Grey Knights

December Retrospective

Hey everybody,
It has soon come round, hasn’t it? December has come and gone, and it’s once more time to take a look back at the month and see how much stuff I was able to get through!

It’s been a pretty good month, all told – I suppose the fact that there is usually a fair bit of time off work does help to get things done! I have been quite productive in several respects, though there will be a full-blown hobby retrospective coming later on today, so stay tuned for that!

After getting all of the Genestealer Cultists painted up that I had planned for my first foray, I kept going and got another squad of 10 Neophytes, a Kelermorph and a Locus done, as well as the two familiars! Considering I had first planned this as a 500-point list to get me started back in September, my current fully-painted Cult stands at a little over 1200 points now, so that is very impressive work, I think! Sure, they aren’t going to win any awards for best-painted army, but at least they’re all done, and I have most definitely broken the back of this job now! It seems weird to be talking about a hobby like a job, but having so many Genestealer Cults models built but not painted was turning into something of a nightmare for me, and I suppose a small part of me was wondering if I might end up selling them all off, as I did with the Tau army back in the day.

I’ve not been painting much of my Grey Knights, but I have been playing a lot of games with them! I think I’ve had four games with the Knights of Titan now this month, and it has been really nice to dig into the army and see how it all ticks. True, the first game did end up as almost a complete waste when I basically deployed wrong and felt like I was getting nowhere for the first round and a half! I’ve played a few smaller-scale games though, and it has helped me to somewhat get a better grip with what’s going on. Having an army that acts in every phase does mean there’s a lot going on, and of course my turns are that much longer because of it. At least the psychic phase has been simplified a little in that units now have a set power that they know, and you don’t have to fully kit out the whole army with different powers, and then trying to sequence everything right.

The last game was actually played last night, and in a shocking twist, I won! I think the bulk of the game, for me, was played in the Psychic Phase, with a combination of Smite and some of the offensive witchfire powers such as Vortex of Doom and Purifying Flame really doing work for me. It has been consistently disappointing for me to see how few shots I manage to get through with storm bolters – each squad is making 20 shots when within rapid fire range, but only actually getting 1 wound, maybe 3 wounds if I’m lucky. In fairness, we both rolled really badly last night, and it is always the luck of the draw how these things go. Having been underwhelmed by the Purgation squad in my last game, I went for three Strike squads, a Purifier squad, and was hoping for great things from my Paladin squad – but in the event, the Paladins being dropped in at the end of turn two did very little, so while Teleport Strike might seem like a good idea, I’m really going off the idea of using it as a strategy for now.

I won on points, anyway, managing to Slay the Warlord and score Engage on All Fronts twice (the second time thanks to a very lucky consolidation move from the Chaplain). I really should try and make more of an effort to paint these miniatures, seeing as how I’m playing more games with them, but I’ve found myself more into painting the xenos for the moment, rather than anything else!

This week, I have built up the Tau Pathfinders from the latest Kill Team box, and I’ve been thinking a lot about the army that I used to have. I’m not planning to go all-out with them again, as I found that I burnt out too quickly when I basically bought the whole army in one go, but I have been tempted to get more than just the Pathfinders… time will tell, I guess! But don’t be surprised if I’m suddenly talking about these guys once again on the blog!

My renewed interest in the Tau has in part been down to the miniatures, but also from reading the Dark Coil short stories of Peter Fehevari. A lot of these stories are set around the Damocles Gulf, and feature the Tau in some form or another. I’ve talked about the first three stories that I’ve read here, and I have another blog due out early next month about a few more, which is very exciting as it features one of my favourite stories that I’ve read to date! Stay tuned for that one!

I’ve recently started to read the latest Thrawn trilogy from Tim Zahn though, his Ascendancy trilogy. I’m about 100 pages into book one, Chaos Rising, and I have to say that I’m enjoying it rather a great deal! I can’t say that I was expecting it to be worse or anything, but there is a large part of me that thinks I’d rather he leave Thrawn alone and write about someone or something else, because the character had so much allure when there was mystery surrounding him! Now, we’ve got almost his entire life chronicled, and I’m not entirely sure we needed it! But the novel has been really good, and I’m looking forward to seeing where the story takes me! I had the third book for Christmas, too, which was handy!

I’ve also been watching more Marvel movies with my wife, as we make our way through Phase Three for the umpteenth time. We did watch Black Widow earlier in the month, out of sequence a bit, and that was pretty good – though I suppose it’s all very much of a muchness with these films at this point! I’d not seen any of the standalone Spider-Man films since he joined the MCU, but we watched Homecoming earlier this week, and I was surprised by how much I did enjoy it! Not being a Spider-Man fan in general, I can’t say that it’s convinced me or anything, but it was definitely a lot more fun than I had been expecting.

The most recent Spidey film seems to be doing alright for itself, too, which is surprising to see in these strange times, but hopefully it means that we are on the way back to normality, or something approaching it!

I think that’s pretty much it for this month, though!

It has been a pretty good year, all told. I mean, I have had a pretty good run with my hobby, and I’ve had some good games, not just Warhammer-related, but also the card games. True, I still haven’t gotten very far with the Innsmouth Conspiracy campaign for Arkham Horror, but there’s time! I feel like January can be a long and drawn out month, so hopefully I’ll be able to get more done there to make the month more palatable! I’m hoping to play a bit more of that game, having spent some time recently sleeving up the Edge of the Earth campaign ready to tackle it soon!

