40K Friday: The Imperial Fists Update

 

 Well I talked about it briefly in this post and as it turns out an update was entirely achievable by adding a pair of Redemptor Dreadnoughts ... so I did! It ends up with 3 characters, 3x shooty Terminator squads, 3x Assault Terminator squads, a Land Raider, and the two dreads. There is room to add an enhancement or two, or I could change Darnath to a regular Terminator Captain and take either another Chaplain or Librarian for exactly 2000 points. The army list is down below.

Is this a balanced force? No. Once they hit the ground the Terminators will be slow. Deep striking does give them some initial mobility, and the Land Raider could get them up the board on turn 1 a bit, but there is no speed here. The main anti-tank are the dreads and the tank - beyond that it gets a little thin. 

There is room to change things up even further by dropping the Land Raider or changing out some of the Dreadnoughts for a Balistus or a Brutalis which are cheaper and more specialized. Right now this is almost everything I have unless we went Legends. I could also expand it beyond just Terminators using the more modern definition of the Deathwing or First Company to include Primaris units like Bladeguard and other veterans, plus a Repulsor or two. Also the detachment structure in 11th edition might make it smart to move some bikes back in - we will see. But this is what I have painted now so this is what the army will look like for some time.  

I need to do some work on the bases and with some decals to make it look more cohesive but at least i have all of the parts and all of it is painted!

Background: I bought most of this force as a painted army around 13-14 years ago and I played it quite a bit when I first got it - how did I never post about it? Wait ... I did! Tags updated! I added to it over the years here and there and just never worried about it too much. I loved the idea of an all-terminator army so I kept with that theme. It was built under the 4th/5th edition Dark Angel Deathwing army rules so it did have a pair of bike units (Ravenwing you know) - which I have used many times as they add some mobility to it but the core has always been 30+ Terminators dropping or driving into the fight. Sure, the newer termies are bigger, but they still all look like termies and that's what matters to me. This was the first time I bought a complete army already painted and I have never regretted it. It makes me very happy to be able to continue using it pretty much as-is with the same theme all these years later. 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

+ FACTION KEYWORD: Imperium - Adeptus Astartes - Imperial Fists

+ DETACHMENT: 1st Company Task Force (Extremis-level Threat)

+ TOTAL ARMY POINTS: 1930pts

+ WARLORD:  Darnath Lysander

+ NUMBER OF UNITS: 12

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

1x Chaplain in Terminator Armour (75 pts): Crozius arcanum, Storm bolter

1x Darnath Lysander (100 pts): Warlord, Fist of Dorn

1x Librarian in Terminator Armour (75 pts): Force weapon, Smite

1x Land Raider (220 pts): Armoured Tracks, 2x Godhammer Lascannon, Hunter-killer missile, Multi-melta, Storm bolter, Twin heavy bolter

1x Redemptor Dreadnought (205 pts): Icarus Rocket Pod, Redemptor Fist, Macro Plasma Incinerator, Heavy Flamer, Twin Storm Bolter

1x Redemptor Dreadnought (205 pts): Icarus Rocket Pod, Redemptor Fist, Macro Plasma Incinerator, Heavy Flamer, Twin Storm Bolter

5x Terminator Assault Squad (180 pts)

• 1x Assault Terminator Sergeant: Storm Shield, Thunder Hammer

• 4x Assault Terminator: 4 with Storm Shield, Thunder Hammer

5x Terminator Assault Squad (180 pts)

• 1x Assault Terminator Sergeant: Storm Shield, Thunder Hammer

• 4x Assault Terminator: 4 with Storm Shield, Thunder Hammer

5x Terminator Assault Squad (180 pts)

• 1x Assault Terminator Sergeant: Storm Shield, Thunder Hammer

• 4x Assault Terminator: 4 with Storm Shield, Thunder Hammer

5x Terminator Squad (170 pts)

• 4x Terminator

    1 with Chainfist, Cyclone missile launcher, Storm bolter

    3 with Power fist, Storm bolter

• 1x Terminator Sergeant: Storm bolter, Power fist

5x Terminator Squad (170 pts)

