ok ok ok.. been crazy busy

I apologize to anyone who has checked the blog during this down time to find no updates :(


After the first of the year thing 'should' settle down for me a little bit and I can get back to writing.  I want to 'debut' an army I just finished.  It will no doubt be cheesy, beardy and wreak of power gaming.  It is a redo of an army I played for the Adepticon Team tournament a few years ago.

In the mean time I wanted to post this pic of my boy and I in a little Chirstmas aftermath about to have a gi joe battle of epic proportions.

First Crack at a Dark Eldar Army List

 I got a chance to look at the dark eldar codex and there are some interesting changes from the previous dex. (thank goodness)  I think raider spam is a thing of the past and we're going to see some use of those great looking new Reaver Jet Bikes.

What is your army theme song or tournament ritual?

I am a firm believer that everyone performs better with theme music.  I know I jam out while on the way to a tournament or with music from my iphone if I am at a hotel somewhere.

Bad Dice - What is your voodoo?

The picture to the left is an example of a good Snake Eyes.  The snake eyes I have been seeing recently are of a different variety all together. 

Clash of the Titans - C:SM vs Blood Angels - Part 2

Thanks for checking back.  As promised here is part 2 and the conclusion to the Space Marine vs Blood Angels battle report.

40k: Battle Report - C:SM vs. Blood Angels - part 1

This past Sunday I hosted a mini clash of the titans in my man cave.

Until recently I had been using proxies to represent my 1st company Blood Angel force.  I was really aching to get them on the table top and when I did I wanted it to be against a top notch opponent.

I invited a buddy of mine over.  He's no slouch and is one of the top tournament performers in the Atlanta area.  A couple of years ago he won our local circuit of champions. He is known for taking somewhat unconventional lists that could be considered 'spoilers' for other tournament winning armies.

For the first game he took:

HQ

Librarian

w/ Null Zone

Tech Marine

2 servitors

Fast

10 man Assault Squad

Rhino

Troops:

3 5 man tactical squads

3 Las/Razorbacks

AND

6 Ironclads

w/ 2 hunter killers each

I took:

The Sanguinor

Librarian

w/ Might and Sanguin Sword

Jump Pack

Honor Guard w/ banner

Power Fist x 2

Melta Gun x 2

Storm shield x 4

Chaplain

Jump Pack

4 Assault Marine squads

All with two melta guns and power fists

The mission is 'draw fest' where two objectives are placed on the table top.  You have to control more objectives than your opponent to win.  90% of these games result in a draw when you are playing a good opponent unless someone gets lucky.

I won the roll to choose deployment and opted go first for no other reason that to test the viability of having the less favorable option for me.  I would have really liked to go second for the obvious reason of wanting to use the Descent of Angels after my opponent had already positioned, either moving around on the table or coming in from reserves.

I choose to hold everything in reserve.  My opponent does the same.

Our game basically starts on turn two.

I come in with the Sanguinor, the Honor Guard with attached Lib and Chaplain and one of my assault squads with a priest which I opt to combat squad.

He has nothing on the table. I scatter an inch or two from my desired locations and then run for a slightly more favorable position.

Bottom of two he has somewhat favorable reserve rolls and gets in four of his six dreads, his tech marine and one of his razorback squads.  He brings that RB on the table lined up at my objective.

He murders one of my combat squads down to the last man.  Thankfully that man had a melta gun.  I pass my leadership test.

Turn 3 I get the rest of my army in.  He has a few thing left in reserve so I have to position a few units over near where he brought his RB just in case he comes screaming in with the rest of his force in the same area to make a serious push for my objective.

I opt to combat squad everything allowing me to have more options late in the game and split my melta guns up.

I don't have a lot of luck on my turn and only manage to kill one dreadnought. This should have gone a little better but it's a dice game.

On the other side of the field I take the weapon off of the Razorback and Immobilize it.

Bottom of Turn three he moves up and assaults me. As expected his ironclads made decently quick work of my Assault marines but he is in a good position for me to counter assault with my Super Unit.

He kills one 5 man squad and leaves only the priest in another squad who ends up breaking and getting away.

