Thursday 30 June 2011

Tanniloth History Part II : Origins of the 46th Division

When the Tanniloth system was just a few centuries old, and Tanniloth Minor barely established as an inhabited planet, a rather large Tyrnid invasion force passed undetected to within a day of the planet. The planet’s few fighting Companies scrambled together to form a rough division size consisting of all elements under the brilliant Col Otto Van Haarg, and formed a ragged defense as the aliens began their invasion. Fighting for almost a week straight, against an endless horde of Gaunts and Warriors, the defenders survived against all odds. But with no end of the tide in sight, and with their supplies running out, it seemed they would be overrun. However, a nearby branch of Dark Angel Space Marines had heard their pleas for help which the main Tanniloth worlds could not answer. A Deathwing company suddenly appeared when things looked bleakest, and with sheer weight of fire drove the aliens to a halt. A quick counter attack from the Imperial defenders coordinated with the Deathwing drove the aliens back, and eventually off the planet.
When the planet was fully established and the main military body on Tanniloth Prime initiated the 1st TAOS, the 46th were re-named the 46th Mechanized. Protests from the new division Colonel were initially ignored, however were finally considered when the newly promoted Gen Van Haarg added his voice and the feats of the defense of Tanniloth Minor were recounted. The TAOS planners agreed to the name of Mix Mechanized to honour the sacrifice of the division’s many branches who had fought in the defence of the planet. In addition, the division was allowed to keep it’s Dark Angel’s themed markings and colours to show respect to the Space Marines who had helped save the planet. While the Deathwing forbid the use of the pure bleached bone they bore, the green was allowed to be used. Divisional commanders throughout the years have striven to keep the relationship between the Dark Angels company, and in times of need help is still requested when the Imperial Guard cannot fight off an enemy alone. Though not recognized by the Tanniloth System as such, it is the Division’s greatest honour when the Dark Angels called upon them to help lead a force against an Eldar encampment believed to harbour some of The Fallen. Such a calling lends credibility to the prowess the division has strived to maintain to this day.

More recently another Space Marine Company of Blood Angels, hearing of the ability of the 46th has requested to conduct training exercises against the 46th in order to help train against insurrections and heretical uprisings. The 46th accepted, seeing this as a change to hone their own skills as well as an honour of being seen as a formidable enough opponent. The plan is to conduct a series of exercises, increasing in size to give junior officers a variety of scenarios to assist in command development.

Why so many Space Marine Chapters are interested in the Tanniloth system has never been questioned, as the interactions have been cordial and generally well received by the system’s ruling body.

Next up, A collection of short stories from some of the 46th's past and present notables.

Sunday 26 June 2011

Searching for a lost artifact...

The visions were particularly strong for Ramiel today.


All Blood Angels were beset by vivid hallucinations of their Primarch Sanguinius' final stand against the dark powers of Chaos.  These visions were so intense that they would eventually drive even the strongest of space marines insane.  Once this happened he was placed in stasis until the next battle, where he would slaughter as many enemies as he could before succumbing to final peace in death.


While all members of the 4th company of the Blood Angels dealt with the visions differently, Captain Ramiel preferred quiet meditation.  Apparently it was working, as he was nearing his 1000 birthday, making him one of the oldest in the company.


The hiss of an incoming transmission interrupted his meditation.


"Sir, this is Sergeant Cassiel.  We have made an important find in regards to the lost artifact.  Please make haste and join me on the bridge."


The words took a second to sink in to Ramiel, whose mind was still full of horrific images.  "I'll be right there," he responded after a short pause.


The bridge was a hub of activity, causing it to be much louder than its usual peaceful state.  Ramiel noticed that Bridge Commander Lucas seemed a little put off by all of the commotion as he strode into the room.  Lucas waved him over to the main sensor terminal, where he was standing with Cassiel.


"So, what is the news," asked Ramiel of Cassiel, "you mentioned something about the lost artifact?"


"Yes, I believe we have tracked the alien spacecraft that made off with it to the Tanniloth System," responded Cassiel.  "It is a system of four planets currently under Imperial control.  Unfortunately we weren't able to determine which planet it was heading for."


