Very Exciting News!!!

Hey Everyone,

I know I have been slacking on the posts lately and I apologize for that but I promise you the results are worth it. I have a huge announcement to make today.

It is no secret that I am not only a huge fan of Alicia's work over a Valkyrie Painting and that I have been a loyal customer to the company every time I have a big project that needs to be done. Well, Alicia and I have decided that it would be a great move for me to join the Valkyrie Painting team!

I will be joining Valkyrie Painting immediately starting up the assembly and conversion part of the company. Valkyrie Painting is also now making your new project even easier with the ability to purchase all your favorite kits, dice, and even foam through VP (Valkyrie Painting). These changes truly round out the company as the best place to go for an army, squad, or even single model from start to finish without you having to do a damn thing other than how to best dominate on the tabletop!!

Enough of my rambling; click on the picture, head on over and checkout the exciting changes and don't hesitate on starting your next project. Oh yeah and by the way, this is an amazing shining spear for my new Eldar Army!

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Space Marines: Part Deux

Hello everyone I hope all is well.

So due to demand here I am with a Space Marines codex "review" part two I wanted to take a different approach to part two because originally I wanted to only touch on what jumped out at me immediately but apparently some people care about what I think. I know, i know, don't ask me. For this part I will directly answer the questions that were asked as well try to cover some viable builds for a couple of the more popular chapters.

1) What do you think of the Assault Centurions?

This unit had a lot of potential it really did but to put it plain and simply they are very ugly models and are really nothing more than overcosted meganobz with much less efficient delivery systems. If you could deep strike them in, and take them in units of one they may be worth taking but the investment to make them worth a damn is just too much.


2) How do you like the new tanks? 

I am still kind of up in the air about this. The tanks are super cheap but their usefulness is fairly limited. The stalker is one shot that has a neat mechanic if you miss but all the flyer has to do to remove the token is fly off the table. The hunter I may consider taking only because wave serpents are popular right now but when you consider you can spend 20 more points and get a quad gun on the aegis line which gains you an awesome wall and interceptor......yeah I don't know I think the hunter has a place but it's probably in the; I have no more points to spend category. 

3) Sternguard 

Yay, I can say good stuff. Sternguard are great for many reasons that very simple; their weapon load out flexibility means they can do anything to do with a gun, they can be transported in any vehicle and there is a good argument for why it is awesome, any chapter can find a use for them, and the kit is just amazing. Look at all those bits!

So what does this all boil down to? To me the Space Marine book is bitter sweet; as mentioned in Part I; the chapter tactics are amazing and make several viable builds which seems to be the trend of the 6th edition books. Unfortunately with this awesome mechanic comes the fact that this book is at a similar power level and feel to the last book in that nothing is bad, but nothing is great, it is just good. It is still a vanilla book that can get boring or require spamming to do very well but the book is not designed to be points efficient with spamming. It is funny and I hate to seem uncertain but I can't really say bad things just like I can't say "ZOMG, this is going to change everything??!?!" The exception to this possibly being some list tweaks to easily game Grav weapons. FMCs save points by not taking armour, Riptides take shield drones for a majority 4+ save, etc. etc.



On to what is most likely the most interesting bit: viable list archetypes.

Salamanders: Move over pod wolves? With the errata giving command squads special weapons this gave a huge boost to salamanders because you get moar and cheaper flamers. A drop pod Salamander list can put down an absolutely devastating alpha strike that not even pod wolves can match.
Most common units: Command squads, Sternguard

White Scars: Cheap bikes, tons of special weapons, uber alpha strike, uber whenever strike. The white scars to me are the obvious build to go with for competitive play. For 135 points you can 5 bikes with two grav guns with hit and run, scout, and are scoring with +1 to hammer of wrath and jink saves. 

Iron Hands: I like the iron hands because they breath life into vehicles again. I would see a vehicle heavy list sitting on a skyshield with techmarines fixing everything being a real pain in the butt to kill and I could actually see some hunters being of use here. You can make a really reliable firing base when all your vehicles have It will not die, a 4++ save and techmarines fixing what ales them on a +1 to the repair roll. Oh yeah 3 Stormravens with it will not die is pretty decent as well. 

Ultramarines: Take one of everything and Tigurius

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Space Marines: A Review

I am very excited about this post because it is my first Codex review on the blog. You guys have read a million of these, have your own ideas, and lets be honest have much better things to be doing than spending hours on a 40k blog so I am going to hit on, in my opinion, the major talking points of the book, what I like, and what I dislike about it. 

Chapter Tactics

The chapter tactics mechanic in this book were very obvious to be the one thing that was going to make or break this codex in every aspect of the 40k universe. You can only change a Space Marine so much and add so many units before they really aren't Space Marines anymore so these chapter traits needed to be fluffy to the chapter, keep each chapter on level ground with each in power level, make the book interesting, and hopefully make the book competitive. 

Before the book came out I saw two possible outcomes here; there would be one chapter that is way better than the others leading to one obvious build or they all came up short and the book was a stinker. GW blindsided me here with a moment reminiscent of Dumb and Dumber: "Just when I think you can't get any dumber, you TOTALLY REDEEM YOURSELF!"

With less than one page of rules GW took all of their major chapters and not only made them all valid choices but also made them fluffy and true to their chapter, have no obvious chapter choice over another, and make the bonuses significant enough that a clear direction for that chapter was clear. Within minutes of reading the chapter tactics ideas rushes through my head of  different armies that could be valid with each ruleset: 

Iron Hands with their 'It will not die' on vehicles could do a badass and devastating Storm Raven heavy force, Salamanders drop pod armies, grav heavy white scars bike armies, etc. All tasty, all valid, all with their own distinct flavor. 

Chapter Master

This dude, is an unadulterated, unrelenting badass. He is super cheap, can unlock bikes as troops, and be tooled out with relics to be a murder machine, uber tank, or great support character there is not much else to say other than ally with another chapter and take 2! T5 with 4 wound eternal warrior and 2+,3++ with it will not die and a 6+ FNP? Sign me up! Chapter tactics can take his utility even further. Oh yeah and a once per game str 10 AP1 orbital bombardment. 

Tigurious

Lets face it; he deserves his own section. I am not even going to talk about librarians because they are going the way all other psykers have; cheap psykers, they are all the same. Tigerious however checking in at 165 is just absurd. He is the re-roll king; move aside Fateweaver. Tigurious is a level 3 who can re-roll his psychic powers when generating them meaning you can basically count on that clutch power pretty darn close to 100% of the time. He can also reroll failed psychic checks and did I mention he is 165 points? I did?! Well I'm saying it again.

Cheap Troops

ZOMG their troops are cheap. While that is obviously a fantastic thing; it really is still just depressing how difficult they are to get where they need to go (Rhinos are still shit) and in the days of warriors in night scythes, even cheaper kroot that can really go where everywhere they want, and Eldar Jetbikes the lowly tactical marine and scout are still kinda meh and I was really hoping to see more.

Land Speeder Storm

Before the book I was actually a fan of the storm for nothing else than it was a transport that scoring units could outflank in. The better news; they are 5 points cheaper, are a dedicated transport, and get a heavy flamer for free. I really think people will still glance over them but tI wahey are worth a look depending on the build you are going with. My marine list has two. 

