Painted Civitas Imperialis and new Skorpius Dunerider!

I managed to paint my Adeptus Titanicus stuff today. I painted the battlefield assets so that they won't look so plain and plastic gray, so now they look like this. Probably not ideal, but better than before. Or so I hope.

Why did I painted my battlefield assets? Well, it was because I bought a bunch of terrain for Adeptus Titanicus, and thus they look like this now. Sort of. I bought the Civitas Imperialis set, plus several spires, and now I got a bunch of terrain for my Adeptus Titanicus games! YAY! WOOHOO! I tried to finish painting them in Dreamers Vault, but I failed terribly. In the end, I went home and continued painting them at home. Bad idea, it's almost 3am now. Damn. But at least I finished painting them, so yay!



Well, this was what they looked before I left Dreamers Vault, a half-done paint job. Ugh. I'm so bad at this. And below is what they look like after I finished painting them at home. Sorry for the poor lighting and whatever, but I have quite limited stuff in my room, which makes it not very conducive for taking pictures. This is why I prefer to build and paint at Dreamers Vault as opposed to doing it at home, but I did my best. I think.



I can't wait to put my Titans and Knights among these pieces of terrain! One day, I will definitely do it. I don't know when, but I will definitely try that. Maybe after I buy the Adeptus Titanicus Imperial Knights on Saturday and begin assembling them. I can't wait for them! They will look so cool stomping around the spires, buildings and towers!



As for the normal 8th Edition Warhammer 40,000, I finally went and obtained a Skorpius Dunerider for my Skitarii. I felt that I might need it, especially for my poor Secutarii Hoplites. They were always traveling on foot, and that was slow. I wanted them to charge ahead next to the Cerastus Knight Lancer and escort him, rather than have the Titan Guard infantry fall behind the Cerastus Knight. Oh, well. So I decided to buy them a transport, and there you have it - the Skorpius Dunerider!



I made sure to paint the two Skitarii Rangers inside! While they are transporting the Secutarii Hoplites, the Skitarii Ranger crew inside will lay down cover fire with their cognis heavy stubbers! The servitor on top has even more cognis heavy stubbers! I wish it was galvanic rifles or something, but I'll take what I have, I guess. This really looks cool, it resembles a...what did you call it? Higgins Boat? The awesome amphibious landing boat that the Americans used during World War II.



I magnetized the thing...sort of, and assembled in such a way that I can swap the Skorpius Dunerider for a Skorpius Disintegrator. So it's basically a 2-in-1 vehicle. If I need to ferry my Secutarii Hoplites around, I'll stick to the Skorpius Dunerider. Otherwise I'll swap it for the Skorpius Disintegrator. As it turns out, it's pretty easy to build both parts and switch between both versions. I think? Yay!



So there you have it. The Ferrumite cannon...



And the Belleros energy cannon. Cool, right?



Oh, and because you actually need to assemble the main turret weapon with the Servitor that is the same one you use for the twin cognis heavy stubbers for the Skorpius Dunerider, the hatch that houses the turret weapons was empty. So I took the Skitarii Alpha that was supposed to poke his head and torso out of the cupola and used him as the gunner instead. Pretty neat solution, eh?



One day I'll be running a combined Adeptus Mechanicus and Imperial Knights force (the Knights will probably belong to a Mechanicus aligned House, but House Yato is pretty versatile enough to switch allegiances between the two when necessary), and I can't wait to see how they complement each other! I hope we get not only an update for the Adeptus Mechanicus in Psychic Awakening, but also the Mechanicum forge world stuff - just like the Adeptus Custodes, I hope we will eventually get 40K rules for the Horus Heresy Mechanicum units!

Adeptus Titanicus Tournament

So we had an Adeptus Titanicus tournament on Saturday. Sorry, I was writing stuff, so I didn't have time to write this battle report on Sunday even though I should have. Whoops. Anyway, it was a fun tourrnament, and I enjoyed myself tremendously. It was awesome! There were about 5-6 participants, including me (I ended up coming late because I missed the bus). I think most people played 3 rounds, but I only played 2. Not that I mind, because I'm just there to have fun.

The first game was pretty cool, it was against a guy who brought an Axiom Maniple. Meaning he had a Warhound Titan with plasma blastgun (I think) and Vulcan mega-bolter, a Reaver Titan with laster blaster and power fist and a Warlord Titan with Apocalypse missile launcher, mori quake cannon and Belicosa volcano cannon. I can't remember the details, but yeah. He had the mission Engage and Destroy, whereas I had Hold the Line (after we discarded our second missions).

In contrast to him, I brought a full Knight Lance, with a single Reaver Titan as a reinforcement. So 3 Cerastus Knight Lancers, 2 banners of 2 Acastus Knights Porphyrion, and a Reaver Titan with Apocalypse missile launcher and 2 volcano cannons. As an aside, this was a 1,000-points tournament, so I couldn't bring my Fortis Maniple of 2 Warlord Titans and 1 Reaver Titan as they would go over the 1000 points limit.



I think he managed to start first, and he had his Warhound use Full Stride. I can't remember if he had his Warlord fire First Order, but I might be mistaken. The Reaver probably didn't get anything. I did use First Order for my Reaver. Just fired my missiles on the Warlord, but didn't do much except get a shield or two down. I think. Anyway, the Knights just moved up the table, because I had no orders to give them except Charge for the Knight Lancers. Oh, well. They moved toward the Warhound. I can't remember, but I think he tried to shoot my Reaver with the Warlord and failed...or something. As for my Knight Porphyrion, they fired upon the Reaver and took down all his shields. I might have done some damage or something, but I can't remember. He was mostly out of range for the Reaver and the Warhound had used Full Stride, so no go. We both used Stratagems - I had some orbital bombardment that could only be used once per battle, and it failed to do anything. Scattered off, clipped the Reaver and maybe took off a void shield. Nothing. In contrast, my opponent used artillery bombardment, which could be used every Strategy phase, but it scattered D10" and for the most part did nothing.



The second turn, the Warlord fired his mori quake cannon and basically did quite a few devastating hits on the poor Acastus Knights Porphyrion - especially when he learned how scary they were with their first volley on his wounded Reaver. I think I had my Knights Porphyrion and Reaver Titan combine to destroy the Reaver Titan, while my Knight Lancers charged the Warhound and poked it with their arc lances. I forgot that they can shoot in addition to using their melee weapons. Damn it. Anyway, they did quite a bit of damage to the Warhound's body, but with just 4 attacks, I wasn't doing much. Again, I should have fired a few shots with the other weapon. Dumb of me.

On the third turn, I think the Warlord Titan and Warhound Titan managed to destroy a banner of Acastus Knights Porphyrion and a single Cerastus Knight Lancer, so he got something. The Warlord Titan contined to duke it out with my Reaver Titan, firing his Apocalypse missile launchers and Belicosa volcano cannon, but the guy kept making his void shield saves, and he stayed where he was to do Emergency Repairs during the Strategy phase to ensure his reactor didn't go into the orange, and to restore whatever void shields he lost. So the Reaver Titan basically survived the whole game. Meanwhile, my Knight Lancers continue to stab the Warhound Titan with their arc lances and finally destroyed him. Fortunately, the Warhound just fell over and completely missed my surviving two Knight Lancers, so neither of them took any damage. Phew!

On the fourth turn, the Warlord Titan continued to pelt my remaining Acastus Knights Porphyrion with his Mori quake cannon, dealing a few other hits. I can't remember if any died this turn, but yeah. Meanwhile he continued to trade shots with my Reaver Titan, but nothing happened, and my void shields remained up. I think I did finally maange to bring his void shields down and started doing a lot of damage to his body. We rolled a D10 to see if the game would continue, and it did!

This time, the Warlord Titan destroyed all the Acastus Knights Porphyrion, and I had none of them left. Just 2 Knight Lancers and the Reaver Titan. My Knight Lancers charged and poked him with their sticks, but the Warlord was tough. Just took a bit more damage, but that was about it. We rolled a D10 to see if the game would continue on to turn 6, and it did!

