The Warhammer Community Crusade – The incursion begins

The Crusade continues for our Warhammer Plus presenters, with 1000-point armies mustered and made ready for war. Here’s how the gang are getting on with their initial forces.

Josh: The Aeldari march to war with a combined host of wraith constructs and aspect warriors. This symbiosis of living and dead manipulate the strands of fate as they wage war in perfect balance. 

At the head of this Aeldari Crusade force is Iradil the Duskborn, an Autarch Wayleaper who brings millennia of tactical brilliance and combat mastery to bear against the enemies of Craftworld Iyanden. To represent Iradil’s storied history walking the various Aeldari paths I outfitted him with a Dragon Fusion Pistol, a Banshee Blade and the Shimmerstone enhancement, to remind him of his time as a Dire Avenger. 

While I began devoting myself to the wraiths of Craftworld Iyanden I absolutely could not resist painting up some of the new aspect warriors. Settling my Autarch in with some Swooping Hawks was a no brainer: they would provide mobility and mission play while my Wraiths soak up enemy firepower. Through the might of both the living and the dead, my fellow presenters will learn to fear the wrath of the Aeldari! 

Alex: Any successful Tyranid Invasion goes through multiple phases. The initial stage sees the target world infiltrated by vanguard organisms. In my case it is the Lictors of Eidoric, a tendril of Hive Fleet Leviathan, who have descended to the world of Eudora. These stealthy bioforms have likely been causing havoc for many years before the opportunity arose for a more significant Tyranid presence. 

With this in mind my army focuses around a potent triumvirate of Deathleaper, a Lictor and a Neurolictor. The Leviathan box gave me a solid core to work around and thus, my voracious vanguard swarm was born.

The force was fleshed out with some Hormagaunts and Ripper Swarms as I knew I’d have to face some elite foes. Rather than seek to crack them with monstrous xenos creatures, I plan to overwhelm them with sheer numbers!   

Nick: My force is an extension of my Ultramarines collection, which I have been painting for 14 years. When the new Codex: Space Marines dropped, the 1st Company Task Force caught my eye. It leans heavily into veterans such as Terminators and Sternguard. With both of those units having shiny new models, alongside the gorgeous new Terminator-armoured heroes, I decided to make my own 1st Company.

Thanks to the detachment rule Extremis-level Threat, the Terminators’ Fury of the First and the Sternguards’ Sternguard Focus (updated in the Balance Dataslate), anything I declare my Oath of Moment against is getting utterly destroyed!

This army is small in number but it hits hard. Terminators are extremely powerful in small games, able to take serious punishment before wading in with their power fists, while Sternguard are perfect for holding objectives with their brutal firepower. Oh, and I have a Land Raider, because I really wanted to paint one… 

Ed: The Destroyer Cult have descended into a level of madness viewed as almost bestial by the rest of Necron culture. They are, however, very useful shock troops so Skorpekh Lord Amenotekh leads a destructive army of the Annihilation Legion. The core of this army is a solid block of six Skorpekh Destroyers backed up by the heavy firepower of regular and heavy Lokhust Destroyers.

I was immediately drawn to the way of the Legion as soon as I started to pick units and I went for some of everything Destroyer. While I have a couple of duplicate picks like Hexmark Destroyers and Lokhust Heavy Destroyers, I wanted to make sure that I was also using more units out of the combat patrol so I quickly added a unit of warriors and a Doomstalker before being drawn to the Canoptek Reanimator which I had left over from the Royal Court.

Simon: My Crusade force represents a Solblade of the Fourth Tyrannic War, led by Shield-Captain Ulysses Orion. As you can imagine, he’s already a formidable fighter, but I plan on turning him into a duelling specialist with various upgrades over the course of the campaign so that he can effortlessly take out other Characters using the Epic Challenge stratagem. He’ll be leading five Custodian Guard with guardian spears. I find it incredibly useful to have at least one Battleline unit when using the Shield Host detachment as it enables you to make use of the Vigilance Eternal stratagem to lock down objectives – when you’ve only got 15 models in your 1,000-point army, you need all the help you can get with battlefield control!

I knew that I’d be facing plenty of heavily armoured targets in the form of Terminators, Tyranids and various constructs of wraithbone or living metal. I added a unit of Custodian Guard wielding melta-tipped pyrithite spears and a hard-hitting Contemptor-Achillus Dreadnought. To round things off, I went for a unit of Terminator-armoured Allarus Custodians, who I intend to use as a Deep Striking reserve force depending on the mission and opposition. Now to put all my plans into practice, for the God-Emperor!

The Crusade is kicking off, and soon the first battles shall be fought for the doomed world of Eudora. Want to get stuck in with your own crusade campaign? Check out Warhammer 40,000 Crusade: Nachmund Gauntlet, featuring new rules for multi-stage drop assaults, narrative campaigns across Nachmund, and a gripping tale of devastating invasions in which the Living Saint Celestine duels Haarken Worldclaimer above a critical Imperial bastion.