NEW Astral Knights Chapter (Primaris Chapter)

Hi guys, so Dark Imperium has landed and having already a got a huge collection of Blood Angels and Imperial fists I decided I wanted a new chapter.

I scoured the internet looking for an ideal chapter. I knew I wanted either a quartered or halved armour colours to test myself and I come across the Astral Knights chapter. The silver and blue looked cool and they were extinct so would be ideal for an entire Primaris army to be based upon it. I read more and discovered that the Sable Swords chapter had taken stuartship over the chapter monestary. Interesting.... maybe a merger of chapters happens.

So I wrote some fluff below and the Astral Knights are back! At the bottom is the new colour scheme and a test model.

Astral Knights Chapter

A New Beginning:

“Because, my Lord, you are under strength and the Lord of Terra demands your compliance” snapped Caden.

Caden was a short man and the Astartes towered over Guillimans envoy. He didn’t fear the Astartes. He having had this conversation nearly a hundred times before knew how it would progress. Some of the Chapters took to the reinforcements with open arms, some did not, but all accepted that orders are orders and the survival of mankind is more important than selfish pride. Well they did eventually.

Sometimes two warriors fought to satisfy honour. One a Mars born Primaris. The other a Chapter champion. It was bloody but it was the ancient way of settling the slight. This was not one of those occasions thankfully.

The Sable Swords chapter had just returned to regroup after decades of defending the realm against first the Necrons and then the upstart Tau. Their numbers now a mear hundred warriors and the death of their chapter master on the last campaign has put the chapter and its new commander, Captain Volder of the 3rd, in an impossible position.
“What will become of my chapter Caden?” the deep growl of Volder softening to almost resignation.

“You will fight with the Astral Knights. You and your brothers will fight for me, for the Imperium, for the Emperor and for Guilliman in his Indominus Crusade” Answered the Primaris Chapter Master Abarron Nadim.

Nadim towered head and shoulders above Volder. His plate was the latest mark of gravis power armour. The stark black of Volder’s own armour was mirrored in half of Nadim’s. The other half the recognisable colours of the Astral Knights chapter long since dead but now shone bright. His sword hung at his waist he rested his hand on the hilt. His authority was not to be questioned.

The final battle of the Astral Knights was against the Necron forces on the World Engine. The Astral Knights sacrificed their chapter to destroy the World Engine many centuries ago. The story was still told within the Sable Swords chapter. The chapter was raised and took stewardship from the decimated Astral Knights. Now they have returned to reclaim the honour of garrisoning Obsidia.

“Submit to this Captain and lead the remaining Sable Swords in service alongside the warriors of the renewed Astral Knights” Nadim pointed to the archway of the entrance to the fortress monastery. A Huge figure of a dreadnought lurked in the shadows.
“Brother Thade. Come forth and be reunited with the legacy of your chapter”
The hulking form stomped forward. The Redemptor pattern dreadnought was huge and impressive. It was a new machine for a new age.  Bigger, stronger and faster... fitting for the Primaris marines thought Volder. The same stark black and silver colours covered the massive machine.

Thade was the last remaining Astral Knight discovered by a Blood Angel contingent in a crippled state. The dreadnought was returned to Mars and Cawl remade Thade into what he is today.

Thade was a formidable warrior and he is a legend within the Sable Swords. For when they came to replace the original Astral Knights the dreadnought and what few marines that was left of his chapter embarked on a crusade across the stars. Honour demands respect for the warrior and what he represents.

“Captain” a mechanical almost human voice echoed though the chamber from speakers on the Dreadnought. The mighty war machine nodded as best it could and Volder returned the greeting.

“We know of you Thade. It is a great honour to see you still in service of the Emperor” Volder returned his attention to Nadim.

“The Astral Knights have returned to the stars. A thousand strong ready to take the fight to xeno, heretic and daemon. Let’s forge a new history together my brothers and show the enemies of mankind the Imperium is far from dead and we will rule the stars again!” The remnants of Sable Swords gathered as Nadim spoke.

