A Confusing Crusade Article

Now I know everyone is more interested in the new Balance Dataslate and Matched Play or tournament stuff, but I'm like whatever on it. Honestly, the only major changes this time was the Drukhari Haemonculi stuff losing Core (Talos and Cronos?), and maybe adjusting the power level of Skitarii Rangers and Vanguard. Me playing either Data-hoard Forge World with heavy emphasis on vehicles and robots or Ryza, I only ever use multiple small units of like 5 Skitarii here and there, so it doesn't affect me much. Either that or I just play Knights, heh. Or Black Templars (now that's fluffly thematic Crusade force!).

Everyone else is talking about the Balance Dataslate and stuff. You can go read on Goonhammer or Bell of Lost Souls or one of the many other websites, and they do a far better job than me on analysis so I ain't gonna bother with all that Matched Play or Tournament stuff. Instead, I'll focus on the thing I like - Crusade. You probably know I've organized a couple of Crusade campaigns so far, just one battle left for the Octarius one. I promise I'll get that last mission done...soon. After Horus Heresy stuff. Honestly, I feel like so many people neglect the Crusade scene. Like, all they talk about is the damned meta, or tournaments, or Richard Siegler winning LVO or whatever tournaments.

Where's all the Crusade players at?

With that said, I noticed that Warhammer Community has an article on Crusades. The title is Crusades are Better with Friends, which I agree whole-heartedly. You should always play Crusade with friends, which is what I've been doing all this time. However, the content of the article is what causes me to scratch my head.

Basically, the article encourages you to take allies. Simply put, we have like five Major Factions: The Imperium, Chaos, Aeldari, Tyranids and Lone Wolves (say what?).

So that's the five major factions, and if you play any of the major factions, i.e. Imperium, for example, you're encouraged to ally your dudes. So like Astra Militarum alongside Imperial Knights, or Imperial Knights alongside Adeptus Mechanicus (basically, what I've already been doing). The kicker, though, is this. If you bring allies and mix your army up - basically what we call soup - you lose your pure army bonus. For Adeptus Mechanicus, I don't have any Cult Mechanicus units (except my Kastelan robots and Tech-priests), so I don't really care. And I don't mind not having Imperative Doctrinas. Makes it easier for me, and I often don't use them because of the degradation or whatever. Plus Knight of the Cog really helps, though I'll be honest - I just use a Super-heavy Detachment with at least 3 Knights instead and forego the Imperative Doctrinas.

However, while I can make do without the Adeptus Mechanicus pure army bonus and Astra Militarum doesn't have a 9th edition codex (and thus no pure army bonus), I can't see how I'll soup anything with Black Templars. I did that before, souping Black Templar Terminators and Contemptor Dreadnoughts with my Imperial Knights, but...well, let's be honest. The most fun way to play Black Templars is using their Templar Vows. Uphold the Honor of the Emperor is easily one of the best bonuses, and I do enjoy using Accept Any Challenge, No Matter the Odds and Suffer Not the Unclean to Live are also super fun, especially in Crusade (they suck in tournament play, to be blunt, but in Crusade games they are thematic and not out of place). But you only get Black Templars Vows if you bring pure Black Templars. As much as I would like to ally Black Templars with my Imperial Guardsmen or Knights, losing the vows means losing half of the fun of playing them. Like, why would you bring Black Templars if you're not using their Vows?

Fortunately, the Army of Faith in the Vigilus Alone book might make up for it, but even so you lose the Black Templars Chapter Tactics. Oh, well. We'll see. That's fine, though. I think it might be a bit too much to have the Black Templars preserve their Chapter Tactics while having their Templars Vow alongside Guardsmen and Sisters allies. Still, I wonder if the Army of Faith chapter/doctrine/whatever is worth it, or if I'm better off just fielding Black Templars alongside a separate detachment of Guardsmen. But yeah, it kind of sucks not to have Templars vows. They are different from the Adeptus Mechanicus Canticles and Imperative Doctrinas - they actually add flavor to the army.

Which brings me back to the article. Why are they encouraging soup and allies when the codex and army rules explicitly discourage you from doing so?

I have the feeling it might have something to do with the outrage over the new Chapter Approved rules. As you might recall, in the new Chapter Approved 2022, the Nachmund Gauntlet mission pack or whatever, the rules outright ban inter-faction souping. People were whining about how this would stifle "creative lists", never mind the fact that people were mostly doing it for min-maxing (Argent Shroud Retributors plus Bloody Rose Sisters Repentia, Lucius Skitarii plus Mars Ironstrider Ballistarii, Thousand Sons Cult of Time running with Cult of Duplicity, etc. - oh, so "creative"). So that's why they have this whole paragraph dedicated to Orks.

