Faith and Fury

Sup guys, so today I wanted to get started on chatting about Faith and Fury and how it relates specifically to the Nightlords legion.  I'm just going to straight out and say it, it's about freaking time!! These new rules are fluffy as fuck and are game winning.  Now of course this means that everybody and their mother will be running a detachment of Nightlords now but that is ok, the 8th Legion welcomes all.  I can also take solice in the fact that my patience and loyalty has been rewarded finally.  I cant be accused of being a bandwagoner as I have been playing the army since the days of the famed 3.5 codex.  As I stated before, the rules in Faith and Fury bring a heck of alot of flavor to the 8th legion.  I just wish that it also gave you access to additional rules when you run an entire Nightlords army similar to what space marines are getting.  What it does give is a toolbox of tricks that a Nightlords Commander can use to effectively shut down armies and allow the rest of the army to get where they need to be in order to claim objectives, get into assault, etc.  I had a great player once tell me that GW made Chaos armies to be good at assault which you see with the amount of strats and warlord traits that focus on making your army better in close combat.  The new Nightlords strats really emphasize this but do it in a fluffy way that really brings the flavor of the Nightlords out.  I have just played a couple of games now with Faith and Fury and I can say that they make a huge difference to how I play it.  Now my focus is on getting as much command points as possible to fuel the army which I wish was easier for Chaos as things are so expensive at the moment.  I know that with Chapter Approved this will help a little but really other than cultist spam, Chaos Space Marines really dont have enough units that are cheap enough to say run multiple battalions without sacrificing something.  Lets go over the meat here, the Stratagems

1.  In Midnight Clad - Same as before and as useful as before.  -1 to hit against an infantry unit is just great.  I usually combo this with another -1 with Miasma of Pestanlence to provide a heavy hitting unit such as a termi squad.

2.  We Have Come for You - Wow is this awesome, Nightlords finally got the ability to tie up an infantry unit after charging them.  This is huge, i cant stress how important and game changing this is as you can effectively shut down an opponents shooting phase in a turn.  Where i do see the limit of this strat is the fact that you cant lock down vehicles, that would have been amazing but a little over powered if you ask me.  I did face an opponent with a lot of dreads and this strat really didnt come into play

3.  Vox Scream - Another game changer strat, the ability to shut down auras is crazy good.  It is a little expensive at 2 but i do reconginze the need to have it at that cost.  The fact that you can use any Nightlord unit is what makes this crazy good.  I use a Fire raptor with this since it can be anywhere on the board at a moments notice but can see use of a heldrake as well for a cheap alternative.

4.  From the Night - this can be a such great Stratagem if it didnt require you to be on terrain.  I see the point as this is to mimic Nightlords coming out of the shadows but unless you have a lot of terrain on your table, might not come into play.  giving you 2+ on your charge roll and giving you +1 to hit in melee is really good. 

5.  Prey on the Weak - Ok so I am going to mini rant here.  There was several outlets out there that said that this Strat wasnt worth it or was super situational.  Are you kidding me, this one I have found to be one of the most useful of all the new Strats.  In every single one of my games i have used this more than even We Have Come for you or even Vox scream.  This on a fire raptor or leviathon Dread (both with leadership 9 by the way) as well as havoc squads makes this amazing. Think of it as another Prescience giving you a plus +1 to hit that you can have on another unit, couple that with Veterans of the long war and it can be devastating.  and of course Nightlords drop leadership so it really comes into its own in Melee.

6.  Raptor Strike - Nightlords get to act like Blood Angels now, at the cost of  1 CP, you get to charge 3D6.  Simple yet very effective, really good on a warp talon squad giving you the ability to shut down over watch to multiple units and then being able to tie them down in combat with We have come for you.

7.  Hit and Run - Another great one, the ability to fall back and charge another unit in your turn is amazing.  Something to help in tieing up key opponents during the fight phase which can also be game breaking. 

8.  Flay them Alive - Another fluffy choice which is way more conditional than Prey on the Weak but one that can all but guarantee a unit to lose models with careful Nightlord unit placement.  the key of course is to cause multiple units to have to take moral checks causing opponents to have to choose who they want to save.

