Imperial Guard Commanders ...

I was hoping to share pics of my Catachan reinforcements, but it's not quite done yet. So instead I'll share pics and a brief history of the characters and models that have and are in command of my IG armies.

My IG collection started by accident in 2000. At that time, I had just started 40k, and had built about 1500pts worth of Eldar when a good friend of mine sold me 2 boxes of Rogue Trader-era plastic guardsmen (72 models, at that time in mint condition on sprues), around 50 assorted unpainted metal models (Valhallan, Tallarn, RT-era Commissars and officers), a partially-built Leman Russ and a partially-built Hellhound. It was an awesome deal, and a great start into my second-favorite 40k faction.

The very first commander of my first IG army, 3rd Company of the 6th Schutzen regiment (I created my own fluff, and the army is loosely based on 1940-period Germans), was a model that looked awesome in pics and that I found off ebay - Colonel Schaeffer. I named him Captain Schaeffer (no relation to the famous Colonel), and painted him in the standard field grey of the army, and he was off leading the 6th in countless battles in the Balau Sector.

 

Appropriate with the pose and weapons of the model (power sword & plasma pistol), Captain Schaeffer led with much aggression from the front aboard his Chimera, and he was prone to charging the enemy and giving them cold (or powered) steel. His command squad was made up of a standard bearer, a couple of flamers, guys with close combat weapons, a Commissar wth power weapon and a Missionary. They were insanely effective on-table, and appropriately expensive points-wise too.

As my IG collection grew, I had less and less points available for the HQ unit (Schaeffer’s squad was not cheap). Eventually, when the IG codex and plastic models were released, I had to make a drastic change in the way the HQ works.

 

Captain Schaeffer was eventually promoted and transferred to found a new mechanized infantry regiment (the 6th Panzergrenadier, which I still use today). His beloved 3^rd Company was expanded to include at least 4 platoons of infantry, plus support elements. In that iteration of the army, the Company extensively used fire and movement tactics to attack and move forwards to seize objectives, as opposed to the pell-mell headlong charges of Captain Schaeffer. Thus, the force had 2 distinct elements of roughly the same size – static fire support, and fluid assault.

What a force like this needs is solid leadership. Enter Captain von Hunerbein, sole officer survivor of the ill-fated 33^rd Schutzen. Von Hunerbein, whose courage is beyond reproach, understands the value of steady solid leadership. And that was his primary role on the battlefield.

 

As bearer of the Brandenburg Knight’s Cross with Diamonds and Oak Leaves Honorifica Imperialis, von Hunerbein’s Leadership 9 and Iron Discipline, along with the bold Company Standard held aloft by Sergeant Bukholz, helped ensure that his troops fight on courageously no matter the odds.

The Captain’s Company Command squad would typically start the battle providing leadership to the line and anti-tank fire support platoons, but positioned so that he can support the eventual advance into the enemy. As the Company’s attack builds momentum, the assault platoons would advance with tanks, and von Hunerbein would move forward in the center of the attack, urging his men on to glory, with the proud Brandenburg banner flying.

Captain von Hunerbein was represented by the excellent Commissar Gaunt model, painted in standard 6th Schutzen color, and he was to remain in command of the company for a number of years.

 

In the meantime, I had started my very first armored company at around 2003, commanded by Commissar von Lannes. Riding atop his Vanquisher, his inspirational leadership and marksman crew saw 7^th Panzer through many a battle. The current commander of 4^th Company, 7^th Panzer is Captain Jaabs, whose young track record aboard his Vanquisher is fairly impressive.

 

 

Sometime in 2011, I discovered that my Commissar with powerfist can only be legally used as a Lord Commissar. So entered Lord Commissar Fleiss, supporting von Hunerbein for many a battle and campaign. By this time, the fire and movement tactics of the 6th was running very reliably, typically with 2 assault platoons (each with a Commissar), and an anti-tank platoon (deployed near Company HQ), supported by tanks, and sometimes with artillery and heavy weapons teams.

 

I started the AirCav project back in 2009 (when Valkyries first became plastic, and when they were still only skimmers unless you were playing in an Apoc battle). And naturally, there can be no other character to command the force other than Colonel Straken himself. Because of his prescense, my AirCav army is called Air Mobile Detachment, II Catachan. The original command squad had the Colonel, 2 flamers, standard bearer, 2 bodyguards, a medic, an Astropath and a Priest with eviscerator and shotgun, riding Valkyrie 02. With the current codex, his squad is reduced to himself, 3 plasma gunners, a medic and a new Missionary, riding in Vendetta 03. Also, with the new codex, the AirCav is getting a new 2iC in the form of Major Winters - kitbashed from various plastic bits and is almost done being painted. The standard bearer is transferred to Winters' 2iC squad, and a Master of Ordnance is attached.

