Necron Second Wave Pre-orders with 25% off

Just a quick post to say I got an email from Total Wargamer saying they're doing the Necron second wave with 25% off. Take a look.

This is a bit premature of them since GW havent even announced them yet! Of course we all know they're coming thanks to Beasts of War leaking White Dwarf again. Theres more details at Faeit212.

Sadly Matt sold his Necrons so I won't be seeing them on a table near me anytime soon.

Also I'm now away for 2 weeks. Hopefully I'll get round to scheduling some stuff before I go but no promises.

Adapt to Survive!

There's been a lot of talk about Space Wolves going off the boil recently. Not as many people are taking them to tournaments anymore since there's (literally) shinier stuff out there in the form of GK and Necrons. Don't get me wrong I can see why people are attracted to these books. It's no secret that GK are incredibly powerful and Necrons can be tough to beat. However, I think part of the problem is that people aren't evolving their lists. There are three types of gamers at tournaments. Those who write a fun list with units they enjoy using, those who come up with an innovative list and play it to its best and finally those who just copy the second group but don't have the tactical acumen to pull it off.

Personally I probably have qualities of all three of those. I try and do something different with fun units but I'm not that great tactically. I have some inspired moments but the people who win tournaments are pretty solid throughout the entire battle. Here's how I see the general tournament scene at the moment. Well before I start let me say that these are sweeping generalisations for which I make no apology! Anyway here goes.

In my, somewhat limited, experience the tournament scene flows in a cycle. A new codex is released and internet forum dwellers sit down and try to figure out how to put together the most horrible list they can with it. Let's take a look at Grey Knights for an example that people will be familiar with. So the book came out and everyone was taking strike squads in razorbacks with support from psyfleman dreads. Essentially ignoring all the fun stuff and focusing on the real workhorses. The principle here is that "it works for SW and BA so why not GK too?". These lists work fine for a while until someone figures out a simple counter. Essentially if you can pile enough transport killing stuff into a list then you're onto a winner.

So the GK players eventually come up with something new. Elements like the psyfleman remain but they are now joined by massive blobs of  paladins with every upgrade under the sun and people are crying about their effectiveness in KP games. That is, of course, until someone takes Fear of Darkness/IG-thing-I-can't-remember-the-name-of and makes the big blog of paladins run from the board. Back to the drawing board and someone spots that "hey if I take Coteaz I can buy a 12pt squad to just sit in a razorback and pump out S6 shots from the turret". Let's not talk about how broken that is but the point is that they have more points to spend on shiny things like purifiers.

At every step of the journey there are people who are still trying to make the older list work. These are the people who just copy lists from the net without understanding how to use them. GK have probably been the worst for this since the razorspam thing doesn't really take much thought to be deadly. With a little bit of tactical knowledge it can be deadly with a real understanding of the game it can be devastating. So anyway, we're now presented with a range of different builds that can all be pretty fun until along comes the Necrons and ruins the party. Shooting is king right? WRONG. Here's 2+ turns of night fighting and 15pt models that can eat tanks!

The people who've just copied a netlist will repeatedly lose to these armies because basically they've just gotten used to rolling dice and stuff dying without putting much thought into it. The people who really understand the game go one of two ways either a) adapt their list to compensate e.g. throw in searchlights or more deepstriking or b) switch to using Necrons! Their ability to manipulate Night Fighting and terrain are the perfect counter to Grey Knights.

Necrons have undergone a similar evolution where a couple of builds now stand out. Lists with dual command barges, 3 annihilation barges and troops supported by royal courts. The alternative being scarab farms with Imotekh in tow. Sweeping generalisation I know but you do see a lot of both. Undoubtedly the next codex (who knows when or what that will be!) will change things up again. For me this is the joy of tournament play. The fact that a list you took to a tournament a month ago and did well with is suddenly impotent or vice versa. Now some lists stand the test of time but gimmicky things will always need to evolve.

All of this evolution requires a lot of cash. In order to keep your list up-to-date you need to have most of the decent stuff in a codex at your disposal. This may be why we see some people use the same old stuff but personally I think it's laziness.

So applying this to Space Wolves. That generic list with grey hunters in rhinos joined by rune priests with long fangs and speeders in support just can't cut it anymore. That list was fantastic against other lists of the same type since Grey Hunters are, in my opinion, still the best troops in the game and long fangs are cheaper than most heavy weapon teams. However, put that list against a Grey Knight gun-line and you'll lose unless your opponent is a total moron.

What's the solution? Evolution! Look at the codex again and see if all those units you discounted as "un-competitive" are now something that could work. If you pit your wall of advancing rhinos against a GK wall of razorbacks you know who'll win. Those speeders won't last long to S6 fire so throw in a couple of wolf scout packs and those much needed psyfleman dreads will have something to worry about. Drop a squad of grey hunters in behind their lines in a drop pod (assuming we're talking henchmen not strike squads with warp quake) and start ripping into things. Make the most of the new TWC models and distract them with a deathstar they can't ignore whilst you bring up the grey hunters.

Ultimately what I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't stick to the same list and expect to do just as well tomorrow as you will this time next year. Don't let the internet tell you what should be in your list (yes I appreciate the irony here). The reason people have such success with the "flavour of the month" lists is because they designed it to beat last month's flavour which every other sucker is still using!!

Finally, when you're planning a tournament list you have to think about what you want to achieve. Do you have that killer instinct needed to win or are you just going to play some different people regardless of the outcome? Personally I want to use something that will be fun but might still win a couple of games if I play well. The list maketh not the man!

After Action Thoughts on Tau (Part Two)

Part one focused on my current Tau list's performance at OW17. Today I'll look at what I could do differently in future Tau armies. Let me start by pointing out there's a very good reason I haven't made some of these changes before. I only have a limited range of Tau models at my disposal (in particular kroot) and I'm loathe to buy any new ones if (and it seems to be a big "if") the codex is coming out next year. It would be a shame to buy and paint a whole range of new units when there'll likely be some shiny new models. Not to mention I might end up stuck with a load of units that suddenly become crap. The other factor is that the rumour mongers seem pretty sure that 6th edition is coming our way soon. If the mechanics of the game change dramatically I again don't want to be stuck with an army that can't pull its weight. Right, that being said let's crack on.

I took Tau to Jolly Toys and Open War to give me more of an excuse for poor performance than I have when I play Space Wolves. This worked well at Jolly Toys but at Open War people were very quick to point out that Tau had won the indy GT this year so "they can't be all that bad". This was news to me so I thought I'd look at the list the winner took. Essentially it's this:

Shas'el w/ missiles
2x 3 Crisis suits w/ missiles

2x 6 fire warriors (leader w/ marker)
3x 10 kroot
1x 10 kroot + 4 hounds
3x 3 broadsides

I've skipped over the upgrades but you get the general idea. There are several noticeable differences between the lists:

• Just the one commander, no bodyguard
• 3-man battlesuit teams
• No tanks
• Blacksun filters aplenty
• Craploads of kroot
• More broadsides

Otherwise the equipment isn't that dissimilar, missiles on crisis teams and lots of railguns. However, all these differences mean he's got a lot more ranged firepower (6 more twin-missile shots and 5 more twin-railguns). What's more he'll be hitting 3 more targets than I would be. Granted everything (except the commander) is BS3 but with twin-linkage that actually doesn't matter too much. This all equates to a lot of dead enemy tanks from his opening salvo. He's maximising the long range damage that Tau do best. Whilst my command teams are lethal in the right situation they're a bit circumstantial and you pay a premium for them.

Although my list is no slouch when it comes to killing vehicles it struggles once their occupants are walking around. The GT winning list has a crapload of anti-infantry rapid fire. Assuming he's in rapid fire range he's got over a hundred shots! Not to mention the kroot can assault softer stuff. This is really where my army struggles.

So, looking back at my list there's a whopping 500pts more in the HQ section than he spent. Add in the cost of the pathfinders and 3 devilfish and around 850pts which is pretty much half my army! None of these things are reliably pulling their weight. For the same points he's got more anti-tank and more anti-infantry fire! Clearly I've got it wrong at the moment but I'm still loathe to buy piles of kroot and broadsides for an army I might not take to another tournament before 6th edition/new tau codex. It's just not worth the investment at the moment. The Tau go back in the box for a while so I can play with my Dark Eldar!

After Action Thoughts on Tau (Part One)

Following on from my battle reports of my Tau army's exploits at Open War XVII, I wanted to share some of the lessons learned and my general thoughts on the competitiveness of Tau in the current tournament scene. As I've said previously Tau aren't a forgiving army to command. If you make a mistake with a unit of Grey Hunters you can rely on them to hold their own regardless. Do the same with some fire warriors or battlesuits and you'll lose them quickly.

I'll start of by examining my list, the original plan for it and how it performed at OW17. Tomorrow I'll look at what I could do to improve it if I were to take it to a tournament again. Anyway, here's a reminder of my Open War list:

1,749pts of Tau Empire
Shas'el w/ fusion blaster, plasma rifle, shield gen, HWMT - 107pts
2x Crisis Shas'vre w/ fusion blaster, plasma rifle, targetting array, HWMT, one DC with 2 gun drones - 184pts
Shas'el w/ fusion blaster, plasma rifle, shield gen, HWMT - 107pts

2x Crisis Shas'vre w/ fusion blaster, plasma rifle, targetting array, HWMT, one DC with 2 gun drones - 184pts

2x Crisis Shas'ui w/ T-L missile pod & targetting array - 106pts
2x Crisis Shas'ui w/ T-L missile pod & targetting array - 106pts

6 Fire Warriors (Devilfish w/ disrupt. pod) - 145pts
6 Fire Warriors - 60pts
6 Fire Warriors - 60pts

5 Pathfinders (Devilfish w/ disrupt. pod) - 145pts
5 Pathfinders (Devilfish w/ disrupt. pod) - 145pts

2x XV88 Broadsides w/ targetting array, team leader w/ DC, 2x shield drones, HWTL - 200pts
2x XV88 Broadsides w/ targetting array, team leader w/ DC, 2x shield drones, HWTL - 200pts

Army Strategy
Command teams can either be deep struck against gun-line armies/heavy weapons teams or deployed for extra anti-armour/infantry punch. These units should be able to alpha strike a combat squad of marines once the rest of the army has destroyed their transport. The gun drones also have a chance to pin any survivors. Their meltas can bring down heavily armoured targets if the broadsides either can't get a shot or have been destroyed. Hopefully the combination of sacrificial gun drones and the Shas'el's invulnerable save will keep them alive.

The crisis teams are pure transport killers. I originally had flamers on them for anti-horde but found that it was better to keep them at range and have the improved accuracy of BS4. Once all transports are dead they can help with anti-infantry by forcing armour saves or instant killing GEQ characters.

The fire warriors are obviously the objective holders. They borrow the pathfinders' devilfish which help the command teams to deep strike accurately when required. Depending on the opponent the fire warriors will either remain in the devilfish or disembark to add fire support. It's worth remembering that against IG or Eldar they can wound infantry on 2+. Their devilfish can be hard to shift with AV12 and near-permanent cover save. If your opponent is shooting at the transports then they're ignoring the battlesuits and that's fine by me!

Early in the game the pathfinders help the broadsides/missile teams out by stripping away cover saves from enemy vehicles. Should they survive long enough they'll then help the fire warriors/command teams by either improving their BS or removing cover saves. When possible it's worth remembering they can modify enemy leadership when taking pinning tests too. As I've mentioned, the added advantage of aiding with deep strike comes in handy.

The broadsides require no explanation. Frankly, if I had more models I'd happily drop something else from the list to have more of them! I've debated before about the pros/cons of having targetting arrays over stabilisation systems. It'd be an even easier decision if there weren't pathfinders in the list but it does mean their markerlights can be used to strip cover saves instead of needing to boost BS. If I had 3 man teams of broadsides I think I'd take ASS's but with 2-man teams targetting arrays mean that when splitting fire you've got a much better chance of taking down 2 targets. With the two shield drones they can take a disgusting amount of punishment but their vulnerability is always their leadership value as my first opponent at OW17 demonstrated.

What worked and what didn't at OW17
When not running from the board, the broadsides were predictably excellent. Despite some frustrating damage table rolls they were devastating to all three of my opponents. The problem was not having enough of them! With another team of 2 I'd have felt a lot more confident against all 3 opponents.

The pathfinders were a bit hit and miss in these games. Against the BA I used them on the wrong targets and they died pretty quickly, against the IG they helped with cover save removal but I think I'd have still won without them and against the orks they simply allowed my opponent to get closer quicker by consolidating after wiping them out. However, in all 3 games they seemed to be targetted for shooting when there were better things to shoot at. Whilst they can certainly be a force multiplier they aren't much use on their own. I could understand using some small arms fire but in some cases my opponents were firing heavier stuff their way. Each team scored a couple of hits per turn as you'd expect and at one point I hit with all 5 from one squad giving me BS5 and no cover saves against some orks.

