Rites of Battle

A Game of Dread

2012-02-08T19:32:00.006-05:00

Hey everyone. I saw this article and had to post up a support article. As a long time lover of the Dreadnought, I was all kinds of excited to hear about this. While a drive to New York is probably out :(, I hope the game goes well for them!

Check out the actual thread here.

Cheers!

MK "Old" Pattern

2012-02-06T13:35:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone! So it's been a little while, but I'd like to put up an observation that has me a little distressed. It's the Space Marine Box set. While our good fellow gamer B at the FLGS would say that marines don't need anything, I might interject that they could use a new box. I have been looking at the same looking marines since they came out in late 3rd edition, followed through in 4th, and have continued to be the exact same box no in 5th. One of my biggest hopes for the armies of the Adeptus Astartes with the coming of 6th edition is the hopes of maybe getting some new models. So why call for this new box? Lets have a look.
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The Book Whispers

2012-01-30T00:00:00.004-05:00

Ave,

Though it's probably already made it's way into your inbox, but there's a new photo that's been going around the interwebs. & Here it is.

While I haven't been down to the Keep to verify this yet, this is supposed to be a photo of the spines of the first two 2012 issues of White Dwarf lined up together. It could be nothing, but then what fun is rumor mongering without some conjecture and just making things up? The going rumor is that this shroud of a photo is showing a marine in green armor with a tan robe. Hmm... I wonder what that could mean? Perhaps we could be seeing the first (legion) being the last (codex of fifth edition). It adds a bit of fun to my life, as I'd love to see more Dark Angels fluff being added. I hope this just stirs the pot of rumors up more and when we do get an announcement, that no one will believe it. Have fun speculating! Till next time.

Man(iple) Up! part 6

2012-01-26T12:00:00.016-05:00

Ave,

The time has come for me to acknowledge some well-considered and intelligent criticisms of my example list and adapt the example to accommodate those criticisms and better suit the maniple principles I wrote. The new list will look significantly different and will use some rare choices, but I believe that this revision may both better suit the principles and reward aggression like my previous example has done for me.
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Inside Look: Ghost/Doomsday Ark

2012-01-26T10:52:00.008-05:00

Hello everyone. On today's episode of Dragon Ball... or rather Inside Look, I thought I'd take a look at one of GW's newest kits, the Ghost/Doomsday Ark. At first glance I was immediately shocked at the level of detail that has gone into the new metal men of the 41st millennium. Much like the Mandrakes of Dark Eldar, the new Necrons utilize a fairly decent amount of engraved lines and built in details. This is a great improvement upon the old as it just adds a level of detail that the majority of the hobbyist and players have a hard time achieving. It seems the sculptors at GW have gone the extra distance to really make this new line shine.
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Number 200

2012-01-25T10:55:00.000-05:00

Wanted to stop and say thanks to all of our readers as we pass the 200 mark of Rites of Battle. We hope to keep bringing you the best we can in interweb shenanigans.

Cheers!

Now & Later

2012-01-24T15:42:00.004-05:00

For anyone who’s enjoyed this tasty candy comes today’s delicious article on the latest things to talk about in 40k: Necrons and 6^th Edition. Now, I haven’t gotten a look at the leak myself but I’ve kept on a close eye on those rumors I see circulating, and I’ve looked the Necron codex over in great detail (mainly because it’s my first army outside of my beloved Ravens.)

Hobby Table V

2012-01-23T00:03:00.001-05:00

Hey guys, and welcome to another edition of Hobby Table. Once again I have had some fun with my spare time and have come up with another unique scenario for people to enjoy. Inspired by my Death Korps, and eager to create a fun (if toxic) atmosphere for those beer and pretzel lovers out there.
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Bang for your Buck

2012-01-19T13:52:00.003-05:00

Hey guys. Today I thought I'd brush off the old soap box and do a little preaching. I promise to keep the religious zealotry I possess (... ha ha) to a minimum and keep on preaching about the use of points. As I've said before, I'm not one for buying units into may army without putting a little something in them to make them worth the initial cost. I won't say that this is the "only" way to do it, nor always the best idea. But, I guess it's worked for me in the past.

So the theory here is to look at your list and apply some more thought to it. Of course there is a mentality that can go with it such as building an army of Swiss Army Knife units that are suite to take on just about any target (the established "Marine" style) vs building several units , each with their own specific use and ability set (the established "Xenos" style). This is a discussion for a different day, but it can come up here. So how does spending points come into play?

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The Crossroads from 5th to 6th

2012-01-11T14:01:00.001-05:00


So many directions to go, and only one new edition			!

Hey everyone, After a cup of tea and a once over the supposed leaked 6th edition snippets, I thought it'd be a good idea to have a chat about the state of the game now, and where it sounds like it's going. Bare in mind I'm very much the "I'll believe it when I see it in print" kinda guy when it comes to rumors for 40k so I don't take a lot of the rumors to seriously, but there are a few little (and a few more big) changes that have been floating about the interwebz for some time now. I was curious to know what people think about the game, and how these changes will affect it. If even half of the rumors about 6th are true, the game is looking to become radically different. Before going to much further, I'll post a link to the "leaked 6th Ed. rules."

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The Wheel of Time RPG

2012-01-08T11:08:00.006-05:00

By Ishamael

Born at the dawn of the new millennium shortly after the advent of Third Edition, The Wheel of Time RPG was made in 2001 and only consists of a couple books, some old online support, and a couple bits in Dragon Magazine. From what I understand, RJ had to fight with Wizards quite often to keep them from putting the iconic classes from D&D into the WoT world. Which is quite understandable, since ninjas, clerics, and monks simply don't exist in that setting. However, eventually he got fed up and stopped working with them on it. After all, he had books to write!
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Progress Report: Godfrey's Death Korps

2012-01-06T22:40:00.000-05:00

Hey guys! Just thought I'd put up a few peeks into my Death Korps. Having a blast building and painting them so far, and can't wait to get more!

Cheers!

Man(iple) Up! Part 5

2012-01-02T00:00:00.002-05:00

Ave,

While my recent trip to the Game Preserve did not result in triumph, I thought I would begin with a triumph from history. In the picture, from HBO's series Rome, Julius Caesar is celebrating his victories of the the barbarian Gauls with a ceremony called a triumph. These were generally only once-in-a-lifetime honors for generals and the pinnacle of their careers. Their faces would be painted to show their near divine status. Triumphs were chances for feasting, games and self-promotion for the general and some of the more successful generals would begin fighting the Senate and each other for sole control of Rome.
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Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T02:30:00.000-05:00

From all of us at Rites of Battle, we hope 2012 will be everything it can be... except the end of the world. We aren't sure, but there might not be enough war games in the afterlife for everyone, so for God-Emperor's sake lets hope this isn't the last year for it.

Hope this year will find you all well.
~ Rites of Battle Staff

Turbulence in Segmentum Tempestus

2011-12-31T18:09:00.007-05:00

Life in the 41st millennium is not one of ease. The single truth is that the notion of peace is never a lasting one, and sooner or later war is all we know. The story you now read is no exception to this truth. ~ Colonel Hans Steinweg

This is the opening act of another tale from the Imperium of Man. On the eastern fringe of the Segmentum Tempestus lies the planet of Bakka, a long standing Imperial naval base. As this planet lies on the very edge of the galaxy, it is no stranger to war. The vastness of the Imperium has many planets and assets that lie undermanned and ill-equipped to defend themselves. Unfortunately, Bakka would be one that soon recognized this terrible truth all too well.

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Holidays!

2011-12-23T00:07:00.000-05:00

From all of here at Rite of Battle, we wanted to wish you guys and girls happy holidays. Keep your bolters bolty and your choppaz choppy, and we'll see you all again next year!

Cheers!

Chill With the Penguins!

2011-12-18T23:40:00.000-05:00

Hey Guys! The Penguins are at it again raising money for charity! They're hosting a live stream of their Zelda Marathon as we speak!

Don't miss it! Jump in!

Monitoring the Percentages

2011-12-17T14:48:00.001-05:00

"Zeus has been around since the earliest days of the Gaming Grid. By Necessity, he has to monitor all the percentages. All the angles..." ~ Castor

After some time spent rounding up rumors about the upcoming Black Templar re-release supposedly scheduled to drop sometime around March of 2012, I have stumbled upon some interesting rumors regarding some changes 40k will experience in 6th edition. I myself am looking forward to each, as they both stand to gain from updates. However one thing stuck out to me when I read through some of the 6th ed. rumors floating around.
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Guest Article: Playing My Way

2011-12-15T14:33:00.000-05:00

We received an article from ZerkeX today, and it looks like December is a hot month for Tactics.

Check out his article on how to make your opponent play by your rules. I must say I enjoy the theory behind forcing your opponent's hand in their decision making by using well planned and often times brutal tactics.

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Make it count

2011-12-12T22:42:00.004-05:00

So in response to Heretic's Maniple method, I thought I would write up a quick article to define the approach I take to the battlefield which I have no real name for, I simply call it "Making it Count." I don't mean to undermine the Maniple in any way, this is just a different method to think about.
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Man(iple) Up! Part 4

2011-12-11T12:34:00.002-05:00

Ave,

Last time I talked about the role of tactical squads in my maniple mindset marine army. You may have noticed that I sidestepped explaining how my tactical squads that were armed to the teeth would fit into a mindset where troops choices survive until the end of the game by being non-threatening to your opponent. I could drop the weapons from my tactical squads to make them less threatening, though at that point they begin to lose their utility beyond light anti-infantry support and scoring. Today's article is about why the combat squads aren't threatening in comparison to the distraction units in the army.
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Man(iple) Up! Part 3

2011-12-08T12:00:00.002-05:00

Ave,

Last time we talked about how to build a list that could imitate the maniple both in its organization and its adaptability. We talked about how distracting units can add to the survivability of troops choices and how the survival of those troops is essential to winning most games. Now that we've looked at the basics of this mentality, we need to look into how it can be applied by looking at an example army and some of the tactics used by that army. I've been developing an army list to implement these ideas and wanted to explain why I chose these units so I can explain how they fit in the maniple mentality and how I intend to use these units. Now for the list:
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An Updated Look and Feel

2011-12-07T15:14:00.001-05:00

Hey everyone.

Just letting you all know the site will be undergoing some maintenance. After a long time standing, I will be doing some much needed revisions to the behind the scenes works for Rites. I am hoping to utilize some new features like Page Jumps (the read more features) as well as some additional pages. We on staff appreciate your patience, and we hope to bring you the best quality we can.

Cheers!

Man(iple) Up! Part 2

2011-12-06T17:30:00.002-05:00

Ave frater,

Last time we talked about the history of the Roman maniple as a short introduction to this series of articles. There are multiple ways we can interpret the lessons of the maniple and apply them to our game of 40k, both strategically and in the story of the universe. Because we have different armies we will be looking at different applications of different principles all shown in the maniple system. This is going to take a while, so settle in and I hope you enjoy my ramblings.
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Stop Motion Project

2011-12-05T14:18:00.002-05:00

Hey guys. I had a creative project I was working on for a professor which ended up using some of my 40k models. It is a crude first attempt as this is indeed my first attempt at a stop motion piece, but i thought it turned out alright. Hope you guys enjoy it. Usually use YouTube, but this will suffice for now.

Man(iple) Up! Part 1

2011-12-01T14:30:00.009-05:00

This article is going to be a bit longer than I thought, so I'm breaking it up into a few segments. The first thing we need to understand is the historical and tactical background of the terms I'm using to understand how it can be applied to 40k. I'll be looking at one of the most successful armies of antiquity, the Roman army, and why the formation they created, the maniple, was so devastating.
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Plug and Preview

2011-12-01T10:31:00.001-05:00

Good day everyone and Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you all had a good time celebrating with your families and that you survived the commercial carnage of Black Friday. I'll be trying to write more, as I've been busy for the last few months, but before I jump into an idea on army composition I'd like to give a little plug to some friends of mine who are opening a new game shop.
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Guest Article: Space Hulk

2011-11-28T12:54:00.006-05:00

So here is the first of our Guest Articles. Corvus Sanguine has written up a brief summery of our recent creation. Cheers!
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Role Play vs Roll Play

2011-11-21T09:47:00.013-05:00

Changing pace for a little bit, I'm going to shift away from my usual topic of 40k and talk about games of a different (but possibly similar) feel. All games have an element of role playing in them, whether it be something as extensive as DnD where you create and play a character, to something even in 40k where you might try to think like or create a story for your particular commander or army. We all play these games to escape from reality in some form or another. Its the ability to roll play that makes a game more than just a bunch of nerds (meant with all due respect and love) sitting around a room together.
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Battle Report VII

2011-11-16T10:42:00.008-05:00

Here's a 2000 point match up between Black Legion Dave and myself. We played Seize Ground with 3 objectives on Spearhead Deployment. Was a really great game. Hope you all enjoy.

As a quick edit note, I forgot to mention the Carnifexes all had Adrenal Glands as well. I4 on the charge ftw.

Fluff on the Battlefield

2011-11-14T09:18:00.011-05:00

Alright, this is one of those articles that really serves no purpose other than to try to get people active on the page. That said, I feel that this is a worthwhile question that has been in a lot of discussions in a lot of different game stores.

"Where does fluff fit in this game?"

Some people argue that the game itself is what it is, a strategy game. The dice and the rules are what make the game, and the stories, while nice reads, have little to do with playing this game. This player focuses on list construction in an attempt to create powerful synergies which maximize what their particular codex can do (which in no way is a bad thing, but can often lead to strange unit match ups to maximize rules).

This type of player feels more at home in the presence of stiff competition and generally do well in tournaments as their ability to construct powerful lists and maximizing the output of their army generally pertain to much more solid chances in "random" situations (this random referring to the idea of not knowing who or what army you'll be facing in tournaments).

This type of player generally knows how to play the game very well. In many ways they may have mastered some aspects of the game. Their skills may become the current "meta" if done well enough, and this is truly a testament to this ability to think in ways others may not.

vs.

Other people say that creating lists that follow the story or fluff of the game is much more crucial. In this game, we have creative license to create our own armies, but should really follow the fluff. Units are designed to fit a story, and we use them to reenact or create moments from the universe.

When playing the game, often times we'll see somewhat less potent units and/or combinations being used in order to attain a better story. These players often use units deemed "bad" from the online meta. Units will generally play smart, but may often not stand up in comparison to meta-strength units.

Generally these players seem to feel more at home in the beer and pretzels style game with friends. This isn't to say they can't enjoy or do well in the tournament scene, but many times their lists may not sand up. These players may utilize units that are custom made and may or may not fit the correct scale or size in order to allow for more hobby (larger bases or taller/shorter models).

Now I'm not saying that these are the only two types of players. These are examples from the somewhat extreme ends of play. I personally feel like I sit in the middle and float between the two feels. I try to create lists that follow the fluff, but these units are generally pretty potent units. I avoid bad units (as I know I am competitive) but will try to utilize units as they would be in the fluff.

What do you guys think about this? I would really like to see people bring their thoughts in on this. This is a question I know we've all had, and having a discussion online can bring new minds in to have a much broader intellect and more points of view available.

In the end we all can play how we see fit. There is not really a right or wrong way to play. I'm interested to see where people sit on this particular discussion.

Cheers!

A Reappropriation

2011-11-09T10:00:00.008-05:00

I won't bore you with details, but after stopping to review a few things, I felt that my user name was no longer appropriate. Named after the sector in which Rynn's World was located, It was a good name at the time given my army was the Crimson Fists.

While I still hold them close, I have never held a bond with an army like I do with my Black Templars. It is likely I will always play them, and as such felt it appropriate to alter my user name on Rites. I have chosen the name of my Emperor's Champion to represent myself with. I even have a new Emperor's Champion Model with a few minor changes to make it my own (picture coming soon).

So with that, the last rites of Loki have been read.

Playing with Yourself

2011-11-03T13:09:00.003-04:00

So lets skip the talk about the birds and the bees for a moment and move onto a topic that I think is something people never think about in terms of learning this game. 40k is, at it's core a strategy game. It shares a lot of similarities with games like Chess, where a lot of the game rides on how you think, and how your opponent thinks. Taking the dice out of the equation for a moment we know that in order to win we have to play the mission, but in a lot of ways we need to play the player as well.

In a game where thinking and strategic moves are as crucial as they are here... we have to find more and more ways to look at this game. Experienced veterans will come to the table and in little to no time once they have determined where they will set up and what the mission is, they will generally have a plan for the upcoming 5 to 7 turns; while newer player will take a little more time to examine the terrain, how their units will interact with it, and what units benefit the most by being in one spot or another.

This is where knowledge and time interact pretty differently. A new player will take this time to focus on how they will play, and what their units will be doing. A veteran will already have these questions answered in a very short time, and can then spend the rest of this time evaluating what their opponent is doing. Studying units, where they are set up, and how the army will most likely play. Everything that is on the table, and even units in reserve tells a player who knows how to "read a unit" what their plan is.

So how can new players try to reduce this disadvantage? Besides playing dozens of games against dozens of armies and players... it is hard to get that experience... or is it? I devised a way (quite accidentally) to help players better themselves as players and it only requires you and yourself.

I grew up with a brother and some of his friends who played this game... Their commitment to playing was sporadic at best and after many of them left for college (as they were much older than me), I soon found myself with no opponents. So I began playing against myself. I started off small, taking small armies that met force org rules and pitted them against the other units in my army that also met force org. Over time I began to teach myself more and more about not only my army rules, but also game rules, strategies, and even how units could be used against other units. It provided such a unique challenge.

Something else that has come from this is how to out think your own self. Many times we take the same or similar units repeatedly, and generally run them the same way every game. But when the person sitting on the other side of the table is you, it becomes pretty clear that often times your go to strategy is often not the answer... and your other self will know exactly how to counter it. This forces you to rethink your strategy. It also serves as a way for even experienced players to stand to gain from this.

Whether you are new and are trying to find a way to better understand the game, or an experienced veteran seeking a unique challenge... playing a game against yourself often provides a challenge that is almost impossible to gain anywhere else. Knowing that our opponent already knows what you are planning can often help force yourself to think of better strategies relying less on chance and more on skill than playing against another skilled player. It will help give you an edge when you look at your list, and you know exactly where the weak points are, so that you can guard them with your strengths.

I urge everyone to take some time, even more time than you would spend on a usual game... talk out loud to yourself (even have conversations with the other you... try to get into the head of both players at once). It sounds weird, and your room mates might think your a little nuts... but I have found it to be an invaluable aid in learning the game, how I play, and how to prevent people from stopping how I play. I hope you guys give it a shot. After all, I'm sure we all know how much fun playing with ourselves can be. :D

Cheers!

A Closer Look: Part II

2011-10-19T12:29:00.006-04:00

This article is actual brought to you in part by the Bloomington Tournament circuit. It is a stipulation of close combat which allows the targeting of multiple units.

The majority of units in the game have multiple models and so attacking multiple targets isn't unlikely, especially if they are attacking a target which contains an independent character. However it works both ways.

According to the rules, any unit that is in base to base contact with multiple enemy units may choose to separate its attacks between them.

This translates into allowing an Independent Character in base to base with multiple units to attack both. For example, and IC in base with another IC as well as an enemy unit can make attacks against both in the same round of combat. This could prove useful in some scenarios where the strength of the weapon could cause instant death on the enemy IC while allowing for maximum damage against the unit the enemy IC is with.

I have always equated the idea that since a single model unit could not charge multiple units, it couldn't separate their attacks. I learned this the hard way in the tournament this past weekend (which was quite enjoyable). Be sure to watch out for these interesting moments in your future games.

Cheers!

Balance Homework Assignment

2011-10-18T16:02:00.002-04:00

by Ishamael

Time for a little geek fury on my part.

I'm sure we're all aware that Bell of Lost Souls exists, and I hope most of you know that their tactical and analytical capacities as a writing staff are generally subpar, with worthwhile pieces being written only once in a while.

It's use lies in rumors and some great painting/hobby articles.

Now, a lot of you liked my article on balance, and I plan on following that up with a more contestable subject, which is going to be about our gaming tables.

This has me in a poor mood.

Tell me why.

What Does List Balance Refer To?

2011-10-09T16:34:00.007-04:00

Ok, so the various factors that make up teh warhams can be summed up as follows:

List, which is book-dependent.
Terrain, which is a competency check for the table builder.
Tactics, which vary and come together to make up strategy.
Luck.
Rules knowledge has to be put on here. Some people get rather off-base and try to argue intent.

Here I want to obviously talk about lists, and what one needs to include in order to succeed.

To begin, let's draw a distinction between "style" and "balanced," the former of which tends toward imbalance because the player wants cool toys, but at the cost of efficiency. Balance then refers to efficiency, yet where does it begin?

Because I like the book so much, I'm going to begin using the basic Space Marine codex.

Efficiency is maximum benefit for minimal investment.

Mainly because I'm a whore for them, librarians are a wonderful investment in utility for a scant 100 points. As far as HQs go, hot damn is that sweet for its points. I give the fella Null Zone and Gateway of Infinity. So yay, I can turn the tables on any invulnerable saves, and can teleport to try and control/contest a point.

Ok, so for a case study, let's look at what I've seen done a lot with tactical squads, which is something like 10 guys, meltagun, combi-melta, missile/multi-melta, and a power fist. Assuming a Rhino, which people should at least do, this brings the point total up to 245.

Comparatively, my tactical squads have the same loadout, minus the power fist. Why? I never give up combat tactics for my army. Since I can run away when I lose cc, and I WILL, I'ma just run away and wait for another shooting opportunity to show up. Also, for those saved 100 or so points from not having power fists, I get ahold of points to spend on an extra, and most of another, landspeeder.

Only take a power fist if you are stubborn or fearless. If that's the case, then you'll be forced to stay in close combat, and they become somewhat worthwhile. Some folks state that, even with combat tactics, power fists should be taken for the "chance" to do something in close combat. This generally refers to walkers, and with a sergeant, who only has two attacks, his odds of doing anything worthwhile are pretty slim, something like 1/2 x 1/3 x 1/3 to destroy that dreadnought. Banking on a 1/18 chance to do something for 25 points doesn't strike me as worthwhile.

All the little decisions that go in to list making like this make up efficiency. Bells and whistle should come after the army gets as many freebies as it can, which this particular book provides.

Using efficient units will give you the tools to have a balanced list, which includes mobile elements, melta-delivery units, support fire, as well as plenty of troops for pawns and holding points.

So, what do we need in our lists to take care of whatever can come at us?

Let's look at some army concepts first:

Mechanized whatever.
Foot.
Horde.
Elite.

So, do I have the tools to destroy a parking lot of vehicles, the weight of fire to destroy walking infantry, whether they are in cover or not, enough tools to hit a large portion of an advancing horde, and quality of fire to kill a smaller, harder-to-kill army? If you can't say yes to all these, try again.

As far as some guidelines go for equipment, I go with at least 6 different melta-delivering units, all of which are mobile. These are 4 combi-melta/meltagun combat squads, as well as 3 multi-melta landspeeders. So hey, I can use these units to block movement of heavy tanks, pop out/use the hatch, and have a decent chance at blowing up a vehicle, which everyone needs to be able to do. Doubling up on shots is amazingly effective for this, even on the single-shot weapons.

Next, you need some support fire elements.

Regardless of what kind of army one chooses to put on the field, you need support fire of some kind, even if it is just to suppress enemy tanks. If you're assaulting, this lets you get into the juicy bits inside of transports. If you're a shooty army, then it lets you force them out of their armored boxes to be vulnerable to further firing.

This is where redundancy of a particular unit comes in handy. A large portion of my support fire comes from 3 rifleman dreadnoughts, as well as the missile launcher half of my combat squads. Only having two or three support fire does not count, because unless you've a special trick, like long fangs, they can be taken out relatively easily by an enemy's support fire, which fangs are particularly weak to, since they can only have 6 men in squads. Both of my units happen to serve as weaker anti-infantry units, which lends some duality to my list.

Further, for a balanced list, you need to have no obvious achilles' heels. This refers to using a large amount of points on a single unit, generally with their transport. Tricked out terminators in an upgraded landraider come to mind for an example of this. Unless you happen to be Blood Angels, and have access to priests, these units are either easily ignored, blocked, or taken care of. Adding feel no pain and furious charge does give them a large edge on one's enemies. Depending on keeping something alive also acts as a lynchpin...like an ethereal, which nobody wants to acknowledge exists, because it's terrible.

