Chaos Marine Analysis - Troops Part 2

Churning these out at an increased pace now. I've just realised that in total there are 37 units in this book. I've done one of them. So, moving on to Cultists.

To start with, each cultist is really cheap (as you'd expect). They cost less than a third of a Chaos Space Marine. This then means that I probably wouldn't bother giving them a Mark of Chaos, simply because doing so is increasing the cost of each cultist by a decent percentage per model.

However, one list idea that I really like the idea of with these guys (as an Ork player) is running what I like to call, 'the heretical tide'. Simply, I can take 210 cultists including 6 champions for 900pts. That's not a bad swarm at all, and I reckon that it could be quite enjoyable to play. Not for my wallet due to the cultists being stuck in Dark Vengeance and this relies on them not taking Autoguns, so I'd need 21 boxes of Dark Vengeance to make this without converting Guardsmen and what have you, and then you need to remember that you only get 9 that you need from the set as you don't want a Flamer or a Heavy Stubber. It's almost certainly not a fun list for my back either.

Still not a bad deckchair unit either. 165pts for 35 bodies in cover with 3 Flamers or Heavy Stubbers, the former making it even more intimidating to charge that unit on the overwatch, 64 shots and 3 Flamers is going to do something, plus 68 close combat attacks at worst.

I'm not really sure what else I can say about Cultists. I'm definitely going to be taking some, fitting in nicely with my Word Bearers, probably a squad of 20 with close combat weapons and a squad of 20 with Autoguns.

Are they more optimal than the Chaos Space Marines. It depends what you are wanting to use them for, and how much cover you have in your local area. Lots of terrain? I would say that these guys are probably better for camping objectives, they're a cheap squad which you can go to ground with in cover with lots of bodies and you can make good advantage of, 'out of sight' to keep at least a couple alive if the worst comes to the worst, although as not the most threatening unit in the world I would be surprised if the majority of your opponents firepower came at them.

I think that we'll leave this one here, a short post for the Cultists, I'll be back with the Rhino in the next post. That one will be up either later today or sometime tomorrow.

Chaos Marine Analysis - Troops Part 1

Right, so I finally have a copy of the Chaos Codex in my lap, and as the Rampage hospital gets ready to increase in occupancy as my flatmates start to return from their night out, I can finally get down to some Chaos-y business.

First off, a disclaimer. I would fully encourage you to read some of the other Underlings blogs on this subject, as it's always good to be presented with 2 different perspectives. I have no idea what anyone else has wrote, making an effort to stay away from all Chaos related publications as much as I can, but I'll definitely go around and have a look once I've finished the series here. But anyway, on to the topic at hand.

First, as many people have already said, it is a very pretty book. It's nice to have a full colour hardback book with embossed logos and the artwork is exceptional, really benefiting from the colour. I've only flicked through so I haven't been able to pick a favourite yet, but it is outstanding. It might take a bit of getting used to, for example I turned to the Rhino entry to be greeted with a sentence telling me to turn to the vehicle upgrades page for points costs, and then when you find it you have to find another page telling you what the upgrades do. I'm sure that I'll get used to it with time though. Quick and strange comment coming up, it smells just like my Collectors Edition Fantasy rulebook on the inside (i.e. It smells good).

Quickly on to units. Today I'm going to start talking about the Troops choices, I'm not going to go into Typhus' Plague Zombies or units that can be unlocked as Troops choices, but I will be talking on the subject of Chaos Space Marine Squads, Cultists, and then the Chaos Rhino, starting from the top.

When I decided to do Troops choices first I thought it could be quite a boring introduction to the Chaos army, 'they are the backbone of the army blah blah', and that there wouldn't be too much to say about them. However, I have a lot to say about the standard marines here, and I like them.

Comparing them to a standard Space Marine, just statline and special rules based, they don't have, 'And they shall know no fear' (ATSKNF), and they can't combat squad. However, they do cost just as much as a Necron Warrior, 2pts less than a Grey Hunter. Not bad at all. I still would not say that they're just as good for their points as a Grey Hunter. Firstly because of not having ATSKNF. Even though you wouldn't expect them to have to have it, it's such an important rule as a Space Marine, making it very difficult to kill a squad in one go, such as them running off the board or catching them with a sweeping advance.

