2010 Retrospective Part 3 Retrospective Harder

For this post i'm featuring my Grey Knights. 2010 saw me develop a rather love hate relationship with my shiny silver marines. I loved the models, the sculpts are great but i hated how obsolete the army has become.
As it currently stands the Grey Knights are about as competitive as a damp sponge. While i've never been about the winning, it's also not that pleasant knowing that you don't stand much of a chance no matter what you pick from the army list.

This led me to the brink of putting the army up on Ebay and giving up on the Inquisition armies completely. Thankfully i procrastinated long enough for the internet rumour mill to grind round and reveal the upcoming update for the boys in silver.

Yes in a few short months, if rumours are to be believed, the Grey Knights will be receiving a shiny new codex, new plastics, new units and new special characters. Given the unbelievable quality of the Dark Eldar plastics i am pretty optimistic about the upcoming releases next year, if they can maintain even half the quality of the Dark Eldar 2011 is going to be a good year.
So the Grey Knights have been saved from being sold for a fraction of their cost, and i've been suitably inspired enough to get my arse in gear and get the army painted, ready to add the shiny new stuff coming next year.





















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In other news i've managed to get a hold of a copy of Imperial Armour Volume 9. This is the first Imperial Armour book i've gotten, the £45 price tag is rather a put off. And while i'm unlikely to splash out on any resin anytime soon, the book was well worth the price. IA9 delves into the Badab war and provides a phenomenal amount of background and detail, not to mention rules that amount to another 40k expansion revolving around boarding actions.
Whatever your feelings about Forgeworlds rules, for fluff nuts this is a must have purchase, heartily recommended.

I've also had a rummage around my boxes and scraped together my current collection of Minas Tirith units for Lord of the Rings. As i mentioned in my last blog post, i am aiming to rectify my lack of WotR gaming next year (still looking for opponents interweb people), starting with a Gondor based army. Everything pictured will likely be stripped, and there are quite a few repairs to make on the various plastic blokes. The army had literally been chucked in a box after i became very disillusioned about my chances for future games.
I'll be using a disinfectant called Dettol* to strip the mini's. This has proved to be fantastic for stripping models, with none of the risks involved in using other methods. Dettol won't melt your plastics, won't tarnish your metals, isn't lethal if inhaled and isn't flammable. About the worst case scenario is you end up with slightly smelly hands that are completely germ free.

*Make sure you use the liquid Dettol meant for medical use. DO NOT use Dettol cleaning products, because they WILL melt your plastics and make you woozy if inhaled.

God-Emperor bless the Rumourmill: Or how a Blood Kitten saved my Grey Knights from Sale.

If you've read any of the previous posts on this blog then you'll know i've been weighing up selling my Grey Knights due to their less than stellar performances on the tabletop, due largely to their obsolete codex. And if you're a GW player on the internet, likely you are also monitoring the various websites like Bell of Lost Souls that report rumours and no doubt have read the same batch posted by Blood Kitten that i have.

Now while the rumours are far from confirmed, and some don't seem quite right, they have none the less succeeded in rekindling the spark of affection i have for the Shiny boys. At the very least they've got me thinking about the Grey Knights again and a little more enthused about painting them since they are likely to receive an update in a few months time.

So they will be kept and i will resume work on getting them painted. They still aren't likely to see action before the new codex release but based on the stellar Dark Eldar codex and it's accompanying superb miniature range, i am cautiously optimistic about the future of the Grey Knights.

There is some debate over whether the new codex will contain Inquisitorial units and elements from sequestered Imperial Guard or not. I'm in two minds about this really. On the one hand it'll be rather unfair to Daemonhunter players who went the Inquisition route with their armies and used a lot of allied elements in their army. I can't imagine they will be impressed with the idea they will have to buy a heap of new models just to use the ones they have.
On the other hand, less Inquisition means more room in the codex to flesh out the Grey Knights and give them a full background that they've been missing. Despite the fluff in the Daemonhunter codex we still know little about how they are organised or significant actions they've been involved in.

And like others who have read the Ben Counter novels, i'm wondering if the line about no Grey Knight has ever fallen to chaos will be amended to "No Grey Knight has ever fallen to chaos, except one but it's ok he got better and the Chaos Gods let him off because he wasnt in his right mind". April can't come soon enough.

Oh Dear: A Photolog of Annihilation

I remembered to take my camera with me to the vets night for once, so i took a handful of pictures to illustrate the fall of my Grey Knights.

First up is my heroic charge into a squad of Berzerkers led by the Tyrant of Badab. Despite depleting their numbers with firepower, Blackheart was able to hold up my Grey Knight squad for the rest of the game.




My teleporting Grey Knights arrive at the rear of the chaos force, hoping to stifle the flow of chaotic reinforcements to the frontline. Instead two terrible rounds of shooting were followed by a lacklustre assault.









The Grey Knights charge in, only to find themselves completely outclassed by the bog standard traitor marines and their terminator armoured leader which in turn led to this...






One Grey knight valiantly attempts to hold up the chaotic tide, only to be smashed into a fine silvery paste.







The only ray of hope in the entire game, beyond a first turn disabling of a vindicator was Stern's charge into the possessed, eventually wiping out the squad.

Another Veterans Night , Another Crushing Defeat

My losing streak continues unabated this week. I'd originally planned to field my Blood Angels at Thurday night Vet's night in Liverpool, but i didn't finish painting them in time so i decided to use my Grey Knights once more.

This time i was up against a Red Corsairs force, led by the Tyrant of Badab himself. Things went ok at first, until a round of amazing shooting by the Red Corsairs and some terrible saving throw rolls by myself led to an entire squad of Grey Knights being wiped out, even their shrouding failed to limit the damage.

From there things went from bad to worse. A teleport assault failed miserably to do any damage at all to a large squad of corsairs, and a combat between a squad of berserkers led by Huron and my Knights dragged out until only the Tyrant emerged unscathed.

There were some heroics elsewhere on the board. Brother Captain Stern bravely assaulted a squad of nine Possessed, managing to weather their strikes and wipe them out over a few rounds of combat, but it was too little to turn the tide of the battle.
By the beginning of turn 5 there was but a single Grey Knight remaining on the table. Deciding that it was more important to recover the geneseed of his falling comrades, he abandoned the fight and the game was conceeded.

The main things the game illustrated to me was that a) The dice gods despise me and b) Grey Knights are woefully obsolete at the moment. But then i'd already realised that.

So it looks like the boys in silver will be pulling shelf duty for the forseeable future, if not vanishing from my collection entirely in order to finance a Dark Eldar force (my will power really isn't that strong)

A Small Update

A small update on my painting efforts this week. I've continued with my Dark Angels this week along with a few bits for my Grey Knights, Daemons and Blood Angels.
I've added some edge highlights to the Dark Angels armour, as it was looking rather flat. This is the first time i've attempted such highlighting on space marines, so any advice in the comments would be greatly appreciated.

My daemons have received a Daemon prince to lead them in Fantasy and to add a little heft to the army on the 40k side of things. The Daemon prince kit is an absolute joy to assemble and i fully intend to add another to my collection, this time using the 40k components.

The Grey Knights are part of my effort to finally finish off that army, hopefully before they get an update next year. I've rather neglected this army the last couple of years, which is a shame as they are beautiful sculpts, some of the best GW have every produced.

And last but not least is the first finished Sanguinary guard from my Blood Angels. As ive mentioned elsewhere in the blog i've been repainting my Blood Drinkers as Blood Angels, the Sanguinary Guard however originate from a separate army attempt. I have plans to eventually field an army of them, led by Dante, often known as the 'Dantewing' or 'Blingwing' on various interweb forums. This is one of those projects that has gotten away from me somewhat that i always mean to get back to, only to be distracted. Anyhow comments and criticism and advice are always welcome.

A Couple of pictures of Big Stuff

Just a small update today, it's my daughters 5th birthday so all my time is being lavished on her at the moment. But i thought i'd stick up a couple of pictures of the bigger stuff that i've been working on, namely a Grey Knights Land Raider and it's enemy, a Daemon Soulgrinder. The Land Raider is all but finished, but the Soulgrinder has a fair bit of work still to do.

Over the next few days i'll also be posting my first review of a Black Library Novel, to give the blog a bit more scope and hopefully get linked to on Facebook (i can dream).

Purge the Xenos....Easier said than done :S

Oddly enough i'd never actually faced Tau in a game of 40k before, despite playing for a decade and a half. That changed last night at the Games Workshop Liverpool veterans evening when i faced a thoroughly nice chaps Tau force with my Grey Knights.

We played a seize ground mission and at first my Knights shrouding (basically gives them night fighting rules) managed to limit the Tau's shooting for the first couple of turns, although they did manage to blow up my Land Raider on turn 1, but as i was forced to advance to take objectives the distance soon dwindled to a point where shrouding is useless and i felt the full force of Tau shooting.

My opponent fielded a ton of battlesuits and a few rail gun tanks, which promptly decimated my advancing Terminators and Grey Knight squads as their shrouding failed them. Fortunately he suffered some terrible reserve roles and the two troops choices he'd selected didn't turn up until turn 5, meaning i actually managed to seize a draw despite the heavy losses.

But i learnt two things: One, Tau shooting hurts. And Two, Grey Knights are fairly terrible as it stands and desperately need an update. Had i not invested so much cash into them i'd retire them until the new codex is released, but as it stands i like to dust them off every few weeks even if i am playing at a disadvantage. I guess i'd best get used to that now that i'm collecting Dark Angels too.

Speaking of Dark Angels i've made a bit of progress. The flamer biker is done, as are footsloggers. I'll hopefully have pictures up later today.