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Warning: This topic is going to be a heavily narrated trip down memory lane. It is intended as both a personal voyage as well as taking others with it. Of course I am exaggerating. Hi everybody! I am WBRBloom. If anyone ever wondered this screen name is also as old as time, and derives from the Ad&d Ravenloft scenario 'When Black Roses Bloom'. But this is a Warhammer 40k forum, innit? So let's get to it! Our story begins back in the far away 1990. Little WBRB was almost at the end of grammar school (grade school across the pond), it was summer, and he and his family were returning from a day at the beach. They all stopped at a very big super market, one of the biggest back then in Greece, to do some Sunday shopping before heading home. It was about a month before schools started again, and the holiday (Christmas) TV ads were still far away (this is very crucial). The new games were still a few months away from being announced. As he usually did, little WBRB wandered off to the toys aisle. He browsed the G.I. Joes a little bit (they were now being replaced by scale models rapidly), and he was never really interested in car toys and such. He then moved further down the isle, towards the board games. Nothing he hadn't seen before, Ghost Castle, Mysteries of old Peking, the usual. And then, he saw it. HeroQuest. Deep inside another dimension, face battling barbarians and evil magic. HeroQuest. On a quest for adventure in a maze of monsters. It was a wall of HeroQuest boxes, an endless wall of HeroQuest boxes. The rest were history. To speed things up, WBRB got his hands on one of those boardgame copies, played it and killed orcs and goblins, but since he was already involved into scale models he also noticed the painted miniatures that adorned the inside of the box and he learned a (very) basic way on how to paint miniatures that was included at the back of the quest book. Apparently, there was this company that designed the miniatures, called 'Citadel', and it made more games than HeroQuest. Enter 1991 (yeah, things in Greece tend to have a year delay), and Space Crusade. Space Marines. Chaos Space Marines. Genestealers. Orks. Gretchin. Dreadnoughts. Oh my.. It is now 2003. WBRB, fresh out of his Navy service and having one of his first jobs, one that allows him for some disposable income, decides to start actually collecting, and playing, Warhammer 40.000. He had found about that game a few years back, in 1995 or 96, when an older friend of his introduced him into the hobby stores that sell it. He was fascinated but never had the money to buy/play it. But now seemed like the best moment. He went into one of the local hobby stores and browsed around a bit. He picked up the 3rd edition rulebook off the shelves, and looked at the different armies. He remembered an old diorama he had seen in one of the White Dwarf magazines, one called 'Horus against the Emperor'. It had Sanguinius at his feet and Horus was wearing a red terminator armour with dual lightning claws. Scattered across the spaceship's bridge, were the bodies of red armoured space marines (Khorne Berzerkers, he found out later). He wanted that. He liked Chaos. He liked the underdog, the villain, the bad guy. He wanted to be that bad guy so badly, that he did not hesitated any further. Grabbing a few more things, a blister pack saying 'ABADDON THE DESPOILER' the Chaos Space Marine codex a squad of Chaos Space Marines, some paints and a couple of paintbrushes, he walked towards the cashier. These models still exist to this day. Abaddon, painted and stripped a couple of times, has only seen battle a few times back in the day. But the cost of him being the same as a Land Raider, deterred the writer from using him anymore, only on specific missions. He now awaits undercoated, with some basic colour added, to be painted and used as a normal terminator (he will probably be dipped in acetone before long and stripped, then re-painted): I wanted his sword to me reminiscent of the original colours of Drach N'yen, but also have a little bit of its own character. The Chaos Space Marines have been all built, converted or scattered along the four winds of Chaos. I will eventually post pictures of all my infantry units, but I cannot possibly find the original marines from that box (although I do know they exist). Instead, I am leaving you with the pictures of the Hand of Death, one of my original dreadnoughts, painted back in the day. This must be one of the most active units in my army. It has been in almost every battle played since 2003. The banner is freehand (not my best work though). More stories to come.

My husband got me the sororitas army box to build as an advent calendar since it's got 25 models, and of course since I'm me I'm instead going to build them as word bearers' fanatics. I'm a little behind, but got some time to work at it! Here's the first two so far:

so the noise marines have a special rule which allows shooting out of phase : so the rule about shooting in melee is bypassed, however when shooting, you're not allowed to target units in melee so a noise marine dies in melee, and then makes a shooting attack against another enemy unit in line of sight?

