New army for 2011: Daemons?

Hi guys,
I've been thinking about a new tournament army for 2011. I wanted something that would offer me a different playstyle. Nowadays a lot of competitive armies tend to be mechanised, and although the contents of the transports may differ, they really don't add much variety. I love 5th ed. and have nothing against mech, but I wanted something different.

Brent over at Strictly Average has been playing Daemons for I think the past year on a tournament level. Anybody looking to start competitve Daemons should head over to his site. Daemons seem like a cool army. I did a test model, although the pic of him above is a bit bad, and I think I'm gonna go ahead and buy the rest of my 1750pts. army. Talking of lists, I'll finish this short post with my list. It was made using BattleScribe, a great free list maker, and I suggest you all give it a try. I even got so excited, that I added names for all the units :D . Happy New Year everyone!

1750pt Chaos Daemons 4th Ed (2008) Roster

Sons of the Void (1750pts Total)

Selections:

HQ (440pts)

• Followers of Fate - Daemonic Herald(s) (220pts)
  • Herald of Tzeentch (110pts)

    Bolt of Tzeentch (30pts), Chariot of Tzeentch (15pts), Master of Sorcery (5pts), We are Legion (10pts)

  • Herald of Tzeentch (110pts)

    Bolt of Tzeentch (30pts), Chariot of Tzeentch (15pts), Master of Sorcery (5pts), We are Legion (10pts)

• Weavers of Change - Daemonic Herald(s) (220pts)
  • Herald of Tzeentch (110pts)

    Bolt of Tzeentch (30pts), Chariot of Tzeentch (15pts), Master of Sorcery (5pts), We are Legion (10pts)

  • Herald of Tzeentch (110pts)

    Bolt of Tzeentch (30pts), Chariot of Tzeentch (15pts), Master of Sorcery (5pts), We are Legion (10pts)

Elites (320pts)

• Beasts of the Void - Fiends of Slaanesh (160pts)

  5x Fiend of Slaanesh (150pts), Unholy Might (10pts)

• Beasts of Destiny - Fiends of Slaanesh (160pts)

  5x Fiend of Slaanesh (150pts), Unholy Might (10pts)

Troops (385pts)

• Changeling's Dissimulation - Horrors of Tzeentch (100pts)

  Bolt of Tzeentch (10pts), Changeling (5pts), 5x Pink Horror (85pts)

• Dark Followers - Horrors of Tzeentch (95pts)

  Bolt of Tzeentch (10pts), 5x Pink Horror (85pts)

• Terror of Vnark - Horrors of Tzeentch (95pts)

  Bolt of Tzeentch (10pts), 5x Pink Horror (85pts)

• Sons of Tzeentch - Horrors of Tzeentch (95pts)

  Bolt of Tzeentch (10pts), 5x Pink Horror (85pts)

Fast Attack (150pts)

• Dark Riders - Flesh Hounds of Khorne (150pts)

  10x Flesh Hound (150pts)

Heavy Support (455pts)

• Doom of Terra - Daemon Prince of Chaos (150pts)
  • Mark of Tzeentch (70pts)

    Bolt of Tzeentch (35pts)

• Xor the Destroyer - Daemon Prince of Chaos (150pts)
  • Mark of Tzeentch (70pts)

    Bolt of Tzeentch (35pts)

• Vlad the Terror - Daemon Prince of Chaos (155pts)

  Instrument of Chaos (5pts)

  • Mark of Tzeentch (70pts)

    Bolt of Tzeentch (35pts)

Novamarines progress pictures

Hi guys,
I hope you all had a very nice christmas! I finished 9 of my 10 scouts yesterday. Here are the pics, along with my second auto/las pred that I finished not so long ago.

PICTURES: From recent tourney

Here are some pics from that recent tourney I attended. The ugly deathguard are mine, I played something like this:

Librarian

10 th/ss terminators

4x5 tacticals with combi-flamer and las/plas razorbacks

2x Land Raider

I lost my first game against mech guard, won against nids and orks. I placed 8th out of 22. Anyway here are the pics (the librarian on top of my land raider is missing his arm, it fell off in the heat of battle :D ).

Tactics: The Necron Slide

Hi guys,
took some pictures at the tourney I was at this past Saturday, and I promise some more painting and modelling related stuff soon, but here is another tactic that I have learned to employ on my Necrons. Fritz over at WOSH originally came up with the name ''Necron slide' for this strategy.

The idea is, that when you remove models from your unit, you remove them from the back, and once you pass WBB saves, you move them to the front. In essence, this gives you some extra inches of movement, but more importantly, I have found, it can be used to 'enhance' the range of their gauss flayers.

In the picture above, I was playing an IG player a couple of weeks back, and he had a nasty leman russ executioner looming over my warriors. I placed the newly risen warriors into the front of the unit and was able to 'creep' into range of the executioner and start suppressing it on turn 2.

