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!