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!

Categories:

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

Categories:

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! 

Categories:

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?

Categories:

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.

Categories:

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

Categories:

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!

Categories: