+ inload: Salamanders Terminators+

+ Under burning sands and rocks, Salamanders emerge +

+ A quick look at some minor progress in the Dust of Armageddon project. +

+++

Ambition's great, but is can also be restrictive, and January's a great moment to say to yourself 'This idea has been lurking half-baked for too long – just get moving.'

It's with this in mind that I dug out some sprues that have lurked unbuilt since the release of 10th edition 40k, and set to building.

+ Librarian +

The stock version of this sculpt is awesome, but I couldn't help myself when it came to building him, and made some simple changes to personalise him a bit:

 

The head's from the Terminator squad, and fits nicely with an artwork that's stuck with me, of a power-armoured Librarian from Codex: Armageddon. Perhaps this chap is the same figure at a later stage of his career?

Beyond that, the brazier is from a Chaos figure, I believe – maybe the chap yelling and waving a book? – and the rest of the conversion work is little more than a slight repose on the axe arm.

+ Commander +

Every force needs someone in charge, and so this Terminator captain has stepped into the fray. The thunder hammer is from the old Space Hulk Terminators (I've made this picture black and white to hide the red plastic), and is understated – clearly a figure who appreciates that less is sometimes more in craftsmanship. I've tweaked the wrists and positioned the head to be looking upwards as something even bigger than he is: I wanted a wary but determined and confident look. 

While adding the details like the tongs and brazier (like the head, all taken from the Salamanders upgrade sprue), I couldn't help hearing that line from the Marvel Thor film:

'You're big. I've fought bigger!'

+ Elites +

What are officers without their troops? The last things built were a Terminator squad. These are pretty much straight from the box, though I swapped the arms around, added some details like tilt shields, votaries and such like from various marine kits, just to differentiate them from the other push-fit models.

Nothing here was particularly difficult or notable, beyond scraping off the Terminator sergeant marking on the marine at the back. I already used another copy of that base figure as the sergeant for my other Terminator squad (below), and wanted to avoid duplication.

Prior to building, I also worked a little on some of the models that have been lurking too. This was fairly monotonous: painting the bases, the hands and picking out blacks on the figures. It's odd coming back to figures after a long time. I'm sure I'll get back into the swing of things, but for the moment it's still feeling a bit untethered!

+ inload: Great Gargant musings and Deathskulls in Battle for Armageddon +

+ Great Gargant WIPs +

+ The playtesting for Bloodsong ticks along, and what excuse is really needed to paint up tiny Titans? In this case, it's an Ork Great Gargant that's had a little work done. +

Progress is minimal – this is behind my squat Kill Team in the painting queue – but since it's looking like the Legions Imperialis game planned for a few weeks time might be derailed, I thought I'd slap a little bit of paint on this Great Gargant, which has sat with uncharacteristic patience since Lucifer216 gave it to me.

The scheme's a bit of an experiment. A brown undercoat was followed up by directional spraying of dark green, khaki and finally off-white (GW's Wraithbone) to create a slightly spotty, textural feel like the cast iron of WWII tanks.

I've then gone in with some exploratory washes on the head, and picked out a few details with various blacks and browns. My taste for orks is to make them look a bit patchwork, so I've jumped from place to place. The plan is essentially to work gradually down the Gargant and then back up, getting things loosely in place on the first way down, and then tightening and refining things on the way up.

Back in the dim and distant days of 014.M3, I spooled out an inload on painting faces [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], and since then I've often found myself working up the focal area of a model to give me the enthusiasm and 'oomph' to carry on.

Nowhere do I find this principle more useful than painting Titans and similar giant war engines like this Great Gargant. I find the wealth of structures and textures and odd bits and bobs across such a big model can feel intimidating – but giving the piece some character really helps to inspire the rest. Here, I went for a lop-sided approach to the eyes, having fun painting a swirly green eye alongside a simple orange one. 

I'm tempted to try developing the orange eye a bit further and building up a reflection of Armageddon's burning hives as I did on the Salamanders' Thunderhawk below:

I do like the retro sci-fi look of clean bulbous round glass, but I shall have a think while I work down and back up the War Engine.