So let’s hope for an exciting January! Have a very happy new year, and I’ll see you all on the other side!

40k Updates!

Hey everybody,
I had another game with the Grey Knights this week, 1000(ish) points of my guys vs James and his Black Templars force. We’re still both learning these armies, and to some extent we’re also just learning the ropes of 9^th edition as well, so it’s been good to build up like this. We were playing the mission Centre Ground, from the core rulebook, which felt a bit similar to our last game where we were vying for control of four objectives arranged in a cross-like pattern in the centre of the board. However, neither of us went for the mission-specific secondary objective; I think I was closest to it, where I was using the Grey Knights-specific objective where I was purifying the objective markers. On reflection, though, it seemed a bit ridiculous as I only scored 2 victory points from that one, and didn’t get any of my other secondaries! James, however, scored a couple, plus controlled more objectives as the game went on, so it was something ridiculous like 30-odd points to just 7!

Our forces were similar to the last game, though the increase in points from the Black Templars bringing a Repulsor tank meant that I could bring my Paladins, plus a Chaplain. I also swapped out the Purifiers for the Purgators, though I think in the future I might keep the heavy support squad for larger point games, as they did not seem to do anywhere near as much as the Purifiers accomplished in the last game.

Mistakes were made on both sides, but from my perspective, I think sending my Paladins up against the Repulsor tank was a big error. True, they did destroy it, but it also whittled my squad down two just the two guys who, moving up to destroy an Intercessor squad, were promptly mowed down by the Emperor’s Champion like wheat before a scythe. That guy is a serious problem, I really ought to target him with Smite or something!

I destroyed the Repulsor, as I said, and I also destroyed the Redemptor Dreadnought, but it came at the cost of my Paladins, and my Chaplain, and one of my Strike Squads. The Nemesis Dreadknight had been deployed in reasonably open ground, as well, and when I failed to get the first turn, I saw it singled out and destroyed before it could even do anything! What a shame! The Chaplain was also a bit of a mistake because he stayed behind when the Paladins moved up to attack the Repulsor, meaning he could then be targeted thanks to the tweak in 9^th edition to targeting characters – as he was not within 3” of a squad, he was a legitimate target. Sad face. But he had done some work, with the litany to do additional wounds on 6s.

Learning points for me, though, are most definitely to use cover more effectively, as it was really quite surprising the way the battle unfolded for me! The board did look really good though, if I do say so myself – I definitely need to start painting my terrain, though!!

On that note, I’ve built up the Sanctum kit, at long last! This is a really beautiful model, I have to say! It’s huge, and I love it so much – I’m gutted that I forgot to bring it with me to the game. Hopefully next time it can form a cracking centrepiece!

I also had the new Kill Team Chalnath expansion for my birthday last weekend, so I’ve got a lot more Sector Imperialis terrain to get through now – exciting times ahead, for sure!

Grey Knights!

Hey everybody,
It’s back to the Grey Knights today, as it is that time of year when I get back into my beloved Chapter 666. As I mentioned a while back, I’ve been reading the third book in the Grey Knights series, which has prompted me to get back to the models that I have been working on for years!

Alaric is back in action with his squad of Grey Knights, reinforced after the events on Chaeronaiea, supporting the Imperial Guard on the planet Sarthis Majoris, which is besieged by the forces of the Archenemy under the leadership of the Aspiring Champion, Duke Venalitor. Alaric seeks Venalitor out on the battlefield for single combat, and is bested with shocking ease, finding himself transported to the daemon world of Drakaasi alongside his fellow battle-brother Haulvarn. On the nightmare world, he is approached by one of the slave labourers who asks him to find something called the hammer of daemons, in exchange for which he will provide the perfect armour with which Alaric can fight for his freedom.

There are a series of gladiatorial fights across the world, although it becomes apparent that Alaric is not breaking. Venalitor uses a bound daemon of Tzeentch to attempt to break Alaric but merely causes the Grey Knight to lose his sanity temporarily, which makes him fight with greater ferocity than before. Coming back to himself, however, Alaric leads a slave revolt and, through his time with the daemon attempting to break into his mind, he learns that the hammer of daemons is in fact a ship, which remains spaceworthy on the world. Alaric and many of the slaves manage to escape, Alaric using a saviour pod to return to the nearest Inquisition outpost.

This novel felt very different from the previous two in the series, almost making me question just how much of a series it is intended to be. I suppose they are bound together by the central character of the justicar, Alaric, but they are a little bit like standalone adventures, really. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but worth pointing out, I thought. There were a lot of parallels, I thought, with Graham McNeill’s novel Dead Sky, Black Sun, where Uriel Ventris and Pasanius voyage to a daemon world to make penance. After a while, the gladiator-esque scenes began to bore me a little bit, as Alaric is taken from daemon city to daemon city, sparring with all manner of creatures and building up an almost celebrity status as a fighter. I know it was necessary to the plot, but it wasn’t really how I pictured a Grey Knights story reading – I think it might have been to do with just being Alaric solo. Also – he was bested by Venalitor a bit too easily for my liking. The man’s a justicar, after all! He should be better than that!

I was also dismayed with the fact that Alaric was unable to use his psychic ability, and while he did give that daemon a run for its money, he still lost his grip on reality for a while. A Grey Knight justicar? Seriously? Hm. Overall, there is a definite sword-and-sorcery feel to this book, and a lot of it felt very much like a Warcry of generic Age of Sigmar style novel, as we have daemons and Chaos and gladiatorial combat. It’s all a bit weird as it didn’t feel much like 40k at all. I’ve read some reviews where people found the data daemons of the last book a bit weird, so were glad this one was firmly back in Chaos, but I just couldn’t get into this as the sort of low-tech book masquerading as 40k!

In rather exciting news, I’ve also had two games with the Grey Knights last week! First of all, I had a 1500-point game with my buddy JP and his Heretic Astartes, that was just bad for me as I made the ridiculous blunder of deploying almost my entire force into Teleport Strike, meaning I only started the battle with a land raider and a Dreadknight on the table. Going second, my first turn was just grim (though I did get off a pretty nice Overwatch with all the hurricane bolters on the land raider!) and the second wasn’t much better! Time was making fools of us and so I deployed the whole force onto the table during my second turn, and saw some nice turn-ups (killing Abaddon was a highlight, for sure!) but it was really just sad.

My second game was against James and his Black Templars, which was a much smaller-scale game at 680 points (basically the contents of the new boxset, for him!) This felt like a much more manageable game, I think it helped me because I am pretty new to the faction, despite having been working on them for years! So having just two troops, an HQ, an elite and the Dreadknight was a much better way to see what things do!

In both games, the weight of play was really in the psychic phase, for me. Against the Templars I did have a lot more opportunity for shooting and whatnot, as it was a smaller table etc, but without closing to melee range I was mainly playing the psychic phase. Which is fine, it’s where the Grey Knights are very comfortable after all, but I would like to see what all the Nemesis force weapons can do! I think that’ll be my goal for the next time I play, anyway.

The Dreadknight is definitely a great model, and I think it was in winters seo review of the codex where he said it’s like GW want to sell more of them, it has had a lot of nice additions made now. In the game against the Templars, the walker decimated both a Crusader squad and the Marshal, between the psychic, shooting and melee phases, so it’s definitely something I want to play with more often!

I actually tabled James by the end of turn three, but still lost the match on victory points, which goes to show how important the mission can be for 9^th edition! The most horrifying moment in that game came when his Emperor’s Champion charged into a Strike Squad and basically cleaved his way through the entire unit, doing 6 attacks (all hitting) with AP-5 and 3 damage each. My guys never stood a chance!

Something that I really like about the new book – indeed, something I like about the edition as a whole right now – is how it feels like everything is quite balanced. Balance and GW, you say? Well, it’s only in my experiences so far, of course, but I don’t think there’s really anything where you can say “this is the way to play this faction” and no other army builds work. There are so many nice options out there in the books that I’ve played with/against, nothing seems to be hugely overpowered. It’s just all good stuff, and it does seem to prompt an experimental attitude as you might like to try out a number of different builds. But then, this is coming from me as a non-power gamer. I’m sure more competitive minds than I will find ways to break things, but the core rules themselves don’t seem all that ridiculous just now…

I’ve got more Grey Knights games lined up soon, so I’m looking forward to more experimentation soon. In the meantime, I need to get painting these chaps!!

November Retrospective

Hey everybody,
The end of the year is fast approaching, and it’s been really great to have these monthly retrospective blogs to look back on the progress that I’ve made with all manner of projects – hopefully they’ve been as interesting to read as they have been to write!

For November, the pace seems to have been a bit slow, as we slide towards the festive season. I’ve been reading a lot of weird fiction this month, which has shown itself in two blogs covering a variety of stories from contemporaries and followers of HP Lovecraft, before then the man himself popping up last week with The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. I do love a bit of cosmic horror, and I think it’s been good to read some of the more extended mythos stuff this time around. It’s all very uneven, of course, and a lot of these stories could hardly be called masterpieces, though they are fun, which for me is the main thing. I am planning to read more of Lovecraft’s own horror stories over Christmas, of course, so do stay tuned for the traditional Mythos Delvings blog!

Reading so much weird fiction has, of course, gotten me back into playing the LCG. Having kinda planned out a series of games with Trish and Agnes, playing through some of the standalone scenarios, I’ve since pushed this idea to the side in favour of an actual campaign once again: The Innsmouth Conspiracy has well and truly started! I’ve built new decks, for Stella and Zoey, and hope to finish that in the coming week or so. I’ve got next week off work, so fingers crossed I can have more games then, if nothing else!

I have been trying to get somewhere with my painting though, and after a month off in October, I’ve been back to the Genestealer Cults, getting more Neophyte Hybrids painted up alongside an Acolyte Iconward and a Clamavus. These characters weren’t part of my original scheme, so it may mean that I end up not completing the 500-point list by the end of the year – that’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it! I’m hoping to move onto the truck next, and still have the 5 Hybrid Metamorphs to do something with. So, we’ll see how far we get. But hopefully it’ll be a nice-looking little force, so I’m excited for that!

The Genestealer Cult hasn’t really been languishing for it, but I have moved on a little bit to another little project. After starting to read the third novel in the Grey Knights series, Hammer of Daemons, I’ve obviously moved on to these fellas once again, as it’s now a bit of a tradition for me to see how far I can get with them! I’ve got another 5-man Strike Squad on the table currently, along with a Brother-Captain. My painted Grey Knights are currently somewhere on a par with my painted Genestealer Cultists, in terms of size, so I suppose there’s a nice symmetry there in terms of building up both of the smaller forces. While I did initially think 9^th edition might mean a slimming-down of my backlog, both of these armies are quite beautiful, and I really feel that I want to keep them.

