No Way 8th edition

So not going to lie, I have gotten pretty lazy in the posting department.  I have been swamped with real life issues but in the end I will say that laziness is the real reason I haven't posted in a while.  So I had started this long sequence of articles to cover the traitor legions book but since the announcement by GW last Saturday that 8th edition is coming, I decided that I will curb that post until their new rules come out.  Instead I am going to talk about what we know so far with regards to rules in the new edition of 40k. 

Before I begin I will tell you that 7th was starting to get a little stale for me.  Not in the army building department as I consider myself a whizz in chaos space marines (at least what I want to play anyways) but the abundance of rules, formations and let's admit it, the brokenness of some of the armies made it so that all I ever wanted to do was to play in narrative games.  I still do some tournaments however they are local ones as it gives me a chance to play several games at once with people that I know.  Big tournaments I tend not to go to as I really dont want to deal with armies that make the fluff bunny inside me throw up a little (im looking at you tau/eldar armies, superfriends, etc).  But enough of that lets dig into what we know of 8th edition.
I was fortunate enough to see the live Q and A session that GW did this last Monday.  To say it wasnt exciting is an understatment,  there was some key points that GW made which is making 8th edition sound like everything is getting thrown out and a new system is being created which is clearly borrowing from AOS.  This is good and bad as I really dont want the game to be entirely AOS in the future.  So lets take a look at these key points.

Armor values are now gone -
wow is this a major change, so all models including vehicles are getting toughness and wound values.  The era of armor values, the era of single shotting a tank are now over.  Dreads are now viable not to mention my maulerfiends.  Knights will now be as tough as Wraithknights etc, etc.  This is huge people and something which will help us see more vehicles on the battlefield. 

Shorter game lengths -
Ok this is awesome.  I have always preferred small games as I really want to get in as many games as possible during gaming sessions.  The 3-4 hour games just wears thin on me and smaller games kind of fixed this.  Smaller games however have the issue of limiting you what you can take so I would prefer games that play just as fast as small games but still allow you to take all the toys you can or at least give you the option of taking more then you could in say a 1000 point game but still have the game length of say 90 minutes.  This I believe should be a priority as its hard to get new players interested in the game if it takes you over 4 hours to play just one game. 

Flat to hit charts -
This is just cool and borrows heavily for AOS.  All models regardless of opponent WS hit at a certain number.  We have seen the charts for space marines already and so for both shooting and melee, will hit opponents on a 3+.  No more comparing weapon skill just roll your to hit number and you are done.  This also makes it easier for new players as they just need to remember there models stats to get started instead of trying to compare a WS chart.

Movement stats -  the return of the movement stat for all models.  This I will be honest im not sure about.  Its easier to memorize flat stats for types of models but now we will have to remember stats for all races and models.  Some examples that were leaked by GW was Terminators moving 4, space marines moving 5, etc.  I will need to see how this goes once the edition comes out.

Armor save modifiers - ok so this is new to me.  I know that it was around for 2nd edition and was part of Necromunda and now part of Shadow wars Arrmeggedden.  What i like about this is that all weapons will now seem to have a difference between them and also all will have a chance to hurt models.  No more tanking on 2+ as bolters will now add a 1+ modifier and so will need to save on a 3+ instead.

Free Core rules - enough said, who would have thought that GW would be giving us free rules?  This I dont mind them borrowing from AOS as free core rules just like with other games out there will make it easier for new players to get started.  The days of buying 150.00 of rule books at least to get started is over.

As stated, i dont want just 40K to be all AOS, I'm ok with borrowing from it but I still want 40k to be different enough.  All in all I am super excited about the new edition and cant wait to get my hands on it and start gaming.

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. 

And the hobbying continues

Whats up guys?  So I have decided to move forward with building my next army.  After doing some clean up, I found a surplus of models that were just collecting dust or new in the box or blister pack.  Among these models were 5 completely built drop pods, 2 storm ravens, 20 death company armed with ccw and bolt pistols, 2 furioso dreds, and 30 tact marines.  Well what to do?  It would be a shame to just get rid of these models and so I decided to go ahead and paint up a dual purpose army that could be run as either a codex space marine drop pod army or a blood angels army.  In order to do this, I plan on painting the army a little differently using colors that dont match any established chapter so that I could run them as my own chapter.  Of course everything will be what you see is what you get so anybody playing me will not have any issues with recognizing what each unit is.  I am first going to concentrate on the blood angel side as these models are already built an all I need is an HQ to lead them.  I will probably start with a reclusiarch as a cheap HQ or librarian which i might be able to build using some spare parts.  30 tact marines will fulfill my troops selection with dedicated drop pods and the 2 furioso dreads with magma cutters, melta guns will provide some cc and anti tank punch.   For the codex space marines part, it will still be a drop pod/storm raven army as its base but I will be adding a beater chapter master, 1 or 2 thunderfire cannons and will be using the red hunters chapter tactics as next to the ultra marines I find the most flexable.   Not going to add bikes in as my Nightlords army will be my biker army.  Pics are my works in progress of the 2 10 man tact squads.  I am hoping that by next post, I will have some more updates for the army.

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...

40K Campaign - Death Co. test drive..

Sorry for not posting in the last month or so, but real life has gotten in the way, we recently moved to a new house which has taken all of my time. I haven't done anything 40K related be it painting or modeling. A couple of weeks past, the local FLGS manager began a 1750 point 40K campaign in which more then 5 teams will be competing. Each team has a total of 5 per team and any army can be used including Forge world units and army lists. Upon hearing of this I thought that the time had come for me to pull out my newest army, my Death Company Air Cav army. I am taking the following with some changes based on who I will be facing such as switching out one of my chaplains for a librarian for some anti-psychic ability -

1750 Pts - Blood Angels Roster - 1750 pts New Dual leader air strike force

HQ: Astorath the Grim
1 Astorath the Grim

Elite: Chaplain in Power Armour
1 Chaplain in Power Armour

Troops: Death Company (8#)
1 Death Company, 0 pts
1 Death Company,(Thunder Hammer)
6 Death Company
1 Death Company,(Power Weapon)

Troops: Death Company (8#)
1 Death Company, 0 pts
1 Death Company,(Thunder Hammer)
6 Death Company
1 Death Company,(Power Weapon)

Troops: Tactical Squad (10#)
9 Tactical Squad
1 Sergeant

Heavy Support: Stormraven Gunship (1#)
1 Stormraven Gunship

Heavy Support: Stormraven Gunship (1#)
1 Stormraven Gunship

Heavy Support: Stormraven Gunship (1#)
1 Stormraven Gunship

Troops: Death Company Dreadnought (1#)
1 Death Company Dreadnought

Troops: Death Company Dreadnought (1#)
1 Death Company Dreadnought

To say that this army is fun to play is an understatement, I know that if I I have a turn of bad luck, that I will probably lose the game, however with the speed of the storm ravens, I can redeploy quickly and strike any where on the game board. My first game of the campaign was against an imperial guard Death Korp of Kreig army with 6 Leman Russ tanks. To be honest, I thought it was all over even though I got first turn. We rolled table quarter deployment with Kill points. My opponent deployed castled up in the opposite corner with all 6 of his tanks split up into 2 3 tank squadrons. I deployed as close as possible to the center of the board with my tactical squad Storm Raven hanging a little back just to give my opponent another target. Lucky for me he didn't steal the initiative and so I rushed forward with 2 of the Storm Ravens; I still wasn't in range to get the 2 dice for damage as I was about 18 inches out however due to him having his tanks in squadrons even though I managed to roll the lucky 6 to glance with one of my multi-meltas, I rolled a 2 which he could just ignore. My other Storm Raven opened up on a squad of rough riders (These Death Korp riders are freaking sweet models)and I ended up killing all of them which put me in the lead with 1 kill point. His first turn should have been the death of me, he fired all of tanks at both of the storm ravens carrying the death company squads and dreads however due to some hot dice on my part, all he was able to do was stun one raven and shake on. I kept making my 4 ups covers like it was going out of style which just demoralized him. He tried to assault the closest storm raven with his commissar lord and his squad of veterans but due to moving flat out, he needed 6`s to hit and failed to do any damage. Suffice to say that by turn 2, my entire army was in his lines multi-assaulting every thing in my path. By the end of turn 2, i was up by 6 killpoints and my opponent decided to call it as I had managed to kill 4 of his tanks with only losing 4 death company in that turn and pretty much he didn't have any place to go. My next campaign game was against a wolfguard based army led by Grimnar. This game was a lot more challenging as my opponent had a lot of missile launchers and was able to knock out 2 of my storm ravens by turn 2 and had taken off all of the weapons on the 3rd one. His 3 dreads also highlighted a major weakness with my dreads, as they don't have their power fists, if they are assaulted by a rival dread, they will get owned which in fact happened to one of my dreads. This game came down to the wire with me winning the capture and control game by contesting his home objective with my last storm raven. So far the army is a blast to play and I hope to continue to use this army for many games to come, now I have to finish painting it. Lets hope my luck holds up for my future campaign games. Pics are from a GW article that talked about painting the Storm ravens.

My Skyrar's Dark Wolves Campaign List

Hi guys, well for the campaign I am settling on the following list. The list still utilizes my deathstar HQ unit but to a lesser degree, no 2+ saves due to trying to keep the point cost down and getting 2 heavy support choices. In my last couple of games using them, I really liked what drop pods brought to my list, it gave my troops the capability to contest anywhere on the table which is something that was lacking when I ran the pure foot lists. I really do not want to use Rhinos or the dreaded Razorback as then I'm just running a Net list. My list is as follows -

1500 Pts -Initial 1500pts Campaign Skyrar's Dark Wolves

HQ: Wolf Lord in Power Armour (1#, 215 pts)
1 Wolf Lord in Power Armour, 215 pts (Unit Type: Cavalry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Belt of Russ; Wolf Tail Talisman; Thunderwolf Mount; Bolt Pistol; Frost Weapon x1; Acute Senses; And They Shall Know No Fear; Counter-attack; Independent Character; Rending in CC only; Saga of Majesty)

HQ: Wolf Lord in Power Armour (1#, 205 pts)
1 Wolf Lord in Power Armour, 205 pts (Unit Type: Cavalry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Thunderwolf Mount; Storm Shield x1; Thunder Hammer x1; Acute Senses; And They Shall Know No Fear; Counter-attack; Independent Character; Rending in CC only)

Fast Attack: Thunderwolf Cavalry (1#, 105 pts)
1 Thunderwolf Cavalry, 105 pts (Unit Type: Cavalry; Acute Senses; And They Shall Know No Fear; Counter-attack; Rending in CC only; Wolfkin)
1 Thunderwolf Cavalry (Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Thunderwolf Mount; Storm Shield; Frost Weapon)

Fast Attack: Fenrisian Wolf Pack (10#, 80 pts)
10 Fenrisian Wolf Pack, 80 pts (Unit Type: Beasts; Vicious claws and fangs; Counter-attack)

Troops: Grey Hunters Pack (11#, 205 pts)
10 Grey Hunters Pack, 205 pts (Unit Type: Infantry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Bolt Pistol x10; Bolter x8; Close Combat Weapon x9; Meltagun; Power Weapon; Plasmagun; Acute Senses; And They Shall Know No Fear; Counter-attack)
1 Drop Pod (Unit Type: Vehicle (Open-topped); Transport Capacity: 10 models; Storm Bolter; Drop Pod Assault; Immobile; Inertial Guidance System)

Troops: Grey Hunters Pack (11#, 205 pts)
10 Grey Hunters Pack, 205 pts (Unit Type: Infantry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Bolt Pistol x10; Bolter x8; Close Combat Weapon x9; Meltagun; Power Weapon; Plasmagun; Acute Senses; And They Shall Know No Fear; Counter-attack)
1 Drop Pod (Unit Type: Vehicle (Open-topped); Transport Capacity: 10 models; Storm Bolter; Drop Pod Assault; Immobile; Inertial Guidance System)

Troops: Grey Hunters Pack (11#, 205 pts)
10 Grey Hunters Pack, 205 pts (Unit Type: Infantry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Bolt Pistol x10; Bolter x8; Close Combat Weapon x9; Meltagun; Power Weapon; Plasmagun; Acute Senses; And They Shall Know No Fear; Counter-attack)
1 Drop Pod (Unit Type: Vehicle (Open-topped); Transport Capacity: 10 models; Storm Bolter; Drop Pod Assault; Immobile; Inertial Guidance System)

Heavy Support: Long Fangs Pack (5#, 125 pts)
4 Long Fangs Pack, 125 pts (Unit Type: Infantry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Close Combat Weapon x4; Missile Launcher x3; Plasma Cannon x1; Acute Senses; And They Shall Know No Fear; Counter-attack; Fire Control)
1 Squad Leader (Unit Type: Infantry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Bolt Pistol; Close Combat Weapon; Acute Senses; And They Shall Know No Fear; Counter-attack; Fire Control)

Heavy Support: Long Fangs Pack (5#, 155 pts)
4 Long Fangs Pack, 155 pts (Unit Type: Infantry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Close Combat Weapon x4; Heavy Bolter x1; Lascannon x3; Acute Senses; And They Shall Know No Fear; Counter-attack; Fire Control)
1 Squad Leader (Unit Type: Infantry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Bolt Pistol; Close Combat Weapon; Acute Senses; And They Shall Know No Fear; Counter-attack; Fire Control)

Total Roster Cost: 1500

I might change the make up of my Long Fangs maybe adding a 4th missile Launcher or dropping a Lascannon for another Plasma cannon but we shall see. Let me know what you guys think...

My Thousand Sons List...

Sup everybody, I wanted to expand on my Thousand Sons army topic to give you an idea of what units I have in the army at 1750pts, why I take them and the the purpose that they serve in the list. To start with I want to talk about the HQ's that I take. In all of my 40K armies, if the points are 1500 points or more, I love to take 2 HQ's. I like having 2 IC's who when used properly can tip the scales in everything from an assault to adding to the ability of a squad to last longer. In all of my chaos armies, this definitely rings true and in this particular army I run the following HQ's -

HQ #1 - Chaos Sorcerer
Mark of Tzeentch, Warptime, Doombolt.
This HQ serves as my "all-rounder" IC, able to soak up the wounds and live with his 4+ inv save and being able to re-roll all hits and misses and use his force weapon due to him having the capability to cast 2 psychic powers makes him a threat to any IC who isn't eternal warrior. I have had this guy go up against a lot of IC's and win. His Doombolt also being able to re-roll all hits and wounds helps him contribute anti infantry firepower to any Thousand sons squad I join him too. I usually deploy him in a squad in a Rhino

HQ #2 - Artimus the Twisted
This guy is a recent addition to my army as after seeing this vampire counts fantasy model, I had to have it. Artimus is my conversion that I use as a count as Kharn, here we got a guy who for 165 points will give you 7 attacks on the charge, is immune to all psychic powers himself, gets an extra D6 against vehicles and with furious charge will wound all infantry on 2 up. Did I mention that he hits any opponent in CC on a +2? I deploy "Artimus" in another Thousand Son squad in a Rhino to deter any assaults on the squad. Even if I roll the dreaded "1" in CC, my whole army has a +4 up inv save so at least they get a chance of surviving the hit. In my last game this guy chewed through almost 2 squads of Grey Knight Terminators on his own!!! He is definitely worth the points and the flaw

Elites - Depending on what list I am taking I usually take a terminator suicide squad. Lately as I just adore the models, I have started taking Possessed once again

Elites #1 - Possessed Squad (9)
Okay, okay, before I get chewed out for taking these guys here me out. A pure Thousand Sons army lacks any real punch in CC. With the addition of 2 IC, this is certainly mitigated however I still need a unit to bring the pain if I need it. Being an avid gambler, I love playing the odds. With this unit I get a 1 in 6 chance for it to be game breaking, but as long as I roll over a 2 I'm good. Yes during my last game these guys rolled a 1 and did absolutely nothing but look evil and nasty but having the potential to get rending or power weapons (with strength 5 mind you) is nothing to scoff at. I also equip them with an icon of Khorne so that each possessed marine gets base 3 attacks. In one game I had these guys roll a 2 and with furious charge and almost 36 attacks wipe out a jetbike seer council and a wraithlord before dying to Dark Reapers.

Troops #1 and #2 - Thousand Sons Squad (9)
I started running Thousand Sons during the last year of the last Chaos codex. These guys definitely got a buff in the 4th ed codex though I do miss the old 2 wound models and not have to test for any psychic abilities. For 23 points a piece you get a guy that is fearless, a +4 invul save, Slow and purposeful, and an AP3 Bolter. Now at face value, these guys are not too bad, you get a lot for the price. Where the squad gets extremely expensive is in the Aspiring sorcerer. For every squad of Thousand Sons, you need to pay for a 60pts Sorcerer. Now if it was 60 points with a psychic power of your choice, I wouldn't have a problem but the fact that you need to pay for his psychic power as well means that you could be spending from 70 to 90 pts.

I usually run these guys as cheap as I can (9 man squad/Rhino/Doombolt) that runs around 289 pts. Lately in order to combat some of the newer "hard hitting" army, I have been equipping the Sorcerer's with Warptime making it a scary proposition for any IC who gets into combat with the squad as the force weapon could bring about the death of them. As mentioned above, I usually run each of my HQ's in each squad which makes the squad believe it or not quite formidable in Assault. In my last game against a Space Wolves player, one of my squads with my Sorcerer Lord actually took out a 3 man Thunderwolf squad in assault.

Troops #3 - Chaos Space Marine Squad
Until I finish with my third thousand sons squad, I am using one of my nightlords squads as my third troop choice. For the past 2 years since the chaos codex came out for their points cost, the basic CSM was seen as the best bang for your buck. Here you got a guy with a bolter, bolt pistol, CCW, and a high leadership all for the cost of 15 points. With the ability to take icons and 2 special weapons, here is a squad that can be tailored for just about any role. Of course when Grey hunters came out, this all changed as I think they are now the undisputed kings of the best overall for the points cost. The drawback of course is that they are not fearless and in my hands tend to always get run down in an assault. For this list I usually use them to hold objectives but equipping them with melta guns I really find that the best use of them is helping with tank hunting. The last couple of games, these guys really didnt perform for me which is why I am considering replacing them as they really dont fit the army. Maybe I will use these guys as chosen as having 4 melta guns outflanking in a rhino is nothing but win..

Heavy Supports #1 and #2 - Obliterators
These guys are nothing but win; her you got guys who can switch from any energy weapon from special to heavy each turn which makes these guys the "swiss army knife" of the chaos army. Lately however, they have been nothing but a disappointment for me. In the last 3 games I had, these guys when I deployed them in cover did nothing but miss with their lascannon shots, overheated their plasma cannons, and then just got doubled out via return fire. So as you can tell, my dice have been horrendous with these guys. I might go back to using them in a deep strike role where I could put their twin linked meltas to better use..

Heavy Support #3 - Vindicator
Wow has this guy been a surprise. This guy has not only survived my last 5 games, but has actually taken out 2 landraiders, multiple squads out in the open, to devastators in cover. This tank has been shot at and shot at by multiple weapons and the worst I have gotten on it is an immobilized due to me rolling 2 1's trying to go through cover. I am thinking of building 2 as everything I have read is that 2 of these guys in an army makes them a lot more effective.

Well there you have it guys, my 1750pt pre-hersey list. In my opinion, its pretty balanced with elements to deal with virtually any type of army. About the only thing that I might change is to drop an HQ, add in the other Vindicator and maybe go with terminators instead of the possessed.

In my last 5 games, I have won 3 and lost 2 so I will keep playing it in order to see if I will stay with it. Let me know what you guys think...

For the Emperor???!!

Okay so yeah I'm back to playing my Black Templars/Sisters army. One of my fellow players who is playing in my planetary empires campaign is using his Black Templar Drop pod army and just seeing these zealous guys in action made me feel like pulling out my army again. The funny thing is I started this blog to talk about painting my Sisters as an ally of my Black Templar's which I actually got done with except the immolater and the Rhino. I do have several more sisters but not enough to start a dedicated army. For now, I will keep them as allies to my black templars, maybe in time I will have enough to do small point 1000pt games.

The latest rumor is that they will get a PDF. codex like the blood angels did which I would welcome, just hope they finally release some plastic sisters as well. This last Saturday I played 2 games with them getting a tie against a heavy mech IG army who had 4 leman russ tanks, this game I lost due to making 2 key mistakes, 1 having one of my troop squads running off an objective to kill a vanquisher tank as I didn't want it to kill my landraider crusader. I should have kept them their and thus won the game 3-2. My other one was a terrible "noobie" mistake, since my immolater was immobilized, I decided to jump my Dominion squad into the landraider crusader as my Sword Brethren had already jumped out of it and killed 3 squads and a tank.

