The Wraith Gate

750pt and 1,000 pt Eldar

2011-12-30T06:58:00.002-06:00

I was recently asked how to take my 1,850 point Eldar army down to 750 and 1,000 pts. That's a hard one for me as 1,500 is really the lowest point level I play, and I enjoy playing it. But I pulled up good old army builder and did a little thinking and came up with this.

At 750 pts, I would try something along these lines;

-=HQ=-
Farseer - 93 (or 95)
Singing Spear, Runes of Warding, Guide (or Doom)

-=Elites=-
Fire Dragons x5 - 190
Wave Serpent, TL-Shuriken Cannons, Spirit Stones

-=Troops=-
Guardian Jetbike Squad x6 - 202
2x Shuriken Cannon
Warlock, Embolden

Guadian Jetbike Squad x3 - 66

-=Fast=-
Warp Spiders x4 - 137
Exarch, Powerblades, Death Spinner x2

-=Heavy=-
Warwalker - 60
2x Scatter Laser

With this list you'll be playing a pretty mobile army with some good str 6 weapons that can reach out and touch someone or get into position to do so. The Farseer will ride with the Dragons, and either guide them, or doom their target. Doom really isn't necessary for them, so I find guiding and being able to hit the target to be the better choice.

The bikes will be a harassing unit, moving around the board, shooting at targets of opportunity and then moving into take objectives near the end of the game.

At 1,000 pts, try adding these;

-=Elites=-

Fire Dragons x5 - 190
Wave Serpent, TL-Shuriken Cannons, Spirit Stones

-=Heavy=-

Warwalker - 60
2x Scatter Laser

With these two units added, your opponent will have a hard time going after your troop choices and ignoring the pain that these can bring. But play smart, don't think your opponent won't shoot down your troops if you leave them out in the open.

Custom Minis Stress Test!

2011-11-20T22:23:00.001-06:00

A comparison between Custom Minis models and Games Workshop and Forge World to see which can stand up to the heat!

Grey Knight Inspiration

2011-09-19T15:55:00.000-05:00

This is the inspiration for my next Grey Knight Army. I want to paint like this and be this awesome!

That is all...

Well except for another couple by James Wappel, he's my painting hero at the moment.

New Goodies from Custom Minis

2011-08-28T08:48:00.000-05:00

Here are a couple images posted on Custom Minis yesterday.

Space Marine Demo!

2011-08-23T10:49:00.000-05:00

I just got done playing the Space Marine demo. Wow was it fun. I can't wait for the game to come out now. If you're wanting to play it today, you'll have to sign up for the Space Marine forums, and they'll give you an access code on Steam.

Here's the link http://www.spacemarine.com/demo/%EC%82%AC%EC%9D%B4%ED%8A%B8%EA%B0%80%EC%84%9C

Dip the Monkey

2011-08-08T10:27:00.000-05:00

The other day I saw one of my fellow hobbyist's miniatures that he had done, and I noticed he had used the Army Painter dip. I've heard talk about this stuff for a couple years now and had been slightly interested in it. But seeing his mini made me want to give it a try. So while prepping my models for 'Ard Boyz this year I figured try it out on one of the models (yes I'm painting my army for it, I'm nuts!).

It adds a very slight change, and I'm not sure if I left enough on the model, but over all I'm quite happy with the way this model turned out. One thing you have to do however is also get an Anti-Shine varnish or the model will come off super glossy.

The only issue is the start up cost, the Varnish was $30 and the Anti Gloss was another $11. But I'm pretty happy with the result, and will be trying it out on another couple models to see what the results are.

Podcast Debut: Heroic 28s

2011-07-19T09:53:00.000-05:00

Sunday I spent the day over at a friends, Cowboy Kenny, and helped host the Heroic 28s along with Kenny, Cory and Uncle Buck.

It was a lot of fun, and I hope to do it again soon!

The Horde Cometh

2011-07-17T09:39:00.000-05:00

I've spent the last couple of days putting together the Battle Box I traded for plus Epic Lylith and a Seraph I picked up. I've got to say that these Warbeasts are some pretty epic hunks of metal. I'm not sure I've ever had so much time spent putting together a model, but when you have to pin every little thing to make sure it stays together it's just going to take a while.

Luckily I had just gotten a Dremel and ordered some small 3/64 drill bits and a chuck that would fit it. That made things quite a bit quicker and I wouldn't recommend working with out the awesomeness of some power tools.

I still have a little bit of Green Stuff to do, but over all I'm quite pleased with the way everything is turning out, and I'm already liking the Cork bases they are standing on. I'm going to have to pick up some paint soon to get going on these guys as I'm following another online tutorial for the painting which I think will help them turn out great, check it out, it's Faction Box in 10 days.

I Played Hordes

2011-07-13T16:42:00.000-05:00

A while back I traded some old 3rd ed Rhinos for a Battle Box of Legion of Everblight, the Card Deck and a couple other models. They've been sitting in the closet for a couple months and then last night I made plans to learn to play the game and try it out.

Let me start by saying, I really enjoyed it. While it was quite funny looking down at the table and seeing only 6 models in front of me, it was funnier seeing my friend there with 3. But it was a starter game and we were learning at the basic points level.

I was surprised by how much went into such a small game, the damage charts for Warbeasts was very interesting and having to do all your actions with each character at a time took a little getting used to. I won the first game against Circle, but I did have 3 other friends helping me out, laughing if I was on my way to make a horrible mistake.

The second game I played against a Warmachine army to see what the difference in play was. I couldn't tell much other then they shell out their Focus points in the beginning which seems like a little bit of a pain, but that's their problem. I ended up losing because I can't read cards, and was one shotted to the head, woops.

The third and last game, I was actually getting pretty comfortable with the game, and other then the odd rules question here and there I played on my own against my friend's Circle army again and was able to eat his Warbeasts one at a time and take down his Warlock.

Through out all of this I found my self really enjoying and wanting to play the game more. I even ended up buying some nice hard card sleeves for my cards and Seraph. I also ordered a couple more cards for the minis I already have that are missing there.

Tonight I'll start building my Battle Box, so it's not in pieces when I play again, and you can look forward to my progress on that.

Custom Minis - Shoulder Pad Sale and Give Away

2011-07-06T16:02:00.000-05:00

Check out the new Custom Minis website and store.
http://custom-minis.blogspot.com/2011/07/custom-shoulder-pad-sale-and-give-away.html

Dallas GT: Railhead Rumble

2011-05-26T06:03:00.003-05:00

If you've not heard of the Railhead Rumble put on by the infamous Heroic 28s podcast group, it's time for you to learn about it. It's one of the 40k GTs here in Dallas in a long time, other then the first ever Astronomi-con last year. Dallas has spent quite a bit of time dead in the water when it comes to GW Events but over the last couple years we've seen quite a big turn out for tournaments, especially with the support of our Austin Cousins.

This year, the Railhead Rumble will take place a A-Kon and will be on June 11th and 12th. It's a seven game tournament with the first four games seeding for the second day in which battle points start being awarded. That means that people of all caliber have a chance at winning even if you're not on table 1.

For more information check out the registration page here, http://theheroic28s.blogspot.com/p/rail-head-rumble-registration.html

It's only $40, not a bad deal for a seven game tournament, and don't forget I'll be there, as one of the Judges ;)

Additional Price Increases

2011-05-17T07:05:00.003-05:00

Some more information from Bell of Lost Souls this morning. Looks like there is an updated list of items that we will be seeing go into effect end of May, most likely the 28th to coincide with the increases and switch to resin on the other products.

While we've all been dealing with these price increases for the past few years they seem to be starting to spiral out of control. I may have just bought my last GW army last month. How do you guys feel about it?

PRODUCT	CURRENT	NEW
ASSAULT ON BLACK REACH (ENGLISH)	$90.00	$99.00

CODEX BLACK TEMPLARS	$22.00	$24.75
CODEX DARK ANGELS	$29.00	$33.00
CODEX SPACE MARINES	$30.00	$33.00
CODEX SPACE WOLVES	$29.00	$33.00
CODEX BLOOD ANGELS	$29.00	$33.00
CODEX CHAOS SPACE MARINES	$29.00	$33.00
CODEX ORKS	$29.00	$33.00
CODEX ELDAR	$29.00	$33.00
CODEX IMPERIAL GUARD	$29.00	$33.00
CODEX TYRANIDS	$29.00	$33.00
CODEX GREY KNIGHTS (ENGLISH)	$29.00	$33.00
CODEX NECRONS	$22.00	$24.75
CODEX DARK ELDAR (ENGLISH)	$29.00	$33.00
CODEX TAU EMPIRE	$22.00	$24.75
CODEX CHAOS DAEMONS	$29.00	$33.00
WARRIORS OF CHAOS ARMY BOOK	$29.00	$33.00
EMPIRE ARMY BOOK	$29.00	$33.00
BRETONNIAN ARMY BOOK	$29.00	$33.00
WOOD ELVES ARMY BOOK	$29.00	$33.00
DWARF ARMY BOOK	$29.00	$33.00
SKAVEN ARMY BOOK ENGLISH	$29.00	$33.00
VAMPIRE COUNTS ARMY BOOK	$29.00	$33.00
LIZARDMEN ARMY BOOK	$29.00	$33.00
WARHAMMER ARMIES ORCS & GOBLINS	$37.25	$41.25
HIGH ELF ARMY BOOK	$29.00	$33.00
DARK ELVES ARMY BOOK	$29.00	$33.00
OGRE KINGDOMS ARMY BOOK	$29.00	$33.00
DAEMONS OF CHAOS ARMY BOOK	$29.00	$33.00
BEASTMEN ARMY BOOK	$29.00	$33.00
WARHAMMER: TOMB KINGS (ENGLISH)	$37.25	$41.25
HOW TO PAINT SPACE MARINES	$29.00	$30.00
HOW TO PAINT TANKS (ENGLISH)	$29.00	$30.00
UNIFORMS & HERALDRY OF THE SKAVEN (ENG)	$24.75	$29.00
NECROMUNDA UNDERHIVE	$41.25	$49.50
BATTLEFLEET GOTHIC RULEBOOK	$41.25	$49.50
WARMASTER RULEBOOK	$45.00	$49.50
INQUISITOR RULEBOOK	$45.00	$49.50
WAR OF THE RING: BATTLEHOSTS (ENGLISH)	$24.75	$29.00
HOW TO PAINT CITADEL MINIATURES	$29.00	$30.00
MORDHEIM CITY OF THE DAMNED RULEBOOK	$41.25	$49.50
EPIC ARMAGEDDON	$41.25	$49.50
BATTLEFLEET GOTHIC ARMADA	$40.00	$49.50

DARK ANGELS CHAPTER UPGRADE FRAME	$13.25	$16.50
SPACE MARINE COMBAT SQUAD	$22.50	$25.00
SPACE MARINES ASSAULT SQUAD	$29.75	$33.00
SPACE MARINE SCOUTS	$22.50	$25.00
DARK ANGELS VETERAN SPACE MARINES	$24.75	$25.00
DARK ANGELS RAVENWING BATTLEFORCE	$90.00	$105.00
SPACE MARINE VINDICATOR	$44.50	$49.50
SPACE MARINE BATTLEFORCE	$90.00	$110.00
SPACE MARINE LANDRAIDER	$62.00	$66.00
SPACE MARINE PREDATOR	$44.50	$49.50
SPACE MARINE WHIRLWIND	$44.50	$49.50
SPACEMARINE LANDRAIDER CRUSADER/REDEEMER	$62.00	$66.00
SPACE MARINE SCOUT BIKE	$12.00	$15.00
SPACE WOLVES BATTLEFORCE	$90.00	$100.00
SPACE MARINE VENERABLE DREADNOUGHT	$43.00	$44.50
KHORNE BESERKERS	$33.00	$37.25
CHAOS SPACE MARINE LAND RAIDER	$62.00	$66.00
CHAOS SPACE MARINE PREDATOR	$44.50	$49.50
CHAOS SPACE MARINE DEFILER	$62.00	$66.00
CHAOS SPACE MARINE ATTACK SQUAD	$22.50	$25.00
CHAOS SPACE MARINE BATTLEFORCE	$90.00	$110.00
POSSESSED CHAOS SPACE MARINES	$29.75	$33.00
CHAOS SPACE MARINE VINDICATOR	$44.50	$49.50
ORK BATTLEFORCE	$90.00	$100.00
ORK BOYZ MOB	$24.75	$29.00
ORK LOOTAS AND BURNAS	$24.75	$25.00
ORK BATTLEWAGON	$62.00	$66.00
ORK GRETCHIN	$15.00	$16.50
ELDAR DIRE AVENGERS	$33.00	$37.25
ELDAR GUARDIANS	$33.00	$35.00
ELDAR BATTLEFORCE	$90.00	$95.00
ELDAR FALCON GRAV TANK	$41.25	$49.50
CADIAN HEAVY WEAPON SQUAD	$35.00	$38.75
CATACHAN HEAVY WEAPON SQUAD	$35.00	$38.75
IMPERIAL GUARD SENTINEL	$25.00	$30.00
IMPERIAL GUARD VALKYRIE	$62.00	$66.00
IMPERIAL GUARD CADIAN SHOCK TROOPS	$24.75	$29.00
IMPERIAL GUARD CATACHAN JUNGLE FIGHTERS	$24.75	$29.00
IMPERIAL GUARD CADIAN BATTLEFORCE	$95.00	$115.00
IMPERIAL GUARD CATACHAN BATTLEFORCE	$95.00	$115.00
TYRANID WARRIORS	$35.00	$42.00
TYRANID CARNIFEX	$45.00	$49.50
TYRANID BATTLEFORCE	$105.00	$110.00
TYRANID TRYGON/MAWLOC	$49.50	$57.75
TYRANID HORMAGAUNT BROOD	$24.75	$29.00
TYRANID TERMAGANT BROOD	$24.75	$29.00
NECRON BATTLEFORCE	$90.00	$105.00
NECRON MONOLITH	$62.00	$66.00
DARK ELDAR KABALITE WARRIORS	$24.75	$29.00
DARK ELDAR WYCHES	$24.75	$29.00
DARK ELDAR HELLIONS	$24.75	$25.00
TAU XV8 CRISIS BATTLESUIT	$22.25	$24.75
TAU BATTLEFORCE	$90.00	$110.00
TAU HAMMERHEAD	$44.50	$49.50
TAU SKYRAY	$44.50	$49.50
SOUL GRINDER	$62.00	$66.00
IMPERIAL CRASHED AQUILA LANDER	$24.75	$30.00
AEGIS DEFENCE LINE	$22.50	$24.75
SKYSHIELD LANDING PAD	$39.50	$41.25
IMPERIAL BASTION	$29.75	$30.00
HONOURED IMPERIUM	$24.75	$25.00
40K TREES	$8.00	$8.25
URBAN BARRICADES AND WALLS	$20.00	$22.00
WARHAMMER 40K BASING KIT	$20.00	$24.75

CHAOS MARAUDER HORSEMEN	$22.00	$24.75
CHAOS KNIGHTS	$24.75	$29.75
WARRIORS OF CHAOS BATTALION	$90.00	$100.00
EMPIRE GENERAL	$22.25	$26.50
EMPIRE VOLLEY GUN / ROCKET BATTERY	$24.75	$25.00
EMPIRE BATTLE WIZARDS	$22.25	$24.75
EMPIRE FLAGELLANT WARBAND	$28.00	$29.00
EMPIRE PISTOLIERS	$22.00	$24.75
EMPIRE BATTALION	$105.00	$115.00
BRETONNIAN PEGASUS KNIGHTS	$35.00	$41.25
BRETONNIAN PEGASUS KNIGHT	$15.00	$18.25
DWARF CANNON	$22.50	$25.00
DWARF BATTALION	$90.00	$100.00
SKAVEN CLANRATS	$33.00	$35.00
SKAVEN BATTALION	$105.00	$110.00
VAMPIRE COUNTS GRAVE GUARD	$33.00	$41.25
VAMPIRE COUNTS CORPSE CART	$25.00	$26.50
VAMPIRE COUNTS BATTALION	$90.00	$100.00
LIZARDMEN STEGADON	$41.25	$49.50
LIZARDMEN TEMPLE GUARD	$33.00	$41.25
LIZARDMEN BATTALION	$90.00	$105.00
GOBLIN REGIMENT	$30.00	$35.00
FOREST GOBLIN SPIDER RIDERS	$30.00	$35.00
NIGHT GOBLINS	$30.00	$35.00
ORC WARBOSS	$22.25	$26.50
BLACK ORCS	$33.00	$41.25
ORCS AND GOBLINS BATTALION	$95.00	$105.00
HIGH ELF REPEATER BOLT THROWER	$22.50	$25.00
HIGH ELF PRINCE AND NOBLE	$22.25	$26.50
HIGH ELF ARCHMAGE AND MAGE	$22.25	$26.50
HIGH ELF CHARIOT	$25.00	$26.50
HIGH ELF BATTALION	$100.00	$105.00
DARK ELF COLD ONE KNIGHTS	$24.75	$29.75
DARK ELF BATTALION	$90.00	$105.00
OGRE KINGDOMS GNOBLARS	$30.00	$35.00
OGRE KINGDOMS BATTALION	$90.00	$105.00
GIANT	$45.00	$49.50
DREADSTONE BLIGHT	$29.75	$30.00
WARHAMMER FORTRESS	$90.00	$99.00

BLOODLETTERS OF KHORNE	$24.75	$29.00
DAEMONETTES OF SLAANESH	$24.75	$29.00
PINK HORRORS OF TZEENTCH	$24.75	$29.00
BLOODCRUSHERS OF KHORNE	$53.75	$54.50

TEMPLE OF SKULLS	$29.75	$30.00

(6)SKULL WHITE SPRAY 400ml	$15.00	$15.75
(6)CHAOS BLACK SPRAY 400ml	$15.00	$15.75
(6)PURITY SEAL SATIN SPRAY VARNISH 400ml	$15.00	$15.75
CITADEL SPRAY GUN PROPELLANT 3 PACK	$8.25	$9.00

GW Metals to Resin = Price Hike

2011-05-16T13:29:00.002-05:00

Starting from the 28th of May 120 products that were Games Workshop direct only items will be coming back on the shelves as resin or resin Hybrids. This new range “Citadel Fine Cast” range will be limited in number for the first few months, so we will be taking advance orders for them.

Here are the new recast products at the full RRP;

I went ahead and updated the prices to USD from the Pound floating around the net, and calculated the change in cost.