-Begin Log- -Sons of Horus 305th Company- -Imperial Logistics Servitor VS-BC-23- 6 Squads idle. 23 Auxilia Sections idle. Dreadnought Requisition pending. Squad Krinos has completed it's objectives. Casualty estimates at acceptable levels. Squad Omega disappeared amongst the remains of Hab-Block Alpha-B65, Sublevel-42. No communications received from Squad Lupus. Last contact made 35 hours ago. Squad Faron has completed it's objectives. No losses reported. Auxilia Section 3 Cult of the Holy Reckoning is facing heavy resistance. Estimated time remaining: 2 days. Next Log in 3 days. -End Log- -Thought for the day: scrapcodedeathtothefalseemperor12-

Greetings and welcome to my army log! I've been a hobbyist for many years, and am recently back from the longest hobby break since I started painting my first Chaos Warriors at the age of five. The reveal of the Emperor's Children codex is what got me back in, and in this log I will detail my EC-CSM army's transition to a true EC army. No more handicapping myself with limiting my Marks of Chaos, or being miffed that the god-specific keyword had no effect! I've been collecting and playing 40k with my Slaanesh/EC marines since 5th edition, which means that a lot of the collection is outdated, all of my wonderfully converted Noise Marines are now a bit on the small side, their power-fist wielding champions have no place in the army. Many of my old characters have found a perfect match for size and vibe with new units like for example the flawless blades! So I'll start this log with my then-exalted champion, now flawless blade member 1 of 3. I didn't realize just how dusty the model was until I reviewed the pictures, apologies! This guy was converted immediately upon the release of the noise marine commemorative model, but only painted two years later. Very indicative for my usual building to painting speed..! I hope to do better with all the new models, after all I need to get these guys on the table sooner rather than later, having vowed to play no more games with half-finished models. I was inspired by colours of a fresh bruise for this guy, and while I like the usual black and pink for my Emperor's Children, this guy and many of the flawless blades to come will probably come with more individuality in their colouring. To round off my first entry we need some of the new models as well! This is my first converted group of Noise Marines made from the new models. To be honest I was quite disappointed in the uniformity and cleanliness of the new Noise Marines, who to me look nothing like the augmented monsters I had hoped for, they look very factory made to me, more hulkbuster iron man than noise marine. But even if I liked them, I would probably convert them anyways since that is such a fun part of the hobby! And as disappointed I was in the overall look of the kit, as awed was I by the bits and possibilities in it! It is such a beautifully tooled sprue, with options for days, and a proper heavy sonic weapon that did not look like a guitar or something equally silly, wow! The clean lines on these guys also makes it so much easier to cut into! The first changes I made to all of my sonic weapons was removing the fluid containers attached to the underside. This allowed me to cable the Screamer Pistol to the wearer, giving me a compromise giving the small sonic weapon (why would a noise marine ever want a smaller gun?!) some more weight by hunkering it down. I wanted the Blastmasters to stick out a bit more as well, by building the shoulder-mounted cannon and moving the dial to the weapons left side so my marine could still tune it. Both blastmasters also have a backpack with the two weaponized exhausts being reduced to one for a Slaaneshi asymmetrical look. Another part of note is the caped crusader using an infractor head, inspired by talks of caping in Dr Rhuminaus thread. I hope you like them! I will get to painting as soon as possible so hopefully I can post some of these painted soon, together with a rebased Lucius the Eternal, and my then-obliterator-now-Lord-Kakophonist.

