40k Daemons

It's vacation time brothaz!

I'm off to the Grand Canyon until Friday! A good time shall be had by all so long as my wife doesn't put on that horrible children's CD full of horrible children's songs sung by horrible little children while we drive out there.

If the Dark Eldar book leaks in English in the meantime, I might give it a once over and post my thoughts, but otherwise, you'll have to find something else to read in the meantime.

So long!

Just got back from the canyon to find the Dark Eldar took it in the shorts. A loot of it kind of leaves me going "Ooooh! Almost!" like those monstrous creatures that are almost as nasty as a Wraithknight and can be taken in threes, but aren't fast enough to be a big threat. Our problem is that we have to hold everything up against the mirror that is Codex: Eldar, which is straight OP, and everything looks like garbage in comparison.

Why did they take away the Wyches' haywire grenades? For a race very concerned about not dying, they sure don't take special pains to not get killed at a prodigious rate. I mean, if I were going into combat against Space Marines and Tyranids, I'd probably want to do it armed with more than a snappy outfit and a rape whistle.

The star of the book is the webway portal, which lets the bearer and any unit he's with or any transport he's embarked upon deep strike without scatter, so the Eldar can take five Fire Dragons and an Archon in a Falcon and drop it next to that Imperial Knight. The unit would then explicitly be allowed to disembark and do dirty deeds dirt cheap. In fact, since pretty much the entire army can deep strike, if you take a comms relay or some other sort of reserve control (like an Autarch), you are pretty much assured the alpha strike with DE against everything except drop pods. Going second? Reserve everything and drop in the other guy's face. Even Wraithknights can DS. That's the way I see this army working.

Beast units are capped at 12, and are therefore useless for piling on the buffs. Without huge blobs and hit and run, the Seer Council will be the only Eldar death star, and they'll need a Phoenix Lord with hit and run for that lest they get charged by an Imperial Knight and tied up for the whole game. Yes, that's going to happen. You try rolling a bunch of 10's on 2d6 to get 6 glances in a reasonable number of turns.

When we play the game competitively, we look for things that are speedy and durable. Eldar have things that are one or the other, like Venoms and Talos, but I can't find much that is both. Venoms jinking with 3+ cover would be terrific if Eldar Serpent Shields didn't exist, because you'd be very likely to delivery those Wyches into assault. But for now, Serpent Shields do exist, and instead of having a great jink save, DE players lament the loss of their 5++.

At first, it makes you think GW might actually be trying to tone things down after the excesses of Daemons and Eldar, but then you look at the Adamantine Lance formation and you scratch your head. We are all hopeful they don't stop pumping out the new books once they get done with Blood Angels and Necrons. Eldar should not be allowed to remain as they are in the current environment. Daemons and Space Marines could use some balancing as well. On the other hand, corporate might say that having all the books in hardcover is satisfactory, and there's no profit motive in releasing a new Eldar book just to balance things, unless the book itself is going to make enough to justify the expense of rewriting it.

We'll probably find out pretty quickly after Necrons comes out what their plans are.

Hey everyone, remember that guy Kevin told you about that hasn't contributed anything in like two months?!?! Well it turns out that college and commission painting sucks out your time, and that I'm not actually dead! Hooray!

Now I'm not gonna kid myself, most of you guys come here for tournament oriented stuff, you're not here to learn how to freehand a version of the Sistine Chapel on a figure's banner or something equally as ridiculous, so we're gonna keep this nice and basic so y'all can have good looking figures relatively quickly. As the title says, we're gonna go over how to put a basic, layered paint job onto your figures.

This is my cultist assistant, Igor! He has been the victim- I mean, willing participant in many a botched color scheme of mine! I hope you guys think he's just a swell guy! Also, since you have to at least have built models for a tournament, I'm going to assume y'all know how to build models. If that's necessary, we can get out the sprue cutters, chainsaws and flux capacitors for our assembly tutorial.

What we have here is an easy, peasy basecoat of the color Heavy Violet from the Vallejo Game Color range. It's easy, but there's more to it than meets the eye. Even though this color is an extra opaque paint, it required two layers to really get a solid color. The key is to take your time and to water down your paint enough to let it flow from the brush and not leave brush strokes in the paint. This seems like a basic enough thing, but I see people doing it wrong ALL THE TIME. I'm not even immune from mucking it up sometimes, so be vigil brothers! For the heresy of paint thickness is practically contagious!

The step is also fairly simple, I took Vallejo Black Shade and watered it down by about a third and brushed it into the crevices. There are two things that are very important here: the fact that I watered it down and the fact that I applied the wash where the shade needed to be. You see many painters that just kind of slop the undiluted wash over everything, and I think that is a very sub-optimal way of shading a model. This step doesn't need to be ultra precise but you needn't apply it like a drag queen applies makeup.

Remember when I said that last step didn't need to be super precise? Well this is why. Even if you applied the wash with all the care and skill of a drunken sailor trying to fight a cactus, you can go back an cover all of the raised areas with another coat of Heavy Violet. This is just to make the model look more neat and put together before we move on to the next stage.

This is a boring step but a necessary one! I went ahead and mixed Heavy Violet 50/50 with GW Genestealer purple. It doesn't look like this stage did a whole lot, but it's really important to build up the highlights in gradual layers if you want a good results. If you want to be a sane person and get your army done relatively quickly, you could always just skip a step or two and it would look fine.

This step is to go back with a 25/75 mix of Heavy Violet and Genestealer purple and highlight some more. The key it to allow the other colors of the highlight to show through while still making the highlight color noticeable.

Next, and thankfully last, is to go over it with pure Genestealer Purple. the trick with this stage is to hit the very highest parts of the model that would receive the most light. Thin paint and a brush with a fine tip are the keys in this last stage of highlighting because it is very easy to overdo.

Now for some trivia, my darlings! I get asked fairly often about what paints I use, and honestly it's pretty varied depending on what I'm trying to do. Many of the Game Color range of paints are pretty much direct copies of GW's, and cheaper. I use a ton of Game Color, Model Color and Model Air (especially those sweet, sweet metallic paints) With all of that said, try out a bunch of different paints and see which one feels right to you. Everyone has their preferences, and I think GW, Reaper and Vallejo all make fine paints for our hobby. Another big question I get is about which kind of brush I use, and that varies a lot depending on what I'm working on. For anything precise, I have several expensive Winsor & Newton sable brushes that I got at a specialty art store. For pretty much everything else, I use cheap synthetic brushes I got at Micheal's a year ago. So what kind of brush you use matters, it just matters less than your actual ability to control the thing.

And that's all folks, nothing really complicated about this particular tutorial, but I figured it would be prudent to start with something basic. I'll do something a little more interesting for the next one, and I would love to take your suggestions. I figured I would either go over basic airbrushing setup and techniques, painting various kinds of metallic effects, or speed painting. Also, this is my first real tutorial so any tips on writing, presentation or clarity are appreciated. Seeya next time!

If you want more updates on my current projects or want to ask me questions, feel free to check out my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/colesminiaturestudio

Kevin is back from vacation and back on the mic! Before setting off on his 40 GT's in 40 nights tour of the country, Blackmoor gave me six metal Furies and some LED's as a parting gift. Thanks, brah! That plus some comments got me thinking about them.

We don't never talk 'bout Furies round here, and they don't usually make the lists that seem to do well at the big tournies. Why dat is? Well, partly because the finecast models are going to cost you your last gold farthing, and the Dark Elf Harpies you might run as Slaanesh Furies are 3 bucks more for five and you'll still need to buy some round bases.

But not only that, it turns out, they aren't very good. First, they are LD 2, which is mega bad if they lose assault, which they probably will with WS3, no grenades T3 and a 5++. On top of this, they aren't troops and don't shoot, so being anywhere other than assault is pointless. They also compete against Screamers, Seekers, Plague Drones and Flesh Hounds in the FA slot, and none of those are slouches.

The LD2 thing obligates you to add a Herald, else you are throwing points down the crapper. If you want a Herald, then you shall dedicate them to a god so the Herald can join them and keep them from going poof to absolutely everything. That detracts from the cheapness.

Tzeentch is a dumb god for them because we do not spend points to make flimsy models a teensy bit less so. GW knows this is dumb which is why the upgrade only costs a point, but it has to cost you something.

Khorne grants Furious charge, but as it costs 2 points, you're paying 8 points for a T3 model that isn't fleet, isn't WS5, and doesn't have a 4+ DTW like a certain other unit that costs 8 points per wound. Flesh Hounds automatically invalidate Khorne Furies.

Nurgle is interesting in that Shrouded in ruins is a 2+, and if you can slingshot a FNP Herald in there, you might actually make combat, but you'll be hitting at S4 when you get there, and you can't run, and you're only WS3, so that's 20 hits and 10 wounds on the charge, and after that it only gets worse. I can't spare so many points on something so ineffective.

That leaves Slaanesh, which makes the most sense. I get S4 rending attacks which is good enough to dent even Imperial Knights. But I'm WS3 with only one attack per model, so if I want anything out of this unit, I need a Slaanesh Herald with the Exalted Locus to up the offensive output to a 75% hit rate. So 160 points for the unit and a minimum of 75 for the Herald assuming I don't buy a Steed, a reward or a psychic power.

What you got there is a 235 point unit. So what you're saying is, for 180 points, I can get 20 Daemonettes, who are WS5, I5 and don't need a babysitter and are very nearly as fast and also have Objective Secured. Well hell! Guess we're done here!

And so, despite their cheap cost, Furies find themselves outclassed by the other choices in their slot, and costing too much to justify the purchase just for giggles, unless you have obscene amounts of cash and a trained monkey to paint them up. They're not as bad as the dumpster fire that is the Elites section, but they just don't pass

So there is a tournament this weekend at 1850 assuming I and enough other folks go. I already have my ticket for LVO and I got me to brainstorming about Chaos lists and how we might go about handling the big dogs out there, those being Eldar and Imperial Knights. Of the two, Knights are the harder of the two to kill, but Eldar you have to be able to chase down. In the LVO format, you have to be able to win a KP and a Relic game in addition to being speedy enough to score secondaries and suchlike.

So I was mulling over my Feast Qualifier list, which basically revolves around Be’lakor turning Hounds invisible until they get there with Screamers in support and I was thinking about how best to expand it to 1850 to be able to handle Adamantine Lances and other nuisances. So I got to thinkin’ about what we have that kills Knights reliably besides Be’lakor. The answer, as you know, is nothing much.

Then I got to thinking about Khorne Heralds with greater etherblades. At base S5, a Juggernaut brings you to S6, and the greater etherblade S7 with master crafting. Now I can glance them. Add in furious charge and hatred, and in sufficient numbers, I can take them out on the charge. If I also take an Axe of Khorne, I get ID attacks for things like Wraithknights, Heirodules, Chaos Spawn, Thunderwolf Cav, etc... and I also get the benefit of two weapons for the extra attack.

Then I thought about rolling on the greater rewards table and that the odds are pretty decent that one or several will get that fleshbane/armourbane reward, making them excellent against Knights and other walkers.

Then I thought, there aren’t many things in the game that can hold up against 6 S8 master crafted AP2 attacks at I6, so if I start them all together in an invisible Hound unit and then split them off as guided missiles at various targets (like a Wave Serpent), I could probably take out a fair number of targets on the second turn while leaving a fairly nasty Houndstar intact.

Then I remembered that GW lifted the verbiage that says Heralds are only 4 to an HQ choice in a primary detachment. I also remembered that the GT’s including LVO, allow you to ally with the same faction as your CAD.

So with all that thinking, here’s my dumb idea:

Be’lakor
Herald of Khorne, juggernaut, lesser reward, greater reward
Herald of Khorne, juggernaut, lesser reward, greater reward
Herald of Khorne, juggernaut, lesser reward, greater reward
Herald of Khorne, juggernaut, lesser reward, greater reward
11 Horrors
11 Horrors
17 Flesh Hounds

Herald of Khorne, juggernaut, lesser reward, greater reward
Herald of Khorne, juggernaut, lesser reward, greater reward
Herald of Khorne, juggernaut, lesser reward, greater reward, Exalted Locus of Wrath
10 Daemonettes, Alluress

1850

Invis only needs to work on the first turn as a delivery system for the Khorne Heralds. Perhaps a second turn might be needed in hammer and anvil deployments. My concept for the army is not to keep it together as a massive single unit for the whole game. Indeed, charging that whole thing at a single Imperial Knight is incredibly stupid because it might take your whole army out in the explosion.

The concept of operations is to scout it behind cover, first turn, spread out and go invis to weather the storm, second turn, break apart and take out multiple targets with charging Khorne Heralds. Then I start summoning, and start going after targets with Be’lakor.

Against Tau or Thunderwolves, I might keep it together long enough to whittle the other guy down because overwatch shooting from Tau can take out a Khorne Herald charging by himself, and lesser deathstars would need a sound wallop before branching out.

Be’lakor is not the warlord. One of the Khorne Heralds gets that job, which is nice because it gets me a better warlord trait, and I don’t need to worry too much about losing Be’lakor after he has delivered the Hounds both because I don’t need him anymore, and also because the other guy has enough problems to worry about as it is.

Besides exploding super heavies (if a Knight gets the charge on me early, I have screwed up), the death star can be beaten by an invisible seer council with Fortune, but I think the Seer Council loses that fight if it only has one or the other, especially now that the Baron is gone. Tarpitting something this potent isn't easily done. The death star can also be beaten if you fail to herd the other guy in properly and allow them to escape. Against Windrider Jetbikes, for example, Be'lakor would be on psychic shriek patrol, and summoning Daemonettes to the objectives would be important.

If this ends up working, and hopefully I'll find out this weekend, I apologize in advance for unleashing it upon the community.

Upon being corrected about the fact that Juggernauts do not grant +1S like they used to, I immediately soured on my dumb idea. The disappointment was profound. I cried and cried, but then I stopped and made a new list for the tournament this past Saturday:

Be'lakor
Lord of Change, 2x Greater, lesser, ML3
11 Horrors
11 Horrors
17 Flesh Hounds

Herald of Tzeentch, exalted reward, ML3, disc
Herald of Tzeentch, ML3, disc
Herald of Khorne, lesser reward, juggernaut
10 Daemonettes
9 Screamers

1850

A respectable 16 Warp charge, invisible Hounds. Grimoire plus Cursed Earth on either the LOC (with stick of change) or the Screamers can fight Knights along with Be'lakor. I can summon or not if it's KP. I like it! So I brings it to the tournament and there is exactly one other person there! This is partially because they forgot to advertise it more than five days ahead of time, but also because the 40k competitive scene is very nearly dead. With Allan off on his world tour, there are two people in the fifth largest city in the nation who can give me a game.

It's not that 40k doesn't sell. It sells very well, and is the only thing that keeps the FLGS open, but no one plays competitively. The Fantasy tournament scene is doing better than 40k around here.

Anyway, I challenged the other dude who showed up to a match. He brought a Frankie-style all-out summoning list.

From memory:

4x Tzeralds, ML3
6x20 Pink Horrors with icons
Aegis, quad gun

He had something like 36 warp charge, dwarfing my once-respectable 16. He had all kinds of awesome Forge World models painted up as counts-as GUO's and KOS's. My take, on this: it'll never work.

And so, I here present the worst battle report ever. I hope you enjoy it!

(Actually I've read some text-only ones on Dakka that were like two paragraphs long with no pictures that are worse than this one [Actually, I didn't read those battle reports so much as skim them and snort dismissively.])

I won the roll to go first. It's Crusade with three objectives in the center and HnA deployment.

Be'lakor shouldn't be on the board edge like that. I don't know what I was doing there. Should be in the middle. I'm just going to scout and rush him.

Here's his deployment:

Remember when I said 30 Horrors is probably plenty for a summoning army? Heh...

My Turn 1

This is why that army won't work. Where the hell are you going to drop anything? Sure, you have icons, but there isn't any space for anything, and anything you summon is going to get multi-charged by the Hounds, who will send all their attacks at the worthless Horrors and force instability checks on whatever was summoned, while also robbing you of warp charge.

Slaanesh's warp storm result killed a Tzerald because he had them on his back board edge and not in units because you can't cast duplicate powers.

For my part, I summoned 6 Screamers to the board with hot dice, then threw ten dice at Shrouding with Be'lakor, and got five successes with no 6's! Then it got denied! Ha ha! Psychic phase!

On his turn two he began casting possession with each of his Horrors units. This simultaneously got rid of his warp charge, put an easily-slain MC on the board and raised one of my eyebrows. When I asked him how all but one of his Horrors units got Possession, he said they were ML3 and got three powers. I didn't watch him roll it, so I had to walk him through the book to explain that they get one power.

At this, he called the game because his entire army idea, such as it was, was invalidated since he could no longer summon 10 Forge World greater daemons to the board. You shoulda seen 'em all! I wanted to play it out because there was nothing else to do, but the conclusion was foregone. He'd be tabled in three turns.

This was his planned list for LVO. We had a dialogue after the game"

Me: "How do you plan to deal with Imperial Knights with this list?

He: "I can summon greater daemons and Plaguebearers for those."

Me: "Greater daemons are only S6 and 10 Plaguebearers will lose three models before they swing, hit with half their attacks and require 6's to glance. Then they get stomped out and go unstable."

He: "Ah, you can't use mathhammer. That never works."

Me: "Have you ever been to the 40k Daemon blog?"

He: "I don't do blogs. Blogs are where you go to get netlists, and that never works."

Me: ...

Readers of this blog will know that reading good blogs about 40k not only gives you ideas about armies, but lets you know what others in the community are doing, what tends to work, what doesn't, and tells you when you've got the rules wrong and your clever idea isn't going to work, like when you think charging Khorne Heralds are S8.

Fortunately, I had a feeling nobody would show up, so I brought my Warmachine. So instead of winning a tournament, I played five games of Warmachine and had a hell of a time. The game has completely taken over the competitive scene in Phoenix because the game is, frankly, better and more fun than the heavily modified, restricted and massaged version of 40k we have to play to keep the game somewhat sane, to say nothing of the utterly stupid game that is unrestricted 7e 40k, motorcycles climbing walls and all.

I was talking with the shop manager and he told me the sales rep for GW says that for every one of us older players with completed armies they lose, they gain three new players, so they have learned that it is good business to not cater to players like me, who have completed armies, and don't buy much new stuff. Privateer Press has learned to poach players like me from 40k. It is the circle of life.

Later that day, many people came in and played a bunch of huge pain-in-the-ass 4,000 point team games that I wouldn't be caught dead playing. The game is alive and well here, but one can't help but shake the feeling that trying to play this game competitively is to make a category error. We're banging our heads against the wall.

I'm not quitting 40k or blogging (for now). I have my LVO ticket and I'll play there, but with the state of 40k as it is in Phoenix, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it these days, and I'm probably playing a lot fewer games than you are at this point.

A commenter asked what powers I was rolling with my psykers with the latest version of my 1850 list. I was going to answer in the comments when I realized that's a tricky question.

The psykers in question are:

Be'lakor
LOC, 2x greater, lesser, ML3
Tzerald, ML3, disc, exalted
Tzerald, ML3, disc
11 Horrors
11 Horrors

I looked and looked and I can't find where it says whether traits are rolled before psychic powers or not. If someone knows the page, call it out. In BAO format, you roll them simultaneously, so you get to pick which goes first.

In this case, I will roll rewards first and see what I get. I got the lance and the reroll saves power. Love the reroll saves power with Grimoire. Now I don't need Precognition. Had I not got that, I might roll me some Divination. Nevertheless, I get to make an informed decision with my LOC when the time comes.

When it comes time to roll powers, I start with the Tzeralds to further inform what I do with the LOC. I want Cursed Earth more than any other power. If I don't get it, I roll thrice on Malefic with the LOC until I do or I run out of rolls. In this game, I did get it with a Tzerald.

So now I'm at the LOC. I have Cursed Earth, Shrouding and Invis and I have the reroll saves power. Let's say I got fleshbane/armourbane instead of reroll saves. I will now roll Divination twice. I want Precognition. If I get a useless power, I swap for Prescience because that will be useful. Misfortune is acceptable because it lets my Hounds take on things they otherwise couldn't, like Knights (both kinds). Forewarning is good as well.

