Imperial Navy Bomber Wing 1538

   Unlike my Fighter Wing from this post*, I've gone with a much more two tone, camouflaged scheme instead of a bold one colour, matching what real bombers would have. I've figured that in the novels fighters are smaller and tend to be showier, relying on speed in the air and being moved under cover on the ground to keep the aircraft safe. Bombers on the other hand are slower in the air, and more likely to be less under cover on the ground, so need a bit more protection, plus as they are from different Wings, they don't need to match**.

*which still needs expanding by a couple of planes really

**I plan to add a 3rd different Wing in the future too

   It's quite odd that I really like the beige scheme my fighter wing is currently in and I also have a model of a plane from it in 28mm sitting on a shelf behind me, but looking at these bombers, they really do just feel 'right'.

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Campaign Chetis 4

   With the planet being digested around them and no hope of delaying the hive fleet any longer, the Imperial forces on Fratribusia pull out while their route of escape is still open, evacuating as much of strategic importance as possible. Military equipment and relics are all taken from their places of storage, while civilians of fighting age and build are forcibly removed from their families and inducted into the Astra Militarum to continue the fight on other planets. Billions of people, thousands of tons of equipment and stragglers from the Imperial forces are left to their fate with the xenos.

   While the planet, it’s population and the regular tithe have all been lost to the Imperium of man, the hive fleet was held up for longer than expected, allowing more time for a build up of forces at the anchor world of Sanctum.

   Battle group Constintinia has been formed from the remnants of the Imperial forces and been ordered to the planet of Chetis 4.

 

   Chetis 4 is an arid world whose main off world tithe is focused on munitions, cotton fabrics and Imperial Guard regiments all of which are crucial to the on going war against the hive fleets of the Tyranids. In recent years, the planetary governor, a certain Cardinal-Astra Marcellus, has declared himself a facet of the God-Emperor of mankind himself, declaring war on the corruption of the Imperium as he sees it and stopping all tithe materials leaving while he builds his own crusading army.

   While the vast majority of solblade strike forces are being pulled back to the anchor worlds, now their delaying missions have been completed, to help strengthen the lines, those involved in the Fratribusia conflict have been grouped together and reinforced with an extra division of Astra Militarum as Battle Group Contintinia tasked with bringing Chetis 4 back into the Imperial fold.

   Upon reaching Chetis 4, Battle Group Contintinia has discovered that the problem is far more than a secessionist government and isn't confined to the single planet.

   The first wave of attacks were lead by the 1st Division Astra Militarum (Hervictus 14th, 17th, 31st and the Fratibusia Free Engineers), supported by the Ossuary Brotherhood chapter of Astartes, the Order of the Fallen Angels, Adepeta Soroitas and House Steinschild of the Imperial Knights.

The Imperial Knights were deployed outside of the main invasion area to neutralise a repair and reequipment site used by traitor Knights, with the aim of knocking a potent threat out of the war early on.

   The Ossuary Brotherhood was spread far thinner than planned when local, unsupported counter attacks from the forces of Chaos responded faster than anticipated but their heroic sacrifices meant the Imperial beach head has held, for the moment. Is a third of a company fallen in the opening gambit too high a price?

   Even with a full scale invasion of the planet going on, the warbands roving Chetis, supposedly under the command of Cardinal-Astra Marcellus, have been unable to co-ordinate a full scale response and have been recorded fighting amongst themselves on at least three separate occasions.

   Reported sightings of silver armoured Adeptus Astartes active on Chetis 4 are unsubstantiated and liable to lead to Inquisitional interest.

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Ork Aircraft

   I've had the starter set of Ork aircraft since the Aeronautica Imperialis starter set was released well before Covid but I had never painted them. I had built the 3 fighters and started to paint them, but as they were the first models I was using to test out Contrast paints on, they just hadn't worked - like any new tool, you need to learn how to use it, and these were not a success - so they have floated around my desk ever since.

   We have a bit of an idea to put Orks into the new campaign and getting 5 aircraft ready for a game isn't a big ask, so I decided to repaint the 3 I'd tried. All 3 have been resprayed or completely rebased back over before new colours have gone on.

