Mandragola’s Legio Astorum (and Mortis and stuff)

[Burni]

Yep was a great weekend, really enjoyed it. My mate and I got 26 on the quiz which we were happy with!

 

I didn’t enter mine in either painting comp as they are without decals and therefore unfinished. Was another nice Fire Wasps in there.

 

Sod’s law dictated that my first game on Sunday was vs the 8 Acastus! Was my only loss of the weekend. Was actually a really fun game though and Matt was very nice!

 

Great write ups above. That last mission was super hard on the traitors though (although the one before was tricky for the loyalists). Glad we showed those traitors who are the gods of the 500 worlds though!

[Fajita Fan]

I’m at work on mobile but I can’t wait to read this later on my pc. I really wish I could get out to a tourney like this at WW.

[Sherrypie]

Sounds like a great event, though the amount of terrain per table looked rather bleak. Grats on having fun and on the good result :)

 

About that Warlord of yours throwing a tantrum, rolling a movement push happens immediately on activation so before you get to turn (whereas turning pushing is at any point), just to point out. Could've mattered.

[Mandragola]

Hmm interesting. That doesn’t seem right as I hadn’t started to move by that point, just activated, but it might be. If I’d known I wasn’t going anywhere then I wouldn’t have turned, and would have just punched out the Warlord - which I could have done immediately with my 0” charge. Honestly though if that’s the only thing we got wrong this weekend it would have been a miracle.

 

One thing I’m pleased about is remembering my Ardex defensor guns. I very rarely have in the past. They did some useful damage over the weekend so I’ll be on that in future.

 

I was quite pleased with my double quake warlord. I ended up using it in four games and it consistently did good things without ever dying. I think I should probably have a few games with bellicosas just to check I’m not horribly underrating them. S9 is actually quite a lot but it won’t blow a knight banner off the field like a Bellicosa will, and that would certainly have come in handy. But actually the ability to reliably slow lots of stuff, and ding titans around the place with concussive hits, was good. And the fact it never really needs to use reactor heat for anything but shields makes it an extremely tough Titan. Perhaps weirdly, I’d consider putting something like laser blasters on its roof, so it could do a bit of damage with the top gun. Turbo lasers could be a good option.

 

The Macro Gatling, sunfury and missile guy was really solid. In game two he got an engine kill three turns in a row with the Gatling blaster. It’s just so reliable when firing at a beaten up location. You’ll get some hits and they’ll almost always do something, thanks to the ordnance rule. Maybe gatlings on the roof would be marginally better as Astorum, since I’m generally rushing a bit, but it’s not essential and there are probably better things to do with the points.

 

The melee warlord is hilarious, and actually very dangerous as Astorum. I only fielded it in my 2k list but it actually got four engine kills and took out a the Seneschal’s knight banner too. It’s a bit reliant on getting charges off though, which is a problem, but overall it’s loads of fun and by no means bad.

 

I wasn’t totally happy with my reavers. I’m coming to the conclusion that reavers are for two things: melee and meltas. My volcano cannon and turbo laser guy accomplished nothing, laser blaster and chainfist was decent but I only used it once. I think that would be good in a Ferrox maniple - just not as good as a melta, or possibly even a second combat weapon of some kind. My poor double Gatling guy spent most of his games confronting only knights, though he did great work when he occasionally found a warhound to shoot at. But 5 extra points for some kind of combat weapon would increase his threat enormously.

 

Lucius Praetorian is an odd one. It probably doesn’t make sense to run her as I did, with melta and fist. She wants to be somewhere a bit safer so she actually gets to repair a bit. Maybe melta and Gatling or laser blaster would be the way to go, with something like missiles on top.

 

And of course Warhounds are great. I do love those plasma blastguns. These guys are very harsh on an Astorum Regia maniple where they can be protected by a warlord’s shields. Awesome things.

 

I’m curious to try out the new Warbringers. I think my issues with Reaver arms will still apply - but at the same time I’m a really big fan of quake cannons. I do think these are going to be an interesting addition to my Legio.

[Fajita Fan]

You sound like a fun challenge to play against. If I could ever take off for the NOVA open it'd be great to get a bunch of games in like that. 

[Interrogator Stobz]

PICS!!!

 

Please :D

[schoon]

Thanks for the report and critique!

 

Sounds like some excellent games, and would also love to see pictures if you have any.

[Mandragola]

Ok first batch of pics, covering the first two games.

 

Drew’s 1k battlegroup for game 1

 

 

Early on. I try to outflank Drew’s Reaver and hound with my Warhound. This is unsuccessful as I get a double reactor and lose my warhound’s shields, which are never repaired, and I’m still in arc of the Reaver anyway! Luckily its melta misses. My Warhound actually does pretty well, killing the Reaver and surviving the game.

 

 

How that game finished. It’s worse than it looks – his Warhound is shut down (and therefore counts as dead) but my Warlord has been silenced by my Reaver’s reactor detonation.

 

Curse those titan hunter infantry!

 

 

Game 2 and Matt’s Fureans are coming at me in a wedge.

 

 

I throw in quake shells and Lucius Praetorian, who punches out a Reaver (which explodes) and then get chopped down in return – and explode. Much damage is done to Matt’s Battlegroup from melta cannon ammo going bang inside the radius of shields.

 

 

Matt’s Warlord makes it furthest, but is blocked by my own artillery Warlord. An inept melee follows.

 

 

Matt’s Warlord is eventually brought down by the remainder of my battlegroup outflanking and pouring death into it. My Warhound gets the killing blow.

 

[Fajita Fan]

I love those paint jobs, and those Valkyrie launchers look awesome.

[Mandragola]

Yeah I agree on the Valkyrie pods. I’ve actually got a couple still on a sprue. Astorum don’t need them but maybe I could paint them up for Mortis or even Sinister.

 

Anyway on to game 3 vs Steve with more Fureans. A Venator and Forrex maniple is a nice army at 1500 points.

 

This mission was very hard on the traitors. I got to secretly pick three traitor engines (one of which had to be their Seniores) to kill. Very difficult for the traitors when they don’t even know what they’re trying to protect. Here, the first of my targets (a warhound with plasma and lasers I think) has just fallen over.

 

 

Steve hadn’t played many games and the mission was pretty one-sided, so this ended up being a relatively easy win. I didn’t lose any engines, though Lucy came close and only lived by running away from a melee reaver while on repair orders, so she couldn’t fire that turn. But she’d punched out a warhound by this point with a long charge on turn 2.

 

 

 

The fire from Steve’s battlegroup was divided between my big engines by the big barrel thing in midfield. Meanwhile my big beasts did pretty major damage to warhounds whenever they looked at one. Steve wasn’t having a great time so we called it early.

 

So on to the pub quiz. In the morning I stuck transfers onto the shield badges of my two Warlords – which turned out to be kind of a pain. The transfer designed for the shields is actually a bit bigger than the panel it fits on, so required a lot of trimming. The end result is good I think, but wasn’t easily achieved. I nearly missed breakfast! And looking at this image some more trimming is needed, as the lines go over the edge in a couple of places.

 

 

 

So on to day two. Mission four sees me defending four artillery emplacements (represented by battlefield assets) from yet more Fureans engines, commanded by Josh. The baddies have to deploy first, within 8” of the board’s edges, on any side. I then set up within 12” of the middle.

 

Here’s what I was looking at when my opponent had deployed. Scary engines all around!

 

 

 

And here’s my set up. I put my Melee warlord against his, aimed my artillery guy at his knights, and put my reavers and Seniores Warlord sort of in the middle, to help out as required.

 

 

 

I won priority and took it, perhaps wrongly. I wanted to first fire the knights before they moved because I knew I couldn’t afford to be anywhere near them. That worked. What didn’t work was my melee warlord failing its command check to charge, so it just had to walk up to Josh’s Warlord and punch it a bit. The sunfury missed, I got two crits to the body from the fist and the gatlings did nothing. Meanwhile the warhounds took out one of my Reavers.

 

This was a really close, tactical game that ran all the way to time. Unfortunately, that meant I forgot to take any more photos! Shame not to get some better shots of Josh’s titans, which were really nicely done, and some of the manoeuvring we both did. I was pleased to come away from this mission with a win, as few Loyalists managed it. I’d have had a harder time if Josh had more melee stuff, but with only the Cerastus to worry about on that front things weren’t so bad. I had some awful luck with my melee warlord but then some pretty good luck in killing his two hounds (after they’d killed a Reaver and Warlord!) so things came around. My Artillery warlord was a champ, soaking up vast amounts of fire, and my Melee guy basically ignored Josh’s own Artillery Lord firing into his back at close range. Meanwhile my Gatling reaver shot at the Cerastus, which was an almost entirely futile exercise. Awesome game though.

 

So a quick bite of lunch and rather more time looking at the painting competition, where there were some fantastic models on display. The loyalist winner was an Atarus army with banners, which are the thing I most want to add to my own Legio… along with maybe a bit more stuff going on for the bases and some minor battle damage, maybe.

 

Game five was against Rhu, who writes the Regimental Standard for Warhammer Community. Top game. Rhu came away with loads of prizes, including best painted traitor and best sportsman. Well deserved, I thought.

 

Game-wise it was sort of easy, as I’d win by killing something like 750 points – which is fairly straightforward against knights. But we had a great time in the process. We decided to use Shadow and Iron rules since Rhu’s Malinax were included in it, and we felt like using the new stratagems too. Rhu promptly used Corrupted ground (or similar) so anything that stood still would take S6 hits every movement phase. Not a problem for my Warlords as a 13 is needed for a direct hit, but bad news for Reavers.

 

So the basic plan was that my maniple all went on first fire orders my Volcano cannon Reaver – who flat out refused to and my melee Warlord. He went on charge orders. Rhu’s careful placement meant I couldn’t quite manage a turn one charge – though my Artillery guy’s quake rounds meant the knights mostly lost their full stride orders before they could carry them out. Rhu’s lance of wardens and castigators on my right was not slowed, however, and raced across the board.

 

 

The interesting stuff mostly happened in the middle, where my Melee Warlord faced down Rhu’s Seneschal and his guard. I won priority and charged in, targeting the Seneschal with my claw. Another knight stepped in the way and took the blow, however! The knights were shaken but still surrounded my Warlord.

 

My Warlord did the only sensible thing, and called in an orbital strike on itself.

 

 

 

This killed two Cerastus (a lone one and one of the Seneschal’s banner) at the start of combat. The claw took out the Seneschal’s remaining guard and then the Warlord’s foot came crashing down on the villainous knight. This was no less than the traitor deserved.

 

 

The turn after that the melee guy charged into Iben Faruq (so technically this was four games in a row against Fureans) and removed his head, before crushing the traitorous crew. I’d recently shot the Warhound with a quake cannon, spinning it round and allowing my Warlord to come up from behind and reach down to deliver S17 hits to the structurally compromised location. That got the job done. I wasn’t sure at first whether I could actually see Iben Faruq’s head from behind, but actually the Warlord was tall enough to see down to it.

 

Meanwhile the one lance that made it into combat on my right achieved nothing against my artillery warlord, but forced a chink in my Seniores’ body armour. They chopped away at it until it became vulnerable to avenger fire, and finally brought the engine down – losing a couple of their number to wildfire in the process.

 

Sadly, my Melee Warlord’s glorious charge ended with him getting charged and finished off by an Acheron. He wildfired into one of my Reavers but did no meaningful harm.