Nadim drew his sword and pointed the tip to the floor. "Captain. Will you pledge yourself to this? Will you take the Oath of moment in the presence of all us present?”

Captain Volder looked to his men. They mostly nodded approval. Some looked away. He turned and knelt before Nadim placing his hand on the blade in front of him and made his pledge to serve the new masters of Obsidia.

The Astral Knights had returned.

New Primarus Tank!

A quick one guys. Not one for rumours and leaks but below are the upcoming Primarus grav tanks. Looks awesome!

Capt Tycho

Bolt Action: A brave new world for a 40k player PART 4

After a few hours every weekend and a few weekday evenings I have finished my American Army for Bolt Action.

I have the bases to paint but thats a minor thing that will take me a few minutes one night.

Enjoy.

Capt Tycho

Bolt Action: Review from a 40k gamer

Hi guys,

I had my first game of Bolt Action last night pitting my American force against a German force. We went infantry heavy at 500 points a side and we got in two games in 4 hours and we both loved it.

The things we like:

1) Order Dice mechanic - is amazingly simple and keeps the pace flowing much more realistically than the you go I go mechanic of the likes of 40k. If you are unfamiliar with Bolt Action, for each unit in your army you get a coloured dice, yours and your opponents dice go into a bag and you draw a dice randomly. The owner of the drawn dice then gets to activate a unit. This continues until all the dice are used then you put all the dice back in the bag and the next turn starts.

Each unit can be told to advance (move and shoot), run (double more and assault or just double move), Fire (stand still and fire), Ambush (Overwatch), Down (Go to ground) and Rally (pass test and remove D3+1 pin markers).

It sounds too simple doesnt it? However,  in game it is quite tense while you decide which unit to activate. Do you gamble you will get the next dice of do you really not want to activate yet to see what your opponent does? Either way its one of the best things in the game!

2) Simple weapon stats - All weapons fall into specific groups. That have the same range, dice and penetration. No paragraphs of rules or AP or blast markers which means no looking up every time you fire and you know exactly what each of you enemies weapons can do meaning you dont get caught out by not knowing your opponents army book inside out.

Basically you have:
  small arms (can not hurt armour) - smgs (sub machine gun), pistols, rifles, assault rifles, light machine guns, medium machine guns.

  Anti Tank (can hurt armour) - light AT (anti tank) gun, medium AT gun, heavy AT gun, bazooka, AT rifles and so on.

In the rule book every weapon from every army is listed in one small table. They are able to do this because as an example a Thompson machine gun is an SMG as is its German equivlant the Maschinenpistole 35. Both very different weapons in real life but both SMGs so they get the same stats. Simples.

3) Pinning - When your unit is hit by an enemy unit it receives a pin maker. This reduces the squads leadership by 1 for every pin marker. When a unit needs to take a test. For example if a unit has at least one pin on it then it must test before it is issued an order and is this is failed the unit instead goes down. Meaning they do nothing.

For example a squad of regular troops have a leadership of 9. They have 3 pin markers and we want to tell them to Fire. To issue the order we must roll under their leadership on 2D6 as we are pinned. So we have leadership 9 - 3 pins = 6 is required. Other modifiers  an effect this like being within 6" of a command section (+1 or +2 etc to leadership) but pinning a unit is massive in this game and it plays well.

It is what wins and loses you the game.

4) Three leadership values for everything - Again a simple case of selecting if you want to take inexperianced (leadership 8), Regular (leadership 9) and veteran (leadership 10). All units have to be selected as one of the above with incremental points. The leadership values also dictate how easy or hard it is to wound said unit. So you can have few veteran units (and dice) or you can go nuts with loads of cheap inexperianced units (and dice). Most people will find a happy medium.

