It a state of mind.

It's been a while since I've put some of my hobby thoughts, so, with little else to post at the moment, I have decided to put pen to paper (kinda) and let my thoughts and ideas spill out for your amusement.

It's not just a lack of stuff to post about that have led to this post but also some recent developments from GW, namely the previews from the Las Vegas Open. In terms of 40k, there weren't huge numbers of things  shown but there were a number of new AdMech units, the Pteraxii, the Serberys Sulphurhounds and the Serberys Raiders. Place these alongside the other recent AdMech releases, the two tanks and the planes, there is now a whole range of new AdMech units to get excited over. Or rather it's a whole load of units I should be getting excited over but just can't. It's not that I've lost my hobby mojo or any of my love for 40k but my desire for new shiny things has dulled slightly.

I think part of the reason is due to the new primaris unit. Now don't worry this isn't going to turn in to a rant against primaris units, even if the lore does suck but its more to do with the fact that I have one almost complete Blood Angels army and a Dark Angels army primed ready to paint and now both of them are effectively defunct. I put a lot of love in to the armies, especially the BA one and now there in a box in the loft and will no doubt stay there for many years to come. I plan on getting a new marine army at some point but not until more primaris units have been released, ones that are more inline with my ideas for a fast, aggressive, close combat army.

The other reason I think my enthusiasm has wained is due to the fact that there have been very little guard releases lately. Guard have always been my favorite army and they haven't been any new models recently, despite two units being released\previewed that have got me annoyed. The units in question is the GSC Atalan Jackals and the AdMech Serberys. Why have they annoyed me? Simple, because where are my Rough Riders? I'll not turn this into a rant about rough riders either but needless to say, they removed such an iconic unit from the game and then released 2 others that are basically what rough riders should be........ Anyway, right now, if it's not about the guard, I'm not really bothered.

There is also the fact that I'm still really into Kill Team, even if I haven't Played in months. I love the small scale of the game and I've built various teams, several guard and marine, plus AdMech and chaos. I'm also going to get sisters at some point in the year. It means I can have all the various armies that I want, without the huge out lay for models and without needing as much time to paint them. The there is the fact that the games take only a fraction of the time to play and, in case you haven't guessed already, time is a big factor these days. With 3 kids, including a very active toddler, getting time to do anything is a rarity.

I still love the game and everything around it, this blog is testament to that, as this blog was started way back when my eldest was just about to start nursery (some 5 and a half years ago now!), as a way to stay connected to the hobby when I didn't have time to paint or play. These new units do excite me, as they show what's capable from GW and show new ideas and thinking. Plus there's no doubt that they are stunning models, full of detail and character. I would still love to have shelves full of painted armies, imperial ones anyway but as I struggle to even paint o e model properly these days, full armies is a bit far fetched.

Ultimately I think this is what's killing the enthusiasm for the wider model range, lack of time. Long term followers of the blog will probably have noticed that the armies I've planned over the years has dwindled and I've got none planned at the moment, only a few to finish. I will get time to paint and play again soon, when is another question but when I do, I will no doubt make every effort to catch up on my armies and want to buy every shiny new thing that's released.

Now, I've read through this a few times and no, it doesn't make much sense and there's little structure to the post, partly as this was just a wondering through my thoughts and because I wrote this in several sitting when I could grab 5 minutes, meaning half the time I'd forgotten what I was writing or thinking. I thought about amending it all but in the end just though I'd leave it as it is, to show that when it comes to the hobby these days, my mind is all over the place and there's never time to site a collect my thoughts properly. One day there will be, just not today.

Xmas POP's

Time for something a little more visually pleasing I think. So without further ado, feast your eyes on these little fellas;

Ok, so we've pretty much all seen them these days and they are no doubt decorating many painting table around the world but I think there freaking awesome!

Technically only one of them is mine, the red one, the other belongs to my son.

Flame red hair, tribal tattoo, axe and bolt pistol (??), everything a son of Russ should have.

Oh, and cool Mohican hair job. 

The details on this thing are spot on to me. Every element you'd expect to find on a model is there, from the hair to the wolf pelt. They really have captured the essence of a son of Russ.

My model is a Blood Angels Assault Marine, resplendent in the armour of Baal, with the classic Inferno pistol and chain sword.

Classic beakie marine

While the left pad has the classic Blood Angels iconography, the right shoulder pads has the markings of the Second Company, the yellow blood drop, along with the lightning bolt of the 7th squad on his knee. 

So the Blood Angels from the 7th squad, second company and the Space Wolf is from Ragnar's great company and I believe is a Blood Claw. Either way, I love them!

Hopefully we'll get the other two models and maybe more if they bring out more,  like maybe a guardsman?

Storage project

Recently I have been trying to sort out my storage issues. While I still have lots of other storage issues, as I still don't have proper storage for my blood angels or my dark angels armies. However, my main concern at the moment is my kill teams and getting them out of their butter tub storage boxes. After looking around various websites and looking at lots of different options and possibilities, at all sorts of prices, I finally settled on something more home made. I would have liked to get something like the tabletop tyrants skirmish case or the KR half case but there were several issues with this approach. The main one is pretty obvious, that of price. While the various foam storage cases are great, my KR cases have been around the block a few times and are still in good condition, they are still quite a few pennies. The second, and possibly just as big a factor, is model size. To get a foam case that is interchangeable between different armies would have meant that either I got a tray with a few big slots and things like my guard would rattle around or trays with small compartments and the likes of the Deathwatch would have to squeeze in and not fit properly. I could just get lots of different size trays and solve this issue but again that's lots of money I don't have. The other issues are not as big a deal, things like token storage and the roster cards. Also I wanted a system where I could switch around teams quickly and easily, without having to spend ages switching models from one storage to another.

After searching for a while I settled on the idea of a magnetic storage box but there were a whole multitude of options and ideas out there. In the end I decided to go for a magnetic sheet in the plastic storage trays and also magnets on the bases of the models. This was due to a convention of factors, such as weight, availably and ease of construction. So I ended up with this;

The box is a 5 layer craft storage box, with 10 sections to a layer. I took out most of the dividers on each layer, to create just a couple of sections. The top layer was dedicated to tokens, dice, tactic cards and specialist cards plus a tape measure, everything I need to play, except a board obviously.

