Thursday, March 31, 2011

Wolf Guard Terminators - Equipment & Tactics

I briefly touched upon using Wolf Guard Terminators in my previous post about SW elite choices. I mentioned the power armoured versions of them in that post but I wanted to dedicate an entire article to equipping terminators for battle. The most important thing to consider is what you want from your wolf guard. Whilst they're pretty devastating in combat I think you need a balance of firepower and CC prowess to make them truly effective.

A bargain 33pts gets us a basic termie with power weapon and storm bolter. A basic squad of 5 of these will put out 10 S4 AP5 shots and 15 power weapon attacks on the charge. Not bad for 165pts eh? However, there's a ton of other options available to us so let's take a look. 

Shooting Upgrades
In terms of shooting upgrades we've got the option of combi-weapons. Whilst flamers are great I think for most armies you're better taking a mixture of plasma and melta. Your going to be targetting your opponents most threatening units with your termies so leave flamers for units dedicated to general infantry bashing. Meltas are fantastic anti-tank weapons which will help your termies de-mech or weaken enemy units ready for a devastating power weapons charge. Plasma weapons are often overlooked because people worry about the Gets Hot! rule but with a 2+ save you've got a really slim chance of having problems. The benefits easily outweigh the risks in my mind. Once you've fired the single shot weapon you're still getting a boltgun plus you can still assault.

Every 5th terminator can sport a heavy weapon. The most popular choice by far is the cyclone missile launcher. This has a whole host of advantages such as firing two S8 shots per turn as well as being able to fire your storm bolter as well. Bear in mind that the entry for the launcher specifies "in addition to his storm bolter" which says to me that you can't give your cyclone termie a combi-weapon and still fire both. The assault cannon is often overlooked as a choice but it's rending ability can be nasty and wounding troops on 2+ and T6 MCs on 4+ with four shots is certainly worth considering. The other advantage is you get one in the box and don't have to resort to hefty eBay prices for cyclones. The heavy flamer falls into the same category as the combi-flamer in that it doesn't really fit with the role of the unit. Mind you it is pretty cheap at 5pts!

Close Combat Weapons
Now onto the important combat stuff. Our options here are wolf claw, frost weapon, power fist, chainfist and thunder hammer. Bear in mind that the only weapons that can give you an extra attack are a pair of wolf claws so the frost weapon is only of limited use. You're not really going to give them a pair of power fists after all! 

Anyway, we've already discussed that power fists are cheaper than thunder hammers and despite them not being as cool I think they make a better choice. However, for 5 points more than a power fist (i.e. the same as a thunder hammer) you can have a chain fist. This weapon seems to get ignored quite a lot in favour of the appearance of a thunder hammer but the 2D6 armour penetration roll makes it vastly superior. Essentially it's like having melta bombs but used at your normal attacks characteristic!

So we'll ignore hammers and power fists (unless points are tight) in favour of chainfists. This leaves us with frost weapons and wolf claws. The clear winner for me is the wolf claw, being able to re-roll to hit OR wound is really handy and works out better than a frost weapon overall. I quite like them in pairs as 4 attacks that can re-roll is pretty nice and it's only 15pts for the pair. The downside is you lose your shooting but as I've discussed before it's not always advisable for a CC unit to shoot at it's combat target.

Other Upgrades
There are three upgrades I've not covered so I'll quickly mention them here. Mark of the Wulfen is a waste of time on terminators who already get 3 attacks on the charge all of which are power weapon (and for the same points you could have a chainfist). Melta bombs are similarly outclassed by power fists, hammers and especially chainfists. They're also pretty situational and don't really help against walkers since you need a 6 to hit with them.

The only "other upgrade" I'd bother with is the storm shield. At 30pts it's pretty costly but the survivability increase is worth it I reckon. People are going to target your terminators with low AP weaponry and a 3++ save can really put their nose out of joint. This also means you can throw a few power weapon attacks on that model minimising risky 5+ saves. 

Suggested Line-ups
The first thing to consider before selecting a squad is how you're going to get them to where they're needed. Since we can't deep strike and they're too slow on foot we're limited by the transports. For example, if you're choosing a drop pod then ideally you'll have plenty of shooting and at least one storm shield. You'll also be limited to a 5-man squad. The land raider variants allow you slightly larger squads but the points really start to rack up. On that subject it's hard to squeeze terminators into lists below 1,750 without severely limiting your options. Anyway, here's some sample loadouts.

Cheap as Chips
5 Terminators, 4 combi-weapons (2 melta, 2 plas), storm shield, cyclone missile launcher in a Drop Pod - 265pts.

This unit works well in a drop pod army or as a single drop pod first turn strike in a regular army. At 265pts it's only slightly more than an empty land raider. The idea here is that you drop them in next to some IG tanks or SM devastators and let rip with your cyclone and combi-weapons. You then have to weather a torrent of fire which is where the shield comes in handy.

Your opponent has to devote at least some of his force to trying to deal with you before you get to assault next turn so you're buying time for the rest of your force to advance. A well placed drop pod shouldn't scatter far either.

Great distraction unit with a nasty amount of low AP fire and a hefty number of power weapon attacks.


The Middle Ground - "Optimum"
1 Terminator w/ combi-plasma & chainfist
2 Terminators w/ combi-melta & wolf claw
1 Terminator w/ storm shield & wolf claw
1 Terminator w/ cyclone missile launcher, storm bolter & power weapon
in a Land Raider - 505pts


Twice as expensive as the other unit but assuming your raider makes it to your opponent's line unscathed they're going to be lethal. The land raider's lascannons and the missile launcher (or AC if you prefer) will hopefully de-mech the target unit. We've got a squad here that still puts out some serious firepower (5 S8, 2 S7, 4 S4) while also remaining pretty nasty in assault too (12A at I4 and 3 at I1). You can still re-roll to hit OR wound with the claws and the storm shield gives you a bit more survivability. It's a viable choice for any 1,750pt+ army.

If points are tight then drop some of the claws. If you've got points to spare then throw in an extra combi-plasma & claw termie and switch out for a redeemer. Flamestorm cannons are lethal up close, can you say 2+ to kill marines?

Break the Bank
Logan, Arjac, 4 terminators (3 pairs of claws, cyclone) in a LR Redeemer (w/ multi-melta) - 920pts.

Granted you're never going to field this in anything less than 2500pt games (unless you're mad like me) but you should see it in action. It's most certainly a death star. There aren't many units that can even hope to deal with this in combat. The T-L assault cannons in combination with Arjac's hammer and two krak missiles should mean your opponent is well and truly de-meched (although I failed to do it last time I played since Arjac rolled a 1 to hit!).

Charge in and use Living Legend and High King to devastating effect. The former means you'll put out 32 power weapon attacks with the latter allowing you to re-roll to hit. With Logan/Arjac's necklaces and Preferred Enemy you'll get about 25 hits through from the squad. Did I mention the claws guys will be re-rolling to wound too? Without doing the maths I'd say that's going to result in about 20 kills (assuming you use Logan as a frost weapon). Bear in mind Arjac will be going last but that's still probably 15 kills before he even needs to strike.  In your opponent's turn you can make them fearless too!

Now obviously I'm not going to suggest this is a sensible unit to take in a competitive list but it isn't half funny to watch your opponents face when you repeatedly save on Logan and Arjac. I mean the claws in pairs are probably overkill and could be swapped for combi weapons but this unit is about looking cool not being sensible! What I tend to find is Arjac actually survives longer than Logan as he can't be targetted separately. Not that I'm complaining as who doesn't love 5 S10 hammer attacks on the charge??

Conclusions
Unless you're going for the often listed "Loganwing" army your terminators will probably be limited to a single unit. Their main role is to target your opponent's big expensive units and make a mess of them. Whenever you plonk a land raider on the table your opponent will probably throw everything he has into destroying it meaning the rest of your army is pretty much free to do as they please.

The important thing with any combat unit is the ability to de-mech. Combi-weapons, in conjunction with LR weaponry, are the order of the day and can be pretty nasty if your opponent's troops aren't lucky enough to be inside a metal coffin. Remember that you're only getting a single shot from each weapon though so use them wisely. 

I'll try and post up about my combi-weapon conversions when I can. There's already some great guides out there though. Again I hope this has been helpful in helping you make your choices. I think the take home messages here are chainfists are good and storm shields add durability. Oh and that Logan and Arjac in a single unit is obscene!

Friday, March 25, 2011

Blog Wars - Sunday 5th June 2011 - Confirmed!

Had an email from Maelstrom yesterday and Blog Wars is now officially confirmed for Sunday 5th June 2011. So far I've had just over 20 people express an interest in attending so at least we'll all get different opponents for our 3 games. Anyway, I'm away this weekend but once I'm back I'll sort out ticketing for the event and try and put some sort of PDF together as an event pack. As mentioned on the page I've decided to go for a £15 entry. £7.50 of this goes on the food for the day and the rest will be put into the prize pot. Tickets will be available via PayPal and if, for any reason, the event doesn't go ahead I'll happily refund every penny.

I've booked enough tables for 40 gamers so there's still space for more people. I hope we can get somewhere close to this number as then we can get some really juicy prizes for the winner of the tournament and various awards. 

I've had an email asking if Imperial Armour (Forge World) armies will be allowed at this event. I have to say I'm not familiar with IA armies so I wouldn't know whether or not this would be acceptable. Feel free to let me know your opinions on it but if I don't have a strong (and reasonable) objection to it then I don't see why not. This is meant to be a friendly tournament after all. 

Thanks again to all those people who have posted about it. I very much appreciate your help in spreading the word. The more people who find out about this the better the prizes will be. Remember I'm not going to be making ANY money from this so it's all prize fund! 

Finally, I need your help. There's going to be prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd plus a prize for best painted army. I'd like there to be some other awards too e.g. Most Crushing Victory and Slimmest Margin of Victory but since these are all a bit standard I'm open to suggestions. I'd love to do something to award the best Special Character in both painting/conversion and table top performance. Feel free to comment/email with your suggestions for other awards.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Bjorn & Friends - Dreadnought Lists (1750 pts)

After writing yesterdays post about the elite choices, I was left thinking about how much I like dreadnoughts. Matt played Scott at the weekend and fielded a list with three dreadnoughts in it. Granted it's easier for BA to field dreads but ours are no less fun to use. I decided to see how easy it would be to write lists with dreads in them. Not promising they're competitive but here's what I came up with:

1750pts of Space Wolves
Bjorn the Fell-Handed
Rune Priest (Chooser, Jaws, Lightning)
Rune Priest (Necklace, Hurricane, Jaws)
Rune Priest (Talisman, Lightning, Hurricane)

3x Dreadnought (H. Flamer, Necklace) in Drop Pod

3x 9 Grey Hunters (Melta, PF, Wulfen, Standard) in Rhinos
Pretty short list! Obviously Bjorn the Fell-Handed is a must in any Wolves army featuring dreads and it means technically I could field it at Blog Wars in June. Each Grey Hunter squad gets a Rune Priest so there's going to be a lot of cancelled powers for your opponent. Two of the dreads drop in during turn 1 and try and pick on some juicy targets whilst the third will be in reserve to keep your opponent guessing. Bjorn will march in behind the rhinos to add some punch to the hunters efforts.

There's notable things missing from this list such as long fangs but I'm sure the dreads can deal with most things. The grey hunters are more than capable of de-meching their opponents anyway. There's a surprising amount of killpoints (16) in this list due to all the transports. Makes me wonder if I could get away with less of them...

1750pts of Space Wolves
Bjorn the Fell-Handed
Rune Priest (Talisman, Lightning, Jaws)

3x Dreadnought (H. Flamer, Necklace)
4x 9 Grey Hunters (Melta, Wulfen, Standard) in Rhinos

5 Long Fangs (4x MLs)
Whirlwind

Not a million miles away from the first list but a little bit more varied. The hunters have lost their power fists but with four DCCWs knocking around I think they'll be OK. The long fangs and whirlwind add a bit of assistance against hordes and big squads of guard etc. Still a good bit of psychic defence in there and plenty of firepower.

I've only actually managed to lose 1 KP after all that but still a more interesting list I think. I did like the idea of a Logan/Bjorn list with everything being a dreadnought or tactical dreadnought (terminator) with a couple of land raiders but it's far too difficult to squeeze it into 1750pts.

I'm very tempted to make this my list for Blog Wars. Whilst the core of the army (greys/RP/fangs) is pretty standard I think the rest makes up for it by being a bit more off the wall. As I've mentioned before very few people seem to rate the whirlwind but I think because of this people will tend to ignore it in favour of shooting the rhinos. Only problem with using this list is I'll need to buy 3 more dreads.....

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Space Wolves Elites Choices

As Space Wolves players we're pretty spoilt for choice in most sections of the Force Organisation Chart. However, in some sections the choice is pretty clear, I'm looking at you Grey Hunters. The Elites slot is probably the most difficult one to decide upon as there isn't, to my mind, a clear winner. As with any army list decision it's important to pick the units that best reflect your style of play. Therefore, you've got to understand the roles of each of the Elite units in order to make your decision. Hopefully this post will go some way to clearing that up.