My big news for November is that I’ve actually played my first game of Warhammer 40k this year, at last! Lockdowns do get in the way of these things, don’t they? JP and I took the tried-and-tested Chaos Space Marines vs Necrons out for a spin, but as ever, we spent most of the evening talking about all manner of junk and didn’t get much gaming actually done! I’m still not wholly sure about 9th edition, if I’m honest – I think it might be the subject for another blog, but I’m still not entirely in love with it. Which is slightly concerning, because if the recent pattern still holds true, we’ve only got about 18 months left before 10^th edition rolls around…

It hasn’t even changed a great deal from 8th edition, really, it’s just the additional stuff in the rules have made it feel like it’s an overly complicated game now. When I sat down with the core rules a while back to try to make sense of them, it really surprised me just how little has actually changed. It certainly isn’t the seismic change from 7th to 8th that I experienced as my first edition change, but there’s something just stopping me from really enjoying it. I think this is probably something to explore in another blog, though. I might have a smaller-scale game with the Genestealer Cult and my mate James’ Black Templars soon, though, so maybe playing with a smaller model count might make things a bit better to understand, etc! Of course, that has its own problems when playing with an older Codex for the Genestealer Cult. Hm.

At any rate, I have been thinking that I would like to get more of my Necrons painted – I do have a lot of Necrons painted, for sure, but I need another ten Immortals, 5 Lychguard and 5 Tomb Blades to be finished before I can say that I’m happy with the force as it is. I’ll then be turning my attention to the stuff that I currently have painted, but which could be done better – some stuff like the Annihilation Barge could do with a bit of work to make it a bit more visually appealing, I think. So, I’d like to try and get the models that I think of as “finished” up to a better standard. Then there’s all manner of other units I need to turn my attention to.

I’m really chuffed to have got my hands on the new set for Warcry, Red Harvest, and have already started to build up some of the models from it. The design team are really knocking it out of the proverbial right now with this stuff, and I am utterly bowled-over by how good this stuff is. I think the terrain is what got me interested in this box, but the actual game content seems to be really great, too. It’s always nice when you get something like this – essentially a box of plastic – and there is a great rule set to go alongside it! My current plans, though, are to build up the new Tarantulos Brood warband, then potentially try them out in some regular games of Warcry with the core set stuff. It might be quite some time before all of that terrain is built, after all!

I have no more plans to attach to any of my hobby things right now, though. I think I just want to concentrate on getting my Genestealer Cultists done, and seeing where I can get to with the Grey Knights and the Necrons. If I can build and/or paint anything else, then that’s a bonus for me! I’m looking forward to making my way fully through the Innsmouth Conspiracy, and will have some more thoughts up here when that is all said and done. Who knows what else the month of December may hold? I do have some time off to look forward to, so there could be many exciting things yet to fill 2021!

What’s Going On?

Hey everybody,
It feels like it’s been a while since I had a catch-up blog here, though it’s not exactly like things have been hectic or anything, so I’m not sure what’s up with that. At any rate, November is quickly slipping away and it won’t be too long before I’m here with my penultimate Retrospective post of the year! That said, I thought it might be nice to just take five minutes and ramble about what’s been going on, almost to move me along with some things so that the Retrospective post will actually be a decent read!

I’ve been very heavily immersed in weird tales the last couple of weeks. I’ve been reading a wide variety of weird fiction by many contemporaries of HP Lovecraft, and have also made an early start on reading more by the man himself, stay tuned for a blog coming next week on The Case of Charles Dexter Ward! It’s always nice to read some of these stories at this time of year, as it seems really cosy and whatnot, now that the days are shorter and colder. Just the ticket for reading about weird and fantastical goings-on!

Perhaps inevitably, then, I have returned my attentions to the LCG, and have built up a couple of decks for tackling The Innsmouth Conspiracy! I finally picked up the first mythos pack for the cycle a good few weeks ago now, after feeling a bit disappointed during its release that I couldn’t play it because of missing that pack. I’ve had the Stella Clark pre-built deck sleeved up for about 12 months now, but after a half-hearted attempt with her and Winifred Habbamock at the Excelsior Hotel, which felt like it was going nowhere fast, I have changed the deck a little bit, including some cards which I think (hope!) will play better with my overall plans for her. I’ve paired her with Zoey Samaras from The Dunwich Legacy, too, as I had read on reddit that she was a decent companion. But I suppose it doesn’t really matter a great deal, as my pair of Daisy and Ashcan Pete for the Carcosa cycle really shouldn’t have been anywhere near as good as it turned out!

I’ve retired my idea of playing Trish and Agnes with the standalone scenarios, as well, favouring instead the idea of playing a proper cycle (I have enough of the unplayed, after all!) and slotting in some of the standalone stuff when I feel like it. We’ll see how that goes, anyway! For now, though, I’m very excited to be getting into another campaign for the winter season!

While I might be poised to start playing the Arkham Horror LCG once more, I have for now turned my attentions back to Warhammer 40k, and to the Grey Knights, no less! It’s another of my winter traditions, it seems, to be thinking about the incorruptible Chapter 666, and for the last couple of years I’ve been reading the novels in the Grey Knights omnibus. Hammer of Daemons is the third in the trilogy, and while I’ve only just started to read it, I am quite excited already to be seeing where this one goes!

