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

How white is bone? Deathwing painting help please!

Hey everyone,

I really need some help and thoughts with respect to painting up the bone armour of the Deathwing. I have thus far painted most of my models in three stages:

- Bone white spray
- sepia wash
- highlighting with Menoth White base.

Now I started to paint up the next layer of highlighting with Menoth White Highlight and had a pause. Do you think it is too bright of a jump or should I continue to do this with the other Deathwing models?

L-R: Bone spray, sepia wash, menoth base, menoth highlight

It is possible of course for me to mix the base and highlight colours to have something in between but that carries the penalty of mixing paint to the same level for 27 terminator figures. I'm not sure if I have the patience for that haha.

Please pass on your thoughts so I can decide how I'll brighten up my models (or not).

Much appreciated.

Pete

Bringing out the Dark Kin from Commoragh

Hi everyone,

So now that my Deathwing force is well into the painting stage, is complete at 1500 and just needs a couple of units to make it to 1750 (see other post), I'd like to talk about another army entirely.

Deathwing are, to me, the epitome of a durable, slowly moving elite force. There aren't many of them so you have to concentrate your attacks carefully but they will weather a storm of fire, never run since they are fearless and will often surprise you with just how long they can plough through the opposition when the chips are down. You can trust in your 2+ armour and 3+/5+ invulnerable saves all while gunning the opposition down with storm bolters, assault cannons and cyclones, or pulping them in assault with lightning claws, power fists and thunder hammers.

If Deathwing are the proverbial brick outhouse, now I want to have a try with the glass cannon that is the Dark Eldar army.

This might just be the most awesome cannon ever :-)


I've really enjoyed the tactical challenge of having to carefully consider each and every move I make with my small, elite Deathwing force and from all counts, playing a mechanised Dark Eldar force brings many of the same thinking challenges. Knowing that you are very vulnerable to shooting and assault from pretty much anything in the game makes me feel like I'll have to have razor focus all the time. Now that can be a tiring way to play but it is exhilarating too.

So having read a few tactica articles on Dakka and considered the kind of army I'd like to play here is my 1500point army list.

HQ
- Haemonculus.
- Haemonculus.

Elites
- 3 Trueborns with blasters in a Dakka Venom (two splinter cannons)
- 3 Trueborns with blasters in a Dakka Venom (two splinter cannons)
- 5 Incubi in a Dakka Venom (two splinter cannons)

Troops

- 7 Wracks with an Agoniser wielding acothyst in a Raider (flickerfield, aethersails, shock prow).

- 7 Wyches, haywire grenades, razorflails, Hekatrix with agoniser in a raider (configured as above)

- 7 Wyches, haywire grenades, razorflails, Hekatrix with agoniser in a raider (configured as above)

Heavy Support

- Ravager, 3 Dark Lances and Flickerfield
- Ravager, 3 Dark Lances and Flickerfield
- Ravager, 3 Dark Lances and Flickerfield


NB: To bring this up to 1750, I'd probably add another Haemonculus and ten Kabalite warriors in a Raider.

Rargh! We've come for your souls.


Army Selection Thoughts

Despite the tasty selection of characters in the codex I decided to start off with cheap Haemonculi to bring some paint tokens. With one token I get FNP, two tokens give me furious charge and three make me fearless. The first one is really key for a fragile dark eldar army and will make my Wyches even nastier in assault. I'll probably put one with each wyche squad.

For the elite selection I knew I wanted some nasty shooting and assault ability. The blaster trueborn are a tried and tested way to kill off tanks and terminators. Putting them in a dakka venom lets me move 6" and fire 3 blasters plus 12 poisoned splinter cannon shots out to 36". If I need to move 12" I still get to unleash the dakka since poisoned weapons always count as defensive. I added Incubi because the models are really nice and they will let me take out armoured foes or those with FNP that I don't want my wyches tied up against.

For the troops I started with wracks who bring their own pain token. With poisoned weapons they can put a nice hurting on an enemy in assault. I see these as being effective troops to tie up the more basic enemy forces that I don't want my wyches engaging or to sit on an objective if needed. The wyches are nasty assault units that can kill off enemies with the agoniser, threaten tanks with haywire grenades (possibly on turn one if the opponent deploys on the 12" line) and tie up big assault units because of their CC invulnerable save.

All of my raiders get a flickerfield (5+ invul) since they'll be in danger most of the game, aethersails to make sure I get a turn 2 assault, redeploy rapidly or tank shock at speed, and a shock prow in order to make tank shocks. It not only adds a threat to armour but lets me tank shock units to put them in a good position for controlling the number of models who can hit me back.

The ravagers are tank and heavy infantry hunters. Because they can move 12" and still fire all three weapons I think it will be very tough for a foe to stop me getting side armour shots. Also it lets me redeploy a lot of force very quickly that can reach out and touch hard at range.


