June 2023

June 2023 retrospective

Hey everybody,
June has been a funny old month, hasn’t it? Here on the blog, I’ve had almost a month given over to Warhammer Age of Sigmar, between both the main game and Warcry. I think this was in part because the games are amazing, with some of the most beautiful and creative miniatures that Games Workshop produces, but also as a reaction to the negativity online surrounding Warhammer 40k 10th edition. Despite my better judgment, a lot of the bad feeling coming out of the AdMech community in particular seemed to affect me more than I thought it would, and I had to just walk away for a bit. It’s interesting, to me, because I’ve never really experienced that before – usually, you see people moaning and whinging online and you can just draw a line across it and forget about it, but it seemed at one point like every group I was in (and I have a lot of armies, remember!) was complaining about the new edition changes, and it soured me towards what otherwise had seemed like a new and exciting time for the game.

I’ve now played 10th edition, of course, and I’m very pleased to say that a lot of the criticism was pretty much unwarranted. Armies play differently in 10th, but I don’t think there’s really anything particularly awful about things as they stand. I do miss some things, but that’s going to be the same with any edition change, I think it’s right to say that we should wait for the codexes to see how the land truly lies, because I do feel like having the full suite of rules available will make things change.

In the meantime, I have embarked upon the mammoth task of trying to make sense of all of the armies I collect in the new edition, so stay tuned for a series of blogs where I will be taking a closer look at all this kind of stuff!

Age of Sigmar has been a big focus though, and I have really enjoyed getting back into looking at the Mortal Realms. I have even managed to play a game this week, as well! A guy nearby posted about learning the game in one of the many facebook groups that I’m in, and I left a half-hearted comment and, before you knew it, I was throwing dice! There seems to be a bit of an Age of Sigmar “scene” near me, which is both exciting and terrifying, to tell the truth. It’s exciting because it’s good to know that I won’t be building and painting models in a vacuum, but terrifying because it seemed like a very close-knit group of people, and I feel like it’s very difficult to get into such cliques. Moreover, everybody there seems to both know the game very well, and be hyper-competitive whereas I am both learning and really not that bothered by optimum builds and most competitive lists, etc. I don’t really like tournaments anymore, but that’s what a lot of people here seem to want.

I should try harder, though, as I don’t want to miss out on stuff, already having a sizeable Ossiarch Bonereapers army, and also now working on my Slaanesh forces. That’s been a lot of fun, as Slaanesh is an army that I have long wanted to have, but have bought and sold twice before. Working on my third attempt at the army has been really good, though, even if I have made the mistake of fully assembling that Exalted Chariot before painting it!

So far, I have been concentrating on getting my Daemonettes painted up. After assembling the whole force the other day, I think it’s quite surprising to me how few models have actually been painted, so I wanted to try and get this lot done, with the hope that they might be a quick win for me. Well, they haven’t been all that quick so far, but I think they’re definitely getting there! My colour scheme calls for a lot of faff with shades, diluting them for the skin so they don’t go too purple, but then stronger on the claws and feet, so there is almost a blend required. Drybrushing the skin then helps to blend things further, but it’s all a bit faffy! I’m currently not sure about the hair, either. I had followed my initial scheme as I had laid it out, but as it has been something like 4 years since I painted the first one, I could have got something wrong. The hair on some of the models looks more bright blue than I’d like, so I might need to revisit that somehow. But otherwise, it’s going well, and working on the Chariot crew at the same time both ensures consistency and will (hopefully) allow for me to finally get that model finished soon, as well!

There was a flurry of Warcry activity on the blog in the first half of the month, a lot of it was scheduled in because life was a bit crazy with birthdays and stuff, but I’m really excited for that game, and I’m looking forward to getting more warbands painted and playing more games as the year wears on. It’s such a good rules set, at least the first edition set that I am still playing through, I love how brutal it can be once the battle is joined! That said, the fact that you don’t deploy your warbands on opposite sides of the table, but instead have groups at a variety of points, does mean that melee combat is quick to get into, so you don’t lose those first few rounds to just simply moving about.

June hasn’t been just about plastic people from Nottingham, though. I had my first game with Star Wars Shatterpoint at the start of the month, and have been enjoying learning that and getting some of the models painted. Being bigger than GW scale, I had expected them to be somewhat easier, but it’s turned out not to be the case! So far, James and I have only managed one game, but I’m hoping we’ll be able to find the time for many more as the year progresses. It has overtaken Necromunda for us in terms of wanting to play games, but I still have a deep love for all things Underhive, and I am keeping my bits crossed we’ll get back to things there soon enough, as well.

I’ve also played a couple of games of Marvel Champions, which has been really nice as they have been games where I have tried to take my time with it all, rather than rushing the villain for the win. My usual style of playing this game has been to throw as much damage as I can against the villain, and react to whatever is happening as best as I can – which can sometimes lead to some very tricky situations! However, it was really quite nice to play it a bit slower, as it feels like you’re really playing the game, rather than just sitting through it happening quickly in front of you. Hopefully that makes sense! It’s just nice to see more cards, to play cards than otherwise I threw away as resources without ever trying them out, and in general, I’ve really enjoyed it! It’s also made me re-evaluate some cards I’ve never given much time to, so I might be deck-building a bit again with some heroes like Captain Marvel, to better effect this sort of long-term strategy.

I’ve also played against Ultron for the first time at the weekend, and while I did unfortunately lose, I really enjoyed that one for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it was a really great game, with Star-Lord and Nebula going up against him; I really like this hero pairing, for some reason – I suppose I still really like the Nebula deck, though, and have been enjoying seeing that come together. At the back of my mind, I had been thinking that I’d like to play against Ultron at least once before my first year in the game is up, and I’m quite pleased to say that has now happened. As is often the case with these types of games, the core set scenarios represent almost the full gamut from the basic, training scenario, to the almost-impossible mega-boss. Ultron is definitely in the latter category, but seeing how his scenario deck plays out was just great, all told.

But we’re at the halfway point of the year now, so let’s check-in with what has been accomplished, and re-calibrate a bit where necessary!

Let’s take a look at the hobby goals, to begin. I had an initial list of six things to accomplish, as follows:
1. Promethium Forge
2. 10 Hellions
3. Adepta Sororitas Exorcist
4. Necrons Canoptek Wraiths
5. Tau Crisis Suits
6. More Zone Mortalis terrain

The Promethium Forge has had a lot of work at the start of the year, and I think there are only railings left to do now. I’ve completed five of the ten Hellions, and the Exorcist tank is fully painted, one of my favourite models to have painted this year. I’ve done the Wraiths and the Crisis Suits, and I have finished painting all of the Zone Mortalis terrain that I had primed up – having run out of grey primer, I need to get some more before I can get more of that done. So all told, I’ve ticked off four and a half of the six, with the other one being almost done as well! Time, in that case, for some recalibration.

You might be thinking I will be coming up with a new list, but in all honesty I don’t think I want to tie myself down like this. What I will be doing, though, is listing the projects that are currently languishing as half-finished, and in need of some TLC. Whether I complete them all or not, who knows, but they’re things I would like to get to before the end of the year, regardless!
1. 10 Darkoath Savagers for Warcry
2. 8 Cypher Lords for Warcry
3. 10 Sisters Novitiates
4. Drukhari Venom
5. 10 Skitarii (5 Rangers, 5 Vanguard)

I’m obviously not saying that I only have five unfinished projects – I have easily 20 times that! – but these are the five that I think I would like to have finished by the end of the year. Adding the Promethium Forge and those other five Hellions, and it’s not too bad a list, really. Of course, this doesn’t mean that there is no chance I’ll start working on something else next week, but I think out of everything I currently have, these are the projects that I want to see finished. Some stuff is so close to being done that it’s a shame I left them where they were, but that can’t be helped I suppose. Once they are all finished, then I think I would like to start work on other things, more Warcry warbands for a start. The more I think about that game, the more I want to just paint the damn terrain, too. It came out in 2019, and the terrain is still just bare plastic, so it’s about time I got myself sorted out on that front!

I want to get myself in a good position for later in the year, because I’m kinda planning to do something as a bit of a painting celebration. I have talked for quite some time now about wanting to have a big project to really get my teeth into, and I have been thinking about it from quite a few angles, but I think it would be really cool to have some kind of army challenge, almost, where I have a box of miniatures that is the core foundation for an army, or a detachment within an army, and I set aside some time to just build and paint, doing nothing else until it’s finished. It’s been a long time since I was able to be quite so single-minded on a project, but I think it could be a lot of fun. It’s not necessarily about starting a new force, but I think having a character or two, a squad of basic troops, a squad of more elite troops, and maybe some kind of centrepiece model would be really fun. So nothing too grand, but more than just a single box of models. My initial thoughts are for something near the start of December, and obviously as I have a real life to attend to as well, it’s not going to be a case of being able to neglect my wife and kids for this, but I think it would be nice to have a month-long stretch where I just focus on that one thing.

You heard it here first!

So that’s where I’m at with the painting, what about my 10×10 gaming challenge?

June hasn’t seen much gaming, as I said, but I’m surprised nonetheless to see that I’ve played 59 games so far from the list. So I’m over halfway, just about! Of all ten games on the list, I still haven’t played Eldritch Horror once, which at first was a bit of a joke, because I was sure I’d get round to it before too long. It is one of my favourite boardgames, after all. But here we are, at the midpoint, and I haven’t yet played a single game. I think I need to get round to playing that one soon! I am really pleased about getting more Elder Sign played though – and this is really the point of the challenge, to play more of the games that I have. I’m not buying games with the same regularity that I used to, of course, but being able to devote time to playing just one game, and its plethora of expansions, is really great. It’s a similar story for Marvel Champions, of course – even though I’ve played it more than the ten times I had set out to do, I’m really pleased that I’m still playing it, going above and beyond. Runebound has been a surprising one, I think, in that it has seen a flurry of plays in June. I suppose it’s partly due to being focused on the fact that I want to play it for the challenge, but whereas some games might feel a bit like, “well I have to play this because I said I would”, I’ve actually really wanted to play Runebound, being in the mood for some classic fantasy board game action! So that that been surprising, but in a good way! There have been a few times where I’ve played it with a kind of narrative in my mind, so one hero is trying to find as many rune artifacts within the market deck as he can; one guy is only going to level up his melee stat line, to the exclusion of all else. It was just great, and it often felt like those great times from 10+ years ago, when I was first playing the game!

I think, then, even if I don’t get all 10 games played 10 times each by December, it has been a really great way to try to get me to play more with what I have. If I do it again next year, I might not pick 10 individual games, but I might look at expansions to games as well, and see if I can commit to playing, for instance, Omens of Ice ten times for Elder Sign, or Under the Pyramids for Eldritch Horror. I have these things, and in the case of some of these expansions, I’ve barely played any games with them. It’s really about time I made an effort to get my money’s worth from them all!

I haven’t talked much about this as a kind of ongoing project, or whatever, but I do want to briefly mention how my 2023 reading has been going. According to Goodreads, I’ve read 20 books so far this year – and all of them are what my wife would term “real books”, no graphic novels in sight! I am particularly excited about the fact I got to re-read the Han Solo trilogy back around April time, as that was something I always used to enjoy back in the day. I am intending to re-read more Bantam-era Star Wars novels, though it’s not like last year’s Prequel Summer. I’ll get to them when I get to them, I guess. I’ve recently started to read the final Witcher novel, which is part of the ongoing reading project with Dave from wordaholicsanonymous – along the way, we’ve lost and gained a few readers, but I think we’re both still standing from the beginning! It’s been a bumpy ride, for sure, but for completion’s sake, I’m looking forward to the end of this one. I’ve recently discovered Audible, as well, and while it makes me feel like I’m cheating to have an audiobook in my list, I suppose I’m spending the time to absorb the story, just through a different set of holes in my head. I’m sure there will be plenty more books making their way to the blog as a result, though!

This has become quite the exhaustive read, now, I’m sure. Congrats if you made it this far! At any rate, let’s see what the second half of the year has got in store for us!

The Summer of Sigmar!!

As you no doubt realise now, I’m very much enjoying Age of Sigmar once more, and my mind is abuzz with all sorts of hopes and plans for the summer of Sigmar. In the midst of all this, I came across this video from Rob, the Honest Wargamer, which goes through a lot in just 30-ish minutes, but most interestingly, he talks about the early days of the game.

I think I found it particularly good to watch because I was there, right at the start, but having only flitted in a couple of points since, it’s been really interesting to see how things have grown.

I really like Ron’s channel, because he’s clearly a high-level player with a shockingly good understanding of the game, but doesn’t come across like the usual type of tournament player. Rather, I think I’d quite enjoy playing against him, because he has a good understanding of how to play nice!

Just some thoughts, but highly recommended!!

First game of 10th edition!

Hey everybody,
Despite GW dropping the new rules early in June, Leviathan was launched properly at the weekend and so we are now officially in 10th edition for Warhammer 40k. Of course, nothing is stopping anybody from playing any of the other editions, but the current rules are new, and shiny, and I have to say, having now played a game, I think they work pretty well!

