40K Friday - Iron Warriors vs. Ultramarines

 

In addition to building some updated units for my chaos marines I managed to get a game in with them over the past weekend. This time was against Boom-Gun Brandon's Ultramarines.

The kid has been remarkably consistent with both his army and its composition - possibly because he only has the one army - but he has started building Tau and he's always free to borrow units from my marine forces so he has some options now and will have more in the future.

This was a 2000 point dawn of war deployment (start on the long sides of the table) with a "hold some objectives" type primary and the normal "draw some cards" secondary. I did not take as many pictures as I usually so I won't try to turn it into a battle report here but it was fun. 

The Ultras had Guilliman, Captain Titus, a squad of shooty terminators, a squad of assault terminators, some assault intercessors, two aggressor squads each led by a gravis captain, some bladeguard, then his heavy hitters: A Redemptor dread, a Balistus dread, and a Repulsor executioner.

My IWs went tank-heavy. The main reason was that I wanted this to be an all-painted force, up to date, etc, and all of my old infantry are still on 25s. So it was pretty ridiculous: 3 Predators, 3 Helbrutes, 2 Vindicators, a leviathan dread, a daemon prince, a Heldrake (I know, right?), and then a squad of chaos terminators led by a terminator chaos lord. So I was definitely outnumbered but certainly not outgunned.

HELLOOOO BAAAAYBY!
(BANG!)

I actually won the first turn and started working on his anti-tank units. The predators blew up the balistus and both the redemptor and the executioner were at half wounds or less when I was done. 

The Ultras moved around quite a bit including running the executioner right up near one of the vindicators and dumping out his intercessors + Titus. he didn't manage to kill anything - my vindicator just barely survived the assault after being blasted by the executioner's big laser  - but he was sitting on his home objective plus the center so he was in scoring position early. 

Hello there!

My second turn I rearranged a bit myself and then blew up the executioner and the redemptor. I managed to shoot down the primarch as well but he did stand back up - of course! During my rearrangement I managed to move out of range of my home objective so my scoring fell off of a cliff here.  

Ultras second turn saw the Heldrake chosen as his Oath of Moment target and thus saw most of his army shooting at it and it managed to survive this with a few wounds left. Granted he was missing most of his real anti-vehicle weapons but he had a lot of lesser guns left. He still scored more points though. He also dropped in his terminators this turn.

Third turn and onward we mostly shot up each others remaining infantry. I blew away both aggressor squads and one of the gravis captains. His assault termies failed to kill a predator that was all by its lonesome on an objective and my killing one of them on the way in meant that we were tied for OC so neither of us got credit for it. He did finally manage to kill the damaged vindicator and he was pretty happy about that. 

One wound left - I can still nail the dread!

He ended up winning on points but I had done a lot more damage to his force so I still felt alright about it. It was pretty low scoring as we both mismanaged our secondaries in a big way. 

In the end I was pretty happy with the game. I got to dust off an army I haven't played in years and finally play them in 10th edition. A few more notes:

• I did forget to Dark Pact a lot - the perils of not playing very often - which probably lowered my offensive output. It's a cool ability when you remember to us eit.
• I took the iron warriors detachment (Fellhammer Siege Host) and its signature ability is a -1 to wound when you get shot by a gun with a strength higher than your toughness. Well, with a mostly tank army it was useful for the first two turns then ... not so much a I had eliminated his big guns and was mostly getting hit by various types of bolter and punched in melee. I still like it though.
• The Leviathan Dreadnought ... man I love these things. It's been a long time since I took one and the double-stormcannon setup is basically 4 twin-linked versions of the Predator's turret autocannon. It is really nasty and I am hoping now it's Legends status at least makes the jump to 11th so I can continue. I have 6 or more of the things spread across a few armies so ... yeah ... it's in the list as long as I can take it.

This has also encouraged me to continue with the modernizing as all of the vehicles are up to date, terminators are still on 40mm bases, and so painting up some legionaries, chosen, possessed, and some havocs will give me an up-to-date infantry force to go with them. It's maybe 35 models total, so I should be able to knock it out fairly quickly.

More to come ... 

Primarchs - still need to look both ways before crossing the street ...

40K Friday Off-Schedule Edition: Modernizing the Iron Warriors

 

The title pretty much says it - as I discussed here earlier I have quite a few chaos space marines painted up as Iron Warriors and a surprisingly large percentage of it is still the current production model. This is mostly the vehicles though - the infantry is all older and smaller.

The Helbrutes, Rhinos, Predators, and Vindicators (and the Heldrake!) are all still good. 

All of my actual marines though are the older style, aside from a few characters. 

