The reoccupation of Valeri Pesh

The Remit's Maw campaign on Jornath saw the KCC and it's allied Imperial Guard units give ground, some of what was given up would need to be recovered.  The Valeri Pesh promethium complex, refinaries, storage, pumping stations for transcontinential pipelines and the supporting infrastructure were ceded to the greenskins.

There was a surgical strike by a small number of Adeptus Astartes which successfully decapitated the Orks therein.  The remaining remaining mobz vied amongst themselves but no one band gained supremacy.  

Towards the end of the war, the High Command came under increasing pressure from the Mechanium to re-take the site.  With resources stretched to keep the pressure on elsewhere on Jornath, the only unit available was the remnants of the 334th Iridian Ghosts; a one time full strength IG regiment, during the years it had lost what amounted to eleven battalions worth of fighting power.  The remaining battalion's companies, platoon by platoon were either hardened veterans or utterly disinterested beatniks.

Appealing to the Departmento Munitorium, additional resource was granted.  Four companies of the 772nd Line Regiment and one of Death Riders duly arrived at Korsnokrat.  They were survivors of the Cleansing of Radnor, where they had been clearing a Genestealer infestation from a Hive World.

Ork Boyz assaulting prepared DKK autocannon positions

                                                          Mechanicum symbols still in place

                                                              The DKK moving into position

The DKK draw the mobz into the Iridian Ghosts kill zones

A Mob of Boyz

Occupying the intact administratum buildings. They would need to be drawn out of these.

The DKK concept of operations was to patrol into the urban areas draw the mobz onto them, forcing the boyz to attack through a Final Protective Fire (FPF) Fire Plan.  The mobz, when they final fought through the DKK positions, found themselves in Kill Zones set by the Iridian Ghosts.  

The concept of operations proved itself a resounding success,  the DKK were reduced to a platoon and two and half squads of Death Riders.  The Ghosts lost 44 KIA and 67 wounded.   As many as six hundred boyz may have been eradicated, the remainder fled Valeri Pesh and were picked off by Sons of Medusa search and destroy teams before reaching any form of safety.

No idea who these are

As you can see, the brick of scrutiny is empty today

Grenadier Miniatures Copplestone Wastelander

On the Brick of Scrutiny today-

This is Zog, a native tribal wastelander. 

He was big as a boy and hence ended up brutalised and forever shoved to front whenever there is a fight.  

Of course, as a native wastelander, he knows that intimidation is usually a better way than actual violence - there's less risk to all involved and even he who backs down gets to fight another day.

Having said that, he'll quite happily shiv you for a pop tart, after all, the wasteland can be a tough place and resources are scarce.

Grenadier Miniatures Copplestone Wastelander

On the Brick of Scrutiny today - 

Dinky Peavons was a submariner on Cadia, that being how commercial shipping is done on Cadia, due to the very real storms which mirror the warp storms in space above.  He was more or less set for life but decided that once he'd finished his nautical career, that he didn't need to stay in such an unsettling place. 

He spent a decade and a considerable amount of money travelling around and has ended up here, following a failed investment in the grox trade, now lives in the wastelands.  Like a lot of other wastelanders he carries one of those multifunctional cogitators which translates, keeps records and accounts for trading and contracts.

ASL Manticores

These are kits from Models and Minis.  I got one as a Christmas present from a friend and then ordered another two to make a troop.  To say that they had a long and tortuous journey from Texas to Oxfordshire would be an understatement, but that's international lockdown postal dis-services for you.

The castings are clean, the resin is solid with no occlusions.  These ones in particular require one to shave the lines off of the inside of the chimera track sides to accommodate the chassis plate, but if you cannot figure that out, you're possibly not the kind of person who buys aftermarket kits in the first place. 

I tried to be clever painting the separate missile warhead piece; I sprayed it black, natch, then masked the base area with maskol and sprayed the missile cones yellow.  The maskol took some of the undercoat off and now they need a bit more work to make ready.  

Once they're done the missile bits can be glued in place and happy days, some artillery for the ASL. 

This is not field artillery, so doesn't really fit with how I envision (and have built) the army.  But there is a GW manticore in the Cadian section, so there is precedent, and I'm not going to worry about it too much.  

Vampyr HVM AAA AFV 2nd Troop

Not quite finished.  There's some cabling which needs to be painted to match the colours on 1st Troop. 

And they need sealing as well.  

And I've put the missiles for all of these somewhere so safe, I couldn't find them for the photos. 

But they're in a state where they match the rest of the ASL and are good for the tabletop. 

Helghan reinforcements for Devos IV

You may remember me searching for Helghast helmets (they're from Mastercrafted.co.uk, who also do the assault gun kit I used for the Steel Legion Stugs).  The time has finally come for me to actually do something with them.

I've never played killzone.  I've never been any good at FPS games and struggle with things like Skyrim ("What ?  You mean in order to master the combat system I have to wander about and cause massive environmental damage by murdering every single one of gods creatures for hours before actually doing something ?  Great."  reaches for off switch) but the imagery of the Helgans and playing the game from the POV of the baddies caught my imagination.

Anyway, I resolved to make some of these

I bought some parts and made some test models.

These are VL legs and torsos, mastercrafted heads and FW elysian arms which I have been hording for years.  The VL torsos have some shoulder armour and huge landing spaces for arms, so a little LGS (it reconstitutes with water, how kool is that ?!) and some spare shoulder guards from the DKK fit the bill there.

These are Anvil fatigue torsos and legs.  I think these are the 'advancing' legs, I think the static ones are a slightly better set of poses.  The Anvil torsos had plain shoulders which made fitting the Elysian shoulder guards a much simpler prospect than the effin' about accommodating the existing VL shoulder armour. 

These boots fit the aesthetic of the picture above much more closely than the VL ones.  However, the VL mouldings are crisper and the Anvil kneeling fatigue legs come in a pack of three, one of which is seated, rather than kneeling, hence making them a less attractive proposition than  VL's set of six kneeling legs. 

I'm going to continue buying different items from the ranges of both manufacturers, as there are many sub-types of Helghast soldiery.