Month: August 2018

So much Warhammer news!

Hey everybody!
It’s been a bit crazy for Warhammer news during August, I’m not entirely sure if I’ve managed to digest it all yet! With the reveals from Warhammer Fest two weeks ago, and now the NOVA Open reveals, we’re going to be in for some amazing times as hobbyists and gamers for a good while to come!

Let’s start with Warhammer Fest, as it was so long ago now. The news that the Horus Heresy series is coming to an end before the actual Siege of Terra itself I find quite interesting, and I’m a little bit worried that it means we’re going to be in for another drawn out series as we see the culmination of Horus’ betrayal. It’s also really weird that the series The Horus Heresy doesn’t actually conclude the events of the Heresy, if you know what I mean. But James Swallow is a good author, and I did like his Flight of the Eisenstein, so I’m hoping for good things as he draws the proceedings to a close.

Of course, we’ve had a lot of stuff for Adeptus Titanicus coming out this month, so I suppose it’s about time I addressed this point now: I am not a fan of this game. Betrayal at Calth, while it’s Space Marine on Space Marine violence, was nevertheless an interesting game. Adeptus Titanicus, being hulking war machine vs hulking war machine, just doesn’t interest me in the same way. I get the sense that it is appealing to those with more nostalgia for the olden days, and the original iteration of the game (those at my local store are all part of the Old Guard), but it just sounds far too boring and bland, and I don’t think the fact that it’s a completely different scale is helping matters – at least Betrayal at Calth and all of the other boxed games they produce have included miniatures that could be used in regular games.

Something in its favour though – I love the fact that we can talk about Games Workshop and “all the other boxed games they produce”. They really are becoming a Workshop of Games now, and I love it!

Rogue Trader! The big box expansion for Kill Team is coming out in September, and I’m really very excited to get my hands on what look like amazing, weird, and very different minis. Perhaps most excitingly of all, though, is the little paragraph at the end of that announcement, saying that we can use both the Rogue Trader crew and the mutants in regular 40k! Didn’t see that one coming!

Codex: Imperial Agents, anyone?

So, even though I already have quite a lot on the go with regards painting projects, I’m looking forward to this quite a bit. It’s that sense of borrowed nostalgia once again. I wasn’t around for Rogue Trader back in the day, of course, but it’s something that looms so large in the background lore, and indeed, the meta world of the game as a whole, that I can’t help but feel excited at the prospect of something so iconic to the grim darkness of the far future finally coming to the tabletop!

So October (sorry, Orktober) is going to be the month of the greenskins, and it’s likely the Codex will be coming then, too. With the Space Wolves getting theirs last weekend, does this mean the Genestealer Cults will get theirs in September, maybe? Anyway. I’m not a big Ork fan – I play against them often enough, so it’ll be fun to go Codex-to-Codex against them now, but there’s very little else about the release that I can say, if I’m honest. It’s always good to see new models that replace the older ones with stuff that looks this good, so there is definitely that!

Speed Freeks seems to be a bit like the Gangs of Commorragh boxed game, in that it involves pure vehicle combat within a single faction, but is including a lot of new models – it seems GW likes to launch new kits this way nowadays, which isn’t always a bad thing, as it allows you to flesh out an army while getting the new stuff, usually with a decent saving.

Something that unites both sets of announcements, though, is the new Adepta Sororitas stuff coming – Emperor willing – next year. From Warhammer Fest, we got to see some renders of the weapons – exciting enough, for sure, but I can’t say as it really interested me. Well, maybe the fact that they’ll get a crossbow is hilarious, but still.

The NOVA Open announcement gave us a look at the heads of these girls, and they’re looking like they have a good amount of movement there to suggest some pretty dynamic poses within the kits. Interestingly, the 2018 Chapter Approved will include a mini-Codex for the Sisters that will allow for a decent amount of playtesting feedback to be gathered before the Codex itself lands. Ever get the feeling that they’re almost going too far with this? I get that people are keen to get plastic Sisters, and they want the release to be a memorable one – hell, I’ve talked about this myself years ago – but it’s almost like they’re getting too much special attention. Why should one army get so much playtesting, while others get landed with a copy-and-paste Codex just so as to get the book out there? Hm. It’s always going to be a difficult one, for sure, but it struck me this morning when I was reading this stuff, it just seems to be making this too much of A Thing.

Anyway, clearly I’m now one of those old farts who is just never going to be happy!

I’ve been quiet about Age of Sigmar for a long time now, for the simple reason that I’ve been moving away from the game, and focusing more completely on 40k. However, what looks like the return of Slaanesh to any of the game systems simply cannot go un-mentioned! It has always been my favourite of the Chaos Gods (don’t judge me!) so I’m always going to follow what happens here with a keen eye. Expect more blogs when we have more information on this, including one devoted to just why I like Slaanesh so much…

Now, what the hell is this, when it’s at home?! Is it really going to be the new Battlefleet Gothic? The fact there are ships in the announcement video seems to have a lot of people assuming so, but the announcement compares the game to Silver Tower in a way that makes me think we’ll get a similar line-up of infantry-based miniatures battling through the impossible halls of a Blackstone Fortress. Indeed, it’s being described as a dungeon crawl game over on the 40k facebook page, so I reckon we’re definitely getting people miniatures, and not starship miniatures.

(As an aside, I don’t really know if I’d be into Battlefleet Gothic in the same way I’m not into Adeptus Titanicus – I guess cross-compatibility might be an issue for me, after all!)

Intriguingly, the protagonist/voiceover chap in the video seems to be another Rogue Trader, so it may be possible we’ll see some sort of merging of the miniatures from the Kill Team expansion and this in the future…

I am really excited for these two boxed games, if nothing else, so I’ll be saving the pennies from here on, for sure!

Bank Holiday Painting Extravaganza!

