Macro gatling blaster, quake cannon, Primaris Space Marines and Battletech!

What a long day! Today I built 3 Battlemechs for Battletech, a bunch of Primaris Space Marines and then built and magnetized the macro gatling blaster and quake cannon for Adeptus Titanicus!

I hate dealing with pewter and resin. Especially pewter. I had less trouble gluing the macro gatling blaster and quake cannon, but by the Emperor/Dragon, I just could not get the damned pewter Battlemechs to stick together. Fortunately, these will be my last Battlemechs. I won't be getting any of the pewter ones. I will be getting plastic ones in future - especially my favorite Mad Cat! Well, my favorite is actually the Mad Cat MKII, and I've gotten one! Built him just today! YAY! Mad Cat MKII, go, go, go! I also already have a Mad Cat IV, which was my VIP today. More on that later, heh. Anyway, I have 2 lances of Battlemechs, a total of 7 (missing just the plastic Mad Cat to bring the number up to 8), so YAY! My lances consist of an Awesome (AWS-9Q variant, the one with 4 PPCs), a Dragon II (DRG-11R), a Lament (LMT-3C, the one with 3 ER PPCs), a Legacy (LGC-03, the one with 2 heavy PPCs), a Mad Cat MK II, a Mad Cat MK IV (Primary), and a Tenshi (TN-10-O). Cool, I guess? I just went for those with PPCs because PPCs are my favorite weapons. Of course, the heat is going to kill me, but I couldn't care less. Rule of cool and all that. The only exception is my favorite Mad Cat MK II, but I have no choice. That's my favorite battlemech and has a special place in my heart because I always picked him back when I played Mechwarrior 4: Vengeance over 15 years ago. Mad Cat MK II is my mech, and I ain't giving him up for anyone! Well, I'm starting to prefer the Mad Cat MK IV because of the ER PPCs and all, but yeah. Mad Cats are where it's at! I intend to create a Mad Cat lance, which will include the plastic Mad Cat once I get it (Kickstarter Battlemech project with clan wars).

From left to right: Mad Cat MK IV, Awesome, Dragon II, Tenshi, Mad Cat MK II.

After I finished gluing my battlemechs togeether, (holy hell, they were a pain to glue! Pewter just refuses to stick!), I managed to get a game with a friend. He brought a Battlemaster and a Catapult. With no clue of all the "newer" mechs and era differences, I just headed into the battle with my Awesome and Mad Cat MK IV because I happened to have their record sheets on hand. We had a small skirmish game where he taught me, and I saw how we had to roll, shoot and stuff. For ease of play, we played Veterans so that we won't always miss, which was just annoying. The first couple of turns was just us moving about and I eventually had my Mad Cat MK IV hide inside thick woods for cover, while my Awesome climbed a hill. His Battlemaster and Catapult stopped somewhere in front of me, and we started trading shots. It went a little well, with the Awesome scoring a critical hit on the Catapult's center torso, but my Mad Cat MK IV's missiles missed. However, one of his ER PPCs hit the Catapult's right arm and completely destroyed the LRMs inside there. Nice! The Catapult and Battlemaster fired back (the Catapult still getting to fire both its LRMs because the destroyed effect won't take place until next turn), and both my Awesome and Mad Cat MK IV received some damage, but nothing crippling. Yet.

The next turn, my Mad Cat MK IV began taking more and more damage, and he took a hit to his gyro. Ouch. Both my Awesome and Mad Cat MKIV fired upon the Catapult, with the former dealing quite a bit of damage here and there with his PPC hitting the front torso and melting the armor, but it was the Mad Cat MKIV who destroyed the enemy mech, his ER PPC striking the front torso and destroying him outright even before my missiles could hit him. It was essentially overkill. Wow! The Catapult was downed in the fourth or so turn!

Legacy

The Battlemaster began hunting down my Mad Cat MKIV, getting into close combat, and I received even more critical damage, the engine taking a hit this time and a double heat sink got destroyed. Fortunately, none of my weapons were affected and I fired everything in desperation despite the buildup of intense heat. Did some damage, but didn't hit anything critical. My Awesome only fired three of his PPCs this turn in order to avoid shutting down from too much heat, and I only did superficial damage here and there. We then went into the next turn where I tried to have my Mad Cat MKIV retreat, but the Battlemaster relentlessly pursued and finally destroyed him. Fortunately, destroy effects don't take place until next turn, so I had my Mad Cat MKIV fire everything before he died, not caring about the heat (since he was going to die anyway - well, I'll just have the pilot punch out since he was running away, so even though his mech got wrecked, the pilot survived). To my utmost surprise, he scored a headshot with his ER PPC and outright destroyed the Battlemaster, killing the pilot with the luckiest of shots.

Lament - stupid arms kept falling off. Ugh. I hate pewter.

My Mad Cat MK IV is the VIP!

After that, I finished building my Primaris Aggressors. Yes, they are easy to build. No, I don't care. They were the flamer variants, which are the ones I want, and they are cheaper. So I got them instead. I also got a Captain in gravis armor, to go with the Aggressors and ensure he has the much-needed extra Toughness, as well as a Primaris Librarian.



Wait, what's going on? Why do I have Space Marines?

