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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