Chaos Lord Umbri Zul

   I am 3 and a bit weeks into my marathon training block and I am finding free time has become a luxury that I am struggling to locate much of. Between the pressures of work, having kids and now pushing myself to run ridiculous distances weekly*, something had to give and the decision I have made was to drop wargaming for a bit.

   If I am being honest, a lot of my recent games had already felt a bit like a chore, and my continuous painting targets haven't helped on that front. So, I have stopped booking games for a bit to let everything die down, while I am also restricting my painting to only what I fancy, when I fancy. 

*I am one week away from weekly half marathons for fun . . .

   When the new Red Corsair range came out it included a Reaver Lord, a model I have picked up in the shops so many times it got ridiculous. With my what I want, when I want philosophy in place, I actually bought one and got started.

   During the late stages of the Heresy, I had fluff that the illustrious but often neglected, 523^rd Expeditionary fleet of the Sons of Horus, had failed their primarch one too many times and been severely punished. They already had the title of The Sacrificed Sons but their whole leadership cadre had been beheaded with their skulls covered in gold and displayed on the Vengeful Spirit as a warning to others.

   With a void to be filled, a sergeant rose to lead the, what was at this point, warband and has done until the present era of 40k, leading them away from the Sons of Horus legion and refusing to join the Black Legion. This man became Chaos Lord Umbri Zul.

   I have a model of this character that has been my chaos lord for the past few years, but I was never really that happy with him. This version uses the Reaver Lord as it's base with a few minor amendments.

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Test Slaaneshi

    After 11th edition warhammer 40k was announced my gaming group really picked up on excitement with various new projects being planned and figures being bought. I ended up with half a plan of an Emperor's Children Chaos army - starting with a White Dwarf Combat Patrol.

   I duly bought the marine elements of it as a test project to see if I even wanted to go further with this plan, and found I really enjoyed painting them*. Then I toyed for a few weeks about whether I should finish buying the last couple of units before becoming a bit illusioned with having to buy into a new edition.

*in far smaller batches than is normal for me

   I have since written a list that I do really want to get onto the table, but it is currently sitting in a pile of to buy stuff as I am trying not to spend any money for a while to focus on other things.

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Lords of Mordor

    As mentioned in my last post, I was painting the Armies of Mordor for a Pelannor themed game and slowly adding in models that I had no plan of using but that I knew would get into his head. The last big model in that category was a Nazgul on Fellbeast.

   This has been sitting gathering dust on a shelf for far too many years - it was caked in a thick layer, slowly maturing - so I dusted it off, dusted it again and then got painting.

   For a model that I thought would be really quick to paint going in - its just black isn't it? - it turns out the fellbeasts are barely dark grey, let alone black. I went with various layers of beigey-browns to build the wing colours and underside, adding in various browny-greys for other bits to get something that feels alive, while the Ring Wraith is just black highlighted grey.

This model I specifically got a mutual friend to drop a passing comment that the Nazgul on Fellbeast I had posted was only the first I was painting - and that got a panicked message.

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The Armies Of Mordor

   One of my mates messaged me to ask me if I wanted a game, as he only plays Lord of the Rings I knew I was going to have to tidy up/add to one of my collections, however, when he told me the points limit, I knew I had a fair amount of work to do.

   I spent about a week trying to decide what direction to go in - mostly looking at my old Isengard force or my slightly newer but very unfinished Haradrim, but when he told me he was using a list based around the Grief of Eomer, which happens towards the end of Pelannor, I did a hard left into my to do pile and pulled out my sprues of Morannon Orcs.

I painted three warbands (a sprue each) of Morannon Orcs along with a Morannon Orc Captain for each - this would be the vast bulk of my army*.

*Although, I also proxied in a Isengard Troll as a Mordor Troll for some hitting power

It was at this point where I was posting photos on Istagram where he follows me, that I decided to use this as a chance to get more of the backlog painted and start to get inside his head pre game by painting models that I wasn't going to use, but that he might worry over.

The first model was a Mouth of Sauron, partly as it was an easy model to paint and partly as it's rules are quite good.

Then came Gothmog as he really helps Morannon Orcs out and he was only going to sit in the backlog if not.

I didn't stop there but that's enough for one post.

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Traitor Kasrkin

   Having lined up a couple of games in quick succession, I decided to use them to push myself into finishing more elements of a project that had fallen by the wayside - my traitor guard. I split the elements into NEED for a game and units I can proxy in the meantime but replace before the second game.

   The units I decided I needed were the Kasrkin and a Primaris Psyker. The Kasrkin were half painted, so that was a fairly easy thing to achieve with a few hours work, while the Primaris Psyker was a model from another project that was built and waiting for more models before I started the painting.

   I went with the traditional red unit for the Kasrkin, which was something I had avoided on purpose for my regular traitor guard. These guys it felt right for.

