The Men/Machines from Voss Prime (Part 2)

 

I just can't get enough of these guys. So much so that found myself almost finishing a ten man/machine squad of these thing.  I say "almost" because I have the transuranic arquebus  left to do. 

Early in the base coat stage.

Unlike the previous trio of Skitarii, I primed these and did all of there base coats my self. stage. Used the yellow contrast paint over pink technique on all of the guy's yellow areas. 

Some of these guys have marine parts scattered on their bases. After some consideration I opted to use the Dark Angels scheme on these chunks of battle debris as I have killed a lot of them over the years. I suppose it's inevitable that these Skitarii will be killing their share of them in their future as well.

I think this guy's hand-scope-thing was assembled backwards. Whatever, I made the best of it and I like how it's turned out. I don't know what it does yet, but I like to imagine it's akin to a Phantom Zone Projector. 

In addition to the yellow and black banded wires, I had to have some white with blue striped ones also. Or are they blue with white stripes?* Either way, I'm sure many adepts have blown themselves up attempting to figure it out. 

Both the assembled leader guys had Vanguard heads. Of the two, I went with the one that felt the most Ranger like. The Vanguard I am going to build and paint are going to have this exact scheme so I suppose it's not going  to matter ultimately. 

I chose the taser goad weilding guy. This was an easy one to paint. I painted it silver, then the areas that I was going to electrify I painted over with White Scar. After this I used Ultramarines Blue Contrast Paint. This work very well! A slight white highlight after it was dried completed the effect. 

Oops, missed the scrawl on the purity seal! 

After the above pics were taken I realized I missed the red/yellows line on the hems of their robes. A quick fix later and these were ready for their group shot. 

Nine little Skitarii sitting on Mars...

So, yeah, I like painting these guys. A lot. *sigh* I suppose I have officially started a new army now...

*This joke will never cease to amuse me. 

The men/machines from Voss Prime

 

The Vox Prime welcoming committee. 

Recently Da Masta Cheef dumped a small Adeptus Mechanicus army on my lap (along with even more Orks which were dumped on him by Murl/Rob) which was a bit of surprise considering how many models there were. I'm thankful for these gifts even though I had no intention of starting up another Imperial faction. So while poking through them trying to figure out what was what, I decided to paint one just to see how I would like it. Sometime last year I found the 9th edition Adeptus Mechanicus Codex on sale in a 2nd hand store and picked it up for reference.  And the Forge World that stood out to me was the illustration for Voss Prime. The other color patterns were too red (after painting World Eaters I'm not keen on having another red army) or gray and drab (I have at least two armies that are gray also). And these guys have a sort of Howling Griffin vibe without being Howling Griffins.  I figured what the heck, let's give it a shot. 

I wanted to paint some of the long rifle models so I picked out a few "guys" that looked sort of interesting.  They had already had the painting process started by the Cheef, but just the metallic areas had been done so far. (Note: he gave me some of the ones he already painted as well, which you can see behind the foreground guys below). 

As prepared by Cheef. 

I selected a guy one night when I had a window of opportunity to do so,  and I jammed this model out. I used Khorne Red as a basecoat for the red side and Trollslayer Orange as the base for the yellow side. Being a Layer paint, it took three coats to get the coverage I needed for the Trollslayer Orange. 

Model 1, basecoated.

I used a subtle assortment of metallics on the armor and weapon, but much of the magic was done using Agrax Earthshade. Retributor Gold was only used on the filigree adornments that on the gun. 

Mid-coats.

I used the Vox Prime illustration from 9th ed Adeptus Mechanicus Codex for reference  and I colored this guy's lights and lenses to match that as best I could.  I put opposing lines on the robes hems as they were in that illustration but the idea of putting squared gear teeth on these lines just seemed way too daunting of a task for such a basic model, so I made them into crude triangles instead. This I thought produced the same vibe  without causing me undue stress and I think he turned out alright. 

Basically done.

But wait, there is another: I saw a video online somewhere recently that used an old technique that I knew about but never tried. This particular trick was to use pink as a base color with a yellow contrast paint over it. Curious, I went to one of my local game stores and got the yellow Contrast Paint (Imperial Fist, for you discerning connoisseurs) I needed. I used Pink Horror as a basecoat with a few highlights added by using a dot of white into a blob of Pink Horror. This coated way better than the Trollslayer Orange did on the previous guy. 

