Eagle Knights assault squad Coronatus

This week we will be looking at the Assault squad or squads possibly. While they have been modelled up as a single squad, the original plan was to run these as two 5 man squads rather than a 10 man squad. Chances are they will run as a single 10 man squad and be split in to combat squads as the need arises. So he is assault squad Coronatus.

The complete 10 man squad.

Sgt with power fist.

First combat squad, lead by the Sgt.

Second combat squad

Now, there are two things to note about this squad. Firstly there are no special weapons within the squad, all of the members, apart from the sgt are armed up with pistols and chain swords. These are not going to be hunting big monster on there own, but acting either as supporting elements for the harder hitting combat units or picking on the remains of units that have been crippled by shooing and can be over whelmed by the number of attacks that these guys can put out. There secondary role will also be to move rapidly around the board and snatch objectives or Maelstron cards as and when they can. The second thing to note about that squad is the rather oddly coloured member, best seen in the back of the last picture. He's quite a bit darker and more red than the others. This was a failed experiment with an old GW ink wash. I acquired a bottle of red ink somewhere along the line and its sat in my box of paints for a long time, unused, so I decided to see what it was like and washed the model in it. Its didn't exactly go as I had planned, as it basically just turned the model a red/orange colour and didn't really do anything else. I had though that it would act much like a wash and cause so highlighting or show up the recesses, but it doesn't appear to have done anything of the sort. I think that I really need to have a better look at how to use inks properly before I have another go with it. I am hoping that when I wash the model in the Quickshade it will bring it back in line with the other models more, if it doesn't then I'll just leave it as it is and make up some story as to why he has a different coloured armour to the rest of the guys.

Next up are Devastator squad Guianensis

Xmas spending money

While i didn't get a lot of new toys this Christmas, i did get some spending money. It didn't take me long to decided where to spend most of it! First up was the new blood angels codex and data cards;

Now, i have not had a chance yet to read through it all yet, i have had the opportunity to flick through all of the pages. The main pages that i have been focusing on have been the more recent fluff pages, catching up with the Tyranid assault on Baal and the period directly before and after. I will eventually get around to reading it from cover to cover, as there is always so much information, stories and other interesting facts buried in the pages.

So far i only have one criticism and that's the fact that every diagram of a marine is a primaris and almost every picture of a group of models is centered around primaris marines. Even the 'eavy metal sections are heavily weighted towards primaris marines. Ok, so i know there the new kids on the block and all but talk about pushy. We all get that the classic marines days are numbered and soon there will be nothing but primaris, but right now, the majority of marine players and specifically blood angles players are going to have classic marines, in many cases lots of them. Now I'm not against the primaris marines at all, even if the lore sucks and make no sense but i definitely don't like the helmets and i still don't see why all the various new bolt weapons can't be shared around?

With the new book in hand it has encouraged me to think about expanding the force, potentially adding in some strengths (originally destined for the Emperor's Disciples), some librarians and more devastators, with better anti-armour weaponry, maybe missile launchers. In addition they may also get some  rhinos (also originally destined for the Emperor's Disciples)) This will expand the force up a bit and probably mean that the Disciples get sidelined altogether but that's for another post.

I am contemplating a codex review, much like my guard codex review, but probably a bit shorter and focusing mostly on units that i own or will be using, although the Guard one seemed to take ages to write and took up weeks of posts, so i will have to see.

Eagle Knights Tactical Squad Malaiensis

This is the first in a series of posts to catch up on the progress of the Eagle Knights chapter that I have been painting in the background. Over the next couple of weeks I will run though all of the units that I have completed. 

First up we have tactical squad Malaiensis, the first of two tactical squads in the force. In the original 7th ed version of this force there were three 5 man tactical squads, to fill the requirements for Battle Demi-Company within the Angels Blade Strike Force, but with some rejigging and the addition of a couple of marines, there are now two 10 man squads. While the armament has remained fairly similar, there has been the addition of an extra flamer to one of the squads, to give each squad a flamer and a heavy flamer, in addition to the Sgts hand flamer. Can you see a theme here?

