Review of 2014

I'm interrupting Matt's review of the Blood Angels codex with my traditional end of year post. This is the time when I look back over the year of gaming and see what I've achieved. If you ever really achieve anything by playing with toy soldiers that is?!

Blogging

Well, as you can see from the graphic on the right, this has been a bumper year for From the Fang. I had my highest monthly figures in August with just over 59,000 pageviews. That's unbelievable really. It was mainly down to the codex review posts as I think that's what a lot of people search for once the new books are released. They're a lot of work but they really help me get to grips with the new codices and work out what I'm likely to run in my own armies or face in other people's armies.

Clearly having a child has affected my blogging time though as I've only posted something like 120 times this year. That's still a lot but it's down from last year. Still, looking back at last year's review post I can see that I've racked up a whopping 431,630 views this year which is nearly half of my all time figures so perhaps the quality of my posts has improved eh?

I'm actually planning on scaling my blogging down a bit in the coming year. You may have noticed I'm rarely posting battle reports from my friendly games and shortened reports from tournament games. They take a hell of a lot of time to write up and I'm not convinced people really take the time to read them. I intend to keep reviewing the new books though as it will help me keep abreast of the new rules and units. I'd like to include more hobby content on here but I think I say that every year.

Hobby Progress
Well having read Garfy's post over on Tale of Painters I'm thoroughly depressed with my lack of painting this year. As ever it's been a year of half finished things. I think the key problem is that I don't write enough about my hobby on the blog. If I forced myself to complete projects so that I could post about them I'm sure I'd actually get things done. My main motivation for painting is usually to get things ready for a tournament. I painted up two SW drop pods and a stormwolf for an event at the Outpost and a Skyray, Farsight and some drones for the team event. Of course, none of them are finished but good enough for a tournament.

That's kind of the issue really. When I look into the cupboard at all my models on shelves I struggle to find anything that's actually finished. There's my Kabalite Warrior test model that's pretty much done but the basing is half arsed and there's some details I haven't done. It's the same story with my most "complete" army the Space Wolves. All of them need their faces doing, more of the gold details painting in and company markings adding. Of course the issue is time. I actually get a decent amount of free time but painting is often way down my list of priorities. At the moment I'm getting back into video games in a big way since I bought an Xbox One. This means most of my evenings (once my little boy and wife are in bed) are spent playing Madden, Halo, etc instead of blogging/painting.

The thing I'm most frustrated about is that looking at my gaming table I can see it's pretty much all still grey plastic scenery with very little painted. I'm absolutely determined that this is the year when I start playing with some fully painted scenery. Jamie will no doubt find this funny since I've been saying this for a long time.

Part of the problem has also been this relentless release schedule. I was inspired to start painting my Orks only for Space Wolves to come out. This prompted renewed progress on the Wolves until the DE book to hit shortly after. I've got a pile of kits that I bought with the book releases for both DE and Wolves that I haven't even taken out of the shrink wrap!

Despite what I said last year I have no plans on starting a new army at the moment. I had toyed with the idea of a Tyranid force but I really want to get everything finished that I already own. To that end I've decided to sell my Dark Angels so expect to see a plug for some eBay auctions in the near future. I simply have no love for them and the money would be better spent bolstering my other armies, particularly DE and Wolves. It's a shame that I actually put some time into painting the Ravenwing but I can't see me sitting down to finish them and they're just collecting dust.

More Big Changes to 40K

In last year's post I was talking about how there'd been big changes to 40K in 2013. Well who would've thought we'd be sitting here now with all but one army having a hardcover codex? There's been an insane number of new books this year and I don't think any of us truly expected 7th edition to arrive so soon.

Generally speaking the new books have lost quite a bit of their character but there's a definite streamlining too them and some nice new ideas. My biggest disappointment of the year was losing so many special characters for several books but most notably the Dark Eldar codex. We have had a few extras I suppose but it's a shame that they came at the expense of Vect, Duke Sliscus and others.

I'm quite optimistic for the game in the coming year though. If they start to redo some of the hardcovers into this new datasheet format we might see a bit more balance in the game. I think the new books feel pretty well matched against each other (although DE are still on the weaker side). It's only really when comparing them to the powerhouse books like Eldar, Tau and Necrons that they look poor. Matt and I had a great game of BA vs SW yesterday as a matter of fact.

Tournaments
Tournament play has been a bit of a bug bear for me this year. The 7th edition army selection system is frankly stupid and it's meant a huge disparity between what different TOs are doing. Our FLGS now alternates between LoW and non-LoW tournaments so we only tend to go to the non-LoW versions after some bad experiences playing in the others.