I will roll once or twice on Divination and take what comes. With the third power, I'll probably take Summoning or Incursion if I roll it because the LOC is a good summoner.

Dat's da plan.

This weekend, since I had the reroll saves power, I rolled once on Divination, got Foreboding, swapped for Prescience, decided that was good enough and I gained nothing from trying for Precognition, so I rolled twice on Malefic and got Summoning and Incursion.

I have obtained by means entirely of a legitimate nature, a copy of the new Imperial Armour XIII: Hell on Wheels. Here on the west coast, FW is pretty much legal everywhere thanks to Reece, but you east coast fellows are still waiting for Mike Brandt to issue a fatwa allowing its use, which I'm given to understand will be at the next NOVA open.

There are two sections of note. The first is the new Renegades and Heretics army list, which is traitor Guard. I still have to go looking through that because it's brand new stuff. Even Reece hasn't allowed entire army lists out of Forge World books yet, but I'm betting he'll allow this one if you ask him nicely. No reason not to. We'll get to that in the fullness of time.

What is more interesting to me is the revised rules for Chaos Space Marine vehicles. There are no huge surprises. I haven't reviewed all the HH books to see if the stuff costs the same here as there, but just about everything I've seen costs exactly what it does in IA: Apocalypse II, if it's not a total cut-and-paste job. Nevertheless, there are some key changes that are very nice.

Because I like spoiling things, I'll start with the best stuff first.

Chaos Relic Sicaran Battle Tank

Most of the stuff in this book carries a jaw-dropping price tag, which is why the Sicaran's absurd cheapness is so jaw-dropping. For the cost of a Maulerfiend with lasher tendrils, you get a fast tank with 13/12/12, a heavy bolter and a TL accelerator autocannon that is S7 AP4, rending and ignores jink saves. You may also take sponson heavy bolters or lascannons for 20 or 40 points, respectively. And since you can move 6" and fire everything, you might even want to staple a havoc launcher on top of it, but I doubt it's worth the 12 points on this baby. All your heavy bolters can be given Malefic ammunition for 40 points, which grants them rending (The price for the ammo is different on every vehicle, and I haven't found one yet where it's worth it.)

This thing is a Wave Serpent slayer, hands-down. I've faced Sicarans a few times, and they're mean. Here's the catch. The have the Infernal Relic special rule. For Space Marines, this means they have to take a Master of the Forge, a Rune Priest (Wolves), a Reclusiarch (Blood Angels) or an Interrogator Chaplain (Dark Angels). Those all suck. For you this means you need a Technomancer if you want to field more than one relic vehicle, which is any one of either Abaddon, a Warpsmith, or, get this: a Sorcerer with the Malific (sic) Daemonology discipline. Since there is no such discipline, you're stuck with Abaddon or the Warpsmith! Okay, I'm just joshing with you! So, if you want to bring two or more of these, all it will cost you is a roll on the Telepathy table with your Sorcerer. If you want to bring this in an allied detachment, the Technomancer is your HQ choice.

Sadly, as good as the Sicaran is, it is worthless against a Knight, especially if it's in the Adamantine Lance formation. My math works out to a single HP from one round of shooting making it through a 4+ save. Half that with the reroll. Not great against Wraithknights either, sadly. They'll probably get at least shaken by its guns before it bounces over and smacks the hell out of it. Thus, it's probably not the Eldar beater you wish it was, and I'll just rush it with Screamers while exploiting terrain if you're playing me, so it's good, but it has limitations, and I don't see it as being that awesome against the things we need awesome stuff to fight against.

Sicarans are badass-looking tanks, and if I were even the slightest bit interested in adding to my 40k collection, a couple of these would be at the tippy top of my list along with our next entry.

Chaos Fire Raptor Gunship

This is a first! It costs 25 points less than the loyalist version because it lacks POTMS, and in this case, that makes it better. In fact, this thing is much better than the loyalist version. Clocking in at two Helbrutes, you will pay the 10 points to upgrade the turrets to reaper autocannon batteries because they are S7 heavy 4 twin-linked and loyalists can't get them. Each of these turrets may fire at a separate target from the rest of the vehicle, which is why it doesn't need POTMS.

It also boasts an Avenger bolt cannon which is S6, ap3, heavy 7, and four Hellstrike missiles. Whereas loyalist Stormstrike missiles are S8, AP2 72" range, Hellstrikes are AP and Ordnance, which means they get to reroll pens against vehicles, ~~and are therefore better~~, however, like me, the rules writers forgot that ordnance means snapshots only on the rest of your weapons, so that's pretty rubbish. However, for a few points more you can swap the missiles out for some decent infantry-clearing large blasts that are S5, AP6, ignores cover. Fair enough.

Besides the 10 points for the reapers, you might put a dirge caster on it to support charges because that's cheap. I have also faced one of these once, and they are the real deal, and the Chaos one is scarier than the one I faced. But, there are two catches. First, it's a heavy support choice, so these compete with Sicarans, Obliterators and Maulerfiends, and it may not come in until turn 4.

Second, they are infernal relics, so you'll need a Sorcerer to field more than one. Actually, one is plenty, so that's not really a drawback. This is probably the best flyer in the game, able to force jinks on three Night Scythes in a single turn without the other guy even having to ponder. It also looks badass. I'm not buying 40k right now, but I'm tempted on this one. It plugs a lot of holes Chaos has.

Chaos Dreadclaw Drop Pod

I look at the cost and I almost sprain an eyebrow from wondering why this costs a hundred points. It might be just a teensy bit overpriced. Nevertheless, it is an assault vehicle that is a FA choice or, more-likely, a dedicated transport for your troops and it can DS first turn like normal drop pods, however, it must do so in hover mode. It will mishap if it lands on impassible terrain, on friendly models or within 1" of enemy models because it has no inertial guidance. To compensate, you can go flat out 18" in the shooting phase and hide it to disembark on turn 2. It is an assault vehicle, however, stay out of terrain with it because it can be immobilized like any skimmer.

This thing will drop ten Berserkers (or 9 with Kharn) off better and more cheaply than anything in the game. If you have Chosen troops with meltaguns, they will most-likely reach their targets, especially if you cast Shrouding with Be'lakor and jink with them after you've moved them flat out into his bubble.

For 100 points, you get reliable troop delivery, a durable objective secured model that can move 30" per turn, or fly off the board, and it even delivers the possibility of threatening tanks with low rear armor. Any unit it passes over takes D6 S5, AP5, ignores cover hits with vehicles taking hits on the lowest armor rating. I think even flyers take the hits.

There is serious potential with this model. They're rather pricey for very little offense. Still, they begin the game as a delivery system for something nasty, and end the game like Windrider Jetbikes. These will help Chaos take down Knights. You can now deliver Kharn to a Knight.

And there you go! Three things reviewed in fewer words than it takes that one dude on BOLS who tells you how to play every single unit in the game to talk about Vespids! Today was the good stuff. Next time some of the other stuff, and why it's not the good stuff! Or maybe there's something that's good that I haven't noticed yet. Who knows? Besides that one dude on BOLS, I mean.

There was supposed to be a set of parentheses around that last sentence, instead of it being its own sentence.

As I have already spoiled the things I think are the best units in the book, the rest of this review will be anti-climactic. I care not! First, a word on the Daemon Lords. They are, as far as I can tell, unchanged from their unimpressive incarnations in IA: Apocalypse Second Edition with the important exception that they are only allowed to comprise 25% of your army because FW didn't get the memo from Jervis that anything goes because that is very fun for all the little boys and girls.

Thus, to field Zarakynel, you would need to be playing a 2664 point battle. This makes them non-entities for any game of 40k I care to be involved in, which is well enough because I have Zarakynel's model, and she is worse than a Barbed Heirodule and costs more.

So let's talk walkers and see if there's anything here that makes you want to drop fifty quid or more on a finecast model.

Greater Brass Scorpion of Khorne

Are there lesser ones? Somehow, this made it onto Reece's list of acceptable super-heavies despite having and ignores cover S10 large blast (with Primary weapon for good measure.). It has 6 S10 attacks but no power fist, however that doesn't matter because it has Smash. It charges 3d6" (after moving 12") and has D3+2 stomp attacks, which dramatically ups your odds of removing whatever you're facing from play with a 6.

In addition to its melee prowess, it has the aforementioned blast, a Heavy 10 S6 AP3 gun and a S6, AP3 template, so it's good against hordes as well as big stuff. Should it get popped, it gets +2 to the 'splodey table, which is a nice way to check out.

Topping it all off is the fact that it is a Daemon, and can therefore be Grimoired, which you'll want to add to an army containing one since an unprotected Scorpion is at great risk in assault against Imperial Knights, who will be gunning for it. With the extra protection, it should be alright.

It is, however, extremely pricey, and it will be the lion share of your offense, and it really doesn't put out enough shots to kill more than one thing per turn reliably, so at 700 points, it may be too many eggs in one basket. I think you gonna lose to White Scar bikers in an objective mission, na'am sayin'?

Still, it's a very nasty piece of work.

Blood Slaughterers

Unlike the Brass Scorpion, this can be taken in a Daemon army as a HS choice as well as a CSM army. That they can be fielded in squadrons of 3 and protected by the Grimoire is tempting, because they are large, durable and fleet. They are, however, uncontrollable as they must advance towards the nearest visible unit, which could be a flyer if your opponent is halfway clever.

I have reviewed these before. I don't know what the line of sight arc is for these things such that if you were to angle them off so they could only see what you wanted them to you could control them. I assume it's 360° as there's nothing that says a walker can't see all-round.

Maybe if you wanted to use these you could ask your TO what his ruling is on the arc of sight and if he restricts it to 180°, or whatever, you could maybe run them at a funny angle without losing control of them.

Or, you could deep strike them in the enemy's face on turn 2 and run them close to everything so you don't have to worry about the uncontrollability. Even still, a clever opponent can spread out and defeat this, simply trolling the walkers for the whole game. The risk of having these things go useless on me is a big deterrent from dropping hundreds of dollars on a squadron.

Emperor's Children Sonic Dreadnoughts

My totally legitimate copy of the book is a bit blurry, but I think it says it's WS5, BS5, which means it's venerable, and since it has TL sonic blasters that can be given rending and gets hot, that's alright I guess, but still doesn't explain the price tag. I mean, that's only 4 S4 hits with rending so big deal. It also has a doom siren and a chain fist, so we're getting closer. Searchlight? Well that's 1 point. Smoke launchers. ¿Como? Offensive and defensive grenades from dedication to Slaanesh? A3? Alright so this is a dreadnought that has been tricked out by a twelve year old spending too many points on a squishy vehicle, I get it.

So if I spend another 15 points on the warp amp and double my shots, I can fire 8 sonic blaster shots and 2 doom siren shots if I hold still, but you can't hold still and fire a doom siren at anything, so that's pretty dumb.

Maybe I'll just pay 5 points for a heavy flamer, buy a Dreadclaw, get out and roast some infantry with four sonic blaster shots, a heavy flamer and a doom siren for a grand total of 265 points. Naw. Alright one more try. Add a blastmaster, a warp amp to shoot it twice and swap the chainfist for the missile launcher for free. 190 points for two blastmasters at BS5, if I hold still... Well it's cheaper than 10 Noise Marines with two blastmasters.

As you can see, it's too expensive for a 3 HP 12 AV walker to be considered a solid choice, though it isn't horrible with a double blastmaster. Too bad! As an Emperor's Children player, I wanted to like this. As a consolation to Slaanesh, 40k Daemons is playing his song.

Ferrum Infernus Chaos Dreadnought

This is a venerable Helbrute with an extra attack that will set you back 35 points over a basic Helbrute. It is otherwise, a Helbrute that you can buy a bunch of overpriced upgrades for, including one that might turn it into a spawn or a Daemon Prince if it explodes, which it won't. It's also an infernal relic, so you'll never see one.

Chaos Contemptor Dreadnought

A biscuit shy of 200 points gets you a 3 HP vehicle with AV 13/12/10, a TL heavy bolter and a combi-bolter plus a few other special rules like adamantium will that won't make anyone want it. There are tons of ways to make a ludicrously-priced model even spendier, yet no better. 15 points for a meltagun? You look back at the Sicaran and just scratch your head as to how they could be in the same book. It's just totally overpriced. Twice what a Helbrute costs and no more useful.

Decimators

I've reviewed this thing twice and it hasn't changed. Are you clowns at FW familiar with what Soul Grinders cost, and are you aware that this thing is comparable to a Soul Grinder with no upgrades, but costs 70 extra points? Are you just throwing darts at a board to come up with points costs? I just don't get it. Ah well. Next time flyers, then tanks, then something else!

I already talked about the Fire Raptor, which is in contention for the best thing in the book. Now we look at the other flyers and see how they fare.

Chaos Kharybdis Assault Claw

This is one of those things that might be really good, but you'd have to actually play one to find out and also, you probably won't. Unlike the Dreadclaw, this has an inertial guidance system, so you can land it right in front of your opponent's army and hit everything within 3+d3" with a S6 hit. It's a pretty big model, so that is potentially a lot of hits. Then it can boost away. After that, it has five S6 heavy 2 guns that can target independently, which isn't too bad, especially when it's zooming. I keep looking for the melta part of the melta ram, but it ain't got it.

It carries 20 Berserkers, and 20 Berserkers in your face is bad news, if like 700 points. Unfortunately, it isn't a dedicated transport, it's a relic vehicle and a heavy support choice, so it has steep competition. Despite the price tag, it just might be good because it has a very high chance of delivering 20 Berserkers to the enemy, and it can still fight once it does.

Of course, no one will ever know because you'd have to buy one, which is expensive, and there are so many obviously good choices in the HS slot.

Blight Drones

Two blasts hitting at the same time is always better than several hitting at different times because you get more hits from the attack since the models have yet to be removed, so if you can get a couple hits with a squadron of these using their maw cannons, you'll get some work done. With BS2, that's not likely to happen often, but hey!

As the maw cannons are not ordnance, you can fire the reapers as well, but you're less effective against armor. A couple of these in a squadron are probably an okay pick, though I wonder if blasts going way wide thanks to low BS isn't a major problem. They are a FA pick in both armies, and Hounds and Screamers are better for Daemons. Heldrakes and Spawn are stiff competition as well. This one gets a strong average!

Hell Blade

You'll probably pay the 15 points to get the 6 S7 rending shots. And you'll probably watch it crash and burn the turn after it comes into play, or sooner if you're playing Tau. Almost anyone can shoot it down with minimal effort. Still, it is nearly as effective as a Storm Talon with Skyhammers, but cheaper and flimsier, so it's a comparable pick.

For a dedicated AA choice, this isn't a bad use of 115 points, but you'd be far better off with the Fire Raptor, which is like three of these in one tidy package.

Hell Talon

The only thing in the game with dumb bombs. Back when I flew bombers, I could get a 2,000 lb concrete bomb within 10m of a target pretty much every time, which is good enough for most targets considering the blast from a 2,000 lb warhead. 500 pounders were more squirrely and would go well wide no matter what you did, so you would drop 10-20 of them in a line, but the Air Force hasn't dropped a dumb bomb in combat since the 90's, so it doesn't matter.

Unlike our bombs, the Baletalon shatter charge doesn't have a blast, which is quite an achievement. How do you snapshot on a bombing run anyway? The rules don't support it. Do you just hit on a 6? I assume they intended for you to have a 50/50 chance of inflicting a S8 hit on whatever you pass over since it's Heavy 3, but you're not going to take it. None of the bombs really blows me away (get it?) but I guess the alchem cluster bombs that are barrage 3, poisoned would be my pick.

With AV10 and 4 HP, it's still going to die fast, and it costs an awful lot for something that will die fast, but if you can position it right, it might survive a turn or two. I wouldn't pick this one.

Chaos Storm Eagle

The trouble is you have to go into hover mode to drop off your 20 Berserkers, and if you do, you're going to lose your flyer because unlike the Kharybdis with its 5 HP, this one has 4, which makes a difference. Also, the Kharybdis comes on 1st turn. As a gun platform, it's inferior to the Fire Raptor. I used to think I'd swap the heavy bolter for a multi-melta, but looking at its loadout with the vengeance launcher, it might be better to go all out on the anti-infantry and take the Balefire missiles. That way you can shoot four large blasts plus a heavy bolter at a target when you come on, and then unload the same on the second turn when you go into hover mode and unload.

Then again, since weapons fire separately now, firing four large blasts at a target ain't what it used to be, so you're losing potential wounds each time an attack is resolved. Yeah, I guess this thing is kinda meh compared to the other picks.

Chaos Thunderhawk Gunship

This did not make Reece's list of approved shitty super heavies. I'll review it in case that changes, I guess. You would need to have reserve control to make sure this comes on turn 2 because you can't have 700 points, plus whatever it's carrying off the table for half the game.

As a super heavy, it can fire its hellstrikes without penalty, which is nice. You probably want to buy the apocalyptic barrage 6 bombs because it doesn't have enough punch for its points otherwise. The Destroyer blast is a judgment call. With its speed, transport capacity and many, many weapons, it's probably very strong if you can make sure it comes on turn 2 as it can cause quite a lot of hurt to several targets in a turn and is pretty tough to bring down, if not impossible for several armies. But it ain't allowed at LVO, and I ain't buying one to find out!

A break from filling you in on the marvelous splendiferousness that is IA: 13 to answer a question asked yesterday that I found interesting. That is, how do we deal with flyers?

Personally, I don't even factor them into my plans. Let's use my current working list for LVO which is Hounds with a Khorne Herald, two Tzeralds on discs, 9 Screamers, an LOC with all the fixins and Be'lakor plus troops.

I have pretty much no way to kill an AV12 flyer, and my AA is hardly robust... and I generally don't care.

Here's my rationale. There are three armies out there that have a viable build that might include more than one flyer: Daemons, Tyranids and Necrons. Grey Knights lost mindstrikes, so the Storm Raven is less-appealing, though that is one of the flyers I worry about. The consensus is it isn't that great, however. Space Marines might bring a Storm Talon or two, which is not scary at all compared to Thunderfire cannons and Chapter Masters. Eldar don't bring flyers and don't need to. It remains to be seen for Dark Eldar, but I bet they choose to rely on Eldar allies. There's been a bit of talk about Space Wolves going flyer heavy, but I think that's a crummy idea. Try bringing that against jinking Wave Serpents and see how that goes for you. Tau and Ork flyers suck.

Flyers have several major problems: they do not usually score because even if they hover, their hulls are too far off the board for most objectives to be within 3", they may not come in on turn 2, so they are not an efficient source of firepower, and they may have to spend a turn flying off the board or repositioning, making them even worse. This generally means they can be ignored without impacting the game much.

Necrons will not have 100 points Scythes for much longer, and even as it stands, they aren't what they used to be, so you won't see more than four. They don't ignore cover, so my troops can go to ground, I can move block them, I can shoot flickering fire at them if necessary. They usually get one pass and then have to fly over. They are total non-factors save for the dudes inside, so if I go second, it's an easy match. I think the one flyer I've actually shot down in 7th was one of Abusepuppy's Night Scythes at BAO and I did it with two Grinders to keep it from dropping troops in my zone for a secondary point.

If I ever lose to Necrons this edition, maybe I'll start worrying about Night Scythes, but I'm really much more scared of Wraiths and Destroyer Lords.

Flying monstrous creatures are a different animal, but they too have issues with having to change flight modes.

If I'm facing the new version of the flying circus, it will probably be Nurgle, and they will have to land to do anything, and they want no part of an assault heavy army that can dice them out. I just keep my army together and dare them to land. I can kill what them summon no problem. If it's a Be'lakor Tzeentch circus, I'll kill what they summon, laugh off their shooting and crowd objectives. Eventually they'll have to land. Besides, you can't kill a Tzeentch circus while it's in the air no matter what you're playing.

Tyranids often bring two Flyrants. I do worry about Flyrants because their shooting kicks ass. Be'lakor's shriek and vector strikes are my best defense here, but if you look at my army, I have invisible Hounds and 2+ cover Screamers and LOC, so they can't do much to me before I get at the rest of their army, then I can summon replacements for whatever dies. So long as I don't expose Be'lakor to their shots, they should be manageable. If I feel it's the best move, I can use flickering fire with the LOC, which may sneak a wound or two through.

The flyers I do worry about are the Storm Raven, which puts out a lot of shots and is tough to kill, but is considered bad, the Space Wolf flyers, for the same reasons I fear the Storm Raven, and the Fire Raptor, again for those reasons, but even more-so.

What can you do about those? Almost nothing. Flak missiles are awful. Quad guns are skyfire only and overpriced garbage. Quad Icarus lascannons on that one Stronghold Assault bunker is a huge waste of points. Prescience on a Forgefiend is a waste of warp charge AND a heavy support choice. Soul Grinders are awful at AA and should be in assault. Heldrakes are lousy now that the hades can't fire backwards, and won't kill them with vector strikes anyway. Lash Princes cost a fortune and might not even get Iron Arm. To field more than one, you'd need to make them both your HQ choice or waste points on a Keeper.

You can bring a Fire Raptor with reaper autocannons. That is the only feasible way to take down one of the AV12 flyers with Chaos because you can keep shooting them throughout the course of the game with the turrets. Even then, you might not bring it down. If you're playing Daemons and want the Raptor, that means your allied HQ is a Sorcerer when you'd probably rather it be Be'lakor, but you can make that work.

Other than that, the new Rapiers might work with prescience and Hades Autocannons, but I haven't really crunched numbers on those things to know. There may be solutions in the new Chaos IG list, but I need to look at that more in depth. Nevertheless, for the most part, I just assume I can't deal with AV12 flyers.

So if you can't deal with them, don't worry about it and come up with a new plan. Outmaneuver them and raise those shields like in my list. Go ahead and shoot your Fire Raptor at my invisible Hounds, my Horrors in ruins or my shrouded Screamers. I'm still hitting your lines with everything and summoning more to the board than your flyer can remove.

Really you're in the same boat as most other armies. Tau can kill flyers easily, but Tau aren't very good this edition for the most part. Eldar kill flyers without having to play outside their usual stuff, but Eldar can do everything, and we may have to get used to that for awhile since I'm guessing they don't update the books for a good many years to come. Ravenwing can smoke flyers with all the melta and TL plasma they can bring, but Dark Angels were written off long, long ago. Everybody else has to put in some serious effort to deal with the better flyers out there.

It is fairly easy to ignore a flyer and still have a good chance to win. You can't ignore Knights or Wave Serpents or Thunderwolf Cavalry or Gravstars. This is what informs my thinking when building lists.

Let's keep this moving, eh? Today, tanks and artillery. Next time, whatever's left, or possibly horrible fanfiction. We'll have to wait and see.

Chaos Rapier Weapons Battery

Hmmm... If I could put them in a bastion, I'd sure like it a lot better. 40 points for 6 TL heavy bolter shots is certainly cost-effective, and we're probably upgrading them to hades autocannons because ectoplasma cannons are too short ranged and kill themselves, conversion beamers are too long ranged and never get to fire, and laser destroyers, well those might actually be okay at +15 points, but the hades is useful against the widest variety of targets.

You figger you'll stick them in a ruin, and you have two CSM crew per gun, so you would set them up with three marines in front, three in back and the guns in the middle. This way the enemy has to shoot through 3 T7 3+ save models before they even start putting wounds on the guns. That's pretty good, actually.

The guns blow up sometimes when they lose their HP, but since the unit is T7, who cares. Oh, and if you roll a 6, Daemons get to deep strike there with no scatter. If anyone ever has this happen you are obligated to tell me.

For 195 points you get a very powerful shooting platform that is hard to remove. It's comparable to Tau Broadsides in terms of range, threat and application. Broadsides are probably the best thing in the Tau army, but they are not without weaknesses. Like Broadsides, Rapiers are weak to assault, and can't move, but as static firebases go in a Chaos army, this is as good as they come. Shame the HS slot is so crowded these days. Let's put it in Elites how bout? How do I choose between this, Sicarans, Fire Raptors, Maulerfiends and Obliterators? Here's how I do it.

My final word on these would be that anything static that is not barrage is easily defeated by terrain and range exploitation. It is why Tau suck and Eldar do not. You need to be able to move and fight for the most part, so I'd pick something else first but if you can get these in a good spot, they'll do okay.

Chaos Spartan Assault Tank

With the very steep competition this faces in the HS slot, this thing had better bring the wood for nearly 300 points. With four TL lascannons and a TL heavy bolter, I wouldn't say so, especially since most of those if not all will be snapshots for most of the game. You'll probably add a dirge caster, so for 290 points, you have a Land Raider with two extra lascannons, extra armor and a capacity of 25. No dozer blade allowed, which is a huge problem, and you'll need to buy the ceramite armor, so tack on 20 more points for the man. Now you stash 20 Daemonettes in there and we're up to 490. You'd like to put 20 Berserkers in there, but that's a staggering number of points in one bucket that can be popped in one shot by a Wraithknight having a good day.

I think it costs too much, and there are enough things in the Chaos army that can get there and fight well without needing transports that it's just not good enough.

Chaos Typhon Heavy Siege Tank

Not going to spare too many words on a tank with a S10 AP1 ignores cover 7" blast. That's a nice gun and it probably shouldn't be allowed in competitive play.

Chaos Fellblade

The Fellblades is on the LVO list of approved shitty super heavies, but so is the Brass Scorpion, and you'd be better off with that one methinks. This one is cheaper by 160 points, but it's barely different from a Baneblade, and Baneblades are not scary once you've taken them down a time or two. Their firepower is commensurate with their points cost, and they aren't super hard to kill. A couple Imperial Knights will drop this thing even with 12 HP. Super heavies need to be able to fight or they need guns like the Typhon has or they just won't do that well.

Chaos Infernal Relic Achilles

What the hell is this thing? It's got a long range mortar that gets better as the tank loses HP. It has a couple multi-melta, which are short ranged, mind you, and they can't fire at different targets from the mortar. And it costs like 100 points more than a regular Land Raider but it only holds 6 models. So basically it's an artillery platform on the most expensive chassis in the inventory. It's like building an unbelievably expensive F-22 air superiority fighter and using it to drop small diameter bombs on pickup trucks. Oh wait, we're doing that because the generals want to justify the overpriced fighter they don't need. TEH TRUTH IS STRANGAR THAN FICTION!1

Chaos Land Raider Proteus

Well it's cheaper than the base Land Raider, so we're off to a good start. Causes Fear? Swell. Not an assault vehicle? Well I guess I can put some Obliterators in there. I can take a multi-melta, cruise to midfield and shoot lascannons and a multi melta at hard targets. That's not good enough to make me want to bring it along.

Chaos Infernal Relic Predator

Yet another in the list of middling tanks trying to climb Mount Heavy Support. It starts at 15 points more than your basic Pred because it has an awful non-torrent baleflamer as its standard armament. This can be swapped out for an AP3 autocannon, a plasma destroyer (36" heavy 3 small blast plasma), a conversion beamer or a magna melta. You could put a TL-lascannon on there, but you don't need a Relic Pred to do that now do you?

Besides the usual sponson options, you can also take two heavy flamers, which will be super useful when the enemy walks right up to it so that both flamers can somehow hit the same target without it having to move. In the end, you're left with the question as to whether you want to put a magna-melta, plasma destroyer or a conversion beamer on a Pred chassis, or if you could find a better use for those points. I think you know the answer to that.

At some point we'll keep going with the IA stuff! But I wrote this instead.

The latest greatest death star on the block is Thunderwolf Cavalry spam with a dash of Kor'sarro Khan, at least if the person running the army knows what he's doing.

Let's figure a Wolf Lord with a 2+/3++ and a pfist equivalent, 2-4 Iron Priests with 2+ saves, power fists and some Sybar Wolves, 5-6 TWolf cavalry with 2-3 pfists and storm shields, plus Khan for Scout and Hit and Run, a squad of bikes, some Grey Hunters in a pod and another mandatory troop choice. It hits like a truck when it arrives, Knights can't beat it because of all the powerfists and 3++ saves. Tau and IG are doomed as always as they can't shoot it off the board before it gets there. Eldar can scoot and shoot from it with relative ease, but most armies won't have a solution.

So how do you beat this wid' Chaos? Take the Masque and use the dance of caging at the start of your second shooting phase when she drops in, then run behind a wall. Repeat until game ends. That is all.

Okay, fine!

There is nothing new here. Just another death star that is inferior to the old Seer Council. This one is also incredibly expensive such that it can be made to comprise 75% of the army. Unless it's a KP or Relic mission, you beat it by spreading out and feeding it garbage. Preferably summoned garbage. Drop ten Daemonettes in its path and you've cost them a turn.

However, unlike other death stars, this one can split up into several self-sufficient units, as a Wolf Lord or an Iron Priest with his wolves are plenty formidable on their own. It is likely this won't happen until its necessary because most players will want to use the Cyberwolves to soak up wounds before they start losing the good stuff, which is about twelve models, if that. You would prefer it stays together as long as possible since the parts without Khan can't hit and run.

If you must take them on, like in a KP mission, you need something that can do it. With my current list, featuring invisible Flesh Hounds and a Grimoire with a strong possibility of Cursed Earth, I have a good chance of beating this thing at its own game if the dice don't go to crap. One of the nice things about it is that although it has hit and run, the unit has such a massive footprint, it will usually have to go backwards to get the whole thing clear. Remember, declare direction, then move 3d6", no more, no less, and if you don't get clear, you stay put.

I'm considering strongly (ie: I've pretty much decided already.) to replace the LOC with Fateweaver just to keep the Grimoire reliable. This is hardly a novel idea. In fact, I'm pretty much back to the very first list I made in 7e, but considering the threats out there, a reliable Grimoire is a pretty desirable thing. Although I'll lose three shots at cursed earth and some anti-Knight tech, I'll gain the ability to reliably tank Knights and Wolfstars with beefier units. But I might change my mind again, such is my caprice.

I can think of nothing in Chaos Space Marines than can defeat a Wolf Star, sorry. Maybe a grimoired Brass Scorpion or squadron of Blood Slaughterers. Avoid it and play the mission.

In closing, please enjoy 10 hours of Yee.

It seems I have not reviewed the MC’s in this book. I will get to them.

The next part of the book that is certainly interesting is the Legacies of Ruin, which lets you take one vehicle upgrade per 1,000 points on any vehicle (CSM only) that does not have the Daemon or Daemonic Possession rules. So you get to pick one at 1,850, and there is probably only one you will pick. I have asked Reece as to whether these will be LVO legal, and he doesn’t know yet, but the good one gives him pause. I’m betting no. Here they are in order.

Veteran of the Scouring – IWND and PE: Space Marines for a ridiculous price. Hatred for walkers instead.

War Within the Eye – Adamantium will and PE: CSM (hatred for walkers). Poop.

Maelstrom Rider – Outflank and fear for the cost of a pfist. Maybe on a Vindicator, but probably not.

Death of Kasyr Lutien – Fear and you may reroll 1D6 per HP the vehicle has for Malefic powers cast within 12”. If the power fails, which it won’t, the vehicle suffers a penetrating hit. And for this, you will have to give up a power sword somewhere. So what you’re saying is, if I throw four dice at Summoning and get two successes and two failures like I ought to, I have a 75% chance to get the power off on four dice. If I roll one success, I still have a 50/50 shot? Sold American! Talk about efficiency with psychic dice. This should cost 50 points. You can even reroll successful 6’s with it if you perils. This thing rewrites the psychic phase.

So whatcha’ gon’ put it on? My first thought was a Dreadclaw, but that’s possessed, so no bueno. The candidates are Land Raiders, Predators, Rhinos, Sicarans and Helbrutes, and all their variants, plus the Super heavies, which are probably overkill.

Helbrutes are too easily killed at range and must expose themselves. Predators are a bit better, but you still have to expose them. The Rhino is fairly easy to hide and cheap, plus it probably has OS so it’s a fine choice, no question. In fact, since anything else like a Sicaran is going to draw a lot of attention even without this, the Rhino might be the best pick.

The Land Raider needs to be on the go. The Land Raider Proteus is cheaper, but sucks. Yeah, Rhino surrounded by Horrors it is. You don’t even have to buy anything from Forge World. Thanks, dummies!

Blood of Mackan – PE: Blood Angels, no dangerous terrain for defense lines and barricades nobody takes anymore, and your destroyer blades have an AP value equal to your HP. Twice what Kasyr Lutien costs you say? How do ya’ figger?

Siege of Vraks – Ignore damage caused by terrain on a 4+ because you’re too stupid to take a dozer blade or you’re playing some goofy mission with minefields or something. Also you get to reroll to hit against stuff behind defense lines nobody takes anymore. Ah, fluffy upgrades!

Fourth Quadrant Rebellion – Cultists in 12” are fearless and it gets a 4+ save when it has 1 HP remaining. As a cheap upgrade to a Land Raider bubble-wrapped by Cultists, this might be halfway decent for how cheap it is. If you likes Cultists (and who doesn’t?) this is for you!

Wow, there are a lot of these and most of them are fluffball and not worth our time. Here are the other ones that are okay.

Vessel of Tzenahk the Occluder – On a 1, your opponent gets 1 VP for killing this vehicle. On a 2+. You get D3 VP if it lives. Put on Fire Raptor, play for a draw, don’t go be stupid, win game, gloat about how good you are.

1st War For Armageddon – All Daemons within 12” get +1 to Inv saves AND it causes fear to IG if they charge it! For the cost of a power fist, you stick a Grimoire bearer in a Land Raider with this upgrade and you have an instant 2++ on anything you like most of the time.

Honestly, I do not want these in the game. I’ll use them if allowed because that’s what you do, but I hope they aren’t allowed.

It has been about three weeks since my last game of 40k in which I squeaked out a win over Ian’s Eldar with a Noise Marine/Obliterator/Heldrake/Bike/Summoning Prince army. I need to get back in the swing of things here, but most of my time is spent trying to figure out Warmachine. At this point, I only know what my army does. I don’t know all the dirty tricks of the other factions, which are myriad. Even within a faction you can see a variety of play styles depending on the warcaster you pick. My strategy has been to play a list that shuts the other guy down for a turn so I can figure out the dirty tricks while the game is in progress and not get my ass kicked. It works most of the time. If I weren’t such a n00b, I would have made it to the finals of last night’s tournament instead of getting my caster killed at the top table in round 2 by a dumb mistake. Great game for making you want to punch yourself in the face!

Onto the Monstrous Creatures! Will I like any of them? Who cares!

Spined Chaos Beast

You know what? I would dismiss these out of hand as useless but for the fact that they are Elites choices, so they don’t deprive you of anything good. If I pay 165 points for Nurgle and drop one to three of these into some ruins for 2+ cover, my opponent has some problems; even if he does have Wave Serpents. Or I can pay the same for Slaanesh ones and have them rush alongside the rest of the army. On their own, they aren’t very good with only 4 wounds, IWND, a 6” move and 3 WS5 S7 attacks. They are also unstable on LD5.

I’m talking myself out of them here.

What I’m sayin’ is, alongside three Slaanesh Grinders, 20 Flesh Hounds with a Khorne Herald, 9 Screamers, three Slaanesh Spined Beasts wouldn’t be the worst decision in a world since the other guy probably only has one or two CC baddies. Let’s give them a C+ as an almost above average unit just for being an Elites choice that isn’t completely worthless.

Giant Chaos Spawn

Well, they’re Chaos Daemons only, but they aren’t Daemons and can’t deep strike so they footslog it 6” at a clip. One third of the time in combat they get FNP 2+ because it says to roll on their random chart at the start of every fight subphase. That’s nice. It’s very cheap and has a lot of S6 AP2 attacks, and even 4+ armor. The only thing wrong with it is it’s slow and fairly easy to kill later on in the game when the more immediate threats have been dealt with. And frankly, that’s the deal killer because Daemons need everything advancing together to weather the storm of shooting before crashing into the enemy lines, and this won’t be there in time for the party.

Uraka the Warfiend

He competes poorly in a very crowded HQ slot. He’s a weaker daemon prince with no wings, but has a lot of attacks on the charge he’ll never get because he’s too slow and too flimsy to survive the turn he hits the board. You’re basically paying 200 points to drop this guy on the table and go “BLOO BLOO BLOO BLOO!” at the other guy so he becomes very scared and runs away while shooting at him, which he would do anyway. Khorne Herald with axe, locus of wrath and 15+ Hounds is all the Khorne you’ll ever need.

Mamon, Daemon Prince of Nurgle

He has a unique statline bolstered by T7, W5 and FNP to go with shrouding. Other than that, he’s packing an AP3 poisoned 2+ flamer that will probably just make his charge longer. If he were a heavy support choice, he’d be better because he’s not bad, but there are better things to do with your HQ slots. Mostly, he’s a CC beatstick who’s a bit on the slow side, but if you can drop him off an icon on turn 2 both with a toe in ruins and in flamer distance to a suitable unit, he’ll do well.

Well, that concludes the CSM portion of the review. I consider the Fire Raptor almost a must-have for CSM, and yet I have no plans to get one. Between those, bale Drakes and Dreadclaws, Chaos can easily rule the skies, taking out the AA threats early and dropping off OS troops in the late game. There’s a list there somewhere.

Lemmee see...

Sorcerer, combi-melta
5 CSM, meltagun, combi-melta, dreadclaw
5 CSM, meltagun, combi-melta, dreadclaw
5 CSM, meltagun, combi-melta, dreadclaw
Heldrake, baleflamer
Heldrake, baleflamer
Hell Blade, hellstorm autocannon
Fire Raptor, balefire missiles, reaper autocannons, Vessel of Tzenahk the Occluder
Fire Raptor, balefire missiles, reaper autocannons, warpflame gargoyles
Fire Raptor, balefire missiles, reaper autocannons, warpflame gargoyles
Wall of Martyrs Bunker, comms relay

1850

Nobody has enough AA to deal with that. Okay, so set up the bunker somewhere in a safe corner, preferable behind other terrain. First turn the melta-free Claw comes in by the comms relay and one other comes in and scoots somewhere safe. Then it’s game on. You have 6 OS units, 9 flyers that can threaten just about anything. Drop pod armies are a concern, but you can manage them with smart deployment. If my Fire Raptor with Vessel lives, I get D3 VP! That list scares the hell out of me, but it costs so much money to build I wouldn’t worry about ever facing it. But Christmas is coming, so maybe I will ask my mommy to buy me it.

Do you like tons and tons of models, oh and rolling tons of dice? How about lots of random tables? How about tracking random leadership on worthless units? Four hour long games at 1850? No? Well go see if 3++ has posted anything (Did all ten of their writers quit?).

So, to compensate for the loss of Imperial Guard allies, 'ol Forge World has stepped up to the plate and given you what is an even cheaper, less-effective Guard army. With most everything coming at stock BS2, but upgradeable to BS3 if you want to pay the same as the loyalist version, you can squeeze a lot of stuff in there. In place of orders, you get covenants, which unlock certain things, and you also get access to rather nasty artillery, which IG, technically also get. There is no unique list of relics, but since IG never takes any of their's you haven't lost much.

When I think about the best things in the IG book I come up with a list of three things: Commisar Yarrick and his blob, Pask's Punisher and Wyverns. There is simply nothing else in the IG inventory that is particularly impressive, and the army folds against anything that can close with it, which is most stuff. Hence, it has not done well so far in 7th against the big boys. This army is IG without two of the best three things it has going for it.

That was my first take on it. After looking through it, I'd say this is list better than IG in quite a few ways, so long as you're willing to paint up hundreds of dudes. As I plow through painting up 20 Steelhead Halberdiers and look at the ten primed Greygore Boomhowers on deck, I can't get enthused myself.

To 'splain you what I mean, I'll begin with the special rules, wargear and troops.

Uncertain Worth

The first time a unit takes a LD test, roll a D6+4. That is their LD for the rest of the game. So on a 3+, they are as good as an IG squad or better. Make sure you have a way to mark this.

Fanatic

Roll 2d6 and pick the highest result for the LD. Your mandatory Arch-Demagogue has this.

Vox Caster

Reroll the dice for your Uncertain Worth check

Command Vox Net

This unit has a vox caster and all units within 12" may use its LD .

Banner of Hate

All infantry units from the same primary detachment as this unit test LD on 3d6 and pick the two lowest dice.

Chaos Sigil

This unit may ignore the first pinning or morale check it suffers each game turn. These colors don't run.

As you can see, the army has a ton of gimmicky ways to avoid running. We haven't even covered the Enforcers yet. That Chaos Sigil is the true gem though. For only 5 points, you're basically fearless for a player turn. How often do you take morale checks in more than one phase? Almost never, and when you do, the unit is probably toast anyway. The Sigil is also 5 measly points.

Chaos Covenant

Usually only selected by a Demagogue, a unit with a model having this rule gets one the following:

Khorne - Reroll to wound on the first round of combat. (Well, with 3 attacks and S3, that's modestly helpful.)
Nurgle - FNP 6+ (nah)
Slaanesh - Fleet (maybe)
Tzeetch - Snapshots at BS2 (I dunno bout dat.)

If your arch-demagogue takes one of those covenants, they get access to certain units, of which, all but Slaanesh have merit.

So let's see what this does for you.

Renegade Infantry Squads

You must take 3-5 in a platoon. No armor and terrible stats for 3 points, but they come with pistols and CCW's and can be taken in squads of 20. So 20 of these guys with a Chaos Sigil is 65 points and won't run if beaten in assault, at least until the next player turn. In addition to the Sigil, you can stick three flamers in there to mitigate the lousy BS.

For 10 points the squad can get krak grenades, allowing them to threaten most vehicles. 10 points gets you a champ with meltabombs, which is even a threat to Knights considering these units are so cheap.

Or for 10 points, you can upgrade a squad of 20 to have WS and BS 3, which gets you some fairly-efficient lascannons, but probably isn't worth it.

One of the squads must be the command squad and can get a Demagogue with a covenant, though that probably isn't worth it.

Nevertheless, consider, these are what you wish Cultists were. For 65 points, you can have 20 guys who will not break easily rushing forward. For 75 they have kraks or meltabombs, both for 85 points. Hell, for 45 points you have 10 pseudo-fearless dudes with a champ carrying meltabombs, and you can bring 3-5 of these units as a single troops choice. You can also stash them in a cheap Chimera and have two OS units for 85 points. The Chimera is BS2, but you can take two heavy flamers on it or upgrade it to BS3 if you want.

Lousy in a KP game, but in many games you can really spam it out, and Chimeras aren't the easiest things to kill despite their cheapness.

Renegade Mutant Rabble

In there largely as an excuse to let you field Beastmen in 40k or sell some as yet unreleased models, these are pretty terrible because although they are cheap and can be taken as many as 50 strong, they have no access to Sigils, and so get swept the first time they hit assault.

Renegade Infantry Veterans

Very similar to the IG version, but BS3, though they can be upgraded to BS4 for 15 points and also get hotshot lasguns thrown in. You can also purchase deep strike, scout or tank hunters, though you won't have the weapons to take advantage of that last one. It's weird because it's 35 for 5, but you gotta pay 10 points for each additional dude, so they cost a lot more at full strength, and when you toss in the upgrades to BS, two meltaguns and deep striking, it's like 135 points for ten Guardsmen and you're probably saying no thanks.

Plague Zombie Horde

Better than the CSM version and yet cheaper. 4+ FNP and if they wipe a unit, they get D3 more. You can take them 50 strong, and you don't even need stinky 'ol Typhus. All you need is an Arch Demagogue with the Nurgle Covenant.

Renegade Chaos Spawn

If your Arch Demagogue has the Covenant of Tzeentch, you can take up to three of these units of three spawn at a staggering 55 points total! 55 points for three spawn with Objective Secured. The only catch is that while they are troops, they don't count as your mandatory troop choice, and the Renegade detachment has to be primary.

Between Infantry squads with sigils, Plague Zombies and Spawn, this army is capable of fielding a whole lot of OS bodies that have to be killed to a man without breaking the bank for the heavy hitters. If Kill Points missions did not exist, that would be even stronger than it is.

So I'm reading Goatboy's BOLS article and scoffing at the detractors saying the new Tyranid MC's are good and you just have to be smart with them to catch dem Wave Serpents before they blow your whole army to smithereenies. This is a foolish mindset. One, it assumes you will always be smarter than your opponent. In a hobby that attracts the high IQ crowd, the odds are good you're going to run into someone with more mental firepower than you've got every so often. Second, I don't care how skilled you are, if you take lousy tools, and your opponent takes good tools, no amount of superior ability is going to help you overcome your disadvantage. If I race Jimmie Johnson and we trade cars, he is not going to beat me in my Hyundai four banger just because he's a better driver.

So anyway, I'm reading Goatboy's article, and agreeing with him that the new stuff is too slow (I have blown footslogging Nid MC lists with Dimacherons and Malanthropes off the board with a CSM army before they got close enough to call me a tosser.) when I look over at the blogroll and see that there are brand new Nid drop pods are coming out next week that can deliver these baddies to the fight. It was like GW was all "HAHA! Screw you, Goatboy!!! We already thought of that!".

Anyway, it's good to see that Nids are getting some love, and also that GW will probably just keep dropping new releases for all the armies on a weekly basis, and with the rumor mill on full lockdown (No one called the new Nids.) it should be fun to see what surprises they have in store. So no more grousing about the new books being bland, k?

K...

Time for a picture break!

It's taking a long time to review IA XIII. This Renegades and Assholes list is particularly confusing as there are all sorts of goofy one-offs, so it's easy to get stuff wrong.

We'll take a look at the HQ section today.

Renegade Command Squad

I mean, it's not that great at shooting, and not great in assault either. The Arch Demagogue is an IC, however, and doesn't have to join his squad, so he can take a covenant, and go join some other better unit like Chaos Bikers and give them fleet, or rerolls to wound. Fleet Mutilators with Abaddon in a Land Raider! Heh...

The Covenant you select unlocks various units with the Slaanesh one being bad (Sonic Dreds are crap and Noise Marines should be troops.), Tzeentch and Nurgle being good, and Khorne possibly being alright because you can take a bunch of infantry to surround the Blood Slaughterers to sort of herd them the right direction. You can also take no covenant which unlocks what appears to be pretty garbage Marauder squads.

Finally, the Arch Demagogue can take a devotion, which you can read about on Frontline Gaming because that page is missing from my copy. The one that makes him psychic sounds pretty good.

In short, you bring this unit to make use of the covenant, and also because you have to bring one.

Rogue Psyker Coven

A bizarre unit that I at first thought was 35 for all of them because my copy is blurry, but is actually 35 points per model, which is laughable. The psykers themselves must operate solo for the whole game, so they give up five easy KP. If one suffers a perils, it is replaced by a Possessed (not the CSM kind) model and I guess gives up two easy KP! All three of their powers are short ranged and bad. Creeping Terror would be nice if it worked on Space Marines, but they're too out of tough with their feelings for it to work on them. I guess Unnatural Vigor is okay.

There is no way these guys are worth their points, but besides devotions on your Arch Dude, there's not much in the way of psykering going on.

Renegade Enforcers Cadre

The evil Commissars. They get you plus 1 to your Uncertain Worth roll and execute a model if the unit fails morale, however that does not make you automatically pass like Summary Execution, it just gets you a reroll, so it's like the old Ork bosspole. For 25 points, that's pretty steep, but you can attach them to Infantry squads and they can tote another set of meltabombs.

They can also bring combat drug injectors, and they pass that shit around which grants Rage but might kill D3 models. Getting the charge with a slow blob is often difficult, but 50 Mutant Rabble with this guy and a fearless CSM IC, like a Dark Apostle could possibly get there and poke something to death.

A short list, and nothing impressive, but I think the only thing that's supposed to be impressive about the army is how much money you spent getting all those models on the table.

Someone requested my thoughts on Warmachine. Very well, but I’m only doing this one time because I know most folks don’t have time for two games, or may not live in an area where it is played, if they care at all. I know. I was there once. I ignore all the DZC and X-Wing stuff myself. So again, this is a one off. The only reason I picked Warmachine up in the first place is because it took over Phoenix. Jason Flanzer, the guy who writes WM/H articles for Frontline Gaming is here, and is the top player in the country. His protégé, Ryan Chiriboga, who is like number 6 is here too, and is largely responsible for the entire city jumping off the 40k train two years back.

Nevertheless, this blog is about Chaos in Warhammer 40k, and that will not change.

I am way too new at the game to profess any kind of expertise. At best, I am a n00b punching above his weight class. I played a couple games last night and finally beat Gonzo the press ganger, then followed it up by playing an embarrassingly poor game in which my play was so bafflingly horrible it must have confused my opponent into exposing his caster and letting me score a hail mary assassination just before I got completely wiped off the table. Just as planned… Despite the victory, I was literally ashamed. So again, I am new to this game. I can’t offer any useful tactical advice at a high level. Nevertheless, here follows reasons why you should and shouldn’t play Warmachine from my perspective, starting with the bad.

Reasons why you shouldn’t play Warmachine:

#1: It’s expensive. A unit of Space Marines is what, 30, 40 bucks? Try 50-70 for ten mans in Warmachine. The battle boxes are cheap ways to get into the factions, but to really compete, you need two 50 point armies, and depending on the faction you choose, that could set you back a fair amount. I picked Mercs, which is the most expensive faction. I bought all my shit at least 35% off, often 40-50% off and I’m still into it about $800 bucks. On the other hand, that’s around what it would cost to buy 2,000 points of 40k new I think. By contrast, instead of one army, my 225 points gets me at least 12 different kinds of armies depending on which of my six casters I’m using, and how I build the army around them, with virtually limitless combinations possible. I can run single colossal, double colossal, dude spam, jack heavy, gun line, and combined arms in several flavors.

Hordes is generally cheaper than Warmachine because Hordes can run more beasts than Warmachine can run jacks, and their gargantuans are lousy while Warmachine colossals are mostly quite good. Colossals and units are the most expensive things in the product line, both of which are more prominent in Warmachine.

#2: The models. PP is at least 7 years behind GW, most of their stuff is metal, and the older sculpts are often complained about as looking ugly or stupid. Like many, I am not a fan of the giant shoulder pads, and I think most of the Menoth, Scyrah and Cyriss lines look stupid. A lot of what kept me out of the game was the aesthetic. It’s an acquired taste. I think my models look nice, and the newer stuff coming out looks a lot better.

