Painted Rough Rider

Here's my first painted rough rider. I used the same colours I used on my infantry squads and added a shovel and backpack etc to make it look like he spends a lot of time in the field scouting and harassing enemy formations as well as a gas mask on the horse to protect it from the poison air. I'm waiting for some motorbike bases from back2basix and then I'll mount this guy on them. Overall, I'm very happy with the conversion and think it captures the feel of my army perfectly.





Now if only their rules weren't so bad. :S

Battle for Ypres Alpha

The morning air was cool on this planet, though warmer than what Field Marshal Mortis was used to back on Passchendaele VII. He surveyed the battlefield before him, the servo eyes in his skull motif gas mask whirring as they focused in on the rising clouds of smoke in the distance. Sure enough the enemy was coming, and they were ready for a fight. Mortis had crushed Astartes legions before and this one would suffer the same under the might of the Passchendaele VII Steel Legion.

Company Master Ordep Kantor heard a crackle over his com-link, the eye lens of his helmet lit up as the screen was filled with information of the enemies positions and current strengths in number. Orderp skimmed over the info taking in all important locations and units and opened a vox channel to all squad leaders, "We will strike now brothers, let our bolters rain death upon the foe!" and in a choir the squad leaders replied "affirmative". The rhino rolled onwards through the dry landscape accompanied by the command razorback and a tactical squad of battle brothers. The enemy would regret coming here today.


"Enemy spotted, position 43E, 23N, 600M and closing" Field Martial Mortis acknowledged the spotter and continued to envision how the battle would unfold today. He felt no fear, only a steel hard determination to overcome his enemies. "Chimeras forwards!"he said over the radio of his command Chimera. The chimeras barked into life, engines revving as they rolled over the terrain before them, keeping formation and preparing weapons for the incoming fire fight. "Enemy spotted" the same spotter called out the Mortis again, "Preparing for engagement, locking on targets....."

As the space marines vehicles drove ahead, in the distance the enemies armoured column appeared over the hills, silhouetted against the horizon. "Onwards!" Commanded Ordep, "We must close in for the attack!"


"Targets locked...." The gunner of the chimera aimed the multilaser at the incoming rhino which was now speeding along the field between them. A flash of light tore out of the barrel and smashed into the rhinos front armour, melting the cremite plates and hitting the ammunition storage within the rhinos hull, detonating hundreds of storm bolter rounds. The Rhino exploded into a blast of shrapnel and burning fuel, 2 marines inside cooked alive within their suits as the others fell to the ground shaken by the blast. "Target destroyed" the chimera gunner smirked. Seeing the main target destroyed, the other chimeras began to pepper the Astartes advancing on foot, slaying another two under the torrent of fire. "Bring down that Razor back" Mortis ordered, but the missile launcher fired from the chimeras top hatch only glanced the speeding tank, bouncing off its side and leaving a smoking crater in the ground behind.



Ordep listened to the cries of his brothers as they were felled by the rain of fire which was on them. His teeth gritted in anger as he began to plan the demise of his enemies, how foolish of them to fire upon the space marines, humanities finest. "Casualties sustained in tactical squad alpha, our rhino has been destroyed" squad leader Octavius reported to Ordep, "Continue the assault on foot brothers, they will pay!" Orderp ordered as he and his command squad exited their razorback. And with that the Space Marine assault continued, unphased by the loss of their transport.


Mortis watched the space marines disembark, obviously they thought they would bring down the men of his legion in close combat. "Withdraw all tanks!" ordered Mortis, "Head north and focus fire on the tactical squad approaching from above the ruins" The chimeras tore up the earth as they backed away from the approaching Astartes command squad, hoping to gain as much distance between them as possible, knowing full well the powerfist that their leader wielded would easily tear through their tanks armour. The Chimeras raced towards the ruins with the advancing marines in view, they opened fire as they drove and the concentrated fire of all the tanks was too much punishment for even power armour to withstand. All but 3 of the marines were taken down, bodies ripping apart and falling to the ground like dolls.






Seeing his battle brothers falling so fast, Ordep knew he had to act fast if he was to claim victory today. He re entered his Razorback and sped forwards trying to close in ground before the chimeras could out manoeuvre his men and finish them off. "We're being slaughtered, heavy casualties taken" Tactical squad bravo radioed into the command Razorback, but there was nothing the other marines could do. They had to try to press forwards and catch the enemy vehicles.

Mortis was pleased, he had the enemy exactly where he wanted them. He had successfully drawn most of the marines into southern part of the field to deny them of cover and funnel them into his tanks fire lanes. A quick blast of fire from his chimera and anothers, multilaser and stubber finished off the last 3 marines of the tactical squad, while the other two tanks shot down 2 more marines from the squad who had been shot out of the rhino. "Enemy Razorback advancing" voxed in Chimera tank 3. "Damn" cursed Mortis "Where are our rough riders?!"

Ordep gripped his plasma pistol and readied his power fist, the ancient gauntlet crackled in electric power and produced a distinct smell of ozone. He eyed his comared in his command squad, each man with decades of service under their belt, each man a true brother to Ordep. With that, the razorbacks doors swung open and without a moments hesitation Ordep leaped out of his razor back followed by his squad. He raised his plasma pistol at the nearest tank and fired, the weapon glowed and overheated, causing the gauntlet of his armour to blister and melt to his skin. Luckily his squad champions plasma bolt had struck true and pierced the side armour of one of the enemy chimeras. The bolt melted through the armour vehicle and instantly killed the crew, setting light to the drivers compartment and causing the guardsmen squad within the bail out of their burning vehicle and into the waiting space marines.

The guardsmen who had bailed out of the chimera stood no chance against the wrath Ordep unleashed upon them. The marines easily crushed the feeble humans bodies, breaking bones and severing limbs with ease, spilling red hot blood onto the soil in a vengance for all of the brothers who had been lost on this dammed planet. One soldier took a swing at Ordep and the mighty marine looked down in disgust as the bayonet bounced harmlessly off his power armour. Ordep returned the favour by crushing the man into a bloody pulp with his power fist, till nothing even vaguely human looking remained. "This is an example of what will come!" Order cried.

"Come in Chimera 3! Do you copy?" Mortis cursed, he could see the smoke and flame of the burning chimera hull in the distance and watched helplessly as the guardsmen poured out of the burning vehicle only to be destroyed by the waiting marines. "All Chimeras report, we are going to advance onto the enemy" Mortis ordered in rage, with that the remaining 3 chimeras rolled up towards the advancing tactical squad and opened fire on the remaining five marines, all 3 tanks unleashing a salvo of a magnitude fit to destroy a building into the power armoured troops. When the smoke cleared all that remained was their broken bodies, their bright blue armour stained with blood and soil.

The radio then crackled back to life inside Mortis' command chimera, "Rough Riders at the ready, engaging enemy armour". "Finally!" sighed Mortis as the Rough Riders valiantly charged into the Space marine razorback, however their krak grenades could not penetrate into the adeptus built tank and only managed to blow one track off the machine immobilising it.

Ordep turned to sound of a large boom, whorse riding troops had just blown the track off his razorback and they would pay for such a blatant display of disrespect for the machine spirit. He readied his power fist and lead his company into a charge against the mounted troops, catching them off guard. It was a slaughter. Each rider dragged from their mount and crushed under the power armoured boots of Ordeps personal retinue. Skulls cracked and whorses shrieked as they were dispatched with a brutal adeptus like efficiency.



Mortis took advantage of the current situation, the immobilised razorback would not be able to evade his armoured columns fire now. Giving the order, the three chimera's opened fire into the weak rear armour of the razorback tearing it open and blasting the machine full of holes, killing its crew. Mortis knew he had won this battle, his enemy was crushed before him. But at what price? He had lost many good men today, many he who had followed his every order so bravely, now their blood lost on the surface of a barren planet. It was sad, but such was the life they chose, this was the life of Passchendaele VII's Steel Legion.

Ordep ducked as his Razorback was torn apart by the enemies tanks, he dived into a crater to escape the spray of shrapnel and his command squad followed. The day had been lost, many brothers had lost their lives and the enemy stood defiantly. " Collect the gene-seed of the fallen brother Argos" Ordep ordered to his Apothecary, "We will return here.. and when we do, we will bring a swift annihilation to our enemies." All of his command squad nodded, understanding full well that the next time they met the Steel legion of Passchendaele VII, it would mean their enemies total destruction. "Emperor's Justice" Ordep ordered his battle cruiser in orbit, "Requesting thunderhawk extraction, let us report to my brother what has happened here today."

Meltguns

Meltaguns. Probably the most spammed weapon in the standard 5th edition Imperial Guard army list (besides maybe Autocannons). Well, much to the luck of the steel legion, GW has produced neither a meltagun or autocannon model for my favourite gas mask wearing army, leaving me with little choice but to convert. Autocannons won't feature in my army lists, I like the versatility of missile launchers a lot more, but meltaguns seem to be a must to deal with heavy armour, monstrous creatures and T4> 2+ save models.

So I present to you my metlagun conversion. Made from the barrel of a multimelta from an ancient landspeeder (the one in the 3rd edition starter kit) and a paperclip stuck onto a trimmed up lasgun. This was the test mini and hasn't been painted fully yet, however here's the basic idea.



I think the next one will use the barrel from the meltagun in the cadian command sprue and I'll paint the tubing up to look like it fits the model better. Overall I think it's pretty good and saved me a lot of chopping to get the lasgun completely out of this troopers hands.

CHHHAARRGGEEE!

Here is one of the rough riders I've converted for my army. The parts include steel legion sergeant holding the ork head, bretonian knights of realm horse and lance, and various guard parts for grenades and packs etc. There will be a squad of 5 in my army, equip with melta gun for tank hunting goodness.






Overall I like the look, but this one is far from finished. I've got too fix up the lance arm as it' still plated, fix up the armoured boots, add a whole lot of packs and bits to make them look as if their equip for extended times of field duty as they scout around. The spikes on the helmet of the rider are a nod to the german WWI helmets and the spike on the horses head ties the two together. I might bionic up a few horses so that they don't look too medieval. So i'll post painted pics when I get one of these bad boys painted.

The Troops!

Here are some of the men, a squad, and some individual chaps. The paint scheme is catachan green for the coats, Charadon granite for the helmets and pants, scorched brown with bestial brown for the gloves, boots and masks, boltgun for the metal and regal blue for the goggles. Just wanted to show the terrain and some of the guys.

The List!

Here's my 1000 point list i'm aiming at building. I've been having a few 500 point games with my cousin against his space marines, and guard can't really do much in such a small points level. We need our artillery and heavy weapon spam to survive and it's too hard when that constricted to get the old 2 troops + hq including chimeras for all of them. So here is the list:

HQ:
Company Command Squad 97

-Bolt Pistol
-Power Weapon
-Regimental Standard
-2 Plasmaguns

Chimera 65
- Heavy Stubber

Veteran Squad
- Meltagun
-Grenade Launcher

- Missile Launcher

- Bolt Pistol

Chimera 65

- Heavy Stubber

9 Veterans 1 Sergeant 102

- Meltagun

-Grenade Launcher

- Missile Launcher

- Bolt Pistol

Chimera 65

- Heavy Stubber

Veteran Squad

9 Veterans 1 Sergeant 102

- Meltagun

-Grenade Launcher

- Missile Launcher

- Bolt Pistol

Chimera 65

- Heavy Stubber


FAST ATTACK

Rough Rider Squad
4 Rough Riders, 1 Rough Rider Sergeant 65
- Meltagun

HEAVY SUPPORT

Basilisk 125
- Hull Heavy Flamer

Basilisk 125
- Hull Heavy Flamer

988

Originally I had no meltaguns in the vet squads and armoured crew compartments on the basilisks. But in a recent 1000 point game against a Tau army, I realised I lack in the heavy armour removal and my basilisks were out of line of sight for most of the fight anyway. However, I might change it back just for fluff reasons... Or find the points elsewhere...

The Fluff!

Passchendaele VII, a medium sized industrial world in the northern sector of the galaxy. The Planets consists of one huge continent which spans over half of the planet, the other half is a highly acidic ocean. The planet is incredibly flat and grassy, mountains do not exist and hills are a rare sight indeed. A generally cold planet, which is perpetually plagued by rain. Three hours being the longest time recorded as rain free in Imperial history. The rain, which is highly acidic, has turned all land on the planet into a muddy quagmire. With the soft mud making travel incredibly difficult, each unit has been assigned a Chimera transport to ferry them across the muddy plains. They are joined by many rough rider companies that ride the native beast named the "Whorse". Due to the flat landscape of the continent and therefore lack of natural cover, the Royal Regiment of Passchendaele VII also rely heavily on artillery bombardments to obliterate invaders as they struggle to cross the knee deep mud-fields. This strategy has proved successful in quelling invasions of Orks, Tyranids and Rebel scum through out the ages.

The men of the Royal Regiment are trained to a high standard by imperial measures and have a low casualty rate. As a result most of the soldiers of are considered to be veterans. Each squad is equip with a missile launcher and grenade launcher, as they are easily mass produced and can still operate in the acid rain better than plasma or melta weaponry can. Each soldier wears a high density polymer helmet, artificial fabric trench coat and gas-mask goggle combo to help protect him against the acid rain. Whorses are also dressed in a similar fabric to protect their lush pelts. The regiment is lead by Field Marshal Mortis, a veteran of many battles on countless worlds, and a tactical master, a stern man with a good sense of humour and an almost insane hate of Xenos and Chaos.