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! 

New Inquisitor model

 A quick one this time, as I wanted to have a brief look at the new Inquisitor model. Straight up, I don't like this model, it looks like something that got rejected AoS. 

I understand that they have gone for an archotech look, with the old style armour and weapons, however, I just don't like it. The animal is interesting, and it's good that they have gone away from the standard horse but there is still something about it that I don't really like. It might just being the paint scheme that makes it look rubbish but I have t seen it in any other schemes, so I can't say. 

The rules for this guy are pretty good though, his ability to grant re-rolls to units is going to be very useful for guard models, with their high BS. His rifles abilities are even more insane, granting extra damage and strength every time he hits, means by turn 5 he could be shooting a strength 14, damage 6 rifle. At -2Ap he might not be insta killing anything but still, there isn't much that can deal with that!

All in all, this is a fun little unit. I don't see him being a common sight on the table top but he could be a fun unit to just run around the table, popping the odd character. I will wait and see it in a different paint scheme to decide if I actually want one or not, but as it stands he interesting but not essential. 

Extra models

Alongside the marines I painted in the last post, I also had a number of other random models that I painted and built. 

The only models that I actually painted were these AoS Gryph hounds. 

I have painted these up to act as cyber-mastiffs for the subductor squads I painted up last year. I really only need two of them but I have several, eight actually, so decided to paint a more. Three others were nicked by my boy for his D&D character to act as familiar's for his elf ranger. (I think ones an actual pet and the other two are familiars)

I have two more that are unpainted as I don't actually have a need for them and so am waiting to paint them up, plus they are on bigger bases as the pose means they don't fit on 25mm bases, required for the doggos. 

Next up is a new Inquisitor. I already have four Inquisitors, Lord Inquisitor Laurissa and her cabal of Inquisitors, consisting of Inquisitor Sophiana, Inquisitor Tamhas and Inquisitor Jameelis, well, now they have been joined by Inquisitor Danihael. 

Inquisitor Tamhas has heavy Scion leanings, Inquisitor Sophiana has Sister of Battle vibes and Inquisitor Jameelis is AdMech influenced, so Inquisitor Danihael needed to lean another way, so he's gone more of the imperial guard route (or maybe imperial navy?). 

He is armed with a shotgun and sword, or combi-weapon and inquisitorial melee weapon. 

I'm not sure what colour scheme he will get yet, most of the inquisitors have a blacka and red scheme, except Sophiana, who has purple and black, but I'm tempted to go for a different scheme here, maye more green or blue(if I go navy). 

In addition I also built some more other models, the Combat Patrol issue 31, a Chaos Dark Apostle. This come with one chaos marine and two other models. After some minor conversion work, I've made a chaplain (maybe?)

Some minor work is still needed to finish off the green stuff work on the book. 

So of the chaos runes and details have been removed and one of the shoulder pads was replaced with a generic one. 

I'm looking forward to painting this model up but I actually don't know where I'm going to use it. It won't fit in to the Eagle Knights (Blood Angels), Dark Guardians (Dark Angels) or the Stone Dragons (Space Wolves) but might have fitted in to the Emperors Disciples (generic SM\Ultramarines) or Brazen Hawks (generic SM\Deathwatch). My first thought was Brazen Hawks but I'm pushing this towards Gravis armour. So that really only leaves the Emperors Disciples, or maybe I'll put it in to the Doom Eagles?

I will have to see what happens. The last models were the two Dark Disciples that came with the marine. These two required some work to remove the various chaos iconography and details but nothing too difficult. 

The most difficult part was filling in the chaos star on the book holder. This was filled with green stuff and I also put some scrolls on the top side. 

These will be painted up to match the three AoS models I painted a while back. I still have no idea what I'm ever going to use these as, but they will make a very cool looking squad of models (maybe some sort of Inquisitorial retinue?)

The AoS models in question. 

 

Station Forge Models

A while ago, I mentioned I had purchased some Station Forge sculpts. The exact one that in brought were the Royal Guard Elites and Royal Guard Templars. The Templars have been converted for use as Adeptus Arbites Subductor squads but the rest were going to be used as various units in various armies wherever I could fit them in. 

