Xenos on Crusade: Neil the Devourer; Hive Fleet Lindworm Month 1

Hi all, its Neil here with a look at my first month's progress on our 9th edition group project.  Month 1 had the aim to get a 50 power list built and at least one unit painted from this.  I'll show you below how I've done and what the plan for month 2 is for Hive Fleet Lindworm.

"Weep for Us" - Adeptus Titanicus, The Legio Sagittar and House Ferax

Well, lockdown is upon is, but I'm glad to say that even as Nurgle's cloud descended, Adeptus Mechanicus orbital landers delivered their precious cargo to the Titan Foundries of Sullaat Prime, and my new titan legion is making ready to march.

After a great intro game from Neil, I have thoroughly bought in to Adeptus Titanicus, a really lovingly crafted game system that won over my initial skepticism and will gel really well with any linked Age of Darkness campaign our group undertakes.

I've made a start on my titans as a result - see below for pictures of the work in progress. And I've also written out the background material for my legion and their knightly retainers. I present you with the Legio Sagittar and House Ferax...

The Legio Sagittar - The Weeping Hunters

My forces are the Legio Sagittar, a veteran legion embittered by their deployments to bring human cultures to brutal Compliance. Hailing from a forge world of Sullaat Prime in the eastern borders of the Segmentum Solar, their campaigns saw them serve repeatedly alongside the Luna Wolves and, subsequently, the Alpha Legion and the Iron Hands.

Their titans were renowned for their machine spirits' and crews' mercurial natures and controlled savagery in battle, but also for the cool discipline and fluid adaptive tactics with which they curbed the excesses of wrath and bitterness and exploited the chances of war.

Sadly, whether by some dark destiny or only cruel chance, the legion saw repeated deployments against splinter cultures of humanity spread across the galactic diaspora, as well as against alien but often peaceable planet-dwelling Aeldari upon Exodite worlds. The Legio Sagittar saw these verdant paradises and flourishing civilisations reduced, predictably, repeatedly, to ash - and the taste stuck in their mouths.

Worse still, the Legio Sagittar's own tendency to ferocious aggression in the cause of victory caused devastation and disaster that might otherwise have been avoided. They judged themselves guilty in a just cause, and lamented the necessary costs of Unity. They were ashamed of their excesses, and it is said that the princeps domina spoke several times of her concerns to the Warmaster under whom she served, seeking solace and absolution from him. This mixture of ruthless fury and bitter regret earned them the epithet of the Weeping Hunters.

The Legio Sagittar were not at the Warmaster's side at the time of his betrayal, having been sent back by the Gorgon on a tour among the Ghoul Stars in a display of might. The reasons for this deployment from the front lines are unclear, but Ferrus Manus may have hoped that the deployment of such God Engines would overawe unruly subject populations and convince them to pay the Imperial Tithe being slowly rolled out across compliant systems.

However, the legion saw it as a  dishonour as well as telling evidence of the oppression inherent in the Imperial regime they had enforced. It also put them dangerously distant from events, so that they only heard of the betrayal once the crushing blow at Istvaan V had annihilated the Loyalist response and killed Ferrus Manus.

It is said that when the Weeping Hunters' princeps domina, Kera Eleisa, received the news she swiftly suppressed its spread, and retreated for a Terran week to brood over the legion's conflicting duties and debts. At last she acted, summoning the assembled princeps at the core of the legion into urgent conclave and swiftly executing those she deemed Loyalist.

Some of the scattered legion outside her immediate reach kept their Loyalist sympathies, or turned as disillusioned Blackshields to carve out their own small stellar principates. But the cold heart of the Legio Sagittar would always belong with Horus, the charismatic Warmaster who had helped them justify their actions to themselves. The majority gathered to his banner, subjugating the systems they had been sent to intimidate and joining the march on Terra.

In bitter, saturnine humour the Legio Sagittar embraced their dark reputation with a new motto and battle cry: "Weep for Us".


House Ferax - The Burnt Hounds

Legio Sagittar came to Horus and their place as oppressors through embittered regret. Their closest allied knight household, House Ferax, embraced it.

House Ferax hails from the feral moon of Torxa Theta in the Dominion of Storms. Torxa Theta was a knight world which had long since devolved to feudal brutality and whose houses had split and split again into ruthless fiefs, sparring for the tech and thrall-specialists who would maintain their knightly engines.

