Commutatus: Modeling Plastic Grey Knights

A simple conversion to create a power armor Grey Knight is to use the robed marines off the Dark Angels upgrade sprue combined with the grey knight halberd bits sold by GW.

Exemplum: Forgeworld Grey Knight Dreadnought

The Forgeworld Grey Knight dreadnought is a truly stunning example of the detail that resin can offer. From the detailed inscriptions across the leg armor to the intaglio script on the chest, this model really does justice to the concept of a daemon hunting machine.

As with most FW dreads, the body is purchased separately from the arms. I had picked with the body on a whim from the Glen Burnie Battle Bunker and was fortunate to pick up the nemesis force weapon arm and twin-linked lascannon for a song off eBay.

Antiquis: OOP Sniper Scouts

A prime example of the old made new. Scout models from Advanced Space Crusade (pre-2nd edition) that have been updated with sniper rifles. These guys fit well into my all "robed" marine Dark Angels army, given the antique carapace armor and the poofy sleeves.

The second picture depicts my limited greenstuff abilities, but I think the straps came out to good effect.

Figmentum: Splinter Fleet Arugula

A relatively unknown offshoot of the kraken hive fleet, encounters with splinter fleet arugula have offered the Imperium a new look at the radical evolutionary capacity of the tyranid race.

Unlike any other known tyranid fleet, the arugula appears to consist entirely of vegan lifeforms. Colloquially called hippie 'nids, broods from the arugula fleet digest nothing but organic, vegetative matter.

These hippie 'nids literally eschew any form of animal based protein matter, having evolved highly specific digestive enzymes that appear only capable of breaking down the indigenous flora on a planet chosen for invasion.

Many a guardsmen have been left utterly bereft of clothing after being overrun by a swarm of arugula tyranids. The magos biologis suspect that this is ultimately part of an insidious psychological campaign designed to weaken the resolve of humanity at the thought of facing future invasions in the buff.

Likewise, new tyranid lifeforms have become apparent within the arugula fleet. Of specific note are the scabiegaunts which have rapidly become the bane of imperial camps across the sector. Although completely lacking in conventional weaponry, these scabiegaunts wreak havoc by sleeping in any unoccupied guard barracks they may come across. Unbeknownst to guardsmen who subsequently sleep in the same bedding, the scabiegaunts leave behind microscopic parasites that burrow under human skin and cause terrible itching and redness.

The argula fleet has also introduced an new type of orbital warfare in the form of patchouli spores. Similar in nature to currently documented spore mines, patchouli spores are launched from an orbiting hive ship and targeted at the most densely populated areas on a planet. These patchouli spores are a direct assault on the olfactory senses and appear to have evolved specifically to drive the majority of a human population away from cities into more suburban areas. The magos biologis suspect that the patchouli spores are meant to separate and herd the planet's human population but to what end is unknown at this time.

A side note on patchouli spores: it appears that certain elements of human society are actually drawn to patchouli spores and will migrate to them in great numbers or festivals. This seems to be an explicit tactic on the part of the argula fleet, perhaps to draw likeminded humans to be voluntarily digested in the great enzyme pools aboard other hive fleets. Generally speaking, the Imperium encourages this behavior amongst humans drawn to these spores.

Commutatus: Modeling Plastic Inquisitorial Stormtroopers

Even at the best of times, a Daemonhunters army was always a tough one to run. In 5e, with troops as the only scoring units, a DH list got even that much more difficult to run. However, the hidden gem of the DH is the inquisitorial stormtrooper squad (IST).

Unfortunately, IST models are metal and therefore expensive. How a cheap and effective alternative is to combine a box of Catachan jungle fighters with a box of Warhammer Fantasy Empire militia to get an attractive, simple and most important - multitudinous number of guys (upwards of forty from just two boxes).

Commutatus: Tyranid Gargoyle Conversion

Given the facts that a) tyranid gargoyles only come in metal and b) you need to field a fair number of them to be of any worth to your army, the prospect of adding gargoyles to a list is an expensive one. However, a quick conversion is to print out insect wings (I used dragonfly wings) on transparency sheets, cut out, and glue to standard termagants.

In order to give the appearance of flight, mount your new gargoyles on flying bases. The converted termagant pictured here has also had a rear leg cut off then re-positioned to look like he is launching from the ground.

Advocatus: Optimizing Unique Models in 5e

Warhammer 40k 5th edition (5e for short) presents some new challenges and new advantages where unique models within a squad are concerned. Historically, the owning player of a unit that has failed armor saves has had the choice to pull any model from a squad (within certain parameters). This mechanism allows models with special weapons or abilities to be protected and those models where usually the last to be killed off.

5e introduces a new game mechanic that requires wounds to be specifically allocated to individual models in a unit. In the case where there are more wounds than models, these wounds wrap around such that a given model may be forced to take more than one armor save. The intent of this change seems to be to force special models to take armor saves and potentially be removed prior to the rest of the squad being killed.

However, a slight twist to that mechanic requires identical models to make their armor saves together and the owning player to remove models equal to the number of failed saves. In the case where a unique or special model fails more than one save, that wound is lost and does not carry over to the rest of the squad. However, with identical models, those failed saves are spread around similar to the casualty removal mechanic of 4th edition.

A simple way to take advantage of this new save allocation is to ensure that there are as many unique models as possible within a given squad so that saves are taken on an individual basis thereby maximizing the number of "lost" wounds (i.e. those failed saves that do not carry over) within the squad. This means that even the most innocuous upgrades in a squad may be worthwhile just to ensure as high a number of unique models as possible.

A very simple example is that of a Dark Angels scout squad. The DA scouts are allowed to field a mix of weapons for no additional points cost, i.e. a bolter, shotgun, or pistol and combat weapon. Even if those scouts are considered ablative, in 5e it is now worthwhile to take a mix of these combinations. For example, a scout squad with sniper rifle sergeant, pistol scout, bolter scout, sniper rifle scout, and missile launcher scout represents a squad of 5 unique models. Should this squad take ten wounds, each model would take saves against two wounds a piece, throwing away any additional failed saves for a given model. Should the pistol scout fail both of his saves, he is removed from the game and the extra wound goes with him!

There are numerous possibilities for this technique throughout many 40k armies. In the upcoming posts, I will go over a few of these. Feel free to post your own thoughts and ideas on how to use this new mechanic to your advantage.