Throne of Nerds

When ever Warhammer World finishes off it's renovations me and a group of friends will be attending Throne of Skulls for 40k. The big question though is what to take? I want something both themed and competitive, not looking to win but place reasonably high. So with that in mind the list I have come up with is Raptors Scouts allied with an Iron Hands Drop Pod force for the primary. The Iron Hands even have a Techmarine in every squad and a pair of Dreadnoughts, try telling me that isn't fluffy! Anyway onto the list itself.

operation refit 2

Got all the re paints done now. The Breen ship and the small Romulan one only got a Nuln Oil wash because they weren't too bad and I'm lazy, the rest actually got a full re paint.

The Klingons were my favourite to re-paint. They just look really nice in person. I think I'll get some more for re-painting but the Defiant is still next on my list.

Operation Refit

Long time no post. In fact it's been so long I can't remember what my last post was. Getting back into this though I've decided to get more into Star Trek Attack Wing now I've got some people to play against. The only problem though is that the pre-painted minis are done by WizKids who aren't quite sure whether to paint them or just dip them into a bucket of orphan tears and hope for the best. This means I've got to re paint them myself. Thankfully the models themselves aren't too bad so painting them isn't an issue. So far I've done my Galaxy, Miranda and Sovereign class Federation ships. The photos make them look darker than they actually are but it's a quick and easy scheme.

Is there actually any paint on this thing???

Ahhh, much better.

There is the Galaxy. The scheme is a Dawnstone base then an Ironbreaker drybrush, add in the details and Nuln Oil the whole thing. Quick, easy and doesn't look bad at all on the table top.

The Miranda here was about the same but with a couple of extra details.

The Sovereign now. This one took a bit longer to paint because of the extra details but it was my favourite to do. It's a nicer design and those extra little details make it that much more enjoyable to paint.

After Christmas I'm going to be picking up a Defiant. I've got the cloaked version of it for the Star Trek Clix but I'm going to put a spare peg on it and use it for when the Defiant is cloaked in game.

In the mean time though I'm going to look at re-painting my other ships. I think the Klingons should be next.

The Joys of Victory

On Friday I had a 40k game against someone who is constantly moaning at me over everything I do in the hobby, from how I build models to painting and even telling my opponents what to do to beat me.

I'd had enough and so challenged them to a game, 1500 points 40k. For a while now I've been using my Iron Hands, Chapter Master Smashy with Assault Centurions in most lists. Not knowing what they were taking and that they'll probably be tailoring (which they did) I took a completely different army. My Necrons. Trazyn, Zahndrek, 5 Lychguard (sword + shield), 2 Lords (orbs), Triarch Stalker, 20 Warriors, 10 Immortals and a Monolith. A pretty pathetic list by most Necron standards, no tesla destructors, no Deathmarks, no doomsday cannon, no Wraiths and only a single set of mindshackle scarabs with no warscythes in sight. He took Chaos Marines. Abaddon with termies in a Land Raider, Kharn and some Zerkers in a Rhino then 2 squads of Marines in Rhinos. I think they had Plasma Guns.

I deployed first and made him go first (mission was 1 objective in each deployment zone). He charged up the board and sat there and the half way line. I moved my Warrior block forwards and used Zahndrek to give them tank hunters and the Stalker knocked a hull point off of the Raider before the Warriors shot the ever living (see what I did there :P ) crap out of it. The tesla Immortals then take out a Terminator that bailed from the wrecked Land Raider.

Next turn everything else jumped out of the Rhino's and a Lychguard was killed. Abaddon charged into the Warriors, another termie dying in the overwatch. Abaddon kills the Lord and takes out a few Warriors, the Warriors in turn taking out the rest of the termies through sheer number of attacks. Warriors then run away but rally at the start of my turn. They then shoot Abaddon down to 2 wounds.

Then the fun begins. Zahndrek takes away the Zerkers Counter Attack and gives the Lychguard Furious Charge. They then charge in, Trazyn taking on Kharn in the Challenge. Kharn hits first, passing his Mindshackle and rolling 3 1's. That's 3 dead Zerkers straight away. He then rolls snake eyes to wound Trazyn. Trazyn does nothing back. Loose a Lychguard (who re-animates) then take the Zerkers down to 1 model + Kharn. Next turn Kharn realises Khorne is the blood god, and Necrons don't bleed. His solution is to remove his own head. After all, if Khorne doesn't care where the blood comes from why should Kharn?

After that not much happened, just a case of going through his army unit by unit until it was gone. Of course it wasn't that he tailored and faced another army that he lost, or even some bad luck (even I admit his dice let him down a couple of times) but that I had taken a cheesy, overpowered army. He wouldn't even accept that that was nothing compared to what Necrons can do. Oh well, I guess some people are just dicks.

