Why 6th Edition allies are Infinitely good.

Hi everyone,

It's been ages since I've blogged and I'm a bit out of the loop with respect to the hobby. Hopefully I can start to rectify that soon and get painting, collecting and playing more. I've skimmed through the 6th edition rules but haven't really figured out the new edition or played it yet. I am excited about the soon-to-come boxed set that will offer me some Dark Angels love. Hopefully the models are a step up over the, already good, Black Reach ones as that would make the set just incredible.

One thing that everyone is talking about and I want to join in on is allies. At first, perhaps because I've been reading the interwebs too much and been exposed to competitive gaming that way, I thought about how it would be used for power gaming. I can shore up my weaknesses by stuffing in a bit of this or that as I need and then win some more games.

I don't think I was thinking normally and it took me a moment to see how great the Allies section is.



What's a huge problem with starting a new game system?

You don't want to invest in something that you're not if you'll be able to play. What is the local scene like for Warmahordes/Infinity/Malifaux/Dystopian Wars/Flames of War etc. etc. etc.? Will I have a chance to use my models or will they just be display pieces? What if the interest dies down around me?

This is where allies come in.

I play Dark Angels, Deathwing to be precise. I like the terminators but I'm getting a bit tired of painting bone white armour. I need a change.

Enter my Grey Knight allies lead by this Inquisitor.

Now I know that he's an Infinity model and will be very playable if and when I find the local scene for this game, but right away he jumps out as just an awesomely badass Inquisitor. Power sword, combi-flamer, psychotrope grenades (because....random fun) and a mean attitude. 

Where would an inquisitor be without his loyal henchmen. In this case a group of seriously tough hombres decked out in power armour, sporting storm bolters and power swords. Conveniently enough they represent a starter set for Infinity too....how about that? ;-)

Last but by no means least is a model of a rather kickass lady who I think will make a great representation of Inquisitor Valeria on the tabletop. She's got a funky blade, a cool gun I can play as a graviton pistol and a whole heap more dynamism than you see in a lot of GW figures.

Thanks in large part to Tim over at the Tau of War, I've taken up an interest in Infinity that was spurred more when I saw the local shop's stock of starter boxes and so on. I am a little hesitant though since I've not really built a gaming network for 40k and so I don't know how much I can play Infinity here.

What 6th edition will allow me to do though is to get these great models, enjoy painting them, and be able to use them in 40k even if I lack Infinity partners. Now if that isn't a win win situation, then you really can't be pleased ;-)

All the best to everyone,

Pete

PS: I'm aware that I'll need to take a troops unit for it to be a legal allies choice, unless my opponents consent to just an HQ plus retinue. If that is so I'll drop in a PAGK squad (I have some old metals) or assemble five of the metal terminators I have. Ironically, sticking to the FOC rules in this case makes my fun, fluffy addition of Inq+Retinue a bit more punchy with another powerful terminator/marine unit.

A game of 40k retro-style

Hi everyone,

Sorry that it's taken me so long to get around to posting again. Work has been busy, life has been full and wargaming has been somewhat on the backburner. Even blogging has been limited to my teaching blog as that is easier to come up with stuff for when I'm in the midst of working. 

That said, I played my first game of 40k in about ten months and my first game in Slovakia against Aaron, another teacher. We took one look at each other upon our first meeting, he noticing my GW key lanyard, me seeing his Sons of Horus mug, and gave that knowing wargamer smile. Still, it took us this long to get a game in because of our schedules, travels, family obligations etc.

Does this kind of scenery take you back? :-)

Check out our gaming table! We went into the UK (all of our classrooms in our school, Class, are named for English speaking countries) because the US' table is too long, the Canadian table too thin and the Australian tables being Apocalypse-sized. It was a fitting return to form for our hobby. Lacking proper terrain though sent us on a scrounging mission in the teacher's room. I think we did alright given our limited resources. 

The armies in their glory. The mobile phone represents Sammel on Jetbike ;-)

We decided on a 1750 point battle but had some slip ups when making our lists. My list was my normal, plus Sammel on Jetbike (Nokia brick FTW).

• Belial, Libraria, Sammael
• Terminator command squad (TH/SS, cyclone, banner, apothecary)
• Two assault teminator squads (LC, 4xTH/SS, cyclone)
• Two tactical terminator squads (AC, 1xPW, 4xPF)

Now those of you who are familiar with 40k will note that I have cheated by including 3 HQ units by mistake. Ooops! That's what you get when you simply a throw a new unit into a list that is built for another points level and don't think it all through. My bad.

Aaron brought a Chaos Marines list that was a bit shy at 1704 pts, then realised he forgot his Chaos Spawn model he'd paid for. In that sense he was definitely down a bit. In hindsight I should have pulled out my Librarian to bring a more fair (and legal list) but we were eager to get gaming. My best recollection of his list is below.

• Winged daemon prince (lash)
• 8 'tactical' chosen, 5 terminators (reaper autocannon), Chaos dreadnought
• 2 chaos marine squads, 8 noise marines (blastmaster and doom siren), Rhino (havoc)
• 6 havocs (2 lascannons, 2 missiles), triple-lascannon Predator.
• ***Chaos spawn that didn't get to the game.***

Aaron's deployment. That's Nic in the background, who usually mocks us for gaming but was very interested in the rulebook and asked a bunch of questions while we played ;-)

Aaron went for a fairly even deployment, though I did warn him about my ability to teleport a lot of stuff into the game, thereby putting ganging up on him. As he had first turn, I elected to reserve everything except Sammel, who hid behind the toilet paper....the shame :-)

Turn 1 Deathwing assault

Aaron had nothing much to do on turn 1 but shuffle things a bit. I dropped my three squads in a loose ring on his right flank, intending to clear that before going for the heavy weapons on the other side. I think he was a little surprised at how quickly the Deathwing can concentrate their force when deep striking rolls go well. I took out the Rhino with a side armour shot and killed a few chosen I think.

Another squad comes in as the flank is crumbled

Ganging up in the manner that I did let me overwhelm his marines there, though not without some casualties. Over the course of the battle, I took more damage from his regular marines than many of his heavy support choices. It seems my storm shields were too busy shrugging off plasma and lascannon fire to deal with those pesky bolter shells.

You might accuse the command squad of cowardice....

After getting through that flank we had some problems with the Daemon prince lashing us backwards. One real weakness of pure Deathwing is that once the initial deep strike is over, it's a slow army. If I can't put you inside a ring of bone-armoured terminators, I'm going to be walking across the field after you without much firepower to hurt you on the move.

...yet I think of it as tactical cover use.

The squad ahead of the command squad battered some CSMs but then got eaten by the daemon prince. Those chaos terminators on the left were unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of Sammael's plasma cannon, which whittled them down over a few turns. In return, their firepower against him, along with that of the Predator was largely ineffective due, almost entirely, to the ridiculous number of 4+ Invul saves I made. The dice liked Sammael all the way through the game until the final turn, when a lascannon brought him down.

Damn you lash prince, come here so we can hit you with our hammers!

The daemon prince was a real headache in the game as it just screwed up my movement and kept me away from much of Aaron's force. The librarian failed in all attempts to nullify the power, he shunted squads around and killed very nastily when it came to the assault phase. In the end though, I managed to gang up with two squads and land enough thunder hammer hits to bring the monster down. Because the game went the full 7 turns, my limited mobility was enough to make it across to the other side of Aaron's deployment and catch up with his guys. The Deathwing prevailed.

Now this was a shake down game for both of us and it's been a while since we played. FOC cheating aside, I get the impression that my list was a bit more tailored for a competitive environment than Aaron's. That said we had a blast playing a very fun and cinematic game.

It really took me back to my early gaming days to play on such a simple terrain table. Remember when this was the gaming norm and those few people with real terrain were the ones to make friends with. GW stores sometimes had scratch-built terrain that looked good, but compared to the ease and quality of the plastic terrain available now, it was nothing special.

That said, there is an old-school charm to playing on a table like this and just enjoying rolling some dice with a buddy.

Thanks for the game Aaron. Next time I'll check my list more carefully and have an actual model for Sammael ;-)

Take care all,

Pete

Bringing out the Legion of beasts. Some list-fu

Thagrosh has become more dragon than ogrun and is the epitome of the Legion to me

When I saw the model above, Thagrosh the Messiah, I knew that I'd found my Hordes model if I ever started to play the game. I think this is a great example of sculpting and creates a real centrepiece for a leader. The big downside I hear of him is that while he hits like a heavy warbeast (he almost is one) he can also die as easily as one if you don't keep him protected. Challenges indeed. Still, I'm sure I'd struggle to resist sending Thagrosh flying over things and laying the smack down on my foes, even I lost the game next turn due to him getting assassinated.

In general, the Legion of Everblight bring a really powerful attacking game that can go right for the throat with their special abilities. Their damage output is high but they can't really take much of a hit. Spreading the dark word of the dragon Everblight seems like fun to me ;-)

I like Warmachine and Hordes primarily for the big beasts and stompy warjacks that it offers and so I'm interested in armies that can run lots of big things, rather than collecting a lot of smaller units. This is particularly relevant when I consider how glacially I am painting the models I already have.

Typhon is a three-headed dragon monster that can breathe fire and throw people around with his bites
It's a dragonspawn that brings three heads, three mouths and three fiery breath attacks. Typhon is expensive but I really like the model

Expensive but tough and versatile, the Carnivean is iconic for the Legion

The Scythean specialises in cutting down infantry but the claws can really hurt an enemy heavy

These three monsters will be the core of my hard hitters and hopefully tear apart anything that's in their way.

Shredders are described as guided missiles with teeth. Small but they pack a punch with their Rabid special ability

Then again I can't leave out the little ankle biter lesser warbeasts that the Legion can bring to the table. These guys are best just let off the lead to go nuts and if they frenzy (a downside of warbeasts) they should already be amongst the enemy so it's not a big deal.


So my army lists for these two warlocks would look something like:
- Absylonia (5 Warbeast points)
- Typhon 12pts
- Carnivean 11pts
- Scythean 9pts
- 3 Shredders 6pts
- 2 Forsaken solos (they help manage the fury of the bigger monsters) 4pts
- 1 Nyss Shepherd solo (more fury management) 1pt

Total = 43points - 5 = 38pts
BUT Absylonia's tier list (a restricted list that gives benefits if you stick to certain limits) makes heavy warbeasts cheaper at the highest level, meaning my army hits 35 on the nose. 35 is one of the main standard points levels for Warmachine and Hordes and would be equivalent to perhaps 1500pts in 40k to my knowledge.

Absylonia, a nasty warlock who is very efficient and running lots of big beasts

With Thagrosh the Messiah, I'd probably drop the Carnivean due to the cost and put in more shredders to benefit from his spells so the army would look like this at 25 points.
- Thagrosh +3 warbeast points
- Typhon 12pts
- Scythean 9pts
- 2 Shredders 4pts
- Forsaken solo 2pts
- Nyss Shepherd solo 1pt


I've played very little of Hordes so any opinions or advice is well received as always.

Best regards,

Pete

What belt do you have in Armylist-fu?

What I think my List-Fu looks like.

One thing that is great about the wargaming hobby is the variety of activities that it includes. I haven't been able to play a lot recently but that doesn't mean that I'm not involved and interested in the hobby. I have been painting a fair bit, reading background fluff (especially the Iron Kingdoms background Warmachine and Hordes are set in), keeping up with new releases and also engaging in the time-honoured art of List-Fu.

The latter is a lot of fun for me. I compare it to window shopping in a way. I put together armies that I will probably never actually collect, which lets me make forces that I would not consider in real life since finances are something most of us must take consideration of. Who has not considered the fun of building a Forge World Elysians army or an army running all dreanoughts etc.?

Rargh, Dreadnoughts!

