yep, beer will fix it!

First there’s the wildlife: If something appears to be cute and harmless in Australia, then we promise you – it has only evolved that way to lure you close enough for the thousands of ravenous, prehensile blade-tongues to descended upon you.
Then there’s the Geography: Consisting mostly of arid, dry desert, (populated by over 100 venomous species of snake,) the harsh local climate is peppered with small, livable areas presumably just to lull human beings into a false sense of security.
Ah, but the tropical beaches, you say! Surely the paradise on Earth that is the Australian beach makes up for an entire continent of biological weapons. And it’s true: Australia is known for having some of the best beaches in the world…all you have to worry about are the Saltwater Crocs, Great White Sharks, poisonous Stonefish, or being stung by the Box Jellyfish: the deadliest and most painful sting in the world
Your best bet is just to stay in the city then, right? Enjoy the local culture; go visit the capital of Canberra, or visit beautiful Sydney and see the wonder of the Opera house. And that’s totally safe: Just remember to wear protective clothing, stay in well travelled areas, always know the nearest path to a hospital, and just generally try not to exist – because Australia is also home to over 280 species of poisonous spider, including that aforementioned Sydney Funnel Web Spider. What, did you think it was just a name? No, it lives in cities, in garages, in tool sheds and houses – it even swims. IT FUCKING SWIMS.
Seriously: Everything in Australia evolved solely to kill everything else in Australia – and you show up with your soft, unarmored skin, tiny, rounded teeth, and ridiculously non-poisonous spit and expect a vacation?
You just walked into Mother Nature’s Thunderdome, friend. And in this analogy, you’re not Max; you’re the dead retard.

Things in Australia that Will Not Kill You
….
Hugh Jackman seems nice.

Rule 2.
If in doubt kill it.

Rule 3.
Just to be sure, kill it again

Rule 4.
See rules 1 through 3 and repeat until it is dead.

Rule 5.
If its dead, cremate it straight away. You don’t want the undead coming back and be made to kill it again.

Rule 6.
If you killed it, all its stuff is yours.

Rule 7.
Kill em before they try and kill you. (NPC and PC alike)

This was a part of an ongoing conversation between myself and a friend about what can be read into movies. Jaws being one which lead to many such silly descriptions.

Click for a bigger version.

A flamer marine could be converted to have what looks like a big bug spray cannister. Or design it so it looks like a big fuel tank on their back with a nozzle ready to spray toxin/poison over everyone. Get one of the imperial guard ones as a starting point for the conversion. Possibly convert the flamer so it is a bit shorter in length.

Magnetise a landraider so all options are available.

Add a second predator to help boost the armour of the army. Magnetise the weapons, so one of the landraiders can be upgraded to a terminus pattern with the single las cannon sponsons.

Add a dreadnought ironclad for some serious close support for my terminators. Needs to be pretty heavily converted to stand out from my normal dreads.

Build up a landspeeder squadron to help deplete enemy numbers and have a couple of extra shots in case of misses. Also great for use as a skyfall spearhead unit to destroy multiple enemy vehicles or infantry units.

Would a pair of whirlwinds add some decent cheap artillery options to the army? Or should it be a whirlwind and a vindicator? The whirlwinds could be converted to match more the manticore look rather than the current design. The back mounting carriage and the driver compartment could be used to fuse the manticore missiles to a rhino chassis, swap the guardsman driver for a marine and you have a pretty fancy conversion with big rockets for use on the tabletop.

Use the immolator as a basis for a razorback for a veteran / elite unit or for a command unit. It wouldn’t take much work to replace the gunner with a marine one and swap out the weapons for something within the marine list. Might be worth trying to find an original metal conversion kit rather than the new one.

Building an effective force would only really entail a few more vehicles for transport and a couple of special and heavy weapon options for the squads to bring them in line with the rules.

Objective markers. Do a set of objectives one through six looking like scanner blips on green and then replicate exactly but use red as a colour so switching the objective control is easy. Have a grey version for any uncontrolled or contested objectives?
Double sided ones! Red one side green the other. For the contested or unclaimed versions one side could be blank (grey) with the second side half red half green (in a yin yang style?) or should it be grey and blue sides to cover multiplayer games?

Captured banner marker, either have it as a simple little circle marker or possibly as a little flag on a base.

Destroyed vehicle markers.
Have a couple of junked rhinos and other vehicles to help block line of sight when they are damaged.

Build the grand master of the grey knights as either a terminator librarian with deathwatch experience or as an inquisitor. Either way it adds a powerful and expensive unit to the army. As a senior inquisitor, it would give access to the mystics and heavy weapon servitors to help defend the army firebase from drop armies and from highly psychic armies. The main focus would be to just get an awesome model onto the table. Rumours are that mystics are going to be dropped for inquisitors so I might hold off on the extra unit models until the rules are closer and we have some idea of what they can take.