So, you need mobile melta delivery, support fire, spread out threats, and, while I didn't really mention it, troops that are worth a damn. 2/3 of the game we need to be able to hold points, and having 8 scoring units in my list does help with that. Add in the mobility of Rhinos and my librarian, and no part of the field completely out of my reach.

To end this, I'll toss up my list again, just in its 1850 variant because I took second at the recent tournament, and so got the last Predator I need.

Librarian- combi-melta
4x 10 Tactical Marines- meltagun, combi-melta, missile launcher
4x Razorbacks
3x Dreadnoughts- 2x twin-linked autocannons
3x Landspeeders- multi-melta, heavy flamer
3x Predators- heavy bolter sponsons

So yay, plenty of anti-tank effective at different ranges and bands of armor, lots of anti-infantry, some decent mobile elements for pushing into midfield, and troop choices to hold my home point if needed. Provided I don't block my own fields of fire, this should generally be able to fire most of its payload against any enemy it faces, and have the tools to deal with wild cards.

I take "wild card" to refer to something like an all-terminator list. Something that is unbalanced towards a particular aspect (heavy armor for everybody!) which I can counter with quality of fire and utility (meltaguns + null zone), or simply weight of fire through the dreads and preds.

Undoubtedly there's more to be said on the subject, and I'll think of some more things to write on concerning list construction. Mind you, a balanced list can get screwed by those aspects I wrote of in the beginning, so all it does is give you the tools to do well regardless of your matchup.

See you space cowboy,
Ishamael

Battle Report VI

2011-10-05T16:35:00.004-04:00

We thought it had been much too long since our last battle report. So the wrong has been remedied.

A 1750 Annihilation on Pitch Battle set up with Warmaster Havok and Corvus proved to be a close game. Hope you guys enjoy.

Cheers!

Necrons M.I.A.

2011-09-25T21:52:00.003-04:00

So maybe it's just me, but I have noticed a distinct lack of the oldest race (and codex) of them all on GW's website.

Perhaps there is a bit of truth in the rumors of them being next up in the realm of new codexes... or they couldn't live with the shame of bro fisting the Blood Angels and committed mass suicide.

Then again if they wanted to commit suicide they could always just play a battle with their current codex :P

Criteria of Competitive

2011-09-18T20:46:00.008-04:00

by Ishamael

Yay, near-alliteration!

So, one of the most interesting thought experiments we can engage in in our games is what criteria come together to make a thing competitive or not. So, let's talk some competitive in warhams. So, I'll toss out some criteria, and explain them:

Melta
A huge change from 4th to 5th came when GW created a use for AP 1 weaponry. Turned this weapon from being a decent anti-tank weapon to a required one for reliable tank-killing.

Mobility
This comes in the form of having plenty of troop-carrying vehicles around so you can get around the board enough to threaten objectives. Foot lists generally don't have this unless they have their own special form of mobility, like Templars.

Troops
They're worth taking if a 5th ed. book, because only they can capture objectives, and by and large they're also capable of dealing damage to enemies, as well as threatening tanks.

Target Saturation
So, we have this concept called Multiple Small Units (hence MSU) wherein a player spreads his threats out to where there are no linchpins in his army that would severely weaken it should a unit that costs a lot be lost. This also forces your opponent to worry about target priority depending on your deployment.

Support Fire
Pretty much every army needs support fire in some way. Gotta open transports to assault the juicy bits inside somehow. This is also where you place your longer range suppression units.

Movement Blocking
Most of the time we can see where an opponent is going, or will want to go. So, how do we deny him that? Well, stick an expendable unit or a vehicle in the way to deny him his prize for a turn.

Deep Strike Defense
This is something I need pictures to do, but essentially you define your deployment zone to do two things: make dangerous places for your opponent to deep strike, and also use your extra bodies to push out possible landing zones away. Decent use for combat squads against a full Drop Pod army. Albeit, in that case you will want to use your mechanized elements as well to push them back.

Field of Fire
When you deploy a unit, be sure to eyeball how much of the field it will actually be able to see before you finalize your zone.

Weight of Dice
All other things being equal, dice will determine the day. As such, when you really, really need something to die, regardless of how many wounds or what saves it has, force that unit to keep rolling dice, and hope for some fails. Primary anti-Terminator bugspray.

Given that these are just a few concepts to be aware of in this game, what else might we need to be aware of when building lists, considering deployment, or whatever while enjoying our games of Warhammer 40k?

PLASTIC TOY SOLDIERS <3, Ishamael

Guest Articles

2011-09-15T10:30:00.006-04:00

Hello everyone.

I have recently been talking with a few of our fellow gamers out there and the thought occurred to me that we at Rites of Battle would like to extend our horizons a bit. We can only write so much about so many things, and given our time constraints sometimes... we hate to leave our page un-updated for the lengths of time it often goes.

So I would like to extend an invitation to our readers out there to get involved. We would love to see your thoughts on future articles, but also... if you would like to write an article up and send it our way, we'd love to credit you and put it up on RoB.

just send your articles, any pictures you would like with it, and the author name you would like with it to zelemmy@gmail.com and we'll put it up on the site.

Hope to get some good articles from you soon.

Cheers!

A First Review: Space Marine

2011-09-14T09:10:00.011-04:00

Hello fellow gamers, I will preface this article with a solid recommendation for this game.

So after waiting and waiting I've finally gotten to play, beat, and love this game. Ever since it's announcement, I've been drooling and fervently praying to the Golden Throne it would come out sooner. Well the wait was most defiantly worth it. The game has just about everything going for it. Like everything new it has one or two things that it needs a tweak on, but I can't really complain about them.

So I wanted to look at some of the pros and cons as well as some interesting thoughts and speculations. WARNING SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!

Pros

1. The Scale
The first thing I noticed about the game was not only was the aesthetic perfect, but the size of everything was unbelievable! I walked out of the first building, and looked up, and up, and up. The environment is full of Giant Gothic towers, and huge manufactorums. Even one of the first missions has you push giant planetary defense projectiles into a huge cannon! Just awesome.

As you progress through the game more and more of the classic forgeworld look is visible, and I loved ever part of it.

2. The Battles
I have to quote Corvus on this one. "Everything you do just feels... epic." This is true Literally every battle is a fight, and on a huge scale. Hordes of orks, packs of deamons, and the foul forces of chaos tend to make everything a challenge... Hell even walking outside to take a piss would probably end up being a huge ordeal. That's exactly what the grim darkness of the far future should feel like.

3. The Space Marines
Now with the exception of my natural dislike for the sons of Rowboat Girlyman... the marines were fantastic... cept Leandros... The character models were very beautiful, and felt like they had a real bulk and weight behind everything they did. The voice acting was exceptional, and the characters themselves had great character.

My only real issue was a general lack of helmets, as well as the ones who did wear helmets didn't have that metalic vox sound to their voices. Would have loved to see this. I would have also enjoyed a little deeper pitch to the volume of the non-captain actors.

4. The Suspense
Now I do enjoy a good plot, which I'll get to later, but the game kept me wanting more. Even the ending had the added suspense of making me want more! Now that' a well done finish to make you want more.

Cons

1. The Plot
It seems to me that a long time ago when the original Dawn of War was released... this plot line had seen it's debut. Now it is a good plot... no qualms there, but I was a little bummed when I felt like I had done a lot of this before. Some things were a little different, but on the whole it felt a little copy pasted to me.

2. The Boss
This fight let me very underwhelmed. I expected a hardcore fight to the finish with a daemonprince. But what I got was a falling sequence with quick time events... wtf?! Come on! After the complete success of everything prior, I get this! I could barely watch the fight as I was to busy watching what button I had to press next. Bleh. Next time give me a boss I can actually fight.

3. The Ending
Ok, so while the ending left me wanting more... I feel it might be more or less because I hated the ending. Now I want to see what happens to Captain Titus, and hope Leandros gets hit by an intergalactic Mack truck, but after everything I went through... I felt cheated.

But beyond anything else what bothered me the most was truly because I'm a fan boy. MY TEMPLAR! I was so excited when i heard that the Templar would finally be in a game! I was ready to see them kick ass and then I got... well a very disappointing appearance. First, they all had the same character model (had to show off their custom skin instead of a little customization to the squad), they all carried bolters, and they were escorting a PSYCKER! WHAT THE UNHOLY FUCKEDY FUCK IS THIS!?! The absolute last chapter to have escorting a psycker inquisitor is the Templar! Uhhg.

Was not pleased by that fluff wrenching appearance. I'm expecting somewhere in the development stages of this game, Ward found his way into the room and planted another one of his "hey... wouldn't it be cool if" ideas into the team's fragile minds.

But I do have a puzzling thought. All of the pics released prior to launch have a squad of guys who do not seem to be in the basic game. Could this be the coop play they have talked about releasing next month? I'll bet it is. Notice that Deff Dread that was rather absent in the campaign?

So how again, if you havent played the game, I urge you to at least watch it. For the most part, everything is darn near perfect!

Cheers!

A Fully Loaded Hobby Table.

2011-09-07T10:51:00.015-04:00

Well it has been some time since I was able to appropriately give 40k the time I'd like to give it. With Grad school starting up, starting a business, and general other things to do... I haven't had any real time for it... well that all changes soon I hope. SO I suppose there are a few things I need to update on.

I currently have a few armies that I am trying to maintain, a little here and there I guess. I still have my beloved Templar army, which I am now returning to. I plan to get as much done in the coming weeks as I can. I have told myself I would do at least a model a day until I have my usual list done. I currently have 20 fully painted and based marines, and 5 neophytes... given that I generally run 2 blobs and a rhino squad... I have some work ahead of me... primarily neophytes.

Not all is lost, I did manage to finish my latest additions to the Army. Godfrey the Emperor's Champion was updated, and is now a custom sculpt using the new Resin model... better keep him out of the sun though :P I also finished painting a Thunder Hammer Storm Shield Terminator Model from Scibor Monster Minis I picked up at GenCon.

And speaking of GenCon, I found a deal I couldn't pass up on. I snagged a Tyranid army there on the cheap. Managing to grab 6 carnifexes, 90 hormigaunts, a trygon, 3 resin Hive Guard, a resin tyrant and 2 tyrant guard, 9 Warriors, and the codex all for $450... I couldn't pass it up. I plan to run them as such.

Recently people have declared the codex to be the worst of 5th edition. I will agree with that statement without any real question. I do feel like it received one to many nerf bats to the face, and I really hope GW will give it some new models soon seeing how they have released a whole new model line for other armies, but have yet to produce a real wave of nids in a while is a little disturbing.

Where my opinion shifts from the common is that people believe the nids only have 1 good build... Tervispam as I call it. It's everywhere in rearguards to nids... Well When I picked up my Templar (after my brother officially made them mine) it was under the idea that the popular belief was they didn't work. So I challenged myself to make them work... and I feel I have. Now the Nids are my new project. I am running a list that is all Hormigaunts and Carnifexes because I love the units, I love their models, and darned it all I'm gonna try to make em work. I have played a few games so far, and I'd have to say I've had a fair bit of success. I think I have an element of surprise, as not many people are used to seeing it. I'll try to keep you posted on their results.

I have two other little armies I'm sitting on currently. One of Which is my Crimson Fist army. I am still looking to sell these as my Marine army of choice is hands down the Black Templar. I did have a though of converting it into a Sternguard Drop pod army sometime in the future, but that is a ways down the pipe. My other is a Grey Knight terminator Army. I love the models, and enjoyed customizing my own Dreadknight. A friend expressed interest in the models and it would be his first army. I'll keep a few as I'm proud of them, and my have a use for them... but I am probably going to sell this army to him so he has a cheap way to get into the hobby. Another player is always a good thing in the 40k community.

And with the absence of the Daemonhunters... comes a thought from left field. Corvus and I have been discussing the idea of building daemons... as a nice side project. A while back I bought a box of Bloodletters to model some fun conversions, but never got to it. Now it seems I may have a use for them again. I love Khorne Daemons, and used to have a fairly sizable army of them. If I can find my old Skarbrand, I'd love to get him back.. loved that model. So while I collect skulls for yon Skull Throne, Corvus is looking into a duel army of Tzeench and Slaanesh. I would pick up Nurgle daemons to round us out... but I have never been fond of their rules, or their models. So Gramps may have to sit out for this particular round.

But after my look into Forgeworld (yes, still drooling over the Khorne Daemonprince) I have one thing that bothers me. I love... and I mean LOVE the Khorne Bezerker upgrade. I want to use them so very badly, but I don't want to run Khorne Bezerkers as I have a marine army that likes to insert chain weapons into the opposing side's face. Corvus and Warmaster Havoc have given my a few suggestions on how to use them... but I'm not sure if I really could. So I may just have to sniffle and not buy them. For now anyways ^.^

I haven't started this army yet though, so for now it's not high on my importance list. I have a simple scheme on my Tyranids that should allow me to move through that army relatively fast, while still being a pretty decent looking lot :p, and if I can keep up the pace I should be able to get my templar back up and running soon.

Oh last thing, I did manage to pick up a box of Space Hulk recently. But since I do not play Blood Angels, the obvious ting to do it convert the models (oh how gorgeous) to Templar. i can also paint my Levi Stealers in my Tyranid scheme... win win huh. And speaking of Space Hulk, I may have our own Corvus write a guest article on a new game variant we have created.

So there you have it. I'm not sure when I went from having Templar to everything else, but I have my hands full of 40k goodness once again, and I'll be trying to keep up on them all. That is in between bouts of Space Marine.

^.^ Cheers!

The Fighter

2011-09-06T18:30:00.001-04:00

The world of Probitas had an ancient tradition, maintained for untold millennia after its original settlers left Terra, a meditative practice that was said to unlock hidden powers latent within every person. It was said that if one could empty the self of all fears and emotion, a strange "light" would radiate from within the self, and by channeling that could one become more than human. Probitas was an agri-world, under the jurisdiction and governance of the Lord of Macragge, Chapter Master of the Ultramarines. Yearly calls for fighting men would be sent to every tribe by an unknown method to the natives: a large being resembling an armored God would visit and from his strange helmet would an authoritative voice announce the challenge.

Sextus was practicing the forms of fighting with a quarterstaff when he heard the announcement from a training ground outside the main ring of houses. He was now old enough to fight in the sight of these Godlike beings. Unlike anyone he knew, Sextus was able to empty himself and grasp the strange power his people spoke of with a reverent tone. Beyond enhancing his senses, he had not found another use for it as of yet, but the elders implied that much could be done with it.

Tournament Report

2011-08-31T22:20:00.003-04:00

Captain Vanilla here, with my reflections and thoughts after the tournament that occurred this past Saturday!

Damn this is late. Stupid Latin.

Anyway, it was a 3-round Battle Points type tournament, 1750 points. My list consisted of:

Librarian
3x 10 Tactical Marines- Melta, Combi-Melta, Missile
10 Tactical Marines- Flamer, Combi-Melta, Missile
4x Razorbacks
3x Dreadnoughts- 2x Twin-Linked Autocannons
3x Land Speeders- Heavy Flamer, Multi-melta
2x Predators- Heavy Bolter Sponsons

So, the first mission was a variation of bases where objectives fly from the center of the board every subsequent turn, make a blast of variable strength and AP, and in the center of that blast, generates another objective. My opponent in this game was a foot-based Loganwing, with Wolf Guard hanging out in Grey Hunter squads with Terminator Armor and Cyclones. Two squads of Long Fangs as well, with five missiles. In this round I got lucky when it came to where the objectives deviated, which they always did. Essentially, I made an iron wall to advance behind and block his advances to the objectives late-game, deep struck the Speeders behind his line by his objective, and proceeded to flame things up and disrupt and focus down portions of his army. In the end, I had Ahriman teleport on turns 4 and 5, on 4 his squad fried one of his last one-man troop choices, then ported again to get atop his objective. I ended with all five objectives due to blocking, and a poor run roll from my opponent.

Game two was a VP mission wherein one must kill everything of a given target to get its VPs. I was playing against Orks, which was a normal list consisting of some hundred-something boyz, a battle wagon, and a couple trukks with Warbosses and Nobz inside. I set my army in a kind of right triangle position to tempt him to attack my far right, which had a dreadnought and a predator, and leveraged the rest of my army to de-mech and kill the boyz. One mistake that I made was that I did not plug up a mobility hole with a second speeder, primarily because I thought the base of a tree was wider than it actually was. Had he assaulted more units, my left flank would have been in dire straits- I spoke to him about that after the game. Using my weight of fire and flamers, I proceeded to kill Orks until the game ended, leaving him with something like ten boyz or so. What was awkward was that, even though I was clearly in control of the game in the later turns, he encouraged me to table him, but I simply didn't have enough things in range to do so.

Game three was interesting, albeit the weakest of the missions. There's an objective in the center of the table. Short table edge deployment, 24 inches out. Center of your front 24 inch line is another objective. The center one is a bomb that must be taken to the enemy objective. You must start your turn in b2b with the bomb, then you may only move 6 inches per turn, and on the turn where you start it with the bomb in b2b with the enemy objective, he chucks it in to give you a Major Victory. This time around I drew a Grey Knights opponent, whom had a bunch of Terminators, a Land Raider Crusader, and a Dreadknight. This game I decided as I set up would be a straight-up blitzkrieg, by applying enough bodies and fire that I get the objective completed before he can respond enough. Forgot to mention this, but I went second in all my games. So, he shunts the Dreadknight up, and picks the bomb up. I then apply all my firepower on that one target, and the weight of fire is enough to kill it before I need to use the meltaguns and Null Zone combo. So, I run a combat squad up, pick the bomb up, and wait. His Land Raider advances towards the objective, his dreadnought comes out. I speed my reserve razorback up, and melta the hell out of the Land Raider, advance the bomb, and even assault the terminators inside, hoping to draw combat. Which is what happened. The dread gets even closer to the point, his reserve terminators make for the point, and I have to make a goodly amount of saves on the bomb-carrying team. Next turn, I have my speeders zoom up to block his movement except through difficult terrain, and throw more bodies into the terminator combat, hoping to kill the last terminator off, and get the bomb in b2b with the thermal exhaust port. The dread gets immobilized, and the difficult terrain keeps him from getting the assault off on my team, and next turn I toss the bomb in and score a Major Victory.

Then we just played until the turn limit ran out, which resulted in my infantry getting sliced by halberds, especially my Librarian, and I walked away with second place in the event, which was enough to purchase the Predator I needed for my 2k list, which is virtually done.

While mission 3 is the weakest, with mission 1 not that far behind it because of variability, mission 3 was the most tense for me, but that came from how I decided to play it. Blitz the point, put the opponent on his heels, and use pawns' lives to get the job done. It required mobility, sacrificial units, and forethought, which surprisingly is in keeping with the 5th ed concepts.

The most interesting thing to come out of the event was that an Ork player took the 1st place, which really speaks towards generalship and ability.

Anyway, wanted to write this quickly, so here are my thoughts in a shell, and I wish I had pics!

dovie'andi se'tovya sagain, Ishamael

The Problem of the Space Marine

2011-08-25T15:31:00.004-04:00

When we are first told of the Space Marines, we are given the normal spiel of how they are genetically altered, heavily-armored warriors that are recruited from feral worlds where only the toughest men survive. We are also told they are essentially sci-fi knights, their armor being the equivalent of full plate, and their emphasis on duty taken straight from the chivalric myths. They are the spear tip of the major invasions, as well as retaking lost worlds. Yet, there is on thing about them that has bugged me for some time in the mythology of the game:

They suffer from Superman Syndrome.

Superman Syndrome occurs when you have a character that is simply too strong, and as such, is not given much character, which makes the Space Marines a tabula rasa upon which the player gets to import his own personality upon his preferred Chapter.

While I've read plenty of the stories put out by the Black Library, most of the Space Marine stories are archetypal. The most character I've seen in a Chapter is probably the Iron Snakes, yet the principal character in the book is just a typical marine. Even in the Soul Drinker's books, the one thing that could be said of them as a Chapter is that they are unbelievably stupid early on. Mutations occur, and they come to the conclusion that they're gifts from the Emperor? What about that psycho-conditioning and training that warns them of the temptations and evil of Chaos? Guess they slept in class. Those Ultramarines books with Uriel aren't bad, but I can't think of any real traits of his beyond the normal marine drivel.

Really, Gabriel Angelos is easily the best marine character in 40k. The man has to deal with receiving visions of the Astronomicon, be solely responsible for the destruction of his home world, learn that his Chapter has ancient ties and deals with the Eldar, and eventually that his Chapter Master is sworn to Abaddon, and his company is deemed heretics. He eventually kills the Chapter Master, and takes his place. Pretty much the most interesting thing I've ever seen in 40k stories.

How do we cure the Superman Syndrome rampant in these stories?

Now, I didn't like the Superman character until the Kingdom Come story. In it, Superman retires because of some crazy shit that happens:

Lois Lane is killed by the Joker.
Superman calls for a trial.
Some new super heroes, all kids, kill the Joker because of the public outcry that he should be executed immediately.
Superman, outraged, quits the Justice League, effectively dissolving it.
The JL scatters, and the new heroes have no moral compass, nor governing body of elders.
Then Revelations begins after a man has visions of the End.

This story is so good I can't bring myself to spoil the rest, but it's the only thing I've ever read that makes me like Superman.

Superman has the power to do whatever he wants to, but should he exercise that power?

The next issue comes with how to apply this kind of story telling to the Space Marines. In-fighting between Chapters and Guard regiments aren't uncommon, so one application of this story style could come from authority over a sector gets transferred to some noble of the Imperium because of some accident involving the Space Marines of the area. Essentially, they get kicked out, then have to decide on what their next course of action is: defy duty and the Imperium, or try to resettle elsewhere among the stars? I think one of the most interesting things to do with type of story would be to question what the stringency of morality is for the Space Marines, especially, or not so especially, for Chapter X. All marines take oaths, but to what extent should they be kept, specifically in the case of a usurpation of power and what can be considered a betrayal by the leaders of the Imperium?

Some will notice that this is somewhat similar to what the Soul Drinkers go through, but you really don't feel any kind of conflict of duty over freedom.

So, the question that needs to be addressed for a good Space Marine story is this: With the military capacity of a Chapter, should they exercise their power over all around them, and when confronted with the tyranny and oppression of the Imperium, will duty or defiance prevail? For this to work, you need more thoughtful Space Marines, ones that are responsible for sectors of space, and take governance as seriously as their duties as marines.

So, I'm going to consider this, and maybe generate some creative writing in an attempt to display some actual human characteristics in the superhuman fighters. We need to find some way to relate to these God-like beings, and only by generating legitimate conflict in the characters and players of the 40k universe can we possibly begin to...I don't know...relate or care about them?

That's my interesting notion for the day, Ishamael

If anyone wants to see content outside of 40k, I started a blog on the side to write about other things outside of the Warhammer IP. These include topics like "what is the RPG genre," the game Terraria, a review of the new Conan movie, and most recently content about gender and Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.

Link.

The Razorback

2011-08-24T15:44:00.003-04:00

Last night I got my first game in with that new 1750 list I posted a while back, and I have some reflections to write on, primarily concerning my use of the 4 Razorbacks in my army.

First, my deployment with them was simply OK. I did the regular trick of doing a "T" formation with a front and back Razorback, while giving the front one enough room to rotate, move 12 inches forward, rotate, and pop smoke again. My problem came about because of how I positioned my two T's on the field. They were too close, and I improperly put all four Razorbacks between terrain pieces. To compound my issues, I placed a missile-toting combat squad to the right of my Razorback.

I was going first, got seized, and proved that I didn't take seriously enough how my own deployment could screw me over in case I did get seized on. So, I need to get back into the groove of thinking turns ahead, and planning for when I do get seized.

Second, I was too tempted the first two turns to fire those twin-linked heavy bolters, even when I have consciously told myself several times that they will still generally function as Rhinos until about turns 3-4, the possibly back to Rhino mode for 5 on. Even though the game was annihilation, and my opponent was coming towards me, I should have spread out more.

