Astra militarum kill team

Will the release of kill team a while back, I have thrown myself in to the game head first. The game itself is simple, quick and fun, all that I want right now from my hobby. I very rarely have time for full on games of 40k these days and kill team is perfect for getting my GW fix. With that I have planned several teams, the first and most important one is my guard team.

I have and always will be a guard player at heart and so it was natural that the first team I put together was my guard one. The other this that unlike about kill team is that you can go all in with the fluff and really go to town on each individual model. As such, for my kill team I decided to mix things up and not go with the standard coherent force. This did lead to a bit of an issue of how to present the force here, do I go with regiment groupings or roles? In the end I went with roles as I though it would be better and easier to present. As such, we start with the big men, the sergeants. (Names are done left to right, ie Farestien is on the left and Hawks is on the right)

Sergeant 1st class Farestien of the Seonov 2934th Regiment - Farestien is a veteran soldier of a hundred battles from dozens of warzones, a man who has seen and done it all. He leads his men with nerves of steel, flinching at nothing, not even the most foul warp spawn that the ruinous power can conjure. Wearing his face plate, which he wears permanently to cover the injuries to his face that were inflicted during his torture at the hands of chaos cultists, he is a sight to behold, striking both fear and respect in equal measure to those who follow him.

Lance Sergeant (Sergeant junior grade) Hawks of the Hjaltland Light Infantry Regiment - Hawks is here for a slightly different reason than many of the others, as he was left behind by the rest of his unit, mostly because of his unstable mental behaviour. A veteran of many battles, almost as many as Farestien, he has developed some what of a blood lust, often charging headlong in to the enemy, wielding his chain sword like a man possessed. Whilst the Hjaltland LI do believe in fearlessness in the face of the enemy, as a senior soldier, Hawk is supposed to show some discipline and responsibility, not recklessness. Despite this he is respected by his subordinates, especially when things get up close and personal.

Spuknik (Corporal) Nikoli of the Yophouliv Infantry Regiment - Nikoli is one of the better soldiers within the unit, as dutiful in his weapon cleaning and maintenance as he is with following order, you can trust that if you give Nikoli an order it will be followed out to the letter, nothing less and nothing more. This can be both a blessing and a curse to commanders, as Nikoli will follow the orders no matter if it makes sense or not.

Private first class Willem of the Librara Infantry - Willem is a man on the edge, haunted by visions of his past, visions of comrades who have fallen at his side, by visions of those who have died beneath the gouts of promethium from his flamer. Willem is a man that needs to be watched, as one can never be sure if he will advance onto the enemy or not.

Trooper 'slim' Hasker of the Xieyama Legion - to look at Hasker, is to look at a grizzled veteran trooper, as rough and ready as they come but Hasker is a devout and religious man. It has often been said that he can shame many a priest with his knowledge and is well know for his pre-battle speeches. Hasker has a special hatred for those that have turned away from the Emperor's light and nothing g can rattle this man's coolness in battle than running in to a chaos cultists.

Grenadier Cobra  of the Onus Third Grenadiers - Cobra is the polar opposite to Hasker, his faith in the emperor is razor thin and prone to complete collapse at any moment. Cobras waiving fair is all due to an incident many years ago, when he was just a raw recruit and the platoon he was with was ambushed and almost completely wiped out during the daily sermon, for if the emperor won't even protect them during this most holy act then why would he protect him in the heat of battle? The screams of those soldiers still haunt his dreams and pull him closer to madness (and chaos) with every night.

Gunner Wolf  of the Xieyama Legion - Wolf is a man on a mission. Armed with his trusty plasma gun, Wolf is hell bent on incinerating as many xenos as he can before the emperor claims his soul. He knows nothing but desire for vengeance and will go to great lengths to gain it. This desire for vengeance comes as a result of many actions against xenos forces and a hatred of there underhanded and deceitful ways that's have claimed the lives of many of his fellow legionaries.

Corporal specialist 'bomber' Johnson of the Votis 1st Jungle Guard - Johnson is a consummate professional and an expert with his plasma gun. His knowledge of the weapon is second to none (bar the AdMech of course), both in its construction and maintenance and it's usage. He is the lone survivor of a unit of Votisian Guard who were accidentally left behind, when the regiment was reassigned to another battle zone, and takes pride in upholding the reputation and standards of his regiment.