The next 4 trays were all magnetised, more or less to the same area, only the guard box has a slightly bigger area of magnetic sheet on the right hand side, to accommodate the extra models in the guard roster. All the trays also include space for the teams data cards and faction tactic cards plus a few other print outs, such as orders, canticles and specialist ammo charts. I also have a couple of peice of paper with other details on, such as the AdMech Rad Saturation rule or the marines transhuman physiology rules on, just in case I forget.

The set up is fairly simple and easy to construct and all the necessary items were purchased of amazon, including the craft box, magnetic sheets, magnets for bases and (as yet to be applied) sticky dots for marking the models positions.

There is one slight problem with the system at the moment however. In the picture above, you can see some foam in the bottom right, this is surrounding and protecting the metal models, as they are to heavy and the magnets don't have enough power in them to hold them in place. I tried with the small rare Earth magnets I have, about 3x1mm ones but this didn't help, even with two of them. I have purchased some bigger magnets, 8x1mm, but these have yet to arrive. When they do I will try them out and see if that solves the problem. It's not much of a problem really, the guard only have 2 models that are metal and the scion\inquisition only have 6 but none of the other teams, as yet, have any at all (the scout Marine team will have quite a few!).

The other problem I ran in to was down to my miscalculated measurements. I thought I had the right depth of magnetic to go under the bases but apparently I didn't and they were a little to short to make a nice contact with the sheets in the trays. This was fixed very easily by sticking a thin sheet of card in between the magnet and the base and super glueing it all together.

It was a very quick and easy fix, that doesn't seem to have caused any issues to the overall construction.

Most of the models sit nicely on the magnetic sheets in the trays and nicely on the actual ground. A bonus to all this is that there is now a little extra weight in the bases and so the models are a little more stable on uneven ground.

The final test! I took the metal models out for this, as they would have just fallen strain out and bounced on the ground! The rest stayed firm, even with a little shake. Now I don't think that they will stay put if the box takes a proper hard bash, but I don't 0lan on taking it anywhere where it might receive such a bash. I know that the idea is to protect the models and those hard bashes are never planned but so far I'm really impressed with the box and how it works.

I plan on getting another box, with 5 more layers to house the remaining teams I have (scout Marines, elites Marines and chaos) and the teams I plan on having (grey knights and sisters of battle), giving me a system where I can chop and change which trays I take and which I leave behind, as all of them will be interchangeable with each other. Right now this does all seem a little overkill as I haven't actually played a game of kill team in months, but I'm hoping that after Christmas I will get back in to things as live settles down again with the wife going back to work but we shall see.

A Slight lack of posts

Recently there has been a bit of a lack of posts on here. As I mentioned previously I have been finding it dofidiffi due to work and family commitments, however, things just got a little bit more complicated. The wife is due with our third child in a matter of days and due to some minor worries, the doctors at home have decided that we needed to be sent south to the mainland, just incase.

The decision was taken late last Friday and we were on a plane on Monday. As a result of this quick turnaround, I forgot all about packing anything 40k related or taking any pictures of what I'm working on. I have lots of ideas for posts and lots of painting to do but it's all at home, I have nothing, not even a single model or pot of paint. The other issue I'm having is that I need to sort and format a couple of posts to make them easier to read, but I don't have access to a proper computer just my phone, which makes this a lot harder to do. I might get access to a computer here at the in-laws, where were were staying for the moment, but I don't know if I will or not, as they don't really have a family computer, just the father in-laws work laptops. I don't know how long this situation will last, as it's just a waiting game for baby to decide to turn up. It shouldn't last more than 3 more weeks and then we should be home, so I can play catch-up and get blogging again properly.

I'll try and post some bits and pieces up when I can but there won't be any regular posts for  a while.

Plans........

So following on from the previous post about my birthday gifts, I though I would go into more details about what I was planning on doing with my new toys. There are a couple of plans afoot at the moment. The first revolves around the forgebane box set and the other around a box of ogryn.

For the forgebane box, I will be splitting this with a mate of mine, who will be taking the necrons. I have mentioned this trade previously (here) and so I currently have 20 skitarii and two techpriest Dominus to go with my armigers. I will be forming these in to either two 10 man vanguard units or a 10 man and two 5 man vanguard units and taking 2 of the plasma calivers in one squad and 2 of the arc rifles in another squad.

These squads, whether I form 2 or 3, will be used to support the armigers as they move up the field. I also plan on trying to kit bash some skitarii rangers from the left over parts and some Cadian bodies that I have. At the moment these Cadian bodies are modelled up as standard guards men and so will need breaking down, including the 4 heavy flamer models! That part I'm not looking forward to! This will give me around 15 to 18 rangers, depending upon how they models break downs and if I can find any more floating around. I will model these guys up as at least 3 squads, one of which will be armed with the 2 remaining transuranic arcquebus and all the squads will be used to hold objectives. This will give me somewhere between 4 to 7 skitarii squads to support the Knights. At present, the knight contingent consists of just the knight armigers but I am hoping to pick up the Renegade box set for the two knights, which will finish out the force. It could be a while until I get them though, as there are other priorities right now. I am only looking to get this force to around 2000 points and won't take it any further.

The other project involves the box of ogryn\bulgryns that o got for my birthday. The plans for this one are not fully finalized yet. I will be building at least 2 as ogryn bodyguards, one armed with a shield and ripper gun and one with a maul and shield. As yet I have still to decide which shields I will use with each, but probably the slab shield with the aim of creating a visual wall to the commander\warlord with the shields. The final model will be built as a bullgryns but as a standard one with a maul and brute shield, as I intend at some point to get another box of them to form a 4 man unit as a counter charge unit.

I have never used ogryn or bullgryns but I am really excited to get these guys built and on the table to see how they perform. My original plan was to put one in each of my guard armies to accompany the warlord but now I am leaning towards putting two in the Hjaltland LI to protect the warlord there as he is far more exposed on the battle field, the Hrossey Yeomanry warlord will be in the protective environment of a chimera for a lot of the time and the Dagr Ormr warlord will be deep striking and the ogryn can't do that. Therefore the ogryn bodyguards would be of little use and a waste of points. So, at this point I will definitely build two and keep the third for another day.