Since opponents often try and go for phase out, and thus pour lots of firepower at your warriors, this tactic actually works. First turn move+run and the Necron Slide will most likely bring you up into very good firing positions by turn 2.

Necrons have so many cool rules and tactics, starting from the grand illusion and ending in a well placed scarab contest at the end of the game, and I love playing with them. Hopefully some of you have found this concept useful.

How to arm your assault terminators?

Hi guys,
I've been toying around with a dual rock list from the vanilla marine dex for a tournament this Saturday, and naturally I've also been looking into the right combination of weapons to use on my assault terminators. I personally don't see the use in lightning claws.

Lightning claws give you a marginally better chance of causing wounds on t4, even more on t3, but I find that the decreased survivability just isn't worth it. There is a reason why BA have to pay an extra 5 points to get TH/SS. In my opinion, the slightly larger offensive output brought by adding 1 or 2 lightning claws into the mix isn't going to swing the tide. However loosing termies because you don't have a 3+ invul is going to seriously hurt a 5-man squad.

Lightning claws do strike in initiative order, which is especially great for BA who can get furious charge, but in order to make use of that you have to either charge straight from the land raider, or not charge into cover. So there are easily times in which the extra initiative won't help you out at all. Ofcourse, I use godhammer land raiders in my dual rock, since they have transport capacity 12 in the vanilla dex, but even with frag launchers I would think twice about the relevance of striking in initiative order.

Finally we come to the fact that a single lightning claw allows you to stack those ap1-2 shots on only one model. Still, when you think about it, a storm shield termie should only die to 3 invul saves, and often you would have actually preserved the unit further by giving the wounds to storm shields. Flipping it around having 4 storm shield termies adds protection to your lightning claws and helps migitate the absence of a 3+ invul, but assault termies are meant to get into the thick of it, and these battles of attrition often come down to the last few models.

That pretty much brings me back to my first paragraph. I believe that assault termies (with the new storm shield variant) are best equipped with pure TH/SS. A 5-man squad doesn't need a slight increase in damage output, it needs to survive as long as possible to make up for it's small squad size. Feel free to express your opinion though. I am in no way always right, and I appreciate feed back.

1750 points Mechanised Eldar

Hi,

I've been playing around with different kinds of Eldar builds lately (Yea I have way too many armies and lists going on at once :D) , along with a Vanilla Marine dual raider list that I'm taking to a tournament next weekend, and here is the latest idea I had.

Not exactly the ''traditional'' Mechdar list, but I'd like some input from the more veteran eldar players out there. Is this any good? I like the fact that it can reserve and come in with 2+'s on turn two, and I like fast skimmers. Anyway here's the list I've been thinking of:

Autarch with Fusion Gun @80pts.

Autarch with Fusion Gun @80pts.

10 Storm Guardians with 2 Fusion Guns @ 92pts.
Wave Serpent with Scatter Lasers, Shuriken Cannon @ 125pts.

10 Storm Guardians with 2 Fusion Guns @ 92pts.
Wave Serpent with Scatter Lasers, Shuriken Cannon @ 125pts.

10 Storm Guardians with 2 Fusion Guns, Warlock with Embolden @ 122pts.
Wave Serpent with Scatter Lasers, Shuriken Cannon @ 125pts.

10 Storm Guardians with 2 Fusion Guns, Warlock with Embolden @ 122pts.
Wave Serpent with Scatter Lasers, Shuriken Cannon @ 125pts.

10 Storm Guardians with 2 Fusion Guns, Warlock with Embolden @ 122pts.
Wave Serpent with Scatter Lasers, Shuriken Cannon @ 125pts.

3 Guardian Jetbikes @ 66pts.

Fire Prism @ 115pts.

Fire Prism @ 115pts.

Fire Prism @ 115pts.

TOTAL @ 1746pts.

Fabius Bile themed list for CSM

Hi,

as an attempt to make the traditional dual lash 9 obli list a little more fun, I came up with this list. It's 1750. pushing forward 5 rhinos full of 35 drug-crazed marines that are selfdestructing is great fun! It is spammy, but then again I am taking a codex that already needs spam to work, and taking a special character whose abilities only work to one squad type. Do you guys this list is still semi-competitive?

Fabius Bile @ 160pts.

Sorceror with mark of slaanesh, lash of submission @ 125pts.

7 Enhanced Chaos Space Marines with meltagun, aspiring champion with power weapon and combi-melta @ 170pts.
Rhino @ 35pts.

7 Enhanced Chaos Space Marines with meltagun, aspiring champion with power weapon and combi-melta @ 170pts.
Rhino @ 35pts.

7 Enhanced Chaos Space Marines with meltagun, aspiring champion with power weapon and combi-melta @ 170pts.
Rhino @ 35pts.

7 Enhanced Chaos Space Marines with meltagun, aspiring champion with power weapon and combi-melta @ 170pts.
Rhino @ 35pts.

