Tale of gamers - armylists & first conversion

Time to get started on the Tyrant's Legion and under the conditions of the Tale of Gamers I'm partaking in, that means I need a 1500 point army in about six months. My personal goal is to have a force that can be used at 1000 and 1500 points in fun, storydriven games. This also means that my armylist is anything but suitable for competitive play, this is a force ment for converting and fun. Though this doesn't mean they'd be chanceless, the mixture of power armour and IG-level troopers and armour make for a nice challenge to play with and against.

Prefect Commander Rydel, more on him next week!

1000 point list:

HQ - Legion Centurion (power weapon) = 70 points.

HQ - Auxilia Command Squad (meltagun & grenade launcher) = 60 points.


ELITES - Retaliation Squad (8 Space Marines, meltagun, power weapon & rhino) = 200 points.

ELITES - Corpse Taker (4 servitors, power weapon & rhino) = 115 points.


TROOPS - Legion Cohort (2 missile launchers & storm bolter) = 185 points.

TROOPS - Legion Auxilia (23, heavy stubber, frag grenades & bolt pistol) = 104 points.

TROOPS - Legion Auxilia (22, flamer, grenade launcher & frag grenades) = 96 points.


HEAVY SUPPORT - Lemann Russ (heavy bolter sponsons) - 170 points.

This list provides me with tons of room for conversion work (the Auxilia units in particular), a nice mixture of Astral Claw and Badab Auxilia troops, as well as infantry and vehicles and also suit well with the theme of the full 1500 point list below.

Upgrade to 1500 points:

HQ - Centurion replaced by Carnac Commodus = +35 points.


TROOPS - Auxilia Armsmen Cadre (12, meltagun, missile launcher team, meltabombs & carapace armour) = 115 points.


FAST ATTACK - Maelstrom Arvus Lighter (2 twin-linked heavy stubbers) = 100 points.


HEAVY SUPPORT - Leman Russ Annihilator (heavy bolter sponsons) = 150 points.

HEAVY SUPPORT - Thunderfire Cannon = 100 points.

At 1500 points a Tyrant's Legion force has to take a mandatory Centurion, representing Huron's tactic of deploying champions to warzones as generals to keep the Auxilia troops in check. After some bitsbox searching, combined with my wishlist units (Arvus and Thunderfire Cannon) I was left with exactly 35 points. So, naturally, I have to include Carnac Commodus in the list, he's one of the extra characters Forge World released (link).

Commodus is also a rather nasty piece of work, as Arch Centurion he was in charge of the secret operations of Saphrias from where the Corpsetakers (perversions of the Apothecary tasked with harvesting geneseed from loyalist Space Marines) operated. Which is where the theme of the big list comes from:

"Defensive Badab battles prior to the fall of Saphrias, in which the Astral Claws throw their defensive assets at the loyalists (aka use the Auxilia as a human shield). Naturally the true purpose of this tactic is to draw more Space Marines into the fray only to strike back with a powerful counter-attack intent on inflicting maximum damage at as low return casualties for the Astral Claws......while harvesting even more geneseed for Legion expansion."

In essence this force emphasizes Huron's tactic of drawing out the conflict, hoping he could isolate and outlast the Loyalist forces set against him. Naturally things don't end well for Commodus, in fact he finds his brutal demise in the incident known as the Red Hour. Which not only costs the Astral Claws their operations on Saphrias, much of the harvested geneseed stored there, but also their alliance with the Executioners!

First Conversions:

That's enough about armylists and themes, time for the first unit - the Auxilia Armsmen Cadre. These guys are pretty much the only well trained and potentially well equipped Auxilia troops available to the Tyrant and the perfect opportunity to final use that batch of Pig Iron system troopers (link) I've had for ages. A quick head swap an added lasgun barrel and voila, the closest thing a Tyrant's Legion player will to an elite Auxilia trooper:

The real building fun with the squad definite came from the special weapon - the missile launcher team and the meltagun. I'm particular happy with the feel of the latter, so the other two meltaguns in the army will get a similar look. Meltaguns are nice, but an industrial melta cutter is just a little cooler:

The actual work on the miniatures was minor, the slab on which the come had to be cut of while the new heads were easily attached using some green stuff for added posability and some quick finishing once fully dry. I should have time this weekend to put up a quick tutorial on this as well, so stay tuned for some quick and easy sculpting putty tricks!

And that does it for today's update, though this weekend there will be another update on some of the other units. Including how I plan to tackle to Corpsetaker and his servitors, hopefully the first painted Armsmen and a quick tutorial on how to use green stuff to help pose your miniatures.