 

All Rhu’s knights ended up dead, meaning I got to take some nice shots of them. Here’s his Seneschal and guard, looking remarkably healthy after being trodden on by a Warlord.

 

Rhu had also done some really fun conversions based on some of the original metal knights from way back when. This guy was probably my favourite. His army is an incredible creative feat.

 

 

 

So there you go. Hope you liked the pics. Sorry that not all were quite in focus. Bring on the next Engine war!

[Guest]

Looks like you had a lot of fun :)

[Marshal Loss]

Your titans (and those of your opponents) are gorgeous, and I love your tactical insight(s)! Hope I can make it over there for an event in the future

[Fajita Fan]

People like your running Warlord on IG. https://www.instagram.com/p/B8rHO-LnAb-/

 

Dunno if that link works but I love his conversions.

[schoon]

The artistry and care of the paint jobs all around is really impressive! What a spectacle!

 

The tables appeared to be pretty light on terrain. I tend to play on a far denser table typically.

 

Did that affect the games in any way you noticed?

[Mandragola]

I don't think the terrain was too bad actually. It was a little sparse but lots of tables had the larger stuff roughly in the middle, where it made the most difference. This meant that lines of sight were often obscured. More terrain would have been better, especially if Warlords had been blocked occasionally, but it did a job.

[Mandragola]

Managed to get a bit of time this evening to start work on a Warbringer. It's an incredibly detailed kit - even more so than the Warlord - with all the stuff happening on the deck. 

 

I wanted to see if I could magnetise the ammo hoppers that hold the quake shells, which I wouldn't want on there if I gave the titan a bellicosa. Answer: yes I can, pretty easily. All I had to do was drill little holes for a 2x1 magnets and there you go. One pair on each side does the job.

 

Here are the magnets in their holes.

 

 

And here they are holding the magazines in place.

 

 

So if I understand all this stuff correctly, you've got a sort of robot arm that grabs the shells (which you can see, one on each side) at the back and then shoves them into the revolver bit on the cannon. Fun stuff.

 

I've also used a couple of 5x1 magnets on each of the AA mounts. That seems massively over the top for such a small piece, but the hole is there for it. I really might as well have glued it but I've got this vague idea for building one of these guys as a sort of ARV, with the main gun replaced by a crane, and if I do that these side turrets might be replaced by something else too. Or else I'll keep them because even an ARV titan wants to shoot a plane down now and then. Options exist, anyway.

[Interrogator-Chaplain Ezra]

Might I ask how you did the yellow on the Astorum?

[Mandragola]

Might I ask how you did the yellow on the Astorum?

Sure. It’s basically just yriel yellow, painted over a wraithbone base. I like to spray armour panels wraithbone but if not I apply really thin paint coats till I get good coverage. The yriel yellow needs to go on in thin coats too.

 

Then for flames I blend using trollslayer orange and wildrider red, and a lot of lahmian medium. For the actual yellow bits I use casandora yellow and dorn yellow highlights.

[Interrogator-Chaplain Ezra]

Thank you!

[Mandragola]

Tonight I finished building my first Warbringer (sort of, its armour is mostly still on sprue) and undercoated it. So now to decide what colour the thing will end up being. I'm pretty sure it'll join the ranks of my Astorum force.

[Guest]

I look forward to seeing the first Warbringer to walk out of Forgeworld Mandragola :)

[Mandragola]

Fair enough then. Here's how he looks for now. 

 

 

 

Bit more work to do I think. Never seems to be enough time to do it.

[The boater]

Is he walking or will there be something he’s standing on? I personally went with a Capt Morgan pose for mine

[Mandragola]

This one is walking, but in a sort of non-dramatic way. I wanted it to look like it was steadily advancing, not running like some of my other things. I think I've achieved a suitably boring pose. I think the other one will be standing still, possibly with its foot on a rock like a proper hero.

[Interrogator Stobz]

Fire support should look ponderous and boring; you nailed it :lol: