tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41249712954365711792024-03-13T04:41:19.458-04:00The Kabal of AgonyXzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.comBlogger96125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-57500062924587438722014-10-09T10:00:00.000-04:002014-10-09T10:00:03.103-04:00New Dark Eldar bookSo a new Dark Eldar book dropped and helped to pull me back from the distractions I've been working on lately. I haven't gotten a game in with the new book yet, but I'll update more as I come across any other observations.<br />
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So my first impression of the book after going through the whole thing; did they have 3 different groups write this in complete seclusion from one another? Seriously, the book seems to be Coven units(who are only going to get better with their own supplement), other Dark Eldar units, and then special rules. <br />
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The Coven stuff all seems pretty good compared to the last book, I'd almost say everything is better. The notable exception to that may be Wracks. But I think if you could put these Wracks into the Troop slot, everyone would be raving over the fact we can actually put a ranged gun on them, and that the hexrifle is more viable. The rest of the units were generally tweak in a positive manner overall, there were some points increases and some simplification of abilities but it was positive overall.<br />
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The remainder of the Dark Eldar units were all pretty much the same or worse, with a couple notable exceptions for the worst units in the old book. I'd say 90% of this is because of the simplification of units and removal of the unique elements. The big one to me is that they took away one of the quintessential Dark Eldar items as the default loadout, the Dark Lance. Vehicles all start with Dissentigrators and have to upgrade to a Dark Lance, and pay to upgrade! Anyone who's played vs Dark Eldar know that they army has always been about Dark Lances, Wyches, 2++ save, then poison with the last book. There are even strategies that talk about Dark Lance/100 pts balance. So the gun boats got a little less 'gunny' and the heavy support main stay, the ravager, got kicked again while it was down as it can no longer fire all weapons when moving 6"-12". So now you have to choose 1 weapon that has to sit out, apparently that gunner is helping the other two target, or jumping up and down to provide stability.<br />
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Finally we got all the special rules, like warlord traits, combat drugs, force organization, special objectives, and wargear. Combat drugs were sort of a cop out, they all give +1 to a stat, but the only people who really get combat drugs are primarily combat focused, and not all of them are useful combat stats. I would much rather have the re-rolls to hit back over +1 T or +1 Ld. The warlord traits are plain generic garbage, not one thematic warlord trait in the bunch, no one use only abilites, no helping the army in any meaningful manner. I honestly feel that the warlord tables from the main rulebook are still a better option. All of the special objectives seem to require you killing a unit, in close combat often, but the book provides no meaningful way for you to get your very fragile units into combat with something. These objectives don't take advantage of your movement at all. Again, normal rules are better for the army. Finally the wargear and it's special rules, god what a HUGE missed opportunity. There were a few changes that just boggled the mind, Str 3 Liquifiers, no AP 2 weapons for the Archon (I don't mind the change to Huskblade but a combat HQ needs a powerful combat weapon), all the coven weapons were drastically changed, wych weapons do the same thing in differnt ways(would you like to re-roll, or re-roll hits, or re-roll 1s?), but bare non the biggest thing that missed the mark was the new fear weapons like the phantasm launcher. So these strike me like the old Terrorfexes from the 3rd edition book, but the problem, they don't work on models that are fearless or have ATSKNF . . . . so they work against virtually nothing; and where is the cool artifact or warlord trait that removes/negates fearless/ATSKNF???? Gods, the synergy that could have been made with these weapons. It could be worse, we could have nothing but that weapon on one of our flyers . . . sorry Eldar.<br />
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So overall, my initial impression is we have sort of come full circle, the 3rd edition book was a very predictable army, with far too many units being subpar that you were handicapping yourself., which resulted in only a couple optimal builds. While I think there may be a little more variation than in 3rd edition, I suspect we will only see maybe two or three viable lists coming out of the book, unless they get an awesome supplement as well, none of them will involve wyches. But unlike in 3rd edition, where bringing vehicles vs Dark Eldar was futile because of the number of lances, I think Dark Eldar will struggle against vehicles. I fully expect most Dark Eldar armies to be Coven supplement armies, and I'm personally fine with that, as I sit on 30 converted Grotesques, I just need figure out my anti-vehicle.<br />
<br />Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-37749280425403332282014-06-09T21:59:00.002-04:002014-06-09T21:59:48.356-04:00Quick Chaos updateSo just a quick update on my Chaos army for the escalation league.<br />
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The league has be sort of hit and miss, so I haven't nearly gotten the number of games in that I want, and with the onset of 7th, it sounds like it will wrap up sooner and we'll move onto something else.<br />
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The two most recent completions were a couple more vehicles. I happened to luck into building a good looking Chaos army that was going to be walker/vehicle centric, just in time for the new vehicle buffed 7th edition.<br />
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Anyhow we have a couple shots of the Rhino for the first group of Chosen (they are mostly done, just the Asp. Champ to finish, I might put pics up later this week)<br />
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Next up was one of the bigger center piece models, and one of the keys to the theme of the list, the Maulerfiend. I had already built up a custom lava base for it, and had test fit where it was going to go. I wanted it to sit a little more flat on it's rear legs so I could pin up through the base, so I had some left over plastic parts from a Storm Eagle I assembled for a friend, so I grabbed a suitable part, stressed the edges and put some girders in behind it, then painted it up to look like a wrecked Salamanders vehicle.<br />
