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6/28/2014

Bit of BattleTech

     So I've been needing a unit to put the pair of Fafnirs I own into.  I also had some heavier clan mechs that needed a home as well.  I had put a few clan mechs into my Eridani Light Horse as well as some heavier mechs into the Striker lances but while a highlander is jump capable and makes sense as a highly mobile mech, there is no way that a Fafnir would work.  While looking into the Lyran Commonwealth, the problem I had that I just didn't like any of the possible choices in the Lyran Commonwealth.  What I finally went with, was to create a pseudo mercenary mech unit based in the Tamar Pact.

     What I did was to come up with a unit that is going to be close enough to the front lines that it continues to get hit hard in defensive fights to explain why it didn't take part in major Lyran offensives in the later succession wars.  I also needed to give it some connections to power that would keep it being able to be rebuilt but without getting too close to the halls of power.  My final choice in this was to make the founding commander and his offspring distant relatives to the Kelswa family in the Tamar Pact which put them in place to deal with constant Kuritan incursions as well as the front lines of the Clan Invasion which provided salvage as well as keeping them fairly high on re-equipt lists to keep them viable.

      Hopefully my logic makes sense and if anyone sees any flaws in it, please feel free to comment any suggestions or issues.  That being said, here comes the fluff.

Tamar Heavy Guard
Unit Motto:  Wall of Steel
    The Tamar Heavy Guard was formed just after the Second Succession War by Captain Bernard Kelswa.  He was a distant cousin of the ruling branch of the Tamar Pact who was serving in the 5th Lyran Guard Regiment.  Unfortunately he didn't have enough political connections, or favors due, to prevent his career from coming to a halt when he overrode a superior officer's commands.  That the commands would have led to defeat of the Lyran forces prevented him from being cashiered, but not from ruining his career.

    Captain Kelswa was a loyal soldier of the Lyran Commonwealth and refused to let political generals keep him from defending his homeland.  He used his family connections to create a battalion sized mercenary command that was then hired by Lyran Commonwealth via Kelswa family ties to assist in the defense of the Tamar Pact.  Part of the hiring fee was covered by the Kelswa family itself.

    Over the next several decades the Tamar Heavy Guard received plenty of military experience in various battles with the Kuritan forces seeking to invade the Tamar Pact.  The unit saw its fortunes wax and wane over the years, building up to a high of a full regiment down to a low of just a single understrength company.  They always managed to trade on their distant family connections to rebuild though.  Due to this continued cycle of defense and rebuilding, the Tamar Heavy Guard rarely have been deployed in offensive operations.

    The unit was then nearly fatally damaged during the Clan Invasion which saw it forced to relocate to Graceland with just three lances of damaged mechs.  The Tamar Heavy Guard again traded on the distant family connections of the current commander, Colonel William Kelswa-Cromarty, and managed to rebuild once more to Battalion strength.  The unit was then transferred to Morningside to help defend the southern part of what remained of the Tamar March.

    The Tamar Heavy Guard managed to sit out the FedCom Civil War as they were part of the defense against raiding Clan forces.  While a number of the members of the unit wanted to commit to one side or the other, Colonel Kelswa-Cromarty held them together through force of will and kept the unit a viable command.  He acquired permission to undertake several raids into the Jade Falcon territory to keep the unit's edge as well as to occupy them with something other than thoughts of the Civil War.

    After the Civil War, the unit's command passed to William's son, Oliver, who had recently returned to the unit after undergoing additional training at the NAIS Academy.  Newly promoted Colonel Oliver Kelswa-Cromarty has proved to be a very likeable commander who intimately knows the men and women under his command but still remains aloof enough to maintain the mysterious allure of command.

    The command is built around heavy and assault mechs with each Company having a single lance of lights and mediums for scouting purposes.  The Tamar Heavy Guard is currently an over strength Battalion with plans to expand to a second Battalion in the coming months.


This unit will be joined by some Warhammers, Hammerhands, Longbows, Archers, and Rifleman that should be arriving in the next few days via eBay purchase of Robotech units.  We'll see how it goes from there.  That's all for now and I'll see you all next time.

6/26/2014

Chapter Master Moriarty

At long last a major project is done.

So as I've posted before in a couple blog articles, I've been working on a conversion for quite a while now for my Chapter Master of the Lions of Harlech.  He started out as a Scribor SF Lion Knight Number 3.  I used the main body of this kit as well as the base, discarding the weapons.  I love the Scribor bodies and bases but like Forge World, they can stink at times on hand weapons.  The ghost lion bits added to the base are from the Anime Tactics model Samiel.  The banner is from a Space Marine Captain box with the banner topper coming from a Bretonian helm bit (that bit courtesy of Archon Vortil).  The Shield is from the Forge World boarding marine, the servo skull from the Scion box set, the sword blade from the new Sternguard box, his helmet is a from a Contemptor Dreadnought, and the cyber cherub with banner is from the Space Marine Master of the Marches model.  Then various purity seals, oaths of movement, and various other icons of purity and faith were added from various marine sprues.

For a refresher on his fluff, his full name and set of titles is Chapter Master Annwn Piet Moriarty, the Lord Harlech, Dominus Cymru, Knight Commander of Tyr, Lord Defender of the Eastern Fringes, Keeper of the Seal of Cymru, and Knight Protector of Imperial Honor.  After his time in the 10th Company, Piet served in Tactical Squad Haarkin in the 7th Company.  When he was promoted to Veteran, he served in a Sternguard squad in the First Company under the tutelage of Veteran Sgt. Mycroff Owain.  He was then sent to the 3rd Company as a Veteran Sgt to command a Tactical Squad.  He was later promoted to Captain of the 3rd Company and served as first Master of the Fleet and then Master of the Marches before ascending to the position of Chapter Master upon the death of Chapter Master Wilhelm Llewes.
 
 
 
The painting was done by Archon Vortil (formerly of the Rogue Traitor variety) in exchange for a copy of the new 7th Edition rule book.  I was able to get a second copy at a reasonable price and I definitely feel like he did a great job on the model.  He also did the Chapter Master's personal standard bearer which was acquired in the Great Bits Swap Night.  The bearer acquired the needed banner pole, the banner bit that was featured here, and a banner topper from the Scion box set.

 
 
 


 
 

All in all I'm very very happy with how it all came out.  What is left to do now is find a small gold lion head in profile in a transfer to add to the Chapter Master's small banner to finish that off.  On the paint job, I love how Vortil got all the nice neat text on all the scrolls and icons, plus the blue came out just right for the rest of the army.  The spectral lion bits really look like they're coming out of the marble base to defend the Chapter Master as well which is just about perfect.  All that's left to do now is working him into a list to get him on the table top.

So that's all for now and I'll see you all on the next time.

6/19/2014

Bad Me

So I've been a bad blogger this past couple weeks.  My work schedule has changed, and it's been a bit chaotic so I've got nothing done on the hobby front unfortunately.  I did make it this past Saturday night up to Johnson City for Gamapalooza which was discussed HERE.  It was nice seeing not only so many gamers out but also so many different gaming systems getting played.

For my own game that evening, I had an 1850 point match against Cheef's GF's Fem Fa Tau who've been cutting a rough trail of wins over a number of different opponents including Neverness who had asked me to avenge his poor boys in blue.  (Now I'm not an Ultrasmurf fan, but a marine's gotta defend even the smurfs against the threat of xenos.)  So I decided to take a list like I've never fielded before just to really mix things up and to not be expected.  Thus the "Ancients and Initiates" list was born.

