Warhammer 40k - 7th edition Allies

A friend of mine (@beahealthygeek) tweeted this out earlier

A First Look at the New Warhammer 40K 7th Edition Allies Chart http://t.co/UpW5sIaS1z
— Sweetman (@beahealthygeek) May 21, 2014

and it actually got me a little excited for the game again (my interest in 40k has waned a lot over the past few years but some releases have changed that).  The biggest thing is that all Imperial Armies are now considered battle brothers.  Imperial armies encompass basically all Space Marine chapters, Imperial Guard forces and Inquisition forces.

Why is this important?  Well I've always wanted to do a joint Dark Angels and Space Wolves army as the two marine chapters have so much rich history with each other.  Despite what current Wolf and Angels players say now, I am a firm believer that their rivalry is one of mutual respect and not one of malice or hatred.

This new alliance matrix means this pipe dream army of mine can actually come true without having a significant disadvantage in the actual game (the non-scoring Troops from 6th are a big hindrance I think). To be honest I'm not sure if I will add anything to my collection but things like this will encourage me to try and pick up the hobby again.

Now to decide what Space Wolf units will go best with my Deathwing forces.

Warhammer 40k - FLGS 40k League!

Finally, a Warhammer 40k event going on at one of the FLGS in town.  Only took a few months.  Regardless, I am going to try and attend as it is an escalating league.

For those unfamiliar with an escalation league, it basically takes place over a period of X weeks and every week or two the points value of the games goes up.  This particular league will be done over 2 week intervals.  The first 2 weeks will be 600 point games (with a 50 point bonus if your army is painted!), the next 2 weeks will be 1200 point games (with a 100 point painting bonus) and the last 2 weeks will be 1800 points (with a 150 point painting bonus).  It will give me a reason to finish painting my unpainted Deathwing squads.

Now on to the first army list I plan on using!

Warhammer 40k - My Deathwing assault again!

Excuse the pun but I finally broke out my Deathwing for a game last night against an old hobby friend.  I need to get as much practice as I can for Orktoberfest 2013.  Not because I'm playing but because I need to be up on the rules more than the players.  Being the organizer I am also the rules lawyer and dispute mediator among the competitors.

Anyways, I was playing 1000 points (mostly because all the big tables were being used at the place we played at and we got stuck with a smaller table) with the following list:

• Belial - Sword of Secrets, Storm Bolter
• 5 man Deathwing Squad - Assault Cannon, 1 Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield, 1 pair of Lightning Claws, 1 Chainfist
• 5 man Deathwing Squad - Cyclone Missile launcher, 1 Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield, 1 Chainfist
• 3 man Ravenwing Attack Squadron - 2 meltaguns, Attack Bike with multi-melta
• Ravenwing Land Speeder - Typhoon Missile Launcher, Heavy Bolter
• Ravenwing Land Speeder - Typhoon Missile Launcher, Heavy Flamer

My opponent brought out his Tyranids and had the following list

• Swarmlord - 4 biomancy powers (Endurance, Quickening, Hemorrhage and Life Leech)
• 2 Tyrant Guard
• 3 Hive Guard
• 30 Hormagaunts
• 30 Termagants in a mycetic spore with the dual shot S4 guns.

I had a big advantage on the table as I a was able to score the deployment zone that had a clear view of a large open field in the centre of the table and I had him deploy first.  The quickest way to get to my forces was through the open field and I was able to just blast his big guys away with the krak missiles and clean up the bugs with my bolters.  If he opted to go through the cover it would have taken longer I think and even with his termagant spore attack, the Deathwing terminator armor just shrugged it off.  Admittedly, I find Deathwing armies to be rather overpowered in small point matches.

Going to try and get some more games in before the event.  Despite not buying any Games Workshop related items, pushing around their army men is still fun.

Warhammer 40k - Deathwing Terminators & Orktoberfest 2013

So my birthday came and went and I got a pleasant surprise from my sister (who happens to live on the other side of the country).  She was kind enough to send a box of Deathwing Terminators in her care package to our parents (who live in the same city as me) and I picked it up while having dinner at their place.

