Marine Gunship!

It seems that my posts are like buses; you wait ages for one and then a load come along at once.

As yesterday's post was a gaming one it seems fitting that today's be a modelling one! 

As of 1500 hours GMT this afternoon I have finally completed a hobby project that I have been working on sporadically for the past few months; and it has been a beast (albeit a very rewarding one!)

I have recently become sick of watching my precious Crimson Fists either walking around the battlefield, or alternatively driving about in their clapped out old Rhinos and so came to the decision that these superhuman warriors needed something a little nippier to traverse the war zones of the dark millennium. 

Having served as a soldier in Afghanistan I am aware how useful dedicated air support is in conflict, and how troops that are airmobile have a degree of flexibility that makes them a real force multiplier. In light of this I decided that my noble Astartes needed the same facility to maximise their power and so I have crafted them a fine new Stormraven Gunship to use as their new chariot.

Yeah I know it's not strictly retro...but it's a bloody cool model and I am actually quite proud of my efforts on this....and hey it's my blog.        :-)

If you're really offended then feel free to squint your eyes and try to pretend its a variant of the "deodorant bottle" grav attack from the Rogue Trader rule book way back in 1987 (how times have changed!)

Anyway here it is...kitted out with missiles, more missiles and some las cannons.... To quote Private Hudson from ALIENS: "Express elevator to hell....going dooooooown"

On a retro-gaming note I am happy that I can slip this flyer into a game of Rogue Trader using the vehicle generation rules; however I also want to squeeze it into my games of 2nd Edition....does anyone have or know the whereabouts of a half-way decent datafax for this beast?

Cheers, see you next time!

Legio

Second Edition 40k-Space Marine vs Space Marine

Greetings all! Once again there has been an unavoidable delay between posts; sadly some issues in my personal life and a busy workload has interfered with my blogging activity! However I have had some time over the weekend so I thought I would get back on it with a battle report.

This was a fairly simple game of second edition 40k using my Crimson Fists (led by my wonderful girlfriend) fighting against my brutal Flesh Tearers (more on these guys later). To keep things simple I drew up identical armies from the Black Codex. These consisted of a Captain in power armour with a chainsword and bolt pistol; a terminator squad with an assault cannon; a tactical squad and a half assault squad. It had been a while since we played with these rules so I thought it was best to keep things fairly basic. 

In the spirit of retro second edition gaming I set up a battlefield using the original card ruins; a green gaming mat and some old school lichen. With the war zone established we drew our mission cards from the deck:

My missus and her blue clad warriors drew "TAKE AND HOLD" and so were required to seize an objective (in this case an ammo canister) in the centre if the table. I on the other hand drew "DAWN RAID" which meant my men needed to penetrate the Crimson Fist deployment zone. If we achieved our goals then we would gain an additional 5 VPs on top of those awarded for slaughtering enemy squads.

We set up our troops on the table within our deployment zones. Both of us split the tactical squads so we could get the missile launchers on the high ground whilst freeing up our sergeants and special weapons troopers to sprint for victory. The majority of our armies hid in the available cover which was plentiful. 

Given that we were using a slightly smaller table than usual (I couldn't be arsed to dig my games table out of the shed) our troops were grouped a little closer to together than one would expect).

The Fists took the first turn and set straight about achieving their primary mission. The combat squad with the missile launcher stayed firm in the high ruins so they could use their heavy firepower whilst the remainder of their unit started running through the overgrown ruins on the left of the battlefield. The terminators moved forward more slowly so that they could use their heavy weaponry to maximum effect; the Captain decided to join them. On the right of the battlefield the assault marines jogged forward rather than igniting their somewhat unpredictable jump packs.

Once the movement phase was over the sons of Rogal Dorn let rip with bolters; assault cannons and missile launchers.... And this volley of lead was devastating....

When the cloud of cordite lifted the Sons of Sanguinius had taking heavy casualties with two tactical marines and one assault marine lying dead on the floor; their power armour shredded to pieces. More worryingly two of the veteran terminators had also been slain; their near impervious armour apparently not as resilient as they had hoped. The remaining terminators then embarrassed their chapter further by failing their leadership test and soiling themselves. Luckily Space Marines are tougher than the average Joe and instead of breaking they become shaken instead.

