Assembled Endryd Haar

Endryd Haar is a miniature that I have wanted to get my hands on for a long time, and now that time has come! He was out of stock at Warhammer / Forge World for quite some time, but I finally got my order. The model is relatively easy to put together, although the whole balancing on one foot thing is never quite as good as you first think it is going to be. I glued the dynamic foot to the base as best as I could to provide extra stability. 

The tabard at the front required a bit of work to get fitting correctly into the lower abdomen correctly and this is a paint point that I'd recommend less experienced modellers to pay closer attention to before gluing into place - do a few dry fits first! The rest is easy by comparison. 

My plan here is to paint Endryd up in his original World Eaters colours. The intent is to have him as either a World Eater leader of some kind, or to use him alongside my other World Eaters in a Blackshields force - perhaps as they just found out the extent of the betrayal. I would then give the army access to the World Eaters armoury through Panoply of Old, and add in another Oath that I've not yet decided upon (thoughts welcome!). 

Wargames Gallery: Plasma Eaters

Having moved into place on board their rhino transport, the Iron Warriors plasma support squad takes aim at the World Eaters leviathan before some further backup arrives! 

The decals on the vehicles are doing all the hard work in this image, even if I say so myself. 

Horus Heresy 2e Review: Camba Diaz

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

4/5 stars. A cheap praetor with some special rules. 

Background.

A very reliable and steadfast commander who perhaps lacked the legend of Sigismund. He earned his reputation through meticulous siege actions - both on the offensive and on the defensive. Little wonder he was held in good stead by his Primarch. 

Strengths.

In short, this is a Praetor character with a few upgrades. His warlord trait is The Line Unbroken which allows him to declare its activation when on an objective. This gives counter attack and fearless until the end of the battle so long as he stays put. This is strong, and probably best used as a forward attacking force. But you know, if you need to, having that objective on the back line is reasonable if facing off against other Primarchs I suppose. 

He will also gain feel no pain when he has one wound remaining which is fluffy for Camba, and comes with an AP3 power sword - forged by the Iron Hands in some kind of lost bet - that also rends. This is okay without being amazing. 

Weaknesses.

No real weaknesses, but arguably, not a first choice master of the legion. His role is then in smaller points games where his warlord trait might make a big difference. 

Overall.

A fine choice, but just not as good as other choices that the Imperial Fists can make. 

Horus Heresy 2e Review: Kaedes Nex

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

4/5 stars. The Raven Guard answer to when something just needs to not be there. 

Background.

Kaedes is not a nice person, to put it ever so politely. He was, very rightly, incarcerated on the same world that Corax came to rest on when he was scattered there. Already an accomplished evil killer, somehow, Corax saw fit to offer him a second chance within the legion. He said yes, and now serves at Corax's command. But he's not liked to the point of being shunned. That doesn't make him bad at his job though. Lucky that he's a loyalist really, otherwise I could readily imagine him falling to the dark powers of chaos. 

Strengths.

A 3 wound moritat with two hand cannons that have to shooting profiles. The first provides pinpoint strikes and comes with brutal (2) concussive and pinning with sniper, the second provides a way to empty the ammo stores and comes with a whopping six shots with concussive and pinning. 

His shooting ignores most modifiers like night fighting and so on. And he always - always - attacks at full ballistic skill. This is actually a little bit insane, but there you go. He also has an uber-infiltrate rule to help him deploy where he needs to be, and a slew of other more standard special rules that include things like rampage and shrouded. Unlike many good shooting character, he is also good in close combat with rending and more brutal (2)'s helping a lot. 

Weaknesses.

No jump pack is a serious negative here coupled with the 12 inch range on the hand cannons. Yes, there are rules to help, but it remains the reason I can't give 5/5 stars. 

He's also a non-compulsory HQ and cannot be part of another unit. Hence he can and will get targeted regularly. Happily, he can also be part of a Blackshields force which makes for an interesting option. He also only get the Falcons rules if a Raven Guard. A bit pricey in terms of points cost as well, but that's okay for what you are getting. 

Overall.

I can see a lot of Raven Guard and Blackshields players wanting to take Nex. He gets some early turn kills in before perishing (assuming he doesn't get over watched back or reacted back) which is always a danger. But hey, why not just snap shot at your full BS back yourself as well?

Horus Heresy 2e Review: Aster Crohne

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

4/5 stars. A strong centurion, but a little bit on the expensive side. 

Background.

