30k Alpha Legion: Dreadnought Drop Pod

Hey everyone,

So I have been busying myself behind the scenes despite few painting updates of late. I now have all of my infantry painted for my planned 1850 points force of Alpha Legion! But I'm waiting to set them up for some properly decent photos before I show you the finished bunch. Today instead we have my work on my dreadnought drop pod.

As you'll not doubt be aware I am going for a very battle worn look on these guys so a drop pod, blistering through the atmosphere as they do, was always going to be a good place to go to town with beating the shit out of a model. Here are the fruits of my labour so far!

Still a bit to do, but on the home stretch right now. I've no doubt I could have done some things better but overall I'm happy with how it is pulling together. I had a real crisis of faith half way through when I thought it looked like a dog turd cooking in the summer sun, but those extra layers as you build to the end has started to pull it together as a piece. 

Thoughts and help are, as always, welcome :)

Peace out,

Rob

Horus Heresy Review: Legion Rapier Weapons Battery

Hi Gang,

From weemen.blogspot.com

Today I'm going to go through one of the Legiones Astartes option in 30k that doesn't really have an equivalent in 40k - The Legion Rapier Battery. I say really because there is the thunderfire cannon, but that unit does have much reduced options compared to their age old brothers. The Rapier can do a real number on your opponent, particularly if you make sure to complement the rest of your army efficiently. So onwards...

Unit Stats

The Rapier is an artillery piece that comes with two space marine crew and follows all the basic rules for artillery found in the 40k rulebook. They clock in at 40 points per model and can be taken in units of up to 3.

Crew:   WS  BS  S  T  W  I   A  LD  Sv

              4     4     4  4   1   4   1   8     3+

Rapier: WS  BS  S  T  W  I   A  LD  Sv

              -       -    -   7   2   -    -    -    3+

Overview: The Rapier comes with all the standard artillery concepts that I would imagine most people reading this will be used to. This essentially boils down to the fact that you want to position your legiones crew in such a way that they sandwich the Rapier. Because as soon as you lose your crew or your artillery then its out of the game. Careful placement is key and remembering that the T7 will go a long way to aiding your durability.

Special Rules

There are a couple of special rules that have little effect in game usually but for posterity here they are:

Legiones Astartes (Crew): Can regroup normally despite casualties - situational usually, only comes into play when you have squads of 3 of these really.

Extremely Bulky: As it says, not sure how you would transport these anyway, most people will be plonking them on the battlefield so has no real effect for most of us.

Equipment

The Crew for the Rapier comes with bolt pistol and grenades as standard. The Rapier on the other hand comes with:

Quad Heavy Bolter - 36" S5, AP4, Heavy 6, Twin-linked

I understand the quad heavy bolter, but I think it has  limited efficacy in 30k. Against 4+ save Solar Auxilia and Mechanicum then it will do a tasty number with its high output; but this IS the Horus Heresy and the majority of your opponents will be Space Marines with a 3+. For a TAC list I would almost certainly upgrade these to one of its options.... speaking of which...

Options

The Rapier comes with 3 possible options for the weapons system and all have their place:

Laser Destroyer Array - 36" S9, AP1, Ordnance 1, Twin-linked

Your standard Tank Destroyer coming it at +15 points a model. 55 points for a twin-linked lascannon that can roll 2D6 and pick the highest for armour pen is not to be sniffed at on a T7 frame. Masses of these will be lethal, but only if you use them correctly in your army. With this option I would be inclined to take 2 x squads of 3 personally making them tough to take out with distance between.


Quad Mortar (Thud Gun) Frag - 12-60" S5, AP5, Heavy 4, Barrage, Small Blast, Shell Shock

Quad Mortar (Thud Gun) Shatter - 36" S8, AP4, Heavy 4, Sunder

The Thud gun is very rightly one of the more popular builds coming at +20 points a model. The option for multiple firing modes is always a boon on any weapon. The Shatter shells will do an excellent number on light to mid vehicles, especially when in squads of 3 - pumping out 12 x S8 Sunder shots - tasty.