Now I don't care that much about this state of affairs in general but unit options have changed too and the new hotness is building Chaos Marines for melee and almost all of mine are built for shooting so maybe it is actually ... finally ... time to look at upgrading things around here. At least I only need to consider the infantry, which is a plus. I do have some newer current stuff sitting in the IW box in a closet. I should probably start there. What I have is:

• Abaddon (we will get to him in a minute)
• The Hammer Lord on foot  (technically not the latest and greatest but still fairly recent)
• An unbuilt recently built Terminator Lord/Sorcerer kit (still technically current but likely to be replaced soon)
• A normal sorcerer (the current plastic kit)
• Fabius Bile
• A Master of Possession
• A Lord Discordant (how did I not build this guy already?)
• Some Daemon Princes ranging from the older metal kit to the now-older plastic kit (I loved that kit) to the newer plastic kit.
• Six of the newer monopose plastic Obliterators. I never got around to actually painting these. 
• A box of the newer Possessed
• 3 Venomcrawlers
• More Helbrutes
• A Defiler (now technically the Old Defiler since there's a new one coming out)

There's more - it's a bunch of stuff. There is however, precious little infantry in there. The MoP and the Possessed make a nice combo element but they aren't allowed in Rhinos anymore so what am I going to haul in those? Looks like I'm going to have to start with some legionaries!

That's cool - I like having "core troops" in my armies. I am not one of those "only the chrome" type army builders. If I build a box then I could make it into two 5-man squads with one going melee + chaos Lord and one going ranged + Sorcerer. There's a start. Of course I'm probably going to end up with at least 3 boxes but I'll try not to go for the crazy backlog right out of the gate. 

Then of course we have the other major modern infantry box - the Chosen. These are 5 to a box but have lots of equipment options and 3 wounds per trooper. I'm thinking this is where Fabius Bile comes in and leads a squad of these boys. This is a unit heavily slanted towards melee anyway so why not give them a buff character and put them in a Rhino too?

The other new kit I lack is the Havoc box. My existing Havocs are 3 or 4 squads of the old style marines like everything else and are all autocannons, missile launchers, or heavy bolters. Right now I would just blu-tac them to some 40mm bases but I think a box or two of these new-style troops are worthwhile down the road. Between all the tanks and helbrutes etc. I don't lack for heavy weapons but I think a Devastator squad equivalent has a place here somewhere. 

Mine are all from this era

I do also have 10 Terminators already. I think we are currently on the 3rd generation of plastic chaos terminators and mine are from the prior gen but they still look like Terminators so good enough.

So I believe this will be the core of my updated Iron Warriors. It is a lot of new kits but I'm not going to do it all in a week:

• 10-30 Legionaries (Picked up 10 this week)
• 5-10 Chosen 
• 5-10 Havocs
• 10 Terminators (Have 10 now)
• 5-10 Possessed (Have 5 now)
• 2-6 Obliterators (Have 6 now)
• Chaos Spawn (Have 5 now)
• A bunch of tanks and daemon engines (Have a bunch of these now)
• Add characters to taste (Have a bunch of these now too)

I have to figure out what to do with my Raptors and Bikes as they are technically current (though the Raptors just got a new kit in Kill Team) to add in some Fast Attack options (dating myself there). I like the idea of keeping a lot of my old stuff on their 25mm bases to use in old school games but the Raptors may have to join the modernized army for now. 

I think I have 4 of the old ones and I'm sure I will be adding at least one of the new ones down the road.

A side unit making occasional guest appearances would be Abaddon and a 5-man Terminator squad. I already have the termies and they are painted up as Black Legion so part of the work is already done. Could be a fun unit to add on for certain fights.

The other interesting part of Chaos Marine armies now is the whole sub-codex of cultists, weirder cultists, beastmen, traitor guardsmen and just a bunch of mortal infantry that feel like an entirely separate army. I have a couple of units of cultists left from the old 6th edition boxed set which I might add in at some point but I've just never been excited about adding in a bunch of weaker, unarmored troops to my glorious power armor & tanks force. It has gotten interesting now with all of the units they've added in (a traitor Comissar and his Ogryn Bodyguard? Really?) but I would lean towards it being a separate force most of the time. At least that's how I feel right now.  We will see once I get the IW's tuned up and finished out. 

Enough rambling for now - more chaos later.

40K Friday - Chaos Marine Updates

 

With word that the Traitor Legions are finally getting their 9th edition codex I'm looking forward to dusting off my Iron Warriors for the first time in a while. Alongside this GW announced that the World Eaters are getting their own codex like the Death Guard and the Thousand Sons so that will change things up a bit around here.  

It's good news but I think it's ridiculous that it's taken this long to make any real updates to the CSMs. Sure, armor of contempt, but never addressing the second wound update until over 2 years into the edition is just incredibly stupid. They're putting a White Dwarf update out for the World Eaters to tide us over until their codex comes out - they easily could have done the same thing for Chaos Marines at any time. 

Annoyance aside I am interested in seeing what else the new book holds. We know about armor of contempt, we know they're goin to two wounds, we know they're going to 3 attacks base, rumor is that they get a Doctrine system similar to the loyalists ... I have mixed feelings on that one. 

On the one hand, having a doctrine system will make them feel more like "marines".  That's cool. On the other hand I don't want it to be all that similar as then we get back into chaos marines feeling too much like loyalist marines with spikes and fewer options. So hopefully they do something interesting there. 

My Iron Warriors are pretty much ready to go. I've never had as much of a backlog with these guys as with some of my other armies.

