Astral Claws test minis

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I had hoped to have this post out both earlier and with at least a combat squad of marines done...but Real Life (TM) happened. That said, I am rather pleased with these three and true to the memory of the handful I painted some years ago, they were fairly quick, easy and painless to paint, a good thing considering I still have this to do: 

((((gulp!)))

GW's Leadbelcher, Macragge Blue, Agrax Earthshade along with Vallejo's Glorious Gold and Flat Earth for the base and...umm yeah. That's it. Easy peasy.

I opted to go with different colored tactical arrows to tell the squads apart. I made some in red, yellow and black years ago for some long, forgotten project that never went anywhere...apparently, as I never used any of them. Without a white backing, the red is kinda dark rendering the yellow tactical arrows a lost cause. Additionally I also have the standard GW white ones too. 

Of course only one out of these three is actually sporting said red decal so its not the best plan, but the reinforcement stud pauldrons aren't too common as I recall so it should work...I think. I also made assault, devastator and veteran squad markings in black as well. 

I ordered these chapter icons from grimfritter.com's ebay page. Check em out, they've got good stuff. 

Astral Claws aside, I have been working on some 15mm terrain for that project which this one sorta derailed, but you know me...I can't stay on any given project for too long before-SQUIRREL!!

So there ya have it, not much to say other than here I go...and go, and go, and g...

So, what to do with a non-Primaris space marine army?

The above is just a small portion of the Lions of Harlech Chapter. I do believe that there is somewhere in the realm of 4-5 fully painted companies of them.

It is a valid question as out of the blue, Kushial surprised me (stunned would be more accurate) with the gift of a large space marine army this past weekend! Approximately 2k worth in points via the old marine codex as I've yet to get the current one. 

The unpainted lions...

He hasn't played 40k in close to 2 years, and has no want to paint anymore of his beloved Lions of Harlech space marines, so he was selling off the unpainted portions of his army (dreadnoughts excluded as he has a love of dreads that borders on some kind of psychosis...). However, like myself when I sold off the handful of Rainbow Warriors and the other remnants of my non-primaris marine forces, he found that they were selling for a pittance. 

The whole lot of 'em!

So, if he was to give them away, he'd give them to someone he knew that would enjoy them, rather than a total stranger. So...where to go from here, as GW (apparently) no longer has any love for the 'regular' marines. 

Perusing the archives of this blog I thought that maybe I'd revisit one of the many, many chapters that I've fielded in the past and in doing so the Tyrant's Legion caught my eye. Based on Forgeworld's (now defunct) 6th ed list, the Tyrant's Legion was Lugft Huron's attempt to build the Astral Claws up into a space marine legion of old prior to the badab war. 

At that war's conclusion, the Astral Claw/Tyrant's Legion survivors fled into the maelstrom and became the Red Corsairs, which was another army given to me  out of the blue from the Gentleman's Ones (oh how I miss that blog, and then later given away to yet another blogger who did them proud.

An image of an Astral Claw from the of FW Badab war book. Ironically, it bears a strong resemblance in color to the otherwise totally unrelated Lions of Harlech!

Anyways, originally, the Astral Claws were a loyalist chapter, and rather than have an army in open rebellion again (built of a mix of loyalist and chaos bitz as i had previously), I'm thinking of doing an earlier version, just on the cusp of heresy. The lion's share (pun intended) of the minis in my new army are 30k Mk IV marines. Conveniently, the Astral Claws had raided stockpiles of obsolete, but still serviceable kit as they sought to bolster their forces in secret. 

So how to build this with longevity in mind you ask? Simple: I use the chaos space marine codex. However like the fallen, I'll just ignore all of the chaos gods' affiliated stuff, daemons, etc., and build 'em much as a generic loyalist army, but one diverging from the codex astartes, i.e.: over sized tac squads, with 2 heavy, or special weapons, etc. 

It'll carry some of the flavor of the old FW list, whilst being entirely legal, and devoid of primaris marines and any fear of obsolescence for the foreseeable future.  Some units won't be cross-compatible of course (hey Neverness, I gotta bunch of scout snipers for ya!), and I'll need to order some bitz to convert the Landraider redeemer back into a 'regular' one. But i think it'll work and hey-best of all, that color scheme is easy to paint!

The state of my 40k: Astral Claws

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Arch Centurion Carnac Commodus in all his glory!

Current Disposition: 

With the demise of my Tyrant's Legion army as the cultists have long since gone the way of ebay, my Astral claws are kindova small and redundant army now. They're also the last army I played prior to my 4ish month hiatus from 40k. Indeed, when 40+ models died to Mephiston (with biomancy of course!) and the Sanguinor who themselves were nigh invulnerable...yeah, that was soooo much fun I simply waked away from 40k for awhile. Now that I've returned, I'm thoroughly unimpressed with the game...but on a higher note, some IG models that went the way of ebay earlier this week funded some new Infinity minis!

Regardless, the state of this army is abysmal. Devoid of cultists, they're just a SM army now. However the almost fully painted Storm Wardens have commandeered the Astral Claws predator, and the Angry Marines have stolen their rhino leaving them on foot.

Future Recruitment:

Zilch.

The Ebay Threat:

lol, well...why don't you check out their current ebay listing here.

Retaliator Squad

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This week's project was getting my Tyrant's Legion Retaliator squad ready for this coming weekend. Well, mission accomplished (paint not included):

We will confuse the enemy with our mis-matched color schemes!

Normally an Elite choice, my warlord: Arch-Centurion Carnac Commodus (center) makes one Retaliator squad a troops choice. A Retaliator squad is really little more than a glorified assault squad, that trades jump packs (meaning yes, they'll be riding in a Rhino) for combat shields and void hardened power armor.

Void hardened armor allows them to reroll failed armor saves vs. blast and template weapons (assuming they got a save in the first place). However that bonus comes at the cost of -1 to run rolls, charge rolls, and sweeping advance rolls. That's somewhat mitigated by Carnac's fixed warlord trait that allows his unit to reroll failed sweeping advance rolls.

No, he's not the Sergeant, but he wins the prize for the coolest pose in the squad!

I was hoping to have 2, 20 man Legion Cohorts for this weekend, but having just counted a short while ago I came up 5 short. Oh well, I'll tweak my list and fill that deficit up with something else I guess as we're kinda busy the rest of the week.

Another batch of Tyrant's Legion converts...

...literally! :-D

lol, notta whole lot of time for hobbying this week. Actually, it was a litte bit of a rough week for me. Whilst I've been a gamer for decades and cutting my fingers while converting minis is a daily occurrence. When I wanted to slice a bagel in two on Monday, the knife slipped and I made one hellova slice in my finger instead. Lovely. No stitches were needed, but my GF wouldn't let me use knives for the rest of the evening!

Skipping forward to Friday, and finding out that mother-fucking yellow jackets took up residence in the flower bushes out front while I was mowing really, REALLY sucked! Toss in a delayed allergic reaction (I never was allergic before), followed by a steroid shot for lunch Sunday, and uh yeah. I'm plotting and insect annihilation for later this week!

Anyways...

About all of my hobbying this week was spent 're-arming' more Black Consuls, turning them into Astral Claws for my Tyrant's Legion Cohorts. In some cases its only adding a base, or a bit or two, but there have been a lot of arm swaps, and this week will be no different. I've also added in 2 marines from my existing extras:

The Latest recruits for the cause!

The assault marine with the combat shield will lead my Retaliator squad. Whereas the former Techmarine will take the role of Centurion. He can control the Sentry Guns with his techno-wizardry, while keeping the Legion Auxiliaries in line.

This guy came from our FLGS bitz swap night a little ways back. I've always liked this model, and equipped him a little differently (he already has the 3 color minimum!) than the one I already have. Will probably put them in separate squads too.

I found and used several old Iron Hands' bionic arms on these guys. Also, I'm thinking that once painted up, it'll be hard to tell whether its a Daemonette or Eldar Corsair's head...

We didn't make it to the Saturday gaming either as we went to a friend's (3rd!?!) 30th birthday and (unbeknownst to her at the outset) engagement party! We had a great time (and she said 'yes'). Plus it was bit of a break from game nights is always good every now and again, but we'll be back there this coming weekend.

The demise of the Black Consuls...

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Some ways back, Necron Bob (who no longer has Necrons nor, at this point anything 40k) sent me a message asking if I wanted an old 40k tank that needed some TLC.

Sure, why not?

After some scheduling issues, keeping us from meeting up, he was in town last weekend and stopped by the FLGS whilst we were all gaming. He didn't have just 'a tank' rather he had his old Black Consuls army in its entirety! Holy crap, really? 'Keep it, trade it, sell it, do whatever you want with it its yours.' Damn, that was a surprise!

I haven't seen this army in many years, not since before Bob moved out of state. Prior to that time I fought against it quite regularly. Bob was ever the good opponent, fun to play against and yet always making for a hard fought game (skills that serve him well in his current preference for winning WHFB tournies with alarming frequency). 

All of the green Predator's missing parts were included too!

Indeed, whilst the army is in need of some serious TLC, its nothing insurmountable. For a short moment, I pondered using them as a separate marine army, but figured that I would grow bored with one of the (at that point) three marine armies and dump one on ebay. So instead I decided to fold the majority of them into my two existing armies: The Tyrant's Legion (Astral Claws) and the Storm Wardens.

I ordered a bunch of combat shield arms off of ebay to change the assault marines w/o jump packs into a Tyrant's Legion Retaliator Squad.

The first bunch of (literally) rearmed marines.

The 1st repainted Astral Claw!

 The Tyrant's Legion allows me to field 20 man blobs of marines with ATSKNF, this looks like the quickest and easiest way to be able to field that! The Storm Wardens and their old static poses will fit nicely with the old school termies, giving that army a much needed boost. Whatever is left will probably be folded into the ANGRY MARINES!!! (though that will leave me with a tyrannic war veteran that I don't quite know what to do with).

Additionally, there was a considerable pile o' bitz. In separating out the 40k and WHFB bitz to be dumped into their respective bitz boxes, I found an old Inquisitor in terminator armor with psycannon and null rod, along with enough Necron Scarab swarms to make 3-4 bases of the little buggers for my GF's small but apparently growing Necron force.

A few more Astral Claws...

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Notta whole lot of note round here. The weather has been rather nice here of late, and as such we've still been quite busy which has limited my hobby time. I have however gotten a few more Astral Claws assembled for my Legion Cohort (which now numbers 11 marines).

Astral Claws, now with FW shoulder pads!

The Tyrant's Legion is limited to just allies of convenience for IG & Marines only, with no other allies options. The Astral Claws on the other hand is just another SM chapter. Allowing them to ally with my Storm Wardens if I want to. To lead them I have yet another Librarian. As usual its a Grey Knight, with different arms/head/and shoulder pads.

These guys, along with the rest of my Tyrant's Legion got to see combat this past weekend (Librarian excluded).  They were teamed up with the Fem Fa'Tau in a 2v2 game vs. Orks and Dark Angels. We won decisively due to the game carrying on to turn 6. Had it ended on turn 5, the outcome could have gone either way, so it was a good game. Two things of note for my troops though.

First up, my Astral Claw grav-gunner got his first ever kill with the grav gun! Firing an overwatch shot, and killing an Ork with his 6+ save!!! He did later account for a DW termie though. SPEAKING of the DW Termies, getting cocky due to an overwhelming number of saves made. They turned their backsides to our forces to 'moon' us...and thus Belial took a lascannon up the ass (that was the Warlord VP, thank you very much!). lol.

