Necrons... dun dun dunnnnhhhhhhh

A new threat arises....

So I have been acting like a little kid lately--saving up money from my birthday, Christmas, and extra jobs to buy my next new toy.  However, as I am also masquerading as a "grown-up", my toys are more expensive and of the plastic crack variety.  The new Necron codex has caught my eye and I plan on building a 1500-2000 point army list to act as a foil to my Ultramarines Second Company and Honorguard.  I have the devious goal to try and get my friends hooked on plastic crack too, and I think the best way to do this is through intro games with two well-painted, evenly matched armies.

More Honor Guard... Almost done

I took some time yesterday to base/model a few more Honorguard to fill out my 2K list.  I now have four Terminators, and 10 PAGKs that are ready for some paint.  Once I finish them and another Pysback, I will have my 2K list completed.  I still have a box of PAGKs and Sang Guard ready to be turned into Interceptors/Purifiers, but I do not have a list that utilizes them just yet, so they are on the backburner.  In the meantime, I plan on building up a 2K Necron army.... dun dun dunnnnnnn  

"Improved" 2K Honor Guard List

Future Thrawn Model

After doing some playing around with Army Builder, I am leaning towards tweaking my 2K Honor Guard build.  While Draigo and five Pallies can survive pretty well at 1500, I think their effectiveness is somewhat suspect at 2K, where an opponent can throw a lot more firepower at them every turn.  Torrenting them down actually comes into play.  At that point, I either have to commit to a full ten-man unit or drop them completely.  Because of this, I am looking at switching out for Termies led by Thawn (aka Chapter Champion) and supported by a Librarian.  I lose some of the flexibility of Grand Strategy, but gain more bodies, another Razorback, and a teleporter for the Dreadknight (which should make him more of a legitimate threat).  Here is what it looks like:

More Honorguard Battle Summaries

Chapter Champion and TDA Honorguard

I have been playing a lot of Minecraft lately, so I have been on a bit of a 40K hiatus.  However, the "semi-local friendly gaming store" hosted another 1500 tournament this Saturday.  I am starting to really get into the 1500 scene... it's cheaper and does seem to allow older/themed armies to compete better than at the higher levels.  I decided to bust out my Ultramarine Honorguard (Counts as GK) again and here's how they did:

Tournament Overview
The tournament was a three-round RTT-like tournament with Battle, Painting, and Comp Scores.  There were about 20 people with a solid mix of armies.  I saw IG, Marines, BT, GK, Eldar, Orks, a couple of Necrons, and a couple of DE.  Noticibly absent were SW and BA.... two tournaments in a row without them.  The missions were based on normal missions (KP and Sieze Ground) with slight "Christmas Theme" twists.  The games were broken down into Major/Minor/Tie with 2 bonus points per round.  Unfortunately, not a single one of my opponents had an extra army list, so I am going from memory.  My army consisted of:

Draigo (Chapter Champ)
5 Pallies with 2 Pyscannons, 2 DHs, and Brother Hood Banner
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback
2 Pyflemen
1 Dreadknight with no upgrades (CALGAR!)

It's a really weird/unbalanced army, and I was really worried about the DE lists floating around.  I almost busted out my normal Space Marine army, but ended up just saying "screw it."

Honour Guard Update!

Chapter Master Calgar... ready for a fight! (In his DK armor)

I finally sat down and cranked through a lot of my modeling/painting backlog in the last couple of weeks.  My lovely wife was kind enough to Greenstuff cloaks for my models, and I was able to block off time to focus on painting.  These pictures are pretty terrible, but show an update of my progress:

Honour Guard at 1500 RTT

So I finally was able to take my Honour Guard (Counts as GK) out for a spin today in a 1500 RTT.  It was super small (10 people), but was still fun as normally I spend my time playing just one other person/army all the time.  It was definately nice to have an opportunity to play other armies.  It was a very suprising meta, as here were at least three Chaos Space Marine players and a Necron player, but SW, BA, and DE were all not represented.  I think some of the normal heavy hitters were at 'Ard Boyz.

My list was:
Draigo (Chapter Champ)
5 Pallies with 2 Pyscannons, 2 DHs, and Brother Hood Banner
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback
5 GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback
2 Pyflemen
1 Dreadknight with no upgrades (CALGAR!)

