Badab War: Mantis Warriors Decals

Progress! I recently received my custom printed Mantis Warriors and Fire Hawk transfer sheet Fallout Hobbies. Rather than hand painting every chapter symbol on my Marines, I wanted to be able to just use decals. Fallout Hobbies offers a custom printing service that I couldn't pass up. The decals have a ton of each symbol on them so I have enough for my force and then some.

I have two minor complaints about the decals. Fallout Hobbies service was initially really good. Ron was quick to respond and got my design worked up right away. Only trouble was it took a long time to get my decals with pretty large gaps of no communication. As I understand he is very busy with his full time jobs and swamped with orders for Fallout, so in the end, it's no big deal. He did deliver and overall the service was good enough. The other minor quibble is that the decals themselves have a pretty low resolution for the color and the Maelstrom Warder decal was slightly misaligned. No big deal, I was planning on painting over them to give them a painted on look anyway. In the end I am very happy with how they came out and I really like the uniformity they gave the models.

So, overall, I give Fallout Hobbies custom decals a decent  review. Not bad, but I'm not blown away either. Though, to be fair, I was happy with the results in the end. Hope you enjoy the pics of my now completed first Mantis Warriors tactical squad.

Badab War: Fire Hawks Contemptor Dreadnought

Hello, and welcome back. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with the Contemptor dreadnought that came with my Betrayal at Calth box. I'm not a huge fan of the model itself as the pose is pretty static. Since I wasn't going to be painting it to use with my Horus Heresy Ultramarines, I thought I'd give it to the Fire Hawks to use. The scroll on the front of the sarcophagus says "Burn Them All, The Emperor Will Know His Own". I thought that was an appropriate message to go with a chapter known for their indifference to human casualties.

So here's the result. Painted over the last two nights. I'm really happy with the way it came out and I think I like the model a little more now that it's painted. I think I shall call him "Trogdan the Incinerator.

Enjoy!

Here he is next to the Mantis Warriors Hellfire Dreadnought, the Venerable Secarssa the Bow of Ma'Dan. I hadn't realized just how BIG these Contemptors were.

Badab War: Mantis Warriors Progress

Hello,

I will soon be starting on the second Mantis Warriors tactical squad. Here are some shots of the force so far: a tactical squad and the dreadnought Venerable Secarssa, the Bow of Ma'Dan.

I also played a game last night at our club with fellow local gamer Raven Feast. We used my mod, Betrayal at Badab. The game went well, though I got my butt handed to me in record time. I played the Mantis Warriors and he played the Fire Hawks. We played a simple meeting engagement in the ruins of a city. By the end of the third turn, he had almost wiped out my whole force. The Mantis Warriors could not get in a good position to use their Hit and Rule special rule and I just simply didn't use my firepower well, especially the dreadnought.

Here are some pics of the Mantis Warriors force and pics of the game.

The table

The Mantis Warriors deploy

Mantis Warriors crossing the street under fire

Fire Hawks push the flank

The Mantis Warriors withdraw using Hit and Run

Only two left...

The Venerable Secarssa goes down

The sergeant was the only survivor

Badab War: Fire Hawks Force Part 1 Complete

Welcome back. I am now finished the first part of the Badab War project. The Fire Hawks force part 1 is a tactical squad and a terminator squad. The tactical squad consists of a veteran sergeant (denoted by a black helmet), a heavy flamer, and a melta gun. They are led by a terminator squad with a sergeant and a heavy flamer.

What's next for the Fire Hawks?

Not sure yet. I want to expand the army with at least a dreadnought. I might add a Rhino and/or a Land Raider transports for the squads, but that can wait. Next will probably be a second tactical squad and then a devastator squad. That will have to wait until tax refund time though :)

Here is the entire force and individual pics of the models. I'm really happy with the poses and the colors. All I need yet are decals (I'm waiting on my order from Fallout Hobbies-have been for a while now).

Fluff: The sharp eyed among you might note that I put the terminator sergeant shoulder pad on a regular terminator and a regular crux on the sergeant. Well...that's because I messed up when I was putting them together! I wasn't paying attention and didn't notice until I had already started painting him. So, what to do? Make something up! I decided that since the Fire Hawks chapter lore describes them as having very knightly order type titles (such as Knight-Captain) which gives them a medieval feel, that the "rank" of sergeant among terminators was treated differently. Since the first company are all veterans, most of which are at least sergeants (or at least for the Fire Hawks) they are as a company of equals (peers). When a mission is assigned, the company assembles and all in attendance give their opinion on what the mission should accomplish and how it should be executed. The peers then vote or decide on the best solution offered and the marine who had put forward that solution becomes the mission leader. He is then presented with the mission leader shoulder pad and he leads the team for that mission. This gives the company experience in leadership and flexibility in mission execution.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Enjoy!