Strike Force Xerius - 1250 Point Space Marine List

So, my FLGW is running a 1250 point tournament next Saturday, and once again the Revilers are making an appearance. My list looks something like this:

Chaplain
+Jump Pack
+Meltabombs
+Digital Weapons

Librarian

Tactical Squad [10]
+Powerfist
+Meltagun
+Heavy Bolter
Drop Pod

Tactical Squad [10]
+Powerfist
+Meltagun
+Missile Launcher

Scout Squad [10]
+Powerfist
+5 Combat Blades
+4 Shotguns

Sternguard Veterans [5]
+Combi-melta
Drop Pod

Dreadnought
+Multimelta
+Heavy Flamer
+Extra Armour
Drop Pod

Assault Squad [5]
+Power Weapon

So that means I've got a touch of painting to get done in the next six days. The Chaplain, Assault Marines, one tactical squad, Dreadnought and drop pods are good to go. The Librarian, Sternguard, and Scouts need painting... and the Tactical Squad with the heavy bolter is partially painted.

Strike Force Sabre - Space Marines

In lieu of the Weekend Workbench this week, I've got some shots of the 1000 point army I took to a tourney at my local GW yesterday.

Tactical Squad III, led by Sergeant Dymius.

Tactical Squad I, led by Sergeant Valdis, and containing a returned Deathwatch veteran.

Assault Squad VIII, led by Sergeant Raedix. This squad also has a returned Deathwatch veteran in it, and Raedix's jump pack is embellished with two reliquaries.

Leader of the strike force, Brother-Reclusiarch Behemiel.

Lastly, my first Dreadnought, Brother Gaheris.

Weekend Workbench - 20 May

Quick post here this weekend, so I can get back to painting Space Marines. Been a bit skint with the photography of late, but that's due to the in-progress Drop Pods currently inhabiting my photoshoot area (a piece of paper taped to my back wall). My laptop's been temporarily evicted from the workbench for now, to make space for the 1000 point army I'm painting up to take to a tournament next Saturday. Currently I have 8 Tactical Marines, a Drop Pod, a Dreadnought, and a Chaplain finished, 9 Tactical Marines and 1 Assault Marine awaiting details and basing, and 3 Tactical Marines, 9 Assault Marines, and 2 Drop Pods in various stages of PIP.

Weekend Workbench - 13 May

Three words: Drop Pod Assault.

I also built four Honour Guard, five Assault Marines, and a power-armoured Librarian this week - the Assault Marines are visible on the palette in the foreground, and I'll get detail pics of all of those projects up soon. For now, though, my workspace is transitioning into painting-mode! I've entered a tourney at my "local" GW on May 26, so I need to paint up those Assault Marines, those two Drop Pods, and do some finishing touches on my Tactical squads. When I get tired of painting blue-grey Power Armour, I'll take a break and paint some Inquisitorial Henchmen.

Weekend Workbench - 6 May - Special Outdoor Edition

Today was an exquisitely nice day outside, so I dragged myself out into the backyard and got some priming done. The Inquisitorial warband, 2 Sternguard, a missile marine, and a Veteran with Thunder Hammer for my Command Squad - as well as 2 drop pods and a Rhino still on-sprue.

Here's a shot of the backyard, painting backdrop all set up on the left, minis laid out to dry on the bench, and pretty pink petals from the crabapple tree everywhere. On a slight tangent, priming grey plastic minis grey gets kind of frustrating.

Here's my workbench this weekend - freshly primed stack sitting on my stool, and barely visible on the cutting plank are two MkIII Iron-armoured Sternguard Veterans in progress. Going to finish up a couple more minis then clear off the bench for some painting. Until next time!

Weekend Workbench - 29 April

Inspired by Ron over at From The Warp, and to help myself keep up a good flow of content on my own blog, I've decided to do a snapshot of my workbench area every weekend - leaving enough flexibility to work around my schedule. Here's the first one:

Nothing much going on yet, as I've just got back from school. I spent the weekend unboxing my Space Marines and laying out all my tools and brushes again. First on the chopping block are a couple of miscellaneous Marines in mkVI armour - one will be equipped with a missile launcher and I'm not sure what I'm doing with the second.

