Points and balance

 Again, I'm a little behind on this topic but I wanted to throw my pennies worth in to the pot. I'm not going to go through each point change and the finer points of each change on the balance sheet, I really just want to give a general overview of how I think the changes will affect me.

There are really only 3 changes here and all of them will affect me in one way or another. The first and third changes on the list are linked, with all Astra Militarum vehicles gaining Armour of Contempt and all titanic vehicles gaining the 2+ save. This means that all Astra Militarum have become more resistant, especially the various Baneblade chassis. The other change that was introduced was that Scion units can now take Hammer of the Emperor, as long as all the scions are from the same regiment, which they would have to be Under the current rules anyway. 

These changes will make quite a difference to my Hrossey Yeomanry lists, which are vehicle heavy, especially when combined with the previous changes to vehicle orders. I really like these changes, although there are a few clashes with some of the existing regimental doctrines. It also mean that I might actually run my Hellhammer again, now that it is not completely outclassed by the Leman Russ. 

Scions gaining Hammer of the Emperor is also great. I currently only run them as a completely separate force, so there is no issues with them gaining the benefits and will add to there punch, as with mostly S3 weapons, wounding has always been one of the harder parts. Hopefully this will see them become a lot more competitive, although -2ap isn't quite as good as it was with Armour of Contempt on marines now. 

The points changes are pretty minimal and are mostly restricted to wargear. No, there are a few people out there, who may be a little sinical, point out that most of the points changes match up with the new releases teased a few weeks ago. It's possible but either way, they are good changes. Most of these changes will impact me, with wargear price drops for basic units like company and platoon commanders, Tempestors, infantry, veteran, special, command, heavy weapons and Scion squads. A couple of these squads, mainly the Infantry, special and veteran squads have received a small price increase but with all the drops in wargear, unless your running them bare bones, you'll be saving points and when all the wargear is now free, why would you be running them bare bones? Other units that have received some points drops are Sentinels and Baneblades (and variants), although the base sentinel did get a slight point hike, taking any weapon other then the multilaser will actually result in a points saving.

Overall, these points drops will mean a saving across all my armies, some more than others. The Hjaltland LI and Dagr Ormr Scions will both benefit from the drops to the various squads, meaning a saving of over a 100 points apiece, the Hrossey Yeomanry will get far less out of the points changes, having a lot less troops and the only vehicle receiving points drops was the Hellhammer. However, the biggest boost to the Hrossey Yeomanry is the addition to AoC and 2+ saves rather then points drops. 

Both of these releases really help my guard armies and should enable me to field some good extra firepower without having to sacrifice other parts of the list. I'm hoping to be able to get a couple of games in the coming weeks but we shall see if thing plan out as I hope!

Chapter Approved 2022

 As usual I'm a couple of days behind most people out there when it comes to putting pen to paper and getting my thoughts out there on the interwebs. This information comes direct from GW community page and has been discussed widely already and there have been some pretty strong opinions but as usual m, quite a few people have missed one key point. These changes only take effect with the latest warzone book, in this case Nephilim. For those of us not using this book, these changes have zero effect. 

The first change that was announced a while ago was the change to command points. Not command points have always been something of a sore point for me. While I agree the old system was a bit broken, with the likes of the "Loyal 32", the new system is not much better for the guard. Typically we have significantly more units than most armies and therefore need more CP to buff an equivalent percentage of our forces, the new system hamstrung us a little and now the new system does so even more. With the addition of having to pay for warlord traits and relics as well, we are not severally behind the curve. Hopefully when our new codex comes out we will have some new tricks that mean we can compete on a more level playing field but at the moment these changes don't help us at all. 

Both of our competitive builds at the moment require significant CP input before the games, either with upgrading white shields or with tank aces and relics, both of which would mean we would be starting on very little, if any, CP. 

The other change is the secondary objective options and we now have access to 4 new secondaries. However, it's not all good news. Of the 4 only 1 or 2 are actually useful.

By lasgun and bayonet is not great as scoring it requires you to kill units on objectives, doing this a few times in a game should be easy but 15 times is significantly harder, so not a great option. 

Special orders is a better option, especially for missions with a number of midfield objectives. Getting a unit on an objective and near an officer should be relatively easy for most guard armies and completing in in a turn also means you don't have to survive a turn in the open. This is going to be very mission dependant but you should be able to grab a couple during the game and bag yourself 10 point of so.

Boots on the ground is probably the easiest one to score points with. Getting units in to table quarters should be fairly easy, it's whether you have enough to keep it up for the whole game. With gaining one point per quarter per turn, you should be able to score 10 plus points a game with your infantry. The second half of the secondary is a little harder, getting a regimental standard in the centre can be harder. For this one you might be able to manage it for a couple of turns, as long as your not in the open. Realistically I think this is the one that will net the most amount of points regularly over the course of the games. 

Inflexible command is our last option and has the possibility to score highly but requires a lot of thinking and could well comprises your match to achieve. Having to maintain all your troops withing 6 inches of an officer or all your vehicle's within 12 of a tank commander could result in you bunching up your units and not being able to move out properly. Yes, if you've vox casters it pushes the range to 24 inches for infantry but even so it's still going to restrict you somewhat. The last part, destroying an enemy unit whilst under an order is fairly easy these days with the way orders now work and should net you a few points over the game. This is not the worst option here (that's By lasgun and bayonet in case you hadn't guessed) but it's not the best either. 

Overall, these are these changes are not really going to affect me much. The command point changes will have no effect on me at all, as I don't plan on playing any of the new missions and the new secondaries won't effect me much as, due to lack of play time, I don't have any set secondaries or preferred ones, so it's not like I now can't take the ones I want.

Deathwatch Dreadnought

Here we have another recently painted model, my Deathwatch Venerable Dreadnought. I've had this model for quite a while but have not bothered painting it, although it has been sitting primed and ready for a while. This was a fairly quick paint job, just to get it painted, although I did really enjoy painting this up.

I went with the high bling factor on this one, with lots of gold trim and shiny bits. I have also added as much extra bits to it, in the form of purity seals, shields and other symbols. Some basic transfers were added to finish it off.

The model is good as it makes it very easy to change out the weapon arms, so I've painted up all three of the options.

Plasma

Assault cannon

Lascannons

 This still needs a bit of finishing, such as the base rim and flocking, but that might wait until I get around to varnishing the model, whenever that is! All in all I think this looks very good for not a massive amount of work, I kind of wish I'd done it earlier, now I just need to get on with the rest of the troops!

Knights

I have had the opportunity to get some serious painting time in recently and one of the first models that I decided to paint up was my two baby Knights. These are my two Armiger class Warglaves, the only two models that exist from House Vandrad, the Laird's of Tunglland, loyal servants of House Krast. They are also likely to be the only models from said house to exist in my collection for quite some time. While I would at some point like to add a full knight, most likely a Crusader (the all shooty) knight, that is some way off.  

As you can see, while the share a colour scheme, it is, in general, reversed on each model, with just the legs being the same. 

Apart from the more obvious fact that one is gold and one is silver in colour, the difference in the colours gives a nice contract between both models. 

Silver 

Gold

If I ever get some of the Armiger Helverins, which is doubtful, I will have to go for a bronze and er??? Maybe a lighter silver colour or something. Anyway, these two will mainly be fielded with my AdMech forces, as some heavy support and anti-armour. 

Varnish

 So, after getting all my guard varnished with Quickshade, I decided I needed to actually protect my vehicles as well, so when we were in my local GW stockist picking up a birthday present for my son's friend, I picked up a can of Munitorum Varnish. Now, I know that this isn't the best option for spray varnish but it's the easiest and most convenient for me. Living in a remote location has advantages but also disadvantages, one of which is an inability to just pop down the road to a big hobby shop and pick up whatever I fancy. So armed with my Munitorum Varnish I set to work on my vehicles. On the whole everything went nice and smoothly, with few problems, however, I did run in to the inevitable frosting issue! Now it wasn't actually that bad but still a little annoying.

