Hey everybody,
It seems to be going really well at the minute, and I’m riding a bit of a hobby progress wave, so thought I’d come here to ramble about it, as I usually do! I’m feeling really positive about the hobby and stuff, so I think it’s good to celebrate this (and, hopefully, keep that wave going!)
I had a second game with the Sisters at the start of the week, again against JP and his Imperial Fists. This was a much better game for me, though I still lost – I had tweaked the list to bring the unit of Celestians that I talked about last time, and while my game plan didn’t entirely go according to plan, I was nevertheless able to play with more of the rules than last time, getting enough buffs that I was able to actually be a part of the game, rather than providing target practice. So that was nice!
Of course, it was an uphill struggle even without having a lot of units shot off the field before I have a chance to play. I was able to hide the bulk of my army in dense cover, so the Imperial Fists thing of ignoring light cover didn’t come into play, yet there were a few units left out in the open. However, giving him a tank as the main target did mean that I was able to survive enough to be able to do stuff when my turn came. Being S3 T3 is a distinct disadvantage, though, and I found myself shooting meltaguns at infantry, which is always just a waste. A few of the tricks that I was trying to pull off depended on dice rolls, such as the Dialogus hymns of battle, and so naturally I failed every time. The addition of improving AP on weapons became key, though, as we had decided to play with the Armour of Contempt rule from the balance dataslate, meaning that we were both benefiting from the rule that worsens the AP by 1. Being able to keep my melta shots at AP-4 helped a lot, and the flamers benefited too.
However, while I tried to focus on the mission rather than getting distracted by killing stuff, I was only able to score 24 victory points, while JP had picked better secondary objectives for 37 points by the end of round 3, at which point we decided to call it a day. It was also 1am, and I had work the next day, so…
I’m really enjoying learning the army, but the way Primaris Marines are able to build a better army list that just interlocks so well, whereas I’m fighting to try to do half of that stuff the same, just makes it such a battle to play well. I think that Sisters are really not the army to take against this kind of army. Even though I was able to kill the Redemptor Dreadnought, the Impulsor, the Assault Intercessor squad and the Aggressors, I lost almost my entire army doing so because it took so much effort to bring stuff down. I’m stopping short of saying it was oppressive, but in general I don’t think the game is fun when it is skewed so well in favour of Space Marines. Something I really disagreed with, and yet it is clearly the right rule, was how a squad of five Intercessors was able to destroy my unit of Seraphim by shooting through a building. The rules are clear, that building is light cover, and Imperial Fists ignore light cover, so as they could see through the windows they shot, and they killed. It’s like shooting through an office block, basically – they are just allowed to do it. Meh.
I’m not going to abandon them, but for our next game, I’m switching back to Necrons, as I have been thinking a lot about getting them back to the table, and JP is keen to see how well the Fists fare against 60+ tesla carbines. So that should be fun.
Following on from my August Audit blog at the start of the month, I’ve been thinking a little bit about how I could potentially plan for the rest of the year and aim to get things finished. I don’t want to go crazy of course, as I find when I spread myself too thinly I end up doing very little of anything. The time around Easter this year, when I stalled with my Tau and promptly spent about three months in a bit of a hobby wilderness, moving from odd project to odd project without any kind of focus. Sure, I finished painting 10 Chaos Marines and 10 Khorne Bloodreavers, but I wasn’t able to sustain either into any kind of proper project.
At the minute, I’m finding myself incredibly focused on the Sisters, and have been amazed at how easy and quick my paint scheme is to work with. I’ve painted a ten-woman squad in a single week, whereas with other projects ten-model units have taken easily twice that length of time! The Celestians have taken just a handful of days, too. I think, having a very clear idea of what each model needs, coupled with the drive to get them painted for games, has meant I’m able to push through and get a lot done quite quickly.
I find myself comparing this current hobby streak with my painting progress for the Genestealer Cultists last autumn/winter. In the period of four months from September to December, I ended up painting almost a full army, eleven units at something well over 1000 points in total. While five of those units were single-model characters, I still painted 30 Neophytes and 5 Metamorphs, so I was no slouch! Currently, my Sisters tally is looking a whole lot better – it hasn’t even been a month, and already I’ve painted up 17 models, with another five almost done. If I can keep this going, I should really outstrip my Genestealer Cults record by the time Christmas rolls around!
I’m trying to stop short of actually planning anything, as I find that generally means I fail at the first hurdle and move on to something else entirely, but I think my main goals for the foreseeable future are to finish painting the Repentia and the Penitent Engine, then to paint the 10 Novitiates and the 5 Retributors. That still leaves a bit of a chunk to paint, but it’s all I want to focus on for the time being. For all that I said the colour scheme has been easy to do, I still need to give some thought to that for the Novitiates, as I’m not sure if I should paint them a little differently…
I’m still fully intending to ride this wave of getting the Sisters painted, of course, as it would be lovely to have a fully painted army, but I do find myself also wanting to get some Necrons units finished off, as I was quite horrified to discover they weren’t entirely completed. And it would be great to get a few more Tau models done, considering that was going to be a big push for me this year, with a new army and all!
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