. This had spurred me on to start an Eldar army of Ynnari, avoiding as much filth as possible with the what was the then Eldar Codex. 

My motivations for this army have swung massively to indifference right now... Fortunately I have only the Triumverate and 10 Wraithblades to speak of for this foray into the Ynnari so I won't be losing out on much hobby capital. 

The BIG change coming regarding 40k for me is two-fold. 

Multiple Force Orgs and Command Points

The Warhammer Community team have given us absolute clarification that their will be multiple force organisation charts to build your army with. I can't help but feel this was adopted in some way from 30k where you have different force orgs representing different styles of armies, these alternate charts allow extra heavies or lords of war for example. 

This appears to be coupled with command points that reward particular thematic use of the force organisation charts. I am, predominantly, a player of fluff and theme. There are several armies in the 40k universe, that as much as I love, I would never collect. This is mostly due to the limitation of formations or troop choice, making it very difficult to actually present the theme that I want to convey. 

I am very much hoping that with such a multitude of force orgs (I believe they mentioned something in the region of 14 different charts), there will be greater scope to theme your army according to armies within the lore. 

IF this is the case, I would be very, very tempted to start something like an Ork army or perhaps the Militarum Tempestus. This also brings me to the second point...

The Codex is Dead. Long Live the Codex. 

I LOVE that they are resetting all rules to zero. This will go a long way to helping a relatively "balanced" meta appear. Yes, something will be stronger and abusable to a degree. But they seem to have been very hot on closing as many loop holes as possible when it comes to power gaming and death star combinations. 

Rather than a codex being released and either failing to fit the meta by being underpowered or overpowered, OR by being quickly left behind by a new edition or new releases, this resets all armies to 0. It also promises that each new codex equivalent will not have been developed in a vacuum, but with relative consideration to its context within the other armies. 

This, as much as the thematic force organisation charts, excites me to start looking at the lesser collected armies. Not only will they hopefully have more ways to be played, but they will be coming from a position of equality (as much as is possible) with the other armies in 40k. 

So What is Coming for Me...?

Obviously I can't fully answer this till the rules come out. But I will be buying them all on drop and perusing each army, and one will be picked to start a serious foray back into 40k. And I do have my favourites. Currently at the fore of my mind are:

Orks, Grey Knights, Militarum Tempestus, Skitarii/Cult Mechanicus, Alpha Legion CSM and Dark Eldar. 

I'm not going to set up a poll, but if you have any strong opinions on what you would love me to collect, either from the above or elsewhere then do let me know in the comments. Though bear in mind, I'm unlikely to paint any of them in canonical colours :P

That's all from me and my thoughts on 8th edition so far. I don't expect I will have much else to say till its release, which I eagerly anticipate!

Peace out,

Rob 

Horus Heresy Imperial Militia - Counts as Proteus

Hey ho, lets go!

So one of the very best things about the Imperial Militia in the Horus Heresy, is that it gives you one of the greatest scopes for using whatever you fancy to represents units and vehicles. As an army, the Imperial Militia represents a time before the standardisation of the Imperial Guard (or Astra Militarum), and as such all of the armies are drawn from the available resources that each planet has, with a smattering of mechanicum developed vehicles thrown in.

This gives you a cornucopia of ways with which to model your armies! Obviously you won't be able to use them at any official GW events if you stray from their own range, but the temptation to make use of all those cool miniatures I've spotted over the years just proved far too irresistible for me!

To that end, I've converted (poorly I might add) some walking tanks from the old Dust Tactics game to represent my Land Raider Proteus troop carriers in my Imperial Militia army. I just love the idea of an army that has mostly utilised walking tanks, rather than tracked ones in its arsenal. 

Behold! Number 1:

There will be three of these in total when I am done... and I am considering purchasing some other walking tanks to really hammer home the aesthetic. I also have tripedal array for my laser rapier destroyer batteries so that should get the army looking on point. 

Peace out,

Rob

Belisarius Cawl - Sub-Assembly Part 1

Hey gang,

So the final miniature I have in my possession to round off my current Mechanicum force is the Belisarius Cawl miniature (very kindly gifted to me by Mike from StandWargaming!!). I'm going to be using this suitably impressive model to represent Anacharis Scoria when I want to play cheesy games (because he is soooooo broken). Much like the Avatar of Ynnead, Cawl is a highly intricate model and as such I have begun putting him into sub-assemblies. 

I've not had much hobby time today, but I've had time to put the first half together, and here it is:

Unlike the rest of the Mechanicum, cawl is going to have yellow robes instead of his armour. The armour plates will be a matt metallic black. The trims will variably be dirty silver and brass. That's all for today folks!

Peace out,

Rob

8th Edition 40k - FREE CORE RULES!! Heresy Rules Unchanged!

Hey gang,

Follow the link to see a pre-release FAQ from GW!

They've added an addendum stating 30k will use the current ruleset for now!


8th Edition FAQ

Peace out,

Rob

Shattered Legion of Istvaan III - In Defence of the Emperor

Good afternoon all,

Today I've got shots of my entire 2000 point shattered legion collected together! This marks my second fully complete army for 30k, the first being the Solar Auxilia. The Auxilia will be getting a photo shoot at some point in the near(ish) future as well. I'm well on my way to building Belisarius Cawl to represent Anacharis Scoria, so my mechanicum should soon be complete as well (though I do have a small purchase in mind for them). 

I built this force to represent the coalition of loyalist Emperor's Children, Sons of Horus and World Eaters in the aftermath of the virus bombing of Istvaan III. Whilst there were Deathguard on the planet as well, they were distinctly separated from the other three legions and so didn't warrant inclusion. 

Saul Tarvitz, as in the novel, is the overall leader and so he is my Warlord for the army. Garviel Loken has a command squad to represent the squad he dropped in with, as well as a Tarik Torgaddon model to fulfill the two of them marching off to meet Abaddon and Aximand in a show down. Rylanor the Unyielding fills the the final special character slot having taking Saul's place in the original landing force. Other than that, I stuck to no vehicles as by the end of their resistance they would have been perilously low on fuel etc so it didn't feel right.

I hope it gives off the fluffy feel that I intended it too :) by far Garviel Loken is my favourite model, but then I did devote a lot more time to him! I hope to enter him into some painting competitions over the coming year, I'm keen to get him into a Golden Demon competition and see if I can get him to the photo stage!!

Peace out,

Rob