I didn’t really get very far at all with my Grey Knights last year, in terms of painting them, so it’ll be interesting to see what progress is made this year, if any! I don’t think I’m going to be getting rid of these chaps anytime soon, though. I haven’t yet picked up the codex, unfortunately, but I’ve been hearing some very interesting things about how they play now in 9th edition, so I am curious to see what I can do with them on the table.

After basically taking October off in terms of painting, I have once more been painting miniatures, both Necrons and Genestealer Cults – my dreams of a 500 point force fully painted by the end of the year are still alive, people! I’m hard at work on another 10-man Neophyte squad, although I have somehow along the way also picked up the Acolyte Iconward, and the Clamavus, both of which I’m also painting as I go. It’s been quite the slog, if I’m honest, but I’m trying to make myself do a little bit each day, and so far, as you can see, they’re not looking totally terrible. I think a few more sessions can see the squad finished, if not the two characters, as well. Fingers crossed!

My biggest, and most exciting news, though, is finally getting in a game of 40k this year! Necrons vs Chaos Space Marines, me and my buddy JP back gaming, even if neither of us was really clear on the rules and spent the first 4 hours of our game day just talking about nonsense and general catching-up. We played one full round, after which I think I was ahead on points, though it was getting pretty late for a school night and we had to call it a day around midnight. A lot of fun was had, a lot of hobby love was rekindled, and we’re intending to play again soon, hopefully with the same armies and terrain set-up! Much to my chagrin, I hadn’t really looked at the models I brought with me, so ended up with a mixed squad of Immortals representing all-tesla chaps. So I’ve been building up five more Immortals, all-tesla, all the time. That will give me a massive blob of 40 Immortals, 20 each of gauss and tesla.

It actually prompted me to look into the possibility of an all-gunline Necron army, using the models that I either have ready or have on the to-build or to-paint pile. I can squeeze almost 2000 points of this stuff out of Immortals and Warriors, Tomb Blades, and the supporting artillery of a Doomsday Ark, an Annihilation Barge and a Triarch Stalker. Interesting… maybe one day I might try it!

I do like the Tomb Blades though, even if they are just horrendous models to build and to paint! I’ve got five tesla bikes, and three gauss bikes, all of which need painting, but I think I might make more of an effort with these at some point, because they have been a tremendous threat on the table – not because they’re particularly amazing, but their speed makes them look like a threat, so they formed a fairly decent distraction while the Praetorians I brought went up the other side of the table and ended up with Slay the Warlord between their pistol attacks and voidblades!

Despite seeing some really curious comments about Necrons being underpowered online, I thought that the new codex made them perform really well in the partial game we played a fortnight ago. However, I suppose that is against an army that is still using an 8th edition book.

Fingers crossed we can get in that rematch game soon, anyway! Stay tuned for more Genestealer Cults updates, and the exciting start of my Innsmouth Conspiracy campaign!!

Grey Knights updates!

No, we’re not getting our codex anytime soon!

A few days ago, I finished reading the second novel in the Grey Knights series by Ben Counter, Dark Adeptus.

Dark Adeptus is the second novel in the Grey Knights series, and we’re once again with Justicar Alaric and an even smaller team of Grey Knights, as they investigate the mysterious reappearance of the planet Chaeronia from the Warp. An added complication is that the planet is a Forge World of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and so the Knights are forced to team up with the Tech Priests as they investigate what is happening. Making planetfall, the team discovers that the world has been overtaken by some form of tech heresy, with many of the structures suffused with a biological matter – clearly the Dark Mechanicus has taken root.

It eventually transpires the Tech Priests have been influenced by a daemon that has possessed the artificial intelligence of a Standard Template Construct (STC) for a Titan. The daemon has sent a signal through the Warp to the Warmaster Abaddon, as it feels he is the best recipient for the army of Titans that it has produced. Alaric and his team are able to thwart these plans after a climactic battle, banishing the daemon back to the Warp.

I didn’t think this one was as good as the first book in the series, maybe because it started with such a strange plot device for the Grey Knights to be involved with. The daemon-hunters of the Ordo Malleus, involved in something that has no apparent daemonic link? Hm. As it moved on, though, the story was fine and everything, just seemed to be a bit of a stretch at times as to why the Grey Knights were involved. I think part of me still likes the idea of the chapter operating in absolute secrecy, to the point where they never work with allies without killing them afterwards to preserve that secrecy.

Of course, all of the Adeptus Mechanicus allies end up dead by the end of the novel, so I suppose that’s that taken care of! Interestingly, the foot soldiers of the Mechanicus are referred to as the Tech Guard, as being the almost drone-like meat shields in comparison with the more elite Skitarii troops. The novel pre-dates the current Adeptus Mechanicus line, though, which uses the Skitarii as a similar drone-like foot slogger. Though I do need to stop reading Black Library novels in the mindset of having miniatures for every eventuality!

So while this was a little disappointing after how much I enjoyed the first novel in the series, it is nevertheless good to read about the exploits of the Grey Knights!

My own exploits with the Grey Knights, of course, are less than amazing, although I am quite pleased to announce that I have finally finished painting the Purifier Squad that I had started almost two years ago! I don’t know why it has taken this long, if I’m honest, but it seems to have been the case where I had gotten so far with the models, and couldn’t seem to bring myself to finish them off. It’s the sort of thing that has happened before, of course, but it’s good to have them done.

I still have a long way to go with the army, of course, but I’m looking to get another Strike Squad painted soon, along with a Brother Captain. Maybe the Land Raider will see a coat of silver paint… I might not have the whole army painted by the end of the year, but I’m hoping there will be a lot more painted by the time we get to January 1st!

