Red Corsairs Master of the Maelstrom - Shark-tank reborn

[TrawlingCleaner]

 

A bit of colour and washes down and the big guy is starting to take shape, still a whole bunch to do but getting some paint on does tie it all together nicely

[gaurdian31]

Looking good!

[TrawlingCleaner]

With a mild side-quest with building and painting the new Darkoath (They're absolutely gorgeous models), I've gotten back to painting the 'fiend. I'm most of the way there but I think it needs some more work:

 

I think I need to do something with the front carapcae/shell bit just above the balck band? The red isn't quite perfect and it's showing.  I think I'm having trouble with it based on the previous one I did  which has way more red on it:

 

 

 

 

The leaks have really got my juices flowing for army list ideas and where I'd like to go next. The Raider's detatchment is really cool and literally the way I like to play the army, swarm forward on loads of bikes+transports and smash!

The Lord Discordant really looks tasty in the Raiders detatchment, as it's a Mounted keyword model rather than Daemon Vehicle, it synergises really well with their strats. The Dread Reaver relic seems ideal for the Disco, Reroll hits+Wounds when within 12" of the enemy deployment zone is a huge area of the board and really helps make him swing hard, he's definitely a midlevel unit bully rather than the vehicle killing monster of yester-year, a very similar role to the Venomcrawler I think! He can mitigate enemy hit back too from vehicles by potentially turning off a vehicle's shooting which is ace and also buffs friendly units shooting. Definitely the next model to paint!

The downside of the new detatchment is that it largely makes the Lord on Bike a bit superfluous (a Legends unit I know) with one of his abilites giving the entire unit Assault but I suppose the great thing is that half the Raider's strats are Battle Tactics which is tasty!

The Detatchment really helps Defilers too by giving them -1AP when targetting enemy units on objectives which the Battlecannon loves and gives them Assault. With the 8" move, advancing and still shooting really helps get it up the board which is something I've struggled with it for a while

[gaurdian31]

I think it is coming along great, maybe another pass of the base red you are using on that front carapace to smooth it out a little?

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Mr. gorilla arm is coming along really nicely - personally, I don't see the problem with the red that you describe, it looks fine to me.  I guess if you want to make it match the other places where black meets red on the model, you could do a line of red highlighting just above the back plate, and maybe buff up the highlighting on that ridge on the model's right side between the hatch and the black collar, as it does seem to kind of peter out there.

 

I agree with your takes on the new Raider's detachment - it looks really good and I'm inclined to use it for my own force though if I do that I'll probably want to paint up my second rhino and a legionaires or chosen squad to go in it.

[TrawlingCleaner]

I strengthend up the red a touch and also added a highlight next to the black as the good Dr recommended and I'm much much happier with him now. Great suggestions both!

 

 

Yaga bros:

 

The Beefybois of the army

 

Lord Discordant up next! He's a heavy old model being totally metal

[TrawlingCleaner]

Whilst I'm waiting on a shipment of sprays for my Darkoath project, I thought I'd plow on with units I want to try with the new codex, namely the lord discordant!

Still loads of work to do:

[gaurdian31]

The mauler came out great and I am excited to see the disco lord get painted up! What color are you thinking for the fur? Grey or tan or something more chaotic like bright blue?

[TrawlingCleaner]

Thanks gaurdian! I went with Black in the end as it contrasts/compliments nicely with the red and is a bit imposing. The Wolf is a little goofy looking so the Black kinda helps it out:

 

 

Raptor Lord up next I think or maybe a Second Venomcrawler!

[gaurdian31]

The black fur works really well. Any plans to add vehicle debris to the base? Also I am excited to see the raptor lord, but another venom crawler will be cool too!

[TrawlingCleaner]

I think I need to add something to the base for sure, it's a bit sparse at the moment! A nice chunk of Ultramarine power armour or vehicle chunk should give a nice contrast too!

 

The codex finally arrived! A few days late to be a well timed birthday present to myself but very cool all the same:

 

Blackheart is eager to get reaving!

 

The book is really nice, as per usual, interestingly there's very few bits of old artwork left in there. The odd bit here and there but it's mainly all new stuff with some new bits in the old styling

 

Spoiler

 

There's nothing too new for the Corsairs in there from what I can tell. The blurb about the Tyrant's Gate that was introduced in the 9th ed codex is now on Huron's page blurb, the Studio paintjobs on units all seem to be the new models and the newer scheme (closer to mine but darker). Interestingly, Huron's model doesn't appear in any of the studio shots.

Does that add fuel to my theory about him coming later in the edition or is that just my hopium catching up with me?

