March for Macrage '24 (Part 1)

 

Another month arrives and with it another painting challenge. This one is March for Macrage. This is something the hobbyists on the Ulramarines, Strategies & Tactics Facebook Group do every year. Essentially members commit to completing an Ultramarines specific project by the end of the month of March. I decided to commit to finishing another squad of Assault Intercessors, and Chapter Ancient along with a Primaris Lieutenant and Lieutenant Titus. The last two are kind of close to being done. I have to admit, this event snuck up on me. Coincidentally I had prepared to paint Tyranids and Ultramarines during this time anyway as I was expecting to have a surgery (which hasn't happened yet). So that's kind of going to work out. 

Assault Intercessors Spuad 2.

This will be another 5-man unit of Assault Intercessors.  This is squad number two, for those keeping track of my growing Primaris force. The first squad was completed last year and this squad will look pretty similar to it in the end. 

Primaris Ancient.

The Primaris Ancient is the one I am looking forward to the most. I just think he's cool. With a  name like 'Ancient' I figured he should have a helmet to reflect this while also honoring the legacy of my Ultramarines force, which was started back in the MK VI era of Rogue Trader. Therefore he was given a MK VI helmet from the Vanguard Marines set. 

And finally Titus and the Primaris Lieutenant will both receive individual posts during March For Macrage. By the way, in case you haven't figured it out, the shield in the first pic belongs to the Primaris Lieutenant  More on him in a future post. March is a big month, let's see what we can do! 

Smash'n yer Gob!

 Behold, the Epicast Gobsmasha! I bought my first Gobsmasha directly from Epicast way back in the mid '90s . They were a mom and pop operation and it was fun to support them, and in return, get some funky new toys to bring to a 2nd edition era 40k game. I bought the Vindicator add-on kit for the Space Marines and the Ork Gobsmasha. The original model was a heavy, solid, brick of yellow resin. A friend of mine thought it was both crap and cool and convinced me to let him toy with it. He hollowed it out, molded it, and recast it in a better resin and gave me three copies back. The battle cannon was replaced with a piece of PVC to make it a little longer, deeper and well,, cooler. This is one of those. 

Gobsmasha. 

If you look through my Ork battle reports from over the years you'll see that I have used this as a battlewaggon in many games. I recall that the 5th edition Ork Codex (which was valid until 7th ed) had a battlewaggon variant called Gobsmasha which I simply used this model to represent. 

Scene from The Rise of Mad Dok Grotsnik-part-2.

Scene from Challenge Made, Challenge Accepted.

My Gobsmashas have't seen action for a few years, and that's kind of a shame. 

1st page of the White Dwarf article.

As I look back on it, I wonder why GW never made a proper plastic kit for this model? Before Epicast made their licensed version, Games Workshop had a template in White Dwarf for players to build their own. There was even a datasheet for it in the 1st Edition Vehicle Manual. Here's a fun fact, this was the first appearance in Warhammer 40,000 of the Battle Cannon. A weapon the Orks seemed to have lost but is still a mainstay of the Imperial Guard. 

1st Edition vehicle manual template and rules.

But they didn't even produce  a Forgeworld version. It seems to me this would have been an easy kit for GW to produce and I bet it would've sold well for them. At one point it looked like it could happen; In the mid- '90s GW produced official datafaxes for 2nd edition in Citadel Journal #8, but not counting the 5th Codex stats, the Gobsmasha has since vanished. 

Datafax from Citadel Journal #8.

Well I won't let that get me down! In fact I have every intention of getting mine painted (finally). And back on the table and into the fight. It will still work as a hardtop, basic, battlewaggon. Keep your eye on this blog to see how this first one works out. 

Did you have one? Either a custom creation or a resin cast version? Let us know in the comments. 

Worldeaters Terminators

 

One of the biggest misses I thought GW did in recent times was not producing Worldeaters specific Chaos Terminators to support Codex: Worldeaters last year. (Yeah. I am still bitter about that book becoming redundant less than 6 months after it's release!) Trying to convert the Worldeaters khornate bunny ears onto these models has the potential to be challenging and disappointing. I made the choice to not even try it and just see what I could do with just paint. I'm shooting for a Blanchitsu-sque vibe with these guys...