My Dominion squad and my Cannoness jumped into the crusader and leaped out in front of my opponents veteran squad who was claiming an objective and with 4 flamers, killed all but one of the vets, the problem came as I also fired my cannoness' bolt pistol and my sister superior's bolter thus I couldnt assault after even though they had come out of a landraider, that one vet cost me the game. The other game was just an absolute slaughter, it was a game against a straight marine player complete with Calgar. My emperors champ actually put 3 wounds on him and ended up killing him in the next assault phase, wow the best my champ has done. I did have 2 5 man assault squads hold up one of my 20 man squads for almost 3 turns as my opponent was rolling absolutely fantastic. He was making all kinds of saves until my champ got a hold of the squad and just started killing them with his black sword. This Saturday will be the last week of my campaign, a 2000pts battle for all the marbles and yes my black templars will be making another appearance as a ringer if someone decides not to show... If they all show well then it will be time for some more fun pick up games. Pics are of my Sisters squads with my "Cannoness"; the Emperor's Champ is from GW, I will post pics of my Black Templars in another post..I keep promising myself that I will continue to work on my chaos army again, or course when that will happen is anybody's guess... Geez I really need to focus...

The Glory of Chaos...

Ok so its back to work on my Chaos space marines/Space Wolf army. I finished base coating my next squad of 10 and I finished building and priming my first Chaos warhound/Fensrian Wolf squad. To add to all of the painting madness, I got a very flattering request, the local manager at my local FLGS asked if I could paint some of the new plastic bloodcrushers for him and get this, if I do it, I get to keep them after he uses them as a display until they are officially released. I couldn't pass this up especially since I am starting a Daemon's army.

As I mentioned in my last post, I am building a daemons army around bits and models I had lying around over the course of collecting Chaos models for the last 6 years. After trying out the army twice now I must say that the army is a lot of fun to play but having your "destiny" decided on a dice roll could make you or break you depending on if you get your preferred wave. I did get my preferred wave in both of these games which has made both games go in my favor.

Still, its a lot of fun and makes for a different army to use that you don't see that often. The plastic Bloodcrushers look amazing with each model posed in a different way. I would love to add these to my new army; and as I am on a 2 week deadline per the manager to get these done I am putting all other projects on hold. Pics are the Bloodcrushers at about 90% done. Let me know what you think..

Transport time...

Okay, so I now have 2 squads of sisters done and to complete my "allied" army I need to paint up some transports. I still cant believe that I have almost 20 sisters painted, now all I need to do is paint up a rhino and an immolater and my sisters part of the army is done for now anyways. I still have almost 25 more sisters to paint which I will get to once I pick up some Exorsist tanks so that I can run just a sisters army without any allies.. I am tempted to hold off as I don't know what the future will hold for Sisters of Battle, hopefully new plastic Exorsists. If I ever do them, I am just going to take Space Marine Whirlwinds and convert them as the current model one is just damn too expensive. Pics of my Immolater that is about half way done. Hopefully I will get this done by this weekend to start on the next one.

Getting back on Track...

Well the good thing is i'm back to working on my sisters of battle. After a couple of days "off" its back to business. Memorial day kind of came by surprise for me and my wife, we scrambled to get to the business of going away for the weekend and spent a wonderful weekend in San Diego visiting such favorite spots such as Coronado and the Gaslamp District. Well, I can say is that I am done with my Dominion squad as well as my "count as" Cannoness. Pics are my finished Dominion Flamer squad complete with Veteran Sister Superior and my Cannoness. I used the variant Sorcha model which will upset some warmachine fans. I had this model laying around and her ice hammer makes a great blessed weapon. I just don't care for the cannoness model that GW currently has. I just hope that when they do re-do them they put out a plastic model with lots of options similar to how they did the plastic Chaos Terminator lord. Options and plastic please, metal is getting very old. Now it time to work on some transports for them before I get started on my next sisters squad. Got to take a break from painting Sisters.