The complete Squad

Another angle of the squad. Ignore the lines on the paper, but the bairns got hold of the white paper that I use as the photo background and decided to colour it in! I need to find another sheet but every one I find had been attacked by the bairns!

Above and Below are the basic tactical marines. Some of these are from the starter pack, Dark Vengeance, some of them are Chaos models that I got in a bits sale. Personally, I like that mix in the aesthetics that the unit gives.

The other combat squad. The Sgt is in the middle with bolter and hand flamer, with flamer on the left and heavy flamer on the right. Technically, the heavy famer is a Cadian flamer, but it works well as a heavy flamer, as it has the back pack reservoirs.  

A close up of the flame units. You can see the differences between the flamer and heavy flamer a bit better here. 

In game the squad will usually act as two combat squads, with the bolter squad, from the top picture forming one squad and staying back, to support the other combat squad or even the Devastators, while the second combat squad with all the flamers moves forward to rake the enemy with lots of flaming goodness. Flamers are more expensive this edition and are probably not the best option for a tactical squad, but the tactical squads have a very specific role in the army. They are there to take on the weaker units or hordes, as the other units, namely the death company and vanguard vets take on the tougher units. They will also be used to capture objectives thanks to there objective secured rules.

While the units is now fully painted, I still need to do some finishing touches, the same as with my completed Hjaltland LI, as I need to seal them, in this case using Army Painted quickshade soft tone, and then base them, probably using Army Painter battlefields basing. This will hopefully be done sometime over the next couple of months, as and when I get around to buying all the stuff.

Next up are the Assault squad(s).

256th combined army Vs Renegade knights

This is one of two batrep that i have lined up, the other was a practice match for the tournament back in October! With the release of the guard codex and all the posts dedicated to it over the last few weeks, i haven't got around to posting them. This batrep was from a game a just the other week and was not the game i had been intending to play. I had been lined up to play a game against a Tau player and even though i didn't know his list, although i suspect he might have brought his new toy, a Stormsurge, i had brought a pretty rounded list. As it turned out my last minute stand in opponent brought 3 knights. Now I'm not going to go home and cry about it. When he agreed to play last minute, he told me he only had one list ready for 8th and it had to be 1500 points. Now it's usually pretty easy to drop points from a list, you just drop a unit here and there, so i did think not was a little odd to say that but i didn't enquire any further and just stuck with my previous list, a list that turns out to be completely useless against 3 knights. Alright, not completely useless, that was partly down to poor dice rolls and poor play by me, but it was always going to be an upwards fight.

I brought a combined arms list featuring a Vostroyan batallion detachment with a company commander with the Laura's of Command, two primaris psyker's, 2 platoon commanders, 4 infantry squads, two with autocannons and two with grenade launchers, and a heavy weapons squad with 2 autocannons and a heavy bolter. I also had a Valhallan spearhead detachment with a battle rank command tank, a punisher bolter boat and loaded executioner. Lastly I brought a patrol detachment of scions, with prime, plasma command squad and volley gun Scion squad. I then used a command point to equip the prime with the MT relic.

My opponent brought 3 renegade knights, a paladin knight, a knight lancer and i think the other was either a crusader with two Gatling cannons or a castigator. 

We decided to play from the open war cards, something i haven't done before but have seen being played down the club and i do like the idea. I won the roll off and pulled out the required cards, deployment, objective and twist. For deployment we got the 50\50 split, which was possibly the worst option for me. Objective was effectively​ kill points, just based on power points, which were doubled for killing the warlord. The twist card was orbital debris, so 3 dice, any 6's cause mortal wounds. The twist card was then drawn by my enemy and promptly discarded, as it allowed him to hold up to 3 units back for deployment after i had deployed. Seeing as he only had 3 units and it would have been more restrictive to hold units back, he just deployed normally. We had no sudden death option as we were actually fairly evenly matched on power points, about 85 to 80, or there abouts.

The cards

Turn 1 and my opponent won the roll of to go first, using the new CA17 rules. As a result, i was on the back foot from the off. I had tried to spread out, so that the knights would either split up and head in different directions, or would stick together and give my units time to shoot. They did the latter and I didn't get time to shoot. I set up wrong, in pretty much every way I think. I should have stayed back, as far as I could, to give time to shoot, and I should have position my units better, as the tank commander was out of orders range from the executioner, with disastrous results.

Turn one, and the knights advance.

Just before the charge and my Russ on the right is wiped out.

Turn 2

This turn I tried some delaying tactics, it didn't really work. I moved a unit of infantry up to block the charge of the knight on my second Russ in the centre, my executioner, but all that happened was that my guard were slaughtered by the knight in the centre and its Gatling cannons.

Command tank in the bottom corner is about 6.5 inches from the Executioner in the centre!

One Russ gone and Wyverns are next in line.

This was probably the worse turn for me. My Executioner, with plasma sponsons, rolled up pretty well for shots, getting 4 on the main gun and 2 on each sponson, but I decided to overcharge then, even though I was out of orders range. A bit silly but I really needed to do some damage to the knight in front of me, as I knew he would be charging in his turn. I managed to roll 5 1's to hit out of the 8 shots, and then failed to wound with 2 of the others, but I did do damage with the last, putting 2 wounds on the knight, but not nearly enough. 

Turn 3

By this point it was pretty much all over. I had lost most of my infantry. There should be two squads at the top of the picture below and also a squad at the bottom, the 4th squad should be across on the right of the picture, but as you can see, there is very little left at all. My executioner is wounded, my company commander has no troops left to command and my hellhound is completely ineffective against knights. About all i have left that is of any use is my tank commander battle tank. I fought on though and managed to do a bit of damage to the knight before my tank went pop.

Staring death in the face... 

And death strikes​.....

Yep, that's everything that's left on the table. Only the 11 scions in reserve.

Turn 3

By now, i was aiming for just one thing, take down a knight. I wasn't hopeful but i had done a bit of damage to one of them, the yellow one. As such i dropped in my scions behind the beast and took aim. After everything had shot at it, it was still standing, that was the hellhound, LRBT, 4 overcharged plasma, 2 hotshot volley guns and two hotshot lasguns. Just one wound remained, just one. Then i had a thought, at the beginning of the game i had taken a second relic, the reliquary of XXX and put it on my Tempestus prime, instead of taking a command rod, so my prime had a bolt pistol. It was only 1 shot, but it was worth a try.

Something big and yellow's missing?

Much to my surprise and to my opponents astonishment, we witnessed the (almost) impossible, as the prime hit, wounded and the knight failed his save, stripping the last wound of the knight. It was a truly awesome scene, mighty leman Russ battle tanks, death spitting hellhounds and miniature suns had been thrown at this thing, with little success and in the end it took the iron nerve of a Tempestus prime and a measly bolt pistol to fell the mighty beast. I can see it now, the prime looking on as his men shot and fail to being the knight down, "what the bloody he'll was that?! Fine, I'll  i do it myself!" Lifts bolt pistol, BANG, CRASH!  Holsters bolt pistol.  In return though, the other two wiped out a wyvern and killed off the last of my troop choices.

Turn 4

What now? Well, nothing really, i took a few more pot shots and waited for the inevitable to happen, as i didn't have nearly enough firepower to bring down a knight in one turn, let alone two. I played on and tried to see what i could do, which wasn't much. It was even less once the right hand knight charged in and squished my warlord and psyker beneath his big feet.

We did play a turn 5 but i didn't bother with pictures. The hellhound in the middle got hosed by the Gatling cannon and while it survived, it was in poor shape, the rest of the scions apart from the prime also got some attention and were also removed. At that point we called it and didn't bother rolling for turn 6. I had a crippled hellhound and a LRBT, he had two knight both on top tier, one not even injured at all. Oh and the prime, but i think that even his skill with a bolt gun wasn't going to help much now.

So my first big loss of 8th and only my second overall i think. Not to bad i think. There is no doubt that i had the wrong list for this game, i had anti-armour for.once, just not nearly enough for what i was facing and even though every weapon is capable of doing damage, as shown by the bolt pistol, even massed lasguns are not much use against a trip of knights. Overall it was a good fun game and i learnt a lot from it but i hope my next game is not nearly as one sided!

Book review - Dark Imperium

Another Quick hit today. I have just finished reading the new Dark Imperium novel that I got for Christmas. Ok, so it might not be that new anymore but it was new to me. I haven't read much 40k stuff in recent years, the last thing that I read was the first trilogy for Ragnar, which I greatly enjoyed and have been meaning to read the second trilogy ever since, but at the time I read the first one is was not out yet. Having just looked, it was apparently published back in 2009! That's a long time ago now, I really should read more!

As for the Dark Imperium book itself, I really enjoyed reading the book. While I would not say it was a gripping as some other book I have read, both 40k ones and other genres, it was a good read. The story moved on nicely and always kept you wanting to read more and find out where things were going. There was also a few nice little teasers and intriguing bits in the book. Most, if not all, of these have already been seen and written about, such as Crawl having new marines with traitor gene-seeds or Crawls use of Xenos technology in many of his inventions. It does open many doors for GW to move the story and the technology on from where it presently stands. What really got me about the story though, was how many of the new marines, who in reality are actually old old marines, and the Primarch view the modern imperium. How archaic and regressive the place has become, how technologies that were taken for granted have become bastardised and corrupted. Even simple things like servitors and cherubs, which we all just take as being part of the 40k universe but are seen as vulgar and well, crap, compared to those from the 30k imperium. I am assuming that at some point we will get Primaris Tech Marines or something similar, trained by Crawl or one of his minions, and so will we see a return of some of the 30k technologies or even just some cleaner, more visually pleasing (?) models?

One other thing about the novel, is that it does make me like the Primaris Marines a bit more. They don't come across completely "i'm much better than you", in the book, they just act as marines act, but they do seem to be favoured by the primarch a lot more that the normal marines. I still don't like the back story at the moment and I really hope that they add to it and make the role of the Eldar more known and understood, or at least accepted that they had more of a hand in these things than we know at the moment.

If you haven't read the book, then I would recommend reading it as it is a good book but I would not jump it to the top of your reading list if you have one.

Easy Build boxes.

When I was down at the in-laws over the Christmas period, I took a walk into town to treat myself to a Costa (there's none around where I live) and I thought I would take a wonder down to the local toy shop and see what was on there shelves. Much to my surprise I can across these!

Only a few boxes hidden in amongst the boxes of Airfix and Revell

Not the complete collection, but some is better than none.

Now, I was initially very excited to see these boxes, as I haven't seen them around before and I don't know if they still produce them as all but the fact that they are there is great. This is the chance to introduce a new generation in to the hobby. However, I then noticed the prices!

I though that these were supposed to be easy build, snap fit starter sets, but for this price you could get a full multipart plastic kits!

Take the landspeeder, in the build+paint kit you get a speeder with heavy bolter and a small piece of terrain. Ok so you can't buy the terrain piece, but the speeder will cost you 18.50 direct from games workshop, but the build+paint set in the toy shop was 23.99! That means that the small terrain piece is going to cost you at least 5.49! Oh, and don't forget its snap fit with fixed options. It was the same with the bike kit. In it you get a bike and a hero, also known as a terminator, for the grand sum of 17.99. A bike off GW will cost you 20 for 3 bikes! That works out at about 6.66 per bike, a long was short of the 17.99 for the kit. The terminator is just a snap fit 3 edition model, (I think!) with storm bolter and power fist.

Its the same with the ork boxes. I haven't bben through all of there costs to see how they compare, but I would not be surprised to see that they too were massively over priced, being on sale for; 17.99 for the ork bike, 23.99 for the trukkboyz and a massive 38.99 for the ork raiders set.

Now, I don't know what the prices are supposed to be, I can only find them in dollars, but they are only a couple of dollars more that they are on sale for in pounds, which doesn't sound right, plus I don't know how much the various parts go for over the pond. Has anyone else seen these kits up for sale? How much were they up for? I'd be interested to know.