While you're no longer allowed to soup different Ork Klan Kulturs under the same army in Matched Play and Tournaments, the article specifically encourages you to do so in Crusade. Apparently you can "create an Armageddon-themed army for your greenskins where Goffs, Bad Moons, and Evil Sunz Speed Freaks fight together under Ghazghkull" though I'm not sure if they mean you are supposed to play them against Yarrick and Black Templars or they're asking you to soup Orks with Yarrick and Black Templars (that would be downright hilarious and illogical). Maybe they mean you're supposed to play them against each other. The problem, though, is that while Orks get their pure Orks bonuses because...they are Orks, the Black Templars lose their Templar Vows if they bring Yarrick, Armageddon Steel Legion troopers and Yarrick's personal Baneblade, The Fortress of Arrogance, with them. So...uh, yeah. Not sure if that's a good idea.

One solution to this is that the campaign master can just waive the pure army requirements. The next time I run a campaign, I'll talk to my friends and see what they want to do about this. Or we could just accept that it's fine to field a weaker but fluffier army. I mean, sure, you could argue that soup helps to preserve the strengths of the souped factions while helping them cover for each other's weaknesses, but as the current meta will tell you, the pure army bonuses are way too strong for soup to have any sort of advantage or more than makes up for whatever weakness they have. So...yeah.

I don't know, man. I have no idea what the Warhammer Community article is trying to achieve. "Play fun and fluffy and not bother with pure army bonuses!" But it's...not exactly fun to play without the pure army bonuses if you play something like, say, Black Templars. Or Custodes who lose their Martial Ka'tah, for that matter. I like soup armies, and I can deal with losing Imperative Doctrinas or Canticles, but I don't really see what Black Templars bring to the table without their Templar Vows. You might as well bring generic Marines like Imperial Fists or Ultramarines then (come to think of it, Imperial Fists and Ultramarines always work with Imperial Guard in the lore anyway). Or successor Chapters.

Then again, we have an Army of Faith in Vigilus Alone, and I suspect more Crusade supplements in future will allow us to soup armies without losing the pure army bonuses.

On the other hand, until Chaos gets their codex, I think they're perfectly fine with souping. So a win for Chaos there...maybe. I'm not a big fan of the Cabal Points for Thousand Sons, so I plan to ally them with Chaos Knights in future...will be keeping an eye out for the new Chaos Knights. Will be fun to paint them in Thousand Sons Blue and pit them against my Imperial Knights of House Yato! That will be Crusade in all its glory! There's also the option of adding a small detachment of Word Bearers and going all in on summoning Daemons, though that mechanic is absurdly outdated and needs a rework. As reinforcements, they suck, but without restrictions, they can get ridiculously broken when the opponent summons more Daemons than his original army (as you saw in my Combat Patrol against Chaos Space Marines last Saturday). In any event, I'll be speaking to friends and seeing how it goes. For now...yeah. We really need Games Workshop to work on the Crusade thing more.

Don't just tell us to ally for fun, fluffy, narrative reasons. Give us an actual reason to soup. Maybe give soup a separate soup bonus? Or allow us to have the all-army bonus, with restrictions. Sort of like Genestealer Cults! You know, maybe if you want to preserve a pure army bonus for a specific army, you can only take a Patrol Detachment for allies (the 25% does feel a bit restrictive). We're already paying Command Points to take allies, and on top of that we lose pure army bonuses. So there really isn't much of an advantage to souping, and it's outweighed by the pure army bonuses or command points anyway. If you're afraid that people will abuse it, then...I don't know, make soup bonuses for Crusade only. I honestly don't know.

Well, this being Crusade/narrative, the campaign masters can do whatever they want and make their own rules, but it'll be great if we can receive more concrete guidelines and thematic rules from official sources. I think...but yeah. I wonder how the future of Crusade will look. I might get Vigilus Alone and the Crusade supplement and see how it goes. You'll never know!

More Crusade Games

I played 2 Crusade Combat Patrol games against Eldar today - using the missions from Beyond the Veil and Containment. More fun that way, I think. Anyway, instead of the usual battle reports, let's turn them into stories. Because...why the hell not?

Aldara, Blackstone deposit

The Armiger-class Knights bearing the heraldry of House Sidus stalked through the ancient ruins, tracking their surroundings with sophisticated sensors. Their auspexes pinged nothing, but the Mechanicus indentured pilots remained alert. Their tech-priest masters had busied themselves with collecting Blackstone from the deposit in this far-flung planet on the far reaches of Segmentum Ultima. While they were not directly subordinated to the Prime Conduit of the Omnissiah, Archmagos Belisarius Cawl himself, the Ryzan priesthood had their own interests in the Blackstone.

Several cycles earlier, Magos Aelph Rho had reported that he had lost contact with a maniple of Skitarii. The Ryzan Skitarii had sent a signal several milliseconds before all signals had been cut off, reporting an encounter with an unknown force. Calculating a 97.8% probability that they had fallen to an enemy attack, Magos Rho had dispatched the attached House Sidus Knights to investigate.

Theta 2-Alpha, bonded to his Helm Mechanicum by neural cabling and optic fibers, guided his Knight Moirax across the uneven terrain. On either side, the more standard Armiger Warglaive pattern Knights loped, much like hunting hounds sniffing out the enemy.

"Remains of Maniple Sigma 3 spotted." Theta 2-Alpha turned at Epsilon 7-Delta's cold, mechanical voice that spoke in harsh binharic cant. Linking his mind neurally to the bondsman, he received the visual capture on his pict-screen. Obliterated cyborg warriors lay in pieces, their bonics shattered.  So complete was their destruction, the ragged tatters of their orange cowls and robes were the only visual identification that the dead Skitarii were from Ryza.

"Updating threat status to vermillion level," Theta 2-Alpha said in binharic, exloading the status report to Magos Rho. The priestly masters must be warned of this...and even if they didn't, they craved data all the same.

There was a panicked blurt of binharic from Epsilon 7-Delta's side. Turning around, Theta 2-Alpha spotted a squad of xenos charging forward, their blades leaving ghostly wisps of esoteric energy in the air as they slashed and cut. Epsilon's Armiger Warglaive faltered, cabling ruptured and servos damaged from the ferocious attack. He swung back, the Reaper chain-cleaver mowing down one of the xenos, but the rest darted away swiftly. Their brutal harmonics assaulted the auditory channels, and judging from his sluggish movements, Epislon was feeling the worst of them.

Howling Banshees, Theta designated the xenos caste with a thought, inloading combat data from the noosphere. He moved to help, but Epsilon appeared to be handling the combat just fine. Instead, Beta 8-Mu's Armiger Warglaive exploded to the right.

Swerving around, Theta spotted Beta's killer. A lumbering behemoth strode forward, bearing twin massive cannons on its shoulders while wielding a single gigantic glaive. Its head was sleek, a featureless dome that tapered at the crown. The blue surface gleamed, emanating some sort of frequency that Theta couldn't quite identify. Shrapnel splattered from the glaive, sparks running along its length as the ghostly walker yanked it out of the convulsing Armiger Warglaive that it had just disemboweled.

Wraith constructs. The term trickled into his cyborgized mind, inloaded by the information that the noosphere provided. The Skitarii cohorts of Ryza had encountered them several times over the last few millennia. Highly dangerous war engines of the doomed Aeldari race, they operated by means unknown to the Mechanicus. There were rumors abound the Biologis division that these machines were powered by the spirits of dead xenos, their essence trapped within gems they termed spirit stones. Constructed out of Wraithbone, a psychic material that the Adeptus Mechanicus were unable to replicate, they could scythe a Leman Russ tank in half easily.

Beta 8-Mu never stood a chance.

"Updating threat status to crimson level," Theta 2-Alpha amended, his voice crackling in dispassionate binharic. He then squeezed the trigger, unleashing graviton pulses from the paired graviton pulsars of his Knight Moirax. The distorted waves slammed into the Wraithlord, enveloping it in an invisble well of gravity and cracking its armor. It staggered but didn't fall. Its cannons slowly rotated about, but weren't aimed at his Armiger.

Is the foe underestimating me? Theta did not feel fury or any emotion, simply curiosity. An eccentric behavior that he filed away for his tech-priest masters to analyze later.

Then his Armiger Knight Moriax shuddered. Warning reports bathed his Helm Mechanicum red, holo-picts materializing around him to display damaged circuits. As he struggled to right his steed, Theta spotted a squad of smaller Wraith constructs lumbering forward to support the Wraithlord.

Wraithguard. Armed with wraithcannons, they were mercilessly hammering into the Armiger Knight Moirax. Theta somehow deflected a few shots with his ion shield, but several went through, severing the arm of his Knight.

Then the Wraithlord fired again. For a moment, Theta was resigned, leaning back against his seat and accepting his fate. When oblivion did not arrive, he blinked and consulted his auspexes.

He understood why he was still alive.

To his left, the smoldering wreck of Epsilon 7-Delta lay to the side, a molten hole lanced into the cockpit. The last member of Theta's lance had tried to circle around and catch the Wraithlord by surprise with his thermal spear, but the ghostly Aeldari walker had taken him out first...with cold precision.

Theta attempted to aim at the Wraithlord once more, but the Wraithguard advanced, continuing to ravage his Knight Moirax with relentless fire from their cannons. One finally punched through his faltering ion shield, ripping a hole through the hip of the Armiger class Knight and sending it careening to the back.

"Ugh..."

Theta moved his haptic gloves futilely, trying to restore some semblance of motive force to his downed engine. Even as he struggled, he watched as the looming silhouette of the Wraithlord grew all over his primary visual pict-screen. Already the damage dealt to it had disappeared, the mysterious wraithbone having swirled and mended, covering the cracks that the graviton pulses had forced upon its surface earlier.

A chill spread over Theta as he stared at the Wraithlord, his neutered brain dimly registering the emotion as fear. Perhaps the Mechanicus hadn't fully excised his sensations after all.

The barrels of the two cannons mounted upon the Wraithlord spat. Theta felt a molten heat and shrieking agony for a second, and then nothing.

Hestia, Imperium's Bastion World, Outpost Sigma

"Holy Emperor of Mankind..."

Tanaka breathed wearily as he watched the Eldar warhost come bearing down on Outpost Sigma. He clenched his fists, and Kazan responded, whirring its Reaper chain-cleaver almost unconsciously. Tanaka could sense the machine spirit of his steed growling, its fiery furnace of a heart flaring aggressively.

Wraith constructs were ambling toward the Guard outpost. For whatever reason, Imperial Command had assigned his Knight lance to guard this particular bastion. Normally they wouldn't order Knights from a noble house such as House Yato to such dreary tasks, but...evidently they lacked the manpower.

Tanaka didn't blame them. The Imperial Guard had been stretched thin and decimated in that last encounter, the infantry nearly annihilated after General Jerome Korsky's reckless blunder had seen them routed by Orks' speedbuggies and bikers. There weren't enough men left to form even a platoon.

The foul greenskins weren't the only xenos that wanted this planet, it seemed. Now even the ancient Aeldari wanted a piece of the pie that was Hestia. After the debacle with the Orks, who managed to land a SpeedWaaagh! down in great numbers, the Adeptus Mechanicus had hastily repaired and restored several of the imperial bastions dotted across the fortress, reactivating the orbital defense guns and taking big chunks out of the Ork fleet. The greenskins had been forced to withdraw, and the pressure had slackened on the imperial defenders. However, it appeared that the Aeldari was desperate for this planet, for they had landed a force further out to take out one of the emplacements.

Currently, the Aeldari fleet was engaging the crude Ork ships, elegantly dancing through brutal hulks of rock and metal while blasting chunks out of the ramshackle armada. The Orks didn't seem to care, though. They had overwhelming numbers. If anything, they reveled in the space combat, recklessly hurling themselves at the sleek Craftworld ships in suicidal attempts to board them. They tore at each other without impunity, the Eldar ships precisely slicing the ramshackle frigates and cruisers apart like surgical knives while the Ork battleships and roks cruelly bludgeoned fragile Aeldari cruisers and corvettes to pieces.

The only thing keeping both xenos fleets at bay were the orbital defense guns. And Tanaka would be damned if he let them fall.

Purple blurs streaked toward him, Eldar jetbikes strafing him with their Shuriken weapons. Tanaka deflected them with his ion shields and had Kazan step forward. With a single swing of his steed's Reaper chain-cleaver, he ripped a jetbike apart and sent its rider vaulting into a blossoming fireball. The remaining Windrunners circled about and took potshots at his rear, forcing Tanaka to angle his ion shield accordingly. He patiently waited for them to reach him before he scythed through them. One of the Eldar riders ceased to exist, the power field wreathing the Reaper chain-cleaver disintegrating his body instantly. Its jetbike fipped over and crashed into a nearby Windrunner, the collision sending both hover vehicles crashing into the ground and ending in fire and fury.

A searing lance slammed into his ion shield, causing Kazan to shudder. While Tanaka struggled to right his steed, he caught sight of Kanda's Knight Moirax lumbering forward. Graviton pulses emitted from the esoteric weaponry of the Mechanicus Knight, crushing a handful of advancing Wraithguard that were about to hit him.

"Thanks, Kanda," Tanaka voxed. A holo-pict at the bottom corner of his Helm Mechanicum displayed his comrade's sharp features, Kanda nodding in acknowledgement.

With a determined yell, Tanaka had Kazan charge at the Wraithlord. His meltagun and thermal spear spat, incadescent beams of fury that struck the enemy walker and sent it reeling. Before it could recover, he drove the Reaper chain-cleaver of Kazan right into its chest, obliterating the spirit stone embedded there and shattering the delicate circuitry. The Wraithlord slumped down, its body hanging limply off the whirring blade.

"Not bad." Not far away, Suzuki was hunting down the last of the Aeldari raiders. Hebi mowed down a Spiritseer who was trying to conjure some ominous xenos witchery to repair the fallen Wraith constructs while Kanda had finished off the last of the Wraithguard with his graviton weaponry. A group of armored xenos were fleeing, their bodies clad in carapace that Tanaka didn't recognize. A quick browse through his database showed them to be the caste designated as Dire Avengers or something.

Not that monkeigh such as him would understand the myriad pathways that the Aeldari walked. Nor did he wanted to. For warriors of House Yato such as him, the only path for him to walk was that of Bushido, the way of the warrior. No xenos philosophy could ever match that.

"We still have to be careful, though," Tanaka remarked as he melted one of the retreating Dire Avengers to slag with the carapace-mounted meltagun. Kazan bellowed in triumph, and Tanaka had to suppress the machine-spirit's ectasy. He couldn't let his steed control him. Looking up into the skies, he sighed. "Somewhere far away, I bet there's another Knight Lance who's getting their asses kicked by a similar Aeldari Warhost."

"Impossible!" Suzuki sneered arrogantly. "Nothing can challenge the dominion of mankind! The galaxy is ours!"

"No," Tanaka muttered as he remembered the ravenous hordes of Tyranids that House Yato had so recently fought in the Charadon Sector. Until they eliminated the diverse xenos threats and the heretical traitors who blighted the Imperium, humanity had no way of laying claim to supremacy. For a while, Tanaka didn't dare imagine that they would ever be able to exterminate all the dangers to the Imperium, but the return of Lord Commander Roboute Guilliman had offered him some hope. "Not yet."

The Orks' point of view

And so my friend wrote his own side of his story, from the perspective of the Orks!

“ ‘Ey Boss ya got a minute?” Big Mek Wheelcutta’s grot oiler, Nuthead called to his master, who was currently fixing a couple of bolts to a hastily cobbled together rifle.

“Wut iz it ya little snot?” Wheelcutta replied without looking up from his work, “Did Uggax drive ahead again?” Nuthead looked up nervously setting down his pair of ocular-squigs he was using to watch the speedboss face off against the noble imperial watchdogs. “Yea and he got krumped right good, da ‘uman stompas slagged ‘is trike with those big gra-vi-ty kannon they gots.” Wheelcutta angrily kicked the gun-stand holding his rifle over, “DAT ZOGGIN GROT-BRAIN! Iz tolds ‘im ta watch THE ZOGGIN TRIKES PAINT! ‘An what does he do, he gets it right scratched.”

“Oh he got it a bit more than scratched Boss.” Nuthead replied, a mischievous smile starting to snake it’s way across his face. “Lookz more like it’s been completely scrapped up In a ball; ya think Uggax made it?” Wheelcutta slowly collected the rifle off the ground and hefted it over his great green shoulder. “Oh he better not ‘ave, cuz I’m gonna give ‘Im won of deez” Before Nuthead had any time to react, Wheelcutta flicked a red switch upon his kustom weapon and took careful aim at Nuthead; the unfortunate grot let out a squeal of terror as the weapon started to buzz with a odd blue and white energy. The Big Mek pulled a scrappy trigger, and a great blast echoed throughout the workshop. Nuthead screamed as a bolt of energy pulsed through him, searing pain engulfed his form and soon the Grot was no more. Wheelcutta let out a satisfied grunt and turned to leave his shop, he knew that this was only the beginning of the fight and that Uggax wouldn’t back out so early.

Kazan

So I wrote a short story for the battle report for the Esacalation League. Heh. Thought you guys might be interested. Anyway, here it is:

Bondsman Tanaka surveyed the ruins before him. Taking a deep breath, he whispered a brief prayer to soothe the machine spirit of his steed, Kazan. The Armiger-class Knight responded to his deft touches, his fingers clenching in the haptic gloves as he leaned back in the Helm Mechanicum. There no whispers as there would be in a fully fledged Throne Mechanicum. Tanaka had heard his superior, the higher ranked Bushi who piloted the venerable Questoris Knights and even ths Dominus Chassis, speak much about the "ghosts" lurking in their Throne Mechanicum. He wondered if he would ever ascend to such exalted ranks. "WAAAGH!" The howls of the greenskins drew his attention back to the present. The Reaper chain-glaive whirred in response to his thoughts as he triggered a stud in his haptic gloves. On the right of the Armiger Warglaive, the thermal spear glowed as exotic energies flowed from the Armiger-class plasma reactor and into the melta weapon. He took aim at the lead vehicle - a Squigbuggy, from the looks of it, and squeezed the trigger. An incadescent beam of molten energy lanced out, striking the side of the vehicle. Tanaka cursed when he saw it was only a glancing blow. The Orks riding on the buggy bellowed both in triumph and fury, partially relieved that their vehicle hadn't been melted to slag. "Poor shooting, Tanaka." Suzuki chuckled. Piloting the second Armiger Warglaive of the Knight Lance sent to deal with a roving patrol of Orks, his steed, the Hebi strode forward confidently. "I'll show you how it's done." While the Hebi sprinted toward the Squigbuggy, Suzuki confidently piloting his machine, Tanaka turned his attention to a flanking mob of warbikers. The Orks had gathered in something Imperial intelligence termed Speed Freeks Speed Mob. In other words, a bunch of greenskins riding warbikes and buggies. Howling excitedly, they waved crude cleavers and choppas, letting off a burst of dakka that sprinkled ineffectively against Kazan's ion shield.

Not one to stray from a fight, Tanaka pulled Kazan to a gentle lope, meeting the charging warbikers. A single burst from the carapace meltagun melted one of the Warbikers to slag, destroying the bike and disintegrating the shrieking greenskin. The rest scattered, evading a short burst from the Kazan's thermal spear. Hooting joyfully, they swiveled about and converged upon the walker, swinging their cleavers and scoring dents. Tanaka winced when damage reports manifested on the green-tinted holo-picts in his Helm Mechanicum. Spinning Kazan about, he swung his reaper chain-cleaver and caught one of the bikers in a devastating blow. Crude metal and green flesh split under the glowing power field of the deadly weapon, red blood spreading about in a mist as the Ork simply ceased to exist. Crushing the broken bike under the clawed foot of the Armiger, Tanaka then reached out with his haptic glove. Responding to his will, the reaper chain-cleaver lashed out to slice a snarling Ork who thought it had the better of his foe, cutting it apart before it could swing its choppa. Then Tanaka kicked out at the final biker, knocking its rider off its mount and sending it crashing onto the ground with a roar. The Ork tried to rise, spluttering in an undignified manner, before it was obliterated by the full weight of Kazan stomping on it. It was no Titanic Feet, but even a resilient Ork couldn't survive getting stomped on by an Armiger class Knight. Raising his head to study the visual auspex, Tanaka saw that Kanda had blown the Warboss on a Wartike clear with a focused fire of graviton pulses. His Armiger Knight Moriax had been outfitted with esoteric technology that was not usually seen on most Armiger class Knights. Thanks to House Yato's links with the Forge World of Draconis IV, though, the great Knight House had an abundant supply of the Moirax variants.

The triumph was short-lived, however, for Kanda's Knight Moirax was sent staggering by the cannons of an approaching boosta-blasta. A second squadron of Warbikers, taking advantage of the reeling walker, charged in with gleeful hoots and whoops, their cleavers slashing chunks of adamantine armor out of the Armiger Knight. To Tanaka's horror, Kanda's machine was laid low with a particular brutal blow from the nob, who wielded a particularly nasty cleaver that whirred and thrummed. Powered by a combination of primitive technology and wild belief in their foul xenos gods, the greenskin swung like a creature possessed, tearing off the Knight Moirax's leg at the knee and sending Kanda's steed toppling.

"Suzuki!" Tanaka shouted, trying to get the second member of his lance to back him up as he charged toward the surviving warbikers. The boosta-blasta's deadly cannon boomed once more, but he somehow deflected it with a deft adjustment of his ion shield. Despite the hasty reflex, Kazan shuddered from the impact. Gleeful, the Warbikers pounced to capitalize. Tanaka cursed and looked around for his lance mate, only to see a smoldering wreck. Suzuki's Hebi had been laid low while entangled with another squad of Warbikers. He wasn't sure if the pilot was still alive, but he wouldn't be if he didn't eliminate the threat before him. With a squeeze of his fingers, he triggered the thermal spear. The Warbikers skillfully spread out once more, dodging the glowing beam of molten energy with relish, but the boosta-blasta was not so lucky. Tanaka caught a glimpse of the greenskin driver ogling at the incadescent lance, pulling hard on the steering wheel. The ungainly vehicle swerved, but not in time to avoid the melta beam. An explosion engulfed the ramshackle buggy, the wreck consumed by a colossal conflagration. Uncaring of the fate of their ally, the Warbikers zoomed in on the limping Armiger. Tanaka gritted his teeth and braced himself for the impact. He swung Kazan's Reaper Chain-cleaver and felt a sense of satisfaction when he obliterated one of the riders. However, the nob struck out and tore through the cabling in the Armiger's knees, almost sending the machine falling over.

They know how to fight against Knights, Tanaka thought to himself. They must have learned somehow. The Orks had always been a tenacious breed, created solely for combat. They thrived on it, even. Well, not anymore. Tanaka had sworn an oath to his Daimyo to see the filthy species exterminated from the galaxy. These foul creatures would rue the day they invaded the Imperium. Swiveling the meltagun atop the carapace of his Knight, Tanaka blew one of the Warbikers to bits, melting both rider and mount to slag. Limping after the nob, who had circled about to meet Kazan in combat once again, he swung his Reaper chain-cleaver just as the nob swung its big choppa. Both weapons collided explosively, sparks flying between them. The nob laughed boisterously, enjoying the contest of strength against the man in a metal suit. Tanaka felt no such joy, but he felt zealous conviction. Faith in humanity's right to rule the galaxy. With contempt, he had his Armiger kick out and totalled the bike under the nob. The greenskin, taken by surprise, rolled off the ground and brought its weapon up with a snarl. There was a shuddering screech as it slashed the thigh plating of Kazan. However, it was nothing more but a glancing blow. By the Emperor's fortune, the armor held - just barely. The plating buckled, but the whirring teeth of the choppa failed to sink in any further. The greenskin looked up at the towering Armiger Warglaive, its beady eyes widening as if it could sense the hatred from the pilot within. Then Tanaka swung Kazan's Reaper Chain-cleaver and took the nob's head off in a single blow.

Hobby stuff

I managed to assemble a second squad of Cataphractii Terminators with thunder hammers and storm shields. I had to make do with spare MKIII power armor thunder hammers because the Cataphractii Terminator special weapon upgrade set only came with 3, so I bought 2 MKIII power armor thunder hammers from somewhere else. Nonetheless, I paired them with the Imperial Fists Cataphractii Terminator storm shields that I was so fond of and yay! Now I have 10 Assault Terminators with thunder hammers and Imperial Fists storm shields! The Cataphractii version, no less!

Definitely can field a small Imperial Fists army for Horus Heresy now, using Pride of the Legion. The Terminators will be troops, plus the Contemptor Dreadnoughts, and...I think I'll just see what else I can add eventually. But yeah, Pride of the Legion - Templar Brethren! Otherwise I'll just use them for my Black Templars! They are Black Templars, after all.

I also painted a couple of models this morning. I painted my third Armiger Warglaive! Remember on Saturday, I mentioned that I was shifting toward a Knight Household with the Hounds of War Household Tradition alongside Glorified History? That was because I plan to get more Armigers. With the new Objective Secured ability (and counting as 5 models), Armigers are going to be very important in playing the mission. I'll need at least two more so that I can grab as many objectives as I can. Heh. So here is my third Armiger Warglaive, joining the ranks of my two others. I plan to get a third Knight Moirax eventually, but...as I said on Saturday, Forge World kind of screwed up my order and I'm still waiting on them to get back to me. Oh, well. Anyway...

In addition to my third Armiger Warglaive, I painted 2 Castellax battle-automata! This means I have a fully painted Legio Cybernetica army! I needed 2 more Castellax battle-automata to field a full primary detachment of Legio Cybernetica or Mechanicum forces with the Legio Cybernetica Rite of War. As veterans of the Horus Heresy will know, you need a minimum of 1 compulsory HQ and 2 compulsory Troops for a primary detachment - this is the old Force Organization Chart rules in 7th edition that is still being used for Horus Heresy. So Legio Cybernetica requirements are that you need to take a unit of minimum 2 Castellax battle-automata for compulsory Troops. So I needed 4. And now I have 4!

This is my entire Legio Cybernetica army now! It consists of an Archmagos Dominus, a Magos Dominus, a Tech-priest Auxilia with cortex controller and servo-automata (basically Cybernetica Datasmith), 2 units of 2 Castellax battle-automata - 2 with mauler bolt cannons, 2 with Darkfire cannons, 2 Vultarax strato-automata and 2 Thanatar siege-automata. I've included 4 Kastelan robots even though they are technically not part of the Horus Heresy (funnily they feature heavily in Rob Sanders's Horus Heresy novella, Cybernetica, though). Rounding out the Legio Cybernetica cohort are 2 Mechanicum Knights Moirax and a single Cerastus Knight Atrapos. It's truly meant to be a Mechanicum cohort, heh.

I will be bringing this Mechanicum Legio Cybernetica army for a Horus Heresy narrative event this Saturday! We'll see how it goes! Till then! Ave Omnissiah!

Oh, and I also added more paint to my Warlord Titan and touched up a little here and there. I found my Warlord Titan very plain, especially when I put him next to my Knights. So I decided to add a bit of red here and there to make him stand out as a centerpiece model when standing next to my Knight banners. To distinguish him - he's not a Knight, he's a Titan. So more colors, a more...vivid paint scheme, shall we say? I think I like him a lot better now. He looks much better than before...the last time, with just black and gold, he looked pretty plain. With the red, he looks much better.

Why red, you ask? Well...I'm a fan of Blackburn Rovers, and I love the color scheme of their away jersey, so I decided to go for black and red. Because...Blackburn Rovers. Yeah. Now you know why the Marshal of my Black Templars Crusade force is named Mowbray, eh?

Dreamers Escalation League

We have an Escalation League in Dreamers Vault today! Yay! The manager started it today, and 9 of us signed up. It was really fun! I think there was quite a variety - we had Necrons, Craftworld Aeldari, Adeptus Custodes, Knights (converted Ork Knights, I think, but using Imperial Knight rules - House Krast, in particular), Imperial Guard, Orks, Blood Angels and Thousand Sons. I was the second Knight player there, so that was...peculiar. I didn't think Knights would be popular, heh.

