Primaris and some Heresy

In Work Novamarines

A some painting during the past week and a weekend game of Horus Heresy

I have been steadily painting up nine more Primaris Novamarines for my 1,500 pt list.  I made need to add one more, to contribute to a recently opened store's collection of painted Marine models - we will see.

The Novamarine project is nearing its end with this last sprint.  There is the possibility of adding a Primaris Captain (vice the Captain in Gravis Armor), but I do not intend to add a unit of Reavers or a Dreadnaught.  The next 40k proper project is actually likely to be a Knight Paladin.  This will bring my current 40k efforts largely to a close.

I have been musing about a Ultramarines 1st Company around Marnus Calagar - but that is a distant project that will first ride on the backs of something like Cataphactii or Tartoros Terminators for my 30k Ultramarines.

Ruins of Istvaan III

Initial Positions

On Sunday, I played a game of Horus Heresy against a guy new to the area.  He owns a great looking Sons of Horus army.  He soundly won with his Justarian Terminators and Contemptor Dreadnought handling my loyalist World Eaters without much support from the Veteran Tactical Squad.  My Terminators were unable to take down the Contemptor in two rounds of combat, which was disappointing.

11 XIIth Terminators

5 Cataphractii and 1 Praetor added!

I was motivated to paint this weekend!  I completed basing and then finished painting the 5 Cataphractii I started on two weeks ago and completed the Praetor today!  The Praetor is the "cleanest" of the models as he is my Loyalist commander unless I expand the World Eaters significantly.  For my Zones Mortalis list, the Cataphractii and Praetor can replace Kharn and the Butchers almost point for point (and may actually make the list more viable).

Loyalist XII Termies Initial

Basic Pallet Front

Just a short post, I am getting back into the swing of painting by painting up my "loyalist" World Eaters Terminators.  This is the basic color pallet for them and I have gotten the squad of five started.

In addition to the 5 Cataphractii from the Betrayal at Calth box, the special edition Paetor in Tartaros Terminator armor will follow these guys.

Hopefully more to come in the next weeks as I try to get back into the swing of painting.

Basic Pallet Back

Blood Covered Halls

Unfortunately, those halls were mostly covered in the blood of my World Eaters, another World Eater force, and an Emperor's Children force.  Overall, I went 0-2 and in both cases found my priciest unit, Butchers up against units it could not hurt - an Ultramarines Dreadnought and Mechanicum Kastalans.

Sergeant & brothers hold a door way against Mechanicum Cult forces

III Legion Astrates prepare for the incoming Ultramarine Dreadnaughts

This past Sunday, I took part in a local Horus Heresy Zone Mortalis (ZM) event.  Each player was told to bring a 750 point Combatant list (after the break).

Winning on Objectives

Slowly Advancing Death Guard

I played another game of Horus Heresy Zone Mortalis this weekend.  This time against a Death Guard.  In this instance, I ran Kharn and the Butchers as stand-ins for Loyalist World Eaters Praetor and Terminators.  It was another Pyrrhic victory, with just the Praetor and a single Rampager surviving, again.  I won by managing to keep the Death Guard from my deployment zone and rolling a six to end the game on turn 5.

MVP

The MVP of the game was definitely the Death Guard Mortis Dreadnaught with a pair of Kheres Assault Cannons and my inability to roll successfully.  Over the course of two turns, the Dreadnaught caused my two tactical squads to break and run, off the table.   My only actual success was my Praetor slaying three Grave Wardens and breaking the unit.

The ongoing failure of my World Eaters to achieve casualty success is rather annoying.  I am heavily considering investing in a Tactical Support Squad carrying Plasma Guns.

On the modeling/painting front, an Ultramarines squad is in work.  Taking on 10 Astrates is a bit of a task, right off the bat.

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.

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.

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.

Rampagers Ready

Angron's Gladiators

I have completed the five Rampagers and am satisfied with the result.  The biggest challenge on getting these Marines painted was simply spending the time to do so.  I have been distracted by video games in the evening again, which delayed what was a few night effort for several weeks.  I finished them up fairly quickly this past Saturday.

I am not focusing on my approach to the Butchers and getting Kharn onto a 32 mm base and still being able to go on his scenic base.

Rampagers close

Highlighting and basing remain

I used MLK day to put a solid dent in painting up the five Rampagers for my World Eaters.   I got the main colors on the model, leaving highlighting, detailing, and basing to do this week.

I feel like I am a bit behind where I want to be in terms of getting the World Eaters done, but also feel confident I can get them done before the end of February.  Depending on how this week's schedule is, I should be done with the Rampagers before the weekend, leaving the Butchers and Kharn to paint.

Primarch arrived, slow start on Rampagers

Just a short status update post.  My brother's Christmas gift of Roboute Guilliman arrived this past week, along with 5 Suzerains from Forgeworld.   Both of these have been tucked away with the rest of the Ultramarines that I have been collecting for a "big-push" once the 1,000 points of Zone Mortalis World Eaters is complete.

