Jetbikes Junked

Well, I'm sorry to say, but I'm going to be scrapping the idea of a jetbike based army.

I decided a while back that I'm going to cast out the Chapterhouse jetbikes, because basically they're butt ugly. The big blocky quad exhaust is revolting and doesn't match the contours of the bike.

Plus, I wouldn't be able to use them for the upcoming Throne of Skulls event in October this year, which I'm thrilled about. I've spent a large sum on the bikes, but I'm confident I may be able to sell them at some time down the road (maybe when Forge World finally get around to making the Horus Heresy books).

Instead, I'm going to shamelessly plagiarise the idea behind this Legion of the Damned biker (image not my own, please contact me if you are the rights owner and I'll add the attribution).

I already have the skeleton horses, now I just need to buy the biker accessories. Now for a spot of ebay...

Black Templars - Shootiest Marines?

When people think of Black Templars they think of angry, religious madmen running across the field. However, contrary to the fluff, the one thing they do very well indeed is shoot from a long distance.

Now, this is generally counter-intuitive. 'BT have assault squads as troops, right?' That may be so, but the list is so much more than just 'run at the nearest enemy'.

For instance, crusader squads are 5-10 men, and still have the options for special and heavy weapons. This means you can take a five-man squad with a lascannon and a plasma gun, for just 101 points.

Now, if you spam this type of unit, you can have up to 11 of them in a 1250 point game (once you take into account the emperor's champion with vows). This means 11 lascannons, 11 plasma guns and 33 bolters. Not bad for a close-combat themed army.

What's even more filthy is that lascannons will probably get a super boost in 6th edition. This came up today from Faeit 212.

http://natfka.blogspot.com/2012/06/presence-of-faeit-vehicle-damage-in-6th.html

Vehicle Damage Table
1-2 Shaken
3 Stunned
4-5 Weapon Destroyed and Immobilized (I wonder if its both or 4 is Wpn Dstrd and 5 is Imm?)
6 Explodes

AP1 +2 to the damage table
AP2 +1 to the damage table

In addition, your opponent will not know where to devote his firepower. Eleven small squads will force him to split his shooting, and present more targets then he can properly manage.


Another unit which kicks arse is the humble terminator tactical squad. In a five-man unit, you can take two cyclone launchers, with the tank hunters veteran skill. I'm not sure how that will work out in the 6th edition, but in 5th it for sure kicks arse. What's great too is that you can take them as command squads for a terminator armoured character, effectively freeing up more elite slots for assault terminators or dreadnoughts. 

Landspeeder Typhoons are cheaper in the Templar book as well, being just 70 points versus 90 points in the vanilla codex.

Venerable dreds are great too with the tank hunter veteran skill, making the missile launcher/lascannon variant a great option in shooty lists.

In addition, Black Templar vindicators still come with the power of the machine spirit option, a significant advantage over vanilla marine vindis.

If you're thinking that you might be lacking a bit of combat punch, try assault terminators with lightning claws. Re-rolls to hit (under the accept any challenge vow), re-rolls to wound and no armour saves. A unit of five or six is pretty much overkill for any enemy unit in the game.

All in all, I reckon Black Templars are some of the best marines in the game, as long as you know some of the weird loopholes in the codex and how to use them to your advantage.

Let's just hope they aren't entirely nerfed by a White Dwarf codex. However, a 'rage' USR for crusaders (giving +2 attacks) might on the other hand provide sufficient recompense.

A week of painting

 So I took a week off work, and while I didn't get as much as I'd hoped done I'm quite pleased with what I did produce.

Here we have a terminator squad. The base of the squad are the AOBR terminators I purchased from ebay. I followed this excellent tutorial here:

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?autocom=ineo&showarticle=496

To cut a long story short: it involved a lot of hacking. The right arms, carrying the storm bolters, were from the normal terminator kits, as I wanted to use embossed terminator pads from the upgrade kit (I have the Forge World pads too, but I'm saving them from my extra-special assault terminators).

The shoulder guards are also from the upgrade kit.

The Templar codex is unique in that it allows a five man squad to carry two heavy weapons. This squad are going to sit at the back of the field, hammering krak missiles into tanks and heavy armed targets, which offering a bit of counter-assault punch if the enemy breaks through my lines.

I couldn't find any decent-priced cyclones from ebay, so instead I plumped for the 'mini missile launcher' from Iron Dog studios: http://www.irondogstudios.com/store_kits.html

Sure, it's not the best sculpt in the world, but for $12 for a pair, it's a steal.

The bases are from scibor. I was tempted to put the cyclones on the extremely raised bases, in order to get a better line of sight, but thought it was a bit too beardy. They're on the 'ground level' variation of the base.

In other news, I also finished a rhino and a razorback. Thanks for reading!

Finished landspeeders

So here's my land speeders, finished after a significant amount of blood, sweat and tears. The level of detail on the model is impressive, although slightly frustrating for painters who take themselves too seriously - like me.

