Primarch Deathmatch - Obituary - Corvus Corax

Ok so who thought a german neo-medieval music band could defeat the Lion eh? What...sorry wrong Corvus Corax (but seriously, look them up if you like medieval music played on historical instruments!)

Dearly beloved we are gathered here today to celebrate the passing of one of the Emperor's greatest sons..... I am still reeling from this one, Corax is one of my favourites and seeing him laid low is choking me up. I think the Lion pulled the same trick he used on Russ ... pretend the fight is over, everybody is friends again, then punk your brother out cold...typical El'Jonson move.

No-one really knows if he was named after the neo-medieval band of the 21st century or the latin for raven but thats just part of the enigma that was this great warrior. A demigod know by many names: the Deliverer, the Liberator, the Raven Lord, Chooser of the Slain, the Shadowed Lord.

So Corax was discovered after bringing together an enslaved population and overthrowing their oppressors. He joined the Emperor at the head of his Legion and its safe to say he had a teensy thing about individuals who had been slavers, so much so that the Terran borne within his Legion who were from such a background (nice match-making Big E) were considered outcasts by Corax and even thrown into suicide missions (see Battle of Gate Forty Two) - "Dad's complicated" they would say.

During the Heresy he saves a good sized chunk of the Legion from Istvaan V by recognising the trap for what it was and throwing he legionaries into a hit and run style conflict early-on. Unlike a cer

tain brother of his who went and got himself killed. Corax escapes Istvaan and returns to Deliverance to try and rebuild his legion with some of the Emperors bio-engineering magic squiggly stuff you make Astartes from which would have been a great idea but for the pesky Alpha Legion who made most of them into mutated beasts (we are still waiting to hear what happens to them next).

Corax's part in the Heresy was limited to highly effective hit and run style attacks and his legion

honed its guerrilla tactics during this phase. After the Heresy Corax gives the Emperor's Mercy to the monsters he 'created' and so wracked with guilt begged for the same for himself from the recently ascended Emperor. A year after he is seen leaving for the Eye of Terror, we don't know why...perhaps he was staying with family...we'll find out in about another 100 or so novels I guess.

What are his rules like?

	Pts	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv
Corvus Corax:	450	7	6	6	6	6	7	6	10	2+/5

Well Corax gives some useful army-wide boosts that are not to be sniffed at. Firstly, all units get to run the full distance and gain acute senses. Not bad, and this will help a footslogger army.

The Raven Lord is trixy too and he can do that fluffy 'melting into the shadows' thing which means that units can only snap shot at him if he is not the closest foe (daemons and psykers excluded). Another very cool thing is that he can jump in and out of combat by dropping into reserve.

Corax has three fighting styles he can whip out for various opponents:

Death Strike - need to take out a tank? this is the one for you w 8 str 10 hits on rear armour!
Scourge - 9-12 str 6 hits that are AP2/AP3 in combat - not bad eh?!
Shadow-walk - this essentially makes it only possible to hit him on 6's - nice

His armour is 2+/5+ (this is a bit of a weakness), although it does disrupt any deep strikes within 12".

I think his rules are very fluffy and make him an awesome character. His one weakness is that low invul save but eh you can't have it all.

There you go, he's a great character in terms of fluff and rules...we shall miss him and his great Dad jokes...sniff...sniff....

Twitter Primarch Deathmatch - Week 1 Qualifying round result & Week 2 Deathmatch 2

Well fight fans there you have it. Regal Adorn (Damn you autocorrect!) takes down the whimpering Perturabo in the qualifying round. He obviously outbored his nemesis as they sat behind their big walls and then crept up to bang him on the head with his hammer while he was asleep.

Whatever happened 56% percent of the vote went to Rogal 'I'll give you a fisting, see if I don't' Dorn and he goes through to the first round proper.

Up next is the last of the qualifying rounds - a battle of the animals as the Raven takes on the Lion.

