Heresy Era Thousand Sons - Armies ready for the NOVA Open!

I've been in a mild panic mode about the army for the upcoming Nova Open, and behind the scenes have been writing list after list trying to find the right balance of minis and points and effectiveness and worries about air travel and so on. It's all finally crystallized however and I'm now officially done and ready to go to the show! I'm participating in two of the Horus Heresy events while I'm out there, the Asymmetrical Warfare campaign on Friday and the Escalation campaign on Saturday, both of which require multiple army lists at varying point values. The idea however was to use as many of the same models in each version of the force to cut down on what I had to paint, as well as what I'd have to pack and travel with.

The Asymmetrical Warfare campaign starts off with a tiny 500 point force, using the Zone Mortalis combatant force org. That's a tough point level for Heresy armies I find, so I went with a basic tactical squad for the requisite Troops choice, a fairly low-calorie Centurion as the HQ and a unit of Terminators for the Elites slot.

The second tier of the campaign bumps the armies up to 750, which provides enough points to add an assault squad for a much needed 2nd Troops choice and a rhino for the tac squad to hopefully get them up to the objective markers.

Finally is the 1000 point army which fulfills both the largest of the Asymmetrical Warfare and smallest of the Escalation campaign the following day. The further 250 points allows for a much-needed psyker for the force both strategically and fluff-wise. I find a pair of Consuls at lower point values to be far too eggs-in-one-basket-y, but until we get the Prospero book later in the year I'm only allowed to take a librarian/sorceror as a secondary or tertiary HQ choice. Boo! The Terminator squad gets a couple more marines to bulk up the unit as well, and provide the Centurion and the Sorcerer a bit more of a bodyguard.

Now we're talking! The second stage of the Escalation campaign makes a big jump up to 1850 points, giving the army a significant boost to its lethality - A unit of veterans joins the force to act as bodyguards for the Praetor (same model as the centurion before, but with better stats and an equipment boost) and the Sorcerer, and who are also joined by an Apothecary to hopefully keep 'em alive. Their own personal Land Raider transport doesn't hurt either. The Terminators drop back down to a 5-man squad, but theyalso get a Land Raider to ferry 'em upfield, so that's not a bad tradeoff. Finally, the ever-popular twin-Kheres Contemptor Mortis provides some anti-air cover for the force.

Finally, the Escalation campaign tops out at 2150 points, which adds the Damocles command rhino, the Techmarine and his creepy automata to the force. Th Damocles provides a little extra fun with the lance strike, better deep strike capability and reserve rolls, and makes for an unusual centerpiece for the army. I'm rather excited to get out there and play in the campaigns, and though I don't expect to do particularly well from a win/loss standpoint I'm sure I'll have a heck of a good time getting crushed!

It's been quite a while since I updated the painting chart and was quite pleased with how many boxes I got to tick over to green! It's become apparent I may have built just a few too many HQ choices...

Last but most assuredly not least, I want to point out the rather excellent raffles going on at the NOVA Open this year, which include several fantastic armies (including a Bad Moons Ork Army that I was honored to contribute to) and the money for which goes to an excellent cause. You need not be present to win, and the armies will be shipped anywhere worldwide! Absolutely worth checking out!

Heresy Era Thousand Sons - The March To Godhammer

The fine folks over at the Tempus Fugitives have released the initial mission pack for the campaign weekend in March - "Hammer of the Gods". Set on the recently-rediscovered Machine World of Godhammer, several factions will battle for supremacy over the planet. The weekend will consist of a number of battles both on the surface, and on/around the series of space elevators known as Skyhooks, with the results of the battles affecting the outcome of subsequent battles (and as I understand it, subsequent campaign weekends set on the same planet).

That said, I pulled all the Thousand Sons out to see exactly where things stand, and decide what I wanted to take for the campaign weekend. I was pleased to note that I'm well past the half-way point on getting the army painted!

 

The first mission outlined in the campaign pack is the "Skyhook" mission, in which small forces (1000pts) vie for control of the space elevators, which will allow for easier deployment of the ground assault force missions subsequently. There are some restrictions to the army choices however:

• Only units entering play via Deep Strike may be held in reserve. 
• The following units may be used in a Skyhook battle without any additional rules – Jetbikes; Jump Infantry; Jet Infantry; Beasts; Skimmers 
• The following units may be used in a Skyhook battle but suffer from the ‘unstable footing’ special rule – Infantry; Heavy Infantry; Bike Infantry; Cavalry; Monstrous Creatures; Walkers.
• Your Skyhook army may NOT include flyers, units with Structure points, Gargantuan Creatures or any Apocalypse Formations. Vehicles detailed only in Forge World's Imperial Armour publications may be used. If a vehicle is described in more than one publication the most recent version must be used.
• UNSTABLE FOOTING: Models affected by this rule must take a Dangerous Terrain test at the start of each turn. Wounds suffered cause Instant Death. This represents the rapidly moving and unstable platform on which they are fighting slipping from beneath them and pitching them headlong over the edge.

Unfortunately, my Thousand Sons are more of a heavy assault force, with most units either not allowed for use in the Skyhook game (Tanks primarily), or subject to the Unstable Footing rule. That said, my initial run at a thousand point list that was as little affected by Unstable Footing ended up pretty thin:

I'm not 100% sold on this list - while it utilized the Assault Vets and Jetbikes, it does feel a bit too "all the eggs in one basket" for my tastes, so I may cut down on the Vets a bit and add in some regular Tactical marines to give the list some flexibility (at the risk of more models plummeting to their doom each round).

The second mission type is "Invasion Team Battles" wherein two players join forces, each bringing 2000 points following the standard FOC, though one player on the team may include a single Superheavy. As I have a Falchion (legion Shadowsword) in the works, I'm hoping I can find a suitable partner for this portion of the event, though I'll be making a second list sans Superheavy. In the meantime, the list looks like this:

Alternately, instead of playing a doubles game, one of the options is to take a single 4000 point army including a single superheavy, so I took a pencil to it and came up with a first cut at the Big List:

Pretty much uses up every model that I've build for the Thousand Sons so far, with the exception of Magnus the Red, and a pair of Contemptor Dreadnoughts. I'm waiting to find out what the FOC restrictions are for the 4000 point option however. If it's designed such that I need to essentially build two separate 2000 point armies I won't be able to do it as I don't have the mandatory 4 Troops choices. I could get around it by building another ten Tactical marines and running them as four separate ten man squads, but I'm hoping to avoid buying and building any more models for the army. On the other hand, it may behoove me to just focus on doing the 2000 point game - that way there's less that I need to finish painting, as well as fewer models to have to package and send across the ocean risking damage or loss...

Given the above 4000 point list as the options from which I may pick and choose for the Skyhook or Invasion Team missions, I'd be happy to receive any suggestions about alternate army selections for those missions!

TOEMP #10 - Scoundrels and Wyrds... Complete!

A lazy Sunday afternoon doing laundry afforded me some time to finish off the last of the models for the 10th Tale Of Even More Painters challenge - the final two Psyker Battle Squad models, Sanctioned Psyker Morrin Dannel  and Commissar Lord Fidel Arden.

With these done, the Psyker Battle Squad is complete. In most games the PBS will be accompanied by the Sanctioned Psyker. As I read it, the fact that he is part of the squad will mean the unit will count as having 8 psykers for purposes of determining their psychic strength.

I wanted to keep the Overseer stylistically connected to the unit but as he isn't a psyker himself I decided that he shouldn't wear the standard green of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. Instead I gave him a leather coat based on the tips that Ron posted over at From The Warp. I did attempt to paint the symbol of the Astra Telepathica on his back banner, though I'm not sure that it 'pops' enough against the green background.

With these, and the King Russ tanks from the last challenge, I really feel like I made some good headway on the army. I'd updated the painting chart and was pleased to see that at this point all the Elites are complete! Once I finish off the Techpriests and servitors, the HQ will be finalized as well, so I think I'll be attacking them next...

Getting closer and closer to finishing off the army. ...Of course right about here is where I start thinking "Hmm, what if I replaced this with that, and maybe add a couple of these?" I'm doing my best to resist such urges however!

2010, and the state of the hobby

Happy new year everyone - I'm looking forward to seeing what the hobby brings this year, as this past year has been surprisingly productive! Thanks to the awesome 40k blogging community it has been full of great blogs, each one chock full of amazing conversions, stunning paint jobs and helpful articles that have inspired me in innumerable ways. Thanks to all of you!

I'm not one for resolutions, but I figured I'd make an appraisal of where things stand and try and map out what needs to be done. As actually pulling out and organizing the miniatures is an enormous undertaking, I went through all the boxes and updated the painting charts. So here's what I'm planning on working on in the upcoming year:

Mordian 7th Regiment, D Company

Obviously, the glorious 7th is the main reason for the blog, and I'm planing on giving them plenty of brush time in 2010. After updating the chart I was pleased to see that I'm actually getting close to the finish line on the army, at least as far as recreating the original list goes (denoted with the blue unit headers). However there are a few things that I'm planning on doing to make the army more closely aligned to the original list, most noteably by replacing the veteran models with new grav-chute equipped models. I'll likely fold the old veteran models into the ad-mech army as Tech Guard.

Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator Force Chi Xi

I finally settled on what I figured would be the most appropriate name for the  Adeptus Mechanicus army. I actually made some headway into getting the Ad Mech painted this year, which I was happy about. I'm still holding out for the rumored plastic Storm trooper models to use as Hypaspists for the army, though in the short term I want to dabble in kit bashing some out of a mix of Cadian and High Elf parts, some plasticard and greenstuff. The Ordinatus Minoris is in the design sketches phase, following the purchase of some interesting looking toy track units from an old GI Joe toy. I figure before I take another crack at building the Leviathan I should start with something a bit less ambitious.

Craftworld Alaitoc Eldar

The Eldar are my secondary backup painting choice, which I'm keeping around for those times I need a break from the unrelenting grey and red of the Guard and Ad Mech. The squads are small (5-10), and nearly every unit has a rather different paint scheme, which means I can branch out a bit and do some (gasp) blues or greens for a change! It's having those kinds of fun side projects that helps me maintain my overall enthusiasm for the hobby when the army painter's fatigue rears its head.

Crimson Fists Assault Force

And finally (in both the list and my current painting queue), the Crimson Fists. I'll admit that at the moment I have zero interest in painting these marines, and they've been relegated to long term storage in the depths of the Closet of Doom. My intent was to use them as an assault force to complement the Mordian 7th, as well as be an homage to the original paint scheme I'd chosen for my first box of beakies back in the day... However, at nearly 6500 points, the Guard don't really need allies on the table. Hah!

I'm looking forward to seeing what the rest of the community comes up with over the next year - here's to a good 010/M3, everyone!

Utilizing a painting chart to track progress.

Following Admiral Drax's lead (the guy is a constant source of great ideas), I sat down and worked out a painting chart to help me visualize where the army stands today, what's been painted/what's being painted, and what's left to build. I started to build out the chart following the original Mordian 7th's FOC, but it became unwieldy so I reverted back to the standard HQ/Elites/Troops/Fast Attack/Heavy Support breakdown (though I kept the various platoon numbers intact).

Unfortunately it appears that I'm not as far along with the army as I'd originally thought - though to be fair I have completed the lion's share of the infantry at this point (barring a unit of beastmen and a couple rough rider squads) which I find to be the hardest units for me to do. There's a lot of work remaining in the Heavy Support category, but those shouldn't take too much time once I finish the builds and get them primered.

I included the Leviathan on the chart, which will bring the army up to just a touch over 8,000 points. I've been gathering bits to make the beast, and I'm slowly gearing up to take on the construction. My initial plan was to build the superstructure out of wood, but I've subsequently changed my mind and decided on using insulating foam and plasticard for weight considerations.

I plan to keep this chart updated as I make progress on the army - a big thanks to Drax for this idea, I really think it'll help me stay on task (something that I can always use help doing)!