However, I do think that this lower base cost can make them a very good deckchair unit. Before going into upgrades and how this can be made even more effective, we can look at the unit sizes. One thing that I think makes this selection particularly interesting is the ability to take 20 Chaos Space Marines in a single squad. Just 15 Chaos Space Marines on an objective in cover is going to be one hell of a brick to get through, and that will cost you 205pts.

So, now looking at wargear, and believe me there's a lot of it. As I'm going through I'll stop at more interesting pieces. Starting from the top of the left column again, we have an interesting little piece that allows your Chaos Space Marines to take an additional close combat weapon in exchange for bumping them up to the cost of a Grey Hunter per model. Essentially, an extra attack. That's quite nice for if you're pushing a squad forward. I'm not sure how this compares to the rest of the Codex because I haven't been through the main challengers to this (things like Khorne Berzerkers) yet, but when I do I'll refer back and make a comparison. Alternatively, a Marine can swap his Boltgun for the close combat weapon for no additional cost. Again this kind of depends on how aggressive you plan on being with these guys but I always like to have a Boltgun for the range, so I probably wouldn't go for this option. All in all, I probably wouldn't go for the close combat weapons. I'd be holding out for better close combat units in the codex but even so, with 40k being much more of a shooting game in 6^th edition I don't think that I'd get enough use out of them to justify the additional cost. Besides, 13pts for a T4 3+ scoring bolter is nice.

Now, into the special gear for these guys. The first one that comes up is something called Gift of Mutation. I think that this is a fantastic idea for a special rule. I'm not a fan of it from a competitive standpoint, but I am really tempted to take it on my Champions for my Word Bearers. What it does, is it allows your character to roll on the boon table at the start of the game, ignoring Spawndom and Daemonhood, which at 10pts is quite fun. The reason why I don't like it from a competitive standpoint is two-fold. Firstly, that table is extremely random, as it should be, and when I play competitively I try to cut down on randomness as much as I can and go for reliable units that I know can get certain jobs done, so I can intricately understand their strengths and weaknesses in each situation, with as few variables as possible. There are a lot of potential situations coming out of this. Also, you may roll a power that isn't particularly useful. For example, +1 initiative probably isn't going to be great for a champion in a unit that is camping an objective.

Moving on to the Marks of Chaos now. Starting with Khorne. I like this mark. For the same points cost as a second close combat weapon you can get rage and counter-attack. So basically, you get an additional +1 attack when charging and being charged (the latter if you pass your leadership check). However, that is only for a single assault phase. So this seems like a bit of a pointless mark for me at the minute, as for the same points I could get a close combat weapon which would permanently give me +1 attack, and I don't even have to give it to all models in the unit. Next.

Tzeentch time. This mark costs the same amount as the Mark of Khorne, except instead it gives you a 6+ armour saves. I smell mathammer time! So, what you're doing, is you're increasing the cost of your Chaos Space Marines squad by about 15.3% in order to make them 16.6% more durable against weapons that ignore your armour save. Ok, but then, how many weapons ignore a 3+ armour save? And then, how often is my squad of compulsory objective hogging troops going to be out of cover, where I would have got a cover save that cannot be worse than the save I am purchasing? Yeah, I'd skip this one too. Next.

Ah, the old favourite. Nurgle. Nice and simple, costs 50% more than the other Marks, but is +1 toughness. So you're essentially paying the points cost of a regular vanilla marine and swapping ATSKNF for T5. A better buy than Khorne and Tzeentch.

Going to Slaanesh, we have the same points cost/model as Khorne and Tzeentch, and is just +1 to initiative. Not bad if you're going for a combat unit. In fact, if you're willing to spend the points on making a Chaos Space Marines Squad a well hitting close combat unit, I'd probably take 20 of them, and give them close combat weapons and a Mark of Slaanesh. So you're getting 60 I5 attacks on the charge ignoring the Aspiring Champion. Not too shabby, but also really, really expensive, so I probably wouldn't bother.

Ok, that's it for the Marks, but we're not done yet. Chaos Icons. Icon of Wrath, Furious Charge and re-rolling the result for charge distance, although you can't re-roll just one of the dice like you can with fleet. This costs 10x as much as a Mark of Khorne, although you do need the Mark to get this icon. I probably wouldn't bother with this upgrade. For one you have to get a pretty useless Mark to get it and for another how often are your Chaos Marines going to be charging.

