Xenith's Chaos: Magnus the Red (Finished)

[Xenith]

They (?) already looks simply stunning!

Thanks, Master!

 

Hot Rod guitar is P E R F E C T!   White head with black makeup is also spot-on. Well done!

The only thing that bothers me is that purple cable on the right arm. Somehow the color lacks definition. Perhaps it's just the lighting though.

 

 

I see what you mean, I think I meanto give that a shade, but forgot, good catch, thanks!

[Xenith]

Got my free Plague Marine from Games Workshop, thought I'd share progress:

I lucked out and got the one with the flail. He'll be in IW colours like my others. Got the bug to finish off a unit of IW Plague Marines from Indomitus. Barring the excessive tentacles and tree branches, they're lovely models. I got rid of a couple of ankle-sprouts on this model as they were dumb and would have been chopped off by the lower edge of the greave as soon as the guy started walking anyway.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Xenith

[Xenith]

Also, here's a couple of better photos of that Noise Marine, flash on and off (but edited).

[Shovellovin]

Your noise marine looks good. Seems like a fun model to paint. 

[Xenith]

So I got out everything I painted in 2020, and it was good!

Everything:

Just the Chaos:

That's 5 Scarabs, 20 cultists finished, 7 Noise Marines and a Plague Marine.

[Dragonlover]

I always had you down as just a Blood Angels player, I must have missed this plog every time it resurfaced previously. Some wicked stuff in here, including (but not limited to) the IW Predator that can't be killed, the Sorcerer/Flamer hybrid (that I may just steal the idea for) and that Noise Marine you just finished.

 

Also as a fellow acquirer of way too many Cultists, I wish we'd had Contrasts when I knocked out 60 the hard way for a Call of Chaos a few years back. Would have made life significantly easier.

 

Dragonlover 

[Inktopus]

That Noise Marine is awesome! The face paint and the tiger stripes are impressively well done.

[Xenith]

I always had you down as just a Blood Angels player, I must have missed this plog every time it resurfaced previously. Some wicked stuff in here, including (but not limited to) the IW Predator that can't be killed, the Sorcerer/Flamer hybrid (that I may just steal the idea for) and that Noise Marine you just finished.

 

Also as a fellow acquirer of way too many Cultists, I wish we'd had Contrasts when I knocked out 60 the hard way for a Call of Chaos a few years back. Would have made life significantly easier.

 

Dragonlover 

 

Heh, BA are my first love, but Chaos is my deepest. I played them for about 6 months before hearing the call of Chaos. I pretty much exclusively collected/played Chaos-Tzeentch across all systems (40k, Fantasy, Mordheim, BFG, Radical Inquisitor) available at the time from 3rd ed until they were gutted in 4th ed. I played pure Thousand Sons for ages (essentially self-abuse in 3rd ed). 3rd ed meta (Las/Plas) lent itself well to Iron warriors, and the combo of strong rules in 3.5 and Christian...Byrne(?)'s IW army in White Dwarf sealed the deal and I was hooked. 

 

Renewed Blood Angels rules in 5th ed saw me go back to them, and joining the B&C made me focus on power armour, almost exclusively, for the last decade. I'm glad Xenos are allowed now, it provides some motivation to paint my Eldar properly. 

 

That Noise Marine is awesome! The face paint and the tiger stripes are impressively well done.

 

Thanks! The stripes are black templar contrast - they're perfectly thinned for freehanding, saves me trying to do the same with chaos black and water - the face was done with a pen, because I'm not that good 

[Xenith]

Seeing how good multimeltas are this edition, and as my Thousand Sons could do with reinforcement, I have an old Black Reach dread to sacrifice to Tzeentch. An ebay rescue, it got the dettol bath years ago, but is still a bit grimy. I've ordered some Isoprop. to hopefully remove the last of the gunk, then can start dedicating it to the Changer of the Ways. 

[Xenith]

In my efforts to clear out my backlog of unainted models (which is going well...) I got round to a Bastion I've had for a while. This wasn't going to be a boring imperial one, though, much more reason to fight over a Chaos one, and who better to have a fortification than the Iron Warriors?