Arch-Centurion Carnac Commodus

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This week has been crazy-busy! Seriously, we've been out, visiting with friends, family-doing something everyday this week! As such hobby time has been all but non-existent. However every now and again I save something for this sort of situation, and for this time I have Arch Centurion Carnac Commodus of the Tyrant's Legion:

Ya gotta love bitz sellers on ebay!

In the Tyrant's Legion army list, unless you're fielding Huron Blackheart himself (I don't have the model, so I won't be) then Carnac is the 'default' HQ choice. Standard Centurions are basically 2-wound Sergeants with limited options, and Legion Command Detachments are basically glorified IG  Platoon Command Squads.

Whereas Carnac has a statline similar to a SM Chaplain, if not a little better (for the most part). He also has an Iron Halo, void hardened armor (which is power armor that rerolls saves vs. blast and template weapons, but is -1" on run, charge and sweeping advance distances), bolt pistol, grenades and the 'Blood Biter'. That is a S:5, AP:5 CCW with Rending. Not bad, but not the greatest. Also his Warlord Trait allows him to reroll sweeping advance (rolls). Nothing over the top, but still decent.

His banner pole is adorned with the helmets of deceased Fire Hawks. The Fire Hawks had an axe to grind against Huron Blackheart (though not really a justified one), and were the first to respond to the Inquisition's call to reign the Astral Claws in. Attacking with a vengeance, they quickly realized that they were woefully outnumbered, and suffered heavily for it! Space Marine allies and the Tyrant's Legion troops aside, the Astral Claws chapter itself was estimated to have roughly 3500 marines in its ranks at the war's outbreak. As such the Fire Hawks suffered horrific losses and were withdrawn from the conflict before the war's end.

Thus it only seemed fitting to have my Carnac model recognize their contribution to the war effort...

Da Battlewagon iz gettin some action!!!!

lol, indeed.

See for yourself:

NOOOOO!!! Don't reroll the difficult terrain check, we WANT to be stuck...

It was her idea, honest...

lol, after its stellar performance in last week's game, I figured the battlewagon deserved to be something other than glaringly white. So I re-primed it all black, and then drybrushed the whole thing with Ironbreaker paint. I then started a tri-colored camo scheme of the original black/ironbreaker combo, Mechanicus Standard Grey and Stegadon Scale Green.

Whilst the little bitz and details will be colorful as is Orkily appropriate, I wanted it to have more color. Thus as you can see, in a prior battle wiv da Blud Angles, it took a serious hit to the rear krew kompartment. However da boyz were victorious, and managed to repair it with some salvaged scrap from the beakie's wrecked tanks!

At this point, its only about half painted. However I'm hoping to have it finished soon as my recent purchase of a tactical squad really has me wanting to build my Astral Claws!

Tyrant's Legion vs. the Fem Fa'Tau Battle Report

Last night during dinner, my GF challenged me to a game of 40k, huzzah! Coming up with the idea on a whim and with neither side ready with army lists, nor was the table set up, we decided on a small 750 point game. This was also the first time my GF would be coming up with an army list on her own. With such a low point total, I was able to make this the battlefield debut of my slowly growing Tyrant's Legion army.

We used a standard sized table despite the limited point total. We rolled Crusade (3 objectives), standard set up, with the Tyrant's Legion setting up and going first. First turn was also night fight.

Still lacking Astral Claw models, a few Blood Eagles were happy to play the part.

Another Combat squad, deployed in the center, just behind the sentry gun, that would annoy the Tau for the game's duration...

My right flank had the basilisk which will need an eventual repaint, and Arch Centurion Carnac Commodus who was leading a squad of legion Auxilia. The Marauder Mercenaries were held in reserve to outflank.

Fire Warriors with a shield drone deployed in ruins on their right flank.

The rest of the Tau deployment. The Crises suit is the army commander, with a 2nd Crises suit in reserve, as well as a small squad of Stealth Suits.

