Doghouse

I think if people are patient the box splitting prices should plummet. But having said that this is, albeit a large one, still a limited run. At the mo I've seen ork half at £120ish.

Are there details how to take part in the campaign?

Come join us oldies reveling in the sandbox of older editions Hungry Nostraman Lizard! I really am having fun with 4th edition again. GW can stop supporting our minis we already have but they can't tell us what to do with them. I'd be willing to bet the farm phasing out of models is going to become a more aggressive practice in the future. I've also seen a lot of the Emperor returns click bait videos and it reminds me of the misinterpretation of the animation where everyone and his mate were swearing blind Lorgar was returning. Every channel that has jumped on the trend that I have come across I have blocked and moved on, really weak attempt to cash in on an fraction of a second image in an advertisement that was made to sell more miniatures. Bringing back the Emperor would be an awful idea especially given how hard they have been driving home the thousands of psykers sacrificed to him of late. It's bad enough they brought loyalist Primarchs back. Although I'd pay good money to see a headless Manus wandering around with his arms out stretched comically bumping into stuff and banging his shins all the time!

Thanks mate Always glad to share my ideas when I can. It works quite well and can used for stuff like posters on terrain. I used to use it for Mordheim back in the day for notice boards and things. It is quite flexible and scales really well compared to the regular plastic seals. I've added a wax seal to the chest and smaller metal studs to some of the other bits.

One weird thing that stuck to me with that video is they referred to us as the customers a couple of times and the general public. It made it feel like a presentation they'd give to share holders. I can't remember them doing that before and jarred me into work mode.

Back to making stuff! So this is a neat little method I created for making purity seals look a bit more realistic but can also be used for oaths of moment for Heresy armies. What you need is some chocolate coins, the foil is a lot better than using something like tin foil for this as it is slightly thicker and easier to bend into a shape that will hold. Take something rounded like the handles from some scissors and press down on the coin, then push away from yourself and lift, place back where you started and push away again. Avoid rubbing back and forth, always pushing away as you press down. This smooths out the raised details of the coin foil and give you a nice flat featureless surface as you can see here on the left and you can then cut into thin strips and add to your minis. I'll be adding a small wax seal of GS to the top of mine but you can really just leave it as is. You can then bend it a little with some tweezers to fit the model a little better like I have here with the Captain. I guess you could probably seal it with some vanish which may make the paint stick to it better but i normal just paint over and varnish after. I just used a spot of superglue on one end of the strip to attach to the armour.

Probably box splitters will be selling any codes online I imagine if that is how they do it.

I saw UK is being said to be £185 and US 295.

