Indexes Leaked! First look at Blood Angels in 8th!

EDIT: Updated with scans from the Index! Scans of points, profile of Death Company, Death Company Dreadnoughts, and Terminator Ancient after the break.

Turns out someone on an Italian Forum has all of the Indexes and is posting the rules. Over on DakkaDakka, KurtAngle2 is translating everything to English and posting it in this thread.

Being that this is being translated and there are no actual pics of the Indexes in question, I'd take this with some salt. The good news however is that the Space Marines Faction Focus article dropped on the Warhammer Community website. Seems like a lot of this is actually lining up, so it seems fairly legit.

After the break our first look at the Blood Angels in 8th Edition.

Blood Angels Painted Models & Avoiding Burnout

I've been all over the place with my hobby the last few weeks. For starters, I have been doing a rebalance on Mordheim called Newheim, painting and assembling my Blood Angels, and planning our first 40K Battle Report featuring something really cool that I don't think anyone in the 40K blogosphere has done before.

There was a great post by Miniature Tim on how to avoid hobby burnout. If I can give any advice, have multiple projects going on at once. When you get bored of one, switch to something else. Also, try to avoid too much hobby crunch time leading up to a tournament or an event. While those deadlines are good to get some serious work done, a lot of times you finish that last model and walk away from the hobby for a few months. Just look at my run up to the Doubles Tournament at Adventure Games. No posts for almost 2 months after and I didn't get close to getting done what I wanted to.

The painting bug has struck me recently and I have been working a lot on my Blood Angels. It all started at our recent Club Day with getting busted on how all my Land Speeders had no pilots so they couldn't move or shoot. I started assembling and magnetizing a new Land Speeder and I couldn't fully assemble it without painting some of the details. So I've been working on that, my converted Librarian, and my Death Company Rhino/Razorback. Here's some pics.

I'm happy with how the Land Speeder is coming together. All of the magnets are in except for the gunner. Don't fret, I'll have a tutorial on how to magnetize a Land Speeder in the future. My recent snag is trying to get transfers on the shoulder pads of the gunner and the pilot. My first experience with Micro Sol and Micro Set didn't end very well. Hopefully my next go will yield decent results.

This is my Death Company Rhino/Razorback. I picked up an airbrush recently and the dust on the bottom half of the tank was done by spraying vermin brown. It still needs more weathering/battle damage and I'm not sold on the dust effect. The back door is a conversion I did. I figure the only way the Death Company would get back in the vehicle after the battle would be at the behest of Sanguinius himself. I'm not happy with the realistic painting of this. I'm going to redo it in aged bronze like I painted the Honoured Imperium. Tutorial and pics here.

I got tired of being schooled by all the Psykers in Farseer Frank's Eldar army and one of my other friends recently joined the hobby and started playing Grey Knights. I figured I needed to do my own Librarian and aside from hating metal miniatures, none of the Librarians available appealed to me. This one is made from a variety of bitz. You'll see Death Company, Sanguinary Guard, Grey Knights, and Dark Angels parts on there. I'm thinking of changing the Warding Staff for the Flaming Sword from the Empire Wizards kit. Do you like it as is or should I change it up?

Not sure what I'll be posting next time as I just bought a bunch of tea lights to make some destroyed vehicle markers and I've been doing a bit more work on Mordheim. Who knows what the future holds?

Till then,

–The Harrower 

Doubles Tournament Results

Long time no post. I won't go into a long winded apology about why I haven't updated in almost two months as Ron Saikowski had a good post on what not to post about and I don't want to break the Lord of the Warp's 3rd rule.

Anyway, the doubles tournament is long since over. For my first tournament experience, it went well. I paired with a friend of mine from the DED 'ARD Club that plays Imperial Guard. He brought all the big guns and I brought forth the might of Sanguinius with my Blood Angels and a deadly assault force. 

We ended up winning our first two games and playing in the third and final game for the championship which we lost to a really tough Grey Knights and Orks list. They used a Big Mek with a Kustom Force Field and a Grey Knights Librarian with The Shrouding to blanket most of their army with a 3+ cover save. It was like Episode I all over again. Unfortunately (fortunately?) our opponents were the Gungans and while I kept thinking it would get better, in the end it just sucked.

Late in the game, I made a last ditch charge with my entire army and beheld my Death Company felling an impressive 23 Ork Boyz on the charge and running down the remaining few. We had them on the ropes and nervous, but in the end, the nut was too hard to crack and some Grey Knight reinforcements arrived via deep strike and sealed their victory. One highpoint was my Reclusiarch standing toe to toe with an Ork Dreadnaught for 2 rounds and refusing to go down. I actually made four 4+ invulnerable saves in one round to stay alive at the end of the game and made the Primarch proud. I also got a good chuckle out of their Vindicare Assassin who couldn't hit the side of the barn even with an 8 Ballistic Skill.