Tail of many Rats

Tales of Many Gamers is back again this time round it's Fantasy. In Fantasy I play Skaven because hordes of crazy ratmen who MIGHT do want you want is fun if nothing else!

Check-ins 1 and 2 are now done and we have 1 Lord/Hero, 2 Core and 1 unit of our choice so for this I've got 2 units of Clanrats, a Grey Seer and a Battle Standard Bearer. They're not painted to look good, just painted basic to get them done. I have many, many rats to paint so quick and easy it is.

The next hand in will see some Stormvirmin and another individual model (probably the Doom Hamster). I think a unit + an individual is the only way I can manage to do this and keep my sanity.

Tournament: Final Round

For the final round of the tournament my opponent (dirty dirty missile spam tau) never showed up so I played against some Orks instead. Normally this wouldn't phase me but the deployment screwed me over (almost).

There was 1 objective in the center of the board worth 5 points, whoever is closest gets it. Deployment was that the board was divided into 4 quarters numbered 2,3,4 and 5. You choose a unit to deploy and roll a dice, which number you roll is where you deploy that unit. On a 1 your opponent can place is on a 6 you can. Only other restriction was that it couldn't be within the barricades around the objective.

I had First Blood, Warlord and the objective in the end but first turn made the difference as his boyz and nobz units were right in front of the stuff they wanted to charge on turn 1. Thankfully he failed to seize and I got to blast him first.

Main highlights were Pask almost getting turned into a Squig (good job tank commanders aren't independant!), and a Techpriest holding up a Nob for so long the Commissar got bored and shot him as he didn't kill the xenos fast enough despite stopping it from ripping the plebs apart.

CLASSIFIED

Tournament: Round 3

Round 3 came about yesterday with an interesting mission. 1 unit in each players list was chosen (by the organizer) to be the "Assassin" units. Only an Assassin unit can attack another Assassin unit until one of the Assassins has been killed at which point anyone can attack it. Normal Kill Points, First Blood, Linebreaker, Warlord and 3 points for having 1 Assassin kill the other.

My Assassin was the Melta Vets (just the Vets, their Chimera and attached characters are not counted as Assassins) my opponents was a Forgefiend with Autocannons. He was using Chaos Space Marines which featured Lucius, 2 units of noise marines with rhinos, some havoks with a rhino, some cultists, a predator and the previously mentioned Fiend.

The game itself ended up really close, as in neither Assassin unit had died and we'd killed 9 full units each which came down to secondary objectives. I'd got warlord and first blood (Pask meet predator and Lucius :P ) and thanks to some overkill managed to take out his linebreaker in the last turn. Really fun game despite the Assassins not being very good at their job, next week I'm against Dirty Dirty Missile Spam Tau who is the only person to technically win all of their games (they showed up this week but their opponent didn't so he gets the win). It'll be interesting as we face each other a fair bit and are fairly evenly matched, but with only a riptide in combat that can deal with the front of the Russ's I think I'll stand a good chance.

My Tournament List

As promised from my previous post here is the list I'm using in a local tournament, 1500 points, 6th ed.

HQ
Leman Russ Tank Command Squadron - 550 Points
Vanquisher
- Hull Lascannon
- Pask
Executioner
- Plasma Cannon Sponsons
Battle Tank
Commissar Yarrick - 145 Points
Commissar - 25 Points
Techpriest Enginseer - 40 Points
Primaris Psyker - 75 Points
- Level 2

TROOPS
Platoon Command Squad - 30 Points
Infantry Squad - 50 Points
Infantry Squad - 50 Points
Infantry Squad - 50 Points
Veteran Squad - 185 Points
- 3x Plasma Guns
- Grenadiers
- Chimera
- Hull Heavy Flamer
Veteran Squad - 170 Points
- 3x Melta Guns
- Grenadiers
- Chimera
- Hull Heavy Flamer

HEAVY SUPPORT
Wyvern Battery (2 Wyverns) - 130


TACTICS
- Psyker takes Divination and Biomancy, twin-linking either the blob squad or Leman Russ's and then buffing himself unless the other Divination roll is really handy. He then goes in Platoon Command Squad with the Techpriest who keeps an eye on the Tanks.
- Wyvern's aim for cover camping units and clustered up enemies while the Russ's take on the tougher stuff.
- Yarrick goes with the Veterans to start handing them out orders and keep them in line while they take out stuff/take forward objectives.
- Blob squad are kept in line by the Commissar and take a backfield objective or stick to cover.

On paper it doesn't look fantastic, quite a few people have looked at it and either gone "Wha.....?" or "But you can't deal with aircraft". In game though it works really well so long as you pick your targets properly.

