Deathwatch

Warhammer woes

Hey everybody,
It’s been a little over two months since I last delved into anything Warhammer here on the blog, and while that is quite a surprise (to me, at least!) I thought I’d explore it in a blog post today. My site recently hit 10 years old, and a big part of this blog over those years has been Warhammer, as I began to immerse myself in the grim darkness of the 41st millennium within about four months of setting up the site. For many of those years, Warhammer content was the biggest part of my writing – it wouldn’t surprise me if somewhere around 2016 was exclusively Warhammer content, in fact. To go from that, to nothing, is quite a surprise, and it’s really this that has given me pause.

While I last played a game of 40k in September last year, I have still kept myself up to date with what’s been going on, and was continuing to paint up my models and read novels. Indeed, it was only February when I had finished painting the Warcry starter terrain, and I was hugely enjoying myself getting that stuff painted. Looking back at my posts from this time, it’s almost like the Shatterpoint renaissance that happened towards the end of that month flipped a switch for me, and I found myself moving further away from Games Workshop games and products. As March wore on, I began to downsize my collection, and sold off my Sylvaneth collection, as well as a whole bunch of random models that had been hanging around, sometimes for years. Most notably, though, I have now sold off three entire armies – Chaos Space Marines, Grey Knights and Deathwatch.

I wouldn’t say I’ve yet been hit by any remorse, although the Grey Knights in particular did feel a bit difficult to part with. I netted myself £200 for the collection, though, so while I didn’t really make any money on the initial investments (although land raiders have gone up £25 since I originally bought one, crazy!) I have nevertheless been able to get some cash out of stuff that was taking up room, both physically and mentally. In terms of the latter, it feels amazing to have cleared these things out, because that is so much more plastic that I don’t need to worry about.

A lot of what I am about to say may sound like hyperbole, so please bear with me. Since I have begun to sell off whole chunks of my model collection, and not for the purpose of buying the next big thing for my armies, I have begun to feel almost like I’ve entered rehab for GW. Now, I’ve never been in this position “in real life”, so I know I can’t truly compare the experience, but buying stuff from Games Workshop has at times felt like an actual addiction. There was at least one point in my life where I found myself pondering how to reduce my household bills, so I could increase my hobby budget. I mean, what kind of person does that? I’ve never found myself maxing out credit cards to fund this, fortunately, but it does feel like an actual hold on you, when you’re eagerly lapping up the rumours and reveals, and all the rest of it.

I suppose there’s also the whole sunk-cost fallacy of thinking, well I have spent thousands on these models already, so I can’t possibly get rid of them, or it will all have been a waste! Going back to my Grey Knights, I sold them for around £200, but working out the cost to buy that stuff again was well over double that, so I did indeed sell them at a loss. But honestly, I think it’s probably more important to just get rid of them, than to try to actually make money on these things. In terms of the gains in headspace etc, it definitely was worth it.

However, all of this is not to say that I am completely turning my back on 40k, or Games Workshop in general. Warcry, for example, is untouchable as far as I’m concerned. Same for Necromunda, and some of my 40k armies, like Necrons and Dark Eldar, are in a similar spot. I have been thinking I could possibly stand to downsize some more of the Drukhari, of course, but for now, I’m looking elsewhere for further sales. Because for armies like my AdMech, which I have had for 8 years and have never played, or the Tyranids, which I have played maybe 3 or 4 times, they are definitely in the wrong side of the Maybe pile. Or maybe that should be the right side, who knows.

I think a part of me always thought it a bit funny that I have so many 40k armies, even though I have probably written here in years gone by how it can make the game difficult, because even though the core rules are the same each game, the army is mostly different, so I never feel like I’m learning anything. If instead I could trim myself back down to just a couple of forces, and played them consistently, I think I would be much happier overall. Necrons are a definite keeper. Drukhari as well. But what about all the rest?

I do find myself somewhat attached to the Tau, Genestealer Cult, and Sisters of Battle, even though they are just more plastic to worry about. I’ve really enjoyed painting these armies up so far, in particular the Sisters, so I don’t think I’d necessarily want to get rid of those just yet. But I do find myself thinking – is five armies too much?

This does bring me to the Eldar though, my obsession from last summer. I really don’t know if I actually need this army in my life, though it probably falls somewhere close to the Tau in terms of my attachment, etc. I mean, I do like looking at it, and I think I’ve done a fairly decent job with painting the models that are currently finished, but I just don’t know…

The other thing that probably bears mention here is the actual gameplay. We are talking about tabletop games, at the end of the day. We’re currently in 10th edition of Warhammer 40k, and I have been playing since 7th, so that is four whole edition changes – two of which were pretty big overhauls of the system. I’m not complaining about the turnover of rulesets, though, but instead I think it’s worthwhile to say just how big and complicated the ruleset is for 40k these days. It takes literally hours to play, and with a family and a full-time job, trying to find the time to schedule in a game that I know is going to take roughly 5-6 hours to play is more than a bit daunting. To say nothing of the anxiety of trying to remember the byzantine rules. Recent edition changes have gone some way to making things better, although I still seem to have a mental stumbling block when it comes to 10th edition. I was talking with James about this recently, as we’ve been getting into Marvel Crisis Protocol and Shatterpoint, and we both agreed that the universe is amazing, and the models are utterly stunning, but the game itself is just not fun, which is a sentiment I have seen shared by others, both in the blogosphere and in real life. It’s funny, because it almost comes across like a bit of a dirty secret or something, and you can see people aren’t always comfortable saying it, until they realise you’re of like mind. It’s a bit like a cult, without trying for any more hyperbole, and yet Shatterpoint and MCP have such better-designed rules, it beggars belief that GW is still held in such high regard.

I’m really not trying to bash Games Workshop too heavily in this blog, but I genuinely feel like I’ve had my eyes opened this last two months, as I have begun to look into these other games, and pull myself back a bit from the Overlords from Nottingham. As it stands, I’m seriously thinking about taking 10th edition off, and see what the inevitable 11th edition has to offer in 2026.

I’m definitely not getting out of the hobby, then, and I’m definitely not getting out of 40k in particular, but I am definitely trying to get myself under more control. After effectively two months off entirely, I am back reading 40k novels, as well, having teamed up with Dave and Jenn for the first book in the Word Bearers trilogy, Dark Apostle, which I’m surprised hasn’t made me instantly regret selling off my heretics, because I am really enjoying it! Maybe it’s the bonkers brutality of slaves getting their mouths stapled shut… 😬

I’m also pleased to note that I have finally finished the Khârn: Eater of Worlds novel that we started as a buddy read back in, what, January? I’ve been struggling through this book for what feels like an absolute age, and I don’t have any real reason why. I mean, I’m not a massive World Eaters fan, but I don’t think it’s just that, you know? Anyway, Khârn is the main captain and Angron’s equerry, and the book was one of a loose series from 2014 that followed some of these bigger characters in the aftermath of the Horus Heresy. Alongside books on Ahriman and Abaddon, we have this from Anthony Reynolds that kinda surprised me for the most part, because Khârn himself doesn’t actually show up until halfway through – and it’s not a long book, to begin with. There is a lot of time spent on the Legion being rudderless, as Angron is missing and Khârn is in a coma, so we have some bits of in-fighting, and some intrigue with the Emperor’s Children along the way. It’s all kinda much of the same, for the most part, although there was an excellent middle sequence where the renegade marines infiltrate the apothecarion to assassinate Khârn, only for the big lad to wake up and immediately go full-on rage-berserker and kill everything he sees.

I think one of the big faults with this one is the fact that there is so much left unresolved at the end. At least several major plot points were apparently due to be wrapped up in the follow-up, Skalathrax, which Reynolds left Black Library before writing. Apparently there is also an audio drama, Chosen of Khorne, which helps, but it seems like that’s all we’re getting! Even so, while it’s not going to set the world on fire, it was fine, I suppose. There definitely seems to be a phase of Black Library where there are so many stories that just serve to give the fans of a particular legion something to have on their shelves. Nothing particularly important happens, they just have a fight and then move on. It’s just a bit of a throwaway story, and you’re missing nothing major if you never pick it up.

Though it was quite good to see Khârn killing all those power armoured guys with his bare hands…

Anyway, that’s a very long post that hopefully catches up the state of 40k on my blog! I know you’re all so very, very interested, after all!

Warrior Brood

“The ground convulsed and shuddered, as though retching at some violation”. I mean, what an opening to a book! Today I’m getting round to Warrior Brood, a novel I read along with my fellow Black Library enthusiast Dave, and one for which we had Jenn pop along for before the three of us tackle the follow-on Warrior Coven.

The Tyranids have invaded Herodian IV, and the space marines of the Mantis Warriors are fighting a losing battle in their attempt to repel the insects. In swoop the Deathwatch, led by Inquisitor Kalypsia, who manages to rub everybody up the wrong way as she explains Herodian IV cannot fall, and due to the Warp gate there, they cannot simply declare exterminates against the planet in case the whole segmentum becomes lost. Kalypsia is acting on the authority of Inquisitor Lord Parthon, who has a strange interest in the planet, one that intrigues his fellow Inquisitor Lord Agustius, who sends some acolytes to ferret out the truth.

We soon learn that Parthon had established a secret weapons facility on Herodian IV, funnelling xenos tech into the requisitioned Mechanicus facility on-world, seemingly to create a weapon for the Ordo Xenos. He had been paying particular attention to the Tyranids who were known to be following the Eldar Craftworld Iyanden, as the amount of Eldar biomass ingested by those Tyranids had made them potent psykers. The resulting weapon seems to be a cross between a Tyranid beacon and a Tyranid killer, the only problem being that it leeches the life from the person operating it. The Deathwatch kill team recover the artifact, only to be forced to eject it into space and plasma-bomb it when Kalypsia tries to use it again.

First of all, I really enjoyed this book. I’ve read some negative reviews about it, where the general feeling is that the rules of the game were not reflected in the writing. I mean, that’s all well and good when it comes to writing for 40k fans, but if you come to this book as a general sci-fi fan, then I don’t think you’re going to have much issue with it. One of the problems seems to be how devastator marines are not only firing hellfire shells (the special issue ammo only used by the Deathwatch, but in the hands of the Mantis Warriors), but also there’s at least one guy firing a multilaser (a tank-mounted weapon). There’s the problem of marines using lascannons (tank killers) to shoot gargoyles out of the sky, and so on. All of this is only a problem if you play 40k, and you have an idea of what these weapons and units are supposed to do, though.

For me, I think I just enjoyed the absolute bedlam of the opening fight with the Tyranids, with the various depictions of marines going up against different types of bugs. There’s a great moment, near the start of the book, where Sgt Magnir is facing down a hormagaunt and it kinda surprised me, because even the basic Tyranid bioform here is presented as really dangerous – which of course, they are. I’m sure there are other stories that talk about these things being over 8ft tall and so on, and I really liked the fact that hormagaunts weren’t treated entirely as bolter fodder here. There is a disgusting description of a spore mine being launched (via muscle spasm) onto the top of the bunker, then the fleshy obscenity trying to find purchase before detonating. I really liked reading the descriptions of the Tyranid weapons – I don’t think it’s been explored enough, really, but what exactly does a ‘barbed strangler’ do? What about all the disgusting ammunition they fire at their enemies? It’s all described here, and in glorious detail!

Something else I really liked, although it is a bit grisly, is the effect of the Shadow in the Warp, as it is more than just a “buzzing” or similar, at the corner of a person’s mind. It makes the space marines’ eyes bleed, and Kalypsia fares no better. It’s such immense pressure as the will of the hive mind bears down on the planet, it has a paralysing effect that, I suppose, would make the planet’s populace easier to defeat. It’s really good to have these sorts of descriptions, I think, because it really helps to inform the experience when you’re playing a game.

It’s not all bugs though, as we have a surprising amount of Inquisition action here, as well. I really enjoyed the mystery around the motives of the Inquisitors, and reading about the history of them. Always nice to have some of the internal politics there, although I do wish that once in a while we could have a somewhat “good” inquisitor. Ravenor is probably the only one who could be said to act purely in the best interests of the Imperium. Now, I know the point is probably that contact with the xenos is corrupting, or the heretic or mutant, and so any high-ranking member of the Inquisition who has the clearance to know about daemons and the Warp, or access to xenos artifacts and the like, is running the risk of being corrupted. But surely these guys are able to climb that corporate ladder because they’re decent beings? If anybody knows of a story where there is a good Inquisitor who treats the marines well and isn’t a heavy-handed dimwit, please let me know!

On the subject of the Inquisition though, something that is almost a throwaway is the link to Craftworld Iyanden and how they were decimated by the Tyranids. I think it was something initially mentioned in a codex, and thrown in here too, before being taken up again as a major theme for the novel Valedor almost a decade later.

Anyway, finally we have the Mantis Warriors, in a wonderful call-back to the Badab War event that Forge World were massively involved with before the Horus Heresy became their big thing. The Mantis Warriors and the Astral Claws were both tempted by Chaos, as I understand it, and while the Claws went full-on renegade, and became the Red Corsairs (led by none other than Huron Blackheart), the Mantis Warriors came through that crucible and are now on a penitent crusade for a thousand years, or something. It’s a tremendous story, and I really enjoyed seeing how the other Imperium folks treated them with suspicion, while they were desperate to atone for their failure.

There is a lot crammed into this book, and I think that’s one of the reasons why I enjoyed it so much. We even have a space battle – something that I usually associate far more with Star Wars than 40k. It’s interesting to read how some of these older books worked to include a lot more than we seem to get nowadays.

Beautiful Deathwatch

This isn’t something that I normally do, but I have been totally bowled-over by seeing these Deathwatch marines from Siege Studios, and had to share it!

The full post can be seen on Instagram here. It’s really making me want to re-think my own Deathwatch, though I know I’d never be able to paint this well.

Simply beautiful 👌🏻

Deathwatch!

Hey everybody,
The 10th edition train knows no brakes! After looking at my Grey Knights recently, I think it’s time to again take a look at another Inquisition army, this time moving into the Ordo Xenos as I have a bit of a faff with my Deathwatch marines! This is an army that I am really not sure if I will be doing anything with it. I have a fair few models, which last time I checked came in at about 1500 points, though the amount of HQ units did mean that I was probably not able to actually field them all at the same time! 10th edition has moved things back into squads, though – much like how the banner bearer has rejoined his Paladin brethren in the squad, Chaplain Cassius and Jensus Natorian have both returned to Kill Team Cassius, which is funny because that team has only seen a 10 point increase.

Let’s take a look at the list I have, to begin with. Interestingly, the list has dropped in points, I think because you’re no longer paying for wargear so the veteran squads are a flat 100 points for five marines.

The first observation I’d like to make here is how all of the specialist kit the Deathwatch had has now been replaced with “Long Vigil ranged weapon” or “Long Vigil melee weapon”. So all the Stalker-pattern boltguns, combi-weapons, Deathwatch shotguns, they’ve all got a single, bland profile now. Well, the profile isn’t bland, but the name is! The ranged weapon is a better boltgun, although hits on 4s not 3s, while the melee weapon is a stronger version of the standard close combat weapon. Fair enough. It’s all gone a bit bland, I feel, much like the Grey Knights and their generic Nemesis weapon, but there we are.

Deathwatch always did feel like a complex army to play, with so many moving parts in there, so I guess this is how they have sought to simplify the faction. The army rule for Deathwatch isn’t really anything special like other factions, but instead tells you how to deal with units that have different toughness characteristics. I mean, great? I suppose the special thing about Deathwatch is that they can have these mixed unit types, so that is essentially their special rule, and the army rule just regulates it? They do get Oath of Moment from the main space marines line though!

At any rate. The Black Spear Task Force detachment gives you the old Mission Tactics rule, which allows you to change how your army hits round to round. It does place restrictions on the army, and I’m a bit confused as to whether it means I can include the venerable dreadnought or not – but then, the venerable dreadnought has been removed anyway, and is now just a dreadnought. Sad faces all around.

Let’s take a look at what the army is doing though. First of all, the kill teams themselves. So the Proteus Kill Team has survived from 9th edition, and allows you to include terminators and jump pack marines, and seems to be the way to get vanguard veterans in the list. I’m still not entirely sure how it works if you want to bring in units from the main space marines list to these subfactions! But the Proteus Kill Team is certainly a flexible machine, and I think it would be interesting to have them as something of a centrepiece – well, certainly as a big block of men with the Watch Master leading. The Kill Team has an ability that grants them +1 to hit if targeting a unit below half-strength, which is interesting. The Watch Master lets the unit he is leading advance or fall back and then charge, which could well come in handy as well. He can also increase the cost of your opponent’s stratagem by 1CP once per battle, which is annoying!

The other brick of models I’m picturing here is Kill Team Cassius being led by Watch Captain Artemis, who allows you to use the same stratagem on his unit that you’ve already used that phase, and can play stratagems on his unit even if they’re battle-shocked. Kill Team Cassius is, of course, led by Chaplain Cassius himself, who grants melee weapons in the unit devastating wounds. The unit also gets to re-roll battle-shock tests, so between that and Captain Artemis they should be pretty consistent in terms of what you can do with them.

So what stratagems do we have? Armour of Contempt allows you to worsen the AP of a ranged or melee attack coming at you, which is nice. You can use Teleportarium to remove up to two units from the battlefield in your opponent’s turn, then redeploy them in your movement phase. There are also the traditional Kraken/Hellfire/Dragonfire rounds stratagems which change the ammo your guys are equipped with. I think the overall impression that I’m getting from these chaps is that they’re hitting quite hard, all told. My army is in bad shape, with a lot of folks in need of some repairs, and the vast majority needing paint. I’m not about to start thinking about adding yet more models to the painting to-do list, but I think I could see myself getting one or two more guys done sometime in the near future, as I seem to remember they are quite fun to paint.

Deathwatch

Hey everybody,
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of “stock taking” of my various miniatures that are in all manner of shapes, and one of those armies that I keep coming back to is the Deathwatch. It was something I was incredibly excited for when the models first came out; I invested heavily in boxes of the new marines, then a battleforce at Christmas, but I ended up in the usual position of being swamped, and so they went into a box for a very long time. I think part of my disillusionment with the project was how I found myself being swayed by the meta, and building marines “because they’ll be powerful in the game” and not “because they’ll look awesome”.

Let’s delve back into the mists of time…

In 2016, we were in the heady days of 7th edition 40k. Out of the blue, Deathwatch: Overkill came out in February, and gave us two completely new armies for the game, the Deathwatch and the Genestealer Cults. It was very much a board game, almost in the similar vein to Space Hulk, and pitted a specific Deathwatch kill team against an unstoppable horde of Genestealer Cultists. Kill Team Cassius was a varied mix of marines, including a biker and a terminator among their number, as well as a librarian and the chaplain himself, Ortan Cassius. While they were monopose models, they were rather magnificent, and paved the way for more in the summer.

Death Masque was a battle box that launched the main line of Deathwatch miniatures, pitching them against the Harlequins. In this box, we had a Venerable Dreadnought, a squad of Vanguard Veterans, a squad of the new Deathwatch marines, and the Watch Captain Artemis model. Artemis was originally a model produced for the Inquisitor game, so was reimagined for 28mm scale in a pretty stunning mini. In addition, we had Deathwatch upgrades for a variety of Space Marine kits, like Terminators and Bikes, along with a couple of new kits, like the Watch Master and Corvus Blackstar flyer. In terms of actual Deathwatch kits, then, we have a grand total of just five – the two HQs, the flyer, the marines and the Kill Team Cassius set. But that didn’t stop there being a full-blown codex for them in both 7th and 8th editions! For 9th edition, however, they have gone down the route of a Codex Supplement, meaning that you also need to buy the Space Marines book to get the full set of rules for the army. It’s a move that I have not been impressed by, and I think it’s one of the reasons why I’ve not been that into them for a long time.

Another reason for this apathy, I suppose, is that I rarely play games against xenos armies. The whole Deathwatch schtick is that they are xenos killers, and their “chapter tactic” allows them to re-roll hit rolls of 1 in melee against xenos (and re-roll wound rolls of 1 against a specific battlefield role). A lot of the army rules have moved away somewhat from this kind of specificity, much like Grey Knights have lost a lot of their daemon-specific rules, in an effort to make them more rounded as an army that can fight anything.

Deathwatch Veterans can take a bewildering array of weaponry, reflecting the fact they are basically Sternguard Veterans drawn from across the many chapters of Space Marines in the Imperium. The basic troops, Veterans can swap out their wargear for close combat or heavy weapons across the entire five-man team, meaning you could have a squad of five basic troops, four of whom are carrying heavy bolters, or the Deathwatch Infernus heavy bolter (a heavy bolter strapped to a heavy flamer). The fact that the basic load-out of boltgun and power sword also comes with four different kinds of special issue ammunition that you can choose to load into it before shooting begins really adds an extra layer to the whole, as well!

In my ruminations on my army, I’ve discovered that I have just over 1500 points of Deathwatch built, although with four HQ options I can’t field them all in a single force. That said, they aren’t really equipped as I would like them to be, so I have had to start looking at ways to better-organise the force. While mixed kill teams is very thematic for the army, in terms of practical gameplay, it isn’t exactly the best for keeping track of everything that’s going on! So I have been trying to find ways of altering the load-outs, swapping marines around, so that they are a bit more coherent across the force.

I’m not looking for a big game to start with, because I would like to keep things as straightforward as possible. That said, there is often the problem of having a small-scale battle that is also interesting to fight, so I’ve gone for a list that is closer to the 800 points mark. My regular opponent JP has roughly 800 points of Necrons as well, so at some point we’ll look into getting a game with these armies!

In this sense, then, I have come up with the following build.

As you can see, it’s literally a basic battalion with two leaders and three troop squads. Each squad has got some special weapons, but primarily the focus is having some fancy guys with a baseline of basic guys. The two kill team squads have a base of the boltgun/power sword guys, on top of which I have layered some assault weapons in one, and the other kinda has the remnants of what I have built to date!

The Proteus Kill Team includes the fancy terminator that I added into the army after seeing one of the Deathwing conversions in the codex. It looks beautiful, but it becomes a bit of a problem when trying to squeeze things around! Proteus kill teams can include terminators, vanguard veterans and bikers, so they are quite exciting, though they need to have a minimum of five Veterans in there anyway. It all just gets a bit of a faff, somehow, making sure I have the right ratio of models. They all have heavy weapons, although the sergeant has the combi-plasma in there as well.

The army is going to be led by Watch Captain Artemis. He has some good defensive rules, as well as providing a number of buffs to nearby units thanks to his warlord trait. I’m thinking that he will be moving around the field of battle, with one or two of the kill teams in his wake, shooting things up and generally doing what needs to be done.

Chaplain Cassius is not only a beautiful model, but he also looks like he might be quite useful, and comes in under 100 points which is always nice! He has a fairly decent statline, but I think I’m primarily going to be using him to support other squads nearby. His litany gives +1 to hit for shooting units within 6”, so I think I might use him near to the Proteus kill team, as they all have heavy weapons so it would be nice to get some of that meaty damage through; I always feel it’s better to have a to-hit bonus to give the maximum dice for potential wounds, rather than only getting a couple of hits through and being able to buff those after the fact, if that makes sense?

All in all, it seems like it might be a bit of a boring force to play, given that there’s not a lot of variety of units. However, there is a lot going on with their myriad rules that I think this is well more than it perhaps seems on paper. There seems to be a lot of buffs going around, and a couple of useful stratagems are available both from the Deathwatch side as well as the Space Marines book. It should be interesting, I think, anyway!

Deathwatch vs Drukhari: a postmortem

Hey everybody!
Had a very disappointing game against Deathwatch yesterday, so thought I’d come along here and ramble about it for a bit. Because, y’know, why not?

I was playing at my local store against a guy I’ve played before, albeit with different lists. While in our previous match I’d been Necrons, he’d also included a different line-up and it was a smaller-scale game (1250 points, I think). We’d upped things to 1750, and I thought it was about time I brought out the Drukhari, given that I’ve not been playing them nearly as much since the Codex came out, and it’s really time to get my head around all the stuff they can do!

Firstly, then, my list:

It’s a list that I’ve used in similar configuration before, when I had a game back in December against Orks. I’d initially considered using Wych Cult models alongside the Kabal portion, similar to what I was talking about last month, but in the event I wasn’t going to get all of the models that needed painting finished in time. We both went over a bit, mainly because he was bringing Knights to the party, so I felt no shame in squeezing in a second haemonculus to make it two battalions for 13 command points. I made one of the haemonculi the warlord, putting both in their own Venom, then used the Kabal as the main thrust of my army. The plan was to use the Kabal as a main threat and keep everything at range, while the Coven portion went up the sides and attempted to create a melee charnel house.

This plan did not last nearly as well as I thought it might, given that I went second, losing a lot of my firepower and mobility thanks to both Ravagers being blown off the table, as well as two of the Raiders being brought down to extreme low health. Urgh! We were playing Supplies from Above, one of the new missions from Chapter Approved 2018, and one that I’ve played previously in a smaller-scale Necrons vs Tempestus Scions game, and can be a lot of fun in the smaller setting. With a lot of table to cover, though, it proved to be a different experience.

I’d initially placed my objectives near the centre thinking I’d create a bit of a killzone for my Raiders to just deliver massive broadsides each turn. Unfortunately, that didn’t really come to pass! My first shooting phase, I managed to kill one guy – just one guy! Really poor rolls made it quite difficult to get much further. I did use the Fire and Fade stratagem to then move one of the Raiders out of the way of the Knight that was breathing down my neck (which is how it came to be neatly wedged between the scenery pieces in the centre of the picture, above).

With my Ravagers gone so quickly, though, I decided to just not even bother with the Knights, and tried instead to focus on keeping to cover as much as I could, and go for the troops. The mission requires you to control objective markers at the start of your turn, but they move at the start of each battle round, so I shifted my focus to that in the hope that I’d be able to weather the storm coming my way!

My opponent had switched up his list from last time as well, and rather than having everybody carry storm bolters, instead went for a mostly-Primaris build. Which was, as I’m sure you can imagine, a sheer delight. Everything having two wounds suddenly made what heavy artillery I had left become more viable against troops, as shameful as that may be to fire a dark lance at an infantry blob! As an aside, I’d built the majority of this army during the changeover from 7th to 8th edition, when the dark lance was king. However, I’m really thinking that the remaining Raiders I have to build and paint will all be disintegrator cannons, instead – 5 points cheaper, and two more shots. Sure, the strength and AP aren’t as good, but the chances of hitting with the cannons are so much better than with the lances. Somehow, whiffing with three shots at 15 points feels better than whiffing with one shot for 20 points. But anyway!

The one bright spot for me was having taken the risk and walked up the Wrack squad carrying the Hexrifle along the flank to shoot directly into the face of the Watch Master – I wasn’t sure I’d be any good suffering the penalty for moving and firing a heavy weapon, but there’s something wonderful to be said for actually making the Hexrifle shot work: 6 to wound and an unsaved wound at that meant two wounds came off the Watch Master. Delightful.

Turn two was utterly appalling for me. I lost everything except the Coven Raider and Venom, and just kept rolling poorly for all of my Kabalites. The fact that two squads of ten veterans deep-struck in, one of which came down into my deployment zone for a two-pronged attack, really saw the pain. I’d deployed an Archon on foot, which you can see just to the centre-right of the above photo, and intended him to be quite the distraction. As it happened, he managed to pull most of the fire from that back-field deep strike, and his shadowfield broke on the third roll. Nobody can really withstand 12 shots to the face, can they? But it meant my Warlord had that much less coming for him, while somehow I managed to shave another two wounds off the Watch Master by again rolling perfectly for the Hexrifle!

Nobody expects a melee-orientated unit like Wracks to have a sniper rifle hidden in their midst, and so pretty much every game I’ve used it, this squad has been woefully misunderstood. Splendid!

If only the rest of the battle was going splendidly, of course. As a point of note, I always forget about Power from Pain. I even had the cards right there in front of me to remember, but I still forget to make the FNP save from the first battle round. Thankfully, my opponent was a good enough sport about it and let me roll after the fact, which did net me two Kabalites back from one of the squads – though I suspect he did so fully aware of the fact they weren’t really a threat to him at this point!

Due to the insane amount of firepower coming at me, when my actual second turn came around, I had very little left to do, so just charged a bunch of Covens units into the backfield deep strikers, and successfully managed to eliminate a Jump Captain and the squad of ten he came down with. There is something to be said for the brutal efficiency of a Talos, Cronos, Haemonculus and Wrack squad working together. Can’t wait to complete the family and add some Grotesques to the roster!

Despite it all – Hellfire rounds to the face, Knights with ridiculous anti-vehicle hatred all around me – we ended in a draw. The Court of the Archon came in really handy having disembarked from their downed Venom in the centre of the table, as each is a separate unit so they all scattered to secure three objectives, with only the Sslyth losing his during the third battle round. We agreed to call it a draw after his turn though, as the store was 20 minutes from closing and I knew it would take at least that long to pack all of my stuff away!

I can’t remember the last time I won a game of 40k. Well, actually I think I can, but it was a long time ago. At any rate, losing games is very often more valuable an experience than winning. My opponent for this game is a self-advertised newbie, and I think our game last night was his fourth, having won one, lost two, and now drawn one. The usual advice for new players is to let them win their first game, but that really is a double-edged sword, for it may lead a person to think the game is easy, or that it will always be like that. Losing, however, makes you re-evaluate your choices, both in the list and in the game. Even though we called this a draw on victory points, I definitely felt like I lost this one.

I ended the battle with 8 command points left. If you end a game with any CPs left, you’ve likely done something wrong, and I very definitely don’t yet know the full potential for the stratagems Drukhari can employ. In a game situation, though, I hate to stand there, flicking through my cards or the Codex, trying to come up with a strategy on the fly, though often I end up doing so regardless. Not making full use of my command points was definitely a mis-step from me, and leaving one of my Raiders out in the open was just asking for trouble when there is so much heavy firepower on the opposite side of the table.

A great excuse for this game was that I was playing at right angles to my deployment zone. Hear me out on this one: we were playing Hammer and Anvil deployment, but the tables in GW Chester are set up as one long line down the centre of the room. So my deployment zone abutted another game going on, and I couldn’t properly get behind my minis to see what they could see, etc. Trying to figure out lines of sight as best I could was, well, difficult at best! I really shouldn’t have been the gentleman and accepted the poorer of the two zones.

I usually have poor dice rolls, and so I try to mitigate that by going for an almost horde feel to the armies I play, and try to have lots of weapons in the hope that the weight of numbers will mean I’ll get at least some hits. But even for me, last night’s game was a shambles. However, there were some successful shots in there that were, unfortunately, saved. Another cardinal sin here – I paid for splinter racks on all three of my Kabal Raiders, 10 points each. I promptly forgot about this, and cannot remember if any of the drive-by attacks rolled 6s. Argh! The agony is real.

People talk about Blasters being amazing, but it’s a similar situation to the dark lance, putting a lot of faith (and points!) into just one shot. I’m starting to think that I might well just keep things real simple in my next game, and have three squads of ten with just splinter rifles, or maybe add in a splinter cannon for each but otherwise strip them back completely. 70 points for a 10-man Kabalite squad isn’t exactly a bad situation to be in, after all. Keeping things cheap in this manner will open the door for adding in more stuff as well, naturally – maybe a 5-man Kabalite squad in a Venom, where I can perhaps get a bit fancier?

The other thing that has been running around my mind for a while is to just forget about the whole Obsessions thing, and run a Drukhari army without trying to straightjacket it into Kabal/Cult/Coven. There are enough options outside of the Obsessions to do this comfortably, though who knows if it would actually be viable? At least I could use my Reavers without having to think about a Succubus or maxing out the Outrider detachment…

All of this talk leads me to the main point I have to make, though: I’m just not that experienced with my Drukhari force yet. I said at the top that it was a very disappointing game, and that was really a disappointment with myself and the tactical choices I made throughout. I love Dark Eldar, not necessarily for the fluff but the playstyle is a massive puzzle that I really enjoy solving each time I bring them to the table (except, perhaps, when that puzzle is being destroyed before I even have a chance to pick up the next piece!) However, my hobby-butterfly mentality often sees me flit from one army to another, and never really getting the hang of anything. As it happens, I’m hoping to move house this summer, so in the spirit of anticipating some upheaval in the next few months, I probably won’t have the time to flit from project to project, and will therefore have to commit to something. If I actually manage to find the time to play any games, it might be worthwhile to stick with the Drukhari and see if I can really refine how I want to play them…

Competitive thoughts

Hey everybody!
In yesterday’s hobby update blog, I mentioned the Deathwatch progress would be explored more in a post today, so ta-da! Time to talk about what I’ve been up to with the alien-hunting elite!

At the start of the year, my gaming buddy Kev suggested trying our collective hand at going to a doubles tournament this year, which sounded like a fun idea at first, though I had no real inclination just how competitive Kev could be! Sure, whenever we’ve played I’ve usually been demolished by his lists, but still! His main army is Deathwatch, though he started Grey Knights for Kill Team (it was against those models I had my first KT games, as Genestealer Cult – and got demolished), which he has now branched out into a more full-fledged army. Having so much Deathwatch of my own that I’d like to get moving with, we pretty quickly settled on a Deathwatch/Grey Knights combined army for this theoretical tournament.

The main issue I’m coming up against, of course, is that I’m just not that competitive! Kev knows Deathwatch inside out, and has been giving me a lot of tips and advice, but I keep feeling like I’m looking at an army choice that I wouldn’t necessarily like to field. I suppose it’s natural, going to a tournament, that you’d be looking at getting the best units in the army, but even so, I feel like I’m missing out on a lot of “my sort” of models, because they probably aren’t that competitive.

I last talked about the Deathwatch thoughts I had been having at the back end of December, with this list being the one I had settled upon:

Well, that has been through no less than five re-writes, and currently looks more like this:

I keep playing around with this, of course – in part because I want to fit in a Razorback with twin assault cannons for 116 points, now that I’ve bought the Inquisition rhino doors from Forge World! But I think this is where I’ll be concentrating my Deathwatch endeavours for the time being.

Army Make Up
The plan for this is the first group of six veterans will be used to camp objectives, and possible play bodyguard for the Watch Master if he decides to do anything out of the ordinary. Having a terminator in the list should hopefully act as a suitable deterrent, I’m thinking, too. The second group of five veterans will be used more for distraction/mid-field harassment, and will be equipped with hellfire rounds for more damage output. The final group of seven veterans will act more flexibly, moving around the field to position where they’re needed most. These and the first group will have kraken bolts in their weapons to increase their threat range.

The vanguard veterans will work alongside the watch captain to drop in where required. The variety of pistols will hopefully form a suitable threat level for them, as well as providing a decent distraction when they show up. Finally, the Dreadnought is in there for the stratagem, as well as added threat.

A few thoughts
I’ve never played Marines of any flavour before, being much more used (in recent times) to the Dark Eldar way of getting absolutely wrecked, so needing to swarm the field to ensure enough chaps survive to do anything. I’m used to big lists, even at 1000 points, so I was a bit surprised to find out how few units I would get in here if I went for a really optimised build. I like infantry, though, and I prefer to keep this as an actual miniatures game rather than having massive stuff in the army just because. Luckily, of course, Deathwatch don’t easily have access to such stuff. I’m staying away from Primaris, because I think all of the other Deathwatch stuff looks fantastic enough, and while I’ve not been able to fit my beloved Chaplain model in the list, there’s always time yet for that!

I’m almost constantly told that the frag cannon is king of the list, though at 25 points each, I’m always a bit wary. I’ve probably mentioned this in my Dark Eldar ramblings, but any time a weapon starts to cost more than the guy who wields it, I get a bit twitchy. Including so many instances of this in the army feels really quite wrong to me. But as I am often reminded in these situations – Marines have got a much better toughness and save characteristic than space elves, so I don’t really need to worry on that level.

I’m often caught up with how exciting Deathwatch Veterans seem on paper, and have until this current iteration of the list forgotten that I actually need five of the basic Veterans in a squad before I can start adding Terminators or any other fancy chaps. Oops! So that has been a learning curve. It also took the article series on frontline gaming to get me to realise that mixed teams of Veterans is usually not a good idea. True, I have seven veterans in this list who have mixed weapons, but there is a point to them, insofar as they’re intended to be a more flexible unit. By keeping all of the heavy weapons in one team, and the assault weapons in another, it helps to make the tactical use of these units easier.

I think this has been a big eye-opener for me, and in a way is linked with what I was talking about earlier. I might be disappointed that I can’t get “my sort” of units in the list, or whatever, but if it means the army works better as a result, then isn’t that the important thing here? We are talking about going to a competitive tournament, after all! There has got to be an expectation of winning, even if it might not be likely given that it’s a first for both of us!

Shenanigans
Deathwatch look beautiful, with some very unique models, considering they’re just a little bit fancier Space Marines. They’re also confusing as all hell to me though, because of the fancy ammunition they have, as well as the Chapter Tactics equivalent they get, Mission Tactics. Mission Tactics give you bonuses for going up against specific unit types, such as HQs or Troops, and while these two are probably guaranteed to be on the opposing side, picking a bonus to going up against Elites or Fast Attack might be more of a waste – hence the Watch Master’s ability to switch up the Tactic you’re using, so he’s very useful in the army.

Special Issue Ammunition is one of these things that has been needlessly getting me tied up in knots – it’s not actually that complicated, it just allows you to get a bonus on any attacks made by a bolt weapon in the squad. All members of the squad use the same fancy bullets, so it’s not even like there will be excessive book-keeping to do. It just feels like one of these things that might confuse me, though! It certainly has the potential, of course…

All in all, I think I’m enjoying getting some of these chaps painted, because the models really do look fantastic. However, I feel a bit like it’s incumbent upon me to get all of them painted up, and I have to get playing games with them to practice for the tournament, so I’m starting to feel less inclined towards them at the moment! I’ve got a lot of stuff on the go, after all, and I’m finding myself wanting to get going with that instead – Grey Knights, for instance, and I’m once more thinking about stuff like the Skitarii, or maybe Dark Angels.

This is starting to sound like a rant, isn’t it?!

Having had these minis since Overkill and Death Masque, I’m really excited about the prospect of finally getting to play with them and see what it’s like to wield that glorious 3+ armour save. It is a project that should look damn fine when it’s finished, I hope, and I’ll definitely be keeping you all posted along the way!

Hobby Goals check-in: January 2019

Hey everybody!
While it’s not technically the end of the month just yet, I have an impromptu day off today, so thought it would be nice to check in and see where I’m up to as regards the hobby progress for this month. My original list of goals didn’t have any kind of time period against each one – so I didn’t want to finish painting the Deathwatch models I have in January, for instance, but I thought it’d nevertheless be neat to see how things are going!

So then, for those of you who may have forgotten, here’s a reminder of what I’d like to accomplish in 2019:

Work out what I want to do with the Tau army, if anything
This one hasn’t been quite as difficult as I’d first thought it might be, as it happens. I’d been thinking about what I wanted to do, and at one point I did feel like just getting rid of the whole lot. I initially bought into Tau because, if I’m being honest with myself, I was growing impatient waiting for the Dark Eldar codex to arrive, and wanted to play a xenos army with a book of their own. Being a completely different sort of project for me, I attacked it with relish and bought thousands of units (well, a lot) in a short space of time, built most of it, and started playing. Problem number one, therefore, was the fact I was playing games with an army that I hadn’t painted, which is never really advisable because it means you rarely get round to actually painting them up. Which has been my problem ever since, as it happens!

I’ve got a lot of stuff built, most of it primed, but I still have plenty of stuff just in boxes, so for my first efforts here, I’ve decided to get rid of the boxed stuff. I’m then going to look at what I have left, draw up a list or two, and see what I think from there. I think I still want to keep some of the big suits, so I’ll be keeping hold of things like that second Riptide, and probably all of the Crisis Suits as well, but I’m considering getting rid of the second Commander (not sure yet). I’m also going to see if it’s worth it selling off a lot of the bits that I’ve been keeping a hold of. This hobby isn’t cheap, after all, and so I’m thinking it might be worth it to sell off things like the fusion blasters and whatnot, in an attempt to then finance armies that I do want!

So far, then, good progress has been made with trying to sort out the Tau!

Continue painting the Deathwatch models I have
This one ties in to another blog that will be making its appearance tomorrow, but suffice it to say that I feel like most of the New Year/early January period was spent writing and re-writing lists for the Deathwatch army, before then building up more veterans ready for painting. So I suppose progress hasn’t so much been made with this one, as reversed, because I now have almost twice as many Deathwatch models as I had this time last year!

But I’m chipping away at them, and hopefully soon there will be finished units that I can unveil here on the blog!

Continue to build up and paint the 1500-point Grey Knight list
This one has somewhat suffered for the last point, but in recent days, I do feel like I’m getting myself back on track as regards this project. I am definitely feeling Grey Knights at the moment, so I’m excited to get this show on the road! While I feel like I’m swamped in Deathwatch and Tau miniatures that are just sat there, primed and taunting me, I’ve not been quite so prodigious with the Grey Knights, having a Strike Squad built up and primed, but nothing else, meaning I can concentrate on painting the Purifiers and the Grand Master.

So far, I’ve been making some pretty decent progress, I think, so I’m really quite pleased to be going down this route for my new army for 2019!

On a side note, I’ve recently managed to pick up the pieces for the Doomglaive Dreadnought that has been discontinued by Forge World, so I’m hoping that will turn out to be okay! The weapons are coming from the US, and the main body from Germany, so I’m always a bit nervy of such things turning out well…

Anyway!

Paint some Nighthaunt and see what AoS is all about
Of all of my goals, I think this is the one that I have succeeded with the greatest. While I’ve not fully painted the entire list just yet, I’ve nevertheless managed to get quite a lot done – so they’re not just bare plastic – and have played a total of two games so far. To put that into perspective, I played seven games of 40k during 2018 altogether! So far, then, I think I’m doing quite well with playing games. How are the models looking?

Well, there is still quite a bit to be done, of course, and I do think that miniatures that have been primed white look just dreadful until they are actually fully painted. But overall, it’s good to be actually seeing an improvement with them on the whole, I feel!

I’m really pleased with how my AoS exploration has been going, as well, as it has gotten me excited for playing, which is making me want to paint more, which is nothing but a good thing!

Of course, I have been a bit guilty of running before I can crawl, and have been planning out all manner of different army projects of late. So for AoS in particular, I’ve been taking steps to reduce that significantly, and have decided to get rid of the Idoneth Deepkin models. I know that I’ve only recently been building army lists for them and everything, but I do feel that, of all the armies I’ve looked into so far, they’re just not doing it for me. The models look fantastic, don’t get me wrong. It’s just the way the army seems to want to play, I just can’t seem to get into it. So I’ve taken back what I can, and will be selling the rest off shortly.

This isn’t meant to be some kind of slow abandonment of fantasy, however. Rather than going wide, I’ve instead decided to go deep into the Death faction, and will be broadening my Nighthaunt into the Legions of Nagash at some point, giving me the perfect excuse I need to buy the big guy again! Both of my AoS games have been at the local store against the same guy, who is Chaos through-and-through, so I think it’s perhaps a better approach to just stick to one faction and really go into that.

So there we have it! Hopefully there will be more exciting updates for you all next month, when I hope to actually have some finished units to show off!

Hobby Progress, week four!

Hey everybody!
It’s been another quiet week this week, which is perhaps to be expected with Christmas and all. I’ve been trying to make some time for painting during the latter half of the week, with the intention being that I’d have something to show you all for this blog here on Sunday – which I suppose is the point of me doing these blogs in the first place, so well done me!

I’m still very busy with army lists, and having pretty much finalised my first plans for the Grey Knights, I’ve started work on the Purifier squad with gusto! I’m really enjoying these chaps for the moment, so I hope that continues. Unlike a lot of projects (Tau instantly spring to mind here), I’ve got quite a clear idea of what I want to achieve with the paint scheme, so I’m hoping that means it’ll go quicker for me! I’ve done the silver quite quickly – just a Leadbelcher base, with a bit of a focused shade of Nuln oil, then a soft drybrush of Ironbreaker. I’ve not yet gone in with the blue glaze, as I’m building myself up to that one! Having base coated the helmets with Celestra Grey, I’ve today gone in with a diluted shade of Coelia Greenshade – 1 part shade to about 4 parts Lahmian Medium. It’s left them with enough detail, but there’s a definite greenish hue to them that I quite like. The tabard on the Justicar has been painted Zandri Dust and shaded with Seraphim Sepia, and the gold details are just base coated Retributor Armour. Finally, the Force weapons have been base coated with Caledor Sky.

I’m hoping to be much further progressed as this week moves on, so hopefully I’ll have more progress for you all then!

I had the Grey Knights Paladin Squad for Christmas, and so have built myself a Grand Master using the parts from that kit to really flesh him out as a fancy chap. I’ve also been building models for both the Deathwatch, and the Ravenwing projects that I have going on at the moment – I’ll get to the latter in due course here on the blog, but for now, let’s talk about the xenos hunters!

I’ve been slowly building up a Deathwatch army since Death Masque arrived back in 2016, but have left it quite a while between the last phase of my painting and this current spurt. The reason being that I’ve been talking to a fellow gaming buddy about entering a doubles tournament in 2019, in the assumption that Warhammer World will be holding the event again!

Now, I’ve played in card game tournaments in the past, but I’ve never even attempted to go along for a miniatures tournament, as I get the impression that it’s just far too competitive for my liking. Well, Kev has not given me any reason to think I was wrong in this assumption, so far! He’s going Grey Knights (it was against his kill team that I first encountered that game, and he’s been building up the army since) so I’m going with another branch of the Inquisition, and hopefully we’ll either face Chaos or Xenos to make our army choices worthwhile!!

All weekend, then, I’ve been working my way through list ideas, and I think I’ve finally managed to come up with something that I would be reasonably happy playing – bearing in mind that I prefer fun things to play, as opposed to lists that are just too tailored and end up being boring:

Initially, it’s quite a cheap battalion list, with a fourth group of veterans that includes a Terminator taking up a significant number of the points. I’m fully intending to use this as a distraction unit though, hoping that it will draw enough fire that the other units will survive reasonably unmolested. The Venerable Dreadnought needs a new arm, which I thankfully have thanks to the bits box, and I’ve got a Razorback for the more melee-orientated unit of Veterans to get them closer to where they need to be. I did initially want a Chaplain in there with them, but I’ve instead gone for the JumpMaster as he has a slightly better stat line. Though I am wondering if the Terminator will be worth it, so might make some adjustments over time!

The first thing that strikes me about Deathwatch is just how many crazy options there are in the Codex, and how many interesting squad permutations you can get. I’m a bit confused by the whole mission tactics / special issue ammunition thing, and with the stratagems on top, I feel like this army is something that can be quite unwieldy quite quickly, so I definitely want to get some games in with it as soon as possible, as I need to get used to that side of things before I get into any kind of tournament setting, I think!!

To that end, I’m thinking I might need to make an alternative list, just to get to grips with the army in general, and then see how it goes adding in the relevant units. I do already have a sizable Deathwatch army, so I’m hoping to get to the shop in the new year and see how it goes! Stay tuned for those exciting updates, anyway!

It’s been a lot of fun resurrecting the old hobby progress blogs for December, and I almost feel a bit sad to finish the series! I do think they’re a great way to check in and keep me on track with my goals, so I think I’ll definitely be doing a monthly iteration throughout 2019. I have a lot of goals for next year, so we shall see how those pan out!

Come back on Tuesday, 1 January, to find out more about those goals!!

Deathwatch Army thoughts

Hey everybody!
I seem to be in a bit of a reflective mood of late, looking through a lot of the armies that I’ve had built but not necessarily ones that I’ve been doing a great deal with for some time now – today sees me turn this attention on the Deathwatch, a force that I was really excited for back when they first arrived on the scene with the Overkill boxed game. Having painted up a number of units rather quickly, they’ve since been left to gather dust, so I thought I’d take a look at what I have, and see where I can potentially take them!

Imperium armies for me have, for some time now, been confined to the smaller-scale things like Tempestus Scions or Skitarii. Certainly, I don’t think I’ve painted a single marine since I moved house 18 months ago…

My Deathwatch force is pretty much as you see it above, anyway, and on paper looks something like this:

My Deathwatch army is a bit of a mix of a couple of squad ideas that I’ve built up initially, then picked a couple from each to paint. So there’s the original Kill Team Cassius from Deathwatch: Overkill; there are the veterans from Death Masque that came alongside Watch Captain Artemis, along with the Vanguard Veterans and Venerable Dreadnought from that box; there are also a group of Veterans that I built to represent Kill Team Excis (the original Kill Team from the Overkill storyline, who had stats in White Dwarf back in September 2016), as well as some odd bits like the Deathwing Terminator and the Black Templar that I built out of bits from their upgrade kit that I found online. So it’s quite a mixed bag!

I do have a number of unpainted miniatures, though, which I have been thinking about returning to at some point, as I would like to make these guys into something more like a playable army. Having played against Deathwatch a couple of times, I would like to wield that kind of power rather than be coming up against it, for sure!! The kind of army I think I’d like to have would be something along the lines of this:

It feels, to me, like a well-rounded force, capable of doing enough interesting things to, well, keep me interested!

So it’s a little over 1000 points, but hopefully that won’t be too overbalanced if I want to try it out in some games once I’ve gotten going with it. Pretty much all of these models have been built and primed, as well, with just the Watch Master that needs building. I think, of the 20 models in the army, I’ve got 9 of them painted, so 45% completion isn’t too bad! It’s certainly a good start, I feel, although I may well find myself swapping out things as time moves on.

I’ve also got another Veterans sprue that I can build, so I’m thinking that I might wait for a bit, get some games under my belt with this army, and see how well it works and what I might need to add in to the force before I go and build those. I do like the idea of building up the sergeant to have a xenophase blade, though, as it has become quite an iconic piece of wargear since it has now featured on the cover of both Codexes!

I do enjoy these guys, as the models are so wonderfully detailed, and the results of the gold and other bits against the black armour is really quite striking. There are definitely a lot of options for painting these guys to look really good – I think the black base really lends itself well, in that respect, and it makes not only the gold pop out, but also the chapter iconography that adds some colour to the force.

I’ve not yet played an Imperium army in 40k, despite having several on the go, so I think it could be fun to try out something different for a change!