Model 2, pink basecoat for yellow finish.

The layer of Imperial Fist Contrast Paint turned the pink into a really vibrant and rich orange. However, the highlights I added proved to be a wasted step and Contrast Paint like to settle into the recessed areas. If I hadn't moved the paint around before it dried it would have produced the annoyed result of having my lowlights highlighted and my highlights lowlighted; not a result one would, typically, desire. 

Yellow Contrast over Pink.

By the way, I don't know who built these originally ( Cheef or Murl) but they were rather negligent regarding keeping the cowled Ranger heads with the Ranger bods and the helmeted heads with the Vanguard. So these Rangers have mixed up heads. In the end I guess only the guns matter as far as distinguishing who's who and what's what? 

Finished.

There are a few ninor touch-ups before I declare these two officially done. I  decided at this point to paint their bases dark gray to look like street rubble. My tyranids have their bases paintedl ike this also and they will complent each other if I ever get to a point where I can display them together. Also I want to. get my hands on some ad mech decals. I like what Cheef did with them on the guys he painted and the examples that GW show off in the Codex. 

Model 3.

Oh, and I painted a third guy. Now that figured out how to paint these guys, they kind of go quick. But I need to paint seven more to fill out the squad. But with Dreadtober 2023 starting, well, now, it may take a while to get back to these gadget-guys. But so far, I think they're fun, and a bit refreshing, to paint. 

Fire at the fleshies! 

Kill Team Launch Party

Kill Team Party!

Hello! This past Saturday my local gaming store, Hobbytown USA hosted a Kill Team launch party. It was a big launch for Hobbytown, probably the biggest I have seen at this location. They had plenty of Kill Team products in stock (which they sold a lot of!) And they had multiple tables set up for purposes of conducting demo games. And according to Matt, the man cordinating the event, they had quite a turn out for their first session. That session ran from late in the morning until 5pm, and the evening session ran from 6pm until 10pm.

The Kill Team event poster.

The event had some nifty give-aways: buttons (aka badges for my UK readers), a poster (for those who arrived early enough to snag one) and some really cool CP tracker dials. And pizza.

The Reaper's Mirth assembled before a dial.

I arrived at the 6pm session with 2 teams in tow, but I decided to run with the Harlequins since I never got to use them in the previous version of Kill Team. Matt gave me a super quick crash course on the rules, I threw together a team of 7 Troupers for 98 points, rolled up some quirks and background (fun but not game affecting), and I was ready to hit the table.

Racing towards the Skitarii.

Bob and Matt were already pretty familar with the rules at this point, so we decided to try the 4-way team battle. Bob had Dark Angels, Matt had Tyranid Genestealers, Jim and Chyanne had Skitarii and I had my Harlies.  One of the new (and refreshing!) changes to the game is the Iniative phase. All parties roll off each round to determine the turn order for that round. This added some variety to this game for sure and was especially refreshing in a 4 way match like this.

Genestealers pour into the Dark Angel wall of bullets.

I had a difficult time adjusting to how charging works now, but it was more an adjustment from decades of learned behavior than it was comprehension. This early mistakes caused some tactical blunders that surely cost some Harlequin lives, but my biggest foes were the dice were using. If I hit, I rarely wounded, but my armor save attempts were especially frustrating as I pretty much failed most of the ones I was asked to make. All well! LOL!

Look who  is charging who.

Multiple charges in the fight phase was an interesting thing to experience. In the pic above a Genestealer charged a Skitarii, the my Harlequin charged that Skitarii, then another Genestealer charged my Harlie. It was definitely a  crazy and swirling melee!

Slaughtered by Genestealers.

Once I got my Leader engaged with a foe, I finally got to expeience the joy of the Harlequins Kiss shredding a target to death. By the time this had occurred I was down to less than half of my force being alive. Most of the Harlequin had been shot to death by Bob's uncanny ability to roll 6s on Overwatch!

Harlequin Leader showing the clockwork guys how to dance! 

Ultimately this game shrank down to an area of a single building, the structure the Dark Angels were holding onto tightly! With a few marines left to defend the building from the invading xenos, the Dark Angels stood firmly in piles of dead clowns and shattered chitton.

This Harelquin and Dark Angel fought each other for 5 rounds! 

I had one Harelquin that charged one of the Dark Angels on the 2nd storey of the ruins way back on turn 2. That fight carried on until it finished on the ground level on turn 6. The Harelquin trouper finally surrendered to the beating it had been taking.

Finally it ended, with Bob hanging on steadfastly against my sole surviving Harelquin and Matt's remaining Genestealer.

The grand finale.

It was good, fast-paced fun and once we master the rules it should go even quicker for us. We hope to run a campaign at some point to as to experience the leveling system as well. I haven't gotten the book yet but I had really good look through it. I'm definitely looking forward to making some more Kill Teams as the diversity looks very appealing to me. Also, those numbered counters that come with the boxed game will be really handy in future 4 way games for keeping up with whose turn it is.

Alpha Legion vs. Dark Angels.

While we played our game there were other KT games taking place as well as a massive Chaos vs. Dark Angel 8th ed battle.  I think the Dark Angels won, but it appeared to have been an bloody good game!

This looks like a fun party, yes?

Remember To Take Your Rad-Pills.

Who is stalking who?

It has been far too long it seems but finally the stars aligned where I was able to play a game at the Hobbytown Game Night in Johnson City. The Bob was available, so we agreed to play Kill Team (and yes, we're hopeful for the new edition). I arrived with the Celestial Lions and Bob brought his Skitarii.

The Skitarii had their Radium Carbines and they were led by an Alpha with a Taser Goad and a Phosphor Pistol. The special weapon guy had a Plasma Caliver. The Iron Strider was equipped with a Taser Lance. I feared the Iron Strider the most, because the previous time I encountered one of these things it proved to be quite challenging to defeat.

Quite challenging indeed.

Bob won the roll-off to choose sides, deploy and go first.

Skitarii deployment. 

This time I decided to try out, for the first time on the table-top, my Land Speeder. This particular load-out features two muti-meltas.
But it chewed up enough points to reduce the infantry marines down to six.

Celestial Lions deployment. 

Despite having the Leadership Ability called Quick Thinker, which bestowed my leader with the ability to Steal The Initiative on a 4+, the Skitarii would go first. I was saying to Bob (and Michael, our only spectator) prior to deployment that for me this is the worst Leadership Ability. If I roll this one up it is guaranteed that I will botch the roll!

The field of battle and both 

Turn 1

Skitarii advance, taking the first objective and getting really close to another. They were not close enough, or had no opportunities, to fire upon the Celestial Lions so they ran forward and secured their positions.

Turn 1 advance!

The Lions advanced also but my weapons have better range. My first shots were declared by the Land Speeder upon the skitarii creeping up toward the unclaimed objective outside the ruins. I rolled two 1's. A lot of my other shots were a little better but these skitarii made their saves. I eventually took out a guy in the ruins with a lucky shot who happened to be a specialist. First Blood goes to the Celestial Lions, but it was going to be a tough fight...

Iron Strider strides forth. 

Turn 2

Powering up the Radium Carbines it was time  to unleash the radioactive death. Two of the Celestial Lions were brought down by the vicious Skitarii onslaught.

Death Dealers with Radium Carbines take objective 2.

Celestial Lions turn 2 and I had to get aggressive. I sent two Marines storming into the ruins. The guy with the special weapon had to go, and I was prepared to charge him, but I managed to kill him with a Bolt pistol!

Bolt Pistol  vs Plasma Caliver. 

The Land Speeder was able to get into position to take aim at the Iron Strider with both Multi Meltas. With a blinding blast, the machine was brought down!

Land Speeder claims it's first kill.

Turn 3

The Lions proved to be more fierce than before, but that only meant the Skitarii would need to roll up their sleeves and start slitting throats. Both of the Marines in the ruins were laid low by the Skitarii within, with the last Marine killed by the Alpha in close combat. The Alpha, much to his annoyance, took a wound during the encounter.

The Celestial Lion learns what an apex predator really is . 