Recon Tournament Prep

From the PtGRtS Event Calendar

When: July 23 - 11:30am
Where: Main Store - Carousel Center Mall
Prize(s): Store Credit
Entry Fee: $10
Details:
Who says you can't choose what to play before every game?
Players bring up to 4 different 1850 point lists and chose which one to use before each match.
Each list may only be used one time during the event.
Players roll off to determine who chooses their list first.

So I still have to clarify details, but I am assuming the lists have to be from the same codex (if not my Blue Angels are coming out!), and there is no limitation on how similar the lists can be. Basically if you bring 4 of the same list, you are sacrificing flexibility for playing a familiar list each game. That is just my assumption though.
So for now, I am planning on sticking with Vanilla Marines because I don't have enough Assault Marines, Baal's, Furiouso Dreads, or Stormravens to make multiple BA lists. That and I plan on taking this as an opportunity to use Calgar. There are two ways to go about making lists for this event:

1. Gear lists towards countering specific army types (e.g. having an anti-horde, anti-msu, anti-melee, etc)
2. Gear lists towards specific missions (a troop heavy army for Sieze Ground, outflankers for Cap and Control, and KP denial for Annihilation)

At this moment I am leaning towards gearing for missions, as I KNOW I will face one of each of those in the tournament, while I may not face certain armies or hit the same army type all three games. I can build three dedicated lists for the missions and have a list dedicated for a certain matchup I might face (I'm looking at you GKs). Here's my general archtypes:

1. Downsized version of my standard Vanilla Marines
2. A more MSU-style Marines list (both these lists are for the objective-based games)
3. Double LR 10 TH/SS Termies (KP Denial)
4. List 1 with Calgar (for giggles or another KP denial threat)

I'll post specific lists later, but hopefully I can make it work. Most of the armies are pretty similar though, so that will give my opponents a slightly easier time selecting their army lists. I've got plenty of time to think on it though.

TMI Update

Warning:  This post is about my plans for the next couple of weeks in regards to gaming.  Nothing terribly interesting.

I have had a lot of irons in the fire over the past two weeks, but hopefully things will slow down soon.  On the gaming front, I've had just as much going on.  I traded some of my old models that have been collecting dust for some new items, including a Dreadknight and PAGK squad for my GK force.  So now I have a decent-sized backlog of stuff to get painted for my GK force.  Additionally, a significant portion of the trade went towards some Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game (LotR SBG) stuff. 

I have been wanting to try a different game system for quite a while and looked hard at WHFB.  However, feedback on Fantasy has been pretty mixed and it seems to be pretty costly to start one, let alone two armies.  The reason I say two, is that because my wife is going to play with/against (depending on how you look at it) me.  She enjoys strategy games and painting, but the sheer number of models involved with 40K was a deal-breaker for her and that game.  However, LotR should be a good fit for us to play together.  With armies consisting of a limited number of figures with no $1=1 point figures (I'm looking at you Razorspam), it should be easier for us to buy and paint opposing forces.  So when I am not working on 40K stuff, I will be painting up a small force of Dwarves, while she will be doing Wood Elves.

On the GK front, I should get some more proxied GK games in this week using my modified Draigo list.  I am going to remove all the metal PAGKs halberds and replace them with power swords and falchions to stretch my buck as far as I can.  I am hoping that 1-2 more boxes of PAGKs should fill out the rest of my army. 

My Smurf army is still in maintence mode, but I am going to try and repaint two more Tactical Squads. I may also try to redo a couple Assault Squads just to open up a few more options in my Blue Angels lists.  Because of work, my next tournament won't be until July.  It looks interesting, as each player brings four different lists and can pick one for each round after pairings.   Each list can only be used once.  I have some ideas of how I plan on setting up my lists and will probably do a post on them in the next couple of days. 

The final thing on my mind is figuring out whether or not to head to the Nova Open GT or Da Boyz GT.  I haven't made it to a GT yet, but I bet they would be a blast.  I am leaning heavily towards the Da Boyz GT because of cost/logistics, but I still am working out details.  In either case, I will be taking my Space Marines as my GKs won't be finished yet.  That and I don't feel like debating about what color BAs/GKs should be in order to be WYSIWYG.  Hmmm... that's also another future post...

