War of the Roses England ETC Tournament!!

Off we go!
Today is the War of the Roses - an 1850, 5 game 2 day tournament run by the England ETC team (Big Mike in particular) and has basically no comp at all.
This will, undoubtedly, lead to some horrible armies and a sneak peak at some of the playtesting/lists for the England team - always interesting.
NOTE: With a toe or two still in the camp, I do know these already, but I refer to the general tournament attendees.

It's looking reasonably well attended with around 35 players.

That'll do me - this is, shockingly, my first 2 day tournament in OVER A YEAR! Wow!
The last one was the Caledonian Uprising 2014!
Man, that was SOOO long ago!
I ended up, officially 34/35th I think after a big ol' points deduction for a list change last minute, busting me from, in Battle points, high teens (out of 110 players).. which was a real shame, but ...my own fault!
I also won Most Sporting which was nice.

More recently, I took Best General and 2nd place overall at the recent LazrBlast single day event in Norwich.

I find myself quite excited! I've not gotten a weekend of geekery in for bloody ages and the chance to see top level play again helps to keep me excited and up for this game.

I'm running a SM Bike and Centurion Pod list using Flesh Tearers Strike Force.
(Again, I'm keeping some of the blog's Blood Angel roots alive! I really like the BA book and with Pods becoming a major focus for me over the next few months... we'll see more of it! Interestingly, note Torrent of Fire and Nick Nanavanti toying with an excellent unit - the Frag-Furioso!)

The other lists have not been published as yet and the first round match ups are not out yet, I assume they are being done on the day...today... I forget I'm writing this in advance!

My list is:

Khan (Warlord)

3 x 5 Bikes with double Meltaguns and a Combi-Melta

3 x 5 Bikes with double Gravguns and a Combi-Grav

2 x 3 Centurions with Grav Cannons, Hurricane Bolters, Omniscope

 

Mephiston

5 Bolter Scouts

3 x Drop Pods

This allows me to drop Meph and both units of Cents in on the first turn with the scouting bikes to create a truly lethal Alpha Strike.

Going second, I can scout/deploy the bikes out of sight or range and try and get the first strike myself using speed and pods.

Maelstrm is in use here and although you can only score 2 tactical cards per urn, the speed and positioning of the army allows me to maximise opportunities to score.

I was going to run Adamantium Lance with Astra Militarum allies, but as there is currently a vote in play to ban/allow Ad Lance and the iKnight codex from the ETC, I thought it would be better to run something that is more likely to be seen as practice for the England boys.

So - fingers crossed. I'm hoping for a Top 10, but that means pushing someone in the England set up out of the picture... so a tough, tough nut to crack!
Given my recent lack of experience at tournament level, perhaps I should aim for something more like going 3:2 over the weekend!

Wish me luck and I'll provide feedback on the lists and the games next week!

Thunderfire-Wolves? Hooooo??

I think I've used that title several times...

I was reading an article over on Frontline Gaming yesterday, from Frankie - one of their principal writers (and the world's best 40k player)

He was discussing the use of a 'smash and grab' Thunderwolves list using Champions of Fenris..

It's a great idea and something I'm sure many of us have seen attached to ether SM Bike lists, Dark Angel Ravenwing Command Squads (with scout "support" or 110 points of shite) ... I've also come across it in the UK with Sisters of Battle for Priest action and Hit N Run from Celestine.

I must say, rerolling all saves in combat is an absolute BEAST mode way of playing the Wolves.

But what I thought was a really cool way of playing them was in the comments from the post. This discussed joining all the IC's (WGBL/WL/IP) to a Deep Striking (Drop Pod) Thunderfire Cannon!

Becoming Artillery crew took the unit to Toughness 7 and of course, with easily available scouting, the TWC bomb could be in the midfield, in cover or simply in position to tank like a boss with T7 across the board!

CentStar - Can it cut the mustard?

It's a beast no doubt - but can it handle the current meta?
It's more popular in the States than in the UK but what does this cool ass army look like and can it handle the main contenders in the UK tourney scene?

This is an amazing looking army on the table top - it's compact but fields some truly epic Space Marine heroes.
Draigo - lost in the Warp and just displaying mad power to rip himself out of it and pimp slap peeps
Loth/Tiggy/Grey Knight lvl3 Librarian - epic psykers controlling the battlefield and levelling shit with JUST THEIR MINDS!
Then the massive Centurions, striding across the battlefield soaking fire from all directions, cloaked and shrouded (sometimes literally) in darkness so that they can deliver their payload of Righteous Anger to the enemies of Mankind.
Finally.. Dreadknights - powerful, sanctified Grey Knights smashing the living shit out of ANYTHING!

Shit doggy - it's so cool!

