40K Friday: The Work Continues - Praetorians and Tyranids

 

My two "building" armies right now both made some progress. Not a ton, but a little.

The new command squads are now on 28mm bases so they won't fit into my 25mm movement trays. I was tempted to put them on 25s but I'm trying to go by current rules so now I get to deal with this. Base size used to be tied to figure size - now apparently it's tied to status. Maybe I'll just velcro them to the damn things.

I did manage to finish the Praetorian command squad, probably the first of 3 or 4. I had to stay with the banner since this one is going into the big combined unit and that +1 OC is a difference maker. For the weapons guy I stuck with a melta gun as I figure it will make the most difference if something gets in close. Having 3 of them altogether should be a bit of a deterrent as even the guard should land a hit or two at that point. For the officer I went with a bolt pistol and a power sword. I just am not that big a fan of a Strength 6 power fist and I don't really like the way it looks on normal humans most of the time. I think of these guys as being more about the swords than maximum efficiency so the power sword is good enough for me and it just looks better! 

At least it will make them easy to tell apart - "Wings Up" and "Wings Down". Years ago with Battletech I had a pair of metal Marauders named "Leans Left" and "Leans Right" so this is not a new thing for me. 

I also finished a pair of "winged tyranid primes" - the character/leader units from the Leviathan set. For itself it only has a bunch of melee attacks but it can join a unit of gargoyles to stiffen them up with "synapse" or a unit of warriors to give them Sustained Hits 1 which is a pretty nice buff.  I wonder if they might be useful just flying around solo doing actions, interfering with gun batteries, or jumping on lone characters. I might try it with one of them.

Modeling-wise I changed up the wings on one of them as the default downward pose is ... fine ... but I certainly wasn't going to have two like that in an army. 

I may have a chance to try them out this weekend as aside from the M&M game I'm also supposed to play Boom-Gun Brother Brandon in some 40K and I'm leaning towards taking the 'Nids. It'll mean throwing a bunch of un-painted and base-coated stuff on the table but that's not exactly uncommon around here. I'm going to try to get a few more units together before that game but even now it's reasonable progress for January. More next week.

40K Friday: More Praetorians

 

I didn't get a whole lot more done this week - just one more squad of neo-Praetorians. Animal acquisitions took priority this week. So yes we added a few more critters (local cat rescue) and getting them sorted out before the impending deep freeze meant almost no mini-working time. I was trying to get the command squad for this unit done as well and it will probably happen over the weekend as the M&M game will be cancelled due to weather so I will have some extra time. 

IG infantry squads are a little strange now. They start at a 10-man unit but they can go up to 20. Now that's not strange as in prior editions you could go up to 30. The weird quirk is that you get two sergeants, and potentially two comms guys. You also still have the ridiculous weapon restrictions per-squad so it's no more than 2 of any special weapon per 20 man squad when you can take 4 total. So instead of taking say 4 plasma guns you can only take 2, and then the other 2 have to be something else. 

Pretty much took all the options I didn't take in the first squad - Sgt has the autogun, took comms guy, various alternate poses like the grenade-tosser

This is another just plain dumb rule coming from the policy that a squad can only be comprised of what comes in the box. By definition, when building a guard infantry army I am going to be adding multiple boxes of guard infantry. In my case I am aiming for probably 3 of those big squads with a couple of 10-man units available for moving around or riding in chimeras. So around 100 infantrymen. This means I might want to specialize my squads into particular loadouts. Among other things this makes them easier to run as taking say, a pair of melta guns means I have one extra weapon type to worry about. Instead, what we get is having to take a melta and a grenade launcher (this is in one 10-man squad) which means I have two weapon stat lines to track alongside the ever-present lasguns. It could be worse - check out Plague Marine squad options sometime - but in a guard army which tends to be all about uniformity it really stands out. 

With 10th edition they brought back leaders joining units - which  I like - but with guard it's not just individual characters. You can have a 5-man command squad join up, which gives you a 25-man unit, and then you can have another character join it - like a commissar or a castellan or something similar. So one "squad" ends being a 26-man unit with all kinds of different guns and gear and special rules mixed in. I mean, it's kind of cool to have this level of customization in 10th - as it's rare these days - but it is a little strange to put it together as a new component in 2026. Oh, and you can then add in an ogryn bodyguard too, so 27 men, er, "unit members".

Inspiration

Then of course the command squad causes further weapon loadout chaos as two of the five members can take special weapons ... and the set comes with 2 complete sets of each: flamer, plasma, melta, grenade launcher. There are no restrictions on doubling up. So a 10-man infantry squad can only take one of any given type, but a 5-man command squad can take two?!

Now one of the tropers who can take a special weapon is also the guy who starts with a banner so in a big squad like I'm talking about here the +1 OC is almost required. An OC bump on a 20-something man unit is just too potent to ignore. But  ... you don't have to merge your command squads into another squad - they can run around on their own, say in a vehicle, and that would be a good place to take double plasma, for instance. 

Though this does mean that if most of my command squads are going into large ground-pounding infantry squads, well, I'm going to have an extra set of special weapons left over from each. Those sure would look nice in the hands of say, another line trooper in there ... but no. GW says that's just too much!

So you could end up with a 27-man squad with 4 melta guns, 2 grenade launchers, 16 lasguns, 3 pistols of various types, possibly an autogun on one of the sergeants, and a ripper gun on the ogryn. Simple, eh?

And yes, I'm the guy that bought 4 combat patrols when I found a deal a year or two back so I have options and I doubt I'm the only one to do that ... it's the Guard! You can't go small building a guard army! I have a fair amount of older stuff but I'm trying to start fresh with this army and make it conform to all of the modern ... innovations ... of 10th and 11th edition 40K ... however that turns out. 

And for any old-timers that might be wondering no, you can't flip two guys to a heavy weapons team in each squad anymore. They only come in the separate unit now. It was not always the best choice even in the old days but it was an easy way to drop a lascannon into your gunline and have it shielded by the rest of the squad. Not anymore!

Anyway there's the latest on the Praetorian Project! More next week!

40K Friday: The Praetorian Adventure Begins

  

Last week I was a little tired of building Tyranids and I was sitting there in my hobby room and I just decided there was no reason not to go ahead and start building my new Imperial Guard army. Sure, there's some splitting of effort n that case but I've been hitting the 'nids pretty hard and I don't want to burn out on them. Plus I want to make sure that my concept is going to work and that it looks good so I needed to see some examples built. So I did ...

Those are modern/current guard infantry models with head swaps to the Wargames Atlantic "Bulldogs" pith helmet heads.  I built a full squad to see how it would all fit together.

Now imagine them with red jackets, white helmets ... like those guys up above.

I was worried that the heads might not look right but after putting a squad together I think they look just fine - the helmets stick up more so they do have a different profile but that's kind of the point, right? I love that they come with backpacks right there in the kit now for everyone but the sergeant as that does add something to the look. I think these new troopers fit the Praetorian look even better than the older plastic Cadians. 

And yes, this is not a new thing for 40K. People have been making custom guard regiments by mixing and matching parts for years, especially head swaps. Hell those original versions up above are just head-swapped Mordian Iron Guard, albeit done at the pre-casting stage. These guys have had a surge of interest in recent years with many options coming out for pith-helmeted-Victorian-looking space troopers. That boxed set and the huge "Battle of Big Toof River" thing back in the late 90's really stuck with some of us. The Wargames Atlantic ones are the ones I like most right now as each sprue comes with multiple head options so I can use the piths for this army and with the rest of this kit I can build some very Mordian looking troopers as well! Circle of life right? 

So my thinking here is a mostly infantry & artillery based gunline army for the core of the force. I have some sentinels and some rough riders to add in for some mobility. I also have 3 ogryn squads I'm leaning towards putting into some custom chimeras just to mix things up as well - and yes, I do have ogre-sized pith helmets for them. I want to get more built before I really start locking in to a certain force org but that's the pencil sketch concept for now.

There will also be tanks...

I have a Leman Russ company + set aside to team up with this army going with the desert-ish paint scheme. I like my red-coated infantry but I like my tanks too and the guard have a lot of cool ones. I'm actually ahead on getting those done - mostly because they're easier to get to this stage. I like the idea of being able to go mostly infantry with some tank support or mostly tanks with some infantry support - it should be fun. 

One thing I had to accept early on is that this army will be very much not a Warhammer store-friendly force. Lots of 3rd party bits, kitbashes, and 3D printed vehicles and bits as well. Now this is not really something I care about a great deal as I don't play in their stores or go to their tournaments but it was a little bit of a weird feeling as it already will have more custom work than even my orks at this stage. I have a lot of old stuff in my orks but most of it is GW - or at least it's made from GW parts. This army is just straight up whatever fits the very specific look I want. 

For now I'm thinking slow and steady progress. 10th edition guard (and presumably later) can deploy as a combined unit of two 10-man squads plus a 5-man command squad plus a leader officer of some type so I'm going to try and get the rest of one of those done this month alongside more tyranids and see how quickly I can get some kind of playable force. I'm not worried about points at all yet, just getting the parts into shape.

More to come!

40K Friday Late Edition - Imperial Adventures with 9th Edition 40K

 

Time to start catching up! We have been playing 9th edition here, pretty much since it came out. I've mentioned it but haven't done any battle reports but I'll think about posting some up in the future. For now I thought I would talk about some of the armies I've tried out so far.