Telegraph article

Don't know if any of you have seen this, but it makes a interesting and quick read.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/01/09/games-workshop-storms-record-sales-online-boom/amp/

2018 Resolutions

With 2017 gone and 2018 upon us, its time to set some goals for this year. While there were a few points that were left outstanding from last year, i will only be looking to carry over two points. These will join a number of new points.

¹) paint up the remainder of the Dagr Ormr Militarum Tempestus force. - this has been started and a colour scheme for the PDF that accompany and support the scions has been chosen.

²) find a suitable base material for all my forces. - i think i have settled on one of the army painter battlefields scatters for the main part, i just need to take the plunge and do it.

³) finish building my jungle plant terrain. - need MDF boards and plaster mix, oh and time.

⁴) get pictures of the complete hjaltland LI and Eagle Knights. - as my first and second fully painted armies ever, this is something i really want to do.

5) get as much of the Hrossey Yeomanry and Dark Guardians primed and base coated as possible. - these are the next two armies to be painted after the Dagr Ormr, with Hrossey being the first of the two.

6) update my narratives, taking in to account the 8th edition universe. - the setting and armies all need updating, but especially the Dark Guardians and Eagle Knights, in light of there respective codices.

7) finish off my inquisitorial warband. - a fluff thing more than anything, but will help to tie things together.

8) add in new models, ogryns bodyguard's and MT transports. - shiny new models are always fun, but bodyguard's are new to the codex and the scions have been waiting for transport your ages. ( Come on anvil industries, where are the Taipan APC's you showed us?)

So, not as many points as last year, you'll notice i dropped the one about selling stuff!, but still a few things to do. This year will possibly see a few changes to my hobby, as the young lady is starting nursery this year and this may give me a little bit of time to indulge myself in the odd afternoon of painting.

2017 Review

Its that time of year again, time to look back over the past year and more and see how badly I have do on my resolutions that I set this time last year!

So first up we'll look back at the 2017 list, then we'll step even further back and see how we have done with previous years.

so 2017:

1) the main painting objective this year will be the Eagle Knights. I would like to get all the models based orange at the very least. Well, I think I smashed this one, seeing as the last model was painted on around the 20th December, although none of them are based properly as i'm still trying to figure out what basing to use!

2) table terrain and gaming surface. Having just got a mat and mdf terrain for Christmas, I need  to get on with building and painting the terrain! Well, there built, so that's a start. I do need to get on with painting them, then they'll look even better on the table top.

3) base my finished models in relation to my new mat. So some sort of green flock is needed. Yeah, still trying to decide what to do here, I think that I just really need to take the plunge and actually do it.

4) defend my title at Northern Invasion 5. Unfortunatly, I didn't make it down this year. However I did make the Xmas tournament this year and took that title home instead, so that makes me feel better about missing NI5.

5) sell off models. Mainly my extra guard models and most of the Emperors Diciples. Er, yeah, this has been on every years list and I have yet to sell a single model. I really should sell the ones that I don't need or want, but for some reason I just never seem to get around to it. I will do it this year, I promise!

6) finalize a list for the Dark Guardians. Kind of, I have decided that they are only going to be a bike and terminator force, with no other units. Although with the recent release of the 8th DA codex I will probably need to re jig things again.

7) model up the dark guardians Again, I have done this, but I may have to change things to fit the new 8th Codex. There still a way down the list this year, as I want to get my Scions and Armour painted this year.

8) crack out the airbrush and prime some models! Goes with (1) I really cant say when my airbrush last came out to play. I really need to get it out and use it, especially with the Scions, who are all airbrushed so far.

9) sort out my storage, I have cases but no storage trays. Empty cases are pretty useless. I think if anything, that my storage has actually got worse! I really need to sort out some more KR trays or similar, as at the moment some of my models are literally just piled in to one of the KR boxes.