Greetings all. I was thinking about the best ways to introduce my web store and the product lines I carry to all of the hobbyists here on Bolter and chainsword. So what I've decided to do is a manufacturer spotlight series discussing the various manufacturers that I carry and what they can be used for to add your hobby collections. Starting with Wargames Atlantic. Opened in 2019, war games Atlantic has proceeded to trail blaze a path in the hard plastic wargaming market. They've launched over 25 boxed sets for a multi-faceted collection of fantasy, sci fi and historical time periods. Their death fields range is particularly ideal for 40k projects, bringing with it plenty of human and humanoid figures to fill out imperial armies as well as some xenos factions. I have a plan currently in motion to use the lizardmen kit, and it's built in mix of ak47s and matchlock guns to make convincing kroot stand ins. But besides all of that, Wargames Atlantic has been an innovative wargaming company. Back in November 2022 they launched Atlantic digital, becoming one of the first hard plastic wargaming manufacturers to offer digital STL kits. They've now got 81 STL kits, and I've actually used the Les grognard ogres kit in combination with extra plastic parts to make my B company ogryns. And now, with the help of mini wargaming, they are bringing out a full army all at once: the damned. https://gamefound.com/projects/mwg--wargames-atlantic/the-damned That's the preview page, but the damned are as close an equivalent to traitor guard as you can come. There looks to be plenty of stretch goals with free sprues. Indeed, you can get a free sprue of the basic Infantry added to your rewards if you follow the campaign, and then when it launches you back it. McDougall Designs will be carrying these boxed sets when they hit retail, and will also be offering single sprues and select sprue packs. For my own projects, I will be forming a geurillas warfare imperial guard unit based around the damned bodies and 3d printed heads wearing corvid-looking masks. Indeed these seem like a highly adaptable set of models all around, as the basic design is mainly battle damage, with no distinct symbology that would otherwise need to be removed. The campaign begins on the 26th of may, so just over a week to go. Check back tomorrow for more content. Until the next update; happy gaming, Max Mcdougall McDougall designs llc

12 August, 2022 Eager to collect as much loot as possible, greenskins have launched an all-out attack on the Cruentes' position in the industrial outskirts of Hive Prime. Our sources tell us that these greenskins call themselves the Death Skulls. This pleases Khorne. Leading the initial defence is Thrax Gorechosen, the Exalted Champion. He is accompanied by the Berzerker squads led by Validon and Dreior, as well as the Helbrute Xarian the Bloody Idiot and Bardûl the Wretched Fool. Lord Kratus is on standby on his flagship, The Eternal Warrior, ready to reinforce if needed. For Agendas, I chose Eye of the Gods to kill enemy characters, and Cull the Hordes because why not. Wary of the enemy's brutish firepower, the Cruentes deploy defensively, hoping to bait the greenskins into a foolhardy charge. With a reverberating Waaaagh!, the Orks fling themselves forwards, led by their Warboss. We are told that this huge brute is not, in fact, the leader of the group, despite their size and aggressiveness. This confuses Khorne. The greenskins with a penchant for pyrotechnics open up on poor Bardûl, who suffers terrible burns and flees the battlefield in mindless panic. Great, it'll take days to find him again... A couple of the greenskins open up on Xarian as well, who - on Kratus's order from orbit - launches a barrage of obscuring smoke. Regardless, one lucky shot does get through and succeeds in causing some significant damage. Grinning with glee, the actual enemy boss - an apparent field mechanic with a very fancy array of weapons - orders a hail of rockets from his large vehicle at Rhino II, knowing that the Cruentes have wasted their chance to screen it with smoke. Many of the shots go wide, but enough punch through the Rhino to disable it. Two Berzerkers are killed in the barrage. Gunning the engine of their truck, the burners hurtle towards Xarian, staggering him with their heavy ram. Despite this, Xarian catches his balance and stops the flimsy vehicle in its tracks, bringing his huge hammer down to wreck the truck's engine. The greenskins pile out, three getting tangled in the wreckage. Here is where Thrax's arrogance began my downfall. Not wanting to commit all his Berzerkers to a single charge, he order them to remain embarked while he and Xarian charged the greenskins in front of them. The Rhino accelerated in first, distracting the pyromaniacs for long enough for the pair to charge unimpeded. Meanwhile, Dreior's Berzerkers threw themselves at the greenskins in the midfield. In a spray of gore, the brutes were dismembered one by one by the frenzied Berzerkers... ...who then