Converted Sanguinary guard from Age of Sigmar - Completed!!

Hi Readers,

So I have been plugging away at converting my Sanguinary Guard from the Age of Sigmar Prosecutors using all the little bits and bobs that I've had floating around and they are finally done! The unit is equipped with 2 x encarmine swords, 2 x encarmine axes and a banner and power fist, its not the most competitive build but from a modelling perspective it filled all the fun ideas I had and that ticks more boxes for me than being competitive!

I like the idea that these are personalised suits fitting and choosing the bearers over time,moulding to their fighting style and personality. This stems from a David Gemmell novel I love (Knights of Dark Renown) and also from the idea of the Sanguinary Death Masks moulding to the wearers face after death. One of my favourite pieces of Blood Angels lore if I'm honest.

Today has been very dull weather wise and as much as I try I've not been able to get some decent pictures out so I apologise for the quality in advance!

In other news I have finished off my second 5 Death Company marines which is half of a squad of 10 and I will get those posted up in the coming week. Later today I will either start on the other 5 Death Company or perhaps a vehicle being either my Baal Predator or a drop pod.

Comments always welcome,

Peace out,

Rob

Age of Sigmar - Converted Sanguinary Guard + Death Company Progress

Hello readers,

Not as much done this weekend as I would like, but with a BBQ and a day of Dungeons and Dragons distracting me I can hardly complain! I also went to a friends birthday Sunday roast today so I only sat down to my hobby desk at 4pm. But Igot in a good 3 hours of work with a fair amount of progress made to report upon! I'm also going to spend the rest of the evening going through my battle report pictures from Thursday and start organising them into some sort of narrative.

Sigmarine Sanguinary Guard

These guys are going to end up in a squad of 5 with the standard bearer and power fist (because it was the only arm that really worked with it...) and 2 encarmine swords and 2 encarmine axes. Today I knocked together 1 each of the sword and axe bearers though they need a bit of clean up. 

I'm not a particularly bad converter but neither am I particularly good! But I'm pretty pleased with how these guys turned out.

The "axe" is actually the force weapon from the Blood Angel Librarian sprue which I've been dying to use! The arms and other weapons are just taken from the regular terminator sprue that came in the shield of Baal deathstorm boxset. They work very well scale wise. I have had to weight down the bases though with a coin stuck underneath!

Death Company Progress

Finally I put all the layers of paint on my 5 Death Company required before washes and then washed the entire model in nuln oil and after that (though not pictured) I re-washed the ushabti bone bits with agrax earthshade to brown them.

I now need to do all the highlights and add all the blue for the jets and cabling and then do the brighter red for the gems and eyes.

I should get these done on wednesday in time for a post but then work will have to immediately start on the next 5! Once those are done I will move on to my Baal predator and hopefully get that done at the weekend!

I'm also hoping to get the first half of my battle report up on tuesday which will represent the battle in the tunnels to set of a distracting bomb! More info in that in my last post but I will reiterate that on tuesday.

Hope you guys enjoy and have a good one.

Peace out,

Rob

Age of sigmar Conversion and Black Templar Neophytes

Good evening readers!

I have been reflecting tonight on how much my hobby productivity has increased in the few short months since I started blogging in April (which btw seems bloody ages ago!). It really is a motivating factor to have people help guide your hobby through advice and encouragement which makes the actual hobbying easier, particularly when sharing problems that everyone seems to come across; but also it has given me a drive to put content out there to try and entertain and inspire readers and hopefully develop a bit of a following.

In short, blogging is ace! And the community of bloggers that I have met so far, including all who comment on my blog and many whose blogs I comment on are bloody nice guys and gals to boot.

Sigmar - Sanguinary Guard Conversion

Anyhoo, today I have my first attempt at converting a Storm Cast Eternal Prosecutor (the flying ones...) into a sanguinary guard. This chap has been given the Blood Angel specific Terminator banner and a generic terminator power fist, along with a Sanguinary Guard death mask.

It was a bit of a bugger getting the pose to work so I have in the end just bent the scrolls he is floating on and it seems to have worked out.

