Tag: Age of Sigmar

What else am I doing with Warcry?

Hey everybody,
Following on from my blog the other day, I thought I’d continue the theme here today and talk some more about what I’m doing with this tremendous game!

I’ve talked a lot about the fact that I love this game for the Chaos-y feel it has, and gaming in the Eightpoints was what had really grabbed my attention back when it first came out. The move into including the Age of Sigmar stuff has long given me mixed vibes – while on the one hand it makes thematic sense for Lumineth or Stormcast to try to purge the forces of Chaos, on another it always feels a little bit tacked-on, especially if you don’t even have Chaos warbands present on the table. I suppose, though, that this has always been where my hipster self wants to keep the game as a Chaos-centric masterpiece, and so I was rebelling against the inclusion of other races from the mortal realms.

Since Warcry moved to Ghur, though, and we’ve had warbands that have been much more diverse in nature, I have slowly been getting over myself, and have started to think about other warbands. With the compendium available for free via the WarCom website, it’s a fairly straightforward process to build a warband and then work out what models you need to buy, although due to the fact AoS units can be equipped in multiple ways, it sometimes needs some thought as to what is what!

Now, I have somewhat dabbled with this process once already, when I assembled a Khorne Bloodbound list for use in a game. However, this time, I wanted to go through the whole process anew, especially to make sure I’ve not been missing anything important! 

Warband Building
So as we know, warbands in Warcry come in at 1000 points. You start with a Hero, who is the warband leader, and can include no more than three heroes including the leader. Warbands must be between 3 and 15 fighters strong, and all fighters must come from the same faction. And that, my friends, is that!

I’m going to start by revisiting the Khorne Bloodbound warband idea that I had back in 2021. I think that warband was led by a Wrathmonger, but let’s see what’s on offer for us in the new and updated Warcry 2.0. To begin, I should say that I have all of these models, so I’m not going to end up buying more plastic to fuel this project!

I’ve started out with an Exalted Deathbringer with Ruinous Axe. This chap comes in at 185 points, and is the hero and my leader. I have decided to take the max number of heroes allowed, so have also got a Bloodsecrator (the guy with the massive banner of Khorne) and a Bloodreaver Chieftain. I’ve then got three Bloodreavers, two Blood Warriors, and a Wrathmonger, which gives me a 1000 point warband. I had hoped to split it naturally into three parts, for the hammer, shield and dagger, but the way I had thought it could work wasn’t an entirely equal split, as the Bloodreavers form a group of four. But I’ll have a think about that. It could be that I have each of the heroes leading one of the three groups, then the three Bloodreavers allocated one to each, then the Wrathmonger paired with the leader as a kind of bodyguard, then two Blood Warriors into each of the other two squads. But that distinction will be made when it comes time to field them.

That was good, let’s do it again!

My next warband is going to be Slaanesh Sybarites, for which I bought the Warcry dedicated box a couple of years back and promptly did nothing with. It comes with a unit of Blissbarb Archers, and a unit of Myrmidesh Painbringers/Symbaresh Twinsouls. For this warband, I think I’ll be going for a mix of stuff, starting with the Shardspeaker hero as the leader. The Shardspeaker is a wizard, who can reduce the number of attacks coming in within a 6” range, which sounds like it should be quite powerful, defensively. The rest of the warband is made up of Blissbarb Archers of various flavours, and Myrmidesh Painbringers. The second hero is a Myrmidesh Painmaster, which I think sounds glorious. It surprises me how expensive these Slaaneshi hosts cost – the cheapest unit is an archer at 95 points, so there’s no option for a basic cultist around the 60 points mark. However, the Painbringers do have heavy armour, and they have the ability to increase their damage output for a Double. I’ve gone for one of the Symbaresh fighters, the guy with the twirling Excrutiator Lash, simply because the model looks awesome. He has access to the Quad ability Ego-Driven Excess, which allows them to move or attack if they take a fighter out of action, so I’m hoping for some delightful agonies coming from this guy! Finally, we have three archers to round out the band. The first is my third hero, the Blissbarb high tempter, and she comes with two friends plus a haemonculus, who can increase the strength of the archers’ attacks when they use their Triple ability. Using archers in Warcry seems a bit like cheating – the game is predominantly melee focused, after all, but these guys have a range up to 15”, which could near as damn it cover the board. I suppose I could make a warband out of Painbringers and ignore them, but the models look so lovely it’s hard to ignore! However, they still don’t quite sit right with me…

So what does all this mean?
The basic game of Warcry saw the original warbands fighting for dominance in the Eightpoints, and they were all very distinctive warbands that had a clear leader, champion, heavy infantry and so on in their numbers. With the addition of Age of Sigmar miniatures, however, things are a bit different, because while units are generally led by a sergeant of some sort, there are generally better heroes available who are much more fancy than their squadmates. This has led to profiles being created for such Hero units as the Shardspeaker, or the Exalted Deathbringer, and it does feel a little bit like we’re now playing Age of Sigmar Skirmish rather than Warcry as a distinct game. I suppose this is where a lot of the noise about Warcry warbands being slightly outclassed by AoS warbands has come from.

However, by including profiles for a whole host of models, it does make things rather exciting, now that I have looked into it properly. Sure, the Warcry warbands don’t have Heroes per se, but when AoS warbands are going up against each other, I would imagine that this isn’t so much of an issue. See, in addition to the general suite of faction abilities that each warband can access, AoS-based warbands also have a set of Hero-specific abilities they can access. The more I have looked into this, it doesn’t actually seem to be all that bad in the new edition. For instance, in the Slaanesh Sybarites compendium entry, we can see that there are a total of 6 faction abilities, plus 3 hero abilities. That sounds a lot, when you consider that original factions like the Iron Golem only have their 6 faction abilities. But those AoS faction abilities only seem to extensive because their possible roster is correspondingly larger. The Slaanesh Sybarites can draw models from across a total of seven kits, while the Iron Golem only have the one. So a lot of the abilities we’re seeing for Slaanesh fighters can actually only be utilised by one fighter type each. The Corvus Cabal has two abilities that any fighter can use, whereas there is only one universal ability for Slaanesh, and every other ability is tied in to a specific fighter type.

It’s interesting to see how things have worked out, to give the best kind of representation without going too crazy. I mean, Slaanesh Daemons can actually field The Contorted Epitome as a unit, which seems a bit excessive…

Anyway, I think that’s all for now. I still need to look into allies, monsters and all the rest of it, but I think for now I have two warbands that will need my attention!!

What am I doing with Warcry?

Hey everybody,
In keeping with my current Warcry obsession, I thought I’d update you all today with what I’ve been doing with the game since my last post about it, which turned into a bit of a rant, really! Sorry about that. Hopefully, from here on in, we’ll be able to stay a lot more positive!

I’ve been busily working on my Darkoath Savagers, which were one of the two warbands that came in the Red Harvest box set. These are wonderful-looking models, and I really have enjoyed the painting so far. It’s perhaps going to be a bit difficult to distinguish them from some of the other warbands, such as the Untamed Beasts or the Spire Tyrants, who also have a generic kind of Chaos Marauder look about them. At least with some of the warbands, there is a very clear distinction between them – you wouldn’t mistake an Iron Golem for an Unmade, for instance! 

Speaking of these two, last week I played a game using the Iron Golem and the Unmade as my warbands, in an attempt to get a handle on the rules once more. It was a lot of fun, as well – the Unmade had to keep all fighters in the dagger alive by round 4, and even though the dagger included the Blissful One, the Iron Golem were able to take that model out by concentrated fire, however a lone Awakened One was able to escape the melee and hide in the ruins, allowing for an Unmade victory in the end.

I wasn’t playing with the new Reactions, however it’s interesting to see what has been given out to some of these warbands. The Unmade have the opportunity to inflict wounds back at an attacker, whereas the Iron Golem can turn critical hits into hits, which might be crucial. Looking further out, the Darkoath Savagers also have a similar Reaction ability to turn critical hits into normal hits, and I like the Tarantulos Brood ability to turn hit rolls of 1 or 2 into 2 points of damage back to the attacker! I think some of these will definitely bear more investigation as time goes on, because it adds an extra level of strategy to the game that I really like. Games are already quick and brutal, of course, and the back-and-forth activation means that you’re never really stuck just waiting for long, but adding these Reactions in does seem to be a good way to keep the focus tight for the whole battle.

My game has really shown me how I need to get painting, though, because it’s just no fun playing with black-primed models. I had initially thought to play Iron Golem vs Untamed Beasts, but that would have been silly as both warbands have been primed black and left. I also have the Cypher Lords which have been half-painted for ages now, so I might try to get those finished next, and keep the momentum up across the summer to get more painted so that I have more to play with.

I’m also really interested in getting some different sorts of warbands going. In the past, I had tried as much as possible to stick to the Warcry exclusive warbands, although I have used my Khorne Bloodbound in the past. I’ve got a lot of cards for other stuff, though, and with the compendium available for free on the WarCom website, it has got me thinking about other kinds of warbands. Sylvaneth have always been on my radar, of course, and as a longtime Lizardmen fan, the new Seraphon models could make for another interesting addition! Part of it is trying to find something new to paint, and part of it is scratching that itch for longtime favourite models to add to the mix.

However, Age of Sigmar and Warhammer Fantasy are so big, in my mind, with my love of Warhammer that I can’t really help myself, truth be told. I came to Games Workshop through a love of the Fantasy setting, and so whenever I move from 40k to the fantasy side of the house, it always seems to bring about the nostalgia-feels. I think it would be awesome to get some Sylvaneth and Seraphon warbands, even without knowing what exactly I can do with them, but just for the sake of having these miniatures. Now that the Compendium, from what I’ve heard, has sought to balance things across the whole game, and the Warcry-specific warbands aren’t left behind, it might be the time to get some Lizardmen and Tree-spirits in my life once more!

Musings on Warcry…

Hey everybody,
I am really enjoying Warcry once again, diving into the setting and the lore in particular, but also getting more miniatures painted for the game. It’s been quite some time since I last played the game, but I suppose lockdowns didn’t help back when I was last feeling in the mood for this one. I’m working on my buddy James to see if he would want to try it out, as we’ve played Age of Sigmar and he was a fan of that, having a Slaves to Darkness army already. So the infection vector is there. I think JP has already had his interest piqued, as well, so hopefully I can convince him to try it out again as well.

I have a lot of stuff for this game, almost all of the Warcry-specific stuff from the “first edition” of the game (the red-topped version). There is just something undeniably awesome about this game, from the aesthetics to the actual gameplay itself. It’s fast and brutal, and I absolutely love it. The original setting of the Eightpoints, with Chaos warbands fighting each other for glory and recognition by Archaon, was an absolute triumph in my opinion, and initially, the move out of the realm of Chaos and into the realm of beasts had slightly cooled me to the whole thing. Indeed, GW seemed to be trying to push the game in a very different direction, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go that way.

It was a bit of a weird decision, in my mind, to make Warcry into a season-based game like Kill Team. I do get why they did it for the latter – the new Kill Team was already pumping out quarterly boxes, but the Gallowdark stuff allowed them to provide a homogenous setting while simultaneously supporting and expanding Kill Team, and the Boarding Actions sub-rules for regular 40k. Some noise was initially made that following all four boxes for Warcry would allow players to get an Age of Sigmar size table of terrain at the end of it, but the fact that Warcry warbands only ever filter into Slaves to Darkness armies means that it doesn’t have the same reach into its “parent game” the same way that Kill Team could. Warcry boxes have, thankfully, not sold out anywhere near as badly as those for Kill Team, meaning that it’s still quite possible to pick some up whereas I have only ever seen physical copies of Into the Dark, with no shop I know getting copies of the others. There are definite scalping problems with Kill Team, and I hope that never finds its way into Warcry.

However, there’s no denying that the game is still incredible, with the “second edition” rules being more of a tidy-up than a re-write. It is still the same game, from what I can see, with just the stat-block changes being the most significant change, but also the addition of Reactions to the game. These work when an enemy fighter activates against one of your ready fighters. That ready fighter can make a Reaction by spending one of their two actions to do something, either one of the Universal Reactions, of a faction-specific one. I think Reactions first became a thing in the Horus Heresy revamp, and is slowly starting to bleed over into more games, starting here.

Last week, I wrote a blog pondering what could be next for Warcry, given that we’re now at the end of the season and things over in Nottingham are pausing for breath (slightly) before the launch of 10th edition. I wonder if August will see a new season announcement, or if we’ll have something different? The Ghur lineup was interesting, from what I’ve heard, because Heart of Ghur (the first box) is no longer in production, meaning there is currently no Warcry starter set. You can get some of the subsequent big boxes, but they function as expansions for the first box, so you only get miniatures, board and a campaign book – no dice or tokens, and no rulebook. Whether they will do something to consolidate what we had during this season by bringing out a new starter, or whether the terrain will be reboxed as with many of the Savage Lands boxes from first edition, who knows. Unlike what happened with Kill Team, Warcry never saw a release of the new terrain elements when one box was replaced by another during the season.

At least all of the warbands can still currently be bought quite freely. I understand Kasrkin and the Arbites are still pretty much gold-dust.

I would love to get a proper starter box though, even if it is re-releasing Heart of Ghur or a reboxing of elements from across the season, just so that there’s a way to get that stuff. But it will probably have to wait for 10th edition’s dust to settle first, so there will doubtless be time to save up the pennies. Going forward, I do hope they kinda scrap the seasonality, and instead produce a starter, then maybe 6 months down the line give an expansion to that with some new or different terrain. During the first season, it was fine to have that starter box, then boxes of warbands which you could pick up if they interested you. The terrain boxes weren’t always actually available (I’m still upset about the mausoleum terrain box being sold out everywhere), but it didn’t seem to be quite so frenetic and exhausting as it has been to keep up with the pace lately. Even though I wasn’t following the season myself, just looking on, it’s been a terrible environment for people trying to keep up with everything.

Let’s be honest, if you have the money to keep up with the pace of Games Workshop’s release schedule, you probably don’t have the time to play anything because you’re busy working seventeen jobs to pay for it all.

I don’t want this post to become any more of a rant, though, so now that I’ve got all of that out of my system, let’s move on!

I’m hopefully going to get round to writing some more about Warcry as the rest of the year goes on, as it is such a good game, I feel like it deserves more recognition here on the blog. Stay tuned!

What’s next for Warcry?

I wonder what’s coming next for Warcry? I have kinda checked out of this recent “season” with the revamped setting in the realm of beasts, mainly because it was too many big boxes that GW wanted me to buy. However, I’ve been looking at the minis when they did get released, and I am very, very impressed with it all. In terms of the overall look of the game, Warcry really vies with Necromunda for me as the best-looking game GW puts out.

There have been four box sets in the new Warcry 2.0, starting with the Heart of Ghur last summer. This box came with the Horns of Hashut, who were almost mistaken at first for Chaos Dawrves, and the Rotmire Creed, a sect of Nurgle-worshippers from the swamps.

