Send the 8th....

"Ave Dominus Nox", "We have come for you".   To all Nightlords fans, these 2 sayings bring smiles to our faces.  If you have been following the trends, it seems that for the last couple of years, that my favorite of all traitor legions has seen a resurrgence in popularity, in part definitley to the excellent black library novels written by ADB.  As some of you might now, the Nightlords have been really close to me as they are my first foray in running a chaos army, in some instances they are my first true army that I collected.  While its true that I did start with black templars, I really didnt get the army completed until I had a large Nightlord army all ready to go.  This was the army that I had fully painted (at the time), the one that I got to cut my teeth on in 40K, and the one that I experienced play through the last 3 codexes.  I got to experience the high points (codex 3.5) through the low points (current codex) and the inbetween ones.  While I admit that the current codex is pretty good, the benefits really come in with the use of the new daemon engines and new units.  My Nightlords for the most part do not use any of the new units, I purposely kept them this way as I wanted the army to play to a certain style.  The usage of raptors, CSM, bikers, termies really do not play well in this current meta so my army has sat on the shelf for the better part of 2 years.  Unlike my other armies, this one I have never gotten the urge to sell it or trade it, always looking at them lovingly and waiting for the day that I pull them out to play once again.  With the advent of Imperial armor 13, the release of Night Haunter and Sevetar, I decided that the time was right for me to pull them out once again but in a slightly different form.  What I decided was to bulid a 40K army that could also function as a 30K army if I wanted to.  Since the Nightlords really didnt align to a particular chaos god or faction, the transition between both games would be fairly easy.  I would spinkle in (at least in the beginning) forgeworld models that could be used in both games thus making it a much more economical way of enjoying both play types.  I also decided to update the army a bit by repainting some of my older models and rebasing the entire army with the new 32mm bases.  This has been a hassle but I must admit, the models look way better on the bigger bases as they make them look more imposing.  I have already started this process and have about 40 models on the new bases which to be honest wasnt as bad as I thought it would be.  It helps that I had no intention of keeping the old bases so if I had to cut the models off of them, I didnt feel bad.  I started building my Sicarian battle tank and I must say, it wasnt as hard as I thought.  The tank itself is made up of 4 big pieces along with the turrent and sponsons making it a quick model (once properly cleaned) to put together.  I also picked up Sevetar and let me tell you, this is an amazing model.  The amount of detail on the model, the pose, the custom base make for an awesome looking model.  I plan on using Sevetar as my chaos lord for games of 40K and will be one of my leaders when I play 30K.  Eventually i do want to pick up the Night Haunter himself once I have a standing force ready to play.  Now for some pics.  The pics are my WIP Tactical squads, as you can see for the most part most of the troops are painted however I am repainting an old Rhino and my pride and joy, the Sicarian battle tank.  Hopefully I will have this army done in time for my next tourney.

40K gaming with your significant other

Sup guys, so a lot of us have significant others who because they love us, tolerate our geeky hobby of playing with man dolls. Some of us actually have significant others who actually enjoy the hobby with us, sharing in our passion for the game, the lore, and the models.  For the rest of us, we have significant others who fall inbetween these extremes, they are not into the hobby as much as we are however occasionally they might enjoy to "dip" their toe into the water so to speak and actually join us in some hobbying.  From painting, modeling, to actually playing games, they join us as in some small measure, they might actually enjoy it, that or they love us so much and see that we need to get a game in and happily offer their help.  My wife falls into this category, she listens to me as I excitely tell her of new releases, of changes to rules, etc.  She provides feedback when I ask it about my painting including bringing me down a peg if I start calling myself the greatest painter ever, etc.  The other night, she asked me If I would be interested in playing a game.  I jumped at the chance as again the more interested I can get her into my hobby, the closer I get her to jump into it with both feet in.  In preparing for the game I decided to focus on the following items to make it enjoyable for her and thus make it enjoyable for me.

1.  Play a small game - The last thing you want is for a game to last 5 hours which will not do you any favors with keeping them interested.  Small games will make it easier for them to grasp the rules and thus keep the game moving.

2.  Keep it simple - You really dont want to overwhelm your significant other with a ton of rules causing not only confusion but an unwilliness to keep playing the game.  Lets be honest, 40K has a steep learning curve, we want our significant other to grasp the basic rules and so feel that they are understanding the game and contributing to your enjoyment as well.  No psychic powers, no flyers, etc for your first game.  Concentrate on the basics of moving, shooting and assaulting.  Slowly introduce rules such as morale, psychic powers, etc once they feel a little confident in the rules.  Keep senarios simple, no malestrom for now, maybe just do kill points for your first few games, etc.

3.  Dont run a tourney list - Ok so this can be interpeted in several different ways.  What I am referring to is to play a list that you would take to a FLGS to play a friendly game, not what you would take to a no holds barred tournament.  This goes without question, the last thing you want to do is to table your significant other by turn 2 using your optimized list.  Tone it down a little bit, run a list that is both fun and capable of being challenging for your significant other.  Since the game as a steep learning curve as we mentioned above, take it easy on them.  If they make a mistake offer them a mulligan.  Dont be a dick, make it enjoyable for the 2 of you and you will be surprised by having them ask to play more games with you.

So how did the game went you may ask?  Not bad, I did get my teeth kicked in as she decided to play my Tau farsight list which does amazing in smaller point games.  I played my dark mech with 2 daemon engines, no psycher support (to keep it simple) 2 blobs of cultists and a warpsmith as my HQ.  She took a commander, 2 squads of suits (one 3, one 2), some marker drones, and a squad of 2 broadsides with missiles.  As you can see, I was outgunned from the start with only a forgefiend as my long range firepower.  He managed to gun down one of the squads of crisis suits early on but then felt the wrath of the broadsides in return.  I wont even mention the maulerfiend who just got gunned down at the beginning of turn 2 by the same squad.  Once those 2 elements were down, it was just a slow death for my cultists and HQ.  Yes the game was a little one sided which was my fault but as it was more of a teaching game, encouraged her to get the rules right and allowed her opportunity to recover from mistakes if she misplaced models, etc.  I took pics of the game which are the pics shown.  All in all, the game was super fun and something that hopefully fosters her desire to play the game more.  Who knows, maybe she will want to start an army...

Games Workshop and why I love you so...

Sup guys.. Right on the heels of my last post regarding Khorne Daemonkin, I wanted to go ahead and start talking about something else that I believe Games Workshop is doing right.  After many years and wishes, GW has finally graced us with the presence of an actual adeptus mechanicus army complete with multiple codexes and several different kits that not only look awesome but actually fit the motif for mechanicus.  About a year ago, several internet celebs actually spoke about GW bringing out several mini armies complete with their own codexes and mini's.  When I first heard of this I thought that this was more wish listing but now after seeing Harliquins first, Skittarri and now Mechanicus cult, we are seeing that these rumors are actually coming true.  As you guys know, I am a huge mechanicus fan and these new kits and rules are a dream come true.  Yes I prefer a Dark bent to my mechanicum forces as evident by my "dark mechanicus" themed army but now we actually have rules and kits to actually play mechanicum forces.  Everything that has come out thus far have been amazing except for the old school robots which I am still deciding on if I like them or not.  With Skitarri we got the common mech foot soldier with the vanguard and ranger kits, a "stalker" tank, and some elite units that fit the theme so well that they seem as if they were always part of the 40K "model" universe.  This week we see the release of the cult mechanicus which included more troop choices, some more melee units with the electro-priests, and finally an HQ unit with the Dominus.  Of all of the new models I have to admit that my favorites are the Stygian walkers, the rangers, and the new Dominus.  The Dominus just reeks mechanicus with his many limbs, power ax, and servo skulls attached to him.  I am definitely going to be picking him up as soon as I can, paint him up in my dark mechanicus colors and have him join my arch magos in my dark mech army as either another warpsmith or sorcerer.  With the great rules and models however I do have some complaints.  My number one as you have probably guessed is what happened to the chaos love with these new units?  We all know that the dark mechancius exists and GW should have allowed chaos players to take any of these mechanicus models as battle brothers or at least as allies of convenience.  A new army list that allows you to take daemon engines as heavy support along with a dominus or warpsmith as your HQ would have been amazing.  For now all of us chaos players can do is to take them as count as and try to fit them in our armies after we have chaosified them a bit.  My second complaint is whats the deal with bringing out 2 books for these releases?  All of these units could have been put into the same book thus eliminating the need to have to wait for each book to come out or forcing us to have to carry 2 books every time we decide to play the army, of course the big compliant is more of a money one as even though these books are cheaper than full sized codexes, your still shelling out almost 70 bucks to just start playing the army.