In the last turn, I finally destroyed the Warlord Titan with my two Knight Lancers. The catastrophic explosion destroyed one Knight Lancer, but the Knight Seneschal took a couple of devastating hits and remained standing on his last structure point or two. I think he had about two left, if not his last one. Phew!

At the end of the first game, I instantly gained 20 points for the primary objective of Hold the Line because there were no enemy units in the battlefield. My opponent earned a total of 6 victory points with his destruction of two Acastus Knights Porphyrion banners. Even without my Decapitating Strike Stratagem, I essentially won a major victory over him. But he wrecked quite a lot of my Knights!

Game two was much closer and deadlier for me. This time, my opponent brought 4 Warhound Titans in a Lupercal maniple. One had 2 plasma blastguns, I think. One had a Vulcan mega-bolter and a plasma blastgun. The other also had a turbo laser destructor and...I can't remember. An inferno cannon? The last one had a laser destructor and a plasma blastgun as well. That was 900 points, so he has an extra Command Point, apparently.

We both drew Hold the Line this time in addition to our other missions (no way in hell was I going for Glory and Honor). So my opponent seized the initiative and the game went on. He had his Warhound Titans all move up, with two in a squadron using Full Stride or something. Before I could do anything, he completely destroyed an entire banner of Acastus Knights Porphyrion with his plasma blastgun's maximal fire. I managed to injure two of his Warhounds pretty badly, dealing critical damage to the head of the Princeps and giving him MIU feedback while the other took quite a bit of damage to his leg, but I wasn't able to kill anyone.

The second turn was grim, and I lost another banner of Acastus Knights Porphyrion, and maybe one Cerastus Knight Lancer. I did, with the shooting from my Reaver Titan, finally destroyed the Warhound with the wounded leg, meanwhile my Knight Lancers mostly survived the shooting because they had the smokescreen Stratagem popped off. One Warhound for 2 banners of Acastus Knights Porphyrion. Not a good trade. The Princeps Senioris's Warhound Titan did use Blind Barrage and hid somewhere, so I couldn't shoot him at all.

In the third turn, I think I managed to have my two Cerastus Knight Lancers charge the Warhound Titan (the Princeps Senioris) and lock him in combat. Meanwhile, the Reaver Titan traded fire with the two fully unscathed Warhound Titans and lost quite a few of his void shields. He almost managed to down their void shields in exchange too, but nothing too exciting. I think my opponent used the orbital bombardment Stratagem, scored a direct hit on my Reaver Titan, and rolled two ones for the armor roll. Ouch. Nothing happened. As for my Cerastus Knight Lancers, they poked the Warhound's critically injured head with their lances and wrecked him completely, and he...fell over. I think one Cerastus Knight Lancer died, can't remember if it was from the shooting or because of the Princeps Senoris's Warhound fell on him. But my Knight Seneschal survived. YAY! I think the Warhound must have exploded, because I remember my Knight Lancer Seneschal having just 1 or 2 structure points left by the end of the battle after suffering a couple of Devastating Hits. Hmm...

Fourth turn, because we both had Hold the Line, my surviving Knight Lancer Seneschal charged up the battlefield to get into my opponent's deployment zone, and also to hide from the Warhound Titan's fire as much as possible. The Reaver Titan lost all his void shields and took damage to his body from the maximal fire, but in exchange I dropped all of their void shields. I don't believe I did any damage, or maybe I did? Immaterial, for we rolled a D10 and the game ended there and then.

Neither of us had Hold the Line because we had enemy units right in our deployment zones. The two Warhound Titans were in my deployment zone, facing off with my wounded Reaver Titan, while my Knight Lancer Seneschal was hiding somewhere in my opponent's deployment zone. That meant we had 0 points for our mission's primary objective.

However, the secondary mission objectives are where it was at. My opponent scored a total of 4 points for killing my Acastus Knights Porphyrion (scale of 5 divided by 2, rounded down, to give him 2 points each). I scored a total of 6 victory points for killing 2 Warhound Titans, each of them netting me 3 points. Furthermore, I revealed my Stratagems at the end - Decapitating Strike gave me another 3 victory points for killing his Princeps Senioris, while the Vengeance Stratagem, which I selected the Princeps Senioris for, had also given me yet another 3 points to bring me up to a total of 12. YAY! So I managed to win by the skin of my teeth. Phew! Any closer and my Reaver Titan would die, giving him 8 points to my 12, and I literally had 2 models left on the table, with almost all of my Knights completely wiped out. That was so close! I was almost tabled! I can't believe I somehow won!

Adeptus Titanicus is so fun. I can't wait to play again! I think I'll be participating in the Renegade Open in November, bringing my Titans for an Adeptus Titanicus narrative event! Legio Draconis shall march to war!

Impulsive Impulsor

The new Impulsor kit has been released today! And being the usual treadhead/mechanized guy, I bought one! As you probably know by now, I'm the kind of guy who loves fielding mechanized or tanks-heavy list. While I probably will try avoiding the cheese that is triple Repulsor Executioner lists (admittedly I'll probably still get a second Repulsor Executioner because of how cool it is), I plan to get a couple of Impulsors. Now that I have one, I'm just left with the second one! Yay! I think. We'll see!

Back to the Impulsor. So I bought the Impulsor on impulse. No, I didn't. I always intended on getting an Impulsor. Never mind. You know what I mean. In any case, I have an Impulsor now, so I'm pretty happy with it! I magnetized it so that I can swap between the Bellicatus missile array or the shield dome. The Ironhail skytalon array shared the same components as the Bellicatus missile array, and it was somewhat difficult to magnetize the shield dome and orbital comms array, so I didn't bother with those two. Eventually, it didn't really matter because I had the two options that I really wanted. Shields and missiles!



Cool, eh? I don't know how they'll work in actual battle. I'm tempted to not bother with the second Repulsor Executioner and instead get a third Impulsor! That will be so awesome! Anyway, we'll see. As I said, I tend to act on impulse, ha ha, but I really, really like the Impulsor and my Primaris Marines.

One last thing. We actually had an Adeptus Titanicus tournament today (actually, it's probably yesterday, given that it's already 2.15am), but I'll write about it next time. All I'll say for now is that I fielded a Knight Lance with a Reaver reinforcement, and it was really fun! Not to mention, I really look forward to buying the new Adeptus Titanicus Questoris Knights box next week!

Repainting my Skitarii

Long story short, I wasn't satisfied with my Skitarii's color scheme. Those of you who have followed me long enough (I say this, but I don't think there's actually many, except one or two), probably have seen their original color scheme - black and gold. It was simplistic and minimal, but it was also very plain and boring. While it worked for Guardsmen because Imperial Guardsmen are meant to be mostly minimal and expendable, and there aren't that many details on the Cadian models to begin with, Skitarii are a whole different beast. There's a lot of details for them, at least more than the Guardsmen, and the black and gold color scheme just didn't work out very well for them. They looked extremely...plain and boring, as I said.

With that in mind, I decided to redo them altogether, and I decided to go with red. I mean, all Skitarii are red. They look good in red. They are meant to be red. No, seriously. Anyway, I decided to give them another spin, and initially I used Blood Angels Red - Contrast Paints - to color them. To my utmost horror, the Contrast Paint was too watery, much like Layer paints, and...they didn't work out too well. I learned that you can only use Contrast paints if you sprayed your models with the Contrast undercoat paint thing instead of the usual Abaddon Black spray paint. Thanks to that, I couldn't use Blood Angels Red. Oh, well. At least Mephiston Red worked well on them, and I used Mephiston Red Citadel base paint instead. So now they look much better. I basically painted all their robes, and because I have a bunch of Skitarii Rangers, I also painted their hoods red, to give them that good old Skitarii appearance. I really dig it! I also tried to paint their eye lenses red, but when I painted Runefang Steel over the Skitarii Vanguard's helmets and the Secutarii Hoplites' helmets, I inadvertently painted over the glowing red eyelenses. Whoops. Oh, well. They still look good, or so I hope. Yeah, I also painted the Secutarii Hoplites' robes red as well, to give them all a consistent color scheme and pattern. They look so much better and vibrant, as opposed to the boring and plain black and gold scheme from before. Even the Runefang Steel paint on the helmets gives them a nicer impression. Yay!