The downside

So while this is an exciting army idea I hope to get started on soon, the inevitable downside is pricing. GW has made it quite costly to mechanise your army and having to shell out some £20 for each raider, £18 for each venom and £30 per Ravager makes it a big investment, even before I put troops in them.

Still it's a nice project to look forward to.

Thoughts, criticism and jokes all very much welcomed

Pete :-)

Taking the Deathwing up to 1750 points

Hi everyone,

So my Deathwing army painting is progressing at a decent pace now that I've gotten myself settled in Bratislava and been able to unpack. One of my new coworkers at the language school is also a 40k player and will be introducing me to the gaming club here soon.

The army as it is so far.

I'm happy with the way that the models are turning out so far. I need to test out some highlighting as I'm not sure how much more I want to brighten up the bone armour and how extensively. Should I just do edge highlights with a brighter shade (I used Menoth White Base so I can do Menoth White Highlight next) or should I look to brighten up the armour more in general? Not sure on that one yet so I'll be doing a test on one of the grunt models before I apply it to Lysander/Belial/etc.

Now the army comes out to just over 1500 points with upgrades and I hear that a lot of people here game at 1750 so I want to increase my army size a bit. With 215-230 points (depending on upgrades) to play with I have some options. I don't really want to add more terminators since the current lot are such a mix of styles (GK, SM and SW) and I like the variety. Plus I already have 27 terminators to paint and I don't need more ;-)

I've been thinking about one of the new venerable dreadnought kits and the techmarine with servitors. I know the latter is not a power unit by any means but I've always liked the model and now that it's in the easily-assembled Finecast format, it's something I can consider. Superglue still hates me but the lack of weight on the Finecast means even I can assemble the models.

Some groovy venerable dreadnoughts


A good picture of the Finecast techmarine from the always excellent 40kbitz blog. Go and follow it ;-)


Any thoughts or advice for boosting the army? I'd like to keep everything in the same bone-white though I don't mind painting Ravenwing in that colour if land speeder is the way forward.

If only Sammael on Jetbike was available in Finecast, he'd be on my list for sure :-)

Thanks for reading,

Pete

PS: The other option is to leave the army at 1500 and move onto my new crush of a Dark Eldar Skimmer army. More to come on this soon ;-)

PPS: I got my new Windsor and Newton brushes as a birthday present to myself (27 years young and still playing with toy soldiers).
Deathwing Lysander approves of my new brushes!

Simplifiying 40k for a children's summer camp....in another language ;-)

Hey everyone,

So I'm in Bratislava, Slovakia now and about to begin the exciting job of teaching English for the next year. It's been very fun so far and I'm relishing the opportunity to soak in a new culture and get new life experiences.

Big thanks go out to Old Shatter Hands for his networking to get me the job over here and giving me lots of insight into places to go and things to do while here. Props also for his helping me start learning the complex and very multi-layered Slovak language.

Later today I will be taking a bus with my new colleagues out to a summer camp the language school is running for children. During a meeting with the owner of the school, he asked me how I came to know Old Shatter Hands. When I explained that it was through wargaming and explained the basic premise to him, he thought it might be a fun activity to play with some of the kids, if I'm willing to bring the models.

Now I only have my Deathwing and there are only a few of them (27 total). Given that the children are going to have variable comfort and skill levels in English, I'll need to bring the rules waaaaay down from their current level so that we can have fun games but not get completely lost in the combination of poor rules and language barriers :-)

So my thirty second rules ideas are something like this:

- Giving regular terminators a 5+ save, SS termies get a 3+ save.

- Storm bolters are 2 shot. They need 6s to cause a wound (skip the hit and then wound mechanic)

- Assault cannons are 4 shot, needing 6s also. Cyclones are 1 shot needing a 3+ to wound.

- If TH termies get into combat, they need a 3+ to wound (again, combining hit and wound rolls). LC termies wound on a 5+ but get two attacks. Regular termies need a 6 to wound with one attack.

- I'll probably include the run rules so the assault termies can rush up a bit.

- Each team/player has to choose if they want a shooty or an assault squad.

I will be leaving out Belial and the Librarian from the game (or use them as objectives maybe) to keep it simple, which gives me 3 assault squads and 2 shooty squads.


So tell me what you think people. Does this look like a fun game that will interest the kids and give them a chance to use English, without completely confusing them?

Any and all advice is gratefully received.

All the best

Pete

Everyone's a king when there's no-one left to pawn - sacrificing units

But what do you do if the only things to sacrifice are Astartes?



Hey everyone,

So the post title is a lyric by Razorlight but I had to think a bit about sacrificing units in my game tonight against Blood Angels. It was an interesting list the my opponent brought and I had to really make some tough calls about which units to keep and which to lose.

My Deathwing 1500pt list took on a Blood Angels army consisting of:
- Astorath the grim
- 5 jump pack Death company (DC) with Lemartes (uber chaplain). All with power weapons.
- 5 jump pack Death company, all with power weapons.
- 5 terminators with assault cannons
- 5 lightning claw terminators
- 5 tactical marines
- Death company dreadnought with Blood Talons

Now this isn't a very balanced 1500pt force but it sure packs a lot of punch if it gets the charge on you. Plus the death company get furious charge, feel no pain, rerolls to hit when charging and rerolls to wound (plus Astorath makes the opponent, i.e. me, re-roll successful invul. saves). Very nasty.

I quickly realised when my early shooting phases didn't kill off the jump troops that I would have to sacrifice units while the rest of my army moved to deal with the threats of charging Blood Angels. The death company with those characters hit so hard on the charge that you're pretty much bound to lose a lot of guys, or the whole unit if you lay with Deathwing five man squads.

Thankfully I spent a lot of time talking with Old Shatter Hands about the necessary sacrifice tactics he played with when using Tau and having to block the opponent's movement. The Kroot bubble wrap, Piranha blocking and accepting one charge in order to prevent multi-assaults etc. were all in my mind during this game. The harder part is that I had to accept the loss of ~250pt units as part of my sacrificial strategy.

As it played out, I whittled down my opponent's non-DC force with firepower and focused assaults while I fed in two units and the librarian to control the rampaging Death Company attack on my left flank. My army as a whole mopped up the entire BA force through careful shooting followed by concentrated assaults, then brought the weight of thunder hammers to bear on the rampaging Death Company and special characters. I had to use the assault rules to my advantage when I charged into the existing combat by making sure that I only made it into base contact with one or two DC marines and not the characters, meaning the new attackers could only be hit by a few shots each time. In the end it paid off and the Deathwing cleared the table, losing two entire squads, the librarian and a couple of terminators.

The victorious Deathwing posing on the GW gaming table.




Sacrificial tactics.

So here is my take on the steps of sacrificing units.

Do you need to sacrifice something?
If you don't need to have a unit die for a greater purpose, don't put it in a place where it can die. Simple really but something that people (me included) forget at times. You should sacrifice things when they will help your overall strategy, save a better/more important unit, tie up an opponent's powerful unit or act as bait that puts him in a vulnerable position. Otherwise, I would try to keep your toy soldiers alive as much as possible. They can't help you if they die for no reason after all.


Which unit will you sacrifice?
There are two main factors to consider when it comes to choosing who will die for your victory.
- The first one is who is close enough to get into the right position. Clearly if you have only one unit that can block your opponent, they are the ones with heads on the chopping block. The more your forces are set to work together and overlap, the more choice you will have about who to use for your sacrificial strategy.
- The second is to choose the unit you can most afford to lose. Most of the time you will go for your more basic choices over the expensive elites (choosing scouts over losing a squad of terminators) but remember what each unit is capable of. Assault terminators can kill like nobody's business but if you have scouts on the objective near the end of the game and a dreadnought coming to get them off it, the terminators are perfectly viable to give up in exchange for the win. In my case I gave up a ranged Deathwing unit led by the librarian in order to allow my thunder hammer squads to get the charge on the DC marines, giving them better odds to win.


What is the purpose of the sacrifice?

This one is the really key point that you need to keep in mind when considering your tactical options. You must have a good purpose for your unit or you will simply be throwing them away, which makes your models feel sad ;-)

You can sacrifice for a number of reasons including:
- Stalling your opponent e.g charging a dreadnought with a mob of fearless orks. Even without a power klaw, those orks will last a long time. They can't hurt the dread but they have taken it out of the game for a number of turns. Unless it's a Blood Talon dreadnought it probably won't kill that many orks per turn and will spend the game locked in a combat it doesn't want to be in. The Tau under OSH are masters at this as the Piranhas, drones and kroot all stall your opponent to give more time for the shooting elements to do their work.

- Blocking your opponent's movement. If you have a unit of Furious charge Blood Angel terminators in a land raider, you have a threat range of about 20" (12" move, 2" deployment, 6" assault). If I can move a unit in the way of the Land Raider you have to get past that first before getting into the assault you want to be in. Now I know that in this case my blocker would have to be a vehicle or the Land Raider could tank shock through, but the point stands. I've headed off a potential charge by Nobz with a couple of gun drones, letting me get the charge the next turn (plus another round of firing). Think about your opponent's likely avenues of movement when you start the game and plan on how to block them if you need to.

- Saving a more important unit from dying. Let's say I'm the one with a unit of Death Company led by a chaplain. If I get to assault, my damage output goes way up compared to if I am on the receiving end of an assault. In this case, I would happily sacrifice another unit to my opponent so that they are left close enough for me to get the charge on them (Note: This plays also into the bait tactic below). As mentioned before, you could also choose to save a scoring unit that is on an objective and might give up a very strong elite unit for this purpose. In the case of OSH's tau forces, he would give up a unit of 10 kroot (70pts) in order to save the squad of crisis suits (150+ pts) hiding behind them and let the army as a whole have more firing time. In my case, I let a character and a ranged unit take the killing charge of the enemy assault units in order that my counter-assault folks could return the favour.

- Baiting the enemy forces. Now this one is a tricky thing as it depends on your opponent wanting to kill your bait and expending effort doing so. The trick when baiting is to put your sacrificial unit in a position where your opponent can go for it, but will have to change his line of attack to do so. Putting a single dreadnought in line of sight of a broadside across the table is not bait most of the time, it's a target. Putting your expensive HQ unit (e.g. 3 Crisis suits + Commander) on one flank where your opponent can get to him if he just moves a couple of units is more like it. The idea with baiting is that you make his army start to act piecemeal, rather than as a whole. I will lose my bait, but you won't have the units that moved in position to deal with the rest of my army which is now moving to act on my plan. Of course, when doing this you should endeavour to use units and positioning that will be good even if the bait isn't taken. In my crisis suit example, if you ignore the suits, I'll be able to put a lot of fire on the flank of your force, which vehicles hate. Bell of lost souls did a good article with thoughts on baiting (http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2009/01/goatboys-40k-thoughts-for-week-baiting.html)



That's it from me for now. I'll probably post a little bit more this week but time is rapidly running out for me as I gear up to head off to a new country (Slovakia) and a new career (Teaching English). I fly out a week from now and it's both exciting and scary.

All the best

Pete

I hate it when people give up before they've lost.

My last opponent could take a lesson from this pooch.


Hey everyone,

So my Deathwing got to play in a 3k points game last night and it was mostly a lot of fun. I teamed up with the Tau player I played against last week to take on a guy with 3k of orks. It looked like it was going to be a really great scrap but sadly the ork opponent just started getting despondent and downhearted really early on in the game and it took me giving him tactical advice to get him to actually try and play again, which made the game drag a bit.

Essentially he was upset that our turn one and two shooting really smashed his ork forces and he didn't think he could get into assault with us. Instead of really making an effort to maximise his gameplay to at least do damage to us, even if he still lost, he seemed happier to mope about and just resign himself to saying that he brought the wrong army and that game wasn't really winnable.

Sigh.

My side was winning when we ran out of time (turn 4) in the overbooked GW gaming space but I'd almost got to the point when I was going to make him swap sides to take my Deathwing so I could unleash my inner ork and kick some ass ;-)

Battle Report

Army lists were (approximately as these are from memory)
- 1500 pts deathwing.
Belial, Librarian, Assault command squad (apoth, banner), 2 assault squads, 2 shooty squads)

- 1500 pts Tau
Farsight, bodyguard. 6 crisis suits (firestorm, BC&PR), 6 stealth suits, 48 fire warriors, 20 kroot, 8 pathfinders, 1 Piranha, 3 Broadsides, a bunch of drones, 2 devilfish

- 3000pts Orks
Ghazghull, PK warboss, 10 Lootas, 10 Burnas, 20 Nobz kitted out, 80 boyz, 2 trukks, battlewagon, killa kan, 8 warbikers, Looted wagon with boomgun.




Basically the battle was a turkey shoot in turn 1 (understandable) and for turn 2 my opponent liked my advice to use the devilfish and drones as blockers (thanks Old Shatter Hands) so we could funnel the orks towards us and slow them down. It was pretty successful and our opponent didn't really hit us with enough to truly cripple us though I think he could have killed off the Tau player's flank if we'd had time for another turn or two (and if he'd been playing them like orks....as I would have).

His key problem was letting our shooting dictate his plan and footslogging ineffectively. If you're coming at us on foot, you should be moving and running as far and fast as possible from turn 1. When your trukk with Ghazghull and nobz gets stunned on turn 1 (leaving it in LOS of the broadsides again), you get that power squad of nobz out and get running as far forward as you can. You get your units into assault with the maximum prejudice and using cover as much as you can. Your killa kan should move and run from turn 1 too. If he loses the klaw, he's still on assault duty for taking out vehicles or tying up battlesuits in assault.

He chose to shoot with his boys mobs a lot more often than I would. In my book Boyz get to shoot when they are about to charge into assault, or for a turn prior if they are shoota boyz. Nobz don't shoot as their firepower is nothing compared to their ruthlessly powerful assault abilities. When you stop your boyz mob from running in order to take 2 rokkit shots (BS2) at the front armour of a devilfish (12) you've not really grasped where ork power lies. Also, a S8 AP3 large blast weapon should be aimed at the tightly clustered crisis suits to kill them with instant death instead of the 12 fire warriors nearby, no matter how cool it looks to cover 12 models instead of 3 and 2 drones.

