Battletech: Let's Paint a Magistracy Army

I'm delighted that Catalyst Game Labs, who currently publish Battletech, are standing up against bigotry. I also enjoyed painting my first ever mechs and trying the game. So I bought some more of them from Iron Wind Metals. Iron Wind used to be Ral Partha, a name I definitely recognize from way back!

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To start with, how was I supposed to not get myself some Badgers (AR20-744)? They're cute little vehicles and the models are quite decent quality. I'm actually enjoying working with metal models again, believe it or not. Here they are in the colors of the Magistracy.

I also got two Vedette tanks: more products of Bordello Military Goods, Inc.

And a Mobile Long Tom self-propelled gun, which strongly reminds me of the G.I. Joe Thunderclap.

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The vehicles are all very cute, and they give me flashbacks to Space Marine. I also wanted to try some Inner Sphere Standard battle armor, i.e. power armor dudes, from Ral Partha.

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I haven't entirely forgotten about mechs! Since there is a Venom, I had to have one.

I also painted a Shockwave, mostly because the model is cool, but also Shockwave.

I also got myself a BJ-1 Blackjack (20-880), because if I recall correctly, it was the mech you started with in the Battletech video game.

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Mechs and vehicles and so on are all well and good, but you can get those in other miniature wargames as well. Very few of those, however, have submarines. Behold the MCS/m Venom (11)!

When I found out that Battletech had submarines, I simply had to get one.

Mind you, that's just the surfaced version. The Neptune blister also comes with a submerged version, and that one's quite a bit more interesting.

The submerged Neptune has a little metal stand to hold it up, but frankly, it looks flimsy and I can do better. I've got some small Games Workshop flying stands and those Ral Partha hex bases. I drilled a hole in the bottom of the base, filled the base with Vallejo putty, and stuck in the flying stand to make a properly shaped hole. Here's what it looks like after spray-painting.

And this is the whole thing! I think it's wonderful.

Here they are side by side.

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Dipping into Battletech has been fun! I've really enjoyed working with metal miniatures again, and I thoroughly appreciate the absurdity of the submarine. I may have to look into some infantry and artillery. And hey, this is the closest I can get to Epic. Or so I thought!

Terraforming Mars: A new life in the off-world colonies

Some day his descent into the solar system may be told. He saw Kynarth and Yuggoth on the rim, passed close to Neptune and glimpsed the hellish white fungi that spot it, learned an untellable secret from the close-glimpsed mists of Jupiter and saw the horror on one of the satellites, and gazed at the Cyclopean ruins that sprawl over Mars’ ruddy disc.

- H.P. Lovecraft: Through the Gates of the Silver Key

Back in 2019, we had the distinct pleasure of being introduced to one of the best board games in the world: Terraforming Mars. We also tried the Prelude expansion, which we quite liked and would recommend. Back then, though, table space limited our experiments with other expansions. We did get to try the double-sided Hellas and Elysium board, which I'd also recommend, but now that we've moved and have a larger table, it was time to try some more stuff. And then, of course, the pandemic happened, meaning an enforced break from board games. But we did eventually get around to trying out a couple more expansions!

Venus Next

First up, Venus. This expansion adds a small Venus board, a new award and milestone, and some new corporations and project cards, which mostly center on terraforming Venus. A couple of the cards can just be added to the base game, but most of the Venus cards focus on an unfortunately named new resource type: floaters. Basically, terraforming Venus is just like terraforming Mars, but instead of three different variables, there's just an overall terraforming percentage. You can invest resources into increasing it, which gets you terraform rating but isn't necessary to finish the game.

Here's the setup for our first game with Venus Next; you can see the Venus board near the top of the image.

We didn't use the "solar phase" rule that speeds up the game, and even with one player who was new to the game, we spent a little over four hours, which is pretty much the same as our average non-Venus game. Also, now that our board game collection is more easily accessible, we finally got to use some proper counters for the Security Fleet card.

All in all, Venus Next is perhaps a surprisingly anodyne expansion. It doesn't detract from the base game or make it particularly longer; you can pretty much just ignore it if you're not doing anything with floaters or Venus tags. But it doesn't really add much to the game either. Nobody in our gaming group actively disliked it, and now that I own it, I'm probably going to set it up with the base game in the future; but I think most of us wouldn't actually bother with buying it.

So I don't know; if you feel like you might like a Venus expansion to Terraforming Mars, it won't hurt the game, but to be honest I think I'd be fine without it.

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Colonies

Much later, we were able to try Colonies. 

Colonies adds a whole bunch of, well, space colonies. Each player gets a trade fleet, which they can send to trade with the colonies for resources. Resources pile uo in the colonies over time, and reset when a trade fleet arrives. You can also establish colonies of your own, which means you get a cut whenever someone else trades there. Here's the colonies in our game, right above the Venus board.

Colonies adds additional complexity but provides extra resources, and again the two seem to even out pretty well in terms of game length. Most of our table liked it, but I have to be honest: I didn't.

The colonies make a difference to the whole game, because they can substantially accelerate your resource production. Whereas you can pretty much ignore the Venus board, as we did in our game, you ignore the colonies at your peril. I think this is a bad thing, because Colonies detracts from the attractive simplicity of Terraforming Mars, especially in the early game.

It also wreaks havoc with the theme; whereas without it, you can still have the feeling of a sort of bare-bones start on a barely inhabited planet, with Colonies your first moves include sending your interplanetary trading fleet to Titan or whatever.

So I think that both thematically and through the added complexity, Colonies actually detracts from the base game. I wouldn't recommend it.

Colonies also comes with a lot of cards that you can use with the base game, and with Venus Next as well, so even if, like me, you end up not liking the colonies, there's still something here for you.

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There's one more expansion left that we haven't tried: Turmoil. It brings party politics to Terraforming Mars in the form of a council, and to be honest, no-one in our gaming group is really interested in it. So I think that means we've arrived at our Terraforming Mars setup: corporate era, Prelude, optional Venus Next.

Finally, I just want to repeat myself: Terraforming Mars is probably the best board game I have ever played. If you've never tried it, do.

Let's Paint Horus Heresy: Age of Darkness

Into the Abyss I'll fall, the Eye of Horus

Into the eyes of the night, watching me go

Green is the cat's eye that glows

In this Temple

Enter the risen Osiris

Risen again

 - Iron Maiden, Powerslave

Yes, I have succumbed to big box madness and bought the new Horus Heresy starter set.

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It's a big old box, and the templates particularly warm my heart.

And so does the scatter die.

The rulebook is nice and chonky too.

However, I have two complaints. First, the art is a little too standardized for my taste; a 21st century John Blanche would never get hired by Games Workshop. And secondly, there's this.

Let's be very clear about what's going on here. Printing something like this in a rulebook published in 2022 is an overtly political act, whether the people doing it realize it or not. In the States and the UK, the right is fomenting a huge moral panic over trans rights, with the help of a multimillionaire children's book author turned hatemongering bigot. In this day and age, talking about "biological males" lands you squarely in the middle of a reactionary hate campaign, and on the same side as some of the most horrible people possible. I cannot understand why anyone would print anything like that in a wargame rulebook. Only last year, Games Workshop had to distance themselves from what they referred to as "real-world hate groups". This is a step in the opposite direction.

Which is to say nothing about the specific question of female Space Marines. GW themselves used to produce female Space Marine models, but in shall we say the particular environment of 1980s wargaming, they were unpopular and were discontinued. Since then, there have been occasional mentions in the fluff that Marines are all men, which has lately been at odds with GW's attempts to be more inclusive. For whatever reason, this issue has become a rallying cry for bigots in the hobby, who are somehow threatened by the idea that someone else's space soldier toys might be girls. They cry "retcon" at it because they don't actually know anything about the hobby they imagine they're defending. If there's something we've learned in the third millenium, it's that some people have unbelievably fragile masculinities.

For Games Workshop to include this abjectly silly "biological male" nonsense in the Horus Heresy rulebook is throwing red meat to these bigots, who will be encouraged by this to terrorize women and other less privileged hobbyists online. Again, doing this is exactly the opposite of "Warhammer is for everyone" - and during Pride month at that! It's absolutely deplorable.

I am deeply disappointed in Games Workshop for doing this. There's no reason that sentence needs to exist. It will hurt vulnerable people and encourage the worst bigots in the hobby. Whether they realize it or not doesn't matter, because the effect is the same. I also have to say that the repeated references to "pure bloodlines" and "tainted gene-seed" and so on made for deeply uneasy reading in 2022, especially after the "biological male" nonsense.

So I don't know, maybe one really simple reason that Warhammer has a Nazi problem is that Games Workshop is perfectly happy to dogwhistle to them every now and again.

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As for the box, Age of Darkness indeed, we split it three ways. I already made a Contemptor for my Custodes, and while I like Dreadnoughts in general, I don't particularly  care for these ones. That, along with some beakies and the axe Praetor, went to one friend. Another was quite keen on the Spartan, so he got that and a pile of beakies as well. I mean there's plenty in this box to go around!

Since I decided ages ago that my Chaos Marines were Word Bearers, on account of my theology degree and so on, I feel like I've already made my choices as far as 30k is concerned as well. We're told in the rulebook that Word Bearers chapters were named after one of the constellations as seen from Colchis, and they seem to mostly be an adjective and a noun. Therefore, my Word Bearers are from the Morbid Fane chapter.

The first models I built from the box were the Cataphractii Terminators. Five of them ended up on Deathwatch duty, but the other five are my first 30k Word Bearers. I went with basically the opposite layout to the Deathwatch squad: these dudes are here to punch, with two chainfists and three power fists.

The heraldry of the Morbid Fane will be simple: chapter symbol on the left shoulder pad, unit symbol on the right. The main armor color will obviously be Word Bearers red, in this case Vallejo Dark Red. They'll wear the campaign badge on their right knee. Here's the first model I painted.

Word Bearers fluff mentions that the legion has a whole parallel command structure through their Chaplains. This gave me the idea to include squad-level chaplains in my army: lots of Horus Heresy Legion units let you give some models in a squad power weapons or something similar, or in this case, a chainfist. I'll also give them slightly different livery, like a bone trim on one shoulder plate and a black helmet here. I'm calling them Deacons.

Here's the sergeant.

And here's the whole unit: the Cataphractii Terminator squad House of Justice.

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As I mentioned earlier on this blog, I bought Liber Mechanicum and was surprised to realize that I actually have a Horus Heresy army already, namely my Mechanicum Knights. Or indeed my Renegade Armigers. That means a good starting point for my Word Bearers would be to make an allied detachment. I can't think of a better place to start than a basic tactical squad: ten guys, bolters and bayonets, maybe a vexilla.

I decided I want the vexilla to be a proper old-fashioned back banner, so I got one off an old marine sprue, as well as chainsword and pistol arms for the sergeant. Even though the Mk VI marines are clearly bigger than old 40k ones, old bits fit just fine on the new models.

My squad is going to represent some Word Bearers signal troops. I mean there must have been some, you can't run massive military operations without signals. Therefore the squad will bear what I insist is the Imperial signals logo on their right shoulder pads: a red twin-tailed comet on a white background.

The vexilla also proclaims their battlefield role.

Here's the signals squad Deacon.

And the sergeant.

Come to think of it, they should probably also have one of those vox things.

This is the legion tactical squad Mightier are your Voices than the Manifold Winds in its entirety.

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I did also end up getting Liber Hereticus, i.e. the traitor codex. It's another really big, satisfying book with lots and lots of rules and datasheets inside, which I feel I haven't even remotely started to come to grips with.

I'm also not really all that interested in any of the Rites of War, so I'm unsure whether I actually want a Praetor at all. So I'm leaving mine in the box for now.

However, as I was decorating my Cataprachtii from my collection of marine bits, I realized that I have one of those skull shoulder pads left over from my ancient Berzerkers, and a power axe from the Chaos Terminator Lord kit. That means I can build the most Word Bearer HQ possible: a Chaplain.

The arms are from the Berzerker and tactical marine kits, and I built a handle for the axe with copper wire, green stuff and a Wargame Exclusive skull.

As near as I can tell, chaplains and their black, skull-themed armor were a Word Bearers innovation. Therefore, Centurion Sor T'rizaron is decked out as an original Imperial Herald. I didn't have a proper crozius arcanum, but Liber Hereticus actually says it can be an axe as well.

Quite happy with the paint job, and I think that Berzerker skull pad is perfect.

She is Centurion Sor T'rizaron, Whose Name amongst ye is Wrath. With a Centurion and a tactical squad, I could now field an allied detachment for my Knights.

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Now that I'm doing conversions, I might as well also start my Apothecarion Detachment, Come Away from the House of Death! I don't know why I like Apothecaries, but I do. Since neither GW nor Forge World will sell us Apothecaries at reasonable prices, I ordered a Legionary Apothecary conversion set from Kromlech. I already used one to make a Sister Hospitaller and liked it, so here's a Mk VI Apothecary for my signal troops.

There's an option to give Apothecaries volkite chargers, and since I have that special weapon box, why not? Volkite go bzzzt. The only additional work required was trimming down the Kromlech shoulder a bit, as it's slightly too wide at the bottom to take the Mk VI shoulder pad.

While I was at it, I made a second Apothecary for the Despoiler squad I was planning. The chainsword and bolt pistol are from the Deathwatch sprue.

Here they are painted up:

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I mentioned a Despoiler squad; building Marines turned out to be so much fun that I also got a box of Mk IV Marines. All I've done so far is a tactical support squad, the Pillars of Gladness.

Rotor cannons are awesome. I also made a deacon for them, and gave the sergeant some extra detail.

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And finally: the Kratos. I love big tanks, and I'm definitely getting myself at least one Shadowsword at some point. Actually, with the classic unit rules, I could make it a Legion Shadowsword. Or wait and see if they do a plastic Fellblade. But anyway, my point is that when the Kratos was announced, obviously I was getting one.

The kit was, perhaps surprisingly, an absolute breeze to build. I know I want my Kratos to do anti-tank things, so I wanted lascannons as my hull weapons. However, as near as I can tell, there's actually no reason to glue the hull weapons in, as they seem to slot into place and stay there quite nicely.

The sponsons I wanted to magnetize, and luckily that was very easy: the holes in the sponson mounts and the weapons are just about exactly the size of a 3mm magnet.

You can really tell the difference between a model where they've thought about magnetization, and one where they haven't.

I couldn't be bothered to magnetize the main gun; I knew I wanted the big battlecannon, so I went with it. All in all, the Kratos is a nice, chunky model, and it was fun to build.

So to round out my first, but sadly almost certainly not last tranche of Horus Heresy purchases, here is the Kratos Behold! his Mercies Flourish.

Complete with campaign colors.

It is a big chunk of tank, and I am pleased.

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So, here's a poorly lit group shot of my Word Bearers so far.

While I was finishing all this up, Games Workshop announced the upcoming tenth edition of Warhammer 40,000, which looks a whole lot like Age of Sigmar 40,000. I'm not thrilled. We already had 9th edition codexes restricting wargear options to what came in the box, and the beginnings of the sigmarification of faction names with Drukhari, Aeldari and so on. While I agree that 40k could do with a rethink, I don't think this is one I like.

Most of all, the pace of change in 40k is just too much for me, and new statlines and everything is a bit much on top of that. One of the reasons I haven't been able to muster any enthusiasm for Age of Sigmar is that I feel like everything keeps getting changed for the sake of change. I fully expect that 40k will also begin to sigmarify. We'll have a Systyrs of Empreure codex soon enough.

So maybe it was quite lucky that I bought this Horus Heresy box.