The Frag option is perhaps more understated but no less deadly, purely for its ability to negate 2+ cover saves through barrage and Shell Shock causes a -1 leadership the pinning test made which is also tasty. This is particularly deadly firing into multiple floored ruins.

Graviton Cannon - 36" Special, AP4, Heavy 1, Large Blast Concussive, Haywire, Graviton Pulse

The Graviton cannon is not 40k Grav. It does still wound differently, but in 30k this is a strength test. This is obviously less effective against even space marines, who only fail 1/3 of the time. However the Graviton Pulse rules means that the large blast is left in place and then become both difficult and dangerous terrain for the next turn.

This weapon is most effect against squadrons of vehicles or jetbikes, or even big blob squads. Providing a relatively easy way to slow them down. The Graviton cannon comes at a premium price point of +35 points a model. With that cost it isn't hard to see why the Thud gun is the most popular option of the 4 available to the Rapier.

Utilisation

I'm not going to expound too much here as I think I have covered utilisation fairly well in the options sections of this review. I will however say that I really do think you need to take them in a squad of 3 or a couple of squads of 2 as a MINIMUM to get any decent effective unit. I regularly face off against a single thud gun and it does bugger all most games in all honestly (It helps when he remembers to fire it....You know who you are...).

At Double Trouble, Dave Weston and myself faced a list with 3 x Thud guns and they were a brutal long ranged threat with 12 barrage shots pummelling us.

My final thought relates to the Graviton Cannon. Whilst seeming a bit of a tricky customer to use at first glance, after much musing I think that it would be a fantastic addition to any SERIOUS close combat orientated army. The ability to slow your opponent down and increase the chance of you getting the charge off could be invaluable. This is more so with a Legion like the Emperor's Children as they have so many charge dependent bonuses. A thought anyway.

Peace out,

Rob

Horus Heresy Review: The Typhon Heavy Siege Tank

Happy Tuesday everybody

Today I delve in to the Lord of War Section of the legiones astartes and cover the Typhon Heavy Siege Tank. Brother to the Cerberus Destroyer that I have covered previously. Where the Destroyer is a master of focused laser power, the Typhon drops shells of death and destruction that can give anyone a headache and a very very bad day...

Unit Stats

The Typhon rocks an unholy stats profile of:

BS  Front   Side   Rear   HP

 4      14        14      14     6

A super-heavy vehicle with all the benefits that entails coupled with AV14 all round, it is going to take a supreme amount of dedicated firepower or close combat punching to take this monster down. And you are going to want to...

Overview - No more needs to be said. Begin fearing it...

Special Rules

Just the one!

Crushing weight - Add +1 to rolls on the Thunderblitz Table during a tank shock or ram move.

Equipment

The Typhon comes with one important piece of equipment called the DREADHAMMER SIEGE CANNON!!

Dreadhammer Siege Cannon - 24"/48" - S10 - AP1 - Primary Weapon 1, Massive Blast (7"), No Cover Saves allowed

OK wow. Read that and cry tears of joy if you are fielding one, or bitter salty tears if you are facing one. No Cover Saves Allowed. A S10, 7" blast that ignores cover, rolls two dice for armour pen due to primary weapon and its AP1.

This will ruin any cover save dependent armies day, particularly if it relies heavily on aggression backed up by jinking! If they Typhon moves the range is only 24" but that is somewhat mitigated by the super heavy move of 12", effectively making it a 36" range. If it remains stationary you get the full 48" wallop.

Unlike the Cerberus the Typhon DOES NOT come with a flare shield so you are a little more susceptible to lascannon fire or better. You do come with searchlights and smoke launchers as standard though. Yay!

Overall the Typhon takes anything tightly packed down very well. Be that bunched vehicles or blobs of marines. Very important to keep your Alpha units out of line of sight. On a sparsely terrain populated board this vehicle will be disgusting.

