Legio Hellion: The Brazen Furies & Knights of House Paramour

[RipOffProductions]

Green and purple? My eyes!

 

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/816/127/a90.gif

Ironically that .gif is also green and purple in coloration, unless that's intended as part of the joke?

[Achinadav]

I'm not even sure what the thing in the gif is and don't think I want to know!

[RipOffProductions]

I'm not even sure what the thing in the gif is and don't think I want to know!

SpongeBob "MY EYES!" meme.

[Achinadav]

Ahhh that would explain, my meme exposure is rather limited.

 

Today I played my 2nd ever game of Adeptus Titanicus and it was awesome! I snapped a few dodgy pics so I thought I'd work my way through them and offer a slightly meandering version of a battle report. I didn't want to slow us down by taking notes, so I'm going from memory and will no doubt muddle things up. And some of the photos are awful! Please bear with me.

 

I've just ordered myself a second pair of Cerastus knights, because of how they worked out in the game. I've also just pre-ordered Baertrum Arturos III from Forgeworld. If you haven't seen this wonderful Necromunda bounty hunter take a look. He'd make a lovely inquisitor as is. However, he's destined to become Legio Hellion's executor fetial (I just read Titanicus). I was going to try and resist, but it turns out I do need to build some of the human members of the Legio to stand and cheerlead during future titan walks. On to the game.

 

We decided to keep thing fairly simple by not using maniple or Legio rules, or the personal trait thingy. I worked my points out on Battlescribe and it was about 900. We just stuck to having a reaver, 2 'hounds and a minimum knight banner each. I used cerastus knights and my opponent used questoris knights, he used old metal ones and they have real charm. Battlegroup Bellerophon assemble:

I almost got everything paint as I wanted. I would have liked Malice & Spite to be a bit more colourful. I haven't properly named my reaver yet, I'm toying with Rightfeous Indignation (anyone else remember Capt. Bucky O'Hare?). The black background didn't work so good, I think I'll go back to white next time. My opponent decided that his battlegro, from Legio Unpainted White Metal, were clearly loyalists, because mine are scummy traitors armed with experimental sonic weapons.

 

Here's a couple of shots of deployment:

Our battle was to be fought over a small archaeology output formed around ancient Gyptian monuments. Legio Hellion had decided, for some traitorous reason, that the Mechanicus team had to die and Legio Unpainted White Metal were there to stop them, or something.

 

Malice & Spite were craftily placed behind the genetorium (I really don't know what it is) to oppose, and probably die, the two enemy 'hounds (who were armed with TLD/VMB and PBG/VMB). I deployed Rapturous Eternity in the middle, probably to join the knight banner on my right flank, although able to move left if required. Raucous Euphoria and my reaver went on the other flank, opposed by an enemy reaver and a questoris banner behind the IT support tower at the top of the piccie. My reaver is armed with a volcano cannon, laser blaster and apocalypse missile launcher.

 

In the first turn I issued First Fire order to my reaver; he could draw a bead on one of the enemy 'hounds and I had plans...I also issued Full Stride my cerastus knights. In the movement phase the enemy reaver & knight banner moved into the shadow of the IT tower, whilst my reaver used his apocalypse launcher to pop the 'hounds shields, woo hoo, it worked! It then I discovered that I should have been more forceful with Rapturous Eternity's placement. She was in no titan's land, couldn't stay where she was, couldn't engage any targets, couldn't get to cover. She ended up doing a rather half hearted wobble that put here behind the central pyramid.

 

The knights were far more aggressive. Between their regular movement and Full Stride orders they were able to rush forward and get into the shelter of the Mechanicus team's hab block:

 

More tomorrow morning, when I will hopefully remember what happened in the rest of turn 1...

 

Edit after a good night's sleep: So combat in turn 1. On my right Maiice & Spite were both out of line-of-sight of the enemy 'hounds and vice versa. The enemy reaver was tucked behind the IT tower, and so the only one of my titans that could see him was Rapturous Eternity. Unfortunately, she proved to be just out of range with her mega bolter, her one weapon that had line-of-sight:

I misremembered her positioning at this point, she wasn't quite at the pyramid. I think the enemy reaver shot back and dropped her shields, maybe. The last remaining shot was from Raucous Eternity,  who could just see one of the knight banner peaking round the IT tower with his laser destructor. He managed to do a single hull point of damage.

Edited February 24, 2019 by Achinadav

[Achinadav]

Turn 2 began with me issuing Charge orders to my cerastus knights and no other orders.

