Draconis III marches to war!

I have finally finished painting my Legio Draconis Titans, or the Dark Dragons! Yay! My Adeptus Titanicus Battlegroup is finally complete! As I said before, it features a single Myrmidion Heavy Maniple and a Cerastus Knight Banner.

The Warlord Titan, Kagutsuchi, armed with two Belicosa volcano cannons and Apocalypse missile launchers, the Warlord Titan, Ryuujin, armed with two Sunfury plasma annihilators and turbo-laser destructors, and the Reaver Titan, Akatsuki, equipped with two volcano cannons and an Apocalypse missile launcher.



That's not all. I also painted my Castellax-Achea battle-automata. Even though I no longer have a Mechanicum army, I'm keeping these two just in case we get Warhammer 40,000 rules for the Mechanicum units. I also have a single Thanatar that I haven't really painted, but that's fine. And a Vultarax Stratos-automata. I probably wouldn't get more, not unless we get rules for 40K. Horus Heresy really isn't my thing, and if I do want to play Horus Heresy, I'll just play Imperial Knights instead. In addition to my Castellax battle-automata, I also painted my Vindicare Assassin. Yay?



So this is pretty much my full army. The full might of Draconis III marches to war, supplemented by the Skitarii of Draconis IV. As my blog should already tell you, this is a blog about Imperial Knights, Astra Militarum and Adeptus Mechanicus. And as you can see, that's exactly what I have here. A full Household of Imperial Knights, with their Astra Militarum armored retinue, and a small garrison of Skitarii, Secutarii Titan Guard and Cybernetica automata from the Adeptus Mechanicus.



My Imperial Guard regiment, the Draconian Armored Defenders, as you can see, are primarily an armored regiment comprising mostly of tanks. If possible, I would like to have Chimera, but they're stuck somewhere else right now. I'll get them over eventually, and turn the infantry into mechanized infantry (probably gonna need more than 2 Chimera if that's the case). But as you can see, there are a bunch of Tank Commanders in Leman Russ Executioner tanks, a single Leman Russ Punisher tank, a Leman Russ Annihilator tank, and a single Carnodon tank with Volkite weapons. Volkite is amazing. If I have the option to arm my Guardsmen with volkite chargers instead of lasguns, I would do it in a heartbeat. But...oh, well. The tanks are escorted by the Shadowsword, The Emperor's Wrath, which is the command tank of the regimental commander, Colonel Ikeda Itsuki. The armor column is escorted by 3 squads of infantry, each armed with lasguns and a single plasma gun. They are commanded by a Company Commander with plasma pistol, and 2 Platoon Commanders with bolt pistols. Right at the back are the Draconian Stormtroopers, also known as Kamikaze Troopers. I prefer Kasrkin models to the Militarum Tempestus models, and I might get more in future. Maybe. We'll see. Kasrkins look cooler, and I think they suit my Draconian aesthetic more. In any case, the Kamikaze Troopers are the elite infantry of the Draconian Defenders, and they are often called upon to escort the nobles and serve as bodyguard retinues for the Knight pilots of Draconis III.



At the back of my Astra Militarum regiment are two Assassins from the Officio Assassinorum. Usually, when the Company Commander feels that the threat is too overwhelming, he would requisition an Imperial Assassin or two from Segmentum Command, and they will sanction and dispatch the Assassins with all haste. In the past, we would need the High Lords of Terra to sanction the Assassins, but after Lord Commander Roboute Guilliman returned to Terra, he has changed the system to allow for greater flexibility. So my Astra Militarum basically has Imperial Assassins seconded to them. The Eversor Assassins usually remain in stasis, guarded by the Tech-priests of the forge world, Draconis IV.





Draconis IV is a forge world with its own Skitarii garrison, but as you can see, it's not a very big Skitarii force. They have a considerable Cybernetica Cohort, however, with Draconian-pattern Kastelan Robots, Castellax battle-automata, and eventually Thanatar siege-automata (if we ever get the damned rules for 40K). The Skitarii is armed usually with plasma calivers or arc weaponry - as you can see, there are two squads of Skitarii Rangers with 2 arc rifles, and the Alpha armed with an arc pistol and arc maul. The military forces of the Draconian systems prefer exotic weaponry such as volkite, plasma and arc weapons, whether it's the Imperial Guard or Skitarii Tech-Guard. Thanks to the forge world Draconis IV, they get a lot of these advanced and exotic weapons that aren't normally available to other regiments. They also have a massive garrison of Secutarii Hoplites that march alongside Legio Draconis to war as Titan Guard. Anda gain, these Secutarii Hoplites are equipped with arc lances. I told you arc weapons are a thing with Draconis IV.



And finally we have House Yato. The pilot of the Knight Crusader is Tanaka Tomoyuki (Family name first, then given name), the protagonist of my story. Supposedly. The pilot of the Knight Errant is Suzuki Seishirou. And the pilot of the Knight Gallant is Takeda Takeshi, though I occasionally swap the Knight Gallant's primary weapons for that of a Knight Crusader. In which case, the pilot will still be Takeda, because...yeah. The pilot of the Cerastus Knight Lancer is the Seneschal, basically, and I might as well just call him Yatogami Yuuto. He is usually the "Warlord" who leads the Knight Lance. House Yato is known as the Dragon Slayers, because their Knights often battle the Ryu - or Dragons - in Draconis III, and the Daimyos are usually decided by who slays the Yamata no Orochi in the deepest heart of the dense forests that populate much of Draconis III's continents. The nobles are accompanied by trusted retainers selected from the commoners, who earn the honor of piloting the Armiger-class Knights like the Armiger Helverins. These commoners are elevated to semi-noble status, and they have the opportunity to prove themselves through battle to elevate their ranks to actual nobles. Many eventually rise through the ranks and pilot Questoris or Cerastus chassis Knights of their own, though many more die valiantly in combat, sacrificing their lives for their masters and the Imperium. Nobility, while frequently hereditary, is flexible and fluid. A commoner may become a noble through military valor and heroic deeds. As long as he proves himself in combat, he will ascend from retainer to noble and pilot a "proper" Knight. And the Secutarii Hoplites accompany the Cerastus Knight Lancer because the Knights of Draconis III are closely allied with the Dark Dragons, and march to war beside their gigantic Titan cousins.



I have read the Titan supplements and stuff, and I like the way they name the indentured Knight Houses to the Titan Legions. So I'll probably divide the Lances into maniples or something. So you'll have three main Houses. Under each House, you'll have four main battlegroups, headed by the top Daimyos - the Seiryuu, the Suzaku, the Byakko and the Genbu battlegroups. And within each battlegroup, you'll further divide them into big lances that are named after weapons. So you'll have the Katana lance, the Tsurugi lance, the Tachi lance, the Wakizashi lance, etc. And under each big lance, you'll have them divided into smaller lances of three to five Knights, each with the designation Alpha, Beta, Sigma, Epsilon, etc. I'll probably need to do a separate article on this, but for example, Tomoyuki's lance is under House Yato, the Seiryuu battlegroup, Tsurugi-Alpha Lance. So the designation would probably be Seiryuu Tsurugi-Alpha, and his Knight would be designated Seiryuu Tsurugi-Alpha-Four (Yatogami Yuuto's Cerastus Knight Lancer would be designated Seiryuu Tsurugi-Alpha-One because he's the Seneschal/Lance Leader). That would solve my problems of having to come up with stupid names for each individual Knights, since there are literally hundreds of them in Draconis III. The Armigers would be granted the double-digits. So, for example, the Cerastus Knights, Questoris Knights, Acastus Knights and Dominus Knights would occupy the single digits (and most often they number up to five, but it is also common for lances to have up to nine, so that they can split into two lances). The Armigers would then be designated Seiryuu Tsurugi-Alpha-Ten and Seiryuu Tsurugi-Alpha-Eleven.



As you can see, I have both the big version of my Cerastus Knight Lancer, Seiryuu Tsurugi-Alpha-One piloted by Daimyo Yatogami Yuuto, and the smaller Adeptus Titanicus versions. For the Adeptus Titanicus versions, we'll just call them Seiryuu Tsurugi-Alpha-One and Seiryuu Tsurugi-Alpha-Two, piloted by Yatogami Yuuto and Kaneda Kenji, who doesn't appear in the regular 40K because budget reasons, and also because I can't squeeze two Cerastus Knight Lancers into a single list.

The same naming system will be in place for the Leman Russ tanks, but instead of the four Celestial Creatures, they will use something else. I'm not sure, but at the moment it would be something like Fox Tsurugi-Alpha-Twelve. Or Leopard Katana-Sigma-Four. So instead of legendary creatures, they use basic animal names, but I'll have to change them up to suit the flora and fauna of Draconis III. Might use flower names instead, like Osmantus Wakizashi Beta-Three, but that strikes me as odd. So probably not.

Anyway, we'll see. I'm glad to have my full army out and painted! Most likely I'll add a coat of red to my Skitarii once the Contrast Paints are released, but for now they are done. Oh, and I'm still waiting for the Questoris Knights and Acastus Knights for my Adeptus Titanicus stuff! I can't wait!