Unknown Legionary

Yo! The other day, whilst trying to convince a friend to start with wargaming and sow the seeds of heresy, I got the inspiration to make an unmarked legionary. The idea was a marine who remained loyal to the Emperor and tried to remove the heraldry of his previous Legion. I had the idea of bare ceramite being more bone-white than metallic and created a marine from the Death Guard Legion. Here is the result:

 I used the arm from the missile launcher to create a pose which makes him seem to be shouting orders at the same time as he is crouching to take a shot.

I used a lot of stippling to make the model heavily weathered, both because he was in the Death Guard and because he has been trying to remove his previous colors. If you look closely you can make out a green stripe on his shoulders. A fun little side project, the model is now safely shipped of to my friend where he will hopefully be the commander of his future army, mohahah!

Emperor's Children Update

Just wanted to post some pictures on how my work is coming along. The force is slowly growing and will soon be playable. I still need five more assault marines to get the required two troops and for the moment my characters make up about one third of the army. I have five palatine blades on the way which are not included in these pictures but other than that this is it. Enjoy!

Bequa Kynska WIP

Yo! Just wanted to post some pictures on Bequa as she is all but complete. I tried to keep with the same color scheme as for the rest of my 3rd Legion army to make her blend in. The hair of course had to be blue and other than that I wanted to capture her beauty which is maintained by constant rejuvenation surgery. 

The pose makes her seem to be singing a powerful ballad on the stage or perhaps unleashing a mortal shriek using demonic powers.

Added a freehand pattern on her dress to make it less dull.

She truly is an imposing character and the pose shows her confidence and perhaps a bit of her malice.

Game Mat!

It has finally arrived, the Game mat I ordered from gamemat.eu is here! I got the 4x4 Wastelands there and the quality is amazing. First of all the detail is great even from a short distance, when looking from above it creates a false 3D effect which is broken when you look at it from the view of the models. Second the material reminds me of mouse pads and really cannot be folded in a wrong way and doesn't wrinkle. Third the surface is smooth and models glide nicely and rolled dice make a muffled sound which is like music to my ears. Ok so as you can hear I am quite pleased :)

My table isn't big enough but I will fix this eventually. Now I have to convert some terrain to make it fit with the color scheme.

Veteran tactica

Some time ago I went through which of the Elites choices that were suitable for the 3rd Legion (link to post) and one of the mentioned units was the Veteran tactical squad. Just wanted to give a link to a great post about how to use that unit over at A Galaxy In Flames. Recommend to check it out! See ya!

Emperor's Children Fluffy: Troops

Yo! Today we will go through the important but few different troops choices and see which that work best with the fluff of the Emperor's Children. As usual there will be a lot of personal opinions so if you don't agree and want to play your army in another style please feel free to do so. Now on to the troops!

• Tactical squad: The backbone of the Legion. Can either go for bolters of two close combat weapons. As the 3rd Legion was one of the smaller in terms of legionaries after the gene seed disaster I don't expect to see any large units of 20 tacticals. Instead I would prefer units of 10 with increased tactical mobility. In the Fulgrim novel the Children are described as first shooting the enemy with their bolters before switching to their blades and charging into close combat. This could be represented by giving each legionary and additional close combat weapon (for 2 points per model). In that case you get smaller and more expensive units but which perform slightly better than the standard ones which could represent the Legions ambition for martial perfection.
• Assault squad: Fast and deadly in close combat. The sergeant and two marined (in a 10 man squad) can take power weapons to increase their damage when charging. Same goes here for units of 10 rather than 20. We know that they were used so bring a couple. 
• Breacher siege squad: Heavy unit which moves slowly with great protection from their shields. Although I have seen beautiful conversions of these using the wings from the Sanguinary Guard kit and despite the fact that they were probably used by the 3rd Legion during boarding actions I dislike this unit. I feel that they are to bulky, robust and immobile for the Emperor's Children and better suited for Legions of the Death Guard or Iron Warriors.
• Tactical support squad: Small unit with some scary weapons, can be customized against everything from light infantry to vehicles. I personally love the look of the rotor cannons but guess they are only useful against large hordes of weak creatures. A plasma gun squad can really damage your opponents legionaries.
• Reconnaissance squad: Meh, stealth was never really the preferred tactic of the 3rd Legion. Let the less glorious crawl in the shadows :)

As for rhinos and drop pods it is a free-for-all, get what you want!

To summarize: Go for small but well-equipped units of tactical and assault marines, perhaps backed up by some support squad but avoid bulky breachers or stealthy sneakers.

Chaplain WIP

Yo! So not only did I transform Moloc into Julius Kaesoron but I also converted Enkomi (the Chaplain) to the dark side, or the slightly sadistic purple side. There isn't really any character that I wanted to represent with this model, Charmosian is the only Chaplain I know about in the 3rd Legion and I have always pictured him in terminator armor. For now he remains unnamed...

The mysterious Chaplain...

I really like how the bones turned out, much better than last time.

Julius Kaesoron WIP

All but complete! I only have the base left and then Julius Kaesoron can take command of the 1st Company. I just have to get some models to represent the 1st Company... Anyway, compared with my previous paint-job on Moloc this is a great improvement. One more character checked off my to do list.

 Even added some free-hand to his cape :)

Here is a nice comparison on before and after. Nice to see that your skills are improving :)

Emperor's Children Fluffy: Elites

Moving on with the army list creation and selection of units that are "fluffy" enough to be used in the 3rd Legion today we will look at Elites-choices. This might be one of the more crowded unit entries as 3 slots will fill up quickly for the EC.

• Veteran Tactical Squad: Very versatile, you can create anything from close combat oriented (power weapons and furious charge) to vehicle killer (melta and tank hunters). No clear yes or no for the 3rd Legion.
• Terminators: As they are usually scoring they are perfect for footslogging up the board and capturing objectives. Can also be given good long-range weapons or close combat ones. I personally like these and they were a part of the 3rd Legion. Julius Kaesoron needs men to lead! As for armor type I would go for Cataphractii because it looks older and cooler. 
• Techmarines: Cool special weapons and vehicle repair. Meh, I guess they existed in the EC but they were not very prominent. Flesh over steel!
• Apothecaries: Feel no pain. Perfect for the 3rd Legion which was in dire need of apothecaries after the gene seed catastrophy. For a small legion it becomes extra important to preserve the gene seed from the fallen. I would get a couple of these and add them to Tactical squads and Command squads.
• Dreadnoughts and Contemptors: Provide som good covering fire and can be used against tanks or infantry. As you can get up to 3 in each talon and use them separately later they seem to take up less slots than they actually do. Contemptors look slightly cooler than ordinary Dreadnoughts (personal opinion (oh no he didn't!)). 
• Rapier weapon batteries: Solid covering unit with nasty guns. Too imobile for the EC I think.

Legion specific units:

• Palatine blades and Phoenix terminators: Iconic and awesome close combat units. The terminators might be slightly over-priced but this is a fluff-discussion and no a tactical one. Get loads of them :)

So lets summarize: I will once again rank the choices from 1 (perfect for the EC) to 3 (doesn't really work in my opinion and yes it is only my opinion so do whatever YOU want).

1. Palatine blades and Phoenix terminators! This is the problem for the Elites slots for the Emperor's Children because if you bring one unit of each you are left with only one slot for the rest of the cool choices, unless you skip that restriction of course. I would add Apothecaries to this rank because I think they are a bit more prominent in the 3rd Legion.
2. Veterans, Terminators and Dreadnoughts. They were present but are not more special for the Emperor's Children than any other Legion. 
3. Techmarines and Rapiers. Personally I don't think they fit in but there is no clear NO sign to bring them anyway.

That's it for today! I am almost done with Julius Kaesoron so expect pictures soon.

Bequa Kynska

The inspiration for my collection of Emperor's Children has always been the Horus heresy novels (Fulgrim and Angel exterminatus in particular). As such, I have also wanted to add non-astartes characters to my army and have now started that process with the stunning Bequa Kynska! Kynska is a famous composer who joins the 28th expedition and is lauded for her work by Fulgrim and Julius Kaesoron. After visiting the Laer temple she is driven slightly insane and produces her master piece: The Maraviglia. During its performance the entire audience basically turns to Slaanesh and Bequa is killed by a daemonette. But what if she didn't die? What if she became possessed instead? I bring you Bequa Kynska as I envisioned her during her performances:

I based Bequa on the Vampire Counts model Isabella Von Carstein but replaced her sword with a microphone stand and transformed her goblet of blood into a microphone. Now I know that Kynska is described as foremost a composer but also talented in all forms of music and so I don't consider it impossible for her to be able to sing. True, during the Maraviglia Bequa wasn't the one singing but she might have been at other occasions. The rule of cool will have to win this time.

Not the small round base of the microphone stand.

I plan on adding a cable running from the microphone to the base.

Can't wait to color her hair blue! Really cool model to paint.

Metamorphosis

The decision has been made. I am converting my Minotaurs-marines into Emperor's Children. There is only room for one Legion in my heart. I sent my tanks to my friend "the Raven" who is going to air-brush them purple. Later I plan on doing some free-hand painting on their large flat surfaces. What's more is that I am re-using the special characters from the Minotaurs (Moloc and Enkomi). The Chaplain will remain an unnamed character in power armor (I want Charmosean to be in terminator armor), but Moloc will be converted into First Captain Julius Kaesoron!

 Enkomi will simply go through a re-painting.

 To convert Moloc into Kaesoron I had to cut of the helmet which was part of the mold for the upper body (a real pain but then pain is pleasure). I also removed the spear and shield and exchanged them for a Grey Knights sword and a plasma pistol. The head is from the Blood Angels Sanguinary Guard with some added green-stuff hair. I've always imagined Julius with long flowing hair like his Primarch.

I like the face and how it fits with the model and the hair. Look forward to painting this guy as I'm sure I will do a better job than the previous one.