Dark eldar heavy support decision

A few weeks ago I finally made the choice on what heavy support units to take for my WIP dark eldar army. This choice actually took more consideration than my previous armies, as the selection would determine what kind of list I was going to create. I narrowed my options down to the talos/cronos or razorwings. Talos and cronos would make me shift my army into a WWP themed (and heavy emphasis on CQC) list, where the razorwings would solidify the army as a shooty vehicle-heavy list.

I went for razorwings. I thought the model was awesome (so much cooler once you see it in person, looks like a FW kit) and I prefer the playstyle of using fast vehicles; especially with the aerial assault rule. In the army I will be running them almost naked - just with an obligatory flickerfield upgrade making them 155 points a piece. No splinter cannon upgrade, no weapon swap or missile upgrades.

Most razorwings I've seen built are running disintigrators with the splinter cannon for maximum anti-infantry capability. From my couple of games running the razorwings this past week vs. marines, the monoscythe missiles alone usually kill an average of 6-8 (per plane) shooting all 4 missiles. The rest can be finished off by the dark lances or a venom. Taking dark lances lets me use them as anti-tank for the rest of the game (or rather start of the game if I'm fighting mech opponent). If there is one thing you should have learned by now playing 5th Ed (at least in a competitive environment); don't bother with units with no anti-vehicle capability. Never in this state of the game will I take a disintigrator cannon over a dark lance.

Why no ravagers? Well, for a few reasons. I really do agree that ravagers, point for point, are the best buy DE can get for heavy support. You can never have too many lances with dark eldar, that is for sure.

Advantages of the razorwing? What do you get for +40 points over a ravager?

-Not open topped, but -1 AV (equal trade IMO)

-36" flatout instead of 24" (great for end-game contesting but not practical your razorwings will be around)
-4 monoscyhe missiles instead of 1 lance. This is where the point cost is coming from. Why is this a big deal? Lots of criticism for the razorwing but has anyone ever played vs. DE before? What's the first unit you always go for? Ravagers, yes. Soft targets with a lot of firepower. Same with the razorwing. What's the difference? A razorwing dumps its load in one turn, a ravager will get 3 lance shots off and be stunlocked or killed immediately. Perhaps I am trying to find excuses to take razorwings. Howabout the model is bitchin'.

Tournament results

Today's tournament is over and unfortunately I did not place. Some poor tactics and horrible dice rolls. Normally I don't like to blame bad dice, you win some you lose some after all. But today was the certainly the worst luck I have had in my 40k career. Some highlights include rolling snake-eyes on 2 saves for 2 remaining hammernators that need to kill a measly 5 man group of necron immortals... Land Raider *exploding* immediately 2 of 3 games with the first penetrating hit scored...  Not passing a single cover save against Dark Eldar lances... Missing 3 of 3 direly needed melta shots in one round of combat. Cyclone missile launchers missing all but one shot and then rolling a one to wound. I could go on here but you get the idea.

Game 1 I actually managed to just barely win vs. Dark Eldar. Played another Dark Eldar army round 2 and I got tabled (lots of bad rolls in this one). 3rd and final game was against Necrons and I lost that as well. It was not all because of dice though and it never is. I made mistakes in both gameplay and list building. With the list I was using I needed to be more aggressive and deep strike with everything where instead I was mostly walking-on from reserve, too afraid of a mishap. I regret not taking the stormraven over the land raider. I needed mobility not armor, the land raider (being my only transport) blowing up as soon as it hit the table didn't help me out much.

No more ranting excuses, here are pictures from the tourney:

 

First place was Dark Eldar, second place was Necrons (new codex drops and now it's flavor of the month), third was Dark Eldar.

More to come

Sanguinary priests ready for battle

Tomorrow is tournament day!... Got some bits in from the warstore this afternoon to whip up these 2 guys real fast for a tournament. The painting style was an experiment but I think it came out pretty decently (process went like; basecoat white, 2 blue washes, white drybrushing and brown wear, devlan mud wash, damage etc). aka quite simple to paint - how I like it.

