#Codex: Thunderbearers

[gasha40k]

The last post was supposed to be a lot longer, but it got cut off because Tumblr is made of rocks. I’ve got a bit more to share, starting with a little bit of progress on World Eaters.

Finally got my hands on this guy again. I only need two more models to finish my World Eaters character collection: Azrakh the Annihilator and Angron. I also saved the Juggernaut body from my first Invocatus so soon I’ll have a Lord on Juggernaut as well

The fluff behind Lord Invocatus is so excessively metal that I can’t help but love it. The mental image of Avocado here galloping across the sky on a bridge of smoke and flame is one of the most raw things I think I am capable of imaging. That being said, the model is, like, very disappointingly not on fire, even if it’s still a banger model. I felt that this was a horribly missed opportunity, so I went about and built a reposed Invocatus with an added 3D fire effect from Deadly Print Studios to represent the bridge of flames. I’m really happy with this! Not only does the repose make him look larger and more ferocious, but the fire makes him look like the centerpiece that he should be, and the visual of him and his Juggernaut leaping over a plume of flame is sure to strike fear into the hearts of whoever I field him against. Or he’ll be the biggest target on the board because of his posing, and he’ll get shot and killed immediately. We’ll find out!

In the time since my last post, I’ve also come into possession of a few new neat 3D printed models for some little projects of mine, courtesy of an Ork-playing friend. This guy here is Tyrant Siege Terminator from the Iron Warriors Legion, the Chaos Legion that my Thunderbearers claim their heritage from (not that they’d know this, though).

Making that objective marker from a few posts ago was really fun, so I made some more ideas for custom ones to use with my factions. While I don’t exactly have a plan of action regarding this guy here, I do know that I’m going to turn him into some kind of relic recovery marker. A supremely apocryphal Chapter artifact of the highest sanctity, for the eyes of the most elite Thunderbearers only. An echo from a forgotten past, a powerless demigod from a lost era, frozen in time and waiting for 10,000 years. This’ll eventually be painted in Thunderbearers regalia and draped with either creeping vines and wild overgrowth, or dust, cobwebs, and rubble. Despite its heraldry, however, this ancient armor is still noticeably a Terminator pattern utilized almost exclusively by the Iron Warriors Traitor Legion. This implies that whichever venerable forebear originally adorned this armor would’ve either been a Battle-Brother of the Chapter’s earliest shrouded histories, or a later Astartes of such grand renown that he inherited what would’ve undoubtedly been one of the Chapter’s most valuable artifacts. Regardless, it’s a neat looking piece and not something that people will glean from first glance. It’s like a little Chapter Easter egg basically for me only, and that’s cool cuz it’s my army. <3

This beefy boy will be the subject of another objective marker. After a page describing each of the Chaos Gods, 9th Edition’s Codex: Chaos Daemons includes a two-page spread detailing anecdotes about various Daemon Worlds and how exactly they’d fallen to the Gods. The above excerpt from the Khornate incursion on a Daemon World named Tartora struck me as particularly visually poignant, so this boisterous Ork is gonna get turned into a statue of brass and bone. I’ll decorate his base with various skulls and lots and lots of blood. Maybe fire, too. I think a sort of glowing red vein effect on the base might be pretty cool. I’ll use him primarily with my World Eaters. Combined with a classic skull tower that I’m gonna make at some point, that means I’ll have two objective markers for both of my armies.

Moving on, I’ve been painting my dudes in what I believe to be their final color scheme for a good long while now. I’ve even started putting transfers on some of them as of a couple loads ago. That being said, I noticed that my most up-to-date heraldry sheet was kind of total garbage, and it didn’t represent the current look of the army whatsoever. This new heraldry sheet will be my (almost) final one; the colors are all correct, the helmets are all correct, and the Chapter icon has been edited and finalized. I may change the symbol signifying Chapter Honor Guard to be a set of tilted black stripes, sorts like hazard stripes but with the yellow replaced by Wraithbone. This could be another subtle nod to the Iron Warriors heritage as black stripes are a very common pattern, which means it could rationally be either an ambiguous heraldry of visually pleasing design, or iconography from culture that’s evolved slowly over the course of 10,000 years.

On the gameplay front, I recently played my first and likely final game of Strike Force in 9th with my brother. To send out 9th and usher in 10th, the Thunderbearers and Cobalt Lancers got together again for a good old fashioned “full-scale combat simulation.” They definitely used tracer rounds or something.

