Oh look, a thing in the horrible first stage of being given flat colours but needing a few more layers. Always the best way to show off your painting I find.
I know why I like the idea of Combat Patrol in 40k so much, it’s a grab it and play game mode that gives you a simple way to start and then play games quicker than if you’re going all in. The thing I don’t get is why Games Workshop don’t like the idea of it. The support in 11th edition didn’t do anything more exciting with the idea beyond giving each one a detachment rule that tweaks them a bit. This helps for sure, but I wanted something more ambitious like Spearhead. I want the single box you can buy to start an army. The single box that you can play without needing to buy anything else, including any books. The single box that either scratches that itch of at least having something for that army you’ve never tried, or lets you discover an army that you love and rush out to buy the rest of the range.
Instead we get a game mode where, as is common with a lot of 11th, nobody is sure if things are intended or a typo. Will they ever be fixed? Probably not, they’ve always been a one and done release before that they’ve not got back to balance or fix and I doubt they have the resources or inclination to do that now.
Games Workshop are a miniatures company, not a games company. The games and rules exist to sell the miniatures and the miniatures do not exist to sell the games. They don’t playtest well enough, they copy and paste things that don’t get fixed for most of an edition. This makes me sad but is just the truth of the matter.
Needless to say I did pick up the new Combat Patrol scenery box, but that was mostly because of the terrain templates and new plastic buildings. I know I’ve moaned about everything taking place in ruined Space Milton Keynes but new buildings are new buildings…
I assembled one of the tiny corner pieces and am painting it with my favourite imperial building colours. Model Colour Flat Green (old, not new. They changed the shade), some bronze and silvers for the details. I like that old 1st half of the 20th century England engineering feel that the green has and it’s just not very 40k. It’s more of a post war 50s decline feel.