And the pictures:

I made a few mistakes here and there and the wing were a bloody nightmare to glue together to be honest, wasn't a fan of the wee connection that joins them, but hopefully these will make the other 4 a lot less painful to put together.

I managed to remove all of the Sigmar specific makings except for the wing comet which will be painted as fireballs and a small hammer in the centre of the wings which got mangled enough from glue to not matter. Though I have an order of purity seals coming so a few of them will make it on to him and probably cover that up anyway.

Templar Neophytes

In a further burst of activity tonight I have done all the basecoating for 10 Black Templar Neophytes that are now drying from a wash of Agrax as I type.

More pictures!

I am always surprised how much detail some of the older miniatures hold and these were no exception. The only bit to not be washed with agrax will be the hair which will get a nuln oil wash as it will be painted as white hair eventually.

I'm hoping to get these done by Sunday night and based ready for a game with them next week!

After these fine fellows are painted I will have 10 more to do and then 5 Vanguard Veterans and Grimaldus before all of my Black Templars are done!

I have no plans to buy anymore until at least one of my Blood Angels armies is complete.... Or I may start another army ahem...

Anyway, happy hobbies,

Peace out,

Rob

Blood Angels - Are we that bad? - Part Three Elites (and Hobby update)

Hello dear readers,

I have finished my house move and have a nice big new bedroom with plenty of space for my hobby work. We also have a shed that I'm hoping to use to build a foldable gaming table so I can better use out of my FAT mat without destroying the cervical and sacral sections of my spine. 

Today I'm going to go over the elite section of the Blood Angels Codex. This is a big section so I will just give a summary of verdicts at the end rather than for each choice. After that you can see a few pics of my new set up and sneak peaks of what's on my hobby table. I'm also going to be putting up my several parts of my collection on ebay today and tomorrow so please stay tuned for links to those auctions and maybe pester a friend or your wallet to bid or buy it now :)

On we go!

Elites

Command squad - 100 points basic - FNP - issue and accept challenges for company champion - These guys are very limited and in such a rich slot as the elites are in the Blood Angels Codex I see no room for you to take them over other choices.

Death Company - 2 attacks, S5 on charge, rage = 4 attacks on charge - 5 attacks with 2 x ccw, striking at I5 in strike force (and why wouldn't you), Astorath re-roll to hit and to wound on the charge - FNP - relentless for bolters and charging - fearless - hand flamers and inferno pistols = awesome. These guys really are fantastic, they will destroy pretty much anything in close combat and the jump packs will hopefully get them there somewhat intact. 

Squads of 10 are a must I think to mitigate the fire power that will definitely be directed at them. These are still the last word in face punching as they should be and the Vanilla's have nothing that can shake that position. A good mix of weapons and bolters on power fist guys to take advantage of relentless is always good. Add Lemartes or Astorath to taste. Or take 2 10 man squads like I am and put one character in each ;)

Lemartes Guardian of the Lost - badass chaplain with mastercrafted crozius - +1 s and A after lost a wound all the rules of death company aside from fearless but has zealot as well. This guys really adds a nice whallop to a squad of death company and to top it all of hey-zeus he has a great model. Really fantastic, always admired it and got mine in the post recently - I'm not a fan of finecast but this one had 0 flash on it essentially and the detail is awesome, look forward to showing you in fully painted up. Hopefully I will get him painted to an Asotrath level of detail for me.

Sanguinary guard - golden angels of sigmar---I mean death ;) 2+ save and Ld 10 with marine mulching weapons (encarmine sword....ap3 master crafted two handed and encarmine axe... +1 ap2 mastercrafted unwieldy 2 handed). These guys are fantastic, the models are really great, though I have ordered some flying sigmarites to convert into them so they are extra bad ass.. but they suffer from no Invulnerable save or even FNP, be careful with them, maybe throw in a couple of storm shield characters to tank wounds if you really want to take them, but more importantly pick your targets carefully. I recommend the sword and leave 2+ saves to someone like death compay who can drown them in a mixture of ap - and ap3 attacks as well as throwing ap2 attacks at I1.

