Hello everyone! Welcome to the crusade event to end all crusade events! As part of Long Island Wargamers local crusade, happening within the Goonhammer Global Crusade, I will be playing games of 40k in my local community with a brand new army!
When the crusade was announced I had planned on using my ever relevant and beloved Brotherhood of the Tidal Storm (the crab marines).
I had pretty much been playing exclusively Space Marines throughout 2022, so I figured I might as well continue the trend and give Goonhammer patrons and my local community a shot at annihilating my ego. My skill at playing Warhammer 40k is middling at best. Anybody can beat me if they have a head on their shoulders and there’s a brain in that head. Win or lose I always enjoy playing with my marines. Especially since I added BIG TONK to the arsenal.
I love the tonk. He is my son. I have another in the oven. A Fellblade that I was so graciously gifted for my birthday. I love my marines. My collection may not be as large as others who have been in the hobby longer, but I’m proud of the upwards of 3,500 pts I have battle-ready. There’s just one problem. As I said earlier, I played marines pretty much all of 2022. So the gameplay is feeling a little stale. That’s not the problem. The problem is the new points update and the dataslate. The dataslate took away my Armour of Contempt. I don’t like it when my marines die. They are my good boys and they must stay on the table. The points update gave almost every unit free wargear. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but I said “almost” every unit. They importantly didn’t give free wargear to my Vanguard Veterans.Of which I have 20. On top of that they increased the price on the storm shield. I am become Andy in Woody’s dream sequence.
What am I to do? I don’t want to re-configure my whole army around the updates. I really liked where I was at before!
I was considering playing Chaos Marines before dataslate and points changes came out. I considered this for a couple of months. Then I looked at an unpainted Forgefiend and half painted Heldrake sitting in my backlog and thought “Actually I’m gonna sell all these.” and proceeded to sell my entire CSM collection.
Aeldari was my next best option, but I’ve been holding off on getting into them until Striking Scorpions and Warp Spiders get plastic sculpts. I don’t care how long it takes. It’s an easy way to save my money.
Finally I thought back to my time playing in the second Blunderdome. That whole thing sucked. It was a great experiment and I’m grateful I got to be a part of it, but all 3 of those games were the most unenjoyable 40k I ever played. There was a silver-lining however. I realized I really enjoyed atomizing my opponents units with magna-rail cannons. The sheer catharsis of blasting Drukhari boats off the table or T’au Sunsharks out of the sky. I wanted to relive that feeling.
I know they changed it do that the Judgement Token auto-wounds don’t count as 6’s to wound anymore. That won’t stop me from simply blasting a tank with the magn-rail cannon. The tank only has one model. The damage doesn’t need to spill over!
Needless to say, I will be attempting to be a crusade terrorist and playing the Leagues of Votann. I know you’re all probably thinking “Ew, Rocco sucks. I can’t believe he’s a WAAC player.” to which I say: I don’t care. I’m gonna play these short kings and make it everyone else’s problem. I want to relive my glory hours of going 2-1 in a horribly designed tournament where if I was better at Warhammer I could have come closer to winning.
I do feel like I have to note at this point that I was very excited for Votann when the model line was first announced. I love their aesthetic of stocky, Norse dudes with big armor and swords made of molten energy or whatever.
When we first started seeing the rules for them I got worried. I don’t play in a lot of competitive circles, so the sheer power of the rules turned me off a bit. I didn’t want to crush my friends into paste because my army’s rules were too pushed. I wanted to crush my friends into paste because I’m better, smarter, and stronger than them.
Clearly that’s changed. The army’s rules have been updated twice. The codex is still insane and Votann can more than likely do anything any unit in any army can. Maybe better. Actually that’s really cool. I am beyond excited to play these cube worshiping nerds. I played some test games with fellow contributor MildNorman and actually took a game off of him. I don’t do that very often!
So, yes, I will be playing the Votann menace. I already have a paint scheme in mind and nothing any of you will say can convince me not to do this.
If you want an ass-kicking I will be participating in the global crusade, ping me in the Gonhammer Patron discord and we can schedule your utter demise. I will additionally be playing in the Long Island Wargamers (LIW) localized crusade within the Global Campaign. My army’s role here will be greatly diminished here as I am also helping on the administrative side of things. If you are in the LIW discord hit me up. We can get a game in and fight over Nox Veritas.
To everyone lining up I would like to introduce you to Vykât Thuûrk, the High Kahl of Surtur Rising.
Surtur Rising is an expeditionary force sent out into the Vadinax Sector by the Urani-Surtr Regulates. Vykât Thuûrk aims to cause problems for anyone deemed an enemy of the ancestors. This could be literally anybody. Vykât Thuûrk is a very angry, very short man.
Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.
