What 2014 holds for the 5 armies...

Happy New Year, everyone! I've just been browsing through my lists and I am pleased. It took years to build them up and, for the most part, they do look rather nice on the battlefield. So, here's an army-by-army look at what mischief I've planned for this year:

Blood Angels

 No plans for major expansion. More experimentation. One notes that Tau and Eldar are getting popular around here, so I'd like to see what I can cobble together to bring the pointy-ears and the blue commies some pain. Just last weekend I saw Fear of the Dark used to devastating effect on the Tau - much hilarity ensued. Ideas I've got milling about in my head:

• Massive mechanized spam involving a Land Raider, 3 Razorbacks, 2 Predators and 2 Baal Preds. 
• Tactical Squads. At least 3, fighting as Astartes were meant to fight - with bolters.  

Other than that, if the rumours are true, the Blood Angels might see a new codex this year... New models needed: None.

Deathwing

Haven't put these guys on the board in bloody ages. I really need to finish painting them. Or at the very least finish the Deathwing Knights. There's a list I've been meaning to try out, pairing them with Grey Knights, so I'd like to get that done at some point. New models needed: 2 Terminator Librarians, 3 Grey Knight Terminators.

Chaos Space Marines

I just finished reading Ahriman - Exile and man, I really want to field him! But, Rubricae are stupidly expensive to field and I really don't want to invest in 3 squads of Rubricae knowing that they'll just let me down on the field.

A more practical variant I'm looking to field will require some more melta and plasma. That is, a true Black Legion list using Chosen as Troops.

New models needed: 4 CSM with plasmaguns, 2 with meltaguns. Maybe a Sorcerer on a bike.


Necrons

No major plans, but I'd like to get my hands on a Transcendent C'tan. ~800 pts in one dinky little miniature that flies about wielding obscene amounts of firepower. Hell, yes...

New models needed: Transcendent C'tan, preferably without the Tesseract Vault/Obelisk, because they're absolute rubbish.


Imperial Guard

I'll be first to confess that, barring Deathwing, this has been the most difficult of my armies to learn to use. That said, they're also the most fun. The Hellhammer has certainly gone a long way to making the Red Thunder the most interesting army I've put on the board for a long time. That said, I'm still learning how to keep the Hellhammer alive.

I've been poring over the Stronghold Assault book for quite a bit, and after some thought, I've decided against using fortifications. It's not that I think they're crap or anything; I just favour attack over defense.

In other news, a new Codex looms for the Guard, so here's hoping the Leman Russ will get a buff of some sort, because as it stands, they're not easy to keep alive in this edition. Also, I'm looking forward to seeing what changes will be made to the Stormtroopers. They're awesome as they are, I think, but at their current points cost, they're awful. Also, plastic Stormtroopers! Verily, I'm excited about the new codex, and Red Thunder is quite likely going to be the major investment of 2014.

New models needed: Unknown, but I'm guessing I'll want 2 boxes of these fabled plastic Stormtroopers and a Chimera.


New armies?
NO. Despite how cool I find the Tau (specifically, the Broadside), I will NOT succumb to the temptation. There will be NO new armies for 2014. At the very most, if I get bored enough (not bloody likely) I might change doctrine and start learning to fight defensively, i.e. with fortifications, but for the moment, my thing is attack, attack, ATTACK! And I don't see much cause to change that just yet. Here's looking forward to another of pure, unreasoning, and rather nicely-painted tabletop violence.