Hey everybody!
It’s been a Bank Holiday painting extravaganza for me this weekend! Having two days pretty much to myself, as the other half was in work, I’ve managed to make some amazing progress with clearing the backlog!

Necron Immortals

First up, I’ve added five more Immortals to my new Thokt Dynasty that I was talking about the other day, giving me now two troops choices, an HQ and an Elites slot, along with a dedicated transport. Hooray! I’ve bitten the bullet and listed a lot of my older Necrons on ebay this weekend, in the hope that it prompts me to really make the effort and paint my current batch of unpainted models. If nothing else, I really want to get the Catacomb Command Barge and a third squad of Immortals painted (tesla this time), and then I’ll have the first Battalion ready! That’s also going to be well on the way to my first list finished, so we’ll see how far I can get with that… It only took me five months to get round to painting these, after all!

Dark Eldar Ravager

Much like last weekend, I’ve been painting a mixture of Necrons and Dark Eldar, my true 40k loves! This weekend, I’ve managed to get the second Ravager finished – something that, annoyingly, I’d been very close to for a long time anyway, as I’d done the main hull back in April. The crew are finished, though, along with the crew for the next Raider that I’ll be working on, so that’s a very positive step!

Dark Eldar Kabalites

I’ve also finished off four infantry chaps, in the main because I had a game today and wanted to try out some different things! I’d built up all of these guys back in January, when I was building a lot of Dark Eldar as I was waiting for the Codex to drop, but have finally gotten round to painting them up. I’d picked the two blaster-wielding chaps to finish as I was painting the Ravager crew anyway, but now I need to get moving with another batch of Kabalite Warriors. I have a lot of these guys, as it happens, as I’d originally build up enough to get myself two full Battalions of pure Kabal. Then the Rule of Three came out, and without Drazhar, there aren’t enough HQs to now do this and keep the Kabal Obsession. So I lost interest in the idea, but have now started instead to think of either a Brigade with just three Archons (not even sure if that’s possible?), or else sticking with one Kabal Battalion but having a massive unit of Warriors on foot. I’m not entirely sure what I want to do yet, so we’ll see. I definitely want to get more of the special weapons peppered into my squads, so I’ll probably be working on some of those soon.

It may be nearly five months since I first picked this book up, but I have today had my first game with Codex Drukhari, and it was an absolute blast!

A chap at my local store was looking to try out an army list he’d come up with, but only at 550 points. So I set about building up a basic Patrol detachment, an HQ and two troops (ah, the old FOC!) all in vehicles: two squads of 10 Kabalite Warriors in Raiders, including a splinter cannon in one, and a blaster/agoniser in the other; in a Venom, the Archon (splinter pistol/huskblade) along with a Court of Lhamaean, Ur-ghul and Medusae. Obviously, I was playing Kabal of the Obsidian Rose, so had some pretty decent range on all my weapons.

On the Deathwatch side, there was a squad of Veterans, a squad of Terminators, and a Captain in Gravis Armour. As it happened, my opponent was as great at throwing dice as I was, so it all went quite well! Having nothing much to do against my army, as they were all in vehicles, it felt a bit one-sided, as I was able to shoot up the table from within my Raiders. I charged everybody out of the Venom just for something to do, though was quite impressed with some of the Court characters. I think I’ll look at using them more often!

While I don’t think there’s been much change between the Index and the Codex, the addition of Obsessions is definitely something that I enjoyed. I’ve been playing about with some list ideas off and on for a while, and having been initially very keen to start a Wych Cult this year, I’m leaning more towards the Kabal/Coven lists I used to play during the Index days. So I’m busily planning to paint more stuff to make it what I hope will be a decent enough list to play, so stay tuned there!

Summer Painting Update
So, since my last update on the three armies that I’d wanted to get a move along with, I’ve done very little of any of them! Earlier this month, I had started work in earnest on the Tempestus Scions, though that was primarily for Kill Team rather than the 500-point list I’d outlined here.

The Scions haven’t advanced much at all since I took that photo, but I’m currently keeping them close on the painting table as I’m not going to write them off just yet. The Skitarii haven’t seen much of anything since I started vaguely working on the blue of the Dunecrawler back in June, either:

I blame the arrival of Kill Team and wanting to finish painting the Genestealer Cultists that I’d had one the table since way back when. Having finished a Neophyte Squad, I shouldn’t really complain, of course, but I’d really like to be further forward with a lot of these projects!

While summer may be almost over, I’m not going to be entirely writing off these goals just yet. I feel like I’ve stalled with the Tau, but I always get quite nostalgic for Necrons at this time of year, so I want to use that to get moving finally with my Great Reanimation. I also feel nostalgia for the Skitarii, so we’ll see how far I can get with those, as well! And I definitely want to paint up some more units for the Dark Eldar list I’m working on…

War of Secrets

Finished the third of the Space Marine Conquests series this morning, and while I think it was probably the best of the three we’ve had so far, I’m still not entirely sure I like these new breed of Space Marines in the lore.

War of Secrets deals with the Dark Angels, and so we have the usual round of secrets within secrets. It’s actually quite a straightforward story in that regard – the Dark Angels chasing down one of their Unforgiven. The new Primaris are a part of the chase, though of course they aren’t trusted and so don’t fully know what’s going on. So we have a lot of angry marines on both sides, the Primaris for being kept in the dark, the “regular” chaps due to what they see as Guilliman’s spies in their ranks.

Layered on top of this, we have a T’au storyline that involves Shas’O Kais, one of the three star pupils of the legendary Puretide. Kais, heretofore merely a Codex background character, is held in stasis due to the fact that he is an unpredictable ‘living weapon’. However, a conspiracy is launched with Tutor Twiceblade, another of the legendary tutors of T’au society, to launch him again into the front lines.

The stories converge over the planet of Saltire Vex, which has come under some kind of psyker plague, possibly as a result of the presence of the Unforgiven marine (that’s my inference, anyway!). The action follows the twists and turns of both factions, with some decent action scenes throughout, particularly near the end as we see a Ghostkeel battlesuit put through its paces. The T’au side of things was probably the most interesting to me, possibly due to my recent interest in building an army of the blighters, but Kelly is well known for his T’au writing at this point, so it’s probably no surprise there.

While the story was definitely a lot better than the last installment for me, I suppose that was due to the fact I’m a lot less interested in Space Wolves than Dark Angels (and, especially, T’au). But even so, we’re back into this mix of Primaris vs non-Primaris stuff that started off in the first book, though given the First’s penchant for secrecy, the friction is a lot more pronounced here. The way the storyline is concluded, however, did slightly annoy me – I’m trying to avoid too many spoilers in this, but suffice it to say, it felt like too convenient a finale, somehow.

At any rate, I’m sticking with the series, in the hope we might see some really intriguing aspects of the new 40k universe. The fourth book in the series has just gone up for pre-order this weekend, and features the Ultramarines in “a mission of vital importance” to the Indomitus Crusade – interesting, as I thought that was over already. Sounds a bit vague, but I suppose we’ll see! I’m hoping we might see the series move beyond the First Founding chapters, but I suppose I’d rather have a shorter series that just takes us through these than an unnecessarily long series that shambles through the thousands of chapters one by one…

The Great Reanimation!

Hey everybody!
Last time, I mentioned the fact that I’d been painting some Necron stuff again, after what felt like an enormous hiatus from the undead space robots. Well, I’ve spent the past week thinking about what to do with the army, and lots of plans have been drawn up and promptly cast aside. However, I think I’ve finally managed to get myself into a vague position where I’m feeling good about the force that I have drawn up, so thought I’d come here today and ramble a bit about my new Necron plans!

Necrons

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you will likely know about my love of the Necrons as my very first 40k army from way back in the day. In fact, you can see most of the massed troops that I had painted up to this point in the picture above. Heavy on the infantry, with a lot of Lychguard, because I love the idea of the implacable robot tide. I particularly love the Lychguard kit for its beautiful space skeletons, the armour of those guys is so ornate… Ah, beautiful! Anyway, I’ve been painting Necrons in this silver-and-gold-and-green scheme for a very long time up to this point, and while I do enjoy it, I think I was beginning to tire of it somewhat.

Necron Immortals

In the main, the fact that this was the colourscheme that I had come up with back when I was first getting into painting miniatures had begun to wear a little on me, as whenever I was adding more units to the army, I felt almost that I had to regress my painting to match the very earliest miniatures I’d painted. So last summer, I decided to repaint the entire Legion. Well, for that reason, and the fact that GW had discontinued Mourn Mountain Snow as a texture paint, so I was faced with the option of no more snow bases!

Thokt Dynasty Necrons

I came up with my own take on the Thokt dynasty, and painted five Immortals before pretty much calling it a day with these guys for a long time. Moving house probably didn’t help, but I also had developed a love for Drukhari that meant I was focusing my efforts elsewhere instead. However, in the intervening months, I have managed to paint up five Lychguard with warscythes – because Lychguard are awesome, remember – and the new Cryptek from the Forgebane box, because that model just appealed to me like nothing from the recent batch of releases.

Necrons Thoky Dynasty

And then, of course, I painted a Night Scythe last weekend!

All of this has really helped me to get into the new colour scheme for the new army, which is primarily grey-blue rather than the black and blue of the scheme that had originally appealed to me so much from the back of the Immortals box.

So where am I going with all this rambling?

Well, I’ve taken stock of the current models that I have, including those in partial states of completion, and in an attempt to put aside my massive love for Lychguard, I’ve come up with a list that I feel is something that I would want to actually play.

See, this has been a huge problem for me since the new Codex came out earlier this year. All of the models are so damned expensive, my playstyle of having a horde of undead robots doesn’t really lend itself to the new edition. Of course, I suppose 7th edition was hardly good in that respect, either. But I’ll be writing another blog later in the week about the Codex and my thoughts there, so stay tuned for that!

So then, the list:

Necrons 1200pt list

In keeping with what I’ve been trying to do all summer, it’s a fairly small list that will hopefully allow me to actually get these things painted up without much fuss. So far, I’ve got four of the ten units painted, with all of them built up ready to get done, so I’m hoping to channel my current Necron enthusiasm to get them finished! To add to my sense of urgency, I’ve started to sell off a lot of my older models, as I don’t fancy trying to strip the paint from a lot of those spindly Lychguard and start again – when I tried that last time, I ended up having to build new arms for them all, due to the fact almost everything just broke…

The plan for this list is fairly straightforward, as regards playing it goes. The Immortals are a fire-support as the elite choices move across the board to where they need to be. The Lychguard will start on the Tomb World, and will be beamed to where they’re needed by the Night Sythe, while the Deathmarks will come in when they’re needed to plop down and (hopefully) do some serious work.

Being a small, fairly elite army here, I do feel a little nervy about the Reanimation Protocols, so I’ll want the Cryptek to hang back and buff the Immortals where possible.

It should be a really good start to a 2000-point force, but I also want it to act as something of a core for an army that I think will be a lot more flexible than I’m used to. Normally, when I build armies I tend to think about the cool minis that I want to include, and I’ll swap out only one or two units depending on the situation I’m due to face. With this army, however, I’m actually thinking about roughly half the force being the core, and an additional 900-1000 points being entirely flexible depending on what I’ll be up to. (The Deathmarks and the Triarch Praetorians are currently the two choices that I’m not so sure about – I’m sure one will be staying, and I’m leaning towards the Deathmarks, but I think it does really depend on how they perform on the night…)

I’ve costed up the majority of the models that I have on the go in varying stages of completion, and there are several things that I’d like to bring depending on the situation at hand. Foremost among them is the addition of Orikan the Diviner, the HQ model that I’ve used the most, and for some reason the one I enjoy the most, lore-wise. I’ve also been really keen to field the Doomsday Ark since I first bought the battalion box back in the day. I’ve had the Tesseract Ark built up for about three years at this point, so I want to try and get that built to see what it does, though I am always a little hesitant to use Forge World models due to the reputation they can have.