The Icon of Flame is the Tzeentch Icon. Essentially, it gives your unit psybolt ammunition, but swapping the strength increase for Soul Blaze. Honestly, I'd prefer have a strength buff that Grey Knights get, I don't really rate Soul Blaze, essentially just being the possibility of a couple more Boltgun hits, and at the same points cost of a Grey Hunter, I wouldn't purchase this Icon either, especially considering you also need to get the Mark of Tzeentch.

The Nurgle Icon causes Fear. Fantastic. Essentially it's just the War Shout that Howling Banshees get but at double the points cost. Again, I wouldn't bother.

Now the Slaanesh Icon is quite nice, but at double the points cost of the Tzeentch Icon, you'd expect it to be. Simply, it gives your unit Feel No Pain. I still can't see this getting used though. If you're camping an objective you're going to be taking Mark of Nurgle, and so wouldn't have access to this, the only time I can see this being used is through the 20 man strong Chaos Marine hammer that I mentioned earlier. But, it is already an extraordinarily expensive unit, I think that it's too expensive for what it is anyway, and this probably won't offset that too much.

Now, here comes my favourite Icon. The Icon of Vengeance. You do not have to purchase Marks in order to access it, and it's 5pts cheaper than the Icon of Excess (Slaanesh). It's ability is very straight forward, the unit gets fearless. Now try sticking a 10 man squad of Chaos Space Marines in cover with a Mark of Nurgle and an Icon of Vengeance. Yes, it comes in at just shy of 200pts, but try shifting that brick off an objective.

Last point now, I promise. A nice alternative to the Icon of Vengeance is Veterans of the Long War. You are saving the cost of a Grey Hunter by swapping the Icon of Vengeance out for this in a 10 man squad, and what it does is it bumps your Leadership up by 1. Meaning that when using the Aspiring Champions leadership you will be Leadership 10. As well as this, you are also getting preferred enemy Space Marines, which includes all of the Marine Codecies. Pretty nice.

In short, the way I would run a squad of these is as follows. 10 Chaos Space Marines with Mark of Nurgle and Veterans of the Long War. Sorry this has taken so long, but as I am now down the middle of the 3^rd page on my Word Processor, I think I'm going to leave this here for now. I'll be back with another post within the next days. Hopefully concluding the Troops choices with Cultists and the Rhino.

Postponing Chaos

Just a quick post today. This being the first Codex that has dropped since this blog properly got going, Necrons doesn't count as I was still trying to get into the swing of regular posting. So, as I've seen, pretty much everywhere is doing some form of analysis of the Chaos Space Marines Codex, which is a good thing, different perspectives and opinions upon the same article and backing them up gets us to think a bit more and come to a conclusion ourselves rather than just hearing one opinion and going along with it. So, when I get to posting about the Chaos Space Marines Codex and the units within, I would fully recommend you to make sure to check out some other sources too, and not just take my word for it. I'm sure some of the other Underlings blogs (to the right of this post) will be offering their own opinions on the subject.

The reason that I say, 'I'm sure that' is quite simple. I have been taking a break from the 40k internet for the last couple of days since the Codex drop, as I don't want my opinion to just be derived from what somebody else thinks, or what the internet in general thinks. This is because it gets me thinking and allows me to learn the rules better and actually understand a lot of my reasoning for why a unit is good/bad, etc. I did the same thing in the flyer release before 6th edition, and as a result, I am very confident that I know the rules for the Stormtalon well enough to be able to run one without having to refer to the White Dwarf (even though I don't play Marines).

So, when am I going to start posting, and how is it going to work? Well, to the first question. I am heading into the city on Wednesday to pick up a copy of the Chaos Space Marines Codex, and a ticket to the January Throne of Skulls, after keeping my wallet restrained for the last couple of months. I also have the whole of Wednesday off, so all being well, I should have my first post on the subject up in the evening.

Now, as for the second part of that, I'll refer to units. I'm not going to go into synergy in the army initially, that might come towards the end of the month. What I am going to do, is go through each of the force org slots, and analyse which unit is optimal for each slot based purely on it's own merit and not to bringing too much synergy into it, although there may have to be with some HQs unlocking units as troops. Apparently. I'll probably get down to talking about the book itself later on though. So until Wednesday.

Battle Report Relapse

I've still not finished painting my Hellbrute, so unfortunately it seems as though I'm going to have to deep into the long forgotten realm of battle reportage just to get some content down. No pictures for this one I'm afraid, it's pouring with rain here in Oxford and I didn't want to get my camera wet on the way so I'm just going to force you through this enormous block of text. Here you go.

