Chaos Space Marine Rumors for 6th ed.

For those who cant seem to get on Tasty Tastes' website (Blood of Kittens)due to it crashing and all, I was able to get ahold of the Chaos Space Marine rumors that he posted. I listed these below -Troop Choices will be Chaos Space Marines and Cultists -All Cult Marines are Elites No new Special Characters -Special Characters will unlock Cult Marines as troops (Kharn for Berserkers and so on) -Typhus makes Cultists into Zombies -Chaos Dreadnaught is removed and replaced with a new unit (like how pariahs were replaced with Lychguard) -CSM now get a Flyer a Mechanical Chaos Dragon (model is done will be part of initial release) -Lesser and Greater Demons are gone -Spawn replaced by “Fell Beast” I feel like I am missing something… Oh yeah… Almost Forgot... Rules for Traitor Guard are in! Now for some of my thoughts, to be completely honest with you with out him posting any of the wargear or other options which he says he will do at a later time, this codex seems more like he put it as a clean up of the old book. I dont think they will replace the Chaos Dreadnaught, I mean that would be mean the end of Forgeworlds awesome Dreads and completely goes against the rumors for the starter box which claims that a chaos dread will be in the box. Flying Mechanical Dragon, ah no, that sounds pretty wierd, I guess if Grey Knights got the Dreadknight Chaos needs a mechanical beast for him to slay... lol. Deamons gone, this one I hope isnt true as I was hoping that Daemons out of the Daemon codex would be in the book so this rumor I hope is false. In terms of the cult troops being elite, this is definitely a throw back to the 3.5 codex where special characters or marked lords opened the cult marines into troops, this one definitely sounds plausible. Traitor guard rules are pure win in my book and one of the rumors I hope to be true. Tasty Taste, thanks again for the rumors!!

hate-mongers, Doom and Gloom, End of World as we know it

So today as I was doing my daily rounds of looking at rumors, at my blog rolls, listening to podcast, etc, and I come across a certain blog article that just for the lack of better term, irritated me. Here this self professed prophet of 40K talking about doom and gloom for 40K, that 6th edition will be the deathknell for the game and as proof, he points to 8th edition Fantasy as a presedent. Look buddy, 6th edition isn't even out, why not wait for it and I don't know, play some games and then make you decision if the game is going to hell or not. Instead this Talking Head points the finger at the people running the major tourneys like Adepticon, Nova, etc and tells them that instead of writing faqs to help with speeding up game play (helping with answering contenous rules, etc.)to rewrite an entire new game of 40K. He accuses them of being little Napoleons that the only rules they seem to be faqing are the ones they got screwed over by when they played. I guess the idea of writing a faq to help with running the tournament to fix loop holes that GW has yet to correct isnt enough for him. Game designers no matter how talented they are always going to have detractors who just hate what they do. 40K as it stands definitely has its issues, especially for competitive play but I always take the side of why I play the game, fun. I remember someone saying that 40K isn't made for competitive play and I have to agree, its not. Its a beer and pretzels game, always has been, always will. 40K prophet, its people like you that ruin the game for me, you dont like the game, play another one its as simple as that. Warmachine or FOW definitely have rule systems that are more geared toward competitive play. You want to improve 40K, why not get together with other like minded people and start something for competitive play? Why not write a codex for your favorite army and submit it to the Codex Project to have it play tested by the community? All in all, instead of complaining and bitching, why not do something constructive? Stop being such a buzzkill dude...

40K Escalation League - Week 2

As I have 2 weeks to decide on what I want to do for the 2nd phase of the league, I am still trying to decide on what changes I can make to my list. As of right now, I am thinking of taking the following -
HQ - Herald of Tzeentch
Chariot, Bolt, Master of Sorcery

Elite - (3) Bloodcrushers
Fury of Khorne

Elite - (3) Bloodcrushers
Fury of Khorne

Troops - (8) Horrors of Tzeentch
Changling

Troops - (8) Horrors of Tzeentch

Troops - (10) Daemonettes of Slaanesh

So basically I am adding another squad of bloodcrushers and another unit of horrors to my 500 point list to get it to 750. I might still need to tweak some of the points but bottom line this is what the list will look like. I plan on testing this list in the next couple of days or so to see how it handles the other lists in the league.