Grey Knights: let’s talk Paladins

Hey everybody,
Following on from last week’s post about the Grey Knights, as I get ready for something of a major push towards finishing as many of these minis as I can by the end of the year, I’ve been thinking a lot about the list that I have and what I can do with it to field an army at the 1500-points mark, and have come up with something that I am quite excited for, so thought I’d talk about it here today!

There was quite a bit of talk in last week’s blog about the idea of the Paladin bomb, and while I have expanded the list a little with a second box of these chaps, this isn’t actually something that I’m going to be focusing on too much – principally because of the points cost for these guys! However, I have taken the opportunity of a second box to fill out the squad to five men, and have used the other bits to create a Paladin Ancient, the banner-bearer that gives nearby models +1 attack.

Having five Paladins does give me the option to equip two of them with special weapons – the wording on the datasheet in the current Codex does actually say “two”, and not “up to two”, which means that you can’t just put one in there, unfortunately. Paladins are 50 points each, and the weapons just add to that, so given that the current build of daemon hammer and two with pairs of falchions just screams melee-orientated unit, I didn’t then want to spend points on giving them ranged weapons that they wouldn’t be able to use when the unit got into combat. True, the special weapon only replaces the storm bolter, so they are still able to be equipped with melee weapons, but it’s all additional points that I’d rather spend elsewhere. I’ve gone for two additional guys with halberds, as the +1 attack for paired falchions is nice, but really, the +1 strength from the halberd should be very nice as well, so it’s a decent blend of attacks in there (especially with the daemon hammer hitting at S8!).

The choice of psychic powers for each unit is also really offensive. The Paladins have Purge Soul, which is almost like a leadership contest between the squad and their target. The Paragon, the sergeant for the Paladins, is Ld9, which is only one point above a marines’ sergeant, however, the important note here is that the Paladins will be running around with the Ancient in tow, giving them +1 to their Leadership value. There is potential for a couple of mortal wounds on a decent roll, here, I feel! Speaking of the Ancient, he has Inner Fire, one of the powers from the new Dominus discipline, which lets him roll a number of dice equal to the value of the psychic test for the power, and deal a mortal wound for each 3+ rolled.

Having units that can take part in every phase is a big draw for the Grey Knights, and is why I think they are so expensive as models. If all of those psychic powers come to pass, they could be doing upwards of 6 mortal wounds to a unit before they even shoot anything! Everyone has a storm bolter, of course, so within 12″ of an enemy unit that’ll be 10 shots from the Paladins and another 2 from the Ancient, hitting on 3s and likely wounding on 4s, then the juicy stuff happens when they’re in combat. Each Paladin has got 3 attacks, but the banner from the Ancient gives them +1 attack if the model is within 6″ of it – so best-case scenario, we’re looking at 20 attacks. There are two models equipped with falchions, so we’re now up to 22 attacks. The Paragon will be using his four attacks to hit on 2s with a S8 AP-4 D6 weapon (with 3 damage, minimum), which should be nice! The falchion-guys will be using their 10 attacks hitting on 3s and wounding on 4s (most likely), while the halberds will be making 8 attacks wounding (potentially) on 3s. Both the halberds and falchions are AP-2, as well, and D3 damage each.

Stratagems for the Grey Knights are not particularly fantastic, if I’m being wholly honest, but there are some useful things hidden away that can bolster the knights of Titan, and thinking about the Paladins in particular, there is help to keep them alive by reducing damage dealt from ranged attacks (for 1CP), once they’re in combat there’s a stratagem to give them +1 to hit rolls (for 1CP), you can keep any Paladins on the battlefield until they have had a chance to fight back (for 2CP), and the classic Honour the Chapter will allow the unit to fight again (for 3CP).

Some really interesting options in there, I feel – and all of this is just through the use of those six models. The Chaplain’s litanies, and the Grand Master’s Rites of Battle ability, can allow them to re-roll hit rolls, should those characters be nearby as well. It is difficult to get the kind of crazy aura shenanigans of some armies with the Grey Knights, for sure, but I do like the fact that you can still get some really interesting stuff going on for them.

As a bit of a footnote for this, Paladin squads have the Combat Squads ability, meaning that you can take a unit of 10 models and, before the battle, split them up into two units of five models. Given the fact that you can take two special weapons for every five models, this allows you to break up a squad into melee-orientated and shooting-orientated. However, the points investment for this kind of squad is ridiculous – almost 600 points for the ten-man unit. It’s definitely cheaper to take a Purgation squad if you want ranged firepower in the list, as the weapons alone cost cheaper when equipped to a non-terminator model. Sure, you get the terminator stat-line on the Paladins, but the weapons aren’t any more accurate when equipped to the bigger guys, so while this option did at first intrigue me, I don’t think I’m going to be rushing to build four psilencer-wielding Paladins anytime soon!

Grey Knights, 2020 Edition!

Hey everybody!
It’s that time of year when I start to get back into the Grey Knights army, and I think after yesterday’s reflections on the hobby goals from this year, as well as starting to read the second book in the Grey Knights omnibus, I’m really back in the mood for the knights of Titan!

This year, I’ve not yet managed to get very far with my original plans for painting up an actual army of these guys. Of course, I’ve expanded out my guys from merely having that Grand Master painted, and now have the Chaplain and a Strike Squad painted, but I feel like I definitely need to get more models painted!

As a finished squad, I think they look great, which I hope will prompt me into finishing more and more of these chaps as I go! I have a mostly-painted Purifier Squad still hanging about as well, so I do need to get on with those guys, as it’s been almost two years that they have been waiting. Definitely need to crack on there.

Having a look at the models that I have right now, I’m quite surprised at just how many points that I can field. Of course, some bits and pieces have gone up a bit since 8th, but I’m hovering around the 2000-point level, when I throw in the Stormraven Gunship and the Land Raider Crusader that I’ve saved from the Dark Angels cull. Trying to fit this into something approximating an actual army, though, I’ve so far got my list up to 1300 points:

Thinking about how I could bring this up to 1500 points, I might get some more Paladins in there, although I am quite keen on another Purgation Squad, all-incinerators.

With the new rules from Ritual of the Damned, I’ve been seeing some interesting tactical ideas around the famed Paladin-bomb, tooling a full squad of ten with four special weapons, probably Psilencers for the weight of shots, and buff them with the new psychic powers to wreak havoc:

Four psilencers is 24 shots hitting on 3s, and at S4 they’re most likely going to be wounding on 4s, with no AP and D3 damage each. The new powers and litanies, however, you can boost the range of the weapon to 30″ with one chaplain, you could improve the AP to -1 with a second chaplain, and you could re-roll hits if the enemy is within 15″. This is in addition to the pre-existing psychic power that lets you target an enemy unit that isn’t visible to the shooter. Paladins are of course Terminators, so they can be targets for the new Fury of the Proven stratagem, which gives them +1 to hit, in addition to the older Psychic Onslaught stratagem that can give the weapon +1 strength and a further AP improvement to -2. I mean, this is going to be a horrendous investment of points – that 10-man Paladin Squad alone is 508 points! – but it could be a glorious moment in the battle!

I’m not sure where I want to take the force yet, but I’m definitely going to try and paint up more of the models that have been languishing in disarray for the last twelve months or more – stay tuned for more updates on this one, as well as the review of Dark Adeptus once I’ve finished that one!

Psychic Awakening: Ritual of the Damned

Hey everybody,
I’d like to get back to looking through the Psychic Awakening books today, as I work my way backwards from the last installment. Let’s take a look at the Ritual of the Damned!

This fourth book showcases the Dark Angels, with the Grey Knights and Thousand Sons taking something of a second fiddle. As we’ll see when I get to the third book, these Psychic Awakenings have served to provide the Space Marines with access to all of the Shadowspear stuff, the phobos-armoured goodness that was missing from the Dark Angels codex because it hadn’t been released at that point. There are a lot of pages of this stuff, providing the lion’s share (pun intended) of the new stuff really.

I suppose this is only in keeping with the fact that the sole new miniature to come out alongside this book was the new Lazarus mini:

While I have previously attempted to produce a Dark Angels army, mainly centred around the Deathwing, I’ve recently decided to move my focus from the first legion as I’m trying to thin out the collections into something a lot more manageable – so, while this is almost certainly a Dark Angels book, I don’t really have a great deal to add on this point!

By contrast, the Grey Knights have just one new datasheet, for the Chaplain. However, they have a lot of new rules! For almost the entirety of 8th edition up to this point, Grey Knights had suffered from being a distinctly bottom-tier army from a competitive point of view. Mainly this was to do with the cost of units, which successive Chapter Approveds sought to remedy, but the lack of real fancy rules has proved to be their detriment. However, no more!

Space Marines these days have access to new Doctrines that give them bonuses from round to round. Well, Grey Knights now have their own version of this – Masters of the Warp. You can choose one of four effects (“Tides”) to be in place at the start of the first battle round, and then in subsequent turns you can attempt to change it through the use of the Warp Shaping psychic power, which is part of the new Dominus discipline. In addition to the Sanctic discipline from the Codex, Grey Knight character models have the option to pick their psychic powers from this discipline – they must choose either the Sanctic or Dominus disciplines, they cannot mix and match. However, there are some really nice powers here, and I do appreciate having more options for my units. Previously, I’ve found myself fielding 12-13 units, meaning the powers were doubled up in an almost random manner. At least now we have more to think about, and I like it!

Especially as one of these new Psychic Powers gives the Grey Knights the chance to replenish command points!

But that’s not all that we have! There is another page of relics to choose from, one of which allows for re-rolls on Psychic Tests and seems to be all the rage in the competitive scene, from what I’ve seen. But that’s not all!

Two more pages of Stratagems, following the pattern that we’ve seen in other books where specific unit types have specific stratagems. Every one of the Grey Knights specific units has their own stratagem, for better or worse – while there are plenty of stratagems that can target across the army. There are quite a few that look really nice, and I’m excited to try some out, like Empyric Surge that seems like it might take some setting-up, but could be good to try!

But wait, there’s more!

Are you getting the impression this book is a must-have for the Grey Knights? Yeah…

The sole datasheet for the Chaplain is here because of the new Litanies of Purity – similar to the Prayers of the Dark Apostle that we’ve seen. The Chaplain knows three Litanies – the Litany of Hate that he had from the codex, plus two from the new list of six in the book. Litanies are “recited” at the start of the battle round on a d6 roll of 3+. Some of them are a bit meh, which is a shame as I’d initially felt like Chaplains were getting a wonderful boost in this series of books, but there a couple there to add range to some weapons, or increase the AP of some weapons which, when combined with certain of the Tides, could give some great effects.