First Tournament Game

Today was the first day of a local tournament, 6th ed 40k (not enough time to learn 7th for most players). I ended up playing against Eldar who had a Farseer with super special sniper and singing spear, 3 units of Rangers, Banshees, Scorpians, a Wraithknight, 2 Wraithlords and an Avatar. I'll post my list later but it's guard.

Scenario was standard deployment, kill points with a twist.
HQ - 3 Points (+1 for warlord, +1 if you killed their warlord in a challenge)
Troops and Heavy - 1 Point
Fast and Elite - 2 Points

It ended up being pretty close. Most of my army only needed a small amount to be killed off, but his Wraithknight just couldn't get past Yarrick and his Vets. It was a good game but I did make a few mistakes that I'll have to remember next time.

6.5 Edition

Today I shall be talking about my thoughts on some of the latest rumours for 40k and where I think it'll go.

Fresh Colours

With the new guard codex I decided to repaint the army. The old colour scheme was honestly crap, literally 4 colours and a wash. Here is the first squad for the new scheme.

Simple squad of 10 melta vets. Nothing fancy but much better than before.

Here is Commander Mustache, AKA British Strakken. That coat is surprisingly detailed. So far he's only died in game but i'm hoping that's just new model curse breaking in.

And from the back, I'm quite proud of completing this guy using only a standard brush, even the Mustache and aquila's are only done with a standard.

And finally, my tester Scion. I've gone with blue+silver to make them stand out from the regular guys and give me a break from painting grey and red :P

Imperial Guard, My Thoughts Part 3 - Elites

So Elites now, got a few changes to this section including the replacement of Stormtroopers and loss of Marbo.

Militarum Tempestus Platoons: The new version of Stormtroopers. Pretty much the same but without spec ops and can Rank Fire. Only difference between these guys and their own book is that these guys are not scoring but use Guard orders instead. I've been running a unit of 10 with 2 Volyguns in a Taurox Prime with Missile and Autocannons for 250 points. They have been working well but they've only actually received orders once maybe twice so I'm thinking of sticking them in as allies from the Tempestus book so that they're scoring and using a basic Commissar for the mandatory HQ as they're exactly the same in both books. They won't be able to receive orders now but when they go charging up the board they'll get to hold enemy objectives instead.

Ogryns: A great, hulking wall of meaty stupid. The only thing that stopped me getting them in the old book was the fact that they were metal. They're a fun unit but a costly one. for 40 points per model someone with T5 and 3 wounds isn't bad but with that 5+ save they are simply not competitive. Would absolutely take them in friendly games though.

Bullgryns: Riot Ogryns. I would take these guys in competitive games as well as friendlies. With the Slabshields they're a walking Aegis line and if the enemy shoots them they're not shooting what they're protecting, so that's win win. However my ideal unit would probably be 5 with Brute Shield and Mauls and a Ministorum Priest tagging along. 335 points for something that will walk up the board and batter the ever living shit out of what ever is unfortunate enough to get in their way.

Ratlings: 10 BS4 Sniper Rifles for a measly 100 points but they can run after shooting? Yes please!!

Wyrdvane Psykers: IE Psyker battle squad. Can take anything except telepathy. Meh.

Second Guard Game

Today I played my second new codex game, 1500 points again and against a potential tournament Tau list. My list wasn't competitive but not a push over either. In the end though my lack of high strength shots meant that I couldn't reliably deal with the riptide. I also feel that loosing first turn was damaging to me as I lost a fair bit right off the bat including my heavy weapons squad and company commander (Yarrick was my Warlord). At the end of turn 5 I only had my Taurox Prime left while he still had about 1/4 of his army winning 3/0 on secondary objectives (neither of us had troops left).

What I learned was the a unit of 2 Wyverns are DEFINITELY WORTH IT. I could not stress that more, 130 points of awesome. They easily did more than anything else in my list. Also I need more high strength weapons, not just for Riptides but for vehicles too.

Imperial Guard, First Game

Today I had my first new Guard game. 1500 points VS another Guard player with their first game with the new dex too. 4x4 table down the local GW, simple kill points.

I was actually surprised at the size of the forces considering it was 1500, I know guard are cheap but we got a lot of models in. The lists were similar, mainly infantry back up by tanks of some variety. He'd taken Creed and got Guard traits 5 and 6 so Creed was knocking out 4 orders every turn at 18". My Company Command Squad got preferred enemy. What I learned from this game was a couple of things.

Tank Commanders are awesome. Pask was in a Vanquisher with an Eradicator near by, using the tank commander shoots first at something else order they destroyed a transport then tried to blast the squad apart (bad scatter saved them). Shoot then smoke was another annoying one as last thing I needed the Russ's I couldn't really hurt to have is cover as well.