Following that round of butchery the crimson clad angels were ready for retribution. Bearing in mind their objectives the majority of the battle-brothers set forth across the board; though the heavy weapons team remained in place to shoot and unfortunately the shaken terminators could not move towards the enemy so remained in situ. 

The assault marines decided to engage their enemy counterparts and so fired up their jump packs powering 18" across the battlefield. Luckily there was only a little bit of scattering, and they were able to use their additional 4" move to successfully engage. The shooting phase was disastrous and no fists fell to the combined firepower. The assault phase was a little better and the Crimson Fists Sergeant screamed in agony as the whirring blades of a chainsaw churned his enhanced organs into offal.

All that was left was for my terminators to rally; which they did; and then it was back to the fists for turn two. 

Unsurprisingly the heavy weapons fire team remain in place while the terminators and the tactical marines continue to move towards their objective. Once again the scions of the Imperial Fists Legion prove their skill at arms; cutting down three tactical marines from the missile launcher squad and another terminator; whose squad mates again become shaken!!!!! Pahlavi; pussies!!

However in the ongoing melee the Flesh Tearers live up to their fearsome reputation; pulling a blue marine apart with their bare hands and drinking deep of his precious vitae!

The depleted Flesh Tearers realise that they face defeat and so start to take measures to try and regain the initiative; moving forwards and firing their weapons from the hips..... Again to no avail! Missiles spiral off the battlefield; special weapons jam and bolters do little more than damage the paintwork on the cardboard ruins. I'm not going to lie.... I wailed in rage at this point. Subsequently the melee results in two flesh Tearers dying for the loss of another fist.

The terminators once again rally and recover from their shaken state of mind. 

Turn three starts with the Crimson Fist Terminators; led by the Captain sprinting to their objective and seizing it, forming a ring of ceramite all around it. Meanwhile the Flesh Tearers Captain, and his entourage take a volley of firepower in the face leaving one of their number dead on the floor:

The eternal melee continues unabated and another Flesh Tearer is shredded on a Crimson Fist's sword.

The Flesh Tearers terminators are now able to move forward for the first time in the battle and so move into an appropriate firing position so that they are able to shoot the tide of blue holding the centre objective; the two tactical units hold position; cock their weapons and add their firepower to this fusillade. 

One blue terminator finally succumbs to the sea of bullets; falling to his knees as centuries of loyal service are rewarded with ignominious death. The Captain also takes a wound; but staggers onwards. Meanwhile the melee still fails to end; and the Flesh Tearers Sergeant pulverises one of the remaining Crimson Fist Assault Marines with his oversized power fist.

With the conclusion of turn three we decided to end the game and so tallied up the victory points....

Once again I had been defeated (heavily defeated) by my wonderful girlfriend!! It was a strong victory and I have to congratulate her on a really well played game!

Overall this game was really enjoyable; I have been playing a lot of sixth edition recently so this was a little clunky as I had to remind myself of the rules at various points; but once I got into it things can to mover more quickly! I am looking forward to our next game!! Hopefully I might win....or at least draw!!

Purestrain Pleasures!

Well after adding a few more finishing touches to last week's hybrids/magus I thought it was time to introduce these new beauties to the rest of their cult.

As it stands this xenos cult consists of the following:

First up we have the brood's Big Daddy...The Patriarch:

This gnarled and weathered old genestealer is the primogenitor of this cult and as such he is decades, if not hundreds of years old, and in light of this I have tried to give him an appropriate paint job that demonstrates his venerable status. 

The model itself is the original 'Running Patriarch' from 1989 and I just love the character this sculpt oozes.  So much cooler than the Broodlord of modern canon; I particularly like his swanky giant medallion; perhaps this cult has infiltrated a world where 1970's disco is still cool and John Travolta will be the first of his brood brothers!

