Lure Of The Chaos Gods - Combat Patrol

   While the details of this year's 40k campaign, once the Fratribusia cuffuffle has been sorted, aren't important for this post, the nature of it is. The aim is to have it set on a chaos held planet, with the Tyranid players going to the dark Gods and the Imperial players sticking with their current collections.

   Combat Patrol has been decided as the form the first few games - and how maybe the bulk of the campaign will be played - and this left me with a choice as I don't have a legal chaos combat patrol, despite having a decent sized chaos army. I plan to pick up the chaos marine combat patrol at some point, but I sort of want to see if it stays the same when their codex comes out in a couple of months.

   So I was looking at my traitor guard and realised I was actually fairly close, plus I'd love to see the regular humans feature more in themed campaigns. My current collection was a tad light on the special weapons needed as it was built at a time when cheap under equipped squads was my go to way of building them and I needed the two newer kits from the guard combat patrol - Field Ordinance Batteries and Sentinel.

   I'm still working on the sentinel but I have got the following done;

A mix of guard models including a new commander (who needs a suitable power weapon stuck to his hip), a grenade launcher, plasma gun, flamer and a few guys for the command squad.

Then I moved onto the Field Ordinance and while I have a few things I want to say about this kit, the big take away is that I want more of them and any future ones will be magnetised if I can work out how to do it as the two guns you take in the combat patrol list aren't what I would pick if I was building a pair for a list.

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Bigger Bugs Pt 21

   I got to play 2 turns of a 1500 point game at my mate Steve's house a few weeks back - we started late as both parties needed to put kids to bed first, then it quickly became obvious his alarm clock was going off uncomfortably soon, so we called the game, but the game did give us some learning points;

1. I still love putting a swarm on the table

2. I need some movement trays for my Tyranids - that allow for long tails

3. Venomthropes are fun in a swarm

   My brother bought a load of space bugs from myminifactory (pretty sure that's the company) as he liked some of the alternative sculpts for Ravenors and Venomthropes more than the GW ones and while he was there he bought me a pack of each too to keep a level of consistency across our forces.

   While I'm not sure I 100% agree that the Ravenors are an improvement, I sort of see his thing for the Venomthropes. I do like that they don't look like the alternative kit for a Zoanthrope. 

   Out of curiosity, I added them to my swarm list for our game and the shroud ability when in the middle of every unit was a lot of fun, so they deserved a paint job in my limited hobby time.

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The Army Of The Dead

The way is shut. It was made by those who are Dead, and the Dead keep it, until the time comes. 

The way is shut.

   An army I bought at the start of 2022 when my brothers and me were really looking at getting back into Lord of the Rings. We were going through the new scenarios and seeing where the gaps were in our collections and the Dead of Dunharrow were one such gap, and more importantly they were an affordable gap.

   Fast forward a couple of years and I'm trying to slowly tidy my man cave up and part of it is building those sprues where I've basically finished an army or a box of something and if I don't build them and put them in the same box as the rest of their collection, it's almost a sure bet that I will just lose or break them. The Army of the Dead fit into this category with most of them build and stored, but one sprue just sitting in a loose pile of other sprues. The aim was just to build and then store them, but with their paint job being fairly simple, it seemed daft not to just get them done.

   The finished collection is the King of the Dead, 2x Heralds and 20 infantry. I followed a recipe I found online but I think there is an argument for a quick white drybrush over the top in the future.

Going purely by the scenario books this is the most infantry I will need for this army - although there is one scenario that needs 6 horsemen, but they will cost me nearly £70, so it's not going to happen . . .

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Bigger Bugs Pt 20

   Another quick paint job on the off chance of a game of Combat Patrol, this is the last three baby Lictors (Von Ryan Leapers) that I needed for the White Dwarf list, which gives me that full Combat Patrol to try out.

   Again, nothing special with this unit this far into the Tyranid project but I'm quite enjoying doing these slightly easier paint jobs once in a while. These were painted a couple of weeks ago but I didn't have a chance to do anything with them.

   With there not being anything particularly new or different in this post, I thought I would do a shot of this whole combat patrol - so three units of Von Ryan Leapers, a Lictor (hidden at the back) and a Neurolictor.

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Renewed assault

   While there has been a lull in the campaign for the world of Fratribusia*, in the fluff battle is still raging. The planet was supposed to be a sacrificial delaying point while the Imperium focussed on gathering forces to protect more valuable worlds, but in recent days Fratribusia looks like it might just hold despite the Imperium's plans for it.

*while painting time has struggled recently, the last month or so Monday evenings have been prime gaming time - although getting to the venue for 8pm as other games start to wrap up.