Sanguinary priests have kinda been the missing link of my Lamenters army for quite some time. I have always had the intention of getting a few and now I am pumped to get these gentlemen on the table. FNP is really going to help my lack of ability to roll 2+ armor saves.

Did I mention my hammernators are finally done too? :)


More to come

2v2 Lamenters & Daemons vs Ultramarines - 3k pts

Divine warp creatures assist our righteous struggle against two tainted Ultramarines companies. The misguided fools believed us outnumbered and easy prey... Little did they know of the dark and awesome powers that guide us..

Blood for the blood god!!!... Wait a sec..

The dark powers of Commorragh - Archon wargear selection

Archons are probably my favorite HQ unit in 40k that I've had the chance to field. As I have mentioned before, I'm not a fan of named characters at all. Counts-as would be a little more bearable, but if I fielded one I would lose the immersion of uniqueness to my armies. Anyways, archons basically do what captains do for my two blood angels armies - they're not your typical support HQ acting as a force multiplier, instead they're simply here to add killing ability and nothing more. While the SM captain often falls short of my expectations, the archon does not.

Yes... That is a box of Reeses Puffs behind them. What of it!?!?

But what wargear do you take? My first archon was running the straight-out-of-blister  soul trap / huskblade combo. It's actually quite entertaining to use this loadout, and I usually kill an IC every single game with this dude. But what about duality? He falls a bit short when I'm tarpitted by mobs and the huskblade bonus is moot, and has no capability against vehicles unless I give him haywire grenades which require closing distance... Not always possible.

I wanted to paint a new commander like boba fett because I am running with a star wars jabba's palace theme. This also gave me an excuse to go for a totally different wargear setup. Blaster, djin blade and phantasm grenade launcher. The latter was pretty much an oversight on my first archon - I feel like this upgrade should always be taken, especially when he's rollin with the Incubi. Blaster makes use of his BS 7, and the djin blade is basically a sooped up power weapon in my mind. Not convinced it was the smarter choice over an agonizer... Only time will tell. Shadowfield for both of them I think. Clone field has been fun but gets shredded if your opponent catches you in the open for one round of shooting.

Really enjoying this army so far. The venoms hit so hard and I don't feel like I am wasting points on Troop selection. The dark powers have favored my first archon- I hope boba fett is up to the challenge. Probably going to go for 3 Talos as heavy support and get a raider-borne haemonculus / wrack retinue to cast off a portal.

More to come

Stalemate with the Ultramarines

Pictures from last Sunday of a glorious marine on marine battle that ended in a draw. Capture and control.

+ 701.M41 + Battle Barge Daughter of Tempests + Mining world Slaughterhouse III +  Mission Status: Ultramarines Irreparable - evidence found consorting with Xenos + Course of Action: + EXTERMINATUS + Deploy 1st Company +

My first impressions of playing Dark Eldar...

Today I finally brought in my Dark Eldar (about 1000 points worth) for my first tries with them on the tabletop after slowly building up the force since December.

They are fun! I am really fond of the units I was using. The core of my force - won't call it an army just yet - is 4 venoms with 5 man warrior squads, with a blaster in each. Venoms of course have the second splinter cannon upgrade. Geez do those things pump out some hurt. Anything on foot without feel no pain just folds, seriously. I used the venoms almost exclusively in tandem with eachother in the 3 games I played today, pumping out 48 shots combined or 80!!! (+4 blaster) shots if I only moved 6" and was in double tap range for the warriors riding on back. MSU with venoms is pure gold. Free flickerfields. LOVE it.

My list was also really lacking anti-tank, but the few blasters and lances I brought to the table did impress me. I hear on the internets that dark eldar are only good at stun locking vehicles. This is not the case. Darklight is bad for your health my friends.

The archon with a huskblade is just a MURDER machine. So yeah he's only strength 3 and all, but man did I punk some IC's today! (One space marine captain, an ork warboss, and a tau crisis suit commander to be precise). Turned those suckers to dust. The four incubi he ran with were pretty decent too. Can't complain considering they're not too points heavy for how they perform. I also think that shadowfields are the way to go over clone+ghostplate. I tried running the clone and ghostplate combo my first two games but the big problem I found is still being very vulnerable to ranged weapons. We'll see, I'm still new to this.