Roboute Guilliman
A single model which should as much attention as a whole squad or more

Speaking of, I have been distracted by playing Destiny with a good friend and have only begun to add the base layers to the Rampagers.   I intend to spend some more time on them in the coming days and will at the very least dedicate time next Monday to painting them.

Sang Squad

Sang Squad prior to sealing

As I said previously, painting Space Marines is somehow very relaxing.  I think it comes down to having zero decisions to make once I have settled on the paint scheme.

This is my second World Eaters Tactical squad, equipped with Chain-Axes.  Their Sergeant equips himself with a pair of Lightning Claws.  They are the fifth squad of their company.*  They go by the name moniker, Sang Squad in reference to the ancient Terran (French/Latin) word for blood.

Assembly Line & 3 Fleet Engagments

Squad IV in work for my World Eaters

Another quick update on hobby efforts the past week.  Got back from vacation Monday and started to slowly assembly line the World Eaters of the second squad (at right).  I will hopefully get them all done in the next week or so with steady progress on painting each step every evening.

Most of the weekend's hobby time was spent playing 3 games of Dystopian Wars.  I think I came out of the games 1-1-1.  My win was a hard fought game against a Polish-Lithuania skimmer force, my tie was against a Chinese fleet, and my loss was to an Italian force.

Against the Poles, we were very much mirror force choices, but made different selections.   It was interesting to play against a fleet that was only slightly different.  Against the Chinese, I found myself outgunned and was glad to come out with a tie.  Overall the Chinese seemed overpowered and just difficult to come to grips with.  Against the Italians,  I made a poor choice on flanking around 300 points (all my airships in the list), which did not arrive until turn 3.  This left me undergunned and out-activity (a rarity for my Danes).  I came close to a win and was ahead on overall points, but his Commodore escaped my grasp.

Betrayal at Calth

The Boxed Set

This past weekend, Games Workshop released The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth board game.  I had pre-ordered it the previous week because it is an amazing deal for the miniatures that come with it.  Anyone interested in playing games set during the Horus Heresy should pick it up, even if you do not intend to play the game that comes with it.  The exact contents of the box can be found various places, like these unboxing videos.

I have been weighing two options for its contents. 1) Build the set as it is sold to play through the scenarios, much like Execution Force (another project still on the list to do).  2)  Use the models solely for building out larger Heresy era armies.   Having played a game with and lost to my son (after the break); I am going to go with option 1.

Relaxing, Painting Marines

Five more Legion Astrates

Over the past several days, I have spent time painting up five World Eaters Astrates for my first Horus Heresy force.  I found it rather relaxing compared to the effort on more recent models like the Shadowseer, Deathjester, or even Kingdom of Denmark ships.   Something about painting such a familiar object, in which most of the scheme and process was already understood and captured just made it very relaxing.

I am close to finishing up the Eldar army and Kingdom of Denmark ships, the World Eaters will take center stage on my painting schedule.  I have completed the first 10 of 31 models in my intial World Eaters army.  I am mulling over the idea of adding 5 Cataphractii Terminators and a Praetor to my collection to field a Great Crusade/Istavaan III force, which adds 6 more Terminators.

After the break, a picture of the full squad and some progress shots.

1,000 Points to Paint

31 World Eaters to Paint

I have fully acquired all the miniatures needed for my 1,000 points of World Eaters for Zone Mortalis.  It is a pair of Tactical Squads, one with Chain-Bayonets (close combat weapons) and one with Chainaxes, a squad of Rampagers, a squad of Butchers, and Kharn.  Actual painting is at least a few weeks away as I finish up the other two projects, Eldar and Kingdom of Denmark.

More Marines for the XII

A rare, cautious World Eater Sergeant

In early June, alongside The Horus Heresy Tempest V, I ordered 5 Mk 3 & 10 Mark4 Space Marines, Mk4 Power Weapons kit, 10 Chainaxes, a set of Mk3 World Eaters shoulder pads, and some Ultramarines bits (for reasons).  I have a plan to get to 1,000 points of World Eaters, mostly geared towards Zone Mortalis games.   At the core of this list is two Tactical Squads, one with additional Close Combat weapons (chain bayonets) and the other with Chainaxes.

A Sergeant with a Power Fist leads the more standard Squad III, while his brother Sergeant with Lightning Claws leads the chainaxes equiped Squad V.  I have decided to go for a mix of armor marks in each squad.  The World Eaters do not seem like a Legion to focus on standardizing equipment, but instead rewarding those with combat prowess (thanks to my friend Colby for the suggestion).  More pictures follow.

Tempest Arrives

More models to Assemble and paint.

Last week, I received The Horus Heresy Book Five: Tempest from Forgeworld along with 15 Marine bodies and parts to assemble more World Eaters and even a few Ultramarines.  As always, I am thoroughly impressed by Forgewold's books and despite their high cost really enjoy the product they produce.  I got everything I need in this order to build out 10 more World Eaters, which leaves just 5 Butchers for a 1,000 pt Zone Mortalis list.  The Ultramarine buys were am indulgence to get me up to the £250 for free shipping.

Hopefully more to come after this weekend as I work on things.