8th edition thoughts

8th edition is well and truly on its way, there is no denying that. I could go over everything that has been published in the last week or so, but I've read over half a dozen blog posts all covering g the same ground. So i thought that I would do things slightly differently with my take on the new 8th edition. This post will basically cover the main points I have, whether they are issues or praise, but also look back over the little run of posts I did a week or so ago, about what Id like to see or expected from 8th.

Now, I usually like to get the negatives it of the way first, so I will and surprisingly there are currently very few of them. My biggest gripe so far though is charging, or more specifically, the fact that the charger goes first. I have always thought that the current system needed some adjustment, but on the whole did alright. The new system just doesn't sit well with me, from a game play view, its very simple, too simple, and from a fluff point its just rubbish. Ok, an ork charging a guardsmen maybe able to get the jump, but a howling banshee or wytch? So now my charging guardsmen will be able to surprise those genesteelers or the group of khorne dogs. It just doesn't sit right with me yet, hopefully it will make more sense when weave the full rules, but right now I think its a change for the worse. On other thing about combat that worries me, is with the release of some example profiles the have gotten rid of initiative values, so what will happen in subsiquest rounds of combat? Who goes first, the charger still or the player whoose turn it is? I guess some of the AoS players will be able to answer this one.

Another change for the worse, is getting rid of templates. Now I understand why they are doing this, but it seems to be based primarily around tournament players wishes. It also leads to some odd situations, as in one game I had a platoon command squad with 4 flamers attacking 1 bloke, as that was the only available target. Naturally, I got 4 hits and rolled to wound, but with out templates? I might have missed, assuming your going to have to hit, or might have got 12 hits, assuming d3 each, from 4 weapons shooting once each. Then there is the fact that does this mean that flamers will now be able to shoot through their own troops without penalty? At least that means I can hide my flamers at the back now.

Edit: why, oh why, do you do this to me GW? So I spent some time writing this on Wednesday, only for GW to release an article on weapons, one of which was the Flamer. So it will in deed be a d6 hits, which automatically hit a specified unit, and you can inflict multiple wounds on a single model. So, with the PCS I could get 24 hits, all on one model, which seems a bit silly. It so indeed mean I can hide the flamers in a unit, but with only an 8 inch range, they'll still need to be near the front.

The other issues that if I fired a large blast at a vehicle, I could also hit the squad next door, as in real life when the shrapnel goes everywhere, but does this mean that the shot will only hit the vehicle and nothing else? So no cleaver positioning of templates to think about, no calculated risk about how close to shoot? Also no punishing an opponent for bunching up his squads. Oh, and then there are things like artillery and my precious wyverns. How will these work? Pick a target and only hit them, even if there standing in the middle of a mass of troops? I really need more info on this, as its really not clear to me yet what will happen.

The final thing that has me worried at the moment is really a basic one and I hope will be cleared up quite quickly, and thats the role of flyers. Now with Death from the Sky's, flyers got a whole lot more complex and there were a whole lot of rules added, rules we chose to ignore, but what will they be like now? Will my vendetta be able to forfil it proper role of aerial sniper and what will become of the valkyries MRP's with the changes to templates. Which has raised another question in my mind as I type. Will template weapons now be able to hit flyers? Obviously they can't now, but with no templates? Is there anything to stop my flamers from toasting  hell turkey? Or my mortars from downing a storm talon?

So, really its not all doom and gloom, far from it. A lot of the stuff coming out about 8th looks good. I like fact that save modifiers are back, plus hopefully BS and WS modifiers. Movement values are good to, takes me right back to my early days of 2nd edition.

But what does this do to my thoughts about the various imperial armies I run or plan to run? Well, the big one is that the codices are not going to be what they were. Ill still look at picking up various ones, AM and BA for sure, maybe even the MT and DA ones, but they ate not going to be the be all and end all they were. The other books, whatever they will be called will take over there, the 5 of them to start with. But what will the 5 be? Marines, chaos, elder, non-marine imperials and other? That does leave a lot in the 'other' book, but I don't believe they would split up factions across books. Plus there is talk of new races, maybe even on launch, here's hoping for dark mechanicus and evil Tau (as in 'for the individual' ).

Hopefully with this new setup it will help with a few weaknesses within some of the current codices. I assume that guard, scions, sisters and the like will be in one book, possibly with the mechanicus, and as such there maybe options to mix and match things. In terms of actual units, the guard might be one of the bigger winners, as quite a few units are overpriced or under supported. Ogryns are the first that spring to mind, as do rough riders (assuming they will not be removed sometime soon) but this may also help things like sentinels and the various chimera chassis vehicles, both of which have armour 10 and are very prone to massed bolster fire. The same goes for the Russ variants, and front and side armour is excellent, but rear is useless. So won around toughness value should help.

The blood angles should be helped by the new charge rules and if they keep many of their other rules/chapter tactics, then they should be able to play as they should. The Dark angles will also get a lift with 2 wound terminator's but we'll have to see what happens with bikes. The ap modifiers will be a bit annoying for them, as the willno doubt be a lot +1 or +2 modifiers out there. Although, if a lascannon is only +3, there may not be many, as this would still give a 5+ save, something they didn't have before.

The two big worries I have aboutmy armies though is that I'm painting up my Knights and the Hjaltland are finished. If there is to many changes, theres going to be quite a bit more brush work to do. Then there is the fluff. I wonder if I'm going to have to change my fluff, again, to fit the new FOC.

Well, this is starting to turn in to a rant so ill end it here and there really is only going to be one way to find out for sure, but we might have to wait over a month for that one!

Marine WiP 2

So I got some more brush time the other day and decided to concentrate on one set of models. The first set I laid my hands on happened to be the Emperors Disciples, so I ran with it. Now, the two models are a sternguard and a command squad and I felt that I needed to give them something extra from the base marine.

The base marine color scheme.

I know I needed to change a few bits, the yellow eyes really don't work! But overall I like the scheme. So, my first attempts looked something like this;

Models primed and base colors painted.

The sternguard on the left looks ok, the robe needs some work and there's some details, metal chains and stuff that need painting, but on the whole, I like it. I think that I will be taking this scheme through it the rest of the sternguard. The command squad model however, looks off and its all down to the helmet. It just looks rubbish, like a big yellow melon plonked on the top, it really had to go.

Take 2.

With the main helmet blue again and also the back pack toned down, two yellow stripes rather than a big block of color, and I think the model sits a lot better. It will still stand out, as both fists are yellow, not just the left. 

Although both models are not finished, needing the details filling out, chains, badges and markings at the very least, I'm pretty happy with the colors, the only thing that may change is the yellow robe, it may end up red, but that's still to be decided. Hopefully ill get some time soon to finish these two models off.

While I was waiting for paint to dry, I based these two models, the left in Ratskin flesh and the right in Jeakero orange, as there supposed to be different colors (at lest they are on the chart I found). However, they look the same to me! In the daylight, there is a subtle difference though, the orange is, well, more orange and slightly lighter, but I'm still not convinced. Next up will be painting Troll Slayer orange on top of both of them to see how they look then.

Ill let you know when I get around to it!

The lost game - Hjaltland LI vs Necrons

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that blogger had decided to delete the text of one of my posts. To be fair, it wasn't all bloggers fault, I tried to undo some typing and used the key short cut (ctrl + z) and I pressed it once to many. now normally, nothing happens, but for some reason, it deleted all my text and pictures and pressing redo and trying to paste did nothing. However, blogger redeemed itself a little by holding the pictures in the archive. So here they are, I've tried to fill in what I can remember, but this game happen way, way back in September! 

Set up, main guard blob in the middle, flanking force on the right. Some neurons on the far side.

Reserves, ready to rain death from above.

The majority of the necron force, small but powerful none the less.

The royal court, not a clue who they all are now.

First strike. Everything ran, apart from the royal court who did a deep strike thing right up to the flank of the blob squad.

Blob getting decimated by the court and wraiths.

Assaulting the royal court, I remember it didn't go as badly as I though it might.

Court jumps sides, tries again, but is down to just 3 members now.

Wraiths taking out the quad gun crew. 

Fire fight in the sky, vendettas are harder to kill than you think!

Royal court assault mk2 and only one model remains.

Close up shot.

The flyer came in and destroyed the squad to the rear, who were trying to join in the combat. By this point the wraiths had been dealt with.

End game and a 2+ save and a 4+ reanimation on T5 W3 model proved too much for the guard.

If I remember right I did actually win this match,mostly due to the flanking squad picking up points for me, along with the pcs in the vendetta. The necrons were too small a force to be able to fight and claim objectives.

Hopefully the next game I play I will be able to do another right up, a proper one again. 

Inquisition fluff update

As you may have noticed, I have been updating much of my fluff over the last few weeks, adding somemore details and depth to the armies and also adding new armies to the list. So of the eagle eyed readers may have noticed that I have updated the inquisition fluff as well, taking in to account the changes to their codex or rather, codex: imperial agents. This has lead to a slight redo for main inquisitors  and the addition of a third inquisitor, in order to cover all 3 of the main ordos within the inquisition.

One of the main reprocussions of this is the abandonment of a full on deathwatch army list, something that I was never overly keen on, as I didn't really have the models and I didn't want to buy loads of new ones. With the release of codex imperial agents, I can still get units of deathwatch in, simply by using the chambers militant. This means I can make small units to go with the inquisitors, and actually add in more flavor and fluff, a win win situation if you ask me!

So, whose getting added?

Well, the heretics will have to deal with the order of the golden orb, a sub order of the order of the bloody rose from the convent sanctorum. A small order, from a small convent in the segmentum Parcificus. The convent will be centered around a relic, surprisingly a golden orb, that was supposed to have been held by a saint.

The xenos will face the wrath of squad Krupp, a squad of deathwatch veterans drawn mostly from the forces known to inquisitor Etiennia. Many of the veterans originally fought along side the inquisitor when they were part of their chapter and impressed enough to be requested in to the deathwatch. There will be some controversy about the vet squad, as in their legitimacy, as they are used more as a personal army than as part of the deathwatch.

Finally the daemons of the warp will have to face the Grey knights of 7th brotherhood. Now, this is where I may go off topic slightly, so to speak, as I will most likely not take the chamber militant on this one, as it means terminator's, which I have, but not with the required weapons, as all of my spares are carrying chainfists. I may well go with the deamonhunter strike force and use a strike squad. Although this leaves me an issue as well, as they need storm bolters. I could just leave out the Grey knights, but I think it would be cool to have some in the collection somewhere.

With the redistribution of the various henchmen warbands that I currently have to forfil the new warbands setup in c:ia, and the addition of the chambers militant, I should be able to form some nice small (500 point) armies to add to my other forces to provide some fluffy and fun forces for some naritive type games.