Heavy Support Centurions:

I know they are getting alot of flakk for being pricy but I actually like this unit alot with grav cannon and amp. Yes they are expensive but it is one of those units that you absolutely have to kill and those are always worth a look. These guys will erase MCs with decent armour saves and do similar things to units like broadsides. Yes they are 24" range and expensive but throw a unit of three of these units in a Storm Raven, Drop pod or even a Land Raider and you have options and in my opinion they are good ones. I can imagine this unit doing wonders in an alpha strike pod list. 

Bikes

When combined with the White Scars chapter tactics and Khan these guys unfortunately straight up out Ravenwing, Ravenwing. At base cost they are 6 points cheaper, have better close combat characters, better weaponry with the relentless grav guns and all the same special rules.

Command Squad

  I was not going to mention anything until this errata came out today. The errata took this unit and elevated them to amazing. Going back to drop pod salamanders this unit can rock 5 twin linked flamers or melta guns for super cheap....Sexy! 

Well guys; that is stuff that immediately jumped out at me. I am sure I left some awesome stuff out. Please feel free to comment below and ask my opinion or add your thoughts on some other units or about the ones that I have posted here! 

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Da Boyz Contingency Plans

Hey Guys,

Bill here; as you know I am planning on attending Da Boyz GT with my Eldar jetbike army. While I really do not have a major concern about it getting done, but the possibility has given me an excuse to play around with a list that would require little investment, be something very different and of course not be a net list. I noticed the bountiful amount of LD based abilities and psychic powers. I than looked at my beautifully painted Traitor Guard and figured I could do something here. The trick was doing it without creating a gimmick and instead something that is useful in many ways. After two test games and some tweaking this is what I came up with.

1850 Pts - Chaos Daemons Roster

HQ: Keeper of Secrets (1#, 170 pts)
   1 Keeper of Secrets, 170 pts (S: Daemon; S: Fleet; S: Hatred (Daemons of Khorne); S: Rending; S: Fear)

Heavy Support: Daemon Prince (1#, 330 pts)
   1 Daemon Prince, 330 pts (Daemonic Flight; DG: Warp-forged Armour; DA: Daemon of Slaanesh; S: Daemon; S: Fleet; S: Hatred (Daemons of Khorne); S: Rending; S: Fear; DR: Greater Rewards x2; Psyker (Mastery Level 3))

Heavy Support: Daemon Prince (1#, 340 pts)
   1 Daemon Prince, 340 pts (Daemonic Flight; DG: Warp-forged Armour; DA: Daemon of Slaanesh; S: Daemon; S: Fleet; S: Hatred (Daemons of Khorne); S: Rending; S: Fear; DR: Greater Rewards x1; DR: Exalted Rewards; Psyker (Mastery Level 3))

Troops: Plaguebearers of Nurgle (10#, 90 pts)
   10 Plaguebearers of Nurgle, 90 pts (S: Daemon; S: Hatred (Daemons of Tzeentch); S: Shrouded; S: Slow and Purposeful; S: Fear)

Troops: Plaguebearers of Nurgle (10#, 90 pts)
   10 Plaguebearers of Nurgle, 90 pts (S: Daemon; S: Hatred (Daemons of Tzeentch); S: Shrouded; S: Slow and Purposeful; S: Fear)

HQ: Lord Commissar (1#, 70 pts)
   1 Lord Commissar (HQ) [Guard], 70 pts

Elite: Psyker Battle Squad (9#, 100 pts)
   8 Psyker Battle Squad (Elite) [Guard], 100 pts
      1 Overseer [Guard]

Troops: Infantry Platoon (46#, 305 pts)
   1 Infantry Platoon (Troops) [Guard], 305 pts
      4 Platoon Command Squad [Guard] (Flamer x4)
         1 Platoon Commander [Guard]
         1 Chimera [Guard] (Heavy Flamer)
      9 Infantry Squad [Guard]
         1 Sergeant [Guard]
      9 Infantry Squad [Guard]
         1 Sergeant [Guard]
      9 Infantry Squad [Guard]
         1 Sergeant [Guard]
      9 Infantry Squad [Guard]
         1 Sergeant [Guard]

Fast Attack: Vendetta Gunship Squadron (1#, 130 pts)
   1 Vendetta Gunship Squadron (Fast) [Guard], 130 pts
      1 Vendetta [Guard]

Heavy Support: Ordnance Battery (2#, 150 pts)
   1 Ordnance Battery (Heavy) [Guard], 150 pts
      1 Griffon [Guard]
      1 Griffon [Guard]

: Imperial Bastion (1#, 75 pts)
   1 Imperial Bastion [Guard], 75 pts (Emplaced Heavy Bolters x4)

Total Roster Cost: 1850



I really felt that I was on the verge of creating a gimmick list here until I actually played  a couple games with this list and quickly realized that yes the Psyker Battle Squad (PBS) power did really make this list uber but it did not fall apart when that power did not go off; it was just a bonus. The list has a really strong and hard to shift ground presence in the form of the IG blob and bastion, very strong anti-air, decent melee, and always my favorite; very dirty, very sneaky tricks involving the PBS and the various forms of fuckery in the telepathy table, the dicipline of excess, the doomstone, and the pinning with the griffons. I really wish I had two PBS and one of the lists did but than it put it over that line of being a gimmick and I had to give up too much.

The PBS always starts in the bastion and moves to the top of the bastion when they need to cast while the daemon princes are flying around the psychic screaming, puppet mastering, lashing while the keeper is generally hiding behind the bastion, providing assault support for the blob and throwing out a pavane here and there. In this list I like the griffons over the manticores because I really need the anti-infantry, they are super accurate, always get two shots instead of the potential 1 and can fire more than 4 turns. Plus my griffons look bitchin.' I also kept in my BBQ wagon which is my 4 flamer platoon command squad in a chimera. This unit is so brutal for the points, has to be killed and is generally just another threat to scoring units.

I thought I would have trouble with Tau so I played a hammer and anvil game against them and with relic as the primary and lets just say it went very well. I am having a blast with the list and will be playing it until my Eldar are done.

What do you guys think? Any questions on how something works? Comments?

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I'm Not Dead!

Hey Guys,

Just a quick update; I usually try to do a few posts a week so I'm sure a few of you concluded that my antics have caught up to me and I am dead. Sorry to disappoint but I am still alive! Here is what I have been working on in my spare time that has pulled me away from my computer.

- Final assembly on my Eldar army to get painted and ready for Da Boyz (80% of my free time)
- Working on back-up lists just incase my Eldar do not get completed.
- Digesting the new Space Marine book for a future post here. (I have read the cover so far!)
- Motorcycle stuffs (If you guys get really bored with 40k and want some random posts on my other hobbies let me know!)
- Trying to stay in gym daily

This all amounts to I will be back posting much more often when I get back to more 40k table time instead of hobby stuff. I did get to test my backup list twice this past Saturday and was quite happy with the results but found a few changes I want to make. My backup is IG/Daemons and I will try to do a write-up on it this week.

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Sneak Peak: Eldar Jetbike Army

Hey Guys,

So for those of you who don't know I am once again working with Alicia at Valkyrie Painting to complete my Eldar Jetbike army. I am doing all assembly and conversion and she is doing all the paint work. Here is what we are looking at so far:

Please check out her work and as someone who will only paint to one standard "amazing" I highly suggest her work. http://www.valkyriepainting.com/#!home/mainPage

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NOVA 2013: The Armies

Good evening everyone,

So I wanted to just reach out about my observations of the most common lists I saw at the NOVA open and what I felt about their validity overall and if I felt the list was a gimmick or a completely legitimate all comers GT winning army. I am also going to try to cover if the army is difficult to win with or easy to play. I am going to grade each aspect of the army based purely on my observations. Please keep in mind that these are my opinions that I am sure people will try to change my mind over it. Save us all the time and don't start any arguments in the comments section. So lets get right to it:




Tau w/ no allies:

Lists for Tau at the NOVA were pretty common; some kroot, missile sides, a couple riptides, some marker lights. Mix well and you will be blowing your opponent of the board in no time! This list is extremely easy to play once you get your target priority and order of operations down. Your assets are very easy to defend and your throw tons of dice at your opponent as they try and fail miserably to get out of line of sight.

