"Their arrogance is matched only by their firepower"

There is a new army building and painting league going on. In my case I had to start a new project if I wanted to participate, as my Blood Angels armies are done and the DE are nearly finished.

The force I am starting with is looking like this:

Pathfinders and Eldrad... I wonder what tactics I could possibly be using :P

Eldar were one of my first armies back when I was younger, around 13 years old. I played Alaitoc and I have a bunch of old rangers to show for it.

By the way, yes, this is the first time I am ever fielding a special character. I have my reasons, so back off.

Lack of updates here can be attributed to SWTOR. (Powertech, yo).

MORE TO COME

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 +