I also painted the robots. I can't say I like my kitbashed Kastelan robots. They still look pretty weird, probably because I combined them with Ambots. So they have a weird head. Well, they still work, and I kept them as they are, even though I'm not sure if they actually look that good. Maybe I need to give them more stuff, but I'm not sure what. Their heads look way too big for their bodies. Ugh. The Castellax battle-automata fared a lot better, and even though I didn't add a lot of red, I think they will work. I'll probably get more Castellax battle-automata in future, though it really depends on whether they plan on giving the Mechanicum units 40K rules. My Thanatar siege-automata is still sitting in my shelf doing absolute nothing, along with my Vultarax strato-automata. If they get rules, I'll get more of them, but right now it's like a waste of money. Oh well.



I also painted the Tech-priest Dominus's robes red, to make him the overall commander. Joining him in red is the Tech-priest Enginseer and the Cybernetica datasmith. I really hope, if they redo the Adeptus Mechanicus codex, they'll divide it like the Drukhari codex into the respective arms of the Adeptus Mechanicus. So you have have the Skitarii, the Auxilia Myrmidon, the Ordo Reductor, the Legio Cybernetica, and maybe the Centurio Ordinatus. Actually, would be happy with just Skitarii, Ordo Reductor and Legio Cybernetica in the same way Horus Heresy Mechanicum had Taghmata (which is everything), Ordor Reductor and Legio Cybernetica. Three different "armies" in the same way the Drukhari has Kabals, Wyche Cults and Haemonculus Covens. But I doubt that would ever happen. That's fine too. I'll just take what I can get. Yay?



So now all my Skitarii and Adeptus Mechanicus are red! Any enemies who look at them will see red! And then get blown apart by galvanic rifles, arc rifles, plasma calivers and radium carbines! One day I'll add a Skorpius Dunerider to their forces, so that the Secutarii Hoplites can travel alongside the Cerastus Knight Lancer (who sadly lost his flank speed, so no more advancing 14"+2D6" up the table). But...not today. $75 is too steep a price for me. Ouch. And I still want the Impulsor, and I hardly play my Skitarii these days. Mostly because I have more fun playing with my Imperial Knights. Speaking of Knights, my Skitarii stand ready next to my Knights, ha ha ha ha! One day I'll field my Skitarii alongside my Knights, but for now I'm content to field a full Knight army. But they look really cool together, don't they?



Secutarii Hoplite Alpha-240-Antimon raised his head and studied the row of silent Titans that were under his charge. Motionless and stationary, the gigantic God-machines resembled nothing more than ancient statues, their banners drifting lazily in the breeze that blew through the forge world of Draconis IV.

"Boring," he complained to himself as he thumped his arc lance against the ground, throwing up clumps of Martian-red soil into the air.

<What was that, sir?>  One of his subordinates, Beta-42-Querious, queried in binaric.

<Nothing. Continue patrol pattern epsilon-23,> Alpha-240-Antimon replied. Not that it would make any difference, he added to himself silently. They had been patrolling the Collegia Titan sector for years and none of them had ever seen any action.

The systems in his helm scanned the area, but registered nothing but the howling wind on his auspex. Or at least that was what he thought until he caught sight of a figure trying to stealthily weave through the titanic feet of the...Titans. As skilled as he was, coupled with his transhuman physiology, it was the intruder's power armor that gave him away.

Poor bastard should have worn the latest Phobos armor if he wanted to sneak around like a Raven Guard Marine, Alpha-240-Antimon thought, stifling a snort.

As a cautionary measure, he activated his arc lance, sending exotic energies crackling up the length of his weapon. Marching forward, while sending a binaric command to his squad to be careful, he approached the stealthily proceeding Space Marine.

"Halt!" He commanded, using his voice. Unlike most Skitarii, his human voice remained natural and free of mechanical modulation. The Mechanicus priesthood of Draconis IV featured a huge Divisio Biologis, and thus they, like the Steel Dragons Space Marine Chapter that they worked closely with, believed devoutly in the edict of "the Flesh is Strong." Thanks to that, the Skitarii of Draconis IV did not have as many augmetics as their bretrhen from other forge worlds, choosing instead to believe in the strength of their biological bodies. For what was the body, if not the ultimate expression of the Machine Incarnate? "Identify. You have ten seconds to comply."



The Space Marine turned to face him. Alpha-240-Antimon caught sight of a multi-headed serpent, a hydra, amidst a sea-blue power armor, and the weird designs on the armor that no loyal Tech-priest of the Mechanicus would ever conceive before his auspex darkened with warning signals. The Traitor Space Marine raised his boltgun and fired off a shot at his chest, but the Secutarii Hoplite Alpha raised his mag-inverter shield in reflex, which caught the mass reactive round before it detonated against the shimmering protective field. More from instinct than intention, Alpha-240-Antimon rammed his crackling arc lance into the chest of the surprised Alpha Legion Space Marine. The power armor buckled, and destructive energies flowed past the cracked ceramite and into the Legionnaire's body, electrocuting him.

For a moment, the Traitor Space Marine's transhuman physiology withsthood the tremendous amount of punishment, but Alpha-240-Antimon plucked his arc lance out before smashing it into the dented armor plate again. This time, the Alpha Legion Space Marine's two hearts melted from the sheer amount of powerful energies that clawed at his chest, and he shuddered, his body going into convulsions inside his armor.



"...whoops."

Alpha-240-Antimon removed his arc lance and watched the Alpha Legion legionnaire's corpse dance for a few moments before toppling over in a smoking heap. His auspex informed him that the Heretic Astarte was definitely dead, all life-signs flattening out.

"Good thing I killed him before his Hateful Assault came into play. Charging and striking first really has its advantages."

Alpha-240-Antimon rubbed the side of his helm, and prepared to exload a bunch of data to his supervising Tech-priest. Magos Dominus Yamaguchi, as expected, contacted him in binaric through the noosphere exactly 4.224 seconds later.

<Alpha-240-Antimon! Report!>

<I just uploaded the combat data, Magos,> Alpha-240-Antimon responded breezily as he prodded the still body of the Alpha Legion legionnaire. <I think the Alpha Legion has infiltrated our forge world. Uh, I hope you aren't Alpharius.>

<This isn't the time to make jokes!> Magos Yamaguchi snapped. <Double down on security immediately! Have your squad form a perimeter!>

<Yes, Magos.>

As Alpha-240-Antimon tried to organize his squad into defensive positions, he spotted a squad of Alpha Legion legionnaires sprinting forward, raising their boltguns and firing off potshots at them. His Secutarii Hoplites immediately raised their shields and deflected the explosive projectiles as best as they could. A few of them went down, the mass-reactive shells detonating inside their chests, or blowing open their heads, despite the pitiful protection their helmets offered. Miraculously, none of the bolts struck Alpha-240-Antimon. Most likely the Omnissiah had decided to assign the wounds to random no-name Secutarri Hoplites in the squad while keeping the Alpha alive for his higher Leadership to minimize Morale losses at the end of the turn.

"Wait!" Alpha-240-Antimon shouted as he raised a hand and waved at the Alpha Legion Space Marines. Taking a deep breath and using the speakers in his helm to amplify his voice as loudly as possible, he yelled, "HAIL HYDRA!"

The Alpha Legion Space Marines stopped in astonishment and stared at him. One of them raised his hand to salute him.

At that moment, Alpha-240-Antimon sent a binaric command to his forces. <Hit them now! With everything you have!>

The ten Secutarii Hoplites discharged their arc lances in unison, using the noosphere and combat data to calculate the trajectories of their shots to inflict maximum damage on their targets. The devastating bolts of energies arced toward the five Alpha Legion Space Marines, taking them by surprise and frying them inside their power armor. Three of them went down immediately, their flesh cooking and boiling inside ceramite. The other two survived, but were incapacitated, writhing and convulsing on the ground. A few of the surviving Secutarii Hoplites stepped forward to finish the debilitated Space Marines off with pokes and prods of their volatile arc lances, the genhanced supersoldiers groaning before they expired like cattle.