My actual mini-barbed wire is in a box somewhere, so I made do with coiled Cu wire for now - at this scale nobody will be able to tell anyway. I've added hooks all round, and might hang more barbed wire from them if I can get my hands on it this week. Icons of the gods because I can, I've covered up the imperial eagles where I can also. Otherwise, most of the rest remained intact - no point destroying a bastion that you can capture and repurpose!

[space wolf]

I love what you've done with that bastion. Can't wait to see it painted!

[Xenith]

I love what you've done with that bastion. Can't wait to see it painted!

Thanks, and here you go!

This is a quick first pass with only spray paints, death guard green and leadbelcher, straight from the can. I also got my barbed wire out of storage and wrapped it around. I'm not 100% happy with the wire hanging on the hooks as it is, but I need to play with it a bit so it hangs more naturally.

I also realised I forgot to post that Plague Marine I did a while ago:

[BadgersinHills]

Lovely Plague Marine! Bastion is looking nice. :) 

[Xenith]

Getting ready for the new codex, I've started on a Warpflamer unit, which I think will be fun to jump about with duplicity, or have pop out of a Rhino. For ages I've wanted to bash the CSM and Rubric units together to make some up-armoured/less fancy Rubrics, and thought the flamer squad would be good for it. The unit origianlly had 2 rubric bodies and 2 csm, however the rubric bodies are really small compared to the csm...I think they were the last chao kit released before the 2016 embiggening of the Death Guard and 2019 enlarging of the CSM range. Now they just seem weedy next to them, which is a shame. So the unit now is all CSM, and will probably make a battle sorcerer from the CSM aspriring champ bits also.

Edited August 5, 2021 by Xenith

[Xenith]

Managed to pick these guys up at the weekend, super excited to finally (maybe) have semi-decent rules for Thousand Sons for the first time since 3rd ed?

I spent last night going through the book and digesting, while the rules etc seem decent, I think we lack a lot of the strong stuff that other armies have. On the other side of the book...it just feels...unfinished? Every book so far has had 2-3 pages of colour plates for alternate schemes, while TS get a quarter of one page, showing 4 schemes two of which are the same? All they had to do was CTRL+C CTRL+V the plates from Codex 8th ed or even 7th ed. Looking back, the last codex had 12 scheme variations, accompanied by a paragraph about the motivations of those thrallbands, while this codex has none.

Yes, yes, covid etc, but there was a big delay in them anyway, they could have at least made sure the product was viable. On top of that, the studio army was totally lacking, many of the datasheets dont have an accompanying unit photo...like every other codex does. Even the Predator Annihilator is taken from someones personal army. I can't say how easy it would have ben just to take Matt Hutsons models or something.

All in all, the codex feels half-assed in terms of polish and content, time will tell how it holds up rules wise.

[Xenith]

So I had a game organised for last night, and wanted to test out the infernal master so I needed to make him up! The model from the box is ace, as it, but I wanted to make mine more unique. After playing around with a lot of head swaps, I got this:

I think it works out quite well - I think I'll call his staff the Argent Crook, something used to rip daemons from the warp to do his bidding.

Getting my TS ready for battle, I thought I snap one of my conversions for them, back when models were hard to get:

I have another bunch of these guys ready to cross the Rubricon, I want a unit of 4: 4 repeats of this dude and a sorcerer made from one of the other chosen from the Dark Vengeance set.

On to the game! I was playing against relativey new Guard player who had a shedload of tanks, which I thought would be a massive challenge. I was running a list of whatever the hell I had mostly painted and to hand - I've seriously not run the TS since ~2012 in the dark times of 6th ed, where random = fun.