My archon also got turned into a squig though. Damn that ork character is obnoxiously frustrating. Like this one time a shokk attack gun blows up my land raider on turn 1. Before I get on a tirade I'll just say that it's more demeaning to have your commander swap out for a squig than to have him killed. As someone who builds their lists around probability and perceived returns, Orks piss me off in 40k with their wonky rules that seemingly always work perfectly against me. Although I do love playing as orks in BFG. /rant :)

Went 2 wins 1 loss overall btw.

More to come (Next time I'll remember to take pictures...)

Incubi



My Archon's new bodyguards... Ready for battle on Sunday. I used pilot helmets instead of the traditional helmets for a few reasons. I was concerned that the standard incubi head and back wing things would make the incubi look more menacing than the dude they are protecting. In other words, I didn't want them cramping my Archon's style. I think they turned out pretty neat... It's too bad with the poor lighting that you can't make out the contrast in the swords they've got (or Klaives if you want to be technical).

I would like to give them highlights with the rest of the army, but alas I don't have the time.. so as of right now detail work is reserved for my leaders.

BTW, the reason my Dark Eldar are brown is because I am loosely theming them off of Jabba's court from Return of the Jedi (hence the desert bases - the raiders are of course brown with orange sails). Oh man did I resist the temptation to paint my Archon like Boba Fett. I am actually looking forward to eventually making a display board for this army... Sarlacc Pit!!

Kin of Commorragh

After a long break of 40k, it looks like this coming Sunday my Dark Eldar are finally going to materialize into realspace and hit the gaming table.

To those lesser races... you have been warned!

More to come

Lamenters vs. Ultramarines

1750 pts

Game 1: Spearhead + Kill Points

Did someone call a cab?

Acting as puppets for their space wolf masters, the Ultramarines have failed to defend Fenris from the red thirst...

Game 2 (Dawn of War, Killpoints) didn't go as planned. (picture from the bottom of turn 6). DRAW

More to come

A weekend of 40k

Saturday was the LEGION finals. Lots of good looking armies, great tables and most importantly a really friendly crowd. I really wish 40k was like this everywhere. Where you can walk out of the store, grab a bite to eat and not worry about some jerk five-finger-discounting your army. Where there is not your typical "TFG".  Hard to believe we really don't have one up here. Everyone is friendly and there is little, if any, drama to speak of. And where there is some hot competition without the usual baggage of jerk players, cheaters, or sore losers. All the people from the other stores were mad chill. Northeast 40k community represent, yo. Mini wargaming at its finest.

I managed to go 3 wins 1 loss in the tournament, which placed me in a 3 way tie for 2nd place - battle points dropped me down to 4th place (haha, someone had to get it) so no trophy this time! It's all good, I took first place in the last one so the other guys need their share of glory. The dudes who came down from triple play were (as expected from the ass kickery when we went down there a few months ago) pretty rockin players. Really cool looking armies too, especially the Deathwing force that nabbed 1st place. I wish I went around and took pictures of all the armies this time... It's hard to have a store rivalry when they kick the snot out of us most of the time, haha.

Armies I fought were Draigo Wing mega deathstar (Triple Play'r, kicked my ass), Dark Eldar (no problem for mech BA), Necrons (poor codex, not too much he could do), and an Ork Nob army (Yeeeah, lets just say the vindicators were MVP's of the day).

All good games, all good fun.

Then today I came back for more! Got 2 games in, first was 1850pts  vs. the venerable local known as "Sharky" (we all have nicknames) who unfortunately could not make the qualifier due to his participation in the marathon. He is really starting to get a competitive list going, and without help from the nets mind you (so he claims, lol). Second match I played all-infantry vs. a vehicle-light Grey Knight army at 1500 pts. Massive amounts of plasma guns made short work of that opponent...

Some cool pictures of the Dragons bringing the pain.... Ultramarines dare oppose us!?

 More to come

Blood Angels Librarian psychic power breakdown

The mathhammer breakdown on what to use... Librarians are still the best cheap HQ available for those of us who aren't codex jumpers (haha jk?). Mephiston... Scary, killy, but too many points and really unfluffy for my self-made chapter. I'd rather use a Land Raider. Other characters are kinda useful, but this post is going to be about the tried and true BA librarian that you get starting at 100 points.

Quick rundown of the psychic powers in order...

Blood Boil: 1 auto wound, no armour save, you can select the model if you roll a 5 or less. Okay, but this is a shooting attack. What's the point to taking this? The only real use I see out of this is punking tooled out 1 wound sergeants, you know, the ones running rampant with combi meltas and power fists (I am guilty as charged). Even still, you only have a 36% chance of actually getting to choose where the wound goes, slightly better than 1 in 3 tries. With a 12" range you will probably only get to use this power 1 or 2 times a game, if at all.
In short - it's pretty crappy, I wouldn't bother with it.

Fear of the Darkness: Interesting stuff here. This power is a little too situational to just mathhammer away. How close is the enemy unit to the table edge? Can you get them to run right off? Are they below half strength? Avg Ld values of your opponent? Etc etc, the list goes on. I think that this power can be extremely good. I would defintitely want to run with 2x librarians and double-cast this for insurance, similar to how I play my pair of vindicator tanks - as a single cast is going to give you somewhere in the ballpark of succeeding half the time depending on Ld values ofc. 40k is not the kind of game that you want to rely on half-chances. Always make sure that you statistically have the volume of shots needed to perform and your army should do well. Obviously there's always crazy dice rolls, both good and bad, but volume of shots is SO essential to reliability.

Might of Heroes: +D3 attacks, or 2 on average. For a typical librarian, this is weak. Only really worth it with Sanguine sword, and to cast 2 powers in the assault phase means you must be an epistolary which is pretty much a waste. Much better power to use for assault is Unleash Rage. I'd only take this with a Furioso Librarian dreadnought.

Shackle Soul: Some eldar trickery is going on here. Looks interesting on paper, and truth be told I've never tried it. Very manipulative, so if that's your game then maybe I'd go for it. The big problem I see with it is that it has a 12" range, so that enemy unit will really have to fail most of the checks (unlikely) in order to not be a threat to your librarian and his unit. A little too chancy for my tastes.

Shield of Sanguinius: Hell yeeeah! Alright, it's not that good. But if you are running a parking lot, I think it's pretty much retarded these days not to take a Librarian with this power. I know, traditional cover for vehicles isn't that hard to achieve, and it also isn't hard to generate cover by interlocking your own vehicles. However, you're pretty much always going to have a few vehicles up in front and out in the open. Consider this an army-wide 5+ cover save for all your vehicles. Don't let that force you to bunch up all your tanks though. While this power *does* make castling generally appealing; remember to play the board and not run the same cookie cutter deployment vs. whoever you play against. Librarian's are all about force multipliers and not being the individualistic kill everything turbo street fighter champ.

Smite: Okay, this is another junk power. Please don't pay 100 points for a dude that pumps out a mindblowing FOUR!! Str4 BS4 AP2 shots - at 12" range to boot. (Averages to a massive 1.32 MEQ kills not in cover). Yeeeah.

The Blood Lance: Unlike Smite, you can actually kill things with this. Auto hit if it goes off (yeah!), str 8 (yeah!), AP1 and Lance (YEAH!). Oh, and you can hit more than one unit if you line it up and get range. Really, it's not so so good, but the thing is that you can only cast 1 power per player turn. If you are running the librarian in a squad that prefers to shoot (double tap) instead of assault, then this may be the power for you. I have blown up my fair share of tanks with this power. The squad my Librarian goes with has effectively 2 meltaguns, which is not very reliable. The extra shot will help.

The Sanguine Sword. No you are not mephiston. This is a horrible idea for a regular librarian. See next power!

Unleash Rage: Force multipliers are what you want, like this power. If you want to run a super killy librarian unit, take this with terminators or anything assaulty. I have had great success using this with terminators. You will kill anything you charge at providing the power goes off. Unlike a chaplain you can keep using this if you get locked in assault.