 

I've got a Crusade game this Thursday so I'm looking forward to getting a game in with the new detachment and codex!

[gaurdian31]

I'm hoping the Tyrant gets a new model so he isn't dwarfed by everyone else. Love the new army shot they always look great together!

[TrawlingCleaner]

Thanks gaurdian! I hope he does too, it would be odd if they don't update him tbh. They've aggressively purged all other Finecast models in 40k armies up until now and they haven't sold his model for nearly a year now!

 

The game on Wednesday was another loss for Chaos (0-6 so far). Dread Reaver made the Lord on Bike hit hard consistently, however the unit got blasted by nearly everything in the Edlar army Turn1, leaving only the Champion and the lord. Small board sizes with small amounts of terrain and low points is really crumping Chaos I think

By getting unit kills my units are slowly getting more and more levels, the Sorcerer gained a weapon upgrade so I gave him +1 Attack and +1 BS on his Psychic powers. The Ranged squad have +1OC and the rhino has +2" move which are all pretty handy. Bigger games should help me a lot as I can actually use my speedier elements properly

 

I also got another game in VS Harlequins on Saturday, I forgot to take a photo of the first turn as I got my Maulerfiend on the board but it died straight away to Haywire bikes, hopefully that rubs the newly painted model syndrome off

I won the game but rather narrowly as the Chaos Lord and the Master of Executions soloed most of the Harlequin force by themsevles. I didn't feel the detatchment use that much in this game as the additional AP is useless against an army that only has 4+ Invuln saves. Assault guns really helped though and the Advance and charge strat saw use from the ranged squad pushing up with the Sorcerer

 

 

Helped a pal who's been out of the game since the start of 10th (not had the time and lives pretty far away), he used my Corsairs and I think they did better with him at the helm than they've done with me for maybe about 6 months?

Against Quins again, this time the Venomcrawler lived and killed a unit of bikes solo in shooting and then killed another 5 quins in combat. It was impressive to see!

 

I love the 'Crawlers and decided to get my 2nd one painted up, they're so sick that they're one of 2 units in the army that I haven't converted at all (the other being Oblits). I'd definitely pick another one up at some point too and get 3 in a game, they're surpringly good for their points (when they don't get instantly killed like mine has in Crusade )

Still WIP but getting there:

[gaurdian31]

Crawler is coming along well! Sounds like you had a good time and yeah newly painted model syndrome is real. Happens every time to me too.

[TrawlingCleaner]

"Most often used by the Red Corsairs as Infantry support vehicles, Venomcrawlers are able to keep pace with Transports, jumppacks and bikes alike. Although filled with bloodlust, the Corsairs have factored the Crawler's short attention span into their battle plans"

 

 

Another Crawler joins the fray!

I'm definitely thinking about painting another at some point

[gaurdian31]

The crawler looks great, really like the eye lenses! Great job!

[TrawlingCleaner]

Thanks gaurdian! I do love the Crawlers as silly as they are!

 

I've got a 1500pt RTT at my local FLGS this weekend so I've been throwing some list ideas around in my head  to figure out what to take. Currently we have:

 

Huron Blackheart (of course)

Chaos Lord with the Mark of the Hound enhancement (Scout 6")

Master of Executions

 

5 Legionaries

5 Legionaries

5 Chosen

 

2x Rhinos

 

3 Bikes, x2 Plasma

3 Bikes, x2 Melta

Vindicator

Defiler

Predator Destructor

Venomcrawler

Points: 1455

 

I'm 45 points under and the 3 other enhancements don't really interest me all that much. If I could shave 5 points somewhere I could pick up a squad of Cultists, maybe if I drop the Mark of the Hound? It's a good enhancement and lets my Chosen get aggressive earlier but do I need that? Would it be better to have my backline secured and blast at range with the vehicles for a turn longer before hitting their lines? I'm not 100% sure the Chosen need an extra 6" movement to be honest. With Advance, charge and the 3" pileout of the vehicle, I'm hard stretched to not be charging Turn 2 when targets have been softened up some. Maybe a Cultist Firebrand to hold my home objective? Also dead tempting to drop a unnit of bikes and get in a second Venomcrawler

Huron goes with a squad of 5, MoE goes with a squad of 5 and the Chaos Lord goes with the Chosen. I can use the Reroll hits and wounds for free on the Chosen with the lord. The Legionaires+MoE get Reroll to Hit vs most targets assuming I'm not charging into a unit that hasn't been wounded. I usually run big 10 man blobs of Legionaries but I suppose there isn't too much point in doing that, with a smaller footprint they can get away with more movement tricks and trade up better. With the 5 marines in Huron's squad, you never really need an OC 32 Squad as cool as the big squads are.

Plasma bikes are for backfield objectives and midboard holding ready to be swapped out for a Rhino in later turns. The defiler and the Vindicator are midboard bullies too.

Everything is fast moving as is the Corsair way

 

Need some more mulling over the unit choices

 

[Kaiju Soze]

Putting MoE with Chosen is funnier.

[TrawlingCleaner]

Just before the Tournament I realised I needed another Heavy Melee weapon and a Champion with one too! A nice and easy paint job for the Heavy Melee guy and a retooling and rebasing of a model that I'd already painted and was using for an Exalted Champion:

 

 

Eviserators have to be useful somewhere! As with all the Firstborn stuff, Traitors will happily make use of it

 

So the list all together (althought taken before I finished these two):

 

 

Spoiler

Huron Blackheart

Chaos Lord - Hammer+Plasma Pistol

Master of Executions - Tyrant's Lash

 

5 Legionaries - 2x Heavy Melee Weapons, Icon

5 Legionaries - 2x Heavy Melee Weapons, Icon, Reaper chaincannon

10 Cultists

 

2x Rhinos - Combi Bolter, Havoc Launcher

 

5 Chsoen - 2x Combi weapons, 1 Powerfist, Icon

3 Bikes - 2x Melta, Powerfist, Icon

3 Bikes - 2x Plasma, Powerfist, Icon

Vindicator - Combi Bolter, Havoc Launcher

Predator Destructor - Heavy Bolters, Combi Bolter, Havoc Launcher

Venomcrawler

Defiler - Scourge, Twin Lascannon

 

How did it go?

I got a Bye Round for the first round (someone dropped so I didn't have an opponent and was given a free win), bit of a shame but not too bad!

The second round I was against Space Wolves, their list was:

Spoiler

Ragnar + 10 Blood Claws in a Landraider

Termie Captain, Arjac + 5 Terminators

Techmarine

Bjorn

 

5 Intercessors

5 Hellblasters

3 Thunderwolves

A Ballistus(?) dreadnought

 

Game 2:
 

Spoiler

I knew vaguely what Space Wolves could do and knew that I needed to hit the Blood Claws and Ragnar hard before they hit me. I got the first turn and I drew Bring it Down and Capture Enemy Outpost. I advanced everything as all my guns have Assault and the Vindicator and Defiler picked up the Landraider, mostly down to the Vindicator. The Venomcrawler killed a couple of Intercessors with shooting on their home point and the Predator killed a couple of Hellblasters. I failed nearly all my Dark Pacts this turn and most of my vehicles took 3 Wounds I return, I lost the Venomcrawler and the Predator, Rhino in the centre were damaged a little from the Venomcrawler's explosion and Ragnar and pals Advanced and Charged the Vindicator. They only managed to do 2 Wounds to it surprisingly.

 

My Turn 2, the Defiler moved to support the Vindicator, the MoE and pals jumped out of the central rhino to assist in killing Ragnar and the Predator lined up the Hellblasters on the top of the board along side the Melta Bikes and Huron and his Rhino. Chosen and Lord jumped out of the central rhino and got onto my opponent's backfield objective to charge the TWC and remaining Intercessor. My opponent Rapid Ingressed the Termies behind Huron's Rhino which was in full view of the Defiler and Predator. These two killed the entire Terminator squad and left the Captain on 2 Wounds who was then picked up by Huron and his Rhino leaving only Arjac. The Vindicator cratered 4 marines and then the Defiler picked the rest of the squad up in combat and the Chosen easily killed the TWC. The Bikes picked up the Hellblasters staying away from Bjorn and Huron's Rhino stayed on the top objective away from Arjac.

 

Dire straights for my opponent here as all they have left is Arjac behind the top point and near my Rhino with Huron in, Bjorn next to my Melta Bikes about half way between the top point and their home objective, 1 intercessor on their home objective and the Techmarine+Ballistus in their back corner. They got no secondary points (I was literally on every single objecitve) drew Defend Stronghold and Assassinate. The Ballistus, Bjorn and techmarine converged on the Chosen on their home obj and managed to pop my Rhino on the top with Huron and Predator in the centre. 2 Dreads and Techmarine charged the Chosen only managing to kill 3 chosen in total and taking 7 out of 8 wounds from Bjorn (Halving damage, 2+ save and 5+ FNP is nuts!). Arjac charges Huron's unit and kills him with his free Heroic Challenge and takes 4 wounds in return. They managed to score both secondaries this turn with their hailmary

 

My Turn 3 the Melta bikes pick up Bjorn as he was no longer in Engagement range. The Defiler damages the Ballistus with his Lascannon, ready for the Lord to finish it off in combat but not before I lose the other two Chosen. My opponent calls it here as his Secondary cards were both actions and  he only has the Techmarine left and I control all 5 objectives

65-13

 

 

For the 3rd round I wa vs Death Guard:

Spoiler

-1WS/BS Contagion

 

Morty

Sorcerer + 5 Blightlord termies

Plague Surgeon + 7 PM

Typhus + 5 Blightlord termies

 

20 Poxwalkers

 

MBH

BloatDrone Heavy Blight Launcher

Plagueburst Crawler

 

Game 3:
 

Spoiler

Hammer and Anvil Deployment and some funky building placement means I have almost no cover in my deployment. Not the end of the world really as I want to be pushing out and taking objectives but I probably should have contested it and sorted my deployment zone out a bit.

Morty, MBH and Pox walkers were on my right flank. PM deep in their deployment zone and Poxwalkers, Drone and Poxwalkers on my left flank. I made a mistake here and put the Vindicator, all the bikes and only Huron's Rhino on the right flank and then the Crawler and the MoE+Lord Rhino on the left. In hindsight I should have put the MoE+Lord on the right and just plowed them into Morty (as I found out) they would have absolutely blitzed him and I should have been more defensive with the Vindicator.

 

My opponent gets T1 and pushes up with everything advancing, the MBH does nothing to the Vindicator miraculously. My T1 I push everything up and manage to get LoS on Morty down a tight alley but it puts him in a precarious position. The Bikes pick the MBH up and the Vindicator whiffs massively and just gets 2 wounds on Morty after getting 9 shots. Both are saved. MoE jumps out the Rhino and charges the Poxwalkers on my left flank objective and also whiff leaving one alive. The Defiler is making hsi way towards Morty too

 

T2 Morty jumps over a building and charges the 2 squads of bikes and the Vindicator. The Poxwalkers kill the Melta bikes and Morty picks up the Vindicator. Blightlords with Sorcerer drop in the midboard and Typhus' unit drop behind my Chosen and Chaos Lord's Rhino on the left. I lose the marine squad and the MoE drops to 1w from an extremely good shooting phase from the Mortar and the Bloatdrone. The Bloat drone charges and the MoE kills it, which explodes and kills him in return. Typhus' unit fails the charge and the middle unit just make it into my predator on a 9" charge, although there's a little funky measuring and moving a unit before measuring properly. As we're running low on time and we're both having fun with the game I let it slide.

 

I needed this turn to be big for me and I think I misplayed quite a bit in deployment but we live and we learn!

T2, Defiler, Rhino and Huron's unit all move towards the Morty and shoot him. The Defiler whiffs hard here and does nothing. The Marines do nothing and the Rhino kills a couple of Poxwalkers just behind morty. The Plasma Bikes fallback from Morty and whizz into the centre objective to take it back off the strung out BL currently fighting the Predator. The Chosen+Lord run back toward Typhus' unit and set themselves up an inch away and their Rhino takes the Left objective and kills the last Poxwalker. This tunr was extremely frustrating as most units I'm shooting at are a total of -2 to hit, with the -1BS aura and Typhus' inate ability, the pred being in combat with the Blightlords and Morty getting Stealth there was a lot of missing happening. The Pred does nothing and Chosen chip a single wound from Typhus' unit.

 

Charging goes better as I tank shock the Defiler into morty and he saves 4 out of 6 FNPs on this, both the marines+Huron and the Defiler make it in. The Defiler does 3 Wounds. Huron and his squad however (even with -1 to hit) deal 10 wounds to Morty after FNPs which is kinda nuts. Reroll wounds really shines! The Defiler only takes 4 in return. The Lord by himself kills all 5 Blight Lords (5 Devwounds on the Hammer) and the Chosen only manage to drop Typhus to 2W and lose only 2 Chosen in return. The Predator survives on1 W however the BL and piled into the Bikes on the Central objective and killed those.

 

T3 The Defiler takes 6 wounds from Plague Marine Shooting which really hurts. The Mortar drops the Rhino to 1 wound. Morty finishes off the Defiler after I only failed 2 Saves (DMG4 each). I tried rerolling and failed, I really needed to not lose a few more wounds to PM shooting! I lose 2 more of the Chosen to Typhus' psychic attack. Huron kills Morty by himself after some excellent rolling, we'd hyped up the Defiler Vs Morty duel that Huron was obviously using to weaken the Lord of Plagues to finish off himself! The predator finally dies but not until after it actually manages to kill one Blightlord. Typhus tanks all of the attacks heading his way

 

My T3, I've only got 10 minutes left after some extremely slow play. I'm not mad about it as it's a fun game and we're both having a good time, if I had more resources left and it was a proper tournament I might have taken it a bit more seriously. There wasn't really anything I could do here really, just the Lord+1 Chosen left on the left flank VS Typhus and Huron and his sqaud had piled into the Poxwalkers on the right with a Rhino backing them up. I did manage to score both secondaries here and get some primary points as I had in previous rounds but ultimately my opponent had been crushing on Primary and Secondary.

