Arkos The Faithless, Alpha Legion

I have an extensive Vraks army and have meant to model the warband of Arkos the Faithless for some time. The Alpha Legion uses operatives and cultists so fits the new Chaos Codex well. Purchasing Dark Vengence finally gave me the spur.

Here is the first model, good 'ole Arkos himself. The Alpha Legion uses basic metallic blue washed with green and trimmed with silver. I have added bright metallic green to give a splash of complimentary colour and given him a matching purple cloak.

The stats for Arkos are given in one of the Vraks books: see below. They are now obsolete but are easily modified. I assume that the S+2 from the dark sword are already included in the stats line as he has a Strength of 6, the same as a daemon prince. Eight would be ridiculous. The DV model has a plasma pistol instead of a combi melta but that's OK. No doubt Arkos had access to various weapons.

Next up an Alpha Legion Dark Apostle.

 Edit: Addition

New Arkos Rules
Arkos the Faithless, Scion of Alpharius (IA7: The Siege of Vraks – Part Three, p199)..............................................................................170 points
WS BS S T W I A Ld Sv
Arkos 6 5 4 5 3 5 4 10 3+ (5+)
Unit Composition
• 1 (Unique)
Unit Type
• Infantry (Character)
Wargear
• Power armour
• Combi-melta
• Dark blade
• Frag grenades
• Krak grenades
Special Rules
• Independent Character
• Daemonic
• Son of Alpharius
• Warlord
• Counter Attack
Warlord: If Arkos the Faithless is your army’s Warlord then he does not roll on the Warlord Traits table, but instead receives the following unique trait:
Devious Tactician: A player using Arkos the Faithless as his Warlord may re-roll the dice when determining which player will select a table half to deploy in and when attempting to Seize the Initiative.
Son of Alpharius: Any squad joined by Arkos gains the Counter-attack special rule. If Arkos leaves the squad or is removed as a casualty then he no longer provides them this benefit.
Dark blade: The Dark blade is a power sword that adds +2 to its wielder’s Strength score.
Arkos the Faithless is a HQ choice for a Codex: Chaos Space Marine army or Renegades and Heretics army.

Trench Foot

I bought some Amera trenches for my Siege of Vraks Army and have ony just got around to painting them. The set above was painted in various sprays from Tamira, Army Painter and Humbrol to give a churned ground appearance and then finished with Citadel matt varnish. The later is vicious so is useful for blurring in paint graduations. There is also a potential problem with thin plastic of paint flake so I am hoping that the varnish will stiffen it up a bit.

Another set of trenches with some ruined buildings. I coated these in B&Q stained wood varnish, recoated with Citadel matt to take off the shine. This gives a more muddy appearance. I added a few chipped stone decorations to represent broken up masonry.

On a piece not shown here I painted on a veneer of white glue. This worked well at rigidising the plastic. Add rigidising to refudiate and misunderestimate in the dictionary of dog-English. Dog-English is like dog-Latin only without the class.

We will have to see how durable these paint jobs are.

Amera are very good value for money and offer a reliable service. The advantage of polystyrene plastic over resin is cost and ease of storage (lightness). Disadvantage is that the paint can be subject to flaking off.

The trenches are nicely wide so suitable for 28mm models. The daisy gives an idea of scaleThere are additional pieces avalable such as 'T' pieces and bunkers.

Recommended.

Vraks - 3 The Showdown

I played three games with my friend Andy. He used a Dark Angel daughter chapter. The Purple Peril - well that's my name for them. I used the renegade codex in the Vrak 1 book for the first battle and lost. I won with a Vrak second book renegade army - but by a whisker. This codex is Khorne orientated. So for a final decider, I used the Nurgle-based army from the Vraks 3 book.

The above picture shows the set up. I positioned my tanks on the relatively open left flank supported by muties as cannon fodder. My commander, witch and elite plague marines are in the centre and I have light forces, infantry in a half track and scout sentinels on the right where the ground is cluttered by grave monuments.

I am attacking towards the tropical fish.

Objective: Annihalation.



Andy checks the rule book and is very firm that the Tardis cannot be given to the plague marines as wargear. The tanks cut down Andy's marines like wheat. The muties get all the way to the ruins before running away.


On the right flank my sentinels are massacred and the half track selects reverse gear.


On the left, Andys terminators take out one of the tanks in close combat. I rake them with fire but cannot make a kill. The muties regroup - no sssssssuger Sherlock. My plague marines stagger into hand to hand combat. The witch rolls a lucky SIX for his random power. He starts a plague in any enemy unit within twelve inches, i.e. most of Andy's army. He keeps on making his rolls avery turn and starting multiple plagues. On a small table with 1500 point armies this power is awesome. He kills two terminators and a dozen marines. This made the difference and the Space Marines were forced to withdraw.

