Second Sphere

Grim and Grimey, I love it! :3

Welcome back,

I'm afraid to say that there isn't too much going on at the moment. I understand that there might be a Discord group but I've never been able to find it.

And as promised, just the day after they became Legends (Legends never die, I don't play in tournaments these days so they'll still see the battlefield).

I like Dreadnoughts, mostly the classic boxnaughts, if you scroll up you'll see my first Ironclad with a couple of different weapon loadouts. I decided to give him a friend, the idea being to acquire a Venerable Dreadnought kit and use the spare weapons from my first Ironclad to make it into a second Ironclad with those alternate weapons. Between ordering said Venerable and its arrival however, someone living in my building but out a box of old Firstborn units that were about to leave the codex once and for all and I decided to give them a good home. Included in that box were two more Dreadnoughts; an Ironclad and a Venerable. My ordered Venerable kit arrived and I got to work...

First we have the Ironclad, this one came pre-equipped with the Dreadnought Close Combat Weapon and the Seismic Hammer (though no underslung weaponry). I acquired a pair of Dreadnought Heavy Flamers and the parts from the Blood Angels Librarian/Furioso kit to copy the Hunter-Killer missiles from the first Ironclad.

According to the Codex Astartes, the banner for the 5th company is quartered black and white (this will be important later), so I painted that quick and easy design onto his front plate, opposite the Ironclad Assault Launchers. Once again I completed the basing with AK Interactive Terrains Wet Ground and the Battlefield Razorwire from The Army Painter.




The second Dreadnought I adopted was equipped with a Heavy Plasma Cannon and a Dreadnought Chainfist with Multi-melta (an Ironclad weapon). Both arms were removed and replaced with the spares from my original Ironclad (which did involve swapping a Dreadnought Chainfist with Multi-melta for another almost-identical Dreadnought Chainfist with Multi-melta but I'd already painted my one so it saved me some transfers.

The first two Ironclads, with their twin melee weapons and underslung flamers, are very clearly severely injured Aggressors who have been installed into larger forms of the Gravis armour they had previously served in. This third one however, with mass-firing bolt weapon and a chainfist, could only be an ex-Terminator. I took a few pieces from my new Venerable Dreadnought kit to match the armour to the sarcophagus (all those lovely arches) and found a little iron halo to fit above his Hunter-Killer assembly. For this Dreadnought I couldn't find the same missiles as I'd used on his brothers, but I did encounter some missiles from the Devastator kit that are in the process of launching. Two of those please, ebay.





And now we come to the Venerable Dreadnought I had purchased. I no longer needed to turn it into an Ironclad as I had used those spare weapons on the adopted Venerable. But wait, why not keep him as a regular Dreadnought? This chap is almost entirely built straight from the VenDread box, with the addition of the scaled tabard (as they all wear, from Spellcrow) and a little something left over from my original Ironclad Dreadnought.

I had established that my Ironclad trio are formed from two former Aggressors and a former Terminator, but none of my Gravis units are equipped with Lascannons. Going through my various transfer sheets I came upon the answer to this Dreadnought's former (and indeed current) role in my army.

The 5th company of Outcast Anvils need a Company Ancient. Who cares if he no longer has 90% of his original body?





And now, all together.

I have nicknamed them The Fab Four, but I haven't yet decided which specific ones are John, Paul, George or Ringo.

So I have 1000pts of Outcast Anvils from the 5th company, time to throw in some experience, the 5th squad from the 1st company.

Keeping with the Gravis theme with a base of Heavy Intercessor torso/leg//backpack assemblies, the arms are from the (soon to be replaced) Terminators kit (except one of them that was a Space Wolves Terminator chainfist with the wolf icon removed). The shoulder pads are also Heavy Intercessor, the helmets are from the Grey Knight Terminators box, the Crux Terminati are from the standard Terminator kit, the Iron Haloes are from the Bladeguard Veterans and the tabards are from Spellcrow.com

The Outcast Anvils show their company colours through the battlefield role icon on the right shoulder pad and on the sergeant helmets. The Codex Astartes lists the 1st company colour as white/silver so I've gone for both with a white veteran symbol (the hollow ones are from the Raven Guard transfer sheet) over a silver background, the Codex also recommends that all 1st company veterans wear the company colour on their helmets so only the skull (and different wargear) denote the sergeant.





Spellcrow were nice enough to throw in a few freebies with my order, these included the medium rock on the base of my sergeant and a scaly cape which I decided would fit well on my Terminator (Gravis) Chaplain, so here he is with the boys he'll be running with on the field (and the teleport homer from the old Terminators box);





I have a few other units on order so it shouldn't take too long before this project log gets another update.

I have made quite a bit of progress since the last update. We now have 10th edition which has shaken things up a little, particularly with regards to characters joining units (and the limitations on who can join whom).

The above Gravis Chaplain was made from an Easy-to-Build Aggessor Sergeant (that name is a bit of a misnomer, I struggled putting those together), this of course left two EtB Aggressors, my plan being to build a squad of five of them so they'd be marginally protected from 9th edition's blast rules. In 10th edition, you pay one points value for 3 Aggressors and double that for a larger squad of 4-6, so I figured I might as well spring for the full squad, most of which are the proper multi-part plastic kit.

As per the Heavy Intercessors, the Sergeant has his helmet painted in the company colour (5th company being black). I have however slightly gone against Guilliman's suggestions and made the Aggressors a Close Support unit instead of Fire Support, they are therefore squad 7 in the Outcast Anvils 5th Company and have the old Assault symbol to prove it.



The Aggressors will be joined by the Gravis Captain. My initial plan was for them to also be joined by the new Gravis-armoured Apothecary Biologis and I'd have the squad ride around in a Land Raider Redeemer at higher points levels, but I'm capped at 7 Gravis Marines in one of those. Not an issue at 1000pts of course as I'll have the whole gang on foot. Here is the Apothecary, his armour (was) white as per the Codex Astartes. Easily my favourite Astartes model in the Leviathan box.





Should I choose to split the Aggressors from the Apothecary Biologis then he'll need a new home. Enter the 9th squad of the company, the Fire Support of three Eradicators, one of whom is equipped with a multi-melta. The Biologis may not be too helpful with this trio (he grants Lethal Hits, so an unmodified to hit roll of 6 becomes an automatic wound) but every little helps.




And this of course brings me to the stage where I can present my first 1000pts of Outcast Anvils. The Chaplain isn't taking part at this stage and I have equipped the Ironclad Dreadnought with a Seismic Hammer and second Heavy Flamer instead of his old Chainfist/Meltagun arm. With two close combat arms, each with a flame weapon, it is clear that he was once an Aggressor who took one too many hits from the enemies of the Emperor.

At the bottom-right of the group photo you can see a little hint as to what I'll be bringing to the party next.