40K Friday - Thursday After a Long Gap Edition

Yes there's a new edition coming - it looks good at the moment ... of course 'at the moment" the various tournament blogs and forums and YouTube channels haven't boiled everything down to the  optimum configuration and tiered out every codex so we can all be optimistic that every army has a chance to be good!

I'm actually feeling pretty optimistic about this. With so many events cancelled there will be a lot more theory-hammer happening these first few months and less "OMG Did You See That List From the Two Guys and Some Tables Tournament?!" It should be fun for a while.

It is a little weird in that my kids started playing 40K in 2010 with 5th edition. Ten years later we're on 9th edition so they've now played through half of the editions of a 30+ year old game in just ten years. I'd like to see this one last longer than the 3 years of 8th edition but that doesn't really seem to be the trend does it?

Anyway news of a new edition is a good time to re-assess the state of one's forces and think about priorities for playing the new game. What I've been thinking:

• Kinda bad timing of me to take a big dive into Age of Sigmar right before this was announced but oh well ... I like fantasy games too.
• Iyanden Eldar and Iron Warriors CSMs are solid from all the work I did in 6th and 7th. I still have units to add to them sitting in boxes or on the workbench but I could play multiple configurations of them fully painted right now.
• My mighty Crimson Fists have expanded greatly during 8th. For an army that goes back to 2nd/3rd for me I just never get tired of adding to them. They are my main "normal" space marine army and I have a ridiculous number of options for them now. This year it's mostly been adding terminators and various dreadnoughts and contemplating the primaris options.
• I've been enhancing/updating my Blood Angels - they will probably be the first one I take out in 9th if I can finish building them. Much acquired, some built, not much new painted so we will see.
• Black Templars: had a plan and a roster but reconsidering some of it now. The changes to vehicles and some other rules have me rethinking how I want this army to operate. It was going to be all old-school marines as well but there may be some room now for some of the new guys. It's pushed them back a bit.
• Grey Knights: All painted, all built ... these guys are ready to go whenever and in much better shape after their Psychic Awakening book. 
• Imperial Knights: About 1/3 built. 2500 points or so total. Will be  effectively a new army for 9th so I'm looking forward to trying them out.
• Imperial Guard: ready to go! Tank-heavy force, mostly painted, part of the fun will be figuring out how to make them fit into the new formations.  
• Death Guard: Looking a lot better after War of the Spider. Have not played them in a few years. Have plenty of stuff to have fun with them, could add a few more units to make them moreso. Just a question of whether or not to make them a priority.
• Dark Eldar: I like the way it looks like they will play in 9th. The new missions seen very compatible with their high mobility so I'd like to try them out. I just need to get them into playing shape. 
• Orks: Played them last month to get reacquainted and they are a lot of fun. I have some finishing work to do on some units but I could play them early on.
• World Eaters: The priority! I've played them multiple times in 8th and have a roughly 1000pt core and several groups I can swap in and out to make a 1500 or 2000 or larger force. I have them all, I've built them all, I just need to paint them. 

Honorable Mention: Necrons. I seriously considered starting a necron army a while back. I bought the codex, some colored rods and a monolith and had a look in mind. Once their inclusion in this new boxed set was announced I considered it again. The thing is I just can't seem to get too excited about them. They were mostly "menacing robot" before but now they are seriously upping the Egyptian look and lots of scribblly detail that kind of interferes with the nice clean "chrome death machine" look I was wanting to do. So no necrons for now.

More to come but that's where things stand this week.