Third Company, 6th Shutzen is now under the command of Captain Brigitte Vogelsang. She started her service with the 6th under von Hunerbein, commanding the company's anti-tank platoon. Her company carries on the traditions laid down by her predecessors, albeit with some minor differences reflecting the incremental changes brought on by changes in the prevailing situation, as well as changes in available equipment. For the first time ever, a platoon of conscripts thicken the ranks of the 6th, the ones in 3rd Company designated as 4th platoon, but effectively under the command of 1st (Assault) Platoon. The company also benefits from the services of a Commissar and 2 Missionary Priests, strengthening the will of the men. Also, the Imperial Navy's 7352nd Strike Wing is always close at hand to lend close air support.

The Windriders in 7th Ed - Just as Awesome!

 

Back in 6th, the rebellious Windrider faction of Alaitoc was a pretty strong army, with its super-mobile super-fluid brand of warfare being able to always out manouver the enemy. With the entire army traveling at jetbike and fast skimmer speed, it's always able to achieve local firepower superiority by focusing its guns at just any given spot at any given time, while at the same time being able to get out of trouble - real fast!

So after almost a year of not touching this army (played all sorts of others - IG, Rangers, Thousand Sons, etc), I decided to take it for a spin in the new edition last night. I didn't change the list, and it was made up of:

- Farseer Lahn, on jetbike with singing spear
- 2 Warlocks, on jetbikes with singing spears. Each Warlock attached to a Jetbike squad
- 6 Jetbikes - with 2 shuriken cannons
- 6 Jetbikes - with 2 shuriken cannons
- 10 Guardians - with starcannon platform
- they ride a Wave Serpent with twin-linked bright lances and holofield
- 10 Dire Avengers - including and Exarch
- they too ride a Wave Serpent with bright lances and holofield
- 3 Vypers - each with scatter laser and shuriken cannon
- Crimson Hunter exarch!
- Fire Prism - kitted with holofield
- Fire Prism - also with holofield
- Falcon - because I really like the model - pulse laser, scatter laser, shuriken cannon, holofield

The first game was against Alvin's rabid Blood Angels Death Company in the second Maelstrom of War scenario: Contact Lost. The Death Company army is lethal, very ill-fitted to capturing objectives, but more than able to wipe out enemy forces. In fact, the only reason why the Eldar won was because they were able to score VPs through capturing objectives, and the game ended at the bottom of Turn 5. The Eldar survived with only 4 models left alive - 2 Vypers and 2 Jetbikes. Insane. Then again, I did make the horrible Eldar nube error of closing with the Death Company, instead of using my speed to keep my army out of his reach. I guess I was more out of touch than I thought, having not touched this army in so long. Once again, I noticed that my dominant psyker - the Farseer - sucked up all the power dice and dominated my Psychic Phase. The new jink rule was a minor irritant to the Eldar, but otherwise, not really a major problem.

The second game was against Doc Selvam's White Scars with Space Wolves allies. The army had 2 Land Raider Crusaders and a couple of flyers. We played the third Maelstrom mission: Tactical Escalation. This time, I was relearning fast how to handle the army, and while we had to stop the game after Turn 2 (I had a dinner appointment), I was able to blow up one Land Raider and wipe out the passengers - a Space Wolves squad and Jnarl.

The third game was against Patrick's nice looking Wraith Eldar army. We decided this civil war started because my Seers thought that Patrick's armor should be yellow instead of blue. From the get-go, we could sense that it's going to be extremely difficult for Patrick. Except for his Wraihknight and Crimson Hunter, everything moves on foot at 6". We again played Tactical Escalation, and it was unfortunately pretty one-sided as my skimmer army was able to run circles against the infantry-based Wraith army. One thing we realized is that it's extremely hard to use Harlequins now. Veil of Tears is a warp charge 1 psychic power, forcing the Shadowseer to compete for power dice against Eldrad and a Spiritseer. He failed Veil once, but I didn't take advantage of it because I was busy wiping out the Wraithknight. The next turn, he passed Veil with two harnessed Warp Charges, but I threw all 10 of my Deny dice and managed to come up with two 6's. And the really well-painted Harlequin squad was shot to ribbons because of that. Really sad. In this game, I also managed to get Invisibility, which the Farseer used on himself and his squad, but it wasn't tested (would have been great to get this power against the Blood Angels). The lesson Patrick learnt was that he needs Wave Serpents for his Wraithguard.

