For me, 2017 has been a great year for 40k, and it has been a pretty good year for St Andrews Wargaming too. I'm going to take a look at what has happened in the last year for me and for the blog.
Hobby Content
This has been a good year hobby wise for me. At the start of the year, I was well in progress on painting up my Deathwatch army. I had started this force towards the end of 2016 and kept at it as the year began. This was helped along by taking part in Squaduary, allowing me to engage in the community scheme to get a unit painted up in February.
In September, I completed the army and posted a showcase of the force. I was really happy with how the army turned out, becoming quite a sizeable force when it was completed. I was also very happy to receive a best army nomination at one of the tournaments that I attended.
This year, I have been making great progress on my Genestealer Cults army. I was a bit hesitant to get this started, as it was a big project. However, I was glad that I finally got started on this, as it has been a lot of fun to get painted and I think I managed to get through the units rather quickly, while still maintaining a decent standard.
I think that my painting skills have greatly improved in the last year. The Deathwatch and Genestealer Cults forces are without a doubt the best looking forces that I have ever painted. I look forward to finishing up the Genestealers army and getting them on the tabletop a bit more.
Gaming
2017 was a huge year for gaming in 40k. The release of the 8th edition of the game was the biggest shake up to the game since the release of 3rd edition 40k.
Overall, I think 8th edition has been a very positive change for the game. The apparent simplification of the rules have helped considerably from the bloated mess that 7th edition had become. It has also been a relative reset to the power levels of various armies in the game. That balance has started to shift a bit with the release of the codices, but hopefully we will continue to see a reasonable trend towards power balance.
This year, I have seen the release of 3 codices for armies that I own; Space Marines, Astra Militarum and Dark Angels. I have managed to get games in with two of the codices and have enjoyed using them in 8th edition. Command points and stratagems have been a huge change for armies and really give a big boost to armies.
The only army I haven't used yet is the Astra Militarum. I had to wait to go home at Christmas to pick up my armies, but look forward to trying them out in the new year.
2017 started off with some great success for me. I attended Dave's Birthday Bash in February. This was a tournament based on maelstrom missions, with a focus on fun games with lists that weren't too filthy. As maelstrom is one of my favourite ways to play 40k, I was very pleased to come first in the tournament, making it my first win of a tournament in my 40k history.
After the highs of my Deathwatch in 7th edition, the start of 8th edition was pretty rocky for the Deathwatch. I struggled to pull out the wins with the army in the new edition of the game. My win rate pretty much reversed overnight, going from a roughly two-thirds win rate in 7th, to about a third win rate in 8th. I attended a couple of tournaments with the Deathwatch and put out my worst tournament performances of any that I had attended with the army. I think a combination of very expensive units and lack of variety to the army was a downfall in this edition. They simply did not have the bodies to deal with the massive attrition that 8th edition brings from the shooting phase and fight phase and quickly became a very tough army to play with.
The release of the Space Marine codex saw my White Scars take to the table once more with a reasonable degree of success. The army plays very different to its previous iteration, with bikers struggling to make such a big impact on the tabletop in the new edition of the game. They are still a fun army to use though, and the new game is forcing me to try some different tactical approaches, which is always a nice bonus.
Now that I have picked up the rest of my armies, I look forward to adding a bit more variety to my games in the new year.
Blog Progress
2017 has been an interesting year for the blog. There has been a general downwards trend in page views each month over the past year, despite the overall page views for the blog being up in 2017 compared to 2016.
This year, I wrote around 213 articles on St Andrews Wargaming. The year started with my one of my best months ever, with around 35,000 views in January.
I'm not sure why there is such a downward trend in views this year, but it appears to be something a lot of other 40k bloggers have been commenting on recently.
I have noticed that page views on 8th edition codex reviews have seemed lower this year compared to codex reviews in previous years. I have my own theory on this, whether it is true or not I have no idea. For the first time, GW appear to be giving advance copies of new release codices to certain websites and youtube channels. This allows those outlets to put up codex reviews a week in advance of any other site, generally on the day of the pre-order. As a result, most of my reviews are coming out at least a week late compared to other reviews that can be found online. In addition, games workshop are releasing a lot more information on each codex on warhammer community before the codex release, so there may be fewer people looking for information on the codices when they are released. Anyway, that is one of my thoughts on why views may be down.
The most popular articles on the blog published in 2017 were:
Hobby Content
This has been a good year hobby wise for me. At the start of the year, I was well in progress on painting up my Deathwatch army. I had started this force towards the end of 2016 and kept at it as the year began. This was helped along by taking part in Squaduary, allowing me to engage in the community scheme to get a unit painted up in February.
In September, I completed the army and posted a showcase of the force. I was really happy with how the army turned out, becoming quite a sizeable force when it was completed. I was also very happy to receive a best army nomination at one of the tournaments that I attended.
This year, I have been making great progress on my Genestealer Cults army. I was a bit hesitant to get this started, as it was a big project. However, I was glad that I finally got started on this, as it has been a lot of fun to get painted and I think I managed to get through the units rather quickly, while still maintaining a decent standard.
I think that my painting skills have greatly improved in the last year. The Deathwatch and Genestealer Cults forces are without a doubt the best looking forces that I have ever painted. I look forward to finishing up the Genestealers army and getting them on the tabletop a bit more.
Gaming
2017 was a huge year for gaming in 40k. The release of the 8th edition of the game was the biggest shake up to the game since the release of 3rd edition 40k.
Overall, I think 8th edition has been a very positive change for the game. The apparent simplification of the rules have helped considerably from the bloated mess that 7th edition had become. It has also been a relative reset to the power levels of various armies in the game. That balance has started to shift a bit with the release of the codices, but hopefully we will continue to see a reasonable trend towards power balance.
This year, I have seen the release of 3 codices for armies that I own; Space Marines, Astra Militarum and Dark Angels. I have managed to get games in with two of the codices and have enjoyed using them in 8th edition. Command points and stratagems have been a huge change for armies and really give a big boost to armies.
The only army I haven't used yet is the Astra Militarum. I had to wait to go home at Christmas to pick up my armies, but look forward to trying them out in the new year.
2017 started off with some great success for me. I attended Dave's Birthday Bash in February. This was a tournament based on maelstrom missions, with a focus on fun games with lists that weren't too filthy. As maelstrom is one of my favourite ways to play 40k, I was very pleased to come first in the tournament, making it my first win of a tournament in my 40k history.
After the highs of my Deathwatch in 7th edition, the start of 8th edition was pretty rocky for the Deathwatch. I struggled to pull out the wins with the army in the new edition of the game. My win rate pretty much reversed overnight, going from a roughly two-thirds win rate in 7th, to about a third win rate in 8th. I attended a couple of tournaments with the Deathwatch and put out my worst tournament performances of any that I had attended with the army. I think a combination of very expensive units and lack of variety to the army was a downfall in this edition. They simply did not have the bodies to deal with the massive attrition that 8th edition brings from the shooting phase and fight phase and quickly became a very tough army to play with.
The release of the Space Marine codex saw my White Scars take to the table once more with a reasonable degree of success. The army plays very different to its previous iteration, with bikers struggling to make such a big impact on the tabletop in the new edition of the game. They are still a fun army to use though, and the new game is forcing me to try some different tactical approaches, which is always a nice bonus.
Now that I have picked up the rest of my armies, I look forward to adding a bit more variety to my games in the new year.
Blog Progress
2017 has been an interesting year for the blog. There has been a general downwards trend in page views each month over the past year, despite the overall page views for the blog being up in 2017 compared to 2016.
This year, I wrote around 213 articles on St Andrews Wargaming. The year started with my one of my best months ever, with around 35,000 views in January.
I'm not sure why there is such a downward trend in views this year, but it appears to be something a lot of other 40k bloggers have been commenting on recently.
I have noticed that page views on 8th edition codex reviews have seemed lower this year compared to codex reviews in previous years. I have my own theory on this, whether it is true or not I have no idea. For the first time, GW appear to be giving advance copies of new release codices to certain websites and youtube channels. This allows those outlets to put up codex reviews a week in advance of any other site, generally on the day of the pre-order. As a result, most of my reviews are coming out at least a week late compared to other reviews that can be found online. In addition, games workshop are releasing a lot more information on each codex on warhammer community before the codex release, so there may be fewer people looking for information on the codices when they are released. Anyway, that is one of my thoughts on why views may be down.
The most popular articles on the blog published in 2017 were:
- Fall of Cadia Review: Part 2- Belisarius Cawl
- Warhammer Fest Event Photos
- Fall of Cadia Review: Part 1- Celestine, the Living Saint
- It Ain't Easy Being Green- the Evolution of Orks in 40k
- Battle Report 103- 2000 pts Deathwatch vs Primaris Marines/Astra Militarum
- Pew Pew Pew- the Evolution of the Shooting Phase in 40k
- Second Birthday Giveaway
- Battle Report 106- Deathwatch vs Astra Militarum
- Fracture of Biel-Tan Review: Part 2- The Visarch
- Fracture of Biel-Tan Review: Part 1- Yvraine
My two most popular battle reports from this year came at the start of 8th edition, where I guess people were eager to see what changes had been brought about in the game.
Other than that, some reviews from the Gathering Storm books were popular at the start of the year. My two "Evolution of 40k" articles were also popular. I really like doing this serious, even though they take quite a while to research and write. I still need to finish off the turn sequence, with looking at the assault phase. Maybe I'll find the time to get it done this year.
Overall
It's been a great year for the hobby, in my opinion. I look forward to 2018 and what it will bring for my armies still awaiting a codex. Hobby work is set to continue in the new year, with more work on my Genestealer Cults army, plus I've got an itching to try and do some more terrain work.
How has 2017 been for your own hobby progress? Anything you are looking forward to in the new year?