Change of Plans (1,000 points • 4 Days Left)

Everyone from DED 'ARD got together at my house 2 Sundays ago for some 40K madness. I ended up playing 2 games. First one was against club member Necromonger and his homebrew Vanilla Space Marines chapter. He's new to the Space Marines and was trying out a list with a Land Raider, Thunder Hammer Terminators, 2 Predators, a Vindicator, Land Speeder Storm, and Vulkan. We ended up playing Capture and Control.

In the first turn, I immobilized his Land Raider and took out the Demolisher Cannon on his Vindicator. From there, it was pretty easy to control the board and stay away from the Thunder Hammer Terminators. I pretty much dictated the flow of the battle and my opponent couldn't do enough to get into position and capture the objectives. Victory for the Blood Angels!

Second game ended up being a 3 vs. 3. with Chaos, Blood Angels, and Eldar vs. Grey Knights, Vanilla Marines, and Imperial Guard. We played 3,000 points per side with 1,000 points each and our own force orgs. I ended up trying the list I intended to take to the Two Headed Giant Tournament at Adventure Games this weekend and I absolutely hated it. We played Kill Points with Dawn of War deployment and won the day, but I sunk way too many points in the Stormraven's unit with Death Company a Reclusiarch and a Death Company Dreadnought. We won a narrow victory with my army giving up most of the kill points.

I decided to scrap that list and start over from square one. I have a much more balanced list which I'm confident will play much better. I'll share my list after the tournament. I haven't had time to post since I've been feverishly painting this past week, but I have taken a lot of in progress pics so expect some painting tutorials in the near future. Been messing around a lot trying to get a nice black and this is what I came up with. There is a lot of clean up and little details needed to be done, but I'm pretty happy with the final look.

I learned a valuable lesson with using Badab Black Wash to try and "tint" down my highlight lines. It left a ton of brush strokes all over the tank and I had to redo all of the black. I've done a lot of black previously with my old Death Company and the Rhino I entered in Golden Demon many years ago and I never ran into this problem. Maybe that was because I used Games Workshop's old Inks or my pot of wash is just bad. Anyone else run into this issue?

Lastly, Ron Saikowski had an interesting post on From The Warp on the top 3 things not to say in a post and I'm sorry to say that I'm guilty of all of them. I'm going to do what I can to make sure what I post shows a model or something I am working on and isn't just filler because I've been a lazy git and I feel bad because I haven't done more with the hobby and updated my blog.

Tomorrow, I should finish up my test marine and get going on my infantry models. I'll post it here in the next few days.

Till next time,

–The Harrower

Tournament Aftermath

Solidsnizzle invoking
the Gods of Chaos.

Last Saturday was the 40K Tournament at Adventure Games in Dixon City, PA. Turns out that Jawaballs and Fritz didn't show, but there was a good turn out nonetheless. I didn't want to do my Blood Angels a disservice and play my first tournament with only a primed army, so I decided not to play.

Solidsnizzle (another member of DED 'ARD) ended up playing as the ringer in the Tournament and was loaned the use of Farseer Frank's Chaos Army. Solidsnizzle ended up ahead of the entire field at the end of round 2 and just needed a victory to win the whole Tournament. In a surprising turn of events, he ended up playing Farseer Frank and was thwarted by his Eldar in the 3rd and final round.

I wanted to scream at times watching Solidsnizzle's games because he missed a lot of key assaults, but for someone that has been playing 40K for less than a year and was using an army he never played before (he's only played Imperial Guard), he did really well and I was very impressed.

Farseer Frank preparing to
command his smug Eldar

The Tournament victory didn't stay in the DED 'ARD family unfortunately, but was won by Jim Benson who had a really well painted Sisters of Battle Army. He seemed like a really nice guy and played some solid games from what I saw, so kudos to him on winning an extremely close tournament. Next time, maybe DED 'ARD we'll be able to bring the trophy home. All in all, it was a great first tournament at Adventure Games with a good turn out and hopefully they'll be a lot more tournaments in the future.

The next tournament at Adventure Games will be on July 24th and will be a Two Headed Giant Tournament featuring 2 vs. 2 games at 2,000 points. I'm really mad I didn't play in this tournament, so there is no way I'm missing the next one. Expect to see a lot of painting posts in the coming weeks as my Blood Angels get ready for the coming battle.

Here's some more pictures I took throughout the day. Once I have the proper DED'ARD website completed at http://www.dedard.com, we'll be able to have real photo galleries and I'll be able to post a lot more pics.

 

Next time I'll talk a bit about my new commission service and I'll be doing some spring cleaning and posting a bunch of eBay auctions. Watch this space for some sweet deals.

Till then,

–The Harrower

Specialize vs Generalize: What's your approach?

Recently I've seen a flux of small point value lists (I consider 1500 small for reference) and I've been taking particular note in how some people like to run/equip their various units. For example, a common build I've been seeing a lot recently for tactical marines is a missile launcher and a flamer. Delving deeper, the common reason is "well, it can shoot a tank and toast a horde of orks!" And this build pattern repeats itself in the army where they'll have 3-4 squads each with an anti-infantry and an anti-tank weapon. As a matter of fact, I think the Assault on Black Reach marines come built like that. But, is it the right move?

I can understand wanting to have that old boy scouts motto of being prepared be applicable to everything you have, but shouldn't that be something you have applied to your army in general? Not the individual units? I'm a big fan of specialization, and I will admit that the habit does stem from playing a specialist army (Eldar), but that doesn't mean to say that the same mistakes can't be made. For example, the community recognizes Dire Avengers as being one of the best shooty infantry units in the game, but the Exarch has melee build options. Why? Well, first off, it's a hold over from 3rd and 4th, back when mech was something noobs did. Second, I think a lot of people perceive putting a power weapon in the hands of one model makes it a viable assault unit. In reality, I'm just going to laugh off any Eldar assault lead by a power weapon toting exarch. S3 + T3 + power weapon x= assault unit. Or even a unit that is capable of handling whatever situation is thrown at it. Honestly, I almost feel like the Dire Avengers having any assault options is a misleading joke that GW just throws in there, and I don't understand why people fall for it. As I always say, to succeed with the Eldar, use their units for what they're designed to do.

If you can find a double use for a single build though, well, now you're thinking ~_^. For example, Fire Dragons are excellent tank hunters, but their S8 AP1 weapons also happen to be good at roasting Tyranid monstrous creatures, and War Walkers with a scatter laser build not only make hordes run in fear, but 24 S6 shots outflanking makes almost any tank quiver in its treads. Dual purpose builds rock and should always be taken advantage of.

Anywho, back to marines. So let's say Jimmy wants to run four tactical squads, and wants to make sure he has good tank hunting and a horde contingency available. He decides to go the way of the Salamander and use meltaguns and flamers, but how should he equip the units? Following an emerging trend, he would put one multi-melta and one flamer in each squad. But here's the rub for me. Jimmy may think he's covered, but what if he was a monstrous creature and a horde of gaunts in front of him? A flamer is worthless versus an MC and the squad of gaunts will just laugh off a single melta shot. And here's the kicker, let's say it's critical that he needs to take down the MC. Jimmy may end up firing all four squads at the MC just to get the melta shots in, and everything else, from bolter shots to flamers just go to waste, and now the guant squad can swarm him. How do you remedy this? By combining your special weapons together.

Plague marines are fantastic at this. I dedicate each squad to either flamers or melta guns, and then on top of that, I'll give each champion a combi-weapon to match. So, if I were to use the same scenario, I can bury 6 melta shots in to the MC and 6 flamers in to the gaunts, which is much more efficient.

-FF

Jump Infantry: Love 'em or Hate 'em

Recently I've been spending a lot of time with my Warp Spiders - hanging out at the beach, volleyball, all you can eat crab leg buffets, and the like, and it's been a fun time. Ever since I first heard of jump infantry in my neophyte days, I was smitten. I was warned though and told that they were never as good as they seemed, so I stayed away. From casual players to more experienced tournament players with an affinity for sci-fi testicles, there was a general advice of not going with the ever-so-cool looking jump packs. Well, then I started my CSM army (yes...I have more than just Eldar), and I decided that I really wanted to convert my own raptors, and that's when I began to think about how to best utilize these under appreciated unit types.

Moving infantry across the board without a transport is a bit taboo these days, and, honestly, I think for good reason. Without debating the finer points of foot vs mech, I think we can all see the troubles one may have with foot sloggers (save for Orks and Nids of course). And, as far as I'm concerned, jump infantry are basically foot sloggers that can move 12", so how are they best used?

For starters, don't lead with them. As a matter of fact, don't start them on the board. My experience has taught me that leading off with them, or even putting them on the board, immediately makes them a target. Jump infantry aren't usually strong enough to initiate an assault without support, or, better yet, should only really be assaulting to support another unit. Put them in reserve, but not to deep strike. Deep striking is just not worth all the trouble unless you have the tricks to make it work for you consistently.

With the unit in reserves, you now have a contingency that can counter your opponents offense, or if you're ready to hit him where it hurts, send the infantry in to seal the deal and guarantee (as best as RNG will let you anyway :P) the victory. For my Eldar, the Warp Spiders have proven invaluable as far as clinching victories with their strong fire support. Often, they have even stopped an opponents offensive plans by coming in and popping a rhino, speeder, or similar, strength six fearing target. Warp spiders may seem unique in how they're nicely suited at dealing with both infantry and light armor, seeing as how the Eldar is an army of specialists, but they're still true to the Eldar methodology. Their specialty is providing rapid, ambush style supporting fire. They complement a bladestorm very well, and if you give your Exarch powerblades, you can probably take out a marine or 2 very easily if need be.


And this is true for all units. I'm a big fan of dedicating your unit to a particular role, and when I get a little further along with my CSM, I plan on adding those raptors, 2 squads to be specific. One will specialize in anti-armor/MC combat with melta guns and a power fist, while the other will run flamers and lightning claws for dealing with infantry.

Not all jump infantry is made equal though. For example, gargoyles I'm just having a hard time making sense of. I'm sure more experienced Nid players can offer a simple strategy on how to use them. What makes them different is sheer size. You can afford to start off with these guys on the board as long as losses can be tolerated, but if you lose your synapse connection, you may just watch your entire unit go to hell because you've lost control of them, where reserves prevent this from happening, at least for a bit.

That's it for now. I'd love to hear your thoughts on jump infantry and whether or not you love 'em or hate 'em.

-FF