Sisters of Battle Command Squad Finished

The Command Squad is finished for the time being. With the new codex 2 celestinians had to be removed and a hospitaler and a dialogus added. Given that these 2 are not truly combatants I decided to make their bases differently form the rest of the squad. Its probably not obvious but the hospitaler is standing on planking and the dialogus on the remains of a tiled floor. All irrelevant to this image of the completed squad based in a ruined building. They have not been tried out yet so how the squad will perform with the blessed banner, a laud hailer, and chirugeons tools is an unanswered question. The fluff is important, otherwise why involve the 40k universe where life is a dark struggle against the encroaching gotterdammerung of the end of any remaining sanity within the order of the universe.

On another note Artificer was moved to comment on a post on the "from the warp" blog regarding a realistic style of painting for 40k. Realistic was used to mean the gritty well worn, battle scarred style of painting. Fair enough but there is nothing realistic about 40k, and not even the realistic style of painting. Have a look at photos of combat vehicles and combatants from any modern conflicts. Only the knocked out vehicles and weapons are are battle scarred as the realistic style of 40k painting. Having said that it still looks good and adds to the fluff.

Hospitaler Sisters of Battle Command Squad

Sisters of Battle command squad progress to date. Here silence does not mean that nothing is happening. Both the Hospitaler and the Dialogus have progressed and are close to completion as is a squad of Celestinians. The posture of the Hospitaler as can been seen from the pictures is not the best that GW has managed. She seems to be flinching as if horrified at the cruel things her Celestinian colleagues in the command squad are inflicting on heretics and aliens, or perhaps she is cringing at seeing what they have inflicted on her Canoness commander.

The mandatory inclusion of these 2 minis in the command squad allows 2 extra special rules for this squad. With the Hospitaler it is the feel no pain special rule. Hence other than instant death wounds there is a 50/50 chance the mini will survive. The squad already has the Shield of faith special rule giving them a 6+ invulnerable save. Also the unit has the Endless Crusade act of faith giving the relentless and move through cover special rules but they do not have the Celestinian's own act of faith of Hand of The Emperor, which is odd as the unit is composed of the most dedicated and distinguished Sisters of Battle.

On the other hand they benefit from the Canoness's Act of faith of Passion. This gives them the preferred enemy special rule but even so some extra strength would be handy.
The result of these special rules suggests a squad with 2 heavy weapons and perhaps a Blessed Banner to support other units and win any combats.

Has anyone else spotted the GW used 2 different spellings of Hospitaler in the 2 White Dwarves. Sad isnt it.

Rant ..... PCs Windows and Security on the Internet

Suddenly this week blogger images from blogspot.com became undisplayable on my PC. When I browsed Bols (Bell of Lost Souls)  website - no images, but images on From the Warp, but not on Admiral Drax or Fritz 40k and so on. Most blogger images hosted on http//*blogspot.com/* had disappeared. How or why, it was not clear. Artificer had installed nothing. The PC was protected by Kaspersky, and Windows defender and kept up to date on Windows 7 by automatic updates. Firefox was affected and so also was IE (exploder). The only thing that had preceded this loss of functionality was an update on windows - thank you Microsoft. Quickly the laptop was turned on. It was OK blog sites images were OK. Wait a minute, as it was shut down it installed some windows updates. Lo and behold the laptop had the same affliction once it was rebooted. Logically blogger.com was being blocked by some security change but what as the lone user had done nothing! Eventually a solution was realised by the humble user - help pages and requests for help rendered as much assistance as a mirage in the desert - set blogger.com to be a trusted site for Kaspersky. Ok, but why did windows update break the usability of blogger? Is it deniable collateral damage from the war for dominance between Google and Microsoft. Is it a bug in Kaspersky uncovered by the latest Microsoft updates. Actually here at Artificers Workshop we do not give a damn. If software houses had to pay compensation to consumers for their waste of consumers time as a consequence of their dysfunctional behaviour there would be a massive change in behaviour. My bill to Microsoft and Kaspersky for the time wasted by their incompetence is prepared. As users we need to campaign for a change in the law. If petrol companies sell petrol with too much water in it and it breaks engines they are liable. If software companies update software without explicit permission for each change that breaks the Internet for users they must be liable also.

 Back to Sister of Battle Command Squads :

 Work has progressed.

Sisters of Battle Command Squad

The new command squad or Celestinian Body Guard caused some reconfiguration of the order of battle for the Sisters of Battle.

Also the acquisition of 2 new models, doubtless part of GWs cunning plan to shift some of the less popular minis - here is one below. The basing for these two has been causing some thought as neither would be front line types. Here therefore is an attempt at a wooden strip floor in progress.

Sisters of Battle Seraphim

The Seraphim have finally come off the painting table having reached a point where old and new minis have merged into one squad.

Sisters of Battle against a corrupt Imperium

Deployment :

Artificer had one of his infrequent games of 40k today. No table, the gaming area was one of the GW battle mats. The game was fun and played for fun. Rules were adhered to but reinforcement were allowed. Total points were not exactly matched. Shooting was accurate but saves were made expertly. As a result a fund draw was achieved and both players had a good time without any dramatic change in the opposing forces.

Here is the situation at the end of the final turn :

Sister Superior, Exorcist and Priest - Whats on the Painting Table

Sometimes its difficult to finish a project either because something extra keeps on being added, sometimes because new projects get started before existing ones are finished. On the painting table at the moment are 3 Seraphim to add to an existing unit of 5, one sister of battle with a heavy flamer to replace the standard flamer in an existing squad, 3 additional sisters of battle to add to the existing Celestinian squad, 8 Brettonian, 1 grey knight terminator from a squad of 5 assembled and undercoated only. Finally there are the Brettonian shields that have turned out to be the most intricate part of the Brettonian regiment. Painted brown wood on the inside with a boltgun metal rim washed with devlan mud and painted blue outer surface with added transfer and matt varnish to seal. It takes longer to do a shield than a Brettonian.

An example of an extended project was the Exorcist.
Ideas to enhance the mini kept coming as the project progressed. Here it is being led out by two battle priests. It is to be joined eventually by a second Exorcist. The kit is bought and it is waiting some clear space on the painting bench before work commences. The aim is to build on what has been achieved with the first kit bash to produce a second and more interesting variant.

Brettonian Shield Wall Again

Back at the Brettonian. Some time ago a large unit of Brettonian men at arms was started and then languished as the paint scheme failed to fall in to mind. Things have changed. Ideas have cystallized. Now there is a project rather than an idea of trying painting a Brettonian unit. Colours are muted browns, apart from metal objects, even those are washed down with devlan mud. The project is using a lot of devlan mud and gryponne sepia and even ogryn flesh as washes on base brown colours such as graveyard earth, tausept ochre,bleached bone and vermin brown.

The project has become to create a peasant revolt Brettonian peasant army compatible with the current Brettonian codex.