My list was
Master of the Forge w/ combi-flamer in case someone got too close
3x 10 Scouts with Camo Cloaks and Shotguns
1x  6 Scouts with Camo Cloaks and Sniper Rifles
3x  Ironclad Dreadnoughts with Meltaguns and Heavy Flamers as Elites
3x  Venerable Dreadnoughts with Twinlinked Lascannons and Missile Launchers as Heavies
3x  2 Landspeeders with 2 Heavy Bolters each

It turned out to be a fairly fun list to play as a one off, though not one I'd want to take often.  The Tau were fielding a commander with all the bells and whistles, 2 small units of fire warriors, 2 small units of pathfinders with rail rifles (one had the upgrade character and outflanked), 6 stealth suits with 1 fusion blaster, 2 Hammerheads with railguns, 1 Piranha with fusion, 1 C'tan with writhing worldscape and a short range gun effect, and then a necron lord with 10 immortals.  It was her first time using the tin robots so they gave her a bit of trouble on rules and such, and since I rarely play against the tin boys I wasn't much help there either.

We played long table edge deployment and Big Guns mission with 4 objectives.  We played on what she dubbed the Pretty Table.  This was still a 6th Edition game as she hasn't had a chance to delve into 7th yet.  Unfortunately I was still a bad blogger and no pictures were to be taken.

So she deployed first with her commander, both fire warrior teams and a pathfinder team in a large ruin in the middle of her deployment zone.  She put a hammerhead in each corner of her side of the table and the Necron contingent went behind her big ruin in the middle.  Her Piranha was going to deep strike and the stealths and second pathfinder team were outflanking.

I put my speeders behind terrain, Venerables in terrain for cover saves, the Master of Forge went in a building to hide as he was only in the list for the dread slots and bolster, the Ironclads used ruins to block LOS to the hammerheads to be ready to advance up board, and the scouts all infiltrated.  The snipers went into a building that I bolstered with the Master of the Forge.  The Scouts with shotguns all went in to be ready to grab objectives.

Her first turn wasn't too eventful due to lack of good shots.  I made most all the cover saves and lost only 1 sniper and 2 shotguns from the middle squad and a shotgun from my left flank squad.  My first turn the speeders came out to play and everyone else advanced except for the Venerables which stayed where they were.  Heavy bolter fire racked up the kills and one fire warrior team died, one lost 4 warriors (other two couldn't be seen and thus couldn't die) and broke and ran, and the pathfinders lost everything but a drone which broke and ran.  The middle scout squad managed a charge on the Immortals which moved up and thus got them tied up in combat.

Her second turn saw the piranha come in inside my deployment area and the other pathfinders showed up but on a flank with no good deployment options on my right.  They went into some trees in front of her hammerhead but didn't have real range to anything much less LoS.  Her other hammerhead took a hull point off a speeder and then her commander finished it and his buddy off with missile pod fire.  I lost a few more scouts and the Piranha missed the side armor shot on a Venerable but it's drones got a hull point from a shot in it's back.  My turn saw the drones die and the Piranha lost a hull point.  Her commander took a lot of fire and was down to one wound.  Immortals still were tied up in combat while the Ironclads continued to advance.  One just made it into the Immortal combat and I now had a 3 scouts squads holding objectives (snipers and the other two shotgun squads).

Third turn saw still no stealth suits, her commander drop 2 more speeders, her piranha connected to kill the wounded venerable, her hammerheads continued to be denied with cover saves, and the Immortal combat keep dragging on with tied combats.  My turn saw the Piranha die, her commander went down, a glance get through for a hull point on a Hammerhead, and the 2 remaining speeders took out all the pathfinders but the special character who had one wound left.  Her Immortals lost combat by one and broke and ran.

Turn four the stealths are in .... and on the side of the board she doesn't want them.  They try and get a dread and don't have range to hit the closest scout squad.  Immortals rallied and C'tan took out the lasts two scouts from that fight.  My turn four saw an Ironclad almost to a hammerhead, the pathfinder character get BBQ'd by an Ironclad, and that's it.

Turn five I lost a couple scouts to burst cannons from advancing stealths and the C'tan charges an Ironclad which put 2 wounds on it from overwatch and then they mutually killed each other.  I charged a hammerhead and only shook it for a hull point.  At that point it was over with me holding 3 objectives and having scored all 3 secondaries and she had a point from killing a Heavy Support.  The Imperium is avenged and the Tau are held in check.

I think the only thing that held her back in the game was that I think like a lot of Tau players she was trying more to kill me with firepower rather than playing the mission such as trying to railgun dreads in cover rather than placing pie plates on my scouts (which worried me which is why I was being aggressive with the Ironclads to try and keep her attention on them since if they died as Elites, no VPs for them).  She was also real unfamiliar with the Necron rules and that hampered her from using them effectively as well.

All in all it was a fun game and hopefully I'll get some hobby stuff rolling again now.

6/16/2014

Lands to Raid part 2

Hello, this is Neverness. A few months ago I took some pics of some of Kushial's vehicles in order to use the pics for this blog. They never got used accept for a few and I decided to go ahead and show off more pics of his tanks. In particular I want to show off his really nicely painted Land Raider Crusader.


This tank really caught my eye on the gaming table due to it's lights. He has such a perfect, yet simple, technique for painting headlights that really works well. I think he is far more successful at painting a convincing looking light than what I have been able to achieve on my own models


Look into the lights... keep staring at them as I Tank Shock you!
I wanted to write a bit more though, so I was pushing Kushial to come up a name and a history for this tank, but I guess he couldn't come up with anything, and he told me that he had never worked up a naming convention for his vehicles (yet). I was suggesting all sorts of weird stuff, which probably didn't help! LOL. Since he didn't approve this thing I sent him, here is what I sent him anyway. This is unofficial.

 Land Raider XXI was deployed to the 3rd Company as early as 556M38 and fought in many campaigns before becoming seriously damaged during the Druidian Revolt of M39. It was retrofitted and re-equipped into a Land Raider Crusader and assigned to Warzone Antonius where it was instrumental in over-throwing the forces of Chaos Cultists lead by the Arch Deviant Screech 'The Mouth of Tzeentch', and leading the spearhead that broke the 5 year siege. After this the Lions of the 3rd Company nicknamed the Land Raider "The Indomitable Wrath"

I have more pics of his vehicles, so if he doesn't come up with a naming convention, I just might keep coming up with my own, what do you think>

6/05/2014

A Little Bit of Everything

So first of all for this update is a trio of Centurions.  I still don't care for the small head look, but an opportunity came up for me to very reasonably get 2 boxes of them.  This is the first trio of them assembled.  I went with the missile launchers, grav cannons, and gravamps to outfit them with.  I think this is the best mix of weapons to use against heavy infantry which is what I plan to use them for, that and things like broadsides and riptides and such.
Next up after that, I've got some paint applied to the Cyrmu Naval Fleet Base.  It's an ok scheme that I think will work well enough for now.  I still need to get a few flying stands attached to the bottom of it though.
And last of all, I've got a couple freighters and a scratch built tanker to use as part of the fleet train.  None of them are a whole lot to look at, but then how spiffy does a freight hauler really need to be, so they'll serve their purpose.
 
The other thing that I've finished is the organization of the Imperial Naval Battlegroup that I've been slowly accumulating.  It's still very light on escorts but I've got a couple orders in to work on that.  I've gone with more Grand Cruisers than Battleships due to the fleet being on the outer Eastern Fringe, and see them as getting a bit less in the way of resources.

