Rebel Aces Expansion for X-wing Announced

Hot on the heels of the wave 4 announcement. Fantasy Flight have posted up details of the new Rebel Aces expansion pack. This appears to be in a similar vein to the Imperial Aces pack which I believe should be in shops round about now. Like the Imperial equivalent the ships featured are existing models but they're sporting alternative paint schemes which is a nice touch to give your squadrons some variety. Unlike the Imperial Aces pack, however, this new Rebel version features two different ships, namely an A-wing and a B-wing.

As a predominantly Rebel player I'll be compelled to buy this set no matter what but from the looks of the pilots and extra rules it brings I'll want it anyway. I'm impressed with the way FFG does things when it comes to announcing their new sets way ahead of time. I wish GW would learn a thing or two from them. Just because I know it's coming more than a week before it actually appears doesn't stop me from wanting it the second it comes out!

Mind you, I wish FFG could replicate GW's supply chain as they're ships seem eternally out of stock and their release dates seem sketchy at best. Still I'll certianly pick one of these sets up when I can get my hands on one. In the mean time head over to the FFG site to read their run-down

The State of 40K - Imperial Knights and Pick 'n' Mix

It can't have escaped your notice that we'll be getting a new big model towards the end of the month in the form of the Imperial Knight. Now I'm sure all of those ad mech fans out there will be excited. For me the leak brings mixed emotions.

On the one hand I'm always excited about new models and new rules and I'd love to get an Imperial Knight to use with my Space Wolves and Dark Angels. The rules look interesting and frankly I think they're a bargain (points-wise at least) for a 6 HP SHW. It seems a lot of people don't share my view and seem to think they're overpriced but I really don't understand this. Perhaps their ranged weaponry isn't stellar but stripping 6 HP from a super heav model with a 4++ save (most of the time) is going to be tricky. Compare this to a Stompa, which also has a destroyer close combat weapon, and you can see how reasonable the price is. The Ork behemoth has 12 HP but (assuming there aren't meks inside) it has no real defence. The Knight on the other hand has that 4++ save which gives it effectively 12 HP most of the time. The Stompa undoubtedly has more firepower but with BS2 and Whirr-Click-Click there's the potential for failure. The big difference, and the sticking point for me, is that it appears you can take them as part of pretty much any Imperial army without them being Lords of War.

The fluff player in me has no issue with this. Why wouldn't a SM chapter master seek assistance from the mechanicum in the form of some Knights? There's no reason any Imperial army wouldn't field them (that I can think of anyway). This is always the way GW sell new units to us. They fluff comes first or so they'd have us believe. I can understand this too. To me there are two reasons why 40K is so successful, the stunning miniatures and the deep, rich backstory. That's what sets it apart from the other systems. It certainly isn't the competitive ruleset that has people coming back for more. Of course they want to sell us some models so that fluff comes in handy for them to persuade Imperial players to buy these new models. Sometimes the fluff is a bit of an own goal for them too. Tyranids not being able to take allies is the most obvious example. Makes sense from the fluff but not from a business sense. Still as I say, I'm excited about the Knight and getting to use one in my army.

On the other hand, I'm waiting for them to be abused. There's a part of me that's a competitive player so I'm not going to sit and whinge about the deathstars and other things considered dirty by the community at large. In fact, Knights, like other super heavies are a potential counter to a lot of the power lists out there. I have little problem with people taking the rules of the game and using them to full advantage. Of course, I find it dull to see so many people using the same thing and reducing a codex to a list of "must haves". It's the nature of the game though I'm afraid. Do I enjoy playing with or against deathstars? Nope. Would it stop me using them in a competitive environment. Possibly but the main thing for me is fun. If a list is boring to play with or against I don't care how good it is. Anyway, I'm getting off topic.

The issue I have with all of these releases is that they put me in a difficult position as a TO. The Imperial armies are increasingly allowed to play pick 'n' mix with whatever the hell they want to choose from half a dozen codices plus a pile of supplements, dataslates and Imperial Armour. The fluff player in me sighs when I think of Eldrad, Coteaz and Tigurius all fighting alongside each other with a Revenant in tow. It's great to have such a wealth of variety available but it's hardly a level playing field. I want to love the allies system but I can't persuade myself to run a list with allies very often. To me it makes players lazy. Is your army struggling to beat another race? Don't worry about trying to find a solution in your own codex, just throw in some crap from elsewhere to plug the holes. So as a TO do I ban a lot of these extra units and only allow units from a specified list of codices? I had no issue banning Escalation and Stronghold Assault but I don't want to start needing a list of "books" that are allowed or not.

Between now and Blog Wars 7 I'll be looking at all of the new releases closely and trying to keep on top of things. Let me know what you guys think though.

News - X-wing Wave 4 Ships Announced!

I may be pretty new to this game but I'm still pretty excited about the new ships. I'm not hugely keen on the big ships (Tantive and Rebel Transport) that they're about to release because they're simply too big for the 3'x3' board we play on. Maybe we'll progress to a bigger arena later but for now I'm happy to be able to play on the dining room table. Luckily for us, Fantasy Flight announced yesterday that the second quarter of 2014 will see four brand new ships for the game. Here they are:

I haven't had chance to fully digest their rules and what they'll mean for the game but here's a quick rundown taken from the FFG site. For more information visit the FFG website for the full preview.

• The Z-95 Headhunter enters the Rebel fleet as an extremely efficient missile platform, better enabling the Alliance to match Imperial forces ship-for-ship.
• The TIE defender is a straight-forward fighter with strong shields, weapons, agility, and a maneuver never before seen on a dial.
• The E-wing pairs the X-wing’s firepower and resilience with the A-wing’s speed and agility.
• TIE phantom pilots rely upon the ship’s unique cloaking device to evade enemy fire and pounce upon their foes with their deadly laser cannons.

Matt will be picking up the Imperial Aces expansion when it comes out so hopefully we'll get to put the new pilots to the test soon.

Here's hoping FFG keep up this release schedule to help bring variety to my games of X-wing. Exciting stuff.

If you haven't tried X-wing yet I seriously recommend it. There's lots of content on YouTube about how the game works including Will Wheaton featuring it in his board games series, Table Top (although he does get a couple of things wrong!).

The Rapidly Changing Face of 40K

The last month has been pretty mental with the number of changes that have taken place in this game of ours. To say there's been a mixed reception to these changes is somewhat of an understatement. For anyone who's somehow not heard about them, here's a quick list:

• Inquisition codex
• Formations/Dataslates
• Stronghold Assault
• Escalation

Each of these things has changed or will change the way 40K is played in a big way. Whether they're an improvement or not is another matter. I want to get something out of the way before I go any further though. Games Workshop want to sell you models. They're a business. They want to make money and keep their shareholders happy. Could they go about that in a more customer friendly way? Almost certainly. The problem is that what they're doing works. In a struggling economy they're still posting healthy profits for a company of their size. The game and its rules will always be secondary to the sale of models. They playtest the rules to a point but clearly not as thoroughly as we'd like. You can try to convince yourself that they're stupid and don't understand their player base. On the contrary, they know exactly what will make us buy models.

With that out of the way let's look at the new additions to the game and how they affect things.

Inquisition Codex

There's a lot of fuss about this because essentially it created an extra detachment that quite a large number of armies could employ. Most people will take one look at Coteaz and think "yep I could use that". He's probably the most useful thing in there and what army couldn't use a re-roll to Seize, access to more Divination and option to fire at reserves coming down near him. He was already an awesome character in the GK book and Matt has used him with decent success at singles events and also alongside my Wolves in doubles play. The Inquisition Codex allows you to just take him in your list for 100pts with no obvious penalty.

Of course there's plenty of other options in there but he's the standout entry. What's a shame is that a lot of the stuff is just a copy/paste from the GK book. There's nothing especially new to get excited about. Essentially the book boils down to "hey look I can take an inquisitor in my Eldar army without having to pay for any troops and I can still have my Tau allies too!".

