Vis Ex Adversis - IV Crusade Resurgent

[Hymnblade]

Castellan Jerich is complete! I like the superheated effect more on this one. I basecoated it in the midtone and then added the darker and lighter colors on top of that, rather than starting at either end, and I think the result is a better gradient rather than being mostly dark or mostly light.

[Brother Christopher]

From what I can see, the model looks great. The gradient on the sword is particularly cool! The transition appears to be really smooth and natural-looking. I suppose the photo doesn't do it justice, though. What model did you use as the 'base' for the model? I don't recognise it.

[Medjugorje]

the helmet is a 30k dark angel one, the body is from AoS golden boys Sigmar guys and the sword is an 40k Dark Angel one. And the relic is from an Aggressor

[Hymnblade]

Medjugorje nailed it, except the little reliquary is from the Intercessor box, and a bit of 1.5mm jewelry chain on the word. I bought the box of 3 Easy-To-Build Sequitors; 2 of them made the sergeants posted earlier, and this guy came from the third. It takes some knife work to remove their shoulder pads and arms and some of the more egregious symbols, but once you do, the armor and robes fit in pretty well.

[Hymnblade]

My second opponent in the TTS tournament was an Admech/Knight list. This isn't quite a battle report, since I'm reconstructing the events from memory (I forgot to take screenshots during the game, haha). So if positioning looks a bit strange, it's probably because I got it wrong the second time around.

 

Specifically, this is the list I faced:

 

+++ TTS 2k ITC (Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition) [113 PL, 14CP, 2,000pts] +++

++ Super-Heavy Detachment +3CP (Imperium - Imperial Knights) [48 PL, 1CP, 998pts] ++

+ Configuration +

Detachment CP [3CP]

Household Choice: Questor Mechanicus
. . House Vulker

+ Stratagems +

Exalted Court [-1CP]: Exalted Court: 1 Extra Warlord Trait

Heirlooms of the Household [-1CP]: Heirlooms of the Household: 1 Extra Heirloom

+ Lord of War +

Armiger Warglaives [9 PL, 147pts]
. . Armiger Warglaive: Heavy Stubber

Armiger Warglaives [9 PL, 147pts]
. . Armiger Warglaive: Heavy Stubber

Knight Castellan [30 PL, 704pts]: Character (Exalted Court), Character (Heirloom of the House), Character (Knight Lance), Plasma Decimator, Volcano Lance,
. . Two Siegebreaker Cannons and Two Shieldbreaker Missiles: 2x Shieldbreaker Missile, 2x Twin Siegebreaker Cannon

++ Battalion Detachment +5CP (Imperium - Adeptus Mechanicus) [38 PL, 5CP, 605pts] ++

+ Configuration +

Detachment CP [5CP]

Forge World Choice
. . Forge World: Stygies VIII

+ HQ +

Daedalosus [3 PL, 50pts]

Tech-Priest Dominus [7 PL, 80pts]: Macrostubber, Relic: Autocaduceus of Arkhan Land, Volkite Blaster, Warlord

+ Troops +

Skitarii Rangers [4 PL, 59pts]
. . Ranger Alpha: Galvanic Rifle
. . 2x Skitarii Ranger: 2x Galvanic Rifle
. . 2x Skitarii Ranger (Transuranic Arquebus): 2x Transuranic Arquebus

Skitarii Rangers [4 PL, 59pts]
. . Ranger Alpha: Galvanic Rifle
. . 2x Skitarii Ranger: 2x Galvanic Rifle
. . 2x Skitarii Ranger (Transuranic Arquebus): 2x Transuranic Arquebus

Skitarii Vanguards [4 PL, 62pts]
. . 2x Skitarii Vanguard: 2x Radium Carbine
. . 2x Skitarii Vanguard (Plasma Caliver): 2x Plasma Caliver
. . Vanguard Alpha: Radium Carbine

+ Heavy Support +

Skorpius Disintegrator [6 PL, 111pts]: Belleros Energy Cannon, 3x Cognis Heavy Stubber

Skorpius Disintegrator [6 PL, 111pts]: Belleros Energy Cannon, 3x Cognis Heavy Stubber

+ Dedicated Transport +

Skorpius Dunerider [4 PL, 73pts]: 2x Cognis Heavy Stubber, Twin Cognis Heavy Stubber

++ Battalion Detachment +5CP (Imperium - Adeptus Mechanicus) [27 PL, 8CP, 397pts] ++

+ Configuration +

Battle-forged CP [3CP]

Detachment CP [5CP]

Forge World Choice
. . Forge World: Stygies VIII

+ HQ +

Tech-Priest Enginseer [3 PL, 30pts]

Tech-Priest Enginseer [3 PL, 30pts]

+ Troops +

Skitarii Vanguards [4 PL, 53pts]
. . 2x Skitarii Vanguard: 2x Radium Carbine
. . Skitarii Vanguard (Arc Rifle): Arc Rifle
. . Skitarii Vanguard (Plasma Caliver): Plasma Caliver
. . Vanguard Alpha: Radium Carbine

Skitarii Vanguards [4 PL, 40pts]
. . 4x Skitarii Vanguard: 4x Radium Carbine
. . Vanguard Alpha: Radium Carbine

Skitarii Vanguards [4 PL, 40pts]
. . 4x Skitarii Vanguard: 4x Radium Carbine
. . Vanguard Alpha: Radium Carbine

+ Fast Attack +

Sydonian Dragoons [9 PL, 204pts]
. . Sydonian Dragoon: Taser Lance
. . Sydonian Dragoon: Taser Lance
. . Sydonian Dragoon: Taser Lance

 

A Castellan, two Warglaives, two Skorpius Disintegrators, and a couple battalions of Skitarii. I didn't play during the Castellan meta, and I've never seen a Castellan on the table before, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect, besides that it would be very good at killing my vehicles, especially since he opted to give it Cawl's Wrath. On the other hand, the list didn't appear to have a lot of tools for taking down mass Primaris bodies, so I hoped my mass Intercessors would carry me through.

 

The tournament is being played by ITC rules, and this was ITC mission 2 "Cut to the Heart". For secondaries, I took "Big Game Hunters" (deal damage to vehicles), "King of the Hill" (hold the center of the board), and "Behind Enemy Lines" (get units into his deployment zone). He chose "The Reaper" (deal wounds to INFANTRY), "Marked For Death" (to kill my Invictors and Dreadnought), and "Behind Enemy Lines". I won the roll-off for first turn. Deployment looked roughly like this:

As the attacker, I deployed first, taking the side of the board with the objectives. He counter-deployed with his Castellan in the very far corner. When I saw this, I knew I wasn't taking it down in any kind of timely fashion! On the other hand, it means the ruins in his deployment zone might mostly block me from his LOS.

 

On turn 1, my Intercessor blob advanced forward, and the Hunter and an Attack Bike claimed the central objective. My Invictors advanced into his deployment zone and got a total of 10 shots from their Incendium Cannons. Together with the Whirlwinds, they just barely took down a single squad of Skitarii, earning me a kill point. They then charged the Dunerider, two of them making it in, but they failed to kill it.

 

On his turn, his Dunerider and infantry fell back from my Invictors, and the Castellan maneuvered to shoot them, killing two outright and leaving the third with just one wound. The Warglaives advanced into the midfield, and one charged my Hunter and bike on the objective, killing the tank but not quite killing the bike, and thus failing to claim the objective. Hoping to finish off the Invictor, the Skitarii charged, but couldn't take off that last wound. The end of turn 1 looked roughly like this:

 

On turn 2, I used my "Greyshield" warlord trait for the White Scars chapter tactic, allowing all my Intercessors to advance and charge. They mobbed the Warglaive along with the Contemptor, smashing it to bits. The Invictor finally went down, but sadly, did not explode - he was within explosion range of ten (!!!) enemy units, and I even used a CP reroll in the hope of 10d6 mortal wounds, but alas, it didn't happen.

 

On his turn 2, the Castellan began to dedicate its attention to some Intercessors, and the Disintegrators moved up to reclaim his objective. The second Warglaive, along with his Sydonian Dragoons (who I now notice I've forgotten to put on the board, but they came into the middle as well) charged my Intercessors and killed a squad and a half, but a very lucky sergeant landed all four thunder hammer attacks in return, taking down the Warglaive. The end of turn 2 looked something like this, plus his Dragoons between me and his building:

 

In turn 3, I opted to remain in the Tactical doctrine to continue taking advantage of my auto bolters. They dealt some casualties, and then the Intercessors on the south charged his tanks, removing the damaged Dunerider and wrapping the Disintegrator. The Contemptor and the midfield squads wiped out the Dragoons, two of them actually reaching into his Skitarii in the ruins. One squad wrapped an Enginseer, and the other used Tenacious Assault to remain in combat.

 

In return, the Castellan removed just about everything left that wasn't in combat, and fired a character-seeking missile at Helbrecht, leaving him with just one wound. The Contemptor survived with just a few wounds, thanks to Duty Eternal and split fire. At the end of turn 3, we were in roughly this position:

 

On turn 4, the Intercessors mostly cleared the ruins, and one squad successfully charged the Castellan from behind the wall (I didn't want to face that overwatch!). The Contemptor came around and also charged. In total they took nine wounds off it. Meanwhile, on the other side, the remaining Intercessors destroyed the second Disintegrator.

 

The Castellan then fell back and obliterated the units which had offended it, and wisely moved further from the ruins to prevent more out-of-LOS charges. At this point, my opponent conceded, and we wrapped up the game. The final tally was 35-20 in favor of the Templars.

 

---------------------------------------------

 

Overall I think my battle plan worked reasonably well, but honestly, I think the game was decided by some of my opponent's mistakes. I think he hoped to flank me with the Warglaives and Dragoons, but instead they became midfield springboards for me to charge, getting into his main force that much faster. If he had held them in reserve as a counter-charge force near his objective, he might have held it the entire game, and I'd have had a hard time displacing him.

 

Match 3 will be this weekend, against Blood Angels!

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Congratulations on your victory!

[Brother Carpenter]

You managed to get a game in with the lockdown in place?

Or do you have more freedom of movement where you live?

[Medjugorje]

Congratulations on your victory!

 

YES - congrats

[Hymnblade]

You managed to get a game in with the lockdown in place?

Or do you have more freedom of movement where you live?

It's a tournament being held in Tabletop Simulator. One game per week for five weeks.

[Hymnblade]

Game 3 ended 36-21 in the Blood Angels' favor. I forgot to take screenshots again, alas.

 

His list had a squad of Death Company, two squads of Sanguinary Guard, and some Inceptors, plus several characters. Since his list was so mobile, I figured my best chance was to castle up, let him waste his charge on the fringes, and then hit him with a counter-punch. This almost worked, but several mistakes on my end cost me the game.

 

First, I deployed with my Invictors near the front, hoping to use their flamer cannons to overwatch the Death Company. However, I forgot he had placed his captain with the no-overwatch relic on the board rather than in deep strike, and he used "On Wings of Fire" to come over and tie them up, allowing the Death Company in safely, and they took out two Invictors turn 1. If I had placed the Contemptor up front, its better save plus "Duty Eternal" might have weathered the attack better. Still, I wiped the Death Company and Captain with counterattacks and shooting, then advanced to castle up in the midfield. The Sanguinary Guard and remaining characters came in turn 3, while my Aurillian Shroud was up. I passed enough 4++ saves to mostly blunt his attack, and Helbrecht and the remaining Invictor deleted one of the Sanguinary Guard squads in retaliation.

 

Then other big thing I probably should have done differently: with one Intercessor squad and Grimaldus the only units not tied up, I charged the Sanguinor to kill it. I probably should have just charged the Sanguinary Guard instead (and would have more-or-less wiped the squad), since without squads to buff, the Sanguinor is basically just a captain with a relic blade. That squad picked up my remaining characters the next turn, and then it was basically over.

 

Also, I'm realizing how vulnerable this list is to losing the character support. With Helbrecht and Grimaldus' auras, my Intercessor sergeants are basically seven smash captains (routinely landing 3-5 thunder hammer hits apiece), but once the characters are gone, they become much less effective. In turn, this makes it difficult to use either character as a beatstick, even though they're pretty fighty. I think, if I were to use a list like this again, I'd bring the Emperor's Champion (for a dedicated beatstick who I can afford to lose) and some Company Veterans to soak hits, probably in exchange for some of the walkers.

 

Overall, it was a very good game, and could have gone either way right up until turn 4.

[Hymnblade]

I finished off the rest of the Intercessors, and I'm slowly plugging away at the Invictor. I made a terrible mistake and primed it grey, thinking that would be easier for the base and all the metallic bits. It did not make it easier, because now I have to get black into a bunch of nooks and crannies by hand. Oh well. It's coming along, just not as fast as I'd like.

 

Since that was frustrating I took a break to start building the Incursors. Rather than knives, I wanted them to have something more medieval. Polearms were the weapon of choice for most of history, and they don't show up a lot in 40k, so I used some BT upgrade kit axe heads, plus some of the thick rods that came with the pin vice kit a decade ago, to make poleaxes:

Had to hack off one of the exhaust vents on their backpacks to be able to mag-lock them to their back plates, but Phobos armor is supposed to be lighter anyway, so they can probably get by with less exhaust.

[Brother Kraskor]

Anachronous medieval halberds next to the most modern armour and weapons in the Imperium - very Templar! 

[Brother Carpenter]

Nice.

I saw some chainsword polearms at third pary suppliers.

I ve been tempted to buy a few.

[Brother Christopher]

That's a unique idea. While I don't think it's something that I'd include in my army: it's too brave of an idea; I'm not so willing to diverge from established choices, but that's purely personal and I commend you on choosing these weapons instead of their standard knives. Also, the removed vents are a nice touch!

 

While I like what you have already done there, I'd recommend going one step further and adding some string to the shafts to get some texture there. Or simply paint on lines or a diamond-shaped pattern to match the aesthetics of handles of other SM weapons.

[Hymnblade]

While I like what you have already done there, I'd recommend going one step further and adding some string to the shafts to get some texture there. Or simply paint on lines or a diamond-shaped pattern to match the aesthetics of handles of other SM weapons.

That's a good idea, but I couldn't figure out a decent way to do it, haha. I wanted the hafts to look like wood, but they're too smooth and it looks a bit off. Maybe if I can find a way to scratch up the brass rods in a way that makes it look like wood grain?

 

 

My little Phobos contingent. That's one squad of 5 Incursors and the sword brother for a second; I have two more in progress (with Sanguinary Guard axe heads, to tell them apart from the first squad), but I ran out of axe heads and ebay is short of bits right now, so finishing the second squad will have to wait.

 

In other news, I was able to preorder an Indomitus box before they sold out, which I'm very excited about, the Bladeguard especially. I've been thinking about what to do for a Crusade force, and decided a smash captain would be good, so I took advantage of the fact that I magnetized Gavril's arms:

 

 

The storm shield will just lay on his base, like he dropped it to wield the hammer in two hands. I'm a sucker for big weapons.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Good job. I like the modifications you made to make the Redemptor Dreadnought (or Invictor warsuit) look Templars-y. May I suggest adding bloodstains, scorch marks, and/or short pieces of copper tubes (as spent boltshell casings) to the models' bases, so it looks like the Templars are engaged in battle?

[Hymnblade]

I finished the last two Incursors I had parts for last night, and my Indomitus box arrived today! Here's my whole Primaris collection in one shot:

 

 

That's everything I've painted since lockdown started. Without the motivation of wanting to use the miniatures in games ASAP, I was on more like a "two nights a week" painting schedule instead of "every single night", but it still adds up. I'm really excited about some of the Indomitus models, so I may ramp back up for a while. For a 25PL Crusade list, I'm going to start with a smash captain, a Judiciar and 3 Bladeguard in an Impulsor, and 5 Intercessors. Crusade sounds like a lot of fun! (<-- the most stereotypically Black Templar sentence in the galaxy)

 

May I suggest adding bloodstains, scorch marks, and/or short pieces of copper tubes (as spent boltshell casings) to the models' bases, so it looks like the Templars are engaged in battle?

These are good ideas! I've been thinking about how to spice up the bases without making them too much more complicated to make, and this would fit the bill perfectly.

[Brother Christopher]

Great work, they look very bright for Black Templars - I like it how generous you are with the use of whites, reds and bone colours! I suppose that the bases' colour also adds an extra punch.

[Hymnblade]

Thank you! I like to think of my Templars as having a four-color scheme (black, white, red, bone) rather than a two-color scheme, and I think it makes them 'pop' nicely while still looking like Templars. I know it's not everyone's thing, but I like it.

 

After two weeks, I am almost done with my Bladeguard and Judiciar! I may be the slowest painter in the world, but at this rate I think I can finish the box before the new codex comes out, haha.

[Urkh]

I also am a proponent of using lots of colors on templars. It really brings them to life!

 

Also, I am the slowest painter in the world.

[Hymnblade]

I'm very pleased with these ones!

 

 

I didn't go full EC conversion on the Judiciar, because I plan to field him as an actual Judiciar. But a head swap sure makes him look more like a Templar!

 

 

Shoulder guardbraces courtesy of Red Dog Minis!

 

And this is the Combat Patrol list I planned to put them in for Crusade games, although it's now 27PL after the update, so I need to reconfigure things a bit.

 

 

More stuff from the box to come. I'm thinking of converting a Primaris-scale Helbrecht from the chaplain model, who has a very nice pose for it.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Excellent works, Hymnblade.

[Hymnblade]

The Eradicators are coming along, but the progress isn't very exciting to show. I did make a Helbrecht conversion:

 

 

I tried sticking a melta barrel onto the original pistol because it's a pretty gun, but I couldn't make it work, so I just swapped the whole gun. I'm not sure if I want to try sculpting a tiara (both because I'm not sure I can sculpt it, and I don't care much for the tiara in the first place). I think I'll paint him something like this art, the model has lots of nice trim for it: