Labels

Monday, April 14, 2014

Fresh Chaos: The Crimson Slaughter


I'm a sucker for anything chaos related. Of this course this means I was more than excited to get my hands on the new Chaos Space Marines supplement, the Crimson Slaughter. Boy, this book is quite the game changer for Chaos. It all boils down to one relic that brings the pain in so many ways. The Balestar of Mannon.

To get my feet wet with this book I played a fairly friendly game against two of my normal gaming group with the following list.

2000 Points Double Force Org

HQ
Huron Blackheart (Warlord) 160 pts
Sorcerer Mastery Level 3, Balestar of Mannon, Mark of Nurgle, and Bike 170 pts
Chaos Lord - Daemonheart, Lightning Claw, Powerfist, Mark of Nurgle, Bike, Sigil of Corruption, and Blight Grenades 200 pts

Troops
10x Cultists w/ CCW 50 pts
10x Cultists w/ CCW 50 pts
10x Cultists w/ CCW 50 pts
18x Possessed w/ Mark of Tzeentch

Fast Attack
5x Chaos Spawn w/ Mark of Nurgle
Heldrake w/ Baleflamer

Heavy Support
Forgefiend w/ Hades Autocannons
3x Obliterators w/ Mark of Nurgle

Total 1991

This list was tailored to give me the ability to try as many new things as I could in one go. This is by no means what I would like to field most of the time because of the sillyness behind it, but its a good way to get a lot of the new toys on the table to see how they work.

The basic idea with this list is infiltrate the possessed up as far as possible giving them an easy turn two charge while spawn with the Lord shoot up the flank to support them. While doing all of this you have the Forgefiend and Oblits giving support fire from the backfield covering the other flank. Of course I'll try to bring in the Heldrake as soon as possible and the cultists work as last minute objective grabbers.

After turn one I had made a pretty dire mistake against my opponents playing Blood Angels and Ultramarines, I left the rear of my Forgefiend open for them to just drop pod behind it and blow it to little chaos bits. Sadly, that meant I didn't get to throw prescience on it all game like I had intended. Other than making that major mistake this game taught me a few simple lessons about units that I rarely used these days.

The first lesson being that Possessed just aren't good. Even with this new chart for them to roll on, they don't get the job done. All they had done for me in this game was take on an assault squad with a chaplain and then charge a unit of tacticals with Tiggy. The saddest part? They couldn't kill Tiggy. Round after round he kept shrugging off their blows. I was never fortunate to get the power with rending and that would have made killing him a far easier task, but I digress.

The second lesson was how immensely power divination can be. My other two armies being Neurons and Flying Circus Daemons, I don't get to use divination too often so I was more than excited to reap the rewards of it. I equipped my sorcerer with a bike so depending on what powers he gets from this discipline he can either stick with the Oblits or he can shoot up the flank with my Lord and Spawn as a support beast. Seeing that I got prescience, perfect timing and scrier's gaze, I was more than happy to sit back buffing the Oblits. Let me tell you Oblits ignoring cover and being twin-linked are nothing short of terrifying. This was definitely my MVP of the game.

In short, I was pretty happy with how the army performed. Crimson Slaughter breathed some new life into a book that I have been extremely disappointed with this edition. (Last edition as well) I'm happy to be fielding the ol' Chaos Space Marines again and I can't wait to see how the Forgefiend fair when it doesn't take a Furioso to the rear first turn.

What kind of list have you guys been having success with? Have you even tried the new book yet? Why do possessed have to suck so bad?
Read more ...

Monday, March 17, 2014

Exalted Flamer of Tzeentch

A new unit for one of my favorite books! What could be more exciting?! Finished rules for one.  I don't quite know what GW's deal is with this Burning Chariot kit, but they seem to always miss the mark with the rules on this kit. Specifically, both the Chariot and the Exalted Flamer on foot (tentacle?) need the relentless rule to really function. The other major missing point is not allowing this guy to buy any of the Locus abilities to buff a unit of Pink Horrors. If I could get one of these deepstriking with a blob of horrors and the Locus of Conjuration, I would do it all day long. Who decided that just because this guy is a bit more on the chubby side he can't be jump infantry like the rest of his flamer brothers?