It's expensive - both financially and on the tabletop; if you are going to run this list, you need to run it for a while to ensure you have your money's worth! But why would you not??

There have been several articles recently detailing what the CentStar is all about.
Here is a link to one of them;
https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2015/01/20/anatomy-of-a-centurionstar/
This is an excellent article from Captain A of Frontline Gaming letting us know how the CentStar ticks and how to play against it as well. Balance is always nice.

But what does one run alongside the shooty deathstar?
Let's look:

War of the Roses Batreps - Intro and Games 1 and 2 - Yes that means I finally went to a Tournament again :) - The Voice

So, yea, I fell out with 40k for a bit and fell in love with X Wing.

But with 6th on the way out and 7th incoming I thought id give the old bird one more spin on the dance floor. I have a bit more time now anyway and fancied seeing all the guys. (Love you guys :P)

This was made easier due to the "Highlander" side competition (where every troop is slightly different and you cant duplicate anything else, and no allies. Plus all the non beardy lists could only play each other.) "Perfect" I thought and signed up; figuring id get all the fun of going without the pressure or bs of playing O'vesa's or Pasks or Deathstars ETC,....

......so, yea they cancelled the highlander......

Bikes! Hobby update...

Batch 1 - "Sergeants" done with metallic chipping.. 3 more Batch jobs to go!

Hey up lads,
I've been smashing out a few bikes this morning whilst enjoying the first day of my holidays!
Love being a teacher... 2 weeks off to warhammer to my hearts content!

Who knows...I may actually come up with a list for Caledonian Uprising in January that I am happy with before the list deadline of 28th Dec!

Wishful thinking!

I'm struggling at the minute with the meta and the fact that all the secondaries bar one mission are Kill Points and with a W/L system the tournament is encouraging tablings and deathstars to win.
The use of Forgeworld means Badab War characters like Severin Loth (who chooses his psychic powers not rolls.. Gate of Infinity anyone?) will mean a huge number of Farsight Bombs (one of the

Couple of mud types added to front and rear tyres next... wet and dry

strongest lists in the game IMHO), lot's of O'Vesa stars and lots of Screamer Councils and Jetseer Councils..not to mention Beastpack bombs.

The issue? I own ALL of these armies. I am practiced with ALL of these armies.
So whats the problem?

I think the top end of the tournament will be "Deathstar-tastic" and to have a real shot at winning, I need an edge.

Last year I played Josh Roberts in the final round and it was only between us for number 1 spot.. Josh won that Necron-off.. I placed Top 10 from 110. Year before I lost my final game to BJ Mason and ended up joint 10th (11th due to VPs)... So in this huge tournament... I have an EXCELLENT track record.

I want Top 10 again this year. That is all I am aiming for. Consistency.

The question is....how to achieve that! Back to the drawing board!!

SM Khan Bikers! Hobby update

Lots of hobby progress this weekend!
I've been working on finishing all my recent impulse purchases.. chasing the dream.. the dream where I actually finish all my unpainted models and have lots of complete armies to join my BA, Wolves, Nids, Necrons and Tau.
So what armies are on the table?
- SM Bikers
- Demons
- Eldar/DE

Now, all of these have been painted to a variety of standards over the years and are more or less ready for final touches. For example, the Demons and SM Bikes are both airbrush base coated and highlighted with the marine bikers also having the armour trim painted in brass.
The Eldar/DE are coming on nicely and will be completed over the Christmas hols - they are now "3 colour minimum" and just need touching up.. in a non-Saville fashion.

The Bikes I played with last week vs Oliver's O'Vesa Tau on his request - he wanted to see just how bad Grav Guns could hurt him.. trouble is, I just didn't play it right and by half way through the game we agreed that if we were playing a tournament game, the obvious choices for me (and him) would result in a draw...so in order to forge a diamond-hard narrative we played on in epic marine fashion and my poor little fuckers got their heads kicked in. I've got some sweet as fook ideas on how to deal with this in the future, including not forgetting to Jaws and Orbital Bombard....special right!


Point being, they have caught my attention and since they are 3 colour minimum already, I wanted to push on and try and complete the army. I have a slight problem with this...as regular readers will know I have a lot of my stuff in storage for this year and guess what....this includes my Thunderfire cannon! D'oh! So the army won't be finished until I convert another one....despite only having access to a tiny proportion of my "bitz box" I will be endeavouring to recreate my awesome Thunderfire and try to improve it...or I may just order some sort of Tarantula Marine thing from FW :)



Everyone remembers their first "crack"

These guys already had their basing done - I corked them right up over the summer... or whenever the DV box set was released and I impulse purchased 30 Ravenwing bikes... But they needed something more.. I wanted to try out the new technical paints and so I got my greedy hands on all the "Agrellan Earth" my local GW had to offer... 1 pot. Fuckers.
I watched the YouTube tutorial and set about "put a blob on the surface and spread it around"-ing. Pretty easy and I am quite pleased with it..

