New GW army builder

Take a look at this screenshot... Unless I'm missing something that's what force requisition is going to be... 

Why I'm retiring my guard army

Warning: long wall of text with no pictures

Prologue:

The context of this comes after getting my worst tournament result ever with my supposedly best tournament guard army yet. So what went wrong?

The Problem

It's the same problem every time. Models and the fact that I don't own the right ones. I'm handicapping myself because when I need to play full wysiwyg and full paint I'm effectively forced to make choices I would not otherwise. 

All the extra powerswords, plasma pistols, etc add up. And added to this I don't have all the best models. Looking at the judge's list who had to step in to play ringer at the last second, he managed to squeeze in 6 vendettas, 6 chimeras and also 2-3 pieces of artillery, as well as the full array of plasma and melts vets to fill those up.

Why can't I do the same? Well I only have 2 vendettas... And 2 chimeras. I'm not planning to buy any new tanks because I already have spent my money on 3 russes... I'm not going to suddenly buy 4 vendettas or 4 chimeras in one go... I mean it's not like I'm meant to be starting a whole new army here. And while I could take the same number of veterans, it's kind of pointless if they don have anything to transport them.

The death of the blob

Perhaps power weapon blobs are not, but since I don't run them this isn't about them in particular. Guardsmen have a dilemma. Heavy weapons are good, but easily killed. Stick them in a squad of 10 expendable bodies and you've got the protection but are paying at least 60 points for just 1 useful shot. This is too expensive. 

Also when you blob up there is another problem. I opposed this idea for a long time but now I see its merit. In order to maximise the utility of these one gun squads you combine them to gain the benefit of orders for all of them in one go. The problem is that a mephiston, daemon prince or anything else that can kill 5+ guardsmen in combat comes along and then you're leadership 5 or less, get caught and have just lost 20-40 men in one assault phase. Commissars do not really help actually as canny opponents can kill off a sergeant or two before assault so then the commissar helps to delay the combat for one turn, then is killed in a challenge and the enemy is free again in their own turn.

The good news

Well there is a new guard codex rumoured to be on the horizon and because I've been motivated to paint my guard I'll have a whole army of already painted models to use when the new book hits. Perhaps if I'm still into 40k by then I may be tempted to pick up some new models.

For now it's back to tau and space marines, as well as starting my dark eldar.

Guardsmen PIP

Just a quick update to how where I've got to. Not sure about marbo's missile, but I want it to stand out without being too bright or introducing too many new colours... So in sort of semi happy with it so far. Still got to do skin and faces, imperial eagles and the off bits and bobs. Oh and stripes on some of the bases.

Tau 1500pts

Finally have a 1500 pt tau list that I'm happy with, that doesn't include a costly farsight bomb. Note that two squads of pathfinders + a few extra bits may be replaced by two tetras, should I feel like it.

http://hq-builder.com/shared/51b0c458028dbb274ecc02b8

Some lists...

Hi guys, been really busy lately unfortunately. Was actually planning to go to either clash of the titans or war of the roses, but due to certain circumstances I will almost certainly not be able to. The good thing is that I get to concentrate on exams and don't have to worry about painting anything, so the next proper content will in fact be as expecting in july... long time off that.

Meanwhile, here are some ideas that I've been mulling over. I'll just put up a few lists and give my thoughts, so feel free to skip this lol.

Just for reference here are brief descriptions of the lists below:
List 1: 1500 pts Vanilla skies
List 2: Competitive DE 1500 pts
List 3: IG 1500 pts (evolution of my list)
List 4: Farsight blob tau 2000 pts

Tau Troops: Breakdown

Despite almost abandoning my tau, I've seen the light and perhaps will even be joining the greater good and not getting rid of my existing tau. To this end I have even now bolstered my forces with not one, but two riptides.

Today, I want to look at troop choices for tau. You have two: kroot and firewarriors.

Firewarriors:

Relatively cheap for what they do, however that's when you have squads of six, go up to 12 and you can have the same number of kroot for almost half the points. Also these guys either want to be hiding somewhere, in which case you're probably investing in a defence line, or in a devilfish so they can come out of reserve, which brings up the costs. They do have supporting fire, and can take a markerlight though.

Kroot:

Cheaper than firewarriors, and have a lot more options about how to deploy/appear on the board. Infiltrating is always good even if to just keep your enemy guessing. Outflank coupled with the xv8 special system for auto-coming from a board edge within 6 and you can give your opponent a nasty surprise. Also kroot benefit greatly from forests, and actually can still act as an effective sacrifice unit and even hold their own in combat against some enemies (especially orks and guard). The problem is that they have shorter range, but given how close they can pop up to the enemy, this isn't always going to be a problem.

Conclusion:

So which is better? I'm not sure really, sort of leaning towards the kroot, but it seems like it would be a good idea to have at least one maxed out squad of firewarriors in a tau army or two min sized ones, especially in a gun-line type army. However kroot, may see more action with my tau in the future.

As side note... Why am I planning to play tau again?? I mean I hate gunline armies... Oh well, at least the riptides will be fun, as will the farsight/shadowsun deathstar that I may have to invest in for larger point games... Euurrghh - too much new shiny stuff.

Dark Eldar 1500 pts take 2

Dark Eldar (1496/1500pt.)
http://hq-builder.com/shared/5175bcfa028dbb646eb791b0

@HQ [ 1 ]

Baron Sathonyx (105pt.) Shadow field; Splinter pistol; Wychsuit; Phantasm grenade launcher; Custom skyboard; Bones of the seer; Twilight shroud;

@Elites [ 3 ]

3x - Kabalite Trueborn (146pt.)
> 3x - Kabalite Trueborn (27pt.); Kabalite armour; Blaster;
> 1x - Venom (65pt.); Splinter cannon (x2); Flickerfield;

3x - Kabalite Trueborn (146pt.)
> 3x - Kabalite Trueborn (27pt.); Kabalite armour; Blaster;
> 1x - Venom (65pt.); Splinter cannon (x2); Flickerfield;

3x - Kabalite Trueborn (121pt.)
> 2x - Kabalite Trueborn (22pt.); Kabalite armour; Splinter cannon;
> 1x - Kabalite Trueborn (12pt.); Kabalite armour; Splinter rifle;
> 1x - Venom (65pt.); Splinter cannon (x2); Flickerfield;

@Troops [ 4 ]

5x - Wyches (125pt.) Wychsuit (x5); Combat drugs (x5); Plasma grenades (x5); Splinter pistol (x5); Close combat weapon (x5); Haywire grenades (x5);
> 1x - Venom (65pt.); Splinter cannon (x2); Flickerfield;

5x - Wyches (125pt.) Wychsuit (x5); Combat drugs (x5); Plasma grenades (x5); Splinter pistol (x5); Close combat weapon (x5); Haywire grenades (x5);
> 1x - Venom (65pt.); Splinter cannon (x2); Flickerfield;

5x - Wyches (125pt.) Wychsuit (x5); Combat drugs (x5); Plasma grenades (x5); Splinter pistol (x5); Close combat weapon (x5); Haywire grenades (x5);
> 1x - Venom (65pt.); Splinter cannon (x2); Flickerfield;

5x - Kabalite Warriors (125pt.) Kabalite armour (x5); Splinter rifle (x4); Blaster;
> 1x - Venom (65pt.); Splinter cannon (x2); Flickerfield;

@Fast attack [ 2 ]

7x - Hellions (112pt.) Wychsuit (x7); Combat drugs (x7); Skyboard (x7); Hellglaive (x7);

6x - Reavers (156pt.) Wychsuit (x6); Splinter pistol (x6); Close combat weapon (x6); Combat drugs (x6); Reaver jetbike (x6); Bladevanes (x6); Heat lance (x2); Splinter rifle (x4);

@Heavy support [ 2 ]

Ravager (105pt.) Dark Lance (x3);

Ravager (105pt.) Dark Lance (x3);

@Created by Head Quarters - online roster builder

So it's got the mandatory darklight weapon per 100 points. Got 7 venoms, some blade-vaning  and a squad of anti-infantry trueborn. Actually got a decent amount of troops that aren't all just going to go in for a suicide attack unlike other de lists I've written and has a little fun unit of hellions that go with the baron and can score late game if someone survives. Mainly their job is to harrass and distract.

I've let go of the voidraven for this one because I've realised that the pricetag it has may just not be worth it at this points level. For higher points, yes definitely, but for now I'm going to drop it. Was trying to get some incubi in there, but honestly this seems better.

After some playtesting I have a feeling that I'll probably switch out the hellions for a small beast pack of maybe 4 khymerae and 2 razorwings but we'll see.

