Tribute to Ciaphus Cain, Hero of the Imperium

 

Commissar Ciaphus Cain, Hero  is a character invented by Alex Stewart, writing as Sandy Mitchell for Black Library. He is accompanied by his aide, Gunner First Class Jurgen.

I made this model some years ago and it has languished in a box in the garage. However I have been using the lockdown to have a clear out and came across it. After a quick spruce to blow the dust off, it will soon be off to Alex as a momento of his wonderful stories.

I took as my inspiration the front cover of The Traitor's Hand, one of Alex's novels, that shows Cain riding in his personal Salamander armoured recce vehicle. However, I did not feel bound to follow the artwork slavishly as I can't see Cain advertising his presence with a banner.

The Salamander is based on a Rhino chassis so I kitbashed a Basilisk. Removing the cannon left me with an appropriate open-topped hull to which I added an heavy bolter.

I wanted the car to look lived in so added bedding and a potable water holder - water is often a limited resource on Imperial worlds

Note the ID plaque bearing Cain's name on the flank.

The Salamander offers an easy escape route over the back if Cain needs to leg it, sharpish. He has added an additional drum of promethium as a reserve. Running out of fuel in a hostile environment is one of those things that makes his hands itch.

The scout car is a bit dirty and knocked-about with the odd spot of rust on the exterior but you can be sure the weapons and mechanics are in full working order. Cain isn't to bothered about spit and polish but you never know when you may need to make a run for it.

As a recce scout, the Salamander is well equipped with augurs - very useful for detecting and avoiding dangerous enemies.

The Salamander also has the advanced comms array of a command vehicle, as befits the Regimental Commissar. These are useful for screaming for assistance when in difficulties.

Note Jurgen's 'uniform' - and I use the word cautiously. Cain's aide is equipped with a variety of ill-fitting battle dress from different campaigns, sporting a variety of camos.

40K Imperial Knight

As part of my general clear out connecting with the renovation of my house, I was about to sell this knight.

I really do not have a use for the model but my beautifully painted chaos marine warband on expensive resin stands went for about one quarter new price on ebay,

So on that basis I think I may as well keep it.

The Black Knight

Finished my Knight model. I decided to go for a gloss black finish to give a suitably sinister appearance but it is awful to photo especially in the Spring light.  I went for a much simpler colour scheme than GW's show models as they look too finicky: great when painted by a commercial artist for close up photography but not really wargame fodder.

The base is MIG earth and permanent fixative with GW technical and textured paint.

Primed and Polished

Finished the first draft of a novel for Baen Books at the weekend so I decided to celebrate by assembling and priming an Imperial Knight model.

It went together fairly well with only the odd bit that didn't seem to fit anywhere.

I elected for a Melta Cannon as the shooty weapon as the main weapon is a D close combat sword so fitting a long range battle cannon seemed a bit MRCA: many roles can't do any.

This version is an up close and personal monster killer.

Went for a gloss black as the primary colour using Humbrol spray. I think I will use steel and red as the contrast colours.

Warlord 28mil Plastic Vehicles: Imperial Guard

Now this is an important development. We have had wargame-friendly plastic models in 1/72 for a while by people like Armourfast and Plastic Soldier but now the first of a 28mil plastic kit from warlord.

First model up is the Hanomag which will go on sale as individual models or as a value pack of three with 30 Warlord German infantry. I want, drool.

This will be a great way of making an instant Imperial Guard platoon that's a bit different.

The Emperor's Finest - Tomorrow's War

To playtest Tomorrow's War we set up a scenario of two five man Adeptus Arbites squads clearing some cultist scum out of a broken down industrial zone.

One squad has a medium support weapon. The Arbites shotguns function as rifles, firing heat-seaking rounds.

I did not use all the chaos cultists pictured here. We decided to have four squads of five with rifles, two of the squads having medium support weapons. In other words double the Arbites.

We stuck to testing the core rules, ignoring morale as both sides are fanatics. The cultists are irregulars (using D6s to hit etc) so we used the Asymetric Warfare rules. The main one being that the Arbitese are always the initiative side. The Arbitese are veterans using a D10 dice. As you roll die against each other for various outcomes D10 has much better odds than D6. We also ignored the casualty evacuation rules which are far too all pervasive. Cultists wouldn't care and Arbitese are dedicated. The current focus with casualty evacuation is a modern Western response to losing soldiers in unpopular guerrilla wars. Such finickyness wouldn't survive a high intensity war and non-Western military are not so fussy.

I decided to play the Action/Reaction cascade limited to Action/ Reaction to the action/ Reaction to the reaction using overwatch or opportunity fire.

 

 The Game

 We set the first game up as above. The Arbites are ambushed by cultists in buildings.
 

One Arbites squad rushes out with the second on overwatch. They all dies in te crossfire due to some abyssmal die rolling. However, turn by turn, the remaining squad started to slaughter all cultists within line of site and the cultists couldn't lay a mutated glove on them.

 Game Two.
The Arbitese close in on the cultists in a pincer movement, firing as they advance.

Cultists start dieing.

The cultists are methodically slaughtered, killing only one Arbitese in reply.

So what went wrong. Well, at one level it all went right, Arbitese do the biz when confronted with cultists. Very true to the 40K canon but not a lotta fun. I suspect that the way the combat system works, the cultists would have done much better in two groups of ten. That way they could swamp the Arbitese with firepower.

Five cultists fire five D6 as their basic attack against 7D10 for the Arbitese defence (5 plus 2 for armour), which has to match each 4+ hitwith an equal value die roll to remove it. Ten cultists with a support weapon would fire 13 D6 but the defence is still 7D10.

Imperial Guard - Fire Support

A spotter track an enemy tank for an ATM launch.

This is the army that I have sold. I thought I would take a few picks.

Soulder launched missiles - the infantry's heavy fire support.

A mortor team awaits target instructions.

Spotter checks vox downloaded fire grid reference for targets.

Target aquired, five rounds rapid.

Heavy bolter teams move up to support the infantry line.

MY IG Army

Some of them still need a lick 'o paint but I intend to sell after an offer from a fellow blogger.

Riverine 40K

Repainted and modelled children's toy

Old Crow 28mm Resin Hovercraft Models


Nearly every game of 40K I see is played on something resembling Hyde Park, or Stalingrad, and that's a shame as a novel terrain situation can bring a whole new spice for the jaded palette.

Estuarine warfare brings in a whole new raft of problems. This is where the land and the sea merge. An example would be the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. The US armed forces had to devise whole new vehicles, the riverine force, to fight in this region. The Mekong is tropical but a riverine battleground could just as easily be temperate or icy. Think of the landscape of eastern England and the Thames and Medway Estuaries in Roman times or the Dark Ages, before the land was drained, the waterways canalised and sea walls erected. Beowulf describes such a landscape.

The main terrain types include open 'deep' water, gooey mud banks. and islands of solid ground. Vegetation grows along the waterways and on the islands.

Skimmers come into their own but heavy ground vehicles are restricted to the mainland and islands connected by military quality bridges - which may mean they are absent from the game. Amphibious vehicles, i.e.ground vehicles that float, are useful as are boats.

Vehicle restrictions are as follows:_
Skimmers: no restrictions (but sink if they come down in water).
Light Tracks: dry land, mud (dangerous) and water if amphibious.
Wheels: Dry land, water if amphibious.
Heavy tracks: dry land only.
Hovercraft: Any flat surface.
Boats: Open water only

Amphibious Ground Vehicles
The IG codex describes an amphibious vehicle as one that treats water as clear terrain, such as the Chimera. This is fine for a normal game of 40K but inadequate for a specialist riverine game. An amphibious AFV, like a Chimera, has to have certain restrictions in water: (i) Speed is reduced to six inches a turn; (2) Only the turret gun can fire as the bow and hull ports are sealed to stop water getting in.

Hovercraft: These are 'fast' but cannot cross 'broken' ground or obstacles, such as walls or tree stumps.

You can pick up some nice and inexpensive 28 mm hovercraft hulled vehicles from Old Crow. However, they are a little too streamlined and high tech for the Guard (or renegade humans).

Children's toys are worth watching out for. I picked up a couple of toy boats for a song. I removed the boat hull and repainted it - see above. It is a Chimera, in games turns, including points value, except that it is a hovercraft (see above). It has a twin-linked heavy bolter on top (no bow gun) and four hunter killer missile launchers that are used mainly as bunker busters and boat killers.


Boats are the sort of thing that can be scratch built from plastic sheets and various odds and sods. I have put up some pics of US Riverine boats below. These can be simply open troop transports or fire support boats.


One type not shown is the 'lighter'. This is basically a low, flat pontoon hull with an engine at the back and a conning tower for a pilot, which will probably be armoured. Various guns, vehicles, luggage or turrets are placed on top. In WWII, the German used to use lighters with 88mm Flak guns to protect coastal convoys.




US Riverine Forces.

Adeptus Arbites Squad

I have finally finished my Adeptus Arbites squad. This is the 812th Squad from the 77th Parish.



The Repressor is the Forge World kit, I have pretty much built it as is.


The infantry are made from Cadians. The shotguns are cut down lasguns. I took off the muzzle, sight, charge pack and stock to make a combat shotgun. The heads are from Pig Iron and I used resin bases. I havered over the shields but eventually scratch-built them from thin plastic. They are covered in varnish because the plastic was too transparent. The varnish makes them a little opaque and more in keeping with a repressor field. They are liberally armed with grenades.


The officer is a Spyglass Imperial Captain and is armed with a power sword and plasma pistol. The sergeant has a bolt pistol and power maul.



They can be played as Imperial Guard veterans with carapace armour. Use the commissar rules for the officer.