Dornian Heresy: Dark Angels

A shout out to the Bolter and Chainsword forum who (several weeks ago now!) have published their draft of the alternative history Dark Angels.  The premise behind this one is that Luther won the internal struggle with the Lion and the Dark Angels became traitors. 

What fascinates me about this write up is that the Lion is the only primarch in the series who does not swap sides.  He actually remains loyal, but Luther forever sullies his name and makes him out to be a traitor.  In this version, Luther is the guy who comes to the fore on Caliban and terminates its association with the Imperium of Man. Dorn hears of this ... and offers a way out: joining the heresy ...

Mirage of Tzeentch

I have just re-discovered the Apocalypse: re-loaded strategic asset for Tzeentch. It's called the Mirage of Tzeentch, and in essence allows you to take control of any opposing unit for one shooting phase (so long as it is within a certain range).  Yep - that even applies to titans, super-heavies and the like. 

Having re-reviewed it, I am shocked (once again!) what a powerful strategic asset this is.  If Lash of Submission was game-breaking for allowing you to move your opponent's miniatures, then this piece of trickery is truly impressive.  Unlike the Changling's ability, there is no second chance to decide not to fire a certain unit.  The effect goes off, and that is the end of the story.  Your targeted titan does what you want it to for an entire shooting phase!

If apocalypse is ever reviewed (or indeed, re-written for the next edition of Warhammer 40,000), I wouldn't be surprised to see this power change.  That got me thinking: is there anything else in apocalypse that folks think should change in a re-writing in the future?  Comments welcome!

Scatter Terrain with Crystals

This is the result of combining a set of Gale Force 9's crystals together with scatter terrain MDF cut / made by CNC.  For scale purposes a necron and chaos space marine are standing in front and behind the crystals.  The base has been painted in red to deep brown colours with some goblin green around the base of the crystals to suggest light coming through them.

Horror Squad Progress

A minimum sized squad of horrors of Tzeentch, fully painted in a riot of colours and ready to cause mayhem on the tabletop.  I personally like the ones that have large numbers of arms, but I'm still not a fan of all the bracelets that they wear these days and would still like to have at least some blue-in-pink style plastic horrors!

Winner of the May 2011 Army List Challenge

In a close run vote, the winner of the May 2011 Army List Challenge is ... ...

Tenzing!  Congratulations mate -- the Blood Angels battlegroup was a very tough list to beat.

The final percentages were:
Tenzing: 41%
Suneokun: 35%
Farmpunk: 23%

Another challenge next month.  Stay tuned!

Wargames Gallery: Blood Ravens Predator

A Blood Raven's predator stares down my chaos space marine force.  (The tank belongs to palad84, rather than myself, but I thought the photo was worth sharing none the less!).

In game 1, I got off a lucky shot from my dreadnought's plasma cannon to wreck the predator.  In game 2 however, it really ripped in to my ranks and survived the entire game!

Horsemen of Apocalypse: V - Icon Bearer

The final  chaos lord is more of a lord of chaos undivided.  Although he won't be a part of the Lords of the Black Crusade apocalypse unit, he could readily form an icon bearer in a unit of counts-as bike.  The simple premise for this model was to have an icon bearer on top of a daemonic steed / bike armed with some w40k weaponry.  In this case, it is a spare twin-linked bolter from the chaos space marines set.  There really is not too many other conversion works taking place here: nice and simple does the trick. 

Sentiment

Many of you will have already noticed the Australian gaming community feelings about recent events surrounding Games Workshop's new terms with other retailers.  Here's just a few links to other websites to give a flavour of the sentiment and potential action plans:

Bell of Lost Souls announcement
Kirby's open letter
James' letter @ Warpsignal
Wargamer AU thread

I'm keen to see what will unfold on this in the coming months.

Horsemen of Apocalypse: IV - Tzeentch

The fourth horseman in the line-up is the Tzeentch Chaos Lord -- Lord Deceiver.  As befits Tzeentch, this horseman will be a sorcerer rather than a lord.  The sorcerer is mounted on another chaos knight steed and has in his possession a force weapon and a bolt pistol.  When equipped with the Mark of Tzeentch and a pair of psychic powers, the points value rapidly pushes up toward the high one hundreds, or just below 200. 

The conversion work consists of  a possessed chaos marine back pack attached to a regular chaos knight torso, legs and steed, with the Tzeentch chaos marine head and shoulder pad.  The left arm is the force weapon from the chaos terminator lord set.

