Skitarii: disruption maelstrom

Recently a friend of mine with which I usually play against has bought a Lord of Skulls, which even though it's generally thought to be crappy, can turn out to be a pain in the ass if you are playing low point games, like 1500 or even once at just at 1000, because you usually aren't kitted to deal with him. 

Well, something that has worked pretty well recently (finishing turn 1 with a single hullpoint thanks to some good dice) is fielding five units of skitarii vanguards with two arc rifles (rapid fire 1, S5, disruption) which means 10 disruption shots at first and 20 when you reach 12UM at less than 500 points. This could obviously also do wonders against Imperial Knights, Titans (except the Warlord) or simply against vehicle-heavy armies. Also because of exploration you'll cover the distance more quickly and Doctrinas Imperatives mean that you'll hit at 2+ up to three turns which means that you'll land between seven and eight hull points, which is enough to kill almost anything, if not in one turns two.

I don't know if there are more armies that can spam disruption weapons like this, but I don't think so and, if there are, probably it won't be as effective at such low cost. 

Good luck at killing that tedious Imperial Knight in one turn!

Betrayal at Calth... II

Today I'm writting to tell you that I'm weak. I've been saving aside some money for a hobby project so that when I had more or less completed my actual painting enterprises (some of which have been waiting since 2010) I could buy something pretty, like Horus and a Deredeo or some additions to my Dark Mechanicum army. This was before a rumor came saying that Betrayal at Calth was going out of stock. As I've already said before and without wanting to be too insistent on the matter, I think that the BaC box is an absolutely amazing addition to start or compliment any Legion Horus Heresy army, as it has more than a 50% discount, some amazing models (actually all of them are pretty amazing) and, if you know the basic principles of kit bashing and converting, it has a good selection of units game-wise. So as you will already have guessed, I went last Wednesday to my local GW store, gathered all my savings and bought a second Betrayal at Calth box...
So, what I'm going to do with it? Well, first I'll tell you what I had made with my last BaC for my Sons of Horus:
- A cataphracti terminator Praetor simply converted to have a paragon blade instead of a chainfist with the catsphrsctii power sword (actually that conversion, as easy as it seems, went badly as the stripes are different).
- A Primus Medicae Consul with a nartheticum, which is a chain fist from the cataphractii with a greenstuff cable, and a needle pistol, which is a cataphracti combi bolter with a short piece of wire to be the needle.
- A Legion Contemptor Dreadnought Talon consisting of the contemptor from the box with a Multi-melta and a FW Sons of Horus Contemptor Dreadnought with a FW Contemptor Power Claw (with an inbuilt plasma blaster) and the Kheres Assault Cannon remaining from the BaC box.
- 10 Sons of Horus Justaerin Terminators made from the mixture of the 5 BaC Cataphractii and 5 Justaerin from FW with 5 dual power claws and 5 power fist and combi bolt with a heavy flamer, all from the box.
- 10 veterans with a combi-melta sergeant with melta bombs, a heavy bolter, a flamer, a Legion Vexila, and a greenstuff Nuncio-Vox.
- Two 5 man Legion Support Squads, one with meltas and the other with plasmas.
- 5 rapier weapon batteries with a Laser destroyer, which are made out of plasticard, plastirod and greenstuff; and which crew are removable to make a veteran squad just like the other (unfortunately, just one of this is finished, the others are half built).

This was originally thought as being an addition for my CSM and only being used in a 30k game occasionally. The thing is that I got quite hooked by the Age of Darkness game, and I was stuck with an army that didn't work that well alone, but I think that I've fixed that with the new units which are meant to be used with the Black Reaving rite of war, so that my reavers are troops:
- A Cataphracti Forge Lord Consul with a Thunder Hammer (which is actually the Stormcast Eternals leader, the Something-Prime, Ghal-Maraz, which was lent to me), a graviton gun made from a melta rifle, a cyber familiar which is a raven that I misteriously had in my bitz box, and a Servo Arm made
with plasticard, greenstuff cables and a Dwarf tool. Also I cut off the cape to diference it from my
praetor, even though I liked it pretty much, and changed the position of its head.
- A Master of the Signal Consul (compulsory for the Black Reaving but actually pretty good in the board) with a jump pack made of plastirod, plasticard, greenstuff and a power pack, and I haven't totally decided the weapons, but I think I'll go with dual power weapons as it can't shoot if it boosts the BS of a unit, but I'll probably try to make it so that it can be swapped from Volkite Serpentas so that it can be used as a Moritat.
- A contemptor dreadnought (which completes my talon) with Multi-melta, Power fist and inbuilt melta gun from the FW arm.
- 5 dual wielding lightning claws Justaerin Terminators from the Cataphractii of the box (I can now field a 10 man dual wielding lightning claws justaerin, which now are cheaper and have two wounds, as a bodyguard for my praetor, which will utterly destroy anything that isn't a vehicle from the board, and can also deep strike because of Black Reaving.
- 10 reavers with a volkite charger (converted boltgun) and power swords (converted from combat
blades), a Chieftain and jump packs (made the same way that the Master of the Signal one).
- 2x5 reavers kitted the same way that the ten man unit.
- A 5 man Legion Heavy Support Squad all with Volkite Culverins made out of heavy boltguns full of greenstuff cables, but that aren't glued, so can be swapped to be anything except missile launchers.
- 5 Jetbike Sky Hunters that I mean to build with five veterans and plasticard Javelin Pattern Jetbikes, but I don't know if I'll manage to do it, as my skills with plasticard aren't that phenomenal. Anyway they'll be kitted with a Sergeant, one Volkite Culverin and melta bombs.

And this is my actual Heresy army, which is still in progress, and that I hope I can finish to asemble in the Easter-following days and I promise I'll post photos about. Hope this served for inspiration to others and to illustrate the unending amount of things you can do with a Betrayal at Calth box.

Corsair Pre-Review

Yes you read it right, it sais PRE-review because it isn't even a review, it is less than a review, it is just what you think when you read a codex. And, in this case, the codex that I've read is the eldar corsair codex, available in the second edition of IA: the Doom of Mymeara, wich I finally managed to download. So I was pretty happy when I found it, as I had been searching it in the web for some time, and dedicated a while of an afternoon to read the rules, basically of the corsairs, which were the ones that I was curious about. I had nightmares that night. Really bad nightmares.

So lets start making a general idea: The eldar corsairs are what you get if eldar and dark eldar had a kid and the harlequins delivered it. Once you picture the alredy potent army we have in here, add it a little bit of ridiculously high mobility, a psychic discipline that allows you to move units through the table and through the reserve (this includes enemy ones) and a pinch of even less endurance than their eldar parents. Now you see wat the corsairs are more or less, a fucking OP army.
That understood I'll make a new statement, they're, in my opinion the knew best army, topping even the inquisition (I've alredy talked about that). But it is because of the combination of some of their rules. It all starts when you pick the Traveller of Forgotten Paths for your Prince (corsairs main HQ), which allows you to deep strike, gives you a Multiphase Key Generator and allows all of your characters to buy one. Now you'll be wondering, what's a Multiphase Key Generator (or an MKG, as we'll be calling it because of the word largeness)? Well, an MKG is an object that allows you to deep strike and to, insted of shooting, place a Webway Portal within 3". But a corsair WP isn't like a Dark Eldar one, no, it let's you enter from reserves from there and to go to ongoing reserves if moving by 3". That alone is pretty amazing isn't it? You can leave the table if you please. But the awesome thing about it is that corsairs have a rule (reckless abandon) which allows them to move 6" backwards after firing to an enemy within 12". If you still haven't seen it, I'll put it in a nutshell: first you move so that you have a MKG within 6" (7" if you have jetpacks, which you will, as you're a corsair) at your back; you fire your short ranged weapons, which will cause great damage to your enemies because you're an eldar; and you run backwards to your MKG and go to ongoing reserves so that you can enter through it next turn, without having to endure your enemy's turn (if you aren't there he can't attack you right?).
This said I also see some disadvantages in the army. First you can't control objectives, as you aren't there; you have to be very carefull so that you aren't left without units in the table; and they're 100% Forge World, so most tournaments won't let you use them.
So, in conclusion:
- Corsairs are a great army
- They can make a lot of damege
- They are very mobible
- They are very hard to kill (again, you can't attack units in the reserves)
- They will cause you a humongous headache if you fight against them
- I'm definitely starting a Corsair army 😂

Mechanicum First Thoughts

Hello there!
Recently they've started a 40k league in my local store and I've decided to participate with my Dark Mechanicum army (Cult Mechanicum + Skitarii) and after my first battle I'm very happy with their performance. I've used my Skitarii in several ocasions, and knew pretty well how to use them, but it was my first time with Cult Mechanicum and I was quite impressed by them, so I decided to make a little review in here (I haven't tested all the units nor have I tested them enough, so it'll be very superficial). This time it will be in a Pros and Cons format:
Pros:
- The Skitarii part has a high movibility without depending on vehicles, thanks to explorer, crusader and dunestrider.
- You have access to very high firepower as the Skitarii rangers are brutal at 15" but has a long threat range, the vanguards dominate the short ranged units, the onager is awesome and the kataphron destroyers... Well, they just destroy whatever they fire upon (at least with grav).
- Donctrines and Canticles provide great bonifications.
- Decent close combat units that deal a lot of damage (but tend to get pricey and aren't very durable).
- Great HQ option, very versatile and useful.
- Finally, they sinergize very well with other armies of the imperium.
Cons:
- Few units to choose from, which isn't that bad if you use both codex but it still lacks of things like transports and flyers.
- Tactically difficult to combine close combat and shooting because of the Canticles and, specially, the Doctrines.
- Though it has some hard options it is, in general, a weak army, as most of your units will be T3 with a 4+ armor.
- Some units tend to get very pricey (castellans) and, in some cases, aren't capable of resisting much (sicarians).

In conclusion it is a great army to play, fun and competitive!

Sons of Horus Contemptor

Well, as promised I'll be posting about the first miniature that I've finished of the Betrayal at Calth box and also the first of my brand new Sons of Horus army. This means that I've tested some new things in him, tried out my planned color scheme and made the paint mixtures I needed (I took as a base the FW scheme which is a free download from their web and includes four mixes of four paints and is a pain in the ass). 

This is the finished thing, though there are lots of details you can't appreciate because of the bad light (sorry, but my best camera is my iPad, I'm no good photographer and in January in Madrid it's almost impossible to get daylight).

This is the contemptor just mounted. I decided the multi-melta because I'm reserving the Kheres Assault Cannon for another contemptor I got from FW and didn't convert the fist to have a melta instead of a combi-bolter because I used all my meltas in a support squad. If you are wondering why I put a green stuff cable in the base its because I had leftovers from the one I used to fill a hole in the fist arm (this model isn't designed for being dynamic).

 This is the fella backwards before painting. You can also see that the base was done with the "astrogranite" technical paint of GW, which worked out much better than I thought. I also used some stones and blister bits to represent larger rocks and some ruined foundations. 

This photo was made to show that I put some putty in the places it didn't fit well (this time from Tamiya, I'm not a 100% GW) though you can also see a space marine helm that I put there to be painted as an Imperial Fist, as a friend is starting a heresy army of them. 

I even drilled the weapons of my army, which is something I always say that I'm going to do when I finish but actually don't. 

I'm pretty happy with the final result, though I should have done a clearer mix. The actual composition is made of a mix that I'll call Mix 1 that is 50% Castellan Green and 50% Nurgling Green and a Mix 2 of 50% Dawnstone and 50% Sotek Green (all GW colors as, even though I don't buy them the 100% of my things, I do buy them a 95%). After this you do a mix of 50% Mix 1 and 50% Mix 2, which is Mix 3 and turns out to be the base color. Then you wash it with Nuln Oil and then layer it with Mix 3 again. After that you make apply Mix 4, which is like Mix 3 but with 20%  more of Mix 2 (you can see why it's a pain in the ass). Then you wash with Nuln Oil again the darkest parts and finally you edge with pure Nurgling Green and the most exposed borders with Scar White. 

This is his multi-melta arm side, which has the first Eye of Horus I've ever painted (this figure has a lot of firsts). It would drag a lot of the attention of the guy because of the oranges in the cannon, but is compensated with the elevation of the fist, which has also some extra Nurgling Green to be even more impressive. 

The back of the miniature has a lot of metallic, which was too shiny, so I decided to wash all of the metals of my Soms of Horus with a lot of Nuln Oil and then just edge them with Runefang Steel.  

As I said before the fist side is more highlighted than the other, but also has an arrow with XVI on it (the number of the SoH). 

The base was done with Eshin Grey highlighted with Dawnstone and Scar White, then washed with Nuln Oil and again highlighted with the same. The helm has a couple of yellows and then some sponge-weathering. 

The front is intentionally the most outstanding part of the model, with the shiny eyes and the scrolls, in where the only complete word is Lupercal (war cry of the SoH and one of the names of Horus, their primarch). 

The multi-melta has a second wash of Nuln Oil so that the orange, which is made with a gradation from red to white passing through orange but not through yellow, will outstand more.

The fist is the first place in where I tried sponge-weathering, and I liked it so much that it quickly spread to the rest of the figure. I've sponged Abbadon Black, Eshin Grey, Dawnstone and Runefang Steel on the edges.

Well, at the end it has been a great model to paint and I'm quite happy with the results. I've already started a melta support squad and hope to finish my army as soon as possible!

Tactical Support Squads review

Hi there everyone, I'm sorry I haven't written much lately, but I've been very occupied working on my latest Christmas acquisitions (I'll be posting pics soon), but I decided to talk about a unit that has impressed me: the Tactical Support Squad of the Legion Crusade army list. I've builder two five man squads out of the Betrayal at Calth box, and I'm pretty happy of the work they're doing.

The thing about them is that they're all equipped with an special weapon of your choice which basically is a cheaper unit of chosen! I've been taking lately one with meltas for tank destruction and one with plasmas for dealing with terminators, but I'm sure they'll be great with Volkite Calivers or flamers. They benefit much from a Rhino or Drop Pod (specially the ones with meltas or flamers) and I recommend taking groups of five for flexibility.

All this is great, but they obviously have some flaws that you should be aware of. First they're from Heresy, so you will need permission from your opponent to use it in usual 40k games, which shouldn't be a problem when playing friendly, but you have to be aware that this is not for tournaments. Also they end up being quite expensive if equipped with plasma or melta and given a vehicle, reaching the 200 if also given a vehicle so, as the chosen, you should be very careful because they still have power armor and die as easily as usual marines (giving them an apothecary is a good idea, but will get them even more expensive). At last they cannot be taken as compulsory troops, so no all-special weapons armies.

In conclusion, Tactical Support Squads are a great option for giving what they are supposed to give, support for your Tactical Squads, and fill the rolls that they cannot. If given flamers though and positioned near a Promethium Pipe, they can work pretty well individually.