They Shall Know Fear

Recent Stuff and a Possible Bugeater 1850 List

2013-04-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

Some of you might have wondered where I went and others of you might not have noticed J

Well as you guys can tell the blog has become a place where I tend to write some stuff and then disappear for a while. Not gonna apologize for it but I’m going to actively at least try to post something once every other week or so.

So in the last two months I've won best painted at a 60+ plus person GT and come in second overall. I've come in first overall in another 60+ person GT. Oh, and we won the Adepticon Team Tournament for the second year in a row. First team to ever do it back to back which is pretty sweet. I’ve personally been pretty busy outside of that getting my Adepticon personal army up and running as well as building a display board and starting on my Titan I had planned to use for the Gladiator. I’ll get some pictures up of both and you can see photos of my army over in the “Our Armies” tag.

I'm also trying to get something else painted for the Bugeater as I've played in 3 GT's since the end of February with the same list and my attention span is waning.

What I really wanted to do was post a list I found kinda fun and see what you guys thought. Shockingly, no IG J

-1850-

Primary: Space Marines

Librarian – 100

Force Axe, Nullzone, Gate

Elite

10 Terminators – 400

10xTH/SS

Troop

10 Tactical Marines – 210

Melta, Multi-Melta, Rhino

10 Tactical Marines – 210

Melta, Multi-Melta, Rhino

Fast Attack

Storm Talon – 125

Skyhammer Missiles

Storm Talon – 125

Skyhammer Missiles

Heavy Support

Thunderfire Cannon – 100

Allies: Tau

Tau Commander – 150

2xFusion Blasters (Single, not TL’d), Retro-Thrusters, Iridium Armor, Target Lock

Elite

6 Stealth Suits – 200

Shas’vre, Homing Beacon

Troops

10 Kroot – 65

Kroot Hound

10 Kroot – 65

Kroot Hound

Total: 1850

Seems like fun to me. You’ve got your hit-n-run Termies in front of your opponent on turn 1. You’ve got decent horde control in the form of your thunderfires and it allows you to buff some ruins you might find in your deployment zone. The Talons will be decent air control and are nasty for stacking up wounds if your opponent doesn’t have flyers. There is a solid core of scoring Tactical marines which can still use combat tactics and that are mounted up for swift, later game deployment. And lastly two additional outflanking scoring units to grab some objectives in your opponents deployment zone. Overall I think it’s pretty solid. What do you guys think?

Daemons w/Chaos Allies - 1850

2013-03-07T12:45:00.001-08:00

So yesterday I posted up a pure Daemon army and I promised that I’d get an allied army up today for today so here you guys go. It’s a starting place for me but I like it.

Heralds:

Herald of Slaanesh – 110

Greater Gift, Steed, Exalted Locus

Herald of Tzeentch – 115

Lvl. 3, Exalted Locus

Herald of Tzeentch – 125

Lvl. 3, Exalted Reward

Herald of Tzeentch – 125

Lvl. 3, Exalted Reward

Troop

18 Horrors – 162

10 Plague Bearers – 90

Fast Attack

20 Steeds – 245

Champion

Heavy Support

Soul Grinder – 160

Torrent Flamer, Mark of Tzeentch

Soul Grinder – 160

Torrent Flamer, Mark of Tzeentch

Total: 1382

Allied Detachment: Chaos

Sorceror – 85

Lvl. 2, Force Axe

Troops

22 Cultists – 98

Fast Attack

Heldrake – 170

Bale Flamer

Heavy Support

5 Havocs – 115

4 Autocannons

Total: 468

So this army is obviously pretty different from the previous one. As you can see the Daemons aren’t as crazy assault aggressive in this list. It’s got some solid slow but steady advancing pressure with more disruption than full out aggression. The list also works more on combo’s than just one off units.

Breaking the list down you’ve got the assault mob of 20 steeds led by a Herald. Same concept as the previous list in that these guys are pure killers. However you now have an advancing unit of Horrors that contains 3 Heralds. Those Heralds are all going to run the Tzeentch Primaris and 2 Divination powers. One of the Heralds will grab the Grimoire and another will pull down the portaglyph. A combination of Forwarning and the Grimoire means a 2++ for your steed unit or your horrors. The portaglyph means back field presence like normal. You can also throw prescience on the big guys to enhance their anti-flyer or just twin-linked they’re ranged autocannon shots.

The Soul Grinders throw flame templates and provide solid anti-air for lighter air craft. They also provide a CC support for the large horror unit that will also be screened by the allied cultists and sorcerer. The havocs add some high strength ranged shots and well all know what the dragon is for.

And lastly the Horror unit itself. Yes, it’s a psychic based unit. And yes, against elder there is likely going to be trouble in the fact that dudes could just start popping their own heads. That said I think it’s still worth it. You’re looking at the minimum starting of 6D6 St6 Twin-linked BS4 shots and another 4D6 St6 Twin-linked BS3 shots. In a unit that will likely ignore cover you’re looking at a ridiculous contribution to the game. The added advantage is that you’d have to be denied 4 times to not do any damage to an opponent as the powers are manifested once by each Herald and once by the squad. Will it be the best thing ever? Nope, but I think it’s another solid addition to a toolbox army.

What I’m trying to build is an army that even with randomness I can pull the right tool for the job or shift gears. I think that’s actually one of the cool things about the randomness. They allow you to shift gears in a minor way.

Thoughts fella’s? We’re all in this together (kinda J). Also tomorrow or Monday will have Daemons & Guard. Which is primary and which is ally I haven’t decided yet J

Pure Daemons: My First Go – 1850

2013-03-06T12:15:00.002-08:00

So following up my article yesterday and after some more reading of my book here is a starting point for my pure Daemons following the wave approach I advocated yesterday:

Great Unclean One – 260

Lvl 3, Greater Reward

Heralds:

Herald of Slaanesh – 110

Greater Gift, Steed, Exalted Icon

Herald of Tzeentch – 75

Exalted Gift (Portal)

Elites

3 Fiends – 105

Troops

20 Daemonettes – 180

10 Plague Bearers – 100

Instrument

Fast Attack

20 Steeds of Slaanesh – 255

Champion, Icon

15 Furies – 120

Mark of Slaanesh

15 Furies – 120

Mark of Slaanesh

Heavy Support

3 Seeker Chariots – 120

So what are we looking at here. Well we’re looking at 100 single wound models on the table all with a 5++ invul. We’re also looking at 6 Vehicles, 8 multi-wound models, and an MC. The basic premise is that it overloads your opponent. The Fiends are paired with the Furies to give them the chance to kill units hiding in cover and add some heavy hitting power. Also if the fiend power stays at being able to drop the opponent to 0 instead of 1 it means that your furies get a free round of combat in which they don’t get hit. The chariots go with the steeds. Providing a similar role for the steeds except that they inflict their damage at I10 and reduce the number of incoming attacks. This is of course against things like blob squads or enormous units of MEQ (i.e. 15-20). Against normal 5-10 man MEQ’s you’ll see the chariots and fiends hit different units.

The Plaguebearers are excellent objective holders in the new book, being able to go to ground for a 2+ cover but I added the Instrument because this basically gives me a re-roll on my MC who will be starting in deepstrike with my Plaguebearers. See you roll for the Plaguebearers first and if successful use the instrument to bring in your Great Unclean One. If not successful you just roll for the GUO. Basically a re-roll to reserves for just 10pts.

The big guy is likely to be a beast. He doesn’t have to start in reserve if he gets the right powers and you’re going first but unless you pulled down endurance, enfeeble, and iron arm I’d consider deepstrike to be the best place. The reality is that he is super, super slow. No run move and only 6” a turn means a poor deployment choice and he’s out of the game so be careful. And naturally the Greater gift is to get him hopefully a 3+ armor or 4+ FnP. Corpulance wouldn’t be bad either. A lot of the “Greater Gifts” are excellent for the big guys.

The ‘Nets are your 2^nd/3^rd wave that hopefully is hitting pretty beat up units. The portal gives you the ability to just create back field holders from out of LoS (since you can block it’s scatter with all the models in the army) which allows you to go 100% on the offensive.

Tzeentch seems out of place but it's possible my first unit I create out of the portal will be horrors and that's a fair amount of magical bullets for not to much as a back field support. Plus I've got a cool conversion idea for him :)

Overall I’m liking it as a starting point. I do have a slight fear of Landraiders but I think this list could hang as even a crusader doesn’t have the damage output alone to hamper what would probably be left once the faster elements of your army clear portions of the table.

I’ll try and get up my first Daemons Primary/Chaos Allied list tomorrow. What do you guys think of this?

So....Daemons.....Yeah, They're Awesome

2013-03-05T14:02:00.000-08:00

Now this goes the other way!

Well I picked up the Daemon codex this weekend while I was at the Indy Open but didn't get to much of a chance to really dig into it. But we had quite a bit of discussion on the way home last night about it and I've spent a fair amount of today reading and playing with it in my mind so I figured I'd share my initial thoughts.
First, this codex has lots of options and combo's for both primary and allied detachments. Let's look at a few things that have jumped out at me.

-Seekers look solid. Fast and cheap.
-Seeker Heralds w/Exalted Loci and a Greater Reward weapon mean the ability to drive a blob off in short order (i.e. one turn) or kill those pesky Warlord psykers hiding inside.
-Soul Grinder's with dual weapon profiles for his 3 shot autocannon and the ability to add a 24" railgun or torrent flamer is very nice.
-Plaguebearers going to ground for a 2++ cover
-Possible T8-10 Great Unclean One
-St6 Assault 2D6 12" weapon for the Keeper of Secrets/Slaanesh Princes
-The negative 5 initiative from Fiends pretty much eliminating return attacks (or entirely depending on the eventual FAQ)
-Slaanesh Psychic power that reduces Initiative by 5 and also prevents overwatch & counter attack (Note that unlike the Fiends it can’t reduce initiative to 0 per the rulebook under maledictions.
-Divination Battery Tzeentch Heralds
-Plaguebearers being able to glance even Landraiders to death.
-Dirt Cheap Rending Furies
-All Greater Daemons looking like genuinely attractive options and being able to still take 4 Heralds and a Greater Daemon.
-Biomancy Battery Nurgle Heralds
-Slaanesh Chariots are still 1-3

And finally we start on the damn table!

Now it’s not all 100% rosy days. There were changes made that will naturally effect people who brought certain armies in 5^th. Though in my opinion only the Screamer/Flamer spam people really got burned. Most others might or might not have to add units to modify the army competitively. I also personally find very little in the elite slot that I like for the third codex in a row. Seems that Elite is the 3^rd Edition Fast Attack.

Let’s get into how I see Daemons. Some people are claiming Daemons are a horde army and with the cost of basic troops that’s an easy mistake to make. Mike Brandt touched on it but in all honesty Daemons are a hammer. Or better, a cannon fired hammer. But they are also a hammer that will shatter if you land it wrong. Ok, enough analogies. Essentially they feel like the Nids I used in early 5^th edition.

