Erik Axegrinder: Rogues Gallery Spotlight

Following on from the the previous Deathwatch post, I felt the desire to work further on these guys. In particular I wanted to get their bases extended.

Erik Axegrinder, rebased.

Especially EriK Axegrinder, whose cloak was originally modeled to appear to drape below the edge of his base. Luckily I was able to model the Secret Weapon Conversion Rings in a way that made it still work.

Cloak paws still hanging free.

I also added a Tzeentch bird skull to the base. It is from the Citadel Skull box set (that you seriously need to get). In the Deathwatch RPG game that I played him in, the Kill Team he was a member of took on the Thousand Sons who, as you probably know, are minions of Tzeentch. Also the Space Wolves have a history of Tzeentch hate so the choice of that skull seemed to make sense.

Another side of Erik.

I have extended the bases of the other Deathwatch guys as well, but their progress hasn't proceeded much beyond this point so I will put off discussing them further until I can give them a proper post.

Progress is slow, but progress continues.

But in the meanwhile, Erik Axegrinder is once again done, and he offically gets his place in the Neverness Rogues Gallery.

Deathwatch: Killteam Neverness

With all these exciting Deathwatch releases that have came out (and as of this writing, still coming out) over the past year, it was finally time to break out my Deathwatch guys. I started this killteam back in 2004, when Warhammer 40,000 saw the release of it's 4th edition. It wasn't long after the core launch that 4th ed's Tyranid Codex was released. To coincide with it White Dwarf, in one of the last Chapter Approved articles, did an article on the Deathwatch and all of their snazy Specialist Ammo. So began my work on these guys, but that work languished due to a lot of factors and ultimately they were packed away for another day.

The Deathwatch Vets. In their disarmed state.

As some long time readers of this blog might know, this wasn't the only time I dabbled with the Deathwatch. Back in 2013 I modeled up my player character for The Doctor's Deathwatch RPG campaign, Erik Axegrinder. I used him in a few 40k games as either a Lone Wolf or a Wolf Guard Pack Leader.

Erik Axegrinder.

Along comes Death Masque, the starter set I just can't resist. A perfect little force for Deathwatch and Harlequins (recall my recent clowning-around, part one and part-2.) both are armies I would like to build up, but as small forces likely to be used primarily as allies.

Over the weekend I bought the new Deathwatch Codex and with that came the flood of ideas that spring forth while reading this new book. Oddly, I am confused by the game designers decision to exclude any special characters  considering the Killteam Casisus models and the new Artemis model. It seems like a new turn fro GW. But reading through the rules, I am quickly moving past that.

Deathwatch Librarian.

The Librarian above was selected to be the leader of my Killteam. And he is sure to have a role in the upcoming allied force that I am constructing. True Grit was still a thing when I started building him, thus the one handed bolter idea. Not that the rule would have applied to him so much as I just thought that it looked cool.

Heavy Bolter marine.

One of the reasons I wanted to make some Deathwatch marines way back then was that it would give me an excuse to paint up some marines from different Chapters, even if all I would be painting is just their respective shoulder pads. A Chapter that I always thought was cool but I knew I would never do a proper army of, is the White Consuls. This guy in particular is the heavy bolter trooper. Oddly, this model came missing his left arm so I constructed one using some bitz.

White Consul badge. 

I hand painted this icon, but it was so long ago that I can't recall if it was difficult or not. Sadly, I may have to repaint it and according to the background in the new codex, animal/beast Chapter icons are stated to be painted facing forward as a show of vigilance and bravery. So that's something to consider...

After Death Masque arrives I will be able to maximize all the extra bitz I will have on the 3 guys that don't have arms yet. I am looking forward to pretty much completing 2 small armies with this one boxed set.

When Sisters make you HOT!

Last Saturday I ventured down to the local Hobbyhole for some gaming action. My new job has kept me in a worn-out state much of the week, and by the time I get home, I am just too tired to deal with little toy soldiers, never mind writing about them! But before I forget the details, I need to record this battle for prosperity. Or something.

Edwin recently challenged me to a game of WH40K but mostly due to the fact that he has simply never played against me, not that there was any prize to earn for going to war with me or anything. Also, he just acquired a shiny "new" Sisters of battle army and wanted to give it a 2nd test run. His previous run can be viewed here. Edwin has a bit of a reputation for being a power gamer, where I tend to just throw lists together based upon some preconceived notion of balance and background. But I decided to toughen things up a bit and play around with a light "Loganwing" force, which I haven't done since 40K transitioned over to 6th edition.

My force consisted of: Logan Grimnar, 2 Wolfguard packs, each with a heavy flamer, a Long Fang pack (see previous posts for close ups), a Lone Wolf (with Fenrisian Wolf), a Vindicator, and a Grey Hunter pack with Rhino APC. The Grey hunters would be joined by Erik Axegrinder who today will count as a Wolf Guard squad leader. Logan and this Wolf Guard will be deploying via drop pod.

Edwin's Sisters of Battle were fully mechanized and kitted up to flame-bake anything that comes near it.

 The game starts with us selecting the mission Big Guns Never Tire, and the diagonal board set up. My Long Fangs started the game holding an objective. Once again my Warlord Trait was Master of Cities and once again I found myself playing on a City Fight board!



Space Wolf Deployment

Sisters of Battle deployment

Loganwing arrives on Turn 1.

 I tried to take the fight to the Sisters by throwing Logan Grimnar and this Wolfguard at them.
They were able to target the weaker armor of the Exorcist and blew it up immediately! I knew if it had the most potential to ruin my day, so made it a target priority. The unit  soaked up a lot of firepower while the drop pod took out about half of the Battle Sister squad that had jumped out of the rhino to counter-attack the Loganwing.


"Quiet girl, they won't be able to spot us!"

On turn two an Immolator rolled up and, true to it's design, torched the Lone Wolf in his cover, but both he and his Wolf survived the gout of flames...

The Lone Wolf''s retaliation was swift and he blew it up with krak grenades, Unfortunately his furry friend failed to survive the explosion. But it did give the First Blood award to the Space Wolves.

Meanwhile Logan and the lads kill the Dominion squad. but lose another of their number due to overwatch. Note that this will become a theme....;)

The Sisters execute the Lone Wolf. Who dies a glorious death.

...Perhaps paint will improve your saves?

Meanwhile in the not-so-glorious death dept., Logan and the last Wolf Guard charge the Sister's Rhino, only to fail their Overwatch saves! Logan was down to his final wound, and well, they died! We both were shocked, Edwin more so than I, as me being me, there are two fundamental laws in effect: 1.) Special Character always die hard if I use them. 2.) Terminators will fail their saves en mass! And usually when I really need them to not fail!

 Meanwhile, the Sisters advance up the flank, and dispatch Eric and his Grey Hunters with a combination of Seraphin strikes and Shooting from a supporting Sister's squad. My Rune Priest took a wound early in the game due to a Perils of the Warp result.

Prior to this next pic, a lot of stuff happened in my deployment zone.
There was a rhino and an immolator over there that both unloaded squads of Sisters that attempted to flame broil the Long Fangs, They killed three of them, however the Long Fangs charged the squad of Sisters and killed them in close combat, running the screeching witches down as they attempted to flee their grizzled assault. The other squad hopped into the Rhino (the Vindicator having blasted the Immolator apart.). And was moving closer to the Vindicator.

The Rune Priest and Wolf Guard kill the Seraphin, except for two which the Rune Priest deals with himself in the following turn.

The Living Saint, having left her Seraphin behind, destroys the Vindicator.




With my army mostly whittled down, the following rounds would prove strangely grueling for us both.

My favorite moment in the game!

 The Living Saint Charges the Long Fangs only to find herself "killed" by an overwatch  shot of super heated multi melta goodness! There she would remain for 2 more of my rounds before rising from the dead.

 The rhino is destroyed and my Rune Priest charges the Sisters, killing them.

On my Turn 7 I had the Rune Priest send living lighting psychic attacks down the field at the Sister's squad holding an objective while the remaining Long Fangs sent Frag missiles into the same squad. They failed to kill off or break the Sisters who clung greedily to their prize!

Finally on the bottom of Turn 7 (7!) the Living Saint comes to her senses, hops over the wall and contests my objective! That bitch!!! Grrr!

For WAY too many rounds, the Sisters had the drop pod circled and was trying to blow it up with krak grenades, but this proved unsuccessful, my final attempt to kill with with the drop pod missiles scattered horribly, allowing the Sisters to claim the objective...


With Big Guns never tire in effect, our Heavy Support choices could score and count toward the VP tally. We figured it was Sister 8 to Space Wolves 3.

Things I learned about the Sisters:

• For a White Dwarf liste that seemed uninspired and drafted just to get the players by, it was surprisingly resilient. The special Faith Saves really saved their bacon far more than it should've!
• Imperial Guard in power armor aren't bad! Especially with Strength 4 bolters!
• Charging flamers is never a good thing! I started to take a lot of flamers in my armies as I find that they are a good counter-attack against assaults and for those relying on cover saves. The Sisters can maximize flamers better than any army in the game!
• Space Wolves are easily distracted by cleavage. Personally, I think the Lone Wolf surrendered and faked his death...

It was a good game, one that the dice gods definitely decided to randomly foil us. Had the game ended at the bottom of turn 5, the results would have been in my favor, but the resulting two rounds were all the Sisters needed to turn things around to their favor.

I enjoyed the game, and found Edwin to be a decent chap to play against.

Wow! Someone painted those trees finally?!

On another table, Murl was tormenting Da Masta Cheef with his daemonic legions! Read the tale brief here.

Erik Axegrinder: Deathwatch Marine

Presenting: Erik Axegrinder of the Deathwatch.




Die Xenos scum!

 

Erik Axegrinder didn't begin life as my typical named Warhammer 40,000 personality would. No, in fact, Erik was created on paper as a Deathwatch RPG character for the Doctor's Deathwatch game. I knew he would be a Space Wolf and I wanted to tie him in with my Space Wolf army, so I decided he should be kin to Sven Axegrinder

 

His origin is somewhat meek, one really sort of limited to what elements were randomly generated for the role-playing game; but I did decide that the reason his battle-brothers forced --I mean, bestowed the honor of joining the Deathwatch to him, was because he was found siting alone during a Great Feast with his nose in a data-slate and heard to say, when questioned, about his lack of participation that he was reading up on some "great ideas for us in this book"; the book turned out to be the Codex: Astartes. Two weeks later he found himself swearing new orders to a new Commander (Talltree, I believe, a character associated with the Doctor's legendary Rogue Trader era space marine chapter), and being requisitioned a bunch of sweet new gear.

It was during our 1st game, that Erik came to the realization that "What was I thinking?! The Codex Astartes is crap!" as the unit was getting thrashed by a Thousand Sons Dreadnought! It was brutal and epic! LOL

It was a short 2 session game that we played while I was in town for a business trip. All of us decided it would be cool to actually make a miniature of our character even though we rarely use miniatures for the Doctor's games (in fact, it might actually be never). One of the guys (Brian) got his done up really quick, and even though I had gathered together all the elements to make him and primed him almost immediately, I only dabbed at the model for about 2 years... in fact if you look through past blog posts you might see elements of Erik scattered about on my painting table.

While working on some Long Fangs and Land Raider bits (all future blogs in the making) I kept throwing color on the Erik model. This (pic to the right) is the point I was at with him last week. And yes, I prefer to paint as I assemble...Yes, this makes it slower to get them done but I am far more satisfied with the end result.

While working on the Long Fangs earlier today, I was a bit vexed with one of the models that didn't have anywhere to put his chapter icon. The solution was to put it on the back plate on a back pack. I simply grabbed a micron, and drew it on. So pleased with how that turned out, I repeated it for Erik's backpack as well.

That's right, hand drawn!

 After that, I decided it was simply time to finish Erik. And finish him today! After a series of touch-ups I decided he needs some grenades. I have a bin with a lot of extra Imperial Guard grenades that I just love. So stuck those on after I was finished with the right knee guard.

Next I put on his arm, then the knife and finally the shoulder pad. A note on the shoulder pad, this is one of the original Rogue Trader era decals, and I discovered that these are bit brittle with age. The semi-circular bit on the lower right the icon tore off while handling, but I was able to fix it with a micron. Surprised at how easy that was to do considering that when I thought of the solution I was sure I would go mad in the attempt.

Next I added the Deathwatch plate then I applied some additional ink washes to the wolf pelt which I wasn't pleased with at first as I thought the head kept blending into the over-all pelt. I'm satisfied with it now.

And ta-da! He's now assembled! I fixed the base a took a few photos and now, here he is! 

Just needs some flock for grass (and yes, the base looks great with the top image, but that thing needs some grass too!), and I might stick a decal on his right leg but that might be more trouble than it's worth at this point... I shall ponder it.

In my 40K games, Erik will be used as either a Wolf Guard Squad Leader or as stripped down Lone Wolf. Which is why I chose to use the yellow and black claw markings instead of the red and black of a typical Grey Hunter. I have no doubt that Space Wolves returning back to the chapter would be anything less than a Wolf Guard for the experience! Or perhaps to find their original pack has perished or maybe his mingling with other chapters now puts him in a weird 'outsider' status? -Lone Wolf!



Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed!

 

Bring on the glory!!!!


 

 



Update:

Now with flock