Outflank rules question

So, Bran Redmaw has the saga of the hunter...  Allows outflank.  So, were I to deploy him in say, a Grey Hunter unit in a Razorback...  Would the reserved unit be able to flank?  I am thinking so, but not sure that declaring the IC to be with the unit makes it "part of" the unit...  If so, neat...  I just have to keep at or above 50% deployed normally with one Grey Hunter unit getting Wolf Scout deployment rules (behind enemy lines)...  So need 3 things at least to deploy...

Liking the Werewolf aspect...  Doubt he'll be worth the 210 points, but might be fun...

300th post, Wolves and Praetorians... Back to the beginning...

So, repainting the ancient lads...  Playing a few more weeks at 1000 points, so I am thinking the Wolves come out to play...  Not really enough points to field a cohesive force, but...  Grey Hunters in Razorbacks for my Troops, a few Scout Squads I think for the "Behind Enemy Lines"...  Not sure if I will bring Long Fangs, Rune Priest in Terminator Armor or Bran Redmaw :-)  IA 11, Werewolves everywhere?  Might be amusing...

Repainting and digging the lads out...  I forgot how many of them I had...  For larger games I have the ancient Land Raider, I can field Logan Grimmar and his Guard, Njal, Ragnar, Ulric, etc...  Found my full GW hard fig case of the old army and still more in other boxes and on the painting table...

Repaint is coming along, I have to say I really like how they are turning out.  Going in the old Legion colors of Grey with Yellow trim and helmet stripe...  The bulk of my force in the MK VI "Corvis" Armor with a number of MK II thrown in there...  Even a few of the very first Marines in the most ancient armor...  And my Scouts are led out by Leman Russ himself...  :-)  I find it a fine joke, and think that will be the way he returns to us when the time comes...  Just slipping into the battle with the Scouts, showing up exactly where and when needed the most...

Still painting a few of the Praetorians as well...  Really liking how they are turning out, but since I only have 30 or so finished of my 120 or so...  May be a while yet before the Light Rifles hit the field...

Are monkeys writing the FAQ for 40K? Do they even play the bloody game?

Thinking about fielding my Wolves, so I snagged the January FAQ (latest for them)...  The one change is that if a Wolf Scout unit has an IC OR an assigned Wolf Guard Pack Leader, they lose the ability to go behind enemy lines.  Understandable if it is the IC, this was the case in the previous edition, but now the WGPL?  Wow, it wasn't enough to take away the ability to go to Assault and actually use the Melta bombs they can buy or be safe briefly and give every army out there the ability to probably kill 3-4 of them with the Quad Guns firing Interceptor as the Wolves have NO BLOODY FLIERS of their own.  Oh, we CAN get an ace :-)  For all the fliers we do not have...  All I can say is wow.  GW had an excellent opportunity with the "Death From the Skies" book to get fliers out to all the armies and some form of AA to the armies lacking it but instead we get a $37 FAQ adding the Fliers to SOME armies, but not fixing anything really and being really a disappointment overall for the players out here.

So, no Fliers, no AAA, neutered Wolf Scouts and Wolf Guard...  Hmmm, wonder how well the Wolves will do in our local environment?  Not really.  No defense whatever against the Heldrake or tank lines I see across the table, no really compelling reason to field them really...  A bit of a caffeine inspired rant as I am snowed in, but really kind of confusing and disappointing...

So... Wolves and Praetorians? Maybe Eldar?

Yeah, the Fleshtearers are OK, but 1000 points is stifling...  The Storm Raven is amazing, as long as it stays a Flier...  Landing to have the lads and DN assault is the turn before it dies...  So, have to learn a bit better when to actually works out in my favor to fully commit...  Something to work on, but REALLY only something I think comes into effect at levels over 1500 points...  Means I am committing ONE of my assault elements, not the bulk of my army...  And with my usual attack involves several elements all going at the same time, so it will not be the same guarantee that the Raven dies...  VERY vulnerable of course, but not just waiting to die.

Brings me to what I am thinking about...  Probably going to switch out my army.  Wolves are interesting, and seeing more than a few Tank Line armies locally, I think the Wolf Scouts are going to be brutal.  My initial response was they are shelved with almost every army fielding the Aegis line with the quad gun...  Now, not really seeing the Quad guns or Aegis lines, so the Scouts appearing in the backfield with Melta and Plasma would be a very good thing...  The Rune Priest is still the only real psychic defense Marines have, and it till wounds Daemons on a 2+...  Long Fangs are OK, but with the Heldrake roaming everywhere, I do not have  the same confidence I once had.  Maybe with a Wolf Guard and Rune Priest in Terminator armor in the squad...  Just seems a LOT of my points in one small squad.  Grey Hunters are a solid choice and I am liking  the Razorbacks with small squads these days...  Probably helps that I snagged the last metal Njal at the Gopher and Munin sent me the last of my Wolf Scouts, but we'll see if I can make them work...  And I am REALLY liking how my new paint scheme test mini came out, so the lads will be getting repainted...  Or painted :-)  Some of the lads haven't ever really been finished since they hit the field in the ancient pre Heresy days of the RT edition...

Praetorians and Eldar are also starting to make their way back to the top of the list...  With my Praetorians, I am thinking I could abuse Artillery and just win by shooting and Arty sniping...  So, potentially devastating  but ultimately boring I think.  Eldar will be more of a challenge, but mostly because I do not believe they are competitive in the current edition.  OK, I didn't think they were competitive in the previous edition either, and it has really just gotten worse...  Farseer or Eldrad look like they'd be good, and I can put out a metric crapton of Str 6 shooting...  Neat, but...  For Troops, the Pathfinders are good, but only until someone else locally figures out that there are a lot of things that ignore cover saves...  Once someone else figures it out, well, the Pathfinders will evaporate...  HtH is limited and the Vehicles by and large are overpriced...  Oh, and unless I use IA, nothing close to a Flier or AAA...  OTOH, excellent flier in IA 11...  So, I think I could make something work...

1K Team League starts tonight...

So, I'm bringing my Fleshtearers...  I toyed with a few other armies, and I think we CAN change it during the league, so not a big deal...  Just that the Eldar are nigh unplayable in this edition unless I am playing one of the IA lists like the Corsairs...  Even the Nightwing Flier they have in there is really quite good at 145 points...  But the IA lists are probably overpowered, and a single Flier is not so much fun to bring to the table...  If Pedro Cantor changed Sternguard to Troops rather than just making them Scoring, I'd be using that again, but the "tax" of having to bring at least 2 minimum sized squads of crap troops is just too much I think.  DA I just played, and while I think they are OK, the parts I want to play would not work well in small 1K games...  That and frankly I was tired of playing the same army every week...  There really are some things it does well against and some it is incapable of dealing with barring insanely good dice.  So, the game devolves to a "Rock Paper Scissors" game that takes several hours to play out, but that most of the players know what will likely happen before Deployment...

/rant off :-)  So, I am bringing a nice "Team Friendly" force, either my Roddy Piper force ("We're here to kick ass and chew bubblegum...  And we're out of gum") being the first:

Reclusiarch (Jump Pack)
Death Company (5, 2 Power Axes, Jump Packs)
DC DN (Claws of Eternal Combat, HF)
Storm Raven (MM/TL LC)
Assault Squad (10, Flamer, Melta, PW SGT)
Sanguinary Priest (Jump Pack)

Aegis Line w/ LC

So, nothing at all subtle, the Raven loads up with the DC elements and comes in to hit the enemy on or about turn 3...  Assault Squad and Medic can combat squad and hide in ruins/Aegis line...  The line is just the extra 85 points...  I COULD bring the Whirlwind at 90 if I really wanted to, but given the DA version @ 65...  Just no where really to sink those points...

Second is a straight up stand and fight list...

