Well, I've done it again, bought another eBay bargain! This time however, it's for kill team. As you may have noticed I am a massive fan of kill team, I like the idea, the size and the rules, I just wish I had some more like minded people around to play with! 40k wise, I'm sorted, there's plenty for nice people to play with but kill teams a bit under supported up here. 

Anyway, I do tend to play a lot with the kids, both mind and friends and they tend to want to play big games with lots of stuff on the table but I'm hoping that with some arena boards I can reduce the size of the games but still retain the fun aspect of it. I don't think it's too hard to achieve, as we currently tend to play on similar sized Infinity boards. 

For less than a tenner I managed to get an almost complete box of arena. The only thing I appear to be missing is the bits to go on the board, such as doors and boxes. I have some of these spare, siluch as boxes and barrels, plus I have other bits that can easily stand in for the pipes, it's only the doors that might be a problem. However I have a solution, these things;

I reckon that a couple of these, printed on paper and stuck on to card, with some appropriate stands should do fine as stand in for the doors. Ok, so they'll not be as detailed (they'll be black and white as well, as the wife's work printer only prints black and white) but they will serve the purpose well enough for what we need. I'm hoping I can get this all sorted this weekend and maybe even have a trial game with the young man at some point but we will have to see if time allows. 

I'm actually quite excited about this. I had been looking at a way to get Space Hulk tiles sorted and printed but it became a lot more complicated than I thought it would be, as the tiles we're all different scales and would need printing and adjusting several times to get them all to match up properly. Something I wasn't able to do. Getting hold of these boards is great, as it gives me what I want cheaply and without any of the hassle. 

The Dark Guardians are a member of the unforgiven and as before they have a page dedicated to the chapter history (HERE). You might notice that there has been a bit of a change to the colour scheme of the chapter, this is because I decided against the yellow and also, to much silver would just make them look like Grey Knights. This will be the colour scheme of the chapter and I will at some point go back and change it, probably when I update everything to primaris. 

Over the last few weeks I've had a bit of time to do some painting, not as much as I would have liked but still, I can't complain! Anyway, I've managed to get a few kill teams done, 3 to be precise, as well as start a couple of others but more about that later. 

Meet Grog or is it Drog? or Srog? or Trog? Who really knows, certainly not Brog(??). He is a Bullgryn Bonehead and bodyguard, armed with slabshield and mail to protect his charge and smack anything that comes close. 

 

So, the other day when I was browsing eBay, which is pretty much a daily occurrence at the moment, I came across something that piqued my interest somewhat. On this occasion I was just flicking through 40k related items, from miniatures to terrain to random game related items. It was one of these game related items that caught my eye, namely Space Hulk Tiles. 

I will start this post with a promise. I promise not to let this post turn into a rambling whine about how crappy all the various list building tools are. Now that's out the way, let's get on with the rambling whine about all the crappy list building tools!

On a more serious note, there are several list building tools out there, some are game specific and some are very generic and I doubt that I will cover even a fraction of them on here but I hope I've covered the main ones. For me, the list breaks down in 3 ways; list building apps, computer programs and manual systems. Now, I am aware that apps are computer programs but for this list, apps will be programs specifically designed for list building and computer programs will refer to programs adapted for list building.

Let's start by listing out the various options;

List building apps;

Battlescribe
Kill team companion
Kill team manager
Kill Team command roster
Army builder
Codex Commander

Computer program;

Various Excel spreadsheet

Manual systems;

Pen and paper

As you can see there are lots of apps and not many other options, although I probably could find dozens of Excel based list building tools if I really wanted to and I suppose that for fairness I probably should have but I haven't and as such I'll be pretty general when talking about them.

Personally I use list building apps partly to actually build lists to play with but partly to brain storm options and possibilities or to just play around with list for the fun of it, such as how many infantryman or how many command points I could manage in 2000 points ( 42 if I remember right).