Dreadnought – either venerable or standard. Can they still have the twin linked heavy bolters? If so, them paired with a close combat / flamer would be useful in close support against infantry and light vehicles. Is there the option to give twin linked autocannon on each arm mount? Good for heavy infantry and vehicles, and looks AWESOME! have the arm options magnetised for easy weapon testing AND leaves it open to be further upgraded if other options become available or if I want to run it as an ironclad for a game or two. The blood angels can get the redeemer flame cannon on their dreads. Might be worth building one up and run it either as an allied unit or use the weapon as a normal heavy flamer until there is a rules update. (or I pick up the Imperial Armour book to use it in my Apocalypse games).

Redo the unforgiven dark angel character as a chaplain for the army and give him matching bolt pistols or plasma pistols along with converting the model so it has a much stronger chaplain feel to it.

Strip and repaint one of my classic techmarines (beaky MK6 marine) and convert it so it matches the current rules (servo harness)

Possibly convert up a version of the tech marine light artillery piece for my army to use. I don’t see it in armies I play against so is it a useful addition or is it better to spend points on a whirlwind or vindicator?

An assault squad in a rhino is an easy support choice for countering enemy movements and for clearing objectives for the tactical squads to hold.

It is worth considering some rhino and razorback additions to the army to help with redeployment during the game?Basically start with a reserve group in razorbacks and rhinos and build from there if it works on the table.

The plan is for the force to be lead by a big mek on bike, a second mek will be included with a shokk attack gun in a truck or similar. I may switch this for a mek with a kustom field. Mounting the second mek in a vehicle would mean the kustom field would be exactly where it needed to be to give added protection to the troops.

Supporting these characters will be my lead unit made of nob bikers who take the lead in the charge and hold the centre of my battleline. I may add a second unit if points allow later on. (and deploy them next to one another only to split them after breaking the enemy line.

Fast attack is always going to be deff koptas to help consolidate victories and to give a rude shock to enemy players who feel safe behind impassable terrain features.

Add in some trakks, buggies and skorcha units and the troop heavy weapon support is sorted.

Troops are always going to be ork bike units and as many as I can field!

There will be one or two gretchin units left up the back to do the protecting of flanks and hold/contest objectives. (but might be dropped as they don’t fit the speed freak theme too well)

Then comes the fun big guns. Although I would be happy to keep a unit of artillery in the list I just feel it doesn’t fit the theme. Which leaves me with battlewagons and plenty of other nice big options from apocalypse. Upgrading a few wagons to proper gun carriers might be fun (expensive, but fun). Especially if I go for some of the crazier weapons.

Alternate options are a mekboy unit in a trukk to zoom up close and use their nice kustom weapons in support of the bikes, a few trukk boyz units to capture and hold objectives and some dredd and kan units to follow up behind the bikes and destroy any pockets of resistance encountered. I have thought about adding mobs to battlewagons but I just don’t see the value in it. The only other unit I am keen to get is a looted Imperial Guard vehicle partly for the rules but more for the conversion work. The new hellhound looks good and fits within a fast moving army like the one I am building.

The other factor in the army is that I plan to ‘ape-up’ the units so instead of being orks and gretchin they are all primates. Gorillas and chimps would allow me a much greater flexibility in style of the army, I had intended to do it in a Somali warlord style with semi uniformed models on slapped together vehicles with their icons also including bananas. A little silly but a well thought out conversion style could make for easy building of the units. I swear the chimps with bananas would look hilarious in the back of a battlewagon or adding bananas in crates on vehicles.

This leads to other ideas like converting the battlewagon to be a catering truck. Change it so it has a little kitchen built in with price boards and a few steps to get to the ordering window. Kebabs and bananas! Banana milkshakes and banana liquer shots.

It would almost be worth sculpting up an ammo pouch stuffed with bananas to cast up and add to random models.

Red berets would be an easy way to tie the army together along with a consistant camoflague scheme (a bright red, yellow and orange one could work with black berets).

It would be time consuming but would turn out quite nicely! Future apocalypse units could be added with the same theme.

The downside would be the response to a large mob of nob bikers, in a tournament it could mean a reduction in the points awarded for army selection, but in my opinion what other choice do I have? I can’t take a standard nob unit without transport or a meganob unit without a battlewagon. I just don’t see the speed freaks wanting to be used as foot infantry when they could be going so much faster on a bike.

Any feedback on the ideas outlined above would be great! I am still trying to decide if it is worth my investment of time to start building the whole themed army or if it would be better to hold off till the buggy/trakk/skorcha kit comes out and put together a strong list and build the army all at once.

With the new spearhead expansion rules just hitting, the idea of bringing a stompa to the table is just SO tempting. I would of course have to remodel it so it was a mek-stompa with a ramp up to a refuelling platform so the boyz could still be on a moving vehicle even as they refuel or work on their bikes! Crazy stompa conversion aside, there are plenty of imperial vehicles like the baneblade that would supplement a speed freak army quite nicely. Anyone have a favourite that they are bringing to spearhead games?