Adventures in GW land
Kaz is organising a Warhammer 40k tournament and while I’ve never actually played a game and on the whole I prefer the look of Warhammer, it’s a popular hobby in the Aylesbury crowd and it’s something I’ve always figured I’d get into some day, so I decided to give it a go.
My main issue with 40K is that its so hard to relate to any of the armies, as they’re either faceless drones or formless monsters - this is why I tend to prefer Warhammer fantasy. I did have a go at a demon army earlier in the year but then they rewrote the army list and took out the things that I found fun.
So, lacking in enthusiasm for demons, I decided to go with Imperial Guard because as they actually have faces they can therefore have a bit of personality, and I liked the look of the Cadian models in particular. A sweep of Alan’s collection revealed approximately 40 tanks of various brands (I can’t tell the difference) and according to Paul, approximately 5000 points of painted and unpainted infantry models. So probably enough to get started then, although the majority that we had annoyingly seemed to be steel legion in great coats and gas masks, which didn’t really help in the aim to avoid uniformity. Still, there were a fair few Cadians and that was a start.
The next important factor in planning the army was that Alan was proudly showing off some ancient and/or rare figures, with T’Other squeeing and Paul being quietly impressed, so there were a few figures that I had to include so he could show them off at the end of the month too. I got in on the game with one that I’d painted years ago to look like my System Override character, and so I knew that I needed a command squad to lead the army, with a medic. I also needed a commissar somewhere, because that was one of Alan’s non-negotiable models. I didn’t need an early unarmoured scout walker that looks like a duck, which is a shame because it does look so cute, but Alan has suggested using it as a victory marker in local games so it will get some use.
With these factors in mind, I am now writing up the backstory of the 75th & 3rd, a guard unit made up of the veteran survivors of the 75th Cadian legion which was slowly ground down to almost nothing over the course of several wars, and the 3rd Armageddon Steel, a much newer unit who have more survivors but still not enough to form a legion on their own. The army is led by the 75th’s command squad of longest-surviving soldiers, much to the chagrin of the relatively inexperienced Commissar in charge of the 3rd. Both are in their own distinctive colours - Cadian 75th in camo, a repaint from the original and Steel 3rd are in the dark brown that Alan originally had them - and the vehicles are being assigned to paint schemes depending on which side claims ownership at that point. I bought a gunship online which happened to be in my 3rd legion colours and I’m tempted to repaint it camo with some of the original showing through as the 75th misappropriate it for their side.
In both cases I’m basing them in snow, because they’re not going to let a crappy thing like the terrain they were dropped in choose what colours they wear. The odds are that for the tourney at the end of the month the 75th will have white bases that may or may not have snow on them, and the 3rd will almost certainly still be on the old bases since I may be running out, but that’s the long-term aim.
At some point I’ll have to work out how they play but largely at the moment I’m just enjoying putting together the characterisation. The overall impression I get from the boys is that they shoot at everything, and substitute accuracy for enthusiasm, but I’m not really expecting to win anything anyway, the point is just to have fun with it.
My main issue with 40K is that its so hard to relate to any of the armies, as they’re either faceless drones or formless monsters - this is why I tend to prefer Warhammer fantasy. I did have a go at a demon army earlier in the year but then they rewrote the army list and took out the things that I found fun.
So, lacking in enthusiasm for demons, I decided to go with Imperial Guard because as they actually have faces they can therefore have a bit of personality, and I liked the look of the Cadian models in particular. A sweep of Alan’s collection revealed approximately 40 tanks of various brands (I can’t tell the difference) and according to Paul, approximately 5000 points of painted and unpainted infantry models. So probably enough to get started then, although the majority that we had annoyingly seemed to be steel legion in great coats and gas masks, which didn’t really help in the aim to avoid uniformity. Still, there were a fair few Cadians and that was a start.
The next important factor in planning the army was that Alan was proudly showing off some ancient and/or rare figures, with T’Other squeeing and Paul being quietly impressed, so there were a few figures that I had to include so he could show them off at the end of the month too. I got in on the game with one that I’d painted years ago to look like my System Override character, and so I knew that I needed a command squad to lead the army, with a medic. I also needed a commissar somewhere, because that was one of Alan’s non-negotiable models. I didn’t need an early unarmoured scout walker that looks like a duck, which is a shame because it does look so cute, but Alan has suggested using it as a victory marker in local games so it will get some use.
With these factors in mind, I am now writing up the backstory of the 75th & 3rd, a guard unit made up of the veteran survivors of the 75th Cadian legion which was slowly ground down to almost nothing over the course of several wars, and the 3rd Armageddon Steel, a much newer unit who have more survivors but still not enough to form a legion on their own. The army is led by the 75th’s command squad of longest-surviving soldiers, much to the chagrin of the relatively inexperienced Commissar in charge of the 3rd. Both are in their own distinctive colours - Cadian 75th in camo, a repaint from the original and Steel 3rd are in the dark brown that Alan originally had them - and the vehicles are being assigned to paint schemes depending on which side claims ownership at that point. I bought a gunship online which happened to be in my 3rd legion colours and I’m tempted to repaint it camo with some of the original showing through as the 75th misappropriate it for their side.
In both cases I’m basing them in snow, because they’re not going to let a crappy thing like the terrain they were dropped in choose what colours they wear. The odds are that for the tourney at the end of the month the 75th will have white bases that may or may not have snow on them, and the 3rd will almost certainly still be on the old bases since I may be running out, but that’s the long-term aim.
At some point I’ll have to work out how they play but largely at the moment I’m just enjoying putting together the characterisation. The overall impression I get from the boys is that they shoot at everything, and substitute accuracy for enthusiasm, but I’m not really expecting to win anything anyway, the point is just to have fun with it.