Email in: BA list...

Hey Kirbs,

I've seen how bad the blog is recently and I'll give you an opportunity to redeem yourself :p

The new Wayland Games advert (<3 +1) is looking very enticing and I've got some bucks to burn so I thought I'd ask for some help.

I'm thinking about an all Sang Guard list (1500/1750) as it'd be cheap and would tide me over until DE come through.

Cheers,

BroLo
Well first off, if you haven’t seen the ad it’s on the left! If you’re thinking of going through Wayland please use it! My massive order before was placed through them so I can give them a good report and am glad to advertise for them. I’m at a uni computer currently and noticed I have to scroll sideways to see the whole page, is anyone else finding this? Do I have to go play with my page width! Onto Loring’s request...

Roland's Guide to Map Campaigns: Part 2

Hey all! Back here with part 2 of my piece on Campaigns. This part I'll actually get more into the mechanics of the game and give some examples of rules which you can try and use, or at least you can use them as a basis to start your own campaign and develop your own rules.

Picking up where I left off, we've got maps, a good group of players, a time line, and a points basis for our armies. So, let's get to one method of running the campaign.

Roland's Guide to Map Campaigns: Part 1

Hey all! I'm going to begin a short series on one of my favorite ways to play 40K: Campaigns. I find campaigns more enjoyable overall for several reasons: they can (and usually are) fairly competitive; it's usually played with a good group of friends so while competitive, everyone always has a good time; and most importantly, it makes the game more interesting/exciting when the players have some level of emotional/intellectual investment in it beyond a typical tourney style mentality which can focus on "Will I get enough games in to make it a worthwhile investment? Will I win and get some prize out of it? etc" Campaign, and in particular map campaigns, allow the players to really flush out the background and "fluff" of their armies. In short, it breathes a semblance of "life" and "character" into what would normally be a bunch of pieces of colored plastic on a tabletop. This article today will focus on some basic ideas I've been working with for a while now on "How To" make/run map campaigns and ensure they're fun.

Email in: Blood angels drop pod list

Hey Kirby, it's Eddie here.

I've been toying around with this idea - Blood Angels drop pods at 2k

Libarian: 100

Furioso, magna grapple, 2 blood talons and drop pod with locator beacon: 185
Furioso, magna grapple, 2 blood talons and drop pod with locator beacon: 185
Furioso, magna grapple, 2 blood talons and drop pod with locator beacon: 185

5 man assault squad, melta gun, infernus pistol and drop pod: 125
5 man assault squad, melta gun, infernus pistol and drop pod: 125
5 man assault squad, melta gun, infernus pistol and drop pod: 125
5 man assault squad, melta gun, infernus pistol and drop pod: 125
5 man assault squad, melta gun, infernus pistol and drop pod: 125

Vanguard veteran squad, jump packs. Sergeant has thunder hammer and storm shield, one vet has power fist and storm shield, three others have melta bombs: 260

Dreadnought, multimelta, heavy flamer and drop pod with locator beacon: 160
Dreadnought, multimelta, heavy flamer and drop pod: 150
Dreadnought, multimelta, heavy flamer and drop pod: 150

Totals: 2000

Armies in 5th: Psychic Powers: Blood Angels

The newest book! There was a recent discussion about Blood Angels HQs sucking over on Warseer recently but I’ll cover that in a later post. Right now, we’ll just focus on the BA psychic powers. BA have two platforms for this, the Librarian (including the unique Mephiston) and Furioso. Mephiston is a close combat beast and has no options on what to take so you’ll have to review the powers below whilst the Libby is similar to that of the Marine codex and the Rune Priest of the SW codex but they get to bring a squad of Honor Guard to the table if they wish. Like the previous books, these guys aren’t great at combat but thanks to some decent combat skills and the BA book, are much more likely to be usable there. Furiosos are obviously more combat oriented and have the survivability of an AV13 dreadnought! They are however expensive and most effective within meltagun range and I’d generally only take Furiosos when they were in some way dropping for Blood Lance. All three units bring hoods to the table which means you can really cover your anti-psy quite easily.

Playing Competitively: the Vaguest of How-Tos

In the wake of 'Ard Boyz here, I thought I'd share some of what I've learned about competitive play in gaming. While I can't claim to be any kind of big name in the 40K community (or, to be honest, any others), I lay the blame as much at the feet of lack of time and money as anything else. These are systems for improving your game, not actual gameplay tips; it's not something that's often discussed, but I think it's worth talking about, as plenty of folks go about trying to be better players in what I feel is an entirely wrongheaded way.

