Death Watch - Making Them Match

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Warhammer 40,000 – One of my clients is pretty good at finding great deals and rescuing models from the used bins. Most recently he acquired a fully-painted Death Watch force to add to his own. It had a very different theme than what he has been using as well as some unique weapon load-outs. Of course the problem with picking up a “fully-painted” force is they rarely match your existing force. Often people use the GW painting guides and you get lucky that they are close-enough and other times the previous owner put their own twist on it.

This is one of those “Unique-Twist” situations. Luckily the paint wasn’t gobbed on and I was able to make some adjustments. Essentially this became a 3C+Wash job as I only needed to bring the black, gunmetal and red in line with what I’ve done on the rest of the force. It takes a little time but the end result is worth it.

Space El Camino - Ultramarines Latest Ride

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Warhammer 40,000 – The Impulsor is an odd vehicle. As one of the only reasonable transport options for Primaris Marines it's becoming more popular. I suppose the open back makes sense for rapid deployment but not so much for protection, although the passengers being encased in power armor makes a solid argument for them not needing a roof I suppose.

Also in this batch of the boys in blue are a few more eliminators. This time around they are equipped with the las-fusiles. This are interesting choices, the models have a wire that connects to the scope which looks pretty cool. To make them different than the standard plasma glow I went with green on the exposed coil.

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Raptors - With an Iron Hand?

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Raptors - With an Iron Hand?

Warhammer 40,000 – Chasing the meta can be a fickle thing. Particularly if you’re not actively playing in tournaments, since the “meta” for certain style events can be incredibly different than what’s going on in your own circle of players. For many of the competitive lists people try to emulate are built to play a very specific mission set.

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Death Watches Over You - More Xenos Hunters

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Warhammer 40,000 – I’m sure Deathwatch will be addressed in an upcoming Psychic Awakening book. At which point they might become super popular again. Relative power level or popularity aside I have a steady stream of the men in black crossing my table.

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Minecraft - More Ultramarines

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Minecraft - More Ultramarines

Warhammer 40,000 – Incursors are one of my favorite Primaris Vanguard units. With a boatload of special rules they seem to be adapt at many roles. With concealed deployment they can push forward to grab objectives or slow down your opponent. The haywire mines let you set traps. Ignoring BS or to hit modifiers mean they can always shoot something and hit it effectively. Paired combat blades get them exploding sixes in close combat and they ignore cover. Somebody in the rules department has embraced the “power of and”.

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Blackstone Fortress - Traitor Command

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Blackstone Fortress - Traitor Command

Warhammer 40,000 – The sculpts for Blackstone Fortress continue to impress me. In the days of old push fit kits like these would have been rather flat and lacking in detail, no so anymore. Of course the trade-off for the dynamic poses these kits offer is the lack of customization.

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Fear the Dreaded Ambull

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Fear the Dreaded Ambull

Warhammer 40,000 – The Ambull has been part of 40K lore since Rogue Trader, a nasty creature that lives underground and has been found throughout the galaxy. Last year I read my son the “Warped Galaxies” book Claws of the Genestealer and was excited to see they worked the Ambull into that story.

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Raptors - Chasing the Meta

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Warhammer 40,000 – Space Marines, you seem to hear about them no matter what you listen to or read - which in my opinion is a good thing. As the iconic army of Warhammer 40,000 it’s great to see them getting the bump in power and subsequent bump in popularity. While the internet may cry foul and lament the fact that their force doesn’t get the love … I am reaping the rewards with my own army and loving just as much as my clients.

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This time my Raptor client has embraced the current meta and sent over some new models for his force. The Raptors if you are unfamiliar are a successor of the Raven Guard. They got a special character in the Badab War books that used to make bolters sniper rifles if they stood still. With the indexes Lias got extra sneaky and able to make up to three mini-marine units deep strike with him. The go-to choice for me was Veterans squads with combi-weapons. Fast forward to the Raven Guard supplement and you now have multiple ways to set up turn one charges with any unit in your book. Suddenly my client needed some new models.

Assault Centurions, Jump Pack Chaplain, Jump Pack Librarian, Smash Captain on Bike, Chaplain Venerable Dreadnought and some bolter sergents/sternguard round out this batch. Between Warlord traits, prayers, Psychic powers and stratagems there are multiple ways to put those Centurions in someones face turn one. Even more fun is casting Shadow Step to dump a character into their lines, oh look at that Chaplain Dreadnought is a character, guess he doesn’t have to worry about walking across the board. Mixing this batch in with what I’ve painted for him previously is going to make somebody sad.

