+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 –

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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.

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+ 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.

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+ 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.

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+ inload: The Armageddon Prime campaign +

+ Ashes of Armageddon... Prime? +

+ Background to the project +

The Battle for Armageddon boardgame focussed mostly on the main continent, Armageddon Secundus, but Armageddon Prime was mentioned from the very start. It fell very quickly (as a result of the Governor's incompetence), and so wouldn't have made as close a game as the war for Secundus.

Simon Shepherd's original map, from the Battle for Armageddon rulebook – note Armagddon Prime in the north (left of the map).

A later expansion, Chaos Attack, which detailed the First War for Armageddon (Angron and his army coming to take names), also had a really fun set of additional counters that allowed you to play out various scenarios, such as 'what if the Marines had gone to Armageddon Prime, and the Squats had been in Armageddon Secundus?', 'what if different ork tribes spearheaded the Secundus campaign?' and so forth. A lot of fun, but all reliant on the original gameboard. 

A patchwork Armageddon Secundus, released by GW's Fanatic Games back in the bohemian days when they shared old games files like this for free.

I've found the past few years of hobbying have focussed more and more on the Armageddon region and that time period (with occasional other projects!), and it struck me – in that way that whims do – that it'd be fun to create a board of Armageddon Prime. I did a load of research and gathered up some maps of the region. Some date from the Third War global campaign GW ran in the early 2000s, other were fan-made...

... and it was at about this point that I suddenly realised what a giant job this would be – this wasn't just making a gameboard, it was working out regions, and what rules changes would be necessary and playtesting and all sorts... 

It was then, serendipitously, I stumbled over Board Game Geek, where a (talented and generous) user called killerkatanas had basically done all the hard work! He and his group had drawn up a rough map and created the rules tweaks to play the Armageddon Prime campaign. Back in May I got in touch, and he gave his blessing for me to work up the map and rules, giving them a polish. You can check out his excellent work through think inload link: [+noosphericexloadlink embedded+] – check out the Files section at the bottom.

This project wouldn't have been possible without him, so all credit to killerkatanas for doing the heavy lifting. I hope I'm able to do justice to the facelift I'm giving the rules.

+++

+ Starting work +

Here's the map that killerkatanas' worked up as a playtesting draft. He had even got in contact with Simon Shepherd to see if he wanted to paint a professional version to match the original, but was sadly turned down.

Nice and clear and straightforward; it just needs a bit of polish. The first stage was to measure my original gameboard and make sure that everything was scaled correctly, ready for people to print and glue onto a backing (or use one of the various boardgame prototyping services to do a professional job). After all, if the turn counter doesn't fit properly on the square, or stacks don't fit, it won't function properly.

I then began redrawing the Imperial supply icon, revising all the tables and reference bits (like turn number, build points etc.) and generally bringing it up to match the original board – it was fun doing some design archaeology and finding freely available fonts to work with. I was very keen not to copy any of the material directly from GW's stuff – 'freeware' or not, I don't want to use any original material, out of respect to the original artist and designers.

I redrew this unusual Aquilla variant used in the game in Illustrator.

Here's how it's currently looking. You'll note that I've iterated a little on killerkatana's original (itself carefully constructed from various slightly varying maps down the years), mainly in turning the straight territory lines to something more akin to the Secundus board – and occasionally slightly tweaking the size to allow counter stacks to fit neatly.

I've put a neutral yellow background down to give a sense of space, but the plan is to paint and photograph a full-size version that can be overlaid with the text and icons shown below. I would quite like to give it a go myself, but if anyone knows a map artist who might be able to better emulate the original piece, I'm all ears.

The version above looks a bit abstract, so here's a version with some quickly scribbled in seas and rivers. I hope you'll agree that the 'feel' of the thing is working; and I'll run it by killerkatanas for his feedback before tightening things up.

Other than that, any creativity has been limited to artistic consistency between the two boards; adding jagged borders to the mountains, for example, and – as all the rivers in Secundus has their own names – it seemed a shame not to give them names here, too. As with Secundus, I took inspiration for the names from mythological rivers and related terms, so that they feel consistent with the original board. 

This process threw up a couple of oddities, but nothing major. Mountain ranges are just listed with their name on the original – just 'Diablo', rather than 'Diablo Mountains', for example. I made this consistent, then realised it ended up with Volcanus Hive and the Volcanus Mountains looking identical (see below), as both hives and mountains are yellow text on black bars. I've cludged this a bit by changing the mountains to the 'Volcanus Chain' – a justifiable inconsistency with the other isolated mountains, I think, as there's also the 'Volcanus Ridge'.

And here's a version with the original draft underneath, so you can see the changes. There's a few bits and bobs still to add and tidy up, including some special two-way arrows and paths only certain units can cross, but I need some feedback from killerkatana to make sure I'm putting them in correctly.

