Warhammer Fest 2016 - Part Three - Imperial Armour (Tau and Red Scorpions)

We had a preview of the next Imperial Armour book.

Expected release third quarter of this year.

Tau v Marines and Adeptus Mechanicus.

aka Big Killy Robots fighting Big Killy Robots.

The Tau invade a Forge World they think is weak, unfortunately for them they have plenty hidden away. It is also being used as a staging post for Imperial forces to strike back at the Hive Fleets.

The entire Red Scorpions chapter is involved along with the remnants of a second chapter (mind has now gone blank) plus Knights and Titans.

IA13 - War Machines of the Lost and the Damned...redux

Small follow up post to the one I did a few days back on IA13.

I got my infantry out and read more of the army list rules to see how I could re-arrange them to suit the new list and to decide what direction I wanted to go.

So Devotion wise I selected Arch-Heretic Revolutionary.

This would give me a Command Squad which were Zealots, which combined with their Fanatic rule (allowing me to roll two dice and discard the lowest score when determining their Ld value) should give me a solid Command squad which will hopefully stay around - once boosted with a Sigil and Enforcer (+1 Ld to the squad) they will be solid...well as solid as they can be.

I want the army to be somewhere in the middle of the Chaos line - if one end is just rabble, an untrained horde while at the other end they are resolute, devoted elite these guys will be the middle ground, trained but nothing out of the ordinary. While they need direction and encouragement (the Devotion allows more Enforcers to be taken than normal) they have some level of 'professionalism'.

So above you see the infantry laid out.

We have four 20 man infantry squads (all one Troop slot). These are made up of my old infantry squads, special weapon squads, platoon command squad and two heavy weapon squads.

Three squads form a gun line with 2 missile launchers and 2 plasma guns. With a vox, chaos sigil and attached Enforcer they have the best chance of not running away at the first opportunity.

The fourth squad will be held behind the lines to plug any gaps. Armed with CCW, pistols and toting 2 flamers and a melta gun they'll be hurled in to any dire situation.

I will need to break down and rebuild a number of the models and I'll have to convert a couple of new standard bearers.

My old Demo Charger guys won't be taken apart after all, they instead join the 4th squad. The bombs they wield will stand in for the krak grenades the squad carries.

Top left in the pic is the HQ squad including the Demagogue. To take advantage of the squads BS4 they have a Lascannon and a plasma gun.

Meantime top right are seven Enforcers, enough for these five squads plus my second Troop choice which at the moment I am leaning towards a small Mutant squad, mainly for the fun of converting them...though I may go for Plague Zombies if I take the Covenant of Nurgle for my Demagogue.


Talking of Covenants I haven't decided what to take for the infantry squads. I may go for a mix (such as Khorne for the reserve assaulty squad, with Nurgle on the others to give them more survivability). I may play around with taking different ones to begin with before I decide what to stick with. With my Devotion I also have the option to upgrade these squads by making them Fanatics, but this is pricey so I may go without for now and see how they perform.



Alas I can't find a place for these three:

Those two renegade psykers are two of my favourite models in the CRM range, but I just can't find a place in the army they fit. I would have taken the Primaris-rogue Psyker Devotion but it really didn't suit what I wanted the army to be.



To get more heavy weapons in the army I am thinking I will take a HW Squad as a Heavy Support slot. I have five remaining Lascannon teams which I can form into one squad. Might be a bit overkill but it should get the job done.

I am tempted though to mix mortars in with them. Partly because I want to use the models I have built and partly because no matter what the squad will be able to do something - when the Lascannon can't see a target the mortars can still fire at something, plus it would give the squad some very cheap ablative wounds in the shape of the mortars. Something to ponder...

It took me ages to make all of these mini-dioramas for the HW teams...

I still plan on taking a couple of more squads of infantry in the form of either Disciple Squads (Elite) or Vet squads (Troop). They are very similar, while Disciples are BS4 Vets are WS4 and both can take Carapace armour and have access to special weapons - though very limited in number. If I take Vets I may drop the Mutant/Zombie unit.

Disciples can take a heavy weapon but Vets can take a USR's (such as Deep Strike, Scout etc). Overall the two options are pretty equal so I'm a little uncertain which way to go at the moment.


Whatever I do I am currently looking at around 120 infantry models (including Command squad, Enforcers & HW teams). That's a lot. What I will do next is start fleshing out the rest of the army, When I get a better idea of what else I want to take I may come back to the infantry and have a re-think, possible dropping one of those infantry squads. This will come down to points, I can't neglect the tanks and other choices I so definitely want in the army. So many choices...


Oh I will also have some Rough Riders eventually...


Quite a rambling post that...mainly me thinking out loud. Next one will make more sense. Almost certainly.

IA13 - War Machines of the Lost and the Damned

Slight distraction for today.