When I got him to use his forces in a more effective manner (multi-assaults, using Ghaz's waagh, killa kan vs devilfish etc) the battle really jumped back into contention from where he seemed happy to leave it in turn 2.

It was still a fun game to play and it would have been nice if we'd had time to bring the game through a full turn 4 (we cut it short) and played turns 5-7. I think the orks would have probably lost, but they could have ripped up the Tau flank and it would have been an effort for the Deathwing to bring them down finally.



So don't let me see any of you blog readers giving up on games that aren't going your way. My charge to you is to persevere until the end. It ain't over until the last dice is rolled!!!

Pete :-)

Tonight I can write.....of a Deathwing battle and some more poetry ;-)

So I took the Deathwing out to play tonight.

After carrying around a big box of models during my teaching course today, the stage was set for a Deathwing battle at the local GW in Cambridge. I got the impression fairly quickly that most people there were playing fairly unfocused lists so I was a bit worried I'd be seen as a power gamer, but I figured that the disparity in codex age between me and my opponent (Space Wolves) should even things out.

We played pitched battle annihilation and my army was simple.

Belial, Librarian, Command Assault squad (with apothecary), 2 assault squads, 2 shooty squads.

My opponent brought (roughly):
- Wolf Lord with wolf claw and storm bolter
- Rune priest (jaws and living lightning)
- 5 Wolf guard in terminator armour, 2 wolf claws, 2 power fists, 1 thunder hammer, assault cannon
- Venerable Dread (AC)
- 10 Grey hunters
- 15(?) Blood Claws led by a Wolf Guard w/ PF
- 5 Wolf Scouts (sniper rifles and missile)
- Vindicator
- 5 Long Fangs (Multi-melta, heavy bolter, plasma cannon, lascannon)


I knew from his armaments that he hadn't really put together the list for killiness, but figured it would be a good first game for the Deathwing anyway. I won the dice off and gave him first turn. He deployed fairly evenly with Grey Hunters and Long Fangs on one flank, Vindicator, WG and Lord in the centre, then Dread and Blood Claws with Rune priest on the other flank. He reserved the scouts for outflanking. This seemed a waste to me since they had heavy weapons but hey ho.

To counter this, I deployed one shooty squad with the Librarian on the flank table edge facing his Dread and Blood Claws. All other squads were deep striking.

His turn 1 had nothing much since he had no targets. He moved forwards with everything but left the vindicator sitting, now separated from his mini-deathstar of lord and WG. My turn 1 brought in Belial and the command squad, and another assault squad. Belial et al. set up in my opponent's rear corner with LOS to, but out of charge range of, the dread. The other squad landed between two buildings with LOS to the Vindicator's flank. A few missiles later and I'd stunned the dread and blown up the tank. My shooty squad also killed some Blood Claws.

Turn 2 he continues to move forward on his right flank, which seemed a waste since my entire force thus far was on his left. His Wolf Guard wheeled around to advance on my guys and the Blood Claws elected to shoot rather than charge Belial's squad. Terminator armour and FNP saved them and the Librarian stopped Jaws being cast. My turn 2 gave me the second shooty squad who I deepstruck in place to block and shoot the wolf guard. I once again stunned the dread and charged the Blood Claws with Belial's squad. He took two wounds and we lost one terminator, but stomped the Claws, making them run, only the WG and Priest still alive. I consolidated so that they would be within 6" and unable to rally next turn

Turn 3 puts his fleeing units almost off the table. He gets to charge the shooty squad with his Wolf Guard though and with some good shooting and wolf claws, pulls them apart before I could fight back. I get my last squad and strike them to the flank I'm rapidly taking. I stun the dread again (damnit, just die), move Belial to escort the fleeing models off the board and get my power hitters in position to counter assault the WG if they get into combat with the assault squad near them. The WG are very killy, but I've got a huge amount of hitting power on offer to overwhelm them if I concentrate it.

Turn 4 lets him just get the charge on one of my assault squads, but the lord and one WG aren't close enough to strike. I get some good rolls with my lightning claws and tear up three of his guys, then the hammers/fists come into play and we're reduced to the cyclone guy on my side, his lord and AC on his side. I then shoot the DCCW off his dread, letting me charge it and PF it to death then my command squad assaults in to kill the lord and remaining Wolf Guard, their 3+ Storm Shields (thanks FAQ) saving them from the wolf claws.

He has 1 kill point (shooty squad), and has killed 10 terminators. I have 6 kills points (7 if the WG leader of the Blood Claws count) and we call the game as it's getting late.


Now clearly my opponent made some major errors and didn't correct them later. The wolf scouts should have been on the table in turn 1 to use their guns, the devastators (whose loadout would benefit from less diversity) needed to be better placed from the start and, when it was clear I was hitting just one flank, should have been moved to counter on turn 1. Instead they holed up in a building with great LOS to my flank that had no models on it. The end result was that I took on around 1000pts of Wolves with my whole army and mashed them. Good opponent though and kept smiling through to the end. If we'd had time I'd have danced out of his range and kept throwing missiles at his remaining troops. Or if I decided to be more casual I would have footslogged over to his scouts, hunters and fangs who'd hunkered down in a few buildings and tried to fight them out, just for kicks.

The Deathwing are nice, no question, but very different to play with. You have to use deepstriking (with Deathwing Assault) in many cases because you can't risk a long range gunfight against most foes. With that in mind, I can see that picking the DS locations can make or break your game from the start. I think this army is going to be very tactical to play and a real challenge when facing a less casual player, or even one who realises I might DS and castles up. Deathwing also suffer a problem of cracking Mech, especially walkers. Against vehicles I have hammers, fists and some chainfists but I have to think twice when facing a Dread that can pulp me pretty badly.

Overall I had a blast playing my new army and the GW store here is really cool. The staff were excited about Finecast but didn't try to sell me anything and just loved to talk about the hobby. It made me feel like I was in the GW that I grew into the hobby with and not some of the more sales-focused ones I've been to recently.

Thanks for reading all.

To finish off we have poetry.....it's good for you


I think this is my favourite poem I've yet read. It was shown to me be someone who I was close with and resonated with me deeply then, and still does as I look back on things. I hope you enjoy the flow, words and emotions too.

I'll culture you gamers yet ;-)


Tonight I Can Write

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

My deathwing army in pictures!

Hey everyone,

So I've been bouncing around a lot recently between countries and then from place to place since being back in England with family and friends. Still, I managed to spend a couple of hours over a few days getting in some geek time and assembling my new Deathwing army (the Death-Grey-Space-Knight-Wolf-Wing). Once I figured out how everything was going to go together, it was a lot of fun to do and there were only a few niggling challenges.

I built this army from the following components:
- 1 Grey Knight Terminators boxed set
- 1 Space Wolf Terminators boxed set
- 2 Space Marine Terminators boxed sets
- 6 AOBR terminators
- Bits from the Dark Angel veteran and Ravenwing sprues
- Additional CC weapons (Thunder hammers and storm shields mostly)

There weren't any major issues in terms of scale except that I noticed the shoulder pads were slightly different sizes. As I recall it, the Grey Knight pads were a little bigger, which was fine on other arms, but using a space wolf or regular pad over a Grey Knight arm could sometimes be a tight fit. I persevered though and once the glue had set, everything looks like it fits just fine.

From the components above I created 2 shooty squads (Assault cannon and storm bolters), 2 assault squads (TH/SS, Sergeant with LC, CML), one command squad (TH/SS, Apothecary, Banner), a Librarian and Belial, Master of the Deathwing.

Here they are



So now, onto the individual squads and pics. I had to carefully figure out the allocation of weapons and arms because of the mismatch of kits that I was using. I made a big chart with each model listed then added columns for legs, torso, head, L weapon, R weapon, L shoulder, R shoulder, Head. I didn't want anybody to stand out too much as completely Grey Knight, wolf or terminator so I tried to give everyone at least one piece of each kit style. I think it worked out fairly well.


Belial and Librarian



I decided to tweak the army so that I could include a Librarian in terminator armour rather than a small tactical squad. Partly it's for the psychic defence but also it just seems more fitting to have everyone in Deathwing armour. By adding the librarian the points go up to 1535 so if I need to cut back, I will drop the banner from the command squad and the two chainfists in the shooty squads.

Belial is armed with the standard storm bolter and sword of secrets rather than LCs because I liked the modelling opportunities of using a Grey Knight sword and storm bolter. He is made from: Deathwing legs, Terminator torso, Grey Knight left and right arms, GK sword and storm bolter (the latter decorated with Dark Angel bits from the upgrade sprue), hooded DA head, terminator right shoulderpad, deathwing left shoulder pad, wolf guard cloak decorated with dark angel icons and pieces.


The Librarian is less diverse: Wolf legs, GK torso, GK right and left arms, GK storm bolter, GK falchion, GK staff, terminator shoulder pads, DA bits hanging off rear belt area


Command Squad



I know there are only four members here. The sergeant will be represented by a Captain Lysander model I was given. I haven't got any superglue or expoxy yet so he won't be assembled just yet. I can't decide whether or not to try to use some greenstuff to adjust the imagery on him or just say to hell with it and paint him up in Deathwing colours. With the amount of other styles in here, what's one Imperial fist going to matter? ;-)

The apothecary and banner bearer gave the extra challenge of needing to have TH/SSs while only having a single hand free. I managed to cut and bodge it so that they have the hammer and shield in the same hands and I think it came out pretty well.


Assault Squad 1


I really like how dynamic a lot of the poses are on these models and it was a lot of fun to make some really badass looking terminators. I've never played with the assault kind before and I'm looking forward to beating some face when I get time to actually play them


Assault Squad 2


I love the pose of the sergeant in this one and just wish the focus had been more even. I'll have to play with more photography later. The squad's CML is made from a chopped down Ravenwing Typhoon missile launcher. It fits quite nicely though there was a big hole in the side where I'd cut off the part that fits into the landspeeder. Luckily one of the flowing scroll pieces from the Ravenwing set covers that gap nicely.


Shooty Squad 1


I decided that the shooty sergeants with power weapons would get to wield the two-handed grey knight halberd and I think they came out looking tasty. These were the most troublesome modelling bits though as the GK torsos seem to be very slightly wider than regular torso pieces. Since each arm had to be angled the right way to match up with the other arm's hand placement it meant a complex series of multiple spidery-finger-holding-glue steps were needed. They came out nicely in the end though. I love the belt-fed Wolf Guard assault cannon. You can really tell the step up in quality and complexity when comparing these kits that were designed years apart.


Shooty Squad 2


The final squad. This one seemed a little bit static in poses with the pieces I had left so I did my best to make my chainfist wielder look very dynamic and threatening. I think it worked out. Still, it would have been nice to have some more cool pieces left to work with but hey, you work with what you have.


Next steps?

So the next part is clearly to base and paint these guys. I'm going to use the army painter bone spray to get the basecoat done, then wash with a sepia tone before I start bringing up the armour tones. Those who read the original Deathwing story printed way back in the day when you could still field Genestealer patriarch's will hopefully like my painting plan. In the story, the Dark Angel terminators wore black armour then, when they marched on a city full of Genestealers and didn't expect to live, they painted their armour bone white, in the tribal tradition know as Deathwing. When the rest of the chapter came looking, the surviving terminators asked that the armour was kept that colour to honour the fallen brothers. This gave rise to the Deathwing armour colour of the current edition with one exception. In the story, the left shoulder pad, with the crux terminatus was kept black to honour the Emperor. I'll be doing this with my models and it gives me a good way to mark out the librarian (blue shoulder) and apothecary (white shoulder).


For anyone who wants to make this army or one much like it, I definitely suggest giving it a try. It's a blast to fit all the different terminator parts together. If I was doing it again I would probably use:
- 2 space wolf boxes (for the CC weapons and assault cannons)
- 1 assault terminator box
- 1 grey knight box
- 1 terminator box
- 1 ravenwing sprue (for typhoon => cyclone missile launcher conversions)
- 1 dark angel sprue

Thoughts and comments are welcomed

Pete

1500pt Deathwing army list, transportable in 1 battlefoam tray ;-)

Happy monday everyone, So I've been gathering together various models and bits from friends and GW to put together my crazy-hybrid model set Deathwing army. I'm looking for some tactical thoughts on the loadouts for each squad, working within the limit of models I have/will get.



Models
- 1 Box 5 Grey Knight Terminators (GKT)
- 1 Box 5 Assault Terminators (AT)
- 2 Box 5 Space Marine Terminators (T)
- 1 Box 5 Wolf Guard Terminators (SWT)
- 3 single Assault on Black Reach Terminators
- 1 Captain Lysander model
- Bits from Dark Angel Sprues
- 5 robed tactical marines from DA sprues

Weapons
- 11 Thunder Hammers/Storm Shields (5 from AT, 4 from SWT, 1 from GKT, 1 from Lysander)
- 9 Lightning claw pairs (5 from AT, 4 from SWT)
- 3 Heavy Flamers (2 from T, 1 from SWT)
- 2 Cyclone Missile Launchers (T)
- 5 Assault Cannons (2 from T, 1 fromt SWT, 2 from Dark Angel Sprues)
- 5+ Chainfists
- 10+ Powerfists
- 15+ Stormbolters
- 2-3 Power weapons


Army List for 1500 pts

- Belial, probably equipped with lightning claws due to his high Initiative - 130pts

- Deathwing squad (215), 5 TH/SS, CML (20), Apothecary (30), Chapter Banner (25) - 290pts (Belial leads)

- Deathwing squad (215), 3 TH/SS, 2 LC, CML (20) - 235pts

- Deathwing squad (215), 3 TH/SS, 2 LC, CML (20) - 235pts

- Deathwing squad (215), SB/PW, SB/CF (5), 2 SB/PF, Assault cannon(30)/PF - 250pts

- Deathwing squad (215), SB/PW, SB/CF (5), 2 SB/PF, Assault cannon(30)/PF - 250pts

- 5 Tactical marines (90), meltagun (10) - 100 pts

Total = 1490 pts if I've added up correctly. I recall it being 1500 even when I last did it so may have mis-remembered a pt cost here or there. For 10 pts I'd probably add a couple more chainfists.

Basic Tactics
Pretty straightforward. Deathwing assault with one assault squad (or Belial's) and the two shooty squads to establish a turn 1 presence. Tactical squad holds home objective. When the enemy responds to the turn 1 terminators shooting them, drop the assault squads behind them and hopefully catch in a pincer movement of sorts.

For objectives missions I'll drop the shooty squads near the objectives and hold them with fearless terminators.


Suggestions, tactical advice, hate mail and the like is all welcome ;-)

More Deathwing love. Must resist the urge.

So I'm definitely tempting the heck out of myself in my last month in the US. I know that I have various costs ahead of me (travel, teaching course, renting an apt in Europe etc) yet I can't stop the desire for a sweet looking Deathwing army.

The good thing (sort of) is that I will be including Grey Knight terminators in the army and they aren't even release until the beginning of April, when I will be too busy preparing to move to even consider buying plastic crack. Also, buying GW models in the UK is cheaper than over here, even paying with $. For example, a box of terminators ($50) from the Warstore will sell for $40 yet I can buy from Wayland Games at a discount in pounds and the boxes come out to around $35. Sadly GW seems to price the US models on an exchange rate of around 2:1, which we haven't seen for some time.

In the meantime though, I'm just sourcing various lovely Deathwing models from which to take inspiration when the time comes I can actually start my army.

Here is a particularly awesome rendition of a Deathwing captain by the talented Scibor. If you look around you'll find many of his/her sculpts for 40k models and they have the same intensely sharp detailing and creativity. I am in no way able to recreate this but I will be happy if I can get some good hoods and robes going on my terminators.



Here are some really nicely modelled Deathwing terminators. Can annybody identify the parts of the leader model? I see Marneus Calgar's body and I suspect the belt-fed bolter is part of the Marneus figure too but the hands and the sword look different. Thoughts?

Pete

Gosh darn you GW and your temptuous ways.

Hey everyone,

So despite winding down on my time here in America (leaving April 13th) and trying to sell off the vast majority of my wargaming collection.....I am getting tempted to collect a new army.

How is it that we can be hooked so powerfully by these pieces of plastic, pewter and resin that sensible ideas like dropping the hobby for a while due to impending travel drift out of our minds and are replaced by the urge to create a new army of tiny toy warriors?

However it happened....I want to get and play a Deathwing army

I trace this particular new urge to a few factors:
- I don't want to stop the hobby, despite planning on country hopping.
- I can make an army of all terminators and only have to transport 25-30 figures.
- The new FAQ makes them better on the tabletop.
- I like the idea of having mixed armament squads
- I read the original story of the Deathwing in the novel compilation Deathwing when I first got into the GW hobby at age 10 or so.

So let's bring on the Deathwing.



Games Workshop has managed to create a rather awesome collection of plastic terminators for various armies and I like them all.....so I want to create a fun mishmash army. I will use various boxed sets and enjoy the mix of armaments that playing deathwing will allow me to take advantage of. I also have a great love for plastic models and will use it whenever possible since metal and resin don't click with me. I swear my skin exudes chemicals that prevent superglue from working on anything I'm holding, no matter what it's made from.

Army 'List'

To start with, the army needs to be led by Belial, the master of the deathwing. He allows Deathwing to be taken as troops as well as Elites, giving you 9 slots to fill with terminator goodness. There is no model for Belial so I'm thinking of using the Chaos Terminator lord as a base for him with lightning claws or converting using spare bits from the other sets I'll get.

Here's a good example of a Chaos lord Belial Conversion from Dakka



I cleary need to have some regular terminator boxes, for the cyclone launchers if nothing else but with the other sets on offer I can make some beastly combinations and fun models.

So I will start with two boxes of regular terminators and one box of assault terminators to give me some good models and basic options.

Who doesn't love hammers, claws and missiles?



Next up for me is the extremely cool Space Wolf Terminator set. This comes with a great selection of ranged and melee weapons (love the belt-fed assault cannon) and as long as I cover up some of the more obvious wolf imagery, I think it will add character.




By adding Belial to the mix, one Deathwing squad can be upgraded to have a banner and an apothecary. That's right, feel no pain on fearless terminators. Until today there was no obvious way to get a terminator-armoured apothecary and so conversion was the only option.

......then the new Grey Knight terminators set was released, including a sweet banner, apothecary, multiple great weapons and some fantastically ornate armour pieces. Clearly I'll have to fiddle around with the parts and perhaps use some green stuff to edit the many Inquisition symbols but I think they will make for great Deathwing models. Also, if I spread the Grey Knight pieces out over the whole army and add some robes with Green Stuff then the army as a whole will be coherent.




Last on the list for now is to add some Dark Angels' bits from the conversion sprue to help maintain a theme of Deathwing, particularly given the multiple sources of models I'll be using.




So there we have it. Games Workshop has tempted me back in again and I'm thinking about this quite strongly. It'll make for a good longer-term project too that I can take with me to whatever new country I'm living in and will give me a nice creative outlet for when I want to just nerd out :-)

Pete