 

In movement my knights launched a glorious charge against the enemy 'hound with TLD/VBM. Targeting its head with their xenos energy blades, they were able to inflict some damage, but not bring it down. Feeling valiant, the 'hound promptly back pedalled to be more than 2" away. Heart of a lion The second 'hound moved up in support.

 

 

On my other flank we were both quite cautious. Rapturous Eternity moved up to the central pyramid, in order to be in range of the enemy reaver, have line-of-sight with both weapons, and be able to claim a bit of cover. The enemy reaver also shuffled forwards to target my brave little 'hound.

Meanwhile, Raucous Euphoria and my reaver both advanced to target the enemy questoris knights, who had launched a sally from behind the IT tower.

 

In damage control the enemy 'hound with dropped shields reignited them and I think Rapturous Eternity might have got a void back. Not much damage yet and we were both being cautious with our reactors and not pushing them.

 

Combat was a mixed bag. On my right flank, one of my knights was downed by the combined fire power of both enemy 'hounds. Cerastus knights are tough! That extra structure point and bonus to saves makes them very resilient. On my left flank, Raucous Euphoria and my reaver unleashed their full fury on the enemy banner.

Raucous Euphoria downed one of them. But even with its volcano cannon, my reaver still left one standing,  albeit badly damaged. In the centre Rapturous Eternity definitely came off worse in her duel with the enemy reaver. By the end of combat she'd lost her shields and started to take damage. Wasn't looking good  I think she'd stripped her target's shields, but just scratched its paintwork (hah!) with no damage inflicted.

[Achinadav]

Turn 3 is when I began to make some important errors of judgement. Actually, that's not true, I made some at deployment. At this point I started to get my activations in the wrong order, concentration really is important.

 

To begin with, my opponent tried to issue Emergency Repair orders to his reaver, which failed, and I issued Charge orders to Malice, who was looking a little lonely on my right. I believe there may have been shouting of "Death or Glory!"

 

In movement, the enemy reaver backed up, to be out of range of Rapturous Eternity's mega bolter. Or maybe not, because I think it had been disable in the last turn.

Malice charged the damaged enemy 'hound, once again targetting its head. He managed to inflict some critical damage in the form of MIU feedback.

Whilst on my left the remaining questoris knight ran forwards to engage Raucous Euphoria.

In response, my 'hound turned and backed up. My reaver then stomped over the sphinx, hoping to make enough of an advance that it could engage its enemy counterpart. My plan here was to start the shooting with Raucous Euphoria, so that the nasty knight couldn't target the reaver's rear...

 

When we got to Damage Control, I think the enemy reaver was able to reignite, or repair, its voids. Rapturous Eternity repaired her mega bolter, assuming it was damaged last turn, and reignite her voids. I think the damaged enemy 'hound might have got a positive result on something too.

 

...My plan for the Combat phase promptly went out the window when I opened the Combat round with Rapturous Eternity, in case I didn't get a chance to later. That pesky knight then immediately attacked my reaver's butt! Not happy. Fortunately, no real damage. My next activation was Malice, I think, to try and get lucky with that 'hound's head. Luck was not on my knight's side. In the ensuing avalanche of mega bolter shells, turbo laser destructor beams and sun-hot plasma blast gun death, Malice brought it and went to the great Cerastus Knight Junkyard. On the brightside, a pair of Cerastus knights had held up a pair of 'hounds for three whole turns (and if we hadn't forgotten certain things, it might have been a different story, more on that later).

 

Raucous Euphoria punished the final questoris knight in a valiant display of extreme bullying and turned it into a pile of slag. My reaver had no targets, so I think it was a big brave boy and tried a blind barrage against something with no real outcome.

[Achinadav]

After a quick chat about Doctor Who, how TV series that run for too long can end badly, and whether series 4 or 5 of Dexter was the best (clearly its 4), we finished off the game with our final turn. Things were hanging in the balance here. We'd both lost our knights and had a damaged 'hound, so if one of us could finish off a titan, there would be a clear winner.

 

Orders-wise I believe my opponent successfully issued Emergency Repairs on his reaver and got its shields back up. I went or First Fire on Rapturous Eternity; she was in a bad way, but there wasn't much of an option left.

 

I missed taking any photos of the movement phase. From memory, the enemy reaver shuffled to get all three weapons line-of-sight to Rapturous Eternity and the undamaged enemy 'hound manoeuvred to get line-of-sight to her too. I pushed Raucous Euphoria's reactor for enough movement to try and line up a shot on this 'hound, whilst the second enemy 'hound positioned itself squarely behind the hab block and away from anything dangerous.

 

Shooting on my part was largely ineffective. In desperation I used my reaver's missile launcher against the 'hound lined up on Rapturous Eternity's flank and Raucous Euphoria blasted away with his laser destructor (mega bolter out of range). The enemy reaver dropped any last shields on Rapturous Eternity (assuming there was any?) and probably did some structure damage. Then that pesky 'hound unleashed its plasma blast gun...In desperation I insisted on checking it was in range...

...it was. One salvo later and Rapturous Eternity was junk

Plasma blastguns are warhound killers! Four potential hits and they both hit the same location this time, ouch.

 

Here's a final shot of the field of battle:

I was thoroughly out-manouevred in the final turn and got my activations mixed up again (the order I'm described things throughout is all over the place). It was a well deserved Engine Kill at the end there. Catching a damaged warhound in the flank, with a reaver to its fore, nicely exploited my poor positioning and concentrated firepower whilst preventing retaliation.

 

There were rules along the way that we either forgot or discussed. We decided to use the orientation of my titan's bodies to set their facing, because their heads are all looking to one side. That meant we could determine side and rear arcs easily. For charge orders we settled on knights could charge in any direction and didn't have to go in a completely straight line, but did have to take the most direct route. One of the key things I forgot, in worrying about how knights charge, was the extra attacks, even though we settled on them being per banner, rather than per model at the beginning. I'd have probably got 2-3 extras (maybe 4, I was't careful in measuring because they were so close) on my charges and so we rolled them at the end. They would have completely trashed that damaged enemy warhound. That could have made quite a difference on my right flank. Its plausible that the plasma blastgun hound would't have been able to deal with both cerastus knights on its own.

 

Neither of us were aggressive enough. Right from deployment onwards we both felt that we should have been playing on my left like I did on my right. I placed Rapturous Eternity badly at deployment. She was exposed to the enemy reaver right from the beginning and didn't have anywhere to go. I should have either pushed her reactor early on to get to cover, probably to follow the knights. Or I should have put her on the left and gone reaver hunting with Raucous Euphoria.

 

On my left I shouldn't have messed about with my reaver and just closed the distance to the enemy. We might have got a proper reaver duel that way. In general we were both too cautious in this way. I could have pushed reactors to get extra mobility on my 'hounds a couple of times and it would have been OK, they'd have been able to vent plasma.

 

Most of my unforced errors were because I messed up on activation order. I like the alternative activations because of the tactical options it allows. But sometimes I was too reactive to what my opponent had just done, instead of sticking to the plan. If I had stuck to my plan, which was to support the cerastus knight with Rapturous Eternity, then I think it would have been decisive on my right flank and my left flank wouldn't have been any different. I reacted to the enemy reaver's position and movement in the first turn, though, and that caused the attack on the right to falter.

 

The amount of terrain felt right. There were paths across the board with cover, but none of them were completely perfect. The knights could close range, if they were careful, although they still had to take risks. Overall, a really fun game! Hoping to have our next encounter soon-ish. Next time we might had more of the advanced rules, and maybe use missions instead of the simple kill each other we used this time.

[Mendi Warrior]

Seems like you had a cool game, thanks for sharing.

[Achinadav]

Thanks to their excellent performance, I couldn't resist ordering another two Cerastus lancers before I finished painting the last lot. Malice & Spite have been joined by Fury & Gloom:

Hoping for good enough weather to be able to prime, etc, this week. Was really windy today, so non-optimal despite some daylight remaining when I finished assembly, and we're due some cold & rain this week. Fingers crossed for a break in the weather...

[Achinadav]

After some trials and tribulations, I have decided to call my first knight banner done. Malice, Spite, Gloom & Fury are ready for war:

 

I love the models, but boy are they fiddly. The detail is so fine, and my painting so rusty, that I really struggled. I ended up painting the engine exhausts green, because I couldn't be bothered trying to keep them silver. Having decided I wanted a simple colour scheme, they also went through a stage of looking boring as hell!

 

The skeleton and trim were the same shade and all that green! So I came up with a solution that I'm mostly happy with. I washed the skeletons with Agrax Earthshade, which gives it a greasy aged feel. I highlighted the heads (I haven't with the rest because some examples I've seen with edge highlights just don't look quite right & I'm wary of my brush control), which makes them a better focal points, dotted the eyes with Blood for the Blood God and added more bronze to everybody's shield and spear. I also used 4 glazes of the really old purple ink on the spear baldes. It gives them a nice glossy finish with a metallic hint underneath. Then I used Nilhilakh Oxide to try and add some glow to the shields. I should probably have put some white down on the edges first, because it hasn't come out quite as I wanted.

