A review of 2018

So 2019 is here and has been for a few weeks now and 2018 is sliding in to history, so it's time to look back over the last year and see how the hobby has done.

For 2018 I set didn't set too many goals, having learnt from previous years that I never achieve all of them but how many did I achieve in 2018?

Let's look through my objectives for 2018 shall we:

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. Well, this didn't get done, although it wasn't a total failure. All of the PDF heavy weapons teams have been completed and that includes basing them. The PDF vets haven't been done and the remainder of the Dagr Ormr are still grey plastic. I might try again next year to complete them but they may well be on the back burner for a bit.

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. Done. I took the plunge and I think it matches my battle Matt pretty well. I have based up all of my hjaltland light infantry and also my PDF heavy weapons squads. I want to do my Eagle Knights but I need to quick shade them first.

³) finish building my jungle plant terrain. - need MDF boards and plaster mix, oh and time. Got the boards and plaster, just haven't had the time. Still on the plan, just down sized for kill team at the moment.

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.  Yes, the Hjaltland are finished and based, the eagle knights are painted, just need some quickshade soft tone before I can base them.  As for pictures, well, not quite yet. It's finding the time to get all the units layed out on the table and photograph all of them with my big camera and flash. I still really want to do this, to showcase the armies, but I'm just happy that there all painted right now.

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. Well, I've kind of done this. There all primed ready but the Guardians need some work on the addition units I gained this year, namely the attack bikes and extra ravenwing bikes. The Hrossey are all primed and ready to paint.

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. I think I need to do some more work on this, even though I did update the narrative at the beginning of the year. Hopefully I get some time to sit down and update it again, especially now I've changed ideas and plans with the release of kill team.

7) finish off my inquisitorial warband. - a fluff thing more than anything, but will help to tie things together. Still working on this and there have been some changes as well. With the change in rules for inquisitors and warbands I had to update things and with the release of kill team, I've updated things even further, as the warband is now a kill team, although still 40k legal.

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?) Well, ogryn bodyguards are modelled and half painted, not sure when they'll get the other half painted but there there. As for MT transports, I'm still no further along. I still don't like the Taurox and Anvil don't seem to have made any progress on there Tiapan. Still keep an eye out for alternatives, but nothing so far.

Well, I think that went rather well. I got a fair bit painted up, more that I expected but I still didn't complete everything on the list. With the release of kill team last year, my focus has been shifted completely from 40k and so I've had less enthusiasm to batch paint dozens of models at a time and have been enjoying being more creative with individual models, even for guard forces. I plan on completing all the outstanding armies at some point or another but right now, that seems like it's a long way off.

In addition to the 2018 goals, there were still some outstanding ones from previous years, let's see if any of them got completed.

From 2017, there were 3 outstanding resolutions:

1) 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! These are still in the as built stage, no paint but still lots of plans. I hoping to get at least some of them done this year, enough to form a battle zone for kill team. 

6) finalize a list for the Dark Guardians. While the list has been rejigged for 8th, I picked up a bunch more models. As a result the list is 99% finalized, it's just about whether I can do the conversions I need to in order to use the list properly. So I'm counting this as finally done.

9) sort out my storage, I have cases but no storage trays. Empty cases are pretty useless. I am in the process of rectifying this issue. A short while ago, I purchased a large price of foam from the local soft furnishings shop and have started to turn them in to storage trays. While softer that the KR foam, it is working well so far but again, it's about getting time to actually finished the project.

From 2016 there are no outstanding resolutions! For 2015 though, there was 1 left:

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. - So, this is now all done. All vehicles are primed and base coated in one form or another. There are 2 LRBT's that need a second coat but apart from that there all done and this resolution is cleared!

 So, all in all not bad. I'm getting there with all the outstanding resolutions, with 2015 and 2016 cleared and 2017 reduced to just 2, both of which are being worked on and will hopefully be cleared by the end of this year. The 2018 goals have gone pretty well, with a few completed and many others a good way along. Next up will be 2019's resolutions, which will have to be pretty simple if I'm to stand any chance of completing them! 