Yes its Corvus Corax the leader of the sneaky Raven Guard up against Lion El'Johnson, the robed Legolas look-a-like.

Raven Guard v Dark Angels, where will your loyalties lie?

If you wish to vote check out Twitter @4dadsapocalypse and go to the pinned tweet.

The Emperor's Feth Astra Militarum Army Part 2 - HQ - Company Command Squad - The Boss!

Continuing from my first post which was an overview of 'The Emperor's Feth', here I am going to talk in more detail about the different sections of the army. What better place to start than with the Boss - my HQ the Company Command Squad.

My CCS has changed in editions of the game. Back in 5th Edition I fielded a lot of long range firepower with elements of mobile infantry and a mobile CCS. 5th Ed. gave us lots of tanks and melta was king. Luckily IG, as it was then, had oodles of melta firing out of every orifice! My CCS was the gold standard though. Drive up in a Chimera, unload my Company Commander along with 4 meltagun toting veterans, issue the order to twin link hits against tanks and watch a land raider go BOOM! Ok I might not survive the retribution but for 90points who cares!!

Now though things have changed. 7th Edition brings in Slay the Warlord, there is more infantry and flyers abound. The Astra Militarum has prevailed and their tactics have changed. Sitting back and using orders while hiding like cowards is now the way forward for our once heroic Commander.

Now the squad is a heavily armed bunker that sits protecting the heavy weapons and objectives in the back lines and consists of:

1 Company Commander (to issue orders to surrounding units)

2 Veterans with Meltaguns (I like to keep these handy, for close encounters)

1 Veteran heavy weapon team with Lascannon (1 shot at BS4 with orders is generally enough to do some damage from range every turn.

1 Astropath (For no in game use whatsoever, I just really love the model and I have painted him ok!)

1 Chimera with Multilaser & Heavy Flamer (For protection and Medium to short range firepower)

Now as you can see the models have also changed. During a tournament at Warhammer World my army was short-listed for Best Painted Army. Unfortunately I didn't win so I asked for some feedback which was that my army was a little too dark and that the models used were very similar (I used Cadians for my troops and my vets, they were just painted a different colour - red for the troops and grey for the vets).

Taking this on board I repainted all of my vets to White and brown, weathered the armour heavily and switched the heads from cadians to some from Pig Iron Productions (this is why I am sad to see them closing down - See my post here). I also changed the lasguns on the lasgun toting veterans but you'll have to wait until another post for that one although here is a close up of some of the veterans here:

I am so glad I did change as I really love my new veteran models now even though it took such a long time to repaint them and model new lasguns. I will include a tutorial on how I did this in a later post when I have taken some better close up pictures.

The only other change that you may notice is my Company Commander. I prefer the old one as I really feel that I painted him well (I just love his face!) but unfortunately at the following tournament at Warhammer World (where I again got nominated for best painted army but never won it even with pimped up veterans) I dropped him and his right arm disappeared into the warp. Since then I have just been using a replacement model until I can be bothered to repaint another arm!

Finally I should mention the Heavy Weapon team. I have only ever bought 1 heavy weapon set (because of the price) but managed to get 9 heavy weapons out of it with a little creativity. The main reason for achieving this is to get the right bases so that the weapon can sit on something other than its normal stand. I looked around on the internet for a 60mm base that was an urban ruin and had enough room for 2 miniatures and a heavy weapon. Luckily I found a company called Black Cat Bases who do some really cool stuff. Check out their website here: http://blackcatbases.com/

I loved the bricks and the black and white checked floor as it just added a little more colour to the army and also a bit of realism of the heavy weapon team finding cover to fire from amidst a raging battle.

So there we have it, my HQ - the Company Command Squad. Quite a long post for only 6 models but I hope you enjoyed it. Please let me know what you think and what your Astra Militarum HQ choice is.

All the best,

James

Four Dads Q&As - Paint It Black

We have had a couple of questions via Twitter this week and as Twitter doesn't really allow for a full answer I am responding to them here:

The first is from .... who wanted some advice on painting black. It is good timing as I have been giving this some significant thought recently and am about to embark on painting 10 Dark Furies and a Ravenguard HQ.

Ok there are a couple of options for painting black and making it 'pop':

Option A is to paint your marine very very dark grey, the wash it with Nuln oil. This will give the armour panels some character and prevent everything looking too flat.

Option B is to spray black and then pick out the edges with a light grey, maybe by gently dry brushing them.
Or you could go all out and do a combination of these!

The most important thing to do though is to break up the black as much as possible with White, grey, bronze and Leadbelcher type colours. This will allow the black to 'frame' these areas and complement them.

Having a lot of black on the model means that those areas that are not need to look awesome, when you have a lot of white that gives you the chance to show off some weathering skills. There is lots you can do here but a simple suggestion is to make some damage marks in black and then put a dab of leadbelcher on them - its a super-easy way to add a little battle damage, less is more though on an infantry model. You are going to need to paint faces well too, and the bases. I remember reading a WD article when I was a kid called 'faces, bases and shields' which was basically a pro-painters tips to get a painting award. I think the same applies here especially to Ravenguard - give them awesome bases - maybe lightly painted so it contrasts with them, an urban scene with lots of light grey for instance. 

And last but not least, make sure your Raven guard look like their legion, the should look like they are bursting into ambush from the shadows about to rip into the traitors! Dynamic poses will go a long way to helping with the overall look. I am about to embark on some Raven Guard too, so keep checking in on the blog for the recipe I settle on.

Book Review: Cybernetica

This Horus Heresy novella was published in July 2015 by long time Black Library contributor Rob Sanders who has written fairly broadly across 40k and 30k in his time. Interestingly Rob is an English Teacher at a secondary school in addition to writing for the Black Library - very cool to have as your teacher!

The book is set around the issue of what Dorn, Malcador and the Fabricator General of Terra think should be done about Mars. As you would expect the lead character convinces Dorn ("just give me 48hours chief") to let him try a clandestine mission to bring about victory over the traitors on Mars and the bulk of the story tracks his progress.

The lead character is a very cool Raven Guard known as the 'Carrion' who was badly injured, 'repaired' with extensive cybernetics and as a result began training to be a Techmarine on Mars prior to the outbreak of the civil war. He is an appealing character who takes us along the way in an engaging way starting off as a tortured soul following his extensive injuries which prevent him returning to the ranks of stealthy Ravens. He has some very cool in-built weaponry which uses power drained from enemies and friends alike. His main weapon is a grav-gun that he wields like a shotgun - very cool. He would make a great model with some awesome rules.

There are some interesting insights into Dorns thinking, Malcadors' relationship with the Primarch and the state of civil war on Mars but to be honest it's not revealing a great deal more than we already know. As a VIIth Legion fan I was happy just to see a bit more of Dorn and in some ways that's what these peripheral stories can offer most of.

If you like fight scenes you won't be disappointed - there are plenty of epic battles with leaps from collapsing buildings to conveyor belt fights against swarming Skitari.

I think you have to read these novellas knowing that they probably won't make a big impact on the overall story line but they can give you a look 'behind the scenes' of the bigger stuff or even develop a Heresy character further by filling in the blanks. Rob Sanders goes some way to doing this but this book is more about filling in the backstory than revealing much about any of our favourite characters.

The verdict: 6/10

I enjoyed the read but at times found the fights scenes to be a little repetitive. The character of the Carrion was interesting in the first half but became a little static thereafter. I think if you are interested in the war on Mars and Mechanicus related stuff then it's worth a read, if you love a good fight scene and like the sound of some cool weaponry not used much elsewhere you'll also not be disappointed.

If you are like me, and simply have to know what's going on in the Heresy then just get it!