Victory is Vengeance

[Beaky Brigade]

If you were going to let leaders live on perhaps they should have to roll on the Consequences of Failure table when they are removed as a casualty, while heroes can have any option chosen for them by the player (the vanilla rules let you choose either for Heroes).  The same with the redemption table. That way the Leaders could suffer more than heroes when they die as they may get a trait that negates their skillset, that way they would not just be two extra heroes, but they would also not be useless less useful.

[A D-B]

If you were going to let leaders live on perhaps they should have to roll on the Consequences of Failure table when they are removed as a casualty, while heroes can have any option chosen for them by the player (the vanilla rules let you choose either for Heroes).  The same with the redemption table. That way the Leaders could suffer more than heroes when they die as they may get a trait that negates their skillset, that way they would not just be two extra heroes, but they would also not be useless less useful.

 

J'adore. I'll float that by Ross, but it sounds mega.

[Dagoth Ur]

I thought it was a cracking joke. Like, because you're "The Observer". So you got the colour wrong, and...

 

Oh, God. It was no joke.

 

I shall never forgive thee.

Oh woe is me! I have invoked the horror that is ADB's fury!

[Kol Saresk]

 

I thought it was a cracking joke. Like, because you're "The Observer". So you got the colour wrong, and...

 

Oh, God. It was no joke.

 

I shall never forgive thee.

Oh woe is me! I have invoked the horror that is ADB's fury!

You kidding? Now you'll get a character named after you. Sure, he'll probably die some horrible, meaningless death, but he'll be there!

[Rangaman]

Not trying to hijack your thread ADB but I took a pic of some of my guys earlier, the mix of green and purple is definitely striking.

[A D-B]

Not trying to hijack your thread ADB but I took a pic of some of my guys earlier, the mix of green and purple is definitely striking.

Dude, are you kidding? That's exactly what I was hoping for. They look mega, thanks for sharing 'em.

Also, hot damn, that Apothecary.

On a related note, Ross and I have done a little more musing regarding warbands. The lore has the ratios of survivors as mostly Raven Guard, with Salamanders next, then relatively few Iron Hands, so Ross is thinking of making his warband roughly along those lines, with a ratio of 3:2:1 of Raven Guard, Salamanders, and Iron Hands.

Meanwhile, due to both general happiness with my purple (despite, in my heart of hearts, preferring pinker Emperor's Children) and a lack of test bitz to try colours, I'm finding myself increasingly happy with my Emperor's Children colour from the previous page. The purple, the kind of pale, practical bronze rather than royal gold; it has a weird appeal that's hooked me in pretty fast. I definitely want to include an Apothecary, what with the III Legion having so many of them and being so precious about their gene-seed, there's no way they'd completely abandon their extermination forces without Apothecaries.

I keep thinking of a Devastator Vet. Sergeant to go alongside him, either an Emperor's Children one - don't see many EC Devs in armies - or an Iron Warrior one, to mix in some more Legions.

Still not sure about the other Leader. Tempting to try for a Chaos All-Stars vibe, and go with some 3-man combo of: Palatine Blade / Gal Vorbak / Night Raptor / Reaver / Iron Havoc / Headhunter / Gravewarden / Rampager / etc. as the ones leading the charge. Tough to decide!

[Rangaman]

Thanks man! One of the things I am loving at the moment is the practical gold/bronze rather then the over the top royal gold, gives a much more realistic look to the EC.

 

On the theme of your warband, I've always enjoyed the idea of the post-Istvaan V warzone being littered with various traitor groups all hunting for different things. The World Eaters and Word Bearers were noted to have hunted for skulls and to build massive Warp sacrifice thingies, the Iron Warriors were left behind because they didn't live up to expectation and so on. My idea for an EC group was to have it as a geneseed recovery operation, they are scrapping the barrens clean of dead Astartes and hunting living members too...maybe even other traitors! Throw in some Sons of Horus as watchers from the Warmaster or special tracker units and you have a pretty cool warband.

 

What purple did you use for the test helmet by the way?

