ED Tactical squad Bravo

Tactical Squad Bravo, pretty much a carbon copy of Squad Alpha

Group shot

Tactical marines, this time two from AoBR and two from DV

The rest of the marines are modified chaos boys and mildly modified at that.

Sgt, ex-khorne berserker, re-enlightened to the ways of the Emperor, but still wielding his chain axe! (count as CCW) 

Specialists, Heavy bolter on the left, using a standard tactical heavy bolter and a Flamer, possibly from AoBR? Whatever its from though, it need a dam good stripping as pretty much all the detail is obliterated by masses and masses of paint!

ED Tactical squad Alpha

So this is going to be the start of a run of pictures from my Emperors Disciples Space Marine Chapter. They will all be WIP shots as I have finished modelling up all the various squads, apart from a Sternguard squad and Assault squad to fill out the Sternhammer requirements. Most of the posts are gonna be light on words but quite picture heavy, not to bad though, maybe 4 or 5 pictures a post.

Anyway, here is Tactical Squad Alpha

Group shot

The basic Tactical Marines, mostly I believe from AoBR.

Sgt, tooled up. its hard to see some details due to the colours use by the previous owner.

Weapon specialists, Heavy Bolter on the left, with modified chaos bolter and flamer on the right, with BoC flamer.

Nothing special really, just your basic tactical squad.

Cadian Battle Group

So this post has been sitting in the draft folder for some time, waiting until I actually get around to posting it. Its been waiting for a while for a couple of reasons; firstly, I'm not overly happy with the army selection I've made and feel that there are probably better ways of achieving the same results, but I haven't had the time to experiment with it and secondly, the longer I've left it, the less relevant it seems to be. The formations came out in Mont'Ka, quite a while ago now. I should have posted up this post as soon as I though about it, but there was lots of other posts flying around at the time and I hadn't had a chance to really look in to the formations.

Now having a a basic look at everything, I'm still not sure about any of them, but we'll take a look and I'll give my thoughts on what I'm seen. Now I've only looked at the very basic formations, using the core elements. There are ways around this, like just using the various formation on there own, but i wanted to look at the actual detachment itself. So here are my thoughts on how I'd run things;

Cadian Battle Group, using the Emperors Shield Infantry Company

Battle group command -
Company command squad - Creed, MoO, Medic, Standard, 2x plasma guns, Carapace (228)

Core -
Emperors Shield Infantry Company -

Company Command Squad - MoO, Medic, Standard, 2x plasma guns, carapace (148)
Infantry Platoon 1 - (410)
PCS - 4x flamers
All squads with fllamer and autocannon
Scout sentinel - multi-laser
Infantry Platoon 1 - (443)
PCS - 4x flamers
2x squads with grenade launcher and flakk missile launchers
3x squads with grenade launcher and missile launchers
Scout sentinel - multi-laser
Infantry Platoon 1 - (450)
PCS - 4x flamers
4x squads with meltaguns and krak grenades
1x squads with meltagun and Sgt with meltabomb
Scout sentinel - multi-laser

This little lot comes to 1679 points, leaving 321. Now I filled out the rest with a Auxiliary Militarium Tempestus Platoon, just to add some proper offensive fire-power. However, with all the option of the IG platoons structure open to you, there are a lot of other ways to add in extra forces. One thing to note with all of this, the FaQ's that were out recently have changed the grenades in assault options, and so Krak grenades on troops doesn't make as much sense any more, so I would probably drop the grenades and arm the the Sgts with melta bombs. This will only save 20pts but would be a little more useful I think. The other option is dropping the Flakk missiles from the squads and putting in a proper Flakk HWT. Doing this along side two Lascannon HWT would take you up to 1969pts. I am assuming that your playing at 2000pts same as what I generally play at, obviously if you playing at 1500, then things are a lot tighter and generally your not gonna be able to bring much in the way of upgrades.

As things stand, I don't really think that the list above is very good. There is no mobility and not a great selection of options, yes, there is a lot is shooting, and I mean a lot! most of it is S3 Ap- and useless against any armour. The autocannons help, but then 8 other blokes are sitting around useless, granted the split fire order will be very useful here. All in all I wouldn't take this list to a tournament or even a serious friendly match, its to cumbersome and really the only strength is just tar pitting everything and over running the enemy with sheer numbers.

Lets look at the other option, using the Emperors Fist Armoured Company

Battle group command - (130)
Company command squad - MoO, Vox, 3x plasma guns, (130)

Emperors Fist - (965)
Command - Pask, 2x Punisher w/Bolter sponsons, heavy bolter hull mount
Squadron 1 - LRBT, heavy flamer sponsons, heavy flamer hull mount

Squadron 2 - Demolisher, Multimelta sponsons, heavy bolter hull mount

Squadron 3 - Vanquisher, Multimelta sponsons, Lascannon hull mount

Engineer, 2x servitors

Auxiliary - (900)

Emperors Blade Assault company

Company command - Chimera, MoO, Standard, Vox, 2x flamers

Vet 1 - Chimera, Demolitions, Grenadiers, vox, heavy flamer, 2x meltaguns

Vet 2 - Chimera, Demolitions, Grenadiers, vox, heavy flamer, 2x meltaguns

Vet 3 - Chimera, Grenadiers, vox, 3x plasma guns

Hellhound - Heavy bolter hull mount

So, I think this is a better list than the infantry based list, although there are some issues. Again, the FaQ throws up some issues, mainly Demolitions on the vets, as each has a melta bomb, which made sense under the old way, but now its just an expensive one shot demo charge. Your almost better off putting a power fist on the Sgt, at least he'll be able to use it in any combat, not just against vehicles and monstrous creatures. The other main issue that i see is that there are not many models on the board, having just 42 S3 models is not really a good idea from my experience. 5 Av13 and 5 Av12 isn't bad, but they can still all be one shotted.

I think overall thought, this is a better build. There is plenty of mobility and firepower, with both anti-armour and anti-infantry with the capacity to take down hard targets like TDA with the plasma and demolished. However it is still fragile, as mentioned,even Av13  can be one shotted and looking a tank is loosing a large chunk of your army.

Either way I think these are the two best ways to run the Cadian Battle Group and neither would be my choice, mostly as your always lacking something, be it mobility, firepower, endurance or simply numbers. Of the two I would  run the second list, its just unfortunate that the only one I can run is the first one!

We'll have to see what the next IG/AM/MT codex brings, but I will probably have to adjust my armies in some way or another, especially if this is an indication of how things will go.

2016 update

So, we're well in to 2016 and things are going well on the modeling front, but I though that I would look back at the new years resolutions and see what's happening.

The resolutions:

1) Try and model up all the missing models from the various army lists. So what needed doing?

Hjaltland LI needed their Valkyrie, which is now built but as usual is not painted
The Hrossey Yeomanry required a Primaris Psyker and purchase a Chimera. The psyker is complete, however the Chimera is still on the wish list.
The Dagr Ormr strike force is now complete, with the addition of a OotF and Standard from the command squad and 2 Sgts and a heavy flamer from the vets.

So part one is going well.

2) Sell models I don't need. Well, this is not going as well, I was planning on selling some metal termies and some of the heavy weapons team, but I've modelled up the termites and thought of a new way to use the heavy weapons teams. Have I mentioned I'm a bit of a horder? So as yet nothing been sold.

3) Try and base coat some of the models. Yep, still not happened, not likely to either with all the DiY work that the wife has lined up. However, she maybe going away to a conferance or two soon, so I may get to sneek in some painting time, just don't tell the wife!

4) Play some games! Well, I've played 2, so not going great on that front.

As for the marines. Well, the knights are modelled, the Disciples are in progress and the Guardians are back on track, well, kind of anyway. I've been planning and plotting for the Guardians and have come up with a viable list based around the fluff, without buying to many more models.

The Assassins Cadre is on hold, I'm collecting bits still, but at the moment, the Disciples are the main focus.

As for new models, I've got BoC and the models there and I'm still looking at getting the transports from anvil for the MT's alongside the new Chimera for the Hrossey Yeomanry. I'm also looking at the new models for the Guardians, namely a couple of Attack Bikes and Landspeeder Tempests, but I'm still not sure. Also there are still no new models that I want from GW, just the renegade game!

As for terrain, I'm going to try at some point to get hold of some foam board and some plans from Confessions of a 40k Addict and bash up some scenery for a table or two.