I will add at this point that this is the current plan and anyone who's followed this blog for any amount of time will tell you the my plans change quite often! I will be doing a AdMech force, but whether I get knights or not is a different matter. Hopefully these plans will work out as intended but we will have to wait and see.

Birthday haul

As you might have guessed from the title, I recently had my birthday. It was a quiet family affair, which was perfectly fine by me as I'm getting too old for all night raves these days! (Ok, so I've been to old for quite a while!). So while it was quite on the social front, it was a bit noisier on the 40k front. In amongst the presents I received were these two beauties:

Forgebane

Bullgryns

In addition to these I also decided to purchase a few items myself as a bit of a birthday present to myself. While these were not nearly as exciting, they included:

Army Painter Flock

Basing Gravel

MDF boards

Dice pack (X3)

So, a nice little haul, destined for various different things. I'll go in to more details on a couple of them in another post, but the basics are Forgebane will be split with a mate, bullgryns will be turned in to bodyguards, flock and gravel will be used to finally base my models, the MDF boards are for basing my terrain and the dice are to be used as wound markers. Simple really.

Why i collect Imperial forces

I saw a post a short while ago on another site describing the reason why he collected Chaos and more specifically Nurgle Chaos Marines and it got me thinking, why do i collect Imperial forces and more specifically why do i favour the Imperial Guard?

To start with, let's have a quick recap of my armies. I have a;
Guard Infantry (finished)
Guard Mechanised (unpainted but complete)
Tempestus infantry (unpainted but complete)
Blood Angels (finished)
Dark Angels (unpainted but complete)
Space Wolves (part build and not painted)

So, not a single xenos or chaos force amongst them, although there are a few repurposed chaos models, but why?

When i thought about this post, i though it would be an easy post to write but now I'm actually writing it, it's proving to be quite a bit trickier than i thought.

I have always enjoyed building and playing with models, starting off, as many children do, with Lego, before moving on to Lego Technic and also Airfix kits. My first introduction to the world of wh40k came when a school friend of mine turned up one day with a box of models he had purchased from a car boot sale. This would have been around the release of 2nd edition, so 1993 or 1994. The models in question were RTB01 marines, painted red. They were, if i remember correctly painted to what was then a good table top standard and i thought that they were awesome, in a way only a teenage boy can. From there i persuaded my parents to buy me the starter box.

The box came with 20 marines and a whole bunch of orks. I just followed the suggestions for the orks, as i didn't really care about them, but i spent quite a bit of time thinking about and reading about the marines. I didn't want red, or Blood Angles, as my mate had them. One of the other boys started looking at ultra marines, but my imagination was caught by a more feral looking mob, in the shape of the space wolves. So i started to collect these, gaining over time a squad of half metal long fangs and a rhino, along with possibly a few other bits. By this time i had started frequenting the local GW store, usually while mum was off doing the shopping in town and i had discovered a whole world of new models, from the Eldar and Chaos through to the Imperial Guard. It was around this time that i came across the new Imperial guard boxes, in the form of the Catachan Jungle Fighters, Cadian Shock Troops, Tallarn Desert Raiders, Valhallan Ice Warriors Mordian Iron Guard and the Attilan Rough Riders.

These models grabbed my attention straight away and the various Space Wolves models i had were forgotten about. I don't really know why they grabbed me but they did. The Eldar didn't appeal, don't really know why but they never have. Orks are cool but to random for my liking. Chaos did appeal, but i didn't like the look of the at the time, all the spikes and stuff just didn't look right to me. Tyranids and the genestealer cults were too alien looking for me. Which at the time, left just squats. While i loved many of the squat vehicles and even started an epic scale squat army, on the 40k table top, i just didn't like the way they played.

The guard were so familiar, yet so different at the same time. I loved the Leman Russ and the Basilisk, and the variety of troops that were available. I ended up with 2 and a bit squads of Catachans, a Valhallan squad and 2 Cadian squads, along with a number of rouge trader Imperial army soldiers. I liked the play style as well, which has changed a bit but is still basically the same. I still remember being able to drop off your heavy weapons team from the main squad, forming a mini firebase while the other 8 moved on. I still love the look of the guard over all the other forces, even the more recent ones and the modern play style works for me.

So, after all that rambling, what i'm trying to say, is that when i started this hobby many many years ago, there were not the same number of factions available as there are today and of those that were available there was really only 2 that caught my attention in terms of aesthetics and that remains pretty much the same today. It also happens that the play styles of these two forces also goes along with my own ideas and understanding of tactics, making them a natural fit for me.

I have met many players who are very cautious about loosing men and machines, who plan every move in order to maximize returns for minimum investment. Which in general is a good way to play, its not really the way i play though. Guard to me always has been about throwing bodies at things. Need to hold an objective? Throw a squad at it. Need to slow down that monster? Throw a squad at it. But what if they get killed you ask? Easy, i'll throw one of the other 20 squads at it. Its not about loosing men with the guard, its about what you loose them for. As long as they do something useful before they die, its all good.

That's the real reason i still love the Imperial Guard, in a universe of high technology and super soldiers, there the simple solution, where 9 times out of 10, the answer is "throw more men at it".

8Th edition thoughts.

Edit: I'll start by saying that this post was queued up a week or so ago and now GW have just released, as in yesterday, some info in 8th. How much does this impact on my post? Not masses, but there will be a few bit that now don't make as much sense as they did before!



Ok, so there are many many rumours flying around about 8th edition. There have also been various posts that have been written over the last few months, such as the Burning Eye and Cadia's Creed. So why write another post? Well, I thought that I would join the club and put some of my own thoughts down on paper.

6th and 7th edition rule books

Now, while there are a lot of rumours flying around, I think its safe to say one thing, there will be a dumbing down or simplification of the rules set. How much simpler things are going to get is another question, but probably the most eagerly anticipated answer. Now don't get me wrong, thus won't we an end times job, I think we can all acknowledge that. AoS/WHFB is not WH40K, and hasn't been for years. Points rant going anywhere and neither are formations and detachments. If anything we'll see more. But, and it is a big but, things really have got a bit out of hand.

