Daemon Mortarion: Lets begin

Hi everyone 

I have to paint a showcase model within 2 months to go into White Dwarf and I have chosen it to be Daemon Primarch Mortarion (as it needs to be Psyker themed). 

So, I have decided to paint him with White and brass armour. Not sure if this is fully factual yet unfortunately, but we know he turns into his Daemonic Primarch form enroute to Terra. 

His form does change based on this interpretation of him in Horus Heresy art work. His armour is all sorts of shades above, some grey and some green, but still very different to the way he is portrayed in 40k. 

His Legion (and possibly he) would have not fully changed colours to green as they are about to land on Terra for the Siege. So I hope it will come across well. 

I’m quite a fan of the dire wings in this picture. I'm also heading on going for red robes (as with the Horus Heresy Death Guard colours) as I think it would be a nice contrast. 

Then as you can imagine, lots of rust and weathering!!!

Drake

Death Guard - Sicaran Venator

Hi all,

It's just a quick post this week as I still have a bit of a painting backlog for the upcoming Throne of Skulls this weekend.  As I write, I still have two HQ’s to finish, a squad of ten Veterans to base, as well as needing to apply transfers and weathering pigments.  Nothing like leaving it to the last minute! 

Anyways, I thought I would talk about my Sicaran Venator this time.  

First off, I love the menacing appearance of the kit and how it shares the same squat look of tank destroyers from the Second World War.  The kit itself was a nice easy build that went together very smoothly.  I would definitely recommend keeping the gun separate whilst you paint the hull, especially if you are spraying it.  The neutron beam laser itself simply slots into a rather chunky hole and is fairly robust.  The cables are simply glued on top and can also easily be added once everything else has been painted.

The Venator was the first tank I got for my Death Guard, and I have used it in nearly every game.  It has always struggled to make an impact though, as I seem to be jinxed with bad dice rolls for it, with every shot always missing or bouncing off the enemy's armour.  

It has spent multiple games exchanging fire with Darien’s Venator, both harmlessly pinging away at each other for the entirety of the game.

I know some in the community are not a fan of the new Punisher variant and how the gun is supported on the turret of the tank.  I initially didn't like it, and thought they should have mounted the rotary cannon into the hull, much the same way they did with the neutron beam laser on the Venator.  However, after seeing the Punisher on Sunday at the Forgeworld Open Day, it has grown considerably on me, to the point where I’d quite like to buy one.

What have your experiences with the Sicaran been?

Death Guard - Contemptor and Deredeo

Hi all,

I thought I would continue with the theme I started in my last post and talk about my last two sarcophagus interred XIV legionaries – my Contemptor and Deredeo.

My Contemptor was one of my original Death Guard models.  I purchased five MkIII marines at the start of the project and was determined to stick with infantry purchases until I had enough to field two 10 man tactical squads.  I stuck with this decision for about a week until I buckled and ordered my Contemptor.  The kit was a joy to put together and I must have easily spent two hours playing around with posing him.  I’ve found blu tack to be quite useful in working out various poses before committing.  In the end I settled for a pose that I thought conveyed him striding forward, using his grav gun to blast some Iron Warriors to smithereens.  Hopefully it comes across that way!  His other armament is a Kheres assault cannon, which has more than proven itself in the XIVs numerous engagements.

 I’ve always been impressed with the versatility of the Kheres as it always seems to step up the mark whatever the situation.  The grav-gun has also served me well, often chipping away at hull points when most needed.  It recently plinked the last hullpoint off a grav-flux bombard equipped Leviathan that was getting ready to unleash on a ten man strong terminator squad.  Needless to say the terminators were rather grateful!  I have tried running it as a Cortus, but I have never been impressed despite the point reduction.  Has anyone had any success with them as opposed to regular Contemptors?

The Deredeo is another one of my must take units.  I always struggle with my heavy slots, but it is almost an auto include.  Mine is equipped with the autocannon battery and the Aiolos missile launcher.  Both weapons are rather good, but the Aiolos missile launcher just pips it for me in terms of effectiveness.  The ability to blast away at separate targets regardless of intervening terrain is amazing.  Its ability to hammer away at tucked away artillery is not to be trifled with. 

Having said that, the autocannons are still very effective, especially as you get to reroll both to hit and pen armour thanks to being to having twin linked and sunder.

My most memorable kill to date was sniping Horus with three missiles, denying a charging Perturabo his kill!

Has anyone had any lucky with any more unusual variants?  I’ve never faced off against the lascannon battery or plasma cannonade, but I am planning on adding one to my Thousand Sons. 

I have just finished a dual Volkite wielding Contemptor for my burgeoning Thousand Sons.  I was initially sceptical as to its performance in game as I built it more for the rule of cool.  However, it more than held its own in several games of Zone Mortalis, often outperforming its rival which was toting dual Kheres! 

Death Guard - Tactical Squads

Hi all,

Seeing as this my second blog post, I thought I would start by talking about one of the fundamental units of any Legion - the humble tactical squad.

I have two ten man squads of Tactical marines for my Death Guard army.  I used the FW MKIII kits as the GW ones had not been released at the time.  I gave them Phobos pattern bolters as I felt it was the traditional bolter for the XIV. 

I made a point of adding bayonets to every bolter.  This was a fiddly task, but I’m happy with the appearance it gives them.  I didn’t use the head/torso upgrade kits, but did splash out for the FW shoulder pads.  I added nuncio voxes and vexillas as well.

My Sergeants are both identically equipped – power fist and bolt pistol with artificer armour. 

Before I go further, I should stress I am by no means an expert gamer.  I’ve probably played 20-30 games of Heresy since I picked up the hobby.  I was also lucky enough to play in this year's Heresy Double Tournament where I managed to rack up an impressive ratio of five loses in five games – all Ikthelion’s fault!

I’ve tried numerous rites of war and various tactics with my squads.  Despite this I cannot recall a game where they have shone or performed above my expectations.  Going from memory, I didn’t even bother disembarking them in any of the doubles as they would have been slaughtered.

Having said that, I still can’t quite bring myself to leave home without them when the XIV march to war.  I feel like it would be an ultimate betrayal of the XIV fluff! In order to stick to the fluff, my original plan was to have tactical squads moving forward on foot en masse.  However, after suffering even worse defeats than normal I buckled and added the Rhinos. 

One of my Rhinos led to my proudest moment in the hobby when I had the fortune to bump into Duncan from Warhammer TV.  He specifically singled out my Rhino as being “really nice”.  I’m sure he was just being polite and said the same to everyone he spoke to, but I won’t ever forget that compliment! Sad I know….

Anyways, how do you run your tactical squads?  Have you had more success than me?   

Ps.  Has everyone seen this?

Forge World new releases: Custodes Grav Tank

Hi guys, lets see what goodies Forge World are releasing this week!

The headline item this week is the Caladius Grav Tank for the Legiones Custodes:

This is retailing at £85 and is a beautiful kit. You can also get this new kit with a squad of Legiones Custodes for £120 - a surprising move considering that you can't get the Prospero squads as separate kits yet but it also tells us that they will retail for £35 per squad of 5, not bad at all compared to the Calth plastics!

In addition to the grav tank, we also have the following legion upgrade kits:

All of the kits (apart from the plastic Custodes) were available at the 40k open day at the start of the month so are a welcome release for anyone who missed out then.

What do you guys think of this weeks releases?

Until next time!

Hector Cephas

Horus Heresy Book 1: Betrayal - An overview

In the Bunny camp we have decided that its time for us to do an overview of our favourite books, the Horus Heresy series from Forgeworld. Book number 6 has just been released and we want to show those of you that might be on the fence about purchasing this great series that it is well worth it! We are kicking this series off with Betrayal. Below you will find an overview of each of the chapters and my thoughts on the content.

Book 1: Betrayal

Preface

The book starts with a small 1 page preface written by the 'author' of the book. Now I don't mean the actual author (That was Alan Bligh) but by the character that Alan uses to tell the fateful stories from. This is a nice touch which gives me impression that what I am reading has been taken from the depths of a library somewhere on Terra to discover the horrible truth of a past long gone. This character, most likely a remembrancer, signs the page AK. While a very simple page, it seems to me to add some real weight and significance to the words locked up for all time in the book. Almost as though the storyteller can't believe the story he is retelling actually happened. The art work at the begin is incredible and help sets the mood of the horrors of the story to come.

The Age of the Emperor

For the Horus Heresy to make sense we need to understand what came before the it. The 13 pages making up this section detail the rise of the Imperium and the Emperors. The story kicks off with details regarding the Age of strife, followed by The Unification Wars and the rise of the Imperium. It then moves onto the Great Crusade, more details around the Imperium's make up and finally the beginning of doubt within Horus. If you are not overly familiar with the pre-heresy fluff then this is great chapter that will help to fill in your knowledge. If you happen to know the facts then there are still some great tidbits of information that you may not have been aware of to be discovered.