Unfortunately when he arrived via a Space Hulk (aka EBay) to my home world (aka Doorstep); one of his legs had snapped off completely.  This is one of the dramas with old lead, it's such a soft metal that weak areas such as joints and spindly limbs are prone to snapping/breaking.  So after I dried my tears I broke out the sculpting tool and green stuff for an afternoon of intense battlefield first aid; I'm not a great sculptor, but I am competent and I am pleased to say that you can no longer see the injuries this chap had previously sustained.

Moving on...

Well a patriarch is nothing without a brood to command and so here is his horde of vicious purestrain offspring (21 of the murderous little blighters in total). There are a variety of figures here including the early lead sculpts and the more common plastics from Space Hulk/Space Crusade.  As an interesting aside I discovered that the models from these two games are not quite identical; whilst the core body/torso is the same sculpt it is the arms that are slightly different as the Space Crusade ones are a little more basic and lack the fleshy nodule of muscle in the centre of the claws...look closely at these pics and see if you can spot what I mean.  I didn't really notice this until I started painting these guys in bulk!

To add some variation to the brood I tend to differ the tone of purple/mauve I use on the genestealers heads/flesh so as to break things up a bit. Overall I am happy with the look of these guys, and they frequently stalk the cardboard corridors of my first edition of Space Hulk.

Finally here is the whole family including the new hybrids from last week...lovely.

I will definitely start cracking on with some more hybrids (the crappy plastic ones from the GENESTEALER expansion are looking like they need some love; and I want to see if I can make a sculpt I don't really like look good) and those brood brothers I sprayed up probably need some attention too!!

I'll let you know how I get on!!

Legio

Genestealing my time!!

Well hello everyone,

Apologies for the time gap since my last post! Unfortunately I have been remarkably busy with work recently and so I haven't been able to get online to blog, however I have managed to squeeze in a bit of painting time here and there.

As regular readers of my Blog will already know, my girlfriend is not only supportive of my hobby interests but has also become a keen participant and frequently takes to the battlefield to command troops against me in games of Rogue Trader.

One set of models that she has fallen in love with is my collection of first edition Space Hulk genestealers which I have been painting on and off for the past few decades (we've all got one of those projects we return to from time-to-time!). 

The majority of these figures are the original plastic purestrains that were released with the Space Hulk box set, supplemented by a couple of the metal purestrains that were released in 1989.  These uni-pose models have fascinated her since she first saw them (she does an awesome genestealer impression) and she has asked if they can be fielded in our next battle.

Always keen to please I have put together a scenario for us to play that features the aforementioned genestealers in a bitter struggle to the death with the might of the Imperial Inquisition.  However as I was constructing the scenario's background I quickly realised that a battle against a force consisting of only purestrains could be quite boring and so I decided to augment these insidious xenos with a few genestealer hybrids in order to shake things up a bit. I proceeded to dig around my unpainted lead pile and pulled out some classic old models to paint up.

Initially I was a little ambitious with my painting goals and prepared the above models for painting.  Here we have the following:

1 x metal magus (1989)
3 metal hybrids (1989)
2 x plastic hybrids (from the Genestealer supplement for Space Hulk (1990))
10 x Imperial Army troopers to act as brood brothers (1987 - 1989)

I quickly realised that the sheer number of figures that I had prepped was too ambitious to paint up quickly and so I decided to attack the project piecemeal.  For the first batch I chose the magus and three metal hybrids to complete. 

When choosing a colour scheme I decided to paint their body armour and chitin blue in order to tie them in with my traditionally coloured purestrains.  For the fleshy areas I decided to go for a deep, rich pink which would be a perfect medium between the purple/mauve of my pure 'stealers and the human hosts normal flesh tones.  When painting both these colours I decided to go proper old school in my technique and so I started from a darker base colour which was highlighted progressively by simply adding white to the base...I have to say that I'm quite happy with the results (this picture was taken mid way through the project).

I also added some yellow to the armour segments for a little variation and painted the combat trousers/robes a fairly standard grey.

Below are the finished models:

The magus is a fourth generation hybrid and as such is genetically far close to humans than most of the brood, in light of this I gave him a more usual human flesh colouration...albeit with a light purple wash to hint at his alien origins.

