Vraksian Renegades Army List - 1750 points

Hello you filthy heretics.

I've been struggling with a lack of motivation recently, and so I haven't gotten half as much done as I would have liked.

Inspiration struck when I sat down to watch Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse flick "Planet Terror". Having already seen Tarrantino's companion film and actually quite enjoying it, I wanted more but still wasn't sure what to expect besides chicks with M16s for legs.

Wow.

Seriously, if you're a devotee of the Plaguefather and you can spare a couple of hours, you need to watch this film!  Just, please don't watch it while you're eating dinner...

So, newly inspired, I have been poring over the weighty tome that is Imperial Armour: Vraks, and have arrived at a final draft for my army's composition.

Of course, the rate at which GW is churning out rulesets these days, my list will probably be horribly outdated by the time I actually finish this project, but I'm not overly fussed about playing with them all that much.  Still, on the off-chance that I do find myself in a position to send my frothing lunatics 'over the top', It'd be nice to do so without having to proxy or blatantly mislead my opponent.

Since I'm not allowed to post specific points costs for every unit and upgrade (a fact I neglected on my first post, so I'll have to delete my previous list!), I'll stick to the basics for now.  Any details you're unsure on, or you think I may be incorrect about, please feel free to let me know.

=====================

'The Purge' Battle-forged Detachment (Primary)

HQ

Renegade Command Squad

5 Renegades 

Renegade Arch-Demagogue 

*Arch-Heretic Revolutionary

*Chaos Covenant of Nurgle 

*Command Net Vox 

*Banner of Hate 

*Refractor Field 

*Plasma Gun

Elites

Renegade Ogryn Brutes 
3 Ogryn Brutes 

*Dedicated to Nurgle

Renegade Chaos Spawn
3 Chaos Spawn

Troops

Renegade Infantry Platoon 

Command Squad

10 Renegades

*Renegade Demagogue

*Chaos Covenant of Nurgle

*Command Net Vox

*Chaos Sigil

*Fanatics

Infantry Squad

20 Renegades

*4 Chemical Flamers

*Fanatics

*Champion

*Chaos Covenant of Nurgle

Infantry Squad

20 Renegades

*4 Chemical Flamers

*Fanatics

*Champion

*Chaos Covenant of Nurgle

Heavy Support

Renegade Leman Russ

Renegade Field Artillery Battery

Heavy Quad Launcher

*2 Additional Crew

Renegade Field Artillery Battery
Heavy Quad Launcher
*2 Additional Crew

Lord of War

Renegade Malcador Defender

*Lascannon Sponsons

*Militia Training

'Combined Arms' Battle-forged Detachment (Secondary)

HQ

Rogue Psyker Coven 

2 Renegade Psykers 

Fast Attack 

Renegade Hellhound Squadron 

Renegade Bane Wolf 

*Camo Netting 

*Dozer Blade

Troops

Renegade Mutants 

20 Mutants

*Champion

*Melta Bombs

*Chaos Covenant of Nurgle

Renegade Mutants 

20 Mutants

*Champion

*Melta Bombs

*Chaos Covenant of Nurgle

Heavy Support

Renegade Support Squad

*3 Autocannons

Total = 1,749 points

=====================

A couple of things to bear in mind.  

Yep, no Astartes.  

I've since stumbled on this FAQ from Forgeworld which clarifies a few points for us renegades. Of particular interest to me was the ruling that Chaos Space Marines and Renegades of Vraks cannot be mixed into the same detachment. It's one or the other.  Well, I have considerably more renegades models than CSM, so that was a no-brainer.  The only way I'm going to squeeze in the post-human element is as an allied detachment, and naturally, the same applies to daemons.

No daemons.  

It struck me recently that perhaps the main reason these elements don't combine too well is because of the scales involved.  Almost everything in 40K is designed around the basic space marine, which is scaled to a 'heroic' 28mm. Everything, that is, except your basic guardsman.  Soldiers of the Astra Militarum typically stand only three or four millimetres shy of a space marine's full height.  The same can be said of daemonic troop units like Plaguebearers and Bloodletters.  