A sizeable contingent of the Legio Sagittar, including their newly appointed princeps domina Kora Eleisa, formed part of the 182nd Expedition which discovered this fierce culture and brought them to brutal compliance. However, the princeps of the Legio Sagittar were impressed by the House's ambush tactics and fierce savagery, which had achieved the rare loss of a Weeping Hunters titan during Compliance, the toppled Reaver Argent Stalker.

The Legio Sagittar further perceived both the power and the wild brutality of the household's forces  in initial joint actions under the 182nd, and after initially calling for their dismantlement for perceived crimes of war - a request overruled by no less than First Captain Ezekyle Abaddon himself - they settled for brutal subjugation to the status of a Vassal House. The Weeping Hunters took it upon themselves to exploit their knightly retainers' savagert - to "leash the dogs and keep them from the fire", as princeps Eleisa acidly commented.

It is characteristic that  Horza Gol, the High Castellan of House Ferax and a survivor from the initial wars of compliance, heard of the insult and embraced it as a compliment - giving House Ferax a new and notorious title as the "Burnt Hounds". Horza Gol is also said to have commented - though not to Kera's face - that a leash pulls both ways, and a strong hound can drag the master along.

The Torxa savages chafed under the status of a Vassal House, but ultimately submitted to the will of their Legio masters. Legio Sagittar and House Ferax had an unusually strained and combative relationship. Troops fighting alongside them were shocked when Ferax knights rushed ahead of their battlefield brief, or turned in fierce packs on exposed civilian targets. Yet the same troops would be stunned or terrified at the Legio's response - Weeping Hunters Warhounds or Reavers might openly threaten or in cases kick down unruly knight forces in a brutal chastisement.

Still, the Weeping Hunters' tactical flexibility and focused rage made them highly effective alongside their vassals the Burnt Hounds. The Legio Sagittar and House Ferax were an effective pairing - as a huntsman with a wild dog.

As a result, when Heresy struck the Burnt Hounds were not in doubt as to their path. Barely restrained, they had never cared much for the ideology of the Imperial Truth. They went where honour or blood was to be had, at their master's side - although with more scope than ever for their baronial factions, always seething under the surface of Torxa's unification and their reduction to a Vassal House, to go rogue and carve out their small stellar empires.

And however Kera Eleisa may have understood her betrayal, perhaps Horza Gol was right when he took it as a sign for savage battlejoy and not lament. The leash, after all, pulled both ways.

Path to Glory 2020: The Noctis Elite - A Shadow Cometh

January was a bit of a blur this year, in fact it went by so quickly I completely forgot to put up a post on my progress for the Tale!!

So how did January go? Did I get my models painted in time?

A Tale of Four Warlords - Path to Glory: The Brazen Harbingers

Path to Glory 2020: The Brazen Harbingers

Not to be confused with the Brass Rampagers, the Brazen Hard Drinkers, the Dingy Brass Crazies, the Hungry Brassmongers, the Brash Humdingers or the Bingy Haberdashers (they get very insulted by this last mistake), my path to glory warband will be the Brazen Harbingers.


I've made good progress in the month 1, with 3 knights, 10 warriors and a lord on karkadrak painted! These are such lovely models, though I've naturally cut them up a bit to assist with transport (losing the sticky-out axe on the karkadrak lord) and to mix up the weapon options and add standards and musicians. These switches have also given me a nice converted chaos lord on foot, who I'll paint in a future month.

The karkadrak lord seems a tad fragile and for his use at tournament level, but he's still very far from non viable once you give him the -3 rend relic from Chamon (sadly unavailable in path to glory)  and I love the model so much that he had to lead my warband. I went for a fiery theme on the mount, to contrast with the black plate and add a daemonic aspect.


In terms of background, the army is a loose, wandering confederation of tribes on occasion subdued to the will of the Daemon Prince Ba'zarek the Abyssal. Many hail from the mountains of Shyish, but the network of nearby realmgates links them also to the infernal mines of Chamon where they join in bloody worship with fearsome Khornate tribes, and to the roaming, diseased tribes of the darklands of Ulgu (read: my existing Nurgle force!).

The rhino lord, 3 knights and 10 warriors gave me my path to glory warband. I’m not 100 per cent confident in their ability to defeat the other war bands (especially  9 kurnoth hunters and a kurnoth hunter buffing character!) but thankfully James also gets a tiny warband so we weaklings can team up until we arrive at points values games - and Matts narrative scenarios should even the odds. Here we go!