Dry, arid landscape.. like your momma's... No! stop right there...

I got quite excited to see my first few cracks in my arid desert landscape, but overall... I think I needed more paint for slightly larger cracks..
I have since washed a few of the bases with hmm.. the dark wash one "Agrax" or some shit.
Another coat in the near future for these boys.

Plasmaguns next to brighten up the units - these are very special plasmaguns and are more akin to the mighty space monkey (Jokaero) weapons - it's commonly known as "whatever the fuck I say - I'm bigger than you"-gun... last week a Grav Gun, next week... who knows!
I just washed Leviathan Purple around the plasma coil/cell and then used "Emperor's Penis Pink" followed by "Dry Humped by a Horror Pink" and some other shit in between.
It's nowhere near as good as the airbrushed effect I have on my Necrons Tesla and Gauss Weaponry or even on par with the simple airbrushed OSL for my Tau... but I like it.

I also have made extensive use of the oxidising metal wash...umm...."Necron wash" or something. Nihilakh Rust? Whatever. It's frikkin' cool.
Although to be fair, I'm pretty sure you could get the same effect from mixing up the colour, using a medium and watering that fucker down, then washing copious amounts all over your models.
However, for me... who really can't be arsed with the above, popping open a bottle and slopping this Necron goodness all over the metals is perfect.
This dries quickly and nicely, although for me it is too bright to be left on its own.

I washed mine back with the magic "Wizard's Sleeze Wash" and it dulled it down a treat.

Once this was done, I got greedy and then decided to do some chipping.. I thought about using a sponge, but decided I'd just dab it on with a brush. "White Fang's Toenail" later and boom... looks pretty cool.

So...next up is more chipping.. chipping everywhere! Unfortunately, as the next level of detail to take these guys up to a higher tabletop standard than my usual... this takes time.. I need to keep going before I get bored!
Modelling-wise, it's time to convert a second T-Fire Cannon.. and another techmarine... wait.. saves.. comes back:

Techmarine! Yes!!! I've finally found a use for this miserable prick model!  



Disclaimer: These paints I have described may actually be called something else. It's Saturday evening, I've smashed a bottle of wine and my wife is cooking dinner. This is a smash and grab post to demonstrate that I am actively hobbying and genuinely enjoying painting.
No, that's not the wine speaking.
I know I'm not a top-notch painter.. I'd not claim to be.. but I found today's work therapeutic.
So there.
Time to open another Pinot.
Piss off and go get laid, it's Saturday night FFS!

The Voice - Building a better Marine list

Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. Ive just been really busy job hunting and looking after the little one.

So, Marines; its all about the bikes right?

Wrong

I won't lie i looked at the book and thought the same initially. With grav as it is and scoring cheap bikes the way they are, then surely that's your starting point with marine lists?  We'll this is what i thought and played some games...and its good, but its not great. If you don't go first it can be a problem. It was almost 2 army's, the one where you went first and the one where you went second and the tactics changed a lot depending on that. With Coteaz as an allie then i think it is a strong contender, but other wise its good but not tourney winning good (Hello Mr Sacket :P)

So what do i think marines should be doing. Well that depends, on one thing. The chapter tactics you use. This rule more than any other really does define how you should build your list, and, in my humble opinion, tactical marines tend to use them to the fullest.

I was a bit disillusioned with the tacs at first, they didn't get much of a buff and they were not cheaper (not really, when you consider their old free/cheap weapons upgrades). But add in the chapter tactics and the fact that a lot of the upgrades are optional and available for squads under 10 strong now and hoo nelly!. Suddenly tacs en mass can be scary.

Yes i said it, Scary

So what I'm going to do is go through each of the chapter tactics and show you a list , talk about it a bit and throw some ideas your way. I won't include allies out of codex as frankly thats an exercise that would take forever. Plus i think allies are kinda cheating :P

First off. White Scars:

Tigurius - the perfect Imperial Guard ally?

I have been trying to come up with an Imperial Guard list I am happy with for a while now.  Inspiration is pretty sparse on the Internets.  Most people seem to have written off the once mighty guard as an effective ally and a poor primary, or are sticking doggedly to tired 5th edition mech spam lists.  After a weekend of games at the Throne of Skulls I have concluded that this approach no longer works.  The chimera has neither the firepower nor the resilience in today's environment, and the men inside cannot survive, or do significant damage, once they disembark. 

