Space Marine Statue Terrain Piece

The Space Marine statue is a nice terrain piece, providing some limited line of sight blocking and a good way to bring a small amount of variation and vibrancy to tabletop terrain for Warhammer 40,000.

Having assembled this statue, I'm now trying to think up concepts about how to paint it up. I've seen many, many different approaches to this terrain piece, ranging from metallics, through to marble tones, and ones overgrown with vines and trees. And I guess that that is where I'm having trouble in choosing the manner in which to paint this one up. I want something that is a little out of the ordinary (perhaps even going as far to have a pre-heresy style statue?) and something that makes the terrain piece stand out as unique against the background and against what others have painted theirs in.

Opinions welcome!

Games Workshop Portsmouth

Recently, I travelled to Portsmouth and Southsea with my work. Its on the very Southern coast of  England for those that don't know the local geography, and looks out to the Isle of Wight and the English Channel. And since I'm in the habit of now reviewing Games Workshops whenever and wherever I travel, I thought I would seek out the Portsmouth store of Games Workshop.

Physically, the store is located on Arundel Street, which is only a 5 min walk from the Portsmouth and Southsea railway station. It is well serviced with connecting buses (it seems) from nearby stops and is amongst the main shopping precinct of Portsmouth, making is very accessible to dedicated gamers and casual shoppers alike.

The size of the store is wider than the recent English stores I've visited, but then, I don't think it has quite the depth of (e.g.) Durham. The gaming tables inside were suitably dressed up and the main theme of the store when I visited was to do with the release of 7th edition (naturally). Indeed, you can see posters advertising 7th, and glimpse a few pages of the rules inside the window. The miniatures on display were all great. But I never did catch the name of the employee I was chatting with (apologies if its you and you are miraculously reading this - I was the guy with the accent that didn't fit in - you know the slightly Aussie/British accent! lol!).

Snow Ghoul (WFB Vintage)

A miniature (and paint job) from yesteryear from me today. This is a very (very) old metal ghoul from Citadel Miniatures in the Realms of Chaos / Rogue Trader era. I discovered it whilst tidying up an equally old dungeons and dragons miniature related box (which contained oddities ranging from Ral Partha models through to blue plastic Space Hulk genestealers).

I painted this blue in my youth to depict a snow- or ice ghoul. Why blue? Well, the blood in its body runs cold (obviously! lol!). 

It was also an early exercise in azimuthal lighting to some extent. 

The base coat is nothing more than ultramarine blue, with several dark blue wash layers added on top to give a bit of depth. The upper surfaces on the face and chest were then picked out in ultramarine blue, and then layered up with a mixture of electric blue. I was particularly pleased with the face on the ghoul - in spite of the pure white eyeballs. The tongue is suitably snow-covered dirt flavour, but the weapon clearly needs a bit more work to bring to a good standard.

The overall tone of the blue is pleasing to my eye even today and I remember fondly some snow based Dungeons and Dragons adventures where a group of these ghouls persistently tailed and tried to eat the PCs (repeatedly) only to be chased away and scared off by large bonfire-related hijinks and fire-based magic.

Space Marine Hands

One of the changes that seems to have happened recently is the way that hands are moulded, cast and joined on to models such as space marines. Below is a picture (taken from the assembly instructions of the recently newly boxed space marines) illustrating what I mean. Notice how the hand holding the trigger (the right hand -- and don't get me started on why every space marine is right handed!) is not longer a part of the arm, but part of the gun piece itself.

This is at variance to how (e.g.) chaos space marines come off the sprue. With chaos marines, the bolter is a totally separate piece and includes the trigger handle itself (should you want to attach it to the leg for instance whilst the hands hold a pistol and chainsword). The one issue with this, of course, is a reduction in the readiness with which bits can be exchanged between kits like space marines and chaos space marines.

Why am I bothered about this? I'm not too much as its only a little bit of extra modelling work. But since I'd like to blend the bits from space marines and chaos space marines - especially with an eye to constructing pre-heresy styled models - it just mean fractionally more work whereas it was easier earlier.

Horus Heresy Review: Legion Drop Pod

There are no build suggestions that I can share for this unit, as there are no options to pick between. But, let me state from the outset here that players familiar with Warhammer 40k Space Marines codex will have no trouble comprehending what the 30k version is all about. They're pretty much identical.

The interesting facet about only having one drop pod and having it come down in turn one won't work in 30k though. That's because in order to take a drop pod, regular units must have access to the correct rite of war bought through a legion praetor.

The good news is that a death wind pod is a distinct entry in the heavy support section, so this tactic can still work, but just not with a squad of marines or a dreadnought. Hence the legion drop pod is going to be very much limited to drop pod armies. This is a bit of a shame in some ways, but also makes for a very fluffy background for armies built as such.

As always, the drop pod is for getting your troops or weapons where you need them. The inertial guidance systems help them not be lost if they land on impassable terrain. And for reasons that have always bothered me, the chaos space marine factions in 40k do not have access to them (despite the World Eaters apparent love of them). Clearly they're too busy to collect them back up off the battle field or enslave a forge world to make more of them for themselves.

Horus Heresy Review: Legion Rhino Armoured Carrier

The ubiquitous rhino is familiar to all space marine 40k players, and their enemies alike. Indeed, so frequently used are these tanks, that a review hardly seems worthwhile. But for the sake of completeness (and I will be covering EVERYTHING in the Horus Heresy books eventually), the rhino gets its time in the limelight today.

Its worth noting here that under some rites of war (e.g., armoured spearhead) rhino's and/or other transports must be purchased for all infantry squads. So they're going to see plenty of use in 30k. In addition, they also get the self repair rule, just as in 40k. So don't forget to use it if immobile and without weapons.

The options for rhinos are not particularly broad. But here are a few ideas for builds.

Legion Rhino with havoc launcher (50 points).
This has to be my favourite (and preferred) set up. The havoc launcher is an excellent weapon to mount on rhinos and can provide a sweet application of extra pressure that catches opponents off guard. I use it all the time in my chaos armies.

Legion rhino with auxiliary drive, extra armour, dozer blade (60 points).
For when you absolutely must get your troops from point A to point B. Its not guaranteed by any means. So you're going to probably want and need to take plenty of them.

Legion rhino with hunter-killer missile, combi-melta (55 points).
Just for fun (but it also works!). Turn 1: fire your hunter killer missile. In the successive turns, get up close and personal with another tank and melta it (hopefully your troops on board also have some meltas to back it up). And from therein, if the rhino survives, think about camping on objectives and/or ramming opponents!