...Unfortunately his devious warp tactics seem to be working!
I have been looking into various different Heresy era armies for the last few months with various amounts of despair (if I still had hair left, it would have all been torn out by now!), as I am struggling to find something that I wish to commit to collecting.
I think this is due to a few key points:
1. Background.
I have always had to enjoy the background of the army or faction that I collect, this has been quite a stumbling block for the Heresy, as although I have enjoyed a lot of the previous background/fluff/lore when we had been collecting, but I was now many HH Black Library books behind, and do not have the time/money to catch up with their prolific release schedule of novels over the last 6 years!
So I had to try to find out what had been changed/uncovered in the intervening years from when I last collected. Due to this I found that some of the Legions I had previously liked the idea of were not quite the same, and this felt like a bit of the shine being taken off them.
2 . Modelling.
I was likely to be getting into HH for the modelling aspect, rather than the gaming aspect, so I had to find an army that I would enjoy building and painting. I did buy an Ultramarines army, (probably my favourite Legion) and had enjoyed painting the 2 models I completed, however I found a few stumbling blocks, firstly I didn’t think that the models were that exciting to build, I feel that they were less fun due to the fact that everything was being built off a few kits, which due to the fact that most of the armies were full of the same models, meant that to have a unique army required a lot more work compared to normal, and due to the restrictions for the weaponry/wargear, meant this wasn’t necessarily as easy to achieve as a 40k army.
Secondly, the black library books were chalked full of characters who had unique items, or something that set them apart from their fellow marines, but I didn’t really find I had the bits to manage this in my models. This is due to the lack of GW purchases I have made, that I was restricted to the Calth boxed set, a few individual units I had eBay'd from Burning of Prospero, and a single boxed set of Sternguard. As I had rushed to get the models built, (due to lack of anything else to do at the time...!), I had the equivalent of the Nathaniel 'Straight as an Arrow' Garro of Armies!
3. Cost.
With the Heresy, cost of models is an issue. I am not rolling in dough it has to be said, and with a prevalence for Forge World models within the options in the army lists (unsurprising being a Forge World system – which I have no real issue with) the cost of an army is quite steep. This meant that before buying an army to replace the Ultramarines (which I sold), I needed to be totally convinced that they were 'the one'.
So with these points I have been struggling to settle on a force, as I say. So far I have managed to rule out more forces than I have ruled 'in'. I had been looking at Mechanicum, having picked up the HH novel for further inspiration, however having not read it in the best part of 10 years, it proved to be not nearly as good as I had thought it was at the time, and served to turn me off the background. Then having perused the FW site, I found their models weren’t to my tastes. I did look at plastic options for conversions, although the cost did put me off a bit too. I couldn’t find a set of base models to suit me.
I quite early ruled out other Astartes forces, as if I wasn’t going to be Ultramarines, I wasn’t particularly bothered about the rest.
From this I moved onto the other 'human' factions of the Solar Auxilia and the Imperial Militia. I loved the idea of the Militia being like the Imperial Guard I had been using for many a game 'back in the day!', unfortunately the models were the stumbling block, as I was looking at the potential of Warhammer fantasy models, with then some Guard/Skitarii arms. Although, I felt this could work, I found out that some of the models I had felt would work well for this, had been discontinued.
So having ruled out every list for HH, I was a bit stuck... that was until I found a post about using Xenos within 30k....
This opened up a lot of possibilities, although there were really only two choices, either Orks, or Space Elves!
Orks have always been an army I have enjoyed, but I have built many of them over the years, trying lots of different themes, and I didn’t think I'd do anything new.
Instead, I'd turn back to the Eldar. I now have a choice however, as there are Craftworld Eldar, Dark Eldar and Harlequins. All three have awesome models, which fits with point 2. I had also included in this list Exodites, they don’t have models, although I feel I could convert them relatively easily, and there were some rules for them in the post I had looked at. The Exodites although very tempting, I felt that I may end up with an army which looked 'too fantasy' based, and so I decided to stick to the other factions for the sci-fi look they had.
The three forces are quite difficult to choose from, as each has stunning model selection, with some nice options for converting. I originally looked at Craftworld Eldar, although I then made the mistake of looking more at the other two factions which has slightly turned me off the clean and good look they have!
Instead I am veering towards the Dark Eldar, in all their dark and twisted glory! I have read that they are not the most competitive of lists at present, but then that is not really something I have much issue with.
So with this in mind I have decided to pick up a few things each month that will fit in with my 3 points of collecting...
The background of the Dark Eldar has always been pretty strong in my opinion, I think if you strip out some of the pantomime villain aspect, that the idea of the hierarchy and the gladiatorial elements are really fascinating.
The idea of them being the architects of The Fall, and then unrepentant post Fall, yet struggling to reach immortality to avoid Slaanesh's clutch is pretty cool.
I have always veered towards the Wyche Cults as the element I like, and this is likely to be the aspect I concentrate on again with this army, with the idea of the army being honed in the arena with it's various combatants making up the bulk of the force, but I may stop short of calling my HQ Spartacus...
Martin did suggest of making a Court of the Archon for one of my HQ choices, based off an Arena Team from the likes of Warcraft, this has got my juices flowing, and I'm frenziedly googling the Wrath of the Lich King ToC bosses! Although we played as Alliance so I will have to look at some Ork models...
...which takes me nicely to Modelling! The Dark Eldar were one of the last armies I collected before selling off my GW stuff. This coincided with it being some of the last releases I promoted in store. The models I feel are some of my favourite they released, and it is one of the reasons I was drawn to them over the Craftworld Eldar. The compatibility within the kits is fantastic, and something I will be looking to exploit. The ease of moving the weapons around the various Arena based Kits (Wyches, Hellions, Reavers) make it easy to make unique-ish units with lots of variation. Add to this some of the releases in the intervening years of my hobby hiatus, gives me the option to build cool looking Hekatrix Bloodbrides by combining the Witch Elf/Sisters of Slaughter with the Wyches, which is on my to do list!
Cost wise, the Dark Eldar are some of the most affordable kits too, with Wyches coming in at a mere £13.50 through Dark Sphere! This should give me the option of picking up a few kits each month to build the army, as I have aimed to limit myself to roughly £50 a month, to keep costs down and a manageable painting queue.
So far my 1st month looks like this:
1x Wyche Box - £13.50 - Dark Sphere
1x Venom (looking forward to this as the model looks awesome!) - £13.88 - Dark Sphere
1x Gangs of Commorragh - £35 - GW Aberdeen (they do have 2 more in stock, which I may go and stock up on so I can have some aside for next month...)
This is slightly over my initial budget, although I was happy to extend it somewhat to pick up Gangs, as it is such a good bargain. I haven't opened it yet, unfortunately I have an essay to write first for Uni, but I will hopefully get some models built from it soon, with a raiding force appearing shortly...
...pray they don't take you alive!
No comments:
Post a Comment