Unit Selection
Five months into this 12 month journey and I look at my growing army with a sense of satisfaction. This has to be the quickest I have ever painted an army to the 1000pt milestone and I feel like I have a force that covers most bases. This month I get to round it out even further with the Elites slot and a dedicated transport.
After the last game I realised I need some more long-range punch to deal with big nasty things. This is an area of limited availability in the Deathwatch Codex as they are designed to shoot things at medium range, so I had a good idea of what I wanted to take this month.
Stompy Stompy!
First off the Venerable Dreadnought. I picked one up in the Overkill boxed set which started my Deathwatch journey and it's been waiting for a lick of paint for a number of months. BS5 with a Twin-Linked Lascannon will ensure pin-point shots to take out tanks, snipe exposed characters and fry Crisis Suits (or just put wounds on monstrous creatures). The re-roll to hit will also help with flyers in an extreme pinch, something I expect to see appearing soon in the campaign. Round this off with AV12 and some nasty close combat ability and the Venerable Dreadnought fills multiple roles whilst leaving room for more units.
More Armour!
Deciding not to put all my eggs into one basket, I added another Twin-Linked Lascannon in the form of a Razorback. This will be a transport for the sniper squad should I need to relocate them and act as a tank destroyer by hiding it in cover and firing the main gun. This gives two large guns for my opponent to worry about and potentially cover more areas of the board. It's no Predator Annihilator though so I need to be careful of that flimsy AV11.
Psychic Punch
With the left-over points I considered upgrading the Rhino for the Frag Cannon squad to a Razorback. However, this exchanged four high powered Frag Cannon shots for three rather mediocre Heavy Bolter shots and it came across as a waste of points. Instead I upgraded the Librarian to Mastery Level 2 and I plan on playing him a bit further forwards in a more offensive role. So far the psychic phase hasn't proven overwhelming and the Librarian has felt a bit wasted sitting at the back with the snipers and Prescience.
8th Edition
Something else I am being considerate of is the new edition of Warhammer 40k being released soon. We haven't decided at the club as to how this will affect the campaign until we know more, but I'm being careful of picking unusual wargear options. The Dreadnought and Razorback are common loadouts and a safe bet that they will be included. My other plans such as a breacher squad of Shotgun and Storm Shield or an Inquisitorial Retinue for fluff reasons is on hold until more details are revealed. Since I am already using the CAD chart to build my army I'm not too affected at the moment, especially with the announcement that formations are being scrapped and the new army building detachments giving me even more Elites slots!
I'm looking forwards to 8th as 7th has became very bloated and the detachment/formation system is broken and unnecessarily complicated. I still have concerns it looks a bit too much like the fantasy equivalent rules (mortal wounds and the morale system I am not keen to see) but I won't be able to make any decisions until I learn more. It is good to see the Warhammer Community team actively engaging the playerbase though and preventing the cold water shock that was AoS. Also, free core rules. Yes please!
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