Adeptus Astartes

For my first battle I took my ancient Howling Griffons out for their 9th edition of the game.  They've seen action in every version of the game so far - the record continues! I consider them at least semi-retired as I haven't added anything to them in years though I do occasionally contemplate doing a big new primaris update for them. The paint scheme is just a lot more work so that usually pushes me back from that idea. Anyway I took them against Blaster Eldar army and though I lost we had a good time figuring out the new objective system and all of the tweaks. "Edition bleed" is definitely a problem at this point but more games will help. 

Then I decided continuity at some level would help so I took the Crimson Fists out for a couple of games. In one of them I took a ridiculous Maximum Dreadnoughts list with a master techmarine with the "keeper of the ancients" trait from Psychic Awakening (these games were all before the 9th ed, marine codex release) and I lost again but it was a lot of fun to run 7 dreadnoughts in one fight. Now of course with the new codex this list would be that much more viable so it will probably show up again soon.

Warriors of Titan

After that I decided to bring the Grey Knights into 9th and took them against Blaster's Eldar yet again and let me tell you ... they are a ridiculously complex army to run. I was struggling for a while to keep track of all of the variables with them. Marines are fairly straightforward - each unit has a purpose but is fairly flexible so you can adapt in-game, there are a few important stratagems, and the chaplain litanies and psychic powers are mostly a bonus you work in where you can.

GKs though ... first off every unit has a weakened Smite + one power, but of course you can only use the normal powers once per turn. So the first part of the trick is allocating powers to your units based on what you think will be useful or important during the game. The second part is in-game knowing when and where to use each one - if I can only Gate of Infinity one unit across the board but I can see three units and situations where it would make sense ... it's easy to feel like you made a mistake as their psychic powers are crucial to their units. Making your Paladin squads +1 to save is a big deal. Jumping a Dreadknight from over there to over here to shoot up something and prep a charge is important. Psychic Awakening made things better in one way as now there are two separate disciplines to spread out in your army but it also made the decision making that much more complex. It was a lot of fun to out-psych the Eldar army for a change, but that didn't save me. 

Then there are the stratagems that are also crucial to making the army work, and some of them are significantly influenced by the Tides mechanic introduced in PA ... there is a lot to learn in playing a Grey Knights army effectively. With a typical marine army I would say most of what you need to know is on the datasheet and as I mentioned everything else is situational and a bonus. With these guys I felt like the datasheet was only one part of it. For example:

• If I'm running my Fists and I have a terminator squad in deep strike I know what it can do. The main point of decision is when and where to drop them in. Once they land they're going to shoot stuff and possibly charge. I will know what the doctrine is, so I'll know if they get the extra -1 AP. The only other decision to make there is that I might spend a CP to use Fury of the First to improve their shooting. 
• With GK Terminators I need to consider the same basics of when and where but I also need to decide if I want to change the Tide to the-one-that-makes-psy-weapons-stronger, then if I do I need to play the stratagem that makes all their storm bolters psy weapons for the turn, then I need to use their psychic power to give them a better save for a turn or maybe not if I'm going to drop them in behind some terrain and have an also-teleporting-in Librarian use Astral Aim so they can shoot through that terrain, but if I do that then the venerable dreadnought that was using it last turn will have to move to where he can see something instead of staying hidden. It's just a lot more complicated and you could potentially have decisions like that with every unit on every turn. 

I think the Grey Knights, more than any other army I have played, seriously benefit from playing them over and over to "see the synergies" and just know what they can do in any given situation. After two games I decided to work  more on building/painting/finishing the army since I had a touch of experience at least to inform my decisions. 

The Hammer of the Emperor

I then decided to try out Imperial guard. I have a lot of tanks and a little infantry and ... well, Blaster's Saim Hann force is damn strong against tanks. Lots of bright lances, a fair number of starcannons, some shining spears, a Crimson Hunter Exarch, and fire dragons in falcons ... it went pretty quickly in both games I played in with the guard. I took 3 Plasma Russes, 3 BC Russes, an Exterminator, a Command Punisher and a Command Demolisher, plus I also had two Manticores ... it didn't matter. I only have a limited number of infantry so I couldn't do a ton of screen and still hold objectives. I had 3 infantry squads and then a Chimera with 3 Ogryn and a priest - again because that's stuff I have - and it was blown open and everyone inside was dead on turn 2. We went big in this one at 3000 points and I did manage to kill his Wraithknight but it took so much firepower to drop it before it started wrecking my tanks that his bikes were all over me before I could do much of anything. I think the guard strats are on the weak side and I am admittedly new to using the army but it felt like I was fighting up hill in both games. 

Also ... "Expert crafters". If you've played Eldar in the last year or so you are probably familiar with this choose-your-own-craftworld trait because it's the one EVERYONE takes. One re-roll to hit, one re-roll to wound ... on every unit ... every turn ...

It makes a Crimson Hunter ridiculous as it's only firing 3 shots anyway. Falcon with a pulse laser + bright lance? Same thing. The on bright lance in a backfield Guardian Squad? Yep, he's going to re-roll. Wraithlord's bright lance? Him too. He took a D-cannon battery in some fights and of course they look like all-stars with these kinds of re-rolls. And if you miss or fail to wound with two shots from something important you have the normal CP re-roll available. Doom means at least one unit per turn is going to be a punching bag where everything gets to re-roll wounds too.

I even took custom regiment traits in the second game. One lets lets you repair your tanks each turn and the other let me re-roll the number of shots for all those tanks and artillery. It helped a little but not enough. I'm sure Guard would perform better with repeated play but I would need to add quite a bit to my unit options to really improve them. Bullgryn are a big unit right now and I have none. I only have one Chimera and only 3-4 squads of infantry and suspect at least Chimeras would help keep those guys alive longer. I took one Tempestus squad and some assassins in the second fight and I think they definitely have contributions to make  - figuring them out and getting better at using the orders here and there would certainly help. 

One example of the challenges here: the Vindicare assassin was up high in a ruin and sniped a jetbike warlock - yes! The very next turn he gets charged by the jetbike Autarch and he's done for the fight. He didn't die that first fight phase, but he can't beat an autarch in melee - even with his pistol -  and he can't get away because Bike Autarch is faster. Plus the Shining Spears were busy wiping out the infantry squads in the rest of the ruin so he wasn't going to live long anyway. 

So yes I did have a lot of fun shuffling through the Imperial deck these last few months but I did lose a lot while learning a lot and I learned to hate Expert Crafters.

BatRep of the Week: Imperium vs. Khorne

This one is from Tabletop Tactics and it looks like they are having a ton of fun in this one. Also: comically bad dice rolls!

40K Thursday: This Year's New Army

In between all of the other army work I've been doing - and 40K has been a huge focus for me this last month - I got to talking to Blaster about what else we want to do this year. We usually try to build or acquire some new terrain too. We've done hills, trees, and snow terrain in the past. our biggest lack right now is ruins or more sci-fi specific terrain like storage tanks, factory parts, etc. That may become a goal for the year - build a set of terrain for a "ruined city" or "ruined factory" table.

Besides that talk though he mentioned he had thought an Imperial Guard tank army would be fun and I agreed. That's something we could build together and use with our imperial armies as an allied force. We will start with a few and maybe add a piece each month - a tank, a flyer, something like that. By the end of the year we should have a good-sized tank force. I'm not worried about tournament play here, just another army option to have around the house.

The current IG codex, or "Astra Militarum" codex has a Tank Commander as an HQ option. He's an upgrade to a Leman Russ (any type) and has to have at least one other tank attached to him forming a 2-3 tank squadron.  Right now we're probably looking at a Vanquisher for the commander, and an Exterminator as his sidekick. He has orders he can issue (with a decent roll) to let them fire at separate targets so the squadron limitations shouldn't be much of a problem.

For an allied detachment you need one troop choice, and for a full CAD you need two. We're going with the always-popular Veteran squads to answer this need. That gives us some troops on the ground but keeps it at a minimum. We will probably go with plasma guns, maybe melta, for them. We're still discussing transport options but for now they will be on foot for a few games at least. I'd like to get them some Chimeras and even moreso some Valkyries, but that will have to come later.

 That gets us the minimum requirements to field the group: Two tanks, one infantry squad. We won't stop there of course.

For HQ's that don't take up a slot I have my old Rogue Trader Adeptus Mechanics and his three servitors. They've been in a box for decades and now they finally have a reason to hit the table for a real fight. Gotta keep those tanks alive!

I also have a pair of RT psykers in all of their late-80's painted glory and I will be taking them too. This will probably be their first action since ... 2nd edition? Yowch.

I have some commissars of a similar vintage too. I'd say there's a good chance they join in as well - why not? Two vet squads each with a commissar and a psyker are notably more dangerous than basic infantry alone.

Our other immediate acquisition is a pair of standard Leman Russ tanks. It is a tank army after all. There's our heavy support choice.

For Fast Attack our first choice is a Hellhound but it will be a while for that one. We both want some more Leman Russ hulls before we pick the flamer tank up. Valkyries will probably come first here too.

Elites are trickier as we might go with some cheap ratling snipers. We've also talked about some ogryn to guard the rear but those are pretty low on the priority list.

That's enough to get us started. once we have some of this put together I will share pictures. Expect regualr updates on this one through the year.