The Nihilus Crusade - Vindicator Heresy

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I haven't done a lot of late. I must be frank in that after my last tabling at the hands of Khârn and his merry band of men (and a Knight) I've been a bit less than enthused. The FAQ didn't help either.

 

But I have been re-reading some of my old White Dwarfs and found the following little tit-bit of lore for you all, this was found at the foot of the poster released to celebrate the mark 2 Predator's release way back when:

 

 

This inspired me to finally go back to my first Predator, purchased not long after its release and bring it up to date with my newer tanks. I decided on a slightly different colour scheme for the Predator Squadron and am fairly pleased with it. This is the first of the three and the other two are coming along nicely, if slowly.

 

[Sword Brother Adelard]

After what seems like much longer than it perhaps was, my Predator Squadron is complete! That's one new build, a touch up of my original and a complete restoration of a wreck. 

 

 

 

Also included in the vehicle pool is my Vindicator, sporting a converted Laser Destroyer cannon. After failing to work out the point of the Demolisher cannon version I thought about purchasing one of thrst from FW, but I just couldn't justify it, so I converted one. Their rules are much more appealing and the extra range will be a real bonus. I even worked out how to magnetise it so I can swap it back to a regular vindicator if Templates ever come back!

 

Convoy!

[Honda]

Wow, those turned out really nice and I especially like what  you did to your vindicator.

 

Does that vindicator have 40K equivalent stats?

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Great-looking tanks. Did you kitbash a Vindicator Laser Destroyer with a three-barrel lascannon?

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Thanks!

 

For the conversion purchased a new cannon from a bits seller, I then used a piece of plasticard to slot into the weapon cowl and found three narrow lascannons in my FLGS bits box. I then just glued them to the card. It's ridiculously simple.

 

And the stats! These rock!

 

The Laser Volley Cannon has two fire modes,

 

Overcharge: Heavy 2, range 36", S10, AP-5, D6.

However! If you roll a one to hit, you suffer 3 Mortal Wounds!

 

Volley fire: Heavy 2, range 36" S9 AP-3 D3.

 

But, if you don't move, you can use Volley fire TWICE!

 

It's a bit more expensive than a vindicator at 183 points, but I'm quite keen to give it a go.

[Brother Christopher]

Indeed, great looking tanks. You went for a very crisp colour scheme which manages to break the blacks wonderfully. The Vindicator conversion is perfectly executed. It's probably the way to make a Vindicator worthwhile with the current rules. It's totally worth the additional points and it's totally not worth the price of FW's resin.

[Honda]

You know what would  look really good in this thread?

 

That's right, knights. ;)

[Sword Brother Adelard]

There's actually a lot to tell after this weekend in this thread, some of it is indeed Knight related...

[Sword Brother Adelard]

So, lots of progress on many things this weekend. All in preparation for my first tournament, 1500 points at my FLGS.

 

First, new models. I finished my recent rescue purchase rhino chassis, and bought some upgrade parts to play it as a Razorback. I also finally finished these fine fellows:

 

 

I say finally because I built them in January! I then half painted them months ago and they have languished on my desk since then, so much so I had to wash them when I picked them up again to clean off the dust! But now they are done. Next are their 5 brethren. Four armed with Lightning Claws to make some more balanced units. Four thunder hammer VVs is pricey!

 

So to the tournament I went, my first one and I did feel a bit lost without my Emperor's Champion, as Named Characters are banned. (This winds me up actually.)

 

Here is a quick summary of the list I took, an odd list but one which i thought was quite fluffy in a way, (It's also WYSIWIG, so don't criticise too harshly, these are the models I have!)

 

HQ:

- Marshal with Power Axe, Storm Bolter and Crusader's helm.

- Lieutenant with Plasma Pistol and Thunderhammer.

- Jump Chaplain with Bolt Pistol and Crozius.

 

Elites:

6 x Vanguard Vets with jump packs and melta bombs, 4 veterans with Thunderhammer and Storm Shield, Sergeant with Power sword and Grav Pistol, one veteran with Bolt Pistol and Chainsword.

 

Troops:

- 6 man Crusader Squad: 3 initiates with Boltgun, one initiate with Plasma Gun, 1 Initiate with Heavy Bolter, Sword Brother with Chainsword and Boltgun.

- 6 man Crusader Squad: 3 initiates with Boltgun, one initiate with Plasma Gun, 1 Initiate with Heavy Bolter, Sword Brother with Chainsword and Boltgun.