Pioneer Tomas of the Croydinian Mounted Rifles - they say that to wield a melts in combat is to either have balls of ceramite or a wish to meet the emperor. Tomas most definitely fall in to the latter group, being haunted by the recent devastation of his beloved regiment. With little left but to join his fallen comrades, Tomas has vowed to take as many enemies of the Imperium with him as possible.

Guardsman 'Ironheart' McKillen of the Hjaltland Light Infantry - Ironheart on the other had has ball of pure ceramite and will always get close, of not too close, to the enemy to ensure a kill. Going in all guns blazing is the only way this solder knows and one that has served him well over time, although how he has survived for so long is a mystery to everyone. This method of waging war suits the melta gun, with it's short range  but deadly firepower. 

Sharpshooter Bask of the Croydinian Mounted Rifles - Armed with a (legally) modified lasgun and classic Electro-optical scope, Bask has made quite a name for himself as a expert rifleman and sniper. While the Mounted Rifles don't generally use snipers, they don't really fit in chimera's, Bask has shown his usefulness and has become one of a rare breed among his comrades.

Rifleman  Khabir of the Earia 656th Rifles - Khabir is a true sniper, born and bred. He proved his skills on the Earian savannah at an early age and was inducted into the local defense force at the first opportunity before being conscripted into the 656th Rifles. An incident during the repression of a rebellious local tribe while in the PDF, gave Khabir access to an bionic upgrade, which has some been upgraded several times, and has only improved his skills as a sniper tenfold. If Khabir has one weakness it is the sheer delight which he takes from his kills.

Operator Pavlo of the Croydinian Mounted Rifles - Pavlo is an exemplary vox caster, cool, calm and calculated, always able, no matter what the conditions, to work his vox caster and gain contact. He can adjust his voice, both in tone and volume, to match any situation, from casual patrol update to dire life threatening situation. 

Signalman Grytt of the Zenrov 53rd Highland Dragoons - Grytt is, in many respects, the complete oppersite of Pablo, nervous, anxious and tense on the vox. He is haunted by failures of his past, failures to get signals through for support or of passing incorrect information on to command. In reality, he is every bit as good a vox caster as Pavlo and any failures have been the result of external influences or because the information he was given was faulty in the first place. None of this means anything to Grytt and he takes all failure personally.

Medical Technician Feodor of the Librara Infantry - If there is one man that you want around when your injured, it's Feodor. A quiet and somewhat shy man, he is nevertheless, a medical expert. His eagle eye (for it is eye) can spot the source of a wound through a sea of blood, from the largest knife wounds to the smallest punctures, nothing escapes his examinations. If he had not been born umongst the camp whores he no doubt would have been elevated to higher medical or surgical positions. As it is, many a guardsman has be glad that he has not been elevated to such lofty heights.

Ok, so that's all the specialists, there's quite a few and they've all got a back story. I decided to split this post into two at this point as I still have all the regular guardsmen to do and this post is getting quite long enough as it is!

A Slight lack of posts

Recently there has been a bit of a lack of posts on here. As I mentioned previously I have been finding it dofidiffi due to work and family commitments, however, things just got a little bit more complicated. The wife is due with our third child in a matter of days and due to some minor worries, the doctors at home have decided that we needed to be sent south to the mainland, just incase.

The decision was taken late last Friday and we were on a plane on Monday. As a result of this quick turnaround, I forgot all about packing anything 40k related or taking any pictures of what I'm working on. I have lots of ideas for posts and lots of painting to do but it's all at home, I have nothing, not even a single model or pot of paint. The other issue I'm having is that I need to sort and format a couple of posts to make them easier to read, but I don't have access to a proper computer just my phone, which makes this a lot harder to do. I might get access to a computer here at the in-laws, where were were staying for the moment, but I don't know if I will or not, as they don't really have a family computer, just the father in-laws work laptops. I don't know how long this situation will last, as it's just a waiting game for baby to decide to turn up. It shouldn't last more than 3 more weeks and then we should be home, so I can play catch-up and get blogging again properly.

I'll try and post some bits and pieces up when I can but there won't be any regular posts for  a while.

CA:18 army updates

With the release of Chapter Approved 2018, there have been a number of points updates to my various armies. Some of the points updates  have been pretty small, some on the other hand have been fairly large. While I'm not going to go in to details about every single change, I will give a rough overview of the changes and how they have affected my various armies.

Well start with my main 2, the Hjaltland Light Infantry and the Eagle Knights Chapter.

The Hjaltland LI received a small points drop overall, dropping the points from 2140 for the total force to 2018. This is a one hundred and twenty two point drop and brings the overall force down to nearly the 2000 point mark. I could easily drop a commissar to get it under that price point. So where have these points come from? Well, autocannons is a big one, dropping 5 points a piece, this along with grenade launchers, flamers, heavy flamers and missile launchers also dropping points. All of these help chip away at the points totals. There have also been a few points changes to some units as well, with Veterans dropping points alongside the Ogryn bodyguard. The Valkyrie has also dropped a lot of points, not just on the unit but also on all of its weapons, for a grand total of 21 points. Adding all these little points drops together brings you to the 122 points dropped in total. This is a good saving overall and means that I need to get painting again in order to have a fully painted 2000 point army!!!

The Eagle Knights Chapter has also received a small drop in points, from 3078 to 2938,  a total drop of one hundred and forty points. This might seem a lot but over 3000 points this is not a great amount, especially when you consider the Hjaltland LI dropped a similar amount over just 2000 points. There is a good reason for this, a lot of the units that received a drop in points are units that I am not using in my army. Lots of Primaris units got drops, as did named characters, none of which I used. There were some units, such as vanguard and sternguard units, which I use that received a small points drop but my main units, such a tacticals, death company and devastators, remained as they are. There were some points changes for wargear but these were not significant. The main drops in points came from heavy flamers, missile launchers and plasma weapons. I'm not to surprised at this, as the points seemed pretty good as they were, the fact that most of the points drops are on characters, the various terminator units and vehicles, be it bikes, land raiders or the various Rhino based vehicles, apart from the transports! Most of these units needed points drops far more than the "mainstream" units. This does mean that that total force now drops under 3000 points, it wont really effect my usual lists.

What about my other armies? Well, there have been some changes.

The Dagr Ormr Militarum Tempestus force has, much like the Hjaltland LI, has received a quite drop in points, dropping from 2037 points to 1863, resulting in a drop of 174 points. The force itself is made of two parts, the Dagr Ormr MT and the Hildasay PDF. The Scions have received a few points drop, mostly for Hotshot Lasguns, which is the most common weapon in the army, added to the drops for plasma and melta, the points drop adds up. The army is however one of the few that has received a price increase for some wargear, with the command rod going up. The main points drop come from the PDF elements, with drops to both the Veteran units and missile launchers, along with the chimera and multi-laser points drops. This is a good drop in points and leaves space for a couple of Taurox primes in the list, if I ever get some vehicles that I like the look of and it the profile of a Taurox.

The final Guard army is the Hrossey Yeomanry. This force has again received a price drop, inline with all the other forces. The force has dropped from 2647 points to 2383, a total drop of 264 points. This is a massive drop in points, far more than most of the other armies. The are many  reasons for this is the drops in points for Tank commanders and the drop in points for many of the main weapons for the battle tanks. Othwr Scoutunits that have dropped points have been scout sentinels, veterans and chimera's, along side numerous prices of wargear such as autocannons and multi-lasers. This army also includes a detachment of knights, in the form of two armigers and an AdMech detachment of skitarii, both of which have also received some points drops. The combined total of all these little points drops had resulted in the huge drop in overall points, which is great and has meant that there is space now for my latest toy, a super heavy tank! More on that later!

The last two armies are space marine armies, the Dark Guardians and the Stone Dragons.