Battlegroup Vaeltin
Vice Admiral Piotr Vaeltin
11th Battleline Squadron
Commodore Craig Douglas
    Sturmswalbe Retribution-class Battleship
    Albatross Avenger-class Grand Cruiser
    Kirov Avenger-class Grand Cruiser
    Warrior Code Avenger-class Grand Cruiser
    Bellepheron Avenger-class Grand Cruiser
12th Battleline Squadron
Commodore Albrecht Densch
    Queen's Gambit Retribution-class Battleship
    Stormfront Avenger-class Grand Cruiser
    Borealis Avenger-class Grand Cruiser
    Defense of Minos Avenger-class Grand Cruiser
    Trebuchet Avenger-class Grand Cruiser
43rd Battlecruiser Squadron
Commodore Julius Kieraly
    Pan's Labyrinth Mars-class Battlecruiser
    Obsidian Desire  Overlord-class Battlecruiser
    Essex Overlord-class Battlecruiser
201st Cruiser Squadron
Commodore Walter Iverson
    Ivanhoe Lunar-class Cruiser
    Kingfisher Lunar-class Cruiser
    Royal Oak Dominator-class Cruiser
    Royal Crown Gothic-class Cruiser
202nd Cruiser Squadron
Commodore Victor Wieslaw
    Black Prince Lunar-class Cruiser
    Hellbarde Dominator-class Cruiser
    Odin's Oracle Dominator-class Cruiser
    Artemis Dominator-class Cruiser
203rd Cruiser Squadron
Commodore Cole Niesse
    Pride of Orthavan Lunar-class Cruiser
    Might of Vigilance Lunar-class Cruiser
    Duke of York Gothic-class Cruiser
    Furious Tyrant-class Cruiser
56th Escort Squadron
Commodore Gregori Preussner
    Flintlock Endeavour-class Light Cruiser
    Hauberk Endeavour-class Light Cruiser
    Greyhound Endeavour-class Light Cruiser
    Mablehead Endeavour-class Light Cruiser
    Constellation Endurance-class Light Cruiser
    Dryad Endurance-class Light Cruiser
    403rd Destroyer Group
57th Escort Squadron
Commodore Desmond Belliard
    Vincennes Endeavour-class Light Cruiser
    Broadsword Endeavour-class Light Cruiser
    Tower of Iron Endeavour-class Light Cruiser
    Jaguar Endeavour-class Light Cruiser
    Galahad Endurance-class Light Cruiser
    Semper Fidelis Endurance-class Light Cruiser
58th Escort Squadron
Commodore Charles Bertaud
    Penitent's Hope Endeavour-class Light Cruiser
    Borneo Endeavour-class Light Cruiser
    Paladin's Shield Endurance-class Light Cruiser
34th Support Squadron
Commodore Pavel Kushkovo
    2 Tarask-class Merchantmen
    2 Galaxy-class Armed Freighters
    1 Mendencant-class Fuel Transport



That's all for now and I'll see you next time.  I still have all that BFG to paint, 3 more Centurions to assemble, more companies to get onto the blog .... So many projects, so many potential blog posts.

6/03/2014

Imperial Fleet Grows

So some of the Sorylians that I ordered have arrived, so I spent part of the afternoon with some simple converting.  It's been fun seeing the fleet slowly take shape and I need to talk Neverness into a game here in the near future so I can start trying them out.
First up are the pair of Retribution-class Battleships.  On the left is the Sturmswalbe under the command of Captain Oliver Prescott and on the right is the Queen's Gambit under Captain Ian Marlowe.  The Sturmswalbe is the flagship of Rear Admiral Piotr Vaeltun who is one of the Sector Fleet Battlegroup Commanders.
Next is the quartet of Avenger-class Grand Cruisers.  Going from left to right, we have the Albatross commanded by Captain Lloyd Callahan, Kirov under Captain Anthony Villers, Warrior Code under Captain Joachim Belliard, and the Bellepheron under Captain Duncan Tellermann.
Now we finally get to some escort class vessels.  We have the (again from left to right) five Endeavor-class Light Cruisers.  These are the Flintlock, Hauberk, Vincennes, Greyhound, and Marblehead.
Then we've got five Endurance-class Light Cruisers. There are the (you know the drill by now) Paladin's Shield, Constellation, Dryad, Galahad, and Semper Fidelis.
And then last of all, we have the first group of Cobra-class Destroyers.

There's where we stand at so far with the Cymric Sub-Sector Battle Fleet.  We finally have a Battlegroup Flagship, some heavy hitting ships of the line, and finally some escort vessels.  I've got a few more ships coming and I need to see about ordering some more vessels to use as Destroyers and Frigates.  All in all, it's coming along nicely and I'm hoping to get some paint on some vessels as soon as I get a good day for priming that I'm off work.

That's it for tonight and I'll see you all later.  Trust in the Emperor for his servants' firepower will defend you.