Last Update of the Year

 Ok so I'm back, and I'd like to kick off proceedings by wishing you all a very happy new year! I am not going to wish you a happy Christmas as the moment has passed somewhat, so in order to make sure I do not miss this opportunity I am wishing you a happy new year, now. There we have it, festivities over.

But anyway, while I type this I am also attempting to hold half of the shooty arm off a Stompa. 3 days after recieveing this gift and I am only half way through its construction. Marvellous. This could be down to the fact that I had to pop to one of my local stores in order to find some more plastic glue this morning, it could also be due to the fact that I have been semi-busy (semi because half of the things that I am busy doing are not helpful to my life, I merely enjoy doing them, but I shall elaborate in a second), or it could be due to the fact that I am a little bit lazy. I shall leave you to hazard a guess about which of the above is probably the main reason for the half built Stompa, although all of the above are true.

Anyway, the Stompa is for a 3 game Apocalypse battle that me and some of the UnOrthodoxMinis crew are organising between us, and in all similar events, I have had to take the majority of my armies in a giant tub. However, a second gift that I was lucky enough to receive may just tip the balance towards safe carrage as opposed to the variety that always means that I have to set aside a couple of hours after the game to repair my footdar, as they have not really warranted a case. What I received was a KR multicase double Aluminium case, with to sets of Ork foam.

This is specifically for my Ork army, and this allows me to move them from my double GW case into this one. The GW case in question is like the brown Warhammer 40k case that they did this year, but it's green, as this case was from a few years before.

But back to the point, thus far I am very impressed with the new case, as I have been able to fit my whole Ork army in there, with one of the Trukk slots being used for dice, templates, etc, which is also very useful. I also have 2 layers of foam left in which to fit Ghazghkull and the remaining Warboss, ample room for them I think. Anyway, this means that I have now my KR case, the big Green case, and 2 of the smaller GW cases (one was my brothers before he quite 40k) as well as the affore mentioned tub, ready to take my armies to the designated gaming location, although I do have about 4 additional tubs if they are required.

To round off, I have finished reading Path of the Seer, which I thoroughly enjoyed. If I have not already mentioned it, I have also finished the founding, which was also very good. I am now currently reading 2 books however, the first being The Chapter's Due. This may sound surprising as I have a dislike for the Ultramarines, but I am enjoying reading this book, and am currently about a third of the way through it. The second book that I am reading is the Horus Heresy novel, The Outcast Dead, which I am also really enjoying reading, and once I have finished these have got Deliverence Lost (ebook) and Hunt for Voldorius to look forward to as well.

Finally, I have finished stripping the paint off my Wave Serpent, sprayed it, basecoated it, and painted the pintle mounted weapon section (or whatever it is) as well as attached the magnets to it. For my first attempt at magnetizing, I am relatively pleased with the result. I am now in the process of painting the green lightning effects across the hull, which is also my first attempt at freehand work, and I am pleased with this result so far as well. I shall post pictures of it when it is finished.

And that's it, hopefully I shall be posting more frequently in the new year. I am also looking to start posting some more things that might actually be useful, such as some tactical tricks and some painting/modelling articles as well, so this blog may actually become semi-useful.

Psyflemen, Toothbrushes and the Warp

I feel I've been neglecting you lately, but luckily, to make up for this, I have lots of hobby goodness to bring you as compensation!

I finished for Christmas on Thursday, and the first thing that I did (after a spot of Christmas shopping) was to go down to my local GW. This may sound odd to some of you but there is a very good reason for this, as Thursday night is Veterans night, and hence I ended up coming against one of the stores best tournament players. I'm not going to name drop, but he was a really cool guy. Also, I can't remember his list exactly but this is about what he took, and when you run my list one of the last things that you want to see across the table is one of these:

Grey Knights:

Crowe

3, 5 man Purifer Squads 2 with Twin-Las Razorbacks, 1 with Twin-Heavy Bolter Razorbacks

1, 5 man Strike Squad, Heavy Bolter, Plas Razorback

2 Venerable Psyfleman Dreads

3 Psyfleman Dreads.

The amount of S8 shooting was absolutely terrifying and despite this being the first game that I have ever played against Grey Knights I realised the amount of damage that both the Purifiers and the Psyflemen could cause.

So we ended up with Spearhead, Capture and Control. I won the roll off and set about deploying everything. Well I say everything, but at this point I ended up making a huge mistake, not because in the ended it had a big impact on the game, but because it was stupid to do it in the first place. I ended up forgetting about the last layer of foam in my case and accidentally forgetting about 7 of my Shoota Boyz, :facepalm:. I also only realised my mistake after the game was over.

But anyway, I got everything a cover save by deploying around a building and I was good to go. This was until I got siezed, and at this point the words 'oh crap' began to float around the inside of my head.

The guy jumps Crowe into the Strike Squad's Razorback while the Squad itself acts as a deckchair, the Razorbacks move up and then he unleashes a rather scary torrent of fire. His first shot is from the Twin-Las Razorback. He hits my Trukk with my standard Warboss in it, he then Penetrates, I fail my 4+ cover save and he explodes it, leaving my Trukk on my back line, perfect. The ensuing explosion also manages to kill 3 boyz, bringing me down to what I thought was 27, but turned out to be 20.

He then opens fire with the Psyflemen that are in range, and thanks to some good cover saves from me, he only manages to kill 8, leaving 2 left in the squad, who pass their Leadership. Meanwhile, a sneaky Las Razorback moves down the side of the board ready to make a move for the objective at the endgame.

However, despite the loss of my Trukk I do a decent job of clawing the game back. The 2 man Loota Squad (now nicknamed 'the sharpshootas') manage to get 3 shots each at the Las Razorback that bust open my Trukk, I only miss one shot, and the 5 resulting hits manage to tear up the Razorback, killing 2 of the Halberd wielding Purifiers inside. Not bad for 30pts. The second squad manage to fell a second Razorback, but other than this don't inflict any wounds. The remaining Trukk also moves to intercept the remaining Las-back.

The game progressed with the Nobz squad with the longest surviving Trukk getting battered by Psyflemen and the Purifier Squad, although the Purifiers were killed, I was left with only Ghazzy and the Painboy, the latter being picked off by Psyflemen the next turn, and then Ghazzy being killed a turn after trying to chase the Psyflemen out of range of my objective. This did work to some degree, although 4 of the 5 Psyflemen were just about in range.

Crowe whiffed when trying to charge my Boyz squad, meaning my boyz jumped out at him, fired, wounding him only once, and then beat him to death after he also whiffed Cleansing Flame, before being brutally murdered by the 2 remaining squads of Purifiers.

While the boyz moved out, the Nobz moved up to claim the objective, and here is where I made 2 more mistakes. 1. I forgot to go to ground, this would have probably resulted in the Nobz living through the torrent of Psyflemen fire. 2. I forgot to allocate to the Warboss, which resulted in only there only being 2 models left in the unit as the last Psyfleman fired, the Warboss and the Painboy, each was wounded once. The Warboss passed his save, the Painboy, needing a 4+ to earn me a draw, inevitably rolled a 2, earning me some just deserts as exactly the same situation happened at Yorkshire although it was my opponent who was the one rolling the 2.

The game ended next turn and I lost 1-0. In hindsight, I should have set up a large piece LOS blocking terrain in the centre to give my guys some cover from the Psyflemen, but this was again, my mistake and my problem, whereas my opponent played flawlessly, and full credit to him.

I did also get a second game in, but I won't talk at length about this one, this post is already far too long. All I have to say is that I was playing one of the UnOrthodoxMinis crew who was playing Daemons, we played kill points, the game finished on turn 5 and I won 10-5.

Other than these games, I have spent my time assembling Lootas and scrubing at a Wave Serpent with a toothbrush. I may try Acetone free nail varnish remover next time.

That's all for today, Rampage out.

Keep on Trukking - Orks Part 2

See, told you I'd be back Saturday. Today I'm going to talk about my Trukks, and why I prefer them to Battlewagons in this list.

First off is the points cost. I simply do not have the points left after spending all of that on Nobz to purchase Battlewagons. Glad I got that out of the way early.

Secondly, Battlewagons and Trukks have very different rolls. Battlewagons are built to cause carnage, whether you are using it as a gun boat or simply sticking a Deff Rolla on the front and using it in a Battlewagon Spam fashion, you are going to want to be killing things with it.

My Trukks are there for a completely different roll, they're only there to get my Nobz into combat as quickly as possible, sure they lack the kill-ability that Battlewagons have, but I'm not looking for that, and so why would I use it. Sure I miss the army values that Battlewagons get, but I make up for that in speed.

Due to the Red Paint Job upgrade, my Trukks can move 19” per turn, usually setting me up for a turn 2 assault, even with the Trukks darting in and out of cover, as the extra speed allows me to hide effectively, and this is why I don't like playing on boards with a lack of cover, as it makes hiding the Trukk very difficult. If you leave a Trukk out in the open, it will get punished. And so, even when I have won the roll off and decided to go first, I still take real care in hiding my Trukks. The last thing I want is my opponent seizing the initiative and blowing my Trukks away, leaving over 1,000pts of elite close-combat troops stranded in my deployment zone. This is why the Trukks are so pivotal to my list, and why I use the Extra Armour upgrade.

Extra Armour is exceptionally useful in this list. Stun locking a Trukk will generally give my opponent time to move around cover towards my Trukk (as I would be effectively missing out on a whole turn of movement) ready to beat it like a baby seal, repeatedly if necessary. If my opponent does roll a 1 on the vehicle damage chart (+1 for open topped) then at least I can still move, and to be honest, that is all I really want my Trukk to be doing, an extra turn of clubbing things with Nobz amounts to much greater than a single Ork with a big shoota, and I don't care if he can't shoot anyway, he's only likely to get a single hit at S5 with a poor AP. The only exception to this being when my paper like Trukk shot down a Paper like Dark Eldar Raider in the Yorkshire Tournament.

Now this may all sound a bit odd, as even from here I can hear your brain saying, 'why does this guy not have a Big Mek with a Kustom Force-Field?' And I can answer that, as you may expect. For me, I am usually able to hide the Trukks well enough as it is, and so a KFF does not benefit me too much. Add this to the fact that the Trukks usually like to split up means that it would only be covering a single vehicle anyway. Plus, the bonuses from the Warbosses are greater in this list in my view, as the ability to make both my hammer units scoring is invaluable. Many games have been won thanks to this.

Another reason for the choice of going to Warbosses is Ghazghkull's Waaagh! This is really helpful, as it means that even if my Trukks are popped on my deployment zone (which is rare) I still have a chance of getting to combat turn to. Some opponents underestimate the speed of my Nobz, and thus refrain from hugging the board edge. The fact that my Nobz are fearless due to the Mob Rule allows them to move in the next turn, 6”, followed by a run move 1-6”, they then take some enemy shooting, but often this is directed at the Lootas due to the fact that my enemy underestimates the Nobz, especially if the run moves are quite low, I then get the 6” move, 6” run and 6” assault from Ghazzy's Waaagh! Giving me a total of 25 – 30” in 2 turns, meaning that they are actually rather quick.

I have strayed a little off topic from the Trukks here so I shall quickly pop back for the final upgrade that I like to give them, which is the Reinforced Ram. The Trukks are there to get my Nobz into combat, I don't really care if they die after that. But if by some miracle they do survive, I like Tank Shocking things. As an Eldar player I like Tank Shocking objectives near the end of a game (this actually won me a game at the Yorkshire), and if it is annihilation, Tank Shock a unit or two. But the main reason for this is to re-roll Dangerous Terrain checks. This way, when I'm hiding the Trukk behind cover, I don't have to be afraid going through some rubble and Immobilising my Trukk, I can just take the short cut over it, with minimal chance of Immobilising the Trukk.

So in short, the main way to deal with my list is to ignore everything else at the start, and just try and take out the Trukks, although I will have done my best to position them well, or you could just immobilise them. Summing up, causing minimal damage to the Trukks is poking the bear, Immobilising or wrecking them is wounding it.

From Necrons to Orks

With all of the time that I've spent pouring over the Necron Codex, I'm suffering from withdrawl symptons from my Orks, but before I delve into my Ork list and why I love it and feel that it can be competitive, I'll round of the Necron segment for a while.

I've decided to just make a fun army for my Necrons first, and then work my way towards competitive as I get more used to the new Codex and as new ideas flow from the internet. There, done. I shall post a list up soon.

But anyway, on with the Orks. For those of you who don't know, or can't actually be bothered enough to scroll down the page, my Ork list is 1,800pts normally, and progresses as follows:

Ghazghkull Thraka

Warboss: 'Eavy Armour, Power Klaw, Bosspole, Kombi-Shoota/Skorcha, Cybork Body.

Elites:

10 Lootas

10 Lootas

Troops:

10 Nobz – Inc: Cybork Bodies, 10 sets of 'Eavy Armour, 2 Power Klaws, 1 Kombi-Shoota/Rokkit, 6 Big Choppas and a Painboy. In a Trukk with Armour Plates, Red Paint Job and Reinforced Ram.

10 Nobz – Inc: Cybork Bodies, 10 sets of 'Eavy Armour, 3 Power Klaws, 1 Kombi-Shoota/Rokkit, 1 Kombi-Shoota/Skorcha, 4 Big Choppas and a Painboy. In a Trukk with Armour Plates, Red Paint Job and Reinforced Ram.

30 Shoota Boyz: Nob

As you can tell from the list, it very much revolves around Nobz, and looks a bit like something that has just flown out of 4^th Ed. I am currently working on changing the loadout of my Nobz to allow me to pull wound allocation shenanigans. Hopefully this should deter the cries of 'FEWL!' that were inevitably heading my way after that list. But anyway, on with how I run this 'bad boy' so to speak...

Basically. I pound the Trukks full of Nobz forward straight at the enemy. If there is little cover on the board, then just hurtle forward, if the board has a decent amount of terrain, I make sure to use it with my Trukks. Hence, my army struggles when there is not very much terrain. The first and most obvious reason for this is that it leaves the Trukks very vulnerable, as the lack of a Kustom-Force Field Mek means that if there is no cover, there is no cover save. But perhaps more critically, there is no LOS blocking terrain.

The second reason for the pain that the lack of cover inflicts is that I like to put my Lootas in buildings 1. To give them some cover, as if anything shoots back at them they're in trouble. 2. They don't get as good a line of sight. This may sound odd with lack of cover, but I find that my units tend to get in the way, as the combats seem to happen on my enemies front line, and therefore get in the way of units behind that I may want to shoot at, whereas being high up allows me to see over them. Sure, I can try and set up fire lanes and use the boyz for cover in the first turn in case I get ceased or my opponent just happens to go first, but I much prefer the height and cover that buildings offer.

Anyway, I'm tired so that's all you're going to get for today. I shall be back with part 2 of my Ork list ramblings on Saturday, probably.

Necron List Development: Part 2

I've been thinking a bit more, and have decided that maybe the way to make a competitive list for Necrons is to be boring....and spam stuff.

I'm currently thinking along the lines of spamming Necron Warriors themselves, but am unable to get Ressurection Orbs for all of them, as you can only have one Res Orb per Royal Court and you can only have one Royal Court per Overlord, which maxes me to 2 of them and this would cost a whole lot of points. So this is what I'm thinking along the lines of so far.

Overlord with Warscythe on a Catacomb Command Barge: 180

One squad of 15 Warriors: 195

One squad of 15 Warriors: 195

One squad of 15 Warriors: 195

One squad of 15 Warriors: 195

One squad of 3 Destroyers including 2 Heavy Destroyers: 160

One squad of 3 Destroyers including 2 Heavy Destroyers: 160

Total: 1280

Not really sure where to go from here, but I'll definately get back when the list has evolved a third time (which it will).

Necron List Development - Part 1

For the last few days I have really just been trying to create a competitive Necron list that fits my play style, and I won't lie, I am struggling.

I am definitely an aggressive player, I like to smash as much of my army forward as possible, leaving behind only units with heavy weapons and the occasional deckchair, and so I'm not a fan of the 'ant farm' build. I don't really want to spend a turn sitting on my backline spawning scarabs before bombing forward, I want to get right up in my opponents grill as soon as possible, so I set about looking for fast armies.

I had the idea of using Veil of Darkness Crypteks along with Night Scythes, Solar Pulse Crypteks, Destroyers and Imotekh to create a fast moving army which uses Night Fighting to help to keep it alive. As Necrons are rather expensive points wise, I don't want to be using any. If you like the sound of this idea feel free to use it, as I am looking for a list that is around the 1,500pt mark, as my Orks and Daemons generally cover the large points levels (mainly Orks), and this definitely does not meet that as in order to get this list I will need: Imotekh, an Overlord, 2 Catacomb Command Barges, 3 Night Scythes, 3 Squads of 5 Immortals, 4 Crypteks, 2 squads of 20 Necron Warriors, 4 Destroyers and 4 Heavy Destroyers. I find it unlikely that this would fit into that points bracket.

The plan would have been to have Imotekh scooting around in his pimpmobarge causing Night Fighting and Lightninging stuff, the Overlord is only really there to get the second Solar Pulse and the second Veil of Darkness in there, again, on his barge), there would be 3 squads of Immortals scooting around ready to pounce on objectives at the end of the game (I see there is a case for replacing them with warriors) 2 of which would have Solar Pulse Crypteks in, ready to use Solar Pulse when Imotekhs night wears off. The 2 squads of warriors would have the Veil Crypteks in, and would be using their Deep Strike moves to deep strike near vulnerable enemy units, the Cryptek would use Nightmare shroud to try and make them run, if they don't blast them with Gauss forcing them to take another Morale check and hopefully making them run. The Destroyers would then be going around providing some supporting fire and popping transports.

The main problem that I can see for this list is Dark Eldar. The existance of night fighting means that the night just impedes me, and the presence of fast close combat units 'cough' Wyches 'cough' 'cough' will just be brutal if they survive the barrage of my Necron warriors.

That's just about me done for now. Any good list ideas would be much appreciated.