Meta in Peril.... Grey Knights again???!!!

Hey guys, today I finished listening to the latest episode of the 11th company and made the mistake of heading out to everyones`s favorite color commentary and 40k expert Stelek and oh my gosh I got the feeling that they think that the Meta is in peril due to 2 books that were released this year - Tau and Eldar.  Stelek of course chose the little kid route and  took his toys and went home and judging by his last posts over the last 3 months decided that 40k as it stands is unplayable.  I applaud TO's who have taken the steps of leveling out the playing field by adding more terrain or more line of sight blocking terrain pieces so that armies with the ability to ignore cover wont auto win if they get the first turn.  In fact, per the rules of the game, the game is designed to have some line of sight blocking terrain so games are not just shooting galleries.  I will give Stelek credit with his USG game rules for competitive 40K rules, rules to streamline the game for tournament play, I have read some of it and wish him luck with it but to be honest, dont see it going anywhere.  The 11th company in their latest podcast cast what I say a dark shadow on what they call a meta where only if you take eldar or tau will you have a shot at winning any tournament.  I might agree with this to a point but come on.. How do you explain Ben Molie getting to the final tables with a necron/Ork list?  Or the guy from the FTN podcast who took a blood angel list and did very well with it?  Is it harder for players not using Tau or Eldar?  Sure but I still believe that its the player not the list that makes the winner.  Am I blind in my assumptions?   Are we in the era of the Grey Knight, eh Tau/Eldar.  Is that all we we see in every tournament top table or final 5? Where are daemons in the middle of this?  To many of the 40k experts, this codex is part of the problem as well with its unkillable screamer star build.  No matter what, top tournament players are going to take what they perceive as a good or powerful army as they want to win and find that using lists like this will help them achieve that.  If the internet says that Tau are over powered, or Eldar wave serpent spam is the only way to win tournaments, guess what, that is all you are going to see. 

I heard a very interesting rumor/gossip on another podcast in regards to the speed that GW is doing releases.  The host stated that during his conversation with this insider person, one of the reasons that releases were coming out so quick was that GW wanted people to stick to their armies, buy some allies and units to update their armies and to create all comers armies with their armies.  The speed of the releases would make it that the meta would be constantly changing and so people wouldn't be able to keep up with the changes.  This sounds all fine and dandy but in the end, GW knows that the faster it can release product, the more money it can generate.  These top tournament players will and have been buying and playing what is perceived to be the top armies.  What my hope is that with new  releases, new codexs become the top dog.  So what could be done in the meantime?   Bring back comp?  Nah, but when even Goatboy from bols is sad and angry about the current state of the game and proposing that comp gets implemented into major Tournaments is the current state of the game that horrible?  Will maybe its the fact that 40k isnt a tourney friendly game? GW has always maintained that 40k is more a beer and pretzels game which in the end could be the issue after all...

With the new Horus Hersey book out now, I have been in full Nightlord mode and have been working on adding more models to my biker squads, rhinos, and some basic CSMs.  Pics are of my converted dark vengeance DA bikers to Nightlord bikers.  Let me know what you think.

All Hail Forge World!!

I guess Forgeworld is the future for all of us chaos players.  Recently the rules for both primarchs and their legions was released for both the word bearers and the Nightlords.  When Forgeworld announced that they would be doing models and books covering the Horus Hersey, I knew that we were in store for something special. When they released rules for the first 4 legions last year as well as the models to support the book, I couldn't wait to see what they had planned for the Nightlords.   The rules that came out were pretty cool, some obvious like fear or the ability to buy trophies to cause fear to wounding easier if you outnumber your foe in any assault phase which is awesome (talent for murder).  The fact that any nightlord who fails a morale check falls back 1 inch further to being able to decide to run if they get pinned is pretty fluffy.  Night Haunter is a boss with ap2 lighting claws, throwing daggers that on a 6 causes a wound with no save allowed is just plan awesome.  And this is just the start, the fact that they also included characters from the actual black library books like Sevatar the prince of crows is what I as a nightlords player has been waiting for.   Book 2 of the horus heresy has got me motivated to convert my Nightlords army into a heresy army so over the coming months I will start to pull the trigger on several Forgeworld kits like some older marks of armor, some apothecarys, and maybe a storm eagle or 2.  The great thing is I never modeled my models with any chaos daemon bits like possessed parts, etc, they are just "evil marines with lots of trophies and the like. According to fluff, the Nightlords were using the same terror tactics since the very beginning so making the army multi-purpose should be easy.