Basically Daemons are only going to give your opponent 1-2 rounds of shooting. It’s dependent on if you go first naturally but a properly built list is going to see Daemons in combat on turn 2. There is no way around it so start building your armies to handle it folks. Between hounds, seekers, regular daemonettes, chariots, flys, dp’s, furies, and even screamers you’re looking at a large number of swift moving options that can hammer infantry armies into dogmeat.

2x20 Seekers
3x3 Chariots
1xSlaanesh Heralds on Steeds w/Loci & Magic Weapons, Lvl 2.

The above runs you at most 1000. It’s one of my current starting points but is by no means definitive yet. But what I see is 5 units that will rampage thru anything not in a transport on turn 2 with plenty of points left for support options from allies or other portions of the codex. Throw in some Fiends and you don’t even need grenades J

Something that’s interesting is Soulgrinders. I’m heavily leaning toward running mine with a torrent flamer since I’m in love with throwing fire and I’ll be marking him Tzeentch. Why? Because it’s the cheapest power that the doesn’t get you punched in the face on a bad warpstorm roll (Khorne marked could be kill by the warpstorm). Another option is the tongue when you have some Tzeentch Heralds to toss divination on it. That helps with Skyfire for flyers and heavier tanks that again the Daemon army doesn’t have much to combat outside of combat.

I know that Soulgrinders are a bit slow in relation but to me that’s actually helpful. I intend to play my Daemons similar to Nids. I want to use waves of models so the first wave would be your chariots/calvary. Your second wave would be jump infantry or daemonettes. Your final wave would generally be basic infantry and soul grinders.

This isn’t the only way to play. You’ve got variable deployment methods, cool artifacts and abilities that generate new models, and a ton of other options. Overall my initial impression is extremely favorable. And it says something for an army in 6^th when I’m not initially finding a way to fit IG into it J

What are you guys seeing? What are your thoughts?

Indy Open & My Army

2013-03-05T05:00:00.000-08:00

Well I made it back from Indy without crashing and just ahead of the snow. I figured I'd share some photos of my army and how I did at the tournament with you guys.

You can find my army list here: http://hulksmash-homeplace.blogspot.com/2013/03/indy-open-this-weekend-initial-thoughts.html

I wound up 6-1 for the weekend. Missing the top 8 by just a few points that were denied me by the fella's that drove down with me. My loss came on the final dice rolls of the game and it was a good time.

I also pulled down best appearance which was a huge surprise for me and very flattering after the work I put in on this army over the last few weeks. Anyway, onto the photos:

Some of my Auto-Cannon "Teams" & a Sergeant

Some of my basic Guardsmen

My Executioner

One of my Platoon Command Squad

My Company Command Squad

One of my unbased Libbies

My other Platoon Command Squad & Chimera

My Vendettas, Drop Pods, & Combat Squads

Slightly closer look at a Drop Pod & Assault Squad

My other unbased Libbie

One of my Sergeants leading his platoon

A Chainsword weilding Sergeant

So there you guys go. These were taken in my basement where I'm currently laying out my design for a custom board to fit my little friends that I'll hopefully have done here in the next two weeks. My display board is an X-Board that is basically the same colors as their bases with static grass and highlights. Hope you enjoyed.

Indy Open this Weekend & Initial Thoughts on Upcoming Daemons

2013-03-01T05:00:00.000-08:00

Well I left this morning at 530am for a 10-12 hour drive down to Indianapolis for the second Indy Open. I’m cruising down with some local players so it should be a fun trip.

This is what I decided on bringing for the event. For those that don’t know it’s a 1750pt GT that caps out at 64 players.

I managed to get it all painted up in the last three weeks (to be fair 28 of the IG were done before that). Haven’t had time to make an updated board for them though so it’s the same battle foam board I’ve had for the last year. I’ll be building my display now that my army is done and should have it done and pictures up before the Dark Star GT in two weeks.

Anyway, onto the list:

Primary Detachment: Dark Angels

Librarian – 100

Lvl 2, Force Axe

Librarian – 100

Lvl 2, Force Axe

Troop

5 Tactical Marines – 95

Missile Launcher, Flakk Missiles

5 Tactical Marines – 125

Combi-Melta, Melta, Drop Pod

Fast Attack

5 Assault Marines – 105

2xFlamers, Combi-Flamer

Allied Detachment: Imperial Guard

Company Command Squad – 105

Chimera w/Heavy Flamer

Troop

1^st Platoon:

Platoon Command Squad – 40

2xFlamers

Infantry Squad – 60

Auto-cannon

2 Infantry Squads – 140

Auto-cannon, Power Axe

Infantry Squad – 75

Auto-cannon, Power Axe, Melta Bomb

2^nd Platoon:

Platoon Command Squad – 40

2xFlamers

Infantry Squad – 60

Auto-cannon

2 Infantry Squads – 140

Auto-cannon, Power Axe

Infantry Squad – 75

Auto-cannon, Power Axe, Melta Bomb

Fast Attack

2 Vendettas – 260

Heavy Support

Leman Russ Executioner – 230

Plasma Cannon Sponsons

Total:1750

I think it’s a solid list. It provides 6 scoring units when all blobbed up and more when it’s not. It’s got solid anti-air defense in the vendettas and twin-linked blobs with a little support from the Flak missile (couldn’t get a lascannon painted in time). It’s death on MEQ with a guided Executioner and can handle hordes in style with prescienced blobs using First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire. It also has some disruption units which are always nice too. Overall I like. I’ll be posting pictures from this weekend including photos of this army so keep an eye out.

As for the Daemons we’ve all seen the rumors I assume. We’re certainly into the teeth gnashing, world is ending portion of the pre-codex cycle on major forums like Dakka and Warseer. That being said I’m a huge fan of what I’m seeing as it stands.

It looks like Heralds are going to be 4 to an HQ slot but only 4 can be taken in a single force org. This is great as it’ll allow us to use these unit buffing friends but also still enable us to take a big kid to be a center piece to our forces.

Hordes of troops are likely going to be the way to go. I expect that once enough time has gone by to see serious numbers of Daemonic Infantry being put on the table. If the rumored 9pts for all minor daemons except Bloodletters who are a whopping 10pts is true you’ll easily be able to grab 60 scoring bodies for less than 1/3 of an 1850 list. The make-up is going to be interesting in what people choose to bring. Personally I’m leaning towards Daemonettes and Plaguebearers at this point but it’s all very subject to how the more subtle rules in the codex affect the army.

I also expect that a lot of people are going to scream bloody murder about their flamers but since I still regularly find a use for a 105pt deepstriking 3 flamer squad for my DA’s I’m thinking that two wound jump infantry even with St4 AP4 flamers is still going to be solid.

Oddly even though I love beasts and calvary I’m leaning away from the elites section as it’s been presented so far. A lot of the units there feel too point heavy for me to invest in so I see that as the place I’ll go after my Heavy Support and Fast Attack are filled. How different from most 4^th & 5^th edition codexes J

Regarding the randomness of the Warpstorm table and Gifts I’m oddly ok with it so far as a tournament player. The majority of the Warpstorm table is extremely beneficial with a little risk but I think it’s going to generally be a wash. The gifts, since you have the ability to swap out for awesome weapons, are fine, especially since the weapons are extremely good for their points. I’m actually happy with the change. I think I’ll be screwed far less by the Warpstorm table and Gifts over 5-8 games than I was with Daemonic Assault over the same time frame (especially once GK’s got in the mix).

I like the initial feel based on these rumors. I’ve got a really good vibe for how this will shape up and am excited to really dive in after this weekend. I might even make myself crazy and paint up a new army for Adepticon if I get inspired enough.

I’ll follow-up next week after reviewing with the book in hand with my initial thoughts and probably a few lists and my reasoning on how they’re built. Till then!

Imperial Guard w/Chaos Allies – 1,850

2013-01-28T13:40:00.000-08:00

Here is a little something I’m playing with lately. It’s still in its rough stages but I think it has some potential.

Primary: Imperial Guard

Command Squad – 50

Lord Commisar – 80

Camo Cloak

Troop

Platoon Command Squad – 50

4xFlamers

4 Infantry Squads – 260

Auto-cannon, Melta Bomb

Platoon Command Squad – 50

4xFlamers

2 Infantry Squads – 120

Autocannon

Fast Attack

Vendetta – 130

2 Hellounds – 260

Hull Heavy Bolter

Heavy Support

Leman Russ Executioner – 190

Detachment Total: 1,320

Allies: Chaos Space Marines

Sorceror – 135

Lvl 2, Terminator Armor, Force Mace, Burning Brand

Troop

5 Chaos Space Marines – 110

Rhino

Fast Attack

Heldrake – 170

Baleflamer

Heavy Support

5 Havocs – 115

4xAutocannons

Detachment Total: 530

Total: 1,850

That’s what I’m looking at for the moment. It packs six scoring units (assuming the large squad is fully blobbed) in as well as a solid fire power base. It has four torrent flamers, two of which are AP3.

For the CSM allie the Sorcerer is a disruption unit that, hopefully after pulling down a good power or two on biomancy, deepstrikes into the enemy backfield to run around messing with support units. The Havocs are extra firepower for popping light mech or putting wounds down. The troops are just some extra scorers that might be able to drive 18” up the table on turn four to deploy on turn five if they live that long. The rhino is also because I want to use my Forgeworld Iron Warriors Rhino stuff J. And naturally I don’t have to explain the Heldrake.

For the guard I included the Lord Commissar for two reasons. The first was to add the camo cloak for increased survivability in the blob and the second was to have a harder to kill Warlord. The Executioner seemed like a good bet. I’ve fallen in love with plasma templates and since it doesn’t get hot it can do some long term damage on a very resilient platform. The big blob is for board control and the other infantry squads are objective holders. The flamer PCS’s go into the Vendettas for some late game burning/objective grabbing. The Hellhounds add some much fun burny but also a way to lay down a lot of wounds at a longer range (12” move + 12” range + template). And finally everyone’s friend, the Vendetta J

Those are my thoughts. Some of you will notice I pulled the power weapons from my blobs. The reason is that in this list they aren’t the killer blob. They are the hold stuff up blob and the points were needed for the Commisar Lord.

Vehicles and Transports in 6th Edition

2013-01-23T05:00:00.000-08:00

I mentioned last week in my I’m back article how I thought that people had overreacted and that vehicles and transports still had a place in armies in 6th. Well I’m about to share with you my reasoning! Prepare to be amazed! (Or not, I won’t be offendedJ).

Some of this is basic but stick with me as I feel it’s needed to illustrate my later points. Let’s first discuss what really changed in 6th for vehicles:

-Hull points were added. Basically wounds for vehicles.

-The Damage chart changed, reducing “instant deathing” vehicles to a 16.5% chance on most weapons

-Cover saves became easier to get at 25% of the model.

-Cover saves became slightly worse at 5+ instead of 4+

-Vehicles got faster with the addition of Flat-out in the shooting phase (running for vehicles)

-Vehicle effects now affect the transported squad the next turn.

-Moving no more than 6” in the movement phase to deploy troops

-Snap Firing weapons

-Always hit on a 3+ in CC as long as you move

-Can’t assault out of a non-assault vehicle, even if it was stationary.

-And finally, no longer being able to control/contest objectives and onboard units need to disembark to deny/control as well.

I think that handles the majority of the changes and it’s actually a pretty big list. I don’t think another aspect of the game changed as much as vehicles did. Just glancing at it seems that vehicles took a decent hit from their 5th edition counterparts. Why?

Well troops no longer being able to contest from inside their boxes means that those minimum sized squads will have to get out more often. The limited moving and deploying hurt armies that enjoy an alpha strike (though only by 2”-3” once you actually look at it). Vehicles are easier to punch out in CC and hull points allow them to be worn down by enough firepower. Add in that you can’t assault out of a stationary box and looks like a whole lot of bad.

You guys know that the majority of 5th edition for me was primarily infantry armies. I don’t think I’ve had a vehicle in my army at a large GT event in over 2 years. I was a proponent that all infantry lists could work (and did rather well for me) but in 6^th I find myself shifting to more vehicles.

“Why?” I can hear you ask. “You just ran off a list of reasons vehicles got worse in 6th!”

Part of it is because the rest of the internet and a fair few of the national metas have shifted away from vehicles. I’m not gonna lie. I enjoy doing things a bit differently. Oh, and I finally got an airbrush and don’t suck at painting tanks J

That’s the short answer. Here is the long answer:

In 5th edition the missile launcher (or its xenos equivalent) was king of the ranged firepower vs. vehicles. It had solid penetration values and could wreck a vehicle 33% of the time when it did penetrate. Cover saves were harder for vehicles to come by in 5th and so you wound up with more pens and glances and more chance of pulling down a damage result. And its weapon almost every army had, or could take, in abundance in 5th (Excluding Tau & Eldar). The Melta did a similar job up close but even better.

In 6th edition the initial panic over being able to glance vehicles to death and not shoot out of a vehicle that had been stunned/shaken led to an almost overnight shift away from MSU. With that shift away from MSU people were looking for ways to increase their firepower and so multiple shot medium strength weapons came back in a big way (st.5-7). It didn’t hurt that the common missile launcher got significantly worse short term at dropping tanks. They were already relatively popular on vehicles themselves but more started cropping up in foot lists. Autocannons, Scatterlasers, Assault Cannons, Heavy Bolters, Plasma Guns, Plasma Cannons, and the list goes on.

So why are tanks and transports still something to include in an army? There are a couple of reasons.

Because it still takes 9 BS4 St7 shots to glance to death an armor 11 vehicle out of cover (with a 32% chance at exploding it). And 15 if it has cover, which isn’t too hard to come by in 6th. That’s a significant amount of firepower to destroy a 35pt Rhino. Missile Launchers have it a little better but due to cost per shot ratios aren’t nearly as effective, especially as they rise in price in new codexes. Strength 6 weapons sit at 15 shots per vehicles and again worse if they have cover. Basically vehicles can draw a fairly sizable amount of good anti-infantry shots onto themselves, saving a higher number of infantry the lower the strength and higher the number of shots go.

I had a lot of math showing the difference between hull points and destroying vehicles in 5th but basically attrition is the weapon of choice in 6th.

Additionally people aren’t prepared anymore to face 8-12 properly supported armored vehicles anymore. When was the last time you looked at an army and enough firepower to eliminate 3+ rhinos on the first turn? I’m not talking about getting lucky with just three units. I’m talking about something that could consistently do this. I’ve had two games in the last 4 months where this was the case. Add in that Plasma guns are consistently replacing melta outside of a single suicide unit for landraiders and lascannons still haven’t popped up to heavily (though I expect that to change over the next few month).

Bear in mind it’s not just having vehicles that’s a good thing. It’s having vehicles that have a purpose. Fire support vehicles like GK Psybacks are still a solid investment as they can double as mediocre anti-air. Heavy support vehicles such as certain types of IG tanks (non-ordinance) and artillery or similar units in other armies. And finally transports. Yep, I said transports.

Transports still eliminate all St4 or less shooting that might hurt your infantry. Transports still allow you to forward deploy 12” on turn 1. Transports still offer protection until late game snatches of objectives are needed. Transports still clog firing lanes and available enemy movement. Transports in this edition can provide their own version of jump/shoot/jump as they can start in front of a unit (limiting incoming fire), move out of the way in the movement phase 6” and then move back in front in the shooting phase after the unit has fired.

Are there some armies out there that the changes to vehicles bone? Yep, Eldar and Tau come rapidly to mind. Why? Because their transports are costed far too high but that’s another discussion.

I think that people are going to have to start looking at vehicles as an option again. I feel that between the changes to the dragon as well as items like the Black Mace and Banner of Devastation players are going to start feeling the squeeze on their mainstay units. There are only so many bodies you can get on the table before you start to lose viability. Adding transports may cut the total number of boots (which I still recommend keeping high) but it’ll keep more alive over the course of the game.

So what’s the conclusion? Pretty much what I started with last week. Vehicles have changed. They are no longer a place to hide inside to score or assault out of. They are a piece of your army that needs a place in your plan. Basically vehicles now support the army instead of being the army. I find this to be a good thing but I think quite a few people are missing out on dumping all those lovely transports they used in 5th edition.

What do you guys think? Are transports and vehicles (outside of flyers) truly dead? Has the community had a knee-jerk reaction? What future do you see for transports and vehicles?

Angel Exterminatus – Book Review

2013-01-22T05:00:00.000-08:00

As you can tell from my previous post I’m a bit of a Iron Warrior nut. I’ve been in love with Iron Warriors since the White Dwarf Index Astartes article back in 3^rd edition. I built a large army of them and they managed to keep my attention consecutively for longer than any army has to date. So when I saw this book was being released I did a little jig. Even if it did include Fulgrim at least I was finally getting a book with my Primarch as the lead.

Then I found out it was only in hardback…..

Ok, that’s new to the Horus Heresy but it was bound to happen so I’m cool with that. Then it turned they had an E-book so that’s the direction I took. Anyway, onto the review:

Format: Meh

It was an Ebook. Not much to say here except that there wasn’t anything wrong with it J

Additional Content: D-

These pertain to the additional pictures that I’m sure were also included in the hardback. The art is pretty poor and placed at strange spots in the book. Overall not worth their price increase (for B.L., it’s not expensive for standard publishing releases).

The Actual Story: A-

Now I’m a bit of a Fan Boy for my legion obviously but it was actually a pretty good book. Fulgrim was pretty terrible to me. I just wasn’t a fan of the entire novel so I was a little leery of a book including Fulgrim possibly as much as Perturabo but it turned out to the good. The novel revolves primarily around Perturabo with an expansion on his character that is pretty solid as well as fleshing out the workings of his legion.

There are quite a few nods to the authors other works involving the Iron Warriors in the 41^st millennia. People will recognize Kroger, Forrix, and the Warsmith from Storm of Iron. In fact there are quite a few points that act as a set-up to that novel which is interesting as it’s a different path than another author (Aaron D-B) decided to take. There are also some fun nods to the old index astartes article which is nice.

Overall it was a fun story. I’m not going to go into detail outside of what you can find online as I don’t want any spoilers but I do recommend it. Whether you wait for it in paperback or pick it up via trade novel or ebook give it a whirl.

Dark Angels List - Azrael & Friends - 1850

2013-01-21T05:00:00.000-08:00

I had the chance to play at a local RTT this weekend. We had 11 people show up and it was a good time. I'll be posting up my batreps sometime this week so keep an eye out but I wanted to share my list and initial thoughts first.

First, the list:

HQ

Azrael -215
Librarian - 130
Lvl 2, Terminator Armor, Force Axe

Troop

5 Deathwing Terminators - 255
Assault Cannon, 2xTH/SS, 1 Chainfist, 1 PF, 2xStorm Bolters, 1xPowersword

5 Deathwing Terminators - 255
Assault Cannon, 2xTH/SS, 1 Chainfist, 1 PF, 2xStorm Bolters, 1xPowersword

5 Tactical Marines - 95
Missile Launcher w/Flak Missiles

5 Tactical Marines - 95
Missile Launcher w/Flak Missiles

3 Ravenwing Bikers - 155
2xMeltaguns, Attack Bike w/MM

Fast Attack

5 Assault Marines - 105
2xFlamers, 1 Combi-Flamer

5 Assault Marines - 105
2xFlamers, 1 Combi-Flamer

Allied Detachment: Imperial Guard

HQ

Primaris Psyker - 70

Troop

Platoon Command Squad - 30

Infantry Squad - 70
Power Axe, Autocannon

Infantry Squad - 70
Power Axe, Autocannon

Infantry Squad - 70
Power Axe, Autocannon

Infantry Squad - 70
Power Axe, Autocannon

Infantry Squad - 60
Autocannon

So naturally we blob up and Azrael, the Libby, and the Primaris join up with the blob. Everything in the list scores except for 2 drop pods and 10 marines which is nice. Now for my thoughts:

-Azrael in a Blob squad is ridiculous. The 4++ for the entire blob is bad enough but don't forget fearless which is only crazier. He's also got the ability to give his unit Furious Charge. Basically he's just a massive boost to IG survivability.

-The terminator squads aren't anywhere near optimal yet. The weapon loadout was more based on modelling reasons than anything else since I'm using Cataphractii Termies and I haven't had time to get them build perfectly yet. I quite like the assault cannons with them being twin linked upon arrival from deepstrike quite a bit so that will be staying but the sword is going to go away.

-Lvl 2 libbies are neat but I almost never, or at least very rarely, casted 2 powers in a single phase so that and the Terminator armor are likely being dropped.

-The Primaris Psyker is out. I'm going to swap him with a Lord Commissar for Ld10 Orders.

-Bikes are out too. I just couldn't make them work for anything. Not that their a bad unit but I'm going to find another place to spend the points.

-The Flak Tacticals didn't do anything other than die or sit in my deployment zone. Granted I only played a single flyer but it was still pretty poop. I'm thinking of what else I might do with these as well.

-The Drop Pod Assault Marines were great fun. For three deep striking flamer templates it's dirt cheap and they normally did a fair amount of damage. The one change here would be to add teleport homers in case I want to drop in on turn 2 instead of 1 with Deathwing Assault.

Overall I think it's a solid starting point. Quite a few changes I'll be making and you'll probably understand more why when I post up the Batreps.

6th Edition Theory – Boots on the Ground

2013-01-17T05:00:00.000-08:00

Some of you will remember that in my recent I’m back post I mentioned I’d be delving deeper into some of my thoughts on 6^th edition. One of those thoughts was that there were going to be an increased number of models on a per army basis for successful armies in 6^th edition. Well here are some of my expanded thoughts on the subject J

I think a critical thing to understand is that I’m not talking about physical models on the table. I’m talking about an increased total number of models in the army as a whole. I’m not saying go all infantry (unless you hate painting vehicles) as I think transports and vehicles still have a place.

So why more boots on the ground? There are a couple of reasons.

1) 6^th edition is a lot more deadly in the shooting phase. There are more shots being fired and unit enhancers are easier to come by. The changes to rapid fire and the addition of snapfire for heavy weapons means a lot more mobile firepower. Mobile firepower means more people dying in the 13”-24” band that was, in 5^th, pretty much the land of Grey Knights only.

