New Penitent Engine finecast mini?

Finally got hands on a copy of the latest WD380 to look at the first part of the new SoBs Codex. Everywhere I had heard that it was nothing new and whether it would be a good thing or not depended on the points costs of the minis - which will be in the next part. But look at the penitent engine on page 97, perched on on foot, with a banner and no silly flame projecting horizontally from one of the flamers. Is this a new penitent engine???

Change in Focus or Not

The workshop has realised that over the past 4 years of blogging that the GW world has moved on. The Daemonhunters and Witch Hunters codices have gone. In came this year the Grey Knights with their own codex, and now through White Dwarf a release of of dedicated Sisters of Battle codex.

The Daemonhunters are dead! The Witch Hunters are dead!

Long Live the Inquistion! Long live the Inquisition!

The inquisition in the mordant and morbid universe of 40k is the superglue cement that fixes the order of the Imperium together through the living manifestation of the Emperor's will, his arm of justice and worship of the true believers. Decay, disorder, corruption and Chaos manifests elsewhere within the defenders of humanity including all Space Marine Chapters, the Imperial Guard and the vile alien menaces.

The Inquisition is the truth and the life of Humanity!

The change in the codices has resulted in some losses and some gains. The SoBs have a more Ecclesiarchial face now - hurrah. Sadly the Inquisition appears to be described as an appendage to the Grey Knights in their codex whereas in reality the reverse is true.However see the previous post suggesting ways around this.

Grey Knights and the INQUISITION

The Grey Knight's codex has been about for a while. The first part of the new Sisters of Battle Codex in the latest White Dwarf, this month. For Inquisition afficionados there seems to be little hope for collections of minis. What to do with all the stormtroopers squads apart from another squad in an IG army. What to do with the Inquisitors and their retinues. Doubtless the Witch Hunters &  Daemon Hunters codices are not continuing to shift as many minis as GW wished, while SMEGs (Space Marine Egguivalents) still do. SMEGs do well in tournaments, at least in the minds of the hottests hard list internet list followers. Some 40k afficianados feel that this is not actually helping the hobby. The game is about fun : -  states GW! Obviously ULTRA-kill is for some the end in itself, a bit like go faster stripes on cars. What the ULTRA-kill listers want is that wargames succeed or fail on the genius of the back bedroom armchair general regardless of tabletop skills. What ULTRA-kill listers forget that in real life and on the table top battles are settled by the skills and superiority of the opposing Generals. There is no ultimate list to guarentee a win and compensate for or hide bad gameplay.

This finally brings Artificers Workshop to the trigger for this post which was the post by Caldera on BOLs regarding Dark Eldar vs Grey Knights. In this post he disses the Inquisition and Inquisitors retinues to laud the Grey Knights as yet another SMEG (YASMEG). What is the point of another codex if its YASMEG? Actually the Inquisition embedded in the GK codex has oodles of potential for throwing out some interesting and  fun units to play with. Retinues are no longer limited to a specific number of  types of henchman. Think about it, a retinue with 3 stormtroopers with meltaguns (18pts each) plus 3 multimelta gun servitors (10 points each) plus 2 Jokearo weapon smiths (35 points). Total  - 154 points for melta goodness plus weapon and armour upgrades guarenteed each turn, the weapons smiths can fire lascannon, multimelta of heavy flamer firepower at the commanders choice! Add a an Ordo Malleus Inquistor with terminator armour, psycannon and force sword plus hammerhand psychic power for 110 points total. Add transport and here is mobile doom for any armoured vehicle commanded by a terminator with potential for a 1+ armour save and its not YASMEG!! And it can be assembled from existing daemonhunter mini collections. Amazing. Great.

Immolator - when to stop part 2

The workshop is going to add a pintle mounted stormbolter and a towing hook to the Exorcist for completion. Originally it was thought that given the role of this tank on the battle field a stormbolter would be a waste of effort but here is a paraphrased bit of advice from the GW site advice on the use of an Exorcist -

"A pintle mounted storm bolter adds very little to an Exorcist's firepower But, the way that the vehicle charts are organized, a tank is destroyed if all of its weapons are destroyed and it is subsequently immobilized. So the enemy has to destroy it as well to render your tank destroyed if it gets immobilized."

Survivability and the denial of scoring points makes the stormbolter a good idea. The towing hook will only add to its looks.

Sisters Of Battle Exorcist - when to stop

Is it time to stop working on the Exorcist? The workshop is pondering this question. Photographs can be significantly informative, brutally identifying details that remain unnoticed to the ordinary eyeball. So there is some touching up required that has been missed  but the real question is should more detail and greater baroquification be added. Perhaps a few brassy bronzy icons attached to the hull. Some more purity seals, some more holy testaments or a pair of laud halers or even a storm bolter. All of these have been prepared and considered and now are possibly rejected, perhaps.

The changes form last week are the lights on the front hull, the testaments on the hull, the assembly of the upper superstructure, the smoke launchers, and the detailing of the mini including highlighting of structures, purity seals, bolts etc.

The Sisters as the militant arm of the ecclesiarchy should be both formidable and religiously righteous, I don't say holy as the Imperium of the 40k Universe is based more on ancestor worship than on religion and belief in god, even if the dying in stasis god emperor of humanity has some characteristics of a deity, the main belief of all strata of this society is in the existence of daemons in the Warp. As the righteous, the sisters war machines should be decorated with symbols of the justness and purity of the cause of the Sisters of Battle. The machines should be movable temples to the God Emperor. Therefore they should not appear as malicious or dark to the denziens of the Imperium. They should be symbols of hope even if the only hope is a quick clean death at the hands of the emperors hand maidens. Paint schemes should therefore reflect this. I hope this one does. Anyway below is another pic of this weeks sate of play and then last week's image and the first posted pics of this mini. Back to the original question - is it done or not besides touching up?

Exorcist again

OK, short post today, a quick update on the exorcist work in progress - here it is on the painting table. Work has started on the body details and is close to completion for the upper hull. The launcher tubes need the purity symbols finished and text added to the various banners. The pilot and loader are finished. The pilot and missile rack are now fixed in place. The loader await final fixing of the upper hull structures. It still needs baroque detailing for the upper decking, perhaps text with icons presented above. I am not yet certain of this. A lot depends on how the hull final detailing goes. The mini has an enormous amount of detail, some of which is my own fault as I have added this beyond that designed on to the model. While it is a pricey mini from GW for the modeller there is plenty to work on which makes it reasonable vfm.

Besided the Exorcist the Sisters of Battle collection is getting some Celestinians as a body guard for the Cannoness. The challenge for this group is the addition of a sacred banner. GW no longer produce this mini although it seems that they did in the past. On ebay these minis seem to go for unreal sums. So the plan is to add a banner to an existing bolter armed SoB in the simplest fashion. The hard part remains the banner itself. Designs would be appreciated.

Sisters of Battle Exorcist Marches on

What's new today? The servitor loader is finished. The Sister organist gunner has progressed. I bought some new detail brushes an managed her eyes. Although the mini is designed with them shut, eyes open is more 40k Universe ethos. It is a grim place with humanity fighting for survival as the Universes slowly shreds in to the Warp. Where unrational and unreal creatures are fought with barely comprehended science. It all going down so so slowly simply due to the size of the Universe. Space Marines and the Imperial Guard humanity's answer to the impending messily chaotic terminus are actually ensuring the chaotic madness of the end of mankind while at the same time slowing its howling decent into madness.

Philosophy aside here is the latest pics :

Another week and another view of the SoB Exorcist

Some 40k blogs are educational, some are a show case for painting and modelling talents, some are lists and some are news reporters. This one is a blog, log of Artificers painting and modelling ups and downs in real time. Thanks for looking. So here is another snapshot of the Exorcist inching towards completion. The tracks are on now and the magazine largely painted. the servitor is mainly done. The iconographic side panels are finally glued in place and just need some fixing and the maddened organ playing gunner needs to be completed. Here it is :

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