Next up I'll be painting some marauder horsemen and my converted, nurglesque iron golems - watch this space :)

Path to Glory 2020 - Indaril's Hunters - Part 1

Indaril glided through the air with her zephyrspite catching thermals to keep her aloft, far below she tracked her prey who had dared to raid the glade.  She directed her hunters though the forest to stalk the prey ready to fall upon them when the opportunity presented itself.  As the prey entered a glade clearing, Indaril dove down her song turning belligerent ready to avenge the wrong done in blood.....

Hi all, for my starting Warband I decided to pick the Arch-Revenant as my hero who gives me 3 rolls to spend from the path to glory tables.  To theme my band I decided to go for a free spirit heavy start as the arch-revenant is a strong melee leader who works well with the Kurnoth Hunters so I spend my rolls on a unit of 3 Kurnoth Hunter with greatswords, a unit of 3 Kurnoth Hunters with scythes and a unit of 3 Kurnoth Hunters with great bows.

Path to Glory 2020: The Noctis Elite - Forming the Legion

Well 2020 is here and that can only mean one thing for our little blog - a new Tale of Four Wargamers! However this year there's a little twist, we've added another member to our intrepid group of gamers with Tom joining in on all the hobby blog based fun.

We've done an intro post detailing our plans for this latest Tale - a Path to Glory in the Nine Realms of Age of Sigmar. Each of us has dedicated ourselves to a faction of choice. In my case that meant once again returning to the cold embrace of Death and the Grand Necromancer Nagash. For this Tale I'll be taking command of a force of the mighty Ossiarch Bonereapers, a remorseless and unrelenting force of bone constructs created to transform the Realms into a new Necrotopia. Ever since the range was first teased I've been eagerly anticipating building up a legion of the Bonereapers. 

So then what exactly have I got planned for the Ossiarch?

Mustering for Vigilus - Tim’s Primaris - end of month 1

So, a belated end of month 1 for the Dawnbringers Primaris... unfortunately real life, in the form of my partner having an accident which she is still stoically recovering from, has intervened and my blog posting has not been as frequent as I’d have liked.

However, I have completed 7 Primaris to add to the heroic Dawnbringers, as I look ahead now eagerly to the coolness that is the Shadowspear battle box and the new vanguard chamber company being opened deployed! As a chaos marine player and lover of hobby bargains (I have about 5 know no fear starter sets, which supplied an entire army of mutated plague marine conversions and a whole deathshroud squad of lord of contagion conversions...), the heretic in me is thrilled to see this set!

But with my loyalist hat on, I present to you the first 5 intercessors (3 of whom happen to be sergeants; I adjusted the colour scheme after them to be less weathered so thought I would make the more weatherbeaten guys the longest serving, the squad leaders) and 2 hellblasters. I have to say I am super pleased how the colour scheme worked out- nice and unique; heroic but not entirely unrealistic (much as I love the howling griffons scheme!). 

Mustering for Vigilus: James' Adeptus Custodes, End of Month 1

Hi guys,

February is here and that means one thing - It's time for pledge updates! 

This month my goal was to paint a squad of 3 Custodian Guard and top it off with the mighty Trajann Valoris, Captain General of Legio Custodes. As you can see from the above picture I managed to complete my first pledge and I'm very happy with the final result. 

Mustering for Vigilus: Neil's Ultramarines, End of Month 1

Its the first day of February and the first month of our tale of four gamers has come to an end.  The aim each month is to paint a box's worth of models to build up to a 1000 point Warhammer 40k army for a doubles event, more info can be found in my Intro post for this tale.

My aim this month was to paint up Marneus Calgar in the Armour of Heraclus and his Victrix Honour Guard.  This would give me a good start as Calgar makes a great warlord for an Ultramarines force as well as being a really nice new model.

Mustering for Vigilus: Medge's Adeptus Mechanicus, End of Month 1

January comes to an end, and with it the first month of our Tale.

For those that didn't read my Intro post, we're pledging small elements at each step to stop ourselves from getting too carried away.

I, as you will soon learn is in my character, got carried away!

Mustering for Vigilus - Tim's Primaris Introduction

I'm thrilled to be joining my fellow warlords for this year's first project: mustering Imperial armies for Vigilus. Unlike all my fellow gamers, this will be my first imperial army. Apart from dallying with the T'au, my first ever force who had just peeped up into imperial sight over the Damocles Gulf when I started collecting, my 40k forces - and indeed my largest AoS force! - are all pledged to Chaos. What better opposition to these, then, than the heroic new space marines? I will be adding to the Ultima Founding with the lauded Dawnbringers chapter. Fluff below for those who are interested; the hobby pledges resume on the other side of the "---" divisions.