When I started using specific programs for list building, I started with the Lone Wolf Army Builder. While I haven't used this program in a long time, it still seems to be a very good program. I always found it clear and easy to use, with all the options and relatively few errors. However, it had and still has one big issue for me, you can't get it on Android. I do pretty much all my hobby on my phone, so not being able to get the program on my phone instantly dumps in on the "no use pile".

The led me to Battlescribe, as it solver that particular problem but I have found the program not to be as good and quite often having wrong or incomplete information. In addition I have found that it can be very slow to load and use and can suck the life out of your battery. While it is a good program to use, these issue mean that I get frustrated with it and quite often end up having to double check my lists with other sources.

With the release of Kill Team, I sought out apps that could help here and while Battlescribe does have kill Team, I decided to try other apps and came across Kill Team Manager. This was a brilliant app. It had everything I needed in one package, which was easy to use and accurate. I loved it from the first time I used it and all things Kill Team went on Kill Team Manager. That was until Elite's can out, and since then it's been rubbish. Crashing all the time, units you can't use or delete, as it causes the program to crash and with the latest update, it's now even less usable as it's removed some of the previews for units, so you can't see what there equipped with with out clicking on them, which can be very tedious when planning new teams or rosters. It annoys me so much now, especially as it was so good.

So with Kill Team Manager going weird I was on the hunt for another app to use and I came across two, codex Commander and Kill Team Companion. Now Codex Commander looked interesting but it doesn't have a Kill Team option, so it wasn't any good for that but I thought I'd give it a go for 40k proper and to be honest, I wasn't very impressed. It was not very intuitive or simple to use, maybe if I spent more time on it I would have got a better understanding of how it all worked but it really didn't grab me at all, so the app got deleted and I moved on. Kill team Companion on the other had looks very good and lots of people seem to be very impressed by it. It's not a stand alone app, as it requires information to be imported from Battlescribe, so you still need that app as well but once the information is in there it's very simple to use and you can even assign pictures to the various entries. The only downside seems to be that one the information is in you can't edit it. So if you don't set your specialist at the beginning you can't change things around later. There may well be a way, I might just not have figured it out yet but apart from this it's a pretty good app to have.

Lastly, the is GW's very own Kill Team Command Roster. Now I'll included this in the apps list but it could just as easily fit in the computer programs list, as it's an online program accessed only via the companies website. Now I know that there are a lot of people out there who do not like this program, I have found it to be pretty good but not perfect. For starters there is a lot of information on there, such as the campaign resources counters and arena objective options. Now you could just ignore all these quite easily but it's still distracting. Other than that it does have some good features, namely the ability to name your men, without having to type it all in and all the squad info as well. However, it is let down by the fact that you need to have the internet to use it and as I write often play around with lists when out and about, including placed with poor or no signal, this is a bit of an issue. The other issue that I have found in the past and the main reason I have not used this in a while, is that I've often had trouble saving, loading and exporting the rosters. When I did use it I found that most of the time the process just froze and caused the page to crash, needing to reload and loose all of the data I'd entered. The other issue Ive found is that some of the data seems to be missing or incomplete, such as names for custodian guard or for several guard options. If  the program was available off line in app form, I would probably use this as my first choice but as it is, I don't use it at all.

While I was trying to find suitable apps for kill team, I have also tried other methods, all of which I have tried have been Excel based spreadsheet systems. Now, I have tried several over the years, over half a dozen and I have not found any that I liked very much. Most of the had issues, ranging from corrupt pathways or menus, wrong or inconsistent data and poor navigation. They also all suffer from the fact that you cannot easily update the information when FAQ's and Erratas come out. That being said, I have recently acquired a sheet for kill team, titled Elite Kill Team Command Roster, which I found through Reddit. I've had a little play around and from what I've seen so far, it looks quite good, although I've only been looking through my phone and think that it would be significantly easier to use on a computer. I am hoping to get a chance to play around properly one day soon but with all the kids around, finding a quite 5 minutes to play on the computer isn't easy! There still seems to be the usual issues, as in there, are actually several versions of the sheet, as new updates and expansions become available.