It's a little hard to see on the knight but you can see the difference between the front of the gun and the rear, where the rear is a little frosted. The shoulder pad also got a little bit of frosting on it but the rest of the models seems fine, as shown below. 

However, the worst one so far appears to be the chimera, which has frosted around the top front end. It's a bit weird how it's frosted as it was sprayed in a continuous motion across the whole area, yet only those small areas have frosted. 

I know that the usual suspects for frosting are Humidity, temperature and an unshaken can, however, where I was spraying was right next to our little weather station (thermometer, barometer and hygrometer) so I know that things were within the recommendations on the can. All I can think is that these were "after thought" sprays, you know, those "I'll just spray a bit here for good measure" and they have reacted to the already drying sprays from before. Either way it's not going to ruin the models and I'll just leave it as it is.

What's more interesting however is the effect the spray had on some other aspects of the models.

On the Dreadnought, the spray seems to have affected the transfers on the legs. On most of the models, the spray varnish has caused the edges of the transfers to blend in and become very subtle, as seen on the skull right in the centre, however on the legs it's had the opposite effect. The transfers seem to have reacted with the spray, especially the red one, which has crinkled up slightly at the bottom. Now these are really old transfers, so maybe that's the problem, either way it's a bit annoying. I might try a second coat when I get a new can of spray, see if that solves it. 

The other strange effect I noticed was that the spray reacted with some paints, mainly non-GW paints. The Revell Aqua ones seem to be most affected and seemed to shrink and crack. It's not very noticeable once the varnish has dried but I did get a bit worried when I was spraying it.

Very edited photo

Above is an edited picture, a few taps of the auto fix, plus balance and other things adjusted, not sure what, I just played with settings until it showed the cracks clearer. As you can see though, the paint has gone a little funky. Like I said, it doesn't seem to affect the overall look and I doubt it will make any difference once on the tabletop but close up you can see it. What the paint has gone this way, I don't know but it's been on the model for quite a while so it will be dry and fully cured. It's not going to be a problem I think but it is a little annoying.

I'll grab another can and finish the rest of my models and see what happens with them.

New guard from GW

So after my last post about the leaked image, I'm following it up with the more detailed images that GW released in response to said leak. GW are getting pretty good at doing these sort of things and I think it's good, it gives us some real information and a proper look at the models.

First up we have Ursula Creed, Ursarkar Creeds daughter and Lord Castellan of Cadia in her own right. 

I'm not one hundred percent sold on this model. These are some great bits to it, with some very nice details, like the torn cloak. I really like that the model is very obviously female, even in those leaked pictures but is not some over sexualised skin tight body suit wearing femme fatale. 

And I really hate the stupid helmet (top right). I like the binocular option over the rod thing, however I wonder if the rod may give an in-game bonus, along the lines of the MT command rods. I still don't like the Cadia totem in the background. My biggest question right now is about Kell? Will we see a replacement Kell? I really hope that we do, hopefully a son or daughter of Kell, vowing to continue the family honour and defend the latest Lord Castellan Creed with they life, as their father did before them. 

Overall, I rate this model about a 8 out 10, really nice but just lacking a little something (although not sure what)

Next we have the new sentinel and I like this model as well, although there are a couple of bits on it that I'm less sure on. 

 

Overall this is a good looking model, an update to the old model but not so far removed that it leaves you wondering what model it's supposed to be. It looks much more "realistic" at least for a 40k model, while retaining many of the classic parts, such as the legs and rear engine. 

There are however a couple of questions for me, firstly, where is the chain sword? I really hope we can still take the chain sword, stupid as it was, it's a classic sentinel thing. Secondly, in the top photo it looks like smoke launchers, which would be nice but does that mean that the search light in the bottom picture might also get some sort of rules? Or it in just there to for when you don't want smoke launchers? Lastly, I assume that's supposed to be the new rocket pods on the bottom? I think the old ones are better if it is. 

Overall another great model and a good update to the classic. I won't be looking to pick up any of these however, as I have 3 of the original ones and don't need any more.

