Prim

Some cool options for all of the armies in the book. Panoptica seems determined to get me to buy GW minis.

Your choices are really Mr. Hobby or Tamiya and neither of them do a shade/wash range to my knowledge. Depending on where you are, you may be able to pick up paints from European or US makers. My local(ish) hobby store in Nagoya stocks Vallejo for example.

That's because it is an absolute pain to paint them. Thanks!

Well I finished up my painting for the month. 10 Gal Vorbak for 30K and 11 Novamarines for 40K/Badab War. This should bring my marine leadweight down by 21 from 934 to 913. However, my FLGS still had some Sternguard in stock when I popped in last week, so I had to pick them up as GW is no longer making them. Plus some assault marines, terminators and a land speeder.... which amounts to 21 points. Oops. I did try to sell a Primaris army, but nobody locally is buying at the moment (except me), but I will keep trying.

To face off against the Mantis Warriors, I also have a Novamarines army underway. Here we have a command squad. And here we have a 5 man Terminator squad led by Mordecai Blaylock.

Time for a bit of thread-omancy. This month I finished up some Gal Vorbak for my Word Bearers. The models are 40K possessed, but I added a few 30K armour parts in to make them look a bit more retro. The possessed figures are a little cartoony compared to the official FW minis, but much easier on the wallet.

You could always play Great Crusade era games and then Xenos are fine. I totally understand people's desire to keep the HH aesthetic and lore intact though. Personally I'm looking at using the Age of Darkness rules to play 40K as I have zero interest in modern 40K rules. So long as you and your opponents are willing to discuss any issues that arise and can be flexible, I would guess that about 95% of the games are compatible. HH2 introduces reactions, and there are no formations, but the general units should be easy to use. Movement speeds are something you'd have to house rule, but that shouldn't be too hard. It would probably be easiest to use army-lists from the same edition. There is a big gap between 3rd and 7th ed codexes. I'm thinking to use 5th ed books myself, but that's just because I have all the books I need. Will it work perfectly? I don't know. Will it be fun? I think so.

I played a game with my CSM vs. Eldar. Turn 1 the Eldar player used Fate Dice to auto-pass invulnerable saves and then used 6's for the variable damage on Bright Lances to remove my Helbrute and Venom Crawler. They didn't even need Mortal Wounds. Eldar are probably better off in a small game but weaker in a big game as their Fate Dice don't scale. At 1000 points they can focus those dice on removing high value targets. At 3000, the effects of the dice will be more diluted.

I have never collected Eldar before, but now I'm tempted.

I played from 4th - 7th, but 5th was my favourite. The quick changes between 6th and 7th soured me on the game a bit and when 8th/Primaris came I was done keeping up with edition changes. I wound up playing a couple of games of 8th to make up the numbers in a local tournament and really disliked it. (Bizarrely I won the tournament though). I haven't touched 9th at all. I am scheduled to play 10th this Sunday at my local club but everything I have seen of the system fails to inspire me. I have never really quit 40K though. I'm still building and painting. I have attempted games using 5th ed. crossed with Bolt Action for the alternating activations, and more recently I've been really into the HH rules.

The new versions look great. The Company Level Deployments rules look like a lot of fun to build an army around. Just a thought, but it may be worth updating the first post in this thread with the latest versions as and when you release them, that way they are easy to find for anyone joining in.

With the recent announcement of 30K units being relegated to Legends in 10th ed, it is worth noting that players can find a home for their Spartans, Contempors and Cataphracti in the Badab War. They are limited in numbers, but they are there!

Hopefully it is not too late to join, so here goes. “The adepts of the Administratum have completed their cogitations and I, Prim, bear a Leadweight of 934* on my mortal soul. I pledge to make every effort to reduce this to 914 by the dawn of JULY**, through the toil of painting and the catharsis of philanthropy and rogue trading. *This is actually only for the marines in my collection, as they are easily accessible and well organized. I do have some Xenos, Chaos and other Imperial stuff (plus a few thousand historical/fantasy minis), but they are all mixed up and stashed away where it would be a pain to audit them. Plus I kind of want to focus on marines for the time being. **There are only a couple of days left this month, so I'm going to pledge early for next month if that is okay?

I used to love 5th ed, I tolerated 6th and gave up on 7th. I hated the way 8th changed things like vehicle armour and where you drew LoS from, but I gave it a shot before I threw in the towel. I never even tried 9th. When 10th was announced, I was optimistic at first. All of the changes sounded fairly positive and I was looking forward to each new preview every day. But as time has passed, my interest has waned. While GW's stated goals sound good, it seems like they aren't hitting them. Bringing back USR's is good, but then they give the same rule to two units and name them differently. Reducing rerolls is good, but the previews show that there are still lots of them. Every army and unit seems to have a special rule or two on its datasheet, which doesn't reduce bloat, it just spreads it elsewhere. So while the rules layout is dreadful, some units are clearly over/under valued and the FAQ's are barely worth the effort of downloading, I plan on sticking to the 30K rules.

This is a really good way to approach the subscription to the magazine and by the time it is done you should have some awesome looking armies to play with. Nice work so far.