Above are each of the other hybrids in turn...unfortunately the lighting wasn't great when I took the photograph thanks to the onset of bloody winter in the UK.  I envision that these guys are either second or third generation hybrids and as such their flesh colour is far closer to the genestealer norm than the magus. 

...And this is all four of my new hybrids together and ready for the upcoming battle. 

Now I will need to get working on the brood brothers...or maybe some more hybrids!

Again I apologise for my recent absence from the blog but I hope that you approve of what I've been doing in the meantime!!

Legio

Athena Jones and the Temple of Gloom....Rogue Trader

Greetings Readers;

Well it's Sunday night again and the weekend is nearly over, however fear not....I have a new battle report to cheer you up and keep those Monday morning blues at bay a little longer!

This battle report is another Rogue Trader game, a system which is rapidly taking it's rightful place as my favourite set of rules once again.  This weekend my dedicated and wonderful girlfriend came down to visit me and agreed to partake in a battle in the war torn 41st Millennium with me....now that's love. 

We've had a few sixth edition battles previously and she has proven herself to be quite the general (with a near perfect victory ratio) so I thought I would expose her to the more narrative driven WH40K 1987 style.

So in light of this narrative approach I decided that a story was in order to drive the game:

Background
Recent incidents on the planet of Iridia IX have displayed a pattern of events that has drawn the attention of the Imperial Inquisition.  Events had started off small, predominantly involving strange disappearances amongst the local populace; an agri-worker missing here, a PDF trooper presumed AWOL for over a month...unusual, but not normally enough for the Imperial authorities to take notice. 

That was until a routine sweep by the PDF noted unusual activity near a set of pre-Imperial ruins located on the outskirts of one of the rural farming communities on the planet's southern most continent. As the planet was a backwater that had rarely experienced any form of prolonged conflict the patrol had no reason to be fearful and so moved in to conduct a more thorough investigation...within minutes all ten soldiers were dead before they had even had a chance to report back to their chain of command. 

Despite their brutal demise a few short seconds of footage from the squad leader's helmet camera was subsequently recovered, it was blurry and distorted but a few images could be made out; an eight pointed star daubed on a wall in blood and the silhouette of a giant in iron grey plate armour. 

Within an hour of the Planetary Governor viewing the footage the entire area had been declared quarantined and a request for aid had been forwarded to the Imperium via astropathic relay. A short while later the Governor's lead astropath emerged from her quarters, blood running from her eyes and nostrils, she staggered into the Imperial Commander's office holding a piece of yellowed parchment...she then collapsed on the floor and expired before any staff present could move to offer her assistance.

The Governor knelt over the astopath's withered body and pulled the parchment from her clasped hand, gasping in horror as he recognised the symbol rendered upon it in the dead psychic's blood; a letter 'I' bi-sected by three horizontal bars...The universal symbol of the Imperial Inquisition.

Battlefield

After having read my last battle report my girlfriend commented on how she would like to play a game on the traditional 80's scenery board that I had used as opposed to the modern GW industrial ruins that I usually field.

In light of this request I once again dug out the classic green battlemat; grey slate buildings and green hedges and constructed an appropriate battlefield.

The ruins in which the PDF troopers were last seen were in fact the ram-shackle remnants of a temple to the Dark Gods of Chaos that have been disused for some millenia.  This formed the key terrain within the battlefield.

I then proceeded to scatter hedges, woods and rocky outcrops around the battleground in order to provide models cover during the game.



Forces:

The Inquisitorial forces (led by my girlfriend) were commanded by the female Inquisitor Athena.  This character started out with the stats of a basic Inquisitor from the RT Rulebook, however in true retro style we took the option to roll in order to improve her profile.  Initially my girlfriend rolled a D10 to see how many D6's that she could roll to generate additional profile points, she presently rolled a 0 meaning she was able to roll the maximum of seven D6's.  I dug out a handful of dice and handed them to her, she then proceeded to roll these and came up with a score of 21, meaning she had 21 additional points with which to improve her basic stats (this was some impressive rolling giving her only two fewer points than the maximum of 23). She distributed these evenly amongst the model's individual traits and  generated a greatly enhanced warrior who was faster, stronger and more agile than the best of the Space Marines.  Truly Inquisitor Athena would prove a worthy adversary.  In her quest to cleanse the Temple of Gloom she would be assisted by Captain Simba of the Crimson Fists Space Marine Chapter, ten of his battle brothers and five PDF troopers.

