Actual Progress...To Make A Watch

Sorry it's been a few days.

Last time I posted there was a whole conversation about Points and Power in 40k, their strengths and what armies or units would benefit the most from them. And I mentioned that I had not one but three tournament type events coming up, utilising both these systems. And of course, me being me I have about 2-3 weeks to get painting armies for each of them. (I don't want to fall back on Plan B Chaos though I could.)

So, to recap....

Sunday 17th September - GW Hull - 1,000 points.

Saturday 23rd September - Hulls Angels - 2,000 points

Saturday 30th September - Archeron - 75 Power.


Time to show the lists, eh?

GW Hull - 1,000 points

Restrictions - Must be Battleforged

Vanguard Detachment - 4 CP Total

HQ - Watch Captain - Storm Bolter, Power Fist

- 88 points

HQ - Chaplain  - Crozius Arcanum, Bolt Pistol

- 72 points

ELITES - 5 Terminators - 2 Storm Bolters, 2 Power Fists, Melta-fist, Power Sword, 2 Heavy Flamers, Assault Cannon, Chainfist

- 298 points

ELITES -  5 Vanguard Veterans - 2 Pairs of Lightning Claws, Power Sword, Power Axe, Chainsword,  Hand Flamer

- 146 points

ELITES - Venerable Dreadnought - Dreadnought Combat Weapon, Assault Cannon, Storm Bolter

- 153 points

FLYER - Corvus Blackstar - Infernum Halo, Twin Assault Cannon, 2 Blackstar Rocket Launchers, Hurricane Bolter, Blackstar Cluster Launcher 

- 234 points

Total - 991 points

So the first event - making full use of the alternative Detachments to run an Elite heavy army that can pour out a monstrous amount of firepower, is resilient and mobile. The major Pros is the fact that the army is really small - meaning that I can paint up the 11 models I need in a short timescale (11 of them are still in the undercoat waiting stage or still need to be built). 

I really think 8th edition is the edition of the Terminator - they've become significantly more resilient, more mobile and a lot more impactful in assault. Deathwatch Terminators go a step beyond in being able to stack multiple heavy weapons in a squad and being completely unaffected by morale to boot. 

The Vanguard benefit from new Deep Strike rules that let them get closer, the characters are nice aura bubbles, dreadnoughts are great and the Corvus is one of the silliest flyers in the game in terms of sheer damage output.

There's options - I can Deep Strike the Terminators or the Vanguard...or I can transport them up. Large targets have to go down with concentration of firepower....something that Terminators, the Dreadnought and Corvus can do in droves and if I need to assault something...well, between the Captain, Chaplain and Vanguard it'll get messy fast.

So the first list - not bad. Using the new Detachments and to be honest it's a small and resilient army which will be quick to paint up.

Hulls Angels - 2,000 points

Restrictions - Battleforged, ITC guidelines (so 3 detachments cap.)

Battalion Detachment -3 CP

HQ - Watch Captain  - Storm Shield, Power Maul

- 93 points

HQ - Librarian - Force Sword, Bolt Pistol

- 105 points

TROOPS - Kill Team - 6 Veterans, Sergeant - 4 Infernus Heavy Bolters, Plasma Pistol, Combi-Plasma, Xenophase Sword, Power Sword 

- 266 points

TROOPS - Kill Team - 6 Veterans, Sergeant - 3 Combi-Meltas, Xenophase Sword, 3 Power Swords, Power Fist 

- 221 points

TROOPS - Kill Team - 4 Veterans, 2 Terminators, Sergeant - 4 Stalker Boltguns, Combi-Plasma, Xenophase Sword, 2 Power Fists, 2 Storm Bolters, 2 Cyclone Missile Launchers 

- 321 points

Vanguard Detachment - 1 CP

HQ - Watch Captain - Storm Bolter, Power Fist

- 88 points

HQ - Chaplain - Crozius Arcanum, Bolt Pistol

- 72 points

ELITES - 5 Terminators - 2 Storm Bolters, 2 Power Fists, Melta-fist, Power Sword, 2 Heavy Flamers, Assault Cannon, Chainfist

- 298 points

ELITES -  5 Vanguard Veterans - 2 Pairs of Lightning Claws, Power Sword, Power Axe, Chainsword, Hand Flamer

- 146 points

ELITES - Venerable Dreadnought - Dreadnought Combat Weapon, Assault Cannon, Storm Bolter 

- 153 points

FLYER - Corvus Blackstar - Infernum Halo, Twin Assault Cannon, 2 Blackstar Rocket Launchers, Hurricane Bolter, Blackstar Cluster Launcher

- 234 points

Total - 1997 points

Does the second half look familiar to you?

Probably the best bit about them all being back to back and the way they are - things can carry over. This list is my bigger concern. A fair chunk of things to paint, though thankfully several of them are being painted as part of the other two lists. This means I should be able to make reasonable progress quickly.

How it will perform...questionable. I have chunks of firepower but I'm concerned I'm not showing up in the Superheavy club. However, it will be a test of the theory that 8th edition is the edition where everything can be killed...and with the amount of firepower put out I may have a chance. Plus increased amounts of Special Ammo on the Kill Teams which means that they can do very well picking off monsters.

And finally...

Archeron - 75 Power

Captain - Power Maul,Storm Shield - PL 5

Captain - Storm Bolter, Power Fist - PL5

Venerable Dreadnought - Twin Lascannon, Heavy Flamer - PL 8

Kill Team - 7 Strong - Sergeant with Xenosword and Combi-Flamer, 4 Frag Cannons, Vanguard Veteran with Hand Flamer and Chainsword, Terminator with Heavy Flamer and Meltafist - PL 14

Kill Team - 5 Strong - Sergeant with Xenosword and Combi-Plasma, 4 Infernus Heavy Bolters - PL 9

Kill Team - 6 Strong - Sgt with Xenosword and Combi-Plasma, 4 Stalker Boltguns, Terminator with Cyclone Missile Launcher, Power Fist, Storm Bolter

Launcher, Power fist, Storm Bolter - PL 12

Bike Squad - 6 Strong - Sergeant with Power Sword, 1 Power Axe, 2 Power Mauls, 2 Power Swords, 6 Twin Bolters, Teleport Homer - PL 10

Corvus Blackstar - Twin Lascannon, Blackstar Rocket Launcher, Hurricane Bolters, Halo Launcher, Blackstar Cluster Launcher - PL 12

This is the army undercoated already. And a prime example of Power abuse. Look at all the upgrades. look at them all. Deathwatch can go crazy and I did. So many heavy weapons, so many shiny things on units. I just plan on having fun and being all murdery.

So with these in mind....actual hobby progress?

Started on the first squad - got the recipe right for the silver arms, now just mass basecoating before going onto finer details.

I will say that it feels satisfying to literally do a basecoat of metal and an arm and see progress, unlike some other armies where the same amount of work seems to be minimal progress.

The variety of colour will come in their parent Chapters - from left to right -Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Dark Angels, Imperial Fists and White Minotaurs. The Vanguard and Terminator will follow after this lost (Blood Angels and Salamanders respectively). I'm making use of Kill Team Cassius (from DW:OK) as I feel their unique sculpts add some character to squads. 

The paint scheme is simple enough. But I'll go into more detail once we have some completed.

As you can see I got the silver arms down. Chainmail (or Ironbreaker) base, blue wash, layer Chainmail then highlight with silver. The brown is just the basecoat for the gold (basically the skulls and Inquisition symbols on the armour).

So far I've got about half the 75 Power List at the stage of arms and base metals. Now to focus on details and then the black armour's highlights!

The Point of Power and the Power of Points

Hello again.

One more some rambles with the first inkling of actual hobby. Hopefully come this weekend I'll have a bit of time to sit down and put licks of paint onto things proper. And that should be all good, right?

8th Edition 40k introduced the same familiar formula for army building - detachments and points, though this time the detachments are much more varied and flexible - allowing you to field your all Elite, all Heavy Support and all Fast Attack army if you so wish. But at the same time formations and Decurion style detachments disappeared - though if you look you will notice the alternative detachments actually match up with the formation layouts for the most part.

But it also introduced something new - Power. A quick, easy way to build a list and to play 40k. No working out individual weapons and models costs, just build units like modular blocks (Power X, Power Y, Power Z) for a total amount. Currently it's roughly 20 points per 1 Power....but it varies.

Now how does this affect you?

If you're a veteran 40k player who's taken part in semi-competitive tournaments and events you will naturally have built your army with some restrictions - not taking every single upgrade to save some points and maximise efficiency. This is fine...there's nothing wrong with it. However, in this case your army really won't benefit from using the Power system for games or army selection - if anything you will be at a disadvantage compared to little Timmy who built his squad with every upgrade possible.

Points serve the same purpose as before. They're designed for a mathematical level of efficiency. You have to make choices as to what you want your units to have and as such you don't take every upgrade possible. Sometimes you take one weapon over the other because as well as performing better it performs better on a point per point basis. Your squad leaders are probably very barebones, with a combat upgrade at most. Your squads likely don't take every upgrade possible and may not have all the weapon options - you might be able to take 4 heavy or special weapons but perhaps you only have two to keep costs down. This is a normal army for most. And this is normal gameplay for most.

What 8th did do with points was to have them apply to everything - at first it seems confusing - you're having to record everything. Pistols, grenades, guns. Everything has a points cost, everything is noted down. There is no more free standard equipment....or is there?

Before you go off to scream in rage - realise that the weapon costs are almost universally the same in your army list. A boltgun has the same points cost for everyone. A twin bolter does as well - whether it's for a Terminator, character or basic squad upgrade. This is different from previous editions (well, 5th onward) where as well as units having different costs their upgrades also had different costs too. A heavy weapon cost more for one squad than it did for another. It cost more on a vehicle than a normal model. If anything, personally I'd say this era was the more complicated era - you didn't have any sort of consistency.

But with the weapons being universally the same for the most part (some exceptions exist like Storm Shields having different costs for characters in the SM codex than for sergeants or Terminators) it will become easier over time. Several of the basic 'free' items are still free. 0 points. And this means 0 points for everyone. With the rules also changing for assault and pistols no longer really being mandatory for an extra attack perhaps we'll see more characters with more varied wargear.

The strongest units in terms of the Point system tend to be those that are very vanilla in their nature - without a lot of upgrades to tempt you or to force you to make difficult choices. Core troops like SM Tacticals, Ork Boyz or CSM squads are good examples of this. Bland, simple, straightforward.

Now...Power is a different animal. With the Power system, for the most part you don't have to pay anything for unit upgrades. Power 'level' only changes with the addition of more models into a squad. This means that your basic 10 SM Tacticals with only bolters have the same Power as 10 SM tacticals touting a lascannon, meltagun and sergeant kitted to the nines with every possible upgrade you could want.

This system works fine for pick up games in new gaming clubs or stores. You can show up, quickly plan out a Power X list based on what you have and have a game. No need to work out individual model costs or individual weapon costs. Just look at your collection or in your case, see that you have X Tacticals and go 'Power Y.' Simples!

However, it's foggy on a competitive level. It strong penalises those who had refined their armies over time into smooth competitive lists where squads may have had odd sizes or where wargear was carefully picked and not shoved in freely.

Naturally Power benefits units that have a LOT of upgrade options. If your unit can pick multiple special or heavy weapons or every squad member has multiple options then that unit will do exceptionally well in a Power system.

Good examples of this are Vanguard Veterans, Chaos Chosen and Deathwatch Kill Teams.

As a side note, Power also favours larger squads as well, rather than odd squads. If your Power goes up by X if you add more members to a squad then it will go up if you add all the additional ones to that point or just some of them. If you go from Power 5 to Power 10 when going from 5 to 10 men in a squad then you will be Power 10 if 6 strong, 8 strong or 10 strong.

Naturally it favours the 'store kids'. You know the ones. The ones who the staff let build like nuts. Who had the laughable ridiculously expensive plasma pistol, power fist, meltabomb, combat shield squad sergeants that cost half the squad's points on its own. The ones who gave their Vanguard squads all Thunder Hammers and Power Fists because they could.

And with that segway....

As you can see, Hobby is underway. The first batch is undercoated black - not pictured is the first Corvus Blackstar. However, it comes at a cost. I have run out of black undercoat. Sadly this means no more undercoating til the end of the month when I get paid (unless someone really wants to give me some). Which is a bit of a bugger.

Because, you see...I have not one...not two...but three tournament type events coming up. Relevant to this post in fact.

1,000 point Heat at GW Hull on the 17th of September.
2,000 point Tournament at Hulls Angels for their annual Charity event on the 23rd.

And finally a 75 Power Tournament at Archeron on the 30th of September!

And I have decided my Deathwatch shall be present for each. I even worked out lists.

But those are for another post.

Next time, some hobby progress (I hope) and list posting.

8th Edition And You

Right. So now that 8th edition has been out a few months it's only appropriate that I stop and have a bit of a look at how it has gone, how I feel about it and how GW's current approach to Codexes has gone.

First, let me say that personally, I like 8th edition 40k. I felt that 40k needed an overhaul of some sort. 7th was this tired old bloated monstrosity that consisted of tacked on rules on top of tacked on rules, some of which had been floating around as interactions in 3rd edition. Even army selection had started to diverge to an almost unacceptable degree - with Decurion detachments and random formation bonuses all but destroying the traditional Force Organisation chart and its variants. At the end of the day what the Force Org chart (or its faction specific variants) offered paled in comparison to the stacking bonus effect of the Decurion detachments - even more so when you consider that some of these offered the same exact bonuses the Force Org chart itself did.

With 7th it truly felt like the last vestiges of balance had been lost, swallowed by the bloat of the edition and the myriad rules interactions that led to tournament organisers having to produce multiple page documents in order to get things back to a remotely sane level.

So 8th edition was GW's fresh start.

They nuked almost all the rules back down to a simplistic core. Gone were the myriad USRs, gone were formations and bonuses, gone were individual unit and weapon bonuses that had quickly spiralled out of control.