Now that forgeworld has done something for my beloved Nightlords, what plans do GW proper have in mind for them?  The talent for murder is definitely one rule I would love to see make it in a supplement not to mention more ways to mess with leadership and cause fear checks or leadership checks at minus points.  Leadership checks would also affect marines which would be awesome since they are immune to fear.  What else could be added, stealth for all models like they had in the 3.5 codex would be a great start.  I guess in the end we will see how far GW is going to take these supplements and with the 2 marine ones coming out next month, we wont be waiting long.  Alpha Legion is rumored to be in January which hopefully is the start  of something great for chaos.  In the meantime, we shall see if anybody would mind me using the forgeworld rules for the Nightlords.  Below are my latest projects i am working on.  I am hoping to get some paint on them this week as I will be using these models in an upcoming league.

The chaos space marine dex and the coming of the hydra

Ok so i just finished reading Goatboys article proclaiming that count as armies are not dead but in fact alive and kicking with regards to the new space marine codex.   Many took the article as a power gamer again bitching about the crap that is the chaos dex and in fact a lot of the comments made reflects this idea.  His reputation as a spam artist and power gamer really doesn't help his cause but I read more than just his complaining.  He actually has a point in regards to count -as.  I for one love count-as armies if the hobbiest put in the time and effort to make sure everything is WYSIWYG or lovingly converted his/her army to play as a different army.  During the last couple of years of the old chaos dex, I built a new chaos army with some left over parts that i had and painted it in the colors of skyrar`s dark wolves which is one of the only off shoots of the space wolves that turned to chaos, per bolter and chainsword anyways.  The warband actually made it into the old chaos dex and the color scheme was available in the space marine game as a chaos skin which made me feel even more vindicated... lol.. me anyways.  I purposely built the army to play using the space wolves codex as I really wanted to run an army of cheap dogs and 3 super lords riding khorne juggernauts.  Every last detail i put into the army from wolf standards to berserkers being blood claws to equipment so that any opponent i played knew what everything was.  I even started painting up 5 drop pods for the army but got caught up in other projects that i stopped.  Whats my point, the point is this, if a player spends the time to convert an army and makes the army WYSIWYG, what is the problem?  I understand that a lot of people love to codex jump just to play the newest and most powerful dex but should we poopoo players who actually put in the time?  Who am I to tell people how to play their game,if a person I play is guilty of just codex jumping just because he is a power gamer with his half painted, missing arms, heads army I always have the right to just not play him.  The fact is I have no problem playing people who codex jump as long as I can tell what each model is supposed to represent just by looking at them.  And I guess that's my long winded point, as long as I know what I'm playing, I'm fine with it.  What about tournaments?  On this my opinion differs just slightly, at the end of the day its the TO's call.  If he/she says no to count as armies so be it, its their event and they can run it anyway they want. 

What did I mean about the hydra strikes in my title?  According to rumors, the next chaos codex supplement coming out is Alpha Legion. Due out in January I for one cant wait for this.  I am hoping that this will be the start of supplements with some real meat err um rules that really shake up the CSM codex.  Something that really changes how an Alpha Legion army play compared to a Black Legion army.  I really want to believe that these supplements are going somewhere.  With the new space marine one dropping this month, we shall see what we can expect from the supplements to come.  Speaking of the Black Legion army supplement, I was able to get a copy of it and its definitely not as bad as everyone is saying it is. There is definitely a lack of rules in regards to changes to the army specifically but some of the artifacts, the fact that it adds an extra slot through allying, to taking chosen as troops without the Abaddon tax is pretty good.  The internet is all abuzz about the eternal shield that the space marines get, the black legion has an artifact that also gives you eternal warrior, though not a shield its still an option which is great.