Jodrell Plays Games

This summer has been pretty light, hobby-wise, due to holidays and such. My next game of Legions Imperialis is in a couple of weeks, so now that a more normal routine has kicked in, I’ve been trying to finish a set of Legion Vanguard units to slot into my army.

You may not that the Land Speeders from the box are not shown: I really dislike those models and decided not to paint them. Perhaps they will make an appearance one day in the future.

Close-ups of the individual models are below the fold.

Background updates

I thought it would be fun to create some fluff for my Word Bearers army, so (with a little help from ChatGPT) I have created a page that describes The Covenant of Ruin. Check it out!

I also used ChatGPT to flesh out some of the empty parts of my 40K background documents: because ChatGPT had already crawled this website and had absorbed some of what I’d written previously, it was able to draw upon it to fill in those gaps while remaining consistent to what was already there. That’s a neat way of using ChatGPT that I will keep in mind for the future.

The Sicaran tank is one of my favourite things about the Horus Heresy setting, so I was always going to have a bunch of them in my army. You only get two in the boxed set, which isn’t really enough to be combat effective, so I added another four to make this unit of six.

The turrets can be swapped out as needed, and additional 3D-printable turret options can be found online, so hopefully this unit will be quite flexible. These tanks will be taking to the field next Saturday and so, according to the immutable laws of wargaming, will probably be the first to be destroyed!

I have been working on expanding my Word Bearers army ahead of my next game of Legions Imperialis at the end of this month. We’re going to 2,250 points for that game, which is half-way between the 1,500 points we played previously and the “standard” game size of 3,000.

The first units to be completed are some 3D-printed Terminators, and a detachment of warriors from the Ashen Circle. These will be used as standard Assault marines, until such time as proper rules for them are released.

I have some Storm Eagles and Sicaran tanks that I need to paint before the next game, so stay tuned for further updates!

Last night I schlepped up to the big smoke to play my first game of Legions Imperialis with my good friend Rob (for whom it was also his first game). We each had 1,500 points of Legiones Astartes (me Word Bearders, him Sons of Horus) and played the “Retrieval” mission.

In this mission there are three objectives placed on the centre line of the table. The twist is that if you control an objective at the end of the round you can move it up to 5 inches.

As you might imagine, this setup meant that we ended up getting into close combat pretty quickly and the game was fast and bloody. We’re both veterans of 2nd Edition Epic: Space Marine and NetEpic so the game felt pretty familiar, with the difference from the old systems suiting the Heresy-era setting very well.

We both had loads of fun and will be playing another game soon!

More pictures below the fold.

These are the first of the new Legions Imperialis models that I wish I’d painted as sub-assemblies. The gap between the hull and the tracks at the front is hard to reach with a brush, and I will be painting each part separately for the next batch.

Nevertheless these are some very cool models and they’ve turned out great.

More below the fold.

Here’s the rest of the box, you can see the Leviathan dreadnoughts here.

My hobby productivity has taken an uptick recently thanks to the reinstatement of a permanent hobby desk in a location (next to where I work) that lets me do quick 10-15 minute stints throughout the day. I am also taking an “agile” approach to painting the army in “sprints”, which is probably worth a separate post.

So hopefully more will follow very soon!

Can I hear Kenny Loggins?

More below the fold…

Here are some Leviathan Siege Dreadnoughts. You get four in the Legiones Astartes Support box, along with four Deredeo dreadnoughts, four Tarantulas and four Rapiers. I have two of these boxes so will be able to field a full talon of each loadout.

Look out for the others soon!

I already have some Acastus and Cerastus knights to support my Word Bearers, and a Reaver and a Warlord to use in larger games, but you can’t beat a pair of Warhounds for flexibility and threat value against enemy units of any size.

This has been in my pile of shame for some time, but the momentum that helped me get the first wave of Word Bearers units finished also motivated me to get this finished.

Obviously this chap has a companion which is should be finished soon (I will probably sell the Warhounds that came in the LI box). I also have another Reaver, some more Cerastus knights, and some Questoris knights that will round out the strategic assets that’ll be available to support my Astartes army.

After some frenetic hobby activity (the first in almost two years), the first wave of my Legions Imperialis Word Bearers army is finished, and I’m really pleased with it!

Still to come: Leviathan and Deredeo dreadnoughts, Spartan tanks, tarantula and rapier batteries, Xiphon fighters, knights, titans and lots more! Stay tuned…

Some close-ups below the fold.