So, Razorbacks become late-game units that do well against targets of opportunity, mainly when transports are getting popped, and the guys that spill out are in range and line of sight.

I wish we would have gotten a picture of it, but the Eldar I was playing against, commanded by our own Heretic, did a good job of blocking my mobility, while swinging around a Seer Council on Jetbikes behind a piece of line of sight blocking terrain to later jump into my parking lot. Only some sick luck on my part caused him to roll box cars on his morale test, then he used embolden, only to roll box cars again, and they fell back, which basically turned the game to my favor. Subsequent turns had me destroying the rest of those annoying transports, and some dumb luck on rapid-firing boltguns killed the Seer Council down to the Farseer.

At that point our time limit ran out, but it's more because of that double morale test fail that I came out on top during the later turns.

Final Notes:

Twin-linked autocannon-wielding Dreadnoughts are amazing as a support fire unit.
Always Deepstrike your Landspeeders.
Give as much space for moving those damn Razorbacks as possible.
Predators should always go in the corners.
Librarians are awesome.

Hopefully I can get another game in before the event on Saturday.

Combat Tactics! Run away! Ishamael

The Predator

2011-08-17T20:47:00.002-04:00

Is it just me, or have many been turning to Devastator teams in their Heavy support since the Space Wolves codex came out? Yes, Long Fangs are exceptionally nice for what they do, and the capacity to split fire is quite awesome, in which your three units actually threaten six. Looks to stun someone's parking lot quite a bit.

Recently, I have seen some builds even in the regular Marine book that are using Devastators more and more. And, for 150 points- 5 Marines with 4 missiles- that's quite a deal. Mind you, they can not do the split fire, BUT, and people forget this, their sergeant has the signum, which allows for a single BS 5 missile shot per turn. So, three targets per turn, but they have a small buff to BS. So, signa shots totaling three per turn, pretty cool. Outfit them with Razorbacks, and you can get some utility for late-game mobility or some weight of fire for finishing off small infantry squads left.

Devastator teams are easy to understand, and before I finally get to the much-overlooked Predator tank, another common choice for Heavy Support is the Vindicator tank. For 115 points, you get a 13/11/10 tank with the capacity for fire a str 10 ap 2 at 24 inches. Comparatively, I do not find the Vindicator worth much. The way to take it out is simply taking its flanks, then pelting it with missiles/autocannons, even just to stun it, and then it becomes pretty much worthless. Furthermore, 2/3 of the time you will scatter, the deviation going as far as 8 inches in a random direction. Lastly, IF-IF-IF you are playing on a good table...y'know, one that actually has midfield terrain for at least a 5+ cover save for infantry, then its effectiveness goes down. Or...I dunno, bring your own cover, or just sit in a smoked tank. Just gotta watch the center blow off, then you're sitting decent. Could one be using its points for something more effective at anti-infantry and anti-tank? I think so. Devastators, for their range, sustainability, and versatility, easily outclass the Vindicator as as a unit.

The Vindicator could work better if it had better defenses. Change it to a 14/12/10, and then we will talk. People seem to like buying them in triplets. If so, cross fire into side armor, get cake.

Time to move on to the Predator. So...why don't people take them? They certainly are not flashy like the Vindicator or Devastators, but I think it has a wonderful price point. For those that know I was considering a Thunderfire Cannon list, I was spending 300 points on a ridiculously easy to kill unit that only really can do anti-infantry duty, or light anti-tank, say AV 10-11. Oh, and the cannon is AV 10, and dies if it gets glanced OR penned. Don't roll, it just goes. Then the techmarine runs around and jerks off for the rest of the game. Now, let's compare the aforementioned Heavy Support choices to the Predator.

So, it's a tank with 13/11/10, so the same defenses as the Vindicator. For 60 points, it comes with an autocannon on the top. The option I prefer is to take the Heavy Bolter sponsons, which adds on 25 points. So, for 85 points, I have a tank as survivable as the Vindicator, is cheaper, and doesn't run the risk of drifting into allied units or off-target. It also has longer range, 36 and 48 inches respectively, giving it a large effective distance on the field. Before someone states it, yes, the Vindicator can move 6 and fire, but I do not plan for the Predators to move, except for maybe late game, or early, depending on the scenario. So, I get more consistent anti-infantry through all the weapons- 8 shots, more reliable anti-tank since it doesn't depend on blasts, and it works as a late-game blocker for objective holding. For 85 points. So, with all those points being saved, what can I get?

Well, I have been working on this list for a few months now, so 'ere we go:

HQ
Librarian- Null Zone, Gateway of Infinity 100

Troops
4x 10 Tactical Marines- Meltagun, Combi-Melta, Missile Launcher 740
4x Razorbacks 160

Fast Attack
3x Land Speeders- Heavy Flamer, Multi-Melta 210

Elites
3x Dreadnoughts- 2x Twin-Linked Autocannons 375

Heavy Support
3x Predators- Heavy Bolter Sponsons 255

So, all this junk here amounts to 1840, which isn't a bad list for an 1850 event. Question being, 2000 points is my favorite level to play at, so what to do with the 160 left? While it is within my points to convert the Razorbacks into the lascannon/twin-linked plasmagun deal, I think that would make them too obvious a target turn one, when I need the opponent to have his attention dispersed. So, what I think I will do here is add in a Scout Squad, with a heavy bolter, sniper rifles, and camo cloaks. This adds 100 points, leaving me with 60 points to screw around with. Yet, what if I alter this deal to add in Sergeant Telion to the squad? Well, that effectively gives the Scouts Stealth via the FAQ, so add in his 50 points, then I have 25 points to spend. Then I will give the Librarian a combi-melta for a teleport and dive manoeuver, and add a hunter killer missile to one of the Predators that takes a flank.

As far as the list goes and my reasons for taking things, this is pretty much it. Been working on this for quite a while, and I can't wait to get this into action now that I have the advantage of being able to get to the gaming store.

WAAAGH, Ishamael

Incoming!

2011-08-12T21:46:00.003-04:00

Deepstriking onto the radar is a new box I wouldn't have called from way of of left field. Chaos Daemons now have a battalion (battleforce) to help get those daemonic players a start. It seems to come with a whole host of daemons representing all of the dark gods but Nurgle. Must be too nice to put resin in a big box :P. And it's not too bad if you are looking to get a host of daemons for an undivided army. That said, those who favor one or two gods may do better to simply buys their units alone.

A few new toys did come into play though. A Finecast herald of Tzeench on disk being the main focus and some very pretty resin banners.

I was pleasantly surprised to see some of the Archon's command squad units finally have some models.

Pics can be seen here from GW's site.

Tournament Prep Time!

2011-08-08T00:09:00.004-04:00

by Ishamael

Sing it with me!

Silliness aside, the 27th of this month is going to be the date of the next local tournament, and I should have the models ready to play in it. The points total will be 1750, battle points will determine the winner, and I have been painting like a maniac all day. Painting is not part of the score, but finding motivation is rare, and I was on fire earlier.

As for the list I am going to take, it is in a small way not what I would want to, but I am waiting to find an extra Predator for cheap somewhere over the interwebz:

HQ Librarian- Null Zone, Gateway of Infinity 100
Troops
4x 10 Tactical Marines- Combi-Melta, Meltagun, Missile Launcher, Rhino 920
5 Scouts- Sniper Rifles, Camo Cloaks, Heavy Bolter 100
Elites
3x Dreadnoughts- 2x Twin-Linked Autocannons 375
Fast Attack
2x Land Speeders- Heavy Flamer, Multi-Melta 140
Heavy Support
Predator- Heavy Bolter Sponsons, Hunter Killer Missile 95

This takes me to 1730, so I have twenty points to screw around with. What is there to do except add some Hunter Killer missiles to two Rhinos? To that end, a lead Rhino will start rotated sideways in front of one with the HKM, then the front one moves twelve, the other six, and a couple missiles fly out that I did not have before. I think that will suffice for right now. I would prefer it if I had a second Predator tank instead of the Scouts, but so it goes. One missing Troop unit does not make enough of a difference. :P

So, let's talk deployment now. With these many units hanging about most likely what will happen is that the Speeders Deepstrike, the Predator goes on a flank, one Dreadnought on a flank, then two Dreadnoughts in the center to get cover and support. Or just stand around, muckin about, so they can turn into glorified target locks for more important units. The Marines will Combat Squad, missiles in the back and on objectives. The Librarian will deploy with the Scouts, most likely to one side or another, and late game he will teleport them to contest or grab an objective. Beyond this, focus fire will be used on high-priority targets, and in case of tanks, I have 4 double melta units, then two Deep Striking multi-melta Speeders.

We have no information specifically regarding the missions, but if something comes up I will be writing some more on I will play in this coming tournament. Of course, the night before and the morning of will consist of sacrifice and praying to the gods of the dice and luck for favorable threads.

I'm not dead yet, Ishamael

The idea of 17 to 18

2011-08-01T11:24:00.006-04:00

Hey there everyone and welcome to an exciting new post from Loki. Okay so it may not be exciting, but it is a new post... and probably from me. Today's topic of conversation is a look at where the additional 100 points became standard in tournaments when looking at 1750 vs. 1850. I looked into it and found a few bits of interesting information which got me thinking about it a little more.

It is a fact that when looking at tournaments, those which take place in Europe tend to favor a 1750 mark while those that take place in the states generally sit at about 1850 or 2k. This struck me a interesting as I thought it might reflect a difference in mindset between the two societies. It isn't uncommon for European events to actually ban certain units based on a system of "it's too powerful" or "broken." I haven't heard (which bear in mind I'm not saying it doesn't exist) or a US event which expressly did not allow units. This might be a look as to why the average point level is different.

The other pattern I seem to find is that the lists generally tend to have a different feel when you compare Euro lists to US lists. In competitive play, the lists begin to run similar units. No matter how balanced a codex is, there will always be a genuinely powerful standalone unit or an uber combo that just trumps the rest by comparison... and in Tournaments these units hit the field more often than not on both sides of the Atlantic. However, looking at more small scale events and free play... what I found is that the lists of Europe tend to favor the idea of using a larger number of decently wargeared squads. This differs a lot from the usual trend of the US run full wargear in your squads, which obviously leads to a smaller number of units.

Clarification: My research shows averages between Euporean and US "Casual Event" lists.

I think this is where the big reason for that additional 100 points comes in. While not enough to run a full unit, that 100 points makes all the difference when looking to upgrade power weapons to fists, run combi-weapons, or even adding an additional HQ.

This also factors in with my averaging of math. Building a generalized list using the Eldar, Dark Eldar, Orks, Space Marines, Black Templar, Grey Knights, and Tyranids... I found that they each build at a similar points style. After building the list I found I could run occasional wargear here and there and would hit 1750 consistently, then I could make a few minor changes and make 1850 by subbing out units for wargear.

Overall it is interesting to me to see where these differences alter the game based on location. I myself am not a huge fan of 1850 as I feel there isn't much difference from it to 2k. I find that 250 point gaps (1,500, 1750, and 2k) alter lists enough that is doesn't feel like "a 2k list minus the second HQ" which 1850 often does.

What about you? What is your favorite point level for events? Does you enjoy alternative events like kill team or expansion missions like Planet Strike or Cities of Death? I'd love to hear what our fellow gamers out there enjoy. Until next time

Cheers!

Roadtrip and the Revial of an Army

2011-07-25T14:58:00.007-04:00

Hello everyone, hope you are doing well. I can't say I've had much to write about recently, but I've got some news I hope you'll like.

As you may or may not know, my interest in 40k has been waning recently because of the 6th edition rumors that were floating around the net. Before I let the new sisters make you feel worse, I'd like to say that my attitude has been very much too serious regarding our game. Like a lot of us in the Muncie area, I've been looking into Warmachine and built a list.

I don't know if I would want to build my list, but I do know that it is friggin cool. Everyone in the army does electrical damage, that is my army shoots LIGHTNING! That is really cool to me. I know that if I ran into someone whose army was immune to electricity I would be screwed, but it struck me as a really fun army to play despite that weakness.

Right now I'm taking part in a seminar at Wake Forest. For those of you that don't know I hate flying, so I drove here. I had a good time during my ten-hour drive and started out listening to one of my favorite podcasts: The History of Rome (I would highly recommend it). Despite my enjoyment of the show, eventually I had to change it up a bit and decided to start listening to the most recent of another podcast, The 11th Company, and heard an interview they did with LKHero about his Salamanders army. that interview made me want to take a second look at my own.

So I thought about what models I had left, as I sold part of my motorpool to Ishmael for his army. I realized that I don't really have much left as far as ground vehicles, but I do have some really nice drop pods. While I know the list I'll put down isn't going to be optimal and could be done better with other codices, but like that Warmachine army, it's more about being cool than necessarily being good. And it's cheap to boot!

Vulcan He'stan 190
Dreadnought with Multi-melta and heavy flamer in a drop pod 150
Dreadnought with Multi-melta and heavy flamer in a drop pod 150
Terminators in a Land Raider Redeemer with Multi-melta 450
Tactical squad with meltagun, multimelta and sergeant with combi-flamer and combi-melta in drop pod 230
Tactical squad with meltagun, multimelta and sergeant with combi-flamer and combi-melta in drop pod 230
Devastator squad with four missile launchers 150
Devastator squad with four missile launchers 150
Devastator squad with four missile launchers 150

I would only need to buy missile bits, a drop pod and proxy my crusader as a redeemer for a while. Basic plan is to send the dreads in first, then just send everything at the enemy. It may lose a good bit of the time but all I can picture is Vulcan jumping out of a pod or the redeemer yelling "Their defenses are broken! Let the slaughter begin!" So that's my fun list that might just be better, to keep me enjoying the game than the optimal.

I would have waited an eternity for this. It's over, Prime.

How Fine is Finecast?

2011-07-17T18:44:00.010-04:00

Hello everyone. Today I wanted to talk about Citadel's new line of Finecast minis. As we are well aware, the new models use resin, replacing the pewter models of old. While at first I was celebrating GW for their perceived step forward... I have had to stop and really ponder their actions after a few looks into these new models.

Now, this isn't completely a rant on how terrible things are or another angry post concerning GW's market strategies, so there is some good. The one major benefit to come from this change is the heightened detail this new material brings to the model ranges. Take for example this comparison. A fantasy (yes I know it's square based, but it was the best comparison I could find) Chaos Lord. Look at the difference in detain in the chain mail as well as the leather straps on the weapon handle. This is the type of stuff I really love to see when new models from Forgeworld come out; it brings a tear to my eye when I see the crisp details brought out.

Another little benefit that comes from the new resin models is the weight. It's obvious that weight can be a pretty big factor when looking at keeping models upright, especially when terrain is involved. Perhaps no box set in the new Finecast line appreciates this more than that of the Chaos Raptors. Not only does it help keep them stable, but the new material comes into play with my next point of goodies.

Conversion is a breeze (relatively speaking) in comparison with that of the old metal versions. All of the models in the line are much more easily changed to fit more unique tastes these days. My big example here is the Hive Tyrant. What was once a huge chunk of flashed metal, is now resin.

Now there are the inevitable downsides to the use of resin. The first being the molding process. While the flash is much easier to remove, there is a lot more of it on the models. It can be annoying to prime a model you have cleaned, only to find a few bits of hidden flash here and there that still cling to the model just to ruin your day.

The other issue is fragility in the molding process. Sometimes the resin does not fill completely, breaks, or has air pockets that pock and ruin the models. After looking at some of the models being shipped out... I have to wonder if GW takes the time to really do a quality control check. Take a look at this portion of a model. This goes beyond the "minor fixes required" that GW mentions, and frankly for the price they ask for these minis is rather insulting.

But perhaps the biggest issue I take with the new Finecast minis is the problem with heat. Now, as a gamer who has to travel from one place to another to attend events, it is a given that my models must travel with me. The issue here is that the new resin that GW uses is cheap, and will actually bend and melt with very little heat. Even leaving the model in the sun on a cool summer day will cause bits of it to sag and bend. This sword from Skulltaker is a prime example of the effects of heat wear and tear.

All in all, I am glad to see GW is taking steps to update their line up. I have always been a huge fan of the use of resin in today's gaming circles. The detail they can achieve with this material is unbelievable, and the material itself it much easier to work with as a hobbyist. However, if GW can't get the issues with this material under control soon... they might find themselves without a player base to serve soon. With the popularity of Warmachine on the rise (especially around our neck of the woods) GW can't really afford many more of these foul-ups.

I open the floor to you the readers. I welcome any personal experiences or feelings towards Finecast, and how it may effect your experience in 40k.

Cheers!

Monster Madness

2011-07-15T18:46:00.006-04:00

As per usual, Scibor Monster mini's is at it again. Here's a look at a few of their newest, most detailed new models.

Their newest line of models includes new "Templar" shoulders, "Spartan" vehicle add-ons, and new full models... including a very well done alternative Sanguinor.

Scibor Minis

Check it out today!

Happy Independence Day!

2011-07-04T05:18:00.004-04:00

Good morning to you all. I hope you and yours are all well and safe. We can all name someone we know who has served in the armed services and we should take the time to remember them today. For those of you interested in learning more about the principles our nation was founded upon, I would suggest you follow the link below. You can find accurate reproductions of some of the most prominent documents of each of the last few centuries and documents from antiquity. Have a good day, remember what is important to you and happy reading.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/

Heretic Mia

2011-06-30T06:21:00.003-04:00

Sorry for my long absence and not having either photos or a discussion of melee marine units. I have to say that my hobby energy has been taken up by something else recently. Because I have this wonderful night desk job and have basically no one to talk to for those seven hours, I've been playing a lot of a new-to-me game League of Legends (LoL). Loki and I have both been playing, but being as his job is actually producing something, I have a lot more time to goof around with LoL.

There are some things I really enjoy about LoL (if not it wouldn't be taking up my energy), but there are also some really bad things about it. First off, the basic structure of the game is that you and either two or four other random internet people join up to bash in the skulls of three or five other internet people by killing the and destroying their base. Each player chooses a character before the game, with no two being able to choose the same character as their teammates, and different abilities to go along with that champion. Each champion has its own abilities and unique style of play. During the game each player earns gold for killing various things in game and can spend them to buy items that buff their character in different ways. How each player decides to build their character will affect the game for the rest of the team and how the player should play their character.

Depending on the group you get matched with your game can be abysmal because no one warns you that the other team might be ganging up on you or stellar, if your team can coordinate to gang up on the other team. If you're really lucky you'll get people who play your character also and will be willing to help you learn how to play that character better. If you aren't well you may be accused of having a mental disability. In the end it's all luck of the draw who you get matched up with unless you and some of your friends decide to invite each other to play.

But this isn't a LoL blog, it's a 40k blog and I thank you for enduring that. Some of you know where I'm going with this, so (if of legal age) take a shot whenever you predicted one of my points. Unlike 40k LoL is a co-operative game and you always are helping and being helped by your fellow players in game. With 40k it's just you and your opponent who may only give you advice after the fact if at all. When you can get help with 40k is generally any time you're not in game as there are dozens of websites you can go to if all of your 40k buddies are asleep (like mine are now) or busy. In either case the advice you get can be good or bad (look for Advice Pete memes coming up), but the quality of the advice is only really as important as how much you put it into action.

Before you play you get to choose a character in LoL and an army in 40k, though characters are much less expensive to acquire than armies. But like armies, each character is good at some things and horrible at others and knowing what your can and can't do with your chosen is vital to doing well with them. Also, armies and characters both have very distinct builds (e.g. alpha strike, mechspam & DPS, tank), many of which you can also find on the internet. Like everything on the internet though Your Mileage May Vary with these builds. You've all heard of the units in 40k that are generally derided, but "well they work for me," e.g. vespids, and those that "take no skill" e.g. ... you know these already, moving on. What matters with your choices is not whether it is the consensus, but whether it makes you happier to play than your next best choice.

And that's the crux of the problem I'm having with LoL right now. I very much enjoy taking risks with my little cartoon man and that leads to me dying...a lot. There are people, as with anything on the internet, that take LoL very (even too) seriously. These people get offended when I fail at staying alive and winning, though I do understand that my failing pulls the team down as well. I don't mind people getting upset, but some of these people can get discourteous to the point that their mothers will leave the street corners to slap them. This makes me sad. I'm the kind of person who really enjoys making other people happy, but there is a lack of courtesy and any effort to help others improve in the people I've played with online.

Which brings me to the best aspect of 40k, for me: our local community. Sure we can get mad at each other and the dice sometimes (I've been discourteous myself recently, sorry Zeb), but when the dice come down we spend more time talking about random things than we do playing. I've lost plenty of sleep listening to B go on about hilarious things and I've worried that Chuck would pass out laughing. the game is a lot of fun and what brings us together, but it's a great way to make friends and meet people. That is what I love about 40k and why I am glad to keep playing, especially with you all.

Sixth Sixth Sixth

2011-06-22T10:39:00.008-04:00

http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?t=15933

So with rumors as to what sixth may be bringing to the realm of 40k, it is looking very similar to what was done with Fantasy. Quite a few major changes to the game can be noticed when looking at things such as game turn order, how specific mechanics such as Ballistic Skill and USR's work. Rumors also look to make IC's a little more scary on the table. The biggest one for me is how first turn is determined, and the idea of pseudo-stratagems being introduced. All of these seem to bolster the idea that 40k is going to be a massively different game.

When talking with the folks down at our FLGS, both 40k players and non, the main reason for those who don't play is obviously the money... which given the current economic times is quite understandable. However the close second is simply the time it takes to play a game of 40k. In relative terms it generally takes about and hour + to play a good game at the usual 1850 - 2000 point level. That's a bit of time to invest in a single round of the game, and generally the want or time to play another round is often far off when I've played as well. With these new changes that we can only guess at now, it's still a mystery to me as to whether this new 40k (aka 6th) will effect the time it requires to play. My first guess is that it may increase the time to play, as there seems to be more to consider when it comes to situational questions and general rolling.

The next topic of interest to me is the idea of first turn. From what it looks like, there is now a bidding war that happens by the players... and whatever points were not used to try and go first can be used to purchase some sort of stratagem style bolster for a unit or the army. This to me feels a little unbalanced. Now it fits with the concept that 40k has announced "We want 40k to be more about strategy than chance." This is fair, but the system they have created feels like it could be gamed fairly easily... but I'll reserve judgement until I see the official rules in the new BRB.

As a side note, I did notice the part that Black Templar are going to be a 6th-style codex before the rules hit (similar to Orks of the 4th to 5th changeover). I can only hope that we do better in the new system than Orks have fared in 5th. I'll just look forward to new kits, and hope the new codex does the army justice. I know the new codex will most likely be a Ward creation, but I'll still hold out hope Graham McNeill will come back to write again... Shut up, I can still dream :P

In the end, I will look to 6th edition with great interest. I am not sure it is what I was wanting, but I have long felt that the love GW has poured into Warhammer Fantasy has been absent in 40k. With Fantasy getting full color codexes, fancy starter kits, rule overhauls, and generally faster FAQ's, 40k felt like the child they never really loved. Now is the time to see if this new overhaul of the 40th millennium will put the two games on a more level playing field in terms of quality.

What rumors about the sixth coming of 40k have you most intrigued (for good or bad)? Any additional rumors that I missed? I look forward to seeing where it leads, but time will tell.

Cheers!

Chaos Theory

2011-06-11T15:39:00.012-04:00

So it has been a long time since Chaos Space Marines have received much love from the dark gods of GW, and the few rumors floating around the interwebz have been few and far between, with the bulk of which surrounding the idea of chaos in the 6th edition box set. In my opinion, the codex still has a few nifty tricks up it's sleeves here and there, but against the ever growing number of 5th ed. armies it's age begins to show through rather quickly.

With several options in their troops section, as well as unique units like the Obliterators (though the Grey Knights try to imitate them) and tricks like Daemonic Possession, the armies of Chaos Space Marines have ways to keep pumping pain and heresy throughout the galaxy. But are all these options enough? Or are they possibly too much? Unfortunately I find it to be a little of both.