I had the latest Imperial Armour book arrive yesterday and today I have been nipping in and out of it and putting some thoughts together in my head.

When the last Guard codex came out I started looking at my Militia with thoughts of bringing it up to date and possible re-organising everything. One reason why I didn’t get that far with this was the hope FW would provide an updated list(s) from their Vrak books.

And here it is.

So the first thing that grabbed me was the options you have when picking the sort of army you want. 

The choices given open up many opportunities for you to theme your force and no two armies ever need to be the same.

There are two things which help create your theme.

The first is the option to upgrade your Demagogue (your Warlord basically) who leads the army with one of six ‘Devotions’. 

Each Devotion brings something different to the plate such as affecting the FoC e.g. moving choices from one slot to another or unlocking other choices, it may bring additional upgrades to your force such as turning Vet squads into grenadiers, it can affect the Demagogue itself but there may also be limitations or stipulations you may have to follow.

So thinking out loud here are the Devotions and the sort of themes you can go with each one...

Primaris-rogue Witch – A dangerous psyker gathers a coven and twists the minds of Imperial citizens and unleashes his dark desires onto the unsuspecting populace...This devotion makes your Demagogue a Psyker and allows you to take Rogue Psyker Covens as Elite choices (they are normally HQ). Potentially that is 20 of them roaming the battlefield.

Mutant Overlord – The undermasses rise, an enigmatic leader unites the scum and unwanted who lurk in the underhives and they rise to claim their rightful place...basically if you want mutants this is the one. Huge mobs of mutants backed up by Spawn and Mutant Ogryn.

Master of the Horde – an unending wave of heretics and traitors...Infantry squads can be 30 strong  and as they are wiped out they turn up again.

Arch-Heretic Revolutionary – true believers with an unshakeable faith, no mere dupes these but the fanatics who believe they will take their rightful place...With the option of upgrading Infantry and Vet squads to Fanatics and taking up to 10 Enforcers the army will have more chance to stand their ground.

Heretek Magus – What started as an innocent step to expanding more knowledge led to a dark path of corruption...the closest thing you can get to a Dark Mechanicus list (until FW get to them in the HH series I suppose). Decimators and Defilers plus feel no pain to troops as an upgrade.

Bloody Handed Reaver – When the rock upon which your castle is built turns to sand your castle will soon fall...You want Traitor Guard with added gribbles, this is the one for you.

So the Devotions allow you to tailor your force into a theme or story, you can then add Covenants to your army.

These are dedicated to each of the four Chaos Gods. When applied to the Demagogue it again opens up new options.

No Covenant – This opens up taking Marauder units as an option, think Space Pirates/Mercenaries.

Khorne – Unit of Blood Slaughterers for an Elites choice.

Nurgle – Unit of Blight Drones as Elite and Plague Zombies may be taken as a Troop choice.

Slaanesh – May take a unit of Noise marines and/or Sonic Dreadnought.

Tzeentch – Can take up to 3 Spawn units as Troops.

Covenants give bonuses when purchased for squads, such as Feel no Pain for Nurgle. You don’t have to take the same Covenant for each squad giving you lots of variety and conversion potential throughout the army.

While GW is busy happily ripping out options from Codex books (like being able to use the Ork Codex to field Speed Freaks or a Dredd Mob) FW are happily sticking in as many as possible.

The Devotions remind me of the options you get in the Heresy books to upgrade your Praetor. Each options opens up a theme for the army (planetary assault force, armoured column type and so on). Based on one army list you can create radically different armies in both play style and visual make up.

Now onto the actual army options – these are not all of them as frankly I haven’t got the patience to do all of that, these are just the highlights I have picked out.

The basic trooper is, well, basic, only BS/WS 2 and no armour but with up to 20 men in a squad and up to five squads in one Troop choice. You can create masses of cheap cannon fodder if you want. 

However they can be upgraded to bring them basically on par with Guard.

They have kept the random Leadership value from the Vraks list, attached Enforcers (a HQ option) can give a boost and there is equipment to give you a bit more hope of them staying around.

You lose the option of Special and Heavy Weapon squads (which for me is a big loss) but those big squads can take more weapons, to a point as you have to chose between taking more special weapons or taking the Vox or Chaos Sigil to help keep the squad in place.

More troops come in the shape of Mutants – up to 50 strong. If you give them a Covenant as well these could be a right pain in the arse to face, and if you took the Nurgle Covenant Plague Zombies, again up to 50 strong with the potential to ‘recruit’ more to the fold.

Now one thing that has bugged me is that FW have taken a few weapons out, the squads have the usual options for special and heavy weapons...except no Demo Charges or Mortars (for infantry/vet squads) or Heavy Flamers. To me I find it odd. I can understand, and fully agree, that the Renegades should get some restrictions and not have exactly the same choices as Guard to help show the difference. Renegades may be a rabble, poorly equipped and trained so it makes sense they can’t get everything. However mortars and demo charges are simple weapons which are easily built and maintained. They can be even be improvised and thus seem a perfect fit for this type of force. Yet they don’t get these and instead still get plasma, melta and lascannon – surely high end weapons hard to manufacture and maintain. The only way to take mortars are part of HW teams selected as Heavy Support. So do I take tanks or Heavy Weapons...?

On a personal note my demo charge guys and mortar teams are some of my favourite conversions I did ...

Buy buy Demo Charges...

Other things of note...

Cheap light tanks in the form of Salamander squadrons.

Cheap sentinels, only BS and WS 2, with up to six in a unit. These can be upgrade to WS & BS 3 but I am liking the idea of six cheap sentinels with heavy flamers running amok for about the cost of two chimeras.

While there is the Valk as an option you can also take Arvus squadrons with improvised mounts. Dirt cheap air support with transport capacity.

All the tanks come with the same base of BS2, but with the option of upgrading to BS3. Which in most cases I think you would take.

Heavy Weapons squads can be taken numbering 3 to 6 teams. You can’t take a platoon of multiple squads, so if you want two squads you would fill two Heavy Support slots. Seems very limiting when you consider the options allow you to take things far more powerful such as five Wyverns or four Thudd Guns in each HS slot.

Mortars or Tanks...what a choice to make me make. Bastards.

Rapiers! Enough said.

The Lords of War which are available depend on your Devotion, though many Malcador variants are open to everyone.

So, what are my thoughts?

Keep in mind I have not fully read everything, this is just first impressions.

I like the list, bar the odd thing I find a bit strange what Forge World has done gets a thumbs up from me.

This isn't ‘Guard with Spikes’ - it has its own flavour and has many, many options that allow you to undertake a wide range of themes. This results in many modelling and painting possibilities which is exactly what I want to see in an army list and what I think is missing from the latest round of Codex books.

Am I going to use it I wonder to myself...probably, almost certainly. I will miss some of the things I have in my army that I can't move over and I will have to make some hard choices.

Even though it means having to pull apart some models and some things, like my Marbo conversion are completely dead now (but then he is dead when it comes to the Guard 'dex as well...thanks GW), the list is what I want. A proper Chaos Renegades list. I use the Guard codex at the moment as it’s the only thing available but now I have this in my hands it is hard not to feel the pull.

I'll miss you Mr Chaos Marbo man.
We had fun you and I.

I now need to finish painting the Daemons so I can free up the time to sort the Militia out, then I’ll get to painting the tanks and vehicles while Sheep gets to painting the infantry...

Oh and build the Warhound I've had sitting in a box for years.

This post wasn't meant to be this long or wordy. If you got through it congratulations. Have a biscuit to recover.

Imperial Armour Volume 12 - The Fall of Orpheus

Something a bit different tonight. Normally I wouldn’t do a ‘review’ type of post but as I have found myself answering a few questions regarding Imperial Armour Vol 12 – The Fall of Orpheus I thought I would do a run down on it. Keep in mind this is not a review per se, more a list of what can be found in the three army lists that are in the book, namely the Dynasty of Maynarkh Necron List, The Minotaurs Chapter and the Krieg Assault Brigade List.

I am not going to cover the background information in the book, mainly because it would take far too long to do it justice and I any who want to know will be buying the book anyway and don't want it spoiled by reading snippets here.

I won’t be giving points or stats so please don’t ask (via comment or email), but I will note anything that I pick up as looking interesting.

Part 1 - The Necron Dynasty of Maynarkh:

The list begins with the background to the Dynasty (again I am not going to go into it so people can enjoy reading it for themselves). However it appears that the Dynasty hasn’t fared well when it came out of hibernation.

Included is a new Necron specific set of Warlord Traits.

The army list breaks down as this (units in blue are ‘see Codex: Necrons’)

HQ – Kutlakh the World Killer, by the sounds of it this is a Necron Lord who has lost his marbles.

HQ – Toholk the Blinded, the Dynasty Arch-Cryptek
HQ – Maynarkh Overlord
HQ– Destroyer Lord
HQ – Royal Court (0-5 Maynarkh Lords, 0-5 Crypteks)

Troops – Maynarkh Warrior Phalanx (no idea how this is different to a regular Codex unit, though it can take Flensing Scarabs which are new)

Troops - Maynarkh Flayed One Pack (ditto)
Troops - Maynarkh Immortals (can’t be taken as compulsory choices)

Dedicated Transports – Command Barge, Ghost Ark & Night Scythe

Elites – Canoptek Tomb Stalker

Elites – Charnel Lychguard (limited to one unit for each Overlord in the army)
Elites – Deathmarks, Triarch Praetorians, Triarch Stalker

Fast Attack – Canoptek Acanthrites

Fast Attack – Wraiths, Tomb Blades, Necron Destroyers
Fast Attack - Maynarkh Canoptek Scarab Swarms (may be upgraded to Charnel Scarabs which are more anti-infantry)
Fast Attack – Canoptek Tomb Sentinel (this can be taken in Codex armies but is Heavy Support)

Heavy Support – Tesseract Ark (interesting rules, it has a ‘weapon’ which gives several benefits as well as having several fire modes)

Heavy Support – Sentry Pylon (1-3 unit, can be a mix of types)
Heavy Support – Night Shroud Bomber (the bombs look painful, but at least it only has five of them)
Heavy Support – Doomsday Ark, Annihilation Barge, Monolith, Doom Scythe, Spyder

Super-Heavy – Gauss Pylon

Fortification – Necron Tomb Citadel (this isn’t cheap even without the defence battery upgrades. You can also dock Monoliths or Sentry Guns giving them a bonus. The Citadel gives you plenty of boons)

Part 2 – The Minotaurs:

As with the Necron section you are given background on the Chapter and its organisation – though not a huge amount, just a few pages.

Basically the Minotaurs use the Codex: Space Marines with the following additions:

HQ – Lord Asterion Moloc

HQ – Chaplain Enkomi
HQ – Hecaton Aiakos (Contemptor Dreadnought, is an Elite choice in Codex armies)
HQ – 0-1 Damocles Command Vehicle

Heavy Support – Vigilator-Sergeant Hamath Kraatos (heavy bolter wielding upgrade to a Devastator Squad)

Heavy Support – Storm Eagle Assault Gunship
Heavy Support – Storm Eagle Assault Gunship Roc Pattern (tank destroyer version)
Heavy Support – Sentry Gun Battery
Heavy Support – Deathstorm Drop Pod
Heavy Support – Predator Infernus (Flamestorm Cannon which can be upgraded to a Magma-Melta)
Heavy Support – Predator Executioner (may be upgraded to a Heavy Conversion Beamer)
Heavy Support – Spartan Assault Tank

Part 3 – The Krieg Assault Brigade List:

Plenty of info on Krieg and their armed forces, more than with the Minotaurs.

Unlike the Krieg Siege list this one is much more mobile. With more transports, tanks and mobile artillery.

Very nice touch is the Krieg Warlord Traits, with emphasise their style of warfare, and Krieg specific Orders which are a mix of the standard Guard orders and Krieg themed ones such as ‘Duty Unto Death’ and ‘Without Mercy’. We also have the Krieg special rules affecting the morale checks and making them Fearless and when combined with the Officers having the Iron Discipline rule it means Krieg squads will potentially be hard to crack.

Another nice touch is the option ‘Forlorn Hope’ special rule which the Krieg player may select. This means an additional Objective is placed which the Krieg player must take, if he fails to capture it the enemy get a bonus to their VP’s instead. As a bonus infantry squads can be recycled giving you an endless wave of infantry marching to their doom. Very nice.

 

Here is a breakdown of the army list – I’m not listing all the detail/options but instead picking out some interesting titbits:

 

HQ – Death Korps Marshal Karis Venner

HQ – Company Command Squad (may take the following advisors – Artillerist, Quartermaster, Tech Prist Militant)

HQ – Quartermaster Cadre

 

Elites – Engineer Squad

Elites – Griffon Strike Battery

Elites – Forward Command Tank (a Russ with benefits)

Elites – Hydra Battery

Elites – Rapier Battery

 

Troops – Infantry Platoon (1 HQ + 2-6 squads, as normal no HW or transport options)

Troops – Grenadier Storm Squad

 

Dedicated Transport – Storm Chimera (Autocannon armed Chimera with extra armour and track guards)

Dedicated Transport – Centaur

Dedicated Transport – Hades Drill (rules as per IAVOl 1 2^nd Ed - Engineers only)

 

Fast Attack – Hellhound Squadron

Fast Attack – Death Rider Platoon (0-1 Command Sqaud which may include a Commie, 1-6 Death Rider Squads)

Fast Attack – Salamander Scout Squadron

 

Heavy Support – Heavy Weapons Platoon (1-3 squads, no command squad)

Heavy Support – Thunderer Squadron

Heavy Support – Leman Russ Squadron (all types available)

Heavy Support – Ordnance Tank Battery (1-3 Bassie, Medusa or Colossus, can’t be mixed unit)

Heavy Support – Field Artillery Battery (1-4 Thudd Guns or Heavy Mortars)

Heavy Support – Navy Support Squadron (1-3 ‘bolts, Lightnings or Avengers, can’t be mixed)

 

And that is that.

If you have any questions post them up, though as stated earlier I won't be handing out any stats or points etc. I have no intention to turn this into a news/rumours blog or something along the lines of many, many blogs already out there (too many frankly). But I thought people might like the army list info above so I thought I'd post it up.