Anyway, I came late today because I was waiting for a delivery from Forge World - USPS told me the delivery time, so yay. I had a couple of Contemptor Dreadought arms for a friend, so I wanted to get hold of them and pass them to him today because I wouldn't be going to Dreamers next week (Horus Heresy stuff next Saturday!). To my horror, my Knight Moirax was missing. I'll have to contact Forge World and either ask them to send a Knight Moirax once it's restocked or request for a refund. I'm not sure how long they will take to respond, but generally from my experience they are pretty quick. Though they seem to be busy these days.

Fortunately, I was still able to get a Combat Patrol game today! Two of them, actually - one of them was for the Escalation League. I played against my friend who plays Orks. He brought that Army of Renown for Orks, something to do with SpeedFreakz? Speed Freeks Speed Mob, if I'm not mistaken. So a bunch of Ork bikers (2 squads of 4 Ork bikers), a Warboss on a wartrike, a Squigbuggy and a Boosta-Blasta if I remember correctly. We rolled off, I won the roll, but I let him go first. It's a Crusade game, and I didn't want to...uh, you know, be too competitive.

Oh, right. My list? Armigers. It's 500 points, so I brought 2 Armiger Warglaives and an Armiger Knight Moirax with graviton pulsars. I decided to switch things up and pair Glorified History with Hounds of War because I was planning to transit to a more Armiger-heavy list. It'll be useful for my Armigers to fall back and shoot.

The Orks rushed up the table, counting as making a normal move even though they advanced, and getting a 5++ invulnerable save when they advanced, which made them incredibly hard to kill. Fortunately, my Knights were far back, so I didn't suffer much. Instead, I wiped out a warbiker squad in combat with my Armiger Warglaive, and then proceeded to do 7 or so damage to the Warboss on a Wartrike with a meltagun. Unfortunately, my other Armiger Warglaive was unable to kill the second squad of warbikers, with me fluffing my rolls. The Knight Moirax also rolled double 1s for his 2D6 graviton pulsar shots, which made me have a sinking feeling in my stomach. Fortunately, the Knight Moirax survived a charge from the warboss on wartrike, and then using the Hounds of War to my advantage, I had him fall back and kill the warboss on wartrike with graviton pulsars. Yes!

However, my other Armiger Warglaive fell to the warbikers. Yikes. I managed to destroy the squigbuggy with my first Armiger Warglaive, though, his melta just burning through most of its health, and then finishing it off in combat with his reaper chain-cleaver. The warbikers survived more shots and charged my Knight Moirax, along with the boosta-blasta, and destroyed him in combat. Ouch. Oh, they did mortal wounds when they charged too. Even more ouch. I was barely hanging in there, but I finally destroyed the boosta-blasta with a melta gun, then charged in to lock the surviving warbikers in combat. We swung at each other for a couple of turns, and my Armiger Warglaive made a single clutch save - he needed a 5+ armor save and I got it - against a Damage 2 big choppa when he only had 2 wounds remaining and...he killed the Warbikers. I think on the very last turn. Phew.

Thanks to that, I managed to win the game. I think I had like 50 points to my opponent's 40 anyway, so I was somehow able to pull out on top. Phew. That came down to the wire. If my Armiger Warglaive failed that save and lost his last 2 wounds, my Knights would have been defeated in this game. Yikes. That was so clutch!

Also had a small combat patrol against Chaos Space Marines. To make up for the difference in firepower, I allowed him to summon every turn and didn't count reinforcement points. So he basically pulled a few hundred points of Daemons over the course of the game for free, making it an almost 800 or 900 point list against my 435 point Knight list. That was fine. By the end of the game, I killed his Dark Apostle, 5 Terminators, 2 squads of 5 Chaos Space Marines, 5 Raptors, about 10+ Bloodletters, 10 Flesh Hounds, Skulltaker and...yeah. I decided to surrender because there were way too many Daemons for me to deal with, and I only had a single Knight Moirax left after his Bloodletters ripped apart my poor Armiger Warglaives. But that's fine. As long as my opponent had fun, that was all that mattered to me. It was a casual game anyway, so whatever - I wanted him to win so that he would enjoy the game, even if we did it through unconventional means (summoning Daemons every turn without them costing reinforcement points).

Oh, and I bought the Cerastus Knights. Now I have 2 Cerastus Knight Castigators and 2 Cerastus Knight Acherons. I thought they would be useful so that I will have more Knight banners. Heh. We'll see what else I can do. Till then!

Dire Wolf Scout Titan!

We are getting a new Dire Wolf Scout Titan from Forge World for Adeptus Titanicus! YAY! You can arm him with either a carapace mounted volcano cannon or neutron laser, as well as torso mounted Ardex defensor mega-bolters.

Nice! The Dire Wolf looks a lot better than the Warhound, in my opinion. I was expecting, I dunno, a Rapier, but I guess this guy works too. He looks pretty cool to assemble and run around with my Knights. We'll see. Till then!