+++

+ What clan? +

Indecision on this is a big part of why I've prevaricated on painting the thing, and the colour scheme is still very up in the air. For the moment, I'm content to keep it 'battle green', as that's a suitably generic colour for all orks, and reminds me of the Gargants from a battle report in White Dwarf 136 – one of the earliest issues I read, and formative in how I picture ork armies.

Killboss, pictured above, is a Smasher Great Gargant with a head turret. Commanded by none other than Warlord Burzuruk himself, it's a Goff Gargant – but not the all-black we'd probably expect today.

+++

+ Talking of Orks +

Back to Armageddon Prime [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+]: I've drawn the tokens up to match the originals as closely as possible, so they're all planned to be 25mm/1in square.

Ghazghkull's sent two forces into Armageddon Prime – the Blood Axes and Snakebites, while he led the Goffs, Evil Suns and Bad Moons through the jungle into Secundus. The Chaos Attack expansion had a  number of 'what if?' scenarios, one of gave you the option of swapping out the tribes. Supplied with that expansion were 18 Snakebite units and 18 Blood Axe units.  The service I'm planning to use can do sheets of 42 counters, which brings up a nice opportunity to include some Death Skulls.

While it's not quite enough to fit all three on one sheet, I thought it'd be fun to work up the idea:

Still WIP, but it finally brings the Deathskulls into the party. Conspicuously absent from the original – likely because what makes their faction identity special didn't really lend itself easily to this scale of warfare – I tried to iterate from what was there. I therefore started with the seemingly standard five ork hordes of two different qualities; two Nobz, three gretchin and one Madobyz token.

To that I added a fourth Gretchin stand (in the Epic ork army list from White Dwarf 128, it notes that the Deathskull's penchant for looting attracts lots of mischievous gretchin), and then added a couple of tokens that appear in more than one of the other clans: Battlewagons and Bike boyz.

The others are innovations that are intended to evoke what's special about the Deathskulls. The Looted Tanks were a halfway house between the 'oomie vehicles of the Blood Axes and the Battlewagons of the other orks in terms of stats; while the three Lootaz counters use a mechanic from the daemons in Chaos Attack (rolling to determine their Attack and Defence values at random) to represent their rather temperamental/random reliability.

You'll note that the Deathskulls, like the Blood Axes and Snakebites, don't have Gargants. That was partially for symmetry with the other expansion forces, and also the lootas have plenty of potential to punch above their weight. Generally, they'll be around as effective as the Snakebites' squiggoths, and I didn't want to also give them a reliable heavy-hitter.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Deathskulls – and if you get a chance to playtest them (or Gargants for Bloodsong!), please do let me know the fallout.

+++

+inload: Armageddon Prime tokens +

+ A holiday to Armageddon Prime +

'Come to sunny Armageddon Prime! The other continent on this key Imperial world!' 

+ Today's inload looks at some practical elements of this project to realise a fan-made second expansion to Battle for Armageddon; with respectful thanks to Jervis Johnson, Mark Gibbons, Richard Helliwell, Fangorn and Bill King for the inspiration +

Tangentially-related miniatures watch respectfully as a techpriest blesses the artworks.

+++

+ Progress towards Armageddon +

I've squeezed in two fun games of the original boardgame recently. We played the very basic game the first time, with the Imperials winning a Hail-Mary victory by offing Ghazghkull. The second game involved the Snakebites and Blood Axes from the Chaos Attack expansion, along with the treacherous Von Strab – and this was a thorough hammering for the Imperials. Both times were very enjoyable! 

It's a fun, simple and relatively quick game; if you can find a copy, I'd encourage you to give it a go.

Enthusiasm for this project has been running high, as it's firing off lots of interlocking interests. Squats, hand-painting, ork gargants (more on them in an article soon...), and even some gaming... 

Finding some focus in the hobby is good, but it's not everything!  Sometimes it's nice just to let enthusiasm carry you along freely.

+ Making tokens +

My set of counters for the game is looking a bit sun-faded, and as these things tend to go, I wondered if I could recreate them. The originals were given away as a print-to-play PDF by GW's Fanatic department many years ago, but I'm pretty sure they were created by scanning a set, rather than from the original print files, as the colours and resolution are a bit ropey. 