I’ve only played with my Necrons three times in 8th edition, so I’m no expert in this regard. I feel like having a small number of bodies might be a bad thing, but I suppose the facility to bring them back often (if the unit isn’t obliterated) should mitigate that somewhat. There’s a variety to the list that I enjoy, so I’m hoping that will help, as well.

All in all, then, I’m excited to finally get the Necron force on the table. Time to get painting then, I guess!!

Painting Weekend!

Hey everybody!
Well it’s been a very exciting weekend for me, as I’ve been painting a whole load of miniatures with something close to abandon! I’ve not painted so much for a long time, and it feels great!

First of all, at the back end of last week I had hoped to get a game of 40k in at the local store, with a guy who I know has about 2k points of Deathwatch. So I’d been looking at my Dark Eldar army, which I know is well over 2k, and trying to organise myself into the usual double-battalion of Kabal and Coven. In turn, that got me looking at the box of Dark Eldar that I’ve had primed/partially painted, and pulled out a few bits to start working on. One of which, as it happens, is the glorious Razorwing Jetfighter!

I think this has been built for well over a year now, and has just been gathering dust while primed with Rhinox Hide and ready. Over the course of the weekend, I’ve managed to get the brown armour highlighted, and just need to paint the metallics on the wings to give it that razor-edged look. I’m really pleased to have it in the army, anyway, and I’m already looking forward to when I can get in a game and see how well it does!

I’ve also been working on some Court of the Archon minis – the Ur-ghul and the Medusae, both finecast minis that I’d put together a while back but hadn’t really done a great deal with. I already have a Lhamaean, and have used her a couple of times (though never managed to do anything with her, I think I’m a bit scared about getting my HQs too close into combat, though my Archon has once used a Huskblade to destroy an Ork Boss. Anyway!) I like the idea of having a Court in a Venom and just throwing it at the enemy, and seeing how well they do… Last up, then, I’ll need to get that Sslyth sorted!

I’ve not painted any Drukhari for what feels like an age – I last finished some models for the army in February – though I have got a second Ravager almost finished. I think it was probably the fact I only have one crew member left for the Ravager that prompted me to get some of these models out and start painting them again, actually.

I’ve only ever painted three Reaver jetbikes for the army, but have an absolute ton of them built from last winter, when I wanted to get moving with a Wych Cult force. I’ve used the bikes once or twice in games, and I seem to remember they did really well, so it makes sense to try some more! However, in keeping with the lore, I like the idea of having mine as small tripartite gangs of bikers joining the raiding party for a lark, and so wanted the chassis to be different colours to denote this. Having tried to get red last time, this time I thought I’d go for yellow, as it’s a colour I tend not to bother with (aside from the warheads on my smart missile systems!) So far, I think they’ve turned out really well, anyway!

The last Reavers, I managed to paint in a single session. This time around, however, I evidently have more going on, and so they’re still waiting for a few details to be finished…

Finally, this!

It’s a bit of an odd one, given I’ve been painting so much Dark Eldar, but I suppose the return of my Dark Eldar has got me thinking about even older armies, and the Necrons are a force that takes me right back to the very start of my 40k life.

I built this Night Scythe in 2015, and managed to get some of it painted in that time, but I think it was possibly the biggest model I’d painted up to that point (it was certainly the one with the most flat areas), and I was a little nervy about getting it to look good. I was also hopeless at working out a scheme for my Necron vehicles that wasn’t just basically Caliban Green, so it was consigned to oblivion all these years.

Well, last night I had trouble sleeping so, in between painting more on the Reavers, I went through my bag of unfinished Necron models to see what I had. (Yes, they were in a bag – the shame!) In addition to finding the Doomsday Ark I had built, I’ve also got an Annihilation Barge and at least one Tomb Blade that I think I can salvage for the Great Reanimation, but everything else I think will likely need to be stripped before I can go about getting it painted in my new Thokt dynasty colours. If indeed I can be bothered to do that – I’ve often been thinking it might be easier to just sell them off and then start afresh, but I’ve so far only sold off the character models that I’d painted (badly!)

All of this stuff seems to date from 2015, which is quite shocking really. I know one of the things that always keeps me going with Necrons is the idea of the implacable tide of infantry, I thought I’d done more of the war machines than this! It’s definitely time to change that, though I’m still really finding it difficult to come up with a Codex list that I actually like the look of, so I’m not yet sure how I want to play my Newcrons in 8th edition.

I came up with the above back in March when the Codex was fresh, but that is a hell of a lot of infantry, with just the Command Barge as a big thing. It’s definitely time to do more with the Necrons than just Immortals and Lychguard, but the cost of these units is kinda prohibitive, and seems to lend itself much better to large-point games. Having the flyer will, I think, be a huge thing for my force, as it acts as a transport as well, though obviously I wouldn’t want to go filling it to capacity as the way the rules work for the Night Scythe mean that any models that haven’t entered play when the Scythe is destroyed are also destroyed. But I think it could be a very useful delivery system for Lychguard while the Immortals hang back as a bit of a gun-line.

Anyway, I’m rambling a bit here!

So I need to get my act together and write up a Necrons list that I actually like the look of; I’ve got a Drukhari list that I do like the look of, so just need to finish off the couple of models that aren’t yet fully painted so that I can actually field it, and then I should be good to go!

Honestly, I’ve never been as excited for the hobby as I am right now!!

Tooth and Claw

So, this artwork debuted on the 40k facebook page at the weekend, followed by an extremely exciting article that talked about the next “battle box” coming for 40k, Tooth and Claw. Genestealer Cults vs Space Wolves, in bloody battle for the planet Vigilus. Similar to Forgebane from earlier in the year, we’re getting a lot of repackaged models, along with a couple of new bits – this time, we’re heavily weighted to the Genestealer Cults, with the new Aberrant multi-part plastic kit, as well as an Aberrant character, and just one new Space Wolf.