The trouble with the pathfinders is that they're just too static and too flimsy. Their locator beacon thingies are handy but in games 2 and 3 I was better off deploying my suits instead of deep striking. It's a shame there aren't really many viable alternatives for getting markerlights into the list. You can give a fire warrior team a shas'ui with marker and targetlock but then you're getting them out of their transport too soon and one marker isn't going to achieve much. Hopefully in the new book they'll find a better mechanic for them. To be honest I'd settle for markerlights being made into assault weapons and the pathfinders having stealth. Overall they were probably just about worth taking. Since I'd have bought the fire warriors a devilfish each anyway I only spent 120pts on the pathfinders.

About half the points of my list are spent on crisis suits. They're the real meat of the army. At Jolly Toys the commander teams were excellent but I think that's because the rest of the force wasn't equipped correctly. Now that the missile teams have targetting arrays and the broadsides have target locks they outstripped the performance of the command teams. In each game the command teams were useful though. In game 1 one of the teams alpha-struck Mephiston, game 2 they were popping chimeras and leman russes up close and in game 3 they helped thing out the nobz mobs (even after swapping their commanders for squigs). The question is, could the points be spent better. I'll discuss this more tomorrow but suffice to say I think they can.

One of the differences with this list over previous incarnations was that I had less fire warriors in each squad. I actually think I'd have done better with the 9-man teams I took to Jolly Toys. Mind you, if I'm going to drop the pathfinders then they might not be as effective.

OK that'll do for today, come back tomorrow (if you aren't bored already) and I'll be talking about what I could change in the future.

Open War 17 Battle Reports - Tau Undefeated! (Part 2)

Yesterday was my birthday so I'm posting these a little later than planned. I got a bit carried away with the report from the first battle so I'll try to keep the remaining two brief. Here goes....

Game 2 - Tau vs Imperial Guard
Drawing the first game put me firmly in mid-table. I was worried that I'd meet something a bit off the wall so was pretty pleased to be facing Dan's Imperial Guard. I'm always pretty confident against IG because I can usually beat them for both range and accuracy. Dan had 5 veteran squads in 2 vendettas and 3 chimeras with a command squad in a fourth chimera. These were joined by 3 Leman Russ and a couple of sentinels which would outflank.

We'd be playing Dawn of War and Annihilation. Dan's list probably edged mine for KPs but there wasn't much in it. Luckily for me I'd be shooting first but the table contained a frankly horrific amount of line of sight blocking massive buildings. This would really hamper both of us but I decided (after much deliberation) I'd rather be the one hiding behind them then letting my opponent stay out of sight and force me to close range. With all those veterans and melta/plasma I'd want to keep them at arms length. Nethertheless I elected to deep strike my commander teams in the hopes of getting melta shots on his tanks and then charging the occupants with my S5 suits. Obviously with it being DoW neither of us deployed anything so we proceeded to walk on in turn 1.

Dan walked on everything but his sentinels and since the latter only had scatter lasers I wasn't too worried about them as long as I kept my devilfish moving. My first broadside team to shoot blew up both vendettas straight away and the resulting explosions killed off half of the veterans inside. One squad was pinned but sadly both held their nerve and didn't flee. The rest of my shooting was less successful but Dan's response was equally unlucky with his Leman Russ's failing to find range or scattering off target (which was the story for the rest of the game.

Dan's sentinel arrived in turn 2 and failed to hurt the nearby devilfish with shooting and only shaking it in combat. They soon fell victim to the nearby missile team. The next few turns saw one of my commander teams deep-striking in, killing a leman russ and then taking a crapload of melta/plasma fire leaving a single suit on his own. He tried to kill a chimera but failed with shooting and assault leaving it stunned. He obviously died quickly after. On the right flank I pushed my devilfish forwards and rapid fire, helped by the pathfinders, easily dealt with the veterans that were without their transports. Dan eventually managed to kill off a devilfish but at the end of turn 6 (no random game length in this mission) the game was most definitely a whitewash. The only thing that survived was half a veteran squad who would've died had I not snake-eyed my battlesuits move through cover roll and missed out on an assault.

Conclusion
One of those games that isn't good for either party as my army did what it does best with disgusting efficiency. Dan stayed in a good humour about it though and it was enjoyable all the same. After a devastating first turn from me Dan understandably played a bit cautiously. I think if he'd advanced his army and got his melta/plas vets into range in their chimeras it could've been very different. The full points from this game would definitely propel me to the top tables.

Game 3 - Tau vs Orks

Feeling a bit light-headed playing on table 3 with my Tau I was surprised to find I was pitted against Orks. Looking at the results table I was a little gutted to have narrowly missed out on playing another IG army but knowing that trukks died easily to my army I was still fairly happy. My opponent, Andy, shared my philosophy of bringing something fun along rather than a hardcore tournament list (although with hindsight his list was still very competitive). He had Ghaz with meganobz in a battlewagon, 2 deffkoptas, 3 units of boyz in trukks and Zogwort with a pile of nobz in a final trukk. We'd be playing a VP mission with control points that gave 100 VPs per turn they spent being controlled.

If I could get first turn this could be over pretty quickly. Of course I didn't manage it so I knew I find myself in combat by turn 2. In a surprising turn of events Andy managed to blow up one of my devilfish with his deffkoptas and stun the other (thanks to me failing cover saves). Thanks to L-shaped deployment one of the boyz mobs hit my pathfinders on turn 1 (stupid of me to put them that far forwards really). However, Andy was most excited about the prospect of turning my commanders into squigs and the first time he tried it he rolled a 6 and I failed to match it meaning I was now the proud owner of a bright red squig. Undeterred I decided to make the most of my new "assault" unit and sent him in the direction of one of the deffkoptas. Miraculously he held the deffkopta to a drawn combat which was nice.

Elsewhere my army did as expected and blew up pretty much every transport in the ork army. The only exceptions were Zogwort's trukk which was immobilised and the empty one which I ignored. One of the boyz mobs was pinned and took a few casualties from the nearby fire warriors. The squad which had killed the pathfinders was cut in half by some more fire warriors since I'd decided to keep them out of their transports to give me all the firepower I could get.

Turn 2 saw the inevitable Ghazghkull Waaagh! and the result was that Zogwort's nobz got a multi-charge on my stunned devilfish and commander team. Zogwort found time to make this commander into a squig too (he only rolled a 3 but I obliged with a 2, much to Andy's delight). Needless to saw I lost both the transport and the command team. Ghazghkull inflicted some overkill on some more Tau as well. However, all of that paled into insignificance when my squig managed to take down the previously wounded deffkopta!!! He then went and hid for the rest of the game to keep hold of the commander's VPs!

My army slowly picked off all of the orks apart from the nobz and meganobz (with their special characters in tow). The rest of the game would basically be me playing keep-away with JSJ moves and hoping to gun down the orks or at least pin them/make them run. Both nob mobs killed a broadside team each and then set about chasing the rest of my army around. Zogworts squad resisted a lot of fire thanks to Cybork bodies and FNP. Andy made a disgusting number of 5+ saves I'd like to point out! I was still pretty sure I could keep them at distance though and I'd scored 200 VPs from the control points. Both of his squads were pricey though so at least one had to go. Ghaz spent the game chasing a missile team around eventually killing one of them with shooting but taking no casualties since he never failed a 2+ save!

Zogwort's nobz were chasing the squig's crisis bodyguard (without their commander of course), missile team and a devilfish full of fire warriors. I was content in the knowledge that they'd not be able to charge me until Zogwort rolled a 6 for a well timed bonus Waaagh! Of course Andy rolled a 6 to run and caught the bodyguard team for a costly amount of VPs. With no other options I had to disembark the fire warriors and hope that with help from the 'fish and the missile team they'd force they gun the nobz down or at least force them to run. There were only 4 orks left in this team with Zogwort on 3 wounds, 2 klaw nobz with a wound each and the painboy with both his wounds. I just needed to kill one of them to force a morale check. After all my shooting (and some more sickeningly good saving throws) the 4 orks were still there with a wound each left. I should've insisted on making Andy assign the wounds properly as he rolled for all 4 on the same colour dice and then chose to put the wounds on Zog and the painboy but he'd let me off with stuff so I'd have felt harsh doing it. Totting up the VPs we found that with the help of the control points I'd managed to hold Andy to a draw with only about 100 VPs between the two armies. I finished in 16th just above the halfway mark.

Conclusion
This game was really frustrating thanks to bad luck on my part and amazing luck for Andy. That being said it was never going to be easy going second against Orks but I felt I put in a good show. The clincher of the whole thing was that bonus Waaaagh! which came just at the right time for Andy to catch my suits. Without it the bodyguard would've surely killed them off and won me the game.

Can't complain too much though since Andy was a great guy to play and it was a fantastic game with some really random orkyness which I loved (even though it hurt my army a lot). Coming away from a tournament knowing that you were undefeated with a Tau army is pretty satisfying. Knowing that the difference between drawing and victory was as simple as a dice roll is less than satisfying!! It didn't make my performance any better when every other person reminded me that a Tau player had won the 40KUK GT last month!

Time to retire the Tau for now and try out my Dark Eldar at Blog Wars 3. Before I put them away I'll post up some after action thoughts on Tau tactics and my list in general. Hopefully tomorrow but we'll see if I get chance.

Open War 17 Battle Reports - Tau Undefeated! (Part 1)

As I've mentioned in other posts I decided to give my Tau one last run at a tournament this year after a promising performance at Jolly Toys. The main changes in the list were the addition of target locks to my broadsides and targetting arrays to my other suits. I'll be discussing the list's performance tomorrow so check back then if you're interested.

I knew from Jolly Toys that if I met the right opponents I'd actually have a decent chance of placing well. I'd need to be playing against mech heavy armies, preferably MSU (as I don't have a ton of anti-infantry firepower). This means that winning the first game is important because the top tables tend to have the mech lists whereas the lower half have a greater variety.

Anyway, onto the battles!

Game 1 Tau vs Blood Angels
When I saw that I was drawn against BA I just prayed that there'd be no jump packs. I knew Mephiston would be likely but my commander teams should be able to alpha-strike him if he's in the open. Si's list had a stormraven, two baal preds (ACs), two las-plas razors with assault squads plus priests, a 10-man assault squad with priest, furioso in a drop-pod and, as predicted, Mephiston! Si was using chaos models as his BA (as you can see in the picture) which was a welcome change and looked great on the table.

The first mission was Pitched Battle and 5 objectives. Looking at his army I knew I could do with first turn since I'd like to be shooting at his tanks before that dreadnought hits on the first turn. Not only that but the stormraven would certainly be easier to kill without it having a cover save. Even so, I'd still be relying heavily on the damage table rolls. He'd undoubtedly put Mephiston inside so killing that would need to be a priority. All this planning went out the window when Si beat me in the roll off.

The predators used their scout move to get right into my face but since most of my army had cover I wasn't too worried about them. I knew I'd need to get rid of the las-plas to avoid any instant death for my suits. The first turn for the BA saw them shoot absolutely everything into the central broadsides whilst one assault squad stayed behind to hold an objective. I made a sickening number of armour, cover and invulnerable saves and the full force of the Blood Angels could only kill the two drones leaving the broadsides unscathed. I'm pretty sure Si had forgotten but being an honest sort I rolled a morale check for them which I failed! They were about 6.5" from the edge so I obviously rolled a 7! That really hurt the plans for my turn.

Seeing the dreadnought was nice and close to one of my commander teams I decided to move in to try and take it down nice and early. They penetrated but only blew off a weapon. This was the first of many poor damage table rolls. The next targets were the two predators (since other things were in cover). Essentially my shooting managed to shake the stormraven (thanks to it's extra armour), stun a predator and wreck a razorback. All in all pretty pathetic. The main mistake was using the pathfinders on the dread and one of the predators rather than on the stormraven. Frankly, I'd forgotted that it would have a 4+ save from zooming forward.

Suffice to say Mephiston dropped from the storm raven and slammed into a commander team easily finished them off thanks to Sanguine Sword. The assault squad deep struck in near the centre and the storm raven moved another 24" to the centre. The next few turns saw my pathfinders get clobbered (to be honest Mephiston was wasted on one of them) and me failing to do anything to the damned stormraven with my single broadside team (but I did kill the dread before it did me much harm). All but one devilfish dropped their drones (the other died) and I used them to move towards objectives for irritating contesting. I eventually wrecked the other razorback but the assault squad went chasing one of my devilfish. The melta missed the first time and stunned it the second.  Mephiston worked his way through more stuff until he was in range of the other commander team.

Turn 3 was the turning point for me as my damage table rolls finally came good. The fire warriors jumped out of their stunned devilfish and rapid fired the squad and with help from the broadsides forced them to run. The broadsides wrecked a predator and the other was taken by the remaining missile team. This left my opponent with one assault squad hugging an objective, one large assault squad in the middle and the damned stormraven. I moved my missile team and fire warriors round towards the small assault team on the objective and thinned them out a bit, knowing they wouldn't assault as they'd give up the objective. The large assault squad moved onto one of my objectives.

At the end of turn 5 I had one devilfish on an objective and Si had two assault squads on the others giving him a 2-1 lead. Luckily he rolled a turn 6 and I was able to move my crisis teams in to contest both objectives. The remaining commander team rapid fired their low-AP into the large squad and forced them to go to ground to avoid leadership tests. This meant even if we got a T7 I'd be safely contesting and could try to wipe them out. At the end of turn 6 all 3 claimed objectives were contested. All I needed to do was kill the stormraven to win the game 1-0. The broadsides penetrated twice and Si made one cover save. The difference between a draw and a win came down to a single 50-50 (thanks to AP1) dice roll. I rolled a......3! Immobilised the bloody thing and Si held onto a draw with me claiming a narrow VP victory.

With the start I had I was pretty thrilled to pull it back. I was pleased that I kept my cool and played the mission which to be honest I never do! To put myself in a position where I could win after some heavy losses and bad luck with vehicle damage was very satisfying and understandably frustrating for my opponent. The clincher was definitely the turn where I blew up both predators and killed Mephiston!

Sorry that turned into a bit of an epic. I'll try to keep the other two battles shorter but I'll post them up tomorrow!

Open War Painting Competition (pic heavy)

Yesterday, Matt and I attended the Open War XVII tournament at Maelstrom in Mansfield. I'll be posting up the battle reports from my games tomorrow but for now here's my highlights from the painting competition:

My vote went to this excellent pre-heresy Thousand Sons army. Check out the Thousand Son punching the Space Wolf in the face (below)!

Dark Eldar Wracks Painted

As promised here's a couple of shots of my Dark Eldar wracks that I've recently finished. I did take a whole pile of photos of them but my photography skills aren't great. On that note if anyone can offer any tips or point me in the direction of an article that tells me how that'd be really appreciated. I mean it could just be my camera but it's pretty decent and frankly I'm not going to buy a new one just to take pictures of plastic soldiers!

Anyway, here they are:

Clearly they need their bases sorting out but otherwise I'm pretty pleased with how they've turned out. The models are an absolute joy to paint and the detail on them is gorgeous. I'm still working on the haemos but I'll stick pictures of them up once they're finished.

What I like best about these guys are the toxin pipes and tanks that run around the models. Having something to make them stand out is important for me and without the bright green touches they'd look pretty bland I reckon.

I've got another squad of these yet to be painted so I might do a little step-by-step when I get round to doing them if people are interested. It'll be after Blog Wars though since I don't have time to paint anything I don't need for the tournament!

I'd love to know what you guys think, good or bad.

Dark Eldar WWP List vs Tyranids

In the second game with Scott last Saturday I pitted my new Dark Eldar dual-webway list against the same Tyranid list that had narrowly lost out to Tau in the previous game. You can find my webway list here. We'd be playing the second mission from the Blog Wars 3 scenarios which involves a Cleanse (4th ed) mission played with Spearhead deployment. The only difference from the rulebook missions being that the special characters (Baron for me, Swarmlord for Scott) can claim a quarter without support from troops.

Battle Report
The Dark Eldar would be going first and therefore I deployed my two venoms right at the front of my deployment zone. Scott deployed his tyranids as close as possible and kept his genestealers in reserve in order to Outflank them.

The venoms only needed to move 6" to drop off the webways (I forgot the templates so we made some out of paper!) which allowed the trueborn to stay inside to fire their blasters. This allowed each squad to cause a couple of wounds on big stuff. One squad killed a tyrant guard whilst the other wounded the winged tyrant. The venoms themselves ripped into the tyranids as well and caused wounds on the tervigon and killed some termagants. The tyranids responded by advancing on the webways. The hive guard managed to destroy one of the venoms and kill two of the trueborn. The shots at the other venom failed to hit their mark as the distortion caused by the flickerfield distracted the firers. Unsurprisingly both haemonculi were slain straight away but the tervigon would only spawn a single brood as Scott scored a double again!

A squad of wyches, reavers, wracks, hellions and a talos emerged from the portals and slammed into the tyranids. The reavers scythed down some gargoyles with their bladevanes. The remaining venom retreated to a safe distance and kept firing on the swarmlord killing another bodyguard and wounding the mighty tyranid monster himself. The wracks charged into the hive guard but despite poisoned attacks they failed to cause a single wound. The hive guard were similarly unsuccessful though and the combat was locked. The wyches had more success easily cutting down an entire brood of termagants to claim a pain token. The talos hit the tervigon with more success than his coven brethren and killed it off. The hellions attempted to multicharge two termagant broods but a poor run roll meant that their Adrenalight boosted attacks were more than enough to kill off a single brood leaving them exposed.

The mawloc emerged from the ground and the Terror from the Deep claimed the entire wych squad. This was a significant blow and with the mawloc a decent distance from the portals it would survive to burrow again for more devastation. Genestealers appeared on my left flank but were unable to fleet into combat with the remaining venom. The swarmlord charged in on the wracks and easily dealt with them. The hive tyrant hit the hellions hard but thanks to Baron they were able to break free of the combat to be able to kill more termagants in their turn.

The cronos, reavers and further wych squad emerged. The wyches killed off the remaining hive guard and the reavers' bladevanes killed off the gargoyles. The cronos caused a wound on the hive tyrant and gave the pain token to the wyches. The venom swung around to try and gun down the genestealers but could only kill a handful. The trueborn had disembarked and continued to fire on the swarmlord bringing down another tyrant guard. The hellions were free to kill off more termagants and the exposed hive tyrant lost it's final wound to the lonely trueborn. The genestealers were able to charge the venom but the fast moving vehicle was difficult to hit and survived the onslaught. The swarmlord found himself in charge range of the recently turbo-boosted reavers and easily killed them off. The genestealers who had just arrived on the flank did the same with the other reavers and things were looking bad for the dark eldar.

The final squad of wyches emerged and I cockily decided to shoot the genestealers instead of charging reasoning that with the drug and pain token enhancement I'd be able to kill them in combat anyway. The venom finished off the genestealers on the other flank. The swarmlord finally fell to the blaster fire of the trueborn. I'd now got one quarter with the hellions, one was contested by both genestealers and wyches and the other two were in my control but without any scoring units. I felt pretty confident until Scott produced the mawloc again! I'd totally forgotten it was still under the earth again and Scott could kill all of the wyches with the blast template. I breathed a sigh of relief when it scattered and only a couple of wyches died though!

The talos moved in to finish off the genestealers with help from the wyches and with only the mawloc left (and the trueborn/venom closing in) I think Scott was relieved to find the game end of turn 5. I therefore won 1-0.