Oh, and we get the now classic name generator that, I’m sure you’ll all agree, is the most important part of any of these books.

The Thousand Sons have the least number of pages devoted to them, with just a couple of pages devoted to the different Cults within the Legion. Each Cult has specific warlord traits and assorted other special rules, which is quite nice but, not being a Thousand Sons player, I can’t really speak to how good these are. But even with only a few pages, it’s still nice to see that GW are giving attention to everybody in these books.

I am really excited to see the addition that the Grey Knights have had from this book. It does leave me with the distinct impression that the Codex is now an incomplete book, though, as there is just so much new stuff in here for them, you can’t really have one without the other. Especially when it comes to the Chaplain, which has perhaps the most benefit here.

As it happens, I’ve recently painted up my special collector’s edition plastic Chaplain in Terminator Armour that is available to new stores when they open. Having set me back around £35 on ebay last December, I knew I wanted to give him to the Grey Knights but had only now gotten round to painting the little devil. I’m quite pleased with the result, anyway – my local GW has got an HQ/Hero painting competition for next Saturday, and I’ll be entering him to see how he gets on!

I’m still working on drawing up a new Grey Knights list, one that might provide me with something interesting to play, so stay tuned for news on that one soon! For sure, I’ll be including another Purgation Squad since they can Overwatch on a 4+ thanks to their new stratagem!

January catch-up!

Hey everybody,
It’s been a while since my last blog post on here – in fact, I hadn’t realised just how long ago it was! Time to catch up, methinks!

First of all, I read the very wonderful Grey Knights, the first novel in the Grey Knights omnibus, shortly before Christmas. It follows Justicar Alaric as he works alongside Inquisitor Briseis Ligeia to prevent the rogue Inquisitor Valinov from bringing the daemon Ghargatuloth into the universe. As the majority of the Grey Knights have been deployed to the Cadian Gate in an effort to stem the tide of Abaddon’s Thirteenth Black Crusade, Alaric only has a small contingent to aid in his task. They track the likely place for Ghargatuloth’s return as somewhere within the Trail of Saint Evisser, and we really delve into the whole world of Imperial saints and the Chaotic corruption there – there are several twists and turns along the way, which I don’t want to spoil here because they were really well done, but suffice it to say it’s definitely worth picking this one up, even sixteen years after publication!

There is so much to enjoy in this novel, even though I found it difficult at times to get the time to actually read it! Having recently made a commitment to getting back into my Grey Knights project, I think this made me enjoy it even more, seeing the way the Grey Knights do battle. We get some really great descriptions of the Fortress-Monastery on Titan, and there is the real sense that Space Marines are, at their heart, warrior monks.

I very rarely read an omnibus as a single book, but rather treat it as the collected individual titles, and come back to it each time I want to read a particular book collected within. However, this is probably the first time I’ve wanted to carry on with the books, and I’m definitely planning to read the second book very soon.

Sadly, painting has not been something that I’ve been enjoying of late. I think I’ve been really out of practice since not having the time after the firstborn came along. Painting is, of course, something that improves over time and, after having a significant break, I’ve found that my brush control has really fallen by the wayside, and as a result I’ve become really frustrated with myself for not producing the sort of miniatures that I want.

I’d been wanting to paint up the House Orlock gangers that I’d started to paint almost two years ago, but a combination of the loss of confidence with a brush, as well as the fact the primer on some of these is a little thick in parts (it’s a grey primer, too, and I hate painting over grey!) has made me give up and strip them.

I’ve been watching Duncan’s video on painting the Sump Dogs, though, and as always, he has inspired me to give them a proper go. I mean, none of the lazy “just give it a drybrush and call it quits!” – I’m going to (try!) and follow this guide to the letter. We shall see how I get on!

Incidentally! How sad is the painting world now that Duncan has left GW?! I was gutted when the news was leaked shortly before Christmas – Duncan’s videos were basically how I learnt to paint!

This classic was, probably, the first miniatures-painting video I ever watched, and the massive collection of videos have been some of my favourites over the years – always come back to them, and I always look for a Duncan video when I’m going to paint something to see what he has to say about it. Hopefully they’re going to keep the archive up there, at any rate!

Model of the Year was announced the other week, and it was none other than the new Abaddon the Despoiler! I’m not sure if that was a shoe-in, though, as my personal choice was the new Keeper of Secrets, which is just such a phenomenal creation, it’s almost unlike anything else they have!

In a year when we had all of the Genestealer Cults stuff, the new Chaos Marines, new Drazhar, Ossiarch Bonereapers, new Slaves to Darkness, new Sisters of Battle – and all of that incredible Warcry stuff!

There were so many amazing new models in 2019, it was definitely a hard call. 2020 is already shaping up to be wonderful, now that we’ve had some of the new Sisters released – that Triumph of St Katherine centrepiece model is just astounding – so I can’t wait to see what else is in store!

Hopefully by then, I’ll be more confident with painting once again, and can actually knock out some of these new models!

So yeah, I think I need to get cracking with regaining my confidence when it comes to painting. There are so many miniatures that I have on the back burner of course, so I really need to crack on! I think a lot of this will be helped by going back to basics, to some extent, and trying to re-learn a lot of stuff. It’s definitely going to be worth spending the time to do this, though, as I so many models that could be outright ruined by sloppy (or worse) painting!

I mean, I’m going to be picking up the Triumph of St Katherine, for goodness’ sake! I definitely need to up my game for something so fancy!