piled into the dimunitive greenskin slaves, only for one of the lucky gits to somehow club one of the (unwounded!) Berzerkers to death! Despite the success against the enemies in the midfield (ignoring that one ignoble casualty), Thrax's and Xarian's charge didn't go so well. The Warboss, Grog, dispatches the Helbrute with apparent ease and claims several useful mechanical components for himself. Thrax sweeps aside three greenskins with Gorefather (only a single 6 to wound - with rerolls - and my opponent passed a lot of Waaagh invulnerable saves). Things go from bad to worse: the flamer Orks pass their Morale check with insane bravery and fall back, the rocket-armed Orks blast apart the second Rhino with ease, killing three (!!) more Berzerkers, and Warboss Grog dispatches Thrax without breaking a sweat. The Berzerkers manage to inflict a bunch of wounds on the Warboss (that Fury of Khorne stratagem is gold), but a -1 to wound and a 1+ save makes him very, very difficult to hurt. Over the next turn, Grog would proceed to butcher the rest of the Berzerkers. Meanwhile, Kevdak the mechanic commander blitzes most of the Berzerkers in the middle. The rest were subsequently minced by their monstrous truck. Sensing that things weren't really going well, Kratus decides that now is a great time to finally teleport in. Failing his charge (even with a reroll), he's left facing the guns of every remaining greenskin. It's at this point that my opponent throws me a bone: Kevdak (or "Big Kev") howls a challenge to the Chaos Lord. No Ork is to raise their weapon to impede the challenge. (To be clear: it wasn't just for my benefit. My opponent wanted to force a leadership challenge between Grog and Kevdak.) In a familiar display of luck, Kratus's armour holds against the flurry of blows from the greenskin warlord, but barely. Finally, in my own turn, and with one wound remaining, Kratus cuts apart his opponent's armour to expose the greenskin inside. However, seeing his demise written on the wall, Big Kev unleashes all remaining firepower from his massive armour, with just one shot finding a chink in Kratus's armour. With that, the last World Eater falls. Result: 8-62 Loss Ultimately, this game was lost in my first turn, when I overestimated how much work my Helbrute and Exalted Champion would do. I think I had the right plan to hold one unit of Berzerkers back, but instead of spreading my charge out, I should've thrown the disembarked Berzerkers at the enemies in my backfield. I think they should've had a good chance to kill the Burnas and Warboss on the charge, when accompanied by the Helbrute and Champion. Ah well, lesson learnt. Xarian suffered an Angered Machine Spirit, so cannot benefit from stratagems. On the plus side, Kratus earned two Personal Glory points for killing the enemy warlord, and increased in rank. Khorne saw him fit to bless him with a Scorpion Tail for +1 Attack. Kratus's Personal Glory: 3 -> 4Khorne's Dark God Glory: 6 -> 5Cruentes' Warfleet Glory: 7 -> 7

5 August, 2022 Kratus once again lead a small Combat Patrol against the Death Guard, this time accompanied by his lieutenant, Thrax, Dreior's Berzerkers, and a small mob of Cultists. The mission was to punch through the enemy line to cause as much havoc as possible. For my Agenda, I chose to initiate yet another Blasphemous Ritual to earn some more Glory for Khorne. Unfortunately, I had been painting Kratus's model and completely forgot to bring him along, so a random Terminator will have to be his stand-in. This was my opponent's third ever game of 40k, so it was going to be another relaxed game with minimal pressure. Just throw some dice and have fun! In this mission, my opponent had to deploy his entire army first, and was forced to split it into three parts. I took advantage of this, by putting the bullet catchers highly valuable Cultists in the middle, backed by my Chaos Lord. My main push would be on the left flank, where the Berzerkers and the Exalted Champion Thrax would be able to overwhelm the flank and sweep around to the middle. I won first turn, and moved everything up the field. The Cultists began an Action in the middle of the board to raise some mighty skull piles for Khorne. I was going to use Apoplectic Frenzy on the Berzerkers to yeet them up the field for a first turn charge, but decided against it at the last minute. My opponent was only new to the game, and I didn't want that to be how he found out about such an ability. I told him what I could have done, and against his protestations I continued simply moving the Berzerkers. In his turn, he shuffled some Plague Marines on both flanks to get some shooting off, and left his Blight Hauler in the middle. When all was said and done, a few Berzerkers were slain and most of the Cultists were killed. I forget how many exactly (and didn't take a photo), but I think there were only 1-2 cultists left - but it was enough to keep their Action going. Khorne was evidently pleased with their sacrifice, as the action succeeded and I