Imperial Knights - Cerastus Twins in manufactorum pt2.

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #BuildingWarhammer on my Imperial Knight Cerastus Castigator and Acheron. You will recall I just had a pile of bits but I have since managed to construct one pair of legs [ignore the Horus shin pads, I'm not turning traitor, they're just dry fit in place of the plain ones, that will be primed on the sprue].

Lets have a little flashback. First of all I decided to offset the hip joints. Instead of them both pointing down I cut them off and rotated them so they were asymmetrically angled. I'm not sure if this made any difference, or if I chose the correct angle for the pose but I felt better for attempting it. 

The base itself had a sheet of pink insulation foam for the 'step'. I printed out some reinforcement detail, stuck to cereal bock card and glued to the facing. Coffee stirrer for the top and 1mm gem beads for rivets. The toes had screws superglue/bicarb to add fixed mounting points to the base.

My attempt is to recreate a mirror version of this Reaver pose - stepping down, rather than stepping on a 'tactical rock'.

I haven't quite got the legs perpendicular to each other and it's not quite stepping down, but it's not stepping up either. I'm actually quite happy with it. The thing is there's a lot of thought going in to achieving these poses, so much so that eventually you have to just commit.

It's something of a leap of faith. The alternative is to constantly have the process swimming around in your head on how you will execute it but just gluing the feet in place can settle on the next bit and then the next. Hot glue was used for the toe screws [to fill in the thread] and then superglue in places. I also ran glue into the knee joints to lock the pose in place.

I added some red crackle paint around the foot - to look like it had shattered the surface. Then added sand and gravel to help blend the base a bit. The weapon feed is fantastically engineered. I've even magnetised it so they can be swapped around.

OK, so the Castigator has also progressed. I actually ended up with 3 Paint |Your Own Venoms and this one - started with my Dremel, but the cutting disc wasn't wide enough to cut through his feet without catching the base. In the end I just used a junior hacksaw. I then glued on some slate, to cover the holes where its feet were and then used tile grout to blend it together. Legs glued in place, using Milliput to blend around the toes.

Added some sand, gravel, texture and crackle paint then I started to think about more decorative elements. I have a lot of Genestealers and I considered adding some. However the 3 'running away' didn't seem to make sense, despite them looking much cooler than the three running toward the knight.

I've now considered 2 on the left and 1 on the right, which gives the knight a little more space around its feet. Obviously I'll be removing their bases but I think I will pin them and add them down the line, that way I can leave the base as it is for now.

There's still a fair bit left to do on both of these:

• Decide on how the legs and torso will be connected
• Make the pilot access hatch openable
• Finish weapon magnetising

OK, that's just three things, but they're quite complicated problems to solve - the Acheron Chainfist has some pistons on it that I need to magnetise or pin so they still function and there are no guides online to make the hatch moveable.

This has been quite a long-winded build. I started on the 17th August and it's still not complete. It's occupied a lot of my hobby thought processes but luckily my urge to paint is non-existent. I'm hoping DreadTober will go someway to getting my painting mojo back, but I want these ready to go or at least prime, before the weather properly turns and priming becomes problematic.

Imperial Knights - Cerastus Twins in manufactorum pt1.

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #BuildingWarhammer. Way back when they were just Forgeworld resin, after I got my Cerastus Lancer, I always hoped there would be a Cerastus Knight with a big gatling weapon, but instead they next brought out the Acheron with a silly flamer weapon that was rubbish. Then, when they did bring out the Castigator that silly flamer weapon became an insanely good weapon and my desire shifted. However, I wasn't in a position to add another Cerastus. But then they made them in plastic and with the Acheron now the lesser of the two options I couldn't decided which to go for, until the plot thickened. A dual box with both the Castigator and Acheron in it for what I would discover was less than 2 Questoris?!

Pre-order day came and I was busy painting my fence panels, so it was late in the evening when I finally checked. Most of the usual 3rd party sellers had already sold their allocation and only The Outpost seemed to be taking orders. So I couldn't resist, but half expected it not to come through - but it bloomin' well did, look at it!

Leg day. When I made my original Lancer, pinning those 'knee' joints really helped in setting my pose. Essentially it made the model behave like a marionette. Thankfully the plastic version has that option, so long as you remove the tabs to create the basic stance. Then when you get the position you want some liquid poly in all the joints will lock it all in place.

Weapons are all built but I'm going to attempt to magnetise them the same as my Lancer. This will allow me to swap out weapons and potentially get some alternatives so I could rune these both as Lancers too...

This is the attachment on the weapon. As you can see it has a 'mushroom' [anyone know the technical term for this] that sits inside the shoulder joint. But, the resin Lancer came with cylinder in the shoulder and a socket in the weapon attachment. So, I cut off the mushroom. 

Of course the shoulder mount is now flat and needs to hold a magnet. I got a pen and cut 4 tubes from it. It needed a bit of sanding on the circumference to reduce the thickness a bit but it would suffice. 

Then each 'plug' had a magnet installed and any gaps were filled with super glue and bicarb of soda. Don't forget to CHECK YOUR POLES!

Then I gouged out the receiving socket from the weapon  and made it suitable to fit the socket mount plug.

Once they were glued together, onto the weapon, it was pretty easy to drill out the hole to receive the magnet CHECK YOUR POLES!

And CHECK YOUR POLES AGAIN! You don't want to mess these up and it's always important to ensure the poles are consistent across all Knights, shoulder mounts and weapon mounts - that way you can swap them out across any chassis.

Both torsos are built and pilots too, although at this stage they're not glued into the torso, so it's easier to paint. 

I mean it's still going to be challenging to paint the pilot as I did glue him into the throne but I still haven't worked out how I'm going to have the hatch openable so this could all be redundant anyway.

You may note I added a gemstone on the top of the shoulder mount. I just felt it was missing a rivet. It might not actually be visible when the shoulder pads are on but I know it needed it.

Waist sections and heads. I really wish I had a couple of the Forgeworld ones but they're OOP, and silly prices on ebay. Taro Modelmaker has the coolest one but I really don't want to spend much more on these.

Oh man, if I could have this pose! There are supposed to be a couple of pistons in the arm pits that might prevent it though.

And now we understand the importance of Venom.  I'd looked at the one I had and was looking for urban rubble resin bases. They ranged from £18 to £35 for the best ones and that just felt like silly money. But I had Venom and base is perfect the perfect size for a Knight base and only £4.99. The only problem being Home Bargains had sold out of them...

But I still went to Southport, months after picking up the first one to check. The 'paint your own' models had all been moved and put on a top shelf. I saw Captain America, Spider-man and others but Venom was not visible. Then, on tip-toes I spotted a bigger box at the back and lo and behold the last Venom was there - winning! So, I am going to build a base, similar to my Reaver Titans for the Acheron. Then I am going to decide if the Castigator would look great on the Venom base or I'd rather build another one from scratch. As great value as the Venom base is I don't want to deface it if I don't need to. That said, I want a walking pose [similar to the Warhounds Liam created for me] and a resin base with one point of attachment will be more stable than one made of foam and tile adhesive. But it will also be heavier so there are risks either way. But progress has slowed after all this building. I'm not sure when I get a Big Build medal for this but when I do I'll know it.

#BattleReport - 1,000pts Imperial Knights v Chaos Knights

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been playing TENTH! #New40k We're persevering, I think this is my 4th game of 10th edition now, which is double what I played of 9th. Anyway, I was taking my Knights [Lancer and 3 Warglaive] against Liam's Chaos Knights [Rampager, Desecrator and War Dog Carnivore]. We're still confused with setting up. We got Dawn of War, but the mission was the Ritual, where you deploy objectives in No Man's Land [that's all I read]. I won deployment and took the near side, trying to keep the terrain between me and Liam's big guys so I can put my objectives out of his reach. My secondary was 2VPs per unit killed [yeah right], while Liam had to defend his home objective for 3VPs per turn! I was so screwed

He won first turn and sent the Rampager up the board and deployed an objective. It was at this point I read the 'fine print' of the mission. You can only deploy an objective within 9" of an existing objective. So, as I'd moved the bulk of my army to the other side of the board, away from the only objective in my deployment zone I was utterly and completely screwed. One of the Warglaives weathered the opening salvo fromt he Desecrator with some fantastic saves. My turn I used the Lancers Bondsman ability on my Warglaive to Advance and Charge the Carnivore. I managed to get 6 wounds on it.

Then I discovered [as did Liam] how utterly brutal the Chaos equivalent is in combat as it ripped the Warglaive to pieces with absolute ease. The only bright side being it went overkill and the Warglaive blew up, but only did 1 more wound on the Carnivore. With the scent of blood in its nose it loped toward my second Warglaive.

And just mauled it to pieces. I was getting spanked at this stage. The complete failure in deployment had already left me 13pts adrift with no chance to perform and Ritual objective deployments and I'd lost 2 knights already.

Some good news though, the remaining Warglaive smashed through a walkway and got its sights on the Carnivore - managing to strip its remaining wounds, no explosion.

My Lancer bounded round the refinery, shot its Lance at the Desecrator with no damage. It had already taken 7 wounds thanks to the Desecrator. It then took a load more from this turn of shooting, I think there were 5 or 6 wounds left.

The Rampager Tank Shocked the Lancer and it stripped the remaining wounds. I used the fight on death strategy to get some attacks back. I think I got 12 wounds back on it, or strip most of its wounds off it.

We were close to calling it at a night at this stage. Despite the early success on the dice the deployment had destroyed any chance I had. My dice rolling had been shocking since. BUt I had my last Warglaive left and it's Melta Lance was still sufficient to bring the Rampager down

So we went another turn and amazingly the Warglaive did enough with Trophy Hunter I regained my only CP and if I could survive another turn I'd be getting an additional 3 for killing Liam's Warlord.

The Desecrator came in and I was once again able to weather the storm thanks to Rotating Ion Shields. I was also Honoured now, giving my a 5+ FNP. Liam just made it into combat.

I think this was his total whiff, with only 1 attack hitting home. In my turn I was on 4 CPs. We struggled a bit with the command phase as I had to take a Battle Shock test - failure would mean no stratagems. But Shoulder The Burden is used in the Command Phase and gives me +1 to Move, Toughness, Save, Leadership, OC and adds 1 to the Hit roll. We figured it worked, but if he failed the Battle Shock we'd take it off. Luckily he passed. But he was down to 2CP

I threw Squires Duty on for improved +1 Strength, AP and Damage, as well as Trophy Claim for +1 to the Wound Roll. I shot in combat with the Melta Lance - still hitting on 3's [due to modifiers] and rerolling a 1. Wounding on 2's [reroll a 1] and doing D6+5 damage. The Melta Gun, hit on 3's wound on 4's D6+3 damage. But not enough, the Desecrator survived and smooshed him real good for his temerity.

I'll say it again - deployment was flawed from the beginning, because I just hadn't read the mission properly. But aside from that this was the most fun game of 10th we've had, even if I did get slaughtered. Lesson's learned - the Carnivore is brutal, kill it from distance. Lancers need to charge, do not let it get charged. Read the mission rules properly! But that comes down to unfamiliarity. The more we play the more the missions will make sense. Having the cards really helped for us both, but there is still a lot of back and forth to the rules to understand, stratagems, terrain rules, battleshock, the mission and also the pre-game roll offs. All that previous knowledge is lost and we're not confident enough. Checking the rules repeatedly disrupts the flow and energy of the game, which is a shame. 

#BattleReport - 1,000pts Eldar v Tyranids

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been playing TENTH! #New40k again, this is a while ago, so I'm not sure how much I remember but it was a chance for a few of us to get together. This was Scott's Aeldari versus Otty's Tyranids.

Scott and Liam had quite the array, with a Wraithknight, Avatar, Wave Serpent and some Wraithguard. 

Otty had some Carnifex, Tyrannofex, Zoanthropes, Hive Guard, Termagants and Genestealers/Broodlord

I think we got first turn and, as always, got as far up the board as possible. 

I'm pretty sure the Tfex got a really good shot on the Wave Serpent, but thanks to a stratagem was able to shrug off half its damage, keeping it alive. With hindsight I think this was a pivotal moment. If that Wave Serpent had have gone down it might have changed everything. We did however kill the Rangers in the Tyranid Capillary Towers... 

Which gave the Avatar the perfect launching point. Concentrated fire on the Tfex put it down, with the Wraithknight, Avatar and Wave Serpent taking out their biggest threat.

Scott and Liam had been able to make great progress, both in board control and damage to the Tyranids. We were already floundering. We were struggling to put any damage on those big 3.

And the Avatar stepped down from the Towers to wipe out the Zoanthropes.

I think we lost so much more after this and although I thought the game was a bit more 'fun' than previous attempts I know Otty was unimpressed. Our rolling was unspectacular, we were out-gunned and the constant rule checking didn't help the flow of the game. Not having the stats for the nids on cards I was constantly switching between the 2 Indexes giving the rules for both factions. It's not a great way to play. The actual game rules - if we played more and got the core rules down that might help but definitely having the faction rules to hand will be of benefit. I've a better report coming though with my Knights, so look out for that.