On the rebound...

Hello everybody,

So again i am going to start up my old blog.  Its been what a year almost since i posted, i have numerous drafts of posts which i never completed and so i decided to just delete these old ones and start over so to speak.  So the purpose of this blog is to track what I have painted, share some pics of my work in progress and discuss thoughts on 40k and other games in general including video games.  Work has been cray busy but I have finally changed roles and hopefully will have more time to both hobby and play some games.  Recently I joined an RPG club and actually have been playing lots of RPG's, meeting new friends and experiencing new games that i would have never would have tried.  I have been part of a gaming club as well giving me numerous opportunites to play 40K and other miniature games.  So lets start with what I have been painting and what i have completed over the last 4 months.

- 10 New Nightlord Raptors

- Nightlord Jump Pack Lord

- Nightlord Terminator Lord

- Nightlord Havocs 

- Nightlord Leviathon

As you can see, I have been adding a lot to my Nightlord's army, adding in Models to bolster my current force.  I really hope that Chapter approved drops the points of regular CSM's, Warp Talons, and raptors.  Dont get me started on the new Faith and Fury book, that will definitely add some much needed omph to chaos space marines to hopefully get them closer to the power level of normal marines.   Hope you like the the pics.  This is hopefully going to keep me on track as well as track my hobby progress. 

Next up on the agenda is 4 of the new Obliterators, 1 Lord Discordant, and a Brass Scorpion.  These i might need to get done as i wanted to take them to LVO next year which is coming up really fast.   

I told myself that i wanted to use my dark mechanicus army next however with the new book, my Nightlords will become even more fun to play. 

LVO Narrative Bound...

Sup everybody, so we are less than 2 weeks away from the grand daddy of them all (for me anyways) the Las Vegas Open.  This is the 4th year that I will be going as I made everyone since Frontline gaming started these events.  Today's LVO is definitely different from past years, its gotten bigger and better and with GW support now, something that I look forward to year after year.  So this year like last year I will be competing in the narrative event.  This year marks a big difference as the Narrative guys will not be running it, instead it will be run by a group out of my home state of California and by the sounds of it they are bringing their "game world" to LVO and so have plenty of history, characters, etc to bring it to life.  The way I understand it, this group has been playing using the same solar system/game world and so the planet that we will be fighting on has plenty of history that hopefully will make our experience unique and awesome.  I definitely will miss the Narrative guys this year as I always enjoyed their special brand of gaming from the amazing tables that they built to the awesome stories they told.  Here were guys that were really in it for the fun so much in fact that I might make it over to wargamescon this year just to be a part of it and to join my chaos brothers in battle.  I am hoping that some of the hounds make it out this year to LVO but by the sounds of it, I might be the only one that will be showing up.  This year however marks another crazy event, my 2 friends for years will be joining me in the narrative event joining the forces of Chaos.  That will definitely make it a hell of a lot of fun and only wish that the hounds could come out as well to join in the fun.

With regards to painting, I only have 3 raptors to paint as I really want to try out the plasma pistol squad of death.  Depending on how it plays out I am preparing to build another unit of plasma pistol raptors as they are cheap now, being able to shoot in combat and quite easily can put wounds on units thus causing morale tests to be taken at much lower leadership scores.  I am still going full bore on my morale reducing army as I really think that this type of list has a lot of legs.  I really need to build more units with banners of despair as well as to take units that cause units to lose leadership more.  I really want to cause issues with morale even if I only cause 1 or 2 wounds on a unit.  I am dropping Belakor for LVO as we cant take any named characters.  If I can, I am going to try to build a unit of havocs with lascannons as lascannons in 8th are freaking good.  Wish me luck guys.  Pic is from GW's Legion preview of the Nightlords.  some pretty cool simple conversions for sure and ones I might want to copy.

its been an age...

Hello everybody, sorry again for the lack of posts on my blog.  Life has been rather challenging lately with work becoming almost unbearable and life in general becoming more and more busy, busy that something had to give and unfortunately my blog is one of the things that had to suffer.  Mark my words my intention is to post a lot more frequently moving forward as the reason for this blog is as a platform to bounce off ideas as well as to keep track of my painting projects.  The good thing is that I have kept up with my painting duties and over the course of 7 months I have painted a full Ad-Mech Army, added another knight to my knight stable, and painted several units for my Chaos Nightlords army.  I have also been to several 8th edition RTT's where I have learned how much I so love 8th edition over 7th edition.  40K for me lately even in the competitive sense has been so much fun and exciting that I will probably start to play in more competitive games moving forward.  7th edition for me was the edition of the Narrative as playing in narrative games was the only way I found fun games of 40K.  Now I am finding that even though players bring out super tough lists, its still fun to try to beat them with what I bring.  Both my main armies, Chaos Space Marines and Ad Mech now have the tools to deal with practically all armies I have faced.  So with that lets start off my return post with talking about my recent RTT I went to.

The army I wanted to try out was a return to using my Nightlords Chaos space marine army.  With the advent of the new codex, my favorite traitor legion was given a legion trait that to some is close to being useless.  Sure its not Alpha Legions' -1 to hit but being able to reduce leadership by 1 with Nightlords units (up to 3) and then using the morale phase to do your dirty work seemed very interesting to me.  In addition this was super fluffy for my legion of choice, a thinking man's army if you will as positioning of your units is key to getting the most of this legion trait.  The other thing is with the new chaos codex, even if your "fear tactics" don't work out, your army is still good enough and powerful enough to fight any army.  I plan on taking this army to LVO's Narrative event and so wanted to get as much practice with this fear mechanic as much as I could. 

Below is the list I took to the tourney -

[b]++ Outrider Detachment +1CP (Chaos - Chaos Space Marines) [65 PL, 1219pts] ++[/b]

[b]+ Flyer +[/b]

[b]Chaos Fire Raptor Assault Gunship [19 PL, 290pts]:[/b] Hellstrike missiles

. Reaper batteries: 2x Reaper battery

[b]+ No Force Org Slot +[/b]

[b]Legion:[/b] Night Lords

[b]+ HQ +[/b]

[b]Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour [6 PL, 128pts]:[/b] Combi-melta, Mark of Nurgle, Power sword, The Murder Sword

[b]+ Elites +[/b]

[b]Chaos Terminators [28 PL, 486pts]:[/b] Mark of Nurgle

. Chaos Terminator Champion: Combi-flamer, Power sword

. Terminator: Combi-plasma, Power axe

. Terminator: Combi-plasma, Power axe

. Terminator: Combi-plasma, Power axe
. Terminator: Combi-plasma, Power axe
. Terminator: Combi-plasma, Power axe
. Terminator: Combi-melta, Power axe
. Terminator: Combi-melta, Power axe
. Terminator: Combi-bolter, Power maul
. Terminator: Combi-bolter, Power axe

[b]+ Fast Attack +[/b]

[b]Chaos Spawn [6 PL, 99pts]:[/b] 3x Chaos Spawn, Mark of Nurgle
[b]Raptors [6 PL, 123pts]:[/b] Mark of Nurgle
. 2x Raptor
. Raptor Champion: Bolt pistol, Power sword
. Raptor w/ special weapon: Meltagun
. Raptor w/ special weapon: Meltagun

[b]Raptors [6 PL, 113pts]:[/b] Mark of Nurgle

. 2x Raptor

. Raptor Champion: 2x Plasma pistol

. Raptor w/ plasma pistol: Plasma pistol
. Raptor w/ plasma pistol: Plasma pistol
[b]Warp Talons [13 PL, 270pts]:[/b] Mark of Nurgle

. 9x Warp Talon: 9x Lightning Claw (pair)

. Warp Talon Champion: Lightning Claw (pair)

[b]++ Battalion Detachment +3CP (Chaos - Chaos Space Marines) [17 PL, 250pts] ++[/b]