I played my Necrons against my usual gaming buddy JP’s Chaos Marines (they’re not Word Bearers of course, with the stripping-back of all the army subfaction rules). At the minute, we don’t have the core rulebook in our hands so we were simply playing the Only War mission from the core rules pdf, which involves controlling objectives on a round by round basis. Nothing too exciting, really, and while we were both glad to see secondary objectives gone, it did feel a little bit like “is this it?” for a while. Hopefully the game will evolve with new missions that give some more interesting gameplay, although of course I do expect a bit of a rehash of the standard things we’ve been seeing since at least 7th edition, when I started playing.

One of the biggest changes, I thought, was how cover works. It’s still worth a chat beforehand to see what is what on the tabletop, but I like how it is quite streamlined here. If you can see any part of a model using true line of sight, then that model is visible and eligible to attack. When it comes to ruins, then we have it quite clear now that a model cannot see through a ruin that it is stood outside of; makes sense, right? You can’t see through a building to the other side, even if you could draw a line of sight through the windows lining up or whatever – I assume they intend the building to be full of debris not modelled, so it would be like trying to see through a bombed-out building to the car park at the rear. However, models can see into the ruin, and models in the ruin can see out of it. Nice. Now, if you shoot at a model wholly within the footprint of the ruins (the reason for that chat at the start) or if the targeted model is not fully visible to ever model firing at it, the targeted model gets the benefit of cover. So if I have my unit of Necron Immortals in a ruin, and JP wants to fire at them with his Havocs, each one of those Havocs needs to see that Immortal otherwise, the Immortals are getting cover.

For ruins in particular, we were talking quite a lot in order to get our heads around it, as I remember a massive debate in 9th edition and how the cover rules worked with Imperial Fists ignoring them, so hopefully with having clearer things from here on, it’ll make games play easier.

One of the things I’m hoping to get out of 10th edition is to just get better at the game. Not necessarily inasmuch as getting to master the rules – I think I’ll always need to refer back to things as I go along! – but just tactically, so that I can get “set plays” for want of a better term, and get used to doing things, and knowing where to move certain units for the best effect. I am not a really strategic player, so it would be good to get better at that, I think, so that we can both enjoy the game.

Necrons in 10th
So my beloved Necrons have come through the editions quite well, I think. The big thing, of course, is the Reanimation Protocols, which is quite nice now in that it doesn’t matter when the model was lost. Whether that gets FAQ’d, who can say, but the rules as they stand are much closer to 7th edition where you just keep bringing models back, which I think is the best way to do it because the rule is meant to simulate the endless legions of Necrons. If it’s a multi-wound model, you either heal D3 wounds, or you bring back one model with 1 wound remaining. So all in all, I am very happy with that!

The Detachment rule allows a unit to get +1 to hit if it is being led by a character, though I didn’t have any of that going on. There are so many tiny tweaks to armies going on, it doesn’t require a fortnight to build a list anymore, but it still keeps the army interesting and makes you think about how you’re building your army.

There are just six Necrons stratagems, and they’re all very clear in how and when they can be used. I got some nice utility out of the one that allows a unit to shoot back at an enemy that has just shot at it, before you remove casualties. There’s one to allow you to kick in Reanimation Protocols after a shooting or melee attack against that unit has been resolved, which is quite nice!

In all, I really like how they have made these changes to list-building. Yes, the 20-odd stratagems for the army have gone, warlord traits and relics have all gone, but instead we have an army rule, which for the Necrons is their Reanimation Protocols, then we have a detachment rule, which comes with the stratagems and enhancements. I can imagine that the codexes will give us more detachments, which in turn will come with different stratagems and enhancements, but that’s okay because we’re still only going to be looking at about 6 each time, and not 20+ for the whole army. I think I would like to see some effort made to bring back army subfactions in this manner, such as having a Black Legion detachment with its associated bits and pieces, though how far they take this, who knows.

Something that I think we both missed until we were over halfway through the game was just how many abilities that units have now. It’s true, a lot of the stratagems from 9th edition have been put back on the datasheets, but it was nice to see how units have been handled in this way, and I think this is going to open up a lot more opportunities for different sorts of lists, so I’m quite excited overall to see where this can go. I haven’t had a chance to start on re-building my list yet, but will be taking a look in the coming days, and hopefully will have some exciting stuff to try out for the next game!

Overall, then, I think the rules changes for 10th edition have been really good, and hopefully they won’t start messing around with them too much as we move through the new edition. It seems like they might be producing tournament packs for the serious games to have strict balance, but otherwise the game is meant to be enjoyed by people who are just looking for a good time, playing games with friends and showing off their armies! Although I might just be being a bit naïve with that assessment…!

Five units I’d like to see in Warhammer 40,000

Hey everybody,
I’ve been thinking a lot about all of my many, many armies of late, especially with 10th edition going on. Something that has been at the back of my mind while doing this has been how some armies don’t have the unit options that others have. I mean in terms of unit types, of course, but there used to be a kind of symmetry across almost all the factions, where you could see that there was the classic troop type, the elite bodyguard type, the captain, the lieutenant, and so on. We’re not trying to model every army on Space Marines, of course, but I think it’s nice to get some utility from a force, and who doesn’t like new models for their armies?!

Sisters of Battle: a biker unit
This is something I think a few people have mentioned over the years, especially since the plastic Sisters have been released. While I don’t think there’s anything from their tabletop history to suggest it would be a requirement, it’s something I would like to have all the same. In the old days of battlefield roles, the Sisters had a very limited fast attack choice, both flavours of jetpack Sisters and the Dominions. I think having Sisters with bikes, either big chunky bikes like the firstborn marines, or maybe something a bit more sleek and deadly to match their power armour, I don’t suppose it matters too much. But it would be great to see, I think.

Adeptus Mechanicus: a good tank
The Onager Dunecrawler has been in the army list from the start, and with the massive additions to the range back at the end of 8th edition, we had the Skorpius Disintegrator which is the tank version of the transport. I think I’d really like to have another heavy-hitting option for the faction, whether it’s an actual tank or just a weapons platform blistering with arc cannons or something. Actually, I could almost see something like the hover tanks from The Phantom Menace, giving it a bit of a sleeker design than the standard sort of tank look that we get in marines and so on.

Drukhari: a lieutenant
I’ve wanted this for years, really. Back when you had to segregate your army, you couldn’t build a Kabalite battalion without (a) doubling up on Archons, which doesn’t make sense in the lore, or (b) using Drahzar, who is a blade-for-hire from the Incubi temples and so doesn’t make much sense, either. Lore-wise, there is a lieutenant within Dark Eldar society called a Dracon, and back in 7th edition (I think) when you paid points to upgrade Kabalite Warriors to Kabalite Trueborn, you would upgrade the Sybarite to a Dracon, so the precedent is actually there. I’d like to get a sort of utility-kit though, with weapon options and the like that can be used across the range. Of course, as we move into 10th edition, I’m not wholly sure whether these sorts of symmetries will still exist, but given that almost every other faction gets some kind of lieutenant to help out, why not the dark kin?

Genestealer Cults: a saboteur unit
I guess we’re really in the realm of impossible wish-listing on this one. We already have the Sanctus assassin model, and we have the Saboteur model that came out in the last edition. However, I was thinking about an elite unit for the Cult, and most of them are single-model characters, which is fine, but can sometimes just feel a bit awkward. I suppose my idea is a bit like the way Sisters used to do Celestians, or Drukhari used to do Trueborn. You take the basic troops, and upgrade them with better weapons options. So I’m thinking a Neophyte unit that can deep strike or vanguard move, with better weapons and stuff. Maybe rules that allow them to drop mines across the battlefield as they move? But not just one model. I want a unit!

Genestealer Cults: a Walker of some sort
I know the GSC range is huge, and I know I’ve already said I want one more unit for them, but I think this might be slightly more attainable than the last one. To fit in with the mining aesthetic, I’d love to get some kind of exo-suit thing, a bit like the Primaris marines got. I think it’d be nice to have something armed with rock drills and crushing claws, almost a bit like a machine version of a carnifex. It does kinda make sense, and I would love to add more mining stuff!

In addition to these five, I think I’d also like to have a few bits and pieces updated into plastic. The immediate stand-outs for me are the Drukhari Beastmaster and retinue, and the Court of the Archon. I saw an interesting theory online recently that suggested, since these have been clumped together as a single unit on the 10th edition index datasheets, it would be nice to get a plastic box set with the units as they come. Despite the fact I have these models in finecast, I would like to see plastic updates, for sure!

Sisters of Battle also seem to suffer a bit because they have a number of side-units like the Missionaries, Preachers and Death Cult Assassins that need an update. Whether we could get some kind of Ministorum Battle Conclave box set that gives us plastic versions of the half-dozen or so units that still exist in embarrassing finecast and update them to glorious plastic, who knows, but I would snap that up as soon as possible! Seeing the Inquisition box for Kill Team recently has definitely given me hope on that front, though.

While not exactly something that I’ve been gnashing my teeth over, I think that it’s a given that we’ll be getting a plastic update to the Emperor’s Children at some point, given the fact three of the four god-specific Chaos Marines legions have now been updated to plastic. We’re also presumably getting Daemon Primarch Fulgrim, so maybe that’s why we haven’t just had a basic Emperor’s Children upgrade sprue, because it’s going to be a big release, who knows. It’s just so sad that they remain in the codex, alongside Lucius the Eternal, and the sculpts are just awful in comparison to the new stuff. In addition, I don’t think you can actually use the new marine sculpts with the old noise marines finecast upgrade, so the fact Noise Marines exist is quite unfortunate, really. Now, if they follow the pattern, I would love to see what they do with Slaaneshi Chaos Cultists for 40k, given that each other warband has got god-specific Cultists (well, Tzaangors and Poxwalkers are kind of the same thing, right?)

It simply must be coming, it’s just a question of when.

I know that Eldar have some sculpts that are older than a lot of the player base these days, but the fact I don’t play Eldar means it isn’t something I want, as such. Same for Orks. I know there are many kits crying out for attention, but I’m keeping this more as something I want to see. Even though I’m not exactly a huge Emperor’s Children fan, I would still like to see what they have to offer for the III legion all the same!

The big range refreshes for Necrons and Tyranids in recent years does make me confident that we’ll see a lot more new models for a long time yet, and even while I’m not going to rush out and buy every single unit (unlike my former self, who undoubtedly would have!) I’m still waiting with bated breath to see what new stuff 10th edition will bring!

Elder Sign: Omens of Ice

Hey everybody,
I am really enjoying Elder Sign again right now, especially since I have embraced the expansions and have left the museum well and truly behind me! Following on from Gates of Arkham in 2015, each subsequent expansion for the game used the “Streets of Arkham” game mode, with double-sided adventure cards that had an entry effect. These expansions also took the opportunity to really embrace new and exciting locations other than the town of Arkham itself, with the first such taking us to the frozen north, on the trail of Ithaqua!

Omens of Ice is a lot more prescribed than previous games, as we have two stages of adventure cards, the second stage being locked behind a pair of special adventures that must be completed first. This links into the heavy reliance on the game working off the clock, when the passage of the days begins to actually mean something here. We’re on an expedition, and each day we spend up in the tundra is marked by increasing snow storms, represented by storm tokens, which are added to adventure cards and make them just that much more difficult, because they can cause you to discard items or allies, lose sanity or stamina, or add doom or advance the clock.

There are new items and spells, and a whole new mythos deck, which is also two-layered, and we have to choose one of those effects to happen, although each one is pretty grim. New investigators such as Lily Chen, Ursula Downes and Silas Marsh are along for the ride, although there are no new Other World cards this time around. However, the game reaches back to previous expansions for the Blessed/Cursed mechanic, as well as the Skills cards. It’s often quite a dangerous prospect, having an expansion rely on other expansions for content, but for super-fans like myself, it’s always great to see how integrated the game is. It also makes me reconsider how I organise all my content for this game, because otherwise it means carting not only the base game and expansion around to play it, but I need to dig into these other boxes to get those components, as well!

Omens of Ice has a really great feel to it, though, and the adventure cards range from stuff that is moderately helpful, to the out-and-out grim and appalling stuff that makes you really think twice before you go into that mess. As adventure cards are now always replaced face down, though, there’s no real way of knowing how bad that adventure is going to be until you go there and flip it; and if a storm counter has caused you to lose that item you were hoping would see you through, then it could be even worse!

However, in my recent play-throughs, I’ve had some incredibly cinematic moments as I’ve been playing, helped a lot by the fact the adventure cards are staged so that you get most of the Elder Signs themselves from stage two. There are some in stage one, of course, and you can always potentially buff a few with Other World encounters, but it’s very difficult to get enough by staying in stage one. There are three Ancient Ones in this expansion, and the rules do say that we should only use those three when playing in this mode, which can be a little limiting at first, but each of them really brings the storm mechanic to the game, as otherwise you might not be seeing many of those tokens.

I’ve only played with this expansion once, previously, back in 2016, and I had the abiding impression that it was difficult – perhaps why I haven’t revisited it in the almost seven years since! I think, if you treat it as a race and try to beat out the day track by advancing as quickly as possible, then it absolutely will be tough because you won’t have the supplies to roll extra dice or whatever. By plodding through most of the stage one deck before moving onwards, though, I was able to build up my presence quite a bit, which in turn made stage two comparatively okay. It wasn’t easy, don’t get me wrong, but my investigators had enough clues and other cards to be fairly confident as we moved into the great white north. Indeed, there are actually a lot of card effects that prevent the clock from advancing, as well, so by taking this measured approach, I was able to stall the clock while I built up my supplies.