gained a Dark God Glory point (and a bunch of XP on the Cultists). In my turn, Thrax killed a couple of Plague Marines, continuing his trend of being completely incapable of rolling 6s to wound for Gorefather, even with rerolls. Thankfully, Berzerkers were more than enough to finish the rest. Meanwhile, Kratus bounced off the Blight Hauler. We both dealt just a few wounds to each other - I always forget how tough these damn things are! My opponent continued to string out his Plague Marines on the right and finished off the Cultists. While the Lord of Contagion swept around to take care of Kratus. Unfortunately, Kratus's knack for surviving against the odds abandoned him and he fell to the Manreaper. In my third turn, I declared the centre objective to be the Alpha objective, since I planned to move there anyway. The Berzerkers and Thrax moved up to wrestle the Blight Hauler off the objective...but I foolishly left my squishy Exalted Champion standing directly in front of the Lord of Contagion. This is a theme you'll see me repeat a lot! Wisely, my opponent charged the Champion and Berzerkers, killing the Champion. In return, the Berzerkers carved chunks off the character's armour, reducing him to just a single wound. In my own turn, the Lord of Contagion slew two more Berzerkers, and shrugged off their attacks. At this point, I was slightly ahead on points. Had my opponent just stayed in combat, there was a good chance I could finish the Lord and just hold the Alpha objective until the end of the game, maybe also shuffle over and add to the cultists' pile of skulls. So, weighing his options, my opponent initiated a Hail Mary charge with his last Plague Marines - and he made it. The sons of Mortarion finished the last of my Berzerkers to claim the objective. Result: 25-45 Loss Unfortunately, Kratus gained some wounds that would not heal after the battle, gaining the Deep Scars battle scar (cannot perform Actions, cannot Heroically Intervene). The Cultists also gained a scar, but I ended up just deleting them from my list to make room for other units. Despite losing, I still rolled well for my Chaos Points. Kratus lost a little glory for dying so ingloriously, but Khorne was pleased with the sacrifices and I made sure to keep my Warfleet in Favour. Kratus's Personal Glory: 4 -> 3Khorne's Dark God Glory: 4 -> 6Cruentes' Warfleet Glory: 7 -> 7

As Raktra suggested, here is a new Thread in order to create Rules for the Various Daemon Primarchs and Daemon Princes, who are in the Icarion Insurrection. This will help to keep the Primarch Thread clean and it is easier to oversee both threads. Now we can create Rules and Stats, just for the most badass characters around at the Insurrection.

Here follows a record of Heresy, treachery and misfortune.... A VULGAR DISPLAY OF POWER Episode I: Manifest Decimation You all felt it. First it gnawed at your mind, then your bones, and then your flesh. The great hollowing that no sustenance could satiate, no libation could quench. Then you heard the wailing, the terrible wailing. It drew you in like a moth to the flame, hounding you across the stars, giving you no respite in your dreams. Corruption. Your fall was inevitable, perhaps. Dragged into Heresy by your brethren, your commanders, your fallibility as humans, or a thousand other reasons. Or none at all. Some of you were born to it, came to it as naturally as breathing. Perhaps, in your delusion, you even still believe yourself to be a loyal servant to the Golden Throne and Undying Emperor on distant Terra. But no matter your circumstances, you have all strayed from the Emperor's Light to tread the road of Damnation, whether by choice or by circumstances of birth, turning your backs on the rotting husk of your Imperial birthrights forever. In the Hell-realm of the Screaming Vortex, time has a tenuous consistency, a fleeting connection to reality at the best of times. Years may pass like grains of sand falling through an hourglass, while days may span veritable eons. And yet time marches on; the grist-mill of inevitability continues to grind down all in its path and feed the only constant in the universe. The Screaming Vortex is a benighted, hateful canker-sore upon reality, upon whose desolate rocks the dregs of the galaxy may wash upon and cling to like so much flotsam. It is here that many servants of Chaos congregate, building new homes for themselves amongst the detritus, eking out a cruel existence before they are devoured either by their gods or their fellows, and the cruel wheel of fate turns on and on, uncaring, perpetually in motion. You each have your own reasons for coming to the Vortex: some maybe for glory, others for the promise of war and bloodshed, and for some the Vortex may have sung to you in your dreams, its maddening cries of anguish a siren song calling to you from across the cosmos. By one contrivance or another you have all arrived at Desolace, a way-station for pirates, raiders, mercenaries and merchants of all stripes. The hollowed out asteroid base is one of the largest in the Ragged Helix, a massive asteroid belt within the Vortex, and serves as a sort of neutral ground for the various warbands and corsair fleets which call the region home. It is a cruel and miserable place, but as ever humanity has found a way to thrive and eke out a living in such a grim and wretched demesne, alongside xenos and worse besides. It hangs in space like a great, rocky tumor, its myriad docking spires jutting out from its surface at odd and horrible angles relative to one another, servicing a number of corrupted ships of Imperial make and xenos alike. Further out, other larger vessels of various provenance lie at anchor, warily eyeing one another like great predators in a treacherous ocean. You have each made a short low-gravity transit down one of these spires from whichever ramshackle transport dumped you here, and ended up in one of the dingy and dimly lit halls of the hollowed-out asteroid. Grime seems to encrust every surface, a pervasive miasma of competing, noxious scents pollutes the air, and there is an ever-present dripping sound coming from somewhere indistinct but nearby. The air recycling system wheezes, gasps and rattles like a man with advanced consumption as it toils unceasingly, but with great futility, to purify the almost toxic atmosphere of the place. The huddled masses of mutant and human descendants of the original mining crews sent to this great rock shy away from you into their shanties, terrified by the newest, heavily-armed arrivals to their cold and dank home, their forebears dead and forgotten for many dark centuries. Elsewhere, motley pirate crews and xenos mercenaries travel the halls like swaggering hive gangers, shabby merchants hawk their corroded wares, and other sights and sounds, each more tantalizing and disgusting than the last emerge from the foetid gloom. Despite its outward appearance of squalor and degeneracy, Desolace is a veritable hive of activity. Welcome to Hell. GM: Welcome to the Screaming Vortex, lads! Your new port-of-call awaits you! Desolace is a large asteroid base within the Ragged Helix, and a natural jumping off point for adventure within the greater Vortex. Numerous pirates, mercenaries, soldiers of fortune, merchants and artisans call Desolace their home, whether permanently or temporarily. The asteroid itself is a heavily pock-marked and meteorite-blasted spheroid approximately 10 km in diameter, riddled with an uncountable number of halls, passageway, chambers and nooks courtesy of the original press-ganged miners who toiled to hollow out the great rock. It has been ruled most recently by a cruel and cunning warlord named Vaarsaal for the past two decades, or at least as near as one can reckon in the hellish realm of the Screaming Vortex, where time and the physical laws of our universe are but playthings to the Ruinous Powers. Each of your characters has received, fairly recently, a summons of sorts, to travel to Desolace. Strange dreams have haunted you for many long nights prior to and during your voyages to this way-station for all manner of detritus and scum: dreams of blood and iron ships sailing upon dark tides and a decrepit fortress floating amongst the stars. Your first post should introduce us to your character, offering a glimpse into their background, what drew them to the Vortex and their most recent voyage upon the warp-tides to Desolace. You may end your post detailing what manner of delights your character might seek out in Vaarsaal's realm, for there are many, and they are as varied as they are terrible and blasphemous.

Hey gang, I understand things are hectic for many of us currently, and Plunder EP III will be kicking off on 2 April, but I thought I would start this discussion to see if anyone would be interested in a spot of Black Crusade? I have a few campaign ideas I'm trying to sort out currently from my (extremely disorganized) collection of notes and character ideas, and I would be happy to accommodate either an all-human, all-Astartes or mixed group of 4-5 (maybe even up to 6?) players. The campaign would be set in the Screaming Vortex (the base Black Crusade setting), and would be set pre-Great Rift/WH40K End Times (for those who care). My plan currently is to mostly follow the BC ruleset, perhaps with a few tweaks here or there, and my intent would be for this to be pretty grimy and gritty a la WHFRP or Zweihander. The campaign itself should be a hopefully enjoyable romp across the Vortex, with a good mix of combat, RP, dungeon delving and all manner of HERESY. Please drop a reply here if you think you might be interested, and what your campaign preference would be with regard to character or party make-up. Recruitment will be a first-come-first-served affair, but I will open a separate thread for such matters with instructions at a later time once we have an idea of the general interest level, and once I figure out exactly what sort of meat-grinder I want to throw you scoundrels into. For the Dark Gods! Cheers, Necronaut