Athena wore power armour and carried a power weapon and plasma pistol, Simba was wearing power armour whilst wielding a boltgun and heavy duty power axe.  The marines each carried boltguns, bolt pistols and knives, though the squad sergeant's had exchanged their bolters for chainswords; one marine also carried a belt fed heavy bolter for a bit of extra firepower.  The PDF soldiers wore carapace armour and wielded lasguns, laspistols and knives.
 

The enemy forces were Chaos Space Marines of the Iron Warriors Legion; stoic and brutal soldiers of the Dark Gods.  These wicked traitors were commanded by a nameless champion wearing Mk III Iron Armour, and wielding a plasma pistol and chainsword.  The majority of his men were equipped with bolters, bolt pistols and knives, but once again squad leaders had chosen to replace their bolters with chainswords the better to shred the flesh of the Imperial whelps. One traitor marine had cast aside his boltgun so as to carry a symbol of his foul patrons, whilst another had upgraded his primary weapon to a plasma gun.

 

Objectives:

Imperial: Inquisitor Athena's force's primary mission was for their commander to enter the temple's main altar (top left of the image below) and remain there unmolested for one entire turn in order to plant Melta Bombs with which to destroy this fane of darkness.  Their secondary goal was to kill the Chaos Warrior who carried the icon of Tzeentch.

 

Traitor: The traitor marine's main goal was to kill the meddling inquisitor in order to prevent her interfering in their nefarious plans.  In addition to this the Iron Warriors natural hatred of all scions of Rogal Dorn meant their secondary mission was to butcher every Crimson Fist on the field so that they could later defile their worthless geneseed.

 

Set-up

 

The Iron Warriors secured themselves in the temple precinct with one squad in the damaged building at the front, another to the rear of the temple grounds and the final squad hunkered down on the left hand side.  In addition their mighty champion took position by the main altar.  (Note: The D10 in these pictures indicates the turn number).

The Imperial forces dispersed themselves evenly across their side of the battlefield, one squad behind the hedges on each flank and another holed up in the small ruins in the centre.  Commander Simba joined the centre squad while the noble Inquisitor hid behind the meat shield of the left hand formation.

To Arms.....

The Imperial forces moved first and decided that a rapid advance was required in order to successfully achieve their objectives. As such all squads sprinted forwards foregoing the opportunity to fire at the traitors.  The left hand squad vaulted the hedge line whilst the PDF warriors on the right tried to move in a manner which would maximise the the advantage of all available cover. The marines in the centre moved through the building they were sheltering in.

The Iron Warriors at the rear of the ruins then ran forwards so as to get into weapons range next turn. Meanwhile the squad who were situated on the left flank edged forwards slowly in order that they could still use their weapons.  They took aim with their bolters and let fly with a volley of bolt shells at the PDF troops that were creeping around the hedges, felling one of the mortal warriors.

The Chaos Marines to the front of the temple complex remained in situ as their current location provided them good arcs of fire conversely coupled with hard cover from which to deflect enemy shots.  These warriors opened fire on the Imperial forces that were directly in front of them, felling two of Dorn's tawdry progeny and laughing harshly as blue power armour was shredded by explosive bolts.

In the next turn the left hand squad sergeant ordered the marine with the heavy weapon to detach himself from the squad (allowed in the old rules) and set himself up in a position where he could provide covering fire to the rest of the force's advance into enemy held territory.  This he did, remaining in place and thanks to the old 'following fire' rule (as long as your shot hits and wounds then you can keep firing until you either miss or fail to wound) he cut down three of the closest Iron Warriors.

Horrified by the deaths of brothers who had fought the Long War alongside them for over a hundred centuries the Iron Warriors screamed in rage and opened fire once again on the sons of the Imperial Fists, killing a further two of them and leaving Inquisitor Athena worryingly exposed.