As you can tell the Elites were a bit of an impulse purchase, without much of a plan. I brought them as I thought they were cool models and I could use a couple of them for inquisitors and guard characters. 

I had thought that I could use the first model here as a possible alternative to the Rogue Trader models, as she has a similar vibe to her. The second model is very priest like, so might make a good ministorum priest. The third model will be joining the railings, as I currently have 9 and this will enable me to field a full squad of ten or two lots of five.

The next batch of models are pretty much all psykers. I could use most of them as Inquisitors, all except the third model, which is not really Inquisitorial material. The first model is the most likely candidate for Inquisitorship, but mostly they will be painted up as Primaris Psykers.

These two were going to be destined for Master of Ordnance and Officer of the Fleet model, but with their removal from the codex, they may have to find alternative employment, probably as castellans or similar. 

There is a model missing from the the line up, the top centre model from the first image. This is some sort of robotic sniper book bearer, which I wasn't very keen on anyway. The main reason it's not here though is that it broke. It arrived in one piece but slightly bent and while playing with it, to see if I could fix \ modify it, I broke it. I probably could fix or modify it but I couldn't be bothered as I had no need or reason to try.

These models are currently all waiting for the weather to improve to get primed. Hopefully this will have happened by the time your reading this post!

As for the models themselves, I am a bit split with my opinion. They are on the whole, nice models but some of them required some surgery to get all the bits to fit together properly, without some strange arm angles or positions. I am not sure if this is a fault with the original design or the prints I received. Either way it was a little disappointing. Additionally, some of the details are a bit off, not sitting quite right on the models. It's not a major issue though, as you'd have to look quite closely to see that there were issues. 

Then last issue I have with these models is more due to a general issue I have with resin, rather than the models or prints themselves. I just find resin so fragile and brittle, which makes trying to modify parts or fix issues, such as the arms not fitting right, very difficult, as the resin just shatters if your not careful. GW plastic might be expensive but it's just so much better to work with and so much better quality. 

However, I really do like these sculpts. They are nicely detailed and look great. The poses are good, not to static or stiff, natural in form. None of the issues take away from how these will look on the battlefield when fully painted. 

I would recommend these models and the Station Forge range in general from what I have seen of them, my only issue is that you can't buy direct from them, so the final quality could vary depending upon who's printing the models.

 

Inquisitorial Agents

Next up we have some random miniatures and an Inquisitor. The first of these models are two sisters of battle, originally they were Seraphim but have been modified in to Canoness with jump packs, for no reason other than I felt like it.

The weapons uses are a AdMech power sword and a condemnor boltgun (pretending to be a bolt pistol) from the battle sisters kit and the Eviscerator is formed of two chain swords, both Blood Angels, connected together. Up close the eviscerator is slightly crooked, but it's not noticeable from a distance. 

These have actually been painted up already. Painted to match my other sisters colour scheme, with some added bling, in the form of extra gold trim. What I will use these for, I have no idea, as I will not be expanding the sisters at all, given that they now have a place in the Inquisitorial Agents codex. 

Talking of the Inquisitorial Agents codex, here is an Inquisitor, as yet unnamed. He is actually my version of Inquisitor Coteaz, as I really don't like the new model and I don't have the old one. 

He is formed of a first born space marine body with Grey Knights strike squad legs, with Scion arms, navy breacher head and AoS stormcast hammer. 

The hammer is at a bit of an odd angle, due to the hand position of the original AoS Stormcast model. I would have preferred the head to be vertical rather than horizontal but that was the only suitable hammer I could find in my bits box.

Again, this model has already been painted up, in a bronze colour. You can also see that I had a play with zenithal priming. I'm not really sure how much difference it actually made to the finished model but it was a fun experiment.

Last we have these guys, the AoS Stormcast Memorians. I have three of these guys and I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to make with them. I have built them as is and I will paint them up but aside from that I don't know what I can use them as. There may well be some token or similar that they can represent but I don't know of any of the of my head.