++ Battalion Detachment 0CP (Chaos - Thousand Sons) [85 PL, 8CP, 12 Cabal Points, 1,500pts] ++

+ Configuration +

Battle Size [12CP]: 3. Strike Force (101-200 Total PL / 1001-2000 Points)

Cults of the Legion: Cult of Time

Detachment Command Cost

+ Stratagems +

Sorcerous Arcana [-2CP]: 2x Additional Relics

+ HQ +

Exalted Sorcerer [9 PL, 3 Cabal Points, 165pts]: 11. Tzeentch's Firestorm, 23. Baleful Devolution, Athenaean Scrolls, Dilettante, Disc of Tzeentch, Immaterial Echo, The Stave Abominus, Warlord, Warpflame pistol

Infernal Master [5 PL, -1CP, 3 Cabal Points, 90pts]: 2. Fires of the Abyss, 2. Seeker After Shadows, 21. Presage, 6. Malefic Maelstrom, Helm of the Daemon's Eye, High Acolytes

Sorcerer in Terminator Armour [7 PL, 2 Cabal Points, 115pts]: 13. Doombolt, 33. Desecration of Worlds, Battle-psyker, Force stave, Inferno combi-bolter

+ Troops +

Rubric Marines [7 PL, -1CP, 1 Cabal Points, 125pts]
. . Aspiring Sorcerer: 23. Temporal Surge, Ancient Automata, Aspiring Magister, Inferno Bolt Pistol
. . 4x Rubric Marine w/ inferno boltgun: 4x Inferno boltgun

Rubric Marines [6 PL, 1 Cabal Points, 105pts]
. . Aspiring Sorcerer: 31. Cacodaemonic Curse, Inferno Bolt Pistol
. . 4x Rubric Marine w/ inferno boltgun: 4x Inferno boltgun

Rubric Marines [6 PL, 1 Cabal Points, 129pts]
. . Aspiring Sorcerer: 32. Pyric Flux, Inferno Bolt Pistol
. . 4x Rubric Marine w/ warpflamer: 4x Warpflamer

+ Elites +

Helbrute [7 PL, 115pts]: Helbrute plasma cannon, Power scourge

Scarab Occult Terminators [21 PL, 1 Cabal Points, 270pts]: Hellfyre missile rack
. . Scarab Occult Sorcerer: 12. Glamour of Tzeentch, Inferno combi-bolter, Rites of Coalescence
. . 4x Terminator: 4x Inferno combi-bolter, 4x Prosperine khopesh
. . Terminator w/ Heavy Weapon: Soulreaper cannon

+ Fast Attack +

Chaos Spawn [2 PL, 46pts]
. . 2x Chaos Spawn: 2x Hideous mutations

+ Heavy Support +

Chaos Predator Destructor [8 PL, 190pts]: Havoc launcher, Inferno combi-bolter
. . Two lascannons: 2x Lascannon

Maulerfiend [7 PL, 150pts]: Lasher tendrils

++ Total: [85 PL, 8CP, 12 Cabal Points, 1,500pts] ++

Created with BattleScribe

My opponent was using:

Regiment: Cadia, 1500pts

Creed

Primaris Psyker

2 Astropaths

3x 10 guardsmen, grenade launcher, serge with chainsword and laspistol.

Tank Commander - Leman russ demolishor, 2 mm's, lascannon

leman russ - battlecannon, 2 plascans, hvb

leman russ, battlecannon, triple bolters

2 Basilisks

Manticore - tank ace, full payload.

Mission: Front Line Warfare
Primary: Take and Hold
My secondaries: Wrath of Magnus, Assassinate, mental interrogation
Opponents' secondaries: Attrition, Mental interogation, Raise banners

This looked like it would be a really tough match, I didn't have too much that could take out tanks, aside from the pred. Everything would have to pull double duty!

Deployment

The clump formation to stay protected. Didn't work. I lost the roll for first turn - The biggest guns can ignore LOS, or drew a bead on me. The vengeance for cadia strat allows fulle rerolls to hit and wound against CHAOS for 1 CP (!) and my opponent used that to terrible effect. Manticore with full payload (max damage, no rolling) killed a scarab with every wound, though luckily only ap-2 so I got a 4+ armour. The Demolisher moved 5" in turn 1, double fired, then use the strat to max shots, nailing the maulerfiend right in the face. It took 14 damage from the cannon alone, before the MM's could even get to work. Some other stuff shot my flamebrics, which I thought I'd lose.