Step 1: Learn the rules
This can't be repeated enough: know the rules, inside and out. Read the rulebook. Go back and read it again. Read your codex, then read it a second time over breakfast. Far too many people play the game the way they think it works rather than the way it actually does. I regularly have to correct Space Marine players on how ATSKNF functions in close combat. Really? You don't know the defining rule common to every variation of your codex that has ever existed? That is, of course, a bit harsh- everyone, myself included, misreads rules; it's unavoidable. That's why you go back and read and reread- carefully, not just casually- so you understand what it is that the book actually says. Warhammer 40K is a game, and as a game what you are capable of doing is bounded by the rules. Understanding these boundaries is the first step of being able to push your game to the fullest. A smart player knows that being 25" away from most Rapid Fire weapons leaves him completely safe, whereas a less-experienced one might hold back for fear of something that can't happen. 40K is not the real world. Its rules are arbitrary and knowable. Since you can know the limits of what is possible, you should make every effort to do so, because it could be any one of these things that results in a game-winning move.

Rune Priest 'tactica'

This was going onto Space Wolves blog but putting here as wasn’t what Adam was looking for and links closely with my Armies in 5th: Psychic Powers articles. I covered the psychic powers of Rune Priests before and am expanding on the conclusions to write an in-depth discussion of Rune Priests; call it a Tactica if you’d like. The conclusion from that analysis is for competitive play in most armies, Living Lightning is your best primary power with Tempest, Murderous Hurricane and Storm Caller all excellent secondary powers. These are secondary powers because they are more limited in their application whilst Living Lightning is pretty much always effective. However, Storm Caller is also a capable primary power in certain lists such as RBack spam where mech is abundant and the army benefits from the additional cover compared to the extra shooting which Living Lightning provides. Thunderclap & Wolf Spirits were largely considered useless powers in comparison to the others, especially in light of Space Wolves anti-infantry ability, and Jaws of the World Wolf is too unreliable to use as a primary power due to its inability to hit a significant amount of units or be able to actually kill an important model. Whilst it has its uses, the four earlier mentioned powers are much more applicable in a tournament setting.

Lords of Terra: Tyranids

(<- my model! :O) Well! The poll has closed and it's offical, Kirby is taking Tyranids to Lords of Terra with 34 (47%) out of 74 votes. Eldar placed a far 2nd with 21 (28%) with Space Marines a close 3rd with 18 (24%). So, let's review my list and see if we cannot make anychanges! Remember, I've got my order incoming for all my Hive Guard and a couple fexes for Tervigons (+ more Gants) but still need a 3rd ed fex for my 2nd T-Fex. If anyone has one of these available, pics please so I can conisder buying! *looks @ Vince*. Here is my current 1750 list:

Armies in 5th: Psychic Powers: Imperial Guard

Quick & easy post here for Imperial Guard. Imperial Guard have two actual psychic units in the Primaris Psyker and Psyker Battle Squad but neither bring psychic defense to the table. They’ll therefore need to use Inquisitor Lords from WH or DH as Allies to get that defensive aspect in their lists. Won’t really cover their powers either as none of them are fantastic. Sanctuary is the icing on the cake against Daemons and that’s about it. Hopefully there will be some improvements for them with upcoming books and it will be interesting to see if Allies disappear. Also, both squads only have Ld9 so are more subject to failing psychic tests. We’ll look at the PBS first as it’s actually a worthy Elites choice. Both powers have a 36” range so can sit in the backfield and affect the field appropriately (they can also move & shoot <3).

Armies in 5th: Psychic Powers: Space Wolves

Now we’re getting into some serious psychic power territory. So, no one really thought psychic powers were in anyway a part of regular 5th edition games (bless their ignorance!) until Space Wolves came out. This is after IG w/PBS and SM w/Null Zone & Gate tactics and still when everyone cried abuse on Lash... okay. What the Wolves did bring was some impressive anti-psy to rival that of Runes of Warding. Bare bones, I don’t care what your Ld is, 4+ denial within 24” (3+ if you’re Njal...3+!?). Add in extra protections like Wolf Tail Talismans and psychic armies don’t like versusing Space Wolves. Let’s look at their powers which are a lot harder to ‘order’ due to use in different builds. I do think there are two clear stand-outs though in terms of automatic first pick and automatic second pick (being LL & Tempest respectively).

New and Improved Black Templars List for LoT!

Vinsanity ahoy, back again with a revamped BT list for LoT after some useful comments in other thread!

The older list wasn't full mech, this one is all mech with the exception of the terminators which I'm quite happy with... This list seems a lot stronger than the other one, having more anti-tank and possibly more anti-infantry potential too!

I've taken away the Marshal :((135), the 5 man shooty crusader squad (101) and the Biker Squad (105) and added in a Land Speeder Tornado with MM, HF (75), 1 Initiate to bring the 7/2 crusader squad up to 8/2 for 16 points and added in 2 AC/LC predators for 125 points each (250 total). It all adds up to 1750 in the dot as well!

So here we go... (/joker voice)

Review: Eldar Night Spinner

So the stats are finally out on this 'new' Eldar tank. We discussed the rumors before here but now thanks to Heresy-Online, the stats have been published courtesy of a White Dwarf c&v. Here it is reproduced from H-O:

"The recently released Night Spinner stats are in the new White Dwarf.

Night Spinner…….. 115pts

Night Spinner 12 12 10 3

Fast, Skimmer, Tank

Linked Shuriken Catapult and Night Spinner

Range: 72″ S:6 AP:- Large Blast, Rending, Twin-Linked

Standard Eldar vehicle upgrades apply.

Any units hit moves as in difficult and dangerous terrain during their next turn.

- Nice!"

Email in: 500 pt Dark Eldar army advice

Hey, me here again.

I was able to get my job back for the summer (poor college student, YEAH!) and therefore can waste money on 40K (ordered my first Eldar models today).

However, to get some practice in before they come in I figured I would mess around with the DE that my friend owns that he never plays. The second I saw that he swore by using 3 Talos instead of Ravagers confirmed my thoughts on as to why he quit playing DE.

Anyway, I played a quick 500 pt game today against Space Wolves (also a new player with not so many good models) and unfortunately couldn't record it. Hilarious things to note however are:

1. It took 5 Dark Lance shots to down his 1 Land Speeder (his only vehicle)
2. I failed my Shadowfield save on the first roll for it...
3. If the game would of ended on turn 5, I would of won. I would of tied on turn 6. It went to turn 7..... Yeah.
4. I actually would of tied turn 7 but I had to flat-out a Raider in order to contest. He needed 6's to hit and rolled 6 sixes out of like 8 attacks. Yeesh.
5. 5 total objectives, a little much lol.

Email in: thanks and another request

“Hey Kirby just wanted to say thanks for helping me with that blood rodeo ard boy list. It did great massacring a dual lash and calgar codex horde in the first two missions but got massacred in the third by a foot slogging wolves list with only 15 kill points. I have a more challenging request for you now. I have an 1850 tournament coming up that I want to take my blood angels successor chapter the knights of blood and to be honest I don't play 1850 too much and don't really know what kind of balance between scoring units and hammers are different from 2000. My pride and joy of my 2k list are my 2 terminator units in storm ravens and I want to include them.

So basically an 1850 Blood Angel list that must include

1 Grey knight hero (Brother Captain or Grandmaster) with psychic hood and Grey knight Terminator Retinue
5x Assault Terminators any combination of hammers and claws
2x sanguinary priests
2x Storm Ravens with extra armor.

I know that is a lot of points and this may be a tall order but I was just wondering what you could throw together.”

Armies in 5th: Psychic Powers: Space Marines

The first book of 5th edition was the Space Marines and they really brought about the “beginning” of everyone realising psychic powers were back. Whilst everyone complained about Libbies dropping to 2 wounds and less attacks and thus not being combat beasts…oh well, they never were meant to be that. Whilst I think SC’s w/2 wounds is silly (I.e. Tiggy and Njal) it’s part of life we have to deal with. This was also the introduction of ranged limited psychic defences, thanks 24” hoods. It’ll be interesting to see if Eldar get this with their Runes of Warding as well… So let’s look at the Libby spells. As before we’ll do in order of what I think are the best to the worst.

Null Zone - Did anyone really have anything else here? You can stick a Null Zone libby in any army and you’ve got your HQ sold yet Warseer still complains about Marine HQs. So your Captain isn’t a beast, wahwah. What this spell does is make every unit which relies on an invul save (I.e. Nobs in combat, Seer Council, TH/SS termies, Daemons, etc.) less effective. TH/SS termies are less survivable than something in cover when now hit with an AP2/1 weapon. This means all your low AP weapons, armouring ignoring close combat units, etc. are suddenly more effective and against units like Councils and Daemons, it will win you games. Don’t. Leave. Home. Without. It.

Now these next few spells are all really dependent on what type of list you’re running and so are down to personal preference as secondary powers (I.e. Vortex on a walking Libby is silly but not on a bike/termie libby).

The Force Org & You - HQs

The Force Org Series Part 2: The HQ Slot

===============

One of the "must takes" in your army, you might as well consider them a lil' more than with one blind eye. So, here we go.

[Category A - The Tank/Anvil]:

Example 1: Tau Commander Shas'o - Weapons of choice, Stimulant Injector, Shield Generator,

Iridium Armour.

Example 2: Avatar & Farseer with Fortune (Or for ease of reference if you're talking to me about this combo - "Fluffing Bozo the Clown")

Example 3: Hive Tyrant + Tyrant Guard (At least 2 at most 3.)

Updates II

Well a quick update post, sorry I didn't do anything yesterday but the guest authors came through brilliantly! I've also been offerred a Guest author spot on Space Wolves blog so might be linking articles back and forth or expanding on my Space Wolves articles there (i.e. the upcoming Psy Powers post for Space Wolves). Smurfy has also reared his head as a new author here (yay) so hopefully we'll see some more from him. Vinsanity has posted his potential lists for his Lords of Terra assualt and I'm sure he'd appreciate some votes. We also got over 1200 hits yesterday so good work. Apparently me spending money is a hot topic. Still need to order my bases which will garner another post (1300?). Btw my order is in "processing" atm :(, not sent yet!

Working extensively on thesis today but will hopefully get a few posts up, may even paint some Termagants for fun. Puppy has finished his Tyranid review and I'm sure he'd appreciate some feedback on his posts! I will be adding my thoughts ASAP (in blue writing) but for now, let's revel in the time and effort he has put into those articles.

Also a note to guest authors: try not to make too many new labels please. We don't want to end up like TKE's blog do we? And try and keep swearing in posts to a minimum. As I said in Smurfy's post we are linked to family related blogs and whilst a good swear word or two can help vent some steam and expression, let's be creative with our words! Don't make me use electrical shock therapy...

Oh and a further note to all. My ethics is going through atm so we should be up and running for my thesis soon (titled Your Time Online). I will be posting information about that up here but would love for you all to take part as the more results = better for me. I'm not sure if there will be potential monetary rewards (like a raffle) yet as it depends if Ethics goes yay or nay.

Kirby.

Lords of Terra - Vinsanity's 4 Army Lists!

Hey all, Vinsanity here!

So I've started to work on a few final assignments for uni and I though, frigate that, I will make some LoT lists instead (what a rebel)!

So my options are from 4 different armies - Imperial Fists, Black Templars, Sisters of Battle and Imperial Guard. Each has units which I still need to buy and paint...

Each will be with different levels of hardness and fluff, eg the Fists and Templars lists are fluffier but aren't as strong as the Sisters or Guard lists, imo... I wanted to test my might with less than optimum lists and include a few units I like so as not to get 0/5 for comp like I predict someone Will...(/clever pun).

The Force Org & You - A Mini Series

Hiya, Smurfy here...I have floated various 40k online habitats so I hope that many of you will recognize me. I float 40kforums.com, heresy-online.net, warseer.com, miniwargaming.com, 40kOnline.com, dakkadakka.com (lurk that one), and travel the 40k blogosphere (Including Fritz 40k, Yes The Truth Hurts, 3++ (here), Whiskey & 40k, and well, just about anything providing I have time.) for modelling inspiration/tactical inspiration/ hilarity at nerdrages.

But one thing I personally do, and avoid as much as possible, is Nerdraging. Unfortunately, I find it necessary to go back to basics like Kirby has in a few of his articles, so I will contribute my piece of the pie. I have a notorious bad habit to pull out a sailor's mouth at times when I post tactica online, mostly to give the read a bit more of a thrill/laugh, but also probably because I get lazy. Kirby note: keep the swearing to a minimum please since we are on "family friendly" blog networkss <3.

AbusePuppy's Tyranid Review Part the Last: Wrapup and List Building

So that's it, that's the whole shebang. The Tyranid codex has gotten very mixed press from the internet- people seem evenly split between "omg trygon and doom and tervigon SO BORKEN!!" and "wtf no EW no AP warriors 65 PTS?!?! cant win anything quittn this f%$#*^ing game". Truthfully, I think that Tyranids are on par with all the other 5th Ed codices, although they are somewhat more limited in competitive builds than, say, the IG codex because of the necessity of taking anti-tank. (Also, until the whole mess with allies gets fixed the Imperium codices are always going to have an advantage over everyone else.)

So, having gone through the units individually, let's give a brief talk about armies. This is only going to be brief, mind you- there is far more to discuss than even I could hope to post here, and to be honest I don't think I've really gotten a good enough handle on Tyranids to do a lot of high-level theorizing about Ideal Builds and all of that. I can, however, safely talk about the most common mistakes I've seen in making a swarm and some general archetypes that the codex naturally lends itself to. So.

Lords of Terror...er Terra

Well, I've been asked a couple times now if I'm going to Lords of Terra which is in late July and without looking at my uni schedule atm, I'm going to say why not. From what I can tell there are no restrictions outside of 20% comp (ew) & 1750 points. So, what army should I take? I've got 3 armies that would pretty much just require a fair amount of painting and minimal buying and we'll see what everyone else thinks. So these 3 armies are Eldar (mech), Vanilla Marines (mech) and Tyranids (foot).

I'll be putting up the 3 lists I'd like to try and work with in relation to this today and link them back to the post (and "sticky" this post) and generate discussion in this thread for what I should take whilst using the other thread for changes to my lists.

And! if anyone in Sydney is up for some practice games, I'd be more than happy to get some games in assuming my uni workload allows it.

Edit: Okay I've added a poll to the left on what army I should take. It'll stay up for a week (maybe 2 as then all my assignments are done). I've got about a months worth of holidays before the tournament so I'd like to go (as long as thesis work isn't mind boggingly extensive at that point in time) and should have time to do the painting/modelling, all of which you can witness here! So get cracking peoples, what army should Kirby take? Debate!

Lists:
1750 SM
1750 Eldar
1750 Tyranids

Edit 2: And Vinsanity is weighing in with his lists now. They can be seen here. Another poll is up on the left.

Kirby orders in new GW stuff!

Exciting news! Placed an order in for some massive GW stuffs. Fornight of part-time pay gone... Here's what I've ordered:

2x Tyranid Carnifexes
4x Ravenwing Battleforces
Tyranid Termagants
6x Tyranid Hive Guard

And will be ordering some bases soon from Back2Base-ix. Either the Wasteland or Winter bases for my Tyranids I think. Ordered the Ravenwing to make Fast'N'Slow & Blood Rodeo and ordered the Tyranids for Lords of Terra as it looks like that's what will be voted in. Lots of painting soon!

Armies in 5th: Psychic Powers: Eldar

Enter Eldar. Before books like Space Wolves came about, Eldar were considered the most psychic race around. And they showed it. With the impressive advantage of re-rolls on pretty much any roll they could wish to make, their spells were powerful and complemented the Eldar playstyle very well. However, with the decreased probability of these spells going off, some of been reduced in effectiveness. However, Eldar still have the best anti-psy going with Runes of Warding. It’s board wide (something only DH/WH get), increases the chances of failure to around 50% (if someone would care to run the math?) and also makes it much more likely for an individual to suffer Perils in the Warp (again, would someone like to do the math?). This is very important currently as most psykers outside of Eldar are W2 and don’t come with a built-in invulnerable. Runes of Warding alone sneers at individuals who say Eldar have been knocked off the pinnacle of psychic might in 40k. We can also expect a buff for them with a new codex but for now, let’s look at what they run with.

Armies in 5th: Psychic Powers: Introduction & Defenses

As the giddiness of having Blood Rodeo (un-linked...) on YTTH fades we move onto an ever increasing facet of the current 40k universe. I’d also like to point out atm two of my fingers are strapped so ignore any typos (you should see the other guy...). So I’m doing a different Armies in 5th style of articles here based are important concepts of 5th edition. Don’t worry, I will get to more armies here but I thought expanding on some basic gaming concepts with more transient concepts might be helpful for aspiring battlefield generals. If you guys don’t think so just give me a kick.

Stelek's take on Blood Rodeo + more analysis

Well the Blood Rodeo has now claimed multiblog fame being posted on YTTH courtesy of an e-mail in by Dave. No reference to 3++, myself or Curly makes me an upset puppy. Please wait...okay better, phew! The original Blood Rodeo list is here and Stelek's take on it can be found here. I've made a few changes to the original list but haven't posted all of them such as different secondary powers on the Libs and hand flamers on the ASM squads. So let's look at the differences between the original list and Stelek's updated list.

Which Space Marine army overall is better at assault?

So there’s a conversation going on over on Warseer over which SM army is the best assault army, specifically BT, BA or SW. Let’s take a little look ourselves. BT can get preferred enemy across the board and outside of transports are capable of getting two moves in a turn thanks to Zeal. However, their Troops really aren’t fantastic at CC simply being Marines and their potential 2nd move doesn’t compensate for lack of mech as any canny opponent will focus fire. It really does come down to a general lack of assault units much like Vanilla SM. Whilst Vanilla SM can pull out some impressive combat units like TH/SS termies and Command Squads, they cannot make a true assault based army due to lack of assault options in Heavy Support, Fast Attack & Troops. The same can be said of BT and preferred enemy doesn’t overcome this. BT also do such a good shooty list with 5x Terminator squads w/Tank Hunters & 2x assault cannons.

Armies in 5th...changes?

Well since I'm potentially starting another series of Armies in 5th articles I'd thought I'd get a few opinions. So far I've mostly done older books which don't have as many options (i.e. Orks/Tau) or armies which whilst had options were a bit more straight forward in their army styles (i.e. Tyranids). What I seemed to have trouble with was BA due to their vast range of army list possibilities and options to cover. Whilst my original idea of what to do with these articles was cover the army books in how to essentially make a good list, when I do the newer and more varied books I think I'll have to do something else as they are so varied.

So, I'd like to hear your opinions on this. Rather than attempt to cover everything about the army and how to make lists with the newer books, I thought I'd do mini-reviews of each section. After those reviews I would look at over-arching themes or play styles and how they differ from other armies whilst also looking at their perceived level of competitiveness. This narrows down my work-load into more managable specifics and would be easier to read as readers.

So thoughts on this or any suggestions? I'd also like to hear thoughts on adding more Fantasy articles. With the coming of 8th edition I might get into it from a theory based side whilst Vinsanity can offer a more practical outlook.

Armies in 5th: Blood Angels Part 6: Summary

Well haven't done an Armies in 5th article in a while so I thought I'd do a summary of the BA. We've had a lot of articles on BA lately...good old new codex love but not all the information was put into the Article of 5th articles (some was rolled into other articles like How To's) but they covered the major aspects. This include the force mulipliers of FNP/FC bubbles and the different army styles in comparison to normal Marines. The Blood Angels codex has been out for a while now and whilst the internet is still harping on and on, I think they are overrating it and missing the differences between this codex and the previous Marine books.