They are very nice models though, so it would be a shame not to use them for something. These models still need priming, so are the only ones here not now painted, as they are sitting with the rest of the models waiting for the weather to improve!

Another crazy army idea

 So, there have been two boarding patrols announced recently, and by recently I mean the last two boarding patrols to be announced. The League of Votann one looks good but I still don't have much interest in them, I might have more if I could do the majority of them as AI units with just a few actual people in there but I don't think that you really can. The other box is the only release recently that I've looked at and wanted to buy, well since the release of the field ordnance battery and rough riders but apart from them there has been nothing in a long time. 

Boarding patrol boxes

The box comes with a number of units that I'm actually interested in, in fact I'm interested in all the units there, which is rare, as there is usually at least one unit that I don't care for.

Navy units

The box has a bit of an issue though, as far as I can tell yo can't actually field this as a legal force. I could well be wrong but my understanding is that the rouge trader cannot be taken as a compulsory HQ choice and the Eversor assassin would have to be fielded as an Agent of the Imperium in the Navis Imperialis detachment. Now for boarding actions this may be different and I might have missed some rules here but it doesn't seem to work for Arcs of Omen detachments. 

Anyway, as far as I know I can just run it as an agent's of the Imperium detachment but I will have to run some acolyte squads to get my compulsory choices.

So what does the box have in it? To start with it has the Rouge Trader and her retinue, formed of the Rouge trader, Death Cult Executioner, Lectro-Maester and Rejuvenat Adept. There is also the five Voidsmen with doggo and then the 20 Navy Breachers. In addition there is also the Eversor assassin. 

This gives a nice little core to the force and clocks in at about 450 to 480 points, depending upon wargear and extras. Most of the time I think it would work out to 470. This gives me almost half the 1000 points I'd be looking for in this army. The next additions are pretty simple and are formed of units I already have painted up. These units will be 3 squads of 6 acolytes, armed in a variety of ways. These three squads will add another 240 points, and when the Inquisitor is added in, for another 65 or so points, that's brings the total up to around 795. Add in another assassin, this time a long ranged one in the form of the Vindicare and your up to 885. 

Finally, I would like to add two more squads. These are both Adeptus Arbites squads, one a Subductor squad and the other an Exaction squad. (I thought about the Vigilant squad, but they are too similar to the Navy Breachers). These units are here for two reasons, firstly the Subductor squad for their shields and mauls as a counter punch unit, ready to charge down any units that get a little too close. The Exaction squad, or maybe two smaller squads, will be upgraded and tooled up to hit specific characters and models. 

With these two units we'd be looking at around 1135 for a base 10 man  Exaction squad to 1273 with two tooled up 5 man squads. So a full agents of the Imperium Inquisitorial strike force.

Now, I am looking at buying the Agents boarding patrol box but I don't know if I will buy two boxes or more of the Adeptus Arbites, most likely I won't. I might however buy a box of Wargames Atlantic's Ooh Rahs.

These models are not my favourite models from wargames Atlantic, that would be the Bulldogs, but they don't have the right look for Arbites.  

The central head would be my head of choice for an Arbite.

Shotgun looking rifles.

These models look like they could be a very good proxy for Arbites, with rifles that could easily stand for shotguns, if I dont kitbash the spare Navy Breacher shotguns, which would be my preferred option. The meavy weapons will work as stubbers and the special would work as a Webber stand in. I would need to find some shields (probably eBay) and some mauls for the Subductor squad but that should be easy enough.

With a box of 24 models costing 25 pound, I can easily pick up a single box and build 3 squads for the cost of less than one box from GW.

There is a bit "IF" with all of this though and that is 10th edition. Before I commit to any of this I will wait and see what the actual rules look like 10th and how there units will work together in regards to faction keywords and the like.

Random thoughts on Inquisitorial Detachments

 This is a bit of a random post in amongst all the picture and progress posts but it's something that sprung in to my head the other day while thinking about the new guard codex leaks. The current rules allow you to take a single Inquisitor under the Agent of the Imperium rules but this is a bit useless as it doesn't really give you the full experience of what an inquisitor can do. 