 Personally I don't see the main rules being slimmed down all that much, by main rules I mean things like movement, shooting and assault. The main phases of the game. I don't see the psychic phase being slimmed down all that much either. What I do see is a major slimming down of the special rules, both the universal ones (USR)  in the BRB and also the ones in the codex (CSR).

Why do i say this? Well in my opinion this is the area that is most bloated and also the aspect of the rules that has the most impact and time spent in game. Every unit seems to have a special rule and now with detachments and formations having yet more special rules, there are hundreds of the things, yet many of them are very similar. One I can think of from the top of my head is the Eldar blade storm (think that's what it is) which is really just rending by another name. There are several other variations as well, I'm sure that Nids have a similar CSR as well. So, if you just changed them all to rending, you would loose several rules in one strike. Ok, you'd loose a little of the flavour as you'd loose the names but that's a minor thing really and easy to fix (bladestorm = rending).

Going through and changing all the CSR's to there closest USR would take time, but would cut a lot of bloat. In line with this I also expect to see a lot of the USR's removed from the BRB and placed in to the codices, meaning that all the rules for an army, outside of the core rules which apply to every army, will be found in the relevant codex, much in the way that all the weapons profiles were dropped from the back of the main rule book.

I mentioned the psychic phase above, and will single this phase out. The other phases work and I don't think they need much tweaking, only a little here and there. The psychic phase does work but again is becoming bloated with so many codex specific powers as well as the BRB ones. I think that some of these will be replaced so that some of the powers will be exactly the same across different faction. It'll take a little of the flavour out but would reduce down the number of powers. Other than that, maybe we'll see access reduced, limiting you to only your factions powers? I'm not sure what's best here but can see something happening.

One thing I hope will also happen is the dropping of Death from the Skies. now I know some people like it, but its a massive rules bloat if you ask me, completely unnecessary and pointless in the main game. Yes it tries to add some flavour to flyers but I think it fails in so many areas its a waste of time. As a sort of flyer mini game it works but not as part of the main game.

As I mentioned above, I can see codices changing, but they will remain an important part of the game. So I'll follow this post up with a couple of others detailing my thoughts on the main codices I play, guard/tempestus and BA/DA and a general overview of the others.

Minor milestone

Ok, so this post is a little bit silly, but I'm kinda excited by it. For the first time, to my knowledge anyway, the blog has generated over 1000 views in a month! That might be small change to some people out there, but form its quite an achievement.

Ok, so it was only 1 over, but still, there it is in black and white. As you can see, total views is over 6000 now, I missed the 5000 mark before Christmas so the next big milestone to look forward to will be the 10 thousand mark, but that may be a few months away.

100 Posts

Well, the title says it all, I've reached 100 posts. Its taken about 15 months, but I've hit the magic 100 (why its magic I have no idea!) So, in a similar vain to the views post I've been looking at what has been popular on the blog. Now, I originally wrote this post a while back, I know, kinda presumptuous of me, thinking that not much would really change and that I might have to up the figures by a couple before it went live. However, I think I've had to re write the post several times as the numbers keep changing and new posts become popular, even though I'm not sure why there has been a bit of a surge in viewing. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy that people are visiting, but it is something I will have to look in to at some point. Anyway, on the main event, the numbers;

Top 5 popular posts are;

Christmas Post from December 2015 with 68 views

Forge World Militarum Tempestus from Nov 2014 with 23 views

Cadian Formation from December 2015 with 22 views

2016; The plan from February 2012 with 20 views

Green Stuff from October 2015
and
My Christmas from January 2016 with 12 views apiece

Pages wise, most pages have had a view at some point or another with a few on 5 or 6 views, but the most popular ones have been;

About Me with 11 views and Dagr Ormr Militarium Tempestus and Hrossey Mechanised Infantry on 7 views a piece.

Ok, so its not the most thrilling of reads, but its interesting that the Forge World post is still one of the most popular posts. Despite being quite an old one, people keep visiting it every so often. And I'm not sure why the Christmas post is so popular!

Well, see where the next 150 posts gets us, (I mean apart from to the 250 posts point!).

250 views

Well, I've reached another mile stone in the blog, 250 views. Yes I know some blogs can rack up this total in mere hours or some a week or so, but for me and my little blog I'm pretty happy.

So, who's viewing? Well, the top ten viewing countries are;

America - 120
UK - 52
Ukraine - 18
Ireland - 17
France - 9
Russia - 8
Poland - 5
Hungary, South Korea and Panama - 2 each

which leaves 15 unaccounted for.

In addition, the browsers and operation systems used are;

Chrome - 108
IE - 62
Safari/mobile Safari - 44
Firefox 33
plus a few other minor ones

and

Windows - 129
Mac and istuff - 114
Android - 11
plus a few others

Again, like my last post, (100 Views) this information is pretty useless to most people, but I find it interesting.

New models and Compressor

Well, I've taken the plunge. Yesterday I ordered these boys (and girls) off ebay and I have put a bid on a compressor, an AS18 type, on ebay. I'll let you know what happens with the bidding and also when the new MT's arrive.

That new game, what's it called??? Oh yeah, Age of Sigmar

So there is a new kid on the block, Age of Sigmar, and its the current hot topic. Loved and hated in equal measure. Pushing some people to the edge of sanity ( see video of burning army on YouTube ), while also being heralded as the greatest thing since sliced bread by others! But then this is the internet and everything is a case of extremes.

So, what's my thoughts? Well, strangely I don't really care. I have never been one for fantasy, don't know why but I never got in to the fluff side of it and that's a big part of my gaming enjoyment. AoS, as it seems to get called, is significantly different from WHFB in terms of fluff but I think that I have so many 40k projects and models needing attention that AoS just wont get a look-in. Having said that, I do like the models, even if the first thing that they said to me was, "we wanna be Blood Angels". I would love to kit bash some in to BA marines but I have neither the time, money or inclination to really do it, not when I already have all the models I need. I would love to be able to collect a few of these for conversion, as they would make excellent Sanguinary Guard or Veteran squads, Vanguard or Sternguard, or even Death Company at a push.