[b]+ No Force Org Slot +[/b]
[b]Legion:[/b] Night Lords
[b]+ HQ +[/b]
[b]Be'lakor [12 PL, 240pts]:[/b] Death Hex, Infernal Gaze
[b]Sorcerer in Terminator Armour [8 PL, 130pts]:[/b] Combi-bolter, Force sword, Mark of Nurgle, Miasma of Pestilence, Warptime
[b]+ Troops +[/b]
[b]Chaos Cultists [3 PL, 40pts]:[/b] 9x Chaos Cultist w/ Autogun, Mark of Nurgle

. Cultist Champion: Shotgun

[b]Chaos Cultists [3 PL, 40pts]:[/b] 9x Chaos Cultist w/ Autogun, Mark of Nurgle

. Cultist Champion: Shotgun

[b]Chaos Cultists [3 PL, 40pts]:[/b] 9x Chaos Cultist w/ Autogun, No Chaos Mark

. Cultist Champion: Shotgun

[b]++ Total: [113 PL, 1999pts] ++[/b]

Other than the fear mechanic going for it, the army strengths laid with a drop component that I hoped would overwhelm the enemy as my back forces move forward to score objectives.  The spawn would be my throw away unit as Belakor would help out the cultists survive just a little longer with his presence to hopefully discourage enemy units from hitting my back units with the raptors, warp talons and terminators deep striking where I need them most .  Now onto the my 3 games -

Game 1 - Against a Primaris army with the primaris super tank.

Wow what an opponent to face off against my new Nightlords list.  The primaris army was one thing but the Primaris super tank was a thing to behold. The drop tactics coupled with extensive use of Veterans of the long war gave me the Momentum to pin my opponent down on his side of the table.  And then the super tank "spoke" and then I know why that thing is worth 700 plus points.  It downed my fireraptor and killed all of my warp talons in 1 turn.  We then proceeded to smash each other until time was called on Turn 4 and we ended up with  tie.

Game 2 - Against Tyranids.  So this was my first game against the new tyranids book.  Again another great opponent and one who knew what they were doing.  He mixed and matched 3 different hive fleets which gave him the upper hand in the first couple of turns.  I decided not to drop my termies, raptors, and warp talons until Turn 2 (I went second) as I wanted him to spread out a little bit. Once they came in they completely overwhelmed his flank as the concentrated firepower of the termies and raptors coupled with the fire raptor taking out units of the smaller bugs overwhelmed my opponent.  Belakor went toe to toe with the swarmlord and with a lucky deathhex casted on him killed him in one turn.  This was probably the best that Belakor did as in the my other 2 games he really didn't account for much.  He then led the charge with my warptalons providing them with re-rolling 1's on hits as he allows this for friendly daemons and the warptalons are considered daemons.  I ended up winning this game 17 to 16 so close game as he really racked up the secondary mission points as I delayed the arrival of my units from deepstrike.  Really good game and probably the second best game of the day. 

Game 3 - Against Tyranids again.  So my 2nd game against the new tyranids.  This game was completely one sided for me as my Nightlords deepstriking bomb really took the wind out of the sails of my opponent.  He took more of a nidzilla list with lots of big bugs along with 3 flying hive tyrants.  He separated all 3 of them instead of running together which was all I needed to single them out and gun them down.  He was able to assault my fire raptor with one of his hive tyrants and with good rolling put 10 wounds on it.  I then proceeded to fall back with it and gun it down with both the fire raptor and 2 units of cultists who took his last wound.  Other then that his army was slow and I was able to just gun them down before they got to me and rack up points for both the primary and secondary objectives.  We called it by turn 3 as there was really no way for him to come back. 

So I went undefeated with my Nightlords, 2 wins and a Tie but since this was using the new missions from ITC I placed 5th due to points.  The "fear" tactic really didn't come up at all as my opponents were either fearless due to synapse or super high leadership with re-rolls due to my first opponent being a space marine player.  I still don't want to give up on this type of list but might modify it and even drop Belakor as he pretty much stays behind and really doesn't contribute much.  I might go with more longer range fire power in order to have my backfield support my advance units more like the Sicarian battle tank I just finished pictured on the right.  This is really the weakness of the army as once I drop all of my elements if an opponent is ready for it they just have to weather it and hit me back.  Still the army is super fun to play, fluffy and definitely unique in todays local meta.

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.