Options

Offensively the Typhon can take a pair of sponsons that are either Heavy Bolters or Lascannons. The lacannons are the only real choice here for me, but they do add 40 points. You also have the option of pintle mounting a twin-linked bolter, combi-weapon, heavy flamer, heavy bolter or multi-melta. I'd probably save the points to give it sponsons and one other upgrade...

Armoured Ceramite. Yep for the price of 20 points you can melta-proof your big daddy tank to increase its survivability even more. Highly recommended! You can also take hunter killer missiles, but like the pintle mounted weapons I'd leave it off. 

Utilisation

With Lascannons and armoured ceramite you are forking out 410 points! Or 370 if you just take the ceramite. This is a huge investment for something that at the end of the day does only have 6HP. but they will be oh so hard to take from it.

I think it is very easy to be overly confident with this beast and put yourself in harms way unnecessarily. Don't be so cock sure with it that it can take whatever your opponent can throw at it.

Don't be afraid to hide it a bit (as much as you can anyway). As with a 12" move you should be able to get key targets in that 24" range. From a tactical perspective I would pair this in an army with some long range firepower like lascannons. This will mean that if your opponent stays back you can batter their front lines with the Typhon and back lines (like a hiding scorpius or Knight) with the lascannons.

This forces your opponents hand and keeps them honest with multiple threats at range. An unpleasant prospect to deal with, particularly with anything T5 or below.

Overall the Typhon should do you proud and it really does force your opponent to make deployment decisions right from the get go, keeping squads spaced out as well ad deployed further back and out of line of sight. Coupled with long range fire power (lascannons, any decent barrage weapon) you can really capitalise on this. But don't be cocky! 

Peace out,

Rob

30kPlus40k versus Winters SEO - now live on YouTube!!

Hey gang!

Just a heads up today that the game I played with my mechanicum, versus Winters SEO is now live on YouTube! Please go check it out and I highly recommend you look at the rest of Winters' videos and hit like and subscribe if it tickles your fancy :)

Peace out,

Rob

Building the Solar Auxilia

Hey today,

Just a quick update on my solar auxilia. Yesterday I went through the units I'd bought and last night I put together the two first Tanks. Almost removing a finger in the process... Modelling and painting is likely to take a hit because of it! 

But here are some picture :)

Peace out,

Rob

The Allied Solar Auxilia List - A review

Hey everyone,

Today I'm just going to run through my recent Solar Auxilia purchases and how they will form an allied detachment for my Alpha Legion force. My recent purchases were a Malcador Infernus, a Dracosan Armoured Transport, and a Veletaris Storm Section with Power Axes.

HQ

Tank Commander - The HQ for the allied detachment will actually be a tank commander. These cannot be taken as a mandatory HQ for a primary detachment but they can be taken as the mandatory HQ for an allied detachment. 

The Tank commander upgrade gets applied to an Malcador or Leman Russ Tank in the army. THe upgrade gives the Tank BS4 as well as the ability to fire overwatch with its weapons. It also lets you pick from USR like Tank Hunter, Monster Hunter and a few others.

Can you guess who is getting the upgrade... not hard with only 1 choice!

Troops

Veletaris Storm Section - These guys are the elite of the elite, with a 4+ save that is re-rolled against blasts and templates they have extra durability compared to 40k Tempestus Scions. As standard these guys come with volkite weaponry which is very cool, BUT I love the power axe models so we are looking at 10 WS3 power axes that actually go up to WS4 when in base contact with other members of the squad! So hitting last but should do a decent job anyway. 

These guys will eventually move to an elite slot as a household retinue for a Legate Commander. This means they will be buffed to WS5!

Dracosan Armoured Transport - A dedicated Transport for the Veletaris squad that comes with a 13:12:11 frame with 5 HP. FIVE!!!! Not only that but you can equip it with a demolisher cannon (which I have) that drops the transport capacity to 10 but I only have 10 anyway!