Fixed size blast of Deathstrikes. With Deathstrikes now having a fixed, 10" blast and there being a 10" blast marker it's much easier to work out what exactly has been hit by the nuke. Also firing on a 3+ on turn 2 then 2+ on turn 3 means they are much more likely to fire, their job then is to drive up the board at full speed and burn stuff with heavy flamers and just generally be annoying.

Wyvern's are filth. I used a squadron of 2 for a mere 130 points. They are surprisingly accurate and put out a lot of wounds. "Oh but they're AP6, they wont kill anything" the internet says. Doesn't matter what the AP is, when your squad is taking 21 wounds on 10 guys you're going to be taking a lot of casualties.

First Rank Fire + Scions. I ran my Scion unit as 10 guys, 2 hot-shot vollyguns, Taurox Prime with Missiles and Autocannons for 250 points. They went up with my 2 chimeras and when the Scions jumped out they First Rank Fired at a unit of vets and just wiped them out with no problem. 21 lasgun rounds, a las pistol round and 4 vollygun rounds will do that :P

Orders on Command Squads. Specifically the Master of the Ordinance. An artillery round with tank hunters, ignores cover or even split fire is a powerful thing, especially for only 20 points.

Like I said in a different post, I'm going to enjoy using this book.

Imperial Guard, My Thoughts Part 2 - Troops

Troops today, it'll only be a quick one as it's late.

Platoons:
Pretty much same as before but without characters which means no "send in the next wave" or outflank everything. My typical loadout is a cheap command squad, some infantry squads with just a grenade launcher and some heavy weapon squads. Occasionally I'll also stick a wannabe-marbo unit in for fun too (special weapons squad with 3x demo packs). Cheap and easy to use, that's what guard are about.

Vets:
Veterans squads are 10 points cheaper base and the doctrines are also cheaper. Only Harker survived here and he lost infiltrate and stealth but gained relentless and Payback gained rending. I'll still use the same loadouts as before for my vets but at least they're cheaper now.

Chimera:
Gone up by 10 points and I can't work out why. It's not really gained anything, just lost 3 firepoints to be able to fire 6 lasguns. Better than the normal Taurox in my opinion.

Taurox:
Meh, take a chimera. For 15 points more you get +1 front armour, 2 more transport spaces, more guns, the turret weapon only has 1 less strength but 1 more shot and you can issue orders from it.

Taurox Prime:
Better. I like this one. It's got a second gun and it's fast with BS4 which means it can go 12" up the board and fire both weapons. Mine has Missiles and Autocannons for a neat 100 points. Expensive for a transport but it works well for Scions.

Star Trek Attack Wing

At Salute I picked up a copy of Star Trek Attack Wing. I like Star Trek and enjoy playing X-Wing but still had reservations about this. X-Wing simulates the fast paced dogfighting of fighters where this doesn't really happen in Star Trek, the Enterprise is certainly nothing to an X-Wing in terms of speed and manoeuvrability, but they use the same system with some minor tweaks.

The starter scenario is enough for 3 players with even points, so that's we did. Immediately we noticed some changes. In X-Wing you tend to roll about the same number of attack and defence dice, in Attack Wing you have a lot more attack dice. Also despite the same manoeuvre templates being similar the normal turns aren't as steep which gives the feeling that it takes ages for the ships to turn around. The ships also have a basic version (EG Galaxy Class) and a Unique version (EG Enterprise D). The unique one has a special ability and a slight stat tweek (+1 shield, things like that) for just a few more points then you put the captain on, whereas in X-Wing you get the pilot as part of the cost of the ship.

Anyway actual game play was about the same but went quicker and had a couple of hiccups from some of the tweaks. Overall though we enjoyed it and ended up going back to pick up another ship for each faction. Shame the Defiant was in stock otherwise I would have had one of those as well. Can't wait for Voyager and the Borg to turn up later this year either (Transphasic Torpedoes have an attack value of 10!!!!). If you can get a copy give it a go, or if you know me ask me for a game some time, i've got 2 Federation, Klingon, Romulan and Dominion ships.

Astra Militarum, My Thoughts Part 1 - HQ

So Astra Milit... sod this stupid name, Imperial Guard have now been out for a few days. I've been looking over the codex and overall I'm impressed. Some things I liked are gone (MARBO!!!! NNNOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!) and some other stuff has gotten better. I'll break it down section by section and give my views on it.

Grumpy Gamers

This one is a bit of a rant, feel free to read but I'm just venting.

Militarum Tempestus

This is just going to be a quick rundown on my thoughts for Mini-Dex: Stormtroopers.

Models:
The Scions are fantastic. Definitely going to get some of these and with something like 17 heads in the box for 5 guys there will be spares to put on my existing, badly painted guardsmen.

The Taurox next. Almost everyone has said "it's crap" or some variation of that. I disagree. I think the overuse of heraldry and horrible colour scheme GW chose make it look worse than it is. With very minor work these things could look much better (just look at my stormraven for example, very simple conversion).

Rules:
Only had a quick glance at the rules in White Dwarf but I like them. Basically they are Stormtroopers but in small platoons and without the spec ops rule (but have deepstrike and move through cover, 2/3 spec ops options, as standard). Most importantly though is that they may First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire with their HOTSHOT LASGUNS!!!!! ABOUT TIME!!!!

Taurox is not bad for the points. 50 base with the option to take different weapons. 11/10/10 so not very tough but a razorback is only 5 points less base and can only carry 6 people compared to the Taurox's 10. I can see my command squad's one of these being my AT-AT quite easily.

Future:
So what does this mean for the IG themselves? I can easily see Stormtroopers coming out of the main book and slotted in as allies specifically from this book. It would be a shame but it makes sense not only for profit but for fluff too. Stormtroopers are not part of the main IG army, they are placed in as-needed. Just like (with very few exceptions) Valkyries are not part of a guard army, they are part of the Navy and loaned to the Guard.

APOCALYPSE!!!!!!!!

The Champions of the Apocalypse

As promised, the pics from Sundays apocalyptic Tale of Many Gamers battle. Despite the long waits during the enemies turn, having to take it in turns to fire and me having to leave early (god damn relatives and their birthdays! :P ) it was a great game. Shame I couldn't use my Strategic Asset card, firing one of those apocalyptic barrage templates instead of overwatching would have been funny as hell to see it go off!

The Enemy Returns

Yesterday my Iron Hands got to have a 1750 point game against a friends Death Guard now he's back in town. Our games are usually quite close so it's always fun to play each other and we both tried some new things out.

His list was a nurgle lord on bike, 4 units of 7 plague marines, 7 bikers, defence line with quad gun, hellbrute with lascannon and daemon prince of nurgle. Mine was a chaplain, master of the forge, 10 assault marines, 3 units of tac marines in pods, assault centurions, venerable dread, ironclad dread and a unit of 3 rapier laser destroyers.

Over all it was pretty even, that damned prince managed to get enfeeble and iron arm because that's what nurgle needs. Like I said though it was pretty even, then his bikers got into my assault centurions and chaplain (which were enfeebled) and it started going down hill for him right there. The cents took out all of the bikers while the lord knocked out the chaplain. The lord then beat the crap out the cents too (god damn enfeeble!!) while I slowly whittled his army down with numbers.

In the end it came down to his lord against my master of the forge with conversion beamer and shield eternal. Eventually though I managed get through his T6 and 3+ armour to kill the bastard.

Since then I've tweaked the list to make it more effective. Changed some wargear around, taken out the conversion beamer completely and upgrading the assault marines to vanguard vets being the main ones. HOPEFULLY I can get a battle report done with the list on saturday, keep meaning to do one. There will be pictures going up sunday though, got the tales apoc game so it should be a good one!

Clan Assemble!!

So I've recently done some working out on excel to found out just how many points my Clan comes to. As it currently stands, WYSIWYG (Contemptor counting as an Ironclad) with no allies, buildings or lords of war my Clan comes in at 3500 points dead. Damn, that's quite a bit! I started these guys with a few scattered marines I had lying around back when the 6th ed codex came out, now it's over half way to full Clan strength. Currently it breaks down like this:

HQ: 1280 Points, 9 Units, 17 Models
Troops: 915 Points, 5 Units, 50 Models
Elites: 630 Points, 4 Units, 10 Models
Fast Attack: 380 Points, 3 Units, 16 Models
Heavy Support: 295 Points, 2 Units, 4 Models
Total: 3500 Points, 23 Units, 97 Models

All of the upgrades I've used are how I would field the unit actually in game. Of course if I spammed upgrades like a mad man to get it up to the most number of points I could it would be much higher, but what's the point in that? It wouldn't give an accurate representation of my force. Also transports are counted as part of the squad they are attached to for units and the HQ section includes the units in my army that count as HQ's but don't take up a slot. I could tweak it slightly (swap Vaylund Cal out for a normal Techmarine) to have a legal army with duel force org.

First Playtests

So the initial playtests have been done and things are good. The power diversion is a truly powerful thing but the massive downsides make it risky, just as I'd hoped. During one of the games someone decided to full power to engines on everything and ended up getting annihilated thanks to the drop in defensive power.

What was a problem though was the high Crew values. They worked but were way to high so I'm going to bring them down a bit. Scoring damage before you even roll because of high crew vs low countermeasures was ridiculous.

Grandpa Smashy

Here is Grandpa Smashy, my contemptor dreadnought.

He's not quite done yet, just got his base to sort out and to paint the banner the goes across his chest. I'm going to have a chaos marine that is missing about 90% of his torso and his right arm from where he tried to stand up to Smashy Senior but just got a powerfist to the face instead. In fact it's this chaos marine right here.

The Grand Alliance of Humanity

The first faction for Void Assault to get rules.

The Alliance was formed in 2351 as a way to unite the human colonies scattered around the galaxy. Initially this was a good thing, all the Alliance planets prospered from it, but eventually the Alliance Council and the inner worlds got greedy. They increased taxes on the poorer outer worlds, began using slave labor camps and calling them "temporary oportunity centers" and eventually began making people who disagreed with them vanish. This eventually split the galaxy into a civil war between the Grand Alliance and the Republic of the Galactic Fringe.

Alliance ships are usually well equipped with well trained crews. They favour a streamlined shaped hull and are highly offensive in combat thanks to having many powerful weapons. The most notorious of their weapons is the Magna-Cannon. Only a single ship currently has access to it but threat of unleashing it is enough to send whole fleets scattering.

Main Strength: Extreme firepower.

Main Weakness: Mostly forward facing weapons, relatively slow compared to other ships.

Cool Units 2: Spawn

People hate Spawn. They're seen as a mindless blob that wanders around slowly and gets ignored because of it. People who believe this haven't fought against Spawn recently.

I run them simply. A unit of 5 with Mark of Nurgle for a reasonable 180 points. They then run up the board and eat something. Thanks to their god awful rules in the previous codex they're a highly neglected unit. They used to wander towards something slowly and flop over dead half way there. Now they move 12" and charge 2D6 (re-rolling for fleet) and couldn't care less about terrain in the way if they tried. Thanks to Nurgle they are now T6 and with 3 wounds each are a pain in the backside to take out. Sure they don't have any saves but boltguns are wounding them on 6's. On the charge (and they will get the charge if you know what you're doing) they are getting between 3 and 8 attacks each. That's 15 to 40 attacks for the whole unit at S5 with the potential for poisoned as well.

I admit they can be a bit hit and miss but you're playing chaos marines expect some random stuff to happen. These guys can be annoying for anyone who doesn't know what they do. I've seen Ahriman cast Invisibility on them and they then proceeded to take out Abaddon on their own (that was some lucky rolling though).

Definitely one of my favorite units, I use Vampire Counts Dire Wolves for the models because they look more nurgley (is that even a word?) than the standard ones and you get 10 for £15.50 instead of 2 for £25.

Void Assault Update

Just a quick update on how Void Assault is going. So far so good. The main rules have been written out and I'm now on to creating the initial ships for each faction (of which there are 5!) rules wise. I should have enough done to begin play testing with proxy models soon. Getting the points right is a bit weird without testing it first though because you don't know exactly how powerful stuff will be until you see it in action.

I'll post the basic faction backgrounds soon, it's not much but it gives you a rough idea on what the factions play like and what their ships should look like.

League Games 2 and 3

No pics I'm afraid but there is a quick run down of what happened.

Game 1 VS Chaos Space Marines with Necron Allies - Loss 4-8

This was close right up to the end. We'd get a turn of almost nothing happening then whole sections would fall apart. If there was 1 more game turn I might have pulled it around. We got Crusade (4 objectives) and short table edges again. My artillery had very little to do but I manage to get the Psychic Communion trick off which only cost me 2/3 of a guardsman squad but at the bonus of knocking out a helldrake and night scythe before they could cause any damage. In the end though a guardsman failed a 2+ cover save which left one of my objectives open and I failed to stop some plague marines gaining line breaker which cost me the game. Another turn though and I would have taken out one of his objectives (3 cultists VS an unharmed stormraven) and and got line breaker with smashy and company.

Game 2 VS Chaos Daemons - Draw 2-2

Yet again Crusade (5 objectives) and short edges. 5 big daemons flying around (keeper of secrets, bloodthirster and 3 princes if I remember correctly) with a portal glyph and 2 units of pink horrors. He killed all of my troops quickly but I managed to do the same back. I got first blood from the portal glyph (scattered in front of a duel-melta landspeeder). Hats of to Chapter Master Smashy though, lasted 4 rounds of combat against 3 princes and the keeper before finally falling. He would have taken 2 of the princes out as well but he kept using Heroic Intervention to switch who Smashy was fighting. Had an emergency with the Manticore too, turn 1 the warpstorm table destroyed the storm eagle launcher (4 rockets all count as 1 weapon) but luckily my Techmarine was next to it and fixed it up on a 2+ (iron hands + 2 servitors). Came out as a draw because no troops so no objectives held, he'd got warlord and linebreaker i'd got warlord and first blood. Once again though a great game but I simply couldn't deal with so many MC's in my face right away.