Aster Crohne is a survivor who defies belief. A relic of the wars that tore Saiph apart, and one who was undertaking the Great Crusade prior to the rediscovery of Sanguinius himself. He stood apart from the main legion and never really rose in rank as he should have, finding himself in charge of the 94th company and the Inductii. 

Strengths.

When he loses his last wound he will be put back into reserves with one wound on a 4+. This only happens on the first time, but it is a great fluffy rule that helps him stay in the game. 

His warlord trait is directly associated with the 94th. It gives Inductii sweeping attacks as well as A+1 when making successful charge. This is in addition to the usual Fear rule that Blood Angels Inductii have and overrules (at least from reading the rules) the lack of sweeping assaults which is good news for the Blood Angels player. The additional movement reaction is solid. Aster can also join Inductii units which is obviously a good thing.

His weapon of choice is a S+1 AP=3 axe that also rends which is great for dealing with enemy blobs of tactical marines. The two hand flamers are also good, to be clear. 

The stat line is basically a consul centurion with an extra wound which is good.

Weaknesses.

Obviously as he's not a Praetor, he does not have Master of the Legion. This isn't so good. He's well suited to leading Inductii though, so that's a plus. 

We also need to acknowledge the points cost here as well. It is on the high side, and you will also need a transport for maximum effectivess.

Overall.

A fluffy character with rules to suit. He's going to be wanted as a Judicar (Centurion) to lead Inductii, but that's it. Good for small points value games that involve Inductii, but in higher points value games I would want to just be using him for his ability to slice and dice. The Blood Angels are not short of other ways of doing this though!

Wargames Gallery: Destroying the Iron Without

The World Eaters like getting up close and personal. And their attack on the Iron Warriors land raider is no different, they just employ their chain fists to get the job done. Iron Without for not much longer I'm sorry to report. 

The Martian Civil War: Overall Impressions

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

4/5 stars. An essential read for mechanicum fans, especially those of you wanting to have access to the Dark Mechanicum side of things. Moderately skippable for other factions, but the lore expansion is impressive. 

The book itself covers the conflict to recover new mark power armour from the forges in the early stages of the Heresy. It goes into detail then about the assassination attempts, and then in the latter phases the fight against the scrap code. I would have liked a bit more on the civil war itself, but you know what, its so good that it doesn't matter. 

The new campaigns are good, but the apex missions are a bit hit and miss along the way. Not sure you'd expect otherwise. The terrain and scrap code are stand outs here for me. The relic hunt standard missions are cool enough to carry the rest. 

Whilst the chaos knights are good to have, the star of the show is certainly the daemon engines that are now available. Welcome to the dark mechanicum! On top of this we also get techno-heresies which are great. 

This is all rounded out by some new space marine characters. Overall then, its basically a dark mechanicum and chaos knights book with more lore than you can shake a stick at. Seriously: I've read and re-read the lore here and am impressed. The main negative is that the book is shorter than the other predecessors, but at least it was printed correctly (cf., Beta-Garmon). I like what I have purchased and I think it makes sense for mechanicum fans to also have a look at it, but beyond that, its certainly mainly one for the lore lovers out there. 

Overseer Conversion Fully Constructed

Hey readers, the Overseer conversion has now been completed - including the nemesis bolt gun! And it is massive!

But to be honest, I regret nothing! The barrel if it were to be slung across the marine's chest would actually be absolutely fine and appropriate for a sniper. With this pose however, the marine really looks dynamic and a little bit like he just doesn't care how he snipes his targets. 

This is good, because I'm thinking this is either going to be Alpha Legion or World Eaters. I'm tilting toward the latter right now. 

The miniature itself was easy to construct, but as I thought, the back banner is a little fiddly to get sitting right on the backpack itself. The join it just a little too thin for my tastes, but I can live with it. I need to also tidy up the scepter a little bit, but its basically done at this point. 

Wargames Gallery: World Eaters Terminators

The World Eaters materialize via teleportation on to the battle field thanks to the warmonger consul leading the charge with his handy (and risky) device. They advance accordingly!

I think this is also the first image that I've managed to get with them all together on the playing surface. They look rather good in the white, blue, and (ahem) red even if I say so myself. 

Unboxing: Overseer

I bought the Overseer loyalist model on pre-order when it was available to fulfill a critical part of my miniatures aims for the year: a unit of Auxilia lead by a marine. Here are the bits directly out of the box!

Clearly there's going to be some clean up required on the bits with all the flash and so forth needing to be removed. The banner on the back of the back pack in particular looks to have almost a stake that goes directly into the backpack. I don't like the look of the thin joint, but it should work.