Librarian (Jump Pack, Blood Lance and ?)
Assault Squad (10, 2 Melta, SGT w/ Inf pistol and PW)
Assault Squad (10 Melta, Flamer, SGT w/ ?  Flame pistol maybe)
Storm Raven (TML, TL LC)
Furioso DN (HF)
Attack Bike w/ MM

So, nothing subtle, just bringing scoring bodies, a Flier to dogfight and ....  Well, that's about it.  Should be a good "half" of another Army for a team...

All in all, nothing TOO overpowered...  Should be interesting at least.  I still have the Death Company squad I won in the Tournament a few leagues back...  Might have to paint them up as Honor Guards...  Think I have enough DC with 25+ Jump Troopers...  Or I'd be happy to trade them for something else if someone is needing more DC...

Are Assault Armies Dead?

So, I've been hearing this over and over...  I'm not sure, but I DO think they have taken a serious hit since the new edition hit.  Not being able to Assault out of Reserve in general is bad, and of course having an entire new class of target that is completely immune to HtH is pretty bad as well...  Random Charge length can be annoying, but overall I actually like that.  It HAS killed off the 5th edition standby of the "Power Blob" the IG could field.  Casualties being taken closest (or directed by placed shots) leads to some interesting situations that could well allow you to kill so many targets that you are no longer IN combat...  Or you lose wounds done because you can only kill the close things...  Of course the inability to assault from non "Assault" (or open topped) Vehicles is pretty bad...  Especially because this prevents you from Assaulting if you have to get out of a wrecked or destroyed Vehicle...

This and the no assaults from Reserve are particularly difficult to justify.  The stated reason is that the designers have is that they did not want the players to be hit by things that they could not react to before getting hit...  All well and good, except then you get things like the Heldrake that CAN simply fly on, hit you with the Vector Strike then hit you again or another unit altogether with it's Flamer of Doom...  The first happens before ANY reaction is possible, including Interceptor fire, the second after, but by then it is too late usually and frankly how many Fliers get killed by Interceptor fire?  Most of my armies will have the Quad gun, or an Icarus Las Cannon...  If they're lucky and have access to the Forgeworld stuff or are allowed to proxy in stuff then the Hyperion Missile turrets or Mortis DNs perhaps...



Kind of lost track of where I was here...  "Assault" to me I guess I apply my own more modern definitions to.  So, I would include short ranged "shock" shooting as part of an Assault strategy.  Sternguard or IG Stormtroopers dropping in onto a target and smacking it with Plasma and Melta at point blank range to me is every bit as much "Assault" as the Death Company jump packing into HtH...  More suicidal I think as you are not "safely in HtH and will likely take heavy casualties or get wiped out by the return fire, but My Sternguard never failed to get me First Blood when I played them regularly...  Yes, in my best iteration of that list was in the 1850+ point range and included CPT Tycho's Fleshtearer doppelganger, Sternguard, Medic in Terminator Armor and the Vanguard Vets following the Drop Pod's beacon in to deal with anyone silly enough to be close to the CPT and the boys...  Sometimes they even survived.  And I usually won the fight, and the battle because First Blood, Line Breaker and Kill the Warlord were all pretty good odd wise for that setup...  NOT long term holding the line, unless I happen to kill them all of course :-)...

Off to work out I guess, I am finding that I think a lot better when I am on the move...

1000 points of Fleshtearers, take 2 (Now with pics :-))

Mkay, got in a 1500 point game last night against Bradly's Grey Knights...  He had a really good list, not quite as Meched up as his previous ones, but...  The only real weakness I could see is the lack of real long ranged firepower, specifically AT firepower...  But the HtH silliness and the melta guns everywhere on the Henchmen squads is solid if a bit fragile outside of their Chimeras...  Weight of fire is a concern as well as he can throw out a LOT of fire in the 24" range bracket...  Still, my thrown together list did fairly well, mostly due to the Medics (Sanguinary Priests) allowing my insane number of FnP rolls to keep my lads on the field...  I made something like the first dozen before failing one, and overall made something like 20+ in the course of the game.  So, I think the Medics are keepers...

Gabriel Seth was also on the field...  Did well, but his 2 big HtH rounds were destroying an Interceptor SGT in a Challenge and then wiping out a Henchman Squad single handed on the Charge...    He ran with a tooled out Honor Guard, so the Medic there helped a lot, but I think overall I would have done better with Death Company.  The Furioso I used in place of the DC DN did well, but the DC DN has Fleet and twice I rolled a bad Charge distance and failed the Charge...  And died as a result.  The DC DN in Assault would have wiped the Terminators and Coteaz easily I think...

Oh, and here's the Raven:

So, here's my second take at 1000 points:

Gabriel Seth
Death Company (5, 2 Power Axes)
DC DN
Assault Squad (10, Melta, Flamer, PW on SGT)
Storm Raven (TL Las Cannon, TL Melta)
Medics (1 Termi, 1 Jump Pack)

Have to juggle the points a bit...  I WANT the H Flamer on the DN, so the Medic riding with Seth might well go away or lose the Terminator Armor...  I tried the "Typhoon" Missile Launcher on the Raven, but was pretty disappointed with it, especially given the extra points I paid for it...  Might be that I simply did not face a flier, but AP 1 and Melta is HUGE, and a free swap, so there we go...    Might bring in an Attack Bike in place of the Medic in the Raven...  Would LOVE to have a Chaplain, and may well swap  a Reclusiarch for Seth...  Hmmm...  Then the DC might get Jump Packs...  Probably not though :-)  Bloody expensive...

Fleshtearers for the next league...

Looking like a team league, but I am looking at playing at least some of the games with the 1500 or 1850 lists...  Last time I played CPT Tycho and the Sternguard All Stars.  Pretty effective, and VERY "Fleshtearer" with the win or die nature of the army...  Not sure I want to do the same thing again, especially with FT Sternguard NOT being scoring.  Was different with the Crimson Fists, especially with Pedro Cantor being able to ride in the Drop Pod with a full 10 man squad.

So, Gabriel Seth...  Thinking of running him with an Honor Guard squad, loaded out with a variety of weapons, power, melta, etc. and having them ride in the Storm Raven...  Really liking how that thing turned out, will have to get some pictures...  The DC DN or a Furioso rides in there as well...  A few full Assault Squads, some Sanguinary Priests (Medics to me...), and?  Dunno, guessing a Vindicator, maybe a Predator or two...

Leads to a rule question, does Gabriel's "Ferocious Instincts" mean that anyone rolling one's against his unit in HtH takes the Str 4, or does it only work when he is on his own/in a challenge?  As I read it, I'd say it is only him, but the Necron codex has a similar character, and it goes the other way as I understand it...

1000 points of Fleshtearers

Well, not sure this will work well...  Looking at the Partner League starting up, so here's my rough draft:

Librarian (Jump Pack, Blood Lance and ?)
Assault Squad (10, 2 Melta, Infernus Pistol, PW on SGT)
Assault Squad (10, Metla, Flamer, Flame pistol and Melta bomb on SGT)
Attack Bike (MM)
Stormraven (TLLC, TML)
Furioso DN (HF, DN CCW)

Not thinking it will win a LOT of battles on it's own, but I have an answer for first blood on the MM Attack bike and Jump Troopers...  The Raven can take it's shots at 2 Fliers/turn and they are the Str 9, 4 Str 8 shots.  Done messing around, I do not want to glance, I want penetrating hits and destroyed results.  AP 1/2 on high Str shots seems to be the way...

The Troops can Combat Squad, Deep Strike if needed, move fast and probably hold if needed...  I am concerned that it has no medics for FnP, might have to drop the TML on the Raven and maybe the Attack bike for one...

Old Stuff Day 2013, Ancient Wolves...

Well, here's something from the REALLY ancient times...

Shame I do not feel the Wolves can compete these days...  Would like to take the old girl out for a spin, but I think the time of Land Raider Dominance is past...  Built this back in 88 or 89 I think from the White Dwarf templates...  Have since converted the other MK I Land Raider to the Spartan Class like this one, but the Black one has magnetized weapons for swapping...

Not great pictures, but the new phone does have a MUCH nicer one...