Capes

To convert a bunch of miniatures and make them stand out a bit more on the tabletop, I obtained a set of five capes from Anvil Industry recently.

The image shows four out of five of these capes (one of them reversed so you can see the detail). Every one of them is unique. Although they have been designed with their own range of miniatures in mind, these parts are entirely interchangeable with regular 40k troops. Note in particular the gap at the top of the capes. They are exactly the right size to fit behind the back of the torso and sit snugly under the power pack of any regular space marine or chaos space marine.

My intent here is to use them with some 30k reconnaissance troops as I didn't wish to purchase Forge World's own sniper marines -- I'm going to go for a bit of a different look.  More on that in posts to come!

Shaving Grey Knights

Remind me to not do this again too often. In the pursuit for novel looking torsos for my growing 30k army (and following the maxim of no model left unconverted) I some how got it in to my head that some Grey Knight torsos would look awesome. If only I could shave them down.

And that's exactly what I set out to do. The photo shows the results: 5 Grey Knight power armour torsos that have had their iconography scrubbed out through an exquisitely fine application of both the modelling knife and files. I'm pleased with the result overall here. Although the curvature of the torsos has been affected in places, with a gun slung over them it will hardly be noticeable on the tabletop. But the sheer amount of time and effort that this took: oh my. This is the main reason I really don't want to repeat this exercise again in a hurry.

Horus Heresy Review: Sevatar

Death to the False Emperor! First uttered by Sevatar, this marine is one of the deadliest in all of the space marine legions by reputation. On par with the likes of Corswain (Dark Angel), Abaddon (Sons of Horus), Eidolon (Emperor's Children), etc., if the background fluff is to be believed.

Is this justified by his rules though?

He does gain the instant death special rule for all of his melee attacks for a start. This is nice and makes him a bit of a character killer for the Night Lords. From this perspective alone, he should be at the forefront of any attack, preferably teamed up with his Atramentar (command squad of terminators) who will not scatter on deep striking, as if Sevatar has an icon of chaos or similar, when Sevatar is part of the force. This makes him not only deadly in combat, but also a force multiplier.

He's also a repressed psyker with precognition. This will give him a slight edge where it is needed the most.

In terms of equipment, the most significant negative is his penchant for going around in 3+ power armour. Didn't he ever think to have anything artificer crafted?! But he does get an iron halo to help out a bit, as well as a master crafted chainglaive.

In terms of tactics, I think he'd make a terrific HQ choice for armies wanting to go with Pride of the Legion rite. This'll make sure he gets close to the enemies he needs to be in the face of, and with serious back up from his terminators. Take several large squads, and get them to deep strike on top of Sevatar when in position, and all sorts of nasty things will no doubt be able to happen. Overall, probably worth the points cost, but must be used and played to his strengths.

Horus Heresy Review: Flaymaster Mawdrym Llansahai

As a primus medicae, he's got expertise in the apothecarion. But he's an example of what happens when medics go bad - but in a totally different way to Fabius Bile. He's twisted his skills to an art form of inflicting pain on his opponents, torturing them, interrogation techniques, and flaying them alive. Even the Night Lords think he's a bit insane really. And that's saying something.

In the rules, he is deemed Unfit for Command, as even the Night Lords won't follow him. Hence he'll never be a warlord or taken for a compulsory HQ selection.

He is a survivor as well - having bypassed multiple attempts on his life within and without of his legion. As such on the tabletop he gets re-rolls on look out and feel no pain rolls. Hence he's got a sticking power that other HQ selections simply never get. He also wields a custom, long scalpel that gives AP3 at reduced strength, which is cute, but probably not going to deal too much damage.

All that said, he's also an apothecary (an independent character) and should be used as such for Night Lords almost in preference to regular apothecaries. He's double the price though, but at least he has two wounds and slightly better stats that the ordinary apothecary. I think his special rules make him worth the cost (just) overall. So, I think a Night Lords player should be taking him to help other troops survive, even if they are all scared of him!

The only real thing that bothers me here is the pseudo-Welsh sounding name. I didn't know Wales was so well connected to Nostramo! I'm genuinely surprised!

Horus Heresy Review: Konrad Curze

Bereft of any civilising influence that the likes of Corax had during his upbringing, Konrad effectively raised himself and found a world mortal sin and filth in Nortamo. His solution was effective in the extreme: serenity through abject fear and hunting down any transgressor. Coupled with something of a split personality and mild psychic precognition, Konrad is a nasty primarch in both background and rules.