Dawnguard Sentinels look stupid.

This new sculpt makes me sorry I already have her old one painted up. They're getting a lot better.

#3: It’s really hard. When you first start and get a decent grasp of the main rules, you will know about 2% of what’s out there waiting to be applied directly to your face. I’m about 30 games in and I’ve probably seen maybe 5-10% of what’s out there. There’s so much I don’t know. I am in the books constantly, but when Gonzo plopped down his Trollbloods across from me, I think I knew what about three things in his army did. I still haven’t faced most of the truly badass casters like Haley2, Asphyxious2 or Saeryn. The game is loaded to the gills with dirty tricks and the first time you see them, you probably won’t be remotely ready for it. Expect many losses. You can mitigate this to a certain extent by playing armies that can take the other guy’s best shot on the chin and still fight back.

#4: It is not at all immersive. For all its faults, 40k at its best feels like an epic battle is playing out. Warmachine feels much more mechanical due to the competitive focus of the game. Terrain is usually off on the periphery of the battlefield and usually there are just a couple of walls in the middle to make things a bit more complicated. The path to victory usually involves standing in a box or by a flag uncontested for X number of turns, and it feels artificial.

Reasons you should play Warmachine.

#1: It’s very fun. First and foremost, the game is extremely enjoyable. It is very deep, complex and rewarding. At this moment in time, I would say Warmachine is more fun to play than 40k is, but there is novelty to be factored in.

#2: It’s designed with competition in mind. The factions are reasonably, though not perfectly, balanced. The rules are clear, and in cases where they aren’t they actually have people who rule on them and keep their errata updated. PP cares about making the game a good game.

#3: It’s quick. Once you get good enough to play on the clock, you won’t want to not play on the clock because it keeps you from standing there and trying to come up with a plan with a stupid look on your face. A 50 point game will take 2 hours tops from deployment to game over. You can stop to mull things over if you like, but when your clock hits zero, you lose, and that’s actually a good thing.

#4: It rewards skill. If you can think a turn or two ahead, and plan your moves and order of activation properly, you will get a buzz from Warmachine. There is much more to the game than turn the Flesh Hounds invisible and point them at the other army while avoiding Imperial Knights.

So there you go. Probably the only post on Warmachine I will ever do on this blog. Make of it what you will.

After a busy few months I am finally able to get back into playing some regular games. My league group started up again last night, and we are running with a slightly different format.

In previous leagues we were usually running 1250-1500 points with an hour and a half for games and two games per night. This time around we are only running 750 points with an hour for a game and three games per night. The group we have is a great mix; there are more Dark Eldar players than regular Eldar, and more Chaos Space Marines than Vanilla Marines. We even have two Blood Angel players. Most people aren't looking to be super competitive, but just want to play some fun games.

I decided to bring my Fallen Angels (Black Legion). Here was my list:

Sorcerer: ML2, Spell Familiar, Melta Bombs, VotLW

5 Chosen: 2 plasma guns, VotLW

Rhino: Havoc Launcher

5 Chosen: missile launcher, VotLW

Rhino: Havoc Launcher

Helbrute: twin linked lascannon

4 Terminators: chainfist, combi-flamer

Game 1: 3 objectives vs Dark Eldar

Succubus: special glaive, armor of some kind, haywire grenades

2 squads of warriors in venoms

Grotesques in a raider with the Succubus

Talos

Jetbikes: two cluster caltrops (I think thats what they were called)

I hadn't played against the new Dark Eldar, and this game ended up being pretty close.

At this points level my opponent had a difficult time dealing with armor. His cluster caltrops (I think thats what they were called) eventually glanced out one rhino, and the haywire grenades slowly took down the Helbrute, but I was more or less immune to his attacks for the first two turns.

My terminators took down his bikes and made a break for the central objective, but then were crushed by the Talos. The missile launcher marines were slaughtered by the succubus and the grotesques didn't even have a chance to swing. Several of his transports fell to my plasma squad of marines.

Most of my problems against the DE stemmed from my list. I didn't put out enough shots to get past the jink saves, and neither of us got first blood until turn 3. I rolled on pyromancy with my Sorcerer (which is great against this opponent), but his army was so fast that I had a hard time getting in range. This last issue can be fixed by me buying more models and converting a sorcerer on a bike, but that may not be for a bit.

Game 2: Kill points vs Grey Knights

Librarian

5 terminators: Psycannon

5 paladins

Storm Raven

My opponent was one of my friends I play on the regular, and he was going for the lowest model count army he could. This ended up being the shortest game of 40k in my life.

He did the deep strike on turn one deal. The problem he encountered was that the paladins didn't come in, so the terminators came in all by their lonesome (you can see where this is going). The squad ended up landing about 12 inches from my entire army. They attempted to glance my rhino with the psycannon, but didn't do anything. On my turn I unloaded. Between smite (I rolled on biomancy), two plasma guns, and the lascannon I killed all five terminators before the end of the shooting phase. All in all the game lasted about ten minutes

The game ended there. We scored it, but then decided to keep playing for giggles.

The storm raven wrecked the helbrute, but then got wrecked by the terminators because it had to hover. His paladins failed a 4" charge through cover and lost a few guys to the additional round of shooting despite being protected by invisibility. When he finally made it into combat my sorcerer had warp speed and force active. I managed to hit twice (invisibility was up again), wound once, and he failed his save. His paladins killed the the chosen, but at this point they were the only thing left in his army.

Game 3: The Relic vs Necrons

Lord: Barge, mindshackle scarabs of ruin my day, staff of kill many marines

5 Necron warriors

10 Immortals with a teleport cryptec

10 Deathmarks
Night Scythe

The first two turns we both wet noodled our attacks. I couldn't kill 5 warriors, and he couldn't glance out my rhinos. When turn 3 rolled around my terminators showed up to kill half the immortals (from their shooting of all things), the deathmarks showed up to kill all of the terminators, and the plasma marine rhino got wrecked. Turn four's shooting phase saw my helbrute wrecked, and a couple of marines from the plasma squad got shot. His lord charged my sorcerer and the remaining chosen, and the mindshackle scarabs wiped out all of the chosen. The 5th turn wasn't much prettier. My sorcerer killed himself, and the last rhino got wrecked.

We ended up calling the came at this point because I had 4 marines who were about 30" away from the immortals who controlled the relic.

Overall thoughts:
I really liked the durability of my army. At this point value people had a hard time dealing with three AV targets; however, once the armor was broken things went downhill fast.

I'm not a particularly big fan of the missile launcher, but I don't have a lot of model options right now. I could switch it out for two melta guns (when combined with my extra 5 points), but I already have a decent amount of short range firepower.

The helbrute didn't kill much on his own, but he absorbed a ton of firepower that would have otherwise hurt the rhinos. More importantly he greatly influenced where my opponent was willing to move. The Necron lord couldn't directly go after my marines until the helbrute died.

My army seems good for this point value, but needs some tweaks.

Hi! How've you been? Things are busy here. Check out this thing I wrote.

The elites section in every book is usually the island of misfit toys. This one doesn't seem much different to be honest with you. Ah well!

Renegade Marauder Squad

You can only take them if your warlord don't got no covenant, which is one of the major perks of taking a Demagogue. The deal killer is they can't regroup if they break for any reason. What if I cast Mental Fortitude on them making them fearless so they immediately regroup per the rules? Game explodes I suppose.

Well with three WS4, I4 attacks on the charge and frag grenades, they're a modestly okay assault unit that can bring special weapons and some "heavy hitters" in the form of a couple 30 point brutes. The squad gets free bonus rules in the form of either stealth/move thru cover/outflank, carapace armor/krak grenades or furious charge/crusader. None of which particularly recommend a majority T3 squad that costs 10 ppm and can't number more than 12.

So if you don't mind a competent opponent giggling at your army when you show it to him (in a competitive affair) this unit could be lots of fun, at least until it fails morale on its way to getting swept in the assault they're trying to reach.

Renegade Chaos Spawn

They're here despite being a troops choice only if you have a Tzeentch AD. A right steal for what they do. Obective secured fearless, speedy models at half the price it would cost to field them in CSM.

Renegade Disciple Squad

I flipped back and forth between the Disciples and the Veterans about ten times looking for differences, but aside from BS4 standard on the Disciples, it's pretty much the same unit for all you care, and since I wasn't too high on the Veterans, I can't get too excited about ten guardsmen with a special and a heavy weapon.

Renegade Ogryn Brutes

They cost how much?

No, come on?

Really?

Wow...

Well, at least they're fearless. Oooh! and frags on an I2 unit! A full unit with all the fixin's is 840 points, but it has a 4+/5+ FNP with T5 and W3. Then it gets charged by a walker and is out of the game. Hur hur hur...

Blood Slaughterers

If I had any idea what "toward the nearest visible unit" meant exactly, I'd say you could herd them with mans so they go in the right direction. In Warmachine, there is toward, which means you must finish closer to the thingy than you started, and directly toward, which means you move toward the thingy as the crow flies.

So if I put some mans between these and the nearest unit, do I move these "toward" that unit by trying to move around the mans, or do they move to butt up against the mans in a direct line to the dudes?

For that matter, if I move generally toward the nearest visible enemy, such that I finish closer than I stared, does that satisfy the intent of the rule? You make the call!

Renegade Blight Drones

I already talked about these!

That's all you get!

Vacation

The Beaststar is Dead and Other Musings

The Basics: Washing and Layering

On Furies

I Got A Dumb Idea

How My Weekend Went

Nuance: Rolling Powers

I Review Imperial Armour Volume XIII

A Further Review of Imperial Armour XIII: Walkers

Imperial Armour XIII: Flyers

Dealing With Flyers as a Chaos Player

IA XIII: Tanks and Artillery

Dealing With Thunderwolf Cavalry

IA XII: Legacies of Ruin

IA XIII: Monstrous Creatures and a List

Imperial Armour XVIII: Renegades and Heretics

IA XIII: Renegades and Heretics HQ

One (And only one) Post About Warmachine

League!

IA XIII: Renegades Elites