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I just had a game vs a Votann player. He plays a pretty strong list and I do think the codex is strong so I think this was a good test for me. I will preface this by saying I still play traditional units and I had Grey Hunters and Blood Claws in the army. And I'm a huge Termie fan and that's partially why I love the Wolves this go around for the fact Grimnar came out, and the Termies give me an excuse to take a MINIMUM of 1 squad of termies per list! I'm not going to do an elaborate report except to say by bottom of turn 2 he was ready to concede. I don't know all the Votann nuances since they got their new codex, however I will say that a huge factor was me going first. I vaped one of his big tanks.. Goliaths? in turn 1. I got the second on turn 2. I dictated the play early as I had 2/3's of the board in T1, and by cracking 2 of his big tanks, and a smaller one, I put 3 of his squads on foot very early. Quick note: I still think the techpriest + Gladiator Lancer is something I lean heavily into with this list. The Repulsor was okay, but more importantly it housed my 10 Grey Hunters and Battle Leader with the enhancement made what is normally a lethargic unit some real teeth. (With Sus/Lethal combined too) So I had a huge impact early, but I will say this, it slowed down a LOT in Turn 2-3. The resilience of Votann was super annoying, and their shooting as you know is tailored for anti-marine play (a lot of no cover, -1/2D.) His troops are just so good. Honestly the damage I had fell off a cliff once he had his counter punch with his CC units. Berzerks and Hearthguard etc, they hit hard, and once he flips his Yield Points into the -1 to wound against higher strength attacks, I really had trouble doing anything. It wasn't uncommon for my termie squads with characters to literally kill only one model in CC at this point. So I say this to drive home the fact if I didn't go first, come out guns blazing, I think I would have been in big trouble because my turn 1 was massive. High points: - Lancer/Priest. (I really need this in my list because of my lack of anti-tank and largely CC based lists) - Inceptors. These are so good in this list. I wish I could fit two squads. - Grey Hunters + Battle Leader with enhancement = probably my highest damage unit (combined with Sus/Lethal) Just wow. even at AP-1 the amount of wounds FINALLY made this squad feels like it could do something. - Bjorn. He went from must take to MUST TAKE for me because the strats are just that good in this detachment. Low Points: - Termies still felt meh. They hang around but both squads were bogged down by standard troops (100~ points worth of models). Even Grimnar (his model fools everyone). - Wolf Scouts. I went from thinking I need two squads of these and by end game changing my mind to taking a normal squad of scouts. These guys feel way too expensive. I wouldn't take them again. Granted my list was a mixed bag, but overall I feel like this is a super fun, and extremely flexible detachment but you have to fire on all cylinders to make this work. Every aspect of the detachment is required to not go into "I think this would be better with Gladius" mode. I liked it a lot though.

Double Rapid insertion..... that is a bit expensive. But I like the idea of having that in your back pocket. Great detachment though. For me I was sick of the Gladius being the be all/end all to marines. Hopefully this is at least close.

Sounds good. You gotta go with what you know. I do play Saga of the Hunter, and I play it as a swarm list with very little ranged myself. But so many armies can play top tables now it's impossible to replicate success with certain lists. (In my experience anyway.) I find it's always interesting to know the track of opponents the person faced on their way up. It's amazing how many times you can thread a needle. Thanks for reporting your finings though. Appreciate it!

Wait... so he's not legal in tournaments? This is ridiculous. I haven't opened him yet, so he's going back to the store.

Completely agree. When I make 3-4 different lists for different detachments with my EC they are anywhere from 80-100% identical. The range is criminally small. Defiler is a great addition and perhaps the mutilators. (Side note-I'd love to see another add on of some form of cultists.)

I can't find anything. I've looked at all the usual places.

Well the fall back, and re charge is decent. Not amazing, but decent without having to use any other tricks. One thing Termies and Grimnar taught me is having a good buffer for the character is half the battle. Do I wish they were DA Deathwing Knights? Heck yea, but I screwed up buying this kit... In my gut I feel like any Calgar and Aggressors are going to be the play, but I'm just so incredibly bored of that combo. I've been playing it weekly in one offs, or tournaments for years (on and off). My honest hope is another squad is coming. My 'dream' squad right now is Calgar with a primarisized Centurion squad. Now that would be beefy, and destructive. :) We'll see what happens. In my now..... I guess 5-6th UM army I'm trying to slow grow it. paint it more leisurely instead of it feeling like a job. So far this Victrix squad is grinding me down. What an immense amount of detail that I'd love to just cram through. lol Hopefully with Cato it turns into something fun, and nice to look at on the table.

So I've been trying to think of fun ways to use new Calgar... aside from the obvious Victrix guard and Cato. (Which I'm sure will be decent.) I had this 20 dollar voucher about to run out so I thought... great timing! The new Assault Terminators are being released, I'll simply buy a squad, and slap Calgar on those. I'm having this conversation with a friend who plays a lot of marines and he asks why I would do that! And I said, well with Oath and the old -1 to wound on the terminators it could be a cool deepstrike option. This is where my plan fell apart. My friend starts laughing and telling me no, the vanilla termies still have the garbage rules. So I pull out the app, and sure enough he's right... they cause Battleshock tests! Ugh. I guess my playing Space Wolves had me thinking all assault termies got that. Now that the box is coming I feel committed to doing this one day. So I'm thinking Claws (believe it or not.) Let Calgar do the heavy lifting, with claws you hit more often, have more attacks and would get re roll hits/ re roll wounds/ +1 to wound against Oath targets. (I never get Dev wounds with hammers anyway.) I was always a Hammer/shield guy but I've been really disappointed with the Hammer in this edition. To me the trade off of hitting on 4's, less attacks, for the 'potential' of mortals just never seems to work out for me. I still can't believe they didn't update the Dataslate for the Assault Termies. But that was my intent with Calgar eventually.

Guilliman in Jump Pack next please! (J/K) Anyway, I can't believe it but I was totally right and guessed even the campaign part. The only part I missed was Titus. But the whole thing kind of smelled like the old online campaign days, but will they be as involved? I would so dearly love this to rival the old online campaign. I run campaigns with friends. I'm just wrapping one up now. This will definitely be in the cards for our next one... I mean it has a map! If I can point to map once a week and tell my participants, "You are here" then I'm in. I am the UM player in the group so this bodes well for me, but I want to see rules for Titus and crew. I do love the models, however I think the human crew could make for an awkward squad or table top presence. It kind of reminds me of when we had a Master of the Fleet, etc, etc and these guys kind did something, then they disappeared. I'm glad to see the Necron model. But I do look forward to when GW gets operational enough one day to make 'squads' of things rather than try to maximize profits and build time by selling us a very expensive character sprue. I'm a little disappointed Cawl hasn't drummed up some new squad type... I keep waiting for a Primaris "Centurion" squad or something similar. Looks great though. Lots of good thing can come from the books. The whole Arkifane thing was kind of set up like this, but really didn't have a good campaign set up.

Even without the box art (which looks far too basic a fig for a modern GW character) the term "surgeon" screams fake. GW, 40K, the mixture of grimdark and sci-fi.... they'd be much more likely to use an archaic term.. something like Chirurgeon

That is sweet. Thanks for sharing it. I see those old icons and it immediately brings back memories. I think the new Calgar is far bigger than I thought. I've seen what I believe are some comparisons with typical Primaris and it seemed to me he was substantially larger than the Gravis version. Also hearing a bit that a new Guilliman is coming. I do find that hard to believe, but I did honestly feel like they should redo him once the Lion came out. They've come a long way in a short time with the sculpts.

Beautiful work. Congratulations. Sounds like a great time!

I like the army painter line. I'm pretty sure it's cheaper (here at least) and mimics the lighter blueish hue. I agree the Contrast is very dark, but it's super easy to dilute. I use it to tone down the brightness of my Ultra's. But most of my colour combo's come from AK and Vallejo.

He was such a cool character before we lost him. (In game as well as fluff wise). I think he'll be a lot of work to make useful as a Chaplain. I mean they aren't terribly useful right now. I think he'd need First First to really stick out. UM have so many great characters, it would be tough to not see him get the "Njal" treatment.

The reason I mention it is there is a rumour that Gravis Calgar will be "Legends" eventually. I'm not sure how much validity there is to the rumour though. I love the old transfers, but these new ones are cool. I still have some of my Forgeworld sheet transfers and they were amazing. Super expensive, but amazing. You definitely have a point about the heads. I would have really liked more helmeted heads in that 'gladiator-esque' style... especially for Sternguard.