The Hammer Returns: Deathwing HO!!

Well, after what feels like quite a round about trip, I've settled on what I'll be playing for the foreseeable future. As the title suggests I will be returning to my Deathwing. Inevitable? Ok Venerable and Bringer of Death may have called it after Brighton, but it took a lot of games before I just couldn't bare to be away from my 4th Edition boys much longer. It doesn't help that I've just rummaged around my bits boxes and found some fantastic bits to add onto the force, more on this in a second!

With this return to the Deathwing, it has reinvigorated me to pick up my Deathwing Tactic/Deployment series. As much as anything I've found it quite a productive exercise for putting some method to my madness in playing the force - ironing out the exact reasons why I do things, and sometimes (quite often actually) noticing things I can do better, or finding new tricks.


Another part to this is that since Brighton I've been thinking heavily about my games, and I realised something. I limited myself far too much to either a "passive or aggressive" play style, aggressive being essentially if I got the Alpha Strike (and thus meaning I needed 1st turn) - passive being the Phalanx. With the way the "meta" (or rather a slew of newer armies we are seeing) has changed on the tables, I.E - we are seeing a hell of a lot more "shooty" armies - Venom spam Dark Eldar and Grey Knights (3 of my 6 opponents were in these 2 categories, other 3 - Deathstar Blood Angels, Vens shooty McMuffin wolf list and a dual lash AP2 spam chaos list ...). I realised that I needed to introduce a new tactic to the fold, something to deal with these forces if I couldn't get the alpha, essentially a "if going second" deployment, as being sat in a phalanx just invited way to much shooting to achieve the win condition. Thus the series on deployment is going to look like:

• The Alpha Strike
• The Phalanx 
• The DWA "Mid Range" Deployment

Yes I am yet to think of a good name, but I kind of like Mid Range, as it does sort of summarise the nature of the deployment quite well. These articles will be followed up on a piece about Ravenwing and some various uses and thoughts about where/how/when and ways to use them, given their absolutely fantastic flexibility.

We know the Alpha Strike from the article I posted, and I still hold true to this, maybe even more so now. The Phalanx is certainly solid, and I still need to use it when I don't "meet the criteria" for a alpha strike (I.E wrong types of army/lists). However, there is armies that I need/want to Alpha and due to being forced to go second, well I had to create a middle ground - enter the Mid Range Deployment using DWA. Essentially it looks to leverage your DWA in various manners, it can be a full out reserve, however, I prefer 2xOn Table 3xIn Reserve - bringing down either 2x Terminators onto a weak flank or splitting them into a "deals with x or y but rarely, if ever both" - and nicely boxing in his army to boot - this also throws in 1 to 3 units in reserve that can come to aid weaker points - via DW/Outflank - the reserves allow for a very solid level of flexibility. However it still needs to keep to the mandate of not leaving your army too isolated. I often see Deathwing players just DWA a single unit onto a flank, and the opponent just simply shifting away with mobility. The idea of the mid-range is to create a box - using his board edge, a squad either side and then 2x squads as the "lid" - then hopefully it becomes the trash compactor scene from Star Wars.

Anyway - enough on that, I'll leave it for the article!

PROJECTS AHOY!

I've been having a big clear out of my GW stuff. Now really this is HOBBY DONT'S 101 - but really its just there taking up space and I never really plan to do anything with it. That Dark Eldar force I've had sat there only needs £200 to be ~2K of competitive loving, but if I haven't done it already ... well I might still yank that off eBay ;)

But still I've found/reminded myself of some brilliant bits I wanted to do:

• 3xGenerations Grey Knight Terminator Force
• Space Hulk Stealers / Terminators
• Rogue Trader "Tactical" Terminators for my Deathwing
• Flying Jetbikes for my Ravenwing! 
• Dark Angel Vets / 2nd/3rd Ed Models for my Black Templars/Blood Angels! 
• Air Brush my "Crowe Grey Knights" - because - why not right?

So quite a bit to do, and really this was all in a couple of boxes marked "to do" ironically enough. The Space Hulk models I've been itching to do, and I think I actually be good and do them "traditional" colours.

The triple gen GK terminator for is just a lark really. I have about 10 old school rogue trader Grey Knights that I've just stripped up - I plan on using them as either Paladins or Ghost Knights in a sort of Draigobomb "funsies" list. Can see it amusing me to drop Draigo, Mordrak and 5xGhost Terminators right into the heart of a force, and then tear it up with multicharges from a mix of Halberds, Hammers and Draigo's headbutts.

It also gives me a chance to spruce up my Deathwing/Ravenwing - I can add some more conversions in the Ravenwing jetbikers, plus actually finish off these damn shields I've been promising myself to do for the past 4 months. Hopefully some WIP progress on this in the near future!

I should be getting a bit more active now, between some hobby updates (pictures next time, should have a Bjorn the Fel Handed updated by the weekend!) and the Deathwing series, I may throw in some battle reports from some games between myself and Atreides - especially in relation to the Alpha/Mid/Phalanx.

Anyway, everyone wish our boy Killswitch good luck at ETC. Also big good luck to Co Rhodes, repping the 4th Edition with his Black Templars!