Emperors Children The Judgment on Kadeth - Dr. Ruminahui's Emperor's Children

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Been a while since I've worked on my EC, as I've been busy with other projects, but I did do a bit more last week in the form of a few cultists I assembled.

 

 

These guys have the bodies from the Necromunda outcasts gang box with heads and guns (for the leftmost 2) from the Genestealer Neophytes box.  Basically, they are to add to the unit of cultists I had previously built out of Neophytes - this allows me to field them with a grenades launcher and flamer, or with no heavy of special weapons at all.  While their suits are different from those of the neophytes, I figured they were close enough that they wouldn't stick out too much if painted in the same white and tan colour scheme.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Got myself a second box of genestealer neophytes and decided that I didn't like the neophyte heads on the outcasts bodies.  So, instead of dividing the 6 outcasts between my two squads, I would put them all in the second.

 

So, I built 3 new cultists for my existing squad - only the autogun and arms of the rightmost model are from the outcasts kit.

 

 

For the second squad, I decided to give them all shotguns as they have the same rules as autoguns under the current rules (they are all simply Cultist Firearms).  As well, I am giving them all heads from the outcasts kit.

 

Here are the 3 I built previously, with outcast heads.

 

 

And here are the other 3 with outcast bodies - the left one has arms and guns from that kit, for the others they are from the neophytes kit.

 

 

And the first 4 of the 7 built with neophytes bodies - the one with the standard will be the cultist champion, or simply another basic cultist when I combine the 2 squads.  Its built with the neophytes standard with the top replaced with one of the icons from the new chaos space marine legionaries box.

 

 

And the final 3.

 

 

As with my previous squad of cultists, I replaced all the genestealer icons with scratchbuilt chaos stars (here is my little tutorial for that).  For the first batch, I had misremembered the size and made them too big, so I ended up building another batch of 10 smaller stars.  Here they all are as well as the little triangles I cut out to make the second batch.

 

Edited April 3, 2023 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Tallarn Commander]

Wonderful Cultists! I really need to try your trick with the Chaos stars.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks!  They are fiddly, but I feel they are more than worth to help visually identify the unit as being on the side of chaos - which I think is of particular importance when using models from a different faction.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Painted up the 3 to add to my existing squad.

 

 

And here they in their squad - though, one of the other models was AWOL and missed the photoshoot.

 

 

It was beautiful weather, so I went for a rare outdoor shoot - though their bases obviously aren't meant for this particular terrain. 

 

I'm currently working on the second squad - almost 2 done, 11 more to go. 

Edited June 1, 2023 by Dr_Ruminahui

[TrawlingCleaner]

Great looking cultists Dr!

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks, TC!

 

Finished up my second squad of 13 (10 firearms plus the 3 special weapons, so I can swap them in and out when they get point costs again) - this is also what I did with my other GSC unit.

 

Here are some picture - all 13.

 

The squad leader:

 

The 3 special weapons:

 

Then various groups of 3 firearmed cultists:

 

And finally, both groups around the base of my largest non-terrain model.  They are differentiated by their guns and their shoulder stripes - the older ones have autoguns and orange stripes, the new ones red stripes and shotguns.

 

If I combine them into one unit, I'll probably use the newer cultist champion as the squad leader... though I don't know if that matters on the 10e datacard... generally it doesn't other than for weapon choices.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Tossing my hat in the ring for Call to Arms 2023 with a rather large vow (for me anyway):

 

- Lucius

- Lord with hammer and plasma

- Master of possession

- 2x squads of 6 possessed (or 1 or 10 this edition, with 2 models on the bench)

- And a small piece of terrain

 

[TrawlingCleaner]

Nice! I'm looking forward to seeing Lucius, such a sick conversion!

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks!  I hope my paint scheme will do him justice - my faces can be kind of hit or miss.  I'm thinking of doing a quarters colour scheme (like I did for my master of executions and dark apostle) using light pink with my regular purple, which a white cloak with gold embelishments. 

 

I've entered him and the leftmost squad of possessed (who I kitbashed the 2 greater possessed from shadowspear with 3 slanngors) in for Master of the Forge - we'll see how they do, as I'm sure there will be stiff competition.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Painted the first 3 of my possessed - really happy with them.  Plus 3 in one week is really quick for me - though it helped that last weekend was a long weekend due to Canada day.  No conversions on these guys other than for the backback swap for the guy on the left.

 

Edited July 8, 2023 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Slowed down a bit this week and only did 2 more - the aspiring champion (left) and another dude (right).  The other dude is by far the most detailed of the batch, and feels like it took 50% longer than the others did.

 

 

Anyway, really happy with them - particularly the faces and the other dudes tentacles.  Only the icon/standard bearer left out of these 6.

 

Edited July 17, 2023 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Finished the last guy in that squad - I'll do a group photo when they are all based.  Really happy with him - I always struggle with banners, and I think this one turned out pretty well.

 

[madlibrarian]

9 hours ago, Dr_Ruminahui said:

Finished the last guy in that squad - I'll do a group photo when they are all based.  Really happy with him - I always struggle with banners, and I think this one turned out pretty well.

 

Oh man, that looks great! Love your stuff. You should totally give the banner folds a slight edge highlight - reckon that’ll make where it’s gone back on itself really pop!

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks.  I'll have to go back and look at that - highlighting is a good idea, but also a bit of a challenge as the colour is achieved through a wash which can be a bit of a challenge to replicate by actually mixing the paints.

 

Anyway, I now have them based and should have pics for them on the weekend.  I am now working on my Lucius conversion/kitbash and am about 1/2 done, I think.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I've now based the 6 possesseds.  These are 4 from the new kit (the 5th will form part of my 2nd squad of possesseds), plus the 2 "greater" possessed from the Spearhead box set (later the chaos patrol), one of whom has had an arm swap to hold a banner.

 

 

Here are individual photos

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Finally finished Lucius - took me 2 weeks, which is longer than I had hoped.  Part of the issue was figuring out how to paint him to hide some less than stellar greenstuff work - and in that I feel I was successful.  Face is good, but could be better - that's certainly an area I think I need to learn more skills to do better.  Overall, though, I'm pretty happy with him, and it is my first time using a wet palet to mix the colour I used for the trim on the pink (basically, just that pink + white).  Also my first time using Uthan Grey to shade the white, which I also think went fairly well.

 

And here he is with my 3 squads of noise marines - the first with just a few representative, then the other 2 with all of them (well, except the models I took out to drop the squads from the now illegal 12 to their legal 10).

 

[TrawlingCleaner]

The Possesed look ace and Lucius is absolutely rad! The gems are really lovely too!

Such a great looking army shot!

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks, TC!  I'm pretty happy with the Calls to Arms painted models so far.

 

Long weekend here, which let me get a bunch more painting (plus, get frustrated with my video game and putting it aside also helped ), so finished the 2nd of my Call to Arms vowed character - a thunderhammer chaos lord with a head swap and a slight repose.  Not my favourite model to paint, as there is a tendancy for the sides/backs of pieces to have details that are not as crisp or defined as the fronts (its kind of like the sides of things the the Orktarius terain, though not as pronounced).  Still, I'm happy with the result and think he looks even better in person.

 

Edited August 18, 2023 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Going to get my first game of 10e in tomorrow against orks - don't know what my friend's orks will look like as he has a lot of models to choose from.

 

Here's my list:  1490 Marines

·         [  75] Chaos lord with plasma pistol & thunder hammer [Mark of Khorne]

·         [  55] 10x Cultist mob with firearms, heavy stubber, grenade launcher and flamer [Mark of Tzeench]

·         [  55] 10x Cultist mob with firearms, heavy stubber, grenade launcher and flamer [Mark of Tzeench]

·         [  85] 5x Noise marines with sonic blasters, icon, blastmaster, champion with sonic blaster, power fist & doom siren [Mark of Slannesh]

·         [  85] 5x Noise marines with sonic blasters, icon, blastmaster, champion with sonic blaster, power fist & doom siren [Mark of Slannesh]

·         [200] 10x Legionaires with bolt pistols & chain swords, icon, heavy melee weapon and plasma pistol, champion with plasma pistol & heavy melee weapon [Mark of Khorne]

·         [155] Hellbrute with twin lascannon, fist & combi-bolter [Mark of Nurgle]

·         [  80] Master of Executions [Mark of Khorne]

·         [145] 5x Possessed with icon [Mark of Slannesh]

·         [160] 2x Obliterators [Mark of Tzeench]

·         [140] Venomcrawler [Mark of Slannesh]

·         [255] Landraider with havoc launcher & combi-weapon (the ride for the legionaires, Lord and MoE) [Mark of Nurgle]

 

Originally had this list with Lucius instead of the Lord and 10x melee noise marines instead of the legionaires, then realized the MoE couldn't attach to the noise marines and had to redo the list. Couldn't see anything I wanted to replace the MoE with, I instead "upgraded" the melee noise marines to legionaire, but to get the points to do that I had to "downgrade" Lucius to the Lord.  Frankly, I think the Lord is better than Lucius, but I had wanted to try out my new model.

