Simple Green: The Simple Fixer Upper

For everyone who doesn't know the secrets behind Simple Green this is simply going to rock your world. This little substance here can take the worst looking models in the world and give them a second chance at being worth something.

It'll save you from building up layers of primer on bad painted models and allow you to start anew with something that you could get almost fresh out of the box.

I was introduced to it just a couple months ago and now I'm simply high and giddy with joy being able to use it on models that have been sitting in my closet for close to 10 years.

So what does it do exactly. Well it will strip paint off of metal and plastic without harming your miniatures, and it won't harm you or the environment. A simple soak in it over night and a toothbrush will have your miniatures back to there pewter or plastic selves (or 90% there)

Need the proof, well here it is.



So here is an old school Terminator I got about 10 years ago from my buddy Nick. Now Don't worry I'm pretty sure he didn't do the paint job on it, but you can see why I didn't really do anything with it other then shelve it. (because of the paint and me decideding not to start SM at the time) But with them sitting in the closet and me running out of room it's time to start getting rid of things. Now if I were to sell this guy on ebay he's maybe get 50 cents, a dollar if I was lucky.

So I put him in the Simple Green Bath Yesterday and just pulled him out about an hour ago.



Now here he is with a couple of brush strokes and under running water, the paint literally strips right off. Now I'll admit I am using my powered tooth brush with an old brush head but ya know, you use what you got ;)



So about 2 Minutes later the paint has basically been stripped off the entire model. With it in Like New condition it's now worth quite a bit more to someone else. Sure it is still the same model but you don't have to quell your Gag reflex when you look upon it ;)

But this is also a great way of picking up models off ebay for cheap, don't fear purchasing those ugly painted models, get them nice and cheap and with a little soak you'll be able to have something close to new to start on.

-CKR

Howling Banshee Tricks by: Dverning

Hey Everyone, Just to let you know that Dverning has been kind enough to share topics from his blog. I thought I'd introduce him with a rather helpful one that is kind to all Eldar Players. You can see the orignal here.

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Over on Warseer's Eldar Tactica, Ernest101 posted the following:
"hey guys, i am having this really big prob, i play a full mech list, when i drop my banshees, they kill almost anything i want them to kill in their path, but after that assault phase, they always get blown to bits... hardly surviving a shooting phase... any suggestion guys?"

My response:
Well, you really have three options:
1. Don't let them shoot at you.
2. Reduce the effect of their shooting at you.
3. Balance your charge so that you are still in CC during their turn.

As I see it, there's several things that can greatly influence the above situations: Fortune, Doom, Multiple Units, Screening, Cover, and Target Selection.

1. Fortune. I can't emphasize enough how useful this power is. Not only can you protect your Banshees in CC and from shooting, but you can also protect their tank as you close into range too.

2. Doom. With only a S3, Banshees often need the added boost of Doom to give them a little extra punch. But you should remember that those re-rolls are optional. Say you've get 15 hits and cause 6 wounds to a 10-man Marine squad. The immediate reaction of most people is to pick up the other 9 dice and re-roll them all at once. This will likely cause 3 more kills and No Retreat will kill off the last guy several times over. However, just re-rolling 3 means 1 more kill, 3 guys doing retalitory fire, and then No Retreat will leave just 1 guy in CC with you. Or you could just play it safe and not re-roll any of them.
An interesting thing about Doom is that the rules as written allow a re-roll no matter the first result. So you can re-roll a success just as easily as a failure. Say you just charged a 5-man Marine squad and caused 7 wounds... why not re-roll 4 successful ones? Then you'll likely only kill 4 and stay in CC with the one last guy. The trick is plausible against larger units, but trickier to predict as the stacked negatives to Ld or number of No Retreat rolls can add a lot of variables.

3. Multiple Units. Banshees have a notable habit of killing of everything in their path. One protection from this is to engage more than one unit. Creative splitting of attacks can wipe out one entire threat and minimize the return threat of the other. Example: I once charged a unit of 10 Khorne Beserkers and wrapped my assault so that two girls also hit a line of 8 Noise Marines. The Beserkers were wiped out by the other 8 girls, and the Noise Marines lost 2. Fearless hits from No Retreat took down 3 more Noise Marines and I slaughtered the rest on his turn.

4. Cover LOS. Banshees don't really care if they're assaulting in the open or in cover, at least for Initiative. Targets in cover will be slowed by difficult terrain tests, meaning they're less likely to just move out of charge range. Even better, there's also a certain psychology to terrain pieces... many players will leave a unit immobile in a "fortified position" even when it might be more tactically advantageous to back out of the position. This is especially true for pieces of cover on or right near objectives. The nice thing about taking the piece of cover from your opponent is that even if you wipe out the enemy, you'll have the benefit of the cover for yourself. Even better is if the piece of cover and/or a Consolidate move will put you out of LOS from the enemy.

5. Screening LOS. Getting Banshees to where they're needed usually means they're in a Wave Serpent. So what does that tank do after dropping them off? Though it's tempting to scream it off to some other section of the battlefield, I've found it can be quite useful to continue it in support of the Banshees. After the Banshees get out, the tank can still move and shoot. Positioning it just to the side of the unit you're going to charge can screen the Banshees from retalitory fire in a wipe out as well as leaving it conveniently nearby should the Banshees want to embark back in the next turn.

