cue the museek

Happy New Year!

2013-01-01T17:48:00.001-08:00

What better way to start off the new year than with blog content? Exactly, there is no better way, so happy new year! I don't really have much to say, but I did receive some cool toys over the holiday break. I'm not that good of a painter so they don't look the best. I'm just proud to say I have 35 points of Cygnar all painted up. Unfortunately no Infinity :(.


The blur means it's working

For those curious, at 35 the list looks like this;

Kraye

-Centurion

-Thunderhead

-Minuteman

-Hunter

-Squire

Arlan Strangeways

Gorman

Journeyman warcaster

Now to just get an actual game in with them. Hopefully more battle reports will be coming along in the future, along with a bunch of pics of a huge apocalypse game I played with some friends. On top of that, if I can figure out how to get the pictures, I should be able to put up a report for an Infinity zombie scenario I played a couple of weeks back. 2013 is looking pretty good!

An Intro

2012-12-02T17:15:00.000-08:00

Hello, I guess I'm an author for the blog so I figured I would give a short intro about myself. My name is Nick and I live in Minnesota. Short enough? In all honesty, I am a tabletop gamer through and through. Futuristic battles, skirmishes, and death are exciting. For some reason I never got into video games, but I can live with that. At the end of the day I enjoy the excitement of living out a battle vicariously with little men.

Eh, close enough

I started out playing Warhammer 40k with some friends back in 2008. I have a decent size Tau army, along with a Grey Knight army built out of the cool 3rd edition models. 40k, however, is not why I'm here. Infinity is the word of the day. Over a year ago I got lost in the war gaming section of the internet and found out about the game Infinity. I thought the idea was cool. Then I saw the models. Initially enthralled by Pan Oceania, I saw the Shang ji with a combi rifle; a part of the Yu Jing faction. A short while later I bought the model online along with a Guilang skirmisher just because they looked cool.


I may be bad at taking pictures. By "taking pictures" I mean painting.

I thought that was it. I asked a couple of my friends what they thought and nobody wanted to shell out the cash to get started. (Coming from 40k players!) I also picked up some Warmachine stuff for the same rule of cool reasons. Unfortunately the same thing happened to Warmachine, no one wanted to start a new system.
Going back to 40k for a minute, I was still deeply involved in the game this whole time, and went to a team tournament with a Tyranid player. We did okay, but the main take away was we were invited into the Frozen North Gaming Club. I noticed Scrap Square posted about a game called Dropzone Commander on Frozen North's Facebook page. We got to talking and I almost bought some stuff but it was out of stock. Eventually time went on and I forgot about it. Later on, he posted again about Infinity. I already had some models so we set up a game. I had never fully played before so it was definitely an experience. I had a lot of fun so we set up more games, and now we try to get a match in once a week or so. A couple of other people play, but not as often. So here I am now; two large forces for 40k, a small collection of Cygnar for Warmachine, the start of an Axis Dust Warfare platoon, and a growing Yu Jing Infinity team. That should keep me busy.

Dust Warfare World Championships

2012-12-01T12:53:00.001-08:00

So I went to the Dust Warfare World championship a while ago.

I chose to play the Allies, with a gimmicky but awesome list!''

My list was:
Bazooka Joe
Grim reapers
Gunners
Boss squad
BBQ squad
Sniper squad
2x Fireballs with airdrop.

The tournament was held at Fantasy Flight's event center building on 6x4 boards with loads of terrain.
The armies represented were: 3 allied, 2 SSU, and 3 axis. The Allied lists all had at least one super heavy (which I think is almost required for allies to be good). The axis were a mix but they all included at least one Wutan (same here, almost needed to be good). The SSU lists were a little more varied with one helicopter heavy (Burner, and transport with FAYYYYYKEEELLIEEES)! While the other was mega walker heavy using them as shields/transports for close range squads.

The boards ranged from desert, to winter warland to an urban board. The terrain was a mix of area terrain and large LOS blocking terrain. We used the tournament builder straight out of the packet, which I like except for critical positions which kind of makes it a campy game.

My plan was to try to get force collision (I succeeded in this every time) and eliminate the enemy, taking advantage of my lists low unit count and high damage output.

Now onto the games.

Round one I had a bye, so I played Louis or Dakkon on the dust war forums. He had: (lists may be a little off)

Manfred
Markus
2x Flak grens
Kommandotroupe
Wutan
Flammenluther
Battle grens
Snipers

We got, Force collision, eliminate the enemy.
Game went in my favor from turn one as my fireballs shrugged off massive amounts of fire and I managed to kill 3 of his units and tank it out untill the game ended, only losing one unit (BBQ and joe).

Alright, onto my second round.
This was versus an SSU player named dennis his list:
Defense platoon command squad
Chinese volunteers
Transport helo
Faykeli
Battle squad
Burner
grandma and koshka
Howitzer walker

Our game was force collision and critical positions (urgh).
I deployed joe separate so I could get more points for the mission. I also left only one fireball in reserve as it doesnt gain me any points, and needed an offensive threat to push him off his objective.

I didnt need to prepare like that as he had one unit on his objective to my 5 or 6. He used the fly the helo off the board to have it come on way farther away trick, but my fireball killed its occupants then my grims blasted it out of the sky.

As he had lost his offensive unit he sent in the back up one in the form of his burner, and since I had been longtomming him all game, he decided to go after my command squad with the helo taking out most of them (minus the medic and commander!) before it was brought down by machine gun fire.
At this point, he conceded giving me full points for everything.

For my third game (deciding who would be in the finals) it was against Louis from my first round bye with his dual wutan chassis.
His list:

Manfred
Markus
2x Flak grens
Kommandotroupe
Wutan
Flammenluther
Battle grens
Snipers

Our game was FORCE COLLISION CRITICAL POSITIONS! WOOH! Our table was pretty terrain heavy in the corners with just one BIG BIG building in the center.

I stacked the terrain right outside of my deployment for points and kept my fireballs in reserve as I had a feeling he would rush that building in the center. He deployed with LOS blocked to all his army with the building so I couldnt long tom him.

As the game progressed he started moving towards the building in the center and occupied it as his piece of terrain. As he had way more units then me, I was quickly on the losing end here. As he was flanking his heinrich around to snipe my command squad, my fireballs landed with a thud. And the following could only be described as a siege. With my fireballs wiping out whole units with machine guns and flamers and them in turn getting burned by the flammenluther.

As the game kept going, I was slowly getting in the lead as he was losing units, while mine were all snuggled up in the critical position in my corner sniping at the marauding gorillas with rifle and grenade. Eventually I just won on points with me not losing a single model.

His dice were horrible :L.

So after some minor celebration (I got a sprite) it was onto the finals!

The finals game was broadcast, you can find it on Fantasy Flights justin.tv channel. My opponent chris was playing allies! His list:
Bazooka joe
Punisher
Hell boys
BBQx2
Grim reapers
Snipers
Boss
Cobra
Additional resources

Our game was critical positions eliminate the enemy. The board was VERY terrain heavy with almost no LOS from one side to the other.

The game began with me air dropping my two fireballs in a almost pincer move around his corner. I started out by trading the grim reapers (foolishly) for 4/5 of a BBQ squad, they were the closest thing to my fireball that could hurt it. From there I used the reactions from my fireball to kill another BBQ squad and take minor damage from the hellboys.

On the other flank my other fireball crashed through the building taking 4 points of damage from the cobra reacting, deployed the BBQ and had them destroy the cobra. As he was running out of units chris started positioning the punisher to get rear fire on my Grim reaper fireball, sadly this left it open to the other fireball shooting it in the rear and destroying it. While this was happening, bazooka joe was killed from two turns of long toms.

Since he had just a command squad left I slightly over killed them with the BBQ and joe getting something stupid like 28 dice against them finishing them off.

So all in all the tourney was alot of fun with me getting full battle points and something like 900/1200 break points.

Some interesting facts about my games:
Dakkon has the worst wutan ever, and should melt it and get a new one as it only hit like 4 times in our two games.

Helicopters go down REALLY easily from machine guns.

I lost in total 2 units out of all my games.

One of my fireballs had no machine guns and was on fire with a cripple drive train at one point.

Well hoped you liked it, I thought it was pretty fun.

Infinity battle report

2012-11-24T13:23:00.002-08:00

http://infinitythegame.com/forum/index.php?%2Ftopic%2F13452-250-yu-jing-vs-qk-haqqislam-with-crappy-pics%2F

SSU faykeli squad painting

2012-11-19T22:31:00.001-08:00

I recently started the SSU for dustwarfare (and won the world championships, report to follow). And started my army with a good ol' faykeli squad.

I started off by airbrushing the pants a mix of VMA meiden stone and sand, and going progressively more sand heavy for high lights.

I then started adding shadows by glazing a dark grey into the shaded areas.

I then painted all the rubber parts black and metallics with a mix of VMA gun metal and black.

Finishing up, i painted the ruck sack with GW khemir brown and shaded with dark grey and highlighted with 50/50 khemri brown and bone white then 25/75. (Ruck sack not pictured).

The rubber parts were highlighted with:
VMA light grey then VMA white.

The metal parts were highlighted with VMA chrome, and shaded with VMA black. Then i used black weathering pigments to add some scratches/damage.

The eye lenses were painted VMA light grey 25/75 VMA white, then glazed with VMA light sky blue. Then gloss varnished for effect.

I finished by going back over the hammer and sickle with white.

Infinity battle report (video)

2012-10-19T16:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the terribad audio, fixing it.

Also If you're into video games, I'm starting a new video game youtube channel.

http://www.youtube.com/user/x22Jmac22x?feature=mhee

Mostly PlanetSide2 at the moment, have a lot more footage I'm editing.

Video:

Battle Ready bases review

2012-09-18T17:00:00.000-07:00

Hey! Recently I bought a pack of battle ready cobblestone bases for my Haqqislam army for Infinity.
This will be the first time I've done one of these and will go on a scale of 1-10 for the whole product and explain my reasoning.

Here is how they look straight out of the package, minimal amount of flash and other molding issues.
After a quick filing and clipping some of the bigger pieces I rinsed them in soap and water.

The details are very good with no bubbling or warping.

Over all for $8.50 USD for 10 they are easily worth it in my eyes.

I would give them a 8/10.

I decided to do a quick painting tutorial too :D.

After a quick cleaning and washing I started with Vallejo Model Air Grey primer. After laying down a solid coast of that I hit it with VMA sand.

Once that dried, I washed it with watered down Model color black. To shade the cobblestones and add depth.

After that had dried I washed it with some Brown vallejo paint that has the label ripped off. Just use whatever brown or reddish brown you have. Ogryn flesh from GW will work.

This is to add color variation and make it almost like mosaic looking *shrug*.

After THAT had dried I over brushed the stones (its like drybrushing but the paints wet ?_?) with Vallejo sand and some GW kommando khaki. Try to use this to reduce the colors before that didn't make it into the cracks.

While I didn't get a picture of it I washed the rubble/sand parts then over brushed it with VMA U.S.A grey then 50/50 with VMA white to highlight it.

Over all they turned out pretty good in my opinion.

Heres a shot of my Jannissary heavy infantry on one of the bases. I'll take better pictures of the model itself in my light box later.

(Not pictured I painted the rim with VMA black, I know its super important but I couldn't get the lighting right to show how important it is).

Infinity the game

2012-09-16T23:32:00.001-07:00

Lately I've been addicted to infinity and it wont stop.

I played the game actively a while ago and.got sucked into Warmachine and it's competitive nature winning a few tournies and such, but got quickly burnt out on the all competitive all the time approach.

6th ed 40k came out and with it I hoped everyone would stop taking the game so seriously.

Nope!

I got a few hundred points of eldar to pretty much say goodbye to 40k as I was tired of its horrible rules and such.

So taking stock of what else I have I noticed my Panoceania army on its corks sitting there staring at me so I decided to jump into infinity again.

Im not coming out of it.

With the help of a Yu-jing player near my gaming place and a few willing people we now have a growing community and things look up.

Now this all leads up to this, I am changing (heavily) what I will be posting.

This will include more video content, infinity content and painting lots more painting. I have been planning this for a while now and have everything ready for painting tutorials and such.

My co authors will probably keep posting the normal stuff however. So do not let this discourage you from reading.

Also expect more frequent posts and such.

I encourage everyone to try Infinity out at least once and just expand their horizons.

6th Edition thoughts

2012-08-31T16:30:00.000-07:00

Psst I made that :D

So I originally wrote a legitimate thing about sixth ed and such (down below) but recent events have made me just look at 40k in general.

And how horrible its rules/mechanics are.

Lets start with saves shall we?

To win warhammer, you can just roll dice. Not even thinking at all, just put your guys on an objective and roll high. The saves mechanic is broken because there is no torrent of fire or anything to get rid of saves permanently.

Which in real life terms is like an enemy standing in front of you with just a armour plate on for protection over his abdomen and you just constantly shooting him there and the bullets only having a small chance of penetrating it. When instead you could... ya know shoot him in the face?

I mean 40 guardsmen rapid firing at a terminator sarge with out a helmet on and not one of those shots hits him in the face?

Sure you can fail your armour save and die representing one of those lucky shots! But what if that doesnt happen? (harlequins with 2+ rerollable) How realistic is that? Not at all, thats why its retarded.

In dust you dont take a save for every shot, you can only take a certain amount of saves dependent on the type of armour you have. That kids, makes sense.

Now cover..ah cover I love it. If your getting shot at and duck behind a wall. Why do you do that? TO HIDE AND MAKE YOURSELF LESS VISIBLE. Well not in 40k! No you hide behind that wooden fence to protect your space marine armour from plasma guns that just seem to bounce off that wooden fence. BUT DUDE YOU CAN FAIL A COVER SAVE WHICH IS REPRESENTING THE COVER BREAKING AND STUFF! What if he doesnt fail his cover? And that plasma cannon explosion that 100000000000000000000million times hotter then the sun just bounces off that wooden fence, is that realistic? No.

Cover should make you harder to hit, not give you another save.

Now...wound allocation :). Picture this: 1000 guardsmen are charged by a tactical squad led by a captain with a chainsword and bolt pistol. They all rapid fire their 2k shots...All into him...any of the bullets go back and nail someone in the back? (other then look out son) NOPE! They all just pepper that captain till he falls over then the rest of the shots hit the guy behind him.

This is just stupid, if your shooting hundreds of bullets at them some of the bullets wont hit the front guys.
Is that realistic? No.

The best part of the whole game (40k) is that...adult men play this competitively, and act like its one of the most important things in their life.

Now people may argue that:

It isnt supposed to be realistic! Its warhammer!

It doesnt matter if its warhammer or not this is how this stuff works, all this crap leads to a confusing retarded game. Its insanely un cinematic and slows everything down.

Its been like this for years! They cant change the game to fit a certain type of people needs!

Well considering people "play" this at tournaments and get serious about winning it. They might need to change that....

So comment/whatever I'll be over here playing infinity/warmachine to my hearts content!

Plague Marines and You!!!

2012-08-10T09:46:00.002-07:00

http://qkme.me/3qfh3c

So I haven't posted in awhile for multiple reasons, the biggest was the fact that I really had nothing to post about. But fortunately that has now changed. This week I wanted to discuss my very own take on the Epidemius list. I've wanted to use this character ever since I bought the $300+ limited edition starter wave that came out some 5 odd years or so ago. The only problem was running a mono-god daemon list wasn't great in any respect. However now that we get Allies in 6th that has all changed. I've been pouring over all the rules and FAQ nonsense for the past week and have finally set myself on a solid (I think) list that I'm planning on running next month at a tourney. So without any delay here it is:

Main Detachment: Chaos Space Marines

1 Chaos Sorcerer on Bike with Mark of Nurgle and Melta Bombs - 155

3x 5 Plague Marines with 2 Plasma Guns (2 have Personal Icons) - 445

8 Chaos Marine Bikers with Icon of Nurgle, 2 Plasma Guns and a Champion with a Power Fist - 334

Allied Detachment: Chaos Daemons

Epidemius - 110

2x 15 Plague Bearers - 300

Deamon Prince with Daemonic Flight, Mark of Nurgle, Cloud of Flies and Breath of Chaos - 235

Then lastly...

1 Fortress of Redemption with 2 Heavy Bolters and Krakstorm Missiles - 270

Total - 1849

So obviously the entire point of this list is to utilize Epidemius and his tally buffs. The basic way to set this list up is to put all three Plague Marines squads in the Fortress. This way whenever a flier comes in, or you fire one of the Heavy Bolters or Krakstorm Missiles you get to add to the tally. Because you have Plague Marines using the weapons, the attacks count as being from a model with the mark of Nurgle. Meanwhile you have 9 T6 bikes zooming around the board taking pot shots at everything with Plasma Guns or twin-linked Bolters. Anything they can do to add to the tally. Whats nice about the bikers as well is that their Icon of Nurgle lets you deep strike those deamons without scattering, even on turn 1. So you don't have to worry about Epidemius or your Daemon Prince being destroyed in the first turn from a mishap.

Ideally you'll be able to get that tally up or around 20 by turn 2 or 3. I mean you've got a TL Icarus Lascannon, Krakstorm Missiles, 8 Plasma Guns (2 of which are on bikes to give them more range) and then a FMC who kills 2-3 models a turn just by flying over them. Plus there's your Sorcerer who I usually give Telepathy, and then the Primus Power. With the maneuverability of the bike the 12" range of to power isn't that much or a draw back, and on average will kill about 2-3 MEQ if you successfully get it off. Each one of these attacks adds to the tally, so 20 by the end of 2 isn't too much to reach for. Now once you get to 20+ models killed your army is more or less a pack of raging pus and STDs.

So, why are we aiming for 20+ models in 2 turns? For those of you who don't know who Epidemius is, I shall explain. When you kill 5-9 models all your Plague Swords (which are what Epidemius and all your Plague Bearers have) wound on a 3+ instead of a 4+. Once you get to 10 kills all Nurgle marked models have Noxious Touch, meaning they now wound on a 2+. At 15 kills Feel No Pain is a 3+ rather then a 5+. And lastly at 20+ kills all attacks from followers of Nurgle ignore armor saves. Also, all these buffs stack. To put it into perspective, with this list, you now have 9 T6 bikers who have 2+ poisoned attacks that ignore armor saves. Now the poisoned attacks only work in CC, but the ability to ignore armor saves applies to all attacks, shooting and CC. Meanwhile all your Plague Marines sitting in the Fortress now basically have a 3+ re-rollable save, in others words they won't die.

All in all the list is decent, just looking at it and the numbers. In fact it's kind of a weak list. But if one is able to rack up those kills fast enough the entire army is nigh unstoppable. I know there are a few bad match ups that this list would have (i.e a 7+ Necron flier list), but as 6th evolves and more anti-flier tools become more readily available to everyone I feel like this list might start doing alot better. Now besides the flier list, a 20 man all Paladin list would also be hard to beat simply because of the fact that there is only 20 models. But I don't see that list being nearly as common since we don't really have KP missions anymore.

Anyways, that's the list, hope ya'll enjoy it. Feedback is more than welcome and appreciated.

Dust Warfare 150AP batrep

2012-07-21T20:09:00.001-07:00

So a while ago I decided to take pictures of a game Tyler and I had, this is the following slide show battle report.

Please like and subscribe if you liked it, and please leave CC I know it sucks :).

35pt LOE steam roller report

2012-05-20T19:31:00.000-07:00

So I went down to Tower games in Minneapolis this saturday to participate in a 35 point steam roller 2012 event with relaxed times and no reinforcements.

I brought Saeryn and Pvayl

Sareyn
Angelious
Scythean
Seraph
Shredder

Max swordsmen
Shepard
Gobbers
Death stalker

Pvayl
Scythean
Shredder
Seraph
Angelious

Max swordsmen
Shepard
Forsaken
Death stalker

Some random table shots

The players there was;

Trolls

Cygnar

Menoth

Khador

Legion (me)

Cryx

So first round I went up against a trolls player

He played...madrak, I chose saeryn

Heres my set up and then his:

Game kinda went like:

We run up

I slip stream Sareyn up, she throwing knifes madrak then feats.

Angelious charges madrak and kills him turn two.

So I went to subway.

Then I played against Cygnar with siege.

Game went like:

We run up, I shoot at some gun mages. No one dies, he shoots back no one dies. I charged thunder head with scythean and feat and do massive damage to Thead. He thunder bolts the scythean away and KD's him.

He then gets tricky and siege, mage sights saeryn then shoots her with the rocket launcher and feats doing 17 damage! So i transfer to a seraph and he goes baa! Then he shoots again and misses (def19).

I then charge him with an angelious and he dies.

Game 3 was against khador, he played old witch.

Game went like:
I run up and shoot at eEryiess.
He gallows my angie forwards and pew pews it hard.
I slip stream my scythean who charges eyriess who was next to old witch and kill the witch with my second hit.

So I ended up going 3-0. Killed 3 models and lost none and got first place which nabbed me a typhon.

Bane thralls ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

So yeah it was a fun tournament all together I think my opponents were a little too loose with their caster placement.

Hobby Update: Cult of Destruction

2012-03-11T21:28:00.000-07:00

So a bit ago I picked up a box of Chaos Termies to kit bash with GK termies and make a Pali squad cause I wanted to make Pheonix Guard/Draigowing. Then I thought, I'm a big of enough douche already and I know I'm getting a new dex soon anyways. So like with the last box of Termies I had gotten I realized I could now have 9 Oblits instead of the usual 3 that I run. Plus the fact that there is an Apoc Formation called THE CULT OF DESTRUCTION made me wanna do I more.

So I went to work early on this week on these guys. And I have a absolute blast converting Oblits. Now the theme is slaanesh, as is everything with me. Now the only speed bumb is that I couldn't find the random termies I was making into a Dark Apostle in termie armor/Oblit Chaplin. Thus I used a spawn stand in!! XD

Hope you guys injoy, I am planning on having these all modeled in about a week and a half, then painted in another. So yeah...

So yeah, eat your heart out Hannibal

Dark Star GT picture vomiting/crappy report

2012-03-06T17:55:00.000-08:00

Heres my barely 3 color min army in all is glory

Crappy display board is crappy, touched up like 2 hours before tourney with air brush

First round opponent: Loss, twolves got in my face too fast and GH wouldnt fail armour, I did get too close though.

This won players choice or something

Counts as GK made my camera blur

Super sick terrain here

Best prizes there

Cool themed GK army with like dice and templates

THIS LIT UP AND MADE NOISES, BEST TERRAIN EVER.

Look at all that LOSB terrain, first round table too :)

Second round table, my models kept falling off those hills

Second round opponent, tabled him 4th turn.

The best marines ever

Best painted right there guys

Intense SW player is intense

Is this a mermaid or a jack hammer?

So yeah, list looked like:

Haemonculi
Shatter shard

Baron

2x 3 trueborn blasters in venoms

4x squads of warriors blasters in venoms

18x hellions with Sarge with agonizer

1x 4 man wracks with venom

2x ravagers

1x razorwing

Uh, boring text bat reps yay!

First round was SW

I got first moved up, he came on (DOW) i killed almost all his LF
He jammed midfield like all SW players do, i for some stupid reason dont back up
I kill most of troops jamming midfield but he saves like 40+ 3+ on one squad who then just start like stunning my vehicles XD

I think im low on time so dont activate some stuff and t wolves om nomm nom

Im left with a ravager.

Second round was BA
First turn I immo his LR, detonate his SR and blow up his baal
He does nothing to me
I kill everything on foot, immo a DC dread,
He hops out of LR, bum rushes up, i kill them all for tableing

3rd round
More BA!

He had like 30 assault marines on foot, a razor, honour guard, baal, and 2 libbie dreads with a speeder, oh and mephiston

I blow away a dread
he runs towards me
I kill some stuff
He runs up, mephi pops a venom.
I kill honour guard that were providing FNP to everything and i kill pretty much his entire army
tableing

4th round was IG
Oh god, like 18 auto cannons with like 230 guys on foot? LR executioner and hydra
He gets first...
him: "Okay! This will go well if you dont steal the init-oh god you did!
I killed like 115 models first turn
He pops a few things, i eventually table him and my hellions owned a ton of em too XD.

5th round
GK ahh I was wondering when they would rear their heads.

He had like, 2x psyfelman, libby, SR death star with paladins and 2x strike squads and stuff,

It was intense with it coming down to me nuking his libby with a shattershard and the pallie squad with the hellions, then my haemie taking llike a kajillion psycannon shots and living for the tie.

In the end I won a kroot shaper in the raffle, then they started giving away plaques and stuff.

Hey i got best dark eldar! I got a plaque and stuff too!

I got like 19/45 on sportsmanship like i always do :3. I got 20/40 on painting.

I ended up 27/58 and would have gotten like 18th? If i had gotten at least 30 sportsmanship, its funny because all the other DE finished better then me but i still got best DE Yay pointless soft scores!

Well my after thoughts of the tourney were...I want to play more warmachine

Games Workshop's Mentality

2012-02-16T17:51:00.000-08:00

A few years back, through the power of the internet, I met a guy who had worked for Games Workshop and had switched to designing video games. He had a lot of interesting things to say about Games Workshop, but the one that I remember best was that Games Workshop runs itself like a cult, and that GW employees are encouraged to 'break ties' with friends and family that don't play GW games. So, with that in mind, I direct you toward this reddit thread that has done the rounds on 40k blogs today. To save you from ever having to go to reddit, I've clipped out the really scary quotes.

"In-house: We want to play and have a GREAT narrative (see WD 312 for a good example of that; that's me and Steve, by the way).
Local: People want to WIN.
It's so foreign to me that it makes it hard to enjoy the games. Yes, rules lawyers, I'm looking at you...
People who work for the company are passionate about the joy in the game, and they are AWESOME to play with. People who just play the game want to be Johnny McBadass."
Playing to win a game is foreign to GW employees. 1

"What army do you feel the best players are running?"
"You can certainly build hard armies. I tend to have lots of basic troops, and lots of shooty bits. I also don't care very much if I lose (which... has happened more than twice), as it's way more important to me to see if I can figure out how to win without gaming the army list."
Writing a good army list = gaming the system 2

"I still buy, and still paint figs, but nearly never play anymore. I miss playing with people who played to have fun, rather than to win; I got a little spoiled playing with the staff at the GW HQ...
Dirty and I will get together once a year or so to play, but that's really it."