Ramiel pondered the news for a moment, "well, this helps to narrow our search... good work sergeant.  We will just have to deploy on all four planets and scour them all until we find the alien and reclaim what's rightfully ours!"


"There is one important thing to note captain," commander Lucas interjected.  "The people of the Tanniloth system are a prideful bunch, and they also are rumored to have ties with the dark angels... I don't know if they would appreciate having their system "scoured" for aliens.  They probably think they are so mighty that aliens would know better than to try to hide on their planets."


Despite his snippy tone, Lucas had a point.  "So we'll just have to make up a reason to be there..."

Monday 20 June 2011

Tanniloth History Part I: Introduction to Tanniloth

On a recent vacation trip to BC, I had some time while relaxing to think about some sort of history for my Imperial Guard army. Below is a little introduction and history of the Tanniloth system!

The Tanniloth system is located in the south western portion of the universe, a few weeks travel from the Tanith System. Only a few centuries of habitation, and consisting of only six inhabitable planets plus a few mining colonies, the system’s inhabitants are generally well off. Though officially a Democracy, the high house is controlled by an elite few who are virtually untouchable. Elected Representatives give the system’s population the notion they have much more influence than they do in reality. The System is generally loyal to the Imperium, ensuring proper shipping of tithes and adhering for the most part to laws about psykers and heretics. Though having a relatively small and unestablished population, Tanniloth is still able to put forth a full fifty division, with ten reserves able to be called up if needed in times of war. This is partially due to Tanniloth being a major producer of arms, naturally leading to the creation and support of a larger than normal standing force.

When deployed as one force, Tanniloth is fielded as ten armies, each consisting of 5 total division; three infantry, one armoured and one mechanized. Divisions are named by their role (first number) and the army they belong to (second number), thus the 1st, 11th, 21st Divisions make up the infantry of the 1st Army, with the 31st making up the armoured and 41st the mechanized of the same army. Reserves are not assigned to an army, and train separately on their own. Though it has been proposed by the 4th Tanniloth Army Organization System (TAOS) to attach them to regular armies or division, the notion has faced stern opposition from top officers in the regular forces, too proud to let “part time” soldiers into their esteemed and historied ranks.

Traditionally the 1st - 5th Armies are kept on the main world of Tanniloth Prime as the main fighting force for the system. While this may seem to indicate they would see the most action, it is more common for the 6th and 7th Armies, as they are primarily responsible for maintaining order and peace and deflecting minor alien or pirate incursions from Tanniloth controlled space. The best example of this is found on the outlying planet of Tanniloth Minor, farthest from Tanniloth Prime and the rest of the Tanniloth system. Tanniloth Minor faces outwards towards a small, seemingly innocent but nonetheless important gap facing The Veiled Region in not only Tanniloth but Imperial power and control, making it a prime target for raiders and invasions to take place. These typically range from small Orc raiding parties or splinters of Tyrnid broods looking for quick spoils, to Chaos incursions or seemingly random Eldar attacks. Standing in their way is the perhaps the most storied division in all of Tanniloth, the 46th Tanniloth Mix Mechanized Division. In most Armies the mechanized division is used as both a quick response force (QRF) or strike team due to their mobility and versatility. Some consider them the best trained and most utilized. If this is not true for other mechanized divisions, it certainly is for the 46th.

The 46th is stationed on Tanniloth Minor, and being part of the 6th Army is primarily responsible for system defence. As Tanniloth Minor is not only the farthest away of the inhabited planets but also the system’s smallest, the 46th is the only regular division stationed there, meaning they are alone in their defence of the most vulnerable planet in the system. The division has fought off countless incursions, and is almost always kept at full readiness. Few envy the 46th, even as they respect their prowess and fighting ability. However if not for some timely allies they may not have ever gotten off the ground.

Next up Part 2, Origins of the 46th.

Wednesday 15 June 2011

Assembled army thus far...

So after many hours of cutting and gluing, I have (mostly) finished the assembly of the first part of my army!





From left to right there is the death company, dreadnought (from AoBR), captain, assault squad, rhino, and tactical squad.  I tacked the models down to the bases so I can model the bases later on, I'm thinking of just gluing sand on top and then painting the side of the base dark brown.

Monday 13 June 2011

Some initial modeling work

The battleforce and commander have come in, and I have made it through most of my assembly work.  Fortunately for myself, a couple years ago I started to have an interest in orcs and thus bought the Assault on Black Reach starter set for 5th edition 40k.  The space marines in the set had up until this point gone relatively untouched, however now I have taken the dreadnought as well as the missile launcher tactical marine.  I took the missile launcher marine because I have plans for the future to make the 10th man of the tactical squad into a multi-melta marine, but don't have the parts yet.

Anyways, onto some pictures of the modeling work I've done so far.  First I should say that I'm assembling the marines without bolters so I can access them with ease.  In order to still get the hand positions right, I put some putty (I use just the yellow part of green stuff) on the bottom of the boltgun so the marine could hold it in one arm and I could position the other arm just right.  Very simple, but effective.


Next I have picture of two of my favorite models so far.  The first is a pretty cool conversion of a tactical marine throwing a grenade.  The grenade holding arm normally comes really close to the body of the marine and thus looks more like he's just holding it rather than about to chuck it.  I filled the armpit in with green-stuff to make it look more like he's just about to pitch a strike!


The next model is the sergeant from the assault squad.  He looks like he's just about to punch someone out!


I'll update this post with the painted models once I'm done painting, which I am hoping to start sometime next week...

Sunday 5 June 2011

BA Month 3 Purchases

In an effort to get a functioning army going as quick as possible, my brother and I agreed that we could buy our first three months worth of models in the first or second month.  Therefore, even though I realize it is not even close to July yet, I have made purchases with most of my July money.

I decided to get a BA Sanguinary Priest and a Space Marine commander.  The priest gives all of your units within 6" of him furious charge and feel no pain, which increases their combat potential and can double their durability!  He is also an independent character, so he can move around from squad to squad when necessary.  The commander is a very reliable HQ choice, and again is an independent character which always helps your army's flexibility.

The priest and commander came out to about $38 due to a nice 10% discount at Revolution, the local gaming store in NW Calgary.  Nice little place with very helpful staff.  If you are in Calgary and are into wargames, magic cards, board games... check this place out!  Anyways, this leaves me with $12 extra for next month, which leaves me just about enough to get a tank...

Saturday 4 June 2011

Imperial Guard get a name!

One of the things I wasn't certain on when I started was a name to give my Imperial Guard army. Other armies can get away without a name, for instance Orks can get away with declaring they're a "WAAAAGH", 'Nids are just a swarm and even Marines mostly have a pre-given name to work with (XXth Ultramarine's army). But with a huge variety of Guard hive worlds out there, I wasn't sure where to start. A quick search on Librarium led me to this link, where I found a name which I quickly adapted to something I liked.

And thus was born;

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As an aside, my girlfriend looked at it, and promptly noted that the acronym for my fearsome army was TMMID...pretty close to timid..and thus my division's nickname was born.

Wednesday 1 June 2011

Imperial Guard - Month 1 (and 2)

We finally got our first set of models, Battle Forces for both the Blood Angels and Imperial Guard force I will be taking control of. Like my brother, I also used up most of my two month budget on the first purchase.


My Battle Force from GC Minis was slightly cheaper than my brother's, coming to about $95 with shipping and tax. It includes 20 Cadian shock troops, 3 Heavy Weapons teams, a Cadian Command Squad and a Sentinel. It doesn't quite allow for a legal army, but is a good step in the right direction and has units that are usable at any size.


For the honour of the Imperium!


I then went on ebay and got some great deals that gave me 20 Cadians and an extra Command Squad for a total of only $42 all inclusive (barring import tax from the States...). These units will bring me to legality, a full platoon of infantry as well well as Veteran Squad. We then went to our local game store, Revolution, where I ordered in a Chimera for my Vets for another $42, bringing my total so far to about $180. So I guess I went a little over, into my third month, but at least I can field a legal army now! Plus it'll probably take me into July to assemble and paint over 50 models.



If only I could paint this well...


But hey, that's what's the Guard are about...right?