Conclusion
I managed to make this game a lot closer than it should've been. Having inflicted massive damage on the tyranids early on I got far too cocky. One squad of reavers landing too near the flank and the other too near the swarmlord were rookie mistakes that cost me both units. The wyches not being spread out and therefore falling victim to the mawloc was another error. Had Scott hit the second squad with the Terror from the Deep attack then he could've pulled back a draw I reckon. It goes to show you need to focus in the later turns of the game. This is particularly true with Dark Eldar.

Scott was unlucky not to do better with his list and I think with that second tervigon and slightly better luck he'd present a real threat to any of my armies. Both games were hugely enjoyable and I'm always a fan of fighting Scott's beautifully painted nids. I hope he'll make it along to Blog Wars 3 too.

I feel a lot better about the webway list than I did having played Matt. I think the key is to only strike when necessary and otherwise hold back and use the venoms to thin down troops. The Dark Eldar are very much a glass cannon and rely on being locked in combat to survive fire. I've got a lot to learn about using them but one thing's for sure they're certainly a lot of fun to use!

Painting Dark Eldar for Blog Wars 3

Not an actual picture of me but same reaction!

There's a feeling of deja vu here as I talk about trying to get my DE painted for a Blog Wars tournament. However, unlike last year, when I gave up and took wolves, I'm determined to get them done in time so I can make BW3 their first tournament.

There's only about a month and a half now until the big day and I've not exactly got much done! My wyches are 3 colours (but not very impressive) and my cronos is too a decent standard but very little else is ready! In a plan reminiscent of GCSE/A-Level revision I've decided to focus my efforts by drawing up a painting timetable. This should give me targets so that I actually get things done in time. Here goes:

B/H  Weekend: Haemonculi & Wracks    <--- nearly done, pictures soon
W/B 9th April: Venom
W/B 18th April: Talos
W/B 23rd April: Trueborn
-- TWO WEEKS HOLIDAY --
W/B 14th May: Reavers
W/B 21st May: Reavers
W/B 28th May: Baron & Hellions

I was feeling pretty confident I'd be done in time until I remembered we're going away for the first two weeks of May!! This gives me very little time to get everything done given that I work full time too! As I've said above the haemonculi/wracks are coming along nicely and I'll finish them today and post pictures later this week.

One of the two venoms is pretty much done but the other is just undercoated. I'm sure I can get them both done in a week (or at least 3 colours anyway). The cronos is finished and only took me a couple of evenings so I reckon the talos won't be much more work. There's only 6 trueborn so I can't seem them taking a long time.

The reavers will need a significant amount of work. I've still got 3 more to build once they arrive from eBay land and then they're pretty time consuming to paint up, especially with the riders too. It'll be a similar story for the hellions and Baron still needs converting. I'll be enlisting Jamie's help here since he's far better with greenstuff than I am!

Somewhere in all that I've got to find time to work on my PgCert stuff too!! Wish me luck!

Battle Report: Tau vs Tyranids

Whilst I'm focussing on testing my Dark Eldar list, there is the matter of Open War the weekend after next. I'm taking my Tau along with a list that's not too disimilar from the one I took to Jolly Toys. Obviously I've ditched 250pts but what's left is a lot more streamlined and in actual fact it has more firepower, both more accurate and at more targets. On Saturday last week I tested it against Scott's tyranids. With the release of the winged hive tyrant, swarmlord and tervigon models he was keen to throw a 1,750pt "big stuff" list together and see how it performed.

He's got the Swarmlord with 3 tyrant guard (essentially 11 T6 wounds!), winged tyrant, 2 lots of 2 hive guard, two lots of genestealers, two lots of termagants with a tervigon, some gargoyles and a mawloc. Now for tyranids that's a pretty low model count but if either the swarmlord or tyrant get to your lines, and chances are they will, you're going to lose units fast.

Battle Report
We'd be playing Pitched Battle and Annihilation. Scott won the roll off and elected to infiltrate his genestealers and deep strike the gargoyles and winged tyrant. Everything else was plonked in the middle of his deployment zone with hive guard at each side. I spread my forces along my lines with some nice overlapping fire and decided to deploy my commanders instead of their usual deep strike.

Scott infiltrated his genestealers and luckily for me I stole the initiative. I gunned down a total of 8 'stealers leaving a couple in one brood and half a dozen in the other. Otherwise I caused a couple of wounds on the tervigon but little else. The tervigon spawned a brood of termagants but a double meant it would sit impotent for the rest of the game. This meant Scott decided to advance the mighty creature alongside the termagants in order to make the most of it's effects. The mawloc burrowed ready to emerge next turn.

The Tau held the line and opened up with their weaponry once more. This time a combination of markerlights and massed fire meant all the genestealers were gone. The tervigon found itself on a single wound and one of the tyrant guard fell. With a a terrible rumble the ground beneath the commander tore open as the mawloc sprung its trap. The drones fell victim to the attack and all three of the battlesuits were wounded. The tyranids were now at the tau lines and both sets of pathfinders were ripped apart by termagants. The winged hive tyrant descended from high in the skies and with help from the gargoyles it spat venomous fire at the broadsides.

The hive guard were the next target of the tau attacks with one brood dying out and one of the other pair just hanging on to life. The fire warriors finally disembarked from their transports hoping to gun down swathes of termagants but their fire proved largely ineffective thanks to the tervigon's influence. The broadsides wounded the hive tyrant but it was clear what was coming. The tyrant charged in and easily cleaved the battlesuits in two with his bonesword. The mawloc elected not to burrow and instead charged the broadsides who held on despite losing a couple of drones. The swarmlord was almost upon the tau but they'd get another chance to fire upon him before being charged.

The tervigon was finally felled but not before a squad of fire warriors had met a painful fate. With the tyranids charging squads along the tau lines they'd be lucky to hang on. A combination of fire meant the winged tyrant was slain but again another squad of fire warriors and a devilfish were the price. The swarmlord charged in to finish off the broadsides allowing the mawloc to burrow once again. Unfortunately the firepower of the remaining tau was enough to stop it having chance.

At the point there was only the swarmlord left fighting a squad of fire warriors, two devilfish and both commanders (with bodyguards). The swarmlord charged in on one commander but a triple 1 meant he failed to win what should've been an easy combat in my turn. This meant that in his turn he was unable to charge the suits which certainly cost him the game. The game finished here and we totted up the scores by looking down the army lists. Initially we worked out it was an 11-11 draw but half way through the next game we remembered that one of the termagant broods I'd killed off was an extra point (since it was spawned by the tervigon) and hence I won 12-11.

Conclusion
The tau performed fairly well but it was clear that focussed fire was necessary to bring down any of the big things. The main mistake I made was not getting my fire warriors out straight away. They could've then been pumping out 30" S5 shots for a couple more turns rather than sitting pretty in their transports until the tyranids were too close.

I think Scott should've dropped a few upgrades here and there and tried to squeeze in a second tervigon as I'd have really struggled to bring down two of them all off of the termagants they can spawn. I think we figured out there's something like a 44% chance of rolling a double/triple which means with two of them you should get one that gets more than one spawn. This means the exhausted one can advance and the other can sit back spawning. Mind you, against Tau (or any ranged gun-line) you probably want to have both moving forwards.

It was a close run thing and Scott was unlucky to not kill off the suits with his swarmlord. Just goes to show that no matter how good something is there's always the chance that your rolling will fail you at a crucial moment. The question is, how would this list fare against my wolves with their missiles? I think in that case Scott would be best deploying all of his big stuff (i.e. not deep striking the winged tyrant) as I'd have too many targets to choose from. Something would make it to my lines and even with power fists I'd be lucky to win out in combat.

I know the Tau list is week against massed infantry but were I to adjust it to compensate then I'd lose my ability to defeat mechanised armies. There isn't enough flexibility in the codex. Hammerheads are nice against hordes but really lose out to broadsides for anti-tank. Other crisis team builds have a good shot against hordes but can't then reliably bring down transports. Essentially the Tau want their opponents to be walking towards them having lost their transports early on. It's at this point that they can focus their fire squad by squad and force enough saves to bring down the troops.

Battle Report: Dark Eldar WWP List vs. Grey Knights

In the first of a few games testing out the latest incarnation of my Dark Eldar WWP list that I wrote about yesterday, Wednesday evening saw me playing Matt's GK list.

Matt has come up with a pretty horrible GK list for Open War. Yes I know most GK lists are horrible but this one is particularly nasty. He's got Coteaz, two big squads of purifiers in rhinos, 4 razorbacks with acolytes for scoring, 2 psyflemen and 2 dreadknights. That's right dreadknights, remember them?

The idea is that the dreadknights use their teleport thingies to smash into your face and whilst you're busying dealing with them the purifiers rock up and kick your teeth in.

Suffice to say it's not much fun to play against. It's even less fun with a Dark Eldar webway list when you're playing Dawn of War and get to go second! You can imagine why I didn't find time to take photos!

Battle Report
We'd be playing Annihilation and DoW (last mission of Open War) so Matt brought his army on (in the first turn) centrally with a dread and dreadknight at each side and the spam of vehicles in the middle. Since neither of us deployed anything I was forced to bring the venoms on turn 1 and only got the webways about 15" onto the board!

Matt then unleashed the massive volume of fire from his army and wrecked both venoms, killed both haemonculi and left very few of the trueborn which were pinned anyway! I rolled for my reserves and was gutted to see I'd only got two of my wych squads. They came out the webways and ran into cover since nothing was in range for a charge. Sure enough, a combinations of an incineration from each dreadknight and sheer weight of fire saw me with just a hekatrix left from the two squads. Next turn I got some more stuff but not really the things I wanted.

The rest of the turns were just me bringing stuff through the portals, fruitlessly trying to kill something and then dying horribly. There was genuinely a point when Matt was killing stuff quicker than I could put it back in the box! The talos was unlucky to be killed straight away by the dreadknight thanks to it wounding 3 times out of 3 hits on 5+!

Suffice to say I ended up tabled having only managed to kill a single rhino and 2-3 purifiers.

Lessons Learned
The first thing I learnt could have been a real game changer! When we rolled for first turn Matt rolled a 5 and I rolled a 4. Without thinking I let him take first turn and thought nothing of it until Baron died and I was putting him back in the box. It was then I remembered his +1 to that dice roll which would've forced a re-roll and potentially an opportunity to go first!

However, I really don't think it would've made much difference. I think I should have probably just deployed one of the venoms in the centre of the board with the haemo in it and hoped he survived to deploy his webway in turn 1. This isn't that far fetched as night fighting would've helped out. However, the problem with Matt's list is even if I'd dealt with the dreadknights there's still two squads of purifiers that I have to avoid in combat (thanks to cleansing flame). Frankly, it's pretty much my list's worst nightmare and going second on DoW didn't really help!

I learned a lot from the game though which is why I now have the wracks in the list. They allow me to deploy the haemo in the middle of the board and then hug a central objective. If it's not DoW then they can just come on from reserve from my board edge and sit on a home objective, go to ground and hope to be ignored or weather any fire.

After this game I was sorely tempted to put my ravagers back in but I think it would still be a stone vs scissors kind of game so I'm sticking with the rest of the list as it is. Next battle for them is Tyranids!

Dark Eldar Webway Portal List (1750pts)

I'm hopefully taking Dark Eldar to Blog Wars 3 after failing to get them ready for BW2 and taking my SW as a back up. I've not had a ton of games with them but the first few I played were the usual raider-spam kind of thing. However, with Blog Wars being a bit more laid back I thought I'd take something different. I really want to try out a dual webway list. Now obviously it isn't the most competitive build for DE but it's certainly a lot of fun.

Here's what I'm currently planning on taking. Very little of it is painted at the moment though so it might be a bit of a rush to get it all done. Anyway, here goes:

1,750pts of Dark Eldar

Baron Sathonyx
2x Haemonculi w/ WWP

2x 3 Blaster Trueborn in Venoms (2x Splinter Cannon, Night Shields)

8x Hellions
4x Wracks
3x 10 Wyches w/ Haywires and Agoniser Hekatrix

2x 6 Reavers w/ 2 Heat Lances

Talos w/ Chain Flails & T-L Heat Lance
Cronos w/ Spirit probe and vortex

The premise is pretty straightforward. The only things I deploy are the venoms with the haemos and trueborn inside. The haemos get out and launch the webways and the trueborn have a pop at a couple of vehicles to help out the reinforcements when they arrive through the webway.

I'd considered giving the haemos some upgrades like a shattershard and/or liquifier gun but frankly in the games I've had they basically drop the webway then die! As I've mentioned before I don't want to include ravagers as I think it spoils the theme of the army. Therefore my anti-tank/de-mech firepower has to come out of the webway. This comes in the form of the talos and reavers. However, with the exception of the wracks everything else can always charge a vehicle if they get desperate.

Baron is useful as not only does he make the hellions troops, meaning they're far more useful coming out of the webway than normal hellions, but also he gives +1 to the roll for going first. As any DE player knows first turn can be pretty vital. Of the 9 units coming out of the webway 3 of them can still come out of a blocked portal. This gives me some options for clearing any unit that's preventing me from using the webway. These units also have the options of coming on from my board edge if I prefer.

The webways allow you to get into your enemies face with your assault units without worrying about them getting cut down before you get there. The problem is that if you can't get those portals far enough forward there's a chance your opponent will be out of range. However, with jump infantry/jet bikes and fleeting wyches that isn't usually a problem. I'd never normally take the pain engines but they're fun out of a webway and since the cronos can potentially generate 3 pain tokens a turn he's a real force multiplier.

The main problem (as is the problem with any reserve army) is that you a quite dependent on your reserve rolls for success. If you get all the wyches straight away before you've got any anti-tank out there to bust open tin cans then you're likely to lose them. This shouldn't happen too oftern though with about half of the units being capable of ranged anti-tank. This means you should get a couple of units on turn 2.

The most difficult mission at Blog Wars 3 will be the last one with Dawn of War. The trouble here is that you can't get both your webways forwards very easily. However, this is where the wracks come in. Since they're troops thanks to the haemos they can be deployed with him in the centre of the board and hopefully get that webway down in the middle. The other one can blast on 24" from the table edge in turn 1 and deploy in turn 2. A shrewd opponent will respond by trying to deploy out of the way of the first webway but the second can then be directly in front of him. By having a webway in the centre for the third mission I've got a good chance of being able to claim/contest most of the objectives with stuff from the webways. The wracks will be hard to shift if I get them in cover and go to ground.

I've considered a lot of options for this list. Harlequins could be pretty nasty coming from a webway. With Veil of Tears, Rending and melta pistols they're always nice but being able to get into range quickly will really help them out. However, I don't own the models and a decent squad is about 200pts. Other things I've considered are Beastmasters (again pretty expensive in £s and points) and scourges, which lost out to reavers in my mind. The list can be pretty fun to play though so I don't think I need to change very much.

I'll post up a few battle reports I've had with this list over the next few days.

Example "Competition" Entry and an Actual Competition!

Here's one of the responses I received to my April Fool's Day fake competition yesterday morning. I've removed the name to protect the victim but I think the content kinda gives it away! The other responses I'm keeping to myself since they actually made me feel guilty with genuine reasons why they should win:

Alex,
You are a crazy bastard!
OK, I'll bite...

The Kabal of the Pink Mother Fuckers has been lying low for a while, waiting for reinforcements to arrive.. the sight of a screaming Razorwing Jetfighter dropping in from the clouds on PINK wings and reaping a heavy toll on the enemy is where it is at!

I guess I have to sell it here.. blackmail? Hmmm... I promise not to win Blog Wars 3 if you drop me the Razorwing and Battleforce? lol.

I'll take any list you want me to.. shit, amazing...as long as I have it.. BA, SW, IG, DE, GK, Necrons, Tau, Vanilla Marines, Chaos Marines, Sisters...your choice, I'll take up the challenge..

I will literally sell my soul for the DE Battleforce and Razorwing..

For "soul" read: chance to become a living legend and win Blog Wars for the third straight time and final time in 5th ed.

Anyway.. it's Sunday .. I have to go and shop for Wedding Rings.. eugh..the expense..

So I feel pretty bad about the whole thing but there was a part of me wished it was a real contest since I was tempted to make err.... let's call him err.... Sandy Dumphris bring something crap to Blog Wars 3 so he won't win again (I reckon he could just buy a cheaper wedding ring and get the DE stuff himself)!

On that note I've decided to add something to the prize fund for Blog Wars 3 with an additional competition. Apologies to readers in the rest of the world who won't be able to make it to BW3 but sadly it will only be open to those coming along. Here's the deal. As you know the Blog Wars tournaments are centred around the principle that Special Characters are awesome. If you disagree thats fine, but you are in fact....wrong.

Anyway, I'm always pleased to see someone that has gone out of their way to theme their list around a particular special character. For example, someone might make a Dark Eldar list which had Baron and only hellions as troops. They might throw together a Space Marines list for a particular chapter lead by their special character e.g. Khan with a crapload of White Scars bikers. Either way the idea is that, rather than taking a standard tournament list and just ditching a couple of things to shoehorn in a special character, they've actually themed their army. Now, in most cases that means they'll have probably gimped themselves with regards to competitiveness (if that's a word) but it's definitely entering into the spirit of the event. Therefore, from my own pocket (assuming I don't manage to sell enough tickets to fund it properly) I'm offering a battleforce of the winner's choice for the army which, in my opinion, best epitomises this spirit.

Now, as I've said, this might gimp your effectiveness and chances of winning the actual tournament but I'm hoping some people will enter into the spirit and bring something a little different. Everyone who's coming is automatically entered and once I've received all the army lists (deadline is mid-May) I'll make a decision and announce the winner at the end of Blog Wars 3.

Competition Closed! (sorry!)

Now the more astute of you seem to have figured out that the competition was an admittedly rather harsh April Fool's prank. Despite it only being up for a few hours I had a few emails pleading for it to be them that won. I must confess that I only threw the post together last minute because I realised I hadn't actually done one for this year.

Last year's April Fool's actually came true as I said that GW would  be making Thunderwolf Cavalry models! I did consider trying to come up with something similarly prophetic but I'm at work so it had to be a bit of a rush job! I figured the 12pm deadline might be a bit of a giveaway but sure enough some people still fell for it. With their permission I'll probably post up there responses for your enjoyment.

However, I accept that this was a particularly mean thing to do to you all so I've decided some compensation is necessary! I'll come up with something nice for those that emailed (I've already got the names so don't try to send a cheeky email now!) and I might consider upping the prize fund for Blog Wars 3 out of my own pocket to make up for the cruelty! I'll let you know what I come up with but I'll post about it tomorrow so you might actually believe me.

Again, apologies for the cruelty but it did cheer me up to read some of the emails I got whilst I'm stuck at work on a Sunday!

Stay tuned for some details about my BW3 Dark Eldar list of webway goodness and some battle reports from my playtesting of it.

Competition Time!

I've been having a bit of a Spring clean and I've decided to give away some of the kits that I'm not using. Here's what's up for grabs:

DE Stuff
1x Dark Eldar Battleforce
1x Webway portal (limited edition from GW)
1x Razorwing Jetfighter

SW Stuff
Arjac Rockfist
1x Thunderwolf Cavalry
1x Games Day Wolf Priest (limited edition)

To win these prizes all you have to do is email me before 12 o'clock today and tell me why you think it should be you and what you'd like from the list. First come, first served!

I know that's a short deadline but it's just to see who's reading at this time on a Sunday morning!

Good luck! I'll announce the winners after lunch today.

Rules
I have the final say on who wins what. Simple as that!