#shadow war armageddon

[aeldari-enclave]

Adding to my growing number of WIPs in various stages of completion is a Shadow War Armageddon kill team based on the 88th Cadian Mechanised Infantry. I wanted characters for the skirmish game and so ditched the helmets for the most part and added some statuesque heads and some salvaged from other sprues. I have had these primed for a while but couldn't move forward for some reason.

[candlelightsinner]

Finished the first building for my Warhammer 40k Hive map: The Little Sister's Orphanage inspired by Bioshock

[tinfoilstork]

@landysbear got me a Sisters kill team and I just finished painting them and [tumblr ate the rest of my message] I can definitely see why this hobby is so popular. This is very fun. Thank you babe. I love them, I love you.

[makotosolutions]

Current mood: wanting to buy/play ALL the skirmish tabletop wargames

[pendix-blog]

Played my first game of Shadow War last night. Sisters vs Wych Cult. Lots of fun! The old Necromunda scenery really holds up well!

[dentaljaguar]

Hunt in the Promethium Sprawl

Even though 8th is out and getting all the love, I’m still finishing up painting my Imperial Guard Shadow Wars team. 

Felt inspired to do something in SFM for it. These guardsmen models are much lower quality than what I’m used to working with (Half life 2 quality D:). Also using a shotgun that looks like the ones my forgeworld dudes are using as apposed to the typical 40k one.

[extraheretical]

Made a Kill Team of Raptor Scouts for some Shadow War Armageddon Shenanigans. Their names are, from right to left in the Group Photo:

“Deadeye”

“Smoky”

“Dutch”

“Tex”

“Beefhammer”

and Dave

[tigersindevlanmud-blog]

Shadow War: Armageddon is the old Necromunda ruleset, albeit repackaged to be playable with Warhammer 40K armies. While most of the rules remain unchanged, the campaign has been severely truncated.

Since I'm a firm believer in “less is more” approach to miniature games, I'm a fan of skirmish level games. And Shadow War is the only sane-ish way to do it in 40K – well, until Heralds of Ruin team produces a viable 8th edition adaptation of their rules (you could also play 7th editio HoR or Grimdark Futures skirmish mode, but let's not talk about that).

I also have a soft-ish spot for some of the older – and unfortunately metal – Guardsmen sculpts. Eventually, I accrued enough of that older stuff through random purchases to make myself an Imperial Guard Veteran Shadow War Kill Team, hooray!

I wanted to color them in the new Imperial Guard color scheme, which is a bit lighter than the old Cadian one, but not having the required paints, I had to compromise a bit (actually, a lot).

My Sarge is the only dude who isn't made by Games Workshop. In fact, I got him via Tim Prow’s Eru-kin (space Lizardmen) Kickstarter. This '80s-ish dude tickles what little nostalgia I feel for anything, and even though he's a Space Mercenary reminiscent of Strontium Dog, he makes a fitting Guard Sarge. He already has a laspistol (even GW has the hardest time producing identical laspistols and bolt pistols), so I only added a spare chainsword from a MK III Marines sprue I got from Burning of Prospero.

The two initial carapace-armor-and-hot-shot-pack-lasgun Veterans are represented by a Kasrkin and a Stormtrooper. Both of these are discontinued miniatures (the loathsome Tempestus Scions took their place when the worst of codixes – C: Militarum Tempestus and C: Astra Militarum – were released), however, Stormies predated the Kasrkin. Yet the sculpt was so good that both of them were produced at the same time (with Cadian Kasrkin standing in as Stormies the same way as models of Cadian Shock Troopers are THE Imperial Guardsmen).

And yeah, the Stormie model is pretty great, even if he's made of disgusting metal (that's any metal, once it comes to miniatures). The weakest bit would be his shoes that look cartoonishly lumpy. The worst part to paint was the back pack, because there's no clear line separating it from the carapace armor, leaving you with guesswork.

The Kasrkin is a lot better, though you still need to guess the colors of some bits. GW could produce more in-universe guides on the crap that miniatures carry, as it would make it easier for us to decide on the colors. It's like familiarizing yourself with subject when you're drawing or modeling: if you know that that thingamabob is actually the Pitot tube, you will be more inclined to include it.

However, since GW has axed the lines in favor of Tempestus Scions (horrible name, atrocious fluff, great models, mediocre statline), we're not getting shit!

While Guardsmen are forced to use 10-man teams like the rest of them (except for ORKS!) - and much like the tabletop Veteran squad – they get three weapon specialists instead of two. So I gave one of them a sniper rifle – by converting one of the lasgun dudes – gave another one a plasma gun (badly glued under the gun of the guy who, in the old kit, was the ammo carrier for the heavy bolter team), and I also had a flamer dude (from Cadian box) and a meltagunner (from an expansion pack). It's really striking how good and modern the melta looks, even if it has the fuel source attached via some overly long pipe, while the flamer is such a horrible sculpt.

Naturally, the first battle saw the sniper fail to hit anything, but it was a sad show anyways. My team was hitting and pinning/wounding dudes, but didn't manage to actually take out any. Half if not more of his Guardsmen team (it was a brotherly spat/training) was on the ground and he was rolling bottling tests basically since turn one. So it's only natural that when his melta gunner managed to fry my unlucky flamer (ran out of ammo after a single burst) while one other dude was on the ground I failed my first bottle test.

Happens every time.

Now, some of the dudes in my team are supposed to be Veterans, while others are merely Guardsmen (newbies, in the parlance of the game). So far, I haven't found a way to differentiate between them, so I'm open to suggestions.

This also the first time I gave an entire squad eye pupils – using a soft tip pen – and the results are mixed, but better than trying to do it with the brush. I also tried to make a few of the soldiers black, most unsuccessfully. I had better luck with the albino-white (and red-eyed, with no pupils) soldiers!

The most bizzare thing was trying to give one of my veteran skull/baron Semedi facepaint. You judge the results.

The fluff behind the team is that they work with/for my special snowflake original content donut steel chapter the Stilled Voices. As they were crusading through a forgotten sector. they found a world which the Imperial Guard had held for generations, constantly calling for help. They have integrated some of the local white skin/red eyed peoples into their ranks over the years of constant defense against fallen human realms (currently being taken back into the fold by the surviving elements of Stilled Voices), xeno raiders and orks. Now, the Space Marines are taking the Guardsmen with them to bolster their numbers, mostly by acting as human-sized infiltrators to launch rapid raids and secret actions.

Stilled Voices had been much burned by desperately strict adherence to the Codex Astartes before and Akharon the White Hand, the new chapter master, is trying to conserve their strength while working from the shadows. He has seen the efficacy of such an approach and he's trying to do the same with the first humans that willingly joined the Stilled Voices in their (re)conquest.