Rogue Trader: The Floating Fat Man

                                       

The Little Emperor.  The Floating Fat Man.  By such names is he known,  Long ago, in another life, he was Ilyach Ternn, a waif and a weakling in the gutters of some hell hole on Geminion Secundus.  But his diminutive frame and sad, watery eyes masked a brilliant mind and a ravenous, all consuming appetite for power and pleasures of every conceivable  kind.

Slowly, at first by dint of his astonishing technological acumen, then through the machinations of a cold and calculating cunning, Ilyach rose through the ranks of the gang lords of the Geminions, ultimately rivaling in power and influence even regional governers and military commanders, with the underworlds of entire continents bending before his will, and legions of slum dogs marching at his orders.

But a long life of indulgence has taken it's toll!

Though the apparatus his calls his 'brazen throne', in mockery of the Golden Throne of the Emperor of Mankind yet holds his life within his body, that body is increasingly wracked.by the rot and ruin of a thousand ailments aquired during an artificially extended life span spent saturated in carnal and narchotic indulgence.  Only this machine of his own design now keeps the spark of his wicked consciousness burning within his polluted and decaying  frame.  Yet his power is undiminished, for his wealth and influence are tremendous, his criminal agents and shanty town militia number in the millions, and the keen fire of his mighty mind is yet undimmed.

Just as he designed the brazen throne to preserve his life, Ilach created his own android servants to act as his most trusted and beloved bodyguards, pets and playthings.  Machines with an appearace so life like as to be all but indistinguishable from living creatures.

Careful observation of these warrior women android guards reveal the seams where Ilyach stretched and stitched their skins together over their steel and plastic frames.  Early experiments, these.  Less comely than more recent ones, perhaps, but still alert, loyal and deadly.

 

Iltach's innumerable ailments demand almost constant attention, and so he created a bevy of delectable android nurses to attend to his many needs.  The deep knowledge of drugs and human anatomy posessed by these drones makes them useful as interrogators as well.

 

Here are two of Ilyach's more recent creations and some of those of which he is most proud:  Hop-Toad and Clareeze.

Hop Toad is deliberately designed to appear unthreatening and absurd, but he is fitted with a wide array of video and audio equipment which allow him to record and analyze sights and sounds over great distances.  Even the most subtle details of facial expression, body language and tone of voice do not go unnoticed by his sensitive equipment, unanalyzed by his keen electronic brain, or unreported to his scheming master, and he invariably attends upon his creator at every council and conference, scrutinizing the attendees with his large, cold, artificial eyes.

Clareeze is Ilyach's prettiest and most beloved pet.  (For now, anyway.) Ravishingly beautiful and indistinguishable from an authentic human female, she accompanies her creator everywhere.

Out on the town in downtown Skummburg...

OY, ME LOVELIES!  Let's stop in for  drink at Jezzie's, EH?

 

Buzzgobb Phesterlick, Chaos Knight of Slaanesh

Buzzgobb Phesterlick, the dread knight of Slaanesh, leads a troop of his Minotaurs across the Black River, through the Tulgey Wood and into the fringes of the Baron Von Refn's realm, seeking for slaughter and captives to bring back to Buzzgobb's evil city of Lost Veguzz.

In the ruins of that ancient and once beautiful town, now a broken shell on the breast of the eastern desert, twisted shapes writhe and cavort amid leaping flames and swinging cages full of screaming prisoners.

Chuckling, giggling, gurgling things slouch and shuffle from shadow to shadow, feasting on broken bodies and sometimes on each other.

Out from the unholy city, out from amoung the broken walls, the leaping fires, the heaps of corpses and the piles of  malformed bodies entangled in the ecstacy of blasphemous, orgiastic rites, rides Buzzgobb, Knight of Slaanesh...

...astride his shrieking, gibbering steed...

...under the blazing banner of his unfathomably filthy and evil God...to rape, raid and plunder amoung the green pastures west of the river.  

    His bellowing minions lumber after him, eager to bath their blades and muzzles in blood...The Baron Von Refn has sworn to slay Buzzgobb and to hang his head above the gate of the Refnsburg.  The Orc Warlord Big Blackey has sworn to slay Buzzgobb and hang his head from his chariot.  The Dwarven Lords of Thunder Mount have sworn to slay Buzzgobb and use his head as a cannon ball.   None of them seem to have had much luck in these endeavors yet.

                                                                Buzzgobb Rides!!!

2000 Point Epic Ork Army!

 Waaaggghhhh!!!!!!!!!  I've put together a 2k point Epic Ork force to fight my Ultra Marines.  I started out with the intention of making it a full scale 4k point army, but having pushed doggedly through the last few stands over  the winter months, I found I could do no more Epic 40k, at least for a while.   Still, given my normal inability to stick to any one painting project for very long.  I'm pretty pleased what I did get done.

Here's my War Boss with his best Nob buddies and their ride. As might be gathered from his banners and standard, he is a member of the Evil Suns clan, and the theme extends throughout the army.

Waarrghh!  C'mon, Boys!  Let's get stuck in!

I think they look okay.