The heavy bolter marine remained in place to provide fire support whilst the other marine squad and Captain Simba moved forward.  On the other side of the battlefield the PDF crept into the woods which slowed them down but provided great cover.  Most mortals would be terrified at the prospect of engaging Chaos Space Marines in close combat, but thanks to the earlier intervention of the Dice Gods the plucky Inquisitor had no such reluctance and sprinted into a punch-up with the Iron Warriors, this combat ended up being a draw for this turn at least.

With the PDF tucked away in the forestry block the left hand Iron Warriors were unable to shoot them and so instead turned their evil attentions to Captain Simba's squad.  Even at this long range the Chaos Gods guide their gunfire and the bullets slayed another two of the Emperor's finest soldiery.  The rear most Iron Warriors squad sprinted forwards in order to bolster the exposed right flank.

The butchery intensified even further this turn as the PDF troops emerged from the wood line, broke out their laspistols and slaughtered four Chaos Marines; the lone survivor is understandably shaken by this massacre but managed to pass his leadership test and remain in place.  Meanwhile Athena proves why the attention of the Inquisition is to be feared by felling the two Iron Warriors that she was locked in close combat with.  Simultaneously Captain Simba's squad charged the nearby Iron Warriors; losing one Crimson Fist for a return of two Chaos Marines.  Having lost the combat the Iron Warriors are pushed back two inches.

Worried by the arrival of the Imperial soldiers within their dark temple the Iron Warriors Commander charged into the Space Marine Captain and they proceeded to hack at each other with their vicious blades.  The nearby Crimson Fists tore apart another of their foes in the assault phase of the turn.

The surviving Iron Warrior was keen to atone for the death of his brothers last turn and so levelled his plasma gun at the recently emerged PDF soldiers. A blinding light engulfed his field of vision for a nano-second and when it cleared all of the mortal troops were in pieces scattered around the wood line.  Once again 'following fire' proved its lethality as four men died in one murderous volley..... I absolutely love the uber-potent weaponry that troops were allowed to wield in Rogue Trader...unbalanced, yes; over-powered, yes; fun....f**cking right!!

Back in the temple the Iron Warrior Champion scored a blow against the Space Marine Captain which meant that he won this round of close combat, and pushed his opponent back two inches. However things didn't go so well for his nearby traitor brother and another Iron Warrior died in a welter of tainted blood.

My girlfriend showed herself to be a master tactician at this point and kept her mission parameters in the front of her mind as her Inquisitor took advantage of the nearby confusion in order to sprint into the temple's main altar where she settled down to plant her explosives.

Subsequently the Crimson Fist with the heavy bolter and the Iron Warrior with the Plasma Gun engaged each other in a 'following fire' shoot out.  The Emperor guided his loyal Astartes and the traitor marine came off worst as a high-velocity round breached his armour killing him outright.  The icon wielding Chaos Marines was also killed this turn meaning that the Imperial Forces achieved their secondary mission.  However the noble Space Marine Captain paid with his life as the Champion's chainsword chewed through his vital organs.

In the final turn of the game the Chaos Commander slayed the two nearby marines again using his plasma pistol's 'following fire' feature to great effect.  However it was to no avail as the Inquisitor had already achieved her mission and planted her melta bombs in the ruined temple.

Results:
Imperial:
Primary Objective: Achieved
Secondary Objective: Achieved

Traitor:
Primary Objective: Failed
Secondary Objective Failed.

Conclusion:
Well that was a thoroughly exciting game full of cinematic moments, like the lone survivor of a Chaos Marine squad butchering his brother's slayers with one deadly volley of plasma fire... or two mighty Astartes champions battling each other to the death in the ruins of an ancient temple...stirring stuff!

Once again my girlfriend has continued to prove her worth as a general by kicking my ass, but I had so much fun that I don't mind in slightest! We had a great time and both really enjoyed ourselves telling the story of the brave Inquisitor as she battled some of the darkest forces know to man. 

She is keen to play RT again but has asked if we can use a tank or two next time...I'm sure that I can accommodate that wish but I'll have to familiarise myself with the Rogue Trader vehicle rules ASAP.