Progress on BA40K

With my renewed interest in 40K (setting, not system) I have been going through old boxes of spare models, and there have been a surprisingly large number of useful finds. For the Red Hammer marines I found a complete squad of 9 Blood Claws (Space Wolf assault troops), a marine bike, and a Cyclone Terminator. My brother also donated a squad of 4 scouts and a plasma gunner.

Two Blood Claw assault teams of 4

Attack bike, plasma cannon, captain (seen below painted), and cyclone terminator

Scout team

Captain Ulrik the Northman

It takes four thralls to get him battle ready. Three organise his weapons and armour, the fourth does his hair.

I now have far more marines than I would field in my preferred 600-800 point games, so any further additions will be just for unit variety.

I’ve also been thinking about how to organize force selection. Original WH40K has it’s system of HQ/Troop/Heavy Support etc. unit types. But that’s a bit more complicated than I would prefer, plus at the 600-800 point level it wouldn’t be much of a restriction. I’m also not a fan of Bolt Action’s system of allowing a force to have one each of AT gun, artillery, armoured car, tank, etc. In my opinion this manages to be simultaneously too restrictive and too permissive – having two AT guns is unrealistic, but having an AT gun, a tank, and a howitzer is fine?

My present thought is to tag certain unit choices as HQ, Troop, and Rare. When organizing a game players agree both number of points and number of Rares allowed (with 1 Rare per full 400 points being suggested). A force must have one HQ, two Troops, and cannot have more than the agree number of Rares. The units I currently have written for the Space Marine list are;

• Sergeant (HQ)
• Veteran Sergeant (HQ)
• Captain (HQ, Rare)
• Tactical Fireteam (Troop)
• Terminator Fireteam (Rare)
• Assault Fireteam
• Devastator Fireteam
• Rhino
• Land Speeder (Rare)

This is only about half the units in the WH40K marine codex (and likewise the Tyranid list so far only covers about half of their WH40K units) but I’d rather work on getting a modest selection of units done well than do a rush job covering everything. Next army list up is the Tau, thanks both to my finding a box of Fire Warriors in my spare models and a potential opponent mentioning an interest.