Some talented individuals have gone out of their way to address this issue by 'true-scaling' their marines with longer legs and broader torsos, substituting regular parts for terminator parts etc.  I did attempt something similar for my plague marine with mixed results.  Unfortunately, there's no reliable way to re-work their torsos without making a total hash of it.  What's more, I was still using the old CSM legs, which are generally more decorated and don't take well to reconstructive surgery.  

With the release of the new Space Marine kits this month, true-scale conversions may be that bit easier. I have serious misgivings about the wisdom of pushing a new marine codex out the door within a year of the previous edition, and expecting people to fork out a further £35 for it, but that's a post for another time.  

So with supporting elements from different factions off the cards, I re-approached my list with a mind to really emphasize the stuff that drives a 'Purge' detachment, namely, templates and pie plates. Unfortunately, the only serious contender for 'pie-plate delivery system' was the impressive Earthshaker artillery carriages from forgeworld.  

First, take a good look at the price-tag.

Now triple it.

Would you pay that for something that has no right being on the front-lines in the first place and then still only uses up about 170 points?!  And that's before adding a suitable compliment of crew to man the guns!  Unless you're staging an 'ambush' scenario, in which your heavy artillery are caught by surprise and unable to redeploy in time, there's really no reason these units should be making a regular appearance on the board. And yet, they're one of the few weapons in our arsenal that make use of both the 'barrage' and 'blast' rules, and therefore qualify for 'Salt the Earth'. 

What annoys me about this is the obviousness with which they've tailored the 'Purge' detachment to promote these big gun platforms.  In the previous edition of Siege of Vraks, there was at least an option to call in an off-table artillery barrage, which not only makes more sense from a 'realism' point of view, but also means the money you would have spent buying those models can be spent elsewhere instead.  As much I love these models, and I'm sure they look spectacular in the right circumstances (dioramas or a table spanning at least 15 feet), I just can't justify going full Forgeworld.

You never go full Forgeworld.  

If that means my army ends up being less competitive or just plain weak, well I don't give a mon-keigh's.

This got me thinking about points values and how it relates to actual monetary value, and I began to wonder: how much money can I save by cramming as many points as I can into as few units as possible?  Naturally, I took a closer look at the Lords of War slot.  

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the best value unit I could buy is the Renegade Baneblade.  Not only does it confer fearless to everything within 12", but thanks to third party retailers, it's also significantly cheaper than the competition for this slot, most of which is in the Forgeworld catalogue.  It's certainly tempting, but the star of the show is supposed to be the Purge detachment's access to chemical agents, not super-tanks.  The Macharius is smaller, but still big enough to detract from the overall theme. The Maclador is only slightly larger than a Leman Russ (one of which I already own) and its chassis adheres to a similar aesthetic, so it seems to fit quite snugly, without drawing attention away from the real focus of the army.  Not to mention it's just a beast of a tank.  I mean just look at it!

Hench.  

It's as if the locals took their hyper-industrial, mining tractor-thingy and crammed as many guns into it as possible.

Now, you're probably wondering why I bothered splitting up my force into two detachments, if they're both of the same faction.  After all, it looks like I'm trying to exploit the command benefits rather than just doing away with them altogether, but actually, it's not nearly as exploitative as it could be.  Certainly, I could choose to abuse the detachment system, but really I've only done it to unlock the Bane Wolf.  

Not only does this give me a little bit of MEQ killing power, but I can't fathom taking to the field with an array of chemical weapons and not bringing one of these along for the ride.  That strikes me a grave injustice.  I'm a little disappointed that the Purge list doesn't include an upgrade for the standard Hell Hound, which can project its lethal payload over much greater distances, but hopefully it won't be a total waste of points.

Also, can someone please explain to me why Hell Hounds aren't more prone to exploding when they lose their last hull point?  After all, it's a big, pressurized container filled with nasty chemicals slapped on a truck.  Go ahead, shoot it!  Shoot it with your pew-pew laser and see what happens!

Oh.

