Building the Desert Lions - Part 3, Robots Great and Small (finally!)

Hi everyone, its been a while since my last hobby update.  I won't bore you with the details but suffice to say my hobby time has been severely limited, partly out of necessity and partly out of choice.  However, I recently found some gaming time at last, and this has inspired me to get building again!  I have at long last created some of the major units for my long term project - The Desert Lions Chapter.  Since most of you probably weren't born (warning: possible exaggeration) when I started this project, check out the links below for a recap.

http://sanguinesons.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/counts-as-purifiers-and-dreadknight.html
http://sanguinesons.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/building-desert-lions-part-1-some.html
http://sanguinesons.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/building-desert-lions-part-2-coteaz.html

Help Needed - Arming Grey Knight Terminators

I just spent over £100 on 10 models.  Now to many of you that might not seem like much, but as things stand that is over half of my monthly free spending money.  I have been saving it for months now and it feels pretty good to finally have all the expensive components required to finish the Desert Lions army that I began well over a year ago.  So what are these super expensive models? Titans, whats what.  Ok so they are epic scale titans but titans nonetheless.  The reason for this ludicrous splurge of money is that I have been struggling for a long time with trying to work out how to build the Legio Cybernetica robots I need to represent my Grey Knight terminators.  Plasticard just didn't cut it at that scale, and apart from looking clunky, replicating the same complex design 10 times just doesn't appeal to me right now.  Therefore I started looking for existing models that could be used or altered.  After many weeks of fruitless searching I realised I was an idiot, because the Forge World epic scale Warhound Titan is almost identical in size to a terminator, and looks fantastic to boot.  All they require is a head swap to something more 40k scaled and 'robotty', and arm swaps to represent the storm bolters/psycannons/nemesis weapons they should be armed with. 

However, herein lies my problem.  What is the best way to arm a unit of 10 Grey Knight Terminators? I want to make these guys look fantastic.  They are the centerpiece to the whole force, the unit that really ties the theme together and makes people go wow.  Therefore I want to build each robot individually, and not be messing around with magnets and weapon swaps at a later date.  In short, I have one chance to get this right.  In the list I am building the termies can be used in a few ways.  Firstly, they can deep strike in, either as a block of 10 or as 2 blocks of 5, giving me a 'safe' way of getting up close and personal, or of threatening hard to reach objectives.  Secondly they can plod up the centre of the table laying down fire and absorbing a disproportionate amount of enemy attention before beating face in combat (hopefully). 

My Initial idea was this setup.

1 Justicar with storm bolter and master crafted hammer
1 brother with psycannon and sword
1 brother with psycannon and halberd
1 brother with storm bolter and hammer
3 brothers with storm bolter and sword
3 brothers with storm bolter and halberd

How does this sound?  Based on any experiences you have had are the weapon choices ok? Is it worth paying for any further upgrades? Psybolts? a few Falcions?  


Moreover, how should I be using this unit? 

Building the Desert Lions - Part 2, Coteaz, Henchmen and Anti-Grav Transports

Zooom! (if only I was using the BA codex)   

Welcome to part two of my (very) irregular series on building my counts-as Grey Knights, the Desert Lions space marine chapter.  Part one, containing the background for the army can be found here, and a 'prequal post' containing my 'purifiers' and 'dreadknight' can be found here.

Today, I am going to show off my Commander, an as yet unnamed Techpriest who is a counts as for Coteaz.  Additionally, there are some members of the proto-scout elements of the chapter, who count as henchmen with bolters.  Finally, I'll be showing you my almost completed anti-grav rhinos and razorbacks. 

Building the Desert Lions - Part 1: Some Background

Because really, this is what today's post is...

Atreides is back!

As may have been somewhat apparent from the dearth of updates, I have been taking something of a hobby break.  This is partially due to the remnants of burnout and partially due to World of Tanks, but that is another story.  In any case, in the last week I have finally felt able to get on with some serious construction and have completed all six of the anti-gravity rhinos and razorbacks needed for my army.  A little while ago I also completed the first two henchmen squads.  Todays post though, contains, a little background on my chosen chapter, the Desert Lions. I don't usually go into detail on this sort of thing, but I think that when making a true counts as army, it is completely necessary.  Warning, anyone who gets pissy about canon may not want to continue reading.  I don't care if it conforms to the established story or not, I just made it up because I think its cool!

It is all based on an old piece of Rogue Trader fluff, which can be read HERE.

Counts-as Purifiers and Dreadknight Complete (pre-primer)

 
Hi everyone.  Today i am going to let some photos do most of the talking. These are pictures of my (finally) completed Dreadknight and my two squads of 'Purifiers'.  The Dreadknight has been sitting on my workbench for months in a state very near to completion but I got round to completing his base and adding a few last details yesterday. 

The Purifiers have taken the last few weeks to build, but as usual, there was a considerable time before I began building when I just mulled ideas over in my mind.  These guys represent members of the 1st Company of the Desert Lions Chapter.  They are not a psychic chapter like the Grey Knights, so I have had to think carefully about how to represent the various psychic powers.  Hammerhand can easily be rationalised, since these guys have bloody great chain halberds,  If those don't give you +1 S if you hit something I don't know what will.  Purifying flame is represented literally, by flamers.  More on that below.  The force weapons are a bit more difficult to justify, and in the end, I gave up.  It isn't like the ability comes up that often in game anyway.