More to come....

900 pnts of win. - Couple of Battle Report teasers

Some full battle reports complete with pictures are coming soon.  (Let me apologize in advance for my poor picture taking skills).

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of playing one of the top local tournament players with my all jump Blood Angels.

Dragon Con Warhammer Based Costumes

Hey hey..

I admit it - I am terrible at taking pictures but thankfully another local guy did.  And since he's in the FTW blogger group and The Bols Alliance I'm going to link his blog here :)

There were a ton of cool costumes at D*C.  Half of the reason to go is to just people watch.

http://sepulchreofheroes.blogspot.com/

Non warhammer related  - I got my copy of X-Men #1 signed by Stan 'The Man' Lee. Whoo!

40k: Interview - Top GT Tread Heads - Part 3

Hello again - thanks a lot for following along this far.  As you can tell this is a pretty in depth and candid interview as promised. Hopefully IG players are finding something to love and non IG players are finding something to hate.  We pick back up talking about the top three or four power army books in 40k right now and how the IG will handle the codex creep.

TPM is going to Dragon Con!

It is that time of year again.  Dragon Con is basically the sci-fi/fantasy mecca of the south east.  It grows every year and attracts all sorts of costumed characters.

AMERICAN TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS! - in the works

A lot of chatter going on at the Wrecking Crew forums about creating an American Team Championship based on the popular European Championships.

Sportsmanship Gum - stroking the kitty means no dingy dingy

The myth of sportsmanship gum started long ago when local tournament organizers, in my area, only accepted cash for entry. This was well before debit cards were accepted everywhere.  This was in 2000 or 2001.  I can’t really remember. I was just getting back into the tournament scene after taking a bit of a break after 2nd edition 40k. 

By the one and only GBF:

I have been running a squad of Vanguard veterans since BoLScon and they have been an ace for me. With the Descent of Angels (only scatter 1d6 instead of 2d6 plus you can reroll reserves for jump units) you have a unit that is very reliable at assaulting the turn they arrive via deepstrike due to their Heroic Intervention special rule.

Pre-Heresy Thousands Sons - terror on the tabletop

… All is Dust …  Part 2 by Michael Walsh

Blood Angels Special Characters - Big Slick Warhammer

TPM here asking: Why haven’t we seen more Blood Angel domination?

All is Dust - Making a 1k sons heavy list work - with THEME!

… All is Dust…  Part 1 by Michael Walsh

The beginnings of a Pre Heresy Thousand Sons Army

Welcome to the LoH!

Welcome to the Litanies of Hate.

Don't dread the dreadnoughts

Dreadnoughts:

I have a love hate relationship with these guys. They look cool and are fun to take so what’s the problem? In almost every edition of the game they have had slim to no survivability.

With proliferation of drop pods in the previous marine codex they got better. Adding in the ‘drop pod assault rule’ they got a little worse again since you auto come in with half your squads at the start of the game. To make a drop pod list really work you have to cram your army full of pods and then bank on being successful with your reserve rolls.

Now the Blood Angels have introduced a whole new variety of Dreads that has me looking at them again – The Furioso Librarian Dreadnought.

For 150+ points or so – give or take for options (and even that is up for debate) you get an AV 13 walker with a p-hood and psychic powers that can it can use to buff itself in close combat, shoot things across the table, or even fly.

Even with all that I am still not convinced they are a good buy. The reasons all boil down to one thing: they can be killed with one shot. They are somewhat vulnerable to long, medium and short range fire. Even with AV 13 you are dealing with something that has to get close to the enemy to do much damage.

To avoid the pod issue I think you’ve got to incorporate these things into a partial or full mechanized list. I know mech lists are all the rage right now – because they work – but that is a different subject.

By in large dreadnoughts can hide behind rhinos and razorbacks, even if it requires a little bit of creative modeling. First turn you can basically protect them from long range enemy fire. You will also be out of range of most enemy p-hoods so you shouldn’t have much trouble getting your flight power off during your movement phase.

