Space Marine Deimos Pattern Predator Review

Had a few questions about these new Predator variants we are seeing from Forgeworld and since we can expect to see one in the upcoming Dark Angels release, thought it might be a good idea to look at them. The Predator is a very nice gun-tank platform with AV13 so good additions to the Predator which might see trickle-down use are good signs...

Battle Report: Grey Knights + Deathwing vs Space Marines

So today got a game in with Vince so decided to take some pictures. Acotez + Deathwing against Lysander Marines. We rolled a random mission and got Relic with Vanguard deployment. Night Fight in effect Turn 1, Warlord trait useless for Vince, Move Through Cover within 12" of my Warlord. Lists are below.

40k Metrics: Building a Better Devastator in 6th Edition

Hi, Nikephoros again.  In 5^th Edition, if someone said they were bringing Long Fangs, Devastators or Havoks you could safely assume that they were going to be armed with missiles.  It was a no brainer for the most part because they were simply the most points efficient weapon available.  Does this hold true in 6^th?  The way we go about killing vehicles, and to a lesser extent Monstrous Creatures, has changed quite a bit.  The old paradigm might not hold true at all anymore.

It's all about the numbers

Space Marines in 6th - Initial Analysis

GW

Space Marines are often the quietest of the Marine variants - their codex is Vanilla for a reason! They were also the first of the 5th edition books and this shows in a bit in unit pricing/options, etc. Let's see what the 6th edition changes did for them...

Firstly, and this helps Blood Angels & Grey Knights too, combat squads from the same parent squad can ride the same transport. Awe. Some. This opens a variety of tactical options and although the basic Tactical squad is perhaps not as good at this as Blood Angel Assault Marines, it's a great, great option for squads which can use it.

3++ Nerdcast: Episode 4 - Grenades, Sisters, Daemons & Marines. Oh my!

Biscuit is back for Episode 4! We're still missing an AbusePuppy though... This episode also includes the afterparty discussion where we stop trying to pretend to stick on topic or be reasonable and just chatter away like a bunch of nerds. That's the 2nd download below.

This episode we discuss grenades (~1:10) and their new uses and the impact of 6th edition on some of the armies we haven't discussed before. This includes Sisters of Battle (~12:00), Chaos Daemons (~18:00) and Space Marines (~24:00). Ironically, all three are talked about in relation to allies more than not...

Blood Rodeo - the 6th edition transition

I think I've gotten more e-mails about this topic than anything else ever (yes, even Draigowing). Apparently it's a popular concept which has been brought into further light with 6th edition and...Allies. Everyone's favorite topic lately.

Blood Rodeo is about using a screen of biker models to protect the FNP/FC Assault Marines of a Blood Angels army for any unwanted assaults/attention and basically ferry them into combat. Concept and tactics for 5th edition outlined here.

Event Horizon Battle Report Game 4: Blood Angels vs Space Marines

Day 2 has arrived! It looked like I was playing Julian the night before (would rather play him later in the day ;)) but ended up getting Rohnan whom I hadn't played before, but know. He's had a good tourney record past year and a half and was given a special reward for this (don't know if it's been announced so not saying what it is...)! So first congrats to him. Second, time to beat him :P.

I had gone over what I knew of the lists the night before with some brief thoughts (I knew there was a double Stormraven BA, Scarabfarm, Julian's Necrons, Fatecrusher & Rohnan's Marines) and the first two missions were the best possible for me against all of these lists - no Kill Points at all. Game 4 was table quarters primary with objectives secondary and Dawn of War deployment. Rohnan's list looked the following whilst mine can be found here:

Email in: Asking for a Honour Guard review (Space Marines codex)

"Hi, Kirby! Sure you're tired to read how awsome is your blog.

