About My Blog

Ave Omnissiah!

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My blog is primarily my own personal fluff in the Warhammer 40,000 universe regarding the Draconis system such as the Knight House Yato in Ryusei, their Household Militia, the Draconian Defenders, and the Forge World of Draconis IV with its Adeptus Mechanicus priesthood, Cybernetica cohorts and Skitarii legions, and the Titan Legion, Legio Draconis, known as the Dark Dragons.

Featured Post

Retrospective: Imperial Knights

Today, we're going to a Retrospective on...Imperial Knights! I mean, this is primarily an Imperial Knight blog, so obviously if I'm ...

Thursday, February 26, 2015

One Imperial Knight painted!

As the title says, I've finally painted one Imperial Knight! The Knights of the Draconis House, or rather the Draconis Regiment have arrived!

This is what it looks like:

My Imperial Knight! I really like the Black and Gold scheme. YAY! And the heraldry of the Draconian Knights is a......smilely face!!!! Yeah, the Draconians are known for their sense of humor.

And in addition to my Imperial Knights I am now the proud owner of a Vendetta!

YAY! I finally got my hands on a Vendetta! WOOHOO!
Now my Imperial Knights have anti-air support! The Vendettas are there to shore up their weakness to air units. I'm planning on getting a 2nd Vendetta in future, but for the next couple of months I'll be getting my Stormsword, 2 Veteran troops and 2 Leman Russ Executioner tanks to finish my army. Phew.

As for the Tau......well, I doubt I'll be building their army for a very long time. As I said, I'm a huge fan of the Imperial Guard and the Imperial Knights, and the Tau aren't exactly to my liking. I do like them more than the other Xenos but I'm an Emperor-fearing soldier of the Imperium. For the Emperor!

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Painting again

Sorry for the late update. I had actually painted my stuff on Tuesday, but I've been so busy the past two nights that I didn't have any time to transfer my photos from my phone to my computer and upload them to my blog. School stuff, I hope you understand.

That said, I've finally caught a little break from school today, thanks to Lunar New Year's Eve. Happy Lunar New Year to everyone. I'll be busy visiting relatives for the next 4 or 5 days, so I won't be updating or painting much. I'll only return to Battle Bunker next week. I've ordered my Vendetta, Skyshield Landing Pad and Commander Farsight, and will pick up a Crisis Battlesuit Team along with Farsight when I come to collect them next week. Whoopee. I might as well purchase two Cadian squads while at it before buying an Imperial Knight in April. Once I get my third and last Imperial Knight in April, my army will be complete. Or the Imperial Knight-Tau allied army, anyway. An Adamantine Lance with Farsight Enclaves allies. Looking forward to playing with that.

If all goes as planned, I'll complete my Imperial Guard army by June. Just need to get my Stormsword in May, and a Leman Russ Executioner and a Company Command Squad in June. That's all. If I feel so inclined I might order a Plasma Blastgun from Forge World in June or July so that I can transform my Stormsword into a Stormblade, but that'll depend on whether the tournaments or my opponents allow me to play Forgeworld stuff. We'll see.

Without further ado, here is my painted Hammerhead Gunship!

Hammerhead Gunship. Unfortunately, I snapped the glass base while painting, so I had to put him on his side. Ouch. I hope the glue dries by the time I return, and the guy won't be falling off his base.

Another angle, with the Seeker Missile. Unfortunately, the seeker missile belongs to the Broadside as I'm going to use him as Shas'vre Ob'lotai instead of a normal Broadside. I'll either build 2 missile drones from the Crisis team box, or if they don't have missile drones, I'll convert the current shielded missile drones I have into missile drones. Anyway, that's the reason why I ordered Commander Farsight (O'Shovah) instead of a normal Commander. So that I can fit everything I own into a single Force Organization Chart.

My current army. Right now missing Commander Farsight and a Crisis Team, as well as a 3rd Imperial Knight, otherwise it'll be complete! I can't wait to paint the Knights. It'll be fun.
It turns out I'll be completing and using an Imperial Knight detachment as my primary detachment after all. Hooray! Unless I'm allying my Imperial Knights with the Imperial Guard, but even then I need a 2nd Knight Errant for that, so I might as well just buy it. Besides, I do have several iterations of an Adamantine Lance with a Stormsword army (admittedly, my Veterans will have no upgrades, and I've to remove a pair of sponsons to accomodate my Vendetta, or I'll just remove the Vendetta altogether for upgraded Veterans and Company Command Squad).

Best of all, I can ally my Imperial Guard and Farsight Enclaves by just removing either one Leman Russ Executioner or the Vendetta and Skyshield Landing Pad, then adding marker drones. Sounds good to me, I think.

Thursday, February 12, 2015

The painting so far

As promised, here's the photographs of the Broadside and Riptide that I've painted. I'll pain the Hammerhead Gunship next week, and then start on the Imperial Knights after Lunar New Year. I think I'll be able to paint all of them by March......except that I'll be buying and building more stuff at the end of February so I'll end up having more stuff to paint. Oh boy.


The Broadside with the four Drones. Badly painted, but who cares?

And I managed to finish the Riptide too. Again, it's badly painted, but I don't really care.
I chose yellow, black and red because black is my favorite color. Um, and I love the color scheme for Kamen Rider's Robo-Rider mode. Childhood stuff, but anyway, yeah. This is my preferred color scheme. I'll be using a more golden color for my Imperial Knights, though.

I've changed my mind. Since I've a Hammerhead Gunship, and I'm very reluctant to buy 5 more Broadsides and build nothing but Broadsides, and I'm tempted to get more Riptides, I'm not building the Firebase Support Cadre any longer. So screw that. Instead, I'm going for Farsight Enclaves.

The story is still the same. Draconis regiments, largely comprising of Imperial Knights, are sent by an Inquisitor to steal the Battlesuits, so they ended up stealing a couple of Riptides, a couple of Broadsides, a Hammerhead Gunship and a whole lot of Crisis Suits. Well, Crisis Suits are much easier to steal, after all. Yay.

So for the real life models, I'm going to buy five Crisis Suits, one more Broadside and one more Riptide. I'll be using the Earth Caste Pilot Array to my advantage, and give my troops shield generators because I love shield generators. Thankfully, I had some Talisman of Arthas Moloch Signature System to give my Commander a psuedo shield generator (sad to see it's only a 5+ save rather than a 4+), but hey, an invulnerable save is still an invulnerable save. I'll actually be able to complete my army by March instead of April! Yay! The Gundam army is nearing completion!

After I finish the Farsight Enclaves, I'm going to have trouble deciding what to get for my Imperial Guard army. I've decided to give up on a 3rd Imperial Knight because chances are I won't be using 3 Imperial Knights for most of my matches. It'll be a complete waste of money for me to buy a 3rd Imperial Knight and then watch him collect dust in my shelf. No, I'll stick to 2 Imperial Knights and get a fuller army such as my Farsight Enclaves. I've a feeling 2 Riptides, a Hammerhead, a couple of missile Broadsides (as opposed to 6) and a bunch of shield generator Crisis suits will be awesome.

I'm open to suggestions for my Imperial Guard army, with the only demand of including a Baneblade or one of its variants (except the Stormlord - I don't really like the Stormlord). I've no idea how to build an army around a Baneblade or its variants alongside my 2 Imperial Knights. Right now, my idea is to have 2 Imperial Knights, 1 Baneblade, 2 Leman Russ Battle Tanks, 2 Veteran troops, 1 Vendetta and 1 Skyshield Landing Pad. I've 30 points left over. I can probably change the Baneblade for a Shadowsword, but after they nerfed the D weapons I'm not so sure I want a Shadowsword (unless you guys have tried it out and know D weapons are still viable in the current meta). I'll get a Shadowsword because I need it for matches with super-heavy opponents for sure, but if the opponent has no super-heavies, then I'll try the Baneblade with no upgrades or a Stormsword. We'll see.

Or would you guys rather advise me to go for an Imperial Strongpoint, replacing the Leman Russ Battle Tanks with a Company Command Squad, an Aegis Defence Line and an Imperial Bastion instead?

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

The photographs of my Imperial Knights and Warhammer 40K army

I'll be up front and honest here. I hate taking photographs. Absoultely hate it. I've a grudge against cameras, and as my friends and family can often tell you, I'm the type to shy away from a camera and hide away from the spotlight. With an ugly face like mine, you can't exactly blame me for being reluctant to have my ugliness immortalized in either a frame or a digitial jpeg file. Not to mention I'm pretty aware of all the flames, hate and insults I'll get when someone posts my photograph online. My face, as they say, is like a punching bag.

Yes, I am that ugly.

This is why it took me more than a month to upload the photographs I took of my Imperial Knights. I took them only to show my brother what I had been building, in case he's interested in Warhammer 40K. Other than that, I left my phone alone, never bothered to upload the photographs to my hard drive. The only reason why I did it today was because the office required me to send them photographs of a field trip for a module I was helping out with more than six months ago.

Yeah, why did I send them now instead of six months ago? I want to kick myself for completely forgeting all about them. I'm such an idiot.

Anyway, thanks to my job, I transferred all the photographs in my cell phone to my hard drive. I'll probably be deleting a lot of them because they're quite badly taken. Ouch. I feel ashamed of myself.

Never mind. Here's a few badly taken photographs of the Imperial Knights, Riptide and Broadside and Hammerhead that I had built. I haven't photographed my painted Broadside yet, but I'll probably take a picture on Thursday when I paint my Imperial Knights.

My Knight Errant. Most likely the guy who's my Warlord, and the Knight that my main character/protagonist will be piloting.

The Riptide beside my Knight Errant. I forgot to take a picture of the Riptide (you know how I hate taking photographs) so I had to rush back to the shop to take a picture of it after I had already kept it, just so I can show my brother the awesome Gundam ripoff. As with my story, the Draconis regiments are sent to capture and steal Tau Battlesuits, and the Riptide is one of the stuff they stole. It came along with 2 Shielded Missile Drones, which are floating in front of my Knight Errant.

As I'm very used to building model kits (a veteran who has built Gundam models and Zoids), I could easily finish building both the Broadside and the Hammerhead gunship in a single day. This is the result. Again, the Hammerhead gunship and Broadside were what they stole, but in the end I regretted buying the Hammerhead gunship because I can't use it in my Firebase Support Cadre. Whoops.

My awesome Missile Broadside with 1 Makerlight Drone and 1 Shield Drone. I love missiles.

I might not be using the Hammerhead gunship in Warhammer 40K matches, but I still like it and its heavy railgun. Maybe I'll play Unbound one day, or I'll add an Allied Detachment of Tau. I'll have to check the Farsight Enclaves to see what I can do because I'm reluctant to buy Firewarriors.

My Knight Paladin. The good old partner for my Knight Errant. I'll be getting a third Knight (Knight Errant) this month to complete my Knight detachment. The Imperial Knights will be my primary detachment!

Everyone inside the shelf in Battle Bunker. Good luck, guys. Well, the Knight Paladin isn't in there yet, whoops. But in any case, you can see how they're shaping up.

Yeah, so that's basically all the photographs I took. I'll be painting either my Riptide or my Knights this Thursday, so I'll take whatever pictures I can. The only guarantee is of my fully painted Broadside, which is admittedly not very well done, but I couldn't care less. The Draconis are not known for our good paint jobs. Actually, we're infamous for our bad paint jobs. Heh.

For the Emperor!

Monday, February 2, 2015

Draconian Armored Dragons or Draconian Samurai?

One of the issues I've been considering while planning out the lore and setting for my fanfiction for Warhammer 40K is the name. Draconis has been decided on since long ago, so no problem there. Yeah, I got the name from Draconis Combine. But it's a fun name and I'm not using Combine anyway. What I'm wondering is whether I should stick with the name Draconian Armored Dragons or change it to the Draconian Samurai? Samurai sounds cool and it does fit in with the Japanese "knights" or warriors theme that I am going with the Draconis regiments, but I also want to throw in a mix of Chinese and perhaps Korean elements, so labeling them all as Draconian Samurai might not sound appropriate. That said, it sounds a lot cooler than Armored Dragons. Well, I'll appreciate any feedback and if anyone reads this, I hope they can tell me what they prefer.

I've to make adjustments to the lore and setting again thanks to further budget restraints. I realize that I can actually save money if I don't buy the Vendettas and buy an Aegis Defence Line instead. Since I need to buy a Hydra for the Steel Host formation no matter what, I'll have a Hydra either way. If that's the case, I might as well swap out the Vendetta for a Hydra and Aegis Defence Line. They're much cheaper than the Vendetta (and I've to buy the Hydra both ways which adds to the cost), and I also save money because I don't need to buy a 2nd Vendetta and then mull over what to take out from my army to fit in the 2nd Vendetta. Besides, 8 twin-linked Strength 7 AP4 shots, 4 of which are fired at ballistic skill 4, might be better than 3 twin-linked Strength 9 AP2 shots all fired at ballistic skill 3. I hope.

It also fits in nicely with the Armor theme. If the Draconian Armored Dragons focus solely on armor, then they will concentrate on nothing but tanks, super-heavy tanks and Imperial Kights instead of aircraft and the like. Having a Hydra fits into the heavy support/armored vehicles theme because they don't look out of place rolling beside the Leman Russ Tanks whereas a Vendetta seems to come out of nowhere. That said, I love Vendettas, and if I ever get the money I'll buy them and incorporate them back into the lore. Right now, all I can say is that we can't always get what we want, and both the Draconians and I have to face the harsh reality of not having Vendettas. Sigh.

Another reason for this change, which makes a lot of sense when I think about it, is that the strength of the Draconian Armored Dragons/Samurai lies in their gun line. They seem more to be the type to siege an opponent with armored vehicles, take up a defensive position by constructing cheap and easily constructed fortresses (Aegis Defence Line), and then throw down a hail of artillery from afar. As such, an Aegis Defence Line and Hydra, with their long range and the former's defensive cover, synergizes better with the Draconian gun-line.

The gun-line itself typically consists of a Shadowsword, a Leman Russ Vanquisher and a Leman Russ Batte Tank with two Imperial Knights escorting them. A couple of Veteran squads will man the Quad-gun at the Aegis Defence Line and use it as a forward base to provide the tanks cover, and a single Hydra reinforces the anti-air support. A powerful Psyker will also reside in the Aegis Defence Line to provide psychic support, perhaps casting Prescience to inform the Shadowsword of the enemy's position. As the Shadowsword's mighty Volcano cannon is a Destroyer weapon, it is absolutely imperative that every shot fired is never wasted.

For urban combat, the Shadowsword will be replaced by a Stormsword because the Stormsword Siege Cannon is more appropriate in flushing out infantry and vehicles hiding in the cover of buildings and other structures than the Volcano cannon which serves as an anti-Titan weapon more than anything else. In fact, the Stormsword is more flexible than the Shadowsword, whose role is pretty limited, particularly when there are no other super-heavy units present. On the other hand, its lack of range means that it will have to advance ahead of the long-range support the Battle Tank and Vanquisher gun-line provides, but then again it has 2 Imperial Knights to escort it. Once again, they will be aided by a Psyker, though not as skilled as the ones supporting a Shadowsword (Primaris Psyker Mastery Level 2 vs. Inquisitor Psyker Mastery Level 1), who will often help the Vanquisher and Battle Tank land their hits on enemy vehicles, tanks and infantry while staying under the cover that the Aegis Defence Line provides, along with anti-air guns from the Quad-gun and the Hydra.

Sometimes the terrain will prove impossible to construct an Aegis Defence Line, or the Draconis regiments simply do not have time to establish a forward defence base, being thrown straight into the fighting. Often these cases require overwhelming firepower, especially once they disembark in a hot landing zone. To back up the overwhelming firepower, and true to the Draconians' reluctance to use infantry, they will send in a single Doomhammer that is loaded up with 2 Veteran squads and a Psyker, which is in turn escorted by 3 Imperial Knights and 2 Exterminators. This is supposed to be a more flexible army that can deal with pretty much anything with overwhelming firepower, but is also able to address stuff such as airborne threats in the absence of an Aegis Defence Line and its Quad-gun as well as a Hydra. This version is pretty mobile as the Exterminators can move up rather than merely sit back and fire from stationary positions like the Battle Tank and Vanquisher. Yet at the same time they possess fairly decent range and do not need to close in on their foes like their Punisher and Executioner brethren.

That doesn't mean the Doomhammer is only used for hot landing zones or aggressive missions. In defensive missions, the Doomhammer will usually be assigned a crew of Techpriest Enginseers and Servitors to repair it from within as it slowly advances forward. Escorted by 2 Imperial Knights and 2 Exterminators, they will pound their enemies from afar as they slowly move in to choke the life out of them. Often they will have a safe forward defence base to fall back to, usually in the form of an Aegis Defence Line with its ever-reliable Quad-gun.

There is no change to the Steel Host. Again, the Draconians rely on their favored Executioners to make up the bulk of their Leman Russ Tanks formations and squadrons, often escorting three Leman Russ Executioners with a single Leman Russ Eradicator, and leaving a single Leman Russ Battle Tank and a Hydra behind to provide long-range support and anti-air. The Tank Commander is clearly identifiable as the only Executioner that has plasma cannons sponsons. This apparently is a sign of the veteran crews' experience and confidence that they won't be blowing themselves up with their plasma weapons any time soon (thanks to Preferred Enemy, but why not make that part of the lore?).

Despite the prominence of Leman Russ Vanquishers and Battle Tanks in Draconian gun-lines, the Leman Russ Executioner continues to be a favorite of many regiments. Sometimes when they lack Imperial Knights (for example, only having one Imperial Knight per company), they will compensate with additional Leman Russ Executioners, usually accompanied by a Tank Commander in a Leman Russ Punisher. These are usually for the more aggressive squads who prefer to advance into their opponents' locations with the siege tank variants (the Leman Russ variants with reinforced rear armor) using devastating plasma rather than slowly pound their enemies to dust with long-range artillery fire. In fact, even if some commanders have enough Imperial Knights (2 or more per company), they will swap out their Hydras and Leman Russ Battle Tanks for Leman Russ Executioners when they deem the air threat negligible, taking confidence in the overwhelming firepower of the Imperial Knights and the Executioners' plasma cannons. Such is the popularity of Executioners among the Draconian Armored Dragons/Samurai that they remain the staple among tank squadrons.

So the only change is that the Vendettas have been replaced by Hydras and Aegis Defence Line, to make the slow, armored vehicles theme more pronounced. This might actually be fun and much more affordable. If I have the money, I'll buy the Vendettas, but most likely I won't because I still need to buy Grey Knights so that I can covert a Terminator into an Ordo Malleus Inqusitor. By the way, I have an Ordo Malleus Inquisitor named Wayne. Wayne is also known as Wayne the Vain because he's a bit fussy over his appearance (always going about how cool his Terminator armor looks). Well, he didn't always have Terminator Armor. He'll start out as the standard Inquisitor with Carapace Armor, Bolt Pistol and Force Sword, and get the Terminator Armor in future. Even after he obtains it, he doesn't always wears it, preferring to don it only when he wants to Deep Strike into the middle of enemy forces. The main character is still Joe, but I'm wondering if I should give him a Japanese name. You know, to fit in with the Japanese theme of the Draconis system and all that.

Ryza is pretty unhappy that Draconis stole (we prefer to use the word "borrowed") and replicated the designs of their revered Executioner, and to add insult to injury mass produced much cheaper versions of inferior quality. Not that Draconis cares - they just carried on and continued to alienate themselves just as they did whenever other forge worlds or Inquisitors complain about their borderline-heretical technological research.

Oh, right. And the Draconians are fanatically loyal to their Emperor (as if you don't know that already). As I hinted earlier, there are rumors that Tzeetch is behind the Draconians' psychic potential and resistance, as well as the drive behind their technological fervor. Again, this fervor is sometimes attributed to what might be the brethren of the dragon the Emperor imprisoned in Mars so long ago (and the Omnissah the Adeptus Mechanicus worships). So it's not all happy stuff for the Draconian Samurai. Despite this, their faith and loyalty to the Emperor might give them the edge over Chaos when Tzeetch or the Dragon comes to claim them.

I was thinking Samurai because they use Imperial Knights, and are sometimes known as Imperial Samurai rather than Imperial Knights because it's more fun that way. And Samurai wear armor, which is kind of fitting considering the Draconis regiments rely heavily on armor instead of infantry. Minimal infantry, and what infantry they have they hide inside the Aegis Defence Line instead of foot-slogging (we don't torture our soldiers, if we really need to move them across the map, we'll get them a Doomhammer - see how nice we are?). For good reason, too. Someone has to man that Quad-gun. 2 squads? Um, well......the 2nd Veteran squad is held back to defend the long-range tanks such as Vanquishers and Battle Tanks, mostly against deep-striking units such as Terminators (wait, their flashlights, I mean lasguns can't do anything to them.....well, they'll just scream "Banzai!" and rush forward with their bayonets to tarpit the Terminators then).

That's all I can think of for now. As always, I'm open to suggestions, and I hope for some feedback before I begin writing this story. I'll focus on The hero's replacment for now, but that's a completely different genre altogether (Japanese light novel styled) and I wonder how I'm going to switch to the grim and dark future of the 41st Millennium. Ha ha. Oh well. For the Emperor!