<Hail Hydra? What does that mean, sir?> Garmon-22-Trealus asked, confused as he reviewed the combat data, particularly puzzling over why the Alpha Legion Space Marines paused to salute him when he shouted that.

<Nothing you need to worry, soldier,> Alpha-240-Antimon assured him, his smile unseen inside his helm. <Just a...pop culture reference.>

Battle Report 37

Hello, everybody! Today we have a battle report featuring the Steel Dragons against the Thousand Sons! Yeah, that's why I wrote the joke story last week, it was essentially what happened in the game. Heh. Take note, this game actually took place last Wednesday, just before the Iron Hands FAQ dropped. The only thing the FAQ affected, though, was my spamming of Optimal Repulsion Doctrines, but I had about 4 Command Points left over by the end of the game, so I would still have 2 left anyway.

All right, so what did my opponent and I have? My opponent upped his Thouand Sons list from 1,550 to 1,850 this time, bringing a Tzeenth Daemons Battalion, a Thousand Sons Battalion and a Vanguard Detachment.

Tzeenth Daemons Battalion
Changeling
Changecaster...or whatever it is they call the Herald of Tzeentch on foot these days
10 Pink Horrors
10 Brimstone Horrors
10 Brimstone Horrors
3 Flamers
3 Screamers

Thousand Sons Battalion
Ahzek Ahriman
Daemon Prince of Tzeentch (Warlord, with the +1 to his invulnerable save and Dark Matter Crystal)
10 Rubric Marines with soulreaper cannon, and maybe 1 warpflamer. Aspiring Sorcerer had warpflame pistol
20 Tzaangors
10 Cultists

Thousand Sons Vanguard
Sorcerer in Terminator Armor (Helm of the Third Eye)
Tzaangor Shaman
9 Tzaangor Enlightened
Helbrute with missile launcher and heavy plasma cannon
5 Scarab Occult Terminators

I think that was about it. I can't remember anything else, but I'm sure that's what he brought. As for me, my Steel Dragons were still far from complete, so I had to proxy a couple of stuff. I didn't have the Impulsors or a 2nd Repulsor Executioner yet, so I decided to ditch them. I mean, who cares? I play for fun, I don't need those. So I just gathered whatever I had and tried to fit them under 1,850 points. Turned out I needed to proxy something, though.

Steel Dragons Battalion
Primaris Captain (Warlord, has the 5+++ Feel No Pain and the auto-medicae relic that allows him to regain D3 wounds at the start of my turns) - I shall name him Captain Fushi
Primaris Librarian
2x5 Intercessors, Sergeant with Thunder Hammer - one of them is named Sergeant Tetsuhara
5 Intercessors, Sergeant with power sword
Repulsor Executioner with heavy laser destroyer

Steel Dragons Vanguard
Librarian with force axe
2 Invictor tactical warsuits with incendium cannon - as I only had one, I had to proxy the second using one of my Armiger Knights Moirax
2 Relic Contemptor Dreadnoughts with dual heavy plasma cannons and Cyclone missile launchers
2 Company Veterans, Sergeant with combi-plasma and chainsword, Veteran with plasma gun (okay, another proxy - I only had plasma cannon guys, so we pretended his plasma cannon was a plasma gun)
5 Devastators, Sergeant with combi-grav and chainsword, 4 heavy grav cannons with grav amp
Razorback with twin assault cannons and storm bolter



I hope I didn't miss anything out, but that's pretty much it. I just used Inheritors of the Primarch to get the Iron Hands Chapter Tactics because, quite honestly, I don't know what else to pick and I play heavy armor. So I thought the Scions of the Forge (vehicles counting as having double their wounds when consulting the damage chart) was the most appropriate. Can't think of any of the other Chapter Tactics being that useful for me, and since I use House Taranis's Grace of the Ommnisiah for my Imperial Knights most of the time, I decided to stick with that because I was familiar with it. I didn't know it applied to mortal wounds too! As you'll see, that makes quite a lot of difference.

We got the Four Pillars for our mission because none of us brought our datacards - my friend forgot (I think) while I didn't buy the Iron Hands datacards. Those cost a lot. Ugh. Anyway, we just went for Four Pillars and I deployed first. My friend then deployed and attempted to seize the Initiative, but rolled a 5. So close yet so far. Ouch.



Turn 1

Thanks to clever deployment, my opponent's forces were mostly out of range, with his Helbrute essentially sitting at the end of the table. He placed his Rubric Marines in deep strike because of the webway Stratagem, along with the Flamers. The Cultists were pretty much out of range, but the Horrors were all in front. Fortunately, I had deployed my Invictor tactical warsuits out of Concealed Positions and they walked right up to the Horrors and flamed them. Anyway, let's not get too ahead of myself. I had 2 squads of Intercessors advance to grab 2 of the pillars, while the 3rd squad of Intercessors sat on the 1st pillar. Yay? The Contemptor Dreadnoughts and Repulsor Executioner also moved up, but they were out of range of almost everything except the Horrors. My friend had deployed intelligently. The Librarian with force axe cast the Blessing of the Machine God and failed. Whoops. Oh well. Anyway, between the Invictor tactical warsuits, the Devastators with grav - who had jumped out of their Razorback and moved - and the plasma Contemptor Dreadnoughts, I managed to kill all three squads of Horrors. Maybe there were a couple of Horrors left, which I charged with one of my Invictor tactical warsuits and killed them, thus denying my opponent his pillar. It took that amount of firepower because the Changeling was giving them a 5+++ or 6+++ Feel No Pain (I can't remember). The other Invictor...didn't have anything to charge because I wiped out the other two blobs of Horrors. My Razorback opened up with his twin assault cannnons and annihilated the squad of Cultists that were hiding behind cover, and despite the 6+ cover save (which was negated by the AP -2 of the twin assault cannons in Devastator Doctrine), all of them died. So I essentially gained a point for First Strike. YAY! On the other hand, the shooting from my Repulsor Executioner was pretty lackluster. He probably killed a couple of Horrors with his twin heavy bolters or Ironhail heavy stubbers or something, but missed 2 or so of his heavy laser destroyer shots against the Helbrute on the opposite of the table, and failed one of his wounds. I only did one wound, and went to roll a one. So the Helbrute only took 3 wounds (because 1s and 2s count as 3s).

My opponent then moved all his remaining forces, particularly the Daemon Prince, up. He left the Helbrute standing where he was, but the guy, despite using Fire Frenzy, didn't do much damage to the Invictor. He did some damage, though, I'm sure, I just can't remember how much. Just not enough to bring him down to his middle bracket, I think. The Tzaangors Enlightened flew over and put some wounds on the other Invictor, bringing him down to 9 (I think). As for the Tzaangors, they used Dark Matter Crystal and teleported behind my Intercessors, Primaris Captain Fushi and Primaris Librarian, and then proceeded to charge. Here, I used Optimal Repulsion Doctrines and the Stratagem that allows to shoot Deep Striking units with a -1 to hit (Auspex Scanner, was it?), but only killed a couple of Tzaangors. I think. Well, I should have killed 4 with all that shooting, but I can't remember. The Screamers came screaming on my Intercessor squad with the power sword Sergeant and maybe killed 1 or 2 in close combat after charging. The Daemon Prince charged the Invictor tactical warsuit, and for some reason I rolled hot on my saving throws and Feel No Pain, getting a few 6s, and he survived to strike back! He was left with 2 wounds (which counts as 4 because of Flesh is Weak), and could hit back, but he didn't do anything to the Daemon Prince with his 3++ invulnerable save. The Tzaangors basically hit my Captain and only dealt a single wound on an Intercessor because they fluffed their hit and wound rolls against the normal Intercessors (it was Sergeant Tetsuhara's squad), but my Captain made his 5+++ Feel No Pain and survived with 2 wounds. Phew! They then all struck back, and by the end, I think there was about 2 or 3 Tzaangors left, because Shock Assault gave my Space Marines extra attacks, and I did a lot of damage. Captain Fushi, in particular, had about 6 attacks! And Sergeant Tetsuhara had 4, with his thunder hammer! Not to mention the 5 attacks from the Primaris Librarian! So...the Tzaangors were pretty much wiped out, and the survivors fled because of morale or something. I can't remember. Meanwhile my Intercessors killed maybe 1 Screamer and wounded another.

By the end of the battle round, I controlled 3 of the pillars and my opponent had none, thus I scored another point. I also killed more (No Prisoners or No Mercy) units, so that gave me another point, thus allowing me to score 3 points to 0. I don't think my opponent even managed to get First Strike. Ouch.

Turn 2

After that good turn, I made a horrible mistake of getting my Devastators to run back instead of move forward to shoot the Daemon Prince, probably because I had my Invictor tactical warsuit retreat for no reason other than...because I was being stupid. The other Invictor tactical warsuit proceeded toward the Tzaangor Enlightened, and my Contemptor Dreadnoughts moved somewhat forward, as did my Repulsor Executioner, who then proceeded to fire...but before that, my Librarian cast Blessing of the Machine God and succeeded this time, allowing him to hit on a 2+. My Primaris Librarian was out of range for Smite and Machine Flense, so he couldn't do anything. Oh, well. He was my offensive Librarian who was responsible for dealing mortal wounds. Anyway, Captain Fushi, true to his name (it's basically Immortal or can't die in Japanese), refused to die and regained 3 wounds (I rolled well) with his medicae relic. So glad I took that. My Repulsor Executioner destroyed the damned Helbrute this time with his heavy laser destroyer. Phew! He also killed all the Screamers that my Intercessors fell back from, using a combination of twin heavy bolters, Icarus ironhail heavy stubber and Icarus missile pod. Nice! I think he was helped by my Razorback's twin assault cannons. The Contemptor Dreadnoughts, despite directing all of their firepower at the Daemon Prince, only did 2 wounds to him. Damn! And obviously I made the mistake of having my grav Devastators run away from him, so they couldn't shoot him because they were out of range. Terrible mistake. Meanwhile, my 9-wound Invictor (ironically, the proxied one) flamed the Tzaangor Enlightened and killed a bunch of them. He then charged them, and after combat, all but 1 survived. Actually, I think 2 or 3 survived, but they ran away due to morale, leaving just 1. Nice! Well, admittedly, I think the Intercessors also added their firepower into the mix and helped to take out a few of the Tzaangor Enlightened before he charged in. Oh, well...

I think that was it for my turn, and I still controlled 3 out of 4 pillars...for now.

Then my opponent brought in all his reserves, the Flamers and Scarab Occult Terminators appearing right behind Captain Fushi and in front of my Intercessors (Tetsuhara's squad) respectively. The Rubric Marines and Sorcerer in Terminator Armor showed up next to my Intercessors (the squad with the power sword Sergeant). They tried to smite my Intercessors, but I denied it with my Primaris Librarian. Heh! The Changeling for some reason moved toward my Razorback, intending to charge it. The Daemon Prince smite the poor Invictor tactical warsuit, and with 2 wounds remaining, I failed the Feel No Pain and he blew up...dealing 3 mortal wounds to the Daemon Prince. HA HA HA HA! I so did not expect that! Meanwhile Ahriman and friends piled up the mortal wounds on the other Invictor, and left him with 4 or 5, and then charged him, while the remaining Tzaangor Enlightened flew away to put several shots on the Intercessors. The Scarab Occult Terminators also opened fire with their inferno storm bolters. I think 2 guys died. Ouch. The Daemon Prince also used Warptime and charged my grav Devastators, and despite me using Optimal Repulsion Doctrines for a second time, combined with the grav ampliflication Stratagem, I did absolutely no wounds to the Daemon Prince, who proceeded to rip the poor Devastators up in close combat with his malefic talons. On the other side, the Rubric Marines shot the Intercessors to pieces, with only the Sergeant with power sword left, and then they charged and killed him under the weight of Rubric Marine shots. Ouch. They thus captured one pillar that those Intercessors were holding. The Changeling charged the Razorback and trapped him in combat. Oh well. The Scarab Occult Terminators then charged and killed 2 more Intercessors, while putting a wound on Sergeant Tetsuhara, but he survived. He SURVIVED! The Flamers charged and attacked the Primaris Captain in an attempt to kill him as well, but he funilly enough survived through a combination of his invulnerable saves and Feel No Pain, which brought him down to...1 wound or so. Whoa, that was so dangerous!  Captain Fushi just won't die! The funniest thing that occurred, however, was when Ahriman charged my Invictor tactical warsuit. He ate a wound from overwatch, and proceeded to smack the poor guy with his black staff, bringing him down to 2 or 3 wounds. Then I retaliated and essentially punched Ahriman into oblivion with the Invictor fist. Ahriman didn't survive the counterattack and bit the dust (ha ha, get it?). Whoa...I so did not see that coming. Poor Ahriman. That was tragic. I think I managed to kill 1 or 2 Scarab Occult Terminators with Sergeant Tetsuhara's thunder hammer, but for some reason Fushi failed to wound any...well Strength 4 versus Toughness 4, so...

At the end of the battle round, I controlled 2 out of 4 pillars, and my opponent had one. So I had one point. On the other hand, my opponent killed 3 units (Invictor, Devastators, Intercessors) and I killed only 2, so he gained a point.

Turn 3

The center of the map was not looking good for me, especially with the Daemon Prince bearing down on my Contemptor Dreadnoughts, having consolidated toward them. Good thing they weren't that close to the Devastators or they would have been locked in combat. I didn't move anything or had anyone fell back, and my Intercessors and Captain Fushi and Primaris Librarian remained locked in combat. Captain Fushi got back 3 wounds again, bringing him back to 4. Hah! I did move the Company Veterans up, maybe, to fire their plasma at the Rubric Marines, and the Veteran died from his supercharged plasma gun overheating. Ouch. But worth it, because I killed a few Rubric Marines. My Librarian with force axe cast Blessing of the Machine God on the Repulsor Executioner so that he can get a 2+ to hit again. The Primaris Librarian cast Machine Flense and Smite on the Scarab Occult Terminators, but failed the first one and...maybe did one mortal wound to a Scarab Occult Terminator? I can't remember. The Repulsor Executioner also fired everything at the Rubric Marines, and completely wiped them out because of the Onslaught Gatling cannon (and extra -1 AP from Devastator Doctrine negating All is Dust), twin heavy bolters, Ironhail heavy stubbers and more. Add the Intercessors who were camping on the pillar from Turn 1, whose bolt rifles had bolter discipline because they didn't move, I was able to decimate all 10 Rubric Marines with shooting alone. Nice! The Invictor was still locked in combat with the Tzaangor Shaman (I had dedicated all of his attacks against Ahriman last turn) and only did 3 wounds to him, but didn't do much other than that. The Contemptor Dreadnoughts fired everything they had, and a combination of plasma and Cyclone missiles finally took down the Daemon Prince despite his 3+++ invulnerable save. Phew. That gave me some breathing room and Slay the Warlord. The Daemon Prince of Tzeentch was damned tough! Back in close combat, the Terminators continued to fight and I think they wounded the Primaris Librarian, but Sergeant Tetsuhara refused to die, making 3 6s for his saves. Holy Emperor! Tetsuhara is a beast! He just won't die, like Captain Fushi! In the end, he smashed the remaining three Scarab Occult Terminators with his thunder hammer, killing them single-handedly.

Sergeant Tetsuhara deserves a promotion. He'll now be an officer. The guy is a legend! All hail Tetsuhara!

My opponent continued assailing with his flamers, while he had his Tzaangor Shaman retreat, and his Tzaangor Enlighten charge my Primaris Librarian. I think. The Changeling smite one wound off my Razorback, but otherwise they remained in close combat, while the Sorcerer in Terminator Armor wisely kept his distance. I think he tried to do something, but my Librarian with force axe denied him. Maybe. I can't remember. On the other hand, my Primaris Librarian was killed by the Tzaangor Enlightened of all people. Damn. The Flamers did a couple of wounds to Captain Fushi but he just wouldn't die. He would end the game with 2 wounds remaining, standing strong and indomitable to the very end. As would Tetsuhara. HA HA HA HA HA!

At this point, my opponent called the game. Not only was the store closing and we had run out of time, it would be difficult for him to pull back. That third turn saw me claim 1 point for the pillars and another for No Mercy/Prisoners, plus Slay the Warlord, bringing me up to 7 points against his one. He only had a couple of Flamers, a single Tzaangor Enlightened, a Tzaangor Shaman, a Changeling, a Changecaster and a Sorcerer in Terminator Armor left on the table, while I still had plenty, including 1 fresh squad of 5 Intercessors (who would probably shoot the Flamers), Sergeant Tetsuhara, Captain Fushi, a half-dead Invictor tactical warsuit, a completely unscathed Repulsor Executioner, 2 Relic Contemptor Dreadnoughts who had yet to take a wound, a Company Veteran Sergeant, a Librarian with force axe and a Razorback with almost full health. It was pretty overwhelming and one-sided.

Yeah, the Steel Dragons were a lot more powerful than my Imperial Knights, of all armies. How the hell?! I have no idea...

Anyway, the Steel Dragons won this round, but I'm sure the meta will adjust and people will know how to counter the Iron Hands and their Successors soon. The FAQ dropped a day after that match, and my Optimal Repulsion Doctrines had gone up by 1 Command Point! So it might make some difference, I don't know. We'll see. Until then! Let me know what you think!

Questoris Knights Upgrade!

Yay! We have a new upgrade sprue and new boxing for Questoris Knights in Adeptus Titanicus!



Sucks that we still only get one Avenger gatling cannon, one rapid-fire battle cannon and one thermal cannon per box, but at least we get to build three Thunderstrike Gauntlets now. I can't wait to build them and I'll be able to field an all-Knight army!

You can check Warhammer Community for more details!

Knights and Snow

I finally finished painting my Imperial Knights - both the big ones and the small ones! Whoops, that can sound misleading, because I don't mean both the Questoris and Armiger ones. After all, I don't have any new Questoris Knights. Instead, what I meant was both the normal Citadel 8th Edition Imperial Knights and the Adeptus Titanicus Imperial Knights.

Perhaps a photo or two would better explain what I meant. Anyway, yeah, my Cerastus Knight Lancers and Acastus Knights Porphyrion are all painted completely, with me adding snow and even some grass. Wait, didn't I already paint them on Wednesday? What's going on? Oh, I added some Averland Sunset to them, so you can see the bright yellow circles on them now. If you look closely enough. Apparently.

I also painted my Armiger Knights Moirax. I forgot to add the smiley faces. Whoops. I'll add them eventually, but I was waiting for the paint to dry. Anyway, I also did their bases, put a lot of Valhallan Snow on the white as well as add grass and vegetation for...flavor. Now you can see my Super-heavy Detachment of a Questoris Knight Crusader and two Armiger Knights Moirax with volkite veuglaires and Moirax conversion beam cannons!



I will also be working on painting my Skitarii. Right now I've done all my Skitarii Rangers and Vanguard, as well as my Tech-priest Dominus, Tech-priest Enginseer and Cybernetica Datasmith. I decided to paint their robes red because the current black and gold color scheme was just too boring for my Skitarii. It works for my Imperial Guardsmen, it works for my Leman Russ tanks and Imperial Knights, but my Skitarii looked pretty plain. So I decided to have them stand out by painting their robes red, just like any normal Adeptus Mechanicus force. I screwed up and used the Blood Angels Contrast paints even though I had used Abaddon Black Citadel spray paint to prime them, and the Contrast paint turned out to be too watery. It didn't work. As it turned out, I needed a specific Contrast undercoat primer (Wraithbone White) for the Contrast paints to work, otherwise they are too watery and merely smear across my models instead of...looking good. Eventually, I gave up and went back to using Citadel base paints, Mephiston Red being the color of choice, and they look a lot better than before. I hope. We'll see.

Unfortunately, I forgot to snap a picture of my newly painted Skitarii, but I have yet to paint my Secutarii Hoplites and Castellax battle-automata (as well as the weird-looking Kastelan robots). I'm thinking of just selling or tossing my Kastelan robots, but...we'll see. I screwed up with the kitbashing and they look really weird. I'll paint them red and see what I can do with them, but I doubt I'll play much with them. As for the Castellax, I can only pray we get 40K rules for the Mechanicum units. The Castellax look too awesome to not want to play with them, and I still have a Thanatar and a Vulturax on my shelf. Oh, well.

We'll see. We will...see.

A day with the Steel Dragons

"Brother-Captain, are we really going to attack that position?"

"Why shouldn't we, Brother-Sergeant?"

Fushi gave Tetsuhara a withering stare, but the veteran sergeant didn't back down. Instead, he grimaced as he consulted his dataslate.

"The Thousand Sons Legion is down there, and we know not of what sort of sorcery they wield."

"I guess we'll find out. We have Librarians of our own. They should be able to counter the Thousand Sons' three different disciplines with our brand-new Technomancy discipline!"

"You do realize that the Technomancy discipline usually buffs our vehicles, and destroys our opponents' vehicles? If they don't bring their heavy armor, our psychic powers will be limited to repairing our own machines."

"That's fine," Fushi assured Tetsuhara with a grin. "With their psychic hoods, they get a +1 to Deny the Witch tests. Those Thousand Sons Sorcerers had better be packing hot dice or they'll be at a disadvantage without any bonuses to their casting, despite them being a Brotherhood of Sorcerers and specializing in psychic powers!"

"We are at a disadvantage if we want to smite them, though. Our Librarians will probably be better off sticking to restoring our vehicles instead of running up and denying the witch."

"Even better! Speaking of vehicles, get the squads ready. We'll be swooping down in our new infantry fighting vehicles! I can't wait to see how the new Impulsors fare!"

Fushi strode quickly to the hangar of the massive battle barge Shouri, rubbing his gauntleted hands in anticipation. Tetsuhara hurried to catch up with him, his thunder hammer swinging slightly across his back. Ever since the Codex had decreed that Intercessor Sergeants now had the option to take Thunder Hammers, the Steel Dragons Chapter were appropriating bits from the armory that formerly belonged to the older Space Marines. Tetsuhara himself had been eager to requisition the thunder hammer from a Devastator Sergeant after the latter elected to wield a chainsword instead, because the heavy investment would be wasted on him. Intercessor Sergeants, after all, had more attacks than older Space Marine Sergeants, barring the Veterans.

Almost lost in his thoughts, the steely Tetsuhara cleared his throat as his captain stopped suddenly in the bay of the hangar, his jaw dropping in bewilderment.

"Where are the Impulsors?"

"I meant to tell you, Brother-Captain, that we have not received the Impulsors yet."

"What?! But they were announced literally months ago?! Why haven't they arrived yet?!"

Tetsuhara rubbed the back of his barely exposed neck. "Well...I'm sure the Adeptus Mechanicus have already manufactured them and stored them in many forge worlds across the Imperium, but due to logistics and uh...bureaucractic complications, the Impulsor IFVs will only be distributed to all Space Marine Chapters in two weeks."

"How can this be?!" Fushi demanded. "But the Iron Hands were fielding Impulsors last week in the Swedish Grand Tournament!"

"They kitbashed their own using Rhinos and Repulsor bits, I believe. Conversions."

Fushi threw up his hands in despair. "Okay. Then we'll ride the Repulsor Executioner then. Get the squads ready." He paused and frowned when he caught sight of the single Repulsor Executioner, Fudou, in the hangar. "Huh? We only have one Repulsor Executioner? I'm pretty sure we ordered two of those things?!"

"Yeah, but Brother Honda hasn't assembled the second Repulsor Executioner yet. It's still in its box." The techmarine had been busily assembling a new Razorback and replacing its twin lascannons with twin assault cannons from a nearby forge world. Tetsuhara didn't blame him. Honda had a lot of things to deal with recently, including but not limited to the maintenance of vehicles and weapons. Just last week he had to stabilize a "dancing" Invictor tactical warsuit that looked as if it was on the verge of doing the...jiggle. He had to add props under its foot so that the pilot could stabilize it and make it look like it was running instead of dancing.

"Emperor of Man!" Fushi exclaimed and shook his head. "All right, let's get everybody to the Razorbacks then. Move it!"

The Intercessor squads under Sergeant Tetsuhara's command moved with a grace that belied their power armored forms, jogging toward the row of Razorback APCs that lined the hangar. They were about to dive through the hatches and strap themselves in the passenger compartment when one of the other Space Marines showed up to stop them.

"Sorry," Devastator-Sergeant Daichi apologized as he raised a hand to forbid them entry into the Razorbacks. "But you can't get into those vehicles."

"Why the hell not?!" Captain Fushi demanded irritably. "We're due for a combat drop in ten minutes! We need the APCs to spearhead our armored formation, and we've to use Razorbacks because we haven't gotten the Impulsors yet!"

"Well..." Daichi hesitated for a moment, and then shrugged. "You guys are Primaris Space Marines."

"So?"

"So...you're not allowed to embark upon Rhinos and Razorbacks."

"What the frak?!" Fushi threw his hands up impatiently. "Why the bloody warp not?!"

"Because you guys are Primaris Space Marines. You can only embark upon Repulsor-class tanks and Impulsors."

"Who said so?!" Fushi growled impatiently. Daichi gave him a look, as if to say it was obvious.

"It's in the codex. Lord Commander Guilliman decreed it so. If you have a problem with it, take it up with him. Look, Brother-Captain, I know it's stupid, but I'm not the one who wrote the rules."

Fushi buried his face in his palm, trying not to let his frustration show. "Okay, so what do we do now? I suppose the Intercessors will have to move on foot. But without IFV support and only one Repulsor Executioner..."

"We have Dreadnoughts," Daichi reminded him brightly. "Contemptor Mortis Dreadnoughts with heavy plasma cannons. They'll provide long-range fire support."

"That's good then." Fushi heaved a sigh of relief. "At least we have some...vehicles that can make use of our Flesh is Weak Chapter Tactic...we are Scions of the Forge, after all. But only two Contemptor Dreadnoughts, a Repulsor Executioner and a Razorback...since you're the only squad that can use a Razorback if Primaris Marines are not allowed into them...that's not as many vehicles as I would like to have."

"Oh, we're testing out the new Invictor tactical warsuits today." Tetsuhara gruffly gestured to the corner of the hangar where two humanoid walkers stood. Fushi smiled, the tension easing from his grizzled face.

"Excellent. Just what I want to hear. I believe it would be the phobos armor guys who are piloting them. Let's see how quietly they move on the field, and how they emerge from their concealed positions..." He stopped when he got a better look of the two walkers and his features twisted into a confused scowl. "Wait, what is this?!"

One was certainly the Invictor tactical warsuit, but the other walker was...an Armiger class Knight.

"They are Invictor tactical warsuits," Tetsuhara told him with a straight face.

"No, no, no." Fushi was shaking his head. "I know this one is an Invictor, but the other one, no matter how you look at it, it's an Armiger class Knight. An Armiger Knight Moirax."

"We're proxying it as an Invictor. So for all intents and purposes, we are going to treat it as an Invictor."

"How the hell does that work out?!" Fushi bellowed. "They have completely different weapons!"

"The rad cleanser can be passed off as an incendium cannon, the volkite veuglaire as a heavy bolter and Ironhail heavy stubbers combined, and the Moirax siege claw serves as a good substitute for the Invictor fist."

"That's not what I'm asking!" Fushi was grabbing at his closely cropped scalp in despair. "In what universe do you proxy an Armiger Knight as an Invictor and then pretend they have the same weapons, and everything works out?!"

"Our opponents, the Thousand Sons, say it's okay. Therefore it's okay."

"..."

Fushi gave up. For a second, he suddenly realized that if they were going to proxy, they might as well proxy the Razorbacks as Impulsors. Then they could pretend that everything was all right. However, when he turned back to the other side of the hangar, he only saw one Razorback. The rest had disappeared because his company evidently didn't have the models for them.

Hell, he realized that they couldn't even do a combat drop because they didn't have anything that could represent a Thunderhawk. Oh, wait...they did. That black Citadel figure case in the center of the hangar. Right. They were always calling the Thunderhawk gunships the ultimate flying metal box, but right now it seemed the Emperor wanted to make it literal.

Fushi fumed. Trying to stifle his urge to kick something, he turned his back on his sergeants and sealed his fancy helm in place to conceal his enraged and confounded features.

"Combat drop in five minutes," he ordered impatiently. Sucking in a deep breath to calm himself down, he muttered an oath. "Proxies, stupid transport rules, whatever, deal with them however you see fit, and then we'll drop. Let's kick some Traitor ass. I heard that we're supposed to dominate the meta now."

Iron Hands Nerf!

Iron Hands finally got nerfed! The FAQ for Iron Hands (and Raven Guard) have been released today!



If you have been keeping up with the meta (I haven't, to be honest), apparently Iron Hands have been dominating the current meta. In just...a couple of weeks. I don't know where I heard this from, probably Facebook or something, but they have been getting over 74% win-rates against all other factions (excluding mirror matches). The top four winning lists in some tournament were all Iron Hands. The top list in Best Coast Pairings is also Iron Hands. I think some Swedish tournament was also won by a player fielding Iron Hands. If I'm not mistaken, I saw the information on the Frozen North Gaming Community on Facebook, amidst various sources (Bell of Lost Souls comments section and I think Abe or somebody wrote an entire article on it too).

I honestly don't know what's going on here, but I've been hearing all sorts of different lists float around. On Reddit or Spikeybits, it was the triple Repulsor Executioner lists, supported by Stormtalon gunships. And then on Bell of Lost Souls, they have tons of Invictor Tactical Warsuits and Redemptor Dreadnoughts, and there's one that featured lots and lots of infantry instead of the Repulsor Executioner. So I'm not really sure what makes the Iron Hands so strong and dominant. I'm not a tournament player, and honestly, I suck at the game, so I'm the wrong person to ask for analysis.

Nonetheless, I can give you a rundown of the nerfs Iron Hands received a couple of weeks after their release.

1. The Iron Father dude (I don't have him because I'm using a Successor Chapter) has an ability, Rites of Tempering, that used to give everyone a 5++ invulnerable save as long as they are within 6" of him, including vehicles. Now that ability has been nerfed to infantry only - in other words, your vehicles such as the Repulsor Executioner or Redemptor Dreadnoughts castle no longer benefit from getting his 5++ invulnerable save.

2. Ironstone has been nerfed. Instead of all vehicles within 3" of the bearer, you select only one vehicle within 3" and he gets the -1 damage (to a minimum of 1 damage) buff.

3. March of the Ancients can only be used once per battle. It's the Stratagem that makes one of your Dreadnoughts a Character, and gives him +1 Attack and +1 Leadership. What, were people spamming this Stratagem or something?

4. The cost of Souls of Iron have been raised from 1 Command Point to 2. For those of you who don't know what that is, it basically allows you to Deny the Witch on a 4+ (roll a single D6) after any Deny the Witch attempt.

5. Optimal Repulsion Doctrines have also been raised from 1 Command Point to 2. That's the one that allows you to fire overwatch on a 5+, but if you already have the Flesh is Weak Chapter Tactic that allows you to fire overwatch on a 5+, now your overwatch hits on a 4+. Yay! I have no complaints, I was spamming this Stratagem in my game against Thousand Sons yesterday.

6. Machine Empathy has been nerfed, so your Techmarine can't repair a model that has already been repaired that turn. So no repairing that Repulsor Executioner or Leviathan Dreadnought twice in the same turn!

7. Reforge has been nerfed somewhat, same as Machine Empathy Stratagem above. It's the psychic power that allows you to repair your vehicles, but now it has been nerfed so you can't repair a vehicle that has already been repaired. No stacking of repairs!

Oh, and now your Dreadnought that has become a Character with the March of the Ancients Stratagem can have a Warlord Trait! WOOHOO!

What do you think of these nerfs? Do you think it will rein in the power of Iron Hands and stop them from being dominant? I hope so too, otherwise nobody will want to play against my Steel Dragons!