Additionally it will be equipped with armoured ceramite and a flare shield to really give it survivability effectively becoming AV 14:12:11 against regular shots and front armour 15! Against blasts and templates. 

Heavy Support

The Malcador Infernus - A 6HP super heavy in the regular heavy slot. With an 18" torrent hellstorm flamer that can be S7 AP3 or S3 AP2 with 2+ poison. The Infernus will also be equipped with lascannon sponsons as well as all the good defensive upgrades too. Remember that this thing can now fire overwatch (wall of death!) AND its lascannons fire at BS4. 

Summary and working with Alpha

The Solar Auxilia bring some very heavy hitting vehicles to my Alpha Legion army, that despite having 2 flyers is very light on the ground with durable units. The torrent flamer will help remove cover hogging astartes in power armour or terminator armour as well as using its lascannons to help pop enemy vehicles. 

The Dracosan can also drop the squad off behind itself before plonking a S10 AP2 pie plate down that should thin out return fire on the squad that can charge with their axes in their next turn or take an assault from a thinned out unit. 

This army is the beginning of a very elite army that will be going Malcador heavy in the heavy support slots. I am even considering taking an Onslaught detachment, which while giving you the option of 2 Lords of War, also gives you the option of an additional heavy support. 

I don't intend to take an Lords of War as I think 4 Super heavies in the heavy support slots is bad enough of the fromage scale!

Thats it for today so as always..

Peace out,

Rob

Progression as a Painter - An Illustrated Guide

Hello all!

Today I have a post that I've been putting together for a while. I know certainly that when I started painting and collecting 40k again, I was hugely overwhelmed by how good lots of painters were and my own efforts caused me great consternation. I think like many hobbyists, I have a very vivid and active imagination. This is a great boon for me in terms of playing 40k as well as DnD, and indeed it aids me in memory based protocols I use to keep information in my head. 

But when I looked at my painted models, the image I had so hoped to see was never formed in the blotchy rough paint job I had done and the models were a bit of a disappointment. Despite the kind words and promises of brilliant painters that I would get better (Nathaniel and Nick from Objective Secured and The Burning Eye par example) I couldn't visualise that at all, and it made me lazy. 

So what I decided to do was to chart my progression in painting ability from my modest beginning 3 or so years ago to where I am to date. I'd like to throw in a disclaimer here that I am not a brilliant painter now by any means. I reserve that title for people who just make your draw drop. But I do think I am a good painter and I am very happy with most of what I produce these days. 

My hope is that people who see my current painting projects don't get disheartened if they feel their own work doesn't match up, as they should be able to see that if you truly stick with and, importantly, you want to improve, then it does happen. Finally, painting isn't everything! If you don't care for having that perfect shade of green, it doesn't matter, as long as you have fun at the end of the day :)

The Eldar Years

The Dark Eldar were my first foray back into 40k and you can see that I went big and bold! There is very little shading here, a few washes and plenty of drybrushing! Damn I was proud of these!

I continued in the vein for some time until I thought, you know what, maybe I can do better...

My revamped Dark Eldar saw me take on yellow in a way that I just couldn't do all that well and also try out OSL and painting flat surfaces with depth, such as on the wings. Whilst I saw improvement, each model was taking me upwards of a week to paint as I tried to much to fast and some very advanced techniques that I din't understand enough to apply. 

This squad took over a month to do with little else done in that time frame. Whilst I was aiming for better, I wanted to play with a painted army sometime soon!!! I have always tried to paint well but expediently. 

The Craftworld Cousins briefly made an entry into my collection. I attempted batch painting with washes that produced OK results. Interestingly enough this style of technique is what I went back to when painting my mechanicum several years later.

Enter the Marines

After losing my Dark Eldar by leaving them on a bus, I decided to sell up my Craftworld and try to paint some marines. Maybe I had just jumped in at the deep end with such fiddly models! This Dreadnought was one of my first forays into my Night Lords army. I used several layers of blue and got some happy results that I thought I could do quickly. 