Turn 1, Commodus leads the Auxilia into the ruins, and they quickly secure an objective! The Combat squads advanced, and the sentry gun killed a lone Pathfinder. The Tau's Turn one was likewise uneventful, with advances on the center, and killing a lone marine on my left flank. Annoyed at the Tau's shooting, my GF tossed some of her errant dice to the floor, much to our kitties' delight!

Turn 2 Started off with my Marauders outflanking right into point blank range of the fire warriors on my left flank...however for all of their shooting, they killed just 2 models, one of which was the shield drone.

Quickly my left flank turned into a mess as the Stealth suits outflanked behind my advancing Predator, whilst the Fire Warriors hammered the Marauders!

In the Center, the Tau brazenly contested the center objective, whilst hammering the combat squad of marines, though luckily their armor held true!

Turn 2 put my left into disarray as the Marauders broke (and they can't rally as dead mercs don't get paid), and my predator went BOOM! Granting the Tau 1st blood.

In the Center I sent the Fire warriors running after killing 2 in HTH, but foolishly I allowed them to flee and just consolidated on the objective instead.

Turn three saw the Crises suit deep strike in, whilst the Basilisk did a damned good job of hiding in that ruined building...

His squad gunned down around him, the Sgt. falls back into shelter of the Chaos ruins.

Meanwhile the crises suit rolled an impressive 20 for armor penetration with its twin-linked fusion blaster! Luckily though the ruins took all of that, sparing the Basilisk (whew!).

Taking anther casualty, the combat squad on the left breaks and my whole left flank collapses!

Luckily Astral Claws are still have ATSKNF and rally. Turning their guns on the stealth suits, they kill 2 at the cost of their plasma gunner who's gun exploded.

Valiantly my Sgt. retakes the center objective! Only to be gunned down shortly thereafter, sigh...

Moving around to where there's less cover, the Crises suit immobilises the Basilisk, whilst the Tau commander takes another hull point off of it from the front.

In an uncharacteristic move, the crises suit charges the immobilized Bassie which resulted in wrecking the tank!

Desperate, Carnac leaves the Auxilia in hopes of charging the drones and sweeping into one of the Crises suits beyond. However he fails to both shoot and charge the drones (by a damned 1/4 inch!).

The Auxilia looks at their advancing doom, whilst in the background, you can just make out the HTH combat of the Fire Warriors and 2 surviving Astral Claws on the left flank.

Due to the obesity of the Marauder's Brute, it took these guys almost the whole game to 'run' (more like walk) off of the table.

Having lost half their number to Tau shooting, and worse yet seeing Carnac vaporized via a fusion blaster proves too much, and the Auxilia flee off my last objective.

At that point, it was well past my normal bedtime, and the bottom of turn 5 so we called it. None of the objectives were held by either side, however the Fem Fa'Tau had 1st blood, Slay the Warlord, and Line Breaker, giving them a 3-0 victory. Not bad for one of her first runs w/o my assistance! Pretty soon I expect my GF's army will be going after the guys at the FLGS w/o my allied contingents tagging along. :-)

Rise of the Tyrant's Legion!

 
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Whilst sick last weekend, I started painting up some Astral Claws for a Tyrant's Legion army. Whilst really a simple color scheme for the most part though my pot of shining gold has gotten gloppy and hard to work with), I was able to crank thru 5 in short order. Its not that my other Marine armies have difficult to paint colors schemes, rather they're all old, 2nd ed. minis. Almost all of which are the same pose. These on the other hand are all different, and thus more of a joy to paint! Thus, I think it's time to dump the rest of the old and unpainted minis. Whether its via ebay, or Kushial and his building an entire chapter project is as yet to be determined.

As for the Tyrant's Legion list itself, I rather like it. More so than the CSM codex which feels a bit uninspired. I'll still use the latter as I have several random contingents of CSMs, and the Tyrant's Legion is very limited in whom it can ally with. Despite appearances, the Tyrant's Legion has a feel more of loyalist marines gone wrong with built in Imperial Guard units than it does of Chaos marines. To that end, most of the DV cultists ('Legion Auxilia') that I have painted, are in colors that will match this army! So no, this isn't a new idea of min

My army will look as though it comes from the later stages of the war (especially considering those cultist models!). Outnumbered, but continuing to desperately fight back against the Imperium, these marines/auxliliaries are beseeching whichever gods will listen for help in their attempts to secure victory. The resulting altered appearance of their wargear as these dubious alliances are made, is only now becoming apparent.

In back you can see my original Astral Claw. He was a repaint of my disgraced Aurora Marines captain. His gun is black rather than blue, but its not enough to warrant a rework, especially as its a different design. My original intent was to use him as a Centurion, but he's since been busted down to a mere grunt. I have a new model in the works which will be used as Arch-Centurion Carnac Commodus. Though it might pose a bit of a fluff conflict as he didn't survive the war (leaving me with a technically short time frame for this army). Oh well, I guess that their 'soon-to-be-treacherous' allies, the Executioners who were possibly turning a blind eye to the obvious until Carnac's actions against their Salamanders POWs finally drove them over the edge…

Further adding to their varied appearance, I painted one as a Tiger Claw. The Tiger Claws, after being denied their right to rebuild, fled to their Promigenators (the Astral Claws) and fought alongside them under false colors thru-out the war. However I'm sure their were at least a few who chose to show their true chapter heraldry before the war's inevitable conclusion. Official word of this treacherous masquerade was only learned thru Inquisitorial interrogation of the a captured Legion apothecary during the war (who turned out to be a Tiger Claw himself). To be honest, I decided to paint this model more or less on a whim. I wanted the bionic arm to stand out, and didn't think it would do so on a silver armored model.

Currently I only four more to go and then they'll be a fieldable unit. Yes 10 is the minimum squad size for Legion Cohorts (not tactical squads) which top out at 20 models. Huron Blackheart had re-styled his chapter on the pattern of the Legions of old and was working on achieving that goal when the war started. I ordered some FW Astral Claw shoulder pads, and will add them to the new recruits to the cause. I have enough CSM bits I think to subtlety alter them accordingly.  I didn't order the FW decal sheet since I had trouble stomaching $20 for a decal sheet (WTF!?!?!). But that's an inevitable purchase I guess.

Regardless, I'm enjoying these guys which has been a first for any of my marine forces in a long time! Now the decision will be whether or not to make the Bikers that I got for Christmas into Storm Wardens as originally planned, or to instead paint them up for the Tyrant's Legion…

Its all in a wash...

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As you know, I'm running a day late on my weekly Monday post. Grandfather Nurgle stopped by for a visit last week, and we're still trying to recover from his attentions. Today I can function (for the most part), but the past three days, not so much. As a result, where I mentioned in my prior post that my Orks were going to take to the field this past weekend…well that didn't happen. Instead we warned away our opponent. My GF and I contemplated a game vs. each other, but neither of us felt up to it. We simply didn't have the energy, nor would the game be much fun with constant coughing fit interruptions. :-(

That said, whilst I was dead to the world, I did manage to get some painting done at least. I painted up a few Astral Claws for my Tyrant's Legion (previously I only had 1 painted TL marine). My models are a mix of loyalist and traitor marine parts. I figure my army will be from either the latter stages of the Badab war, or immediately following it, but before rebranding themselves as the Red Corsairs.

Before...

...after.

Their color scheme is really quite simple, and even kinda ugly prior to giving them a wash in Devlin Mud (sadly that invaluable pot is running low and I'll soon have to go with it's replacement(s)…). Slather on the wash (I know some think I use too much of the stuff, but I like grimy-looking minis). Then come back in an hour and all that's needed is a quick, light dry brushing of extra grime, a few touch ups, basing and then onto the clear coats (matte followed by 'Ard coat in select places). As such the progress I made on these guys seems trivial when compared to most out there, but considering I was half-dead at the time, it felt like good progress to me.