Therefore I have decided to bite the bullet, pack up my chimeras and try a bit of something else.  A few months back, Ven gave me a template for a guard list using one or more blob squads and several Rune Priests to increase resilience and damage output.  While this worked OK, it was something of a one trick pony due to the expense of the HQ choices and blob squads.  Very few points were available to spend on other toys and my damage sucked, so I abandoned the idea. 

However, upon the launch of the new Space Marine code I began to think again.  Space Marine librarians are cheap and powerful.  Sure, they don't give counter attack to the blob, but at 65 points, who cares.  Then I realised the fatal flaw, they don't get Divination!  At this point I didn't notice Tigurius, but after talking to a mate while gaming last night he mentioned that Tigurius can take powers from any disciple, and he can re-roll the dice on the table.  This is huge, and has the capacity to make a single blob very powerful indeed, especially when combined with the chance of getting endurance on a Primaris Psyker. What is more, it doesn't break the bank, and allows you to take some of the cool toys in the Space Marine book in addition to the usual guard support (which is still very powerful). 

The initial list I have come up with is as follows. 

1750 points Guard/SM Roster

Guard Detachment

Primaris Psyker - 70
Platoon Command Squad - 30
5 Infantry Squads, 5 Autocannons, 3 Power Weapons - 330
Penal Legion Squad - 80
Hellhound Squadron, 2 Hellhounds - 260
Vendetta - 130
Vendetta - 130
Griffon - 75
Griffon - 75

Space Marine Detachment

Tigurius - 165
Tactical Squad, Lascannon - 90
Tactical Squad, Lascannon - 90
Stormtalon, Skyhammer Missiles - 125
Thunderfire Cannon - 100

The Penal Legion and PCS will mostly ride in the Vendettas and drop onto objectives, or just sit tight and hold my own.  The blob advances or holds depending on the mission and the powers I end up with. 

Options include replacing the tactical squads with some scouts, possibly with a storm, but I like the threat of lascannons, and on a cheap scoring platform they are quite useful.  The Techmarine allows me to bolster something, so I have gone without the aegis line this time, thought I feel I may miss the quad gun. 

I am slightly concerned I have gone overboard with the S6 anti-infantry firepower, but the two Hellhounds will scare the crap out of backfield scoring units and little bastards like pathfinders, and the amount of barrage means that successful sniping should be a real possibility. 

Av 14 and even 13 is also a problem.  Lascannons can only get you so far, but there doesn't seem to be much of either around right now, so I might see if I can get away with it. 

Of course I could just be talking out of my ass here.  I have minimal actual gaming experience of 6th and I could be missing something huge and obvious.  Advice from my betters please!

Cally Game 3 - Necrons Vs Wolves w Marines (AGAIN)

Game 3 was up on Table 5, I was moving into the position I wanted to be in, namely tougher games versus tougher oppoenents that would help me to improve my standing from last year (11th) and meet this years target of Top 5... which I missed out on by 4 spots due to the way the final game turned against me.. d'oh!

But anyway, more on that in due time. Back in time to the end of the first day and two solid wins for me. 2 solid wins as well for Bernard Lee from the Scottish ETC team who is running a very similar list to Chris Green (of yesterdays post fame HERE).

Mission: Puge (Kill Points)
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil

Bernard Lee - Space Wolves with Space Marine Allies

2 Rune Priests, Jaws, Runic Axe, stuff.

3 Wolf Guard w Combi Melta

8 Grey Hunters, Standard, Meltagun, Power Axe - Drop Pod

8 Grey Hunters, Standard, Meltagun, Power Axe - Drop Pod

10 Grey Hunters, dual Plasmagun, Standard, Power Axe - Drop Pod

5 Hunters, Meltagun - Drop Pod

3 Hyperios Missiles

Libbie, Termie, Null Z, Gate

10 Sternguard - 5 Combi Plasma - Drop Pod

5 Scouts

3 Attack Bikes - MM

Thunderfire

Bernard was a good lad from the Scottish Team but made a couple of mistakes. The biggest of these came at set up when Bernard rolled and switch out the Psychic Powers of his Rune Priests rather than keeping his Jaws.
I am really nto sure what the argument is there, perhaps - and I guess this is logical-ish, he didn't want to give up the Warlord Secondary or the KPs for his 2 Rune Priests and was going for Iron Arm etc on his Priests? Perhaps enfeeble as well so the drop pod bolter marines could do significant harm to my army.. perhaps Bernard was thinking more in line with Dark Angels (6th ed codex proper - buffing and debuffing armies, also a la Tyranids) and the way they work now.

I can see some logic in that, but I am an army of I2 models..