We also got the fantastic jungle-swamp terrain that continued to form a continuous theme throughout the season of boxes.

The next box was Sundered Fate, released in the autumn and included the delightful Jade Obelisk, Tzeentch-flavoured cultists, going up against Skinks. Again, there was a backbone of terrain with some new bits thrown in to keep things fresh.

Box three, Bloodhunt, came out at the start of this year, and gave us Vampire Counts vs Khorne cultists, with yet more new terrain pieces…

By now, the similarities with the Kill Team model should be immediately apparent. There is a certain amount of terrain that is recycled from box to box, with new bits alongside two new warbands. The difference from Kill Team, however, is that both of these warbands are brand new, there’s no upgrade sprue for an older force.

Nightmare Quest, the final box in the season, has been a slight let-down in some respects, because rather than continuing the trend of having a god-aligned warband to give us a new take on Slaanesh, we’ve got Stormcast vs Flesh-Eater Courts. In addition, the “new” terrain for this box is the realmshaper engine that has been released previously as Seraphon faction terrain.

Still, it’s interesting to see how the season has progressed. With all four boxes, you get a great set up that should give a lot of interesting opportunities for tree house tables of terrain, and I do like it!! Unfortunately, there is another difference with the Kill Team model here, in that the terrain has not been made available separately from the big box sets. You can still get the warbands, of course, but if you missed out on the big box, then you’re in for a tough time trying to build a massive jungle-swamp table. It’s a real shame, because this stuff is beautiful.

With all this said, though, the point of this blog is me wondering what they’re going to do next with the game. I really enjoyed the Eightpoints setting, and it was looking through my Warcry collection of minis from the “first season” (if we’re going to call it that) that got me writing all this, anyway. I would absolutely love to see a return to more ruined towns and off-the-wall stuff like Red Harvest’s chaos-tinged mine terrain. Hopefully there will continue to be some very cool models coming out, regardless.

The most important thing, though, is to slow down with the release schedule! Releasing big boxes that cost over £100 each, for different game systems, often on the same day, is just forcing a lot of players to pick one game and stick to it. Why they couldn’t space these things out more is beyond me. As it is, there’s just too much coming out to keep up with, and it’s starting to scare me a bit. I wanted to get into Kill Team, but the debacle of the Gallowdark season not being available has soured me on that. I do now kinda wish I’d kept up instead with Warcry, but having a fun skirmish game that saw some releases every so often suddenly ramping up and being aggressively milked in the same way has kinda put me off that, as well.

I’ve not actually played Warcry for some time, and certainly not with the new rule set, but I am now thinking about trying it out again. Obviously I’d only be going at it with my older warbands, although I have been taking a look at some of these newer bands with interest…

I hope that, whatever the future is for Warcry, it will be more under control, and will be available to buy freely when time and funds allow, rather than these heavy pressure sales we’ve had of late!

Back under the mountain

At the weekend, I had a game of Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm with my mate James, who is starting a Slaves to Darkness army and had picked up Khagra’s Ravagers. We’d talked about the game last year, which is what kinda prompted me to investigate all of the boxes that I have lying around, so it was nice to finally have a proper game with it!

Well, I say “proper” game; neither of us was really that sure of the rules, so we spent a long time trying to figure things out! One of the most critical aspects of the game was also a bit of a mystery to us until the third round, as well! See, we were playing it where each fighter had an activation, so it was getting quite baffling when we were talking about situations where fighters could potentially move and shoot – how could that happen, if they’ve already activated? Well, near the start of round three, and after a quick google search, it dawned on me – the player has four activations, not the fighter, so you can activate a single fighter multiple times if you so wish!

How foolish we were!

I think we were also both quite impressed by how tactical the third round became. We’d very much just moved a bit and had a bit of a scrap in the middle, and over the course of the first two rounds, I’d managed to score two objectives, and James had taken two of my fighters out of action, so we were tied on two Glory each. However, two of his fighters only had one hit point left, so if I was able to kill then both, I’d win. If I did nothing, he would win for having more fighters on the board. It suddenly became quite tense, especially when I was unable to kill anything! As it turned out, James was also able to score an objective because all of his fighters were Inspired, so he won 3-2 regardless, but it was funny how the game had been quite nice and free-flowing until that last round, when suddenly things started to really matter!!

All in all, it was a really fun game, even if I did lose, and it’s got me thinking once again about trying to play it some more. I only have the first four boxes, but I think we’re on season 7 or something now – I don’t see myself getting back into it very much, but I would like to see if I can perhaps pick up some more of the Direchasm stuff while it’s still out in the wild. Especially if the Bonereapers warband shows up anywhere, as I think those models would be quite good for my larger army, if nothing else!!

I’ve done a tiny bit of tinkering with my deck, ahead of any potential future games, as I had been using the “starter” Lumineth deck from the box. I don’t have a great deal from Direchasm, though, so there isn’t a lot of scope (unlike my collection from Nightvault).

