Jodrell Plays Games

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 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.

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.

After having to wait for life to calm down after the chaos of Christmas and New Year I’ve hit the ground running with my new Word Bearers army for Legions Imperialis.

As you may recall, I once had a Horus Heresy Word Bearers army and I’m basically replicating the same colour scheme, just at a much smaller scale :)

Above, you can see the first completed stand from the army, which is obviously a command squad. After bashing that one out, I was able to finish all the other figures on the frame, as well as both talons of Contemptor dreadnoughts:

I have a game booked in for March, which I think gives me enough time to paint up a 1,500 point army beforehand. Obviously I will share photos as I finish things up!

This is the second unit of knights for House Malinax - and, for a change, they've been painted by me!

Here are the first Knights I've painted for Adeptus Titanicus. I chose House Malinax based purely on how easy they would be to paint - as it happens, the colour scheme wasn't all that easy (as you will now if you've ever tried to paint Wraithbone over black) but I'm still happy with the result.

More photos below the fold.

Here's a Reaver titan to go with the Warlord titan I finished late last year. Definitely much easier to paint! I managed to slightly mis-position the feet and toes, meaning that the armour plates on the leg are a bit wonky, but thankfully it's not too noticeable. I won't make that mistake again!

I'm now working on some Cerastus and Acastus knights. Rather than going for a homebrew House I'm going to paint them as House Malinax.

More pictures below the fold.

After more than a year, this massive model is finally finished! Now he's done I'm looking forward to moving on to painting some Reavers, Warhounds and knights for Adeptus Titanicus.

More pictures below the fold.

I haven't posted much in the last year or so, because of two things: first, I have been getting less hobby time due to personal reasons which I won't bore you with, but also because it's so much easier to just throw a photo up on Twitter.

But I really should be posting stuff here more, so I thought I'd throw up a few posts with some of the highlights from the recent fallow period.

First up, here's Lorgar, who (as you might expect) is the leader of my Word Bearers army for The Horus Heresy:

My Word Bearers army is based on the models from the Betrayal at Calth box set, here is the test model that I painted:

After I assembled and base coated most of the army I made a decision to commission a local freelance painter to finish the army for me: when it's finished I will post pictures, but if you check out the Facebook page on that link you will see some Work-in-progress links.

Hmmmm so this is the big boy for a new Imperial Guard release? Color me interested... pic.twitter.com/kztVOV9qNY

— Kevin (@d6_hobbyist) February 13, 2014

It looks like Knights are about to return to Warhammer 40,000 in 28mm scale. Before they become the new hotness, I thought it might be fun to run through their history.