• I need to paint my Obliterators but that won't take long. 
• I have a bike unit mostly painted but I'm waiting to see what they do with bikes for chaos before I finish them up.
• I have a bunch of terminators I was going to allocate to them but like the bikes I'm waiting to see where the new codex takes them. There are rumors about melee weapons all being treated the same and ranged weapons having new limits reflecting the mix available in the current box and that would impact my plans. Termies are good right now and I'm sure I will still want some - it's just a question of loadout, really.

The army itself is mostly marines & havocs with a bunch of Rhinos, 3 Predators, 3 Vindicators, some raptors, some chosen, a unit of spawn, some Helbrutes, various characters including a daemon prince, and a Heldrake.  It's a pretty traditional chaos force, not a lot of daemon engines etc. It's around 6000 points depending on details. Hopefully they come out alright in the transition. 

I am not super excited about the emphasis on cultists in the previews so far. I don't know anyone who gets into chaos marines to build an army of normal humans with some mutations and I kind of think they should really consider moving it to a separate book  if they're going to start expanding it. If genestealer cults can be a faction it seems to me chaos cults could be one as well. Maybe mix in some daemons and maybe even the long-awaited traitor guard to really build out the faction. 

That said I am ready to get the army on the table again - hopefully soon. 

40K Friday Returns! 8th Edition Update

8th edition has been going really well here. We've played 1000, 1500, and 2000 point battles. Apprentice Red has played a little bit with his Orks. Apprentice Blaster is focusing exclusively on his Space Wolves. Apprentice Who has joined the fray with a new Tyranid army. One of Blaster's friends has joined in as well with a new Tau army too. I've built some ruins for a new city board - haven't painted them yet but I've built them!

I'm going with  a new policy on this edition as well: I'm getting all of the codices as they come out. We play most of the armies anyway in our little group so why not? I have Space Marines and Chaos Marines already and I'll be adding Grey Knights in the next week. It's not cheap but this has really turned into our main (if not only) miniatures game so why not go all-in?

Army-wise for myself it's been chaos chaos chaos! Mainly Iron Warriors but with a healthy side order of Khorne daemons and World Eaters. In June I was scattershooting all over the 40k universe, picking up a unit here and a unit there for a bunch of different armies - Chaos, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Orks, Eldar. I decided this was just going to lead to a bunch of half-finished armies competing  for playing time so I went with a variant of my "Year of the Eldar" approach. The second half of 2017 is the "Year of Chaos" where I am finally making my Iron Warriors into a full-on massive force and getting the daemons into usable forces as well. Getting the CSM codex really helped solidify

Iron Warriors

• HQ's are pretty much set at a daemon prince, termie lord, termie sorcerer, warpsmith, dark apostle, and an exalted champion
• Troops are a bunch of CSMs and about 30 cultists if I want to sink that low. Seriously, I play CSM's for the marines, not cultists. I'm still experimenting with the CSM squads. 
• Five of them wit ha heavy bolter in a ruin is cheap and contributes even at range. A lascannon or missile launcher improves the contribution but also ups the cost, 
• Ten of them with double or triple plasma or flamers in a rhino turns into an actual threat to many units. I'm still not settled on what  I like better.
• Elites are termies and helbrutes for the most part. Possessed were effective when I put ten of them in a rhino and rushed it up the board. Berzerkers will likely be included in a different way.
• Fast Attack is limited to spawn for me right now but they have been very effective bullet sponges leading a charge and can do some real damage in close combat if they survive to reach it. Also, being able to take them in units of one can lead to some formation shenanigans if you're so inclined. They're great for blocking out deep strike zones too.
• Heavy Support is kind of the IW's thing so I am going in pretty heavy here.
• I have 3 predators and they have done great work and I think they are very effective in this edition. I have not tried out the triple-shot strategem yet but I will!
• I have also added 3 vindicators. I have not done much with them yet but I will and I'll be trying out their triple-shot stratagem too.
• I have added a land raider - finally the basic land raider is a strong player again!
• Havoc Squads - effective but best off in cover. I like autocannons and I like missile launchers. I use the predators for lascannons so I look for other options for my havocs. 
• Obliterators - they were terrible in the index but the codex seems to have made them much stronger. I need to try out this new version.
• Dedicated transports: My Rhinos have gotten quite the workout this edition and I love them. The workhorse APC from the early parts of the game is fast, tough, and just really useful this edition. Rush them forward and pop smoke and the squad inside is almost certainly safe untiil next turn. Use them as cover. Run them into the enemy to soak up overwatch. Put guns on them! The chaos Rhino can carry two combi-bolters and a havoc launcher for 85 points! That turns them into a Razorback effectively, while still retaining the ten-man capacity. They're just handy to have on the table.

Expansion: I don't really _need_ anything but I am looking at maulerfiends and maybe some raptors just to have some of everything in this army. 

World Eaters

This is a fairly new addition to the force. I started picking up more berzerkers and while trying to decide how to integrate them into the army I realized I could just make a separate World Eaters detachment to include whenever I felt like it. This is mainly driven by the WE's being able to take Berzerkers as troops. The core force right now is Kharn, a dark apostle, and an exalted Champion accompanying a trio of 8-man berzerker squads in rhinos. That's around 1000 points and makes for a nice add-on force.

Expansion : I'm already considering expanding it into a full army on it's own - land raider, helbrutes, daemon princes, more berzerkers. We will see.

Daemons

I mainly focused on Khorne daemons as they work well with a more shooty Iron Warriors marine army. Right now it's built on two detachments:

• An outrider detahcment of 3 flesh hound units led by Karanak 
• A battalion detachment of 3 bloodletter squads led by Skulltaker

Pretty basic right? I also have a unit of bloodcrushers I can add in, and the specific unit sizes above can be varied somewhat, but the sauce is in the other HQ choices. A herald on a juggernaut, a pair of khorne daemon princes and up to three bloodthirsters. Taking the thirsters as a separate supreme command detachment and I am pushing 3000 points.

Expansion: Well I am still building this one but I think a skull cannon or two would give it a little shooting and some more heralds would make it more playable at lower point levels. Plus it can always use more bloodletters.

I'll see if I can put up some battle reports and talk about what I am thinking with the rest of my armies next week. 

40K Friday: 8th Edition Upgrades - Iron Warriors

We've played a fair amount of 8th edition at this point and we really like it. The rules are cleaner, run faster, and there is a ton of flexibility in army composition without breaking the game. I expect some things to get cleaned up - the recent FAQ gives me a lot of hope for an "active" GW in this edition - and some significant changes in the imminent tidal wave of codices to keep thing interesting for quite a while.

I started off focused on the Iron Warriors and they have undergone quite a few changes over the last six months. I had a plan for them for the old Chaos Codex, I then revised it for the Traitor Legions book and now I am changing it up again for the Index book. With an actual full Chaos Codex coming I have slowed down a bit on coming up with a "permanent" force organization for them and I am just trying out different groups of units to see how they play under the new rules. The main outcome of this is that I now have about 6000 points of IW's under the new system - a dread here, a squad there ... it adds up quick. I've added a ridiculous number of Chaos Marine bits as well as sometimes when you have a very specific plan you need very specific bits to build those units. Some highlights of my meandering plans:

Work is in Progress

•  I was going to go with 6 Rhinos for them. I think that's probably overkill now as I want to spend those points on other things, particularly if 2000 points is the new standard. The original plan was chosen, possessed, and 4 marine squads in those rhinos. Now I'm thinking 2 chosen squads in one rhino - one melta-shooty and one with power swords and pistols, and 3 marine squads. I'm not sure the possessed really belong in this army.
• I also have considered a completely different approach to troops by taking 4x five-man squads each with a heavy bolter. Set these up in ruins with a few havoc squads and you have a pretty stout gunline for the backfield.
• Triple predators is a lot of points but is looking pretty solid in this edition. I'm glad I built them up
• I'm up to five helbrutes for these guys. With the loss of the deep strike option they are not quite as mobile as before but if I take all of them ... that's a lot of fairly tough targets on the field. 
• I'm seriously considering adding Havoc launchers to the Rhinos. It's not terribly expensive  - comparable to a Heavy Bolter Razorback - but it makes them more of a threat on the table and so might convince someone to shoot at them rather than a predator or a havoc squad or a helbrute. Also it's cool to have a decent gun and still have a ten-man transport capacity. 
• For HQ's I have pretty much settled on Daemon Prince + Terminator Lord + Terminator Sorcerer. The biker sorcerer is still an option but I may not use him as much as I thought I would. 
• Fast Attack and Heavy support are unchanged though I am a lot less impressed with Obliterators right now than in the last few editions. 

The more general feeling I am dealing with right now is that 2000 points still feels "tight" when ti comes to taking what I want to play. I am thinking 2500 might be a better fit for us, or some odd number like 2250. Ah well it's all about "interesting choices" right?

40K Monday - Iron Warriors 8th Edition Prep

With 8th edition about a month away and the radical changes it seems to be bringing I am scrambling to get some of the armies updated/expanded/finished. I'm making this post to mark where the army is right now and what I am thinking as I work on it - partly to force myself to think through it as I put it down and partly as a historical document so a year from now I can come back and either  rejoice in my amazing foresight or wonder what the hell I was thinking.

On to the Iron Warriors! I expect this to be my main chaos army for the beginning of 8th. I do have a Death Guard force I've been building for years but I've put them on the back burner in the run-up to the launch. I want the IW's to have a lot of flexibility so I'm not locked in to playing the same force over and over. It started out as CSM's in Rhinos with the dreadnought drop team as a fun extra element. Now it's turning into a pretty sizable force. First, the concept:

The theme for this army is that of an Iron Warriors Company where the original commander has ascended to daemonhood but still wants to run his company and fight his war. He has a command staff (see below) that have responsibilities to the unit but it is still "his" company and he still runs it like a military unit for the most part. His basic approach is to pound things with the big guns from range as the troops close in and then finish the job in close assault with bolt pistols, chainswords, and flamers. Surprise deep-striking elements will ensure the transports reach their destination. 

I still need to give the prince a name. The terminators will have a named leader and will be a sub-group called the "Iron Knights". The bikers may get an identity of their own as well. Yes, this is all fluff stuff but it helps me give the army an identity beyond "the force I put together for this battle" and it helps us come up with little stories as a fight develops and rivalries emerge.

On to the army:

• HQ
• Daemon Prince (done)
• Warpsmith (done)
• Bike Hero (in progress)
• Power armor double power fist Hero (done)
• Dark Vengeance Chaos Lord (in progress)

I figure that's enough for now. The bike hero was originally intended to be a sorcerer on  a bike integrated with a CSM biker squad. I'll probably still go that direction but make him generic enough that he could be used as a non-psyker too. The power armor guy I've used as a lord in several battles. he has two of those pointy chaos power fists so I treated him as a fist + claw guy. Claw = open hand sweep, Fist = closed fist punch. That's how it works in my head anyway. he's done but I should really give him a cape or something to make him stand out a little more. I have no idea if that whole specialist weapon rule will show up in 8th but regardless he looks cool so I'm keeping him.

• Troops
• 3x ten-man Chaos Space Marine squads in Rhinos (done)

I am considering a fourth squad as three troop units is potentially a limiting factor. Right now three is the minimum for a "battalion" sized formation in the new game and to get to a "brigade" you need six! I am not taking cultists in this army so unless something new shows up it's going to be CSM's all the way. I could break some of them into smaller units to make six but right now I like the resilience of a ten man squad for my core units. I have options to give these squads either double flamer or double plasma. If they get new options I'll look at those too but their main job is to kill other infantry.

• Elites
• Helbrute with Plasma Cannon and Power Claw (done)
• 3x Helbrutes with Multi-Melta's and Power Fists (done)
• 5-man Chosen squad with Melta Guns in a Rhino (in progress)
• Ten-man Possessed squad in a Rhino (in progress)
• 2x five-man Chaos Terminator squads in a Land Raider (in progress) 

The brutes are all ready to go - hopefully there will be a way to drop them on people's heads in this version too. 

The chosen are pretty close to finished as of today as is their ride. 

The possessed ... well ... while they are not highly regarded in a typical CSM army today I am hoping they become something useful in the new edition. They are cool models and a cool concept that have been gathering dust for most players for 2-3 editions at least. I like to think of them as the CSM version of the Death Company - too far gone to act normally so they get locked up somewhere until the next battle when they can be unleashed on an enemy to benefit the legion - and hopefully die in the process. 

The big change here is terminators + land raider. With the news on the change to twin-linked weapons I got a whole lot more interested in the traditional "godhammer" land raider so I ordered one for the IW's. Then the question is "what to put in it"? At first I was just going to go put the possessed here but I got to looking at my old metal chaos terminators and decided the IW's needed some terminators too. One squad can ride in the Raider and one can deep strike, or both could deep strike and the possessed could still ride in it. It's good to have options.

• Fast Attack
• Heldrake (done)
• Six-man Chaos Marine Bike squad (in progress)
• Five-beast Chaos Spawn squad (done)

  Nothing new here - this has been the plan for some time now.  The Spawn are an expendible fast assault unit, the bikes will target something important and remove it, and the heldrake flames whatever needs to die. I just need to finish the bikes.

• Heavy Support
• Havoc squad with 4 Autocannons (done)
• Havoc squad with 4 Missile Launchers (in progress)
• 3x Chaos Predators (just about done!)
• 8x Obliterators (5 done, 3 in progress)

Not too many changes here but I did bump the Predators up to a 3-tank platoon. That's one triple-lascannon predator (is that technically a quad-las now?) and two autocannon/lascannon tanks. I worked on these over the weekend and they should be finished tonight if I get a little time to wrap them up. I'm pretty happy with the way they came out and I'll show them off with the rest of the army in a week or two. 

Note on Transports: I'm painting six Rhinos for the Iron Warriors and I have plans for five. I'm not sure who will be riding in the sixth. If I do build that 4th CSM squad it will be them. I'm considering a 2nd Chosen squad so it could be them. I could split the possessed into two 5-man squads and give them both rides. Regardless, I have some flexibility here. 

Future Plans

• Add 3 more CSM squads and transports for them to use - bump things up to maximum size! I have all of the other requirements already. Might use some MkIII/MkIV Heresy models.
• Add 3 Vindicators - I am trying to make it my tank army so ...
• Add a second Land Raider  - hey, if they're good why not?
• Add a second Heldrake - all the formations show two flyer slots so why not have two?

That's where the Chaos Marine army stands for now. More to come.

40K Friday: Hard Choices

With the coming of a new edition I have been taking stock of the armies I have - what's playable, what's fun, and what's painted.

• Howling Griffons - small but completely painted and not planning to add more now.
• Crimson Fists - lots painted, more that could be added
• Blood Angels - some painted, lots of stuff in the works, and some things I still need to get
• Imperial Fists - done, painted, no expansions planned.
• Dark Angels - planned, bought, partially worked but nothing finished.
• Imperial Guard - Still coming together. I expect this to mainly be Blaster's next army.
• Eldar - lots finished, more in the works whenever I want to expand.
• Dark Eldar - small force built and base coated but could be bigger.
• Orks - quite a bit finished but it is an ork army so there's just a ton left to paint 
• Iron Warriors - lots finished but could be bigger ...
• Death Guard - some finished but need to complete the core units to really make them usable
• Khorne Daemonkin - have gathered enough to make a playable force but still small and still mostly not painted.
• Tyranids - Did I say tyranids? Why would I do that? There's nothing to see here.