Blood Angels
COMMANDER DANTE £10.50 - $17 - was $17 - hike + $0
ASTORATH THE GRIM £12.50 - $20 - was $17 - hike + $3

Chaos Daemons
SKULLTAKER £14.50 - $23.50 - was $20 - hike + $3.50
FLAMERS OF TZEENTCH £15.50 - $25 - was $22.50 - hike + $2.50

Chaos Space Marines
ABADDON THE DESPOILER £14.50 - $23.50 - was $22 - hike + $1.50
HURON BLACKHEART £10.50 - $17 - was $17 - hike + $0
CHAOS SPACE MARINE RAPTORS £25.50 - $41.50 - was $45 - hike - $3.50
DEATH GUARD PLAGUE MARINES £25.50 - $41.50 - was $35 - hike + $6.50
NURGLE DAEMON PRINCE £21.50 - $30 - was $35 - hike -$5

Dark Eldar
DARK ELDAR ARCHON £9.50 - $15.50 - was $15 - hike + $.50
LELITH HESPERAX £10.50 - $17 - was $15 - hike + $2
URIEN RAKARTH £10.50 - $17 - was $15 - hike + $2
DARK ELDAR SUCCUBUS £9.50 - $15.50 - was $15 - hike + $.50
DARK ELDAR INCUBI £23.00 - $37.30 - was $29.75 - hike + $7.55
DARK ELDAR MANDRAKES £20.50 - $33.30 - was $29.75 - hike + $3.55

Eldar
ELDAR AUTARCH WITH POWER WEAPON £10.50 - $17 - was $15 - hike + $2
THE AVATAR OF KHAINE £22.50 - $36.50 - was $30 - hike + $6.50
HARLEQUIN DEATH JESTER £10.50 - $17 - was $13.25 - hike + $3.75
HARLEQUIN SHADOWSEER £10.50 - $17 - was $13.25 - hike + $3.75
ELDAR RANGERS £20.50 - $33.30 - was $33 - hike + $.30
ELDAR DARK REAPERS £23.00 - $37.30 - was $33 - hike + $4.30
ELDAR STRIKING SCORPIONS £23.00 - $37.30 - was $30 - hike + $7.30
ELDAR FARSEER AND WARLOCKS £20.50 - $33.30 - was $30 - hike + $3

Grey Knights
BROTHER CAPTAIN STERN £14.50 - $23.50 - was $20 - hike + $3.50
LORD KALDOR DRAIGO £14.50 - $23.50 - was $22.25 - hike + $1.25
CASTELLAN CROWE £10.50 - $17 - was $16.50 - hike + $.50
INQUISITOR COTEAZ £10.50 - $17 - was $16.50 - hike + $.50

Imperial Guard
COMMISSAR YARRICK £10.50 - $17 - was $ - hike +
IMPERIAL GUARD LORD COMMISSAR £9.50 - $15.50 - was $15 - hike + $.50

Necrons
None

Orks
ORK WARBOSS WITH ATTACK SQUIG £14.50 - $23.50 - was $20 - hike + $3.50
ORK BIG MEK £14.50 - $23.50 - was $20 - hike + $3.50
ORK PAINBOY WITH GROT ORDERLY £10.50 - $17 - was $13.25 - hike + $3.75
BOSS ZAGSTRUK £14.50 - $23.50 - was $22 - hike + $1.50
GHAZGHKULL THRAKA £22.50 - $36.50 - was $35 - hike + $1.50
ORK TANKBUSTAS £25.50 - $41.50 - was $37.25 - hike + $4.25
ORK BIG MEK WITH SHOKK ATTACK GUN £23.00 - $37.30 - was $30 - hike + $7.30

Space Marines
SPACE MARINE CHAPLAIN WITH JUMP PACK £10.50 - $17 - was $15 - hike + $2
SM LIBRARIAN IN TERMINATOR ARMOUR £14.50 - $23.50 - was $19.75 - hike + $3.75
MARNEUS CALGAR AND HONOUR GUARD £36.00 - $58.50 - was $41.25 - hike + $17.25
SPACE MARINE TECHMARINE WITH SERVITORS £25.50 - $41.50 - was $41.25 - hike + $.25
SPACE MARINE STERNGUARD VETERAN SQUAD £25.50 - $41.50 - was $35 - hike + $6.50
SPACE MARINE VANGUARD VETERAN SQUAD £25.50 - $41.50 - was $35 - hike + $6.50

Space Marine - Dark Angels
DARK ANGELS COMPANY MASTER £10.50 - $17 - was $15 - hike + $2

Space Marine - Black Templars
THE EMPERORS CHAMPION £9.50 - $15.50 - was $15 - hike + $.50
BLACK TEMPLARS SWORD BRETHREN SQUAD £25.50 - $41.50 - was $41.25 - hike + $.25

Space Wolves
NJAL STORMCALLER £14.50 - $23.50 - was $22.25 - hike + $1.25
CANIS WOLFBORN £30.00 - $48.70 - was $41.25 - hike + $7.45
LOGAN GRIMNAR £14.50 - $23.50 - was $20 - hike + $3.50

Tau
TAU ETHEREAL WITH HONOUR BLADE £9.50 - $15.50 - was $15 - hike + $.50
TAU SNIPER DRONE TEAM £23.00 - $37.30 - was $33 - hike + $4.30

Tyranids
TYRANID ZOANTHROPE £15.50 - $25 - was $22.25 - hike + $2.75
TYRANID TYRANT GUARD £15.50 - $25 - was $22.25 - hike + $2.75
TYRANID HIVE GUARD £15.50 - $25 - was $20 - hike + $5
TYRANID BROODLORD £15.50 - $25 - was $20 - hike + $5
TYRANID LICTOR £15.50 - $25 - was $22.25 - hike + $2.75
TYRANID HIVE TYRANT £36.00 - $58.50 - was $49.50 - hike + $9
TYRANID PYROVORE £21.50 - $30 - was $33 - hike - $3

Witch Hunters
None

Fantasy and LoTR
83-62 CHAOS EXALTED HERO £9.50
83-63 CHAOS KHORNE EXALTED HERO £10.50
86-60 EMPIRE CAPTAIN WITH HAMMER & PISTOL £9.50
92-60 WOOD ELF HIGHBORN WITH GREAT WEAPON £9.50
84-60 DWARF LORD WITH HAMMER & SHIELD £9.50
84-61 DWARF RUNELORD WITH GREAT WEAPON £9.50
90-60 SKAVEN WARLORD £9.50
90-61 QUEEK HEADTAKER £10.50
90-62 DEATHMASTER SNIKCH £10.50
91-61 VAMPIRE LORD £9.50
89-60 GRIMGOR IRONHIDE £10.50
89-62 BLACK ORC BIG BOSS £10.50
87-60 CARADRYAN £10.50
85-61 DARK ELF ASSASSIN WITH TWO HAND WEAPONS £9.50
81-60 MALAGOR THE DARK OMEN £12.50
10-61 URUK-HAI WITH CROSSBOWS £14.00
10-62 URUK-HAI BERSERKERS £14.00
08-61 GOTHMOG (PELENNOR) £20.50
05-60 ELROND AND GIL-GALAD £15.00
10-60 SARUMAN AND GRIMA £15.00
02-60 GANDALF THE WHITE £20.50
04-60 ARAGORN (THE BLACK GATE) £20.50
04-62 THEODEN (HELM’S DEEP) £20.50
04-61 BOROMIR (ITHILIEN) £20.50
09-60 SULADAN THE SERPENT LORD £20.50
08-62 THE DARK MARSHAL (RINGWRAITH) £20.50
05-61 DAIN AND BALIN £15.00
83-42 ARCHAON THE EVERCHOSEN £30.00
83-43 CHAOS LORD ON DAEMONIC MOUNT £22.50
83-41 CHAOS DRAGON OGRE SHAGGOTH £36.00
86-41 LUDWIG SCHWARZHELM £22.50
86-40 KURT HELBORG £22.50
82-41 THE GREEN KNIGHT £22.50
82-40 KING LOUEN LEONCOEUR £30.00
92-42 WOOD ELVES TREE KIN £30.00
92-40 ORION KING IN THE WOODS £22.50
92-41 WOOD ELVES TREEMAN £36.00
84-40 THOREK IRONBROW £36.00
84-41 DWARF GYROCOPTER £23.00
84-42 DWARF BOLT THROWER £23.00
90-40 SKAVEN WARPLOCK JEZZAILS £30.00
91-40 VAMPIRE COUNTS VARGHULF £21.50
91-42 COUNT MANNFRED £22.50
91-41 VAMPIRE COUNTS BLOOD KNIGHTS £61.50
88-41 KROQ GAR £40.00
89-44 GOBLIN SPEAR CHUKKA £18.50
89-43 SAVAGE ORC GREAT SHAMAN ON WAR BOAR £15.50
89-41 ORC WARBOSS ON WYVERN £40.00
89-42 GOBLIN ROCK LOBBER £23.00
89-45 GORBAD IRONCLAW £30.00
89-40 AZHAG THE SLAUGHTERER £55.00
85-41 DARK ELVES REAPER BOLT THROWER £18.50
08-40 THE DARK LORD SAURON £25.50
08-42 GULAHVAR THE TERROR OF ARNOR £30.00
08-43 MORDOR TROLL CHIEFTAIN £25.50
02-40 THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING £37.00

Alamo 40k GT 2011: Day 1

2011-05-14T20:21:00.002-05:00

Day one of the Alamo is over and I've got to say I've had a lot of fun. Beer, Gam ing, and fun people just makes a day great. The tournament is nice and relaxed, 2 and 1/2 hours of game time for 2,000 points, which for me and my games have given us plenty of time to play without running in any time issues or even a warning to hurry up and finish.

My first game was against Space Wolves. It was a quick and fun game. I was able to get first turn, and pull off scout move with the Dreadknight and a Purifier squad. The two squads then charged his two long fang squads on the first turn, Vindicare blew up his Land Raider and the Autocannons took out the Vindicator tank. After that it was wittling the rest of the army down. I ended up getting full points for the game.

Game Two was fun too. It was against Codex Space Marines, he was running 3 10 man tactical squads, 2 10 man devastator squads with missiles and lascannon and a 10 man terminator unit. It was capture and control, and he castled in his corner and I spent many turns trying to break through his defenses. I ended up pulling off the win with a bad die roll on his part that caused his last scoring squad to get pinned, I think was able to take them out and was left with the only scoring unit on the table and an objective.

Game Three was by far the most difficult game I've played in a while. It was against Nick Rose from Bell of Lost Souls and he was playing a hybrid deathwing Black Templars list. We literally beat each other to pieces and pieces. It was an anhilation game and was a lot of fun. Nick's a great guy and puts up a good fight, it was also nice discussing the game and seeing what I could have done differently next time.

Overall I'm really enjoying the Alamo and can't wait for tomorrow!

Grey Knights: Army Done

2011-05-14T20:19:00.001-05:00

Now that Blogger is working again I can get a little post in here. So I was able to finish up my Grey Knight army Thursday Night and let me just say I'm very happy with the way it turned out.

Grey Knights: Army Painting Progress

2011-05-09T06:33:00.007-05:00

So after a little more then a week of work I have finish up all of the infantry and three rhinos for the Alamo GT. I wouldn't say they're 100% done yet though as I've still got some inks I want to throw on them and the like, but as time is running out and my poor fingers are starting to cramp it's time to call them done for the round and move on.

That means all that's left for me are the two dreadnaughts, one dreadknight and the stormraven which I'll be painting Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I'm looking forward to seeing how they come out, and I might have a little surprise to show for the stormraven.

Cowboy Kenny - Custom Head Painted

2011-05-07T15:20:00.003-05:00

It's official. Cowboy Kenny is Painted and the Justicar of a Strike Squad. The model painted fairly well, but there was a small texture on the head model that was overcome by using thicker paint to help even it out. I think it came out quite well though :)

I'll post some more progress of the Knights later, I've spent a week painting and have just about all of the infantry done, just need to do the nemesis weapons, and 3 Rhinos by Sunday to hit my goal. Keep an eye out for it.

Calling North Texas Bloggers

2011-04-25T15:02:00.003-05:00

Are you a North Texas Gamer? Do you have a Table Top Blog? Hit me up with your blog address and I'll put you into my blog roll. We North Texas guys need to stick together and keep the community strong!

Psyfleman Dreadnaught

2011-04-22T10:03:00.005-05:00

Hi everyone. So with the release of the Grey Knight codex everyone has been raving about the Psyfleman Dreadnaught. What is that you ask, it's a dual Autocannon Dreadnaught with Psyammunition to give you 4 TwinLinked Strength 8 Autocannon Shots at 48 inch range. Yeah, this guy is going to be tearing into some transport vehicles.

I designed the Psyfleman Autocannons for my Dreads a couple of weeks ago, and just received the 3D prints in yesterday. I'm pretty pleased with the way they turned out. Their unique and cost me a little under what it would have cost for the forgeworld ones. And before anyone gives me a hard time about his torso being on backwards, well he's magnetized, I'll turn him around for the painted pictures later.

I've had a couple people ask me about the prints of the Rhino Front Panel. I got that in also but was not very happy w

Are Eldar Still Competitive?

2011-04-20T08:05:00.002-05:00

Are Eldar still competitive? Hell yes they are. But not all builds are competitive now a days. Over the past two years I have seen pure mech Eldar become much more difficult to pull off successfully. Eldar transports are just to expensive, and the abundance of Str 8 weapons, IG spam, Space Wolf spam make it fielding Armor 12 vehicles quite difficult.

I've also seen seen the Deathstar JetSeer squads become less and less useful. It is way to easy to tie them up in combat and with no power weapons and no ability to dish out a good number of attacks they start to fall rather flat.

So what can Eldar do really well right now. Str 6 Spam. Yes yes, I know spamming isn't what people like to do, but after str 4 str 6 weapons are the most common in the Eldar army, and not only are they common, they are quite cheap. Scatter Lasers and Warp Spiders should be your friend in all Eldar armies. Not only do the Spiders give you great mobility, but the Scatter Lasers are usually attached to mobile bases also. You mix this with a couple squads of Fire Dragons, a Farseer to Guide Warwalkers and Doom your enemy, and an Autarch to allow you to reserve denial and you're pretty much Golden.

Here's the list I've been running for close to a year now. This list is about putting as much firepower on the board as possible, because when it comes down to my dice rolls, quantity is way better then quality.

All Comer's List

-=HQ=-
Farseer - 145
Runes Wit, Runes Ward, Stones, Doom, Guide

Autarch - 125
PWeapon, Fusion Gun, MandiBlaster, WarpGenerator

-=Elites=-
Fire Dragons x7 - 222
Wave Serpent, Stones, TL-SCannon

Fire Dragons x7 - 222
Wave Serpent, Stones, TL-SCannon

-=Troops=-
Guardian Jetbikes x6 - 205
2x SCannons
Warlock, Embolden, Spear

Guardian Jetbikes x3 - 66

Guardian Jetbikes x3 - 66

Dire Avengers x5 - 60

-=Fast Attack=-
Warp Spiders x6 - 181
Exarch, PowerBlades, Dual Spinners

Warp Spiders x7 - 203
Exarch, PowerBlades, Dual Spinners

-=Heavy=-
Falcon - 175
SLasers, Stones, Holo-fields

War Walkers x3 - 180
2x Slasers

Total - 1850

Give it a try, let me know if it works for you. It's been working for me every game for about a year now.

Cowboy Kenny - Custom Head

2011-04-18T09:03:00.004-05:00

So I did this custom head in 3D not to long ago for Cowboy Kenny and ordered a couple extra for tests to see how well they take to painting and the like. I'm pretty happy with the amount of detail that came out of it, and will hopefully be able to see quite a bit more when it's painted :)

Close up shot. He's wearing his Texas Rangers ball cap! Who knew Grey Knights liked the Rangers?

The Alamo GT 2011 - Beginnings

2011-04-18T08:45:00.009-05:00

So once again I've gone insane. The Alamo GT down in San Antonio is May 14th and 15th. With finally deciding to go to the tournament only two weeks ago I have decided that I'm also going to break out my old Grey Knights and well make some changes and have them painted up and ready to go in 4 weeks. You can see in the pictures everything that is painted at the moment, using what I had from the Astronomi-Con tournament last year I have greatly expanded on the amount of Knights I'll be fielding. Instead of just the two squads I had last year I'll now have four squads of infantry and I'm going to breaking out the other fun toys such as the Dreadnight and the not so build Stormraven.

With two weeks of school still to go (finals and all) and two free weeks of painting it's going to be a hard rush job to get these done but I'm pretty confident I can do it. Wish me luck and keep an eye out for progress posts.

That's right, bring the bad boys once again. My GM is going to be using a Halberd and I've got a new Justicar with Daemon Hammer.

One of the two Purifier Squads I'll be running. Added a Justicar with Daemon Hammer again... no theme at all happening here. The other purifier squad is in the background.

That's right, plastic minis. Woot! So I got these guys built over the weekend. 2 psycannons and is that Cowboy Kenny holding a daemon hammer? Couldn't be.

My Dreadknight and one of the dreadnaughts I'll be running. I created some custom Autocannon arms for the dread, I'm just waiting for them to come in.

Close up of the big guy himself. I didn't magnetize him at all. I should have, but it turns out he's not really magnet friendly, I'm going to have to do some experimenting with the next one but didn't have time for this round.

So just 3 Rhinos and a Stormraven left to be built. Quite excited about this project, and not stressed out at all so far.

Grey Knight Front Panel

2011-04-07T18:00:00.004-05:00

So as a Start to updating my Grey Knight Army I decided to do a little 3d work and make some custom parts for my Rhinos. Here's what the front panel is going to look like. I've sent it off to be printed and should have it in 2 weeks :) Can't wait to see it in my hand.

Grey Knights: Dice Templates

2011-04-06T06:59:00.007-05:00

Good Morning! So I've had a couple of requests to get the templates I used for my Grey Knight dice. I've been pretty busy with school for the last well... year. So I'm making it easier for everyone and myself. Here are the templates for the dice that I made. Once you have them made feel free to send me some pictures of them in action. I'd love to see them taking out the evil hordes of chaos!

Dark Eldar Talos and Cronos?

2011-03-21T07:12:00.002-05:00

It looks like Dark Eldar may be getting a new release pretty soon in the form of the Talos and Cronos. There is an article on GW's main web page.

Grey Knights: Crowe and Jokaero

2011-03-10T13:15:00.003-06:00

So I stopped at my LGS today and got a great look at the new dex. I thumbed through it for almost and hour and quite pleased with what I saw. Let me just say I can't wait to have my own copy at home. Up above you can see the Jokaero Weaponsmith. Not what I had been expecting at all but I still like it quite a bit. Think I might have to get my hands on a couple and convert them up.

Here's Castellan Crowe. This model is probably one of my favorite marine models ever. It just looks fantastic. I'm not sure how useful he'll be on the table but I'll be getting him for sure.

I'll post up more when I get the chance.

Grey Knights: Preorder

2011-03-09T07:13:00.007-06:00

The Grey Knights are finally out there for pre-order. That's right, that thing we've been waiting months to see has finally happens and it makes me very very happy! I've got to say I've been perusing around the GW site for a little while now and everything I am seeing just makes me giggle like a kid in the candy shop. Or a mermaid at a swim-meet. Or a...

Ok back on topic. It looks like most of what was rumored has made it to the pre-orders. I'm not seeing our space monkey friends the Jokaero on the web yet, and no sign of the Castellan Crowe model. Both of these were rumored as first wave releases and may be up later in the day if we're lucky.

GW also says that they'll be releasing these models for actual sale on April 2nd. Not to far away at all. So get your wallet out and get ready to spend some money.

Let's move on to some more goodies.

The Dread Knight! I'm going to be pre-ordering 2 of these bad boys. That thing just look fantastic. I was having my doubts with the blurry pictures but you know seeing it now I can't wait to build it, paint it, and play with the bad boy. I'm tired of my small shrimpy Eldar going up against my buddies Nids. I need something that's going to pound there face in with a hammer and I've got that now. My bank account is going to kill me!

While Lord Kaldor Draigo is going to be a beast on the tabletop I'm not quite sure about the model yet. I'm sure it'll look amazing in person but before 2 days ago I didn't realize they were going to release him and was going to use my old Hector Rex model in his place and I still might. I've not put it together yet and I think Mr. Rex would be a great stand in model for the Draigo model. Either way they'll most likely only be seeing games in larger battles.

The Power Armor Grey Knights look great. I am a little disappointed that they are only coming in boxes of 5 and that they're running $33 a pop but I've got to say they packed that box full of everything. It comes with;

2 psycannons
1 psilancer
1 Incenerator
1 hammer
1 staff
1 pair of falcions
5 halberds
5 swords

It also comes with 5 Telporter back packs. So this box is going to have everything you need and more. It also looks like you'll be able to use the close combat weapons with the Terminators if you so choose. I think I'm going to get 4 boxes to start with.

Ok last but not least we have the new Grey Night Terminators. These guys are looking pretty bad A! I believe the picture above is the Paladins with the books above there heads. Also this kit comes with parts to make an apothecary our friend there on the right. I'm very impressed with what GW was able to get into the kit.

1 psycannon
1 psilancer
1 Incenerator
1 hammer
1 staff
5 pair of falcions
5 halberds
5 swords

That should be enough to get you going. I'm going to be picking up 2 boxes to go with my old Metal ones. The designs all look similar enough that they should mesh quite well with each other so that's very exciting too. Unfortunately I'll be out of town when my gaming store gets their codex so I'm going to have to wait another 2 weeks before I can peak inside.

As I find more I'll post more. And be sure to come back as I take a million magnets and find the best ways to make these guys customizable!

Ultramarines the Movie the Review!

2011-02-27T20:33:00.003-06:00

"Is there something on my face?"

SPOILERS

I spent my Saturday going to the free showing of Ultramarines at my somewhat local Movie Studio Grill, I only passed 5 others along the way but that was just fine with me. It was Ultramarines, a movie about a game I've been playing for over a decade now, what wouldn't you do to see this thing for Free!

Now let me be honest, in real life I'm a 3D Modeler and Computer Animator, so my opinion might become a little biased. So I'm going to start off my review with Appearance and follow it up by Story, Entertainment Value, Dialogue, and Fan Coolness. Let's get this review started.

Appearance
Let me just say that just looking at this movie turns me off. The Models are great and true to the Universe but the textures are the first thing that start to fail. Why is it that the marines look like they're undead? Then it get's worse when the marines start to move and jump around. Since when does a 8 foot tall man wearing a freaking tank not shake the ground but look as if he is wearing ballet slippers.

Then we get to the compositing and editing. About 70% of the movie is hidden is dust effects, hiding almost the entire environment and most of the action that takes place in the movie. The editing is also quite bad, leaving pauses in dialog and between scenes where the characters simply stair at each other.

Story
The story leaves something to be wanting. If felt very much like a hack job of Aliens 2. Let's take a small group of novices out and pit them up against some bad guys and watch them all get killed while we bring the alien (demon possessed) infected guy back on Board and have him kill the rest of us until he gets beaten by a hammer. Sure there was foreshadowing but does that make it any better. No not really.