Unusually for primarchs, he comes with a jump pack, giving him the necessary freedom of movement to go where he needs to be on the battlefield.

He is a force multiplier for the Night Lords too. With him as the warlord, every Night Lord gains the fear special rule. And with a negative modifier to success rolls. This might not sound brilliant until you factor in that 30k armies do not have too much fearless troops stomping around. Just by having him on the table, the likelihood of chasing other space marines off the table through sheer terror increases significantly. This is one of the reasons (in addition to their bonus to wound rolls) that the Night Lords player should have troops that are large sized and concentrate on mobile marine forces (see the review of their special rules). But more than even that, Konrad (personally) imposes an even heavier penalty on fear rolls than his sons do when he is on the table and can cause troops within a radius of him to flee when he destroys a unit. Presumably because he does something really bad to kill them. I mean, Angron is nasty in combat, but he just isn't inventively malicious. Konrad most assuredly is. He also ensures night fighting in the first turn which Night Lords are well poised to take advantage of with their night vision abilities.

His armour is nice, and provides hit & run, plus bonus hammer of wrath attacks which dovetails very nicely in to one another (and don't forget that valuable jet pack as well). His weapons are his natural artificer selected lightning claws which have AP2 and a few other rules to boot. He's basically going to be taking down many foes in a single turn when he charges in. Hopefully the entirety of a unit and cause others to flee they see what he does to them.

And finally, he flings micro-serrated throwing blades, ninja style. They're only 12 inch range, but they are assault 3 and make precision strikes. Hence he's well capable of taking down squad sergeants before even an assault happens.

As with other Night Lords, he's looking to pick on enemies that are weaker than him, and to make sure that other units see him do it to ensure they flee before his grizzly death dealing ways. That said, he can go toe to toe with other primarchs, but he's not the strongest of them. His points cost is quite reasonable for his abilities, but one cannot overlook his force multiplying fear ability. In concert with a drop pod style assault, this could be incredibly powerful and finish an opponent in the middle turns of a game if they're not careful. The weakness of such an army would be a fully mechanised opponent (e.g., Iron Hands). Hence tactically such a Night Lords army needs counters to heavy armour and fliers.

Thoughts on the Re-Boot of Warhammer / Warhammer 9th Edition

There are HUGE rumours abounding about the potential future of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. I'm not going to repeat them here as you're perfectly capable of googling for them.

Firstly, I can understand why the Games Workshop team are doing this. The recent court cases surrounding Intellectual Property has demonstrated that generic Elves, Dwarves and fantasy Knights are simply not copyright-able. They're in the public domain. Hence to gain the copyright over the intellectual property, they really need to remould everything apart from iconic and recognisable units such as the warhammer daemons range.

The idea that the Warhammer world gets shattered in to lots of smaller segments is a good one. That those segments then collide together and battle ensues is also excellent (but maybe not unique, cf. Ravenloft from Dungeons and Dragons). 

But what it does allow are for ever faction to be redefined in a unique way after the end times. Several hundred years on, and isolated on their island planes / pocket dimensions, the populace is bound to change and morph in to something new. More than that though, it also allows a narrative for the previous factions from 8th edition and the bridging storyline of the End Times to also be used - they're going to be remnant planes that happened to also survive the sundering (or whatever this event will end up being called). I really like this idea as it allows the older works and armies to be kept, but newer ones to be forged. As older models are retired from sale, it'll mean a gradual shift from the old armies to newer ones, and a different business model that permits balancing of the game by dynamic releases of miniatures, and the old-timers with older armies will look much cooler. The only thing I think I'm a bit miffed about is the loss of square bases. I hope that they retain the square bases for units that rank up, and perhaps only use round ones for skirmishing units to distinguish them. But that's just a wild hope. 

Overall, despite not playing Warhammer Fantasy in a long time, I'm actually really tempted to purchase 9th edition to see what they've done to the background more than anything else. I suspect that if many other people feel the same as me, then WFB is going to be a big hit for GW in 9th edition! I know the move to a new premise will split the fans, but I'm actually behind it, and it may attract me back to Fantasy for the first time in over a decade.

[Image: Pink Warp Rift Objective]