This series of posts will track the progress of 5 courageous hobbyists as they embark on that most epic of quests: To build and paint a Warhammer 40,000 army from scratch! Each month you’ll be able to follow along as their armies grow from bare plastic sprues to fully painted units of battle-hardened warriors. Once the armies are ready they’ll meet on the battlefield to decide who’s worthy of claiming the title of Greatest WAAAGHlord for 2020!
Month 6 is done and thanks to the lockdown being over we’ve finally been able to get some games in! With the points increases from 9th edition everyone’s also a good bit closer to their final 2k forces.
Alex: First up this month I got cracking on my Terminator Librarian. He’ll be rocking the Sanctic Shard relic to give him +2 to cast with built in re-rolls. Grey Knights are already pretty reliable with getting their spells off but this really seals the deal for those powers you need to guarantee. Most likely he’ll be using Edict Imperator and Empyrean Domination.
After he was finished it was time to build up the Ghost Knights some more. With 2 more of those done I’m now at a full 5 man squad. I also built one of them with a Warding Save for that crucial +1 to Invulnerable Saves in combat. Having a few of these mixed into a unit really bumps up their durability as combined with the Sanctuary Psychic Power you can have them saving on a 3++.
They actually got their chance to show this off in one of the games we had this month. The Ghosts took a combined charge from a Troupe Master with Twilight Fang, Vexilus Praetor and some Custodian Guard. However thanks to the Redoubtable Defence Stratagem and tanking saves on the Warding Stave they only took 1 casualty and then murdered everyone when it was their turn to fight!
With my pledge out of the way I had a bit of time left so decided to work on a Vindicare Assassin. Vinidcares have taken a bit of a hit in 9th edition as they can now be freely targeted without a unit within 3″ babysitting them. Nevertheless they’re still great at picking off Characters and as another unit choice that doesn’t take up a detachment slot I’m sure there’ll be times when I want to use one.
Army Progress:
Models assembled: 32
Models painted : 32
Points completed: 1,431
Pledge for next month: An Eversor Assassin, some more Terminators and a Venerable Dreadnought.
Rhaz: This month has gone pretty well on the painting side. I managed to finish my pledge with plenty of time to spare. Which meant I even managed to make a start on a little Warcry side project as well as setting up a new hobby room! We’re here to talk about 40K though so behold Doomsday Ark number 2:
Now the lock down on the Isle of Man has been lifted we even managed to get some games in. My beautiful freshly painted Doomsday Ark performed as well as can be expected for a newly painted model; in the shooting phase it managed to get 2 hits through, causing 2D6 damage… then rolled a double 1 to wound, Yay! It then quickly died to a Grey Knights Psychic Phase along with most of my army.
My last Doom scythe finally arrived in the post so I’m looking forward to working on that next month and might even make a start on my final Doomsday Ark. I was also gifted a Triarch Stalker so I will be making a start on that soon as well. Along with the pending arrival of the Indomitus Boxset I’ll have a lot more Necron painting to be getting on with 🙂
Army Progress:
Models assembled: 45
Models painted : 44
Points completed: 1701
Pledge for next month: 1 Doom scythe and 1 Doomsday Ark. Which will mark the completion of my originally planned army!
Dean: Lets address the most obvious thing here. There’s no Ad-Mech this month.
Whilst I had got part way into building the horse boys, and had started putting together the chassis for the murderbird I’ve ended up with a damaged hand part way into the month that makes assembly pretty tricky.
So the Mechanicus are on a short hiatus, though luckily I’m still able to paint new models. That means I’ve got another unit done that I had already assembled. Some more Dark Angel Terminators!
As previously mentioned I’ve been working towards a Terminator army. So I’ve added a pretty basic line squad of Terminators to join the previous months work.
I’ve made use of a few kits to get them to look unique. I wanted to get that all important Plasma Cannon in there. If your going to play Dark Angels you can’t not make use of the Plasma Cannon in your army. As this progresses I hope to add more to the Terminator ranks and am planning another squad for next month.
Having the Mechanicus portion of this host on hold is giving me time to consider my army choices. I’m going to have to look at how this army will work in the new edition. It may force me to either build some troops or indeed buy some Ravenwing elements despite my quite vocal distaste for the game synergy requirement.
That however is something I’ll be able to review in the coming weeks. I certainly want to add a Librarian to my ranks atleast.
Army Progress:
Models assembled: 20
Models painted : 20
Points completed: 1071
Pledge for next month: Another squad of Terminators! This time with an Assault Cannon so I’ve got one of each of the higher range support weapons in the group and bringing me to up to 3 Elites.
Paul: For Month Six I managed to complete the last Death Jester in the trio aswell as the Solitaire. This leaves a mostly finished Shadowseer and the Troupe Masters on the painting table.
Originally when I put the first draft of this army list together I thought I might be doubling up on too many characters. However with the release of the new pivotal roles in White Dwarf it looks like characters are going to be key to making Harlequins a flexible army.
Death Jesters, I’ve got three of them, I wish I could take more. Overall Death Jesters have had some good buffs with the new rules and relics. The new Shrieker Cannon (Cegorach’s Lament) turns one from a good chaff clearer into a low key character assassin.
At Damage 3, -3AP the single shot can be buffed with the 1CP Shrieking Doom Stratagem to give it an additional D3 Damage at Strength 7. This is perfect for sniping injured or low wound characters.
The Solitaire is mainly benefiting from the new Stratagems focused around mobility. Such as the ability to consolidate 6” after an enemy unit falls back with Twilight Encore, or a full fallback movement instead of consolidating with The Curtain Falls.
With 9th edition upon us along with new points changes it looks like I’ll be dropping the second group of 15 Players. So next month I’ll finish off the second Shadowseer and at least one Troupe Master. Also for a change of pace I’m looking to complete some Howling Banshees to soup in for casual games.
Army Progress:
Models assembled: 55
Models painted : 36
Points completed: 1498
Pledge for next month: Another Troupe Master, Shadowseer and a unit of Howling Banshees.
Rob: This month has seen the return back to work with normal life resuming as much as can be in times like these. However “normal” turned out to be anything but as work went nuts cutting heavily into my hobby time. I did find a few extra hours by sacrificing sleep though so I give you my 3 squads of Eliminators.
These boys were fun to build and to paint and the black and orange really works for me. To stay in keeping with the camo theme from the Sniper Scouts these bad boys are also phasing in and out of their surroundings
With the main build of infantry done it’s time to add another big guy to the fray. The Chapter’s fallen Chapter Master serves in death as a Chaplain Dreadnaught! Master M’phasa will be striding onto the painting table and then onto the battlefield soon.
Army Progress:
Models assembled: 33
Models painted : 33
Points completed: 1,268
Pledge for next month: Chapter Master M’phasa
Have you started a new army of your own recently? What do you think of the ones we’re working on? Let us know in the comments.
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