In my opinion, the biggest change I see in the new armies that hit 5th is the points change. If you stop to look at units from 4th (or older) to 5th, their points generally lower, if only by a little bit. This "streamlining" often helps the army afford other things, be it entire units, more wargear, or a combo of the two... 5th armies can often bring much more to the table than the old expensive... and rather underwhelming units of old. I can attest to this with my Black Templar army. While I will still sing the praises of my one and only troop choice, it is somewhat disconcerting to pay 17 points a model for a marine who can be either duel armed or have a bolter, and only have frags... while wolves have both duel armed, bolters, frags, and kraks... for 15 points per. It's these points that are saved which quickly add up... and like other older armies, the CSM's feel it hard.

So what can be done? I have compiled a few things I scavenged from around the internet, as well as a few ideas of my own that may hep to improve the codex. Again, these are a gathering of ideas, and not all are great.. but I could see them improving the army.

Chaos "Undivided"
As much as I enjoy the concept of Daemons fighting alone, the two codexes could really do for a re-unification. I'll get to it later, but the use of marks on HQ's could help to improve lesser daemons into a version (buffed or nerfed) from the current daemon codex. I personally feel like there is a lot of interesting uses for more potent daemon allies to the Chaos army, as the current daemons in the CSM army are limited severely in their uses. They aren't bad, but certainly not forgiving to bring in an army that is hurting for points as it is.

The Right Leadership
While I understand the reason for cult troops being placed in the... well Troop section... I think there is a way to bolster their cult troops in a unique way to allow while keeping things fair.

I like the 4 cult troops, but feel they could use a bit of a bolster... but if they become too much better than regular troops, they become OP. So make all cult troops in a non-troop section, placing Khorne and Nurge in Elites, Slaanesh in Fast Attack, and Tzeench in Heavy Support. Now before berating me here's the trick. An HQ with a mark (including unique characters) make that corresponding Cult Unit a troop choice.

This could also come into play for the dameons if they were to be incorporated into the same codex.

Free "Mark"et of Ideas.
I personally believe the way to make this army stand apart from others is the put a little more emphasis on the Marks. This means that the cost of many of the marks could use a reduction to make them more accessible. If I remember right, the mark of Nurgle on Terminators is 50 points. That's pretty darn steep for a buff that disappears if the bearer is killed.

On top of this... I feel the marks themselves could use a little improvement, at least where the cult troops are involved. I think plague marines could use true T5, and CSM with the mark would still only have the T4(5). Minor buffs to the cults would make them feel a little more bang for the buck like than simply running cheap CSM units with similar effect.

A last little trick I'd like to see is the inclusion of marks for vehicles. Each mark could have a unique buff to add to a vehicle.

Khorne- Makes the vehicle an assault vehicle.
Nurgle- ignores shaken and stunned (I know this replaces D.P., but I'll get back to this.)
Slaanesh- makes the vehicle fast
Tzeench- grants the vehicle a 5+ invulnerable save.

As for Daemonic Possession, this could allow daemons to be transported in the vehicle.

Pick your Poison
I look at the CSM codex as one of limited options. "But Loki," you ask, "The CSM army has so much to choose from!" Yes it does... but in a way it limits you. For instance... there are only two transports in the whole army... the rhino (which you can't assault from, and the Land Raider which is 220 points for the same 10 cap as the rhino. This hardly compares to the loyal marines who have 4 transport options (and the LR has variants).

I would love to see some new units as well as some nice new variants for existing units. Dreadnoughts could use for a bit of a tweak. Maybe a corrupted techmarine or something to keep the shenanigans to a low. We see this kind a thing already with the Dark Eldar Grotesques.

The big thing here I'd like to see is the inclusion of cultists. I think there could be much fun to be had with a sacrifice engine. These could be cheap little 6 or 8 point models that can access wargear to bolster their own power and make for a cheap horde like troop choice, or just spam them to sacrifice to bolster other units. When I see Chaos, I think sacrifice... and this little unit could answer that gap nicely.

I think these are just a few ways to add some flavor and power to the codex. There are some things that I haven't mentioned that would be nice to see back in the army. The inclusion of Legion characters (an Alpha Legion Raptor, Word Bearers possessed, or Night Lord Chosen upgrade character would be interesting). Not to mention the Holy Numbers. It was a nice way for fluff to interact with rules. I also think you could make the rule heralds of the Chaos Daemons where an HQ with a mark can not join units with a different mark would be a nice touch of fluff rules.

All in all, the codex works decently now. But if these addition/changes were made... I'd have to consider them as a next army. Any thoughts, or suggestions?

Cheers!

One More Trick up my Sleeve

2011-06-05T13:27:00.013-04:00

Good afternoon everyone, hope you've had fun since I last saw you all. Last time I said I'd be posting some pictures of my Tau, but I haven't made any considerable progress on painting them, so hopefully I'll have something worth reporting next time.

As for today, I'm reminded of a nice long conversation Loki and I had about the 'blue' space marine codex in comparison to their blood angel and space wolf brethren. I've been thinking about how to make a list that can be approximated by the other codices, but that the 'blue' codex can do better if only slightly. While the wolves and angels can each build their own unique builds, Loganwing and Jumpers respectively, the list I've chosen for comparison for all three armies is the 'razor spam' army, supported by other elements. The Ultramarines will represent the 'blue' codex in this round. Forgive me if this reminds you of Ishmael's army:
Chaplain Cassius 125
Three dreadnoughts with two twin-linked autocannons 125
Three tactical squads with combi-melta, meltagun and missile launcher in an assault cannon razorback with hunter killer missile 260
Two landspeeder duos with multimeltas 120
Three devastator teams with four missile launchers 150

I will admit there are some problems with the comparing the blood angels' and space wolves' versions of this list. Coming from the space wolves side, the problem is that there are no tactical or devastator squads for direct comparison, so I substituted the space wolves closest equivalents the grey hunters and long fangs. Using a basic rune priest or wolf priest instead of Cassius and five man grey hunter squads with meltagun and combi-melta wolf guard instead of tactical squads and five missile long fangs instead of devastators brings the wolf variant to 1714 points for the same firepower as the 2000 points 'blue' marine list. That is a striking difference, though keep in mind that there are fifteen fewer bodies in the troops section than in the 'blue' version. For the sake of effieiceincy I'll give the wolves the win hands down. As a side note, the discrepancy in points between the lists drops from 286 points to 61 if you include the fifteen extra bodies. A wolves 'razor spam' list may prefer to run lascannons and twin-linked plasmaguns rather than assault cannons but their cost is the same so that shouldn't factor into the comparison, just in case you were wondering.

Comparing blood angels' version of 'razor spam' is a bit more difficult because of their divergent (read heretical) force organization, it is impossible to have both three devastator teams and three autocannon dreadnoughts in the same detachment as both occupy a heavy support slot and blood angels do not have a master of the forge to move the dreadnoughts into another slot. On the bright side, I can decide not to care about that and compare the costs of each unit. Blood angels' obsession with speed means their razorbacks are fast, but they also cost fifteen points more expensive each. Luckily for them, their devastator missile launchers are five points cheaper each, netting them twenty points per squad. With three squads of each, the blood angels come out fifteen points ahead of the 'blue' marines. If they could have both the dreadnoughts and the devastators they would be slightly ahead of their 'blue' brethren, but they cannot.

In the 'razor spam' department, the 'blue' codex falls behind the space wolves because they need to purchase more bolter brothers to access their meltaguns and missile launchers and have the melta and missile capacity of space wolves at a lower points level. On the other hand, having access to shooting dreadnoughts in their elites choices allows the 'blue' marines to field more long range anti-tank shooting than the blood angels. Out of the fifth edition marine codices, barring grey knights, the 'blue' codex falls between the shooting capacity of the wolves and that of the blood angels, netting the 'blue' book a solid okay rating.

I'll try to cook up an assault comparison using the best close combat units from each of the codices to see if the 'blue' codex can hold on to its okay rating. On that note, what units would you like to see in that comparison, as I'm not the most familiar with any close combat units.

Till then,
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam

Progress Report 2: Godfrey's Templar

2011-05-30T00:16:00.006-04:00

Hey everyone! As I mentioned the other day, I wanted to put up a progress report on my Templar army. I have been distracted by other projects, and in the time I've owned these guys I have started, finished, and often sold Daemons, Dark Eldar, and Grey Knights. Though I like to play around with alternative armies, this is my baby.

As you can see, my Crusade Fleet has grown quite a bit since the last time I talked about them on here, so I wouldn't mind showing the progress.

Marshal Hector Keys accompanied by Sword Brethren. The model is a Scibor Minis model with added Scibor shield and Holy Orb to give him the correct weapons layout as per how I usually run him.

Godfrey, The Emperor's Champion and the crusader squad he leads. Fun Fact: Godfrey was named after Godfrey the Baron of Ibelin. I also chose to paint the tabard on my Champion to match the Iconography.

Marsha Tyberius Irons. Made using the Helbrecht model with the addition of a helmet, he generally only sees play as Helbrecht. As it is currently the only "actual" marshal model, it seemed fitting.

>Brother Dominus, one of a few models named from the anime series Big O. Armed with assault cannon and a converted DCCW, he makes for a great mid field tank hunter.

Michael Seebach, Master of Sanctity. The model was converted from a Legion of the Damned sergeant. His three cenobite servitors are the retinue of Hector Rex with minor conversions.

Grimaldus. My favorite model made by GW, both in fluff, and game play. This Chaplain in one of the bigger reasons I chose to play Black Templar.

As you can see from the first picture, I still have plenty of unpainted models. I am working to get as many of them done as possible so that one day I can put up a finished review of the entire army.

Cheers!

Taurrible

2011-05-12T11:50:00.000-04:00

I've been able to get in about a half dozen games in with my rebooted Tau and have been having smashingly consistent results. The smashing part has been my army against whatever rocks were nearby, but there are two upsides I've seen in these losses that give me confidence that I can return to playing Tau without hating 40k and the army. A quick recap of the Tau's latest (getting) hits might sum up why I'm loving losing left and right while I race to get the army painted for a Bloomington tournament on the 21st.

I've had the opportunity to play Loki and Meister Kai twice each with my new Tau, all four games were kill points and both pairs of games were similar. I played Kai's mechanized Eldar first on dawn of war and made some major errors in deployment that gave the opening to glean easy kill points. Getting seized on didn't help, but after the game we talked about how I could have deployed and played better. The next game we played we decided to take our time and talk about each decision and why it was a good or bad choice. Over the next four hours we talked about how to set up the next turn's shooting, what units constituted a bigger threat to the army and how to mitigate the influence of dice by moving to a safer position. Where the first game Kai and I played was a slaughter, the second ended with my broadsides as the only Tau survivors and losing by one kill point. The game involved some ridiculous rolls for good and ill, but I was able to be more aware of what I was trying to do with my army and what choices I hadn't seen.

Both times I've played Loki I've been facing his paladin army and can't say it's anything but a royal pain to kill anything. In the first game we played I didn't use my kroot to screen the rest of my army properly and lost a hammerhead to Loki's scout shunting dreadknight on the top of one, followed by poor use of my piranhas and the dreadknight butchering by broadsides on turn two meant that I ran out of weapons able to inflict instant death on the paladins fast. After only being able to get two of his six kill points, the game wasn't close by any stretch. The second game was very different. When Loki won the roll and opted to go first, putting two pallie squads on the midline of the board, I decided to not try to seize or deploy anything. On the bottom of one his squad without Drago was hit by my whole army, dropping it to four wounded pallies. When the sun rose next turn Drago and his squad started working on a parking lot of piranhas and hammerheads that had moved twelve inches to block them from the rest of the army that was almost base to base in a corner behind two units of kroot. One of those bought me the turn I needed to finish the first pallie squad and died to the dreadknight, the other died to Drago's pallies, buying another turn. Disruption pods saved all three shots from the vindicare before a railgun showed him what a real gun was. In the end it came down to four pallies, Drago and a cowardly inquisitor against three suits, an immobilized piranha and a hammerhead. Six models to five models, eleven kill points to three, but a much closer game than it looked.

What have I learned? I've learned that I can play Tau without getting a headache and I can stop worrying about whether or not I'm going to win. Odds are I'm not going to win any single game, but it will satisfy me if both armies are bloodied and I've learned something about how to play 40k better. Loki talked about a shift in 40k from a game that had a lot more options whose enjoyability came from their ludicrousness rather than their competitiveness as a choice. I disagree with his division between a 'fun' game and a 'competitive' game because I used to wrestle and get beaten, a lot. In wrestling and 40k, to me, the fun doesn't come from rolling another player over and mollystomping them as one mindset I haven't run into would have it, but from the both of you walking away with (proverbially) broken noses, knowing that you both gave your best and ended up evenly matched. The outcome of the game isn't so important to me as the effort that was put in and any insight gained for the next game.

I'll try to post some pictures of my Tau with the next update, but that would require me to get them painted, which I will, but first lunch. Ribs sound delicious.

40k: Fun or Functional

2011-05-10T13:54:00.010-04:00

Greeting everyone. After a long time thinking on the matter, I have started to at a lot of things about the game that have changed over the years. While a lot of the changes have been great, there's one that makes me sad.

While rules have been added, changed, or even removed, some of the more interesting and fun aspects of the game have gone missing. I look at the ork codex as my large example of some of these more... fun rules. From Shock Attack guns to mine field clearing grots... the codex was and is full of some fun moments. Now of course this codex is designed to be somewhat humerus, it wasn't always the only one to have some unique rules come up.

Codex Necrons has a fun little rule/ability. The Nightbringer has a fun ability to throw units away from him so long as they are S3 or less. He also has a very... very specific rule. If he is hit with a C'Tan Phase Blade... he doesn't take any wounds, and the bearer looses their weapon. Now this only really effects the Caladis Assassin (even though she's been newly redone recently). Of course the rule isn't really "good" but it's funny when it happens. In all the years I've played, I've only ever seen that happen once, and tremendous laughs were had. Either way, his rules allow for some unique moments to occur, and while the rule which applies to only the Caladis Assassin is limited, the S3 push away is something that many players may not see coming.

Lets look over to Daemons. While the codex is kind of a joke as it is (no offense to those who play it) there are some moments in it as well. Fateweaver, apart from his meta, has a funny rule. If he takes a wound and fails his leadership... he runs back to the warp in fear. Now, this makes me laugh a lot as I can easily see any mage running at the first sight of danger... and it's replicated with Fateweaver's cowardice here. Maybe this was put in more as a balance to his powerful re-roll ability, but even if so, it's a fun way to make the model balanced while doing it in a funny and entertaining manner.

Another fun little rule, while not huge, is in the Eldar codex. Prince Yriel has a pseudo daemon weapon that likes to see him squirm. At the end of the game... if he's still kickin, the blade tries like hell to make him stop. It's not huge, but it makes for a funny moment if he does die.

In the end, I feel like the game has shifted from trying to be entertaining to simply being about competitiveness. The new rules which accompany the models and units of fifth edition seem to encourage players to use the more powerful options over others. While in some of the older editions the options were funny vs powerful... fifth has almost no fun choices inherently and pretty much leaves you choosing between powerful or less powerful options. Maybe I'm just missing some of the old days where the game was more about fun than winning... but I sure would like to see some more entertaining moments pop up.

Kill Points, Not as Bad as You Think

2011-05-01T08:49:00.006-04:00

Good morning everyone, hope you've had a good week or so while we've been working on wrapping up our classwork for this year. I haven't gotten to play as many games as I would like, but I wanted to talk about something that I think a lot of people and I will disagree on and spark some discussion on. Let's talk about having a lot of kill points in your army.

As the win condition for one of the three big rule book missions, kill points are a point of contention between people who hate them and...well most people hate them. As far as I know, this hatred comes from the equality of units in the kill points system. To get a kill point all you have to do is completely destroy a unit. All units are worth one kill point, no matter how expensive or hard to kill they are. A squad of three termigants, a devilfish and a land raider are each worth one kill point which is the major point of contention with people who hate kill points.

In contrast the 4th edition big rule book used a system based on how much each unit cost in points, called victory points. Victory points still exist in the 5th edition big rule book, but in my experience are rarely played, so let's only touch on them briefly. Using victory points a player would receive the points cost of a unit if it was completely destroyed and half the points cost if it was reduced to half strength or suffered a weapon destroyed or immobilized result. This rewarded players more for killing expensive units than it did for killing small impotent units and it made it possible to get some value out of damaging a vehicle that refused to die. With kill points you are left empty-handed unless something is entirely dead.

Tournaments that I go to generally use kill points as a tie breaker in objective games and as a primary win condition. Knowing this and that our gaming club uses the big rule book missions, most people around here are very conscious of how many kill points are in their lists. Their line of thinking goes that if a high kill point army fights a low kill point army it is at a disadvantage because the low kill point army has a lower threshold of kill points to attain before it will win unless it is wholly annihilated.

This is absolutely true, but I think it is incomplete in its analysis of having many units in an army. In having a high number of kill points, a list must also have a high number of units. The vanilla, blood angel and grey knight codices have the ability to break their squads into combat squads under certain conditions, creating new units and kill points. The imperial guard has the ability to combine multiple infantry squads within a platoon to reduce the number of units and kill points in the army. Each combat squad can operate independently and do the same thing their parent unit could do, albeit at half the strength.

The benefits of having these Multiple Small Units is in the more efficient allocation of damage and protection from overwhelming damage it affords the army as a whole. If a platoon's infantry squads combine, they stop conceding multiple kill points if they all die, but they can no longer act independently. While a combined squad of four infantry squads with lascannons can generate four lascannon shots on one target which may be effected by a single order, the four infantry squads can generate four lascannon shots that target independently. While some vehicles are more difficult to destroy than others, any can be killed in one penetrating hit. If all four lascannons fire at a vehicle simultaneously the odds of killing that vehicle are the same, barring any unit effecting abilities like orders, as if they were to be fired at it sequentially. However, if the infantry squad were to fire sequentially from different units, it is entirely possible that the first shot could kill the vehicle. This would allow the remaining units to fire at the vehicle's contents, if any, or another target. If the first shot does not kill the vehicle, the other shots may still be fired at the target, but if all of the shots were in one large unit, they must all fire simultaneously at the same target, baring abilities like target locks. By having more units, rather than fewer larger units, the units are able to more efficiently allocate their damage output.

On the reverse, units must only shoot at one unit, again barring special abilities. Some units have the ability to put out enough damage to eradicate a full squad, be in marine combined guard or any other, in one shooting phase. Consider the possibility that one unit was to receive enough wounds that its full strength version would perish. If the unit is at full strength they will all die, but if the unit has been divided into smaller portions only that smaller portion will die. It is simply impossible to lose ten models out of a five model unit. I will fully admit that those five models are dead and your opponent has received a kill point, which would be true whether the unit was divided or not. However, if you have divided the unit's special weapons evenly, the enemy has only taken away a portion of the full strength unit's damage output. While you have conceded a point towards the win condition or tiebreaker, you have retained more ability to take points in return than you would have if you had not divided your unit.

This MSU strategy is especially effective in objective games where any unit may contest a point and troops may claim them. The same weaknesses and strengths that apply in kill point missions apply here, but the ability to have more units that can claim objectives raises the threshold of units that a low kill point army must destroy to prevent the high kill point army from being unable to claim or contest an equal number of objectives.

These are my heretical thoughts on kill points and I would welcome anyone who disagrees to persuade me that I am wrong. I will attempt to do likewise for you and perhaps we will both gain a broader understanding of the subject. I leave you with a joke.

Why can twelve vanilla marines fit in a drop pod while only ten wolves or angels can?
The pod doesn't have room for the wolves' egos or the angels angst.

Thunderfire Finalization, Ho!

2011-04-22T19:34:00.003-04:00

by Ishamael

Salvete everybody, Ishamael here to show how my Thunderfire experiments have gone. While initially it was nice to have the Master of the Forge and the Scouts to hide him in, some recent point changes have unlocked what I find to be a stronger overall take on the Space Marine codex. Thus:

Librarian- Gate, Null Zone, Storm Bolter (LOL) 103
4x10 Tactical Marines- meltagun, combi-melta, missile launcher, Rhino, 2 HKM 920
3x Riflemen Dreadnoughts 375
1x2 Land Speeders- typhoon missile launcher, heavy bolter 180
2x Land Speeders- multi-melta, heavy flamer 120
3x Thunderfire Cannons- 300

This is 1998. Dropping the Scouts, Master of the Forge, and two Hunter Killer missiles has allowed me to toss in a unit consisting of two Landspeeder Typhoons. So, instead of the minimal damage output from these units, I have gained two long range models that have two missiles a piece for every turn that they live. For 180 points, they add a goodly amount of both anti-tank, as well as anti-infantry. While I lose a fast multi-melta, I still retain my four double meltagun units to advance in the Rhinos to pick up the slack in the melta-department.

Concerning the deployment of my troop choices, combat squad and mount up as usual, with this difference. The two Rhinos without hunter-killers cover the ones with the missiles. Turn one, the front Rhinos advance and pop smoke, probably 8 inches, then the hk Rhinos roll up right behind them to advance 6 to fire their missiles. The Librarian rolls with one of the hunter killer squads. This lets him use Null Zone to full effect, and he may teleport a squad away should the occasion require it. Something funny I noticed is that the Speeders can give the Dreadnoughts cover, but it doesn't work the other way around. Sad face. :< Albeit, 10 missiles turn one, then 8 after, does not seem bad. The missile launcher half will deploy in cover with the Thunderfire cannons, which will make them hard to dislodge.

Currently, I do not have the dimensions of the Thunderfire cannon, so it will be a while before I get the chance to figure out how I might manufacture a cover save for the unit. The issue lies in the unit consisting of one infantry model, and one AV10 vehicle. Hits are randomized against the unit, so it will be best for me to learn how I might make sure that both models have cover saves. A single glance or pen against the Cannon destroys it. Hopefully placing Marines from the missile combat squad will suffice. Maybe I will get lucky and the Thunderfires will be low on the target priority list. ;)

So, as far as efficiency goes with what I desire to use in this list, I think I have actually gone down deep enough to find as good a list as possible for my purposes.

Any thoughts on how I may get some more efficiency here? I should probably put a melta bomb on a sergeant than the Storm Bolter, but it's hilarious to me at this point.

The Bearded Alchemist,
Ishamael

Space Marines, an Edition Behind?

2011-04-17T13:09:00.009-04:00

Lets talk about the good old Space Marine. Being the 5th edition codex, it's been a while since it has been on the radar of most discussion boards, and perhaps for a reason other than just it's age. Apart from the drastic overhaul of the game's core rule set, 5th edition has created a large increase in power across the board with the new codexes much like the old "hero-hammer" characters of old. As I said in my review on the Land Raider, the power of most basic units has certainly improved from 4th to 5th, and with it we see some pretty powerful combinations. However, looking at it from one who did indeed play the codex for it's first 2 years, the Space Marine Codex (Codex Blue Marines) is looking a bit old, and it's not showing it's age well.

A few folks down at out FLGS look at Marines as the favored child of GW. I can't argue this fact, as the Space Marines often get them most love when it comes to new codexes. Perhaps this is because the Marine (along with the variant marine codexes) make up almost half of the playable armies out there. The other reason may be that the Blue Marine codex is always the first to be redone with the coming of ever new edition, and are always in the starter box. And while these "perks" may seem nice at first... a closer look reveals at least to me a few problems tat can come out of these.

First and foremost, the boxes themselves are an issue. The Standard Marine boxes are approached and made in what I consider a purely market standpoint. Considering that the sprues themselves are rather lax in both detail and quantity of bitz... they seem underwhelming as compared to the newer more detailed sprues of 5th models. I know the boxes can't be smothered in iconography as they do encompass a rather large number of possible chapters, but perhaps the addition of some new, more detailed items that should be there in the first place (power fist, special weapons etc.) as well as new more elaborate extra bitz to make the models a little more flashy than they currently are (and have been for the last couple editions) would be nice :)

Currently however, in order to build the army in the manner in which you want... it almost always forces you to purchase unit boxes you may not want or need. A good example is the Dev box. While the unit itself costs more to field than other, new codexes, the box itself is one of the only ways to get a power first. Now this alone says something, as who in their right minds puts a PF on the Devastator Sergeant? Why this particular bit couldn't be added to the tactical squad box is beyond me. The heavy weapons options are in a similar boat, as you only get the missile launcher with the Tactical Squad box itself, and again must purchase the devastator box for your needs.