Gimmick/Legit: B+ really no gimmicks so to speak here, the only reason this did not get an A+ is purely based on the fact that the troops are often used as sacrificial and anything that makes it to melee will be devastating.

Ease of use B+: Easy to play but you still need some semblance of target priority and ability to defend your units.


Eldar w/ no alles:

List for Eldar were simple; do you have 8 wave serpents or 5 and 3 wraithknights? Skill involved is keeping your rear armour protected and not letting stuff charge you.

Gimmick/Legit: B- no gimmicks here as well. Stupid  amount of long range fire power in a difficult to kill chassis. Only reason why this did not get an A+ is because you still have to get your soft squishy troops out to grab objectives and every Wave Serpent that is destroyed is a significant amount of the armies effectiveness destroyed.

Ease of use A-: Easier to play than the Tau because as long as you know how to turbo away from melee, and keep your wave serpent butts away from the business end of everything you will be fine. Oh yeah; and don't wait to turn 5 to move towards objectives. The 48" moving scoring units are a bit of help too.


Taudar:

This mix of tau and eldar is pretty funny because they are so cost effective that you can literally take all the best stuff and really sacrifice nothing. Farseers that are twin linking two units, eldar jetbikes, wraithknights, riptides, missilesides, and wave serpents? Yeah fuck it, throw it all in. This army rock solid in everyway with literally zero weaknesses. Going to get charged? Wraithknight and dcythes can fix that! go ahead and charge them; Tau can supporting fire on them too!

Gimmick/Legit: A+- Like I said; little to zero weaknesses and rock solid reliability makes this a really amazing army.

Ease of play: B- This is a little harder to play than the standard Tau or Eldar with no allies because you have a bit of one of everything list here but the pay off is well worth it. You have not much redundancy so you have to play everything efficiently.


Tautau:

This is the infamous 4 riptide list. This is a really difficult list to look at because on the surface it looks like the definition of gimmick and spam but the unit you are spamming is so versatile that it makes the army just amazing. Oh yeah there is also a deathstar in here that consists of nothing but giant robots and independent characters.

Coolness: A+ this is the only army I will give a coolness factor because it just looks fucking awesome on the table and is very pacific rim.

Gimmick/Legit: B-: This was a reallly difficult section for me because the one of everything love inside me makes me want to give this an F but I just can't do it. The list have incredible fire power, durability, mobility, and actually isn't terrible in close combat. It really only gets grade points off it because the troops are very small and pretty easy to wipe out from underneath the noses of the giant robots.

Easy of play: C+: The list is powerful, but the troops again being fragile takes a big hit here. Every game I watched ended with victory for the robots most of the time but because they were contesting all the objectives and only suit or kroot squad lucky enough to live didn't fail a morale test. Too close for comfort for me. The game we all watched it lose was due to; you guessed it; the troops all died.


FMC Daemons: Do I really have to review what was in the list; its flying monstrous creatures and some of them had heldrakes.

Gimmick/Legit: B-: Another powerful army but it loses points for two reasons to make it not gimmicky; it needs the right player that does not have bloodlust with giant monsters and if you get unlucky you can lose very very quickly. Luckily Fateweaver helps overcomes many of the things that are usually an unlucky factor such as the warp storm table, getting grounded and the grimoire.

Easy of play: D+ FMC is easy to play but difficult to play very well. You need to be spot on when you engage enemies or your army is just devastated. It is also hard for most players to get over the fact that the FMC army is NOT A MELEE ARMY.



Screamer star/council:

I am not looking forward to this because I know people who feel really really strongly about this list being amazing. Keep in mind I am looking at this from a W/L format and I think this list has alot more merits in a battle point format so this isn't always the way the wind blows so to speak. The list consists usually of 3 heralds of tzeentch in a unit of 9 screamers supported by fateweaver and 2 daemon princes.

Gimmick/Legit: F- This list is the definition of a gimmick list. Argue all you want but the bottom line is the list does in fact rely on a certain power (forewarning) and an item that has a 30% chance to fail (grimoire). Yes it is something like 15% with fateweaver and an 85% change to get forewarning but that is far from guarenteed especially when you have eight games. With that many games you will fail a handful of grimoires and get one or two games without forewarning which means in a win/loss format means you have a good chance to lose. There is also the runic staff and shadows in the warp which are both exceptionally easy to use against the powers. When the powers do work though and the grimoire is up this quickly goes to an A+ but it is not guarenteed period........I knew a couple of friends at the NOVA with my who had this list and each time they lost I had to chuckle because they said the same thing; "You wouldn't believe it, I failed grimoire even with re-roll." You wouldn't believe it, I failed forewarning even though it was on LD10." "You wouldn't believe it, i didn't get forewarning with 9 rolls!" etc. etc.

Easy to play: A+ you run the unit in front of an army and laugh as you pick what to kill next turn and your deamon princes fly on and off the table as the screamer star bleeds your opponent to death. Super easy to play, super easy to win, just don't get tar pitted.

Categories:

WTF?: NOVA 2013

Hey Guys,

Bill here with a quick rundown of how my NOVA 2013 was, some quick ups and downs about the event, and some whining and crying about why my performance this year was so terrible lol.

Pros:
Venue- The Hyatt Regency in Crystal City treats gamers better than any venue I have ever been too. They are fantastic and while last year; food was an issue when trying to eat between rounds, this year; there were several new food choice locations which made the food much less an issue this year.

Torrent of Fire- This was a new software/app system that NOVA used which allowed users to track stats, see their table assignments, and even enter their results through their smartphone. Other than one minor SNAFU after bracketing needed to occur it worked great and I am a huge advocate now.

Terrain- A+

Internet coverage- A+

Awards ceremony was much faster- A+

Cons:

Where are all the judges?- Last year during the invitational they assigned a judge to each table to watch the players, help catch and potential slip ups and generally be there always to answer questions, look up rules, and help the process. This year I watched several players bolting across the room looking for a judge even at table 1 which was being broadcasted! Big fail here.

Prize support- For such a huge tournament, I understand they give away two $1000 dollar prizes which is absolutely amazing but to everyone else they get gift certificates that have to used on site (all but one of the vendors was closed when they gave them out) and people was Ben Mohlie who busted his ass all weekend walked away with one riptide (Irony at its finest!)

Allowance of unpainted armies- One thing I dislike about the NOVA which is not anything they can control is it always attracts many people who love the flavor of the month. Not only does this result in a really boring tournament from playing the same thing over and over but it also resulted in really just horribly done armies and some just straight up with unpainted models. I just personally feel like this kind of disrespects those who bust their ass to get their army done and generally have respect for the hobby. Granted my Tyranids are FAR from the best but I still finished all my models.

My performance:

Before I starting whining; Congratulations to Dark Star and our merc; Alan Bajromovich for taking the NOVA trios tournament for the third year in a row. I am very proud of Troy, myself, and the third person we have had for three years in a row for accomplishing this.

