Warhammer 40,000: Let's Paint Chaos Daemons

Therefore those err who say that there is no such thing as witchcraft, but that it is purely imaginary, even although they do not believe that devils exist except in the imagination of the ignorant and vulgar, and the natural accidents which happen to a man he wrongly attributes to some supposed devil. For the imagination of some men is so vivid that they think they see actual figures and appearances which are but the reflection of their thoughts, and then these are believed to be the apparitions of evil spirits or even the spectres of witches. But this is contrary to the true faith, which teaches us that certain angels fell from heaven and are now devils, and we are bound to acknowledge that by their very nature they can do many wonderful things which we cannot do. And those who try to induce others to perform such evil wonders are called witches. And because infidelity in a person who has been baptized is technically called heresy, therefore such persons are plainly heretics.

- Malleus Maleficarum, Montague Summers translation

My mother named me Doom Guy, a decision which would prove to be prescient years later when I went on to play a central part in the events of Doom.

- Dennis Farrell, Memoirs of Doom Guy

William Blake: Satan Calling Up his Legions (1804)

**

This all started when I got Yeenoghu.

The demon lord of gnolls and ghouls is very familiar to those of us who've spent far too long fucking around in explore mode in NetHack, and when I saw there was a mini, I knew that this was my Daemon Prince.

Sadly, for a slightly expensive model, the quality isn't great! Straight out of the box, the body of the model was warped enough that there was simply no way to make the tabs on the feet fit the slots in the base.

The textured base that came with the model was quite boring anyway, so I clipped off the tabs and stuck him on a regular GW base, which worked out okay.

Mind you, I did try bending the feet, which caused one of them to immediately snap off because there was an air bubble inside the resin. The arm also didn't fit cleanly:

Gluing the tail on was also slightly challenging, and while I was at it, I decided to change the position of the flail as well.

I think the end result is a pretty cool model! I'm not unhappy with my purchase, but a little bit disappointed in the quality. I painted his skin in German Camo Black Brown and drybrushed with Chocolate Brown, with the furrier bits getting a little additional drybrush of Light Brown. I went for red cloth since my Chaos Marines are Word Bearers, and this way I can use him with them as well.

**

Now that I have an appropriately demonic HQ choice, and one that I can use in several different armies at that, I thought I'd try something a little bit different from last time and make a Daemon army.

Continuing on the theme of buying a silly Warhammer box, I picked up the Wrath and Rapture boxed set way back in 2019, with what I think must have been proceeds from my Brexit lectures that spring. The first models I assembled out of the box were the Bloodcrushers, or to be precise, the Juggernauts. I absolutely love them, but if I'm honest, the Bloodletters riding them are just, well, boring. So I decided to throw them out and swap in some of the Daemonettes that were meant to be riding the Steeds of Slaanesh. Because the Daemonettes are posed very differently from the Bloodletters, the first thing I found myself doing after setting them up on the Juggernauts was making some green stuff loincloths!

The (unpainted) Bloodcrushers made their debut that summer, facing Imperial Knights and doing surprisingly well. If I'm making a Daemon army, I definitely want these girls in it. Here's the first of them painted:

I quite liked my color scheme, even if I say so myself, so here's all three ladies.

I've since bought myself a Khorne start collecting box, and I used that and a daemonette to make a proper Bloodhunter:

Here's the whole bunch.

**

So now we have an HQ choice and an Elite choice: we still need some Troops. Way back when I first heard that Fantasy Flight Games were doing a Doom board game with miniatures and everything, I thought it was really cute and kinda wanted one for myself. Now that we're playing Warhammer 40,000, though, I can use the daemons as, well, daemons! I got started with some pink horrors.

Thinking about Doom demons in 40k, probably the closest equivalent to Horrors is imps. The board game comes with nine of them, and here they are. I painted them the same way I did Yeenoghu, with Bone details with a Smoke wash. I love the big grins they all have!

The next most numerous enemy model in the box is the (would you love a) Zombieman, of whom there are eight. Since the board game is based on some uncanonical later video game, I feel like the models look demonic enough that they'll easily pass for horrors. I went for a color scheme based on the original video game, with Medium Sea Grey and Luftwaffe Camo green to match my Chaos Marines, and some splashes of Red and Smoke. I gotta be honest, I kinda like it.

I've still got room for two more horrors in my list, and there were some Revenants in the box. I painted them both with Natural Steel armor, but it did occur to me that I should have an iridescent horror. Therefore, I made my first foray into Green Stuff World's paints:

I might perhaps have used a different name, but I picked this one anyway and tried it on one of the Revenants. Here they are:

The iridescent effect is a bit subtle given the name of the paint! It goes from the sort of pinkish red that you see in the picture to a metallic blue, and it works decently enough. I painted the business end of Yeenoghu's flail with it as well.

**

So this is my army list:

HQ - Daemon Prince of Chaos - 150 points 

Troops - Horrors (23) - 184 points [334] 

Elites - Bloodcrushers (4) - 160 points [494]

I'm not even pretending this list is going to hold objectives or do anything other than go at the enemy. My goals with it will be to try using psychic powers for the first time in 9th ed. and see how many Space Marines we can eat. I look forward to finding out!

Let's Read Tolkien 86: Vae Victis 10-11

Mordor, the Teshgol boundary 

April 9, 3019 

“So why not wait until nightfall?” Haladdin whispered.

As you may or may not recall, Orocuen Sergeant Tzerlag of the Cirith Ungol Rangers and Umbarian Field Medic Second Class Haladdin are in Mordor, trying to evade the enemy and make it back home. We find them eying a small nomad camp in a hollow, and Haladdin sweats it out while Tzerlag investigates. Sadly, he finds that all of the civilian inhabitants of the camp have been murdered by the Western occupation forces. As they're burying the dead, Tzerlag finds a man buried up to his head in the sand and left to die. Haladdin diagnoses only mild dehydration, and they pull him out.

To their shock, the man is a Gondorian officer. He introduces himself as Baron Tangorn, a lieutenant in the Ithilien Regiment. The baron had been part of a patrol of Easterling mercenaries led by an elven officer, Eloar of Lórien, which was engaged in counterinsurgency operations, i.e. massacring civilians. It's a little sad to think that back in 1999 when the Last Ringbearer was written, neither the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan nor the Vietnam War were inpossibly distant memories, and in both, counterinsurgency did tend to mean exactly that. The English translation was published in 2010, when the USians were right in the middle of the so-called War on Terror, which was largely fought by murdering civilians. When Tolkien started writing the Lord of the Rings in 1937 or thereabouts, they didn't call it counterinsurgency yet, but the Royal Air Force had only recently been busy bombing Iraq to put down a revolution, and the Italians were butchering Ethiopians to build Mussolini's empire. So very unfortunately, this is timeless stuff.

The baron, it turns out, had tried to stop the elf-led patrol from murdering the civilians, and for his pains he was left to die in the desert. As he explains it, he has nowhere left to go: a usurper has taken over his homeland, and if the elves find him, they'll kill him. This is what he has to say about events in Gondor:

“Denethor died a horrible death; supposedly he immolated himself on a funeral pyre. The very next day there was a ready claimant to the throne. You see, there’s an old legend, which no one had taken seriously before, that the ruling House of Húrin is only taking care of the throne for the descendants of the mythical Isildur. Such a descendant has shown up – one Aragorn, of the northern rangers. To prove his dynastic rights he produced a sword, supposedly the legendary Andúril, although who had ever seen this Andúril? He also performed several healings by laying of hands, although all those healed were from among his northern followers … Prince Faramir, the heir apparent, retired to Ithilien and is supposedly a prince there under the eye of Captain Beregond – the same one who testified to Denethor’s ‘self-immolation.’”

Meanwhile, Aragorn's remaining undead keep everyone in line, and rumor has it that the real ruler is his elven-wife Arwen. In events closer to home for our protagonists, Barad-dûr has been razed and according to Tangorn, the elves are looking to "push your people back into the Stone Age." Another reference to the US military; the threat to bomb a country into the Stone Age is of Vietnam vintage, but the idea of occupying and "undeveloping" a country is reminiscent of the Morgenthau Plan, the US policy proposal that aimed at deindustrializing Germany after the Second World War.

So Tangorn doesn't have much of a home to go back to, and he asks if he can join the two Mordorians and get his revenge on the elf-officer. They agree, and the next chapter opens with Haladdin and Baron Tangorn discussing poetry as they prepare to attack the enemy camp.

First Tzerlag and Haladdin, serving as an archer, take out several sentries in a sequence straight out of Skyrim, and then Tzerlag and Tangorn storm the camp. Tzerlag accounts for several of the Easterling mercenaries, but he's outmatched by Eloar. Tangorn and the elf duel, and Tangorn is winning, until Eloar tricks him into into striking the elf's chest armor, which appears to be flimsy leather. Tangorn's sword, however, bounces off it, and Eloar gains the advantage, knocking Tangorn down. Haladdin, watching, decides there's nothing left to lose, and fires his arrow at the elf.

Remember that part about the Certain Someone I quoted at the end of the previous post? On this Middle-earth, divine grace is shooting an elf in the eye.

**

I'm delighted we've returned to the adventures of Haladdin and Tzerlag! The dialogue is still hokey, especially when they talk about poetry, but for the most part these chapters read like a proper adventure story. I hope there's more of this to come.

Next time: deliberations in the desert.

Epic: Knights

What with his wisdom and his chivalrye,

He conquered al the regne of Femenye,

That whylom was y-cleped Scithia;

And weddede the quene Ipolita,

And broghte hir hoom with him in his contree

With muchel glorie and greet solempnitee

 - Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales, the Knight's Tale

I very much enjoyed building my first 28mm Knight, so when I got into Adeptus Titanicus, I knew I wanted some Questoris Knights. You can field Knights as a support banner to go with your Titan maniple, like the Cerastus Knights in the starter set, or with Doom of Molech, as a whole Knight army of their own. Last year, you could still get the original Questoris Knight box as well as the one with the extra weapons, so I bought one of each. Then when I fucked up the bases on my Reavers and had to wait for new ones, I had time to start building the Knights!

**

I'll be magnetizing the Knights' main weapons and the rocket pods; the meltaguns and heavy stubbers are just far too fiddly so the Scion is getting a meltagun and everyone else is going to make do with the stubber. Other than that, though, weapon decisions with these Questoris Knights are easy, since there's just one of every gun in the box! So that's kind of disappointing. At least they look like they'll be easy to magnetize, with every kind of weapon attaching to an identical shoulder piece.

I started by gluing magnets to the inside of the carapace, so each Knight can hold a rocket pod, or something else, in case they ever introduce more carapace weapons. As for the rocket pods themselves, I ended up cutting off the bit that's meant to go into the hole in the carapace completely, and replacing it with a 1/16" * 1/32" magnet.

I think the end result is very cute!

The arm weapons were a lot more fiddly. Yes, it's possible to drill out the shoulder joint and insert a tiny magnet, and I did it. Twelve times. Mostly during online meetings!

The weapons were actually easier to drill!

Here are all the little weapons:

Like my 40k Armigers, these Knights are part of the Auxilia Daedra and bear their colours. That is, the metal bits are Gunmetal Grey with a Black Ink wash, and the armor plating is Black with Natural Steel edges. They are Knight Banner Azura, named after their Scion.

**

Last year, I tried to get a copy of Traitor Legios at my local gaming store, but they had just run out. Rather than leave empty-handed, I consoled myself with a box of Acastus Knight Porphyrions. I picked the Porphyrions because, well, they were available at my store, and also the other kind of Acastus is just ugly.

These guys are big, by the way. They're only slightly smaller than a Warhound.

I did the same thing as with the Questoris knights and left the banner on the Lord Scion; I also had a leftover dome from the Dystopian Wars Islands and Archipelagos set, so I stuck that on the other Acastus's base. With no weapon options, there was nothing to magnetize. I still painted them in stages, with the main body first, armor plates and such next, and the weapons last; I even did the weapons in stages because of the plating. Still, painting the big surfaces was so much easier that I finished these guys before the Questoris Knights.

In keeping with the Auxilia Daedra naming conventions, these are going to be the Knight Banner Molag Bal.

**

At this point, obviously Knights are a thing. So when Forge World announced they were doing adorable little Knight Armigers, of course I had to order some. The components are, well, tiny. I think those leg stabilizers have to be some of the smallest things I've ever glued.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of Armiger, Knight and Reaver weapons, just for the heck of it.

Although speaking of weapons, I do have a complaint. In 40k, Armigers have to take a carapace weapon; either a largely useless heavy stubber or a somewhat more expensive meltagun. In Titanicus, the heavy stubber is rightly ignored, so you just get the choice of upgrading your Armigers with meltaguns. But the box comes with two meltaguns and one heavy stubber for three Armigers. The meltaguns are ten points each! Frankly, there is no way I'm spending 20 points upgrading a banner that explodes if a Warlord looks at it, especially when an additional Armiger is only 25 points. It's completely mad to include this ratio of meltaguns to heavy stubbers. Yes, I can just leave the carapace weapon off entirely, but that's annoying because it can't be done in 40k.

But that's really my only complaint, because despite some of these parts being very tiny indeed, building these little guys was a breeze. I actually enjoyed myself, which, I have to admit, was not at all what I expected! They really are very tiny: here's a poor-quality size comparison with a Questoris Knight and a Reaver.

Here they are!

They're so cute I'm seriously debating getting more.

**

Here's the current lineup of Auxilia Daedra:

As with the Titanicus starter set miniatures, these were all excellent fun to build and paint. As soon as I get to grips with the Titanicus rules, I will be fielding all of them! I'm also kinda excited for the Dire Wolf, and just thrilled in general to see new Titanicus releases.

Let's Read Tolkien 85: Vae Victis 7-9

Gondor, the Pelennor Fields 

March 15, 3019 

The Mordorians only realized that they had been had when the brown splotch of Rohan’s army began spreading through the northern edge of the white fog blanketing the Pelennor Fields, while Gondor’s troops poured through the opened gates of Minas Tirith, quickly congealing into battle formations.

These chapters are quite short, so this time I'm doing three of them, because it means we can get through this military history fanfic and back to the actual story!

**

We left off last time with the Mordor army camped in front of Minas Tirith. Gandalf's coup bought just enough time for the cavalry of Rohan to get into position and charge the Mordorians. The battle goes poorly for them, however, until a mystery force of undead warriors lands to the south. The Dúnadan leading them tricks the commander of Mordor's South Army into fighting a chivalrous duel with him - only for one of the walking corpses to stab the Mordorian officer in the back. It's a very appropriately dastardly thing to do.

That was chapter 7. In the next one, the battle is still raging; the Mordorians have figured out that incendiaries can stop the undead, and most of Aragorn's walking corpses are toast. They did, however, succeed in drawing off Mordor's catapults from Minas Tirith.

Next, Éomer rallies the rohirrim cavalry with a frankly strange and cringy speech about martyrs getting to go to heaven and have sex. In the translation, he talks about "houranies", by which we assume he means houri. It's a weird and orientalist interlude, and I don't really get where it fits in with the maniacal allegorism, where previously the Free Peoples had stood for a barbaric west and Mordor represented an enlightened east. I don't know if he's trying to pawn off orientalist stereotypes of Muslims onto westerners or what the idea is. In any case, I can't help thinking he'd have been better off just having Gandalf offer everyone an indulgence.

The combination of the undead attack and Rohan cavalry charge decides the battle. Éomer and Aragorn meet on the battlefield, and it turns out that Éowyn has fought in disguise as one of the rohirrim. She acts like a willful child and proclaims her love for Aragorn, who returns it and sends her off to be treated for her wounds in Minas Tirith. This leads abruptly into a brief retelling of the Last Debate, where it turns out she's being held as a hostage to ensure Éomer's submission to Aragorn. The final assault on Mordor is then recounted sort of off-hand: there is terrible slaughter, King Sauron is killed in combat, everyone lies about it afterward.

**

So, whereas parts of the previous chapters read like badly written fan fiction, all of this does. The retelling of the battle of the Pelennor fields isn't really all that interesting, even when it isn't childish and orientalist. The first part really leans into Aragorn being an asshole and it works decently, but then the Last Debate fanfic very clumsily underlines how he's an asshole, and we got it the first time around. If the next chapters were more inept quasi-military history, I think I'd quit. But I don't have to. At the end of chapter 9:

However, the wizards of the White Council had somehow forgotten one factor: namely, that there is a certain Someone in the world Who rather abhors complete victories and assorted ‘final solutions,’ and is capable of showing His displeasure with same in the most improbable ways. Even now, that Someone was dispassionately surveying the vanquished – all that flotsam cast ashore by the passed storm – when suddenly He rested His gaze upon a couple of soldiers of the extinct South Army lost among the dunes of the desert of Mordor.

Next time: believe it or not, Haladdin and Tzerlag.

Pandemic diary: March 2022

This is the two-year anniversary of my first ever pandemic diary, and here we are in the third year of Covid. Last fall, Finland more or less decided to abandon our very successful covid strategy, and our government decided that it's time to "live again". There's a good summary of events here. Last time I wrote about this was December, when cases and hospitalizations were rising so fast that there was serious talk of a new lockdown, which mostly came to nothing.

It did affect us in adult education, though, as we were abruptly ordered to change everything in January to online teaching. Our heresy lectures, which would have included my Tolkien lecture, went with that weird pseudo-lockdown; we're now trying them again in October. Who knows what anything will be like then.

Since, though, we've returned to pretending there isn't a pandemic. You can see the results in the graphs below, which are from our government broadcaster. Hospitalization figures are, shall we say, alarming.

And deaths even more so.

I direct your attention to the fact that on New Year, some 1 500 people had died of Covid in Finland. On Friday 25.3. the official count was 2 985, and at this rate we may already have hit 3 000 by the time this post publishes. Sure, that's nowhere near Sweden and their 18 000 deaths; Finland has roughly half the population of Sweden, so we would still have to triple our death toll to get anywhere near out neighbors. But it's pretty sobering to think that half of Finland's Covid deaths have come in just three months in 2022. All because this fall, we decided that containing the pandemic is just too boring and unprofitable for our restaurant industry.

Judging from what I'm seeing on my Instagram, case numbers are only going to go up. It's just bizarre that we're back in a situation where nobody in authority seems to know what to do or want to do anything, and we're all out here trying to work out what kind of risks to take on our own.

Let's Play Adeptus Titanicus: The Battle of Bitter Tower

My miniature wargaming hobby started with second edition Space Marine in 1991. As near as I can remember, I saw the box at a toy store in Copenhagen, and somehow persuaded my parents to get it for me. I must have been all of ten years old.

It was one hell of a box, by the way: you got three whole starter armies (Marines, Orks and Eldar) and a Warlord Titan. Space Marine was an expansion to the original Adeptus Titanicus, which I think is where the whole 6mm Epic thing started. I've still got a bunch of my 6mm Titans, which I recall were to represent Legio Draco:

Space Marine et al. were followed by Epic 40,000, which was so unsuccesful it pretty much killed epic scale for GW altogether; 6mm resurfaced briefly with Specialist Games' Epic: Armageddon, but then vanished altogether. I played some Space Marine back in the day, but never really got around to any of the later Epic stuff. Now, though, I have the new Adeptus Titanicus starter set.

So yeah, I'm kinda reneging on my resolution to not start new projects, but in my defense (sort of), I already have quite a lot of Epic... Technically, new Adeptus Titanicus is a different scale from the old Epic stuff. We reckon it ends up being something very close to 1:200 scale, so this means I can assuage my regret at not getting to build any 1:100 terrain. I also feel that the scales are close enough that I can use these plastic ruins that came with the old Epic 40k boxed set with new AT.

I should try to find some of the Space Marine era cardboard buildings.

**

First, though, it's time to build the models from the starter set.

Cerastus Knight-Lancers

We'll start with these two little guys, since they have no weapon alternatives so there's no magnetizing or anything like that to be done. Like the two Renegade Armigers I already built for Warhammer 40,000, these Knights will also represent Auxilia Daedra and bear their black and silver heraldry. The body is Gunmetal Grey with a Black Ink wash. I used what I learned on my previous (28mm) knight build and painted the body and armor plates separately, and it was worth it. The armor is Black and Natural Steel, also with a light Black Ink wash.

I rather liked the trans flag stripe I painted on my Mechanicus knight, so I've repeated it on these guys as well.

In keeping with the Auxilia Daedra theme, I guess this has to be Cerastus Knight Banner Hircine, on account of the spear. I have to say, I'm not crazy about the models; I don't really like the gangly look. We'll see if they're any good on the battlefield.

Reaver Battle Titans

My first proper Titans! My Titan Legion is going to be Legio LXIX Venefica, or the Venom Legion, and these two are the first models to sport their green and gold colours. I got started while I was still working on the Knights by assembling and painting the Reavers' legs, and the backsides of all the little armor panels. The upper body was easier to assemble and paint in one chunk, but obviously magnetizing the weapons would be a thing. I started with the carapace weapons, where GW has made it delightfully easy: a 5mm magnet slots right into the carapace. The process is similarly easy on both carapace weapons, like this turbo-laser destructor:

Unless, that is, you fuck up the polarity of the magnet you're supergluing into the base of the rocket launcher, and get it stuck in there so badly that you end up building an entirely new mount out of green stuff. This time I stuck a magnet inside there, the right way around.

Once I cut it down a little bit, it doesn't look so bad, does it?

Next it was time to magnetize the shoulder mounts. I carved a more-or-less round hole in each:

And superglued in a magnet.

I used Primal Horizon's 1/8" * 1/16" magnets, and they fit in nicely without being overly fiddly. On the weapon side, I shaved a magnet-depth bit off the ball joint and just superglued a magnet on top of it.

When I was angry with myself for fucking up the Apocalypse Missile Launcher, I ordered a replacement, which meant I had doubles of the arm weapons. It's a bit of a drag that you would have to magnetize the connecting arms as well to be able to swap weapons from left to right, but I couldn't be bothered and just made a left-side and right-side Gatling Blaster.

Here's the gatling blasters and Reaver carapace weapons.

There's also the second set of Reaver weapons, and frankly, it's a bit weird that I had to go to imgur for the assembly instructions, as none were included in the box! This doesn't usually happen with Games Workshop. Also, I had to go to the online store to figure out which Titans went on which bases; all in all, this is the worst-documented GW product I've ever bought. Nonetheless, here are the shooty weapons.

Meanwhile, I was also practicing my Daedric on the carapaces and painting the heads. These are really models where I can't imagine not painting them in parts and then assembling them. The armor is obviously done in my favorite color, Luftwaffe Camo Green, and the edges are Old Gold with a Flesh Ink wash, as pioneered on my Custodes. The metal bits are just Gunmetal Grey with a black ink wash.

And the close combat weapons:

**

So here they are! I'm extending the starship naming convention from my Rogue Trader tabletop campaign to Adeptus Titanicus, which means my first Reaver Battle Titan will be called Cum ergo videritis abominationem desolationis, quæ dicta est a Lorgar propheta, stantem in loco sancto, qui legit, intelligat, referred to in brief as the Abominatio Desolationis.

While I was at it, I decided to see what it was that the prophet Daniel had to say about the abomination of desolation back in the day and found, somewhat to my surprise, some excellent Chaos theology. Therefore, I give you the Reaver Battle Titan Deos tuos non colimus, et thronum auream, quam erexisti, non adoramus, or in short, the Non Adoramus.

I think I want to run my Legio Venefica as Legio Damicium ruleswise. Since I don't really know how I want to play, I would ideally like to start with a legion that doesn't commit me to a specific playstyle. Damicium's abilities revolve around tanking damage, basically, and that's something that always comes in handy.

Warhound Scout Titans

Finally, the Warhounds: the Canes ad Lacerandum. Keeping with my Book of Daniel theme, they will be the Regnum transiit a te and the Et regnum erit velut ferrum.

I had a spare plastic ruin bit, so I went for a slightly more scenic base than usual. I think that means this one is the Regnum transiit a re.

The Warhounds didn't require quite as much separate assembly; I did the legs and bases in one go, then the torsos, carapace, heads and weapons separately. Magnetizing the weapons was quite easy, or maybe to be more exact, I was jaded enough at this point to just cut off the ends of the weapon arms and stick on a magnet.

I tried to be a little more elegant with the weapons, and shaved off the bottom of the sockets and stuck a flatter magnet inside.

I think the end result works quite adequately!

The Titans themselves were a fairly simple but satisfying paint job.

And here they are complete with heads and weapons! First, the Regnum transiit:

And the Regnum ferrum.

And the rest of their weapons:

**

So that's the starter set assembled!

I have to say, these are some of the best models I've ever built. The Reavers and Warhounds especially are more like small, high-quality scale models than Warhammer miniatures, and building and even magnetizing them has been deeply satisfying. I know some people are put off by the high cost of Titanicus models compared to other GW stuff, but I think they're worth it.

**

The obvious thing to do now was to try the game. I'm lucky enough that my good friend and colleague also has some Titans, which he was kind enough to bring over. I don't really have any proper epic terrain yet, so we set up a 4'×4' table with some improvised scenery.

That's Seamanship Hill in the foreground, the Del Monte Tower to the right, Communism Peak in the middle, and Bitter Tower at the back. We're playing the Titanic Clash scenario from the basic rules. You can see my opponent's Titans on the left, representing Ryza's own Legio Crucius: a Warlord and two Warhounds. I brought both my Reavers and the Regnum Ferrum. By coincidence, the two forces were exactly the same combined scale.

I had no real idea what I was doing, so I set up the Non Adoramus and Regnum Ferrum to attack on the right of Communism Peak, and hid the Abominatio Desolationis behind Del Monte Tower, so the opposing Warlord wouldn't immediately blow it up!

We were therefore quite dismayed to see the Warlord climb onto Seamanship Hill and open fire on the Non Adoramus!

One defining factor of this game was that I was very lucky with my void shield saves. Still, the Non Adoramus and Regnum Ferrum surged forward, engaging the lead Crucius Warhound.

The Crucius Warhound lost its shields and started taking heavy damage, so its princeps opted for a glorious death and charged at the Non Adoramus, while the other Warhound backed off to engage the Regnum Ferrum.

The Non Adoramus opened up on the enemy Warhound at point blank range, and won the honor of scoring Legio LXIX Venefica's first kill as its laser blaster tore apart the Warhound's legs. This sent it staggering back - straight into the Regnum Ferrum!

The collision knocked out the Regnum Ferrum's Vulcan mega-bolter, and the Crucius Warhound collapsed at the foot of Bitter Tower.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, the Abominatio Desolationis emerged from the shelter of Del Monte Tower and turned to face the enemy Warlord.

My improbable streak of void shield saves continued as the Abominatio withstood the barrage of fire from the Warlord, and charged in!

As the Abominatio and the Warlord traded blows at point-blank range, the surviving enemy Warhound dodged out of the Non Adoramus's fire arc, its shields easily shunting aside the parting shots from the Regnum Ferrum's plasma blastgun. And with that, the battle was over!

If I recall correctly, the Regnum Ferrum ended the battle structurally compromised, but the destruction of the Crucius Warhound means that the Battle of Bitter Tower is technically a Legio Venefica victory. I certainly hope this was just the opening skirmish of a very long war!

**

For future reference, this was the Legio Venefica force in the Battle of Bitter Tower.

Reaver Battle Titan Cum ergo videritis abominationem desolationis, quæ dicta est a Lorgar propheta, stantem in loco sancto, qui legit, intelligat (Princeps Seniores) - 250 pts

 Melta Cannon - 35 pts

 Power Fist - 20 pts

 Turbo Laser - 20 pts = 325 points

Reaver Battle Titan Deos tuos non colimus, et thronum auream, quam erexisti, non adoramus - 250 pts

 Volcano Cannon - 25 pts

 Laser Blaster - 25 pts

 Apocalypse Missile Launcher - 10 pts = 310 points [635]

Warhound Et regnum erit velut ferrum - 180 pts

 Plasma Blastgun - 30 pts

 Vulcan Mega Bolter - 10 pts = 220 points [855]

I was very happy with my Warhound, and for my next game, I'm seriously considering bringing two Warhounds and a Reaver, which could make a Fortis maniple.

**

So, impressions. The rules are quite complicated, but not insuperably so. They're quite different from Space Marine, which I apparently remember better than I thought, since it caught me out a few times! I never thought the void shields could take that much punishment, and it's going to take a moment for me to internalize that in this game, getting up close and personal to a Warlord Titan can be a good idea!

Like I said, I was tremendously lucky on my void shield saves. I like the void shield rules, as you really need dedicated weapons to beat down the shields, and then the ones that do damage to armor. The Vulcan mega-bolter on my Warhound was simply excellent for the first, and just in case I want my Reavers to get up close and personal in the future as well, I think I'm adding a carapace Vulcan to my next Forge World order.

Overall, I definitely enjoyed myself, but I feel like I'm going to need several more games with just the basic rules before I get a handle on how this really works. But I'm very happy with my purchase, and delighted to be playing epic again after, well, decades!