The next problem is power on the field. Units in the Blue codex have the lovely Combat Tactics trick to get out of a tight spot. While I defiantly see it as a neat trick... it requires the unit be forced to take a moral test. This indicates they have already lost 25% casualties, and are at this point hurting in terms of damage output. This trick also isn't as reliable as straight up benefits like some other armies' special rules, as it can be difficult to make it away from a close combat from more smashy units.

Of course the inclusion of named characters can of course alter this to allow for a more stylized and sometimes specialized force... it replaces their first trick to do so... this is an issue to me. No other codex mandates that their nifty trick be replaced when you include a character to increase their power even in the new variant marine codexes. Logan Grimmnar doesn't remove counter attack to make Wolf Guard Troops, and Stracken most certainly doesn't remove the order system to give units around him Furious Charge and counter attack. I guess this just doesn't seem that the upgrade systems are on the same level playing field as they should be (at least to me).

Now is the codex itself bad... no. I can't sit here and say it's is the worst. We have Dark Angels (- Deathwing and Ravenwing which are both actually pretty decent these days), and if we're looking at 5th only Tyranids take that cake (which makes me sad as I think the bugs deserve a little more than they got). But the codex isn't much fun anymore. This is where that edition behind comes in.

As we know the Orks were written so late in 4th, they were really designed for 5th. Though this is true, we still see a little bit of a waning in power by this codex just due to it's age. Blue Marines fit in a similar boat.

When a new edition rolls around, the marines spearhead the new armies. However, they can't be overly good or they become unbalanced and overpowered as compared to the old edition codexes. We see similar things to this in other walks of life. In events utilizing judging, they are often a little more conservative with the scores they give out to early competitors, so they don't set the standard too high. It's much the same with Space Marine codexes. The codex itself has to bridge the gap of old edition codexes and the new codexes... and they can't offer up some of the better units that eventually are released in later armies. The Storm Raven is a good example of this.

Look at the power (and the new boxes) to come out in 5th. The nifty toys and tricks allowed by other armies are generally missing here, and while the Blue Marines did get new units, they are quickly overshadowed by similar units down the road. The Ironclad Dreadnought as compared to the Furioso for example.

Again, the codex does work... but I sometimes wonder if the codex isn't truly balanced with it's current edition competitors until it is redone for the next edition. At least that's the way I feel concerning the current edition and the Blue Marines.

Cheers!

3 Armies Enter, 1 Army Leaves

2011-04-16T11:53:00.006-04:00

by Ishamael

Hey folks, I am still sitting here mulling over army lists that I would like to play with. Since I last posted, I have ruled out all the Marine books except for Dark Angels, Space Marines, and Grey Knights. I am tweaking the Thunderfire Cannons some more, and hope to gain some efficiency from that. At this time, I am gonna throw out the Ravenwing list I would play, and the Grey Knight list I have been working on for a couple weeks.

The Ravenwing is a link to YTTH.

Pre-game scouting with every unit I have, with almost every one of them being scoring, and able to deal with heavy vehicles, MCs, and even hordes? On just a few bikes? :3

This next one is a modification of a submission I made on min/maxing the Grey Knights codex, and I think this updated version is better overall than my first attempt:

Brotherhood Champion- psybolt ammo 105

5 Grey Knight Strike Squad- Psycannon, Razorback with psybolt ammo 160
5 Grey Knight Strike Squad- Psycannon, Razorback with psybolt ammo 160
5 Grey Knight Strike Squad- Psycannon, Razorback with psybolt ammo 160
5 Grey Knight Strike Squad- Psycannon, Razorback with psybolt ammo 160

5 Grey Knight Interceptor Squad- Psycannon 140
5 Grey Knight Interceptor Squad- Psycannon 140

Venerable Dreadnought- Autocannon, psybolt ammo 190
Venerable Dreadnought- Autocannon, psybolt ammo 190
Venerable Dreadnought- Autocannon, psybolt ammo 190

Dreadnought- 2x Autocannons, psybolt ammo 135
Dreadnought- 2x Autocannons, psybolt ammo 135
Dreadnought- 2x Autocannons, psybolt ammo 135

2000

And so my dilemma rears itself. In essence, which army's playstyle would I enjoy the most is the problem. Ravenwing, which is fast, elite, and has the tools to succeed in every squad, along with the fact that I will be competitive with the Dark Angels book. ;) The Grey Knights have the benefit of plenty of vehicle hulls, excellent support fire at most ranges, and even some minor cc ability with the Venerables,Strike Squads, and Interceptors, as well as the tarpitting ability of the Brotherhood Champion. When it comes to my Thunderfire list, I recently changed it to where I replaced the Master with a Librarian that has a combi-melta, Gateway, and Vortex. I also switched the Scout squad's melta bomb for a combi-melta. It gives me the ability to teleport my Scouts to an objective, as well as double-melta something.

I have priced the Ravenwing and Grey Knights so far, and they're actually quite similar in dollars, with only about 50 bucks in difference. The Space Marine list would be a bit cheaper to make, since there is always someone wanting to get rid of Marines. :)

I need to sit and stew some more on this decision. It will be in the fall that I will actually start going after whichever army list I want to make.

Thoughts?
Ishamael

Thunderfire Experimentation

2011-04-11T21:53:00.004-04:00

by Ishamael

Hey folks, Ishamael here to bring entertainment and large explosions. Recently I have been looking into starting a Marine army, and have been considering my options. So far, I have no desire to play Wolves or Templar, but the other books hold something that I would like to play, whether it be Ravenwing or jumptastic sparklies. To this effect, I have been wondering on how to construct a list that uses Thunderfire Cannons. I like the model, and it's quite flexible on which kind of infantry you will be killing this particular turn, and it can be very annoying with the Tremor shot. So, here is a 2000 point list, with notes below it:

Master of the Forge- Conversion Beamer 120

4x Tactical Squads- meltagun, combi-melta, missile launcher, Rhino, hunter-killer 940
5 Scouts- cloaks, missile, melta-bomb 105

3x Riflemen Dreadnoughts- 375

3x1 Speeders- heavy flamer, multi-melta 180

3x Thunderfire Cannons- 300

Fairly simple. The Master deploys with the Scouts in a fortified building, giving everyone a great save, and they just shoot at heavy targets the whole game. Given how the Beamer works, in the back of one's deployment zone would work well. The cannons deploy to cover as much of the board as possible, taking cover saves and bolstering defenses where available. The Dreadnoughts hit light vehicles to de-mech enemies. The Tactical Marines combat squad up, with double meltas advancing in the Rhinos, and the missiles sitting back, hopefully in cover, adding support fire. The Landspeeders threaten heavy vehicles getting too close, or just fry something. This list works at a great number of ranges, and helps whittle away enemies as they get closer.

I'm going to stew on this list, because there aren't really any obvious threats apart from the Cannons. As such, I may need to go back to the drawing board to come up with something the opponent has to deal with (Shrike 'n Termies).

This is just one thing I'm considering doing with Marines. Grey Knights are very tempting and are on my list, yet I want to see what I can do with other books that are good and rarely done. Like Ravenwing, or a full-on Dreadnought army using the vanilla codex.

Yarp?
Ishamael

Land Raider: Worth it?

2011-04-10T19:09:00.015-04:00

Hello everyone. Apologies for a very long absence from the writing team here, so without further delay, let's get into today's discussion.

The Land Raider! One of the Imperium's deadliest weapons, bringing with it the Angel's of Death. Boasting a combination of the heaviest armor, heavy firepower, and the ability to carry the Emperor's Finest into battle... it is truly a sight to be feared... or is it?

In my experiences within the game, the Land Raider was always feared as a monster of a tank that couldn't be slain without pouring shots into it, or getting lucky with an early game pot shot. But with 5th edition this monster has (in this player's opinion) lost a lot of it's bite. I have looked into this long and hard, and noticed a few things that come up as negatives regarding this behemoth.

Choices, choices, choices...
Now as we know there are three patterns. While I feel the Crusader is the best due to high fire output and extremely high capacity (not that I'm bias as a Templar player or anything :P ) the others have their uses. However, the redeemer has too many heavy weapons, which forces you to choose which ones you'd like to fire, and the standard "God-Hammer" doesn't know what it wants to do since it's high ranged weaponry and low capacity don't mix well with it's assault orientation.

The choices here aren't a bad thing inherently, but I have noticed that with the exception of building a fluff oriented army, I rarely see any but the crusader hit the field. Again I can see why with it's qualities... but this shows to me a lack of balance within the Land Raider patterns.

The Cost of "Awesome"...

Now... The cost can be justified in some ways, as this tank does bring some very heavy armor, and (depending on the pattern) some impressive firepower. However, with it sitting at 250 points (240 for the Redeemer) before adding wargear like extra armor and the feared Multi-Melta... it quickly becomes a part of the list that has to be planned in advance.

Being the only transport capable of carrying those in Terminator armor, it is generally seen doing so. However, outside of this... it's a very expensive transport to simply carry troops. The one time I have seen (Without it being a LR Spam list) a Land Raider for a unit not bearing the Terminator armor was to carry Sternguard up. Was it a good strategy? Meh... Was it effective? Sure was. However, it made the Sternguard who are already expensive a huge point sink. Before I knew it, the unit and it's ride was already breaching 600 points. Add in Pedro, and it's almost 800 points.

Needless to say, the Land Raider is not something you add in last minute, when building your army. Perhaps this isn't a bad thing... but it is interesting to me considering the Land Raider alone costs more than another entire Tactical Squad with the usual bells and whistles (Power Fist, Meltagun, Missile Launcher) and their Rhino (Extra Armor). Sometimes you have to ask what would do more...

The "Unsinkable" Tank...
Once described as a tank that couldn't be breached... the Land Raider has lost a lot of it's staying power with the sheer increase of reliable Anti-Heavy Mech. Nothing is more apparent in this matter than the melta weaponry of 5th. With the average of a melta rule shot hitting 15 on the pen. table combined with the +1 on the chart... the once mighty Land Raider now has to skirt the edge of combat in order to survive.

Of course this can be a refreshing obstacle to come upon as it forces players to think ahead before just throwing their models forward... but it can be discouraging to see some melta-toting troop model not think twice when it sees the Land Raider. I often call the Land Raiders "the 250 point Rhinos" since it takes about as much to kill a raider in 5th as it did a rhino in 3rd and 4th.

And Melta isn't the only thing that makes a Marine player think twice about that Land Raider. With the new codexes come new ways to crack heavy tanks en mass. From Logan Grimnar making long fangs in a pod relentless, to Vet and/or Heavy Weapon spamming IG lists... the number of heavy weapons fielded by new armies is often double or more than we saw in previous editions. Meanwhile the Land Raider (apart from it's new weapon differences) hasn't gained much in the way of defenses. Of course it is hard to make a 14 box more resilient... but with Lance weapons, melta weapons, or sheer number of S9 or 10 shots hitting the field... the Land Raider is looking a bit weak for it's high costs these days.

Size Matters. Especially when it comes to hiding...
It's no secret that one of the big things to come of 5th was the incredible ease in which a cover save can be established. A curious little Rhino has a lovely ability to practically disappear behind a lot of terrain pieces out there, offering it some massive defensive perks. Remember that 50% of the time... a Rhino in cover is 100% better than armor 14 could ever hope to be when it comes to getting hit by anti-tank weaponry.

Rather unfortunate for the Land Raider, as it's footprint (and dat huge ass) can often make it hard to hide. This is another one of those 5th edition changes that while not directly effecting the Land Raider... can affect it's presence in a list as compared to alternative units.

and last but not least...

Show me the Money!
Ok GW, I understand you guys have been hit by the economy drop like everyone else... but seriously!? $62.00 for a single tank is pretty out there. I did find it funny that the Crusader/Redeemer box and the God-Hammer box are the same price. Not a good way to sell a tank that is considered the worst pattern by some/most.

Like with points, this tank requires players to know they want it... and it will take a lot of money just to get the tank. This again doesn't include whatever unit will go inside it... and again costs about the same as another tactical squad and their rhino.

Overall the tank has its uses. I run one in just about any game over 1,500 points when it comes to my Templar. Let me say that I know people can run multiples in a single army and are just fine with it, but again... this review is based on the principle idea that the durability of the tank has not increase in proportion to the firepower output of the new edition armies as well as the high cost when it comes to creating a "generalized (take all comers) list." I recognize it is possible to run them with success, but my observations here are to show that the Land Raider itself has lost a little of it's power as compared to older editions. Maybe this is balance, or just something that slipped into one of GW's many unnoticed cracks when they created 5th.

In any case, I hope to see the Land Raider return to some of it's former glory in the new edition, whenever that is. But until then, I'll just bring mine, and try to return it in pristine order so as not to anger the Master of the Fore, Brother Q. Until Next time.

Cheers!

(Special Thanks to MS Paint for the help with by far the crudest yet funnest RoB Pics I've ever done!)

Scrying the future with Heretic

2011-03-28T14:28:00.005-04:00

Hi again everyone, hope everything has been going well for you. I've been absent recently because I've been working on a portfolio for my university and a thesis so I can graduate. While these projects have taken a chunk out of my time to paint and play 40k, it has given me time to read far and wide around the internet and I've been contemplating how I'd rather play when I get the opportunity.

When I look at the armies I play I'd like to think there's some theme to them, my Techno Eldar with their DJ war walkers and my marines designed to bring in as much 'fire'-power as possible augmented by Vulcan, but my first consideration was their killing power more than their theme. Don't get me wrong these armies have served me well, I've won and lost my fair share of games with them, but I've played the same lists with these armies for long enough for even my leaky memory to hold them. I like how my armies work, I understand how they work and I've been able to get good mileage out of the eldar codex I think could really use an update, but I think I need to change a little of how I play and a lot of what I do play.

We've all got units we like because they are cool or they used to be great in the last edition of our codex, but just can't deliver like they used to, like they should in fifth edition for their points. Not having the gaming history that a lot of people do, I can't really say there are units that I played before fifth edition changed how the army worked. The closest I can come is the army I started out with and played for a year or two before bringing my eldar up to the 2000 points we play around Muncie.

Here's where I give you some hints to pad out this article before telling you what the army is. While I love what fluff there could be about this army, the best fluff there is isn't in the army's codex but in the tyranids': each side taking casualties and adapting to the other's tactics forcing a re-adaptation. They're the shining hope in the grim darkness of the far future as long as you don't mind being mind controlled ;). They're the most sci-fi of all the races bringing amazing technology to bare to compensate for their (significant) weaknesses: All Hail the Tau!

Yeah, Ishmael is our local Tau player and does well with them so I'll be encroaching on some of his territory, but the Muncie gaming club has been diversifying greatly since when I first came down to the Keep. It used to be that marine vs. marine games were the rule with xenos and guard being exceptions, but now some people play multiple armies and there isn't much overlap between armies. Ishmael and I (along with Meister Kai, Rionnay and others) regularly read Yes the Truth Hurts to get new ideas about how to play 40k competitively. Ishmael runs a list from YTTH quite well and while it's a good list it won't run without Ishmael behind the board moving the models from place to place. While the list won't save you, it can help or hurt you.

After wandering around it for a few screens here's the idea that binds all of this together: I will try to put to death the monobuild. If you're new to the term, a monobuild is when an army is old enough that only one archetype of list will still work for it in a competitive environment. For eldar that's Meister Kai and my armies that bring as much strength six shots to the table as possible. For tau the monobuild is Ishmael's army. I'll admit that his army will have more guns than mine will and is a better list overall, but I contend that it's not the only way to win.

There will be some similarities between our armies, as there are units that are better choices than their competitors for a force organization slot (you've got to feel bad for the skyrays and stealth suits), but there will also be differences. We'll both have three crisis teams but mine will differ between the teams while Ishmael has made the best choice thrice. I will try to bring a list that reflects the 'multicultural' nature of the Tau, but I'm not quite ready to go 100% fluffy bunny yet so there will be some teeth to the Tau. As much as I love my dark green color scheme, I may have to strip some of my fire warriors down to get the models for my new list and scheme. I'll try to post up models as I get them converted and painted and I hope you enjoy.

Inferring from Tournaments, Warmachine Style

2011-03-25T17:07:00.005-04:00

by Ishamael

Time to look at Privateer Press' notion of how a tournament should be done. I cannot even begin to talk about Warmachine without talking about PP's statement of purpose, Page 5. There are a few guidelines here talking about how to play Warmachine, but it reduces to this: give as good as you get, be aggressive, don't whine, and don't be a douche using Page 5 as an excuse. As far as mission statements go, this one is pretty sweet, although I would prefer some statement about experienced players being required to bring newer guys up to their level, in painting and the game. So, here we have the ground project of Privateer Press' approach to everything. What about their tournament structure?

Showing here.

Let us begin from the top. So, we start here with just a little something about how players should come to the event with all their gear to play the game. Oddly, it lacks some sort of penalty for being forgetful, but some things are easily replaced if someone forgets, like stat cards. Next, everyone brings a couple printouts of their army lists, and may bring up to 2 armies, subject to the same points restrictions, and not using the same warcaster/warlock. From here I will combine modeling, painting, and converting. In all cases, you can only use PP models in tournaments. While painted models look better, you don't ever have to paint a single model to play in these tournaments. Finally, conversions must be easily recognizable, and you must use the appropriate weapons on jacks and beasts. As for sportsmanship, I love that the TO does have the basic right to kick people if they are being belligerent. They deserve this power.

What's that? I call bullshit on GW immediately, but skim over PP's stuff? :3

Well, allow me to methodically go over every point in the above paragraph.

Everybody loves it when one's opponent comes fully prepared. Sometimes we forget things, and hopefully people will be willing to help out, maybe even let someone else use one's dice or tape measure. From here comes a huge beef I have with Warmachine and Privateer Press, which is how we are allowed to come to a tournament with two lists made up. Sure, they have to be from the same faction, but what does this option say about the design philosophy of PP? Let us look at what stems from some examples of different casters meeting. I take the Khador caster Old Witch (all you need to know is that she makes warjack shooting awesome). I bring a balanced list consisting of answers for heavy/light jacks, mass infantry, multi-wound infantry, even incorporeal things. I walk up to the table, and see that my opponent is using the Epic version of Kaya the Moonhunter. Her army is almost nothing but Warbeasts. So, we set up, I move forward and get ready to pew pew. Kaya moves up with her beasts, and casts Shadow Pack, which gives all her beasts Stealth, which makes any ranged attack outside of 5 inches automatically miss. Wait. So every single shooting element of my army is virtually useless? Then how can I stop the enemy from reaching my lines and wiping the floor with me? Kaya's beasts are all melee-based, and are virtually immune to any form of shooting! How can I ignore Stealth? Blasts can't directly hit, so they're useless, and any spray attacks I have don't have the power to scratch the paint on some bipedal wolf's crotch protector, and the only way I could possibly get around Stealth in Khador is to bring at least one Spriggan, which has flares. Or a specific warcaster. Fuck me running, did I lose this game before we even set up, even with a balanced approach to list building? Depending on the scenario, I may be able to eke out a victory, but her beasts are going to get to my line virtually unscratched, so I'm up pooper creek without a paddle. Man, if only I knew that my enemy was using Kaya beforehand, then I could have brought a Spriggan with shooting elements, or an army of flying warjacks with heavy cavalry support so I can get the charge. This is my issue with Warmachine, and it is a fundamental one. I has been confirmed by my asking experienced players, and it's utter bullshit. This game is based on matchups. Caster X trumps Z, but Z fails against Y. Really? This random warlock walks up, and, just because she has ONE specific spell, just neuters my army? Something I did not mention earlier is that the players choose their lists secretly before their opponents see them. What's the advantage of bringing 2 lists then? Why are we allowed to bring 2 lists?

Fix your game system, and then require only ONE list. Man up.

Warmachine is so fundamentally flawed it cannot even function as a competitive gaming system, let alone as a successful tournament one. In 40k, you bring a balanced list to a tournament to handle as many foes as possible, and you don't get "trumped" because someone else brought a specific HQ with a random spell, or even a specific army. This is my main beef with Privateer Press, and I will come back to it later.

To begin with modelling, only Privateer Press models may be used. Period. Oh, you can convert something and make a model for something that is in an army book, yet does not yet exist as a model, but it's gotta me mostly Privateer Press bits! People gripe and complain about how GW is a giant money-grubbing machine, yet PP is right here, telling us that we cannot make completely new models from scratch, even if we have it on the right base and our opponents know what they are. Bullshit. This is little more than a statement telling the player base to buy only their product. This also disenfranchises folks that like a particular unit, yet hate the model for it. I've seen scratch-built models made of mostly green stuff that have been allowed into Warhammer tournaments, and they look great. Doesn't GW have a standing policy that we don't have to use precisely only their models? Aren't utter proxies allowed when easily identified? Now for their lack of painting as a priority.

It's easy to go out and buy models. It's bloody hard to get to painting all of them. While there exists something called a PP "Hardcore" tournament, in which everything must be painted, it's odd that their basic tournament structure doesn't entice anyone to paint a damn thing. What, is this so people just keep buying without ever worrying about finishing what they start? Isn't wargaming something called an avocation, one which entails painting? Does anyone want to be part of something that only marginally wants you to paint? Maybe, if you have absolutely no interest at all in painting. I paint so I can play, simple as that, yet this game system lacks any real motivation to even begin that arduous task.

Their conversion policy is OK. It's nice that everything needs to have its appropriate weapon on, otherwise someone's going to confuse an Ice Axe (ridiculously strong), for an Executioner's Axe (decently strong). It also lets me convert my Man-O-Wars into Bombardiers without much trouble. I should get ahold of some Guardsmen grenade launchers for laughs.

To move right along, it's nice that TOs need to have multiple copies of the scenario being played ready to hand out to players. Final standings in this are determined by wins, not points, and something called "strength of schedule." This is referred to when one has a tie, and the breaker goes to the guy that fought more guys with "wins" than his opponent. I really see no strong correlation between a win and opponent strength, but at least a tiebreaker exists. Admittedly, it's unclear to me exactly what these "control points" are, but I think it refers to something specific to each scenario that one controls.:P Another weakness of Warmachine is that, regardless of scenario, if you kill the enemy HQ, you win. If that were the case, I'd love to catch someone's HQ out in the open with a railgun. Punk!

I want to end this quick overview with a request to the community.

I have heard that bringing two lists to a Warmachine tournament is in the same vein as bringing a side deck for Magic the Gathering. Unfortunately, I cannot address this criticism, although I understand the rudiments of it. Some decks are simply more powerful and trump yours, so bring along cards that you can switch out in subsequent rounds to take care of that opponent. Funnily enough, Magic consists of multiple rounds against the same opponent, while Warmachine does not. Furthermore, since neither opponent knows his enemy's list beforehand, why are we able to bring multiple lists anyway? Game imbalance. What if someone walks around at the start of the tournament, and catalogues a bunch of peoples' lists, and brings his "better" list every time?

Something interesting that I have no experience with in Warmachine is their usage of a turn timer. In a 35 point game, they dictate that players only can have 10 minutes per turn, with a once-per-game extension of 5 minutes. This seems to favor smaller armies greatly, as a jack-heavy army will be easier to move and use than an infantry-based one. Never used it before in a game, but it helps guarantee that games end on time, and players get to have a minimum of so many turns, which is an issue in 40k games.

I want to end this with something I've been told, yet only realized while writing this. It has been claimed that people go to Warmachine because they dislike how GW approaches wargaming. GW wants pretty armies and favors a good time over a hard game, while PP wants no painting and encourages hard games. Go point by point, and PP just takes the opposite of GW. It really feels like this tournament system is tailored to appeal to people disenfranchised with GW.

Well, I have only one thing to say to people whom make the claim that Warmachine is superior:

Games Workshop has a flawed tournament system with a good game system that will only get better with their new approach. Privateer Press cannot even get the game system right, because their damn warcasters and warlocks vary greatly in power against one another. It's model euchre, and that's bad game design.

Playing both sides of the field,
Ishamael

In the Pipeline

2011-03-23T22:26:00.004-04:00

Hey folks, Ishamael here with a small update on some things I am working on.

To continue my analysis of the tournament structures of GW and PP, expect the Warmachine bit this Friday. To hint at what'll be in there, all I'm going to say now is that Warmachine has fundamental problems on the gaming level before one can even get to a tournament.

I have wanted for some time to do a series of articles on Tau deployment, but I can't get VASSAL to work properly for me, so I'll be uploading pictures from a table here in the house. There'll be deployment thoughts, subsequent turns, and deploying for multiple gametypes.

Lastly, I've been wanting to write something on how gender is approached in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books. While many things are similar to own own cultures, the power structure of that world is such that it warrants a close look at the correlation on how saidin is tainted, and saidar safe to touch. It'll probably begin macroscopically, then microscopically.

Oh, and I need to be painting my damn Tau army. Nobody told me that 400 level classes are graduate-level work, and I'm taking 4!

pew pew,
Ishamael

Secret Project

2011-03-19T15:40:00.010-04:00

Well folks, after spending some much needed time putting some more paint on my Templar army I can be proud of some newly finished models. Probably my favorite item that has moved to the "finally got it painted" list is my Land Raider Crusader. Along with this was the finished touches of another crusader squad (only the initiates so far :P) as well as the retinue of Cenobite Servitors that accompany Grimaldus. I am happy to report that I have been able to add a few odds and ends units here and there, including some Standard "Shooty" Terminators with Cyclones (thanks again to Corvus Sanguine for those). My army is still a ways away from being finished, but I'm still happy to report it is growing with the little surplus income I can use on them.

Recently another of our ranks has begun to increase their army as well. Mr. Perry of the Chaos Space Marine persuasion has begun his collection of models for his Chaos Undivided army. With Khorne Bezerkers and a few CSM units in his possession, he stepped out to grab some more of the cult troops. He was able to obtain a Thousand Son and Plague Marine squad, but GW's lack of support for the Noise Marines (without buying the Noise Marine box, and Upgrade box to finish said box...]) he was unfortunately unable to obtain them... yet. I had a fun thought on a simple yet sufficiently disgusting look for the "Plaguies." After a little bit we had one finished, and the rest started. He was kind enough to let me finish one, but the rest are his to make beautiful (a relative term here as they are Nurgle :P ).

But after some fun with the Nurgles, I had a difficult time looking back at my Black and White army. I love them to death, but anyone who has painted a black army knows it takes a lot to make black look decent... so I was off to find one more distraction before buckling down. I have found my new distraction. I won't tell you more, but I'll leave you with a clue.

Cheers!

Happy Drinkin' Day

2011-03-17T17:18:00.003-04:00

From the folks here at Rites of Battle, we wish you all a Happy St. Patrick's Day. With any luck we will be able to help convert our FLGS with a few updates to the items in stock.

Here's a little idea of what we have in mind :D

Polish your Inquisitorial Boots

2011-03-12T10:36:00.007-05:00

So with the release of the new pictures as well as the advance order of the new models, the players have a pretty decent look at where the the new Grey Knights are headed. While I won't fully follow the PDF codex leak that is floating around, it is apparently (according to some informed sources) close to the mark this time. I'll believe it when I see the codex :D.

But with this comes the rise (or rebirth really) of the "Elite Army." Now, this has nothing to do with the Elites section of the FoC. This has to do with the idea of there being less models on the table, but each model consists of pure awesome. Long ago (In a galaxy at war, not far far away) Space Marines were treated very similarly. They had very few models in comparison to every other faction and with the base S3 on most non-marines, they felt hard to kill. Hints the Elite army feel. With the evolution of the game, the Marines (while still great do not get me wrong) have lost a little of that advantage with the rise of new, more powerful units, more characters, better weapons (the new standard is S4 in most armies) as well as new army rules to help. Again, I still believe marines have a sufficient perk as the bolter is still pretty decent and no one can claim the 3+ armor is bad.

Now we see the Grey Knights once again as the rebirth of the codex draws near. The discussion boards and web pages across the vasty interwebz have talked about their unmatched power for a while now. However, with as much (or little) we supposedly know about them, could this be a viable Elites army once again? We have seen the Terminator army reborn in some ways, but this is something all it's own.

So the question I have today is how do we feel about the Grey Knights? While they host powers and abilities we have ever seen before... will it be enough to stop the onslaught of more enemies? I personally feel that as far as fluff and the idea of what Grey Knights are... I'll be excited to do battle with this new codex. What about you?

Inferring from Tournaments

2011-02-27T15:37:00.008-05:00

by Ishamael

Alright folks, today I am going to do a brief overview of the tournament systems in Warmachine/Hordes and Warhammer 40,000. What I mean by "tournament system" in this context refers to the type of tournament used by the parent company of these games. My goal is to show that both systems require an overhaul. After this, I will briefly touch on the relative balance of both games, regardless of tournament structure.

To begin, I want to link the documents used by Games Workshop to show how they do their tournaments. To begin, here is a link from the RTT Handbook from GW's own website.

link

I want to begin here with their Gamer's Bill of Rights. Read it. What does it say? Then ask yourself: what is a tournament? This is what a tournament is. The term originally refers to medieval war games, in which men would fight with blunted (or not) weapons in order to get some prize. I want to focus on one thing here with the definition. Etymologically, a tournament entails competition. Does this "Bill of Rights" include anything about my right to play against competent combatants that are out to kick my teeth in? No? So, right off the bat, the First Amendment of Games Workshop's "tournament" pack tells us that it has little to do with what a tournament is. Keep this thread in mind. What the Bill does tell us, however, is that you should come to a 'tournament' to meet new people (fine), to "battle against other painted armies" (I'll be the first to admit I don't enjoy painting, and what little hobby time I do have I would rather spend it...I dunno...playing the game?), get questions settled by impartial judges (whom may or may not actually know the rules, because I'm still waiting on a main rulebook FAQ that actually makes the Scout Move its own movement phase, instead of a half-assed inference from the BA FAQ), have the tournament finished in a timely manner (duh), and play in a comfortable environment. If I want to go to a tournament, I don't care if I'm ass-to-ass in a basement crammed with people, cause I'm havin' fun. :P So, this is the baseline of GW's format. For the purposes of this article, I wish to skip scenarios, and consider how they score rounds instead, and what we may learn from that.

From here I want to address their scoring system. To begin, there are different values given on the scoresheet and in the RTT guide, so let me set this up as I've seen it in RTTs I have been to. So, we're just going to use the link in this paragraph to analyze the manner in which games are scored. For a given game, with a particular victory condition, a victory is worth 17 points, a loss 3. These 'tournaments' consist of three rounds, with 20 points max for each round, then a possible 40 for painting, which I will attend to later. There are modifiers for these scores, ranging from killing certain enemy units, to losing certain things. So, your score can go up by 3 points. Initially, when I read this, I wondered "hey, where does this "table opponent, perfect score" stuff come from?" Got me, because it is not to be found on this sheet. However! Regardless of the scenario, if you kill the entirety of your opponent's army, you will get 20 points. You get the battle points because you have no opponent left, and you army is "free" to just pick up the objectives as needed. Your opponent gets 3, possibly 6. Ties give about 50/50 when it comes to the mission, then the +3 extra for Battle Points. Now, bring back in the point I made on the nature of tournaments. If I wish to excel and win in this environment, what is my goal? To score as many points as possible. How do I accomplish this? Well, I can play each scenario as stated for one, and work to come out with a major victory in each. OR, I can take the easy route, and just destroy every single model my opponent has to ensure victory. Furthermore, ask yourself this: does this tournament system reward close games, or ones in which one person will dominate? The answer is obvious. This is a tournament system in which dominating one's opponent is rewarded, while close games (y'know, the good ones?) are penalized. Blood and ashes, wasn't this supposed to be a friendly system, in which we get together to meet new people, see painted armies, and be civil to eachother? So, we take from their scoring system that players whom obliterate their opponents are greatly rewarded for doing so, and harm others' enjoyment of the game...so they are blatantly violating their own First Amendment. Moving on.

From here, let me just touch a tad on that "sportsmanship score" sheet. If they actually thought people would be civil to others and be good sports while kicking teeth in and having a close game, then they would not need such a thing. Yet they do, igitur they do not think that people will actually be civil to others. Modus tollens, learn to love it. Furthermore, this subjective sheet factors in to one's overall score, and it becomes so flaming easy to harm another's score just to advance one's own standing. So hey, be deceptively nice, then screw your opponent on his sportsmanship score! Because we're about civility and being nice!

At this point, what do we have?

The Bill of Rights that forms the basis of these events lacks any guarantee of a competitive event in which I am allowed to enjoy myself by playing and winning/losing by the width of a hair.

Their scoring system is such that it rewards dominating weaker players, harming others in their sportsmanship score due to subjective douchebaggery, and DOES NOT reward close games, which contradicts their "Bill" because people don't have fun when they get dominated. Simple enough.

I said I would get to painting earlier, so here we are. This. What do we know from this sheet? Well, it says "max 40" points, yet when one adds up that various factors that go in to finding the total paint score, there are actually 46 points possible. So, what score might an "average" painted army get? Well, let's assume it's fully painted, 3 colors, based, and the details are alright. Oh, and to that "painted uniformly, except where appropriate" point: fuck you! My Tau suits will each be a different Power Ranger, so stick it. So, from this, our theoretical player would get a 24/40 points. Let us compare this to someone that paints well, to such an extreme that he walks in, gets a 40 easily, even the extra points that would have given him a 46. So, we have a difference of 16 points between these two fighters. Let us leave the Sportsmanship score out. They are both decent persons. With the entirety of this format in mind, it is time for a thought experiment.

Let's assume that round one, the fellow with the perfect score tables, but the other guy ties, yet gets 3 battle points. Also, assume that ties in scenario X result in a 10/10 spread. So, at the end of round one it's 37 to 60. How can the lesser painter possibly catch up to the guy whom already has over a tabling above him? Well, by tabling his two next opponents, which would take him up to a 77. Unless the better painter drastically loses the next two rounds, he's still in the running. Assume two more ties for the greater painter, 10/10 spread, no bonus points. He's at 80. He still wins. Why? Because he had nearly a perfect score for a game round (16) above the guy that only had average painting abilities. So, guess what: the existence of this system further forces one to club weaker players to even have a chance at defeating the guy with 16 points on him before they even hit the tables! So hey, the guy with the 24 has to be a far better player than the painter to have a chance at winning, and if he even meets ONE worthy opponent, then he is out of the running.

So really, does anyone want to defend a 'tournament' system that entails dominating weaker players, and painting to a professional level lets anyone with either the skills or money to buy a painted army to walk in with an absurd lead on every player that has not done so? How is this about meeting people, seeing pretty armies, and being among civil people? All I see is an infrastructure that rewards abuse and winning without having to play well.

I ask you: will you have fun in this environment? I suck at painting, but I know how to play the game, yet I cannot possibly catch up to someone that is able to paint to get that score of 40. Hell, I would probably have less than that 24 were all my stuff painted.

Furthermore, does anyone believe at this point that these events, run by Geims Workshap, are actually built to be fun? So much involves not playing the game that these events are meaningless, and no test for someone who desires close games. No wonder these events appear to be dominated by excellent painters, yet are mediocre to terrible GAMERS.

The existence of a Win/Loss system, as opposed to this horrid seal-clubbing points-based abuse fest, takes care of many issues dealing with how events are won that I have posited, and it also becomes the case that close games are rewarded, not turning a new player off of the game because some asshat decided to table him. If painting is so important, then make it its own event. If you want to get players motivated to paint their armies fully (like me), then make it necessary to have a fully-painted, 3-color standard army to even sign up for the event. I did not even get to mission types that range from fun to horrid; this only deals with what occurs as the result of the games and painting.

Wait, wasn't I supposed to contrast this system with Privateer Press' tournament format? So, I am going to make this Part 1, and I'm going to further research the implications of Privateer Press' claim of competitiveness in Warmachine.

Rex belli,
Ishamael

Motivation

2011-02-17T00:17:00.004-05:00

While I know it isn't late for some of you, I find myself up at this hour less and less often. What keeps me awake tonight is a desire to finally have a respectably painted army that I can take down to the upcoming Bloomington tournament this Saturday. Whether or not you agree with it, the tournament down in Bloomington counts a painting score into the total to determine the winner. I'm from near Bloomington and have always enjoyed playing a game or two down at the Game Preserve, but I've never taken a fully painted army to one of their tournaments. Because of the painting score I've never had much of a shot to place, but I think I can throw some work in over the next two days and have a decent score to go with a good army and trust the dice to fall as they may. What motivates you to get out a brush? Mr. Palmer's work (left) certainly helps.

Tau-riffic

2011-02-13T20:14:00.004-05:00

by Ishamael...image unrelated, it's just the coolest part in Towers of Midnight

For those unaware of the term used above to describe what I'm about to write about...shame on you! Regardless of how 40K Radio was not for the competitive among us, it was a fantastic show to listen to just because of the interactions among the guys running it. At any rate, 'ere we go!

So, it seems to be the case that the next tournament at the LGS is going to be 1500. Not the best point limit to play in the game, but hey, gotta work with it. So, for those of you so inclined to read over at Yes the Truth Hurts, Stelek recently put up a new Tau list that focused on mobility and torrent of fire, not playing keep away. So, I considered how I might attempt to use that list in a smaller game, and this is what I came up with:

Shas'el 75
-Flamer, hard-wired Blacksun Filter, TL-missle pod
2x 10 Kroot 140
6 Fire Warriors 145
-Devilfish (Disruption Pod)
3x3 Crisis Suits 456
-3x TL-missile pod, 2x Drone Controller, Blacksun Filter, 2 Gun Drones
3 Piranhas 225 (each in a separate FA slot)
-Fusion Blaster, Targeting Array, Disruption Pod
Hammerhead 175
-Railgun, Smart Missile System, Disruption Pod, Landing Gear, Multi-Tracker, Targeting Array
2 Broadsides 203
-Advanced Stabilization System, Team Leader, Hard-wired Target Lock, 2 Shield Drones, Hard-wired Blacksun Filter
1 Broadside 80
-Advanced Stabilization System

1499

A weakness here is only having 2 hulls to hide my Crisis Suit teams behind, so odds are one team will have to just suck it up and travel behind one of the Kroot squads. With the Blacksun filters, Night Fight becomes negligible on the basis that 2d6 averages 7, which one multiplies by 3, giving 21, then doubling it, for 42 inches of sight. I only need 36. So, minimum on 2d6 is a 6 for max range...which I can re-roll because of Acute Senses. The decked-out Team Leader in the Broadsides can reach out and touch someone as well. It should be relatively easy to make up the Gun Drones I need for each team. One very interesting thing about this list, as well as the one Stelek posited, is the capacity to cause a number of pinning tests on enemies with some luck. So, 10 Twin-Linked missile pods per turn, 4 Railguns, 3 fast sacrificial melta-gun toting Piranhas, and there are still 3 troop choices. It has mobility, target saturation, and it looks like fun.

Must play. :3

I'll show you the greater wood,
Ishamael

Inside Look: Furioso Dreadnought

2011-02-12T16:50:00.019-05:00

Greetings, and welcome to another Inside Look. With the news of Grey Knights on the horizon and their images now plastered up on every 40k blog, the second wave release of the Blood Angels has almost all but disappeared from the news feeds. However, this isn't entirely true as the Stormraven kit has been the talk of the town. While yes, the Stormraven offers something new, as well as a beautiful model, it has been the only real chatter to come of the new wave.

The other well known, but rather untalked about model is the new Furioso kit. This is rather baffling to me as the new Dreadnought box is one of the most beautiful and most useful model recreations to come about in 5th (in this player's opinion). As you may know, the old Furioso model was 100% metal. This made it a real pain in the ars to not only put together, but to prevent from chipping and the like. The new kit not only offers us all the new weapons upgrades that are available to the Blood Angels players, but also offers them a new and lightweight model to play; and the fun doesn't stop there.

The kit also includes the pieces needed to build beautiful Death Company and Librarian dreads to round off every variant Angel players could need. Every variant of the kit (standard, D.C., and Lib.) are stunningly beautiful in detail, and have a nice number of Blood Angel iconographic pieces to really add the flavor of the chapter to the model. While this is almost always a positive, it is this part that usually hurts many new models, as they become increasingly hard to convert for alternative chapter use. However, the iconography here is generally placed on flat or softly curved areas allowing for ease in removing the icons if one was wanting the kit for a different chapter.

I have to say of all the dreadnought kits to be released within 5th this is one of the most viable for conversion and assembly. While other kits are far from bad, the Furioso Kit allows for a number of builds to allow players of any chapter to capitalize on it's beautiful design.

I have looked into all the pieces provided, and made a small list of alternative dreadnoughts which could be made using this kit and some various common bits from Marine armies.

Chaplain Dreadnought
Using the D.C. torso, add some scroll work to cover the X on the left side plate. Depending on what variant you are wanting to create, the weapons lay out would be varied. However, I could see and have an idea for making a Dreadnought-sized Crozious to smite the enemy with.

Ironclad Dreadnought
I would use the standard torso with a little bit of iconography removal. This would make a nice Ironclad that fits the aesthetic choice of those who do not like the blocky feel of the Ironclad kit.

Grey Knight Dreadnought
Using the Lib. torso, as well as a spare Terminator head (using the proper conversion method linked here) one could make a very nice dreadnought to fit in with any Grey Knights army.

And there you have it. These are just a few ideas of ways to create more possibilities for this already varied kit. Dreadnoughts have been, and always will be one of my favorite units in the 41st millennium both in fluff and model, and naturally this kit is one of my favorite new releases of 5th. Feel free to post pics or links to other dreadnoughts you enjoy here.

Cheers!

No One Expects...

2011-02-11T12:44:00.004-05:00

The folks over at Heresy-Online have done it again. The most beautiful of armies now has at least a first impression look at our disposal. Katie Drake, I tip my servo skull to you on this most excellent work.

Grey Knight First Look

Note: Yes the photos are blurry... but for a first look it looks great.

Another Note: The sword on my Dreadnought feels too small now. Curse you Dreadknight!!!

There's No Path to Follow

2011-02-11T01:11:00.000-05:00

While I'm glad to have won the last tournament that we held up here at the Wizard's Keep, but I feel the need to change what has been working for the sake of some novelty. Oddly enough, my choice for how to change the army is actually fitting with the fluff of the Eldar, so let's go into that for a second.

The eldar empire used to run the galaxy much like the Imperium of Man does now, except the eldar embraced psykers and technology, allowing them to honestly boast that the stars lived and died by their whims. But much like the Romans, having no enemy to challenge them allowed them time for their 'indulgences' and their society soon got out of hand. The psychic feedback of their hedonism led to the birth of Slannesh and the Eye of Terror as well as the dark eldar. Those eldar that survived and didn't flee to Commorragh decided not to let their society to fall into excess like that again. To prevent a breakdown of order they created the eldar path.

The eldar path is actually a series of 'paths' that an eldar devotes himself to for a time. While they walk on a path they choose a skill and pore their lives into mastering that skill. Paths include the path of the artisan, where someone might be a potter, the path of the witch, the farseers and warlocks, and the path of the warrior with all of its aspects. With the eldar theme of 'we're better than you and we know it' they even can be more obsessed with something than humans can be. When this happens to an eldar it is seen with some shame, the term they use is becoming 'lost on the path.' Those that are lost on an aspect of the path of the warrior are called exarch, those on the witch path farseers. The eldar see becoming lost on the path as a sign of a lack of discipline and the ability to keep control of themselves. Those that are able to embrace different paths and turn away from each understand some of each path but can see the whole of the warrior path. These rare individuals are called autarchs, they command the eldar warhosts into battle.

Alright, so what was all that rambling for? Well it was to give you some of the background on the best army in the game (and we don't sparkle, thank you) as well as to bring up a concept.

In the narrow sense, I'm trading my line-up-and-punch-it-out eldar army with its psychic buffs for a more tricksy eldar army led by a pair of autarchs. I lose out on the re-rolls that I love so much, but it gives me the ability to almost guarantee getting in the first round of shooting if I want and reliably deep strike and outflank units. Most of my units stay the same, the only real change besides the HQ choice is splitting the warp spiders into two minimum squads and bringing in a pair of bright lances to give the dire avengers some anti-tank ability. I could go for a much different style of army, one of the luxuries of playing eldar, but I'm going in small steps to keep some of the understanding of how to best play my army.

In a broader sense we could all learn from the autrach in how we play our armies, and who knows, we might even have some fun with it. I know dramatt loves his blood angels and runs them with the same style every game. He has a horde of assault marines flying toward you with feel no pain led by Baron-Sergeant von Killstuffenstein, every game. That's how he loves to play his army and more power to him for having as much fun as he seems to when he gets to play.

What would he do if he couldn't run in and destroy an enemy, what it he was forced to try to shoot it out with someone else? Well blood angels have a pretty good answer for that situation. Like all of the 5th edition marine codices blood angels have access to razorbacks with different weapons loadouts that can make them good tank killers, but they have the advantage of their razorbacks being fast, letting them move and fire all weapons or one primary weapon after moving over six inches. A very different way to play the codex (especially when you take three devastator teams), but the possibility exists for the army to shoot down a lot of enemies.

What can you do in your army that would feel like the blood angels devastator army? I know everyone has their own preferred style of play, but what about flexibility? If you just keep playing the same army for so long it can get to be a drill rather than a game and the only drills I ever liked were tackling drills. Some food for thought as you play your games. Up next Loki said he'd be writing something about salmon killing bears, so I'll leave that to him.

The Crusades Eternal

2011-02-06T16:33:00.005-05:00

There is no number to this post as it is simply a notice. I have gone through each of the 7 part series on my look into the Black Templar codex and revised some of my comments based on the newest FAQ that hit. As many of us know, the FAQ really updated much of the armies old wargear to the new standards, and this had some effect on how certain units perform and how effective some upgrades could now be.

So check out the newly updated review of the Black Templars codex. Look for changes to be in red.

Edit: I have added another label for the series. All of the Black Templars Codex Review can be found under The Crusades on the left hand bar. Hope this helps.

Cheers!

40k on Sale

2011-02-04T12:35:00.007-05:00

Bad Economic times are upon us all, and as such I am looking to sell off some of my excess goods. If you are interested in picking up some 40k stuff for cheap, I have armies up for sale. The items up for sale include mainly Crimson Fist Space Marines, Dark Eldar, and a few units from Tau and Daemons.

A full list can be found on the Wartrukk.

Cheers folks!

The Fourth War for Armageddon

2011-02-01T11:37:00.006-05:00

So looking on GW's website, there has been a rise of talk about the oldest and best known campaign depicting the fight for Armageddon. The battle for this forgeworld was practically a full fledged war in itself as it brought one of the largest ork invasions known to history against not only the entire Steel Legion of the Imperial Guard, but also several chapters of the Astartes.

So vast was the undertaking that the entire planet was caught in the war. Many heroes were created from their time on this planet. Commissar Yarrick, High Marshal Helbrecht and Chaplain Grimaldus of the Black Templars, The Forgefather of the Salamanders, Captain Tycho of the Blood Angels,and of course Gazgull Thraka of the Goff clan are just a few for starters. All were created as a part of this colossal war by GW. But this was merely the Third war for the planet.

After looking at GW's website, they have released quite a few bits of additional game play out there for the players to soak up and enjoy. Planetary Empires now has a map and a full campaign, several scenarios for not only standard 40k, but Apocalypse and Planetstrike have also made their way into the news feeds as well. All of them depicting something massive, something historical, something... we've already seen before.

I was honestly a little disappointed at this display of "Look what we've already done!" While yes the history, and the action, and the overall feel of the Armageddon Campaign was massive and fun, I have seen it already... I've played many a game based on it. Personally I wish they would put more effort into creating a new campaign.

GW has made no secret of their push to use special characters in armies to help bolster their playability and versatile army constructions... but they aren't giving us a reason too. I fell in love with some of the stories about characters during the old Armageddon war and that's why I loved them to start with. Grimaldus has always been one of my favorite characters in the entirety of 40k (this is helped by the fact I love Chaplains), and all I have ever gotten to read of him was his involvement in the defense of Hive Helsreach. Surely that isn't all he or the others present there have done.