One idea crashed into another, and I thought it'd be fun to create a proper set for the Armageddon Prime expansion. I've been working on this expansion (the rules written by KillerKatana) on and off [+vis.ref this inload node: +noosphericinloadlink embedded+], and it seemed a great chance to polish up my Illustrator skills.

 

Here's a rundown of the Imperial tokens needed from the original boardgame:

• 8th–14th Armies 
• seven tokens with values 2 4 1
• 15th–20th Armies
• six tokens with values 2 3 1 values
• 2nd–7th Tank Divisions
• one token with values 7 4 2
• four tokens with values 6 4 2
• one token with value 5 3 2
• 3rd–6th Rough Riders and Light Brigade
• two tokens with values 2 2 3
• two tokens with values 1 2 3
• one token with values 1 1 4
• Hive gangs
• five tokens with values 2 3 1
• five tokens with values 1 2 1
• Fortifications
• eight tokens with values – x2 –

+++

I've taken a few creative liberties. I didn't want to copy them absolutely exactly for a few reasons. Firstly, it seems a bit uncreative – I'd rather iterate and develop the original idea than just make an carbon copy – and in any case having some differences future-proofs the set, so that you could in theory play both the Prime and Secundus theatres in an apocalyptic combined game. Finally, I have no desire to have GW looking askance at what is really just a couple of hobbyists playing about, so out of respect to the original designers and artists, and the spirit of the project, I wanted to add my own little flourish rather than just take.

Here's a look at the Imperial side. You can see the GW originals from the Fanatic download on the pasteboard (the darker area surrounding the white working areas):

Looking at things in detail was interesting. It suggested quite a bit about how the game was originally made, and how assets were re-used. A lot of the icons are from transfer sheets of the era, while others were re-used from Epic: Space Marine. Trying to find complementary typefaces and riffing on the artworks was a fun little exercise, and – even if I do say so myself – I think the result looks the part.

I was torn a little on whether to update things. Things like the Armageddon Steel Legion were still germinating at the time, so the Imperial Guard tokens are labelled rather starkly as (e.g.) 'Imperial Guard 1st Army'; things like Rough Rider formations were slowly being shuffled off into moth balls during this period as the main studio developed the Imperial Guard for 40k; and the colours are very bright and vibrant, as per the GW studio aesthetic of the time. There are lots more instances of little things like that – and of course the mechanics of the game rely to some extent on the names on the cards.

In the end, I thought doing a modern take would be a fun idea, but as this is really a bit of an homage to the original, I thought I'd split the difference. You can see how I've kept the 'Imperial Guard' text on the cards, but replaced '1st Army' with '1st Steel Legion', for example. You'll also spot the Imperialis (winged skull) symbol of the Guard in general has been replaced with the Steel Legion's logo.

(As an aside, the colours of the Guard Army Groups I used in The Ashes of Armageddon project was inspired by this game. You can see on the left how the 1st Army has a red circle with white logo; while the 8th–14th Armies are yellow with a black logo.)

This is slightly complicated because KillerKatana's rules for Prime suggest using only the second-rate armies from the original game, to represent the Hives of Prime being caught unprepared. A really cool and simple idea, but odd in isolation. I've resolved that by keeping the colours of the Army Groups from the original game, but renumbering them – that way there's no confusion between the armies of Armageddon Prime and Armageddon Secundus. The Departmento Munitorum will be pleased.

+++

+ Tanks and support +

Close inspection will also reveal that I've updated the silhouettes of the Tank brigades and Rough Riders; both also renumbered and noted as 'Prime' formations. The tank icons mostly  match those of the original game: a Stormhammer and Baneblades for the 1st–5th Prime Divisions (equivalent to the 2nd–6th of Secundus – the 1st there is a Shadowsword), but I couldn't resist replacing the old Basilisk with the more iconic Leman Russ.

The place of Rough Riders as quick response recon units has been supplanted in the Steel Legion background by Sentinels, so the walkers replace the symbols there for the 1st and 2nd Rough Rider Brigades – in much the same way as I justified the change in this article. However, I personally love Rough Riders – space cavalry really captures the degraded pseudo-historical theme of 40k for me, so the horseman icon is retained for the rest.

The Hive Gangs of Prime got a skeletal Eagle skull as their symbol – change for the fun of it, and to help distinguish between those of the original game; and the fortifications got a redesign, too – now closer to the modern 40k-era symbol for Fortifications.

