Warpstone Flux

Wargames Gallery: Lured by the Masque of Slaanesh

2012-01-31T15:25:00.014Z

Lured by the dance of the Masque of Slaanesh, the Black Templars leave the relative safety of the woodland ruins and come toward the Death Guard. Only the Land Raider (top right) is unaffected by the dance, but seems unable to bring itself to destroy the rhino and its riders.

The Death Guard leave the rhino and rapid fire the Black Templars. This is followed by the Masque charging in to fell the remainder. Ah, the insanity of Apocalypse!

Painting Experiment: Ghost Knight Shoulder Pad

2012-01-30T13:03:00.016Z

This is a test colour scheme for some Ghost Knights of Mordrak. The shoulder pad is a standard grey knights terminator pad with no adornment or conversion work.

To paint it, a base coat of skull white was used in order to give strength to the colours applied over it. The edging was picked out in astronomican grey and a base coat of white applied to the other areas. Three washes were applied: asurman blue, thraka green and then the blue once more. Highlighting consisted of electric blue (inner edges of the pad and raised areas of the book), grey (outer edges of the pad) and white (lettering and skull / book detail).

My initial evaluation is that I'm not sure its quite what I was after originally. It feels a bit more statue-esque rather than ghostly. But perhaps that is a result of just painting one part of the miniature rather than the entire miniature in one go? Alternatively, it may be that the white undercoat simply got "lost" in one too many wash layers and the original "brightness" of the ghostly appearance got lost somewhat. But am I being too picky?

Colour Scheme for Ghost Knights?

2012-01-28T08:51:00.000Z

Having assembled a few Ghost Knight terminators for use with a Mordrak Grey Knights army that I'm building, I wanted to start to consider what colour schemes might be appropriate for painting the ghosts with. I noticed that a number of Ghost Knight images on the web tended to focus on greens and blues as the main hues. The major inspiration for these colours would appear to come directly from the army of the dead (Lord of the Rings). The image above shows such a colour scheme. Although the transparency is not really a viable option (I wish!), the general blue and/or green hue could be something cool to aim to emulate. I think I'm leaning more toward a pale blue colour than the green hues to be honest (the green makes me think more of a sickly cursed knight than a Mordrak ghost knight to be honest, but opinions welcome!).

The second point is whether to go for an all-ghostly colour scheme. By that, I mean should the Ghost Knights be a complete ghostly colour everywhere (whether that's green or blue biased), or perhaps should there be some of the original colours showing through in various regions? One alternative option might be to have only some set portions of the armour in the ghostly colours -- specifically the lettered portions on the shoulder pads (and elsewhere) to give an ethereal "inner glow" approach.

The weapons are another area that I don't know how to approach. Should they be "powered" like some other power weapons (e.g. see these terminator's power weapons), or should they be in the same colours as the "ghost" portions of the miniature? Your thoughts welcome!

[image from Lord of the Rings motion pictures; posted here in accordance with "fair use" guidelines as a reference material]

Deep Strike Mis-haps 101

2012-01-25T14:15:00.006Z

The deep-strike mishap table can cause both the player and the opponent headaches when a deep-strike doesn't go the way it is supposed to. For armies such as daemons, Death Wing and the like, this can cause even more trouble.

As a daemons player, I often succumb to deep-strike mishaps. But only on a few occasions has an opponent taken maximum advantage of the situation. So for those players who do play against daemons (and other deep-strike armies), here's the key thing to punish your opponent for a poor deep-strike.

Firstly, the deep-strike mishap table has two results that you're interested in and a third that serves only a minor advantage (or potentially disadvantage). The latter that I speak of is returning the squad back to the reserves pool. This is probably the result that you don't want as the opposing player -- it is just delaying the inevitable return of the unit to the table somewhere, sometime. In many cases this can be an advantage as the opposing player gets to see where would be most critical for the unit to arrive. In late game turns, this might mean the difference between winning and losing if the sqaud materializes on top of an objective.

The mishap that destroys the squad is clearly to the opposing players avantage. Effortless kill points are always welcome!

But the most mis-understood mishap is the one where you get to decide where to place the unit. All too often when my opponents get this result, they simply shove my unfortunate unit in the corner of the gameboard, far away from where the action is. This is a mistake in my opinion. The unit that gets put in a corner will simply (slowly) slog its way to a useful position (or objective) eventually (so long as its not near the end of the game). In order to take maximum advantage of this result, I would encourage players to put the mishap squad in some difficult terrain (just as the deep strike mishap table suggests you should do). For a walking tank like a soul grinder, this might be devastating -- I've lost my soul grinders to this event frequently enough when facing good players. Even for small terminator squads, it is worth considering. Not only might they take unsavable wounds, but they'll also be slowed down by the terrain which makes for a double whammy.

[image: Warp Hornets terminators just after a deep strike]

6th Edition: A resurgence of Narrative Gaming?

2012-01-23T14:54:00.000Z

With all the rumours flying around about what may or may not be in 6th edition, I thought I'd take a step back and comment on some of the flavour of the new rules, rather than their absolute content.

I was particularly taken with the lack of kill points if a unit runs off the table, the various "levels" (if I can call them that) of feel-no-pain and eternal warrior, and how a sergeant seems to count so much more (and a deputy must be nominated if a squad sergeant suffers an untimely demise). These kinds of rulings get me feeling that the 6th edition of Warhammer 40,000 will be lending itself to the narrative campaign style more than the current edition. By that, I mean a sequence of games that follow on from one another and have consequences for having a major victory, versus a stalemate. Perhaps the advantage is extra points, a superior deployment position, a unit upgrade like tank-hunters (for successfully recovering those objectives that you've been contesting in the previous game, remember?). Recall also that several of the core rulebooks make mention of a number of styles of play, ranging from the full campaign (attackers vs defenders mission trees depending on the prior mission), to the old kill team game and how models could get upgraded if they survived long enough.

Whilst I don't think we'll be seeing the return of a games master (cf. Rogue Trader!), I think the potential for Narrative Gaming within 40k will grow larger with the new edition. At least, I hope I'm right!

Wargames Gallery: Bloodcrusher // Blood Raven

2012-01-20T15:59:00.004Z

Charging in to a squad of Blood Ravens, a Bloodcrusher lets out an unearthly battlecry as his steed's part-mechanical, part-deamonic feet cause the ground to tremble at every footfall.

Ghost Knight Terminator Justicar

2012-01-18T17:16:00.006Z

Mordrak is able to field a unit of Ghost Knights when he appears on the battlefield due to a psychic manifestation of his survivor's guilt. This particular grey knight is a justicar of his Ghost Knight retinue for a small army that I'm constructing (whilst waiting for codex: chaos legions to make an appearance, of course...).

The miniature is a standard grey knight terminator, armed with a halberd and adorned with various paraphernalia that we have come to associate with grey knights (ancient liber, etc.). Instead of a regular helmet, this terminator sports a skull. This is inspired from the Ghost Knight status -- although the rest of my Ghost Knights will have sealed helms, I wanted the justicar Ghost Knight to stand out a little bit. Hence I clipped a skull from one of the chaos vehicle sprues and carefully glued it in to place. Although the skull lacks a jaw bone, it feels about the right size for the cavity where the helm should be. I just need to figure out how to cunningly paint the chain that I've left attached to the skull so that it is not too visible (the chain was left in place to give the skull a bit of height from the neck of the terminator armour).

Modern Traitors have Guilliman's geneseed

2012-01-16T16:44:00.000Z

A recent posting by Drathmere at 40k Hobby Blog started me thinking about where the modern traitor chapters emerge from. From codex: space marines, we know the "more than one-half" of all marine chapters derive from Guilliman's gene-seed. Therefore, it may follow (but perhaps not necessarily) that the bulk of modern traitor chapters derive from the Ultramarines.

So my thought for the day is this: could it be that Guilliman's gene-seed has ultimately created more traitor marines than the Iron Warriors (etc.)? Or, as my suggestive image may indicate, do modern traitors gene-seed mostly come from elsewhere :)

(Image: Dark Angels Ezekiel -- in traitor form!).

Scenery: Tau Game Board

2012-01-13T16:23:00.000Z

Snapped in Melbourne, this Games Workshop table features several Tau inspired pieces of scenery that I found inspiring and wanted to share.

In particular, the walls of the fortifications in the foreground are made out of wood (or mdf at least) and have simply been etched to create the clean lines all the way around. I'm not sure where the landing pad, the gun sentry or the communications device come from, but they're also very cool looking!

The Outcast Dead: Criticism and Question

2012-01-12T14:05:00.002Z

Having read "The Outcast Dead" over the vacation period, I had a number of criticisms and questions arising. For those reader who haven't read the book, please turn away now as I don't want to accidentally be giving spoilers!

My first criticism about the book is the names of the characters and their spelling. One of World Eaters characters is called Asubha (at least according to the dramatis personae at the front of the book; which curiously enough translates as "impurity" in English). However, at various points in the book, the spelling shifts to Ashuba. I personally found this to be quite distracting and hoped that it didn't mean a lack of proof reading. Yet, there were other gramatical mistakes that a read-through should have caught (e.g. repition of "the" -- i.e. "the the") and some sentences that didn't feel quite right.

Those criticisms aside, I did enjoy the book and felt it lit up a previously unexplored region of the Horus Heresy' parameter space.

But I was left wondering at the end of the book about the timing of various events. In particular, when was Magnus' warning to the Emperor delivered (at least in relation to real-time events in the Istvaan / Isstvan system)? My impression was that Magnus knew things before the Heresy started to unfold and reveal itself fully. But reading the Outcast Dead, I'm now a bit confused about whether the drop site massacre happened before or after Magnus delivered his warning. And following on from that, how soon were the Space Wolves deployed to Prospero? Or put another way: why weren't they dispatched to Isstvan with the Iron Hands et al. or told to come back to Terra to help defend like the White Scars were? So confused!

A New Raptor Lord for 2012

2012-01-10T15:53:00.004Z

With the New Year, I felt it was time to design a new Raptor Lord for the chaos armies I field. Although raptors aren't such an often-seen choice on the gaming table, I still enjoy running a small squad of raptors from time to time and in the past have given plenty of thought to what chaos mark they should benefit from. This miniature is an update for my old snake-headed raptor lord. But instead of a power fist, this guy has an ugly looking mace. In-game, this could be either a power weapon, or a force weapon if I were to run this fellow as a sorcerer.

The parts to make this miniature conversion derive from a number of sources. The head, torso and wings are clearly from the possessed chaos space marine sprues. The bolt pistol arm is a standard chaos space marine weapon. The mace and shoulder pads source from Dark Angels bits and regular space marine pads. Meanwhile the legs are cunningly from a loyalist terminator who no longer needed them. The longer, somewhat bulkier legs give an exaggerated height to the space marine which adds to the menace when he towers over the grots and points his mace in their general direction.

Wargames Gallery: Objective Melee

2012-01-08T11:32:00.006Z

Around a hotly contested objective, a squad of plague marines meets Black Templars and Blood Ravens head on. Although the objective switches hands a number of times, the clock runs out for the Death Guard and they lose the battle eventually. At least the librarian and his pesky Null Zone perishes.

Happy 2012

2012-01-08T09:59:00.000Z

Happy New Year!
This year features a new logo to replace the older blue heliocentric banner at the top. The new image is from NASA and is of NGC 281 (featuring Bok globules). But it's red themed rather than blue, so is a change for this year! Hopefully a colour of things to come...

A Little Time Off

2011-12-29T13:03:00.001Z

Dear Readers,

It's time for a little holiday to enjoy the Summer(*) until the New Year.
Hope you have a good holiday season and look forward to more interactions with you all in 2012.

Cheers,
Jabberjabber

(*) Yes, it is Summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

Grey Knight Terminator

2011-12-27T09:34:00.001Z

They're sorcerers. That's my excuse. No really. Okay, I really am toying with the idea of a Ghost Knight army... more on that on a different day.

This "sorcerer" is a standard Grey Knight terminator with little significant conversion work applied. The curved/tilted shield on the left shoulder pad was a bit fiddlesome to get in to place, but I think I got it in place right in the end. Just got to drill out the holes for the ammo to come out of now and decide how I'm going to base this guy (maybe on some of these Scribor bases).

Merry Christmas

2011-12-26T07:58:00.004Z

A slightly belated Merry Christmas to you all! (unless you're near the American side of the Date Line...! -- here Down Under, we're running out of daylight on Boxing Day already).

Necron Kill Team

2011-12-23T10:58:00.001Z

Thinking about necron killteams / killzone squads is no longer a straight forward task thanks to the shiny new codex that is packed full of cool ideas and upgrades. I've been toying with a couple of ideas and themes, but here's one that I like, based on models that I have (or might be likely to purchase) rather than uber-competitiveness.

7 necron warriors (91 points)

2 canoptek scarab bases (30 points)

2 deathmarks (38 points)

1 lychguard (40 points)

total = 199.

The main weakness is a reliance on gauss weaponry to inflict damage on armoured targets or troop transports. I just hope that they're going to be uncommon! The scarabs are there for the beast rule and entropic strike, whilst the death marks deal with any target that looks likely to do significant damage (terminators and the like). The lychguard is the all-rounder in this team and also the fire magnet, running during the shooting phase and wanting to get in to combat quickly.

I'd quite like to see how this list would fare against some daemons killteams (especially a Tzeentch killteam, but also a Slaanesh themed killteam might be a good testing ground). But that's a tale for a different time.

Of An Old Plastic Space Marine

2011-12-22T14:12:00.031Z

To remind myself about how far both miniatures and my painting style has come, today's post is about a (VERY) old plastic space marine miniature.

This chap is from the old Rogue Trader classic plastic sprue (RTB01). The sculpting on the miniature is nowhere near modern standards, but analogues to these parts are now sold by Forge World. This particular miniature is assembled with a flamer and a sergeant's head -- six parts in total would you believe! (Although there were options to add on ammo clips, etc., this marine doesn't possess such ornamentation...). The old RTB01 boxed set is something of a collectors item these days, but I have long since assembled, painted, and sold away the majority of such miniatures I once had.

For the paint scheme, as you can probably see, this guy is an Ultramarine. I don't quite know what possessed me to paint up a bunch of Ultramarines back in the day -- Grey Knights would have made more sense (they use sorcery after-all, right?), but they fought regularly with my friend's orks over rugs and book-pile hills. There's not much to be said about the painting: it is a blue undercoat, followed by old-school blue ink (check out the "shine" from the inked parts -- the old ink really did glisten in the right light, I still have a few pots, but only tend to use the green ink on plaguebearers for deliberate effect) and some blue drybrushing for the main part.