So in the end, I enjoy the fact that GW is putting out some fun alternative game styles for us the player base to enjoy. But I am really hoping in the future there are new Places to fight over. I think GW could really shine if they would just give us another huge campaign to love. Armageddon was a world wide fight when it was originally released in 3rd edition... let's hope they can do it again!

So I now open the thread to anyone. What fight's would you like to see? Is there a massive fight you'd like to see (Similar to Armageddon, or Forgeworld's Badab Wars). Or do you have an epic idea for an original conflict. This game is all about customizing your own fights, so lets hear em!

Battle in the Basement

2011-01-28T12:04:00.011-05:00

This last weekend ZerkeX hosted a tournament at the Wizard's Keep that I was able to attend. Loki was not as fortunate, but Ishmael and I got the opportunity to slug it out in the first round. I wish I had taken my camera for pictures, but alas it's battery was dead.

Round one started off poorly for me. Ishmael's tau advanced under the cover of night fight, for which his army was much more prepared than mine. While his suits were out of range, one daring hammerhead moved to midfield and fired a railgun into one of my wave serpents, killing it and panicking the fire dragons within leaving them pinned for my first turn. My first round of firing was largely ineffective because of night fight limitations on my range. When the sun rose Ishmael's hammerheads wasted no time to slag both of my fire prism with help from the broadsides and pathfinders. Not to be outdone, my farseer saw the accuracy in the future for my war walkers and guided them against Ishmael's pathfinders and commander, wiping seven of them out. The naive bravery of the tau allowed them to hold fast against the might of the eldar, but there will be a day when courage of men (and tau) fails.

The game was a modification of seize ground with three objectives scattering and one being placed by each player. Holding your opponent's point was worth two objectives so I knew I must keep Ishmael off of mine and hold his for a solid win. Testing the courage of eldar, kroot and tau alike my farseer ordered his wave serpent to crash into the tau lines. The mercenary kroot decided having a vehicle flying at them was simply not in their contracts and broke for home. The shas'ui were braver and reformed to attack the enemy in their midst. Despite their courage their guns and fists proved ineffective against the warmachine which proceeded to continue wreaking havoc in the tau line on the next turn sending shas'ui to flight. Warp spiders held in reserve arrived and eliminated a second crisis team. Seeing his army scattering to the winds the shas'el imitated the consuls of Rome and charged the spiders alone in hopes of rallying his troops. But his charge did not find the favor of the gods and when he turned to flee he was cut down. The farseer's bodyguard of dire avengers and warp spiders consolidated on the tau objective, sealing the game for the Eldar.

In the second round I faced off against Rionnay from Chapter Banner and a frequent poster on the Back 40k. Andrew and I had played the same scenario the previous day and he had handed me a ridiculously lopsided loss 15-4 in kill points including forcing my farseer to break and run first turn. The scenario was based on kill points with a centered objective being worth two and a nominated headquarters choice being worth an additional kill point. The deployment allowed for either short table edges or long table edges to be chosen for deployment, but a d6 was rolled after picking, but before setting up. If the roll was a 1-3, the choosing player had to deploy in the quadrant to their left. I won the roll and was able to get my 4+, choosing a short table edge to force Rionnay's tyranids to march across the table farther.

From his vantage point off the table, the farseer had seen the previous day that the tyranid hive guard were essential to their victory and now directed the whole might of the eldar to their elimination. The first two turns consisted of the farseer duo guiding shots into doomed hive guard while the tyranids returned fire to minimal effect. A squad of warp spiders were caught between the main hive force and deep striking elements when the Doom of Malan'Tai and a mawloc appeared near the warhost. While the war walkers and wave serpents dealt with the mawloc, the warp spiders sacrificed themselves to contain the hated enemy of the eldar. When the Doom fell to a fire prism, the hive tyrant and its guard were mauled by scatter lasers, leaving the tyrant with a single wound. The preparation of the eldar was the undoing of the tyrant when it drew too much energy from the hive mind due to runes of warding and killed itself. With the game in hand the scatter lasers proceeded to down two tyrannofexes and tervigons, leaving only gaunts remaining of the tyrannid menace.

This was my first win over Rionnay, an experienced tournament player who practices regularly against regional giants like Farmpunk and the crew of the Back 40k in Indianapolis. But I was afraid this win would be my undoing as I believed dramatt and his blood angels were the only other undefeated army in the tournament. I was dreading facing down forty assault marines with feel no pain until the a signal from the craftworld informed me that the wars against mon-keigh were at an end and I was to return to the craftworlds for the final round.

It seems Miester Kai's Kai'Mechia craftworld had been talking some trash and wanted to field an army in simulated combat against their brothers to see who was the greatest. Showing their pride Kai'Mechia's farseer brought a council of eight warlocks on jetbikes to the fight. But the combat prowess of Kai'Mechia's seers was not to be proven. After falling less than an inch short of a charge on the top of turn one (the mission only had a 12" buffer and I set up poorly) the council was met with a guided bladestorm and the sixty strength six shots. The seer had searched for the fortune to save his council, but eventually members began to fall to the hail of death, including the seer himself. Once the fleet had expended its firepower only one warlock remained and decided to head to the bars early with the rest of the council and fell back.

Much of the rest of the game was a series of my suppressing one or two of his vehicles while he disassembled some of mine one weapon or immobilization at a time. When ZerkeX called last turn it was a mad rush to contest points with the middle point hosting wave serpents from both sides, a futile attack on a falcon on the left point, but a successful contesting and the right point having a falcon landing on the marker and a wave serpent threading the minutia to be more than one inch away from the falcon and less than three inches away form the point. The eldar were equally matched and it ended in a tie.

And ties would seem to have been the theme of the event. While none of us was especially snappily dressed, the final standings had ties everywhere. Our friend Meister Kai held a tie for third with a person I cannot remember (sorry). Rionnay and Jordan, an up and coming blood angels player tied for second while B and I tied for first place. In the final game dramatt had faced B's based dark eldar and hit a streak of bad luck when not even Brother Corbulo could save his land raider from immobilizing itself on a rock. The dark eldar set upon the blood angels leaving few alive and those in retreat, a sad day for the Sons of Sanguinius.

ZerkeX, Lucas (his second) and a local painting buff Mr. Privett judged a painting contest to go along with the tournament. Categories were for a single infantry model, a single vehicle or monstrous creature and a minimum sized squad. While there were few entrants, Rionnay's hive guard and tervigon took their categories, I managed to pull out a win with a chaplain for my marines in the single model category.

The day ended with Loki, Ishmael and I inviting friends over for drinks and a few games of Red Dragon Inn, a game based on a Dungeons and Dragons party celebrating after a successful quest with drinking at the inn. If you have the opportunity I would recommend this game for anyone. Actually drinking I would recommend only for those of age with good livers.

Next time I see you I will tell you about a new style of eldar Loki and I have been cooking up and how I look to proceed with the proud race.

Q'pla and good hunting.

Hobby Table IV

2011-01-21T21:27:00.005-05:00

Greetings to all of my fellow gamers and hobby enthusiasts out there and welcome to another edition of Hobby Table. As my search for making 40k more interesting continues, I have come up with another mission type that takes a game type we see come up frequently in the old "roll for mission, roll for set-up" scenarios. Looking back at the previous missions created here, I have been adapting them a little more each time I play them, and as it turns out they all have a mission and set up reflected without being a simple copy and paste.

First we had Meat Grinder, which is a somewhat more involved version of Seize Ground with a flopped deployment. Secondly, we had Containment, which added a bit of spice and variety to Annihilation on Pitched Battle. So after looking at the options, I realized I had not come up with a mission to reflect Capture and Control or Spear Head deployment. This lead to my newest mission creation...

Mission: Assault on the Control Room

On the battlefields across the galaxy, it is no surprise that the force with the best organization will almost always triumph. This has proven itself time and again, and so it is this mission that reflects on the battle for tactical supremacy on the front lines.

This battle is designed to show sabotage tactics to remove an enemy's command center on the front lines, so as to gain the edge over the enemy.

Objective
The game plays by standard Capture and Control rules as described in the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook.

Set Up
Divide the table in half diagonally from corner to corner. Once done, both players roll a dice and the winner chooses one of the sections, and the opponent deploys opposite. Units must remain 12" or more away from the centered diagonal line of the table.

Deployment
After determining deployment zones. The player going first must place his/her Control Room (point) within their deployment zone. The opponent then does the same. After the points have been placed, deploy units as normal.

Please note that units fall back to the long table edge of their deployment zone.

Reserves
Both armies may use reserves as normal.

Victory Conditions
Whoever has the most objectives at the end of the game wins. In the event that no points are left at the end of the game, Victory Points will be used to determine the victor.

Special Rules

Control Room: In this mission, the control points represent the focus of command for the army's front line. As this is the case, it has been well fortified to protect it from fire. If the point is placed in a piece of terrain, that piece of terrain is considered to have the "Bolster Defenses" special rule. Please note that this benefit will work on any terrain, and will not allow the piece of terrain to be "Bolstered" further.

If the point is placed in no terrain, units with a model in base to base contact with the control room with benefit from a 5+ cover save. Please note units may not benefit from this save if a model in that unit is more than 3" away from the point.

Set Us Up the Bomb: It is the goal of this mission to both destroy the enemy's Control Room, and defend one's own point from being destroyed. Each army has created a bomb powerful enough to reduce the enemy's fortified Control Room to rubble, but it must be done from the inside.

Nominate a model in the army to carry the Bomb. Units selected from the HQ section may NEVER carry the bomb (no general will risk carrying a bomb in combat). If the model carrying the bomb is killed, another member of that model's unit may pick up the Bomb immediately. If there are no other models in the squad or the model was not a part of a unit, the bomb is simply left where it was. In order to pick it back up, a model must be in base to base contact with the bomb at the end of it's movement phase (or at the end of a Run! movement).

If a model with the Bomb starts it's movement phase on (within 3" of) the enemy's Control Room and the point is considered uncontested, the bomb is immediately set off. Place a Large Blast Template centered on the Control Room. Any units (friend or foe!) with a model under the blast take that many S5 AP- hits with no cover allowed.

Please note if the bomb is dropped, place a 25mm base to represent the bomb. Also, a player may never move another teams Bomb in the event it is dropped.

The Price of Failure: If at any time your Control Room is destroyed, units arriving from reserve must re-roll successful rolls to arrive.

The game uses standard mission length, and allows any and all standard rules to be used (i.e. Deepstrike, Outflant, Scout, etc.)

I hope you guys enjoy! Till next time

Cheers!

The Model Costs How Much?

2011-01-16T16:19:00.003-05:00

by Ishamael

I do not know what to say beyond...holy crap!?

Considering the knowledge that this unit will be released soon, one has to question if such a unit is good enough to substantiate purchasing this model. Let me preface this with that I am not as much a modeler or painter as a competitor, so any purchase I make has to be balanced between my wallet and how often I think I will use the model. Currently, I have no plan to purchase this on the basis of price, so it will be up to the rules being released to attempt to convince me to get this for my games. Let's hope the rules rock for this thing, as has been hinted at in the past few Insider articles over at the PP website.

Zerkova

So, I'm continuing my misadventures with this misanthropic warcaster, and here I'm going to go through a method of list building I have been applying to Warmachine, which I learned from 40k. Specifically, how to make a "balanced" list in a game. While Warmachine lacks the absurdly awesome utility of melta weaponry, one can divide the various unit types, as well as builds, and find a "best fit line" that combines one's units. Luckily, Warmachine is set up so there are plenty of ways to do this that'll let you use your favorite units.

Any list in this game must be able to do the following:

Balance between ranged and melee units. Although this game lends itself to favoring the melee-oriented, combining ranged and melee gives you an edge over specialized foes.
Light/heavy jack kill, one of which requires better MAT/RAT, the other high P+S
horde infantry, which requires either quick melee or long ranged weaponry in abundance
Multi-wound infantry and solos require accurate and high P+S units
I'll give stealth its own mention, which either requires flares, the capacity to simply ignore the rule.

This is an oversimplification, but here are my rudimentary criteria. Now, to put it into action, I'll supply a Zerkova list that covers these bases at 50 pts.:

Koldun Kommander Aleksandra Zerkova
Behemoth
War dog
Great Bears of Gallowswood
Greylord Ternion (Leader and 2 Grunts)
Greylord Ternion (Leader and 2 Grunts)
Iron Fang Uhlans (Leader and 4 Grunts)
Man-o-war Demolition Corps (Leader and 2 Grunts)
Winter Guard Rifle Corps (Leader and 9 Grunts)
Kovnik Jozef Grigorovich
Orin Mindwinter, Rogue Inquisitor

I added Behemoth in here because I plan to grab the model and use it soon, so I thought I would Theorymachine it here. Behemoth takes care of just about anything in the game, but his primary role will be jack hunting. The Bears and Demo Corps act as my melee unit that can either clear out infantry, harm multi-wound infantry, and threaten both types of Warjacks. The Rifle Corps help me clear infantry, act as meat shields for Zerkova, and can do their suppression order if something unruly is getting too close. Uncle Jozef gives them tough and fearless, so they'll be staying where they are. Midwinter is there is to add to Zerkova's spell immunity, as well as hopefully annoy enemy casters. Zerkova herself will clear out infantry, multi-wound infantry, and hopefully whack the enemy caster. The Uhlans will act as a herding mechanism, starting off on a flank, and they also can threaten just about anything, if their horses can run over enough enemies on a charge.

So, here's a little tidbit on how this list will work. Now, I'm wondering about that full unit of Uhlans. Cavalry are very useful by themselves, but those four points can net me a unit of Mechaniks for Behemoth, as well as a Koldun Lord to add to the infantry-clearing capacity of my Ternions.

Comments and criticisms on everything I've posted here about approaching Warmachine will be appreciated.

eSorscha

I will end this article with a combo question that came to mind when I was considering purchasing Lady Aiyana and Master Holt. Let us assume I have eSorscha and a unit of Widowmakers. Aiyana casts Kiss on target X. eSorscha activates, and uses her feat, which includes the target of the Kiss. Widowmaker 1 fires, hits, and uses the Snipe rule to instantly deal one damage to the target. The damage would get +2 from the Kiss, then would be doubled due to the feat.

1 + 2 = 3 x 2 = 6 damage

Does this work? I have looked at the newer FAQ for Mark 2, and didn't see a question for it. Now, having looked closer at eSorscha's feat, it does state "damage that exceeds ARM", yet everything I've ever seen that wants to abuse her feat requires Widowmakers to do 2 damage instead of 1, so it doesn't appear to be a case against this combination.

Thoughts?

Tested the Decimator today, pretty sweet Warjack,
Ishamael

FAQ you too!

2011-01-14T10:57:00.013-05:00

This basically sums up Loki's morning. Today GW put up new FAQs for all of the "marine" armies and Dark Eldar. Now I'll let him get give the Black Templar FAQ some meaning as he updates his review of the codex, but I'll hit the high points of the other FAQs.

Most game changing, especially for the Dark Angels I love even though I hated their codex, is the inclusion of the new versions of wargear such as storm shields, nartheciums and cyclone and typhoon missile launchers in DA and BT codices. No longer with this proud standard bearer (painted by Dezartfox at The Vanus Temple) be looking for a cover save, no he has a 3++ save now. While there are armies who can still field a terminator army, and arguably better, the Dark Angels are the originators of this army style with their first company, the Deathwing. Now the First Legion's first company is able to field the same weapons as the codex chapters and can even field mixed squads like the Sons of Russ. I can see two new types of squads coming out of this FAQ. The first being five terminators with TH/SS, one carrying a Cyclone missile launcher. The squad can walk across the board without having to cling to cover and provide two shots per turn to down a vehicle. Having THs, these squads would be great against dreadnoughts and monstrous creatures and could even go toe-to-toe with codex terminators. The squad clocks in at 235 points, not too bad for a troops choice of terminators.

The second build I can see will be horrible against the targets the first will be hunting, but will look a bit like our friend Logan here because of the new nartheciums. Nartheciums are the tools of the apothecaries of each chapter and give the squad Feel No Pain, which anyone who's played against Blood Angel will tell you is frustrating. Feel No Pain essentially doubles the number of wounds it takes to cause an unsaved wound, barring power weapons and strength double the target's toughness. On a power armor marine that means six wounds to down one, on a terminator that means twelve wounds. With the advent of the 3++ storm shield a lot of people have decided that the best way to kill terminators is to swamp them in wounds. Not a bad idea, but let's see just how tough these terminators can be.

You have the sergeant, throw in the apothecary for Feel No Pain, the banner bearer so we can buff the squad to three attacks base and a cyclone missile launcher just for some more ranged support, one schmuck and, because the banner and apothecary basically make it a command squad, Belial with a TH/SS. We've got six differently equipped models, each with a 2+ save and Feel No Pain, one with a 3++ and thunder hammer, and (if we give them lightning claws) five attacks each on the charge. I could throw in a chaplain for re-rolls to hit, but I don't know it that will be necessary. This squad clocks in at 290 points plus 130 for Belial and is designed to take on the massive squads (e.g. hormagaunts) that would generally be the death of terminators.

Don't think that the older codices were the only ones to get new abilities. Papa Smurf here just got better. The FAQ asks if Calgar (and any squad he has joined, but oddly does not mention a squad he has not joined using the same rule) uses his God of War rule to pass a moral test, does he count as fearless. The answer is a firm no. This can give tactical squads the ability to pin down units that beat them in CC for a counter attack as long as Calgar is on the table.

The Black Templar and Dark Angels traded in their smoke launchers and got a new Power of the Machine Spirit rule for their troubles, but everyone got their PoTMS FAQed. Vehicles can't use the PoTMS to fire one weapon when they fire smoke, but the Storm Raven can use PoTMS to fire one weapon after moving Flat out. Speaking of fast marines, they can now take the 3" immediate move to regroup in addition to their standard move because of ATSKNF. That means if you make them fall back they can potentially move forward from where you forced them to fall back from in one turn.

I'll get to the Dark Kin next time, or maybe leave it for Loki as well because it's his army, but the BRB FAQ has a tangential answer for Dark Eldar. The Duke allows all venoms, ravagers and raiders to deep strike and some people had been asking if this allowed the unit to assault that turn. The argument that people had been putting forward that because deep striking only counted as moving at cruising speed (for shooting) and these vehicles are open topped that they should be able to assault. The BRB FAQ says that the unit inside also counts as having arrived from deep strike, so no they can't assault. For once I'm agreeing with Beasts of War. Maybe I've had too much spice.

LONG LIVE THE FIGHTERS OF MUA'DIB!

Her Name's Viera!

2011-01-11T22:14:00.022-05:00

To mirror an article I wrote many long months ago, I will take a look at another unit of the Imperium's finest. In the Article Jumping the Gun I looked at the Assault Marines (and their counterparts) from all of the Space Marine Codexes available. Today, I'm going to take a look at another unit. Like the Assault Marines, there are some people who love them, some who swear by them, and others who simply hate them. Today, we're going to look at the Devastators.

Devastator Units in General
Devastators in general usually have a specific goal in mind... and while that generally is focused around anti-mech, it isn't there only option. Between all of the codexes out there, there are indeed many ways to play this unit. Overall, the strategy is generally based on the principle of finding a nice piece of cover to sit back in, and let the shots do the talking as the enemy is berated with a hail of angry and usually powerful weapons. Like all ranged squads, they suffer in melee... though the option of melee weapons exist (a power fist or weapon), it is not seen often as they are not meant for melee, and are usually pretty salty as they are.

Overall they add an impressive and usually well fortified addition to the Space Marine player's ranged arsenal. These shots can really affect the game more than any others in the first few volleys, and can sometimes seal the fate of both players on the battlefield depending on the dice rolls.

Codex Astartes
Seen really as the basic or standard, the Dev. unit in this codex does exactly what you would expect. They fill the roll of additional ranged firepower and have an impressive number of builds they can adjust for. On the one hand, they can equip heavy weapons such as Lascannons and missile launchers to deal with heavy infantry, they can take Heavy Bolters (or use frag missiles) as a nice relatively cheap fire base for anti-infantry, take a bundle of Multi-Meltas, and pump out the scary shots... or simply take a little of everything for the well rounded feel. Though I can see why the mix of weapons can have a certain appeal, unless you're wolves (get to them in a bit) I would suggest a more specialized build to avoid wasting shots; Heavy Bolters won't do much except chip paint if the squad needs to bring fire against a Land Raider or such.

Whatever their build, they will bring enough shots to bare to bring most anything down in a matter of a turn or two. And on top of this, they can make one shot BS 5 if the sergeant forgoes his shooting. But all of these weapons have a cost... and a high one at that. If the Lascannon spam is your game, best save your points, as these suckers come in at 35 a pop. While I was once confused by the high price of these guns, I did forget to factor in the cheaper heavy weapons allowed to this codex by the tactical squads. The cost outweighs the potential of an exorbitant amount of heavy fire.

Now, while the codex doesn't have any character support that directly affects the Devastators, there is a nice "bolster" they can receive. If taking a Techmarine, Master of the Forge, or even Lysander... the army can use Bolster Defenses to help increase the cover of a friendly ruins by 1. While this isn't huge for the army, a Devastator unit can benefit greatly from a 3+ cover. Not to shabby when it comes to helping keep the shots pumping!

All in all not to bad of a choice to run. They offer impressive shots, and high range to keep the enemy wondering how long he/she can keep their mech from looking like a bad used car lot!

Dark Angels
Well not to be outdone... the Devastators from this codex are simple amazing. In fact, they are almost mandated to be in every army that claims to be Dark Angels. Nah, just messing with you, they are pretty meh.

Like their previously mentioned counterparts, they serve pretty much the same role. The only real differences are a lack of the Signum, and the option to take additional Bolter armed members is limited to 5 more or nothing... which is a rather limited theme in this codex. Overall, I can't say much about them, as it is pretty much a copy and paste of the Codex marines. I rarely see them hit the field when clad in Green Armor, as the DA codex is rather limited in it's ability to filed a competitive army, and the alternative builds like Ravenwing or Deathwing seem to be the more visible list that come from this codex, and neither has much room for an expensive unit that doesn't belong.

Overall, they aren't bad here... but the Green Army from the codex doesn't see much play with the Black or White(ish) army options.

Black Templar
Didn't think I could review a unit in less words than the previous one... well guess again. Black Templar's do not use Devastators, and thus do not appear as a choice in this codex.

Given this, I feel the unit is a terrible choice, and should never be used over other more assault based units! To be honest though, the codex can pull off a shooting feel very well based on the wargear upgrades requiring no minimum unit (plasma gun and Lascannon in 5 man squads with razorbacks works well in that codex), but they aren't truly Devastators, simply ranged crusaders squads. Though not my favorite of choices when it comes to my beloved home-dex, I must admit it can be very effective.

Space Wolves
Known as Long Fangs, these guys are a pretty unique unit to the codex. While serving the same roll as the other Dev. counterparts... they do it very efficiently.

First, they allow an extra member of the squad to take a heavy weapon, giving the squad the ability to take 5 in total. However, this perk isn't without it's drawbacks, as they may not take extra marines to serve as early casualties.

Second, they loose the Signum, but so long as the Sergeant lives, the squad may split fire into multiple (2) units at once. This makes cracking multiple tanks, or taking a diverse squad for anti-mech and anti-infantry become viable!

Third, they bring heavy weapons to the table that no other unit in the army can bring, which serves a pretty good use when it comes to bringing heavy shots early to cripple the enemy offensive.

Overall... two thumbs up here. They are a heavy unit, that can hit 2 enemy units a turn. Efficient and scary as hell!

Blood Angels
These Devastators are pretty nice. First, they cover a similar niche to that found in the Codex Astartes, so the uses are very similar. However, with the usual emphasis on Assault Marines, these shots are usually the only long ranged ones to hit the table, so it is similar to Wolves in this regard. To account for this, the price for the weapons is less, allowing the army to spend these saved points on the more expensive assault troops without too much of a hindrance.

However, like Templar, they can capitalize on this by building and army to shoot, and gaining extra ranged firepower. I have looked at this as an option, but in both B.T. and B.A. codexes, they can gain the shots, at the cost of running units that won't benefit fully from the army rules which generally push assault based units.

This unit is a superb way to gain heavy fire, and do it cheaply (as the cost of the Assault Squad is higher than a Tactical Squad). Thumbs up here!

So there they are. These marines bring the big guns to the fight, and like I said before, their shots can often dictate the outcome. So find a good hardy piece of terrain, and lay waste to the enemies of mankind! Till next time

Cheers!

This Hat is Russian

2011-01-05T10:56:00.005-05:00

by Ishamael

Well, my particular position as a Khador player has given me a new model to be excited about, this horse-drawn carriage with guns! This week has seen the unveiling of a new unit type for WARMACHINE: The Battle Engine. All we have right now are just a couple pictures, and the promise of them being useful, yet they will not eclipse jacks and Warcasters. To quote from the Privateer Insider for Jan 4, 2011:

"The next hurdle was that early incarnations of the battle engines had too many support abilities, often far-reaching in their effects. During one round of playtesting, some playtest games revolved around the battle engine more than the warcaster. This was certainly not the desired effect, and each support ability was carefully reassessed when the offending ability was removed. Some were tweaked and others were replaced with abilities for the battle engines rather than the army."

So, I'm going to be awaiting the release of the rules for this particular model. It will be fully resin, so that carrying case won't be getting any heavier! While I can't say much about it without the rules and statistics of the model, its size could lend to giving just about anything a unit to hide behind. Liberal application of Behemoth or Destroyers could do well here. Arcing fire is pretty sweet. Now, firing behind other models brings me to my next topic for Khador: the much-maligned Zerkova.

So, the last few games I've played, I have used Zerkova as my caster. This decision came about partly because I thought the model was pretty cool, and also because in my forum-cruising over at the Privateer Press website revealed that the Khador community there doesn't like her. Apparently she's something "un-Khadoran." I have no conception as to what this means. Maybe it refers to her virtual lack of ability in close combat. At any rate, she is exclusively a spell caster. At this point, I'm going to list a few virtues she has over most other casters:

7 FOCUS, with the ability to use her Focus Sphere to reduce the COST of a spell by 1
She has an artifact called the Ghost Stone, which makes her front arc 360 degrees, allows her to ignore LOS in her control area, as well as ignore Stealth.
She has 7 spells to choose from, ranging from a basic offensive spell like Razor Wind, as well as the capacity to control enemy warrior models for one attack, cast a unit-wide Ice Cage, or even push a model back with Force Blast.
Her feat is fantastic for a turn where you need to get close. Enemies in her 14 inch control area lose their initial ranged attacks, can't run, charge, make special attacks, give or receive orders, or make special actions.

These are a few cool things about her. Of particular note is the combination of Razorwind and the Ghost Stone, allowing her to fire a Pow 12 at anything within 10 inches of her. I've used this to ninja-kill other casters that got too close. The Stone can also be combined with her Twister spell to harm formations.

To close this preliminary on her, her spell Banishing Ward is fantastic. It makes it so your enemy cannot cast spells/animi against them, while you remain able to buff them. Using this and giving a unit multiple Blizzards helps them survive far more than they would be able to otherwise. I use a full unit of Rifle Corps w/ Uncle Joe and a unit of Ternion to Blizzard them up, and cast Banishing Ward on them. Fearless, Tough, def 14, and immune to enemy spells, as well as the capacity to use that nice big template of "no light infantry allowed," yes please!

Next time I'll be going over some combinations with her, as well as a list I've used to try and take advantage of her abilities. Hopefully more rules will be revealed this week about the Battle Engines, so I will be reporting on that as well!

I loves me some cone of cold,
Ishamael

The Crusades Part VII

2011-01-02T17:17:00.015-05:00

Revisions to the original Post have been made in light of the newest FAQ. These revisions will appear in red

Welcome to Part VII and the final look into the Black Templars codex. As mentioned before, We're looking at the special Characters within the zealous ranks of the Templar, both of which having a unique and all around amazing feel to spice up the power of not only the HQ section, but also the rest of the army as that is one of the main specialties of this codex... but we will also take a final closing look at the codex as a whole. So lets take a look at the big shots themselves!

Special Characters

These are the major hitters in the codex, and provide players not only a chance to use more powerful options, but also allow them the ability to relive a bit of 40k's past. Long ago, the Armageddon Campaign was the big scoop, and much of the events and tournaments played centered around this colossal engagement. At the heart of this fight was the Black Templar Chapter. Both in the ship to ship combat in orbit, and in the Hive Cities below, the knights of the Chapter brought death to the enemy. A look into the Black Library's book Helsreach, you can see this first hand.

High Marshal Helbrecht

The big shot himself, he is the equivalent of any other marine army's Chapter Master, he is considered one of the most tactically intelligent, and vicious of any marine chapter. He has the ability to really hit the enemy's front line, and do some major damage alone.

Now his stat line is not much more than a regular marshal from the rest of the army (as in 4th, characters weren't always gods :P ). He does have two bumps where it can really count though, both his Wounds and Attack profile are 4 base. This gives him an extra wound to play with which can really come in handy. His attack is a little less bang for the buck as he is not duel armed (and similarly equipped marshals usually are as well as taking Term. Honors putting them at 5 base as well). Where this is offset is his weapon. The sword of the High Marshal does not give him duel armed, instead it says that on the first round of any combat (charging or not) he gains D3 additional attacks. This is a nice bit of rules play that really hits what the army is designed to do. Helbrecht (to me) is a character designed to finish the job in one turn (maybe two if dice don't go the way he wants). He hits hardest the first turn of the combat, but then settles down a bit for the rest of the engagement. Now keep in mind every new combat he'll get the additional attacks, so it's not a one hit wonder.

He comes with the wonder that is Rites of Battle, and is of course an I.C. He bears Artificer Armor as well as Bionics (I have had that 6 come up to save him many times now and it never stops being funny when it does) as well as a combi-melta. This is a nice tank buster that the enemy never expects to see coming. He also has his own Iron Halo, and the extra griblets you'd expect a Marshal to carry...

But where Helbrecht really shines is with his Command Squad. Being from an older codex genre, he still has the old Retinue rules for his Command Squad. This is not only amazing at keeping him alive, but really charges up the command squad. He allows them to take 5 Neophytes which like any others act as surplus wounds in time of need, and forces them to take Furious Charge (which generally they will anyways) and believe me they really come in handy here. I have used the Command Squad with Helbrecht to devastating effect before, and the only way I can see to do it is with Helbrecht joining the fight.

Now, outside of the command Squad I can't really say Helbrecht will do too much. Most normal Marshals with similar equipment will do about the same, or better and also provide a way to take some nifty toys (Holy Orb being the big one). But if he is packed in with that large command squad, most anything they hit, won't be much besides a blood stain on the battlefield.

Overall, he's great in his command squad, but outside that, bring a regular Marshal.

Chaplain Grimaldus

I will say that this model and this character is the reason I really fell in love with this codex to start with. Again, if you read Helsreach you can really get to know this guy pretty well.

Grimaldus brings to the table some nifty rules that are more about support than personal glory. Now that's not to say he can't kill alone, as he brings his Crozious and MC plasma pistol into the fight. But here's the kicker. First and foremost he comes standard with 3 servitors (so there's the +3 to zeal moves). He gains the benefit of having a Holy Relic so long as any one is alive... which I'll get back to in a moment.

Remember the rules the Chaplains have to bolster the righteous zeal movement and make them fearless (Unmatched Zeal on page 32), well Grimaldus has this with an extra perk of it applying to all squads with a model within 6" of him. This is amazing. It is a single chaplain that can effectively bolster multiple blob squads (or any squads really). Talk about efficiency. Now his servitor benefits do not apply to any other squad other than the one he is attached to... but remember that he has a holy relic to pop and give many squads on the line up to 4 attacks on the charge. I have not met many enemies that can stand up to 2 full blob squads (20 man and 24 with Grimaldus and servitors.) with 4 attacks base.

And lets not stop there! He has a rule that reflects his unprecedented will to fight, and it says that when he looses his last wound, he must make a leadership test. If passed he'll fight on with another wound. If this extra wound is lost, he is removed as normal. But this is a nifty trick to get around those pesky Power Fists that would normally kill any other I.C. dead. He simply returns to life and continues to kill what he can. Now, he is only Lead 9(as he counts as a Reclusiarch only) but he does have the bolster to his WS and BS. He's a nifty Hybrid character.

This guys is a great way to be efficient when it comes to running Blob Squads across the table. I strongly without question urge the use of him in the event you are running more than one 20 man crusader squad.

Both Thumbs up to this guy!

So there they are, the Big shots themselves in all their glory. Both characters find themselves in a unique position as they both have a massive benefit to give, but outside of that they are less potent. I feel both of them serve to fit the fluff they were designed with, and they add a great bang to the front lines in this army of Melee Masters!

Final Look

And before you knew it, the codex has been reviewed in it's entirety! It has been a lot of fun to look through the pages of my old Codex and see just what it can bring to the table. I still invite everyone to revisit some of these old posts and make comments or suggestions, as it has been a fun experience learning tricks from the comments of you the readers.

But looking back at the sections of the codex, I can still say without a doubt that the codex has an element of synergy that is not seen much anymore. Of course many of the newer codexes out there still have ways for the HQ to effect the rest of the army, the biggest example of which is the Chapter Tactics seen with characters in the Codex: Space Marines. But this goes beyond that in that the HQ choices can really be used to bolster not only a squad's leadership, but really affect the rules the codex utilizes the fullest.

The Big Example of this is the Chaplain's effect on the Righteous Zeal rule. This rule alone in all it's glory is my biggest reason for claiming this codex is not only not as useless as our fellow gamers at BoLS and other sites claim in many an article, but I will even go so far as to say it has more power in it's pages than many of the newer 5th codexes.

I stood by this codex before the FAQ as being a potent and powerful army... the new FAQ has almost increased this army's ability to God Tier. With the best of the old world (armory Upgrade System) combined with the best of the new world (wargear such as the Storm Shields), we have an unbelievably killy army. This isn't to say we are unbeatable, but darn cloase.

Now the new FAQ wasn't all great news. Loosing old smoke did kill our Rhino's and the like the peace of mind of being darn near indestructible, but it's a small price to pay for the perks. We still have the R.Z. movement allowing this assault-based army close the gap with unparalleled speed and its unique manner. Yes I will say this is beyond a shadow of a doubt still very much a viable and powerful codex.

I hope you all have enjoyed The Crusades and I look forward to writing more and more. I invite all of you to post along with any comments you may have, put in your suggestions for the next codex to review. So until next time

Cheers!

New Year, New Models

2010-12-31T22:35:00.007-05:00

Greetings everyone, I've just returned from the land of Westboro and sadly must admit to have neither brought them the Emperor's wrath nor the message of the Greater Good. But I do have good news for you; In my searching of the internet I found two pictures.

This is picture brings not only confirmation that GW is continually stepping up its game with the second wave of blood angels, but also some possible implicit confirmation of Grey Knights. I know GK have been the talk of the town for months, but assuming this is an actual sprue, this pic confirms some support for them atleast.

Look at the top two torso fronts in the picture, specifically the one on the left. You may need to expand and flip this picture on its side, but it sure looks to me like there's a book on the dread's right side. I don't know all that many chapters that use a book in their iconography (Dark Angels and Grey Knights, to my knowledge) and instead of the standard dread faceplate there seems to be an enlarged version of a psychic hood on that front plate. I could be wrong as Blood Angels have librarian dreads, but I'd rather hope to be right on this one especially for ZerkeX's sake as he's had a shitty end of the year.

Dramatt will be happy when he looks in the bottom left of the picture as well. Those seem to be some sparkly little blood talons for him. As much as I hate Blood Angels for continually kicking my ass, I will eat about half a crow concerning what I said earlier about the leaked Storm Raven picture. That picture may have been about as representative as a zoom shot on the back door of a wave serpent. This next treat actually looks like it could have some meat to it, rather than being the vehicular equivalent of a servo-skull in terms of balance. I'm not sure if I'll like it more than the flying land raider everyone thought it was going to be, but it's not as bad as I thought it would be.

Santa wishes he had a sleigh like this! Happy new year to you all!

Holidays!

2010-12-24T12:54:00.003-05:00

From all of us at Rites of Battle, we wanted to wish everyone happy holidays. We hope your choppas are still choppy, and your bolters still bolty.

So go out and spread some Christmas dakka!

Machinegun "Techno" Eldar, pt. 2

2010-12-18T02:46:00.012-05:00

If you haven't read the first part of this article take a few minutes and have a look.

And when we've got a theme going, why not keep it rolling? It may be a bad theme, but getting some more strength 6 shots brings more shots that can wreck transports or slaughter their contents. I've run out of heavy support slots and can't really get more strength six out of my elites and only mediocre amounts out of troops choices, so I have to turn to the one part of the Eldar codex I hate, the fast attack section. Once again, I've got to give credit to my friend B from the Keep, he used warp spiders before I started using my Eldar and gave me a reason to respect them. Now they are packing 6/- guns, but each gun has two shots, so I can get twenty out of one squad.

Warp Spiders have a tactic that doesn't spring to mind when you look at them. They don't come dual armed, nor do they have the option for grenades and only the exarch can buy a power weapon, but with the exarch power withdraw warp spiders can be a worthwhile assault unit. Don't get me wrong, they won't stand up to assault units from other codices or even their own, but they can be used for defensive assaulting. Instead of letting that squad of assault marines assault you, charge them! This takes away their bonus attack for charging and gives it to you. After a round of death spinners the unit will probably be weakened to the point that you can pass your leadership, should you lose combat or you may even win. During the opponent's turn stay locked in combat, depriving the enemy of their movement and possibly finishing them off. At the end of their assault phase don't roll a six on your Hit and Run test and you get 3D6 movement in any direction. I generally don't like the exarch upgrade, but this tactic and the avenger bladestorm are well worth buying the exarch for.

That brings us to the necessary parts of the force organization chart, troops and headquarters. Eldar have a variety of troops choices, but only two are coming to the techno party, with a third at lower points. Not on the invite list are guardians/storm guardians for different reasons. Guardians don't get to come because they have flimsy armor, mediocre ballistic skill and pathetic range, barring a weapons platform. They can hold down a point, but rangers can do it better and for about the same points. Storm guardians can bring some anti-heavy tank in the troops slot, a rarity for Eldar, but it costs them 92 points to bring two meltaguns. If I wanted a close combat Eldar army, I'd bring these guys but as is they aren't needed for anti-tank.

Rangers make the invite list, but only five. These guys may not seem like a fitting choice in a mechanized army, but their ability to stay static and fire while being somewhat durable is an asset. Yeah, they don't have any strength six for my strength six army theme, but they can wound monstrous creatures as is they were strength six (or eight for the wraithlord) and they have blown up a rhino for me.

Their rules lend them to staying in a crater all game, but on Capture and Control that is a gift straight from Khaine. Without upgrading them to Pathfinders they have Move Through Cover and Stealth, with the upgrade they gain an additional bonus to their cover save and ignore difficult terrain. For 95 points I can throw these guys on a point and have them kiss the dirt to stay alive all game. These guys can't move much if they want to kill anything, so they can Infiltrate where they want to. If they can hold down one point and not attract attention, they've done their job which isn't so much to kill anything, but to take the responsibility of holding a rear point so my other troops choices can move forward and fight.

At lower points levels I may bring some guardian jetbikes, but at 2000 they don't bring enough fire power for my tastes. They are durable (for Eldar) and can move quickly, but they only bring a eight catapult shots and six cannon shots for 152 points. For the same amount I can bring the most feared and in my opinion best Eldar troops unit, the avenger bladestorm squad. Consisting of nine avengers, exarch with two guns and the bladestorm power this can put out 44 strength four shots over two turns or 32 shots in a single turn albeit at the cost of the next turn's shooting. I bring two of these squads to be able to claim up to three objectives. I don't expect to ever be able to claim a full three, but if I can claim one and contest the rest I'll win. In my experience from playing Tau says the best way to hold a point is to clear it's occupants and then stroll up, no need for orky fightin. But even as good as dire avengers are, they can't do it by themselves.

This lady and her sister is the linchpin of my Eldar army. The farseer is one of the worst psychers in terms of personal destructive power, but they bring obscene buff spells to the table. The best two for my army are guide and doom, allowing one unit to re-roll to hit when shooting and allowing any roll to wound a unit to re-roll until the beginning of my next turn, respectively. These gals ride with the avengers both to buff their shooting and leadership. With so much strength six in the army doom doesn't always make itself known when fighting marines, but if I get fight Tyranids, having re-rolls against those toughness six monsters will help and it makes bladestorm half again as powerful against most troops. Marines may not know fear, but my ladies do; they fear pyschic negation. I stopped running my seer council because of getting tired of being negated so much, so when I decided to replace them I wanted a back up seer to make sure if nothing else that doom went through.

The last part of my army is possibly more widely hated than bladestorming avengers, fire dragons. One of our other Eldar players, Meister Kei, swears by these guys and brings three squads to every game. I only wanted to bring two and I know that's going to bite me in some games. With no lances, these guys are my answer to armor fourteen, with the exception of the fire prisms. They are an automatic part of every Eldar army if you ask the internet, and it's hard to argue with a squad of five meltaguns for 80 points. These poor, unfortunate souls have the shortest life expectancy of any unit in the Eldar codex and when your average warm body is tough three with a 4+ save, that's saying something. These guys fly up to a land raider, cook it and pray the guys inside are pinned. They seem to be made to suffer, it's their lot in life.

But there you have it, my latest take on the dying race that used to control the galaxy. So far I've played three very fun games with it against B, ZerkeX and Anthony, losing every one. I underestimated B's beastmaster squad and wasn't able to stop him from dropping a webway portal that brought in suppression fire on my wave serpent before annihilating them. ZerkeX managed to keep his blood claws holding a point and getting a lone wolf to my lines that I simply couldn't kill (tough five, Feel No Pain, two wounds and terminator armor). Anthony's orky boyz held his point and I couldn't get a last exarch close enough to hold a point, but my farseer did punch out a deff dread without dying. I don't know if this army will be better than the seer council, but it certainly is more fun to play with and in the end that matters most.

Machinegun "Techno" Eldar

2010-12-18T00:24:00.012-05:00

You may remember Loki's article a while back about playing units you like whether or not they are "good," where he pointed out my love of the seer council. Alas that romance seems to have seen its last days after one too many turns without fortune turning the unit into an expensive smear on the ground. An offer from a friend to buy the squad prompted me to question what I would do with the points.

I wanted to keep most of the same models to keep costs down, but that leaves a large gap in points and only a few openings. What I did have (fire dragons, dire avengers and fire prisms) gave me a definite bias toward shooting over close combat, but I needed something fill the points that fit with that theme. I didn't want to buy another squad of fire dragons, good though they are. The problem I had seemed to be having wasn't killing transports, but killing what comes out. Infantry killing, especially marine killing, has two ways to go: Rate of Fire and Save Denial.

Save Denial
Easier to do against units with horrible saves (5+, 6+), this method relies on bringing weapons that have an AP value equal to or lower than the target's armor save value. The plasma gun is one of the best examples of save denial and is available to most armies' troops in one form or another. Since I can't get any plasma without taking fragile troops in the form of guardians, taking vypers which I'm selling to another friend for his Dark Eldar army's venoms or giving up my bright lances I can't really justify going this route. It's not a bad way to kill infantry, but with cover becoming more prevalent in 5th edition, Save Denial has lost a lot of it's appeal.

A guardsman in a crater might as well have carapace armor unless you have a way of denying his cover save because he can choose to take his 4+ cover save . If he chooses, that guardsman can hit the deck and have just as good a chance of dodging a railgun as a marine has of taking a lasgun in the chest. I'll save the rant on guardsmen blobs with stealth for Loki, he does it better. Whether or not you think this should or shouldn't be (what we call a normative statement in economics), this is a provable fact of playing 40k in 5th edition (a positive statement) and when I build lists I try to stay positive in my thinking and outlook.

Rate of Fire
The other way to go about killing infantry or tanks. You don't need to have high strength weapons like railguns or meltaguns to kill heavy armor, though you need 216 missile launcher hits to kill a Land Raider Crusader. If you have a weapon whose strength is equal to your opponent's armor value minus five, you can kill that vehicle with one shot. It's not a good chance, but it is a chance. So you've got lower strength weapons, what makes these weapons worth taking instead of weapons to deny saves? Weapons that have lower strength generally have a higher rate of fire to compensate. If your weapon can take the -5 test and can boast a higher rate of fire, you've got multiple chances of which you only need one to achieve your goal.

For my Eldar, I decided to take a gamble and drop my faithful bright lances from my wave serpents to solve my problem with infantry. I'm losing my chance at save denial and wounding monstrous creatures on a 2+, but if I can keep a decent strength on more shots I can try to force my opponent to roll saves and the dice may favor me more. If I wanted to go halfway between rate of fire and save denial I could opt for the star cannon, a nice two shot 6/2 weapon, but where's the fun in that?
Instead I'm loading the serpent turrets with scatter lasers (maybe subwoofers later) and upgrading the underslung catapults for a shuriken cannon. Instead of having one 8/2 lance shot each serpent can bring seven 6/5 or 6 shots with the four 6/6s being twin linked. Honestly, the odds are pretty bad even against rhinos, about a 1 in 6 shot of destroying but it is oddly better than a single lance shot. Where the scatter laser / cannon combo really comes into its own is against horde armies like the one I played against tonight. I lost, but it was a refreshing sight to see an ork mob reduced to failing a morale test in one shooting phase.

Now I don't claim this as my idea, another friend at the Keep was the first person I saw use this unit to devastating effect and like any good teacher, I stole it. The concept is simply rate of fire turned up to eleven, as Eldar love to do it better. Fitting in my last heavy support slot and coming in at a relatively small 180 points is a unit of three war walkers with two scatter lasers. Unlike their more stompy cousin the wraithlord, these come in a squadron and can take two of the same guns without twin linking them. While they are still ballistic skill three, this unit can pump out 24 6/6 shots a turn. On average that's enough to force ten armor saves on marines, go and do the math I'll wait. Forcing saves doesn't mean killing, but it does give a chance to kill, especially the special weapon, heavy weapon and sergeant out of a tactical squad. They may all live, they may all die, but forcing those saves gives me a shot at killing them where a save denial weapon would guarantee my killing a non-essential model.

I've been rambling long enough for one night, so look for a second part coming over the weekend. Feel free to chip in and give your thoughts. If I might as well be putting underwear on my head and thinking it's a hat tell me, won't you?

Inside Look: Dark Eldar Raider

2010-12-12T15:22:00.004-05:00

Hello Everyone. After looking through some of the past articles, I remembered a spot I did looking into the new plastic Daemon Prince model. Having enjoyed opening and constructing some of the new Dark Eldar models, I thought this would be a good chance to give everyone a look into the new models. The most notable being the Raider, I figure it's a good place to start.

So right off the bat when opening the new kit, it looks daunting. There are a lot... and I mean A LOT of little bits for this thing. This was a scary moment for me, but I must say that GW really stepped it up on the instruction booklet. It was a very simple process to follow step by step, and before I knew it, my raiders were assembled and ready for action.

The body of this agile beast is pretty sturdy, and I'm sure it could handle a few oops moments. The extra gubbin's on the other hand are far less durable. The trophy racks, the blades, and the thin chains that dangle from the sides and bottom are very fragile. I can easily see these bits breaking within the first couple trips outside the homestead without an exorbitant amount of padding... and even then the padding may break them off!

The detail is unparalleled in a vehicle. Most, if not all the options for the raider are present (and the ones that aren't can be found in the Ravager Kit). Every inch of this new model is eye candy, and as I said when looking at the Sanguinary Guard models... GW has really stepped up the detail. Of these new details, the addition of the sail was interesting. At first I was not a fan, but looking at the model itself, I must say it does provide a nice look to the new design. And between the Raider and the Ravager, there are plenty of sails to chose from.

The biggest upgrade to me was nothing on the model itself. The new ball-joint flying bases are brilliant! No more snapping problems, and it allows these floating barges to have more angled and varied looks to them. I hope these become the new main stream for skimmers GW produces in the future.

I must say this model is a great new piece to the dark armies of Commorragh. I myself was shocked at the amount of love I find myself having for these little guys, and I mean little (they're tiny!).

Cheers!