A late Christmas catch-up

So, I realised the other day that I haven't told you all about my lovely Christmas presents. I didn't get to much hobby stuff this Christmas, mostly as I have enough to be getting on with already and don't need anymore grey plastic for the cupboard of shame!

One thing I did ask for was some hobby supplies, namely some new, decent brushes to replace my cheap hobby craft ones that I've always used. These brushes haven't been a problem up until now but I'm trying to push my painting and try new techniques and I'm finding that the brushes are not as good as I would like. The points don't keep there shape unless the brush is loaded, which makes a mess as there's to much paint for fine detailed work. So i figured a couple of nice shiny new proper miniature brushes would be useful and help me improve my painting. What I was expecting was maybe a small pack with 2 to 3 brushes in, which is what I got.

The Army Painters Most Wanted set.

So I ended up with the Army Painters Most Wanted set, with 3 brushes in. These include, what I would call, a standard brush, for the majority of my painting needs, also a fine detailed brush, one that I intend to use to add in extra details to really try push my fine detailed work and finally a proper dry brush, which will hopefully improve my dry brushing, which is currently done by a random old brush. I was perfectly happy with this set, however my wife had a surprise for me.

A Windsor and Newton Series 7

Yes, my lovely wife obviously puts in more time and effort to research my presents than I put in to researching hers! This was a surprise and one I was definitely not expecting. I'm sort of scared to actually use it, as I don't feel that my painting it quite at that level. I will use it and I have some of the B&J "the Master" brush cleaner to go with it and keep it in tip top condition.

My other 40k presents came from my sister and consisted of two new releases:

Marneus Calgary and friends

First up was Calgary in new primaris form with his two mates. This is not a model I would have brought as I don't collect Ultrasmurfs but it is one I am very much looking forward to painting. I plan on spending a lot of time on it, really pushing the datail work and really just trying to make this the centre piece model it should be. I will also look at putting together a small force for the table top, adding in my 3 primaris intercessors as a captain and two lieutenants and adding a unit of vets armed with hammers and shields or claws, as a supporting force, creating a supreme command detachment.

The second part was Chapter Approved 2018

CA18

Again, I probably wouldn't have brought this myself, I had thought about it, as it includes rules for sisters but i wouldn't have brought it for any other reason. Having had it brought for me, I have spend quite a bit of time pouring over the pages and I do think it's full of good things. How much I will use, I don't honestly know but I like having it anyway. The sisters codex is interesting and there seems some really good options and combinations in there but I'm really after kill team rules, as that's all I plan on getting. I've enough 40k armies as it is, I don't need any more but would still like a small force to complete my armies of the Imperium collection. Also the commander custom tables are interesting but as there only for narrative play, there a bit useless to me.

Overall I think this is quite a nice little Xmas haul. I'm really looking forward to getting a good chunk of time to get to grips with my new brushes and to paint up some of my deathwatch marines. Calgar will get some attention later this year hopefully and CA18 will no doubt much flicked through, for interest of not for gaming.

Some more Kill Team

So, I had a little run of games a couple of weeks ago. These games were played down at the club against a fellow guard player. As he was playing guard I decided to try out my deathwatch, with a blackshield with power sword and storm shield, frag cannon, stalker boltgun, shotgun and leader with combi-plasma. A fairly small force but one I though was well rounded.  

Start of turn 1. We played the mission where you need to capture your opponent's models, so I decided to play it a bit safe. My leader and frag cannon were at the back, with the stalker taking the high ground. There is a shotgun hiding under the bridge on the left and the blackshield is front and centre, ready to charge in and kill some things in combat. 