Dreadnought basic - a dread is a dread is a dread - except the cc chapter dread has 2 attacks less.... bugger. Very little to say on these guys. If you are taking dreads then take either of the other 2 dread option we have available.

Death Company Dreadnought - has furious charge and rage which is fun and can get ap2 shred blood talons but only has 3 attacks and really should have 5 (though it gets 5 on the charge so its not too bad and possibly 6 with 2 CCW weapons..I think?)I doubt this will be faq'd though sadly still awesome though and ignores crew shaken and crew stunned results. The ignoring crew shaken and stunned results are the best thing about this beast

Furioso Dreadnought - suffers from the bizarrely low attacks but the best way to run this guy is in my opinion as a holy crap tonne of horde cleansing. Frag cannon and underslung flamer produce 3 template attacks a turn with 2 of them at s6! Oh and those ones are RENDING! Drop this guy in a pod next to any units in cover (T3 for maximum effect) and watch them burn.This beast also has AV13 on the fron for extra survivability. Very tasty profile

Terminator Squad - 200 points and still too expensive for what they do and the models don't even look bad ass like the assault marines do - sad to say I will never be taking these guys - they are marginally better in the vanilla codex due to price drop but still too easily wiped.

Terminator Assault Squad - a different story - the hammernator squad is the same price as the vanilla marines but the kit we have is simply awesome, really beautiful models indeed. The claw variant is over costed compared to vanilla but not by much and they are great at shredding units especially as ours are S5 on the charge and at I5 in the baal strike force formation so it really ups your chance of killing marine squads no problem. A top choice compared to vanilla because of these unique Blood Angel buffs.

Vanguard Veteran Squads - I love the whole concept of these guys and will have two in one of my angel armies eventually (still lying in bits :( ) but the vanilla codex got a MASSIVE reduction in their weapon upgrade costs. Sadly these guys took in the neck the same as the dreadnoughts.

Sternguard Veteran Squads - are as good as they ever were with their fantastic utility. I will also have 2 squads of these drop podding in with my archangels because of their effectiveness. Price point wise they are little changed if at all as I recall but even if they are more expensive compared to vanilla they are still well worth taking

Verdicts

Overall the winners in this section are, as they should be, the Blood angels unique choices. Death company squads and dreadnoughts are top of the class, with flame spewing Furioso dreadnoughts a close second I think. Assault terminators come next, they are really and truly better than marine equivalents when you take the claw variant as they are +1 strength on the charge and can get +1 initiative also. Throwing a sanguinary guard or chaplain in there will boost them even further. I love the sanguinary guard but they are expensive for what they do, you will have to design around these 

guys to get them to really fulfill there potential but they can do it if you want it.

Losers are dreadnought base attacks and vanguard veterans costing significantly more than the vanilla counterpart due to weapon upgrade costs. This can be mitigated somewhat if you take a particular formation but I'll get into that in my final post.

Hobby

So here we have a few pictures of my new hobby set up, I have enough space to have a to do pile:

And a working pile and also have a two lamp set up for better light. The window also provides better light in this room so its very nice all round. 

You can see how much I have to do and also how many brushed I have accumulated!! 

This sits at the foot of my bed and will now be reserved for finished models only so I can get a nice sense of how far I am coming along. 

I'm hoping to get a decent amount of hobby progress this week as my girlfriend is away so hopefully there will be a couple of posts from me this week in addition to my sunday post which will be going through the heavy and fast attack choices for the blood angels codex.

Here is a sneak peak of my WIP Dante conversion:

And finally, I always wonder what bloggers look like so I though you guys could have a picture of me to put a face to a name :) (I don't smile for photos but I am much friendlier looking in real life I promise!)

Peace out till next time

Rob

Blood Angels - are we that bad? Part 1 of a retrospective musing - HQ.

Hello readers,

So today I'd like to do Part 1 of a look at the Blood Angels Codex going over the HQ choice. Obviously there are plenty of reviews out there, but in the context of the new Space marines codex and the impending Dark Angels codex many people have been up in arms about both Space Wolves and Blood Angels. The obvious points of contention here are the disparity in points costs for common units (e.g. vanguard veteran power weapons) and even base stat lines (e.g. scouts WS and BS). These are all valid concerns and too a certain extent I'm not going to argue that we received a bit of a crapping on...

HOWEVER

Aside from these disparities I'm going to go over the codex and hopefully show that these disparities alone do not mean we have a bad codex. I actually think it is a very well written codex and remains a mid level of competitiveness if that is your thing. I'm not going to pretend that it competes with eldar and decurions shenanigans but I think it holds it own just fine and combined with the Shield of Baal supplements (which was a whole lot of love more than many other codices got and essentially fills our formation quota lacking in the codex.) it has great flavour and battlefield punch. 

Added to this we are not Dark Eldar (no lord of war and utterly, literally utterly useless units), Tyranids and Orks (difficult armies at the best of times with limited competitive builds and units requiring excellent generalship), Chaos Space marines (well,,, lots and lots and lots - caveat still to be updated), Sisters of battle (.......). And if you look historically at codices that have been left behind such as the previous Dark Angels Codex I laugh at anyone that wants to argue that the gap in power to the Blood Angels Codex from the current crop is similar. It isn't, it just isn't. 

The Blood Angels have their pride bruised and their feathers ruffled but they are still alive and kicking and I hope to go over the Codex sections 1 at a time to illustrate some of these elements. But I am still hoping for a FAQ-up to fix some bits :P

HQ

So what do we have in the HQ department then:

First off lets count this shall we... 6 unique character HQ's (7 including Shield of Baal) plus the 2 x generic unique characters sanguinary priest and Librarian Dreadnought HQ, that alone is nice to have compared to say Salamanders/Ravenguard/Imperial Fists with... 3 between them (maybe 4 I can't remember off the top of my head.) The point is we are individual beyond just red marines still. Now to actually look at some competitive options.

Astorath the Grim, Redeemer of the Lost: Essentially a 3 wound beast of a chaplain with a 2+/4++ that synergises so damn well with Death Company (who are still the boss) granting re-rolls to hit and to wound in the fight sub-phase, every fight sub-phase, not the charge, EVERY fight sub-phase. Yes his axe is unwieldy compared to say the Emperor's champion's sword. But honestly how many axes don't have unwieldy? I'm not an expert but the only one that springs to mind is in OUR codex on OUR LoW Dante! (Who is also boss). Also has adamantium will (Warlord Trait) for protecting your Death company from Pyschic attacks.

Verdict: Stick him in a jump pack unit of Death Company as the striking blow of your force and he will wreck face. He's not a point and click Lysander but he costs 165 points versus 230 points. He's 15 points cheaper than High Marshall helbrecht who only has an AP3 power sword versus Astorath's 2+. I know who I'd bet on.

Mephiston Lord of Death: Adamantium will (Warlord Trait), psyhic hood and mastery level 3? Psychic beast that can make himself strength 10 so is capable of ripping through tanks and insta gibbing many things even without force activated on his sword (wording just says his force sword is strength 10 no mention of force being activated. Also has toughness 5 and a 2+ save for 175 points. Only let down is lack of an invulnerable save or eternal warrior. His transfixing gaze (roll 2D6 and higher than opponent leadership hits on 2+) is a nice bonus to his already good stats and price. 

Verdict: Tigurius is 10 points less. has 1S and 1T less. Has a lower save (3+). Doesn't have adamantium will. Doesn't have furious charge. Doesn't have transfixing gaze. Doesn't have warp charge 1 - I am strength 10 - I will rip your landraider to pieces power. An excellent choice for the psychically engendered.

The Sanguinor The Golden Angel: He doesn't have independent character and he costs 200 points. BUT he is a 2+/4++ eternal warrior WS8, S5, I6, W3, furious charging, fear inducing, jump packing, AP3 master crafted sword wielding beast. Who also grants a 12" bubble of fearless to ANY friendly imperium army units around him (Warlord Trait) and any models within 6" add + 1 to their attacks. And he re-rolls tro hit and to wound in a challenge. He's not perfect but for the price he comes with a whole lot of awesome baggage.

Verdict: Mid level useful in a competitive list but with correct usage can murder many things particularly of the 3+ save variety. AP2 weapons will hurt but he has eternal warrior and a 4++ to shake the odd wound. Avoid AP2 fire and you are good to go. 

Brother Corbulo Keeper of the Red Grail: 120 points with a 3+/5+ FNP. Has +1 initiative if Warlord. Also has 3 wounds for that price furious charge, a +1 strength rending chainsword, an ability to allow the re-roll of a single seize roll, scatter roll, reserve roll, to hit roll, to wound roll or to save roll per game. Only once but maximum tactical utility. That vindicator needs to hit that blob of centurions? You got it. Bam. Also grants +1 WS and +1 I to units within 6". 

Verdict: A very solid support HQ, particularly if you are running a beat stick like Dante for example. Excellent force multiplier if positioned correctly and might just make that crucial difference with a re-roll.  Strongly recommended for a support roll.

Captain Karlaen: Shield of Baal Special Character. 2+/4+ 3W dude with a mastercrafted thunder hammer, counter-attack as well as furious charge and also grants reserve re-rolls for 160 points.

Verdict: For 15 points more than a similarly kitted out Captain you get a mastercrafted hammer, counter attack and reserve roll manipulations. If there was a relic which granted that for 15 points? EVERYONE would take. A solid quite nice and fluffy character.

Now the Generic Unique Characters:

Sanguinary Priest: Yes they are a single HQ choice now. And that is how it should be, it makes sense, I'm also not comparing this to the old codex but to the field it sits in right now. This fella brings FNP and + 1 to WS to the party all for 60 points with 2 wounds. You can also give him a jump pack if you want to give that WS buff to Death company making them even more potent.

Verdict: One of the best value utility cheap HQ's in any marine codex. There I said it. Perfect for low points value games as a single HQ or as a support HQ. 

Dreadnought Librarian: 3HP drop podding armour 13/12/10 Mastery Level 2, furious charge, force halbard wielding dreadnought arriving turn one for 210 points? Beautiful. Also is a character so can have the Blood Angel primaris power cast on him. +D3 attacks and initiative? On a force halberd dreadnought? Cheeky.

Verdict: Popular and rightly so. Personally I'd take Mephiston but his ability to drop pod turn one is a lovely tactical buff to him.

In the balance of fairness I'll go over the others very quickly. 

Tycho of either variety: Nope. Nope. A big tall glass of nope. Not even from a fluff stand point his he ever worth taking as this badass sucks so hard compared to his fluff.

Librarian: Fine, as good as the vanilla equivalent. But take Mephiston. (Ironically I have 2 of these models as presents so they will be in my list). Not bad at all, pretty good but nothing WOW here.

Chaplain: Pretty much as above with the librarian but I would rather take a Sanguinary priest for 30 points less. Not bad but much like the vanilla version, there are just better options out there.

Techmarine: Does anyone take these beyond fluff and style and thunderfire cannons? I would genuinely like to know.

Captain: Again, bog standard. Some of the relics can make him pretty tasty but I think there is always a character I would take over him any day of the week personally. They all bring a lot of special rules that really enhance the army as a whole.

Well there we are! A quick retrospective of Blood Angel HQ's. There are so doozys aren't there? At least I think so and I hope I have convinced you guys that it is a packed slot with fluff, flavour and plenty of fight all combined. I think the comparison to Tigurius is one of the best I could come up with for me. The only real loser is Tycho, man they screwed him up so bloody much.

I will go over the Elites section when I have time to sit down and write, will be honest this post has taken a lot out of me! I'm just not a born writer...

Any comments questions or constructive criticisms (I will have only polite people on here please). Please leave a comment, I'd love to know if you agree or disagree. 

As I said we have been crapped on with recent vanilla changes but we are definitely still a good codex with lots to offer.

Till next time

Peace out

Rob