New Draigo List

I think I might have a handle on a reasonably competitive Draigo list now.  I stole most of it from Hulksmash.  I won't have as much S8+ target saturation as my previous lists, but I think the extra bodies will compensate:

HQ
Draigo

Troops
GKSS with Pyscannons x2, Pysbolts, and Rhino
GKSS with Pyscannons x2, Pysbolts, and Rhino
Paladin Squad
  DH and MC Pyscannon
  Halberd and MC Pyscannon
  Halberd
  Sword
  DH

Elites
Purifier Squad (5) with Pyscannon x2 and Rhino
Purifier Squad (5) with Pyscannon x2 and Rhino

Heavy
Dreadknight with Teleporter
Pysfleman
Pysfleman

5 Termies from hell, 30 Marines, 4 Rhinos, a DK, and 2 Pysflemen seems like a fairly solid force. 

More GK Thoughts

This week has been crazy busy at work and at home both, so I have not had too much time for 40K.  However, last Saturday I was able to get two more 2K games in with my proxy Grey Knights.  I was going to do Bat Reps, but life got in the way and unfortunately I don't remember enough of the details to make the read interesting.  Both were KP games against Mech Marines and they were both pretty convincing wins.  Here are some of the main takeaways I had:

Draigo and his Paladin Bodyguard (or vice versa):  8 MC Pyscannon shots a turn are nothing to laugh at.  They shred light vehicles and even LRs don't like eating that kind of firepower for more than a turn or two.  They hold up pretty well against the occasional lascannon/MM shot, but torrents of shots still down them fairly fast without an Apothecary.  I still love the unit and want to make it work. 

Interceptors:  I want to love them, but they are very expensive for what they currently do.  The Pysbolt upgrade and the MC on the DH might have to go to make them more affordable.  Both upgrades are temptations to either shoot at AV11 or try to take on Dreads (both of which I tried to do in test games).  Fully upgraded, they cost almost as much as the Paladin squad, so using them as a simple harassment or sacrifice unit just isn't cost effective.  The shunt is simply amazing though.  It can be used to hop into a hole in enemy lines or a parking lot, jump out of a bad position, or go for a last-turn objective grab.  The tactical flexiblity is great, but it is a yet another pricey unit in an expensive army.  I plan on keeping this unit in the list, but trying to strip the points down some. 

MM/HF Venerable Dread:  Another unit that has been "solid" but overall untested and unimpressive.  One MM shot at BS5 isn't terribly impressive on such an expensive platform.  The WS5, S10 DCCW is nice, but a DK can do it better and cheaper.  The Reinforced Aegis can be useful, but I'm not sure if it is worth it.  Overall, I think this unit is probably getting axed.

GKSS:  The 10 man unit is a solid block and has done a good job of supporting the Paladins.  If they get the chance to anchor in a stationary spot, they can dish out some serious hurt with their Pyscannons.  With the full 10 men, I feel confident with them hanging outside of their Rhino during KP games.  The 5 man squad, not so much.  I didn't feel like they were worth exposing to small-arms fire and risking a KP.  In both cases, they are overly expensive to use as screening/charge absorbing units. 

Pysflemen:  I love these guys... they live up to they hype and then some.  Point them at anything AV12 or less and it gets shredded.  My only quibble is that I only have 3 Heavy slots for them, which leads to my last unit:

Dreadknight:  The DK has performed very well for me.  In one game it got to shunt punch a LR on T1 which was basically an autowin.  The second game it never even shunted and used its 12" moves to force my opponent to double-back with TH/SS Termies to kill it.  This bought me an extra couple of turns to kill his LR and ignore his Termies.  Had he not diverted to kill it, the DK would have ran rampant through his backlines.  Yes, it can be shot to hell pretty fast, but most armies have a limited amount of high strength AP2 to split between it and Paladins.

Overall, the army has been effective against Mech Marines, but it definately has a lot of weaknesses.  It is slow with limited long-range reach and power is concentrated in a small number of units.  It has no screening units or movement-blocking units to slow down aggressive assault armies and has only a single MM to handle LRs.  I definately plan on reworking it tomorrow.

In other news...

Chuck Norris was seen exiting Pakistan early this morning...

2K Grey Knights (Proxy) against Mech Marines

My future Draigo...

So after the Bikers vs Mech Marines battle, we decided to try out my Draigo list before I start purchasing a lot of models.  I am wanting to try a fairly "balanced" Draigo/Pally list and I discussed some of my thoughts in a previous post.  (Don't mind my shameless links to my other blog posts...)

My List:
HQ
Draigo

1500 Bikers against Mech Marines

(Ignore the tanks... they're not really there)

This will be a fairly short and sweet batrep.  Starraptor and I wanted to try and get two games in last night, so we started with a 1500 point game.  I've been playing my Mech Marines against his for the last several games, so I switched it up with a 1500 Biker list.  I haven't played with my Bikers in a long time and it was his first game against a bike army.  My list was:

HQ
Captain with Bike, Relic Blade, and Combi-Melta

Nice guys finish first?

I saw this on Gone to Ground and thought it was a great read.  It basically talks about being friendly and having a good time while gaming... even tournament games!  I was lucky enough to have great opponents for all three matches on Saturday.  All three matches were very close, hard fought, and competitive affairs, but there wasn't a single cross word or rules question that wasn't settled quickly and amicably.  "Competitive" and "Friendly" games are not mutually exclusive, contrary to popular internet belief.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with playing to win as long as you do it within the rules (and without "lawyering"), with respect for your opponent, and remembering at all times it is just a game!  Smiles, small talk, laughing and groaning about dice (in reasonable amounts) all make for enjoyable games whether it is in the garage or a local RTT.

Having said that, I probably need to work on being more friendly during tournament games.  I tend to overthink everything... and with the tournament time constraints mixed with "pressure" to not screw up, I have to really focus on trying to play fast.  That causes me to end up in what my wife calls "the zone" where I am focused way too hard on the little plastic men on the table.  If you ever play me and it seems like I'm pissed off at the world, I promise that's not the case.  It's just a side effect of my brain not having enough horsepower to carry on a conversation and play the game at the same time. 

New 2K Draigo List

So I threw the question out to the web about how to run a competitive Draigo list.  The replies I got back were a mixed bag.  Some thought he wasn't as good as a regular GM with grenades while some (like me) are in love with his T5 and Eternal Warrior.  The best advice I saw was to use him in a list similar to a regular GM, so that is what I went with:

HQ
Draigo

2K Imperial Dragoons

One of the two players who tied for 1st place was kind enough to give me a copy of his list.  I thought it was a pretty cool list (and was painted VERY well) and I thought I would post it here.

2K Imperial Dragoons (BA Codex)

HQ
Librarian

2K Local Tournament Results

So Starraptor and I spent the day playing in a (fairly) local 2K tournament and I have to say it was a blast!  It was at Play the Game, Read the Story in Syracuse.  The TO, Paul, did a great job of organizing it and I have to say I love their new location.  One of the reasons I hadn't been down there for a while was because their old location had very, very little room and tables for games and tournaments had to be held in the mall's common area.  However, their new location has a HUGE gaming area and I love it!  I tried to take pictures but something went wrong with my camera and so I didn't actually get any to turn out.  Also, I was trying to knock the rust off, so I didn't have a lot of time to take notes between turns, so I will stick to fairly short summaries.

I took my normal Marine List.

Game 1
Kill Points and Dawn of War

Blue Angels Lists

Occasionally I run my Smurfs as Counts As Blood Angels.  I love fast vehicles and many of the options afforded in the BA book such as Apothecaries (see my Brother Corbulo above) and Librarian Dreads.  Not to mention that Assault Squads don't stink in the BA codex.  I can translate my Marine lists pretty easily with minor changes.  Neither of these lists are anything special, but I have used the 1750 with reasonable success.  I haven't used the 2K one, but I think it would be fun to use once I get a Stormraven painted.  One thing I would probably look at changing the MM/HF Speeders into MM ABs because of FNP. 

1750
Pretty standard shooty list.  Corbulo and Libby and the PW Sarg act as a ghetto counter assault unit to take on Combat Squads and whatnot. 

HQ
Libby with Shield and Unleash Rage (I like being able to pop this to bust out CC on my opponent's turn)

New Paladin List

I reworked the troops section of my previous Pally list.  Now it looks something like this:

HQ
Libby with Halberd, Sanctuary, Shrouding, Might, Quickening, and Warp Rift

Elites
Paladin Squad (5)
  MC Pyscannon and Halberd
  MC Pyscannon and DH
  Halberd
  Sword
  Falchion
Venerable Dreadnought with MM/HF

Troops
Strike Squad (10) with 2 Pyscannons, Pysbolts, and Rhino
Strike Squad (10) with 2 Pyscannons and Rhino
Strike Squad (5) with Pyscannon and Razorback with Psybolts

Fast Attack
Stormraven with MM and Assault Cannon

Heavy
Pysfleman Dreadnought
Pysfleman Dreadnought
Dreadknight

Depending on deployment and who goes first, the SR can suicide into the enemy lines with the Ven Dread and Pallies or just ferry a GKSS around.  Might not work, but it's a starting point

Draigo Counts As?

I am still thinking about the idea of running a unit of Paladins in a list.  The previous list I posted was fairly rough, but I think if I rework the troops a little, it could be a decent list.  If I decide to give Draigo a try, the above picture is the model I will use to represent him.  Basically, Draigo will be the UltraSmurfs Chapter Champion or Commander of the Guard Aloysius (even though he got punked by the Swarmlord). 

Breaking in the new Game Room...

After many months, I finally got my game room squared away and it is now open for business.  My Father-in-law and I built a 4x6 table about a year ago, but it went largely unused due to a combination of work, a lack of local 40k players, and it being used as a storage area.  Finally Starraptor and I got a chance to put it through the paces with an inagural 40k battle (and knock off rust before a RTT) and batrep.  Starraptor is pretty new to 40k and I haven't played in about 9 months, so you'll have to forgive any mistakes we made.  Also, the terrain and RoB are a work in progress and need a lot more painting, so you'll have to also forgive that and my terrible camera work.

Painting Update

I finally got around to finishing off my extra Tactical Squad.  I didn't go too crazy on details as I just want good tabletop quality for my rank and file.  Overall, I am very happy with how the squad turned out, especially considering the time investment.  The only model I am not overly happy with is the Sarg.  I still cannot do well with faces consistently.  I also worked on the bases of my other Tacticals and while they are pretty rough, they are better than before and now match the rest of the army.  I plan on stripping and repainting a squad at a time once the RTT is over. 

Wanting to Make Pallies Work

So far the GK codex has been a tough nut for me to crack, especially without my trusty Army Builder files.  (The French translation just doesn't cut it.)  I have two main problems that are giving me fits.  The first is how to properly utilize the Inquisition units without turning into a wannabe-IG army.  The other is how to fit in some of what I would consider the cooler models into a non-fail list.  Sometimes I think GW goes out of their way to make the better looking models perform only so-so on the tabletop.  When a new codex comes out, everyone buys the new shiny models because they look so nice, then when the players realize those models have cruddy rules, they have to shell out for the more effective units.  Just compare the effectiveness of units such as the Blood Angels' Stormraven, Libby Dreadnought, Death Company, etc to MSU/Razorback Spam.  Likewise, Coteaz and Crowe spam seem to be relatively point and click, while Paladins, Termies, Stormravens, and (to a lesser extent) Dreadknights seem to be harder to work into a coherent list.  The catalyst for my rant is none other than the Paladin unit.  As much as I want them to be awesome, they have some serious issues in a competitive lists.

Counts As Thoughts...

I'm still debating how I am going to go about doing Counts As Honorguard.  I have been looking in the White Dwarf at the pictures of the bits and trying to figure out just what I'm going to use.  The helmets and weapon arms are no brainers.  However, the legs, chest, and shoulder pads are more "iffy".  They would be more useful if they had kept the old gibberish text instead of readable words such as "Doom", "Nemisis", etc.  While they are very ornate and look super cool, they don't scream "Honorguard" to me.  I would replace the left shoulderpads with metal Ultramarine ones, but I'm not sure what to do about the rest.  I think I can use them as long as I get the file and greenstuff out.  For now, I am going to test paint one of my plain, extra metal PAGKs and see how it looks in my Smurfs scheme.  That should give me an idea of what areas need some extra detail to look more like Honorguard.  Any suggestions are appreciated!

