World Eaters Side Project: The HQ and Rampagers Part One

Well well well, the elves in my little resin factory have been busy today (read, slave labor camp).

I have begun the process of combining the Horus Heresy World Eaters with their 40K cousins in a Frankenstein attempt to create the 'first Bezerkers of Khorne'. The only real changes are a couple of bits here and there, mostly the heads, and the left shoulder pad, as it has their Legion symbol superimposed over the chaos star.

As you can see, I have placed the Bezerker parts on the left and the Rampager parts on the right. They are pretty similar, in fact, the Rampagers have more spiked bits!

Here is the Lord/Praetor/Champion, until I get around to Kharn. He uses the 40K backpack as the Anvillus pattern was in use in the Heresy and also, skull trophies, I mean, c'mon!

The axe is an Excruciator Chain Axe from the Rampager kit, with the small etch brass Khorne symbol added. He has a simple head and shoulder pad swap, and I have added a small bit of wire to the base to help blend it to the rest of the army.

The Legion Signaller was just a bit of fun. In game they are a one-hit-wonder really, but I decided I would like to try making one in MK III armour, so I did. He has the 40k shoulders and head (as does each model here) and also a 40k Khorne chest. The arms are both from the actual signaller, but I have cut a MK III arm in order to create the full effect. The pack is a regular MK II and III sig pack.

The Rampager Champion is armed with a Power Fist and Plasma Pistol. Khorne glyphs also adorn his fist.

 Now, the Rampagers themselves:

These models do look like they are 40k, and that's surprising since most of their parts are 30k. The big thing is the bunny ears, they really grant the 40k feeling. These ears will be soon released for Horus Heresy as part of the World Eaters upgrade bundle, although they are shorter and more curved, so I didn't think it was too much of a deviation.

So, what do you think of what I have done? Looks great? Heresy of the highest order? Let me know below,

~Macca

Bases for the World Eaters side project.

Another little quickie here,

I am in the process of creating a small unit of Khorne Bezerkers, using their 40k components combined with the 30k parts in order to create more realistic looking followers of the Blood God. I have a personal hatred of the entire chaos space marine range in 40k, because the sculpts are all about marines wearing MK VI and VII power armour, with gold trim, it's just lazy and doesn't suit the fluff. The occasional bit of scavenged power armour is fine, but I think they should incorporate more earlier MK's of armour into the range and that is my goal, MK II, III and IV combined with a few other accessories.

Anyway, that aside, I have created these bases for them, with the Alien Infestation bases from Secret Weapon Miniatures combined with their range of etch-brass barbed wire and spent shell casings. The how-to on this has been explained earlier by Mick here.

I have chosen similar colours to the other bases we have worked on, as I love the idea of World Eaters running down the street Stalingrad style. The infestation on the bases has been picked out in bright green shades to really contrast with the grey base and the red of the yet-to-be-done bezerkers.

If you like what I have to say, let me know, if not, send all your hate mail to Wadey,

Lots of love, Macca

The Khorne-dicator.

 G'day, Macca here with a quick one. I put up a couple of WIP shots yesterday, and I finished it this morning. This is my 2006 model Tzeentch Vindicator. It was 'le terrible' as the French say, so I decided to give it a face lift, using some Khorne brass etch from Forge World and a bit of TLC.

The pattern on the sides was just something I had never attempted before, so it was good to see it come together. I still need a little more practice, and I didn't nail the highlights too well, but hey, it's a learning curve.

Macca on Tactica: dealing with big baddies Part: 1

So, my previous posts have delved into list building and balance in the 30k/40k environment. It's time to look into actual tactics today.

Dealing with big baddies: Mechanicum Castellax.

Here's one of Keepy's Castellax (aka, that jerk Billy)

So, what are we dealing with first off? Lower weapon skill then a legionnaire, strength of 6, toughness of 7, 4 wounds, a monstrous creature, atomantic shielding and a 3 up armour save on a sesame seed bun. These guys are also packing heat, with a mauler pattern bolt cannon, and a pair of boltguns, which you can upgrade to flamers for cheap. The mauler also can be exchanged for a Darkfire cannon or a multi-melta. The kicker: each of these bad boys is under 100 points.

What does this mean for the average Legion player? Well, you can get 20 tactical marines for the cost of 3 of these guys fully upgraded. They are pumping out shots that hit on 3's and kill on 2's. So lets look at the math on shooting in a flat one-on-one scenario:

Castellax output: 3 castellax fire @24" 9 shots, you get 6 hits, and of that 5 kills on power armour, with the associated pinning check.

Tactical Squad output: 20 marines fire @24" 20 shots, you get about 15 hits, and of that you'll cause 2 wounds, which the castellax get a save against. @12" you can increase to 4 wounds, and with fury of the Legion, you can get 8.

Those are not great odds. So how do you kill that which has no life?

Well, there is a quick way to cause casualties, and I call him gamblor! Wait, no, I call him a Librarian with the Telepathy Primaris, Psychic Shriek. He gets to roll 3D6 and subtracts the target's leadership. The difference between the two is the number of wounds caused, WITH NO ARMOUR SAVES ALLOWED!. If you cast this power once, you can kill one, and half kill another, with averages. The down-side is you have to be within 12" to get it off. So what do you plan for at this range? I personally would be running the Librarian with a force sword and a 9 man tactical veteran squad. I'd be hoping to get dominate, invisibility or hallucination. If you can cast any combination of these, you can really hurt them. The Castellax only have 2 attacks each, but they have 2 flamers each which can be nasty on the charge. By using Hallucination, you can cause them to strike one another, or stand there drooling (if a Castellax can even drool?), and Dominate gives you an almost 50% of having them fail in their attempts to overwatch. I would then charge with the marines and the Librarian. In round one, you want to use your superior attacks to cause the casualties, and if you have the warp charge, you would force weapon the castellax to death. I cannot stress enough, you CANNOT let them charge you.

So, how do you get into a position to hit these guys?

Well, cover is the big one here. The Castellax are shortasses, as far as Monstrous Creatures go. Even a Rhino can hide you from their line of sight, if you use it wisely. A Land Raider is excellent against these guys, because although they can hurt it in close combat, if it's upgraded with ceramite, not even their multi-meltas can penetrate it. It is the perfect platform for your Librarian and his escorting squad. A further point to note with cover, is that the Castellax lack assault grenades, so if they attempt to attack through cover, power fists and the such can strike against them in a timely fashion.

What if I don't have a spare Librarian?

That's not the worst thing in the world. Units such as Legion destroyers with Rad Missiles can take down Castellax fast, provided they don't take too many casualties. Their small blast attacks wound on 2's, and for every wound caused on a multiple wound model causes it to lose a point of toughness. 2 wounds and they are toughness 5, easy to pick off with bolters at that point.

Another option to consider is a Mortis Contemptor with twin Kheres Assault Cannons. The shooting from a single dread should kill one Castellax per turn, thanks to the buckets of bullets they can dump down range.

These are my choices, I nominated the Librarian as the primary choice, as it is a very common HQ due to the massive buffs/debuffs he can grant. I have used this model a fair bit myself, and I have a lot of faith in this combination. This isn't to say that it's the only way, nor the easiest to deal with these bad boys, but this is how you have to think when you go into a tournament and your list isn't optimised to kill mechanicum. You have to think on your toes, and you have to think fast.

My final piece of advice is this: don't let their models determine how you play the game, let the mission determine it.

Mechanicum 1000pts - Completed!

Gday all,

Keepy here again this time with the final instalment of the Mechanicum 1000pt army saga. The army was actually completed last weekend and competed in the The Emperor's Legions tournament, and it managed to win first place overall and will the title of "Lord of War"!

Really happy with how these guys turned out. I used some Iron Hands transfers to get the Mechanicum symbols on the red shoulder pad and on the right, I have used an alternate Sons of Horus icon to indicate their allegiance to the Warmaster.

So to photos!

The first Castellax Battle-Automata off the production line

A maniple of Castellax Battle-Automata with Mauler pattern Bolt Cannons and Flamers

Castellax Battle-Automata maniple with Darkfire cannons, Enhanced Targetting Arrays and gauntlet Boltguns

The 1000pts Mechanicum force in its entirety, finished at last!

Castellax Battle-Automata with Darkfire Cannon and Boltguns

The Mechanicum army making a show at the "Emperor's Legions" tournament in Brisbane

Close up of the Thallax Cohort

Action shot of the Castellax Battle-Automata with Mauler Bolt Cannons about to go into battle

I had a couple of pro photos done by Troy Schmidt at the Emperor's Legions tournament as well:

Castellax with Flamers in a photoshopped 3D effect

Magos Dominos, probably the only good photo I have of him!

Close up of a Thallax

The whole gang

 And now my pathetic attempts at over-exposed photography!

Well I hope you enjoyed this pic heavy post with the completed Mechanicum army, I have some more posts with battle reports from the recent Emperor's Legions Tournament coming soon.

As always your comments and criticisms are welcome.

Cheers

Keepy

Links:

1. Mechanicum 1000pts List
2. Mechanicum WIP 1
3. Mechanicum WIP 2
4. Mechanicum WIP 3 - Basing
5. Mechanicum WIP 4
6. Mechanicum 1000pts Completed!