But anyway, it’s something that I hope that we can play some more, going forward!

Hobby Goals 2022 – two months left

With just two months left of this year, it’s time to check-in with the hobby goals and see what I can do to get myself back on track before new year. Let’s just take another look at what I had decided to do this year:
1. Paint more terrain
2. Start painting the Adepta Sororitas
3. Finish painting the Ossiarch Bonereapers kits that I have
4. Continue to paint up the Genestealer Cultists
5. Paint up the Tyranid models that are currently primed
6. Try to sort out the AdMech, Drukhari, Necrons and Chaos Marines, and other bits!
7. Start painting the new Tau army

I’ve got a fairly nice start to the sector mechanicus stuff now, with two of the big kits done. I was toying with possibly doing a third, but for now I’ve moved into other stuff, namely the Haemotrope Reactor, and I am thinking I might try to get at least one armoured container before the year is out. But I don’t want to go too crazy, as I seem to have a lot that I want to get through!

Considering when I last looked at the hobby goals, back in July, I hadn’t done anything with the Sisters, I now have a whole bunch of them done! 30+ models painted across the last couple of months is pretty good going, even if I say so myself! I’m really enjoying the colour scheme as well, it’s quite easy to replicate across the various units, and it’s great to see the army coming together – at long last!!

Okay, so I haven’t actually painted any more Bonereaper miniatures, but after playing my first game at the end of July, I did build these cavalry up in short order. They’re primed and ready, but just not on the list for me right now.

Now, I haven’t painted up any more Genestealer Cultists since that great run I had on them twelve months back, but you never know whether I might still pick up the bikers before Christmas! For the last couple of weeks, they have been back on my radar…

Tyranids made a surprise return to my painting queue a while back, and I finished the carnifexes that have been hanging about for a few years. It was a surprise move, but it was nice to have a couple more models painted up for these bugs. I think I mentioned it before, but I do consider the models that I have as a complete force, so in a way it is quite nice to dip in and out every so often to just add to a couple more to the painted pile, as it were! I have a few more primed models now, but as with the Bonereapers, I don’t think I’m going to be adding any more to the list of what to do by the end of the year.

My Chaos Marines have had a bit of love this year, with a few more models added to the painted pile – the first squad of Legionnaires and the Sorcerer are now joining the Master of Possession! I had hoped to start on the Cultists this year, but as is now becoming a theme with this post, it probably isn’t something that I’m going to get round to soon…

My Necrons have actually had a couple of outings this year, and I’ve been trying to spruce some of the models up to get the blue, in particular, looking better. I’m actually really pleased to say that all of the troops have been looked over now. I also recently finished getting the tomb blades painted up, which is very good! Slowly but surely, I’m getting all of these mechanical chaps painted! In a surprise twist, I am intending to get some more Necrons done – hopefully I’ll be able to get some Lychguard done soon, anyway.

The Dark Eldar seem to have been making a bit of a stealth return, after doing the Raider, plus of course the Wych Cult!

It’s one of my favourite armies that I own, and I’m really excited to have been able to get more of these painted recently. The Wych Cult in particular is good to get to the table, as they’ve been languishing for ages now. Unfortunately, I still haven’t been able to get a game with them, though I hope that will change in due course. I’m also hoping that I might get some more Dark Eldar painted soon, too…

The Tau project is a curious one. I started the year really strongly with getting two units of Pathfinders, a unit of Fire Warriors, and the Commander done within the space of about ten weeks. I guess I was a little burnt out though? I started casting around for other projects as a bit of a palette cleanser, and eight months on, I still haven’t picked them back up. I’m not saying that I’m going off them, not at all, but I seem to have a lot of competing projects and the Tau currently aren’t on the agenda, sadly. But I’m hoping that I will be able to get back to the Sa’cea Sept very soon!!

I’ve got a few projects for the winter that I’m looking forward to getting round to. Near to the top of that list is, of course, this beautiful Ash Wastes terrain. The tutorial video that I’ve been keeping in mind, from Mediocre Hobbies, reckons it won’t be long to get painted, but I’m not so sure – it is me, after all!! But you never know.

More Necrons, possibly more Dark Eldar, and likely more Sisters are all on the list for the next two months, though I’m also aware that we’re approaching Grey Knights season! If you’ve not been reading my blog for very long, every winter for the past 4-5 years, I’ve been working on my Grey Knights, and it now feels wrong for me to think about painting or playing with the army at any other time of the year! I think I will very likely be working once more on these models by December, so I am conscious that I don’t want to be over-loading myself with projects being crammed in just for the sake of things.

Join me in two months’ time, to see where I end up!!

Age of Sigmar: the first game

Well folks, I had my first Age of Sigmar game on Friday evening – my first in a very long time, and certainly my first with the new edition. For the curious among you, I last played in 2nd edition, in February 2019, with my Nighthaunt, and aside from it being really fun, I don’t really remember a great deal of it!

I have talked quite a bit about Age of Sigmar recently, as I was gearing up to play against James and his Slaves to Darkness, but through one thing or another, we just hadn’t been able to get round to it until now. As such, a lot of my research into the game had gone a bit by the wayside, so it was still a bit of a steep curve when we started!!

However…

Age of Sigmar plays fairly similar to 40k, with the broad game outline being fairly similar. That said, there is overall less going on, somehow. The fact that your weapon profile tells you what you need to hit and to wound is such a tiny difference that nevertheless speeds things up a lot, and the fact there are very few mixed units means oftentimes you’re fast rolling because everybody has a sword, for instance.

Also – shooting is so rare as to be non-existent.

In our game, because James only has the Start Collecting box, we were playing at roughly 570 points, so that allowed me two units of Mortek Guard, one unit of Immortis Guard, and my Boneshaper hero. The first unit of Guard died pretty quickly from being in the centre, whereas my Boneshaper kept reanimating models from the second unit, causing some significant irritation as they just would not die! However, the Immortis Guard really surprised us both. In a single round of close combat, they killed off the Chaos Lord, the next two rounds they saw off the cavalry, and in the final round they swept in to demolish what was left of the Chaos Knights. They only took a single wound in the sole game, too!

Beasts.

I think the Mortek Guard should be fielded in larger units, though – I know we were somewhat constrained by points, and by how I’ve built everything, but it’s just more reason to get that second box of Guard and bump each unit up to 20 bodies. I also think I needed a bit more speed – I very much moved up the field, then let everything close the gap and come to me. Since the game, I’ve built up my five Kavalos Deathriders, which I’m hoping to get painted at some point before we can arrange another game, as it might be good to mix things up a little!

Though I can’t help noticing how my horses are much smaller than those Chaos steeds…

It was a very fun game – made all the better because I actually ended up winning, 8-7! Didn’t expect that. We both agreed, though, that being able to just play the game, without needing to constantly check rules, was such a huge plus, and I think it’s a credit to the designers that the game is very sleek, by and large. Sure, we had some complex interactions come into play from command abilities, traits, and other special abilities, but even these were fairly straightforward to walk through. It made the game experience overall really quite light, in terms of being able to actually play the thing!

I had a fairly interesting idea pop into my head during the game, though. We were talking about my Bonereaper models, and I was explaining how they’re supposed to be bone constructs, not reanimated skeletons like the old Tomb Kings. In conjunction with the oft-repeated possibility of Mortek Archers being a unit for the army, I started to think about the old Tomb Kings line, and doing some mental comparisons, wondering whether GW might expand on the Bonereapers with Tomb Kings analogue units.

The current Bonereapers line up has skeleton swordsmen, skeleton spearmen, skeleton horsemen and big constructs akin to the Ushabti, along with the huge catapult that is a Screaming Skull mk2. On an unrelated note, it does make me chuckle how many paint names have survived when the units they were named after have gone up in smoke. But anyway. The Tomb Kings also had skeleton archers, which begs the question, if Bonereaper archers could be a thing, what else could we get?

I think Necropolis Knights are fantastic looking units, and would absolutely love it if somehow a similar thing could be introduced to this army. I’m not sure what they could be riding, but I reckon it could look very cool to have a different sort of mounted elite type of unit?

I think having chariots in the game is very important, to keep with the fantasy feel, and I do like the fact that several armies have their own take on this. I’d love to get something for the Bonereapers, it’s almost a no-brainer as we already have skeletal horses, and the crew are just Mortek Guard.

I suppose the Ushabti are a cross between the Immortis Guard and the Morghasts, and the Gothizzar Harvester replaces the huge scorpion (or possibly the Necrosphinx, though that was a very beautiful model…)

I’ve heard some rumours talking about more units, including the ever-present Archers rumours, but also mentioning a mounted hero, possibly mounted on some kind of war machine. I think the possibility of having a hero in chariot is perhaps a bit too close to the Tomb Kingd and Settra, but war machine rumours do come back to some kind of ballista that is mentioned in the lore. Now that we’re supposed to have Stormcast chariots and a few armies have ranged war machines, it does present some interesting speculation!!

I love variety, of course, so would definitely like to see more for my favourite Death faction!! Especially if I’m going to have the opportunity to play more AoS!!

Rumours and Reveals

Well then! We had a fairly exciting set of reveals from Games Workshop at the weekend, though as seems to be the standard for them these days, it ended with more teases…

To start with, we’ve now seen the new Warcry box in its full glory, and my goodness it looks good. It’s very different from what we’ve had up to now, which has been very firmly set in civilisation (albeit a ruined one, for the most part). We’re heading into the swamp, and they have really managed to get the kind of jungle theme of rope bridges and bamboo platforms down well. There are also weird statues, which I like, but it could probably do with more levels to it – it feels very much like the recent Ash Wastes box for Necromunda, actually, with a lot of platforms connecting to two treehouses.

The warbands do look good, even if the online community seems to be less than enthusiastic. However, I feel a bit sad to be saying it, but I think I’m going to pass on this box, as I have done on the Necromunda box. I have far more Warcry stuff than I have time to play it, so as the game moves forwards into the realm of beasts, I think I’m going to stick behind at the Eightpoints. Though I’m thinking I’ll pick up some Horns of Hashut when they release separately…

Speaking of Necromunda, the other houses will be getting their vehicles it seems, starting with the Goliath. They look suitably over the top with roid rage, so that makes perfect sense! I wonder what Delaque will have…

The next warband for Underworlds has been revealed as a Witch Hunter and his crew, and Blood Bowl are getting an Amazons team. The preview ended with this, however:

The Space Hulk preview from the other day has been shown as a bit of a red herring – we’re getting close-confines games, of course, but it’s Kroot vs Imperial Navy, of all things!! I’m really quite excited for this one, as I feel the Navy guys will be similar to the Elucidian Starstriders from the last Kill Team close quarters box, and show us another side of the Imperium that we rarely otherwise see. I’m glad it’s not Space Hulk with Primaris marines, because like many people, Space Hulk means something very specific and very precise to me.

However…

The last week or so has seen the beginnings of what I suppose is much more serious speculation about 10th Edition 40k, rather than idiots like me jokingly talking about it in terms of “aren’t we due a new edition soon?” and so on. If these rumours are to be believed, then the new edition is coming out next summer, and will be launched with a Tyranids vs Space Marines box, with the bugs getting a range refresh much like the Necrons had for 9th. There are all manner of rumours about plastic Dante and Primaris Furioso Dreadnought, as the poster boys will be the Blood Angels this time around.

Tyranids will get new Genestealer sculpts, and a bunch of other bugs, with what I guess will be a Silent King equivalent.

Now, the rumours have already proven to be false, because they were prefaced with the news of a new Kill Team box set on a space hulk featuring the new Kasrkin models vs new-sculpt Genestealers. Which obviously isn’t happening. In the past, though, rumour mongers have claimed to be talking from pictures rather than text, and the Navy sculpts do bear a similarity to the Guard models, so maybe the spiky crests of the Kroot were mistaken for scything talons? Who knows.

Personally, I hope we can get some more mileage out of 9th edition before they go shifting things around again. There’s no real need to do this, as we lost certainly one full year to the pandemic, so I would imagine that very few people were actually able to play this game for its entirety. I’ve spent quite a bit of money on this edition, codexes and the like, but it’s continually baffling to me when GW had been releasing actual gaming supplements when the majority of the world couldn’t get together to use them, and then promptly outdated them with yet more supplements. 9th edition has been such a weird time, hasn’t it?

However, the fact remains that 9th Edition is two years old this month, and recent editions of 40k have only lasted three years, so it’s possible…

Primaris terminators and Primaris devastators? Primaris Death Company? Primaris Dante? Who knows… but it’s going to be an interesting time seeing if there is any substance to these rumours…

Hobby Goals 2022 check-in

Hey everybody,
We’re now over the halfway point of 2022, so what better time than now to look back at those hobby resolutions from way back in January, and see how I’m making progress against them! What better time, indeed…

Let’s just remind ourselves what I had decided to do this year:
1. Paint more terrain
2. Start painting the Adepta Sororitas
3. Finish painting the Ossiarch Bonereapers kits that I have
4. Continue to paint up the Genestealer Cultists
5. Paint up the Tyranid models that are currently primed
6. Try to sort out the AdMech, Drukhari, Necrons and Chaos Marines, and other bits!
7. Start painting the new Tau army

Quite a modest list really, isn’t it?

So let’s take a look.

1. Paint more terrain
Well, I have made some efforts with the Galvanic Magnavent, which is built up in a differing configuration to the norm. Progress was fairly good at the start of the year, but I have barely touched it since. I think I do suffer a little with these big terrain pieces, because I don’t want to make them stand out too much, but equally I want to do a nice job on them, and getting the balance right has not been easy so far!

While I have barely painted any further terrain, I have been building all sorts. I’ve built up the Red Harvest terrain for Warcry; I’ve also built up the Defiled Ruins set. I’ve built up the terrain from Kill Team Nachmund and Kill Team Moroch, so have done nothing but increase the terrain backlog there!

I wonder if I’ll actually make good on this one…

2. Start painting the Adepta Sororitas
I have struggled with these girls so far. After coming up with a scheme for them, I promptly used it for my Tau army (more in a bit), and have kinda gone off the idea of painting the Sisters in the same way. For a while, I did consider just cutting my losses completely with the army and selling it off, and while I have moved away from thinking so extremely about it, those thoughts haven’t entirely gone away. The new Citadel paints announcement has given me pause on dumping the whole lot on ebay though, because I’m once again thinking about the white scheme that I was playing around with ages ago. I think potentially using some of those new paints could give some nice results, so I don’t want to make a final decision before trying them out, but for now I think I’m not really considering them as a project for 2022, if at all. I guess we’ll see how that changes, though!

3. Finish painting the Ossiarch Bonereapers kits that I have
I don’t think I’ve even taken them out of the wrapping! For a while, I was hoping to try Age of Sigmar with James, but I’m not sure if he still fancies giving it a go, so it’s all quiet on this front once again.

4. Continue to paint up the Genestealer Cultists
I haven’t painted anything for this army since December.

5. Paint up the Tyranid models that are currently primed
I haven’t painted up anything for this army, and much like the Sisters, I did consider offloading them at one point! However, I think I’m going to keep the army that I have, and will paint them up at some point. But again, like the Sisters, I don’t think this is a project for 2022 any longer.

6. Try to sort out the AdMech, Drukhari, Necrons and Chaos Marines, and other bits!
I think this is the one that has some of the best results so far! To start with, I am keeping the AdMech that I currently have. It’s around the 1000 points mark, although that doesn’t reflect the latest balance dataslate, but seems like it might be a fun army to try out and have. I haven’t done anything with my Drukhari beyond looking once more at the Wych Cult models I have (seems to be a ritual for January) and then putting them all away again. Necrons haven’t been touched, but Chaos Marines have had quite a lot of success, as I have finally finished painting the ten man Legionary squad, as well as the Sorcerer – so along with the Master of Possession, I have a nice start here! Furthermore, I have begun work on the two Greater Possessed, and I’m intending to finish off the ten-man Cultist squad that I’d started working on before I moved house three years ago. So that’s quite good progress, I think!

As far as “other bits” go, I have sold off the Blood Angels, so they are no longer a concern. I still have my Deathwatch, which I will likely keep the bulk of, if not all of them, but I’m intentionally not paying any more attention to those guys just now. I also have the Scions that I have flip-flopped over for so long now – earlier this year I did get them all out and had a look at everything, but they’re just such lovely models that I had to put them back again. I’m just not sure what I want to do with them, though…

I have not done anything more with Necromunda models, but I want to get moving with painting up more of them, as I love them so much. I haven’t yet bought into the whole Ash Wastes thing, but my local store still has a copy of the box on the shelves, and I’m being increasingly tempted by it – I think I want to know what this new thing for Kill Team is going to be first, of course! That Necromunda box is not cheap to be throwing a lot of money down for it, after all! Who knows, I might well end up getting it, as I do like the Nomads, and could possibly sell off the Orlocks, but I’m just not sure for now. I am, however, in the Necromunda mood…

There’s a lot more “other bits” to talk about though – more shortly!

7. Start painting the new Tau army
I’ve actually done really well with this one, as well! For the first few months of the year, I was really strictly painting Tau units, and have somehow come up with around 700 points of painted models so far. I’ve even played a game with them! Something seemed to happen around April though, firstly as the wheels seemed to come off a little as I started to paint my Chaos Marines, then I started to play different sorts of games, and my interest in 40k waned quite a bit. To get myself back into painting, I worked on some other projects, and have been slowly trying to get back into the painting groove, so to speak. I have quite a few units to paint, though, so I really ought to try and get back into them!

So, what have I been doing all year?!

Well, after my hiatus following the Tau run of painting, I have finished off ten Khorne Bloodreavers. I started to paint these guys last year, after a bit of an abortive attempt to get a Khorne army played in the summer of 2019. I started work on five of them, it took a long time to get even five done, but then the other five were painted in short order and here we are! Lovely stuff:

I have talked about Khorne before, but I think it’d be cool to have a small collection of these models painted. They take me back to the start of AoS, when I was really living the best hobby life, so even though I wasn’t into Khorne back then, it does bring back some fond memories! They’re also really nice models, with that tremendously Warhammer-y aesthetic of over-the-top spikes and muscles and skulls. It’s all just great, and I’m looking forward to getting more of these guys painted up! It’s not going to be a massive army, by any stretch, but I’m excited about it, so that’s half the battle!

Staying with Chaos, I’ve also finally started to work on the Exalted Seeker Chariot of Slaanesh, the model I fully built before realising I was going to make things ridiculously difficult for myself. It’s been languishing in painting limbo for years, but I’ve finally made some pretty decent headway with it recently, I think! Getting the steeds of Slaanesh colour scheme sorted was a big part of this, of course, but it’s turned out looking pretty nice, I think – painting the whole thing with Celestra Grey, then shading the mane with Drakenhof Nightshade and then using Apothecary White basically as a shade over the body. There’s something a little liquid about them, when you see them in the flesh, which I quite like – it’s like they’re a little weird, which I like. Perfect for Slaanesh of course, too!

Finally, I’ve painted these objective markers! I’ve had them hanging about for a long time now, I think I started to paint them last December or something. Well, here they are, finished! Not exactly the biggest of painting projects, and not exactly Golden Demon-standard, but they’re done, which is the main thing!

I’ve been building a great deal, of course – terrain, and kill teams. I feel a bit like I’m at the point now where I need to spend money on storage, which is never exciting to me! But so many of my miniatures now are just thrown into boxes of some sort, whether they’re painted or not – it’s not a good look, especially as I tend to be the one moving between locations! I think if I were hosting games at my home, then it might be a different matter as things could afford to be a little more precarious. But miniatures storage isn’t cheap, either, so I need to find something that I like and that will work for me.

There’s so much more to this hobby than just chucking dice and moving tiny plastic men around!