Lastly, we have the old classic, pen and paper. This seems to be one of the lost arts these days, actually getting a pen, piece of paper and the rule book or codex and writing a list out in long or short hand. I still do this on occasion, usually after I've played around with a list on one app or another and am modelling up any additionally required units, so I don't have to keep going back though the whole list again and again. Most of the time I don't bother with this, as it's too long winded and I keep changing my mind. It's a shame really, as its nice to look at when your all finished, that is until you notice a mistake and then it just becomes a page of squiggles.

So, after all this, where am I? Honestly I don't really know, I really thought I had it sussed with Kill Team Manager but now I'm left flicking back and forth from one app to another. Does anyone else have any alternative suggestions or tips for things I'm missing?

Just a quick one  ago this week, as Iive been busy with DIY projects, namely the kids playroom but a while ago I  posted about my new storage solution for my Kill Team teams. Well, I decided I liked it so much that I bought another one, only this time it's blue!


The 5 trays will be filled with my other kill teams, namely a layer for Tyranids, and a layer for grey knights. One layer will house two marine kill teams and another will house the scouts and third marine kill team. The last will house the chaos team. This should mean that I have at least half a tray empty which is good because I have 5 Deathwatch models (the Vanguard vets) that still need a home, plus a Bullgyrn for the guard. They may we'll be others at some point but nothing's planned, even so, some extra space is nice. I'll post up more pictures when I've finished.

With the final couple of touched added to the Eagle Knights Kill Team, it is time to move on to the next project, which also happens to be a Kill Team. This team is also a marine team, but dedicated more to longer\medium range fire power.

Initially I for planned for this to be a Space Wolf inspired team, using the Space Wolf chapter tactic. However, with the Eagle Knights team using the Blood Angles tactic and really having the option for taking the Space Wolves tactic without any penalty to the overall effectiveness of the team, as both are active in the fight phase, where the Knights are designed to be. Therefore, this team have ended up being designed for a lot more longer range fire power, with a number of storm bolters and bolters, with some support from a missile launcher and plasma gun. There is however some combat ability with several lightning claws and chainswords in the mix. This has given me a little issue though, as I don't know which chapter tactic I will be going with yet, but it will be either Imperial Fists, Salamanders or Raven Guard.


The paint table is currently an old tea tray which has enough room for my selected paints and brushes.


So, this is the full team, assembly for painting. Front rank is two jump pack vets for some fast assault along with a Sgt with storm bolter and sword. Middle rank is the two Tactical Gunners with plasma and missile launcher plus vet with plasma pistol and sword. At the back it's another Sgt with claw and storm bolter, a Tactical and Tactical Sgt, who double as Medic. They have been primed and based with the main areas of yellow blocked out all the units (the vet and missile Gunner have now been done) Next up is adding some details, such as black weapons and armour bits and silver highlights, oh and rebaseing all the models to the newly arrived 30mm bases.

With the recent post about all.my other kill teams, I thought I would post up about the Blood Angels team or rather the Eagle Knights strike team Angelic.

The strike team are formed of 10 members, hand picked by the Veteran Sergeant, known as brother champion Lorenso, from the various members of the 3rd company that have impressed brother champion Lorenso over the last century or so. While brother champion Lorenso exhibits many of the traits of the chapter, he is also an exceptional leader and is considered by many to be a possible future companies Lord commander or even the chapters Grand High Lord Commander. The force has been tasked with providing one of the primary assault units, to act as a spear tip to the overall company, within which there role is to infiltrate and eliminate key targets and personal. Taking inspiration from Lorenso's aggressive nature, the team, once set on a mission, are constantly pushing forward, ready to adapt to any situation but always attacking.

A quick note here. All the information on the team was randomly generated, everything from the mission and background to the names and demeanor. I try and change as little as possible for anything, however, I do allow for bad rolls, such as with this team, when the background first came up as "fire support". Well for a team with only two guns capable of firing past 12 inches, fire support was going to be a little useless, so I rerolled the dice and they became infiltration specialists, which was a much better roll. I also had to change one of the names of the Marines as otherwise I would had had two Marines with the same name, which I thought was a bit odd,  and I don't mean just first or last names the same, I mean both names would have been the same.

Anyway, with that bit of housekeeping out the way, let's move on to the individual Marines.


First up we have the Vanguard Vets or as there known in the chapter, the Hawk Brethren. From left to right we have Sergeant Erasmus Arteros, Brother Leonid Raneil and Brother Donatelus Moriar.

Sgt Arteros is a ferocious warrior, who is always at the forefront of any fight, wielding his power fist with precision and power. Arteros is usually flanked by either Raneil or Moriar. Raneil jumps in to battle carring his power axe and pistol ready to smash the skulls of any enemies of the imperium, especially xeno's skull for whom he reserves a special hatred for. Moriar on the other hand is a very dour warrior. Conscious of the black rage and that become of those that fall, Moriar has trained both his mind and body to remove feeling and emotions from his action, so he goes about his work in an almost machine like fashion.

In game terms, I spent a lot of time going back and forth about who to make the vanguard Sergeant. I did initial think of Raneil and make the axe a relic blade (yes I know that they are usually swords, but it's just "blade" not "sword blade" so axe blade counts). This would have upped the AP and strength, but does sort of remove the need for a fist. In the end I went for the Sgt on Arteros with his fist, as I wasn't planning on using any of these as leaders, and making him a combat specialist means that he'll have 4 attacks (3 base plus 1 for combat) to off set the -1 for the fist plus with the Blood Angels trait he'll be wounding everything on 2's (2x S4 making him S8, +1 to wound for BA trait, meaning even Nurgle T5 Marines are wounded 2's). The other two will be Zealot specialists for the +1 strength and attacks, making the axe S6 and claws S5, meaning they will cut through pretty much anything (but Nurgle Marines).


The company vets of the 3rd company, known as serpentia, part of the serpent squads. On the left is Brother Furian Amuto, with Brother Champion Faustian Lorenso and Brother Amareus Raneil.

Brother Amuto is a very grim faced Sombre marine, who take his duty very seriously indeed. Amuto is veteran of many centuries and he finds little pleasure in his task these days. Brother champion Lorenso is the overall commander of the force and exhibits many of the traits associated with those of the "blood". He is aggressive, blood thirstly and on occasion can get lost to the fires of battle. While he has heard the call of the black rage many times, he has as yet resisted it's urges. As well as these traits, he is also very wise and experienced, who's knowledge of battle is second to none within the force. Brother Raneil, Amareus Raneil, as opposed to Leonid Raneil from the Brethren, is altogether a different character, quiet, unassuming and mysterious. Little is known about him by his brothers but it is known that Lorenso trusts and often takes council from Raneil when difficult or troubling situations occur and as such he is trusted by the others.

In the game, Amuto and Raneil are going to be kept as non-specialists, to fill out the roster. Lorenso on the other hand will be the teams leader specialist, the only leader and will appear in every list, as it should be.


The next selection are the "shoot" Marines, the tactical and sternguard.


The last two members of the team are Brother Sergeant Leonid Lorenso and sternguard Sergeant, or Vulture legionary Decanus Nicodemus Redolpho.

Brother Sergeant Leonid Lorenso was brought along due to his  training with Sanguinary Priests and so acts as the squads Apothecary. A charismatic character, Lorenso is just the marine you need at your side when your wounded. Able to not only heal the body, his force of will and strength of character have been know to motivate even the most grievously wounded Marine to continue fighting on. He will often be found at the front of any battle treating the wounded, right under the noses of the enemy. Vulture Legionnaire Decanus Nicodemus Redolpho, or Sternguard Sergeant Nicodemus Redolpho, is not quite so charismatic. A serious and stern and some what  dour man, he is nonetheless an excellent shot. Armed with his special issue boltgun, he was recruited to the team for his ability to eliminated targets at range, in even the most cluttered of environments. He is also armed with a power fist, although he generally uses this for punching holes in walls (to shoot through) and less for fighting, preferring to keep at arms length from his quarry.

There is a good reason for having a tactical Sergeant as a medic specialist, it's the only profile that fits the model I had. I could have built a new model, but the Sanguinary novitiate model is ready painted. As he's carrying a chain sword it limits the number of options a lot, down to tactical Sergeant and .......... Yeah, that's it really, so Tac Sgt it is. Medics aren't great but they do have a few tricks that can be useful, such as the level 1 tactic which adds an inch to charges and an extra attack to a model. For a combat oriented force, it could prove to be useful. The last model in the force is the Sternguard. This was included for one simple reason, to add some long range shooting to the force. With the 30 inch bolter there is nothing that can't be hit, if it can be seen plus the -2ap is pretty handy. The Sternguard will also be a sniper specialist for the re-rolls and with the tactic and the comms specialist, an obscured target at long range should be hitting on 3's, at close range, it'll be 2's, wounding might be a bit of a problem but even Marines are saving on 5's. The power fist on the model is there just because really, it's probably not going to get used much, but if something does get withing punching range, there's a good chance it's going to get splattered.

And that's it, that's the Eagle Knights strike team, now all I need to do is get that Sternguard painted up!

So following on from the Deathwatch kill team, I have decided to have a quick run down of the other teams I'm planning. Some of these teams are going to be full 20 man rosters, some of them are going to be just 10 man rosters or maybe somewhere in between. Some of these teams are also complete and some are still to be purchased or even released!

I'll start with the ones that are at least complete, in terms of the fact that I own all the models needed to complete the teams. These are mostly Marine based teams but there are also a chaos and tyranids team as well. Im also starting here as these are the teams that I will probably use most of all, after the likes of the guard and AdMech anyway.


The first team I'll talk about will be the Blood Angels. Now, the Blood Angels are generally associated with combat and assault packs, so this is the main theme of the force. There is very little shooting, with only a handful of weapons that can shoot over 12 inches, as in 2. One bolter on a tactical marine and a special issue boltgun on a Stern guard Sgt. Other ranged weapons include a tactical with flamer and a tactical Sgt (acting as medic) and 2 vanguard vet both with bolt pistols, and that's it. Nearly Half the team, 3 company vets and a vanguard vet, don't  have any shooting capacity at all. Although what the vanguard vets do have is jump packs, making them fast and the company vets all have storm Shields, making them fairly resilient. The basic idea with these guys is simple, get up close and personal and then try and chain combats. Against elite armies, this team should do well but might struggle against horde type armies as they just don't have the power to reach out and touch that many units at a time.


One team that shouldn't have much trouble with hordes however, is the Space Wolves, or Stone Dragons. There is only one man that doesn't have a ranged weapon and only 3 that can't shoot over 12 inches. Within the remaining 6, 3 have storm bolters, 2 bolters and the last man a plasma gun. Space Wolves are not known as a long range chapter and that's reflected here as well with a number of combat weapons spread around plus there are two vets with jump packs for extra mobility. This all means that there is a good mix of fire power and shooting, with the force being best in the 0 to 12 inch range, as opposed to the 0 to 1 inch range of the Blood Angels. This force is also a bit of general purpose list, with the ability to take on elites with plasma and also hordes with storm bolters and boltguns.


So, we have a combat oriented and a short\medium ranged team in the mix but there is not a lot of options for a long ranged team, so we're going in another direction now and going for some resilience, as the last marine force is the Dark Angels, or Dark Guardians. This force is very different again and is formed around a core of terminators, in fact half the team is armoured in TDA suits. These suits are a combination of combat and ranged, with twin claws, a TH\SS, heavy flamer, storm bolters and an assault cannon in there. These are supported by a number of power armoured Marines and by support I mean support. Now you could just use 3 termies, with no other units, but 2 with a couple of Marines in support would be best. This force is would be capable of taking on both elite and horde style armies, although fast moving armies would prove a bit more of a challenge due to the termies slow speed.

The last marine team to talk about is the scout team. This is the first full 20 man team and is formed of 17 scouts and 3 full battle brothers. These guys are a mix of weapons, with two heavy bolters, two sniper rifles, two shotguns, X bolters and X bolt pistol and combat knives, with X having chain swords to act as scout sgts. The full Marines are a tactical with plasma gun, and two sets, one with chain sword and plasma pistol and one with Combi plasma, as the whole premis of the force is a small squad of scouts lead by an experienced tactical Sgt. The force can be split in to two rough factions, long ranged with heavy bolters, bolters, sniper rifles and shotguns, and short range with pistols and knives, although there will no doubt be some overlap between these.

The next force is also power armoured but is not a standard marine force, as it belongs to the Grey Knights. This force will be a smallish force, 10 to 12 models. This force is just a basic force with a few of each type of model in. There really isn't a theme or purpose to the force, I just wanted a Grey Knights force in the collection. Dispute not really having any theme to this little force, I'm still looking forward to playing this force.

The last imperial faction I'm going to collect is the adepta sororitas or sisters of battle. I've been looking forward to collecting and building since they announced the new plastic sisters. The plan is to build a force around the battle sisters with only one, modified sister to represent a repentia. I won't be using arco-flagellants at all, as I don't see them as being part of kill team, to unreliable and I can't imagine they would be very good at sneaking through enemy territory to raid or assassinate. The force will contain at least one of each heavy and special weapon, plus a couple of variants of sister superiors. The will also be a minimum of 7 regular battle sisters, one with a Simulacrum Imperialis, one modelled as a medic and 5 basic models to fill out the team.  The repentia will be a modified sister of battle, modified to carry a couple of chain saw. This is because I want the force to have very coherent look and feel to it, like it's a single squad, or two squads, of sisters sent out on a mission. Of all these forces, this is the one I'm most excited about!

After all the imperial forces there are a couple of other forces in the mix, one chaos and one xenos.

The chaos force is formed of a core of Marines, supported by a number of cultists. There are effectively two teams here, a ranged team and a combat team. The Marines are armed with various weapons, a couple with bolters but some have assault weapons, like axes and claws. The cultists are armed with 2 flamers and 2 heavy stubbers, along side several cultists with autoguns and several with auto pistols and brutal assault weapons. While I don't plan on using this team much I have a plan for them. The cultists are going to be painted in very dull and bland colours, with only minor bright colours on sashes or bands, dedicated to the specific god that cultists follows. The marines on the other hand will have very bright and colourful armour, in keeping with there old legions or god. These will form the "bad guy" faction for me to play when I feel like a change.

The final team at present is the only xeno's team and is that of the dreaded Tyranids. This team is actually pretty sizable, about 30 or more models. The main movers and shakers of the team are a Tyranids Warrior, with a big gun, possibly a venom cannon, maybe?, and a lictor. Apart from these two big monsters, we have 12 Hormagaunts and 16 Termagants, with a selection of weapons. There are 4 spinefists, 6 fleshborers and 6 devourers. This force will mostly be used as a enemy force when playing at home, rather than a force to play at the club or tournament. It is also a force that has just grown up as I've gathered bit and there has been no thought or process to how it's been collected.

There are also 3 other teams that I am considering if I get time. The first is a custodies team, which will be formed of just 3 custodes, a spear and two swords. I would basically be collecting this force as it's the only outstanding imperial faction. The second force I might consider is basically a copy of the chaos force but built as an imperial faction, something similar the Ultramarines and their auxiliary forces. Lastly, I might consider another xeno's force, namely an Ork force, just because it would be fun to bash a force together and be a very fun team to play when I fancied a change.