New armies for Max!

Hello everyone!

Just a short update today. After much playing around with army builder to see if I could come up with another space marine list I liked, I decided that Pedro was the only way to go for me. So, my marine army is effectively finished, with the exception of my two space hulk terminator squads I need to paint. It's time for me to move on to my next project(s).

I've owned almost every army to this point, with the exception of necrons. I knew I wanted something that was xenos. Fortunately, my girlfriend's mother got me a Tau Hammerhead for Christmas, so I've gone about building a small force. I had intended to make the Tau another 2,000+ point army to add to my marines, but with their new codex supposedly coming out this year, I decided to keep it small and wait for the codex. So, I ended up with a 1,250ish point army that I can play in all the smaller point team tournaments that the castle runs. It has roughly the following:

Shas'el Commander - plasma rifle, missile pod, multi-tracker, targeting array, 2 shield drones
Crisis Suit Team(3) - plasma rifles, missile pods, multi-trackers
Stealth Suit Team (3) - blacksun filters, team leader with fusion blaster
12 Firewarriors - Devilfish with multi-tracker, disruption pods
12 Kroot Carnivores
2 Hammerhead Gunships - Railguns, burst cannons, multi-trackers, disruption pods, blacksun filters

It's a pretty solid list, and I'm very content just goofing with this in small games and painting it slowly until the new codex comes out.

That leaves me currently with wanting to get another 2,000 point army. I'm deciding to go about this more with more of a hobbyist's interest, I want to love every model in this army. The Vostroyan Firstborn have always been some of my favorite infantry models in the range, but with one huge downfall - they are ridiculously expensive. So, I'm trying to figure out a way to do this without breaking the bank, but still using models I love. I'm leaning towards going with a Grey Knight army with some henchmen built in. I hear my friends groaning, and I'm aware this will be my forth Grey Knight army. Truth be told, I think if I build this army without going along with the standard powergaming lists, I'll really enjoy it. This means no dreadnoughts, razorbacks, paladins, librarians or Draigo. This is what I have so far:

Inquisitor Coteaz

Secondary HQ - I'm thinking Stern, as no one uses him, and I think his fluff rules are fucking awesome. If I lean towards purifiers, I'll use Crowe. Alternatively, I could ditch the second HQ entirely for another henchmen squad.

Terminator Squad - Not sure on equipment yet.

Two Henchmen Squads - I'm thinking two ten man squads with plasmas in one and meltas in the other, in some sort of transport. It might be fun to make them have hotshot lasguns as well. I'm going to be using Vostroyans for these, that way I get the models I want without breaking the bank.

Two Strike Squads - I like the utility of being able to deep strike them if I want, and the amount of firepower they can lay down. I could use purifiers instead. Either way, the unit will have two psycannons, psybolt ammo, 10 men, and a variety of melee weapons.

Two Land Raiders - psybolt ammo and multi-meltas. I figure the lascannons would be nice.

This is pretty close to the old daemonhunters army I used to run. All of the models in the army are favorites of mine, and I could most likely put this together for under $300. I just need to get it iron out and ready for purchase before my birthday next month.

What do you guys think? I would prefer that you leave the "He's starting another army he's already sold, he's going to sell this one too, LOLOLOL" nonsense out of it. This is just want I do, you should know that by now. The idea now is to make an army that I like enough to not want to sell. I want real feedback!

- Max

Post-Templecon Musings

Hey guys,

I spent this past weekend at Templecon in Warwick, RI. I had a great time, the scheduling was perfect, and I don't feel burnt out on the hobby like I did after Adepticon and the NOVA Open. I had every intention of doing detail battle reports for my games, but I got some news right after the first game that kept me from doing that.

My Space Marines did very well, considering I didn't really have any practice with them. My record was 3 wins and 2 losses. I was surprised at the armies I beat, and puzzled by one of my losses. Here's the breakdown of my opponents:

Round 1: Mechanized Blood Angels - He was running a list that was based around the same idea as mine - shooting. Except that he had Feel No Pain and Mephiston, so I fully expected to have a rough go of it, as he had advantages on me. Fortunately, my librarian came up huge, and put Mephiston in a place where I could kill him early. At the end, my opponent had 5 assault marines left, as well as an immobilized and weapon destroyed razorback. Resounding win for me.

Round 2: Necrons - Again, I felt like I had the disadvantage in this game. I'm playing a shooting list against an army that does it better than I do. Fortunately, his inability to take down my Land Raider and HQs was a huge problem for him. While things like mindshackle scarabs are crazy good, the army still drops in close combat. He ended up with 2 tomb spyders and an HQ left at the end of the game. Another big win.

Round 3: Grey Knights - My opponent for this round wound up playing for first place, so I feel less shitty about getting stomped in this game. He played a psycannon-heavy grey knight list, with Draigo and Paladins as his hammer unit. My army was outclassed in nearly every way this game. I was almost tabled, but I would have won at the end of turn 5 and 6, purely by playing the mission. The game went to 7, and I lost.

Round 4: Orks - This was a game I had expected to win handily, as my shooting enabled me to drop horde armies. My opponent was a guy from my gaming group named Carl, and he brings a bad ass kan wall army to the table. I was on the back foot this whole game, due to two huge factors: 1) he got me to commit my hammer unit way too early, which was a great move by him, and 2) his ability to make kustom force field saves was ridiculous to the point that it made my shooting ineffective. I had a great game though, Carl is a fun guy to play against. And, if anyone is going to beat me, I'm glad it was one of the castle guys.

Round 5: Biker Marines - This game was an easy tabling. Biker command squads don't match up against assault terminators with nullzone in assault, and biker units shouldn't try to outshoot sternguard within rapid fire range. Enough said. My opponent was a great guy, though, he took the demolition laughing and smiling.

Overall, I'm very happy with the way the army performed. I still think that Codex Marines can be a top tier tournament army, but, I feel like the way I approached it could be changed. I'm going to go over some observations I've made while at the tournament this weekend, some will be marine specific, some will not.

I've learned recently that shooting wins games. The top tables at the tournament could all dish out a ridiculous amount of mid to high strength firepower. This is crucial, as that kind of shooting does two things for you: it will take out transports and wound elite infantry easily. For us marine players, that means taking as many heavy bolters, assault cannons, autocannons, and missiles as you can fit. The new list I'm working on will reflect this fact. Yes, you still need some melta in order to deal with AV13+ reliably, but I firmly believe that melta spamming is dead. You just need enough of it to do the job.

While having a good deal of shooting is critical to doing well in the current meta, you can't ignore assault. Almost every army there had some sort of beat stick assault unit. They take the form of terminators, nobs, tyranid warriors, tomb spyders/wraiths, etc. Making sure you're able to get this unit to where it needs to be reliably is important, it's very easy to ignore a deathstar that's walking. It's a good idea to carefully pick your targets as well, don't throw your deathstar against another unless you're positive you're going to win. Your thunderhammer/stormshield terminators are going to be useless if they're tied up with more thunderhammer/stormshield terminators. Another point that was brought to my attention this weekend was the importance of a powerful character with the deathstar - preferably something with eternal warrior. I'm still unsure of this. For example, I feel like Lysander with assault terminators is overkill, as the points you spent on the character may be better placed elsewhere. The presence of characters that buff the unit are a good idea, though. Be it a chaplain or librarian, or both.

Leadership is a pain. Having played Deathwing for so long, I had the luxury of ignoring those annoying checks to watch my guys run away uselessly. At the same time, not being able to fall back when you've put a unit in a crappy situation isn't great either. Stubborn flat out blows, I can't stand it. It's my primary reason for not wanting to take Pedro Kantor all the time. My next list will be using combat tactics, no question. I really like the tactical flexibility being able to fall back gives me.

The last thing that I've begun to consider after this weekend is the value of a disruption unit. This would be a unit that the opponent cannot account for at the beginning of the game, and that is enough of a threat to make them base decisions around it. Great examples of a disruption unit would be ork deffkoptas outflanking, Boss Snikrot, scouts outflanking, outflanking genestealers, deepstriking terminators, etc. If you can get the other player to sweat over what your disruption unit is going to do, it can be a huge benefit, especially if the unit is inexpensive. I'm going to start including outflanking scouts with a powerfist in my lists to try and keep units like devastators and lootas from feeling safe in the back corner.

That's it for today. I'll be posting my new and improved space marine list in the next couple days. For now, what other elements do you think make a competitive list? What is your favorite disruption unit?

-Max

My marine fluff!

The Heralds of Vengeance

The Heralds of Vengeance were founded some time during M35, to combat a threat that has now long been lost in the records of the Imperium. Created from the gene-seed of Rogal Dorn, much of the chapter’s laurels have come from combating the forces of Chaos. A fleet based chapter, the Heralds are able to mobilize quickly against the incursions of the archenemy. Indeed, the Heralds have won much renown in battles against the Black Legion of Abaddon the Despoiler during each of the Black Crusades since M35. As a result, much of the chapter’s battle doctrine comes from their experience against traitor forces.

The Heralds of Vengeance display many characteristics of the sons of Dorn. They are extremely stubborn; preferring to sell their lives to giving the enemy any ground. As a result, more than a handful of battle brothers have been lost in glorious last stands when it would have proven more prudent to fall back and regroup. This is evidenced by their battle cry: “For Dorn! For the Emperor! Not one step back!”. They are also taciturn, even for space marines. In inter-chapter operations, they prefer to keep to their own council. This has led some of their brother chapters to be wary of the Heralds. One way in which the Heralds of Vengeance differ from their gene-brothers is doctrine in battle. The Heralds tend to be aggressive on the field, to the point of appearing bloodthirsty, preferring to be on the attack rather than idle defenders. This becomes amplified when the Heralds of Vengeance take the battle to the forces of Chaos – especially the Black Legion.