[Hesh Kadesh]

Emperor's Children Devastators are very fluffy; the Sunkillers are a Lascannon armed squad featured in the collected visions. Mark IV with Pingu 'nootnoot' helm with Mars Lascannon IIRC. With the lack of Look Out, Sor and previously aforementioned Paragon Leader and individual squads, spending 80pts on a pair of Lascannons to gib the inevitable Iron Hands Apothecary Leader (-1 Str shooting, 5+ FNP means you need S9 to bypass, access to 2+ Save) with Paragon to gain action points out the wazoo is rather a good deterrent.

[Ishagu]

Soooo... ADB can write well AND paint well.

 

I assume you live in the UK? Care for a battle? :-P

[A D-B]

Thanks man! One of the things I am loving at the moment is the practical gold/bronze rather then the over the top royal gold, gives a much more realistic look to the EC.

 

On the theme of your warband, I've always enjoyed the idea of the post-Istvaan V warzone being littered with various traitor groups all hunting for different things. The World Eaters and Word Bearers were noted to have hunted for skulls and to build massive Warp sacrifice thingies, the Iron Warriors were left behind because they didn't live up to expectation and so on. My idea for an EC group was to have it as a geneseed recovery operation, they are scrapping the barrens clean of dead Astartes and hunting living members too...maybe even other traitors! Throw in some Sons of Horus as watchers from the Warmaster or special tracker units and you have a pretty cool warband.

 

What purple did you use for the test helmet by the way?

 

Very good points. 

 

I toyed with the idea of a disgraced duellist left behind on the killing fields of Isstvan to mop up the survivors, assigned to the duty out of some failure or shame. Like, a Palatine Blade, f'rex, who has to regain his honour and standing through survivor blood. So I know what you mean, there's a lot of scope for Chaos All-Stars remaining behind along with the basic troops.

 

Something I'm keen on is the idea of several Mark III Emperor's Children in the warband, from the same squad. It mentions in Betrayal how Iron Armour was fairly rare in the III Legion, usually only in specialist formations or units. There's a cool angle in the possibility of a Tactical or Devastator Squad with a specialisation in boarding actions or close-quarters Zone Mortalis engagements, taking pride in their bulky, precious Mark III plate when they were overlooked during the Mark IV upgrades.

 

Maybe they were even granted the armour from by a Forge Lord from the Sons of Horus or Iron Hands, after a joint operation saw this particular squad rescue a SoH / IH detachment. The offer of war plate was considered fair recompense for salvaged honour.

 

Oh, and re: the purple. It's probably what you'd expect:

 

Chaos Black undercoat.

Naggaroth Night basecoat.

Xereus Purple all-over.

Druchii Violet all-over wash.

Xereus Purple, all but the joints and shadows.

Genestealer Purple edge highlight.

Thinned-down Xereus Purple to take the edge off the Genestealer Purple lines.

 

 

Emperor's Children Devastators are very fluffy; the Sunkillers are a Lascannon armed squad featured in the collected visions. Mark IV with Pingu 'nootnoot' helm with Mars Lascannon IIRC. With the lack of Look Out, Sor and previously aforementioned Paragon Leader and individual squads, spending 80pts on a pair of Lascannons to gib the inevitable Iron Hands Apothecary Leader (-1 Str shooting, 5+ FNP means you need S9 to bypass, access to 2+ Save) with Paragon to gain action points out the wazoo is rather a good deterrent.

 

Two crucial points, here. Firstly, I assume everyone knows but whatever: the Blood Angel upgrade helms look tasty to represent a lot of the old Collected Visions Emperor's Children artwork and I'm desperate to use them for that exact purpose. It'll detract from the sameyness of the standard Emperor's Children upgrade kit, too. And on the same note, those artworks are some of my fave in the whole book, contributing to my "I want Devastators..." desire.

 

Always liked Devastators. Even moreso in the old Heresy artwork.

 

Secondly, Jesus Christ, that's a brutal Leader to be coming up against. Bloody heck. I'd not even considered that.

 

 

Soooo... ADB can write well AND paint well.

 

I assume you live in the UK? Care for a battle? :-P

 

Yep, Northern Ireland. If you're serious, there's quite an open door policy on the Aaronorium. At least once I've got a ViV warband worth playing against. We have regular gaming weekends here; usually I run things or shamefully play with unpainted jazz. Trying to break that habit now.

 

I paint very neatly, which is a good way to fake painting well. I sure as hell can't wet blend or whatever else. Neatness covers a multitude of laziness, though. I'm content.

