The 40kUK Podcast are currently instigating a hobby event called “Age of Armies”, you can find out more about it here. But suffice to say it’s an army building challenge requiring you to build and paint a new army over the course of the year with a view to bringing it to a tournament at the end of the year, possibly the Autumn Throne of Skulls.
I’ve always wanted to do one of these events but they’ve always seemed to fall at times that weren’t convenient for one reason or another but this time, I’ve just finished my Tyranids, my Marines are just expanding into 6thedition and my Orks may never surface again ... so I quite fancy doing something new. The premise is that you acquire the equivalent of £50 worth of models for your army each month which is pretty achievable I think but what I really like about this is the intention for everyone involved to attend a tournament together at the end of the challenge. This sounds like a lot of fun.
The big question though, is what army should I do? I’ve been really tempted to do a Chaos Marines (Khorne) Primary with Ork Allies army because I have always loved the Chaos Marines from a fluff perspective and it would give my Orks a focus again. However I pretty much have all the Ork models I’d need painted up so that’s probably a no-go from the point of view of this challenge.
The list I’d considered at 1850pts was:
Chaos Marines (Primary)
Khorne Lord on Juggernaut
2x 8 Bezerkers in Rhinos
5x Spawn
2x Helldrakes
1x Maulerfiend
Orks (Secondary)
Warboss in Mega Armour
4x Meganobs in Battle Waggon
20x Shoota Boys
BattleWaggon
The list scales down to 1500pts pretty well too, I’d lust need to drop the Mega Nobs to save nearly 300pts and then shuffle some bits around to get down to 1500.
The second list I considered was a highly elite mix of Draigo-Wing with BA Nipple-Wing, i.e. the list below:
Grey Knights (Primary)
Draigo
10x Paladins – 4x Psycannon, 2x Daemon Hammer
1x Paladin
Dreadknight – Heavy Incinerator
Blood Angels (Secondary)
Dante
5x Sanguinary Guard – 1x Power Fist, 2x Plasma
Storm Raven
This comes in at 1795pts and contains 19 infantry models and a flyer! Somehow I really don’t see this standing up to the volume of fire army builds we are seeing at the moment despite all the 2+ saves. If we’re playing 1850pts then I could drop the Storm Raven and take another Sanguinary Guard Unit but if it’s 1500pts (typically the limit for Throne of Skulls) then I don’t think this list is viable in any shape or form. Even though it’s totally contrary to my play-style (you’d have to be super defensive to get anywhere with this list) I still quite like it, but I think it’s best suited for another time.
Then I went back to the Chaos Marines but looked at Slaanesh as my god of choice, inspired by the recent “The List” section on the 11th CompanyPodcast and perhaps have an Allied detachment of Slaanesh Daemons. After spending the weekend playing around with this I could not come up with anything I liked. Every time I got to the point’s limit I had a mid-table control, small-arms firepower list with a pretty redundant and sub-par counter attack unit which could be done far better by Grey Knights
All this navel gazing led me back to my first list but instead of the Ork allied unit (which I could still do because I have the models) I would go for a Khorne Daemon Ally or even a Necron Ally. Here are the two Ally ideas:
Khorne Daemons
Bloodthirster
16x Bloodletters
8x Fleshounds
1x Skull Cannon/Soul Grinder
Necrons (Drop a Helldrake)
Destroyer Lord w. MS Scarabs & Weave
10x Warriors w. Night Scythe
10x Warriors w. Night Scythe
6x Wraiths
I’ve got a little time before I have to commit for next month’s deadline so if you feel strongly about a build or think I’ve missed something please chip in a comment below.