Lastly for this little reveal we have the new Kasrkins. These are really nice models and really capture the old models nicely. 

I think that you could easily mix and match these new models to the old models (above) with little issue. There will probably be a difference in quality or finer details but otherwise I think they will be fine. There is quite a few rumours that these guys will be in kill team as a bespoke team and if they are I will definitely be looking at getting a full teams worth of guys. 

So, overall, a very good release but one that I won't be buying much from. If the other, unseen, rumoured models are as good as these ones, then I will almost certainly be making a few purchases.

New guard leak photo.

 

So this picture has apparently been doing the rounds for a couple of weeks now but hasn't been available to the general public until more recently. This is an amazing photo and shows lots of nice shiny new models. Some of these models are of interest to me and some are not. I do look forward to seeing the new models and it will be good to get some updated models. However, there are not many models that I actually need for my collection, and these that I'm interested in are not shown on this photo. 

But let's look at what is in the photo. The first thing that strikes me is the Sentinels and I say Sentinels as there is actually two in the picture, one rear left and one right at the back on the right. The left one is an armoured sentinel and the one on the right looks like a scout sentinel. They look a bit beefier than the old ones but are not to far removed that they look like completely different models. I like them but I have 3 and don't need any more right now. 

Next up is the new "Creed" model. This is, to me anyway, an obvious replacement for the old Creed and may well be based on Creeds daughters or other descendents. This is one of the few models I hight actually look at getting, although I might chop the big Cadia symbol off the back.

The Kasrkins models do look really good and I'm hoping that these come out as a Kill Team or they release rules for Scions so that I can use them in Kill Team, as I don't need any Kasrkins for my armies and they won't fit with the models I already use for my scions. 

There looks like a few new Cadian squads as well, an infantry squad, heavy weapons squad and command squad. It's had to see to many details of these models but according to the rumours the infantry squad is going to be a new veteran infantry squad. Again, I don't have a lot of need for these guys, I have numerous heavy weapons squads, more than I can use (due to rule of 3), I also have lots of infantry squads, more than enough for the armies I field and I have plenty of commanders and command squads. I might change my mind on buying some new boxes if they also bring out a new Catachan version of each, then I may well invest in the new command squad box at least and possibly a box of veteran guard, if that is what the new box will be.

Lastly, almost hidden in the middle is a new commissar model. The rumours seem to point towards this model being a lord commissar rather than another regular commissar. It looks to me like he's carrying a power sword and a power fist but I can't say for sure. I may get this model, depending on how it looks close up, the last couple of models haven't been to my taste. 

All in all the picture looks good and there are a number of nice shiny new kits to come, although we're still missing the new tank and the new rough riders, which are the unit that I'm most interested in. 

An edited picture (contrast, brightness, autofix button)

Edit: ok, so literally hours before this post goes live, GW release a whole load of images and info on some of these models! Don't worry though, I'll get to them very shortly.

Inquisition and battle group photos

 This is the last of the army photo shoots, the combined army and a close up of the Inquisitors. There will be a few additions to the Inquisitorial detachment, mostly in the form of a few more Acolytes. These are actually models that were originally made for my Sisters of Battle kill team but with the new rules are no redundant and so are being brought across in to the Inquisitorial detachment just to use them up, as they are modelled, primed and ready. 

The command council, (L to R) Colonel Leith, Tempestor Prime Agnarr, Inquisitor Sophiana, Commander Jhonisoun and General Conner

The Inquisitors, (L to R) Inquisitor Tamhas, Inquisitor Jameelis, (Lord) Inquisitor Sophiana and Inquisitor Laurissa

from left to right; Dagr Ormr, Hrossey Yeomanry and Hjaltland LI  

above and below, the battle group in all its (current) glory

In total there is around 6500 points worth of models here and there are plans for adding another 1000 points or so with the conscripts, rough riders and possibly Taurox's (or even Tauros if they re-release them) As it is this is still a sizable contingent of guard, even if its not the most optimal.