Great Crusade

Great Crusade

Tuesday 6 October 2015

Raven Guard Plans

Hey Everyone,

So as promised we are going to go over a few of the plans for my newer legion and also some other side projects that will be going on. This one will just be covering the modeling aspect and some of the initial goals I have for the legion.

The Fleet

So this is going to be the tough part but even if they don’t see use, I really want to, is have each force I build have a small fleet that could transport them. This is of course going to get harder since most of its out of print but I do have a few ships I can repaint from my collection and ebay is going to be my friend. Now I have idea that not only will build the ravens up but also expand the Luna Wolves Fleet.
For the Luna wolves, if this goes through, is going to get a few more escorts as well as a few capital ships. For the escorts am going to try and get 6 cobra class destroyers to give the fleet some punch. In addition to this the capital ships are going to get both a strike cruiser and a battle barge to really increase the fire power. Hoping that not only will this make sense from a narrative point but also make the fleet a bit stronger and flexible in game play. If this all goes well we should see the Luna Wolves Fleet being a fun crusade fleet.
The Ravens are not being ignored though and will be getting some ships.  The fleet it going to be built around a single strike cruiser since the Raven Guard will be a small detachment. In addition to this they will have 3 cobras which are enough to escort the strike cruiser as well as have a single recon ship. I think this will work since for me I'm going to be building, at most, a company strength force who would support my luna wolves. This will be just enough to field the Ravens if I need to and I think fits with what I want to go with.

Raven Guard Company

So as I talked about in the previous post, I will be building a Raven Guard Force. I picked this since I need something that will be able to not only work with my Luna Wolves but, since I think I can build them fluffy. also have a change from my Mechanized Force. The legion rules force me to change my build pattern as well since I can’t take more tanks then I have infantry. With that in mind, this is going to be interesting but I think I’ve come up with a good starting idea that fits my play style and my idea of a Raven Guard Force.
The main bulk of the force is going to initially be a drop pod assault force. This is a favored tactic of the Ravens Guard for their surgical strikes and this is very different from my Wolves. The extra benefit is if I don’t paint the droppods a single legion scheme I can run them in any legions I have or plan to have, so this is a extra boost on that front. Lastly this is going to be a major change from my play style since I will have to focus more on drop locations as well as getting a good balance with speed and fire power instead of relying on the heavy tanks I normally use.

So lets get on to the initial 1000 points I want for this army.
Legion Praetor
Iron Halo
Raven Talons
Digital Weapons 
Melta bomb 
Tactical Squad (10)
Power Fist
Artificer
Vexilla
vox
Droppod
Tactical Squad (10)
Power Fist
Artificer
Vexilla
Vox
Droppod
Mor Deythan (8)
8 Combi Meltas
Drop Pod
Javelin Speeder
Lascannon 

So looking at this list by itself, we have some strengths and we have some weaknesses in the army. With a total model count of 29 its not the high count of infantry, the other thing is only half will be on the table so if I am against a gun line I might have some issues. I think the anti tank is ok with the Mor Deythan being the primary anti tank for the initial drop and the Javelin flowing up. The armies close combat won’t be too bad but not as strong as my wolves and how I normally equip them but I think that will be ok.
So since I am going with smaller force I will need to build this up in particular way. I hope to keep the army mostly Mark IV and, of course, Mk VI since they were more advanced as well as built more for stealth. If the 30k Plastics are true this will help it out otherwise this will be a bit more slow going. Also for paint scheme I am going to keep it more in line with the lore compared to the wolves including sergeant markings and officer markings so hopefully this will look great. Hoping with these 2 things it will look amazing dropping down next to the wolves.
Closing
So that’s the project plans for now and once it starts rolling I will let you know here with photos as usual. As always stay tuned for more 30k and keep gaming my friends!

General Soban 
Signing off till next time

Sunday 4 October 2015

Finally Post 26

Hey everyone,

First off I want to say I'm sorry for the no blog posts in September. Me and the girlfriend both got sick and we kinda of slacked off to take some time to rest up and enjoy September together with our mutual colds. With that in mind we got some exciting stuff that I want to talk about and also get some ideas from everyone.

Luna Wolves

So we have some progress on the army and some new stuff has come in. First off the Sicarans are almost done and just need some finishing touches on them and the weapons magnetized. Despite not being fully painted I’ve been play testing the heck out of them and have to say these are some of the best weapon systems I’ve ever seen for the marines and for any other future legions this may be one of the must buys. When I get these guys finished I’ll be posting them up in all their glory.
Second up, the Spartan and Typhon have been started up though their slow going. I have to say the treads are a tough build but it looks like forgeworld may have fixed this. There has been pictures circling the net showing off the new Spartan treads and I have to say I love forgeworld for listening to the feedback and taking action. Only thing that is a downer is it may make it harder for putting custom treads but we will see how much this deters people.


(Image from the 30k Forums)


Last but not least I got a few new models that I’ve been wanting  to get and its none other then Abaddon and Loken. I’ve been waiting since the start of the project to get these models and well I have them finally and can’t wait to get them done up. In addition I got the limited edition Centurion that came out in September and looking forward to making him up as a captain of another company with the legion. So we still got some big projects left on the table for the Luna Wolves.
Second Legion Project.

So I hit a bump in the road with both the Emperors Children and the Ultramarines. So when going to the drawing board I found my self going pretty much how my Luna wolves went with the design and the feedback that’s gone into it. Despite both legions being unique with their own flavor, for me I would want to design them in that combined arms with Spartans, Land Raiders, Sicarans, and of course lots of Rhinos and Tactical Squads. I thought this wouldn’t do and though I'm not stopping from one day having these legions, I wanted to go a different route.
The route I want to go is with the Raven Guard. Highly mobile, infiltrators, and with a draw back of unable to take more tanks then infantry I thought this would be a good starting pointing to go with the design. With this in mind I'm going to build a drop force with lots of skimmers and, depending if I can pick them up some how cheap, jet bikes. This also fits my play stay since I love highly mobile forces and I’ve been a fan of the legion way back in 3rd edition.
I’ll post in a few days with a few ideas for building plans for the army so stayed tuned for that.
Campaign

So with real life getting in the way I wasn’t able to begin the great crusade campaign I wanted to fight out in September but I have some good news. In November a few of the locals and my self will be starting up a 30k Campaign in the Heresy over a small system. Not only will this be great for the blog but I hope it will get a few more locals into the 30k game system and bring some more fun into the hobby. Though with this I have another debate and I'm hoping the viewers of the blog will help me out.
So the debate with the campaign and not only getting me revved up for it is I want to do a slight world wide campaign. What I would like to do is either using the website http://itoysoldiers.com/ or the wonderful wiki http://aus30k.com/30kwiki/index.php?title=Australis_Ultima_Sector  , or maybe if I'm crazy enough to try and do both and we'll get you the viewer involved building a story that will decide the fate of billions. Not only will this have 30k just by itself but I hope that we will also see some battle fleet gothic fighting it out in the orbits of the worlds showing that the heresy was a total war. So what I need is to hear some feedback and let me know if you think we should get on this and get going with a battle and fighting it out across the stars.

As always, I hope you enjoy and stay tuned for more information!
General Soban 
Signing off till next time