The Glorious Tale of Broin the Mighty

Master Cain had mustered the company. The Chapter recruiting base on Molov close by the Cicatrix Maledictum had become a major marshaling point. The 5th stood in ranks in the hard rain, under a dark sky shot through with the otherworldly purple and green light of the tear in space. Chaplain Zadok brought his fiery harangue to a thunderous crescendo, extolling the virtues of the company and demanding more of them in the upcoming battles.

Nearly a quarter of the men in ranks were new to the company. More than a dozen dead, another bunch rotated to serve as vehicle crew or replacements to other companies, or to serve in the Ravenwing. In the ranks the new members stand at the end of their squads, their armor freshly repainted with the markings of the 5th. The rain washing down them, sleeting from the heavens made them appear as weeping statues. The puddles shook. a tremor washed over the company.

Master Cain spun, his senses pointing him directly to the source. Through the weirdly lit gloom a hulking shape approached, the full-throated, brassy notes of warhorns. A Crusader-Class knight, in black and bone. And what appeared to be deep green.

“Oh no” breathed Bors over the company vox.

Cain focused and a burst of lightning highlighted the name “Broin” on the knight as it came close, still half a kilometer away it towered over the vehicle park as it tromped forward between the lines of vehicles as if they stood honor guard for him.

The company stood, still and silent, facing away with perfect discipline. Cain admired them for that. Still he could feel every pair of eyes in every helmet straining to see the sight. Most knights walked with a noble gait, this one tromped with intent, but no grace. “Bors, what do you know”

“If this is the Broin I know this will be a trial, master.”

Cain looked at his Lieutenant, his hammer twitching in his hand.

“Is he that bad Bors?”

“He is a fine warrior, but if he was a tenth the warrior he thinks himself to be we could take up farming, or embroidery.”

As Cain stared at Bors, trying to detect any trace of falsehood in his odd comment, the Knight swung ponderously around behind the Chaplain, taking the place of honor as if to address the company. The horns sounded, deep and thunderous.

“Warriors of the First Legion” bellowed the speakers on the knight. “Congratulations on your fortune this day! Today you join forces with the glorious Broin the Mighty!”

Cain looked on in amazement. He could hear vox-clicks from his sergeants and Chaplain Zadok’s vitals were spiking.

As Broin’s speakers cut in to continue his speech, Master Cain stepped forward “Broin, we of the First Legion greet you. Tonight my Lieutenants, Bors and Nabbuk have prepared a feast, in your honor. We look forward to hearing your tales and to working with you. For now we must prepare for tomorrow’s embarkation!”

Bors looked at him, hate seething off him in waves. Even the unflappable Nabbuk seemed bemused. Cain clicked over to the command vox. “Seat him between Joab and Uriah. Adjust the tables so our head table meets at an angle to theirs at the front of the hall. We must not insult our new ally.”

“-and I look forward to our feasting and fighting as glorious brothers!” Broin was finishing even as Cain re-enabled outside audio.

The knight stomped away, to the head of the vehicle column, where a support crew in black livery waited to aid him down. Bors voiced a thought that clearly troubled him “Why is his livery on his shield so close to ours? Before it was simply halved, now it’s quartered with our green, though not quite the company pattern.”

Zadok sighed “I suspect it is one of Sapphon’s little games. He likely sent him the information on our company and suggested he incorporate pieces of it. He seems to enjoy… pushing decorum at times. See how we react. Testing us.”

“This will test us. Master, with your permission I’d like to head over with Nabbuk and prepare room at the feast.”

“Of course, Bors. I will see you tonight. See if they have banners or such to hang for the feast as well.”

“Of course.” Bors and Nabbuk saluted and stalked away, bristling with rage.

Broin, just about tabletop ready

Little Green Men: The Repulsor

I like most of the new Primaris line.  The models are well made, they look great on the table exuding a solid efficiency which goes especially well with the determined Dark Angels.  While not as flexible as the classic Astartes they work well, especially in larger battles.

What I don’t like is the Repulsor.  The concept of a heavy Infantry Fighting Vehicle isn’t a bad one, especially for the 40k universe.  The problem comes in the execution of… pretty much everything.  The kit itself is something of a mixed bag.  It’s highly detailed, solid, massive looking, but at the same time it’s busy, complicated, underscaled and fairly poorly designed.

