Grey knights

 A small update on the not so grey Grey Knights. As you can see they are more of a Brown Knights, with their bronze colour scheme. This is only the base colour for the unit, they will get all the details blocked in at some point, in the dim and distant future. 

I do have a squad of normal Grey Knights, painted as you would expect, but these are going to be joining the Imperial Allies and only the Allies, as I have no intention to start a Grey Knights army at all. If I could have taken the other unit instead, I would have, but alas it's terminators only, so here we are, with bronze "Grey" Knights!

As you would imagine there are all the options here, with the apothecary (left), gunner with Psilencer, and the bullet catcher - because he doesn't have anything special on him (right). 

Next up are the Standard and the boss man, the Justicar. Each of the models are armed with a different weapon, not that it makes any difference these days, but I like the look of all the different weapons. The standard bearer is the only one without a combat weapon in had, but that's fine, I still have the halberd, sword, hammer and warding staff. I think maybe a should have armed the standard bearer with one of the falchions but I liked the pointing finger to much. 

If your wondering why I've painted them bronze, well here the reason, my wannabe Inquisitor Coteaz. I built and painted this a while a go, and I gave him a bronze scheme and I want to replicate this on the terminators as well, to form the unit in to a coherent force, separate from the armies they will be joining. 

These guys, while not cheap, currently just over 300 points for this group, will be used to drop in to the back field of the enemy, probably alongside a big blob of Scions, to generally be a pain and cause problems. They should be pretty hard to remove, even if they won't cause masses of damage while they are there. 

I am looking forward to getting these guys on the tabletop and giving them a run, I hope that they will work as well as I hope they will! I plan on running them at this year's Northern Invasion in November, so I need to get painting, because aty current painting rate, it will be a challenge to get even one finished!

Rogal dorn

 It's been a while since the Rogal Dorn tank was released and for a long time I wasn't bothered about getting one. However, with the 10th edition codex release and the new Rogal Dorn Tank commander, my option changed. To me, it seemed silly to have aLeman Russ commander ordering Dorns around. However, having the bigger Dorn ordering around the smaller Russ's makes far more sense, so I finally have my Dorn commander. 

There are two main things to note on this Dorn, the first being the magnets visible on the turret above. Not only is the main gun magnetised but also the hull gun. I didn't bother with the sponsors as they hold themselves in quite well. The main gun was quite easy to magnetise, the hull gun was another story. It wasn't so much the hull mount but the guns, as the magnet needs to be dropped down inside the hole on the back of the guns, and for the demolisher cannon this proved troublesome, as I managed to get the magnet round the wrong was on three separate attempts! The second thing to note is the head lights, instead of the stibbers or melta guns. 

This lead to the creation of a turret mounted stubber, placed at the rear, where the standing gunner would have been. With the cupola mounted stubber, that gives the three stubbers normally found on the Dorns. 

This stubber was kitbashed from a storm bolters, probably from a space marine vehicle, bits of a storm bolters from the Munitorum containers, namely the stand part, and the stubber barrels from the Dorn kit. This was then magnetised to enable me to pop it in and out of the turret. 

I actually really like this model and I still don't understand the whole issue (pun intended!) I don't see why people were so bothered. My Admech tank doesn't have a bottom and that's not a problem, I don't see it and I don't see the bottom of this either. If anything, it means I can store all the bits for the tank inside it when I pack it away, so that's a bonus as far as I'm concerned. 

The only negative thing I have to say about this tank, is that I might have to glue to main gun attachment in place, as currently it is to loose and just says pointing down when you fit the guns. No one likes droopy gums on tanks, it just looks silly. I have no idea what weapon options are best, but I do like the big gun, just looks like a proper tank. 

Skitarii reinforcements

Next on the build list were some skitarii reinforcements , mostly in the shape of rangers but with a couple of marshals thrown in as well. These have been a long time coming, and now means I can actually field two legal squads of Vanguards. This therefore means I can field the Questor Forgepact with a full compliment of Skitarii. The issue is still that I'm quite a few points short, but that can be filled with Imperial Agents. 

Anyway the actual models are pretty much as standard, including six standard Skitarii with Radium carbines. 

There are also two models with Arc Rifles, to compliment the two existing Plasma Caliver's already in the squads.  

Lastly we have the two new marshalls, one of which will be painted up as a Ranger and one a Vanguard, to joint the current Vanguard Marshall. 

 

As with the other Marshall, the pistols have been modified to make the standard pistols a little more fancy looking. 

