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Some hobbying as well, preparing proper heavy weapon support squads for the legion and turning some hand-me-down DZC vehicles into Mechanicum Ordinatii Minorii.

Continuing the narrative from this thread: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/808578.page.

Death Guard forces stranded on Kennet Majoris have beaten back the initial assault of the Imperial ground attack, but must push deep into the hive city in order to escape the possibility of orbital annihilation should the Imperial forces get desperate. In the dark of the night, the XIV form an armoured column and begin their push into the suburbs. Unbeknownst to them, another column is heading towards their general direction as well...

Epic: Armageddon, 4000 points per side, Ill Met by Moonlight -scenario. Airpower and long range shooting is very limited in the early turns before daybreak, after which the fight turns into an attritional land grab.
Click the pics bigger for details

*******

Lord Styrix rested, the gentle rocking of his command Spartan soothing his slumber. Something gurgled among his men as metal screeched and ground into a halt, lurching them forwards in their harnesses. Snapping back into consciousness, his twisted vision came to a flashing warning hailing from the point tank: contact with vanguard elements of the defenders, undoubtedly. Cracking their unnaturally bloated knuckles, men of the XIV started slamming bolter magazines in place and gathering their grenades as they stood up near the assault ramps. Styrix elbowed his way to the command hatch and took a whiff of the cool night air while marking a rapid deployment spread for his subordinates should resistance prove to be more than a couple of residents with explosives. As the comms flared with contact markers in the column's front, that didn't take too long to ascertain.

"Disperse and deploy the tubes. Pound the field behind so hard nothing comes out of it for years. Infantry advances. Glory to the Grandfather, brothers."
His orders given, Styrix had made his intent clear for all. His focus was now on taking the crossroads and tallying the dead for the rows in Nurgle's Garden. The hatch on the Spartan slammed shut as the column revved up and tore the road under it.

*******



The sleepy outskirts of Luedon, still mostly untouched by the ravages of war.



A singular Fellblade leads the arriving Death Guard Column.



On the other side of the crossroads, hive defenders' patrol sentinels hide behind the woods clearing the area for incoming forces.




Similarly taken aback by the enemy contact, an Imperial column starts spreading as they arrive on the site. Special forces in their Valkyries escort the first Warhound titan on the flank while the battallion HQ drives straight into the urban zone in the middle to make sure everything is as it should be.



In the darkness, Death Guard Basilisk batteries trundle in position while their tanks and APCs sneak forwards in preparation for deadly ambushes.




Battle is joined by the speeding Sicarians, aided by the mighty Fellblade, which turn the midfield into a slaughterhouse. The Imperial commander is killed in the opening salvo and his men driven back.



As the Sicarians chase the fleeing guardsmen, they are confronted and eventually destroyed in turn by a sturdy company of Leman Russes while the lonely Shadowsword tries to duel with the Fellblade in vain, getting damaged in return and spending the fight hull down putting out fires and leaks. Behind them the rather congested deployment area of the planetary forces is chewed up and thrown skyhigh by the Basilisks as they let rip. Chimeras, Sentinels and dying men are thrown about like children's toys.



While the Russes deal with the marine armour, the mauled HQ company finds its heart again and takes the fight to the Fellblade, which has moments before been all but cracked open by a Warhound titan's plasma barrage. The warmachine is blown up, but so is the assault quickly driven back by the withering fire from lord Styrix' formation as they advance in countermanoeuvre.



On the left flank, brave Sentinel pilots rush in to tie down the marines but in the foggy twilight find themselves completely overmatched and killed without much ado, yet in their wake marches the second Warhound whose guns take their toll on the traitors' ranks.



Heedless of the Hydras and Thundebolts closing the sky, Thunderhawks once more streak in with their deadly Terminator cargoes. Both Warhounds are torn down, halted and ground down by death from above as their crew are pasted by murderous veterans of the long war in their cramped cockpits.



Stunned by the instantaneous demise of the God-Engines, the leaderless Guard line charges with bloody vengeance and guns down one of the Terminator detachments with their ride. Taking advantage of their counterpunch once more concentrating their forces on the open, burning fields, lord Styrix laughs wryly as his Basilisks keep reaping a murderous harvest in the heaving mass of broken men and twisted steel.



While their AA works overtime to keep the Thunderbolts away from the artillerists, the Death Guard command surges forth to take the field. Before reaching the Russes, they are stopped by what remains of the shaken and shelled storm troopers and their Valkyries. Valiant as their effort is, the airborne pay with their lives as the Spartans roll over them in short order.



While the fight for the main urban area in the center is more even, that too falls to the marines as their heavy support and Demolishers mercilessly pound the guardsmen back onto the artillery-torn roads.

By the time that a blood-red dawn has broken, the crossroads are littered with burning wreckage and dead men. Realising their inability to force the fight under constant artillery fire and lack of command, the remaining guard forces flee the field in what order they can maintain while the taunting form of lord Styrix rises against the bright sky in triumph.

"Fly, you fools! Know there will be no escape for you! Death to the lapdogs of the false Emperor!" he bellows as the Death Guard consolidate their gains.

********

Death Guard victory!

The scenario setup was really fun, requiring formations to set up from the road march with movement penalties depending on their place in the queue as well as all shooting over 15 cm being a pain in the arse for the first two rounds. This was a bit of a problem for the Guard player, as they had an absolute bucketload of units to deploy but opted to go for a bit conservative strategy which resulted in devastating artillery barrages later on by the Basilisks. In men of the match, the Fellblade overdid itself and drove the IG HQ from the front in the very beginning, killing their foolishly brash supreme commander as he was inspecting the situation at the front. This is why you let your NCO's do the first line recon

I swear I'll occasionally make Death Guard models that aren't terminators (he says while also buying more Deathshrouds and Grave Warden bits, but they were so cheap...)!

This time, it's time to crack open some of those newfangled mk VI boxes and see if we could make some proper DG Destroyers out of them.
Some caveats though:
- no beakies, they don't fit my image of the legion.
- dual bolt pistols? Bah, we've got to pump those up into war crime territory as we're already spewing rad grenades and phosphex everywhere. Grenade launcher pistols it is.
- most jump packs are just not meaty enough. This image is quintessential to my image of DG assault troops:

- the mk VI legs are better proportioned than their predecessors but the marines are still oddly abdomen-less. They still need scaling, but only two cuts instead of three like the previous marks

With those lines set, here are the first five test models sans rest of the chest harness cabling, that comes after the first greenstuff has cured.

Looks great! I've been eying those jump packs for a while now, seems like they would fit really well with MKIII armour.

The extra height really does wonders for the, should look great all painted up!

Thanks Commander Cain, they probably would. Who knows, I might make some of those down the line as well. This stuff tends to meander all over the place

Talking about being all over the place, one rather angry fellow jumped the queue...



I put some quick paint on another failed librarius aspirant from way back, the poor sods deserve to get their glorious amok run one of these days before the agony of their failure takes them into the darkness.

Love it! Excellent conversion sir

 tauist wrote:
Love it! Excellent conversion sir

Cheers mate, the poor possessed souls have been a fun bunch to work on. Lets me paint some tortured flesh and skin without breaking my "all helmets" rule for the force

Putting some base colours on the remaining six possessed, before progress inevitably stalls in the detailing phase :p

Great work on the possessed, really evocative of the theme!

 gobert wrote:
Great work on the possessed, really evocative of the theme!

Cheers gobert! Have some more, then

With the remaining six aspirants finished, the possessed posse is now up to ten men strong and ready for their first (err, last...?) suicide mission. Click the pictures to see details.

Kicked some iron IV butt today. The Falchion almost got scrapped in a massive return volley from the Siege Tyrants, but managed to hold on until the end as the rest of the line crashed against them and drowned that blasted Team Rocket in flames and gas grenades.

Great painting as always!

Sweet work finishing up the possessed! Just spotted the guy where you turned his lower legs around… freaky!

The battle pics look great too, did the possessed die a deserving death or just suffer the fresh coat of paint being wiped off the table before seeing any real action? Didn’t spot them in the pics, so either they didn’t last long or didn’t start the game

Cheers Boringstuff and gobert!

Actually, the possessed weren't taking part in that battle at all

But today they did take to the field! 2500 p DG vs Mechanicum, tried out two squads of five with bound daemon brute rules as a mobile melee element running in front of the terminator wall. They did pretty well, reaving through multiple squads of midsized robots and hanging on there causing havoc until the very end of the game where they finally died to darkfire lances. By this time I had thoroughly won on objectives already.

Here's some pictures of the midfield brawl as Scoria and two Domitars attempt to take on the whole world at once (and fail, less than surprisingly)

Eyy, painting!

Finished some 50 heavy support mates for the Epic army. Finally, some firepower
















...take a plasma gun, they said. A safe and sound weapon, they said...

Impressive work on the little 'uns, love the plasma oopsies

Thanks Boss, had to use that print failure somehow

wow, you managed glow effects at 10mm? scale

 Illumini wrote:
wow, you managed glow effects at 10mm? scale

6 mm, with marine models being a couple mm taller, but yeah

Ponderings for the future, new crews for the madness of Kill Team M29.

Most of my technobarbarian ideas use teams that have lots of finicky rules, which is pretty awesome in general but also a bit of an obstacle considering how much I do demo games in conventions and events. So something simple and straightforward would also be nice before throwing the clockwork hell of Warp Covens on new players. Thus, while reading more Unification era materials, my inspiration sparked with the Revenant Legion. The IX legion would eventually wound up as the lovely space vampire artists they are, fine-dining with the best of them and chilling in their golden hot tubs, but in their inception the Immortal Ninth were little more than angel-faced cannibal psychopaths stalking the ra-wastes of Old Earth with no plans beyond brutalising everything that dared to resist. With Intercessor team's rules it's easy to represent these 'roided out loonies out on the cull. Even better, with all the varied bands of desperate hopefuls hanging around their parties, there would be no shortage of ragged aspirants dreaming of becoming angels themselves as well. These flagellant charnel cultists would then be a perfect counts-as for a Novitiae team. Miracles and mutilation, babyyy. Perhaps even further, into campaigns like the ravaging of Kiy-Buran or the moons of Neptune, with a scout team of sorts representing their uncanny ability to always reinforce on the move even when cut off from supplies and proper reserves...

Watch this space, though now I need to source some bare Pre-Raphaelite heads...

Conan, what is best in life?

Playing wargames with painted miniatures on a fully furnished table!

Those pics are brilliant mate, thank you for sharing.

Incredible paintwork as always on the tiny fellas. New KT sounds great too. Technobarbarian is one of my favourite words...

 tzurk wrote:
Conan, what is best in life?

Playing wargames with painted miniatures on a fully furnished table!

Those pics are brilliant mate, thank you for sharing.

Incredible paintwork as always on the tiny fellas. New KT sounds great too. Technobarbarian is one of my favourite words...

To paint your armies, see them deployed before you and hear the lamentations of your opponents with weird dice-related superstitions

Cheers tzurk. Technobarbarism is life, technobarbarism is love.

Played some nice E:A with NetEA lists today, a brutal showing of combined arms as my artillery and air heavy Crusade marines tore through the Orkoid menace. As the green tide rushed on, artillery prepared the targets with casualties and confusion, lighter infantry took supporting positions and a crushing air assault of terminators struck home like a rain of meteors. Prep, support, smash, repeat. Hopping on board the Hawks and crashing down again later, this methodical eradication of the greenskins concluded in a triumphant victory for the XIV.

Testing things for the Revenants, changing the plate on a handful of Primaris bodies I had lying about to older marks. Meaningful work, quaranteed

Some progress on the Revenant Legion, though much work remains.

The Revenants are chugging along nicely, currently trying to learn how to sculpt hair.

Meanwhile, some Epic once more.

4k NetEA Krieg vs. Marines, the banks of Forte-Kaysino stood firm in the Guard's hands. One of those tragicomic games where my marines just couldn't roll right to save their lives with Thunderhawks dropping down from the sky in flaming ruin with all hands lost, terminators melting under lasguns and the enemy Reaver on its last DC just not dying

That epic army is lovely, great seeing it on the table too. Making me seriously envious actually....

Nice start on the Revenant marines, really interested to see where they end up. Always a lot of fun seeing people doing unification-era stuff, reminds me of old pre-heresy blogs from the days before forgeworld's Heresy game was made.

shmvo wrote:
That epic army is lovely, great seeing it on the table too. Making me seriously envious actually....

Nice start on the Revenant marines, really interested to see where they end up. Always a lot of fun seeing people doing unification-era stuff, reminds me of old pre-heresy blogs from the days before forgeworld's Heresy game was made.

Thanks shmvo. No need to envy when you could just join us, making an army at this scale isn't a big project...

On the Revenant side, ask and you shall receive! With bead rivets and curly hair, the crew is pretty much ready for painting.

With a possible teaser of a new edition of Epic out in the aether, what better time to be painting some small killer robots and tech-priests
20 mm bases for reference.

These are great! I love how strangely cute the little battle automata are.