The Celestial Lions are now officially broken due to their losses. On Turn 3 they have a Plasma Gunner, the Vet Sgt and the Land Speeder left. Thankfully no one bottles out. The Land Speeder shoots another Skitarii, melting him. The Land Speeder breaks the Skitarii. Things get dire however when the Plasma Gunner shoots twice with one hit killing a Skitarii Ranger but the other shot instead gets hot and he fries himself leaving just the Vet Sgt as my one infantry model.

Turn 4,

The high leadership value of the Skitarii Alpha, with his Leadership Ability extending his range for Leadership tests out to 12" instead of the usual 6", should've been a good thing. But Bob's dice wanted to roll high, resulting in the Alpha  and two other Rangers pulling out and leaving the other Skitarii behind! This left him in a position of outnumbering the Lions with superior firepower to having just two models left! The Vet Sgt was able save against the Radium blasts, much to tbe Skitarii's annoyance.

The Celestial Lions had to gamble to pull out a win as technically the Skitarri could still win with objectives. The Land Speeder hopped the wall and entered the ruins, with both Multi-meltas aimed at the last Ranger within.

"Hi there!"

The Vet Sgt moved up, but failed to kill the last Ranger with his Plasma Pistol.

Closing in...

As predicted the Multi-meltas on the Land Speeder reduced it's target to ash.

01001101 01111001 00100000 01101100 01101001 01100110 01100101! 

The Vet Sgt, surviving the snapshots, charged the last Ranger and cut him down with his chainsword, claiming the objective.

Objective and battlefield secured. 

The Celestial Lions win the day with a tabling of the Skitarii!

That was fun! And it was way closer than I may have had you believe. The Skitarii weapons are brutal, the the Rangers are difficult to take down with their Feel No Pain rolls to protect them. It could have gone either way right up until the Skitarii botched those three break tests at the top of Turn 4. The Skitarii had the tools to bring down the Landspeeder, so I made sure to keep it out of either range or LOS of those guns. Only it and Vet Sgt survived this battle. It was refreshing to have my Leader actually lead and survive a Kill Team mission -and be the sole surviving infantry model at that!


The Bob and I chatted about it afterwords and here are some of his remarks:

"And the really fun radiation rules didn't even get used.
LOL!
Next time...
I'm thinking I'll try some of the long range guys next time or the rust stalkers."

We'll see what happens next time!

A Tale of Two Duds

Got together with the gang and we agreed to play a four-way free-for-all Kill Team game.

01100100 01100001 01101110 01100011 01100101 00111111

I showed up with my Celestial Lions Kill Team. I decided to take a Plasma Gun this time, and made him a Specialist. I gave him the ability to Ignore Cover with his shooting attacks. Then I bestowed the Missile Launcher with Feel No Pain and the Marine with the Scope got Murderous Blow.

Celestial Lions ready for deployment.

The Bob brought out his Skitarii Kill Team. I have never faced them before and I was curious to see how they would perform.

Skitarii, radiating the awesome.

Da Masta Cheef brought along his Rainbow Warriors.  He would remark often during the game that we were playing a pair of dying  Chapters.

A prismatic assembly of Rainbow Warriors.

And finally we have Wolfy's Fem Fa' Tau Kill Team, gathered to snipe and blast those who deny the Greater Good.

(Chorus) "The Greater Good".

The field was set and the forces deployed. We agreed to a Kill Point game, with Secondary Objectives and Primary Objectives being 1 VP per Specialist killed. With our traits rolled up, the Tau and Celestial Lions had Leaders who got the Quick Thinker trait (Steal Initiative on 4+) and the Lions won that roll-off.

Four corners claimed and held.

Turn 1.

The Celestial Lions sally forth and the Missile Launcher begins his streak of epic uselessness by missing with his shot at the Skitarii walker.

Perfectly lined up to miss.

Likewise the Skitarii advance as well, but one Lion failed to take advantage of LOS blocking cover and was the first casualty of the game. The Lion Missile Launcher was struck by a weapon that inflicted two Wounds and I rolled two 6's for the save!

A tense stand off.

The Rainbow Warriors pranced forward into the waiting pulse rifle sights of the Fem Fa'Tau...

Chasing the Rainbow (I know, couldn't resist).

The Rainbow Warriors have a sniper scout that took a shot at the Celestial Lions Missile Launcher but it was ineffective. Then, from out of a bush, a missile streaked out to strike the Celestial Lion Missile Launcher with a dud missile. I was surprised by this, and did a double-take just to try to see the guy...