5) No damn tables to consult - to work out the to hit and to wound rolls. To hit a unit is very much like 2nd edition 40k. Its a basic roll of 3+ with modifiers such as over half range +1, soft cover +1 and hard cover +2. We found most shots were needing 5's to hit as we both hugged cover. Simple and clear.

The to wound roll is even easier! This goes off the infantry leadership. Inexperianced are hit on 3+, regular on 4+ and veterans on 5+.

For vehicles you roll to penetrate instead and this is easy as each vehicle is given an armour value. As an example: jeeps and trucks are +7, small tanks, +8, medium tanks +9 and heavy tanks +10. All weapons are given penetration values which is added to a D6 to work out penetration.

So rifles have no penetration values so to damage a Sherman medium tank we get a d6 for each hit and this value is compaired to the tanks armour value which is 9. You cant pen or glace it.

Same example only a bazooka team is firing which has a penetration value of 5 means we get D6+5 to penetrate. So a Sherman is glanced on a 4+ and 5+ is a pen.

6) Close Combat - is risky, bloody and decisive. There are combat phases. Much like 40k. However, there is no initiative so the attacker goes first. There is no rolling to hit so you simply roll one dice for each member of the squad unless there are any assualt weapons which add an extra dice. You then roll to wound like you would shooting. So 3,4 or 5 depending on the leadership of the troops being attacked. Models are removed and the defender attacks. Count the number of casulties each side and if its a draw (i.e equal number of casulties) then do another round until there is a winner. The loser is destroyed. Awesome.

7) No pre-measuring. Ever. So no procrastinating over endless placement. God that irritates this crap out of me in 40k. Just move your damn dudes! Aaaaaaaagh! Ahem. Sorry.

Things we didnt like:

1) Rulebook - As this is the first edition and we have to be realistic BUT with such heavy weights of the gaming world behind it I would of thought we would have something a bit easier to find specific rules. Its well written but finding rules specific to what you encounter is difficult. The summary at the back helps but endlessly searching for something really held up our games.

The problem with the rulebook is an easy fix. Having more than one place for a rule to be means endless flicking from section to section. Hopefully, this will be address in the 2nd edition.

2) Scenarios - Id like more ways to play the game. More ways to setup and more missions would be cool. I have to give 40k the edge here. Multiple deployment and missions make for more varied games and Id think the missions in the book would only keep us interested so many times.

3) The fact its not 40k.

Overall thoughts:

Bolt action is a triumph and even us hardcore 40k players found its approach simple yet incredably fun.

There is alot to be said for a simple game that demands such a high level of stratagy. I know some people wont understand it and claim it is too random. My counter to this is chaos. A battle is chaos. Its random. Its bloody and thanks to Bolt action its damn good fun to dip into.

Happy gaming,
Capt Tycho

Paint Space Marine Terminator Eyes Tutorial

Hi there. I have recently blown the dust off my paints and jumped straight into painting a new unit of Blood Angel Terminators. I decided to do glowing eyes on them and experimented with a few different techniques and below is the fastest way I found.

Glazes take too long but do look cool but I wanted a faster, easier and more striking technique. The method below takes no time at all... enjoy!

(Photos below)

Step 1: Choose colours

You must go for a contrasting colour. I.e do not do red eyes on a red marine! A colour wheel can help pick a suitable colour if you are stuck but as a quick guide I would do red eyes for dark models. So your blacks, purples, greens and blues basically and green eyes for your reds and yellows. Blue eyes go very well with white or greens. There are cross overs as well. For example yellow marines look good with red or green eyes. Its all down to the rule of cool.

For this example I used green for my Blood Angels. You will need two colours of your chosen colour. A very dark base colour and a mid tone.

I went with GW Caliban Green and GW Moot Green. You will also need a white.

Step 2: Base

For this step you need to first block in the entire lense in your base colour. Once this is done (be brave) you need to literially paint a ring around the lense. This is the base of the glow. Be sure to hit the raised areas such as the cheeks as these would naturally catch the glow.