Painting on these guys is pretty basic olive green, wash and several highlights to take them to a higher end tabletop finish.

Space Marines: Iron Hands - Big Guns?

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Warhammer 40,000 – So Iron Hands are the new Boogie Man, which is understandable I suppose. Durability combined with starting in their special Combat Doctrine Bonus as well as being able to inherently re-roll ones on heavy weapons is very strong. Playing Iron Hands proper is very solid, and your can take it further with Successor traits to tweak your abilities to fit your list. Their special character and chapter relics are really strong so losing access to them hurts a bit.

Not having put my big tanks on the board in quite some time I started messing around with some lists that might be fun to play.

BATTALION

HQ - Captain: Jump Pack, Storm Shield, Thunder Hammer
HQ - Techmarine: Combi-grav, Power fist, Servo-arm Relic: Iron Stone Warlord: Adept of the Omnissiah
TROOP - 5x Intercessors: Stalker Bolt Rifle, Chainsword
TROOP - 5x Intercessors: Stalker Bolt Rifle, Chainsword
TROOP - 5x Intercessors: Stalker Bolt Rifle, Chainsword
ELITE - 2x Company Veterans: Chainsword, Combi-plasma
ELITE - Relic Whirlwind Scorpius: Scorpius multi-launcher

SUPER HEAVY AUXILIARY
LORD OF WAR - Relic Typhon Heavy Siege Tank: 2x lascannons

While this list is unlikely to do much other than irritate my opponents it will be pretty difficult to deal with at 1500 points. The techmarine warlord will hide behind the Typhon with the Veterans flanking him to keep him alive. With 22 wounds, a 2+ save and a character hanging around to reduce incoming damage and heal D3+1 wounds each turn I don’t think my siege gun will be going anywhere.

To further annoy my opponent the Scorpius will hang out out of LOS shooting twice every turn. I could potentially park it behind the Typhon to take advantage of the Iron Stone and Techmarine healing in a solid little castle.

The rest of the list is pretty much filler. The intercessors are armed with the Stalker to take advantage of the Devastator Doctrine and the Smash Captain is there to run off and do work.

Taking the same idea and running with it I came up with an alternate version of the list featuring a Fellblade. Again I’m not so sure its any good, but I might enjoy putting it on the table a few times just to knock the dust off some of my bigger models.

BATTALION

HQ - Captain: Jump Pack, Storm Shield, Thunder Hammer
HQ - Chaplain: Recitation of Focus, Litany of Hate, Bolt pistol
HQ - Techmarine: Combi-grav, Power fist, Servo-arm Relic: Iron Stone Warlord: Adept of the Omnissiah
TROOP - 5x Intercessors: Stalker Bolt Rifle, Chainsword
TROOP - 5x Intercessors: Stalker Bolt Rifle, Chainsword
TROOP - 5x Intercessors: Stalker Bolt Rifle, Chainsword
ELITE - 2x Company Veterans: Chainsword, Combi-plasma

SUPER HEAVY AUXILIARY
LORD OF WAR - Relic Fellblade Super-heavy Tank: Twin heavy bolter, 2x Quad Lascannon, Demolisher Cannon, Accelerator Cannon.

Essentially this is the same idea kicked up a notch. The techmarine and chaplain hang out behind the giant tank buffing it up and making it impossible to kill.

Sneaky Space Marines - Playing with Raven Guard Successors

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Warhammer 40,000 – I’m super bummed. Space Marines finally get their day in the sun with a glut of new rules and the Internet can’t stop complaining about how over-powered they are. I don’t get it ever since I started playing this game every time a new book came out it took some time to adjust to the new options, although the rapid fire pace books are coming out now makes it hard to adjust as there are just so many things that are good. Which I think is a good thing and heathy for the game. Instead of looking at the marine release as one over-powered army it should instead be looked at as 6+ unique armies with their own play-style, which if any other factions suddenly got six brand new armies I think the impact would be very similar.