Entertainment
When you start trying to figure out how long the movie has been going so you know when it'll end you know something is going wrong. Like I mentioned earlier the movie had some really weird editing that continued to pull you out of the story. Every once in a while it would break the 4th wall and put you into what felt like a First Person Shooter experience. Does anyone remember that in Doom, did you remember like it, exactly.

There were a couple of bits that were interesting to see, but again the graphics of the movie got in the way. It was either to dark, or there was dust in the way, or something else. Much of the movie just distracted from itself.

Dialogue
So the voice acting was one of the higher points of the movie. There wasn't much I could complain about here other then how some of it was edited. Long pauses between words in a sentence to add emphasis was a common trait of the movie and really stole the moment by making me actually laugh out loud. "It must be.... Chaos" Yeah dramatic little quarks like that, and you just have to laugh.

The script was a little off putting to me too, I understand that you would want to use terms and the like from the game, but hearing them say in unison "And we Shall Know No Fear" again and again and again just got cheesy. If you're going to do that in a movie, don't make it a motto, make it a chant. Jarhead did this very well, "This is my weapon, there are many like it but this one is mine..." Yeah it worked there, but no in this movie. And maybe it didn't work for me because it's the name of a game rule, it'd be like if everytime I got punched I yelled out Feel No Pain. Or When I come back to life, We'll Be Back. Make me smile thinking of Arnold saying that everytime he is shot down and stands back up.

Fan Coolness
If you enjoy seeing the toys you play with on the big screen then this will probably get you going. I've got to say it was cool seeing guys in power armor and Bolters with the shells doing the rocket thing. Are thunderhawks cool, hell yeah, would I have loved to see it do more, hell yeah. It is worth seeing once just because you play 40k... maybe.

Overall this movie met my expectations of no expectations. The graphics were just as bad as they looked in the trailers, and the flow of the movie was just as bad too. Other then a couple good one-liners and seeing Space Marines on the big screen I don't think I would've wasted my time with this movie. I give this movie 2 out of 5 Aquilas.

Henchmen Heavy Bolter Spam

2011-02-21T09:37:00.003-06:00

While looking at what could be the premise of the Upcoming Grey Knights codex I noticed that the use of Inquisitor Coteaz could allow someone to spam Heavy Bolters and Plasma Cannons like crazy. Today however I would just like to evaluate the points and see if it's worth doing?

In the New Grey Knight codex it appears we'll have the ability to take a heavy bolter on a BS 3 Servitor for all of 10 points. One hitch though, if an Inquisitor is not in the unit, the servitors do not work unless you can roll a 4+ each turn.

The Breakdown, in 6 turns we can assume it'll fire 3 times, with a hit rate of 4.5 so for ten points we'll be spending 2.2 points a hit.

A Space Marine Devastator with Heavy Bolter will run 32 points. It will fire all 6 turns and will have 12 hits through out the game at 2.66 points a hit.

We can see that it's possible for players to run a Heavy Bolter Servitor at a better cost for firepower then Space Marines. Will this be useful I do not know, but at least we know that they are not completely useless.

The Rumored Grey Knights Leaked Codex

2011-02-19T08:04:00.002-06:00

If you've not heard about it, then this will be news to you. There happens to be something people are calling the leaked Grey Knights codex. Now I'm not going to say if you click the picture above you'll find it, but I'm not saying you won't either ;) I'm not even saying if you found something it would actually be a leaked Grey Knights codex, it could just be a fan-dex or something else... who knows what you might find.

Can Winners have Fun and Get Prizes?

2011-02-18T07:35:00.003-06:00

"If winning isn't everything, why do they keep score?" - Vince Lombardi

Once again I have run into that part of the hobby that feels you can not have anything good to do with the hobby if you're interested in Winning and getting Prizes. After a local event was posted up involving a painting contest and games over a period of time I noticed that they were awarding prizes but there was no mention of what the prize would be. During my inquiry I mentioned how I had felt unfair about the prize support at the location before, after getting first place in a different painting event there, the store credit reward had not even covered the model cost needed for the entry fee (all of $15 bucks).

"Winning isn't everything... it's the only thing." - Vincent van Gogh

The response to my inquiry was, "Then you probably aren't the hobbyist we are looking for. Move along. Seriously. If you care that much about the prizes instead of the fun, this probably isn't for you." I'll be the first to admit that I enjoy a good prize but I would never claim that prizes are more important then fun, I do however believe if an establishment is trying to make sales off a competition for the chance of a reward the reward should be worth the efforts and at least the entry fee of the competition.

To put it another way, do you go out and buy a 1 dollar lottery ticket for the small chance to win a max payout of 50 cents. No you don't, and you never would, so if a store is holding a competition, in my mind the prize should be worth the cost, time and effort. While time and effort can be hard to judge and rewarded cost is quite easy. To me I feel "worked over" if a store charges people to enter and then hands out a significant amount less in prizes, it then feels like they're taking advantage of the competition for their benefit.

"Winning is nice if you don't lose your integrity in the process." - Arnold Horshak

Does this mean there always has to be a prize, of course not. I enjoy playing games, I enjoy meeting new people, I enjoy background of the game, and I enjoy winning, all of these things are fun to me, and unless my opponent is being a jerk, I'm almost always going to have fun, win or lose. Do I have more fun when winning, yup, just like I have more fun when I'm going faster in my car, or getting more chocolate syrup on my ice cream. Winning adds to the fun of the game to me but it's not everything. Would I pay to play in an event that didn't have any prize support, I sure would and have done it many times, it's no different then paying and then not winning an event that has the prize support, as long as I had fun then that's what matters to me.

"You will never win if you never begin." - Helen Rowland

Prizes are a part of most competitions, whether it's money, store credit or trophies depends on the event. So why did I inquire about the prizes, why is it that I'm even concerned about prizes. To be honest it's a great bonus to winning a tournament, especially if you're unemployed and have no budget to spend on the hobby. It helps me to get new toys and have more fun by trying out more and more stuff. Plus knowing what the prizes might be allows me to know how much effort and stress to put into an event. Playing in an event with a $500 reward is quite a bit different then playing in one with a nice little trophy, one I'll try my best and play my hardest in and will stress over and the other I'll play more for fun.

So can winners have fun and get prizes, sure thing, just the same way others can have fun in every other aspect of the game.

40ks Most Expensive Unit

2011-02-17T09:41:00.000-06:00

For those who don't know the Dark Eldar second wave is out for pre-order and it's full of beasts. These guys look amazing and I'd love to run a pack of these an army. But then I started looking at the price tag and was blown away. This could vary well be the most expensive unit to purchase for it's point value. Let's check by comparing it to other GW Models..

Land Raider - 250pts - $62 - 24.8 cents a point
SM 5 man Tactical Squad with Rhino - 125 pts - 44.4 cents a point
Valkyrie - 100pts - $62 - 62 cents a point
Eldar Jetbikes - 66pts - $45 - 68 cents a point
WarWalker - 40pts - $30 - 75 cents a point
Beast Master and 5 Khymerae - 72pts - $85 - $1.18 a point

I'm not sure about you, but at that rate a Dark Eldar army can get expensive real fast. What other units break the $1 a point mark? Do you think about cost vs points when you build your armies?

Vegas Invitational Dilemma

2011-02-16T06:18:00.000-06:00

I received my Vegas Invitation in my email last night. I can't tell you how excited I was to get it. For one I wasn't in the top 2 of my qualifying event but was third, and 2nd I had completely forgotten about it.

But here's the dilemma, the Tournament ends on the same day I start my summer job. Yeah I know right, it took me about twenty minutes to find the dates for my summer job, where I'll be teaching 3D Modeling and Animation at a summer camp for teenagers, but it starts June 19th, and Throne of Skulls is June 17th - 19th.

So here are a couple of my choices:

1. Reply to the email and tell them I'm not going, and delete it from my Inbox like it never happened (crying myself to sleep).

2. Email my future boss, being as nonchalant as possible, inquiring about the starting dates and kind of mention the invitational and see if he doesn't recommend himself I come in a day later.

3. Show up for the event on the 17th for the non- tournament stuff, and leave Saturday night, after the first day of the tournament and forfeit the second day.

What would you do?

Missions Creep

2011-02-14T11:07:00.000-06:00

Have you started to notice how tournaments are shoving in more and more objectives in a game? It's only been a couple weeks since my last tournament but it seems to me that every one I go to has at least 3 different objectives in each game. That's 3 times more objectives then what the 40k rule book has in it's games. It gets even worse when you start to see your Primary, Secondary, Tertiary Missions backed up by 2-3 bonus point objectives.

This wouldn't be to bad, if all of the objectives could be balanced out in a game. What I've started to notice happening is that very competitive players are no longer building their army lists to try to accomplish missions, but rather to table the opponent. Here's why. If you build your army for the in book objetives you have to have a balance of mobility, survivability, and fire power. These 3 items will accomplish the different objective types in the main game. Mobility to capture multiple objectives, Survivability to capture your opponent's objective, and fire power to gain more Kill Points then your opponent.

But Competitive gamers have learned the Skeletal Key of tournament games. If you build your list for fire power only, then all you have to do it table your opponent to win the game. They know that this tactic is the dynamite to your Rock, Paper, Scissors.

What can we do to curve these dynamite players and try to bring tournament armies back to the all-comer lists we used to see. For starters I believe if we began shrinking the number of objectives and stop rewarding those dynamite players for blowing a person up more then the other player who can only accomplish 1 out of 3 we'll start to see army lists at the top tables that are more well rounded.

We can also start creating missions that actually require the objective to be obtained, and on a table result only minimal points are scored. I can hear competitive players screaming now, "But I wiped them out, that's way harder then the mission!" But what if the mission was capture the flag? You don't gain anything by base camping unless you actually are able to get the flag back to your base. If we start to build missions with this mentality then maybe we could see something other then the normal net list across the table.

As I gain more time, I'm going to try to start creating missions like this. And maybe, just maybe the overall tournament environment can be changed a little (hopefully for the better).

Sportmanship Scoring: Your Thoughts

2011-01-24T15:45:00.000-06:00

Through out the years I have played in many different tournaments. I have played with and with out sportsmanship scores, and I have played with varying types sportsmanship scoring.

But what is the right way to judge your fellow opponent in sportsmanship. I'm going to highlight three different type of sportsmanship schemes and give the pros and cons of each.

1. The Variable Score - This scoring allows for the most freedom to choose how good of a sport your opponent was during the game. It is usually a score that varies between 0 and another set number. For instance it could be 0-5, 5 being the highest score, and 0 being the worst.

Pros
- Gives the player the choice of what to give the opposing player.

Cons
- Is very subjective to the scoring player.
- Is hard to define what each numerical value is in terms of sportsmanship.
- Players can manipulate this score to hurt their opponents out of spite.

2. The Bad Game Score - I was introduced to this system last year at Wasteland Wars and was pleased with the way it works. The basis is that that everyone starts with the exact same score, and at the end of each game you decide if you had a good game or a bad game. If you had a bad game you mark your opponent as a bad game and that's it. If you only have one bad game as a player you lose a small amount of points, but if you have multiple bad games it escalates going from 4 to 8 to 16 to 32 to 64 for a five game tournament. So if everyone starts out with 64 points you will most likely end the tournament with 64 points unless you had something to be a bad sport about. To read more about this kind of scoring check out www.wastelandwars.org or www.alamogt40k.com where this system is run

Pros
- One spiteful hit from an opponent will not hurt your score drastically. Instead of being a 20% dock in a five game tournament it's only a 6% hit.
- It's not as subjective, it's a Yes or No answer to how good of a game did you have.

Cons
- There is still a small amount of subjectivity, and being hit by a spiteful player still hurts.

3. Answer the Questions Scoring - This is the type of scoring I've run in my events. It is a set of questions asked such as;
Was your opponent reasonably knowledgeable of the basic rules? +2 points.
Was your opponent courteous and civil? +2 points.
Even if you got destroyed, did you enjoy the game? +1 point.
This allows you to create a focus of how you would like people to behave and perform at your event.

Pros
- The TO can customize the how he would like an event to be held.
- Players are making informed decisions on what each point is worth and how to score their opponents.

Cons
- Players do not have as much control as how they are scoring their opponents.

These are the three different sportsmanship schemes that I've seen and played through. As of right now I prefer the last one but still enjoy playing through the second one. I have a problem with the first one as it makes it real easy for players to be spiteful if they lost the game. What are your thoughts and which type do you prefer to use in your events.

Incoming: Grey Knights

2011-01-10T07:20:00.003-06:00

At last GW has announced the return of the Grey Knights. Check out their Article Here!

Grey Knights: Rumors or Wishlisting?

2010-12-03T11:04:00.004-06:00

So Blood of Kittens has Release quite few rumors regarding the Grey Knights that are sound a little to good to be true.

In fact they're starting to remind me of my own wishlist from a while back. What do you guys think?

Here is some clarification of the big rumors that have been floated around the Internet concerning the GK codex.

1. GK codex WILL NOT have inducted units. Allies are effectively gone!

2. If it has boobies it will not be in the GK codex if has man parts it will be in this dex. That means Penitent Engines, Argo flagellants, Priests are in.

3. GK and GKT have plastic kits and will be troop choices.

4. Release Date is March-May window.

5. The Stormraven is in (duh) and along with Penitent Engines are currently the only two Fast Attacks slots in the dex.

6. Look for HQs changing the FoC around

7. GW will not take away your toys meaning if you bought 50 Imperial Storm Troopers they will have a place in the GK codex

8. Assassins are in as an Elite slot and any type of GK army can take them.

Let us start with the mundane stuff

GKs are Space Marines they do not have Fearless or Stubborn they have Combat Tactics and They Shall Know No Fear

GKs only vehicles options are Land Raiders, Razorbacks, Rhinos, Chimera and Stormraven. All GK vehicles are immune to Shaken and Stunned. Stormraven is not a dedicated Transport.

GKs do not get Bikes, Jump Packs, or Chaplains

All GKs are psyker and their powers act very much in the same way as Psyker Battle Squad.

GKs will not have access to most Vanilla Marine Gear especially Heavy Weapons and Special Weapons (No Melta Spamming)

Let us get down to some specifics

Brother-Captain Stern has Eternal Warrior and his attacks can remove models from play.

The Grand Master gives out special abilities to GK units (Not USRs) We are talking weapon upgrades and minor wargear bonuses.

All GKs cause Deep Striking units to mishap if placed within 6 inches of any Grey Knight unit.

All GKs Nemesis Force Weapons are Force Weapons and no longer Str 6.

Unlike the Archon’s court from the Dark Eldar Codex Henchman + Witchhunter rejects are Elite slots. These Squads can be mixed and have many options. For instance the Warrior can get Storm Shields and power weapon. Henchman act more like Beast Master Squads than the Archon’s Court.

Henchman include everything Daemonhosts, Death-Cult Assassins, Argo flagellants, Priests, Stormtroopers, Warriors

Holocaust is now 12 inch range large blast

Mystic is now only a teleport homer

All GK vehicles are immune to Shaken and Stunned (Sacred Hull). Stormraven is not a dedicated Transport. All GK vehicles are psykers with LD 10

Blessed is now a vehicle psychic power that picks one facing and raises the AV by 2 to a max of 14

GKs have access to GK Command Squads giving them access to Apothecaries (FNP)

Vindicare has unlimited ammo for all special shots.

GKs have access to many weapon upgrades.

GKs can pay for + str or rending for their storm bolters

Grand Masters give D3 special powers to Grey Knight units. Things like Digital Weapons, Master Crafted weapons, Wolf Standard, but with GK names.

Psycannon is Str 7 rending ap 4 either can fire 2 shots moving or 4 shots standing still.

Incenerator Str 5 ap 4 rending

Callidus Assassin = Long Fangs and Lootas no more. Works like Lictors/Marbo drops a str 4 ap 2 large blast when enters play and can still use the Neural Shredder which is now Str 8 ap 2.

The other Assassin are just updated versions of their old selves with the Culexus especially devastating to Psykers.

Their are three special character Inquisitors one of which will make Henchman Troop choices.

One GKs Special character will make Purgation Squads Troops (yes you heard that right) you can spam psycannons all you want.

One GK Special Character can take cheap termies talking Chaos Space Marine Terminator Cheap.

Grey Knights are around Plague Marine Cost

GKT are normal vanilla marine termy cost.

Nemesis Force Weapons can be upgrade as well increased initiative is one option.

Grey Knights do get a MC a cross between a Talos and Karamazov Elite choice. The plastic kit is done on this one so expect it with GK launch.

Dreadnoughts are Heavy Support.

GKT can mix and match Nemesis Force Weapons and TH/SS and get psy weapons as well.

Any GK unit can once per game gate of infinity with no deviation in the movement face and can shoot, but not assault. This could still be changed to become the new Grey Knight Teleport Attack and moved to Fast Attack slot.

Remembered something about 2000 point armies being about 20 models well this is what I mean…

The reason I held this last leak back is for no other reason than my idealized vision of what Space Marines have always been thematic depicted as. The fluff is filled with stories of Heroic deeds suck things like 10 marines holding back whole armies. This is the first unit that I feel is starting to get to that point of fluff becomes table top reality. Simply wave your magic mouse over the empty area all will be revealed!

Grey Knights will be see the return of the 2 wound terminator. These new elite terminators will have 2 wounds and FNP and access to all the upgrades and options of all GKT in the codex. To make things more interesting one special character can make these terminators troop choices. What remains to be seen is if they will get Eternal Warrior…

Comp Scores: My Thoughts

2010-11-22T20:50:00.003-06:00

Ok guys :)

So now that some thoughts have been floating around ya'lls heads I think it's time to share my thoughts on Composition Scores.

I'll be up front about it now. Through my experiences with different tournaments in different areas and different levels of competitiveness I've got to put my vote in with no comp. The reason I'm behind no comp is because I believe that the codices, to an extent, have been balanced to play against each other with no other modifications. I also feel that you can not (without a pains taking amount of work and quite a bit of subjectivity) make a balanced Comp System. Here's why;

Option 2: Although this is the system I prefer in the event of comp scores at tournaments, especially the openness of how it is scored, there is still a large flaw in it. The problem lies in that not all codices are meant to use and be limited by the same FOC slots. The codices are balanced with each other by being able to use all the FOC slots without penalty. When two armies can take the same exact list, and one is penalized and the other is not you can see the break in the system.

Here's an example. We'll take what some might call a cheesy list of 3 Landraiders. Here's a little 1,500 pt list.

Space Marines
Captain
Assault Terminators riding in LR
Tac Squad
Tac Squad
Bike Squad
Vindicator
LR
LR

So that's a little bit less then 1,500 pts and a comp score of -3 or 17 pts.

Space Marines Blood Angels
Captain
Assault Terminators riding in LR
Tac Squad w/ LR
Tac Squad w/ LR
Bike Squad
Vindicator

Now we have the exact same list, (ok some sspecial rules are different) but because all Blood Angel units can take LRs as Dedicated Transports this list get's a comp score of -0 or 20 pts.

Another Example would be the Space Marine player who can take 3 10 man Tactical Marine squads. This squad has 3 scoring units and no reduction in Comp Score, but on the field depending on missions can become 6 scoring units if needed. Now take any other Army out there (other then IG who can get 14 scoring units per Troop FOC) and they have to fill 6 slots to have the same kind of scoring possibilities. That's -5 to their comp score, or a total of 15 points.

There are many examples like these that lead me to believe that this kind of option for comp is not balanced.

Option 3: Option 3 comes down to how much do you trust your TO's or Judges opinions. What one person might find over the top might not be to another player. It is just too subjective for my liking. One Judge might have been beaten by a simular list the day or week before and feels that it's too powerful. Or they may not like a certain army and so score it lower. The point is with out a clear set of rules set in place before the Tournament, it's impossible to walk into an even knowing if your Army Lists will be scored well or not.

Then there are the horror stories of people walking in with the exact same list and being scored differently on them. Once again if two armies containing the same units can't be judged and given the same score then the system does not work.

Option 4: Some of the different things I've heard here talk about opponent scoring and the like. I think this is about as good as Subjective Sportsmanship scoring (which will be a later topic). There are people not out there, maybe not all of them, but some who will give people very low scores just because they lose. Doe losing mean that the other player brought an army that was out of balance, or that couldn't be won against? Sometimes it's the dice, sometimes there are just dumb mistakes, and sometimes people are just matched up against players of different caliber. As much as I would like to believe that people can give fair and balanced scoring against people all it takes is one not doing so to skew the scores and unbalance things.

There you have it, with the different soft score that there are I don't believe that Composition Scores should be part of the tournament scene anymore. Not only have I been unable to find a balanced way of scoring, but I feel that it keeps players from playing what they would like to play without penalizing them.

And then you always have the issue of someone building a list within the confines of Composition, and an Opponent who doesn't and builds the biggest meanest list they can. Because of what Comp Scores are meant to do, one person has a weaker list then the other and makes for an unbalanced game. Comp Scores may balance things out for overall winner later, but makes for a really un-fun game for those who have to play against the person.

And if fun is the name of the game, then comp should be out.

-CKR

Comp Scores: What are your Thoughts?

2010-11-22T10:49:00.002-06:00

Hey everyone.

Lately I've seen quite a bit of discussion on Composition Scores in tournament use. Now I'm not here to tell you my opinion on it quite yet, but I would love to know how you guys feel about it. So I'll detail out a couple of the options that are being used, and see what you guys think.

Option 1: No Comp Score. (Easy enough)

Option 2: Comp Score based on units taken. Can be seen at some tournaments such as Astronomi-Con. The scoring system can be found here, http://www.mts.net/~xian/astronomi-con/websiteV2/rules/composition.htm

To summarize it, it says you get to use a set number of FOC choices for free. If you go beyond the free ones, points are deducted from the Composition Score depending on what and how many of those FOC slots you take.

Option 3: Judges scoring. I can't remember the tournament, but it has 3-5 judges and the judges look over each list and try to determine how many games the list is expected to lose. The more games it's expected to lose. The better the composition score.

Option 4: I want a Composition Score, just not one you described. Here's my thoughts on how I would like Comp Scores to be.

So it's all about you guys today, let's hear what you have to say :)

-CKR

40k BRB FAQ 1.1 Out

2010-11-17T21:43:00.001-06:00

So much to many people's surprise GW has released a new set of FAQ's for the 40k Big Rule Book. I've only just started skimming through it but is appears to be quite thourough so far. It should solves quite a few questions people have been having.

Check it out here!

The Stormraven?

2010-11-11T13:32:00.003-06:00

Yeah uh... I was hoping for something more. Thoughts?

Original Info can be found on Warseer.

Chaos Space Marines: Army Overview

2010-11-08T07:56:00.000-06:00

Models:
*Plastic to Metal ratio, While most of the Troop Choices are plastic you'll find that a fair amount of the other Infantry models including HQs and Elite and Heavy Support to be metal. Luckily other then an HQ choice and Obliterators you could almost get away with a full plastic force.

*How old the current models are, Most of the models are quite old, there have been some updates to the HQ Daemon Princes, Obliterators, and the new Defiler, but other then that most of the models have been around for about 5 years or longer.

*Anything new coming out soon, as of right now there is no News of new stuff.

*Large back catalogue of Classic/OOP models? There is still a small catalogue of the Classic models on GW's website, but ebay seems to be full of older models.

*Fun/easy to paint, many schemes available to choose from? There are many schemes available for Chaos Space Marines, all ranging from Dark to Darker, and can be varied even more by the Chaos God that your army may choose to follow.

The larger models can be quite fun to paint, but the Chaos Armor itself can get a little tedious to paint as you have to outline almost every arm, shoulder pad, breast plate and leg. Still the models are fairly easy to paint as you do not need advanced painting skills to be able to pull the details off the models.

*How many models in an average army of 1,500-2,000 points, Most armies will consist of about 45-60 models.

*Costs in Â£/$ in collecting the average army, relatively cheap or expensive when compared to other armies, You will probably be looking at close to $500-600 for a 1,500 point army. If you concentrate on having higher point models and large vehicles this could possibly drop to about 450. This seems about average for most armies.

Background:
*Small summary of the race's history, A Chaos Space Marine is a towering warrior, whose brute strength is tempered by inhuman skill. Armed with a fearsome bolter, protected by a suit of power armour and the product of intense training and genetic manipulation, he is far beyond a mortal man, transformed into a lethal, superhuman killing machine. The Chaos Space Marines were once Humanity's ultimate warriors, dedicated to the defence of the Emperor and the Imperium of Man. Having since sworn themselves to the Dark Gods, in exchange for untold power and immortality, they wage war on the very worlds they once fought to protect. Though their noble ideals and goals have been cast aside, their superhuman bodies and military skill remain, leaving them to degenerated into psychotic killers.

*How do they get on with other races, They don't. Pretty much that simple. The Chaos Space Marines are mostly blood driven to destroy the universe.

Play Style:
*General playing style, A Chaos Space Marine army is an army of the most blood hungry, feared warriors to have walked the void. An army of elite, battle hardened veterans it will often be out numbered, relying on its greater skill and equipment to win the day. The Chaos army list is very flexible, allowing you to create an army suiting a number of playing styles.

*Themed army list types, there are a couple of themes, which can be seen in the Chaos Space Marine Codex. These themes are usually broken between Legions, and Gods.

Chaos Legions:
The Black Legion - is a Legion of Chaos Space Marines united to the pursuit of a single purpose and opposed to the infighting that consumes so many of their Chaos Space Marine brethren, as they serve Chaos Undivided. They are always brought together in great numbers when it is the will of their Warmaster, Abaddon the Despoiler, the heir of Horus. Whenever the entire Black Legion is called to battle it marks the beginning of another of Abaddon's Black Crusades against the Imperium of Man.

Word Bearers - are one of the nine First Founding Space Marine Legions which betrayed the Emperor of Mankind during the Horus Heresy, becoming Chaos Space Marines, their allegiance pledged to their Daemon Primarch Lorgar and to Chaos Undivided. The Word Bearers were also the first Space Marine Legion to be corrupted by the Ruinous Powers of Chaos and through their actions they corrupted the Warmaster Horus and brought on the terrible civil war of the Horus Heresy in all its savagery.

Alpha Legion - are the Chaos Space Marines Traitor Legion about whom the least is known. They are experts in infiltration and their armies contain many Chaos Cultists in addition to regular Chaos Space Marines. The Alpha Legion's Primarch was named Alpharius, who was actually one of the identical twin Primarchs Alpharius Omegon, two brilliant and secretive Primarchs, one of whom was reportedly later killed after the Horus Heresy by Roboute Guilliman, the Primarch of the Ultramarines.

Night Lords - are one of the nine Traitor Space Marine Legions which betrayed the Emperor during the Horus Heresy, becoming Chaos Space Marines. They do not worship any of the four Chaos Gods individually, but acknowledge them equally in the form of Chaos Undivided as they ruthlessly spread terror and fear amongst the galaxy's inhabitants.

Iron Warriors - once formed the Emperor's most able body of siege troops. The Iron Warriors Primarch, Perturbo, excelled in siege and trench warfare above all else and his treatise on fortifications and their destruction formed the basis of several sections of the Tactica Imperium.

Chaos Cults:
Death Guard - are one of the Traitor Legions of Chaos Space Marines. They worship and devote themselves exclusively to the Chaos God Nurgle and as a result of his 'gifts', they are Plague Marines—men eternally rotting away within their Power Armour but immune to pain or minor injury.

Emperor's Children - are a Legion of Chaos Space Marines who solely serve the Chaos God Slaanesh, the Prince of Pleasure.

Thousand Sons - are one of the Traitor Legions of Chaos Space Marines who are sworn solely to the service of Tzeentch, the Chaos God of change and sorcery. The main feature that distinguishes the Thousand Sons from the other Traitor Legions is the sheer number of psyker mutations that have always existed among the Space Marines in this Legion. They prefer to use Chaos Sorcerers and guile in combat, relying on their psychic abilities and sorcerous knowledge to earn them victory.

World Eaters - are one of the Traitor Legions of Chaos Space Marines who now inhabit the Warp rift known as the Eye of Terror in the Imperium of Man's Segmentum Obscura. The World Eaters are also one of the twenty First Founding Space Marine Legions, though they were also one of the first to betray the Emperor for Chaos. The World Eaters are the dedicated servants of Khorne, the Chaos God of War and Murder, and live for nothing more than to spill blood in his name. The World Eaters'Primarch, Angron, was one of the first of the Space Marine Primarchs to join with the Warmaster Horus when he turned against the Emperor of Mankind and began the Horus Heresy.

*Competitive list types, - Most of the current competitive lists contain Plague Marines as Troops riding in Rhinos with 2 Melta Guns, 1-2 Daemon Princes, and 2-3 units of 2-3 strong Obliterators for Heavy Support.

*Current tournament standings, The Chaos Space Marines can still hold their own in most tournaments but they are starting to show their age. While not often in the top three it's hard not to find them in the top 10.

Misc:
*How popular is the army, Is one of the more popular armies across from Space Marines, seeing as how they are the evil twin.

*When was the book released, The current Codex was released in September 2007.

*When is the next one due if known, there has been no word of a new coxed.

*Any race specific forums, I've not found any Chaos Space Marine Forums, if you find one let me know and I'll update.

***If you find any information on here outdated or inaccurate please let me know so that I can update, thanks***

Forge World: Eldar Hornet

2010-11-06T11:18:00.004-05:00

Forge World just recently came out with a new Eldar Tank model, that Hornet. Along with some experimental rules that can be used with the new craft.

On first glance the model looks fantastic, although it does slightly resemble a lopster, I can get past that as it seems to have gone the opposite direction of many of the Eldar models, and that's smaller. Which given the available table space with the armies we play these days is a good thing.

But I was quite disturbed by the experiment rules they had given it. With weapons it comes to be pretty expensive. Especially compared to the costs of our Dark Brother's Codex. They're still asking 30pts for a BS3 Bright Lance, instead of the 25 Points for the BS4 Dark Lance.

So after drudging through the Dark Eldar codex for a bit and checking out their point values, I figured I'd come up with my own Experimental Rules for the latest Forge World Model.

You'll have to understand that it's going to be slightly cheaper then some Eldar Equivalents as I feel the current Eldar dex is slightly overpriced compared to current 5th edition codexes.

Hornet.............................................................60pts

BS: 3
Armor: F 11, S 11, R 10

Unit Comp: 1-3 Hornets
Unit Type: Vehicle (Fast, Skimmer)

Special Rules: Scout, Maneuverable, Concentrated Fire

Wargear: 2 Shuriken Cannons

Weapons: Each Hornet may upgrade each of their Shuriken Cannon's for the cost below;
Scatter laser..........................................+5 points each
Eldar missile launcher...........................+10 points each
Starcannon..........................................+10 points each
Bright lance.........................................+15 points each
Pulse laser...........................................+20 points each

Options: Any hornet may be ungraded with the following;
Holo-feild..................................................+20 points
Vector Engines........................................+10 points
Spirit stones............................................+10 points
Star Engines............................................+10 points

Manuverable: The light tank is employed for reconnaissance and raiding, and is often used for hit and run tactics. A vehicle with this special rule may always make a 6" move during it's Assault Phase, unless it is immobilized.

Concentrated Fire: The vehicle's computer systems are adapted to fire on a single target and let loose with all of it's fire power. As long as the Hornet is armed with two of the same kind of weapon, the vehicle can forfeit shooting both weapons to instead fire one as Twin Linked. This counts as only firing one weapon.

Well there you have it, some rules that add a little something new to the Eldar. I think that it uses a little of what the Dark Eldar were able to get in their new book, and refresh the Craftworld a little. Let me know what you think, and if you get a chance to play test it at all ;)

-CKR

Rumor Mill: Grey Knights

2010-11-04T09:40:00.003-05:00

*Thanks to the folks at Warseer.com

Glossary:
SoB = sisters of battle
GK = grey knights
SM = space marines
Inq = Inquisitions
NFW = nemesis force weapon
PA = power armour
AA = artificer armour
TA = terminator armour
PW = power weapon
FW = force weapon
IST = inquisitorial storm troopers

Release date:

Originally January, now looking more like February or March. (Harry reports WFB Orcs and Goblins for March and Skaven wave 2 are slated fro January, so February seems the best bet for now)

Organisation/fluff:

Codex: there is much less focus on Inquisition aspects, and no SoB. No Allies. A GK army.

No allies from/to other Codii. new fodder units in codex. not same as guard units. (penal legion troops are the fodder unit I was mentioning in the past, cause I know someone will ask)

Interesting bit here. Got to see some layout work on the new codex. I'll confirm the rumors of a fleshed out chapter org chart, but it's not your typical SM structure of 10 companies of 100 marines for sure.

The organization of GKs chapter being fleshed out has opened a number of new "roles"

The relation of Ordos Malleus to the Inquisition is also expanded upon

Officio Assassinorum also has an interesting fluff piece...albeit very short

To respond to the wishlisting of justicars being treated similar to Wolf guard, don't place bets on that.
It was apparent from my last contact Inq forces were still present...including storm troopers...but there are other new units there as well. From everything I've been told/heard the focus has definately shifted to GK. Not as many options for Inq, Assassins combined to a single unit with wargear to dictate functional role, Inq retinue changes that will effectively kill the tried and true power tactic of shooting everything in sight as it Deep Strikes in. The utter removal of use of allies from other codex books, or inclusion of units from this book with other armies (Self contained...no surprises there.) Overall I always felt the prior incarnation was inquisition with a dash of GK. The feel I have now is reverse of that...but there will still be very effective Inq builds to be had...so far as I know.

Special rules:

Combat squads were an option I know was playtested.

Some interesting Psychic abilities. just about all squads have psychic options. Heavy on they disabling side. Enemy psykers beware.

Not a lot of Mechanised. But quick to deploy.

Army wide. Daemonic Infestation makes summoned demons less instable?

The basic GK marine profile looks very similar to a SM sergeant.

A conversation earlier centered around an ability named "Out the Heretic" which could be used against non-daemon forces causing one unit to "count as" daemons. 'Out the Heretic' is well received by PT

While External Allies rules are gone by all accounts, it does not mean allies in the codex are gone. Inquisition forces ARE present, just not as dominant. And you will recognize others.

'Shrouding' basically unchanged...also known as nightfighting...one source suggests possible grant 6+ cover save (commentary: does this work with Annointed armor?)

'Rites of Exorcism' daemon units charging as if into difficult terrain.

'Aegis' enemy Psykers within 12" take psychic tests with +1d6

Chaos icons work to oppose GK units teleport ability. A unit with a chaos icon will block the ability of GK to teleport into battle within the icons area of influence. I'm hearing that there may also be other items that hinder this deployment tactic from other armies as well.

Wargear:

The new codex has new options (weapons, equipment, etc.) that will be included in those box sets.

Also, I understand there to be a standard 1 special weapon per 5 man squad, plus special options for the upgraded leader.

Yes, beyond psycannon and incinerator, there are 2 other special gk weapons I know were ptd...but these I can't go into detail on at this time. I'll say one had pretty poor response from the playtest group, but there could be some nice tactics developed to make it effective if it did move forward.

Corrected Psycannon profile:
24" A3 AP3 S6, no invulnerable saves, pinning test for units or models with psykers.
or 36" H1 AP4 S5 5" blast, no invulnerable saves, no cover saves. (does not cause psyker pinning)

Incinerator, no profile changes noted: S5 AP4 A1 template, no invulnerable or cover saves.

NFWs: NFW lose the changing abilities based on rank of user. standardized to PA NFW is PW with special abilities vs Daemons, TA NFW is FW with same. I've seen "other" sites reporting I said nfw gave wound daemons on 2+. I never said that. Not sure where that is coming from. From what I know right now NFW will be +2S across the board as now, but PAGKs will all count as PW, and TAGKs will all count as FW. Then on top of that, all nfw gain additional capabilities vs daemons. Plus unit leaders may have master crafted NFW...not sure if it's upgrade or standard.

GK Annointed Armor: All GKs (TA, PA, AA, etc.) wear ornate armor which has been blessed and annointed to provide additional protection both physically and spiritually. Any GK may always Re-roll any failed armor, invulnerable, or cover saves. Annointed Armor is not wargear. Has point cost. Works with Storm Shield. Not as good at might seem...(aka something else to this rule I dont know yet)

The rumor I had earlier about "Annointed armor" got some additional legs with a small twist. Looks like this could be granted to a unit containing a Gk chaplain. Much like other chaplains elsewhere grant re-rolls on charges, the gk chaplains are rumored to grant counter attack and re-rolls of armor saves...caveat being the reroll is only 1st round of cc... It's a complex confirmation, and taken alone I'd pour salt on it, but given I've heard of the anointed armor prior and recent codexes have some charge related chaplain ability...I thought I'd go ahead and post it. It's definitely taking more realistic tones...

New options for Dreadnaughts including librarian. psycannon arm. Purge weapon...large pie plate, special abilities include forcing instability test for daemons, including Daemons of Chaos armies, pinning in other armies.

Army list:

Do not hold too tightly to past structures and expectations.

As far as TAGK as troops? I havent seen anything indicating this. However, I do recall a discussion of TAGK filling roles in two slots though, possible Heavy and Elite.
The GK jet bike sketches did not look at all like sammaels...no plasma gun. Knights on them has NFW in lance style. Very bullet bike rider stance...ie leaning forward over bike, not upright like marine bikes. Had the swept front faring, but not wing motifs. Looked like twin linked storm bolters under slung beneath handles. Very aggressive looking. Too bad they got axed.

according to a tiny bit I got overnight, GK TAs will have access to the standard marine upgrades, plus NFW, incinerators, psycannons, etc., of course. But he is saying the cyclone launcher for them will be arm mounted like their Storm Bolters. I'm very skeptical of this, but this source is close enough to know, so I thought I'd pass it along.

Inq lords are hq and unlock ISTs as troops
ISTs are elite otherwise
ISTs can take chimera or valkyrie as dedicated transport
Inq lord retinue looks more like imperial guard command characters with some seritors thrown in
Temple Assassins one entry in elite, one stat line, options allow for customization into temple variants...but the actual temples are only mentioned in fluff, so some special rules look lost
Demonhosts look to be out
In troops we have imperial guard conscripts...like an imperial guard platoon, but conscripts only
Death cult assassins still elite, larger unit sizes, though
Penal legion squad in troops, different than imperial guard codex entry
chimeras or valkyries as dt only, and only imperial guard
Valkyries only dedicated transport, no vendetta option
Hellhounds in fast, same as imperial guard, but not variants
Deathstrike launchers in heavy, same as imperial guard...replacing orbital strike

Also, some weird dynamics in the ruleset if you have both inq and gk hq present. But details were not given.

(Ed: so from this batch it looks like inq is going to be viable, but I question really this more from a why standpoint. If GW did this, only the hq really separates it much from imperial guard, but handicapped ig. Hope to see more soon once the nov nastiness ends. Damn de are blocking all my insight into the future...)
From what I've been able to gather, the codex has the following counts...caveats apply:

Including Special Characters, not including variant units eg. exterminator/demolisher

Hq: 8-9 entries
El: 6-7 entries
Tr: 6 entries
Fa: 7 entries
He: 8 Entries
Dt: 4 entries

Ive heard the Army list section is between 12-14 pages.

Playtesting:

GK 2000pt AL from Playtest:

HQ
Grand Master with Retinue
Named character

Elite
5-man TAGK squad + 2 spec weapons
Dreadought - unknown configuration

Troop
2x 5-man PAGK squad + 1 spec weapon + razorback
10-man ????? squad + chimera

Fast
Storm Raven

No Heavies

The Playtest list posted was played against 2000 points of Orks including nobs, mek with kuston force field, lots of boys in trukks, a BattleWagon and dread mob. It was Capture & Control with Dawn of War.

GKs held most in reserve.
PAGKS in Razorback came in turn 2 and moved to boys flank. 1 squad got tarpitted with boys, the other fought thru boys to take objective 1.
unknown unit had HQ attached, spent game trading shots with dread mob until TAGKS arrived to help.
TAGKs TP in turn 4 and later assaulted Dread mob. 4 standing at end of game.
The StormRaven took out one trukk turn 3 and the bw turn 5. Dread and HQ w retinue arrived in it and assaulted Nob mob. wiping it out in 1 round. then started after other boys.

It was reported as a pretty one sided battle. GKs nearly unassailable. GK win with 1 objective and second contested in turn 6. supposedly orks were close to 4:1 outnumbering GKs

Models:

The box sets should all be plastic.

The GK models are ornate.

The biggest issue you'll find with the TAs is scale. The new plastics are in scale with the other TA models. The metals are old scale sized. Its a noticable difference.

But even the AA marines look "bigger", though not to such a great extent, to me.

Once painted, the new models have better depth of detail IMO. And more small details not present in the metals. This is in both TA and AA. The best examples to look at are the Blood Angel plastics to understand how much detail can be crammed onto a figure, but still look good.

Plastics:

Storm Raven. obvious choice. Options for BA, GK and ??? (note, other sources say that a BA second wave containing storm raven and librarian/furioso dread are slated for a separate January release) I've had personal conversations with direct individuals, which would surprise me if the SR model was not a keystone of this release. I've personally seen a few mockups of the SR from the modelling teams, many more from the art team. I know what the final selected design is. It looks better than I imagined.

TA knights: 5 pack, Paladin upgrades, squad upgrades. Psycannon, NFW, SSTH, banner? Supposed options for all will be on sprue. Plus NFW will NOT all be halberds. But the exact nature of them was not revealed to me. If this pans out we could see a lot of weapon options in the sprue...a lot more than would be used. Assault Cannon, PsyCannon, Incinerator, SS, TH, NFWs, Cyclone launchers...seems like a lot to jam in, but if we look at SW and BA boxes those were loaded with bits. The GK TA sprues:

5 legs
6 torsos
8 heads
6 nfw
5 SB
unknown # Special Weapons (includeing SS), but if above holds it could be 6+
GK TA back banner
6-8 shoulder shields
12 shoulder pads
~12 upgrade bits (books, scrolls, crux terminus, etc.)
8 arm sets (sounds like the arms have no hands, similar to sanguinary guard)
4 hands (right/left?)
more?

PA knights: 10 pack, justicar upgrades, squad upgrades, extra bits. NFW, psycannon, incinerator, banner?

walker: There have been some rumors of a GK driven walker. I have not personally seen this in any incarnation. However, there is a boxed walker of some type. I suspect this is a dreadnaught box set that will also have bits for BA. (see above) I've seen other people posting rumors of a penitent engine style walker, with a PAGK driver...I have absolutely no confirmation of such a beast. However, if GW wanted to avoid the cries of "GK dont have Dreads, it isnt fluffy" that could be a way...

Tank: I have not seen mention of a GK troop transport. Rhino based with psycannon options has been in some PT. I list this as possible, but unlikely, 4 box sets of this size are about par for a release, 5 would be a surprise.

Blisters:

New Stern

New Chaplain?

Justicar upgrade character

Paladin upgrade character

Inquisition character

2 other blisters unknown contents

Other:

Later release of GK themed terrain set? Concepts are out and some "preview" shots are floating around if you hunt. Nothing more I can say on this.

Tactics: Reserve Denial

2010-10-09T09:21:00.002-05:00

So at the Wasteland Wars 7 Tournament back in August I used a tactic called Reserves Denial for 4 out of the 5 games I played. It's a tactic a picked up a little from reading the internet and a little from playing against my good friend who was using his Drop Pods to take out make tanks before I ever got to begin my turn.

The point of Reserves Denial is to deny your opponent a turn or two of shooting. The way this works is much like the way going second in Dawn of War works. Player one is on the board, and has their entire army. Then you either have your 1 HQ and 2 Troops, or you leave them all off the board. Player one's turn then consists of moving his units, and if nothing is on the board he then losing out on a shooting phase. Leaving you the chance to come back and shoot after you come onto the board during your turn.

This tactic favors the Eldar quite a bit, as it allows their weaker units the chance to attack before they are shot at and destroyed. It also gives them a chance to either turbo boost or move flat out to get those cover saves in games with very little terrain.

The main issue with Reserves Denial is that it can leave you open for some bad rolling when it's time to bring your units onto the table. I've had a couple games where my units dribbled onto the game board leaving me wide open to taken out piece by piece.

Advantages:
- If you're not on the board, you can't die.
- If you go second, you deny your opponent 2 turns of damage against you.
- Creates a great Alpha Stike ability for your army.
- Lets you react to your opponents deployment and movement.

Disadvantages:
- Creates a chance for your forces to come in sparactically.
- Gives you less time to destroy your opponent/complete objectives.

There are three armies that can really take advantage of Reserves Denial by minimizes the disadvantages. The Eldar, Space Marines and Imperial Guard all have ways to increase the chances of your units coming on the board from reserves.

Eldar: They have the Auctarch, with the master Strategist Ability which allows you to add 1 to your rolls for reserves. Eldar also have the benefit of taking two which allows you the ability to add plus 2 to your reserves. So what are the odds of your men coming in?

Normal: Turn 2 - 50% Turn 3 - 67% Turn 4 - 83% Turn 5 - Automatically
1 Autarch: Turn 2 - 67% Turn 83% Turn 4 - 83% Turn 5 - Automatically
2 Autarchs: Turn 2 - 83% Turn 3 - 83% Turn 4 - 83% Turn 5 - Automatically

You might be wondering why it caps out at 83%, this is because a roll of a 1 always fails, and you always have a 1 in 6 chance of rolling a 1. But with 2 Autarchs you should be very confident in getting 80% of your forces on the board.

Space Marines: Have Varro Tigurius, the Chief Librarian of the Ultramarines and a Special Character. He has the ability, Gift of Presence, which allows you to re-roll any reserve rolls. His ability actually gives you a chance to re-roll that 1 on the dice, and will also allow you to re-roll passed rolls if you have something you want to stay in reserves. So what are the benefits of his re-roll?

Normal: Turn 2 - 50% Turn 3 - 67% Turn 4 - 83% Turn 5 - Automatically
Re-roll: Turn 2 - 75% Turn 3 - 89% Turn 4 - 97% Turn 5 - Automatically

Imperial Guard: Under the Regimental Advisors there is the Astropath. He has the Telepathic Relay that works exactly the same way as the Eldar Autaurch, along with a bonus of allowing you to re-roll your outflank rolls (wish the Autarch could do that). I've not yet seen any IG players do Reserve Denial because it's usually players pulling this tactic against them, but it could open up some possibilities of an outflanking army or something else if you're not playing the normal Gunline IG. Here's your odds.

Normal: Turn 2 - 50% Turn 3 - 67% Turn 4 - 83% Turn 5 - Automatically
1 Autarch: Turn 2 - 67% Turn 83% Turn 4 - 83% Turn 5 - Automatically
2 Autarchs: Turn 2 - 83% Turn 3 - 83% Turn 4 - 83% Turn 5 - Automatically

While people may not always find it fun playing against the Reserve Denial List, it's a great way to counter the Alpha Strike or Leaf Blower list that wipes you off the board Turn 1.

Eldar: Army Overview

2010-10-05T14:09:00.007-05:00

Models:
*Plastic to Metal ratio, Eldar have slowly been updated through out the years to plastics, these include the basic troops, vehicles, and jetbikes. All Aspect warriors HQs and Specialists will still be in metal.

*How old the current models are, Many of the current models have been updated in the Last 5 years, with Weapon Support Platforms and the New Plastic Fireprism/NightSpinner coming out in 2010.

*Anything new coming out soon, as of right now there is no News of new stuff.

*Large back catalogue of Classic/OOP models? GW does not carry any of the older models, but they are still floating around on the internet, and for relatively cheap prices.

*Fun/easy to paint, many schemes available to choose from? Eldar have quite a few different army theme, with many different painting styles and color combinations. The models are about middle diffuclty to paint, but they lend themselves to very nice detailing such as stones, and the like.

*How many models in an average army of 1,500-2,000 points, Most armies will consist of about 45-65 models. Slightly more if you use less transports and bikes and concentrate on Guardian Defenders as your troops choice.

*Costs in Â£/$ in collecting the average army, relatively cheap or expensive when compared to other armies, The average starting army for Eldar will run you about $500. This will include a little variety in HQ and supporting options. Because of the amount of metal that is needed to field the more specialized side of eldar, this list will probably run a little above average when it comes to other armies.

Background:
*Small summary of the race's history, The Eldar are one of the most ancient of races. They are very technologically advanced and known for their speed and psychic powers. However at the apex of their civilization the Eldar were dominated by lusts and sensations at which point their emotions became so extreme the Chaos god known as Slanesh was created, in this event the Eldar race was almost utterly destroyed. Those that saw it coming, went to live on giant Craft Worlds, cities in space. The others that were caught in the wake of destruction and survived went to live in the warp, and are now known as Dark Eldar.

*How do they get on with other races, The Eldar feel very much like High Elves in space. They feel very much above the other races and only deal with them when there is danger to their race.

Play Style:
*General playing style, the Eldar are known for being fast and specialized. Each Eldar unit plays a critical role in doing one thing. If you're looking for versatility, that's not the Eldar. They have units specialized in CC, units specialized in Tank Hunting, etc. The current meta and play style of Eldar requires them to almost take a fully mechanized army as they have low armor values and must survive to do their jobs.

*Themed army list types, there are a couple of themes, which can be seen in the Codex's Craftworlds.

Biel-Tan - Takes mostly aspect warriors (the specialists) which are mostly elite choices, these lists will usually contain 2 units of Fire Dragons for Tank Hunting, 1 CC Unit (Banshees or Striking Scorpions) and then Units of Dire Avengers for Troops choices. All fielding in Wave Serpents, with either Falcons or Fire Prisms for Heavy Support. These lists are very specialized and usually leave the smallest room for error.

Saim-Hann - Are the fully mobile lists, usually consisting of a Farseer Council on Jetbikes with an Autaurch as the Death Star Unit. Then units of Eldar Jetbikes for Troops Choices and Vypers for Fast Attack support. This army is very fast and mobile.

Iyanden - This list is the Toughest (Toughness and Armor Wise) It usually contains 2 units of 10 Man Wraithguard so you can take them as Troops, at T6 they become hard to take down. There is usually 2 Farseers, or 1 Farseer and Eldrad there to Fortune and Doom. And then 3 Wraithlords for Support.

Ulthwe - Are the masters of Psychic powers, back in 3rd ed they were the first to let you take Seercouncils. They are usually very low on aspect warriors and use Guardians as Troops. They've taken a hit with 5th ed as Mobility is now a key factor, and Guardians are not usually worth the points you spend on them.

Alaitoc - Is one of my favorites fluff wise, they are known for stealth making use of the Pathfinders and Rangers found in the codex to snipe off enemies. They will usually have a low Aspect model count and rely on the Guardians for numbers.

*Competitive list types, - All of the current competitive lists are very heavy mechanized. Usually consisting of Dire Avengers in Wave Serpents as Troops Choices or Eldar Jet Bikes. They will almost always contain 2 units of Fire Dragons for reliable anti-tank, and will have a Farseer to buff their units. The rest of the points then go into filler units that help you play to your play style.

*Current tournament standings, Eldar have started to slide in the tournament brackets because of the large amount of anti-tank now hitting the tables. They have a hard time balancing a list that can both go against MEQ units and Hoards. You will usually see one in the top 10 at large tournaments but not much more then that until they are able to find a way to deal with Leafblower IG Lists.

Misc:
*How popular is the army, The Eldar have been a favorite of many since they've been around. They were one of the original races and large following of players who enjoy them.

*When was the book released, The current Eldar Codex was released in November 2006, making it one of the older 4th Edition books, just above Tau and Black Templars.

*When is the next one due if known, it's not known when the next one will be due, but some rumors have said Late 2011, or 1st Quarter 2012.

*Any race specific forums, I've not found any Eldar Forums, if you find one let me know and I'll update.

***If you find any information on here outdated or inaccurate please let me know so that I can update, thanks***

Dark Eldar Advanced Orders begins Today

2010-10-05T10:11:00.002-05:00

The Dark Eldar are now ready to be purchased. Advanced Orders are up on the Games-Workshop site. And boy do they look good!

The Warhammer 40k Army Overview Project

2010-10-05T09:32:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone. I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to be starting a new project for my blog. The 40k Army Overview. Warseer has one for Fantasy and it's a great place to look for a general idea of how each army plays, what it's made up of, it's style and so on.

I'll be starting with an Eldar overview as that is the army I'm most familiar with. But what I'd like from everyone else is for your help in gathering information and assembling it into one place so that those new to the game can have a place to go to for army information.

So here's what I'm looking for.

Models:
*Plastic to Metal ratio,
*How old the current models are,
*Anything new coming out soon,
*Large back catalogue of Classic/OOP models?
*Fun/easy to paint, many schemes available to choose from?
*How many models in an average army of 1,500-2,000 points,
*Costs in Â£/$ in collecting the average army, relatively cheap or expensive when compared to other armies,

Background:
*Small summary of the race's history,
*How do they get on with other races,

Play Style:
*General playing style,
*Themed army list types,
*Competitive list types,
*Current tournament standings,

Misc:
*How popular is the army,
*When was the book released,
*When is the next one due if known,
*Any race specific forums,

So if you'd like to help out with gather information about an Army or even multiple Armies, just send me an email at thewraithgate@gmail.com and I'll start consolidating everything into a nice document for each army so that we can help out the new players.

-CKR

1,500 pts of Eldar

2010-09-28T10:04:00.003-05:00

So over the last couple of months I've played in a couple of tournaments and ended up getting Best Overall in the Hobby Town Championships, and Best General over at Wasteland Wars 7 in Lubbock. So now it's time to share some of what I've learned.

First off, ignore all internet chatter, people have no idea what they're talking about (including me lol) some of what people say works, some doesn't. It's all about finding what fits your play style, and the meta game in your area.

But here's the list I used to win the Hobby Town Championship.

-=HQ=-
Farseer
Runes of Warding, Runes of Witnessing, Guide

-=Elites=-
Fire Dragons x7
Wave Serpent, Spirit Stones, Shuriken Cannon, TL Shuriken Cannon

Fire Dragons x6
Wave Serpent, Spirit Stones, Shuriken Cannon, TL Shuriken Cannon

-=Troops=-
Guardian Jetbikes x6
2 Shuriken Cannons
Warlock, Embolden

Guardian Jetbikes x3

Guardian Jetbikes x3

Dire Avengers x5

-=Fast Attack=-
Warp Spiders x7
Warp Spider Exarch, Dual Death Spinners, Powerblades

-=Heavy Support=-
War Walkers x3
All with Scatter Lasers

Falcon
Holo-Fields, Spirit Stones, Scatter Laser

Total - 1,500 Pts

So just a brief summary of how this army works. The Farseer and the Dire Avengers try to sit there happy butts in the Falcon the entire game. The Seer will either guide the Falcon or the War Walkers, depending on if he's close enough to the Walkers, or if I really need that Str 8 Pulse Laser Shot for popping a transport.

The two small Jetbike squads will start in reserves 95% of the time. Unless it's not objective based and I want the extra shots. But they are there to harass objects towards the end game, and thus must stay off the board to keep from getting killed.

The Dragons of course, are there to take out the biggest baddest thing on the board, they are my demoralizing unit. People seem to start to crumble when their Landraider perishes, and have a hard time pulling things back together. They usually help me win just by putting emotional strain on my opponent.

Then there are the Warp Spiders, these guys are the wild card. No one ever sees them on them board, and I've been falling in love with them over the last couple tournies. The sure weight of firepower is enormous, and wounding almost everything in the game on a 2+ just helps so much. Just remember to always jump back out of assault range :)

So that's my happy little 1,500 list. I'll probably post my Wasteland Wars on here in a couple days.

-CKR

Dark Eldar Teaser Video

2010-09-27T12:18:00.001-05:00

Coming this November!

New Dark Eldar Picture Collection

2010-09-27T10:05:00.004-05:00

Hey guys,

So I did a little scouring of the internet today and yesterday with the big release of the Dark Eldar, and found quite a few new pictures that people had been taking while at Games Day. Here's an Image dump of them.

Enjoy!

The Dark Eldar Announced

2010-09-26T13:16:00.003-05:00

So GW just officially announced Dark Eldar, and sent out some images of the new models. They look quite nasty, and quite frankly I'm jealous that they got the new Jetbike model before us craftworlders did.

It looks like I might have to get my hands on some of these new jetbikes when they come out and do some conversion work, because they are just sick.

And if I could find a use for these guys, I would have them in a heartbeat. Look at that sword. It is just freaking awesome. I could post up some more pics, but they'll be floating around GWs site soon enough. Enjoy :)

What are the Eldar?

2010-09-22T15:50:00.005-05:00

Once again there was a wish listing thread on Warseer. I know it's not uncommon, actually almost a weekly occurrence for one codex to start wish listing until it cycles over again. But the main problem with the Eldar wish listing thread was the need to find out how you want your Eldar to play, or how are they expected to play.

From the fluff of the most recent codex, the Eldar are small in numbers, but an elite group. Each unit specializing in the dismantlement of different parts of an enemies army. The Eldar themselves are much more advanced physiologically then humans, with heart rates twice that of a normal human, their mind processes with baffling speeds, and they can physically move almost faster then a human can see.

What we don't want is a generalized Space Marine army, where everything can do everything. Each unit should have more or less a specific task, do it very well, and maybe be able to do something else, but not to any great degree.

To start figuring out what the Eldar are, we should start by looking at the design of the Guardian. As this should be the most abundant unit in the army, seeing as how they make up almost the entire Troops selection.

What we're looking for.
1. Small in Number
2. Specialized in their role
3. Advanced Race
4. Dying Race
5. Technologically advanced Race

To satisfy 3 and 4 I suggest to create new Eldar Special Army Rules. As of now they actually have no special rules. Fleet was given to everyone as Run, and Fleet was actually handed out to quite a few groups.

So other then Fleet being there as a Mainstay freebie I recommend adding a rule called Eldar Agility.

Eldar Agility - The Superior Mental and Physical Prowness of the Eldar shines in everything they do. To represent their speed all eldar with this ability have +1 to cover saves at all times (so in open terrain this would be a 6+ cover save). All Eldar with this ability roll 3d6 for difficult terrain and run checks and take the highest result. In close combat, opponents can never have better then a 4+ to hit an Eldar Model with this ability as their shear speed allows them duck and weave in combat.

To satisfy number 4 we need to look at the fact that they are a dying race. The Eldar do not just go out and fight battles on a whim. They are very tactical, and every battle must be fought to be won, or the entire race may be lost.

Eldar Last Stand - All Eldar units with this ability may always attempt to regroup.

This should satisfy both 3 and 4 and help Eldar to feel more like the race they are portrayed to be.

Now let's move on and take a look at the Guardian, the back bone to the Eldar army. There are quite a few things that are wrong with the guardian if we are to consider those 6 simple rules for making Eldar. First, they are not small in numbers, 10-20 is bordering on Ork levels. Eldar are quite frankly, not Green Skins, and never will be. So first thing is we should limit Guardians to 5-10.

Secondly, Guardians do not represent a dying race, or the fact that they are specially trained to defend their craft worlds. Most people say they are just a militia, but remember militias defeated the Elite British in the Revolutionary War. Not to mention these militia are super humans in prowess and have survived for centuries. Not to mention, a technologically advanced race does not send it's troops out wearing paper bags. I believe upgrading the BS to 4, and armor to 4+ will help satisfy being part of a dying race, and the Eldar physical ability, mental ability, and training.

Now lets talk about Technology, especially technology for defenders. Everyone knows you do not defend a place with pistols when everyone is shooting at you with rifles. The key to defense is range, and 12" allows one volley of fire before you're knee deep in your own guts from the bayonet the 18 year old human was holding. To fix this, it's imperative we give Eldar Guardians a 24" gun. This allows a minimum of 2 volleys, and possibly 3. Now lets look at the gun itself. It's a Shurikan weapon, and fluff wise it basically slices through anything. Now I'm not advocating AP4, but I think AP5 with re-roll passed saves would represent this weapon very nicely.

Let's take a look at what we have.

______WS BS| S | T| W| I | A LD Sv
Guardian 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 8 | 4+
Defender

Special Rules
Fleet, Eldar Agilty, Last Stand

Weapons
Shurikan Catapult - 24" range, Str4, AP5, Assault 2, Re-roll Passed Saves
1 Weapon Platform per 5 men
Defensive Grenades, Haywire Grenades

Now how much should these new warriors costs? I think the closest comparisons to these men are Sisters of Battle, Space Marine Scouts, and Imperial Guard Vets

For BS 4 armor 4+ vets, it's 10 points a model, with a Seargent and grenades
For WS 4, BS 4, Shield of Faith, and Act of Faith 3+ Sisters it's 11 points a model
For Str 4, T 4, ATSKNF, Scout, Infiltrate, Move through Cover, grenades Scouts it's 13 points a model

I think 11 Points a model would be about appropriate for the new stats on the Guardian Defenders. Sure it's about 3 points more a model then before, but they'd actually be worth taking, and would feel much more like Eldar then they do now.

Let me know what you guys think.

-CKR

Strength 6 the new 10

2010-09-22T15:31:00.003-05:00

Firstly, why oh why don't my Warp Spiders look like that!?!

Ok, moving on. I've recently discovered the secrets of Str 6 weapons. I know what you're thinking, but yes, there is a secret behind them.

In a recent tournament down in Lubbock I tested a new list. I know it's odd to test at a tournament, but school doesn't allow much free play anymore. But moving on, the list contained 1 Str 8 Weapon other then Fusion Guns. And 30 Str 6 weapons, or 80 Str 6 Shots.

Now why is this impressive. Well for starters Str 6 weapons are usually very cheap, and secondly they wound 95% of the models in the game on a 2+. That means for most eldar it's going to be a 4+ to hit then 2+ to wound. Now I don't know about most people but those odds are much more in my favor then normal.

Now lets do some quick math, 80 shots, at BS3 40 hits, 34 wounds, and 11 Dead Marines. I know that doesn't sound very impressive, but being able to take out a tactical marine squad a turn doesn't hurt.

Not only that, but Str 6 will harm almost every transport vehicle out there. I'm actually considering loading up on another 24 shots, which will make quite a few people mad, I already know that.

So bear in mind, Str 6 is great for everything, even Nids as you'll be wounding those Big Guys on 4+s instead of 6+s.

Lizardmen Saurus Proof of Concept

2010-09-22T13:09:00.005-05:00

Hey there everyone. So I put aside my school stuff for a couple of hours today because I really really wanted to at least start on something for my Lizardmen army because they had all been sitting in boxes.

So I pulled out a Saurus Warrior, and a Zulu model I had ordered about a month ago, and began working on a proof of concept for these guys to even see if what I was wanting to do would work. Well here is the progress so far. I'm also thinking about taking the backs of the Saurus and having them act like skins for the guy, or picking up some Dark Elf Corsair Capes and doing that. I mean they do all have scaly skin :)

So let me know what you guys think.

Enter the Lizards

2010-09-20T11:18:00.002-05:00

So after a couple months of little to no posting I'm going to try to get back on top of things. I've got a couple projects that will be starting up soon, and the first one, and the longest one will be my new Lizardmen Army.

Yes, that's right. The dreaded cold-blooded lizards of Lustria. I picked up their codex a couple of months ago. And after winning the North Texas Champions ships I had a nice pile of loot that I used to get started on the models. Which are unfortunately slightly unwrapped and sitting in the closet at the moment.

But no worries, because I've got an incentive to work on them, but before I do so. I wanted to run my idea by you guys and see what your opinions were. Before making my through the entire codex and fluff, I was thinking that would be really cool to have say jungle men, think Mayan or Aztecs wearing lizard skins being led by a Slann and riding the jungle beasts. The Saurus would be full sized men, and the skinks would be pygmies.

Then I read on some more, and found a reference of Lord Chuqa-xi from the City of the Moon (pg29 Lizdex) actually lobotomizing invaders and using them and using them in his army.

Then on pg42 Lord Ulha'up has actually left the Lizardmen Kingdom to spread the word of the Old Ones. I was thinking that it would be neat to have say followers from the different kingdoms (empire, dwarf, elves) wearing lizard suits following him around and being his army. Note it's referenced that Lord Ulha'up had gone quite mad.

So what do you guys think, would and army of converted men wearing Lizard Armor (Skulls and backs) work or am I just out of my mind?

Warhammer 8th Ed: First Impressions

2010-07-22T09:17:00.002-05:00

A couple weeks ago I won a tournament over at Hobby Town Dallas and made my way into the finals. But with my winnings I went ahead and picked up the new 8th Ed Warhammer Fantasy book.

After reading through all of the basic rules and advanced rules I've got to say I'm very impressed with the new system, and might well be breaking into it and sharing my time with it and 40k.

You might be wondering what draws me to the new Warhammer systems, so here it goes.

1. There are no Space Marines - 40k is based around the world of the Imperium and that Imperium is filled with a small elite group of Space Marines, a group that shares about 50% of the table space if not more. When reading the through the Fantasy book there did not appear to be one particular army that was the starter army, or the army to get. Which means there should be more variety in play.

2. Modifiers - oh wow, how awesome is it that there are things can go up and down, and it's not so black and white. I like the idea of Str making it easier to punch through armor, then AP values. It never really made sense how you could have a str 6-7 thing that could just be shrugged off.

3. Magic - seems to be a lot more involved then psychic powers in 40k. The complexity and availability of it seems very fun. I've always been a fan of magic, and can't wait to get a game in and see how it really works out. But I wanting to hurl some fireballs across the table ;)

4. Leadership mattering - in 40k LD is so hit and miss, especially with half the units I face being fearless. I can't wait to play a game where your LD actually comes into play. And the fact that other can run because one of your other units ran will be quite interesting hehe.

5. No eternal warrior, no InstaKill - those two things have been pretty annoying in 40k. The fact that some things can take a Deathstrike missile to the face and survive, or fly through a burning sun and come out the other end with only a wound. Well that doesn't exist anymore, and I like it.

6. Just playing something different - Every once in a while you need something different, and I had always though that Fantasy was just 40k but with rank troops, and it really isn't that at all, the only thing that's the same is to hit charts and that's it, even the wound chart is now different, although I'm not sure about always being able to wound, but we'll see.

So those are my first impressions. I'm hoping to get a game in at TGR tonight with the store's army and see how it plays. If it's as fun as I'm thinking it is I'll have to start narrowing down what army to start up.

-CKR

Astro Day02 Pics and Results

2010-06-21T07:59:00.017-05:00

Ok let me just say that this was the best tournament I've played in so Far. I had more fun in this one and ever single person that I played with was a blast. There was no arguing over rules or missions objectives or any BS like that. It felt very much like let's get a bunch of guys together, have a bunch of fun games, and oh yeah... it's a tourney to in the end so we'll hand out some prizes.

I just want to say thanks to the Astro Guys for making it down here and sharing this experience with the Dallas area. Word has it, it's the first time they've ever broke even on a new venue on the first run so I'm sure we'll be seeing them again next year.

Also thanks to all of my opponents who were all AWESOME, it was a blast to play against you guys.

So I'm just going to go out of order a little, it's my blog, and I was more surprised then anyone else when I got the Best Appearance award. Wow, that had been my goal, when I built the army over the past month, but when I got there and saw the other armies on the table I didn't think I'd make it. So thanks to everyone who helped me out with bits and models and the like to get this all done in time.

I also placed in many other areas, and got Third Overall, so if Chris ends up Reffing the GT in Vegas next year I'll be saving up my money to go in his place :)

Ok, so First Place overall was Clay Smith, I played him in the 4th round and we drew the game, lol... we joked after the award ceremony that if I could've rolled a 6 out of 4 rounds of combat we would've swapped awards. But he was an awesome guy to play with, and his army was even more incredible.

Chris Allen got the much deserved Best Sportsmanship Award. He played marines during the tournament, and the 3 years I've known him, this is the first time I've seen him roll dice, maybe next time we'll get to face off ;)

Best General: Went to Ray Nerpel, who I somehow didn't get a single picture of. Sorry Ray!

Best Army went to Billy Pistole, it was incredible looking, all his vehicles were made from plastic card. WOW!

Best Terrain went to Dave Pa, his multi layer factory on lava was a fun game to play and really made you think different. Great stuff!

Best Army list went to Kyle Foster, I didn't have a chance to see it, but I heard it was great.

Best single Mini went to Nam, this guys was awesome.

So enough with awards, here's a couple shots from the games that I played, and then you can also click HERE for many more photos of the event.

Above, Interrogator Harker and his squad block off the boyz from coming through the door.

Inquisitor Seth takes on a Nob Biker through 6 rounds of combat, and finally is slain before his could bring his power weapon down on his head.

The rouge Baneblade fires on the Inquisitorial Forces killing some of Harker's Squad.

The mighty Grey Knight terminators get ready to fight a Wraith Lord.

The Grey Knights run after a Vindicator after it has killed two of their brothers.

Last chance for the 'Betraying' Black Templars to storm the landing deck and capture the pilot before he flies away.

Astro Day01

2010-06-20T07:28:00.015-05:00

Hi Everyone, so yesterday was the First day of Astronomi-con. Here is a collection of pictures from the event. To see even more picture click HERE :)

1,500 pts in a Month: Last Day - All Done

2010-06-18T17:39:00.009-05:00

All Done, wow what an experience it has been working on these guys and after day for an entire month. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get it done. But here I am, 1,500 pts in the bag all painted to the highest quality I've ever done before.

Let me just say thanks to those guys who helped me get the bits and stuff I needed to get the project done on time. I can't wait for Astro Tomorrow, it's going to be a blast!!!

Well off to class I go, crossing my fingers that I get at least 5 hours of sleep before the tourney, lol.

-CKR

The Inquisitions New Dice

2010-06-17T14:48:00.004-05:00

So I just wanted to share what I just got in the mail. My new custom dice :) I had these bad boys made for the Astronomi-con tourney this weekend. I wasn't sure if I would get them in time because I only ordered them last week, but wow, they did and they look completely awesome. I can't wait to these dice out on the table and play with them!

If you're wondering where I got them from here's the info. http://www.chessex.com/Dice/Custom_Dice_Home.htm They run about a dollar a dice and a couple then 8 bucks for shipping. A little more then what you would pay in the store but not that much more, so completely worth it!

-CKR

1,500 pts in a Month: 5 Days to Go - Vet Squads

2010-06-14T07:54:00.014-05:00

Hey everyone, sorry for the little progress, but man school has had me freaking busy. Who knew you could cram 2,500 pages of reading into a couple weeks. Well anyways, here's the work I've been doing.

This is one of the Inquisitor vets squads, as you can see it's going to be lead by Bastonne.

And here are the guys done, without Bastonne and two other special weapons that I was waiting on bits for.

A quick picture of my inquisitor with a new Combi-Melta.

Here are the conversions I had to do for the Melta Cadians.

And the conversions for the catachan metlas.

And boom, painted guys... yeah I know I forgot to take pics while painting them, oh well. So here are some finished pics of them, led by Harker, my other interrogator. Enjoy.

1,500 pts in a Month: 19 Days to Go - The LRC

2010-06-01T08:09:00.017-05:00

Ok, so I'm so excited to have this one done, I took a break Friday and didn't do any work but then did about 3-4 hours of painting saturday and another 10 or so on Sunday and boom it was done. It took a lot of patients to do and being the first Land Raider I've painted a bit of learning here and there. I'm very pleased with the way it came out though, and the weathering effects that I was able to achieve.

Now I'm going to build and prep my first squad of vets and hopefully have them painted along with my Assassin and Inquisitor by the end of the weekend, that'll just leave me one more squad of vets and a chimera to paint :)

1,500 pts in a Month: 21 Days to Go - GK Troops Done

2010-05-29T10:17:00.015-05:00

Hey everyone, so I'm pretty pleased with myself at the moment because last night I finally finished the work on the Grey Knight Troops, a ban of 5 Grey Knight Terminators with a Grand Master and a Squad of 7 Grey Knights in Power Armor. I'm very happy with the way they've come out, and was not expecting the amount of time it would take to get to this point, spending probably close to 40 hours to get the two squads done.

But I think they came out quite nicely, so today I'll be working on the Land Raider Crusader as I just finished gluing it together. Expect to see some pictures on that in the next couple of days. And then I get down to the painting some IG Vets :)

So as always you can click the pictures for larger size, enjoy the ones below.

-CKR

1,500 pts in a Month: 23 Days to Go

2010-05-27T16:07:00.009-05:00

Ok so Tuesday I started working on the Grey Knight Terminators.

It took me pretty most of the day Tuesday to get the silver onto them.

Then yesterday I started adding the trims, here is the Gold.

The reds.

The Scroll work and the whites.

Here are just about done, just a little bit more work to do on the bases, and face (I hate painting faces) and then I'm going to try the new technique for the Nemesis Weapons and they should all be done tomorrow. And if I can manage that then maybe I can manage painting their Land Raider too!

Wish me Luck :)

-CKR

1,500 pts in a Month: 27 Days to Go VOTE!

2010-05-24T13:17:00.005-05:00

Ok, so I've run into a predicament. Should I use the Sword or the Halberd for my Grand Master?

1,500 pts in a Month: 27 Days to Go

2010-05-24T09:30:00.009-05:00

Ok, so as one can imagine the weekend was a little busy, and to make it even busier I received an email from my instructor with reading assignments to do before my class starts at UTD. So I didn't quite get a far as I was hoping to on these guys, but I'm still happy with the progress.

Here you can see them with the silver and gold on them.

Here I've finished all of the reds, and done bestial brown on all of the parchment.

Now I've worked my way from bestial brown, to vermin brown, to bleached bone on the parchements.

I then did the whites on the shoulder pads to get them ready for their unique shoulder pads.

So this part is probably the second longest part, other then the base of the silver on their armor. The hardest part is probably coming up with unique designs for all of the pads. I was going to keep going but unfortunately I didn't have any Hawk Turquoise to do the Nemesis Force Weapons. But I'll picking some of that up tomorrow.

That means today I'll start work on the Terminators, and the goal will be to have the PAGKs GKTs and maybe... maybe... the LRC painted by the end of the weekend. I'll keep posting up progress.

-CKR

1,500 pts in a Month: 30 Days to Go

2010-05-20T16:52:00.013-05:00

Ok, so Yesterday or perhaps the day before I decided that I would not play my Eldar Army for Astronomi-con. Simply because I needed an excuse to paint up my Grey Knights, and I wanted something different. I started my GKs to be a fun army, and Astro is supposed to be a fun event. So there we go, that's what I'll play.

So above you can see the GK I did for the troop Painting contest. Then there's the rest of his squad, the idea is to have them done painting by the weekend so I can start painting the GK Terminators.

So I got the base Boltgun Metal done on one Guy, it took me about 45 minutes yesterday to do. Oh man, and I could already feel my finger cramping.

All of them are done, well with the base Boltgun Metal. For me that is the hardest part, getting them to look good at the start and keeping those nice black lines for contrast I think is key to a good looking GK.

So today I wanted to get my GK Terminators finished being built. I had already used them in the Escalation League, but Now I needed to create some Storm Shields and Thunder Hammers. I started off by making a mold of the left and right shoulder pads, and I let that dry most of yesterday.

Then before I went to bed last night I started one set of Should Pads, by using the Mold and the pieces I was going to place them with so that they fit around them with out me having to dig out the pads. Green Stuff really is the hardest thing to shave from properly because it starts to tear along the edges of where you mixed the two pieces together.

So with the Pads done, I started to trim them down so that they actually started looking like shoulder pads.

Then I did some test placements with the terminator, and of course all the weapons are magnetized these days ;)

Here are the two GK terminators all finished from about 20 minutes ago.

Another view of them.

And here is the finished command squad with the converted Grand Master from the Escalation Conversion Contest from about a month ago. You can see that this squad is ready to kick some butt and take some names.

If you enjoyed this, be sure to keep track as I build and paint a 1,500 pt army in a month to get ready for this Tournament. You might as yourself am I "Mad" doing an army in a month with only 1 painted mini to it's name, and most of the models not even purchased yet, well yes I am! We'll just see if I can make it.

-CKR

40k in 40 Seconds: 'Ard Boyz Prelim Game 02

2010-05-17T10:30:00.002-05:00

The second game of the day went quite well, with me and the Orks ending in a tie. I've got to say that Tommy was rolling some hot dice, and my opening round of shooting not doing anything, and I do mean missing with all of my twin linked missiles and him making all of his cover saves was a bit of a hit to start with.

To visit the video on youtube, click here.

40k in 40 Seconds: 'Ard Boyz Prelim Game 01

2010-05-16T15:27:00.002-05:00

Hey everyone, so I got the chance to test out a new toy during 'Ard Boyz. Unfortunantly I only had enough battery power for 1 Game. This was my first game of the day, against foot slogging Space Marines with over 100 models.

Click video to go to youtube and watch it in HD.

'Ard Boyz Inspiration

2010-05-15T07:35:00.001-05:00

A little Inspirational Music before 'Ard Boyz Today!

My First Grey Knight

2010-05-14T10:58:00.005-05:00

The escalation league over at TGR had a troop painting contest. All about painting a normal guy in your army. I hadn't started painting my Knights yet as I've been busy building them so I figured I'd use this as a good oppurtunity to get a test model done and see what it takes to paint the grey knights.

I went ahead and tried out the free-hand painting on the shoulder pad, I think it came out pretty well, with a little practice it should be better. I also ended up using a Pigment brush for the script work, which makes it alot alot easier.

So the only think I'm not quite sure of on him is the basing, let me know what you guys think. That and I was thinking about doing the Nemisis blades in the same style as the Space Wolf Frost Blades to give them more of that energy feel.

-CKR

Astronomi-con Trophies

2010-05-13T12:05:00.004-05:00

Ever have on of those moments when you're speechless? Well the crew at TGR had that experience last night and today. We've received the trophies for the mighty Astronomi-con and all I have to say is ... "Wow" and "I want one!"

From my understanding this is just the tip of the iceberg. Cool prizes and support as well as little additions like these trophies will make this a really really cool GT.

So without too much further ado here we go:

As you can see here it's a pretty impressive trophy in it's own right, but you want to go "Wow"?

We have all the trophies on display at the Store so stop by and take a look at all of them. Don't forget to also head out and sign up for a chance to win one of these babies by bringing it to your opponents! www.astronomi-con.com

Clock Hammer?

2010-05-10T13:43:00.002-05:00

So as we're coming up on Tournament Season again I'm reminded of how important it is to play, and play expediently. That doesn't mean to just make a move and hope for the best, but to use the most out of the available time to make the best decisions possible. Using your opponents turns to plan out your moves, and react to his turn as appropriate.

One of the things me and a friend of mine have always joked about, was using a chess timer, to keep both of us playing at a decent rate. So here's my thoughts on that, and how I think it would work.

Each player would get 1 hour total for their turn. Then each of those player turns would be broken down as such.

Before clock starts, mission, roll for sides, etc.

Start Time
Turn 1: 20 minutes per player (this includes deployment time)
Turn 2: 10 additional minutes added per player
Turn 3: 10 additional minutes added per player
Turn 4: 10 additional minutes added per player
Turn 5: 10 additional minutes added per player

Now here's the what happens if you don't use up your entire alloted time. So say turn 1 you have 20 minutes but only use 15 minutes on the clock. Well you get 10 additional minutes for turn 2. So your turn would end at the 30 minute mark on the timer, allowing for 15 minutes of play during turn 2.

This will allow for all players involved to get to turn 5. Now if there is still time at the end of turn five and the game is to continue, both players could decide if they would like to continue based on the time left on there clocks. But would have to dice down once their turn's time ran out, and the other player would finish their turn, and same with turn 7. But I've yet to see a real tournament game go to turn 7, and usually doesn't make it past 4 so this would be a way to get a round played through and entire game.

What do you guys think?

-CKR

Under Rated Units - Eldar Edition

2010-05-07T10:34:00.003-05:00

There are many units out there that people consider to be under rated. Today I'm going to talk about 2 of the Eldar units I recently started using and having plenty of fun with.

Warp Spiders - You look at these guys on paper and go, wow they Suck, I can't believe they even exist. Sure they have a Str 6 shooting weapon, but what happened to the AP? Where did it go. At least that's how I was, and how most of the forums were as I was reading them. But then someone said, no no they're actually pretty good.

So I decided I was tired of playing pure competition lists and would try out some different things. Wow was I surprised at how well these guys perform. I'm running 7 of them plus an exarch with power blades and dual Death Spinners. That's 18 Str 6 shots raining out from these guys. Sure the range of 12" isn't the best, but they are fast and have a 3+ save and can move backwards after shooting, they've been doing a great job in my games, and I might end up working them into my 1,500 pt lists later on.

Striking Scorpions - Again you see them, and you have Howling Banshees on the other page screaming out, hey we all have power weapons. The thing that's been eating me up when I run Banshees is the amount of Heavy Flamers that are out there these days, they eat things, and banshees will dies faster then anything else when that template is put down.

But not the Scorpions, they get that beautiful 3+ save, they also are Str 4, which means they don't suck against units you haven't Doomed, and and they get 1 extra attack. So they get 4 attacks on the charge vs 3, and will usually wound on 4s vs 5s. Now I know what you're saying, "POWERWEAPONS" yeah they rock. But the odds are you're actually doing the same amount of kills with Scorpions on everything armor 4 and up. They get edge out with 2+ and 3+ but that's when you shoot those buggers to death.

The pure survivability of this unit makes it a winner in my book, especially when my race is already dieing off ;)

Maybe one of these days I'll trying some Swooping Hawks out, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

-CKR

Helping Stores Help Themselves

2010-05-06T23:09:00.002-05:00

It might seem that I'm on a rampage of talking about the Local Gaming Stores, but it's what is being talked about right now so I'm going to share my thoughts. So here are 4 things stores can do to help themselves.

Rule 1: Communicate - This is something I've run into a couple of times during the past year or so, and it's poor communication of event details. Players and Participants want to know as much details as possible. If you have prizes, let people know what the prizes are, it gets them interested. If there are special rules like a minimum of 3 or 5 participants, be up front about it, don't use it as a get out of free card later when people have put in the work and others haven't.

Rule 2: Follow Through - If you say you're going to run an event, make sure it's run, and that you follow through with it. To often I've entered painting contests and the like and a week or two after the event end date no one knows what's going on with it. Results should be decided soon, and a date hopefully known by participants by communication.

Rule 3: Availability - Make sure you're available to answer questions. Most people have to spend money, or use their time to enter events and contests, we understand you're busy, but so are we. If we're spending 20+ hours to paint, write, convert then we would like a couple minutes of your time to spend answering emails on the event. If you don't have the answer right away, shoot us a email saying "I don't know, but I'll get back with you." That way you're following rule number one.

Rule 4: Be Fair - When you make a judgment, ask yourself if it is fair to all the parties involved. We all understand that you're a business and here to make money, but we're also here to support you. So as long as you're fair to us, we'll be fair to you, other wise we can do what I've done in the past, and go play at my place, where I can stay as long as I want, and usually have a couple beers too ;)

If you follow these things, then there is no reason not to have good events and a store worth going to, but it's when these simple rules start to be forgotten there will be mutterings in the gaming halls.

-CKR

Support your Stores

2010-05-05T09:44:00.002-05:00

So earlier this week I made a post on a forum talking about going into a GW store. I was quite surprised when another frequenter of the forums said he wouldn't go into a GW store based on principle and then mentioned the number of other stores I could be going to.

I can see where he is coming from, but I don't think I could ever go to a store based sorely on principle. I have formed my own opinion of stores through the past few years based on Employees, Table Space, Events, Products, and more. But I've not banned any stores just because.

This is why I would like for everyone to support the stores they enjoy going to. I know that there are places where you can get things cheaper, I myself can get things much much cheaper, and often do. But that doesn't keep me from also buying from the stores I frequent.

I think lately the DFW area is starting to do a better job of supporting stores, and the stores are starting to help themselves also. In the past I've seen tournaments going for 25 bucks, seems a little steep to me, but if it's a 25 dollar purchase, both the store and player wins. The store gets there cut, and the player gets a product from the store he might have bought elsewhere for cheaper.

But that doesn't mean this is the only time you should buy from them. Remember that they're a business and it takes money to keep that store open and providing tables for you to play at. So try to buy from them when you can, and participate in there events. Otherwise we might see all these incredible new stores close later down the road.

-CKR

Codex Inquisition

2010-05-03T16:05:00.000-05:00

So while I was up at my local GW I was talking with a Red Shirt and Black Shirt. I purchasing a Inquisitor and the guy asked if I new the Plastics for the GKs were coming out soon. I asked if that was now confirmed and he said Yes. I asked when, and he told me that they had beat out DE for release, but that DE was also confirmed as arriving by Christmas.

Evidently the information comes from a conference out in Las Vegas.

The facts I know from the conversation.

1. Inquisitor Dex will arrive before DE
2. DE by Christmas
3. Inquisitor Dex will be after 8th Ed Fantasy
4. One Codex to contain all Ordo's, Malleous, Xeno, and Heriric
5. Sisters will not be present in the Dex, but will have there own Codex at a later time.
6. Deathwatch/Alien Hunters will be present

Other info based on them not actually getting to see the Codex but talking with the people, sounds like you'll still be able to build a pure GK army, and sounds like it will be more useful. Points Drop on PAGKs, TGKs to stay about the same point cost but be better.

That's about all I know for now, more info to come as I get it.

TGR - Army BG Contest Entry

2010-04-29T09:06:00.004-05:00

Hey Everyone, so as most of you guys know. The Gamer's Realm has been holding mini contests along with the Escalation League. Coming up on the due date is the Army Background Contest, I spent a little time earlier this week writing up a background for my army. It doesn't delve into the leaders of the pack, or how many heavy weapon squads there are, but shows the mystery that is the Grey Knights in the eyes of a witness.

So sit back and enjoy the read, it's a little long, but that's because my fingers kept doing the typing ;)

Myths and Legends

I stood there in the usual spot, behind the looking glass of the interrogation room. I have stood in this spot before, countless times, waiting for the ritual of the questioning process to begin. The room is small and cramped, the walls made of concrete blocks, cold and bland, the window is a one sided mirror affording me the pleasure to watch the interrogation discretely. Beside me is an audio recording device, a wire runs up into the ceiling, to a microphone in the other room the wire also runs to a speaker waiting to project the lies that pour from the subject’s voice.

Tonight however, is different, the story that stoked me out of the comforts of bed was quite disturbing, a small residential fire in the country side, that spotlighted a very violent crime. I had a warm cup of coffee in my hand, the steam filled the room with the sweet smell of caffeine, it was now early morning, and the department was still quite empty. My hat and long coat sat on the rack beside the door, and there I stood waiting for the ritual to begin.

The interrogation room was quite dark a single hanging bulb light hung from the ceiling, it swung back and forth in the current of the air circulators, the walls are tiled in sickly green and crusted near the edges with grime and dirt, including the occasional spot of blood from where the questioning had gotten a bit ‘rough’. The metal table gave me the chills; often I wondered what it would be like, sitting aside it, my hands cuffed to the metal chair as someone poked and pried and my mind until the information they were searching for was stripped away from me.

“Sir,” I turned, partly startled from my thoughts, “we’re just about ready to begin the interrogation.” He handed me a clip board, I signed my name, Detective Chris Darve, in the usual spot, taking responsibility for the subject. The Junior Detective took the board back from me, and proceeded for the door, now ready to question the person retrieved from the scene.

“Stephan, be careful with this one,” I said as he reached the door, “the reports described him as being quite Mad.” He simply nodded at me and smiled. I turned back to the window and watched the door open; two guards brought the subject in, a man from the country side, his shirt covered in dirt, grime and a large blood stain that covered his chest, his trousers were also torn in various places. He looked to be in his mid to late thirties but his eyes looked much older, wide with fear. The guards practically carried the man in, he was limp, the life seemingly drained from him. He muttered to himself but I could not hear because the speakers were off, I turned towards the wall, and flipped the switch to both the speakers and the audio recorder, and watched the wheels begin turn, as the sounds of the other room were recorded onto the strip of tape.

“the devil… demons… death… everywhere… my family… they… the devils…” the subject muttered, as he was played over the speakers in my room. The hairs on my arm began to stand on end, I had encountered the crazy before but the sound of his voice, the depth, the despair it was so hollow, it was almost hypnotic. I stood there watching, as he was sat down onto that cold dark seat, his hands resting on the table, the handcuffs clanked with the twitch of his hands. The guards left the subject there, and walked out of the door, Stephan walked in after their departure, holding the clipboard with the initial report and notes. “Mr. Laric,” the Junior Detective started, “is there anything I can get for you, coffee, smoke?”

“they… devil… slaughtered… my family… knights… death… death… death…” Mr. Laric mumbled. I watched as Stephan turned to face the mirror, and shrugged his shoulders. He took the clipboard and inspected it for a moment, and slammed it against the table, I jumped involuntarily as the speakers blasted the noise into my ears and saw Mr. Laric, still sitting there, his lips mumbling the same nonsense. “Mr. Laric, this isn’t starting off very well is it? Maybe you could start paying a little more attention and we could find out why you killed your family.” Still no motion from the subject, Stephan walked behind him putting his hands on the subject’s shoulders, there was a small pause in the babbling as he lowered his head and whispered into his ear. I couldn’t hear what he was saying but I could imagine the dirty little details that were being said to try to get some kind of emotional reaction, something to get him out of his state of shock, or to get him to stop faking. The fact that the mumbling had stopped showed there was still someone, or something in his head. As Stephan pulled away Mr. Laric began to mumble once again, the clank of his handcuffs still filling the air as he twitched.

There was a knock at the door, not to the watchers room but to the interrogation room. The Junior Detective went and opened the door, and whispered to an assistant as he was handed an enveloped. I assumed that it was the rush job on the pictures taken from the residence, pictures were always useful in stirring up trouble and getting people to talk, to see what they had done after their blind rage, to fill them with guilt. It was a common enough ploy, and I wasn’t sure if it would work on this subject, he seemed pretty lost. Stephan thumbed through the images, I could see the grimace on his face, seeing the images for the first time, I personally can only imagine how bad they must be. He grabbed a couple of them, and planted them right there in front of Mr. Laric’s eyes, the reaction was immediate, he threw himself away falling on the ground hard, crying out in pain, anguish, “Carolise, NO NO… my Carolise… the Devil took her it was the devils…” He shrunk into the wall, crying his face buried in his hands, muffling the sound of his wails.

“Mr. Laric, let’s get you back in your chair.” Stephan said as he grabbed one of his arms and helped him back into his seat. The subject had now been awaken, and I could see a new fear in his eyes, fear of his loss, fear of not knowing where he was, and as if on que, he said, “Where am I?”

“Now Mr. Laric, you’re at a point where you can either start to cooperate, and give us your side of the story, or you can keep mumbling your nonsense and we’ll send you to the block and the Judge will have a swift sentence for you by tomorrow, and you’ll end up hanging.” The Junior Detective said, with much emphasis on the last word. He waited a couple of minutes, watching the subject patiently, and then he took a seat across from Mr. Laric and pulled out a mobile audio recorder and placed in on the table. He started the recording device, and reached out his hand and touched Mr. Laric’s, “Tell me the story, Mr. Laric,” he said softly.

The subject looked into his eyes; I had always been impressed at how well, how fast, Stephan could create that bond of trust with a criminal. I watch, ready to hear Mr. Laric spill his proverbial guts as to how he had slain his family, murdered them in cold blood. Beads of sweat dripped from his brow, running down his face and into his eyes, but he didn’t blink, he didn’t even notice, as his mouth slowly began to form the first words of his ungodly experience. “I was there… inside my house,” he faltered, what I could only imagine was his painful memories flooding back inside of him, “we were having dinner, my wife and children had just sat down… the sun was setting. I remember that because it was shining into the windows, into my eyes. I got up and went to the window to close the blinds.” He looked down at his hands, the dirt, the blood, still stained them. “I started to close the blinds and looked out, the sun sank behind a cloud… and the entire sky became… it… it… went Blood Red.” He began to shake, to tremble as he gave his testimony. I double checked to make sure the recording device was working, ready to grab his confession out of the air. “The, the ground began to tremble, the entire house shook, like an earth quake, I could hear the animals in the yard screaming, I saw some break from their pens and run for the woods. Large flocks of birds took to the sky, flying away from the house. I looked back at my family, just as the floor began to split open just under the table…”

He was trembling, Stephan made him pause and take a breadth. But Mr. Laric went on, “I heard them, Saw them scream and push back from the table… my Daughter Roselyn she, she screamed I looked and saw a hand, a giant red bloody hand appear from the split in the floor, the ground still shook, and the house seemed like it was about to fall apart around me. I was so scared, the screams they were so loud… and… and I saw Roselyn… she scream at me, ‘Daddy’ but I couldn’t move, I just watched as that beast, the devil, came up from the ground, it’s eyes, black as night, the horns on it’s head toppled the dining room table as it came up from the ground. It held a giant sword, wreathed in flame, the table clothe caught fire, and started to burn… I saw my wife grab my son and run for the door.” Mr. Laric started to cry, he buried his head into the table, I couldn’t tell if what he was saying was real or not but he was so convincing, so believable, I wanted, needed to hear more.

“Daddy, DADDY, she screamed out to me, as the beast lifted her by the leg, it’s clawed fingers dug into her flesh, blood flowed from the wounds, down her leg staining her summer dress. She, she writhed in pain, screaming out to me, still I was frozen, the beast turned to look at me, I swear it smiled, laughed at me. But still there was nothing I could do. Its tongue reached out and tasted my daughters blood, it rolled its head back in pleasure. Anger swelled up inside of me, my heavy chains were broken. I ran, I ran and threw myself at the beast, but I was nothing, it stood head and shoulders above me and yet part of it was still in the floor, it slapped me with the butt of its sword and I flew back against the wall, my head smashing the window, the glass fell around me. ‘DADDY PLEASE!’ Those were the last words I heard my daughter say before the beast lifter her above it’s head, her small delicate body hanging from its hand, and smashed her into the ground…” Mr. Laric smashed his hands into the table, the force of which dented the table. “You don’t understand, DO YOU! The devil came and killed my family” He Yelled out. The force of his words, struck out at me, I wanted to believe him, but believing would mean that there were much worse things on our little world.

“I ran, I ran for the door, but the house had caught fire from, from that sword the devil carried. I didn’t care, the devil was behind me, and I had to escape, I ran through the flames, looking, searching for my wife and son who had made it out alive.” He stopped. I could see the grief in his eyes; he had lost everything, but was it the devil, or was he the devil that had taken everything away. The bodies had been butchered, mutilated, the cuts seared, I was told there wasn’t an explanation for the seared wounds, but this, this story would explain that, but it was all lies, they always lie. “Carolise, CAROLISE, I had yelled, but I couldn’t find her, not until… until I turned back to the house. I saw the devil, and another one, and another one, standing there roaring at each other as they circled my dear Carolise, she was huddled over my son, her hands over his eyes, crying, begging, for their lives to be spared. She cried out for me, I could hear her over the roar of my burning house. I watched as one poked at her with its burning sword, setting her clothes alight… I ran to them, as fast as I could, I could hear her screams, my son’s screams as they burned. And then one of the monsters began to swing its sword, again and again, the screams stopped and I fell to the ground.” I could see blood starting to flow from his clenched fists, his nails digging into his skin. I believed, as truly as I believe in the sky above me and the concrete blocks surrounding me, I believed the devil had visited him.

“The Beasts, they turned for me, I watched as they stalked forward, the one that had killed my daughter emerged from my burning house my daughters blood covered it. I was ready, pleading for them to take me, to end it.” He looked at Stephan his eyes wide, “Can’t you see that I didn’t want to live, I wanted to die, to die there with my family, but that was taken away from me, they, the knights they saved me.”

“What knights Mr. Laric, what knights saved you?” Asked the Junior Detective, still in shock from the story being told, still wondering if the subject was telling the truth or not.

“The Knights, they showed up, from no where, I remember the flames reflecting off of their polished grey armor. They, they shot at the devils, giant holes ripped into the flesh as the weapons shot, it sounded like thunder each shot was ear splitting. I covered my head with my hands; the screams of the devils pierced right through them. I saw the knights draw silver weapons, they… they glowed blue almost as if electricity was crackling around them. They ran at the devils, hacking them apart as they… as they prayed… as they chanted… I heard their words, ‘I am the hammer… I am the sword… in his hand…’ they just kept chanting all the while they fought.” He was almost mesmerized while he talked, captivated by these, these Grey Knights, that must have saved his life, it seemed as if Mr. Laric had forgotten all about the death of his family, almost as if he wanted to shout praises to these Knights. “I… I saw them slaughtering the devils, retribution for my family… oh my family. You must understand that I was powerless; I couldn’t do anything against the devils. But I could not watch anymore, I heard, I heard my wife cry out to me, I ran to her, the knights still fought the devils but I ignored them, my wife, my dear Carolise, I saw her there on the ground, she was so badly burned, she had been cut again and again, I wrapped my arms around her, I told her she’d be alright, I picked up my son, now dead and told them everything would be ok, I prayed that we’d be together again, safe, away from the devils, I cried, I buried my face into my now dead wife’s body. I screamed out in rage, why did this happen to me, why… it was the devils… demons… they killed them… death… the fire… devils… knights… the devils…” He had gone back into the trance he had started in. He stared at Stephan, unseeing the blood around his hands began to congeal, the tension from his clenched fists now relaxed. His arm twitched, and the clanking of his cuffs on the table began again.

“Mr. Laric, Mr. Laric?” Stephan asked, “What happened to the remains of these devils, where did these knights go?” The Junior Detective leaned over and reached for the subject, “There was nothing found at your residence other then your family, Mr. Laric do you have any proof, any proof at all Mr. Laric?”

“the devils… knights… fire everywhere… my family… devils… devils…”

Mr. Laric had shared all the information he was going to share, I was sure of that, and without any proof, the man would most likely hang by the end of the week, and there was nothing I could do about it. I flipped off the audio recorder and took my hat and my long coat and went to the interrogation room. “Stephan,” he looked over to me, “there is nothing else we can get from him, let him be, he’s gone now.”

“Detective Darve?” I turned around, there was a man standing outside the interrogation room door. He was tall and dressed in strange clothes, almost like a robe, but not quite. His eyes stared out and me, delving deep inside me, almost as if he was reading my thoughts, and then he smiled. “I am Inspector Loriel Seth, I am here for Mr. Loric.” He handed me his documentation as two of his men walked in to fetch my subject. One of the men took the audio recorder, “Wait a minute,” Stephan said as he went to retrieve the device. “As you can see Detective, I have authorization to gather all information pertaining to this case,” he said as he pointed at a place in the paperwork where the Commissioner himself had signed.

“Yes Sir, Inspector,” was all that I could say, I moved away from the door so that the two men dressed in odd black uniforms could carry the subject away. I knew they had already stripped the other room of its records. “Where will you be taking him, Sir, if I may ask?”

“He’s to be taken to Titan Memorial for observations, thank you for your time Detective,” he smiled again. I walked out into the hallway with him, and watched as he walked off, as he walked I saw a pendant, a medal slip from beneath his coat hanging from a chain, it bore a stylized ‘I’ with a skull centered on it. Myth and Legend I thought, myth and legend.

TGR - TWG April 25th Tourney Results

2010-04-26T12:10:00.014-05:00

Hi Everyone, I just wanted to share the results of yesterday with you. The tournament started quite well with 15 out of the 16 players showing up. Luckily I had brought up an extra army, and made the offer to the odd man out of taking a Bi or playing me. They all played, which I can understand, no one likes sitting out for 2 hours.

Everyone said they enjoyed the missions, well except for the first one, which will either get re-worked or dropped from future tournaments. But that is why I appreciate the Feedback, that way the next time I run it, I'll have that info.

Ok... ok... so before I keep babbling on. I would just like to thank everyone for showing up, and I hope you all had a great time.

Here are the results.

Best Overall went to Nick V. playing Salamander Space Marines:

Best General went to Trevor playing Tyranids;

Best Painted went to Nam for his Beautiful IG;

Once again, thank you for everyone who showed up and supported the tournament. For plenty more pictures go to the Flickr Page I set up.

The Snakes Head: April 25 Battle Mission 3

2010-04-21T15:16:00.006-05:00

The earth trembled with the movement of the heavy war machines, silence not being a priority. Inside the mighty beast the artifacts of ages past were being held. The men had grown quite uneasy, complaining amongst themselves of whispers from no where, but not one of them would say anything to the Inquisitor for fear that they might be possessed and purged on the spot.

He's near, very near...

'Yes yes, I know... we have located them on auspex' Loreal said to himself. 'Soon I will have his head on a pike, and I will hang it atop my chimera'

"Sir, are you alright" asked Seth, looking a little worried as Loreal mumbled. "You seem to be elsewhere at the moment, and we are closing on the enemy very quickly."

"Of course I'm fine you idiot, what would make you think otherwise?"

Calm yourself, it will be his time soon enough...

"I'm sorry interrogator, I'm just agitated with all the men we lost during the bombardment," Loreal said gently, "Soon soon, we will be ready to strike at the head of their army, and retake the artifacts they were able to get during the battle."

* * * * *

The battles have been fierce and drawn out. But you have finally caught up with leadership of the opposing force, and your superiors want a trophy. Kill their leadership, and bring them back to be put on display for all to see. But do not let your leader die, for if he does you'll have to keep the enemy at bay so that he can be given a proper burial.

Click Here: For rules to Mission 3

'Ard Boyz 2010 Rules

2010-04-21T14:46:00.002-05:00

'Ard Boyz rules are out, be sure that your models have at least some GW parts to them. :D

The Rules

Also Scenarios should be coming out a week before the Prelims, so keep watch for that.

'Ard Boyz 2010 Retailers

2010-04-20T08:21:00.003-05:00

Hey Everyone, with little information so far on the event coming out I thought I'd get a list out of Local Retailers that will be hosting in the DFW area. For a complete list of retailers click HERE. Or simply call your retailer as they may have not made it onto the GW list.

DFW Retailers:
Hobby Town USA - Plano, Contact Pete at 972-473-0800

Lone Star Mesquite, Contact Jason at 972-681-2040

Lone Star Central Arlington, Contact Mike at 817-265-0491

Big World, Contact Mark at 972-245-0968

XMax Games, Contact Andy, Vincent, or Kent at 214-827-0805

The Gamers Realm, Contact Matt at 972-231-5231

The Whispers: April 25 Battle Mission 2

2010-04-19T16:45:00.006-05:00

The winds howled, carrying slow burning embers and ash across the field. The first battle, an ambush had taken the party by surprise by it's furiousity. Only moments ago had the cries of bloodshed quieted, both sides withdrawing to regroup and patch wounds.

