Tallarn Desert Raiders: Mortar Heavy Weapons Squad #2

About five years ago I painted my first Tallarn Heavy Weapons Squad, which was armed with mortars. At that time they were no good choice in regard of the rules, but I liked the models nevertheless. Right now in the 8th edition of 40k they became nearly mandatory because they are so cheap and can hit quite hard (3D6 shots at strength 4 within 48" without line of sight for only 33 points!).

Here is a picture of the two squads combined... "Death from above!"

Tallarn Desert Raiders: Armoured Sentinels with Plasma Cannons

In preparation for our small tournament on Saturday, I finished my two missing Armoured Sentinels with Plasma Cannons. Together with one Sentinel, which I had painted a while ago, there are now three of them. Oh boy, I really want to see them in action!

Tallarn Desert Raiders: Artemia Hellhound

Next Saturday my gaming friends and I will hold a small tournament at the end of this year. Therefore we agreed on a special ruleset for small patrol forces with 750 points. Here is my Tallarn Astra Militarum list:

HQ
Company Commander + Plasma Pistol   35
 
Standard
Infantry Squad 40
Infantry Squad 40
 
Fast
2x Hellhound + Heavy Bolter 202
3x Armoured Sentinel + Plasma Cannon 165
 
Heavy Support
Heavy Weapon Squad (Mortar)    33
Heavy Weapon Squad (Mortar)    33
 
Dedicated Transport
Gryphonne Pattern Chimera + Twin HB + HB  + Heavy Stubber 101
Gryphonne Pattern Chimera + Twin HB + HB  + Heavy Stubber 101
 
Overall 750 Points

One of the units I had to paint for this event is this Artemia Hellhound. Hope you like it. Next up are two Armoured Sentinels.

Talons of the Emperah: Roboute Guilliman aka Emperor Conversion

I am not the first and will not be the last, who transforms the miniature of Roboute Guilliman to the Emperor of Mankind. I used several artworks of the emperor and other conversions (like this one here) as a source of inspiration. My version still needs some final touches, but the main work is done.

The cloak was the hardest part and I needed three attempts to get it right. 

I am quite satisfied with the look and I am sure, that the paint job will enhance the overall impression. What do you think of it so far?

Edit (10th December): Newer photos added.

Tallarn Desert Raiders: Lascannon Heavy Weapons Squad

It has been a while. Well, over the last weeks I  heavily played "Mordheim:City of the Damned" and therefore had no time to paint my models. But last weekend I finally managed to finish my Tallarn Lascannon Heavy Weapons Squad, which was work in progress for two month or so.

Making of a Desert Gaming Board - Part III

For my gaming board to be complete, some pieces of area terrain are clearly missing. The start makes this little sandbag emplacement here.

The terrain piece itself originates from Forgeworld and is called "Imperial Emplacement". Due to the painting and the palms, it adapts pretty well to the plate, I think. By the way, the next piece is already in the works.

Making of a Desert Gaming Board - Part II

3.  Palm trees

To loosen the scenery up, I bought two packs of palm trees from amazon and glued them on foamboard bases. I also added cork board pieces, gravel and smaller foam rocks.

Later on, these pieces were painted in the same way as the gaming board before. They fit in quite well:

4. First game

The gaming board is not finished yet, but really I wanted to play a game or two on it. Here are some impressions of this gaming session with my friend Funky_Biber:

 It was hell of a fun, but clearly some pieces of area terrain were missing...

Making of a Desert Gaming Board - Part I

I wanted to build a new desert gaming board for myself. But I will not build it from scratch. Rather I will revert to my old Citadel Realm of Battle Game Board. It was painted as a gray ash desert and I was honestly fed up with it and wanted to do something about it. On top of painting the board, I will also build some suitable terrain.

1. Coloring the gaming board

This was the easiest and fastest step. I bought some brown wall paint in my nearest hardware store (schöner wohnen - karamellbraun) and painted it directly on my old roughly cleaned board. Then, I mixed the brown color in a ratio 50:50 with white wall paint and drybrushed it on the brown board. Finally, Agrax Earthshade was applied into the recesses using a fine brush.

2.  Carving Hills/Rocks

But what is a real gaming table without terrain? So, I used my hot wire cutter on some glued together foamboards to create some rough hill shaped objects.

Later on, I carved more details into the foam blocks with a utility knife. This video tutorial here helped me a lot to get things right:

Adding some final touches with some fine gravel and cork board:

Painting my first hill in the same manner as the board:

Tallarn Desert Raiders: Ogryn Bodyguard

As I studied the new Astra Militarum Codex and watched the one or the other youtube video, my attention was drawn to the Ogryn bodyguard. I would like to give it a go in my next games and therefore bought an old pewter Ogryn on ebay. A fitting Slabshield was quickly tinkered and the Blood Angels helmet on the chain acts as the "Deathmask of Ollanius". Hope you like him.

Talons of the Emperah and Friends in Action

Last Saturday evening, my Talons of the Emperah had the opportunity to fight against Funky Bibers Tyranids. Since I could build a 2000 army with the Talons alone, they took some friends with them.

We played a standard kill point match because it was my second game in the eighth edition, therefore we wanted to keep it simple. However, I did not expect any great chances versus as Funky Biber's army, when he placed five times more miniatures on the table than I did.  

I had the first turn and managed to decimate the Tyranids quite well from afar. The Tyranids, however, seemed to be relatively unimpressed as they stormed forward. Close combats erupted everywhere, quite early in the game. My troops, however, were able to stand their ground. 

At the end of my fifth turn, only three Termagaunts and one Harpy were left. In contrast, the Talons "only" lost the Custodes Guard, the Sisters of Silence and a Contemptor Dreadnought. My MVP was clearly the Contemptor with the Multi-Melta, who shrug incredibly much damage off and also dealt much damage to the Tyranids.

Overall, I am positively surprised by the Talons and I am curious how they will do in the next games.

Custodes Venerable Land Raider

Here is my finished Custodes Venerable Land Raider, which was a Crimson Fists Land Raider Redeemer in its former life. Hope you like it.

Tallarn Desert Raiders with Special Weapons

After a very long time, I painted some Tallarn Desert Raiders again. It was a lot of fun and there are more of them to come. And yes, the Desert Raiders with Flamers are conversions, because GW hasn't released official models yet. 

Furthermore, three of my four Chimeras are armed with twin Heavy Bolters now. In my opinion, this is a good weapon loadout in the 8th edition of 40k, is it not?