+++

+ More challenges! +

Of course, not everything from the original was iconographic – quite a lot was hand-painted. The board was painted by Mark Gibbons, for example, and I'm guessing that the factories and hives were painted at the same time by that talented so-and-so, now working for the tabletop publisher Rookery Publications [+noosphericexloadlink embedded+]. Here they are: 

 

Again, directly lifting this seemed not entirely cricket, so I decided to set aside a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon to try a bit of an experiment, and broke out the paints to try my own crack at things:

I worked at four times the size of the originals – I'm no Mark Gibbons, and shrinking things down would tighten my sketchy work up nicely. Above you can see an early stage of the 10 x 10cm square I used for the Hive city tile alongside the original counters from the game.

... and here are the finished artworks: the Hive City and Factory – and the shared 'smouldering ruins' that makes up the reverse of each piece.

  

I then photographed them, resized them and dropped them into my aesthetigraphical-engine automat servitor (Adobe Illustrator) before putting on the text overlays. 

In the pict-capture below, the originals are shown on the left, while my efforts are on the right. I'm pleased with how they've come out – and I hope that the designers would get a kick out of seeing their efforts still inspiring new work years later.

+++

+ inload: September update +

+ A whole new boardgame +

+ Slow progress on painting and modelling, but I've been teaming up with Sinan to put together an event! +

+++

+ Third War in 3rd +

Themed around the Third War for Armageddon, sixteen (or eighteen) players will be be playing two linked games. I won't share too many details here just yet, but I've excited to see so much enthusiasm for what we assumed would be a pretty niche event.

The #3rdwarin3rd tag on Instagram is up for people to share their pics.

The event happily coincides with my main 40k-era enthusiasm at the mo, which is Armageddon. Regular inloaders will remember the work I've been doing on the Armageddon Prime [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+] expansion for the old Battle for Armageddon board-wargame.

I've not been idle there, as you can see below, as I've been working on creating my own set of counters:

The plan is to get these printed up on covered greyboard and match the originals as closely as I can. How does this relate to the event? Well, the plan we're currently working on is to have a 'campaign map' to provide some immersion – players will get to see how their forces are doing on a strategic scale between the games, and they'll be able to take away some custom counters of their own forces as a keepsake.

Tickets, alas, are already sold out, but if it's a success I think we're both keen to try to run another.

+++

Painting – between summer holidays, heat, work and general malaise – has been a bit spotty and intermittent. We therefore have more Steel Legion specialists nearly polished up for the 707th:

... and closer to events, my Squat killteam progresses for the PCRC campaign in just eight short weeks. I'm really enjoying these. Tempted to get some BattleBuilder nameplates for the gang – you can use my referral code and 'MournStarfall' to get 10% off, if you'd like to fancy up your forces too [+noosphericexloadlink embedded+].

And last but not least in this much-delayed update, I've also picked up some more Epic stuff. I think Epic: Legions Imperialis is in a much better place at the moment, so if you've been tempted to give it a go, I'd recommend it. More in a dedicated inload.

+++

 1,500pts Steel Legion 707th

HQ – 445pts

• Command HQ – 178pts
• Colonel (70)
• Carapace armour (5)
• Refractor field (15)
• Power weapon (10)
• Bolt pistol (3)
• Bionics (5)
• Standard Bearer (10)
• Regimental standard (20)
• Medic (10)
• Comm-link (15)
• Grenade launcher (15)
• Mortar squad – 95pts
• Anti-tank squad (35) – 115pts
• Missile launcher team (20)
• Lascannon team (30)
• Lascannon team (30)
• Commissar (40) – 57pts
• Carapace armour (5)
• Bolter (2)
• Power weapon (10)

Troops – 320pts

• Command section – 81pts
• Lieutenant (35)
• Power weapon (10)
• Bolt pistol (3)
• Carapace armour (5)
• Plasma gun (8)
• Missile launcher  (15)
• Comm-link (5)
• Infantry Squad (60) – 78pts
• Flamer (3)
• Missile launcher (15)
• Infantry Squad (60) – 78pts 
• Plasma gun (8)
• Heavy bolter (10) 
• Infantry Squad (60) – 83pts
• Melta gun (8)
• Missile launcher (15)