Whilst I'm a little nostalgic about the old marine, the present day space marines are superior in sculpt, and much nicer to paint!

Dark Eldar: A Cause for Re-Thinking Marks of Chaos on Raptors?

2011-12-18T11:02:00.002Z

For a squad of chaos raptors, an icon of Khorne seems optimal from a previous analysis (see: parts I and II).

However, in recent times, the advent of dark eldar has got me re-thinking this conclusion. Lots more players are taking dark eldar (and there's still the die-hard eldar fans ... much like I'm a die-hard chaos marine and daemons player - kindred spirits). So, should I reconsider the Icon of Khorne?

I'll resurrect the three options that I was toying with originally: the raptor champion armed with a power fist, twin lightning claws, or simple baseline raptors. I'll put them up against ten dark eldar cabalite warriors instead of the usual space marines).

Let's look at each Icons in turn, and assuming that the raptors get the charge in.

Khorne.

With a Khorne Icon, the raptors gain an extra attack each, but they strike second.

Khorne Case 1: Baseline Raptors.

The kabalite warriors need 4+ to hit and 5+ to wound from 9 attacks. This results in 1.5 wounds, of which, 0.5 stick. The sybarite has a power weapon with 2 attacks. S/He also hits on 4+ and wounds (without a save) on 5+. That results in 0.33 more wounds, making 0.83 total.

The raptors hit on 4+ and wound on 3+ from 41 "normal" attacks (total) if everyone was still alive. Let's assume one is dead from the dark eldar. That means there are (only!) 37 attacks. That gives 8.22 wounds. (i.e. dW = 7.39).

Khorne Case 2: Power Fist.

Again, 0.83 wounds incoming from the first-striking dark eldar kabalite warriors. Assuming that one of the regular raptors perished, they get 8x4 attacks on the charge that results in a total of 7.11 wounds. The aspiring raptor champion gets 4 attacks (2 base, 1 charging, 1 from the icon), of which 2 hit and 1.67 kill. This gives 8.78 wounds (and dW = 7.95).

Khorne Case 3: Lightning Claws.

As above, but the champion has 5 attacks and 2.5 hit. They wound on 3+ with a re-roll for failed wounding rolls. This gives 2.22 more wounds for a total of 9.33 (and dW = 8.5).

Slaanesh.

For a Slaaneshi Icon, the chaos raptors strike simultaneously with the dark eldar.

Slaanesh Case 1: Baseline Raptors.

The raptors are still taking 0.83 wounds, but now strike back without losing anyone. On the charge, they get (9x3)+4 = 31 attacks. That gives 6.89 wounds (and dW = 6.06).

Slaanesh Case 2: Power Fist.

Assuming the aspiring champion survives, the raptors get 9x3 regular attacks, plus 3 power fist attacks. The regular attacks cause 6 wounds; the power fist yields 1.25 wounds. That's 7.25 wounds in total (dW = 6.42).

Slaanesh Case 3: Lightning Claws.

Again, we'll assume the champion survives. The regular attacks again cause 6 wounds. The lightning claws have 4 attacks, of which 2 hit and 1.78 kill. That gives 7.78 wounds (and dW = 6.95).

Conclusion.

The Icon of Khone is still superior. The extra attack still outweighs the increased initiative. Good job since I've already modelled the Icon of Khorne and don't particularly want to change!

Scribor: Review of Ruins Bases

2011-12-16T09:58:00.001Z

Scribor monstrous miniatures sells a range of resin cast miniatures for both fantasy and sci-fi (most being of 28mm scale, but some larger ones too). Many of the pieces have obvious resonances with warhammer and warhammer 40,000 and can complement bits from either range. I intend to make a few conversions from their pieces in the coming weeks, but that's a tale for later.

Recently, I purchased a number of bits from them, including a few scenic bases in the style of "ruins". These are a pair of 40mm circular bases suitable for use with 40k. The level of detail in the pieces is clear from the image below.

In terms of quality, the resin casts are superior to games workshop's finecast; no two ways about that. However, they're not quite at the same level as Quantum Gothic ... but they are very very close! Let me emphasize that the quality of Scibor is great -- its just that I feel Quantum Gothic is fantastic.

The two bases above have some very fine detail, ranging from the small writing on the (broken) paving slabs, to the creeping vines that come out of the ground. Such detail is certainly worth paying the price for, and I think, is superior to Back-2-Basix (another company that I thoroughly recommend).

So overall, I'm very impressed with the quality and level of detail. I would certainly go back to them. And for those of you who are thinking that purchasing from Poland might be an issue -- I got my bits to Australia in a very short amount of time and the customer service from Scribor was excellent.

Winner: December Army List Challenge

2011-12-14T23:59:00.000Z

The unopposed winner of the December 2011 Army List Challenge is Fester!
Congratulations! The Army List Challenge will return in the New Year.

In the mean time, if you have suggesting for future challenges, then let me know at warpstoneflux at gmail dot com.

Rules Homebrew: Psychokinetic Sphere

2011-12-12T10:34:00.015Z

Psychic Power: Psychokinetic Sphere

The psyker calls forth an expanding sphere of supersonic wind that knocks back all nearby models (friend or foe).

Use at any stage of a close combat that the psyker is involved in.

On a successful psychic test, all models within 2" of the psyker's base (including those in base-to-base contact with the psyker, friend or foe) are flung back 2" in a radial direction from the psyker. If a model cannot be moved away in such a fashion, they are otherwise moved 2" away from the psyker (e.g. along a wall). If a model is in a dead-end and cannot be move (e.g. a cul-de-sac style situation), then the model is simply not moved.

As a result of successfully using this power, the psyker is no longer engaged in the combat. If the user is an independant character and was part of a unit on activation, the psyker will no longer be considered part of that unit after using this ability.

Shadow Sword: Part XII. Rear Face

2011-12-09T01:56:00.002Z

The traitor Shadow Sword approaches completion now. This is a shot of the rear of the beast to detail what I've done with the pipework, the barrells, the highlighting, and the sense of semi-rustiness on the treads that I've achieved.

There's a some more fine detail to go, but otherwise, this epic paint job is nearly there now.

Reminder: December Army List Challenge

2011-12-07T21:40:00.005Z

What army list do you most fear? Why?

Entries are still open for the December Army List Challenge - the last one of the year!
(since there are no entries at the moment, there are good chances you could even win by default!)

Fish Tank Scenery: Gel Plant

2011-12-06T11:09:00.009Z

In a game of alien landscapes and blasted cityscapes, there's something about good looking scenery that makes a critical difference to the vibe of a gameboard. This particular piece is a "gel" style plant (basically made of soft silicone, it seems) purchased in the fishtank section of a pet store. The arms of the plant wobble like a jelly, which makes for added realism when the board gets a small knock, or you charge your pack of bloodcrushers through it! (For reference, the cost was approx. 15 AUD).

Finecast Changeling - Painted

2011-12-04T14:58:00.002Z

Despite all the dramas, the finecast changeling has painted up nicely in the end.

The undercoat for the miniature was done with dheneb stone. This was followed by multiple washes of various mud browns to darken the tone in the recesses and raised with bleached bone highlights around the edges of the billowing robe. I attended to the arms next with a basecoat of ultramarine blue. They were inked (old-school ink) in blue, then highlighted with a combination of ultramarine blue and electric blue.

With those two main areas painted, I moved on to the finer details, including the flames (basecoated white, twice; followed by successive layers of yellow, orange, red and dark red in sequence), the staff (basecoated in bleached bone, several washes of devlan mud, highlighted in a mix of skull white plus bleached bone, followed by some triple-zero paint brush work to squiggle some letters on to the paper), and other ornaments (golden Tzeentch symbol, armbands, the rod of the staff).

Overall, I'm happy how this has turned out. But I will avoid purchasing finecast if I can help it, despite GW staff being very helpful in their exhange policy.

December 2011 Army List Challenge

2011-12-01T08:09:00.002Z

This is the final Army List Challenge of the year! And this time, its personal!

The basic question and theme is this: what army list do you most fear facing? Why?

Perhaps it is a list designed to take down your own, most regularly used list? Perhaps they're simply too quick? Perhaps there's just too many grots for you to shoot at? Perhaps your favourite army has a general, irrational fear of soulless silver robots?

Here's the rules.
(1) Design an army list that you most fear to take on. There is no points value, but we'll assume its the equivalent to whatever your regular army list totals. Explain why you fear that list (perhaps by posting your own favourite army list that is going up against it) and detailing what's up.
(2) Post your army list(s) as a comment to this posting.
(3) Entries close at 01:00 GMT on December 14th.
(4) On that same day, I'll open a poll for Warpstone Flux readers to judge which army list they consider to be the "most effective army list that also best articulates the theme" (whatever readers interpret that to mean) out of all entrants.
(5) The winner will be tallied and announced on December 21st (and entered in to the hall of fame!).
(6) One entry per person please.

Good luck!

Origin of Grey Knights according to Slaves to Darkness

2011-11-30T11:09:00.003Z

Based on a conversation I was having with a friend, here is a quick snippet from Slaves to Darkness regarding the origins of the Grey Knights.

"The Grey Knights were a single chapter created during an unregistered Founding shortly after the (official) Third Founding. Although technically Marines of the Adeptus Astartes, the Grey Knights are, to all intents and purposes, part of the Inquisition. They are listed as a Third Founding unit and, by the Emperor's instruction, were designated Chapter number 666."

Ah, how some things change and others stay the same!

Wargames Gallery: Daemons Pincer Dark Angels Scout

2011-11-28T01:29:00.002Z

After a lethal volley from horrors of Tzeentch, the lone remaining Dark Angels scout looks the objective-holding plaguebearers in the eye(s) with grim determination. Too late he hears the playful laughter of the hand-maidens of Slaanesh race up behind him in a pincer movement.

Battle Summary: Death Guard vs. Grey Knights (1500 points)

2011-11-26T04:23:00.004Z

Mission: Annihilation pitched battle.

Table: 6' x 4'. Sparse terrain on a red desert planet with some craters and line-of-sight blocking pinnacles. No ruins to speak of though.

Opponent -- Grey Knights:
Mordrak, 5 Ghost Knights, 5 halberds
Librarian: warp rift, teleport homer (and some other powers that I don't quite recall)
2 x 5 Terminators: Master crafted hammer, 3 halberds, 1 sword, 1 psycannon
2 x 10 interceptors: 2 psycannons, 1 hammer, psybolts

Me -- Death Guard:
Daemon prince, mark of Nurgle, wings, warptime
Dreadnought with plasma cannon
2 x 7 Plague marines; 1 champion with power fist, 1 flamer, 1 melta, rhino with havoc launcher
7 Plague Marines; 1 champion with power fist, 2 plasma guns, rhino with havoc launcher
2 vindicators with daemonic possession
1 predator with autocannon, heavy bolter sponsons, havoc launcher and dozer blade

Initial Thoughts:

I've never played against a Mordrak army list before. This should be entertaining. But how am I going to approach it? Clearly my vindicators could be the key here. If I can position them so that they can get a few nice shots off, I might be able to make some serious in-roads in to the opponent. Coupled with the dreadnought and the plasma gun squad, I might be able to pull it off. But its going to be tough!

Early Turns:

I decide to deploy and castle up, fully expecting a turn one deep-strike without scatter from my opponent who has reserved everything and forces me to go first. Although this denies me any useful first turn firing, I can live with it. My vindicators point outward ready to take some shots, with the predator ready to do some serious dakka damage on anything that come near. I have my plague marines holed up inside their rhinos for the moment. And just because I don't want my dreadnought anywhere near, it takes the opposite board corner ... somewhat stranded from the rest of my army, but ready to take a pot shot when needed.

My opponent deep strikes in and starts to cause havoc immediately. One vindicator gets completely wrecked by a warp-rifting librarian (how much do I envy that psychic power?!) whilst the other is immobilized. The predator takes a few hits, but nothing untoward happens. It dawns on me at this stage that I have more kill points and maybe ... just maybe ... little more firepower and lasting power. In my turn, the immobile vindicator targets Mordrak and slays half the squad with a well placed pie blast -- S10 will instant kill almost any regular marine these days! Horrah! The dreadnought decides to have a fire frenzy, making me feel luck!) and splats a wound on Mordrak and scatters another one on to my daemon prince (ouch!).

The rest of the Grey Knights come on in turn two and let rip even more. One of the rhinos explodes, but luckily, none of the plague marines are affected. But, the rest of the shooting accounts for them with contemptible ease (sigh). Meanwhile, the librarian throws down a second warp rift on my daemon prince. And rolls a six. Bye bye daemon prince. Ouch! The immobilized vindicator also explodes after being charged by terminators. There goes my plan to win.

In exchange, I get my plague marines out of one of the rhinos and rapid fire the terminators. Due to some unfortunate die rolling by my opponent, all but one of them perish! But I'm still to cause a single kill point yet!

Middle Turns.

The other squad of terminators makes short work of the predator, whilst Mordrak wrecks another rhino. This isn't going well for me at this stage.

But in a twist of fate, my dreadnought has yet another fire frenzy. Mordrak is dead! Inspired, I disembark my plasma gun plague marine squad in front of the librarian and take him down as well. But this isn't to last.

The lone terminator charges the plasma squad and makes some rancid mince meat of the plague marines and saves the power fist wound in exchange.

I've now only got my dreadnought, 1 rhino and 1 squad of plague marines "free", whilst the remains of my other plague marines struggle to contend with terminator close combat.

Late Turns.

There is only one more highlight for me. My dreadnought has a third (yes, you read it correctly: a third) fire frenzy. This totally slays one of the interceptor squads.

But, the lone terminator finishes off his rancid mince meat making job whilst the other interceptors wreck the remaining rhino. My plague marines disembark (uninjured) and rapid fire the other terminators.

In the next turn, the terminators shoot and then assault the plague marines, finishing them off (plague marines are I=3 and hence always strike after regular marine forces - doh).

I'm left with my dreadnought in the opposite corner. He decides to be sane and shoots a plasma pie over at the other interceptors, but without effect (the pie plate scatters and only hits one interceptor, whom doesn't take a wound!).

At this point, I call it game over. My opponent would have tabled me in the next turn (I'm pretty certain) with only my dreadnought left. I lost pitifully!

Concluding thoughts.

I think I had the right game plan by focusing on my vindicators -- and they did indeed pay off ... for one turn at least! But my opponent saw this plan as well and reacted well.

The stars for me were the Dreadnought on my team and the Librarian on my opponent's. That warp rift power is great, no doubt about it. I'm left wondering what I could have done differently as I lost even with some very fortunate die rolling on my part and some dreadful die rolling on my opponents behalf.