To really enable inquisitors to gain a proper feel, I think that the agents rule needs to be changed from an inquisitor to an inquisitorial patrol detachment.

Now, I don't think that the detachment should be a straight replacement for agents rule but just the basis. Firstly there should be three parts to the new rule;

1) only consist of a patrol detachment.

2) only one inquisitor per army.

3) detachment can form a maximum of 25 percent of the total force.

This would restrict what you can take and not break the game with a whole lead of inquisitorial detachment with tooled up inquisitors. It would give you just one Inquisitor and a nice supporting force to supplement the main army. Again this detachment would sit outside the main rules for battle forged armies and at wide doctrines, i.e. not resulting in guard loosing regimental doctrines or space marines loosing chapter tactics. To do this there would have to be some changes and to be honest, I'm not a hundred percent sure how some of this would work but I'll keep going and I'm sure I'll figure it out at some point.

There would need to be a couple of changes to Inquisitorial units for this to work as well, as currently Acolytes are elite choices, which I can understand but they are really the basic troop units of inquisitors and should be troops, with Jokaero and Daemon hosts remaining as elite. All the other rules for the various units should remain the same, as I don't see any thing wrong with them. 

This change will mean that you can fill a patrol detachment without any difficulty but this is not the only change in would like to see. Back in the old days, inquisitors of the Ordos Majoris could select to bring units from there respective forces, i.e. from either sisters, grey Knights or Deathwatch. I think that this rule should be brought back but with some obvious restrictions. The main one being obvious, that you can only bring a unit from the corresponding faction, so Hereticus can only bring a sisters of battle squad, Xenos can bring a Deathwatch squad and Malleus can bring a Grey Knights squad. Now, you might have picked up on the fact that is say squad, as that's what it would be, a single troops choice squad. They could have all there options but you can only have one squad, so no bringing several sisters squads, some repentia and a couple of penitent engines. I would allow them to bring a transport from their selection of dedicated transports. 

Talking of transports, this is the last thing I would change, I would allow the Acolytes to take a dedicated transport of their own, which I would restrict to the three guard transports, the chimera and both the taurox and taurox prime. This is because there are human driven vehicles, so no land raiders or even rhinos, which while can be driven by normal humans, as shown by the sisters, they are still power armour equipped. 

Lastly I wanted to mention about assassins. Now I'm not sure about this one, I have thought about maybe having assassins in again, with the restriction of only allowing one assassin per detachment, as inquisitors do have access to assassins but I wonder if having bot assassins and a squad of marines or sisters might be a bit much. I thing in general the points limit will be a deciding factor in this, so allowing both won't be that much of an issue. 

This I think would give a nice little bonus to the main army, maybe enabling you to do something that the main force can't do, such as having a Deathwatch squad tooled up for close combat in a guard army but still keep it fluffy, as it wouldn't be taking the majority of the points. I'm sure that some one could figure a way to abuse this system but then someone always does, so that would be anything new. I honestly can't see this happening in the new guard codex or even in a white dwarf article but it would be nice to get something more that we have at the moment.

Inquisition and battle group photos

 This is the last of the army photo shoots, the combined army and a close up of the Inquisitors. There will be a few additions to the Inquisitorial detachment, mostly in the form of a few more Acolytes. These are actually models that were originally made for my Sisters of Battle kill team but with the new rules are no redundant and so are being brought across in to the Inquisitorial detachment just to use them up, as they are modelled, primed and ready. 

The command council, (L to R) Colonel Leith, Tempestor Prime Agnarr, Inquisitor Sophiana, Commander Jhonisoun and General Conner

The Inquisitors, (L to R) Inquisitor Tamhas, Inquisitor Jameelis, (Lord) Inquisitor Sophiana and Inquisitor Laurissa

from left to right; Dagr Ormr, Hrossey Yeomanry and Hjaltland LI  

above and below, the battle group in all its (current) glory

In total there is around 6500 points worth of models here and there are plans for adding another 1000 points or so with the conscripts, rough riders and possibly Taurox's (or even Tauros if they re-release them) As it is this is still a sizable contingent of guard, even if its not the most optimal.