It feels like my old Windriders of Alaitoc list is more or less still pretty deadly in 7th ed, with the main rules changes to jink not really impacting it that much. It does make it more interesting - there was once when an enemy Crimson Hunter was about to unload on my Fire Prism. Of course, I jinked. The flyer hit my tank with all his weapons - but failed to even glance my tank. Wasted jink there. As I noticed with my Thousand Sons, the army's dominant psyker will dominate my psychic phase, and there will be less spells cast. I'm still curious how crazy Invisibility would be for the Eldar.

Next fortnight I'm going to try one of my less (or even zero) psychic armies - either the Rangers, the infantry IG, the mech infantry IG, or the armored company IG. Let's see what happens then. So far, I'm loving the 7th Ed Maelstrom games.

Keep them dice rolling ...

The Evolution of Farseer LahnSeiraPartecion of the Alaitoc

I have been wargaming for many years before I got sucked into the realm of 40k back in 2000. It all happened rather quickly. Went to an awesome gamestore in Singapore. Admired the nice demo table with painted Dark Eldar and Black Templars on it. Played a nice beginnner's 4+ game, and went home with the Eldar Battleforce and Codex.

When I got home, I quickly assembled and painted the contents of the battleforce. It was an awesome value - 20 Guardians, 1 Vyper, 3 Jetbikes and a Falcon. When some days later I finally got my 3rd Edition rulebook from Ebay, I learnt very fast that I needed a HQ - in particular, I needed a Farseer.

I really did not like the antler-sporting seers of 3rd Ed, and as my personal resources at that time were far more restricted than they are now, went about to kit-bash my own Farseer (clearly being broke is a great mother of innovation). One of my brothers had a spare mage model from the old Talisman box, and with bits from the Guardians, head from a Vyper gunner, and various other bits (the shuriken catapult was pieced together from 6 different bits), I managed to come up with my very first Farseer, christened Farseer Lahn.

This very first Farseer Lahn was running around with his tiny but ever-growing Guardian force. Off Ebay and friends, I managed to get more Vypers, jetbikes, and most crucially, Rangers.

In 2001, I entered my very first 40k tournament in Singapore. And very quickly had to convert my Farseer on jetbike. Technically, the model used was actually a metal Warlock. I cut him in half, and glued the top half onto jetbiker legs. I repositioned the right sword-arm, and added a straight piece of paper clip into the base of the witchblade's hilt, turning it into a singing spear. I cut off the pistol-weilding left hand and replaced it with a jetbiker's left hand, to suggest the seer casting a spell. I covered the legs with tissue paper and glue so that it doesn't look like Guardian armor. Finally I added a Dark Eldar top knot onto his helmet. This, together with the runes on his jetbike, made for a conversion that I was happy with (at the time), and I was really glad when everyone else accepted it too.

 

I found that Farseers on jetbikes are just amazing, especially with Mind War. And that's how the rest of his name came about - LahnSeiraPartecion, which in Imperial High Gothic roughly translates to Lahn the BrainSmelter, more or less. And even though today he barely touches Mind War at all, the name remains.

So this very first Farseer Lahn on jetbike served me well for 6 years, leading his Ranger War Host in countless desperate battles in the Balau Sector, as well as in tournaments and campaigns throughout the region. Soon after this conversion, one of my brothers got me an Eldrad model for my birthday, but I never really finished painting him. Eventually, when fellow Legio Officer Khairul got into 40k and needed an Eldrad model urgently, he used mine (and painted it too).

In 2007, the new Eldar Codex came with some awesome Farseer models. And my favorite was the metal seer brandishing his singing spear while casting some inisidious spell on unsuspecting mon-keigh. But I still wanted my Farseer to be on a jetbike, yet I really did not want to cut up this particular model. So I cut up the jetbike in two, and pinned each half to the Farseer model, making him look like he's standing on his converted jetbike, casting Mind War at some hapless meltagunner. This was the first time I used green stuff for something more than just filling gaps, and I was quite happy with the result. It wasn't that much green stuff - the gems and runes on his jetbike's carapace, some runes on the rear of his jetbike (along with some Eldar and Tau bits), and some work to make it look like his cape was lapping over the jetbike.