The fluffy player in me loves the idea of an inquisitor joining the fight against some daemonic horde but would he really show up against Orks (depending on his Ordo)? The tournament player in me is saddened too. Supplements and allies have already offered enough loopholes for people to essentially just bring whatever they want (unless your play Tyranids). The Inquisition book just takes this a step further and potentially paves the way for similar nonsense. In summary, exciting from a fluff perspective, frustrating competitively.

Formations/Dataslates

When GW announced the big boxed sets of miniatures offering big discounts I was certainly suprised and excited. I couldn't resist buying the Stormwing (although it's still wrapped in celophane at the minute). With the Black Library advent calendar they've also introduced rules for these things as "formations". This isn't a new idea, it's straight out of Apocalypse. Essentially by taking the models specified in the formation the units get a bonus special rule or two. This isn't especially game breaking but it does allow you to take these formations as separate detachments meaning you bypass the FOC quite drastically.

I'm not hugely concerned by this, sure it messes some things up but generally I don't think it's too big of a deal.

Dataslates are a nice way of introducing new units into the older codices but they do feel a bit like video game DLC. You're left wondering why they couldn't have just put them in the book in the first place.

Stronghold Assault

You can now take several fortifications per FOC slot and there are a few extra upgrades that weren't previously available. The big one that everyone is talking about is the Void Shield. Essentially a protective bubble to minimise the affects of alpha strike. I'm not sure it's as amazing as people think but even so it's the most significant thing in the book. I'm intrigued to see what the model looks like when they eventually release it.

The main thing about this book for me is that there's some new content here. Unlike the other three "expansions" listed in this post the Stronghold Assault book isn't just a copy/paste from another existing book.





Escalation

Last but certainly not least, Escalation is what everyone on the 40K internet seems to be clammering about. There are multiple shouts of "this breaks the game", "40K just isn't playable at tournaments" or "they just want to flog you a Revenant". To an extent all three of which are true.

Essentially, Escalation lets you take a super-heavy in a normal 40K list. There's something missing amongst most of the whining on the internet though. The big question for me is why was this book even necessary? The content is mostly straight out of the Apoc book and if you wanted to use super-heavies then go right ahead and play Apocalypse with other like-minded types. Some are arguing that the inclusion of super-heavies and, more importantly, D-weapons is as a counter to the re-rollable invulnerable save lists we're seeing more and more. Of course they are indeed an excellent counter but as someone pointed out in the comments section of Faeit212 it does feel like a "swallowed a spider to catch the fly" scenario.

The one game of apocalypse I've played (but never quite managed to write up on here) taught me about how powerful a Revenant can be. It was the only super-heavy to survive our game having taken out two stompas (with a little help) in a single turn. I love the model but I'd be less than happy to see one across the table from me.

Those in favour of Escalation say that people are only complaining because their power gamer net-list doesn't work any more. They're saying that people only don't like it because they can no longer bring a dirty combination and walk through a tournament. Whilst there's probably an element of truth to this I do think that attitude is somewhat naive. Deathstars like Screamer-council, Farsight bomb, etc are mostly despised because they take little skill to use and make for a boring game. How exactly are super-heavies going to be different in that regard? Obviously the most problematic is the Revenant but when there's already a good chunk of people using Eldar at the moment it won't be long before we start seeing the wraithknight proxy for a Revenant at permissive tournaments.

I'm all for variety in games. I hated the end of 5th edition when all you seemed to play was Grey Knights, I hated played Screamers/Flamers from the WD update, Necron air, etc. The point is though that there'll always be something. Those with apparently limitless disposable income will think nothing of buying a Revenant to win events that allow them.

Conclusion
My main problem with all of these "new" additions is that they simply aren't that new. Sure there's new content here and there but for the most part it just feels like Apocalypse stuff creeping into 40K. There's the potential for hugely varied games against a wide variety of opponents. Will we see Harridans, Stompas, Baneblades, Tiger Sharks, Tesseract Vaults, etc. in equal number? Of course not. As with everything in competitive 40K the best combination will be quickly discerned, posted online and repeated ad nauseum. At the moment Stronghold Assault looks alright but it won't belong before some combination is discovered that makes people sigh.

Like anything else, there are counters to Lords of War. Massed melta fire can do enough damage to bring them down but that's assuming you survive long enough to shoot. Part of the "balance" in 40K comes from armies not being able to counter one thing without leaving themselves vulnerable to another.

Games Workshop are trying to sell you models. There's no doubt these new additions will shift units. The problem with 40K is actually the people who play it. I'm not going to sit and pretend I'm not one of them. I've taken dirty lists to tournaments in the past, rarely the current in-thing but still pretty nasty. The way 40K is written there are always going to be rock/paper/scissors matchup.

My problem is going to be trying to decide how the hell to rule on everything for Blog Wars. In the six weeks since Blog Wars 6 the game is almost unrecognisable from what it was! Any input on that discussion will be gratefully received. More on how I'm intending to tackle BW7 in a later post though.

Games Workshop Christmas Bundles

I may have criticised GW in the past for their patronising 1-click bundles which gave the impression of a bulk buy discount but actually cost the same as everything individually. This time though they're doing it right and it only seemed fair to acknowledge that for a change.

In case you haven't seen them yet GW are doing some bundle packs for Christmas. Unlike the 1-click collections these all come in a single box and actually offer a decent discount. There are three for fantasy but obviously I'm more interested in the three for 40K. Element Games are doing 20% off them and all but the Stormwing will give you free shipping (orders over £80 qualify).

Astartes Stormwing

This contains two stormtalons and a stormraven and comes in at £85. Obviously that's still a decent chunk of cash but the models individually would cost you £105. The key thing is that any player thinking about starting a Space Marine army might actually want these models. In the past the battleforces and megaforces we've seen contain models that aren't wanted by most players e.g. the vyper in the Eldar battleforce. However, stormtalons and a stormraven are actually a great addition to a SM force. These appear to be available through your FLGS which for me means 20% off. That means I can pick up the set for £68 which effectively gives me just over 35% off the RRP.

Of the three bundles this is the one that tempts me most as I may actually get use out of these. I was having a self enforced ban on buying 40K models until I'd painted more stuff but this might just tip me over the edge.

Tau Empire Firebase Support Cadre

You might think I'd be tempted by this bundle too but I'd be too tempted to build all the broadsides up as HYMP suits and I've vowed never to use them! Anyway, this set contains a riptides and six broadsides for £175. That's not small change but if you were starting a Tau army then you could do worse than buy this box. Any Tau army could benefit from these models and the discount is decent again. The combined total would be £230 for the individual boxes so that's a saving of £55 which is essentially a free riptide! If I was buying this from my FLGS at 20% off I'd save a whopping 39% off RRP! That's great in anyone's book.

I'll definitely not be getting one though as, if nothing else, I've nearly run out of Adeptus Battlegrey and the new colour just isn't a match! I'd love to own some broadsides as I love the models but I'd just feel too dirty using them! I can see them shifting a lot of these bundles though as they're great value (if such a thing is possible with GW products). Let's say for a minute that like me you already own a pair of riptides and you're unlikely to run three. Buy the box at 20% off, sell the riptide for £40 (not an unreasonable amount to get for it) and you've got 6 broadsides for less than £17 each which is 55% of their RRP and about as cheap as you'll ever get them!

Eldar Ghost Warriors

Last but not least we come to the Eldar collection. It's no surprise that GW have done bundles for what are likely to be the most popular armies at the moment. Not everyone will jump at this bundle as it's very much themed towards wraith units. If you were thinking of an Iyanden army though then this will sort you out. The set gives you one wraithknight, two wraithlords and 15 wraithguard/blades for £160. If you total up the individual boxes you'd be paying £216 which gives you a huge saving of £56 which is the best of these new bundles. Again assuming I got this from my FLGS I'd pay £128 which would give me a huge 41% off RRP. This is GW we're talking about here! Obviously your results will vary depending on what your local shop offers but even 10% discount like that offered by Wayland Games would give you 33% off RRP.

