Solidifying my Plans
A few months ago, I put together my mostly-annual State of the Warp Address. The gist of it was that instead of being scattered between lots and lots of projects, I would focus on my 40k armies this year. More specifically, I would focus on one army at a time of my currently existing ones. Let's take a look at my current armies and the plans I have for each of them.

Tau Empires
My most recent army, the Tau still have a way to go toward being a full-fledged army. I still need to assemble and paint quite a few models to get them up to spec. This list is fairly comprehensive, but I don't know that I'll complete it in this order.

FireWarriors
I still need to paint and assemble 24 FireWarriors. I've had good success with the batch-painting method, leaving them on their sprues.

Missile Pods
I need to make some more of these. Right now I have enough of these for some of my Crisis Suits, but I need to have enough to fill out my Deathrain list, which is quite a few. I had a few problems with the molding method for making them, so I may try a new way. The basic idea is to make a lump of clay in a rough cylinder shape, let it partially harden, and then shave off the edges to get it the shape I want.

Crisis/Broadside Suits
I need to redo a few of the magnets on these guys and magnetize a few more. I also need to paint about half or so of them.

Weapons
While most of the weapons are pretty much ready to go in terms of assembly and magnetization (obviously excluding the Missile Pods) they do need to be painted.

Piranhas
I still need to assemble and paint 3 of these guys. Although I haven't used them as frequently in my lists recently (at least not more than 1-2 of them) they definitely have potential. In addition, I think using 6 in a list will make them much more effective, more than doubling the effect of 3 individual Piranhas.

Dark Eldar
This army needs some work to get up to my newer army standards, and to adjust to 4th edition rules. Although there haven't been any changes to the army, the main rules have changed and the way the game is played has changed some as well.

Painting Improvement
This is going to be the biggest part of the revamping. Most of the army is almost solid black, with a little bit of Chrome and a tiny amount of Green. (Mostly just the eyes.) I plan on going back and picking out a few more details in chrome and possibly another color or two. Primarily though, I want to do something to make them look a little better painted. One possibility is to paint their torso armor a different color. This is something I originally did with them, giving different squads different colors. Eventually that looked too chaotic, so I went to all black for them. While this made them more unified, it also made them look unfinished. If I paint their torso armor all the same color (Jade Green or Blood Red immediately spring to mind) they will look more finished and still be unified. I have also considered painting an Ourobouros (snake eating it's tail) symbol on them. Not only is this a fitting symbol for the Dark Eldar society and their origin, but a bit of freehand painting on each model will go a long way toward making this look like a well-painted army.

More Models
I have lost a number of models through having the army shuttle back and forth between storage areas. I also gave away almost all of my Wyche models to a friend, so I'll need to replace those. I haven't nailed down a complete list yet, but it will definitely include lots of Dark Lances, several boxes of Wyches, some Reavers and probably another Talos (or another conversion, we'll burn that bridge when we come to it.)

DeathWing/Doom Eagles
This army is in very poor shape. Due to poor storage, most of the models are in multiple pieces and the army will need a lot of work to get back in shape. I know that I'll need some more models, and I'll need to assemble and paint the ones I already have. I also need to revamp the army to fit in with 4th edition rules. It may be a small army, but it'll be a big job.

Still Deathwing, or something else?
This will almost have to be my first task when it comes to this army. When last I played them, I used the Deathwing ruleset, but with the Doom Eagles paint scheme. I haven't seen the new Dark Angels codex, so I'm not sure it's even possible to play a pure Deathwing army anymore. Even if it is, I may decide that it would be more interesting or more fun to play a more standard Space Marine army with a focus on Terminators. If that's the case, I'll need more models. One option that I've played around with is some scout squads with Terminator homers. The scouts infiltrate and find enemy positions, then the Terminators Deep Strike in to take out the resistance. We'll see.

Assault Cannons
When I assembled them, the Cyclone Missile Launcher offered them some very necessary ranged antitank weaponry and was much more effective than the Assault Cannon. The pendulum has swung far the other direction now, with the Assault Cannon not only being wildly more effective at killing hordes of models, but also more effective than a lascannon at taking out enemy vehicles. This said, I believe I currently own one assault cannon for this army. I would definitely replace all the Cyclones with Assault Cannons, either the actual bitz or some converted ones. (I might use Heavy Flamer arms and miniguns from various military models, I'm not sure yet.)

More Models
I will certainly need a few more Terminator models, and I may even need other Space Marine models as well. I might need just a few things, or I might need to nearly double the number of models in the army.

Painting
Well, with new models comes more painting, but I may decide to revamp my paint scheme. I'm not sure If I'll just sort of upgrade the Doom Eagles scheme, or I'll go with the Deathwing Scheme or something completely different.

3 Armies, 3 Plans
Well, those are the plans I have for my non-Tyranid armies. What about the Tyranids, you might ask. Well, I don't think the Tyranids really need any major revamping. I have a slight interest in a Tyranid ninja army, but that will definitely take a back seat to the rest of these armies. I think that the plans for the above three armies will take most of this year, but if they don't, maybe I'll start on the Tyranids. So, now that you know about my plans, make some plans of your own.

If you enjoyed this, email me and let me know

Return to Warpstorm!