This incarnation of Farseer Lahn actually started to learn other spells, like Doom, Guide and Fortune, but Mind War was still his favorite.

Then 5th ed came into the picture, and coupled with the fact that I really want a more purist Ranger Force, the time came for Farseer Lahn to park his bike and start footslogging like the rest of the guys. Around 2009/2010, I primarily used two kinds of Eldar lists - a purist-ish Alaitoc Ranger Force with no vehicles, and a more competitive combined arms force with huge hitting power in the form of Howling Banshees and Striking Scorpions in Wave Serpents. At that time, I used an older metal Farseer model with witchblade (he kept his trusty old singing spear in the garage, netxt to his jetbike), who used to ride around with the Howling Banshees, and occassionally, Jain Zar herself.

At some point during the very short life of 6th Ed, Eldar speed and skimmer technology came back into vogue (actually, they were never out of vogue). I just loved fielding gaggles of jetbikes, Vypers, Wave Serpents, Falcons, and Fire Prisms. So Farseer Lahn went back into battle atop his trusty old jetbike. In fact, the old orginal model converted for the farseer became one his trusty Warlocks on jetbike, leading a Guardian jetbike squad (another squad is led by another more recent Warlock on jetbike conversion). I do also field an all-foot Ranger Force (with the exception of one flyer, called in for air support), and that army is still led by Farseer Lahn on foot with his trusty witchblade. While since 6th Ed he has stopped using Mind War (and now in 7th he's actually looking forward to use Invisibility alongside staples like Guide and Prescience), he still carries the BrainSmelter moniker.

Although, now he has a hankering for his singing spear, even when he's on foot ...

 

 

Adventures with Gauze

Taking a quick diversion from my Catachans, I went back to the ancient rites of gauze camo netting. I wanted a portable camo net that I can remove and place onto vehicles as I wish. In the past, when I used gauze, it was usually a permanent paint job on the model.

So I tried dying some, but the green was not very nice. I ended up painting some gauze in successive thin layers of Vallejo German Dark Camo, then cut a few pieces. Ended up with 3 different sizes.

The challenge with doing this non-permanent thing is that it's easy for the gauze camo-net to end up looking too light and unrealistic. Real life camo nets are heavy. I don't know if I achieved that with these ones, but what I did was that when I draped them over my vehicles, I did a bit of primming and arranging so that it doesn't look like it will fly off (though if the table has a fan too near, it will probably fly off).

Anyways, I'll try these out the next time I play my armored company. And now, back to the Catachans ...

7th Ed Baptism of Fire!

Finally got a game of 7th Ed in. And I must say it was a blast! The Tactical Objectives and Psychic Phase makes for a very different flavor of 40k. A lot of myths and preconceptions were debunked, though this is just based on the one game I've had so far. Certainly different from what we're used to - and for me that means all the previous editions since 3rd.

We played the first Maelstrom of War mission: Cleanse and Control. In this mission, there are 6 objective markers, and in each turn each player needs to have 3 Tactical Objective cards. The mission specifies Vanguard Strike deployment. My oppenent Dom chose the nice Cityfight table, which was pretty cool. Been awhile since I played on that one.

I used the last Thousand Sons list I built in 6th Ed: Ahriman, Lord Ka'Kaa the Lord of Change, 2 favored Thousand Sons squads (one with Rhino), 1 pack of Pink Horrors, 1 Heldrake, 1 Land Raider, 1 Defiler and 1 Predator (autocannon, heavy bolters). There's a total of 5 psykers in the army, with a potential to generate 10+d6 warp charges in total. I got lucky with Ahriman, who managed to get Invisibility and Iron Arm, on top of Prescience and Psychic Shriek (the Tzeentch Primaris was free). Lord Ka'Kaa also had Prescience. However no one got Doombolt - pity, as I would have liked to try the new rules for beam powers.

Dom fielded his Dark Angels army, led by Master Belial, 2 squads of Assault Terminators (thunder hammer, storm shield), 1 Dark Angels Veteran Squad (meltaguns) in Drop Pod, 1 Dark Angels Tactical Squad (plasma gun) in Drop Pod, 1 squadron of 3 Ravenwing Land Speeder Typhoons, 1 Land Raider and 1 Land Raider Crusader.

I'm not going to give a blow-by-blow batrep, but just to share my thoughts on the new game (and it felt like a new game too).

