Guest Article: Crowe musings

Here's Dan's second guest article relating to Grey Knights and this comes in the form of the basis of a Crowe + Purifier list! Nothing revolutionary but a good analytical look at what taking Crowe + Purifiers gives you over your normal GKSS. 

Crowe, I wish to discuss this fellow and see what you think.

Firstly I keep hearing about the 'Crowe Tax' for Purifiers. Yes this is correct if you wish to run Purifiers as troops you must take Crowe, Crowe is annoying as he cannot go in a squad so has to run around on his own shouting shoot me Im a free kill point. At 150points he doesn't cost the earth but its pretty crap price for the lack IndiChar.

So the positives are he allows Purifiers as troops this is where the whole 'tax' issue i believe becomes a bit murky. If we look at the Purifiers compared to our other resident Grey Knight troops choice the gulf is huge. For 4 points we double the units base combat potential (this is huge when combined with Halberds) gain fearless (well I aint running off this goddamn objective and I have just raped you in combat with I6 power weapons so I'm gonna be winning) the ability to take cheap multiple psycannons without maxing out the squad (the cost is sort of offset by 5man being 120points) and Cleansing Flame psypower with squad wide LD9 (no crying when you lose your Justicar Ld9).

Email in: Eldar advice - 1000pts

"Kirby,

Love the blog; long time reader/lurker. Any chance you'll do a little bit more WHFB in the future?

I'm looking to add a very small, very cheap tertiary army to my collection. My local area is overrun by Imperial Space Marines, and as someone who has been involved in the hobby since Rogue Trader, I feel that somebody has to represent the other older armies. No one around here plays Eldar. NO ONE.
I want to build a moderatly inexpensive, but characterful, list of 1,000 points.Here's my idea:

Not until I start playing some WHFB myself I'm afraid. That being said TKE, Chumby and Archnomad all have pretty extensive WHFB experience so punching them in the gut might get something otherwise Archnomads very basic articles he posted here on it are quite good...though basic. There really is a lot of dislike for 8th due to a heavy reliance on magic and some very unusual terrain and mission choices. Add in the lackluster (or so I heard) Orc & Goblin book and 8th really hasn't generated a huge amount of interest. That being said once I get around to playing with my High Elves I will post about them!


To the Eldar...

Guest Article: Grey Knight musings

This is from a dude named Dan and he sent me a long e-mail about his thoughts on two Grey Knight lists (this one and a Crowe list which will pop up later). There's some good analysis and thought processes in it so rather than keep them to myself, Dan has kindly agreed for them to be published! Joy. 

Now the Grey Knight codex is quite irritating (in a good way), lots of cool shiny stuff all quite expensive and difficult to fit everything in, keep it survivable and balance range issues.

In the following list I have tried to slightly level out the lack of long range firepower and also the lack of AP1 and "true anti-tank" that the general shiny tin can squads lack....

HQ -

Coatez 100 (I know.... I know....)

Inquisitor : Power Armour - 33

Counts As Again: Adeptus Mechanicus

Firstly, Ladies, Gentlemen, Unicorns, Ears of Corn, Unicrons, Unicyclists and indeterminate 'Others' - let us celebrate.  From this day forward, there shall be no more Guest Articles by the hip-hop hipster from MindWar FTW, TheKingElessar.  Yay! #Celebrate, good times, come on!#


On the other hand, he's now joined this ad-hoc assemblage of writing talent, and will be vomiting his thoughts directly into your brainpan via the medium of your screen here, as well as his own 'blog'.  Enjoy!*

With that established, let's move on to what I feel is an important thing to get over introductorily.  I'm not here to rain on everyone else's parade, there is a tremendous collection of talent already here, and I have my own moderately successful blog to look after.  I have no interest on stealing thunder (or any other weather-related metaphors) by posting as regularly as, say, AbusePuppy.  I'm not in any way saying that if I did my articles would automagically be better than the others' and make them feel and look bad...but I'm not interested in taking that chance.  :p  I much prefer to be a sort of ad-hoc personage, floating in and out, probably once a week or every other week, and applying a liberal dose of awesome to the proceedings before swanning off to troll the comments section.  Mostly, I will be posting as and when I have something I genuinely care about to express - and this whole kerfuffle about Counts As is something I care about very much.

Tiered Missions: An analysis

Okay so with Centurion now a few weeks behind us and training beginning once again for Event Horizon (my list is a secret this time! I saw all those list tailorings against my Tyranids...), the tiered mission system developed by Mike continues to get playtime for me. This is great because to me they are some of the best missions (if not the best) I've played throughout my time playing Warhammer 40,000. But why are they so good? I'm going to put my thoughts about this down on paper which basically expands what I talked about post-Centurion in relation to KP but to the whole mission system. This also includes some basic tactics. I'd love for Mike to drop by and add his points as well (and if I link to NOVA he surely should!).

Win/Loss

First off, these missions are Win/Loss based; no Draws allowed. For those of you who don't know how these missions work there are five tiers which are varied between games and deployment types. This uses basic systems everyone should be familiar with (objectives, kill points, table quarters, victory points + rulebook deployments), combines them and then jumbles them up for very different missions (we'll look at this why later). What the tiers essentially do is change the order of the winning conditions and whoever wins the highest tier, wins the game (though all stats are recorded for overall scores and seedings). Because there are no Draws, after round 1 you can swiss pair each W/L bracket which is re-done every round.

The logic behind all this: good players play good players in most of the rounds and it is hard to 'sneak' your way through to the final round by beating bad players. In the end, the players fighting for the top spots should be the better players having beaten other good players.

Chaos Space Marines Codex Review: HQ

Little introduction required here, this post will simply cover the generic HQ choices. Boy oh boy you can tell I'm excited can you not? No indeed I'm not, but as VT2 wrote his stuff months back (when he was actually funny now and then!) at least it makes up for some entertainment. Hopefully.

Deamon Prince

VT2: Budget monstrous ceature, with limited durability. Well for 110 points (10 more than a marine captain), you shouldn't ask for much.

Oh, hey - what's that under his 'wargear?' A special rule!? My god, Gav! I thought you completely forget about them.

Yes, boys and girls, out of the three core characters, only the prince has a special rule that's actually 'special.' So special, it was snatched up and made a USR in the following edition.

Despite all the whine and lawish praise the internet throws at this guy, there's not a whole lot to say. Wings, mark of nurgle. Alternatively, wings, mark of slaanesh, and lash. Fly around, annoy. Tank something. Kill a rhino.

Die to tactical marines, or sternguard, or stray shoota bullets. Turn 3.

Boo.

Email in: Thunderwolves HO!

"Hey Kirby! Long time lurker, first time writer. The blog has been extremely helpful in improving my game and getting my hobby fix while I’m off at school. I was hoping you could take a look at a list for me. It’s a themed one, but I nevertheless wonder how well it would work. See, you’ve tackled TWC before, but all of your lists seem to sort of throw in a 3-man squad or two. I wanted to try a TRUE Thunderwolf Cavalry list, which puts them in every place imaginable in as much force as possible.

HQ
WGBL—170
TW Mount
Combimelta
PFist
Fenrisian Wolves x2

WGBL—175
TW Mount
Combimelta
PFist
Meltabombs
Fenrisian Wolves x2

Vinsanity's Event Horizon List Options!!

Hai guise, I've got some Event Horizon lists today for your honourable perusal before me and the Great Pink One place our orders from Wayland... So I need your comments on the lists fairly quickly :) Anywho, all are 1850 no comp lists. Lets begin with:

White Scars 1850

Captain - Bike, Relic Blade
2 x 8 Bikes - PF, 2 x MGs, AB w/ MM
1 x 4 Bikes - 2 x MGs, AB w/ MM
1 x 4 Bikes - 1 MG, 1 Flamer, AB w/ MM
3 x 2 Typhoons - TML, HBs
2 x Predators - AC, HBs

29 Bikes
8 Vehicles

Pros: They are white scars! Plenty of bikes, MGs and MMs to take vehicles close up and speeders and preds to give some support from the back.

Cons: None, they are white scars! But srsly, 6 speeders are fragile, bikes are fairly fragile, bikes can't go up buildings, etc.

Comparison: small and large Marine squads

I'm sure you're all tired of Grey Knight stuff right (I know BroLo is!)? Let's move laterally then and discuss Marines in general. Today a bunch of us got together for a skype chat (BroLo finally believed I do not have an Australian accent) and after BroLo left we could actually discuss something of importance. If I recall there was TheKingElessar, Sageofthetimes, Archnomad (though I don't think he was listening) and Goatboy. Not to mention myself. So what did this great gathering of nerds do other than make nerdy jokes and talk about painting? We of course discussed Grey Knights and how henchmen (specifically the passback style squad) and Coteaz fit into the grand scheme of things. I'm sure most of you have figured out by now I'm a huge fan of Coteaz*** (if you are an amazing converter/modeller and love Wheel of Time, skip to the bottom and read this foot note) and the options he opens up for Grey Knight armies. However, whilst Coteaz brings more bodies to the table for a very elite army, those bodies are rarely durable (particularly MSU style squads in vehicles) and therefore not reliable scoring. This led the discussion to MSU based Marine armies (i.e. Razorspam) and the general dislike against their reliability. I'm going to put that discussion onto paper which looks at the differences between large and small Marine squads and their relative pros and cons. Right here.

N.B. I started this post over a week ago so the time frame of the above paragraph is off. Live with it.

In the broadest of senses we are comparing small 5-man Marine Troops in Razorbacks/Rhinos compared to larger 10-man Marine Troops in Rhinos/on foot. Specifically scoring squads. This includes all types, Grey Knights, Grey Hunters, Tacticals, Chaos Space Marines + cults, Assault Marines, etc. (are there any more?). There are pros and cons to both and like many things in life, a compromise between the two will often yield the best results but let's look at this in more detail.

Freaking hardware problems....

So, on the htc at the moment, my pc has finally died, been having problems with it for a while. However, snazzy new laptop this week. Sadly, this means I couldn't record a podcast this week. If obtaining the laptop goes smoothly we should have it up and running next week, same time.

However, I'm just gonna say now I've got a pair of co-hosts. TheLieutenant and Clayman. Hope you guys don't struggle with the accent.

<3

What about Goatboy? 

P.S. It's Kirbeh's birfday today.

Draigozilla - Another look?

The title probably gives you already a really big hint as to what this post is about... But let me start by telling you why I'm doing a post on Draigo in the first place: I was rather underwhelmed with the 2 guest articles on 'Draigowing' if I'm honest. Take 1 felt like a regular list with Paladins shoehorned into it while take 2 had some odd contradictions in it. No offense and that's just my opinion. Anyways, I decided I could make a Draigo list while going a bit more into detail or at least with a more clear idea behind it.

The basis is simple: You start with Draigo, or else you're not making a Draigo army now are you? I also assume that we want at least 2 Paladin units in it. The Paladins, what kind of setup? Let's go with the standard setup: 2 MC'ed Psycannons and optimal wound allocation as it's rather easy to obtain.

Now let's look closer at the Paladins and what their defense statline means. Basicly they are Terminators with 2 wounds, for 15 points more. This means they are a lot more survivable against small arms fire compared to Terminators. Couple with this the wound allocation and it's even better as it takes longer on average to kill any models. Less damage output though right, as you have less models in comparison? Not really; you get 2 psycannons per 5 man and can MC them. In CC you're having WS5 which is pretty sweet. In summary: They are rather survivable to small arms fire when comparing them to Termies (or regular GK's/purifiers, same deal).

PsyCoteaz - Some Grey Knight playtesting thoughts

Okay I've had several games now with the latest PsyCoteaz list against a variety of armies including Hybrid Tau, multiple Imperial Guard, Mech Marines, Mech BA, Jumper BA, Hybrid Wolves and Tyranids. More play-testing to do obviously but this is giving me some good samples on which to base some thoughts and get a feel for the army.

First things first. Passbacks. Meh. My first incarnation of the list had a bunch of these and they have gotten less and less with each passing to the point of no return. I was high on them and dazzled by their S7 and the ability for the army to generate ~50 S7 rending shots. It was crazy but it was also uni-dimensional and the passbacks suffer a lot from weapon destroyed and immobilised results. this means they aren't really as durable as other vehicles and whilst cheap scoring options are nice, I think these guys are best used minimally or not at all. I know there was a ton of discussion about this weeks ago and I went the other direction so I admit to being shown up there by the chatbawks (but not VT2 lol).

Since then I've replaced them with 2x Psybacks and 2xLasPlas. This has given me less midfield presence overall but more ranged firepower to go with the Dreadnoughts. I haven't really found the survivability (or lack there-of) of the henchmen to be an issue. They either die or hide and with the two full GK strike squads, it's not like they are my only scoring. I'm currently running them as 5-6 strong and might experiment with cutting this down somewhat on the LasPlas ones for some points elsewhere (stormbolters on the Psybacks? makes them less mobile though).

Chaos Space Marines Codex Review: special characters

Where on earth is this coming from? Well people keep asking for it apparently.... a complete Chaos Codex review. Somebody has to write it and in this case it'll be me - Zjoekov. It's going to be a bit of a special review though. Let me explain: VT2 already wrote quite some things on it, a non-complete review pretty much. I can't get myself to not using anything of it, so I'll simply be using quotes of his unfinished work along with my own. Sometimes I'll add a little to it when I think he's both correct and explained it well enough. This being said: Off we go, special characters first!

Abaddon the Despoiler.

VT2: Abaddon: more expensive Marneus Calgar. Potentially has lots of attacks, but ends up hitting himself once a game on average. Super-mega profile, which is great fun and all, but for 275 points, you'd expect him to augment your army. In addition to his ONE SPECIAL RULE THAT IS ETERNAL WARRRIOR UNDER ANOTHER NAME, Abaddon is really a self-insert of Jervis, modelled on the epic greatness that is X-men villains. Completely bland, boring, and unacceptably impotent.

Zjoekov: Little to add to this. I would be willing to accept that an expensive character only beats face, but not when he has huge odds of not doing anything when you get him to do his job. How to use him best? With Berzerkers in a Land Raider. Don't run him with non-fearless non-frag grenades Terminators m'kay? You want to prevent any real potential disasters.

Back to Basics: Deployment 102 - Line deployments

Deployment is a really hard aspect to cover in articles without going into true specifics (i.e. individual armies or as specific as individual games). There are just a lot of variables to cover for a lot of different army types including who's going first, deployment type, mission, what's your opponent's list, what's your list, terrain, points level, etc. etc. SneakyDan has started to cover some of these aspects in a previous post but today we are going to look at one of the most basics mistakes of a rookie 40k player, deploying in a line without consideration for their surroundings. Here's what I mean by a line deployment:

Guest Article: Draigowing Take 2

<- From Ron at FTW.

Recently Saramoff tried his hand at making a Draigowing list and explaining his thought processes and now Abortedsoul would like to have a whack with a different twist. In the end both lists are quite similar but this list has a lot more paladins and utilises different support around the Paladins. Let's check out the thought process!

Hey Kirbs! I saw Saramoff's post on Draigowing and figured I could improve it. It suffered from a very low hull count (3 Rhinos 5 vehicles) and a relatively small amount of long ranged fire support. Also, the foot-slogging Paladins mean they are vulnerable to lascannons and the like. Paladins aren't fearless, so the chances of them running poses another slight weakness. Let's see if we can't solve or at least mitigate these issues.

The only way to take care of the lack of hulls is, honestly, to remove them. When you yank the hulls out, the Grey Knight Strike Squads and Purifiers are no longer viable, but they are prime targets for any anti-infantry fire, so it's alright if they go too. Ok, that leaves us with Draigo, and Paladins as a core to start with.

The HQ slot is the sweetest spot in this codex, and it would be a shame to let it go to waste. We need someone who works well with Paladins, so Inquisitors seem like a good option. Any of the Inquisitors also give you access to cheap Servo-Skulls, which is always a good thing. Terminator armour on an Ordo Malleus Inquisitor gives you access to another cheap lascannon. As an added bonus, you can also grab a squad of Paladins a ride for a mere 55 points. Didn't I just say hulls were a no-no? Yes, but the Chimera can hold a squad of pallies, which can buy them 12" of movement and a bit of protection on the first turn at least. Sure, it will get wrecked, but it's not like the explosion is going to hurt your super-termies anyways, so no worries. It might even be a good idea to, after your 12" move, turn the back of the Chimera and dare them to blow it up. On a destroyed result, it would give you an extra 2" of movement, but this would be more situational.

Archnomad's Thinking About Dark Eldar

Foreword:This is basically me typing up my thought process since I got the Dark Eldar book out in front of me, had a good read through, and decided to make a list. Now, this has a few little tangents and a fair few personal thoughts, so just remember what this is, a look into how I build a list, rather than a tactics article. You may be asking why I put it up here? Because I think the list's alright, and I want help, of course! (:


I've always loved Skimmers, and the Dark Eldar ones are absolutely beautiful. However, I'm a competitive WAAC ******** so I have to make the army good. Looking at Dark Eldar, they're written by Phil Kelly, who knows his way around an Eldar army, yeah. Doesn't he!

V-Off Topic-V
Erm, does he? Could've fooled me. Looking at the book, and the commentary in it, it seems he's one of these people who thinks Eldar are some army that require an absolute tactical genius to play correctly, and anyone else wont be able to do it. That's probably because you've made them sub par, and it would indeed require an absolute tactical genius to make it work correctly. Gah, it just annoys me that they've made them this "elite" army that can't afford to take losses, and given them almost no way to mitigate them. Also, deciding that 18" is a good threat range for an army of T3 5+ or AV10 open topped units is not good. In addition, they pay for stats they're barely going to use. How often are Warriors really going to NEED WS4 and I5. At least, they should not be paying full points for them. And what the hell is with the costing on their AP2 weaponry? Oh, Kelly didn't get the memo that 3+4E were over. Fuck.
^-Off Topic-^

Counts As - Why don't you like it?

I'm going to open the can of worms here. For those who dislike counts as, why? Let's outline the arguments 'for' counts as and make distinction between the two.

The first one I think we need to discuss is representing an army with another codex where the rules 'fit' better. Classic examples are SneakyDan's Thousand Sons as Grey Knights and Vinsanity's Night Lords as Blood Angels. Both of these armies originally hail from Chaos but the Chaos book currently has very little flavor and ability to make unique army lists. Yes, the Chaos book is also a poor competitive choice but rather than considering Vince and Dan as having gone "I'm going to migrate these armies I already have over to this book because it's better on the table-top" both of these guys have started a completely new army with the more competitive book and rather modelled their armies as Thousand Sons or Night Lords. They may or may not have had this hidden love for these armies before and the Blood Angel and Grey Knight books gave them the chance to make them effectively on the table-top AND themed, or they may have decided they didn't want boring old Red/Silver marines and thought this was a great idea from a modelling and a gaming perspective.

So this is where my real question is. What do the people who have issues with counts-as really dislike about this type of army? In the end it's simply a name (Thousand Sons, Night Lords, etc.) to represent an army. Particularly if the individual owning the army has forked out for new models, converted them, etc. I'm honestly curious so let's hear it.

Email in: DE WWP list

"Hey Kirby, I've never written in before, but I've been reading your blog for months. Please take a look at this 2K Dark Eldar list; I'd appreciate any suggestions or criticism.

HQ

Archon - Agoniser, Shadowfield, Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Blast Pistol - 150

2x Haemonculus - Webway Portal, Liquifier, Venom Blade - 200

TROOPS

Wyches x15 - 3x Shardnet + Impaler, Haywire Grenades, Hekatrix, Agoniser - 240

Warriors x20 - 2x Dark Lance, Sybarite - 240

Wracks x10 - 2x Liquifier, Acothyst - 130

Blood Angel Jumper Battle Reports by Antebellum

Antebellum has sent in some battle reports a while ago relating to tournament he attended in early March. If we remember Antebellum brought us these great minis so it'll great to see them in action. I'll include a couple of comments but otherwise enjoy the pictures and report!

Hey Kirby,

Yesterday my brothers and I, along with my friend, participated in a 1250pt three-round tournament at Gaming, Etc. in Stratford, CT. I figured you might want to post a couple of battle reports using a blood angels jumper list and could give critique about good/bad parts of my strategy and maybe be able to highlight general aspects of the strategy. I tried to take a bunch of pictures, but it's tough to remember to.

It was good fun and I ended up going 2-1 for the day with 'Strike Fleet Antebellum'. I played the following list (everything has jump packs):

Librarian
Honour Guard (5) w/ meltagun x3
Sanguinary Priest (2) w/ power weapon
Assault Squad (10) w/ meltagun x2, power fist
Assault Squad (10) w/ meltagun x2, power fist, hand flamer
Vanguard Veterans (5) w/ storm shield x2, glaive encarmine, thunder hammer, lightning claw & storm shield

Thousand Sons Count As Build

Pic from Litanies of Hate

So I've seen a lot of people asking about how to approach Thousand Sons, in regards to a counts as GK list. Firstly, for those that don't know (HEATHENS!)
The Thousand Sons were the legion of Primarch Magnus the Red, the most psychically gifted of all of the Emperors Primarchs. His psychic ability was second only to the Emperor himself, and his Legion inherited his inherent nascent psychic abilities, through his gene seed. This led to the Flesh Change, a flaw in their gene seed (similar to the mark of the wulfen) which would force uncontrolled mutation on the legionnaire. Magnus cured this, through means unknown, which cost him an eye, hence Magnus the Cyclops.

So that's the back story. Basically all 1ksons are psychic to some degree or another. They are broken up into cults, each specialising in some form of warp manipulation. Pyrae specialise in devastation, the Corvidae in foretelling, Pavoni in healing, etc etc. Units in the 1ksons (from the McNeil Heresy novel, anyways) seem to be loose formations of combinations of different cults, which is well represented by the GK codex, if one knows but how.

Pavoni/Pyrae are the best presented, and the easiest. Pavoni are one of the lower ranks, and specialise in healing/augmenting strength. Yay, hammerhand, represented by the fluff. Pyrae specialise in destruction, which I will be representing in my army by GK's with psycannons. The Corvidae are aptly represented by Librarians and Grand Masters, one is a Master Psychic, the other able to foresee the future through grand strategy.

Grey Knights HQ Units Review

Hey, Biscuit here, with my review of the Grey Knights HQ units. There's a lot of them, and a lot of them are quite good. I'm really impressed with the HQ selection, actually, as almost all of them seem to be excellent choices.

First, let's define some of the shorthand I'll be using, for those of you who aren't that up on our communities slang:
NFW=Nemesis Force Weapon
NF[weapon]=Nemesis Force Weapon of that type.
MCr=Master Crafted (MC would be Monstrous Creature)
IC=Independent Character
2+/5+=The first number is the models armor save, the second is the models invulnerable save.
3++=the new black. Shorthand for saying just the models invulnerable save.
ID=Instant Death
DS=Deep Strike
B2B=Base to Base (contact)

Everything else should be obvious. (I.E. Hammer=Nemesis Daemon Hammer) Or will be covered as we go.

In addition, I want to make something clear: you can build some insanely badass units in Codex: Grey Knights. You can even build squads that will never lose any form of combat to any other unit in this game. This is a trap. Upgrades are often expensive, appear everywhere, and will bleed you dry before you know it. The key with GK is to build specializations onto the extremely well-rounded base that is the GK chassis as cheaply as possible, and avoid overdoing it.

Alright, so who's first up?

Guest Article: Learning to love losing

Wow that TKE fella sure is on a roll. He decided to loan me this article which he recently posted on his blog. Nice of him but it really outlines a point which I think a lot of people forget or ignore. Losing gracefully is important.

In order to be a Competitive Player of this game, this is a skill you require.
In order to be a non-Competitive player of this game, this is a skill you require.
In order, basically, to not be a dickhead - this is a skill you require.

No-one LIKES losing, in of itself, of course. It's ingrained in our genes - feeling like a failure isn't something any of us set out with the ambition to do, and it hurts.

However, losing is simply the best way to learn. If you steamroll all your opponents with your list, then find better opponents, or tweak your list slightly. Maybe they are intimidated by your army/reputation? Swap armies. Mix it up. Hell, buy a new army, whatever.

If you never find yourself taxed in games then you will not only never improve, you will probably stagnate and get worse. When a player eventually DOES come along who is better than you (and it will happen eventually, unless you quit first) you will be the one getting rolled...and you will almost certainly be a bad loser from your lack of familiarity with it.

Grey Knights List thoughts: GKBomb

Welcome back to fester's crazy thoughts. I apologize for my last post creating such anger and hate. Before I get onto the content I just want to say this: I still think it works, I don't want it to and I expect GW to FAQ it.

Right, ideas.

Well, recently on BoLs, Goatboy has done up a GK Shunt list, where the DreadKnights and Interceptors shunt into the enemy lines in the Scout move (from the Grandmaster) and go all shenanigans on you.

I want to consider something similar, but a little less "FAQable".
I am thinking an old school CSM DaemonBomb list.

Email in: Mechdar list tweaking

"Hi Kirby,

First of all I must say I'm a big fan of 3++, it's a nice change to see some intelligent discussion on 40k instead of the usual mindless forum dribble.

I'm taking Mechdar to a tournament in mid-April so if you can get back to me before then it would be great. I'm happy with the core of my list (at 1850) but I'd like some advice on the finishing touches to take it up to 2000.

This is my 1850 list:

Eldrad (210)
2x 8x Fire Dragons inc Exarch with DBF and Crack Shot in Wave Serpent with TL shuricannon, shuricannon, stones (2x 265)
3x 5x Dire Avengers in Wave Serpent with TL bright lance, shuricannon (3x 205)
5x Dire Avengers (60)
Falcon with pulse laser, scatter laser, shuricannon, holo-fields, spirit stones (185)
2x Fire Prism with shuricannon (2x 125)

Fairly conventional except that I favour big Dragon squads as I find them better at threatening/killing MCs and deathstars than min-size squads. The TL heavy flamer has been useful on occasions too.

Razorknights? Psyback spam?

A few people have asked for this so they get a nice response... Mech spam the Grey Knight way...well partly Grey Knights regardless. This list will ultimately be quite uni-dimensional like most Razorspam armies but a fun mental exercise none-the-less. It also allows us to look at some options we haven't really explored in terms of unit layouts or unit choices before (though some will be frighteningly familiar) which we can expand to our other list building and play-testing exercises. Let's hop to it then.

N.B. Just so this is clear, this is more of an exercise in literal spamming. GK can do this style of army and have it be more viable as a list by using Strike Squads though I'm more a fan of the strong midfield feel you can get with larger squads. The point of this article outside of literal spamming was to look at a few of the options not really discussed and how to get the most of of your FoC i.e. purgation squads and Vendreads rather than actual 'this list is the bestest ever and you should buys it.' Just in case it wasn't clear in the first paragraph, now it is.

The point of this list will to be putting as many chassis on the table as possible and saturating the board with firepower. The majority of this firepower will obviously revolve around the psycannon profile, i.e. lots of S7 rending. This means our army is going to be focused in quite a small area (24") to be effective against the enemy which will work both for and against the list. You'll have a huge army foot print which means you'll find it hard to bring your full army to bear against fast opponents but at the same time, some of your army will be able to reach out to them. This makes fast armies less effective. At the same time you open yourself up against assault based armies as you cannot sit back and exchange blows. You're unlikely to have the range for it. Since the list is most likely going to be MSU based and not have a lot of combat potential, this is problematic. We'll see if any of these issues can be addressed as we build the list.

Guest Article: The Green Eyed Monster(-ous Creature)

This is an article by TheKingElessar. Apparently he runs a blog and is well-known and respected (personally I've never heard of him) on the blogosphere. In this rather...crazy article, TKE looks at the age of the Eldar codex and attempts to make a counts-as Footdar list using...Grey Knights. Go figure and let the Internet rage. Oh and he has made little comments to himself in blue.

Eldar Suck.

There, I said it.

Disagree?

You probably suck too.

There, now that intro is neatly out of the way, let’s move on to what spurred this.

As everyone knows, the Eldar Codex was designed for a previous Edition of the game, when things worked quite differently, and the things you needed to fight against were very different. While the book was written with the kind of redundancy and foreknowledge that it was, enabling it to stand the test of time fairly well and keep Eldar semi-competitive, each further release further obsoletes the mono-build that Eldar have become more and more, and lessens the viable options we have. In essence, there is now but one way to play any Eldar list, and the list is going to be 80% or more the same as everyone else’s - in ethos if not in exact choices. (For more on Ethos in relation to play style, check out my excellent article on the subject here)

Email in: Vanilla Marines competitive list (hopefully)

"I am an as-yet rather unsuccessful Marine player, but after reading some of the articles on your site, I wrote up some new lists and have been pondering tactics for them. I was wondering if, perhaps, I could get your feedback on them? That would be fantastic, as most of the feedback on them, comes from people who are idiots and forums (mostly made up of idiots).

Here they are (general tactical ideas at the end):

750:
Librarian, Nullzone, Avenger
Tactical Squad, Multi-Melta, Melta, Rhino
Tactical Squad, Multi-Melta, Melta, Rhino
Sternguard Squad (7 marines), 2 Heavy Flamers"

Sternguard should have a Rhino really so I'd drop the squad size down to grab that. Otherwise I don't really want to comment at 750. It's a great base on which to build up to higher points but at that level you've got more than half your points in Troops which aren't hyper point efficient. I'd also prefer to see heavy weapons such as Missile Launchers or Lascannons on the Sternguard.

SneakyDan's GK (Thousand Sons!) Build process - Confusion Reigns...

Crowe + Purifier: List Analysis Options

Purifier rage is still going on and really, who can blame them? For a measly four points more over a normal Grey Knight you get Ld9 (huge if the leader dies for psychic tests), 2A, Fearless and Cleansing flame instead of Warp Quake. This includes having access to cheaper combat weapons (2 point halberds!?) and two special weapons per five guys. In the end they are the ultimate generalist but die just like any other Marine. Great for an Elite unit but as a Troop? Well they kick ass so yes but it comes at a cost. Crowe. He makes Purifiers Troops but he is rather terrible. In an army filled with force weapons, he rends on a 4+. In an army filled with characters, he stands alone. Get the picture? In the end Crowe simply hides behind Rhinos/in cover and does what he can. In KP missions he really does hide whilst in objective based missions he can be used as a distraction or if you can get him into your opponent's backline, beat up on backline units. Call this the Purifier tax and even with that, they are still an awesome Troop. What then do we support them with? Well there are a lot of options.

First off I'm going to assume this as a base for our Purifiers:

8x Purifiers w/4x Halberds, 2x Psycannon, 2x Hammer, Rhino (270)

We can add more members and halberds + some master-crafting if we wish but since we aren't making the Purifiers scoring via Grand Strategy (which works best when you can combat squad), this is a really good 'all-round' unit whilst not breaking the bank too much.

Some awesome looking Jumper marines

I got these a long, long time ago but was going through my inbox today and found these which I never got around to posting (I think). Regardless, they are awesome and deserve the limelight! We can thank Tom for them and admire at their prettiness!

I really love the effect Tom as gotten on his Sanguinary Guard wings and the minor lightning effects on the power weapons. The color transitions are simple amazing and the conversion for the Libby...love it :).

Jump-pack Librarian 

Podcasts and other plaster.

Ok, so folks. Criticism on the first 2 podcasts well received, thank you all. However, this does raise some issues. One, do I talk too quickly? Personally I think I talk at a fairly medium rate, however I understand this isn't the same for all of my listeners, and as I hate the language barrier, am fine with compromising here.

Second, thanks for all the feedback on these 2 episodes. This is very much going to be a learning experience and I do plan on taking all/almost all (not stupid) ideas on board. And for you folks who winced at my jokes, I'll take a comedy class, I swear.

Third, I'm starting a second podcast. Very much an audio blog in its own right as it were. The current podcast is just a substitute for articles (despite taking much, much longer) but this is going to be far more whimsical. It's going to be a lot more personal, and reflect my own opinions and outlooks. Hopefully you folks will find it interesting, but I hope you guys are ok with me deviating off topic, and probably swearing.

But mostly thanks for the feedback guys.

<3

Guest Article: Draigowing

A Quick Draigowing analysis.

Hi!

My name is Saramoff. 3++ regulars may have seen me talking in the chatbox, talking about Tyranid nonsense and other Warhammer related things. I'm a very long term Warhammer player who has only recently started to embrace the rules and competitive side of the game. This is mostly due to growing up I think and whilst by no means do I stop loving what's cool, I can see how the rules work better than I ever could. I think little else needs to be said, other than I lack actual gaming experience. This stunts my ability to see things in a more visceral light, but I have a savvy enough nature to know mostly what can and can't work.

With the introduction over, I'd like to show you my most recent list of lists, which I think can and will work. This article will focus on the big boss of the Grey Knights himself. I give you Draigowing.

In this guest article I will go through, much like the other articles about Grey Knight lists, the rundown on how I made the list, my thought process and my ideas about what does what. You know, general list stuff!

Offensively Pink Episode 2 - Sympathy For the Devil

Well folks, Episode 2, Sympathy For the Devil. Today, I talk about Grey Knight troops,  and why I feel they don't quite match up to those of other armies. But it all works out in the end, don't worry.

To download, click on "Divshare."

To comment and read other comments, click 'Click for more Pink.'

Interesting Things in the GK Codex

Been browsing the Grey Knights book over the past couple days (in between moving, etc); here are a few interesting little oddities that I've come across that someone doing more extensive testing/analysis might find a use for. Undoubtedly most of them are pretty non-good, but maybe one or two?

-Stormravens can get Psybolt Ammunition. They can also get a TLHB (a reason to take it!), a TLAssCan, and two Hurricane Bolters. And they move 6" and shoot them all. That's up to twelve S5, three S6, and four S7 Rending hits, all of them BS4 twin-linked. Oh, and you can throw the missiles in as well if you want (they're defensive weapons.) So yeah, maybe the GK Stormraven has a place as a gunboat. Having it in the FA slot means you can have it carry a Psyfleman if you want, too...

-Been pointed out before, but Mordrak's unit always arrives first turn. If you can find some ICs you wanna cram onto his squad, this could be handy. Another GK dude would be kinda pricey, but if you're doing a reserve list, an Inquisitor with Communion can be reasonably cheap. (Note that you'll need to give him Terminator armor so he can DS with the squad.)

Sir Biscuit and the Grey Knights

Grey Knights have, as long as I can remember, been the army I've wanted to play. The first model I painted was a Grey Knight model, and even when I played exclusively fantasy I knew the Daemonhunters codex like the back of my hand.

These weren't just mighty armored space warriors, these were the true knights of the 40k universe, ripped and re-purposed straight from Arthurian legend, with a style swiped from the Knights Templar. Heroic deeds and righteousness of this nature have always appealed to me like nothing else, in my mind, the fluff and style of other factions do not even come close to a comparison.

There was one thing that held me back, however, and that was the rules. Before I ever bought a 40k model, I proxied dozens of games with every faction I was interested in, and researched them as much as I could. The reality of the situation was apparent: GK simply were not very good.

At heart I do not play this game because I want to tell stories about the universe, or because I want to build a "realistic" force. I RPG for that kind of stuff, and it's much better for it. So, I moved on to other races, occasionally modeling a Grey Knight here or there, but never having the extra cash to collect any serious number of them.

Vehicle Squadrons

Ah vehicle squadrons. I see a lot of hate for these guys and a lot of comments like "lol why would you take russes in squadrons?" relating to how vehicles can be easier to kill when in squadrons due to dying on immobilised results. Whilst this is certainly true, there are a lot of other factors which are not considered. Let's take a look at vehicle squadrons in general so we can get a better understanding of they work in actuality.

The most obvious bonus of vehicle squadrons is you can fit more into your Force Organisation chart. In 5th edition where everything is cheaper and armies have inevitably become bigger and more balanced, this is huge for some tanks which didn't have this option before (Imperial Guard codex jumps to mind as taking advantage of this most). You obviously lose some fire potential however as you can no longer spread that firepower out over multiple targets which can often lead to massive overkill (hi Imperial Guard again). At the same time you make your own vehicles 'more vulnerable' as a 4+ (or 50%) on the vehicle damage chart kills them (compared to a 5+ normally). With potential bonuses to this such as open-topped status or AP1, vehicles in a squadron can be very vulnerable indeed (how easy do Piranhas die in a squadron against meltaguns when they go flat out for example?). The flip-side of this is the squadron can always move (unless it is destroyed) as stunned results turn into shaken results and with immobilisation results being upgraded to wrecked, if the squadron retains squadron status, it is always mobile. Not super significant but important and often over-looked.

Terrain, Tournament Results, and the Balance of 5E

"IG and SW are the best armies!"

No, they aren't. Seriously. If you follow the guidelines form the 40K rulebook, they aren't any better than any other army.

"But IG and SW win a lot of tournaments!"

Yup, they do. A disproportionate number, I would guess. Why do you think that is?

I don't know for sure, but I have a guess: terrain and setup.

What does that mean? It's very simple; different kinds of setups and different amounts (and types) of terrain will affect armies in different ways. That seems really obvious to say out loud, but judging from many of the tournaments I've been to and having talked with different TOs, I don't think the connection has been made for a lot of them.

Of the three basic deployment types, with each there is a different balance for armies. Pitched Battle is the "default" setup, with a 24" minimum separation and 36" maximum separation. (I'm assuming straight across, as opposed to a refused flank, and also assuming at least one party has an interest in closing the distance.) Spearhead, with its much larger maximum separation, favors shooting armies- they can back into a corner away from the enemy and get an extra turn or two to pound on them, which can be critical. Even holding in reserve is no real protection against this, although outflankers can help somewhat. Dawn of War, on the other hand, gives a major advantage to melee armies, as it makes it possible/likely to start within 18" and effectively turns off shooting during T1. (Walking in from a back edge is painful, but melee armies should have ways to close distance more quickly or they're trash anyways.) With the three setups overall being even between different army types, no one army type is particularly favored.

Stormshields from Chapterhouse Studios

Thanks to the lovely chaps at Chapterhouse Studios, I now have 10 Stormshields to play around with! I was excpecting these in resin so was quite happy for them to come in metal/pewter (and upon re-reading the description I would of known this but surprises are nice!). The casting is excellent on all of them and there is very little I need to actually scrap off to prepare these guys. I'm going to wash them and spray them when the rain stops (it's now my turn to enjoy some flash flooding >.<; bloody Australia) and now I'll just have to figure out a reason why I've modelled 10 stormshields on models that most likely won't be using them! Or write an army list which uses 10 stormshields...

Email in: SM 1750 list

"Hey Kirby it's BrPat.

This is my SM 1750 list. I'm participating in an ongoing tournament over 2 months. We're allowed 2 lists... here is my propisition for one of them:

HQ

Librarian: TA, SS, NZ
Librarian: GoI

Elites

5 ATs
LRR with EA MM

7 Sternguard with 7 combimeltas

2000 points pure Grey Knights

Kirby decided there needs to more content regarding GK lists without any Henchman usage in it so he forced me to write this. Yes my life sucks. Well actually that's not the whole story, we were talking a bit and ended up brainstorming about a Grey Knight list. Let me explain how it went.

See, Kirby started off with Purifiers. He likes them and frankly, most people do. Well except me maybe, but that aside. So quickly he produced a draw and as with almost all Purifier lists: Crowe makes any list look non-optimised right away. Well you have no choice if you want loads of Purifiers, so if that's what you're looking for go ahead. Maybe somebody will do a post on a Crowe list eventually, but currently most are simply spamming the same setup of Purifiers in rhinos with Psyfleman in support and Crowe on foot. Poor guy.

However we both liked the general feel of the list: Libby + Paladins, 4x Purifiers in rhinos and 2 or 3 Psyfleman. (depending on 1750 or 1850) Oh yes and Crowe was in that one too. What did we like about this? Well we believe that having a Paladin unit in your army has quite some potential. It's a unit with 2 very accurate and relentless Psycannons on a hard to kill platform, while it still is killy in assault and gives you a place for the Libby without the need to footslog something which doesn't want to footslog. Sneaky Dan already did a post on Paladins btw. Purifiers and Psyflemen are fine units of course. What's the problem though when you take Crowe out? Oh hey look, no scoring left.

Grey Knight List Build - Mordrak, and Singularity.

Singularity - a hypothetical point in space-time at which matter is infinitely compressed to infinitesimal volume. For us, its the application of force to a single point in your opponent's battle line, to try and smash that line.

Word is fairly heavy, that is to say something like that must have some meaning. I'm using it to create a concept, something that I hope is competitive, while using some of the GK units that others are happy to consign to "Kantorism", or the 9th plain of bad list hell. For us, its the application of force to a single point in your opponents battle line, to try and smash that line.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, that I'm going to roll into a series of posts about GK list building, and what I've been running through in my mind.

My take on the GK codex - balanced. At first blush, its got lots of good, solid options, in multiple slots, akin to the Dark Eldar Codex before it. They are not all great, but all are in at least some shape or form, viable. Today, I'm going to focus on a character that we all thought was going to be the new Loganwing (Knightwing?) staple- Mordrak, the Haunted Knight.

Monkey Math Madness

So, ignoring most of the Jokaero's stuff, let's look at their upgrade table:

1. A waste, obviously.
2. 12" range boost- this is pretty fantastic for a lot of our weapons, like Meltaguns, Multimeltas, Storm Bolters, etc. Note that this doesn't change your Rapid Fire range at all and doesn't help template weapons.
3. +1 to armor. Also very nice, but doesn't affect the Jokaero themselves. Still, you get a free upgrade to Carapace, which will keep you alive against Flamers. Note that, if you want to shell out way too many points, you can buy Power Armor for your Acolytes, which turns into Terminator with this. 14pt Terminators ftw!
4. Rending, the other super-good one. Doesn't help your Meltaguns any (except to penetrate Land Raiders even at 12"?), but very nice for guys with other weapons.
5. 5++ save. Meh, you're already wearing Flak and should be in cover.If you get into CC with some power weapons, you're boned anyways.
6. Two upgrades, but you can't get a six again or doubles of anything.

So the way that this works out is actually sort of awkward; +1 on the chart per Jokaero beyond the first very quickly makes it likely that you will get two rolls, but those rolls become very likely to do nothing, as the bonuses make you get more results of 6+, which does nothing. (Unless that gets FAQed, which given they're an Imperial codex is not beyond the realm of possibility.)

Forumitis: "WAAAAAAAAAARD!"

 
'Finished Article!' - Please read again.
Warning! A huge battleship approaches!

"I don't like Ward. He spits on the fluff, all his characters are Mary Sues, and the rules he makes are all shit!"

"Waaaaaaah! Ward stole all the units no one used from the witch hunters codex!"

"OH MY GOD! HOW DARE HE ABUSE THE WORD 'PSY!?'"

The standing opinion of nerdculture as a whole is that Mat Ward ruined warhams FOREVER!!!! He's committing historical rape on the background, and it's our duty as fine, upstanding, high-born citizens to rise up against him before he destroys the venerable lore, sinking it further and further into the abyss of absurdity.
Could you ever take a game that has chainsword warriors seriously? I sure couldn't. That's unthinkable. Unspeakable, even. Chainsword warriors. You ever even heard of such a thing?

Come, now! Chainsword warrior's a god damn stupid name for a game. It's a game Ward could have invented.
Probably involve a lot of dice, muscular men, chainswords, starship trooper knock-offs, big guns, and 80's character design.

Email in: Returning to WH40k

"Hey Kirby (or however ends up replying to my email! :P )

I'm a returning player to the Universe of 40K. I haven't really played since the 3rd edition, and started back in the 2nd Edition. The first image I ever saw was the Rulebook with the Crimson Fists on the front, so my head filled with nostalgia I've decided to make my new first army a Crimson Fist one (My original first army was Blood Angels, but there seems to be so many of those around and I like to be a little bit different).

My renewed interest has come with my recent migration to your lovely home of Australia from the UK. Now back when I first started playing this was an expensive hobby and now it's even more so.... then I went into a local GW store in Brisbane... After the staff members picked me off the floor I realised it's just far to expensive to purchase from GW in OZ. So, where do you buy your miniatures from? Are there any decent online stores in Oz? I may end up buying from the US.

I reply to this e-mail in the full understanding that being British, you most likely haven't survived Australia this long. It happens. If you have allied yourself with some local Australians for protection from the native wildlife that assaults your home daily, well I would buy your stuff from Wayland in the UK. I generally get all my local hobbying stuff (paints, brushes, palette plates, green stuff, magnets, plasticard, actual books, etc.) locally and get all my models from overseas. If I'm buying from a company I've found Wayland generally is the cheapest and they quite often have 5%-10% extra discounts going. use the Banner at the top of the blog and check the update at the top top of the blog for discount codes. It generally takes 2 weeks to ship which is a pain but worth the 50-60% off you generally save.

Knights of the Realm - New Paladins

"Bond.... James Bond."
So Paladins, the terminator elite of the GK codex. The very grimmest of the Grim Dark Marines of the Grim Dark future (angry marines not withstanding). 2 Wounds, 55 pts per model, 2+/5++ save, armed with storm bolter, a little psychic might, and a big shiny weapon of close combat orientation.

Not going to lie, I love paladins. More than purifiers, in fact. Paladins to me sound like they belong in the codex, purifiers seem to be shoehorned in, as an alternative to paladins- but considering that the elite of the GK army wear TDA, why do we still have little PA guys? (Oh right, cause tactically, and for the purposes of MSU, they are awesome :D )

Lets look at why Paladins are good.

Relentless - Move and fire cannons. Yes, you can get 5 Fryers (Purifiers, geddit?) with 2 cannons, and put them in a metal box for 100 pts less. But they can still only move 6", and fire 4 shots. The double cannon squad of 5 dudes can move 6", fire 8 shots, 2 of which are master crafted. And then you can assault.

Grey Knight Librarians + Grand Masters

This is just a quick post for me today as I have other more important stuff to do on Saturdays! Anyway, one of the major issues with Librarians and Grand Masters (and a couple of the other HQs but these guys are really good HQs so jump out as the biggest offenders) is they come standard with Terminator armor. This means the majority of transports one takes in a Grey Knight army (Rhinos and Razorbacks) can't do diddly squat in actually transporting these monstrous behemoths. This can really be an issue when you're trying to fit these guys into your army lists as they are made of pure win (with a bit of swiss cheese on the side). To run them effectively you'd be looking at putting them on foot and looking at more Hybrid list or coughing up the big bucks/points for Land Raiders or Storm Ravens which don't always fit well into lists and need two to gain saturation.

Luckily someone (Jcd386) pointed out a shockingly simple solution, put them in Chimeras. Yes, Rhinos and Razorbacks designed to carry 2m tall Warriors clad in (what I imagine is) very heavy armor of super-human nature cannot carry the same Warriors in heavier armor but Chimeras designed to transport weedy little guys like you and me can...go figure?

This makes including a single GK HQ with Terminator armor a lot easier! We obviously still have to work within this constraint if we are taking two TDA HQs as we cannot access henchmen without some form of Inquisitors (why weren't these guys Elites again?). We've got a lot of Inquisitor options with quite a few special characters (Coteaz and Karadread being some decent ones) as well as your bare bones cheap ones. As I discussed in the PsyCoteaz posts, Inquisitors can be great utility and the ability to unlock a Hench squad which can take a cheap transport to take a Terminator GK HQ is a very nice option to have.

PsyCoteaz - Zjoekov's version

In this article I'll be telling the story of building a Grey Knights list. Not just a list, my list. People who visited the chatbox regularly lately probably noticed that I talked a lot about GK's. Some weeks during the times of the 'playtest dex' I was rambling about Crowe + Purifier lists mostly, but this changed quickly when the real codex came. After the real codex got revealed the great struggle began...

First the Dreadknight change, followed by the confirmation that Crowe indeed is no IC and last but not least the range of the Psycannon being shorter than expected (24" instead of 36") made me happy on the one hand, but it also meant I needed to start from scratch. One thing was obvious within 1 minute: the Psyfleman was going into the Heavy Slots instead of Dreadknights most likely. Of course I tried to combine it with simple Purifier squad setups in rhinos and inserting Crowe, giving you an army with pretty much 2 different units when not counting Crowe. Yay. Note: I'm not going to explain everything in detail as I don't want a super-long article, neither a multipart one, it's not that revolutionary what I'm presenting.

Looking at the Crowe list a sad feeling arrised in me. It was bland and my hate for Crowe grew more each minute and I decided I did not want him as my HQ choice. Why the hate? He's difficult to use in the bad way of the word. Not only that but his abilities are rather redundant as Purifiers themselves do most things what he can do pretty well too. And good luck pulling of the 'you're dead you big meanie' trick, I'm not seeing that happen often no matter how cute it sounds in theory. So what then? I decided to drop the Purifier idea for a moment, just pretending like they didn't exist. I'm glad I did this as very soon I noticed I actually wanted 'normal' Grey Knights. Why? Because a full 10 man squad with 2 Psycannons and Psybolt shoots pretty well. And I like that. I like the fact that the biggest part of my army exists out of troops which I actually enjoy using. No hiding the whole game in metal boxes for me. I decided I wanted at least 3 full squads in rhinos with a MC Hammer wielding justicar in each. (and of course 2 psycannons + psybolt)

The Two Skills of 40K

There are a lot of big names in the 40K internet scene- I'm not going to even try go to into naming them all, because I will inevitably leave someone out and there will be hurt feelings and crying and internet rage and a great and bloody war will start and the streets will echo with the cries of lamenting women and dying men and quite frankly I don't want to have to worry about all that when I go out to do my laundry.

This brings up an interesting question, though: what does "being good at" 40K mean? I posit that it essentially breaks down into two very separate skills that tend to get clumped together, resulting in much of the internet arguments that abound.

Those of you who have played other games, especially Magic: the Gathering (which, yes, I will continue to mention in my articles because it is an excellent example of a "mature" competitive game system, both in terms of design and of player base) you may recognize this division, and I think it exists in many games where there is a major element of customizing a (list, army, deck, etc) from a range of available choices. Essentially, there are two kinds of "good" players- list-writers and generals; being a good general will help somewhat with list-writing, but not a lot, and vice versa. Many people are good at both to varying degrees, and the very best of players have to master not only each of the skills, but how to intertwine them. However, for a majority of players, we can differentiate them as two distinct abilities.

Email in: Dark Eldar at 2k

"Hey Kirby,

So I played a lot of Dark Eldar (with and against) in previous years and am only now getting back into the army. I've been mainly playing WHFB since the end of 3rd ed 40k, but have decided to give 40k another go now that 8th ed Fantasy is here (not a fan of playing My Little Ponies). This isn't to say that I don't understand 5th ed 40k in a general sense, but instead just to give a bit of background into why I wrote the list the way I did so, without further rambling, here it is:"

My little ponies?

"2000 Pts - Dark Eldar Roster

Total Roster Cost: 1999

HQ: Lady Malys (1#, 130 pts)
1 Lady Malys, 130 pts

HQ: Haemonculus (2#, 105 pts)
1 Haemonculus, 55 pts = (base cost 50 + Venom Blade 5)
1 Haemonculus, 50 pts

Email in: New to 40k; Hybrid Blood Angels?

"Hi Kirby,

So first off I love your blog, You and the rest of the guys do a great job. Next a thing you should know about me is I'm completely new to 40k but not fantasy, I play Wood Elves and WoC (about 4k of each). But now due to the absolute 40k takeover at my hobby store I'm starting 40k. I want blood angles, I won't play another army; I just love the BA models so much. My dilemma now is how to build my BA force for the cheapest yet most efficient. So I want to know my list(s) before I buy stuff, buy the right stuff, and be competitive. I thought about a jumper list but I heard it is really hard to play and the SG kinda suck (your paying termie pts, for non-termie survivability), next I thought the other BA standard mech spam, I just don't want to do it. My final conclusion is Hybrid Stormereaven/Baal Pred w/ a couple Libby Dreads and some Sang Priest for the bubble? What do you think and can you make a list for me? *remember I have no idea how to play 40k. Let me rephrase that I know what stuff does but I don't know if it is good? I'm looking for something in the 1850 range. I know this is a lot but use your magic Kirbs...

Thanks"

Pure Jumper isn't that hard to play but it does require a lot of knowledge about match-ups (not to be confused with a 'finesse' style of play many on the Internet seem to love throwing about). SG don't suck but they have serious limitations. SG are beater units which hate to see anything which can ignore their saves. Ya they are over-costed and really should of come with at least a 5++, but nothing you can do. They still fulfill a vital role when used, crushing units before they can strike back.

Guest Article: Psychic Battle Squads: To mech (or not)?

By Jasconc

Psyker Battle Squads regularly appear in my army, and they are fantastic to use. Both of their abilities are great, but there are a number of additional applications that are worthwhile considering. I recently went to Cancon which was heavily comp’d, and the regular comments criticising my army were that the PBS were too hard to take out when fielding them in Chimeras. So at Cancon, I only had one Chimera in my army (carrying my veterans) and I ran all my PBS on foot. However, I realised they were arguably *more* effective on foot then in the Chimera’s themselves, with a few neat tricks. With some of these in mind, it can thus be very worthwhile not to mechanise your PBS’, though there are advantages to both. Firstly, the powers themselves.

Soulstorm – large blast, str +1 per psyker, AP d6. Soulstorm is probably the most efficient use of psykers, as the ability to put out a 36 inch range battle cannon shell significantly adds to your firepower. The range allows you to move outside of most psyker defence such as Nids and P. Hoods (particularly when placed on your army’s flanks). This is significant since the psykers are only Ld 9, thus a hood more easily stops your powers.

Weaken Resolve – subtracts leadership of enemy unit for the rest of the turn per psyker in unit. Great secondary power, giving you the ability to easily pin enemy units, make them fall back from your lines out of assault range, or even fall off the board. I particularly like this in my army when I can pop an enemy transport carrying troops that are guarding a home objective – being so close to the board edge, this power typically kills the troop as well.