Let Battle Be Joined!

It was a quiet club meeting this week, post-Nationals, so Scotty and I booked in a couple of light skirmish games to while away the day.

We started with Scotty's first, and my second, game of Kings of War Vanguard. I brought out my Elves and Scotty brought the Kingdoms of Men. We just played the basic scenario from the quickstart rules - a meeting engagement.

It's all on!

The game mostly started simply as we advanced towards each other, although I pulled some shenanigans to plink off a couple of early shots at Scotty. These resulted in him returning fire with his arquebusiers and shooting my Gladestaker off the board. 

Human Spearmen advance to protect their general

 The Human Spearmen advanced and bunched up around the Leader of Men. The Elven Mage, sensing an opportunity burned all of my power points to boost a lightning bolt into the bunch. Two of the Spearmen were killed and the Leader of Men wounded.

 We maneuvered our forces around a bit for the next couple of turns, plinking off shots and spells before we all finally got stuck in.

The Knight Charges the Prince and is charged by Tallspears in response

 The Knight, who had rapidly redeployed, charged the Prince and took him down to 1 wound remaning.  He was unhorsed by the Tallspears and while the Foot Knights continued to batter the Prince, he was healed by the Elven mage and fought on to victory over the Foot Knights.

Scotty got some revenge for the lightning bolt at this point with a boosted fireball into my bunched up Tallspears, wounding a couple and damanging the Prince. Again.

WIZZARD! 

In an effort to stop these shenanigans, the respective generals charged the opposing Wizards and promptly dispatched both of them. Scotty had his Leader and an Arquebusier left on the table and I had my Prince and two Tallspears when the game ended.

It was a fun game - the power mechanics gave us some entertaining options (even though we mostly used them for extra dice) and it was a pretty even match in terms of capability.

Warmachine! 
So this one didn't start all that well. Scotty pulled MacBain and Pirates out of his bag and I pulled out Feora1 and all her setting infantry on fire nonsense. The game definitely turned out to be much more evenly matched than we thought it would be.

Turn one went as Warmachine first turns tend to. We both ran up the board, Scotty rapidly repositioning his Pirates to fight my Warjacks, not my Flameguard.

Protectorate Turn 2 - shenanigans! 

 Turn 2 saw the Daughters arrive from ambush on the table edge and Feora getting into position to feat on the Pirates. The Daughters sacked First Mate Hawk (because she scares me!) and Feora feated on the front rank of Pirates.

The Flameguard attempted to sack the Freebooter. Badly. Scotty's turn didn't start well, as none of the fire went out and he passed one tough roll on his burning pirates. However, he promptly used his munted but Failsafed Freebooter to trample over my Flameguard and attempt to batter Pyrrus. Pyrrus proved his worth as he rolled insane damage with his spear and shield and battered the Freebooter out of existence...

... leaving him open to being charged by everyone's favourite electro-sword wielding Italian, Savio Montero Acosta who gave him quite a lot of what-for. I sent Feora out from her hiding place to get Savio, which she royally did, but it left Scotty a lane to send in the Vanguard to take revenge!

Squeaky Bum Time

Both of us had been steadily accumulating points and so on my left, the Vanquisher was actively trying to remove the three pirates that were occupying his zone. Man, I miss the +2 to hit off Choirs. Although, I didn't have a choir at this point as they'd been well pirated. 

The Vanguard went into Feora and smacked her repeatedly. I'd forgotten that she was a beefcake and just took it. In her turn she powered up the Hand of Judgement to end MacBain! Which he promptly didn't. So Grogspar ran in to give MacBain Gang Fighter and he had a jolly good crack at wrecking Feora's favourite warjack. He put a LOT of dents in it, but not enough to put him out of action.

Its over! 

Feora tried to pull some shenanigans, and fired a boosted flamethrower shot around and across the Hand of Judgement and tried to end MacBain by styling on him. Disappointingly (?) she flubbed the boosted damage roll. So, to avoid MacBain trying on some dodging nonsense, the Hand of Judgement decided to club him with a P+S 20 flaming club.

35 point Warmachine armies are great fun. There's not a lot of room for jank, nor is there a lot of room for mucking around. We had some boss solos and some useful units and a couple of warjacks. Hopefully we'll get some more games in. Warmachine is a cool universe with some great models and

And more! 