1. Psychic Phase is not so scary after all ...
There was a lot of noise about the new Psychic Phase, and honestly, I think it's really more hype than anything else. My Thousand Sons army can generate 10+d6 Warp Charge per turn. While it's not as uber-extreme as you can take it, it certainly is fairly above average. On top of that, with sorcerers like Ahriman and the Lord of Change, plus free Tzeentch Primaris for the Thousand Sons sorcerers, my psychic power list was pretty long. And as I mentioned, I got lucky with my rolls, getting gems like Iron Arm and Invisibility.

However, casting powers is now not as predictable. Combined with abysmal Warp Charge rolls (I think the highest I rolled was 3), I had 11-13 power dice to play with when all my psykers were still alive. Still looks decent right? Well, the reality is that master sorcerer Ahriman hogged ALL of my Psychic Phases. Casting Prescience, Iron Arm and Invisibility on himself and his squad pretty much sucked up all the power dice I had. Every turn. All the other sorcerers just watched and lent their Mastery Levels to the dice pool. All those millennia of psychic training gone to waste ...

So rest assured that except for some really purpose-designed psychic armies, the Psychic Phase is not as scary as it sounds. In fact, I really like that it neatly streamlines all psychic activity into its very own part of each turn. Having said that, there are a couple of scary things with this psychic thing ...

2. Invisibility IS scary!
I know much have been written about the new Invisibility. But until I actually tried it out I didn't quite appreciate how amazingly scary it is. At 2 Warp Charges, you need at least 5 dice ro reliably cast it. But allowing only Snap Shots and 6's to hit in close combat against Invisible units means you have units that are extremely hard to kill. Ahriman and his squad were charged by thunder-hammer-storm-shield Assault Terminators, losing only only 2 Rubricae while wiping out the Termies. And the 2 turns that I failed my Invisibility rolls were enough to wipe out Ahriman's squad by shooting and assault, leaving Ahriman alone in a challenge against a Deathwing veteran sergeant.

3. Perils of the Warp IS scary ...
Ahriman actually suffered Perils of the Warp and rolled a '1' on the table. Luckily he passed his Leadership Test, and just lost 1 wound to it. Had he failed, he would have been sucked into the Warp, and perhaps taking some of his squad with him too!

4. I need to go back to Flying Monstrous Creature (FMC) school
My expensive Lord of Change, the great Lord Ka'Kaa, was one scary FMC with one lesser and two greater rewards and also a Mastery Level 3 Tzeentch greater daemon. But with some subtle changes in 7th Ed, I only managed to use him in some very passive roles. He did contribute 3 Warp Charges every turn. He took out 1 hull point from a Land Speeder. He achieved 1 tactical objective. That's it. I guess he didn't do too badly. But compared to his fearsome deeds of old, it didn't seem like much. I'll need to relearn how to use him more effectively next time.

5. Light skimmers die slightly easier now
I love light skimmers like Land Speeders and Vypers. In 6th Ed, my squadron of 3 Vypers or 3 Land Speeders tend to survive battles because the 5+ jink combined with 6 hull points per squadron is always better than it looks. But now, you'd have to make the choice - Snap Fire next turn, or jink? Not always a straight-forward decision.

6. The Heldrake nerfed? Nahhhh ...
There was also a lot of whining about the new FAQ limiting the Heldrake's arc of fire. I frankly did not see the problem at all. This mean flying dude is still a mean flying dude, frying all kinds of loyalist targets almost every turn. Still love it! Still a scary flyer!

7. Tactical Objectives makes it an entirely new game.
And this is no exaggeration. Most players have been trained through countless battles and numerous editions to focus on making sure objectives are achieved before the game ends. This usually ends up in games that typically see shooty armies waiting for killy armies to come to them, or some variation thereof. And a lot of grabbing objectives at the very last minute.

With Tactical Objectives, your army really needs to be flexible. Mobiliy becomes extremely important. The bulk of your forces might be in one corner, just when all the objectives you need to achieve are in another, etc. I'd guess that armies with only one battle plan, or one style of play, would suffer greatly. You really need to have an expanded playbook to handle all kinds of situations.

Tactical Objectives really emphasizes manouver and positioning. It changes how yo
u use your units. In the game I played, my Defiler only fired once at the very last turn. Before that he was too busy achieving objectives. Balancing holding onto a single objective, while at the same time being ready to support other units or grab another objective, all makes for some really interesting tactical challenges.