That's a lot of armies. About half of them are at the point where I could field a fully painted army of a decent size. The rest are still somewhat early in that process. I feel like I should narrow the focus a bit.

Additionally 5 of them are marine armies and 2 more are chaos marine armies and that seems like it might be overkill. To me the core of the 40K universe is Marines, Orks, Eldar, and Chaos. That's where I want to spend my time.

So I am breaking up the Dark Angels.

Yes, the army I documented over the years - like 5 years ago when I picked up the new boxed set, or when I reviewed the new codex, or when I devised a paint scheme I was happy with, or here in 2014 when I spelled out my thinking behind the army I was building and when I was making progress. The one I've probably talked about the most besides the Eldar I spent last year finishing up. They're just not sparking the enthusiasm the way I had thought they would. I still like my paint scheme for them but I am not all that interested in painted 50-100 guys in it right now when I have nothing finished for them and a bunch of other armies much farther along.

I am not selling them though - I am re-purposing them.

I thought about this a lot over the last few months. I decided that it makes more sense to break them up and use the parts to make other armies even better rather than building Yet Another Power Armored Force. Instead:

• The Iron Warriors get 2 more Predators- this gives them 3 total, Hope they're decent in 8th.
• The Iron Warriors also get 2 more Rhinos - this takes them to 6 and should be all I will ever need for them. With 4 CSM squads, a chosen squad, and some possessed, well, now everyone has a ride.
• The Dreadnoughts go to the Crimson Fists. Hoping they're good in 8th as well.
• The Attack Bikes go to the Crimson Fists, which is where they were slated to go when i first bought them years ago.
• The speeder typhoons go to the Fists.
• The missile launcher devastator squad goes to the Fists as well.
• The assault squad goes to the Crimson Fists.
• The 2 sniper scout squads go to the Fists.
• The not-molded-in Dark Angels tactical squads go to the Fists too. This will bump me up to 5 or 6 of those as well.
• Finally the Land Raider Crusader goes to the Crimson Fists. They will put it to good use.
• The 3 Razorbacks go to the Blood Angels.  This will give me some options besides jump packs and drop pods - especially for fielding tactical squads. 
• The regular land speeders go to the Blood Angels as well.
• The HQ are being split up among all of my other marine armies, at least the guys who don't have the chapter symbols molded on.

This leaves me the Dark Vengeance tac squads, the DV leaders, the DV bikes, some terminator squads, and the Deathwing Knights. They will go in a box for now until I decide if I want to convert them, sell them, or start them up again. More likely is that I will give them to one of the boys to start their own army or trade them to someone for more orks/eldar/chaos/marines.

I really wanted to get back to the heart of the game and this change lets me do that:

• It beefs up my Crimson Fists with all of the ancillary units they should have. It'll be good to have a "normal" marine army on the table again. All I need to make them complete in my mind is some sternguard and a few drop pods.
• It lets me focus time-wise on finishing the Blood Angels who are pushing my buttons quite a bit more than the Dark Angels have been for a while now. With the Fists "mostly done" I can work on getting the BA's to the same state and not feel like there's still one more marine army waiting on my time. Plus if BA Razorbacks keep some kind of "fast" rule then these Razorbacks will be quite a bit of fun. 
• It pushes my Iron Warriors into the realm of serious tank army. Considering that I already have cargo for the rhinos and the speed with which I can paint them , it's a pretty nifty situation. Six rhinos, three predators, four helbrutes, and a heldrake make it the most mechanized marine army I have. I'd like to add a land raider to finish them out. And a Vindicator squadron ...

Preparations continue!

40k Friday - Iron Warriors Chaos Spawn

The last piece of this current round of Iron Warrior additions is my "Chaos Spawn".  The GW chaos spawn mini is basically a mass of tentacles or insect parts with legs. It's fine for general "chaos" but it seems out of place for this particular legion. The IW's are builders and make quite a few of the Daemon Engines that show up in chaos armies. While they have the chaos mindset, they do not have a ton of the physical chaos expressions. Why not take a theme of "spawn" as minor daemon engines? It sounded more interesting to me and that's how I ended up here. Those are Pathfinder miniatures Gorgons. They come already painted silver and washed in black (and have tiny red eyes!) so all I did was add the IW contrast colors of copper/brass - in a different pattern for each one - do the snow bases, then clearcoat the finished beastie.

In the game spawn are a cheap and expendable unit that is fast, tough, unpredictable, and fairly dangerous if they get into close combat. I think raging metal demon-bulls fit that perfectly. I like the rules and the look of these guys enough I may build another unit or two - a whole herd to unleash!

Technical Note: Current GW spawn base size is a 50mm round base for 40K. These bases are 50.1 mm. In my world that means "perfect match". In a tournament someone might complain, but I've rarely found a bigger base to be an issue - usually people whine about old mini's on smaller bases if things go that way. Regardless, I'll be darned if I'm going to grind down a circular base by .1mm!

Quick, easy, inexpensive, and looks good. Plus they can still be gorgons in a D&D game if needed!

The next unit on the table for the Iron Warriors is (finally!) the chaos biker squad! originally intended for my Death Guard army, I changed my mind as I was reviewing both forces and decided they were a better fit for the silver guys. They are gathered, partly built, and basecoated black at the moment so I may be able to show them off next week! That will finish out the Fast Attack element of the army so I am looking forward to that milestone.

40K Friday - Thursday Edition - Havocs!

Another entry in the 'Finishing up the Iron Warriors" list - a squad of havocs with autocannons. These are the old 3rd edition metal guys but I like the shoulder-mounted look just fine. For most battles they will be parked in a ruin somewhere dumping Str 7 death onto the enemy from 48" away. That's the plan at least. Autocannon havocs are one of the best heavy support options for a Chaos Marine army and one of the few options that the loyalists do not have so I am pretty happy to have them finished.

The paint here is another round of my quick and dirty IW scheme: black basecoat, drybrush silver, pick out details in bronze/brass/copper, then do the snow base and wrap it all up with a clear coat spray.  It's not going to win big tournament painting contests but it's consistent across the army, looks how it's supposed to look, and is pretty quick to execute. This squad came out a little grungier than some but I'm OK with it.

I added a piece of hazard stripe decal to the squad leader as that's another Iron Warriors thing. I think when it comes to that look that less is more so here only the squad leader is getting that kind of extra detail. They did all get the IW "skull" decal but considering that it's silver and on a silver background it's hard to spot unless your fairly close to them.

The squad leader is giving a "come at me bro/kung fu challenge" type wave. It gives him a tiny bit more character and fits considering that a) he's almost always going to be the first guy in the squad to buy the farm and b) if he doesn't this is still a long-ranged squad and the path to ascension involves beating people in melee challenges so if he's not dead by the end of then fight he's damn frustrated.

While putting this squad together I picked up the Traitor Legions book and discovered the IW havoc squads get some nice bonuses. I had one missile launcher in a regular CSM squad (which I was going to swap for a plasma gun anyway) and one more in a box. Why not pick up another pair and make a missile-havoc squad? So that's the next project.

40K Friday - Mayhem Pack Complete

I finally finished up the trio of helbrutes that forms the Mayhem pack for my Iron Warriors. Each is painted somewhat differently, but I think they look they still belong to the same force. They have some custom bases (to help them stand out), with snow (to help them blend in with the rest of the snow-themed army) and while I don;t think these pictures quite do them justice it'll have to do.

Nothing like deep-striking multiple crazed chaos dreadnoughts into the enemy backfield to stir up some trouble. I may get to field them in their final state as soon as this Sunday.

Header Change - Iron Warriors

I've been building up the Iron Warriors force for about two years now and they are almost finished. At about 3500 points with a full set of choices for Elites, Fast Attack, and Heavy Support, I feel like it's about as solid as I can make it given the state of the current codex. I figured that was worthy of some time at the top of the blog.

It's funny - my original plan was to make them an ally force option for my demon army (to give them some shooting) or my Nurgle marines (in case I got tired of my "no tanks" mandate for that force) but along the way they kind of jumped in front of both of those to become my "main" chaos force. Why? I'd say it's because 1) I didn't really put any restrictions on the force and 2) they're really easy to paint, at least to a decent tabletop standard. That makes a huge difference in getting them to the table.

You'd think Nurgle stuff would be easy to paint and it id to a degree but there are many many versions of a "Nurgle" paint scheme - some people will go old school bright green and purple, some will go more rust or brown and paler green, and other will go with the Death Guard scheme of white and green. It's difficult to keep a consistent look to the army if you add in some already painted pieces because there's so much variety out there.

Iron Warriors have none of that trouble. It's metal all the way - silver, bronze/gold, and some yellow and black hazard stripes here and there. It's a scheme that looks great on the table and one that is easy to match or blend.

Here's a breakdown of where things stand:

HQ

• Chaos Lord on foot in power armor with powerfist and lightning claw
• Warpsmith with the usual gear, also on foot
• Demon prince with wings and psyker levels - usually Tzeentch
• Sorcerer on a bike, usually unmarked

A normal CAD means only two of these guys make it to each fight but I like options. It's hard to fit a 300 point demon prince into a 500 or 750 point game so the warpsmith often shows up there. If I'm not taking my Iron Bikers squad the sorcerer stays home and the Chaos Lord jumps into a Rhino, usually with the plague marines. The plan for the future is that most of the time, at 1500+ the prince and the psyker biker will be leading the army.

Troops

• 3 ten man squads of chaos marines - one with double plasma, one with double flamers, and one with plasma gun and missile launcher. The first two are usually in rhinos.

This is not a terribly efficient setup but I don't play chaos marines to play cultists. The missile squad holds a backfield objective while the other two go get into trouble. 

Fast Attack

• Heldrake with a baleflamer
• Five chaos spawn
• Six chaos bikers

The Heldrake is still a terror against marine types. The spawn are one of my favorite units in the book and have a ton of uses and are fast - something the chaos marines need. 

The bikers are a unit I am still building and I am torn on what weapons to give them. Melta makes a lot of sense for mobile anti-tank but relentless means they could take plasma guns and still charge a unit. They will spend a lot of time Nurgle-marked to increase their lifespan as they are also the bodyguard for the sorcerer. An unmarked sorcerer can take biomancy among other things and he would want to be in melee if he does. It's a difficult choice.

Heavy Support

• Triple-lascannon Predator
• Havocs with 4 autocannons
• TBD

The predator is the old standby for chaos anti-tank. It has a tough time vs. AV14 but anything else is a fairly easy kill. I've toyed with the idea of a second one to fill that last spot but I'm not sure I want to go that heavy on these.

The havocs are another chaos standard. Nobody else can field good autocannons this easily so I feel like I have to take them. They're also just so damned useful, reliably putting five to six S7 hits on anything within 48 inches. They threaten bikes, most vehicles, monstrous creatures, and most infantry.  They're worth taking in every battle.

The third slot is really my most up-in-the-air position in the army. Could go with a 2nd predator - more strong anti-tank is a good thing. I could grab a three-man obliterator squad as they are tough and versatile but two of them cost as much as the predator! My main inclination so far has been "Maulerfiend" - it's fast, tough enough, and another form of anti-tank too. In the full army if it's running upfield alongside 3 rhinos. the spawn, and a biker squad then that's a lot of fast targets for an enemy to deal with. I'm leaning towards it but I haven't picked one up just yet.

Elites

• Five Plague Marines with double plasma, usually in a rhino
• Eight Berserkers
• Helbrute with a plasma cannon and a power fist

This section is due for some changes. 

The plague marines have done really well for me but I do want to limit the amount of marked troops in the army as that's never been the Iron Warriors main thing. If I take either of the two foot-mounted HQ's they usually ride in the Rhino with these guys. It makes for a pretty nasty little squad. 

The Helbrute, well, I just like the model, it seems fitting for an IW force, and it's one of the few ways to get a plasma cannon on the table in a chaos marine army and that's a weapon I just find useful. Sure, occasionally it overheats and hurts the dread or the blast deviates into your own guys but quite a bit of the time it removes heavily armored infantry from the table. 

The berserkers are there in case I want heavy melee but I rarely take them and no longer think they really fit the army. They will probably transfer to the Khorne Daemonkin force that's taking shape on another shelf in the room. 

Replacing the berserkers will likely be a unit of chosen. You can get 4 or 5 special weapons into a chosen squad and I am coming around on the idea of going full melta with these guys. I'll probably put them in a rhino so I'm either going to need one more or somebody else is going to lose their ride. They're vets (so 2 attacks base) and they keep their pistols and chainswords so they can stand up in melee as well. I think 5 or 6 of them plus their champion, plus a warpsmith would make a nasty nasty package up close. 

I'm also looking at some terminators. They're not the strongest unit  anymore but I have quite a few old metal chaos termies sitting around and they could do the drop-melta termicide thing (when I can;t afford the mayhem pack) or switch to backfield/anti-drop-pod work with a reaper cannon and a bunch of powerfists.

It's good to have options.

This force started out as an allied detachment, then quickly grew into a full combined arms detachment and is now straining the seams of that a little bit. I already had a ground-pounding force of mostly plague marines. I wanted something different.

My biggest concern was speed - much of the current version of the game requires decent mobility for seizing objectives and reacting to enemy movement. Rhinos are an OK start, but I wanted more. The bikers, the Heldrake, and the spawn are all aimed at that same goal: something that is both fast and a serious threat to enemy units. With the force I have now all of the HQs, all of my troops, most of my elites, and all of my fast attack are able to cover 12" or more in that very first movement phase, leaving only the havocs and the helbrute and maybe a tac squad in the backfield. It's still a little short on anti-vehicle firepower though, in my opinion. Marine armies have the sternguard in a drop pod, the multi-melta dreadnought in a drop pod, multimelta speeders, and multimelta attack bikes that can all threaten even the heaviest of tanks on Turn 1 and I wanted something like that. There's nothing that good in the CSM codex, but there is one dataslate: Enter the Mayhem Pack

Mayhem Pack

• Three Helbrutes each with a Mutlimelta, a Heavy Flamer, and a powerfist

The dataslate special rule is that they all get It Will Not Die (nice) and this:

Mayhem from the Maelstrom: 

All of the units in this Formation must begin the game in Reserve. When making Reserve Rolls, make a single roll for the entire Formation. On a successful Reserves Roll, all of the units in this formation arrive from Reserve by Deep Strike.

Yes! Deep striking chaos dreadnoughts! With those weapons they can threaten every unit in the game, and they can drop in anywhere on the table! It's just the type of unit a chaos force should have.

Now admittedly the last time I used them one immobilized himself in some woods, one was out of range of anything and then was blown up before he could do anything but the third actually got to hurt some people. It's roughly 350 points to build them out like this but they are a ton of fun and can really change up the game. 

So that's the force as of now. I'll finish up the bikes this week, figure out what I'm doing with my elites, and maybe get in a game next weekend. More to come!