Tournament time, maybe..........

The local club is trying to hold a tournament, has been for a little while but with things going the way they are it's been a bit of a challenge to get it actually organised. The tournament was first voiced a couple of months back, you know, one of those things to work towards when lock down finished and a bit of motivation to get some models painted. We're past the first list submission date and rapidly heading towards the next with little sign that were actually going to get to play. Even the Escalation league that's has been running this year now allows games played on Table Top Simulator or similar to be counted towards league games, obviously playing with your actually painted models as it were. 

Anyway, it's a 2000 point team type tournament, you know Chaos vs Xenos vs Imperium. So far there's only been half a dozen lists put in and we're 4 Imperium, 4 Xenos but only 2 Chaos. By my reckoning, we'll get one more of each faction, which leaves Chaos some what at a disadvantage. There might be some wiggle room to move some stuff from one faction to another but I don't know the actual armies involved, just what faction they are part of. The general idea is that the various faction have been drawn to a mysterious planet on the fringes of Imperial space, uncharted and unknown but something has called out in to the void and it has been answered. The factions will fight the other factions, with points for the individual matches being combined to see who takes control over all. Depending upon how things go, this may well be the start of a longer running campaign within the group, maybe taking other tournaments in to account in the future or even various matched through out the year, who know! 

Personally I really like these sort of narrative things, hence the blog! I have often dreamed about running a full on narrative tournament type thing, spanning the full spectrum of GW games, from Battle Fleet Gothic right down to Kill team, via Epic and 40k. A full on planetary invasion with two massive forces. Not a realistic prospect unless I win the lottery, which when you consider I don't actually play, is quite unlikely. 

As for this tournament, I have gone with my classic guard list but with a bit of a super heavy twist. The whole list is based around the idea of an Inquisitor sent to find out the secrets of the planet and having be given a company of guardsmen to act as bodyguards \ sacrificial lambs, which ever is needed. 

I'll go into the full list in another post and give my thoughts on why I've chosen what I have, there are reason for most choices but a few were there just for fun really. I'm not taking this tournament very seriously, as it will be my first games of 9th, which I have yet to actually read or even buy the rules for. I have a rough idea of the changes but things like actions are still an unknown quantity to me. 

The list is however almost ready to go, the only thing that needs painting is the Inquisitor! She's half painted but needs finishing off. She'll be done by the time she's needed for the table top, I'll make sure of that. The super heavy could do with a spruce up as well, as although it's painted, it was second hand and needs a little tidying up, plus the commander needs a new head, as he lost his old one somewhere. 

Hopefully when we do get to play, I'll post up some pictures of the games. 

Dark Guardians

 The Dark Guardians are my second marine army and as a Dark Angels successor, they are part of my second favorite marine army. I have always loved the lore of the 1st legion, it's hidden history and shady dealing. The Dark Guardians were supposed to be a full 2000+ point army in there own right, to go alongside my Eagle Knights army but with no time to really paint or play they have been relegated to the loft, although there is a full force there just waiting to get painted and I will get them painted, one day.........

Anyway, there new Primaris Guardians are one their way, although it might be a while till I get the last of them. First though, there have been, as always, a few updates to the chapter. This time the updates are minor and are pretty much all visual. Some may have noticed that the colour scheme has changed a bit from the fluff, to be honest I didn't when I painted them! I had gone off the original scheme, mostly the yellow chest plate but when I painted up the kill team, I followed the pattern from a biker I had already painted up and did t really think much about it. It was only when I was over the pages for the Brazen Hawks that I noticed that the colours for the Guardians was different on their page! Anyway this is the old and new colours for the Guardians;

The old scheme

The new scheme

I think the new scheme is cleaner, simpler. It doesn't show very well on here but the edges of the pauldrons and vents on the pack are actually metallic, leadbelcher to be precise. It's clearer n these pictures;

Apart from the colour scheme changing, the lore will remain the same but as with the others, be progressed. In terms of the Guardians this means accepting, all be it grudgingly some primaris marines, who will be put to work on more mundane tasks, while those who survive the upgrade procedure will continue with the "other" tasks. The force will switch to the new bikes and heavier armoured primaris units, namely gravis armoured  Inceptors. These fit in to the tried and tested hammer and anvil tactics of the chapter.

The 500 point force will consist of a Chaplain and 2 scout squads. One of these squads will be for close combat work, with knives and bolt pistols, while the other will have sniper rifles, heavy bolters and bolters. This core will be supported by a squad of the new Outriders , just the one squad of 3 for the moment. There will also be a squad of Inceptors, armed with the assault bolters, mainly because these are the ones that come in the Dark Imperium box set. If I decide to increase the size of this force, then I will no doubt add another squad of bikes and a squad of plasma Inceptors, I may also add in one of the new land speeders but that's going to be some way off, like years!

So far I have the scouts and the Inceptors and fire the mean time a lieutenant will suffice as the units warlord, meaning I will have a legal force to field. 

 

More eBay purchases

 

Well, I've done it again, bought another eBay bargain! This time however, it's for kill team. As you may have noticed I am a massive fan of kill team, I like the idea, the size and the rules, I just wish I had some more like minded people around to play with! 40k wise, I'm sorted, there's plenty for nice people to play with but kill teams a bit under supported up here. 

Anyway, I do tend to play a lot with the kids, both mind and friends and they tend to want to play big games with lots of stuff on the table but I'm hoping that with some arena boards I can reduce the size of the games but still retain the fun aspect of it. I don't think it's too hard to achieve, as we currently tend to play on similar sized Infinity boards. 

For less than a tenner I managed to get an almost complete box of arena. The only thing I appear to be missing is the bits to go on the board, such as doors and boxes. I have some of these spare, siluch as boxes and barrels, plus I have other bits that can easily stand in for the pipes, it's only the doors that might be a problem. However I have a solution, these things;

I reckon that a couple of these, printed on paper and stuck on to card, with some appropriate stands should do fine as stand in for the doors. Ok, so they'll not be as detailed (they'll be black and white as well, as the wife's work printer only prints black and white) but they will serve the purpose well enough for what we need. I'm hoping I can get this all sorted this weekend and maybe even have a trial game with the young man at some point but we will have to see if time allows. 

I'm actually quite excited about this. I had been looking at a way to get Space Hulk tiles sorted and printed but it became a lot more complicated than I thought it would be, as the tiles we're all different scales and would need printing and adjusting several times to get them all to match up properly. Something I wasn't able to do. Getting hold of these boards is great, as it gives me what I want cheaply and without any of the hassle. 

Brazen Hawks

Next up for the "new" Marines is another chapter that had some coverage a while ago, it even had a test model painted up! Sadly, the chapter got shelved and the test model got dumped in Detol. I've still got a few pictures of the old models but the new scheme will be quite different.

Old Brazen Hawks colour scheme.

This new Brazen Hawks will still be an Imperial Fists successor chapter and the fluff, rather than changing will be progressed. The new Hawks will represent the chapter having completed it's penitence crusade, down to a dozen or so battle brothers, who come to the aid of one last cry for help, only to find they were not the only ones to answer and that a sub-fleet of the Indominus crusade's Tertius fleet had also answered the call. This led to the chapter re-establishing contact with the wider Imperium and also receiving a much needed in flux of new Marines, in the form of several companies worth of Primaris Marines. The chapter will keep it's new crusading ways and the new colours to mark a new beginning. The new scheme will be quite a radical departure from the old scheme;

I'll go in to the updated fluff more when I redo the chapters lore but basically the change is because those that remained of the old chapter decided that the bright bronze\copper of the old chapter was too flashy and represented all that was wrong with the old ways and a new duller, less flashy scheme was needed. The chapter will also move closer to the Fists way of wageing war, with long range weaponry, although they will still retain there passion for stealth and subtlety.

The actual 500 point army will consist of just 4 units. A captain in gravis armour, a tank of a unit, designed to bolster the fire power but also act as counter punch to protect the two shooting units. These units will be a 5 man stalker bolt rifles equipped Intercessor squad and a 5 man heavy plasma incinerator squad. This means that they both have 36 inch range and can threaten enemy units right from the off. Yes it's at the cost of total shots but I think it will work, both as a stand alone list and as part of a bigger list. The last unit and the only one I don't yet have, is a unit of flamestorm Aggressors. These are here as part of the counter punch, to deal with any units that get to close. It might not sound much, 3 Aggressors but 6d6 12inch auto hitting shots is not to be sniffed at, especially when they can be used in overwatch as well. 

This force will form the firebase for the larger force, a sort of mini castle. I'm aware that there are lots of better options out there for primaris marine castles, such as Redemptor dreads and Repulsar tanks. The Redemptor could be an option for the future but the Repulsar is not really viable in a 500 point list, when the cost is between 314 and  365. Plus with the cheapest HQ being 75 points, with just these two your looking at a minimum of nearly 400 points just for two units. 

So this will be the second force to build and paint, as it's the second most complete. I will get some Aggressors at some point but I'm not in a hurry as I still have a lot of stuff to build and paint!

I'm not sure who's up next, possibly the Stone Dragons or Dark Guardians, although neither of these forces are anywhere near complete.