Important to note, that a lot of how I painted this army came from YouTube tutorials. Use them! They are great and you can get so much out of them.

The fruits of my labour were a definite step forward, but again I found myself wondering if half of what I was doing was just wasting time. The end result didn't seem to reflect all those layers and hours I'd put in, even though I was happy with what I saw.

Sticking to Marine Models, which are SO MUCH EASIER TO PAINT than Eldar I looked at the Black Templars. Unlike the Night Lords I tried to cut the paint layers down and I think I got similar results with half as much effort overall. My main idea was basecoat, wash and single layer. A big change in my technique later on was to apply washes at the end to tie colours together.

This model is one of my favourites of all time and I was so pleased with the sword! But the colours are still pretty flat and the paint, looking back, far too thick in some area. 

Eventually both sets of marine armies were sold to fund new purchases that I thought I could paint better.

The Imperial Ascension

Ah! My short lived Militarum Tempestus army... I loved building these guys, but I found my paint job too cartoonish and thick and with too many projects on the go and strapped for cash these guys also saw the light of eBay.

Despite appearences, this Culexus was a turning point in my painting style. Less felt like more with very small highlights on all the areas and my first proper go at OSL.

Death Comes to Us All

My Death Company and Blood Angels marked an advancement in keeping things simple. Colour selection became more important and I started to read about colour theory to make sure my choices didn't clash. Keeping the reds close enough together to not clash but far enough apart to POP. The blue OSL was also picked to compliment the other colours. 

I also started to put a little more effort into my bases, though more could certainly have been done with these guys. 

Angels Beget Angels

The most important aspect of my Dark Angels was ADVICE. I actively sought comments on people more than ever before, rather than steaming ahead! I would paint prototypes and ask for feedback. Importantly I would listen, not take offence, learn re-paint and repeat till happy.

I also started to thin my paints a lot more. I've never got on with a wet pallet if I'm honest. So I started to load my brush with water and wipe off excess on my thigh but leave enough on to keep the paint moist. Not overloading the brush was important here and also keeping myself conscious of the paint drying. This meant painting for 2-5 minutes, washing the brush, straightening the hairs, reapplying water, wiping, reapplying paint. 

I also started to buy none GW brushes and clean my brushes with actual brush cleaner. A bad worksman blames he tools as tools are only useless if you don't look after them!

The New Age

After my Dark Angels had begun I felt a new lease of life in painting and I decided to really try something radical for me. I decided to re-visit using washes as a means of colouring a miniature. Again I did my reading and Zenithal Undercoats seemed to be the way to go with this. I also decided to extend my OSL practise to normal shading. This meant using dry brushing to blend normal colours, rather than just for the vibrant glow. Again testing colours and feedback helped immensely. 

Crucially I also washed over the model once all of the dry brush work was done. This lead to the colours TYING together and achieving a well blended look, despite just being dry brushed on. Online guides to dry brush blending were invaluable here. I would cut out plasticard and spray paint them like a model and try to blend from one end to the other to get the technique down. 

As well as painting, my mechanicum were the first time I put a lot of thought and effort into my bases, and I think the impact they have on the model really does speak for itself.

It might not look it, but all of the above models were painted with the techniques highlighted in the firs paragraph of this section. The Alpha Legion and Legion of the Damned have some additional line highlighting done and some sponge weathering on the Alpha Legion but the basic shape is washes and dry brushing. 

Closing Thoughts

I hope that a very brief flit through my painting past with 40k has helped energise your own enthusiasm for developing your talent. I don't think its a far stretch to to say that anyone can be a good painter. It just requires you to want to be a better painter and accept that it takes time and practise. You don't have to be a Rembrandt to get good results. Dry brushing is by far my most used and favourite technique, don't let anyone tell you that you SHOULD do it one way. 

Experiment and find out what you like and see what works for you. I hope this has been helpful!

Peace out,

Rob

PS - I used to be super super bad at painting even before I started 40k, back when I was playing Inquisitor, sadly no pictures now survive of that time - phew!