As you can see these strats bring a lot of flavor to your Nightlord armies and is something I have been waiting for a long time.   The one critisim i have is of course the army being very CP intensive.  This forces the player to have to take multiple battalions or try for a a brigade which in some cases causes you to focus on just some key units.  Chapter Approved definitely helps with this but I really wish that some of these were just inate Nightlord abilites.  I mean how cool would it have been if you auto tied up infantry units in CC if the opponent loses a leadership roll or you get 2+ on charges if you charge out of a ruin?  Something to think about for sure.

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.

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.

All Hail Forge World!!

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

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

an Update... Plus the Nightlords first loss

Hey guys, time for an update. So far I have been having a lot of fun running my Nightlords army again. Though the army against certain lists is very outclassed, it still puts out a lot of hurt. My first loss came about 2 weeks ago against a very cool all terminator Space Wolves Logan wing with over 30 terminators in 2000 pts. Its funny to think, but I was outgunned from turn one with all of my termie stopping power having a 12 inch range (melta guns)which of course would lead to my squads being mauled by 10 man terminator squads. We rolled up kill points and pitched battle and I played the game as befit a True Nightlord, by running away and being sneaky. My army actually excelled at this as all of my non stationary units are able to move 12 inches. I played the refused flank (I think thats what its called) and deployed all of my army to the right of the board.

He deployed his army to the right as well; with me getting first turn I basically took all my units that could move 12 inches and re-deployed it to the other side!! This took him by surprise as he spent most of the game re-deploying trying to get with in assault range or at least shooting range. I was holding my own until about turn 4 where the brutality of his list reared its ugly head. His 2 assault cannon termie squads along with awesome rolling started taking its toll on my army. I did have a few highlights though with my Termie hammer unit taking out his thunderwolf cavalry unit and a chosen squad holding off 2 termie squads shooting for 2 turns. Final tally, 6-3, was a great game and I really liked his list something that I might try with the Grey Knights.

Pics on this post are of my completed Nightlords Termie Lord. Like I stated in my last post, I wanted to paint up another leader for my list to either add to my assault potential or to run a "cheaper" lord. Believe it or not, the termie lord is cheaper as I dont have to run a retinue bike squad for him. I used some parts from the Grey Knights Terminator box like the helmet and the weapon blade and painted him in the pattern of my other terminators such as the terror markings on his helmet and the lightning bolt symbols on his one open shoulder. Let me know what you think...

Ave Dominus Nox...

During this past weekend, the Nightlords came out to play once again. This time I drew a salmanders player who asked for a 2000pts game. I added 2 small chosen squads for this fight armed with a lascannon and a plasma gun to give my opponent some reason to fear for his vehicles. My opponent list consisted of Vulkan (of course), squad of Thunderhammer stormshield terminators in a landraider, 1 venerable dreadknought, 1 regular dreadnought in a droppod, 3 tactical squads with melta guns plasma cannons in 2 Rhinos and 1 Razorback, 2 Landspeeders wtih heavy flamers and multimeltas, Dakka Predator, vindicator, and a thunderfire cannon. We rolled Annihilation and dawn of war (that's twice now) and I won first turn. Again, I gave first turn to my opponent and deployed nothing, after he had deployed I infiltrated my two chosen squads one in a high building toward the center of the table and the other in a building in the middle of my deployment zone. My opponent wasn't expecting this and my chosen paid off in spades by taking out a Rhino and immobilizing his landraider first turn!! This first move set him off as he wasn't expecting this, its funny how losing a key unit early on really alters how one plays after. I have had my Key unit taken out early on and believe me it really alters how you play after. I guess the good player continues on as normal; unfortunately like my opponent I would have started panicking or would have been extremely upset. This set the tone for the rest of the game as my Nightlords took the salamanders apart. By turn 2, I had neutralized all of his long range fire. By turn 3 he had no vehicles left but a venerable dread, and a razorback. By Turn 5 it was pretty much over but we continued to turn 6 and I ended up winning the game 8 - 3. I like the fact that I am still running a none competitive list and still doing pretty good with them. Again my MVP's of this game are the chosen squads. I am thinking that I might make them a part of my lists, in any lists that I run.

These guys are my wild card, due to their infiltrate ability, it gives me the ability to place these guys in the most advantageous places after my opponent has deployed his prize vehicles. So the Nightlords are 2-0 since I started using them, in no small part to the chosen squads. Pics are of 4 new squad members that I just finished. I plan on painting some more Raptors and finishing a new termi lord that will be joining my lightning claw termies in the landraider just to give them more punch and allow me to field a different HQ if I don't want to run a biker lord. Let me know what you guys think...

the return of the Nightlords

This weekend was the return of me using my Nightlords at the local FLGS and I must say that even though they are seriously underpowered in today's metagame, they are still a blast to play with. As mentioned in my last post,I will be running a hammer unit of slaanishi iconed lightning clawed termies. Though these guys are not the ultimate in hammer units, for 465 points they are not that expensive considering they also are coming with a landraider. The mobility of the landraider will help in getting these guys into the best possible position, also providing me with a bullet magnet that is highly resistant to damage save for meltas. But that is only the beginning, in addition my entire army moves 12 inches so my opponent will have to deal with multiple units that will be hitting his lines by turn 2. In addition to the termies im also running a bike squad with a power fist and the icon of khorne. I know bikes are considered to be one of worst units in the codex but in my last games if anything they have been extremely fun to use. With 3 attacks base they are not slouches either and can assist the termies in taking out extremely tough units. Running my bikerlord in the squad makes it able to at least handle other IC's running around. Adding to them are the Raptors, again another unit that the internet hates and in fairness yes they definitively lost a lot of power in the 4th edition dex. In this army i run them in an 8 man strong unit with 2 meltas and the champ with lightning claws. I plan on running these guys as a counterattack unit as well as an anti tank unit. Will this list get past a tournament, hell no, it would probably get trounced but that's not the point, the point is to have fun and in my limited time of playing 40K each week, my number one goal is to have a good time. Now this is not to say that I don't like being competitive, I will still be as competitive as ever using my "fluffy" army. I drew an ork player this week, we played a 1750pts game and drew annihilation and dawn of war. He was running Gazi, squad of mega-nobs in a battle-wagon, 3 30 boyz squads, another warboss with PowerKlaw, and 15 lootas. The Nightlords took them apart, piece by bloody piece.

I accomplished this by not deploying anything and allowing him to put 2 of his 30 boyz squads and normal warboss way up front and giving him first turn. Though he deployed his whole army turn one, his 60 boyz were way ahead of the rest of the army and thus without support. I focused my whole army on each squad one at a time killing each one of them and by turn 2 he was down 60 boyz. I then took out Gazi's ride so he and and his friends needed to foot slog it across and focused on his last big squad. I killed this last 30 boyz and just shot at Gazi and his cronies and when he finally got close just ran away from him. I did lose my bikes, my Raptors, my Havocs and 1 Rhino but the rest of my army survived. MVP's were my Biker lord who was instrumental in killing all 3 squads and surviving and my Havocs who killed scores of orks with their autocannons and even managed to kill 3 of the 5 meganobs before they died. I'm hoping that next week will bring even more carnage for them...

Nightlords List...

As promised, listed below is the list I am currently working on. First a little History on the army. The Nightlords was my first army when getting into the hobby many years ago. Its the first army I painted completely and cut my teeth on the tail end of 3rd edition and 4th edition. As such the Nightlords have a special place in my heart and will always be my favorite army. With the release of the 4th ed Chaos Codex, my Nightlords army definitely lost a lot of its teeth. They lost their "elite" feel such as being able to grant veteran skills to any CSM unit, gone were my infiltrating Raptors with Furious Charge. Gone was my entire army gaining a +1 to cover saves due to the Stealth Adept special rule. No use crying over something that was though, the army is still fun to use and that's what counts anyway.