[A D-B]

Regarding the Mark III armour, I'm in the middle of trying something like this:

 

http://i.imgur.com/K0ea0Wj.jpg

 

The idea is to hearken back to the lore that Mark III is for specialised use (obviously, everyone knows that, but bear with me) and a heavily-plated version of Mark II. I want it to look almost like the squad had Mark II armour and bolted the additional Mark III plating onto it. So their original Crusade armour plating is painted black, and the newer reinforced Iron plates are painted in traditional Legion colours over the top of it.

 

I had a few spare torso bitz, so I'm sacrificing one of those three on trying the purple-over-black scheme out today. 

[Ishagu]

ADB, I am seriously tempted. I'm in the North West of England, so the trip isn't impossible. Can always make it across by ferry if I don't want to lug my models through an airport.

 

My 30k army will soon be painted (2k points by end of the month hopefully!), and I have a full set of painted scenery, themed objectives, mats and everything else.

I have 8k of fully painted 40k Ultramarines and 2k of Grey Knights, but I feel a 30k batrep would be more suitable for us. Could even get the whole thing recorded - the gaming community would love to see a battle involving an actual Black Library with some pretty armies... but I'm getting ahead of myself lol.

 

I've been meaning to start up a Youtube channel but between gym, girlfriend, social life and what not it's hard to find time and motivation. I'm quite photogenic so it's a waste :-P

In all seriousness it wouldn't be too difficult to get something organised for later in the year :-)

[Dantay VI]

I like the idea of the black mark 2 armour with the additional plates over the top.

 

The only thing, that I would be unsure of is when doing Sons of Horus, as a lot of folks do the trim on the armour black./ Have you considered doing the mark 2 plates with leadbelcher and then a nuln oil wash on top. The wash knocks out most of the shininess a and give it a matt, bare ceramite look. You could even drybrush a little leadbelcher/ironbreaker mix to give it a little highlight before the wash?

 

I know a few guys in the Space Wolves forum who use this method for doing their armour (creamywynch & Vykryl spring to mind).

 

Just a thought 

[Dosjetka]

*snip*

 

Meanwhile, due to both general happiness with my purple (despite, in my heart of hearts, preferring pinker Emperor's Children) and a lack of test bitz to try colours, [...blah blah blah...]

 

*snip*

So pink like the one on the base?

 

Hidden Content

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[Dagoth Ur]

Excellent idea for painting Mk III ADB! I do my own Mk III Astartes and Cataphractii the same way, be they Alphas, Night Lords or Blood Angels. If the black does't work out (for whatever reasons), try a very dark silver/gunmetal, that helped me once with an EC Consul I did for a friend :)

[Macloren]

Regarding the Mark III armour, I'm in the middle of trying something like this:

 

http://i.imgur.com/K0ea0Wj.jpg

 

The idea is to hearken back to the lore that Mark III is for specialised use (obviously, everyone knows that, but bear with me) and a heavily-plated version of Mark II. I want it to look almost like the squad had Mark II armour and bolted the additional Mark III plating onto it. So their original Crusade armour plating is painted black, and the newer reinforced Iron plates are painted in traditional Legion colours over the top of it.

 

I had a few spare torso bitz, so I'm sacrificing one of those three on trying the purple-over-black scheme out today.

This is a great idea. I'm a big fan if the idea that the legion colours we know now came about later, with the legions all setting out from Terra with plain armour. Looking forward to seeing how they turn out.

 

I must admit, I hadn't heard about this sort of campaign. I love a bit of small scale skirmish, we've had some awesome Necromunda campaigns at Warbastards HQ over the years. So I recon this'd be an easy sell to the guys.

[Marshal Rohr]

Regarding the Mark III armour, I'm in the middle of trying something like this:

 

http://i.imgur.com/K0ea0Wj.jpg

 

The idea is to hearken back to the lore that Mark III is for specialised use (obviously, everyone knows that, but bear with me) and a heavily-plated version of Mark II. I want it to look almost like the squad had Mark II armour and bolted the additional Mark III plating onto it. So their original Crusade armour plating is painted black, and the newer reinforced Iron plates are painted in traditional Legion colours over the top of it.

 

I had a few spare torso bitz, so I'm sacrificing one of those three on trying the purple-over-black scheme out today.

