40K Fridays - Blood Angels 2024

 Despite a lot of other distractions these last few months I've actually managed to make some decent progress on the Blood Angels. In April I mentioned some bikes, a Leviathan dread, a bike chaplain, a a jump-pack captain all as in-progress and all of those except the chaplain are finished and in the case now. In June I talked about some assault marines and a Redemptor dreadnought as in-progress at the time and I am happy to report those are finished now as well - see Mr. Redemptor in that photo up above. 

The biker chaplain is the one that is dragging out in a perpetual state of "almost". This is the downside of operating a home for wayward Blood Angels - part of it was nicely done but a lot of it looked good from a distance while having a lot of sloppy little errors all over the place and those are very challenging to fix when you're trying not to screw up the good parts by adding new mistakes of your own. This mean every little section has to be checked and re-checked to clean up the lines because every time I look at it I see something else. It probably would have taken less time to finish if I had just painted it from scratch myself but them's the breaks.

I took a pause from the Sons of Sanguinius for a couple of weeks to finally finish some World Eaters - more on them in a future post - but there are more coming. Down the road - once I finish that damn biker Chaplain - I am aiming to clear most of the backlog of death company and sanguinary guard. This is of course just in time for GW to release new death company and sanguinary guard. Ah well. I still like the old sculpts better, for the most part and I am trying to edition-proof my main armies so I can go back and play, say, 5th Edition if I want. That said, I do want to build up a modern-looking force so despite the very mixed reception amongst BA players I went ahead and pre-ordered the new army boxed set. 

The new box is death company focused with a bunch of assault intercessors - jump and foot - along with a punchy brutalis dread, the new Lemartes, and the new Astorath. It also has the codex, the cards, and multiple upgrade sprues to kit out the troops. This is what is really stinging a lot of us - death company had unique sculpts before, from the old metal ones through the later plastic set which is still one of the greatest kits they did  as far as bits and customization options. Now they are generic intercessors with an upgrade sprue for shoulder pads and a few helmets and weapons. It's a serious come-down from what we had before. In the earliest days your death company tended to be assault marines painted black and we are kind of back to those days now which is not really something GW can brag about. Regardless, I wanted to get all of this stuff together because it takes me a while to decide how I want to build it and then it takes a while to actually paint it too. As insurance against disappointment I went ahead and picked up two more boxes of the current death company as they are being discontinued in favor of this new set of options. I have some already but I wanted the parts for future use as the helmets and shoulder pads still fit on primaris-sized models and the assorted bling and trim bits will work there too. 

We went from this ...

The new sanguinary guard are getting mixed reviews too and I am not a huge fan - mainly because of the lack of wings! It's a huge part of their look which is golden armor and big white-winged jump packs! The new ones are far less visually interesting, which is especially damning for a Blood Angels units. I'm sure there will be third-party add-ons out there to add the wings back in but I grabbed another couple of boxes of the current kit here too as insurance because it's going away as well.  The old helmets will fit just fine and I suspect the wings will pop in there too - we will see.

... to this. 

I did like the new captain and sanguinary priest models. I will probably end up with a few of the captain - one in red, one in gold, one in black, maybe. The Dante and Mephiston updates that have been out for a few years now are great too so it's not all bad. 

So now the plan is to finish up a few straggler BA projects and then start in on the Great Updating - and try and actually finish it this time.

Anyway - more to come.

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk - Session 4: The Moathouse

 

Back in the village the party hands their borrowed gear back and hands the prisoner over to Rufus for questioning and detainment. Then it's off to weapons trading and evaluation and some intra-party deals for components. The village leatherworker makes a deal to patch up some armor for some of our heroes and shares a little background information on the area as well. Then it's time to head for The Moathouse!

Here the party gets cautious: they set up a base camp some ways away from the ruined fort and then have the wizard spy out the place with his brand new familiar. After this they approach and manage to stumble into some giant frogs right outside the main gate. This is a fairly quick fight but it does put some fear into the halfling mechanist as he realizes he might be a swallow-able size for some of the frogs. My veteran players know what to watch for and so slice open the the frogs and find a nice gem for their troubles. 

The upper level of the place is cleared without too much injury ...

• The fighters do the traditional front line thing and hold off a giant lizard in one room. After it is defeated they slice it open and find a magical shield and so likely establish a precedent I will be dealing with for the entire campaign.
• The halfling once again finds trouble as he steps into a room alone and gets chomped by a giant tick. this combat marked the first use of the "I can cast a touch spell through my familiar" option as the wizard manages to shocking grasp the things while remaining at a very safe distance. 
  (and yes, they cut the tick open too but it was item-free)
• They killed a giant snake as well, continuing the tradition in this campaign of giant snakes dying in one round of combat. They are probably going to try and make something out of its hide as the ranger opted to skin the thing afterwards.
• The halfling's personal trilogy of terror wraps up when he steps into a room first (again) and is set upon by a room full of giant rats that put him down quickly, forcing the fighters to wade into the room while the cleric and bard and wizard take shots from the doorway. They do win fairly quickly though no animals are sliced open afterwards. 

A more detailed narrative account of the tale from the players' point of view can be found here.

DM Commentary

It was good to finally get to the moathouse and get some good old-fashioned violence in. Any of you who have played through this know that the dungeon level is where it actually gets nasty - the upper level is fairly easy in comparison and while it's a good warm-up it's almost misleading as to the level of difficulty you are going to see underground. That said maybe the halfling will learn not to go first.

There was also a fair amount of interaction in town, mainly at the inn and with Gipson the leatherworker so my team is not solely consumed with loot and bloodlust. There are still new people to meet and new contacts to make there so it should keep things interesting for a while longer. I have some ideas about adding a few more characters in to the mix as well.

The game continues to run pretty smoothly though it is still challenging to run with 7 when combat lasts a round or two. My position on 5th from  very early on has been that it's the simplest version of the game since 2nd and I still feel that way but it's not quite at the B/X level. I ran 8 in 3E for quite a while so it can be done and it will come easier with time.