When you assemble the kit it’s incredibly frustrating because gapping is inevitable. To have an $80 model that cannot be built without gapping even with a generous application of sanding, rubber bands and masses of glue is incredibly frustrating.  And I still need 3 more to complete my battle company because it’s the only transport that can carry Primaris.  In addition having a transport capacity of only 10 (as opposed to 12) means that any HQ characters need their own battle taxi.  In addition even when fully assembled it looks busy.  Every inch of the upper hull and turret seems covered with bric-a-brac.  Painting these is going to be a nightmare.

The rules for it are a mess as well.  Instead of making it a super Razorback, with beefier weapons and maybe an additional secondary weapon, they made it a super Land Raider with multiple primary weapons and a plethora of secondary weapons that requires a cheat card during the shooting phase to make sure you remember all your weapons.  Add to this the previously mentioned problem with finding a space for characters with your 10 man squads and these vehicles just have problems in the rulebook.

Finally, this Land-Raider sized vehicle is way too small.  I’m not kidding.  The doors are too small, the turret simply doesn’t have room for even a gunner and all the ammunition feeds for the half dozen weapons in it.  The hull doesn’t have room for a drive system, driver, ammunition/power supplies for the weapons and more than a couple passengers.  I really wish they’d brought in a level headed veteran to help them with the design.  I think the vehicle would be vastly improved by removing several turret weapons, some of the hull weapons, adding a couple passenger seats, and just being about 25% larger.  This would make it make more sense, be less of a time sink to use in a battle, and much more efficient (even with a slight price increase for the added size) as you don’t need an extra one just to be a 300 point commander’s taxi.

The problem with the Repulsor isn’t that it’s bad.  Because it really isn’t.  The problem with the Repulsor is that it’s mediocre from top to bottom.  It can’t QUITE carry enough.  It’s size doesn’t QUITE make sense.  It’s got just a FEW too many weapons to use without being frustrating for you and your opponent.  And the assembly is, frankly, bad.  Yes when that huge wall of lead smashes whole squads and a tank it can be a lot of fun.  Yes it’s real nice to zoom 10 intercessors out to an objective and then have a wall of metal and guns sitting there daring someone to make them move, but their captain is running along behind trying to get in range to bubble them, 10 hours later you’re done with your shooting phase, and all you can see is the gaps in the model.

Maybe GW has a Primaris Rhino planned for release.  It would be nice.

Little Green Men: Last of the Year

So this has been a very productive year for painting.  More than 40 miniatures painted, including several vehicles, and all to a standard I’m very happy with.  December has been a rocky month with work being absolutely crazy but next month is already looking much better.  I have 10 Hellblasters, 4 heavy weapons, a Sergeant, a Lieutenant, a techmarine, and a medic all ready to go Tomorrow or Saturday I should be able to assemble the other 6 heavy weapons and get myself ready to paint my heavy weapons infantry and remaining characters.

Sorry about the potato picture quality.  I didn’t have much time to set it up.  Better stuff to come.

Currently I have 22 Tacticals in 3 squads (6,6,10) 10 Intercessors, 5 Assault Marines, a Captain, 3 Lieutenants, an Ancient, Zeke, a Predator, a Rhino, a Razorback, 8 Terminators all painted.  I want to get the 10 Devastators and 10 Hellblasters done ASAP.  They are so good in this edition.

2nd and 3rd I’m going to be doing some painting, at a minimum getting the Hellblasters done.  More than likely getting the devastators done as well.  This will get me to the point where I really just have the Inceptors, some of the Assault troopers, and vehicles to get the battle company done.  I know I’ve talked a lot about the bikes but I’ve re focused myself.  I want to get the entire 5th Company painted and on the table.  I need to get a couple other primaris characters, and paint a few others, but the command group is looking really good and the army itself is filling out nicely.  Purchase wise I believe I’m down to vehicles unless I add another Intercessor squad.  I have all the traditional astartes I need, including heavy weapons and specialists, while I do have a Veteran Squad I’d like to do they will be very expensive and require some additional skills I’ll need to work on to get them done.  I also would like to do another 5 Dark Angel Assault Troops with Sanguinary Guard wings, but again, 90 dollars for 5 marines is a lot.  Especially when I have 5 perfectly good assault marines sitting there waiting for paint.

I’m excited for next year.  I’m excited to see where the hobby goes and where my skills take me.  I’m already planning for Armies on Parade, for expanding beyond the 5th Company, and for what to do with all the Aeldari my wife has.

 

Little Green Men: Slow Holiday Blues

Ancient Uriah joins his Battle-Brothers.  The banner isn’t terribly exciting yet but I’ve got a couple ideas.  My freehand game is weak but I have a lot of transfers to work with so we will find some embellishments to add to it.  I got Lieutenant Smiley and built him with a helmet.  His smiling face might make it onto a librarian later, I decided to paint him by hand after priming him with an airbrush.  All the green you are looking at is Caliban green.  

Getting an even coat on the GW Base Caliban Green was not easy.  He’s going to take a lot of touching up.  I still have a total of 3 Lieutenants to do, an Apothecary and a Company Champion.  Oh and some Tarterus terminators.  That I’m doing cork bases for.  You may have noticed.

I also got a nice gift from a friend including a Dark Angels venerable Dreadnought.  The instructions are… The usual Forgeworld lack of instructions.  It’s not like it’s a difficult model but wow that is sparse.  I also have some Rhino doors to kit out the new Razorback.  I need to get some assault cannons for it, but that’s easy enough.  I also have a box of Hellblasters to assemble.  That’s going to be a bit of a chore as there’s a lot of part for not a lot of poseability.  They do look really good, and I can do a couple things to make them look even better, especially since the new Dark Angels Hellblasters box comes with not one but TWO accessory sprues and a really good Dark Angels transfer sheet that has both the Infantry and Vehicle decals all on one monster sheet.  It could be arranged better but it’s still an amazing added value to the box.

This leaves me with basically a box of Devastators, two Razorbacks, two Rhinos, two Repulsors, a Primaris Apothecary, Chaplain, and Librarian, a box of assault marines and Sanguinary guard to finish the assault squad, and that should get me the models for the whole battle company.  That’s an intimidating list, and I probably want another squad of Primaris Intercessors and their Repulsor as well just because they are so damn good!

Painting wise I’m going to whittle away at the command group a little bit more.  I want to get at least 2 of the LTs this week, ideally all three, and the apothecary to boot.  I’m still focusing on the “Greenwing” company, but I need to work on the bikes.  They are too good in the codex to ignore.  This project is going to last well into the summer just to get the company as it exists in the story on the table fully painted, but it will happen, and when it does, I’m going to have to find an Apocalypse game to play!

Little Green Men: Codex and Battle

The long-awaited day is partially here.  We have the codex, I have mine and Lt. Smiley in hand.  I also have hellblasters.  I’m quite happy.

So the books is… unexceptional.  I’m happy with it, don’t get me wrong.  There’s some really neat bits to it.  The emphasis on plasma is really fun and fluffy and can be super scary.  If you save some CP for the end of the game where you can overcharge without losing so much if someone switches it from “burrito” to “self-immolation” you can put out a TON of S8, D3(!) shots with -4 AP

The characters are good, Azrael took a glancing blow from the nerf bat but is still in auto-include territory for competition.  Getting Stormravens is SUPER nice.  Razorbacks got nerfed pretty hard, understandably so.  Stratagems are very good, Contemptor is great, Psychic powers are very fluffy, but it almost feels like you want Zeke AND another psyker to make sure you have the coverage you need.

So we played a battle today.  2x Dark angels at 60 PP.  I had an Astartes LT with Combi-Melta, Power Sword, and the shroud relic, Zeke, a Techmarine, 2x 5 tacticals, 2x 5 intercessors, a rhino, a lazorback, a repulsor, and a partridge in a pear tree.  Warlord was the LT with the recycle CP Warlord Trait.

Planetstrike was the game mode, so our opponents had 50 points of nids and 50 points of Death Guard.  The Nids player picked a gunline with exocrines, a zoanthrope, and a couple hive guard units.  No gaunts, stealers, nothing small.  Death guard brought a medium unit of poxwalkers, two units of something that could take a shit ton of special weapons, two predator annihilators and a pair of sorcerers.