Horsemen of Apocalypse: III - Slaanesh

The third chaos lord is the Lord Purgator -- The Slaaneshi lord.  With the other three, he will form the core of the Lords of the Black Crusade Apocalypse formation.  Of all of the chaos lords that I created in this series, I think I had the hardest problem with this one in terms of what to choose for his load-out. 

The first choice was whether to make him a chaos lord or sorcerer.  Although the sorcerer could have had access to the Lash of Submission, I opted for a regular chaos lord in the end simply because I feel that the Lash is probably over-used.  Or, at least it was over-used the last time I fielded a large Slaaneshi force!

As well as the steed (or counts-as bike), the Slaaneshi lord has been equipped with a single lightning claw to take advantage of the Mark of Slaanesh (I+1).  The right hand holds a halberd that could either be a daemon weapon or a regular (but impressive looking!) close combat weapon.  The head is from the standard chaos space marine boxed set whereas the lightning claw comes from a loyalist terminator(!)  The rest of the model (including the shoulder pad on the top of the lightning claw) is from the chaos knights kit. 

Poll Open for the May 2011 Army List Challenge

There are three entrants for this month's army list challenge.  Check them out below and then proceed to vote (poll to the right) for which is the "most effective army that also best articulate the theme".

(1) Suneokun (Tau)

The Tau'Va have long held the rulers of this Gue'la planet in contempt. The water caste has decreed that with their removal and the eradication of this Eldar/Tyranid threat - order can be restored...

Two HQ's (@174): Shas'O and 2 Crisis Suit Bodyguards with twin linked Flamers and Missile Pod and 2 x Gundrones

Three Elites (@154): Team leader and 2 Crisis Suits with twin linked Flamers and Missile Pod team leader and 2 x Gundrones

Two Troops (@70) 10 Kroot

Two Fasts (@195) 5 pathfinders with a Devilfish with SMS, 1 Seeker Missiles each, targetting array, multitracker and Sensor Spines.

Three Heavy (@170) of a Skyray with with SMS, 2 Seeker Missiles each, targetting array, multitracker and Sensor Spines.

Total 1850pts

The new FAQ for the Seeker missile means that the Seekers can disembowel any Eldar/DEldar mech. At which point the Flamer teams go to work, using their superior speed to engage the enemy and torch building by building.

The pathfinders work as sniper nests, moving from position to position - using their Sensor'd vehicles to complete ignore difficult terrain tests. The combination of seekers (on vehicles and MCs) and flamers ignoring cover and enough markerlights to ignore it twice means the end of these Xenos threat - and another malcontent Imperial nation brought into the omnicient fold of the greater good.

(2) Farmpunk (Grey Knights)

The Possibility of a Xenos incursion has brought forth the Mighty of the Imperium: The Grey Knights.

1x GK GrandMaster (Nemesis Sword, Rad Grenades, Incinerator, 3x Servo Skulls) 210pts

3x Grey Knight Strike Squads (8 Nemesis Swords, 2Psycannon) 220pts each (660 total)

3x Grey Knight Purifier Squads (1 Nemesis Hammer, 5 Nemesis Halberds, 3 Psycannon, 1 Incinerator) 285pt each (855 total)

1x Grey Knight Dreadnought (AutoCannon, Psybolt Ammo, Nemesis DoomFist) 130pts

totalling 1850pts.

The GM picks one of the Purifier squads to deploy with, and uses Grand Strategy on D3 units (probably the 3 Purifiers, if only 1 gets strategy, that's who the GM goes with.)
Probably will be issuing Scouts to Purifiers to get them moving ahead and into buildings. (or re-roll 1's on wounding if 'nids) (perhaps make purifiers troops if it's objectives.)
Strike Squads can either march on or DeepStrike with Servo Skulls to guide them home.

The Dread is there to dish out some S8 longer range shots to tanks and MC's, and still have a fist for CC. Plus, he gives improved aegis.

Eldar Skimmers? Tyrannid Monst. creatures? I've got Psycannons a-plenty. Casting Psychic powers on me? I've got Aegis on all the Squads (for a -1Ld to the Psychic test targeting a GK), and Improved aegis (-4 Ld).
Hordes of gribblies? I've got Purifying flames and I6 Purifiers.

The Grey knights will move up through the buildings, and squelch the uprising with combined Shooting and Close combat prowess.

(3) Tenzing (Blood Angels)

The Blood Angels Battlegroup from Capt Sendini’s 5th battle Company has been tasked with returning this planet to the Imperial Tax Ledgers. A potential Xenos threat requires use of the Librarius to seek out Xenos Psychic spoor, and the close-confines nature of Ultimon city necessitates the use of close-quarters battle tactics and weaponry.