2) Changes to wound allocation mean that you’re going to lose heavy/special/character models more frequently in smaller squads.

3) Other changes to wound allocation have heavily impacted multi-wound units as there is no more bouncing wounds around.

4) The addition of overwatch and the changes to charging are going to impact unit sizes.

5) The 16.5% reduction in KP oriented missions.

6) Possibility of First Blood

What do these changes really mean based on the points above?

The increased death dealing in the 13”-24” range means you’ll see more infantry oriented armies as they can advance and keep up a healthy weight of fire. Generally cutting vehicles will tend to net you more infantry so you’re looking at bigger armies. And you’re going to need more shots to deal with the increased number of bodies. It’s kinda cyclical.

The changes to wound allocation mean you’re going to either want more models to cover your special/heavy/character or if that’s not possible you’re going to want more units that contain those special/heavy/character models. Granted this is a balancing act. Sometimes it’s the bodies that matter and sometimes it’s the weapons hidden in the bodies. That’ll greatly depend on what the rest of what you’re bringing to the table looks like. In either case though, more bodies again J

Mass fire units can now knock down multi-wound model units. It’s not like 5^th edition and even pre-FAQ 6^th where they can run all over and you need to deal the entire number of models in the squad plus one in wounds before they start losing models.

For assault based armies you’re going to need more models. You’re going to need to be able to survive more incoming firepower and need be able to survive getting close enough that losing a few models to overwatch doesn’t prevent you from reaching assault.

And lastly, the changes to the scenarios in 6^th indicate a direction away from kill point missions and a push even farther toward objective holding. Naturally the more objective holders you have the better position you’re in but this couples with the next point of first blood nicely as you want units that are difficult to remove from the table. I’ve seen a few games now in tournaments where first blood isn’t actually achieved until turn 2-3 instead of on turn 1. Why? People are bringing larger units and rolling their vehicles on if they’ve got second turn.

Basically 6^th edition encourages large model count armies. Not saying that elite armies can’t compete but I’m finding that I’m feeling a little light on models if I don’t have 60+ models where in 5^th I only felt that way under 40. With the addition of allies and the ability to tie in elite units into mob armies or mob units into elite armies I think you’ll see the general model count continue to rise. Which is ok because with the number of dice rolled in shooting now and it’s increased deadliness if they didn’t the game might not last the full number of turns.

So what do you guys think? Is 6^th more oriented toward larger lists or has it remained largely the same? And don’t go into vehicles and transports yet. That’s a different topic for me in how they currently fit in the game and no, they aren’t dead! J

Something Fun to Come out of the FAQ’s – Space Wolf Allies

2013-01-16T12:20:00.000-08:00

Everyone and their mother is talking about the FAQ’s and there are quite a few things that either clarify some waffly rules or change things pretty significantly but I wanted to focus on this one, single thing because it brought a little joy to my eyes and made my brain a start to working.

The one that got me excited is Space Wolves related and in their FAQ:

“Q: Does the The Leaders of the Pack rule still apply to Space Wolves taken as an Allied Detachment? (p81)

A: Yes”

So this mean that if you ally in Space Wolves you can pack in two HQ’s. Or, more appropriately, two Rune Priests.

Why is this a big deal? Well as some of you saw I’m a fan of two blobs. Mine aren’t purely combat/lasgun oriented and I’m a fan of the board control and resilience they give my armies. Well now I can get two Rune Priests in a Primary Guard army. That’s pretty crazy. And since they have some of the best and cheapest MEQ troops in the game you’re not even really paying a troop tax for it.

Here is an example:

Primary Detachment: Imperial Guard

HQ:

Primaris Psyker – 70

Elite:

Marbo – 65

Troops:

Platoon Command Squad – 30

3xInfantry Squad w/Autocannon & Power Axe – 210

Infantry Squad w/Autocannon – 60

Platoon Command Squad – 30

3xInfantry Squad w/Autocannon & Power Axe – 210

Infantry Squad w/Autocannon – 60

3xHeavy Weapon Teams w/Mortars – 180

Fast Attack:

Vendetta – 130

Heavy Support:

Griffon – 75

Allied Detachment: Space Wolves

HQ:

Rune Priest – 100

Troops:

10 Grey Hunters in a Drop Pod w/2 Flamers & Power Axe – 200

Total: 1,850

So what do we have here? We have two blobs with a Divination Psyker and a Biomancy Psyker. We have three of the cheapest and nastiest flyers currently in the game. A disruption unit in Marbo as well as one in the Grey Hunters. And plenty of barrage weapons for sniping ugly units./models.

Does it need work? Sure, but it’s a starting point. You’ve got 8 scoring units (assuming a full blob-up) and solid anti-flyer. Excellent anti-infantry and anti-tank running around with lots and lots of bodies and the ability to increase their durability.

Ideally I’d prefer to upgrade the Griffon to a Colossus but that would require dropping Marbo (something I’d consider) or finding the points elsewhere.

Just something random running through my head I felt I should share J

Hobby Article: My Holiday Haul

2013-01-16T05:00:00.000-08:00

Well Black Friday has come and gone and finally most of my stuff I grabbed has arrived. I not only grabbed a ton of the bitz and pieces I needed to complete at least two of my Iron Warrior projects but I also dove head first into two new games.

So what did I get? Well:

- An order of foam from Battlefoam. Custom cut for my two new games to fit in my shield bag I got for free at Adepticon last year as well as two 5-packs of 1.5” foam for my SD trays.

- A bevy of glorious bitz seen in these photos below

o Drills from Ramshackle Games (Drop Pods for my Iron Warriors when they count-as loyalists)

A multitude of weapon and bionic bitz from Anvil Industries

Tons of Trench Warfare Bases from Secret Weapon Miniatures & Miscellaneous Bitz from Kromlech & MaxMini

- An entire Federated States Fleet and Moderate Airforce for Dystopian Wars as seen in the custom battle foam here.

- My Imperial and Rebel forces for the X-Wing Miniature Game also shown here in their custom cut battle foam.

And there are still some more items to come in. Overall it’s looking like it’s going to be a heck of a fun next few months building up and painting my haul. And none of this includes the Dreamforge Plastic Leviathan’s (Counts-as Warhound Titans) that should be showing up on my doorstep in early January as well as a massive dose of Sedition Wars which I’m looking forward to around the same time.

About those two new games. So I have a very short attention span as many of you have probably noticed. I do tend to see new games and really want to dive into them. However I generally manage to hold out based on the fact that I might not be able to play them. The times I haven’t managed to hold out has left me with 3 large Epic 40k Armies and a huge BFG fleet that includes both Imperial, Adeptus Mechanicus, and Space Marine ships.

I happily took the chance to pick up a few more X-wing figures on the cheap simply because locally it’s a very popular game and it’s pretty fun. It’s relatively cheap to get into and since I generally play at the Fantasy Flight Event Center I figured it was a solid investment.

I also took advantage of 40% off of Spartan games products to grab my favorite looking fleet and the rule book for Dystopian Wars. For a relatively minor investment I pull down an enormous fleet and the foam to store it. I figure just the time spent painting will make this purchase worth it but there is also a small group that meets at a local game store that try to get games in so I might at least get to play once in a while. I’m a little more worried about getting to play this game than I am X-wing but I’ve been looking at it so long I couldn’t help the plunge.

Well, I figured I’d share some of my non-40k related stuff with you guys as it’s nice once in a while to throw out some of my other hobby stuff but have no fear. There is quite a bit more 40k stuff to come.

Dark Angels – A Starting Point

2013-01-15T05:00:00.001-08:00

Well the codex is out. People are excited or pissed in varying degrees. We’ve got quite a few typos some people out there are trying to build armies around and some people lamenting Chaos Space Marines already. Oh what a time to be in love with 40k.

When I first read the codex three things stuck out at me almost instantly:

-Banner of Devastation

-Auspex

-65pt Librarian

There is a ton of other content in the book but these were the items that simply leapt out at me. Why? 6th edition is about being able to simply murder models on the ground. I’ve got an article coming up tomorrow talking about boots on the ground and the change in but 6th for now just take my word for it; those three items are going to murder entire armies.

The Auspex has only really been mentioned on Whiskey40k so far but I think it's a game changer. The ability to remove cover saves, reducing an aegis line to a 5++ is insane. With a 12" range it'll be interesting to see if it can be pulled off but it's something worth discussing and reviewing.

The Banner of Devastation (Bolters change to Salvo 2/4) is something that's gotten a lot of buzz. It has the potential in massively increase the firepower of a Ravenwing force and it's can definitely bump up normal marines and scouts as well. It's limitations are range (only 6") and the fact that it's on a single model in a 3/5 man squad. It's solid but I think a list has to be built around it.

The Librarian is even crazier. For just 65pts you've got a walking twin-linking psyker that makes a squad fearless and gives it Preferred Enemy (CSM). He'll excell in conjunction with allied IG or....bolter armed scouts.

So why am I starting with these? Because as I keep building lists I keep seeing these items pop up in my lists. Granted I'm mostly just messing around at this point and will be getting some games in this weekend but since I'm noticing a trend in my list building so I thought I'd throw my basic template I'm currently building off of.

Primary

HQ:

Librarian - Lvl 1 w/Auspex

Librarian - Lvl 1 w/Auspex

Command Squad w/Banner of Devastation

Troop:

Pick two to customize

Heavy Support:

Crusader or Godhammer (Depending on other choices)

Ally

HQ:

Command Squad w/Mortar

Troop:

Platoon Command Squad w/Mortar
3xInfantry Squad w/Autocannon & Power Weapon
Infantry Squad w/Autocannon

Platoon Command Squad w/Mortar
3xInfantry Squad w/Autocannon & Power Weapon
Infantry Squad w/Autocannon

Most people looking at this template will notice that currently the banner doesn't seem to have a place. It's pretty obvious that the Libby's go with the blob squads and that the marine command squad goes in the Landraider but why is there a Banner here to begin with?

Because it all depends on how I want to move forward. Do I want to infiltrate cheap scouts with bolters or do I want to just use two small Flakk missile armed combat squads and flush out my fast attack with bikes? Or do I want a flood of basic marines to advance alongside my LR? There are a ton of options but regardless of my choices the banner is going to quadruple my firepower while standing still. It just remains to pick a direction, or experiment with all of them.

It's just a template but what do you guys think and where are you starting from?

I’m Alive, I’m Back, and I’m Enjoying 6th Edition

2013-01-14T05:00:00.000-08:00

Well I took a bit of a break. And instead of posting an idle thought here and there I took a page out of Brent’s book from Strictly Average and just stopped posting. I should be back on a relatively regular schedule now but more importantly I’m in a good place to write about my hobby again which my recent break made possible. No one wants to feel like writing for their blog is a job instead of a hobby (unless it is their job).

Anywho this is mostly a catch up post of what’s been going on with a couple of lists and articles scheduled to post over the next two weeks.