I was going into NOVA with high hopes, I practiced alot against Tau and Eldar, knew the missions well, had an amazing army for the the table quarter objective placement and my army is tough as nails. I hit a few bumps in the road though that resulted in me going 2-2 the first day. The second day I won a game, and lost the last game because we rolled off for victory and just played a fun game. So what happened?

I got really good against the net list tau and wave serpent spam. The problem with this; I didn't play them at all despite them making up over half the field. What did I play instead? FMC Daemons for 5 out of the 6 games I played.

FMC daemons are actually an amazing matchup for me and I practice against them a lot but a couple very important things made a difference in these two games I lost. In both games the players flew all of their FMCs in my face just as I had hoped (huge mistakes on their part). They do their to get ready to vector strike all my FMCs to death so they kind of have to. From here my plan is to enfeeble as many as possible; and ground and charge as many as fall and if they don't have iron arm they just die from the str 9 vs. toughness 4. I also have never played against daemons that take pure witchfire spells and lashes planning to just stay in the air the whole game.

Even with fateweaver it should take 12 grounding tests to ground 3 FMCs. In my first game I forced 8 the first turn and 12 the next turn and grounded 0. From there has able to keep flying on and off the board and which all of his FMCs scoring was able to win 1-0 objectives. In the second game; I made a pretty big error and mis-measured my deployment resulting in heavy damage on the first turn and than my opponent passing 14 grounding checks.

The moral of the story is while the bugs are awesome and still powerful in my opinion; I think my biggest mistake was not having the right tools to actually do damage along with all those grounding checks. I feel like if I played against the super powerful Eldar and Tau, I actually would have done better but was kind of blindsided by the consequences of opponents being able to stay in the air with vector striking madness.

The good news is I was very happy with how I played and think I made very little if any mistakes with the exception of one unnecessary Deathleaper death.

I am looking forward to more work on my Eldar bikes; Space Marines, and maybe even a second Eldar list I am working on to update my potential of actually doing damage and playing lists that are less of a "oh look what I can do with more guns." and more of a; I can actually do stuff!

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How to Melee the 6th Edition Way

Hey Guys,

Sorry I am behind here but; as I warned we are all busy bees around here getting ready for the NOVA open this week. I got some great practice this weekend at the Time Machine in Manchester CT by participating in an RTT there, it was great fun.


Shameless half naked female attention grabber: Good you found your way here!

Anyway here a brief article on how to play a melee army in 6th edition which is almost a taboo and often shunned topic. It really upsets me when people say the only valid melee list is FMC daemons but they in reality aren't even a melee army. FMC daemons are really only successfully played as a stay in the air, fly off the board and pick off units type army. If they try to fight in melee they will either smash through their target and get blown to pieces or get lucky enough that the unit actually stays but then you have to hope you definitely break them next combat or you get shot to pieces then. If you don't believe me take some time and watch Goatboy or Nick N. play their Daemons and see how many and which kind of combats they get into.

As usual with these articles folks lets start with our list design and for a pure (or melee heavy army) to work you are going to go by one very simple design philosophy; target saturation. Think about that for a minute; if you provide one target or very few targets to shoot at it makes target priority a no-brainer for these static or even worse, very fast gun line armies. This eliminates FMC and deathstars and please keep in mind this is with a all-comers, GT winning philosophy in mind. Yes FMC and deathstars can not only win games but win GTs with the right pairings but we are focusing on melee here.

The armies that do target saturation the best are the Tyranids and cavalry based Daemons. What is most interesting is that they both provide target saturation in very different ways.

The Daemons are doing target saturation by using multiple fast units that are immediately in the opponents face. This makes an army that forces immediate decisions that every decisions is correct but it is just not enough to stop all of it so at the same time each decision is wrong.


Tyranids are more of slow moving wave type of target saturation. Tyranids slowly move up with their big nasties while throwing their fast gribblys in your face. While the obvious answer seems to be kill the big nasties this is also the wrong decision as you quickly find yourself engulfed in more gribblys than you can deal with. If you kill the gribblys, by the time you kill enough to make them not a threat the nasties are at your door.

The common theme here is you are forcing multiple decisions; all of which are wrong which you can read more about in my article about adaptive play style.


Ok you have your list now you need to learn how to play it. Just like a shooting army; you are going to win or lose your game in the movement phase. You need to make sure you position yourself defensively as you advance up the field or offensively as you get closer to your target without leaving yourself completely vulnerable. If you have to make a choice between an offensive and defensive movement; always choose the defensive. It is still a dice game and if shit goes wrong you want to be safe.

Don't forget to play to the mission; it is fun as hell to run screaming up the field but if the terrain is no bueno for you to survive with than keep the fuck back. There is never an excuse to run face first into missiles. Get into the safest position possible for you to jump on objectives or into quarters to stay out of range to conserve kill points. I have had many games where I literally hide for 5 turns. It is boring, it sucks but most of those games I have won.

Now that you read all this great stuff time for the bad news; melee armies or even units are extremely difficult to play. It is easier to play gun line armies I am not going to lie but playing melee armies will 100% without a doubt make you a better 40k player in 6th edition. Take your lickings, keep your head up and learn to mitigate the damage, the fine art of eating  overwatches (hmm that gives me an idea for another article), and making the charges so you stay in combat until your opponents turn.

One last thing; table quarters and objective missions are generally much easier for armies that actually leave their deployment zone.

Any questions? Ask away!

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Objective Mission Tactics: Control the Center

My Precious! Objective

Hello Gents,
Good evening a pleasure to see you and thanks for tuning in. Today I wanted to take some time to talk about some tactics for winning objective missions. With a large majority of missions in tournaments revolving around capturing objectives in 6th edition I wanted to go over some of my thought process and tactics for winning these missions. More specifically how controlling the center of the board helps with this process.

With the Nova Open being next week lets use their objective placement as our focus for this article which is one objective in the center of the board and one in the center of each table quarter.

Lets start with why holding the center of the board is a good thing in this format and setup. When you hold the center of a board you are the shortest possible distance to all four of the objectives in the quadrants. This is important because as a game evolves it allows for some fluidity in your plan to make adjustments and make plays for objectives that if you were to go heavy on one flank, it would be out of the question for you to attempt to go for the others.

Holding the center is also good for offensive purposes as you can easily shift your hard forces in the center to either flank and lend assistance. As a common theme in this blog you need the right tools for the job and not all lists are designed or all that good at controlling the center of the board.


If you do not have the right list; controlling board center is going to be difficult if not impossible. A tau gunline for example is not going to run in the center of the field and expect to hold strong. Looking at something like a GK paladin list or even my Tyranids however is the very definition of a board center control army. Once you dig 10 paladins or, oh, say 3 tervigons and a swarmlord into the center of the table not only is no one going to want to go near that center objective but you are also one turn away from being on any obective, especially with Tervigons making babies all over the place.

You also want to be sure to set this up correctly; when playing a board center control army going second is usually the best idea. This allows you to effectively do two things; the first being that you have bottom of the turn to contest/control objectives, and second is something I mentally setup every game during deployment and that is making a slightly harder push to one side.



Remember; with 5 objectives on the table you need 3 to win assuming that everyone is going to be controlled. Once my opponent sets up i look at their deployment and decide which of the two side objectives i am going to push harder for. Being a board center army I know I am plopping my heavy hitters in the center so that is one objective taken care of, you will usually want a couple deck chair units to take care of one of the objectives in your deployment zone so that is two. The third objective I always try to pick as the weakest flank in my opponents deployment zone.