• 4x Terminator

    1 with Chainfist, Cyclone missile launcher, Storm bolter

    3 with Power fist, Storm bolter

• 1x Terminator Sergeant: Storm bolter, Power fist

5x Terminator Squad (170 pts)

• 4x Terminator

    1 with Chainfist, Assault Cannon

    3 with Power fist, Storm bolter

• 1x Terminator Sergeant: Storm bolter, Power fist

40K Friday: In Which the Writer Loses All Focus

 

It's Spring and the miniature ADHD goes into full bloom! Oh Lord what have I done? Several factors at work here:

• Boom-Gun Brandon wants to play every time he comes into town now
• Some of the rest of the crew has started building 40K armies 
• 10th edition is in the wind-down phase now so what you have is what you're going to have as far as rules and datasheets and FAQs
• 11th edition is coming this summer which tends to ramp the energy levels up - and also increases anxiety over which units will be replaced or removed in the new edition

So this recent energy burst started up by looking at all my chaos armies and shifted into me mostly working on Grey Knights about a month ago and that continued for a couple of weeks. Then I started feeling some Firstborn Anxiety - the feeling and wondering mentioned above that I expect the next edition to pretty much finish off the older styled marines as they exist now, outside of Rhinos and Land Raiders. 

The smaller-guys replacement is just about complete with Chaos Marines as all of the major groups of units have been upscaled over the last 5-ish years. They won't get rid of the Rhino here - they may make a new kit but the Rhino as primary Chaos transport will live on and I expect the Land Raider to continue on as well. 

For loyalists, as much as a certain segment of players wants to see the marines go all grav-vehicle I think the Rhino and the Land Raider are just too iconic and too much a part of the game and the lore to drop. New models? Sure, maybe even "likely" at this point as these are 20+ year old kits. I wouldn't be upset if they just rolled the Horus Heresy kits into mainline 40K as those look great but I doubt they will do that for a variety of reasons. The bikes and speeders have been replaced already and they did not go retro with those. Anyway I am not as concerned about the vehicles here - it's mainly the infantry.

I have a lot of firstborn stuff. Some of it makes up a big chunk of my marine armies but I have a lot of unfinished projects, half-built units, squads on the sprue, stuff still in boxes ... it all was part of a plan at some point but right now it looks like kind of a mess. I should be focused on updating armies with some of the newer units but I'd really like to get some of the old stuff finished up too. 

So...

I spent over a week with all of my firstborn stuff pulled out on to the big game table and started going through it and figuring out what I actually had and who could use what parts. For example my Crimson Fists are pretty close to one old version of a Space Marine Battle Company so they need some more assault marines and some devastator marines and I can check that little box that's been in the back of my mind for a while. Predators and Vindicators are still totally useful and allowed (non-legended) in current 40K so let me count up how many parts and sprues and hulls I have and see if I can get those built and field-able. 

I am at well over 50 Rhino hulls of various types and marks at this point. Most of them are even painted. This is not something I set out to do.

Then it gets a little more complicated. Some of the infantry I have needs to be rebased if I'm going to stay current, mainly 25mm to 32mm. I've done it on several armies and it's not terribly enjoyable. While the rules could change down the road Rhinos and Razorbacks are not seeing a ton of use right now as Primaris marines can't ride in them - one of the few remaining separation type rules in the codexes. So I should probably keep them in my older armies but how many Rhinos do I need for one army? This is also true of something like a tactical squad - I have at least six of them (various editions and styles) sitting around unfinished but I don't really need all of those added to one army.  

This whole process ended up leading to a few conclusions:

• A lot of the old-school infantry  and vehicles are going to finish out whatever thoughts/plans/dreams I have for my Crimson Fists and Blood Angels. A few things are going to the Black Templars but I never really  prioritized them as a firstborn army so they get a smaller share. 
• My Dark Angels are definitely one of my retro armies - way too much old stuff there - but I am also bringing them out of mothballs and into active service, mainly via the Ravenwing/Deathwing options. I've picked up a few missing pieces, I will spray those this weekend, and suddenly I have a 2000 point Ravenwing army with options for Deathwing drop-in support. This should be fun.
• This still leaves me with a lot of uncommitted stuff so I am indulging in an old dream and building a Space Wolf Army! Specifically a 3rd to 6th edition type Space Wolf army - no primaris. I always wanted a Wolf army and I had collected some pieces way back but when Blaster got into 40K he immediately focused on the Wolves so I gave him what I had and sensibly stopped adding more space marine armies to focus on what I already had immediately started modernizing and expanding my Blood Angels. Well, he's been out of the house for a few years now so I wouldn't be stepping on his toes anymore. I'll talk more about Project Wolf in another post but I'm pretty happy to have a place to put my strays and orphans. Of course I did need some wolf components so I immediately went out and hunted down some of the now out of print 5th edition era space wolf kits ... some things never change. At least I know what my problem is. "It's like a free army because it's stuff I already had that I wasn't using" ... well, except for the new (old) stuff I went out and bought to really fill it out. 

Project initiated ...

I do feel good about getting all of it organized. Much like building my Tyranids, it's good to realize it's finite and to be able to see the boundaries of the firstborn stuff. It will be finished at some point. 

An unexpected side note to this as I looked through my stuff started when I realized Terminators new and old still pretty much look the same and that I could add a Redemptor or two to my Imperial Fists Deathwing army. Since dreads are considered Deathwing too they are a legitimate part of it lore-wise and it would give me some extra oomph in that force. So yeah, reversing the point of the entire effort there is one currently all-firstborn army that's jumping to effectively primaris. Miracles happen every day!  

More to come as I sort this out ...

40K Friday - The Big Yellow Hammer Drops!

Over the holiday weekend we played a big game of 40K Sixth edition where I took on Apprentice Red and Apprentice Blaster. There's a bit of a story to it, so bear with me for a paragraph or two.

First, it's difficult to surprise boys who live in the same house when it comes to gaming stuff as they are all over anything that comes into the house. It's also difficult to prep without them knowing that something is up, especially when it comes to a miniatures game where there's painting and gluing and just a lot of activity to get something new ready to go. So I did something new - I bought someone else's painted army. I've picked up a few painted vehicles and things for the boys to help them get farther along in their army construction, but I haven't done it for any of my armies thus far. Also, I don't always play with a fully painted army but it is my preference when possible. Finally, scanning the electrons of ebay and the local scene, "painted" is often the same or less cost as "new on sprue" which means it doesn't cost anything extra and it saves a great deal of time - as long as it fits in with what you already have. So, I found an army I liked, one I had contemplated running in the past, and I bought it.

Next, having acquired the weapon, I set a time for the match roughly two weeks out - then I started trash talking them.If you have teenage boys you probably know how it is, but listening to the kids opine on everything under the sun, and 40K in particular, given their limited experience (in everything) can get a little old. I normally try to stay out of their expert discussions and declarations - or at most try to point out that they may not have considered all of the information -  but this time was different. This time I told them when, how many points, and that I was going to crush them both. I also told them they'd be facing space marines, but I didn't get into specifics. They immediately responded with counter-talk, asking what they would get if they won. The game was on.

So the army came and I worked up my list in secret. It's a Deathwing terminator army painted up as Imperial Fists. I think of it as pre-heresy Fists for those of you into 40K lore, since they were the hammer unit during the great crusade, I think it's reasonable to assume that would look something like a Deathwing army. Even though it's "more marines" it's different from the armies I already have so it should be fun. Also, technically it's  a "Doublewing" army as the rest of it is Ravenwing bikes and speeders but the Termies are the focus of the army.

There were some trash-talk flare-ups as the days went by so when the day came everyone was fired up and ready to go. Lady Blacksteel and Apprentice Twilight were out for most of the day so it was just the boys and our dice. As I pulled terminator after terminator out of the box there was some discussion on the opposing sideline but if anything the trash talk increased - "Those don't scare me" was uttered at least twice. Heh.

One thing I am not really liking about 6th edition is the terrain setup section of the rules. We've done it a few times now and this kind of table is the result - lots of stuff clustered near one edge with a big no-man's land in the middle. We're probably going to go with a narrative approach or a "both setup then roll for side choice" approach to avoid this. It didn't matter a ton to me because my bikes and speeders are pretty fast and most of my army is going to deep strike in anyway, but it looks bad.

On the near end Red's Necrons are all clustered up, while Blaster's Space Wolves are at the other end. There are roughly two objectives on the Apprentice half, two on my half, and one towards the middle.

Those Borg cubes are the objective markers. I plan to park and shoot the two Predators, one bike squadron will destroy the monolith (melta-melta-multi-melta) the other will head for the Land Raider (full of Wolfguard BTW) and the speeders (Typhoons & Multi-meltas) will go wherever they can do the most good.

Waiting aboard the battle-barge...

End of Turn 1 - they have blown up the near Predator but I've landed 3 squads near objectives and I have a plan.

End of Apprentice Turn 2 - they have shot up a few termies but one of the Necron wraiths (center, near the monolith) ate a Krak missile when they charged and croaked before he could get into melee.

End of Deathwing Turn 2 - The wraiths are dead from Thunderhammer disease, one bike squadron has been shot up good but the other has destroyed the monolith! There is a pretty hairy firefight going on around that lower objective so I dropped two more squads in near it. There are Long Fangs sitting in that bunker in the upper right, happily blasting away with missile launchers, while a squad of Grey Hunters sits on an objective at the far top right as the Land Raider and the Dreadnought advance.

There are a lot of Necrons in that ruin but I believe we can handle it.

Death of a monolith

End of Apprentice Turn 3 - The Deathwing Command Squad led by Belial, Master of the Deathwing, meets the Wolf Guard, led by Logan Grimnar! Shots are fired and the fight is on!

End of Deathwing Turn 3 - Belial is down! That'll teach me to challenge a Chapter Master with a mere Company Master! In the meantime the other termies smack each other around, the Necron Scarabs bog the bikes down, and ferocious Necron shooting has thinned out another termie squad (Rapid Fire - it's New and Improved!). They blew up the other predator too, so this hasn't been a great turn for Yellow but I'm not in a terrible position.

End of game - On turn 4 the speeders blow up the Land Raider and the Dreadnought, Deathwing reinforcements charge into the Command Squad fight and kill every Wolf Guard but Logan. One battered termie squad charges into the scarab fight, kills them all, and free the bikes. The long fangs die to massed Cyclone Missile fire. Then on Turn 5 the last unit of Necron warriors at the bottom there breaks and runs leaving the Imperial Fists in control of the two middle objectives and the Apprentices concede.

Observations:

• A 2500 point games takes some time, especially when you're still new to the rules. This was about a 6-hour event though it must be said we took a lot of breaks between turns.
• I was always an Assault Cannon guy before when it came to Terminator armament choices - no longer! Having 6 Cyclone launchers on the board was nasty, especially when it was backed up with 3 Typhoons - that's 18 missile shots a turn - lots of frag templates were piled on those Necron warriors and they had a hard time with it.
• I was worried about having too much melta (both bike squadrons including both attack bikes and all 3 speeders) but with a monolith and a land raider on the table it was a game-changer. 
• There is definitely a momentum thing with this army - teleporting in and not being able to assault means that you get to spend a turn weathering the storm, but when you do hit you hit hard. They boys were very cocky on turns 1-2 then 3 calmed them down then on 4 as I was smashing space wolves they got very quiet. I think this is a win-it-in-the-later-turns-army though more games will give me more insight into this.
• Speeders can last quite a while when there are tanks and terminators on the board to worry about.

The boys eventually recovered from their morale failure and talked about the next game. Blaster thinks he might want some bikes for his wolves, and that he needs to get his Thunderwolf Cavalry finished up. Red wants some more Necron vehicles and to roll better. I'm thinking we will probably try some smaller point games next.