Winning combinations in 6th - Part 1: stand and shoot

This is the first part of probably about three where in an attempt to get some content on the blog I am going to talk about what I've learnt.

With the introduction of fortifications, going all out shooting in your army can be pretty lethal, but why?

First of all you have the chance to take a defence line, making all of your units more durable. You have probably the most advantageous piece of terrain in your deployment zone - so why bother moving?

Then there's the fact that your opponent, unless they are an equally shoots army, has to move across the board to get to you, getting blasted to smithereens by your long range firepower along the way. If used to good effect, a "shooty" army may basically have 2-3 more turns of action than an assault one. Quite compelling evidence that shooting is king in 6th.

My Chaos Daemons

So you've probably seen that I have a new army from battle and tournament reports. In this post I'll talk about some of my thoughts that went into my Chaos Daemon army.

I'll start off by sharing my list for 1500 points:

HQ
Fateweaver

Troops
5x Plague Bearers with icon
5x Plague Bearers with icon
5x Plague Bearers

Elites
3x Flamers of Tzentch
3x Flamers of Tzentch
3x Flamers of Tzentch

Fast Attack
4x Screamers of Tzentch
4x Screamers of Tzentch

Heavy Support
Daemon Prince with Wings, MoT, Breath of Chaos, Daemonic Gaze, Soul Devourer, Master of Sorcery
Daemon Prince with Wings, MoT, Breath of Chaos, Daemonic Gaze, Soul Devourer, Master of Sorcery


I kept asking myself whether it was worth a whole, pocket-busting 333 points for just one character with only 3 wounds, toughness 5 etc... Well it certainly is! Imagine yourself facing just a rather ugly Plague Bearer with your Land Raider swarming with lascannons. You take three shots: all hit and wound. Your opponent saves one 5+. You start screaming with pleasure but then Fateweaver comes to the rescue, giving the Plague Bearer a re-roll. Your opponent saves that. Then you say that at least you killed one. But then your opponent says, "No, Mamma Mia. I still has ze feel no painz!" And he then saves that, laughing his head off!

2012 - Year in Review and Looking ahead

A bit late for this, but another year has come and gone and while there's been a decrease in the number of blog posts, in my opinion the posts were more substantial. I almost managed getting a post a week, so for this year I'm aiming for about 54 blog posts.

Unfortunately it's my GCSE year so blogging time will be hard to get, not to mention hobby time, so having set the above aim, realistically I'm probably not going to have much content on here till march/april and then after that till the summer. If I do post, it may have to become filler content, but I'll try to keep things interesting. With the help of some of the people who are meant to be my co-authors... this year could become more productive for the blog as a whole.

Having said that I'm still going to set myself the following goals:

- Attend at least 3 tournaments this year (got a head start cos I've already been to one!)
- Build 1500 pts of Dark Eldar - hopefully this will be a nicely converted army. I've essentially now had 2 or 2 1/2 armies to practice so I want this to be up to a good standard. I've also persuaded myself that this will probably be my last army that I'm going to buy, despite the temptation of all the other good things out there now
- Paint 1000 points of Dark Eldar, this may be quite hard but then I might have time later this year
- Paint some of the terrain which still hasn't been painted
- Finish the game board with flock and skulls/any missed details - shouldn't be too hard
- Work on my SM/Tau army
- Learn how to play doubles better/attend a doubles tournament

Now, let's take a look at the goals from last year and how I did (I actually haven't looked at them for the whole year until now lol):

1250 point IG list

I've got an 1250 pt tournament coming up, and I really wanted to use my Space Marines. However, after a lot of fiddling I just couldn't come up with anything that worked, so I began to despair and dread the speed-building that I'd have to get through in order to get a force of dark eldar ready.

But then I was worried about the 20 points I'd lose for not having a painted army and realised that my guard would probably be able to scale down.

So this is the list idea that I've come up with. It's good because I've just finished painting everything (including a display board for it all) apart from the defence line:

The Viability of MSU in 6th ed

First things first, all around the internet people have claimed that MSU is now dead, I however, don't think this is necessarily the case.

The aim of the game - basic concept

5 out of 6 of the missions in the rulebook are objective based. There are two ways to handle this when making a list. Either take lots of units (not necessarily small) or take a few durable units AND have sufficient hitting power to knock out enemy scorers. This is where it gets problematic, as most codexes do not allow you to have the ability to have both a lot of units and durable units.

There comes the issue that when you kit out your army with many units, they are often FORCED to be small due to points restrictions, needing other stuff in your list, etc... Meanwhile durable/strong units are often priced accordingly and so you can only take a few.

Where MSU comes in

If you've managed to crack a list which has multiple scoring units, that's durable and works for you then congratulations, for the rest of us, this is where MSU is still viable. Some people would say that in 6th edition you definitely need at least 6 troops from 1500 pts up, (and preferably more as the points increase). I'll be more conservative and say that for 1500 you definitely need 4.

When you take less than this, as soon as one unit is gone - you're effectively screwed. Also it should be taken into account that objectives can be contested/denied, so basically:

the more troops you take = the more objective-grabbing chances you get = the more likely you are to actually hold onto those objectives.

I have seen quite a few players simply take 2 larger squads of troops and then kit out their army into wall of death. The problem with this is that I don't even need to kill the whole squad. Just shoot off 25% and they're gone. This is where fearless troops come into good use, however, it is still just 2 squads. Since they're large squads, you're probably spending quite a few points on them and all you have are 2 chances to capture. In a 5 objective game, I can just let you take your 2 and then easily hold onto 3 of my own, or even just get one and contest your 2.

Space Marines with Tau allies list

Ok so time to put away the guard (at least until I decide what I'm going to change... although there are a few cheeky daemon allies ideas going round the interwebz, and while I'm tempted I really shouldn't be buying new models since I've just acquired a large load of dark eldar - army list later) and dust off the space marines and more specifically my tau.

The tau are going to need a repaint and some weapon changes but at least I have all of this except for 1 single broadside which I can always buy.

So the original idea I was having for SM in 6th was to continue with my sternguard flying around the field accompanied by a gated librarian, but after a few lists that I didn't really like I tried to experiment with bikes and then realised that they cost loads of points. I then attempted to make a hybrid bike and tac marine list to be similar to the one I faced in Offence 6th, and it didn't really look so threatening.

After my last tournament I finally know what I'm doing or at least I hope so...

Librarian (null zone and another power which I'm not decided on yet but suggestions are welcome)

Assault terminators with thunderhammers and stormshields

Tactical Squad with Multi-melta, meltagun, combi-melta, powerfist, rhino
Tactical Squad with missile launcher (might switch for a plasmacannon) and plasmagun, rhino

Stormtalon with typhoon missile launcher and assault cannon

Stormtalon with typhoon missile launcher and assault cannon

Thunderfire cannon

Allies:

Shas'o with cyclic ion blaster (will switch to twin/single missile pod if cheaper but don't have codex on me), plasma rifle, and shield thing that gives him an invuln (plan to probs change)

3 crisis suits with plasma rifle, missile pod and target lock (thing that lets them shoot both, one might get multi-tracker or whatever lets it shoot a different unit)

6 firewarriors (honestly as many as fit, if points allow in the end would take 2 squads)

3 Broadsides

Fortification: Aegis Defence line

This list is in the region of 1750 pts, but I haven't really managed to include everything I want but it's the best one I've managed to make so far in my opinion. While I would love to add a land raider, a quad gun, some pathfinders and a few autocannon dreads - I can save that for higher points values.

Now to explain everything...

A few pre-Offence 6th ed wips

Here's a few painting wips from before the tournament. As I said before I had actually finished my painting my whole 1500 guard force but I don't have pics of that. Here's some other progress though...

I found these in my Independent Stockist in Russia, they were Resin and I thought that althought they were a bit piratey, if I added to them they could be more grimdark.

I had tidy up some air bubbles with liquid greenstuff. Some of the crates were worsethan others...

GW Psychic Powers App Launched

Just some quick news... it seems gw are really starting to take digital products seriously, coming out with an app that is just limited to ipad and is actually useful! The perks include:

- having all the psychic powers from all the races to choose from
- Being able to randomly generate psychic powers from the rulebook
- Having the mastery levels of all the psykers in the game
- Keeping track of psykers and which powers they have
- And even being able to take a photo of your psyker and use that to remind you which psyker has which powers

After seeing all this I was extremely excited, as are you probably, so I decided to have a look at the price. And then my jaw dropped... £7.99 for this !?!?!? Seriously WTF GW?