- 9 man Crusader Squad: 7 Initiates with Bolt Pistol and Chainsword, 1 Initiate with Power Axe, Sword Brother with Combi-Flamer and Power Sword.

 

Dedicated Transports:

- Razorback with twin Assault Cannons, Storm Bolter and Hunter Killer Missile

- Razorback with twin Assault Cannons, Storm Bolter and Hunter Killer Missile

- Rhino with Storm Bolter and Hunter Killer Missile.

 

Heavy Support:

 

Predator Destructor with Twin Lascannon and Hunter Killer Missile

Vindicator Laser Destroyer with Storm Bolter.

 

This came to exactly 1500 points, it is essentially mechanised with every unit being mounted in a transport or a jump pack, bar the Marshal who's job was to provide re-rolls to the Predator and Vindicator at the back.

 

We played 3 games all told, and I'm pleased to say I didn't completely embarrass myself, coming 32nd out of 36. I wasn't expecting to be much higher, so I was pleased with not coming last. (It was notable as the day went on and the players started to be matched with players of similar standing that there were a lot of various Astartes armies at the lower end.)

 

So, a quick run through of the games:

 

Game 1: Knights.

 

My opponent for game 1 was a great guy, clearly a semi-pro tournament player and brought a list which was just plain cheeky: Three Knights. (Gallant, Warden and Castellan IIRC) and three Eversor Assassins. That was it, 6 models total. He tabled me by turn 5.

To be fair, I deployed terribly, and paid for it. His Gallant reached my lines in turn 1 and went through my vindicator and predator, (taking a fair few wounds on the way though!) I brought the Vanguard down in Turn 2 with the Chaplain, but the Vanguard failed the charge while the Chaplain made it. Alone he battled the Gallant down now to 5 wounds, and he took off four, i spent 3 CP on fighting again, but he just couldn't take down the last wound. By this time, the other unharmed knights and the Eversors went through what was left like a knife through butter.

 

Game 2: Death Guard.

There isn't a lot to say about this game really, it was a hard fought punch up between a mostly marine Death Guard army with a few spawn where I didn't make any real mistakes or tactical errors, but luck was firmly on my opponent's side from the moment he seized first turn. He then promptly did eleven wounds to my Vindicator on turn one with two lascannons and didn't put a foot wrong after that, we played the Gambit mission and the cards he pulled were almost designed for the stage of the battle at every turn. The final score was 29 to 8, with me only having actually completed two objectives.

 

Game 3: Deathwatch.

When I saw my opponent's army I really thought I might have a good shot at this one, we had both lost our opening two games and had similarly sized armies. He had a captain, a librarian and a veteran squad of 5 in a Blackstar, another kill team of 5 or 6 in a Rhino, 5 bikers, 5 terminators and a Venerable Dreadnought. The map was covered with ruined buildings and a massive 12inch by 12inch by 12 inch cube shed thing in the centre of the board, which effectively split the board into two battle grounds as you had to go round it.

With that in mind, I placed the Predator on one side, the Vindicator on the other and the Marshal in between them 9 inches from each to cover them with the Crusader's Helm. I then left him exposed, forgetting about the Corvus. Which on his turn one promptly dropped his Captain, Librarian and Veterans on top of the Marshal and killed him.

 

Then on turn two my Vanguard Veterans arrived, and oh boy was it worth it! They took out the Captain and Librarian off the drop, (In this battle the 6th veteran, the one with the chainsword I just took to make up points really came into his own, I deliberately left him a few inches behind the squad to keep it within the Chaplain's aura range when he failed the charge and rinsed the hit re-rolls.) In my opponent's next turn the Vanguard finished off the veteran squad, then headed towards the kill team deploying from the Rhino, polishing off the kill team on the charge before securing a contested objective on the consolidation into their Rhino. They then eventually finished off the Rhino. (the Sword Brother's Grav Pistol blowing it up in three of their faces!)  Before, in the last turn the last remaining hammer vet and the Chaplain finished off the Corvus! What a performance! the rest of the battle was also very destructive and by the end of Battle Round 5 I just had the Rhino, 1 Razorback, the Chaplain, one hammer Veteran and 2 initates left to my opponent's 3 terminators. The points were close too, I lost 14 points to 15!

 

All in all a lot of fun, and although my quest for an actual win in a game of 40k continues, I feel like it is closer now.  I feel like my unit choices were mostly solid, but I would tweak the list in a few places. The Vanguard Veterans were a lot of fun and the Vindicator Laser Destroyer is a really viable distraction Carnifex. It scares the crap out of people while also having the toughness and wounds to take the damage it attracts. It can also lay down the dakka!

 

The other thing I learnt is that I want a Knight Gallant.

[Honda]

Thank you brother for sharing your experiences, some days you eat the bear and some days the bear eats you. It does seem like you got stronger with your list as you played with it more.

 

I liked your  choice of units, though I always like to take my TH/SS termies to anything equal to or greater than 100 Power Level (roughly 1000 pts). I also think it makes sense to package smaller squads in rhinos/razorbacks to give them a little more endurance, but I'm not  sure if you played them that way vs. rhinos/RBs as fire support for the attached squads.

 

As beatsticks go, Vanguard Vets are sort of a fun unit (I like mine) that tradeoff resilience for some mobility, but it almost seems like you have to put those  SS in there to keep them hanging around. I liked your load  out.

 

Did you find that taking HB initiates was effective in these games? Did you ever find  yourself wishing they had lascannons instead?

 

Again, thank you for sharing.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I didn't actually. I did miss having a missile launcher against the Blackstar as the Flakk Missile Strategem would have been useful. But te fire support squads did well overall, I used them and their transports to move around and take objectives, so having three shots on a moving unit was ideal. In the last game they and their Razorback took out a 6 man primaris kill team in a turn. They then finished off the Ven dread. (Having access to Hellfire shells is useful too.) The Razorbacks also managed to get me a line breaker point in two games. Edited July 16, 2018 by Brother Adelard

[Sword Brother Adelard]

So, I promised someone I'd do a quick run-through on how I converted my Marshal on Bike. (Here:)

 

 

The first problem of course is that regular space marines are a LOT smaller than Custodes jet bikers, my original plan to simply swap a set of biker legs in just did not work. For a start, the saddle was too wide to even get the legs on either side, let alone have the feet touch the end. So, I needed to rethink things.

 

The issue below may be easier using a primaris marine, the extra height would solve some of the issues, Perhaps the Inceptor legs could work? Anywho, on with the tutorial.

 

First things first, what you will need:

- A custodes jetbike.

- The front torso from a regular space marien kit fo your choice.

- The rear torso from the techmarine gunner on the tank sprue.

- Space Marine Biker Legs

- An outstretched space marine arm (As if holding a pistol at a firing height.)

 

Part 1: The Legs.

 

This is the hardest part, the legs of a regular space marine are just way too short to reach from the jetbike saddle to the footpegs. I then thought of a cheat, if your space marine managed to blag a dawneagle, perhaps he managed to blag the cool leather flight boots that come with it...

- So, I used the feet from the Custodes kit, cut off at the top of the boots. positioning them as they would normally.

- Take the Biker legs and cut the off below the knee, then using a saw, cut the legs in half at the groin from the bottom up, so that they can split wide enough to sit astride the saddle.

- You can then build the missing shins out of Green Stuff,

- The next stage is to build up the lower torso using Green Stuff to create the domed ball and socket joint which the torso components sit on on other space marine kits. (The biker legs lack this normally I find.)

 

Part 2: The Torso and arms

- You need to really have the leg section finished and set before you build up the torso.

- I used the rear torso from the techmarine gunner because it doesn't require a backpack, you don't have the room for one on the saddle, even then, in order to make the torso sit upright it takes a bit of filing down.

- Also key in your positioning of the torso is arm length, so it all has to be done at the same time. (A real issue I had with painting this model was just how much construction had to be done and left in place!)

- I had two plans for the arms, the first plan was to again re-use the Custodes arms entirely as I did with the feet, however, I forgot about this plan when I built the arm with the lance...

- As you can see from this WIP pic, the Marshal has one Custodes arm and one marine arm, forcing me to rebuild them both.

 

 

- However, before you cut off the whole Custodes arm, you need to keep the hand. You could swap the hand entirely if you fancied the effort, but I found it was far easier to keep the Custodes' hand cut off at the wrist, as the fingers are sculpted into the handlebars.

- Next, use the outstretched marine pistol arm in order fill in the space between the shoulder and the hand! I then used liquid green stuff to fill in the gaps.

- The lance arm was a bit easier, again, I cut off the Custodes arm at the wrist, in order to keep the gauntlet, and save some effort, and replaced it with a suitable marine arm. I also cut off the power line and re-positioned it.

 

 

Finally, I re-used the shield and billowing leg cloths, in my case replacing the shields with spares from the Templar upgrade kit. This had the added bonus of hiding some of the dodgier work on the legs.