Most of my games are pretty standard but this one was great fun. We had very similar army compositions, with differences only in some key areas, like armor and HQ choice. The plan for us both was to forward deploy Infiltrator squads to hunker down on objectives, since we both took our Chapter-specific action secondaries. The mission we rolled, however, had better plans, and disabled setup rules in No Man’s Land, effectively making the Phobos forward deploy completely useless. It was a really even game, likely my favorite I’ve played so far, and I realize now after playing it that 2000pts is definitely the way that 40k is meant to be played. There were a lot of cool moments, too, and I think that was mostly facilitated by the higher point limit.

A Redemptor, an Aggressor Squad, an Eversor Assassin, and a Primaris Techmarine walk into a bar.

One of those cool moments was a chain of events that I’ll remember for a good long while. After my Predator las-sniped an enemy Redemptor, my own Redemptor stomped up to join two Space Marine columns locked in combat. After some intense combat, the Dreadnought was felled, surprisingly setting of an explosion, dealing mortals to literally everyone in the circle. The Techmarine takes the opportunity to kill the Eversor after this, who then explodes, killing the Techmarine. Earlier in the game, an Impulsor had exploded, and if I recall correctly, Big Harold exploded, bringing the game’s total explosion count to around 4 or 5. Fun!

My brother beat me on objectives, 26-40. He played his primaries far better than I did, and I was far too focused on killing his scary shit to properly run my secondaries. While I took out his Repulsor—the centerpiece of any good Cobalt Lancers army—during the game’s first BR, which significantly lessened his firepower and freed me up to move, aggressive pushes with his Impulsor and excellent positioning of his squads kept me at bay and I lost the inevitable Astartes vs. Astartes battle of attrition.

I hope that I can play some more 2000pts games here soon. I got my hands on a copy of the new Core Rulebook, so I’ll be hopefully be dipping my toes into the future of the 42nd millennium here soon. I’ve got some friends who wanna get back into the game with 10th, so I’ll be getting a couple Combat Patrol games in as well. Maybe Calthradia will follow into 10th, but the Crusade has been on hold for months now and I’m undergoing some significant life changes at the moment, so I doubt I’ll be making much consistent progress for a while.

[gasha40k]

Making hobby baby steps! I haven’t gotten much painting done since my last post since my motivation has waned for some unknowable reason, but I got my hands on some Microset and Microsol in the mean time.

Woah! Heraldry!

The shoulders of my Thunderbearers have been remarkably unblemished for far too long, so I finally got around to putting transfers on my painted models. All of my (painted) Intercessors now have a black arrow on their right pauldron—a decal sourced from the Imperial Fists transfer sheet—denoting their position as battleline Astartes.

A few of them have numbers on their golden knee pad, but most of my normie dudes have sparse transfers beyond that and the shoulder arrow. I purposely didn’t put numbers on everyone because, frankly, I’m not sure what they signify yet.

I think I’d like them to denote the Company that the individual warrior originates from or holds the closest connection to, since squads are constantly broken, shuffled, and reformed in a Thunderbearers order of battle. I haven’t decided quite yet, though, as it’d also make sense for the numbers to represent what squad the Astartes is part of. I’m definitely leaning away from that, however, because that’d require me to slot my dudes into specific squads, which I don’t want to do at all. Breaches the rules of my weird organizational brain.

2nd Lieutenant Simon Sadrian of the Thunderbearers 1st Company

My Intercessors aren’t the only ones with new decals, though. Lieutenant Simon Sadrian, seemingly in a never-ending quest to be my most pimp infantry model, is sporting fresh livery as well. He’s got about three new decals, all of which adding considerably to his noble regalia, further emphasizing him as an important and stand-out unit.

The transfer on his front left kneepad, a numeral ‘II’, represents the fact that Sadrian is the 2nd Lieutenant of his Company, that being the venerable 1st Company. I’m debating where I should put a white ‘I’ to represent the actual company he’s a part of, but I’m thinking of putting it on his forehead to give him a more distinct appearance. I think it’d look cool, and would pair nicely with the white of his Armor Indomitus.

The transfer on his gold-trimmed right shoulder is a Codex-compliant Lieutenant symbol signifying his role in the Chapter. This was pretty much a no-brainer decision, he’s a Lieutenant so he gets the Lieutenant logo. Whatever. But speaking of shoulders and trim, I think I might make it so only 1st Company gets the gold shoulder pad trim. It would be a good way to have my Veterans stand out, and would explain why all my Command units have gold trim, while my goons do not.

Sadrian’s bracer was another broad surface to plaster shit onto, so I decided to give him an Iron Halo symbol. His actual Iron Halo, previously placed atop his backpack, has long since snapped off and been lost. Despite this, he usually has an invulnerable save when I’m playing him on the tabletop due to him frequently being kitted with the Armor Indomitus relic. I figure the Iron Halo symbol signifies that he has alternative forcefield tech somewhere on his body or in his armor, maybe contained within in the bracer, itself.

The Chapter’s most revered Dreadnought, the Aurum Eternatus, an indomitable warrior sentience birthed from the melding of interred Chapter-Master Lucius Harold and the remnant soul within the Hail Aeterna

Moving on, Big Harold, another venerable (awesome pun) veteran from the 1st Company, has received his transfers, as well. Being the Chapter’s previous Chapter-Master, Big Harold has seen an unknowable number of combat deployments. The Chapter sees him a veteran of the absolute highest regard, considering him with as much honor as one can a walking coffin. Suitably so, he’s kinda been plastered with decals to bring him closer to that venerable status in appearance.

Put some “text” (scribbles) on his purity seals and I also cleaned his little Dreadnought engine backpack up a bit

On the top-center of his chassis is a white, Codex-compliant Command skull, which represents his role of Chapter-Master prior to his interment within the Hail Aeterna, despite him not technically being a member of Chapter Command. The large ‘I’ numeral on his left arm states his belonging to the 1st Company, as well as his honor amongst even the revered Dreadnoughts. There’s also some prayers inscribed around his arm, but I couldn’t get a good enough picture of it.

His left leg panel is either a campaign badge or an honor mark. I can’t decide, and it doesn’t matter that much, to be honest. It just looks sick. On the right side, though, is a Codex-compliant Veteran symbol and another ‘I’. This is further veteran regalia, harkening to his history in the Chapter, both past and present.

The ‘Raijin,’ a recovered pre-Indomitus Interceptor with a particularly furious machine-spirit

That’s it for my transfers quest, but as a closing note, I’ve decided to say that my Interceptor is tentatively “finished.” The black-lining is solid and… most of it is properly colored. It’s not a fantastic tabletop presence and I definitely plan on highlighting it at some point, but I’m done with this shit for now. Hallelujah.

My classic Daemon Prince has been at my local GW for a long ass time now, so hopefully by my next post I’ll have that in my hands. I’ve also gotten my hands on a couple things from a friend who plays Orks, and it may or not be an Ork. That’ll be a project for my World Eaters that I’ll talk about later. I’m also gonna make a finalized heraldry sheet because third time’s the charm, I guess. Back to painting I go.

[gasha40k]

Codex: Thunderbearers

The Thunderbearers

“I invoke thee, Machine-Spirit; awaken anew,

Hear this anointment and be reborn,

Contained within thine shell shall be not the spirit of a weapon, but the spirit of Man,

For you are not a weapon; you are a vessel of all wrath,

Within every man unfairly slain,

Every life stolen,

Every dream shattered,

Every hope extinguished,

Every cry of terror, pain, or anguish, offered in woe unto the silent void

For you are not a weapon; you are retribution, and we its deliverers,

Blessed be this weapon.”

Excerpt from the “Psalm of the 1st Tempest,” the first in a cycle of many blessings that the Chaplains administer on a daily basis unto every bolter in the Chapter’s possession

Sons of the Hero Unremembered

“Nos tempestas sumus.”

These are the Thunderbearers, a monastic Successor Chapter of shadowy origin who worship the bolter and specialize in utilizing drop pod shock tactics and heavy ballistics.

The Thunderbearers were my first 40k army and are still my favorite to this day. They’ve been my main dudes since I started in the hobby, and over the last few years, I’ve written a lot of completely unnecessarily in-depth fluff for them. On this page you’ll find various lore posts diving into the Chapter’s structure, culture, and history, as well as periodic update posts documenting my progress working on their tabletop presence, alongside other stuff like my World Eaters, Crusades, and other more general hobby things.

Felled Chapter-Master Lucius Harold, now contained within the Venerable Aurum Eternatus, also known as “Big Harold”

The tag Codex: Thunderbearers will contain exclusively more semi-polished loreposts about the Thunderbearers and their inner workings, whether that be character profiles, remembrancer logs, or tidbits on Chapter structure. The rest of the blog will be whatever else, who care

Thanks for stopping by!

[gasha40k]

Codex: Thunderbearers

Damantyne-pattern Bolters

A pattern of bolt rifle utilized exclusively by the Thunderbearers, the Damantyne is standard issue for every fully-fledged Astartes of the Chapter. Each Damantyne Bolt Rifle is artificed and thrice-blessed by the Chaplaincy—a rigorous process involving months of incense and ceaseless litany—to awaken the Damantyne’s latent raging machine-spirit. Thunderbearers must cultivate a spiritual understanding of near every type of armament contained within the Chapter’s Reclusiam Cataegis before the Chaplaincy individually assigns them a Damantyne, and as such, wielding one is viewed by the Thunderbearers as both highly personal and incredibly spiritual. In combat, the Damantyne routinely displays unmatched ballistic efficiency, being a unique build of bolt rifle that mixes the oppressive firepower of the Auto Bolt Rifle with a high tech suite of wielder-interfacing systems and targeting enhancement that mirrors those of the Stalker Bolt Rifle.

[gasha40k]

Codex: Thunderbearers

The Emperor’s Storm: A General Overview of the Thunderbearers

The Thunderbearers are a Successor Chapter of currently unknown founding with shadowy origins speculatively dating back to the days of the Horus Heresy.

They are masters of rapid, orbital shock assault, and they subsequently specialize in mass usage of drop pods and heavy bolters, alongside other Astartes heavy weaponry. Their culture is uniquely monastic and highly austere, with a focus on stoic philosophy and dominance of the self. The cult of the Thunderbearers dictates that they must revere the sanctity of the holy bolter, viewing their weapons as divine vessels for the Emperor’s wrath. To a Thunderbearer, the act of wielding a bolter is the highest form of worship, and consequently, killing with them is a seen as a spiritual experience of no rival in sanctity.

Due to their creed of weapon worship, each and every weapon—but primarily bolt weapons—in the Chapter’s Armory is viewed as a relic, and is treated and maintained as such by both the Techmarines and the Chaplains. Due to the close proximity of these two elements of Chapter Command, the Armory and Reclusiam are combined into one facility called the Reclusiam Cataegis, which houses both the Chapter’s weapons and its worship. This special facility is overseen by a high-ranking member of the Chaplaincy called the Cataegarch—or the Thunder Warden—who fulfills the role of both Reclusiarch and Master of the Forge for the Thunderbearers.

As a fleet-based Chapter, each of the 10 Companies operate as independent Strike Forces complete with their own battle-fleets, support systems, and splinters of Chapter Command. These Companies are free to operate almost completely autonomously, but always travel on meticulously charted courses that keep them within a certain distance of the command fleet, allowing for the Chapter to maintain a semblance of monolithic coherency despite its highly scattered nature.

[gasha40k]

Objective markers are something I haven’t really put much effort into as of yet, but I have a decently long list of cool, thematic objective markers that I’d like to make for my armies. For example, at some point I’m going to make a Khornate objective marker out of an Ork or a Guardsmen that’s been turned into a statue of brass and bone, as a reference to the Tartora incident in described Codex: Chaos Daemons.

Who could he have been? The MK3 armor raises a lot of questions!

Here’s my first finished objective marker for the Thunderbearers. A dead Space Marine is an all-time classic, whether it be for various secondaries or for the Crusade Agenda that requires Apothecary units to recover lost geneseed.

Having experienced a very recent disaster that both totally scattered and nearly eradicated the Chapter, there’s plenty of lost and otherwise damned Thunderbearers out there in the galaxy for the Apothecarion to recover. This marker also brings to light a dilemma that the Chapter has been facing for centuries now: the fact that, as a Chapter, the Thunderbearers are kind of innately unsustainable.

Inconspicuous banger filler image

Being a fleet-based Chapter, each Thunderbearers Company operates almost completely independently from one another, being separate entities containing their own fleet, support systems, and sects of Chapter command. Think like a much more toned down version of the Black Templars organizational structure. There are only ever 10 Companies, in accordance with the Codex Astartes, but due to their heavily decentralized nature, each Company contains a varying number of men at varying points in time, with some having many more Astartes (or many less) than others. Thunderbearers can also transfer between Companies depending on numerous factors, whether it be command convenience, skillset, training, or personality.

