the road to the LVO 2016....

Sup guys,
Again, true life has gotten in the way of my hobby.  Work has been absolutely killing me since mid-November and of course a little game called Fallout 4 was released around the same time.  I have had to focus a little bit on my hobby which of course painting is taking center stage.  I have little time to get actual games in which worries me as the LVO is rapidly approaching and I need to get some practice in.  I have been able to go to the local GW a couple of times as my club has been on holiday from playing 40K lately which has helped.  The guys at the GW store are great players and I have seen first hand the power of forgeworld units and unrestricted 40K.  For all of those people stating that the new Tau are not 1st tier, sorry to disappoint you but they are.  I played several games against them, 1 player using 2 storm surges and 1 player using what I would call a fluffy list but using the Hunter Contingent detachment and both were tough games.  The game against the 2 storm surges I tied with my dark mech by not making any big mistakes.  The game would have been mine if it wasnt for the 2 storm surges.  I had nothing in my list to take those out short of mass assaults with Maulerfiends or long range lascanon shots with my oblits.  The game against the Tau Hunter Contingent wasnt even a game, I tried out my Khorne Daemonkin army against it with some minor changes and by the end of the 2nd turn, I was done to 2 units.  This list was super surprising as my opponent's list focused on tau firewarrior shooting.  I mean the guy only had like 4 suits, 2 crisis suits, 1 riptide (you heard me 1!!!), and a ghost keel.  This list I sorely underestimated and it showed with how badly I did. I talked to my opponent after and he shared his thoughts on the list which opened up a lot to how I might change my Tau army going forward. 

So after all that, lets talk about this post, the preparation for LVO 2016.  As stated in an earlier post this year, I have already picked up my tickets for the LVO's narrative game.  This event will kickoff with an awesome cocktail hour killteam and will continue with 3 days of narrative gaming.  So what am I bringing you might ask, I'm sticking with my dark mechanicus themed chaos space marine army, pretty much keeping the same list that I brought to the last LVO however I am adding in an additional Maulerfiend, a new mechanicus themed Oblit squad, and a new Chaos Knight.  During the last LVO, we were allowed come the apocolypse allies and so I took an imperial knight that I put together 2 weeks before the event.  The knight pretty much played as his own man as I couldnt cast any support powers on him or interact with him with my other units however he was definitely an allstar, tying me the final game against an eldar army that was really blowing me out of the water.  With the changes by the LVO vote to allow forgeworld experimental rules in, chaos knights are now allowed and thus I can finally bring a knight that is actually a lord of war for my army.  Once forge world released the Ceratus Knight Atropo, I couldnt resist and pulled the trigger and ordered one as this knight really captures that "Dark Mechanicus" theme that I was looking for.  The kit is quite extraordinary, it goes together quite well but there is a lot of "pre-work" that needs to be done in order to get it ready for it to be built.  Flash and mold release was all over the pieces, some pieces worse than other but nothing really ridiculous.  By taking the time to prepare the model, you shouldnt have any issues with it.  Once I got it cleaned and flash free, the model took me about 4 sessions to put together as I decided to also magnetize 3 parts of the model, the 2 gun ports/arms and the torso to make it easier to travel with and offer some more pose-ability.  All I need now is to get some primer on it and then the painting process can begin.  My dark Mech themed obliterator squad I finished around November and have already seen table action.  Basically I ordered a squad of mechcanicum Mirmodons as they would fit the style of army I have and go hand in hand with my Arch Magos.   These models were fun to put together the only challenging piece were the bending of their external cables using hot water.  The pic above is of my army for this year's event.  I am hoping like last year, it will cause some surprises as my list is very heavy in daemon engines.

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.