However, I am hoping to get a game in sometime soon, probably when some others have learnt the rules and can explain them to me, so I don't have to bother learning them myself. I am abit concerned with the who no points thing, but I feel that there are to many early calls being made on this front. We don't yet know the full extent of things for AoS, there are still a lot of books and details yet to be released and digested by the community at large and I'm sure that some of these will go alone way to creating balance within the game. Also, it seems that a lot of people are shouting about certain areas of balance, or rather unbalance, when there is a lot more balance that first appears. Everyone was shouting about how powerful things like Nagash were going to be, but from the web and friends who have played, they don't seem to be nearly as scary as first thought, being taken down by weight of fire from ranks of archers and gunners.

When I do play a game, I will tell you about it, and until then and from further discussions from the local gaming groups, I will reserve my decision on the game, but I defiantly wont be getting any figures, well, not until I've finished my 40k stuff anyway.

Space Marine Rant

Well, the new codex is almost here, and there are leaks abound, que the Nerd Rage! Er, no not really, in general I like the way 40k is going right now, and the way the new codices are done, apart from Eldar, but then no body but Eldar players like the way Eldar are! As for the new SM codex, I'm more interested in the new detachment and whether it will be better or worse than the CAD setup I currently use for my Emperors Disciples, and this got me thinking about the chapters and the DA codex rumoured to be next. I have tallied a bit about this when the new BA codex came out, but Ive been thinking about it recently again.

So what have I been thinking, well, GW is doing a good job so far and, if the SM codex stays similar to the last one, the chapter tactics were pretty much all good, although I would make some minor changes;

White Scars - cheaper bikes or more options for bikes, in terms of mounted weapons and also bikes as troops. All bikes come with TL bolsters, but why can't some have Flamers or melta, and trying not to step on the DA Ravenwings toes, plasma or grenade launchers. The White Scars are a bike crazy lot, I can't imagine that they haven't played around with their weapon loadout.

Imperial Fists - well, I wouldn't change much, just make the Heavy weapons slightly cheaper

Salamanders - well, we all know what's going to be said, cheaper flamers and meltas. Also more access to heavy flamers and hand flamers, as well as infernus pistols.

Iron Hands - just cheaper vehicles and dreads, maybe even cheaper Centurions.

Raven Guard - these are slightly odd ones, I do think that they should have greater stealth/shrouded rules to match the fluff and maybe cheaper assault marines.

Then there are the poster boys, the Ultramarines, these guys are the general jack of all trades and masters of none, the chapter tactics they have reflect this and seem about right.

Now when I've said things should be cheaper, that doesn't necessarily mean points wise, it could mean access to better and cheaper upgrades or just better special rules, taking the current chapter tactics further.

As for the other chapters, well, the wolves I think are just fine, their plodding along on their own quite happily, so just leave them to it. BA and DA on the other hand I think need some work.

BA need to go further from codex standard, with the Red Thurst becoming more pronounced and assault and combat becoming their forte. This may mean assault marines being troops again or even just being able to arm up Tac marines with CC weapons in addition to bolter and pistol. All the vehicles having fast or access to being fast is also right in my view. BA should become the up lose and personal brutal killers of the SM world, where DA should become the the dark moody teenagers.

By that I mean, they should become darker and more grim, focusing more on the hunt for the fallen and less on the imperium, their motives and aims all but I unfathomable. There should be greater emphasis on the Dearhwing and Ravenwings, with greater options and weapon choices, with a distinct plasma flavour. After all the DA are supposed to be masters of plasma tech, well, within the imperium anyway.

All this will give most of the main chapters some extra uniqueness, moving the current chapter tactics further along. One additional chapter, a second founding chapter that I think needs some attention as well is the Black Templars, these boys are ripe for flavour, they have plenty already, but I think it can be taken further and I definatly think they deserve their own codex. As to what should happen, I'm not sure, but with all the different units they have, something could easily be done.

Well, that's my thoughts, the only other thing I have to say is Grav Deva with amps!!! What! Grav-cannons, fine, but amps! If there that light why don't Centurions have two, one on each arm? You don't see a marine caring two las cannons do you! And, oh dear, assault marines still need some love, more options would be nice. Personally I'd love bolters, imagine that, a squad of marines jumping around, boltering stuff to death.

Well, here my fingers crossed for a good SM and DA codex!

A minor issue

Well, I've come across a minor issue with my IG forces. My Hjaltland LI, Hrossey Yeomanry and
 the Hildasay PDF and the rest of the Hamnavoe System were all named after real places. Not somewhere you would find on a map, well, not a modern map anyway but real places none the less. The names are not in current wide spread use, but are used a lot in the local area and even when not used they are well know. So how does this cause a problem?

Well, I originally went with the standard codex names, namely just called them Catachans, but as I developed my forces I wanted more of a personal back story and so I thought about names, settling on the names of several roman forts in the area where I live. However, I didn't live here at the time, as I had moved further north in to bonnie Scotland, as so naming my units after Roman forts in the NE of England was fine. It gave them a name and flavour, while keeping them all linked. When my family moved back to the NE, I decided to change the names, which was easy as I hadn't really put anything down on paper and hadn't started this blog. When I changed the name, I went straight to using a number of old place names from where we lived in Scotland, for the same reasons, it gave them some flavour and tied them all together. Now were moving back up, and my question is, what do I do? Do I just keep the names, or do I change them back?

Its a little harder to change the names now that I've created this blog and put pen to paper, and in many ways it wont make much difference to the armies. I suppose its more about me being a wimp and not wanting to get laughed at for having written all this stuff down, let a lone broadcast it to the world! Oh well, I enjoy it and I suppose that's all that really matters. Not that it solves the problem!

On a side note, the move may well help with my lack of games in recent months, as the games night would switch from Thursday nights to Sunday afternoons, combined with the fact that I wouldn't be working evening/nights anymore either. The only issue might be the winter indoor cricket season up there is also played on the Sunday afternoon, and I'll getting back in to that as well!

What's new?