First turn you zoom zoom your fast rhinos 18 inches up and then fly/run the dreads behind them. You pop smoke on everything.

With a bit of luck you’re then prepped for a devastating next turn. This time you won’t be automatically outside of enemy p-hood range so try and keep that in mind before you settle on where you push your rhinos and dreads. Even if you aren’t able to get the flight off you’re still going to be close enough to do some damage.

Screaming out from behind those moving pieces of cover should be somewhere between 20 and 30 assault marines and a pair of close combat face wrecking dreadnoughts.

If you are dead set on taking the pod variant then I think you need to load up on at least four pods. This gives you the ability to ‘pace’ your own alpha strike force. If you are worried about the dreads getting whacked as soon as you bring them down then maybe you want to drop the assault/hg melta squads first to soften up some hard targets. If you are looking across the field and don’t see anything that will give your dreads too much of a hard time then you can save your troop choices to come down on turn two or three to support X or Y flank or maybe camp directly on an objective.

Before sinking 100+ bucks into dreads I definitely suggested play testing with some proxies. If you can fit them into your play style and can learn how to protect them and minimize your exposure to enemy fire with them they are super fun to play with.

Who doesn’t like giant robots wreaking havoc?

-tpm

Blood Angel Honor Guard

The Honor Guard: Should we use them?

I love the concept of the Blood Angels honor guard. I used them back in 06 for my grand tournament list despite them being horribly over valued point wise. I just really liked the idea of my Sanguinary High Priest being surrounded by fanatical followers of the Primarch. I ran them around in a Land Raider Crusader and had them kitted out with a couple of power weapon/fists and a melta gun.

There are a few reasons why these didn’t jump out at me initially.

1) They aren’t scoring
2) You have to pay extra for their jump packs
3) They do not get a discount on transport options
4) Max squad size of five

With that said they do have a few advantages.

1) Access to more than two special weapons in each squad
2) Hidden Priest so he can’t be singled out in close combat or shooting
3) Relatively low base point cost for a model with two base attacks
4) Access to chapter banners (if you like that sort of thing)

After some play tests the advantages seem to out way the disadvantages. The access to the special weapons without sacrificing that much close combat power is nice. I think the best special weapon combo will be two flamers and two melta guns. This gives them the ability to soften up hard targets or horde style units before they make a combined assault with one of your regular assault squads.

Because this unit isn’t scoring you can get a little more ‘daring’ with it and throw it directly in the face of danger without sacrificing your ability to claim table quarters or objectives. The flip side of that being in kill point missions they are somewhat vulnerable to high powered weapons and you don’t want to just fling them out there to be overwhelmed. In that case I think the best option is to keep them behind your walls of 10 man assault squads or tucked neatly behind your Rhinos and Razorbacks only bringing them out to deliver a calculated finishing move on weakened enemy units.

The hidden priest is nice. You will want this unit close to the action at all times and it further helps extend your FNP and FC bubbles. The FNP also helps this 5 man squad be a lot more survivable. With some decent rolling you’re almost immune to small arms fire forcing your enemy to dedicate more of their high powered weapons at them. This is also an advantage because outside of guard most armies just don’t have enough of that sort of thing to put too much of a dent in your FNP troops.

For just over 200 points you’re looking at a fast moving squad with 4 special weapons, a power fist, and a hidden force multiplying priest. You can save a few points by putting them in a drop pod (which is also a decent way to deliver and include Corbulo in your list). To answer the question originally asked I say ‘Yes,’ we should be using the honor guard.

They are not perfect for every list but they are valuable and do serve a very good purpose in most missions you’ll see in tournaments. You end up basically only paying 125 (and some change) more points for the HG than you would be paying for a priest with a jump pack anyway. For the force multiplier insurance I think it is definitely worth it.

Side note:

From a modeling point of view the honor guard is an excellent excuse to kit bash and convert. These guys should really look like the best of the best of your army. Break out all the bits you’ve been saving in your boxes just waiting for the perfect occasion. The new Sanguinary Guard and Death Company boxes provide a vast amount of bits for just this sort of thing. Get Cracking!

-tpm