10) when/if I sell off models (5), I will use the money to purchase new transport for the Dagr Ormr and extra models for the dark guardians, if needed. Now models sold and no new models bought this year. I will be buying a couple of models this year, as there are a couple of units in the new codex that I want, namely Ogryn Bodyguards.

11) add to the fluff. This applies to all my forces. I've got plenty of ideas, just need to get pen to paper. I added some fluff at the start of last year and I need to do the same to bring all the fluff in line with the latest 8th edition fluff. They all need updating for the Rift but the Knights need updateing after the devastation of Baal and the Guardian after the fighting at the Rock.

So, all in all, not to bad. I have completed or at least stuck to over half of my resolutions this year. I would consider this year to be a success overall, as i have achieved all my main aims for the year, namely finishing of the Eagle Knights and sort out some proper gaming terrain. Although there are still a few outstanding points, there are not ones that are detrimental to my gaming experience. I will have to consider what to put on the 2018 to do list and if i want to carry over any of these points to next year. 

How have I been doing on the outstanding 2016 resolutions though? 

2016

1) Try and model up all the missing models from the various army lists All that was missing from this was the Dark Guardians, which have been modelled up now.

2) Sell models I don't need! I really need to do this! Yep, still waiting on this one!

3) Try and base coat some of the models, so at least I can place them on the table together with out getting confused with what model belongs to what army Still working on this one.

So, I'm getting there! One done and 2 left to do, although one i'm going to discount as its on every list and I have yet to do it at all! So really, that means that there is just one left to do and i'm going to try and sort out my basing material this year and get both the Hjaltland LI and Eagle Knights completely finished this year. So hopefully this list will be completed this year, only 2 years later than planned!

Last but not least, lets have a look at the outstanding 2015 resolutions.

2) Base coat all vehicles, should be easy with an air brush! I've got a few done, but need to get the rest sorted. I'll try and get some of the details done as well. - Still got one left I think? Just the Hellhound I believe, but this should be done by the end of this year!

5) Sell off models I don't need, there only taking up space and will provide money towards supplies and paint. - I'm getting a feeling of Deja vu here! 

Again, i'm getting there. Once more i'm going to ignore the last one, as it is on every list. So hopefully by the end of this year I should have ticked all the boxes for 2015! We'll better late than never!

Christmas 2017

The Christmas season is at an end again, only about 11 and a half months left until the next one or 5 and a half till birthday season. But while we wait for the long months to pass, let's have a look at what i got for Christmas. It's not a huge haul of 40k goodies this year, but it's a good haul.

First off are the open war cards, finally a set of my own and can stop borrowing other people's. I have also had a read through them for the first time and there are some interesting cards. I don't think that i will ever use some of them though, namely the sudden death cards, as i tend to play matched points and keep things level. I think that i might do a post on them in the new year, a quick run through off all the cards and my thoughts on them and the pack overall.

The second thing that i got was the Dark Imperium novel by Guy Haley. It's been a while since I've read a 40k novel, the last being the first Ragnar omnibus (i still want to read the second one). I have listened to a few audio books via YouTube while doing various bits of DIY, but this is the first book I've read in ages, 40k or otherwise to be truthful. Although i have yet to finish it, i am really enjoying it, although i don't think it's the best written book I've read, the Ragnar ones were better from what I remember. If you haven't read it then i would recommend it from what I've read so far, although i was surprised by "when" the book was set, i thought it would have been earlier. I think i need to look into what novel covers the actual awakening of the girlyman.

And we'll that's it for this year. Not a massive haul of stuff, but i will be looking at getting some other bits for myself over the next few weeks. Top of my list is some basic basing material and some Army Painter Soft Tone Quickshade, along side some matt varnish. This will enable me to finish the Hjaltland LI completely, which need a coat of Quickshade dark tone and Matt varnish before basing and also the the Eagle Knights, which will be soft toned, Matt varnished  and based. This will completely finish these two armies. So watch this space!

In other news, i have decided to do the Inquisitional force next, to add to the narrative side of things before moving on the the Dagr Ormr and Hildasey pdf, I'll cover all this in my new year's resolutions post, which will be up soon.