While other delaying worlds in the Western Reaches of Segmentum Pacificus were being abandoned to the mercies of Hive Fleet Leviathan, the world of Fratribusia was a rare point of defiance that sent Imperial strategists scrabbling. As more Tyranid fleets started to be drawn to the planet, the Imperium sent more assets of it's own into the conflict.

As nearby systems fell to the unstoppable Tyranid swarms and the Solblades sent to hold the lines, slowly slipped out of doomed planets, their missions complete, the shadow of the warp grew stronger with every devoured world, until almost nothing could be heard from those planets that still held out.

One message that burned out of the minds of 4 adepts of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica on the planet Sanctum, a key Anchor World, simply said 'Fratribusia stands - For the Emperor'.

Lord Commander Solar Arcadian Leontus authorised a limited response from Solblades recently drawn back to evaluate this claim.

What was unknown to the Imperium as a whole and the remaining authorities on Fratribusia was how deep the rot had gone.

The first message was followed days later by a second, this one bypassing the normal telepathic routes and bearing a cypher that could not be easily cracked. It went to a lifeless asteroid field in the Sedna region.

As the planet's leadership waited for a response, the war carried on. The Ossuary Brotherhood conducted targeted raids on reports of Lictor Organism build ups in an attempt to disrupt the xenos.

While the Dark Angels struck at genestealer cult risings to try and push the conflict back to as few fronts as possible.

++ Message to the Watch Commander of Watch station Sedna +++

Commander

It is as we feared, the Ecrin Mission of the Order of the Fallen Angel has been infected with the taint of the enemy.

Authorise insertion of assets Valorous and Exemplar to purge the rot.

Code Gamma-Gamma-zeta-5 seal of Inquisitor Ferumor Ordo Xenos

Thought for the day: 

Ruthlessness is the kindness of the wise

 +++ Message Ends +++

While the strike team from the Deathwatch failed in their mission and the sky children cult continued its insidious spread, more ships broke from the warp at the edge of the Fratribusia system. Led by The High Lord of Terra herself, Morvenn Vahl, the fleet held the remnants of a handful of Astra Militarum regiments pulled from other doomed conflicts, Solblades from the Adeptus Astartes chapters Aurora Knights and White Panthers and a sizeable force of Adepta Sororitas.

Finding that the planet did indeed seem to be holding out, Morvenn Vahl ordered a rapid deployment of the troops under her command, with the High Lord leading a mission from the Order of the Fallen Angel straight into the teeth of a Tyranid swarm.

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Bigger Bugs Pt 19

   Slowing right down on the painting front again, but I have finished this figure - a Tyranid Neurolictor. In what I can only assume is a blatant attempt at selling slightly less popular models, GW has been bringing out new White Dwarf only Combat Patrols, with Tyranids getting the second of these with a Vanguard force based around Lictor breeds. In this one it's a regular Lictor, a Neurolictor and 3 units of 3 Von Ryan Leapers (baby lictors).

   As it felt fluffy for what Combat Patrol is supposed to be and I was already close to achieving it, I gave in to the obvious sales tactic and bought the bits I was missing, the first of these being the Neurolictor.

   Painting wise I've done nothing overly interesting with it, just giving it my regular paint job, but I think it looks pretty good as it is.

I need to paint up the remaining 3 Von Ryan Leapers next time I get some spare time and then organise another game in our campaign, which has gone very quiet in recent months.

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Deathwatch Squad - Valient

   In a similar line to the Genestealer Cult side project, another thing I wanted to see on the board in the Fratribusia campaign are the Deathwatch. The 4th Tyrannic War with it's Solblade strike forces is the exact situation where the Deathwatch would thrive, and while their rules don't mean they are going to make a massive difference, they will in my head cannon.

   Last autumn I bought a single sprue of Primaris Intercessors are they feel like where the bulk of regular Deathwatch squads would start, but also bought some extra bits online, a pair of hellblasters and a Dark Angel upgrade pack for the sgt. The bulk of the painting was done last year, it was just the chapter specific pads that were half finished while I mulled over this important decision.

   Its only now that the new Space Marine codex that has come out and I've checked the squad that I've noticed the squad size has now changed - it's gone from 5 marines of which 2 can be Hellblasters, to 5 Intercessors plus 2 Hellblasters where you are also paying for another 3 guys too. Ah well.

   This squad is made up of marines from the following chapters; Dark Angels, Ossuary Brotherhood, Aurora Knights (all the chapters in the Fratribusia campaign), Tome Keepers (the chapter from White Dwarf that I just really like) and the Umbral Knights (a homebrew Dark Angels successor chapter that I am desperately trying not to start collecting).

   The fluff in my head is this particular squad is made from chapters working in the area of Fratribusia that the Inquisition has siphoned off for it's own cause.

This was supposed to be the whole of this project but as of typing this, it no longer is . . .

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