In the world of 40k, things are moving a quite a pace and there have been quite a few developments over the last few weeks. There have been 2 new factions released, in the form of Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus, although both are really part of the Adeptus Mechanicus, plus we now have 3 new Knights, and 4 new Imperial Assassins, and then there is the new Craftworld; Eldar Codex.

In the days of old, we would have had to wait several months to get all of this lot, but these days, things are moving a little quicker. This is good, it means we don't have to wait all year to get some new models and updates, but its bad as codexii are being updated a lot more frequently. It also means that I struggle to keep up with everything that's going on, mostly as I don't always get masses of time to write, so I try to get a few posts sorted at a time, which doesn't really work with the pace of releases!

 I'll start with the new factions, The Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus are both mini codex type armies at the moment, although there seems to be a strong suggestion that they will be rolled in to a full Adeptus Mechanicus Codex at some future point. This makes sense, but we will see. I am not really a fan of the new units, although the two factions are different in appearance I don't like either. The Skitarii are just to robotic, especially the legs. Now I get that they are supposed to be enhanced humans with masses of techno implants, but I just cant get it. If I had the money and the inclination, I would try and graft a unit of Cadian legs to the bodies of the Skitarii, but alas I don't have the inclination or the money, so for the moment I will pass. As for the Cult Mechanicus, what can I say, proper 60's robots, namely Robbie the Robot from Forbidden Planet. Not a fan either way, I haven't seen the rules for them, but I defiantly don't like the ascetics.

Rules wise, the Skitarii and what's been leaked for the Cult Mechanicus, the are very powerful armis. I read a recent tournament report for a Skitarii with BA allies using a drop pod list and they placed second overall, in one game almost taking out 3 knights in one turn. They are not really a glass hammer like Quins, as they have shooting and combat units, plus with all the haywire and the rules for close combat they are going to be a very hard army to play. The same seems to apply to Cult Mechanicus units, which, if the rumours are accurate, then they will be very powerful with lots of ap3 shooting, but will be expensive. Personally, its just another couple of armies that I will struggle to fight against.

As for the Knights, what can I say, aesthetically they are pretty much the same as the previous two, so no big changes. The main extras are the top weapon, giving some skyfire or extra punch, and the introduction of a CC variant, the Gallant and a proper full on ranged variant, the Crusader. I like the Knights, I always have, and now that the Crusader is here, I am defiantly putting it on my wish list, as I can sit back and dakka stuff, always good. The addition of the extra knights gives the faction a full range of options, with battle cannons, Gatling cannons, and melta, along side a full on CC variant. I'm not sure how many you can get in a 2000pt list, at a guess probably 4, so you couldn't get all the variants in. But I think that it would be a mistake to take and all knight list anyway, personally, I would run a lot of guard, mostly as cannon fodder and screening units.

One release that has got me excited is the release of the new Assassin game. Although I wont be buying the game, I will be looking at the assassin models when they are released, specifically the anti psyker Culexus. I still plan on making my own Vindicar and possibly a Eversor. The actual game does look good, but I don't think I would really ever play it, and I don't think its worth buying just to get the new assassins, unless it turns out that you cant buy them without getting the game, but hopefully that wont happen. Hopefully, someone I know will buy the game and I can have a go.

Well, we are not at the big one, Codex Craftworld Eldar. This was a big one, and it seems that far from nerfing the Eldar, they just shifted things around a little. The serpent shield was nerfed to one use only, not my choice, I would have massively reduced the range, to about 12", which would have given the choice of firing the shield to destroy the enemy, but if you don't destroy the enemy it would leave you naked to retaliation. I would also have made it so that it would affect any unit within the arc that you fired it, not just enemy units, if that makes sense to everyone? Along side the obvious other nerfs, the main issues as the massive amount of D weapons that are now available to the Eldar, and as we all know D weapons are the spawn of the devil. Oh, and I forgot about all the scatter bikes as well. Well, D weapons are not to much of a problem for me, with all the inf that I run in my main guard list, D weapons are no more dangerous that many other weapons, against armour heavy lists it could be a major problem, but no more so than some of the Gravspam marine lists are. The scatter bikes are more of an issue, lots of fast moving high strength shots on fairly resilient and manoeuvrable platforms. If the points were reasonable or the amounts  limited then I would say that this was not a problem, but they are cheap and you can take a whole  host of them.

Having said all this my main issue with all the new codices is the way the detachments work, although this is less so with the BA codex. With both Eldar and Necron codices the overall detachment gets some buffs, yet each individual part of the detachment also gets buffs, such as the Guardian Host getting +1 WS or BS. It all adds up to a very powerful couple of armies. BA's didn't get this at all, although they did get some good stand alone formations, and many of the old codices, even the likes of the MT and IG ones, which were the first of the 7th ed codices are being left behind. Hopefully with the new release schedule and the talk of more campaigns there will be some updates to the older books. The next big one is the updated SM book, so I'll be waiting to see what happens to the FoC there!

Imperial guard forces

I found this while looking through old photos. Its a rather poor quality picture of all my IG forces laid out in rank and file. I'm not sure when this was taken, but it was about a year ago and there are some models missing and the force has changed a bit since then. At the time, I was planning on just one big army, with all the models lumped in together, but that has changed to form the 3 smaller armies, with separate styles. I'll try and get new photos of the new setup if I can, but it might be a while as everything's in boxes in preparation for moving house.

 

 

So what can be seen, well, I'll start with the easy stuff. Back right are my Russ', 1 old skool LRBT, 1 new LRBT and 1 new LR Demolisher. and on the left are a Chimera, which had been joined by 2 more, and two Chimera chassis, which are now Wyverns. Just in front of the Chimera's are my 3 sentinels, all with magnetised weapon options.

 

Across the middle of the table are all my infantry units, with the centre two and right hand ones being lead by PCS'. Each platoon is formed of 5 squads with PCS in front and 2 special weapon squads behind. At the back, the small clumps of men are my heavy weapon teams, loosely grouped in to 3 team units. At the very front are, from L to R, Priests and Pyskers, with Commissars slightly behind, my main command squad in the centre with the 9 Ratlings on the right. Off to the left is a lone figure, that is the main man Marbo. The three squads off to the left, in front of the Sentinels', are the three vet units.