Of Angron's Activities and the Other Daemon Primarchs

2011-11-24T21:19:00.001Z

Continuing my rambling thoughts on what the primarch's are up to in the 41st millennium, today I want to briefly touch on Angron. To my mind, Angron remains somewhat active and is, overall, a very visible primarch at the terminal end of the 41st millennium. As a daemon prince (daemon primarch) of Khorne, Angron not only has apocalypse rules for his deployment on the tabletop (unlike other primarchs), but actively revels in the destruction he can bring about. This is in contrast to the other chaos daemon primarchs who have a less than stellar participation rate in the 41st millenium.

Take Lorgar for instance -- the canon background is that he has locked himself away on the daemon world of Sicarus to contemplate, meditate and worship the nature of chaos for a long time, whilst letting his Word Bearers, commanded by the Dark Council in his stead, launch a twisted war from both Sicarus and Ghalmek.

Mortarion meanwhile rots away on the plague planet. Occasionally sending a plague fleet in to the Immaterium to plague (literally) the Imperium of man. Hence Mortarion has retreated from the real world, but still acts as a conduit of Nurgle's will.

On the planet of the Sorcerers, Magnus the Red confines himself and doesn't leave; content to send out agents (in much the same way as Mortarion, curiously) and learn more about magic from afar. The only notable exception being the Battle of the Fang.

Perhaps Fulgrim was a bit more active than the Tzeentch and Nurgle primarchs (and certainly moreso than Lorgar!), but his last known action was to lay low Roboute Guilliman. Since then, he's perfectly happy (pun?!) spending his time on a Slaaneshi daemon world and has effectively removed himself from "activity".

Meanwhile, Perturabo secured the daemon world of Medrengard (where whisps of black smoke from a dark star caresses the surface) the and built the Fortress of Hate. He hasn't partaken of any further campaigns directly as far as I can tell.

And as for the Alpha Legion, it is likely their primarch(s) are not daemons... So who knows what Alpharius and/or Omegon are up to...

Dornian Heresy: Night Lords

2011-11-22T19:25:00.001Z

"Midnight clad, and wielding fear as a weapon, the Night Lords haunt the dark places of the Imperium. They do this not to hide from the light of justice, but because that is where those who would seek to harm the Emperor’s subjects are to be found. Since the time of their Primarch, Konrad Curze, the Night Lords have been guided by visions of the darkest of futures which they are driven to avert, even at the cost of their own lives. By their blood and sacrifice the Imperium of Mankind has been kept safe from rebellions, xenos invasions and betrayals without number."

The Dornian Heresy is the alternative history background being created at Bolter and Chainsword. In a nut-shell, all the roles are reversed (and/or generally perturbed) compared to the Horus Heresy. A couple of weeks ago, the authors published the draft background for the Night Lords, as the good guys.

I must say, I like this take on the Night Lords. They're very focused on keeping the law (through fear) and punish severely those who waver in the eyes of the emperor -- especially those that seek to hide in the dark places. A few of their number also share Night Haunter's precognitive ability -- also a very nice touch. In the revised background, Curze still dies, but this time at the hands of Dorn. He does this to save the Emperor as he sees in his visions the calamity that will befall the Imperium without his sacrifice. His terminal words are recorded as: "Why did I come before you only to be killed? Because your Heresy, and the act you are about to commit, proves the truth of my actions at Cheraut. I merely tried to punish one who would go on to cause so much harm – my only regret is that I did not succeed in killing you before you made war on our father, our Emperor. Death is nothing compared to vindication." which bears a striking similarity (albeit reflected / inverted) to the official cannon.

Gotta like the Loyal Night Lords. They still rock.

Winner of the November 2011 Army List Challenge

2011-11-21T11:40:00.012Z

The results of the November 2011 Army List Challenge are in:

Spaguatyrine (Space Wolves) 14%

Torgrimm (Dark Eldar) 17%

Brninghalo (Chaos Space Marines / Worldeaters) 7%

Porky (AdMech Fandex) 28%

Quite_Thor (Grey Knights) 32%

So the winner is Quite_Thor with a slim margin over Porky. Congratulations to Quite_Thor! Your name is already entered in to the Hall of Fame. And well played to all of the other entrants -- they really made me think about the challenge in new ways.

Finally, thanks to CodyJ for supplying the idea for this challenge. If anyone else out there wants to make a suggestion for a future challenge, please send an email or leave a comment. The next Challenge will be up on Dec 1st!

How Many Tesla Carbine Shots Are Required to kill Plague Marines?

2011-11-20T07:59:00.002Z

Nurgle's plague marines are tough; no doubt about it. But how worried are plague marines when taking incoming fire from Tesla Carbines (as used by Necron Immortals)? Let's look at some statistics.

An immortal will hit a plague marine on a 3+ (probability = 0.67).

The tesla carbine will wound on a 4+ (new combined probability = 0.33).

The plague marine saves the wound on a 3+, followed by a feel no pain roll of 4+ if required. Hence the probability of the wound being saved is 2+. Therefore an unsaved wound has a probability of 0.056.

But the Tesla special rule will activate on a hit roll of 6.

So we'll modify the above calculation to count for only a roll to hit of 3, 4, or 5. That yields a probability of an unsaved wound of 0.042.

Now let's add in the roll to hit of 6 (probability of 1/6 = 0.167). This causes an automatic 2 extra hits.

So we're taking 3 hits with a wound caused on 4+. That's 1.5 wounds * 0.167 = 0.25 wounds.

Each wound is saved (as above) on 2+. This gets reduced to 0.042 unsaved wounds if the necron rolls a 6.

Combining the two results (0.042 unsaved wounds on a hit roll of 3,4,5 with 0.042 unsaved wounds on a hit roll of a 6) yields 0.083 unsaved wounds per incoming tesla carbine shot. That means 12 tesla carbine shots are required to down a plague marine, on average. That compares to 27 bolter shots (or indeed, gauss flayer shots) to down a plague marine. So an immortal armed with a tesla carbine is more than twice as deadly as a regular necron or space marine to my plague marines.

How Many Khorne Berzerkers does it take to Down a Necron?

2011-11-19T08:22:00.001Z

Berzerkers of Khorne are (were?) noted for their close combat prowess. So, today I wanted to look at how many berzerkers it will take to kill a necron warrior in close combat. I am assuming that the berzerkers managed to charge and also got off a bolt pistol shot prior to charging.

The simplifying assumption here is how to deal with the necron's natural save of 4+ followed by the 5+ reanimation save. Combining them together grants the necron an effective save of 3+ (i.e. it saves half of all regular wounds, followed by ignoring one third of those that get through).

Let's resolve the bolt pistol shot first. It hits on 3+ and wounds on 4+. In other words a 0.33 chance of wounding. Using the effective save of 3+ (as above), the necron will suffer 0.11 wounds per shooting, charging Khorne berzerker.

When the berzerker makes close combat, he will have furious charge (assuming that this hasn't been denied to him thanks to the adaptive tactical genius that is Nemesor Zahndrekh). The berzerker attacks first and is hitting on 3+ and wounding on 3+. That means 0.44 wounds per attack. The berzerker has 4 attacks on the charge, which will lead to 1.76 wounds landing. Of these, the necron will fail to save 0.59.

Combining this melee result with the above shooting means that a singular, regular Khorne berzerker will cause 0.7 unsaved (and non-reanimated) wound when charging. Phew! I was worried that that would work out a lot worse!

Perth Visit Coda

2011-11-18T10:56:00.005Z

On the way home from Perth (I, II), I checked out the airport newsagents. Unlike some other cities in Australia, they didn't sell copies of White Dwarf.

Perth Visit. 2 - "Tactics" store

2011-11-16T22:58:00.014Z

This quaint looking alley is called London Court and it is located in Perth's central business district and shopping centre. It is themed on an olde worlde style and feels a little bit like parts of York (UK) streets.

Tucked away in the basement of London Court is a friendly store known as Tactics. They sell a wide array of roleplaying and hobby merchandise ranging from Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons, board games, miniatures, and (of course!) Games Workshop merchandise. There were M:TG tables set up near the entry as I went in and had quite a number of player engrossed in the games that were taking place at the time. But they also host events such as Settlers of Catan nights which look like they have a wide appeal.

The store is physically quite large and I spent a happy half-hour wandering around aimlessly checking out all their stock. Not only did they have the most recently released items for sale (e.g. Codex: Necrons), but they had a wide array of older sale items and things that have long been out of print (for example, I saw a copy of D&D/DarkSun: Marauders of Nibenay in its original shrink wrapping for sale in there!).

Contained inside some glass cases near the check-out there were also pre-assembled and painted (poorly for the most-part) second hand GW miniatures. For example, there were a number of Chaos Marine Possessed miniatures retailing for six dollars each. If I had more luggage space, I might have bought a unit of assembled Thousand Sons rubric marines as a mini-project to clean up and re-paint.

The staff were young: mostly university students working part-time jobs from what I could tell. But that was not a bad thing: on the contrary, they were very in to their jobs and very much knew the mindsets of their customers.

On the downside, the retail prices were the same as I would pay at GW (to explain: there are some stores such as Ace Comics in Brisbane that retail GW products at sub-recommended-retail prices). But I would certainly visit Tactics again -- the vibe of the place was terrific and I didn't feel as hassled as I sometimes feel when I walk in to a GW store.

Perth Visit. 1 - City GW

2011-11-15T18:57:00.000Z

Perth, Western Australia. The Swan River. Subiaco and the WACA. Nope - I checked out GW in Perth's city centre!

The store is physically located inside one of the shopping malls in the city centre of Perth (the Carillon City mall on Murray Street). It is a bright, modern mall that is very accessible in comparison to other stores I've been to.

Physically, the store is small however. It is certainly smaller than Brisbane city centre, Melbourne city centre and (of course) Sydney city centre (which is a battle bunker store for reference). It might be only a little larger than Chadstone for instance. This limits the number of tables and how many people can squeeze in, but in that regard, it seemed spacious to me due to a good layout. The staff were impeccable (two thumbs up for good customer interaction) and my (short) visit was very pleasant.

Another report from Perth tomorrow...!

Poll Open for the November 2011 Army List Challenge

2011-11-14T11:39:00.016Z

There are 5 entries for this month's Army List Challenge. Please review the lists and then vote for the one that you consider to be the most effective army that also best articulates the theme. Good luck to the entrants!

(1) Spaguatyrine (Space Wolves)

Space Wolves have the obvious advantage with the best troops in the game for the point cost.

Rune Priest with Murderous Hurricane and Living Lightning-100 points

10 Grey Hunters with 2x melta guns, 1 power weapon, and wolf banner-180 points

6 grey Hunters with 1x melta guns, 1 power weapon, and wolf banner-120 points.

5 Grey Hunters with flamer,and 75 pts

Wolfguard unit with: 124 points
1 WG Powerfist Combi Melta(1st pack)
1 WG Powerfist Combi Melta(2nd pack)
1 WG Bolt Pistol and frost blade(3rd pack)

25 Marines
5 Melta (2 combi)
1 flamer
3 power weapons
2 powerfists
1 str 5 power weapon
Murderous hurricane to slow down units

Living lightning to pound high strength targets

Psychic defense

2 Wolf Banners to re-roll 1's in combat. (Powerfists)

Counter assault.

599 Points! Bring it!

(2) Torgrimm (Dark Eldar)

Nobody can do it better than Dark Eldar!
Assuming we don't know what are these "pets" exactly, we need to be prepared for anything. Walkers, hordes, elite assault units, shooty units. We can only assume that arena will be largely open and small.

List, 621 points:
*Succubus with Agoniser, Blast Pistol
*9x Hekatrix Bloodbrides with Haywire Grenades, 3x Shardnet and Impaler, Syren with Agoniser and PGL.
*8x Scourges with 2x Splinter Cannons, Solarite.
*Cronos Parasite with Spirit probe and Spirit Vortex.

Succubus with BS6 you will rarely miss, 6 attacks on the charge with WS8 and Agoniser will surely hurt. All that for 100 points, a bargain.
Bloodbrides are self-explanatory highly defensive force with 3x shardnets to minimize damage done to the squad/protect Succubus, with decent offensive potential in form for high initiative and another Agoniser.
Scourges puts out 26-30 poisoned shots, and here to destroy MCs and hordes that can tie up Bloodbrides. Solarite for LD boost.
Cronos - T7 MC to forever tie up these S3 "pets", if there's any, he can shoot with both weapons and produce up to 2 pain tokens per shooting phase, and one more in assaul phase. Sounds like a good deal to me.
Obviously, you can tweak this list a little, like dropping Spirit Vortex (after all, BS3 Large Blast in arena is kind of dangerous to your own T3 models) and getting more scourges, up to 4 Shredders instead of Splinter Cannons and so on and so forth. The idea however remains the same.

(3) Brninghalo (Chaos Space Marines / Worldeaters)

HQ-Chaos Lord, Mk of Khorne, Single L/C

Elites- 3x Chaos Terminators, Icon of Khorne
1x Pwr Wpn & heavy flamer
2x Pwr Wpn & twin linked bolters

Troops- 7 Berzerkers, 1x plasma pistol, Asp Champ w/Pwr Wpn

Fast Attack- 5 Chaos Raptors, Icon of Khorne, 2x flamers, Asp Champ w/pair of L/C

This force is dedicated to Khorne. There are sixteen models total in the force which will please Khorne greatly.

This force will be able to stand up to any infantry force or beast.

Thanks,
Thomas

(4) Porky (AdMech Fandex)

The disciples of the Machine God - the mighty Adeptus Mechanicus - will relish this opportunity to strip the foe's lair from within.

The list is from Lantz's AdMech FanDex, which has some amazing vehicles of course, like the Knight, Warhound and DIY Mechanicus Construct, but more as well - here's some proof, themed around the Necrenius faction, for the Necron launch weekend. If you want all the extra detail on the upgrade, it's free to download here.

