Rules Homebrew: Power Generator - a Fortification Upgrade

In the desperation of battle, canny commanders will rig up whatever they can find to the laser weaponry to produce a steady and unrelenting arc of fire.  Power generators come in all shapes and sizes, but the desired effect is the same: to enhance what is already present.

Cost:
One-tenth the points cost of the fortification it is installed within.

Effects:
A power generator causes all laser, plasma, melta, or other "energy" based weapons attached to a fortification to become twin-linked, representing an overload of power.

In addition, a single model in base contact with an appropriate type of weapon can "hook-up" that weapon to the power generator and gain the same effect.

The power generator is treated as an AV=10, open-topped immobile vehicle with 2 hull points.  If it explodes, double the explosion radius and inflict an automatic strength 10 hit on the fortification that it is contained within.

(Image: Quantum Gothic power generator).

Painted Quantum Cannon

In painting Quantum Gothic's quantum cannon, I wanted to opt for a more standard scheme than I've done with the previous pieces I've painted up from this company which are done in lots of rusted colours.  I therefore set about with a standard metallic dry brushing approach for the mainstay of the piece, but became a bit unhappy with the somewhat bland choice and approach vector I was taking.  I therefore decided to accent the piece with reds (for selected metal struts and regions) and blues (for the power coils).  Each of the accent colours has been washed down to darker tones, before lighting up to highlights with blazing orange and electric blue (respectively).  The overall feel of the scenery is one that feels like it has just come off the production line, but has not been painted up in to the correct colours of whatever army had to deploy it at short notice.  I think as a final touch, I will add some muddy colours around the base to finish off the idea of fresh-off-the-line and pressed-into-battle sooner that was ideal concept.

Review: Quantum Gothic Quantum Cannon

The Quantum Gothic Quantum Cannon is yet another high quality resin product, as we've come to expect from the company.  There are eleven pieces that constitute the quantum cannon and not one of them had any flexure or warpage issue. Neither is there any existent issue air bubbles with their resin. There were only a few flakes of flash, hence the clean up time was about one minute at most (no exaggeration)!  

If you have purchased any other products from Quantum Gothic (e.g. the Catalyst), you'll notice that the base is exactly the same and takes very little time to put together.  Even without prior knowledge, the instructions are clear as to how to assemble the base and they also offer fore-warning about how to position the angle of the cannon as it is not adjustable later on once glued (unless you're willing to indulge in some minor conversion work). 

The rest of the assembly of the quantum cannon was easy.  The entire model can be cleaned and constructed in less than fifteen minutes and it looks awesome on the tabletop battlefield.  The image below shows the completed cannon.  It stands taller than a regular space marine and even dwarfs a terminator.  For direct size comparison, have a look at my earlier post on the catalyst missile launcher that includes the same base as the quantum cannon.  The head of a regular space marine doesn't quite reach the pivot point of the cannon.

In terms of how to use the quantum cannon inside a warhammer 40,000 game, clearly the primary use is as a high quality piece of scenery.  But if you're like me, then you'll no doubt like to have some house rules about how the cannon might function.  I developed a small set of rules for the cannon that are consistent with the background given on quantum gothic's web site.  I am sure that readers could also imagine other uses for the gun, say on titans; an orkified defence fortress; or an imperial bastion.  One of the best bits about the cannon, the comm dish and the catalyst is that Quantum Gothic also sell a bunker that could be used to mount all three.  It's certain a probably future purchase for me!

Disclaimer: Although I am not affiliated with Quantum Gothic in any way, they did ask me to write this review. However, I was under no obligation to make any positive, or negative comments about the product. At no stage did the company insist on reviewing this article before publication.

Review: Quantum Gothic Catalyst (Missile Launcher)

The catalyst from Quantum Gothic is an elegant missile launcher.  The product comes in eleven separate parts, as pictured in the image to the right.  Similarly to the earlier products that I've reviewed from Quantum Gothic, the catalyst has very little clean-up work required before progressing to gluing.  There was almost no flash of resin that needed to be trimmed and warpage of the product was non-existent.  The only slight bit of flash occurs on the steam-punk-style adjustment wheel (near the bottom left of the image) where the resin has seeped across what is intended to be resin-free regions.  To be honest, I was not entirely bothered by this as I didn't really consider the wheel to be an essential part of the catalyst and I actually didn't glue it on to the main frame at the end of the day -- I thought the missile launcher looked terrific without the extra detail offered by the wheel.  But equally, I can see the case that the wheel should be an integral part of the design of this weapon.

The assembled catalyst is depicted below, with a chaos space marine missile launcher guy from Warhammer 40,000 for scale purposes.  The assembley was very straight forward: there were no nasty surprises waiting to trap the unwary hobbyist, and all the pieces slotted in to their allocated places with ease.  The base of the catalyst is in common with many of the other pieces sold by Quantum Gothic (see, e.g., the comm dish) and is easy to build even with no prior knowledge.  Total assembley time is short: certainly no more than ten minutes for the average hobby enthusiast!

In terms of uses within the Warhammer 40,000 game, I know folks like to use the catalyst as part of their sisters of battle armies for exorcist tanks.  It is probably a bit large for chaos havoc launchers, but it could certainly be deployed as an apocalyptic missile launcher in games of Apocalypse; perhaps even mounted on a titan. 

Disclaimer: Although I am not affiliated with Quantum Gothic in any way, they did ask me to write this review. However, I was under no obligation to make any positive, or negative comments about the product. At no stage did the company insist on reviewing this article before publication.

Apocalypse Homebrew: Quantum Cannon

Here's some experimental rules for a Quantum Cannon in Warhammer 40,000 and Apocalypse games. 

The rules are based purely off the description supplied on Quantum Gothic's website.  There, it is stated that the cannon can be operated in two modes: a blast of "quantum energy" that causes instantaneous aging in the area of effect, or as a regular shell/projectile artillery piece. 

I suggest treating the cannon as an objective that is placed at least 12" from any unit at the start of the game.  If a player controls it (in an uncontested sense) at the start of his/her turn, then they may fire it provided that the controlling squad undertakes no other movement. 

As an alternative, treat it is as a BS=3, AV=12 all-round static vehicle that costs 125 points.

Quantum Cannon. 
Before shooting, the controlling player must select which mode the cannon will fire in this turn.

Artillery mode.
Range: 72"
S: 7
AP: 3
Type: Apocalyptic Barrage 1

Quantum Energy Blast mode.
Range: 60"
S: D
AP: N/A
Type: Small blast 1

Wargames Gallery: Scorpion Stings

A small squad of eldar striking scorpion aspect warriors have evaded crossfire and approached the entrentched position of my obliterators. 

The resultant melee was not plesant for my obliterators who seemed determined to fail as many saving throws as they could.

The scenery for this shot consists of the comm dish from quantum gothic (acting as an objective), with imperial ruins from CNC.

The eldar won this particular game in the end, setting back Typhus' plans to spread his master's favours to this sector ... but the long war continues.

Painted Quantum Gothic Power Generator

The Quantum Gothic power generator that I assembled a few days ago is now painted. Most of the painting scheme depicted on their web site is of a rusted appearance, in keeping with their apparent theme of a war that is fought at an atomic level: accelerated aging (etc.).   However, for my kit, I wanted something a bit different and more in keeping with my other bits of scenery that exhibit several solidus colours (albeit in a wrecked state).  For the power generator I therefore chose a pair of colours to work with: blue and brass.  Ultramarine blue was basecoated over a black undercoat on the main cylinder of the power generator as well as both ends and the pipework.  This was inked with a dark blue colour and highlighted back up.  The black parts were drybrushed in boltgun metal and selectively hightlighted with codex grey.  Meanwhile, the brass looking parts started out with a shining gold base coat that was washed several times over with brown to created a worn look.  The final detailing included painting the pressure gauge (top picture) and highlighting the edges of the silver and other raised parts.  The vivid blue of the power generator will make it hard to miss on many playing tables -- and this is the point.  If I use it as an objective, I certainly don't want to overlook its existence!

Review: Quantum Gothic Power Generator

Quantum Gothic's power generator comes in seven parts.  The image below pictures these parts directly out of the package.  As with the Comm Dish that I previously bought, the power generator has very little in the way of flashes of resin needing to be trimmed away from the kit before assembly can begin. Being pedantic, I did use a hobby knife to sharpen up the edges of the four nuts and bolts bits (lower portion of the image), but realistically, not even that was needed.

I've said it before, and I'll state it again: the quality of Quantum Gothic's resin is tremendous.  There are no air bubbles in the pieces and there are no issues with flexure. The quality control that the company does is fantastic.  The power generator itself is very simple to put together: to be honest space marines are probably harder to glue in place.  The two side bits are glued on to either side of the main body of the generator (the main body is symmetric, so it makes no difference which end one glues them to) and the four nuts and bolts are positioned on the corners of the rectangular resin base.  Assembly time was no more than five minutes, including ripping open the packaging.  It really was that easy!