I think the biggest weakness I see is the lack of long range anti-tank; I only have one model with the ability to fire a long range anti-tank shot and in some of my early test games testing the 500 pts list, I fell victim to not being able to take out vehicles reliably.

As the point cost goes up, this is going to continue to be a huge problem especially once the AV 14's start popping out (Landraiders). For the next sequences of the league, I will probably switch out to minimum squads of Horrors with bolt and deamon princes for now, I might try out screamers once we get to the 1250 or 1500 point range. Now for some updated pics, I have finished the first blood crushers squad, my first horror squad, my herald, and 2 squads of daemonettes. I also finished building my 2nd bloodcrusher squad which includes my conversion of Skulltaker riding a juggernaut. Let me know what you guys think...

40k Escalation League

On top of all of the madness that I have to do in terms of painting, our local FLGS manager decides to hold a 40k Escalation league. The league will start at 500 points and we will be adding 250 points every 2 or 3 weeks until we get to 2000 points. The real great thing about these types of leagues is the fact that everything needs to be painted and so encourages players to paint their armies. I love this as it will help me with getting another of my armies fully painted that I have laying around as well as allowing me the opportunity to try new options. I was going to do my death company army but saw that 2 or 3 other players are going to do Blood Angels so I decided to pull out my half painted daemon army for this; also, nobody was doing Daemons which made this decision a lot easier for me as I wanted to do an army that nobody was doing. As the points level for this starts at 500, I really couldn't go with my go to guy, Kairos, however I wanted to stay with a tzeentch HQ. For the points, Daemonic heralds are a steal. Going with this idea, I am taking a Herald of Tzeentch on a chariot with Bolt and Master of Sorcery giving me a fire platform that can both move 12 inches and put out 4 shots a turn. As he is considered a jetbike as well, I can turbo boost him to contest objectives if I need to on the last turn and with 5 wounds, should be hard to kill. Accompanying my HQ will be 3 Bloodcrushers to provide my army with a hard as nails unit that can compete with the best assault units in the game. This unit not only serves as my hammer, but due to how scary they are perceived to be it gives you that psychological edge. Running out the 500 points I started with going with 2 units of 8 or 9 horrors and thus re ligating my list as a shooty one as horrors put out a lot of firepower.

After several test games however, the list was being outclassed by armies that had high mobility, great armor saves, or ones that could tie up or kill all of my blood crushers as my horrors hit like wet noodles in combat. To change it up I decided to go with one squad of horrors with the changling upgrade as the ability he has for 5 points can be game changing if it happens and a squad of 10 daemonettes. Having 2 squads that can dice up the enemy in a 500 point army list has paid in spades as the daemonettes helped me win all of my next test games that I played with them. Their high initiative, fleet, and offensive and defense grenades, and boat load of attacks makes them a real threat on the battle field. Of course, they are a glass hammer so if I roll badly or if they get caught out in the open, they fall over like blades of grass. My first weeks opponent was a Space Wolves player that had a wolf guard battle leader in terminator armor, a 10 man grey hunter pack in a drop pod, and a 10 or 12 man blood claws pack. We rolled up kill points with pitched battle and he decided not to bring on his HQ and blood claws pack as he was afraid of my deep striking units.

I believed this cost him the game as it allowed me to overwhelm his unsupported drop pod squad with my blood crushers, horrors, and Herald. He did manage to shoot my horrors on his initial drop reducing me to just 2 horrors however my bloodcrushers got a turn of not getting shot and butchered the squad after my herald shot them up. I won the game 2 to 0 and with it bonus points for having a fully painted army. I have 2 weeks now to add to my list to get it to 750 points so I am thinking of adding another squad of 3 Bloodcrushers and to re-add my other horrors squad to my list. I might go with a budget Deamon prince in order to get some more Anti-tank but we shall see. Pics are of my daemons about a week out before my first league game, I will post more updated pics in my next post. Time to get more painting done...