What I did at BOYL 2019

So Bring Out Your Lead 2019 has passed in a flash yet again. Several months of preparation and building anticipation, and the weekend has gone by in intoxicating mix of gaming, drinking and meeting friends old and new.

Ash Wastes Racing. I stole this pics from Darrin Stephens. But I ran the game, so there!

Observation Tower - Old School Yoghurt Pot Scenery

With a week to go to Bring Out Your Lead 2019 at Wargames Foundry, I have completed all of the models I need to use in my planned games. I do still have a few pieces of terrain to make for my ash wastes racing game, one of which is a sort of VIP observation tower / commentary box.

I had nearly bought a suitable resin tower kit, but then decided that an old school approach would work equally as well. After all, it's sanctioned by the text in the Rogue Trader rulebook no less:

I figured I could ape the look of these buildings pretty quickly and easily.

Deep Space Salvage Crew

In anticipation of playing on Nico's amazing 3D Space Hulk board in a few weeks time, I've been working on a squad to use in the game.

I would be required to use a standard 5-man Space Hulk Terminator squad comprising 1 Sergeant, 3 Terminators with storm bolters and 1 Terminator with a heavy flamer. I wanted to try and put together a proxy unit rather than run with standard Terminators, so I rooted through my boxes and found some unloved Limited Edition LE10 Power Armoured Marines sculpted by Bob Naismith. Having already converted and painted one of these as my Rogue Quest Paladin a few years back, I figured a full squad would tick the right boxes.

My Rogue Quest Paladin Gondamer Rossal.

Traversing the Wastes - a Nomadic Rider

After all the pressure to get my chaos warband finished, I turned my attention to something in a different vein. The latest model I've completed is for another game at Bring Out Your Lead at Foundry in August - this time an Ash Wastes rider on his racing steed.

The Path to Damnation (Part 7) - Enter the Chaos Champion

The journey of a Champion of chaos is long and convoluted, and that pretty much describes the process I undertook in the creation of my Chaos Renegade and leader of his merry band of Khornate followers.

When I first rolled up the Renegade, his attributes included a bloodletter face and horns, along with a pretty underwhelming sword and bolt pistol combination. My immediate plan was to use on of the lovely Jes Goodwin champions:

The Path to Damnation (Part 6) - Traitor Legionnaires

I'm rapidly closing out my final few models for my chaos warband, and the completion of three traitor legionnaires leaves just my warband champion to go.

I debated whether to use modified Imperial space marines for my legionnaires, but in the end couldn't resist the draw of the Rogue Trader Perry sculpts.

Chaos renegades advance into an Imperial settlement.

The Path to Damnation (Part 5) - More Beastmen

Beastmen Renegades by Tony Ackland (from Slaves to Darkness).

Following my initial trio of beastmen, here are the remaining figures needed to fill my 6-strong squad rolled up for my Chaos Champion's retinue. This time the trio also includes the squad's heavy weapon, giving my warband it's only significant firepower!

The Path to Damnation (Part 4) - Beastmen

With my Adeptus Arbites out of the way, I can now switch attention back to my Rogue Trader chaos warband. If you recall from my first post about this warband, one of the groups of followers I rolled up was 6 beastmen with autoguns.

This was a little problematic as Citadel only ever released three beastmen for 40k, all Imperial.

One (beast trooper Gaxt) is perfect, needing no modification at all. The packmaster doesn't really fit the brief, whilst the close combat beastman seems to be co-opted from Warhammer Fantasy.

The Path to Damnation (Part 3) - Renegade Inquisitor

The path to embracing the dark gods is not the same for all traitors. Those who defend humanity in full knowledge of the power of chaos have the furthest to fall. An Inquisitor may be tempted by the power and riches of the dark gods. Or they may be corrupted into thinking that chaos can be used against chaos. Or they may become so disillusioned and world-weary, that embracing chaos seems the logical conclusion.

The second of my chaos renegade's followers I've chosen to create is my traitor Inquisitor, Drugh. He is a potent fighter in his own right, with an excellent array of wargear.

Inquisitor Dirske finally tracks down the renegade Drugh and his followers.

The Path to Damnation (Part 2) - Ratling Renegades

When I rolled up my chaos renegade warband, I think the unit I was most pleased about was the three ratlings. Not because ratlings are iconic followers of chaos (the reverse is probably true), but because I've always enjoyed modelling and playing with figures of a ratling's stature. I even made a full ratling Inquisitorial retinue after all!

I already had four or five spare ratlings, so it was a case of selecting three to work out how to chaosify them. To my mind, the key change needed was a head swap. The classic Rogue Trader ratlings have beaming round faces - not the sort of look that a trio of corrupted ratlings would sport. In a case of serendipity, I also happened to have a selection of Maxmini's Fallen Legionnaire heads (left over from an aborted Blood Bowl hobgoblin project).

I cut off the original heads, replaced them with the nasty chaotic ones, and sculpted new collars:

The Path to Damnation - Starting a Chaos Renegade Warband

This year as part of the annual Bring Out Your Lead (BOYL) event hosted by Wargames Foundry, myself and a group of friends are going to be playing some Rogue Trader using the Chaos Renegades rules as presented on pages 231-239 of Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness (StD). Note there is a little fettling and fudging to cover available figures and wargear.

The set-up is pretty straightforward. Each participant generates their renegade and four groups of followers. Over the course of a day, we will play multiple games in a campaign type system.