6. Target Selection. WHAT you're attacking should also be a big consideration. For example, 10 Banshees charging Doomed Plague Marines should only kill 5.56 of them.

By using all of the above is how you really maximize the output of your Howling Banshees. Because you can't charge from a moving Wave Serpent, you're having to think a turn ahead for getting them into CC. Isn't it worth it to give a little extra consideration for where they'll be after that?

Letting Go: A Chaos Story

So this is always a hard and difficult topic for a lot of people. I know it is for me, but as I start my third army and I'm wrapping up getting 5k of painted eldar I look back and see my original chaos army there sitting on the shelf, something it has been doing for almost 7 years now. I broke it out when I first started playing again oh 2 years ago but then I quickly started collecting my eldar army and haven't looked back.

Now I'm starting my Grey Knights army, I know I know... why get into something with a codex older then the Chaos one, well they just seem more interesting to me, and with rumors swirling around about them coming out soon I feel like it would be a great next army for me.

So what to do about the Chaos, do I leave them on the shelf collecting dust and hope that one day I'll be interested in them, or do I move on and sell them? I know that I can't maintain multiple armies and how does one decide from day to day which army to play. I've loved playing my Eldar army and I think that GKs will be fun too and starting an army from new will be interesting being able to try out new painting techniques I've learned over the years.

So what do you guys think? Should I leave them boxed up or let them go and if one day chaos become interesting again I can start anew?

-CKR

Wishlisting: The Assault Phase

So the other day while I was bored I started thinking about different things that would make the game different, and one of those is changing the way the assault phase works.

To often are some armies squashed in the assault phase by other armies who are built up around getting up close and personal and then will just sweep units left and right.

So here are a couple things that I'd like to see changed.

Incoming Charge Shots: The unit being charged may give up all close combat attacks and instead fire all of there weapons at the one unit that is charging them, these attacks are made after the assault has been declared but before assault moves are made. The defending unit counts as moving for purposes of shooting weapons.

What would this do, well it would help protect those gunline armies with short range weapons, cough cough eldar guardians cough, who can be charged before there weapons are ever in range of the enemy.

It would also give some units the chance to kill units that otherwise would be impossible to be killed in CC, such as dreadnaughts, MCs and others.

What would this do to assaulters, well it would definantly hurt them quite a bit, but it would make picking your targets quite a bit more important but I think it will also help balance it. To often do I see a unit shoot into a unit before they charge, soften them up and then assault and wipe them out receiving double the attacks the other unit did that turn.

Grenades: These things need to be revamped, why is it I can use grenades on Vehicles but not on MCs, MCs should be getting hurt just as much and often times it's grenades that are the only thing that might hurt an MC. So here are my thoughts on them;

Any model armed with grenades may choose to get a single attack with a grenade hitting with WS vs WS. These models give up there normal attack characteristics.

Frag - Str 4 AP 5 small blast, scatters as usual, may only be used in First Round of Combat before units have made assault moves.
Krak - Str 8 AP 3
Melta - Str 8 AP 1 Causes ID

Defenders who are attacked by grenades in the first round of combat may take cover saves if in or behind cover, or the Attack had to make a Dangerous Terrain Test.

Attackers who are attacked by grenades in the first round of combat may not take cover saves as they are too busy trying to get at the enemy.

Now I know these aren't the only grenades out there but this gives a general idea of what I would like to see happen to the Assault Phase. Now the grenades will definantly favor certain armies, ie Space Marines who have grenades on everyone but other armies also have grenades or may use there weapons and I think this will make quite a difference in game play.

Maybe one of these days I'll get to play a test game with these rules and balance it out, for now what do you guys think?

-CKR

Is the Inquisition after Blood Angels?

So I don't know if you guys have been keeping up with the rumors but word has been flowing for about a month now of new Inquisition Forces popping up, you can see the very lengthy thread here on Warseer, but I'll give you a summarized version of it. All of this information came from Stickymonkey there on the forums.

* New GK Terminators 3ups (5 poses, 1 HQ/leader)
* New Daemonhunter/Witchhunter concept art
* New DH/WH vehicles/support
* All inquisition units to get new models...eventually
* Codex: Inquisition to combine all orders of =I=
* GK being focused on for release, Sisters 2nd wave
* No allies, but indoctrinated units will include choices from other Imperial armies
* No faith points
* Lots of Psychic Nullification
* Lots of Ignore Invul
* Another flyer/transport kit Valkyrie-sized being planned for release
* GK models may see light of day early tied into another product release. (commentary: I hear rumors of a Space hulk expansion being planned, but they are vague and disorganized, so much salt needed here)
* Release window is not 2010 for C:I
* Imperial Assassin now a single unit, culdex, Caladeus, etc all gone. Unit will have numerous lethal options. Very Expensive.

