Rogue

Rather than shaving the whole symbol off, if you can trim away the spikes, the rings will look broadly similar to the Cult icons carried by lots of neophytes and acolytes. If you want to be even fancier, trim in a notch, and mould a tiny head for them too. The arms on the Voice loom good to me - given how much weight there is on one side of model, ha ing an extra arm on the other side is a bit of a balance.

I'm on a bit of a roll at the moment - I've just finished a pair of demolisher turrets for my existing pair of Leman Russes. They're magnetised, so I can swap in the punisher gatling cannon or the big plasma cannon if I want to - but the demolisher is the retro-classic, so that's what they're sporting here.

If you want to make use of an Imperial faction, what about AdMech ruststalkers? They have multiple blade arms, and flowing fabric elements, so they visually align with the sanctus.

Feels like Skaven assassins would be a good starting point, potentially. And maybe the Kelermorph, although that might get confusing if you have an actual kelermorph in play at the same time.

Here's the rest of the heavy weapon teams - two sets of lascannons this time.

And here are those lascannon teams...

No worries. And yes, the bigger picture is likely to be more nuanced - my conclusion there is specific only to that single interaction between the two modifiers.

The key factor here isn't the +1 or -1 itself, it's the relative effect they have. Modifiers matter more when they affect difficult rolls. For illustrative purposes, imagine BS5+ shooting at a 4+ save. Ignoring the wound roll (because we can treat it as a constant), the base chance of landing a damaging hit is ⅓ × ½, or ⅙. - a cover save makes that ⅓ × ⅓, or 1/9. - a -1 to hit makes it ⅙ × ½, or 1/12. So a BS5+ shooter prefers to deal with cover save. Now imagine BS3+ shooting at a 4+ save - the base chance to land a damaging hit is ⅔ × ½, or ⅓. - a cover save makes that ⅔ × ⅓, or 2/9. - a -1 to hit makes it ½ × ½, or ¼. So a BS3+ shooter prefers to deal with -1 to hit. Again, modifiers matter more when they affect difficult rolls. For the BS5+ shooter, hitting is more difficult than beating the save, so the hit modifier hurts them more. For the BS3+ shooter, beating the save is more difficult, so the cover save hurts them more. So in isolation, this change broadly benefits better shooters (like marines), and low AP weaponry into good armour. And it hurts worse shooters (like orks), and high AP weapons (where the cover save often doesn't matter anyway).

This feels very similar to the custom Cults (or whatever it was called elsewhere) in 9th (probably) - where you could opt out of the existing sets of faction bonuses and build your own from a list. You could go wide with four cheap options, or lean into a couple of stronger ones. I really liked it - it was the point in the last three editions when my army felt most like 'my guys'. So I'm hopeful that this might be similar.

Yeah - the GSC arms are perfect, especially the neiphyte and Jackal ones. Some of the genestealery limbs look a little long, but that kinda works anyway.

Thanks. They're the original plastic infantry from the Rogue Trader era, but with a few arms and heads replaced with GCS bits. And the mortars are newer too. Nothing against the new models, but as I already have 30-odd brood brothers from the era, I'd rather stay consistent than mix and match different types.

Thanks. The base models are the original Imperial Guard plastic infantry, and date from the Rogue Trader era. I've peppered in some GSC arms and heads, and the mortars are more modern too.

It's been a while, but I'm finally reinforcing my brood brothers with some heavy weapons. I've just finished the mortar and heavy bolter teams, with a couple of lascannon teams up next.

It's been a while, but I'm finally reinforcing my brood brothers with some heavy weapon teams. Mortars and heavy bolters first, and two lascannon teams next up.

I'm realising (a bit late) that I've done the thing where I suggest lots of units you don't have, which isn't really helpful. Sorry about that. With what you do have, the only change I'd make is swapping in the Primus for one of the other characters (probably one of the abominants). The Primus can't lead the combat units, so I'd stick him in with the neophytes to bolster their shooting. More importantly, his ability to redeploy three units is particularly powerful in small games - he'll let you reposition both units of aberrants and stealers after seeing your opponent's whole deployment, allowing you to switch flanks, target specific units, or get out of a tricky situation. Couple that with Scout on the ridgerunners, and virtually your whole force can move between deployment and the first turn.