He plays once a year. How much does he spend on the hobby?
"Not for nothing, it works on me, too. I have roughly 10,000 figs, and over Thanksgiving dropped $500 on a new Orc army, because I love the new plastics. Even knowing the marketing strategy, I'm helpless against it, because they're so cool. I mean, the new giant spider???"

He spent $500 in a week. 3 4

I should point out that he is currently rooming with 'Dirty.' Hopefully they are getting some more games in? As long as I'm pointing things out, the majority of the web community for GW products are people like him who play once a year, haven't played in years, play, but with made-up rules in their gaming group, or people who have never played the TT game but pay attention to the fluff. Read anyone giving advice in the thread (but actually don't) and you'll notice that they're either talking about past editions or they're just flat-out wrong.

If that guy doesn't sound like someone who needs cult deprogramming, I don't know who does. I mean, the guy even hates Bolt Thrower.

Edit: I missed the bit where he says he had no friends that didn't work for GW. Because that's healthy.

New Author

2012-02-16T17:23:00.000-08:00

I go by 'Ronnoc' on the interwebs. I'm a buddy of Scraps in the for real lifes, and I will be posting intermediately about the things I like.

Things I like:
Hating Warhammer 40k
Hating Games Workshop (no one hates GW more than its fans)
Warmachine/Hordes
Giving Privateer Press backhanded complements
Hating wargames' internet culture

Games Workshop-wise, I have 5000 points of Blood Angels, which I play in a modified flamestorm-style list, and 3000 points of Orks which I am currently working on bringing up to a competitive battlewagon-bash list. I also have a couple hundred points of LOTR, but the rules update might have rendered that game unplayable. I would elaborate, but I'm pretty sure no one cares about LOTR.
On the Privateer Press side of things, I have a maybe 50 points of Gatormen, and I have yet to really find my niche with them.

Well, I'm glad that's over with.

WIP/Modeling update: Doomsday Device

2012-01-25T18:47:00.000-08:00

So i was invited to an apoc game with some friends about a year ago. Now this was an epicly huge game, aprox 150k+ worth of points on a 6' x 20' table. Now I've got about maybe 8k worth of crap that I can throw together. Fortunately my friend linked me to a site with a bunch of pdfs that have all sorts of apoc formations an crap, this is where I found the DDD, and thus fell in love with it. Now for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about I'll explain. It's basicly an immobile super heavy with 3 structure points that you first have to activate, once activated you roll on a chart to see what kind f shot you get that shooting phase, things like Heavy D6 SD AP1 shots, S* AP3 Apoc barrage 4, or simple being a dud, or possibly blowing itself up. No as crazy as it might sound, well it is. During this first game I took 4, but with work and a little girl I was hard pressed for time to construct them and in the end used cans. I was thus chewed out by all my friends there, and rightly so. Well this year we're having a much smaller game and I have ample warning and time. So this is my WIP blog about constucting 1 hopefully more.

Now thee fun part about doomsday devices is that there is no model, nor any rules on what it should look like or its dimensions, etc. In theory you could make one as big as you wanted, but thats not realistic and probably wouldn't go over well. I've looked up alot of different pictures online and there are some sweet constructions out there, but I'm not to fond of the idea that this is a machine. I'm really into Slaanesh, more hardcore then I think anyone should be. I love the idea of the chaos powers culminating togther and striking down enemies with raw warp power. So I decided to go with the idea of altars, or idols of sorts, something that the powers can use as a icon in the real space world. More like the attacks that these things shoot out is the wrath of slaanesh culminating upon said altar and being directed by some sorcerer whos performing some ritual.

That being stated, I went through anything and everything I could get my hands on to start building something that I liked and could pass as one of these chaos altars. What I found was a bunch of skulls and cauldrens from the haloween direcorations. But to me it was too khorne, the skulls at least, so how could I make this Slaaneshi? Well I grabbed a blank cd and glued 6 of them around it, then stuck the pot on top. I was slightly inspired by the cauldren of blood from the Dark Elves, ya know just a wee bit . I used spackle to fill in the gaps. Then put on 6 spikes, draped chains around it (all my noise marines have chains, ya know kinky stuff) and then glued on rocks to base it a bit. I wanted this to look like a place of sacred sacrifice, something that was built where ever i place it on the board and had been there for awhile. Not a machine dropped from orbit. So anyway, heres what i looks like so far, hope you enjoy.

Unit Analysis: Doomsday Device (DDD) Part 1

2012-01-21T16:14:00.000-08:00

So this week I wanted to talk about another unit I love. It’s the Doomsday Device. Now most of you may not have heard about it, I didn’t until I randomly got a pdf of it, and sequentially fell in love with it. As you may have guessed it is a Apocalypse unit, a super heavy in fact. It costs 400 points, has AV14 all around, and three structure points. It’s not a tank, and it doesn’t move. All you do is set it up during deployment and then wait for it to shoot.

So…what are its uses? Well for starters it’s only 400 points; pretty cheap when you think of other Apoc units. Now by itself you may not find it very useful. I mean, it is Apoc, and a single AV14 super heavy doesn’t really stand a chance. But with multiple of them you can decimate armies in every single shoting phase. You have the chance to do either Apoc Barrage (4) S8 AP3 Pinning anywhere you please, a single 72” S D AP2 Heavy D6, or D3+2 Apoc Blast S10 AP1 Pinning blast templates anywhere you want. Sound awesome? Yeah, that’s cause it is. Now there are a few downfalls, as there are in anything in life.

First off they don’t move, you deploy them at the start of the game and then sit and wait. This cuts down on your ability to ever get a better firing lane, so you gotta make sure to put it somewhere not too in the open but not too secluded either. In the end there is only one shot that you can get that you need los for, all the others are blast templates anywhere on the board. Second, they don’t automatically fire on turn one. Basically you roll a D6 and add the turn number to it, if the total is a 7 or higher it activates and all is fine and dandy, till then though it’s aggravating as hell. Third, once activated it can blow up in your face…literally. Besides rolling all those different awesome shooting attacks you also have the chance to either:

1 – Become a dud. Meaning its completely useless for the rest of the game.

2 – Add +1 to next turns roll. Not the worst, just sucks not shooting for a turn.

3 – Blowing up and everything within 6D6” takes a S8 AP3 hit. This just sucks, that’s it.

4 – Going nuclear. Now it doesn’t happen right away, but in your next turn everything within 6D6” is removed from the table. Terrain, models, objectives, you name it.

Lastly, and this is my favorite part, DDDs don’t explode, they can only become wrecks. Nay, instead of rolling on the Catastrophic Damage table you roll on the Chart of Devastation and get one last shot off. And you get to do this regardless of whether or not you’ve activated it. So in the end, if your opponent decides they’re gonna eliminate it turn 1 you’ll still have a chance to do something with it. Last game I played one of mine was destroyed by a Carifex, and then it took out an entire 10 man White Scar unit who was flanking me on the other side of the table.

So there you have it. The pros and cons for the doomsday device. I figured I’d write this part first just to give you all an intro into this awesome piece of chaos weaponry. I’ll be back soon to discuss the tactical uses for it, as well as my first modeling/WIP article cause I’m currently working of two, possibly three of these because I always take multiple in any Apoc game. So look forward to those in the next few weeks, hope this was insightful and if you have any questions feel free to ask/email me. Deuces.

Gator men VS Cryx 35

2012-01-14T22:25:00.000-08:00

Well heres our first warmachine batrep.

I decided to try out a cryx list that id been thinking of.

caster kill

My list:
eskarre+6
2x rippers
reaper
skarlock
min banes
ua
satyxis raider captain
10 satyxis raiders
ua
warwitch siren

His:
Bloody Barnabas6
Bull Snapper3 Blackhide Wrastler9
Blackhide Wrastler9
Gatormen Posse (Leader and 4 Grunts)9
Croak Hunter2
Wrong Eye & Snapjaw 9 -35

MAP

DEPLOYMENT

he goes first

Barnabas throws out swamp pits
wrastler runs
wrastler runs
Bull snaper runs, uses animus to cast spiny growth on the wrastler
snapjaw runs and casts submerge animus
wrong eye runs and casts submerge
Gatormens run (yes gatormenS), and cast dirge of mists (suprise suprise)
Croak hunter runs

My turn
one focus to each deathripper
Warwitch gives a power boost to reaper, advances
reaper runs
rippers run
Skarre casts admonition on deathrippers, advances
All satyxis advance
banes run
Skarlock advances and casts deathward on reaper

His 2
He doesnt upkeep Anything
He pulls fury to max
wrong eye leachs off snaps
And barnabas advances
Croak hunter advances and hurls his spear at the satyxis, hes out
Snap jaw well...snaps and attacks the croak hunter and rips him bodily apart
Wrong eye casts submerge on both of them (snappie)
His wrastler(s) charge my satyxis to get extra movement (??)
Gatormens advanced, and dirge of misted

My 2
I drop all upkeeps
2 focus on reaper
warwitch gives reaper one, then advances back
reaper moves up and shoots the red wrastler, i boost (-.-) doing one damage, i drag and hit him, doing 4 damage, buy another for 2 points, another for 7
SKarlock casts admonition on the banethralls and advanced
deathrippers advance
Banes charge the wrastla, doing 10
skarre activates, advances and attacks the wrastler and kills it, and admonitions herself

His 3
barnabas advances and feats (awww!)

His wrastler charges and is out
snap jaw charges skarre...11 damage, then his tail kills her.

WIN TO GATORMEN!!

END GAME

Well thoughts on the game:
I was going to bait his wrastlers in and kill them to stop his fury shenanigans, that didnt work very well though! Then I was stupid and forgot to pop Skarres feat to protect her, total noob mistake too!

Typical newbie mistake leaving my caster open. If i had popped my feat I would have then just killed what ever came at me and picked him apart with my infantry spam.

Hoped you enjoyed it! Feed back welcome.

Finished Khador Wardog

2011-12-24T20:56:00.000-08:00

I paint to whatever quality I want.

Batrep IG vs CSM 1850 (very good game)

2011-12-16T23:54:00.001-08:00

Bat Rep: IG vs CSM 1850

So this week Tyler and I decided to play another game for our league. The rules are all the same, it just that we have 3 objectives, and you can get up to 26 points a game, 72 a week. Now I’m stuck at 10pts from week one cause I only played one game that I lost, but this week was a bit different. So as the title stated it was my Chaos Space Marines vs. Tyler’s Imperial Guard. Here are the lists:

2x Daemon Prince w/ Wings, MoS, Lash
10 CSM, 2 Melta Guns, IoCG, Champ w/ PW in Rhino
9 KB, Champ w/ Fist, Rhino
7 PM, 2 Plasma Guns, Champ w/ Fist, Rhino
8 NM, 7 Sonic Blasters, Champ w/ PW and Doom Siren, Rhino
Vindicator w/ Daemonic Possession
Defiler w/ 2 Extra DCCW
3 Oblits

Versus

Company Command: Missile launcher, x2 plasma gun, Master of Ordnance, Officer of the Fleet, Astropath Chimera
x3 Veteran Squad x3 Meta Guns
x2 Veteran Squad x2 meltaguns, x1 Hvy. Flamer, x1 Missile launcher
Chimera
x3Vendetta
x2 Manticore
x2 Hydra flak battery

The primary objective was Seize Ground, as was the secondary, and the tertiary was to kill the most expensive unit of your opponents. Deployment was the ever exciting Pitched Battle. Now I (billie_joe) won the roll off and choose to go second (first /facepalm). Tyler chose the south side of the board. He placed his objective in the ruins in the center of his deployment zone, with a Chimera on either side of it. To his right flank he placed his 2 Hydras, 2 Manticores, and Company Command squad in Chimera (his highest point unit). The Vendettas were spread out semi-evenly across the board.
I then deployed my Noise Marines and Plague Marines with my Oblits in the opposite ruins, also where I placed my objective. Then I lined up my Defiler and Vindie with my CSM and KB in their Rhinos in between them with my DPs behind the Vindie and Defi. I was only really worried about the fact that he had better range on me and that I couldn’t hide in a corner, so I thought that I could split his fire and thus his army in two. Alas, I f***ed up.

Tyler’s Deployment:

My Deployment:

Turn 1:
As soon as Tyler made his scout moves I realized I had messed up, and at that point just hoped for the best. Two of his Vendettas move up and Melta Vets disembark. First they targeted the Defiler, which they destroyed with ease but who’s explosion burned two of them. He then opens up with the second Vets, but only managed to blow off the Cannon. The CSM were left standing in the open from one Vendetta, and lost one member of their squad in the explosion (“I don’t bout you, but I’m calling one eighthundred axe Gary”), and the KB were left with a Stunned Crew. Then with the Defiler gone, my central DP was wide open to fire. First he lost 2 wounds from the last Vendetta that had moved back behind a tower (to hide from my Oblits), then went down to a hail of Heavy Bolter fire from a combined 2 Chimeras (each with 2 HB). Oh but the fun didn’t stop there. The Hydras managed to wound an Oblit. Then the Manticores opened up on my Noise Marine Rhino. The first one blew it up (of course, this kid was rolling 6’s on all but one Pen), but then missed with the second. This is my decimated front after half a turn.