I have to say the more of 6^th I play the more I like it. The armies I’m running into are far more diverse. I’m seeing things like Tyranids and Tau on the tables again. I’m seeing crazy allies and some pretty cool stand alone lists. Some great conversion for aegis lines and weapons for race specific stuff. Mostly I’m just seeing a pretty heavy resurgence of the GW hobby in my local area which I think is great.

Let’s get into a few specifics about what I’m seeing:

1) Flyers aren’t dominating the Meta locally or apparently abroad. A 5+ flyer army hasn’t pulled down so much as an RTT win locally and I honestly don’t expect it to happen any time soon, if ever.

2) I’m rolling a ton more dice than in 5^th. Granted this is in part related to some of the lists I’m playing (which will be posted later) but there is definitely and upsurge in the number of dice. However the game mechanics seem to be faster. Even against people who aren’t 100% on the rules and with larger armies I’m still finishing turn 5 in almost all my games and generally finishing naturally.

3) Which brings me to this; armies are getting bigger. There are more boots on the ground than in 5^th and I find I’m considering a list to light on boots if it’s got less than 60 models. Which is a pretty crazy departure from 5^th.

4) Psykers, while not game breaking, are extremely good force multipliers.

5) Vehicles/Transports are not dead, their use has changed.

That covers a few of the things I’ve been seeing and I’ll go into even more detail later. Gotta have something to write about after all J.

So what have I been up to lately? Outside of getting sucked back into WoW for almost a month before breaking the chain again I’ve pretty much been playing locally and hitting up some RTT’s. I also played in a local “GT” in Wisconsin which was in its first year and only had 16 people show up. It was a fun event and I’d recommend it again next year but I hope it grows. Which it should assuming they get the word out sooner and don’t schedule it for the same weekend as a popular Fantasy GT and the FFG World Championships. I’ll be attending next year to see if I can defend my win this year.

For those who don’t know I’m in the Frozen North (Minnesota) and we have a pretty lively gaming scene up this way. We got a prep league started for a local GT that is in March but at the same point value as Adepticon so it doubles as a practice league for that as well. It’s three games a month with the same list and then you can tweak or completely change your list for the next month.

I’ve pretty much hung up my GK’s locally after the local GT to start trying some other stuff. Even though I do love my walking strike list and other lists I’ve played with them I feel it’s time to start getting something cool together for Adepticon and since I want it to be stunning I’m starting now. Before moving on I wanted to share some of the Henchmen I painted up for my GK’s for the local GT:

Bolter & Storm Bolter Henchmen:

Plasma Cannon Servitors:

I’ve been working on an Iron Warrior themed army which is currently all over the place. Basically my new counts-as marine army with themed allies from several books to attach to it. I’m loving the way the models are turning out. Here is an example of what I’ll be using for my Chaos Spawn that I’ve gotten painted up:

I’ll be posting up images of other parts of my army as I finish them. Let’s just say my poor wallet is hurting a bit after the Black Friday sales as I took the chance to grab most of the bitz I needed to finish at least two of the larger Iron Warrior related projects I’m working on.

My team and I will be returning to Adepticon this year to defend our title and I’ve already squared away my room as well as my tickets to the Champs and Gladiator. I’m excited for a chance to play in the Gladiator this year since I picked up Dream Forge Leviathan and some extra arms that I intend to run as a Warhound. Obviously I’d like to qualify for the championship bracket but let’s be honest, it hasn’t happened the last two year so I’m not expecting it to happen this year. With all the crazy 6^th edition has brought it’s anyone’s game.

I’ve registered for the Indy Open in March which I heartily recommend to anyone. It’s in Indianapolis, IN and the info can be found here: http://theindyopen.com/. I’ve also registered for a local GT that sold out last year known as The Dark Star and again, I’d recommend it. Great event that is expanding from 64 players last year to 80 so sign-up if you are interested. Here is the info for this one: http://darkstargt.com/index.html

I’ll also be grabbing a ticket to the Bugeater here in the next week or so. So many GT’s are selling tickets 6 months in advance of the event it’s kinda crazy to be planning for next year’s events already but I’m glad to see the event scene is thriving.

Well that’s it for now. Check back for some of my deeper thoughts on where 6^th is currently at, army lists, list building, allies, and unit relation/integration articles.

Random 1,850 Chaos List w/Daemon Allies

2012-10-24T05:00:00.000-07:00

So this is just something that sparked my interest while I sat here at work. It’s slightly based around my need to convert but it does look like fun.

Primary Detachment: Chaos Space Marines

Chaos Lord – Mark of Khorne, Juggernaught, Axe of Blinding Fury, Gift of Mutation, Sigil of Corruption, Veteran of the Long War

Troop

10 Chaos Marines – 2 Plasma Guns

Fast Attack

Heldrake – Bale Flamer

5 Chaos Spawn

Heavy Support

5 Havocs – 4 Autocannons

Total: 1,360

Allied Detachment: Daemons

The Masque

Elite

6 Flamers

Troop

5 Plague Bearers

Fast Attack

7 Screamers

Total: 488

Army Total: 1,848

Total Models: 62

So what you have here is a lot of punch. The core list revolves around 35 CSM that contain 16 special/heavy weapons. This is the scoring and ranged portion of the list for the most part. This in turn is supported by the seriously killy portion of the list which consists of the Lord and his escorting spawn, dual heldrakes with bale flamers, screamers, and flamers.

The Masque is a fun choice. For 100pts I get a model that can’t be ignored since it still can move your models. I feel that in a average turn we’re talking about moving 2 units 3”-4”. Combining this with Heldrakes and Flamers means a very real chance that this model can ensure the destruction of entire units. Not to mention the help of pulling things in closer for combats with the lord and screamers. Overall seems like a fun list. I’m a little torn on the troops though as whenever I include allies I always feel light on troops. This is an option in the troop department:

Troops (Allied & Primary)

10 CSM w/2 Plasma

10 Cultists

5 Plague Bearers

This requires losing 3 points. I’d basically have to drop the VotLW on my lord.

Another option:

Troops (Allied & Primary)

10 Cultists

9 Horrors

It’s a lot of AP4 shots that come out of these units. Granted the range isn’t amazing but 54 St4 shots isn’t something to sneeze at. Though they aren’t quite as resilient as the marines but they do have a slightly higher damage output outside of rapid fire range.

Lastly you could go for the resilience game:

Troops (Allied & Primary)

10 Cultists

11 Plaguebearers

10 Plaguebearers

It’s extremely resilient but doesn’t provide any true offensive capability.

So many options! Feel free to weigh in!

Fun List For This Weekend’s RTT – 1,850

2012-10-23T08:45:00.003-07:00

So I’m currently building up my pretty heavily converted Iron Warrior army and since they are nowhere near done I figured I’d bring a fun army to a local RTT. And one that’s mostly painted. This is what I’m thinking:

Primary: Space Marine

Librarian – Terminator Armor, Force Axe, Gate of Infinity, and either Avenger or Null Zone

Elite

8 Terminators – Thunderhammer & Stormshield

Troop

10 Tactical Marines – Multi-Melta, Plasma Gun

Fast Attack

Storm Talon – Assault Cannon, Typhoon Missile Launcher

Total: 1,115

Allied Detachment: Dark Angels

Belial – Thunderhammer & Stormshield

Troop

Deathwing Squad – Cyclone, 5 Thunderhammer & Stormshield

Fast Attack

3 Ravenwing Bikers – Plasma Gun

Total: 735

Now, I’d personally prefer to use scout bikers but since I haven’t got any built yet I had to go with the Ravenwing bikers. The idea is pretty simple really. If going first deploy the tac squads, one deathwing unit without Belial, the ravenwing squad pretty central but spread as widely as possible, and the librarian with his terminator friends. If you have the first turn you scout your bikes up as close as possible and as widely as possible and proceed to teleport and deepstrike in 15 Terminator models on the opponents doorstep. You run them and pretty much hem your opponent in for a turn 2 smack fest. The supporting fire from your troops hopefully opens up a vehicle, maybe two and then you go to town. The flyers are for air support to eliminate things like Dragons, Vendetta’s, and Doomscythes. You’ve got solid scoring and some decent mobility thanks to Gate.

If you go second you just try and get as close as you can as well hidden as you can (something you get the chance to do if there is terrain since you set up second) and attempt the same thing. I think it’s pretty fun. You have to kill 10 scoring TH/SS termies and 20 marines while also dealing with flyers and another 8 TH/SS terminators on your doorstep. It should be pretty fun and it gets me out my current rut J

Chaos – Where I’m Starting

2012-10-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

Well I’ve spent the weekend playing with my airbrush but since I still suck with that thing so far I figured I’d put up where I plan on starting my lists for now with Iron Warriors.

Troop

15 Cultists – 70

Fast Attack

Heldrake – 170

Baleflamer

Heldrake – 170

Baleflamer

5 Spawn – 180

Mark of Nurgle

Heavy Support

5 Havocs – 115

4xAutocannon

5 Havocs – 115

4xAutocannon

5 Havocs – 115

4xAutocannon

Total: 1005

So why? Well the heavy weapons should be obvious. 12 Autocannons for so cheap is a pretty solid start, being much cheaper than the guard you can ally in. The Heldrakes make for some nasty anti-marine while maybe being able to drop a flyer between them on the turn they come with their vector strike. Spawn are a solid, fast, and tough cc unit. And naturally 2 squads of cultists for some objective holding goodness.

The rest of the list will be tailored to what I’m feeling while I play test. I feel the above gives me a solid starting point for how I’m going to move forward. Once I get comfortable with more of the book I can see the above changing.

And what is the first thing I’m thinking about running in addition to the above not counting allies?

Chaos Lord – 185

Mark of Nurgle, Bike, Black Mace, Boon of Mutation, Sigil of Corruption, Veteran of the Long War

Chaos Lord – 80

Mark of Slaanesh

Troop

12 Noise Marines – 280

Sonic Blaster, FnP Icon

12 Noise Marines – 280

Sonic Blaster, FnP Icon

The above leaves you with 20 extra points to put somewhere. I like it as a starting point but then I feel like I’ve got a chaos army without too many chaos marines. So this is something I’d also be considering.

Chaos Lord – 185

Mark of Nurgle, Bike, Black Mace, Boon of Mutation, Sigil of Corruption, Veteran of the Long War

Troop

10 Chaos Space Marines – 210

BP/CCW, 2 Melta Guns, Rhino, Power Axe

10 Chaos Space Marines – 210

BP/CCW , 2 Melta Guns, Rhino, Power Axe

10 Chaos Space Marines – 210

BP/CCW , 2 Melta Guns, Rhino, Power Axe

As you can see my starting point has me being a big fan of the Nurgle Bike Lord w/the Mace. I’m just dying to try him in with a unit of nurgle spawn. The above list does add more basic marines as well as some mobility but it lacks some more character support and the ability to drop lightly armored troops hiding in cover.

Either way, this is where I’m starting. What do you guys thing?

Chaos Codex – First Impression (Yes, Me too!)