By late afternoon nobody in the station required confirmation that the battle was being lost. Lieutenant Rass continued requesting reinforcements because duty demanded it of him yet even the most optimistic amongst the defenders had long since stopped believing help would arrive in time. The reports coming back from headquarters grew shorter with each passing hour and the assurances they contained became increasingly vague whilst the reality unfolding beyond the shattered walls of the transit station grew harder to ignore. Districts that had been considered secure that morning had vanished from the tactical displays before midday and every position abandoned during the retreat had merely led to another where the same process repeated itself. What had begun as a defence had gradually become a withdrawal and what had begun as a withdrawal was rapidly becoming a rout. The station occupied a junction of roads leading towards the spaceport and for that reason alone retained some strategic value although Halen suspected the enemy cared very little about such considerations. The Eldar seemed to move according to principles entirely their own. Reports throughout the day placed them in locations that should have been impossible to reach. Units sent to reinforce one sector discovered the enemy operating several kilometres behind them whilst strongpoints that had spent hours preparing for attack found themselves bypassed altogether. Whenever the defenders believed they understood what the xenos intended reality proved otherwise. What Halen remembered most clearly were the glimpses, a white helm appearing briefly above a collapsed wall before disappearing once more into the smoke. Elegant figures clad in orange armour darting between ruins with a speed that rendered human reactions almost meaningless and the faint hiss of alien weapons followed moments later by screams and collapsing barricades as storms of monomolecular discs carved through armour, flesh and ferrocrete with equal ease. The Eldar rarely exposed themselves for more than a few seconds at a time yet those few seconds were often sufficient to destroy positions that had taken hours to establish. Behind them drifted the foul xenos grav tanks and even years later Halen struggled to describe them properly. Conventional vehicles possessed weight. They announced themselves through noise, vibration and the destruction of whatever stood in their path whereas the sleek xenos machines seemed to glide through the battlefield as though unconcerned by terrain or obstacles, appearing briefly between ruined buildings before vanishing once more into smoke and shadow. Whenever one revealed itself another section of the defence line disappeared beneath a burst of devastating fire. By the time Lieutenant Rass died nobody was particularly surprised, the officer had spent most of the day moving from position to position attempting to hold together a defence that was visibly unravelling around him and when he finally rose above cover to issue another order he was struck before he managed to finish speaking. Sergeant Kel assumed command almost immediately not because he desired the responsibility but because there was nobody else available to take it and the line contracted yet again as defenders abandoned exposed positions and fell back deeper into the station whilst ammunition was redistributed amongst those still capable of fighting. Looking back Halen remembered being struck by the growing sense of inevitability. The station was not about to fall in some dramatic final assault and there would be no glorious last stand or decisive moment. Instead the defenders were being slowly stripped of options, each retreat leaving them with fewer places to go and fewer men available to hold them until eventually there would be nothing left to surrender except their lives. At first the change manifested only as a subtle shift in the rhythm of the battle. Fire that had been directed towards the station suddenly moved elsewhere. Eldar units altered their positions, one of the grav tanks emerged from concealment and rotated smoothly towards a point further down the avenue. Halen became aware that the vox operator had stopped transmitting only because the sudden silence felt strange after hours of repeated requests for assistance and when he glanced across the concourse he found the man staring fixedly through a gap in the ruined wall. Others were doing the same. Even some of the enemy appeared distracted. What emerged from the haze resolved itself gradually, first as shapes moving through drifting smoke and then as six immense figures clad in crimson armour whose scale seemed strangely difficult to reconcile with the battlefield around them. They advanced in a loose formation down the centre of the avenue, neither hurried nor cautious, moving with a certainty that made the surrounding chaos appear almost insignificant. Shells detonated nearby whilst shuriken fire crossed the street and smoke rolled around them in thick clouds, yet nothing altered their pace. Halen had spent his entire life hearing stories about His Angels. Priests spoke of them from pulpits whilst veterans recounted sightings separated by decades. Their likeness appeared upon monuments, banners and devotional texts throughout the world. Yet all those stories shared a common flaw in that they described what the Angels did rather than what they were and standing there amidst the ruins of the station Halen realised those were very different things. Guardian squads that had spent the afternoon dismantling the defence with near contemptuous ease abruptly redirected their attention. Signals flashed between distant positions as grav tanks shifted targets and the entire character of the battle seemed to change within moments as though every xenos commander present had simultaneously recognised the arrival of a threat more significant than the humans they had been hunting. Shuriken fire swept across the avenue in dense storms. Hundreds of razor edged projectiles hammered into the lead Angel, surrounding him in clouds of sparks and shattered ceramite that would have reduced any ordinary soldier to fragments, yet when the barrage subsided the giant remained exactly where he had been before and continued his advance with the same measured pace and the same complete absence of hesitation. Bolters answered a moment later, their thunderous reports rolling across the battlefield as Eldar positions vanished beneath explosive shells. Then Halen noticed that one of the Angels carried a weapon unlike the others. Whilst his brethren advanced with bolters and close-combat weapons, this warrior bore an immense lascannon across one shoulder, the weapon appearing absurdly large even in the hands of a giant. He carried it with the same casual ease another man might carry a rifle, supporting the barrel with one hand as he walked through the storm of incoming fire. The Angel slowed slightly, not enough to break formation but enough to bring the weapon into line with one of the grav tanks drifting between the ruins. There was no shouted warning and no elaborate preparation, the warrior simply steadied his weapon on his shoulder and fired. For an instant a spear of white light crossed the battlefield. The beam struck the Wave Serpent head on. The effect was so clean that Halen almost missed it. The grav tank continued forward exactly as before, gliding above the roadway with no visible sign of damage. Then a section of its hull detached and spiralled away like shattered bone rather than Terra metal. A second followed, fire erupted from beneath the vehicle and spread rapidly along its length blackening it's hull as whatever kept the machine suspended above the ground failed catastrophically. The Wave Serpent dipped sharply. A moment later it slammed into the side of a ruined building and vanished behind a blossom of fire and collapsing masonry. The Angel never watched the impact. By the time the wreckage struck the ground he had already shifted the lascannon towards another target and resumed his advance alongside the rest of the squad, as though the destruction of a vehicle that had terrorised the defenders for hours required no more attention than stepping over a piece of rubble. For the first time that day Halen felt something resembling hope. The sight of the armoured giants advancing through the smoke struck the defenders almost physically. Men who moments earlier had been preparing themselves for death rose from cover to watch. The vox operator muttered a prayer, somebody laughed, Halen realised his hands were shaking and only then understood how tightly he had been gripping his rifle. His Angels had come. Every story he had ever heard seemed suddenly vindicated. The giants now moved exactly as they should have moved. Shellfire burst around them as shuriken storms swept across the avenue. Nothing altered their advance, against the despair that had settled over the station throughout the day their arrival felt almost miraculous. The destruction of the grav tank appeared to trigger something amongst the Eldar. A Guardian squad emerged from the ruins of a collapsed administratum building and moved to intercept the advancing Angels as they spread into a firing line with a speed and discipline that would have impressed any human officer. What followed lasted only moments. Shuriken fire swept into the advancing squad and for the briefest instant Halen thought he was witnessing the beginning of a genuine engagement. The Eldar moved with extraordinary grace, firing on the move whilst slipping between pieces of cover and constantly adjusting their positions. Against ordinary soldiers the attack would have been devastating, the Angels continued forward. One raised his bolter and fired a short burst. Two Guardians disappeared in sprays of blood and shattered armour. Another Angel answered a heartbeat later and a third Eldar fell before he had completed his movement between cover. The precision was almost unsettling. There was no wasted fire, no hesitation. Every shot appeared to arrive exactly where it was intended. The surviving Guardians reacted immediately. Halen watched them spread apart and seek fresh angles of attack with a speed no human formation could have matched. For a moment it seemed possible they might escape, the captain reached them first. He neither charged nor shouted he simply continued advancing until one of the Eldar occupied the same piece of ground he intended to cross. The power fist struck once and the Guardian ceased to exist. Another attempted to evade him and was seized before he could clear the captain's reach. The giant hurled him through the remains of a wall without ever breaking stride. By then the rest of the squad had already finished the engagement, bolter fire tore through the remaining Eldar with ruthless efficiency. One disappeared beneath a mass reactive detonation as another fell whilst attempting to withdraw. The last survivor managed only a few steps before a burst struck her squarely in the chest and hurled her from sight. The entire encounter had lasted less time than it took Halen to properly understand what he was watching. The cheering had stopped and Halen became aware that nobody around him was speaking. What unsettled him was not the violence itself but the complete absence of emotion behind it. There was no anger, no excitement or triumph. The Angels did not destroy the Guardians because they hated them, they destroyed them because they were there. By the time the last Eldar fell the squad was already moving forward again. None of the Angels looked back, none paused to confirm the kill. They simply stepped over the dead and continued their advance through the smoke as though the destruction of an entire enemy squad required no more thought than crossing a road. For the first time that day Halen found himself wondering whether the stories had fundamentally misunderstood His Angels. The priests spoke of courage and sacrifice while veterans spoke of glory. Watching the six crimson armoured giants advance through the ruins Halen could think only of efficiency. Every movement served a purpose, every action achieved a result. The destruction of the Guardian squad carried no more emotion than the clearing of rubble from a road. There could be no doubt that the Angels were saving them, yet watching the six giants stride directly into a battle that would have annihilated ordinary men and watching the Eldar react to their arrival with the first genuine urgency he had witnessed all day forced him to recognise how small his own place in the conflict truly was. The enemy feared the Angels but they barely seemed to acknowledge the enemy and everyone else existed somewhere beneath their notice. When the fighting finally began to recede and the surviving Eldar withdrew from the district they did not pause to receive thanks or acknowledge the soldiers whose lives they had just preserved. They simply continued down the avenue towards fresh fighting and disappeared gradually into smoke and darkness whilst the battered defenders watched them go. Years later much of the campaign would fade from memory, names vanishing, dates blurring and entire battles dissolving into fragments, yet the image of those six figures advancing through the ruins never left him. It was only then that Halen finally understood why people spoke of the Astartes with such reverence. It was not because they were noble nor because they were comforting but because they inspired the same feeling as a storm at sea or a mountain rising above the horizon. Something vast, powerful and utterly beyond ordinary human understanding. The knowledge that such beings stood between mankind and its enemies was reassuring although only because the alternative was so much worse.

Then the rules for the Maniple. Like I say this is a just for fun unit and I'd need an opponent's permission to use but I will still make the robots to go with the Astartes because it's just too cool to not include. At the end of the day always remember, they're our models to do what we want with them.

A quick update, not had much time today but working on scratching up the Astartes I have made. I did want to do some painting on the Landraiders but didn't have time. I did get the battlefield trophies and was disappointed by the contents. Lots of the pieces have flat empty sides for laying on the bases which was frustrating, especially the servo skulls. My aim is two tactical squads and the Captain as HQ to make a legal force, albeit a very small one. I'm trying to make the scratches look like deflected shuriken shots as the two armies will be set against each other in conflict. I'm waiting on a new pin vice so I can drill the barrels and add spikes fixing the skulls to the packs. I did find that the Mk II power packs look really good on Mk 6 armour and that the MK II arms also give the arms a bit more bulk. I prefer Phobos pattern bolters because of the second edition feel of them and it also means i can paint the housing a different colour. Also sorted out the rules for the Castellax Techmarine upgrade. I was going to built the two I had but looked at the kits and was like nah I'm good brah.

Awesome stuff, the Deathwatch guys look amazing.

I'm pretty sure that Eldar scene is based on this second edition codex image.

"So much has been forgotten, never to be relearned..." Except all the shiny new stuff they pull out of the ether on a regular basis. I thought it was ok but the voice over was extremely try hard and very distracting. It does it's job for setting the stage for new players so there's that at least.

Then for the Heavy option I have the following: I think an approach like this is much more fun than slavishly adhering to constantly changing rules and editions and allows me to make use of the models I have in my collection. This is much more a rule of cool than I want to include super hard units in my army and adds tons of character. I'm pretty sure I have gotten the points about right and not made them overpowered.