 

Overall I'm happy. They're neat and tie in well with Legio Hellion. The bronze head on Malice makes him stand out. I think its quite hard to actually pose these guys. The only one I'm totally OK with is Malice. I might come back and add some transfers. I completely forgot about transfers until I decided I was done! I can be so thick. I think the odd bit of check would look quite nice, we'll see. For the painting challenge, I'm done.

 

More photos in spoilers before, should you be inclined to click.

 

Malice

 

Spite

 

Fury

 

Gloom

 

[Rabenga]

Very nice cerastus, and a great battle report.

[Chaeron]

The Knights look really good - worth the effort!

[Gamma310]

Very nice colour you have chosen for your Knights. I love this bright Green, is this the old Scorpion Green?

[Gillyfish]

Nice battle report. I htink you should have named one of your knights Envy, given that you have Spite and Malice already. But that could just be my choice of books talking! 

[Mendi Warrior]

They are gorgeous. I really love the conversions you made, they are very efficient and characterful. 

[Achinadav]

The Knights look really good - worth the effort!

 Thanks! The detail on these little guys is lovely to look at. But it really challenges my brush control and I’m content with where I’ve got them too.

 

Very nice colour you have chosen for your Knights. I love this bright Green, is this the old Scorpion Green?

 It’s almost acidic, isn’t it? In this case it’s Moot Green. I should probably get a new pot, mine is quite thick and needs a lot of thinning. Although that works well for doing the stripes on titan armour plates by hand because I pretty much do 4 very heavy dry brushes.

 

Nice battle report. I htink you should have named one of your knights Envy, given that you have Spite and Malice already. But that could just be my choice of books talking! ^_^

Those names would have been perfect! I had to google them to work out which books you were referencing. My brain won’t let me rename them now, so I’ll just use those ones for the next two. I quite fancy having two full banners with other types of cerastes knight mixed in.

 

 

They are gorgeous. I really love the conversions you made, they are very efficient and characterful.

 

Thanks! My next lot of tiny titans will also be a bit spikier as Legio Hellion descends into some proper chaos-inspired madness.

[Mendi Warrior]

I'm thinking of going down that road too, with Chaos slowly showing more of its colours, looking forward to seeing yours.

[schoon]

My very first Eldar army (many, many years ago) was green and purple, and even though it's a striking combination, it does work, especially for Chaos.

 

Nicely done on your models. The bases are nice too.

[Achinadav]

I'm thinking of going down that road too, with Chaos slowly showing more of its colours, looking forward to seeing yours.

I’d really like to see some more corrupted titans on the boards. I’ve seen some on Facebook, but they’re generally more elaborate than I’m currently planning. If I ever get to picking up the inevitable warlord, I think I’ll go all in!

 

My very first Eldar army (many, many years ago) was green and purple, and even though it's a striking combination, it does work, especially for Chaos.

 

Nicely done on your models. The bases are nice too.

Thanks! I’m very pleased with how the titans have come out. I’d like to make the more chaos-y ones gaudier, but we’ll see.

 

The bases are dead simple. I basically splodge Agrellan Earth/Badlands, Stirland Mud & Armageddon Dune over them. Then coat in Game Color Desert Yellow and roughly drybrush with whatever lighter colours come to hand. A liberal, and deliberately uneven, wash of Agra’s Earthshade finishs them off. I think I’d like to use to weather the feet & lower legs of my titans to blend them in, but haven’t had the courage to do so yet.

[RipOffProductions]

My very first Eldar army (many, many years ago) was green and purple, and even though it's a striking combination, it does work, especially for Chaos.

 

Nicely done on your models. The bases are nice too.

thinking about it a bit more, I just remembered that Green and Purple are certainly colors fitting for a God Machine:

 

http://img07.deviantart.net/8fea/i/2008/061/9/4/evangelion_unit_01_by_cmark0.png

 

[Achinadav]

My very first Eldar army (many, many years ago) was green and purple, and even though it's a striking combination, it does work, especially for Chaos.

 

Nicely done on your models. The bases are nice too.

thinking about it a bit more, I just remembered that Green and Purple are certainly colors fitting for a God Machine:

 

I had to look that up, I really should spend some time working on my nerd credentials.

 

Anyway, oops:

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Turns out that Doom of Molech and the Knight Stratagem cards weren't the only things that arrived on Saturday Legio Hellion & House Paramour are set to grow. I'd even decided no more knights until we'd found out about the other Cerastus weapons and Questoris upgrades. That kind of went out the window. And I managed to find the little conversion bits I needed on eBay for my chaosier 'hounds, so lo they turned up to. I was a bit surprised when the postie turned up with 4 packages for me because I'd forgotten about the cards!

