40k Battleforce Boxes, Prices and Discounts

 

Space Marine Interdiction Force

£120 or 46% discount

Necron Eradication Legion

£125 or 59% discount

Chaos Marine Decimation Warband

£12p or 38% discount

Tau Starpulse Cadre 

£125 or 50% discount 

Imperial Guard Bastion Platoon

£120 or 50%

Tyranid Brood Swarm

£125 or 52%

The discounts are pretty tasty at around half price, although how good that is depended on whether one actually wants the models.

The Space Marine box includes many newish models that people may not already have but the IG box models have whiskers on.

Oh well, you pays your money and you makes your choice.

Acknowledgements 

The photos are from the Games Workshop Site

The data is from the Auspex Tactics YouTube channel.

Review: Warcry Catacombs Khainite Shadowstalker Models

Khainite Shadowstalker Warband

Warcry is possibly my favourite game to have emerged from the GW stable in recent years and it goes from strength to strength with the release of the new Catacomb 'complete game in a box'.

Shadowstalkers are the first non-chaos unique warband for Warcry, given that Morathi's Khainite goon squads are on the side of Order - theoretically, at least.

Khainite Shadowstalkers are Morathi's Double Ohs. They wear the mircath cloak that gifts power over shadows but binds the wearer to the Queen's psychotic will.

Assembling the eight models was a bit of a pain because the bits were arranged like 3D puzzles and the parts involve very narrow brittle plastic weapons and connections. No matter how I tried, I ended up breaking pieces as I tried to fit the fiendishly designed components together while getting everything covered in glue.

And no, dry fitting first doesn't always help. You get two odd shaped bits to dry-fit after a titanic struggle involving odd twisting motions like masonic handshakes. Then you get them apart, add glue, repeat and they now wont go together...gibber.

I chose a fairly vanilla weapon load-out, following the box art: there are plenty of options on the sprues.

The finished models, though, are amazing...with the one proviso that I worry how they will stand up to travel and repeated handling.

Shroud Queen

I decided to use dark purple-blue shades that I think reflected the zeitgeist of the collection. Silver is the contrasting spot colour because I associate 'silvery' with the moon and moonshadows.

The enigmatic Shroud Queen is, of course, the warband leader.

Shroudblades

These are the warband's sword-fodder. The one on the left has cursed swords and on the right, an umbral spear.

I love the 'Spy versus Spy' look of the right hand model.

Darkflame & Shroudblade

The Darkflame hero has repeater crossbows - all very Dark Elf.

Slaughtershade

Another character armed with the whip of, er, something or other nasty.

Shroudblade & Darkflame

The Darkflame character is armed with a flaming hand...must be good....right?

 

Maggotkin of Nurgle Flying Corps

 

Lord of Afflictions & Pusgoyle Blightlord

As every phule kno, air support is vital to any army's success and the Maggotkin are no exception. Indeed, Nurgle forces are so slow that air cavalry is a highly useful asset. An eight inch move does not exactly make these fast movers but given that most Maggotkin move at five or even 4 inches....

I bought these model a couple of years ago but they were only finished as part of my lockdown clearup.

MeG/Hail Caesar 15mm Classical Anatolian Army

 Been furiously painting a new 15mm army of the sort that Mithridates used to send out to get slaughtered by the Romans.

The right wing are Greeks from the city states around the Black Sea, the centre Anatolians from the hills (Pontics, Armenians, Kappadocians etc) and Galatians (professional Gaulic mercenaries) and the left wing Iranian cavalry.

I must confess, I have bought in a lot of the cavalry - I hate painting 15mm.

A few more units of Anatolians to go and I will have a playable army.

Review: Warhammer Crime Stories or Farewell My Lovely

I have read a few of the Warhammer Crime stories recently and have some thoughts.

The first thing one notices is that all the stories are very similar in style and type of plot, irrespective of which author is credited. The central heroes are also basically the same character, although they may not have the same name......

And that character is Philip Marlowe

“down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor—by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.

“He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him.

“The story is this man’s adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.” 
― Raymond Chandler

The problem is that the Philip Marlowe stories have already been written, and written by a writer of superior talent to anyone employed by Games Workshop - and it is no insult to Black Library to point this out. Marlowe has been brought to life by some of the greatest stars in Hollywood...see above.

The cigarettes may have been turned into lithosticks and the Colt 45s into laspistols but, in reality, that’s just superficial skin on the pudding. The stories owe nothing to the world of The Imperium and everything to the Pacific coast of the USA in the 30s and 40s.

What we are left with is a pastiche; often quite a fun pastiche but The Big Sleep they ain’t.

Expect to see The Cadian Falcon when they move on to Hammet.

 

Tribute to Ciaphus Cain, Hero of the Imperium

 

Commissar Ciaphus Cain, Hero  is a character invented by Alex Stewart, writing as Sandy Mitchell for Black Library. He is accompanied by his aide, Gunner First Class Jurgen.

I made this model some years ago and it has languished in a box in the garage. However I have been using the lockdown to have a clear out and came across it. After a quick spruce to blow the dust off, it will soon be off to Alex as a momento of his wonderful stories.

I took as my inspiration the front cover of The Traitor's Hand, one of Alex's novels, that shows Cain riding in his personal Salamander armoured recce vehicle. However, I did not feel bound to follow the artwork slavishly as I can't see Cain advertising his presence with a banner.

The Salamander is based on a Rhino chassis so I kitbashed a Basilisk. Removing the cannon left me with an appropriate open-topped hull to which I added an heavy bolter.

I wanted the car to look lived in so added bedding and a potable water holder - water is often a limited resource on Imperial worlds

Note the ID plaque bearing Cain's name on the flank.

The Salamander offers an easy escape route over the back if Cain needs to leg it, sharpish. He has added an additional drum of promethium as a reserve. Running out of fuel in a hostile environment is one of those things that makes his hands itch.

The scout car is a bit dirty and knocked-about with the odd spot of rust on the exterior but you can be sure the weapons and mechanics are in full working order. Cain isn't to bothered about spit and polish but you never know when you may need to make a run for it.

As a recce scout, the Salamander is well equipped with augurs - very useful for detecting and avoiding dangerous enemies.

The Salamander also has the advanced comms array of a command vehicle, as befits the Regimental Commissar. These are useful for screaming for assistance when in difficulties.

Note Jurgen's 'uniform' - and I use the word cautiously. Cain's aide is equipped with a variety of ill-fitting battle dress from different campaigns, sporting a variety of camos.

Review Heresy Labs: Inquisitor Messalina

Inquisitor Messalina

There is, of course, no such thing as a Traitor Inquisitor. On the other hand there are Radical Inquisitors, some of which can be reclassified by their peers as Rogue Inquisitors or even Excommunicate Traitoris.

But, by their own lights, they are not traitors.

One such is the Radical Inquisitor, Messalina. An Ordo Malleus Horusian, she believes that Fabius Bile;s cloning technology holds the secret of merging warp power and biology to create a divine avatar for the resurrection of The Emperor.

So she and Fabius are nominally allied in their research into 'superhumans but obviously each intends to betray the other at some point. The question is who will be quicker of the draw.

Weapons

Messalina is equipped with a power stave and a high compression sprayer loaded with highly toxic and corroding chemicals laced with unstable lethal viruses (i.e. a flamethrower). She has been busy in Bile's laboratory.

This model is resin and obtainable at a very reasonable price from Heresy Lab.