As lackluster and unrefined rules are, I can't help but be excited about the fact someone in GW saw that this model didn't have rules outside of proxying for another model and they decided to toss some rules for it in the White Dwarf weekly. Kudos on that. Check out the rules for yourself.
No comment from me on the fantasy section, but what do you guys think of the new rules? Hell what do you think about rules going up in the WD weekly?  Let us know in the comments section.
Read more ...

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Necrons: My Current 1850


It feels like it was only days ago and not almost a year ago that Necrons were the kings of short ranged fire power. Tau have usurped our prestigious role with their amazing ability to put out just an absurd amount of shots at medium range. This forces us Necron players to become a tad more creative than we used to have to be, its no longer move-shoot-move-shoot...

Here's the list I've been taking as of late that is what I would call a bit more on the creative side of things. Basic idea is simple, my silver skeletons are going no where any time soon.

Necrons:
HQs
Nemesor Zahndrehk
Destroyer Lord w/ weave, res orb, warscythe and mindshackle scarabs
Royal Court consisting of a Harbringer of Despair w/ Veil of Darkness

Troops
20x Necron Warriors
19x Necron Warriors
10x Necron Immortals w/ Tesla Carbines in a Night Scythe

Elites
10x Deathmarks in a Night Scythe

Heavy Support
Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge
Annihilation Barge

Fortification
Aegis Defense Line w/ Comms Relay
+++++++++++++++++

The overall strategy of the list is to place the Aegis Line up about at the half way point so that when my Warriors advance they still have some very reliable and powerful cover. While on the move to my trusty comms relay I like to use adaptive tactics to give the entire twenty man blob stealth to help mitigate even more damage. Doing this makes most anti infantry weaponry do very little and forces my opponent to pour what ever they have into my barges. Being an AV 13 skimmer, they tend to survive a few volleys. If I'm able to use terrain to deny my opponent the ability to shoot all but one of my barges I will toss Stealth on the lone barge to help tank the anti tank shots I'm going to have to weather.

I do my best to have the Zahndrehk blob draw the majority of the fire while going for the comms relay. While Z's squad is slowly, and I mean slowly, getting whittled down, I have the Destroyer Lord and his good friends from my other Warrior blob advance as far up as possible. Perhaps the biggest reason I want the Destroyer Lord so far up is because he is not only a good force multiplier for the unit he occupies, but he is one hell of a beatstick. Destroyer Lords excel at popping vehicles open and engaging Monstrous Creatures because of the Warscythe and Mindshackle Scarabs. Almost consistently I will advance this unit while pouring tons of Gauss shots into anything I can with my added Preferred Enemy thanks to the Destroyer Lord. In reality, all I'm doing is waiting to launch my Destroyer Lord out of the unit and have him beat up a high point, high priority target.

Annihilation Barges unfortunately suffer from a pretty short range that plagues the Necron army as a whole. This crippling flaw can be mitigated by either turbo boosting turn one or moving 12 inches to help close the gap a bit quicker. Reducing the distance between you and the opponent is extremely important for the simple fact that nimble armies such as Eldar and Tau can have a pretty easy time dancing around you if you are not careful. Luckily, we have Night Scythes to even further close this gap. Obviously, I take a comms relay to help make sure my Scythes show up as soon as possible.

When the Scythes arrive I do it in one of two ways. I either bring in both the Deathmarks and Immortals or I start the Deathmarks on the table to really take full advantage of the Veil of Darkness. Deathmarks really excel at being able to remove other pesky scoring units that are going to be tough to dislodge. When deep striking I always go for the high risk high reward route. I never scatter so it's pretty easy for me. (I'm not joking. I've been playing this game for about nine years and JUST found out that scatter dies have only two direct hit sides. Blew my mind). Using Deathmarks this way really allows me to throw a wrench in my opponents plans. This also gives my opponent something new to focus on as the rest of my army advances. Unfortunately, unless your target is extremely isolated, the Deathmarks are not long for this world after they let loose on their marks.

Scythe number two has a simple job. Drop off the Immortals on or near an objective. Immortals need to either claim an objective or shoot someone off of one. That's really all that they do in the army and I am more than fine with it.

Zahndrehk spends most of the game at the front of his blob tanking wounds like some sort of unkillable monster and while he does he picks on a unit in the enemy army that he can take their rules away. This is extremely helpful in making your opponent feel likes they wasted a bit of points on something that Zahndrehk just decided they don't have anymore. Rolling on the Personal Table for his warlord trait can be even more entertaining. Seriously, making him either scoring or having him and his entire blob have FNP while claiming an objective is amazing.

So far the list has lead to some super close games and been a ton of fun to play. I'm starting to theorycraft some changes to it, but I'm not quite sure where I want to take it without just spamming Scythes. Perhaps dropping the comms relay and picking up another cryptek of some variety. Let me know what you guys think down in the comment section.






Read more ...

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Flying Predator Battle Report White Scars vs. Ultramarines 1850pts



Hello readers! As promised we're working hard to churn out battle reports for your viewing pleasure, and also to feature some of the lists that we're play-testing. We're still trying to nail down the style we're going for, so any feedback on the format is greatly appreciated. Let us know if you prefer this voice-over version, or if you'd rather see each player recap their turns live. And as always, enjoy this entertaining battle as two power-armored forces duke it out, commanded by Metal Rancor and Jwhite. Remember, to comment, like, subscribe, follow and all that stuff you hate hearing but that honestly helps us out so much.



)
Read more ...

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Flying Predator Battle Report Necrons vs. Space Marines 1850pts



Hey Guys! We've got a special treat for you today. Our first battle report on our new gaming table is now complete, so now you can see our armies duke it out on a beautiful (I may be a bit biased, we worked hard on it!) table featuring some newly painted terrain and of course the Frontline Gaming and Table War Gaming mat. If you haven't seen the mat yet, or would like more information, you can check out our comprehensive review of the product here. And now, you can see it in action! A familiar Necron army takes on an interesting (possibly innovative?) Space Marine/Grey Knight list. As always, let us know what you think in the comments, and like, follow, subscribe and all that good stuff that greatly helps us out!
Read more ...

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Helbrutes Incoming!

XinZ here and today I come to you with some lovely pictures from the new White Dwarf weekly that is yet to be released. Not too much interesting going on here other than the reveal of a new Helbrute model and a Supplement for the Crimson Slaughter that has been incorrectly labeled as a full codex by many other sites as of late. Also of note is the new Chaos Space Marines attack force that contains a rhino, 10x Chaos Marines, 5x Raptors, 5x Chaos Terminators, 1x Chaos Lord,  and 1x Mauler/Forgefiend. Total savings for the attack force is $43.25, not bad at all.

I'll stop talking and let you enjoy some of these awesome pictures!










If only it was a more competitive unit. Oh well, the model is beyond sexy. Tell me what you guys think!

Read more ...

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Bringing our Table to Life: The Frontline Gaming and Table War Gaming Mat




Hey Guys! Today I wanted you all to check out this awesome new product from Frontline Gaming and Table War: The Gaming Mat. By now it's possible that many of you have heard of, seen, or even played on one of these mats already, but in case you haven't, we'll give you our take. Now before we even TALK about the mat, it's important to understand the dry, uninteresting, just plain awful looking table we were playing on previous to receiving our new gaming mat. Here's what we were working with:

Now, granted, we could certainly do plenty worse. At the end of the day, it was a surface to put our models on that we could call our own and allowed us to play the game in the comfort of Metal Rancor's home. However, one can only stare at the vast grey expanse before they would eventually be overcome by overwhelming bleakness, only to end up alone in the corner having an existential crisis concerning why they couldn't find fulfillment in life. Okay, so a little dramatic, but the point is as we started producing battle reports and playing more games, we wanted to immerse ourselves in the complete 40k experience, forging rock-hard narratives across a writhing battleground complete with all the aesthetics of the grimdark future. So, after following Frontline Gaming for quite awhile, we're ecstatic when they announced their kickstarter for their gaming mat and Xinz immediately backed the "Urban Combat" version of the product. Well, we finally received it about a week ago, and after putting it through it's paces with a quick modelling session, we swapped out our landscape of grey for the new urban combat mat.
Spoiler Alert: This thing is absolutely awesome. Made out of a water-resistant mousepad-esque rubber material, the gaming mat (which comes in a handy pull-string sleeve for storage and transportation) is the perfect weight to spread across the table evenly without letting the corners or edges curl up. We tested the water-resistance and were equally impressed. The droplet of water magically held its shape and easily rolled off the edge, ensuring us that any spills would be easily taken care of. As far as the actual urban image on the mat goes, the level of detail is truly remarkable. Bottles, newspapers, and tire tracks litter the war-torn streets while cool set pieces such as an acid/sewage spill fill out the corners and really bring the product to life. Now, one of the best features of this particular version of the mat, and what drew us to purchasing the urban combat version, is the brilliant way it is designed. You'll notice that two sets of streets run both along the mat and perpendicular to the long board edge. These roads actually mark the twelve inch and twenty-four inch deployment zones for dawn of war and hammer and anvil deployment respectively. In addition, a set of flares mark the vanguard strike deployment, thus covering all of the 40k player's bases and is a brilliant way of incorporating the game rules into the design of the mat itself.




Finally, the surface of the gaming mat is, and this may sound a little odd, but perfect for rolling dice! They rarely get cocked but also don't bounce with such force that they exit the earth's atmosphere and hurtle endlessly into space. Overall, we were blown away with the quality of the Frontline Gaming and Table War Gaming Mat. At $85 plus shipping, it may seem a bit steep for a simple gaming mat. And it would be, were this product a simple gaming mat! But in fact, it is so much more. They come in tons of varieties to fit your style (or even match the basing scheme of your army) and they will be sure to provide an unparalleled aesthetic experience for your wargaming. If that price still seems steep for the incredible value you are receiving, you should definitely consider splitting the cost among your wargaming group. The mat will definitely get its use by every member of your group and is the perfect way for a new gaming group to add much needed cinematic improvements to their narrative forging. You can check out all of the different gaming mats, as well as order your own, here. If you're not convinced yet, check out the rest of our pictures and see for yourself; the improvement is truly phenomenal!





Read more ...

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Flying Predator Battle Report 1850 Necrons vs. Dark Eldar.



Hey Guys! We were finally able to bring you guys another exciting battle report! This time we've got jwhite's Dark Eldar against Xinz's Necrons. The lists are both very strong, and it was a well fought match on both sides (despite some rather unfortunate dice rolls). For more information on my Dark Eldar list, you can read an in depth analysis here. Enjoy! And as always, remember to rate, subscribe, comment, and all that good stuff to keep us motivated!
Read more ...

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Dark Eldar: My Current 1850



Hey Guys! Miraculously I've actually been able to get in a few games recently in between my busy schedule and I wanted to share with all of you some of the results of my testing so far. Again, I apologize for being MIA for a while, but I'm graduating college this year so I've had to figure out my fair share of real life things the past couple months.

With that being said, I have still been engrossed in the community and keeping up to date on all the latest tech and now that I've finally had a chance to breath, it's about time I share with all of you what I've been brewing!

