Saturday 27 July 2013

Summer madness

As the song says, 'School's Out for Summer!', so I have some decent hobby time ahead.  My wife has even suggested I take some figures away with us when we go for a week in France.  I still can't quite believe that one!

Anyway, there are a couple of events ahead for me.  The first is the next Invasion tournament at Warhammer World on the 19th August.  Matt has been running a practice league and I have updated my list as first detailed here.  The only change is that I have dropped the Landspeeder Storm.  Whilst the Outflanking and ability to move the Scouts about at speed is nice, the multi-melta proved very unreliable at only BS3. Instead I am taking a basic Predator at 60pts (and giving the Tactical sergeant melta-bombs with the spare 5pts), as AV13 should hopefully soak up a bit more fire and give my Master of the Forge something to hide behind when deploying.

Due to its value, the Predator was in my first ever list for the Howling Griffons and I have had one for a while.  Unfortunately, I built it with HB sponsons.  Luckily, I had a Whirlwind kit unmade, which I am now assembling so I can swap weapons with the Predator.  This list has done quite well with various partners, including Tau, Eldar and DA, although I am not totally sure yet who my ally will be, let alone what they will be taking.

The second event I am getting ready for is Armies on Parade on 14th September.  I had thought about dusting off my guard army and doing something involving a Skyshield and Vendetta, but I shall stick with my Howling Griffons again this year, as I'm enjoying them a lot.  Of course, with the rumoured new codex in September, I'm not abandoning them now.

With Apocalypse 2.0 just out, the Space Marine Company formation appealed to me, as I had always wanted to build a whole company, even if it requires 107 marines and 3 Dreadnoughts!  I also couldn't resist the Master of Relics model, so it looks like I'll be doing the 9th Company.  This may be somewhat over-ambitious of me, but would look really cool and put out a lot of firepower.  Not sure how much chance I will get to play them ever, but I'm not worrying about that for now.


On my desk at the moment are six more heavy weapon marines to add to the six I already had.  With bolter marines, I have about enough for three squads so far - seven to go.  I will also have to paint the Captain and another Dreadnought.

It will take quite a bit of time, especially with the quartered colours, and also cost a bit to do, but nowhere near as much as the £448 GW is advertising in their one-click collection.  Obviously, I already have a few of the units, but even if you are starting from scratch, you really don't need 10 Devastator boxes, when the Company (only?) needs 40 heavy weapons.  Four boxes is enough, as each box has five marines, but eight heavy weapons.  Eight Tactical boxes would provide the rest of the marines and eight more heavy weapons. If I have worked this out properly, that would equal three missile squads, one with multi-meltas and two each of plasma cannons, lascannons and heavy bolters.


To carry on the 'useless purchases' theme, the one-click collection includes the boxed commander, rather than the new model anyone making this formation would actually want.  I suppose this comes in at £14 instead of £15!  But, if my maths is correct, you can get the formation for £406 at GW prices, with the new captain.

I don't understand GW's marketing sometimes.  They are trying to promote their products, but making them more than 10% more expensive than they need be.  The old Apocalypse 1.0 boxed formations actually worked out cheaper than buying models separately, which was a first for GW.  It's a shame they now seem to be doing the opposite.