The Just - Dr. Ruminahui's new Emperor's Children

[Slaanbull]

Wow! I've not been checking in for a while but you've finished so much over the last months, crazy good effort!

The camo cloak is such a fun idea. I've had some success with dry-brushing a neutral off-white over camo patterned cloth in the past, rather than shading it. That might work for you as as well if you decide to revisit that part of the models.
The ten infractors with blue details a few posts back are great, a really striking unit when posing together. 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Despite the knightly distraction (I converted and painted a bunch of gatling cannons and a missile launcher to let me field 2 despoilers), I just managed to finish painting my tormentors before the new year.  Here they are:

 

 

Pretty happy with them, and have now started on the second squad.  Particularly like the studded leather shoulder pad coverings as squad markings, as they look really nice against the obnoxiously purple armor.  The head on the champion is from one of the FW space marine sets, and I think it looks pretty well on my EC - after all, a haircut that bad can only be an EC... or a space wolf.  

 

Anyway, just started painting my second squad, so I should be able to show you how I intend to vary the Slannpat on the cloaks to differentiate squads.

[Volgon]

Looking good @Dr_Ruminahui! I know the capes are a mainstay of your forces but I like the bulk they add to these EC models. I wasn't a big fan of the EC range originally; I prefer size over sleekness, but they've grown on me for sure. 

 

I'm curious, what else lies in store for your EC army? You've done a lot of work on them (along with whatever you could bring over with your Slaaneshi CSM) so what's left? I've been pondering that myself; what units do I want to work on in the future and how to incorporate older projects (leftovers from when it was simply Kill Team stuff). 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Yeah, that's part of why I like the capes as well - they make the models look much larger and more menacing.  I think I still prefer the Heretic Astartes space marine models over EC ones, but the EC ones are fine and I'm quite happy with them once they have the requisite capes.

 

Quite a lot, actually - I've just barely scratched the surface of the EC models I've acquired.  Basically, I bought the starter box, the combat patrol and the Christmas box, which I've then supplemented with some models from my CSM force (rhino, 2x maulerfiends, a lord kakaphonist and an old winged demon prince) and some character models (including a new winged demon prince I have yet to paint) that I bought and which have made their way into my paint queue.

 

So, in the spring, I base coated the stuff from the starting box, plus the rhino and the assorted characters.  Next in my painting queue is that stuff - so my twin pistol Lord exultant/kakaphonist/Cypher stand in, 5 tormentors and 5 noise marines (I've already painted the 6th).  As useful as the winged demon prince would be, I need to figure out how to paint it first (it's a split scheme where I need to work out the alternate colour - it will be the same colour as my CSM raptors... once I figure out how I want to do them).

 

Then, come spring, I intend to spray another batch of 30 or so models - probably the combat patrol stuff.

 

At the moment, I can't really play any EC army over 1000 points without going Carnival and using demons to make up the points... so I would like to get enough EC marine stuff done so that I can at least have 1500 points of just that.  I should be there (or pretty close) when I get my primed stuff done, though my army would definitely benefit from the 2 5 man intractor squads I intend to make from the combat patrol box.

 

Good luck with your own decision making, and I look forward to seeing whatever it is you decide to work on next.

Edited January 2 by Dr_Ruminahui

[kabaakaba]

That's a great work. I'm amazed again with your cloaks and this deep purple. 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Thanks, @kabaakaba - I can't take much credit for the purple, (other than choosing it), as its just airbrushed art paint, but I'm happy to do so for the capes.  

 

Had one of my funnest 40K games in a long time, and my first 2000 point game of the edition - we normally play 1000 or 1500 point games, as we play fairly rarely and quite slowly.

 

I played a Carnival list composed of:

- Demon prince with wings with a possessed blade (gives +1 attack and can make his melee have Dev Wounds and Hazardous)

- Lord exultant (spear & lash) with the acrobatic wargear (auto 6 advance, move through enemies) with 10x infractors (champ with lash and plasma) in a rhino

- Lord K with 2x pistol with 6 noise marines (champ with sword) in rhino

- Lord K with sword 6 noise marines (champ with sword)

- 6x noise marines (champ with blaster)

- 5x tormentors (champ with sword and plasma)

- 2x Maulerfiends (with tendrils)

- 2x 5 seekers

- 2x 10 demonettes

- 1x 2 spawn

 

My friend had a really fun Speed Freaks Ork list composed of (as far as remember):

- Warboss with fist + Weird boy with 20x boys (with 2x rockets)

- Warboss with fist with 20x boys (with 2x rockets)

- 6x Breaks boys (melee anti-tank) in a truck

- 10x burna unit in a truck

- 2x 3 Coptas

- 2x Def Dreads (one with 4x claws, one with 3x claws + scorcha)

- 2x 3 bikes, each with boss on trike

- 1x teleporting F1 racecar buggy

- 1x jet engine with missiles buggy

- 1x rivet gun muscle car buggy

- A big mech with some big hazardous gun that almost kills my demon prince in the top of turn 4, but otherwise doesn't do much

 

Here's a picture from the bottom of turn 2, of me move blocking his two dreads with my seekers:

 

 

Basically, we started in opposite table quarters, and we've both move onto each other's natural expansion objectives - going first with a scouting rhino (with infractors in it) I got there before he did, while his "da jump"-ing orks and the coptas that are in the left of this photo clearing out my tormentors hiding out behind the ruin the top left (but not before I precision melta-d out his weird boy from his orks with the tormentors - I went after the weird boy to reduce his mobility, but probably should have sniped his warboss instead).  By this point, I had killed his breaks boyz and their truck (with the squad of noise marines which is by this point dead but whose Lord K is in the central ruin by the seekers, and those seekers), the jet engine buggy with the noise marines now in with his trike, one squad of bikes + warboss trike with tinfractors and other seekers, and the bikes with the other trike with my other mauler (the first one got munched by a Def Dread turn one - I set him up to charge the breaks boy truck, then killed the truck with shooting).

 

My prince and a squad of demonettes remain off the table.  This mission your home objective didn't score but you could guard an objective (including it) for 2 points, so that was what I was doing with my demonettes in the bottom right - I was planning on picking them up and redeploying them with the 2 CP strat but I never managed to save up the CP for it as I kept using my secondaries to score, even for low points, rather than tossing them for CP.  Oh, and 3rd noise marines are in the rhino on the left, while my other rhino (the infractors ride) is just off screen to the right with 2 wounds left - the coptas couldn't quite kill it.  The other two buggies are off screeen scoring secondaries.

 

Oh, and my spawn are tucked onto the objective doing a secondary - they kept doing that, then scooting back whenever the enemy came within 9".  Meant I wasn't holding the centre, but did mean I could survive to do that several times.

 

Here's a picture from turn 3:

 

 

Here, his jumping boys are now on the left, and have eaten the noise marine squad that was in the rhino in the last picture.  I've charged my infractors into his boyz in the middle after restraining from shooting them, as I wanted to make sure I made it onto the centre (I had secondaries to both hold the centre and kill him off of it, so this was key) and then charged the rhino into the warboss to pin it in place to prevent him from piling onto the objective - which all worked, as I killed the whole squad but the boss and piled into the middle.  My noise marines unfortunately failed to kill the top truck, which was unfortunate as it was full of burnas which were really going to hurt my infractors in coming turns.  Oh, and my mauler is about to eat one of the dreads, and somehow survive the crackback from the other which heroic interventioned this turn.

 

Off screen, my prince is hiding behind the wall in the top right, having deepstruck on my opponent's turn and has now charged the buggy on the other side of the wall, which it will kill and grab the objective for myself.  My 2nd demonettes squad is on the objective in the bottom right (having deepstruck in my turn, and has killed the coptas there (or something did).  His other coptas are on my home objective killing off the demonettes there, which his teleporting F1 is there too, scoring a 6 point sabotage in my deployment zone.

 

Prior to above described successes, I felt I was running on fumes but scoring 10 points of secondaries plus some primary points to boot really kept me in the game.

 

This is also turn 3, just on his turn.

 

 

Here, he has just charged my maulerfiend with his boyz, just managing to kill it exactly to warboss & nob power claw only to have his last wound stripped exactly by the choppa attacks.  The mauler then blew up and put wounds on everything in this photo except the noise marines - including the lone spawn that isn't in the photo because it was killed by the explosion.  This was a huge swing in his direction, as the explosion hurt me more than him and I probably would have killed the dread had the mauler survived, which might have put me in a better place against his remaining horde.

 

Ultimately, the game was a loss, but very, very close - my opponent managed to get 11 points in secondaries on the final turn, giving him the win 69 to 67.  His MVP was definitely the teleporting F1, which probably helped him score about 15 VP over the game.

 

I really do prefer how the 2000 point game played over 1500, (or 1000), as at the lower levels I felt like I just didn't have enough pieces to trade and also do objectives.  Further, I like how the secondary cards drawn (and the ones held onto by my opponent) really shaped decision making in way they haven't in the past, where it always felt like my opponent's cards were no brainers to achieve and mine were all duds.  In this game, a number of tactical decisions were made based on how best to deny my enemy points, which I really liked.  Its too bad 2000 point games take so long, though I'm definitely going to try to make the time for them.

 

Oh, and we had had 2 visitations on the table to the Greater Furred Demon "Grace", the first before I had my phone downstairs, and the second she knocked over some terrain and scared herself back into the immaterium before photographic evidence could be acquired.  

Edited Sunday at 05:43 PM by Dr_Ruminahui

[Tallarn Commander]

Thanks for the fun batrep. Games against Greenskins are always a blast. I'd like to think that Grace was the real winner of the match. 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

@Tallarn Commander - yeah, orks are always fun but this list was particularly so, as the buggies and the bikes (and trikes) made the most "speed freaky" list I've played against.  My friend's first army was speed freaks (back in 3rd ed) and he's been playing his orks as such on-and-off ever since, but it was mostly just boys in trucks - this is the first time where his list felt fully true with the fluff, and I loved it.

 

As for Grace being the match winner, she didn't get any food or treats out of it, so I doubt she feels that way.   That said, I think the 2 players were both winners, as it was an exceptionally close, suspenseful and fun game.

 

Rather than dive straight into my second tormentor's squad, I decided to paint a character as a bit of a pallette cleanser.  Here he is:

 

 

This is the "meme" 3-pistol Exultant conversion I did mostly for the LOLs.  I intend to use him in a variety of roles - for now, as a twin screamer Lord K until the actual GW model becomes available for sale again, possibly as an Exultant after that, and as my Cypher stand-in in my CSM army... that's why I went with the split colour scheme.

 

The model is more static than I might like (more Last Man Standing than Hard Boiled, for those familiar with those movies), but I'm still pretty happy with him.