The State of my 40k (yes this is includes a rant).

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(kicks the dust off of this ol' blog to see if its still alive...)

So, the State of my 40k, my on-again off-again series where I usually just whine/rant about 40k. Rather than just focus on any one army this time I think I'll just do an overview of all of them. Big things are afoot, both around the world and even here locally. 

The Nova Open reveals have induced nerdgasms the world over in the 40k realm, a new psychic...something is coming for all factions! SoBs finally have a release date, PLASTIC aspect warriors after decades of begging!

Emprah be praised! What will we buy first???? 

Locally, there's a 40k escalation league at the FLGS, with prize support and best of all: the only models that get objective secured have to be painted to at least a table top standard! Hell, even Bob, a long-time 8th ed. hold out has a Knight nowadays, as apparently that's what's required to remain 'competitive' in 8th's kick their teeth in with pay-to-win models and make 'em cry meta.

Seriously, every pick-up game I saw in the last few weeks in which I was still a regular at the FLGS' game nights looked like games where any of my armies would be dead on arrival.

Even Neverness' infernal 20+ shots a turn flyer all but wrecked my army on turn one, killing a squad and a half in one volley, requiring my entire army to shoot at it the next turn in hopes of taking it out (which we all know is a really shitty way to try and enjoy a game). Oh, and before you get defensive and bring up the turn 2 'Vyper incident', I'm certain that that was a miracle of dice which will likely never be repeated.

Besides, its not your fault anyways, but rather GW's insistence on making I win button rules to sell over-priced models (Custodes army anyone?) taking just about all strategy out of the game because my new stuff is awesome and your old stuff isn't. Speaking of...don't tell the trolls that infest teh interwebz that you're tired of primaris updates/releases (lieutenants excluded, everyone's sick of those) because without constantly getting newer and better and better releases on a seemingly never-ending basis, that army is (quote) unplayable.

Clearly that wasn't a very good Martini.

...and thru all of that, even with my new projects and 40k purchases I'm just kinda meh. Hell, I'm not really even interested in playing 40k right now, with most all efforts going towards Battletech and a bit of Rogue Stars. Anyways, onto the state of my 40k...

Da Long Wayz Dezert Groop

Da Groop, assembled for their most recent battle.

The baby squiggoth is still on hold, and still awaiting greenstuff. Guess I ought to just order it online given that I almost never make it to the FLGS these days. Also, Krump and Pittance are getting demoted back to a mere nob (appropriately enough, even as puns) as I have a new Da Masta Cheef warboss mini which needs to come out of it's bath of simple green water to remove the resin-mold release agents. Someday I might even assemble my dakka jet as well.

Orks will always be one of my favs, and its doubtful I'll ever sell the army (again) due to too many sentimental models, and following my 7th ed rage-quit/ebay sale and the subsequent horror/anger of My Beloved Wolfy when finding out I'd sold the lion's share of them. As such they're currently holding steady at approximately 1000-1250ish points. 

Spess Mahreenz

Its pretty obvious that GW doesn't give a fuck about any marine that isn't a Primaris marine, and personally I find that heartbreaking. 

To be honest, I'm thinking of liquidating my army again the 500ish points that are left of it (and what little I have left for 30k too). I'll just keep my Rainbow Warriors, Relictors, and Silver Drakes Kill Teams, and my ancient Predator will go into stasis in my dust-proof display box. Technically the Rainbows would still be field-able as a patrol consisting of a Lt., a minimum tac and scout squads and the pred., but I seriously doubt anyone would want to play a game so low in points. So just kill teams for them I guess.

The Eldar

Only three left to go...

The Corsair re-arm-ament is almost complete, though I did keep a squad of 10 Iyanden Guardians with lasguns as is. They are all painted decently, needing only minor touch ups, and match one another relatively well. In doing so they've spawned another project/idea that I'm looking into but I'll get to that below.

Having removed about 200ish points just in over-priced lasblasters alone, my Corsair/Exodite/Craftworld menagerie is holding steady as about the 1k mark. The Corsairs are in dire need of a cohesive paint scheme though!

Dark Mechanicus/Renegade IG.

No doubt you can see the need for my cultists to
eradicate this clearly deranged foe...

Nope, no further progress on the Venomcrawler from my last post. I did get a 3rd squad of cultists cheap though bringing that little band of misfits up to about 300 points. They just need some motivation by me which is sadly lacking these days. 

RETROHAMMER

Kinda sad to think that these convoluted rules were a simpler time...

Going back to those Iyanden guardians with lasguns. In looking at my whole Iyanden contingent, they're all 2nd ed models (like many Eldar armies due to 20 year old metal aspect warriors still being the standard), so I looked to our friends in France and sure enough, they had all of the 2nd ed rules, codexes, etc. available as PDFs and I downloaded all of it (well, only the codexes that are relevant to me), and assuming I can figure out the old rules again, maybe see if Neverness (or somebody) would be interested in playing some 2nd ed retrohammer at some point. 

2nd ed does have the issue of not including My Beloved Wolfy's Fem Fa'Tau as they weren't invented yet, but she currently has zero interest in playing 40k at this point, and thus her 2kish army of Tau remain in stasis. 

*****

Well I think this rant post has a high enough word count to make up for my recent lack of posts...lol. 

Venomcrawler WIP

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If i hadn't trimmed this in gold, it'd likely be already done! Any future VCs that I purchase will not have this time consuming trim color... 

I got this Venomcrawler 2nd hand off of ebay. as such it was mainly a pile of parts, many of which where already clipped from the sprue. No worries (or so I thought), as I just downloaded the instructions from a google search and set to assembling this beast. It went together nicely up until I got to the rear legs. 

This is where the 'pile of parts' became as issue, as the part #s weren't known to me and unlike any of the other legs, the back two are essentially the same, and their armor plates will fit on either side. I know this as I assembled them wrong twice, tore both back apart and reassembled them again and uh yeah. They're still wrong! The nerd-rage was in full force by this point...

As such they're in really different  positions so I just trimmed off the pegs that are used to properly positioning them in their respective sockets, as well as the bit of terrain the one leg was on, and will position them in an even manner once its all painted up. Well, that's the plan anyways, we shall see...

Yes, that's pink and red 'camo' for those of you weren't too sure from the 1st photo.

This will be used as a counts as, long OOP Forgeworld sentinel powerlifter in my Dark Mechanicus IG army. Going off of the 8th ed datasheet, this will operate essentially as a mini-dreadnought which is something the IG desperately need (as opposed to the pathetic close combat abilities of the sentinel with chainsaw). 

It has no guns however, and the old weapon mounts have been trimmed to serve as smoke launchers. I wasn't sure how to mount a suitable gun onto this until I saw the powerlifter datasheet, and then simply didn't care. 

I always come back to the Guard in some form or fashion...

o/

Come on, you know you want some...

With my battletech commission finally finished, I can now get back to my toys without distraction! My current projects that I'm already working on are my Eldar corsairs, and my baby squiggoth (though the latter has been temporarily sidelined until I get some greenstuff to fill in a few atrocious gaps). As such, for those of you who know me, it only makes sense for me to add more to my already considerable to-do list by starting yet another project: 

The Dark Mechanicus (v.2). 

Well sort of...I did say the 'Guard' in this blog's title right? Right. Yes the good ol' IG have been calling to me yet again. They're just about as bad as space marines when it comes to restarting new armies. The IG was my first army, going way back to the generic, 'black codex' imperial army minis, supported by my old Predator as the Leman Russ tank wasn't out yet!

Previously I've fielded (and each one of these will be whole armies): The generic Imperial Army, Mordians, Valhallans, not quite IG but...the Adeptus Arbites (yes an army of them, god that was a lot of blue paint...), Armageddon Steel Legions (fully mechanized), an armored company, Cadians, Beastmen (the only IG army I wish I'd kept), and finally Renegade Guard (the 728th Sabbat Irregulars that Neverness is so fond of). 

Lately, the loyalists have been calling to me, all 4-5 of them that i have left. However the cost to build an army of...well, anything in this day and age that isn't the cheap as chips (relatively speaking) Spess Mahreens is just mind-boggling! Seriously, how do people do it?

Yeah, this is the only realistic option I could think of too...

Not wanting to embark on a life of crime, I instead perused my collections to see what I had in the 'unused' category and I found: 20+ Chaos cultists, and a slightly converted Magos who was originally intended to lead said cultists in 30k anyways. So forget the skittari legions, this bunch will be a bottom rung, cannon-fodder army of  Dark Mechanicus menials, using IG rules! 

My favorite two IG special characters happen to be Colonel Iron Hand Straken, and Vet. Sgt. Harker, so...my cultists will use the Catachan regimental doctrine. The Magos-turned-Straken, whilst visually might be a stretch, stats wise won't be. Here look:

Magos Dominus:  M:6"  WS:3+  BS:2+ S:4  T:4  W:5  A:3  LD:8  SV:2+

           Straken:  M:6"  WS:2+  BS:3+ S:6  T:4  W:5  A:4  LD:9  SV:3+

All I really need do is swap out it's funky pistol for a plasma pistol and it'll be ready for paint. Then there's Harker:

Yeah that was easy. Moving on...

Lastly, I have my 20 cultists, of which 8 are complete. So, its a start, albeit a small one as these in total add up to little more than 200 points!?! Vehicles will boost that number up quickly (I hope). For a starting point, I'm aiming for about 500pts. for now. My next post will likely be for this little bunch's 1st vehicle, the currently WIP Little Daemon Engine that Could Sentinel.