Picking this as your third objective does several things. One thing is does is keep your opponent fighting in his deployment zone, second thing it does is keep your opponent away from your deck chairs and the this thing it does is force your opponent to move to the weaker side of the board to react.........Exactly! this forces them to move past your nice strong center.

This exposes another advantage to board center armies. They tend to force your opponent to react to you as opposed to the faster, or heavier fire power armies which have to react to what their opponent is doing.

Sorry I know that was kind of wall of text like but it is a pretty complex topic. Again; if you local guys really like this stuff bug Chase (you know who he is!) and have him schedule a tactics session.

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1ksons are Terrible

Hey Guys, Bill here with another “Insert army/unit here” is terrible. Today’s entry is in response to a friend of mine who responded to my thread regarding the blog. He wanted a 1k sons list with the only stipulation being the scoring units are 1k sons. Challenge accepted and I think I am actually going to give this list a shot. I admittedly cheated a little and added a unit of pink horrors so I could take daemon allies by I made up for it by not putting any other marks in the list other than tzeentch! As with all of these lists guys; they are quickly thrown together brain childs of mine with zero testing or tweaking.

Without further delay; the list:

1850 Pts - Codex: Chaos Space Marines Roster

HQ: Sorcerer in Terminator Armour (1#, 155 pts)

   1 Sorcerer in Terminator Armour, 155 pts (Mark of Tzeentch; Force Axe; Increase Mastery Level x1; Warlord; Biomancy; Pyromancy; Telepathy; Tzeentch)

      1 Burning Brand of Skalathrax

Elite: Possessed (8#, 248 pts)

   7 Possessed, 248 pts (Mark of Tzeentch)

      1 Possessed Champion (Close Combat Weapon)

Heavy Support: Chaos Land Raider (1#, 245 pts)

   1 Chaos Land Raider, 245 pts (Dozer Blade; Extra Armour)

Troops: Thousand Sons (10#, 265 pts)

   9 Thousand Sons, 265 pts

      1 Aspiring Sorcerer (Force Axe; Biomancy; Pyromancy; Telepathy; Tzeentch)

Troops: Thousand Sons (6#, 185 pts)

   4 Thousand Sons, 185 pts

      1 Aspiring Sorcerer (Force Axe; Biomancy; Pyromancy; Telepathy; Tzeentch)

      1 Chaos Rhino (Combi-Boltgun)

Troops: Thousand Sons (6#, 185 pts)

   4 Thousand Sons, 185 pts

      1 Aspiring Sorcerer (Force Axe; Biomancy; Pyromancy; Telepathy; Tzeentch)

      1 Chaos Rhino (Combi-Boltgun)

Troops: Thousand Sons (5#, 150 pts)

   4 Thousand Sons, 150 pts

      1 Aspiring Sorcerer (Force Axe; Biomancy; Pyromancy; Telepathy; Tzeentch)

HQ: Lord of Change (1#, 305 pts)

   1 Lord of Change (HQ) [cd], 305 pts (DR: Greater Rewards x1; DR: Exalted Rewards; Psyker (Mastery Level 3); 6E Psychic Disciplines: ; Biomancy; Divination; Pyromancy; Telepathy)

Troops: Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (12#, 108 pts)

   12 Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (Troops) [cd], 108 pts

Total Roster Cost: 1846

I like this list because it literally has all the tools, I can kill vehicles, has dedicated melee, tons of AP3, is super durable, very sneak and deceptive (my favorite) and my new favorite is fairly MSU without being spammy. Honestly I would probably drop the 3^rd 5 man unit and in obliterators but he wants 1ksons so he gets em!

Here is the breakdown

HQ: Sorcerer in Terminator Armour (1#, 155 pts)-  To be honest; If I had my way I would be taking Abbadon here, he absolutely belongs toting around with the possessed in a Land Raider but my buddy wanted 1ksons and 1ksons he shall get. This guys makes them troops, he also is a decent support character to tank some shots for the big unit of 1k sons or join the possessed if you get something fun like Iron Arm.

Elite: Possessed (8#, 248 pts)-It’s a wonky list, so I wanted to do fully wonky. Is this unit overcosted? Hell yes! Is the rest of the army as well? Hell yes, so who cares! This unit is Str 5 T5 and has a decent amount of attacks. More importantly they are also a daemon with +1 invuln save which you will see why is important in a moment. I know…the suspense!!

Heavy Support: Chaos Land Raider (1#, 245 pts)- The Land Raider has a lot of utility in this list. Most of the time I see it carrying the possessed but if you are fighting a melee army I can see it protecting your 10 man 1ksons and using the possessed as a counter charge unit. Oh yeah, it’s also AV 14 with las cannons on the side.

Troops: Thousand Sons (10#, 265 pts)

Troops: Thousand Sons (6#, 185 pts)

Troops: Thousand Sons (6#, 185 pts)

Troops: Thousand Sons (5#, 150 pts)- The sad fact is, the 1ksons are over costed for something as easy to kill as a standard marine. They have a few tricks but they are still so over costed that instead of trying to make them effective you are going to be focused on protecting them. My suggestion is to focus 100% on keeping them safe and rolling pyromancy on your Champ and sneak him out for some pop shots. With the new marine book though you may some really nice fodder to use those AP3 bolters on.

I also like the Rhinos in this list because you can move and turbo boost to get your unit in a defensive position. Also with the new trend of deathstar shooting units (36 str 5-7 missiles I’m looking at you!) it is fun to force an opponent to waste that many shots on a pesky rhino. They will kill it, rather easily but it means that isn’t shooting at the 5 man hoofing it across the field that turn.

HQ: Lord of Change (1#, 305 pts)-This guy is the reason I had to cheat. He is a level 3 flying MC and has access to Bio, Divination, Telepathy which means he can basically do anything. More importantly; remember those daemonic possessed marines with a 4+ invuln we spoke about earlier? Well they are friendly daemon so cast grimoire on them and laugh with your 2+ invulnerable.

Troops: Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (12#, 108 pts)- They are level 2 being 12 strong and are another scoring unit that can have grimoire cast on them. They also allow me to bring the Lord of Charge and they are Tzeentch so blah!

Hope you guys enjoyed the article, again as are all these “terrible” army blog entries these are meant to be fun, semi-competitive lists. You probably are not going to win a GT with these but you will surprise your friends, and maybe even stomp at a local RTT and it brings new life to stuff that isn’t thought of too much. I promised you would never see a netlist on this blog unless people are playing my GT lists and I am sticking to my guns!

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Orks are Terrible

Hey everyone Bill here again with some more content! I have a slight obsession with making lists, so much so that I leave my laptop with Army Builder home so I do not have temptation at work. Now that I pretty much have what I am going to play in the tournament season sorted It has left me alot of free Army Builder time. This means I am working on making good lists for armies that are currently bad. Today I set my sights on ally free Orks.



My favorite combination with Orks is with Necron allies but that is too easy so I am going to work on Orks with no allies. This list is very outside the box and is EXTREMELY difficult to use so please take all this with a grain of salt. Orks are still a melee army but doing so with the classic boys is impossible because you are pulling models from the front and the boys are too slow. This list focuses on getting assault units in as fast as possible using unconventional methods and trying to help a bit with over watch. This army works by presenting multiple threats very quickly. I could easily make a dakka list but Orks want to smash stuff!