We actually picked a narrow table edge, and our opponents compressed the board by deploying way far away.  I think they should have tried to jam more.  Firestorm barrage went off, forcing both opponents to burn 2 CP to push them away from concentrations of troops.  Even this didn’t save them as 1 hive guard was killed and another brought down to 1 wound.  Everything except my repulsor filled with inceptors showed up on turn one, the Flyer showed up deep behind the nid gunline, spitting out a nasty deathwing blob that proceeded to begin to wreak havoc behind the nid gunline.  My rhino / razorback raced up the side, advancing each of the first two turns to get into attack range of the nearest objective.

We misplayed the buildings, giving the defenders a lot of free bunkers, but I’m sure we messed up some things on the attack as well.  Anyway their turn one they turned on the terminators with a vengeance but… terminators are tough and only two died to the concentrated fire of the entire enemy team.  Our turn two my repulsor showed up and spit out two 5 man intercessor squads which immediately split up, half going to take the objective held by the weakened Hive Guard, half spreading out to guard the flanks of the character blob.

While the Repulsor’s firing was thoroughly disgusting, resulting in only a couple wounds on the predator, the one intercesor squad managed to secure the objective on the hill, killing the final hive guard in melee.  Meanwhile the Storm Raven proceeded to lay waste with its heavy guns, and Belial, Asmodai, and the rest of the deathwing proceeded to butcher the nids heavy shooters.

The character blob weathered some more fire, aided by both predators burning down my repulsor in one turn, showing the inexperienced intercessors how tank crews should do it.  Some fire from the death guard debouching from the bunker below the hill forced my intercessors to basically exchange fire until they got picked off one by one, while the other squad died shielding the flanks of the character blob from the other bunker.  The pox walkers and sorcerers tried to stop my infantry from the midfield objectives, resulting in Zeke being tarpitted after his covering squad died, the LT scoring 6 wounds on the sorcerer and watching 5 of the wounds get saved by Disgustingly resilient…

He ended up on one wound after the melee, killed the LT, then got gunned down by the Rhino, which proceeded to pile into the pox walkers.  The Lazorback avenged the Repulsor on one dread, while the Storm Raven killed the other.  Belial butchered the remaining enemy sorcerer, while the rest of the character blob secured two of the objectives.  The remaining plague marines finally killed the intercessors on the hill objective but the Razorback claimed the center objective, Belial another, and two more by Asmodai and the other terminator squad.  We killed both enemy warlords, they killed mine, leaving us with a 14-4 win as Zeke and the Techmarine finished off the last of the poxwalkers, leaving the surviving plague marines hiding in their bunker, surrounded by loyalists bent on purging the field.

Man of the match goes to the intercessors on the hill who soaked up a simply incredible volume of fire before finally going down the second to last turn.  Ezekiel was very entertaining battling poxwalkers, denying 0 powers, and only getting off a couple himself, although he did manage to kill 7 poxwalkers in one turn.  The Repulsor was the wimp of the match, terrible shooting results and then volleyed off the table.  The character blob was amazing, shredding nearly all the tyranids, while my partners apothecary managed to heal 0 wounds and 0 fallen brothers over the course of the battle.  Thanks medic!

We’re all still learning with 8th.  We all made rules mistakes.  Fortunately we are in a really great and supportive community.  We made as many mistakes in our opponents favor as our own, and every game we make fewer mistakes.  Other than forgetting the psychic phase.  Which everyone did at least once.

I’m looking forward to more games, and enjoying the ones I’ve played, I’m excited to see how things go for my Dark Angels, and still hoping we get the Lion back sometime this year.  Given some rumors I’ve seen it looks like we might get Khan, which would be a SUPER neat model, and a very interesting choice, Lorgar, who I would LOVE to see, a demon equivalent of Bobby G, and then the Lion towards the end of the year.  That would make for a great year for 40k.

Anyway, another victory for the First Legion!  Not sure when I’ll get to play again during the holidays but tuesday there should be a lot of painting, writing, and taking pictures to update my progress on the hobby aspect!

Little Green Men Week 3: Cleanup and Setup

So first let’s looks at the actual progress I’ve made so far this week

I haven’t been idle.  Bases look decent.  Wings are much more stable.  Models have pretty nice natural highlights.  Could touch up the eyes and the vents need… something.  That’s why you don’t get to see them.  This week, well… Sort of punting.  I have some models in the simple green because they primed fuzzy, pre-airbrush days.  Tomorrow I’ll clean them and probably work on a tank just so I have something NEW to show progress on this week.