Necrenius Faction Tech Quest - Emergency Defence

HQ

1 Tech-Priest Magos
(Infantry / 3(+1) 3 3(+1) 4 3 3(+1) 2 10 4+/5(i) / Techmail Skin-Plating, Cult Bionics, Independent Character, Tech-Priest (Necrenius), Combi-Weapon (Lasgun-Plasmagun), Combat Enhancements, Refractor Field)
125 points

TROOPS

1 Machine Cult Preacher
(Infantry / 3 3 3 3 1 3 1 9 5+ / Techmail Armour, Cult Standard, Cult Bionics, Lasgun, Electoos)
20 Machine Cultists w/ Lasguns
(Infantry / 2 2 3 3 1 3 1 6 6+ / Techmail Robe, Lasgun)
99 points

1 Machine Cult Preacher
(Infantry / 3 3 3 3 1 3 1 9 5+ / Techmail Armour, Cult Standard, Cult Bionics, Lasgun, Signum)
10 Machine Cultists w/ Lasguns and Missile Launcher weapon team
(Infantry / 2 2 3 3 1 3 1 6 6+ / Techmail Robe, Lasgun)
94 points

ELITES

1 Cult Abomination
(Monstrous Creature / 6 3 8 5 3 5 3 9 3+/5(i) / Cult Bionics, Twin-Linked Lascannon, Cable Whips, Eternal Warrior, Extension Cables, Feral Machine Spirit)
150 points

FAST ATTACK

6 Electro-Priests
(Infantry / 3 2 4 4 1 5 3 9 5(i) / Electoos, Cult Bionics, Tech Priests (Necrenius), Fanatical Attack, Fleet of Foot, Static Lash, Strained Minds)
156 Points

624 points

It's ready for quite a lot, whether large numbers or a small elite. It deploys with a small flexible firebase, a large tactical support unit and a heavy strike force, as well as a couple of elements that can boost the backfield or the forward units depending on what comes through.

32 Lasguns, or 31 with the Missile Launcher at BS 5
6 Static Lash shocks (auto-hitting any unit within 12”, S4 AP- Assault 1)
1 Combi-Weapon (Lasgun-Plasmagun)
1 Missile Launcher
1 Twin-Linked Lascannon / Extension Cables

... and I did toy with the idea of a Vortex Grenade just in case the pets are really big.

The Electoos on the Electro-Priests ignore armour in the first round with plenty of attacks, and the Static Lash means even lighter infantry who get within 12” are in danger. The big unit of 21 Machine Cultists operates as a screen, doing some shuffling to open up the Static Lash at the right moment. The Electoos on the Cult Preacher give the Cultists a boost in combat and keep him safe from the Static Lash if there is a need for a sacrifice.

The Cult Abomination can use its Extension Cables to move precious units out of position and help the Electro-Priests get the charge, and the Cable Whips double its attacks in case the enemy is larger or lighter. There are seven Tech-Priests in the force so keeping it under control should be easy.

The smaller unit of 11 Machine Cultists sits back with the Missile Launcher, which can use the Signum to fire at BS 5, and the Twin-Linked Lascannon on the Cult Abomination is another useful high ender for a tough model.

The Tech-Priest Magos is also flexible and can either give the smaller unit more staying power and help out with the Plasmagun, or move forward and boost the assault force with the Combat Enhancements.

The models with Cult Bionics are fairly tough, most of all against light arms, which should help get the Electro-Priests get where they're going, and better yet the seven Tech-Priests get a bonus to the roll for being part of the Necrenius faction. The two Cult Standards give some psychic defence across the force to anyone with a line of sight.

It looks a lot of fun to play, with plenty for the player to do even at 624 points. More power to Lantz, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. I recommend a good look through the pdf.

(5) Quite_Thor (Grey Knights)

Inquisitor D'Eath looked at her chipped nail polish and smiled. She had come to look for a Xeno incursion, discreetly arrayed with the trinkets of a long life in service to the Emperor. Sadly, they had caught her in the tunnels, screened from contact with the Battle Barge overhead. Now the gloating fool had placed her in the open to wait for his "pets". No-one, Xeno or human, used that term in quite that tone unless the beasts were gigantic.

Her smile broadened. Justicar Hunter and his team were looking like a better choice for back-up than she could have hoped. Best to not admit anything but frightening prescience.

"Justicar, if you and your team would care to join me? Loaded for bear if you please and I will have my sword and pistol."

In fact, she strongly suspected the taint of Chaos. Could they be so foolish as to keep daemons? She rather thought they might at that!

The inquisitor started to laugh in delight as Justicar Hunter and his Terminators began to materialise behind her...

So, I bring you the Grey Knights codex. Who else but an Ordo Xenos inquisitor would be in this situation? Who else would pull her out but the Knights?

HQ - Ordo Xenos Inquisitor (118pts).
Lvl 1 Psychic power (Hammerhand)
Power armour, Rad grenades, Psychotroke grenades, Force weapon, needle pistol, Ulumeathi Plasma Syphon (What, I had points to spare!)

Troops
10 Grey Knight Terminators (495 points)
2 x pyscannons, psybolt ammo, 4 x halberds, 4 x swords, 2 x hammers, Brotherhood Banner

Why? Well, the list does not have to beat the other lists here, it needs to eat monstrous creatures and potentially assault infantry (small beasts) for breakfast. I bring you 8 rending S7 and 14 AP5 S5 at 24". I bring you 3 attacks each with a bunch of Halberds and two shots for Hammerhand. I bring you terminator armour and 4 guys with 4++ in close combat from the Nemesis Force Swords and, most of all, I bring you all the grenade shenanigans that can be brought as well as a needle pistol for some extra wounds in close.

Teri-bad against mechanised infantry, the absolute bomb against high toughness assault beasts.

Also, if those are daemons on the other side of that door, the Grey Knight fluff is going to start looking plausible!

codex: chaos legions / rumour comment

2011-11-12T21:59:00.000Z

Bell of Lost Souls posted a small set of codex: chaos legions rumours from ghost21. Whilst its very early days in the rumour cycle to say what is true or false, this one caught my eye:

"khornate chrono gladiators"

...What The? Where does "chrono" come in to things? Khornate gladiators, sure. But why are they associated with "time" specifically?

Other highlights for me included "minor chaos powers" being in there and dark mechanicus. But to be honest, all of the rumours presented sound juicy to me! Exciting times.

Necrons of Verdus Prime revisited

2011-11-11T14:08:00.001Z

A long time ago, I purchased a box of necrons with the explicit purpose of using the parts for conversion work. Although my conversions with them have been limited (see: 1, 2), I did end up assembling a whole squad (or perhaps killteam) of them and painted them up in Verdus Prime colours.

The idea for Verdus Prime originally came from the Dawn of War computer game wherein that faction of necrons appealed to me due to their colours and ease of identification on the battlefield. I still like the colour scheme, but painting white still holds problems for many people; including myself. I recently had a go at doing white properly for a long-barrelled marine miniature and was happy with the outcome. But for the necron, the white is pretty solid and makes for a stark contrast with the darker, silvered parts. Moreover, the oily streaks that I've added to all of these Verdus Prime necrons accentuates and, indeed, feeds off the sharp white colour of the necron's colours. For the eyes, I tried to use blood red to give them a grim-determination terminator style look. In a number of my images, this feature is lost as the colour gets washed out by the brilliance of the white in the colour balance. The necron symbol / rune in the centre of the chest is picked out with a goblin green colour.

For the Gauss barrel, I wanted for something a little more original than gluing the green plastic in to place. So, I painted dark green in erratic strokes along its length to give the impression of energy coursing through it and ready to erupt at the terminal end. Since the barrel is transparent, it is easy to see the strokes on the opposite side and therefore the adage of "less is more" applied to this process. Moreover, the barrel has the benefit of looking different depending on the angle that the observer views it from -- this aspect appealed to me greatly in the final result.

But should I turn my small killteam of necrons in to a full-blown army now that the new codex: necrons have come out? Hmmmmmmm.

Do Blight Drones Work with Epidemius?

2011-11-09T10:12:00.022Z

Blight drones are produced by Forge World with rules published separately. They are supposed to be created in the image of, and possessed by Nurgle. Significantly, they're about the only viable fast attack choice for an Epidemius Army and add some much needed firepower to it.

But here is the twist. Codex: chaos daemons states that the Tally of Pestilence that fuels an Epidemius Army only works for models "killed by followers of Nurgle (i.e. any daemon of Nurgle, or model with the Mark of Nurgle)". Nowhere in the rules for the Blight Drone does it state that is has the Mark of Nurgle, or is explicitly a Nurgle Daemon. So: do blight drone kills count toward Epidemius' tally?

On the other hand, nowhere in codex: chaos daemons do they explicitly define what models belong to "daemons of Nurgle". The blight drone could well fall under that category given it is (clearly) possessed by a Nurgle entity. Comments welcome!

Reminder: November 2011 Army List Challenge

2011-11-07T17:38:00.000Z

The November Army List Challenge is still open for entries. In particular, there are no new codex: necrons entries yet ;)

Can you come up with a themed list to take on the challenge and win the kudos, honour and votes of your peers? Good luck!

Mindshackle Scarabs and Kharn the Betrayer

2011-11-06T04:18:00.004Z

Here's a question for you. I'm running Kharn the Betrayer as one of my HQ choices. He's a nasty Khorne guy who really doesn't mind from where the blood flows -- just so long as it flows. In close combat there's a chance he'll hit his own allies.

Mindshackle scarabs in the new necron rules are an interesting entry. Fail a Ld test on 3d6 and the enemy strikes their own allies. How does this interact with "the Betrayer" rule? It is stated that the scarabs can use all the "bonuses" the model already has -- is "the Betrayer" rule a bonus?

The rules as written and common sense say that all of Kharn's attacks go against his allies if he's affected by the scarabs. But ... could "the Betrayer" rule simply get inverted?

Note to Self: True Cost of Summoned Greater Daemons

2011-11-04T20:49:00.029Z

This topic has already been talked about extensively elsewhere, but I wanted to briefly add my own notes-to-self on this blog for my own purposes in listbuilding (at least prior to Codex: Chaos Legions).

Since Greater Daemons require a champion of chaos in order to be able to come on to the board (summoned), the true cost of a greater daemon is not simply the (frankly attractive looking) 100 points, but 100 plus at least 30 (1xCSM, upgraded to champion). In all likelihood, the champion(s) will be equipped with something a bit more effective than harsh language, such as a power fist. Hence the greater daemon might "cost" something more like 155+ points.

In my Death Guard armies, I employ plague champions with power fists regularly (63 points). This really bumps up the points cost of the greater daemon to something more comparable to those found in codex: daemons (but without the cool rules associated with them). But by employing multiple champions, the chance of getting a greater daemon to where its most needed is increased.

When I use summoned greater daemons, I now think of them as being chaos champions that change form at some point during the game. This helps me visualize them a bit better and their capabilities. Doing this for a starting player is hard though -- I used to find myself getting locked-in on thinking of them as champions only and seeing the greater daemon as something separate entirely.

Long Barrel Marine

2011-11-02T17:55:00.001Z

Following on from the earlier long-barrelled bolter conversion, this is a standard space marine painted up in white (bone?) armour with purple trim carrying the aforementioned long-barrelled bolter. The painting scheme doesn't follow any particular marine chapter that I'm aware of -- I simply wanted to test out how well (or not) purple went with white.

To paint the white, I followed a prescription inspired by Ron at From the Warp (cf. Death Wing). Much of my painting style is sloppy -- largely a result of too many Nurglesque miniatures. Whilst I feel competent with greens, blues and reds (and various shades therein), white (and indeed, yellow) has always been a problem for me. So, why not try a bit of white painting for a change and see if I can't develop it along a little bit? This miniature features a dheneb stone basecoat followed by a series of washes on top of steadily more diluted layers. In adding the layers on top of each other, I've left a black gap around the white to accentuate the feeling of the white. The purple is not an easy colour for me either -- the highlighting inparticular is not terrific here, but I gave it a go. Although I've not added any weathering to the miniature, I did have a small dab at adding some battle-damage to the mix in a few places -- particularly around joints. The bolter is the simplistic part of this painting, being a pair of silver colours. The overall effect is pleasing and serves as a nice proof-of-concept for such long-barrelled marines.

November 2011 Army List Challenge

2011-11-01T01:38:00.003Z

This month's Army List Challenge is a guest-issued challenge from an idea provided by CodyJ.

You represent the HQ choice of your army, but you've been captured by a Xenos race and thrown in to an arena. The Xenos scum are going to watch you be butchered by many of their "pets". Luckily for you, you have a teleport homing device / amulet of chaos / pocket webway portal (delete as appropriate) which will allow a small number of your comrades to come to your aid. You do not know what "pets" will be coming through the Xenos' gates though. Should you bring 60 of the Boyz, or just a few elite terminators?

Rules.

(1) Design a 625 point army list to take on this challenge. You may only spend 125 points on your (singular) HQ choice (representing YOU in the arena...!) and 500 points on everything else (NB you do not need to purchase a teleport homer or equivalent -- you are assumed to have that). You may not take vehicles (anything with an armour value) or special characters (including unit upgrades such as the Changeling). You are further limited to a maximum of one slot in the Force Organization Chart for every type of unit apart from Troops selections.

(2) Post your army lists as a comment to this posting and explain why the army list is effective and is themed to the scenario.

(3) Entries close at 01:00 GMT on November 14th.
(4) On that same day, I'll open a poll for Warpstone Flux readers to judge which army list they consider to be the "most effective army list that also best articulates the theme" (whatever readers interpret that to mean) out of all entrants.
(5) The winner will be tallied and announced on November 21st (and entered in to the hall of fame!).
(6) One entry per person please.

Good luck!

The Rise of Chaos in 6th Ed.

2011-10-30T20:54:00.016Z

Like many chaos and daemons players, I'm very much looking forward to 6th Edition W40k. If the rumours are to be believed, then Chaos in general will have a much larger role to play in the next edition of the game.

This rise might represent a general re-focusing of the game by the designers. That is, of course, welcome. But here's another thought (or rather: guess) that I'd like to put out there. The Emperor is dead. Considering that the plotline of the Grim Dark Future was enhanced in the previous core rules by stating the Golden Throne is / has gone wrong and is un-repairable, this may not be a totally outrageous proposition. Is it going to be true? ... probably not! So here's an alternative: Abaddon's success rate improves after 12 attempts... Anyone else with alternative background reasons for the rise of the importance of chaos in 6th, please leave a comment!

One way or another, the prospect is enticing for the rise in the importance of chaos in 6th Edition ;)

C'Tan Shards and Thoughts on the Necron Release

2011-10-29T09:21:00.000+01:00

The necrons are available for pre-order at GW now. Overall, its looking like the necrons are receiving a well-deserved upgrade coupled with a slight re-boot (nay: retcon?). The firepower that the necrons promise to be able to pump out sounds great. Although I've not seen the codex or the unit costings, the new necrons certainly look like a formidable foe. Perhaps it is time for me to dust off my old Verdus Prime necrons once again?

Whilst some things appear (on the surface) to be missing (Wraiths, Tomb Spiders), the new models looks great and the prices are largely in-line with recent releases. The necrons gain new transports which appear to be highly versatile and fire-power deadly (and indeed, the background emphasizes that the necrons were once masters of arcane technologies). But the one thing that struck me most was the re-written background for them, as exemplified by the "C'Tan shards".

