Long rambling post about the armies I play… Part 1…

Mkay, so the most annoying armies I actually play… In no particular order… And since this is going WAY long I'll break it up… Yes, I play a lot of armies…

 

Eldar: I've had the most success with what I called my "Mobile Castle"… The army consists of:

Eldrad

Squad of Wraith Guard maxxed w/ Spirit Seer (Singing spear, conceal)

Wraith Lord(s) with heavy weapons

Avatar

And probably Scorpions and/or Harlequins

Basically, cover saves and armor re-rollable, sit on objectives and just outlast the other guy… Harlies run to the front, giving cover saves to the Guard while being tough to shoot at themselves via their seer. The Wraith Guard give cover saves to the Avatar, though he really does not need it with the 4++… But he in turn gives cover to the Wraith Lords a cover save since they lack an Inv save…

Neat, and different than the standard "Mechdar" that most successful Eldar players use… I like to use Pathfinders, Aspects, etc… Usually I like to try different "neglected" elements of the book to see if I can make them work… Some like Scorpions, War Walkers (Scatter lasers for everyone) and a few others work well… Some like the Banshees and Swooping Hawks "not so much so"…

Imperial Guard… Ah, my old Praetorians… Well, I usually play:

Company Command Squad with Master of Ordinance, Las Cannon team, a few GL's and usually some assorted other bodies… Camo Cloaks or Carapace armor if I can fit in the points.. Medic and Standard have also hit the field a lot for me…

 

Infantry Platoon with:

Platoon Command Squad, usually I run either 4 GL's for mobile fire support or 4 flamers to ride in the Vendetta for "flames of obnoxiousness" with them being a scoring unit riding..

 

Platoon consisting of 3 squads, each with the SGT's power weapon, GL or Melta and Missile Launcher or Autocannon and a Commissar w/power weapon

Heavy Weapon Teams… I have a metric crapton of Missile Launchers, so I like to field a few HWTs… Without a Lord Commissar they are a bit difficult to give orders to, but…

Usually a Mech Vet squad in Chimera w/ Melta and I like Demo and sometimes the Carapace armor… Mobile scoring, rapid reaction force to melt things that come close…

Vendetta/Valkyrie… Hmm, I can have the best skimmer in the game so far? And it carries troops? Magnetized mine for the TL Las cannon and Missile pod swap… Honestly though I think I've always fielded it as the Vendetta and the 3 TLLC pods…

Then… Well, I like Hydras (with the Heavy Stubber being my standard addition to all Chimera hulls) for 85 points, the Artillery rocks, Basilisk is the "safe" choice, but I've run most of them by now… Have to admit the MLRS (Manticore?) is one I have not tried, but likely will… Leman Russ? I really kind of like the bog standard ones more than the rest, seldom it doesn't have a good target for its fire…

 

Sentinels… Ah, one of the non-standard things I bring a LOT of the time… I like the Scout version to flank and really just go forth and cause havoc… Sometimes they actually win me games, but seldom do they fail to at the least pay for themselves… And it's amusing seeing my ancient "Death Chicken" models hit the table…

 

Ogres… Points permitting, I really like them as a linebacker unit. Sit back and tie up anything rushing at the Thin Red Line keeping the enemy from my vehicles. Again, the Lord Commissar makes them really difficult to remove, though the Grey Knights will I think simply destroy them while barely breaking stride…

 

Tough army, but I think for me the most boring. Both painting and playing… Sometimes I get that nostalgic feeling, watch "Zulu" and break out the lads or get back to painting more of them… But with so many bodies in the old Light Rifle Company, all of them more or less identical? And a lot of my games involve me setting up, shooting and removing casualties or packing up at the end of the game… They are easily the most powerful army I play, at least the way I play them. Not to say unbeatable by any means, but barring a Dawn of War mission and a dedicated assault army on the other side… Well, I can't imagine it is fun for the folks on the other side of the table either…

 

Wolves

Ah, my first 40K army… They have changed a lot over the years. Of course, I still field the Spartan Class Land Raider I built back in 89 or 90 along with the mess of ancient lead "assault marines"… In 2^nd Edition they got pretty insane if you went down that path. Terminators armor equipped with Assault Cannons, Cyclone Missile Launchers and Storm Shields? Me, I used a bunch of Grey Hunters backed with my Blood Claws in Jump Packs and a Wolf Guard squad running in Power Armor and loads of special weapons… 3^rd edition became what we called "Hero Hammer", causing me to more or less pack up the Wolves until… Well, 5^th edition when Warmachine local stalled… I started using the 3^rd ed Codex and actually did quite well, once I leaned the new rules… Things like not being able to assault jumping out of a Rhino… Would have been bad for the lads if it were anything other than Dire Avengers over there, but even after getting shot to hell, the last 2 lads were able to win HtH and break the enemy… I think one died while escorting the squad off the field, but… In any case, I actually enjoyed the challenge using a badly outdated Codex against some of the more modern ones and actually did quite well in the local leagues and tournaments…

Then came the 5^th ed codex… Well, it is good. Damn powerful if you build the army right. Probably not a major surprise that the Wolves were really well represented in the Adepticon rankings, etc… But it is different as an Army than I remember them being or would like them to be at least… I do long for the days of having actual assault troops (probably jump packs) that do not suck. Stuck with WS/BS 3 and restrictions on when they can even fire? So, let me see if I am getting this correct, they are actually WORSE than IG Vets/Stormtroopers? Um, thanks… Yes, I believe that the Grey Hunters are the best basic Infantry in the game, and my armies are really based around them… Long Fangs for whatever reason got a serious discount on some of the best heavy weapons in the game, and so a lot of folks out there started taking 3 squads of Fangs loaded out with missile launchers as "it's the most efficient"… Maybe they're right, but to me that army is just boring and what happens when you go up against armies on either extreme from the Wolves? To explain this, Wolves are by and large a 3+ armor save force, smallish in number, etc… The extremes from that I would consider a horde of light, cheap troops like the IG and something like the Deathwing with all 2+ armor saves. But no one plays those armies, right? :-) Since I play one and play against the other… When the 5^th ed codex came out I was already running my Wolves in a "mostly Mech" format with razorbacks full of Hunters and DNs to support… This got cheaper and better with the new book. Not quite as stupidly powerful as the BA codex or as good as the GKs, but still it was a REALLY good build, really tough for a lot of folks to take on.

 

I'm also apparently weird in that I like to really tool out my Hunters with all of the options I can get like Mark of the Wulfen, Power Weapon/Fist, Plasma Pistol, Special weapon (Flamer is free, Melta is nice to have on the assault elements), etc… And a Wolf Guard is assigned to each squad for the leadership, extra Power/Frost weapon and likely a combi weapon of some sort… Yes, expensive, but when you care enough to send the very best… So, I'd been running the "MSU" before it really became known as that… Not really I think, I'm not trying to min/max with just enough bodies for the special/heavy weapons and Razors… I call it a "Combined Arms Army", not to be confused with the Soviet formation of the same name… Mech Infantry, Tank/DN support, some Artillery

 

With the Wolves, I tend also to bring along a few of the "less often seen" heavy support choices… Vindicator and Whirlwind tanks… Very different vehicles, the vindi is just a rush at the enemy, usually in a "V" formation with Rasorbacks full of Hunters and simply overwhelm the local defenses and count on "Counter Charge" and some damn good Infantry to hold the objectives until time runs out… The WW is just there to deal with Eldar Pathfinders, Tau Scouts and annoying IG silliness with command squads hidden in a giant mass of bodies, HWT's in cover, etc… Pin chacks on the LD 7 of the HWT fails a fair number of times, to say nothing of the "just die" of the no cover save round against the scout types… A bit pricy, and against a straight Marine force mostly useless… But still, even there, throwing down a bunch of Str 5 (ORD) hits will sometimes actually do something…

HQ, the Rune Priest is awesome… Cheap, effective support, great selection of powers. Hard to beat for the points… Honestly I haven't much used the other ones… I tend to throw more points into Units than HQ models…

 

So, the way I play my Wolves is fairly "unsubtle", but it is fairly effective against most forces… Hordes, I can deploy from the Razors, rapid fire and dare them to come in and assault counting on my Counter Assault to keep my higher number of attacks… Others, loads of heavy/special/power weapons to throw out the wounds…

Just some random pictures of my new bike...

:-)  Just throwing out a few pictures of the new bike...  Just need to complete the title transfer/license the bike and make sure the Insurance is good through State Farm....

What’s next?

So… Team Tournament, not sure what will happen there, but we'll see what comes next… Joe will be running the next league, so it'll be interesting at least… Not sure where I go next, pretty sure I'll have my bike by then, so IG might be a "definite 'no'"… Even my Wolves tend to run with lots of bodies… Deathwing and Grey Knights then it is… Chatting with Mike last night, I do agree with him and think that most of us could easily get a 1750/1850 list and game in during the regular time slot, exceptions being perhaps new players and/or people playing Horde type armies… Especially if they keep their stuff spread out and move their toys very slowly… Even then, especially when playing against someone running a fast/compact list, the games tend to move along quickly…



So, Bin Laden is dead… Mkay. Not really a reason to celebrate as far as I'm concerned. Necessary, yes… And he was found in a large compound right next to Pakistani government installations… I'm sure they were "Shocked, simply shocked" to find him there… Kind of an "Untouchables" moment where Sean Connery's character lets "Dances with Gangsters" (Kevin Costner) know that of course everyone in Chicago knows where the booze is, but what are you going to do about it and are you willing to pay the price of doing something… Weird feeling, I knew people on the SEAL teams, 'course that was a while ago… The group of guys I used to go out shooting with included SEAL, Force Recon and Army snipers, along with the rest of us Grunts… I was about average in terms of shooting accuracy for the group, but that group was pretty far outside the "norm" for the human population… And my shooting tends to involve a lot more firing on the move or "combat shooting" than setting up and going for extreme accuracy at long distances… Besides, I can move quickly and quietly through pretty much any terrain, kind of scary for some of the folks around me, I know it annoys the hell out of my wife with me just appearing places… Longer range shooting was something I honestly picked up AFTER my combat deployments with my driver teaching me the finer points… He's still in, last I heard he was still a sniper, instructor mostly these days… "neat" skill to have I guess, but since I'm more of a "Ron White" hunter ("It's too damn early, too damn cold and I just don't want to go hunting"), the last time I actually "hunted" was during survival exercises when it was really necessary… These days, cows are easier to catch at Schnucks, Wal Mart or at the butcher's (Thanks Fay!)… But then we used to go to Garand competitions for a while back when some of us were living here in Illinois and hitting the 600m targets with a stock Garand pretty well showed who the "trained riflemen" were… One of my favorite Heinlein quotes was always:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

And over the course of my life I've certainly tried to prove my ability to do most of those things :-)…



Right, back to game stuff… More of my ancient Grey Knights are coming together, and some of my Deathwing lads will be re-purposed to GK terminators I think… Somehow I ended up with more than 40 Deathwatch lads, and there are still some on the sprues not as yet assembled… Still trying to get the TLAC arm for the DN to look "right" so that I can begin casting several… REALLY powerful unit that one is for 135 points, and I will want to field several I am sure… Still not 100% happy with my Purifier paint scheme, but I'll get at least one full squad's worth of them before deciding I guess… Really do not want just another metallic silver army just like all the other ones coming to the tables, and I REALLY want them to be different from my Wolves with their Grey/yellow trim from my RT days… So, setting up more stuff on the "to be painted" table, and I might even get it painted soonish…

Thus Ends the League… :-)

Well, Loq and I did fairly well in the league by my reckoning at least… Playing the first few weeks with a very outdated/just plain bad codex (if you were playing Grey Knights at least) really threw off our results I think. Still, we wound up positive in the standings, setting us up for the Tournament ranked in the middle, more or less… The Tournament will follow the same format, 1000 points/player, fixed lists for the whole event… The Tournament will be run over the course of 2 Monday nights, with us skipping next week to set up the teams, etc…

Last night's game wound up a win on the "automatic draw" mission… Seizing the imitative while they were lining up for their first round of shooting meant we splashed the Vendetta and destroyed their Artillery before they did anything. Over the next turn or so, concentrating on the closer IG we were able to remove them before Tom's Eldar could do more than harass our flank… Loq's troops in cover did make a good number of saves against the Star Cannons and the like, allowing a few of them to survive to get into HtH with some IG Vets… And her EC actually survived the whole game :-)… My big Terminator squad backed by the Xenos Inquisitor for the "Oh, you thought you'd bring Plasma… I'm sorry" wargear (Actually I think of it as "Fuck Plasma", but the first sounds nicer) sat in the building with the objective choosing Duty over Glory to guarantee at the least a draw for us… ~600 points of "Come and Take Them" to really discourage anyone thinking they could actually come force us off of our objective… The Psycannon are REALLY quite powerful, especially if your dice are a bit hot… Justicar Thawn was leading out that squad and never really did anything, so I'll have to run him again at some point to get a more successful test of his abilities. I think he's going to be really useful, but based on the performance last night, I cannot really say…



Does bring up a question… I didn't buy the Psy Ammo for the squad with the points being as tight as they were, but if I had, would he get the effect, and would he keep it if he were killed and subsequently resurrected? I'd say he should, but he is also a named character, and you normally cannot buy upgrades or alter them in any way…



Purifiers in a full squad of 10 with 4 Psycannon were an unholy terror. I combat squadded them, half with 2 Psycannon in the squad's Rhino and the other half deployed into cover at the front of our DZ… Between them, they accounted for several Chimeras (Chimerii? :-) not sure the Latin plural, not one of the languages I speak well), some Wave Serpents and other casualties… Not sure how much better they really were than just getting a few "line squads" of the Strike Squads, but the ability to throw down the mini Devastator squad with 4 Psycannon backed by the other 5 lads to be a real anti horde/fast attacker threat should at least cause folks to think seriously about trying to take them down…



Tom's Eldar did fairly well, though I still think his Pathfinders would have been a better choice, at least against us… Since we brought 1 Rhino, the squad of Melta Doom was really not going to do a lot (Our Terminators were in cover pretty much the whole game)… Though his killing one of Black Templar Sword Brethren and forcing a morale check to have the 500 point squad run off of the board was an excellent shot, but not something I'd count on happening often :-)… The War Walkers, I might have had them flank and come in from reserves, but even that with our army being so tiny (lots of those expensive Terminators) I'm not sure it would have helped… The Walkers actually did quite well all things considered… His Doom Seer really did a number on the BTs out on the front line, pretty sure I'd have run Guardians over Dire Avengers in the Wave Serpents just for the heavy weapons, but I've been on a "bring lots of HWs" kick for a while. The Shuriken Catapult, while a decent Infantry weapon is not really enough to take down heavy infantry, and I'd consider Marines as the lower end of "Heavy Infantry", Terminators being probably the upper end of the scale… Just too many things that shrug off the Str 4, or cannot be affected by it, like AV11+… But just my opinions as always, they did fairly well as they were…




 

More GK questions…

Just a few things I was curious about…



Rending and multiple dice, specifically the Vindicare Assassin… If the current FAQ remains consistent, there is an entry (and therefore precedent) relating to Monstrous Creatures and Rending, it states that EACH 6 grants an additional d3, so your sniper rifle of doom can get some stupid high armor penetration if that holds true here…



Justicar Thawn… I am assuming that he is a "Troop" should he die and subsequently resurrect… And he would therefore count as a "scoring" unit of one Terminator… Might be amusing, and the more I look it over, the more I am liking this one… But then I'm guessing my liking to play Terminators does color that for me… Also, he is Fearless, does he transmit that to his squad? Or does it only take effect when he dies and is resurrected?



A Teleport Homer and the Librarian's Summoning power? Does the TH allow me to simply place the "deep striking" squad within 6" of the Librarian who remembered to bring one out to play? Seems silly to have it as an option for the Librarian if this does not work, but "silly" and "GW rules" do at times fit the "silly" and "WTF were they thinking?" descriptions...



I'm thinking the basis of my "real" army when we get to 1500 points and above will be:

Full Purifier squad, 4 Psycannon, maybe one hammer and the rest halberds in a Rhino… Comes to ~320 or so points, gives me the option to have a mini Dev squad/Long Fang pack and an "assault element" that can screen, run a flank, whatever… Or, they can deploy via Rhino en masse if I am concerned about giving up kill points… I suspect that the Grand Master will hit the field more often for me than Castellan Crowe… Break for small rant…



Crowe is OK(ish), but I suspect the figure will hit the table as a BHC more often for me… I do not like the recent rash of "non IC" characters that GW has sent out… The Vampire Lord Mephiston I can see, I guess… Hiding him in a squad, especially a squad of say, TH/SS Terminators would simply be impossible to kill off for most armies. But Crowe? He does not have fleet, the Psy powers giving him Str 10, extra attacks, jump pack move, etc… He has… Um… Let's see, he GIVES the enemy furious charge and re-rolls when they charge him? I suppose something HAD to balance the Purifiers becoming Troops, but for a few points more than Crowe you can field the Grand Master who can make the Purifiers Scoring… Not Troops, but good enough for Government work… /rant off :-)



Terminator squad… Full squad, 2 Psycannon, I'm liking the Brotherhood Banner… I've had Excellent success fielding them with a Librarian. Expensive, almost a "Deathstar" I guess, but really not my intention. They go forth and take objectives. If they happen to kill off a bunch of the enemy, that's great. But to be honest, they allow the Knights to win by simply existing on the field. I do think in the long term I will need a Land Raider or Storm Raven to field them successfully in general. Scouting Terminators via GM is a nifty trick, but really, that is all it is. Once people see it, I think it will lose it's effectiveness against most forces… IG parking lots and Tau gun lines are going to be in trouble I think, but anything Eldar and most Marine forces will be able to outmaneuver it. Now, on "Hold until relieved" missions, setting them up in cover especially if I bring a Techmarine and/or a Librarian they'll be almost as hard to dig out as my Deathwing… The lack of Fearless is telling there, and I admit I got spoiled there…

The next week…

Right, so the last week of our league coming up? As much as I'm enjoying it, I'm getting a bit itchy to play a different army or at least a more complete one :-)…

 

Probably bringing something like this:

 

Terminators, full squad, 2 Psycannon, Brotherhood banner, mix of weapons, Justicar Thawn… Comes to 550 points.

Land Raider? Probably…

Brotherhood Champion perhaps?

Random Inquisitor, maybe?

 

Something subtle, load up a raider with Terminators (a combat squad) and support, drive forth directly at the enemy… Thawn is the "Highlander" of the Codex… He literally can't die, at least not in any permanent sense… 4+ roll every turn to come back, should be amusing…

 

Read a web posting about "what your army choice says about you"… Amusingly, my ex was/is a Psychiatrist and she thought it would be fun to do up a "profile" for what sort of RPG character each of the folks in our group. We were playing "Fantasy Hero" I think, it was a LONG time ago… It was pretty scary how accurate her predictions were. I do wonder if the same might be said of our 40K forces… Mine do tend to a common theme, though I think there is a big difference between the IG Company I have kitted out as Praetorian Light Infantry at least to me are VERY different than Fleshtearers Death Company heavy berserkers… In turn each of those are different from my Wolves, Eldar and Grey Knights… :-) Guessing there really are enough similarities, I just can't see them…

GK so far…

Craptastic, wrote out a whole long thing and it was apparently lost in the warp…

 

Mkay, here it goes again…

 

Ran our lists against a Wolf Drop Pod force… It did not go well for the Wolves. The Brotherhood Champion was awesome, the Xenos Inquisitor was "OK", would have been much better if I had remembered to use his Psytropic Grenades the one time the Purifiers assaulted… The BHC is just Hell on Wheels against enemy IC's if he gets the charge off… I remembered to reroll the attacks, forgot to re-roll the "to wound" roll (Anointed Blade), and forgot to roll for either Hammerhands or the Grenades from the Inquisitor… Didn't matter, the Rune Priest that had the unfortunate luck to be in the way had no INV save, so 2 wounds finished him. The Purifiers made short work of the remaining Long Fangs. Did bring up an interesting one, and as much as I've played Force Weapons, I have never tried to use them activated to Instant Death (ID) anything… Is that a Psychic Power, vulnerable to Rune Weapon/Librarian Hoods nullification? It's never come up for me since either the Power Weapon effect was sufficient or the Librarian was fighting a hopeless battle trying to hold until I could bring TH/SS reinforcements or time ran out :-)…

 

So far, what have I learned?

 

The Strike Squad is actually not bad at all… 110 points for the 5 lads and one Psycannon, the Razorback was more, but still, it fought as an ICV, dropping them in cover over the objective and wandered off to be a light tank. We won the game the way we did due to the 12" Warp Quake bubble keeping the Deep Strikers far enough away to completely neutralize them. The squad them was able to open up on a Grey hunter squad and decimate it (in concert with other shooting), but the giant "Interdiction Zone" they present is game changing.

 

Purifiers are awesome. Mkay, that's a given, and were they Troops, doubt anyone would take anything else. I can see Crowe or a GM making these guys troop equivalents a big deal, and at least with Crowe, there is a limit to the other support you can give them with only one HQ slot still open there. Balance, so that's good I guess… Still, I can see taking a squad of 10, 4 Psycannon and Combat Squadding them to give myself a "Devastator Squad" and an assault element. That this comes to the same point cost as the Purgation Squad is a bit confusing to me, and I guess it is a good thing I don't plan on taking the "Dev squad" for my GK ever… I think these lads will be awesome coming out of a Storm Raven to assault… Team Tournament at Adepticon next year, BA/GK team will be pretty rough to stop… Still, I'll likely bring my DA as part of the team…

 

Terminators… I missed them, will probably go back to them as my Troops selection, or at least one of them next week. Rock solid, and only really lacking the 3++ that I got spoiled on with my Deathwing force. Forgot to pick up more magnets at the Gopher last night, will have to remember next week… And decide which plastic kit I snag, the PA or Terminators… Probably PA since I doubt I'll field more than 15-20 Terminators in a GK force…

 

Have a few ideas for next week, only a few more things I can test at this point level I think, so good that the league is winding down I guess… Probably Terminators, Strike Squad and… "more" I guess..

 

Finally got my tax return, so I can actually start my bike purchase in earnest… Really looking forward to that.

 

Oh, and if anyone is looking for ancient C&R firearms or the like, let me know, I have a few spares to get rid of…