Next week I’m going to start on the command group.  I was thinking bikes originally but I have to assemble 3 Black Talons and fook me they are a tougher build than they should be.  They also aren’t a part of the core Battle Company, being part of the 2nd “Ravenwing” company.  which knocks them a bit down on my priority list.  I’d also like to have some models that really increase the variety of my army in games, and painting a command group will do a lot for that.  The models I’m stripping are a conventional ancient, an apothecary, and… a random guy with a flamer.  But still that means that for my command group I have an Interrogator-Chaplain, an Interrogator-Chaplain on a bike.  A chaplain with a jet pack (I LIKE CHAPLAINS OK?), an ancient, a company champion, and an apothecary.  Between this week and next week I plan to get them done, then the 2 Lieutenants from the Dark Imperium box and the new Dark Angels Lieutenant should give me all the command elements I need.

I will also do some touch up on the 2 6-man razorback squads if I get the chance over the weekend.  They mostly need highlights and one is getting a model swapped out for a sergeant with a combi weapon.

So right now I have a Primaris Captain, 22 old fashioned marines 6-6-10 as far as squads, 10 Primaris Intercessors, a Rhino, a Razorback, with a Predator, 7 Terminators, and Ezekial painted.  I have 2 more Razorbacks and a Land Raider that I’m working on bit by bit.  I’ll do a group shot of everything painted closer to the end of the year.  Certainly after the command groups are done.

Little Green Men Week 2: Tabletop Ready at least

A little bit past the 3 color standard.  There’s a lot of touch up to do but it shouldn’t take too long.  Getting the wings to stay on should be an ongoing challenge.

This guy came out well.  His sword arm wouldn’t come off so painting his chest wasn’t the easiest.  Also one of his shoulder pads was primed black and every other model in the squad primed white so he will probably get a lot of touch up to balance that out.  

I love this guy’s post.  And I hope I can get that grate off the base so I can base him properly…

You’ve met the sarge

Old breastplate, Good pose, and will be easy to base.  The only down side to this guy is he faces “down” a bit more than I’d like.

I need to turn his head.  Iconography came out real well.

I’m torn about highlighting these guys the way I did the others.  I know I need to do a little but their base color is much brighter than the rest of the troops and I don’t want to make them insanely bright.  Their details are well picked out already in normal lighting and unlike the Mk III armored troops who look really boring, these guys are very dynamic and interesting without the TRON highlights.

OH and you don’t get views of the back because I need to add fire effects.  Next week I might do a character, I might finish the land raider.  It’s a BUSY week.  The week following I’m planning on doing Inceptors.

Little Green Men Week 2: Sergeant Almost Done

Brother Sergeant Maacah is nearly done.

There’s a little touch up work to be done, especially on the boots and the power axe.  Some more on the wings, and I may try some glowing effects on the jump pack.  MAY.  But I’m very happy with the wings.  A squad of these guys is going to look amazing on the table.

 

The wings ended up being SUPER easy.  Vallejo Model Air Tyre black.  Administratum Grey drybrush (fairly heavy) and a bit of liquid skill.  They look REALLY good.  The feathers on the headdress are White Scar with liquid skill only.  Not a bad effect there but the wings really pop to me.

Little Green Men Week 2: Winged Assault

So I’m starting with the more challenging assault squad.  5 marines with Dark Angels upgrades.

Oh and wings.  This was a lot of conversion work to get the wings, backplate and jump pack from the Sanguinary Guard to work with them.  Also had some harsh limits on poses to get the wings to fit.  Tomorrow morning I’ll break out the rest of the base coat colors to get them looking more “finished” and hopefully by the end of the week we will have all 5 of them painted, and ready to… sit on the sideline because GW hates assault squads for some reason.

Little Green Men Week 1: Done

So the 5th Company, under Sergeant Obed with his Rhino is done.  Actually there’s a bit of edge work around the bases but that’s literally a matter of minutes so I will probably knock out dozens at the same time.

This puts me on track for all of 1 week!  Also the weather should be nice enough this week to varnish! Next week I’ll be going after the assault squad.  I’m not sure if I’ll be doing 5 or 10 this week.  5 of them are ordinary assault marines, 5 of them have wings stolen from Sanguinary Guard.

More next week!