Nightlords - 1750pts
HQ: Chaos Lord (1#)
1 Chaos Lord, 160 pts ((C:CSM, pp. 30 & 92); Unit Type: Bikes; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Bike; Mark of Khorne; Bolt Pistol x1; Lightning Claws (pair); Fearless; Independent Character)

Elite: Chaos Terminators (6#)
1 Chaos Terminators, 465 pts ((C:CSM, pp. 28 & 94); Unit Type: Infantry; Terminator Armour; Icon of Slaanesh; Mark of Slaanesh; Deep Strike)
2 Terminator ((C:CSM, pp. 28 & 94); Terminator Armour; Mark of Slaanesh; Twin Linked Bolter x2; Power Fist x2)
3 Terminator Champion ((C:CSM, pp. 28 & 94); Terminator Armour; Mark of Slaanesh; Lightning Claws (pair) x3)
1 Land Raider ((C:CSM, pp. 44 & 101); Unit Type: Vehicle (Tank); Access Points: 3; Searchlight; Smoke Launchers; 2x Twin-linked Lascannons; Twin Linked Heavy Bolter; Assault Vehicle)

Troops: Chaos Space Marines (11#)
9 Chaos Space Marines, 250 pts ((C:CSM, pp. 26 & 96); Unit Type: Infantry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Bolt Pistol x9; Bolter x7; Close Combat Weapon x9; Meltagun x1; Plasmagun x1)
1 Aspiring Champion ((C:CSM, pg. 96); Unit Type: Infantry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Bolt Pistol; Bolter; Power Fist)
1 Rhino ((C:CSM, pp. 42 & 96); Unit Type: Vehicle (Tank); Transport Capacity: 10 models; Access Points: 3; Fire Points: 1; Searchlight; Smoke Launchers; Twin Linked Bolter; Repair)

Troops: Chaos Space Marines (11#)
9 Chaos Space Marines, 250 pts ((C:CSM, pp. 26 & 96); Unit Type: Infantry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Bolt Pistol x9; Bolter x7; Close Combat Weapon x9; Meltagun x1; Plasmagun x1)
1 Aspiring Champion ((C:CSM, pg. 96); Unit Type: Infantry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Bolt Pistol; Bolter; Power Fist)
1 Rhino ((C:CSM, pp. 42 & 96); Unit Type: Vehicle (Tank); Transport Capacity: 10 models; Access Points: 3; Fire Points: 1; Searchlight; Smoke Launchers; Twin Linked Bolter; Repair)

Fast Attack: Bikers (5#)
4 Bikers, 235 pts ((C:CSM, pg. 27 & 99); Unit Type: Bikes; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Bike; Power Armour; Icon of Khorne; Mark of Khorne; Bolt Pistol x4; Close Combat Weapon x4; Twin Linked Bolter)
1 Biker Champion ((C:CSM, pg. 27 & 99); Unit Type: Bikes; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Bike; Power Armour; Mark of Khorne; Bolt Pistol; Power Fist)

Fast Attack: Raptors (8#)
7 Raptors, 220 pts ((C:CSM, pp. 34 & 99); Unit Type: Jump Infantry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Bolt Pistol x7; Close Combat Weapon x7; Meltagun x2; Deep Strike)
1 Aspiring Champion ((C:CSM, pg. 96); Unit Type: Jump Infantry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Lightning Claws (pair))

Heavy Support: Havocs (6#)
6 Havocs, 170 pts ((C:CSM, pg. 96); Unit Type: Infantry; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Armour; Bolt Pistol x6; Bolter x2; Close Combat Weapon x6; Autocannon x4)

Will there you have it, let me know you guys think. Pics are of my newly re-vamped Raptors and some more shots of my hammer unit, the termies with their ride. Here's hoping that the next Chaos codex is written by Phil Kelly...thats what I'm wishing for anyways

End of of another era....beginning of a new one... oh and Nightlords..

Well, this weekend marked the end of an era at our local FLGS. The manager of the store just let us know that he will be leaving the store for a better job. While I can't blame him for moving on, without a doubt this manager has been one of the better ones we have had at the local store since my buddy Juan. This manager ran campaigns, tournaments, and was just a cool guy to hang out with. I invited him to join us when he can as it would be real shame if we didnt see him again. With him leaving, our April campaign has been cancelled, we did do a single day tourney however as I only had time for one game and only your best scores were taken I dint have a chance. I did tie my game against a Grey Knights player who used some pretty wicked tricks such as giving his dreadknights the scouting ability with his Grand Master, using the ghost terminators with Mordrak, killing my uber wolf lords with his uber paladins, and using the vindicare assassin to take out my invulnerable saves off of my lords. Seems like a fun codex to play and I have been tempted to try my hands on building a Pre-Heresey Thousand Sons army but for now I am content on finishing my dark wolves and playing with finished armies.

I plan on using my Nightlords again but plan on re-doing some of the paint schemes that I had already done. The Nightlords were my first army and as my skill with the brush has improved, whenever I pull them out, I can see the differences between old models and my new ones. I finally am comfortable with painting lightning bolts on their armor and adding in terror markings so I plan on adding these to my army. I am also just like my dark wolves leaving them as specific type of army. What I mean by that, is that they will be my fast attack army (with my dark wolves being a drop pod hero-hammer army)so the theme will follow that with all aspects of the army being able to move quickly, be it by transport, bike, teleport, or jump pack.

I plan on "revealing" a Nightlords list which will utilize a hammer unit in a landraider made of lightning clawed terminators with an icon of Slaanesh. I will post the list up in my next post along with some tactics that I will use in order to run it. During our last campaign, these guys were just fun to use with my Bikes and my Biker lord. Pics are of my newly completed lightning claw termies; I plan on running them as champs so they all have a base of 4 attacks with 2 power fisted termies to act as back up against tougher opponents. I plan on finishing their "ride" this week... A.D.D., here we go again....

Nightlords Campaign - The first games

With the campaign in full swing at my local GW, it was time to test out my list. The first opponent I drew was an imperial guard player. His list contained a Commissar lord as his campaign champion (HQ), veterans in chimera's with melta guns (2), 1 squad of penal legionaires, 2 scout walkers with missile launchers, a squad of snipers, and the heavy hitters, 2 leman battle tanks, a executioner and a normal Leman russ with Lascannon and Heavy bolter sponsons. My first game was going to be a very difficult one as I really only had melta guns to deal with armor 14 tanks. Lucky for me I rolled pretty high for my bonus points and was able to squeeze in a 7 man chosen squad with 2 melta guns.

The table we picked also helped me out a bit as it was full of city terrain, a heck of lot more then your typical 40K game which allowed me to infiltrate the Chosen squad with in 15 inches of his tanks and out of line of sight. I ended up barely winning the game and claiming his campaign champion which gave my champion plus 1+ attack. The MVP's of this game was definitely the chosen which assaulted his scout walkers and pretty much blocked the advance of his Leman Russes for most of the game. The unit that performed the worst was unfortunately my terminator squad. They came on way too late in the game (turn 5 as my reserve rolls were horrible) and though they contested my opponents objective for about a turn, were promptly shot to death by his penal legion and his executioner tank.

For my next series of games, I decided to change up the list and dropped the terminators. Instead since I had access to all 3 of my elite slots due to the rules, I decided to go with an all infiltrating army, basically to play up the Nightlords fluff of being a terror army, an army that utilizes the ambush. I dropped the terminators in favor of 2 full 10 man chosen squads, complete with an aspiring champ with powerfist and 2 melta guns. The plan moving forward was to infiltrate the squads and use them as my vanguard units with my scoring units only being 2 5 man squads in Rhinos. In my next 2 games these units performed just stellar, tying my next game against another imperial guard player (losing by the secondary condition of kill points) and wining against a blood angel player.

I ended up killing the blood angels campaign champion with my Raptor squad (a squad I got with bonus points)who got scout as a veteran ability due to taking down the blood angels champion. Now if Raptors had scout or infiltrate all the time, you would definitely see more of them run. In my next game against a Tau opponent these guys outflanked, took out the 15man Kroot squad screening some piranhas,helped take out 1 piranha, and killed 1 12 man firewarrior squad before getting gunned down. I lost the scouting ability as the squad was lost but they did prove to me that Raptors with the ability to outflank would be very awesome indeed.

Something to think about GW if you wanted to sell lots of Raptor models to Nightlords players when the new Chaos Dex comes out.. So far I'm 3 and 1 in this campaign, surprising to me considering the amount of "new" dex's people are using. But then again the guy winning the campaign so far is 5-0 and is playing Tau. Maybe there is something to the idea of people knowing their armies and how they will always trounce the Codex jumpers....

Nightlords Campaign List #1

So our local GW's Campaign has started last week, as I stated in my last post, I decided to take a Nightlords army, an army which focused on Fast Attack choices...fluffy but not competitive but I really wanted to run something completely different from my opponents and still have some fun. As the point limit is only 1250, I wouldnt be able to take much with my Thousand Sons. I did write up some lists with my Chaos space wolves but again, I really wanted to use an army that nobody would. To my shock, I am the only Chaos Space Marine player in the campaign as there are usually around 2-3 other Chaos players. I decided to try something odd bag, I have always wanted to run Bikes in my army to join my Raptors and thought that this would be the perfect opportunity.

When starting out all armies are allowed only 1 hq, 2 troops, and 1 of everything else. During your first game, you roll for 3 random "properties" which add to your force org. I rolled 3 factories which would allow me to run 3 elites; once you acquire the 4th of the same "property", you may give any unit in that slot a special ability. As I was limited to just 1 fast attack, I went with the bikes to accompany the lord that I would be taking. So without further ado, my Nightlords 1250 Campaign list #1 -

HQ - Valerous Nocturn - Commander of the 13th Nightlords Grand Company
Bike, Daemon Weapon
- My one HQ for this campaign. About a year and a half when the space marine codex came out, I built a chaos lord on a bike as my count as Kossaro Kahn as I wanted to run a complete outflank army. I decided to use him as my Chaos Lord during these series of games. I have run my lord like this before and unless I roll a 1, he is extremely devastating in close combat. I dont put any mark on him as this gives me a strength 5 so I can even go after vehicles if I really wanted to.

Elite - Night lords Terminator squad - (squad of 5)
- In order to help out the bikes as well as my normal squads, I wanted to include an "all rounder" squad that could deep strike anywhere where needed. The good thing about chaos terminators is that the base cost of them is extremely cheap. I wanted to keep the cost down so I am only taking 5, 2 powerfist, 1 reaper autocannon, and 3 normal terminators. As I will have icons on the field, this will make it easier for me to "summon" them on target. I am hoping that they will help out with some anti-tank if need be and if possible to play the part of bait to draw enemy fire while the rest of my army gets in position.

Troops - Nightlords Chaos Marine squad 1-2 (squad of 10 each)
- CSM squads at a base are fairly cheap. They get expensive once you start adding champs and other options so again, I wanted to keep them as inexpensive as possible. Both squads will have 2 melta guns, champs with powerfists, and only one squad will have a Rhino. I wanted to keep both squads at 10 man each in order to help in capturing points and retain my objectives. If I had the points I would give the other squad a Rhino as well, maybe dropping one of the Bikes from my Bike squad would allow me to do this.

Fast Attack - Nightlords CSM Biker squad - (5 in the squad)
- I have wanted to run a bike army for a while now. The new Space marine codex when it first came out made this type of army at least viable with scoring bikes. In the CSM codex, unfortunately Bikers are less then stellar. Yes they have an extra attack but not being scoring and costing almost as much as a rhino each, these guys are just way too expensive. As this is a fun campaign, I wanted to try them anyways so I am running them as bare bones as possible with a champ with a power fist, an icon of khorne to at least make them hit harder, and 1 melta gun for some anti-tank. They will run with my Lord and act as his retinue and act as my quasi-hammer unit.

Heavy Support - Nightlords Havoc squad (8 in the squad)
- In order to provide some support for my army, I decided to pull out my old autocannon havocs. Back in the old Chaos codex, these guys with stealth adept and tank hunters were just too good. Having strength 8 Autocannons against vehicles and being able to pound transports, tanks, etc with 8 shots meant dead vehicles. Though they lost the ability to get veteran skills, 8 strengh 7 shots in a 1250 campaign is nothing to scoff at. These guys can still put the hurt on light transports and even help in mopping up higher toughness infantry squads.

So this is my initial Nightlords Campaign list. As you can see its pretty balanced with a unit showing in each of the force org slots. Before each game, depending on how many "properties" you own, you get to roll dice per property times 6 and add these points as bonus points to your army. If I roll high enough, I plan on adding a basic chosen squad with plasma guns or melta guns to get hopefully an outflank/infiltrate element. I will post pics of the Termies and better pics of my biker lord in my next post. Let me know what you guys think...

Playing the so-called Net list....

Ok, Ok, Ok, so the past few months I have been going on about playing with my pre-hersey Thousand Sons army but lately I got the bug to play my Chaos Space Wolves again, though this army is not completely painted, its about 75% done with only about 20 models left to paint. I am like Bill from the Gamerslounge, I hate playing with an unpainted army. When last I played the army, it had virtually no mech; though its argued I'm playing a so-called net list because of my 3 wolf lords, I have yet to see one played with no mech or drop pods. The 3 wolf list I started playing back before it became all of the rage and due to that rage I found myself not wanting to play it as I hate to be called a power gamer.

The group of friends I play games with are not what you call "power gamers", they are pretty much the beer and pretzel gamer with limited time (only 1 day a week) to indulge in a hobby that they love. I love the atmosphere for this reason as it allows me to take crazy unbalanced lists and still have a good time even though I lose with them. I wanted to try the wolves with drop pods as the times I played with my army, my opponents would concentrate all fire on my wolf lords and by the time they got into combat, they had lost their dog bodyguard and already lost some of their wounds. I figured that by dropping say 2-3 drop pods in turn 1 my opponent would have to concentrate on them thus allowing my wolf lords and my long fangs time to either start taking out vehicles or assaulting squads. In 1750, I could only get about 4 drop pods full of grey hunters so I might try either running cheaper long fangs or cheaper Lords as I want to drop 5 drop pods. We usually play 1750 so that is what I build my lists for.

Last week I played against an Eldar player, playing 1850 points; football (auto tie mission), with spearhead deployment. The eldar player has been using his army for almost 2 years now and has become one of our better players. He runs combination footdar/mech list but for this game he wanted to try something different so he opted for a complete Footdar army complete with 10 Wraithguard.

The game was extremely close and ended in a predicable tie however by all regards, my opponent should have beat me. Was it the power of my codex or my opponent just having bad luck. You want to know what the deal was? I had 2 long fangs squads left, he had practically tabled me and I caused his last scoring unit to run off the table due to the fact my long fangs were able to split fire. No other army has this ability, to be able to do it and for so cheap. I am still trying to learn the army (this being my 5 game with them) but having so close games where I would have lost if I was using any older codex really makes me want GW to finally update all of the codexes to 5th edition. Its no small wonder why Space wolves are so popular. I will probably finish painting the army before I play them again.

Right now as I mentioned in my last post, my local GW is running a month long campaign. I wanted to play chaos as I think my friend will be running his wolves and so I wanted to run something different. I thought about running my Thousand Sons but with a 1250 point limit, I would be really limiting myself in choices. I decided to pull out my old army, my first Chaos army and first army that I had actually finished painting.

I decided to bring out the Nightlords. I will post the list I am running in my next post along with results of my first games with them. It's been about a year since I pulled them out, as this is a fun campaign, it just sounded like fun to use these guys again. Who knows maybe they will surprise everybody like they did when I ran an all raptor kill team during the Kill team tournament we had and actually took 3rd place. Pics are of my Chaos Space wolves, 2 of my Thunder Lords, some dogs, and a grey hunter squad.