So lets get to it! Here is the list, from here I will breakdown my selections and why.
1850 Pts - Codex: Orks Roster

HQ: Mega-armoured Warboss (1#, 115 pts)
   1 Mega-armoured Warboss, 115 pts (Bosspole; Cybork Body; Warlord)

HQ: Warboss (1#, 135 pts)
   1 Warboss, 135 pts (Cybork Body; Warbike; Power Klaw)

Elite: Meganobz (6#, 245 pts)
   5 Meganobz, 245 pts (Shoota/Skorcha Kombi-weapon x1)
      1 Trukk (Red Paint Job)

Elite: Lootas (10#, 150 pts)
   10 Lootas, 150 pts

Elite: Lootas (10#, 150 pts)
   10 Lootas, 150 pts

Troops: Nobz (10#, 205 pts)
   1 Nobz, 205 pts (Count as Troop Troops)
      9 Nobz
      1 Nobz (Bosspole)

Troops: Meganobz (6#, 255 pts)
   5 Meganobz, 255 pts (Count as Troop Troops; Shoota/Skorcha Kombi-weapon x2)
      1 Trukk (Red Paint Job; Reinforced Ram)

Troops: Boyz (20#, 130 pts)
   20 Boyz, 130 pts (Shootas; Big Shoota x2)

Troops: Boyz (20#, 130 pts)
   20 Boyz, 130 pts (Shootas; Big Shoota x2)

Troops: Gretchin (11#, 40 pts)
   10 Gretchin, 40 pts
      1 Runtherd

Fast Attack: Deffkoptas (5#, 175 pts)
   5 Deffkoptas, 175 pts

Fast Attack: Stormboyz (5#, 60 pts)
   5 Stormboyz, 60 pts

Fast Attack: Stormboyz (5#, 60 pts)
   5 Stormboyz, 60 pts

Total Roster Cost: 1850

It is going to be difficult to explain my way out of this one because It looks like absolute rubbish but just hang on for the ride hopefully you get the same vision I do. Again, this is a super hard list to play but it is outside the box and I am not sure many will know how to handle it.

1850 Pts - Codex: Orks Roster

HQ: Mega-armoured Warboss (1#, 115 pts)
   1 Mega-armoured Warboss, 115 pts (Bosspole; Cybork Body; Warlord)

I chose the mega armoured warboss for a couple of reasons; the first is to make one unit of mega nobz scoring and the other is to put him in the 10 man nob unit for LD9 and a boss pole, that is actually a pretty easy unit to hide, is pretty durable when going to ground and just overall great for charging anything that wants to get near your squishy troops. Plus for 115 points you will not find a better character, period. I can also put him in with the meganobz if terrain is perfect for foot nobz.

HQ: Warboss (1#, 135 pts)
   1 Warboss, 135 pts (Cybork Body; Warbike; Power Klaw)

This guy is a little trickier, again for 135 points he is a complete badass but I wanted to find a way to get him to combat quicker and much cheaper than a conventional bike or nob biker squad and my vehicle to make this happen is the deffkopta unit. The deffkopta unit and it's scout provides a huge footprint and great squad to attach your warboss too first turn. Sure you cannot charge top of one but if you get bottom of one you can and your warboss just expanded his unit frontage by alot.

Elite: Meganobz (6#, 245 pts)
   5 Meganobz, 245 pts (Shoota/Skorcha Kombi-weapon x1)
      1 Trukk (Red Paint Job)

I don't have to explain why meganobz are awesome, I am hoping the cat is out of the bag by now but more so why a trukk is better than a battlewagon. Trukks can move 25" inches in a turn, cost 35 points and have a 12 capacity with open top. They also have a ramshackle table with a worst case scenario being better than your standard explosion (only str 3) and the other two results giving you extra movement with your trukk or a 6" disembark. Oh yeah, play some games and I promise you your battlewagons and trukks both only last one turn as well. The tick is to reserve the trukks with meganobz and when they come on the board they are already mid field.

Elite: Lootas (10#, 150 pts)
   10 Lootas, 150 pts

Elite: Lootas (10#, 150 pts)
   10 Lootas, 150 pts

Long range support and hopefully forcing some flyers to evade. Lootas r lootas

Troops: Nobz (10#, 205 pts)
   1 Nobz, 205 pts (Count as Troop Troops)
      9 Nobz
      1 Nobz (Bosspole)

20 boyz may admittedly may be a better purchase than 10 nobz but lets face it, this can be a scary unit to charge with a mega boss in here and is much easier to hide than a boys mob. The unit just has some utility that cannot be ignored. And when you consider everything else coming at you, do you have time to even deal with these guys?

Troops: Meganobz (6#, 255 pts)
   5 Meganobz, 255 pts (Count as Troop Troops; Shoota/Skorcha Kombi-weapon x2)
      1 Trukk (Red Paint Job; Reinforced Ram)

Moar meganob goodness.

Troops: Boyz (20#, 130 pts)
   20 Boyz, 130 pts (Shootas; Big Shoota x2)

Troops: Boyz (20#, 130 pts)
   20 Boyz, 130 pts (Shootas; Big Shoota x2)

Troops: Gretchin (11#, 40 pts)
   10 Gretchin, 40 pts
      1 Runtherd

Unfortunately the standard Ork troop units have been reduced to deck chairs. Still hard to shift though when going to ground every turn.

Fast Attack: Deffkoptas (5#, 175 pts)
   5 Deffkoptas, 175 pts

Scouting sneakyness for the warboss.

Fast Attack: Stormboyz (5#, 60 pts)
   5 Stormboyz, 60 pts

Fast Attack: Stormboyz (5#, 60 pts)
   5 Stormboyz, 60 pts

These two units are hilarious, they are literally here to either deepstrike in (hopefully late game) and try to hide/contest or fly up with the others and eat some overwatch. Poor bastards.

By now I hope I have you all rolling on the floor laughing at this list I honestly do not think it is too bad. I can see myself playing it, listening to chuckles and being quite successful when people let their guard down. Are there are better lists? Oh hell yes. Are there better Ork melee lists at this current time? I don't really think so unless you are relying on allies or gimmicks. Hopefully you guys see what I see and if not, I would be happy to try and help! If this article doesn't convince you this blog is all about making you a better a player while the rest of the internet is trying to make you a better list builder than I don't know what will!

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Being Like Water: Adaptive Playstyle (Part 1?)

Hey everyone, as promised here is my article for playing 40k "like water" aka an article on adaptive playstyle. Let me first get out of the way; to learn to play with an adaptive playstyle you need to to have a list with some utility. If you do not have all the tools than successfully changing how you play the list can be very difficult. Playing a list with nine wave serpents for example; you are going to play the same way each game and if you have a terrible matchup......sucks to be you.

For those of you who missed my neat video snippet in my "Let's Get Ready to Rumble" post:


The best way to describe how to go about learning to be an adaptive player is to start by giving yourself goals on the tabletop and giving yourself multiple ways to both achieve that goal, and GTFO if the shit hits the fan. The reason why I say this is a starting point is because it forces you to starting thinking of some unconventional methods of both achieving your goals and saving your ass.

Get out of that frame of mind of; I need to kill this unit so I'll move my unit into rapid fire range because that is how they do the most damage. Instead keep yourself at a safe distance and enlist multiple units to taking down the enemy, not only that but put a counter assault unit in position near them. Doing this keeps your units safer, gives you multiple opportunities to wipe the unit out and if they do make that stupid long charge they will get counter assault and pay for rolling so well. This is called forcing the wrong decision.

