Zak's-Haks [002]: Eldar Crimson Hunter / Hemlock Wraithfighter

This model was not too bad to magnetize but a little more challenging than I anticipated.  In the end I think I would have used some even smaller magnets like the 1/16 diameter by 1/16 instead of the 1/8 by 1/16 which I have usually considered the smallest magnets I would use.  These would have been better for the wing sections as the drill bit and 1/8 ones were just about exactly the width so there was a little bit of an unclean section now that they are done. I'll show pictures of that a bit later.   Here's the process pictures. 

I did reference the YouTube video by Mark Valledor before I started and took a similar approach. 

First note that you need to do much of the drilling and gluing of the magnets before you glue anything completely together. 

The wing weapons are easy and you just need to cut the peg off of the ends and you can glue the 1/8 magnets to the ends. Then for the adapter that goes in the wings, no drilling is necessary. There is one adapter, of three different ones for some reason, that you can just sit the 1/8 sized magnet inside. Just pitch the other two adapters ( one of the extra ones shown below above the wing on the table).  The underbelly pulse laser or mind shock pod can be magnetized in the same way. However that specific adapter piece has to be drilled to house the same 1/8 sized magnet. 

The back section for the crimson hunter exarch piece or regular piece I did just like Mark.  Just drill and glue a small magnet into one end of that 'core' section and then into the backs of the optional pieces. There is just enough depth in those pieces to get the magnets to sit relatively flush with the pieces. This magnet is slightly exposed when using the wraith fighter option but in my opinion not a big deal. I'll paint this black anyway and it'll probably not be noticeable. 

The center pieces right behind the cockpit are a little tricky and I took a slightly different approach on this section. I didn't want to use too many magnets on this part so I figured out a way to just have one in the body and one on each of the optional pieces. I also didn't have any 1/16 magnets to fit in the sides of the crimson hunter piece at this location like in the referenced video. 

By just recessing slightly the back of the optional pieces, you can basically just surface mount the magnet.  Watch out however as this plastic is very thin at these locations.  For the magnet in the main body, if you use a larger magnet and dremel a little shelf in the back of the body, this magnet will sit deeper in the body, and the small magnet on the optional pieces will go through the hole and also become recessed into the main body.  Just make sure the hole is slit lay larger than the magnets you are attaching to the optional pieces.  If you drill the hole first in the main body, you can then dry fit the optional pieces, and trace on them from below, where the magnet needs to be attached.  This should be relatively clear in the image below.

The wings are a little strange and again I took a similar approach as Mark.  Just carve away some of the body flanges that are meant to accept glue for the wing pieces, then recess a piece of left over sprue to the underside to glue the body magnets too.  Then drill some magnets into the wing pieces.  Here is where I should have used smaller magnets in the wings but I really wasn't paying attention and drilled the 1/8 diameter ones without thinking as they are the smallest I currently had.  This created a bit of a sloppy connection as the magnet diameter goes outside of the wings ever so slightly on the sides.  My body magnets ended up being slightly higher than the body flange also so the Wong pieces sit a very tiny amount above the body.  Close enough for me at this time, but the next one I will probably try to do a little better (assuming I get another).

Notice how the magnets come up a little highest of the body...these should have been drilled into the sprue piece a bit to lower them.  Of course I realized this after I had already glued everything in place...

Finished Hemlock Wraithfighter.

Finished Crimson Hunter.

Current air fleet picture :)

The profiles of these have always been very interesting to me and this was a decent shot to compare them all together.

Until next time,

ZS

Zak's-Haks [001]: Eldar Wraithknight

'Zak's-Haks' will be my new way of documenting some of my modeling experiences.  I also thought some of this would be useful for others as a means to show some of the techniques I have been using/trying to perfect for over a decade and a half.  I think it's interesting how I am still working on new techniques and continuing to try to better the old ones I have been using.  So I decided to document my Wraithknight process for fun as the kickoff, so here it goes.

So, in my current life situation, I do not have as much time as I would like for modeling so I usually try to do things the most efficient way as possible so when I do have time to actually play, I have everything, at least, built.  I gave myself this challenge to start and attempt to finish this model in one night because I knew I wouldn't be able to work on it again for at least a week or more.  Starting around 8:45 on a work night I opened the box and dove in.

Another 18 min later, what seemed like a very long while later for most gw models, all of the pieces were clipped neatly out of the sprue.  Now I try to clip the gates as close as possible to the actual piece so I have less to deflash and can just sort of file (and by file, I mean scrape with the flat part of an xacto blade...) the pieces to clean them up later.  Some pieces you have to watch out for however as there are little raised edges sometimes for weapon mounts or slotted connectors, etc.  

Then the actual deflashing began...this part took much longer than I anticipated for this model due to the larg amount of pieces in this kit.  Plus it seemed that gw is adding much more gates and mold points to some of these pieces as their geometry gets more complicated. Fine and all, except when your trying to finish quickly and have like four or five spots to deflash per piece.  Almost two hours later at 10:45 all of the pieces were cleaned.  Luckily, I was able to talk on speaker phone to TGJ while this was occurring which made the time go by much faster.  Nothing better than talking about gaming while modeling if you ask me.  

The Spiritseer had his work cut out for himself this evening.  No slacking off tonight.  Time to sing.

At this point I took a break to actually look at the directions and open a coke.  It is good to actually look at these to familiarize yourself with the pieces you will need to find and what they actually look like.  You can also then sort the pieces into general groups such as torso, legs, weapons, etc. after you've just dumped them into a big pile.  Sometimes there are some strange pieces that might not be intuitive on these larger models as to where they are used.  Plus as this was my first one of these, I did need to look at the directions...at least once :)

Assembly was pretty straight forward and by 12:30 or so I had assembled the sections that I wanted to be left alone to later be magnetized.  No pins were required as this model is fairly light.  I assembled the legs to the base, the main torso, left the head separate, left the gun arms separate, and left the small shoulder guns separate.  Now the shoulder mounts are optional, but I usually leave these on even if I am not using the shoulder weapons.  Some might try to magnetize the small plugs that go up here but I personally didn't think that was necessary.  

Luckily for this model, many of the guns have square pegs that actually can be friction fit for interchangeability and do not need to be magnetized.  I usually try to use pins for the shoulder guns as magnets would be a bit too large for the main housing to connect down into the shoulder area.  Sometimes a small hole and a long pin that is only glued to one piece will work very well in lieu of magnets where small joints are present. I've used this approach on wraithlord weapons pretty successfully and didn't think I ended to do anything too different here.

All of the sections laid out.

At this point it was time to get a little putty and strike a pose before bedtime.  I actually was out of the larger magnets I would need to use to hold the long arms on so I would call it a night at 12:45.

Dramatic pose...and non-legal weapon fit out...the Spiritseer's work was done for this evening.

A few weeks later my magnets came in and I actually had the time to wrap this thing up.

I used a 1/4" magnet for the head, 5/16" magnets for the arms, and a 3/8" magnet for the torso.  All  of these are the 1/16" thick kind.  One thing to watch out for when using these thinner magnets is their ability to actually break themselves if you drop one near the rest of their stack.  Two of these slipped out of my hand when I was removing them from the main stack of magnets, and, in mid air, shot back to the stack, shattered, and then the pieces nicely proceeded to stick again to the stack for easy cleanup.  Cool, but not cool.   I also have a large tool chest near my desk that tends to attract some of these too if I'm not careful.  Watch out for pliers, etc.

But yea, worked as expected after that.  As most of these arm joints are ball jointed however, you will need to flatten out portions if the joint to adhere the magnets too.  Normally I drill into and recess the magnets, but to prevent the rotation of these long arms, the larger magnets would need to be used and they are pretty much the same size as the arms socket/joint.  I used a dremel for these and would recommend everyone get one as it's possibly the greatest invention and can be used for a variety of modeling items.  Also inside the socket joints on the arm itself, to get the large magnets inside, I needed to carve away some of the material to create some flat areas to sit the magnets.  Enter dremel.  To avoid having all of your arms point perfectly forward, you can carve a little slope or angle into the sockets for the flat magnet surface.  This can give the arms a slightly outward facing angle when it is attached to the body.  You know, always looking for the more dynamic poses for these figures, even when you are trying to leave all of your weapon options open.

Attachment of choice for this work.  Watch out for your hands...some practice required.

Flat area carved out.

Angled area carved and magnet glued in another arm socket.

Once all of the magnets were dry, the next day I got to see all of the legal options.  I left the star cannons in the shoulders for this demo, but you can choose a single instead of double weapons for the shoulders and they could also be scatter lasers or shuriken cannons.

Sun cannon and scatter shield.

Ghost glaive and scatter shield.

Two heavy wraith cannons.

All in all a very fun and workable kit with a good degree of customizability built in that can be achieved without too much additional work.  I like this model a lot, especially of the newer, bigger ones accompanying the newer codex releases.  Can't wait to see this in action on the battlefield.

I'll leave you all with this...when I first saw this in the pages in the white dwarf issue, I was like woah...I wonder how close this will be to some of the titans...I was like, great, gw making something as big as some of the forgeworld models...so after this was built it was time to do my own size comparison.  Enter Revenant titan.  Definitely tall, but the Revenant still, respectably, owns up to its titan status.

Until next time,

ZS

Legiones Astartes (Ultramarines) Homebrew rules rationale

Ultramarines Tactical Squad by Ilqar on Deviantart

Hey all,

 

Now normally I dislike home brew rules – I generally find them to be the wish listing of someone who finds out that his army isn’t as powerful as the fluff makes it out to be. However, given the plethora of information coming out about the Horus Heresy and the new Legiones Astartes special rule which replaces And They Shall Know No Fear for Space Marines, I decided to give home brew a go with the Ultramarines (which I realize makes me open to wish listing). Here’s my take:

As mentioned earlier, the major differences between Heresy-era Marines and 40k Marines is the lack of ‘And They Shall Know No Fear’ (ATSKNF), which is a fairly touchstone feature of their ‘modern’ counterparts. Instead, they get a version called ‘Legiones Astartes’ which is designed to be complemented by the particular legion that an army represents. So for instance, when taking a World Eaters army, you would have the Legiones Astartes (World Eaters) special rule. At its core, Legiones Astartes manipulates the manner in which Marines interact with the Leadership aspect of the game, allowing them to attempt to regroup at full Ld regardless of casualties.  The major difference between this and ATSKNF is that they can be caught in a sweeping advance, as well as not being immune to Fear. 

The overriding philosophy behind writing the rules for the Ultramarines is that it couldn’t replace Legiones Astartes nor interfere with its regular function, which simply giving them ATSKNF would do. In addition, any rule that was written had to remain true to the fluff and reflect a few core things about the Ultramarines, both advantageous and disadvantageous, and given the ‘jack-of-all-trades’ reputation of the XIII, it was no easy task:

• Their famed discipline: “He has the most disciplined military force in the entire Imperium, and given the quality of the other legions, that is quite a claim” (Know No Fear, p. 37)

• Relative hubris as the largest legion: “We’re to lend a little gloss to the clumsy reputation of the Word Bearers by operating in concert. And we’re to demonstrate the authority of Horus by jumping twenty full Chapters to his whim” (Know No Fear, p.41)

• Guilliman’s ability to leave a conquered planet in better shape than when he invaded it: “He liberated countless worlds from the domination of aliens and foul Chaos renegades, but where some of his brother Primarchs left a trail of death and destruction in their wake, Rouboute brought peace and fresh prosperity…. Guilliman’s genius for planning campaigns ensured that the planet’s population and industry suffered the minimum amount of collateral damage” (Index Astartes III, p.25)

To take other legions’ examples, the Iron Hands’ rules reflect primarily their propensity for ranged combat and bionics, reducing incoming fire’s effectiveness and ensuring that it is difficult for them to do anything except advance and shoot. The Salamanders, rather obviously, reflect their strength of will in facing overwhelming odds, predilection for heat-based weaponry, and the high gravity of their world. None of these rules are overwhelmingly ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ but are rather designed to reflect primarily the fluff and particular dispositions of the Legion in question.

With that, here is my take on Legiones Astartes (Ultramarines):

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Legiones Astartes (Ultramarines):

All models and units with this special rule are subject to the following provisions:

-Legiones Astartes: Units with this special rule may always attempt to regroup at their normal Leadership value, regardless of casualties.

-Know No Fear: A unit which contains at least one model with the Legiones Astartes (Ultramarines) special rule can move, shoot (or run) and declare charges normally in the turn in which it regroups (in addition to the 3” Regroup move). If a unit containing one or more models with this special rule is caught by a Sweeping Advance, they are not destroyed, but remain locked in combat instead.

-Progenitors: Units containing at least one model with the Legiones Astartes (Ultramarines) special rule cannot benefit from the warlord trait of an allied character or an allied Independent Character's leadership score.

-Responsibility of Transhumanity: Any unit with the Legiones Astartes (Ultramarines) special rule can never be equipped with Phosphex bombs, Rad Grenades, or Rad Missiles. In addition, they may not take an Allied detachment in which any of these items are present. Note that this does mean that Ultramarines armies may not include Legion Destroyer Squads or Moritat Consuls.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As mentioned previously, the aim of these rules are to reflect the above fluff aspects of the Ultramarines, without overwriting the established rules given in the Horus Heresy books or being overwhelmingly advantageous or disadvantageous. Going with the philosophy of “don’t rock the boat” meant that I wanted whatever rules I gave the Ultramarines to already have an established precedent in the game. Thus, Know No Fear is closely related to ATSKNF, but does not allow Ultramarines to automatically regroup (none of the Legions do), and does not make them immune to Fear (which is reflected in the Death Guard’s ‘Remorseless’ rule, and does not reflect the Ultramarines at this time period exceptionally well, given all the oddities of the galaxy that they haven’t encountered yet). In addition, it does not interfere with or invalidate the established Legiones Astartes rule. The Progenitors rule is a disadvantage based off of the Sons of Horus’ rule Bitter Pride. Given the sheer size and scale of the XIII and the pride they take in being one of the most capable and accomplished Legions would mean that submitting to other Legion’s authority might prove difficult for an Ultramarines unit. That is not to say they wouldn’t do it, but rather the resulting confusion in rank hierarchy and structure between the Legions would mean that the Ultramarines would likely default to their own leadership in times of crisis. Finally, given the Ultramarines’ close adherence to the philosophy of the Great Crusade and building rather than destroying, I decided that Destroyer-classed weapons such as Rad grenades/missiles and Phosphex bombs had no place in the Legion, as well as the units that would carry them.

At any rate, that’s my rationale for writing the Legiones Astartes (Ultramarines) rule. Let me know what you think!

Battle Report [40K-002]

Battle Report [40K-002(ZS)]: 1,500 points; Space Marines - Horus Heresy List (AO) versus Eldar (ZS); Mission: The Relic; Vanguard strike (angled) deployment.

So I wasn't going to report this one because we could only get two turns in, but some interesting things happened and I thought it would be interesting to recap a few and open some up for discussion...insert skyshield.

The forces:

Ultramarines (Great Crusade Army List; Rite of War: Pride of the Legion)

HQ:

Praetor (Warlord) - MC Paragon Blade, Digital Weapons, Iron Ialo

Librarian (Level 2) - Force Rod, Artificer Armor, Refractor Field

T:

Veteran Tactical squad x10 (Infiltrate) - 2 Missile Launchers, Plasma Gun, Rhino

Veteran Tactical squad x9 (Sniper) - Melta Gun, Power Fist, Rhino

Veteran Tactical squad x9 (Sniper) - Plasma Gun, Combi-Plasma, Rhino

HS:

Predator - Predator Cannon (Autocannon but Heavy 4), 2x Lascannon sponsons

Predator - Predator Cannon, 2x Heavy Bolter sponsons

Vindicator

Eldar ( theme...Illic and pathfinder defensive core with a fast attack force)

HQ:

Illic Nightspear ( warlord with trait called mark of the incomparable hunter that grants him splitfire)

Farseer with a singing spear, runes of warding and runes of witnessing

T:

Guardians x10 with bright lance platform and warlock in wave serpent with twin linked bright lances, shuriken cannon, spirit stones and holofields

Pathfinders x6 (get shrouded and precision shot because of Illic)

Pathfinders x6 

Jetbikes x6 two shuriken cannons and warlock with singing spear

Jet bikes x3 one shuriken cannon

FA: 

Vyper squad x2 with scatter lasers and shuriken cannons and spirit stones

Vyper with bright lance and shuriken cannon

HS:

Fireprism grav tank with holofields spirit stones and shuriken cannon

Terrain set up - the bombarded crossroads leading to an operational sky shield landing pad

Deployment: space marines roll priority and choose to go first.  The relic is placed in the center of the board.  The librarian rolls hallucination and something else, but I think elects to take the primaris power for the psychic shriek.  The predators deploy in the middle of the crossroads facing the relic and basically secure the fire lane towards the objective.  A rhino with marines and the praetor is next to them.  Another rhino starts on the opposite side of the basilica administratum to come at the relic from the other side with the librarian, and his vindicator starts on top of the skyshield landing pad... I contested this placement but Ashwin pointed out that there looks like a lift in the center of the landing pad.  I never really noticed this, but I'll allow it for good fluff backup, I mean the vindicator could be scheduled for an airlift or something.  Thunderhawk transporter perhaps?  So, new house rule, you can deploy tracked vehicles on the landing pad, and you can drive off if unfurled, dangerous terrain test of course, but you can not go up, even though the rules for the pad state level changes as treated as difficult terrain...  He leaves a tac squad to infiltrate. They eventually infiltrate into the ruins of the basilica.  The extra rhino was accidentally left in reserve...

Eldar deploy close to the line near the center to try to grab the objective early with the jet bikes but still are basically hiding behind cover.   The ruins provide nice line of sight blocking so most of my tanks deploy behind these as well.  One squad of pathfinders infiltrates and holes up in the shrine of the Aquila, and the other with Illic are in the ruins far away hoping for long range support.  The farseer joins the guardians and warlock in the wave serpent.  I am not able to seize the initiative.

Space marine turn one:

The vindicator moves up about 6" and activates the skyshield to furl up the cover...again, the rules just state that any model in base contact with the landing pad can change its state at the beginning of its move...I am forced to allow this :)  this also puts his demolished cannon in range of the relic.  Not good especially now that the tank has a cover save because of the landing pad walls.  Also, that strength 10 ap2 large blast will not be good for my troops if they happen upon the relic.  His librarian disembarks from the left rhino and joins with the troops in the ruins to bolster the offensive.  The rhino then moves up and around the ruins towards the middle of the board.  The tac squad in the ruins takes some shots at my pathfinders in the opposite ruins not doing any damage due to their very high cover save.  His rhino with the praetor moves around the opposite side of the ruins and b-lines down towards the crossroads.  The predators actually shift around towards my warlord on the far right side and unload on Illic and the pathfinders in the far ruins.  This was a little unexpected to me and it turned it that this was a terrible place to deploy this unit.  For some reason either I wasn't thinking about the range of the predators weapons, or maybe thought that the would be going towards the middle, but Ashwin made the obvious choice to shoot at the closest and easiest thing to hit and does a ton of damage and kills over half of the squad on this first turn.  Even with their cover saves, this was just a really bad choice to place this group.  I really should have also placed my warlord in the center ruins where he had more of a circular foreign vantage point and could do more damage.  This position did not allow any good lanes of fire and really I'm not sure what I was thinking with that placement.   Both of his rhinos also used their smoke launchers on this turn.

Eldar turn one.

My wave serpent shifts left along with two of the vypers.  The wave serpent uses its shields to shoot at the rhino on the left and even with the smoke launchers, manages to blast through and explode the rhino.  The guys inside take a wound or two and the schrapnel I think kills one of the guys in the ruins.  The vypers are a little too far out of range and don't do much.  The fire prism shifts right and takes a long shot at a predator but whiffs.  The other vyper however strikes true with his bright lance and explodes one of the predators ( this was the actual first blood kill that granted me one vp).  Here my rolls begin to pick up and ashwins saves start to take a turn for the worse...  The pathfinders with Illic, with no where else to go, take some random shots at the predators as nothing else is in line of sight and whiff.  The pathfinders in the ruins however return fire on the tac squad opposite the relic and with their precision shots, manage to strike home and take out two marines with missile launchers.  My big squad of jet bikes moves into countering positions behind the other jet bikes who make a run for the relic.  They can't get there with their normal movement and are forced to move flat out to reach it.  This is fine as it grants them a 4+ cover save next turn, which I would need due to the amount of firepower surely coming their way.  Now, here i make the optional 2d6 assault move with my jet bikes as usual, but while carrying the relic, I am limited to 6" movement in any phase.  I move down back towards my deployment zone slightly.  Turns out this is not allowed which I read after the game as after moving flat out, bikes are not allowed any voluntary actions in the turn after that.  I knew they couldn't shoot or actually assault, but I hadn't read the eldar jet bike rules closely enough prior to this very crucial maneuver.  

Space marine turn two.

This turn basically consisted of the other predator wiping out Illic and the last pathfinder, granting him the slay the warlord victory point and then moving up to try to kill the jet bikes holding the relic.  The combination of good base armor and also the extra jink save this turn somehow granted the lone jet bike holding the relic to emerge unscathed after a torrent of fire.  His other two comrades were destroyed, but after passing a morale check, he was the last man standing in the middle.  With ashwins firing over, and the jet bikes out of assault range, this basically sealed the game as we had to call it after this turn.  The relic was worth three victory points so that basically ended the game.  

Ending:

In theory, the jet bike rush is good, but the small squad that I had up there probably would have dropped it in a more normal average armor saving versus damage applied.  They should have went down in most circumstances, but the rest of the jet bikes were ready to pick up their slack in the next turn.  The illegal assault move didn't really change much except Ashwin might have been able to try to tank shock them back in his turn of he moved flat out with his rhino.  Still risky, but the shooting would have been pretty much the same as the six inch difference didn't really matter.  There might have been a few extra Bolter shots from the squad in the ruins but it was close.

Interesting game and I would have liked to see it finish.  The extra troops he had coming down the middle would have been tough to deal with and if the jet bikes went down in the middle, it would have been pretty bloody pretty quick for all parties as we descended towards the middle.

Next time I should have deployed Illic in the middle where the action was and even though it was closer to the enemy, it was a safer position than I had really thought through.  I might change this list a bit in the future, but I think it would be an interesting 1500 to work with.   Dice rolls played a pretty big part in this game and I don't want to rely in those in the future...

-ZS