Painted Adeptus Titanicus and Battletech!

I have no idea why I'm still up at almost 5am in the morning - probably have something to do with me filling out contracts and other stuff (maybe I'll be an actual writer one day, but I suck at writing. Ugh), but I thought I should just post this before I go to sleep. Probably up because I drank mocha at night. Whoops...

Anyway, I stayed up for a bit to finish painting my Adeptus Titanicus Knights and alternative weapons. I have an Adeptus Titanicus tournament on Saturday (26th October) sometime next week, so I'm rushing to ensure all my Titans are painted by then. It's only 1,000 points, so I'm fielding a Knight Lance with a single Titan reinforcement. I realize I screwed up, though. The Knight Banners have to be within 6" of each other if they are of the same Lance, and I have 2 Banners of 2 Acastus Knights Porphyrion and 1 Banner of 3 Cerastus Knights Lancer. Uh...whoops. Talk about mismatch. Never mind, we'll see how it goes. Most likely I'll just have my Knight Lancers stick around in the back and charge whatever Titan comes near them...ouch. How stupid of me.



I'm missing the Averland Sunset, which I'll get...soon. But other than that, my Knights are fully painted. I even painted their bases and added Valhallan Snow for an awesome blizzard effect. Yay! I can't wait to see how it goes, but I really like how I did their bases.



I also painted the Mori quake cannon and macro gatling blaster for my Warlord Titans. Look at how awesome they are! Sorry for the terrible photo, but basically I swapped out the left arms of the Warlord Titans. The one on the left has carapace Apocalypse missile launchers, a Belicosa volcano cannon for his right arm and a Mori quake cannon for his left. The one on the right has paired turbo laser destructors, a Sunfury plasma annihilator for his right arm and a macro gatling blaster for his left. As you can see, I paired up the weapons according to range, so I have a ranged Warlord Titan that shoots from afar with his Belicosa volcano cannon and Mori quake cannon (not to mention Apocalypse missile launchers) and a mid-ranged Warlord Titan who prefers to close in with his medium-ranged Sunfury plasma annihilator and macro gatling blaster, along with paired turbo laser destructors. Now I have alternate arm weapons for the Warlord Titans, which will save me some points and allow me to be more flexible with my lists. Either I can field 3 Knight Lancers with my Fortis Maniple (of 2 Warlords and 1 Reaver because my Legio can swap out one class of Titan for another) along with 2 Acastus Knights Porphyrion in a 1,750-point game, or I can just field the Fortis Maniple with 2 Knights Porphyrion instead of 2 Knight Lancers if I take the cheaper arm alternatives. I'm really looking forward to playing around with them and seeing how they go! This will be so cool! Or so I hope, but we'll never know.

I was actually planning to finish painting them at Dreamers Vault today, but I already arranged a battle with a friend, so I stopped painting to play the game. Totally worth it. Anyway, the battle report will be up...soon. I don't know when, but I'll try to write it one day. Hopefully before this weekend. Anyway, it was a baptism of fire for my Steel Dragons, and I was fielding Space Marines for the first time. I didn't know how it would go, but I was eager to test them out. Needless to say, they were a lot stronger than I expected. Maybe I shouldn't have gone for Iron Hands Successor Chapter, but I'm a treadhead. Of course I would go for the Chapter that specializes in armored formations, spearheads and tanks (and robots). However, their firepower surpassed my expectations. My Steel Dragons are crazily strong with the new supplement. Whoa. After the game, the store was closing up, so I had no choice but to pack up and continue painting at home. Fortunately, I managed to finish painting all my Knights and Titan arm weapons in a couple of hours (actually, a bit longer than that). Phew. Now all I have to do is field them in the Adeptus Titanicus tournament in a little over a week. Man, I love the snow. It's so...Minnesotan. And I live in Minneapolis. Winter is coming, and my Titans, Knights (both the Adeptus Titanicus ones and the 8th Edition ones) and Imperial Guard are ready for it!



Not only that, I also painted my Battlemechs. Since they are Draconis Combine Battlemechs, I stuck with a black and red paint scheme, but I also added gold because I like the contrast of black and gold. It's such a great combination! They don't look very good, but at least they look a lot better than their usual gray or silver color when unpainted. I'm reading the Blood of Kerensky trilogy right now, and I'm looking forward to the Battle of Luthien! Long live the DRACONIS COMBINE!



Yeah...now you know why my Imperial Knights, Imperial Guard and Titan Legion come from the Draconis system. It's a blatant rip-off of the Draconis Combine from Battletech. Sorry. Anyway, the 'mechs I have include a Mad Cat MK II, Mad Cat MK IV, Lament, Legacy, Dragon II, Awesome and a Tenshi. Yay. The Dragon II is at the back, the last row. The middle row consists of Mad Cat MK II, Legacy and Lament. The first and front row comprises of a Mad Cat MK IV, a Tenshi and an AWS-9Q Awesome. I have a lot of PPCs. Seriously. Anyway, I plan to put these guys in a separate bag of their own instead of lugging them around with my Warhammer 40,000 stuff. Different games with different bags, and with these guys being small and all, I should be able to pack them up in a smaller bag. I can't wait!

Armiger Knight Moirax, Acastus Knights Porphyrion and Steel Dragons

Still slowly working on my Steel Dragons at quite the glacial pace (it's no longer summer, and I have graduate school stuff), so I honestly don't have much in the way of progress. Worse, time is running out because there's a 1,000-point Adeptus Titanicus tournament on October 26th, Saturday, and I have a Cerastus Knight Lancer and 2 Acastus Knights Porphyrion to paint. This isn't looking good. At least I've primed them black.

For 1,000 points, it'll be hard for me to squeeze a Warlord Titan in, so I just went with Knight banners instead. I got an additional 2 Acastus Knights Porphyrion so that I can have 2 banners of 2 each, and a single banner of 3 Cerastus Knights Lancer. The remaining points will be invested in a single Reaver Titan (the reinforcement Titan). I hope this works, but...yeah. It probably won't and I will get utterly destroyed. Well, who cares? I'm playing for fun, not to win. So I'm gonna plaay with the models I like, and I like the Knights. Heh. Not gonna add Warhounds because I'm not a fan of Warhounds.



Oh, and I also got the Vulcan mega-bolter for my Reaver Titan. So I can equip him with either the Apocalypse missile launcher and 2 volcano cannons for long range, or I can give him the Vulcan mega-bolter and 2 melta cannons for close range. Pretty happy with the options I have! Bombarding people from afar with missiles and volcano cannons? I can do that. Need to get up close and pepper void shields with Vulcan mega-bolter fire before unleashing devastating melta beams from dual melta cannons? I can do that too! YAY!



And then there is my Armiger Knights Moirax. I bought 2 Moirax conversion beam cannons, and so I can equip both of them with Moirax conversion beam cannons and volkite veuglaires. Make them shooty, so I don't need the siege claws. YAY! I've painted them black as well, and will look to add the details...soon. I don't know when, but I will definitely paint them soon. I can't wait to see how the conversion beam cannons work out alongside the volkite veuglaires!







My Steel Dragons are also coming along slowly. I managed to get a Razorback and build it today, along with the twin assault cannons from Forge World. Thanks to that, I now have a Razorback with twin assault cannons I also built the twin lascannons, just in case I need them, so I can swap the twin assault cannons out for twin lascannons if I need to. I also got cyclone missile launchers for my two Contemptor Mortis Dreadnoughts with plasma cannons, so they are armed to the teeth! Pretty happy with the way they look!



I wonder how they will all turn out eventually, after I actually paint them. Now it's pretty hard to make out the details, but I'm sure they'll stand out more once I get some paint on them. After this, I'm just gonna wait for the Impulsors to be released before getting a couple of them.



Wait, why am I not playing Triple Repulsor Executioners if I'm using the Iron Hands Successor Chapter Tactics? Because I don't care about meta. I don't care about fielding overpowered lists. I like robots and tanks, so I'll field robots and tanks. I'm a simple guy like that. And I love plasma, so I'm going to give everyone plasma!