The internet as a whole I believe doesn't understand that BA aren't Marines with more gadgets. Whilst BA are an excellent army I think the internet particularly puts them, SW and IG as "too" powerful above the rest of recent armies. On the contrary I think BA are a capable book which has excellent internal balance and relation to the other recently released books providing a little bit of everything for everyone.

Comp scores & Tournaments (uh-oh)

Well I’ve avoided this topic on this blog for some time now but I think I’ll step into the deep end...comp and tournaments. What has made me write about this? This post here by Stelek (who liked my comment! *swoon*). Now we should all by now know I’m entering Lords of Terra (fingers crossed; if you haven’t look UP...no no not your ceiling...scroll up >.<) which has a comp system and I’m blithely ignoring it (go me) having no idea what “comp” consists of for his tournament. Lords of Terra’s definition of comp is as follows:


“Composition is marked by a penal of judges, and is based on how powerful your army build was and how much fun it was to play against your army.”

Email in: ROCKS!

"Just flicking through the blog as always (and cursing at my lovely Australian internet for not loading the comment boxes, or just eating every post I make) and I came up with a good question. That is the best way to deal with rock units (eg TH/SS termies)."

This is from The Wolf's Lunch. We covered this a bit before here but let's look at it more in-depth. Rocks (or super units, deathstars, etc.) are generally lynchpins for an army. If they fold, the army folds. They are generally expensive and not always the jack of all trades they are made out to be. Examples include Seer Councils on bikes, TH/SS Termies in Raiders, Nob Bikers, Command Squad Bikers, Swarmlord + Guard, TWC, etc. Notice that most of these units are all based around combat but they generally have a weakness as well. For example, Nob Bikers aren't that great against Mech and are so expensive the rest of their army is useless. Councils rely on psy powers (any super unit that relies on Psychic powers for the majority of it's offense or defense is really not viable anymore). Etc. Let's therefore look at ways to handle rock units and how to minimise their effect on the game.

Email in: Starting Eldar

"Salutations guy, as a new player to 40k I would like to ask you some questions regarding 40K and Eldar in particular (you don't have to post this on your blog, a simple email will suffice).

Well, I have been wanting to get into 40K for a while now, but instead of giving my story of going from zero to hero in 40K I'll direct you to these two links:
http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/2010/04/usermail-site-mission.html
http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/2010/05/usermail-site-mission-incarnate.html

These emails (sent by me to Stelek, who is a proverbial gold-mine of information such as yourself, fritz etc) lay the foundation of how I play 40k, what my goals are, and how I choose to play.

AbusePuppy's Tyranid Review Part 6: He's Not Heavy Support, He's My Brother

Heavy Support

The big guns. Mostly composed of Monstrous Creatures, Heavy Support is where most of the non-Elites anti-tank power comes from, either shooting or CC. Virtually all the HS choices are expensive, so if you're planning an army out, you would be well advised to budget for this section early on.

Carnifex
The best unit in the codex last edition, now relegated to the Trygon's sad little brother most of the time. While many may argue over the relative virtues of the Carnifex in the new codex, the plain truth is that other, flashier units have surpassed it in its main role of "scary CC monster that you must kill," despite this not actually being what it was good at last time around. Carnifexes still have their uses, but they are much more niche than the "everyone needs three Sniper/Devilfexes" of the last codex.

Stormraven: Take 2

Well we tried to looking at the Stomraven before here but it didn't really work. DooDoo suggested a 2k list w/Astotorath w/DC + Dreads. Problem with this list comes down to popping the tanks and I think dropping the Tacs in Rhinos would be better replaced w/ASM in Pods + MM/HF Speeders. Chumbalaya also pointed said Termies don't really fit in the with the Ravens, you essentially have the same problems with the BA dual Raider list, not enough points. So let's see if we can create a balanced list w/Ravens and then add units in later.

Stormraven?

Shameless plug for Brent! You can check out the rest of his Stormraven here on his blog. Anyway, I've had a lot of requests over the weeks (well months) for a good Stormraven list. You can't really go wrong with Stelek's 'ard Boyz list here but most of the requests have been based around Terminators. We covered how terminators don't really work like they do in the Vanilla codex here (lot of links :S), it's just a different army. So what can we do to make this work now and at 2k? Well let's see if we can come up with something.

De-bunking Deployment...

Well Brother Loring the other day (in response to ideas on what to talk about) was asking questions about the dreaded deployment and all that it entails such as refuse flanking, table edges, how and here to deploy, what to do when going 2nd, etc. (and I’ll add in objective placement) above and beyond army building/synergy/duality/etc. Well, that type of article would take decades of my time and my main response outside of knowing your army inside and out and knowing your opponent’s? Practice. As I said to Loring, most of us cannot simply grasp every nuance of every army, plop it down on the table and play and then win (besides the fact we like to have fun so don’t just play in tournaments). Whilst I’m comfortable running most armies, put an Ork horde in my hands and I know the theory, etc. but I’m going to make mistakes because it’s an army style I’m not used to running (and for good reason ^^).

AbusePuppy's Tyranid Review Part 5: Da Fast Onez (Tribute to a crappy scenario)

Fast Attack

Perhaps the least impressive slot for the Tyranid codex, it still has some truly excellent units in it, including some very surprising things. The FA slot pretty much universally gets access to 12" moves (or charges, in the case of Raveners), making them truly live up to their name. Most of them are variants on another unit elsewhere in the codex, so if you're trying to stock up on something for a theme, you may want to look to FA to fill it out a bit more.

How To: Quick and Easy Great Looking Snow

Hi everyone. So before I write up a bit more on the fantasy rumours, I wanted to post a new technique about getting real looking snow, which is quite hard and I have been looking for a good method for a while.

Needed:
- GW Snow Flock
- PVA Glue
- Small Drybrush (preferably quite old and not valuable!)
- Clean Water Pot

Email in: Army choice EMERGENCY!

"Hey Kirby, I just started reading through your blog today, and I like it!  I especially like all the different list flavors, most of which are focused on being brutal but not boring.  That, to me, is key.  I don't want to pull punches, but I also don't want to do something stupid like have 150 IG models to scoot around the table, or 11 identical razorbacks that just stand and shoot.  That said, I'm not averse to clone units, they just have to be fun to use, with some mobility and, dare I say, panache. ;)

Scaling & Higher Point Games

This idea has been bouncing around for a while  and it’s been touched on quite a bit in relation to ‘ard Boyz. This is the lovely concept of scaling and different point values. Dethtron wrote a nice little article (what pun...) in relation to smaller point values but what this article will really look at is taking an army and scaling up from smaller to more acceptable point values.

New Author (again) & any 'ard Boyz results?

Well we have another new author in Vinsanity! He's going to be focusing on Fantasy since I generally don't have time for Fantasy and he's always trying to get me to play it. His about me info can be found on the About Me page (and hopefully AbusePuppy will send me his soon, too!). I think for the moment I'll put a cap on regular guest authors though if anyone has any individual articles they'd like to post, I'm more than happy to put them up. For the moment just going to work on layout, etc. and once I'm more settled with the blog may re-open guest authot slots.

Won't be posting anything major until I get home from uni today so if anyone has any 'ard Boyz results, we'd love to hear them! What list did you bring and how did you go? It sounds like anyone who take a halfway decent list generally rolled through their opponents (unsuprising really) and it'll be interesting to see who heads off to the semis.

Also welcome to all Heresy-Online viewers. Signed up with Jezlad on his blog and forum so we are part of another blogging network...that's kind of nice. Will hopefully get to sink my teeth into the HO Forums soon as I've heard mostly positive things about them compared to Warseer/Dakka, etc.

Possible Tiers of Armies in 8th Ed – Introduction

By Vinsanity
As most people into this hobby know, Fantasy 8th is just around the corner (July) and the new rumoured changes will change up the game significantly. I believe this is for the better balance of the game and to correct the crappy, imbalanced and unplaytested work of Mat Ward on a few of the books (however, Ward is rumoured to be writing 8th or at least a significant part of it – bit of a paradox, no?).(/grudge).

The fundamentals of army selection are rumoured to change with percentage allocations of unit types replacing slots. The magic phase is rumoured to change up a lot and this will impact Tomb Kings and Vampire Counts massively. Scenarios are rumoured to be included instead of just a constant pitched battle of kill the crap out of each other all the time. But what does this mean in terms of army tiers and where does it leave the armies after 8th? I’m hoping to expand on this greatly in the coming articles and will try to do an indepth assessment of all current fantasy armies and where this edition may leave them.

RavenGuard & Hive Guard

I've been procrastinating my assignment atm and have come across a few items I thought should go up here. First is the new Ravenguard release from Forge World. I might get a set of these just for those awesome beakie helms (for those of you who don't know, all my Marines wear beakies) and the bolters. Not a fan of the backpacks and can't really use the shoulder pads but, awesome all the same.

Another shout out goes to Spiky Bits for this awesome Hive Guard conversion. I'd like to see if I can do something similar w/o having to buy the Hive Guard w/venom cannons perhaps. Either way I think they look a lot better than the GW version of Hive Guard and deserves a hearty shout out.

The Ride of the Valkyries, Part 3: Tactics

Hey all! Apologies for not writing in a while, I've been caught up with work and have barely had enough time to put in a few games of 40K and Necro, let alone write. Without further ado, I present the third and final part of my AirCav series: Tactics.

Playing an AirCav army is like purposely playing with a handicap, for a I mentioned in Parts 1 and 2, you are limited in your choices of troops and vehicles. As such, this type of army requires finesse to fully utilize, and more importantly, good tactical acumen in order to get the most out of it. With that said, there are a few basic precepts of AirCav tactical fighting I'll get into. After I touch on these concepts, I'll then show some examples of how they can/are used in games, and hopefully help rid the fear of Mech Armies and show that even mighty "Leafblower"-esque armies can succumb to a good tactical plan. Quick caveat, a lot of these tactics revolve around the current prevalence and strength of Mech Armies. The ideas though can be utilized against less Mech armies as well.

Eldar Analysis: Aspect Warriors, the good & bad

  

Well this thread was given to me a while ago from Warseer (they do provide me with a lot of content! & thanks Thud for the PM about it). Whilst I won’t go on a rage or rant onto how bad some of their logic is, I’m going to do a typical Kirby analysis of the units they are touting as good. Specifically today we are going to look at all the Aspects (because this post by Tokugawa100 seems to understand none of them; quick summary Hawks > Dragons for anti-tank? What next? Fuegan!?) and Seer Councils.

We’ll start with Councils. Here’s pretty much the only way to run a Council list these days (obviously there are variations, the important bit is double Fortune & Dragons). You need double Fortune because of all the anti-psy out there. You need bikes because -/4++ is crap. What, Null Zone? Psycannons (who will make more of an appearance soon)? Runic Staffs? No these things don’t bother me. Yes, yes they do. This means squads like this from Perfect...

Email in: Nids for the impatient

Hi Kirbi,


I'm quite fan of your blog, not just because I think your incite into the game is pro, but also because you don't write like a typical pro. So you want to share knowledge, instead of showing the world how great you are. Highly appreciated by me. But that's a completely different topic. So let's get it started:


Let me first introduce myself a little bit: First things first I'm not natively speaking English & I'm quite a wh40k N00b, so please excuse when some parts of the following text will be bullshirt in terms of syntax & semantic.


The next question to answer is: On which level and against which races am i going to fight:

Lords of Terra: 1750 Eldar

Doing something a little different with my potential Eldar list I think. Rather than DAVUs I'm going for multiple Storm Guardians (which might be a pain to get/convert). Other than that pretty standard w/Eldrad (no way!), Dragons, Prisms, Serpents & Falcon. If I drop the Guardians back to DAVUs I've got 65 points to fiddle with so options available and suggestions welcome, could always put stones on everything...ew! Outside of the Guardians I've got everything and just need to make the paint scheme coherent. I'm taking Eldrad for the ability to double cast whatever power I need. With the increased in anti-psy if I want Fortune on a Serpent I can more likely get it off, same w/Doom, etc. and for only 50 extra points over a normal Seer...okay done.

Lords of Terra: 1750 Marines

The obvious 1750 list is Stelek's Best Of list but we all know I really love AC/LC Preds & Riflemen Dreadnoughts so I'd like to include those in this list. Problem then becomes where to put the HQ? I could take a Las/Plas RBack...in fact, that sounds good. This will be again a ranged SM list but will suffer a bit from lack of Melta outside a couple of MMs so the question comes down in am I capable of handling higher AVs? My medium to low AV is covered extensively with Typhoons/AC/LC/Riflemen so that's not a problem whilst I still have a strong core with 25 Marines in midfield.

Lords of Terra: 1750 Tyranids

So here's my thoughts for a 1750 Tyranid list for LoT, pretty much attempting to minimise the 2k swarmlord list down to 1750 and dropping the SL for a normal Hive Tyrant. Typical of my Tyranid lists with a steady advance backed up by excellent suppression fire and then weighing in with preferred enemy and poison attacks. I'm thinking of either Hormaguants or Raveners for the later backed up by Termagants & MCs. This list doesn't have as much firepower as my normal 2k list (obviously) and didn't include Harpies as it would require that much more modelling and painting. As it stands just need to buy/convert another 3rd ed Carnifex, Tervigons & Hive Guard + a lot of painting!

AbusePuppy's Tyranid Review Part 4: Troops

Troops

The backbone of any list, in a Tyranid army troops are where you will find some of your strongest CC threats and anti-infantry shooting. Tyranid troops are, as a rule, not terribly durable, so make sure that you take them in sufficient quantities to ensure that they survive until the end of the game.

(The Tervigon, while often a troops choice, is discussed in the HQ section above.)
Tyranid Warriors

Interestingly enough, despite the above caveat we start off with the most survivable of the troops units. With near-Marine statline (better in some areas, worse in others, but notably with W3), the Tyranid Warrior is a real monster to deal with. They come standard with Scything Talons and Devourer, which gives them reasonable CC ability (in combination with their WS and A), but not terribly impressive, and pretty decent shooting. They're also Synapse/SitW and thus can be counted on to hold a point until the last man. The basic Tyranid Warrior is actually rather mediocre for his cost- you're paying Terminator prices for something that can be taken out by a Krak shot, which can be really risky. You will want to specialize your Warriors in one way or another or you will consistently find their performance sub-par. We'll talk about the possibilities more in the Options section, but for now let's look at some potential uses.