Horus Heresy Escalation League - Vol 2

Warhammer Horus Heresy V.2

For my second game we moved up to 1500 point games and I fully leaned into the recon company theme. I used a Centurion Delegatus to save points and still get a Rite of War, which I then chose Recon Company. I had a reconnaissance squad and scout squad with nemesis bolters and then a seeker squad as well, so lots of infiltrators! 

My opponent was fielding Loyalist Emperor's Children. We decided that while his force broadcast loyalty to the Imperium, my Imperial Fists refused to believe them and attacked anyway... it is the grimdark future after all. He was fielding a Pride of the Legion force, which consisted of Veterans and Terminators, two Contempter Dreadnoughts and a Predator tank.

My Scout Squad deployed forward to screen the army.

A Tactical Squad holding the ruins in the center.

Emperors Children Tartaros Terminators.

Overall view of the board.

Recon Marines with the Seekers in front.

This was my first game using Seekers.

I had a Vigilator with the Recon Marines.

I don't like the look of those two Dreadnoughts.

EC Scout Squad deployed forward.

My Scouts backed off from his Terminators.

The Tactical Marines took a beating and bravely hid.

The Seekers did good work, but eventually broke and ran.

My two Castaferrum Dreadnoughts came in from reserve, just in time.

The EC aggressively pushed forward since they were outranged.

The aftermath of a charge into the last Terminators. The Centurion did all the work himself.

Then the Scouts took the last hull point off the Predator.

The game ended on the objective. The last EC Contemptor took out one of mine before being torn apart.

Another great game. Imperial Fist pulled out a win after taking out the Emperor's Childrens dreadnoughts, tank and terminators.

Horus Heresy Escalation League - Vol 1

Warhammer Horus Heresy V.2

Recently I joined a local Warhammer Age of Darkness (Horus Heresy) Escalation League. I did so to help motivate me to consistently paint up my 30k Imperial Fist. I have a terrible habit of starting super excited about a new hobby project and then getting distracted after a month or so. For the blog I am going to post a few photos of each game and perhaps some modeling progress as well.

My first game was a 750 point game against another Imperial Fist army. My list was tailored well for the mission and that helped me win this first game.

Deployment for both forces.

My opponent had a Phalanx Warder squad that would be tough to deal with.

One of my tactical squads putting fire down on them.

The snipers got to work early. Taking out those artificer sergeants!

We dropped Dorn down to keep an eye on this training mission!

Two squads and my centurion charged his warders.

My Castaferrum dreadnought took care of another of his squads.

Nice field of fire.

I lost a tactical squad before killing all his warders.

This was a fun, quick, small points game. The snipers did good work and even a Castaferrum Dreadnought was tough to deal with.

This first game really got me excited for the upcoming weeks!

15mm Ukrainian Vehicles

Today is a quick update with some of my finished Humvee's, BRDM's and an excavator. These have been painted in Ukrainian colors.

15mm Ultra Modern WIP

A short post today with some more 15mm modern vehicles.

First are some 15mm Khurasan HMMWV or Humvee's. I have some Battlefront Humvee's but since these would represent the uparmored versions that Ukraine is using, I went with Khurasan's more modern versions. BF's are represent the 80-90's version while Khurasan's are from the 2000's Iraq War. Very little modifications needed for these. I just replaced the .50 cal with a DShK. These are not perfectly accurate with the photo's available of Ukrainian Humvee's, but they are really close... that is a theme when building a 2022 Ukrainian force in 15mm.

I also had a friend with a 3d printer make me some modern vehicles by m_bergman on Thingiverse. I've had several of bergman's vehicles printed over the years and they are amazing! These were no different.

I wanted to add a few vehicles for terrain so a few UAZ 469 utility vehicles were perfect. These will be great addition for Team Yankee or even modern times. Another was an excavator, for that pesky road work! It will look great painted yellow, digging up something on the board.

I already have some BRDM's for my Soviet Team Yankee force, but bergman has modernized Ukrainian versions. I had four BRDM-2's printed and used some BF bits to make three more with ATGM's.

Finally, I decided to have quite a few T-72B3's printed as they make up the majority of Russian forces in the Ukraine. This was mainly due to being unable to find many of the Zvezda T-72B kits (which are really B3's). Also, while I really like Khurasan's T-64BV, I wanted to compare them with bergman's design, so I had a few of them printed as well. More comparison's of these 3d printed tanks with those available to purchase, will be coming soon.

Also you can see some infantry in the above photo. Those are 15mm miniatures by Eureka. I mixed together their modern Chechen's and Russian's to make a Ukrainian Motorized Rifle company or perhaps a Territorial Defense company. As I mentioned with the Humvee's above, this arrangement of infantry miniatures is not perfectly accurate, but in 15mm and with a consistent paint scheme they look the part!

15mm T-72 Tank Comparison (Part 1)

I am posting this even though I'm still waiting on a few 3D printed T-72B3 tanks and the new Battlefront T-72B box. I will make another comparison when they are finished.

Below are some comparison photos of various T-72 tanks in 15mm (1/100th scale). As a guide, the painted tank is a Battlefront T-72A, the resin and metal tank is a Khurasan T-72AV and the unpainted plastic is a  Zvezda T-72B obr. 1989 (although the box shows an older T-72B).

From Left to Right: Battlefront, Khurasan, Zvezda

All of these tank miniatures have their pros and cons but overall they are each really great!  What you can, hopefully, see in the pictures is that each of these three tanks, from different manufactures, scale nicely together! The hulls on each are nearly the same length and height. The turrets on the Khurasan and Zvezda tanks are the same size but the Battlefront turret is a little bigger all around, (just like with its T-64 I've recently reviewed). Detail on each is very good and the assembly for all of them is quick.

For the two Zvezda T-72's I've recently assembled, I mad a few modifications. I replaced their cupola with a spare Battlefront T-72 version and the AA machinegun (modified to be facing correctly). I also made some smoke dischargers on the side of the turret, since the kit does not have them. My custom job turned out terrible, but at least they are there. Then I added mine plough to one, with more BF leftovers. The Zvezda kits are fine, but the detail does not pop as much as it does on the other tanks but still a good kit. Right now the Zvezda T-72's seem hard to find, whether that is because of the current war or that they were phasing them out already, I don't know.

Top: Battlefront, Bottom: Khurasan

The Khurasan T-72AV is a phenomenal kit! Most of the few complaints I had about the Khurasan T-64BV tanks do not apply to the T-72AV. If is just a little larger, which mean it scales better with the Battlefront tanks (see above photos). Also the 125mm cannon is molded into the mantlet which means it is more secure and less likely to be broken off. The commanders hatch can be glued open or shut. Also there is no trouble with the tracks, as the T-64BV's tracks were a little too long and stuck out too far (sorry, I will try to get a picture to show this on the 64). My only complaint is that they are currently sold out on Khurasan's store or I would have more!

15mm Ukrainian T-64BV Tanks

Below are my first three painted 15mm T-64 BV tanks by Khurasan Miniatures. I painted these up with the 2022 Ukrainian tank camo. These were my test models and I have identified several things i can do to improve later versions. But all in all, I do like how these first tanks turned out.

Khurasan T-64BV tank

 T-64BV

I have recently picked up a few 15mm tanks from Khurasan miniatures. I won't hide that most of these will be painted up as Ukrainian, but I will be adding some to my existing Soviet Team Yankee force.

First, will be a rather large number of T-64BV tanks that will make up a Ukrainian force. Here are the first three.

I have ordered from Khurasan before and really love the quality of all of their miniatures and their T-64BV is no different. It is a great model that goes together very well with really sharp and crisp details. If you haven't built any resin and metal kits recently, this is just a reminder that there is some flash to clean up on the metal parts and somethings, like the resin tracks, I had to heat up and straighten. But those corrections were expected and very minimal.

One thing you may notice in the pictures is that I did add a plastic commanders hatch and the NSVT machinegun. Those are leftover parts from my Battlefront T-64 tanks. I did this because the Khurasan's T-64BV commanders hatch can only be in the closed position and I love to have figures on my command tanks. The conversion is not great as the BF hatch is much larger and there is some overhang on the turret, but it turned out the way I wanted. Now the Khurasan commanders hatch and AAMG looks great but I went with the easier route instead of modifying the Khurasan hatch. 

Next up are some size comparisons with a BF T-64. The Khurasan tank is almost the same length but is noticeably shorter, with the hull slightly shorter and the turret slightly shorter as well. The biggest difference is the diameter of the turret, the BF version is just bigger all around it just has much more volume than the Khurasan one. This is not an issue for me since I will not be mixing these miniatures and they are very close. A quick teaser for another post, but the Khurasan T-72AV is a much closer match to the BF T-72!

Overall I am incredibly happy with these miniatures and am excited to get them painted up. I would really like to see more modern tanks by various manufacturers. I have ordered BF's new T-72B box and have a few Zvezda T-72B's (really T-72B3's) and will compare them with Khurasan's T-72AV.