I do have hope in forgeworld though, last week at their open day event we saw a chaos knight shown.  It appears to be an upgrade kit to the standard GW knight kit like their Magera kit that came out a couple of months ago.  From the early pictures, the kit looks pretty detailed and will look great in any chaos army.  Of course their are many out there that converted our knights to have a more chaos feel to them and with this release means is that we will finally get rules for chaos knights.  I am really hoping we dont have to wait for an imperial armor book for these rules however and they release the rules as a free download similar to what they have done with several of their kits.  

In the world of 30K, I am awaiting the arrival of the Dark Mechanicus.  They have already graced us with a Dark Mechanicus character kit which I absolutately love built and painted for my dark mech army but what I am really waiting for is models for the rank and file.  Dark Mech troops, possessed Thanators, etc as well as the rules to use any of the daemon engines that we have models for already such as maulerfiends, forgefiends, etc.  As I stated earlier, GW we would be happy with you just allowing all new mechancius units to be taken in Chaos armies as battle brothers.  This would go a long way to rejuevenate chaos for a lot of players and make people like me extremely happy.

Khrone Daemonkin and why embracing blood for the blood god is good

Hey guys, I want to start off this post with a simple declaration, I am a GW fan however will be the first to call them out if they screw up a release be it with lousy rules or terrible models (looking at you fiends).  Doubly so if we are talking about a chaos release.  Enter the new Khrone Daemonkin codex, has GW released another winner or a loser that will get trashed on the interwebs?  My first impression of the book was kind of Luke warm to be honest.  Stat lines for beserkers, CSM,  bloodcrushers,  etc were staying the same.  A missed opportunity? Perhaps, perhaps not as when you start to look deeper you do find some subtle changes that for all intensive purposes does change how the army works.  The biggest change is that all daemons of khorne have lost deamonic instability and gained fearless.  This is huge as no longer will you lose daemon models by losing a combat but this also means that you can join IC's together between both model types.  Think about it, a beefed up khorne lord riding his juggernaut joining a big squad of flesh hounds or blood crushers?   A cheap Herald of khorne joining a terminator squad and granting them what they always been missing, fearless thus making a subpar unit into one worth taking.  Heck the Herald can even deep strike with them as all daemons can still deep strike.  and this is just the beginning,  this book is also battle brothers with the standard CSM and daemon book which means even more combinations can be had.  Were opportunities missed with this book,  definitely however I can see why GW decided not to go with making big changes to key units such as berserkers,  etc.  Making changes here would invalidate the 2 other chaos books causing all kinds of confusion as you would have the same units with different profiles across different books.  Going with subtle changes is key however and I would have liked little bit more of this such as a price drop on berserkers, or having csm come built in with fearless or stubborn.  Allowing mulitple weapon load outs a la chosen squads would have also been acceptable as the daemonkin are not privy to having chosen like unit.  Imagine a berserker squad with access to 4 to 5 power weapons?  Imagine a unit of base CSM with the ability to field 2 special weapons or 2 heavy weapons in a minimal unit instead of having to take 10 or more?  Simple subtle changes such as these would have made for a vast improvement to the units in this book that are now suffering from being so overpriced as to be not worth it.  I really want to like CSM, Berserkers, etc but at a steep price point and with them being a little subpar is really not worth taking them in a competitive list.