We also played a game of Keyforge, by MTG designer Richard Garfield. It was a lot of fun. Scotty's evil combination of Brobnar, Shadows and Dis beat out my intellectual combo of Logos, Mars and Shadows. It was Scotty's first and my third games of Keyforge and it's a lot of fun. We both enjoyed the challenge - me to remember back three months to when I first learned and Scotty to learn with my fairly sketchy teaching! We'll definitely play it more as a late in the day club game.

Next Time
The first part of May's special project....

Models and ramblings

Guardsmen! 
Wielding arguably the worst weapon combination in a Guard army in 40K, the missile launcher and grenade launcher, is the support section for my second squad. Squad one was lascannon / melta, two is rockets and grenades and the third is the rapid fire squad with an autocannon and plasma gun. A quick pic:

Whoosh!

The assault section for this squad comes next, and then I'll be onto the final Guard squad to fill out the platoon. It's not been as much of a grind as I anticipated.

Macchi!
This came out of a mysterious box of mystery that Scotty won in a raffle at Charicon. As no one else needs a Macchi C.202 for Mid War Flames of War, it came my way. It was painted, but I've washed and highlighted it and added the yellow cowling and the white nose. I'd like some numbers and things for the hull. I'll need to go and have a dig through my transfers folder to see what I can find. In the meantime, it'll do:

Neorrrrwwwww! 

Nationals! 
So this was going to be a long-ish report, but I completely forgot to take any pictures and, TBH, you've seen two of my three opponent's armies on here before! Blogger Pel ran a hilarious easter egg driven Firestorm in Switzerland (!) and gave all the losers cheese. It was epic.

I played three games - two against WARPAC Tank companies and one against a WARPAC BMP company. The first game was basically a replay of my game with Pooch at Charicon, but with McBeth in command. This time, my dice weren't awesome but they were good when they needed to be and eliminating most of McBeth's AA early, and surviving a gun battle with some T72Ms was critical to making it through the game intact.

The second game, against the BMP horde, was frustrating as hell. I hate playing that army. It isn't fun and it isn't even challenging for the BMP player. It was an interesting game while it was nighttime because I could hide relatively successfully from the BMPs, but once the sun came up, I lost most of my power in one turn. Game over.

The last game looked seriously dire against Scotty when I lost a bunch of M60s cheaply against T72s (I know not to get into a gunfight with them but my choices were limited!) but his inability to roll 6s to hit my Hammerheads that were holding the objective meant that I had three turns to get reserves on and quietly shred his back lines. He was justifiably frustrated and we called it a draw when I got enough vehicles onto the objective that his killing one a turn was never going to end but if he popped my last couple of tanks, which wouldn't have been hard with T72s, we'd have timed out and that was half an hour neither of us could be bothered spending!

Lessons? Tank and I will be taking double M60s to Panzerschreck and taking 4 A10s instead of 4 Harriers. It's worth the cost I think. My last game with Scotty was testament to the need for some insanely long-range, unstoppable AT to deal with those tail end of the game shenanigans against tough targets.

Next Time
More Guard, I expect. I'm pushing through the infantry at a fair clip and just trying to get it done. I have acquired a Valkyrie as well, which I'm looking forward to getting into, but I need to get hold of some door guns for it because it can have door guns. So it should.

Preparation...

It's the NZ Nationals next weekend, being run by fellow blogger Pelarel, and he's geniusly (?) agreed to run a one-day TY comp and a two-day TY comp. As I've got many things to do over Easter, I'm just playing the one-dayer but that was motivation enough to paint the 5 M60A1s I need to complete my army.

I've rambled enough before on this blog about the vexatiousness of having to use airbrush paint without an airbrush but a bit of dedication this week, in and around work, led me to this point:

9 M60A1s, painted in MASSTER camouflage. The last five made me so mad doing them but I mixed them in with the first four and they fit like a glove. Very pleased about that.

Here's the whole army for the Nationals - 80 points of Marines! This (less 10 points) will be my contribution for Tank and I when we head for Panzerschreck later this year for the doubles TY comp. 

The list is:

Marine M60 Company

HQ M60A1

2 4x M60A1s

HMMWV TOW Platoon

Marine Platoon with additional Dragons and SMAWs, mounted in AAPV7s

LAV Company

HQ 2x LAV 25s

3 4x LAV 25s

4x LAV ITOWs

2x LAV-Ms

Support
HMMWV Stinger Platoon
AC130 Spooky masquerading as a Marine Harrier Flight

I also painted this guy, while waiting for the IDF Sand to dry:

He's painted in my standard Cadian camo and, like Pooch, my Ambot will be pretending to be an Ogryn bodyguard for my officer. It's an amazing model, made out of an amazing kit. I loved painting it and being able to give him the same blobby camo and yellow shoulders as my infantry makes me super happy.

