+ inload: Lamb's World recruitment +

+ It's all been a bit quiet while I grind away at the next entry in the Creating your own army series [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], so I thought I'd post up some miscellaneous bits and bobs to feast your occulo-visors on; and look at some more of my Imperial Guard from Lamb's World – because who doesn't love the poor bloody infantry struggling through the grim darkness of the far future? +

+ New Recruits +

+ I've used the models of this latest Lamb's World army to represent different regiments – a new commander and some thematic auxiliaries/additions is enough to give an army a fresh feel for a different time period. This works particularly well for monolithic or unchanging organisations like the Imperial Guard or Necrons; letting you try a different approach with your force without painting a whole new army. +

+ Adapting an army for a different setting – and it doesn't need to be a completely different time period; it may simply be a different region of your campaign – changing the personalities at the top goes a long way to giving a sense of realism and verisimilitude. After all, your colonel/warboss isn't going to deal with everything personally, and can't be everywhere at once: it's good to let trusted underlings take charge. This also adds to a sense of scale; preventing your campaigns turning into the same old characters fighting each other, with all the tension of a saturday-morning cartoon. +

+ Introducing new characters – and allowing them to be captured, injured or even die – can be very immersive and enjoyable. The figures above show some reinforcements for Lamb's World, who will represent the army during the M35 time period. To fit with the Nova Terra Interregnum's 'retrohammer' concept (that is, to evoke the Rogue Trader background using modern miniatures), I've drafted in some classic Mark Copplestone sculpts kindly given to me by Stuntwedge. They're front and centre of the image above, and will be Caef Whittaker (named after the Commander of my very first guard army back in the 90s) and his trusted banner bearer. Note I've used Elysian arms, shoulder guards and weaponry to update them a bit, without compromising what I like about the originals. The other figures are a motley mix of bits and bobs, mostly Victoria Miniatures' awesome Arcadian Guard (and a characterful dog from Anvil Industries), and will swell the ranks of the infantry. +

+ To make sure that the Victoria Miniatures figures blend in with the existing guardsmen of the army – mostly based on Forge World's Elysian – I'm also building some figures that overlap and combine bits from both Forge World and Victoria Miniatures. +

+ Sicarian Infiltrator: Bezoa Forge [Pict-capture: Lucifer216] +

+ Why the renewed interest in Lamb's World? Well, fellow PCRC member Lucifer216 has recently completed a rather gorgeous Adeptus Mechanicus army from his Forgeworld of Bezoa [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+] – you can see an example of his beautiful work to the right – and we thought we'd get a big game in. +

+ We're aiming for 150 power level, which is certainly the biggest game I've played for a long while – and possibly the largest I've ever played one-on-one. My aim is to get some shots for a battle report that I can post up here; so watch this space. +

+ My existing army just about reaches that level, but if I can get some extra stuff painted before the game (it's nice to field something new for a big game like this), that'd be the aromatic unguents on the tech-altar . +

+++

+ For every battle honour, a thousand heroes die alone, unsung, and unremembered. +

+ I've been posting up shots of individual Guardsmen – and how they mey their inevitable ends – on the Death_of_a_Rubricist Instagram account recently, so I wanted to make sure the main blog readers didn't miss out. +

+ XI: Morus Llew. Bezoa. KIA confirmed – background rads. +

+ XII and XIII:  Osto Eo and Broker Wyn. Bezoa. KIA unconfirmed – artillery strike. +

+ XIV: Harris Cain. Battle of Blosto Plains. KIA – confirmed.

+ XV: Zor Pirkens. Luther MacIntyre IX. KIA confirmed – local fauna. +

+ XVI: Asc Oakentop. Luther MacIntyre IX. KIA confirmed. +

+++

+ Also in the forges +

+ Some other projects that are bubbling under: +

+ Mordheim XIX +

+ The basic shapes of the warband are in place – some greenstuff work and then onto paint. +

+ Allies and enemies +

+ How's a Space Marine to show off how tough he is without guardsmen to provide contrast? These two are from Victoria Miniatures' [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+] Arcadian line – a thoroughly awesome homage to the Cadian miniatures of late 2nd edition: perfect for the Nova Terra Interregnum period of my setting. +

+ A scale shot helps drive home the physical size of the underlying Plague Marine model. +

+ But being big isn't necessarily enough when you're fighting the worst the rim can throw at you. This space-fimir is from Knightmare Miniatures [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], who also made the Saharduin figures in this inload. He (and his species) will get an 'Anatomy' inload of his own sometime. +

+ A very cool figure with a great mix of pulp sci-fi and prehistoric Celtic detailing, I'm going to try out some green-grey glazing on the skin. I've therefore created a much lighter underlayer than I normally would. +

+++

+ inload: Opening scenes in Shallowell +

+ Shallowell + 

Events kick off in the mysterious town of Shallowell. I'm fairly sure LordBloodtheHungry, who's done the bulk of the work in creating the town and its inhabitants, is planning to post up a full report of the game. I'll post a link to that when it goes up, so this is really just a very quick overview.