My opponent was an Imperial Guard player, he was running something along these lines.

Company Command squad, with 2 bodyguards.

Techpriest Enginseer with what I think was a Servitor.

6 Stormtroopers with a Plasma Gun.

1 squad of Veterans with 2 Flamers, Power Fist and Carapace armour.

1 squad of Veterans.

1 Platoon Command squad with Power Weapon.

3 Autocannon teams. 

4 Infantry squads (in 2 blobs of 2 squads).

Bane Wolf.

Leman Russ Exterminator with Pask.

Leman Russ Battle Tank.

Aegis Defence Line.

I was running the same list that I posted in the previous post, I.e. My Space Wolves with Imperial Guard allies.

So, the game began, my opponent won the roll off to decide who deployed where, but I won the roll off for priority and I chose to go first. We were playing the Scouring and Vanguard Strike. I deployed with my Long Fangs towards the front, there wasn't much cover and what there was I wanted to use for my Guardsmen to allow them to hold one of my objectives, and I was getting my 3+ save most of the time anyway and I wanted to be able to reach the back of the Guard deployment zone, plus, it's not like they were going to come to me.

My opponent used his blobs and company command squad to castle up around one objective that was out in the open, whilst he deployed another veteran squad in a Bastion next to another objective ready to jump out and claim the objective, with another veteran squad, the platoon command squad, the 2 Leman Russes, the Stormtroopers and the Techpriest all behind it, and the Bane Wolf to the side. Castling up in 2 seperate areas.

The game definately started to become difficult when we revealed how many victory points each objective was worth. The one that my opponent had placed his Aegis around turned out to be worth the maximum 4 points, with the 2 near his bastion being worth 3 each, leaving my objectives to be worth 2, 2 and 1. Great start.

The first turn started decently, I started edging my Grey Hunters forward to attract some fire as I needed to keep my Long Fangs alive to shoot my opponent off his objectives, and maybe I'd be able to get to my opponent's side of the board to start contesting objectives. My large Grey Hunter squad moving down the middle/right and the other 2 sneaking down the left, with the one with the Primaris psyker in it much further ahead than the other.

My Long Fangs managed to destroy the Bane Wolf, giving me First Blood and a further point for destroying a Fast Attack choice, with the remaining fire killing the squad of Autocannon teams, the Manticore scattering wildly off target from the blobs.

My opponent fired back with a huge number of Guardsmen, but they were only able to down the Terminator at the front of my large Grey Hunter block, with a lot of my Grey Hunters surviving a shot from the Leman Russ Battle Tank due to having a 4+ invulnerable save thanks to my Warlord's rolling on the Divination table. A few Grey Hunters on the left flank were also felled by Pask and his friends.

Simply put, a lot of the game was a shoot out. By the time we got to turn 5, my opponent had 8 sanctioned psykers, his Leman Russes, a regimental standard bearer, 2 squads of 3 Veterans, 3 standard Guardsmen left over from one of the blobs, half a Platoon command squad and his Techpriest left.

I had 2 halves of Grey Hunter squads my Rune Priests, Manticore, Veterans and 1 1/2 squads of Long Fangs left. It was one of those games were both me and my opponent were confident that we would win the game.

My opponent saw it as a matter of simply jumping on all of the objectives at the end of turn 5 and winning that way. We'd already worked out that I was probably going to achieve 8 victory points at the end of the game, 5 for my objectives and 3 for First Blood, Slay the Warlord and killing a Fast option, however, my opponent came close to knocking me off one of my 2 point objectives.

I saw though, that one of his veteran squads was just too far away for claim the objective in one turn (a lone Grey Hunter charging them and tying them up for 2 turns, even with a Power Fist in the squad), and if they moved any further forward my Long Fangs would open up on them and should kill them. Fortunately this was not necessary, as my opponent rolled a 2 at the end of turn 5 ending the game with an 8-7 victory to the Space Wolves.

It was a difficult game to be fair, my opponent played well although I'd probably have gone to ground behind the Aegis a couple of times a lot of the casualties were caused  by my Manticore's barrage weapons, which count as firing from the centre of the blast meaning that it wouldn't have helped much against that.

All in all, the most enjoyable moment of the game was probably when the Stormtrooper squad (which had been reduced to 4 men) fired on my Grey Hunters, killing 2. The Plasma gun exploded in it's wielder's face, killing him, forcing a morale check, which was failed, running away, they then failed to rally until they finally hit their home board edge. Still, a good enjoyable game. Close games are always my favourite.

Hopefully I'll be back soon with some proper content.

Preperation

With not much happening in terms of new rules this month, and with all of the happenings in my own life, I recognise that maybe this month hasn't been the most productive of all time in terms of how much content I've been able to churn out. That said, I'm going to try and squeeze some blood from the stone here and get something out at least.

I have a couple of small things to talk about today, as I say nothing too in depth but if you start to get board just skip the paragraph that you're on and go to the next one.

First things first, a few months back I did a semi-spontaneous series which was generally called Throne of Skulls Prep, although it did tend to lose the 'prep' title after a while, and today's post's title is a kind of kickback to that. The reason being, in January I am going back to Throne of Skulls. Last time I went, I did so to learn my new army, get some experience with it and see what ToS was like. Now that I've done that, the plan is to go back and hopefully do a little bit better, so anything more than 1 win and 1 draw will suit me down to the ground, just to see how much 6 months extra practice with an army helps you, obviously it matters to have experience with an army but how much will it matter here.

Speaking of practice, I am getting a lot more games in now, I've played 4 games in the last 10 days or so and all of them have been against top people. One of which was against a top tournament player too, although I'm not going to namedrop. So, I'm going to try and compete this time around.

The list that I currently plan on taking, which involves me picking up a couple more models, can be seen below. It might change a little depending on whether I manage to aquire certain models but this is a good template which I probably won't deviate too far from.

HQ:

Rune Priest:

-Chooser of the Slain

-Tempest's Wrath

-Living Lightning

Rune Priest:

-Jaws of the World Wolf

-Living Lightning

Elites:

3 Wolf Guard:

-Terminator Armour

-Power Weapon

-Storm Bolter

Troops:

8 Grey Hunters:

-Meltagun

-Wolf Standard

7 Grey Hunters:

-Meltagun

-Wolf Standard

7 Grey Hunters:

-Meltagun

-Wolf Standard

Heavy Support:

5 Long Fangs:

-4 Missile Launchers

5 Long Fangs:

-4 Missile Launcher

5 Long Fangs:

-2 Missile Launchers

-2 Lascannons

Allied Contingent:

HQ:

Primaris Psyker:

Troops:

Veteran Squad:

-Grenade Launcher

-Mortar

Fast Attack:

Vendetta:

Heavy Support:

Manticore:

-Heavy Flamer

And there we have it. Yes, it's beardy, and yes, I'm a bit of a douche for using it, but I like to be able to take a list everywhere, and keep it relatively similar once I've found something that I like, so if I decide to start going to other more competitive tournaments, this list is still something that will be able to compete.

On a side note, if anyone else is considering going to Throne of Skulls this January just drop a comment below and I'll see you there. 

Right, now onto the next order of business, fun with fluff. With the Chaos Codex fast approaching I've decided to get some painting done, so as not to look like a bandwagon jumper when it hits. Bearing in mind that this is a fluffy army, and I don't care if I'm using a unit that is quite frankly, terrible (not unlike my Eldar army), I got back into painting my Hellbrute, and considering that this isn't an army which is first and formost for gaming, I wanted to do a good job of it, that is why a) I haven't finished, and b) I haven't put a post up in a while, as I was waiting to finish the thing so that I could show it done, but I really needed to post some content so here is what I've done so far. 

And there we have it, after finishing the Hellbrute I plan on moving onto one of the 2 squads of Cultists. I'm going to try and do this with a different method though, with the other 2 fully painted armies that I have (Orks and Space Wolves) I was motivated to paint them as quickly as I could to get them ready for an event, and thus used the production line method, as well as rushing them resulting in them not looking as good as they could have. This time, I'm going to be painting each model individually, so we'll see how that turns out. That's me done for today though. Back again soon. Hopefully.

Return of the Internet - List Building

I do have a valid excuse for why I haven't been posting recently. I have had no internet. The only way that I would have been able to access such a phenomenon would have been to type up a post on my iPad, and then get on a bus, using the terrible internet connection which I would find there to upload a post, meaning that I'd be sitting there for the best part of an hour as it takes ages to upload. I didn't try, this is an estimated guess after going in search of internet 2 days ago.