2012-10-05T05:00:00.000-07:00

But it’s not out yet!!!! Well, it kinda is. But that’s beside the point since it does come out on Saturday there isn’t any reason not to get started with my thoughts overall. I probably won’t do a unit by unit breakdown or review as I’ll leave that to other blogs to do. I haven’t delved deeply or long enough yet to not make simple mistakes and I’m not going to pretend I have J. I’ll be focusing mostly on my general thoughts on the book, different ideas for builds, and the possible evolution of the book. But today is about my first impression so let’s get down to it.

First off let me say I can’t wait for my hardback copy. Based on what I have and my experience with the Fantasy books I’m extremely happy with this product. The price point is a little high but not for me when I consider how much use I’ll get out of it over the next 5+ years.

Well since I’m a relatively competitive player naturally this is going to focus on my thoughts in this direction. There does seem to be tons of fluff but that’s something I’ll read out of the hard copy so I don’t really have an opinion on it yet. Though I do really like the art in the book.

To the Book! One word: POTENTIAL

This book codex is absolutely full of potential. You can pretty much make any of the old legions should you choose (excluding Alpha legion but they don’t really have a structure anyway) but you can also heavily customize to your personal flavor.

Marks

They are everywhere. If it’s on the table and has a wound characteristic and isn’t a DP you can mark it. You want even your Havocs to counter-attack with a bp/ccw, well you can. Wanna prevent oblits from instant death from lascannons & missile launchers then throw on a mark of nurgle. 4++ Terminators with your choice of weaponry then Tzeentch is your friend. The options are pretty endless and it makes for being able to seriously tailor your force.

I will say that Tzeentch is pretty pointless on any unit that doesn’t already have an invul save since it only gives a 6+ if that’s the case.

Icons

Three out of the five have a solid purpose. The one for any mark that makes you fearless is very nice to avoid leadership issues. The khorne one is solid allowing units with it to hit harder with furious charge but also making them more likely to make charges with the re-roll on charge distance. Though the clear winner is probably the Slaanesh icon for FnP. Until people start to bring more barrage/sniper weapons this icon is probably going to be pretty prolific.

I do feel like they missed the boat with Tzeentch and Nurgle. Tzeentch could have been expensive but granted ignoring cover. Nurgle could have provided relentless or at least slow-and-purposeful. Each would probably have been at the same/higher cost as the Slaanesh icon but then all of them would have been viable. Oh well, can’t have everything. Even when Phil Kelly writes a book J

Force Org Movement:

I like how this was handled. Cult troops being shifted if a lord similarly marked is taken is pretty nice. I do like that they made it clear it only works on the primary detachment. Abaddon making Chosen troops is pretty nice too. This helps keep the elite slot more fluid for you style. Granted almost every slot is overloaded but that gives ton of……potential…….to build a list to fit your style.

Stand-Outs

First one is naturally the Heldrake. Most of you know I play 2-3 Dreadknights in my Grey Knight lists. Partly as a form of blocker for my strikes but also partly because they can and do throw fire and wounds down like crazy. Now imagine being able to do that from a flyer after swiping another unit/vehicle/flyer. The Bale Flamer is insane. With the game going infantry heavy this unit is insanely good and it’s points don’t break the bank.

My second one is Spawn. Weird right? Well I play tyrannids and daemons. You know what I would give for a unit that only cost 36 points per model, was St5, T6, had Rage, was a beast, is fearless, and gets some additional bonuses at the beginning of every combat. Even with only D6 attacks it’s hard not to love this guy. The only issue is that he’s in the fast attack alongside the damn dragon.

The next two are Artefacts but I’m in love with them. The first is the Burning Brand of Skalathrax. It’s Kharn’s flamer from when he went bonkers and broke both the world eaters and emperor’s children legions into warbands. In game terms it’s another torrent weapon that’s st4 ap3. If you give me a chance to throw fire I’m pretty much sold. If you let said thrown fire kill marines try and stop me from taking it J.

The other Artefact that caught my eye is the Black Mace. It’s a daemon weapon which hasn’t changed except that now you still get your normal attacks if you roll a 1 though you do hit on a 5+ at that point unless your opponents are WS2. This daemon weapon is only AP4 but wounds always on a 2+(fleshbane) but more importantly if he kills a single model then everyone within 3” of the model at the end of the turn takes a toughness test and if they fail they die, no saves of any kind. It’s expensive but disgusting against non-marines and even against marines will kill another 1/3 of the models within 3” of him. It also means that he could fight a challenge against a blob squad sergeant, kill it, and then lay waste to 1/2 the dudes within 3” of him at the end of the phase. Pretty nasty I’m thinking.

And finally for my initial round up a Nurgle DP with wings. He pretty much has a 3++ while flying outside of falling out of the sky. He’s pretty solid in CC since most marines will need a 5 to hit and a 5 to wound. Give him the Black Mace and he’s got a potential 11 attacks at AP2 (because he’s an MC) that wound on 2’s and cause toughness tests later. He’s pricey but could be fun.

Allies

Demons will make an excellent ally in and Chaos will make a great addition to several of the books that can take them. To many options to discuss but trust me. It’s pretty awesome.

That’s it for now. I’ll probably post up some initial thoughts for lists early next week.

Kickstarter: Titan Counts-As and Tons More

2012-09-11T05:00:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to throw this out there. This is something that is going to be a great product. The larger models are 8.5" tall. If based properly they make excellent stand-ins for Warhound Titans. He has the Mortis (overall chaos bent) and a more knightish Leviathan. The best part, they are going to be PLASTIC!!!!! The other best part.....they are starting at $89 on this kickstarter which is going to be decently below retail as well!!!

Here is the link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dreamforge-games/something-wicked-this-way-comes-crusader-plastic-m

Here are some pictures:

So check it out. Throw in if you see something you like. There is some great stuff here!

The More You Know - Nova 2012 Edition

2012-09-10T05:00:00.000-07:00

So last year’s article on how much and how I screwed up is officially my most popular post. It’s views doubled any other post since I started this blog so I figured why not go ahead and do a 2012 version. It’s going to be a little long. But we’ll start with what everyone wants to read about, me losing J (I’m only humble 95% of the time!)

So this year was much, much better than last year in terms of my record. I managed to go 11-2 vs. last years 9-5 which is a pretty marked improvement in my overall performance but even those two games shouldn’t have been losses. That isn’t a dig at my opponents, they both outplayed me, but I think I had all the tools to win both games. For those of you who don’t know this is what I brought to Nova:

Grey Knights 1,750

2xTerminator Inquisitors w/Psycannon & Psychic Power

Soladin w/Hammer

4x10 Strikes w/2 Psycannons, Hammer, Psybolt Ammo

3xDreadknight w/H. Incinerator

At 2k I just add another 10 Strikes.

It’s a brutally simple list that is extremely flexible and can put out a ton of firepower. I might have had the highest number of mobile shots over 12” in the tournament at 2k (no matter what some people claim J) with 80 St5 and 28-48 St7 (depending on movement) shots not including how many wounds Heavy Incinerators can put down.

Anyway, onto what people want. Me losing J Again these games have nothing to do with dice. I managed all weekend to play out of bad dice (when I had them) so I certainly can’t blame them in my two losses. So I took one loss in the Invitational and one loss in the Open. We’ll start with the Inviational.

I played against Kelsey in the second round of the Invitational. Very nice guy, even when he’s pushing your stool in J. Anyway we were on the video feed table so some of you can probably see the game live if you want to but here is what he was running (Approximately since I lost his list).

BA Primary List

Librarian

2x10 Sternguard w/8 Combi-Plasma and 2 Melta in a Pod

2x5 Assault Marines w/Flamer in a Pod

SM Allies

Pedro

1x10 Sternguard w/8 Combi-Melta and 2 Melta in a Pod

5 Sniper Scouts

Storm Talon w/Typhoon and Assault Cannons

So he has 30 scoring sternguard (which I totally had to double check, well played Kelsey J) with mass nasty firepower on the drop and some spare scoring units to hide. In my opinion it’s designed to put you on the back foot and keep you there so he can win on mission objectives. And it worked.

The deployment was Modified Hammer & Anvil. He chose to go first (obviously) but didn’t deploy anything since he was going to infiltrate his scouts and everything else was in a pod or flying on. So I moved onto my first mistake, deployment. Now 6th edition has brought back pods in a big way. What do I mean? Well your opponent has to put something juicy out there for you to eat by the rules now and it has to be enough to survive the alpha strike and the first turn so that the game doesn’t end automatically. I wish I could say that’s what I was thinking but in honesty I wasn’t. I hadn’t played a pod list in 6th yet and man was my learning experience painful.

I proceeded to deploy 30 Strikes, both Inquisitors, and 2 Dreadknights. 2 of the 10 man squads were in cover, the cover wasn’t high enough for my DK’s to get a benefit so they were interspersed with my Strikes. So, the mistakes that cost me the game from the get go? Here is what I should have done:

1) Deploy all 4 Strike units and combat squad them

2) Keep all the Dreadknights in reserve to drop in after he’s shot his AP2 wad

3) Deployed the HQ’s unattached to a squad

4) Deployed the first squad in the ruins with concentric circles of other units around it.

5) Selected Psychic Communion this game instead of rolling for divination

Why? It would have limited LoS to some extent. But mostly it would have put 10 targets down instead of 5. He wouldn’t have had the shooting to drop all of them (at most half) and I would have had my nastiest units against his list, my Dreadknights, dropping in the following turns.

And that kids is how you lose in deployment. Kelsey proceeded to smite all but one squad on the table with his drop and then finished the last squad off on the top of turn 2. If none of my reserves had come in I would have lost on turn 2 but they all did. I still made a fun game of it with 10 Strikes, a Soladin, and one Dreadknight but just couldn’t pull it out, especially once my Paladin failed to drop his 1 HP left Storm Talon in CC since that was the only thing left that could pick off decent numbers of my Strikes at range. A great game and one of my few tablings in the last few years. I still hate those damn snap firing melta guns….My dreadknight deserved better J

My second loss was to a local named Bert in the Invitational. Another great opponent (I had 13 of them this year J). His list was something like:

2xLash Prince

2 Oblits

2x5 Chaos Marines

2x5 Raptors w/2 Meltaguns

2xVindicators

CCS w/4 Plasma Guns in a Chimera

2xVeteran Squads w/3 Plasma Guns in Chimera

Vendetta

Demolisher

Aegis Line w/the autocannon gun (brainfart)

You guys seeing a theme? Damned AP2 again! Anyway this deployment was also hammer and anvil and while I didn’t lose this in deployment I sure as hell lost it in my movement and by not paying attention. So my opponent chose to go first and deployed across his deployment zone with a lash prince on both flanks and his st10 large blasts behind the aegis line which pretty much ran the length of his deployment facing me. I centered my line with my Dreadknights and put down 30 strikes with their inquisitor friends.

Now it took me till turn 3 to realize there were no windows on the bottom floor of the middle building…..First mistake among many J. I also should have played more aggressively with my DK’s. When you’re playing against Vindi’s and Demolishers they need to go down fast. Instead, since it was quarters and they don’t count for scoring, I was ignoring them and this allowed them to do damage the entire game and wound up costing me the game on turn 5. I also made some movement errors but mostly it was a major target priority issue. I was to caught up that time playing the objectives and didn’t think about the long term repercussions of not destroying non-scoring portions of my opponents army. It ended with me nearly tabled and a win on the secondary for Bert.