On another note...
I played Kings of War yesterday and it was excellent. Without writing a long review that will reiterate everything the internet has ever said about it, I really enjoyed it. It was logical, with outcomes I expected and lots of fun. Scotty, using his Warmachine models and me, using my Teutonic Order, had a hoot and we ripped through a game in a shade under 90 minutes having read the rules once. Very pleased. So now I need to look at rebasing my Teutonic Order, which I'm not unhappy about, and adding a few bits and bobs. I've got some of the Fireforge Pegasi sitting in their box looking tempting at the mo. Looking forward to getting them put together, but painting white barding again....I am less thrilled about.

Next Time
How I did at Nationals! I'm also trying to make a dent in the Guard infantry and also paint a special project that you'll see in May.

Meep meep, it's a jeep?

Not really a jeep, but an Imperial Guard Chimera. 

It's numbered 005 since it will be the ride for my Command Squad and their officers and support - the Ogryn bodyguard and Primaris Psyker. Also, I had to put the old-school hull stripes on. They just look cool.

Front on, showing off all the heavy bolters and the heavy stubber. Many ordinary rapid-fire weapons are the order of the day. 

It's been an interesting project. My attempts to make it a heavy flamer armed vehicle weren't all that successful (trying to munge the old Chimera kit with new Chimera kit parts) so I limited the changes I could make to a new hatch and heavy stubber, and making the turret heavy bolter plate fit the old turret. It's been fun though. I'm unlikely to do another one, so this has been a hoot.

It has made me more encouraged to crack on with the Leman Russ that's in the paint queue and it's got me thinking about Sentinel Squadrons becuase they look cool.

Next Time
I'll be working on the M60s for the next week so hopefully a full photo of my complete TY army for Nationals will be in the offing. I've got some HMMWVs and Sergeant Yorks to paint but once those are done, I suspect that'll be the TY army complete.

Pooch's March Update

Ok, how is it April already? Ah well, at least I painted something!

1. Paint a new 40k Army- Ongoing!

The mighty Krieg painting machine rumbles ever onwards! Continuing my theme of creating what is probably the worst possible Astra Militatium (it's Imperial Guard, who are you kidding) army, I have been painting elites choices. How many elites? well... I now have 8 different elites choices....

This Month's Krieg

Let's start with the big boy. Ambull, representing an Ogryn Bodyguard

Yep, that's right. I painted both sides.

Commissar Severina Raine, who will be a Lord Commissar. She should have a gas mask, but doesn't for two very good reasons. The first is that I didn't want to mess up the model. The second is that it is a really expensive model and I didn't want to mess it up.

First command Squad. Medic, Lascannon and Banner. The medic is from the Rogue Trader Kill Team, just with a headswap to make her look super, super creepy. Incidentally, that is SO my 40k RPG character.

Another Elites choice, this time it's a Priest! From the Blackstone Fortress box, this priest comes bearing a flaming chainsaw. Because heretics don't purge or dismember themselves you know. Well, sometimes they do, but that's usually to summon a daemon. So it doesn't count.

But wait, another command squad! This one has a Medic, Missile Launcher and a Banner! Medic is a conversion, as is the Missile Launcher.

Another view of the Missile Launcher. The weapon itself comes from a Sentinel, the mount is an MG42 mount from Rubicon models. Added together you get a spindly looking missile rack, which looks about as fragile as the toughness 3 guardsmen with it.

And lastly, a six man special weapon team. Two flamers, one demolition charge. We are trench fighters remember! Demo charge is the tube used to carry mortar bombs, coupled with an awesomely posed Guardsman.

2. Create a table of terrain to support a game- DONE!
Bit of a preview into one of the later ones too, but I managed to finish up a table of terrain for me to play games of Cruel Seas on! The islands are the vac-form ones from Amera, with some shoals made from laminate. I went with a pretty quick and easy paint scheme using spray cans, followed by Army Painter soft tone. Then a coat of dullcoat (although it looks like they need another coat too) and you have a winner!

The whole table

Bit of a closer up view

Corsairs swooping in low

3. Make a modular terrain piece- No progress. 
No plans, no hope. I'm sure inspiration will strike at some point....

4. Pain a naval fleet- DONE!
Hey hey! another one done. As you saw earlier, I have been painting things up for Cruel Seas, in this case a US fleet of PT boats, Sub Chasers and Corsairs. And of course a U-Boat for them to chase! They were suprisingly easy to paint, with the grey done entirely with spray cans (black, then soft coats of grey over the top to get the colour I wanted) with a bit of mixed success, but overall I am happy with them.

My US Fleet!

Technically I have completed two fleets, it's just that my German fleet is 2 U-Boats!

5. Finish something I haven't used in a year and take it to a tournament- No progress
But I have a plan. That's like progress right?

6. Buy a starter box and paint all of it- Done
Did this in February

7. Paint every miniature for a game I own- Done
Did this one in February too

8. Paint a Space Marine each month- On track!
Another month, another Space Marine. Not quite as happy with this one as I am with the others, I think I will make a point of spending a bit more time on the next one.

All three Bolter Boys

I am quite happy with how my skills with the chapter icon are!

9. Paint a stand alone force for a game- DONE!
This was one of our more random ideas, but we all had leftover Epic, and then I realised I could buy the Adeptus Titanicus rules as a stand alone and so.... my titan warband was born! A Warlord, a Reaver, two Warhounds and four Knights in all of their old school glory. I did some weapon swaps on the Knights to bring them a little bit more in line with the modern knights (not too much mind). The Reaver was just a torso and guns, until I realised I had an entire spare set of legs spare from the Ambot. Thus, stumpy the reaver was born!

The whole family, with battlefield assets in front of them

I love Stumpy. Somehow, he just works.

Overhead shot showing stripes, flames and the general silly colours they are painted in

10. Update and improve a table of terrain- No progress
Err... I have a plan... sortof...

11. Paint something Napoleonic- No progress
I bought some things. Does that count?

12. Finish what I should have finished last year- Done
Did this one in January and February. I only have one more thing which will go into this box, which reminds me that I really should do it....

Next time? I've got a model for a painting competition, and hoping to get some more armour for my Krieg. And I should really start painting some Krieg infantry too....

Till next time,
Pooch

Leading the Guardsmen onward...

...or how I got some extra use out of the Scions command sprue

The Guard command squad box is cool. It's ageing somewhat ungracefully compared to some of GWs other kits but honestly, it's multipartness still gives builders so much value, this many years down the track! 

So here we go, with the four members of my Guard Platoon, and their fearless Lieutenant. 

First up we have the model I couldn't not build. I love the heavy flamer and it's so ridiculously oversized on a Guardsman. So he had to go in. 

Flameyo, hotman! 

Second up, I looked at the medic from the box and rated that a great big NOPE. Rolling out a bandage is just not that exciting. So I kitbashed together a medic using the cool accessories in the Scion command sprue. A missile launcher trigger arm, a sergeant's chainsword arm and the medical kit from the Scion sprue and the medic arriveth.

Because chainsaws are medical equipment in the grim dark future.

Every command squad needs an RT man and this squad is no exception. Officers have to give orders!

First Rank Fire! Second Rank Fire!

The Guardsman is in darkness (because bad photographer me is bad) but the key here is the flag. Painting it was an absolute pig and it does not withstand too close a look but I love this model. 40K is diminished from a lack of flags.

Wavey Wavey!

Finally, the Platoon Commander. When I decided to use the beret heads from the Scion command sprue for my squad sergeants, the one with the eyepatch was always going to be saved for the Lieutenant. He looks super cool with his swagger stick and eyepatch!

Under armed, as a Guard officer should be. 

Here's the whole crew together! 

They've fitted in nicely with my existing Guardsmen so I've managed to keep them looking consistent even with the gap in painting.

Finally, a WIP of their sweet sweet ride:

Picked up cheap at a Con last year, this Chimera has taken a lot of manual labour to basically take it apart and reassemble it with some nice new bits. You can see the start of the camo stripes and the necessary front of hull stripe markings. I could hardly not.

Next time! 
Well, I'll finish the Chimera, to start with, and work on some other Guardsmen that I've gotten assembled. I've got some more M60s to build for a comp in three weeks which I really need to do if I want to get them painted in time!

To Infinity, and beyond, to another 28mm sci-fi skirmish game!

The Nerds at the Regiment have all had a blat at Infinity over the years, and we played the RPG at the end of last year and loved it. Infinity is an awesome universe to play in and Corvus Belli have been making some of the best 28mm models on the market right now. But we've also hit the same problems as well - the Rambo characters in Infinity are a pain and the special rules bloat works fine in the RPG but is hard to manage on the tabletop without a lot of practice.

As a result, we've all mostly parked our Infinity collections. When fellow Nerd Pelarel discovered the Zone Raiders Kickstarter and, more to the point, the First Encounter demo rules, we decided to give it a go because a lighter version of Infinity is something we're keen on. The demo rules are 50 pages long with some fluff, some rules, 3 scenarios, a basic post-game and a QRS! Hell yeah! Props to Fractal Basilisk for a cool company name (!) and a great introduction to what they're working on.

What's a Zone Raiders? 

Set in the Matrioshka, a domain built on lost technology, Zone Raiders are teams who scavenge the layers of the Matrioshka, avoiding the perils of the zone as well as other crews to eke a living out of the actively hostile environment. It's miniature agnostic and is written to allow players a super-flexible way to play a character driven, sci-fi skirmish campaign focused game.  From what the website and Kickstarter suggests, the complete rules and extension funded will include more factions, rules for robots and hacking and giant armoured suits and stuff - all the cool stuff we want to use.

How did our game go? 
Quickly! It took maybe 90 minutes from set up, play through, end game and pack down.

Pel took the TechNomads and I took the NthGen Robots. Pel's crew (based on our game experience!) was heavily armed and armoured and highly mobile. Mine was equally heavily armed, less well armoured, but led by a very high quality leader. Pel's crew quality was even across the board, my best model was noticeably better and the quality declined quite quickly.

We played the first mission from the First Encounter - a scavenging run. There were 9 scrap tokens on the board worth 2VP each and an irradiated zone dominating the centre of the board. The idea was the first person to loot 5 counters and extract them wins.

We spent the first couple of turns running around grabbing the easy counters and extracting them. Suddenly, on turn 3, we discovered shooting each other and it all went downhill very quickly. Pel took out one of my robots and I dropped his leader in response. The shooting mechanic involves hitting, armour saving and then a damage roll. Pass and you take a wound (which impacts your ability to take actions in subsequent turns). Fail and you are down. The first four casualties all did that.

Over the turns 3, 4 and 5 Pel shot down another of my robots while my leader, the best shot on the board, rode his luck to take a couple of aimed shots to take out two of Pel's TechNomads while my weaker robots moved to get the last couple of loot counters. When I knocked out the fourth of Pel's Nomads, he elected to flee so we could do the post-game.

What do we like?

It looks like a game of manoeuvre and from the get go, that's how it was. Being able to wall run, leap and grappling hook around the board is cool!  We genuinely wondered if, after 2 turns of looting the board, we were ever going to engage each other. Then Pel worked out that as each counter is worth 2 VP and since there were 9 on the board, and three of those were in the middle, we were going to have to fight eventually.

Being shot at is genuinely bad. We managed, between us, to pass one armour save and one damage roll. Our dice were dire, but neither of us were all that well armoured. My boss man topped out at 17. Pel's dudes were in the 10 - 12 range and mine were 10 and below.

A couple of cool things stood out. Characters can 'summon' an extraction zone and in our scenario, they could throw their loot into that extraction zone to confirm the VPs. That was a cool little thing given that going down or bottling out meant you dropped your loot. It looks like you can also drop your dudes into that zone and be extracted from the game, which is probably a good thing in a campaign if you're wounded but not downed. Armour Piercing rounds destroy your armour in this game too. Given that your mobility especially is dependant on the suit you're wearing, that's really problematic!

Any downers?
None to speak of.

Our dice today definitely made the armour saves and damage rolls feel a lot worse than they probably are. Pel was failing 10 or less rolls on a D20 routinely. TBH, given the game is intended for campaigns and in the post-game, your characters who are down are not dead, merely badly wounded or incapacitated. They play no part in the post-game but they are not dead. Super important in a game that intended for campaign play.

Verdict?
Excellent. We'll both pick up a copy of the game when it comes out. The Kickstarter was very well funded and seems to be moving on really quickly. I'm genuinely looking forward to working out a) how to use some of my cooler Pan-O Infinity models that I've never put on the park in Infinity because they weren't good enough to make the cut and b) playing a more fulsome game and campaign.

Next Week
Some more painting! I'm working on a Command Squad for my Imperial Guard and, if I can get off my butt and finish fixing up the turret on a very old Chimera I've been trying to un-wreck, you might get to see that too.

X-FORCE - ACTIVATE

And part four of X-Force has been added to the collection thanks to a local who decided he was never going to get around to painting it! He was fun to do although the creepy as skull face is super creepy! 

Giant skull head! 

The Culexus is one of the most lunatic models GW have created in the Imperial Agents range over the years. It's rules and fluff are super disturbing and it should be an interesting challenge for some of the more psychically inclined players down at the club.

Here they all are together. I've lined up a game of 40K with a clubmate in a week or so where I'll probably roll out one of these lunatics but not all of them. That'd be silly. 

X-Force

But all that said, there's a 40K comp later in the year (October-ish, I think. I've missed registration for most of the local ones between now and then) where Pooch and I have both agreed to take our respective Guard. Mine will be rolling as either Manipulus Greyfax or Manipulus Coteaz but we shall see where I'm up to with the painting. If it's Coteaz, it'll be Inquisition, Guard and Grey Knights. If it's Greyfax, it'll be Inquisition, Guard and....something else. More Guard, maybe? I'm tempted by some Sisters of Battle but I'll wait till those come out properly.

Next time
I've got plenty of Guard to do and a couple of vehicles for my TY army (although those won't probably hit the priority list for another couple of months) and I have a massive pile of Infinity terrain that needs some repair work.

Pel and I are playing Zone Raiders for the first time next weekend, which promises to be an interesting game. It looks cool on paper and from what I can see from the free sample rules, the totality of the game looks pretty promising as a lite version of Infinity.

Walk me closer! I WANT TO HIT IT WITH MY SWORD!

The view you *don't* want of Inquisitor Karamazov 

This insane model turned up on a local trading site late last year and, honestly, I couldn't not buy it. Fyodor Karamazov is one of the coolest models ever created for 40K and for the Inquisition range.

It's an insane combination of servitors bolted into a throne on the top of a dreadnought durdling about the place shooting things with a multimelta and the man on the back (looking like he should probably have a tartan rug over his knees) then hits them with a power sword. It's vaguely reminiscent of the illustration of Mad Hamish in the Discworld book 'The Last Hero.'

One of the original greaves was missing so between my own bits box and the nice chap who fixed me up with the model, I fitted a couple of Venerable Dreadnought greaves and he looks good as new. He also wound up on one of the scenic bases that comes with the Dreadnought kit that I've never really found the cause to use.

The view you *do* want of Inquisitor Karamazov

I need to complete all the scrolls but I'm still thinking about how I want to do that. I've got some transfers to go on them, for eagles and skulls and things I can't paint, but I haven't quite designed the layouts yet.

He'll be going into a force with Inquisitor Greyfax I think. I'm quietly designing lists for all three Ordos and working through the painting lists to get there. Greyfax will bring her escort of Scions and Karamazov will be rolling in with all the crazy that I have in my collection of Acolytes now!

I also have zero idea how to transport him! This is definitely in the same category as the old Khador Behemoth - firmly in sock-jack territory.

Next Time
That's a very good question. I've got all sorts of random things on the painting table at the moment so we'll see. HMMWVs? Guardsmen? Vehicles?

X-Force - 75% Loaded

Inquisitorial Acolytes

First off, one from the archive - a classic Necromunda Bounty Hunter.

This is a classic GW late 90s sculpt. I love the legs akimbo and a weapon in both hands. It's no classic Ragnar Blackmane but it is a cool model. I've given him camo pants in the same style as my Cadians for the lols and the classic red bolters that are a feature of my entire 40K bolter-wielding collection.

Secondly, a Death Korps of Krieg gunner, delightfully painted by our very own Pooch. He looks great and Pooch has painted him to fit very well with my own painting style. He'll add some much needed firepower to one of my retinues as well.

Commissar

GW's plug and play models are amazing and this one might be one of my favourites. The pose is amazing and the detail is stunning. I loved painting the piping more than anything and that's a weird sentence in and of itself. He'll be a nice splash of dark in amongst the green of the Cadians.

Tech Priest

I have some Servitors that I picked up ages ago for grins and giggles and I decided (after reading the really fun comics that preceded the release of Wrath and Glory), as part of my Inquisitorial Task Force, I should have a tech priest.

He's a great model and I loved painting it. The servo-skull above his right shoulder is a bit fragile but overall, I'm super pleased.

Vindicare Assassin

Given my comments above about classic GW akimbo posing, I was glad to get hold of this alt-version of the Vindicare. He lacks the opportunity for colour that the other two I've done have, but he's still pretty sweet.

So now I have the metal sculpts for three of the four assassins (and am pursuing a lead on the fourth) then soon I will put the Assassin Execution Force on the table and it will be MAGNIFICENT. I'm actually really pleased with the errata that GW have released for the Assassins. Being able to effectively sideboard in whichever assassin suits my opponent is a really nice idea for matched play.

Next Time
The second best throne in the Imperium. I'll let you figure out what that is....