Thankfully that's the 2 games I was worried about out of the way, those were the guys who knew what they were doing more than the rest. From here on out it's mainly down to scenario and deployment as to who will win.

Cool Units 1: Deathstrike

This will be a little series similar to my Clan Tactica series but going over general units in my armies that I like but the internet seems to hate. First up is my personal favourite unit, the Deathstrike Missile Launcher.

The Internet's Opinion: It's crap take a Manticore for the same points with more reliability.
My Opinion: MASSIVE ROCKET!!!!!

League Game 1 - Tau Empire

Sorry it's late, only just thought to post about it. On Saturday I had my first league game against a Tau gunline list that featured lots of pathfinders (3x units of 6 guys, a bit overkill) plenty of firewarriors and 2 units of missile broadsides with as many missile drones as he could fit in with commander helpful to boost a broadside unit. At first it was a bit "whoah, that's a lot of rockets!" but then we got mission 1 (3 objectives) and short edge deployment which was perfect for me. Thanks to my artillery with stupid range and lots of blasts I sat back and just blasted away. End of my turn 3 and all he had left was 4 firewarriors and 2 pathfinders with something plasma battlesuits stuck in reserve and I had only lost a couple of guardsmen and some scouts so he called it. I'll try and write up a battle report for the next one or at least get some pictures taken.

The Legion Badass

Back to Iron Hands for today I think with some pretty badass models. The Legion Contemptor and Legion Squad.

Void Assault: Some of the Mechanics.

So with the main rules mostly done for Void Assault I thought I'd share some of the games mechanics that I believe set it apart from other games. Once it's done I'm going to ask a few people to look over it for thoughts and try to get a play testing session in with some proxy ships.

No clue how this is relevant but who cares!

And so, it begins... UPDATED

In my previous post I mentioned that I am going to be creating my own space combat miniatures game. Work has begun on what is currently known as Void Assault (not a very good name, I'm open to alternate suggestions though). The V0.1 rules set is coming along smoothly and I have a couple of renders from my first ship. It's the same one as in the previous post but now it has some more details (windows and landing gear). Since creating those renders there is also a shuttle bay door been added to the dorsal (top) section of the ship and some general vertex cleaning done. Unfortunately though the renders are not particularly good (IE didn't show off the detail properly) so I shall re-render them with the new stuff in later.

They will be added in to this post so look out for UPDATE added to the title.

Seriously though, should I keep Void Assault or change it to something else and if so then what?

New Horizons

I don't know why. I haven't a clue why. All I know is that this is something I want to do, that I am going to do.

An Unusual List

Traditionally I like to make lists that are themed and semi-competitive. For a local upcoming league I've decided to do things a bit differently. This time though I've decided to take units that I like to use. This has lead to an unusual looking list even for me.

Not Iron Hands but still looks bad ass.

Bunker and Raven

Today I'll be showing off my Stormraven Gunship and the Bitz Buker.

Clan Tactica: Test Game

So i've tested the list from the Clan Tactica I did last week. Mission was the Scouring and I was against Necrons with Tau allies. Started off pretty well but mistakes were made. I think it would have helped if we'd remember to roll for how much the objetives were worth when we got to them NOT half way through the game. Ended up with a 10 man tactical squad guarding a 1 pointer while 5 assault marines had to fend off a large unit of Necrons from a 3 pointer. That simple mistake could have been a game changer.

One thing I am going to do though is trade out the Master of the Forge for a Techmarine with Harness to save 15 points then downgrade the Plasma Cannon on the Dreadnought to Assault Cannon to give make him Venerable. Might be a bit more reliable then.

Clan Tactica: Army List

+++ INCOMING: Priority Alpha One Transmission +++

++ From: Deathwatch Kill Team Python ++

++ To: All Imperial Units within range ++

++ High priority Inquisitorial Asset is under assault ++

++ Requesting immediate reinforcements from any available units ++

++ The Emperor protects ++

+++ By order of Commander Ashmon +++

+++ Initiate Orbital Assault Protocols: Pattern Omega +++

++ Purge the weak ++

Sorry there isn't a battle report to match this and it's late but college has been pilling it on (2000 words on the purpose of concept art. go.) so i've been pre-occupied.