It appears that the necrons will no longer be the effective slaves of the C'Tan, but more in control of their own (soulless; robotic) destiny. The C'Tan are described as "Shards" -- broken bits of their former selves. In game terms, they feel like a greater daemon, with two must-buy special powers to make them a bit more unique. I'm looking forward to reading the new codex rules here. But in terms of background, the necrons (have now) rebelled against the C'Tan after the War in Heaven (agains the Old Ones) instead of still being pawns of the C'Tan. After that, they went to sleep (for reasons not adequately presented in the updated GW background on their website ... I hope the codex presents a coherent argument for that!). And 60+ million years later, they're now awaking to re-take the galaxy and bring it back under their heel.

I am a bit more taken with this re-write than the previous necron codex. Somehow, it sits a lot better with me than the old kill everything to make the warp quiet plotline they used to have. But I suspect I could be in a minority.

40k Movement / Coherency Trays

2011-10-28T15:55:00.004+01:00

A new product from Back2Basix: 40k coherency trays. The idea behind them is simple enough: not only do these trays help with moving large numbers of ground troops in a quick and simple manner (especially if you're a tyranid horde player for instance), but they also spread out your troops to a maximum coherency. The obvious reason to do this is to minimize damage from incoming template and blast weaponry. But if the infantry need to leave the tray to get inside a building, they can also do that readily as well. Different trays are available (5, 10 or individual models) which makes for maximum flexibility. Hence if a fixed formation doesn't appeal, an equal number of individual trays would be perfect.

Is this a legal play aid? Well, I can't see any direct rules against them (unless I'm missing something), and they'll help speed up the movement phase for horde players. I don't think I'd be bothered to play against such innovations, as it is what good players aim (and mostly succeed) to do anyway. And moreover, the trays can readily be painted up to the same quality as fantasy movement tray analogues which would probably look great. I'm tempted to get a few and see what they're like to play with.

Large Planetary and Mighty Empires Map

2011-10-27T06:19:00.000+01:00

As my readers will know, I've been painting various Planetary Empires and Mighty Empires tiles on-and-off for a long time now, with a variety of painting techniques and terrain styles implemented.

This is one of my larger maps that I stuck together recently.

I think the overall aerial view is neat, and I'm especially pleased with the green tiles nearer the bottom half of the image. Considering that they were painted over the course of months (nay: years!), the manner in which they run on from one another is great.

I'm tempted to get back to these tiles and paint a few more up now that I've convinced myself that the end result can look this good in the end.

Chaos Marine with Melee Weapon Conversion: Concept and Painting

2011-10-23T14:07:00.028+01:00

This chaos space marine is an exploration of a melee weapon conversion. The melee weapon comes from a fantasy sprue for the upper portion and pummel, and a wire wrapped around a long section of paper clip for the upper grip. This gives the impression of a hand-and-a-half sword for the space marine. Perhaps he will drop the plasma gun and grip the weapon in a two handed fashion before charging in to close combat?

The painting of the miniature doesn't follow a particular legion or chapter scheme. Instead, it follows a kind of chaos ultramarine pattern: blue for the large part of the armour, coupled with white for accents and shoulder trim. The hand-and-a-half sword was painted with a bronze grip to offset the blue colours of the miniature and help it stand out. The eyes and plasma of the plasma gun are picked out in red with subtle orange highlights applied. Meanwhile, the base is a combination of medium sized rock grit scattered amongst green flock and painted cork. Overall, I'm pleased with the outcome of this test miniature and I'm thinking of replicating it for special units or characters (squad leaders at any rate) for other chaos space marines.

Infernal Device

2011-10-23T06:59:00.022+01:00

Forgeworld recently published rules for the Land Raider Proteus. Part of those rules that caught my eye was the infernal device entry for chaos versions of the land raider. In short, it is the analogue of the Imperial power of the machine spirit. It allows one more weapon to be fired than would be permitted (given the speed of the vehicle), potentially at a different target, and allows a single weapons to be fired even if the vehicle has been whacked with a crew shaken/stunned result.

I suspect (hope!) that this is a foreshadow of things to come for chaos space marines.

Winner of the October 2011 Army List Challenge

2011-10-22T10:00:00.001+01:00

The percentages for the October 2011 Army List Challenge were as follows:


Ming from B&C (Space Marines/Pedro)	13 (40%)
Torgrimm (Chaos Space Marines)	8 (25%)
Hendrick (Imperial Guard)	3 (9%)
Cody J (Dark Eldar)	8 (25%)

Which means that Ming from B&C is the winner! Congratulations mate!

There will be another contest next month... stay tuned.

Wargames Gallery: Chaos Terminators Advance

2011-10-20T14:17:00.002+01:00

Having teleported on to the battlefield and laid down withering firepower, the squad of Warp Hornets terminators advances on their prey.

Apocalypse Homebrew: The Dark Contagion

2011-10-19T13:01:00.010+01:00

This one was inspired by the old Realms of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned book:

The Dark Contagion.
Points Cost: 77 points per unit; 17 points per character. May only be given to followers of Nurgle (daemons of Nurgle or models already possessing the mark of Nurgle).

Description: One of the more unpleasant "gifts" of Mortarion, the Dark Contagion causes the victim's flesh to swell up and sport black and purple blotches. Out of these blotches spills a viscous and foul-smelling pus.

Effect: If an opponent lands a close combat wound (regardless of whether it is subsequently saved or unsaved) on the unit or character possessing the dark contagion, the pus bursts out and splatters the opponent, causing them to retch and/or generally be overcome with disgust. The opponent's initiative is reduced to 1 for the next close combat round and they strike last. (This applies to the whole attacking unit in an analogous way to thunder hammers causing oppenents to strike last.)

Historical Notes:
This gift of Mortarion originally had the opponent take a willpower (now known as Ld) test if they caused a wound. If that failed, the opponent lost all subsequent attacks in that round and in the next round as well. In an on-going campaign, there was also a risk that affected models would contract the dark contagion themselves. This interpretation of the Dark Contagion is a bit more stream-line and effective, which is reflected in the points cost.

Poll Open for the October 2011 Army List Challenge

2011-10-14T13:17:00.017+01:00

There are four entries for this month's army list challenge. Which one is the most effective that also best articulates the theme (take and hold)? Have a read through the lists and then vote at the poll on the right.

Good luck to all!

Ming from B&C (Space Marines/Pedro)

Kantor's Kastle at 1500 Points - ready to take it and hold it.

HQ: Chapter Master Pedro Kantor

HQ: Space Marine Librarian in Terminator Armour Storm Shield; Null Zone; The Avenger

Elite: Terminator Assault Squad; Lightning Claws x2; Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield x2; Sergeant; Lightning Claws

Elite: Sternguard Veteran Squad 9 Sternguard Veteran Squad; Combi-Meltagun x2; Plasma Cannon x2; Sergeant; Lightning Claw x1; Rhino

Troops: Tactical Squad 9 Plasma gun; Lascannon; Sergeant; Combi-Meltagun x1; Power Fist x1; Rhino

Troops: Tactical Squad 9; Plasma gun; Lascannon; Sergeant; Combi-Meltagun x1; Power Fist x1 Rhino

Heavy Support: Thunderfire Cannon;
1 Techmarine Gunner; 1 Drop Pod

This list should be able to take a "lightly held" position, and then setup a defensive castle to last vs the never-ending waves. The thunderfire is to drop at the objective and the pod and rhinos become castle walls and cover for the marines. Kantor makes everyone stubborn, inspired, and the librarian can aid vs special enemy units (null zone) or flame SMEs. The assault terminators are to countercharge when needed to restore the line. The thunderfire can work to slow down or wreck hordes anywhere on the board.

Torgrimm (Chaos Space Marines)

Assuming that "without number" is applied to only infantry, we can make amazing Slaanesh themed list using CSM codex:

2x Slaanesh Sorcerer with Lash of Submission.

4x Rhino with 5x Noise Marines, Blastmaster, Havoc Launcher.

1x Defiler with 2x DCCW
2x Vindicator with Daemonic Possession.

And some points to spare. In case vehicles also get without number, we can use obliterators as Heavy Support choice.

So what do we have here - 2 Lashes, because there is a lot of models against us, and we don't want to get stuck in combat, plus each Lash is a Pinning check as well. 4 Havoc Launchers as anti-light infantry and general range torrent power. 4 Blastmasters to pin down troops we don't want to fight. 3 resilient pie-plates to deal with heavy stuff, such as without number terminators and marines. That would be it.

Hendrik (Imperial Guard)

I assume we play on a regular table (48" on 72"), the outpost is preferably closer to our edge (about 1/3 into the board).
I'd run an Imperial Guard list, because it is the simple men of the Guard that get the really bad jobs with the unlikely chances of survival. *G*

NOTE: I've only got a german IG codex so please forgive me if some terms are wrong. I will gladly clarify any questions regarding that.

So let's get it on with the list first and then to my ideas:

HQ1:
- Company Command Squad with autocannon

Elite1: none

Troops1:
- Platoon Command Squad with mortar, Chenkov
- Infantry Squad with flamer, autocannon, Commisar
- Infantry Squad with flamer, autocannon
- Heavy Weapon Team with 3x autocannon
- Heavy Weapon Team with 3x lascannon
- Heavy Weapon Team with 3x lascannon
- 30 Conscripts with "Send the next wave"

Troops2:
- Platoon Command Squad with mortar
- Infantry Squad with flamer, mortar, Commisar
- Infantry Squad with flamer, mortar
- Heavy Weapon Team with 3x mortar
- Heavy Weapon Team with 3x mortar
- Heavy Weapon Team with 3x mortar

Fast Attack1: none

Heavy Support1: Leman Russ Battle Tank with Hull Heavy Bolter, Heavy Bolter sponsons

Heavy Support2: Leman Russ Battle Tank with Hull Heavy Bolter, Heavy Bolter sponsons

So what do we have:

- 126 bodys (counting the weapon teams as 2 bodys each)
- 2 heavy tanks

- 13 Mortars (48" range, 3" explosion, no LOS)
- 6 autocannons (48" range, 12 shot)
- 3 lascannons (48" range)
- 2 battle cannons (72" range, 5" explosion)
- 6 Heavy Bolters (36" range)
- 4 Flamer (for when it gets desperate)

Now on to the tactics to employ:
- the Infantry Squads should be merged in each Platoon, so we get the improved LD and stubborn from the commisars.
- the LRBs, the infantry squads and the conscripts charge the outpost full on (with the conscripts working as the front meat shield).
- if possible the mortar teams should be placed as far frontal as possible and preferably in cover or even better completely out of LOS. Therefore they should be able to lay a constant hail of mortar grenades from the start till the bitter end.
- the autocannon and lascannon teams should also either start in positions where they can remain for the rest of the game or should use a "Überschlagener Einsatz" (that was the term we used in the German Airforce): one team shoots, the other runs, switching roles in the next turn until the desired position has been reached (preferably in the fort or in a covered position from where they have fire lanes to shoot at the front without having to move again)
- once the fort has been taken the LRB take up positions on the sides and remain still in order to be able to fire all weapons.
- the Infantry Squad with the autocannons are to take forward positions in / infront of (if cover is available) the fort, while the Squad with the mortars is to remain in or behind the fort to counter charge in case everything is going down the drain.
- the conscripts are to be used as bait to get enemy units into the open and are to be slacked whenever applicable.

All in all we have primarily Anti-Infantry weapons, as without number most likely will only affect them. But as we don't know what to expect really, we also have some weapons to deal with tanks / monstrous creatures to some degree.

Cody J (Dark Eldar)

So the Archon here employs the uses of Mandrakes to infilitrate the base and take it down from the inside out. While holding the base, they are used to distract fire and divert enemy forces from overtaking the base.

HQ

Archon w/ Agonizer, Shadow Field, Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Haywire Grenades- 140

El

x5 Incubi, Raider w/ FF- 180
x10 Madrakes w/ Nightfiend- 160
x10 Madrakes w/ Nightfiend- 160

TR

x5 Warriors w/ Blaster, Venom with x2 SC- 125
x5 Warriors w/ Blaster, Venom with x2 SC- 125
x10 Warriors w/ Dark Lance, Raider w/ FF, Chain Snairs- 190
x10 Warriors w/ Dark Lance, Raider w/ FF, Chain Snairs- 190

HVY

Ravager w/ FF- 115
Ravager w/ FF- 115

1500pts

Te Incubi act as a bodyguard for the Archon. every Archon nees a bodyguard and they are it. Any CC units get into the base, they are there to wreck face.

As described before, The Archon hired the mandrakes to infilitrate and divert enemy forces from the base. Something they will be very good at since they have 5++ and stealth. If people ignore them, they will pay the price.

4 troops. 2 mobile At units that are able to move from wall to wall and provide support fire whereever is needed. 2 static Dark Lances to cover the heavy stuff. You may have noticedthe Chain Snairs. I put those on for capturing slaves. Every Archon wants slaves and the snairs are able to do that for him.

2 Ravagers. They provide the muscle. Heavy hitters and aim at those that are coming to them.

Everyone is mobile except the Mandrakes. The vehicles are used to screen or take pop shots at the enemy vehicles or hordes running at them. The Archon's Raider of course stays secured in the back in case he needs to make his retreat!

Stegosaurus

2011-10-11T16:37:00.001+01:00

Hiding at the back of an Australian Geographic store was this dinosaur excavation kit. The price was okay, so I thought I'd purchase it for (1) some fun and (2) the potential to have some neat looking scenery pieces eventually!

If you've not come across these excavation kits before, the (educational) premise is straight-forward. The kit contains a lump of gritty material ("rock") that encases a plastic dinosaur model. Using some excavation tools supplied, the user (children??!? hahaha!) take their time to uncover the dinosaur bones contained within. Both my wife and I have been taking turns doing some excavation and my (too young) daughter also seems to be taking an interest! It is taking some time to finish the excavation, but what I've noticed is that it gives a good amount of stress relief after a tough day at the office(!) The excavation tools are tough to use, but I guess they provide a real-ish simulation of the process ... well, at least a simulation of the patience required to perform the archeological process at any rate. Once the stegosaurus skeleton is released, I plan to use it as (potentially multiple) scenery pieces. Ironically, I'm tempted to partially re-bury some of it inside a crater.

Assembled Finecast Changeling

2011-10-09T21:14:00.000+01:00

Having assembled the finecast Changeling, a number of issues present themselves. Although I previously noted the warped staff, heating it back in to a linear shape has proved very difficult. I might have another go or two at it, but I think I'm simply resolved to leaving it as is.