HQ

Librarian, Jump pack, Infernus pistol, Unleash Rage, Sanguine Sword- 140
Honour Guard- Blood Champion, Jump Packs, 1 Flamer, 1 Power Weapon, 2 Storm Shield- 245

Troops

10 Assault Marine- 2 Meltagun, Lightning Claw- 225
10 Assault Marine- 2 Meltagun, Lightning Claw- 225
10 Tactical- flamer, MM, combi, Rhino, extra armour- 245

Elite

Furioso Dreadnought- Blood Talons, extra armour- 140
Sanguinary Priest- Jump Pack- 75

Fast Attack

5 Scout Bikers- Locator Beacon, Cluster Mines, 2 Grenade- 165
5 Scout Bikers- Locator Beacon, Cluster Mines, 2 Grenade- 165
Attack Bike- 40

Heavy Support

Whirlwind- 90
Whirlwind- 90

Total- 1845

The Plan

Scout Bikers are outriders, and can call in Jump Packers wherever they need to. Whirlwinds can lay down fire to support the advance and wheedle enemy Xenos out of cover. The Priests can support wherever he needs to, providing a second attack to the Librarian and Honour Guard. The Tactical Squad and Furioso are rogue agents, going wherever they are needed (oh, and Furioso’s are amazing at CQB)

So- can kill AP4 at range, can kill MC’s up close, and can bust armour. Also, force is as fast as Eldar. Finally- survivable (thanks to FNP and dense-city cover)- everythings up-close, just the way BAngels like it :)

Horsemen of Apocalypse: II - Nurgle

The next horseman is the Lord Corruptor -- the Nurgle chaos lord.

The steed has has some extensive greenstuff work applied to it (or milliput in this case). Lots of detail has been added to the surface to demonstrate a diseased horse with decaying and rusted armour. This technique has also been extended to the legs of the chaos lord to give a more Nurglesque appearance.  The horse also has eve guards that are similar to the destroyer hive accessories that Typhus carries around -- very fitting for this fellow.

The torso of the chaos lord is one of the Forge World Death Guard / Plaguemarine conversion set. He is armed with a power fist (chaos space marine) and a wicked looking halberd (chaos knights).  The toughest part of the conversion was getting the torso to sit on the chaos knight legs right.  Lots of re-positioning was needed to make the angle of the halberd and power fist look fluid.

In game terms, this is a chaos lord with the Mark of Nurgle, equipped with a power fist and a close combat weapon (halberd!).  His role is to take care of some of the hardier targets, terminators and so forth, before the bulk of the army has to worry about them.  I considered adding some melta bombs as well for extra anti-tank duty, but felt that the powerfist was okay for a bit of light tank busting.  He's therefore a threat to most opponents in the game: not an over-powerful opponent, but one that merits attention.

Horsemen of Apocalypse: I - Khorne

The intent with this series of articles is to construct four horsemen (with perhaps an icon holder) to represent four chaos lords (one of each of the major powers) mounted on horseback (representing chaos steeds or bikes even) for use within Apocalypse games (and standard games on their own, or with one other chum).

First out is the Khorne horseman -- Lord Ravager.  No real special work has been undertaken on the horse itself (beyond the selection of a chaos knight kit that looked suitable for the blood god's minions to ride -- note the skulls on the chains).  For the chaos lord, I've used a chaos marine torso with a world eater berzerker head on the top.  One of the arms is a standard chaos marine plasma pistol (because even their own blood is welcome, right?!) whilst the other wields a deadly looking axe.  The backpack is one that I had lying around and is very thinly coated, so shouldn't be too much trouble to paint over.  

In terms of load-out, this will be a chaos lord with the Mark of Khorne, riding a motorbike and armed with a plasma pistol and a daemon blade.  This guy has one function: shoot things with the plasma pistol and promptly get in to combat and cause mayhem.  

Stylish Cubed

Three separate bloggers have awarded Warpstone Flux a Stylish Award! (At least those that I know of so far) A big thank you to Chris, Suneokun and Anton :)

These awards are a pay-it-forward viral campaign that really amounts to a nice pat on the back from people that I respect.  Thanks guys!

As part of the award, I'm obliged to say seven things about myself and nominate a further ten blogs for the award (and now you see how viral it is!).  The latter is becoming increasingly tough as many people and blogs that I regularly frequent have already received the award!  Anyhow...