 

With this setup, I could run a full FoC, with units in every slot. Granted it was pushing it slightly, running 3 Sentinels for the 3 FA slots, but I could do it. I have a few extra units these days, namely my Hellhound, Vendetta and Valkyrie. So technically, I have to many options as I have one FA choice over. I would like to get some pictures of the new setup sometime, but like I said were in the middle of trying to move and so a lot of items are boxed in the loft, ready to go.



 

Its funny to see all the models laid out but I does make me think, I defiantly have far to many models!

An Attempt Fan Fiction

Right, this is a little piece of fiction that I've been thinking about. Now I'm no writer, so this will be rough, with a capital R, but I'm going to put it out there anyway.

"Sergeant"
.......
"Sergeant Maxen"
.......
"SERGEANT MAXEN"

"Yes, Demi-Sargent Ilar"

"Large rebel group approaching from the south west, intercept in 45 minutes"

"Is the target present"

"Target is presented"

"Continue over watch, secure evac route" not that Demi-sergeant Ilar would need such instructions.

Dam, why were they coming from the south west, they were supposed to be coming from the north west! 5 days laying in wait and they may end up getting trampled by hundreds of rebels, dam AM intelligence! Hopefully they will avoid the thick woods and marsh and keep to the road. At least with the ford ahead they will have little choice but to move in to the kill zone.

"Squad Epsilon, Target approaching, intercept in 40 minutes, ready all weapons, prepare for fighting withdrawal"

Even with his enhanced hearing the sounds of the squad around him preparing their weapons and bodies to react were barely audible, a good sign, even after all this time laying silently and still in the damp ground, his marines remained unaffected. He looked to his own weapon and started to run though the standard checks, testing the magazine, the bolt and a dozen other items. At the same time, he tensed and relaxed each muscle in his body, ensuring that each was ready for an rapid and instant  response should one be needed.

"Target moving north of location, 20 minutes to intercept"

Good, so luck at last. He thumbed a response and a green light lit up in his helmet to show it had been received. It was time to prepare mentally for the task I hand. A prayer to the Emperor and the Dorm and a blessing to his bolter, Some Concentration. The name still brought a smile to his face, even after all these years.

"Recruit Maxen, what are you doing!"

"Sergeant?"

"Your supposed to be shooting the target NOT the wall! Some days I wonder if you could hit a Thunderhawk with that bolt pistol, even if you were standing INSIDE the blessed thing! You'll never hit anything with out some concentration."

The next day they had been handed their personal weapons and from the first moment that he had laid eyes on the battered old bolter, only one thought had come to mind. While the other recruits had taken the existing names engraved by the previous recruit or had thought of new names, such as vengeance, destroyer, justice and slayer, he had only one name in mind, Some Concentration. While others had received their new bolters upon becoming full battle brothers, he had kept his and carried it all these years. With it he had become the best shot in the company and one of the best in the Chapter, and that way why he was here.....

His concentration was broken by the twinkling of comms lights in his helmet, two of the marines were talking. He opened up the channel to listen in.

"Confirmed, I have visual, targets entering Beta teams arcs"

So the target was entering the kill zone, sticking to the road and the dry ground, a good sign, maybe this wasn't going to be a disaster after all.

"Sergeant, Target entering kill zone"

"Confirmed"

He could see the target now, the old man was not as impressive as he thought he would be, but it was always the same. It was hard to believe at times, but the story was always the same, this old man had raised the population of Hjaltland in to rebellion with tales of freedom and democracy. Yet here he was, looking fat and well fed, his rich clothes flowing in the wind as he was fanned and carried aloft on a luxurious sedan by half starved, sweating men and women, while hundreds more followed along hoping for some hand out or another. His key followers could be seen similarly dressed and looking well fed and watered, trailing directly in his wake, acting like gods amongst men. There would be no glory today, just cold hard retribution and justice.

Maxen raised his bolter in to position and squinted slightly down the scope, reading off all the targeting information.

"5 minutes till intercept, stand ready"

A little longer and a little closer, then it would be his job to eliminate the target and the rest of the squad would take out any of the retinue that they could, hopefully killing off the power behind the rebellion. Although this would normally be a scout units job, the lack of available scouts and the importance of the mission meant that it had fallen to Squad Epsilon and himself.

"2 minutes"

This was it, the target was in the kill zone and in range. He drew his breath and thumbed the mic switch.....

VISUAL OVERLOAD...........
VISUAL SENSORS COMPENSATING.......

As his vision cleared he could see the crowd of rebels recoiling and the targets sedan was no longer in sight, but what caught the attention of the sergeant most, was the figures that had appeared across the ford, Scions. Not many of them, and now that the crown was reacting and weapons were appearing, not nearly enough of them.

"Target lost!!"

Maxen looked back to the crowd, the target was gone, the sedan lying discarded and broken on the floor, but he knew where to look as he scanned the back of the rebels. There he was, hurrying away like the coward he was, and they had the nerve to slander the Emperors name. When did He every run from the enemy. Maxen took aim with his bolter, zeroing in on the target as it moved through the crowd.

"Stand by to withdraw on my order"

He squinted down the scope, waiting for the shot. Waiting for that moment when the target would be in full view, even if only for a second.

He felt the bolter recoiled in to his shoulder, he felt the motion through his armour as if it was his own skin. He watched as the targets head exploded in a cloud of red and white, while the now lifeless corpse collapsed to the ground. He could see the reaction of the crowd around the dead body, recoiling in horror and shock. His job done, he took one last look at the scene, weapons had appeared on the rebel side, in quite some numbers, more than he would have expected and the Scions were starting to feel the effects of the rebels numbers.

"Beta squad withdraw, alpha squad prepare to over watch"

As the squad started to withdraw, marine Tegid spoke up

"Are we to support the Scions?"

"Negative, we withdraw as planned" This was not the time for action, they were outnumber and did not have any support elements in place.

"I don't think they'll need our support" can a reply from demi-sergeant Ilar.

Maxen was about to ask that mean when the roar of jet engines became clear and three Valkyries came roaring over head, multiple launch rocket pods spitting death, door gunners leaning out firing their heavy bolters randomly and indiscriminately in to the crowd.