So, before I get into it, here's the list I've been testing:

Dark Eldar Primary, Eldar Secondary 1850pts

Dark Eldar
HQ:
Duke Sliscus the Serpent

Troops:
10x Warriors w/ splinter cannon in a raider w/ splinter racks and disintegrator
9x warriors in a raider w/ splinter racks and disintegrator

Elites:
3x Trueborn w/ 2x splinter cannons in a venom with dual splinter cannons
3x Trueborn w/ 2x splinter cannons in a venom with dual splinter cannons
3x Trueborn w/ 2x splinter cannons in a venom with dual splinter cannons

Heavy Support
Ravager w/ 3x Dark Lances
Ravager w/ 3x Dark Lances
Ravager w/ 3x Dark Lances

Eldar Allies
HQ:
Farseer on a jetbike

Troops:
5x Dire Avengers in a Wave Serpent with scatter lasers
5x Dire Avengers in a Wave Serpent with scatter lasers

Heavy Support
3x War Walkers with 2x Scatter Lasers each


And there you have it. As much pure firepower as I could possibly pack into 1850pts while still staying true to my play style and having a good time in the process. There are still many decisions to be made about this list that require further play testing, but let me go over some tactics before I get into all that.



First of all, I love the Duke. His background is completely badass and he actually provides a lot to my army. While most people are all aboard the Vect or Baron train, my goal is to stay innovative while still being competitive. Vect and Baron are both incredibly powerful HQ choices, don't get me wrong. They are beatsticks in combat, incredibly resilient and provide useful buffs to the army (especially increasing your odds to go first, which Dark Eldar desperately need). Now helping to ensure first turn alpha strikes against the myriad of death stars before they are allowed to set up is a key component to Dark Eldar victory. However, Asdrubal Vect is much to expensive for my taste, and Baron doesn't really do anything else in my army, seeing don't really have any hard-hitting close combat unit for him to join. Paying 105pts just for an increased chance to go first hardly seems worth it unless he's going to be tanking wounds for a fortuned death star as well. Duke, however, provides plenty of utility for the way my army wants to play. Giving his squad 3+ poisoned coupled with his ability to allow my warrior units to deepstrike can put down an insane amount of hurt. Not to mention he often gives one of the units feel no pain with his combat drug rolls and he's good enough in combat where I can split him off from the squad if the situation calls for it. I really feel that the nature of my army allows the Duke to thrive, giving both increased damage output, a strong close combat character, and the invaluable opportunity to deepstrike. His synergy with my army makes up for the power difference he may have compared to other characters in the book, and thus I will defend this choice to the grave.

While I'm a little light on troops, the Dire avengers are very well protected in their wave serpents and the warriors are often reserved first turn or don't have a high enough priority for my opponent to shoot at them. Again, I feel that being able to deepstrike my warrior squads, especially the Duke's squad let's me pick apart my opponent's backfield or single out isolated units (particularly monstrous creatures) and put something in my opponent's face that they just have to deal with. the disintegrator cannons on the raiders allow me even more anti-infantry firepower and help me push through the last few wounds to wipe out entire units. Plus, deep striking these squads also allows me much more liberty when placing objectives, as the speed capabilities of my army ensure I won't have any problems reaching far-off objectives. Granted, I won't always deep strike these units, particularly against highly aggressive lists that want to get in my deployment zone as quickly as possible, such as white scars of flying circus lists. In that case, it's not worth risking limited fire power or deep strike mishaps on turn two if my reserves fail me, and armies like that should be in range of my shooting relatively quickly.

The next unique units in the list are the triple trueborn venoms. For very little points these mobile firing platforms unload an incredible amount of firepower (24 shots each standing still, 20 on the move) at an almost untouchable range. Having this much poisoned firepower is invaluable against many popular targets in the game, including but not limited to riptides, wraithknights, broadsides, flying monstrous creatures, and bikes. The fact that I can disembark the guys inside to fire at different targets or increase my odds to force grounding checks should not be underestimated either. My biggest issue with this unit, however, is that they desperately want night shields (which I am currently not running). Night shields drastically increase their survivability as they can safely engage broadsides, fire warriors, flying Demon princes, and many other common threats. I've strongly considered getting the 30 points by swapping out one scatter laser for a shurkien cannon on each of my war walkers. This would obviously require extensive play testing, as it decreases the range and fire power of my war walkers (although battle focus helps mitigate this) but also does give my psuedo-rending in the form of bladestorm to help push through extra wounds (the range loss is really the biggest concern). Another option would be to drop the war walkers entirely and replace them with a squad of 10 warp spiders, freeing up the points for the much-needed night shields. I'm open to any suggestions anyone may have on this matter, as these sorts of small tweaks are really difficult to make!