Also Some Rumors on Special Characters

"I got to see the DH/WH character designs yesterday, there are about a dozen named inquisition, incl existing.

one looks like a gk chaplain.
a sister w what looks like twin arm mounted SBs.
a named preacher.
new concept for throne of judgement less like a converted dread.
sister w twin cat o nine tails.
confessor w a big staff w what looks like integrated flamer
named seraphin w new jump pack, more marine like (large jets) but retains some archaic details, also has sword and combi weapon
another gk named justicar, w 2 ended force weapon.
a gk vehicle based character. "


So after hearing that, I've been watching the GW Website recently as people said the DH/SoB Codex's have been dissapearing from the site, as of today I checked and it was no longer there, so sometime during the weekend GW pulled it.

I also heard from a pretty reliable source that I could be expecting some GK stuff here in 4-6 months, I'm thinking it will probably come after Blood Angels and the New Missions book, or here at least I'm crossing my fingers as I've been collecting the box sets of GKs for about 6 months now getting ready to start the army, and would it not be amazing to start it with a new codex too!

Either way, none of this is 100% but I can always hope :D

-CKR

The Tervigon Menace

So earlier today I finally played against the dreaded Tervigon. Now some of you will complain that I wasn't playing a competitive army, yes yes, I proxied a GK army to start testing out stuff before I get to building and painting the new army. But even with a more competitive army I don't think I'd be able to do much better.

We played 1,775 points, yeah weird points but my friend wanted to try having Regenerate on all his meanies... In this army there was a reasonable 2 Terrigons, the first one spit out 13 men and rolled doubles on the first turn, the second one didn't roll doubles till turn 5 and put out a little more then 50 men, so about 70 extra termagaunts hit the board.

Let me tell you that target priority really starts to become a problem with the Nids, first off these guys don't just fall down on their face from afar. They're T6 with 6 Wounds, and when you have some DSing Zoantropes and a Mawloc and Trygon dropping in close you have alot to deal with.

I never was able to kill the 2nd Spawning Tervigon, I had got it down to 1 wound, useing my S6 GKs and then during it's turn it spawned 10 Gaunts, with Furious Charge and wittled my Unit down to 2 guys who proceded not to do anything against the 3+ Feel no Pain Terigon. It wasn't upsetting, but I do feel that with the right mix that Terigons are a very unbalancing factor to the game.

In the end I was able to win the game, he had neglected his objective and I was able to keep mine, if he had thrown Gaunts towards his objective a turn earlier we would've tied, and if the game had gone past turn 5 I most likely would have lost.

It was a very rough game, and there are many things in the new Nid Codex that you have to look out for, and I'll be writing up on those things later. Till then if you're playing competitively make sure your opponent has built something to really represent these beasts, but in a fun game anything will do and remember that it should stay fun because that's what games are all about ;)

-CKR

Doubles Tournament Background Story

Hi Everyone, I'm not sure if everyone is familiar with most of the tournaments here in the DFW area but a good majority have alot of points built into different things such as painting, display bases and carrying cases along with back ground stories.

For this one it was a bit more interesting then the ones done in the past as we had to find a way to get our two armies to fall in line with each other, and the better you explain it the more points you get.

So a brief background on the story, before I tell it to you. Me and my partner fought at the North Texas Champion Ships mid last year and my friend ended up winning and I placed second, well this time we've teamed together, and the story takes place at the end of our battle at that turnament. Hope you enjoy.

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The Enemy of thy Enemy…

The battles upon planet Hoby T’wn, had been quick and devastating. The Swordwind’s Sheath had been pitted against Dark Eldar raiders for weeks, and had also faced the worlds’ Imperial Guard regiment along with their Inquisitorial allies. The Inquisition, always viewing itself as just and righteous in all its actions, had made the mistake of getting in the way of the Eldar.

Nothing would stop the Sheath; the short-sighted humans had no idea of the terror near at hand

The Swordwind’s Sheath had taken refuge in the humans crude refineries. The Farseer hoped they would be able to hold off the enemy as well as get some much needed rest. Just as dusk began, explosive bolter volleys broke upon the Eldar defensive line and the sound of filthy and primitive engines of human machinery could be heard in the distance. Armored warriors in green armor, the Emperor’s Space Marines had arrived.

As the two armies clashed, the surrounded Eldar dug in deep, and tried their best to weather the storm. Left and right the souls of the fallen left this world filling their spirit stones.

Corpses and destroyed wargear began to litter the battlefield; Salamander Space Marines pierced by shuriken rounds or alien energy blasts, and Eldar warriors ripped to pieces by the primitive, but no less destructive, weapons brought to bear against them.

Suddenly the sounds of weapon fire stopped. In a flash of light, the Salamander Librarian, Pyriel, towered over fallen Farseer Gali’lucus. He gripped his weapon, ready to end the life of the foul xenos before him. His force staff crackling with energy, he brought the weapon back ready to strike the fatal blow.

The heavens and earth began to shake with such ferocity that the Librarian could barely hold himself upright. Seeing his chance, Gali’ reached out for his force spear and brought it to bear, the tip drawing a single drop of blood from the Librarians Neck.

The Librarian, with a shocked expression, looked down at the xenos witch, his eyes wide with anger and surprise. “Finish it you Xeno Filth,” spat Pyriel.

“Be silent human! Are you so blind that you can not see what falls upon this world?”

