Cannon to the right of them...

Hello,

Back from the summer holidays and hit the ground running. With the release of the new space marine codex I decided it was time to jump on that band-wagon.

Now, I wasn't about to start a new army as such. I decided that I'd have two distinct companies. One lead by Cylander Azeron (my counts as Dante), a psychopathic, impetuous, carnage-causing maniac. Under his leadership his company favours close-combat and vicious attacks. The Blood angels rules fit nicely. Fast tanks and decent CC abilities.

My other company would be lead by a more moderate leader, who follows the codex astartes more rigidly. I'm currently building a set of banners and will be making distinct markings on the shoulder pads of each army so my opponent can clearly tell the difference. Either way... I don't believe I'll be playing with both on the table all that much anyway. It's an easy (read shameless) way to incorporate units I like whilst not completely breaking with the background.

My first foray into codex astartes!

Thunderfires!

Ever since I played against my friend Chriss (who fielded 4 thunderfires in one game) I've been jealous! Thunderfires however are OBSCENELY expensive money-wise so I decided to scratch build myself some. I'm happy with the results!

Thunderfires are, pound for pound, one of the best units in the codex. You get a badass cannon with flexibile ammunition and you get a techmarine with 2 wounds and a servo harness. A 2+ save, wounds, 2 regular and 2 powerfist attacks, a flamer and a plasma pistol means they aren't pushovers. They won't crap their pants and run away like Imperial Guard artillery.

As for the paint job, my legion librarians have red and gold armour (I think it looks more arcane and sorcerous), my regular marines are black (which I now hate painting). My 3 techmarines I had lying around were old metal ones and they have a lot of detail. I didn't want to hide it all by painting it black. Red was out due to my Librarians already being red. So I chose a metallic colour. Worked OK.

The thunderfires are built from a Stalker turret, a Nephilim fighter rotary cannon and scratch built tracks made from old bits and pieces. I wanted each cannon to have a personalised feel. Like the techmarines that built it decided on how best to design the locomotors.

Forgemaster Hephaeston and his gun 'Violater

Gun Master Kyburr and his gun Fustercluck

Gun Master Vandran and his gun 'Home-Wrecker'

A tactic that I'll use rarely is taking 3 thunderfires with Tigurius attached. He gives 1 friendly unit rending as his warlord trait. It's an expensive unit and arguably overkill. Being a psyker he can buff the unit or cast prescience for re-rolls to hit making them even more deadly.

 I screwed this up a bit. In my eagerness to move on to the thunderfires I rushed my librarian. But he looks ok. Not super happy.

With this team in my back lines I expect to rain ungodly punishment from the skies! OR get deepstriked and annihilated by something nasty!