Slaanbull

Been looking forward to that article. It could be fun to finally run that Carnival of Excess list with Noise Marines with attached lord kako. Now sprinkle in some Elegant Brutes terminators with the frenzied ferocity enhancement to have a whole bunch of quality 5+ sustained attacks.

Awesome! Having more painted than unpainted is a celebration worthy of a new acquisition. I realized reading your post that I might have a personal dogma for always fitting the "butt" onto the base and overhanging in front. But 100% you should base for stability with such a large model. The basing, even if relatively thin, will also weigh it down enough for it to be a really hefty model in the end.

My personal results are in, and the defiler did exactly what I wanted it to do. I have not played many games of 10th so take it all with a grain of salt! Five games in a weekend tournament, and only once did it feel like my defilers were the hunted and not the hunters. This was in a game against Chaos Knights where their melee rampager and wardogs posed quite the threat although it was missiles and gatlings that ended up being the biggest threats to my engines. Played two defilers for the 2k games with lascannons and excruciators which I still believe to be the most effective EC build. The shooting spread combined with fall back (towards new targets) and advance is so tasty. On my team we had a CSM list with two defilers, who together with our guard player had much higher demands for terrain setup than me. While my EC versions were much less concerned with bottlenecking my army and could clear many more units and ruins. While I dislike the enormous bases they worked wonders as move blockers in an army that relies in quite small footprints and costly infantry units. In the previously mentioned CK game, the large baseplate allowed me to position to shut off some enemy vehicle charges as well. In coterie of the conceited I almost exclusively used my CP for Armour of Abhorrence and gambly overwatches which kept the opponent on their toes as I could save it for wounded vehicles who might otherwise pose a threat. We do also have the FNP and target selection strat in this detachment which works too well (imo) with what we gain from the defiler. It worked especially flawlessly in matchups against a DA and a BA player. I think most of our statblocks are quite good at dealing with marines and elites, but -1 damage, -1 to hit and wound, as well as fights first models is really punishing against our mid-to-high quality output. Having precision on the defiler claws allowed me to pick out the Fights First and other buffers from a unit, the defiler if surviving could then fall back next turn and let infantry clean up for actions etc. They were so much fun to play, and as I cannot convince myself to field more than one daemon prince in a list they did a lot of the heavy lifting usually performed by them in between tank shock, long range shooting, blocking, and the general distraction of reliably advancing 16-18” with a 160mm monster, shooting, and then charging was really oppressive for many opponents. With the mobility and large wound-block I also only needed to advance them early game, so as to not prevent my thrill seekers target selection mid-game when I needed to surge up noise marines and gang up on heavier hitters.

Holy cow(head mutation) that is a fantastic model you’ve made! Gels perfectly with the theme. I imagine it will just barely fit on a 160mm. I have made a grave mistake and accepted a team tournament in Malmö, Sweden next month, even though I don’t have the time or energy to participate..! It’s a great bunch of people to play with so it’ll be great nonetheless. And I will try to bring two defilers to report back on their prowess; one made from the new kit with minimal converting (to make the deadline) and an older counts as kharybdis I built years ago and which is already on a 160mm and plenty of guns. Tips for written batreps and notetaking during games very welcome in my DMs, I’ll do my best to make the Dark Prince satisfied for the weekend. Seeing all the options on the leaked(?) instruction pages is great, looks like it will be both easy to magnetize and use extra bits for kitbashing. Still getting used to our new 18” sonic weapons, but I find that the magma cutters on this defiler and maulerfiends lend themselves well to sonic weapons conversions to mimic the short range and rough shooting. The torso cannon is by itself also a fun placement for a huge sonic gullet or gun. Only because I have nowhere else to put this, are we expecting to get more unit options in the new edition? Codex reuse suggests no, not until updated codex. But maybe the floodgates are open with the shooty defiler. As far as I can see there’s no studio painted iron warriors helbrute even though it’s perfect alongside mutilators… A new one could contain a similar amount of differenciated legion bits. I’d argue the helbrute is rather new, but they did just update the raptors which aren’t much older.

This is all very interesting. I am monstrously allergic to 160mm bases, but at least it has a movement ability in-built, rather than requiring a specific detachment to vault through ruins! The electroscourge is an extremely tasty profile on such a monster, but I think that the first defiler I will bring in most instances should have twin shooting option to help secure the early Coterie pledges. This piece with its long range and being the ultimate distraction type piece (although not terribly hardy, be extra careful with positioning!) helps us pounce a bit earlier in the game rather than setting up for a late all-in turn. It’s size also forces an earlier confrontation just by sheer footprint, which can be a bit of a double-edged sword I feel. I will have to build something with a big scourge though, the scourge is so so tasty and rule of cool will trump the shooting profile so I’m already turning my back on previous thoughts. In regards to the design; I love all the fleshy parts and in general want more of that mix between flesh and metal, this model is also more of a monster and less of a dinosaur than our other machines which is welcome (although not surprising since we had an existing design to build on). One gripe though is that I want more engine than daemon on our daemon engines. I like the idea of a daemons tortured and trapped inside of a shell, rather than a big daemon with armour with no seals or chains or similar! I’ve been holding on to a plaguecrawler ever since we had the first expectations of a defiler redesign years ago, as I have been wanting to make something inspired by the Liber Chaotica (Khorne volume) defilers:

You have a point, there’s definitely a nice focal triangle between the face and the two exposed feet. It’s more that so many of the possessed models have these big paws almost. They look like a team of khorne dogs I’ve replaced a few with armoured boots though, so it will not be too prominent. He tried to get a very close look at some suffering when the victim plunged a few digits into the gap between the cable and the access port! It got infected since then and never really healed properly. Thank you both for the motivation! I appreciate it.

One more Noise Marine for the thread! This time a regular sonic blaster. This guy is one of the less involved conversions of the unit. Flawless blade backpack, noise marine head and arms, possessed body and legs (I hate the big paws these possessed guys have..!).

Also not a fan of the big belt, it’s also too bad that he looks like an ork! With the belt and cape the figure could be repurposed as Abaddon in power armour. I’m probably part of the choir that wishes he’d be a bit more akin to his older artworks, a slimmer revenant silhouette? This guy almost lost his life and was saved partly by the mechanical cybernetics and partly by demonic forces, with a dash of pure hatred and conviction. It should look like he’s held together by the metal bits, not like he’s a robot with latex skin. Why is the atomizer part of the Tyrants Claw placed before the nozzle? Does that make sense? I get having a visual language to convey “torrent/flamer weapon”, but that bothers me a bit and is like placing a casing ejector behind where the shells are fed into a chamber. I like that he is large and dominating, as Huron Blackheart should be! And that the Hamadrya is a part of the model now. One thing I like about the model ‘remakes’ is also when they keep the trophies and doodads, cool backpack!

Cheers kabaakaba, crazy is good. The flames are a white base. Then Lamenters Yellow (the old glaze? When I run out I’ll use thinned down Dorn Yellow Contrast I think) over most parts making sure it doesn’t pool like a shade. Then glazing with Cassandora Yellow towards the top. Glazing with Blood Angels Red towards top leaving more of the orange and yellow. Finally two times drybrushing; heavy with a dark brown (think I used Rhinox Hide) and slightly less heavy with a black colour. Quite simple steps. When I say that I struggled with it, it was because I was impatient and didn’t make an even coating of white after painting over a green base… Made the flames look quite messy, especially at the glazing stage. The last drybrushing hid most of that though!

It’s always fun with tradebacks, especially in a game with objective actions etc. Some of the old fearless effects also removed the option of a voluntary fallback, so there’s plenty of precedence. How about passing battle-shock but not allowing fall back and charge per our Thrill Seekers, maybe even disallowing fallbacks from all units in engagement range of the dreadnought to force a different kind of stuck-in melee around the sonic dreadnought. Providing it shoots its sonic weapons that is. edit: Your last part about allowing battle-shocked units to perform a pile in and attack is also an interesting mechanic. A slight bonus but still under affect by no stratagems, OC penalty etc.

One more Noise Marine joins my ranks! Two models down in one month Exultant! I have a third one almost done, but I might not finish him before an upcoming holiday so he might be for a december update. Initially I wanted to paint the flames and energy coalescing at the end of the blaster in green tones (like the doom siren guy in the previous post), but I couldn't make it work. I struggled a lot with these flames as well, and I'm not really please with it now either. But done is done, I need to paint a full army so I can't drone on these details for a small guy. Hope you like him! Played a small game last Wednesday, and only then realized that noise marines are 2W each and not 3W! What the heck I feel like the new models are way too beefy to be 2W like our infractors and tormentors... Toughness 5 only goes so far in keeping them alive. For full disclosure I did play against Dark Eldar with all their anti-infantry weapons, so maybe that counted towards that feeling of them dying as easily as regular marines.

Lovely overview as always, made me pick up some of my old books and reread these sections. Thanks! And I find myself agreeing with your musings again, I've tried making some homebrew rules for EC helbrutes when the new book came out, and found myself stumped when trying to figure out the movement stat alone, because as you've mentioned, the different datasheets are so very different. It is a strength with the current system where a World Eater XYZ stat-line does not necessarily match a CSM XYZ. But it also seems completely nonsensical at times and really underlines the issues with staggered codices in an age of online rules. I think the most important part of making a working sonic helbrute datasheet is making a fun special rule. Looking at the other helbrutes we have: Chaos Space Marines Dark Ascension (Aura): While a friendly HERETIC ASTARTES unit is within 6" of this model, each time that unit makes a Dark Pact, until the end of the phase, weapons equipped by models in that unit gain both abilities conferred by that pact (instead of only one). Death Guard Diseased Malice: Each time this model makes an attack that targets an Afflicted unit, add 1 to the Wound roll. Thousand Sons Terrifying Assault: In your Shooting phase and the Fight phase, after this model has shot or fought, select one enemy unit hit by one or more of those attacks. That unit must take a Battle-shock test, subtracting 1 from that test if it is within 9" of one or more THOUSAND SONS PSYKER units from your army. World Eaters Frenzy: In your opponent’s Shooting phase, and in the Fight phase, each time an enemy unit targets this model, after that unit has finished making its attacks, this model can either shoot or fight, but when resolving those attacks it can only target that enemy unit (and only if it is an eligible target). I am quite partial to just copying WE Frenzy, since it brings back fond memories of my crazy dreadnoughts/helbrutes... But for the rest they've done a good job differentiating them a lot, and working quite well (IMO) with other rules and units in the army. With your historical walkthroughs of rules I realised that something had bothered me a bit. A lot of Slaanesh rules be it WHFB or WH40k have related to Immune to Psychology stuff, and currently my noise marines, tormentors, characters etc fail battleshock just as easily as everyone else. So how about combining the historical Doom Sirens, Dirge Caster effects and whatnot with the current Doom Siren rule, but make it an effect measured from the helbrute? Tremendous Kakophoni: In your shooting phase, after this model has shot, select up to 3 enemy INFANTRY units within 6" and roll 3 D6 per unit: For each 4+, that enemy unit suffers 1 mortal wound. In addition, until your next Shooting phase, friendly INFANTRY units withing 6" automatically pass Battle-shock tests. Something like this plays slightly into our current playstyle requiring us to pressure the enemy a lot, while also conferring an effect that requires us to give up some board control if we want the benefit of castling around a Leadership lynchpin? To keep it up we also have to shoot what I imagine would be a short range sonic weapon (18") for where there might not always be a viable target, and is not particularly anti-any of the unit types we currently struggle with. An anti-vehicle rule would make it too much of a no-brainer for example. :-) It could be modified to adding +1 to friendly Battle-shock tests, rerolls, etc. But you get the idea. And while I am all for not-noise specific units, although I do like it as an overall theme; if there is one unit that should reflect the sonic warfare cult in addition to noise marines, it really should be our dreadnought. Sorry helbrute.

Glad you liked the noise marine, I finally finished him! It's been such a drag getting back into painting miniatures and I've really been struggling with brush control. As a Slaanesh collector first and foremost, the self-flagellation I get from these macro-lens images is quite important, an eternal reminder to vacuum my painting area which is definitely not a dust-free zone! Here's a close-up of the back-pack as well. This is the first figure I've finished since coming back to Warhammer, and the first of the new EC release this spring. I wanted a Blastmaster that was much different than the others, but will mix with over the shoulder and regular carry blastmasters through the units of noise marines. In general a thing I've lamented with the new sculpts is that they look very factory built and similar, all having purchased their sonic weapons and armours at the same home depot shelf. I'll try to change that as much as possible, using a lot of Heretic Astartes models from other armies as well. I'll post more of my older stuff as well which contains a lot of EC made from Death Guard models, World Eaters, and regular CSM. A thing I really like about the new sculpts though is the limited trim, something I had already started shaving off of my CSM legionaires (also to make loyalist power armour parts blend in better). You'll see that on this guys legs, where I've shaved off the lower trim on thighs and right shin, and upper trim on the left shin. Something that has been bothering me for a long while is how to paint the rubber covers for the ribbed cables, I love painting leather and for this guy it clicked that maybe I should just make them dark tanned leather covers for the tubes? I think this works quite well with my dirty and corroded guys, and maybe more so than the pale green/yellow I've been painting before. You can see that on the previous unit champion model. Please let me know if one is much better than the other. As a thank you for reading along I'll post this other unit champion I painted some years back: the Witch-Eater, cursed with eternal wyrdflames by a psyker he once consumed. This guy has mostly been used as a Noise Marine champion with Doom Siren and Chainsword/Lightning claw. When you could run MSU close combat noise marines. He's regrowing the arm that was completely consumed by the flames.

Wow! I've not been checking in for a while but you've finished so much over the last months, crazy good effort! The camo cloak is such a fun idea. I've had some success with dry-brushing a neutral off-white over camo patterned cloth in the past, rather than shading it. That might work for you as as well if you decide to revisit that part of the models. The ten infractors with blue details a few posts back are great, a really striking unit when posing together.

Fantastic walkthrough of the different mentions LSM. Always fun to read the examples collated to one post for easy reference. The work compiling this is much appreciated. I completely agree with the sentiment of a more elite type terminator unit to go along with our borrowed 5-man terminator units (along with a character or two to join either unit). There's a lot to work with in regards to sonic weapons, drugs, exotic weapons, EC legion individualism to make an interesting unit rules wise. If they made it a 5-man unit I would not complain even if it replaced the chaos terminators altogether. It would even supply us with some bits to convert the 5-man termies with, and a "reference"-bit or two to suggest an individual who might or might not be a former phoenix guard, be it a spear, halberd, avian looking helmet, etc. A thing I like about the EC release is that it shows a legion much changed from their past structure and as such I do not miss phoenix terminators (I do miss an EC specific terminator unit!).