Legio Vulpa

Another post, Another Legio.

After my somewhat short run with my Legio Vulcanum Extermigus Maniple – *Shakes fist at sky* ‘Damn you, LSW!!!’ – I started shortlisting Legios for my next project.

As is becoming something of a trend, I considered Legios that addressed the shortcomings of my previous venture – in this instance, that they were immobile and terribly vulnerable to anything remotely pokey (melee-oriented for anyone not familiar with my household parlance).

Having somewhat recently had my behind handed to me at the hands of a Loyalist Vulpa side (*SPIT* Ewww) aaaand having been wanting to do a corrupted force for a while now, the searching and decision making process was pretty quick and straightforward. The single reservation being that I really dislike the Vulpa colour scheme.

To expand; Red and Purple is a little too garish for me but I suppose ‘thems the breaks’ and I just have to see if I can find a path to happiness… whilst playing melee obsessed blood-crazed worshippers of Khorne that seemingly fell out of an alternate universe where they had previously spent time kicking tail/ass/hump of a host of Kaiju! Seriously, the lore for these guys is what happens when Warhammer writers have their nightmares transcribed after tripping psychedelics whilst watching Pacific Rim.

Anyway.

I plotted out a list for 1850 and, rather than numbers, went for specialists. Wargear and Corruption loaded titans – nothing is not a threat. Without running to a full force summary and analysis: Axiom Maniple with a Warlord Princeps. Overwhelming Rage corruption (auto pass Charge orders and +1dice to all melee attacks), Shikarian Conduits (+2boosted movement with a minus to hit for any non-melee weapons), Disruption Emitters (+2str melee weapons and +2scale smash attacks). Kitted out with a Arioch Claw, Gatling and Paired Gatlings on the carapace – this little nightmare clears distance like a champ and hits like a truck – if anything survives a charge from this, you need to have the dice incinerated to ward of any ill-spirits that are haunting you and drawing 1s to the fore – because rolling repeated 1s is the only reason anything should live.

Add to that monstrosity two melee Reavers and two Warhounds – mostly running similar gear and corruptions to make them hit hard and, well, you’ve got an awful lot of melee threat.

I played a test game with Alex and to keep it short, I was hooked. I reviewed the sparse remainder of my build pile – a Warbringer, Direwolf and an Iconoclast… nothing here would help. I then did something I hadn’t done for some time – I purposely bought titans for an explicit purpose. Another Starter box gave me two more Reavers and Warhounds, a lucky Ebay deal netted me a further two Reavers on sprue and I bought a BNIB Warlord as I love making them and had some very, very specific plans which would need full control of posing. Whilst I was looking, I saw a dirt cheap rescue Warlord and put in an almost insultingly low offer – which two days later succeeded in netting me another Warlord for something a little further down the line 🙂

I decided that this Legio was an appropriate destination for the Iconoclast and so, whilst I waited for the new purchases to start arriving through Royal Mail strikes, I set to building that monster.

It is worth noting that Warmasters/Iconoclasts are projects within themselves. They are huge. They take time, planning and patience. My Mortis Warmaster wasn’t without pain in it’s build and I wasn’t 100% happy with the pose in the end BUT it taught me a lot and here, I sought to use and abuse those learnings as much as possible.

I’ve done a fair amount more painting since the above picture and I’ll try to remember to come back and update with finished pictures – the Iconoclast currently is 90% complete – all that remains is highlights on the bone trim and varnishing.

The Warlord and Reavers etc finally arrived yesterday and a frenetic building session has taken place to realise my demented vision of the centrepiece; Khar’Lakar Ire-Blood, The Enshrined.

There is an easy-to-find Corrupted Vulpa Warlord that blew my mind away when first I saw it (seriously, Google it. Or just go look at bonecron.blogspot.com on May 29 2021).

I knew that this was far beyond my skillset and I wanted mine to differ somehow, but I loved the flaming flail notion. After a seriously long time comparing pieces and measuring and dry fitting, I had an idea: I removed most of the 2 central fingers from the Arioch Claw – leaving the pistons – and fit what was now cut down Plague Censer workings between these and Boom! I now had a two-clawed wrecking-ball swinging fist of fury.

I wanted all of my Vulpa darlings to have Daemonic heads – so Bloodthirster, Maulerfiend and Juggernaut heads were secured. The Bloodthirster head was initially intended for the Iconoclast but it is a little too small and I started having flashbacks to the end of Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice (the Micheal Keaton one. The ‘real’ one, dammit!) with the head-shrinking witch doctor… anyway, I digress.

I removed the ‘face’ elements from a Warlord head until the only remaining parts were the stub, the rear of the dome with what look like power cores to the side and the power-cables that ran to the ‘jaw’. A Bloodthirster head was fixed into place with those power cables terminating to either side of the gaping, screaming maw. Now for the fun part! I don’t use the weapon power cable as with my using magnets on 99% of the weapons and arms means they will only limit usage or posability. So, those cables were now cut, bent and generally placed around and into the head – however my demented mind saw fit. Those pipes go into and down the Bloodthirster’s throat. It makes me gag a little to imagine what his existence would be like. He has reason to be angry.

I also knocked up some Daemonic Gatlings for the carapace from some cut and modified Maulerfiend parts but… they feel too big and the scale disparity is making them less attractive to me now… I may have to replace those. EDIT: I replaced them with FW Vulcan Megabolter Arrays. Pretty useless in gaming terms but they look cool.

I had a second test game with James after that first game with Alex. This was the first time James had walked his new Legio Interfector force. I had a terrible opening, snake-eyes on a Warp Displacement left my Warlord tantalisingly close but still out of range of a kill – which was met with the only reasonable response: James shot that Warlord with everything he could and it died before the end phase of Turn 1. Ouch.

The rest of the match was scrappy and desperate – James is exceptional at ranging his titans, perceiving and grading threats and making logical calls – you can tell he normally plays Loyalist 🙂 – but by Turn 3 he was succumbing to the whispers of the Dark Gods! As the dust cleared after a chain of kills/deaths at the end of Turn 4, James had the only surviving Titan. We had both failed our Primaries but James scraped in some Secondary points and took the win.

I’ve revised my list and am now pulling in that long-ignored Warbringer – I’m going to run a Precept Maniple (Warlord, Warbringer, Reaver and two Warhounds – possibly swapping in a Direwolf for one of the Warhounds). EDIT: Spoilers – this did not meet with success.

I’ll be trying to get all of the models built and basic colours in play before the end of the weekend.

Updates to follow

OK, so – a nasty bout (round 3) of Covid and the Festive period have passed. My hobby efforts were greatly inhibited by the Plague, but I wasn’t completely idle – my Legio Vulpa forces has grown a little and the original models have reached a decent table-standard.

Khar’Lakor Ire-Blood

Sanguis Dux

Immitis Venor

Celeri Morte

Aside from these beauties and a decent number of test games, I’ve also managed to make progress on my Aux Direwolf: Sors Proditio (head swap to a Hound of Khorne pending) and a final bonus Reaver titan, the Vulpa Titan of Legend: Vestiti Ferrus.