 

Here's what the models look like together:

 

 

The proteus I'm fielding as a standard land raider with upgrades (a havoc and combiweapon) that I don't have on the model - I'll need to talk to my opponent about that.  I only have 9 models painted for the legionaires unit, so a WIP model from a second such unit I'm working on has been put in to give me a heavy melee weapon in that squad (when they were nosie marines, I had a blastmaster instead, also from another unit that can no longer have 2 such in 1 squad).

 

I'll let you know how it goes.

 

Edited August 19, 2023 by Dr_Ruminahui
Finally decided on what marks to give the units

[Tallarn Commander]

I hope you have a great game! I've never been a big fan of Named characters so I'm happy to see Lucius replaced by a vanilla Lord. 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I'm not a huge fan either, but when he was actually decent in 9e I decided to convert my own model, which I just finished painting.  Like usual, I get models table ready at least 1 edition after they are actually good. 

 

Part of the reason I wanted to get him in this game is that I figured if I didn't play him now, I wouldn't be playing him at all until (at least) our codex came out, as rules wise I think the Lord's ability to generate a free stratagem every turn is superior to Lucius's resurrection ability.

Edited August 19, 2023 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thought I would post a report of my battle.   As a note - this was an extremely friendly game, where we would talk about what we thought was the best move strategically, go back and do stuff we missed, and where the rules were unclear, agree upon how to do them (usually whatever made the most sense to the 2 of us).

 

This is my friend/opponent's list:

 

1500 points Orks - unit and model upgrades were largely chosen by what he had rather than what is good this edition

• 5x Meganobs  with klaws and combiweapons + Mega armored Big Mech with forcefield, kustom megablasta and power klaw
• 3x Dethkoptas with rockets
• 12x Lootas and 3 spanners with rockets
• 10x Gretchin and herder
• 20x Boyz with 2x rockets and nob with klaw + warboss with combiweapon and klaw + mech with forcefield, slugga and choppa 
• 20x Boyz with 2x rockets and nob with klaw + warboss with combiweapon and klaw + nob with waagh banner and combi-shoota
• 20x Boyz with 2x rockets and nob with klaw + warboss with combiweapon and big choppa + wierd boy

We played the mission out of the rules PDF, which has 4 objectives, with very deep deployment zone as they are on the short table edges.  I chose the deployment zone closest to my models, he got first turn.

 

First picture I took is after his first movement phase, so I'll try to describe the battlefield based on it.

 

 

The 4 objectives are ontop of the tower in the back, in the ruin on middle right, on the tower on the front right (which is barely in the photo) and behind the crane on the front left.

 

His units were deployed as follows:  The gretchin are behind the tower at the back holding that objective, on the middle right are his meganob + mech with the dethcoptas behind them (currently holding the red objective), in the middle is the boys squad with the mech, under the left ruin are his boyz with banner, to their left are the lootas and at the very front of the photo are his boyz with wierd boy.

 

My units are as follows: On my deployment line from the right to left: 5x noise marines, venomcrawler, 5x possessed, land raider, hellbrute, 10x cultists behind the crane holding an objective and 5x noise marines.  On the tower on the right barely in the photo are my other 10x cultists holding that objective, and the squad at the bottom right just off the map is in the landraider.

 

On his Turn 1, the mega armored squad and his 2 boyz squads in the middle of the map advanced while the 3rd boys squad teleported to my back left corner.  His deathcoptas shot but didn't kill anything, his lootas wiped out my cultists on the left (turns out they can reroll all hit rolls vs targets on an objective), and then the teleporting boyz charged and wiped out my left noise marines.

 

Here's the board after my Turn 1 movement:

 

 

I had intended to move up the center with my raider and hellbrute, but instead they swung left to deal with the boyz squad that was now holding that objective, my melee legionaires with character support disembarking to so as to charge (which they can thanks to the raider's assault ramps.  My surviving cultist squad avanced off of their objective (which they continued to hold due to their special rule), using most of their movement getting down from the tower (the intend was to get to the left objective eventually and allow the stuff there to go elsewhere.  On the right, my venomcrawler, possessed and remaining noise marine squad move up on the center right objective.

 

In shooting, my raider's and hellbrute's lascannons go into the dethcoptas as the meganobs had a 4++ save due to their big mech and I wanted to deny my opponent one of his most mobile units.  They die, and my raider's havoc launcer kills some gretchin hiding in the back.  My venomcrawler and noise marines kill a few meganobs, while the pistols and the small arms on the raider and hellbrute kill some of the ork squad.  I just realised as I'm typing up this report that the raider also has a twin heavy bolter - forgot about it completely and didn't fire it all game.

 

In the charge phase, the legionaires got in on the left and the venomcrawler and noise marines got in on the right while the possessed failed their charge (largely because the venomcrawler got in the way).  Noise marines put a couple of wounds on the meganobs with the champion's fist, then the venomcrawler finished them off (netting it +1 attack future attacks with its weapons), leaving the big mech alone on 3 wounds who then killed 2 noise marines.  On the left, the melee legionaires wiped out the boyz and my characters probably should have wiped out the 2 characters as well, but by the time it came to roll their attacks they weren't in coherency with anything and not being able to find rules on this situation we just had them not attack (which was probably wrong, but oh well), leaving his wierd boy alive on 2 wounds and his boss killing a legionaire.

 

On his Turn 2 he scores 1 VP, and the after his movement the map looks as follows:

 

He calls the Waagh this turn, and his big mech heals himself back up to full.  His gretchin continue to huddle behind the tower, his lootas stay still as they are BS 6+ if they move, his two boyz squads move forward.  His wierdboy teleports out of the melee with the intent to remove my control over the right objective, only to find my cultists were too close for him to do that so he hides behind the tower (for once the extra 5" inch move getting down from terrain actually helped me - if I had moved that extra 5" he could have) while his big choppa warboss and big mech stay in their respective combats.

 

His lootas shoot at my land raider, but I use dark obscuration to make it untargetable (by them) and with no other targets (the hellbrute is hiden from them) they twiddle their orky thumbs. as does the leftmost boyz squad.  The right boyz squad shoots their rockets into my cultists, killing 3 of them and their pistols strip a wound from a possessed.  Wierdboy's psychic shooting power is really kind of crappy, and doesn't do anything.

 

In assault, his right boyz squad charges my possessed and wipe them out, consolidating back to get 1 model in range of the right middle objective.  My MoE executes his big choppa warboss (netting me a VP) and my noise marines chip his big mech back down to 1 wound with no losses in return.  My venomcrawler killed itself out of combat last turn, so doesn't take part

 

I score 2 VP at the beginning of my Turn 2 but don't seem to have a photo.  My cultists turn around and move to get LOS with the wierd boy, killing it with their flamer.  My venomcrawler scoots over to sit on the right objective so that the orks don't score it next turn and shoots into that squad.  It does not charge, however, as when the orks piled in they would likely get enough close enough to the objective to take it back.  My landraider and hellbrute stay on the objective and shoot their lascannons at the lootas - the hellbrute fails its Dark Pact roll and takes 3 wounds.

 

My melee legionaires move up and shoot and assault the left boyz squad, wiping them all out except for 1 and my MOE through precision reducing the banner bearer to 1 wound.  In return, his war boss was a complete beast (warbosses almost double their melee attacks when waaghing), and with the help of the remaining boy and banner bearer they wiped out the legionaires, leaving my Lord and MoE now as 2 seperate units.  On the other side of the map, his Big Mech wiped out my noise marines - here's a photo of it and my venomcrawler edging out his boyz squad to control that objective.

 

 

I had planned to deepstrike my obliterators in this turn to wipe out his gretchin, but forgot.

 

On his Turn 3, his gretchen score its objective we are now tied at 2 VP each, thanks to my venomcrawler shenagans.  Here is the map after his movement:

 

 

Gretchin and lootas stay still, his right boyz squad and big mech move to deal with the venomcrawler, and his left boyz squad (well, 1 boy and 2 characters) stay locked in melee.  His banner bearer can call a second waagh for just his unit (so it, his left warboss and the 1 remaining boy they are both attached to), so it does.

 

Shooting, the boyz and mech strip 5 wounds off the venomcrawler, while I use stratagem shenanigans to prevent the lootas from shooting - they targetted the hellbrute, I use dark obscuration then they retarget the raider and I use it again thanks to my Lord's free stratagem ability.