"Withdraw at speed, we move to the extraction point at half run, weapons free, eliminate targets as necessary, move, move, move"

The tone of his voice left little doubt as to the urgency of the message, the last thing that the sergeant wanted was to get caught in the crossfire. The Valkyries rockets and Scions HS lasguns could make short work of the squad if they weren't careful.

One last look back at the kill zone before the marines disappear over the hill showed a scene of carnage, with bodies all over the place, the scions advancing over the ford, with the now hovering Valkyries, continuing to pore rockets, multilaser shots and heavy bolter shells in the fleeing rebels. It was uncertain whether the full retinue of the heretic's had been eliminated, but whatever the case, the rebels had been dealt a blow this day and the Emperors Disciples had opened their campaign on Hjaltland with a successful mission.

A new plan???

Right, I think that I may need a new plan for KotN, not to drastic a rethink but enough of one to warrent some proper thought. At present I'm looking at a primary detachment, an allied detachment and a formation, but I'm thinking of changing the allied and formation for a second detachment.

There are several reasons for this, the first being that I'm using the allied detachment to get my Sternguard unit in using the Imperial Fists Chapter Tactics, but this is of little use as the main one, Bolter Drill, doesn't work when firing special issue ammo, which they will be doing for the majority of the time and secondly, although the formation rules are good, I think I can gain better benefits from using the Blood Angles Detachment rules. The formation looses the +1I on assault, which when combined with a priest for +1WS and FNP, will make the Vanguard better, add in a Chaplin with a full assault squad and I believe it will work out better than the formation.

In reality, my list is not going to be tailored to anything, it's more of just a collection of units and an excercise to see how many different units I can take in one army. But I'm starting to think that a rethink of the core unit is what's needed to get all the units I want with all the upgrades I want in to the list.

If I wanted to give the top place a good shot, I would be bringing my full MT force with additional melta and plasma gunners, the Vanguard Strike Force with tooled up vets and both my fliers, although I'd have to figure a way to get the Vendetta in with the smallest, cheapest IG force I could. I'd use the IG to anchor the line behind an aegis, deep strike all the rest where they could do the most damage with their ap3 HS guns and lightening claws or power swords. It could be fun, but I'm not bothered about the top spot and it would be weird having so few IG models on the table!

Last minute edit!; Just had another loom through this and major, and I mean MAJOR miscalculation! So as a result a second rethink was called for and thins time I think I've cracked it! How? Well I'm back to a primary and an allied, but placing my Knights as the primary and the Hjaltland as allies. This means that I can take all the SM units; Priest, 2 Tacs, Sternguard, Vanguard, and an Assault Squad with the IG units being; Company Command, with Priest, Psykers and Commissars (non-FoC), MT platoon, Inf Platoon, Wyvern Sqn and Vendetta. This is the beauty of the plan, using the IG structure, taking just on one choice doesn't become a problem, after all a one choice doesn't mean one vehicle! So, the MT platoon will consist of a Command Squad and two Squads, the Inf platoon consists of a platoon command and 4 squads and the wyvern squadron will contain 2 vehicles. This still gives me a large presence of IG with out taking up a large amount of FoC slots. I'm hopeful to get a game in soon and test this list out to its full potential.

Model count

Right, I've been through my models and taken an inventory of everything I own. This was for two reasons, one I didn't actually know what I owned and two I keep buying stuff for projects with out actually knowing what I've already got! Not a good situation to be in!

So what do I own? Well, I've got a lot!

Currently I have 331 guardsmen, consisting of officers, medics, vox casters, flamers, plasma gunners, grenade launchers plus lots of other models. Also within that number there are 180 lasgun armed grunts and 33 heavy weapons, 6 of each type with an extra 3 missile launchers. In addition to the standard guardsmen and officers, I also have 4 commissars, 2 psykers, 4 priests, 9 ratlings, and 35 chaos cultists, which are being converted to various units, notably psykers and priests, in addition, a number will be converted to Inquisition models.

 I also have a number of vehicles, including a Hellhound, 3 Scout sentinels, 2 Wyverns, 3 Chimeras, 3 Leman Russ tanks, one old style battle tank with fixed HB sponsons and lascannon hull mount, one new style battle tank and one new style demolisher, a Valkyrie and also a Vendetta.

Granted this is not the usual list you'll see for a Guard collector as there are relatively few vehicles, but I prefer infantry based armies and massed lasguns.

My Tempestus force is a little smaller, consisting of only an officer, 4 sgt's, a medic, 4 vox casters, 3 HS volley gunners and 12 Scions. I will be getting more models in the future in order to be able to field a decent force, and hopefully the ground assault formation at some point but for the moment this is all I have.

The size of my SM collection was surprising, I didn't realise I owned as much as I did, but I guess that I shouldn't be to surprise when I own two DV box sets to start with. Anyway, the rest of the collection consists of;

3 Librarians, 4 Captain/CM models, 15 Termies, including 2 assault cannons, 1 heavy flamer and 2 chain fists, 52 CC armed marines, with a few plasma pistols and power weapons and a couple of lighting claw armed marines but mostly its chain swords and bolt pistols, 76 bolter marines plus two plasma gunners and 2 plasma cannons. There are also 10 bikes, 2 with plasma guns, 3 dreadnoughts, a Razorback with TL lascannons and 7 Rhinos.

There is a lack of heavy weapons in the marines, but I have a number ready to go with a little conversion work, so no worries there. I have also lumped in all my chaos marines in to the list above as they will be de-chaos'd and put to work for the Emperor. A number of the Rhinos will also be getting up grades, mostly to Razorbacks but one will become a Baal Predator.

Lastly, I have my Inquisition force which currently stands at an inquisitor in power armour and 2 cultists converted to crusaders with power axes, which will need converting to power swords.

So that's it, a nice little force, with pretty much everything I need. With all the extra bits I own, such as the jump packs I've been buying I should have everything I need to play all the lists I want to. Now I just have to find the time to build, convert and most importantly paint them all. Simple really!

I'll try one day, if I can to get as many of the models as I can out and photo them together. I use to have a picture off all my guard models arranged in parade formation, but that seems to have been lost over the course of time.