The Void Claws

   This may have been a mistake.

   A few weeks back I was having a chat with a mate about an idea that was half forming in my head - I was reading a fantasy novel and the enemy race were a tribe like people who each bond with their tribe's totem animal, with families made up of the adult and their animal/s, rather than mixed human groups* and I wanted a 40k version.

*kids counting towards the mother's animal number rather than as people

   As I had a run in the morning and was then doing a fair bit of driving with the kids straight after, I had the time to give this thought the chance to grow into something. The obvious answer was Kroot, they now have a combat patrol and they could fit well into the current campaign as mercenaries allied to the Chaos forces, and lay the ground work for a Tau campaign in the future, but if I am being honest, the idea of painting them scares me.

   The other option was the Space Wolves - although, more in a fuller 1k project than the combat patrol as the patrol didn't have the wolf element I was after. But how to make them 'mine'?

   The thought then grew to how would I make them different to the other chapter's that live in my head and the answer was obvious, bastardise the back story of the Carcharadons. This chapter was created in the Indomintus founding by Guilliman as one of a few chapters seeded with the thought of a future where the Imperium could look to expand again. The chapter was sent straight off into the outer dark, beyond the fringes of Imperial space to harass and weaken threats outside the border, so that when an Imperial push came along, they would have an easier time conquering new planets.

   As part of how they work, they make heavy use of Wolf Scouts. The scout's job is to attack the planet ahead of the main force, hack all communication networks, then when the invasion begins, all the defenders hear on any frequency is incessant howling that breaks resolve.

   More recently, the chapter has been assigned as one of the three Wardens of the Ivonian Cluster chapters**, tasked with capturing the area of space and then holding it for the Imperium, with a single planet being taken as a base of operations and "home planet" for each chapter.

**more in the future

   When it came to putting this theory into practise, I managed to talk myself into keeping it cheap and self contained***, with a single Kill Team - the Wolf Scouts. This way, if I don't buy anything else, the project can already be used, and if I do buy more, I have a squad I can add to the army.

   As the scouts aren't a usual pack, they are individuals with the right talents taken from full packs, I have left their old pack markings on their shoulder pad as I feel that will always be more important to them than their new squad - but their rank is on their knee pad. This squad has members of the Spirit Wolves, Hawk Eyes and Savage Fang packs.

***for the moment?

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Chetis 4 - Ongoing

   It was expected, by Imperial Tacticians, that a full counter attack would be launched by the forces of the foul Gods within 24 hours of taking Zul’Dar, but no full scale response came. The work had began to fortify the foothold on Chetis 4, land as much materiel and troops as quickly as possible, with the aim of starting the push towards the capital city, Qalb al-Bhaal and keeping the momentum of the assault going.

   The Imperial forces made good headway in this push over the next few days encountering only piecemeal resistance but at no where near the pace projected in the preinvasion planning. Partly this was due to the the second division, which was supposed to drop in the day or so after the initial beach head assault, being delayed in the warp but also reports of a increased Ork Waaagh developing on Chetis 5 meaning regiments had to be held back in case this threat became too big to contain.

   It has to be noted that less Astartes chapters had responded to the call for aid in this crusade than was also hoped, with the Ossuary Brotherhood being the only known chapter on the planet at this point. But warp signatures thought to match at least two Strike Cruisers had now been spotted by astropaths in the fleet.

   The Traitors, however, were not giving the planet up without a fight. Their nose had been blooded in the first strikes, their organisation was terrible with each warband working towards their own aims and not willing to sacrifice any gains or blood for others, but this did not mean they couldn't stop the Imperials. A combined force of World Eaters, Renegade Marines, The Sacrificed Sons, Thousand Sons, Iron Warriors, Chaos Knights, Daemons and assorted mortals stood in the path of the advance to Qalb al-Bhaal.

   There was one incident perpetrated by the World Eaters that mystified the Imperial Tacticians. A small warband of chaos marines and human cultists attacked an advance party of armoured vehicles made up of tanks from two different Adepta Sororitas sisterhoods, sacrificing themselves under the big guns and tracks with very little damage to the machines of the God-Emperor. It was only later that this was found to be the final piece of a blood ritual to their God, one that drastically weakened the veil to the warp and allowed daemons to manifest across the planet far more freely.

   With Chaos fully on the offensive and achieving more of their objectives more the Imperial armies, can the Imperium hold for long enough to change their fortunes?

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Tendorians Pt2

   While they shouldn't really be a priority, I am aiming to get at least a 'full' platoon of my Tendorians table ready just to make sure I haven't bought 100 figures that go straight into backlog. From the figures I have bought, I am counting this 'full' platoon as; a command squad, 3 infantry squads and a pair of heavy weapon squads.

   This post is another decent chunk of those figures - mostly held up by how long it takes to build them.

The command squad - I didn't give the squad a banner as it just doesn't feel right for a platoon command to have one - that's something I will leave for the company command despite me losing a fair few useful rules by it. The office has the female head with the pony tail as it is just a really nice piece.

The first heavy weapon squad - I went with the autocannons as they felt the most rounded choice. I am really unsure what to build the next squad with if I am being honest.

The second squad. I've built all 3 units with slightly different special weapons choices - all 3 have plasmas, as they are just the best option, but this squad I gave a grenade launcher instead of the melta for a bit of variety.

The 3rd squad is well on it's way to being done, and that just leaves me to build the 2nd heavy weapon unit and then look at the 2nd platoon.

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Rounding out an old army

   An army that has been really hard done by me over the past few years, although, for a fair reason* is my Imperial Knights army - House Steinschild. I was slowly building to a point where I could field a full knight army for 30k (with prior warning to an opponent as I'm just not that sort of guy) when the rules for the army changed and there was a requirement of Armigers as troops came in, so I dropped that idea hard.

