Battle Report: Chronicle of Duty

As Ultramar comes under siege by the forces of Chaos, the patrol ship Chronicle of Duty has been boarded by warriors from the Black Legion. Quickly the contingent of Ultramarines rush to repel the boarders. The action takes place on one of the engineerium decks. For now the goal is to eliminate as many of the intruders as possible, but should that fail….

Turn 1: No effects from the raging battle outside

The Chaos warriors take up position around the transformer stations, conveniently using their walkways for cover. Meanwhile the Ultramarines and the Dreadnaught, Brother Marius, rush forward to repel the invaders







The cowardly Chaos space marines fall back from their covered position as the Ultras continue forward.




Turn 2: Still no effect from the battle outside. Both sides rejoice as reinforcements arrive.






Shots are exchanged! The Chaos dreadnaught opens fire on Brother Marius, crippling him. In turn, he pays back the insult by putting the Chaos dread out of its warp-fuel misery forever.






Turn 3. The ship shudders as a strike against it’s hull reverberates throughout causing normal ground to become difficult ground. The Chaos reinforcements move up in the cover of the generators, with another group moving up to series of crates. The Chaos marines move back up into cover and open fire on the first tac squad, cutting down two members. The Chaos marine’s plasma gun overheats, taking out its user, while another is lost to the Ultramarines returning fire. The Chaos marines on the transformer station break and run.





Turn 4. The ships stills as the Ultramarines reinforcements rush forward to join the fray. The first squad shifts into better cover as a Chaos marine squad rushes forward to fire from behind a stack of crates. The Ultras and Brother Marius open fire, cutting several down but their hatred keeps them going.





Turn 5. Again the ship is (disappointingly) calm. The Chaos marines behind the crates consolidate then fire down on the ultras in cover in the center of the chamber, wiping out the ultramarine squad. The third squad of Chaos Marines climbs onto the second transformer station. The Chaos lord leading the band finally rushes forth to join the fray. In return Brother Marius further reduces Chaos marines behind the crate down to one. His hatred keeps him from running.









The battle ends with both sides having one kill point and the Chaos lord facing down the chaplain and his squad. The fate of the Chronicle of Duty remains in the balance….

Urban War

No, not the game no one plays, but my first time back into the realm of improving my urban terrain:

I don't have to tell you that the first buidling is the Mechanicum set:






The second set is the ruins from the Pegasus Hobby Museum set: a very nice pieces which I strongly recommend as a break from the pure 40k terrain. It has been augmented with some 40K bits though to put it squarely in the 41st millenium.





Both were based on one foot square MDF boards. The rough area is a mixture of cheap acrylic paint (the stuff you buy in craft sores in huge tubes for $2) 40%, rocks 40%, and Elmer's Glue 20% so that the rocks will stay permanently. I then drybrushed a couple layers for depth. I decided to balance playablity with realism by doin this rather than littering the ground with debris; the debris looks more like real life but makes placing figures an immense pain in the neck. I may go back and add some propaganda posters for detail but other than that, I am happy with the results.

Meditation on Starship Structures

+++FROM: Techpriest Silus Omnicron-Corpus+++
+++TO: Distribution List Theta Theta Zed Five+++
+++SUBJECT: Meditations on Starship Structure+++
+++THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Doubt begins with questioning+++
Approximately 72.34 hours ago I was conducting a tour of a local PDF facility and my augmented aural sensors picked up a conversation between two officers. The two were reviewing picts in a training slate regarding ship-board operations. For the sake of efficiency I will spare you the majority of the conversation but one commented to the other that he did not believe the picts were taken aboard a starship due to the vast number of tubes surrounding the area because “spaceships don’t use gas and would not need all that fuel.” After arranging to have the officers terminated for the thought heresy of technical speculation it occurred to me that many junior techpriests who have never traveled on a space-faring vessel or worked in a void edifice might come to similar erroneous conclusions. There are several reasons why tubes and may exist on a starship and why piping is critical.


Fuel
Although primitive chemical reactions like the kind that still drive projectile weapons and Ork space-faring technology certainly exist, more sophisticated systems drive the Omnimessiah’s works though space. Though not chemical fuel in this sense, sometimes the reactants used to power the systems are in fact kept suspended in a liquid to move them from storage to feed the drives. Usually they are either returned back to their solid or energetic state or the medium within which they are suspended is vaporized as part of the process. However, even for purely energy-based systems, the cabling that transfers the energy from the point of its generation to the point of utilization is frequently surrounded in a shielded tubing to prevent “leakage” of energy, interference with surrounding systems, and protection during combat or inadvertent exposure to high risk environments.

Coolant
The energetic systems that power the engine and perhaps the other systems of the ship frequently produce large amounts of heat either intentionally or as a side effect of the process of energy transmutation. As such, this heat needs to be either dissipated or transferred to where it will be utilized. As it is sub-optimal to allow the environs of the ship to warm to levels exceeding human tolerance, to include augmented humans, this heat needs to be controlled. Frequently liquid coolants are used to transport or dissipate the heat, often throughout the ship as a means of augmenting the life support system.

Pictured below; fuel processor and coolant tower; both are STC constructs that can be found on planetary surfaces and as part of void-based structures.



Life Support
Human life, especially those who have not been blessed by the Omnimessiah, is particularly fragile. Even the Astartes have limits on how long they can survive in extreme environments. As such, the ship must be kept within certain parameters of heat, pressure, and humidity. Heat has been discussed but air pressure in the form of supplemental atmospheres in case a breach occurs is a must. Most Imperial vessels have in their reserves enough atmospheric gasses to restore the entire ship at least twice although this is kept in highly pressurized tanks well within the ship to ensure it is protected from being lost in the exact sort of event that would require it be there in replacement. In addition, existing air must be heated/cooled, recycled, scrubbed for the buildup of toxic gasses, and then redistributed through the structure. Frequently large ducts or tubing is used in this process. Often such ducts are large enough for fully grown humans to move around in although this is not recommended for a number of reasons. Contrary to popular fiction, the nature of the tubing means that moving around in it creates constant noise thus rendering stealth unlikely to all but the highest trained agents.

Water and Sewage
Again, even augmented humans need a varying degree of water to function so this must be made available throughout the ship. Subsequently there will also be byproducts as wastes are removed. Water is still the most medium in which to transfer these wastes to be processed since it is already present in said material. Such wastes must then be filtered and processed and recycled back for re-use. Note, non-mechanicum humans can become very particular about this process and its results. It is best to keep this information from them as secrets of the Omnimessiah for their own good.

Pictured below: Two evaporator units. Can be used to either condense moisture from the air for consumption or to increase humidity.



Conclusion
An ancient metaphor frequently compared early pre-Mechanicum technicians for space-faring vessels to common plumbing adepts. This comparison is not a illogical as it may seem; a solid knowledge of such matters will in fact be a requirement to ensure proper function of a variety of ship and station-board systems. All techpriests who are expecting assignments on such vessels are required to conduct a study of the rites fluid dynamics and the sacred runes and maintenance rituals associated.
Note, rumors that these structures were built using "Platformer and Hexagon" sets, discarded household water filters and hygeine devices, inexpensive electrical boxes obtained at a "hardware store", and a "dog-chewed Light Saber" are TECH HERESY and will be dealt with accordingly.


+++TRANSMISSION ENDS+++

Suprise Ultras for February and Terrain

I had not intended to do these guys up this month but it looked like at one point I was going to play a game for the Universe H8Z Ultramarines day Feb 18th and I had planned on doing a boarding action. To wit-I wanted some assault marines to help repell the foes of the Imperium but didn't want jump infantry (they would hit their heads on the passageways of course)! I also had dipped some figs for conversion to the holy form of Ultramarines and was not sure what to do with them. Not to drop names but I saw a post on Ron's blog (www.fromthewarp.blogspot.com) where he did a squad of veteran assault marines that could also be broken up to be veteren sergeants and it occurred to me to do the same in reverse. I took some old 2nd ed plastic sergeants that I have a-plenty, cut off their heads (screaming "There can be only one!" of course), repaired the subsequent damage and turned them into assault marines. Marrying them up with the remnants of the other squad I had bathed lovingly in Simple Green, paint and out came these guys:



Also, inspired by greater minds on the internet (there are too many sources vieing for being first to come up with this so I don't want to cite the wrong person-just assume someone smarter than me came up with this idea) and the fact that my vehicles like to explode, I made some destroyed vehicle templates with tea lights at their core for that lovely burning effect:



Finally, channelling the spirit of Sean Patten (www.ironhands.com) I built these two power sub-stations. Suitable for your local hive world, ruined city, or vital ship board component. I look forward to multiple uses for these guys. The are a project I've been meaning to do for years and are based off of household electric boxes, Platformer and Mechanicus parts, and some other bits and pieces.





Next up will be some building ruins I put together and some shipboard/industrial components.

Monthly Challenge for February

Kocked these out last week but just now getting around to posting them. I need to go back and re-take the photos as these turned out the worst of both worlds (flash/no flash). Essentially this is my Heresy-era Command Squad as well as a techmarine tossed in for good measure. You'll note the classic Rhino in the background. I've got a ton of these left over and better things to spend my money on from Forge World (oh yessss, but that will be revealed later!). Plus I have a classic librarian. Maybe he was absent at the Council of Nikea and just didn't get the word yet or something. I had some heresy era figures but wanted that extra something that pushed them back and it occurred to me that nothing says old school space marines like topknots and so a little green stuff later and my boys are kickin' back like it's 30k. To be fair the Roman-style crests are more Chapterhouse goodness. The banner is also intentionally blander; all the art from the Collected Visions book has banners and standards looking more like current-day guidons rather than the tapestries they resemble later on.





Yeah I seriously need to redo these pictures. Maybe when I have some troops. Speaking of which, to save money (although I'm certainly giving enough to my friends at Chapterhouse Studios-their bits, especially heads and shoulderpads are intregal to making this work) I'm going with beakies even though they may or may not have been on the scene by the battle of Calth (probably not but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it).