Haven't quite gotten a chance to open it up and start building but quite excited as I've been wanting them for a while now but between the price and GW's business practices have been totally put off.  Getting the box was also great as I had just gotten into talks with the folks who run NPC-Con and we decided to run both NPC-Con 2013 and Orktoberfest 2013 at the same venue.  This does a bunch of things for both parties.  We can share the cost of the venue, share sponsors and share players.  Win-win for everyone involved.  The only thing is I might have to cap the participants for Orktoberfest due to space limitations but that's ok as I've never hit the maximum of 32 in the past 3 years.  Always around 20-24 which is just right for the venue that NPC-Con is using.

Unfortunately though, with GW's recent behaviour towards Faeit212 and BoLS, not sure if I want to promote 40k as the system for Orktoberfest 2013.  Seriously considering switching to Warmachine/Hordes as there are a lot of those players in northern BC.  The only thing stopping me is that I don't play that system and I don't want to shell out a bunch of money to start playing that system.

Thoughts on the New Dark Angels

Like most Dark Angels players I've been waiting quite a while for an update to our late 4th edition codex (or was it an early 5th codex?).  Most of the rumours I've been reading are from Faeit 212 and to be honest I'm looking forward to what's in store for the Emperor's 1st legion.

The new Deathwing box is what has me most excited.  If the new Deathwing terminator box is similar to the Wolf Guard terminator or Grey Knight terminator box it's going to mean a lot of extra bits which I can use to customize my spare Dark Vengeance terminators and maybe even the marines and bikes too.

Seeing as I play mostly Deathwing the rest of the new kits don't matter to me as much but I am looking forward to maybe picking up the new Ravenwing flyer and maybe one of those freaky looking land speeders for completion's sake.  I will probably stay away from the new character models though as I have my own Belial which I have been using for years and I've custom made a Sammael on an attack-quad to represent his jet bike form.

Definately looking forward to the complete rules on the Deathwing and the Deathwing Knights.  From what has been rumoured the Knights are quite a force to be reckoned with.  Hopefully they aren't too expensive in game to make them unfieldable, would be a shame considering the models look pretty darn cool although I would replace the hooded heads with full helmets; probably a Grey Knight helmet as I have a bunch of those from when I made Belial's command squad.

Some people are worried the Deathwing will lose their Fearless but I think the new Inner Circle rule will give them Fearless (as all Inner Circle in previous editions were Fearless) and possibly something else (probably wargear related or a chapter specific rule that affects Inner Circle and non-Inner Circle units).  Really curious to see what kind of Chapter Tactics rule the Dark Angels get and if the normal marines get anything nifty.  Mind you, since the Dark Angels are just like any other marine chapter aside from their 1st and 2nd companies, I don't think I'd mind if the regular tactical, assault and devestator marines don't get anything special.  After all, it's the Deathwing (and the characters who are part of the Deathwing) and Ravenwing that make the Dark Angels unique.

Anyways, looks like my hobby money will be spent once January hits.

Entering my First 6th Edition 40k Tournament

This weekend I've decided to go to a 6th edition tournament being held in a town about an hour away.  Haven't played much 6th edition yet but from what I have played, the Deathwing are pretty darn strong.  No need to fear power weapons anymore, land raiders are resilient enough to deliver cargo and typhoon speeders went from awesome to something better than awesome.

Anyways, the tournament is 1500 points and I've decided to take the following list

Belial - Claws
Deathwing Squad 1 - Apothecary, 3 TH & SS, Heavy Flamer
Deathwing Squad 2 - 1 TH & SS, 1 Chainfist, 1 Pair of Lightning Claws, Cyclone
Deathwing Squad 3 - 1 TH & SS, 1 Chainfist, Cyclone
Deathwing Squad 4 - 1 TH & SS, 1 Chainfist, Cyclone
Land Raider Crusader
Ravenwing Typhoon Speeder
Ravenwing Typhoon Speeder

Went with 4 squads this time rather than 3 as I found 3 scoring units was not enough for objective based missions in the last 1500pt tournament.  Mind you the only army that gave me trouble last time was a Grey Knight army that got into close combat.  That same army wouldn't hurt so much as their nemesis weapons aren't AP2.

Maybe I should drop one of my Deathwing squads for another land raider?  Two squads in raiders and 1 squad using Deathwing Assault could make for some nifty rapid deployment strategies.  Super easy to pack as well.  Although there is a really good player attending with Necrons so vehicles won't be that great against him (and who knows how many other Necron players might be present).  Still, having to deal with 20 scoring terminators will be tough for any army to deal with at 1500 points.