Bottom of Turn 1:

So…I didn’t know what the hell to do, but I had to make something out of it; and kinda did. First my NM “Rhino-jacked” (I’m coining it) the PM who scurry deeper into the ruins while the Oblits re-align themselves on the second floor. Meanwhile I maneuvered my Vindie up behind the wall, disembarked my KB who moved up a bit by the Vendetta on my left flank. The CSM also moved up around the Vendetta in the center, and the DP flew over the wall and ran 1” to hid behind a cluster of rocks on my far left flank. The only thing I did in the shooting phase was pop a Chimera to the right of Tyler’s ruin. Then I got to work my magic in the assault phase. I assaulted the Vendetta to my left with my KB, getting into base contact with the Vets along the way. My CSM managed to do the same by assaulting the Vet squad but hitting the Vendetta with most of the squad. The KB only swing with 8 attacks against the Vets and kill 3, who respond by killing 1 KB, and hold. The rest of the squad fail to do ANYTHING to the Vendetta. Meanwhile the CSM also kill 3 Vets, take no wounds, and also wiff against the Vendetta with 7 grenade attacks. Oddly these vets also held, fortunately for me.

End of Turn 1:

Turn 2:
With both Vet squads still locked in assault Tyler first moves both Vendettas back out of assault. He then opens up with the Company Command in their Chimera. Two Heavy Bolters, 2 rapid firing Plasma Guns, all fail to wound, and actually kill one gunner from over-heating. One Vendetta opens up on the DP as well, but also fails to wound him thanks to a roll of a 5. The Vet Chimera in the Ruin lights him up as well, tacking on a wound from the dual HB, but rolled a 1 to wound with the missile launcher. Then one Vendetta opens up with three Lascannons on my Oblits. All three hit…and wound…and I fail all three cover saves. The Manticores again fire at my embarked NM, and just like turn 1 they blow it up, this time killing 2 NM. Meanwhile the Hydras take out a PM. Then in assault both Vet squads are wiped off the board.

Mid Turn 2:

Now all my troops are stuck in the open. I have absolutely nothing that can shoot over 24”, 1 transport, and slowly less and less anti-tank anything. But you gotta do what you gotta do. So my Vindie rams his Vet Chimera and surprisingly blows it up, killing 2 in the wreckage and being immobilized in return. KB run over toward the Command Chimera, the CSM “Rhino-jack” the KB Rhino and move to mid-field. NM shuffle around, and the PM scatter around as well. I pop smoke on both my Vindie and Rhino. Then I assault the Hydras with my DP, blowing both of them up, and killing another 2 Vets in the explosion. So while my troops were slowly dwindling I was closing the gap between me and the remaining troops.

End of Turn 2

Turn 3:
Tyler didn’t really move anything at all, just focused on shooting. One Vendetta lights up the Rhino but I passed both cover saves. The DP takes another wound from a Missile. Then the Command Chimera takes out 3 KB, 1 from Plasma and 2 from the HB, and 2 NM were taken out by a Vendetta after going to ground.

In my movement I shot the CSM up and out right by the Vendetta. The DP jumped behind the tower and next to a Manticore while the last 4 KB close in on the Command Chimera. Even though I got within metal range I only manage to shake the Vendetta, and do the same with my Plasma guns to the other one on my far right flank. I charge 1 Manticore with the DP and manage to wreck it and then blow up the Command Chimera who’s flaming debris take out 1 KB and 5 members of the squad inside! Slowly everything is coming together, but both of us were still uncertain about the outcome.

End of turn 3

Turn 4:
With all my CSM bunched up all nice and tight Tyler decided to move up with his Vet squad and threw down a Heavy Flamer down on ‘em, killing 4! One Vendetta drops the last DP to 0 wounds, and the last Manticore uses its last shot to take out 1 NM.

Mid Turn 4

One my turn I shuffle the PM around and shake the closest Vendetta. The KB charge in and take out the remaining Command unit, and the CSM charge in to kill off 4 Vets, leaving 2 who…you guessed it, hold on a roll of a 2.

End of Turn 4

Turn 5:
With hardly ANYTHING left on the board, and this possibly being the last turn things got, well…interesting. Tyler moved up his last Vendetta with embarked Vets and dropped them off right in front of my NM. The Vendetta targeted a PM, whipping him off, and the Vets whipped out the last remaining NM. In return my CSM squad bust through the ruins to contest and possible control Tyler’s objective; as does their jacked Rhino, who shoots down 2 Vets. I manage to move my PM all the way down the ruins they’re in but hold off on firing. In the ensuing assault phase the PM charge one unit of Vets and the remaining CSM follow suit. The PM manage to cause the vets to run but over run them and consolidate onto my objective. Meanwhile the CSM clear house on the other Vet squad but are only contesting Tyler’s objective due to the contesting Manticore. However if it ended here I’d be just fine.

Tyler rolls a 2. YEAH BUDDY!!

In Conclusion:
In the end I held one objective (the Vendetta was just over 3” away) while Tyler only contested one. So I got both primary and secondary objectives. We tied on the third, and so split the points on that. This means I got 23 BP while he got 3. I scored 11 KP and 1210 VP and he scored 8 KP and 1040 VP. Overall a close game, and good one at that. One of the best games I’ve played in quite awhile.

1850 DE vs chaos

2011-12-16T22:16:00.001-08:00

Yeah I lost, finally.

His list:

2 Slaan DP, 2 7 man PM squads, dual Plasma, Fist, 8 KB w/ fist, 10 csm, dual melta, champ w/ pw, IoCG, 6 Oblits, 3 Termies, 2 combi meltas

spear head

capture and control

Head hunter

And have more troops alive at end of game

I win first

Drugs are 3d6 run

My list is:

Haemie liquifier

Baron

2x 3x blasterborn in venoms

4x warrior squads blasters and venoms

wracks venom (4 wracks)

19x hellions with helliarch with agonizer

Ravagerx2

razorwing

Board shot

My deploy

His deploy

my 1,

I flat out. One hellion is too hyped on combat drugs and goes into the river and dies to sea bass

His 1, He sits tight

My 2,

Ravager gets immobilised, and the pilot is sacrificed for it Rhino is glanced by dark glance but is cover saved

His 2,

He gets a prince, zerkers and chaos marines His prince falls into a wall like a retard, but his shield saves him

my 3,

Prince dies to splinter fire (3 venoms)Nothing else

his 3,

He gets everything termies miss hap and die :/

His lashes hellions 10

Pops smoke on rhinos

He plasma cannons 7 hellions then 5 more

He stunned a trueborn venom

my 4,
I kill 5/6 oblits and the DP


His 4, He exploded a true born venom our game froze XD We un froze it one died AND THEY GOT PINNED

My 5,
I kill the chaos squad, oblit and a rhino. And miss all lances on the zerker rhino

His 5

He shuffles abit

Game ends like a bawse

He gets primary

lol I lost

Uh post game thoughts for me:
I moved midfield (its like 11 o'clock when we played this so dont judge me) and...well...sat there for way to long and forgot what turn it was XD.