Forcing the wrong decision is the easiest way to identify a great player. These are those moments where you are trying to make a decision and each scenario is bad. If you can't play a fast army that always keeps you safe than play an army that forces bad decision. My Eldar and my Tyranids are polar opposites in this regard. My Eldar forces decisions because I leave very little of them while my Tyranids leave many decisions that can be made but they are all the wrong decisions.


Next we move into list construction. When setting yourself up to be an adaptive player you want to make sure that your list construction is allowing you to be as flexible as you want to be. Here is a quick punch list of key items your list should be able to do.

• Give your independent characters multiple homes. Your characters should be able to provide benefits and have uses from almost any unit in your army, depending on the opponent your ICs should be able to give you advantages to that type of army.

• Provide your units options for deployment. Try to pick units that have multiple ways of deploying when facing various opponents. One of the things I love about the Stormraven list I have is I can combat squad, infilitrate, scout, start in a raven, start in a landspeeder storm with any unit in the army. This is a hidden benefit that most people underestimate. People will expect me to start 40 scouts on the table than when I offer to go first and all my Ravens are in reserve and all my scouts are infiltrating I get to go first, and see how my opponent sets up. Consider this when building a list.

• Set yourself up for success. The one is simple; give yourself tools to do every job. It is tempting to spam because it provides some breathing room to let you make mistakes. Having a limited number of tools to complete a task will make you think smarted and play more efficient to keep those limited tools safe. This is like having a toolbox of hammer, you will abuse them, break them, throw them away, and lose them. If you have only one you will treat it like gold. Having one also gives you more room for different tools instead of a box of hammers.

I can go one with this forever and it is already too wall of text for my liking so I will stop there. I will continue on with a part II if I get enough positive feedback, as always hoped you enjoyed the article. I am also considering setting up a tactics "seminar" with BG as an event if you guys are interested. Let me know your thoughts.

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Beating the Mighty Wave Serpent

I have been watching the mighty internet scratching their heads since the release of the new Eldar book on how the new wave serpent can be stopped. The meta has shifted again and the panic has set in......."But we have all bought Tau, and now the Tau have trouble with serpents."

 Cries of holo fields, armour 12, and moving flat out send the droves to the forums to claim [H] Tau Army [W] Wave Serpents. I mean if you can't beat them, join them right?

Since 6th edition has hit, the big claim has been close combat is dead. This was especially the feeling when Tau was released. Well, as it turns out the close combat that everyone has shunned is the easiest was to kill the mighty wave serpent.

ZOMG, Iknorite? Remember; their serpent shield, the holo fields and even the armour 12 is completely ignored as bonuses when you engage the machines in close combat and with all the fast close combat options it is not too hard to chase the fast skimmer down.

The first important advantage to remember is that when attacking vehicles in close combat you attack their rear armour and Wave Serpents like many others means this is armour 10. Because the vehicles are fast you want to make sure that you are going to kill it when you engage it because you may only get one opportunity. I will even put close combat at a disadvantage and not factor penetrating hits.

Str 3= Cannot damage tank
Str 4(Standard infantry)= 24 attacks on average to get 3 hull points
Str 6(Crack grenades, etc.)= 8 attacks on average to get 3 hull points
Str 8(Power fists, etc.)= 5 attacks on average to get 3 hull points
Str 10(Smashing MC's)= 4 attacks on average to get 3 hull points

 Lets compare this to shooting at the Wave Serpent when it has gone flat out with holofields and serpent shield. This is assuming BS4.

Under Str 6= Cannot damage the tank  Str 6(Scatter lasers etc.)= 38 shots on average to get 3 hull points
Str 7(Missile broad sides, tesla, etc.)= 19 shots on average to get 3 hull points
Str 8(Missile launcher, etc.) = 13 shots on average to get 3 hull points
Str 9(Las Cannon, etc.)= 9 shots on average to get 3 hull points

Another advantage to keep in mind is that vehicles cannot overwatch so all that fire power is useless when you are running at the tank screaming. Just keep an eye out if there are any of those good-two-shoes supporting fire Tau hanging within 6" of the tank.

I hope this articles helps your Wave Serpent woes and helps people give a second thought to close combat before you turn your back on it completely. Oh, and most important; close combat is way more FUN. Remember? That thing you should be having in a game.

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NOVA Practice

Hey guys, Just a heads up for you local folks. Even though the NOVA practice tournament got canceled this weekend a bunch of the guys who signed up will still be a Battlegrounds in Plainville getting some practice in. Come on down, chat, play some warhams, and we will probably go out for some dinner afterwards. Hope to see you there!

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Lets Get Ready to Rumble!!!!

Hey guys, Bill here with with some more of my gamer "wisdom" I want to cram into your brains. Before I get into it; I just wanted to say thanks for all the positive feedback I have been getting on my blog posts. Hopefully I'll even be able to pull you into some discussion, live on the blog! HINT HINT!

Today I wanted to talk about getting prepared for a tournament. I am not talking about remembering to bring your dice and tape measure but how do you prepare your game for an upcoming tournament. I am going to try to touch on a bunch of different topics without using walls of text so if I am vague about something please feel free to ask.



Practice Makes Perfect

Lets get the obvious one out of the way; practice. If you want to get better, faster, and more efficient with your army you have to practice. Repetition is the best way to get rules in your head and you can use these practice sessions to get faster with your army without sacrificing quality of play.

When you set out to practice there are a few keys that make a practice session worth it. Play someone better than you. Finding a new guy who doesn't know his way around a tape measure may result in your victory but what have you really accomplished. Play someone way better than you, get your butt kicked and banter back and forth about what happened and what you can do to be more successful in the future.

Play against the netlisters. If you are serious about winning a tournament you have to get over the fact that you are going to play people using netlists. This means that learning how to beat them is just as important. Find someone who is playing these lists and ask them for a game. Playing against the guy with a completely whacky army or fluffy army is awesome for beer and pretzels warhammer but not for practicing for a tournament, it is just a waste of time.



Where Did I Put that Deckchair Unit?

The next thing you want to prep is your list. I am writing this article assuming you have all made army lists before. When preparing for a tournament I try to play against as many different kinds of armies as possible; this lets you essentially look through your toolbox and make sure that you have the right tool for the job so to speak. Make sure that your army list is accomplishing what it should with the tools that you have.

Don't be afraid to admit to yourself that you have too many hammers and not enough screwdrivers. What I mean by this is maybe you are smashing infantry to pieces but three land raiders show up and you have zero or very limited answers. Balance your list so you can efficiently deal with most threats and never tailor your armies to deal with gimmicks.

Never, and I mean ever completely revamp your list. Think about it; you put weeks of practice into this list and you play against an army that absolutely thrashes you. The first thing you do is go home and work something completely different up to deal with that list. All the practice you have done before hand is now completely useless. Instead take your time, make some tweaks here and there and play the army again. Maybe the problem wasn't your list at all in the first place.


Be Like Water

This is all about refining your playstyle; look forward to a full article on this. When you are preparing; work on preparing your mind to have a very flexible playstyle. I hear all the time "I am an aggressive player," or "I play super safe." Don't compartmentalize your game like that you need to be playing however the game, mission, opponent, and format dictate you to play. I have played against many different kinds and skill levels of players. There are some I always have hard games against, those that destroy me, and some that I destroy.

I have noticed overtime that the difference isn't that army that they are playing, or bad luck it is based on both of our abilities to adapt to the situation. Games that are tough; we are both playing "like water," games that are super easy for me, the person has a set play style which is always apparent right at deployment 99% of the time. Those games that I get demolished I can always think back to what I should have done differently or see what my opponent did that was unconventional.  This means I didn't adapt to the situation or my opponent was able to adapt to what I was doing one turn ahead of me.