A friend of mine has been playing Ultramarines for years and has some Honour Guards in his collection. Recently I passed to him the Space Marines codex reviews on 3++. He was disappointed when he saw his Honour Guard reviewed as bad and the review doesn't specify why. I ask you (or anyone who writes in your blog) to do a rewiew of the Honour Guard stating your opinion about Honor Guard, whatever is good or bad and reasonig both advantages and disadvantages. (If you ask VT2 to do it, please ask him not to do a very long rant as he usually does).

Email in: Input on my Imperial Fists

"Hey Kirby--

I found your blog a few weeks ago (I know, what is wrong with me...) and I've been doing everything I can to absorb as much info as I can. Its been a great resource. Just a little background about me: I've been "into" 40K for almost 15 years but have played very little. I've read almost every piece of fiction there is and have been reading codices and rulebooks as well. I'm finally at a point that I can start playing games and I'm looking to start slow with vanilla marines before moving into another army (building necrons right now). I don't know much about my local meta yet but here's my crack at a list. I'm not looking necessarily for tournament wins but rather to just be competitive in friendly, local games (I'm not opposed to tournaments once I get my legs under me).

Email in: Bikes and Ironclads army list @ 2K

"Howdy 3++ Team!

I recently played a 2k point tourney down in SA running a new list with some recently acquired bikers. I did as well as expected with a brand new army (1W/1L/1D) while battling with some pissed off dice gods... This was what I was running:

- Kor'Sarro Khan + Bike 205
- Command Squad, Kitted out for wound allocation, TH, LC's, PF and meltagun on a LC vet, 4 Storm Shields 370
- 3 x Ironclad w/ Heavy Flamer/Hunter Killers + Drop pod 180 (540)
- 3 x 8 Bikes, Attack Bike, multi-melta and 2 meltaguns 285 (855)

Closer Look: Stormtalon Attack Helicopter Conversion

It's been a little while since the new flyers released, and today I have for you a closer look at Jkin's Stormtalon Attack Helicopter conversion.

It's still a work in progress, but I figured I'd show it off to help inspire mad converters out there, as to the potential of this kit!

Be sure to checkout the original post here. http://blog.spikeybits.com/2012/06/stormtalon-helicopter-work-in-progress.html - Have at it guys! -MBG

Email in: Stormtalon advice

"Heya Kirby,

Long time lurker, first time emailer. I know the Stormtalon was just officially announced and nobody's had time to playtest this thing, but i'm one of the few that's excited and willing to give the thing a chance. I was on the edge of my seat reading the earlier rumors that you could "escort" deep strikers with it. i thought this was the gonna be the extra OOMPH my drop pod army was in need of. after seeing the newest pics straight outta White Dwarf, i'm kinda let down. there won't be any stormtalons "escorting" my first 3 drop pods onto the table, miraculously saving those dreadnoughts from turn 2 destruction.

Email in: Vanilla Marines

"Hey Kirby;

I've been involved in the 40k hobby going on 20 years, mainly from a modeling and painting point of interest, and I generally feel that I've got a good handle on what armies are supposed to be good at. The catch to that statement is that until about 3 months ago I almost never played. The 3 game stores that were within a half hours drive of me have all closed leaving  my only options as 1 location that is 45 minutes away, 1 GW store  that seems to be inundated with circuit Tournament players and is an hour away, and another GW store more then an hour away in the opposite direction. Mostly by chance I've gotten involved with a local gaming group recently and in the last month I've played more games then I had in the prior two years. So now I'm actually playing games. I find myself struggling with Orks. In one game the Ork players Deff Dread was bloody near un-killable has it survived 3 rounded of concentrated krak missile barrages, Conversion beamer attacks, and a single round of close combat with my Iron Clad (Which the Deff Dread absolutely ate). In another game I was simply unable to inflict enough wounds to affect the outcome of close combat when it hit me. 3 PK attacks aren't that scary. 3 PK attacks with 19 ablative wounds... okay now I've got a problem. And then in our most recent game she took a BattleWagon just for grins and giggles and no matter what I hit it with or where I hit it not once did I do anything more then stun the monster. I know these are all one-off examples of "The Dice gods just hate you", but I would like some feed back on my army and what I should be doing with it. Here is my current work in progress list for 1000 points:

Review of the New WD Flyer Rules

With the rules for the new flyers (fliers? flyers? damn ambiguous spellings) circulating around, I figured it was time to take a look at their numbers in a bit more detail and give an assessment of them. I don't think any of them (save the Necrons) are gonna be winning any prizes anytime soon, but especially considering most of them are Orks that isn't exactly surprising. So let's dig in and see what we can figure out about them.

(And remember, kids, this isn't the place to complain about how little you like them visually, etc. We already have a thread for that- this one is just for rules.)

Evaluating Bad Units: Assault Cannon Razorbacks

Welcome to the second wonderful installment of our little series here. This time around we're going to talk about a more unusual choice in the list of sub-par options: the Razorback with twin-linked Assault Cannon.

"But that's not a bad unit!" some of you are undoubtedly rising from your chairs to shout. And you're right- when fielded by Blood Angels, where it benefits from aggressive mobility, or Grey Knights, where it gets upgraded stats, immunity to suppression and support from other mid-range forces, it's quite good. But when Space Marines or Space Wolves field them, it is decidedly underwhelming.

Forge World Caestus Assault Ram Unboxing / Review

MBG here with quick review of the Forge World Caestus Assault Ram.

So I went ahead and ordered one of these bad boys from Forge World, because of it's new rules in Imperial Armor Apocalypse Second Edition making it legal for 40k.

And because it's now "40k Legal" I'm adding it to my Mechanicus themed Blood Angels (Iron Angels) for when I'm not running them as BA.

Email in: Best Space Marine (or Dark Angels) units

"Hi Kirby,

Looking at Abusepuppy’s post on “Evaluating Bad Units” made me think of what I think of as the best Space Marine or Dark Angels units

Here are my thoughts

HQ

Space Marines (Librarian, Terminator Armour, Storm Shield)

Dark Angels (Belial, TH/SS)

Eamil in: Advice on possible space marine lists

"Hi Kirby/Will (or someone else if Kirby decides to shunt this over to you)!
Or hi Kirby's junk/trash email folder, if that shall be the fate of this email :P

Until now, I've been one of (presumably) many silent watchers (or is that readers?) of the wonderful 3++ blog - reading with great interest, but never had much to say.
I'm really impressed by the high quality blogging/advice that comes out of your site (especially compared to a lot of other 40k sites out there) - it's really balanced and intellectual. The rest of the internet should be more like 3++ :)
But that's enough of feeding your ego - you all probably already know how awesome you are :P

Comparison: Land Speeders & Attack Bikes

Dakka

I got a recent e-mail about this and it was mentioned in the comments here so I thought I'd do a quick comparison between these two very similar units. The two main questions where in which cases were Attack Bikes better than Speeders (and vice versa) and which option was more durable. We'll look at both these points and the general gist of each unit.

Durability -

This can be a bit tough as Attack Bikes and Land Speeders are different unit types - ones based on an infantry statline and the other is based on a vehicle statline so comparing them isn't exactly easy. We can run some mathematics to see which is more durable (which have been done lots of times on the Internet so I'm not going to do here - little homework for you if you want :P) and the end result is Land Speeders come out ahead - barely. Let's break down this analysis though without actual numbers.

Email in: Vaylund Cal

"Hi Kirby,

I've just recently started reading your blog and it is very informative and fun to read. I have a question regarding one of the commanders from the second Badab War book. Could it be worth playing Vaylund Cal? I know the points are quite high but look at that stat line. The only bad thing I can see there is the low attack value for a commander but with his servo harness he has his 2 servo arm attacks so on the charge its three STR 10 and two STR 8 attacks. Also flamer and TL plasma pistol give him good (if short) range attacks, I'm seeing him running with a TH/SS termie squad in a LR crusader. Could only be better if FNP applied to any squad he joined.