The renegades spent the game hiding in their half track behind a tower. Nurle gifted them with giant boils - I will leave you to guess where.

Great game, I was lucky to win. Basically one die roll won the game. Commiserations to Andy who fought well. We had a great laugh, which is the point of the exercise in my view.

Mutant Ogryn Renegades Of Vrak

I put up some feral Ogryn conversions on this blog earlier:

http://johnstoysoldiers.blogspot.com/2010/01/feral-ogryn.html

Cyborg Trucker sent me an email about them:

"Your OB's look great and I like the Minimax guns. They fit right in.
I would have posted this in the comments but for some reason your blog won't let me cut and paste. Weird. Anyways I made these last year. Mine came out a little more chaotic and crazy. I tried to make them look like Construction Workers but the orange pants may make them look like
convicts instead."

The photo above is off Cyborg's site. These are great conversions. Cyborg has more pics here:
http://cyborgtrucker.blogspot.com/2009/10/two-ogryn-berserkers-ahahah.html

and here:

http://cyborgtrucker.blogspot.com/2009/10/first-custom-ogryn-berserker-finished.html

I urge you to look them up.

John

Vraks Campaign Strategic Turn 5

Deacon John surveyed the tactical scroll with unease. The Vraks forces were chopped into three, the citadel and two forts to the west. The southern fort was already cut off. The commander had begged to retreat towards the citadel before the trap closed but John refused and issued a fuhrer-order to stand, shooting the CO to emphasise the point. The northern fort commander wisely stayed put, despite having an escape path to the rear.







The expected attack on the northern inner perimeter line duly materialised. The renegades were dug in. Three superheavy Imperial tanks emerges from the smoke of the preliminary bombardment: a Baneblade, Stormlord and Gorgon.

The renegade infantry huddled down in their trenches to shelter from the withering firepower. The Baneblade smashed the defender's self propelled gun with its first shot. It ploughed through the dragon's teeth and barbed wire until it ground the renegades under its tracks. Khorne was delighted.

In the centre, the Gorgon ran into heavy lascannon fire that damaged its transmission, slowing it right down. The anti-tank guns switched fire to the Stormlord. They could not penetrate its thick frontal armour so focussed their fire on its tracks. Repeated hits brought it to a halt.

The Imperial infantry was forced to debus from the two superheavy transports the wrong side of the wire. Their corpses hung on the wire like raspberries on the bush. The Gorgon and Baneblade backed off the battlefield. The immobile Stormlord had to be destroyed by charges.

A Victory!




Unfortunately, the Imperials launched a second attack from the flank that penetrated quickly to the Renegade atillery line. Deacon John had every hope that the artillery could look after themselves. The firbase had a battery of heavy fixed cannon, a battery of heavy mortors and light mortors and a squad of lascannons.

Specialist Imperial Leman Russ siege tanks tore through the defences as the renegades were bombarded by Manticore missiles and long range heavy artillery. The result was a disaster (lower photo) and the inner defence line fell. One of the few Vendettas to survive the fall of the spaceport made a pass across the battlefield, brewing up an Executioner, but it was too little, too late.

Deacon John moved to fortify the Citadel perimeter wall. Soon he would be able to see the Imperials from the citadel window. He was desperate enough to summon potent allies, but would they be more dangerous than the enemy?

Imperials: 15vps
Renegades: 10VPs

Renegades hold the citadel

Vraks Campaign Strategic Turn 4 - The Second Defence Line

There was something wrong with my tanks today. Shaun opened by throwing a second wave at Hab Zone 3 in the south west. This extra pressure proved too much and the defence collapsed. The Imperials were through another line in the south.

Shaun moved a field army into pposition to threaten the second defensive line in the north, maintaining a two-fisted strategy to split the defence. I moved a field army north to cover the line, weakening my position in the south.

Victory Points
Shaun: 14
John: 9

John holds the Citadel

Vraks Campaign Strategic Turn 3 - Hab 3

Strategic Situation

Deacon John hunched in his bunker over a bottle of industrial alcohol as he received news of yet another disaster. The Imperials had pushed north brushing aside token resistance to occupy the whole Starport. He had shot the messenger, of course, and now had a small pile of bodies in the corner by his scalectrix set but somehow the news never got any better.

Now Imperial tanks had been spotted crossing the Wastes towards Hab 3, an abandoned workers dormitary zone by the second defensive line. John congratulated himself on his brilliant strategic insight. Had he not just moved an army into Hab 3 to stiffen the defenses. He issued swift instructions. Under no circumstances were his troops to launch lunatic assaults across open land. They were to take up blocking positions overlooking the Grand Promenade of the Sixty-Three Virgins and shoot up the Imperials when they crossed open ground.

A messenger appeared in the doorway to the bunker.

"Good news, oh exalted one," the messenger said.

"Don't tell me Lord Marshall Shaun has forgotton to send in his tax returns and is being rubber hosed by the Order Revenue," said Deacon John, hopefully.

"Even better than that," said the messenger, excitiedly. "Khorne Lord Mac The Knife miraculously survived his wounds and had vowed to lead the defence of Hab 3 himself."

Deacon John slipped off the safety catch on his bolt pistol.

The Battle

The Imperials used a super heavy transport backed up by a Leman Russ squadron, Chimeras and a Hellhound to drive a strike force across the open space of the Promenade. The renegades pinned their hopes on four heavy mortors, two heavy battle tanks and a lascannon armed Scout Sentinel Squadron to fend off the force. Mac The Knife turned up with a beastman and berserker warband.

The defence went well, both Imperial Leman Russ being neutralised in the initial attack. A lucky lascannon shot caused an explosion in the Stormlord's engine compartment, severely reducing its mobility.

A lucky shot killed a couple of berserkers. Mac The Knife went into a hissy fit and led the berserkers out of the defenses across the promenade to attack the Stormlord whereupon its vulcan megabolter ripped them to pieces. This time not even the beastmen could be pursuaded to follow the Khorne Lord.

Aftermath

"Good and bad news, Deacon. The good news is that the Imperials have been hurled back at Hab 3," said the latest messenger.

"What's the bad news?" asked Deacon John, fingering his bolt pistol.

"Mac The Knife is missing feared lost," replied the messenger.

Deacon John poured him a drink.

Mac The Knife

Band of Brass

Beastmen

Vraks Campaign Strategic Turn 2 - The Starport

Lord Marshall Shaun initiated one of the stunning blitzkrieg attacks for which he is famous (infamous?). Valkyries dropped airborne light infantry onto the landing fields in Starport South. Their mission was to hold until they could be reinforced by a mechanised column running in from the beachhead at the bridge over the Balan Trench.

The drop went well. The Valkyries achieved complete suprise and dusted down to debus the infantry. The VTOLS came under heavy small arms fire as they lifted off so were ordered to withdraw.

The Nurgle warband, the Corrosive Clan poured from the Starport buildings and raced towards the Imperials. The Imperial Mechanised column made better time than expected, particularly as it included a Baneblade. This was just as well as the light infantry were being slaughtered.

The battle was a blood bath, all the imperial infantry being massacred. A blight drone created terror behind the imperial lines. The Baneblade and surviving Leman Russ were forced to withdraw when night fell as they would be helpless against the plague marines.

The Corrosive Clan held Starport South despite suffering heavy losses.

The Imperials renewed the attack at dawn with the Baneblade, a squadron of leman Russ and an entire company of heavy infantry in a superheavy carrier. The warband were reinforced by a Plaguelord super heavy tank. The renegades were unable to withstand the massive imperial firepower and were forced to retreat.

Deacon Lambshead chose to reinforce the Citadel area rather than launch a counterattack.

Imperials: 8VPs
Renegades: 7VPs

Diary of Lord Marshal Shaun: A hard pounding gentlemen but we showed them who can pound the hardest

Diary of Deacon John: It could have been worse. We actually won a battle and stopped the rot.

The Corrosive Clan

Vraks Campaign Strategic Turn 1 - The Storm Breaks

1. Lord Shaun launched a suprise mechanised attack across the SRNA Flats to grab the bridges over the trenches southwest of the starport. Deacon John was horrified to discover that his infantry manned defensive trench structures could not withstand the flood of armour. The Imperials crashed through and captured the bridges, blocking the direct road between the starport and citadel.

2. Simultaneously, Grand Master Shaun of the Dark Angels struck across the Van Merresland Wastes towards the outer defense line.


To Deacon John's horror the renegade commander, a Khorne Marine called Mac The Knife, abandoned the fortifications and charged the Dark Angels taking the mobile units of the Vraks Militia with him. Grand Master Shaun set a cunning trap in the lee of a hill.



A sceaming and a hollering, Mac lead the chaos marines and their mutie allies straight into an ambush. The berserk renegades were cut down from fire on all sides until only Mac and some muties were left. The Angels charged, finishing them off. The Vraks Militia fled the field of battle, causing a general panic when the crashed through their own lines.


The Angels overran the outer defense line before Deacon John could stabalise the situation by shooting a few deserters.

Shaken by events Deacon John elected to move a mobile force into the ruins of Hab Zone 3 on the second defense line as a strategic reserve.

Imperials: 6Vps
Renegades: 7VPs

Diary of Lord Marshal Shaun: Eat lead, renegade scum.

Diary of Deacon John: I've got a bad feeling about this one. Oh no, what are those bloody Khorne loonies up to?

Siege of Vrak Campaign Turn 0

Strategic Turn Zero

The evil Deacon John of Newquay, an obscure ocean world to the far south west of the galaxy, has persuaded Cardinal Xaphan to rebel and take over the Armoury World of Vrak.

Lord Marshal Shaun of the ancient Fortress World of Rochester has been appointed by the high Lords of Terra to lead an expedition to return Vraks to the Emperor's Light.

The Imperials (I) fortify beachheads on the Plains of Saritama, the Van Meersland Wastes and the Srna Flats.

The Renegades (R) occupy the Vraks Citadel and move blocking forces into position at the Saritama Hills, Outer Defence Lines, Balan Trench Bridge and Starport South.

Imperials: 3 VPs
Rengades: 9VPs

Diary of Lord Marshal Shaun: Phew, landed OK but wonder what those bloody Dark Angels are up to?

Diary of Deacon John: So far so good. Now we'll let the Imperials impale themselves on my fortifications. Oh no, what are those bloody Khorne loonies up to?

Blood Slaughterer - Forge World

These are pics of my latest model, the Khorne Blood Slaughterer.

This is a very delicate model - I have already had to repin a leg after battle damage.

It is an extremely well designed kit but I get the feeling that it was intended as a display model rather than a gaming piece.



Red is a swine to layer. The carapace was achieved by a mixture of terracotta and bright red in various mixtures with layers of Citadel red wash. I used Tin Bitz/Shining Gold layers to create a tarnished look for the brass, especially around the bolts.



Forge World use grey colours for the mechanical bits (see below) but I decided to go for a less realword more shiny daemonic look. I kept the mechanics fairly simple. One could go to town on them but I think it would look messy.

Vraks Renegade Heavy Stubber Team

This is my most recent Vrak Renagade model. It is another piece that I used as a vehicle to try out layering.

Preperation:
The models and base are resin and superglued together (by Shaun). They were scrubbed in strong detergent solution with a toothbrush and Citadel black spray underboated. Citadel paints were mainly used.

Base:
The base was undercoated in Scorched Earth (burnt umbar). The dirt was drybrushed in Graveyard Earth (flat brown) and highlighted in a GE/Vomit Brown (rich yellow ochre) mix.

The rocks were layer painted by very dilute slowly built up in layers of GE/VB mix until final high lights in VB.

Figures
The men were white undercoated and given a strong wash of Howard Hughes British Battledress Khaki. They were then washed in Devlan Brown and layers of very dilute Khaki used to highlight.

The Respirator canisters are Catechan Green (olive) highlighted in Goblin Green (grass green)/CG mix dilute layers. The weapons are Tamiya German Grey highlighted in GC/White layers.


The layers consist of dilute paint. They are put on with very fine brushes such as Citadel's Fine Detail Brush. The layer mix is gradually lightened by mixing in more of the lighter colour.

Nurgle Blight Drone

I have finished my Nurgle Blight Drone to show to Ramon at Tunbridge Wells Games Workshop. He has been giving me a painting masterclass.

This is my first attempt at using paint layering instead of the good 'ole wargamers standbye of drybrushing and washing (don't mention the Huron disaster).

I added rust from MIG powders using thinner to stick it on.

I decided to keep the base bland with respect to colour to focus the eye on the model but neverthess convey an image of a battle-churned wasteland.

What do you think?

Nurgle Blight Drone

I recently had a birthday and my loving family presented me with a whole raft of new Forge World toys.

I have decided to work on the Nurgle Blight Drone first.

This is a lovely kit. Eveything fits together well and all major joints are socketed for strength. The only tricky bit are the hoses. To fit these glue one end first and then dribbled boiling water on the resin. The hose can then be easily bent into shape using a pair of tweezers and the other end glued.

I decided to mount it on a copper rod for rigidity. I used a carpenters power tool to drill out the socket taking utmost care. It is recommended to do this outside as resin dust is nasty stuff.

I used epoxy resin (Araldite fast) rather than superglue as I am super-glue allergic. Resin is slow and tricky but it does give very strong joints as it flows into gaps forming a solid structure. It is also less brittle than superglue.

I will be back in a month or so with the paint job. This is such a good model that it is worth taking a little extra trouble,

John

John