The enemy deployment, with the guard huddled up behind the central building with just the sniper sitting out in the open. We both were pretty cautious first turn, with my opponent moving up in to the building and me mostly readying my forces, all apart from the blackshield and shotgun marine, which I push forward towatds the enemy, ready to charge next turn. This is where things started to go wrong. First shot of the game came from the sniper into my blackshield. A 6 to hit followed by a 6 to wound, dishing out a nice mortal wound, which was followed by a 6 on the injury roll. Good night blackshield!

This was the end of turn 2 movement and I've started pushing up. With the death of the blackshield I had to have a rethink and so I moved everything up to try and start gunning things down. This didn't turn out to well in the end. I'm going to blame the dice for this, which were heavily>n my opponents favour this game. For example, I moved my frag cannon up in to range of the group of guardsmen on the centre building and using the auto hitting round, did a massive 12 shots which spread across 4 guardsmen resulted in 1 flesh wound. Yep, 1. No kills, no mass casualties, nope, just 1 flesh wound.

This picture basically sums up my day, this guardsman stood up to combi-plasma, frag cannons, stalker boltgun, the works, and at the end of the game was sitting, alive, on 3 flesh wound. I could not kill him. At the start of turn 4, when all hope was lost, I decided that he would die and I threw everything I could at him and he just stood there, making saves or dodging bullets, well all but one bullet, which I rolled a 1 for my injury roll. At the end of the game my opponent had one model with 3 flesh woulds, 3 models with 2 flesh woulds and a bunch of other with flesh wounds. These are suppose to be the best that the Astartes have to offer and they couldn't even kill guardsmen!

The final stages, my lone survivor, the stalker boltgun vet being closed in on by the mass of guardsmen, still over half the kill team remained. A solid loss for the deathwatch. I don't know the score but I definitely lost.

Game 2 and a change of tactic. Seeing as the deathwatch couldn't do the job, the guard would have a go. I went with my usual choices, leader, vox comms specialist, sniper with sniper rifle and grenade launcher heavy, along with a plasma gunner and a second grenade launcher, plus the required 10 guardsmen.

Setup, I split the forces keeping a core back, with leader, sniper and vox acting as support and pushing up the rest. My opponent bunched up around the central objective, similar to the first game, a tactic that payed off first time around.

Another shot of the setup. 

My opponents setup.

I did not take any more pictures for some reason but the game went very well. Now I played the objective and managed to pull out a good lead. While there wasn't much death in the first couple of rounds but it picked up later in the game. By the start of turn 4 I was well ahead on points, pretty much unassailable, however, there was a minor issue, the break test. Now, turn 4 was not a problem, however at the end of turn 5 both of us were down to less than half number. We rolled off to see if either team broke and my opponent passed and I failed. So as per the rules of the game, I lost.

So despite being comfortably ahead on points, I still lost the game, which was annoying. I still think that the mechanics of the game, including teams breaking, however, I think as a game winning mechanic it isn't very good. After playing the mission and scoring points, enough to win the game, I loose on a dice roll. I really enjoyed both games and I'm counting it as one loss and one moral victory.

A christmas post

Well, I hope that you have all had a good Christmas and New Year. Things have been a bit quiet on the blog front over Christmas, a lot quieter than I wanted, however this has been due to the fact that I have been quite unwell, struck down in the early hours of Boxing day by a childhood illness. Scarlet Fever is, for the most part, is an innocuous childhood illness, that comes with a sore throat, a rash and a white tongue, which is all that my children got and it was all sorted within a couple of days. I however, seemed to suffer from every possible side effect of the disease, with 3 days of sickness and all the fun and games that goes with that. Were over a week and a half since I came down with the fever and i'm still suffering with a secondary chest infection, although its nearly gone thanks to the antibiotics, but i'm still feeling weak and my appetite has still not returned in full, nor has my voice, which is still a little croaky.

I plan on getting back to blogging properly in the next week or so and have a few bits to post up from Christmas and also some WIP posts as well. In addition, I am hoping to post up some stuff for my Astra Militarum kill team, the finished team and also the back story for each member. So plenty of stuff to come!