Jodrell Plays Games

Now that the Covenant of Ruin is at a healthy size, I decided to branch out a little bit, and so I’ve started on a small force of Dark Mechanicum to accompany them.

The first models are these Stalker Construct. They are painted to be quite similar to my Necron constructs - the idea is that this particular Forge World has delved a little too deeply into the data vaults associated with the Dragon of Mars.

These are lovely models, but boy, are they fiddly to build and keep in one piece during painting. They have tiny contact surfaces to the bases as well, so I suspect they will need some maintenance in the future. They look awesome though, and I hope they expand the range.

More pictures below the fold…

Earlier today I finished the latest batch of models for my Word Bearers and thought it would be fun to put them all out on parade and OH MY GOD I HAD NO IDEA HOW MUCH I HAD DO I HAVE A PROBLEM.

More pictures (and a video!) below the fold.

Last weekend, Rob and I fought another 2,000 point Legions Imperialis game, but now that he’s repainted his army as Ultramarines, we can now situate our battles in the Shadow Crusade, the classic “red vs blue” conflict of the Horus Heresy.

Rather than decide on the mission and secondary objectives on the day, we rolled for them in advance. This allowed us to tailor our lists accordingly, which made for a more thematic game.

The mission we played was Conquest:

Fortuitously, Rob rolled Breakthrough for his secondary objective, while I rolled Defiant. This meant that we were set up for a classic attacker-vs-defender battle: if he was able to penetrate my deployment zone, he’d win, but if I could maintain control of it, I’d win.

Accordingly, I created a very defensive list, consisting of two Legion Garrison Forces, filled with Deredeo dreadnoughts, tarantulas and rapiers, a Legion Armoured Company, a Legion Demi-Company and a Warlord titan. Rob’s army was highly mobile, with lots of Scimitar jetbikes, Sicaran tanks, and Predators.

In the end, Rob was unable to penetrate the wall of iron I’d built around my deployment zone, and when my Leviathan dreadnoughts demolished the building his Reaver was hiding behind, and my Warlord destroyed it in a single salvo, he conceded the game at the end of the third turn. Victory was mine!

More pictures below the fold…

This Friday, Mark and I will kick off a year-long BattleTech campaign, using the Chaos Campaign: Succession Wars rules.

We’ve each built a company of ‘mechs (three lances of four ‘mechs each), that will change and grow as the campaign develops.

Some of my company will come from a new force of ‘mechs, which I’ve painted in a sneaky camouflage scheme, which you can see here. This scheme is extremely quick and easy to paint, using contrasts paints and washes, and looks great on the table.

I will share updates on the campaign as they occur.

Close-up photos below the fold!

This game was a rematch of the last one - same opponent, same venue, but we downscaled to 2,000 points, which I actually think I like a bit more than the 3,000-point standard game size.

We played the “Confrontation” mission, and both rolled the “Breakthrough” secondary objective, meaning that we both had to try to reach each other’s table edge before the end of the game.

I managed to score a win, thanks mainly to a mistake on my opponent’s part, as he hadn’t appreciated that the assault troops and Sicaran tanks that were on his side of the board were heading for his table edge, and not trying to outflank his garrisoned positions.

The smaller game size made for a less cumbersome and more enjoyable game. We have another game planned for next month, and I’m going to suggest that we roll for mission and secondary objective beforehand, as I think being able to tailor your list for the mission will add some depth to the game.

More photos below the fold!

A couple of weeks ago I pitted 3,000 points of my Word Bearers against a combined force of Sons of Horus and Iron Warriors. The venue was the superb Mug and Meeple in Gravesend.

I won’t say that I played with a great deal of tactical acumen, but I held up pretty well despite the occasional blunder and it was still a load of fun.

Plenty more pictures below the fold!

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.