Blood angels complete 5th company army showcase

Hi folks. Saving the best til (almost) last – here, finally, are my Blood angels. My first marine army back in second edition and my favourite marine chapter, this also serves as my largest army. I will try to break it down as best I can to fit in a single post. The battle company makes up the vast majority of the army and is formed as you would expect. Devastators and 5/6 of the tactical marines are magnetised at the waist and head to be interchangeable, as are many of the sergeant arms and one of the assault squads packs. In terms of the armoury, I have 6 rhino chassis and a land raider which are magnetised for different loadouts. I have a stormraven and hawk and would like to add a talon at some point to make up the air wing. 

Moving on to specialists now. I have 15 death company with magnetised JPs and some army. 3 squads of scouts make up 10^th company support and I have a small squad of bikes and attack bikes from one of the reserve companies to aid with fast attack. A 10-man squad of sanguinary guard with magnetised helm options makes up my golden host. Finally, the first company is well represented with 6 dreadnoughts (1 DC, 1 lib, 1 chaplain, 1 normal and 2 furioso), 10 assault terminators, 10 terminators, 10 sternguard and 10 vanguard. 5 company veterans add to my elite squads. 

Lastly, on to the characters. I have an array of captains, priests and chaplains as seen below, as well as a few other supporting units. Of particular note is my converted Mephiston, who was featured in Warhammer visions! Sadly my terminator priests were no longer valid and so got converted into an ancient and one still remains as a priest for posterity. I do have a converted Seth who, maybe one day, will get a (Primaris?) detachment to go along with him. Of course all other special characters are present in either their original or slightly converted guise. It has been a pleasure to build this army over the decades and now, as always, it just needs some tlc to get it looking its best. Cheers.

5 minutes of fame - 2 models get featured in this month's Visions - Loken and Mephiston!

Greetings chaps. This was, as Dan put it to me, a hobby milestone for me. This month I had the honour of having not just one but two models of mine featured in Warhammer visions. I stopped buying the magazine after the first year but had to invest in this months after Dan alerted me to it. The pictures were taken at the open day at WHW end of last year. I saw one of the models get taken off to be photographed and so secretly hoped it would turn up in print one day. The models in question are my Mephiston conversion on page 93 (labelled with a typo as Jamis rather than Jamie - I blame my poor handwriting) and my Loken (page 89), which was entered under Dan's name as you can only enter one model at a time. So, although my name isn't against either of them technically I did get two models in print. Very proud and love the way they look in studio photographed conditions. Cheers. 

FIRST post of 2016 - much belated hobby progress and musings

Hello folks.

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated! It only just occurred to me the other day just how long it has been since I shared a blog post. This will be my first post of 2016 shockingly, due to many factors. Firstly, 40k has been a bit dry first quarter, and thus there's not really been much to comment on. More importantly things have been super busy in non-40k related terms and I have in that period sat exams, got a new job, sold and bought a house.

All in all pretty nightmarish, and though I have found time for hobby sadly the blogging side of things has suffered. The vast majority of my stuff is packed away with only a few armies and models being left out to work on over the next few months around the time of the house move, but at least that brings some focus to what I'm aiming towards. Now that's out of the way, I'll run through what's been going on these past 3 months.

 
Raven Guard:

I've added the last elements to my battle demi-company and have also given these chaps a Command squad made from the FW kit. Most importantly, and something I'm working towards with all the SM armies, I have rebased the entire army onto 32mm and pretty much basecoated every model except for about 10 stragglers. Very happy with how these chaps have come out - I only have a couple more purchases planned for them in the form of the two 30k squad types to use as vanguard / sternguard respectively.

Space Wolves:

I added 5 Wulfen to the army, which as it turns out are gorgeous models. I am currently hoping to spend a couple of days on the army both updating them to 32mm bases and also updating my original wulfen models to be wolf guard using some spare parts from the new Wulfen kit - seems that particular pack is more influenced by their presence. I do love the new Ulrik and Iron Priest models and have added them to the never ending wishlist.

Blood Angels:

Couldn't resist adding the gorgeous new Chaplain model to the army and at the same time I invested in another tactical box, replacing 10 of the older more static members of the army with newer models. I also went all out and replaced 90% of the marines onto 32mm bases, leaving just a few chaps (DC and characters) on 25mm for now until I spray up some more 32mm bases. The Blood Angel army is my largest and most beloved but sadly never quite gets to the point where I'm happy with it. My new policy is to focus more upon getting models to tabletop standards (i.e. one coat on everything) so from a distance they are respectable, rather than painting up squads to a high standard, which takes a lot of time. To this end I am trying to paint up a demi company to those standards as a starting point. I'm about halfway there and hope to be done by the summer in between other things. 

Luna Wolves:

The last real project army amongst my marines. These chaps got the final piece to the puzzle when Betrayal at Calth (still not played it) came out. With a couple of exceptions, every model was donated to them and thus the ranks of the wolves swelled to almost double the size. As well as these models I also added both a Spartan tank and Xiphon Interceptor to them. My main aims are as follows with the army between now and Summertime. Firstly, get all the models assembled and sprayed white. (or black in the case of Abaddon and his Justerein) Secondly, as none of the models are on bases and the resin bases I have for them are all 25mm, I'm going to have to either use 32mm adaptors to make them al up to size or buy/make some 32mm bases for them. This in itself is a massive undertaking and will take some time. Once all this  is complete, the army will still be a few models away from completion, needing some accessories and a couple more tanks, but the back of the beast will be broken.

Deathwatch:

What a treat this set was. Beautiful and characterful minis galore. I had to restrain myself from getting two sets for conversion potential. Ultimately head won over heart though and I stuck to the one set. I have a dozen deathwatch that I have made previously and so will be great alongside these chaps. Saying that though, when I built the new deathwatch models I gave them industrial bases to match the board, so now they have a similar theme to my Iron hands (need updating to 32mm) and are out of synch with my old deathwatch models, which are still on 25mm 'alien' bases. The bases incidentally were easy to make using a pair of dividers and some textured plasticard. Not only some glorious models but also a fantastically fun game - Dan and I are about halfway through the campaign.  

That's all for today folks. Will be posting on other blog in 2 days then here again with an exciting post on Friday. Cheers.

Unoffical Blood Angels errata

Oh GW, why doth thou tempt us so? Only a week ago the prospect of global FAQs/Erratas were dangled in front of us, which many of us thought would bring balance to the force and make those  prematurely outdated Astartes Codexes (Blood Angels / Space Wolves / Grey Knights) on par with the other updated chapters. But sadly no. Yet again, ball dropped and player base neglected. Well, it doesn't take a genius to come up with the obvious errata that they seemingly can't put together themselves and so I put myself to task with it. Below you will find a (hopefully) comprehensive errata for the latest Blood Angel codex bringing it in line with the Dark Angel / Space Marine codexes. This is NOT an FAQ and makes no attempt to bring the Shield of Baal stuff (yet) or detachments / formations up to speed. It's simply text to cut and paste rather than a downloadable document. Anything I've missed please let me know and I will update. Cheers.

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p51 Wargear list:

·         Add Grav-cannon and grav amp to the heavy weapons list for 35 points. 

·         Amend Dreadnought weapons list as follows:

o   May replace multi-melta with one of the following

§  Twin-linked autocannon - 5 points

§  Twin-linked heavy bolter - 5 points

§  Twin-linked heavy flamer - 5 points

§  Plasma cannon - 5 points

§  Assault cannon - 10 points

§  Twin-linked lascannon - 15 points

p56 Librarian Dreadnought:

Increase attacks characteristic to 4.

p60 Sanguinary priest:

Add terminator options as per Chaplain entry on page 64.

p62/63 Techmarine:

Increase base cost to 65 points. 

Change BS to 5, W to 2, A to 2 and Ld to 9. 

Add power axe to standard equipment and remove option.

p65 Tactical squad:

·         Change cost of teleport homer to 5 points

p66 Scout squad:

·         Increase Ws and BS to 4.

·         Change cost of teleport homer to 5 points

p67 Command squad:

·         Change base cost to 90 points.

·         Change base composition to 5 Veterans.

·         Add options to upgrade one/two model as follows:

o   Sanguinary novitiate taking a narthecium and blood chalice - 15 points.

o   Company Champion replacing chainsword with power weapon and combat shield - 15 points.

p71 Dreadnought:

·         Increase attacks characteristic to 4.

·         May include two additional Dreadnoughts for 100 points each.

·         If the unit includes no additional Dreadnoughts, it may select a Drop pod as a dedicated transport.

p72 Death Company Dreadnought:

·         Increase attacks characteristic to 4.

·         May include two additional Death company Dreadnoughts for 100 points each.

·     If the unit includes no additional Death company Dreadnoughts, it may select a Drop pod as a dedicated transport.

p73 Furioso Dreadnought:

·         Increase attacks characteristic to 4.

·         May include two additional Furioso Dreadnoughts for 100 points each.

·     If the unit includes no additional Furioso Dreadnoughts, it may select a Drop pod as a dedicated transport.

p74 Terminator squad:

·         Decrease base cost to 175 points.

·         Decrease additional terminator cost to 35 points each.

p75 Terminator assault squad:

·         Decrease base cost to 175 points.

·         Decrease additional terminator cost to 35 points each.

·         Increase cost of Thunder hammer and Storm shield upgrade to 10 points per model.

p76 Vanguard veteran squad:

·     Amend heroic intervention rule: A unit with this special rule can re-roll one or both dice when determining its charge range. Furthermore, a unit with this special rule ignores the penalty for disordered charges.

·         Remove option for any model to take items from the melee weapons list.

o   Add the following options to the 'Any model may replace its bolt pistol and / or chainsword with one of the following' list:

§  Power weapon or lightning claw - 5 points per model.

§  Power fist - 15 points per model.

§  Thunder hammer - 20 points per model.

p81 Land speeders:

·         Decrease base cost by 5 points.

·         Add anti-grav upwash rule - Whilst this unit includes three land speeders, it can move an additional 6" when moving flat-out.

·         Replace 'Any land speeder may take one of the following' as follows:

o   Heavy bolter or heavy flamer - 5 points.

o   Multi-melta - 10 points.

o   Assault cannons - 20 points.

o   Typhoon missile launcher - 25 points.

p82 Assault squad:

·         Reduce base cost to 70 points.

·         Remove jump pack from standard wargear list.

·         Change cost of additional space marines from 17 points to 14 points.

·         Add the following options:

o   The entire squad may take jump packs - 3 points per model

o   For every five models in the unit one model may replace its bolt pistol and chainsword with an eviscerator - 25 points.

·       Change the last paragraph to 'If the squad does not take jump packs, it may select a drop pod, rhino or razorback as a dedicated transport.

p83 Bike squad:

·         Change the cost of the Attack bike upgrade to 40 points.

p84 Attack bike squad:

·         Change the cost of the Attack bike to 40 points.

p85 Scout bike squad:

·         Change the WS and BS to 4.

p88 Devastator squad:

·         The unit may take an armorium Cherub - 5 points.

p89 Baal Predator:

·         May include two additional Baal Predators for 115 points per model.

·         Add the Killshot special rule:

o   Whilst this unit includes three Baal Predators, all Predators in the unit have the monster hunter and tank hunter special rules.

p90 Predator:

·         May include two additional Predators for 75 points per model.

·         Add the Killshot special rule:

o   Whilst this unit includes three Baal Predators, all Predators in the unit have the monster hunter and tank hunter special rules.

p91 Vindicator:

·         Add the linebreaker bombardment rule:

o   If this unit contain three vindicators that can all fire their demolisher cannons, the squadron can fire a single linebreaker bombardment instead of firing normally. To do so, nominate one model in the squadron as the firer; the firer's demolisher cannon changes its type from large blast to apocalyptic blast and gains the ignores cover special rule.

p92 Whirlwind:

·         Add the suppressive bombardment rule:            

o   Whilst this unit includes three whirlwinds, each models whirlwind multiple missile launcher has the pinning and shred special rules (regardless of which missile type it fires).

Armoury:

 
Grav amp - when rolling to wound with a grav-weapon, or to determine its effects on a vehicle, the bearer can re-roll the result.

Armorium cherub - One use only. One model in a unit equipped with an armorium cherub can re-roll all failed to hit rolls in one shooting phase.

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Now, there are a few personal choices in there such as changing the command squad structure, terminator option for Sanguinary Priests and the wording of the heroic intervention rules for Vanguard, but I stand by them all being changes for the better. I didn't add in Land speeder storms as Dark Angels didn't get them either. Hope this is useful for people to cut and paste / print out. My next post will be in the new year most likely and will be about all things Luna Wolves. Cheers.