I built these guys pretty much as the instructions recommended with exception to these two guys whom I used left over parts from the Chaos Sorcerer in Terminator Armor I finished a while back. 

This guy's got a snazzy Champion paldron.

Horn helm fitting for a leader. 

I really got into these guys, so much so that I felt compelled to dive right into painting them. I primed them with Chaos Black. The base coats were Khorne Red (appropriate, yes?) And for the filigree I used Brass Scorpion. 

All the skull and bones were picked out with Corax White. 

Tubes, joints, guns and spikes were all painted with Leadbelcher. 

Mephiston Red was used as the mid layer for the red armor. 

My old Blood Red was then applied for the top layer on the red. That color is still very much superior to any red that GW currently sells. 

The plasma coil on this guy's combiweapon was picked out with Corax White. I used Pylar Glacier over that, but it seemed a bit too thin. So I went over that again Ultramarines Blue then a final highlight of Corax White.

My new favorite Citadel color has got to be Cryptek Armourshade Gloss. It's great for getting an old rusty look on metal without taking the time I used to spend to get this look. A quick solution, and it works really well. 

Oxidized metal on part of this gun.

So I managed to jam out this unit fairly quick. Here they are, done! Decals and all. 

Finished group shot. 

The next series of photos are the fronts and backs of each model.

For some reason I seemed to have mounted the trophy racks on this model in a way that it seems that this Chaos Terminator wanted the heads to be looking at each it other. This amused me too, so I left it. 

I painted the two Imperial Guard heads that are on two of the trophy racks in the color of my Cadians. The decaying faces were done using a wash of Coachella Greenshade Wash with a layer of Pallid Wyche Flesh. 

I'm not sure if this is a Mk V or a Primaris helmet. Either way, I thought he should be an Ultramarine. For reasons. 

The decals on their right shoulders are from the new Worldeaters decals sheet that came out with last year's new kits. I like these a lot, and they were not nearly as difficult to work with as some decals like to be. I suspect that I was probably just lucky this time. 

The helmet on this base is a Chaos Space Marine. I decided to make it a Black Legion helmet, since those are my 'basic' Chaos Space Marines. In hindsight I wish I had painted it in Dark Angels colors. 

The Space Marine helm on the Reaper Autocannon model is intended to be a Black Dragon, but he could easily be a Deathwatch marine too I suppose. 

The powder scoring on the tips of the reaper cannon was done using Agrax Earthshade and Nuln Oil .  I think it came out better than I had expected it would. 

And that's all. Hopefully I will get the Worldeaters on a tabletop sooner than later. And whenever that happens these guys are sure to be joining them. Now if I can just motivate myself to finish the Jakhals...

Sites of Power

 

Battle Royale. 

Once again Da Masta Cheef and I gathered for a 28mm heroic scaled tussle at the Outpost. 1250 points on each side. I continued to see what I could do with the Tyranids and this time he brought Orks. I decided to mix it up a bit. I swapped the Winged Hive Tyrant out for a Swarmlord. I swapped out some termagants for some Zoanthropes and barbgaunts. This seems like it could be a decent force to throw down with. 

The Tyranids gather. 

Da Masta Cheef brought Da Masta Cheef. A fella that hasn't appeared on this blog in years. Mostly because he sold the original model. But, as fate would have it, Rob/Murl gifted him recently with another of the same model and,  bonus,  it was already painted. 

Da Waaagh of Da Masta Cheef!

We tend to build our board out before we select our missions. It's just more fun to do, and then we might tweak it a bit afterwards. Today we decided to fight over a ruined forgeworld. 

Human ruins make the best xenos playgrounds. 

Da roolz for dis fight are: 

Hammer and Anvil Deployment, Scrambler Fields and Sites of Power. 

This deployment suited out armies well, and deployment went without a problem for either of us. 

Tyranid deployment (Right flank).

Tyranid deployment (left flank)

Ork deployment. 

The Orks went first.  It was noisy and loud but in the end the Tyranids lost only a few models, but one of those, quite painfully, was a Zoanthrope to the well aimed shot from the ork bubblechucka. The Tyranids surged forward and like-wise did little damage to the orks. The Zoanthropes eliminated one of the Nobs from Da Masta Cheef's retinue, an insult he would not soon forget. The Screamer Killer, laughably, missed all six of his shots! 

End of turn 1

Turn 2 and it was time to crank up the heat. The arrival of the ork dive bomba did just that as he dropped a bomb on the Swarmlord and inflicted him with 5 Mortal Wounds! 

Bombs away!

The Kommandos arrived in style in my back field and wiped out a brood of Termagants (the one's with the brains on their backs).  Leaving the Rippers sitting on the objective exposed to a potential charge. 

There was another squad of Termagants here.

Another fight broke out as the termagants that had a toe on an objective was charged by a Boyz squad led by a bad-ass nob. 

Tyranids Turn 2, and I opened up everything that could shoot at the ork Dive Bomba. It's ability to drop Mortal Wounds was too much of a threat to leave it unchecked, however the combined assault left it smoking but  still very much a threat. 

I had a brood of Genestealers assault the Kommandos, however Da Masta Cheef wisely played the Stratagems "orks are never beaten" and "unbridled carnage" to allow them to fight back after their elimination. And they took out half of the Genestealer brood! 

Kommandos and Genestealers bloodbath.

The other of brood of Genestealers on the opposite flank charged a Boyz squad wiping them but sparing the attached character. That guy was a banna waver . And that banna is a bad-ass weapon and it was used to beat the bioengineered snot out a handful of purestrains. Much to our mutual surprise! 

Yell loud and carry a really big stick.

The Swarmlord and Screamer Killer charge the orks hold and objective and totally overkilled that unit. But now they were exposed...

Turn 3, and all the ork guns were trained (or vaguely pointed at) the Tyranid monsters that were on the threshold of storming the ork lines. However the Bubblechucka, again , showed it's worth as Da Masta Cheef rolled a '6' on it's chart which resulted in a Dense Bubble. That was more than enough to destroy the Swarmlord! 

Imagine a dense bubble enveloping the Swarmlord.

The Deffdred (that's the baby squiggoth) and the nob mob along with Da Masta Cheef, charged into the Screamer Killer which is felled by the overwhelming onslaught. 

Dies screaming. 

After killing off the Banna Waver in the Orks turn, the Genestealers charged the Deff Dred/Squiggoth on their turn 3. They were actually successful in tearing it up, but it was still alive and kicking, locking the Genestealers in combat. 

Bring it down! 

On the other side of the board, the Genestealers who had previously tussled with the Kommandos now set their sights on a Boyz mob that was in their way of an objective, only to have that squad's nob survive their onslaught but also kill a few stealers back in return, thus halting the bug-eyez advance! 

"Oy, you can't go on!"

Cheef's turn 4 and the dive bomber returned to cause more havoc. It threw its bomb and bullets into the barbgaunts, eliminating them.

Buzz bomb is back! 

Da Masta Cheef wanted in on the tussle so he and the Boyz wet after the Genestealers that wuz locked in combat with the deff dred/Squiggoth. All of the purestrains were killed but the Broodlord remained. On my go in this Fight Phase I decided to throw everything into the Deff Dred/Squiggoth in the hopes that it would blow up. And although it was destroyed, it failed to blow up. In fact, nothing in this game had a Dead Demise, which is disappointing. 

Broodlord kabobs tonight! 

The Nob was joined by another mob of Boyz who managed to wipe out the Genestealers, that nob was killed however. But now the orks had the so-called Doom in their sights, as well as the last stand of Rippers. 

Dibs on da balloon! 

And we called it here. The nids were not going to survive the war of artiiton, clearly, but by this point the orks were not going to  be caught in the points games either. Final tallied points was 10 to the Tyranids, and 26 to the Orks! Waaargh to Da Masta Cheef, 'e's back!!!! Waaaaaaagh!

It was another fun game. That damn dive bomba really messed up my plans, and although I had some bad dice rolling it wasn't as bad as some of the games I've recently had. I think the MVP of the whole game has to be that Bubblechucka. I am now enthusiastic about building mine and playing orks in this edition. Their rules seem well suited for this edition, where I'm still very much struggling to get a grip on the nids. And this edition in general. I am still 0-4, where Da Masta Cheef remains undefeated...