White Dwarf Cover Teaser

So, we have a leak on the cover art for the next White Dwarf with all the new changes. Nothing impressive except it is interesting artwork and the cover layout is different. I plan to grab a copy this weekend and do a review. I am sure there is a few items I may want to preorder but for the most part I think I am going to just order the codex and maybe the flyer, then read the book and then order the next weekend anything else I want to add.

First 6th Edition Tournament at Darkside (Sept)

Well, on September 8th Chris and I loaded up the SUV and headed on down to Sarasota to play 40k at Darkside Comics. Chris brought a purest Space Wolf list, lots of scoring and some heavy support with Rune Priests. My army was much of the same but with less Grey Hunters and I had Tau in tow including a Crisis Suit commander and Crisis Team, a small scoring Fire Warrior squad and a trio of Broadsides.

What was slightly annoying is I had the lists printed up and copied at work on Friday and then that same day GW drops the FAQ going, "Oh yea, Target locks are back in..." ARG!!!! Well, I went with what I had and dealt with the lack of Target Locks that I hardly felt.

The turnout was excellent and we had a variety of armies which is always refreshing to see what people will come up with. We also had a few of the usual common lists floating about the net including a flying Demon List and the Necron Airforce.

Overall, I ended in 2nd place just behind the army I had a draw against on the last round Tyranids and Marine Bikes taking third. The two big netlists did not do well because the guy playing the demons normally has Space Wolves and the other guy plays Necrons but has swapped play styles, it will take him some time to relearn how to use the new list to be effective.

My first game was against Dark Angels and one of the guys I enjoy playing at the store there. He had a good list of Dark Angels including a Whirlwind, several Terminator (some Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield) and others (with assault cannons and storm bolters) with Ravenwing bikers with plasma guns. Samuel and Belial leading. So everything scored but the Whirlwind.

I won the dice off with 2 objectives to one on his side of the table forcing him to be on the offensive. Which is good for hist list but I was better at being defensive. He did manage to seize against me.

This could have been a very tough game for me but when he split is forces instead of going for one flank or the other allowed me to use the mass firepower I had and down him. If he had flanked as we later discussed, he would have tangled up my units gained more cover saves and if he did not turbo boost that second time but instead added more shots into the mix I would have been in some serious trouble.

Deployment

Tau and Space wolves react to the Dark Angels

Rhinos Shield from one way as Ravenwing bikes race towards their target.

My second game was against Vanilla Marines and Grey Knights. This was a rough game as we had lots of rules look ups, several questions and my opponent got a few cell phone calls during the game. I usually don't mind this  but they was getting to be a bit annoying (nuff said). We had the Hammer and Anvil mission with kill points.

I don't recall if we rolled for night fight or not, but most of his stuff was off the table until turn 2. He had an Defense Line with the Quad Autocannon, a TL AC Dread (GK) and a Thunderfire cannon behind. The other side had a mess of scouts with sniper rifles, cloaks and a missile launcher with a Librarian. The building was upgraded to a 3+ by the Librarian, so the cloaks was giving a 2+ gah!

I managed to take out the quad gun for first blood, then after that the Long Fangs was shot down. At this point, his snipers shot at me and I shot at the mostly until turn 2 when his flyer and  Land Raider arrived. At this point I just shot him apart by turn 3 and was wrapping the game up at this point by 5 where we got night fight.

None of his stuff made it down field and I opted not to try to get the bonus for being in his deployment zone. 

Only got one picture for this game as we was so busy playing or looking stuff up that I didn't take many snaps.

Deployment...

My last game was against Psychic Monstrous Creatures Tyranids. What was in this list? A Tyrant that was a beast in close combat, some zonathropes, two big MCs that could make Gaunts, the other large serpent MC that can dig, two squads of the Yrgymel Genestealers, two pods full of Gaunts with an assload of shooting.

I won deployment again, we had the pyramid style deployment so the bugs was going to be on me quickly and we had the Relic mission. I knew if I played it safe he would get it and win.

The game resulted in a draw with nobody getting the Relic as I shot down his lone gaunt with it, then in a combat consolidation I touched it and had it, the the Tyrant with one wound chomped him and the relic went a few inches (per the rules) away...

 Carnage after turn 1...

later in the game finishing off the Genestealers...amusing moment

They tried to charge the Tau, failed...

Tau Fire Warriors opened up and wiped the depleted unit to one stealer!

The Pod arrives!

As a bonus treat a great guy (forget his name right now) has this amazing Nurgle themed IG....wow...let the pics do the story for you these are his Vendettas and a few other items...

Wow!

The detail with green stuff!

Rotors on these!

A shot of the rotor.

Chimera!

GW Advanced Orders Just went up!

And including! Let's see if it is worth the $13 and change they are charging for Finecrap (er Cast)...

I love and I hate this pack. 

The lighting claws look like crap...they look like something from a bad Asian marital arts movie with long claws on the bad guy. They are all bent in the picture and appear to have no real strength like a plastic set.

The heavy bolter may be of interest depending on the changes to the rules for Salvo for them and if special ammo if it does not get nerfed would be great. 

Same thing for the heavy flamer, but short of a Salamander player jumping for joy, I think demand is going to be low granted it is about time for them to appear. 

Now we move on to the meat, the three combis. The plasma one looks like crap in the picture, it looks like someone flipped a plasma pistol sideways after they cut the handle off. Compare it to the standard one below. Aside from removing the plasma cap from the bottom IMO I think they made it worse!  The Combi Melta for the most part is fine it looks like the plastic one. The Combi Flamer is a bit weird IMO and looks like the flamer should have been mounted lower and the bolter on top. I am no weapons expert but I don't think I would want some flame like liquid landing on the muzzle of my main weapon.

So, what do you think?

Wolf/Tau List at 1850 for Tournament

Well tomorrow is my first tournament using the 6^th edition rules with only 3 games under my belt which is a bit less than I would have wanted to have but things have been crazy the past few months preventing me from being able to really get any more games in.

So, I have gone with a simple analysis of a focused fire army with strong scoring with the ability to hand HTH within limited standards. To me 6^th is much like 4^th where Chris and I had our Word Bearer armies loaded up with 8-9 troop choices and foot slogging. We would push forward with heavy weapon support, demons would drop out later out of icons and mid and long range firepower weakened our opponents. This army follows that same concept. Push to the mid field or objectives at least, hold them and damage the other army quickly.

At 1850 I quickly found that I had to trim the fat and even remove a few things I would have rather kept in the list if possible. Still, I think I was able to cobble together a fairly strong list using Space Wolves as the core and Tau as the allies.

Here is the list as it stands:

Rune Priest       Living Lighting, Murderous Hurricane

Rune Priest       Living Lighting, Jaws of the Wolf

2 Squads of 10 Grey Hunters with 2 Melta Guns, Rhino, Power Weapon

2 Squads of 5 Grey Hunters with Rhinos, one with a flamer (escorts for the RPs)

3 Long Fang Squads (two 6 man, one 5 man) all with missiles.

Commander Shas’o  Flamer, Plasma Rifle, Missile Pod, Hard Wired Blacksun Filter, Drone Controller with 2 Gun Drones

3 Crisis Suits with Flamer and Twin Linked Missile Pods, Leader has Hard Wired Drone Controller with 2 Gun Drones and a Blacksun Filter

6 Fire Warriors

3 Broadsides with Blacksun Filters, Leader with Hard wired Drone Controller with two Shield Drones.

As they are not “battle brothers” but rather “allies of convenience” I am working with two armies. Other than being able to add a few ICs to the other army nothing is a huge impact for either list. The Tau Commander can join the Fire Warriors or Stay in a Crisis uint as it merges 4 suits with 4 drones making a fairly strong unit size and decent firepower that ignores night fight along with the Broadsides. Three Long Fangs adds more long range threat with two squads for objective grabbing further in, while the other two and Fire Warriors grabs objectives closer to home near the end of the game.

I am also going with the feeling that most games will not make it past turn 3 or 4 at best with the new rules. So, my goal is to push forward grab some objectives by turn 2 or 3 and bunker down. Try to get first turn to get First Blood and Focus on killing the commander. I am unsure I will get the final bonus of getting a unit in the enemy deployment but that remains to be seen. Maybe I can sneak something in or dare to deep strike some of the suits as it appears Linebreaker is based on a unit, but does not specify what.

Doing an army breakdown of firepower:

3 TL Rail Guns at ST 10, AP1

14 Missile Launchers, ST 8, AP2

4 Missile Pods dishing out 8 shots at STR 7, forgot the AP right now.

4 Melta Guns with STR 8, AP 1

5 Flamer STR 4. AP 5

6 STR 5 Fire Warrior Rifles

1 STR 6, AP 2 plasma rifle

2 Power Swords

2 Force Swords

Tons of Bolt Pistols, Storm Bolters and Bolters

2 STR 7 Living Lighting at d6 shots

Is there some weak points? Oh yea, against HTH I could have a rough time against a heavy close combat unit but I hope to shoot the crap out of them to ensure they are not a threat. Armor I am not worried about or other shooting. Flyers could be an issue (both vehicle and FMC) even so, if they are I will just dump a few shots at them and hope they go down....the twin linked Rail Guns for example...twice the chances to hit...

25k Views and a 1850 test game of 40k!

The blog just rolled over 25k in views...I am working to improve content and giving a few months to see how 6th is going to progress before putting forth tactics and such...

AND....

Last night I played my third official game of 6^th edition with my friend Chris at my house. This was a “learning curve” game as we like to call it when the rules changed. We played a few games like this after 5^th dropped, so 6^th was the same method for us to learn the new changes to the rules.

I forgot to take pictures, but it was not until later I knew the camera was back at the house after my wife’s parents borrowed it to take pictures for Craigslist. Oh well!

We got in 4 rounds before we called the game. If we went longer I may have been able to pull a win out and Chris ended up with the win after I encouraged him to try to shoot one squad to make them break and try to charge the squad in the ruins with his Blood Angels that just mowed down my surviving Space Wolves hidden there in cover.

The mission we played was Relic on the long table deployment (Hammer and Anvil) with me winning deployment and first turn.

Chris had Space Wolves with Blood Angels allies. His core list was a Rune Priest, several Grey Hunter squads in 3 Rhinos and one Razorback with mostly melta guns, power weapons and two Long Fang Squads. His Blood Angels allies was a Librarian (with the sword power and Blood Lance), two jump squads (full) with melta guns x2 and power weapon. His Rune Priest with Living Lighting and Murderous Hurricane. Warlord trait: Acute Senses (hahahaha)

My Space Wolves list included a Rune Priest (same powers), 4 squads (3 Rhinos and 1 Razorback) with 1 squad with 2 melta guns, the Razorback squad had a melta and the two others had a pair of Plasma. There was also 3 Long Fang Squads with 14 missiles. I was allied with Tau with a Commander (flamer/plasma/missile pod) with two gun drones joining a 6 man Fire Warrior Team. 3 Crisis Suits with 2 Gun Drones on the leader with a flamer and twin linked pods on each. A trio of Broadsides rounded out the army with a pair of shield drones. Warlord Trait: -1 to enemy reserve rolls. Against BA with a reroll to jump reserves was almost a joke.

Lessons learned:

1)      Forgot to roll Night Fight. Stealth/Shroud could have helped with first turn casualties.

2)      “Abhor the Witch” totally forgotten.

3)      Better placement of key squad members to avoid wound allocation early on. I.e. don’t stick them in the front and put Long Fang Pack leaders to the front.

4)      6^th was much like 4^th with shooting being king of the game.

5)      Plasma is the new black, or weapon of choice.

Dark Veengeance is MINE!

Well, I wore down the wife's resistance and purchased my copy of the Special Edition of Dark Vengeance today. I also picked up a copy for my good friend that passed on his cash to ensure he got his this time around to avoid the debacle of the books a few months back.

So, here is a quick review of the boxed set!

The Special Edition Chaplain, notice the imprinted base for him. What I liked best about him more than anything was just the detail on him from the smoke out of his backpack to the skull helm itself. A great figure! Also appears easy to swap out the pistol hand for any other weapon or option you desire. A VERY easy figure to customize.

Random shots of the spures...lots of bits...but easy to assemble quickly.

Most figures are in about 2-3 bits some are a few more like the Bikes and Hellbrute for example.

Two sprues are exactly the same as well, this I am sure saved GW some serious money not having to develop a second spure, so if you bought two boxes you got 4 sprues of the same in total....

Overall, they did a good layout of the spures. I had a few moments of "hunt to find" a part. In the end it took me a few hours to clip, scrape and assemble while watching a new Iron Man series on Crackle.

FINISHED! So, here they are! Just need to do a final once over for mold lines, add sand and prep for primer work. I also plan to skim over my Dark Angels and Word Bearers to see how these two groups will mesh in.

Ravenwing....I may be getting a second group of these to round out my Ravenwing squadrons.

The characters....the Libby I really like and the character has a combi plasma tucked away in his cloak to the right.

The Terminators. Not a huge fan of the wings on the helm but I love the stud feel on their armor giving it an older more ancient feel.

Tactical Squad....got plasma?

Cultists Pack 1

Some of my favorites from this group.

The weapon here is I think what draws my eye to this figure.

There is all kinds of detail from the makeshift weapon to the face and the dog tags and icons around his neck!

Bare chested with an inverted knife and scars/tatoos is a nice touch!

Cultists 2, the shooters!

One of my favorites, the drum magazine and gas mask are just too cool.

The coat and shotgun makes this leader the one to stand out. The other cultist leader is just meh....

This guy just has a crazy mask that I like...

The Hellbrute, a Dreadnought by any other name!

The Chaos Lord.

The Chosen...

My favorite of the chosen,  he may well be a second Dark Apostle to my current one. Hey, it is good to have more than one crazy ass zealot!

In other news...Florida is getting a few more GW stores to go with their first founding store in Orlando in Miami and Jacksonville. We should also have one in Tampa in a few months (some point early 2013). I like the fact simply because I can now go there and order Forge World with free shipping....oh damm, I have to go to the GW store to pick it up....ok, pack up my models, got play a game, paint for awhile and grab up a book or something on the way out. Wow that is the rough life.

Never Forgotten: Neil Armstrong

We lost a great man today. He traveled further than any of us could dream and has allowed us to touch the stars. RIP you earned your rest.