Goodbye 2017. Hello 2018!

2017 are coming to a close and 2018 will take it’s place.

In the end of 2016 me and my gaming group decided to start a escalation campaign. After some times thinking my choice landed on word bearers. I never were the biggest fan of the lore for word bearers, but the hobby possibilities for the legion seemed endless.

One year later I sit and look at the year in review and on an 3000+ army of Lorgar and friends. I must say the legion this far have been so much fun to build. And at the last week of the year I really came to love the lore for word bearers as well. My appreciation for the background story actually comes from a very unlikely source.

The tv series Vikings. With most legions you can link the background and lore with something real and historical from “our world”. For word bearers the only parallel I could make, was too hell and stuff like that.

Now I am not particularly religious but I really don’t like the concept of being evil for the sake of being evil. And because of my limited experience with word bearers the lore never sat right with me. But all that changed with one episode of Viking. Now if this is the right way to view word bearers or not I don’t really care about. It makes a lot of sense to me.

In the episode of Vikings a warrior bishop gets captured by Ivar the boneless and his forces. When Ivar approaches the bishops snarled “heathen”. Ivar just smiles and answer half whisper “Christian”. Both just as sure of their religion and beliefs. Both convicted about their gods and their power. Now Viking was not evil in the seance that they spread death and chaos for the sake of spreading death and chaos. They followed their culture and their gods. We might not see that this way was particularly “nice”, from were we are today. But Vikings themselves did not view them selfs as evil or as heathens.

This is very much how I view word bearers today, in a way at least. Word bearers are more like Vikings that found their gods and less like evil hell spawns. Just as for the Vikings sacrifices was necessary both to please the gods and to get their blessings.

The chaos gods might not be particularly pleasant to be around and are more hellish then anything else. But still these gods are real and they are the truth. In the world of 30k that is.

So I now see my legion more like Vikings that found the land of the gods and less like fanatics. They truly follow the truth and accept it for what it is, embracing it and use it.

Just writing this makes me kind of inspired to swing by forge world and order more stuff for my boys in dark red and silver trim.

But anyway 2017 was the year of my word bearers and that leads me to next year and 2018.

What plans do I have for the coming year?

My beloved iron warriors have been sitting in the backseat for a long time now. And even if I would love to expand them to an insane degree I have other things that have been waiting on my attention for even longer.

2018 will be the year of my Mechanicum! 3 years of collecting have ended up in a 2600p force. It is time to make the final push for 3000p and beyond. This will be my main priority and goal for the coming year.

But of course all my other legions will get love and attention.

For iron warriors I have a couple of list ideas that I want to realize and test. The one that I have closest to my heart is a terminator heavy list, backed up by heavy gun support.

For Word bearers I need to play the list I have a few times before I can see where I will go next. Adding small additions and swapping units in and out to try to make them an effective force.

Black shields will also get some small additions. Building them slow and start to bridge them in a direction where I eventually can run them as world eaters.

So all and all there will not be anything new that will be started. It will more be a year of finishing and expanding.

Mechanicum will be the main focus and all other legions will slowly follow.

It really feels like I need to dedicate the year for Mechanicum if I will have a chance to learn that force. With so many special rules and exotic gear I can’t divide my attention to much on other projects to begin with. I really look forward for the coming year and I am sure it will be a great year for Horus Heresy.

I will also try to attend more events this year. Starting with a big 25000p battle at my local gaming club the 6 Jan. I will head there with 3500p of word bearers. Hopefully I can make the gods pleased with my efforts in the battle to come.

Happy new year! Hope you get a wonderful year full of hobby and Heresy!