Librarian Pyriel raised his head to the sky, the fury of battle draining from his eyes, “It cannot be!” He stepped back, inadvertently leaving room for Gali’ to rise to his feet, his spear still at the Librarians Throat.

“Yes Human, the Devourer of Worlds is here, with your blind eyes you failed to see why we were present here,” he said scornfully.
Pyriel looked at the seer with hate in his eyes, “You are wrong witch. The sons of Vulcan will never let this world fall, not while one of us lives to fight.”

“Then there may yet still be hope human.” Gali’lucus looked at the sky, tracer rounds and energy bolts lanced into the heavens as Spore Pods rained down upon the world. The skies already turning black, the planet was rebelling against the invading foe like a living organism fighting against a viral infection.

Farseer Gali’lucus fell into himself; he walked upon the threads of fate, seeing what choices there were, where those choices led. Multiple futures appeared to him; too many were of death and further destruction. There! There was one path that may lead to victory and life. There was no other choice; if this world fell the precious lives of thousands of eldar would be lost.

“Yes, if this world falls, much will be lost, and this cannot happen. Gather what is left of your warriors, only together is there any hope of victory today, for your people and mine.” The Farseer watched as this new ally walked towards the space marine army. There was no time to mourn newly fallen, no time to collect the precious soulstones. “Human, because of your nature, many elder have fallen today, I will not soon forget this.”

Gali’ composed himself, he now had to fight with the enemy he was trying to destroy only moments ago. The Farseer began to walk over to where the marines were mustering, he paused as he felt a presence behind him. A small unit of Dire Avengers appeared out of the dust and smoke created in the short battle.

“Farseer Gali’lucus?” said the front-most aspect warrior, “We are at your command. We received word from Farseer Si’lth of your need for help, but…”

“Yes this battle is over, I must prepare what is left of my forces for the true battle. There is still time, what other forces are with you?”

He was answered not by the avenger but what he saw coming from the dust cloud. Two squads of his brave Guardians riding Jetbikes flanked not by one, but two heavy Fire Prism grav-tanks, followed by a Falcon grav-tank.

Nodding his head to the Dire Avenger, he turned and approached the space marine force with the Avengers as his side.

“This is Heresy!” Cried out Sergeant Pri’er, “We can not ally ourselves with these xenos.”

“Quite yourself Sergeant!” yelled out the Librarian. “For now we must fight the Tyranids with these eldar. Without the eldar forces this world is lost, will you have the blood of this planet’s people on your hands?”
“Farseer, it seems that you have had some help arrive. I will be aboard the Land Raider. We will wait for your word, but do not betray me witch.” With that he turned and boarded, Sergeant Pri’er turned and walked back to his waiting squad.

Gali’ joined the avengers in the Falcon”Wind Runner”, the Fire Prisms Crystalis and V’room took positions on either side of the transport. As the Jetbikes formed a perimeter around the tanks, the uneasy alliance of Eldar and Marines turned to face the approaching storm…..

Nids: The Horrors of Tervigons

So maybe not everyone knows about the Mighty Spawn Puking Tervigon but I have a feeling most people will be seeing them at sometime in the near future on the table top. The basic ability is for them to hatch 3D6 Termagaunts a turn. So what I wanted to go over is how many of those little beasties can you get onto the table.

So let's just start off with the Odds, and remembering that on a Double or Triple it can not pop anymore beasties out a turn. We're also going to figure this out saying that there are five of these Tervigons on the table.

So Turn 1:
5 Tervigons, all functioning, average roll of 3D6 is well 10.5 but we'll round that up to 11 to make the math easier. So if we have 5 Tervigons pumping these out that 55 new Termagaunts, and at 5 points a Termagaunt that's 275 extra points on the table then you had before.

Now each Tervigon has a 46.861% chance of rolling a double or triple (math might be slightly off but we'll go with it :D ) So we'll round this one down to 40% and that means 2 of our Tervigons won't be spawning next turn.

Turn 2: 3 Tervigons, spit out 11 gaunts each, 33 gaunts, equals an extra 165 points on the table. Now out of those 3 Tervigons odd are we will have 1.5 fail, but will just call it 1 for now, and give the dice the benefit of the doubt they are on the Nid's Side.

Turn 3: 2 Tervigons, spit out 22 gaunts, equaling an extra 110 points. Now by turn 3 after rolling 3 sets of dice there is an amazing 140.583% chance that they will have rolled a double or triple, so we'll say that they've exhausted there birthing and that it for now.

So what do we end up with. Well over three turns those 5 Tervigons produced an extra 110 models on the board, not to shabby and increased the army point size by 550 points, something that can be devastating in a low point game, considering you can get them all in at 1,500 point with extra points to spare.


Now let's forget the odds and go best case senario. That is rolling the best roll on the dice without rolling a double or triple, I'm not going to work out the odds... well why not I'll go ahead and do it. So the best you can roll on 3 dice is a 4,5,6 with out getting a double, that's an extra 15 men per Tervigon a turn. The odds of rolling this is 2.7555 percent, not very good odds at all considering the odds of rolling a double. So let's just round it up to 2.75 for easier math.

So the chances of all of your rolls that turn being 4,5,6 for all tervigons IS....

.000001429 percent, Holy B-Geezez Batman, that's impossible to do, well it's not impossible, just improbable. Hehe. So what does that get you if the dice gods truly smile on you.

Turn 1:
Well if you roll the magic numbers for all your tervigons you get 75 extra guys, that's only 20 extra guys then before, but it is an extra 100 points on the table.

Turn 2:
Well let's see here, 75 more guys and that's 42 more then you would've gotten with normal rolls, which is and extra 210 points.

Turn 3:
See where this is going? Well you get 75 more guys, I can tell you right now there wasn't enough firepower in my army for the normal odds but this is just getting mean... So now you get 53 extra guys or 265 extra points.

Wow at this point you've received an extra 1125 points of men on the ground. Now I know that people will be shooting at the Tervigons so they won't all be on the table, but if they are, well you're about to be swarmed over by the little bugs.

Turn 4:
That's 75 extra men, or 375 extra points.

Turn 5:
This is if you can even deal with watching your opponent move that many men on the board lol, but another 75 beasts, another 375 points, and just a hole swarm of bugs on the board.

So what happens if you beat the odds and you get all this, well that's an extra 375 models on the board then you saw when you first shook hands and said good luck to your opponent, or an extra 1,875 points.

Now the odds of this occuring well would be more zeros then I feel like typing right now, and I'm not sure my windows calculator is up to the task of figuring it out, but it is possible even if near impossible.

But even if your opponent is just roling at odds, an extra 550 points in his favor can be quite game breaking, especially since the minimum point game to get 5 of these guys is under 1,000 points. Now I've not faced these guys in battle, and I haven't taken into account the opponent killing them along the way, but if you are harrassing him with other upclose and personal bugs, there's a good chance you'll add another 500 points in your favor, and easily up to 1,000 points if the dice are favoring you.

Now I'm not going to say you shouldn't play these guys, or play against them, because I've done neither so far, but at the moment they are looking to me like a big wad of cheese. But that's just my opinion until I actually face them in battle.

-CKR

Designing for Doubles

So I'm taking a little break from my last crack obsession, Dragon Age: Origins. I know it is probably weird to hear some of us play things other then table tops but it's true and might I say that game is down right addicting.

Back to what I wanted to talk about today. Playing in Doubles Tournaments and how best to design your army. Now let me be the first to say that I've not actually played Doubles but next weekend I'll be participating in my first game. And because of that I've been thinking about the best way to go about it for the past couple weeks, not full time of course.

First let's examine what the different ways of choosing armies for doubles.

1. Fluff - Armies that will play nice together, Sister's of Battle and IG can go around burnanating the country side and you wouldn't have any reason not to see them doing it. On the other hand if you saw a Hive Tyrant and a Librarian Holding Hands on the Love boat you might be wondering what's going on.

2. My army has X which goes great with Y's bonuses. Now I know what you guys are thinking, it's obvious that an Epidemus army and Nurgle CSM army would benefit greatly from each other, and let me tell you if I had that I'd probably end up playing it. But in the game tourney I'm playing they've abolished all of these little combos by saying your abilities can only affect your army.

Which brings us to;

3. I own army X and my friend owns army Y. Because this is what is most likely to be occurring for most tournament this is what I'll examine deeper.

So for this tournament each person will share 1 Force Organization Chart and be given 750 Points to use.

First things first, ask your friend what he's playing, and decide what are you will be playing. From there try to think of the strengths of each army. If you're playing as SM you have very tough troops, 3+ armor saves, each unit being able to become 2 different scoring units is a very big bonus.

SM also have some of the strongest armor in the game, AV 14 Landraiders can be extreamly powerful, but is the cost worth it?

Now let's say the other army is Eldar, what is it that Eldar have that makes them special. They have special units that can fill any role. My first thought was using Howling Banshees in a Land Raider, can you imagine that pain of that rolling up :D But unfortunantly that's disallowed from this tournament.

The Goal being to have 2 seperate armies fighting together, not creating 1 army from 2 different codexes.

So after determining the strengths of each army you should decide on what the goal is for your team. Are you trying to play a Gun Line, a Mobile Force, or something that can move from one to the other.

With that in mind, then start picking the best units from each codex and building something that will feel in the weaknesses of the other. And if that fails, build yourself something you'll have fun playing and tell you friend the same.

At the moment we're still argueing our strategy a little but I think we're close at hand. The tourny is in a Week and I'll share what I lrean from that.

-Mike

The Braying of Beasts!

So with the coming of the Beasts this February, I decided to talk about something that I've always wanted to do. Take an all Minotaur army! As some of you know from reading my introduction, I am a die hard Dwarf collector and player. I guess in some ways I relate to the stubborn earth diggers, more so then those airy fairy elves any way.

One thing I've been reading in the rumors is that first off they will allow you to field Minotaurs as Core choices if you take a Doombull as your Lord. The second is that Minotaurs will be hard hitters and actually worth their points. People have always said "Oh just use Minotaurs but Count them as Ogre Kingdoms." Between you and me, I really didn't like the Ogre Kingdoms army. While the premise is cool, I just really didn't like the army list and butchers and such. It seemed like they threw in units hear and there and then tried to make them make sense.

Ogre Kingdoms could of worked but you were very limited in what you could field also. Taking a look at the contents of the Minotaur Plastic box set, you have a huge range of options. You want Two-Handed Great Weapons, well they got that. Sword and Board? They have that in there as well. Oh look they also have two hand weapons. Also the ability to create Full Command for your Minos.

Let's not stop there; the sculpts look very nice. They don't look like pot bellied larger then life beastmen. They LOOK like savage blood thirsty Minotaurs. I do feel that they overdid the muscles a little bit, but then again they look better then the older metal ones.



I'm also liking the new metal Doombull. He just looks mean. His pose and stance just scream, "I'm here to mess you up... don't run... you'll only die tired". Again I'm not real impressed with the overdone muscles, but then again the painter may be to blame for overemphasizing them.

Of course rumors say the Doombull is a close combat monster. A rival to Vampire Lords with their gifts and stat line. I will of course wait and see. Rumors are just that rumors. We will have to wait and see in the first week of February.

Building and Painting a Wave Serpent

Ode to a Wave Serpent, oh how yea brings the flames of war upon the heads on my enemy so that I can see them melt at my feet.

Lol, CoolKidRoc here, so for many of you, you probably know that Eldar is currently my main army having started them last year I've gone through quite a few units, but my favorite has to be a Wave Serpent filled with those fiery dragons you see above. I usually run two squads and they've yet to fail me.

But this isn't about what I run it's about the easiest way to get your serpent built and painted, or vice versa.



Ok, so as usually excuse the bad pictures, I've not been able to scrounge up money on that new camera yet :P

But as you can see above is the waveserpent with the bottom put together, and the top together. I primered the bottom in white and the top pieces in black. For the bottom I then used chaos black to blacken the engines.



Here are all the individual parts that are not together when I start painting, you can see that the pilot is together and painted. It's very important to do this before you put it together if you want to actually get any details on the pilot.



So after painting the pilot I usually go back and start working on all the green that goes into my tanks. I used to start off with Dark Angels Green, but then I would just end up repainting most of it in Snot Green, so now I start off with Snot Green, and paint everything that will be green in Snot Green.



Here again is everything in Snot Green.



So with the first coat on, It's time to add the pilot and the windshield, make sure to be very picky with the amount of glue you put on otherwise it'll go to the windshield and it won't be able to open.



Here you can see the Pilot and the windshield, there is also that special Y shaped piece behind the pilots head. Make sure you have that there because it holds the windshield in place.



I usually place it where it needs to go, flip it over and make sure the windshield will open and close. Then glue around where the seat touches the hull of the wave serpent.



With the pilot and windshield in place you can glue the top and bottom together, just glue where they should touch and grab some rubber bands and let dry for a bit, usually about 5-10 minutes is fine but if I'm watching a good TV show I'll leave it there a while ;)



Ok so with the glue dry I start on making the green pop by dry brushing the entire hull in Goblin Green. Be generous, as it gives it a nice weathered look.



After that then highlight the raised areas with Scorpion Green.



With the greens done, I then start adding the Vines, I usually go thin almost like using a pen to trace out where I want the vines to go, and then I go back and thicken the vines aftwards. You can also see I've painted the Shield Generators white.



















After that it's all about adding the little details, the vine needles are pretty easy to do, and finding the runes you would like to paint red. With those done add some decals and you've got a Wave Serpent ready for the table.

-CKR

Another Introduction

Greetings all. I too have been called upon to provide my unique take on things. I've been playing GW games since '88 and other games as they've come and go. Currently I have a rather large Imperial Guard Army for 40K as well as a Deathwing Army. For Fantasy I run Dwarfs and have collected quite a few of them. I have an article showing up in the latest issue of Tales of Battle which of course features the mighty Dwarf Entrenchment and it's uses.

Anyway, I digress. I also play Warmachine, Warlord, and just starting Malifaux. I also do Pen and Paper RPGs, Board Games, etc. I'm also a fan of PC Games and Console Games. So as you can see, I'm a gamer in more flavors than one.

I look forward to providing you all with some decent content to read while at work or home. Things should go well and hopefully we all have fun along the way. If not... we can all blame CoolKidRoc.

Blood Angels Coming This April

If you've not heard the latest and greatest news well here it is. Some of the biggest baddest meanest power armor marines are on the way, the Blood Angels, scheduled to arrive this April.

Expect to see new metals and plastics for the range, and in from what we've seen in the past a couple new units and some new special characters. As we learn more we'll keep you informed.

-CKR

Beastmen: Advance Order

GW just announced pre-ordering of Beastmen for Warhammer Fantasy. There are plenty on new and amazing models out there to see. To see the awesomeness that is the Beastmen Click Here!

Modeler's Best Friend

So my new best friend is right there, pictured there to the left. You have no idea what it's done for me. I've got 10+ years as a modeler and a gamer without a set of sprue cutters until my wife so kindly went and got me some.

Let's just say, it was amazing, I took that unopened box set of Space Hulk (no worries I've played it, with my friend's set) sat down on the couch with what ever was on TV at the time and in less then an hour had all the models clipped out. Let's just say it was nice not stabbing myself with a knife and hunched over a cutting board.

For anyone who hasn't gotten there hands on a set of clippers, run over to your local hobby store and pic them up, well worth the 10 dollars you'll spend and you'll end up going through quite a few less blades on your knife, and you won't end up breaking the tips off either :D

The only shame was going back and cleaning up where I snipped with the clippers, but I usually have to trim extras off when I use the knife anyways. Let's just say I don't usually do as many models that are in the Space Hulk set at a time.

-CKR

Space Wolf FAQs are Up

So the new Space Wolf FAQ is up and lets just saw wow. There are some interesting things occuring in there:

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m800008a_FAQ_SpaceWolves_2009

My Favorite so far has to be this one;

Q. Does Lukas the Trickster’s The Last Laugh
ability affect friendly models? How about
vehicles? Or Warlord-class Titans, for that
matter?

A. Yes in all three cases – it affects any unit in
base contact. Stasis fields are very all-or-nothing
affairs!

Guess what, you killed my Lukas but I just took out your Titan, who's laughing now :) I think it'd be fun now to just rush him in against all kinds of units. Can't take out that pesky dreadnaught, well just wait and stasis field will take care of it.

There are a couple other good ones here that have been heating up the forums since the codex game out;

Q. Is the +1 Toughness from a Thunderwolf
Mount considered bonus Toughness, i.e. the
model becomes Toughness 4(5), or is it a
modification to the base characteristic, i.e. the
model becomes Toughness 5?

A. Unusually for such bonuses, it is a
modification to the base characteristic. Effectively
the two creatures have a combined profile with
Toughness 5. This is because the Toughness value
represents both the Toughness of the Space
Marine and the Toughness of the Thunderwolf
(which is if anything more impressive than even a
member of the Astartes). It is not just an
enhanced Toughness for the Space Marine, as
with a Space Marine bike. After all, a Space
Marine bike cannot react on its own, and is
useless without a rider, whereas a giant
monstrous wolf is still a tough customer!


Counter Attack, Furious Charge and Deffensive Grenades

Q. Picture this: My Grey Hunters unit including
Ragnar Blackmane is assaulted and makes a
successful Leadership test to Counter-attack. Do
they then benefit from his Furious Charge ability
(+1 S and +1 I)? Also, can the original assaulter
then deploy defensive grenades to rob the Space
Wolves of their Counter-attack bonus?

A. The Counter-attack special rule states ‘all
models in the unit get the +1 assault bonus to
their attacks, exactly as if they too had assaulted
that turn.’ Therefore Ragnar’s unit does indeed
benefit from Furious Charge. Also, we think it is a
bit rich for an assaulting unit to get the bonus for
attacking and defending, so no, defensive
grenades cannot be used to negate the bonus
attack from counter-attacking.


And one I had argued for one the Forums for a while, dealing with Fen Wolves as Wargear;

Q. Can an Independent Character who has taken
Fenrisian Wolves as wargear join another unit as
if he were on his own?

A. Yes – in fact you could potentially have a unit
that included several Independent Characters, all
of whom have Fenrisian Wolves, though each set
of Fenrisian Wolves must still remain within 2" of
their Independent Character master.

HTUD: Doubles Tournament

HOBBYTOWNUSA DALLAS WARHAMMER 40K
DOUBLES TEAM TOURNAMENT

SCHEDULE SATURDAY, JANUARY 23, 2010:

10am: Check-in
10:15am – 12:15pm: Round One
12:15pm – 1pm: Lunch
1pm – 3pm: Round Two
3pm – 3:15pm: Break
3:15pm – 5:15pm: Round Three
5:30pm: Awards Ceremony

FORMAT:

•Players register as one Doubles team consisting of two players, with their armies playing as allies.

•Each Doubles team presents an allied force not to exceed 1500 total points, comprised of two independent armies--one controlled by each team member--neither to exceed 750 points.

•Each Doubles team member's army must have 1 HQ and 1 Troops choice; one standard Force Org chart must be used to compose the 1500 point Doubles force but individual slots other than the mandatory HQ and Troops requirement per player may be divided amongst the two team member's armies as they choose.

•Teams will compete in three rounds of 2 hours duration each.

•Victory will be determined by combined gameplay, Sportsmanship, Painting, Presentation and Army List scores; the latter will include points for articulating through background, fiction, or other means why the two armies are allied. no other restrictions limiting army allegiance is in place.

ARMY MODELS:

•Armies must consist primarily of Citadel Miniatures.

•Models must follow the “What You See Is What You Get” (WYSIWYG) principle, meaning all weapons, wargear, upgrades, etc must be recognizably represented on the model.

•Forge World/Imperial Armour may only be used where they represent 'codex' options (vehicle doors/upgrades/weapons choices).

PRINCIPLES OF PARTICIPATION:

•Rulings of Event Moderators are final.

•Poor, argumentative or disruptive conduct will result in discharge from participation.

•Players will be given periodic time updates, and will in turn ensure 1) each side completes equal number of turns; 2) each round is completed before time is called by a moderator; and 3) each game sees a reasonable number of turns completed to ensure a fair result (generally four--any round in which at least four turns are not completed by both sides will be carefully scrutinized by moderators and any Doubles team involved in multiple rounds of such conduct may be subject to discharge if it is determined they are intentionally 'sandbagging').

DOUBLES-SPECIFIC RULES:

• Both players on a Doubles Team perform movement, Shooting and Assault phases jointly, but are--unless noted following--separate armies for any game rules. They are allied but independent. Special rules affecting entire armies or the equivalent should be read as affecting only the controlling player's portion of the team (An Ork Player's Waagh! will affect only his orks, for example, even if he is allied with another Ork Player). The common rulebook or codex phrase "All friendly models" should be read to mean "All models in the controlling player's army" for this Doubles event.

•Characters from one team member's army may not begin a game attached to units from his teammate's army but may, in the course of play, join an allied army unit if said unit meets the conditions allowing it to do so. Any such joined character/unit combination is restricted by whichever is lesser as regards movement, special rules, etc, subject to the normal Universal Special Rules conventions.

•Special or named Characters are allowed subject to any specific rules limiting that character's participation. The Doubles team point total of 1500 is used to determine points-related eligibility. No team may duplicate any Special or named Character, even as a template for a renamed/DIY army. If a Character alters Force Organization, classification of scoring-vs-nonscoring, etc, this applies only to the controlling team member's army *unless* both team members are fielding the same type army (both Ultramarines, for example), choose to have it affect the entire force and so declare to their opponents ( if one team member chose Belial then both team members could field Deathwing armies, for example).

•Chaos Icons, Teleport Homers/Locator Beacons, etc , affect only the controlling team member's army.

•Black Templar team members must select an Emperor's Champion. If both players on a team play Black Templars, each must select their own.

Force Organization PER DOUBLES TEAM:

H.Q.: 2 (1 Each)
Troop: 2-6 (1 Each Minimum)
Elite: 0-3
Fast Attack: 0-3
Heavy Support: 0-3

New Year's Resolution :D

Ok, so I know that most people probably have different New Years Resolutions, and I'm making mine out today, and that is to post on here every single day. That's right, I'm getting crazy, some people are painting a model a week, others are loosing weight. I'm going to fill the great void of Google with my writings :D

So here's what to expect, plenty of me telling you what's cool and not cool in 40k. More pictures of upcoming models and armies I'm working on. Maybe the occassional rumor run off from other sites. New/or new to you strategies and well, maybe just what I ate that day. But I'm going to do it, I will, except for two weeks in August, I'll be on vacation ;)

Hope to see you guys around, and to make up for not starting this 5 days earlier, I'll just have to do a cool tutorial that I should've posted last year.

Cheers :D

Lone Star Dallas: Avatar Painting Contest

Hey Everyone, just got done with another painting contest. This was for the Lone Star Dallas Avatar Contest. It was to show off the guy that represents your army on the field of battle. I entered 3 times :D Yeah I know... But they had 3 categories, Warhammer Fantasy, so I put in the Blood Thirster, then 40k and I put in my Wraithlord, and then Purchased Models, and this was ones that had been purchased with a receipt, so pretty much 3 weeks to buy build and paint. And for that one I converted Pedro Kantor into a Deathwatch Marine Captain. Look below for some more pics of the conversion and the model.

So here are all the bits I used for Pedro. You can see I'm using a different backpack so I can put a new banner on him. I also was able to get my hands on a Death Watch Shoulder pad (which was a little bit of a beating)



So Deathwatch fluff says that when a marine serves his time in the Deathwatch he takes his left shoulder pad and moves it over to the right side, leaving it painted in it's original state to keep the machine spirit of the armor happy. Well with Kantor that's kind of a pain considering it was attached to his arm. I ended up sawing it off, and then taking my drill and drilling out the rest of the arm from the shoulder pad.



So here's the right shoulder pad, the one that needs to be replaced with his left. I had considered sawing the arm off again, but it was starting to mess up the armor as I got going. So I needed up pulling out my wire clippers and drill. It took me about 3 hours to get off enough to be able to place the other pad on there.



Here you can see how I green stuffed the arms and pads back together. Note green stuff doesn't actually hold things in place, so after the green stuff had dried the arms were a bit wobbly, so I pulled them off and used super glue to actually glue them onto the body.



First time trying white as a base coat, I was actually really happy with what it did for my colors, but man was it a pain repainting everything black.



Here are pictures of the final model. For the banner I ended up printing a banner off the internet and painting over it. I'm very happy with the way the model turned out.







And I'm sure you're wondering what the final results were, well here's the list of the winners :D

•Best Overall Avatar: Mark, Chaos Space Marines Lord of Khorne
•Best Warhammer Avatar: Michael, Chaos Daemon Bloodthirster of
Khorne
•Best 40K Avatar: Josh, Chaos Space Marines Lucius the
Eternal
•Best Youngblood Avatar: Brady, Tyranid Red Terror
•Best Store-Purchased Entry: (name unknown), Deathwatch Space Marine

So for some reason they didn't take down my name when I dropped off my DW Kantor but here's the proof of me building him ;)

*Last Names have been removed to respect everyone's privacy on the Internets :P