At the end of T1 I thought the game was a loss.

Flame-brics move up, revive a member with Time Flux, then roast Creed's unit, rolling 665 on three dice. 2 models survive, then both die to moreale+combat attrition.

Retaliation was slow and purposeful. A march up the field to cut down LOS to the last leman russ was on the cards, but meant my dread didnt do much. Below, all my forces worked to bring down the 2 closest russes. Infernal master gave +1S to the guns of the predator.

Psychic phase. Oh boy. Exalted opened up with firestorm on a 9+ doing ~4-5 wounds, doombolt, smite, x3 all worked to clear the front russ and damage the second. The Hellbrute then knocked some wounds off with the flat 3 damage, then finished off by the predator destructors predator cannon.

End of my T1.

Rubrics get stuck into the guardsmen after flaming another unit to death.

The Exalter Sorcerer's 4+ invulnerable rolls after getting hit by the manticore. 3 out of a possible 18 damage taken.

My Objectives:

Primary - 20

Wrath of Magnus - 12

Assassinate - 12

mental interrogation 3

Opponents' Objectives:

Primary - 10

Attrition

Mental interogation - 3

Raise banners

Edited August 19, 2021 by Xenith

[Trokair]

So I had a game organised for last night, and wanted to test out the infernal master so I needed to make him up! The model from the box is ace, as it, but I wanted to make mine more unique. After playing around with a lot of head swaps, I got this:

I think it works out quite well - I think I'll call his staff the Argent Crook, something used to rip daemons from the warp to do his bidding.

I had to chuckle here, my Infernal master has the exact same head swap in a bid to be unique.

At least their staffs are different, and the image of him opening a portal and going fishing with the staff is also great.

Despite the beating congrats on the victory, it looks like it was very hard fought.

[Xenith]

Thinking that my Thouand Sons could really do with some additional firepower, I finished off this Hellbrute I started ages ago. Just needed the base painting and the horn crest finishing off - My IW all have black horns.

Unsure on the base, I think I started darker than my usual stirland battlemire, so I might go back and do some more gradual blends or put a wash on, but it's ok for the table now.

[Xenith]

I had another game with my Thousand Sons versus the same guard opponent as last time. Thinking it would be an easy going match, I made a fun army to test somethings. Then he turned up with a Culexus assasin so the gloves came off.

++ Patrol Detachment 0CP (Chaos - Thousand Sons) [51 PL, 4CP, 9 Cabal Points, 999pts] ++

+ Configuration +

Battle Size [6CP]: 2. Incursion (51-100 Total PL / 501-1000 Points)

Cults of the Legion: Cult of Time

Detachment Command Cost

+ Stratagems +

Sorcerous Arcana [-1CP]: Additional Relics

+ HQ +

Exalted Sorcerer [8 PL, -1CP, 3 Cabal Points, 145pts]: 13. Doombolt, 22. Swelled by the Warp, 6. Aetherstride, Disc of Tzeentch, High Acolytes, Paradigm of Change, The Stave Abominus, Warpflame pistol

Exalted Sorcerer [6 PL, 3 Cabal Points, 105pts]: 21. Presage, 21. Temporal Manipulation, 22. Weaver of Fates, 4. Lord of Forbidden Lore, Helm of the Daemon's Eye, Warlord, Warpflame pistol

+ Troops +

Rubric Marines [6 PL, 1 Cabal Points, 115pts]
. . Aspiring Sorcerer: Inferno Bolt Pistol
. . 3x Rubric Marine w/ inferno boltgun: 3x Inferno boltgun
. . Rubric Marine w/ soulreaper cannon: Soulreaper cannon

Rubric Marines [6 PL, 1 Cabal Points, 129pts]
. . Aspiring Sorcerer: 23. Temporal Surge, Inferno Bolt Pistol
. . 4x Rubric Marine w/ warpflamer: 4x Warpflamer

+ Elites +

Helbrute [7 PL, 125pts]: Multi-melta
. . Helbrute fist: Inferno combi-bolter

Scarab Occult Terminators [11 PL, 1 Cabal Points, 230pts]: Hellfyre missile rack
. . Scarab Occult Sorcerer: 12. Glamour of Tzeentch, Inferno combi-bolter, Rites of Coalescence
. . 3x Terminator: 3x Inferno combi-bolter, 3x Prosperine khopesh
. . Terminator w/ Heavy Weapon: Soulreaper cannon

+ Heavy Support +

Maulerfiend [7 PL, 150pts]: Lasher tendrils

++ Total: [51 PL, 4CP, 9 Cabal Points, 999pts] ++

Created with BattleScribe

My opponent was using:

Regiment: Cadia, 1500pts

Company commander, plasma pistol

3x 10 guardsmen, grenade launcher, serge with chainsword and laspistol.

5 scions, hotshot volley, plasma gun, 3x hot shot las.

Culexus Assassin

6 Bullgryns with the shield things.

Tank Commander - Leman russ demolishor, 2 mm's, lascannon

Manticore - tank ace, full payload.

Mission: Shifting Front
Primary: Take and Hold
My secondaries: Engage, WWSWF (exalted, mauler, SOT's), Burninate Empires TS one.
Opponents' secondaries: Engage, Abhor the Witch, Raise banners

Scores
My Objectives - 36

Primary 5+15+5

Engage - 2+2+2

WWSWF - 5

Burninate Empires TS one - 0

Opponents' Obs - 17

Primary 5+0+5

Engage - 2

Abhor the Witch - 5 (Exalted)

Raise banners - 0

This was an interesting game with a few spanners thrown in my works. The Culexus was an unanticipated and unwelcome suprise, and the bullgryns were also new to me. Still, I stuck to the plan. Stuff generally hid, there was no place to really hide the mauler, I have a rep in the club for a large central obscuring ruin so tried to not go with that the last couple of games, but I think we need to bring it back. My shooting basically wiped the left and central guard squads and the mortars while plinking some wounds from the demolisher. The left flank saw the flamebrics advance then temporal surge onto the right objective but within flame range of that guard unit. The exalted with disc and aetherstride flew 15" to try and tie up the guard and manticore - between his hand flamer (killed 3) and the flamer unit, the guard were wiped. The exalted then tried to charge the manticore, and got hit by a barrage of strats to see it overwatching with an ICBM hittig on a 5+ rerolling all failed hits and wounds, 2 of which slipped through my invuns, killing the sorc stone dead. The flamer squad sorc then got a massive super smite off on it, then finished it in combat, after it took a toll on my SOT's.

The SOT's ate a lot of firepower, but walked up the middle, glamouring themselves, they shot down the bullgryns with some help from REAP SOULS and then charged and killed the rest, before finishing off the Demolisher. I took glamour on this unit, but I might change this for something else so they can cast time flux when needed, glamour maybe for the exalted?

Maulerfiend and Hellbrute...got one shotted by the demolisher turn 1. Maximal fire or whatever saw 12 shots into the hellbrute and 2x mm's and a lascannon into the mauler did 15 wounds. Underperforming.

Rubrics with soulreaper did consistently well, being able to reach out to 24" and touch stuff with AP-2 is decent, but this unit was maybe wasted on a home objective. Don't know what I'd use in their place though, which is reliable. 1x spawn? Cultists? Presage on this unit was decent

Second exalted was decent, despite not getting into melee. He kept up weaver of fates for most of the game, along with gaze of death plinking wounds from things, with the odd smite.

Overall I like the astartes section of this army, the mauler needs rethinking, or more terrain, or to be swapped for another hellbrute. I could definitely do with an objective/action monkey, but unsure what to use. Maybe some points for ardent automata.

End of my T1 movement

End of my T1 assault

My Exalted Sorcerer charged the Manticore, which responded with overwatch, hit on 5+ overwatch strat, vengeance for cadia for full rerolls. My Exalted got hit by a Manticore rocket on the way in, faliling 2 saves and getting taken off the board.

The pile of shame.

These guys then made up for it with a super smite getting 6 mortals, then the 4CaP ritual for 2 more mortals, knocking 8 off it in one psychic phase before charging in and finishing it off with the staff.

Edited August 31, 2021 by Xenith

[Mushkilla]

Great report! That Manticore overwatch sounded insane.

 

One thing:

 

 

...they shot down the bullgryns with some help from REAP SOULS...

 

Reap Souls only triggers against units of 11+. Makes it really meh. 

 

Sounds like the Culexus wasn't as problematic as expected?

Edited September 1, 2021 by Mushkilla

[Xenith]

Great report! That Manticore overwatch sounded insane.

 

One thing:

 

 

...they shot down the bullgryns with some help from REAP SOULS...

 

Reap Souls only triggers against units of 11+. Makes it really meh. 

 

Sounds like the Culexus wasn't as problematic as expected?

 

Ah, good catch, thanks! There's just so much information in the book and this edition in general that I'm overloaded. My opponent was cagey and hed back so I got most of my spells of T1, then the -2 from the culexus was largely countered by the +1 from battleforged. I think I failed one glamour and one presage the whole game due to him. Turn 3 I managed to get my rubrics into flame range, but due to a silly mistake in positioning, the leman russ was the closest target so I couldnt shoot him, otherwise he'd have been neutralised. 

[Xenith]

Also, the manticore is pretty nasty. 2D6 shots, which I think you can have a strat to reroll, then S10, and you can have a tank ace skill 'Maximum Payload' to make it flat max damage of 3 instead of D3. The only saving grace is AP-2 so my SOT's still got a 4+ armour from it. It's really bonkers, Guard have so many ways to overcome the natural randomness of super strong weapons. If we could guarantee a vindicator was always D6 I'd take one every game. 

[Xenith]

Anyone looking at the photos of my KSons [And chaos in general] will see they they mostly date back to 3rd ed. Chaos/thousand Sons were my second army and Iron Warriors my third, however due to awful rules (Gav/4th ed philosophy, I'm looking at you) they never saw play until recently. As such they're a bit out of date. I have a bunch of the new TS stuff, but I'm working to make all my units WSYIWYG.

 

Currently I have:

Old/classic TS scheme:

24 Bolter Rubrics

Sorc with plasma pistol and fist, 2x sorc with force sword, sorc with axe

2x Thousand Sons terms with power fists

Dreadnought with plasmacannon

 

Silver Sons:

5x Scarab Occult

Maulerfiend

2 bolter rubes

Exalted Sorcerer. 

 

I really need to get legit unit leader for the rubes. My opponent's dont mind, but I'd prefer a wysiwyg option, as well as needing to get a few more of the units now available to my KSons. What I'm planning is:

 

Aspiring Sorcerer for warpflamer unit

Aspiring Sorcerer for bolter unit

1 soulreaper cannon rube for bolter unit

Forgefiend - triple ecto?

+4/5 warpflamer marines?

[Xenith]

So the first part of the plan: An Aspiring srcerer with staff to lead my Rubrics:

Part 2 is a TDA Sorcerer with combi melta and power axe for the battle psyker (WS2+ BS2+, 5A) upgrade. I think the axe is the way better weapon, however I miss out on any funky staff upgrades like Stave Abominus, incaendium etc. I already have a TDA sorc with staff so aren't really missing out.

Edited September 8, 2021 by Xenith

[Xenith]

The above guy now has a head!

It was either going to be the bare TDA Chaos lord head from the kit with the awesome sneer, however I fancied keeping that for a power armoured model and giving this something different. I had an old Sanguinary guard head cut up from some abandoned conversion which fit the bill, and I'm pretty happy with it - he's crying tears for dead Prospero, and slaughters slaves to the maggot-throne in eternal revenge. Now he just needs a name.

Yuck, lots of cleanup still needed at the back - all these new kits really spoil us in terms of mould lines - these nearly 15 year old ones are showing their age.