Troops – 320pts

• Command section – 81pts
• Lieutenant (35)
• Power weapon (10)
• Bolt pistol (3)
• Carapace armour (5)
• Plasma gun (8)
• Missile launcher  (15)
• Comm-link (5)
• Infantry Squad (60) – 78pts
• Flamer (3)
• Missile launcher (15)
• Infantry Squad (60) – 78pts 
• Plasma gun (8)
• Heavy bolter (10) 
• Infantry Squad (60) – 83pts
• Melta gun (8)
• Missile launcher (15)

Heavy support – 

• Leman Russ Vanquisher (175) – 190pts
• Hull-mounted lascannon (15)
• Leman Russ battle tank (140) – 145pts
• Hull-mounted heavy bolter (5)

+ inload: Alternative weapons for Steel Legion +

+ Resupply! Alternative sculpts for Steel Legion +

Lucky me, I have lovely friends – and a care parcel translated through the warp yesterday containing some fantastic alternative sculpts for Steel Legion from warmtamale. As you can see above, they match the originals well for size and style.

Perhaps more importantly, they add some much-needed variety to an awesome but very limited range. 

For more on the Imperial Guard ranges in this period, feel free to inload this: [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+]

+++

+ What's new? +

Specialists! Figures like these now turn up as part of command squads, but were scanty or absent for most of the regiments of the period – particularly the Steel Legion, which didn't have the follow-up second wave of the earlier forces. (I had to ask my older brother – who could be trusted with a pin vice and hacksaw – to convert a banner for my Catachans.)

Vox-casters, banner bearers and medics add a lot of character to things, and also increase the variety available. The sculpts above appear to be conversions based on the existing sculpts. Both the vox-caster/comm-link chap on the left and the banner bearer are based on the sergeant with the ork head (once reviled, and now hard to get hold of!); the vox-caster having their arms replaced with those from the Death Korps of Krieg plastic set. The medic's based on the other sergeant; again with what looks like DKoK bits.

I'm looking forward to painting these up – a comm-link in each command squad and a banner for the Command HQ will help to make those units feel a bit more special.

+++

The missing special weapon options are likewise conversions. One meltagunner is based on a lasgun trooper sculpt and what looks like an Elysian 'Accatran-pattern' meltagun; the other on the grenade launcher sculpt with a Space Marine melta.

The flamers are likewise mixed; one a take on the 2nd edition flamer (very fitting!), and the other on a more modern Space Marine-inspired one, with a back-mounted fueltank. Both models are based on lasgun trooper sculpts.

The variety is welcome – it'll be nice to have some variety in my squads, and to swap out some of the grenade launchers that currently predominate. As for the variety of in-universe weapon patterns, that strikes me as very fitting for the 7th Army Group: they're having to make do with what they're given!

+++

And the most precious of all – variant lasgun sculpts! The leftmost one is based on a standard lasgun trooper sculpt, but with a knife added and a head with goggles up; the middle one marries up an aiming lasgunner top with kneeling legs taken from one of the various weapon crews; and the third is our good ol' grenade launcher sculpt, now bearing a lasgun. 

I've popped one of my finished Steel Legionaries next to them to give you a sense of size – and I think it's looking promising that they'll be all but indistinguishable once-painted, unless you look very closely and have read a long and fernickety article about tiny metal space soldiers(!)

+++

... and last but not least, a mortar team, adding a vital weapon to the limited range. Now apparently much-feared on the tabletop, for many editions mortars were pretty much useless unless you ran into a lightly-armoured enemy with low T and LD. 

Nevertheless, they're a welcome addition here – particularly since they've solved the biggest bugbear I had with the original sculpt by hollowing out the mortar barrel!