However, after sitting through an extremely long induction to my course the University has finally allowed me to use their internet. Hoorah! It wasn't like it was needed in the first few days in which I'm studying here to, you know, learn about the city and the University. As such, I ended up having to undertake the 45 minute walk to my gaming club with my dual sized aluminium case full of all of my hobby related items that I have brought with my to University, and then walk back late at night in constant fear of being mugged (nice place, I just don't know it very well). In addition, I have been missing out on a weeks worth of the goodness that is the Dakka Dakka worldwide campaign, which, being a regular poster over there, I am naturally a part of, or at least I hope I am, I may have been locked out on account of my sudden disappearance, I'll have to check once I'm finished over here. You might be able to tell that I'm quite bitter about this.

I could write about the large number of games that I have played in this time, but I'm not going to. Instead, I am going to just summarise them according to result very quickly. I lost the first, second, third and fourth game in this hiatus, a highlight being when I was playing against a horde Ork army with Imperial Guard allies, my Manticore managed to fire all 4 of its missiles and only managed to kill 2 Ork boyz and 10 Guardsmen in a 7 turn game. The best bit being that the boyz were both killed by the missiles, and the Guardsmen were all killed by the Heavy Flamer on the front of the Manticore (my opponent marched them forwards). Quality.

I'm also going to quickly slot in some Word Bearers progress. I have purchased the Limited edition Dark Vengeance, if your store has sold out then you may be in luck of getting your hands on that Interrogator Chaplain if you are willing to come to Oxford, where the GW there still has a few on the shelves (by that I mean at least 7). I've also assembled the models, based them all and sprayed them all black. I've also started painting the Hellbrute, so that I can quickly glance across the room to remind me of what the colour scheme it (in exact terms) without having to walk over, pick up a cultist and study its paint coverage.

But anyway, here's something I haven't done for a while. I have spent a lot of this time on Battlescribe, mucking about and creating a few lists, just experimenting really. So, cutting to the chase, the lists are for Chaos Daemons, Eldar and Tyranids, and I'll go through them in that order explaining them. All of these lists are 1,500pts.

Chaos Daemons:

HQ:

Fateweaver, Oracle of Tzeentch

Elites:

6 Flamers of Tzeentch

Troops:

20 Pink Horrors of Tzeentch

-The Changeling

20 Pink Horrors of Tzeentch

20 Pink Horrors of Tzeentch

And that's it. The idea behind the Daemon list was that I wanted it to be a mono-God build, so, everything in there is Tzeentch, I could have gone with an Epidemius kind of thing but since everyone is doing that I went for something different.

So, I went for a kill point denial idea when going for this build, but am also aware that there is a 1/6 chance of getting kill points in a game, that is why the Horror blocks are there. They are excellent at denying Kill Points, 20 model 4+ invuln models can be a bugger to shift, especially that Changeling unit where there is the possibility that you could shoot yourself. So you can dump them on objectives and just let them hold them, and with Fateweaver backing up the squads that need it the most, they aren't going to die very easily.

Sure you can charge them, but even then you'll have to be close enough to the Horrors to do that, meaning that it is likely that they'll have shot your unit up at some point, but then you're going to have to pile through 60 S4 overwatch shots, still be in range to charge, and then try and get through 20 fearless wounds which all have 4+ invulnerables, and those saves are also likely to be re-rollable.

Additionally, the likelihood is that you'll only need to hold as many objectives as your opponent's holding, due to the roll of the Flamers. They should really be coming in with your first wave, this is so that they can prey on one of your opponent's weaker squads and just destroy them in a single turn of shooting, getting you that First Blood point. Even in the unlikely event that they don't kill the punier unit which you marked for death, they should still eat a large amount of fire before succumbing, and if you try and charge these, then you'll have 6D3 armour save ignoring hits to get through.

So, make of that what you will. Next list.

Eldar:

HQ:

Farseer

-Runes of Warding

-Spirit Stones

-Guide

-Fortune

Jain Zar

Elites:

5 Fire Dragons

-Exarch

-Wave Serpent with Scatter Lasers and Shurikan Cannon

10 Howling Banshees

-Exarch with Executioner

-Wave Serpent with Scatter Lasers and Shurikan Cannon

Troops:

5 Rangers

5 Rangers

5 Rangers

Heavy Support:

3 War Walkers

-2 Shurikan Cannons each.

