Character Design Competition entry

Atratos, over at the Rules Manufactorum is hosting a Character Desing Contest.

The entries are in, and the voting is open for a couple of weeks.

Jumping at the chance to get some feedback from a character rules set i've been toying around with (and a shot at a prize) I thought I'd give it a go.

I decided to look at the lucky 88th's military commander - Colonel Commissar Winters

This Forgeworld model single-handedly inspired the Lucky 88th's Fluff. His gas mask was the reason for the virus bombing background, and because of how amazing the model looked, i wanted him as my commander - rather than a commissar advisor - hence the over use of commissar models in my army representing platoon commanders etc.

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Colonel Commissar Winters

One Company Command Squad in your army may replace its company commander with Colonel Commissar Winters for 120 points

WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	LD	SV
4(5)	4	3	3	3	3	3	10	4+/5+

Army: Lucky 88th

Affiliation: Imperial Guard
Planet: Borlina – near the cadian gate

Born and raised on Raye, a commissariat training planet, young Commissar Winters was destined for great things. Upon hearing the distress signals from neighbouring Borlina’s 88th PDF force, their planet virus bombed for corruption, Winters cut short his Training and took it upon himself to gather the remnants of the Borlina PDF and piece together a fighting force under the watchful eye of the commissariat. After a harsh campaign, the “Lucky 88th” was born; a rag-tag, war torn and broken army forced into military excellence by a harsh regime of summary executions by the commissars and a large conscription from neighbouring systems.

Leading with fear and inspiration, Winters commonly places himself at the head of any advancing force, his mastery of swordplay proving invaluable in the field of battle.


Unit Type:

• Infantry (Unique)

Wargear:

• Carapace Armour
• Plasma Pistol
• Ceremonial Power Sword
• Frag Grenades
• Refractor Field
  

Special Rules:

• Stubborn
• Colonel Commissar: Winters Functions exactly the same as a Regimental commander with 2 orders, and has the following special rules, as detailed in the Lord Commissar entry of Codex: Imperial Guard.
• Summary Execution
• Aura of discipline

Body Guard: Winters Company Command Squad Must take the Carapace Option (already included in Winters’ Points cost)

Ceremonial Power Sword: Winters’ WS is boosted to 5 on the first turn of combat, whether his squad initiated the assault or were assaulted themselves.

Gas Mask: Winters dons his gas mask in battle, instilling an anger into the men for the great injustice caused to them, every strike of their weapons in combat becomes revenge for a fallen comrade.
Any friendly unit (with the exception of conscripts) assaulting the same enemy unit as the colonel commissar gains thePreferred Enemy rule. (note this does not effect Winters himself, but does affect his command squad)

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Please feel free to give any feedback or criticisms.

If you do like the character, head on over to the competition and read through some of the other entries - vote for whichever you feel is the best all round.

And a Big thank you to Atratos for hosting the competition, I might have to do something similar myself one day, maybe when I finally get around to organising this campaign at warhammer world.

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In other news, i'm getting there with the building of my new Death Riders, 4 down, 2 to go. they are a pig to get together, the hind legs slot in beautifully, but the front legs not so much. then theres a few gates which meld to the body of the model, these need carving back into shape, and i've also had a mishap with the reigns on one horse, they had completely melded back to the horse's neck, and whilst cutting them down (to look less like a cobrahorse hybrid) i hacked a large chunk of the reign off. this has meanta hefty amount of econstructive surgery, and i'm no greenstuff expert. pictures to come tommorrow.

Cheers, TSINI - Vote for Colonel Commissar Winters :D

My Holy Land!! - Forgeworld Open Day

Yesterday, my friend Paul and I made it to the Forgeworld Open day 2010.



I only had one mission, to obtain a Death Korps of Krieg Commissar on Horseback - last year's even only model.

secondary motives were:

• to get a glimps at the upcoming models
• to scope out warhammer world for a campaign I intend to run in the future
• have a look at the effects possible with the new weathering powders and how to apply them, then pick some up.

Here are the pictures I took throughout the day, theres not much "sneak peaking" in these photo's, but i did get close to some of the unreleased and WIP models on the stands. They are also in no particular order - you would have thought my camera had the ability to keep them in order of when they were taken, but apparently not.

An Excavation team on one of the gaming boards



Warhammer World's sense of humour presented with a "Heres a piece of scenery you can't afford" gaming table

The raging Titan vs stompa board



A thoroughly amazing Orky diorama

The upcoming Ork War Kopta - a chinook style weapons platform
The chaos monstrocities
The entries for the Painting Competition
A selection of models from the Warhammer world gallery




This valhallan army takes me right back when I first started the hobby, its been a staple army featured in white dwarves and codexes since 3rd edition (and probably before then) It inspired my first every army - valhallan IG




The new Blood angels on display












This Death Korps Battle Diorama was just stunning, every tiny detail is beautifully painted and modelled




The War kopta without crew
I'm not an ork player, but i love these new Grot Tanks!







Well there we have it.

All I have left to tell you is what I bought

I set out to buy the following

• Salamander HQ - for the coming up 500 point games
• Vendetta upgrades (mainly for the searchlight sensor arrays, much cooler then the supplied plastic ones)
• Death Korps Commissar on horseback

I came back with

• Vendetta upgrades
• Deat Korps Commissar on horseback
• Death Korps Death Riders
• Weathering powders (set of 6 for £15)

so i'm at this very moment putting together my first death rider, (going to have to see if i can re-do my list to include them for the upcoming 500point game :D)

Next post, My forces are slowly but surely being properly based, my colonel commissar Winters (company commander) has bee re-painted, this time with a wash instead of ink, he looks much crisper and nicer all round now.

Cheers for reading.

TSINI

Roll Call!! 500 point Patrol Force List

Ok, so I got carried away last night with planning for this 500 point combat patrol, and immediately re-wrote my list (something I didn't intend to do till later this week...)

I decided my Calneage list wasnt all that bad, it had guns, many many guns, and men, many many many many many men. but it did need beefing up as before it was part of a doubles tournament, this time it would be a stand alone force.

My old Calneage list was as follows:

• Platoon Command - power weapon, missile launcher, 2x grenade launchers - 65 points
  
• Infantry squad 1 - autocannon, grenade launcher - 65 points
• Infantry squad 2 - autocannon, grenade launcher - 65 points
• Heavy Weapon Squad 1 - 3x heavy bolters - 75 points
  
• Heavy Weapon Squad 1 - 3x autocannons - 75 points
• Conscripts (20) - 80 points
• Armoured Sentinal - Plasma Cannon - 75 points

Total 500 points, 7 kill points, 57 men, 4 grenade launchers, 1 plasma cannon, 1 missile launcher, 5 autocannons and 3 heavy bolters.

Although this was a cracking list, mobs of men, and plasma melty death. I doubt it will stand up on its own without John H's suicidal armoured sentinals and suicidal men to distract the opponents.

So I looked into ways of beefing it up with armour and more heavy guns.

By dropping the sentinal, and a heavy weapon squad, I saved myself 150 points, knowing my chimera was only 60, and my salamander was only 55, I still had 35 points left.
By replacing the missile launcher from the command squad with a heavy bolter, I could save a further 5 points, giving me 40 points to spend on a scout sentinal with an autocannon.

Making the list:

• Platoon Command - Power Weapon, Heavy Bolter, 2x Grenade Launchers - 60points
• Infantry squad 1 - autocannon, grenade launcher - 65 points
• Infantry squad 2 - autocannon, grenade launcher - 65 points
• Heavy Weapon Squad 1 - 3x autocannons - 75 points
• Conscripts (20) - 80 points
• Chimera - Autocannon, hull Heavy Bolter - 60 points
• Salamander Scout - Autocannon, Hull Heavy Bolter - 55 points
  
• Scout Sentinal - Autocannon - 40 points

Total: 500 points, 8 kill points, 51 men, 4 grenade launchers, 8 autocannons and 3 heavy bolters.



There's a couple of modifications that could be made to this list.

I'm weighing up swapping the platoon command's heavy bolter with one of the infantry squad's autocannon - making the platoon command more anti tank, and the infantry squad more anti infantry.

or in fact just swapping out both infantry squad's autocannons for heavy bolters - more fire against closer units might tighten up the focus of this army.

Also the Chimera. which unit do I give it to? do I load up the platoon command, giving them a bit of armour to protect the order giving commander? or do i give it to an infantry squad to allow them to race up to objectives?
- I'm swayed to the platoon command simply because they have 2 grenade launchers, and I can experiment with these famous "drive by" lists that seem so popular these days, plus the order may prove useful so protecting the command squad may be smart.

Well thats all from me, as you can see from the pic above, theres work to be done, tracks need attaching to the salamander and chimera, the sentinal needs work done, and theres plenty of flock needing to be applied to the bases to make them look more pretty. not to mention the paintwork needed on the salamander and chimera, i haven't really tried to weatherthem, or wash them, or anything like that :S

Anyway, Catch you soon.

TSINI