Inquisitor Loreal looks out across the battlefield. Large piles of debris is smoking, billowing black smoke that rises into the sky blocking his sight to the enemy behind it. Still scanning the field he sees unexploded ordinance. He knows if they must cross the field it could prove to be quite dangerous.

"Sir!" Interrogator Seth calls out as he runs over to Loreal, "You're going to have to see this." Loreal follows the bewildered interrogator. "What is it Seth?" Loreal asks as he cautiously walks over a low hill.

"Emperor..." he breaths silently seeing the gleaming gold ruins of some ancient artifact protruding from the nearest crater. Extruded from the dirt he could make out what appeared to be a bird or eagle, with it's wings spread, buried up to it's chest. It was about 3 meters across and on it's neck sat not one but two heads.

The interrogator interrupted Loreal's Shock. "Sir, the auspex seems to be picking up other objects, it could be more artifacts, or it could be a glitch with the system after all of the artillery that's been thrown around here, who knows what there really is.

We must retrieve the artifacts....

"Interrogator, we must retrieve the artifacts."

"Yes sir, I'll get on it right away." Said Seth as he started to turn away.

We must retrieve all of the artifacts....

"Not just this one, all of them, do a full Auspex Scan, Dig with your Hands if you need to identify them, but I want them All!" Cried out Loreal, "Is that understood?"

"Yes Inquisitor, right away."

* * * * *

The sun has risen high in the sky but still, it sheds little light on the field of battle. Smoke rises from burned out rubble, buildings, and vehicles. Ordnance litters the ground, some exploded some not. But the ordnance has unmasked something else, ancient treasures that may hold the key to secrets long lost, or treasures that might bring in some mighty fine loot.

Click Here: For rule to Battle Mission 2

Building a Tournament Army

2010-04-15T08:12:00.003-05:00

You're going to be playing in a Tournament, a competitive setting and it's time for you to start building your army. You wonder to yourself, what should I take, how can I make my army as effective as possible.

First things First, find out what point level you're playing at, and any rules that coincide with the tournament. It's important to know if you'll be playing a 1,500 pt game, or a 1,750 pt game as this will change your strategy quite a bit. The other thing to find out is what Force Organization the tournament will be using. Often this will be the normal FoC but in smaller or larger matches it can change. For instance a 400 pt Combat Patrol Tournament will often only require 1 Troops Choice and no HQ.

Second, find out if there have been any missions posted for the game, or if there will be. It's important to see the missions as this can change the game play drastically. If there is a lot of night fight, you'll want to take things like Spot Lights, and units with Acute Senses. If it is a majority of Objective Missions be sure to stock up on troop choices so you're not left with your hands tied behind your back when your minimum two troops get killed in the first turn.

Third, try to find out what the Meta Game at the event location is. For those of you who do not know, Meta Game is the typical armies and play styles players use there. In some areas they might be Tank heavy, or they might be chock full of Horde armies, of you might be the only one not playing a Space Marine army. This is very important to find out, as you'll know if you want to take those lascannons to pop some tanks, or if you want to take heavy bolters to mow down the Ork flood.

Lastly, don't be afraid to bug the TO, or tournament organizer, he's there to answer questions and help you out before the tournament begins. Most TO's will agree that questions before hand are more welcomed then questions during or after the event has taken place. TO's like to get things like how does X effect Y and can I take ABC or XYZ in my list out of the way. That way we can all have plenty of fun on the day of the tournament.

-CKR

TarGa-Roth Emerges: April 25th Battle Mission 1

2010-04-13T11:59:00.005-05:00

In the cold depths of space there is nothingness. Blackness surrounded by the blinking of stars, seen in their purest form. The twinkling of the lights starts to become obscured, just a few at first, but then more and more, as if a ball of energy is appearing from no where blocking out the view. Tendrils of power? Magic? Electricity? Begin to swarm from this hole in space, reaching out, grabbing onto the nothingness. The hole, the blackness, the obscurity pulses, the shear power of energy being felt light years away.

With a sudden burst of brilliance the anomaly gives way, cracking under the shear pressure of the body being birthed. The stars are completely blocked by this heavenly body, a planet that has appeared from no where. The world, covered with clouds of red and orange swirls chaotically, while the blue waters below appear to be much like Terra, along with the greens and browns of the newly formed land.

The final wave of energy released on the emergence of the planet sweeps through the Sector, thousands falling over dead, blood running from their nose, eyes, and mouth, from the psychic resonance and their untrained minds. The Holy Inquisition immediately demands a force be taken to research the new body now designated TarGa-Roth.

Upon entering normal space after traveling, the Black Ships detect other bodies surrounding or heading towards the new planet. Signatures of the ships show both human and xenos entering TarGa-Roth's atmosphere. With reluctance Inquisitor Loreal orders his fleet closer to the planet so they can send a landing party to begin surveying the planet and find out if the planet should be destroyed utterly.

With the research teams needing a safe place to work, Inquisitor Loreal orders a landing party to secure an area hopefully away from the other groups now invading the planet. The Inquisitor warns everyone to be on their toes as at this point anything could happen.

* * * * *

The chill of night is still in the air, and darkness still sweeps the land. You look at your chrono and see the sun should be up soon and that it's time to get your party together after it scattered during the landing. Initial reports shows that there may be an enemy team nearby and it's necessary to gather your forces to prepare to ambush the enemy before they can ambush you.

Click Here: For rules to Battle Mission 1

A 1,500 pt Blood Angels Army

2010-04-05T12:49:00.002-05:00

So I had planned on releasing this list earlier this week, but as we all know Life will catch up with you. And that was well Playing some 40k and getting ready for the Escalation League for the week, which ended up going really well.

But anyways, here's the 1,500 pt list that I put together for Blood Angels that I would love to try playing. My only worry is a little lack of Anti Tank, but I think the list can handle most vehicles that will be found at the 1.5k level, unless they're spamming Landraiders.

Blood Angels 1,500 Points

HQ
Reclusiarch – 130 pts

The Reclusiarch, or beefy Chaplain is my pick for the low point cost HQ. This army is all about Synergy, and having your HQ pump up units is a huge thing for me, coming from an Eldar Background. One of the things I wanted to see is a Death Company Squad, and the Reclusiarch, while being actually one of the cheaper HQ choices, allows the Death Company to re-roll hits and misses in a close combat in which they charged. This can make a huge difference in any assaults.

Elites
Sanguinary Priest x2 – 180 pts
2x Jump pack
2x Power weapon

The Sanguary Priests are here once again to booster the units, there isn't really any other army (other then Death Guard) that lets you give everyone Feel no Pain, which really increases the squads survivability by about 50% to non-FNP ignoring weapons. So in most close combats, and as you're flying forward this will help keep those squads alive longer.

Troops
Death Company x 7 – 195 pts
1x Power Fist
2x Power Weapon

The Death Company, I wanted to see it in the list just because they seem to be the staple of Blood Angels, they all have FnP and Furious Charge, so they're most likely going to be striking first, they have plenty of attacks, and with the re-rolls from the Reclusiarch they should be quite devastating. Throw them in the Stormraven for transport and aiming and you're done.

Death Company Dreadnought – 126 pts
Pair of Blood Talons
Searchlight

If you're going to run a Stormraven you might as well take advantage of it right. Throw in a Dreadnought with Blood Talons and he has the potential to take out entire units in a Assault Phase, might be good, could be bad, but play testing will tell. If Tanks start to become a problem, drop the Blood Talons for the Dreadnought CC Weapon to give it Str 10 again.

Assault Marines x7 – 181 pts
2x plasma pistol
1x sergeant power weapon

Assault Marines x7 – 181 pts
2x plasma pistol
1x sergeant power weapon

Assault Marines, they don't need transports, and with FNP from the Sanguary Priests they should be living long enough to get into combat. Make sure they're getting cover along the way and they should rip up some troops. They've also go pistols to help out with light transports which will be getting in the way in most peoples Meta Games.

Fast Attack
Baal Predator – 146 pts
Side sponson heavy bolters
Searchlight

The Ball Predator was an easy pick, with scout and being a fast vehicle, you can place him after deployment and have him tear up some squads, he should also do well at tearing apart rhinos and other light transports but you'll mostly be wanting him to kill the mobs of troops.

Heavy Support
Stormraven – 216 pts
Twin-linked Multi-melta
Extra Armour
Searchlight

The Stormraven, it'll be transporting the Death Company Squad and Dread, if you're not in range to assault on your turn, then move flat out, get that 4+ cover save, and use the Melta to try and pop the transport you're going to want to assault the next turn. Remember that you are transporting a lot of things that want to be upclose, so don't hang back because a dread and death company walking across the board won't do you any good.

Predator – 145 pts
Side sponson lascannons
Storm bolter
Hunterkiller missile

The main anti tank of the list, he should be able to pop the heavier transports, and move from spot to spot as the battle progresses to gain cover and deny it from others. Keep it in the back and use him to snipe while your opponent is trying to figure out what the real target priorities are.

Total - 1500

So with 1,500 points on the dot, with the help of some 1 pt Search Lights, this army should give others a run for their money, if you get a chance to play test it let me know how it goes, or your thoughts on the list itself.

-CKR

My Blood Angels' Picks

2010-04-05T10:46:00.010-05:00

It sure was time for the Blood Angels to came out, now we don't have to talk about those Nids from back in January as much anymore. After getting my codex on Friday and having looked through it quite a few times I thought I'd write up what my Picks are for each of the Force Org Chart slots. It might be different then what you think is the best choice, and that's ok as I'll say right now, I've not gone out and play tested these units at all, but this is purely what I'm seeing right off the pages.

For starters I have to start off with the Troops FOC, it is still the most important part of the army list to get right as they are required in 2/3s of all the normal games you will play. Now at a beautiful 18pts a pop, just 2 more points then standard marines you give up the bolter and add a CC weapon and Jetback. These guys are going to be the mainstay of every BA army I think. Now being able to actually capture objectives, and the possible normal movement of 18" (move + run) These guys can last minute grab like the best of the Eldar Tanks.

The 2 CC weapons will come in very handy as you dive face first into enemy lines. I'm seeing these guys run in squads of no less then 6 guys, and will probably be running full 10 man squads. They have the Combat Squads special rules, but I'm not sure you will often run into a setting where you want to shrink your assault squad down to 5 men. As it is I think you'll see 2-3 squads of these guys in most BA Armies.

You might ask why I didn't have the Death Company Dreadnought or the Death Company as my pick, well it came down to one simple thing, they can't hold objectives. So unless you plan on wiping your opponent off the board each time, if all you did was field those two, then the best you could do is tie.

Astorath the Grim is my HQ pick, not only is his model top rate (I'd convert the pose a little myself) but I think he is going to add that extra punch to the BA. Even though he is a rather expensive model, coming in at a bit over 200 pts, the ability to give everyone The Red Thirst on a 1-3 instead of a 1 will come in very handy. As I see it you'll want your Assault Troops to have Furious Charge as this allows them to strike first, and wounding marines on a 3+ is never a bad thing.

With a 2+ 4++ armor save he is sure to live for a while, and with a WS of 6 and Str 6 Power weapon that causes opponents to re-roll invulnerable saves he should do very well in close combat.

I'm not sure if Astorath will fit every ones army and play style, but I'll be keeping an eye out for him.

Now for Elites is was a tough call, you've got the Terminators that all marines get, and then you have some Golden Angels, but I'm all about army synergy and having units build off each other (see Astorath) so choosing Sanguary Priests as my elite pick just seemed like the right call.

These guys are going to annoy quite a lot of players out there. You can purchase up to 3 of them as an Elite choice for a modest amount of points, and because each one is an IC you can then plop them in a couple of units. The thing that is awesome or down right mean depending on which side of the table you're on is that they give all units within 6" of them the Furious Charge and Feel no Pain USR. So if you're planning on running a couple of these guys, you don't need Astorath anymore for the Blood Rage ability because these guys hand it out like candy.

The Baal Predator is one of the best Fast Attack slot units I've seen in a while. With the new Codex all Vehicles became fast at a modest 15pt increase meaning they all can move 18" fire a weapon at 12" and fire all weapons at 6". This is a huge thing for predators seeing as everytime I've played them with side sponsons I was never using them because my opponent would simply move a little out of view. Now I can move 6" and still blast away with everything.

The other great things about the Baal is that it has scout. This means that it can be setup last after you and your opponent have deployed and still move if you'd like. And with the amount of guns you can place on it, you can make sure to be within the 24" range during your turn to let loose with all of them.

And Last of all the mighty Heavy Support choice, the Stormraven. I know we've all seen rumors of this flying around, and seeing those rumors, reading them, and now having the codex it's still a little hard to imagine it exists. Not that it's a bad thing, but without actually playing against it yet, it sure does scream Over Powered on paper.

But as far as I can see it, this thing is going to be a great unit, plane and simple. The ability to transport your assault troops around the board is going to do a lot of things. Not only will it add some speed, but it should keep there unit strength at 100% until you want to release the hounds. And if all you want to do is fly around, you can move 24" and still fire a weapon, and if you're wondering what to fire, trade in for the free Multi-Melta and Lascannon so that you can pop vehicles and be ready to assault the next turn.

I think in the right hands, and played the right way it's going to be a power house, but it still has the same weakness that all other vehicles have, and that's a single lucky shot can pop it out of the sky.

Well that's it for today, and my first take on the Blood Angels Codex. I think that overall it came out very nice and should change the field of battle quite drastically.

-CKR

TGR - Escalation League Cycle 3

2010-04-03T22:24:00.007-05:00

As April arrives so does TGR's Escalation League Third Cycle. Below you will find the scenario used and don't forget that we are at 1000 points now. So grab your troops and head into the dark depths to face your enemy. Be victorious or die trying!

Warhammer 40k Escalation League Scenario 3: Underground
(Cycle 3 – 1000 points)

Background: Landing zones for the various factions warring on the planet surface have been secured and the hunt for the Rogue Trader can begin in earnest. During the previous conflicts, survivors noted fissures in the earth. Investigation has led to the discovery of an extensive cave complex located under the surface.

Strategists within each faction have seized upon the discovered subsurface passages as the most likely explanation for the escape of the Rogue Trader. Exploration of the caves reveals a mixture of natural and artificial passages. There is evidence of recent usage scattered among the detritus left behind by more ancient travelers.

Each faction has dispatched forces to reconnoiter the cave system and find clues among the scattered campsites believed to belong to the Rogue Trader. It is hoped that analysis of the sites and their contents can lead to anticipating where the Rogue Trader is headed and what his goal is.

Set-Up: A standard 4’ x 6’ table is used in this scenario. A total of d6 +1 pieces of terrain should be placed on the table.

Force Organization: The standard force organization rules are used.

Mission Objective: Seize Ground (see page 91 in the rulebook for details)

Special Rules:
At least two (2) of the objectives must be placed in No Man’s Land.

Combat is assumed to be taking place in a series of underground chambers. Access to this cave system is limited. Also, space within the cave system is restricted.

· Monstrous creatures (units with the monstrous creature unit type) and vehicles (any unit with an armour value) are not permitted.
· Jump infantry are restricted to normal troop movement (6”).

Deployment: Pitched Battle (see page 92 of the rulebook for details)

Victory Conditions: The game lasts the standard length (5 turns with checks to see if it runs to 7). At the conclusion of the last turn use the Victory Conditions of the scenario to determine a winner. (details are available on page 91 of the rulebook) In the event of a tie, the player with the most scoring units left is the victor. If both players have the same number of scoring units, the player with the highest point value scoring unit holding an objective wins. If there is a tie once more, the player who went first is the victor.

Previous Winner Advantages: Any player who is a member of the winning team from Cycle 2 enjoys the following advantages during the game:

The first troop unit that is completely wiped out can return to the game as if coming in from reserve. (deployment would follow the reserves rules from page 94 of the rulebook)

Any player who is considered to be a winner from Cycle 2 has the following advantages:
A single troop unit can be given the Scout special rule. (see page 76 for details)

A New Disturbing Trend?

2010-04-02T14:35:00.004-05:00

(I used to be a Captain, now I'm a Sergeant)

I just received my Blood Angels codex in the mail today, along with some other happy news. And instead of reading through my Acceptance to UTD I started reading the BA dex. There are quite a few neat things in there. But I also saw something else. Something that I think is going to start becoming a trend in the new books, and something I'm not a fan of.

It's Stat Modifiers for the enemy army. It first started with the Nid codex, with Deathstalker, who lowers any one models LD by a D3 for the entire game. Now I find that to be rather annoying as most modifiers require you to be in range, this just occurs at the start of the game.

Now in the BA codex we get Dante who chooses a single IC and lowers his WS, Wounds, Init, and Attacks by 1 (to a minimum of one) Wow, I mean wow that is a pretty mean ability right there.

For me I'm just finding it hard to swallow that right off the bat another army can affect the Stats of my characters, that often cost quite a few points. I've played against the Deathleaper a couple times, and having Eldrad or a Farseer at LD7 can be very game changing for an army that relies on casting powers as much as Eldar do. Now we've got one that actually causes a wound before the game has begun.

I'm just fearful of how far this will go, and how it will change the game, why take characters if they are just going to get nerfed before they hit the board?

GW Reaches God-Hood with New Spray Gun!

2010-04-01T07:21:00.002-05:00

If you've not seen the latest news today, you're going to want to take a look. Games Workshop has done some amazing things in the past, but today they revealed a new spray gun that will be part of everyones hobby kit in the time it takes to say, "OMG look at that Sally it painted my entire Miniature and all I had to do was hold down the Trigger and Boom, it Looks FREAKING AMAZING!!!"

So if you've not seen it yet, click the here for Awesomeness!

DFW 40k Tournament April 25th

2010-03-31T11:24:00.003-05:00

April 25^th, 2010 Warhammer 40k Tournament

Presented by TGR and thewraithgate.com

I am happy to announce that I will be hosting a tournament at The Gamer’s Realm on April 25^th for Warhammer 40k. The tournament will follow rules as detailed below:

1,750 points
Normal Force Organization
Only current Codices are allowed

The tournament will be open to 12 players (going to 16 if there is enough interest and space). To participate, please make a purchase of at least $15 and sign up at The Gamer’s Realm before the tournament.

If all 12 slots are filled, please feel free to sign up as an alternate. You may make your purchase on the day of the tournament if a spot becomes available.

Scoring:

Sportsmanship: 5 points are available for Sportsmanship Scores and will be averaged throughout all 3 games:

2 points – Was your opponent reasonably knowledgeable of the basic rules?
2 points - Was your opponent courteous and civil?
1 point - Even if you got destroyed, did you enjoy the game?

Painting: A large part of the 40k hobby is painting your miniatures, and playing with or against a great looking army can add a great deal to the game. 10 points are available for Painting Scores:

2 points – Is your army completely WYSIWYG?
1 point – No bare metal or plastic
2 points – A minimum of 3 colors painted to table top quality. (No single brush strokes of colors.)
1 point – Detailing (eyes, guns, blood, etc.)
1 point – Flocked or finished bases (rocks, grass, paint, etc.)
1 point – “Cohesive” look or theme
1 point – “Above and Beyond”

Battle Points: 30 points are available for Battle Points. You will receive points for winning, drawing, losing, and for completing Secondary Objectives:

7 points – Completing the Primary Objective
5 points – Neither you or your opponent completing the Primary Objective
3 points – Your opponent completing the Primary Objective
3 points – Will be awarded based on Secondary Objectives for each mission

Bonus Points:

1 point – For receiving 5 Sportsmanship Points from each opponent
1 point – For receiving Best Painted Army
1 point – Completing all of the Primary Objectives
1 point – Completing all of the Secondary Objectives
1 point – Completing both Primary and Secondary Objectives in all battles

Awards:

All awards will be based on points received throughout the tournament. Please note that each participant may win only one award. If a participant is eligible for multiple awards, he will be awarded the highest award, and the next eligible participant will receive the other award.

Best Painted: Is eligible to armies receiving at least 8 points in the Painting Bracket and will be decided by the judges.

Best General: Is awarded to the participant that receives the most points in the Battle Points bracket.

Best Overall: Is awarded to the Participant with the most combined points throughout all of the brackets.

Tournament Schedule:

11:00 a.m. Turn in Army Lists and Prepare to have some fun.

11:15 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Battle 1

1:00 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. Lunch (Please leave armies out for painting judging)

1:45 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Battle 2

3:45 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. Battle 3

5:45 p.m. Awards

Tournament Style:

The Tournament will be bracket style, with random players starting the first battle. (Exceptions may be made if buddies are pitted against each other in the first round.)

If you have any questions about the tournament, playable armies, or rules, please feel free to contact me at thewraithgate@gmail.com.

Updated 40k Reference Sheets

2010-03-31T10:38:00.000-05:00

Are you always asking your opponent the stats on his guys. Well if you visit the Reference section on GWs site you can now download and print all the reference sheets on all of the armies.

Just click here.