It’s an interesting way to do these kinds of releases, though I have to say I’m a little bit sad that we aren’t just getting the new kits themselves. I do appreciate the fact that we’re having the story advance and whatnot, and ordinarily I love these kinds of narrative-driven boxes, things have changed for me in that I can’t go throwing my money at all the new releases anymore. I’m guessing we’ll see things released separately in time, but that new Cryptek from Forgebane still hasn’t made his clam-pack appearance yet, has he? Hm.

At £90, though, the box is an absolute steal. Assuming the Primaris stuff is not the easy-build kits, the existing models total £148 (though you can’t get the Intercessor combat squad online anymore, so it’s a little bit weird in that regard…) which is just nuts when you think the Aberrants are likely to be around £30 at least, the Abominant will probably be £18, and the Space Puppy around £15… That’s nuts!

Having a Genestealer Cults army already on the go, this box will be a blessing – I’ve been wanting to get some more Metamorphs for a while, and nearly bought some on Friday when I was in the store, so that’s kinda negated now. I already have the Acolyte Iconward, but I’m sure I can either have another or just sell him on. I absolutely love how over-the-top ridiculous the Abominant looks, so can’t wait to add him to the force, as well as having more options for the Aberrants – I think this might finally tip me over the edge into including them in my lists…

It’s the Primaris stuff that’s kinda bothering me, as I’ve recently built a kill-team and decided that I might actually like to have an army of these chaps. I’ll definitely keep the Redemptor, because I’ve been holding off getting one of those for a very long time already. I already have Aggressors, so will probably get rid of those, and will definitely be off-loading the lieutenant chappie as I don’t collect Space Wolves. The Intercessors though… Maybe I’ll keep them, to bulk out the guys from Dark Imperium and the like. I suppose we’ll see.

At any rate, the story sounds like it’s going to be a significant addition to 40k lore, so I’m looking forward to reading up on the developments – indeed, I think 8th edition has done wonders for setting up a more interesting and cohesive narrative for the lore, no matter what people might think of the Primaris stuff. Personally, I like the look of them, so don’t mind it at all, but I know some people are a bit unimpressed, so may not think the same. I’m definitely enjoying the fact that GW are just making efforts with the storyline this time, rather than what seemed to be the case in 7th edition when I jumped on with 40k.

Also, interestingly, there seems to be mention of Orks on the planet, who like to race in the deserts. Gorkamorka it may not be, but I’ve recently been seeing what looks like the next small-box game coming out:

More Kill Teams!

Oh Kill Team, what have you done to me?! I feel like I’ve spent the entire weekend writing up different lists, juggling people around to fill specialisms, and generally losing myself in list-building for skirmish games! I suppose this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it has allowed me to look at a lot of the factions where I’ve not got a lot of work done, and started to think about finally finishing off some of my long-held projects.

So I thought I’d come here once more, and ramble about 40k – though on a smaller scale…

Skitarii Kill Team

I’ve been off-and-on thinking about a Skitarii army since I first bought the Start Collecting box back in May last year on a whim. Since then, I rather feel like I’ve been drowning in Skitarii miniatures, and between a second SC box, Forgebane, and now Kill Team, I think I probably have enough troops to garrison Mars. There’s something about a huge wave of these robot-men that I like the idea of, so really want to have an army of the blighters.

For Kill Team, of course, I’m going slightly more circumspect – let me introduce you to my list!

Team Lambda-Rho-Psi is a fairly standard mix of Rangers and Vanguard – I know the radium carbine is probably a better option than the galvanic rifle, but I already have three galvanic rifle dudes painted and ready, so half the team is already done! I’m therefore thinking I only actually need to paint five guys for this to be a finished team, which feels like a much more manageable option! It also fits in quite nicely with my Summer Painting Goals for the 500-point Skitarii list, although I do need a second plasma caliver-wielding Vanguard for this one.

I do like the army, at any rate, and it’s something that really excites me when I think about the hobby and 40k in general. I really fancy an eventual army with probably two battalions’ worth of Skitarii, along with Dunecrawlers and the like. Ah, wonderful!

Militarum Tempestus

These guys have a similar feel, for me, to the Skitarii mentioned above – everything about them just feels classic 40k somehow, and I love the fact that I have them in my line-up. I’ve been thinking for over a year now about getting together an army of just Scions, but since the Codex arrived last autumn, instead I’ve been considering my options for widening the view to take in some of the tanks of the Astra Militarum, also.

As regards the Kill Team, however…

Eight bodies doesn’t seem too much, does it? Especially when you think I’ve already got one painted – the actual Tempestor Prime for the army won’t work in Kill Team, but one of the Tempestors I have for one of my squads will work just as well.

I’ve been putting off painting any more of these so far, mainly because I can’t remember the colours I used. But I think I just need to crack on and get some paint on there, and it should be vaguely obvious what I’ve used. I think it’s Mephiston Red with a shade of Nuln Oil for the carapace armour, but I can’t really be sure.

Anyway. As with the Skitarii, I’m really excited about painting up these Scions, not only because I already have the army in my mind, but I think the models are superb!

The thing with Kill Team, as I’ve said, is that it’s making me think of all sorts of little bands of warriors that I might not otherwise have done anything with. I’m also considering making teams with things like T’au and Drukhari (the latter isn’t too bad, but I’m really finding it difficult to come up with a build I like the look of for T’au).

And then, of course, there’s this…

Primaris Marines

Well, this one came from nowhere! Right before I moved house last summer, Dark Imperium came out, and I was torn between building things with the new Space Marines and packing my life away. As it happens, I had to do the packing, so played a lot of 8th with Necrons and Dark Eldar, existing armies that I had painted up. With no real time for anything new, Primaris Marines and Death Guard both kinda passed me by, really, though I’ve tried a couple of times to look at the Chaos side of things over the months.

Now, however, after seeing the phenomenal work of Paul Norton and his Iron Ravens on instagram, I’ve found myself wanting to do something with Primaris Marines at last. I’ve actually painted a total of five Primaris Marines since they arrived over a year ago – three Reivers, a Hellblaster and an Intercessor. While I’ve built up quite a few, as it turns out, of the other marines from the box, I’ve only basecoated them with Khorne Red and left it there. Time to do a lot more with them, then, I think!

I’m going for Genesis Chapter, although I have previously thought about doing Novamarines with them as well. I might end up doing a mix, I suppose we’ll see! I know that the shoulder pads work on either flavour, though the Dark Imperium marines are often sculpted with the pads stuck to the arms already, so that may not work out for me. So far, I’ve been quite pleased anyway, though, so I might just continue with Genesis Chapter and be done with!

The squad is the smallest yet, with just six chaps (and I’ve already painted one, so…) I’m planning to use the 30th Anniversary marine for the Sergeant, and then use Dark Imperium guys for the rest.

I think, after playing the game last Friday, I can see a definite advantage to smaller teams, as my 15 Cultists got to the point where they auto-failed Nerve Tests and I was basically just sitting there being picked off. Added to this, Marines should be a lot more durable, so I shouldn’t (hopefully!) get into the position where I’m seeing my guys die off in droves. An all-shooty team should be a plus, too, as I can hang further back than with the more combat-orientated Cultists.

That’s the theory, at any rate!

I’m hoping to be back soon with some progress on getting these chaps painted up, anyway. I only need to do 17 models to get all three Kill Teams on this page fully painted! Shouldn’t take too long…

Warhammer Reflections – 4 years on

Hey everybody,
It’s approaching the time of year where I generally get quite nostalgic for my “career” within the Warhammer hobby, so I thought I’d ramble a bit here about some of the good times I’ve had with little plastic men over the last four years. In a manner of speaking…

Can you believe it’s been four years since I started this little adventure? Well, if you’re a long-time reader of this blog, you’re not only extremely classy, but you probably can… It all started because of Shadows of Brimstone, that kickstarter from Flying Frog Productions that I backed massively, only to find out in the months following the end of the campaign that the miniatures would require assembly. To practice, I therefore bought a Beast of Nurgle from Games Workshop, having been aware of their products for a number of years thanks to the card game Warhammer: Invasion, and the rest, as they say, is history.

As a side note, I should really look at doing a blog devoted to that game. I know it’s long-dead, but it was one of my all-time favourites, so definitely deserves some love here on the blog!

While I was initially really heavily into the Old World, due in part to the fact that I was so familiar with the card game, I think the negative reactions I was exposed to following the End Times series really started me moving away from the fantasy setting, and instead looking into the 40k stuff. While I felt like I had a decent grounding, between the card game and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, I was really flying blind when it came to the grim dark of the far future, but threw myself into the lore of the Necrons, having discovered the Lychguard kit (as has been mentioned on this blog before, of course!) I suppose, to some extent, it was only natural that I would gravitate towards those chaps, seeing as how I was a huge Tomb Kings fan. It was a real heartache when I recently decided to sell my stock of TKs, having been so assiduous in gathering up as many of the kits as I could when they went Last Chance to Buy. But that’s beside the point.

I really enjoyed the look of metallic skeletons, and as has been well chronicled on the blog now, I really fell for those Lychguard like there was no tomorrow. While they weren’t the only contenders for my first 40k army – it was a toss-up between Necrons, Tyranids and Dark Eldar as to who I was going to pursue as a first army choice – the undead space robots won out! Tyranids were an extremely close second, due in part to the awesome Shield of Baal series that started very soon after I’d made the decision, but I think I’ll always love those undead space robots…

Of course, since then I’ve managed to build up an extremely large Dark Eldar army, as well as having started to build a number of big bugs, too! Recently, I’ve embarked on repainting my Necron force, as it was my first army (and you can tell), though I’ve not yet managed to get very far. Always something to distract me!

It’s really been 40k that has been a driving force behind my passion and enthusiasm for this hobby, despite dipping my toe into fantasy every once in a while. I have very fond memories of the launch of Age of Sigmar, and while I’ve bought and sold more fantasy armies than I care to remember, I think I’m definitely keeping hold of my Stormcast Eternals for the fact that I enjoyed assembling that force so much.

Age of Sigmar

40k has been huge for me since then, and I honestly can’t ever see myself moving away from it. Whether it’s through the tabletop game itself, or any of the specialist games like Deathwatch Overkill or Necromunda – or even keeping some of the FFG games alive such as Conquest or, the classic, Space Hulk Death Angel – I can see myself forever staying with the grim dark of the far future, and look forward to sharing that with as many people as possible.

It’s definitely been an exciting four years, and there has been so much that I’ve enjoyed. While this blog started life as a sort of general nerdy thing with a lot of variety (at least, I think it did!), I’ve been very conscious of the fact that it has now become very focused on Warhammer, with Magic and Star Wars being a bit of a sideline.

And this is because I basically love the Warhammer 40k universe now!

I had a bit of a realisation a week or so ago, as I was laboriously reading through the latest new canon Star Wars novel Last Shot, that I don’t actually enjoy the new Star Wars as much as I enjoyed the franchise back before 2015. I don’t mean to turn this into some kind of Warhammer 40k vs Star Wars debate, but let’s leave it at I’m enjoying the former an awful lot more than the latter, right now!

And I suppose that’s partly due to the interactive nature of Warhammer 40k for me. There hasn’t really been a stand-out Star Wars game since WotC produced Star Wars miniatures, whereas there’s a whole hobby-gaming side to 40k that makes it a great deal more immersive.

I’d like to think that I’ve improved a great deal as a painter in the last four years – certainly, I’m more willing to show off my Drukhari, my Genestealer Cult, or my Thokt Necrons before bringing out that Beast of Nurgle – though there is always room for improvement. I’m still quite a lazy painter, something I’ve noticed when painting some Van Saar gangers recently. I rely a lot on drybrushing, while not always taking the time to drybrush properly. More models than I care to remember are quite streaky as a result! But I do feel a lot happier with my miniatures that I’m painting now, than I have done with the older lot. One of the reasons why I’m intending to re-do my entire Necron army, actually!

I don’t really have any sort of hobby goals in mind right now, except maybe to paint more than I buy, and get smarter with just what I’m buying in the first place, though who doesn’t have those sorts of goals in this hobby, right?! I’ve got a number of projects on the go that feel like they’re overwhelming me, particularly since Kill Team came along and I’m finding myself with plans for several small bands of infantry! Since delving back into my Genestealer Cults for that, however, I’ve been feeling in the mood to try some Tyranids, having bought quite a lot of kits for that army back at the start of the year. I find myself forever floating around from one project to another, without really getting anywhere with one (a notable exception being the Drukhari last year, that was amazing how I managed to apply myself and get over 2000 points painted up in a few months!)

I definitely want to plan my purchases more, and really try to work out just what I need before wandering into the store and picking up all manner of pretty looking kits just because they look nice. I also want to try to paint more, as has been shown by the variety of ‘painting goals’ style blogs that I’ve written so far this year. Having added Tau to my army rosters back in March, I really do feel a bit overwhelmed with everything, so definitely want to start scaling things back on that front. Going forward, I want to try (as much as I can) to pick a unit of, say, five guys, and just do what I need to do to get them finished. I think that’s how I eventually got going with the Drukhari, just five or ten at a time, and as whole units were added to the force, things really just snowballed…

I also want to play more games! Who doesn’t, I guess? But with Kill Team a thing now, the ability to have a lot of small games should make things easier. I’m keen to try my hand at Necromunda, having kitted out the Van Saars to be a proper gang and ready for the skirmish there, though I’m not sure if it’s that popular at my store… Skirmish games are fine, of course, but I also want to try and be a bit more serious with my efforts in mainstream 40k. I’ve got three big armies now as far as my Drukhari, Necrons (if I include the old ones that need re-doing), and T’au, along with a lot of smaller forces (with a lot of unbuilt kits that will one day make them bigger forces), so it would be a shame to not make the most of that and actually do something with them!

All this talk of Necromunda and Genestealer Cults brings me to something that I find a bit odd, but let’s talk about it anyway. I’ve not been in the hobby that long, and I’ve especially not been within the 40k universe that long, but there’s a weird kind of borrowed-nostalgia that I get from these re-imagining of classic aspects of the 40k universe. I suppose I get swept up in the moment, and find it all quite wonderful, though it could just be down to the fact that the miniatures are obviously designed with such care and attention to detail that I find myself really enamoured with them, despite not having a basis for any kind of nostalgia-response. It also helps that Necromunda, in particular, just looks like such a cool, immersive game that I can’t help but be swept up within the tidal wave of awesome that it is!

Rogue Trader is obviously coming out at Christmastime, and also promises to be every fanboy’s dream – including mine! I’m going to have to do some serious negotiation to get that under the tree for Christmas, but it looks like it will be so damn worth it!

The Rogue Trader release in 3-4 months’ time makes me wonder just when we can be expecting the last three Codexes for Warhammer 40k, though. There has been a hell of a lot of talk about a big campaign box for Space Wolves vs Orks, but as we’re now getting closer to the end of the year, I just don’t see this coming out anytime soon. It’s been two months since the announcement, on 1 June, about these books – looking at the last such announcement, when those for Imperial Knights, Harlequins and Deathwatch were talked about, it’s roughly two-to-three months between the announcement and the books being released. So I’m guessing that September will see the start of these things. It’s kinda unheard of for a big box game to have not been spoiled if it is, in fact, only a month or so away…

But that said, the Warhammer 40k facebook page did just unveil this…

Space Wolves vs Genestealer Cult? Who saw that one coming?!

Just another little tangent there! I did say this would be rambling!

Where was I? Ah yes, how much I need to be more careful with my purchases, rather than simply throwing my money at all the new shiny releases. Erm…

At any rate, after almost a year where I moved house and have since struggled to find a place to paint properly, I’m finding myself sliding closer to that point where I’m happily applying acrylic to plastic, so I’m hoping that I can at least make good on one of the many, many painting promises I’ve talked about on this blog before the end of the year…

While I like the thought of Tyranids and having a big bugs army, I’m also moving back towards my Drukhari, having lost interest a little when I felt the Codex had tried to force me to play a mixed list. However, I think I’m most excited right now for the Militarum Tempestus army that I’ve been wanting to build for a number of years now.

To date, I’ve still only painted two models for them. However, this is where the joy of Kill Team comes in, as I’ve excitedly been writing up a list that I think will make it relatively easy to get done, at which point I might as well just carry on and paint up a platoon! Oh, I make it sound so easy. But I think, if I can get some of these done, and some more Skitarii painted by the end of the year, I’ll be a very happy bunny, indeed.

So, thanks for reading all the way through this extremely rambling blog post about my jumbled thoughts on 40k right now, as well as something of a potted history of my life with the game, and stay tuned to the blog as I begin to delve more seriously into Kill Team campaigns – and, of course, Necromunda!

Kill Team – I finally played it!

Hey everybody!
Yes, that’s right, the game is two weeks old now, and I’ve finally gotten round to playing it. I suppose, after seeing my facebook feed filled with posts in the 40k Skirmish Community page, it was time to actually see what the fuss was all about!