The mould lines on the miniature were actually a sinch to trim away. But, there were a few further finecast mis-casts that I didn't spot when I bought the miniature, particularly the lower portions of the billowing robes and the underside of one of the arms. Whilst I'm not happy about the quality, they're simple enough to deal with and (/ or) ignorable enough that a semi-decent paint job will disguise their presence. So, I might just proceed directly to the paining stage now.

Off-Topic: Physics Nobel Prize

2011-10-08T13:44:00.032+01:00

I don't go off-topic too often on Warpstone Flux. But I think that this one deserved a plug. The Nobel Prize in physics this week was awarded to three cosmologists, for the discovery that the Universe was not only expanding, but the expansion was happening at an accelerated rate! When they set out to measure the acceleration, they initially thought that they were going to find a deceleration (since gravity was thought to contract the Universe back down again). Therefore, this result was not only unexpected, but revolutionized the field of cosmological astrophysics and, moreover, suggested the existence of "dark energy".

So congrats to Saul, Brian and Adam! (and particularly Brian -- good on ya! and well-deserved. You may have been surprised, but I don't think too many others in the Australian astronomical community were).

Reminder: October 2011 Army List Challenge

2011-10-07T14:16:00.001+01:00

Entries are still open for the "Take and Hold" October 2011 Army List Challenge. All entries welcome! (I'm also happy to post lists for you in case you don't have a blogger profile, etc. -- just jot an email).

Dreadnought Repairs

2011-10-05T16:00:00.002+01:00

Alas, my rust-themed Deathguard Dreadnought took a tumble off a table top recently which resulted in some ... accelerated decay. Being made of resin, the brittle nature of the substance came through as the upper body smashed in to the floor, resulting in a snap. Luckily for me, the snap was quite clean -- there was only the one bit that snapped off (the dreadnought arm, pictured).

To fix it, I ended up having to pin the arm back on to the torso. Drilling resin for a pin (at least at these widths) is certainly a challenge for those with hand wobbles. But, two reasonably deep holes later, and the pin was in place. A spot of super glue and the two pieces merged (nearly seamlessly, in fact) together again (see the second image). I got lucky this time I think. But that got me thinking: maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have this happen to any Death Guard model -- the presence of a snap or two that is put back together in a semi-hap-hazard manner could accentuate the feeling of the miniature. The next time this happens (hopefully not, ... but if it does) I might try out this thought!

White Dwarf Retail at AU airports

2011-10-03T05:06:00.019+01:00

Having travelled around Australia for both work, (far too few) vacations, and lived in two state capital cities, one thing I've noticed about airports is the availability of White Dwarf. I occasionally pick up a copy whilst waiting around for departures. But some cities are (surprisingly) better stocked than others.

For example, Brisbane tends to have plenty of copies in every book stand / newsagents. I've often found the Brisbane gaming scene to be very strong and loyal (a high ratio of gaming stores to the number of residents). On the other hand, Melbourne tends to have absolutely zero copies of White Dwarf in any newsagent throughout the departure lounge. This surprises me given the population of greater Melbourne and the larger attendance at gaming events in the city compared to Brisbane. Sydney is more like Brisbane and reasonably well stocked. Adelaide did not have a newsagent who sold White Dwarf when I visited earlier in the year. And, with apologies to Perth and Hobart, I've not been there in a while, so don't know the local conditions (and never been to Darwin yet). The last time I was in Canberra, the whole airport seemed to be undergoing reconstruction, so I can't really comment for Canberra either.

So why does Melbourne not retail White Dwarf like Sydney or Brisbane does? The newsagents are the same company, but somehow decides to not sell the magazine like the others. I don't have an answer to this, hence my observation is purely empirical ... but interesting ...!

October 2011 Army List Challenge

2011-10-01T13:16:00.011+01:00

Take and hold, boyz! The theme for this month's army list challenge is to capture a lightly guarded outpost from the enemy and hold it for ten turns. As soon as you capture the outpost (or turn 3 at the latest), all enemy units gain the "without number" special rule ... which means that as soon as you wipe out a unit, they re-enter the game from the board edge. So, what kind of army would be most suitible for this task? Heavy firepower? Rapid redeployment? Or something else?

Rules

(1) Design a 1500 points army list from any codex to take on this challenge.

(2) Post your army lists as a comment to this posting and why the army list is effective and is themed to the scenario.

(3) Entries close at 01:00 GMT on October 14th.

(4) On that same day, I'll open a poll for Warpstone Flux readers to judge which army list they consider to be the "most effective army list that also best articulates the theme" (whatever readers interpret that to mean) out of all entrants.

(5) The winner will be tallied and announced on October 21st (and entered in to the hall of fame!).

(6) One entry per person please.

Remember that there are no prizes for these contests, beyond kudos, honour and entry in to the hall of fame.

Good Luck!

Bolter Conversion

2011-09-29T13:07:00.013+01:00

What do most marine armies (including chaos) have in common? Of the many possible answers ranging from shoulder pads to geneseed, one of the more obvious would have to be the bolter (unless we're talking about Death Wing ... but that's a different story!). So, how can you make your army stand out in a simple manner? Do some conversion work on these most obvious bits!

This bolter conversion is one of the most simple ones to do -- extending the barrel. To achieve this look, I chopped and filed away the existing bolter barrel. Then, I took a small section of a plastic styrene cylinder (sold by evergreen for those wondering) and drilled out the barrel at the end, and a cross-section through the barrel with a steady hand and a small bit on my hand drill. The new, extended barrel was then simply glued in to place on the old bolter. Voila -- a simple conversion that will make a regular marine stand out from the crowd, or if done for an entire squad, differentiate them from all other marines out there!

Assembled Magewrath Throne

2011-09-27T16:00:00.000+01:00

This is the assembled Magewrath throne. In hindsight, I probably should have placed a miniature next to it to give a true sense of the scale of this scenery kit -- it is certainly a tabletop dominating monster! But that is part of the beauty of this scenery piece. The large tower of skulls is nicely shadowed and offset with a moderately ornate throne on the top of it, providing a clear line of sight to the opposing forces where-ever they may be located on the rest of the battlefield.

An Old Raptor Lord

2011-09-25T17:44:00.000+01:00

Many years ago, I fielded this chap in a conflict style tournament (750 points limit) and I thought I'd share him here to show how far along my painting has moved. He is painted up in Warp Hornets colours (my very old, yellow!, chaos marine chapter) and was the forerunner and initial inspiration for my more modern raptor conversions.

In game, he is a regular chaos lord with a jump pack (metal wings), power fist and plasma pistol. My favourite moment with him would be blowing up a rhino to smithereens with his pistol and then surviving the inevitible charge from the (other traitor) marines who were inside to be the last man standing. He was later backed up by his own troops to secure victory and rout the remaining opposition off the board.

Winner of the September 2011 Army List Challenge

2011-09-23T14:26:00.008+01:00

The winner of the September army list challenge is DimmyK with his Space Marine list! Congratulations mate, you polled 35 per cent of the vote in a very interesting and open competition.

Another challenge will take place next month. If any reader has a particular idea or concept for a future challenge in a similar vein to previous ones, then let me know (comment below or jot an email!).

Magewrath Sprues

2011-09-20T15:59:00.002+01:00

The pair of Magewrath sprues are sold together with the balewind vortex. I thought it would be good to post an image of both of these sprues for the sake of completeness (and to complement the balewind sprues). As can be seen, the upper portion of the magewrath fulcrum consists of a throne that comes in only a few (detailed) pieces. The tower upon which it rests (lower image) is simply four (yes four!) big skull towers -- each effectively being one side of the magewrath "wall" and simple-looking to assemble. Even if the mage-wrath throne doesn't look as 40k as the balewind vortex, I think the skull tower will see use regardless!

Dreadfleet Release

2011-09-18T01:32:00.007+01:00

The mystery has revealed itself: Games Workshop has just released the Dreadfleet board game boxed set. It is a new board game with plastic citadel miniatures for battles on the high seas. Specifically, the vampire count's fleet takes on the humans et al. for dominance on the seas. Who will win? Can your ships get a strong broadside on the enemy or will all your gunpowder kegs go up in flames from incoming fire and sink your ships before you can even get a volley away?

The game looks like it will be a solid addition to the limited edition releases over the past few years such as SpaceHulk. However, I think that SpaceHulk was probably the best-seller over recent years (with strong tie-ins to the 40k game due to the unique Blood Angels terminators and genestealers sold with the set), so it will be interesting to evaluate how well this limited release does over time.

Head Swap: Helms on Guardsmen

2011-09-16T17:28:00.001+01:00

Often, a simple head-swap can do wonders for the feel and aesthetic of a miniature. I have a small number of guardsmen figures that I'm creating with a "mutated" feel to them just as a mini-side-project to keep me distracted. The first head-swap effort was using a dryad tree head and I think that came out reasonably well.

This guy, instead of having an alien styled or totally mutated head simply has a helmet (from the chaos knights range). Sure, its not a massive conversion. But, I think it gives off an air of "sinister" and "chaos" nonetheless. I intend to paint this one up in the same colours as the previous guardsman I painted so that they can form a small killteam unit of Tzeentch renegades perhaps.

Re-polling...

2011-09-16T14:09:00.003+01:00

Due to me missing two late entries, I'm re-starting the poll for the September Army List Challenge (with sincere apologies to those folks who have already cast their votes). So: There's no more entires and there are now 6 choices -- good luck everyone!

Poll Open: September 2011 Army List Challenge

2011-09-15T14:26:00.003+01:00

Here are the entrants for the 2011 Army List Challenge -- INCLUDING TWO LATE ENTRIES. The theme this month was "no scenery". So which list do you believe is the most effective that also best articulates this theme? Poll is open to the right and there's one week to vote in. Good luck folks!

(1) Dark Eldar (CodyJ)
So because I like the Coven theme, I think I will keep with that.

Haemonculus w/ Venom Blade- 55pts
Haemonculus w/ Venom Blade- 55pts

x4 Grotesques- 140pts
x4 Grotesques- 140pts

x10 Wracks w/ x2 Liquifyer Guns, Acothyst w/ Venom Blade- 135pts
x10 Wracks w/ x2 Liquifyer Guns, Acothyst w/ Venom Blade- 135pts
x10 Wracks w/ x2 Liquifyer Guns, Acothyst w/ Venom Blade- 135pts
x10 Wracks w/ x2 Liquifyer Guns, Acothyst w/ Venom Blade- 135pts

x5 Scourge w/ x2 Haywire Blasters- 130pts
x5 Scourge w/ x2 Haywire Blasters- 130pts

Talos w/ TL-Haywire Blaster- 105pts
Talos w/ TL-Haywire Blaster- 105pts

Cronos w/ Spirit Vortex- 100pts

Basically, the Grotesques screen all incoming fire. Being T5, ID is almost out of the question. I have a ton of FnP and a decent amount of ranged AT. I know I most likely wont destroy anything from range, but immobilized or stuns are just as good. I have quite a few bodies on the field. I would welcome the hordes of Orks or Tyranids to come at me. No terrain, no problem!

(2) Chaos Space Marines / Thousand Sons (Torgrimm)

Daemon Prince with Mark of Tzeench, Bolt of Change, Wind of Chaos.

9x Thousand Sons with Aspiring Champion, Wind of Chaos, Rhino, Havoc Launcher.
9x Thousand Sons with Aspiring Champion, Bolt of Change, Rhino, Havoc Launcher.
9x Thousand Sons with Aspiring Champion, Bolt of Change, Rhino, Havoc Launcher.

2x Obliterators
2x Obliterators

Basically, if there's no cover - Thousand sons eat marines alive with ap3 bolters. Havoc launchers added for horde control. Could drop rhinos and afford whole another Tzeench Daemon Prince, and Thousand Sons are resilient enough to walk with 4++, but they are really slow.

(3) Tyranids (TheGraveMind)
Living Cover

Tervigon 160
Tervigon; adrenal glands, toxin sacs, catalyst 195

Hive guard x3 150
Hive guard x3 150

Venomthropes x2 110

Tervigon; adrenal glands, toxin sacs, catalyst 195

Gaunts x10 50

Tervigon; adrenal glands, toxin sacs, catalyst 195

Gaunts x10 50

Tervigon; adrenal glands, toxin sacs, catalyst 195

Gaunts x10 50

Something around 80 gaunts after the first turn, providing cover and screening. In the wide open they will still have a 5+ cover and FNP. Hive guard behind them get 4+ cover, and tervigons behind hive guard should get 4+ cover or 5++ in worst case.

Everything will also have defensive grenades and dangerous terrain to be assaulted.

1. Swarm midfield
2. Pop transports
3. Assault
4. Devour!

(4) Space Marine (DimmyK)
2x Librarian with gate and might 200pts

2x 5 sternguard with power fist and 3 combi-meltas 330pts

Dreadnought with assault cannon and heavy flamer 125pts

2x Tactical squad with plasma gun and missile launcher in rhino 430pts

Scout squad with missile launcher 85pts

2x land speeder with multi-meltas 120pts

Whirlwind with storm bolter 95pts

Vindicator 115

Plan: gated libbys go with sternguard and cause disruption/havoc and try to demech the enemy if they are meched up. Meanwhile the rest of the army goes in transports/is a tank and just advances up the field hopefully presenting enough targets to cause the enemy to fall into disarray and not be able to cause much damage. Scouts are there as a reserve/backfield objective holding unit.

(5) That Cheeba (Space Marines)

I was thinking about an all reserve army to preserve first shot advantage, but then I realized the ULTIMATE first shot advantage is the Drop Pod Army.

Ultimate long range first shot shooty army:

3x Rifleman Dreads in Pods 480

3x Las/Missle Dreads in Pods 540

MotF 100 (rides in a Tact pod, will come in late to repair downed Dreds)

2x 5 man Tacts in Drop Pods 250

2pf 50

2cm 20

Extra Armour on the Las Dreads + 1 Rifleman 60

== 1500 even

Let him go first.

If he deploys, he shoots nothing first turn, then I drop 4 appropriate pods (horde and light armor gets rifles, heavy mechs get las, tacts always in reserve) AWAY from the army and take the first shot. Let them foot slog while I shoot.

I think Melta gets priority. 3 riflemen do 5.333 pentrations vs Armor 10, a Las Dred adds another 1.11 ish, for a total of 6.5 penetrations vs armor 10, they should be able to shoot out 3 land speeders with melta before they have a chance to either move or shoot, although I will settle for any results that immobilize vehicles outside shooting range for at least one turn.

