Dark Master Progress

It has been very slow progress to get to this point, but happy with the Dark Master Be'Lakor thus far. 

There are some fiddlesome bits to the build, to be clear. The most obvious being which left arm to select for the build. There are two left arms, and each requires a different chest. It is therefore vital to figure out which chest is required for which left arm -- this might not be totally obvious from the instructions, so always dry fit these two components in combination with each other before gluing into place. 

I personally like the details on the blade and around the face. This one is going to be great to paint up once I reach that stage. That said, I'm not looking forward to the chain mail armour parts or the chains in general - they always feel awkward to get looking right. Regardless, the miniature is a gorgeous build and it is easy to see why this particular kit has proven so popular. 

Horus Heresy Review: Cor'bax Utterblight Unbound, Daemon Lord of the Ruinstorm

Background. 

The final named chaos daemon lord is Cor'bax Utterblight. Fateweaver, and all the other named daemons in 40k don't get so much as a mention in this army, which is a pity, but I get the focus on the Ruinstorm and the daemons who played a much more prominent part in it. After all, there is a plethora of them. Utterblight is noted as a daemon prince in the background, and was summoned directly by the Word Bearers. However, there's precious little more than this, as one suspects that few survived the indulgences that this daemon unleashed.

Strengths.

As well as a very powerful stat line (Primarch levels, except for the BS), Utterblight is a Psyker (level 2). 

Thanks to his big mouth, he gains instant death on a to-hit roll of 5 or 6. This is nice, and would not be much to mention except for the lack of eternal warrior in 30k (which Utterblight also has). He also causes d3 hammer of wrath attacks on the charge, and will "explode" upon his death to take some pyrrhic revenge. 

The emanations of horror that he has is nothing too special, but does help once he gets in combat. 

Weaknesses.

The fixed warlord trait, Pestilent Cloud, is not much to write home about. There's a lot better Nurgle powers than this. 

The limitation of choosing the psychic powers from the biomancy discipline is a bit of a restriction. That said, in the hands of Utterblight, it helps him achieve his goals ultimately. 

As with other Nurgle daemons, he is fundamentally slow. He needs to make the best of any combat that he manages to get in and use his psychic powers to maximum effect,

Overall.

With a price tag like a Primarch, Utterblight at first sight seems very attractive. However, he has the same problem that most Nurgle daemons have: he is slow, and lacks significant ranged threat. In close combat: sure, he will be amazing. But overall, any White Scars player will simply run rings around him and diffuse his threat readily. Indeed, I would expect most space marine players to not feel too threatened by him unless they deliberately get in to close combat with him. Its a situation that an enemy can, in many cases, avoid. And therein is the fundamental limitation. He is a close combat specialist without being quick on his feet and lacks ranged threat. Angron does it better if I'm honest. Overall, I'm not really sold. Get a different HQ unless you're aiming for a truly fluffy Nurgle army. 

Flying Monstrous Creatures in Hard Vacuum

Context: Somewhere in the grimdark nether-regions between rules-lawyer-ing and narrative-rules-ing about hard vacuum fighting and daemon princes.

jabberjabber: Why do flying monstrous creatures move in hard vacuum? There's nothing for their wings to beat against!

paladin84: Warp drive!

CSM and Daemons Review: Be'Lakor

I admit it: I bought the Be'Lakor dataslate when it became available. Well, it was actually a holiday season gift from my wife (I have the best wife!).

At a basic level, Be'Lakor is a new HQ choice for either chaos daemons or for chaos space marines. He is a pricey unit - to be clear - but probably correctly (i.e. fairly) priced. Hence there is no "discount" for taking him.  But his abilities are a force to be reckoned with - he is a real "force multiplier" in a number of ways. And: he DOES have eternal warrior which is a great bonus to have in there.

Stat line wise, he is very similar to a regular daemon prince. His sword is pretty special, having both types of 'bane and strength modifier (and then some).  On top of this is his 4+ invulnerable save coupled with a Nurgle-like shrouding ability (which ties in to his whole "shadow" theme that he has going on). But he does not have any alignment to the big four chaos power in warhammer: he is the only undivided chaos daemon prince available. 

To my mind though, the real benefit (and the reason to take him) are on the psychic side of things. He has access to all telepathy skills.  Why is this such a great thing? Well: think of being able to guarantee invisibility.  But it gets better: mental fortitude or hallucination can be extremely potent in their own rights if played right. Want more? Well, Be'Lakor gains bonus warp charges if enemies fail morale checks.  Hello terrify!  There's little not to like about such a combination in the game! Use Endurance on him if possible to help him keep alive and kicking should the flying shrouded jink'ed basic version be not to your liking.  And use puppet master (and the rest) to utterly disrupt your opponents battle plans. Especially those Tau that you're starting to really be annoyed with.

Play wise, I think I'd be seeing him as a chaos space marines HQ mostly. Even if I were fielding daemons, I would use Be'Lackor as an HQ of an allied chaos space marine force organization chart (so as to keep the warlord traits of someone better, like Fateweaver!). In such a mould, Be'Lakor brings a little extra pain to the table of the daemons flying circus style lists that are popular at the moment. And he doesn't remove too much either (possible a Tzeentch daemon prince, rather than a Slaanesh one, plus a few daemonettes).  Hence I can easily see him being taken with a minimal detachment of cultists to make it work.

In short: tailored to the right list, Be'Lakor will see competitive play and will be a pain to opponents in the hands of a competent player. And I think he will certainly see play in casual games too, for variation and shadowy themed armies (Night Lords? Alpha Legion?).

Chaos Daemons Review: Daemon Prince

I like the daemon prince model (in plastic) very much, but am sad at the new points cost structure for it, both here and in the Chaos Space Marine codex.  Whilst I agree that it needed reining in, I think its a little bit too far. But enough of that.  The Chaos Daemons version of the Daemon Prince is actually remarkably similar to its Chaos Space Marine counterpart.  At least the comparability is good to see.

One of the things to realize with daemon princes is that they can take up a heavy support slot instead of an HQ slot.  This is done if a greater daemon of the appropriate power is taken.  Hence a bloodthirster can make a daemon prince of Khorne a heavy support option -- just like it was in the previous daemons codex.

So whilst there's better options for HQ options in the codex (for instance, the daemon prince can be instant death'ed by a vindicator shot), let's have a look at a few potential builds incase you're going down the heavy support route:

Daemon Prince of Khorne, daemonic flight (200 points)
I don't think the less, greater, or exalted upgrades are particularly worth it here.  Take him for what he is and go hunting most things in the game.  This could be part of a daemon-zilla tactic with bloodthirsters in the HQ slot(s).  Could make an interesting army option.

Daemon Prince of Slaanesh, daemonic flight, Witstealer Sword (205 points)
For a lesser reward, the witstealer sword allows a second wound to be inflicted and makes this daemon prince in to an HQ killer - particularly space marine equivalents.

Daemon Prince of Nurgle, daemonic flight, Psyker level 1 (225 points)
Take the primaris power (stream of corruption) which is an AP3, poisoned, template attack.  Then go hunting space marines or equivalent.

Daemon Prince of Tzeentch, daemonic flight, Psyker level 3 (285 points)
The psychic monster strikes!  But don't bother with this realistically: take a Lord of Change instead and have done with it.  Either that, or just use it as a basic flying prince. The Tzeentch prince is really expensive to be honest.  And this is one of the reasons why (in comparison to greater daemons) that I feel daemon princes are over-costed.

CSM in 6th Review: Daemon Prince

The daemon prince of the new chaos codex is significantly more expensive in comparison to the old codex, but his/her statistics have received a boost. For the chaos space marine commander, the daemon prince is still a very powerful choice, but one that is not quite as automatic as it used to be.

Consider a 5th edition daemon prince: with a mark of Nurgle, wings, doombolt -- comes in at 160 points.

To build a 6th edition analogue, we'll take the mark of Nurgle, wings, power armour and level 1 mastery -- this comes in at 245 points.  This is over 150% of the points of the 5th edition daemon prince.  And lacks eternal warrior (for reasons that I suppose will never become quite clear).  I hope the daemons codex doesn't follow suit, but I fear it must for comparability.  This is bad because at a base T=5, this means he's going to get his derrière kicked by every other monstrous creature in the game.  Seriously: please FAQ this Games Workshop!

That said, chaos players will still be packing daemon prince models in to their armies so that they can upgrade chaos champions and lords through dark apotheosis.  (and chaos spawn too). Just a pity that when they get upgraded, they don't have the chance to get wings in the process! (I mention this because in the old Realms of Chaos, the upgrade to Daemon Princehood through the eye of god rewards frequently resulted in the addition of wings to the chaos champion).

Below, I consider a few daemon prince builds below, some better (and more points efficient) than others.

Daemon Prince, Wings (185 points + mark needed)

A naked prince with wings ... but you'll need to pay extra for a mark.  Set him up behind a line of sight blocking piece of terrain and then fly him in to wreck havoc on enemy squads or vehicles.  Vector strike other flyers to taste.  Cheap, effective, but reliant on the invulnerable save and T=5.  

Daemon Prince, Mark of Nurgle, Wings, The Black Mace, Power Armour (265 points)

This is a really terrifying build.  With enhanced shroudedness, a good save, fast moving, this guy can get in to combat fast and cause real mayhem.  The black mace, because it is wielded by a monstrous creature, gets the same monstrous creature AP.  Causing one wound by the daemon prince is relatively easy, so activating the 3" blast from the black mace should happen every combat round that the daemon prince is in.  This build is therefore one that can kill entire tactical squads of marines in a single round of combat (with a little luck).  But we're paying a suitably high price for it.

Daemon Prince, Mark of Tzeentch, Level 3 Mastery, Spell Familiar (250 points)

Seems to me that one role for the daemon prince would be a shooty firebase.  This build looks to take on that role.  Hang back, shoot, and engage in the occasional melee.  The familiar is there to help counter the Ld=9 of the daemon prince (seriously: why Ld=9 on an immortal creature of chaos?!) and get him to pass psychic tests more regularly.  And just for fun, why not have him man a quad gun behind an Aegis defence line to make use of his excellent BS?

And that's about it.  We can think about a Khorne or Slaanesh mark, but I think the points are better spent elsewhere.  I can't see many players taking daemon princes regularly any longer.  And gone are the days of double daemon princes at low points limits -- and of regular marks of chaos (sigh).  Much better to upgrade a chaos champion I feel.  I'm sad that my winged daemon princes won't see much play inside chaos space marine forces any longer.

Dark Apotheosis in the new Chaos Space Marine Codex

In an echo of the old "eye of god"from Realms of Chaos / rewards of chaos chart, the aspiring chaos champion in the chaos space marine codex now stands a 1 in 18 chance of becoming a daemon prince during the course of a game -- every time he defeats an opponent's leader in a challenge.  This dark apotheosis is balanced by there being a similar probability of becoming a chaos spawn!

Equally, there are various things in the new codex that would seem to grant a re-roll on this table if the first result is not desirable (e.g. new warlord traits).  A re-roll means the chance of daemonhood becomes 1 in 9 -- this is the kind of resultant probability that may plausibly happen once every few games.  I'm very excited by this new interpretation of the chaos rewards table!  

It also reminds me strongly of the old Realms of Chaos narrative campaigns. These kinds of random upgrades and bonuses are good (in my opinion) and bring a new dimension of risk taking for the chaos general back in to the game.  Opimization of this chart (and others) contained within the new codex will take some digestion to figure out.  Coupled with the cool new miniatures heading our way, its a good era (suddenly) to be a chaos general once more!

Be'lakor -- Conversion and Painting

One of the old gems of Warhammer Fantasy: the Be'lakor miniature is an ideal representation for a daemon prince with a round base attached.

I've had this guy in my collection for quite a while.  When I bought it, I was going through a bit of a Slaanesh phase (*ahem*).  Hence this one sports a minor conversion: a pair of scorpion claws (from a very, very old games workshop scorpion) has been added below the two main arms.  They are pinned in place using a long section of paper clip.  Naturally, drilling the metal miniature was a pain to do this, so I don't recommend it any longer.  That said, the overall vibe of the converted miniature does cry out "Slaanesh" very effectively in my opinion.

The painting features a blue palette.  I chose this over the standard Be'Lakor grey / black as I wanted a miniature that stood out from the others in my army; as might befit a daemon prince who leads armies.  The painting features an ultramarine blue basecoat coupled with a dark blue wash and electric blue highlights. 

For the scorpion claws, a more muted brown-grey colour was used and shaded.  The bobbly bits are picked out in a muted pink colour (again, Slaanesh inspired).  For the metal parts of the miniature (knee guard, etc.) I used gold (actual metallic paint) for a change.  The various skulls in the wings are picked out in a variety of shades of grey (no pun intended).  The chaos star on the chest of the beast was picked out in white and gone over (with a steady hand) in yellow to provide a sharp contrast with the blue of the skin. If I were planning this more carefully, I would have gone for a "glowing" chaos star in hindsight, but I think the final product still works well for the contrasting colours.

I wanted the sword to stand out so I attempted one of my first "lava" style paintings.  It features a black undercoat, with progressively more "warm" colours building on top of one another: reds, oranges, and yellows. I'm not too happy with the sword: my modern bloodcrushers (and bloodletters) are better for a wet blending technique, I think.

The base of the miniature was scratch built from a series of cork layers.  Each layer was glued on top of one another and then painted with a stone-like slate colour.  I decorated the base with a few skulls from spare skeleton sprues and flocked it with green and brown grassy areas.  The overall feeling is one of a beast standing on a small mound or hillock and field-marshaling his chaotic troops.

Swooping Deepstrike into Cover

Top of my list of things that I picked up this week:

If playing with a monstrous creature that can deep strike (I'm looking at you greater daemons of Tzeentch and Khorne), they can come in to play in the "swooping" mode.

When doing so, we can elect to deepstrike them in to ruins (they'll hit the ground level) or other buildings.  Since monstrous creatures all get the move through cover universal special rule, they do not need to take any dangerous terrain tests. 

More significantly, enemies need 6+ to hit them, and they benefit from a 4+ cover save.  Nice.

Citation: Imperius Dominatus and others locally (i.e. from real world conversations!) covered this earlier this week.

Flying: The New Meta?

Over the course of 5th edition, various meta-defining army lists appeared.  These ranged from the well known Grey Knights paladin armies marshaled by Draigo, through the Imperial Guard "leaf blower" army lists, ork biker Nobz death stars, and others in between.  Each of these ideas came about from a single codex (in general), although some did feature some generic traits (e.g. a very tough core unit; plentiful firepower, etc.).  Most players at tournaments will have encountered these kinds of list at some stage in some form or other.  Arguably the strongest meta-idea in 5th is a full-on mechanized list.  Plenty of players packed multiple melta-guns (or similar) to deal with these eventualities.

I think that in 6th edition, the meta-defining army lists will no longer come from solely a singular codex.  Much like the mech-lists of 5th, I think that various concepts will come to the fore in the style that army lists are defined.  So, I'm going to make a prediction here: I think the next major meta-game will be "flying". 

Why flying?

Well, the recent focus on mechanized flyers, the promised chaos dragon flyer (and others) all make me think that almost every gamer out there is going to be opting to select at least some flyers.  This will mean that all army lists are going to require something to counter this style, or join in with this style. 

For me, I'm toying with the idea of 5+ daemon princes or flying daemons in my chaos lists.  Consider this: daemons can field 2 HQs with flying (bloodthirster / lord of change) coupled with 3 Heavy support flying daemon princes.  Add in some chaos space marine allies for an extra HQ flying daemon prince, and you can see my point here.  Granted, this isn't the strongest, most points efficient list that could be built (I'm playing daemons and chaos marines, remember!), but I feel that multiple flyers (whether monstrous or mechanical) will be the way forward. 

That said, I think that we're going to see an increase in weapons that have skyfire (and/or) interceptor special rules as well.  The reliable quad gun comes as an upgrade to the Imperial Bastion or Aegis Defence Line and I therefore think that we're going to see a number of players go down that route as well.  i.e. rather than radically rebuilding lists to go with multiple flying options, simply tweak existing armies to ensure an adequate spread of skyfire weapons.  For (arguably) a low tier codex like daemons, purchasing a fortification with a quad gun suddenly looks very tempting. 

So, there's my prediction!  Happy to be proven wrong.  Maybe fortifications are going to be the new meta to beat?  But I'm also interested in what other folks reckon the meta-defining feature of 6th might end up being?

Wargames Gallery: Challenge Accepted!

"Challenges in Sixth Edition?";

"Challenge accepted, servants of the false emperor!"

(image from the recent Wasp Campaign battle)

Wargames Gallery: Defiler Clawed Prince Attacks!

Perhaps the best image that I took from my recent battle with coffee_samurai's Black Templars.  My power-clawed daemon prince races to meet a small unit of initiates.

Wargames Gallery: Warp Rift Secured

The power clawed daemon prince emerges from the warp and guards the rift from Imperial entangelments.

Power Claw Daemon Prince Finished

The painted, based and completed daemon prince with power claw!  A long time coming perhaps, but am very happy with the result!

Daemon Prince Sword

A teaser for the completely painted daemon prince I've been working on.  The chaos / power sword has been painted in a series of blues - starting with a dark blue base and working upward through to electric blue and off-white blues.  I decided that I wanted this power sword to be more like the old chaos swords.  Instead of glowing with electrical power, this sword glows with an inner malevolence ready to cause mayhem.

I think this is also the kind of effect that I would be pleased with for painting up some grey knights' ghost knights (see here and here).

Does Fielding Tall Miniatures Make a Difference?

For those of you who like converting or using proxies, you probably have a number of models in your collection whose height might be considered to be "above normal".  For me, I regularly use a Dragon Ogre Shaggoth from Warhammer Fantasy as a daemon prince.  This has a variety of advantages and disadvantages inside the game that are tied to its height.

The obvious advantage associated with height is the line of sight it purchases.  If I equip the daemon prince with doom bolt (or a similar psychic power), then this is a guy who can potentially see over the tops of buildings / scenery that shorter than average daemon princes cannot.  

The other side of the coin (of course) is that others can also see him better.  This means that he naturally takes more incoming fire from opponents.

But, that ties in with the other perceived, but subtle, advantage: given the height, he makes himself more of a fire magnet than other threats that I deploy on the board.  I wrote a while back about daemon prince distraction techniques.  By having a larger miniature for this role, I've found (anecdotally) he becomes just a fraction more of a distraction.  The big imposing bulk of the daemon demands to be dealt with!  That gives me time to manoeuvre in with other pieces of the puzzle to control the game.

Has anyone had any different experience with fielding tall miniatures?

Daemon Prince Painting Progress

The next step in the painting of this daemon prince involved a series of very dark washes on top of the mechrite red basecoat.  The washes serve to get in all the recessed cracks of the sculpt and provide a good degree of depth to the miniature's paint scheme.  After the washes, I have slowly built the reds back up again on the raised surfaces, one layer at a time.  The first layer is barely noticeable in the image below, being only just above the washed areas in tone.  However, subsequent layers progress through red gore, blood red to almost pure blazing orange on some of the raised surfaces. 

The black areas (especially the shoulder pad) have been highlighted in grey and edged in shining gold.  Meanwhile, the power claw arm has had silver applied over the edges which will be touched up at a later stage.  The overall vibe of this miniature is now coming through quite nicely and it shouldn't be too long before he's finished off.

Daemon Prince Basecoated

This daemon prince conversion was started quite a long time ago, but I paused in applying paint to him as I was not quite certain what direction to take him in.  In the end, I opted for a red colour scheme as can be seen from the image.

The mechrite red is suggestive of Khorne at this stage.  But I think that the prince could easily represent most generic princes of chaos undivided, as well as certain Slaanesh and Tzeentch ones in certain lights.  I think the only flavour of prince that won't immediately work for this guy is Nurgle.  But that isn't a problem given that I have an awesome Nurgle Daemon Prince already.

In the first layer, I've applied a black undercoat and added a layer of mechrite red to the flesh and wings, some grey to the shoulder and the sword hilt plus pommel and given the power fist a bit of a drybrush with bolt gun metal.  The bolt gun metal stage will probably need going over a bit more at a future stage.  Speaking of which, the next steps will be to wash / ink the beast in a manner not dissimilar to my soul grinder and bloodletter possessee.  More on this chap at a later date.

Wargames Gallery: Daemon Prince Rampage

This picture comes from an earlier battle report where the strength of the Death Guard took on the Blood Ravens chapter.

Here, the Daemon Prince of Nurgle up-ends a rhino and pours out the contents: a space marine commander with his squad of marines.

Particularly awesome is the interior of the rhino -- check out the hand painted Blood Raven's icon.

Wargames Gallery: Dragon Ogre Daemon Prince

About to face off against loyalist space marines derived from Guilliman's geneseed, the Dragon Ogre Shaggoth Daemon Prince prowls around the edges of a fortress of redemption.