Reinforcements Inbound - Delayed in transit - 12th Kieler Armoured Pioneers

Sifting through the still boxed remains of moving house nearly a year ago, I recently unearthed the box containing several painted and half painted units of my Armoured Pioneers regiment, long feared lost in the warp of home removals. A lot of these guys were painted six or seven years ago, and it was this stark fact that made me realise I really need to start finishing projects before starting new ones.

I know it's a problem a lot of us face.... You lose momentum for one project, gain inspiration for another....shiny new things are released and so stuff gathers dust, looking at all the half finished squads  has made me a bit guilty though.... I really need to get this stuff painted up....

I have a half painted company command squad, a (painted) Primaris Psyker; veteran squad in chimera requiring only two minis painting; Stormtrooper squad (painted) two special weapon squads for the infantry platoon (one dude to paint) and finally half of the required models for the platoons second infantry squad (unpained bar the sergeant)

So here are the finished units, I'd like to hope my painting has improved a little in the years since I did them, but I think they're still just about acceptable as tabletop quality. 

First up, six man Stormtrooper squad with plasma gun and meltagun, the sergeant is rather crudely converted from a metal Cadian sergeant with the powerfist and las pistol cut off and replaced and a Stormtrooper backpack added, I'm well aware Stormtrooper squads can't take vox operators but I needed the backpack for the sarge so it's visual only. I would have thought specialist troops like storm troopers would have communications equipment even if they aren't taking their orders from the 'regular' officers so it's not too much of a stretch.

Primaris Psyker - definatley not one of my better paint jobs! This dude really is a bit crude. I remember being at a loss about what colours to use without him looking like a rainbow mess so he ended up rather drab and uninspired. Still, it's a valid HQ choice....until the new codex arrives and downgrades him to an advisor!

Special weapons squad no'1 - a team of combat engineers with a melta, flamer and demolition charge, lots of forgeworld bits and bobs and backpacks from the heavy weapons teams, I really like these, despite the simple paintwork. I think they (along with the king russ Demolisher) sum up what the Kieler regiment is all about background wise.

Hopefully soon I'll get a couple of hours of free time to finish up the last couple of shotgun veterans and get another unit complete and ready for the tabletop.

Badab war - Tyrant's Legion Corpse Taker.

Adding to the ranks of the Tyrant's legion is this Corpse taker unit consisting of apothecary vivisector and two dissection Servitors... First up is the apothecary,

When it came down to painting him, I decided against the full white armour of the traditional apothecary and gave him a 'standard' claws paint scheme with a few relevant bits picked out in white....I wanted something darker and more in keeping with his role as gene-snatcher, I didn't see my corpse taker as being part of the astral claws chapter apothecaron; but instead as perhaps a particularly fanatical Follower of Huron promoted to the role. The oversized chainsword is from a sentinel walker and I reckon the rebuilt cyber-face adds to the whole mad doctor/butcher vibe.

I had originally intended to get some of GW's servitor minis, but spurred on by building the sentry gun recently and as at the moment, hobby funds are hard to justify (plus Servitors are quite pricy whether new or on ebay) I decided to try and knock a couple together out of the contents of my bits box.

Sifting through parts I was initially sceptical about being able to make anything remotely convincing from the limited parts at hard but often find that the best method is just to start cutting things up and sticking them together, and see what you end up with.

Both started off with a pair of space marine legs with sentinel parts for the torsos and then a whole bunch of random stuff thrown on top. Lascannon power feeds were used for thick bundles of 'mechandrites', imperial vehicle and space marine accessories, a chaos terminator chain fist, the barrel and pipe from a meltagun, several flamer tanks and a fanatic Van saar gangers head also found their way into the mix. Admittedly neither are going to win me any awards but I think they're both recognisable as Servitors with chain blades and it's always quite satisfying to make something individual for nowt' 

Elites choice no2... 'Corpse Taker' - Apothecary Vivisector & x2 Dissection Servitors - 50pts

Badab war - Astral Claws Tyrant's Legion Sentry Gun.

Inspired by a recent post about building weapon emplacements from leftover bits on a blog whose name sadly escapes me, I set about knocking together a sentry gun for my Seperatist forces.

Built from a sentinel's leg with an old metal multimelta (Servitors arm?) and some bits and pieces from various imperial guard vehicle accessories to represent the searchlight and sensor suite, all mounted on yet another 40mm ruined wall base I had knocking around; it's nothing special but was fun to build and paint and gives me a usefull little addition to the army.

'The forces of the Tyrant were known to make great use of a wide variety of automated weapon systems, the mindless obedience of a Servitors lobotomised cranium often deemed more reliable than the half trained human cattle of the Auxillia units. 

In the latter stages of the Badab conflict, loyalist forces were to encounter increasing numbers of an unusual and unsanctioned pattern of sentry gun, commonly known to the separatists as a 'Krandiil' the backstabbing stiletto tridents favoured by the hive gangs of badab primus.

Deployed solely as ambush and distraction units and armed with thermal weapons that could melt a marines armoured plate or the hull of a battle tank with equal ease, these weapons were seeded ahead of advancing loyalist forces, hidden amidst wreckage or buried under rubble and masked by auspex jamming electronics, ready to rise up in ambush behind the loyalists as soon the telltale signatures of their armour had passed by....'

Sentry guns are a fast attack choice for the Tyrants legion and can be taken in batteries of up to three in a slot. Each gun has to be declared in one of two firing modes before the game, either a 360 degree field of fire with 18" range or 90 degree field of fire with a 36" range, this is important to remember when it comes down to choosing any upgrades.

They are BS3, which is usefull compared with the usual BS2 of automated weapons, toughness 6, 2 wounds and have a power armour esque 3+ save making them reasonably survivable.

The most interesting thing about this list entry is the fact that sentry guns can be given deep strike for 10pts per gun, transforming them from static gun emplacements to potentially devastating ambush/distraction units.

Costing a mere 15pts with the standard load out of twin linked heavy bolters, sentry guns can be upgraded to either a twin linked Lascannon for 10pts, or multimelta with searchlight for 5pts; personally I feel the Lascannon option isn't great due to the limited range of both firing modes, I'd either go for the standard fit with no options to add some firepower to a defensive Auxillia/Armsman squad or go for my choice, multimelta, searchlight and deep strike for a total of 30pts a gun.

At 30pts each they are cheap enough to be classed as expendable and when you deep strike in behind an enemy tanks rear armour, or next to a vulnerable support unit, even if you don't kill them, your enemy should be forced to react to this threat in his rear (ffnarr) rather than your main elements.