Dusting Things Off...

Wow has it been some time since I've done anything with this.

It still saddens me to consider how great Spartan's Halo games were and what they could have been, had that company not gone under. But, life and certainly hobbies still move on, and so we continue after a considerable pause.

I've always had a fascination with the story and setting of the Warhammer 40K universe. It never developed into playing that game proper thanks to the shifting rules and expense of the components (though the minis were/are beautiful and worth collecting), you don't need a few hundred bucks to field a playable "army" for 40K's squad-based spin-off, Kill Team. I've recently become enamored with this game, and to my delight have a found a very local club that plays on a weekly basis.

For my first Kill Team, I've gone with GW's most-excellent new Primaris Marines for an Adeptus Astartes Kill Team, from the very obscure Golden Halos Chapter, who had a color scheme and a Chapter motto I liked very much: Ex Ungue Leonem, "judge the lion by his claws." For my first and thus far only outing to date, I rolled with a six-man team: Leader, Comms, Sniper, Demo, Intercessor, Reiver Sergeant.

My first two Specialists, a Comms and a Sniper, Brothers Valroth and Folcolyn

A Reiver Sergeant (Nerreith) is one of the most legit melee threats the Astartes get, and can be even more fearsome if made a Combat Specialist. Brother Korwin, in contrast, is a humble vanilla Intercessor.

Two basic Reivers to be swapped in if added melee and movement shenanigans are called for. Brothers Maerson and Gallus from the push-fit Reivers kit.

My Demo and my Leader: Brother Boldric and Sergeant Demetrius, who boasts a kitbashed arm with powersword to serve as a melee Leader. Boldric has the Aux Grenade Launcher and a few bits from older kits to try and make him look beefier.

The whole team together. Too many points to all be on the table, but I do have some flexibility, which is nice.

Sitting on the workbench are Tactical Marine with Plasma to serve as a harder-hitting sniper (something I wish I had against the Thousand Sons I played against), and four Scout Marines to serve as filler and objective holders from an old kit I recently located in my closet, though sadly these weren't the camo-cloaked snipers that really do good work in Kill Team, from what I've read.

Painting-wise, these were easy-enough to start; black primer did most of my work for me, and there are many guides to painting a decent gold out there. It was all the edge highlighting of the black that made me start to hear voices, though, especially as I had overdone the first attempt and had to go back and redo the entire team before I was satisfied/said screw it.

For the future, raiding my old 40K kits I caould do Kill Teams of Heretic Astartes, Orks, and Tau. Next to my Golden Halos additions on the work bench are a unit of Death Guard that have been basecoated. I recently obtained some Poxwalkers to help stretch the Death Guard's limited numbers a bit and serve as meatshields, too. I'll present these (and more) in a future post!

Thanks for reading!