My plan here though is to replace the plasma pistol with the nemesis bolt gun that I converted earlier in the week. Given that Auxilia are mainly ranged shots (or at least mine will be), it makes more sense for the Overseer to have a long range weapons as well, rather than a short ranged plasma shot. More on this in the near future!

Warsmith - Built

An assembled Iron Warriors Warsmith!

Assorted thoughts.

This character is a beast. The sheer level of detail in the parts is incredibly high. This said, there are several points that I think others should keep in mind when assembling him. 

Firstly, the tabard at the front is hard to get to sit flush with the legs and waist. This is, in part, due to where the sprue attached to the resin. It needs a bit of shaping, but you can get there. 

The major problem I had was making the mistake of gluing the pistol hand in place before adding on the ammo belt. Don't be me. Do it the other way. Add on the ammo belt first. Secondly, I actually glued the ammo feed in slightly the wrong place. It is supposed, I think, to be fed in through the gap in the weapon before the trigger. Instead, I have glued it to the side where there seemed to be an ideal slot that dry fitted the joint. It wasn't a joint though. Rookie mistake by me after so many years. Oh well. I think it can easily be got away with. The other thing I tried to do was to bend one of the tendrils to touch the graviton part of the weapon. Seemed like the thing to do, in the absence of a construction guide. But looking at how others have done this, I now realise it is meant to be free floating. I also glued the pointy ended tendril to the side of the weapon where the ammo feed should have gone. I regret nothing because it will make the model much less prone to breakage. A win, even if it looks a bit odd upon close inspection. 

Everything else is pretty standard. The only other thing I can think of would be to attached the claw at the top before gluing the shoulder pad / hammer arm into place. Didn't matter in the end for me, but it might be a tight fit for others. 

I wish this came with assembly suggestions or instructions, but I made it work. 

Nemesis Bolter Conversion Concept

Following on from my Alpha Legion recon squad that were armed with Necron weaponry, I had a bit of an idea about a Nemesis Bolter conversion...

The basis of the nemesis bolt gun is a Mark III bolter. I have shaved off the original barrel from the weapon and glued on instead a long length of the Necron weapon. This is rounded out by a scope on the top from the modern space marine range. 

Admittedly, the weapon is long. Very long. It rivals Exodus' weapon even. However, it certainly has a certain something about it which is hard to mistake for anything other than a long range sniper rifle in my personal opinion. I'm intending to use this on my new acquisition of the resin Overseer loyalist model that recently arrived. More on that project soon no doubt!

Unboxing: Iron Warriors Warsmith Terminator

A little something arrived in the post today: the newly released Iron Warriors Warsmith in Cataphractii Terminator armour! 

I thought readers might like to see the unboxing of this one.

The first image is of the outer shell of the box itself. For the curious, it measures 14cm tall by 9.5cm wide to the outer edges of the plastic shell. 

The forge world resin contents are shown in the second image. That graviton crusher hammer is absolutely almighty. The sheer size of it is bewildering. And probably spells contempt for any budding Imperial Fists. I don't quite know how taken I am with the side arm of the combi-grav, but for the sheer rule of cool I'm happy to pay the points cost!

I think my only gripe is that the striding version of the model with the hammer in both hands is a Warhammer World exclusive. That said, this one is still posed very nicely to survey the battlefield and lead from the front, so who am I to deny it is a beautiful miniature. Its certainly going to be leading my Iron Warriors going forward - once I assemble and paint it of course!

Wargames Gallery: Not Skalathrax

Skalathrax would be years later. Yet the shadow of the sorrowful breaking of the former legions could be seen in the height of the Heresy where the loyal World Eaters took vengeance against the traitorous Emperor's Children on an alien world for the right to plunder and re-supply the armories. Chain blade rattled against chain axe. Falax blades wove through phoenix spear. And no quarter was given. 

Horus Heresy 2e Review: Autilon Skorr

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
5/5 stars. The original delegatus, and shining brightly in small points games in second edition!

Background.

Appearing in the scrolls of honour for the Great Crusade no fewer than seven times, Autilon was the go-to man when a brand new world needed to be brought to compliance. This frequently happened with a bit of chaos and one well placed round to the head. After the Heresy broke out, he failed at the debacle at Epsilon Stranivar IX, and was removed from Alpharius' side, sent to the outer rim to try to regain glory. 

Strengths.

If you are playing small points value games, the Delegatus consul is really amazing. He provides a way to bring Master of the Legion to such games and as such, I stand by my original rating for the Delegatus here as well. 