3 War Walkers

-2 Shurikan Cannons each.

3 War Walkers

-2 Shurikan Cannons each.

I would say that this is by far the weakest of the 3 lists.

I didn't want to take Eldrad, this was for 2 reasons, the first being that I was stretched for points, the main one however was that I really wanted to include a Phoenix Lord in here, being a lover of all things fail in the Eldar Codex (I regularly run various Phoenix Lords and Swooping Hawk squads in my Eldar armies, I have the models, why leave them on the shelf collecting dust when you could be playing with them, it's one of the reasons why I like Apocalypse, as it lets me field my Pheonix Court of Khaine), and I didn't want to take 2 named characters.

So, out of all 6 of the Pheonix Lords why pick Jain Zar? Well, I'll quickly run through the other Pheonix Lords to get to my point.

Baharroth is crap, he is argueably worse for points efficiency than the aspect that he is the leader of (i.e. the Swooping Hawks). To sum him up, he is a Swooping Hawk Exarch (already a bad start) with a Pheonix Lord statline and a 200pt price tag. Next.

Asurmen isn't great either, he is the most expensive of the Pheonix Lords at a whooping 240pts, but he does also come with an invulnerable save, but then he doesn't really put out enough damage to justify his points cost. Bad. On we go.

Karandras is quite fun, he's a monster in combat but with 40k much more of a shooting game now he's going to have to take at least 1 turn of shooting before he can charge anything, and he's expensive.

Fuegan is ok too, if there is a vehicle that you want dead, he will kill it. He will kill it so much that it's soul will cease to exist. He's decent in combat too and does come with Feel No Pain. That said, very expensive, and what you would take him for (smacking vehicles) Fire Dragons will be able to do too, for less points.

So that leaves us with Maugan Ra, and Jain Zar. Maugan Ra is often seen as the best Pheonix Lord to take, and leaves Jain Zar overlooked. He is very good all round, he shoots well, a 4 shot S6 assault, rending and pinning weapon with both fast and crack shot being fired at a BS of 7 is sweet, and also comes with Jain Zar's assault weapon strapped to the end of it. So why take Jain Zar over him?

Well, she is 40pts cheaper than Maugan Ra, and you can put her in a squad of Howling Banshees, Maugan can only go in Dark Reapers, meaning that he isn't going to get much combat action, or in a generic non-aspect squad, which isn't really going to be complementing him full either as they are likely to be either shooting based or combat based, only taking advantage of his combat or his shooting, he might still get to shoot in a combat unit or fight in close combat in a shooty unit if they're charged but you're not taking advantage of his full range of abilities.

Jain Zar is very much all combat, although she does come with a S5 AP2 assault 3 triskele which is nice for breaking down those Terminators, before charging in at S7 and I10.

So basically, she's cool, she hits hard, you don't see her too often, and if you want a Pheonix Lord for under 200pts then there you go.

Right, on with the rest of the list, quickly as this is getting damn lengthy. The War Walkers, I always liked to include a good fire base in 5^th edition, simply so that I would have a presence across the board, so I wouldn't have to try and chase things down with my close combat units. This was why my 30 Nob list was so terrible against Dark Eldar, I couldn't catch them, so dropping 10 of them and picking up a load of Lootas seemed a good idea, this is essentially what these are here for. Plus, 54 S6 shots is pretty terrifying. I didn't go for Scatter Lasers for the simple reason of not having enough points left.

Rangers. Very nice for squatting on objectives. On a general principle I like to take a troops choice for every 500pt block. And the Fire Dragons are to take out heavy armour and another Wave Serpent to provide some target saturation to take some pressure away from the Banshees.

To sum this one up though, I wouldn't take it to a large tournament.

Right, I'm tired and I want to go to bed, so let's get this one done.

Tyranids:

HQ:

Tervigon

-Catalyst

-Scything Talons

Tervigon

-Catalyst

-Scything Talons

Elites:

3 Hive Guard

3 Hive Guard

3 Hive Guard

Troops:

10 Termagants

10 Termagants

10 Termagants

Tervigon

-Catalyst

-Scything Talons

Tervigon

-Catalyst

-Scything Talons

Tervigon

-Catalyst

-Scything Talons

Probably the most competitive out of these lists really. Initially, it was an experiment to see how many Tervigons I could cram into a 1500pt list, then I started mucking around with a Hive Tyrant and Ymgarl Genestealers to get them bursting out of cover everywhere and eating things, then I remembered that there wasn't any shooting in the list whatsoever, so I drop the Ymgarls and replaced them with Hive Guard, which came out over the points limit, so I dropped the now void Hive Tyrant and had exactly enough points for a 5^th Tervigon.