They have a painted unit icon of a bronze hand print - as I'm going to call these guys something like The Pacted.

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Eldar/Aeldari Dire Avengers - Blade Blizzard Shrine

   I started writing this post when the unit featured had just been built and had the first layers of paint done, before they were put on a shelf as they bumped down the queue - that was a year and a half ago . . .

   The unit are Eldar/Aeldari Dire Avengers and are my second unit. I have a bit of an idea of having the option of a full Aspect Warrior list and a core of 2 or 3 squads of Avengers felt right for the plan. This is the second.

   I changed the colour scheme on these compared to my others, to show that aspects don't have a set scheme, each shrine does what it wants - but the basic theme is similar even if shades and where the colours are varies.

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Sir Tom

   A couple of weeks back we lost our oldest rabbit, Tom. He was 11 and he died peacefully at home with his rabbit friend, which is probably how he'd have wanted to go if you had asked him.

   Losing someone who I have lived with for so long always gets me wanting to do something and this time it was to name a big tank after him, the Sir Tom.

   The tank is a Rogal Dorn battle tank, a vehicle I have been meaning to add to my Hervictus tank regiment since it was released. Weirdly, I was supposed to have one from eBay delivered on the day Tom actually died, with Royal Mail somehow losing it somewhere on my street, so it felt right that the two should go together.

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Adding Some Character

   With the end of the edition of 40k coming close, I've found my whole gaming group is having a think about changing armies and trying new ideas out. While I am steadfastly trying not to start any new armies, I can have a play about with those projects I really want to put on the table but for one reason or another, have not. Chef amongst these are my Eldar/Aeldari, my first ever army and one I still have a serious soft spot for, but an army that I have struggled to get something together that I am pleased with.

   The first figure is a new Autarch. This was the model that inspired this push - hopefully more posts to come -  as I had an idea for them. This model has far more white on it (and a bright red back to the cloak) to break the yellow/orange fade up a bit and this is something I will add to far more units.

   The next model is one I bought a few months back when I was midway through an idea on where to take this project. It is another figure that got half painted before I ran out of ideas on how to finish them. This was the model where I tried the bronze for the first time in this scheme and I am really pleased with the end result.

I think between these two figures, I know how I want to tidy this army up now - the bronze colour addition has broken up the black that the colour scheme needs but that didn't look right on a few models.

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Beast Snagga Deff-Dread

 Focus Project ; No

    Another model from the Combat Patrol magazine that has been hit by Operation Get Stuff Painted. This time a Deff-Dread for my Orks. I have two* and I just decided that the first one would be the one I converted, with the theme being a Beast Snagga looking walker - hence the lizard skin draped over it's back, a skin on the leg (you can't see in this photo) and various extra skulls.

*they were so cheap

   I went with a green scheme, as green is best and it fitted the Beast Snagga theme a bit better in it. I have a few bits for my Ork army that are slowly getting done - mostly as I know the next edition boxset has loads in it and I don't want my backlog to be absolutely swimming in Orks.

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Tendorians Pt3

Focus Project ; No

    Carrying on with trying to make a project, that I wouldn't have bought right now if it wasn't so cheap, something other than backlog fodder with the last two squads in my completely arbitrary minimum painting list* - the last infantry squad and the last heavy weapon squad of 1st platoon.

*I feel like that needed a comma somewhere but there wasn't really anywhere for one

   I bought 99 figures for this project for much cheaper than retail in the Combat Patrol magazine, 6x10 infantry squads, 4x 6 heavy weapon squads and 3x 5 for command squads. These last units get me half way done if you ignore the extra command**.

**which is penciled to be a company command

   The 3rd infantry squad is pretty much the same as the other two, with the only differences being a flamer as the second special weapon and the sgt has been kit bashed with the command squad spare bits - to avoid having 3 identical models in every platoon. . .

   I spent ages trying to decide what to build the second heavy weapon squad as, and I don't necessarily think I came to the right choice, but I went with lascannons, as I played a game with my Hervictus (Steel Legion models) and the lascannons were useless but fun.

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Chaos Heavy Weapons

Focus Project ; No

   As Operation Get Stuff Painted carries on, last week on my painting desk I had a couple of Chaos Space Marine units that had been sitting on a shelf patiently waiting their turn. Neither of these units has any real claim to being at the head of the queue beyond being within arms reach and having been built and sprayed already.

   The units are a pair of Obliterators that I picked up at a Bring and Buy show a year or so ago (I want to say Lee Valley?) and a unit of Chaos Havocs which came from the magazine and just missed their slot in the queue in favour of the fully lascannon unit that got a bit uppity.

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The Void Claws

Focus Project ; No   

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

Focus Project ; No

   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

Focus Project ; No

   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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