Step 3: 50% Base + 50% mid tone

Now you want to mix a 50/50 mix of your base colour and mid tone. You want a nice heavy milk like consistancy. Slightly thicker than a "normal" for painting. You need it this way for control.

Again block the entire lense with this mix then again ring the outside of the lense. Be sure to leave a ring of the dark colour at the edge. This gives you the start of your gradient.

Step 4: Mid tone

Using pure mid tone colour. Again, block the lense and do the smallest ring possible around the lense leaving a thin band of the previous colours on the outer edges.

Step 5: 50% Mid tone + 50% white

Now mix together a 50/50 mix of your mid tone colour and white. This now needs to be applied in a thin band inside the lense leaving a ring inside the lense showing the previous step colour. For the Terminators I did a thin line inside the lense.

You could stop here and you would have a cool looking glow effect but to really kick ir up a gear...

Step 6: Pure White

Using a very fine brush you need to place a spot 2/3rds of the way up the lense of white. This really makes the effect pop if done well. Hold your nerve and give it a go.

Happy Hobby!
Capt Tycho

Horus Heresy: Imperial Fists converted templar brethren

With no models from Forgeworld just yet the only way to field the new Imperial Fist Templar Brethren was to covert them.

After consultation with the legion cogitator (my friend J) the seed was planted and I had to have them. There is too much awesomeness to ignore with furious charge, power swords and melta bombs to boot. They would play well against the Emperors foes come our next campaign games.

The first port of call was GW. The first idea was Templar upgrade bits. These are now direct only. Doh! With less than a week to get these little beasties done we then looked at the Dark Angel range and even the Grey knight stuff. Nothing seemed right. Then I remembered the Sanguinary Guard box... power weapons, ornate artificer armour. It was far from perfect but would look awesome.

The box had almost everything I needed. The back packs, left pauldrons, a few of the power swords and helmets came from my bits box (and Andys - cheers dude). Once all the Blood Angels stuff was clipped, filed and sliced off I had some awesome looking minis! For "super power fist", its proper name excapes me, i used a set of terminator lightning claws and cut the claws off. Simple but it looks BIG!

After assembly I had to decide on a colour scheme. The veteran colour scheme from the Horus Heresy bible (book 3) was interesting and the mostly black armour links to the future templars well and makes them stand out from the standard Fist yellow.

There are a few details to pick out but they are mostly done...

Enjoy!

Imperial Fists Painting Challenge UPDATED

Just started a painting challenge over at Independant Characters to motivate me to get my fists upto legion levels. With the new forge world book on the horizon I need to get my fists worth for Dorn!

Anyhow, you can check out my progress over at http://www.theindependentcharacters.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=87&t=6759&p=75561#p75561

Here is the latest results as of April...

Imperial Fists Centurians

I have two major problems with Centurians. The first is the fluff or lack of. Did we need them?? How do they fit in? No and they don't. Secondly, the model looks horrible. Im sorry but they look too heavily armoured and the field of view to the operator is none existent.

However, they are excellent in game and I was confident I could model them better. So I started by assembling them without the external support legs and extra armour. Giving a sleaker look. Oh and the operator can see!!! The poses I went for are quit dynamic and added with loin cloths, Imperial fist icons from the drop pod kit and a simple head swap have made something quite cool.

Imperial Fists 3rd Company Storm Talon

Overall this was a nice kit to build. It plays well in the game as well. Next up Centurians.

The first post! Warhammer World!

Hello there. This is my first blog! I plan to post everything wargaming and modelling related that our gaming group The Warlords First Company do. We venture into 40k mostly and we are just getting into Fantasy.

First up, the Horus Heresy campaign we ran at Warhammer World Nottingham...

We parked up nice and early...

Then we prepared from two days of gaming!


Yes, that is a life sized Rhino and no, it's not mine!

It's in the car park at Warhammer World just for fun.





We played a 5 player game on the final day. Blood Angel and Salamanders v World Eaters Emperors Children and Sons of Horus...