Anyway, I’m a fan of Space Marines and always have been. The new books have given every model in my collection a chance to shine and I love building new lists. I do have some favorite units like the Vanguard Vets, Chaplain and Captain so they tend to find their way into more of my lists than not but I’m trying to push each list in a new direction.

Twilight Ravens Fourth Company - Progenitor - Raven Guard • Successor Traits- Master Artisans, Whirlwind of Rage

BATTALION ONE
HQ - Captain: 2x Chainsword, Jump Pack, Warlord Trait: Shadowmaster Relic: Teeth of Terra
HQ - Chaplain: Litany of Hate, Exhortation of Rage, Jump Pack Relic: Master-Crafted Weapon, Plasma pistol Hero of the Chapter: Swift and Deadly
TROOP - Scout Squad: 4x Sniper rifle, Heavy Bolter Camo Cloaks
TROOP - Scout Squad: 4x Sniper rifle, Missle Launcher Camo Cloaks
TROOP - Scout Squad: 5x Astartes shotgun, Power Fist
ELITE- Vanguard Vets - 4x Chainsword & StormShield 6x Dual Chainswords
HEAVY- Mortis Dreadnought - 2x Twin lascannon
DEDICATED TRANSPORT- Land Speeder Storm - Heavy flamer


BATTALION TWO

HQ - Librarian: Enveloping Darkness, Shadowstep, Combi-flamer, Force sword Jump Pack
HQ - Lieutenants: Chainsword, Master-crafted boltgun
TROOP - 10x Intercessors: Auxiliary Grenade Launcher Stalker Bolt Rifle, Chainsword, Korvidari Bolts
TROOP - 6x Intercessors: Auxiliary Grenade Launcher Stalker Bolt Rifle, Chainsword
TROOP - 7x Scouts: Astartes shotgun
ELITE - Apothecary
ELITE - Eliminators: Bolt sniper rifle, Camo cloak

Raven Guard have a weird Combat Doctrine bonus, being in the Tactical Doctrine gives them +1 to hit and wound rolls against characters. The effect is pretty strong but very situational. My initial thought was to bulk up on snipers, turn one gives you an extra AP to potentially clear threats and turn two moves you into character sniping mode. Popping the Target Sighted stratagem makes that big Primaris unit able to target characters, hitting on 2’s, causing additional mortal wounds on 5-6, which is pretty solid, 3CP is a hefty cost to pay to take out a character but I don’t know that splitting their fire will make sense. Most likely the Lieutenant and Apothecary will camp next to them buffing up the unit. I gave the Sergeant Korvidai Bolts so he can target units 42” away an out of LOS. I don’t know how strong it will be but it feels in theme.

The Scouts and Mortis Dread help to compliment the shooting and provide some additional threats to pull attention away from my other threats. Nothing crazy here more or less just objective holders/campers that can shoot when a target presents itself.

Since the focus of Raven Guard Successors isn’t solely shooting based I worked in another layer of threats with my old stand-by units of a Chaplain, Captain and Vanguard Vets. Added to this mix is a Librarian. The mix of traits, prayers, relics and psychic powers I chose allow them to ignore overwatch, charge after advancing, deep-strike closer to another unit and give a unit -1 to hit makes for a pretty nasty assault element. First turn charges are totally possible the question is what do I go after? From prior experience smashing somebody first turn is great, but if you do to good of a job that assault unit winds up flapping in the breeze in front of a gun-line eager to blast them to oblivion. I imagine I’ll learn the right play with a few games under my belt.

The list above is geared for 1500 point games which have become our weekly standard. In the event that I need to bump up to a 2,000 point list I’m considering adding in the following:

OUTRIDER

HQ - Chaplain in Terminator Armor: Litany of Hate, Recitation of Focus, Combi-flamer
FAST- Assault Marines: 6x Jump Pack, Thunder hammer
FAST- Inceptors]: 6x Assault Bolters
FAST- Land Speeders: Assault cannon, Multi-melta

Of course as with my previous article I may need to bring this down to a 750 point list for a team game if we have an odd number of players on any given week. In that case I’d take the list down to:

BATTALION

HQ - Librarian: Enveloping Darkness, Shadowstep, Combi-flamer, Force sword Jump Pack
HQ - Lieutenants: Chainsword, Master-crafted boltgun
TROOP - 10x Intercessors: Auxiliary Grenade Launcher Stalker Bolt Rifle, Chainsword, Korvidari Bolts
TROOP - 6x Intercessors: Auxiliary Grenade Launcher Stalker Bolt Rifle, Chainsword
TROOP - 7x Scouts: Astartes shotgun
TROOP - Scout Squad: 4x Sniper rifle, Heavy Bolter Camo Cloaks
ELITE - Apothecary
ELITE - Eliminators: Bolt sniper rifle, Camo cloak

More Deathwatch Marines

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Warhammer 40,000 – Deathwatch didn’t get all the fancy toys the new marines got. With the steady flow of these guys across my table you’d never know it. Some of these guys were rescued from the bargain bin and recruited to the Deathwatch with a shoulder pad swap, while the rest make up weapon load-outs my client didn’t have in his existing force. I tried to make up a variety of chapters by mixing and matching the decals I have with various color schemes, just to avoid only representing a few chapters.

Twilight Ravens - Vanguard Vets

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Twilight Ravens - Vanguard Vets

Warhammer 40,000 – I love Jump Pack Infantry, they’re not always the best choice but man I love moving fast and hitting something. Sadly Assault Marines are really better as a mobile firebase like Chaos Raptors, they’ve gotten a bit better with the advent of Angels of Death but jumping around with melta guns or flamers is still a better role for them. In previous editions I would occasionally run lightning claw equipped Vanguard Vets as a throwback to the unit Shrike used to bring with him back in Third Edition. They were ok but really expensive and rarely made back their points. At the end of Seventh Edition that unit got way better with the Raven Guard formations that allowed for first turn charges but once that went away my clawed maniacs went back to being shot off the table before they could connect.

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A Tale of Two Abaddons

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A Tale of Two Abaddons

Warhammer 40,000 – For literal decades the metal Abaddon struck fear into the hearts of loyalist dogs on tables the world over. His tiny Napoleonic presence leading the masses of cultists and heretics in crusades leaving a trail of destruction. That all changed with the release of a new plastic kit, now the Lord of the Black Legion has a stature suitable to his station. An iconic release like this has players scrambling to tweak their lists to include the new hotness. Which leads me to my tale.

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Green Knight - House Cadmus Crusader

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Warhammer 40,000 - Big stompy robots with huge guns. Love ‘em or hate ‘em Imperial Knights are here to stay. Most of the Knight commissions I’ve done have be a unique color scheme that doesn’t line up with any of the Houses. Most of them have also been magnetized extensively. From a cost perspective this tends to make more sense to most players. The unique scheme allows them to play any house or freeblade combination they’d like without their opponent hassling them about the color scheme. While the magnets let them change up loadouts on a whim. When you pay $150 or so for a model you tend to want to get the most bang for your buck.

The flip side of that are players that pick a house and load-out and stick with it. These players tend to see the knight as its own character with a backstory and history. This latest project is probably a little of the later. My client got a great deal on a painted knight and wants me to match the scheme for this Crusader.

Assaulting Devestastion - Ultramarine Centurions

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Warhammer 40,000 – Units come in and out of favor every time there is a new release for 40k. I’ve been painting a variety of Ultramarine units for this client. He’s working on rounding out his collections and getting all the units he might want to filed painted up. With the new space marine codex I feel like he’s going to be adding quite a few more units to the collection since almost everything got cheaper and/or better.

When they first came out Centurions were ridiculed as something silly and dumb, why would a marine in armor don a second armor suit, and why did look like the Power Loader from aliens with power fists and guns strapped below them. But being as their initial release was during the “Reign of Grav” they saw significant play. The assault variants were pretty universally dismissed as not good.

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In 8th edition Centurions don’t tend to see much play. Some tweaks and new rules will probably change that however. If your list is a straight-up gun line these guys fill a solid roll.

Paint on these matches the previous Ultramarine schemes I’ve done which you can read about here.

Down with the Sickness - Plaguebearers

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Warhammer 40,000 – Nurgle seems to be really popular in 8th Edition. Which makes sense when you consider how important screening and board control are to most of the missions. That paired with a pretty amazing product line means many of these disease ridden daemons have traversed my tabletop.

This latest batch is a little different as the client requested some variety in skin tone. So I started with two colors or green and a flesh tone as my base. A quick wash of Athonian Camoshade got them to a nice dirty look and some gore effects finished them off.