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The Anti-Angels

   Carrying on with getting units finished ahead of the game included my unit of converted Warp Talons. These guys were built years ago when I was getting games in against a guy who always played Blood Angels, so they were designed to look like the opposites to his angelic Sanguinary Guard. However, we never actually played with this army and the unit sat unpainted for years.

   Part of the issue was that I wasn't sure how to paint the wings. I went with obviously deamonic, red wings for the flying Lord, but with the squad I wanted them to look like unnatural growths, so that units that were actually deamonic kept the weird colours.

  The photo below shows the unit in the game - I quite liked how the Warp Talons really looked different to the unit you can same from the same kit.

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Dealing With Tanks

   I have another game lined up at the new club I have joined and while the vibe is completely different to any other club I've been at as an adult, being fairly competitive, it's nice to have a regular thing set in the calendar.

   The wargamer I was set to play is a big tank fan, with his armies being very vehicle heavy. While I didn't want to tailor an army to play him, I did need to up my anti-tank game, hence the lascannon armed Havoc squad below.

   This was a squad I always meant to add to my chaos army but had never quite justified buying, so when they came up in the Combat Patrol magazine, I grabbed two copies. The first was built as per the old Combat Patrol, this is the second* which was very much designed for a single job.

*but the only one I have painted so far . . .

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Nevermore?

  With the coming release of the new edition of the Horus Heresy my old podcast WhatsApp group started getting used a fair bit more and we have all made noises about getting back into the game and potentially meeting up. I'd been toying with a Raven Guard army for the Heresy ever since reading Deliverance Lost and had actually painted and played with them a few times before as a 40k army before my gaming mate and myself got into the 1st edition in 2018(?) and I needed to be traitor so repainted the figures that I owned.

   With the new edition, I figured a small, self contained force might be nice. It will be based on the Raptors who are the marines fast grown using the equipment given to Corax by the Emperor who all wear Mark VI armour. I bought a box on a whim and decided to get painting.

I'm not 100% sure this project will go anyway as the price of the new starter box set and all the books are killing the group's enthusiasm fast, but we shall see. If nothing else it's been a fun little project.

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Scenery Project 1 - Sci-Fi Farmstead?

   I've fallen behind on a lot of things I planned to do this year with the idea of completing scenery projects just being one of many things on the list*. One thing I did want was to effectively make my desert scenery work for 3 different board styles; I wanted a more built up urban area, a more rural deserty area and a rural farmstead to be something in between.

*2025 has not gone to plan at all

   As we are still very much aiming for smaller games when we meet up, I thought it made sense to focus on getting that farmstead style building done. I decided to keep life simple and use the Renedra Mud Brick House and bolt on some sci-fi bits to prove my point - very much thinking of Tatooine as my muse. As I couldn't find the one I owned, I figured the best plan was to cut my losses, buy a new one and then have two of the same model I could substitute depending what I was playing.

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Red Butchers

   My World Eater project has stalled since the game at the Hutton Hearthguard, partly as I'd like to remove the daemon element I added to fill points and I can't decide what to do, and partly due to a plague of chickenpox affecting both boys while a bad cold took the adults out*.

*It was brutal

   While I am working out what my plan is, I decided to just paint the unit of Chaos Terminators that came in a recent Combat Patrol magazine up for this army, as it made more sense to give them a unit than my normal Chaos Marines**.

*I was hoping to buy more than one copy by I was told "a nice young man needed them for his online business"***

***so currently on eBay for 3x the price

  I've tried to make these guys match my regular berserkers and I suspect I should have broken up the red armour a touch more like I've done on my later World Eater models.

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Hammer and Rhino

   The last units needed for the game at the weekend were a Rhino transport (I probably need a few more in the future) and a Hellbrute. I'm a big fan of both models, I always like Rhino chassis and who doesn't like a dreadnought?

   I didn't buy the Rhino with an actual plan in mind of what it would carry, but  it was always likely to end up carrying the Eightbound unit and in game this is what it ended up doing, although, in the future it would be great to have one per Berserker unit. I tried to make it a bit more Khorne-y by putting a H Girder on the front to help balance as many skulls or useful helmets as I could find in my bits box*. I had meant to put more black panels on this to break the red up but remembered my plan by the time I was varnishing it**.

*next one I'll get the Battlefield Trophies next

**next time!

   The Hellbrute was bought one night sitting up with one of my children*** when I had this brilliant idea of what I wanted to do with one. I hadn't even thought beyond just having a Combat Patrol, so it was surprise the next morning when it dawned on me what I had done.