Well, after the new Space Marine codex came out, I succumbed into temptation and began collecting a bunch of Primaris Space Marines. My goal was simple - I intended to build a Successor Chapter using the cool new rules and stuff...but I ended up just going for the Salamanders Successor Chapter instead because they are the nicest, and I'm a nice guy. Usually. I also love playing with fire - that's why the Primaris Aggressors are all armed with flamestorm gauntlets instead! I'm also planning to get at least two Primaris Librarians so that I can have them take the Pyromancy or Lavamancy or whatever fire psychic discipline the Salamanders and their Successors will get. I can't wait to see what combat doctrine we'll get. Even if it's underwhelming, I don't care - I'm committed, and I'm not a meta person. I like fire and dragons, and hence I'll go with Salamanders Successors. Yay. I plan to get a couple of Invictor Warsuits (you guess it, for the incendium cannons), and a couple of Impulsors and Repulsor Executioners. I'm arming all my Intercessor Sergeants with Thunder Hammers (again, because Salamanders Successors, yeah?) and stuffing them into Impulsors along with the Librarians to BURN! Let the Galaxy burn! Incinerate the xenos scum! Burn the heretics! Put the Traitors to the torch!

Stuff like that, anyway. My idea is that this Chapter of Space Marines, called the Hellfire Dragons, is an all-Primaris Space Marine Chapter created during the Ultima Founding. They are the receipients of Vulkan, but much of their recruits are from the Draconis systems, so the Space Marines tend to be more Asian in appearance (like White Scars, but they aren't White Scars). They are a fleet based Space Marine Chapter like the Black Templars, but their origins are a little funnier than that. After helping the Adeptus Mechanicus of the forge world Draconis IV to fight off Tyranids or Necrons, the Hellfire Dragons decided to attack a Dark Mechanicum orbital shipyard that was building a fleet for the Word Bearers. Assisted by Skitarii and Tech-priests, they sabotaged and destroyed the orbital shipyard, but not before they stole about twenty Battle Barges and a single Furious Abyss-class ship, only to escape before the furious Word Bearers fleet warped in with the Trisagion at its head. Ha ha ha ha! So now the Hellfire Dragons are pretty much wandering around the Draconis system and helping the Draconian Defenders and Imperial Knights of Draconis III fight off the various enemies of mankind. They specialize in psychic assaults (hence having more Librarians than normal Chapters) and flamer weapons. They largely engage in boarding actions, storming and capturing capital ships in order to add to their ever growing fleet. Thanks to this, they have an unusually large number of Chapter serfs (most of whom are usually conscripted Guardsmen or Navysmen in all but name) to man their massive fleet. There are rumors that they number just as many as the Black Templars, but obviously they maintain that they have 10 Companies and about 1,000 Space Marines. Huh, then who are all those Space Marines aboard those twenty Battle Barges, not including the five companies stationed aboard the Furious Abyss-class ship, which by the way has been renamed Abyssal Dragon by the Chapter Master.

That's why they have quite a few dudes in gravis armor, to allow them to maximize their chances of survival in the close corridors of ships, to flood those corridors with fire, and to board Space Hulks to wipe out Genestealers and Orks. That's the Hellfire Dragons' specialty. They love playing with fire. I'll try to represent this with more Aggressors, but I also like their mechanized aspects. If possible, they will try to hit and board orbital platforms and larger capital ships with their Repulsor Executioners and Impulsors. They are also a mechanized Chapter, which is kind of weird when you remember they specialize in ship-boarding. But the anti-grav technology is what allows these hovering vehicles to fly through vacuum and board orbital platforms, space stations and ships. They're not as fast as Thunderhawk gunships, but they are just as sturdy (I think?) and reliable. Well, I dunno how it works, maybe I'm just making things up as I go along. Sorry. It's just that I love tanks and armor (hence my love of Imperial Guard armor in the form of Draconian Armored Defenders and their columns of Leman Russ tanks), so I want my Space Marine Chapter to reflect that at least.

What I do know is that they share a great empathy for mortals, and just like their founding Chapter, the Salamanders, they strive hard to save and rescue as many mortals as possible. That's why they find staunch allies in the Draconian Defenders, the Knights of House Yato and the Adeptus Mechanicus. Nice guys all band together! After this, I'm going to buy all the Salamanders books and read them for the hell of it. They are not exactly Salamanders, having never met Vulkan or their parent Chapter, but they are still Adeptus Astartes who are descended from Vulkan's gene-seed. Even if they look very different from the black-skinned Salamanders of Nocturne. Thanks to being fleet-based and recruiting from Draconis systems, they end up looking more East Asian than the actual Salamanders. Or something like that. They still share the same affinity with fire, and are more susceptible to psychic activities, which explains the huge numbers of psykers within their ranks. More than the Blood Ravens, and enough to challenge the Blood Angels! Heh!



Oh, and one last thing. I also built the macro gatling blaaster and Mori quake cannon. Yay! The damned six barrels of the macro gatling blaster was hard to glue on for some reason, but I managed to do it somehow. Phew. Now I have more options for my Warlord Titans! More weapons! YAY! I'll paint them tomorrow, hopefully, to get them ready for an Adeptus Titanicus match in future. All I need now is a third Cerastus Knight Lancer and I'll be able to play 1,700-point games in future! YAY! I think. For the Emperor and the Omnissiah!