It’s a great expansion, and I’ve enjoyed rediscovering it as I’ve been on this most recent play-through of Elder Sign. There are two expansions left, however, and I have not played either of them before, so aside from more throwing of dice, I don’t really know what to expect from them. I’m very much looking forward to seeing what’s in store for me next, anyway!

Hedonites of Slaanesh

Hey everybody,
My summer of Sigmar is continuing to gather momentum, even with all the other stuff warring for my attention right now! New 40k might be the hot topic, with the new Leviathan core box going on sale yesterday, but I have my focus firmly on the mortal realms today, as I take a look at how my Hedonites of Slaanesh army is shaping up. In a word, it is shaping up nicely.

This is perhaps going to be something of a long-term project for me, as I don’t anticipate having the army painted up anytime soon. Especially if the Exalted Seeker Chariot is anything to go by. With the recent good weather, though, I was able to get a load of stuff primed, and so have embarked upon getting things actually painted! Up to this year, I had barely finished painting one Daemonette, so after I had launched myself into painting the Shardspeaker, principally for Warcry, I have been moving ever-steadily into the realm of Age of Sigmar with these miniatures, as well.

Now, I have talked about Slaanesh here on the blog for literally years, I know. I have been very much interested in having a Slaanesh army for what feels like my entire life in Warhammer, and after buying and selling at least two armies, I am finally going to make a go of it this time around. I think it helps that the range for AoS has been expanded so much, so it’s not just a case of having Daemonettes, chariots and some weird finecast stuff. The Slaanesh plastics are just glorious, and I am a big fan of them all. After taking stock recently of everything that I do have for the faction, I have begun to form a plan for where I want to take things.

As you can see, I have a lot of stuff here. It’s almost all primed as well, which means it’s quite hard to make out what everything is!

First of all, I’m slightly amazed that I have so many points! The Keeper of Secrets is a big help there, for sure. Incidentally, I hadn’t seen that Keeper model since I built it back before my eldest was born (she’s 4 in October), and it was just utterly glorious! It’s a lot bigger than I remember, as well, so I was very impressed when I was assembling the line-up there!

In terms of Leaders for the army, then, I have the Keeper, the Shardspeaker and a Viceleader. The Shardspeaker is the only model that is fully painted so far, but hopefully this will change soon enough! Viceleaders are the new Herald of Slaanesh model, and while I don’t have the actual model, building the Exalted Chariot gives you a herald on foot, which I think used to be a critical factor in old Warhammer Fantasy. So I’ve got her here, anyway, just as an extra model really.

I have ten Daemonettes built, and after my recent attic adventures I found the Start Collecting box for Slaanesh Daemons that not only had the Seekers, but also ten more Daemonettes! So that was amazing and, naturally, I will be including them in the army once I have them built. I want to paint the first batch of ten, though, before I go doing anything more fancy with the list. I’m not sure why I seem to have 11 Daemonettes, either – somewhere I’ve gained an extra body, so built the icon bearer and the banner bearer. Even though you can only take one in a unit, I evidently thought it would be good to have both built in case one is preferable over the other. Rounding out the Daemons side is the unit of 5 Seekers, which I had built up last week.

On the Mortals side of things, I have ten Blissbarb Archers, and 5 Myrmidesh Painbringers. I had built the latter up for Warcry, so there’s a Symbaresh Twinsoul twirling his whip around at the back there – will have to get more bodies for that unit soon! Anyway, I think the Mortals side of things might need bolstering a bit more, and already have another unit of Archers, though I might try to sell them on as I really didn’t enjoy putting the models together, and I don’t think I can face doing it all over again! I have The Dread Pageant from the Underworlds warband though, so could potentially use those as a unit for the army.

It’s a wonderful feeling to know that I have so many Slaanesh models already – a viable army, in fact. Of course, it does also mean there’s a lot of painting in my future, but hopefully it’ll all be worthwhile once I get them all ready!

I’m 470 points away from a full 2000 points list, and have been pondering how I could build out from there, and what units I would like to bring, etc. I’ve had my eye on the Infernal Enrapturess since she first came out all those years ago, and with a unit of Fiends and a unit of Slaangors, I would be at 1995 points for the whole lot, which is really quite exciting I think! Of course, I have no idea whether it’s a good list, as I haven’t yet delved into the rules side of Slaanesh, but I am very excited to see where this will go as a force.

I’ve mentioned the painting a lot, and I think it’s probably time to actually talk about my paint scheme for the Daemonettes, if for no other reason than I don’t want to forget it!

For the skin, I started with a basecoat of Celestra Grey, then Warpfiend Grey all-over layer. Shading with a 1:4 mix of Druchii Violet : Lahmian Medium, I then went in with Druchii Violet on the claws, tail and hooves to give a darker look. I then finished it off with a light drybrush of Slaanesh Grey.

For the armour, I used Dawnstone as a basecoat, then shaded with Coelia Greenshade. A light drybrush of Sotek Green finished off the armour. Any metallic charms were done either with Retributor Armour or Leadbelcher, almost without thought.

The hair is Alaitoc Blue, shaded with Drakenhof Nightshade. I also dabbed some Drakenhof Nightshade in the eyes to deepen them.

But that is pretty much it!

There’s more to say on Slaanesh, of course, so stay tuned as the Summer of Sigmar continues!

Watch me try to build a Space Marines army!

Hey everybody,
Warhammer 40k 10th edition is here, and while for my first game I chose to go with my old favourites, the Necrons, I thought it would be funny to try and build a Space Marines army out of the massive brick of Index cards that they have. I don’t have the majority of these models, after only very recently deciding I wanted to paint Marines once more, and I’m only going for Primaris Marines in this list, but I thought it would be interesting to see where I could take the list.

To begin, I have three units for Space Marines currently in my possession: A Lieutenant, five Assault Intercessors, and a Redemptor Dreadnought. That all clocks in at 395 points, which I think is a good start for a 1250-point army (my usual preferred points limit). So where do we go for the remaining 855 points?

Space Marines have the army rule Oath of Moment, which allows you to pick a unit from your opponent’s army and, until your next turn, you can reroll hit rolls and reroll wound rolls for attacks that target that unit. That’s nice, sort of like a concentrated fire ability to bring down the opposition one unit at a time. I think that makes me want to look at getting some decent hitting power in the force. I’m painting my Space Marines as Flesh Tearers, of course, but for the purposes of this exercise I’m trying not to go for the super-fluffy sort of Assault Intercessor style, everybody-with-chainswords look, but rather I’m hoping to get a more balanced Space Marines force that happens to be painted in red and black.

To this end, I’ve started my foray into list building by looking at the tanks. Something that immediately stood out, for me, was the Gladiator Reaper, which has a twin heavy onslaught gatling cannon that dishes out 12 shots, as well as a tempest bolter that will dish out 8 shots when within 12” of the enemy. Despite being a heavy tank, it feels very Flesh Tearers anyway, because of that desire to get up close, so regardless of what I said in the last paragraph, it’s going in the list! The wargear options also allow it to take an irontail heavy stubber for 6 more shots when within 18”, so I think the current environment of not paying for additional weapons and upgrades means I am definitely taking all the things!

I do need a leader for the army, and the Lieutenant probably doesn’t really cut it. I think the Primaris Captain is beautiful, but the Captain in Gravis Armour is the one who has caught my attention the most. This guy can halve the damage coming at him, because he is simply too badass to care, and that’s something I really like. He’s armoured much like an Aggressor, although I don’t think I’ll be taking any of those guys in my list.

When looking at infantry models, the Heavy Intercessor squad has stood out to me for some reason – purely aesthetics, of course, but I really like the way they look. They have heavy bolt rifles, but one in five models can take a heavy bolter, which is a glorious call-back to the past. If they’re on an objective, they get +1 to their save, as well, which is a delight. The Gravis Captain can lead a Heavy Intercessor squad, so I’ll be popping him in there, I think!

The Heavy Intercessors and the Assault Intercessors are both Battleline units, and while we don’t have to include three anymore, I can’t seem to get away from it and so have got my third Battleline unit in the shape of an Incursor Squad. I was initially thinking of the Infiltrators because I like their antennas and stuff, but the Incursors have a wonderful ability that grants +1 to hit for the rest of the army, for any units that were hit by their shots. I like this sort of effect, especially when you don’t actually need to wound the unit, just hit it.

So I’ve got my two heroes, and my three “troops” choices, time to start peppering in some other nice bits and pieces. Starting with more firepower – Eradicators! Eradicators can re-roll everything when they target a monster or vehicle, which won’t stack with the Oath of Moment of course, but gives the flexibility for targeting whatever you want. They have melta rifles as well, which is nice! I’ve also got my eye on the Judiciar, the guy with the hourglass and massive sword from Indomitus. When he is leading a unit, he grants that unit the Fights First ability, and I think he’ll be a great fit to lead the Assault Intercessors. The Judiciar has never been released separately since his debut, and so comes with the Eradicator squad (among others), so it’s almost like a two-for-one on that front!

I did want to include a Repulsor for the transport capacity, but it brought the list up to 1300 points, so have instead gone for the Storm Speeder Hailstrike, the souped-up land speeder unit that also has an onslaught gatling cannon for 8 shots. I do enjoy the sheer volume of shots coming out here, and overall it should support my army idea for huge volumes of shots! The Hailstrike variant of this, which is the cheapest of the three, also has an ability similar to the Incursors, whereby any unit that targets an enemy unit that was hit by the Speeder’s attacks can improve the AP of those attacks by 1. So if the Incursors and the Speeder both hit the same unit, other units then get +1 to hit and improve the AP by 1. Wonderful stuff!

There’s a lot of firepower here, but also I think there’s quite a bit of punch from a close combat perspective, as well. I know that the Flesh Tearers are famed for their ferocity in melee, but I want to try and have a more balanced force overall to begin with, rather than going all-in on the Assault Intercessors. I think there’s a fairly balanced feel here, between the infantry blobs and the big war machines backing them up. It’ll be interesting to see how this force works on the table, of course, but of these 10 units, I do only have three of them currently, as I mentioned.

How much is all of this going to cost me, then? To pick up everything in this list will cost me £297.50 from GW, but this is principally because the Judiciar isn’t available as a character model, but instead as part of the “Heroes of the Chapter” collection that includes Bladeguard Veterans and a Chaplain, as well as the Eradicators. I think I can save £50 by going to the local games store, of course, and the additional bits that come with the Judiciar will actually bump the list up to 1500 points if I decide to go that far. So it’s all good, I suppose, and in all honesty, £250 for an army isn’t exactly as much as I thought it would be.

At any rate, after being pummelled by Space Marines in the previous edition, I think it might be quite nice to have a force to call my own! Needless to say, a lot of this might change once the codex comes out and the index datacards start to get outdated, and I suppose there’s every possibility that there may be new Primaris units coming out when the book launches, as GW do like to enlarge their Marines with each new edition. I have heard a persistent rumour about Assault Marines getting the Primaris treatment, and conspiracy theories abound that the Vanguard Veterans have been nerfed in their datacards because of this, so who knows? I might be swapping up the list in due course anyway, but regardless, I thought it was a fun experiment to work out what kind of list I would like to build towards with my nascent Flesh Tearers force!

10th Edition has arrived!

Hey everybody,
With the massive hoopla surrounding Warhammer 40k tenth edition coming out, I’ve taken a bit of a backseat with everything and instead have been focusing on the Mortal Realms, first with Warcry and then latterly with Age of Sigmar itself. I’m still super hyped for getting back into all of that, and will be excitedly updating the blog here with all manner of adventures as my Summer of Sigmar continues. But I am so deeply invested in 40k that I suppose it’s just churlish of me to ignore the new edition and so thought I’d spend some time today, the big launch, to see what’s going on!

When the edition has a significant overhaul, like from 7th to 8th editions, it’s almost easier to wrap your head around because it’s almost a completely different game. The move from 8th to 9th wasn’t really quite so bad, and 9th to 10th seems similarly to be a pretty low-key from what I can tell. There are hefty cosmetic changes made to datasheets, which in their current Index form have the unit profiles split between the stats for the model, and the stats for the weapons they can take.

At first glance, it seems like the main changes have been concerned with tidying things up, and removing a lot of the bulk that bogged down 9th edition. I’ve complained previously about how 9th seemed to be too weighty, and 10th appears to have been pared back a lot. Whether it will stay like this as we move through the edition, who knows, but it feels a bit like the earlier days of 8th edition right now, and I think that was overall my favourite edition to play in. So we shall see!

Core Rules
So let’s talk a bit about the core rules. Overall, they are largely the same as we know and love. The two big changes, to my mind, are the loss of the Psychic Phase, and Battleshock. We still have the Command Phase, followed by movement, shooting, charging and fighting. The Psychic Phase has been filtered out into the appropriate phases, so witchfire attacks are now in the shooting phase, blessings and maledictions are now in the command phase, etc. It makes sense, so the initial shock of “there’s no psychic phase!” has dissipated somewhat, as we can see instead an army like Grey Knights can still do its thing.

Let’s look at an example. The Grey Knights Librarian, rather than casting two powers on his turn, instead has the Vortex of Doom ability as something he can just do in the shooting phase, dishing out mortal wounds on a dice roll. He also has the Purge Soul “ranged weapon”, which sounds a bit silly when I put it like that, but he can shoot his mind bullets out as a ranged attack, which in effect it always was.

Chaplains became a big thing towards the end of 8th edition, gaining prayers and whatnot. The Grey Knights Chaplain now has an aura ability that grants the unit he is leading +1 to wound in melee, and an effect that impacts nearby enemy battleshock and leadership tests. So he no longer needs to roll to see if these things happen, they just happen.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Battleshock tests? It’s a bit like morale, but it happens in the Command Phase. For any unit that is below half-strength, you roll 2D6 and need to equal or exceed the best leadership characteristic of the unit. If you pass, then all is well. If you fail, then the unit cannot hold objectives, and cannot be affected by stratagems. Interestingly, a single-model unit can be below half-strength when it has lost half its wounds.

What was that about a Chaplain leading a unit? Well, each Leader unit will have on their datasheet a number of different units that they can be chosen to lead. For example, a Dark Apostle can lead a group of cultists, accursed cultists, chosen, or legionaries. When doing so, they are basically attached to that unit, so increase its starting strength for purposes like battleshock.

In some respects, it feels a bit like we’re going back a few editions, as the keywords are back and we have something like universal special rules now. Things like explodes is now keyworded as “deadly demise” and is no longer explained on the datasheet, which at first made me think it was a step back but actually it makes for a lot clearer sheet. There are three pages that explain weapon types now, but the rules themselves do a fairly nice job of explaining what things mean as they would come up – for example, Firing Deck is explained in the transports section, which makes sense.

I am quite hesitant to say it, but it does feel like things have been streamlined without making it too complex, and so it’s all good. Obviously, I still need to play a game to get a real feel for it, but already we’ve had all of the rules and all of the army indexes released for free as pdf downloads, which itself is quite bonkers really. But it could end up being a smart move because you can see an army’s rules before buying into it. Will I now buy an army of Chaos Daemons because I have their rules for free? Possibly…

Army Building
Building an army has changed quite a bit, as well. The old force org charts have gone, and instead we have some pretty basic instructions – choose at least one Character to lead the force, then you can include anything, with no more than three units that have the same datasheet name (or six units of Battleline or Dedicated Transports). You can give Character units Enhancements (warlord traits, etc, of old), and you cannot have more than three Enhancements in the army as a whole. I’m quite surprised that this is it, but then, the game is being streamlined, and it should make for some very interesting army builds, going forward.

It doesn’t strike me as a significantly huge departure from what we already know, after reading through the rules. I think it might well be a bit of a learning curve, though, as I attempt to unlearn what I have learned, to some extent. I think it’s interesting to see how much it feels like Age of Sigmar now, though – there are obviously differences, but it feels fresh, somehow, which is the feeling I associate most with AoS.

One of the biggest changes – at least while we’re in the online Index world – is that unit composition has been stripped back, so that you pay a points value for a unit, regardless of what it’s equipped with. People joking about power levels being renamed points aren’t too far wrong! It’s very Age of Sigmar, but 40k was always a lot more granular – even Fantasy didn’t have such varying load-outs as are available to 40k units, from what I remember. There have been a number of complaints from the online community about where this leaves a lot of units, notably Drukhari Wyches who always had a variety of different weapons, but have had them all amalgamated into a single profile. The chant of “wait for the codex” might save us on that front, but who knows.

While I’m seeing a lot of negativity online about these changes, I should probably say that personally, I’m quite excited to try this game out now. For a while, I was letting that bile and vitriol get to me a bit, I think, and it was doing me no good. I don’t care how some units compare to others just now, I’m more interested in seeing how my favourites, Necrons and Dark Kin, do on the tabletop. I’m excited to see how the tweaks to how the game runs will work with psychic armies like Grey Knights, and I’m just generally into it, even if it does perhaps feel like a whole new world!

I watched the recent Tabletop Tactics video recently, which had a brief overview for how to play 10th edition, highlighting the main things like battleshock and whatnot, and it was really clear and helpful in showing how, actually, a lot of the main stuff hasn’t really changed. I’m sure, once I get into the minutiae of it all, things will start to arise and I’ll need to focus myself a bit more, but for now at least, I’m cautiously optimistic that it’ll be a fun time to play 40k once more!

The Killing Ground

After a long hiatus, almost five years in fact, I’m once again back to the Ultramarines novels of Graham McNeill, and book four in the adventures of Uriel Ventris! After his soujourn in the Eye of Terror and the daemon world of Medrengard, Uriel and Pasanius are deposited on the world Salinas by the Warp, along with their Unfleshed allies. Uriel sends the Unfleshed into the hills until he has had a chance to meet with the Imperial authorities on the world, to explain the situation and see how the land lies. However, Salinas is a world at war, as the imperial guard who have settled there have done so against the wishes of the planet’s native inhabitants, and a guerrilla war has been fought since.

Strange hauntings begin to occur, impacting on the Unfleshed by turning them into daemonic killing machines, while Uriel is less than impressed with the Imperial governor, Leto Barbaden, who treats the space marines with disdain and actually tries to have them executed. All hell breaks loose when the Grey Knights arrive, though, as they imprison Barbaden and take both Uriel and Pasanius as prisoners, to better gauge the taint of Chaos that seems to surround them. However, both Ultramarines pass the tests and join forces with the Grey Knights in purging Salinas of the taint of the Warp.

Finally, after the ordeals of the last book and this, the two Ultramarines return to Macragge.

I really enjoy Graham McNeill books. There’s a sort of straightforward, uncomplicated way he has of telling a story that allows you to just sit back and enjoy the ride. I’m not trying to say he’s a simplistic author, as this tale in particular has a lot of depth to it, but you can just enjoy the way the story takes you along with it, and I like that. I really enjoyed the first two books in this series, as well, though the third one was a bit heavy-going at times, with all the Chaos stuff going on. Book four gives us a bit of a mystery, as we have a planet that is not at peace with itself, and there is a deeply disturbing undercurrent for most of the story. Is Barbaden a good guy, if he doesn’t like space marines turning up unannounced?

Slowly, the mystery unravels, and it turns out he was a classic butcher in the vein of Lord Solar Macharius, his actions causing a whole city to be wiped out. In retribution, the locals fought back and their leader was grievously wounded, however his hate and thirst for revenge awakened a latent psychic ability which, coupled with the fact the Warp is thin near Salinas, allowed for these ghostly goings-on to happen. Along the way, we have a story about a guard regiment that is allowed to retire, conquering a planet to settle whether the locals want them to or not, and it’s interesting to see how that is handled, the transition from Astra Militarum to Planetary Defence Force is not easy for many, it seems.

I almost cheered when the Grey Knights made their entrance – I’m a big fan, of course, so was looking forward to seeing what part they would have to play. However, this is probably the part of the book that I least enjoyed. They do form a sort of deus ex machina, which isn’t always a good storytelling device, but they function a bit like in the lore anyway, especially where daemons are concerned, so I wasn’t perhaps too put off by that. However, it started to bother me a little bit that Uriel and Pasanius were allowed to live – traditionally, Grey Knights come in and kill all the daemons, they then kill everybody who witnessed them killing the daemons, whether they’re friend or foe, and then leave. Why are the Ultramarines allowed to live? Plot armour aside, I was a bit irked by that. Uriel hero-worships the terminator champion Leodegarius, who is said to be beautiful and a shining example of Imperial awesomeness, but in the final battle, it’s Leodegarius who has his arm ripped off, and Uriel saves the day. To add insult to injury, he then uses the Grey Knight’s own psycannon to kill the Lord of the Unfleshed in the final pages. I think it turned Uriel into a bit too much of a Mary Sue character, and despite the balance evidently trying to be thrown off by having him say Leodegarius is the perfect, beautiful one, and Uriel himself is just a regular marine, it doesn’t quite ring true for me at the end.

However, there are some very interesting characters here, mostly the Imperials on the planet, and we have some very intriguing character arcs. Barbaden is a good idea as a stuffy imperial governor who used to work as quartermaster, so has a preference for logic and order that makes him decidedly cold-blooded when it comes to choosing military targets. The confessor Togandis goes from being an over-stuffed caricature of a cleric to being genuinely remorseful and, dare I say, brave, when his final judgment arrives. The enforcer and former commissar Daron Nisato is another interesting character who strikes me as one of the few decent people in the whole story.

So it’s a definite three out of five, but I did still enjoy it as a classic sort of 40k story. There’s something about the books Black Library used to publish, sort of pre-2010 I suppose. They’re sometimes a bit odd and a bit out there, but that’s kinda what 40k is, to me. Where else would you get some kind of weird astropath creature like the Janiceps? It’s almost like more care has been taken to integrate these stories into the setting that we know from the game (Graham McNeill, like Gav Thorpe, used to write for the codexes back in the day), so we have some kind of better understand of the universe. Some of the more modern Black Library fiction is decidedly bland in comparison, I feel!

Anyway, I have two more books in this series to read, hopefully it won’t be too long before I get to those…

Ossiarch Bonereapers

Hey everybody,
I feel like I’m recently on a Games Workshop high here on the blog, as I’m obsessed with Age of Sigmar and Warcry, and have begun to explore the rules for 10th edition 40k and have been enjoying that as well. After spending some time recently going through the rulebook once again for AoS, I finally got round to picking up the battletome for Ossiarch Bonereapers last week, to see where all my miniatures are at in the new edition. At the start of the week, I was talking about the fact I’m going to be focusing somewhat on my Bonereapers, so now that I have the book, I’m able to see what I’m working with, moving forward.

Now, it’s probably worth pointing out here that I have no real frame of reference for any of this, not having a clue as to how good any of the other factions are in the game. Something may be amazing in-game that I think is “okay”, and I might find something extremely powerful that is actually so commonplace that it’s not usually worth mentioning. But let’s take a look!

Ossiarch Bonereapers used to generate Relentless Discipline points, rather than Command Points, and could only use their own command abilities, and none of the generic ones. That’s all changed, now, as they get CP as normal, and get bonuses for how many units are on the table, plus they can use the generic commands as well as having a load more of their own. They are also completely immune to Battleshock tests, and have an army-wide ward of 6+. It all really plays into the idea GW are trying to go with here, that the army is “organised and efficient to a supernatural degree”.

The Nadirite weapons ability is now army-wide for all melee weapons as well, rather than being something that was on the warscroll for some units. Nadirite weapons score 2 hits for each unmodified hit roll of 6, which is always nice.

Things have been simplified a bit now, as there are six subfactions for the Ossiarch Bonereapers but, whereas in the previous book they each had unique relics and stuff, now they only grant another effect, and all the relics and warlord traits etc are just generic for the army as a whole. That said, relics are still split between generic Heroes, and Mortisan models.

The subfaction rules have been pared back a little, and I think it has almost been made easier to decide which one to go for, really. The Mortis Praetorians, the box art scheme, has the ability to counter-charge with one unit when a friendly unit has been charged by the enemy, which seems very useful. Petrifex Elite, my colour scheme, decreases damage incoming for any Hekatos or Gothizzar Harvester units, which leads you down a specific sort of build. Stalliarch Lords can reroll charge rolls for mounted units (so, the cavalry); Null Myriad have the chance to ignore the effects of a spell cast on them; Crematorians dish out mortal wounds to nearby units when their models are slain, and Ivory Host get better Nadirite weapons.

So where does all of this leave me?

Well, to start with, even though I have my army painted as Petrifex Elite, I am going with the Mortis Praetorians as my subfaction. This is because I have only two units that would benefit from the Petrifex Elite ability, but I do like the idea of trying to set things up so that I can have units together, backing each other up, and one can then swoop in and counter-charge when their buddy unit gets into combat.

Currently, then, my army consists of the following:

I do have a few more bits painted, but I like the fact that I can fit all of this into a nice 1500-point package. I’m not 100% sure on who my general is going to be, or who will be getting the command traits and so on – more thought is probably required there! I have nine units that will start the game on the table, so that’s definitely getting me the full command points from Relentless Discipline.

I have struggled a bit for how to organise the army, but in the end I have decided to use the Mortisan Soulreaper for the general, because I think he will be running around the battlefield in more of an aggressive aspect, with the Boneshaper as a support to help regenerate the casualties that I take. Arch-Kavalos Zandtos has an ability whereby he is treated as the general anyway, which is interesting, but as named characters can’t be given enhancements, I wanted to make the max use of the models I have. The Soulreaper is quite aggressive anyway, especially with his Soulreaper ability buffing his attacks that target large units, so I think I could see him leading a group of Mortek Guard in with their spears for the strike!

I’m picturing Zandtos with the Deathriders, and the Boneshaper accompanying Vokmortian and the Immortis Guard as they go around doing their thing. The Gothizzar Harvester and the second unit of Mortek Guard would then round out the list, and keep things in clumps to make the best use of the Mortis Praetorians ability.

It could be my general lack of experience with Age of Sigmar, but I’m finding it quite difficult to evaluate a lot of the book and how I want my army to work, so I think I do need to actually look at playing a game soon to see what would be useful, especially in terms of the commands and who should be where and with what, etc. But the main thing is that I have the army in a playable state – only the Deathriders need to be painted, but otherwise everything is built and ready! So with a bit of luck, I’ll be coming back here soon with grand tales of victory on the battlefield! Hopefully…