 

Edited August 4, 2018 by Brother Adelard

[Jackalwolf]

That is fantastic thanks!!

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Great job on the jetbike!

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I've been much more rapid with painting of late, and I have almost finished the first tranche of my Kill Team. I have plans for a full command roster of Neophytes, Intercessors and Initiates. But so far, I have focussed on the Scouts. This was primarily because Kill Team has given me the opportunity to finally paint some of the metal scouts I've never had reason to paint before. (i.e. all the ones who aren't armed with combat knives!)

 

Here's my Neophyte kill team so far:

 

 

I really dislike the plastic scouts, and back along, primarily searching for metal bolter scouts, i purchased a job-lot of about 50 varied sculpts for a decent price. I decided to mix things up for this kill team, and even managed to track down the rather are metal missile launcher scout. I'm pretty sure he was one of the last metal scout sculpts ever produced and wasn't in production for anywhere near as long as the others. (He's also of far inferior quality to be honest but I do have another one for sale on eBay if anyone's interested...)

Before anyone cries heresy at my fielding a pure scout squad, there is fluff precedent. In Circle of Honour, by Guy Haley a scout squad made up of 4 neophytes and a mentoring initiate deploys as infiltrating snipers. I decided to take the idea and expand upon it. This squad is led by a sword brother in carapace armour, who is a slightly converted Sergeant Telion. (I simply removed all of the Ultramarine insignia and performed a weapon swap, as luck would have it the single random plastic sniper rifle i acquired fits perfectly in the stalker bolt rifle's place with absolutely no work, bargain!)

The rest of the squad are Neophytes nearing the end of their pupillage as Templars, now no longer directly supervised by their initiate mentors they have been handed over to Sword Brother Siegfried and are on their feet in the roles they will later take on in the Chapter, having already shown aptitude in different forms of combat. For instance, Brothers Konrad and Talibaldushave shown particular aptitude with heavy weapons and are petitioning to join the Longbow Brethren. Others will join more melee focussed Crusader Squads, others ranged archer squads.

 

You may notice i painted the sniper differently; as much as I can ordinarily dispel belief when it comes to camouflage and the Astartes, It just didn't make sense for a dedicated sniper to have light khaki trousers and white pauldrons!

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I've had a recent productive period, finally finishing a number of projects which have been kicking around for ages. (There are still many more, I haven't purchased anything new in months, save for the Conquest magazine collection which is creating a rapidly mounting pile of plastic in the corner of the room...)

 

I have finally finished off my 'Scouts.' I now have 4 with Bolters, 4 with sniper rifles and one of each of the heavy weapons. it kind of pains me fluff wise to have sniper scouts, but i at least consoled myself with the SB Scout 'sergeant'.

 

More recently I have finished my Company Veterans with SS and PS. These were a real stretch of my bits box, hence the rather odd poses, it was definitely a case of making do with what old marine parts I had kicking about and I ran out of power swords, hence the one with the axe, and another firing a pistol with the ever useful sheathed power sword. (I know that's not rule legal, but he's holding his pistol sideways, so looks it cool!)

 

Here they are:

 

 

I really wanted to focus on the individuality of Sword Brethren with this squad, so I tried to make them each as different as I could. Starting with the shield colours:

 

 

(BTW, the FW shields, while gorgeous, are a bit of a PITA to paint, at least I only have ten more to get through... )

 

I also completed something a bit different. My Ancient. I picked up this guy in a job lot of Templar characters, there was a Draco, an old EC, Helbrecht and loads of bits, some of which were actually the FW Templar HQ kit. I must admit that Ancients were never high on my priority list, but the advantage of having the Company veterans get back up and fight again was a bit too tempting.

 

However, I wanted to do something different with him, I looked around for inspiration and noticed that in the back of the infamous BT 3rd ed cover, there is a Templar Ancient, but he's red, and carries a very simple banner, armed with this knowledge I was overtaken by zeal and a love to do things differently:

 

 

I did try and avoid freehanding the banner as best I could, spending a lot of time trying to create some custom waterslide transfers, but after that proved to be a rather frustrating experience i realised I had no choice but to give it my best shot. I can accept I'm never going to be applying for Eavy Metal on the strength of this effort, but I'm pleased with the results.

 

Edited February 6, 2019 by Brother Adelard

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Excellent work, Brother Adelard.

[Medjugorje]

excelent work

[Marshal Vespasian]

These look great. I am loving all the Veteran builds coming up on here

[SydonianDragoon404]

Those look amazing brother!

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Thanks guys, I'm really pleased with them, and with how (relatively) quickly I turned them round. I did the Ancient in about five days!

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Today I went to play my first game in ages. (My last defeat disheartened me a little.)

 

I planned to have a rematch against a nice chap with GSC I played some months back, his previous list was backed by Guard tanks, so I decided to have two lists in my back pocket, the first one was a purely foot slogging list of just infantry and Dreads to limit what the tanks could achieve, (and have the bodies to soak up what the heavier strains can do in close combat.)

 

There was also a chance that we may be called in to play the Apocalypse game which was being talked about, so I planned another list with 7 tanks, so I could ensure whatever madness ensued. (Knowing one player has a penchant for super heavies.)

 

In the end we did end up playing in the apocalypse match and it was ridiculously fun.

 

The premise was utterly mad, three tables made a 12' X 6' board. Our deployment zone was the first 4 feet, and we had to get one unit to within 9 inches of the far end. I turned up with my tank list, a dark angels player arrived with a Ravenwing list and a Knight player turned up with two lancers, a questoris and 4 armigers. However, our two Guard team mates, who were to provide long range support and deep strike denial didn't turn up. Therefore to make things 'fair' the games master said that to make up for the 4,000 point deficit, we could recycle any units that died and deep strike anything so we didn't have to go back to the beginning. (My personal highlight was when I lost two Predators in a turn And was able to redeploy them closer to the enemy within both Killshot range of my third, and within chapter Marshall re-roll aura!)

 

My race to the finish was ultimately a bit of a non-event, a dastardly line of GSC 'blips' kept us all hemmed into our deployment zone on turn one, then on the enemy turn one 30 boyz jumped into my face and tied up most of my tank line.

 

But that was when it happened. My new Marshal with jump pack, the Teeth of Terra and Sword Master popped out of his Rhino, with Grimaldus beside him, and blended them. 6s exploded like fireworks and he went through them like a knife through butter. It was glorious.

Then, on the next turn the GSC turned up behind me and tied up everything again. So I did the Templar thing, sacked off the race and turned on them, and killed them with pretty minimal losses to be fair, (the recycling helped a lot, but most of the heavy lifting was done without the recycled units playing much of a part.) Two turns later and everything the GSC player had dropped behind me lay dead. The Imperial team had got nowhere near the far end of the table and we were all knackered. So we called it a day. I left buoyed by a finally convincing performance from my boys, which was a nice change of pace.

Edited March 24, 2019 by Brother Adelard

[Sword Brother Adelard]

It's been some months since my last substantive update and I have been trying to clear the decks a bit. I recently finished off a further 10 intercessors after I reached the requisite numbers for a full squad from the Conquest Magazine. I then decided to finish off a project I've had on the back burner for a long time: My Stormraven. Some of you may have seen it elsewhere, but I'll fill in some more detail here. A while ago it looked like Chapterhouse were still going, so I decided to take a punt on them and ordered a StormRaven extension kit. I reasoned that if it arrived, I would build it. If it didn't I would use PayPal for a refund. In the end, after a long and fruitless wait, I went for the refund option. However, I then saw someone selling one online, I ordered it and bought the SR kit from my FLGS. Unfortunately, it never arrived either. So I now had a box for a kit I don't honestly like. The SR wasn't around when I stopped playing and I think it is a silly looking craft. Desperate, I created a post asking for help obtaining an alternative extenaion kit and fortunately I was directed to Captain Magpie's thread in the tutorials forum. Long story short, here she is:

 

My first effort at scratch building, and it shows, but I am pleased with the overall effect. It actually looks vaguely airworthy!

 

The colour scheme was inspired by an Armies on Parade Templar army by a chap called Peter King (https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/armiesonparade.com/2016/09/30/black-templars-by-peter-king/amp/)

 

I thought the white quite striking on the vehicles and thought it would be a nice contrast to my other tanks 

 

So, there she is. Off to the cupboard until they become playable. (I did laugh that the Hurricane Bolter need came in as I was highlighting her!)

 

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Your Stormraven is well done. I'm surprised you omitted the gun turret, though. Was it for aesthetic reasons?

[Brother Christopher]

Cool colour scheme, really top-notch stuff there. The overall effect you mentioned is great, at least from what I can see in the photo. Maybe some defects might show upon closer inspection, but that's not something I'd care for, really.

 

A shame that the rules created to support the models in the actual game are so random and unstable. One day something's great, while the other... not so much. That is why we should take pride in the models we have.