I find it pretty awesome. Though I must admit there was a point it got a bit too random.

At the very last turn, I was already losing the game. In fact, I thought it was already lost. Both armies were battered. The Dark Angels only had Belial, 4 Termies, an immobilized Land Raider Crusader and 2 Drop Pods left. I was down to Ahriman, Lord Ka'Kaa, 10 Horrors, the Defiler and the Predator. The last Tactical Objective card I drew gives me d3 Victory Points if I controlled at least 3 objective markers. At that point Dom had 9VPs to my 7. Controlling the 3 objective markers was easy enough with the Horrors, the Defiler and Lord Ka'Kaa. I need to roll a 3 or 4 to draw the game, and a 5+ to win. So I rolled the dice. And '5' came up.

While I do feel bad for Dom for snatching the win by ONE lucky dice roll, we both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It was simply a fun game. Even my Aspiring Sorcerer that became a Spawn enjoyed it!

Looking forward to more!

AirCav reinforcements on the way!

When the Astra Militarum book was released, I found that I can practically field my AirCav without the Basilisk in a nice-looking airborne assault infantry themed army. So the new 1850 list will look like this:

HQ:
Colonel Straken - command squad with 3 plasma guns and a medic (for obvious reasons)
Ministorum Priest - he rides with the Colonel's squad in Vendetta 03.

Major Winters - Straken's 2iC. He takes care of the units already deployed on the ground. The standard bearer is with him. Winters is armed with a bolter and sword.
Master of Ordnance - attached to Major Winters squad to call in the big guns when needed (like all the time).

TROOPS:
1st (Assault) Squad - demolitions squad led by veteran sergeant with laspistol & power sword, heavy flamer, 2 meltaguns, and of course, a demo charge. They ride Valkyrie 02 (Straken's old ride in the old book).
2nd (Assault) Squad - demolitions squad with heavy flamer, 2 meltaguns and another demo charge. They ride Valkyrie 07.
3rd Squad - autocannon, a plasma gunner and a sniper.
4th Squad - autocannon and 2 plasma gunners.
5th Squad - autocannon, a plasma gunner and a sniper.

FAST ATTACK:
Valkyrie squadron - 02, 07, both armed with multilaser and rocket pods
Vendetta squadron - 03, 04, both with standard lascannon fit-out
Vendetta squadron - 05, 06, both with standard lascannon fit-out

To get the new army done, I'd have to paint the following models:

1. Missionary Priest - I've had this model since my very first days with the Imperial Guard. I'm using him because the strange new AM book doesn't give shotguns to priests, and I'm not willing to cut up ol' Uriah. This one's already painted. Just need to rebase.

2. Master of Ordnance - this guy's metal from the original IG Advisors blister pack. He and the Officer of the Fleet have been black undercoated for awhile now. Will finally see some paint on him.

3, 4. Snipers - these dudes are kit-bashed using the sniper rifle from the Catachan Command sprue, adding the metal GI heads to both. I made sure that each sniper has a sidearm, just in case. One guy kneeling, the other standing.

5, 6. Heavy flamers - these dudes are kit-bashed with the heavy flamer from the Catachan Command sprue, with the metal GI heads. When assembling them, I realized I had used one of the fuel tank back packs on my Basilisk conversion. Luckily I had a few Cadian-pattern fuel tanks lying around, so I used those instead. Solder iron lead was used as a hose to connect the fuel tanks to the heavy flamers.

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. The autocannon crew are pretty standard. Four crewmen are kneeling in traditional heavy weapons teams poses - one guy firing the weapon, the other spotting/pointing. The 3rd team is shown not firing their weapon. One guy is walking off with a spare ammo drum, while the other guy is standing and just spotted something. All the dudes have the metal GI heads of course.

13. Major Winters himself was kit-bashed using standard Catachan legs, Cadian torso, Catachan Command sprue bolter right arm, Catachan left arm holding sword and one of the spare heads from the Baneblade kit. I like the head because of the bionic right eye, which makes him Straken's distant cousin I guess (though rumor has it that Winters is not Catachan himself). As with all my AirCav troopers, he's also been given ample kit like water bottle, ammo pouches, grenades, etc.

And there we have it. An awesome distraction from my Dark Angels! The army's lack of psykers will probably punish me in 7th, but Straken doesn't give a s**t, of course.

This Friday I shall try out 7th for the first time, probably with the Thousand Sons.Wish me luck.

Keep them dice rolling.