Rethinking Captain Telemachus

Jarhael Telemachus, Captain of the Revilers 3rd Company is the erstwhile commander of my Space Marine Army. Currently represented by a somewhat sloppily converted Emperor's Champion, I decided to make my first summer project an attempt at converting a model that does him justice. To that end, I picked up a Space Marine Commander box and a Finecast Emperor's Champion - hopefully the Finecast lends itself to conversions better than the original white metal. The old Telemachus model will probably be repurposed as a Vanguard Veteran sergeant, or a member of the Honour Guard.

The Return

Coming back to this blog after over a year away... mainly due to spending the fall, winter, and spring in Europe for my first year of uni.

Anyway, I find myself back at home in Canada for the foreseeable future, and getting right back into the hobby swing of things.

A bit of thinking and looking at my collection have prompted the following thoughts:

• I'm through with building armies around army lists. I want to collect and paint models I want to collect and paint and maybe even play with.


• My Space Marines will be my main gaming army. That means my other armies (Imperial Guard, Necrons, Eldar) are more free to focus on theme and showiness, and less on game legality.

Currently I am about to dive into a wave of plastic power armour, utilising the new Grey Knight plastics to bolster the Revilers' Librarium and First Company, as well as assembling the MkIII Marines I bought in England at Warhammer World. Also two more drop pods!

My other main hobby project at the moment is a set of Inquisitorial Henchmen, attached Inquisitor, and Rhino transport for my friend Jeff who recently started Grey Knights.

In the further future (all the grim darkness of it) I plan to pick up some Dark Eldar models because they're bloody amazing. But that will wait until a little while later, probably.

Watch this space for imminent pics of my current works in progress, taken with my slick (and thoroughly field tested) DSLR camera.

And trust me, there will be magnets. Oh, there will be.

Battle Missions

Invited a buddy of mine over this aft to test out the Battle Missions book. Got five (!) games in - they were relatively quick as we were only playing 1000-1250 points or so.

First up was the Close Quarters Action mission, available from the GW website. To capture the cramped, desperate flavour of the mission we decided to use the tunnels from Space Hulk as the setting for the mission. I took on my friend's Imperial Guard with my Revilers and ended up falling half an inch short of contesting the objective (for a win). Nevertheless, I managed to chew my way through 90% of his Guardsmen and a good time was had by all.

Second game was a Surprise Assault, with the Revilers on the defensive and my friend breaking out the new Blood Angels codex. Although by no means indefatigable, the new Blood Angels are incredibly strong... despite taking down a Furioso Librarian (Sergeant Alban claiming his second career Dreadnought kill), I ended the game with no units alive. Lessons learned: Thundershield terminators are a huge beatstick, but moreso on the charge; Command Squads add a lot of bang to the already (surprisingly) beastly Space Marine Captain (Feel No Pain for great justice!); and Chaplain Lemartes is by far one of the dead killiest things in the new Blood Angels Codex.

Third game was a Flank Assault - this time I was the attacker and the Blood Angels defended. I castled up my home objective with a half tactical squad and scout squad, and had the rest of my army go for a flank. Lemartes & Death Co. fell to a literal hammerblow from Chief Librarian Orzora and his Terminator retinue, and my Landspeeder was able to evade the Furioso Librarian's attacks, get behind it, and blow it up real good. Although slightly hampered by only having a single scoring unit, the Blood Angels' Land Raider-borne Assault Squad managed to claw their way onto my objective - making the game a draw.

Game four was an Ambush. We swapped roles again, with the Revilers lining up in a nice column for the Blood Angels to attack. Some less-than-average storm shield rolling with my Assault Terminators led to the Death Company carving a bloody swathe through the rear of my column, and a Turn 1 explosion involving a Heavy Flamer shot and my Landspeeder didn't help either. Although a few of my units survived to make a run for the table edge, I ended up throwing caution to the wind and simply charging Captain Telemachus back at the remnants of the Blood Angels force. In a series of post-game "what if" combats, the Captain managed to slice/meltabomb his way through half an assault squad, a Librarian, a Furioso Librarian, a Land Raider, and two Death Company before eventually falling to the remaining Death Company's power swords. His performance further reinforced my newfound love for the Captain's combat prowess, and reinforced my desire to get a proper command squad built for him.

