Dry Scarabs

Heavy reinforcements for Magnus' finest!

Welcome back to the Scarab Occult Terminators!

I've been meaning to expand on my of Sekhmet for a while now - the hateful volleys addition to their rules now makes them less dependent on charging into close combat from deepstrike (which was never their strength) and more the walking tanks they should be. They've rarely under-performed for me since then.

And while the kit sat forlornly half-assembled on my shelf, Psychic Awakening: Ritual of the Damned came out, and now there's a great reason to bring them along. I won't list all the ways they can be made awesome - but there are lots of them.

As this was my second attempt at the kit, I was a bit more adventurous in some of the poses (as much as you can manage with the limited stance). Even as dust-filled husks of armour, they needed a bit of life.

Same recipe as always for the rubric armour. These paint a lot faster than their smaller brothers - being slightly bigger with more accessible chestplates helps:

• Gold armour: Retributor Armour base, Reikland Flashshade wash, Golden Griffon drybrush
• Blue armour: Thousand Sons base, Nuln Oil wash, Thousand Sons layer, Ahriman Blue layer
• Gun barrels: Ironbreaker base, Nuln Oil wash
• 'King Tut' headdress: Blue (as armour) + Yellow (Averland Sunset base, Cassendora Yellow wash, Yriel Yellow layer)
• Loincloths: Celestra Grey base, Drakenhof Nightshade wash, Ulthuan Grey layer
• Stormbolter: Skavenblight Dinge base, Nuln Oil wash, Dawnstone drybrush
• Eyes: Ulthuan Grey base, Biel-Tan Green wash
• Gems: Stormhost Silver base, Waystone Green glaze

Controversially - I didn't assemble a Sorcerer in this set. The model is so different, that you can't just magnetise his stave on and off.

And if I choose to run a full unit of ten Terminators, then I'll want a second missile rack, and possibly a heavy weapon ... it gets too complicated, especially as I have a Terminator Sorcerer who can sub in as a second squad leader when needed.

But what I did want is the option to switch around the heavy weapons, and so this last one got the magnets.

This was done by gluing the shoulderplates directly onto the torso, rather than the upper arms, which frees them to be magentised. It does mean they sit higher than the rest, but that's Tzeentch for you.

The missile rack is glued on, since that's always useful (there's not a lot of S8 anti-armour in the codex, I'm not squandering it!), but I actually think the combi-bolter is the best option for the squad.

In some situations, the extra strength and AP of the Soulreaper Cannon will come in useful, but the combi-bolters give the same rate of fire, plus it will benefit from the bolter fusillade rule.

But it looks cool, so I have the option of a Soulreaper Cannon. Same argument for the Heavy Warpflamer - maybe against melee armies, it has a place, but for now, it's just a nice-to-have.

A unit of ten is a heft points sink, but if you're prepared to spend CP and psychic powers on them, they could be brutal. I'm curious to see how nasty they can be in the Cult of Time, with 1-3 terminators bouncing back a turn, but I'll try and give some of the other Cults a run as well.