The assembled power generator is shown below mounted on a large citadel circular base.  For contrast and scale comparison, a chaos space marine with a missile launcher and a tyranid warrior are placed either side of the piece.  As can be seen, the power generator is a little taller than the chaos marine, but the tyranid warrior can just about see over the top of it. 

As well as being scenery that can block lines of sight within games, the power generator's other obvious use will be as an objective marker.  For the moment, I intend to let the generator be a free-standing piece rather than part of a larger terrain piece, but clearly the hobbyist could do either.  One of the more fascinating options would be to create a chain of power generators as a set scenery piece.  At 7.50 UKP, this could be quite a realistic option for even the average gamer and modeller. 

To balance this review, we now turn to what could be improved.  I suspect that the nuts and bolts could have been cast with the main body of the piece with a bit of work.  But that really isn't so important as I personally quite like having the option of being able to include or exclude these small features.  The corners of the piece also extend over the edge of the standard 60mm citadel circular base (see the image below).  To me, this again is not an issue as I have plenty of miniatures that do likewise and I am (after all) combining a citadel base with a non-Games Workshop kit(!)

Disclaimer: Although I am not affiliated with Quantum Gothic in any way, they did ask me to write this review.  However, I was under no obligation to make any positive, or negative comments about the product. At no stage did the company insist on reviewing this article before publication.

Painted Quantum Gothic Comm Dish

 This is my painted version of the Quantum Gothic comm dish. 

The dish has been undercoated in black and then highlighted in a variety of pseudo-rusty co lours that included oranges, reds, and what I initially thought of as an odd combination of blue and green.  This gives the strong suggestion of an aging piece of kit that has seen many years of service and may yet still be usable!  It makes a grand piece of (gothic) scenery for an objective, or simply to place in the upper levels of some ruined manufactorum.

The inset shot show the image of the rear of the comm dish where the power supply is located.  To me, it looked very much like a plasma power supply -- the coils immediately evoked a comparison to plasma weapons in Warhammer 40,000 for me.  Hence I painted it as such using an electric blue highlight over an inked blue base coat.  This power supply is very much alive and ready to go.

The only question for the protagonists on the table-top is whether the dish will still function due to its age?  I could imagine a whole scenario constructed around this scenery piece.  

Review: Quantum Gothic Comm Dish

Quantum Gothic stormed on to the stage a few years ago with some incredible looking resin scenery pieces. Many of my long term readers will probably be familiar with Forge World resin. In comparison, Quantum Gothic scenery pieces are probably slightly cheaper, but more significantly, require much less "clean up" work than I've experienced with Forge World.

I purchased the communication dish from their web site. The picture below shows what you get.In short, exactly as advertised, and with zero air bubbles or defects in flexure (etc.). This is in contrast to Forge World where I find there is usually at least some work to be done with cleaning up the resin and flexing it back in to the shape it should be. Air bubbles are also a non-existant issue for Quantum Gothic it would seem.

The clean up of this model amounted to ensuring that a mold line around the rim of the dish was not too prominent. In all seriousness, that was about the only significant mold line that existed on the model. Other than that, there were only a few (count them on one hand "few" that is) little flashes of excess resin to trim from a couple of pieces and that was it.
The dish (as with other pieces from Quantum Gothic) comes with instructions as to how to build the piece. This is very nice and lacking from Forge World for their simpler models. The picture shows my completed dish, fully assembled. It stands a little taller than a standard terminator and looks handsome already! The assembly was a breeze. It took no more than 30 mins to create, and most of that time was waiting for the superglue to become touch dry so that I could insert the next piece.

Price wise, the communication dish is 15 UK pounds. This is not such a bad price ... and looks even better to Australian buyers at the time of writing due to the excellent exchange rate. Although I plan to use it in warhammer 40,000 games, it is clear that the dish could be useful for all kinds of other 25/28mm games out there.

Finally, let me say that I was also impressed with Quantum Gothic's customer service. They kept me up to date (by email and through my account online with them) about the status of my order. I knew when it was shipping and I knew when to expect it arrive in the post. Bravo!

(Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Quantum Gothic in any way whatsoever. On the off-chance that Quantum Gothic reads this, I'd be only too happy to review more of your kit!)