Squats: Sky Dorfs in Space

It's been a while. With the release of AOS 3.0 and the 40k 9th edition I fell off the hobby train for a good long bit. 

AOS 3 hasn't been particularly kind to the Kharadron Overlords from what I can tell. Most of my strategies and build aren't really going to work. The 2k list I had been building ballooned up to 2200 points and lost all the synergy that made it work. Also, with the ban of third-party bits and bobs, I'm not even sure if my Khardron Overlady Arkanauts are even legal at this point. Generally speaking this burned me out on the whole sky dorf thing. I did however go off and paint a bunch of Ork Boyz—at least until that became untenable in 9th edition 40k.

But, then they released the new Kill Team box with some very fun Ork terrain. I wound up picking a box at PAXU for half off with a coupon. I have the terrain and a standard Green Skin team complete. (Yes, I know it comes with the Kommandos, but see above all the Boyz I have laying about.) Just this past week I figured out that the team I really want to run and which has spurred the resurrection of this blog: SKY DORFS IN SPEESH! That's right, your dear professor is going to build Squats.

So here is the plan: I am going to kit bash a Militarum Tempestus Scion box with a Kharadron Overlord Arkanaut box to create a Militarum Tempestus Rotundus Kill Team. One Tempestus Scion box contains all the weapons needed for a full Kill Team of two Scion fireteams, while one Akanaut box contains almost enough bodies. I will need to get a Tempestor body from somewhere—probably a Blood Bowl trollslayer with coat billowing out behind his action pose. 

Speaking of Blood Bowl, I might use the bulk of a Blood Bowl Dwarf Giants team to bash a Guardsman fireteam, just in case I don't want to run double Scions. However, I need to find a cheap source of lasguns with bayonets before I can work on that. Right now it looks like too much money for a fireteam that I will most likely never run.

The basic strategy of the build is based off the guide to Astra Militarum Kill Team tactics posted over at Goonhammer (LINK).

So this blog is back in action, and still dealing with sky dorfs—just now of the 40k variety.

2021 Hobby Bingo

So in addition to participating in the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge (LINK), I think I'm going to do Hobby Bingo this year as well. I nicked this one from Table Top Standard (LINK), but it ultimately derives from GW's White Dwarf. 

Completing a boxes 10 points, completing a line is 50 points, and the entire board is 400 points—though I'm not sure if these are cumulative points or not. 

Since the competition technically started on New Years Day, I have several of these I can already check off. Also, a quick perusal of my Twitter feed will show that I've painting a lot of Orks and other various sundry that don't show up on a blog dedicated to Sky Dorfs. I sort of want to make this KO specific, but I don't think I have enough models yet to paint for my army to fill in the card or line. So, I'll probably be more indiscriminate. 

Meta Thoughts on GW, KO, and Gaming in General

Time for a bit of thinking out loud.

The Chonky Bois are my first foray into anything GW. I've played around with Malifaux, Kings of War, Wrath of Kings, Warmahordes, and Infinity; but I avoided GW largely because they seemed to spend a decade or so being complete shits to their base. And as a result, not many people locally were playing their games. Additionally, I'm not a huge fan of the whole Grimdark aesthetic, nor did I care for the game style of the Olde World of WFB. I simply had (and have!) no time for trays of rank and file. 

So, what's changed? Well... quite a bit. First, GW seems to be being better to their people. The culture of the company is changing. I also enjoyed their statement on tolerance published earlier this year. There was way too much cock in GW. They seem to be actively encouraging their base to put biases aside and create a safe place to play their games. 

Added to this are recent attempts to diversify the models and not just have hyped up white males and girls in chainmail bikinis. I say attempts, because even some of their recent models are a bit of a head scratcher; but I feel the need to give them an 'atta boy!' on this rather than be too critical. I want this trend to continue in all parts of the gaming hobbies. 

Additionally, I have to say that I really like parts of the aesthetic of Age of Sigmar. The Kharadron Overlords in particular, as this blog will attest, are a faction I can get behind. I don't particularly like KO lore, such as is—it literally makes no sense from a sociological perspective. I intend to change that a bit for my Bois here. But, I picked up the Start Collecting box largely based on the look of the models.

And then once I bought a box or so of the stuff I can see why people put up with the abuse from GW for so many years. The models are stunning: logical in how they build up; beauties to paint. I am borderline astounded how good they look with a few simple painting tricks and completely understand why the competitive painting circuit seems to gravitate towards GW for their bread-and-butter. Part of me wonders why it took me so long! But of course that came down to no one playing locally.

Which brings us to the last big change: players. A few friends during the tumult of 2020 have challenged me to build an army in the hopes that we can one day battle in-person. The one is quite keen and has actually finished a 2k army of StDs and is starting in on Gloomspite Gitz. The other friend has eschewed all decency and is building an entirely custom army of Fyreslayers—with custom weapons that we'll collectively have to design mechanics around. Indeed, we might wind up running One Page Rules rather than the actual Age of Sigmar given these issues. Custom work all around!

That last bit got me thinking of the sociological problems in KO lore and how to fix it with my Chonky Bois. I've been reading a lot of Death of a Rubricist, specifically their custom world building ideas. My hope is to do some of that here in this space coming up with some custom lore for my bois that makes more sense of how people actually act. That custom lore, along with pretty pictures, is what you'll see a lot of here in the future.

New Year, New Blog

Why hallo!

Today is the first day of 5871 according to the Jewish Calendar—and who doesn't want to live in a world where it isn't 2020?!

Welcome to this new blog dedicated to my chonky bois: a custom Age of Sigmar Kharadron Overlord army. This blog is dedicated to the hobbyist life related to these sky dorfs. I hope to post pics and custom fluff as I bring these bois to life.