I wanted to start out with a well armored and mobile force that could compete with my Rhino-mounted and Land Raider-supported Ultra Marines so I took an Evil Sunz Clan and a Cult of Speed for my Company cards.  I built up the Evil Suns Clan with extra Ork Boyz and Battlewagons to give them more staying power.  For each Company card, I'm authorized one special or free card.  I naturally wanted to make use of at least one free card, so I took the Freebooterz mob.  They amount to just 4 infantry stands and a nob, so they don't amount to much, but I decided to make a bit of a spectacle of them, so I made special stands to represent them.  I gave them a Skull Hamma Battle Fortess, festooned with pirate flags, for them to ride around in.  I intend to use them as a special unit that can try to bypass enemy formations and seize objectives.

Again, keeping with the mobile armored theme, I rounded out the army with a collection of armored fighting vehicles that could keep up with the rest of the force, some of which can only be fielded as attachments to the Evil Suns mob.

Whipping of massive clouds of dust and smoke, the Kult of Speed races into action.

The banners mark out the Nobz on their bikes.

I love the Road Warrior vibe these guys have.

Bowel Burnas.   Exclusive to the Evil Sunz, they function much like a standard Burna unit, but are better armored.

Also exclusive to the Evil Sunz are these Spleen Rippas.  They are not all that amazing in combat, but I am wild about the custom hot rod look they have.  Really like these models.

These are Bone Crunchas.  Useful both for shooting up enemy vehicles and plowing through infantry formations.

Bone Breakas are identical to Bone Crunchas but trade 1 heavy gun for the double mounted lighter guns of the Crunchas.  Useful for taking out the Marines' Land Raiders.

Last are some of my favorites, My Freebooterz crew.  I put a variety of models in these bases ad painted them up as Pratey as I could, with a Freebooterz banner and a matching one on their Skullhamma Battle fortress.

The horde is ready for battle.  Future additions will be a lot more infantry heavy, which is likely to prove challenging for the Orks, as they to compete with the the entirely mechanized Marines.  But that's a problem for another day.  Time to get down to some fightin'!

4,000 Point Epic Ultramarines Army

An Ultramarines task force rides out to strike terror into the hearts of the Emperors's foes. 

At enfilade this year, I picked up a copy of the old Space Marine epic scale 40k game.  Opening the box brought back a flood of memories from college days, when I had this game and played it a few times.  I eventually traded it away to someone for I can't remember what, but I remember it fondly.  

The game came with some Orks, some Eldar and a ton of Space Marines, twice as many as either the Orks or Eldar, the idea being, I think, that you could have two armies of Marines fighting each other as they did during the Horus heresy.  But of course just the basics are never enough, so I had to buy the old Armies of the Impeium boxed supplement, which contained rules and armies cards for a wide range of Space Marine and Imperial guard forces.

As is often the case with mini games, selecting your army is a big part of the fun.  For me, anyway.  My army choices were shaped by a desire to be economical and use everything that came in my box, and expand that with what I could find for a reasonable price on ebay.  I was helped by the fact that the boxed set really did have a hell of a lot of Space Marine stuff in it, and that building a classic epic army, while not an inexpensive exercise, is fantastically less expensive than trying to assemble a 40k army in 28/32mm.  The method for building your army in Space Marine was kind of neat. You had to pick at least one of the big 'Company Cards' which represented a company sized formation.  For each company card, you were authorized to select up to five of the smaller support cards, which ususally represented a platoon-sized detachment which could be attached to that company as support forces, and one 'special' card, which represented a Commander or other powerful character or special unit.  I like this system because it keeps most armies focused on bigger formations, as you would probably see in reality.  My Space Marine boxed set came with 2 companies of Tactical Marines complete with Rhino APCs and one company of Land Raider tanks along with some extra Tactical Marines, so I had a pretty big force right out of the gate.  After waffling around for a long time over what else I wanted to buy, I bought a devastator section and an assault section on Ebay and added them to my extra marines to create a full battle Company.  

                                                        Ultramarines 3rd (Battle) Company.

I then added a bike squadron and a Land Raider Squadron for recon and maneuver, a whirlwind multiple rocket launcher detachment for fire support, and some Robots and Terminators to add strength to the Marine Infantry companies.  No Titans yet.  I plan on assembling them seperately, once I'm done painting my Orks.

The army Commander allows Space Marine units nearby to always pass morale checks...

...while the Chaplain makes a good attachment to a company as he greatly improves the close combat ability of nearby infantry.

One of the Army's 2 Tactical Companies, the 7th.  There are only 2 Tactical Companies in the Ultramarines according to Armies of the Imperium, the 6th and the 7th.  I have both.

                                        The fearsome Terminators close in on a key objective...

2 units of the Robot detaachment.  The Robots are fun because you have to write a simple program for them before the game which dictates how they will react to changing circumstances on the battlefield.  Most of their actions will be pre determined, so you basically lose control of them once the game begins and have to hope that you had the foresight to write a good program for them.

Landspeeders race toward an enemy flank...I've played 2 games of Space Marine with this army over the past few weeks and I've found that these Land Speeders are very well armed and nimble but fragile.  Only their ability to 'pop up' over terrain to snipe at enemy units, then duck back down again make them survivable.

The Whirlwind multiple rocket launchers.  They are very effective at laying down a blanket of fire support for the Marine infantry.

I really enjoyed painting this army, partly because the small size of the minis means that I can paint up platoons and companies very quickly, which keeps me from going all ADHD and getting distracted by squirrels and never finish, which is how it usually goes with my armies.  I'm working on the Orks now, and hope to have them finished by the New Year.