   On paper, it is a change I am pretty happy about, but as someone who didn't own any Armigers at that point and realising how many boxes I needed to buy to make the army legal, it was just beyond me. 

*price

   My knights have seen the table a fair bit despite that, as Lords of War allies in 30k and as normal allies in bigger 40k games. We even played a game last year where each player took a single knight and we respawned any dead ones to keep it interesting, but this isn't a knight army. However, last year a pair of knight combat patrols were released in White Dwarf, both of which just needed a single box of Armigers. When my brother bought himself a Chaos Wardog box**, I found myself with an opponent, which meant it was only a a matter of time before I got the opposites.

**Chaos Armigers

   I decided my pair should be the squires of the knight that gets the most use - Sir Fion my Knight Errant - and I gave her a bit of a glow up at the same time as I felt like my older knights were a touch basic in their schemes.

   I spent far longer staring at the first one of the pair that I painted trying to work out how I would fill the blank spaces. I wanted to get the house badge on them but they don't have the shields, so I tried the symbol on their carapace instead and liked it so much that I went back to the bigger knight and did the same.  The skulls on the front of their personal pad show their rank as squires (less skulls shows a higher rank and closer to knighthood themself) and they have their knight's heraldry on the back of their pad to honour them. Otherwise the allegiance pad is the same as the big knights, Imperial Eagle on the front and Sons of Horus green and markings on the back half***.

   I also changed how the bigger knight's personal heraldry pad looks with the dragon motif being moved to the front as I didn't like how she sort of had two different heraldries that didn't make sense.

***the army was always themed to be early in the heresy

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Tendoria

Focus Project ; No

   Looking at the dates online, 23 years ago, Games Workshop released a plastic kit of Cadian shock troops at a show in London held at Alexander Palace that my mate and me went to*. There was quite a lot on our shopping lists but we had next to no money and this kit was what we both ended up buying instead. Thus my first Imperial Guard army was born.

*I can't remember what it was called (Conflict maybe?) but it was like a mini games day

   This army was painted in a winter scheme as we were working on winter scenery at the time, then they were repainted in black to be faux Gaunt's Ghost, before finally settling on a blue uniform and grey armour as the Tendorian 20th. The issue I had was this was both the era where I then went nuts and expanded the army in a big way and also when GW had a bad batch of plastic glue that failed over time, so one game I found half my army started falling apart as it came out of the foam and I very much lost interest in an army that couldn't be trusted to survive simple transportation**. Hence why my next Guard army was a metal army using the Steel Legion figures.

   The next issue was what this army's thing was - initially they were a regiment raised by a planet who thought it was effectively a hack to equip their cheapest commodity (people) with the cheapest equipment that could be bought and send them off into the stars instead of losing valuable goods to the tithe as most planets do***, but this is what my Hervictus guard became instead.

**one figure had the arms, legs, base and head all fall off as I picked it up

***because grim dark

   So the new fluff;

   Tendoria Prime is an Agri World in the neighbouring system to Hervictus itself. The planet's main export is edible produce but it has a martial history that it is keen to reinforce. There is a founding myth taught in every scholam on Tendoria that millennia ago the planet was colonised by demobbed Cadians and they are proud to have multiple regimental standards on Terra itself.

   Tendoria supplies the Imperium with highly trained, highly motivated shock troops trained in the Cadian style.

   When it came to painting this batch, I decided not to do the blue and grey uniform again - partly as the blue and grey has been subsumed into my other imperial armies, Hervictus got the grey armour and a really light blue trouser, while my Mechanicus have the bright blue. I also didn't want to paint a colour scheme I have elsewhere, so the traditional khaki uniform with green armour was a no go as my Tempestus Scions stole that too. So, I went for a light green uniform and brown armour to suggest a camouflage idea without committing to it.

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Winter WW2 US

 Focus Project; No

   Another post that has come as a surprise to both you and me. I bought a WW2 winter Americans a couple of years back when I was feeling flush and we were playing quite a bit of Bolt Action. Then Waylands closed their gaming centre and the 3rd edition of the rules came out and we just didn't pick the game back up.

   Now, however, my wife has a friend who it turns out is a gamer. He currently only plays LotR but he would like to get into Bolt Action, so I'm putting on a quick demo for him using the theatre that interests him - The Battle Of The Bulge - and it felt right to get the correct troops painted up.

   I've painted a real minimum platoon just to give him a feel for the rules - 2, hopefully, historically accurate squads of 12 men and a lieutenant with mates for some mobile punch.

   I'm also fairly sure I've got the base uniform slightly wrong - possibly the brown trousers by this point, but I'm happy with how they look.

Will the next post be the first focus project post of the year? Who knows.

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The Bullgryns

Focus Project; No

   I am very much still struggling with painting time - work is mental at the moment and a fair bit of my hobby time is fitted between jobs as a screen break - while the rest of my "not parenting time" is spent either running or at Wayland Games. At no point will you see me complain that I am now gaming again, but it has meant my backlog of painting isn't getting much better*.

*read as much much worse

   On that note, I have a game lined up for later this week where I plan to use my Imperial Guard. My opponent is going to be deep striking Terminators behind my line, so I wanted a unit to be able to deal with them, even if deal with just means a substantial speed bump. The idea I came up with was 6 Bullogryns - abhuman mutants that the Imperium uses for their sheer bulk. 

   I already had 3 from a past project that I repainted the trousers a few years back to match my Hervictus infantry but now I wanted a full 6 and to tidy them up properly.

   The Imperium is currently losing our campaign, so lets see if I can help or hinder their cause with my Guard.

Thanks for reading