Seven things about myself.... hmmmm.... well, I honestly don't usually say too much about myself as my friends know who I am.  Let's see:

1. I am a professional research scientist, with a Ph.D. in astrophysics.

2. I lecture in physics and astronomy at university level (maybe I was / am one of my readers lecturers????!).   

3. I'm originally from the U.K., now in Australia.  Both of those facts explain my shifting accent. 

4. Married with children.

5. Played 40k since the Rogue Trader era.

6. Despite playing the bad guys (chaos in all its guises), I've also flirted with tyranids, space marines, eldar, orks .... in fact most of the other "races", also dungeons and dragons, settlers of catan, lego.... but I think I digress.  Don't flirt with orks.  They'll treat you like a grot.

7. Wonders what the question was if "chaos" is the answer?  (please leave a comment!)

And now the really tough part for me: nominating others for the award.  I'll apologize in advance if I don't nominate your blog: there's too many to choose between these days (my reading list is over 450 blogs long) and I think many of the ones I would have nominated have already received that award (e.g. Drax, GWPertinent, Sons of Taurus, John's Toy Soldiers .... etc., etc.)!  So in no particular order:

1. From the Warp.  Ron is inspirational.  Enough said.

2. Galaxy in Flames.  Big Jim is a creative whirlwind!

3. Space Wolves.  High quality blog number three(?) from Adam.

4. Dark Future Gaming.  Old School Terminator et al. are still going strong!

5. A Gentleman's Ones.  Brian is very much a gentleman -- it was pleasure to work with you on the KillZone project.

6. 3++ is the new black.  Kirby et al. are doing a terrific job analyzing army lists.  Much more comprehensive than my efforts, but I am still willing to help with daemons lists as time permits.

7. Strictly average.  Brent, with unicorns and an evil homer.  

8. The Back 40k.  The boys from the Back share an awesome perspective on the game. 

9. Corbania Prime.  Home of the parade ground.

10. Porky's expanse.  Porky recently reminded me of "choose your own adventure" books with his blog your own adventure.  I decided to start my own: Astulae.  It's very incomplete and will take a long time to finish.  Feel free to follow it and provide suggestions!  

Reminder: May 2011 Army List Challenge

Entries are still open for the May 2011 Army List Challenge.  Can you create a themed army list to take on the scenario and be voted the most effective?

Wargames Gallery: Rhino Intercept

Renegades from the Warp Hornets chapter assault a Blood Raven's rhino.

Review: Quantum Gothic Quantum Cannon

The Quantum Gothic Quantum Cannon is yet another high quality resin product, as we've come to expect from the company.  There are eleven pieces that constitute the quantum cannon and not one of them had any flexure or warpage issue. Neither is there any existent issue air bubbles with their resin. There were only a few flakes of flash, hence the clean up time was about one minute at most (no exaggeration)!  

If you have purchased any other products from Quantum Gothic (e.g. the Catalyst), you'll notice that the base is exactly the same and takes very little time to put together.  Even without prior knowledge, the instructions are clear as to how to assemble the base and they also offer fore-warning about how to position the angle of the cannon as it is not adjustable later on once glued (unless you're willing to indulge in some minor conversion work). 

The rest of the assembly of the quantum cannon was easy.  The entire model can be cleaned and constructed in less than fifteen minutes and it looks awesome on the tabletop battlefield.  The image below shows the completed cannon.  It stands taller than a regular space marine and even dwarfs a terminator.  For direct size comparison, have a look at my earlier post on the catalyst missile launcher that includes the same base as the quantum cannon.  The head of a regular space marine doesn't quite reach the pivot point of the cannon.

In terms of how to use the quantum cannon inside a warhammer 40,000 game, clearly the primary use is as a high quality piece of scenery.  But if you're like me, then you'll no doubt like to have some house rules about how the cannon might function.  I developed a small set of rules for the cannon that are consistent with the background given on quantum gothic's web site.  I am sure that readers could also imagine other uses for the gun, say on titans; an orkified defence fortress; or an imperial bastion.  One of the best bits about the cannon, the comm dish and the catalyst is that Quantum Gothic also sell a bunker that could be used to mount all three.  It's certain a probably future purchase for me!

Disclaimer: Although I am not affiliated with Quantum Gothic in any way, they did ask me to write this review. However, I was under no obligation to make any positive, or negative comments about the product. At no stage did the company insist on reviewing this article before publication.

May 2011 Army List Challenge

The city of Ultimon is renowned in the four worlds for its tall buildings, high density living and narrow streets.  But now there is a Xenos threat.  Either the eldar have some master plan to disrupt the entire sector, or the genestealer cult is about to make contact with Hive Fleet Leviathon.  Either way, the city is not paying its tithe and your have been tasked with bringing the misguided governor back in line by any means necessary.  You are uncertain about the disposition and make-up of the enemy, but you do have blueprint plans to the city. 

Rules

(1) Design a 1850 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 May 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 May 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!