+++
 

+ inload: Armageddon Steel Legion release history +

 + Resupply: Seventh Army Group +

+ A patrol from the 7th Army Group take on a mob of Goffs. +

+ Known by those fighting it simply as 'The War', what would later be titled in Imperial histories as the Second War for Armageddon involved millions of Imperial Guardsmen and a colossal amount of kit. Some was imported from off-world, but for the most part, Armageddon's production capabilities were equal to the task. +

+ Today's inload looks at some extra equipment I've mananged to lay my hands on for my Steel Legion force. +

+++

+ History of the Steel Legion +

The Steel Legion release was a bit of a peculiarity, as was much to do with the Codex Armageddon supplement to 3rd edition 40k. The Codex was an interesting experiment from GW: rather than being focussed on a single army, it included extra units and rules allowing you to create Salamanders or Black Templars Space Marines forces; a Speed Freek specific list for the orks; and the mounted Steel Legion Regiment for Imperial Guard. In addition, it had lots of maps and background and ideas for fighting in the battlefields of this specific warzone. In many ways, it was the precursor to today's 'War Zone' campaign books.

The models were also a bit unusual, as they marked a transition between the metals of 2nd edition 40k and the plastics of 3rd edition. The full range – such as it is – can be seen here, on the Collecting Citadel Miniatures wiki [+noosphericexloadlink embedded+]. When compared with the earlier metal ranges for the Guard (Valhallans, Catachans etc.), you'll spot the available Steel Legion are a bit thin on the ground. Sculpted by the Perry Twins, the models we did get are wonderfully characterful, as this typical lasgun sculpt shows. 

In many ways the Steel Legion release was a bit of a last gasp of the metals. Unlike the previous Regiments, which were the de facto official kit for Imperial Guard, the Steel Legion were released after the plastic Catachan sprue and just a couple of years before the plastic Cadian sprue, and the way the wind was blowing, I think most contemporary gamers were beginning to see plastics as the future; so the Steel Legion always had a whiff of a stop-gap special release; a fun addition to the upcoming Cadians who would become 'the basic Guard'.

This feeling is emphasised by the small range. The earlier Regiments were (generally speaking) each released in two loose waves – an initial infantry box and officer followed up a couple of months later by a few alternative lasgun, special and heavy weapon sculpts, plus another sergeant and officer sculpt. The Steel Legion never received reinforcements of this kind, instead having a slightly larger single wave that included a couple of variant officers, a single extra special weapon and two heavy weapon teams.

In the weapons and equipment we can see this transition more clearly. The preceding metals all shared some universal equipment. The lasguns, water bottles, grenades and special/heavy weapons were shared universally across all the various ranges, from Mordian to Tallarn, as the examples of Catachan and Cadian lasguns below illustrates:

Catachan comm-link

 

The lasgun here was universal for Guard across the range.

A shot of various bits from the Cadian range – note the identical lasguns on the left; and examples of the universal  plasma, flamer, melta gun and bolt pistol models, too.

The Steel Legion (and much later, Vostroyans), differed here. They had a new unique pattern of lasrifle, which was clearly based on the then-current plastic Catachan lasgun. It had the same casing and slimmer, less cartoony barrel; but with less of the barrel exposed, and with a folding stock instead of a solid one:

The water bottle and other equipment had much the same signature as the older Perry sculpts, but were unique to the range. Little details like this make them stand out from the older Regiments, and presage what would come – though they remain a niche range. With just six lasgun sculpts, repetition is quick across an army.

More obviously, the Steel Legion got entirely new heavy and special weapons, which – to my eyes at least – were light years ahead of the clunkier old ones, and gave the Regiment a slightly more 'modern warfare' feel than the older equivalents.

The plastic Cadian range came out just three years later in 2003, and while the metals remained on sale, the Cadians quickly came to dominate. The Steel Legion therefore became a bit of a footnote in collecting history, but – as I hope you'll agree – the models are still lovely.

+++

+ What's new? +

Finding second-hand Steel Legion is now a challenge. Not only were they around for less time than the older metal Regiments, but their slim range of just two special weapons (grenade launcher and plasma gun) and three heavy weapons (missile launcher, lascannon and heavy bolter) was not evenly distributed – missile launchers and grenade launchers are very common, as they were packaged with the infantry squad; but the others are much rarer – and hence unfortunately tend to be prohibitively expensive.

You can still pick up some bargains, if you don't mind a bit of conversion work. The lascannon below was missing its crew, but a separate lucky find gave me one of them, and I converted a spare missile launcher gunner to act as a second member of the crew (at the back here) – a simple matter of cutting at the shoulder and wrist to have him holding a remote trigger while scanning the horizon.