This book also introduces chaos forces to the new decurian type way of creating detachments.  This is an interesting addition as it allows some very cool options that gives players bonuses for taking certain combination of units.  The core formation that unlocks this detachment, the slaughter cult, I wish had more options as the options listed are either too expensive other than the bloodletters or are less then optimized for competitive play.  I also wish that it allowed you to take 2 HQ's instead of the 1 as in order to utilize 2 HQ's you need to take another formation or just a normal CAD.  The real meat in my armies is in the HQ selection and being limited if I want to take a blood host detachment to just 1 in a lower point game really stinks.  How I would have loved to have the same abilities as space wolves to take lets say 2 HQ's per HQ slot thus making 2 or more khorne  The bonus for taking the blood host detachment however is pretty good as it grants you a free blood point every turn in addtion to the ones that you earn during each turn.  Not bad but I still wish the detachment would allow even more options.  The relics that are available to the daemonkin player range from the ok to the outstanding.  Some of the allstars definitely would be the blood forged armor which grants eternal warrior and feel no pain to either a chaos lord or daemon prince to an ax of khorne that when the bearer dies out comes a bloodthirster for free. 

So how does the codex pan out in actual play?  Will I had that question and 5 days after the codex dropped I decided to take it to a local RTT.  The tournament was only 1500 points so it limited on what I could take.  I decided to take a blood host detachment along with 1 maulerfiend and a charnal cohort to give me some daemons in the detachment.  In my first game I saw the actual hitting power of the army along with how fast it was.  I was in combat by turn 2 and putting a ton of pressure on my necron opponent who was running the decurion with an extremely buff lychguard unit with oberon, Zandrek, etc.  His re-rolling of armor saves vs my assault units hitting power made it a back and forth match.  Fearless deamons won the day for me though by holding up his hammer lych  guard unit while the rest of my fast army took out all of his backfield units.  With regards to the blood tithe, I never summoned any new units,  I just used the buff abilities of the blood table to keep me in the game.  My 2nd game I played a space marine drop pod marine/centstar list.  Again the daemons were my all stars as the centurions couldn't do any damage to my 6+ armor save guys that helped deliver my beater lord who with the spawn took out the centstar once he got into combat with them.   He did have Lysander as the stars bodyguard but after a couple of bad rolls from my opponent,  was taken out in just 2 rounds of combat.   In the last game, I played a jump blood angel army that proved to be a challenge in cc as he was running Dante,  death company and sanguine guard.  This game was a back and forth extravaganza with my opponent barely picking up a win on 2nd scenario.   As it turns out, I won the tourney overall on points.  Yes the tourney was rather friendly but it still showed to me that the new book has legs.  If anything,  the book is a lot of fun to play and one that I will play a lot of. 

WIP Blood Angels continuation

Hey guys, what's up?  With all the excitement of the Las Vegas Open gone now and my temporary  break from hobbying due to trying to get models ready for the event it's time to get back on the horse and start to work on my next project. Over the course of 3 years, I have collected what I like to call a multiple options  army.  What do I mean by that you may ask,  I have collected several pieces for a space marine that I can run as either blood angels or standard or a generic space marine army (looking at the raptors at the moment due to their cool chapter tactics).  Having painted 2 red armies, I wanted to do something different with this one except for the death company which I kept in their default color scheme.  For the tacticals I went for a sea green color made up of 3 GW paints - incubi darkness, sotek green with temple guard as the highlight.  All imperial markings I am doing with brass gold which is a more subdued gold which I like.  All 5 of my drop pods are painted the same way as well as my 2 storm ravens.  So far I am loving the color scheme as it looks striking and different on the table top.  pics posted are of the death company WIP as well as my drop pods.  I need to age the drop pods a little bit as right know they look a little clean.  I plan on running this army and my Night lords chaos space marine army as my main 2 armies this year.  Of course with the new khrone daemonkin codex coming out and the rumored admech army who knows if I will stick to these 2 armies only.  Such is life for an A.D.D war gamer. ..

My LVO Experience

Hey guys, what's up? Well I just got back from the 2nd annual Las Vegas Open and all I could say is it was awesome!!  The 2nd Las Vegas Open was promised to be bigger, it was.  It was promised to have more variety, and it did!!  This year, the Con changed venue to the Flamingo Hilton in order to accommodate a much bigger turn out.  The 40K championships, the flagship event drew 256 players making it the biggest 40K event in the country.  As I stated in an earlier post, I decided to do something different this year, the 40K championship was great last year however I wanted to try out the friendly as I am after all a fluff nut.
The friendly was an easy going 4 round tourney where players were encouraged to bring out the very best in sportsmanship, painting, and themed armies.  I went in expecting to have a good time and boy did I ever.  I played 4 great opponents with beautiful armies and great attitudes making each round a pleasure to play.  Gone was the stress of playing in a no holds barred tournament with crazy combinations and people getting upset over anything, in was playing 40K the way it's supposed to be experienced, laid back with a lot of laughs, no stress, but still playing to win and with alcohol.  Priority was placed on the experience itself, of playing a game with your buddy and making sure that both of you are having the best time possible.   Now don't get me wrong, I do like competitive 40K and will probably go back to playing in regular tournaments however this experience is why I love playing 40K, to be able to tell a story that both players enjoy.  The timing of the games was another plus, starting at 11am and ending at 7pm which gave you ample time to enjoy Vegas with your significant other (which my wife loved).   The relax attitude of the TOs was also great as well as beautiful beer girls selling us adult beverages and in some cases outstanding deals with the purchase of a beer was wonderful (I ended up getting a starter box for Drop Zone Commander for buying 2 beers!!).  The only negative that I will report is that I wish players were matched up just like a normal tourney instead of shaking the hand of a player you have never played and playing him.  Also I wished they had 2nd and 3rd place prizes to go along with best general.  The tourney also mentioned teams of players based on factions such as imperial vs. Chaos which was never a factor in the tourney.  This would have added a lot as it would have made the games we play tell a story with multiple arcs based on the winners and losers.  Other than these minor quibs, the tourney was a blast and something I will gladly come back next year to play in.



After all of that how did I do?  Well I actually did surprisingly.  I took a list that was more theme then substance however also packed a wallop if you were not prepared for it.  It was extremely skewed in that it contained nothing but armor and only 1 unit that contained wounds.  This definitely surprised a lot of my opponents who was looking at people taking lots of infantry and some of my opponents actually prepared for it.  In the end I went 3-0-1, undefeated and tied my 4th game where a win would have guaranteed me winning or at least tying the event.  All in all a very good outing for the Dark Mechanicus and a very well run Con/Tourney by Frontline Gaming.  Well done Gentlemen and here's to more successful events for you guys.

An A+

The LVO and me

Sup guys.. Well the time has come for the LVO once again.  The LVO last year was my first major tournament and I had a blast.  Not only did it run smoothly but the timing of the events was almost perfect.  The fact that most of my games started at noon meant that I could party the night before and get some time to sleep in.  It also helped that I stayed in the same hotel that the event was run at so I didnt have to huff it to the event from a different hotel carrying my army with me.  For this year I decided that I wanted to do something different.  I wanted to go ahead and try my hand at playing the team tourney but alas I received confirmation from Reece himself that there wasn't going to be one this time around which is a bummer.   In keeping with me wanting to do something different, I decided to sign up for the 40k friendly event.  The 40k friendly is a 2000 point relaxed environment tourney where they are allowing unlimited CADS and unbound armies to allow players to build great themed armies.  Of course all lists need to be vetted ahead of time to keep the armies somewhat balanced and fun for all.  The format sounds pretty interesting if you ask me and plays to the fluff bunny in me that loves creating themed lists.  For this I am thinking of bringing the full might of the dark mechanicum complete with 2 Magos (chaos sorcerers), a warpsmith to do on site repairs, and as many daemon engines as possible.  Since the list format could be unbound, I am thinking of taking one of the hell brute formations as well.  I am still trying to finalize the list but below is something of an idea that I am thinking about. 

+++ New Dark Mech Unbound LVO list v.2 with Imp Knight (1998pts) +++

++ Chaos Space Marines: Supplement - Crimson Slaughter (2014) (Unbound Army (Faction)) (1323pts) ++

+ No Battle Role (HQ)+

Sorcerer 2x Additional Mastery Level, Daemonheart, Mark of Nurgle, Melta bombs, Palanquin of Nurgle, Sigil of corruption
····Rules: Champion of Chaos, Independent Character, Psyker
····Power Armour [Bolt Pistol, Force Weapon]
····Profiles:
········Sorcerer: Unit Type:Infantry (Character)|WS:5|BS:4|S:4|T:4|W:2|I:4|A:2|Ld:10|Save:3+
········Daemonheart: Description:May not be taken by a Daemon Prince. Daemonheart confers a 2+ Armour Save and the It Will Not Die special rule.

Sorcerer [2x Additional Mastery Level, The Balestar of Mannon]
····Rules: Champion of Chaos, Independent Character, Psyker
····Power Armour [Bolt Pistol, Force Weapon]
····Profiles:
········Sorcerer: Unit Type:Infantry (Character)|WS:5|BS:4|S:4|T:4|W:2|I:4|A:2|Ld:10|Save:3+
········The Balestar of Mannon: Description:Chaos Sorcerer only. The bearer of the Balestar of Mannon can choose to generate powers from the Divination discipline, and re-rolls failed Psychic tests. However, neither he nor any unit he has joined can benefit from any modifiers to Deny the Witch rolls for the bearer being a Psyker.

Warpsmith [Bolt Pistol, Gift of mutation, Power Axe]
····Rules: Champion of Chaos, Independent Character, Master of Mechanisms, Shatter Defences
····Profiles:
········Warpsmith: Unit Type:Infantry|WS:4|BS:5|S:4|T:4|W:2|I:4|A:2|Ld:10|Save:2+

+ No Battle Role (Fast Attack)

Heldrake [Baleflamer]
····Rules: Daemon, Daemonforge, It Will Not Die, Meteroric Descent
····Profiles:
········Heldrake: BS:3|Front:12|Side:12|Rear:10|HP:3|Type:Vehicle (Flyer, Hover)
········Daemonic possession: Description:

+ No Battle Role (Heavy Support) +

Forgefiend [Hades Autocannon]
····Rules: Daemon, Daemonforge, Fleet, It Will Not Die
····Profiles:
········Forgefiend: WS:3|BS:3|S:6|Front:12|Side:12|Rear:10|I:3|A:2|HP:3|Type:
········Daemonic possession: Description:

Maulerfiend [Lasher tendrils]
····Rules: Daemon, Daemonforge, Fleet, It Will Not Die, Move Through Cover, Siege Crawler
····Profiles:
········Maulerfiend: WS:3|BS:3|S:6|Front:12|Side:12|Rear:10|I:3|A:2|HP:3|Type:
········Daemonic possession: Description:

Maulerfiend[Lasher tendrils]
····Rules: Daemon, Daemonforge, Fleet, It Will Not Die, Move Through Cover, Siege Crawler
····Profiles:
········Maulerfiend: WS:3|BS:3|S:6|Front:12|Side:12|Rear:10|I:3|A:2|HP:3|Type:
········Daemonic possession: Description:

Obliterators[Mark of Nurgle, 3x Obliterator]
····Rules: Bulky, Daemon, Deep Strike, Obliterator Weapons, Slow and Purposeful
····Profiles:
········Obliterator: Unit Type:Infantry|WS:4|BS:4|S:4|T:4|W:2|I:4|A:2|Ld:8|Save:2+

++ Imperial Knights: Codex (2014) (Formation Detachment)

········Knight Paladin: WS:4|BS:4|S:10|Front:13|Side:12|Rear:12|I:4|A:3|HP:6|Type:Vehicle (Super-heavy Walker)
········Ion Shield: Description:Grants a 4+ Invulnerable Save against all shooting hits from one facing (chosen at the start of the opponent's shooting phase).
········Heavy Stubber: Range:36"|Strength:4|AP:6|Type:Heavy 3
········Rapid-Fire Battle Cannon: Range:72"|Strength:8|AP:3|Type:Ordnance 2, Large Blast
········Reaper Chainsword: Range:-|Strength:D|AP:2|Type:Melee

+ Formation

Formation: Mayhem Pack
····Rules: It Will Not Die, Mayhem from the Maelstrom, Tormented Terrors
····Helbrute [Multi-melta, Power fist]
········Rules: Crazed
····Helbrute [Multi-melta, Power fist]
········Rules: Crazed
····Helbrute [Multi-melta, Power fist]

Let me know what you guys think.  I'm sure I won't be winning the event but at least I will have a lot of fun which is the spirit of this event.