Hobby Diary Lockdown Edition: Unforgiven Crusade Army

 

Hi folks,

We have just started the school holidays here in Australia and another wave of COVID-19 has just hit our shores. We had planned to take the kids to North Queensland, to explore the Daintree Rainforest and go snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef, but that has been cancelled. We knew the risks when we booked everything; the tickets were purchased using credits from our last cancelled holiday! Now, I am stuck at home for two weeks in lockdown. To keep my mind off what could have been, I have resolved to make some serious progress on my 9th Edition Dark Angels. I have decided to build a Crusade army, using Power Levels instead of points, in the hope that my group of gaming mates can get a rolling campaign going at some point. After much (much) consideration, considering both my playing style and the narrative I want to tell with my army, here is the list I am going to start working on:

Dark Angels Patrol Detachment 49 PL (2CP)

HQ

Primaris Captain (Warlord)

Wargear: Special Issue Bolt Carbine, Heavenfall Blade

Rites of Initiation (Deathwing)

Warlord Traits: Rites of War, Brilliant Strategist (Paragon of the Chapter)

I am going to use this Captain to represent the Master of the 3rd Company. Both weapon choices are fairly efficient, with the option of upgrading the bolt carbine for the Lion's Roar combi-plasma during the campaign. I am also going to model him with the Mantle of the Seneschal, which may be wishful thinking on my part! Such a cool relic though. I have chosen the Rites of War trait, which grants Objective Secured to CORE and CHARACTER units within 6". It seems like the kind of thing the Master of the 3rd Company would be able to do (he didn't get to his position by losing objectives). I look forward to running him around with a blob of Hellblasters. I also burned a CP on Paragon of the Chapter, to give him the trait Brilliant Strategist as well. This will give me another turn of Tactical Doctrine (and another turn of Fire Discipline...).

Troops

Infiltrators x 5

Wargear: Helix gauntlet

I'll be expanding this squad to make it bigger, and hopefully adding some Intercessors or Tactical Marines as well. At the moment it looks like a bit of a Troops tax kind of situation, but that will change. With my Warlord handing out ObSec, it is not so much of a problem at this stage.

Elites

Deathwing Terminators x 5

Wargear: power sword, 2 x chainfists, 2 x powerfists, cyclone missile launcher, stormbolters.

It wouldn't be a Dark Angels army without Deathwing support. I have these five built, primed and ready to go. 

Ravenwing Black Knights x 6

Wargear: power sword, corvus hammers and plasma talons

It wouldn't be much a Dark Angels army without some Ravenwing bikes either. I have had these floating around on sprues for seven years or so, gradually being sacrificed for parts (arms especially).

Heavy Support

Hellblasters x 10

Wargear: Assault plasma incinerators

I have always been a sucker for plasma. After receiving these for Christmas (from myself) last year, I have been chomping at the bit to run them in a game. 

Work has already started, with some big builds scheduled over the next couple of days. Let's see if I can get this done, so that I can look back on this holiday a little more favourably!

See you across the table,

Marc