 

The Questoris knights are as lovely as the Cerastus, so I made a start on assembly already. Had fun with some left over daemonette bits:

 

Really happy with him so far, although I am considering teasing off the shoulder pad that I've used as an elbow pad and putting it on the other way up as I originally intended. The other two are just disembodied bodies and legs. Gonna have to take a wee break from tiny titans & their kneehight knight companions; got a 2nd edition 40K game in a couple of weeks and would really like my Word Bearers to have some more paint on them (see link in sig if you're interested).

Edited April 30, 2019 by Achinadav

[Achinadav]

Had an extra day off to make a really long weekend out of the May Day Bank Holiday on Monday. Weather a bit rainy for our planned outing into the city to track down the dinky doors (awesome mini art installation in Cambridge, google it!), so instead I painted some scenery:

 

The chaos marine for scale is one of my Word Bearer sorcerers for my 2nd ed army. I've got 8 of these in total. They're the hard plastic corner protectors that came with a piece of furniture. Sprayed them silver, stippled on my dried up yellow, stippled brown and black along the bottom and a bit of rust on the bare metal bands. Then liberaly washed with Agrax Earthshade. Bit rough. The plastic is so smooth that there's no real texture and I wish I'd roughed them up with some really coarse sand paper first. The smoothness also means there's quite a few tidelines from the wash. I should probably have been a bit more conservative and done a couple of coats. Whatever, they're cover and more interesting than plain black.

[Mendi Warrior]

Excellent use of the demonettes left overs, I like what you did. And the terrain is cool too. Always a good idea to keep an eye for stuff with odd forms and/or textures.

[Chaeron]

Love the terrain - they look like mini-hive hab blocks!

[Achinadav]

Its been months since I did much with AT, largely due to a Word Bearer-shaped distraction and decorating two rooms of the house. But the last couple of weeks have been a bonanza! After finishing off assembling 2 cerastus, 3 questoris and an acastus, I discovered the Chatteris Warlords gaming club. This is a friendly bunch of local gamers with 3 other Titanicus enthusiasts. So I've managed to get two games played in consecutive weeks. This has acted as the motivation I need to crack on with painting.

 

Last week's game was a 2000 points affair with me teaming up with another new princeps. We took 1000 points each and our opponent took the full 2000. On our side of the table, we eschewed using Legio & maniple rules. Our opponent played Legio Astorum with a Ferrox maniple. That led to a bunch of stratagem points. I'll be damned if I can remember what we used them on! (They came from the Traitor stratagem deck, though) Here's a blurry photo of deployment:

 

The loyalist lapdogs of Legio Astorum have got a lovely paintjob, and their bases matched the Martian mat really well. Apparently that was something of a happy accident! They had a warlord, couple of reavers and a pair of 'hounds in a squadron. Plus some 2 acastus and some other knights. We had a warlord, a reaver, 4 'hounds, an acastus and a couple of questoris banners.

 

An initial repositioning, with me and my partner being more aggressive than was good for us, led to a big barney in the middle of the table:

 

An enemy acastus made my undercoated questoris banner evaporate! So we terminated it with extreme prejudice (tough little blighters, took a lot)  My own acastus dealt the finishing shot, but ended up shaken by the enemy warlord's quake cannon and wandered around doing nothing for the rest of the game.

 

A series of silly decisions, and being outmaneouvred badly, led to a sprawling combat and our warlord, with his power fist, going up against an enemy reaver with power fist & chain fist. It did not end well. And the resulting explosion left a big hole in the centre:

 

It was a fun game. But honestly, too many points for one evening and too many titans on the table for comfort. I think the lack of experience on our side of the table was the biggest contributor to what was a thorough drubbing. One side using maniple rules certainly contributed, because the Ferrox maniple really helped up close. Forgetting stratagems didn't help! And talking of stratagems, I think one got over used. It was the Legio Astorum one that gives a chance to keep your shields up after the game. I thought it was wargear brought per titan at the time, or a Legio ability. After the game it seemed pretty clear that it should have been played/used once in the game, not every time void shields blew out.

 

The big takeaway was that acastus knights aren't as scary as I thought. They're order dependent for accuracy, but having that order makes them less manoeuvrable. With hindsight, I think we had too little terrain on the table, and more terrain would also ruin their sight lines. It might have helped that my reaver made a ludicrous number of 4+ void saves in the last turn!

Edited August 28, 2019 by Achinadav