Mechanicus Knight

So I bought a second plastic Cerastus Knight Lancer, thanks to someone offering a good deal (secondhand marketplace on Facebook is awesome). I also bought Index Imperialis from him, and I will be writing an article on the history of Legion Cybernetica in near future. For now, though, this is my second Knight Lancer!

Why do I need a second Cerastus Knight Lancer, you might ask? If you look carefully at this one, he's sporting the Mechanicus symbol on his hull!

That's right! This will be my first Mechanicus Knight. I will not be painting this guy in the usual black and gold Draconian colors. Instead, I will be painting him red and in Mechanicus colors! I have no idea how he will turn out, but I will show you guys how he will look like once I finish painting him. Till then!

Defense of Kajiya

Skitarii Marshal Sigma 44-Kariya had enough. Archmagos Theta-Rho had grown impatient with the interlopers' increasingly unreasonable demands of their newly founded Forge World, Kaijya, and had decided to eliminate them once and for all. Mustering his Hunter Cohort 428-Sigma in force, 44-Kariya sought to carry out his orders.

The Boreal Swords had just barely landed on the forge world when the Skitarii ambushed them in the ruined manufactorums that had just suffered a punishing orbital strike. The Boreal Swords' strike cruiser had pummeled the area with its lances, leaving smoking ruins, and the stealthy Skitarii made use of the fumes as cover, scouting ahead to meet the deployed Bladeguard Veterans and Redemptor Dreadnoughts in force. 44-Kariya executed the Conqueror Imperative Doctrina, and auspexes lit up, the noosphere updating with targeting solutions, while omnispexes revealed the silhouettes of the advancing Bladeguard Veterans, allowing the Skitarii to hammer home exotic ammunition despite the cover the Space Marines sought refuge in.

72-Kishida's Serberys Raiders scouted ahead, their galvanic carbines opening up with a punishing salvo that dealt devastating wounds to the Bladeguard Veterans who had forged too far ahead of their Sternguard Veteran support. With a Skitarii Ranger squad moving up with their Onager Dunecrawler escort to reinforce fire, they managed to whittle down the Bladeguard Veterans further before they were annihilated by Sir Kanda, his Cerastus Knight Lancer spearing into them and sending lethal arcs of energy splaying out. Further back, the two Onager Dunecrawlers fired their neutron lasers, tearing chunks of adamantium off the lumbering Redemptor Dreadnoughts and leaving them listing. The one with the plasma macro incinerator was further savaged by precise cognis lascannon strikes from 28-Tetsuo's backfield Ironstrider Ballistarii.

More Bladeguard Veterans were forced to duck under the accurate firepower of the Skitarii Ranger squads and the Skorpius Dunerider that ferried Skitarii Marshal Rho 29-Tataki and his Vanguard retinue about. The Space Marines were able to withstand the ferocious onslaught, their power armor and reflexes allowing them to escape the worst.

Instead, they focused fire on Sir Kanda's Knight Lancer, who had charged into their midst. The Sternguard Veterans, the Redemptor Dreadnought, and even the two squads of Bladeguard Veterans. The Captain of the Boreal Swords charged in to take down the heavily damaged Knight, and Sir Kanda's venerable armor fell in combat, but not before the reactor went off. Unfortunately, 72-Kishida's Serberys Raiders were laid low by the explosion, but so were two Bladeguard Veterans, the Redemptor Dreadnought and a couple of Sternguard Veterans, though the Apocethary revived one of them later.

The second Redemptor Dreadnought powered toward the Skitarii Ranger squad, mowing down every single one of them with his onslaught gatling cannons, then he charged the Syndonian Dragoons. With bionic endurance, they withstood its powerful blows and struck back, thrusting with their taser lances and tearing apart joints and rupturing servos. The Redemptor Dreadnought buckled before it was engulfed in sulfur fire from the Serberys Sulfurhounds, who were isolating and destroying it.

The Skitarii Rangers' vengeful volleys wiped out the Bladeguard Veterans and the accompanying Captain, with Rho 29-Tataki and his Vanguard disembarking from the Skorpius Dunerider to add to their bombardments. Riddled with radium rounds, plasma, galvanic projectiles, arc lightning and a transuranium shell, the Bladeguard Veterans were wiped out. The Sternguard Veterans also suffered several blows from the Onager Dunecrawler and its accompanying Skitarii Rangers, but their astute positioning allowed them to emerge largely unscathed from the ferocious bombardment. Meanwhile, the Redemptor Dreadnought eventually fell to the Sulfurhounds' Linebreaking charge, which dealt enough mortal wounds to the crumbling frame.

The Boreal Swords were far from defeated, though. Eradicators arrived from Strategic Reserves to fire at the Onager Dunecrawler, whose emanatus forcefields crackled defensively to deflect the lethal melta beams. On the other hand, the Inceptors descended meteorically, their plasma guns spitting superheated death, but they chose to kill Magos Epsilon Muguruma, the accompanying Tech-priest Enginseer, for some reason. Terminators teleported into the backfield, taking cover behind a building, and they charged the Ironstrider Ballistarii, wrecking one of them into a mangled hulk. The other retreated, 28-Tetsuo firing his lascannons, which went wide and instead hit an Inceptor, killing him instantly by sheer luck. Meanwhile, the third and sole surviving squad of Bladeguard Veterans plunged into the Serberys Sulfurhounds and massacred them with elegant sweeps of their crackling power swords.

Sigma 44-Kariya struggled to pull his remaining forces back together to prevent a rout. He would not run like last time. He would obey Archmagos Rho-Theta's command and eradicate the interlopers. The Boreal Swords could not be allowed to take control of their forge world. Kariya belonged to the Adeptus Mechanicus, not the Astartes.

Running several simulations in his mind, he switched to Protector Doctrina Imperatives, adjusting firing solutions and improving accuracy. Four Eradicators were taken out by the combined firepower of the Onager Dunecrawler and its escorting Skitarii Rangers. The other Onager Dunecrawler actually blew up a Terminator with a Dedalus missile fired at pointblank range, while the Sydonian Dragoons charged the Bladeguard Veterans and almost wiped them out. Only the Lieutenant was left, and he slew the Tech-priest Enginseer administering to the Onager Dunecrawler in the vicinity, knowing that his power sword would be ineffective against the Bionic Endurance of the Sydonian Dragoons. Meanwhile, the entire squad of Sternguard Veterans were eliminated by the Skorpius Dunerider's cognis heavy stubber array and 44-Kariya's personal retinue, leaving just the Apocethary standing there in bemusement.

The Terminators and Chaplain did more damage to the Onager Dunecrawler in return, but it survived for now. The Lieutenant broke away from combat and continued hurtling toward the Onager Dunecrawler in a desperate attempt to join the Terminators, while the Inceptors finished off the wounded Onager Dunecrawler with plasma. The Eradicators fired their melta beams into the Skitarii Rangers and killed another two, before the gravis armored Marines charged into the squad and took out three, leaving just a handful of survivors, but they didn't succumb to battleshock, instead rolling an 8 and passing morale.

The Terminators and Chaplain finally laid low the Onager Dunecrawler, but they were immediately set upon by 28-Tetsuo and the final, remaining Onager Dunecrawler, with cognis twin lascannon and neutron laser killing another two of them. Only the Chaplain and one Terminator was left after all the shooting from 44-Kariya's squad, and the Sydonian Dragoons were poised to charge into the Lieutenant to finish him off with their taser lances. On the other side, the Skorpius Dunerider opened up and slew the bewildered Apocethary.

With only two Terminators, two Eradicators and two Inceptors - the 2 Gravis armored units locked in melee with stubborn Skitarii Rangers - the Boreal Swords realized how bleak their situation was. They had taken far too many losses, their casualties not being worth the supplies and ammunition they desired to claim from the defiant Forge World. Voxes barked, and the surviving Astartes turned around to depart, leaving the beleaguered Skitarii behind. With 28-Tetsuo's Ironstrider Ballistarius, a single Onager Dunecrawler, a Skorpius Dunerider bristling with high caliber rounds, an almost full Skitarii Ranger squad, and another decimated one still hanging on somehow, it was unlikely that the Boreal Swords could salvage anything from this crisis.

"Phew." Sigma 44-Kariya watched as the Boreal Swords retreated, feeling immense relief. Unfortunately, 428-Sigma Hunter Cohort had suffered tremendous losses in the defense of their forge world. Kajiya might remain in Mechanicus hands, but the price had been high. A revered Knight Lancer suit had been brought down, two of his precious Onager Dunecrawlers were wrecked, and countless bodies of Skitarii lay broken upon the ruins. Not all of them had fallen to enemy fire. Two of them had blown themselves up spectacularly when their plasma calivers overloaded. 44-Kariya made a mental note in the noosphere to update the catcheisms of maintenance for plasma calivers, so that future wielders wouldn't succumb to their Hazardous nature.

<Good work.> Archmagos Rho-Theta sounded pleased, if a Tech-priest could be said to express any emotion through binharic. <That should teach those upstart Astartes not to mess with our forge world.>

<Lord Archmagos, we require servitor teams for heavy repair, and we need to accelerate Skitarii recruitment.>

<It will be done,> Rho-Theta assured him. The Skitarii Marshal could hear the smile in his Tech-priest Dominus's blurts. <But more importantly, I've received a request from Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl. The Prime Conduit has blessed us with his transmissions and data-streams!>

44-Kariya simply tilted his bionic head, patiently waiting for his lord to continue. Rho-Theta had always respected Cawl, worshipping him as the Prime Conduit and an example to follow. That was why he had joined Draconis IV, to safely "innovate" and "experiment" beyond the surveillance of Mars.

<Draconis IV - and by extension, Kajiya, which is now a secured fiefdom of ours - will answer Archmagos Cawl's calls for assistance and dispatch an expedition to the Nephilim Sector in force. Activate the Skitarii Legions. Deploy the Knights of House Yato and their vassal House Kanda. Prepare the Seraphim Device. We will cleanse the sector in the name of the Omnissiah!>

(The Crusade shall continue in the Pariah Nexus.)

Knight Joust

We had a Knight Joust in Dreamers Vault, Minneapolis today! I brought a Cerastus Knight Lancer, and apparently, we were placed into two teams to try and...kill each other. It was a Last Man Standing format. I'm trying to remember, but I believe we had:

2 Knight Desecrators

1 Cerastus Knight Atrapos

1 Brass Scorpion

1 Questoris Knight Paladin

1 Lord of Skulls

1 Lord of Change

1 Questoris Knight Gallant

1 Dominus Knight Valiant

The teams were first divided into

1 Knight Desecrator

1 Brass Scorpion

1 Knight Atrapos

1 Knight Paladin

1 Knight Gallant

versus

1 Knight Desecrator

1 Lord of Change

1 Lord of Skulls

1 Knight Valiant

My Knight Lancer

Each Knight could resurrect once, and there were a total of three rounds. We also had objective markers on the table, and whenever we stepped on it, we would roll a D6 and something random would happen. In the first round, we ended up being teleported all over the table, ha ha. When my Knight Lancer jumped on an objective, we ended up drawing a card that doubled our wounds, but also doubled the damage of our weapons. Hah!

The Knight Atrapos killed an opposing Knight Desecrator for First Blood, I believe, and I think the Lord of Change managed to thank quite a lot of shooting. My Knight Lancer had to take a turn before he could get into melee, and when he did, he killed the Knight Gallant twice. Heh. The Knight Valiant did well against the Knight Desecrator, Knight Paladin and Brass Scorpion, and I think he killed the Knight Paladin like twice? Not bad.

The Atrapos got killed by the Lord of Skulls, revived, and was teamed up by the first Knight Desecrator victim and the Lord of Skulls before dying. My Knight Lancer was taken out twice by the opposing Knight Desecrator. but at least I was avenged. I kind of fluffed my rolls in melee, but I think I might have taken out the Knight Desecrator in combat once before suffering retaliation and dying. Oh, well.