I got half way through painting the model and decided that I didn't like the aquilla on the 'hood' of the speeder. So I got out my hobby knife and cut the bastard off.

I've tried to keep the amount of eagle iconography to a minimum in my Templars, primarily because of a line from the excellent book 'Helsreach' by Aaron Dembski-Bowden:

'We don't wear the Emperor's symbol; we are the Emperor's symbol'.

Once again I made great use of decals. I think the white cross with the red border is going to be the marshall's insignia. I've used it on the one rhino I've painted so far and plan to use it on the other two. The only trouble is, the Forge World transfer sheet only comes with enough for two large crosses of this type (the remainder being either totally red, or totally white). I feel another Forge World order coming on.

The other bits I used, were a small black cross on the 'bridge' over the cockpit, and the feudal shield on either side of the typhoon launchers.

I have left blank the script on the tail fin , as I'm going to be purchasing a sakura micron pen at a later date. Now, I just have to resist the urge to write an extremely childish word like 'tits' t...

The 'big momma cannon'

I shit you not, that is the actual name for the item you see before you. The big momma cannon....

Anyhow, I received two of these today, alongside lots of other parts and bits, from Puppets War.

This is going to represent my pre-heresy demolisher. As you can see, it's utterly ridiculous proportions make it seem pretty antiquated versus the new more toned-down demolishers. All of which just make this model utterly awesome. I still have to put it together, but here's a picture from the awesome Goatboy at BOLS:

I will say though that the bulldozer blade does look a little 'burred', which make require a little sanding/scraping/washing, to make it smoother and hence, easier to paint. I'll let you know how I get on when I come to assemble and paint it.

I was considering purchasing a deimos rhino conversion kit from forge world, to accompany this model, but that plus the 15 euros for the cannon, put the price tag too high, sadly.

Lovely, lovely Storm Talon

I have a sneaky feeling that the Stormtalon is going to radically alter my White Scars planned army list. As will some of the new 40k rumours on flamers.

Firstly, regarding the stormtalon, I'm completely taken by the possibility of spamming them.

Upgraded for just 25 points with the sky skyhammer missile launcher, with its already formidable loadout of a twin-linked assault cannon, means that this beast will have four shots at strength six, and three shots at strength seven, per turn. Plus it can fire all weapons and still move at 12 inches per turn. And all that, for a grand total of 155 points.

To be honest, I'm utterly in love with the rules at least, and can think of a thousand ways that it would complement a bike army. I currently have three squadrons of two typhoon landspeeders taking up the three fast attack slots in the codex.

However, I'd definitely like at least two of these, which then raises the question of priorities. If I take two typhoons, I can put out four krak missiles a turn, plus six heavy bolter shots. However, that's for thirty points more (180pts).

Two stormtalons and three typhoons might make sense. Or else, I might use the tempests I am getting in the 'heavy support' section as well as one fast attack slot. That would mean I could take six tempests, two storm talons and two vindicators. That *might* provide me with enough mobile firepower! However, it would rely to a certain extent on the good graces of my opponent.

The only other concern I might have is that the stormtalon is not strictly pre-heresy. It looks considerably more modern than the rest of my army, and if I fielded it, I might need to 'bling' it up a bit in order to fit the theme. I'm hoping Chapter House Studios release a conversion kit for it similar to what they did for the Storm Raven.

The other point which I wanted to mention, is the rumours of purchased terrain, flamers and flammable terrain. Obviously, terrain for a biker army is extremely problematic. I cannot claim objectives on the high ground, and difficult terrain counts as dangerous. If terrain, and in particular bunkers and other siege terrain, becomes more common in 40k, this could cause a problem.

However, the possibility of using flamers to 'drive out' embedded troops into the open where they can be killed, now seems to be a very real one.  Therefore, I'm also considering purchasing a tactical combat squad, armed with flamers, in a razorback with a TL heavy flamer, for specifically this role. They could also be useful later on for capturing objectives.

Anyhow, the 6th edition isn't going to be released until the end of June, so I still have over a month to paint up my core troops.






 

Magneto

Yesterday I received a set of magnetic flying stands from an ebay seller called lianne_c. They are utterly fantastic. I don't know whether it's just because I'm new to the concept of a magnetic flying stand, but these are just great.

I've seen some pretty complicated set ups for magnetic stands, particularly the type which allows you multiple poses. The problem seems to stem from the fact that they're all based on transparent acrylic stalks.

This one is extremely simple, and allows you a variety of dynamic poses.

The only trouble is that the magnet is fairly large, and I'm not sure whether it's possible to drill a hole deep enough to sink it in. So instead, it rests on the outside of the model.




Now this isn't a problem so much with a large model like the land speeder, as you can't see the underside of the model anyhow. However, with my jet bikes, it may yet cause a bit of grief, as it's patently obvious from the side of the model. I've yet to stick one onto my trial model, but I'll keep you, my non-existent readers, updated about how it goes.