Really Understanding 6th – List Building

2012-09-07T07:26:00.002-07:00

A certain blue blog is exploding lately because the owner just got back from Nova and finished pretty low. Said author is blaming dice and terrain so far for his losses though that may change as he puts up more batreps but all of it did get me thinking and I decided I was going to put up some of my list building thoughts after playing 13 games in a weekend J Oh, and you’ll be able to read about the mistakes I made that caused my losses on Monday when that article goes live so keep an eye out.

Anyway, onto list building. What do we need in 6th edition? Well, let’s take a look at things that aren’t going to go away for at least a few codex releases. They are out there and we’re going to run into regularly:

-Necron Flyer spam

-Psychic Powers

-Re-Rolling armor save death stars

-Nob Bikers (with allies they score and can slot in to a ton of armies)

-Paladins

-Mass re-rolls to hit (see psychic powers)

-Hordes (yeah, they’re back)

-Flying MC’s

-Mass AP2 (the plasma gun is back too!)

The list is longer I’m sure but these are some of the things you’re going to see out there in tournaments. So how do we build a list to hang with all these things? How do we build a flexible list that can hang with the above?

First thing you can’t do is try to match strength to strength. It’s just not going to happen with all the options that are out there nowadays. You can’t include psychic defense, anti-death star, horde killing firepower, and anti-flyers in 99% of lists even with allies. What you can do though is build a list that can dominate some of the above items but can weather or absorb the rest of them. Also, being able to be aggressive with your list is going to be crucial now.

Let’s look at 3 lists I’m either playing or considering building for 6^th at 1850:

IG Primary w/SW Allies

2xPrimaris Psyker

2xVendetta

2xPCS

10xInfantry Squad w/Power Axe, Autocannon, Plasma Gun

2xRune Priest

2x10 Grey Hunters w/2 Plasma

Grey Knights

Terminator Inquisitor w/Psycannon, Psychic Power, 3xServo Skulls

5x10 Strikes w/2 Psycannon, Hammer, Psybolt

3xDreadknights

Daemons

3xTzeentch Herald on Disc

3x6 Flamers

5x5 Horrors w/Bolt

2x8 Screamers

3x3 Seeker Chariots

Those are 3 pretty different armies. Only one of them uses allies but I’m not one that thinks allies is 100% required. But they certainly fill in gaps if you have them in your codex. Anyway, let’s see how each stacks up to our list:

The IG/SW list has anti-horde firepower in its own horde. Between Divinating Rune Priests and First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire no horde is going to last against that kind of firepower. It has anti-flyer in the form of its vendettas as well as the blob squads. Each blob can eat a death star and still have something left over. Psychic defense is on a 4+ pretty early and it can absorb AP2. And most importantly it can be used aggressively. Seems pretty solid right?

Let’s look at the GK list, one I’ve been playing all month J

It has anti-horde in the form of all the regular firepower from the strikes but more importantly in the DK’s heavy incinerators. It has the volume of fire to drop non-av12 flyers and has enough that it can drop the av12’s if it has too. The dreadknights are excellent blockers for dealing with deathstars and it’s got decent direct anti-psyker defenses but it does fall down on stopping blessings. Sheer numbers should make it resilient to AP2 but after the weekend I’m not sure. But it can be used aggressively as well and I think with proper usage it meets most of our criteria.

And finally the Daemon list.

This one is designed to just endure flyers. And by flyers I mean the Necron flying circus with 5-6 flyers. Anything on the ground will die but the rest of the army needs to survive the shooting which I think it can with over 99 invul save wounds and 9 vehicles. As for deathstars the combination of flamers and screamers should be able to hand them. Anti-horde can come from shooting the warp fire, flamer templates, or the chariots. All the invuls make AP2 mass armies far less effective (they’re paying for stronger bolters). It doesn’t have an ounce of psychic defense though. This is somewhat mitigated by being able to drop in, redeploy, and hopefully engage their psyker in the early portion of the game.

So all of these lists have quite a few things in common. Resiliency, massive damage output, and mobility. Each has some weaknesses but in my opinion, in 6th, every army will thanks to allies. It’s now up to the player, even more than before, to give themselves the tools to fill in those holes.

I’ll have more later, the new FAQ’s just dropped and I’m now distracted J

GT Review: Nova '12

2012-09-06T06:33:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my final GT review of 2012. Over Labor Day weekend I attended the Nova Open! This included the GT and the Invitational which resulted in a total of 13 games over the tournament time span. I’ll be talking about my list and experience with it probably later in the week but I'm gonna give you a breakdown of the event as I saw it. Like normal I'll start with the breakdown and then my overall score for the event. I'll follow that up with the a recap of the minor adjustments that I feel could make the event a little bit better.

Venue: Above Average.

If you read my review last year you might notice this stayed the same. Looking back I probably should have been a little more harsh but this year it certainly earned the Above Average rating. In fact, it’s only my reluctance to over score it that keeps this from being excellent. Why?

Well cell phones and such worked downstairs this year. The a/c actually seemed to work much better this year as well though the corners of the room got a bit hot. They still nickel and dimed but it was at a reduced rate this year. Cheaper parking, rooms, and internet meant a cheaper time had. Basically they must have wanted Mike back because the hotel definitely set out to fix a lot of the issues from last year.

Terrain: Excellent.

I said it last year and I’ll say it again:

“If you haven't seen the photos they are all over the place right now. Mike and his crew slammed out a truly epic amount of good terrain designed for 5th edition. Large LoS blocking terrain and cover abounded. I feel like this is environment that some less seen lists can compete as it's not all planet bowling ball. Truly a great job done here by the Nova Staff.”

I’d add that they made some killer cool new terrain for the Narrative event and that they replaced the absolutely giant center terrain pieces with some stuff that was a little smaller. But it still provided some solid LoS blockage and made maneuver important.

Prize Support: Excellent.

So Prize Support was even crazier this year. I didn’t stick around for the ceremony last year since dinner with my wife, an old friend I’d gotten back in contact with, and his fiancé took priority. But this year I stuck around and holy crap did they give out a lot of stuff. I have to say KR really stepped up to the plate with support in a crazy way. Free stuff for all bracket winners and some pretty good prize support for top finishers was great but what was really crazy was how much stuff they handed out throughout the event and afterwards. I will say though that the GT circuit is trying to get me to play a Necron flyer list……This is the second or third Necron flyer I’ve won at a GT be it a raffle or as a prize J

Turnout: Excellent

This year the Nova had over 600 attendees total. Granted this was for all kinds of different events but I think this qualifies as pretty excellent turnout. The GT didn’t see quite as many people as last year even though they sold more tickets. Quite a few last minute drops due to personal reasons, labor day, or just not wanting to play 6^th edition mean that the GT was just shy of 200 people. But that’s still a huge turnout and I expect it to get bigger next year. Especially in the non-40k GT events like Warmahordes, Fantasy, and FoW. Though I do expect the 40k GT to max out next year as well.

Format/Scheduling: Excellent/Excellent.

So I said this about the format and I think it’s still true this year:

“The format was awesome! Naturally as a glutton for punishment I love the 8 game format. I also love straight win/loss as that's where I personally do extremely well. I've also found that the format allows for different army builds that you normally wouldn't see because they don't have the potential to massacre. “

The change is in how I viewed the schedule. There was only a single instance this year of a time delay which was an improvement over last year. But for me the greatest change was the format for the GT itself and the Invitational. Basically the Invitational was spread out over 3 days (Thur, Fri, Sun) and the GT was as well (Fri, Sat, Sun) depending on your standing at the end of Saturday. This mean never more than 4 games in a day and since we were starting at 7:30 every day at the earliest we were almost always done by 7. This meant there was plenty of time to do what’s most important for me at a GT, socialize with friends I really only see at GT’s. It also left you available to play in one of the additional events if you had the stamina like the Narrative or the Trios.

Scenarios: Excellent.

Loved them the first year, loved them last year, and I still love them this year. It's the Nova. Some minor changes to how troops work to adjust for vehicles and flyers not counting in most games and it was pretty solid. Granted the format heavily favors troops but I think good formats should.

Comparison to Last Year: Excellent

The terrain was better. The schedule was much better (I didn’t feel like a vegetable by Sunday night). A huge event with lots of excitement and even better prize support spread across all the attendees. Basically Mike improved on this bad boy yet again. I’d seriously suggest getting this on your calendar much like Adepticon.

Conclusion: Excellent!

This was a great event. I can't talk it up enough honestly. Mike was all over the place and his pride in his event was obvious. That man likes to shake hands. I’m just sayin….Everyone working the event was in a good mood and happy to talk. I had 13 amazing games and not a single person who wasn’t a pleasure to play. I have to say that I think the amount of space to move around in is critical to the more relaxed feeling with more games than what I felt at Adepticon the last two year. Not a dig on Adepticon, it was just easier to move and felt more relaxed due to personal space being more available.

Mike really took the critiques last year to heart and made huge impacts on the minor issues that the event had. They put a system in place for the Sportsmanship award so they wouldn’t have to just randomize all the perfect scored people (16 this year, including me J). They got food catered into the hallway, which though more expensive than I would have like, was an excellent way for gamers to get some grub in between games without having to go running up and down the streets outside.

Only two suggestions I’d have for next year are pretty small really. Find some way if humanly possible to speed up that final raffle/awards ceremony. I do like lumping in all the events for the awards ceremony together so that the whole wargaming community at the convention gets to recognize the people who did well in their events but the raffle portion just made me slightly crazy J. The other suggestion is one that I’ve discussed privately with Mike and he’s already working on so there is no reason to hammer on it.

Overall I had an amazing time. A big thank you to Mike, again, for putting this all together and a huge thank you to his team of volunteers, again, who did it all for the love of our hobby and Mikes beer J.

I’d probably attend this event every year just for the people I meet up with and for the chance to double up a 40k GT with driving down to see my family. But Mike and his team make an event that I’m not just excited to see old friends and family but that I’m genuinely excited to attend to play 40k. They are constantly striving to make it better and it’s definitely one of the can’t miss events out there.

Daemons Thoughts – After Playing Some Games

2012-08-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we had a tournament at 2,200 points that I participated in. It was one force org only but otherwise followed all the rules for 6th. I’d been playing my walking GK’s pretty darn hard lately and since there wasn’t a painting requirement I said to hell with it and brought out my Daemons. If you haven’t been following my blog for long I have a bit of a love/hate thing with Daemons. I love them because they are just plain fun to play 90% of the time. And I hate them because that 10% is normally so bad the army goes back in the box for a few months J

Anyway I’d finally taken the plunge and started a plastic army of the regular daemon models. This included several units of screamers, flamers, and chariots which all got new or revamped rules recently. Basically they added another level to Daemons and provided plastic models I could get into so boom, back to daemons!