As for my models, I never got them finished. I got the required 3 colors done for the bonus points, but I don't think they even scored painting (not that it would have mattered anyway). I'm still working on my Assault Squads, but honestly I haven't painted much since. I did pick up a Paasche Talon Dual Action Airbrush that I have been messing with, but I really haven't had a lot of time to do hobby stuff. I worked on some scenery here and there, but that's about it. I did finish up a lot of the details on my Death Company Rhino/Razorback and I'm pretty happy with how that turned out.

There's going to be a bit of a shift in what I'm covering in the blog in the coming weeks as I start doing some game design work again and focusing a little more on... Mordheim!

I'll talk a bit more about my history with Mordheim and describe the changes to the blog in my next post.

Until then,

–The Harrower

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

Stormraven Painting (1,000 points • 17 Days Left)

Got a bit of work done on my Death Company Stormraven. I'm starting to think that I bit off a bit more than I could chew. I could spend the next two weeks working on my Stormraven and never touch anything else and still not be completely satisfied. Such is the problem with being an artist... Thankfully my wife will be lending a hand with my troops.

I'm really not a huge fan of painting black, but I think I found a method I'm pretty happy with. I've been doing the panel lines in Codex Gray. Once I'm done, I'll go back over them and do some additional highlights in Fortress Gray. Lastly, I'll do a final wash of Badab Black to even everything out. In these pics the lines are a real mess, but I am getting there.

I did get the side doors magnetized and I'll have a tutorial on that in the future. I also got a new tail piece and added the additional stabilizer wings in the front. I really think this makes the Stormraven look totally bad ass, but I can't take the credit for this. I saw this on another blog, The Brush and Bolter. Ultraraider is an amazing painter, just take a look at this awesome Stormraven. I'd recommend following his blog as he is definitely a painter to watch.

If you have been following my blog, you'll remember that I wasn't too happy with the way I magnetized the Dreadnought to the back of the Stormraven. With the new tail piece I ordered, I got a new grapple so I'll be revisiting that and updating my previous tutorial. I have a ton of work to do, but I'm on a hobby high right now. I just hope I can pull all of this off. Time will tell.

I did find a tutorial on tinting clear plastic canopies with Future Floor Finish and food coloring. So my question to everyone is should I tint my canopies red or green?

Till next time,
–The Harrower

Blood Angels Dreadnought pics!

Just a quick update. These were posted by Ancient God over on WarSeer.

 

I think this kit looks awesome. magna-grapple is a little weird, but I'll get used to it. Thoughts?

Till next time,
–The Harrower

Liber Sanguinis Week I: Selecting a Starting Force Redux

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my army and while I think it's fairly solid, I wasn't entirely content with the final list I posted a couple days ago. I uploaded my army to our club forums to see what the guys thought and Farseer Frank suggested I add a Drop Pod for the Death Company Dreadnaught so it wouldn't get shot up while moving across the battlefield.

I liked the idea of the Drop Pod as I could deliver the Dreadnaught right into the thick of the action, but I wanted two of them so I had some flexibility with my deployment so I added another Assault Squad and put them in a Drop Pod.

With the loss of the Baal Predator I wanted more anti infantry and anti mech so I took a third Land Speeder Tornado. Lastly, I wanted some additional long range firepower. Another Dreadnaught with 2 twin-linked autocannons should do the trick. Below is my re-adjusted list. 

HQ

Reclusiarch - 130 pts

ELITES

Sanguinary Priest w/ power sword- 65 pts

Sanguinary Priest w/ power sword- 65 pts

Sanguinary Priest w/ power sword- 65 pts

TROOPS

5 Assault Marines w/ meltagun, power weapon- 181 pts

Embarked in a Razorback w/ lascannon and twin-linked plasmagun, searchlight

5 Assault Marines w/ meltagun, power weapon- 181 pts

Embarked in a Razorback w/ twin-linked assault cannon, searchlight

5 Assault Marines w/ meltagun, power weapon- 125 pts

Embarked in a Drop Pod

5 Death Company w/ power fist- 186 pts

Embarked in a Razorback w/ twin-linked heavy flamer, dozer blade, searchlight

Death Company Dreadnaught w/ blood talons, heavy flamer, searchlight- 171 pts

Embarked in a Drop Pod

FAST ATTACK

Land Speeder Tornado w/ multimelta, heavy flamer- 70 pts

Land Speeder Tornado w/ multimelta, heavy flamer- 70 pts

Land Speeder Tornado w/ multimelta, heavy flamer- 70 pts

HEAVY SUPPORT

Dreadnaught w/ 2 twin-linked autocannons, searchlight- 121pts

Total - 1500 pts

I'll have to proxy quite a few models to go with this build, but the other guys in the club are okay with it. My primary concern is that I don't have enough models and I won't survive a war of attrition. I'm hoping the Sanguinary Priests and some careful maneuvering should be enough to keep me in the battle. We'll see how it goes.