This is all well and good, but between the Ferric Delirium spreading en masse amongst Primaris reinforcements, the scattered nature of the Chapter’s command structure, and the scarcity of dedicated recruiting worlds, Chapter casualties are both high, and difficult to track. This means that casualties are scattered all across the galaxy, and geneseed is in high demand, so the Apothecarion certainly has its work cut out for it.

Moving on, the Calthradia Crusade is reaching a fever pitch. While the Inquisitor speeds towards a derelict orbital beacon, escorted by the Cobalt Lancers, the Necrons and T’au make a midnight strike at the Inquisitorial blacksite that holds the moon fragment.

The Vior’la Sept successfully wrests control of the fragment, but it may be too late, as daemons have begun appearing across the planet, and the relic of the moon begins to stir.

It’s been well over a year since my friends and I started this campaign, and with the arrival of 10th Edition right around the corner, it’s almost time for the Calthradia Crusade to come to a close. There’s only two more missions before it’s over. I’ll make sure to document how the narrative ends, but it’s been a long time coming, and I’m very excited to see how it concludes.

Now that we’re talking about 10th, I’m very excited about the new edition. One of the biggest reasons that I’ve not played 40k as much as I’d like to is because a normal 1k game takes around 4 hours, and I work full time. I ain’t got time for that shit dude. If 10th significantly cuts on game time, as GW preaches it will, I get the feeling that I’ll be a lot more active in the hobby.

Regarding Space Marines, I’m very, very pleased with the new changes. The new Army Rule, Oath of Moment, looks incredibly strong and super fitting to how a Space Marine force should be fighting: highly elite targeted spearhead assaults. This’ll be great for Thunderbearers, because I’ll be able to deepstrike Drop Pods full of ballistics right next to marked units. 

Moreover, the new bolt rifle profile means that the Thunderbearers will maintain their breakneck assault speed. Since Assault weapons no longer inflict a -1 to hit penalty on Advancing units, the Rapid Assault Chapter Tactic is completely unnecessary. The Heavy profile similarly no longer inflicts a -1 to hit, which means they’ll be able to quickly get into position and hunker down with a storm of highly bolter fire.

I’d also just accepted that the Devastators and Drop Pods strategy was miserably invalid when they revealed that the Primaris and Firstborn divide is all but dissipating, what with Primaris and Firstborn units being able to share transports. I’m gonna have to buy a couple more Pods, and a lot more Devastators.

In conclusion, the new edition is looking really, really fun. Each army only having 6 stratagems, alongside the game’s core strats, is another huge change that I’m excited for. Remembering stratagems was horribly difficult for me, and cutting them down will make mastering armies much easier. I’m looking forwards to Astartes being broken good for a few months. It’s been a long while since Codex Space Marines have been viable.

[gasha40k]

I lied! This post involves neither Inquisitor nor Crusade. But I have been doing a lot of scrubbing, and our boys are marinating quite nicely in their big disgusting green chemical bath.

Here they are after both a day in Trazyn’s jar and a fuckton or scrubbing. They look really good, and the Simple Green is definitely doing its work. That being said, the goal is to get them back to base plastic grey so I can start from square one, so after their sponge bath I tossed them back into the jar to pickle for another day. We’ll see how easily the primer comes off afterwards; I figure that with less paint to soften and eat through, the primer will come off a lot easier.

I also built a tank! The first piece of real Thunderbearers armor. The Predator Annihilator is a nice little “inexpensive” (as far as Astartes units go) anti-armor unit that can be used as a fast tank hunter, which will release Big Harold from his role as eternal armor sniper.

Moving on, things are getting startlingly Chaos-y. For a while now, I’ve been sort of casually hoarding various disparate Chaos units, mostly to use as generic badguy units in the Calthradia Crusade. However, at this point, I’ve got nearly 25 Bloodletters, and the Daemons codex is looking really fun. That Manifestation rule and army-wide invul saves? Cmahn.

The Traitor Guard are just nice. I’ve been meaning to build a tiny little Traitor Guard force for a while now, but between Chaos reworks and the impending Guard refresh, I’ve been really in the fence about buying Guard shit. The Blooded Killteam, however, is very new, and very nice, so I got it for the culture.

I’ve also been getting into the habit of making unnecessarily complex kitbashed using eBay bits, as is exemplified by Vanion Sullist, which is a single model that has taken me, like, upwards of a month. The Chaos Lord there is just another example of this phenomenon. I’ve got at least like three more of these stupid kitbashed models cooking up so stay tuned.

[gasha40k]

This is the current evolution of the Thunderbearers, as I cannot stop talking about my stupid custom chapter.

From inception in Dawn of War 1, to Primaris after I started actually playing the game.

I made a bunch of color schemes for Firstborn, and for a long time, the Thunderbearers were very much a Firstborn chapter, as I kind of did not know how Primaris worked.

Maybe I could rebuild them as a Firstborn chapter so I can use pods and Heavy Bolters, and argue that they never got Primaris because their geneseed has been lost, as their origins are, as of now, completely unknown, much like the Blood Ravens. The only Primaris that would belong to the Chapter would be powerful Astartes who’ve crossed the Rubicon Primaris— Captains, Force Commanders, Librarians, etc.

But also I hate the way Firstborn look next to Primaris, holy shit. So I might just run it full Firstborn if ever I get the opportunity. Issue is, I’m like, 95% sure GW is phasing out Firstborn completely, so I’m not sure if sinking a fuckton of money into a Firstborn force is wise right now. Maybe they’ll make it so Primaris fit in pods when Space Marines Codex 2.0 drops. Who knows?

[gasha40k]

I’ve spent the last week or so chipping away at my Intercessors. Here’s where I’m at.

This is the finished portion of the squad. Big Harold and his little friends. There’s two in specific that I want to highlight in this post: the Sergeant, and the dude to the far right with the gold chain.

Here’s our squad leader. His rank of Sergeant is denoted by the gold helmet, as is dictated by the Codex Astartes (which the Thunderbearers follow, generally speaking). He’s got a sick little tassel on his right pauldron, one of the chest shields that I love, and a couple of purity seals for Extra Faith™. I’ve yet to highlight him, but I think visually, he’s nice to look at, and the heraldry makes him stand out nicely as a Sergeant. The helmet color was a design gamble that paid off, and this’ll definitely be my color scheme for Sergeants moving forward.

And this is our other little man. He’s just a normal Intercessor, but I think this model indicates that I’m making good progress with the quality of my edge highlights. He looks a lot cleaner than the last one, and the edge highlights are prominent and consistent.

I think something happened to him that darkened his Mechanicus Standard Gray, too, so he almost looks like a black knight or something. He’s one of my new favorites also.

Tomorrow, I play another game with Hammy. We’re introducing a friend to the game, who’s built a nice 500pts Necrons army. My lovely boyfriend is sitting in, as well, so maybe I’ll catch some cool photos. See you then!

[gasha40k]

With the fall of Cadia, the opening of the Great Rift, the currently raging campaign on Calthradia, and the impending arrival of the Arks of Omen, more and more often are the Thunderbearers finding themselves at the end of a proverbial searing Hellblade. Consequently, my blossoming Chaos collection from a few posts ago has been growing at a rapid pace.

A very rapid pace. I’d already been collecting disparate boxes of Bloodletters just as a set of little daemon goons for the Calthradia Crusade, but after realizing that I’d accrued nearly an entire Combat Patrol’s worth of red bodies, I decided to take the plunge and grab a Daemons Patrol. Does my soul now belong to Khorne? Yeah, probably. Is it worth it for 21 attacks with native -3 AP? Yeah, definitely.

This is about 40 Bloodletters, 3 Bloodcrushers, 10 Khornedogs. Leading this roving murder tide of crimson is a vicious Bloodmaster of Khorne, equipped with the Blood-drinker Talisman and sat atop a pile of, frankly, way too many skulls.

The Bloodmaster is a really sick model. I think he’s one of my favorites purely on look, he’s absolutely radical, and both his datasheet and performance on the tabletop makes him more than worth his meager points cost.

This model, as with the rest of my daemons, is noticeably lacking in the unnecessary kitbashing that’s come to define my Space Marines army. This, frankly, is really refreshing. Being able to simply buy and build stock goon models to throw at other players is really satisfyingly simple. Khorne doesn’t really require me to think at all, just to kill, and that’s a fun switch! I figure this’ll be an army that I can add to when I need a break from Astartes and Custodes. It’ll also serve me really well in my narrative campaign, as things are getting very Chaos-y atop Calthradia.

I’d like to note that, while I’m yer to get my hands on the Daemons Codex, the rules contained within are some of my favorite in 40k. The ability to fuck with enemy Leadership and deepstrike from super close based on enemy morale is so fitting and fluffy, it really invokes images of daemons breaking through realspace to fuck shit up. Their aura reduces Leadership, as well, which is really cool and fluffy. It’s like simply being near them is an attack on human sanity, which wavering resolve results in more daemons breaking through using the Manifestation rules. The unmodifiable saves, as well, are super cool, and makes them essentially unaffected by 9th Edition’s terrible AP bloat.

This is a little squad of tertiary cultists I built a while ago. They’re just fun Chaos goons that I figured I’d show off alongside the daemons. I could use them in Killteam, but I much prefer to use them as Traitor Guard for CSM.

Anyways, besides all the evil shit happening, I’m about ready to sit down and paint for the first time in actual fucking months. This Firstborn that I inexplicably have despite not having bought a Firstborn kit in a year will be my first test subject for an updated Thunderbearers color scheme.

[gasha40k]

The Custodes codex for 9th recently came out. I bought it on a whim and read the shit out of it while I was sick with COVID. “Wow, Custodes are really cool in theory,” I thought, intellectually engorging myself on Custodes lore. A few TTS test games later, and I’ve learned that, wow, Custodes are really cool in practice, as well. Not only is their narrative background neat, but their tabletop mechanics align pretty directly with what I like in 40k. And as much as I love my Thunderbearers, Space Marines are… kinda bland? They’re also a bit too expensive for me to play right now. Custodes are cool and cheap!

I’m currently in the process of making a Custodes combat patrol as my “secondary” army.

Much like Chapters for Space Marines or Regiments for Guard, a huge part of playing Custodes is choosing a Shield Host. The book comes with six Shield Hosts, each with two unique traits and color schemes. Among these is the Shadowkeepers, a black-clad host of elite wardens that protect the Black Cells underneath the Imperial Palace.

I was drawn to the Shadowkeepers because of their color scheme, and their lore. They’re essentially the Imperium’s SCP Foundation. Their traits are cool, too, and put a lot of emphasis on killing characters, which I think is neat.

I’m planning on painting my dudes more like this older scheme than the other. I like the silver trim a lot, and I much prefer the more muted gold, almost bronze, to the harsh gold in the first scheme. I’ll probably keep the purple shit at the bottom of the Guardian Spear, though. It’s kinda neat.

My current list consists of 7 models; an Allarus Shield-Captain, two Allarus Terminators, three Custodian Guard, and a Vexilus Defensor Praetor. Holy shit I LOVE Allarus Terminators. The ability From Golden Light os the coolest shit I’ve ever seen, and the fluff talking about “Godstrike-pattern teleportariums” set me reeling. Shit is so sick.

Here’s the first of (not very) many: an Allarus Terminator. I hope to see these dudes on an actual board soon enough. More Custodesposts to follow.

[gasha40k]

Let’s talk Thunderbearers.

It’s been a minute, but after a brief stint into my Custodes list, I decided to flesh out my custom Space Marines chapter a little bit. For a hot minute, both their lore and design principles have been incredibly vague, so I did some things:

• Sat down and finished a “proper” heraldry sheet, organizing the fuck out of the chapter

• Wrote an actual backstory and decided on a progenitor chapter

• Named and (vaguely) designed the current Chapter-Master

Let’s start with their heraldry and chapter organization.

I’m mad satisfied with this, especially the iconography. The chapter symbol holds a lot of significance. The lightning bolt is a no-brainer, but it’s incredibly fitting. Not only is it true to their name, but it’s also true to their method of waging war. The targeting reticle in the back represents a number of things. Firstly, it’s a simple reticle, embodying the chapter’s love for bolt weaponry and heavy precision fire. But underneath this, the target is actually an edited eight-point star, a chaos star, which symbolizes both their origins and their eternal vendetta against Chaos.

While they’re largely codex compliant for reasons I’ll elaborate on later, due to their years spent in relative isolation prior to the Indomitus Crusade, they’ve developed and adapted their own highly individualized versions of Ultramarines organizational strategy with heraldry to more closely align with their way of waging war.

EDIT: Originally here I’d written, like, 3 paragraphs of lore about their structure, and then within the next two days following that, I realized I really didn’t think it fit what I wanted them to be, so i redacted all of it. It had something to do with specialized cadres within the Chapter called Bolt Brothers and Storm Brothers, but that’s not what I want from the Thunderbearers.