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Timeless Tactics: Slingshot

Hey guys, Bill here with another tactics article. This time I want to talk about a timeless tactic that has stood the test of time and several editions. Many people know about it but not too many people use the tactic known as the slingshot.

The slingshot is a tactic that can do two things; the first is using an independent character that is closer to an intended charge target than a unit to pull that unit into combat. The second is just the opposite; using a unit that closer to a charge target than an independent character and his current unit to get that character into combat.

The utility of this tactic is obvious; it allows characters and units to cover more ground, or charge targets that were at one point in the turn out of reach.

Before we get into actually using the tactic is important to remember two rules; any Independent character that ends his movement within 2” of a unit automatically joins that unit. The second and much more important is that once a character joins a unit in the movement phase; that unit cannot move any further so make sure the unit moves before the independent character does in all scenarios.

An average charge threat range for a standard infantry unit is 13” (6” move, avg. 7” charge). If you do something as simple as join a character to that unit at his maximum coherency you are improving that average by 3-4” (2” coherency, 1-2” base). While this was without a doubt more critical in 5^th edition with a fixed charge distance, the current state of melee armies means that anything that makes that charge more likely to happen is important.

In this picture "the bad guys" are the red circles and your purple unit has just been joined by an IC that used to be in your green unit. Your charge range is now much shorter and the charge range is now much more likely or even possible in a situation where it may not have been possible before.

Even more useful is pulling a character in that is normally too far away to charge. Depending on the unit size the character is joining, joining a character to a unit that is further ahead than he is can help even a standard infantry character cover massive distances and get into those melees to make a huge difference. The best part about this tactic as well is it is often harder to see coming and your opponent will be more likely to leave a unit vulnerable.

In this picture that same IC is changing from green squad to purple but in this example a fight he was once not eligible to join he is being brought in by joining the closer unit to our "bad guys."

When making this move you want to be sure to calculate pile in moves and potential damage, the last thing you want to do is setup this charge only to have found out that you strung your unit out too much and you cannot pile in to stay in combat. Even if your character cannot get in to fight this round, he will get to fight next round and look at all that extra ground you just covered.

Also keep in mind that while the things outlined here are offensive. This could even be used defensively to charge a much weaker unit to pull yourself away from a target that can kill you if your standard move and run is not enough to escape. It can also be used to pull a scoring unit closer to an objective or a unit over to contest or get into a table quarter. In a game where movement is key, play laterally, think outside the box and be sneaky, very sneaky.

Hope you guys enjoyed the article, I know others have wrote about it before but as a severely under-utilized tactic I felt it my duty to resurface the topic and generate some discussion.

Any questions? Ask away!

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ETC Summary Day 2

Here is the standing after day two, with two more games to go Team USA has to win both games to have a shot at making the podium. Today they had a victory vs. Team England (last years champs) and had a tough loss to Team Poland. I have no not seen the points break down for round 4 yet.

Current Standings: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3od94TpMuvcdE1wRGQ2MGxLTHM/edit

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ETC Day 1 Summary

Day one of the ETC is in the books and what a day it has been. One thing I have to say is that Serbia's coverage of the event has been absolutely second to none compared to years past. They have had all the information you could ever need moments after they had it themselves. For those of you who may have missed it here is day for the 40k boys. 

By the way you can stay frequent with the current standings, happenings, and pictures/video of the event on the Novi Sad ETC 2013 Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/ETC-2013-Novi-Sad/147903428748437

Day 1 Game 1 vs. Czech Republic 

Result: Team USA win (Team USA 105 to Team Czech Republic 55)

Day 1 Game 2 vs. Wales

Result : Draw (Team USA 75 Team Wales 85)

This puts Team USA in 9th place going into day 2 and they are paired vs. Team England (last years champs) who are currently in 10th. The draw puts USA in a tough spot to get gold but it is certainly not out of their reach yet.

Standings after round 2: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3od94TpMuvcNnB6U3VKTmdYeDA/edit

Pairings for round 3: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3od94TpMuvceklDLXJQcGhWM2c/edit

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ETC State of Mind

Feeling motivated today with my new blog swagger look so I may even do a double post today. But for now with the ETC going on this weekend lets discuss how it is different than the standard tournament scene and why even if you you made a super team of all the best players in the world, why they may not win or even do all that great. 

First and foremost the ESC (European Singles Championships) were held through the week this week and I am very proud of the Merican' boys! Congratulations to Andrew Gonyo for taking the Gold and Alan (pajamapants) Bajramovic (1/3 of my trios team this year) for taking Bronze. Tony Kopach came in 5th making three of Team USA in the top 5. Very impressive indeed. I have played against all three of these guys and they are extremely deserving of the prestige.

The differences that you see in an ETC team format stem from it's pairing system. Unlike a standard one on one tournament system the ETC teams are eight players strong and sometimes feature a non-playing coach to make the 9th member. Once teams are paired up the team either rolls off or draws a card and the lower scoring team has to put forward a member for the other team to pair against. STOP! before we go any further; this is where all the magic happens. Think about that; if a team loses that roll they have to choose one of their players that they feel can not lose (I'm not saying win here on purpose and you will see why later) to the entire other team. The low roll also chooses the table that pairing fights on. This continues on until all eight players are paired against each other. Lets look at how this system effects the game.

Lets first look at the lists; in the past the internet has looked at ETC lists and kinda tilted their head saying it is horrible and why would the person take this choice over that. Because of this unique pairing system list building is completely different as it forces the team to create lists that fill different roles. I like to look at these lists as falling into three categories; Defender, Attacker, and Hybrid. While the roles seem pretty straight forward it is the play style, list build, and pairing that is where the real challenge comes in. A defender is going to be used most of the time as a list that is put forward, realizing that they are going to receive the worst possible match-up the list style and play style must be to conserve as many points as possible and maybe even squeak out a minor win. Attack lists are made to be pure points machines your job is to get 20 points or 17 in a worst case scenario. Hybrid lists can, well, do either if the match-up favors them they should be going for big points while if it does not they can give up few. Just as an example; Brad Chester and his drop wolves are an attacker list, Greg Sparks and his Eldar/Dark Eldar is a defender list while something like Andrew Gonyo and his Tau are hybrid maybe a little heavier on the defender side. Looking at the reactions on the internet to the 6th edition lists are pretty funny though because in 6th ed. with the meta being so hard to pin down, and making a true all comers more difficult with each new book everyone seems to be heralding the lists. Don't read into that comment too much, I just find it interesting.

The next thing to look at is play style and team work. Show boaters, big egos, and risk takers need not apply at the ETC. With four hour rounds there are no excuses for errors and you absolutely have to be a team player. If your captain puts you forward and tells you I really need you to draw this and save as many points as possible you better not take a big risk and try to get some points. Sure, if it is completely safe and you can pickup a few points than go for, capitalize on  your opponents mistakes but you are trying to win the round (all 4 games) not the individual game. It doesn't matter if you have never lost a tournament game yet in 2013, if your captain gives you a horrible matchup you need to suck it up and do what is best for the team even if it means hiding everything out of LoS and going to ground for 5 rounds. This is where the non-playing coach is extremely important. while they cannot tell give you game advice or tell you much else about happenings they can tell you how many points they need you to get or if you need to play safer or riskier. This is huge because if a big dice swing happens are you go 15-5 on a table you should have gone 20-0 or 18-2 than you need to take a couple risks to make up some points. 

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