If anyone has any suggestions or tactics on this list, let me know what you think. I'll try and take some pics on Sunday and possibly do a battle report or two.

Till then,

–The Harrower

Liber Sanguinis Week I: Selecting a Starting Force

Last time, we examined different types of army lists and I was explaining the things I look at when selecting a force. I have maybe a score of games under my belt since the new Blood Angels Codex was released, so I already know what I want to go with. I do want to describe this process for the newer generals out there as starting out with 40K can be pretty overwhelming as there are a lot of aspects to creating ones army.

The first thing you want to examine is how you like to play the game and pick an army that suits your play style. If you make better tactical decisions with an army that is defensive and brings a lot of fire power, you aren't going to play as well with a force that is geared for close combat.

As for my particular play style, I've always played games more aggressively. That's not to say that I'm all offense all the time, but I definitely believe in the old roman saying: fortune favors the bold. I've always preferred elite armies (I'll take 1 skilled warrior over 5 scrubs anytime) and I do like troops with mobility that can react to the ebb and flow of battle and quickly get to where they are needed. Lastly, I prefer close combat. Nothing is more satisfying to me then launching a key assault that breaks the back of my opponent's army and turns the tide of battle in my favor. All that being said, I think you can see why I was really happy with the new Blood Angels Codex. Not only were they the army I started with back at the onset of 3rd Edition, but their strengths suit my play style perfectly.

In our DED 'ARD Gaming Club I have to play against Space Marines, Space Wolves, Eldar, Sisters of Battle, Orks, Tyranids, Chaos, and Imperial Guard. It's a pretty good mix and with that in mind I do want a list that can work effectively against all my opponents. I need to be able to deal effectively with horde armies and have a lot of anti mech when facing Imperial Guard. Lastly, I need a decent amount of firepower for dealing with Farseer Frank's pesky Eldar. We've been playing 1,500 point games recently, so that's the list I'll start with. After reviewing the models I have, this is what I came up with.

HQ
Reclusiarch - 130 pts

TROOPS
10 Man Tactical Squad w/ meltagun, missile launcher, power weapon- 240 pts
Embarked in a Rhino

5 Man Assault Squad w/ meltagun, power weapon- 181 pts
Embarked in a Razorback w/ Lascannon and twin-linked plasmagun, searchlight

5 Man Assault Squad w/ meltagun, power weapon- 181 pts
Embarked in a Razorback w/ twin-linked assault cannon, searchlight

5 Man Death Company w/ power fist, hand flamer- 191 pts
Embarked in a Razorback w/ twin-linked heavy flamer, searchlight

Death Company Dreadnaught w/ blood talons, heavy flamer, magna-grapple, searchlight- 151 pts

ELITES
Sanguinary Priest w/ power weapon- 65 pts

Sanguinary Priest w/ power weapon- 65 pts

FAST ATTACK
Landspeeder Tornado w/ multimelta, heavy flamer -70 pts

Landspeeder Tornado w/ multimelta, heavy flamer -70 pts

Baal Predator w/ twin-linked assault cannon, heavy bolter sponsons, storm bolter, searchlight

Total: 1,500

I'm not entirely happy with this army, but I think it'll get the job done. The Landspeeders serve double duty as both anti mech and anti horde. The Razorbacks add fire support and the Assault Squads can definitely hold their own in close combat with the addition of the Sanguinary Priests. The Baal Predator is there to draw enemy fire while the Rhino will go objective hunting. The Death Company and the Dreadnaught lead the charge.

If I had the models, I would probably leave out the Baal Predator and take another Land Speeder Tornado and a Drop Pod for the Dreadnaught. I'm also debating dropping the Tactical Squad and taking another Assault Squad in a Drop Pod. I do like this list as it does give me a lot of options. I'll need to play this out for a few games and see how it goes. So what do you guys think? Does this look like a decent list or does it need some work?

Next time, I'll start talking about putting my models together and get into the approach of building and assembling my army. The DED 'ARD Gaming Club is getting together this Sunday the 19th, so I'll get to put my army to the test. I'll try and take some pictures and possibly put together a battle report for next week.

Till then,
–The Harrower