Additionally, one of them has had his Alpha combat weapon modified to a control staff. 

It shows how long it's been since I even looked at the AdMech rules that I didn't realise that the different pistols and combat weapons that the all the same, gone are the days of radium pistols or arc pistols, there all just Mechanicum pistols now, same with the combat weapons. Anyway, the kitbashed Marshall weapons just add some extra character to the models, like they have been tinkering and upgrading themselves as they have fought across the years. 

Armageddon!!!

So it was a early start this morning, my boy woke me up early so we could head to town and pick up this;

We're going to be splitting the box, with him taking the Oro half and myself the marines, with the rest being shared between us.  

 As for when I get to build all this, well that's another question, given I still have two Hippogryph's to build and a whole load of models to paint! My boy on the other hand, well by the time this post goes live, I think he'll be well on the way to building his half, with a large chunk already built! 

Temu Taurox Upgrades

 A few weeks ago I showed my Temu Taurox's, with their dakka loadouts (Gatling cannon and volley guns), well while I was building some other models I had a thought. The turret ring on the Taurox is basically the same size as a 40mm base, and so I had a look around in the bits box and found a few parts that might be useful. 

First up, converting the prime back to a standard Taurox, with a couple of Auto cannons. 

This is simply two auto cannons mounted with some bits from the bits box and a spotlight from the Dorn kit. 

When dropped on to the top of the Taurox body it fits pretty well, giving the automated turret vibe. It might prove a little hairy for the poor soul who has to climb on top of the Taurox to change the magazines!

I do like how this one looks, and I think it fits with the rest of the vehicles aesthetics as well. Once painted up, hopefully it will blend in even more. 

While routing through the bits box, I came across a bunch of bits I had brought for my Wyvern project. These were actually Taurox prime missile launchers, although I doubled them up for this project as I think they look better this way. 

I added so extra little details to the base, just to try and hide it a little bit and also to add some character to the whole thing. 

Overall I really like both options, although I'm a little annoyed that one of the missile pods ended up drooping more than the other and it looks a bit lopsided, not enough to really stand out but enough to be annoying. 

This now means that I have some options for running the Taurox as either primes or standard models plus options for equipping one with missiles rather than guns. I will get around to spraying these up at some point and I've decided to go for the all black scheme for them, which not only makes things a bit easier but also means that they should be tabletop ready sooner. 

Grey knights terminators

I have been after a unit of Grey Knights Terminators for a while, to add to my Imperial Agents roster. However, one thing that was holding me back was that I was expecting a range update, I still am but I got fed up of waiting. I decided however, that I would preempt things a little and gave the termies a bit of surgery when I built them. 

The standard termies were always on the short side and so I knew a little bit of height adjustment was going to be needed, so I started off with a bit of plasitcard at the waist. I could have gone with green stuff or similar on to of the legs but decided to add it to the actual legs themselves. I did this by cutting of the top ball joint, sticking it to a piece of plastic are and then cutting it out and adding it back on. 

I did this to all the legs and while it did cause a couple of issues when adding the torso on, such as getting in the way of some of the hanging details, it was easily dealt with. 

As you can see, against the black primed bodies the whole card stands out, however, once it's all painted up, I doubt it will show at all. 

I built the models to have all the toys, as this squad is going to join an inquisitor, it's got to be tooled up for all the jobs!

The Sgt has the old warding staff, sort of as a symbol of office alongside the tabard. 

The apothecary model has the spear and stabby thing (nartheciun) , and the standard bearer is proudly carrying the unit standard. 

The last two are hammer man, the big hitter of the unit and the sword wielding heavy, with Psilencer, to support the storm bolters. 

 I could have gone with the psycannon, or even Incinerator, to give some extra anti-light armour \ elites or for horde clearing, and these guys are going to be going after infantry but mostly they are going to be sitting holding an objective or just being a pain in the enemy rear, so volume of fire is better than strength. 

I am looking forward to trying these out at some point in the distant when I actually get a game in! 

Landspeeder

 On last datasheet to look at, just in time for the release of 11th! The new Landspeeder is here, and it looks good. Very similar to the old one with a suitable scale upgrade with some additional weapons. Along with the Terminators, the new Landspeeder shows how's they should have done the SM refresh, well, apart from the Gravis models, cos they look good as they are. 

Anyway, the new Landspeeder looks good better than the other versions, the Storm speeders. 

It has the classical armament, with melta and "assault" cannon, with the option for a flamer. As with the original version, I cannot figure out why you would want a flamer. To me this unit is a fast moving fire base, designed to skirting around the battle edge, lending firepower where needed, not to be getting up close and personal with the enemy. 

The rules for the unit are good, with the move-shoot-move, even if the second move is not guaranteed. Popping the nose out of cover by and inch or two will prob work, as you can usually bank on getting at least a couple of inches of movement. I like this unit and he will be joining the Dark Guardians and the outriders. 

I guess that we will eventually see a number of versions of this, along the lines of the old versions, with missile pods and the like. There seems a lot of chat about this being the edition of bikes and cavalry, so I also expect we'll see some additional bike characters as well. The only thing I might pick up is the ATV, if it's still around. 

Alongside the model, we also had some rules for flyers or rather the FLY keyword. They seem to have taken a few hints from the old pivot rule, but actually made it make sense here! So flying units can declare that they will fly, subtract two from their movement and then be able to move anywhere in range, which is nice. 

This actually means that flying units will have a lot of versatility and actually be easy to use and understand. Sanguinary Guard have fly and a 12 inch move, so with this rule, they will effectively be able to move anywhere within ten inches regardless of any terrain or enemy models (taking care of engagement range though). No more worrying about movement up or down ruins or trying to figure out if it's better to go round or if the ruin is 2 inches or less. Just straight up and over, ten inches and done. 

I do like these new rules and this is one of a number of rules that I think are good. There's one or two that I still have to get my head around but we're still a week or so away from the actual release, so when I get my hands on the actual rule book, some of them may make more sense than they do right now. 

Knights

 Just a very quick one this time. 11th is just over a week away and I'm still playing catch-up with the previews!

I wanted to highlight this one detachment for the Knights, as it's the only one that I actually care about. Questor Forgepact is the one detachment that allowed you to bring admech and knights together. Having just finished building some more skitarii, to boost my force to 4 squads (more on that in a later post), I now have the ability to field the full 500 points for this detachment. 

The rules have changed a bit, but not as much as you might think. While the knight ability seems to have changed completely, hey have actually just swapped to be Admech ability, which actually makes more sense. The Knights aura has changed quite a bit, although it does have basically the same affect. The models gain the +1BS all the time and heavy when you don't move (very far). In theory, this means that the skitarii guns will hitting on 2+'s. There isn't a wound modifier but I don't think that a major issue with 11th, as it's the hit modifier that's modified by cover now. 

The enhancement has changed slightly as well, although it's really only the wording that's changed, what happens and why is still the same. 

The given stratagem has changed as well. No longer do we get lethal hits but re-rolls to wound, which is still useful but not as good a lethal hits. Most of the time the unit that destroys a Knight is going to be pretty tough, so most likely we're going to be wounding on 6's. Lethal hits would definitely have been the better option here but any help is always welcome. 

Overall, the detachment hasn't really changed, the only question is how many points this detachment will be worth. I don't see it being a 3 points t detachment, 2 is more likely to me. So will I have to choose another Knights detachment or will I be able to fill it with an Agents of the Imperium detachment? I don't know how these will work yet and I don't remember seeing a faction focus for them either but I might just have missed it. 

The triple T's - Temu Taurox Transports

 So, the other week I took a gamble and brought a couple of models off Temu. For just over 10 pound I picked up two vehicles as Taurox proxies. These models armed with a Gatling cannon and small coaxial guns, which seems to represent Hotshot Volley Guns. The original design I think came from NFayma, as the Minotaur APC (link). The original is better is a lot of ways, apart from one major point, it's a 3D print and I don't have a printer. I did fine some pre-printed versions, but they were only marginally cheaper than the GW Taurox. These were less than a quarter of the other versions and about a 5th of the GW original. 

Now, I do question the legitimacy of these prints, being as they are off Temu but I have no idea if they are properly licensed or not. Given they they were advertised under a whole host of other names, I guess probably not and I honestly don't know how I feel about that. 

Anyway, on to the models themselves. The prints are pretty decent, a few minor issues here and there but nothing of any note. The weapons fit in to the turrets nicely, one is a bit looser than the other but it holds fine, with some paint on it will hold properly I think. The size of the models is pretty good as well, they are, as far as I can tell, the right height and width but slightly longer than the Taurox, bug I don't have the GW model to test against. Hopefully someone will have one down the club at some point so I can check it properly. 

The plan is to paint these two up for the Scions, although the final colour scheme is yet to be finalised. It's either going to be black with red highlights, or maybe a similar red\brown to the Scions. I'm tempted to go for the black, with some spot colours but I'll need to have a think about it.