A treat to play; we used the Mordheim rules. The scenario revolved around the player's warbands – Warmtamale's local inbreds, Omricon's merchant caravan, Bob Hunk's ratcatcher's guild and my Witchhunters – arriving at the edge of Shallowell (hence the encroaching fields at the bottom of the picture) and finding a caravan under attack by goblins and bandits.

A closer look at just some of the NPCs, all built and painted (along with the scenery) specifically for the game.

Warmtamale's thieving yokels.

Bob Hunk's ratcatcher's guild.

Omricon's merchants.

The scenario unfolds...

+++

+ Burning of Prospero +

+ It's taken me a while, but I've finally got most of the figures for Burning of Prospero built. I'm treating it as a self-enclosed game, so while I wasn't able to resist a bit of kitbashing and conversion, I decided against making the marines larger. It was a refreshing treat just to cut the figures off the sprue and start building! +

+ I'll post up the rank and file in a later inload, as there's a bit more to say about them in terms of what I've done, so for the moment, here's a couple of the stand-out leaders and elite pieces. +

+ Going for a song on trading and secondhand sites, the Ahriman figure is a really cool sculpt from both an aesthetic and technical viewpoint. Lots of thought has clearly gone into this iconic anti-villain. I've made a simple headswap as the original one looked a bit 'pudgy' to me, but otherwise he's simply off-sprue. Very clever arrangement of pieces; the Legion symbol on his right shoulder (left in the image)helps to hide the join. +

+ Custodes! Never thought I'd see the day that these were released; let alone in plastic, but I'm very glad they did. A really lovely set of models, with a great mix of dynamism and sense of their stalwart nature. Being an old traditionalist, I went with halberds all round (aside from the standard bearer, who in the interests of looking good, is missing a weapon entirely!) as this is the image I most associate with the Emperor's personal guard. +

+ I've deliberately tried to avoid assembling them to look cohesive, as their background suggests they shouldn't look as regimented as the Legiones Astartes: each Custodian is an individual, which should be represented in the model as much as the rules. +

+ In some ways, this method of release – as a particualrly desirable part of an box set – harks back to classic games like Titan Legions, which was the only way of getting the awesome Imperator Titan. I hope this style of release works for GW, as it certainly works for me. +

+ Surprise treat of the box for me was the Silent Sisterhood. The models were a treat to assemble, and even had the bits left over to convert Inquisitor Greyfax (another cool recent model, and a gift from Warmtamale) into a senior Sister of some sort. +

+ inload: Witchhunters and Thallax +

+ inload: And now for something completely different +

+ A change is as good as a rest. For a while, my blog seems to have been crammed with Space Marine after Space Marine, in a variety of blacks and silvers. Not the most cheery when spooling through! +

+ Witchhounds +

+ One of the PCRC has recently been bitten by the Mordheim bug, so we've been building bands of merry (or creepy) men to explore Shallowell, a mysterious town in the Tallowlands – our little corner of Fantasy-land that sits somewhere between the Old World and the new Realms. +

+ I've decided that a ghost town is clearly the world of witches, and so a group of rough and ruthless Witchhunters is clearly the best approach. Flames, hammers and hats are the order of the day. +

+ The models are a mix of bits from all over the place; mainly the various Empire kits. I've built them with Court of the Sun King half in mind; these chaps can pull double-duty on Cepheus, if required. +

+ Thallax +

+ Creepy concept, these. Rather than fitting armoured suits around their best soldiers, the Mechanicum of Mars chop bits off their troops to fit them into the best suits. Brutalised physically and mentally, the thallax corps are left as shadows of their former selves – but fierce and dangerous. +

+ I picked up a bunch of these a while back, choosing the weaponry on the tried-and-tested approach of 'ooh that looks cool'. Of the nine, five are built as shown – one has an irad-cleanser (a sort of radiation flamethrower), one has a plasma weapon of some sorts. The remaining three have lightning guns, which are their standard guns. The unbuilt four have three more more lightning guns, and one multi-melta. +

+ They were surprisingly quick to build. Partly this is because they're straight out of the box (no conversion here), but mainly it's because despite looking quite large and complex, they're very nicely designed. Everything seems to fit quite well, even the accursed cables. I love the aesthetic of dripping cables, but cripes they're annoying to position and attach. +

+ A scale shot here alongside one of my Space Marines (I know, I know) shows the Thallax's size. The models were supplied with 40mm bases, but I've gone with 32mm ones in order to work better with the typically dense terrain we use for our gaming. +

+ Since building them, I've been reading around the noosphere to find out what they do, and they look pretty beefy – a solid elite-level statline and powerful weapons will make them a very different prospect from my usual gaming approach of 'shovel on more soldiers'. Apparently they're jet troops, too; which is a first for me. +