A Loss 66-41 to my opponent

 

3rd place! Not bad all in all!

Some things I learned:

Vinidicators are ace when they swing your way. They very easily swing away. They do scare the pants off most opponents though.

 

Defilers are great but also very swingy. He did one shot Ragnar with one claw attack which was quite funny. I feel like they're similar to the Predator Destructor where you'll only really see them crushing flanks if there's more than one or they have backup. Both units seem to be something you want to force your opponent to take saves against repeatedly.

 

Legionaries are crazy! So far in my Crusade games they've not really been fighting on objectives as the Crusade matches tended to have weird objectives. They've really shinned in these games, even 5 man units have been crushing units. The MoE definitely is the play as you only need to kill a model to chip a wound off a Monster/Vehicle and they're rerolling everything

 

Chosen+Lord wth the Reroll hits and wounds strat are even crazier. Similar to the Defilers and Destructors except they're high AP, you're just drowning your opponent in dice and either forcing invuln saves or just picking the unit up

 

There's a 2k RTT happening a few towns over in July so I'll get some lists together and get some practice going too. The more familiar I am with the army the better my results will be I think

 

For units I'm painting the CtA is active now and I have a bunch I want to do. I've got a bunch more Legionnaries I want to get painted, a couple of Helbrutes, some more characters, another Rhino and also an old friend will be joining the Corsairs:

 

Shark-tank from my Iron Warriors will be getting a repaint!

I've sold my Iron Warriors army as I finished the project and didn't have anything else I want to add to the army or even play it when I'm having so much fun with the Corsairs. I kept a few models that I loved painting like Vashtorr (who has a use for Corsairs still) and Abaddon who I got as a gift. Sharktank (Forgedrake in universe name/Defiler classification) is a model I loved converting and really the main reason I kept the Iron Warriors for so long. So I'll be repainting him for the Corsairs!

 

I also have a bunch of models from a pal that I'll be sorting through and painting as Black Legion to sell on which I'll be adding to my Vow

[gaurdian31]

Man sounds like a great time! Love the new heavy weapon guy with the eviserator and the army as always looks great together!

[TrawlingCleaner]

Thank you gaurdian!

I Vowed quite a bit for CtA that I vowed and I've also been workng on my Darkoath for AoS as I'm wanting to get my backlog completed before the new edition drops.

I've started on this ancient (and heavy) beast, long way to go and a good arm work out ahead!

[gaurdian31]

Love the old school dreadnaught, I have 3 of them painted up in Iron Warriors colors. Excited to see yours painted up!

[madlibrarian]

On 6/21/2024 at 10:27 AM, TrawlingCleaner said:

Thank you gaurdian!

I Vowed quite a bit for CtA that I vowed and I've also been workng on my Darkoath for AoS as I'm wanting to get my backlog completed before the new edition drops.

I've started on this ancient (and heavy) beast, long way to go and a good arm work out ahead!

Great work pal - I looove the old metal and MKIV dreads. I want a claw and autocannon metal one at some point, and multiple MKIV dreads, but can’t find the MKIV for love nor money atm (£100+ for one is insanity on eBay)!

[TrawlingCleaner]

 

"The Ancient" is done! (bar the base)

Easily the heaviest model I own, even whilst his arms are plastic!

 

Thank you both!

On 6/23/2024 at 9:25 AM, madlibrarian said:

Great work pal - I looove the old metal and MKIV dreads. I want a claw and autocannon metal one at some point, and multiple MKIV dreads, but can’t find the MKIV for love nor money atm (£100+ for one is insanity on eBay)!

 

One of the MK4 dreads I own (the left one in the picture in this post) is a recast so I got it for very cheap and the other one I own is legit that I managed to snag just before they went OOP, he's been tee'ed up to be a few different army projects over the years but I never got around to it

I've got 3 for my Deathguard too, although I'm relatively sure one of those was recast too, the other two were very dinged up when I snagged them

I do hope FW bring them back or they get a plastic release in HH at some point though, that would be amazing!

 

More Legionaires up next I think!

[gaurdian31]

The dread is looking lovely!