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.