The Dark Guardians have received the biggest benefit from CA18, with their points dropping from 2831 to 2538, a drop of some 293 points! How has this been achieved? Well, it's for almost the exact opposite reason why the Eagle Knights haven't seen a big price drop, the force is made up of all of the units that have received a price drop, namely terminators and bikes. Pretty much every unit in the army has received a price drop, with terminators dropping several points each, bikes and attack bikes have also dropped points more so than terminators and seeing as how the army is made up of over 20 terminators, 20 bikes and 3 assault bikes, that's a few points saved there. There are also all the changes to wargear, which help save a few more points.

Lastly, there are the Stone Dragons, or as they are these days, Stone Dragons and Deathwatch. The Stone Dragons have been through quite a few changes through the last few years and will be going through a few more over the next few but for now the list has seen a minor drop in points, from 2194 to just 2053 points, a drop of 141 points. While not a small drop it's still not huge. Again, the two units are formed of mostly core units, grey hunters or deathwatch vets, all armed with standard weaponry, none of which received much of a points drop. There are a few bigger units, such as the dreadnoughts, which did receive some drops on wargear and such but overall there were no big drops. Both of these forces are centered around kill team elements and are not really build for the 40k tabletop, so the points drops won't really make a difference overall.

So, there have been some really big drops and some not so big drops but overall all the armies have seen a drop. This has been very useful for the likes of the Hjaltland Light Infantry, as they can now fit in some much needed extra firepower and the Dark Guardians will have more options to choose from. The Eagle Knights could have done a bigger drop and may suffer for it but then, they haven't seen a drop, so they obviously think these units are competitive as they are. I'm not sure how long it will be before I can get any of these armies on the table to test out the new points, probably quite a while!

2019 resolutions

As always, at the beginning of the year, I set myself some hobby resolutions to go alone side my new year's resolutions. I say along side but I don't actually think I've set myself any new years resolutions for several years, just hobby ones! This year is going to see quite a few changes to life, with the arrival shortly of child no.3 and my wife being on maternity leave. Whether this translates into more hobby time or less is unknown, although with all the house renovations that need doing, I suspect less hobby time will be the result. As such, this year's resolutions will be very brief!

So what are they going to be?

1) complete my deathwatch kill team. I've started this (WIP shots to follow soon) but have a long way to go. I will be spending a fair bit of time on each model, more than I have on any previous marine model I've painted, so it might take some time to finish all 20 models.

2) complete my inquisitorial\scions kill team. These have been named "the black widows" by my son and shall be forevermore. These will be getting similar treatment to the deathwatch and will be receiving extra attention. They have been started and there are a few models that are almost complete and all the others have there black base coat done and fleshy parts started. These will form one of my main kill teams along side the guard and deathwatch.

3) complete AdMech kill team. These have been primed ready but will probably not get the same level of detail as the deathwatch or Scions.

4) paint and base terrain. For this I want to properly base my MDF building on to some MDF board and paint them, just quick and dirty spray can jobs. I also want to finish my jungle terrain, as I have the bits for it, I just have to actually do it.

5) finish building my custom storage trays. Again, I've started this and have all the plans sorted, I just need to cut and glue the together.

6) complete chaos kill team. This is not a priority and is more just because I have a roster sorted for some of the chaos models I have lying around. If it gets done it will be a quick paint job, just to get colour on to them.

7) complete marine kill team. Again, this is not a priority and I don't even have all the models sorted. This is more in here as I have plans for a team and I have actually purchased some of the extra models I needed, namely a bunch of scouts but in reality, this is not something I'm bothered about getting on the table top any time soon.

8) Marneus Calgar. I was brought the new model for Christmas and while I don't collect ultrasmurfs at all, I would like to paint this guy up in all his glory. I'll paint up a few other models as ultrasmurfs as well, enough to form a supreme command detachment but that's it. When I do get around to painting Calgar up, I will spend quite a bit of time on him, as if your going to paint up someone as important as as the Ultrasmurfs chapter master, you might as well do it properly.

While there are quite a few items on the list, quite a few of them are fairly small. The Kill teams are only 20 models each, meaning that i'm looking at painting up a minimum of 60 models this year, maybe up to 110, so I think its achievable. 60 models is less than I have tried in previous years. We'll see how I go but a lot will depend upon the new arrival.