The final game was played with the Dark Eldar Slave Raid mission. The game didn't really start until turn 3 as the Blood Angels held everything in Reserve - but once they flew on, it was a bloodbath. Death Company charged Terminators, Assault Marines charged Command Squad, the Furioso Librarian chased the Landspeeder around using Wings of Sanguinius, and Sergeant Koros' combat squad faced down a Land Raider. I managed to blow up the Land Raider and rack up a few prisoners by winning several rounds of combat against the Assault Marines (punctuated by the 3rd Company Champion slaying the Blood Angels Librarian!), but in the end, Chaplain Lemartes proved his sheer deadliness by slaughtering most of my army. The game ended turn 6, eighteen prisoners to ten.

The Battle Missions book is definitely worth the thirty dollars - the scenarios, for any of the armies, provide a fresh twist on 40k for those tiring of the three basic missions. As well as a tactical challenge, they also offer a great pseudo-narrative feel that would be great for campaigns.

Four Days To Go - Painting Update

Four days until the Planetstrike throwdown! My paintbrushes have been working hard overtime (between hobby and school!) and progress is coming along nicely. Currently on the bench are four Space Hulk termies, which will join my 6 AoBR termies, and my Librarian converted from the AoBR Captain.

Attacker
Librarian - Primed
Venerable Dreadnought – Painted - Needs Detailing
Drop Pod – Painted
Terminator Squad – 6 Painted, 4 Unpainted
Tactical Squad – Painted - Needs Detailing
Tactical Squad – Painted - Needs Detailing

Defender
Librarian – Partially Painted
Sternguard Veteran Squad – 6 Painted, 1 Partially Painted, 3 Unpainted
Tactical Squad – Painted - Needs Detailing
Scout Squad – Painted
Devastator Squad (Missile Launchers)– Painted - Needs Detailing
Devastator Squad (Lascannons)– Painted - Needs Detailing

I'll post pics of my finished units/armies (!) when I find the time. Life is hectic and jam-packed with stuff to do at the moment.

Chief Librarian Lucius Orzora

I decided to take advantage of the bout of warm-ish weather Toronto is experiencing and get my Terminator Librarian assembled, based, and primed. He will be Lucius Orzora, Chief Librarian of the Revilers Chapter and leader of my 1250 point Planetstrike Attacker list for the tourney on the 29th.

I bulked up his base with some cork chunks; mainly to make him a bit more impressive than the Space Hulk librarian that he may have to share the board with sometime. He is supposed to be the Chief Librarian, after all - and it wouldn't do to have some Terminator-armoured Epistolary looking more impressive than him.

Here he is, primed grey and all ready for me to... start painting something else. I'll probably get around to starting on this guy (and finishing up my power-armoured Librarian) on the weekend.

Quick Painting Update

Got some good painting done today. Will post pictures tomorrow-ish, but for now, here's what the army painting progress looks like.

Attacker
Librarian - Unassembled, Unpainted
Venerable Dreadnought – Mostly Painted - Needs Detailing
Drop Pod – Fully Painted
Terminator Squad – 6 Fully Painted, 4 Unpainted
Tactical Squad – Mostly Painted - Needs Detailing
Tactical Squad – Mostly Painted - Needs Detailing

Defender
Librarian – Partially Painted
Sternguard Veteran Squad – 6 Fully Painted, 1 Partially Painted, 3 Unpainted
Tactical Squad – Partially Painted
Scout Squad – Painted - Need Magnets for Bases
Devastator Squad (Missile Launchers)– Mostly Painted - Needs Detailing
Devastator Squad (Lascannons)– Primed - Unpainted

I'm going to try and get my Termie Librarian primed tomorrow or the day after, while it's still nice out. Pics of the missile Devastators and the Drop Pod are forthcoming... along with whatever else I get done between now and then. Next in line is the Tactical Squad from the Defender list, a mongrel crew headed up by Sergeant Koros. After that, I'll revisit Valdis and Dymius' Tactical squads, and Ancient Gaheris.

Two Planetstrike Lists - And Painting Goals!

As I mentioned yesterday, my local(ish) GW is running a 1250 point Planetstrike tourney on the 29th of November. Up for grabs is a brand-spanking-new Fortress of Redemption. The lowdown? Two lists, attacker/defender, 1250 points, fully painted. Here's what I plan on taking:

Attacker

Librarian - 175
· Epistolary, Terminator Armour, Vortex of Doom, Might of Ancients
Venerable Dreadnought – 190
· Multi-melta, Heavy Flamer, Extra Armour
Drop Pod – 35
Terminator Squad – 450
· 10 Terminators
· 3 Chainfists, Assault Cannon, Heavy Flamer
Tactical Squad – 195
· 10 Space Marines
· Multimelta, Meltagun, Powersword, Meltabombs
Tactical Squad – 205
· 10 Space Marines
· Multimelta, Meltagun, Powerfist, Meltabombs
Total – 1250

The Terminators will be combat squadded, with the Librian joining up with one squad to lend his Vortex and the 2D6 penetration from Might of Ancients to their chainfisty-bastion-busting power. Everything deep strikes - the Dreadnought, via Drop Pod - and unleashes melty/chainfisty goodness on enemy bastions. A relatively straightforward strategy.

Defender

Librarian – 150
· Epistolary, Gate of Infinity, The Avenger
Sternguard Veteran Squad – 290
· 10 Sternguard Veterans
· Powerfist, Combi-melta, Meltagun, Flamer
Tactical Squad – 190
· 10 Space Marines
· Heavy Bolter, Flamer, Power Weapon, Meltabombs
Scout Squad – 80
· 5 Scouts
· Combat Blades, Meltabombs
Devastator Squad – 230
· 10 Space Marines
· 4 Missile Launchers
Devastator Squad – 310
· 10 Space Marines
· 4 Lascannons
Total - 1250

My plan as the defender is to castle down 3 bastions with my Devastators and the Tactical squad, keeping everything else in reserve. The Scouts are a distraction - hopefully they earn their 80 points back. The real kicker is the Sternguard - I plan to hold them in reserve, with the Librarian, and then Gate them around the board shooting things up in a torrent of Hellfire/Melta/Flame/Avenger.

On the painting front, this is how my armies look:

Attacker

Librarian - Unassembled, Unpainted
Venerable Dreadnought – Mostly Painted - Needs Detailing
Drop Pod – Partially Painted
Terminator Squad – 6 Fully Painted, 4 Unpainted
Tactical Squad – Mostly Painted - Needs Detailing
Tactical Squad – Mostly Painted - Needs Detailing

Defender

Librarian – Partially Painted
Sternguard Veteran Squad – 6 Fully Painted, 1 Partially Painted, 3 Unpainted
Tactical Squad – Partially Painted
Scout Squad – Painted - Need Magnets for Bases
Devastator Squad – Partially Painted
Devastator Squad – Primed - Unpainted

Well, I had so much fun with the coloured text there... I think I'll keep this "diagram" updated, as a motivational tool, between now and the 29th. Hopefully, the red bits will disappear quick-like. Currently, I'm working on the Terminators and the Tactical squad for the Defender force.

Magnetizing Space Hulk Termies - and some changes...

Howdy, folks, I'm back... in the midst of a busy grade 12 year, I've once again found time to devote to my beloved hobby. First off - a few changes 'round the blog. Having noticed that my hobby adventures have a tendency to turn magnetic, I've renamed the blog Magnet Addict - because I do love me some magnets. Preferably the rare-earth kind. I've also gotten bored of the rather plain "The Workbench". The blog can now be reached at http://magnetaddict.blogspot.com. And now, to the post! More fun with magnets - and Space Hulk Terminators!

So, a friend of mine and I split the Space Hulk box back in September when it was released - I got the Termies, and am currently holding on to the floor tiles and counters, he got the Genestealers. Now, I was just as excited at the prospect of including these beautiful Terminators in my Revilers army - so I promptly filed off all the obvious Blood Angels insignia. This, however, left me with the problem of basing. Simply gluing them to 40mm bases wouldn't do, because then they wouldn't fit next to each other on the Space Hulk board. My solution was to take two small rare earth magnets and put one in the terminator, and one in a blank 40mm base - like so.



This allows me to have them legally based for 40k, as well as maintaining the ease of movement for Space Hulk. The magnets fit flush to each other, and hold on well enough to stand up to the rigours of tabletop play.



That's one down - now I have the other eleven to base, and paint. They'll join the rest of my Revilers on the painting table. I hope to get most (if not all!) of them finished for the 28-29 of November, when my local(ish) GW is running a 500+ point escalation tournament, and a 1250 pt Planetstrike tourney - with a Fortress of Redemption up for grabs! So, back to painting - Tactical marines, Devastators, and a Termie Librarian... or two...

Until next time.

A Very Convenient Box

Went paintballing with some friends today. Needless to say, it was great. And guess what? The bags of paintballs come in these great cardboard boxes.

At first I was just going to hang on to a couple because a) they're cool, b) I like boxes, and c) I need a couple of boxes to store some stuff anyway. But one I got home, it hit me. The boxes are the perfect size for holding...

...drop pods. Yes, drop pods. So when I am finally able to field an entirely drop pod-mounted Space Marine army, I will have space to safely and (relatively) easily transport twelve whole drop pods!

Now, all I have to do is acquire eleven more drop pods!

Quick Update - Brother Behemiel PIP

The annual Artificer Cup painting comp at the Toronto Bunker is tomorrow, and I'm currently tidying up my entries. First up is Brother Behemiel, my all-plastic Chaplain with jump pack... he's pretty much done, I just have to highlight the pack and do a few more highlights on his ribbons & purity seals. Pics aren't great... I'll take some better ones (as well as some pics of the Deffkopta I'm entering) tomorrow after the competition.

Plastic Reinforcements

In preparation for the (hopefully) imminent arrival of my many, many Imperial Guard bitz, I dug through the current pile of Space Marine sprues occupying my workspace to see what could be done with them. After a solid three days of clipping, gluing, and converting, I've managed to bolster the ranks of the Revilers 3rd Company with the following:


First up, three sergeants... the guy on the left (who's yet to be named) will lead Squad IX, a rocket-launcher armed Devastator squad. The one in the middle, Segomaros, is the leader of Squad II, a flamer/heavy bolter armed Tactical squad. The third sergeant is Osmium, recently retasked as leader of an auxiliary contingent of 9th Company Devastators armed with plasma cannons.


Some extra weapons for various squads in the army. From right to left, the flamer marine from the AoBR box, with some arm repositioning; the heavy bolter for Squad II, the multimelta for squad III, the multimelta for squad I, and a spare heavy bolter for when I face armies like Orks.

These two chaps will fill out my Sternguard Veteran squad, making it an even ten. The guy on the left has pulled out a silenced bolt pistol while he reloads his bolter (I trimmed the clip off), and the guy on the right has some extra shiny bits on his shoulderpad, made from a High Elf shield icon. He's headless because I am waiting for some of the Mk3-esque Crusader heads from the Black Templar Sprue to come in the mail.



Front and back of the first combat squad of Squad IV, a tactical squad armed with a meltagun and multimelta. The Sergeant is armed with a power weapon and meltabombs. He also uses a filed-down Chaos Space Marine helmet, for a bit of variety. Also of note is the marine in Mk6 armour next to him, blasting away with two bolt pistols.


The second half of Squad IV, all armed with bolters, and some awaiting heads.

Squad V, unofficially designated "Death Squad" for the moment; a 5-man combat squad led by a Sergeant with powerfist and storm bolter.

And, last but certainly not least...

Front, back, and side of Brother-Reclusiarch Gavin Behemiel, the Chaplain for my army. Kitbashed entirely from plastic, making use of Tactical legs and torso, a Chaos Space Marine head that looks suitably skull-like, Assault Marine pistol and power axe arms (the axe was converted into a crozius with a bit off of some scenery and an old Chaos Warrior skull), a cloth with some bones stuck in it from the Kroot Carnivore sprue, and various purity seals and bling. Once finished and painted, he'll get a jump pack.

A close-up of the crozius.

Well, that's all for now... as of this writing, I've got all the aforementioned models primed, and now get to sit down for some quality time with my brushes! My hope is to get all my Revilers fully or at least mostly painted before I start serious assembly and conversion work on my Imperial Guard.

Landspeeder Magnetized & Assembled

Finally got my Landspeeder all magnetized and put together... most often, I plan to field it as a Typhoon, but for flexibility (and because I love magnets) I decided to magnetize the Typhoon launchers and the Tornado-mount assault cannon.





In these two pics you can see the magnets in the access-flappies (for the Typhoon launchers) and a smaller magnet in the front "compartment" for the Tornado mount. The third picture shows the metal pins I put into the Typhoon launchers to make them stick to the magnets behind the access hatches. Also note the purple stripes on the crew's helmets; different than the red stripes normally sported by my Marines, because these chaps are Tactical Reserves from the 7th Company, who normally take to the field in Landspeeders to provide light vehicle support for the Chapter's Battle Companies.



The fully assembled speeder with all its options laid out in front of it. I decided not to magnetize the heavy bolter as my army has pretty adequate anti-tank provided by other units; so I felt the multimelta wasn't necessary.



Here it is as a Tornado with underslung assault cannon.



Here, as a Typhoon with the eponymous missile launchers.



To prove that it's the same model, all the options stuck on at once.
That's all for now, upcoming are pics of my all-plastic scratchbuilt Chaplain, as well as my second painted tactical squad and my scouts with fedoras.

Yes, I said fedoras.

Oooh, A Deadline!

Well... here I am, setting myself a goal.

There is a HoH 40k tournament at the local Bunker on April 11th... that's 47 days from now. I would like to bring my Revilers 3rd Co. to the tourney; this means I have lots of painting to do! Proposed army list looks like this:

• Librarian: Gate of Infinity and some other power
• Tactical Squad 1 (10 Marines): plasma gun, missile launcher, power weapon, meltabombs
• Tactical Squad 2 (10 Marines): flamer, missile launcher, powerfist
• Scout Squad (5 Scouts): heavy bolter, power weapon
• Sternguard Veterans (5 Veterans): powerfist
• Devastator Squad (6 Marines): 2 lascannons, 2 plasma cannons

At the moment I have about 90% of my first tac squad painted, and my Librarian is partly painted. The Sternguard are done, however. So I've got to finish the partially painted models, and paint my Scouts, second tac squad, and Devastators. 47 days... I'll post regularlish updates.

The Winter WAAAGH!

Today I went down to the GW Toronto Bunker to catch the local stop on GW Canada's Winter WAAAGH! Battletour, bringing along six Terminators and six Sternguard Veterans (as well as five Eldar Pathfinders) to try and hold the line against the hordes of WAAAGH! Borker.

The battle was a quite magnificent affair, with a motley assortment of Imperial Guard, Space Marines, Grey Knights and Tau facing off against no less than six Stompaz, hordes of Nobz & Flashgitz, as well as a Battlewagon and some Dreadz.

Although they were severely mauled by the Orks, the Imperial side managed to put up a fairly competent offensive, with shots from several Leman Russes and Broadside Battlesuits toppling two of the Stompaz and rendering others useless. In the third turn, a Vortex Grenade thrown by Captain Stern took three structure points off a Klawstompa that had been tearing up the right flank.

As for my forces, the Pathfinders were spectacularly ineffective, as they were confronted with a marked lack of targets - their long rifles being useless against Armour 13 Stompaz. The Termies and Sternguard fared better, though. During the third turn, the Sternguard managed to down Ghazghkull Thraka with Hellfire rounds, and the Terminators managed to destroy a Deff Dread in the assault phase. An excellent showing for the fledgling Revilers, and I am completely sold on the combat efficacy of the Sternguard. Truly a bullet for every occasion.