Anyway, something a bit different from the usual – hope you enjoy, and perhaps one day we'll get to refight both campaigns!

+++

+ inload: Post-event enthusiasm +

+ Gaming at The Corsair Gambit part II +

+ A company of Salamanders Predators sweep in on the attack. +

+ Last inload concerned polishing off a Legio Maximal Reaver Titan for a Legions Imperialis event run by Maximal Fire down at Entoyment in Poole. Very pleased to report that it was a lot of fun! Alex and Johnny who were running things had clearly put a lot of effort into making sure things ran smoohtly, and that was eased along by everyone being a really nice, friendly bunch of players. I'd thoroughly recommend further events down here – Entoyment is a real Aladdin's cave of gaming, and one of my few regrets was the schedule being so packed that I didn't get more chance to explore. +

+++

+ The background for this event was built on the results of the previous Corsair Gambit event earlier in the year, in which the forces of the Warmaster managed to establish a foothold on Nabed-Paleae, Forgethrone of Legio Maximal. As a Salamanders loyalist player, I was part of the taskforce sent to reclaim this critical world. +

+ I won't go into great depth about the games, but suffice to say they were all very fun, and it was a treat to come to a gaming event where everyone was so friendly. +

+ Game 1 +

+ A planetstrike against a defending Sons of Horus army. Highlights included the Kratos tanks that just would not die, the treacherous Reaver Moderatus (I missed all three of its – 2+ to hit – Volcano Cannon shots!), and an absolutely spectacular Sons of Horus army belonging to a great chap called Gary. +

+ I managed a narrow win on objectives here – my strategic skills rather flattered by the fact he had to deploy his army to defend the whole board, while I could pick and choose which parts to contest. +

+ If nothing else, these shots go to show just how cool Legions Imperialis looks on the boards Maximal Fire brought down – and bear in mind that this was one of ten or so, so they'd really put the effort in on terrain. +

+ Green on green. Playing against such a beautiful Sons of Horus army was a real highlight of the weekend. Helps that it was against such a sporting opponent and remained close all the way through. +

+ A shot from the viewpoint of Profugon Iratus. +

+++

+ Game 2 +

+ This game was an ambush scenario, with the Salamanders defending a central ridge against Night Lords attackers, led by a cunning commander whose name – alas – evades my leaking mem-banks. Apologies! +

+ A very different army to face. Rather than tanks with infantry and air support, here I was facing a mass of infantry, Dreadnoughts and jetbikes, largely deployed via Drop Pods. Quite the contrast, and a nice change of pace. At the last event, very little had been released, so most lists were pretty samey – not so here; a very diverse set of lists. +

+ Another very fun game against a lovely opponent who was very patient with explaining the intricacies of drop pods and transports to me. These events are always learning experiences for me; however well-prepared I try to be! +

+ A second close victory here – despite Profugon Iratus being surrounded and brought low by the swift and vicious Night Lords legion. Again, the result could esily have gone either way, and I benefitted from some event special rules that affected morale. The Salamanders' special rules are not quite a hard counter to the Night Lords', but I think were important in how a few close fights fell out. +

+ I had been warned that Titans were a bit pillow-fisted and ineffectual in Legions Imperialis, and I'm sorry to say that was my experience, too. On the plus side, I think having a lot of points tied up in one activation did help my games to go slightly quicker – and of course it was great to be able to field a campaign-specific Legio to lean into the theme of the event. +

+++

+ Game 3 +

+ The day closed with a short sharp shock of a game with the awesome Jon [+IGident: @jonlukedesign +] from Battle Bling – he had designed a lot of the bits in my army, in fact; from the Thunderhawk upgrades to the objective markers. +

+ I had faced his World Eaters at the previous event, and lost in a fairly close tussle across a dense city – but his beautiful army has clearly have been polishing their skills, as they took my army apart in two turns across the salt desert, with minimal casualties! +

+ I'd love to blame tiredness for the number of tactical blunders I made early on, leading to isolated picket forces being bypassed and troops being trapped in their transports, but full credit to him, he kept the pressure up and finished the job in a fittingly brutal World Eater style! +

+ Victories are lovely, but you learn a heck of a lot more from defeats – and when they're in such a friendly, collegiate atmosphere with such a nice gang, there's really nothing to mope about. A third very fun game. +

+++

+ Closing calculations – on Legions Imperialis +

+ I don't think I'm saying anything too contentious to say that Legions Imperialis is a flawed system. It is also, however, a lot of fun. Events like this demonstrate to me that you do get spectacular thematic games, and beneath all the needlessly complex chrome, bells and whistles it retains a good underlying engine that looks great on the table. +