If he reserves, I drop shootiness that can pick off his army as it comes on. If I were too 'saulty, I would have to chase his army to start putting hurt on a reserved army because he will deploy far away from my forces and have some time to roll for more reserves. Being shooty, I stay away from table edges, and towards mid-field so I can concentrate my full force of fire on his troops immediately as they trickle in from reserves.

(6) Speedfreek (Dark Angels)

HQ
Belial, Thunderhammer/Stormshield 130
Troops
Deathwing Terminator Squad, Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield x5, Cyclone Missile Launcher, Standard Bearer, Apothecary 295
Deathwing Terminator Squad,Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield x5, Cyclone Missile Launcher 235
Deathwing Terminator Squad,Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield x5, Cyclone Missile Launcher 235
Deathwing Terminator Squad,Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield x5, Cyclone Missile Launcher 235
Deathwing Terminator Squad,Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield x5, Cyclone Missile Launcher 235
Fast Attack
Ravenwing Bike Squadron, Meltagun, Melta Bombs 135

If you go first, scoutboost+death wing assault.
If not, just walk forward and shoot...

Army list challenge extension

2011-09-14T15:34:00.003+01:00

Since there's currently only 1 entrant for the September Army List Challenge, the deadline is being extended by a day (I know one commenter was going to put up a list but hasn't yet)... all takers welcome!

Fish Tank Scenery: Tower

2011-09-12T19:05:00.030+01:00

Wandering around pet stores can be a fruitful endeavour for the keen-eyed scenery collector looking for something a bit more unique for their table-top.

This find cost me a small 5 AUD from the fish tank decoration section of a pet store that I took my daughter to at the weekend (she's always amused looking at the live animals!). The piece looks like it is straight out of an Hirst Arts cast (and indeed, is probably something that I could cast with sufficient time, but it has the advantage of coming pre-painted and assembled). But it is more of an entire mold cast, having looked carefully for the mold lines(!)

For scale, there is a horror of Tzeentch in the foreground. Hence: the archway is probably big enough for a terminator to stare through, or perhaps two grots side-by-side. It's a nice bit of kit and something that I'm certain that I'll use in future games. So, I'm going to be visiting more pet stores and (in particular) fish tank retailers in the future...

Thumbs up for Customer Service

2011-09-11T18:49:00.004+01:00

Following yesterday's post about some defects in a finecast sprue, I returned the offending article to the GW store from whence it came. The guys there were very helpful and exchanged it for sprue that were unaffected by the problems I encountered -- even allowing me to mix and match sprues from some unopened sets. Hence, thumbs up for customer service. I hope GW gets over the quality control issues surrounding finecast soon. I really want to like the product...

Finecast Herald of Tzeentch Sprues

2011-09-10T15:11:00.003+01:00

Despite some misgivings about citadel finecast, I finally bought the herald of Tzeentch on a disk. I intend to construct a second chariot of Tzeentch to complement my earlier scratch built one. I got home and opened up the package. The sprues (minus the bases) are shown in the image below.

Are my misgivings warrented? Well, for starters, I felt I didn't need a huge image for people to see one defect: look at the icon of Tzeentch (staff in the lower left sprue). There's a huge air bubble on the semi-circle that surrounds the Tzeentch symbol (it should just be a notch to fit on another bit). Other problems (that may not be so visible from the image) include a bubble on the book (lower right sprue) and the "kilt" (if I can call it that, in the top left sprue) being nearly see-through it is so thin. Moreover, the struts that hold the resin to the frame are overly large and cumbersome. It'll take me a little while to carefully cut this guy out of the sprue. I've half a mind to go back to the store and whinge about the quality. Not sure if it'll do much good though.

Who is Guilty?

2011-09-08T19:59:00.046+01:00

When I was a much younger lad (playing in the Rogue Trader and Realms of Chaos era), I must confess that I had a bit of a different take on the Horus Heresy. The impression that I got from the source materials was that:
(a) the traitor primarchs were the primary people responsible for turning their legions to chaos;
(b) the same primarchs were unrepentant / unapologetic about this.

As I've grown up and read some of the newer materials, my opinion has shifted somewhat on a number of primarchs and their legions. Below, I present brief (one line!) comparisons in the old background (Realms of Chaos) versus the more updated.

III: Emperor's Children: One of the units brought to "pacify" Horus. Horus introduced Slaanesh worship to their highest officers and the legion declared "neutrality". But that wasn't enough for Horus and he waited for the Slaanesh worship rot to spread through the entire legion before they broke and succumed to Horus' side. Most certainly, Fulgrim did not appear to be possessed - he willingly embraced Slaanesh.
IV: Iron Warriors: surprisingly little is said of the Iron Warriors in the old Realms of Chaos books, but there is a small paragraph on Perturabo's daemon world and a couple of imposing banners.
VIII: Night Lords: Dedicated to Khorne according to Slaves to Darkness, but little more is made of them.
XII: World Eaters: Horus (possessed) readily brought them to the worship of Khorne, with little modification of the chapter rituals, bloodsoaked dues to their neural implants as they already were. Perhaps not too much difference here. Angron "genuinely thought that he alone could save humanity from destruction" for his temptation to chaos (Lost and the Damned).
XIV: Death Guard: Mortarion openly offered up the Death Guard to escape the plague whilst they were stuck in the Warp. (Only later did it become apparent that Typhus was the cause of this and secretly aligned to chaos all along). He "fully believed that he was the herald of a new age of justice" in his temptation to chaos (Lost and the Damned).
XV: Thousand Sons: Similar to the modern background. The Thousand Sons were loyal, but practiced sorcery (to the extent of doing so in favour of fighting the reunification wars according to the Lost and the Damned). They tried to warn the Emperor through sorcery of Horus, but got the Space Wolves sent after them for their trouble. Ultimately, they were forced to ally with Horus.
XVI: Luna Wolves: Horus started the rebellion and influenced all the other legions to turn to chaos (rather than the Word Bearers being the cause of it all). Horus instigated "warrior lodges" in to 5 legions apparently (source = Slaves to Darkness).
XVII: Word Bearers: They weren't the first: The Sons of Horus were. Otherwise, very little is said about them in the old realms of chaos books.
XX: Alpha Legion: "Twisted minds and bodies" in the service of chaos according to Slaves to Darkness, and they most definitely were not secretly serving the emperor's aims.

Reminder: September 2011 Army List Challenge

2011-09-07T15:25:00.000+01:00

Entries are still open for the September 2011 Army List Challenge. What army would you field in the absence of any scenery to take cover behind or block lines of sight?

Painted Balewind Vortex Base

2011-09-05T16:18:00.000+01:00

The base of the Balewind Vortex is pictured here fully painted up. I went for a very simple approach with the base, only wanting to have a small number of colours so as not to detract from the vortex itself when I do that. Hence, the basecoat is pure black followed by a number of layers of progressively lighter greys (the first several layers of grey being done in a drybrush methodology). The gold was applied to the chaos-looking circle as well as the broken outer sub-burst styled edges and the schools of magic symbols on the foreheads of the skulls. Muted, to be sure. But I am intending that the vortex itself will be much brighter (blues and purples).

Changeling Finecast Sprue

2011-09-03T15:21:00.002+01:00

The Changeling proved to be the first finecast miniature that I've purchased. I've historically used a semi-random miniature to represent the Changeling in previous games, but felt that the time was right to buy-in to the actual miniature give how fond I am of his/her/its ability. The sprue is pictured to the left.

Whilst I fully accept that the resin will be much easier to work with than the metal alloy version of the miniature, there are more aesthetic issues that I've noticed than compared to a typical metal one. It is very easy to spot the excess flash around the edges of the miniature -- particularly along the slender staff that the changeling brandishes. The sprue itself looks warped in the picture -- as it does in real life. This is not a biggie, but I will note that some of the miniature is also warped (again the staff -- no better or worse than a metal miniature in that regard I guess!). There are also one or two subtle defects in the accessories that the Changeling is carrying -- an odd air bubble in the forearm guard for instance is clear on the obverse of the image. But I do agree with the hype that overall the quality is high. For me, the question is whether the ease of working with resin and the extra flash outweighs the lack of defects common to metal miniatures. I'll get back to you!

September 2011 Army List Challenge

2011-09-01T16:25:00.000+01:00

The theme for this month's army list challenge is barren terrain. Yep - you heard it right. There is no scenery because the tournament organisers forgot / best mates don't own any / the game was far too impromptu to include any (delete as appropriate or leave a comment to let the rest of us know how/why this ever happened to you). So, what sort of army should you field in this situation? Lots of tanks with high armour value? A wall of rhinos? Fast moving bikers? Or something else? The only cover you're getting is from your own troops...

Rules

(1) Design a 1500 points army list from any codex to take on this challenge.

(2) Post your army lists as a comment to this posting and why the army list is effective and is themed to the scenario.

(3) Entries close at 01:00 GMT on September 14th.

(5) The winner will be tallied and announced on September 21st (and entered in to the hall of fame!).

(6) One entry per person please.

Remember that there are no prizes for these contests, beyond kudos, honour and entry in to the hall of fame.

Painted Horsemen of Apocalpse: Khorne

2011-08-31T15:12:00.005+01:00

What feels like a long time ago, I assembled a collection of chaos marines riding on horseback with the intent to field them as Chaos Lords or in games of Apocalypse. This is the first painted horseman: the Khorne Lord.

Khorne colours are straight forward to paint, if nothing else. Basecoat in mechrite red, followed by a few dark washes and gradual lifting of the red tone using blood red and hints of oranges does the main regions very well. The gold is pure shining gold with very subtle highlights across the washed tones. The horse itself was picked out in shades of grey, bleached bone and silver (as appropriate) and makes for a moody complement to the red and gold of the rider.

Wargames Gallery: In the Shadow of Vindication

2011-08-29T11:49:00.004+01:00

The Death Guard secure the objective and allow their nicely rusting vindicator to trundle forward to take shots at the loyalist dogs.

Full Battle report on this one will follow next month (as soon as I sort through the images!).

Warpath Release

2011-08-27T11:03:00.006+01:00

For those who are looking for something different to Warhammer 40,000 (etc.), Mantic Games have released their new miniature range for the Warpath game to pre-order.

The miniatures cover the "forge father" range which at first glance appear a subtle blend of the old 40k squats and large power armoured marines. I personally think they look very cool. I wonder if Warpath will be a long-term rival game for 40k?

Ode to a Dead Paintbrush

2011-08-25T14:47:00.025+01:00

There once was a large-headed brush;

Whose fibres were to begin with lush;

It has now seen better days;

Too much undercoating has made it laze;

And drybrushing has turned the tip into a maze;

Tis time we parted ways;

Old faithful paintbrush under my gaze.

Review: Liber Chaotica V (Undivided)

2011-08-24T16:25:00.000+01:00

Included in the "complete" compilation of the previous four volumes comes a fifth, free volume based on the undivided nature of chaos.

This volume is not as extensive as any of the preceeding volumes and seems a bit more of an afterthought (or easter egg even) than the others. That's not to say that is isn't well considered or written: it is. It just doesn't do as much justice to the material as Slaanesh or Nurgle does.

Commencing with a discourse on the Ever-Chosen, the book descends rapidly in to an un-targeted review of the pantheons of the races of the Warhammer world. I think Tzeentch could have done this in a much more (shall we say) "insidious" manner. Its not that the material doesn't fit, but I just wonder if it should have been shuffled elsewhere and with a different "accent"?

The volume is rounded out with an essay on the "unaligned powers" (but where is Malal? ha!) that aligns well with material from the Lost and the Damned and terminates with Be'lakor.

Given the brevity of the volume, this one is the weakest of the series -- it could have been made much better. More could have been made of it through greater exploration of the nature of chaos (perhaps even shifting the ideas of souls given in the Tzeentch volume to here) and giving greater emphasis to the independents rather than the Warhammer pantheons. A brief vision of even Horus could (nay: should!) have also been added, let alone the Black Legion.

"Quality Issues"

2011-08-22T09:55:00.019+01:00

So, I was planning on making my first citadel finecast purchase this weekend (and yes -- I've waited a while to do so). My intent was to get hold of the new Tzeentch Herald on the Disc. And, yes, I was even willing to pay GW Australia prices (61 AUD, to be precise) to get hold of it on the release date.

In store, they didn't have any on the shelves. I asked whether I'd got the realease date right. One bloke said he wasn't sure, so I spoke to another staff member. It turned out that there were "quality issues" with the Tzeentch herald (in their own words). But moreover, this wasn't just affecting the herald. The Bloodthirster of Khorne was not on the shelves either ... same reason given. Expected delivery date: next weekend.

Sigh.

Winner of the August 2011 Army List Challenge

2011-08-21T13:35:00.001+01:00

It's a tie! Congratulations to TheGraveMind and Cody J who both polled 35 per cent of the vote each for the August Army List Challange and get entered in to the Hall of Fame. I've got to say well done to Quite_Thor as well: those eldar without their jetbikes were simply a fantastic idea.

Another Challenge next month!
PS: If anyone wants to suggest a future challenge, let me know by email or a comment to this post :)

Horus Heresy Board Game Report: A Traitor Victory

2011-08-18T18:59:00.000+01:00

The Horus Heresy Board Game can be played in a variety of modes across six different missions. This is a report from one of the advanced scenarios entitled "Cry Havoc". The main difference between the later scenarios and the earlier ones are the extent and power of the event cards and the way in which the game is set-up. In this scenario, there are multiple game board areas that are inaccessible to both sides. This means that each player needs to plan out their moves in a bit more chess-like detail in order to navigate through the maze to their desired destinations.

The set-up is similar to previous games otherwise, but it did take a bit of time to get it all done. As the traitor player, I had Angron and Fulgrim on the planet's surface supported by the rank and file of their respective legions ... ready to pounce. The Loyalist player had Dorn an the Imperial Fists tucked up in a nicely fortified looking palace. Meanwhile, the Khan kept to the out-field with his legion.

As I made a move to attempt to secure one of the space ports in the game, the Khan swept in from nowhere (one of his special abilities) to completely lightning strike Fulgrim's forces out of the way. In the image, you can see the Khan gloating over his victory with his troops, supported by a loyalist tank company. To the upper left, you can see some traitors looking quite isolated and weary. They were the next units to be elimiated by the Khan. Fulgrim himself even fell to the Khan by two thirds of the way through the game.

However, the "real" battle (if I'm allowed to call it that) was not taking place in the out-field where the Khan was amassing victory after victory over the traitors (poor Fulgrim!)... but rather: it was nearer to the palace walls itself. Pictured, Angron has secured one of the Space Ports through an overwhelming force of World Eater legionaires, titans, and daemons. The Blood Angels who were nearby got slaughtered and those that survived limped back to the Imperial Palace, routed. Sanguinius himself fared little better. Although some Loyalist marines can be seen surrounding the space port (Imperial Fists top left, White Scars top right), their numbers were far too small to do anything about Angron in full fury. Indeed, I let Angron assault the palace himself whilst Mortarion and his Death Guard served to back them up and mop up the remaining resistance around him.

Of course, the Emperor himself was holed up in his fortress / palace all along. By the time Angron was a few board squares away from tackling the Emperor, a powerful event card was drawn: the loyalist fleets that were in the Warp on transit to holy Terra were lost -- Horus' prayers to the darker powers had paid off! In game terms, this meant that the Loyalists could no longer "hold out" until their reinforcements arrived. Help wasn't coming and a drawn game wouldn't mean victory for the Emperor. Hence, the Emperor took a gamble and teleported on the the Vengeful Spirit -- Horus' battle barge in orbit.

Taking with him several squad of custodians and what remaining troops he could, the Emperor encountered both Magnus the Red and Horus aboard the catacombs of the battle barge. Still a little bit miffed about the whole Nikea thing, Magnus really took it out of the Loyalist forces. The Thousand Sons were glorious: accounting for multiple units of custodians and army regiments. The daemons that they had allied with also helped change things up. Desipte wounding Horus himself, the Emperor was alreaded greviously wounded himself from Magnus' assault. Horus then came along to join the party. A few combats later, and the Emperor was dead.

The shields immediately were raised over the battle barge once more, leaving Angron and Mortarion to mop up the remaining resistance on the planet-side. The Khan and the Fabricator General escaped, but Dorn and Sanguinius were both gone; their legions shattered. Horus had won. An new era beckoned.

Dice App

2011-08-17T21:42:00.011+01:00

For those of you who have smart phones / iphones, here is an app that was recommended to me recently: d6 kit free.

Want to roll 30 die without having any propping up on edge? Well this is probably for you. I've seen it used in a game of 40k a few times and: it does work. But I can't help but feel there's something cool (and traditional) about cupping a wad of die in your hands and rolling them on the table. Call me a traditionalist, but I can't see these kind of apps taking over from actual physical die rolling anytime soon. But maybe in the future, who knows?

Does Fielding Tall Miniatures Make a Difference?

2011-08-15T23:49:00.000+01:00

For those of you who like converting or using proxies, you probably have a number of models in your collection whose height might be considered to be "above normal". For me, I regularly use a Dragon Ogre Shaggoth from Warhammer Fantasy as a daemon prince. This has a variety of advantages and disadvantages inside the game that are tied to its height.

The obvious advantage associated with height is the line of sight it purchases. If I equip the daemon prince with doom bolt (or a similar psychic power), then this is a guy who can potentially see over the tops of buildings / scenery that shorter than average daemon princes cannot.

The other side of the coin (of course) is that others can also see him better. This means that he naturally takes more incoming fire from opponents.

But, that ties in with the other perceived, but subtle, advantage: given the height, he makes himself more of a fire magnet than other threats that I deploy on the board. I wrote a while back about daemon prince distraction techniques. By having a larger miniature for this role, I've found (anecdotally) he becomes just a fraction more of a distraction. The big imposing bulk of the daemon demands to be dealt with! That gives me time to manoeuvre in with other pieces of the puzzle to control the game.

Has anyone had any different experience with fielding tall miniatures?

Poll Open for the August Army List Challenge

2011-08-14T20:35:00.000+01:00

There are three entries for this month's army list challenge. The theme was to take on a high gravity world. Check out the lists and then vote (poll to the right) on which army you feel is the most effective that also best articulates the theme (whatever you interpret that to mean!).

Blood Angels (The GraveMind)
"Rapid Descent"

Commander Dante
Honour guard With Jumppacks, 4 plasmaguns and 3 Flamers

Priest with Jump pack Plasma pistol and Power weapon
Priest with Jump pack Power weapon and Hand flamer

10 ASM 2 flamers, Sarge with power weapon

10 ASM 2 flamers, Sarge with power weapon

10 ASM 2 Plasma guns, Sarge with power Fist and Plasma pistol

Devastator squad with 4 plasma cannons.

The extreme Gravity will cause the descent of these angels of vengeance to become far more hazardous than normal, but this is nothing new for Commander Dante. These mighty Astartes are built for war, and Gravity is not going to slow them down. While the puny heretics have trouble moving, The assault marines will be using their Jump packs to gain ground on them. The plasma guns stay back put high yield rounds into the toughest of opponents, all the while the flamer squad come in close and roast the vulnerable infantry. Keeping distance until the time is right to assault in. Little fear of counter-attacks or the enemy getting the charge as their movement will be dictated by the pathetic strength of their legs.

Eldar (Quite_Thor)

For Their Feet Ne'er Touch the Ground
(with apologies to Fritz)

Eldrad 210
3 x 5 Pathfinders 360
3 x Wraithlords - eldar missile launcher, shuriken cannon, flamers - 375
2 x 10 Harlequins - Death jester, Shadowseer, 9 x harlequin's kiss, 2 x fusion pistols

Yes, it is a 1500 point version of Fritz's harlie list but that is peculiarly appropriate. The rangers and harlequins ignore cover, the wraithlords nearly so. Ranged firepower is deeply ineffective on all the elements, especially with the Bearded Cheese-Wizard firing off fortune in all directions! Ranged shooting is questionable but mobility is good and harlequins are, well, cool...especially when everyone else is hacking through cover which they ignore.

Also. Craftworld Eldar. No anti-grav. See, I read the rules!

Dark Eldar (Cody J)
HQ

Haemonculus w/ Venom Blade, Hexrifle- 70
Haemonculus w/ Venom Blade, Hexrifle- 70
Haemonculus w/ Venom Blade, Hexrifle- 70
Haemonculus w/ Venom Blade, Hexrifle- 70
Haemonculus w/ Venom Blade, Hexrifle- 70
Haemonculus w/ Venom Blade, Hexrifle- 70

TR

x10 Wracks, x2 Liquifyer Guns, Acothyst, Hexrifle- 145
x10 Wracks, x2 Liquifyer Guns, Acothyst, Hexrifle- 145
x10 Wracks, x2 Liquifyer Guns, Acothyst, Hexrifle- 145
x10 Wracks, x2 Liquifyer Guns, Acothyst, Hexrifle- 145
x10 Wracks, x2 Liquifyer Guns, Acothyst, Hexrifle- 145
x10 Wracks, x2 Liquifyer Guns, Acothyst, Hexrifle- 145

HVY

Talos w/ Stinger Pod- 105
Talos w/ Stinger Pod- 105

1500pts

So an invasion force of Wracks and Talos constructs. 12 Hexrifle shots can bring down MC's, and pin targets when needed. 66 bodies on the field all with FnP and FC with rerolls to wound will be a tough nut to crack. Talos provide minimal shooting from range but also can move well. They arent too shabby in CC either.

I think this would struggle against horde Orks or Nids. They bring so many more bodies, so FnP would be key as would getting the charge. Liquifyers help but I know Orks can bring 120 Boyz easy.

Daemons on Pre-Order from GW

2011-08-14T03:24:00.000+01:00

Games Workshop have thrown up the pre-orders for their new range of daemons. They include what we expected (fine casts of greater daemons such as the Lord of Change) and (excitingly for me) a Herald of Tzeentch on a disc.

Also included is a batallion that features 20 bloodletters, 10 daemonettes, 10 horrors, and 5 seekers of Slaanesh. At UKP65, that represents a saving of UKP22.50 which is good to see.

As a bonus, there are also three sets of standards included. Two lots of "banners of rage" for all you Khorne fans out there and a set of Tzeentch "blasted standards". The Khorne banners looks like good conversions, but the Tzeentch ones are probably the more appealing ones for me personally.

Review: Liber Chaotica IV (Tzeentch)

2011-08-12T21:40:00.020+01:00

Tzeentch gets his/her/its chance to shine in the fourth volume of Liber Chaotica. As with the previous two volumes (Slaanesh and Nurgle), the book commences with a discourse on the nature of Tzeentch. Much like the Nurgle volume, it becomes clear from the outset that Tzeentch simply isn't all about "scheming" and "magic". More than anything, Tzeentch embodies the true nature of Chaos: the very fabric of the shifting tides and conspiracies that have happened or are yet to come.

I felt that the introductions to Slaanesh and Nurgle were stronger than Tzeentch: they explored in detail the why's and how's that mortals may come to them through direct or insidious means. It think the writers missed this opportunity with Khorne, but with Tzeentch, his various aspects weren't too obvious, but at least they had a go. Somewhere in between the aspiration to power and the manipulated, all come to serve the great conspirator.

Given the strong connection to sorcery, there is an extensive section included on the nature of magic in the Warhammer world. Although enjoyable, it probably isn't the highlight of the volume. The discourse on the nature of chaos and how souls fuel the growth of such gods is a paraphrase from the Lost and the Damned / Slaves to Darkness, but very welcome. The strength of the volume for me was the initial exposition of the nature of Tzeentch, the exploration of the daemons of Tzeentch and the fleeting references to the Thousand Sons legion.

For me, this volume sits below Slaanesh and just below Nurgle in interest and span. But it is a long way ahead of Khorne still.

Review: Liber Chaotica III (Nurgle)

2011-08-11T18:24:00.026+01:00

The third volume of Liber Chaotica sees a graphics treatment of Grandfather Nurgle in all his glory. As with the Slaanesh volume, the Nurgle volume starts out by dissecting the nature of Nurgle and making it clear that it isn't just as simple as "decay" and "disease". Rather, he is more about the defeat of Death, the will to avoid a weak end, the despair of mortality that fuels creative and physical genius.

Beginning with a treatment of how "victims" can be turned to Nurgle (denial, fear, desperation, resentment, bitterness), the book demonstrates that these aspects of emotion can readily lead to vitality, life and energy. It is this juxtaposition that is often over-looked by those who do not discern the full nature of Nurgle. This early part of the book is very well done -- highly analogous to the excellent way in which the Slaanesh volume treated its god. The worship of Nurgle is illustrated by example through consideration of how the Old World comes to worship this otherwise repulsive god.

In the same manner as the other books, some of the tangents in to the various characters and tribes of the old world can be tedious, but there are gems contained within that make it worthwhile to go through. The section on Nurgle's Rot is (of course) obligatory, but well-received. The low point of the volume for me though was the inclusion of the Beastmen. They're not especially Nurglesque (well, some of them are, true), but it is space that could have been spent illustrating different aspects of Nurgle.

The book is rounded off by looking at the daemons of Nurgle and (if I'm honest) all too little 40k references. So whilst the volume is stronger than the Khorne one, it is not quite at the same level as Slaanesh.

Review: Liber Chaotica II (Slaanesh)

2011-08-09T21:33:00.002+01:00

In the second book of Liber Chaotica, Slaanesh gets his/her chance to shine. This is truly one of the stronger books of the series. Rather than entirely focus on the Eldar and how they gave birth to the god, the book begins with an exploration of what Slaanesh stands for. This is in contrast to how the volume of Khorne commences with the focus on the barbarous tribes, and frankly is a much more focussed and exciting way to hook in the reader.

The book acknowledges from the outset that Slaanesh isn't simply about "pleasure". The core emotion can be perverted in to many forms ranging from "purpose" to "willpower" and "experience". These include not only the negative forms such as "lust"and "greed", but can extend to what may seem benign emotions such as "love", "joy", and "aesthetics". Therefore the picture of Slaanesh that is painted is one of the most insidious gods of the chaos pantheon: one who has many ways to infect the hearts of mortals.

The excellent in-depth treatment of the nature of Slaanesh is elucidated through the considerations of his cults. This is the manner in which the Khorne volume should have been presented I think. The book then descends in to a few other matters (a re-writing of the Slaves to Darkness: Brothers von Gottlieb; daemonic possession; the eldar; elves and Slaanesh; and short background writings on various tribes and Warhammer individuals). The strongest section of this has to be the "conversing with the damned" section, wherein Kless interviews a Slaaneshi adherent charged with a variety of (not very well defined, yet obviously implied) crimes.

Together with a presentation and analysis of the daemons of Slaanesh and the Emperor's Children, this book is not only strong, but very well rounded. Superior to the exploration of the nature of Khorne, the book demonstrates in no uncertain terms the full extent of the threat that Slaanesh represents.

Review: Liber Chaotica I (Khorne)

2011-08-08T19:22:00.036+01:00

The Liber Chaotica books draw from the classic Realms of Chaos books (Slaves to Darkness and The Lost and the Damned), including a series of direct quotations and tangents that old timers such as myself will be quite familiar with ("the eyes the flies...." etc.). All of them are presented from the point of view of a certain Richter Kless -- an individual from the Warhammer Fantasy world who journeys through the daemonic lands and risks insanity along the way.

The first volume in the Liber Chaotica series of books is Khorne. This is probably one of the easier books to write, as it is possible to have an intuitive understanding of what Khorne is all about: blood, skulls ... and death in general. The book starts out with an in-depth treatment of old tribes (Norse, Tong, Kurgan, Hung) which didn't do too much for me personally. The warriors of Khorne and their armaments get more interesting, but it isn't until the daemons are reached that the treatment peaks for me. Combined with hazy visions of the 40k berzerkers, this last part entices more than the preluding bits.

One aspect that I felt was somewhat missing from this book though was the more subtle aspects. For instance, in Slaves to Darkness, it is noted that even the most valiant and noble-minded Empire warrior can unknowing serve Khorne. For, what is a soldier, but an unwitting agent of Khorne? Blood is shed by them and some may learn to enjoy and revel in the bloodlust. Thus, the insidious nature of Khorne was over-looked, at least for me personally.

The good parts were all the commented fields alongside the main body of the text -- annotations by the "editors" of Kless' deranged visions and worries about their own futures. Combined with the nods to Slaves to Darkness (e.g. the artwork, the Liber Malific / Book of Hated Khorne references, the Tree of Souls), what was a weaker start for me climaxes to a strong finish.

Reminder: August Army List Challenge

2011-08-07T17:35:00.005+01:00

The August 2011 Army List Challenge is still open for entries. Can you design a force for a high gravity world to take on a similar force? good luck!

Note to Self: Daemons against Tau

2011-08-05T23:53:00.000+01:00

Tau vehicles can have flechette devices attached. This means that daemons who want to charge them can get wounded by doing so.

Right, now that I've noted that to myself, I'll hopefully stop having squads of screamers of Tzeentch all die in close combat with Tau vehicles (yes it happened: an entire squad of screamers were dead on arrival!).