In a similar way to the Tau collection if we sold the Wraithknight for £56 (20% off RRP) then you'd have paid £72 for two wraithlords and 3 boxes of wraithguard which is better than half price!

The Other Stuff
GW have also released six new paints today. I can see a use for all of them in my armies but they're mostly for finishing models off and I'm a long way from being able to do that!! Even so it's worth checking out the videos on the GW website to see what each one does. Obviously they're a bit patronising but the important thing is to see how the paints work.

Sadly GW has also taken the opportunity to put up more of their stupid 1-click bundles that save you no money so don't get carried away with the bundles and think that you're actually getting the rest at a discount too.

Finally, we've got some limited edition things for Chaos. Firstly there's the Chaos Collection which is £175 for two codexes and a supplement (need I say anything else?!). Then there's the Armies of Renown book which is £20 and contains shots of their 12 armies of the month from WD with a few painting tips again a waste of money if you ask me. Finally there's the Chaos dice which come in different colours depending on which Chaos god you're worshipping. GW dice are always more expensive than you can get them from eBay etc but for £6 they're hardly going to break the bank.

Right, that's it for now, sorry if this whole post seemed like a massive advert but I felt it was only right to spread the word about GW offering a genuine discount for a change!!

First Impressions of the New Space Marine Models

Let me start by getting something out of the way. I haven't read very many of the rumours about the new Space Marine codex at all. Whilst I am interested in the new book (and indeed I've pre-ordered it), I don't like to read too many of the rumours because it just causes confusion between actual rules and what you thought they were going to be. I'm sure there are very few people more excited about the new book and miniatures than my mate Jamie so you should probably follow his blog for the next few weeks. Anyway, I'll be doing a full review of the codex (as I did for Tau and Eldar) but for now I wanted to talk about the models that were released onto the GW site yesterday. I was at a tournament all day yesterday (more on that shortly) so this is the first chance I've had to properly look at the models.

Centurions

The trend for the recent books has been for a large model such as the Wraithknight, Riptide and Dreadknight. I'm sure Space Marine players were hoping for something similar but personally aside from a copy of the Dreadknight I'm not sure what there could be that could fit in with the aesthetic of the army. Anyway, what SM players got instead were the Centurions. When I first saw these models from the leaked WD pictures I really didn't like them. Their poses looked two-dimensional and I didn't really think they fitted the look of the rest of the range. Now that I've seen more images of them and the 3D spins on the GW site I have to say.... I still don't like them.

There's clearly some design nods to the dreadnought with the power core on the back and the look of the legs and feet. If Space Marine players were hoping for a big dreadnought type model then what they're getting is 5 mini dreadnoughts instead. Undoubtedly we'll see some of these of the table top though as GW are sure to design the rules to make them must haves. Perhaps my opinion of them will change when I see them in the flesh but right now I'm really not sold. It's a pretty hefty price tag too for three models making each one the best part of £16. Not that GW prices should surprise us anymore I suppose.

Hunter/Stalker

From what I have seen of the rumours this will be an anti-air platform. I haven't seen whether it gets both Skyfire and Interceptor but of all of the new models I have to say this is my favourite. It may not be anything particularly exciting but it's probably one of the few that I'd add to my collection. I get the impression that it'll have to be static to do most of it's work from the support pillars down the sides. I'm loving the pivoting weapons on the Stalker.

The reason I think that I like this model is that you can actually picture it doing what it's supposed to do. Obviously it isn't some new, exciting design as it's essentially a rhino with bolt-ons but overall I like what they've done with it.

Reclusiam Command Squad

Bit of a strange combination this one. The typical command squad look to the squad with apothecary, standard bearer, etc. but the new Chaplain model (which to me is very reminiscent of the DV one) has been rolled into the kit. The other releases have had the plastic character as a separate release. Stranger still is that the squad comes with a razorback. This is a new move for GW (apart from some limited run troop and transport combos) and it's one that seems like a money grab to me. I can't see everyone wanting to go down the mechanised route so it seems odd to me that they'd force a transport upon you.

Now, obviously you could buy the command squad and the razorback separately but it seems the Chaplain is only avaialble in that box. Of course you could sell off the tank and command squad but it just seems a strange way of doing things. All of that aside the Chaplain is a stunning example of what GW can achieve in plastic these days. Of course we've seen scrolls and the like before but I have to say I'm a big fan of the new Chaplain and I'm pleased to see them continuing their theme of plastic characters with scenic bases.

Tactical Squad

It'd take a massive power armour fan-boy (looking at you here Jamie) to notice much of a difference between the new tactical squad kit and the old one. There's a few new knees here and a torso two there but the biggest change is the weaponry. Obviously there's enough bolters to go around but the kit also contains the grav weapons that have made their move into regular 40K. The hobbyist in me is always pleased to see a kit contain what appears to be every possible wargear option.

Perhaps they've done it on a kit before and I've missed it but I also like how they've done the combi weapons. On the face of it you're limited because you can only make one of four combinations but just from looking at the bolter bit you can see you'd easily be able to carve done a regular bolter to make all four options from the same kit to give to your older models.

It remains to be seen if tactical squads will be any more use than they have been in previous incarnations of the book. I'm not hopeful to be honest.

Sternguard & Vanguard

Sternguard are often a feature of a Space Marine army and it's great to see a full multi-part plastic kit for them. Vanguard aren't quite as popular normally but it depends on whether they let them assault from reserve in the new book. Both kits are packed with options to make the five models in the box and give you plenty of bits for converting other models. Of the two kits I prefer the Vanguard but that's probably just because I've always liked the look of jump packers.

The Sternguard kit has been given the grav weapon options too. However, here the combi weapons are the more traditional single part as opposed to the built it yourself tactical squad version. This is obviously because you can have more combi weapons in a sternguard squad. You actually get two of each combi-weapon too so I can see a burgeoning bits market from this kit alone.

Captain and Librarian
Here are the obligatory new finecast models then... but wait they're actually plastic. This must be the first all plastic release that GW has done for a long time. Personally I think it's fantastic for the hobby and I'm sure Space Marine players will be pleased that there's less Finecast around than before.

On the models themselves though, the Captain is (presumably deliberately) very reminiscent of the previous incarnations of the model with gun rested against the hip and sword outstretched. Irritatingly the gun supplied is a grav weapon with no apparent options. The position of it could make it a ball ache to convert to anything else too. Still there are lots of nice details on the model, again showcasing what they can do in plastic now.

The librarian is clearly taking his cues from Njal Stormcaller with his pose and staff but wait...what the hell is that thing on his shoulder?!!? Seriously it's horrible. It must be what happens when a Space Marine gets bored between battles and impregnates a servo skull! Thankfully it appears to be an optional extra so won't require any carving to remove but I can't begin to imagine what they were thinking! Otherwise it's a nice model and one that I'd almost certainly want in my army if I were to start one.

Conclusion
So there you have it. That's what Space Marine players can look forward to next weekend. I imagine the biggest seller for those who already have an army will be the Stalker/Hunter kit to add some much needed anti-air. Space Marines may well be one of few armies that can deal with flyers without the need for allies. The rules will be what makes or breaks the Centurion kit as I haven't heard many people saying that they're stunning models.

On a final note, at the end of this release GW have snuck in some new spray paints. You can now get Fenris Grey (Space Wolves), Mephiston Red (Blood Angels), Caliban Green (Dark Angels) and of course Macragge Blue (Ultramarines). It was a great shame when GW discontinued their old sprays so I for one and pleased they've brought them back again. I wonder how many people will use them though as companies like Army Painter have already taken a chunk of the market. Funnily enough I just bought a can of red from them before I knew GW were doing this. For those gamers out there who, like me, want to get their miniatures painted up quickly it's a great time saver. You could, however, argue that to paint a whole army you might be better off investing in an airbrush.

First Impressions of the New Eldar Codex

Games Workshop seem intent on releasing a new book a month at the moment. With the last one being High Elves it's still only been a couple of months since the Tau book hit. Perhaps that's why I've only come away from my FLGS with the book (and some psychic cards). Don't get me wrong, all of the new models are pretty stunning, it's just with Tau still warm from the presses I just can't justify a new army at the moment.

My plan then is to get a feel for the codex by writing my usual unit reviews and hopefully target my purchases on things I'll actually use on the table top instead of what looks cool. I'm also planning on sorting through my existing collection and getting a lot of stuff up on eBay to try and fund the Eldar project. This is all fine in theory but I'm sure I'll end up caving at some point and buying one of everything!

Anyway, onto the new book. First things first, as with all of the new books so far it's beautifully made. I've almost totally forgotten that these books used to be £20 as the quality of these hardback versions is stunning. Granted the summary pages are still in danger of getting bent but otherwise I can't fault their looks. The cover of the new book is far and away the most stunning of the lot. As I said earlier, I really wish GW would release this artwork in poster format. Otherwise the book follows the same 104-page format we've begun to get used to now. The most notable difference here is that the "Wargear" section is decidely smaller. There's only a special issue and vehicle upgrades section.

You might think then that this book is easier to get your head around but if anything I find myself flicking between pages even more than normal. Units don't have many upgrade options but there are very few common wargear items (hence the lack of chart) meaning that comparing units is going to be tricky. The summary page isn't comprehensive either. The other thing that strikes you is that, probably more than any other army, Eldar have tons of options in each and every FOC slot. Like the Tau book before it there doesn't seem to be any automatic choices and the number of different, viable, combinations is likely to be high.

So then, what are the key things to look forward to as an Eldar general (if I decide to become one again)? Pretty much everything in the book has a minor drawback when facing Slaanesh in that fear tests are at -1 Ld. The big thing is that a lot of units have Battle Focus which is the much talked about Run-Shoot/Shoot-Run rule. This makes shooty Eldar armies incredibly mobile. With objective games making up 5 out of 6 missions the ability to move towards an objective as fast as possible, whilst still firing on the unit currently controlling it, is going to be great.

Elsewhere the Warlord Traits are pretty much excellent. Adding +1" to Run moves sounds like the weakest but when you're R-S/S-Ring then it could make a big difference. It's worth noting that none of the traits have army wide effects though.

Psychic powers look interesting. The warlock powers are all dual use meaning that they mostly give the option of using a Blessing or a Malediction depending on what the situation requires. The primaris warlock power can give units Shrouded which combined with Jetbike cover saves could make for some pretty sturdy troops. The farseer powers are pretty similar to the previous book but have mostly improved. Eldritch Storm for example is Fleshbane & Haywire meaning S3 isn't such a big deal. Mind War can hamper the Farseer himself but otherwise is still good. There are other changes that I'll get onto in the specific post about seers but the big thing is Runes of Warding. In the previous book it was probably the most potent psychic defence. Sadly now it's reduced to a one use 2+ deny the witch.

Other notable changes are expensive Fire Dragons (with 3+ saves now), Autarchs still allowing Reserves manipulation (great for flyers), expensive but sturdy wave serpents, interesting changes to some of the aspect warriors and probably the best anti-flyer flyer of the recent books.

Finally, the (quite literally) big thing everyone is excited about is the wraithknight. He's pretty expensive on both the wallet and the points but with that statline it's hard to resist having one (or maybe two) in an army. Still not sure what the best loadout is but keeping cost down is going to be tricky.

Stay tuned for more detailed reviews of each FOC slot. Some (if not all) will probably require more than one post but hopefully you'll find my thoughts interesting and useful.

New Eldar Codex Release Day and a Blog Wars Prize Announcement

So you'd have to be living under a rock not to know that the new Eldar codex is out today. Jamie and I headed to Wargames Emporium in Sheffield to grab our copies of the book. They offer 20% off GW stuff so we always get our stuff from them. If you're in or around Sheffield then they're definitely worth checking out. We were greeted by quite a sight as you can see in the picture. Despite the bounty of plastic beauty in front of us we both resisted the temptation to buy the big new kits. Don't get me wrong I'm sure I'll eventually own some of them but I'm determined not to give in to the feeling that they're "one day only". They'll still be available when I actually want them and have time to build/paint them.

I will, of course, be posting a full reaction to the book along with some slot by slot analysis of the new army list. Suffice to say this is by far the most striking front cover yet. I really wish GW would release the artwork as posters to decorate my gaming room.

Anyway, onto the exciting stuff. Now as you might have read the "Giantkiller" prize will not be happening as the giant himself, Andy, isn't attending Blog Wars 5. However, whilst you might not be able to kill a giant you can win one (see what I did?)! May I present the first of a series of prizes for Blog Wars:

So what do I have to do to win him I hear you ask? Well assuming you've got your ticket for Blog Wars you've already done most of the work. Now all you need to do is show up and hope you win the raffle for which he'll be the top prize. I'm excited already, 3 weeks to go!!

A reminder that army lists need to be with my by a week today for checking before the event. Thanks.

New Eldar Models for Pre-Order on GW Site

The next installment of GW relentless 40K release schedule is the long awaited Eldar update. In what seems to be the standard format now, Eldar are getting a new dual-kit flyer, massive walker thing, a couple of new finecast models, a plastic single model and some updated plastics. 

Before I go any further it's worth noting that GW are also doing some triple packs for other armies such as space marine bikes and necron destroyers. This seems to follow the trend started with the crisis teams. It's something GW have done in the past and it's nice to see it back but with prices higher than ever it doesn't offer all that good value.

Anyway, back to the Eldar stuff. I can't say I've read many of the rumoured rules but here's some reaction based on the new models on the GW site. Interestingly all the the pre-orders seem to be packaged in a new style box which is similar to the Dark Vengeance kit. 

Flyers

First up let's take a look at the flyer. The kit comes in at £40 (same as the Tau model) and can be made into either the Hemlock Wraithfighter or Crimson Hunter. When I first saw the leaked WD pictures of it I really wasn't all that fussed but thankfully the pictures on the GW site do it more justice. Not sure how they manage it but WD pictures always seem to be from crap angles. The fighter is armed with two "heavy D-scythes". Assuming these have a similar profile to a D-cannon but aren't blast and they'll be pretty decent at taking down flyers. The alternative is the Crimson Hunter which you'd have to assume was a bomber but perhaps not since it's armed with bright lances. Interestingly it can be taken as an exarch variant whatever that does. 

Wraithknight

Next the much talked about Wraithknight. First shots of it make it look enormous. It's apparently 9" tall which puts a stormraven under its chin! Again the new pictures of it make it look at lot better than the WD ones do. Seems you can equip it with a wide variety of weapons including some CC options. I'm looking forward to reading the proper rules for this but it looks immense. You'd have to assume the rumours of T8 W6 are accurate based on its size alone. That makes it pretty sturdy when you consider S4 can't hurt it and S5 & 6 will need 6s to wound. Granted this was the case with the wraithlord but presumably the knight has a 2+ save and double the wounds. Not looking forward to trying to deal with this guy. I'd have to hope he's similar in price to a land raider if not more. When the riptide comes in around 200pts this guy would have to be 250-300pts I'd expect.

Wraithguard/Wraithblades

These guys have always been something I wanted but could never justify the expense of. They're T6 in the current codex which I hope will stay. Having a plastic kit will really help these guys as it brings their cost down dramatically. I'm interested to see how the wraithblades play out but their problem will be getting into combat without an assault vehicle. Since there's no sign of a new transport, unless they can deep strike they might not be all that useful. Time will tell I suppose. Either way it's great that there's a new kit and they can finally be a reasonable choice for the army. Whether they're troops or not remains to be seen but let's hope so. Can't say the new models are that exciting but it's the reduced cost that will make people buy them. (strange sentence when talking about a GW product).