+ You do, however, need to play with the right spirit of cooperation. It would be very easy to abuse the army-building, and if you're looking for the 'best' options in-game, there's rarely even much consideration. With this borne in mind, I was really pleased to see the sheer variety of armies and unit types that people had brought – these were a group of people who clearly love both the setting and the scale, and valued playing the game first and foremost. I'm very grateful to have been playing in this sort of environment. +

+ I hate to say it, but as it stands I'd hesitate to recommend Legions Imperialis to new players until there's a substantial FAQ or revision. I hope that in a year or two the army list, agonisingly incompletely and broken up across multiple expensive expansions, is collected into a single volume. +

+ Of course, when you do get these ingredients together – sportsmanship, beautiful armies, great tables – it's a heady combo, and the game is really very fun. Things largely do what you'd expect them to, and you get the sense of a 'grand sweep of battle'. I just hope GW can get their act together to make Legions Imperialis the success it could be. +

+++

+ Closing calculations – on the Corsair Gambit +

+ On the event itself, I have no real criticisms. Very nicely run, and some flavourful additions that added to the theme. Three games at 2,000pts did feel a little crammed, but we were asked midway through the first whether we'd prefer to cut things to two games. We ended up pressing ahead for three, which I think was the right decision, but for future events – particularly if they're at larger points limits – I think I'd prefer a two-game per day approach. +

+ Personally, I'd have loved this to be done over the course of a weekend; it was nice to meet and catch up with people from last time, but it would have been even better to have less time pressure, and some more time to socialise. +

+ We also got to see a sneak preview of, and free sample from, Battlebuilder – a very snazzy-looking nameplate service that's a collaboration between Maximal Fire, Battle Bling and some others. I hope to do a proper look at that in the near future, but the thing that made it jump out to me is that you can design things 'live' on the website itself. +

 

+ Glittering prizes +

+ I was also delighted to receive the Best Painted trophy, which you can see nuzzled between the free objectives pack we were given, and a flyer for Entoyment's Beachhead 2025 event next year. Winning this was very unexpected, given the quality of armies on display. Turns out that I can thoroughly recommend painting a Titan from the organiser's Legion to score some brownie points with the judges! +

+++

+ The true test of an event is whether you come away filled with enthusiasm, and I'm happy to say that I'm already planning for a potential third event in the Corsair Stars – you can see some additional Land Raider reinforcements above, and as you'll see below, I've also got started on an Iron Skulls maniple for Adeptus Titanicus, too. More on this shortly... +

+ War for Akkar: 30k Frontier's Horus Heresy gaming event +

+ War for Akkar: After-action report +

+ I had the great pleasure of playing a part in the War for Akkar, the last part of a grandly-scaled series of Horus Heresy campaigns run by a group called 30k Frontier [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+]. I had an absolute blast – great people, great tables and great armies. +

+ But don't take my word for it – check out these fantastic forces. I don't seem to have got everyone's armies, but they were all great. Thematic and clearly lovingly constructed. +

+ The Warmaster's forces +

+ These brutal-looking World Eaters, commanded by a great fella called Stacy, were a mix of older marines and those more recently 'elevated' and pressed into service. He won a well-deserved 'Best Character' – and probably the gaming highlight of the event by pot-shotting a vital Imperial strategist with a long-range plasma pistol strike! +

+ The 242nd fought alongside Sam's cool Mechanicus force. The thralls (on the right) were some suitably chaotic conversions of some Age of Sigmar troops. +

+ Some chump brought these Iron Warriors, too. +

+ Joe's beautiful Word Bearer force won 'Best Walker', and featured some blinding conversions. I particularly liked the Terminators. +

+++

+ Emperor's lapdogs +

+  A lovely infantry-heavy Alpha Legion force; fighting for the Emperor – or were they? (Yes). Had a good scrum against these; and my only victory of the weekend – so thanks for going easy on me, Alex! +

+ I faced this assault marine-heavy Raven Guard force in the first game, where I was trying to prevent them escaping a collapsing space station. Needless to say, trying to catch them was like grasping mist... Nevertheless, a surprisingly tense and enjoyable game. +

+ Jack's Ultramarines had a great theme – a Chapter of Destroyers – and in addition to being beautifully painted, were accompanied by some great props. They won a well-deserved 'Best Fluff' award. +

+ I faced Will's Raven Guard both one-on-one, and in a team game; and ended up getting mulched by assault marines on both occasions. A very well-constructed force, and a lovely – and very patient! – player. +

+ Sadly I didn't get a chance to face Alex's Imperial Fists, but they were amongst my favourites. While the Dreadnoughts (Mk IV box dreads forever!) are the stand-outs, the whole force was executed with great attention to detail and background. +

+ You'll probably spot that the armies are unusually (and pleasingly) infantry-heavy; and that's because the Zone Mortalis rules were in effect for the campaign. I was really glad of this; there's little more demoralising than sweeping half your army off when facing two Typhons. The army selection restrictions were quite tight, but really made for close, enjoyable games. +