The autosavant is trying to reconcile the non-standard crew – the body language says it all!

Alongside these I managed to pick up a couple of plasma gunners and a spare heavy bolter gunner. He received the leftover missile launcher arm from the conversion above – a neat way to kill two birds with one stone, creating some visual variety in the limited poses available and also making use of spare parts.

You'll spot a second standard heavy bolter team and some plasma gunners, too; alongside some 40k weirdos (old Inquisition models) that I thought fitted the vibe of the force.

The PCRC are planning an old-fashioned event, where I'm hoping to get to field some or all of my Steel Legion, so I'll get to painting. If time, budget and skill allows, I'd like to have a go at creating some Steel Legion Rough Riders to go with the army, as a nod to those from the Battle For Armageddon boardgame.

... and apropos of nothing other than I liked them, I indulged in some Steel Legion-themed dice to go with the army, and some 'sustained fire' dice for our continuing 2nd edition games.

+++

+ inload: 2nd edition 40k thoughts +

+ Hard Luck at Hemlock Bank +

Rutger's rebreather gave a protesting click. He was too tired to be nervous about the filter – all he wanted was for the interminable waiting to be over. The High-and-Dries had been encamped in the Hemlock valley for more than a week now, the orks sending occasional probing attacks along the line – not enough to warrant a decisive response, but more than sufficient to keep the whole line at ready status. 

Why weren't they attacking?

Little more than ten minutes later, Rutger would regret asking.

+++

A very fun little classic 40k game of Orks versus Imperial Guard, Og Throatchoppa's Blood Axes against my Steel Legion 707th. Commanded by General 'Asbach' Grünhold, the 707th fielded a reinforced platoon of around fifty Guardsman supported by a squad of Ogryn auxiliaries, a Leman Russ battle tank, and a Demolisher.

Besides the good General, a junior officer, two psykers and a commissar were also present.

Facing them was an intimidating sea of green – around three-score orks plus three looted Rhinos, one of which bore the infamous Og Throatchoppa and his retinue. 

A Shokk attack gun had been laboriously carried up an escarpment, and a number of shock troops, in the form of a mob of boarboyz and a dreadnought, were noted by Imperial observers.

The game was very enjoyable, with the Guard putting up a bit more resistance than last time! The line had been stiffened by swapping out the Griffon (Manticore) for a Demolisher and the addition of some Ogryns and Stormtroopers. 

The game started well for the Steel Legion, with early shots sending a mob of orks scampering for cover, and some lucky hits on the advancing Rhinos slowing the advance. The Boarboys overcame the Stormtroopers in the shuttle wreck, but a Demolisher shell completed the exchange.

We chatted afterwards and noted that it was nice that Orks and Guard weren't nearly as distinct as in later editions. The differences boil down to one better T for orks, and one better I for Guard; which meant that orks could exchange fire effectively, and Guard weren't hopelessly outclassed in every combat.

On an individual basis, Orks versus Guard is not nearly as predictable across the different phases of the game, which meant for closer exchanges and more nail-biting dice rolls.

There was plenty of fun stuff to laugh at too, with surviving tank crew frantically trying to man the right guns for the turn, and the poor ork boy pictured above being flung back and forth by the Primaris Psyker before finally making it into combat!

Lessons learned from more modern editions don't really follow – we'd forgotten quite how dead 'ard vehicles are, and as you can see from the brawl above, ork dreadnoughts versus ogryns isn't quite the death trap it later became.

Don't get me wrong, the rules are initially complex, but once you're over the learning curve, that's it. The complexity of the rules is built in and created through the decision you make on the table, so – with the notable exception of the Strategy cards and Psychic phase – there's not a great deal more that is added. As a result, it feels quite clean and clear once you're going. There aren't lots of exceptions and breaks and things to bear in mind, so there's less mental load than a lot of more modern games.

That's both a good and a bad thing. Epic: Armageddon and Adeptus Titanicus (my favourite tabletop games) both require constant engagement, which makes them very involving; while the turn-based 2nd edition 40k gives you more mental space, which is a different sort of fun.

Overall, a very enjoyable game – and it's stoked the desire to play more 2nd edition, so it's clearly doing something right!