I took along a group of 15 Genestealer Cultists (not all of them painted…) and had an absolute blast, though was pretty badly brutalised in both the games we managed to play. That brings me to my first point, however: ordinarily, I play at my local GW for about 4 hours on a Friday evening, and games usually get to round 3 at the most. That’s probably due to the fact I play a lot of games against Orks, and have tailored a Drukhari list to be horde-based as well, but even so! Getting two full games in one night, as opposed to a bit of a game, is actually really good value for money, and I’m quite impressed!

My opponent was a chap called Kev, against whom I’ve played a couple of games, either with Tau or Necrons against his Deathwatch. This time, he was sticking with the power armour, and brought five Grey Knights. First of all, then, you can see that my force was three times the number of his, but if you know anything about anything, you’ll probably realise that Genestealer Cultists are pretty weak and pathetic, and really require that horde mentality to just drown an opponent in bodies. 15 wasn’t the maximum I could have taken, for sure, as I’m sure a pure Neophyte list would easily get to 20 models, but I’d allowed for just 11 of the regular chaps, alongside a Metamorph, two Acolytes, and a Purestrain. It was a fairly nice mix, I thought, but none of those combat-orientated gentlemen could make it across the table in one piece, and so I was pretty decimated, relying on just a single Neophyte gunner and the rest of my dudes to carry the day.

Unsurprisingly, the day was not carried!

See, not only are Genestealer Cultists physically weak in comparison to anything in power armour, but their weapons are also pretty terrible when talking about ranged firepower. I don’t think there was anything above S3 in my list! Trying to position myself to get unobstructed shots left me woefully out in the open in turn, so I could either risk being shot outright, or else I was hitting and wounding on 5s, which I’m not very good at doing!

The best moments for me came when I suddenly remembered, in my second game, that I had blasting charges on everybody, and managed to get one of them as five shots, though sadly all of the damage I ever inflicted all night was saved!

So I think Genestealer Cults vs Grey Knights is a really bad match-up.

We played two games, as I said, and while we didn’t actually link them together as a campaign, I think the system in the book is actually a really nice way of implementing such a thing. There’s a lot of negativity that I’ve seen about the fact they’re selling dice packs with d10s “just for the campaign stuff that nobody is bothering with anyway”, but I think it’s currently too early in the game’s life to be saying such things. We’ve already seen the NOVA open stuff they’ve put out, and a flurry of posts have happened recently where local stores (my own, included) are going to be kicking off store campaigns from next month, which actually makes a lot of sense as we do need to get to grips with the actual rules first of all!

I do love the new terrain that they’ve produced for the game, I think that looks really cool. While perhaps not as exciting as the Sector Mechanicus, it does nevertheless feel very grim-dark, and I have to say, I’m having a hard time not snapping up that Basilicanum. I’m getting married next month though, and would like to have some money left for the honeymoon…

Overall, then, I think my first impressions of the game were really good. It doesn’t so much feel like just a small-scale version of 40k, but instead definitely has its own feel. The turn structure is slightly different, which did take some getting used to at first, but I actually think I prefer some things (charges in the movement phase feels about right, somehow!)

Squad building was something I wasn’t entirely sure I’d like as much as I have ended up doing. Having every single chap be his own man seemed a little daunting to me somehow, like it’s easier to keep track of a blob of models, but when each one has its own personality, it just felt like it would be too much. That’s probably one of the perils of having a larger team (that and Nerve tests… urgh…) Suffice it to say, though, once I’d gone through that Lithuanian baby names website to name all 15 members of my cult, I’d gotten into the process quite a great deal, and have since been planning similar adventures for more Kill Teams that I have on paper. Good ol’ fashioned English names for my Tempestus Scions? Damn right!

So anyway, I’ll leave you with the make-up of my Cultist kill-team as I played it last night – I think against non-power-armoured armies it might be a little more fun to play, but I’m also thinking of a few swaps I want to make to add a bit more oomph to the roster overall…

Cult of the Bladed Cog kill team

Necromunda!

Hey everybody!
This weekend saw the pre-orders for House Cawdor, the fourth gang available for the new Necromunda: Underhive, and between this and the recent kill team stuff going on, it’s gotten me thinking a lot about the skirmish stuff from GW.

I’m a huge fan of games that see massed infantry with some decent heavy support stuff, so skirmish games might not be the first thing I go for. But there’s no denying it, long and drawn-out 40k games can be a bit tiring after a while. I mean, sure, some folks will relish playing for 4+ hours, but while I love the look of seeing my army out on the battlefield, I can’t say that I relish setting aside an entire day to play one game. Certainly not if it isn’t in the comfort of my own home, where I can at least take food and bathroom breaks to my heart’s content…

So, instead I’ve been thinking about these skirmish things, and after excitedly getting my Kill Team box last weekend, I’ve been poring over the rulebook and building teams left and right – fortunately, I don’t think I need to buy any additional models right now, though I don’t think that will stop me in the long run from buying yet more little dudes…

Kill Team is a subject for another blog, though – today, I want to talk about the other 40k-themed skirmish game that has been out for almost a year now, Necromunda: Underhive.  I bought this game for myself last Christmas, and despite having built up the Escher gang that came in the box, and also investing heavily in literally everything that has come out for the game between then and now, I haven’t really done anything about it. Hm.

So this weekend, I’ve been looking through the rules, and through each of the (currently) three Gang War supplements, and have been trying to fathom out (a) how the game works, and (b) how gang construction works. Doing so has gotten me really intrigued, I must say, to the point where I’ve gone and built up my first actual gang, a group of six Van Saar gangers that I’m now ready to paint and see if I can get some games with them!

I’m really excited for this game, and will continue to buy everything for it as it gets released, from my retailer-of-choice for these things, Alchemists Workshops. They’re not too far away, and definitely have some fantastic deals going on with GW and more, so you should definitely check them out if you’re after some little dudes of your own!

Stay tuned for more blogs on Necromunda coming soon, as I fumble my way through the Underhive!!