+++

+ Akkar itself +

+ Terrain and scenery – the third army – can sometimes be an afterthought at events like this, but the 30k Frontier team went above and beyond; creating really tense and innovative missions over beautiful scenery, with fun intergame effects and loads of cool NPCs and in-campaign events. +

+ A healthy dose of Predator memes abound – poor, poor Dillon; buried under a wall. +

+ A squadron of Arvus landers swoop in from the jungle – this board saw Imperial Fists attempting to evacuate a vital Imperial officer from World Eaters. +

+ The attention to detail in all aspects really helped to make the event memorable. +

+ 12 x 4ft boards were used for the final doubles games. +

+ I was also very flattered to receive these awards – thanks all for a great weekend. I'm looking forward to adding some Akkar battle honours (and wargear) to some new troops as I gear up for a future event in the near future. Hope to see you all soon, and remember – if it bleeds we can kill it! +

+ inload: Bristol Silence, Epic marines and oddments

+ Now, where were we? +

+ Those of you following the Alien Wars shared project might well be wondering what's happened to it. Rest assured that it's still ticking over. A couple of weeks ago I received a very cool fan-sculpted dreadnought based on the Rogue Trader-era version. I had been planning to make one myself after discovering a picture of one with the WD138 army on the back of a White Dwarf, but hey, why take the road less travelled – particularly when the alternative looks like this:

+ A really cool sculpt, and beautifully cast. I couldn't resist a few tweaks to the pose (achieved with some simple cutting) to add a little dynamism to what is inherently a static pose. I've used a penny as a waist gimbal to compensate for the material lost when cutting through with the razorsaw. +

+ Size-wise, he's a bit of a beast, standing slightly taller than a Contemptor, which is probably what he'll be used for. +

+ The Aldebaran troops, who will be pulling double-duty for the Alien Wars and the Bristol Silence campaign weekend, continue to get some paint on them – though I won't bore you too much. In the pict-capture above you can see a (rather messy!) painting desk, covered with guardsmen/brood brothers as the grinding painting continues. Last night was spent painting fatigues, straps and respirators with Calth Brown, and then washing them with Agrax Earthshade. All very factory-line, but at least it'll keep them consistent. +

+++

+ Basing Coropedion +

+ The batch painting was pleasantly meditative, but when it started becoming a bit boring, I switched projects and spent half an hour on one of my new Warlords for Legio Sumer-Nikator. +

+ Yesterday we looked at building a board [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], and this is a related part of that process: basing. Creating your own board and base is a great chance to make sure that they match, which again adds to the immersion. +

+ Bases add a great deal to a model; working as a contrasting setting for the figure itself. It is important to make sure that the model fits into that setting, or you risk things looking off – an ice-world trooper in a desert environment, for example (which isn't to say such things will never work, merely that it's harder to make it seem natural). This needs to be balanced against visual contrast. White-coated ice troopers on snow white bases will blend in. Great in real war, but not for visual appeal. Instead, consider tonal contrast. If you models have a light scheme, go for a darker-toned base, and vice versa. In the case of my Aldebaran soldiers above, I'm going to use mid-grey urban rubble to contrast with the bright white overcoats. +

+ The second aspect of basing, and one that is particularly important for large-based figures, is interest. An over-busy base can detract from the figure, but one that's an empty plain can look dull, making the figure appear toy-like. For Adeptus Titanicus, a nice compromise is to break up the flat surface by adding cork, card or similar scenic elements. Above you can see that I've added some rubble (from a broken resin base I had), plus some of the same ruins that I'm populating my board with (from Epic: 40,000). These are all tied together with some Gold Acrylic coarse texture gel, a goopy textural medium that you smear on and allow to dry. This ties together the different elements. +

+  With similar grittiness and features, the resulting base complements the board rather than matches it. As part of the model, it needs to be treated with a greater level of detail than the broader board, while still echoing it and looking like a detail of the area. +

+ With Coropedion primed and ready to paint, I spent far too long making pew-pew noises, and didn't much done beyond a gunmetal over the whole legs. +

+ With the mandated-somnolence cycle approaching, I thought I'd have fun painting the marines on the base rather than rushing any more of the Titan itself. Although the Legio Sumer-Nikator is a traitor Legion, operating away from Calth, I've added some Ultramarines. I leave the story to the viewer. Perhaps they're falling back after the rest of their squad was destroyed; perhaps they're calling in co-ordinates on the Titan as it walks past, oblivious to their presence; perhaps they've thrown their lot in with the Warmaster?. Hints like this add a little narrative to your base, and also help to evoke a sense of scale. +

I spent a very enjoyable half-hour highlighting and detailing very small marines!