7 Enhanced Chaos Space Marines with meltagun, aspiring champion with power weapon @ 160pts.
Rhino @ 35pts.

2 Obliterators @ 150pts.

2 Obliterators @ 150pts.

2 Obliterators @ 150pts.

1750 Templar Termispam

Hi guys,

So I've been playing around with this list concept, for most of this autumn. There is a tourney scheduled for next month, which I was planning to go to. Comp restrictions are: no 3 of the same elites, fast attack or heavy support. This is what I was planning to take, any C n C appreciated.

Castellan with pair of lightning claws, terminator armour, tank hunters, auspex @ 125pts.
(4) Terminator Command Squad with 2 assault cannons, tank hunters @ 212pts.

Castellan with pair of lightning claws, terminator armour, tank hunters @ 123pts.
(4) Terminator Command Squad with 2 assault cannons, tank hunters @ 212pts.

Emperor’s Champion with accept any challenge, no matter the odds @ 140pts.

(5) Terminators with 2 assault cannons, tank hunters @ 255pts.

(5) Terminators with 2 assault cannons, tank hunters @ 255pts.

(6) Crusaders with 5 initiates, 1 neophyte, 6x bolt pistols and close combat weapons, lascannon, plasmagun @ 111pts.

(6) Crusaders with 5 initiates, 1 neophyte, 6x bolt pistols and close combat weapons, lascannon, plasmagun @ 111pts.

(5) Inquisitorial Storm Troopers (Codex: Daemon Hunters) with 1 grenade launcher @ 55pts.

Land Speeder with multi-melta, heavy flamer @ 75pts.

Land Speeder with multi-melta, heavy flamer @ 75pts.

Novamarines biker command squad

Hi,
here are some pics of my latest painting project. I tried black base rims, I originally painted grey rims for the earlier models, and I'm quite happy with the new rims. Enjoy!

1.5k Tau @ tourney Game 4 vs Black Templars

Hi,

I forgot to video tape this game, so I'll just illustrate how the game went with some Vassal images. You can click the images to enlargen them. My armylist can be found here. His list was something like this:

Marshal with termie command squad and 2 assault cannons

Emperors champion with abhor the witch

5 termies with 2 assault cannons

2x dread with twin-linked lascannon and missile launcher

3x 5 man crusader squads with lascannons and meltaguns (I think one squad had a plasma instead of meltagun)

2x auto-las predator

We were playing for table sixths, which were held with scoring units and contested with any units, with a pitch battle deployment. I go first and deploy across my deployment zone. Ethereal goes into the kroots and devilfishes go into reserve.

He deploys one crusader squad into each tablesixth on his side of the table, but he focuses his forces onto my left flank. He decides to play a refused flank.


He than steals the initiative!

Turn 1

He blasts some gun drones from my bigger broadside unit and kills one of the crisis suits on my left flank.

I start withdrwing onto my right flank. The plan is to ignore the termies. If I can move out of the way, they won't do much, and if I shoot at them they'll close in faster. The lone crisis suit on my left flank takes a side shot at one of the predators. The crisis team on the right flank moves up to threaten the crusade squad, who are very alone on that flank. I blow off the lascannon from the centre dread.



Turn 2

He kills off the crisis suit on the left flank, continues to shoot the broadsides in the centre bringing them down to the leader. One of the crisis suits on the right flank is killed. The remaining suit takes cover in the trench system, within striking distance of the crusaders.

I continue to fall back with my kroots, but my shooting only manages to destroy a lascannon and immobilise the centre dread.


Turn 3:

His termies finish off the last broadside and shooting switches to the command suit team.

The flamer fails to kill anyone from the crusader squad on the right flank, and my shooting fails to harm his preds/dreads. One of my devilfishes arrives, I bring it on my right flank.



Turn 4:

He kills off the crisis suit on the left flank, his lascannons are out of range, and his termies try to kill some kroots.

The last devilfish fails to arrive! The devilfish that is on the table, drives up to the middle of the field, where it eventually is immobilised, so that the fire warriors and gun drones can move into any sixth to contest/hold. I try to shoot the crusaders on the right flank, my plan is to claim the sixth with my fire warriors, claim the bottom right sixth with the kroots and contest one of his sixths with gun drones.


Turn 5:

My opponent realises he wont be able to kill the Kroots, and thus can't take away the sixth they are holding. With his shooting he kills the crisis command squad and immobilizes the devilfish.

The last devilfish arrives on my turn. I drive it up on the very left flank, and disengage the drones, I'm hoping to contest his last sixth with some good run moves. They fall a couple of inches short. In the centre the firewarriors disembark to shoot at the crusaders in the top right sixth and are themselves contesting it. The drones disengage from the devilfish and move to contest the central top sixth. I shoot at the crusaders in the top right corner and bring them down to one marine. At the moment it's a draw



The game goes on

Turn 6:

His shooting is concentrated at the gun drones and fire warriors. He kills the drones in the centre but only manages to kill one from the left flank. His remaining crusader moves up to charge the fire warriors which are shot down to 3 warriors. Both fail to do anything in combat. He disengages the Emperor's champion from one of the termie squads and leaves it to contest the bottom left sixth.

On my turn the devilfish moves up and the fire warriors disembark. The lone drone contests the upper left sixth. The fire warriors rapid fire and kill the Emperor's champion! My luck turns even better when the three firewarriors kill the marine in combat and the game ends!




Summary:

I think he made a bad move in deploying his termies on my far left flank. Their range is only 24" and they should be deployed centrally where they have the best coverage. Because he tried to refused flank me I was able to ignore the termies, and I managed to get away with the horrible shooting I had in the first couple of turns. Still the game really came down to some lucky rolling on my part, and unlucky rolling on his part, as I pushed ahead on turn six to have 3 sixths to his 1. He's a great guy, and I've played against, and lost against him before. I really admire the armylist He's managed to get out of the Templar codex at 1500 points, eventhough I myself play a termispam with my Templars.

Talking of termispam, I painted some more termies for my Templars and have been playtesting 4 termisquads at 1500 points. So far I've gone 4-0-0, stay tuned for some pics and maybe some thoughts on why the templar termispam works so well.

Novamarines painting progress

Hi,
just a couple of bad photos of my Novamarines army, which I'm slowly painting up.
The Predator is missing it's lascannon sponsons. Also for those interested, my 1500 points army will include

Captain on bike

Command Squad on bikes

4 bikes + multimelta attack bike

4 bikes + multimelta attack bike

4 sniper scouts + missile launcher

4 sniper scouts + missile launcher

land speeder storm

land speeder storm

2 MM HF land speeders

autolas predator

autolas predator

The command squad will be kitted with storm shields, lightning claws and a power fist. The captain has the relic blade stormshield combo, and artificier armour. And finally the pics.

VIDEO: 1.5k Tau vs. Dark Angels

Here's my third game at the tourney I went to with my 1.5k Tau list. The list can be found here.
I enjoyed this game, although the fact that you couldn't take special characters at the tourney hurt my opponent. He was a loyal Dark Angels player however, and decided to keep with the outdated codex.

I'm sorry that it's been taking me some time to get through these videos.

Video: 1.5k Tau @ tourney Game 2

Alright here's the second video battle report from my 5-game tournament. I played against a dreadmob list. My army list can be seen in this post.

I enjoyed the game, eventhough I lost. This was probably the right game to lose, since the Ork player went on to win the tournament.

VIDEO: 1.5k Tau @ tourney game 1

Hi,
I finally got my first video done. I'm up against (almost fully) mech-guard in annihilation.

I enjoyed the game, and my opponent was a good player. I think he was going to be attending the ETC-tournament as a member of team-Finland. I made mistakes, but luckily I still managed to pull out a win.

Here's my list which was affected by restrictions (not allowed to take 2 same kinds of HQs or 3 same kinds of elites, fast attack or heavy support:

Shas'el				50
missile pod				12
airbursting fragmentation projector				20
target lock				5
HW-drone controller				0
Shield drone				15
				102
2 Crisis Bodyguard Team				70
no.1
plasma rifle				20
missile pod				12
targetting array				10
HW-multitracker				5
no.2
plasma rifle				20
missile pod				12
targetting array				10
HW-multitracker				5
bonding knife				5
				169
Ethereal				50
symbols of office				0
				50
2 Crisis Suits				50
no.1
team leader				5
plasma rifle				20
missile pod				12
targetting array				10
HW-multitracker				5
no.2
plasma rifle				20
missile pod				12
multitracker				5
				139
2 Crisis Suits				50
no.1
team leader				5
plasma rifle				20
missile pod				12
targetting array				10
HW-multitracker				5
no.2
missile pod				12
twin-linked flamers				6
				120
15 Kroot Carnivores				105
15 kroot rifles
				105
6 Firewarriors				60
6 pulse rifles
				60
Devilfish				80
burst cannon				0
pair of gun drones				0
disruption pods				5
multitracker				10
				95
6 Firewarriors				60
6 pulse rifles
				60
Devilfish				80
burst cannon				0
pair of gun drones				0
disruption pods				5
multitracker				10
				95
3 Broadside Battlesuits				210
twin-linked rail guns				0
twin-linked plasma rifles				30
multitrackers leader with HW				15
team leader				5
HW-drone controller				0
2 gun drones				20
HW-target lock				5
Bonding knife				5
targetting array				10
				300
2 Broadside Battlesuits				140
twin-linked railguns				0
twin-linked plasma rifles				20
multitrackers leader with HW				10
team leader				5
HW-drone controller				0
1 gun drone				10
HW-target lock				5
bonding knife				5
targetting array				10
				205
TOTAL
	1500

CSM: Bolt of Change?

Count-as Thousand Sons, for my Nurgle Warband. Space Goats FTW! Click-it!


Hi,
I´ve been experimenting with using the Tzeentch Bolt of Change power to boost the amount of enemy vehicles I can tackle with my CSM army, since 3 squads of Oblits are only gonna be hitting three tanks a turn, and they often would rather be shooting up infantry than transport vehicles. Now does anybody have personal experience or even just an opinion on the effectiveness of the power?

Basically str8 and ap1 is pretty nice, 24" being an ok range, although it pretty often will put you within psychic hood range, but the very best thing IMO is that it's assault 1. This way my sorcerers can cruise around in rhinos and still fire it. It also means that I don't need 10-man CSM squads to get that lascannon to pop tanks. Instead I can take 5 thousand sons and the bolt on the aspiring sorcerer.

Still there is a lot of psychic defense nowadays, and a sorcerer with a bolt of change weighs in at 155 points. Thousand Sons also aren't that survivable, and very fragile in squads of 5. What are your thoughts? In my opinion it is key to have that anti-tank power in the troops slots, since at 1500 and 1750 points I won't have a lot of points to spare on non-scoring units with the "mandantory" 9 oblits. Even if you don't give a damn about my power-gaming ranting, I have a pic of my converted count-as thousand sons for my nurgle warband.

I placed 3rd with my Tau this weekend....

hi,

It's taking a while for me to make video battle reports of the five games I played this weekend at a local tourney, so here is a hopefully not too long summary.

I started the day facing a mech guard army in annihilation. The scenario had a funky deployment set up, and I found my army crammed to the space of one ruin at the center of the board, with Ig firepower all around me. My broadsides went on a rampage blowing up chimeras left and right, and I won, taking 13 battlepoints out of a possible 20 that was awarded each round.

Next up was an Ork dread mob army. We had seize ground, but the armies deployed on the short table edges, 18'' in. I had a good first turn alphastrike, taking all his transports and a dread, but then everything started going downhill. It should probably be noted that the Ork player won the tournament, so he knew what he was doing. I lost and got 3 battlepoints.

Last game of day one, I played against a Dark Angel army. The player with the most troops within 6'' of the center of the table won the game. He had a pimped up 500 points termie squad with two characters, which deepstruck in my lines on turn one, did nothing and was blasted off the board by all my plasma fire. That left him with a couple of land raiders, an empty rhino and a vindicator. No problem, I win by wipe out. 20 points.

Second day I start against a Black Templar army with long range preds/dreads and two termie squads of doom with twin ass cannons. The table was divided into six sectors and we fought to hold them. I deployed first, evenly spread out, and he decided to pull a refused flank on me, concentrating most of his preds/dreads and both of his termie squads on my left flank. He stole the initiative and started blasting away, but I backed away to the right firing railguns into his long range stuff. I really didn't kill much in this game, but my devilfish came on from reserve, and with a very lucky turn six, I held 3 sectors to his 1. I win with 17 battlepoints.

Finally we are playing to kill our opponents most expensive HQ character, yeah there was a lot of funky missions, and I was against another IG army. My Tau managed to repel his offensive elements, but not without casualties, and my only hope of getting to his command squad, that was hiding at the back of the deployment zone out of sight, was my crisis suit team with one twin linked flamer, which I had left to deepstrike. They came on turn 5, hitting and wounding the commander. I just had to keep my own shas'el with full wounds and I would win. I did and got 17 battlepoints.

So I ended with 70 battlepoints and placed 3rd out of 23 players with 4 wins and 1 loss. I placed 3rd in best army, as they gave each army a score between 0-10. I had a real blast, and I'll be putting up those video battle reports, so that you'll get a real idea of what was going on in those missions, but I have to say the ethereal REALLY was worth it. He saved my units many times, and didn't die throughout the entire tournament, just had to make sure he had some fearless kroots or broadsides around him.

Painting Novamarines

Hi,

just stuff I´ve been doing alongside my Tau. I found some old Land Speeder Storm conversions I had done, and decided to paint them up. Also there is a test biker for the army. The armylist is gonna be a hybrid biker list, I will put up the list in another post..

Why Novamarines? Well, I really like the color scheme, and the fluff fitted in pretty nice. They are a chapter that has not fought together for a couple of thousand years, since M37, so each company is very unique and independent of one another. I will be making the sixth company, since they are trained to fight on bikes.

battle pic

Just a quick picture I took testgaming my tau. I'll be going to a five game tournament next weekend, so I'm honing my skills. I snatched wipe out -victories from both the games I played on Sunday, so it is looking pretty good. The tournament will be the final test for my Ethereal theories. I may end up losing some games because of him, but over the course of the testgaming he has really been shining, his main uses being against shooty armies, where you run the risk of the battlesuits running off the battlefield because of their drones dying.

I'll take my video camera with me, and make a video report of the weekend.

Inquisition codices being killed?

I myself have some radical inquisition forces and a couple of sister models, but what really worries me is wether pure inquisition armies will still be playable.

I have the codex: catachans and it's starting to look a lot like the Inquisition codices will be joining it in the '' first PDF.... then gone'' -corner. Yes GW has promised Codex: Grey knights and Sisters of battle, but I want private guard and daemon hosts. Will Games Workshop be offering a way to make radical forces in the coming books.

What do you guys think is going to happen to pure Inquisition armies

Cold Blood

It was cold, and raining. Smith could feel the heavy rain beating on his kit. He saw all the men around him hurrying from cover to cover, firing away at the rebels caved in into the building further up the street.

The city was dead, it had been for the last 40 years. It was clear that the buildings had taken a beating, or were they buildings. At some point the trail of battle, tanks, debris and men, got mixed with the city. The city would never get rid of it. The grey masonry dust covered and tinted all surfaces, making it hard to recognize the remains of a cargo truck from a gate house. The roads were filled with debris and the only way of knowing you were standing on a road were the even larger heaps of debris that rose were the hab blocks had been.

Smith watched a man run by, heading for a group of men hunched in a foxhole. It was hard to tell which regiment the man was from, was it not for the grimy Regimental badge of the XVI Volcar Foot.

The man wore the standard dark ochre battle dress of the Volcar, but it was covered in that same grey layer of dust. He wore black webbing, which included a couple of extra pouches, for ferrying orders and included writing tools. Under the webbing was an olive green flak vest, although the olive green cloth was torn, and scorched. On his back, he had a standard back pack, issued to every man in the regiment, and it included a blanket, rolled and harnessed on the top.

“Lieutenant, get over here!”

Smith hurried to join the men and the messenger, a corporal according to his rank pins. The messenger was holding a data recorder in his bionic left hand, parts of the metallic limb visible from underneath a black leather glove he wore on the hand. It seemed that the rebels had counter attacked a few blocks North, and they were getting through. The Saint had given orders for them to reposition to prevent the counter-attack making it behind the Imperial lines.

“Here we go.”

*********

They had gone. He leapt out of his hiding place and started up the street. He made sure to use all the cover and shadows to his advantage.

He wore dark clothes, but he had rubbed them with dirt to help him blend to the filth that was the remains of the disgusting Imperial city. He had leg holsters on both his legs and his webbing was filled with pouches, packed full with magazines, rations, trackers and stick bombs. His head was hooded and all you could see past the camo net and cloth were the bionic eyes that constantly hummed as he scanned the landscape. He had a large back pack that was also covered in camo netting, and he had made sure to rub each and every crevices with dirt. His trophies and rank pins had all been dulled with mud for optimal stealth. In many ways his appearance gave one characteristic. He was the perfectly designed killer.

He checked his rifle, which he had already cleaned 3 times while the enemies had been charging up past him. Those fools never looked hard enough.
His radio crackled. He had kept on the enemy channel, and had heard of the large counter-attack. It seemed the XVI Volcar Foot had joined the fight. He wondered if they were the idiots who had just charged past him on 10th avenue.
He checked his orders, and studied his map. He was still ten miles out.

*********

The MG was firing on full auto beside Smith as the Rebels made another charge up the street. The rest of D-Company were with him, repelling the assault. The rebel assault had been determined and already bodies were piling as they desperately ran into the tracer fire. The Rebels had been attacking on all fronts. The Imperial tacticians were not sure what had caused the Rebels to return to such aggressiveness after almost 3 years of passive dug in warfare.

“More men to plug that gap to the left.”

He could see the dark-robed figures hurrying up at them. They were hunch-backed and wore chains around their necks, with symbols Smith didn’t even want to start thinking about. Their weapons were ancient, most of them solid-slug bolt-action rifles. Their faces were hidden under a hood, and large round goggles. On their belts they had small leather ammo pouches and some other small bags. He had heard all the rumours, about what the Rebels did to prisoners, and he bet they had something to do with those small bags. Some of them were wearing steel body armour. Even though it might save your life, mostly it just limited your mobility. Some of the rebels were wearing rebreathers and some of them even had large two handed axes, that they held above their heads as they charged forward.

*********

He took cover as the ground started to tremble under his feet. He lay still and listened. It seemed as if it was coming from the Rebel lines. They must be the old war engines that they had found on the Northern outskirts, being put into deadly use against the Imperials.

*********

Smith could hear them coming, before he saw them.

“Tanks!”

They were very old, but they had thick armour. They were painted lime green and sported the serpent icon of the Rebel movement on their turrets. There were no tank numbers or other insignia, it was not necessary, and it was the brutal efficiency the Rebels were renowned for.

He could already see the first rocket trails. They only had 3 launchers in the company.

“Get me the vox!”

Belae, his vox-officer hurried to him. Belae was dressed in the same dark ochre as all the other men, but instead of a regular back pack, he carried a large radio unit, that had a very long antenna, supposedly for a better signal. Belae had learned that the antenna was more of a problem, as enemies tended to spot him from any cover thanks to the large jotting pole.

He handed his lieutenant the phone from his radio unit, which he took off his back, and rested on the ground in front of him.

“Give me the divisional command.”

*********

Surveying the ground in front of him, he carefully made his way over the street onto the other side. He had already dodged another patrol, and he would bet on being pretty deep into the Imperial lines. Still he knew He’d have to keep going.

*********

Smith heard the turbine engines of the fighters shriek as they started their attack run. The fighters were dark blue and sported the Imperial eagle reaching from one wing tip to the other. On their left side, right behind the slightly round cockpit, were the plane identification numbers. Some of the planes even had decorated kill markings, boasting their might. The most kills he counted was 25 on the side of one of the fighters.

Rockets slammed into the heavy tanks, causing massive damage. The entire street was turned into a pile of debris, and one of the tanks’ ammunition stores had exploded. Now petrol was raining on the Rebel infantry advancing behind the tanks. Tracer rounds from the fighters took care of the rest. It truly was a slaughter.

*********

He had finally found the place, a large but badly beaten building. It had probably been a hab block. The remnants of it were a disgrace, but it was high enough to give him a good angle.

The floors were dark, some sort of brown although it was hard to tell with all the dust and dirt. The walls had probably been a bright beige, but there wasn’t much of the walls left.

He clambered to the highest level, and found a window facing East. He started checking his kit. He pulled a table to the back of the room and set his rifle on it. Studying the landscape outside of the window through his scope, he waited.

******

Smith heard the shot a few seconds after it had been fired. It was the deep hollow sound of a heavy bolt action sniper rifle firing, but it seemed to have come from deep within the Imperial lines. It had come from the direction of the Imperial command post.

*********

Tau Ethereals: Worth it?

Ethereal.... or Jedi? Image is from another of my way too many projects.

Anyway, here in Finland tournaments quite frequently give composition limitations, normally in the form of no duplicate HQs and no three of the same elites, fast attack or heavy support choices. For Tau this means you can only take one hq, because the Ethereal is crap right.... Well these composition limitations have got me thinking.

Forgeting that the Ethereal takes a hq slot, since comps wouldnt let me take that second shas'el anyway, what does the ethereal bring to your army. The answer is leadership.

One of the main problems I've had with my Tau army is my battlesuits running off the board as soon as that shield drone does what it's supposed to do, eats a lascannon. Let's take a look at it from a theory hammer point of view.

The probability of failing a ld 8 check is 0,2777778. If you were to re-roll that check the probability of failing it a second time would be 0,0771605, I'm just trying to seem smart with all these digits, a significant decrease in probability. Is that decrease worth 50 points...

Now then, how do you use this ethereal, he has no armour and is clearly a wannabee fighter, who can't even do that without being first cut down by marines. Well when you are deploying your army, you take a look at your deployment zone and the ruin or other terrain piece that gives you the best field of fire, that is where you were going to deploy the broadsides, right.

Now you deploy those broadsides, but on that very highest peak, that small piece of floor at the top of the ruin, that no model will clearly fit on, that's where you put your ethereal. He's part of the broadside unit, so he has a bunch of 2+ save bodyguards, and he is radiating his reroll to ld-checks all across the battlefield. This way you aren't risking the easy kill point or running the danger of half your army running off the board when your ethereal is killed by an imperial guard sergeant.

The broadsides and ethereal also work in a very good synergy, both want to hang back and stay in cover, both want a good field of fire, and the broadsides aren't jetpack infantry so the ethereal isn't slowing them down. They also support each other, the broadsides give the ethereal ld, and the ethereal makes the broadsides fearless.

So, is the ethereal worth 50 points. Everybody will probably have his or her own opinion on that, but imo 50 points is in no way too much for the extra reliability it gives my battlesuits. That one failed ld might just be fatal, taking into account they will be falling back 3d6.

Over to you.

Weekend chaos progress

Hi,
so this is what I managed to do over the weekend for my chaos. I added some freehands and checker patterns for the tanks, painted a daemon prince, and gave a couple of marines banners, as count as personal icons. The daemon Prince still needs his carrion wings, I'm gonna buy them and a box of bloodletters tommorrow. I'm gonna convert the bloodletters into plague bearers, I've seen a tutorial done by Mr. Feral, and they looked ace, plus they are plastic.

Click the image for a bigger version.

CSM Lash/Obli spam @ tourney

(right-click -> display image or whatever it is in english; than you'll see the bigger picture)

Hi,
So I attended a 1750 points tourney during Easter with a pretty basic Lash/Obli spam list. I used sorcerers for my lashes (prefer them over daemon princes because they are easier to hide in a rhino). I scored 3 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss placing me 7th out of 24. I'm pretty happy but the main thought I had after tournament was the over price of the CSM list. It might be just that I was upgrading my units but when looking at any of the IG armies and than looking at my army, it looked like 2000 points of guard and 1500 points of CSM. Anyway I had a blast, and who knows what I'll be doing in the futuree, maybe I'll try using the Space Wolf codex, it seems nice, but people seem to dread the lash/obli list a lot, maybe even too much.

What makes mechanised so God damn good?

Hi,
Ron from FTW asked me and a couple of other FTW members our insight on mechanised armies so here we go.

Atleast here in Finland we've seen a big shift into mechanised armies. Almost any army that can have transports is fielding them. For me it started when I stumbled upon a blog about Blood Angels and a blogger called Jawaballs. He wrote about using assault marine squads in rhinos so that they never leave their transports. He really opened up the concept to me personally, and this is where the Templars overhead come along. I was in the middle of making a Templar army and I realised that they had the old smoke launchers. This along with the new damage chart made the rhino's indestructable for a turn.

It is exactly this damage chart that has made transports worth it in 5th ed. In 4th ordnance would just blow everything apart, and the transports would become death traps. Plus there was entanglement and the old emergency disembarkation, but suddenly in 5th ed APCs became what they were meant to be, an extra turn of safety fot the men within it.

This plus the drop in the prices of transports point-wise has really made them worth it. IG don't even need to leave their transports, as up to 5 men can shoot out of a chimera, and it doesnt count as open topped.

Also worth noting is that cover saves for vehicles have greatly nerfed long range anti tank fire. 50% doing nothing IS a big deal. I dare not guess what the future holds, maybe mech will stop being the main trend, but with Spearhead just around the corner, it really doesnt seem like it.

5th edition is more of a Tank Battle game, where you have a limited number of unit's you must keep alive to hold objectives at the end of the game, meanwhile manouvring a dozen tanks trying to kill off your opponents scoring units. I'm not going to complain, but it does cut down on the visual side of gaming. All armies look the same now, just tons of Rhinos.

Necron Tomb Spyders Tactica

Hi,
recently on one of the jawaballs and Fritz live shows Fritz said that tomb spyders are worthless. I've heard/read him say it before, and I thought it was about time I share my thoughts.

Yes the tomb spyder isnt the CC monster you might hope for, and speed bumping with one is risky, but in an army where everything is overcosted (well maybe minus the monolith) 55 points for a "regenerating" t6 monstrous creature is really good.

Basic theory:

I think everybody knows that when using a tomb spyder u wanna make one scarab swarm and place that in cover, giving the tomb spyder a cover save, but maintaining the t6. This way the tomb spyders can potentially take a lot of ranged damage. This is where the tomb spyder is at
it's best. JUst make sure the tomb spyder is outside the 24" bubble. This way he'll probably be shooting 1-2 shots per squad at them, and you can stack wounds on the scarab.

Whenever I play with my 1500 points list, people really tend to concentrate fire on them. This is good since my army is very fragile at 1500 points and I want the deciever up and running. You could say that the tomb spyder is more of a terror tactic than an actual asset. "Woah you have a 55 point s6 t6 monstrous creature... oh neat he has his own regenerating tyrant guard".

When you need to hold you're opponent back for a turn feeding him tomb spyders is going to be a lot cheaper than any lords/warrior groups etc. 55 points really is cheap.


Extra monolith portal

Also another use (although a lot trickier) is using the rule, which allows you to place the warriors from wbb anywhere on the table, if there is no unit within 6". Say you deploy one squad of warriors on you're left flank, when you're main capstone formation is on your right. A smart player will first target the tomb spyder 12" away from the warriors, but in that case you can always use the portal, or hide the spyder. However if he decides to alphastrike the warriors, there's nothing sweeter than the look on your opponents face when he realises he was actually doing you a favour, letting you move all those precious phase out numbers right back into the heart of the cap stone formation.

If you are running destroyer groups, and they always get shot to pieces before you can wbb, try buying tomb spyders to go along with them. The tomb spyders attract fire and when a destroyer squad is completely wiped out they can use the tomb spyder to switch to your other destroyer group.

How have I used them in my army:

Although the tomb spyders are tricky, I really think they are more than the 55 point investment. I have to admit, although I've taken a lot of ideas from Fritz and his tactics, my own 1500 point army, has lost some of the main elements found in Fritz's builds. Destroyers replace by scarab swarms etc.. It has less firepower, but careful use of the monolith crystal and the deciever give you surprising lot of anti tank and infantry capability. This is why I have grown a need for tomb spyders, they add some much needed speed bumps and fire magnets, further protecting my warrior core. That is also why I have a destroyer lord, even though I have no destroyers. The increased mobility allows me to tie units up and I often use him in synergy with one of the tombspyders. Two t6 monsters is a lot harder, especially when one of them will just come back up again on a 4+.


There it is all bunched up in a couple of words (I've never been such a good writer) hope you guys can make sense out of it.

My 1500 points list

Deciever		300
		300
Lord		100
Destroyer body		30
Ressurection Orb		40
Warscythe		10
phylactery		15
chronometron		10
		205
10 Necron Warriors		180
		180
10 Necron Warriors		180
		180
10 Necron Warriors		180
		180
3 Scarabs		36
		36
3 Scarabs		36
		36
3 Scarabs		36
		36
Monolith		235
		235
2 Tomb Spyder		110
particle projector		0
		110
					Total:	1498