God send in disguise I can tell you. Bernard did still have a damn decent amount of shooting and between his Sternguard (I love Sternguard in a Wolves army) and podding Marines/Hunters and the THunderfire lobbing shells into me.. I knew I was in for a rough ride.
He got to go first, perfect for him, tough for me to deploy - but that said, I knew if I could deploy right I would weather the hail in the first turn and have the right tools to deal with things in the later game.

SO with that in mind... I used a defensive deployment based around a terrain/piece/building (impassable) with my Wraiths upfront and then a layer of Warriors, followed by barges, with both Immortal groups in the very back corner of my board.
By doing this I negated the full effect of:
a) Rapid Fire combi plasma from Sternguard
b) Short Ranged melta from the Grey Hunter packs.
- I ensured that all 4 Barges had a 4+ cover from the buildings from all accessible angles.
- All Immortal units were outside of 12" and in cover from the Plasma units
- There were no Pod shaped holes in my deployment due to the judicious use of all 3, 5 man Warrior squads and both Immortals.

In this manner, Bernard could happily rapid fire Warriors if he got very close to the Wraith on the drop, or he could drop and get the Wraiths.
His other option, which of course negates the limited mobility of a drop pod, was to drop down further away and wait for the other pods to come in up close and provide a single killing blow.. Of course this would mean no killing on turn 1 and I would get first blood and still maul his 30 marines that were on the board.
So he doppped up close.

Bat Rep: Necrons Vs SW/SM - Double Jaws Priests!

Game 2 at Caledonian on Table 14 (I think lol) against Chris and his SM/SW combo. Chris made early game banter about his joining up with the English ETC Team and "hadn't I done the same?", "Killswitch taking the piss endlessly if Chris lost to me" well..... that didn't turn out so well for him. Whilst playfully establishing his own position in the gamer hierarchy, he was also just making conversation and I can confirm that Chris was also a top lad, took everything well, could see most things coming - even if it was a little too close to it happening.. but a solid player.

I guess that's what you get most of the time after a round 1 win.. other players on a win.. but you can never really tell if that player is any good or whether they just pulled out the luck of the draw with a good match up..

Opponent: Chris Green
Mission: Relic & Bore Draw combined
Deployment: Dawn of War

Chris's army was:
Wolves:
2 Jaws Rune Priests (the other powers weren't used)
4 Wolf Guard in a Pod with Combi Melta (yup...done that before!)
10 GH in a Pod with 2 Meltaguns, Power Axe, Wolf Standard
8 GH in a Pod with Meltaguns
10 GH on foot with Plasmaguns and Terminator Wolf Guard w. CML
2 x 5 Long Fangs - 4 ML
Aegis w. Quad Gun
Space Marine Allies

Libbie - Null Zone, Gate
Tac Squad - ML, plasmagun
Storm Talon - Skyhammer Missiles, TL AC
Vindicator - Siegeshield

I won the roll off for deployment and went first, dictacting where the battle would be fought as his mobility was limited realistically to drop pods. I wanted him in and away from my objective.

My objective was in the bottom right of my deployment zone, his in the centre-right (my centre-left) of his zone. Relic was in the centre between two ruins.

My plan was to leg it across the field, blasting with Tesla and Gauss as I went to gun down his realtively small army. There are not a great number of Marine bodies in the army.. 300 points are in the HQs, but in no more than 6 T4 3+ saves...and the flier is over costed for what it does. Given as well that the drop pods would not bring every marine onto the table for at least a turn, I can use my firepower to my advantage. The Vindicator is a scary prospect, of course, but it has to come a little forward and then I can Haywire the shit out of it.. realistically as long as it is 6-8" on from his table edge, I should be able to bring the Haywires on from reserve and kill the Vindi...

Thunderfire Cannon Scratch Build

Like many others out there, I refuse to buy the thunderfire cannon for £35 or whatever it is.. silly money for a  techmarine and a gun.

So I thought I would build one myself just from bits n bobs I have lying around from my random ass collection.. free whoot!

I had to get an image of what the Thunderfire is supposed to look like.. then I had to have an extensive search of my bits. This is what took the longest to be honest... I have a huge collection of random bits and finding Space Marine parts that suited as well as other non-Imperial bits.. I mainly raided a Empire Steam Tank, a spare Manticore kit, some random Marine tank bits.. Vendetta landing gears, all sorts.

It took a few minutes to think what I wanted it to look like, I like the idea of it being dropped into the action from space or low orbit from a thunderhawk.. that way, it wouldn't have to have tank tracks - the most important element that I could not source in my bits...and I'd be damned if I was paying anything at all for this!

My first steps were to put the TFC base platform together. This was a very simple platform, with just the 3 landing gears under a razorback hatch. This would give me the size to mount a pretty decent sized gun on, also a space to angel the gun already built in.

Once this was done, it was time to build the Cannon itself.. I toyed with putting the Cannons from the Empire Steam Tank together and adding a 3d cannon from the Nemesis Dreadknight Heavy Psilencer..but it just didn't look man enough for the job..

Then I found a set of Storm Eagle rockets I had left from my Mech IG army that I sold.. nice one.. trim the flights and noses from the missiles..glue together.. sweet.

Next stage was to provide some bulk to the TFC, and a way in which to elevate the barrel/cannon so that it looks like it could lob shells overhead. This was done with a spare Baal Pred ammo box from the TL Assault Cannons.. and the control panel from a Drop Pod. These, combined with a second Razorback weapons mount gave me the necessary elevation on the cannon and the mountings for the Steam Tank Cannons gave me the pieces that would hold the cannon in place.

Adding a few details to the rear of the Cannon covered the dodgy looking glue job at the back, a DA tome glued on the front gave it the mechanicus/DA monastic nonsense I was looking for.

The Cannon itself got some Baal Pred Sponson covers to give the Cannon itself some covering and armour plates. I did look for one of those targeting thing-ma-bobbies that goes on top of the TFC, but I couldn't find one amongst my scrap.. which to be honest, I was amazed at lol!

Then I think that was it.. pretty easy, looks pretty sweet and it cost absolutely nothing...pilfering bits from kits that I have no interest in using nor have the need.. IG for me are now reduced to just Infantry platoon plug ins as Allies and I have more BA mech than you can shake a stick at.. so a few odds n sods are really not useful.

You can of course see my scratch built Techmarine with full servo harness.. my guy has more practical tools for siege work than lifting equipment..lighting, drill, hammer.. and of course the TL Plasma and flamer..

I love it when a plan comes together! What do you guys think? Cracking little freebie or "needs some work Ven"? I'm pretty pleased, I save £30-odd and exert some creativity.. 

Dark Angels WIP - 60 marines airbrushed!

I've been digging out all my unclassified space marines over the last 2 weeks.
You know what I've found?
About 3000 points worth of stuff that is not part of my Blood Angels, Grey Knights or Space Wolves armies.
All miscellaneous Space Marines.
This is mainly made up of 60 Tactical Marines, almost half of which (25) are robed Dark Angel Vets.
I mixed these guys with BA bits to get wings and baroque bling into the models back when I was trying out my "Band of Brothers" Sisters counts as army.
I felt pretty bad about doing that..

Anyway, I also have 20 Ravenwing Bikers, some MM Attack Bikes.. and the coup d'grace.. about 40 Deathwing Termies.. including 2 of the new squads from Dark Vengeance.
I grabbed the Libbie and Chapter Master off of fleabay and now I have a full blooded DA army.

So where is the painting and modelling at?
I see an airbrushed army coming here..

Tacticals 

Just really old tac marines I put together when I got into the hobby again at the start of 5th.. plus 2 sets of Black Reach dudes .. still..they do the job.


The Green on these guys is worked up from Caliban Green to umm...Moot Green, yeah that's it.. although it is never PURE Moot Green, always at least part mixed with CG.. The next stage for these boys and all the miniatures you see here is a Thraka Green wash to bring the tone together a bit and then a devlan mud wash to certain parts.. I am thinking of using dust pigments to give them a real 'in action' look..


Sternguard
These guys are the robed bad asses we need in a DA army.. plus a few traditional sternguard which will form the veteran sergeants in the normal tactical squads.. I think this is a great way of getting some flavour into the tact squads..





Bikes & Termies

So this is a big ass pile of stuff... An entire Deathwing army plus 2 new Dark Vengeance squads.. 20 odd Ravenwing bikers..

Whilst the Deathwing are ready to roll as a complete force, the Ravenwing do not have enough bodies to form a true force, but with Allied Guard or something they may be viable.

I'm thinking Speeders and Fliers (if they materialise in the new book), 2 max Bike squads for troops, Drop Pod Sternguard and then IG Allies for bodies..

Special Characters - these guys are just Libbies.. I wonder what the Dark Angel psychic powers are going to be like?? Exciting! But even if they are just Marine ones re-hashed.. I can deal with that!


Inner Circle (Rumour mill unit) - when I heard about a big pimping, closed group of fanatical Inner Circle morons who DUAL WIELD PLASMA PISTOLS I had to have some! So I ordered myself some extra left handed plasma pistols, which I struggle to find for some reason amongst my collection and boom.. off we go!  To be honest, even though this is a cool ass idea for a unit, if they don't materialise in the new DA Codex, then I'll just grab me these dudes as Sergeants for my squads, I love a dual wield and PP will be the new black.. especially if the rumoured "Rites" come into play for DA, one of which supposedly allows rerolls for gets hot! - how sweet? Very.

These are the next project for the weekend.. plus hopefully a scratchbuilt Thunderfire for my Techmarine to use! Speaking of which... over the weekend I'll post up my scratchbuilt techmarine with a full servo harness.. I am really pleased with him and best of all..every part of him was something I already had somewhere in my massive garage-sized bitz box! lol

TAC Marines 1850: Ven's Views

Tactical Marines. Quintessentially Warhammer 40k right? The base line model for everything. The yardstick.. yadda yadda.
The Voice came 2nd at Blog Wars with his TAC Marine army, perhaps modelled around principals laid out/discussed over at Frontline Gaming by Reecius.
Gary's cracking performance - down to the player and the founding principals of list building for a particular environment, has inspired me to get cracking with my Marines.
Originally, I was planning 2 marine armies:
1) My current Blood Hunters - Red marines with White features..
2) My Dark Angels; made up of all my bits and pieces of marines plus a dedicated Deathwing army, Ravenwing bike force and about 20 DA Marines..

However, the recent FW Betrayal Heresy book has thrown a spanner in the works.. I want a Heresy Marine  force too now. So I could keep the DA theme and do a Heresy DA army as well.. this keeps me doing relatively simple work ,, or I could do anything else.. thinking bout White Scars for Heresy.

Back to business though.. the Dark Angels can be used as either Space Marines, Dark Angels or even Chaos to accurately represent the Fallen. So these are the first priority..

Now, I have about 3000 points of marines to put into this project, but they still need a list to play to.. until the DA book comes out, it's going to be Marines..

NOTE: this does not mean the Nids are out the window, simply being finished to a higher standard in the meantime.

So, the Marine list? First, let's consider the pro's and con's of running TAC Marines..

Blog Wars 4 . Bat Reps...

So it was full of Gusto I breezed in to my second Blog Wars with my tourney untested new marine creation, I was hopeful as in play testing the "tool kit" army seemed to be working well and had yet to be trounced (which is not the same as "not lost" :P )

Anyway this was the list I took. The inclusion of Chronus was due to the mission pack making special characters score or give away extra vps but you HAD to take one. Either way a scoring predator that could then cheekily throw the character from the wreckage to go and hide in a squad seemed a good bet. The fact he then gave me immune to stunned and shaken and bs5 was just icing on the cake:

Libby - Gate and Null Zone
10 Sternguard in a pod
Iron Clad with 2 hunter killers in pod

10 tacs with the holy trinity of melta in pod
10 tac with missile, plasma and assault cannon razorback
10 sniper scouts with Telion
Aegis with Las

Storm talon with cyclone
Vindicator
Thunder Fire
Dakka Pred with Chronus

Let's see how I got on then..

The Voice - Being a Hobby Butterfly,Space Marines and my Blog Wars list!

So, yea, my name is Gary Percival and I have a problem. I'm a hobby butterfly.

6th is really doing my noodle in, so many things viable, so many codex's now a possible, i'm having trouble settling on what I want to use for the 2013 season. Nids, Crons, Blood Angels...all have piqued my interest.

But i've decided, for sure...vanilla marines. Done.

Why?

Frankly because you get more bang for your buck, once you have a core you can turn a generic space marine army in to wolfs, blood angels, dark angels etc, and to be honest with a little one on the way I don't know when I will be able to afford another army. So this will be added to for a while to create new types of army's.

So what am I planning for the 2013 season?

Well I want something balanced, something with lots of options (as trying to predict the meta at any given tournie is a nightmare) something where I don't really care  too much what I'm facing. I want strong scoring that also but also built to do the secondary missions as they are so so important now.

So this is the core - and it has a fair bit of melta purely as wraiths seem to be turning up at the moment  - but these can easily be switched out to add a new key unit or option if some new star rises..

Librarian, terminator armor and combi melta, force axe, null zone and gate- 135

10 stern guard - 250
pod - 35

Iron clad, 2 hunter killers, melta and heavy flamer - 165
pod - 35

10 sniper scouts, telion - 190
aegis line with lascannon - 85

10 marines, plasma gun, missile launcher-180

10 marines, melta, multi melta, combi melta - 185
pod -35

storm talon with assault cannon and cyclone - 155
2 multi melta attack bikes - 100

thunderfire cannon - 100
vindicator -115
whirlwind - 85

So why do I think its good? Well combat tactics is amazing, null zone is ace at getting those daemons and wraiths. My first blood potential is strong and vanguard should be easy. Ive got fast attack and heavy's plus up to 6 scoring units for objective missions. There is something there for every job and multiple attack vectors for what ever army I face.

Combat tactics really keeps my warlord alive and cant be under estimated and the "fade and fire" warfare style really is a valid tactic - falling back from where the enemy makes a strong push and then use the new rally rules to then surround and pulverize....it makes me happy :)

There is SO much this army can do well (rather than one or two things really well like most army's) that I cant even list all the tactics Ive been using. It really rewards thinking a turn or two ahead and being familiar with MY army rather than prescribed internet tactics. (In a vain way I think part of what I'm going for is eeking out a niche for myself "that marine player that seems to always do well" rather than "that guy that won with 18 wraiths...again...yawn")

Some changes may be just taking the libby down to just bare bones and getting some combi meltas in the sternguard - but vengeance rounds and null zone seem to be nobbling wraiths just fine. I'm also tempted to take some scouts bikes with a melta bomb and power axe too instead of the attack bike's and the libby's terminator armor. This potentially can allow me to gate a tactical squad in, drop the stern guard and iron clad in too and then charge the scout bikes in too on turn one (if going second)- really aggressive, which I like. The scout bikes with t5 really can tie up certain units in combat, which then should reduce the incoming flak for the other three units.

Anyway I digress and I'd be interested in your thoughts.

Finally my Blog Wars 4 list - moded a little due to the special nature of the missions. Can you guess the sneaky plan? - But bear in mind its also for a bit of fun :)

Libby, null zone, gate, force axe - 100

10 stern guard - 250
pod - 35

Iron clad, 2 hunter killers, melta, chainfist- 155
pod - 35

10 sniper scouts, telion - 190
aegis line with lascannon - 85

10 marines, plasma gun, missile launcher-180
Razorback - twin assault cannon - 75

10 marines, melta, multi melta, combi melta - 185
pod -35

storm talon with assault cannon and cyclone - 155


thunderfire cannon - 100
vindicator -115
Predator, heavy bolter sponsons, Chronus - 155


Oh and check the points for me :P

Gary

2k Gauntlet: How many Marines can you kill? 80?

Foot Horde Vanilla marines can stretch the other element of firepower in your army.
Where we test the Anti Tank capabilities of your force with a 17 x Av12 wall in the IG Gauntlet, here we test your ability to dish out firepower in an Anti Infantry fashion.

I wondered for a while how to do foot horde marines, clearly BA jumpers do a number on a lot of armies, at 2K we can squeeze in 50 marines, Sanguinor and Mephiston..that is pretty scary with Chaplain and Priest support, making for a highly durable and very combat effective force..

However, there are a number of very tough matchups for it and I think there are better ways of running it.

BT can do very good foot horde, but usually with crap loads of Terminators, I think Vanilla could do it very well utilising a couple of wicked tactics:
1) Combat Tactics
2) ATSKNF
3) Calgar.

Marneus Calgar - Armour of Antilochus

10 x Tactical Marines, Meltagun, Combi Melta, Missile Launcher

10 x Tactical Marines, Meltagun, Combi Melta, Missile Launcher

10 x Tactical Marines, Meltagun, Combi Melta, Missile Launcher

10 x Tactical Marines, Meltagun, Combi Melta, Missile Launcher

10 x Tactical Marines, Meltagun, MBombs, Missile Launcher

5 x Scouts, Camo Cloaks, Snipers

2 x MM Attack Bike

2 x MM Attack Bike

2 x MM Attack Bike

5 x Devastators - 4 Missile Launchers

5 x Devastators - 4 Missile Launchers

5 x Devastators - 4 Missile Launchers

2K on the nose.

Fun right? Venom spam going to destroy it? Can the Venoms kill enough marines to get to the Missiles before they fire and kill the Venoms? That's part of the Gauntlet right? All those Marines in cover just launching missiles with Attack Bikes bombing about in cover where possible and popping heavy tanks or transports.

Can you beat this? I am going to see if Bringer can with his Grey Knights and if Kabalite can with his Dark Eldar.. who knows, I may even paint this lot as a coherent army lol! I've been fancying testing out a airbrush on a wide scale...
On a side note, anyone reading this had any success running Calgar? How do you do it? Thought about throwing in 10 TH/SS Terminators or 10 Tactical Termies with 2 Cyclones.. but I wanted the body count..

Vanilla Marines: Can they still hang?

One of my favourite images of SM..

More 1750 tournament options from me today. I'm thinking Space Marines now, the first army I owned when 5th hit and I started playing again...they have a special place in everyone's heart...even if it is becuase you are warped and twisted and hate them..but even so, that passion is important lol!

So how would I do Space Marines for the upcoming tournament...well, again, we are going to go with what I have..luckily that is a fair ol' pile o' stuff...

I think the first and most likely option would be a variant of the Stelek 'Best of' list.. GMort covered Vanilla Marines a few months back and this very much reminded me that they are still a relevant force...check out his stuff over at GmortChaotica...

Now onto lists and breakdowns: