Gladius and Lions Blade strike forces

I've been looking at the Gladius strike force for my Emperors Disciples and the Lions Blade strike force for my Dark Guardians and while I'm still planning on using the CAD for both, it seems sensible to see what I can do with just the formations in the codex, as I've a feeling that the CAD will disappear at some point, possibly with 8th.

So what's the verdict? Well, for the Emperors Disciples the story is not all bad. On the whole, there are not a lot of changes, with most units remaining the same with some minor tweaks, there are only a few major changes. The biggest ones come in the form of the loss of a devastator squad, with the two squads being somewhat combined in to a 5 man lascannon/missile squad with the plasma gunners moving in to two of the tactical squads instead of the Heavy Bolters. This does reduce the overall effect of the anti-air but maintains the anti-armour, also the ap2 shooting is maintained although its now spread a little thinner. The other major change is the inclusion of 3x 5 man vet squads instead of just one 10 man squad, in the form of 2x  5 man Sternguard, one combi-plasma and one combi-melta, which were originally formed in to the 10 man squad. The other vet squad is a 5 man Vanguard squad with power weapons, probably swords, as a companion for the Assault squad I need to include. The other major change is the loss of the Librarian, but the gaining of a Chaplin.

So overall, the army feels the same, not a lot will be lost and there will be a few more assault type units in the army, not something that I was really going for but is mostly unavoidable. I could drop the Vanguards for more Sternguard, but it could be useful to have a bit of a CC squad with some ap3 killing power. If I have to go towards the Demi-Company, then I would feel to down and I'll be able to keep the army going as it is.

The Dark Guardians on the other hand are going to take a battering either way I spin in. Why? Well, if I go with the Lions Blade strike force I will loose a lot of my elite units, namely one of the two company vet squads, and most of the other squads are being forced to take minimum numbers and no war gear in order to save points to get in the 1+ aux slot - Deathwing Redemption Force and the Ravenwing Formation, as I cant fill the Ravenwing Strike Force as I have no Land Speeder. However, I can just take the formations and use my Ravenwing and Death company, but I'll loose my vets, command squad and tac squads.

So, what to do? Well, for the moment stick with CAD, but when it goes, I'll probably go for the Lions Blade as it gives me marines on the table and will use the models I have, rather then forcing me to go and buy new ones, which I will have to do to make up the points. However, this does mean that I'm running a lot of bodies with out any upgrades or abilities. This isn't really what I wanted, I get to keep a vet squad and command squad, although without many of there upgrades, mostly their Storm Shields! I'll also have an assault squad, without packs to save points and 3 basic tac squads which will just sit around doing nothing, that's an assault squad and a tac squad that I don't really want or need! Also there is the Dev squad, which at the moment is armed with missiles and flakk, for some AA but they may just get dropped down to Bolters for some points. For the Termies, i'll carry on running the Deathwing Redemption Force, but I may look at running the Ravenwing Attack Squadron, but that means getting at least 2 Land Speeders, using 2x 5 bike squads. Now, this would be 100 points min, but I would prefer to arm them with twin HB's at 110 points, but I would really like twin MM but that puts it up to 150 for the two, although I would a lot of that by getting rid of the Chaplin on a bike, around a 100 points, but that still leaves a deficit of points and all I really have to give is combi-weapons on the vets or the Command squad upgrades, Standard or Champion, or alternatively get rid of them all together, all of which are not options I really want to explore.

So overall, I'll just have to hope that the CAD remains, at least for my Dark Guardian anyway. All this leads me to wonder about the BA future, as I think that the next codex, when ever it arrives will also contain a Demi-Company setup, but looking at it, it may not be much of a problem as I have most of the units I need. The Baal Pred my well be in trouble though. I wonder what will happen to the IG/AM as well, as they will, I assume, get a similar treatment at some point. Well, I suppose I will just have to wait and see on that front.

AoS game (This is a twin post along side my other blog - Gaming for the Northern Lands)

Well, I got to see a game of AoS at the weekend, and although I didn't get to see the end of it, it looked like it was going to be a close game.

The battlefield

The game was between Skaven and Chaos, and while I cant tell you the complete lists I can tell you a few of the units involved. Skaven had Slaves, Flame cannon things, a couple of units of Jezzails, a Screaming Bell, Clan Rats, Doom Flayer, Engineers, Ratling Guns, plus some other units, while the Chaos had several units of warriors, a couple of Chariots, some Knights plus a Lord, some Dragon Ogres, and a Sorcerer. At least I think that was it, there may have been some other units but I cant remember and I'm not an expert on Fantasy/AoS stuff.

The field post deployment

There were some classic models on parade during the game, mostly on the Chaos side as the player was just returning to Fantasy after a long period out (and people say AoS has no appeal to new players!!)

Classic Warrior of Chaos

The game itself looked good, and although I wasn't playing, it still drew me in. There was lots of stuff being killed, although some things were proving very resilient, more so than I would have expected. Maybe this was due to the Skaven or due to the models themselves, in this I'm referring to the Dragon Ogres.

When I left the game was still going on, I cant remember how many turns had been played but it must have been on turn 3 or at least starting turn three. The Skaven were on the back foot but they had just started getting their big hitters in to combat as well as the hordes of Clan Rats, so things might have changed. I would have loved to stay until the end and see how it all played out but I had to leave to go baby sit for the wife. One reason why is for the way the forces were set up. They were using a modified tournament system, basically, still the I place/you place system but only allowing 1 more unit to be placed after one player has finished, also no named characters, unless declared before the deployment of the first unit. This seemed to work quite well, but like I say, I didn't get to see the end of the game to see how well this worked out, but if its being used in tournaments I guess it must work fairly well.

The games mechanics themselves, seem very good and easy to learn and play. The game itself was fast flowing and quick. I would definitely give it a go at some point, although I'll have to borrow an army.

The new/latest/final Eagle Knights list

I realised the other day that I have not posted the latest, and hopefully final, list for the Eagle Knights. So here it is.

HQ
Captain - 210
Valours Edge, Artificer armour, Storm Shield, Razorback

Priest - 96
Pistol, Angles Wings, Crown Angelic

Troop
Tac - 165
10 marines, Hand Flamer, Flamer, Heavy Flamer

Tac - 215
10 marines, Hand Flamer, Flamer, Heavy Flamer, Rhino, Stormbolter

Elite
Command Squad - 190
Standard, 3 Storm Shields, 3 Power Weapons

Vanguard - 215
5 Vets w/jump packs, 4x Lighting Claws, Power Axe, Power Sword, Power Maul

Death Company - 265
Jumppack, 3x power mauls, 3x plasma pistol, 2x thunder hammers, 2x boltguns

Lemartes - 130

FA
Assault - 170
10x Marines

Assault - 200
10x Marines, power fist, Melta Bomb

Heavy
Baal Pred - 145
Bolter Sponsons, Extra Armour

The plan is still pretty much the same as before. The Captain is with the Command Squad in the Razorback for picking up targets of opportunity, but also supporting the rhino and Baal. The Chaplin is with the Vanguard squad for taking down priority infantry targets, with the Death company targeting MC's and vehicles. The 10 man assault squads will support the Vanguard and the Death company, one squad to each. The tac squads will combat squad, with the foot slogging squad staying back and holding the line/objectives and the Rhino squad going with the Baal and Razorback for close ranged support. Their main aim is to take objectives and eliminate targets of opportunity as they go.

In this list, there is no dedicated AA or AT. AA its left mostly up to the Baal, with its twin-linked Assault cannons, and all the anti tank stuff is short ranged, powerfist/melta bombs and thunder hammers, but when it does get in to range its got a good chance of doing the job, lots of strength 9 on the charge! Still, I think its a good balance, but I'll have to play it at some point and see how it gets on. It could be a while before it hits the table though!

Zero self-discipline

Yep, the title says it all, I officially have zero self-discipline. After having received my last reinforcements in the form of the Panzerjagers and Command Squad, I have just purchased another squad of Panzerjagers from eBay. I have also ordered some green stuff and some Mould making stuff, you know the silicone type stuff, sometimes referred to as Blue Stuff.

I don't really need these supplies but I would like them to fill out my MT forces to pretty much max, 2 command squads, 3 squads of 10 and 3 squads of 9. almost a full CAD for the MT FOC and two full platoons for the IG/AM elite choices. This is what I would like and I don't plan on getting any more. I could have got the standard Eisenkern squad and saved myself a few quid (7 to be precise), but I like the female models, as they add a bit of variety to the all male norm.

The green stuff and blue stuff is to try and mould some extra magazines, as I don't have enough to complete the unit, another reason I probably should have got the standard Eisenkerns box as the box would have had enough to complete all the models. Also I am going to try and mould some extra bodies for the extra legs. I'm not sure how this will go, badly probably, but I'm going to try. Hopefully, I'll be able to model 4 extra bodies and backpacks, as one piece. This is so that I don't have to add extra Cadian bodies to the girls legs, which don't really fit right. This is entering in to uncharted territories, but I've watched the videos and understand the theory, but as everybody know, theory and reality don't always go hand in hand.

So, I'm probably going to come in for some flak from the other half, I say probably when I really mean definitely, and I still have no time to actually do any modelling, the last lot of MT's have sat for the last few weeks, half complete. But, and its a big but, the eldest bairn has started nursery, so I get a few hours of freedom every afternoon, now if I can only get the little one to sleep, I may make some progress!

The armies of the 256th IBG

Well, as the title suggests this is a recap of the armies of the 256th Imperial Battle Group. This is mostly due to the new SM codex and the addition of the Dark Guardians DA successor chapter but also to recap where each project is and what the current plans.

As can be seen by the last couple of posts, there has been a few changes around the battle group, and this not only includes the Disciples and the Guardians but also extends to the two main Guard lists, with the recent inclusion of a Promethium Relay Pipes and the redeployment of the Valkyrie from the Hrossey MechInf to the Hjaltland LI. This has also meant that a number of units have also been transferred, namely the third Platoon of the Hjaltland LI have been transferred to the Hrossy MI and in return a Vet squad has gone the other way. This was mostly to take advantage of the flamer torrent rules that come with the pipe system but it also means that the LI maintain there antitank melta count. There are also a number of minor changes, namely in regards to the Missile Heavy weapons team which have also been moved with the platoon to the MI, to provide anti-air cover with the loss of the two flyers to the LI, as the Vendetta has also been put on permanent duty with the LI and is no longer shared. This means that the MI are fully ground based and mostly mechanized with just a small force of regular troops to hold the rear and the LI are all ground based with some highly mobile air based units.

These two armies will form my main fighting forces still, and as such are the focus of my painting efforts, although there has been little movement on that from since the KotN 15. I'm hoping that when the house move if finalised I'll be able to set up a permanent painting and modelling table, something I've wanted to do for years.

In addition to these changes, the Dagr Ormr have receive some reinforcements, in the form of Dreamforges Eisenkern Command Squad and Eisenkern Panzerjagers. This means that I will be able to field a good size force and when Anvil Industries get around to releasing there Unity Council APC, I'll be looking at adding 4, as Tauroxs', to form a ground assault formation, plus maybe 3 of their Republic's 'Instigator' Assault Reconnaissance Vehicles, as Tauros FA vehicles.

So in reality, there has been very little progress on the actual modelling and painting fronts, but a fair bit on the army list and fluff side of things, which is about right for my gaming.