Has mastered the art of not being seen.

The Tau shot at the Rainbow Warriors. I think she killed one too but I don't recall.

Turn 2

It was another round of futility from the Celestial Lions, they only managed to shoot a Rainbow Scout to death. The Lion's Missile Launcher traded unexploded ordnance with the RW Missile Launcher, but nothing else of note happened.

The Lions, thinking that they have a strategy.

The Skitarii however was here to kill. A guy with a plasma rifle thing totally fried the marine that was on point before the walker ran up and turned another marine into the dust.

Two hearts replaced by one foot.

The Rainbow Warriors and Tau continued to move and shoot against each other. The RW Missile Launcher exchanged the unexploded ordnance back to the CL Missile Launcher, and his combi melta guy slagged another Lion. The Fem Fa'Tau was beginning to maneuver against the Skitarii also, as it was clear that they were a threat to every faction. She managed to take a wound off of the Walker.

Turn 3

I found myself quickly running out of models. At this point I was getting worried about my prospects. I threw Krak Grenades at the Skitarii Walker and they either missed or failed to penetrate it. The Plasma Gunner walked up, rolles a 1 and a 6. The 6 wounded and wrecked the walker. But the 1 resulted in him killing himself and breaking my own army!

Imagine a big ball of plasma in the open space

The Skitarii pressed on, killing more marines and they killed the Fem Fa'Tau Battlesuit earning another VP.

The Skitarii sweep in.

The RW and Tau let fly with a lot of shots. When the smoke cleared I had only two models left, and the other factions were all starting to see a significant bodycount as well.

Turn 4.

Yikes, only two guys left! The Missile Launcher and the Vet Sgt. I decided to focus on the two Skitarii coming up on the board edge. With surprising success, the ML hit and eliminated a skitarii guy with a Krak Missile! The Vet. Sgt closed in on his partner and they ended up locked in combat.

Locked in radioactive combat.

More combat errupted around the field. The Skitarii press forward to engage both the Rainbow Warriors and Tau. During the Skitarii Close Combat phase the Celestial Lion Vet Sgt defeated his foe and boldly advanced towards the Skitarii.

Scout Season is now open. 

This guy took a Wound from Overwatch fire before killing the Pin-up Tau in the Close Combat phase.

Wounded by Overwatch. 

The Rainbow Warriors retaliated. Of particilar note was the Sniper Scout who had moved forward and actually managed to hit with a snapfire shot and killed a Skitarii. We laughed as  it seemed he had to snapfire in order to hit anything!

"Maybe if I hit with a snapfire I get that new paint job..."

In the Tau turn, the xenos scum took their revenge on the machine men. They also tried to deal with the Rainbow warriors as well, but it seemed the Tau were having difficulty bringing them down.

Turn 5

Things are going fast now, with all of us having so few models left. The CL Missile Launcher  reverted back to 'useless' status by shooting another dud rocket at the RW Missile Launcher marine. My Vet Sgt advanced toward the remaining Skitarii survivors. However the Skitarii, eager for maximum VPs, proceed to shoot the Vet Sgt off the table. That karma was quickly cashed in as the Tau would table the Skitarii on their turn.

The picture below shows a stand-off that took a few rounds to resolve, but the Rainbow Warrior scout would win it only to then be vaporized by another Tau on their last turn.

A close quarters stand-off.

Turn 6 and 7 came and went with a flash. The game ended with my Celestial Lion Missile Launcher still trading dud missiles with the Rainbow Warrior Missile Launcher who was still in his bush.

Celestial Lion Missile Launcher view.

Rainbow Warriors Missile Launcher view.

Final VP tallies, as best that I was able to keep up with them:

• Skitarii 9 VPs
• Tau 3 VPs
• Rainbow Warriors 2 VPs
• Celestial Lions 0 VPs 

It was a fun game, with the Skitarii clearly being the foe everyone was fearful of. I performed poorly in the game, the dice dicked me over each chance it got. Even the victorious moments had a price. In hindsight  though I can't say that the Tau and Rainbow Warriors faired too much better...

And what the hell was up with our Missile Launchers?!

"Dude!" "Doooode!"

Hah!