One advantage of using the list in this way is that my twin mobs of mutants become objective-friendly. But I don't plan to do much of that.  If anything, they're more of a living screen for my chem-troopers.  Ablative flesh.

The army doesn't have much in the way of anti-armour, and that doesn't bother me too much.  The purpose of this army is to spread the toxic love as liberally as possible; all other concerns are secondary!

Well, that concludes today's update.

On the painting front, I have attempted a couple of models using the polyurethane primer and a new set of Vallejo paints, but I was less than happy with the results.  I'll go into that in greater detail in a future post, but suffice to say, back to painting school for this heretic.

Next time: a short story.

Stay tuned.  

Miniature Me

Salutations to you all.  (See what I did there?)

I know I promised you a conversion for this post, but in light of how I plan to proceed with this army of mine, he's going to have to wait. I'll explain why in more detail next time, but for now I'd like just like to take this opportunity to talk about Salute 2015.

Yep, I was at Salute this year, which is hosted by the Excel Centre in the East End of London. It's my first visit back there since I worked at Royal Victoria docks in 2005, and I honestly had no idea of the enormous scale of the place! Visitors were there for some sort of sporting convention (possibly connected to the London Marathon?) and not just Salute, which I had assumed would be the only event taking place on the day.

I'd like to commend the staff for their friendly, professional manner and organisational skills. Facilities and amenities were also excellent, and at no time did I feel unwelcome, there. Compare this experience to Games Day 2014, where the staff were generally uninterested and everything felt slapped together at the last minute, and it's clear that GW and the Birmingham NEC have a lot to learn about hosting their events.

I arrived at the event about an hour after doors opened, having decided to avoid the inevitable queues and just stroll around at a leisurely pace. This, it turns out, was a mistake on my part, and one of several I'll expand on throughout this post.

It's not that I wasn't free to roam about wherever the fancy took me, quite the opposite in fact, but without a clear 'plan of attack', I probably took away far less from the event than I could have.  That's partly because I've seriously underestimated the range and proliferation of small hobby businesses in the last decade.   Obviously, Kickstarter is a huge factor in the explosion of indy projects, but to see them all gathered together under one roof really puts it all into perspective.  I've probably stumbled into a large proportion of these games and figures on the interwebz at some point or another, with links to source material for conversions and alternatives to GW models for various units, but I have always tried to limit myself to the GW range just for the sheer challenge of it.  Stupid deliberate handicap is stupid!

If anything, it's probably more challenging to maintain a consistent look and feel with figures drawn from a variety of lines.  So from now on, if I see something I like from another range, and can find a home for it in my little warband, it's going on the shopping list!

So, having a limited budget, I couldn't exactly grab anything I fancied at the time, but nor could I cherry pick a few items of specific interest.  Next time, I'll know exactly what I'm shopping for and consult the layout in advance to find the stalls and tables that most appeal.

Now, I'm not big on impulse-buying, but this year I thought I'd try my luck at the Forgeworld stall.

Oh dear.

It took about an hour to get to the front of the queue, and the BO brigade were out in force. At one point, the customers in front of me were engaged in conversation by who will henceforth be referred to as 'Derek', on account of his innate 'Derekness'.

So I'm stood there in the queue trying to read my programme and figure out where to head to next, and this guy starts boasting about how many Baneblades he has.  Now, you'd think that, given the exorbitant cost of owning just one Baneblade, that even fewer than half a dozen or so superheavies would be more than enough.  Not for Derek.  Derek loudly and proudly proclaims that eighty such vehicles reside in his personal armoury, from both the Forgeworld and GW lines.  Yep, you read that correctly.

Eighty, as in 80.  Baneblades.  80 Baneblades.  Eighty superheavy bricks of plastic and resin.

The other two customers did their level-best to look and sound impressed by these excessive boasts, and if they weren't genuine reactions, I've got to give them props for their performance.  It certainly boggles the mind, that anyone could find sufficient storage space for eighty Baneblades, let alone the funds to procure them.  From what I understand, it's equally difficult to justify fielding one of these vehicles in your army without feeling like a total dick.  It's the equivalent of bringing a minigun to a knife-fight.  Now try and imagine how having eighty such vehicles could be in any way practical.

Derek then proceeds to boast about how he can 'assembly line' twenty rhinos in one hour and that if he tallied up everything he owns, it would amount to something in the order of 600,000 pts' worth of stuff.  Derek also wanted to make sure everyone within earshot understood that one Tau Manta wasn't enough for him. No mention of Titans, oddly enough.  Maybe I missed that part.

So at this point, it's clear to me that Derek has no shame, and I've made a grievous error by joining this queue but I'm too far along to duck out now without having completely wasted all that time.

I'm determined to stick it out to the bitter end and when I do reach the service counter, I'm given a catalogue with which to identify items for the staff behind the counter, which was clearly undermanned.  When I'm asked what I want, I pick out the Thudd Gun as my first choice.  A brief rummage through the stock, followed by:

FW: "Sorry, we don't have any of those." Ok fine.

ME: "Do you have any Plague Ogryns?"

FW: "Nope, we don't have any of the Renegades, today."

I'll try something Imperial, then.  "How about a Rapier Laser Destroyer?"

"Nope, sorry. You could order it with us today if you like?"

Well, I've run out of ideas for anything I can reasonably afford and I'm feeling a bit embarrassed. Several quick scrambles through the catalogue turn up nothing, and I can feel the scrutinizing gaze of those waiting in line beginning to bore a hole in the back of my head.  Exit stage left.

Ok, so I was warned that not everything will be available on the day, and to reserve items in advance to avoid disappointment, but to be told than an entire faction is unavailable?  Well that's a bit hard to swallow.  But swallow it I did, and I'll be sticking to on-line orders only in future.

Derek, meanwhile, can add another five Baneblades to his collection.

Having been deployed in a static position for the past hour, it was time to get roving again.  It wasn't long after I'd perused the wares of a few dozen stalls, that I began to feel like a miniature, myself. It dawned on me that the hobby has well-and-truly embraced the age of social media and crowdfunding, and I've been somewhat left behind. I'm fumbling about trying to catch up with this here humble blog, but it's never been more apparent to me now just how useful it is to establish an on-line presence for yourself. Up to this point, I have defiantly resisted any attempts to be assimilated by the Borg Collective, preferring instead to lurk on forums and other blogs, never saying my piece. I just assumed that the craft itself was sufficient, but it seems that the hobby has evolved with the times, and so, evidently, must I.

So there I was, feeling a bit overwhelmed, drifting from one table to the next, but never really committing to learn a new game or having any meaningful interactions with all these talented designers. Story of my life...

If there was one table that held my attention for longer than ten minutes, it was the Afterlife diorama centered around a maglev station.  Great setting and superbly detailed models that really nail the near-future, dystopian aesthetic.  I can't really comment on the rules, but just on those factors alone, if I ever want to break off from 40k, that's where I'm headed first.

I tried to take a few photos with my digital camera, but I've yet to upload them and I'm not convinced they're even good enough to post here.  If I'm going to start producing proof of the pudding, quality photos are a must.  I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.  In the meantime, if anyone knows how to thumbnail images here, please drop me a hint, because I don't want to keep sending y'all to photobucket!  For a decent bit of camerawork, I recommend you head over to Shed Wars, who has documented the event far better than I ever could.  Thanks for sharing those with us, Eric!

The day did yield a couple of goodies.  I walked away with a free event exclusive Agincourt miniature, and I grabbed some brand new tools from 4ground.  I even managed to pry a few painting tips from one of the painters at Siege Studios, and even had my new copy of Figopedia signed by the author, so I'm glad I went, but I do have one or two minor gripes with Salute.

First, the painting competition.  Congratulations to the winners and I'm sure your hard work really paid off, but the poor quality of the display cases meant that all that effort went largely unappreciated by yours truly, and probably the vast majority of browsers.  The same lighting issues were present at Games Day '14, and there's just no excuse for it. Someone please explain to me why display cabinets at these events are almost always lit from the rear and not the front?  If the entire purpose of a display case is to show off its contents in the best possible way, it's pretty important to get the lighting right.

The other issue was navigation.  I got lost a couple of times, and if I wanted to find my bearings, I had to consult the programme and pin-point my location based on nearby stalls that weren't always clearly marked.  This meant I had to strike out in a random direction until I happened upon another recognisable 'landmark'.

Will I be going next year?  Most likely.

There really is no better time for a hobbyist in terms of the sheer volume and high quality of resources at their disposal. Nowhere is this more evident than at Salute.

If you've stuck it out this far, I salute you.  Thanks for reading.

Next post will detail my new army list and how I've settled on the choices therein.  Then I can start rolling out the paintjobs, so hang in there!

The League of Extraordinary Misfits

So I've thrown together a tentative army list with options for several detachments.

Apologies if it appears a bit large, I don't have photoshop installed, and I couldn't be bothered to fanny about with it in MS paint.

If you've been following the 40k scene closely enough, then you'll know that 7th edition introduced some fairly radical changes to the way players can assemble an army list.  Not only can players now include as many detachments as they like, they can also opt to disregard the Force Organisation Chart entirely and take whatever they want.  

Players choosing to stick with the old system are rewarded for doing so with various 'Command Benefits'.  In the above example, my primary detachment uses a special Force Org chart that entitles those units to free Chemical Flamers, free Chemical Missile Launchers and a free upgrade to barrage weapons that leaves a more permanent effect on the battlefield.  I really love the idea of traitors digging up old stores of forbidden munitions with all the eagerness of kids unwrapping their presents on Christmas Day.  so it's hard to resist the lure of an army centered around this theme.  The list is intended to produce the maximum possible toxicity on the board, and leave the strategy for another day.  I'd buy that for a dollar!  

Nonetheless, I find myself in the awkward position of wanting to play with all my toys at the possible expense of a cohesive army theme.  At the moment, my list comes across as suffering from a severe crisis of identity or at the very least, a touch 'schizophrenic'.

Perhaps the most glaring example is the solitary Leman Russ which, being the only vehicle in the army, must feel like a mixologist at an AA meeting.  Then there's the daemons who manifest as more of a cosmic accident than an invasion force from Hell itself.  And let's not forget the Plague Marines in their uniquely antiquated 'Death Guard' configuration.  They're too cool for school, and certainly too oldskool to be hanging around with these upstart mortals.  All the models look great in their respective factions, but lose something when they're side-by-side.  

This is the problem with trying to cram everything you like into one project, it becomes very difficult to zero in on the primary unifying theme.  In fluff terms for instance, Chaos Marines prefer to herd their mortal subjects into the guns of the enemy, using them as living shields for their own advance. Having them in the thick of  the action while renegade artillery sits back and rains ordnance on them from afar seems completely out of character.  Likewise, daemons are unlikely to spill forth into the material realm in service of Big Guns Inc.

My other motivation for mixing it up is a model-count one.  I don't particularly relish the idea of painting endless hordes of expendable footsoldiers, especially if it means having to convert them first.  Even fifty models is a comparatively small number, these days.  I could turn this militia rabble into a smaller band of elite veterans, and I may well go down that route if I want to exclude the daemonic and post-human units.  If anyone has any suggestions for conversion bits I can use to achieve this, I'd love to hear from you!

The only units listed that I have yet to purchase are the Ogryns (killer models by Mark Bedford!), Quad Launchers, Plague Drones and Psyker Coven.  The plan was to convert some psykers, and have them accompany my renegades on foot.  Conventional wisdom dictates that these units of militia should be mounted in chimera transports, but having to paint and convert three or more such vehicles is likewise a massive pain in the neck.

I've considered a Drop-pod for the marines, but those things are freakin' huge (check out the size comparison photo and tell me that's not going to dwarf everything else in the army!) and nurglizing it would take forever.  I'm also very keen on the Hell Talon and Hell Blade models, which fall under the Fast Attack category, and therefore cannot be taken in my primary detachment but instead must be included as part of the chaos space marines detachment.  If I want to take these independently of the chaos marines, I'll have to ditch the chemical warfare doctrine.  Death Guard weren't exactly renowned for their use of air support, preferring instead to slug it out in trenches for protracted campaigns.  However, the Hell Talon can be loaded up with chemical munitions, and the idea that some enormous apex predator is circling overhead in search of prey is very sinister and a whole lot of fun.

I'm not  adverse to a bit of conversion work, within reason. I spent most of yesterday converting a Chaos Lord of Nurgle, breaking out the green stuff and styrene and really going to town on it.  I haven't converted anything in ages, because it's quite intimidating when you're carving up perfectly good plastic and resin kits, rending limb from limb and praying it's not for nought.  He'll be the focus of my next post, where I'll show you how I got on but for now, I'm just trying to unite the disparate elements of my model collection.  I will continue to beseech the Fell Powers for help, but any assistance or advice you heretics can offer would be much appreciated.

Until next time...

Is this thing on...?

Hello my friend, stay a while and listen.

I opened this blog last year, but haven't been able to stump up the requisite motivation to begin filling it with actual content until now.  If you've been unfortunate enough to find your way here prior to reading this, I apologize for having led you to this particularly void-stricken corner of the galaxy. As blog names go, 'Segmentum Obscurus' seems more apt.

Now that's out of the way, let's move on to introductions. 

I've been in and out of the hobby since issue 127 of White Dwarf, the very same copy of which I still own to this day.  I'll spare you the endless stream of nostalgia; you've probably heard it all before from other Oldhammer Gitz. Suffice to say, I have seen the hobby evolve from the twilight years of Rogue Trader into its present incarnation.  

I grew up with the stuff, and like it or not, it has clung to my imagination with all the stubbornness and tenacity of the Emperor's finest.  Much to my poor wallet's dismay, I seem fundamentally incapable of ditching this life-long obsession with the most expensive toy soldiers in the world.  And boy, did I pick a strange time to commit in earnest!  

It's certainly a turbulent and bewildering time to be a 40K hobbyist.  For what is essentially a pastime that thrives on patience and the rewards it can yield, the current pace of 'stuff' being churned out by G-Dubya seems entirely at odds with the spirit of the hobby.  For all their talk about 'forging a narrative' with your tabletop experience, it's hard to ignore that ever-decreasing gap between editions of the game or the kitchen sink philosophy of their design team. Indeed, if there were ever an appropriate moment for veteran hobbyists to walk away, now would seem to be that moment in time. 

But if GW are putting out more and more plastic kits of dubious quality (the current trend of which likely began with those blatantly CAD minotaurs), then the very talented folk at Forgeworld are going from strength to strength.  It's almost as if the FW team are carrying the torch from a bygone era.  They seem to enjoy a degree of creative autonomy that enables them to do what they love, and it shows.  That's not to say everything the mother company puts out is necessarily poor, just that even when they're top of their game (Mechanicus, anyone?), something vital is missing.  

So when I did finally scrape together a bit of disposable dosh, the temptation to splurge on a load of Forgetastic resin was too strong to resist.  I set out to muster a truly depraved coalition of the Lost and the Damned straight out of Imperial Armour VII, drawing together all my favourite scumbags of the (barely) human, post-human and daemonic variety under one banner.  And that banner is grandfather Nurgle.

Nurgle's all about death, decay and despair, whilst finding it all very amusing.  I dig it.

Having recently gotten my grubby mitts on the beautifully produced Imperial Armour: The Siege of Vraks, the call of the Plaguefather has never been stronger.  To that end, I have produced an army list that I feel best incorporates those models I have already procured, along with a few additional elements that didn't exist the first time around.  It is my hope that by publishing this list here for all to see (however few of you that may be), it'll motivate me to work towards that most hallowed of goals: a fully painted army. 

Along the way, I'll post photos with updates of my progress, the occasional step-by-step, hobby musings and maybe even some short fiction.  Feel free to chime in and don't hold back.

Here follows one casual hobbyist's riveting account of watching paint dry and slicing chunks of flesh off his fingertips in the pursuit of that most elusive of boyhood dreams.  I hope you enjoy the ride.