Tournament Results

Store tournament was this past weekend and I took the list from my previous post to it.

Escaped with a 2-1-1 record.  EDIT:  Apparently this was good enough for 2nd place (out of 8) after taking soft scores into account.  Either that shows the intense level of competition in that no one escaped with a perfect record, or the soft scores factored in quite predominantly.

Game 1 vs Necrons - Win
- First time playing Necrons in an annihilation mission.  The player didn't take a super-nasty list so I was able to pull out a win.  He seemed surprised that my terminator squads could weather two squads worth of firepower.  I told him after the game that he should dedicate twice that if he wants to bring down a terminator squad with regular anti-infantry guns (I did the math once and it requires a ridiculous amount of wounds to reliably kill a squad of terminators in one round of shooting)

Game 2 vs Grey Knights - Loss
- First time playing Grey Knights.  It was Capture & Control and I think the only reason I lost was his grand master and grey knight terminators were able to assault my Deathwing.  I grounded their ride, but they were still close enough.  Those 4 guys tore through all 15 of my terminators without too much trouble (initiative S6 power weapons and the grand master with a 2+ ward save really sucked).  By the time I killed them I had no troops left.  His shooting took down the land speeders so couldn't contest in my last turn.

Game 3 vs. Daemons - Draw
- First time playing Daemons.  Sieze Ground with 4 objectives.  12 blood crushers, blood thirster and 3 soul grinders.  My shooting was enough to nullify the blood thirster and soul grinders but those blood crushers annihilated my terminators (made the mistake of disembarking from the land raider a turn too early).  Forced a draw by killing all of his horrors and contesting the one objective from the one horror I couldn't kill.

Game 4 vs. Chaos - Win
- Nothing really of note, his vehicles were rendered useless for the most part by my shooting.  He had a vindicator that was pretty ineffective and a land raider of berserkers that spent 2 turns shooting at my land raider.  His rhinos and the squishy squads inside were his downfall.  Easy KPs for my rockets and terminators.

Next 40k tournament should be in July and I think I'll bring a more competitive list.  The lists that were present were much more competitive than I expected (probably because everyone was from out of town).  Time to go and paint some more terminators.

1500pt Dark Angels

Looking over the models I have, this is the list I plan on taking to the first of these monthly tournaments that the FLGS is hosting later this month.  Keep in mind that the goal of the tournament is to introduce new players to tournament game play.  They aren't meant to be super competitive WAAC type games (though inevitably I will make it that way against whomever I play simply because I like a good competition)

HQ
Belial - Lightning Claws

Troops
Deathwing Squad 1 - Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield, Cyclone, Chainfist, 1 pair of Lightning Claws, Apothecary
Deathwing Squad 2 - Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield, Cyclone, Chainfist,
Deathwing Squad 3 - Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield, Cyclone, Chainfist, 

Fast Attack
Ravenwing Land Speeder - Multi-melta, typhoon missiles
Ravenwing Land Speeder - Multi-melta, typhoon missiles

Heavy Support
Land Raider Crusader
Predator - Twin-lascannon turret, pintle storm bolter
Predator - Twin-lascannon turret, pintle storm bolter

Seems kind of hard at 1500 points, lots of armor, lots of missiles, lots of powerfists and who is going to suspect 15 terminators?  Mind you if I run up against melta/plasma/power weapon spam I'm screwed.  Could be worse, I could have taken 5 squads of hammernators with cyclones I suppose (thankfully for the opposition I don't have that many painted hammernators.... yet).

Should be competitive enough yet not cheesy enough to dissuade new tournament players.  I originally planned to run with two land raiders, but figured that would be over the top; and it doesn't help the second land raider isn't fully painted.  The second land raider is a scratch built model and I am in the process of adding rivets and details to it (it is painted except for the minor details).

Lists for the Remembrance Day Challenge....

So regardless of my reservations about the tournament format, I'm still going to try and play. Hopefully my super themed army of terminators won't affect my army selection score too much. Considering everyone will outnumber me (aside from maybe Grey Knights) it shouldn't be too bad.

Unfortunately deciding on what to bring at 1850 is causing me a lot of problems. I have, however decided on at least the core. Regardless of what list I use it will at least contain the following:
HQ
Belial - Claws (maybe TH & SS if I can get the shield arm painted in time)

Troops
Deathwing Squad 1 - Apothecary, 1 TH & SS, 1 pair of Claws
Deathwing Squad 2 - 1 TH & SS, Cyclone, Chainfist
Deathwing Squad 3 - 1 TH & SS, Cyclone, Chainfist
Deathwing Squad 4 - Cyclone, Chainfist

Fast Attack
Ravenwing Land Speeder - Multi-Melta, Typhoon
Ravenwing Land Speeder - Multi-Melta, Typhoon

This brings the core part of my list to 1245 points. So I have 605 points to spend. Here are the best options available to me based on what is painted and/or easy to paint given the time I have (these are the best in my opinion at least)

'Ard Boyz semi-finals summary

Well the 2011 40k 'Ard Boyz semis are done. Not as good a showing as I would have liked placing 8th out of 10 people who showed up. Definately goes to show that practice is good. Still had lots of fun and even managed to get a door prize! (which will be added to the Orktoberfest prize pool as I don't actually need it).

Here's a brief summary (detailed reports hopefully later this week)

Game 1 vs. Razorspam Wolves w/ drop pods - Got Massacred
- Had a promising first turn as I siezed the initative and downed a bunch of razorbacks, but the retaliation crippled me way too much.

Game 2 vs. Orks - Major Loss
- Close game but lost my last few terminators in the last assault phase of the game.

Game 3 vs. Chaos Marines - Major victory
- Could have been a massacre for me but couldn't get passed the cover save of an obliterator who had gone to ground.

'Ard Boyz semi-finals scenarios up

They finally put up the 40k 'Ard Boyz semi-finals scenarios here. Seems a little better written than the prelims. They appear to be pushing armies with lots of scoring units but I suppose that's good for them as people will want to buy more models. One of the three scenarios require you to have a lot of scoring units and another may require you to have a lot of scoring units. For most armies though they can only muster 6 without some special rules like combat squads or imperial guard infantry platoons so they will have a hard time I think getting massacres.

Here are my thoughts on the scenarios with my army

Game 1 - 'Ard Boyz 2011 Prelims at Great White

Alrighty, so Game 1 was against a Blood Angels army played by a regular in the area. Quite scary as it had a lot of good assault units.

My list can be found here at the bottom.

The enemy list from what I remember

Seth + Honour Guard
riding in a Stormraven

Librarian Dread w/ blood lance, drop pod
Chaplain
Terminator Squad w/ assault cannon

Full tac squad w/ MG and combi-melta in a drop pod
Naked 5-man tac squad
Death company w/ 1 thunder hammer, 2 PWs
Death company dreadnought
Assault Squad in drop pod

Attack bike w/ MM
2 Land Speeders w/ 1 MM
Flamer Baal

Land Raider

1st Place at 'Ard Boyz in PG

Played at the 'Ard Boyz hosted by Great White Entertainment in Prince George and managed to fight my way through a Blood Angels army, Dark Eldar army and an Imperial Guard army to place first. I earned 2 massacres and a major victory to secure my spot in the semis which, thankfully, this year is being held somewhere nearby (i.e. I don't have to drive 13 hours or fly across the country).

My list was similar to the one I posted previously with a few minor changes (I swapped out the venerable on the dreadnoughts for twin-lascannons and swapped out the heavy flamers for missile launchers, that meant I had to drop a chainfist from Belial's squad though).

So here's a brief summary of how the games went.

'Ard Boyz 2011

Kind of last minute but one of the stores decided to host the 'Ard Boyz prelims this weekend and I am hoping to go with my Dark Angels. No time to practice with a list or the scenarios so I don't think I'll do very well, but at the very least it's free.

Anyways, here's the list. It's very Deathwing-centric but with the updates that's not so bad.

Orktoberfest 2011 & Other news

New Event!
Orctoberfest was such a success last year that I decided to do it again this year. The difference is that I decided to change the format to 40k. It made the most sense and if I continue organizing this event I can change the format back and forth (or maybe even try for a 40k & Fantasy event to please both crowds).

Unfortunately it seems that most of the Fantasy players from last year won't be able to attend as they don't play/don't like 40k. That's ok though, I know there are a lot of 40k players in the area (Northern BC if anyone from there is reading) so hopefully word gets out soon.

Now the big thing is can I get enough sponsorship (i.e. will last year's sponsors provide the same amount of support) so I can actually provide prizes, lol. At the least the gamers are getting lunch on both days.

My Gaming
Haven't had much time to game much in the last few months. Between the new baby (born November) and year end school stuff my time allowed very little for gaming. Admittedly I did get back into Magic: The Gathering as that required less of time committment than Warhammer and with MTGO I can play whenever I have free time (no need to set up a table and what not).

With that said, I still have my Dark Angels and now have time to model some cyclones on my Deathwing terminators. Just have to dig up some of the old missile pods from the plethora of random mecha models I have. My next project after that is to try and get a box of Grey Knight Terminators so I can have a proper Deathwing command squad (and maybe a new Belial model)

I'm hoping to test the scenarios I came up with for Orktoberfest 2011 this summer so there should be more stuff up in the next 2 months regarding 40k, the Dark Angels and gaming.

March Tournament & Army List

I just got a heads up on a 40k tournament in March being put on by one of the local stores. It's slated to be 1500 points and with the advent of the new Dark Angels FAQ should provide ample opportunity to test out the changes.

I would have preferred a 2000 point tournament, but the store owner is playing it the UK/GW way, but whatever. A tournament is still a tournament and I love the competition.

The list I plan on taking is not going to take complete advantage of the changes. Not because I am feeling nice and un-competitive, but because I cannot change my models or add new models in time.

New Dark Angels FAQ!

Awesome, GW updated the Dark Angels FAQ not too long ago and brought a lot of the gear into line with the other SM books. It means we lose out on a few things (like our nearly always mobile land raiders and transports) but we gain a lot more (like the improved typhoon and cyclone but at a discounted price!).

A shame some of the prices didn't get updated, but oh well. A small step in the right direction.

Time to remodel some of my terminators to be able to carry a cyclone and I'll have to readjust my lists to replace the assault cannons with cyclones.

Project Redemption Update

Been busy for the past few weeks with school but I did find some time to put together a document for the Project: Redemption over at the Bolter & Chainsword Dark Angels forum.

See the thread here (I post at the Bolter & Chainsword under the name Deathwing, proud to be member #1155 over there!)

The project itself aims to bring Codex: Dark Angels on par with the other marine codices. So far the document I put together adjusts points costs and special rules to match what is currently available. The hardest part is adjusting the points cost of our special characters, the Deathwing and the Ravenwing as no other marine book really has a counterpart or unit that is comparable.

It is a living document so I expect to be updating it often based on feedback from the forum and whoever else playtests it. The people over at the Bolter & Chainsword hope to eventually convince GW to release some kind of Errata/FAQ/PDF Update based on our efforts with this project (they did before with the 3rd edition Dark Angels book so hopefully they do it again with the 4th edition book).

The document, if you want to try it out is located here

Codex: Dark Angels Upgrade project

Interesting post on the Bolter and Chainsword's Dark Angels sub forum. (linky)

Tired of waiting for GW it looks like the Dark Angels from the B&C are banding together to put together a homebrew update for the marines in green, black and bone. I'm kind of optimistic about this project as prior to this initiative there was no real coherent objective as far as updating the codex goes (or at least no one put the effort to put everything together in a nice package?).

The B&C Dark Angels did get GW to update the 3rd edition codex to 3.5 so I'm really hoping, as a community, that the Dark Angels can pull it off again and get our 4th edition codex updated to 5th edition standards. Not really hoping for new and unique units at the moment, just an update to some of the standard wargear and units that are common throughout all the marine books.

Time to put on my thinking hat and see what I can contribute.

Librarian, Vanguard & Orctoberfest!

Sometime last week I finished my Librarian and Vanguard for the Bolter & Chainsword's Call of the Imperium painting challenge. Though I couldn't have done it without my wife's help as we were both up the night before it was due finishing up the final details and bases.

To recap, I vowed to finish a squad of Deathwing, a Librarian in terminator armour and a Vanguard squad.

Pictures below.