2024 review

So here we are, another year down and it's time to look back over the year and see how well I did with last year's resolutions. 

This year was a year for finishing bits and pieces although, as always, a number of other projects snuck their way in. So what was on the list and what go completed?

1) Paint Eagle Knights first born

All done and dusted, plus a couple of new models that got acquired this year. All the models are painted although not all of them are varnished. So we're one from one so far. 

2) Varnish Eagle Knights Rhinos

Done and dusted as well, all six of them. All the models are painted, transfers applied and varnished. These will be getting boxed away with the rest of the Eagle Knights.

3) Quickshade Eagle Knights

And our run is over. As mentioned above, while all the models are painted not all of them are varnished.  I may varnish them all but there is no pressing need, as they will be spending much of the future packed away in the loft.

4) Paint Eagle knights drop pod
This model is still in it's badly primed state. I will need to work in this model in the coming year, as I might look to take it in NI25, alongside the rest of my Eagle Knights. 

5) Build Eagle Knights Company Hero's
And we're back on track, all the company hero's are painted, varnished and based and are on display in my cabinet in the front room.

6) Paint Eagle Knights Primaris models
Various models have been done and now I'm on to some more. The only models that I have left to paint are the Sanguinary Guard that I picked up in Orkney this year.

7) Paint Eagle knights Landraider
There has been no progress on this one at all since I did the initial strip down. I will hopefully get around to getting it primed when the weather improves but it will be getting a black paint scheme and joining the Dark Guardians.

8) Paint Dark Guardians first born terminators
Talking of the Dark Guardians, all the terminators got painted this year, along with a couple of extra models that I build from my bits box and some extra bits from eBay. 

9) Paint Dark Guardians first born bikes
The remaining Dark Guardians, the bikes, were also finished. Most just needed painting but a few got some extra work done, such as the Ravenwing command squad.

10) Deathwatch transfers
We're on quite a role here! Another one ticked off. All the Deathwatch got a chapter symbol of some description of another. Some models got some additional transfers as well. 

At this point we're sitting on 7 tasks complete and 3 still to do.

11) Quickshade Deathwatch infantry
Another task completed. Once all the models has has their transfers, they were given a quick dip in the quick shade. Unfortunately I may have to go back and add a couple more units to the force to maximise the new Imperial Agents codex options!

12) Deathwatch rhinos painted
Two rhinos painted and transfers applied.

13) Deathwatch rhinos varnished
Again, once transfers were applied, both rhinos were given a spray coat of varnish. 

14) Deathwatch dreadnoughts varnished
All three Dreadnoughts received a coat of spray varnish, just in time for them to be dropped from the codex! I know they are in the new index but I will only be running Deathwatch in the IA codex form. 

15) Paint knight
The big knight has been painted and fully assembled. The arms have been magnetised for maximum versatility. 

16) Varnish Knight
Once more the completed knight was sprayed with varnish to protect the paint and transfers.

17) Paint rough riders
The new horsey boys have been completed and have hit the table top on multiple occasions since.

18) Quickshade Rough riders
Our first failure is a while. This has been more due to distractions than an inability to quick shade them. I have a number of models that need doing soon, so I will hopefully get a batch done, including these guys 

19) Quickshade scions
The addition scions needed to bring the squads inline with the guard index were completed late 2023 and so the models received their quickshade dip to protect and shade them.

20) Quickshade bulldogs
Another unit that received its quickshade bath this year. The models are completed and ready for the tabletop.

So at the 20 mark were looking good with 16 tasks completed and only 4 that have not been. 

21) Quickshade Navy Breachers
Another couple of squads that received their quickshade bath early in the year. 

22) FOB varnish
Unfortunately this task was not completed. Part of the reason was procrastinating between spray varnish and quickshade. I would prefer quickshade but it will be significantly easier to spray varnish both models. Once I actually make a decision they will get varnished.

23) Quickshade any other infantry
This one was a bit of a catch all and had no specific completion criteria. However, I consider this.complete as I have varnished a number of units and while there are still some models that need varnishing, non of them were in my possession at the beginning of the year. So what was done under this task? 
Stone dragons first born marines, Chaos Kill team, grey knights kill team, sisters of battle kill team (Imperial Agents squad), both Assassins, two Techpriests and servitors, several metal guard models, Space marine scouts squads, Admech skitarii and Ultramarine Veteran squad. 

24) Lore update
The last item on the list and while it might not be quite as good as I would like in places, the lore is updated. There will be changes made again as models are purchased, codices are released and my ideas change but for now, it's up to date.

So not a bad year, out of the 24 items on the list 19 tasks have been completed. That only leaves 5 that need carrying over to next year. Most tasks should be fairly quick to get sorted, as they are only varnishing models, only the drop pod and land raider will take some more time but should still be easy to finish. 

In addition to the list, there have, as there always are, additional models have been built and painted. There have been some additional sisters built and painted, along with a couple of jump canoness’ built and primed, as well as building two squads of subductors, several Inquisitorial models, a squad of blade guard plus Lieutenant and Captain, Sanguinary Guard plus Captain, two Armigers Helverins and finally build and painted 23 DKoK plus touched up another 20.

So ultimately a successful year! Hopefully next year will be the same!

NI24 warm up game - Tau Vs Guard

 This was my last warm up game for Northern Invasion 2024 and it was against my son's Tau list. By this point all the list had to be in and so if this didn't work then I was a bit screwed. For this version of the list I took the extra Scion squads and command squad, pushing the Scion Tempestor as my warlord to grant the four Scion squads the battleline keyword. This meant that I was going to have a bit sitting off the board at the start of the game, with the scions all in deep strike and the deathwatch sitting in rhinos.

The Tau list was quite a mix bag but with a strong suit presents. There were two breacher squads in devil fish, a strike squad, also in devilfish with a fireblade. Pathfinders with Dark strider, three squads of stealth suits, a ghostkeel, two broadsides, two squads of crisis suits one with a commander and one with farsight. Two piranhas and a squad of rampagers. 

This should be a fairly strong list, with bodies to take objectives early game and some serious punch dropping in late game. I was also aware that I needed to keep them close to nullify the shooting, while not using my own shooting strength. 

The Tau came out strong but so did I. Pushing hard in all quarters, pushing the deathwatch up the wings and the guard straight up the centre. 

I also tried to manoeuvre to deny as much of the board to deep strike as possible, which worked out quite well. The Tau shooting was pretty devastating when it hit but I was able to keep a lot of my units out of sight or range. 

The Deathwatch proved themselves in this game, taking a lot of punishment and really dishing it out too. Granted the unit at the top of the board got annihilate eventually but not before pulling in multiple tau units, including farsight. 

The Scions proved to be a worthy inclusion, dropping in all over the board. They didn't do much in the way of damage but they dropped in on objectives, including my home objective to secure me valuable points. The Armigers again did not excel themselves, with both their shooting and combat proving a bit lack luster. 

Despite the score line, by the time we came to the end of turn 4 the guard were in a desperate way. With very little.left on the board and in serious danger of loosing several more. 

At the end of the game, the guard had three squads of scions, spread all across the board, a single mortar team, a tech priest with a crippled Russ and a large squad of deathwatch stuck down the far end of the board miles away from the rest of the action. The Russ was only still alive due to some luck and poor roll from Farsight. Had the game.gone on another turn or two, like in the good old days, the tables could well have turned in the Tau's favour.

 The score ended up looking very one sided, while the secondaries were not to far different, 26 to 35 it was the primary points that once again proved the difference at 9 to 45. 

While this game my not have pushed my list again, it did teach me a few lessons, namely that I taking the scions was probably the right move, as they performed as hoped, being able to drop in all over the board doing secondaries and also primaries. The Armigers were average again and I think are the weakest part of the list now. 

Merry Christmas one and all

 Merry Christmas everyone, I hope you have a good day and have a happy new year!

NI24 warm up game - Guard Vs Necrons

 The next warm up game I played was against my son's friend and his Necrons army. This was going to be a relatively easy game,due to the lack of experience from my opponent. This would be his first Pariah Nexus game, his first competitive 40k game and about his 3rd full 2000 point game. As such it was going to be a learning game for him and very much an experimental game for me. 

After the failure of the Inquisitorial Agents last game, I had switched them out for sisters, to see if the extra firepower and power armour would make a difference. The Necrons are a different kettle of fish then the WE but it would still test the new list and it's options. 

My opponent has quite a horde style list, with two big squads of warriors, with supporting characters, a overlord and chronomancer in one and plasmancer with the others. He also had a 6 "man" squad of skorpekhs with lord,  three wraiths with technomancer, a squad of flayed ones, a squad of death marks, two Lokhust heavy destroyers, a canoptek reanimator, canoptek spider with two squads of scarabs, a hexmark destroyer and finally a C'Tan shard of the Nightbringer. I'll go through the Necrons list in more detail in a later post 

This was a reasonable army for a first fully painted 2000 point list and tournament and these games were designed to give him so time playing, but also to give him some advice and get him use to the cards and they scoring system. Using the Tabletop Battles app also really helped with this, as it gives a nice step by step guide.

Deployment

I decided to deploy with the guard on one flank and the marines and sisters on the other, with the knights in the centre ready to move either way depending upon where they were needed. My opponent split his forces pretty equally across the board with a warrior squad to each side supported by a combat unit, wraiths on his right, skorpekhs on his left. Lastly he placed the Nightbringer on his far left ready to sweep in to my guard.

As well as teaching my opponent, I wanted to test my list and so the sisters went straight for the kill on the left and while they did a good job, they were not quite as good as I would have liked. Their firepower was good, putting down a lot of warriors but still being T3, the return fire was murderous.

The guard on the right did what they do, as just kept trudging forward.

The knights didn't have massive amounts to shoot at this game, so it was hard to really tell if they were doing well od not. 

However, when it came to close combat, they definitely didn't do well. It took 4 fight phases to kill a 5 man deathmark squad, granted they kept coming back but it didn't manage to kill more than 4 in a single fight. In the end some Deathwatch had to come back and help.

Talking of the deathwatch, they spend.most of the game slapping the wraiths, who were quite content slapping back. It took several turns for the wraiths to be destroyed, while chewing through a fair few marines in the process, not enough however to stop them smashing the overlord and chronomancer afterwards. 

Necrons thin on the ground.

By the end of turn 4, it was pretty clear that the guard had dominated the game, however, there was still one unit o. The table that I was very concerned about!

The Nightbringer 

The C'tan Shard of the Nightbringer is not the biggest model around but it's a right pain. A 4+ invulnerable plus a 5+ FNP at T11, halving damage and Reanimation protocols on top of that, is very hard to kill. I put quite a bit of firepower in to him, but it was my lasguns that ended up doing the most amount of damage. He spent most of the time on my right hand side but he destroyed everything he touched. Had he started him in the middle of the table he could have done some serious damage to my forces there and held the centre quite happily while the rwt of the army did it's stuff.

The game was a solid guard victory at the end, with a sizable guard force still on the table at the end of the game. The Necrons had done well but they were just not able to hold back the flood of guardsmen.

The game itself was a lot closer than the 92 to 54 score line might suggest. Secondary points were close, with 40 to 32, a couple of different cards and it could have been a lot closer. On primary points however, things were quite different , at 42 to 12 the Necrons just didn't have the ability to hold on to many objectives.

Overall, another good game, possibly a little to easy a game to really stress test the list but that's fine by me, as I'm not to worried about that. It did give me some more information on my units, namely that the sisters, while having good firepower, are just not resilient enough for their points in an agents attachment. This means that the only other option I have is the scions. Additionally the Armigers just didn't show themselves again and I had some reservations about taking them but I didn't have many other options at this point. 

I had one more game lined up against my son's Tau, but that would occur after the deadline for list submissions, so I had to just take a punt of the scions and stick my final list in.