Finally, I've tooled around with replacing a dark lance ravager with a disintegrator ravager. I've found that often times in the current gaming environment that the dark lance doesn't have any great targets. However, against certain matchups I really need the extra anti-tank firepower (particularly against wave serpents or imperial guard) and I do already have a tremendous amount of anti-infantry firepower on the table. However, the disentegrator ravager is often a much better target for guide from my farseer, and is invaluable against riptides. With that being said, the dark lances are still great against riptides and other monstrous creatures, so for right now I'm keeping all the dark lances. Please, let me know what you think and if you've had success either way!

Well that's just about it for this list, I think I've exhausted  just about every aspect of the army that I could, and I'm sure you're all sick of hearing me ramble on at this point. I would absolutely love some feedback on the army and suggestions/comments/questions keep me engaged, and it's just fun to talk about lists!

Once again, thanks for reading! I hope you've found this insightful and hopefully I've inspired some fellow archons out there to expirement and try out new things! Please remember to follow the blog, we have a battle report featuring this list coming out soon where you can see it in action. Until next time!
Read more ...

Monday, February 3, 2014

Opening the Box: Bandua Garbage Container (designed for Inifinity)


Perhaps my favorite part of the enitre hobby is collecting. I love owning tons of miniatures, dice, books, terrain, gaming mats, you name it. There's something about owning a mountain of gaming supplies that fuels me to really love this great hobby.

As of late my gaming club has been collecting everything we need to be able to play our games without all having to travel to our FLGS just to get a game in. Perhaps the biggest investment of this has been all the terrain we need to collect and/or make. Looking at all the different brands of terrain that our FLGS had to offer I picked up pretty much one box from each of the companies to compare and contrast what I thought about it all.

My journey of comparison began with a company called Bandua Wargames. They host a rather large online store that carries a massive quanitiy of both original and resold miniatures and miniature accessories. I opted for a small piece that would fit with our urban table we are in the process of constructing. The garbage container. Most of the buildings that they have designed for Infinity have a very clean Sci-Fi look and don't mesh too well with the grimdark world of 40k. In the future I am more than considering going back to collect a whole set of the infinity terrain because it is nothing short of beautiful. 

The Build - 5
Mostly everything else I've worked with in the past has been white metal, plastic or resin (or whatever that shit GW passes of as Finecast is) this was my first time working with a model made out of MDF board. After making this tiny dumpster model, I'm going to be going out of my way to find more terrain made out of MDF board. This material is just so easy to work with, it's nothing short of mind blowing. All the pieces come on a "sprue" after they have been laser cut and are simple enough to pop out with your fingers. After that, a quick scrapping with either a hobby knife or a metal file will complete your clean up. That's it. You're done cleaning the model, it took no time at all!

Next up is glueing all these laser cut pieces of compressed board together. Well, that's done. Super glue adhears to them incredibly easy. Very small amounts is all it takes and everything stays together extremely well. The whole process took no more than ten minutes start to finish. 

The Finished Product - 5
The critic in me is looking for something to complain about. Luckily, there isn't a complaint in sight. The garbage container looks damn nice at a good scale. 

The Value - 4
Okay so four is a little high for the value of this particular tiny prouct, right? Nope! Over time I have bought far less when it comes to terrain for far more. Ammo barrels and other similar battlefield debris come to mind in particular. This is a solid, well detailed miniature that I love. 

The super exciting Garbage Container from Bandua Wargames is my first of many purcahses to come. Not to mention, I will be looking for a lot more of these laser cut MDF board models. I can not stress enough how easy they are to work with. 

If you're interested in checking out more products like this one head over here.

Let me know if you guys have had some good experiances with this kind of terrain before. 


Read more ...