Instead we got a very simple system that functions the same for everyone. You have your movement, your shooting, your assault and your morale. Advanced rules include army construction - which is interesting to say the least. A myriad of alternate detachment types which in their essence are exactly the same layout as the Decurion part formatons of 7th - just without the random bonuses.

And of course, a whole new edition, a whole new ruleset and we got a collection of Indexes - basic generic vanilla lists for everyone...but in a format that resulted in GW being able to add a bit more character and detail, unlike the vanilla lists of the 3rd edition rulebook.

A lot of people were and still are upset about these. They feel upset that they have to pay to get books when GW have announced plans to push out 10 Codexes this year alone. And when the SM Codex was announced for July, less than a month after 8th edition they harped on like this justified their concerns and anger.

Yet GW are crafty indeed - and have stated that the Indexes will still apply. Not every model is getting rules. Units they no longer produce or never officially produced models for will be phased out - and in these cases they have confirmed you can use the Index profile, the newer points and all and still get your army specific benefits.

We saw this with the SM Codex removing the Rifleman dreadnought and indeed removing Twin Autocannons altogether.

Note: Image not mine - just a random google search.

While this is..awkward I can see why they've done it. And to be fair, when an option you don't produce miniatures or parts for suddenly becomes Hot Shit and everyone spams the maximum number of them, that's a sign of a problem. And no, you can't tell me Autocannons weren't a problem because CSM had them - around the same time CSM's autocannons became the far shittier Reaper, their dreads became shittier Helbrutes and they never had the option of a Rifleman layout.

But as a whole, the Codexes appear to have been more good than bad. Several units got adjusted - point and power level drops across the board, more wargear options, traits for army flavour and extra stratagems and warlord abilities that add a whole lot of character.

While not immediately obvious in the SM Codex, which to be frank was mostly about padding the new Primaris range and giving them toys it's blatantly obvious in the CSM codex. So many units had points and power level cuts. So many units gained options. The entire army just got buffed across the board. The only 'casualty' other than non-existent units was the loss of Cult Troops for World Eater and Emperor's Children armies.Unfortunate, but with the openness of the alternate detachment types not a huge blow.

General impressions of the Codexes? They're solid. The background in them is great, the design is beautiful and they're very well done as a whole. If this is the standard then GW are doing it right - they don't overcomplicate the game at all - they add options. And better still the buffs also apply to current index lists that share units - Deathwatch, Space Wolves, BA and DA all benefit from the reduced points costs and buffed units in the SM book. Death Guard and Thousand Sons benefit the same in the CSM book - it's perhaps a little annoying that you may be considering buying two books for your army instead of the one - but don't feel pressured to. You function just fine with the Index lists. You don't need to buy the new SM dex or CSM dex. GW are ensuring that all new units have their rules in the book and the point/summary details available online. And over time will probably repackage units to do the same.

Next time I'll look at Points Vs Power and how that affects army selection for people.

And a bit of hobby as well as I start painting up my Deathwatch.

Ch-ch-changes...

Right.

Let's go!

Round...Four I think?

Anyhow, after much encouragement from friends and a nagging feeling that, having just started working again, started turning my life around and finding motivation and purpose and the like I should be doing something with it...I have decided to try this whole blogging thing again. I mean, there's reasons to do this right? I can show what I'm doing, share my thoughts and opinions, get exposure (without subsequent arrest) and generally just have a spot where people don't feel awkward around me or put off.

So where to start? Some will have already noticed a theme. An indication as to where I am going and what I am going to be doing.

Well, you're not wrong. After years of being a solid, dedicated Death Guard player part of me just felt like I needed a change. And, well, I've always had a soft spot for Deathwatch. Turns out with a bit of spare cash and a spending spree which I now regret I've accumulated a respectable Deathwatch army to be painting and modelling.

I've even sorted out who's going into what Chapter. I've even started building things.

Such as this Power Maul and Storm Shield toting Captain, who also happens to be an Imperial Fist. Largely because I feel that the Fists whole Siege aesthetic and approach lends itself to power mauls and shields as well as big guns and the like. In fact, this isn't even a normal captain - it's a conversion of my second Captain Artemis from the Start Collecting boxes.

So after this ramble...what are my goals? Well, to update this semi-frequently...if I fail at that I grant full permission to folk to violently poke me until I do Please don't Debs. I plan on having different approaches here. General hobby rambles, reviews of books and rules and the like and branching off to other things like WoW (Khadgar is a dick) and whatever I happen to be watching at the time.

Who knows? Maybe I can make the reviewing thing work again. Or not. Or maybe this is just going to turn out therapeutic and maybe show folk I'm not such an awkward berk.