For me it's a way to really imagine the setting and story in a way that brings it to life. I read the fiction in the various rulebooks or army books and then I want to create a force that will be able to create the stories on the tabletop that I see in my head, even if it's just for the sake of a thought experiment. It also brings to mind the different tactical challenges on offer as you try to compose the best force for what you want to do or how you want to play. I think this can work in a competitive sense, of course, but also in a more casual way when if you're the kind to think about which weapons those marines should be armed with from a background point of view and then find the pieces that fit into that with respect to points and FOCs.


What my List-Fu actually looks like ;-)

Recently I've been very inspired by the setting and environment of Warmachine and Hordes from Privateer Press. I've flirted with this briefly before but now I'm getting to the stage of really wanting to invest some time and money into the game. It will of course depend on whether I can find some gaming partners over here but I think it won't be too hard, especially since the non-GW crowd seems to have grown in recent months. One of the things that is a real benefit to Warmachine (as I'm given to understand) is that there are very few units that are actually bad. The game revolves around combinations and synergies between units to provide power and so even a "weaker piece" can hold a very important place in an army as long as you work it in somewhere. This is fun for me because I get to choose the models I find the most fun and I don't have the worries that I'll be lugging around a model that makes my games less fun by it all being more difficult.

Then again, there is always the temptation to kick around with some Infinity models as a gaming buddy over here has a starter set he's never opened, plus Old Shatter Hands has promised to bring his models for some tabletop sci-fi action in the summer when he visits Slovakia with his family. Of course, some Malifaux with creepy

Following this post will be a series of others looking at the kind of models and lists that spark my interest in different game systems.

- So do you like list-fu and creating armies in your mind or on paper?
- Is it a waste of time that could be better spent playing or painting?
- What kind of lists have you created that, in all likelihood, you will never actually collect?

WARMACHINE!!! This summer will be colossal fun ;-)

Hey everyone,

Having just seen the latest news from Privateer Press I can honestly say I am sold on getting in Warmachine properly. Whether I get just a small force to start playing or whether I get seriously into it I don't know, but I need to get my hands on some of these new monster miniatures!

Here are the models for Cygnar and Khador's colossals. Giant warjacks that will be coming out in a new supplement in July this year.

On a side note, let's enjoy a company that gives us five months of advance notice of sweet models being released rather than clamping down on rumours, even if it's the Hobbit movie backers who are behind the GW info lockdown.


Here is the Khador one next to a heavy warjack. For those who don't play Warmachine, that warjack is on a 50mm base and so is a similar size to a dreadnought, though less boxy in the shoulders. These new models are BIG.


Here is Cygnar's offering next to an Ironclad heavy warjack.


Now I don't know how these will work out on the tabletop but they look so good I think I might get them just for the collection if nothing else. This might be the final push to have me playing Warmachine too. If nothing else, I want to run one of those models as a Dreadnought, just to mess with an opponent's head :-D

All the best.

Pete

Deathwing command squad almost ready to take the field.

Hi everyone,

There hasn't been too much going on my gaming world for the past few weeks. It's been busy at work getting back into things after the Christmas period and my gaming buddy is also a teacher, so schedule matching can be a task. I've managed to play a few more games of Dreadfleet with my girlfriend and we've started working through the campaign in the book. Sadly I've had a complete lack of success in the game no matter what we try and my record now stands at ZERO wins with SIX losses....oh boy :-)


I've been working on my Deathwing painting though and putting in a bit of brush time each day, even if it's just ten minutes. It doesn't seem like much at first but all of a sudden I notice that I've completed big sections of models by the end of the week. I recommend snatching those few minutes each day to work on models, perhaps while you wait for dinner in the oven or while you play a song or two. I'm surprised at how much it can help without seeming like much effort.



So here is my command squad arrayed in full glory with Belial at their head. I'm glad I was persuaded to go for the second armour highlight layer (Menoth White Highlight) as it's brought them out nicely. They aren't all finished but now they look like a nice squad when put side by side, instead of some loosely similar bone-white figures.




I painted their left shoulderpads black as a nod to the original Deathwing story in an old GW anthology book. This was before the current Caliban and Heresy fluff but is the origin of the white armour. In essence, the Dark Angel 1st company terminators arrive on their homeworld to find that it has been taken over by a genestealer cult. In the final battle to cleanse the taint, they paint their armour bone white in the tribal ritual of Deathwing, symbolising that they are already dead and so have no fear. Their armour was originally black and it's noted that they left the left shoulder with the Crux Terminatus in the original black, as a mark of respect for the Emperor.




Belial and the Lysander sergeant stomp up the field. This squad hits nice and hard in assault, especially with the banner and apothecary to give them FNP. I often split Belial off as he can take on small squads alone most of the time and it gives me a nice variety of threats.

****Can anybody give me good advice on how to paint up Belial's sword to look like shiny obsidian? I guess some kind of highlighting similar to what you see from NMM would be good but I've not really done that before. Suggested patterns etc. are welcome.****



Here is one of the finished terminators up close. I really like the combination of Grey Knight, Space Wolf, Space Marine and Dark Angel bits and the look that they create. The lightning effect on the thunder hammer is much nicer than my first attempt (on Lysander) so I might go back and redo that one to make it look better. It's time consuming but looks good in my view.




Here is the brotherhood banner, originally from the Grey Knights set. It's not totally finished but I got tired of painting such small details and wanted to get on with the rest of the models. I've been talking with Tim from the Tau of War and he thinks the border should be brightened up. My girlfriend agrees but they each think different colours would work. Tim favours a bright red, whereas Edina thinks gold would look good. I can't decide between the two or whether I should just keep the green. Also, I can't decide if I should repaint the sword to be black with lightning effects instead of the silver here.


So that's where I stand for the moment with my army. I've got a plan for a centrepiece model using a Dreadknight conversion as a Deathwing dreadnought but I can't justify spending on that until I've finished painting these. I have to pay off my student loan first and so extra gaming expenses must be curbed until they can be properly justified (i.e. painting everything else).

Deathwing. Do they need some plasma on their side?

Happy New Year everyone and I hope you had a wonderful time over the holidays. I took my girlfriend home for a Christmas in England and it was really nice.


I've finally gotten more settled with my career as an EFL teacher and I'm getting the chance and time to work on hobby items. My Deathwing command squad are now well on the way to being painted. I gave up on assembly line painting the whole army and I've switched it out to just working on a single unit since I was becoming unmotivated. Now it feels good to be back in the painting vibe again and I'm looking forward to bringing the pain against my fellow 40k-playing teacher just as soon as we can schedule a game around teaching, preparing, relationships and his being a father :-)


I'm currently running my Deathwing at 1500pts but I've been told that people here tend to play more frequently at 1750, which makes me think about the future options for my army expansion. I've promised my girlfriend that I'll avoid buying things until I'm finished with painting the current batch but it doesn't hurt to plan ahead. I'm thinking about adding a plasma cannon to the army in one form or another since my army has no low-AP firepower and relies on assault to take out armoured troops. I know we're good at that with the multitude of hammers available but sometimes you need to thin things out at range.





Here is the first of the options I'm thinking about. This model has long attracted me but since it was only available in metal and I'm a klutz with superglue and metal (apparently), I put it off. Now it is available in Finecast, I might just find a place to have the pimp-daddy of the Dark Angels riding around on his jetbike dropping plasma cannon shots on people's heads. I'm a little concerned with the Finecast quality problems but I have absolutely no hesitation in calling up GW customer services as many times as necessary if there are miscasts in the kit. Hopefully, of course, I'll get a top notch kit first time.




The other choice is to bring some plasma cannon dreadnoughts to the field. Now I know that I won't get the model shown above, but it's so lovely that I thought the picture deserved a repost ;-) I could pick up a venerable dreadnought (or two) and get some nice plasma on the field along with a couple of armoured stompy robots. To be honest, with the mix and match modelling I've got going on now, I'd probably get a venerable kit and a Furioso kit so I'd have variety. I could use the Frag Cannon arm to represent a plasma cannon and it would look neat to have the different Blood Angel parts available.


Choices are good to have and I will enjoy mulling these over as I paint up the rest of the Deathwing. I should have a picture update of the command squad soon.


All the best,


Pete