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

o/

(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. 

Your end is nigh Mon'Keigh...

o/

This book is so much better spiral bound! Go ahead and do it,
before your binding falls apart in the next 2 weeks...

Welp, I finally got to try out the new edition of kill team and I rather enjoyed it. The modifiers to hit are a bit worrisome for my Orks, but I'll get to see that for myself at some point in the future as I cycle thru my forces. 

Yup, it was mid-game before I thought to actually take any photos...

For my first outing I opted to bring my Exodites, which haven't seen the table top in a hellova long time! As it turns out, Bob had had the same idea and also brought his Eldar, but switched forces when he saw me pulling out my minis. He also had IG with him, except Screech was already fielding those.

I thought this would be a fun fight, but a local house rule allow's you shoot into HTH so as long as you're forces are not involved in said combat. As such, Bob's soul reaper cannon from hell killed all three of these guys before a single punch was thrown!

So is a desperate attempt to maintain variety, he opted for his last resort which were the Thousand Sons, saying (quote): 'If someone breaks out some Rubric Marines then fuck it, I'm packing up and going home...'

Just look at those highligh-oh wait, that's just my camera's
flash reflecting off of the primer. Nevermind!

Luckily that was not the case, and we played using the multiplayer scenario. Just testing the waters myself, I didn't take enough photos or notes to bother with a battle report. Most of you know how the game plays anyways, more so than I do even!

Suffice to say it was fun. Bob and I were in a race to see who had the most cheese, whilst Screech fought a war on three fronts vs. Bob, myself and sadly his Scions' own mediocre rules/stats.  

Look at that enthusiasm as I take away one of Screech's objectives!

In terms of the cheesefest, I think the Rubric marines won out handily! However my Exodites managed to squeak out an extra VP to take the win with 12VPs for me, 11 for Bob and (gulp) 2 for Screech.

My old Exodite spell markers repurposed: stones and imps for flesh wounds,
and if a model is shaken, they's 'get butterflies'... 

So after a few games into 8th ed 40k, thoughts?

Yes, I have a few.

Well first of all, I've noticed that game night attendance has been up and more games have been played which is really good for our group (which was on life support just a few weeks ago). Is 8th the best edition ever? Opinions vary, but in mine: no, not at all. So do I like everything about it? Obviously not. Can I still have fun playing it? Yup! Quite a bit actually (just waiting on Bob to eventually come around and reach that same conclusion as I have).

Let's face it, there has never been an edition of 40k where I thought every rule made sense or was okay with me, tis' the nature of the beast. But its still a pretty good game I guess. There are two things in particular though that are starting to really annoy me. 

First up: Mortal Wounds.

In a nutshell, Mortal Wounds are a stupid fucking mechanic created for AoS, and they should of stayed there. Seriously, what the actual fuck is the point of an invulnerable save, if the model with one is...ya know, vulnerable to mortal wounds?

Shadow Sun's escorting squad of six stealth suits was wiped out before ever getting to do anything on turn 1. That said, they died only due to the apparent requirement of ENTIRE Dark Angel army shooting at them exclusively.  

Example: Commander Shadow Sun, badly bloodied and falling back but still protected by -1 to hit, 3+ save and a 5++ invulnerable save, plus command points to help keep her in the fight. Sounds like a tough cookie right? Wrong! Psychic power, mortal wound, dead...get her off the table. The point to all of her fancy rules are what? Naught apparently due to an all to easy to cast psychic power. 

Very quickly our local beer and pretzels crowd group is devolving into how many mortal wounds can be SPAMMED per turn. For how many editions now have 'remove model from play/completely unsavable attacks' existed? 2-3 editions? Whilst few, they've all been the most maligned of rules, so clearly we needed to not only keep that BS around with Mortal Wounds, but make 'em omnipresent. 

A hellacious Custodes v. Nids slugfest on a table nearby...

The only two weapons in our particular Tau arsenal that can inflict mortal wounds are the Hammerheads' railguns, and even then only on a to-wound roll of a 6. That said, we found out that with good rolling a Hammerhead's railgun can still insta-pop a space marine dreadnought with one shot! Just like days of old...also like the olden days: Saturday a Dark Angels' captain has joined Tyberos the Red Wake in changing his last name to the Red Mist due to those same railguns!

My second gripe: Command Points.

My oh-so-beautifully painted adversaries.

Okay, you can spend a CP to make a reroll here and there, attack out of turn (by the way, can your opponent also use a command point negate that? It came up and we couldn't figure it out), or use a funky little strategem here and again. Cool. However GW gave the DA a warlord trait in which, on a 5+ roll a used CP is given back. So with good rolling (it happens to some people Neverness) its like having an infinite supply of CPs. So just about any failed armor save on someone/thing of better than average value is rerollable,  and almost every failed psychic test or perils is negated...yeah that shit gets real tiresome really fucking quick!

Also the 'wait, maybe I have a stratagem I can use to help/negate that' (followed by shuffling thru  2 dozen cards and the reading of too much fine print) slows the game down considerably. I can think of 2 rolls I should have used CPs to reroll in hindsight, but I think the never ending supply of them from across the board (till the railgun/red mist incident cut off that almost infinite supply) was annoying me so much that I just ignored mine altogether. I get what GW was going for, and they do have their uses, but they're easily open to abuse I think, especially in this particular situation thanks to that DA warlord trait. Dark Angel opponents should expect to encounter this frequently.

This is what a 22 model, $350 (WTF?) army looks like....from what I overheard however, I'm in no rush to fight 'em.

So...yeah, its still not the best game, and I'm having fun for the most part, buuuut those two complaints (the 2nd only came to the fore this past weekend) are starting to gnaw away the fun. 

The Primaris marines have landed!

Yay?

Leading from the front
is only for the obsolete
space marines!

As I've stated previously, I like the basic Primaris marine minis and I'm making another (perhaps futile?) attempt to try and like 8th ed. Thus I picked up a Lieutenant along with a cheap squad of seven Intercessors to integrate into what is/was my Rainbow Warriors Kill Team.

Lieutenant Budderbarz will temporarily serve as the army commander and is armed with a master-crafted Stalker pattern bolt rifle. Being armed with a 'heavy' weapon, he'll be a more sensible Space Marine commander who hangs back and directs traffic whilst supporting his troops with covering fire rather than just charging headlong into every fray.

Options? We don't need no stinkin' options!

The squad is just a bunch of no-frills grunts (not that their codex entry really allows for any). These additions along with my Predator, and a sqaud of tac marines borrowed from my unpainted 30k stocks will flesh out my Rainbow Warriors to the 1k mark, which is a decent enough starter force. However, aside from a captain that's already on order, I have no plans for this army's expansion beyond these minis (and its probable 30k will steal it's minis back assuming I ever get everything painted!). 

The Primaris Space Marine problem...

Propaganda.

Whilst rumors spread of lone individuals, squads, and in one case even a whole company of Primaris marines kneeling before the Dark Gods and swearing new allegiances across the bloody battlefields of the Imperium. War is already raging amongst the ranks of the Ordos Hereticus and Malleus. Doubters and believers alike exchange gunfire and lies daily as they desperately seek the their own versions of the truth... 

Reality?

Are Roboute Guilliman and Belisarius Cawl, both the Master and Commander of the Primaris marines, the saviors of the Imperium in these desperate times? Or, with the proliferation of their so-called monsters across the stars, are they in truth the architects of its total destruction? 

lol, I'll bet you didn't think I was going to take that initial query into this direction did you?

My 1st foray into 8th ed 40k

o/

Rather than post my usual attempt at a play-by-play battle report, I'll instead just give my general impressions thus far. No doubt these will evolve as more games are played but my initial reaction is: its pretty good! I don't like everything that was changed, but the pros outweigh the cons at least early on.

WAAAAUGH!! Sadly, I'd forgotten my Tankbustas (aside from the one with ROKKIT PISTOLS!!!) and had to proxy the mob with every spare boy I could find in my case! Its a shame, as they were my undisputed MVPs. Still, this made for a cool pic.

I played a 1k game using my Orks vs. Kushial's Lion of Harlech spess mahreenz. Da boyz have been so fa behind the 8-ball for so long now, they'e more or less going to be my make-it-or-beak-it army for 8th ed. 

Here I've already moved my slugga boyz via 'da jump' psychic power. Whilst that didn't really move em closer to da beakies, it did get em away from all of those dreads!

The Lions arrived fielding 4 Dreads, 2 of them venerable...how typical of Kushial. In prior editions, this would have filled me with dread (yes, that pun is intended) as my Orks have always a fared poorly vs. enemy armor. However with vehicles all being essentially monsterous creatures of old, they'e easier to take down. 

Da good ol' Matilda (Battlewagon), resilient as always. 

Of course it was only my big mek Fix-a-flat who kept it alive. Honestly, he fired once and spent the rest of the game repairing Da Matilda. As such, this game was different from any other for him. 

True, the few grot blasta and slugga rounds that I fired the dreads at were as pointless as before, but the rokkits were quite deadly and eventually, I took down three dreads and the 4th was on its last legs by game's end. Victory points be damned! I'm calling that a victory!! (Kushial won btw, 5-6 VPs.)

Da hill iz mine! Also note, Da Eleet Grot Mountin Duvishun was down to the last dregs by this point...

Da boys on the far side, hit like a trukk in close combat! swinging 1st, they tore a tactical squad to ribbons! I haven't see regular Orks grunts do so well in years! I'm used to them jumping out of a trukk, charging (invariably space wolves) and being torn to ribbons before ever getting to strike!

WAAAAAUGH!!!

Charging units hitting 1st is a MAJOR improvement for the Orks! previously, we went last vs. damn near everything! Likewise, challenges are gone, and good riddance to them! I never liked those anyways. 

Da Grot Duvishun, dying in droves as usual...

I do miss my templates though. My Ork lobbas were damn near useless. Heavy D6 = 1 to 2 'shots' per tun. I use the old WHFB Katapult krew grots, but instead of lobbing 'rocks' they were instead flinging 'gravel'. As much as this sucked for me, I'd be livid if I still had all of my old IG Leman Russ tanks!

Because this looks like a fair fight...

Also the number of wounds on everything...dunno, something about that just seems off to me. Can't quite place it yet, but I'd rather still have vehicle facings and armor values instead. I can see the need for dreads to be MCs, but everything? 

In konklushun...

Overall, 40k had so much bloat of rules that something needed to be done. Not sue if this was what it needed though. Overall the game (close combat aside) felt like much the same old 40k, but simplifying (dumbing things down?) too much could make it all seem too generic. Dunno, time will tell I guess. 

The other big part of the game is the fluff. Thus far I've stayed away from that as from what little I've read, its just flat awful. That in and of itself is troublesome, as fluff is what hooks us into the game in the 1st place.