   I've added the chains pinned into it's arms to show that it is chained down when not in combat, a Khorne icon hanging from the waist from the Juggernaut sprues and added a trophy spike from the vehicle upgrade sprue as a good Khorne worshipper needs some skulls.

***I forget which at this point

   This post was meant to be posted on the day of the game, but I forgot, so I thought I would finish the post with a photo from the day instead, picking one that has both the units mentioned above in it. The Rhino didn't last long, so that was a tougher ask.

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Nuceria Calls

   The only thing I had to buy for the coming game was a single unit of World Eater Berserkers. There were a few ideas I had but, ultimately, I thought if I was buying anything with a deadline to paint, it should be some regular troops that might otherwise end up in my backlog and never get done. This was a brilliant plan, but a child coming down with Chickenpox really put a spanner into the works with the deadline looming.

   In the novel Angron, one of the characters that the novel follows is a traitor marine from a Blood Angel successor chapter (I forget which one) who has answered the call of Khorne and joined a World Eater warband, his whole motivation throughout the novel is that he is desperate to get the "nails" so he can really be one of them. When I bought my 3rd squad of berserkers I knew I wanted a small nod towards this, so I built one guy with a Blood Angel chain sword and Blood Angel'ly pad.

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Rebound By Eight?

   I've actually got a game lined up at a new club while I continue to wait for Wayland Games to open their new gaming space. The game is at a bigger points limit than I usually play at, but I'm not going to sniff at the chance to get some toys out.

   I have a couple of armies that I could break out that are either already at the 2000 point level or I could very easily get them to that level, however, I'm currently painting my World Eaters and I think it makes sense to use this as the kick up the bottom and get that army done.

   I've pulled every World Eater model I own into a list and worked out what the quickest way to 2000 points was without buying too much. This has turned out to be using the Khorne Daemons I already own to boost my numbers using the detachment that allows me to add them to my mortal army.

   This post is the first couple of units that I already owned that I've pushed up my to do list. A Lord on Juggernaught that was already a priority due to him being in my combat patrol, then the last 3 Eightbound that I bought to add to the unit I already have.

   The Juggernaught riding Lord, I tried to match his Juggernaught to the regular daemons barring the brass trim where I just like the new paint scheme so much more. If I had time to go back and tidy my daemons I would, but I don't today.

   The 3 Eightbound built and painted the same as the other 3 (full unit, next photo down), although I tried to swap backpacks and, I think, a weapon or two for some variety. I still really like these figures and there is a risk that if they do well next weekend, I might pick up the Eightbound character and a unit of the upgraded ones.

   I've got 3 units left to paint in the next week and have very little actual painting time, but I shall push as best I can!

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Land Raider Redeemer

   Over Christmas, when I was thinking a lot of Grey Knight vs Daemon thoughts I was toying with small lists and the one thing I kept adding to lists was a Land Raider. It was only when I finally caved and ordered myself one that I decided on the Redeemer variant with the extra flame throwing goodness, mostly as I've painted a few of the basic one in one form or another.

   Like the two units I've just posted about, this model was built, sprayed and had the base metals done fairly early but then sat on the side of my desk for months while I worked on other things.

   I suspect this model was the real reason the last batches of Grey Knights didn't move past the basic metals, I just wasn't sure what to do with it. I've used a few blocks of white and red in the normal Grey Knight heraldry patterns to break the shiny metal up but I still think this tank is missing something - possibly it's just too clean?

It was only when I came to photograph the model that I also noticed I hadn't stuck any purity seals on, which might have broken up the solid block of colour a bit more?

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Grey Knight Characters

   This post is about the two terminator HQ choices I have for my Grey Knights. The librarian came in the combat patrol and was painted up at the same time as the rest of the project, I just didn't post about him for some reason, while the brother captain/grand master (depending on what I need them to be) was Christmas present that sat half finished for too long on the side of my desk.

   The commander is a Kaldor Draigo figure that I had been toying with picking up to use as the base for a brother captain/grand master as there isn't really much of a choice in that department for the Grey Knights but I was beaten to the punch and gifted one instead. This figure had enough details and bits on them that I thought I could make them stand out, however, as it's finecast, most of those details are fairly soft and I spent a lot of time going back over bits where a little edge of a new detail appeared after a wash or drybrush in the area and I realised there was a bit I had missed*.

   I swapped the back banner and took the shield off to change the overall feel of the model and it was only while painting him that I noticed he now has two guns. . .

*I found a lot of little purity seals this way

   The librarian is a much more simple job as I think all I did was a shoulder pad swap and a shield. Its only in hindsight that I wish I'd done slightly more on him to make him really fit into the army, but as its a generic space marine model that's trying to fit into the Grey Knight look.

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Squad Matteo

   When I was last painting up my August Lion space marines I had this bright idea of swapping the Terminator Librarian's force sword using the grey knight kit but I just could not find my spare sprues, a quick look on eBay later and I had a cheeky low bid on a new sprue of terminators, expecting to lose but not worried if I won.

   Obviously, the quickest way to find something old is to replace it, so once the bid was placed I remembered where the sprues were but it was too late to do anything about the bid and I promptly won these ones as well. I dutifully built, sprayed and started painting them fairly quickly* and then moved onto other projects.

*no maturing for these sprues

   Fast forward a bit and I'm sitting in my shed trying to decide what to paint and I spot the Grey Knights that I have been moving out the way constantly around my desk for weeks and its pretty clear they need to be finished and put away. I've painted them identically to the other two squads of terminators with the only difference that this squad has an apothecary who has a bit more white in their colour scheme.

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Blood Jakhals

   Jakhals are the World Eater version of regular Chaos Marines' Cultists, but jacked up on a weird blood based performance enhancing chemical as such I ignored the way GW painted their box art with black clothing and red details to make them look like the World Eater wannabies that they are. Ideally, I'd like to have a whole bunch of cultists between these guys and the regular ones that all look similar but also show where they come from.

   The real pity of this unit is they are a nightmare to build with lots of small wrist joints that don't make sense until you get them right and they are surprisingly busy and difficult to paint for a unit that is so cheap on the battlefield. I'd like to put 2 or 3 of these units on the board and be able to throw them away without caring but the motivation to paint that many would not be easy to find.

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The Deluge - C17th Test Units

   I think I mentioned after Salute this year, that I came away not having spent much money at all. The one thing that did really tempt me was a game by a Polish games designer called By Fire and Sword, which had just released it's 2rnd edition. The set of rules focussed on the wars the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth found itself in during the 1600's, with various invasions by the Ottoman's and a couple by either the Swedish or the Holy Roman Empire. I managed to not buy the starter set but spent the next couple of weeks trying to decide if I regretted that choice or not.

   At the same time, someone on Bluesky was trying to encourage me to start a 10mm project as they have been saying its like 15mm, which I think look great on the table, but better and cheaper. I didn't want to double (or triple) up on any era, so I wasn't going to jump into any project. Then it dawned on me that I was interested in a new era and I had a scale I wanted to try, why didn't I dip my toes to test the theory?

   I plan to use Pikeman's Lament to play these - although, I'm keeping the basing vague enough that other rules can take over in the future - with two bases of any model being a unit*. I had looked at copying the By Fire and Sword starter set with The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth on one side and the Ottomans on the other, but realised if I looked at the eastern side of their realm about 20 years earlier I could do a cheaper intro game against the Swedish instead and, if I enjoyed the scale, I could work up to the Ottomans. The back of the book has units for such an engagement, so I'm copying that for my initial game - which is only 11 units between the two sides, still a lot of figures but more manageable than the Ottoman units.

*making half strength units easier to track and set up easier

   I bought a few test packs just to see if I enjoyed the painting side before I bought whole armies and this post is the first of those units - the Polish Winged Hussars and some Swedish Musketeers. 

The first unit of Polish Winged Lancers has come up a treat if I say so myself. They need to have some grass of some sort to break their bases up but otherwise, I'm really pleased with them

I then decided to test out infantry. The exact lists I want to try need 2 units of Commanded Shot - which are half sized musket units - but I wanted to see how the full sized units would look too, so I used a single pack to do a unit of each.

The Commanded Shot unit below

The regular unit of Musketeers

I'm working my way through some more Polish Winged Hussars as I type, but I am now fairly confident this project is doable. The pennants on the Hussar's lances might break me though.

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