Wings of Sanguinius: Only bother with a Furioso Librarian. Don't gamble by running this on a pack-less Lib in a jump-packing squad. Disaster waiting to happen. You have been warned!



That wraps up this post. What I have been using for my Librarians are the following:

Terminator Librarian (Terminator heavy list)- Unleash Rage + Blood Lance or Fear
(Note: Don't be dumb like me, you should probably give him a storm shield)

Power armored Librarian (Parking lot) - Shield + Blood Lance
(Note: Keep this one cheap and cheerful. Hold the wargear please!)

More to come



UPDATE:

New GW FAQ took a big dump on psychic shooting in order to nerf OP space wolves. In the process they nerfed everyone else. I won't be running Blood Lance anymore now that you need a BS check on top of psychic check - the auto hit was huge and now that it uses the Lib's mediocre BS4 I reckon it's crap compared to taking Unleash Rage.

Also, I tried an Epistolary setup today, something I RARELY ever do in an all-infantry list. Took Rage and Sword (Yeah, I know I said it sucked) but it turned out to be okay. I think the shield was still a better deal but the 3 attacks (4 on charge) re roll hits at str 10 was pretty nasty tbh, especially with furious charge granted from the honor guard meaning he was striking first. Just a thought.

Flames of War tournament results + lots of pictures!

Today was a blast. I think Flames of War has a great system going on. My first 4 games went smoothly and I feel like the mechanics are a good representation of WWII combat - basically they work as they should; which is I think a contributing factor to my success at the tournament. I didn't really need to know every single little rule to know that *this* should be able to do *that*, etc. Speaking of success, I went 3 wins 1 loss :)!! which placed me right at 4th place, just enough to qualify for the regional. Not bad for my first day of playing!

As the internet purports, FoW is indeed very similar in many respects to 40k, thus if you have a good grasp of 40k I think the learning curve is not too steep. If you have some knowledge about WWII military history/units then the game should be even easier to pick up. (EG: I don't need be familiar with the exact rules to know that my panther can totally trown that sherman tank). The game designers have indeed done a good job making rules that properly represent the historical units.

Here are a bunch of pictures (click for larger image) that I took today. All the armies were very well painted. The guys really inspired me to touch up my current force.

 2x Tigers I used for objectives. I can't take credit for painting the closer one from the store shelf!

 My army gets a break during intermission.

 Soviet Tankovy force.. I would have loved to go up against this army >:)

 US mechanized army - Played this army and it was a close win.

 German w/ a captured T-34

 Soviet infantry army with 5x KV flame tanks. Played vs this list and barely won. Flamethrowers are nasty..

 Another well painted mech US list

 And another...

 Some gorgeous airborne (brits by the looks of the Typhoons?).

 Canadians were also represented!

 Waffen SS

Battle in progress

One of the tables... The terrain (as you can see) was simply excellent.

Unit performances... Well, firstly I was surprised by the Toldi light tanks. They are really worth their points. I also think that the 40mm gun upgrade is massive. I don't see how you can pass up on that. 

The Panzer IV/70's and Panther... Well, the PaK42 is simply crazy good. Without even fielding a king tiger I can already tell that it would be overkill. Allied tanks rarely even get to Armor 10, and are more often in the 6-8 range, so the AT 14 of the PaK42 is perfectly suited to deal with any armor thrown at me. Who knows, I could be wrong as I have only played 4 games..  But even the mighty IS-2 has just 10 front armor, still quite vulnerable to the long 75mm.  8 front armor is respectable on the tank destroyers, and the 10 front armor on the panther is simply hard to deal with for allied players and even axis. My first game my command panther bounced a few hits from an 88 - and survived the battle. In fact, in all 4 games my panther didn't get knocked out. I think that alone is a testament to its durability.

Flames of War - 750 pt army ready for battle

There's a little 750 point tournament going on tomorrow for FoW. I have not even played a game yet so I'll most likely get crushed. Completed my force a few minutes ago. Here are a few pictures! It's dark out so I took some with flash and some without.

I'm reallyquite  pleased with how the tanks came out. This armored division is intended to represent the battle weary Panzer Division Muncheberg; which fought in and around Berlin during the last hours of WWII in Europe.

More to come