Illic Nightspear

This guy looks interesting. I've always liked my pathfinders but I'm intrigued to see what this new special character will do for them. The model is nice but not particularly mind blowing. It's the rules that might make him interesting. It would've been good to see some plastic rangers with him but the old models are decent enough.

Farseer/Spiritseer

The new models are gorgeous even if the spiritseer does appear to be rocking out with his left hand. Also released are some psychic cards to cover the 2 new disciplines. It'll be interesting to see what they do with some of the powers. Fortune is a big deal for Eldar and particularly farseers/warlocks. I'm intrigued about what the 14 powers will be. I've still got my Eldrad model that I couldn't bring myself to sell so I'm also looking forward to seeing what he can do now. He's got to be at least mastery 4 surely?

Other Stuff

With the vyper now available in the battleforce AND as a 3-bike kit you'd have to assume that the rules for it are much better than before. Perhaps it's been given the piranha treatment of being stupidly cheap. Still, it'd need more firepower than it had before.

I'm expecting that the troops will remain the same at guardians, pathfinders and dire avengers. It'll be interesting to see where jetbikes and wraithguard go though.

Conclusion

RAWK!!

I used to own an Eldar army but sold it all off when the Dark Eldar models caught my eye. There's no doubt that Eldar are going to be powerful in comparison to their emo cousins but I can't see me swapping back again. However, since Eldar are battle bros with both my DE and Tau I can see me getting an allied detachment to give me some of the new toys without forking out for a whole army. I'll certainly be getting the book on release day if just for the stunning front cover art. It's easily the best one so far.

It'll be interesting to see how the new Eldar play. One thing that a lot of people are wondering about is Runes of Warding. As the best psychic defense around it'll make a big difference if it get's nerfed. Realistically it has to though as it can shut down other armies completely. What I expect will happen is that it'll be reduced to a bubble of 24 or even 12". I'm personally interested in where the Avatar fits in. I've always loved the model and although it's going to take a backseat to the knight I'm still keen to use one.

Ultimately the biggest thing will be the points cost of these things. The flyers and knight in particular need to be costed right to be seen in many armies. I'll obviously post up more when I've got the book in my grubby hands.

First Impressions of the New Tau Codex

Well I'm sure I won't be the only person who posts up about this but hopefully people will find my take on it interesting nonetheless.

The first thing to say is, like the previous three codices (can you believe we're onto number 4 for 6th?), stunning to look at. The artwork is stunning. Now I know there's a hefty price tag for these new books but they're a massive jump in quality improvement over the previous versions.

Anyway, I'll not go into the fluff too much as, as you might expect I haven't had much time to look through it yet. This will instead be a run down of the new rules for units and how I think they'll perform in the game now. I'll work through them in unit entry order. I apologise in advance for the wall of text!

Army Wide Rules
Bonding knives are the same as they were in the old codex in that you can always regroup at full Leadership. All of the suits units, fire warriors and pathfinders can take them but unless you're giving drones to the suits then there's no point as they'll never be less than 25%. Worth considering for the little guys though but do you really want a better chance to save 2-3 guys for about 10pts over a unit?

Supporting Fire is, as we already knew, the ability to overwatch to support units being charged within 6" and pretty much everything has it. Can't really see this having a dramatic effect on its own but combined with some modification from other stuff it might be more potent.

The warlord traits are pretty decent actually. As ever there are better ones and weaker ones but not scattering on deep strike, skyfire for one turn and removing Look Out Sir! rolls could be useful. Half of the traits are a single use only though which, when you take into account the deep strike one only leaves two that apply for the entire game.

Markerlights could be pretty devastating. They haven't changed all that much from before but only needing two markers to totally eliminate a cover save could be huge. Especially against units with steath/shrouded. It appears you could overwatch with markers and then get the benefit from supporting fire too. They can also help boost attempts to shoot flyers. This only really matters for the sky ray when combined with broasides though. Here's a thought for you, 10 pathfinders would get an average of 5 hits. This means a subsequently firing unit of Firewarriors could fire their 24 rapid fire S5 shots at BS6 with Ignores Cover. Good luck to anything with 5+ armour!! Interesting I don't see a limit to the BS boost like their used to be so BS 10 could theoretically be possible unless I've missed something?? Similarly flyers could be hit with BS5 snap shots too!

The other thing to think about is spamming seeker missiles (you could get tons into an army). You could then use pathfinders to shoot vehicles whilst keeping your skyray (or other seeker missile unit) hidden. Interesting stuff.

Drones
Still not scoring or denial but there are a lot more varieties now which I'll cover with their respective units. They also don't count towards VPs when taken as upgrades. Interestingly they also don't get removed with the owner but are still destroyed when a vehicle blows up.

The types we're familiar with are back with a couple of changes. All drones are T4 for a start which is nice. Pulse carbines are now two shots so gun drones are well worth their 12pts I reckon. Marker drones don't appear to be networked anymore which is frankly pants. Shield drones are 4+/4++ now instead of taking the save of their respective unit. Missile drones could be fun for adding extra fire power and make a good alternative to gun drones, personally I think you're better taking them over gun drones in most situations.

You can still take squadrons of them but you can now mix the types. Not really likely to see them used like though.

Commanders
The most notable difference is the Shas'el is nowhere to be seen. Instead we get the Shas'o with the same statline that he had before.

Ethereals
They are leaps and bounds better than they were. They're essentially a walking banner with a 12" morale bubble. Rather than the "whole army legs it" when they die they now give up an extra VP when they die. They then give a 12" bubble of either Stubborn, extra shot with pulse weapons, 6+ FNP or the ability to snap shot when running.

Cadre Fireblades
Decent statline with BS5 and 3 wounds which is already a bargain for 60pts. Frankly these will probably be the go-to-guys for people wanting a cheap HQ in order to take allies. Basically you can pay 114pts for the mininum HQ and Troop and then throw in a riptide and some broadsides. Expect to see A LOT more Tau around! Otherwise they have a markerlight, split fire and give a fire warrior squad an extra shot if they don't move.

Fire Warriors
Much maligned in the previous codex (I was always a fan though), Fire Warriors are now a bargain. 9pts gets you the same statline as before but with photon grenades for free making them effectively 2pts a model cheaper.

Pathfinders
Sadly their armour has been cut to 5+ but with carbines now firing 2 shots and the experimental drones they can take, they should make a few appearances. They're 1pt cheaper than before but the big thing for most people will be that the Devilfish is an option now. They keep their locator beacon in the form of the recon drone too but don't require the 'fish to do it. Tank hunting is now possible with AP1 rail rifles but S6 means they're only effective against light vehicles. Still it's an option though, if an expensive one. The recon drone could easily be used to bring Kroot onto your opponents back line too.

Darkstrider is a little expensive when compared to a Cadre Fireblade but isn't all that different statswise. The big thing for him is D6" movement after overwatch but before a unit attempts to charge, combined with D3 reduction to charge range from the grav drone they might be hard to catch.

Automatic rad grenades (-1 toughness) mean wounding on 3s with those pulse carbines. Combine this with an Ethereal for an extra shot and pulse accelerator for 24" range and pathfinders become pretty devastating.

Pathfinders are one of the most interesting units in the new book for me and I think it'll take a while before I figure out the potential uses for them.

Devilfish
Same points, same armour, pretty much the same as they were. However, with disruption pods now 15pts you could argue they're 10 pts more expensive but the 12" range has now been removed. Can now transport anything that isn't bulky (e.g. suits). With the burst cannon and gun drones getting an extra shot their firepower has almost doubled. With an SMS which is now twin-linked we might see a return of the good old Fish of Fury!

Crisis Teams
They now all come with blacksun filters and multi-trackers built in which makes them effectively 7-8 pts cheaper than before. The weapons points costs have changed a bit though which means the actual cost of units will be on par with the previous book. The most notable difference with battlesuit equipment is that hard-wired systems are nowhere to be seen. This means if you want a target lock you have to sacrifice something else. Luckily with the multi-tracker/blacksun built in and drones without a drone controller this isn't such a big loss. The big thing for a lot of people though is the disappearance of the Targeting Array but with the abundance of markerlights it shouldn't be as much of an issue. There's a dizzying array of different builds available now which will hopefully create some interesting combinations. I'll be posting about this soon I expect. Finally, it's worth noting that crisis bodyguards now auto-pass Look Out Sir making the commander pretty durable.

Broadsides
The big thing for these guys is, of course, the reduction of their railguns to S8 from S10. It remains to be seen how big a loss that will be but there was no way they were going to give them Skyfire (which is an option I should point out) with S10 no matter how much we wanted it. Elsewhere they get a twin-linked SMS now. The high-yield missile pod with missile drones could make for a ridiculous amount of S7 shooting if you're prepared to sacrifice AP1. It's worth noting they can't move and shoot like they good with ASS before.

Stealth Teams
As much as I like the models for these guys I really can't see them showing up that often. I'm toying with the idea of a full unit joined by Shadowsun though. They're pretty similar to what you got before but their armour has been simplified to giving them +3 to a cover save. If you could make them troops then maybe we'd see more of them. As they are I can't see much use for them sadly. Not useless but next to Crisis and Riptides in the same slot.....

Riptide
Speaking of the riptide, he's a monster. T6, 5 wounds and 2+/5++ will be hard to shift. He can put out a lot of shots but he's going to be a big target! Pretty reasonable for 180pts. People were saying we'd see 3 of these per army but I'd say crisis suits still have a place. The nova boosts will come in handy when necessary but aren't really needed most of the time, 12 burst cannon shots is tempting! On full wounds it's worth a shot but with a single wound I certainly won't be risking death! The shielded missile drones are cool as a combination of shield and missile drones in one (as the name suggests!) but with T6 too. Essentially extra wounds for 25pts each.

Sniper Drones
Now have a sniper rifle instead of the AP3 weapon from before. They're significantly cheaper but the weapon change, combined with the competition in the FOC slot will probably sound the death knell for these guys.

Piranhas
An absolute bargain for 50pts a piece with fusion. Zipping around with fusion blasters to provide annoyance and anti AV14 is always good. Sadly only being BS3 with no upgrade to that means they're going to lose out  to the new pathfinders and flyers.

New Flyers
Since we already had the rules for these I've pretty much covered them. I don't think either is particularly stellar but then again neither is awful. It's a shame the bomb is AP5 but being able to use it every turn goes some way to compensating. Interceptor drones could be fun too! Not much more to say that I haven't already.

Hammerheads
Only place to get your S10 railgun now. Nice to see the submunition as an option too making these things particularly cheap now. Longstrike is pretty fun. For 45pts you get BS5, Tank Hunter, Preferred Enemy (IG)  and multiple Supporting Fire/Overwatch shots. Pretty good I reckon and almost an automatic choice. Against IG it'll be fun to almost guarantee destroying a Leman Russ every turn!!

Sky Ray
Having skyfire and markerlights could make a good combination with broadsides. The seeker missiles can now be fired without markers too which makes for a pretty decent anti-air battery like they're supposed to be. I'm glad I kept mine because I think we'll start seeing them again if people can look away from the broadsides/hammers.

Kroot
Disgustingly cheap but worse in combat now. They've lost S4 and an extra attack so they're a shooting unit really. You can take a massive blob of them with 20 kroot, 10 hounds and 3 ox for 255pts which could be fun to Outflank onto objectives with! Sniper rounds are interesting if you're infiltrating as they could take out crucial models but then how effective are SM Scout Snipers? They aren't that hard to shift though but you get a lot of models for the same price as a squad of fire warriors in a 'fish. Combining outflank with the acute senses of the hounds makes them great for annoying your opponent behind his lines!

Vespid
Going to lose out to the other FA choices. It's a shame that for both Kroot and Vespid that we didn't see any new units. Vespid get longer range guns but are more expensive now. Stealth (Ruins) would be great if you could make them troops but otherwise I'm struggling to see a use for them.

Farsight
Marginally cheaper but otherwise not really changed that much. You don't have to limit your army choices anymore though which is a big deal. He doesn't change Crisis to Troops like many had hoped but with accurate deep striking and a full squad of bodyguards he's the source of the Tau deathstar I reckon. Somewhat strange that he doesn't come with Iridium Armour mind you!

Shadowsun
I'm convinced I can find a use for her in my army but I'm not sure how yet. She's potentially pretty lethal with 5+ precision shots on her now 18" range fusion blasters. Tempting to stick her in a big stealth team but pretty expensive.

Aun'va
Mocked as probably the most useless SC in all of the codices, Aun'va has had somewhat of a renaissance. For 100pts you get him and his guard. Interesting that he has an inverse save against shots in that he ignores AP1 but is more at risk from AP5! He probably won't last long though but whilst he's alive your army is better for it. Tempting to use him instead of the stock Ethereal but he can't join a unit he's too vulnerable I reckon.


Aun'shi
Finally, a bit of a conundrum, Aun'shi. He's clearly a combat character surrounded by shooting. Could be interesting in a Kroot unit perhaps? Get's to re-roll his 4++ save in a challenge though so might be fun to try and kill off enemy characters with him. I want to think of him as an assassin but with S5 AP- attacks he isn't unless you get a lucky rend or two!


Conclusion
So that's my initial reaction after a skim through. I'm sure I've missed stuff or got something wrong but I'll be posting a lot more about Tau in the next couple of weeks. In general I can't see any obvious turkeys in the book. Sure there are things that aren't going to be seen very much such as the sniper teams but I really don't think there's anything here that couldn't work. This seems to be a trend with the new books that in general there's a lot of competition for each FOC slot with plenty of things to think about when writing an army.

As with Vetock's previous codex, Dark Angels, there's a ton of synergy in the army. Mostly from Markerlights of course but some interesting combination may come to light that I haven't thought of on this first read through. I think anyone will be able to use Tau but more experienced Tau players will be able to get the most from the book.

On that subject, I think it's a shame how many armies can ally with Tau. As a long time Tau player I don't really want to see everyone taking them as allies. It's a similar thing to the Necrons in that there were a few die-hards who still took them to tournaments whereas now they'll be flavour of the month and all over the place! Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely pleased with the new book but I do think that the abundance of Skyfire is bad for the game. With everyone taking some Tau allies they could potentially severely hamper the use of flyers. I'm not a huge fan of flyers but it would still be a shame to see a game mechanic hampered.

Hope you didn't find that too long and boring. Right I'm off to build my Riptide, Flyer and Pathfinders then. I'll post up some pictures later of course. Tomorrow I'm having three games with the new Tau against a variety of armies from Matt. I'll let you know how they fare!

Spanish Tau Codex Leak Translation - Yo No Hablo Espanol!

So some of you may have already seen the Spanish version of the Tau codex that has been leaked onto the interwebs. Whilst I don't have the first clue about Spanish I've been attempting to piece together some information on the various units based on the pictures and some educated guesswork. Granted the book is out in like 4 day so I don't know quite why I took the time to do this but whatever...

Sadly the army special rules are not only in Spanish but the picture is terrible (seriously, why are the people with access to codexes bad at pictures - my CSM ones weren't that bad!). This also means I can't read the Warlord Traits. Some of this stuff may well have already been rumoured but since this is almost certainly the real codex they're a lot more solid now.

If you want to have a look yourself they should still be visible here

Crisis Suits
Appear to cost 22pts each now but can still only be taken in units of 3. No longer have the option of making them a team leader but rather you now just pay 10 pts to make them a Shas'vre. Makes sense to me as hardly anyone bothered to pay the extra 5 for shas'vre status. Shas'vre now boosts them to Ld 9 but loses 1pt of WS (I think we'll cope). Otherwise the stats are the same, no toughness boost like some rumours suggested. Get army wide special rule Supporting Fire which is the ranged overwatch assistance thing. Also they're "Very Bulky" although it sounds better in Spanish (muy corpulento!). The options are what will make these good or bad though. Difficult to look at upgrades though as they're on a chart rather than in unit entry like the other new codexes.

Riptide (Cataclismo in Spanish - again sounds better)
Base cost of 180pts with a pretty impressive statline notably toughness 6 with 5 wounds. It's basic gun appears to be the heavy burst cannon which is S6 and EIGHT shots. Seems like the Nova Reactor will allow you to make this 12 shots too at the risk of Gets Hot. Not sure on the Spanish but looks like it rends too when Nova'd. Comes with an SMS which is pretty much the same as it was but can be swapped for a twin-linked fusion blaster or plasma rifle (which are again the same). The heavy burst cannon can be swapped for an ion cannon thing which starts at S7 AP2 with three shots but can be overcharged to S9 AP2 large blast.

Fire Warriors
Still have a six member minimum but are 9 pts for essentially the same stats but now get Photon Grenades for free. Their gun is stil S5, 30" rapid fire. They can all take the "Ritual of Ta'lissera" rule for 1pt each which if memory serves from the old book, relates to bonding knives so presumably is leadership related (that page is nearly impossible to read even if I understood Spanish). Can still take a devilfish which are still 80pts and pretty similar. Difficult to tell much else without translating it all.

With the addition of Fireblade they can fire an extra shot with their rifles or carbines if they stand still.

Kroot
Get 10 by default as before and can buy another 10 but they're now 6 pts each and come with 6+ armour. They're now S3 but retain their WS4 and the hounds are still I5 and are 5pts each. They can now take some sort of special precision ammo for 1pt per model which make their guns sniper rifles and hence Heavy. Hounds have Acute Senses and the whole squad can infiltrate meaning more precise Outflanking which is interesting. They've still got Stealth in forests and the kroot ox is pretty much the same but now 25pts.

Flyers
Unfortunately they appear to be AV 11/10/10 but with 3 HP. Bomber starts at 160pts and fighter at 145pts.  Aside from the Vehicle Upgrades (no sign of what they are or how much they cost) the fighter can take a missile pod instead of the burst cannon for 5pts. The quad ion cannon is S7 AP4 but can be boosted to S8 large blast which is obviously not much use against other flyers but good for ground vehicle hunting. With 6 S7 shots and two seeker missiles it doesn't look too bad for 150pts though. The bomber can twin-link it's missile pod for 5pts but otherwise will be better against ground targets as you might expect. Despite still being BS2 the fighter drones have S7 AP4 twin-linked guns which isn't bad at all when they appear to have interceptor too. They also seem to have afterburners (whatever they do).

Have to decide when I read the English book but at the moment they both look fairly viable. At least they're better than the DA ones already (which isn't hard of course).

Broadsides
They're now 65pts each and still a max squad size of 3. Their twin-linked railguns are now S8 AP1 as was rumour but the missile pods they can swap them for are S7 AP4 with 4 shots. Their SMS are now twin-linked too which is pretty cool. They're then able to take various other options from the wargear table and still seem to get one support system each. They can take a seeker missile for 8pts which seems to be the standard cost of them now.  The shas'vre is now Ld 9 which should help reduce the number of times they run off the board like they used to!

Pretty happy with these. If they do get the option of Skyfire as has been rumoured then they're going to be the goto anti-air for pretty much any army in the game. S10 would've been ridiculous so the S8 makes sense.

HQs
Ethereals are 50pts and Fireblade is 60pts. There doesn't seem to be any option to take them in multiples as squad leaders unfortunately but for dirt cheap HQ to spend your points on something else then you can't complain. Better than the minimum 100pts a lot of armies have to spend.

O'Shovah/Farsight is 165pts and is still equipped the same. He still has Preferred Enemy (Orks) and can be joined by 7 crisis suits in his bodyguard. Sadly this seems to be the only FOC swapping that can be done.

Conclusion
That's about as much as I can be bothered to translate/work out. The codex really isn't that far away but I wanted to get an idea of what this leak told us. Hopefully some people found it helpful.

Tau Advanced Orders on GW Site - FOC Slots

We already knew they were coming but now GW has finally announced them. The new Tau models are available for pre-order on the GW website. The riptide looks awesome and the flyer is growing on me but I just can't get on with the new commander model. He looks too scrawny and flimsy somehow. I can see what they were aiming for with him but I just don't think they've pulled it off. I'll be sticking to conversions from the standard XV8 kit I think.

Here's the FOC breakdown as it appears on the GW site. Bear in mind they sometimes get it wrong before release and that this doesn't take into account things that can move slots.

HQ
Farsight
Shadowsun
XV8 commander + bodyguard XV8s
Darkstrider
Cadre Fireblade
Aun'va
Ethereals

Elites
Riptide
Crisis suits
Stealth suits (XV25 and XV15?!?)

Troops
Fire warriors (with devilfish)
Kroot (hounds, ox, shaper)

Fast Attack
Sun Shark Bomber
Razorshark Strike Fighter
Pathfinders
Piranhas
Gun Drone Squadrons
Vespid Stingwings

Heavy
Broadsides
Hammerheads (with longstrike)
Sky rays
Sniper Drone Teams

The HQ options will be interesting. obviously Shadowsun/Farsight are essentially unique commanders but the question is how does Darkstrider and the Cadre Fireblade come into it? I was hoping they'd be upgrades for their respective squads (Pathfinders and FWs) but it seems they're an HQ choice instead. Perhaps the fireblades will be like a Necron court/wolf guard/sanguinary priests where you can take several and split them. Alternatively they could be like the DA techmarine in that he doesn't really use and FOC slot. Also in here are the Ethereals and Aun'va is still around. I'm interested to see what these guys can do because they'll likely be cheaper than a normal commander. That's assuming of course that they get rid of the 1+ on the commanders but I'm sure they will.

Elites aren't packed with options but all three would be nice to have. Depends on what they do with stealth suits. I don't currently own any as they were so useless in 5th but it's interesting that you can still buy XV15 and XV25 variants. Perhaps they'll be doing something whereby the XV25 is an upgrade. Otherwise it's presumably going to be a riptide and a couple of crisis teams. I'm hoping there'll be some FOC movements so that crisis/stealth suits can become troops with Farsight/Shadowsun perhaps.

Troops remain the same as they were before. As I say, the question is rather what will be able to move into the Troops section. So far GW have been keeping this mechanic alive in their new codexes so I'd be surprised if they didn't will Tau. It's a shame kroot don't seem to have gotten any more options though.

Fast attack is the most obviously crowded section of the chart. I can't imagine there'll be room for more than one of the flyers in a sub 2,000 pts list but depending on what they do with the other Fast Attack units it could be really tricky to spend the points here. Gun drone squadrons could be interesting now if you can take some of the other drone types with them and piranhas are a bit of an unknown quantity at the moment. I suspect they'll stay pretty similar though. Hopefully Vespids will be more useful too. It's going to be tricky to choose I think.

Heavy support is always going to be a struggle between broadsides and hammerheads. Even with Longstrike they're going to have to do something special with the Hammerhead to make me take one over my broadsides. I'd be easily tempted into a skyray though since I've always liked the model. Sniper drone teams are still here but I'd be surprised if I was persuaded to buy any. They're still going to be too low a model count to be very useful and just can't compete with the other Heavy choices.

So there you have it. I'm sure Faeit212 will be bringing us someone who's got the codex pretty soon but its at this stage that I try to avoid listening to rumours as there's too much opportunity for people to make stuff up. If you look back at the rumours before the last couple of books you can see that some of it is plain made up and others are just people mis-reading the book. Only a week to go!!

First Impressions of the New Chaos Daemons Models

Let me start by saying I'm not a Daemon player and frankly I have no interest in becoming one. That being said Matt (who's one of my regular opponents) has a fairly sizeable Daemon army which he either uses on its own or bolstered by CSM or IG. This means I'm likely to be facing these new models at some point and there'll certainly be at tournaments.