We took part in our first team event this year though (which made up for the absence of 40K doubles in the latter half of the year).

Blog Wars
Blog Wars 7 had a record attendance and BW8 was probably the best event I've run to date. Suffice to say I'm looking forward to 9 and 10 and I hope a lot of you guys are too. It's becoming increasingly difficult to create a rules pack that pleases everyone but I hope I'm still doing a decent job. I'll be posting more about the events soon so stay tuned.

X-wing
I started playing X-wing last year and I'm completely hooked. We'd promised ourselves we'd avoid playing in tournaments to keep it friendlier but I'd be surprised if we make it through 2015 without dipping our toes into the competitive scene.

I currently own at least one of every Rebel ship (barring Tantive and Transport) and multiples of several. This gives me a massive amount of variety in the squadrons I can put together. Matt has a decent range of Empire ships too and we've got Scott interested (who's collecting Rebels). We're also hoping that Sam will pick up some Scum and Villainy ships. Incidentally we're meeting up on the 10th for 6 of us to play X-wing which will hopefully sell it to some more people and therefore create a bigger gaming group for us. I've gone on at length about what I like about the game so I won't gush any more here.

Conclusion
Finally, I'm just slightly shy of one million pageviews for the blog so I'll be running a little giveaway to celebrate once I pass that milestone (which should be in the next couple of days). Keep an eye out for that and for details of Blog Wars 9 which I'll hopefully finalise soon.

I'll post up my resolutions fairly early on in the new year. As ever, thanks to everyone who reads this little blog and for all the comments. Keep them coming.

New 7th Edition Blood Angels Codex Review - Fast Attack

Another short post for a fairly short section. It's pretty clear already that BA lists will be dominated by Elites choices which is echoed in the Baal detachment. 

Rhino and Razorback
These are both fast vehicles and get it for only 10 points more than the regular Space Marine version. This is great and makes these transports much more useful in my opinion. If you run them as dedicated transports for Troops in a Combined Arms Detachment then they gain Objective Secured which makes them very annoying for your opponent as they zip around the board controlling and contesting objectives. Even if they aren't Objective Secured, they are still much better as they can deliver carry units across the battlefield faster and can still go on to claim hard to reach objectives due to their speed. Rhinos are really quite durable these days and I have often found them surviving far longer than you expect them too in more recent games. Also due to being fast, BA Razorbacks can be used as fairly effective mobile gun platforms with twice the move distance before firing.

Drop Pod
My favourite thing in this section. Being able to take these empty is great, it means you can put whatever you want into it, from any Armies of the Imperium codex (as long as it fits).

Assault Squad
I was one of the many people who were bitterly disappointed to see that assault squads weren't in the Troops section. However it's not all bad for this unit. They get more special weapon options than regular marine assault units, such as meltaguns and plasmaguns and they can still take 2 special weapons no matter the size of the unit. So many people will see this as an opportunity to put a 5 man unit into a drop pod (for free as they lose their jump packs) with 2 meltaguns and a sergeant with 2 melta pistols for a total of 4 melta shots!

They could also be used in a similar way with their jump packs on in a jump themed army they could run around with a few meltaguns trying to blow things up. Otherwise the jump assault units in the Elites section are just so much better in close combat, that this unit really isn't worth considering for that role.

Bike Squads
Everyone knows how good these can be with a load of grav guns and they are just as good here. I personally don't like bike armies, partly because everyone runs them at tournaments and partly because Space Marines on motorbikes is just a bit weird.

Two more posts to go then to wrap the review up. I'll be interrupting it again briefly to review the year and write up my hobby resolutions for the new one.

New 7th Edition Blood Angels Codex Review - Elites (Part 2 of 2)

Back on track with the review series and onto the second part of the Elites section. I'm certainly finding it useful to know what I'm going to be facing next time Matt and I play.

Dreadnought
Only difference this has over any other Space Marine dread is that it has Furious Charge. Not important for a dreadnought, I suppose it also has initiative 5 on the charge if part of Baal detachment. But all this is pointless discussion as no-one will run them when they are in the same slot as the following two selections….

Death Company Dreadnought
I love the idea of a dreadnought falling to the Black Rage and rampaging through the enemy ranks. I think that the rules for the Death Company Dread do it justice and definitely make it a viable choice in a very crowded Elites slot.

Get one of these to charge into combat and it will do immense damage to a unit. On the charge it has 6 attacks at initiative 5 (Baal) with S10 AP2. Give him talons and he will also re-roll wounds. He ignores Shaken and Stunned and can take magna grapples which will help him get there too. But this of course is the main weakness of a dreadnought, getting them there. They will be a prime target to any heavy weapons fire that your opponent has, so what are your options? Well you could run several dreadnoughts in your army, I already discussed the possibility of running 6 (7 with Cassor the Damned as a troop selection) maximum including 4 Elites and 2 libby dread HQ’s. This is extreme of course, but it is reasonable to run a few in drop pods and have them all come down turn one, this gives your opponent too many targets and should allow some to get in to combat and start wrecking stuff. Your other option is a Stormraven, put one in raven and it can assault straight out, this coupled with the ravens manoeuvrability should ensure the dreadnought gets into combat as long as the raven survives long enough. The other problem with this idea of course is that it has to be in reserve, which sometimes means it doesn't arrive until turn 4, which also means the dread can't charge until turn 5, which is a complete waste and a massive points sink. You could make this less likely to happen by having something that helps reserves to arrive such as the Descent of Angels warlord trait, which Dante has. Even so I personally prefer dropping a few dreads on top of my opponent  turn 1, but I would also use the Stormraven method, especially if only running a single Dreadnought.

Furioso Dreadnought
There is an interesting comparison to be made here between the Furioso and the DC dreadnoughts, as they are both exactly the same points value, but both have very different rules and stats.

So lets say we kit them both out exactly the same way, with two blood talons:

Kitted in this way the DC dread gets 6 attacks on the charge at WS4 I5 S10 AP2, re-roll wounds. Against a WS4 opponent that gives 3 hits and 3 wounds. When not charging he will get 2 hits and 2 wounds.

Furioso on the charge gets 4 attacks at WS5 I5 S10 AP2, re-roll wounds. Against WS4 opponent will get 2.67 hits and 2.67 wounds. When not charging he will get 2 hits and 2 wounds.

So when fighting WS4 oppoents with this loadout both are closely matched, but the DC dread edges it offensively with the potential to get many more hits and wounds if you have some lucky rolls. However defensively the Furioso has the edge, just because it is AV13 compared to the DC dreads AV12, the DC dread ignores Shaken and Stunned, but this is nowhere near as good as the extra armour point on the front, which is especially good in close combat, it makes even power fists and thunder hammers struggle sometimes. Of course the other thing to consider is that not all opponents are WS4 and any other WS will tip the balance even more in favour of the DC dread in terms of damage output, for example if assaulting a vehicle then the DC dread has a much better chance of wrecking it. But the main selling point of the Furioso for me is the AV13, it makes it so much more durable, which is what dreadnoughts need. AV13 rules out any weapon below strength 7 and makes strength 7 weapons (the most common strength of weapons capable of doing damage) half as likely to do any damage, and incapable of penetrating. (don't forget WS5 also adds to the defense as it's more likely your opponent will be hitting on 4s and riptides etc will be hitting on 5+ - ed.)

The other reason I like Furiosos is because you can give them frag cannons. Many people don't like these, but I do. It's a 2 shot strength 6 Rending flamer, what's not to love? Equip your Furioso with a frag cannon and heavy flamer and put him in a drop pod, 4 high strength flame templates straight out of the pod turn one and the dreadnought is still very capable is combat too.

Vanguard Veterans
These are the 4th option for a fast moving hard hitting squad, after looking at DC, Command Squads and Sanguinary Guard. If you are only wanting a small 5 man unit then any of the other 3 options are better than vanguards. For example a 5 man command squad with jump packs is 15 points more than a 5 man vanguard squad with jump packs. For the 15 points extra you get a champion with a power sword and combat shield (and better WS) and Feel No Pain as standard for the unit, otherwise they have the same stats and access to similar wargear (with some unit specific options). So for a small unit don't bother with these.

However if you are wanting to run a specialised 10 man unit then vanguard vets are the way to do it. They can all have thunder hammers and storm shields if you want or they could all have dual inferno pistols. Obviously this is massively expensive, but you can do it.

Sternguard Veterans
It is worth noting that a 5 man unit of BA Sternguard are 10 points cheaper than regular space marine Sternguard, which is nice. I definitely think these are still worth consideration for many lists. The special issue ammunition is as always very versatile and the ability to kit them out with loads of combi-meltas is always attractive. Of course they can now be put with a priest to make them more survivable plus the WS boost coupled with Furious Charge makes them pretty decent in combat too.

That wraps up the Elites section then. Onto the last couple of articles covering Fast, Heavy and Lords of War. I'll try and get Matt to wrap the series up with some discussion about list building and general tactics.