Autilon Skorr has some special rules in comparison to the standard delegatus. Once per battle, he can make a Ld teast at a value to 10 to rally all his troops (falling back, or pinned) that have line of sight to him. This is unique in the game pretty much and can be a game winner if played right in smaller points games. 

The ability to make a reaction at zero cost every turn (even if limited to a nominated phase before the game begins) is very strong. The Feel No Pain rule that gets better every turn is also powerful. 

Weaknesses.

His S=5 AP=2 axe is not so amazing except against mortal and mechanicum troops perhaps. But it'll still hurt where he needs it to. I'd suggest burying him in a big mob of Alpha Legion troops or elites (or perhaps snipers at a vantage point in the middle of the table) and act accordingly. 

Overall.

I really liked Autilon Skorr in first edition and played a lot of games at lower points values with him. He did very well. In second edition, his rules have been tweaked, but he is still a force to be reckoned with and worth the points values. Master of the Legion is invaluable at these levels and he is a great exponent of what is possible with this, alongside potentially game changing rules. Certainly a must-take for sub-1000 points games for the Alpha Legion commander! 

Horus Heresy 2e Review: Nârik Dreygur

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
3/5 stars. The original Praevian returns under legacy units! 

Background.

Loyal to the Emperor now, but shattered on Isstvan and rebuilt with extensive augmetics. Dreygur survived but was tossed aside by Perturabo as any broken toy would be. Bereft of command he finally broke when the Alpha Legion nearly killed him later on and became a pseudo-Blackshield. He's complex. 

Strengths.

Dreyguy is a consul with a host of special rules above and beyond the typical Praevain in second edition. As well as being a master of the automaton, he gains some A and stubborn bonus when close to Cassian Reborn and can also be taken as a Blackshields marine rather than a loyalist Iron Warriors choice. 

He has a bunch of special equipment like his power fist that also contains haywire (very nice). The cortex controller and designator help a lot with mastering the robots around him whilst the refractor field and artificer armour makes him more survivable. 

Weaknesses.

This is not a long ranged character. Sure he has a master crafted pistol, but he really needs to be in close combat with some robots. Take some Vorax or Castellax to go with him, and get him to where you need him to be (which could be tricky). 

Overall.

Not bad overall, but a bit limited considering the wider builds possible with the Praevian consul overall. You need to get him in position and his robots to help him in close combat realistically to make the most of him. Otherwise, perhaps take a fortification where he can man some longer range weapon and simply use the power fits as a deterrent (a bit of a waste really). The ability to take those robots is great though and not to be wasted; whilst the ability to take him as a Blackshields should not be overlooked either!

Horus Heresy 2e Review: Erasmus Golg

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
3.5/5 stars. Rounded up. Very reasonable, but stuck with a fixed warlord trait. 

Background.

A survivor of the newly found Primarch's decimation, Golg really didn't mind the brutality that much. In fact he embraced it. What he really did mind a whole lot was not being recognised for his talents. He never made it to the inner circle of Perturabo. And he is rather tetchy about it all the time. At his core, he's quite the bully. And on the battlefield too. 

Strengths.

W=4 is certainly a massive boon here. He acts as a praetor in cataphractii terminator armour and has all the pros and cons that you might otherwise associated with such armour. Interestingly he carries both a nuncio vox and an augury scanner, along with his amazing AP=2 and S=10 chain blade fist thing. 

He has a bunch of special rules including hammer of wrath (2), stubborn and relentless which are very reasonable. 

Weaknesses.

The choice of warlord trait is fixed as blood-handed. This is okay, but a choice would have obviously been better. The combi melta is excellent and makes him a massive danger to tanks in general. 

As a terminator, you will also have to think about how you will get him into position. There's a certain rite of war that springs to mind about terminators though (Pride of the Legion). 

Overall.

A very reasonable warlord choice for the Iron Warriors. What stands out here though is that he can be selected for both traitors and for loyalists alike. Hence if you have a terminator squad around him, then this is a warlord you are going to like a whole lot. Fundamentally, he's an anti-tank hero that can readily double up to be a massive melee threat as well. Little not to like other than the fixed trait. 

Second Half of World Eaters Assault Squad

They are brutal. Hardly cunning though. And there's chain axes, and big monster power maul. Plus red. Red everywhere. 

In particular, I like how the red had splattered nicely over one half of some of the models, including the torso and the beakie helmet. The dynamism in the squad is similarly pleasing with all the models looking like they are ready, willing, and able to carry out the Emperor's duty and forge compliance in the best way that they know how. Or perhaps the Warmaster's darker compliance. Either way, that's the squad of ten assault marines complete! Very pleased with this overall.