Simple mistake really, I got Tert and Sec but still Should have just camped in my corner saying come get some.

1850 DEvsNIds Batrep (video)!

2011-12-11T09:33:00.000-08:00

Well heres our first video battle report! Hope you enjoy! CC welcome.

(this was a league game, my 3rd full BP win in a row putting me ahead of everyone by a massive amount XD)

My thoughts on the game:

Well, I had to be semi aggressive whilst keeping his close range shooting away.
So i deployed in a way that my hellions could jump out and make their way across the board near end game.

Shooting was just as effective as it usually is ahhaha. Poison eats those MC's alive, killing the hive guard with one venom seems to be a re occuring event when I play nids.

I knew I needed to get my hellions a 3rd token so they wouldnt get bogged down by running away. The baron dying (he does it every time he has to take one -.-) was a set back, but having I6 to HnR is helpful!

I think I need more AT, which means probably dropping something for either, reavers with heat lance, or scourages with DL...even though I hate that unit haha.

Unit of the week #3 Dark Eldar Trueborn

2011-12-08T14:16:00.000-08:00

omfg! haha watching some show and this sasquatch commercial comes on and it shows some guy in like night vision and you hear AWHOOO or some weird sasquatchy noise, and hes just like "LOVELY"...Sorry thought I had to add that in,

*disclaimer* Im doing this from a competitive aspect. KthnxBai

So yeah trueborn, lets start with some +'s and -'s eh?

Positives:
Lots of options
Fairly cheap
Accurate
Sick looking :P

Negatives:
Some options are pitfalls
Can get expensive
Have some retarded builds you dont wanna use
Have the usual DE survivability

Now if blood brides are your veteran CC unit then the trueborn are your shooty veterans (for you noobie power armour kids out there, think sternguard).

Lets look at some of the options available for them!

(gets off couch to go to game room and get codex)

I will rate these 1-5, 1 being a horrendous choice IMO and 5 being Insta take.

Splinter pistol and CC weapon: 1
Remember them being shooty units?...Well they are...dont take it unless its for fun.

Shard carbine: 3
Interesting choice, could be combined into a giant anti infantry killing machine if thrown into a large group with similar load out and the duke. Expensive

Shredder: 3
Cheap, short ranged anti infantry. I would take these only if the whole squad was armed with them and you were lacking Anti infantry in the rest of your list.

Blaster: 5
I love blasters, they kill everything! Great choice if given to a min squad and put into a venom very popular also. Only problem is the range but if your any good with DE it shouldnt be a problem.

Heavy weapons selection.

Splinter cannon: 3
Anti infantry again...would only take if your lacking in other places which would be rare in a DE army.
It also suggests static gameplay which is boring IMO.

Dark lance: 2
I know I know, lots of people like this option. I hate it, inspires static game play while pouring more points into a easy to kill squad. Sure you get 2 more lances but its more expensive then a ravager! (in certain builds of this unit)

Plasma grenades: 1
Why? Why would you take assault grenades on a shooty squad that you dont want in CC?

Hay wire grenades:2
The only reason I gave it a 2 is because of the visual of 5 trueborn rocking up in a venom, hopping out, blasting the tracks off a tank and running up to plant haywire grenades on it and blow it up. Wouldnt take these in a competitive game.

Character options:
Dracon:1
5 points for one more attack? NO THANKS

Only viable option I could think of for taking him is for a blast pistol for just that one more blaster shot, but 20 points is steep.

Transports:
Raider:3
I could see someone taking a raider only if they have enough AI in the rest of the army, I have an undenied love for venoms so I cant say much.

Venom:5
Cheap, shooty shooty shooty, and fast. I love venoms, they also look visualy cool as your trueborn should get their own pimpin ride. Almost always take one.

Now lets look at some common trueborn builds.

*insert weapon name* born:
These are usually 3-4x trueborn all armed with the same weapon, either shredders or blasters jammed into a venom and rocketed up the field to hop out/stay in and blast tanks. This is what I run, keep it cheap and it can add great amounts of AT or AI into your list. I prefer blasters but thats because I can never seem to kill tanks (except against space wolves,but thats because they deserve it)

Lance born:
3x trueborn with 2x dark lances in either a venom (if lacking AI) or raider to make a pseudo ravager. I dont like this build because I like moving fast, and it encourages static gameplay. (dumb Grey knights...)

Cannon born:
3x trueborn with 2x splinter cannons (dur). In a venom to complement their target range. Never seen these run as blaster born are more versatile.

Gun boat o' doom!:
9x trueborn in a raider all with shard carbines, and 2x splinter cannons. The raider has splinter racks and the squad is joined by...DA DUKE! Never seen this run before but thought it would be fun to run. Almost any infantry unit that comes in 18 inches of this stationary vehicle will probably die. (unless its wearing the Ward armour, oh I mean power armour :P)

Common tactics used with trueborn.

The poisoned tip:
This is a common tactic that I use. It involves your trueborn at the tip of your flotilla shielded by a horde of hellions (because their fun to use). It looks like this:

The wracks are in the very middle to zoom out and capture objectives, but thats for another time.

The trueborn venoms are the 2 in the very front so they can pick the prime targets (tanks). Once those are cracked open the rest of the fleet can draw LOS on the biologicals that spill out of the bawks and promptly gun them down.

Tips to using trueborn.
Always be open to versatility. I learned this from a recent tournament (which allowed me to win). If their is infantry that needs to die (scoring GK in my example) shoot them with blasters! Never be afraid to use them outside the box

Always use cover.
(should be obvious for DE but still) When you move your trueborn up to kill something, always consider what terrain is near by. If theres a ruin, make sure you can disembark 2 inches into the ruin WHEN your transport dies. If it explodes you dont have to worry haha.

Decide when to suicide.
Suiciding is (to me) going 12 inches hopping out and blasting something, only to promptly die to return fire as you left your invincible paper airplane. Consider ranges, I do this all game. Remember your blaster born have a 24 inch range with the venoms 6 inch move, you dont always have to suicide!

Thats all for now, im sick and really dont want to be typing this as before it deleted my entire post -.-.

Tutaloo...

Hobby update, tau, axis zombie!

2011-12-04T20:57:00.001-08:00

Skyrim: it's ridiculous...

Well, picked up 2 commissions in the last week. Tau and some nazis from dust!

Here's a finished axis zombie:

Sorry bout the bad pics I pod fail XD.

Gunna do a tutorial this week.

Also I joined a local 40k league, and tabled my first opponent and am 1st in the league XD.

Here's the full dust conmision:

2 light walkers
5 zombies
5 rifleman?
3 power armoured guys
3 bazooka guys

I'm out