So, the answer to how many Tervigons can you get into a 1500pt list is, as many as the force organisation chart allows. 5.

With this list, on average you should be spawning 52-53 Termagants in the first turn assuming that your opponent hasn't killed any if they went first, although that should decrease as the game goes on as your Tervigons stop spawning.

I'm getting into some proper rambling right now so I'm going to try and mitigate the damage by stopping this post here. Hopefully I should be back to the usual gaps between posts now. As always, have any suggests or anything at all to say relating to this post, including possible improvements to the lists, please feel free to drop comments down in the comments box.

Spread the Word

I know that I usually post a bit more frequently, but for the next week or so I'm probably going to be able to get 1 post a week down at best. This is because in about a weeks time I will be moving from Sheffield down to Oxford to study, and so am trying to get everything ready for that. This means that I either don't have the time to get any hobby in, or if I do, I don't have much time to write about them.

But onto the subject at hand. Tournament season is pretty much over for me now, if it wasn't for the 2-3 week long freshers 'week' that I have to attend at my University I might have been able to attend the Maelstrom team tournament (depending on whether we would have managed to pick up enough players to form a 5th Overlords team) but unfortunately it is that long, so I'm not going to be there. Best of luck to all of the Overlords / Overlords forumites that are attending though. Back on topic now, so, I'm probably not going to get many tournaments in between now and June, there might be the occasional club tournament that I attend but it looks like I'm going to struggle.

I think that this is actually a blessing in disguise though. As much as I enjoy competitive gameplay I feel that I've been neglecting a whole other side of the hobby. The last 4 months has been about, writing a tournament list, quickly painting everything up and then slapping it all down on the table. I haven't really engaged the rest of the hobby. So, during my time at University, I am going to be consentrating on delving into the back story of 40k, as well as enjoying more of the creative side of the hobby too. So, this means starting a new army (again).

So, what to pick. I thought that this one was quite easy for me. I wanted something that could contrast with my Space Wolves, as I plan on bringing them along with this new army to University. I wanted something with character, I wanted something with fantastic models and I wanted something with options.

This lead me down to an army that I have been looking at for a while in Chaos Space Marines. I have always enjoyed playing against Chaos, but I have found their Codex rather mundane in that there are really only a couple of ways in which you can use them, and their model range isn't the best, but I think that the last couple of months have changed my opinion of them in order to motivate me to get a small army. The first of which is the Dark Vengeance starter set. When I first saw it I thought that the models looked fantastic, and although I like the Dark Angels side, the Chaos side is superb. It's a relatively cost effective way to start a new Chaos army, and I am planning on selling the Dark Angels.

The second was 6th edition. I already have a Daemon army, and the ability to ally them with the Chaos Marines instead of having to take Lesser Daemons is a nice touch. Meaning that I can get playing with my Chaos right away, using the models that I have got from Dark Vengeance as an allied detachment (well, I could if the units had points costs in their entries).

The final straw was the ongoing rumour of the new Chaos Codex. I have been looking forward to this for a long time, even before I had plans to start Chaos, but I am hoping that with the new Codex will come with it a variety of new ways to build an army and a host of new models.

So, let's go deeper. Exactly what kind of a Chaos army am I going to play. First of all, I wanted something red. The reason for this is so I could contrast it with my Space Wolves, not only because I can show that 'this one is the evil army and this is the good army', but it also contrasts them in the ways in which you can enjoy 40k. Additionally, I didn't want to make a homemade force, I wanted to use one of the original legions so that people could see the army and instantly recognise it for what it was. That said, I wanted to use a legion that isn't very common, as I like inauthenticity. I also decided to go for a legion that was unidivided, allowing me to use forces from each of the different Chaos Gods without any issues, and was also known for using Cultists and summoning Daemons.

Word Bearers it is then.

Whilst this project is going on, I'll be posting news of its progress along with pictures of finished miniatures just to show how it's getting along. It should also work quite nicely in breaking up all of the unit analysises that I like to do. That said, I think that this post has gone on quite long enough.