The Kramer VI Incident

Not a post about Kit-bashing but with the new 6th Edition rules out this called for a small introductory game just to test the rules and give our models a test drive (sorry no pictures).

The line up: Blood Angels vs. Imperial Guard
Points Value: 750

Needless to say there was a lot of page flicking to this game. My Angels got beaten back but it was fun and it did give us a chance to play test the new rules to accustomise ourselves and maybe give the game a little bit of narrative.

Man of the match: Assault Marine that survived; 6 Autocannon shots, 6 Heavy Bolter rounds, 3 Sniper shots, 6 Multilaser shots and a shot from a lasgun in a single shooting phase. He finally fell to a psyker's psychic scream. Beaten but not dead I think, it will be fitting that he'll be back for more in the future.

And just because it gives it a little bit more flavour here's a bit of in-character fluff to go with.

+++Transmission Record Re: Kramer VI Incident+++

Servitor 07.A59.X

+PLAYBACK+

"Lost? What do you mean lost?"

"The recon patrol we sent did not report back at the specified time, I had no choice-."

"Do not give excuses. I do not have patience for excuses. Tell me you have the artefact."

"The artefact is lost my Lord."

"Failure is a heresy Sergeant, I expect you to redeem yourself. What were the casualties of this engagement?"

"Captain, twenty battle brothers in total. Librarian Aelius was amongst the fallen."

"Your failures are mounting Sergeant. What information do we have of the enemy?"

"From our reports it was the Imperial Guard, Captain."

"Heretics! What sanity have these Guardmen lost to fire upon the Space Marines?"

"They were lead by an Inquisitor my Lord."

"What is the source of this information?"

"... There was a survivor. What we've extracted from him was that an Inquisitor was involved. He claims the Inquisitor took the artefact with him. "

"Inquisitor or no, he has stolen what is rightfully ours and taken the blood of our Brothers. Gather your Battle-Brothers Sergeant, we shall show his man what it means to cross the Space Marines."

"What of Brother Valerius, the survivor my Lord? His body is harmed but his mind has gone mad, he's succumbed to the Black Rage."

"A shame that a Brother has succumbed this day. Induct him into the Death Company Sergeant. He'll have his chance to right what has been wronged."

+END+

Extract from Guardsmen Herman's Confessions

(Confidential)

We didn't mean it. We didn't they just... came out of nowhere. It was all dark that morning, we just got orders to go scout an area around some old abandoned space port then BANG! before we know it we were being shot at! 

So we shot back. We couldn't see a thing but we shot back. Then the sun started to come up and they came out of the darkness. Throne, they were Space Marines. We shot at Space Marines! Our orders were to hold our ground for some VIP package  coming in by air so we called in the rest of of our unit back to reinforce us. 

I can't believe I'm even here and alive. Throne it scares me to even think about it. We managed to push the Marines back... for a while. Then came this big red tank spewing fire and death every which way. We had to retreat, we lost two boys to the flames before luckily the thing smashed itself into a brick wall and got stuck. The Emperor had our backs that day.

Our reinforcements finally arrived and they cut down the remaining Space Marines. They put up a brave fight but one by one they fell. The last of them fell but one of them broke cover when our boys got a bit cocky and strayed too close. We lost a full squad of Guardsmen to a single Marine with a chainsword. He fought like a man possessed, we poured all our fire on him but it bounced off him like he had the luck of the Emperor. Not a single scratch dented his armour.

He just kept coming! Swinging wildly towards us until I heard the most awful gut retching scream, then the Marine just dropped, like a log. I don't think we actually shot the madman, Johnny with the scope said he saw some fancy Inquisitor blast the Marine.

We got lucky today. I know that. I didn't want to shoot at Space Marines it just happened they left us no choice. God-Emperor help us I hope we did the right thing.

Gunslinger Sergeant, Pt2

Just an update with pictures of the gunslinger sergeant, painted and finished. There has been a small change, I used a different base model (also another old metal Death Company model) and positioned the arms so he's firing akimbo (John Woo style).

Pretty basic paint scheme.
Armour: GW Blood Red and GW Enchanted Blue
Scrolls: GW Bleached Bone
Tassels: GW Bad Moon Yellow
Guns: GW Shining Gold
Metalwork: GW Leadbelcher
Everything was basecoated and washed with GW Devlan Mud. The model was finished off with cleaning up some of the blotchiness that formed and highlights.