 

My friend mistakenly charges his big mech in against the venomcrawler first, and I kill it in overwatch, netting the venomcrawler its second +1 attack of the game.  His boyz then flatten it in melee, so it never gets the chance to use it.

 

In the other combat, I don't remember who attacked who in what order but at the end of it only my Lord and his left warboss are left standing, each on 4 wounds.

 

On my Turn 3, I score 2 VP, now winning 4-2.  Again, I forgot to take a picture - but with so few units left on the board, I probably don't need one.  I remember to deepstrike my obliterators, bringing them in on his table edge 9" away from his gretchin behind the tower and within range of his right boyz unit on the other objective.  My remaining cultists, not having any realistic ability to through his boyz off their objective and nowhere useful they could get to by the end of the game, they move back into the ruins where they started the game to at least benefit from cover.

 

My cultists shoot at his boyz and do as much as could be expected (AKA very little).  Raider and hellbrute shoot lascannons into his lootas, killing a few more.  Oblits split their fire, with 1 firing at his one remaining gretchin and its minder, the other at the boyz on the objective.  For the one shooting at the gretchin, I kill... 1 gretchin.  My oblits then fail their charge, even with a CP reroll.  In the one the only combat, the warboss activates first and tears my Lord appart.

 

On his Turn 4, his herder fails its battleshock test, so he deosn't ties up the game and it is instead 4-3.  No picture this turn either.  His remaining boyz squd inches out of the ruins to break LOS to my obliterators.  Other than his warboss moving to charge my hellbrute, there is no movement.  Unable to do dark obscuration shenanigans with my Lord being dead, he strips 8 wounds off my landraider with his lootas (ouch!) and his boys kill off some of my cultists with their rockets.  His warboss charges my hellbrute, but with his (second) waagh expired it is much less potent and only does 2 wounds, reducing it to 3.  My hellbrute then strikes back and kills it.

 

After that, not much happens.  Surprise him why I use my oblits ability to shoot indirect at his boyz squad, but don't really do much other than to drop it below 50% strength.  They do charge his herder, easily killing it and taking that objective.  A few more cultists get killed, the squad ending the game with 2 models and battleshocked, but that has no effect on their autoscoring ability.  In return, I manage to end the game having killed all but one of the lootas.

 

Anyway, here's a final photo of the board at the end of the game:

 

 

Final thoughts:

 

1) Dark pacts are good and are definitely worth planning around and giving the right units the right marks - which I think I did.  I used them for pretty much every unit every time I could (though may have forgotten once or twice), except for the last few turns with my hellbrute when a failed roll could potentially have killed it.  Failed only 4 tests - 2 on the hellbrute (I think I mistakenly failed to note when that occured, and instead attributed the lost wounds to a combat in my above narrative), 1 on the raider, and 1 on the cultists.

 

2)  Cultists are great, and it doesn't matter if they die - my right most cultists pretty much won the game for me, and it didn't matter if they had died the second turn.  Now, against an army with a lot of mobility or deepstrike that may have gone differently, but I think 1 or 2 throw away units are pretty much a must.

 

3)  Remember to check weapon profile changes - they may not work like you remember.  During the game, I found out that neither the venomcrawler nor the blastmaster (the anti-infantry option) have assault anymore - in giving the venomcrawler the mark of slannesh, my intent had been to advance and then charge with the stratagem, which would have denied me my shooting.  Luckily I didn't need to advance, so it was merely a surprise rather than an unpleasant surprise.

 

4)  Even with the simplification, there is a lot to remember - other than the obvious (and not really excusable) forgetting my raider's heavy bolter, I forgot to use my Lord's once per game combat buff, and I pretty much forgot to reroll anything.  I'[m definitely going to have to make a bunch of tokens and such to serve as reminders of what limited use abilities I have and haven't used... and hopefully will remember the rest as I get more games under my belt.

 

Anyway, hope you all found this interesting.

Edited August 21, 2023 by Dr_Ruminahui

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I have also gotten some modelling time in - finishing painting the first of my fiendblood possessed kitbashes.  Pretty happy with it.

 

 

Don't normally show the backs of my models, but it gives neat picture of how the marine and goat bits go together.

 

 

As well, I've done some model building (AKA more kitbashing) but as its for renegade guard, I won't post them here until they are painted.  You can see my built but unfinished models here.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Finished my next 2 goat possessed - no the best picture (light wasn't the best), but hopefully I'll get a better one when they are based.

 

 

Hadn't intended for their poses to be so similar but I guess that's what worked best with the pieces I decided to throw together for each of them.