Back to the tournament since it matters to what comes later in this. So I brought my daemons and just some stuff I wanted to try in 6th since I hadn’t played a game with daemons or against them yet. One thing I avoided was FMC’s since there is no firm ruling on the grounded thing I’m not about to show up and have built a list including something I thought would work one way and be told it works another. Anyway I brought this:

3xTzeentch Herald on Disc

1xSlaanesh Herald on steed w/musk

3x7 Flamers

2x5 Horrors w/Bolt

2x8 Screamers

8 Mounted Daemonettes

3x3 Seeker Chariots

And allied in more for me getting a feel for the unit for a different army:

Primaris Psyker

PCS

3xInfantry Squads w/Autocannon, Plasmagun, Power Axe

So the Tzeentch Herald’s went with the flamers for wound allocation and the Slaanesh herald joined the mounted daemonettes for some h-n-r fun.

Overall it was a pretty good time. I wound up going 2-1 and pulling down best sport which is always nice when your two wins are just horribly lopsided but let’s get down to my thoughts.

Disclaimer: Bear in mind this isn’t the only way to play and hell, I might not even be close to right but it’s how I’m feeling right now.

On Daemons in General:

In general I think Daemons got a big boost. Granted I think most of the old army list styles like bolt-n-beast (oh silly Brent, thanks for the shout out on BOLS J) and fatecrusher are done but I think we got a ton more options. Brent goes into it a bit on his article here on BOLS:

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2012/08/brent-daemons-and-6th-edition-part-2-of.html

So the game I lost was partially due to mistakes of having not played this style of daemon army before. Partially due to my opponent being one of our better local players, and partially due to the table being nearly 25% impassable terrain. Something I learned but hadn’t processed until now was the impassable itself isn’t the issue as I’ve found the reduced chance of death is pretty nice. No it’s the fact that impassable terrain limits your ability to deploy as a cohesive force and allows you to be chopped up in pieces. And daemons really need to be able to deploy as a cohesive force.

With shooting being so much more prevalent bigger squads are going to be needed (here Brent and I agree J). I also think that Horrors are going to be a primary unit for us to use. It’s a unit that is moderately resilient but also has the ability to contribute to the game outside of CC, something none of the other troop choices really do.

Also I think flamers are going to be much, much more used. I know that after this weekend I fully intend to rock 3 squads of these at all times. Which when combined with the Horrors means a significant portion of your list can actually shoot now. This kinda brings me to my next point:

Creating lists to split drops nearly down the middle now is not a good thing. This is just personal opinion so far but I think it’s where we’re headed. You need two waves, built separately, each with a strength should they be the first to go down on the table. This will probably make more sense after the unit thoughts so we’ll jump to them.

Seeker Chariots:

New kids on the block. These bad boys are 40pts of big based fun and because of them I need a bigger display board....Regardless of that I think they are an amazing addition to the daemon book. Some people won’t agree. They are squadrons of armor 11 models with only 2 hull points and they’re open topped. All true, they also have enormous bases which creates a massive foot print J

However what they do provide, for a mere 120pts for 3 of them, is a genuine threat. These things, if not killed, produce insane numbers of attacks and have a large threat radius. They’re hammer of wrath makes them dangerous to vehicles and troops alike. The ability to flat-out 12” off the deepstrike (with a 16% chance to immobilize) means you can redeploy them to ensure they are a threat on the following turn. Overall they are a solid choice but not one I wouldn’t take multiples of. I think if you take a single squadron you’re gonna be disappointed in the results. The value of these units is exponentially better the more you take.

Screamers:

I like them. I think they do an admirable job and make a great stand-in for fiends. This is another unit that can redeploy after landing (up to 24”) and even gets to attack on the turn it does the redeployment (if a unit is close enough to fly over). These units are a terror to mech and marine players and absolutely eat vehicles and basic marine squads. Though I found out that disordered charges might not be the best thing even if they did eventually come out on top. Against an opponent that is familiar with the rules these models should have an extremely high threat profile.

Flamers:

Oh dear lord…..I read the rules and knew they’d gotten better. I knew they’d be worth taking. But holy mother of whatever deity sounds right to you are these fellas just nasty. I recommend big squads personally and always led by a herald. If you have 5 extra points add a sergeant model too. Why? Wound allocation is huge with these guys. 2 wounds and wound allocation means distributing them properly is a big deal to keeping the unit viable longer. This is a unit that pretty much can’t be charged by anything without a 3+ invul or 10+ models. It’s jump infantry with an 18” 3-shot st4 weapon that’s ap4 and it has a flamer of doom. Warpfire allows you to deploy more conservatively and lay on wounds and then be able on the next turn to really lay on the hurt with the templates. They strip vehicles of hull points like they are going out of style which solves our Landraider issue.

Overall I think this is the new fiend. 23pts for a jumping 4+ to wound, no armor save flame template with 2 wounds is ridiculously good and slots in well.

Horrors:

Still good but bigger units are probably going to be needed now.

Mounted Daemonettes:

Gonna need a bigger squad. Overwatch and shooting means this unit is a go big or go home type unit. Meaning 15+ and then the herald becomes required to maintaint their mobility. Honestly not feeling these over a slightly lower number of screamers at this point. Their footprint is just as large as screamers, if not more so, and they can’t redeploy after the drop. Oh well, wanted to give them a go.

So back to the building a list with two separate components that both have a purpose and no more even splitting of units down the middle. Now I know I wasn’t the only fella who tried to mitigate the random by building a list that basically split down the middle so my first wave roll didn’t matter but I think I was doing it wrong even back then. More so now.

As you can see from the rest of the article I’m a big fan of some of the new units. The list I’m currently toying with is going to run around 11-12 units at 1850-2k and is going to look something like:

3xHerald of Tzeentch on Disc

3x7 Flamers

3x9 Horrors

3x6 Screamers (or 2x9)

3x3 Chariots

How does this apply to my new thoughts on my daemons. I’ve basically got a shooting and cc wave. Both have extreme threats. In the cast of the shooting wave the flamers are scary as hell but even an entire armies shooting (which shouldn’t happen) shouldn’t be able to drop them which keeps the pain off the troops and gives my assault wave time to land and deploy properly. The CC wave gives two extreme threats, both of which are resistant, and require dedication of a significant portion of an army to eliminate and generally leaving the other intact to start it’s rampage on turn 2.

6th has changed a lot of things. But I think for daemons it’s for the better. After Nova I’ll be doing a lot more playing with my daemons but I figured I’d share this before I head off for one of my favorite events of the year J

Logan – Friend to the Little People

2012-08-23T05:00:00.000-07:00

As most of you might have guessed I have a wee-bit of a crush on Logan. He’s just an all-star! That being said I recently went all in on a plastic daemon army that I’m going to be slowly painting up. But while I’m painting that up I have my Iron Warriors that I started and those need paint and I truly love all the conversion opportunities I’ve got in that army. And since Iron Warriors still hold the record for longest hold on my attention span in a row (1.5 years with no interruptions!!!!!) and there is a new codex coming I’ve gotten even more excited.

Well that Daemon army in plastic pretty much made my Admech Daemon army kinda superfluous. So I was thinking of transitioning them into allies for my Iron Warriors. That being said the flamers, fiends, and screamers are pretty easy. I can just add some chaotic bits on them and start the repaint. My horrors are also pretty easy but I got to thinking that an IG ally with special rules how they are might not be a bad idea.

And since I’ve been moving my iron warriors towards being my every army due to modeling fun I got to thinking about Logan.

If you’re still with me after my tangent it’ll now be a bit more clear. I’m considering running my Iron Warriors as Space Wovles, at least until the new book comes out. That being said I started looking at Logan leading a blob squad. Now his FAQ states he gives his ability to himself and any space wolf unit he’s attached to one of several special rules. But the brb states that some special rules are transferred to a unit if a single model has them. So Logan gives the ability only to himself in a squad that’s not SW but transfers certain abilities per the brb to the squad he’s with. The only one he doesn’t transfer is relentless which, while a little sad, isn’t a huge deal when you talking about stubborn, fearless, tank hunting, or preferred enemy.

I started looking at my list that I was running for my Loganwing toward the end of 5^th. It looked pretty much like this:

Logan

2xLone Wolves in TA w/CF

4x5 WG w/Stormbolter, Cyclone, CF

7 WG in TA w/WC’s, 2 Chainfists, 2 Cyclones, and some combi-plasma

3x5 Long Fangs w/4 Missiles and attach WG

This list would tag at 1850 and could be played with to get it to 2k if needed. But looking at this and the rules for 6^th I started to think about what they big WG squad was providing. That squad costs 415pts. It’s a solid squad for sure but I started to look at Logan rules and suddenly I thought of IG. Yes, I have to pay for a command squad to get access to a platoon but let’s start by taking a look at the platoon:

Infantry Squad – 85

Power Axe, Auto-Cannon, Plasma Gun

So 5 of these are 425. Now you do have to add in a CCS and PCS so that’s an additional 80pts. 30 of those points go to the PCS which for me is the unit you tuck behind a building and hold an objective similar to grots. The CCS, while more costly, combined with Logan leading a squad is absolutely ridiculous. Don’t like a vehicle? Re-roll to hit and to pen with Bring it Down and Logan’s tank hunters. Want to keep from barbequing yourself with plasma? I hear Preferred Enemy isn’t so bad. Combine that with FRFSRF and it’s even more gross. Logan is stubborn LD10 with a re-roll so you won’t have to use fearless often. The squad can afford to lose 30 models before it starts to take casualties that matter. And it has 5 sergeants attacking with 15 St4 power weapons without the charge. That’s pretty darned impressive.

Granted all 5 squads would probably only be welcome at 2k since they wouldn’t quite fit at 1,850 without dropping something extremely useful. But at 2k you could even add Krak Grenades to make any vehicle army fear the wrath of the IG charging wall.

Is it a deathstar and a gimmick? I’m not so sure. What you have here is a unit that can stand toe to toe with most “deathstars” like Nobs w/Biker Boss, Draigo & Paladins, Various Terminator Deathstars, TWC squads led by Lords, and pretty much everything else. This is a unit that can take an obscene amount of wounds before starting to lose its shooting viability and since it’s CC is pretty much reliant on Logan and 5 sergeants (anything else in the squad that kills something is a bonus) it takes even longer for it to start to lose it CC viability.

You can use this squad to pick off flyers/vehicle on the move, it puts out insane numbers of shots with PE and FRFSRF. It let’s go of 5 St7 AP2 and 10 St7 AP4 shots at 24” and even more plasma close up. And even better, if you don’t need a giant sponge/counter deathstar unit it can break up into smaller squads to provide supporting fire for advancing SW’s. Basically it’s a massive utility unit.

This unit is in comparison to 16 Bolter & 4 Krak Missile shots at range and 10 st4 re-roll to wound pw attacks and 4 chainfist attacks in CC. Granted the Terminators have amazingly higher survivability outside of AP2.

So what do you guys think? How would you handle a unit like this? Can your army built as it handle something like this?

As a sidenote Chaos should be Battle Brothers with IG. It’s a little stupid that they aren’t fluff and gaming wise….oh well J