So maybe it's not such a great thing after all, and added to the price is that apparently (according to a reviewer) they don't have any/some of the codex powers... which is a big minus. Perhaps I won't be getting this one after all...

GW and Pricing - Rant about Dark Vengeance

One thing that's caught while browsing the vast interwebs is people complaining about GW "breaking the $100 price barrier" for a starter set with the about to be released dark vengeance... Really? You're already spending a lot more money on non-starter set models (which are a lot better in terms of quality, poseability, detail, etc) and probably have no interest in the actual starter set and yet you're complaining? Come on - this is an EXPENSIVE hobby after all. The worst thing is that all the people complain and then go and buy the product nevertheless... How is this showing GW that they are wrong to be pricing so high? The only thing ranting on the internet does is annoy people who have to read through loads of blog posts which are full of complaints. I highly doubt that ANYONE in GW even looks at any of the online community or there would have been loads of 'purged' posts which infringe on their copyright.

I haven't even started to mention that it's an 100 DOLLAR barrier... so for english people they have broken what - the £50 barrier??!? Really? What about other countries? The statement obviously doesn't apply, although I do not deny it is high price compared to what it was before, yet can we really put a value to the increase in quality of the miniatures in the box? Couldn't gw be claiming some increase for the newer, better rules that come in the box too? (which could have also been why the full rulebook costs more aswell).

Psychic powers: initial thoughts on divination

Please note: This post was written a while ago (i.e. almost a month ago) before any games of 6th had been played - still while my general opinion may have changed, I still think that telepathy is the best psychic lore, for reasons I may later disclose, although on 3++ they have already done a pretty good review of all the lores now

This may actually end up as a bit of a rant, but you have been warned. What I really don't get is why people all over the Internet say that divination is the best psychic discipline. Ok so your primaris power lets ONE unit re-roll it's to hit rolls... yeah great, because I mean thats so worthwhile to take a psyker such as a space marine librarian for over 100 points just to do that?! Really?

Then we have the powers which are generated randomly. Let's take a look:

Foreboding: while giving you full BS on overwatch is nice, it's very situational and to be honest if thats what you're using psykers for, you're probably wasting your points

Forewarning: this is actually not bad, however in some situations and armies it can be a bit pointless (I.e. where all/most of the army already has the same/better invulnerable save or vehicle heavy armie)- still, this is possibly the best power here

Misfortune: re-rolling successful saves, well that's cool unless you're Eldar and already have pretty much the same power and even if you're not it's rather underwhelming if that's the only effect you're psyker has on the game

Perfect timing: the psyker and unit ignore cover, hmm interesting - great if you're planning to have your  psyker standing near a bunch of plasma guns, not so great if its a ton of lasguns...

6th ed. SM digital codex review part 2

Ok, so now for one of two posts which should have been posted ages ago...

I've been reading through my Space Marine codex and thought that I'd discuss some more of the things that I've noticed. First of all, as I said before old mistakes have been corrected, which is great, but there are still plenty of typos (well yeah, not plenty but still quite a few), ok maybe it's nothing major but for such an expensive product which is mostly made up of lifting text from other sources this in my opinion is simply not good enough.

However it's not all negative. There is a significant amount of new artwork in COLOUR and also some older images which used to be black and white have also been given to us in colour. Examples of this are the tech,arise entry and the stormtalon.

We are also given some new space marine colour schemes and given some more information about existing chapters (its not a lot but at least its something that gives them a little character), which is nice especially if GW continue to add to these, one or two examples below.

Updated SM digital codex review

Just a quick post here to say that I downloaded the new version of the SM codex, and all the mistakes have been ironed out. Also for those that don't know, all the new 6th ed rules are in there and hull points have been integrated into the statlines. Finally I'm begin to see where my 25 quid has gone and if they do keep updating it as rule changes are made I'll be very happy.

Pics of the new entries which used to have mistakes and examples of new profiling system (for old review click here):

iBooks Space marine codex review

6th Ed version update: click here

Since I needed to get rules for my ultramarines (left my codex in Russia) and also because I support the move to digital overall, I bought the electronic version.

As you can see it is highly probable that these special rules have been duplicated from the page before which states Sicarius' rules

Now the problem is that for such an expensive product I would expect it to be perfect but there are occasional glitches as my iPad gets overloaded with information (or at least I think that's why it quits iBooks randomly)

The bigger problem is that there are many typos and when you click on the description of some rules it comes up with the description for another unit (see pictures).