40K Friday: Knights & Angels & Wolves Again

 

I have managed to make steady progress on finishing up the Grey Knights unit by unit these last few weeks. This week it was the last of the 3 regular Dreadknights going into the display case and it did feel good. 

I also did some serious figuring on what unbuilt parts I had left and how I wanted to allocate them. Some serious reassessment of the options led me to believe I can fix my broken Interceptor vanes on my mostly painted squads so that's 10 bodies no longer needed for that. If I can that gets me to 3 squads of 5-men each. I have one mostly painted strike squad that I believe I can salvage as well which puts me to 6 squads of 5 which is as much as anyone probably really needs. This should leave me enough strike squad type bodies to build out Purifiers and indulge myself in some extra Purgation squads.

I was in pretty good shape with Terminator bodies having finished two 4-man squads and a 5-man with all the extras. But they are also core troops for a GK army and I only had 15 more to build AND I want 10 Paladins AND there might be a character or two I want to build so when I found a nicely painted squad of 5 Paladins online I went ahead and got them and a matching GK Termie Librarian too. This should let me build the remaining squads I want and fill in the others to their full complement as well. I would say the end of "acquisitions" for the Knights is in sight! Finally!

This is not mine but it's a damn good looking model

For the Dark Angels I did get the winged helmets I mentioned in the last post though I have not attached them yet. I will start with the characters and the Bladeguard squad and then maybe the Vanguard Vets. This army is already in decent shape build-wise. I just need to get moving on the paint. This is not a new story for me.

Then there is the deliberate retro army with the Space Wolves. It sarted out mainly as a way to use up the rest of my non-primaris marine bodies and gear ... well it didn't stay that way. There was a lot of "acquisition" activity this week as scope creep exploded and it became an effort to see if I could get a squad or unit of most of the things in the 5th/6th/7th edition codexes. This is not a completed effort by any means but it's a bigger force now than it was a week ago. Another decision: They're all going on 32mm bases for the regular infantry. It's retro but it's not that retro.

The core (planned anyway) is:

• 3x 10-man Grey Hunter Squads (prob 2 with plasma, 1 with melta guns)
• 1x 10-man Blood Claw Squad (sized for Rhinos or Drop Pods more than a Land Raider)
• 3x 5-man Long Fang Squads (prob 2 distant shooters, one stupid one with 4 multi-meltas to jump out of a Rhino or Drop Pod or something because that's possible)
• 3x 5-man Terminator squads (could turn into 2 squads with all the weapon options and a Lone Wolf or three)

Then some dreadnoughts, some Rhinos, some tanks, characters - the usual things one would expect to find in a classic Wolf force. The problem is the add-ons. I want some jump pack guys so ... Skyclaws? Jumping Wolf Guard? Both? Swiftclaw bikers? Thunderwolves? Lot of Fast Attack choices on the menu right now. Some I could already build - some I could not. Some will be joining the force regardless. Lotta wolf claws in the mix here now. Now to make this into a coherent army ...

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 ...