Bloody Victory

End of Turn 2; No Blood Split Yet

This past Saturday, I played another game of Zone Mortalis against Salamanders (same opponent).  I learned from last time, sort of.  I attempted to slow down my advance and generally did not run headlong into the Fire Drakes (aside from the Butchers).  The Fire Drakes dominance are making me heavily consider adding another unit, not just the loyalist swaps, to the army.

I made the right plays in the late game.  At the bottom of turn 5, I had two models - Kharn and a Rampager.  The lone Rampager was sent to claim the all important objective.  The Fire Drakes were out of place.  Kharn made a mad-dash at the Pyroclast looking to claim the center objective.  He took a wound on the way-in, but slayed a Pyroclast in return.  More shots through the link.

Beginning Legion XIII

Astrates Sergeant with Gladius

Having completed my Traitor World Eaters this past weekend (other than Kharn's scenic base), I have begun to assemble the first squad for my Legion XIII, Ultramarines.

Almost 20 years ago, I began the hobby reading through the background of the Chapter in the 2nd Edition Codex: Ultramarines.  Ultramarines are my first and largest army for Warhammer 40,000.

I continue to be attracted to the core themes of the Ultramarines.  In contrast to many other legions, they are not destroyers of worlds or even builders of great fortresses for defense.   The Ultramarines, especially under Roboute Guilliman, take the next step of creating or re-establishing civilization from the ashes of conquest.    Today, the idea of not only achieving victory, but securing victory by establishing civilization continues to be a theme I am attracted to.  Add to this my on-going fascination with the Roman Republic and early Roman Empire and the Ultramarines are simply my Legion.

Traitors led by Kharn!

Kharn the Bloody

I have finished my 1,000 points of World Eaters (Traitors), completing Kharn this past Sunday.  I have transferred him to a 32 mm base in the same style as the rest of the force.  The Martian red has been a great basing choice for the World Eaters.

Kharn was great to paint and an excellent culmination of the techniques I practiced throughout the rest of the force.  As one should, I paid extra attention to details that I overlooked on the mass infantry.

I am most looking forward to playing some more games of Zone Mortalis with fully painted force.  Hopefully, my number of opponents will also increase.  I have yet to settle on my next project.  One of them is to add loyalist replacements for Kharn and the Butchers to my World Eaters collection, but we will save that for next weekend's blog post.

Kharn's Zone Mortalis assault force

More shots of Kharn past the link.

A Second Ragnarok and Korsor Squadron

As a break from painting World Eaters before painting Kharn, I painted a second Ragnarok and a squadron of three Korsor Corvettes.

Danes do like to fly the flag

First Blood

This past weekend (12 Mar 2016), I played my second game of Horus Heresy Zone Mortalis.  It, like the first was against the warriors of Legion XVIII, Salamanders.  The short version is that Fire Drakes are an incredibly tough unit, especially against other Astrates.  This includes thrashing Butchers.  The World Eaters nearly brought it to a tie, but failed to dislodge a unit of Salamander Breachers from the tying objective.

Battle begins and the World Eater force is engaged by Fire Drakes

Butchers

Blood covered, crazed super-humans locked into their armor by their keepers and let loose upon their once brothers - World Eaters Butchers are a unit that typifies the slipping of the World Eaters away from the Emperor.

Sorry for not posting more often, but I have been ill-disciplined about hobbying during the evenings.

Bloody Butchers

Once Proud

These models were great to paint and then bloody with the Citadel Tecnhical - Blood for the Blood God.  While I had used the paint on the powered-armored Astartes, the front of the butchers is covered in gore.