In the end, my team won the first round, and we were split into teams of three. It was now:

1 Knight Desecrator

1 Lord of Skulls

1 Lord of Change

versus

1 Knight Desecrator

1 Knight Valiant

1 Knight Lancer

It was kind of crazy this turn, for the random effects went even crazier, like all of us automatically exploding and dealing max mortal wounds to 3d6" and a black hole appearing in the center of the table. Yikes! I didn't do well, though I killed the Lord of Skulls maybe once, and then I kind of died to the black hole, having already suffered lots of damage from the Lord of Skulls and Knight Desecrator's shooting, as well as explosions (and using up my first revive). The Knight Valiant also died to the black hole eventually. Yikes. But we were going nuclear and blowing up each other, ha ha. Poor Lord of Change got taken out in quick order.

The other team won, with the opposing Knight Desecrator keeping his distance at the corner of the table and surviving the black hole. With that, my team was eliminated, and I went off to play another game. Which I'll write about immediately after this. The winning team had a free for all, but apparently the Knight Desecrator and Lord of Change sort of wounded each other before the Lord of Skulls emerged as the final survivor, and thus overall victor of the Knight Joust. Oh, well!

Thousand Sons Librarian and Dark Angels Rhino

I know the attention is on the plastic Solar Auxilia just announced in the Las Vegas Open, but I will get to that later. For now, I have finished painting my Thousand Sons Librarian and Dark Angels Rhino!

Kind of pleased with how they turned out. Yeah, I'm not a good painter and I left smudges here and there, but they are battle ready! I can't wait to field them in their respective armies!

I had to paint the XV on the knee by hand, so it looks kind of bad, ha ha.

Anyway, I might get some Solar Auxilia. I intend to do an all volkite army with the Veletaris, the Atheon Heavy Sentinel and a Leman Russ assault tank with volkite, but I hope they release a plastic Legate Marshal soon!

Sea of Souls Spoilers

I thought I should post brief spoilers for Chris Wraight's Seal of Souls for anyone interested. Particularly those who don't want to buy the Dawn of Fire series or read a novel, but are curious as to what's going on.

Honestly? Nothing much. (Cue "HERESY!")

The selling point of this particular novel is supposed to be Fleet Secundus's strike into the Eye of Terror, but it's really about the crew of the Mars battle cruiser, Judgement of the Void, which is commanded by High Captain Kiastros. We don't actually get to the Eye of Terror until the epilogue, and even then, it's because...well, I'll elaborate on it later, but suffice to say, it's not to launch an attack against traitor forces.

The story opens with Iannis Kiastros showing off his tactical skills by inflicting damage on an enemy cruiser and destroying another (the credit for that goes to the Adepta Sororitas ship that they came to escort, though) when escorting a bunch of ships to the musterpoint at U-93. They meet up with an immense battle group with hundreds of ships (who the feth was the guy on reddit who was whining that there were thousands of ships and that it made no sense for Indomitus Crusade Fleets or battle groups to be that large? You didn't even get the numbers right!), take on Miriam Isobel, a Sister Hospitaller, from the aforementioned Adepta Sororitas ship, and Tuo Maizad, a sergeant from the Iron Shades Chapter, along with his squad of Space Marines. I assume they are Intercessors, but I don't know for sure.

Unfortunately, things go ploin shaped the moment Battle Group Dominus is about to launch a strike to the Eye of Terror. Before that, Kiastros was ordered by Heila Jovanjiar, the groupmaster of the battle group Dominus, to protect an Inquisition ship, no matter the cost. It must survive, no matter what. The mission is made all the more challenging when an immense Chaos fleet warp in at U-93, getting the drop on Battle Group Dominus and pretty much...annihilating them. Well, I think a good number of Loyalist ships escaped, but...

In any event, our protagonists aboard the Judgement of the Void engage the Traitor ships, while desperately trying to protect the Inquisition ship that flew out of formation for some reason, exposing itself to Chaos enemy vessels. While trying to protect the damned ship, they get boarded by Dark Mechanicum Skitarii, who attempt to construct some weird device at their point of entry (don't ask me why they didn't just assemble it and bring it along on their boarding pods, I don't know). Something similar strikes the Astropath tower where Garg Vandia Ortuyo and his group of astropaths are, and the whole area is cut off. In any event, Maizad and his squad, as well as Aris Garrock and his Armsmen (Navy Breachers, if you really want tabletop gaming terms and to reconcile the fact that they are on the cover illustration of this particular novel - probably have to sell those Kill Team models or something, I guess - but to hell with that, I'm calling them Armsmen) reach the breach and fight the Dark Mechanicum Skitarii. The Space Marines squad get wiped out, much to the chagrin of Redditors, who yet again complain about how it is impossible for 5 Space Marines to get killed by Dark Mechanicum Skitarii.

Firstly, Maizad survived, albeit in a coma. He's the sole survivor, yes. And secondly, it was a lot of Skitarii. An entire army of Skitarii. If you're telling me an entire army of Skitarii can't take out a single squad of Astartes, I kind of fear for the Imperium and forge worlds all over the galaxy whenever they get invaded by Heretic Astartes.

Anyway, Maizad and Garrock stop the Skitarii and destroy the device, though at the cost of Maizad's squad and all of Garrock's armsmen. They are the only survivors, and Maizad ends up in a coma, so Garrock has to drag him to the apothecarium run by Isobel to get him treated.

The Inquisition ship gets destroyed. Oh no! Kiastros failed his mission! GAME OVER...but wait! What's that? A tiny ship detaches and flies toward the Judgement of the Void. Apparently, the survivors had gotten on a transport vessel and escaped the destruction of their mother ship. The Judgement of the Void takes them on, and they are revealed to be Interrogator Hastin il-Moro and his retinue. Inquisitor Gertruda, his mentor, had died along with the main ship. They are carrying the last shard of the Anathame, though obviously the crew does not know that.

Once the Interrogator and his bunch are onboard, the Judgement of the Void escapes into the warp. They are badly damaged, and things start going to hell. Their navigator, Mergaux Santalina, reports that they are being pursued by the warp. The whole astropathic tower has been cut off, and Kiastros orders the Master of Engines, Magda Kuhl, to bring a crew and a Tech-priest, Magos Arfo-5 and his servitors and Skitarii to the area to dig toward where Ortuyo and any surviving astropaths might be. Kuhl, though, is driven by paranoia because she had been detained by the Inquisition in her homeworld before she joined the crew and rose through the ranks as an engineerium worker, and she is afraid of the Interrogator. The warp will take advantage of that later.

Garrock receives reports that another place has been boarded, so he and his armsmen go check the place out. They find out that it was a single boarder, and from the details by crew menials and those living in the bowels of the ship, they are able to tell that it's a Space Marine. They believe it's a Chaos Space Marine, and they begin to hunt him down. Panicking, because for some reason Navy Breachers think they can't defeat a single wounded Astartes despite being able to bring him down through sheer volume of firepower with their shotguns and las-volley guns, Garrock requests Isobel to wake Maizad from his coma to help them fight the guy.

C'mon. Normal mortals have defeated Astartes before. You don't need your own Space Marine to fight a Space Marine. Sigh.

After that, long story short, the crew go insane, the ship begins getting corrupted. They drop out of the warp, and using the transport ship that brought il-Moro and his retinue to the Judgement of the Void, Kiastros is able to destroy the pursuing battle cruiser that Santalina spots. The transport gets destroyed in the process, with the pilot shouting something like it's a mistake. They can't really see the ship because their augurs and sensor arrays are destroyed, and they can't communicate either because their communications arrays are broken. How convenient. They take even more damage during the fight, before they return to the warp eventually.

Isobel gets a premonition about the astropath tower, so she joins Kuhl and Arfo-5 to breach the place, just in case any mutants or Chaos things are at play there. Meanwhile, Garrock, the armsmen and a recently awakened Maizad track down the errant space marine, a duel ensues, and both Maizad and the boarder kill each other. To his horror, Garrock discovers that the boarder Astartes is a loyalist. Some people think he's an Exorcist, based on the red of his armor, but I dunno. Anyway...uh oh. They wasted their only Astartes on killing another loyal Space Marine. How fethed up is that?

Everyone descends into further madness. Isobel, Kuhl and Arfo-5 reach the astropaths, only to discover they have all mutated into...warp spawn. Or chaos spawn. Yikes. They attack, and the Skitarii are getting killed, but Isobel reaches the now mutated Ortuyo and is about to kill him when Kuhl, driven insane by her paranoia against the Inquisition, stabs her. Feth you, b****!

Meanwhile, Kiastros, also falling to the madness, rallies his crew to attack il-Moro and the Inquisition retinue. They kill everybody, and Kiastros gets his hands on the last shard of the Anathame. Damn.

Santalina realizes they're doomed, and she convinces the second-in-command, Leroa Avati, the Master of Astrogation, to kill her while she also unveils her third eye. Because death is better than what is coming. Prior to this, Avati and Garrock meet up and find out that the battle cruiser they destroyed when they dropped out of the warp earlier was a Loyalist battle cruiser. Hence the Inquisition pilot screaming that it was a mistake earlier. So they didn't just kill a Loyal Astartes, they also wrecked an entire fellow Imperial Navy battle cruiser. Oh, s...

Garrock finds Kiastros holding the Anathame, and the captain proceeds to murder him and the few remaining armsmen who are still sane.

The novel ends with Kiastros captaining the ship deep into the Eye of Terror and handing the Anathame to the Hand of Abaddon, Tenebrus. Yheng is with Tenebrus, because...you know, continuity, and they appear in other Dawn of Fire books. Right, they are inside this...vast space station thingy whose docks are huge enough to house an entire battle cruiser. Probably bigger than a damned planet, for all I know. Anyway, Kiastros flies the now corrupted Judgement of the Void into it, disembarks and hands over the Anathame to Tenebrus, and returns to his ship.

...and that's it.

Is it a good book? By the Emperor, yes. It's intriguing and an enjoyable read. The madness is in there, the twists, while predictable, are decent (maybe it's because I read way too many Warhammer 40,000 books, but I saw the Loyalist battle cruiser coming light years away). Chris Wraight is an amazing author, the naval fight scenes are cool, the Dark Mechanicum Skitarii are awesome, and the Iron Shades are an interesting Chapter. Maizad and Isobel are also refreshing, far from the caricatural stereotypes of Space Marines and Sisters of Battle depicted in Black Library lore. I can't tell you how much they - and this particular novel, Sea of Souls - are a much needed improvement over The Martyr's Tomb and a breath of fresh air. Feth those bloody Black Templars and overly zealous Adepta Sororitas. Marc Collins is a competent writer, don't get me wrong, but that was...not exactly a novel I particularly enjoyed. Sigh.

This one, I love it. So I'll definitely recommend it, sure as sure.

That said, if you're looking for something to "further" the narrative or lore, for the storyline to progress or something, or if you're anticipating a huge naval battle in the Eye of Terror, well...you'll be disappointed. I would say, certainly, Tenebrus - and by extension, Abaddon - getting his hands on the last shard of the Anathame and looking to combine it is actually a major development in the lore, but for others, they might find it lackluster. Your mileage may vary.

Well, that's all I have for now. I'm looking forward to The End and the Death part III, and as usual, I'll do a spoiler writeup once I've finished reading the book. Till then!

Thousand Sons Librarian Consul and Dark Angels Rhino

I assembled my Thousand Sons Librarian Consul and Dark Angels Rhino today. Yay! Also, I added the combi plasma to my Veteran so he now has an actual plasma repeater. Woohoo!

I guess that's it.

Tech priest Enginseers

I painted my Tech priest Enginseers! Yay! Now I have three of them. One of them seems to have too small a base. Uh oh.

You might notice that my table cloth is missing. Yeah, well...I spilled my paint water on the cloth, so I had to take it away, wipe my desk and wash it. It's hanging to dry now.

Anyway, 3 Tech priest Enginseers! Ready for Crusade! They will be tending to my Onager Dunecrawlers and keeping them alive with a 5+++ Feel No Pain and repairs!