DLWDG vs. The Lions of Harlech

 o/

Yes I know, I know. It has indeed been next to forever since Da Long Wayz Dezert Groop itself has seen the tabletop for a game of 40k, however last weekend Kushial and his Lions of Harlech came to my FLGS and we got in a game. We fielded 1K each and fought over two fairly central objectives, worth 1VP apiece for whomever controlled them, and here's how it all went down: 

Da Groop led by Ad'Mral Orkbar. 

Kushial's Lions of Harlech who blended in surprisingly well with the gaming mat. 

My deployment with those previously mentioned Flash Gitz in the foreground.

Kushial's camouflaged force's deployment. 

Wiv Da boys' start'n off furst, Da Battlewagon trundled forward and da Tankbustas vaporized da contempta dred in front uv dem! Huzzah!

Da shoota boys shot lots and da weedy gitz hit little

None to pleased with the surprising demise of one of his Dreadnoughts, the Lions' Assault marines and jump pack chaplain made a beeline for the Battlewagon!

Da Tankbustas fired overwach an' killt 3 or 4 beakies az dey charged in, huzzah!

Nonetheless, the Assault marines clearly hit a hydraulic line or the like and the battlewagon's lifeblood began flowing out of it in earnest, ouch!

Da Ad'Mral called a stage wun WAAAUGH! and everyone charged 'cept da battle wagon which retreated so da tankbustas could shoot da uver beakies killin' a few. Plus, fer da furst time ever (for me) itz BOMB SQUIG TIME! (which killed a marine)

Da shoota boyz let da beakies have it den charged in fer sum fun!

Dems wuz winnin' too but trouble wuz a comin'...

On da uvver side, afta da beakies shot sum boyz down, all da gitz failed der charges...sad face. 

Dem shoota boyz tho, dey beat 'em down to jus' da bonez-covered boss beakie.

Seeing the inevitable (not) green tide on approach, Kushial's marines come out from cover, bolters blazing and then charging into combet!

NOOO! Dems iz runnin da uvver way-wait, hooz dat guy?

Da Battlewagon died and da tankbustas tumble out an shoot at da dred but don' do nuthin!

The lions on the other side hit with all of their gene-crafted might but the Orks weather the charge and a brawl ensues.

Diz wun haz a big sword!

Their Chaplain screaming litanies of fury and resolutely fighting on alone inspires all of the remaining Lions of Harlech to charge into the fray! Ya know, its not a good'n propa' ork game unless multiple units from both sides are fed into a meatgrinder in the middle somewhere. 

All da uvver boyz died or ran away, but big sword or not, Da nob 'az a BIGGER CHOPPA!

Oi! No fair,deyz gotta dred!

Da last of da shoota boyz run away so dat da tankbustas shoot da uvver dred doin' 6 wounds.

Krump and Pittance and da tankbustas den charge!

(da WAUUUGH! wuz at stage too at dis point me thinks)

AD'MRAL ORKBAR charges in and whiffs! (because that's what all of my friggin' warbosses do!)

The Lions' Dread wades in yet again...

The company champion, seeing the warboss as the obviously more dangerous threat directs his attacks at the monster, inflicting 2 wounds. Distracted by this new foe, the Nob inflicts 2 wounds on the champion as well!

Oi! Wut iz you gitz doin back dere anywayz?

Deyz lookin' good! (but not much else)

The Lions' champion unloads into the Warboss dropping him to a single wound! However Orkbar retaliates in kind and kills the champion!

Da last beakie boss fightin' to da last az iz good'n propa!

At this point it was the bottom of turn three and Kushial ran up the white flag. Going forward I could camp the big choppa nob on an objective and wrack up VPs while he was stuck in combat on the other side with little hope of achieving even a tie before game's end. 

Victory to Da Groop!

As for the new Ork codex, its...stout. The 2-stage waaaaugh in particular as well as the T5 across the board (soon to be negated by 10th ed from what I hear) is really nice! After this experience, I'm surprised that I haven't seen any other Ork armies locally. That said it'll take a few more games to see whether or not this was a fluke or not. 

So, what to do with a non-Primaris space marine army?