Anyway here is a sample, experimental 1750 points army list I have come up with. For this list I wanted something reasonably competitive and functional but with a theme that fits into a simple back story. The ideal mission for this list is the Relic and you'll see why when I explain the tactics.

Clan Raukaan Primary Detachment

HQ
Chapter Master (240)
- Gorgons Chains
- Terminator Armour (realized it's the same cost as artificer armour but gain relentless to fire the bombardment)
- Thunder Hammer
- Lightening Claw

5 Man Honour Guard (160)
- Chapter Standard

Master of the Forge (90)

Troops
10 Man Tactical Squad (195)
- Combi-Melta
- Melta Gun
- Drop Pod

10 Man Tactical Squad (200)
- Combi-Plasma
- Plasma Gun
- Drop Pod

5 Man Scout Squad (100)
- 3x Bolt Pistol and Close Combat Weapon
- 2x Shotgun - Land Speeder Storm
- Heavy Flamer

Fast Attack
5 Man Assault Marine Squad (95)
- 2x Flamers
- Drop Pod

Heavy Support
Dreadnought (130)
- Plasma Cannon
- Heavy Flamer

Stormraven Gunship (230)
- Hurricane Bolters

Fortification
Imperial Bunker (90)
- Icarus Lascannon

Raptors Allied Detachment

HQ
Lias Issodon (175)

Troops
5 Man Scout Squad.(55)

Basic Tactics:

The Raptors infiltrate into the Bunker which is up front, out of my deployment zone. The Iron Hands Scouts then zoom up the board using the Bunker/terrain as cover in it's scout move. This unit is for harassing enemies, line breaker and being a deterrent to deep strikers that might want to land near my Bunker (termies) in the early game. Dreadnought, Honour Guard, Chapter Master and Master of the Forge are in the Stormraven. Master of the Forge can then repair the Dread and/or Raven as well as providing extra fire support if he needs to.

The first wave pods land near the Bunker to help secure it (accurately thanks to Issodon) or take out any AA that might be around. The Assault Marines will turn up in the second wave to contest objectives/aim for clustered up units. When the Raven turns up the units on board will either wait inside and assault out of it next turn at something that needs taking out or jump out at a weak point in my lines, if near the Bunker then Issodon stops their scatter. Dreadnought might drop out for additional fire support any way. The main targets I will be aiming at are their Troops to stop them scoring and high damage units like Riptides and Vindicators.

Hopefully I can put this list to work soon :)

Clan Tactica: Allies

So right now i've been over the main units in my force and a few additional units I plan on adding. Today i'm going to talk about allies. It's a somewhat controversial change 6th edition has brought (well, brought back. Daemonhunters and Witch Hunters used to be able to do it as part of their special rules) as some people view it as just there for power gamers to abuse. Power gamers will abuse it, lets face it they'll abuse anything rules wise if it suits them, but I see it more for adding variety to a list... ok they're handy tactically as well :) Lets crack on with allies I have used and plan on using.

Clan Tactica: Heavy Support

Now it's time for the heavies. We've got a Thunderfire and Stormraven coming up here but I would like some Devastators as well.

Clan Tactica: Fast Attack

So here is my Fast Attack. As you can imagine Iron Hands aren't to into this section, the Clan Raukaan apocaylpse formation only has 1 Assault Squad and an Assault Centurion in there. Anyway lets get on with this.

Clan Tactica: Elites

Today I'll talk about the Elites that I use and plan to use. While I currently only have the 1 Dreadnought I do have a Contemptor and Legion MK-III Squad on the way so I'll speak about what I want to do with those.

Clan Tactica: Troops

This segment is about the core of the army, the troops. These guys are important in any army as they are the objective holders and without them you can't win (or have a legal list :P ). Because of their importance I take 3 in a list minimum, what's the point in what should be the strongest link in your army only being taken because you have to, despite the fact you can't win without them?

Clan Tactica: HQ

This post is going to be the start of something slightly different. I'm going to show pictures of all of my Iron Hands units and how I use/plan to use them on the battlefield. No allied detachments, no fortifications and no super heavies. This is going to be plain and simple codex/clan only with HQ being first :)

Strikeforce Update

Just a quick update that my strikeforce is fully assembled except for the scouts. I'll be posting pics in the next few days as all the models should be painted by then. There might also be a battle report going up on saturday showing some off the new stuff in action.

New Toys

Today I got a present from myself. A Strikeforce.

I've already built a dreadnought and drop pod from it. I'll also bring my other tac squads up to 10 men each and have a melta squad too.

At first i couldn't decide on a front for it. None of them looked very Iron Handsy. So i decided to not have one. Having a torso wired into a walking tank looks much more like something the Hands would do. I have built all the arms so they can be swapped out but i think plasma will be the one i use most.