Tyrannicide and I do this for our mark 3, but use Hyaenidae's gunmetal mixture to tie the look of his IW together across armies. Back when we started we bandied about the idea of EC using ceramite with a bronze tint as the underlayer and a band of white laquer on the center ring layer of each leg and arm to differentiate the artificer styles of the legions. The colored strike plates and ultilitarian underlayer gives the models a gritty vibe.

 

If you do choose to pursue that style, after much trial and error, I suggest building the torso and legs separate from the head, arms, and pack, otherwise you will struggle to not accidentally get paint on the strike plates. Once you decide if you'll do it or not, I wrote a step by step guide for how to do it on fist models that you might be able to adapt for your legion. If you'd want it :D

[Dantay VI]

The washes could also help define, the legion IF a grey/gunmetal was used

 

Nuln oil, for the utilitarian, Sons of Horeus

Drakenhof, like the SoH, but with a little blue hint to it, to show additional care/elitism

Sepia for Death Guard, which could be washed across the whole model, to show that it is aged, bit maintained

Agrax for Iron Warriors, grimy and gritty.

 

The black will look cool though

[DimDim]

I understand the appealing look of the two colored mk3 system with the mk2 plate being a separate color, but if the marines did simply bolt mk3 on top of their previous mk2 suits wouldn't the under suit of mk2 still be the legions coloring? I cant imagine them stripping the paint off of a mk2 suit they used to use and then bolting the armor on. Unless the legions previous color scheme was a black, which im unsure of in the emperors childrens case. Just my 2 cents though, do what appeals to you!

[Marshal Rohr]

I understand the appealing look of the two colored mk3 system with the mk2 plate being a separate color, but if the marines did simply bolt mk3 on top of their previous mk2 suits wouldn't the under suit of mk2 still be the legions coloring? I cant imagine them stripping the paint off of a mk2 suit they used to use and then bolting the armor on. Unless the legions previous color scheme was a black, which im unsure of in the emperors childrens case. Just my 2 cents though, do what appeals to you!

Since mark 2 is layer armor, you don't replace each portion whole, just the broken ones. The spares will come from the factory in whatever color of ceramite the blended elements make and be painted once they arrive to their expeditionary fleets. So instead of a box of 'thigh' armor, you just get a box of rings.

[DimDim]

 

I understand the appealing look of the two colored mk3 system with the mk2 plate being a separate color, but if the marines did simply bolt mk3 on top of their previous mk2 suits wouldn't the under suit of mk2 still be the legions coloring? I cant imagine them stripping the paint off of a mk2 suit they used to use and then bolting the armor on. Unless the legions previous color scheme was a black, which im unsure of in the emperors childrens case. Just my 2 cents though, do what appeals to you!

Since mark 2 is layer armor, you don't replace each portion whole, just the broken ones. The spares will come from the factory in whatever color of ceramite the blended elements make and be painted once they arrive to their expeditionary fleets. So instead of a box of 'thigh' armor, you just get a box of rings.

 

 

Dont want to over saturate the thread with a personal convo, but I was under the impression by him saying he wanted the squad to look as if they already had been using their mk2, then upgraded the plate into mk3. That wouldnt remove the original color of the mk2 plate, as it was already issued in purple to the marines. And I know about the layering effect, rather interesting actually. If anything, the mk.3 plates would be "whatever color of ceramite" then would have to be painted, the mk2 already being purple from countless battles as emperors children suits.

[Marshal Rohr]

 

 

I understand the appealing look of the two colored mk3 system with the mk2 plate being a separate color, but if the marines did simply bolt mk3 on top of their previous mk2 suits wouldn't the under suit of mk2 still be the legions coloring? I cant imagine them stripping the paint off of a mk2 suit they used to use and then bolting the armor on. Unless the legions previous color scheme was a black, which im unsure of in the emperors childrens case. Just my 2 cents though, do what appeals to you!

 

Since mark 2 is layer armor, you don't replace each portion whole, just the broken ones. The spares will come from the factory in whatever color of ceramite the blended elements make and be painted once they arrive to their expeditionary fleets. So instead of a box of 'thigh' armor, you just get a box of rings.

 

Dont want to over saturate the thread with a personal convo, but I was under the impression by him saying he wanted the squad to look as if they already had been using their mk2, then upgraded the plate into mk3. That wouldnt remove the original color of the mk2 plate, as it was already issued in purple to the marines. And I know about the layering effect, rather interesting actually. If anything, the mk.3 plates would be "whatever color of ceramite" then would have to be painted, the mk2 already being purple from countless battles as emperors children suits.

Ok, I gotcha. We had built a 'supply chain' to justify our coloration using car parts as a model. That's where I was coming from. I see your point :)

[Kol Saresk]

Well, the paint would still flake off over time just due to wear and tear so arguably, if they only worried about reapplying paint to the outer, Mk III layers, then the inner Mk II layers would eventually just fade away.

[A D-B]

Excellent idea for painting Mk III ADB! I do my own Mk III Astartes and Cataphractii the same way, be they Alphas, Night Lords or Blood Angels. If the black does't work out (for whatever reasons), try a very dark silver/gunmetal, that helped me once with an EC Consul I did for a friend

Photos, damn you. Photos!

*snip*

Meanwhile, due to both general happiness with my purple (despite, in my heart of hearts, preferring pinker Emperor's Children) and a lack of test bitz to try colours, [...blah blah blah...]

*snip*

So pink like the one on the base?

Hidden Content

http://www.coolminiornot.com/pics/pics16/img535e452556561.jpg

Yep! Just like a lot of the Collected Visions artwork:

http://i.imgur.com/5s4ZW7Z.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/7hUUqhN.jpg

That said, I'm cool with the purple. It looks nice enough.

And white IIIs on the right shoulder guards are killer. They're must-haves.

I understand the appealing look of the two colored mk3 system with the mk2 plate being a separate color, but if the marines did simply bolt mk3 on top of their previous mk2 suits wouldn't the under suit of mk2 still be the legions coloring? I cant imagine them stripping the paint off of a mk2 suit they used to use and then bolting the armor on. Unless the legions previous color scheme was a black, which im unsure of in the emperors childrens case. Just my 2 cents though, do what appeals to you!

True! But they wouldn't just be bolting them on, nah. They're Emperor's Children, so repainting it and taking meticulous care to ensure it looks however they want wouldn't be a concern; they'd not see new plating and think "This has to remain factory-colour" and just slap it on. They'd lovingly repaint and repair the original plating, darkening it, then the Iron sections would be Legionified and prettified. They'd want to look like this, as an intentional dealio, because it'll (hopefully) look ace.

Either way, it's more a theme and visual than a literal deal. Mark III in general looks like Crusade armour with additional ornamentation and plating: in this case, representing their pride in their specialised role, or the deed that got them the new armour. I dig what it represents: a unit making a point about their history. "We're still what we were, but better."

tl;dr -- You're totally right, but also, nah.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

Very cool ideas circulating here, love the idea of the black / dark iron under-armour and then the purple / bronze layered plating - depending on whether you want to go with the gifted X^th / XVI^th Legion warplate or the upgraded MkII, you could take it a number of directions:

 

Considering MkIII is pretty much shunned by the Legion, perhaps when the Emperor's Children were restocked with MkIV plate, these specialists had to raid the stores of discarded MkII armour in order to maintain their suits, stripping off the insignia of other formations back to the blackened metal of bare ceramite (see: this) - with the outer layers of plating lovingly restored between engagements whilst the actual core of the armour would just be replaced from the vast stocks of now derelict MkII plate.

 

Alternatively, if the MkIII was gifted to them by an Iron Hands Forge Lord / Iron Father, perhaps they maintain the dark metal of the X^th Legion's warplate as a mark of respect / campaign honour, applying the colours of their Legion only to outer armour. This would be particularly cool considering they're hunting down surviving Iron hands, making it all the more bitter.

 

Either of these could tie in to why they were left on Isstvan V - the former due to their 'outmoded' niche within the Legion, the latter as a way of proving their loyalty / due to a degree of distrust from Legion high command (resulting from their association with the Iron Tenth). Again, both work well with resource aspect of ViV, with the scavenged armour of their foes used to maintain their own plate - a cool way of adding to this narrative as the campaign goes on would be to have new models with one or two sections of their outer MkIII plate in the colours of Ross's warband - e.g a MkIII Champion might have his sword arm clad in scavenged Salamander plate as a trophy from a particularly significant challenge. 

 

Awesome stuff dude, this right here is why so many of us find it difficult to stick to a single Legion