Friday 18 January 2019

Tale of More Warlords - Progress Diary #2

Finally some sunlight! Just yesterday the weather broke and finally I was able to get the spray cans out and get some priming done. "Why don't you just use an airbrush?" I hear you ask. Truth be told I'm incredibly lazy, and fussing around with getting the compressor out, cleaning the whole thing and all that carry on makes me break out in a case of bleagh so I don't bother with all that. I resign myself to the whims of fate and watch the weather as closely as I can so I know when I can start stuffing cold spray cans under my arms and making ready for the day!


1000pts of Crimson Fists ready for painting!

I like to build my Warhammer 40,000 armies around a solid core of Troops. I know, I know - they don't hit as hard as other units, they're 'only useful for holding objectives' and any number of other criticisms against them, but to my mind the basis of any army is the footslogging infantry that stick it out and finish the tough jobs. With Chapter Approved 2018 introducing expanded wargear options for the Intercessor Sergeants and changing the cost of a few weapons, there's a host of new potential for them. I've got three 5-man Intercessor squads, one with auto bolt rifles; two Sergeants with power fists and one with a power sword. I wouldn't usually have rated the power fist as a worthwhile choice due to its -1 to Hit and D3 damage, but with its points decrease and the fact an Intercessor Sergeant has 3 Attacks rather than just 2, it seemed like I could make the space for them and get a little bit punchier in combat for those squads I expect to be near the front. It just doesn't seem right having Crimson Fists without any power fists in the army, after all.

The Hellblasters are along for the ride because, well... it's a Primaris Space Marine army. Is it possible to run one without a unit of Hellblasters? My warlord will be the Librarian, but I'll drop the command points into taking this detachment as a Crimson Fists Liberator Strike Force from the Vigilus Defiant book. It gives me access to a couple of neat stratagems, as well as a nice relic I might drop on the Lieutenant. What's most handy is being able to drop another command point and take 'Field Commander' on the Lieutenant, giving him access to the ability Expert Instructor. Suddenly, all my units within 9" of him can re-roll hit rolls of 1, and anybody within 6" of him can re-roll wound rolls of 1 as well. That Lieutenant is pulling double duty! I expect he'll be a priority target for people that can find a way to pick out characters, so I'm torn between The Vengeful Arbiter replacing his bolt pistol or doing the smart thing and giving him the Armour Indomitus.

Here's the cunning bit, though. With the Crimson Fists rules in White Dwarf having dropped, 'No Matter the Odds' as a Chapter Trait means that anything in my army which has access to it
'adds 1 to hit rolls for attacks made by this unit that target an enemy unit that contains at least twice as many models as their own.' It makes special mention of Dreadnoughts counting as 5 miniatures for this rule, but doesn't single out those with the Character keyword specifically... so did my Lieutenant and Librarian both get +1 to hit against anything that isn't an enemy character?! I think so! It's also the reason that I opted not to take an Apothecary in the force - if my units get dinged up rather than killed outright, they're going to find they're at an advantage in shooting and fighting against larger units as a result. Nice little touch and very fluffy for the Crimson Fists.

The Inceptors, too, benefit from 'No Matter the Odds,' chosen deliberately since they'll drop with 18 shots and get +1 to hit against anything with more than 6 models in the unit, too. I know plenty of people like their plasma choices, but I much prefer the thought of points-heavy units like the Inceptors who are likely to drop outside the Lieutenant's re-roll bubble not falling out of the sky and exploding like a dying sun the moment they trigger their weaponry. The Redemptor Dreadnought is the Easy-to-Build option along for the ride purely because I like the look of the miniature, and you can't go wrong with a Dreadnought for sheer stompy, scary factor. The last drop in all this is the Scouts, here with their sniper rifles to try and pick out enemy characters where necessary and get rid of pesky Chapter Ancients or Painboyz, though I have in the past had them knock light vehicles to pieces with a few lucky mortal wounds. I always like to make sure a Crimson Fists force has some Scouts in it, given their continued need to look to the next generation of recruits, and I'm hoping most boards are going to have a spot for them to hang out of immediate danger and make the most of their camo cloaks.

What I'm most pleased about, though, is the fact that from this point I could add whatever I like and leave the core of the force intact. With four Troops choices it'll easily work with a couple of extra cool toys thrown in at 1500pts, though I'd probably want to bulk out one or two of the Intercessor units up to ten men if I were to hit 2000pts with it. That's a thought for another day, though! Epistolary Ortega and Lieutenant Freiberg have a date with Destiny. Destiny is the name of my extra large base painting brush...

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