Wolf Guard
This is by far the popular choice as it's pretty clear to see the role of Wolf Guard in a Space Wolves force. Whilst some people like to take units of power armoured WG I don't really see the call for it. They can make a nice escort for a valuable HQ such as Ragnar but they're quite a bit more expensive and they lose some of the flexibility of Grey Hunters. Don't get me wrong I salivate at the idea of Ragnar and his Wolf Guard charging out of a Land Raider with 6 attacks each (with a good Insane Bravado roll) but for cost you lose meltaguns and Wolf Standards.
Anyway, back to the point, the PA versions are best employed as Pack Leaders for your other units. As I've mentioned before a WG with PF & combi-melta is only 3 points more than a hunter with a PF and has more attacks. The other obvious benefit is he makes the squad Ld 9 which can come in handy. Remember that you can have a mixture of TDA and PA armoured wolf guard in a squad so you can easily add a couple in. It's also worth bearing in mind that the minimum number in a squad is 3 so by taking the PF/combi guys you almost have to have 3 grey hunter squads (unless you stick one with the long fangs). 

Terminators are the other choice and I'll discuss wargear and upgrade choices another time. The main issue with terminators is you have to have a method of getting them into the thick of it since we can't teleport them. The options are limited to Land Raider or Drop Pod. This comes back to what you want the squad for and your points limit. A unit of terminators in a raider is going to set you back 500pts which is a significant chunk of any army. However, I think this is the better option than the pod. In my opinion, terminators are used best when they're hammering a unit with power weapon attacks in combat. Very few opponents are going to ignore a unit of terminators who've just podded in and therefore you're unlikely to make it into combat at full strength. Bite the bullet and take the raider I reckon.

Dreadnought
There are two flavours of dreadnought available to us, namely Venerable and regular. The Venerable dread provides a little bit more survivability but if your opponent is rolling on the damage chart then no result is brilliant and I think 60pts is too much to spend for the other upgrades. Stick with the regular dread.
A lot of people seem to like the rifleman dread but personally I'd prefer my dread to be smashing faces with his DCCW. I think it's worth the 10pts for the heavy flamer as the storm bolter is normally ineffective and incinerating squads of guard or hordes of orks/nids is satisfying. I'm happy to leave the assault cannon on there as it's got a wide range of benefits. It can make a mess of vehicles (even AV14), wounds most troops on 2s and will normally be overlooked when your opponent gets a weapon destroyed result. Finally, if you can spare the points throw in a Wolftooth Necklace. This can really help against squads of marines as you've only got a limited number of attacks in the first place. It can make it more likely for you to get a sweeping advance.

Dreadnoughts in pods make great distractions. If you can afford it they're much better than dreads slogging it on foot (unless you have several). Get them in on the rear armour of a tank that's hammering your grey hunters or kill (or at least tie up) a heavy weapons team. The pods ability to deploy accurately can allow you to incinerate units easily with your heavy flamer too.

Iron Priest
Like the Techmarine in a Space Marine army, it's difficult to see the role of the Iron Priest. Some people mount him on a thunderwolf he'll be quickly dispatched with that single wound. The ability to repair vehicles isn't really brilliant as he's going to struggle to reach them (unless he's on a bike). The thrall-servitors would be more tempting as heavy weapons guys if they weren't BS 3. In short he loses out when you compare him to the other choices for this slot on the FOC.

Wolf Scouts
I've talked about the benefits of these guys before so here I'll talk about an option that never seems to find it's way into lists. The main advantage of our scouts over normal SM ones is they have BS4. Therefore a squad of 10 all with sniper rifles becomes quite tempting at 180pts. Infiltrate them into the centre of the field or use their Scout move to get them into decent cover and sit back popping targets with them. They're likely to get overlooked next to your grey hunters as well. Throw in a missile launcher and you can even have a pop at light vehicles (combining the rending from sniper rifles too).

Lone Wolf
I've always like the fluff on these guys and it amazes me that we don't see more of them in battles. Granted I rarely use them mind you! A lone wolf can add some much needed punch to other units (although he can't join them). For example a unit of grey hunters being attacked by a tyranid MC might struggle but charge in a thunder hammer lone wolf behind them and you're turning the tables. For 85pts you can have terminator armour, hammer and shield. Makes him pretty durable and he packs.

Conclusion
I hope this post has encouraged people to think outside the box a little bit with their Elites choices. As I've said I'm a big fan of the lone wolves and dreads. Wolf guard are great but sometimes surprising your opponent with something hasn't played against countless times can be just as effective.

Speaking of thinking outside the box, check back tomorrow because I'm going to post up a list I'd like to try out (if I had the cash!).

Friday, March 18, 2011

Well that was unexpected!

On Wednesday I updated the page for Blog Wars and I've had an amazing response so far! I've added everyone that has either commented or emailed to say they'd like to attend. If I've missed anyone then either comment here or email me.

I've also tried to link everyone's blog and also add them to my blog roll. Again if I've missed anyone or mislinked you let me know. I've got a hell of a lot more things to read every day now!!

With regards to the event itself I'm going to go ahead and email Maelstrom to book SUNDAY 5TH JUNE as the date for the event. I apologise in advance for it being a Sunday as I know this isn't ideal for most people. However, I was keen to avoid it slipping into the Summer holidays as I reckon that would cause more problems. If anyone has issues getting there perhaps we can figure something out between us all so that as many as possible can attend.

On the advice of a few of you I'm going to suggest £15 as the ticket price. As I've said on the page this means that if we get 20 people we'll have a £150 prize pot once food has been paid for. That means prizes for 1st, 2nd & 3rd along with others such as Best Painted etc. 
I'll announce how you can get tickets once the date is locked in. Until then keep spreading the word and we'll see what happens. Thanks again for the response. I was a little worried about planning this thing because I thought people wouldn't be interested but I'm pleased to say I was wrong! Looks like I'm going to have to get some stuff painted before June.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

More Details for Blog Wars

Just a very quick update to point out that I've added a few more details to the Blog Wars page (see the tab on the top right) and I've tidied it up a bit too. It's looking like Maelstrom will be the best option since their venue is free and the can offer reasonably priced catering too.
For those of you not familiar with the concept, basically I'm planning on hosting an inter-blog tournament so that members of the blogging community can come together and put some faces to names. Anyone is welcome to attend and once we've got some confirmed details I'll be posting them up and starting to sell tickets. These should hopefully be as cheap as possible!

Any questions or suggestions feel free to contact me using the link on the right.

Know Thy Enemy - Part 3: Chaos Space Marines

Been a while since I've posted but I thought I'd finally get round to writing another post in this series. Well so far we've done a xenos army and an Imperial army so it's about time the traitors got a look in. Time then to look at the Chaos Space Marines and see what they've got that we need to worry about.

The Basics
The CSM codex is one of the older books that is still very playable in 5th edition. There's rumours abound that we'll be treated to a new codex with the supposed 6th edition release. However, let's see what they've got to offer in their current guise. Like the Space Wolves they've got decent basic troops that have both bolter and a pair of CC weapons (although they are slightly more expensive than our greys).

Although some people theme their armies to followers of a particular Chaos god i.e. Thousand Sons, Khorne Berserkers or Plague Marines. Most armies will be a mixture of all four, combining the strengths of each.

Strengths and Weaknesses
As I've mentioned the basic troops are pretty nice on their own with Ld 10, bolter and pair of CC weapons on top of the normal marine statline they're pretty reliable. The strength of a CSM army lies in the other Troops options though. Some of these can seem like immovable objects at times and all are very capable in combat. 

Like any Space Marine army all their units are pretty hardy and will stand up to quite a lot of punishment. With some units being fearless and the rest having high leadership you're unlikely to make them run either.

Their main weakness is their cost. Whilst they have similar options to the loyalist Space Marine armies the same unit can be more expensive in a CSM army. This means that against a SW army you're likely to outnumber them. Don't be fooled though because high Ld and some very robust troops means that it won't seem like you have an advantage.

Most units seem like they're more expensive but are actually slightly better than their loyalist counterparts. Chaos Havocs for example are 15pts base (like long fangs) but their weapons are more expensive i.e. 20pts for a missile launcher and 35pts for a lascannon. However, even with a heavy weapon they still have two CC weapons so they'll have more chance of surviving an assault.

The other notable weakness is a lack of psychic defence. Their sorcerers don't have a psychic hood (or equivalent) but then they do have some nasty powers to make up for it.

5 Units to Watch Out For
1. OBLITERATORS
Two wound terminators that are equipped with a range of heavy/special weapons and can choose which to fire. Sounds pretty nasty eh? They aren't cheap but with that amount of flexibility and the ability to deep strike it's difficult to see why your opponent wouldn't take them! They can choose from lascannon, multi-melta, plasma cannon, twin-linked plasma/melta/flamer. This means they're a threat at range and up close too.

Did I mention they've also got powerfists and 2A base just in case their firepower isn't enough?

2. DAEMON PRINCE 
Of the variety of HQ choices available the Daemon Prince seems to be the most popular and it's easy to see why. For a start they've got a really nice model but on the table they're pretty nasty. Monstrous creatures with WS7, 4 attacks at S6 and four wounds at T5.

Most people take them with wings and lash of submission. This basically means they can move like jump troops and pull units towards them before charging in and making a mess of them.
3. KHORNE BERSERKERS
Khorne Berserkers are pretty deadly in combat. They've got WS5, 2 attacks base (4 on the change) and with Furious Charge not much will survive being assaulted by them. A 10 man squad will put out 40 S5 attacks on the charge! Fearless means you'll struggle to pick them off before being charged too!

They're often taken in rhinos with a skull champion bearing a power fist (with 3 base attacks!). Makes for a pretty expensive unit at 285pts but they don't usually struggle to pay for themselves.

4. THOUSAND SONS
Another hefty Troops choice comes in the form of Thousand Sons. Anyone familiar with the SW fluff will know that these guys should be our sworn enemies as wolf players! They're a shooty unit that isn't particularly great in combat but their main advantages are their Inferno Bolts (AP3) and the combination of 3+/4++ save with fearless means you won't shift them easily. Even if you charge them with a full unit of hunters or terminators you'll still be chewing through them a few turns later!

A squad of 10 in a rhino will cost a minimum of 312pts which means you won't face many of them though. They're not very maneuvrable with their Slow and Purposeful either so you'll most likely see them hugging objectives.

5. ABADDON THE DESPOILER
The behemoth of the Chaos Space Marine army, Abaddon is a combat monster who will deal with pretty much anyone in combat. He's got 2+/4++ armour, 4 wounds at T5 (with Eternal Warrior), upto 11 power weapon attacks on the charge at S8 and I6 which can re-roll to wound. Pretty nasty eh? He's not totally unstoppable but he'll still cause you a LOT of problems.

He'll normally be accompanied by a squad of terminators as an escort and probably in a land raider to give him the devastating charge.

OTHER NOTABLE UNITS
Plague marines are one of the most durable units in the game with T5 and Feel No Pain not to mention their defensive grenades mean you'll lose your charge bonus. The Defiler can put out a punishing amount of firepower and fights like a dreadnought in combat. Chaos Terminators aren't all that different to their loyalist equivalent but are always nasty and can be equipped with a good variety of weapons.

How to beat them with Space Wolves
Like any other MEQ army you've got to make them take as many armour saves as you can or hit them with low AP weaponry. Although a lot of their units are hard to shift most of them can be ignored until you've dealt with the main threats. They'll rely on transports to get their berserkers and thousand sons into range just like you will so it's a good idea to have your long fangs de-meching them as soon as you can. Berserkers aren't all that durable out in the open so concentrate some fire on them to reduce the impact of their charge. Like BA they rely on getting the charge to be truly deadly so if you can prevent this they'll not be as lethal.

Your rune priests should be pretty effective at shutting down their daemon princes and sorcerers and it's important that you position them to cover as much of the field as possible. Use your long fangs to soften up the daemon princes so you've got a better chance against them in combat. They'll ordinarily only have a 5+ invuln. save so krak missiles should deal with them nicely. 

Similarly, make obliterators take as many saves from S8 weapons as possible as they'll suffer instant death if they roll a 1 from krak missiles. Lascannons should be pretty effective at evaporating them! Since there's likely to be deep striking terminators try to ensure your obvious targets are well protected from this kind of attack.

Abaddon can be pretty tricky to deal with but the likes of Logan will provide an interesting match up!

Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Grey Knights on Advance Order

GW have announced that the new Grey Knights codex with a few new plastic sets. The knights and terminators boxes look very similar in design to the SW ones in that they're the same price and contain tons of parts that will make for plenty of conversions.

I'll be interested to see the dread knights in action. They're an awesome model and will be a striking presence on the table. Matt has a small DH force that I'm sure he'll bolster with the new codex.

I hope now they've got another marine army out of the way they might give my Tau a look in. I've been pretty impressed with the 5th codexes and I include Tyranids in this. The miniatures GW are making at the moment are absolutely gorgeous. I'm a big fan of plastic kits as they make conversions easy and you end up with unique looking armies rather than a horde with 3 different variants.

I think it's a great time to be involved in this hobby of ours and I just hope my wallet can take it. I'm currently flogging some of my Eldar stuff on ebay and hopefully after my wedding I'll be able to look into another army.

Anyway, for full details of the new Grey Knights, which will come out early April, head to the GW site and play spin the dreadknight there! Oh and get those rune weapons ready and practice rolling 4+ because nearly EVERY unit in the Grey Knight army can use a psychic power!!

Friday, March 04, 2011

It begins! - Blog Wars Draft Details are up!

The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed that I've added a new link on the right of the tabs at the top of the page. In there you'll find my first draft of the plans for the fledgeling tournament. I'm hoping I'll get a lot of input from other bloggers about what they want from the tournament. Any reasonable suggestion will be considered. Have a read of them now and see what you think.

As yet I've not got a confirmed date or venue for it but hopefully I'll be able to figure something out in the not too distant future. This page is the place to refer people to if you want to invite them to the tournament. Any help from anyone is appreciated and the more people spread the word the bigger it will grow into something the blogging community can be proud of.

I hereby throw down the gauntlet! If you think you're a better 40K gamer than anyone else in the blogosphere then put your miniatures where your mouth is and prove it in battle! If you've read the wall of text on the Blog Wars page and you're still interested then email me with your interest and I'll keep you posted when there's an update to the details. I'll reiterate that this thing will only be successful if people spread the word through their blogs. Let's see what we can achieve as a group of geeks who don't think it's enough to just play the game so they have to ramble about it online as well!

I look forward to meeting all of you and hopefully crushing your pitiful army beneath my Space Wolves blue-grey boots!

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Battle of the Bloggers: Blog Wars 2011

After a brief discussion in the comment form of one of Sons of Sanguinius' posts we came up with the idea of having a tournament between the writers of the 40K blogs to determine once and for all (or at least for this year) who is the mightiest blogger of them all! I can tell you now that it won't be me! 

So when and where then? Well, since I've got a busy couple of months ahead of me in the lead up to my wedding at the end of April I doubt it will be happening before the end of May (when I get back from honeymoon) but I'm already excited at the idea of it. 

The premise is simple. We arrange a date at some point in the not too distant future and invite as many bloggers as we can think of to Warhammer World (or Maelstrom/wherever if it works out easier) and have a blogger battle royale! I think we need to come up with something a bit different to the normal tournament format, to keep things interesting, but suffice to say it will certainly generate content aplenty for our blogs and hopefully encourage a bit of friendly rivalry between us all! Since this will be a blogging community project I'm totally open to ideas for any aspect of it and I don't for a second claim that this was my idea! 

I'm keen to keep costs to a minimum if at all possible. There may be a problem with this if we actually get enough people interested though. Venues tend to allow you to book a few tables for free but as soon as it goes about half a dozen then they start charging. For example WHW is free for 5-10 tables (i.e. 10-20 competitors) and then for 11-20 tables they want £100. Mind you, I'm sure that if there were 40 of us we'd be happy to throw in £2.50 to cover the hire. 

The alternative to making it totally free is to just cover costs. For example if we can get some food for £5 a head, the venue for £2.50 a head and charge everyone say £15 then we'd be able to have a prize fund with which to supply some prizes for the winners and other notable achievements. 

Who knows, if the first event is a success then maybe we can expand it and make it a regular part of the tournament scene. However, to keep it from ending up like all the other tournaments perhaps we should have different army requirements to normal? If it were up to me then we'd have a single Special Character as a compulsory requirement or perhaps limits on the number particular types of unit or any other ideas the community can come up with!

After losing From The Warp as a unifying force in the 40K blogosphere I think it'd be good to do something like this to keep us working together.

So I'll throw it open to the blogging community. Tell your friends about the proposal and we'll start coming up with some ideas for it. Feel free to comment here and/or email me (using the link on the right) and we'll pool our ideas. Let me know what you think about venue, prizes, scenarios to play, points limits, themes and anything else that springs to mind. Oh and can someone with a bit more artistic talent (and better drawing software), come up with a much better logo than I've made!!

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