The Legiones Astartes

A small chapter that details the history of the Astartes, starting with creation and Initiation. This is followed by the strategic disposition of the Legions. It's a great resource, showing the ideal composition of the legions. You will find the various ranks and structures in place within a legion detailed, as well as some of the assets that the legions had at there disposable. You may find this extremely helpful if you're aiming to recreate a sizeable chunk of a legion or, like us Bunnies, creating your own characters of differing ranks.

The Death of Isstvan III

Here is where you find the story of the Warmaster's betrayal, split into a three part story detailing all of the events that took place on Isstvan III. If you have read the first 3 Horus Heresy books from Black Library then this part of the story will be mostly familiar, however this version is more fact driven rather than focusing on the major characters. It is an account of all the events told from the perspective of someone that witnessed them first hand or at least gathered all the information available from those that has witnessed them. It is a really good read. I enjoyed having all the information being in one place, along with detailing some of the elements that were not covered in the Black Library books. Each of the legions that fought on the planet have there time in the spot light. If you wanted more details of what the Sons of Horus, Death Guard, World Eaters or Emperors Children parts in the story then this is certainly the place to find it! The art work looks great as always. There are 2 orbital picts of the Choral City which show the avenues of attack that all the legions took at different times of the battle. The orbital picts really show the scale of conflict and helps reinforce what the story has to say about the forces involved. Ending this chapter are several picts of some of the legions vehicles, extremely useful for painting ideas or styles that you may want to use on your own vehicles.

The Space Marine Legions

This chapter is entirely devoted to the four legions that fought on Isstvan. It contains loads of specific details on each legions history, structure, fighting style and exemplary battles. As well as plenty of art of the legionnaires armour and armoury, again extremely useful for understanding what your legion of choice looked like during the lead up to and during the events of Isstvan III. If you're collecting Sons of Horus, Death Guard, World Eaters, Emperors Children or are a fluff buff then you really need to read this part of the book! The information contained is first rate and can help you to solidify the direction you take with your legion, as well as giving you a greater understanding of what each legion was like before the Heresy.

Legio Mortis
This is for the Legio Mortis what the previous chapter was for the legions. Great for fluff buffs or Mortis collectors.

The Death of Isstvan III Campaign

Have you ever fancied playing out the battles of Isstvan? I know I have! The chance to recreate these awesome moments from 'history' that we have been reading about for years has always been something that I have wanted to do. Forgeworld has now given us a great guide on how to recreate these battles an in fact have laid out an entire campaign. Included in this chapter is 6 deployment maps and 6 missions specifically for your battles in the Age of Darkness. Having used these in games that I have played, I can safely say that they are fun, fluffy, enjoyable to play and better than the 40k counterparts! These are really supplement missions intended to fill out the campaign before the main events, 4 Legendary Battles that are intended to represent the major conflicts that took place on Isstvan III. These look fantastic and I am looking forward to playing these with the other Bunnies in the future. As a bonus they have including the Zone Mortalis expansion as well, although I prefer the boarding mission version in Book 3.

Battles in the Age of Darkness & Space Marine Legion Crusade Army List

At the time of its release this was the place to find all the information you needed to construct a legion. This chapter is unfortunately outdated now due to the additions and updates made across the other books. The release of the Legion Army list red book includes an updated version of this very army list. Since this separate army list book was released I have not made use of this chapter!

Space Marine Legion Army List Appendix I 
Again at the time of the release this was a awesome chapter, it features the rules to the 4 Isstvan legions. Unfortunately as with the previous chapter this is now outdated, twice in fact, so you certainly won't be using this book for these rules.

Age of Darkness Army List Appendix: The Mechanicum
The start of the Mechanicum army list, again very outdated now, don't buy this book for this list! After the Mechanicum list are Forgeworlds Apocalypse rules, which are sort of useful but again not particularly up to date.

My Thoughts
This is a brilliant book, I highly recommend it! The quality of the book is outstanding, each page feels special and the leather finish on the cover combined with the silver metal corners helps to finish off the overall look. The art work is brilliant and inspirational. The story that it tells, while familiar, is a really good read and provides a lot of information that isn't available elsewhere. The legion information is the stand out and if you are a die hard fan of one of the four legions featured in this book then you should definitely be considering getting it. The downside is the out of date army lists which take up nearly half the book. Being the first book also goes against it. Book 2 feels a lot more refined than this one and the legion content included in book 2, is on the whole, better. If I was just starting in the Heresy now would I buy this book? Definitely! They are a Warhammer 30k/40k fan and collectors dream!

What are your thoughts on this book?

Darien