The above is just a small portion of the Lions of Harlech Chapter. I do believe that there is somewhere in the realm of 4-5 fully painted companies of them.

It is a valid question as out of the blue, Kushial surprised me (stunned would be more accurate) with the gift of a large space marine army this past weekend! Approximately 2k worth in points via the old marine codex as I've yet to get the current one. 

The unpainted lions...

He hasn't played 40k in close to 2 years, and has no want to paint anymore of his beloved Lions of Harlech space marines, so he was selling off the unpainted portions of his army (dreadnoughts excluded as he has a love of dreads that borders on some kind of psychosis...). However, like myself when I sold off the handful of Rainbow Warriors and the other remnants of my non-primaris marine forces, he found that they were selling for a pittance. 

The whole lot of 'em!

So, if he was to give them away, he'd give them to someone he knew that would enjoy them, rather than a total stranger. So...where to go from here, as GW (apparently) no longer has any love for the 'regular' marines. 

Perusing the archives of this blog I thought that maybe I'd revisit one of the many, many chapters that I've fielded in the past and in doing so the Tyrant's Legion caught my eye. Based on Forgeworld's (now defunct) 6th ed list, the Tyrant's Legion was Lugft Huron's attempt to build the Astral Claws up into a space marine legion of old prior to the badab war. 

At that war's conclusion, the Astral Claw/Tyrant's Legion survivors fled into the maelstrom and became the Red Corsairs, which was another army given to me  out of the blue from the Gentleman's Ones (oh how I miss that blog, and then later given away to yet another blogger who did them proud.

An image of an Astral Claw from the of FW Badab war book. Ironically, it bears a strong resemblance in color to the otherwise totally unrelated Lions of Harlech!

Anyways, originally, the Astral Claws were a loyalist chapter, and rather than have an army in open rebellion again (built of a mix of loyalist and chaos bitz as i had previously), I'm thinking of doing an earlier version, just on the cusp of heresy. The lion's share (pun intended) of the minis in my new army are 30k Mk IV marines. Conveniently, the Astral Claws had raided stockpiles of obsolete, but still serviceable kit as they sought to bolster their forces in secret. 

So how to build this with longevity in mind you ask? Simple: I use the chaos space marine codex. However like the fallen, I'll just ignore all of the chaos gods' affiliated stuff, daemons, etc., and build 'em much as a generic loyalist army, but one diverging from the codex astartes, i.e.: over sized tac squads, with 2 heavy, or special weapons, etc. 

It'll carry some of the flavor of the old FW list, whilst being entirely legal, and devoid of primaris marines and any fear of obsolescence for the foreseeable future.  Some units won't be cross-compatible of course (hey Neverness, I gotta bunch of scout snipers for ya!), and I'll need to order some bitz to convert the Landraider redeemer back into a 'regular' one. But i think it'll work and hey-best of all, that color scheme is easy to paint!

The Fate of the Lions of Harlech?

All this needs now is it's completed Nid, and then snow flock.

The 3rd part of my Base for a bug series has taken a tragic turn I'm afraid. The Lions of Harlech, a both storied and highly honorable space marine chapter, has been curiously silent for quite sometime now. Indeed, they've been absent from both the blogosphere as well as local gaming tables since the end of last April, and I think I know why. 

As true loyal sons of the Almighty God-Emperor of Mankind, I've discovered a piece of evidence revealing their possible fate. The Lions, were apparently attempting to link up with the Silver Drakes, bringing desperately needed assistance in the Drakes' grueling war against the Tyranid menace. Sadly, the Lions never made it. 

Instead, the only evidence of their valiant attempt to reach their Primaris brethren has been an abandoned escape pod bearing their colors and heraldry. Nearby lay the skeletal remains of what appears to be perhaps a crew member or possibly chapter serf from this now missing in action chapter. On Holy Terra, the Bell of Lost Souls (no, not the clickbait site) has yet to toll for these lost battle brothers in hopes that some survivors may yet be found still fighting the Emperor's enemies!

Yes indeed, those icons match those adorning the Doom of Neverness!

As for the Tyranid warrior who is slated to grace this base, whilst it has been base coated (mostly), the process of painting it has been a bit of a struggle. Mainly because our kitty Baxter has now largely thwarted my last two painting sessions by deciding to sleep in the midst of my desk/painting menagerie. Indeed, its difficult painting anything when you're clinging to a mere 2 inch strip of desk at best, praying the the next kitty-stretch doesn't send everything tumbling into the abyss, again...

...sigh...
Seriously Bax? Isn't there somewhere more comfortable that you would rather sleep?

Pariah Medusa for my 30k Blackshields

o/

After acquiring a $20, on-the-sprue rhino on ebay, I was able to make some progress on my big momma conversion kit for my 30k marines...

Beware black primered models/minis in ebay listings...because you won't see just how badly the model is assembled till it arrives on your doorstep!

The rear deck plate shown in the link above wasn't included in the ebay auction, Luckily though it doesn't look like anything is actually missing if you didn't know it was supposed to be there in the first place. There is a bit of minor damage that needs to be repaired due to being thin resin that was manhandled by the prior owner, but its nothing a little bit of plasticard can't easily cover up. 

easy fix, moving on...

The only piece of the original rhino I kept was the top deck which thankfully hadn't been glued in place. Whilst it doesn't look bad in the top photo, when looked at from the side, you could see right thru the tank due to a large gap. Thus, the front hull was tossed aside, and a goodly portion of the top plate had to be cut away as well. I also needed to do a bit of filling in of said gap on the bottom of the cannon itself. I suck at greenstuff application, but luckily a strip of plasticard fit in perfectly!

Front and top partially removed...!

Plasticard to the rescue!

With that all taken care of, it all fit together nicely. I swapped out the havoc launcher for a sensor pod which presumably mounts a targeting array for the cannon, not to mention cameras so that the driver can actually see forward and...ya know, drive this beast!

Hmmm...that add-on is a bit too traitorish for the Salamanders, so to the Blackshields this will go!

Look at that gun! Now that is how you over-compensate!! Screech this is normally your M.O., so I hope you're taking notes!

Side by side with one of Kushial's Vindicators, this gun makes the Vindi's Demolisher cannon look like a mere pop gun! As such, this will be used as a Medusa instead. But that presents another problem: along with any sort of a forward vision, there's no room for the front hull-mounted heavy bolter. So...to the pintle mount! 

That works!

Seriously, where else would it go? The weapon is so friggin' big that there's no internal space for...well, anything! Best not to ask how many rounds are stored internally (assuming one is already in the breech, I'm guessing two!), or where the engine, driver, gunner(s?) and other internals would actually go with a gun this large mounted on a mere rhino. True, the Legion Medusa is supposed to be on a reinforced basilisk hull, but the Blackshields already have pariah weapons and power armor, so why not add vehicles to that list?

Now aside from a little bit more work on the hull and of course paint, all that's needed is a 2nd rhino to follow this tank around, acting as an ammo carrier (but don't hold your breath).

Leviathan Dreadnought is complete!

In the Emperor's immortal name, I dub thee: The Doom of Neverness!

Whew! This beastie was a lot more work than I thought it'd be! For those of you that don't recall (which is to say most everyone as I've been milking this for quite some time), I painted this for Kushial in exchange for a lance of Battletech Manticore tanks.

The starting point.

The um...base coat? lol, they're all pink on the inside...

A new and much improved base, acquired via ebay.

Ready for battle!

Yeah, I don't even want to know what this thing does....

This can't be much better, plus there are several smaller weapons on the front of the torso as well!

Another close up of the spiritless soul stones being crushed underfoot. Also it seems the grav flux bombard has scorched the purity seal which fluttered a bit too close!

As you can see, its come a long way from when I first came into possession of it, but I'm hoping he likes it. As a bonus, I added two little deployment badges Lion decals to his Contemptor which has served as the 'painting guide' for the leviathan.

In addition to the decals, this got a few minor touch ups as well. 

The new nightmares-in-arms posing side-by-side.

I'll pass this back to Kushial this coming Saturday, meaning all he needs now is to find the 8th ed rules for this monstrosity, as well to hope for some sort of celestial alignment to take place in order for he and Neverness to convene in the same location for this to make it's battlefield debut!