Previous posts:

Gunslinger Sergeant, Pt1

Gunslinger Sergeant, Pt1

With the release of Warhammer 40k 6th edition there have been many changes to the rule system. Some good, some bad, some weird, some awesome.

There was one rule that popped out to me, not exactly game breaking but makes for some really fun models. Gunslinger: This allows a model with two pistol weapons to shoot both of them in the shooting phase. Since I run primarily Codex:Blood Angels this meant I had to give someone in my army two Melta pistols. I decided to give it to an Assault Marine sergeant, couple that with 2 Meltaguns from the squad and that's a Deep Striking Assault squad with 4 Melta shots.

Okay it is pretty game breaking.

Anyways I just had to convert a model with it, I've had this idea for a while and I have converted models with dual bolt pistol before. This one is not a particularly ambitious kitbash but it shows you can still make some interesting models just using the normal multi-part kits.

The Break Down.

Main body: Old Death Company model

Arms: Infernus Pistols from Death Company kit.

Jump Pack: Pack from Death Company kit

There are still more rules to play with. Changes to power weapons is making me rethink a lot about the load out for my Blood Angels army, for better and for worse (I have to start thinking about missile launchers for those pesky flyers). We shall soon see what the future holds.

Continuation:

Gunslinger Sergeant, Pt2

Assault Terminator Conversions

Thunder Hammer and Storm Shields

After being hammered (pardon the pun) by a bunch of Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield wielding Terminators I decided I wanted a piece of that pie. I've never been a fan of Terminators, they are an expensive units and with the amount of weapons that can punch through their armour I didn't like having a 200+ point unit that drops like flies sprayed with Raid. 

Coming back to the game after a long hiatus from playing and modelling I found they changed the rules for Storm Shields in 5th Edition 40k, still not convinced it took a single game of getting pounded into the ground for me to realise their potential. Dangerous and durable, they make for some excellent assault troops that aren't left with their thumbs up their arses after a successful assault (changes to sweeping advances also made my Assault Marines cry).

So the answer, build some Terminators. But looked at the new Storm Shields, bah! That's not fitting for a Blood Angel. A brief search of some of the new models and I quickly set my eyes on the Sanguiniary Guard's Wings to use as Storm Shields. 

(Courtesy of GW website)

It was a bit of a jump and I had my own doubts whether it would work. The wings were relatively tall and I was concerned it might overshadow the Terminator or just make them look unwieldy. My curiosity (as always) won and I got myself a set of the models to see if my idea could pan out. I think it worked out quite reasonably.

I decided to go the full nine yards and go for a solid block of 10 Terminators. I actually made 5 of them out of Grey Knight Terminators to give one squad a bit more 'flash'. A single box of Sanguinary Guard yielded 10 wings, unfortunately this was split into 5 right handed and 5 left handed wings. This meant I needed some left handed Thunder Hammers, which don't really exist in pre-existing kits. Well, back to bitz hunting.

The answer came in the form of the Chaos Terminator power weapons, with a simple weapon swap I got my left Terminator arm with Thunderhammer. There was some clean up needed to make the Chaos arm a bit more Imperial friendly.

The Terminators themselves were relatively simple to assemble. Unfortunately I had to 'wrist-mount' my Storm Shields, this meant that on close inspect the Storm Shield looks 'glued' to the marine's arm. I know as a converter this little detail should be addressed, a friend even offered to give me a mould for Storm Shield hands to fix it. I reluctantly had to decline, I hate leaving models with tiny detail like this omitted but if I tried to replace all the hands I know I'll never get round to it. The compromise was for the greater good.

Onwards to the painting! For the shields I had an idea that stuck in my head. As the shields were feathers I wanted to go for a flame type effect, mimicking a Phoenix wing. I don't know whether this was a good or bad idea, I'm on the precipice of rejecting and keeping it. The other scheme I had was to paint it blue to signify the energy field around the shield. Since the armour is red anyways I thought a stark blue shield might distinguish the model a bit. I don't know, maybe someone will comment before I glue everything together.

This is the prototype, the others have yet to be finished but at least I know what I'm aiming for. 1 down, 9 to go!

P.S. Since taking the picture of the unfinished Terminator I had decided to swap the orientation of the shield/wing on the arm.