1500 "Rule of Cool" GKs

Got a good 1000 point game in with GKs tonight.  I proxied up a small force and went against shooty mech Marines.  I like the feel of the army, even at 1000 points.  But without henchman, it's definately very, very squishy (I had a pretty low model count army).  I have also bought into the 5-man GKSS with Pyscannon and Pysback units being touted on the internet.  They definately performed well.  However, GKTs were mediocre at best.  I failed way too many 2+ saves before they could do much.  I also got to see just how nasty Pysfleman dreads are on the tabletop.

I've been reconsidering my 1500 point army for a few days now and in light of recent revelations (Honorguard Counts As), I am thinking about changing it.  I am getting away from the full squads and going to the Pysback Squads.  The extra Justicars seem like they would be very useful along with the extra vehicles.  I also want to try to fit in the Dreadknight Counts As Calgar and/or a Stormraven.  So here's what I came up with:

GK Counts as Smurfs...

I am tempted to steal the idea for Honorguard Counts as Grey Knights.  For one, I do love my Smurfs and the fluff associated with them.  I also LOVE the idea of not having to spend a crap ton of money on stuff like Dreadnoughts, Rhinos, and Razorbacks.  And if I do it right, it would be a nice way to "be different" from the rest of the bandwagon jumpers.  I could kit bash the hell out of the GK, Sang Guard, and other kits and get some Roman-style crests for all the helmets.

A lot of the rules and gear can fit an Honorguard/Vet force pretty well, but there are quite a few "stretches" that might cause problems.  The pysker and demon rules would not have any real justification besides the "rule of cool".  Here's what I'm thinking:

GKTs/Paladins = TDA Honorguard (creative, right?)
GKSS = PA Honorguard
Purifiers = Tyrannic War Vets (I thought the "FU Gaunts!" ability was appropriate)
GKGM = Captain
GK Libby = Libby (easy enough)
Dreadknight 1 = Papa Smurf
Other DKs = ???? (I want to use multiple DKs)
Interceptors = Vanguard Vets (would probably use piece Sang Guard Models)
Inquisitors = PDF leaders (TDA one would be hard to justify)
Warrior Henchmen (probably won't use) = Ultramar PDF or Scouts
Pyscannons = Assault Cannons

I'm not sure if I will actually go with this, but it's definately an idea I will be thinking about this week.

Coolest idea EVER...

From Blame it on the Dice.

As a Smurf player, I love the idea of making a Calgar/Honorguard Counts with GK models/rules.  The new plastics would make it pretty easy to put together a great looking Honor Guard force.  I am SOOO tempted to rip this idea off...

RTT Prep Update

After banging my head against Calgar lists for two days, I pretty much determined I cannot field what I would consider a "good" list containing him at 2K.  I came up with two "decent" lists: the one posted earlier on the blog, and another has a LR and turns the MM/HF Dread into a second Rifleman at the expense of a MM AB and the Termies.  While both lists are "workable" and would be more than adequate for non-tournament game, I am very hesitant to go into a tournament situation without a hood.  The new GKs only underscore that concern.  Couple that with the fact that either one would require significant modeling/painting (when I'd rather be working on GKs) and I decided to go with the Battleforce List.

Saturday of "Gaming"

Today was a mixed day. 

I had a last minute opportunity to slip away from the house and go to a gaming store about 45 minutes away.  I was pretty stoked about seeing the new GK stuff and getting some games in.  I've been to the store several times before and it's normally pretty active so I figured that at a minimum there would be a few people around to play or "talk shop" with.  However, when I walked in, it was completely deserted.  It was like 11:30, so I just figured it was still early.  I bought the GK codex, two Smallworld expansions for my wife (we both love that game), a drink, and sat down to read through the codex and wait for more people to show up.  Two problems quickly became apparent: no one else showed up, and the GK codex had a lot less fluff than I was hoping for.

GK Update

"Finished" basing the GKTs.  I found that I'm not good at green stuff and the DH was a disaster.  I think I was able to salvage it with some floral wire.  I may see if I can find something else to kinda cover my mistakes.  The bases were also pretty hit or miss.  Some turned out really well, and some... not so much.  I'll keep working on it.

Prepping the SMs for a RTT

2000 Point Battleforce Marines

One of the local stores is hosting a 2K RTT next month and unfortunately my GKs won't ready in time.  I'm currently in the process of figuring out what list I want to run.  The first list is pretty much an extension of the 1750 list I used in the last RTT.  I ended up doing pretty well with it and I think it will scale pretty well.  Because the tournament has soft scores (and I'm model limited) I stuck with my normal "battleforce" approach.  <Broken Link>
Basically it is a Libby, a vanilla LR with Assault Termies, and mech fire support.  The advantage of this list is I would really be suprised if it took a comp hit and I have most of the figures painted to a decent standard for me.  I could take some time to work on touching up some of the models or repainting a squad or two.

The other idea I have been mulling around is the a list using Calgar.  I mean, it IS an Ultrasmurf force.  Why wouldn't I bring out Papa Smurf himself?  I haven't had a chance to use my favorite painted model in a tournament yet, and I thought this might be a good opportunity.  The problem is... How?

After soliciting advice from Dakka, the most meaningful piece of advice (besides "run Vulkan or Lysander) was to avoid LRs and go with foot-slogging Termies.  The idea intrigued me and I came up with what I would consider a very crappy first draft.  It uses a squad of shooty Termies that Calgar will hang with and possibly drop an orbital barrage on Turn 1 and eat a few wounds for them.  It might work... it might not.  <Broken Link>
I am a little hesitant to roll without my Libby crutch and I would have to repaint some shooty Termies, but it would probably be fun to try.  I am not sure whether I should go with more or less Termies, and whether they should all be the same or not.

Oh... and if anyone knows a good way to display AB lists on blogspot, I would offer you a cookie!

More Grey Knight Stuff

So I read an interesting article by Stelek. While I could do without the "I know everything" attitude, his site does have nuggets of wisdom from time to time.

In the linked article he posted a 1500 GK razorspam list (non-Coteaz version).  It relied on heavy bolter razorbacks with pysbolt upgrades carrying 5 man GKSS screened by foot henchmen.  Overall I do think his list is very good, but because it would not scale and I do not like razorspam it is not one I would run. 

The big takeaway I pulled from the article was his take on the HQ selection for a 1500 list.  I mentioned earlier that an Inquisitor and henchman might have been a better choice for my initial list and his idea for cheap pyscannon Inquisitors is very interesting.  The idea of meltabomb warriors as a tank-shock screen is also something I hadn't thought about.

I did not have a lot of 40K time this weekend, but I started working on the Purifiers and GKTs.  I picked out the models for both squads and I did some basic assembly/converting such as making a banner carrier out of the old GKT Justicar model.  I am trying to use as many of my old models as possible so I need to change some PAGK halberds into DHs and some GKT incinerators into pyscannons.  My main 40k goal this week is to get these two squads assembled and based so I have a better idea of what I need to purchase and build.  That and so I can post some progress pictures...

Small Pleasures (....that's what SHE said)

So this weekend I was on the road for work, but my wife was able to accompany me.  While I was in a meeting, she took the opportunity to hit "the biggest mall she's ever seen" for an afternoon of shopping.  However, it was me who ended up coming out like a bandit.  She found a GW store in the mall and bought me a lot of good loot!  The biggies were:



Manufactorium





Battlefield Accessories



Like I mentioned in a previous post, most places around here don't have a lot of their own terrain, so I'm trying to build up my own stock.  Hopefully I'll be able to get enough to really have some great table setups at home or at my local store.

1500 GK Starter List Design

While I'm used to normally playing at the 1850 level, games around here seem to be much smaller.  I am going to start the GK army at 1500 and work my way up as time and money permit.  I figure anything below 1500 will be tough for any sort of GK army that doesn't lean hard on inquisition forces.  I'm not against Inquisition in general, but I want to use the GK models I already have which are mostly PAGKs and GKTs.

Having said that, I plan on starting with a pretty vanilla list.  Nothing fancy like Draigo, Mordrak, Coteaz, or shunting for 1st turn assaults.  I think those options are better left for after I have a better feel for the codex and am operating at higher points values.  For now, I want to start with the "must haves" from the GK codex and then support them with mostly GK forces.  Anyone who has been following the internet chatter can probably guess what they are:

1.  Pysfleman Dreads
2.  Vindicare Assassin
3.  Purifiers

Personal List Design Principles

When I first started my SM army, I went with "battleforce" approach, using a variety of units.  Overall, I think that worked out fairly well, as it gave me a good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the codex and its units before I focused in on one particular build.  That and it gave me a lot of options when it came to building lists for different points levels, events, and whims.  So I am going to stick to that strategy while building the GKs.

Having said that, when it comes to designing lists, I believe in:

1.  Redundancy-If my lists needs to do something, then I'm not leaving it one unit
2.  Duality-I greatly prefer units that can handle tanks or infantry as needed
3.  Saturation-I want to force my opponent to make hard choices about targeting
4.  Dispersion-I don't like too many eggs in one basket
5.  Synergy-I love force multipliers IF they also fullfil the previous criteria

What I do NOT believe in is SPAM.  Once again, this is the product of my Space Marine upbringing where multiple units can serve similar but slightly different roles.  For example, MM Landspeeders vs attack bikes and Riflemen Dreads vs Combi/Dakka Preds.  Personally, I have found that by using both in the same list provides more overall flexiblity to the list while not sacrificing the main purpose of the units.  Further, by mixing the list up slightly, it tends to lead towards a more visually pleasing army (ala White Dwarf picture spreads) and better soft scores.  I'm not denying the effectiveness of spam and do not feel any sort of "moral" superiority for not spamming.  I just feel that in many cases that making minor changes from "optimal" units can actually be beneficial in soft scores and flexibility.  That and I just get bored painting the same thing...

Jumping on the Grey Knight Bandwagon... (Again)

Since starting 40k in January 2009, I've always loved the fluff and models from the Grey Knights.  There is just something made of pure win about knights in shining armor hunting down the things that go bump in the night.  I tried to start the army a few times, each time buying more of the metal models, but could never get past one simple fact....  The DH codex is not competitive in 5th Edition.

I understand that quite a few people have done very well with the DH codex in 5th Edition, but I'm just not that pro and I'm too "competitive" to stomach that much losing.  So each time I just ended up writing up some lists, playing some test games, and eventually giving up.

However, the new GK codex looks to be pretty solid and have a multitude of competitive builds.  My favorite thing about my Codex: Space Marine army is that it is extremely flexible, and I can run a completely different build each week.  I think to a lesser extent GKs will be the same way.  While they lack the sheer number of unit options of other books (e.g. only two fast attack... seriously?), I think the units they do have are flexible enough to make up for it.  Overall I think that GKs will find themselves around Nids or BA in powerlevel, which makes me happy.  I won't be tempted to play the martyr card when I lose, and I really can't be accused of being a codex-jumpy powergamer if/when I win.

I'm taking this codex release as an opportunity to start a new army that is competitive and has great conversion/painting potential.  By the time I finished painting my Smurfs, I had learned a significant amount about the hobby aspect of 40k and my latest models are light-years ahead of my first ones.  That and having a fully-painted army already removes the temptation to rush and speed paint models just to get them done.  I can actually take my time on each model and really make them look good... or as good as I can anyway.

Possible lists and paint schemes incoming...

Manifesto/Initial Thoughts

So now that I'm living in upstate New York, I've found two things to be true:

1.  Lake-effect snow sucks
2.  40k games are hard to come by

I started out playing 40k in OH which has a very solid community of gamers.  It was possible to get games in any night of the week and hit a RTT pretty much every Saturday if you were willing to drive an hour.  And most of the stores were heavily focused on tabletop games, so there was never a shortage of tables or terrain.  In short, I was spoiled...

The part of New York I now reside in isn't as blessed when it comes to 40k and the transition was a huge shock for me.  Finding games now takes a considerable amount of effort and with moving, work, and other committments, I haven't played any sort of "serious" game in about 9 months.  So not only am I pretty rusty, but I'm behind in the meta too.  I'm hoping that by keeping a blog and following other blogs/forums I will be able to get back into things and avoid getting curbstomped too bad when I do travel to tournaments.  That and I'm hoping that by showing my process for building a new army, I might be able to recruit some new players locally so I don't have to drive so dang far...