While technically a codex-adherent chapter, the Heralds have taken some liberties with the teachings of Guilliman. Most chapters follow standard codex chapter organization, with the first company being comprised of veterans, the tenth company being comprised of scouts, and the sixth through ninth being reserve companies. The Heralds, however, feel that it is much more effective to have each company be structured as a battle company, with the first company veterans and tenth company scouts being equally distributed throughout each of the companies. This ensures that each company is able to call upon a wide variety of tools to prosecute their campaigns.

In M41, Chapter Master Drenivir leads the Heralds of Vengeance. He is regarded as one of the greatest to ever lead the chapter, and the victories the Heralds have accumulated under his command are the envy of many other chapters. At present, the chapter has it’s strength split in half and at two opposite sides of the galaxy, with five companies opposing Abaddon the Despoiler and his 13^th Black Crusade around the Cadian Gate, and the other five companies bringing the fight to the Tau Empire and Tyranid Hive Fleets on the Eastern Fringe. In this way, Drenivir can be sure that the Heralds of Vengeance are at the forefront of the battle to protect the Imperium from the forces intent on it’s destruction.

That's what I have for now. I feel like the backstory of 40k is one of the things that really pulls people into the game. I always like when people take the time to give a little story behind their army. I'll be attaching this to my list at the tournaments for my opponents. Let me know what you think!

- Max

I'm back, baby.

Hello!

I apologize for the silence over the last couple months. The holidays, in combination with a horrendous time at work, and general lethargy towards wargaming had squashed my muse entirely.

The first two excuses above are self-explanatory, the last part, however, needs to be explained a bit. Those who know my wargaming habits know that I hop around from army to army. I had gotten stuck in a rut. I had two armies: my Deathwing, and my codex marines. I've been playing my Deathwing hardcore for about a year now, and I was feeling like I needed a break from them, but I wanted something to keep me competitive. I had posted a grand article about Space Sharks using the Blood Angels codex before my hiatus, and I did try the list I proposed. I came to a conclusion after playing it - mechanized assaulting marines bore me to death. That left me with two options: my Codex Marines, or a new army. I tried going the new army route.

So, since Christmas, I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out what new army I wanted to play. I wanted a competitive army with relatively new rules. Ultimately, I ended up with a Draigowing Grey Knight army. I played it a few times, but it just didn't do it for me either. As I looked at more and more armies, I became convinced that I was just going to lose interest in 40k, and walk off into the sunset. However, as I was organizing my apartment the other day, I came across my Codex Marines book, and the cover art reminded me one of the two reasons I got into 40k. Firstly, I absolutely love the image of the heroic space marine holding the line with his bolter. Secondly, terminators are the shit, enough said. So, with that in mind, I took inventory of my collection. Terminators? Check. Space Marines with bolters? Check. My muse began to wake up.

All I've been able to tell myself the last few days is that there's no way I could make a reasonably competitive list with Codex Marines without copying every Vulkan-led netlist out there. Determined to prove myself wrong, I took a half day off work today, and spent it trying to come up with a Codex Marines list that would win me games. Here's what I came up with:

HQ:

Chapter Master Pedro Kantor - Pedro is my boy. His +1 attack aura is awesome, and I happen to like stubborn after failing one too many morale checks and fearless armor saves. More importantly, he makes Sternguard scoring.

Elites:

2 10 man Sternguard squads - 3 combi-meltas, sergeant with combi-melta and power fist, rhino. - Tank busting ability, specialty ammo, and they aren't slouches in combat. Now they are scoring.

Terminator Assault squad - 5 thunderhammer/stormshields - This unit is automatically included with any of my lists. Pedro's bodyguard.

Troops:

2 10 man Tactical squads - meltagun, missile launcher, sergeant with combi-weapon and chainsword, razorback with twin-linked assault cannons. - More tank busting ability that scores. The razorbacks will also give me a little more versatile firepower.

Heavy Support:

Land Raider Crusader - extra armor, multi-melta. - Pedro's ride.

2 Predators - autocannon, heavy bolters. - 85 points for some serious anti-infantry and light transport firepower. I'll take two, please.

Ultimately, I think the list is damn solid. I have a ton of firepower, 40 power armored scoring bodies, and some units that rock in combat. General strategy will see the Sternguard ride up with Pedro and his Terminators, taking advantage of the aura. The razorbacks will most likely hang out in midfield to lay down some fire, and to deploy the combat squads to block other units from getting to my base. The other half of the combat squads with most likely hang back with the predators and shoot people up. I'm ordering all the bits I need tonight to get my army up to WYSIWYG. I'll have to figure out how to con Robin into teaching me how to paint my models to the standard he used with the rest of my army. Good to be back, expect more posts coming soon.

- Max

Let me have it, guys. I've been quiet for a while. Poke holes in the list!