The New Models
I've never been a huge fan of the Daemons models in the first place as I feel that they're limited by the fact that they need to be able to sit comfortably in both a WH40K and WHFB army. Personally I think that they fail on the first count. They're great models for Fantasy but they just always look out of place in 40K to me. I think the only model that doesn't have this problem is the soul grinder and some of the daemon prince variants.

Now don't get me wrong, I understand that these are beings that are supposed to have been around since time began. However, it's a shame they don't look like warped versions of things from the 40K universe. On the one hand I think that's fine because that's what CSM do well but somehow they just feel detached from the game for me.

Take the FW blight drones and compare them to the new plague drone pictured above. Regardless of what you make of the models themselves, to me it's clear that the FW model is warped technology whereas the new model just looks like something out of...well... Fantasy. What I'd love to see is daemons that look like they might've once been men. Something to link them to the 40K universe. Maybe I'm missing the point though.

All that being said, there's some nice sculpts in there and all of them are in that "I'd have no chance of doing it justice" category of models. At the end of the day the good thing about 40K is that there's something for everyone in terms of models. There's not going to be many people who would happily take all of them but that's a good thing really.

The New Rules
Speaking of people taking all armies. It's going to be very interesting to see what the new rules will be. I imagine there's lots of people who accumulated a pile of screamers/flamers that are going to have to decide how much they actually like the new book. We've already started seeing droves of them on eBay but we'll soon see how many people actually are interested in the army rather than bought them because they're the current OP thing. It's kind of the same thing with Necrons where people aren't really interested in the army but know that they're good at the moment. Sadly, we're stuck with the Necrons but thankfully the Daemons are getting brought back down to size.

Having not seen the rules properly, and with only snippets from WD and rumours to go on, it's a bit early to say if they'll still be top-tier or not. Luckily for us they let Phil Kelly write the 40K book whilst Matt Ward wrote the WHFB book. This means hopefully that there'll be the usual internal balance and nothing that's too drastic. Granted he's responsible for the Heldrake which I'm sure as a DA player I'm going to hate pretty soon but in general his books are pretty interesting if a little safe (if that makes sense?).

What seems to be clear is that Daemons won't be Eternal Warrior and that they may have lost Fearless (or at least had it toned down a bit). Some units are still going to be lethal but hopefully it'll pay to take a bit more of a mixture than just the wave after wave of the same thing.

With the allies system armies have pretty much lost their identity now so I'm less excited about books that I don't collect. Personally I just hope that they've dealt with the screamer/flamer issues so that tournaments can be a bit more interesting again (except for the Necrons of course). Still, whatever happens there's going to be the flavour of the month lists that you get sick of playing so at least Daemons got their day in the sun.

Review of the New Dark Angels Models

Yesterday I talked about the codex and the rules changes it brings for the Dark Angels. Today I'm going to talk about the new kits we got. Basically thats the flyer, land speeder, characters and the ravenwing & deathwing boxes.

Dark Talon/Nephilim Jetfighter
Like the Heldrake this is pretty expensive for a two-sprue box. As ever it's probably down to their "whatever we can get away with charging" policy. They knew they'd sell so why not make a pile on them. Anyway, the kit is pretty nice to assemble. Since the rules are pretty crap for both variants at the moment I'm hedging my bets and magnetising so I can pick and choose. I'll post about this at some point but Jamie might be me to it on his blog. One of the advantages of the new kits is that their precision design means that some parts are such a snug fit that magnets aren't needed. It's a pretty straightforward process to make it interchangeable though.

Otherwise, its a gorgeous model and some of the details are excellent. The pilots helmet is stunning but sadly you're unlikely to ever see it. I almost stole it for another model! The "flying cathedral" is growing on me too and I'm starting to prefer it to the sleek black look of the Nephilim. I really hope the rules get sorted out so I can include one in my armies without feeling like it's a waste of points.

Land Speeder Vengeance/Darkshroud

Most people hated this model when they first saw it. Whilst I'm sure most of them still do I have to say it's growing on me. It's a surprisingly big model actually. When you see it in pictures you'd think it's roughly the same dimensions as the standard speeder but as you can see here it's significantly larger in all aspects. I haven't bought one yet so I was watching Jamie assemble his. The icon/relic thing on the back feels a bit flimsy though. I'd have expected it to be a bit less two dimensional but again it's growing on me.

In terms of assembly it didn't seem to take Jamie long and aside from the HB/AC swap there isn't any need to magnetize as you can swap the plasma storm for the relic easily. The question is, why would you want to put the plasma storm on it?

Characters
Jamie grabbed a Sammael on Corvex in it's finecast glory. I never tried to assemble a metal one but I can only imagine it was a ball-ache. The finecast one seemed reasonably good quality and went together pretty easily. There were the ever-present sections of bubbling but they were in out of the way places and overall the detail of the model really stood out even without paint. Think I'll be getting one if I can work him into my lists.

Otherwise we didn't pick up any characters. We've both said we like the look of Ezekiel with his new sculpted banner but frankly I'm just going to use my DV librarian instead. It's the same story with any of the chaplain versions as the DV one can easily represent them. Asmodai is a nice model but rules-wise he's not going to get my vote.

Jamie's Belial conversion - check out his blog for details

The new model for Belial and existing Azrael model don't really do anything for me. The other problem with them is that they can be easily created from parts in the other kits. Azrael is easily the DV one with a head swap and DW watcher converted to carry his helmet. A far nicer model for Belial can be greated from the DW kit too. Purists will still want the proper models but I'm surprised GW made it so simple to create your own model from the DV kit and new parts. Fair play to them if they intended it that way but I kind of suspect they hoped the proper models would be too tempting but they aren't! Anyway, until I get my conversions done take a look at Jamie's efforts and try to tell me it's worth buying the proper models!

Deathwing Kit
There's a ton of options in here for creating a whole raft of different models. I've made mine into Deathwing Knights (more on them later). Jamie took great amusement from watching me try to assemble them though. The problem comes when you try and stick the arms on. The sprues themselves are fully numbered up but GW in their infinite wisdom decided not to bother numbering the parts in the instructions. This would be fine but for the mace arms. Firstly it's annoying that they come in parts especially considering you don't need to pose them that much and spare arms for other models would be nice. Secondly, specific arms are necessary for specific maces/torsos and trying to compare them to a picture created swearing a-plenty when I started to glue the wrong arm on! The arms don't really have a very satisfying connection to the body. They aren't totally flat to allow a range of poses but aren't recessed enough to make them sit comfortably either. Maybe I just got a duff kit but I've never known their plastics to be inconsistent.

Anyway, all that aside I've not even begun to explore the other options in the kit. I'm impressed they include so many different parts, especially all four heavy weapon options including the cyclone for a change! The kit is pretty damn expensive though and I'm going to be looking into how easy it will be to make DW terminators using the standard terminator kit and some parts from the proper DA one.

There's tons of detail on all of the parts and I love the censers and bits of gothic detail here and there. There's some nice touches throughout with the arched vents on the back to the shoulder pad details.

Ravenwing Kit
Another kit with a vast array of assembly options. There's plenty in here to make your normal RW bikes a bit better too. The command squadron has some gorgeous models but thanks to the size limit on the unit I'll probably buy a second kit and just make 6 black knights. You only get 3 plasma talons but since you'll be taking a grenade launcher most of the time you'll have a spare pair in each kit.

Again the detail here is stunning. I've not tried to assemble any bikes yet (I'm waiting til I've decided on a list) but they're going to look great. The black knights will probably make it into most of my armies just because I love the models in a similar way to my thunderwolves getting more than their fair share of outings.

Conclusion
I've only just begun to work out what I can do with the kits and I'm hoping by combining them with the DV models I already had and two RW battleforces I've bought I'll have enough stuff to create an interesting list already.

The question remains as to whether or not I'll be able to get 1,850pts worth ready for Blog Wars 5 but screw the Dark Eldar for a while as I try to get these guys painted!