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The scales have been a lot of tedious work, but I love how they are coming out. My biggest problem is that it is not always easy to tell when the toothpick is starting to wear, and I'll end up with oddly large scales when I stop and examine the work. Luckily, it isn't terribly noticeable in most cases.<br />
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<br />Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-53458260617257030612014-02-06T18:35:00.001-05:002014-02-06T18:35:37.040-05:00Bits Review - SpellCrowTime for a bit of a review.<br />
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As part of my decision to build a Chaos army I made two decisions; first it was going to be thematic and walker heavy to start, and second that it was going to try and look great. So for the second point, that meant a lot of conversions/kitbashing and some third party bits.<br />
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One of the best places I've found for the very specific bits I wanted was <a href="http://www.spellcrow.com/" target="_blank">SpellCrow</a>, I think I found them through a <a href="http://darkfuturegaming.blogspot.ca/" target="_blank">Dark Future Gaming</a><u> </u>conversion article on building a better noise marine. The dragon/salamander range of bits was going to fit perfectly into the Dragon Warriors look that I was going for. I was going to start with a small order of bits and see what I thought of them and then likely go back for more as I expanded the army in the future. So I was browsing just before Christmas and they had a nice little offer where if you got 4 kits you got a 5th for free; I thought this was a great opportunity. So I knew I was going to need probably 3 sets of the Dragon Melting Guns, and was going to grab a set of the Dragon Tabards to help make the Chaos Marines look more like Chosen. With the opportunity of the free kit, I knew I had some Chaos Terminators that were short shoulder pads because of some other Obliterator conversions, so I grabbed a set of the Dragon Knight Heavy Shoulder Pads.<br />
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The company is based in Poland, so I knew they weren't going to show up right away, and I think the total time was about 3 weeks. They showed up last week, and I was extra impressed. Not only did I get everything I ordered, but there was also a small bag labelled Freebies. It contained a couple of their Dragon Torsos, and 2 of their Gravity Guns. I'm sure these were left overs from bad cast sets, but I always like when a company does stuff like this. Even more, it could just be dumb luck, but I'm more inclined to say it was smart business sense and marketing that I received samples of torsos I'd be likely to buy in the future, and probably the very high demand Gravity Guns that I showcased to others who are doing Marines. For the 4-15 dollars a piece that they want on E-bay, the 5.80 Eu(approx $9) for the four pack is a great deal.<br />
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So on to the actual bits.<br />
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First up the Dragon Tabards. They are nice quality, maybe a touch long for a normal set of marines but easily enough trimmed. They are obviously built more for a Terminator and would look great.<br />
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Dragon Meltaguns. These were the primary reason I was going to order from them. A normal Meltagun is going for $4+ on Ebay, and were going to look fairly plain. Since I was going to be melta heavy, needing 12-15 in the end, that wasn't looking promising. This was a great alternative, with each gun costing half that at about $2.25. The guns themselves are a little oversized, but do the job wonderfully.<br />
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Dragon Heavy Shoulder Pads were a nice little bonus, and I have to say they are the bits I am the most pleased with. They have a nice shape that make them stand out, and a good amount of detail while maintaining a certain simplicity.<br />
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Dragon Torsos were bits I was considering originally, but there were two things holding me back. First is they look more like torsos layered in scaled robes, which isn't quite what I wanted. Second, there are no matching legs, I'd end up with highly detailed torsos without matching legs.<br />
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Gravity Guns aren't something I'm overly familiar with; I'm aware of how they work in general, but wasn't so familiar with the look. So I took a quick look for the bits on E-bay and was surprised at how dead on these looked. I'd say this is where you should look for the Grav Gun conversions.<br />
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<br />Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-88253740829745988122014-01-17T20:09:00.001-05:002014-01-17T20:09:41.882-05:00Dragon Warriors - Chaos Space MarinesHey guys, I'm back with some test miniature shots of the Dragon Warriors that I'm working on.<div>
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In case you missed it, I'm building this army for a small paint and play escalation league being run locally. Since the Dragon Warriors are basically as close as you can come to fallen Salamanders (they are led by a former Salamanders Librarian Nihilan, check out the <a href="http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Dragon_Warriors" target="_blank">wiki</a>), I wanted to use lots of meltas and lots of vehicles, preferably walkers. So I decided I'd start with a Warpsmith, and a Helbrute, and when I looked around, I decided the Black Legion book would serve me the best, since I could take Chosen as troops, and load them out with Meltaguns. I know the Chosen are not going to be cheap, so a couple units of cultists would provide some cheap objective control in my back field.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The inspiration from an old codex.</td></tr>
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I was inspired by a bottle of metallic red paint that my girlfriend had picked up quite some time ago. I looked at it and was reminded of the Dragon Warrior scheme from an old Chaos Space Marine codex. It wouldn't be easy, but I could probably pull off the scales now; I was never confident, or patient enough in my painting to think I could do it before.</div>
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So I did a quick test pattern on some cardstock, and liked the way it looked. So a quick basecoat of the Helbrute, some paint and lots of dabbing later I had the guy pictured below.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Camera loses some detail at this size, CLICK IT!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Top view of scales.</td></tr>
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Overall, it turned out pretty good. I think next time I'll try and do smaller scales all over.</div>
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So with the Helbrute done, I was decided on a similar scheme for the Chosen, but I had to wait on some bits. So I moved on to the cultists. I had wanted something a little more different, so I got some of the Wargames Factory Shock Troopers, and put Cadian arms on them. This gave me a great militaristic feel that reminded me of the Death Korps a bit.</div>
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At first I tried doing the entire trench in red with black trim, and putting scales across all of the red areas, but it looked too busy. So I tried reversing it, black trench with red trim, and then just do the armoured bits in red with scales, shoulder pads and helmet.</div>
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They are all going on custom lava bases made from corkboard. The first batch turned out a little too digital in the transition, so I'm working on more of a wet blend on the second batch of bases.</div>
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Overall I like the way they look, certainly much more eye catching in person, but at least it gives people another idea on what they can accomplish with some practice.</div>
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I just got the bits order in to work on converting the Chosen, I'll probably do a quick review of the bits in the next few days.</div>
Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-75204211373990953242014-01-13T09:38:00.002-05:002014-01-13T09:39:41.710-05:00Long Overdue update, and Tyranid thoughts.So it's time for a long overdue update. Unfortunately I hadn't been doing much table top over the last little while, I've done more board games with the family and some MOBAs like League of Legends and SMITE, but luckily that is changing. The local store in the Michigan Sault has a decent sized group running, and while they have been more Fantasy oriented, they are running a 40k escalation league (not super heavy Escalation) over the next few months that is geared to be a paint and play league. So that means more games.<br />
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The bad news, my Dark Eldar army is vast and about 75% painted, so I wanted to do something different and build/paint to a ridiculous scheme. So I'm breaking out the Chaos Space Marines, technically it will be a counts as Black Legion army painted in a Dragon Warriors paint scheme using lots of walkers and warpsmiths. I've got a couple test minis that I will upload this week, a cultist and hellbrute; hopefully the camera can pick up the scale details.<br />
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So this past weekend, I went across to play a warm up games and picked up the new Tyranid codex. I was excited about this, the Tyranid kits are all awesome to put together and paint, and looked forward to seeing some viable non-Doom lists. Boy was I disappointed; almost everything in the book took a nerf. I don't get it, an underpowered book became more underpowered, and while a lot of things saw points reductions, it was offset by increased upgrade costs.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tyranids, brought to you by Raid!</td></tr>
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So I'll start with the things I did like in the book. <br />
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<li>Sporemines: the player actually moves the spore mines now. They move and assault, and explode when they get into assault. I love this, it reminds me of the 3rd edition Scarabs. Better still, other mines hit by the blast aren't wasted now, they add to the strength of the initial blast. This makes running them down with tanks a bit scarier.</li>
<li>Harpy: This mostly ties into the point above, because it can drop spore mines all game now. I double checked and it doesn't seem to be once per game spore mine bombs, correct me if I'm wrong. Also it's an actual bombing run now.</li>
<li>DeathLeaper: Overall, worse or equal to what he was before, but it adds some nice variety by putting him into the HQ slot. Interesting point, he can only ever be shot with snapfire, so no flamers(why didn't all Lictors get this?); now if you have to snapfire your Overwatch will that mean that you cannot overwatch with your flamers?</li>
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On the fence.</div>
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<li>General points reduction: Good and bad, instead of targeting the units that needed the points reduction to make them viable compared to other choices, looking at you Carnifex, they just reduced everything so units that were overpriced compared to the rest of the Force Org choices are still overpriced. The swarm will get even swarm-ier now with gaunts seeing a 1 pt reduction.</li>
<li>New units: I'll give a nod to the fact that they added some new units. Nice to see, but they seemed too forced either thematically, or visually. </li>
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<li>Haruspex has rules that seem to fit with the existing tyranid theme, but the model seems a little too forced. </li>
<li>Exocrine on the other hand, looks awesome, but while the model screams 'BIG BIOVORE' he ends up being something else. </li>
<li>Hive Crone has a bit of both, the model seems a little clunky, and the rules don't really mesh to make it seem like part of the lean, world devouring Nids. I think the hyper-evolution experienced a hiccup here, it was supposed to be anti-air, but then someone gave it a flamer?</li>
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<li>Tervigon: Got nerfed really hard, as expected, but no upgrades to bring it back. Need 30 gaunts to make them troops, no more giving gaunts the benefit of Tervigons biomorphs, Master Level 1 and no option to increase that. The last one is probably the worst, I would gladly have paid 30-50 pts to make him mastery level 2, it makes it much tougher to get the FNP gaunts now. These aren't the force multipliers they were for the swarms, I think they will be seen less and less on the table.</li>
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The bad.</div>
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<li>Genestealers: No points reduction, worse Broodlord powers, no new tricks to get into assault and there were so many easy outs; give all Broodlords the option to buy the Ymgarl artefact, give them an invuln save vs. overwatch, allow them to assault from outflank. These guys needed something, everyone wants to see the genestealers again. Space Hulk and genestelaer cults, they are as much a core theme in the game as Space Marines. These guys are what would have sold the Tyranid army and they missed the boat, a big boat full of money. Lets hope we get some sort of supplement that helps these guys out.</li>
<li>Old One eye: Moved to HQ, awesome, doing nothing to make Carnifex in the army better as an HQ, not so awesome. Being a worse 'Old One Eye' than the new Haruspex? absolute joke. So the theorycrafted reason to take OOE before was the crazy regen, but now he regens just the same as anyone else, so with the addition of the regain a wound in combat of the Haruspex they have better regen than OOE.</li>
<li>Warrior Prime still no wings: So the removal of the Parasite seemed like a great reason to give the Prime access to wings and let him run with a Shrike brood to make awesome 'big gargoyles'. But he was pretty much a cut and past from the last book.</li>
<li>Zoanthropes: I know the change needed to happen, 3 individual psykers in a unit made for a lot of book keeping, but I'm not sold on the brother hood of psykers. I don't think there is enough return on investment to take more than 1.</li>
<li>Biovores: Biovores are still great, and the new spore rules are awesome, but I dislike that Biovores are worse with bigger broods. Here's the issue, the new spore mine launcher determines where the "first template" will land, and if it does not hit anything you place a D3 spore mines. So 3 biovores can potentially get 1 spore mine, while 1 biovore(or harpy) could get 3 spore mines. When I first read through I thought it was d3 per biovore, and many will likely see that, but after re-reading it a few times, it was much more underwhelming.</li>
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Overall, somehow GW managed to convince us to buy less models with the new Nid book, and with so many little nerfs made the combined army so underwhelming that I think the bugs will continue to live in the closets and dark corners like true insects.</div>
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Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-10905127947302650352013-08-06T09:22:00.000-04:002013-08-06T09:22:12.620-04:00Always re-read the rules!So I'm once again trying to help my girlfriend get back into 40k after the edition change. Her best armies always seem to be Orks and Eldar, and with a shiny new book (and supplement), she's willing to try the Eldar again, though not thrilled with the changes. She ran heavy with Pathfinders and Dire Avengers and is not happy about the losses of the Ranger Rifle AP1 shots and Bladestorm.<br />
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So I was going over the rules and explaining the changes and noticed a big one that I completely overlooked.<br />
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I always thought Dire Avengers were very versatile troops, being able to shoot, and then tarpit into assault with Defend reducing enemy attacks, and the Shimmershield giving a 5+ invuln in close combat. So I was going over how they were still pretty good, they lost defend but the Shimmershield still gives you a 5+ invuln save . . . . . wait, where was that next sentence that said 'in close combat'?<br />
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Pays to re-read the codex completely, Dire Avengers can now run with a 4+/5++ save against everything now for a mere 30 pts. It definitely makes them a better comparison vs. the guardians that everyone has been touting.Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-24881886150194052582013-07-23T15:38:00.000-04:002013-07-23T15:38:18.586-04:00The Journey of AlliesOne of the major flaws that I fell prey to in the transition from 5th to 6th edition was relying too much on things outside the Troops slot. In my 5th edition lists I regularly ran 5 or 6 troops, a couple squads of wracks, a couple squads of wyches, and sometimes even some warriors. It was up close and personal units coming from a webway portal. Because of various changes, the list wasn't viable any longer, those troop units didn't accomplish what I wanted. With an even bigger emphasis on objectives, this left me further behind the proverbial eight ball.<br />
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This became overly apparent last month when I went to Sudbury for a tournament; a win, a loss, and a draw saw me place in the middle of the pack. The problem with my list was I had two 5 man warrior squads in venoms, and allied wraithguard as troops. The warriors were often focused and easily mitigated because of a lack of target saturation.<br />
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So this left me with a challenge, return to a troop-centric army that could be competitive. My first thought was "I dont' know if I can do that with Dark Eldar for my playstyle." Again, a very 5th edition reaction. But I thought about why 6th is better than 5th, and one of the main selling points I've used to get people back into the game. 6th edition has Allies, so an army has a multitude more permutations to how it can be run; it is part of what seems to balance 6th edition in my mind.<br />
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So I'm going to take a page out of Skari's book. I'm going to play a Dark Eldar Allied list for a series of 10 games, and then evaluate how they did. I've already got some ideas on what I want to try, but here is my criteria for allies:<br />
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<li>Allies must contribute something that the Dark Eldar list cannot already do.</li>
<li>Allies are not a bolt on, they have to provide some sort of synergy with the Dark Eldar list.</li>
<li>Allied lists will be judged on how the Dark Eldar performed and how the Allies performed and compared to how I have seen the Dark Eldar forces perform previously.</li>
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I'm considering two forces.</div>
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The first is going to try and resurrect the webway portal list using Eldar allies. The force will consist of a small unit of Grotesques in a raider with WWP carrier, with 3 units wracks entering from the portal(s). The key to this will be manipulating the reserves with an allied Autarch accompanying some Warp Spiders, with Rangers filling the troop selection and camping any objective it can. I think this will be the most ideal list, fast moving with a lot of table control if I add a beast pack, and some Ravagers or Flyers. I'm considering the Voidraven Bomber for this list just to finish up the conversion.</div>
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The second list will try and increase the effectiveness of a wych cult list. We all know wyches are absolutely decimated by shooting, even if it's just overwatch, each hit is almost always a kill; so lets try and elminate that problem. Looking at the Chaos forces, they both have ways to mitigate overwatch; Chaos Demons have psychic powers in the Slaanesh discipline that really hamper a unit and it cannot overwatch. This would provide more control over what units can overwatch, especially versus Tau, but being a random chance to get the power isn't the greatest. Chaos Space Marines bring the Dirge Casters on vehicles, giving a 6" no overwatch bubble. The problem with this is they need to be closer, and not all vehicles can take them.</div>
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I think Chaos Space Marines will win out here for dependability. Likely a two 5 man CSM units in rhinos with Dirge Casters, throw on a Sorceror who will hopefully get some debuffs from Biomancy. I'd love if the Dread could still take upgrades, or even the Maulerfiend, but the only walker that can is the Defiler, and with 4 HP and a large blast template, it could be a good distraction to get the Raiders in closer.</div>
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I will likely start with the Chaos Space Marine list, because I have almost all the models I need for it. The Eldar allies, need the Autarch and Warp Spiders at the very least. They may just turn into a hobby project to convert some Dark Eldar versions.</div>
Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-76526435239046203392013-06-17T15:43:00.001-04:002013-06-17T15:43:25.005-04:00Eldar Allies just got a whole lot better.As a Dark Eldar player, Allies were pretty limited for me. You have a few armies that you can take as Desperate Allies, but there is so much extra micromanagement, and they don't really serve any purpose other than unlocking access to certain units in that army. Eldar were the only Battle Brothers that we had, the big problem was that they didn't synergize with my play style as well, and were overcosted in a list that was already very points heavy with Grotesques and Pain Engines. Granted, a farseer for psychic defense was nice, but where did you go beyond that?<br />
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All that has changed though. I had a chance to run a 1555 pt game this weekend running a Coven list with Eldar Allies. It was the standard foot bound Grots, this time adding Urien and a Spirit Seer, two 5 man wrack units in venoms, 2 Talos and a Cronos, along with two units of Wraithguard and a second Spirit Seer (I was using 2 because of what's been leaked in the Iyanden book, just waiting on it to show up). It was facing a very mobile Tau army that included 3 Riptides.<br />
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I had some thoughts going in on how some of the things would synergize, but I was quickly amazed at how far beyond my expectations the psychic powers performed. I figured this would be a good test of the resilience of this list because the Tau army has access to a fair number of high strength low AP weapons, that high strength tops out around 7 or 8 now on average instead of 10. It was very quickly frustrating for the Tau to have to rolls 4+ or even 6+ to wound vs the large array of high toughness creatures, and what little headway they would make was quickly negated.<br />
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Why? Spirit Seers = pure gold.<br />
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One of the two Spirit Seers ended up with the Destructor/Renewer and Enhance/Drain, the second one had Protect/Jinx and Embolden/Horrify. I'll be honest, I was going to ditch Embolden/Horrify for the Primaris Conceal/Reveal, but since he was in a squad of Wraithguard and lined up to march through ruins I thought it wasn't going to be worth it. That was the best decision I could make. <br />
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Renewer was used over the course of 5 rounds to heal a wound each time since I went second. 1 to a Grotesque, 1 to a Razorwing flock, and 3 to the various Pain Engines. This was pure gold, and if I could get that on two or three Spiritseers, I don't even know how you would kills some of these squads. Destructor could be helpful if you get up to terrain and want to soften something, but I think Renewer is the break and butter power there.<br />
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Enhance/Drain never got used, I think it would probably have seen use more for the debuff than for the buff, pushing enemies closer to needing 5s to hit in close combat. In most cases I think both powers should be close to the same, with the major difference coming in making them fail initiative tests easier.<br />
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Protect/Jinx was interesting, and also the only power I failed my psychic test on, perils once, and just a normal fail twice. So one round it gave the Wraithguard a 2+ save, which is nothing to sneeze at for a model that is T6. The other round it reduced a Riptide to a 3+ save, making it much more vulnerable to the torrent of splinter fire. I think both of these are very strong powers, but I think where it will really excel is allowing a squad of wyches to hit a squad of terminators harder than before. An Agonizer Hekatrix, and the pile of attacks against a 3+ save Terminator is going to be great.<br />
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Embolden/Horrify was almost thrown onto the scrap heap, mostly because Embolden isn't going to do much for Dark Eldar who can gain Fearless through Pain Tokens, or the Wraithguard that are already fearless. Horrify though, is absolutely amazing. -3 leadership is a huge debuff, and has so many uses. Couple that with the Torment Grenade Launchers on a Raider and you can put units at -4 vs tank shocks, or shooting. This was used very effectively to shoot a unit of Firewarriors and make them run off the table in a couple instances. Even better, although Eldar lost the protection of Runes, a quick cast of this on an enemy psyker means they aren't getting off all those powers. Better still, my beast pack was left without any beastmasters, and inevitably failed it's leadership, a fall back into the 18" range and Embolden put them right back into the fight.<br />
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I think the Wraithguard add another tougher dimension to the army, and instead of two squads I think I could be better served by 1 squad in a Waveserpent, but to better enhance the overall army, I may be just as likely to stack with as many Spirit Seers as possible and as cheap an HQ as I can get once I get a hold of the Iyanden supplement.<br />
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The game overall was going to be a loss because of some sneaky kroot and good gameplay, but it definitely gave me a lot of perspective to go back and re-tool my army to add some more mobility and maybe get a little closer to the old Dark Eldar playstyle.<br />
<br />Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-5448077329524099472013-05-30T11:26:00.001-04:002013-05-30T11:26:56.272-04:00SkaredCast Battle ReportSo I saw that Skari was going to be up in my neck of the woods for work and looking to get some games in. So I got in touch with him and we managed to get together and do some games in my basement; the lighting isn't the best for the camera, but go take a look and enjoy. Remember to hit up <a href="http://skared.podbean.com/2013/05/30/skaredcast-battle-report-the-mirror-dark-eldar-vs-dark-eldar/" target="_blank">Skari's blog</a> and take a look, he's been great at churning out lots of content every week.<br />
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<br />Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-60456476734347948112013-05-27T21:23:00.001-04:002013-05-27T21:23:28.204-04:00Archon ShowcaseJust a quick update on the video front.<br />
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I had converted and painted up this Archon a little while ago. I then built a quick backdrop using one of the tutorials from <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Uxl449hGoI" target="_blank">Ichiban Studio</a>, instead of just a single flowing piece I made a small diorama box. Took a couple quick videos and pieced it together in Adobe Premiere Pro and did a voice track, since my girlfriend has an Adobe subscription for school it's a free added benefit for me.<br />
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I like the way it turned out, both the video and the model. I'm going to give a few more small videos a try in it before I switch off and try Vegas Movie Maker.Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-69225402098495029502013-05-18T16:34:00.000-04:002013-05-18T16:34:21.776-04:00Webway WoesOne of the favorite themes of the Dark Eldar army has always been the strike from the shadows type raiding mentality. Nothing embodied that more for me than the WebWay Portal.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Shortening the commute to the battlefield</td></tr>
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Even back in the days of late 3rd edition when I started to play with the idea of the Dark Eldar, one of the biggest complaints that people had with the army was that they were so fragile. It was an obvious flaw, but I quickly realized that they were only fragile if you got a chance to hit them. This was incredibly obvious in close combat, where the high initiative value often meant there were less enemies when it came time for them to swing back. So what if we could do the same thing in the shooting phase? Behold the WebWayPortal. This allowed you to keep units in reserve, and then deploy them when the portal became active, preventing units that you wanted to get into assault from being shot. At that time it was a much bigger gamble, as you had to declare what units were coming in from the portal, and they could only come in once the portal was active; if the portal carrier died, those units were lost. It was why you almost always had to take 2 portals, but with a late deploy you take advantage of the reserve rolls and make a focused late push.<br />
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When the new book came out it changed up the portal strategy a bit. Now you couldn't hold units for a late portal deployment, they made normal reserve rolls and the portal merely acted as a table edge. The plus side to this, is you gained a bit more flexibility in putting units where they needed to be. Infamously, this lead to bait and switch tactics where opponents would avoid the portal and push towards objectives in my backfield, only to have a unit come on from the board edge and take them out.<br />
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Now with 6th edition, I'm left wondering if someone really got mad at our portals. Reserves come much faster and more consistent so that portal has to be down turn 1, we can't get quite as deep into the opponents backfield with the new movement and disembark rules, and even if we do get the portal setup there is no more assaulting the turn we come in from reserves, and only half the army could be in reserve. On top of all those nerfs, the addition of Interceptor weapons mean even if we do manage to come in from the portal and expect to shoot, the major advantage is gone, we cannot avoid being shot at.<br />
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We are at that point now in 6th edition where people have begun to accept that the ally rules add such a great dimension to armies that there are any number of combinations that could produce unexpected results. As such I've seen more talk about trying to incorporate the webway portal in again. While I believe that I could work the portals in to have units of warriors, wracks, or jetbikes come out of the portal to shoot/turbo boost, the only real benefit I see to using the portal over putting them all in a Raider is that you could have more than 10 guys; i.e. 10 wracks and 3 haemonculi for 5 liquifiers. The only tactical option that comes to mind is to use the webway portals for board control, try and drop 2 or 3 of them at the mid-table range to cut the table in half. The problem being, how much will you have coming from reserve that will need 3 portals.<br />
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I really enjoy the webway portal, and will continue to see if I can work it into my army, but I think it has slowly lost all of it's benefits over time.Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-47717451028793672572013-04-06T18:11:00.001-04:002013-04-06T18:11:49.734-04:00Re-Focusing<div>
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Updates will be coming, April is officially my re-focus month.</div>
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I haven't played any games for about the last month, mostly been getting together and doing some painting. So that means some new eye candy coming. Mostly with the general disgust with the GW happenings, I've been focusing a lot on Malifaux. I've finished up my Rasputina crew and hope to be getting some games in shortly.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My Rasputina Crew</td></tr>
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As we roll into April, I am looking forward to the summer and the July 26th Apocalypticon date. I'm still not certain if I'll be able to make it, but with MWG closing, my worry is this may be the last one for a couple years. </div>
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One of the requirements for this year is that all your models have to be painted. For just my Dark Eldar, that means I have to finish up some vehicles and obviously the Titan, but more importantly I have 30 Grotesques that need to be finished for the Carnival of Pain.</div>
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One of the pluses is the inclusion of Allies this year. The way it will work is you can take any ally you could normally take in a 40k game; in addition you can take a second ally provided they could ally with your army and your ally normally. I think I'll probably end up with only a single Chaos ally force, since Chaos and Eldar cannot ally. The driving force behind that is I've already got some some Chaos Apocalypse scratch builds; the Doomsday Device, and the <a href="http://kabalofagony.blogspot.ca/2010/03/project-log-silver-tower-of-tzeentch.html" target="_blank">Silver Tower of Tzeentch</a>. The Doomsday Device is mostly done, just needs a paint job, the Tower needs a bit of work still.</div>
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Videos may be a bit fewer and further between updates, I'm trying out a new video editing software to give me access to better voice over and effects. I'm currently trying Vegas Movie Studio for 30 days, and I have access to an Adobe Studio suite so may try whatever they have available. The goal is to try and do some small model showcase videos to test out the capabilities, so feedback on those posts will be greatly welcomed.<br />
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The Rasputina Crew and the converted Dark Eldar Archon will probably be the features so stay tuned.</div>
Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-34394350659580377342013-03-20T16:28:00.001-04:002013-03-20T16:29:35.159-04:00Customer Respect?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is obviously the way to shut GW up</td></tr>
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So, I do have a couple posts just about ready to go up, a battle report, and a model showcase, but don't expect those for a while until I've reconsidered my own position in the community. I've got a bad taste in my mouth, like many hobbyists right now, so I apologize for the rant that will follow. Jump to about the 5th paragraph if you just want to read the more level headed observations.<br />
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The new GW policies had me concerned, I do almost all of my wargames shopping online. The major reasons are that the local store doesn't keep much stock or provide much support, and I usually have other products that I have to purchase that the local store doesn't carry at all. Those online retailers are often US retailers like the Warstore, primarily because of the secondary products that I'm ordering, not the GW products. So the changes in the GW trade agreement will limit my primary source of GW models in two ways, first a number of the potential online sellers will disappear because of the online selling restriction. Second, because a number of those retailers are in the US, so they technically cannot sell GW products to me.<br />
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So the one online Canadian store that I do order from is MiniWarGaming, they have become a great hub in the online community providing a number tutorials and battle reports, even extending to starting a small wargaming television network. Of course, the <a href="http://www.apocalypti-con.com/" target="_blank">Apocalypticon</a> event is a signature collaboration with <a href="http://blackknightgames.ca/" target="_blank">Black Knight Games</a> in Hamilton. If you've visited and watched some of the various discussion videos you will know that Matt and Dave started the store from a love of gaming, and slowly expanded it into the online venue it is now to try and make their loving venture profitable, or at least viable. Unfortunately, the online sales restriction with a combination of a low profit margin from the online store means that <a href="http://www.miniwargaming.com/content/the-miniwargaming-store-closing" target="_blank">MiniWarGaming is closing it's store</a>, with the GW trade agreement changes being the final major factor. <br />
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This absolutely infuriated me, a visible hub that has worked tirelessly to support the community and the GW brand, with no help from GW, is having the rug pulled out from under them because GW thinks there may be an extra penny for them. This is more of GW's historic us versus them mentality that they have with their 'trade partners' and the player base. There are any number of horror stories about dealing with the GW trade reps, and their ridiculous minimum order requirements, it's the primary reason stores can't survive in a smaller market, and if the market is big enough, GW want's to stick their own store in to take the sales. They don't respond to any client feedback, shutting down forums and facebook pages, disabling comments on what social media they do put out, let alone give any timely FAQs or go back and fix rules for the new edition, or even proof read the rules in the most recent books it seems. God forbid that they do anything to promote the community, cancel and scaleback Games Days, no support for any of the independant Cons even when they are GW only.<br />
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So why don't we just quit GW and move to something else? I had to stop and think about this for a while, and it made me realize a few things. <br />
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Really, the biggest reason that we don't switch is because there isn't really anyone viably competing against the Warhammer properties. We are at a very young stage in the development of any competitors in the table top space. Off the top of my head the major names that jump to mind are Warmachine/Hoardes, Malifaux, Dropzone Commander, and Warpath. Currently, none of these are on the same scale in some form and I think that's where they fail to compete. Dropzone Commander is physically not on the same scale, the smaller models in my mind make it harder to emotionally invest in and customize. Warmachine and Malifaux while on a closer physical scale, are not on the same scale of conflict. They are both skirmish games, although Warmachine can be bigger, it still revolves around the caster/general. Warpath is obviously the most likely candidate to compete against 40K, but it needs the time to develop it's story and expand the universe to something more than just a 40k clone. They are still pretty early in the modelling process too, much of the work feels like that 2nd edition 80s GW work, which is also something they need to move away from.<br />
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GW does work at putting out high quality models at a scale that is easily accessible, and has a decent customer service to ensure the quality of the models are maintained. They also have a long history, they've been doing this since the 80s, they've had time to expand their universe and provide enough variety to appeal to most players. It also means that most people have heard of the game, so there is an established playerbase. <br />
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The biggest reason GW keeps going is WE enable them to. We are doing all the work of promoting the games for them. Major independant tournament circuits, huge conventions and events, numerous blogs and message boards. Most of us are too invested in the games and have become complacent to the idiocy of GW to step away forever, sure we may leave in protest, but the nature of their business model will draw us back in.<br />
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I know I'm one of those players, I would like to boycott them and say I won't play anymore, but I enjoy games with friends, and the few events I get to attend. I don't want to work to play, and promote some other game. I did that already, I know it will destroy the new game for me and I don't know how to solve that. But I know there are people out there that can, so I'll continue to watch what the independent circuits are pushing and make sure I give the alternatives a try. In the mean time, I am going to let my dollar speak, and drastically reduce the number of GW products I purchase, look to more scratch built stuff, and alternative models from other companies, like GW's bestie Chapter House.Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-3236203220157282802013-02-22T20:48:00.000-05:002013-02-22T20:48:08.052-05:00Games Nook TournamentSo last weekend I managed to make it to Sudbury for the tournament at the Games Nook.<br />
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My original travelling partner had to cancel because of personal reasons, so my girlfriend offered to go along, because she felt bad for me. So over the course of 5 days last week, we gave her a quick crash course on 6th edition, and built a couple different lists for her. I dismissed her Eldar because she didn't have a defense line, or any consistent way to deal with flyers(turned out it wouldn't have been an issue), so with a choice of Chaos and Tyranids, she opted for a psychic heavy Tyranid swarm and off we went.<br />
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The event was a little different, a custom mission where you basically made a V pointing toward the defenders side, with a 12" no mans land on either side of the V.<br />
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I forgot to bring out the camera for the first game, after making sure to pack it, and bring it to the store. So video is limited, but I tried to fill in as best I could.<br />
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We both did pretty bad, 3 points for me and 1 point for her out of a possible 24. The dice didn't seem to be with either of us.<br />
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The Grotesque conversions went over well, even though one didn't have his stomach gem in, and even though the army wasn't based, I manged best painted because of a technicality. The other two armies that were better painted had one that was out of contention because it was a pro-painted army, and the other army won best general I believe. Since they don't like having players double up prizes, I got the prize.Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-1783484699649841712013-02-11T15:48:00.001-05:002013-02-11T15:49:08.238-05:00Changes, and the obligatory "what I've been doing post"So I've had a couple projects that I've wanted to get posted up here for a while, but I started a new job last week. That meant a busy few weeks closing out the new job, building training documents, and bringing the replacement up to speed. Then of course the fun of learning a new job.<br />
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Plus side, hopefully more time and income for wargaming, starting this weekend.<br />
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On of the toughest problems for me currently is my location. There isn't really a FLGS that runs any tournaments, and being in a remote location it's atleast 3 hours to drive to anywhere else with a decent population that may run something. So I lurk around on a few boards, watching for stuff that is upcoming and try and see if I can fit it into my schedule. Luckily, this coming weekend there is a small 1250 point tournament happening in Sudbury and with a slightly later start time, a friend and I plan on making a day trip to compete.<br />
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One of my biggest problems with buying into any giving any tactica advice is two fold. First, I don't get nearly as many games in as I would like to give a thorough evaluation of my lists. The games I do get in are predominantly the same 4 or 5 armies/lists. Second, I don't always play the same as most people; I rarely step up to a table and use the optimal strategy to win. As a matter of fact, I often set goals for myself and work to achieve them. The goal may be something like seeing how well the beast unit can take out that chimera, or leman russ, just so I can plan to do it later and get a better understanding of the army. Alot of that comes from me wanting to put a false idea into my opponents head, and make them see something as more or less of a threat than it actually is. The very Dark Eldar-y nature or feint and strike, it's why I love to use the 'worst' or under-powered armies, because they often still have some very deadly and overlooked combos.<br />
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So the plan for this weekend is to try and bring the camera and get some video, and try one of those 'weak' lists, the Dark Footdar. The plan will center around the Archon (who by the way has a nicely new converted model that needs to be showcased), and a squad of between 6 and 8 grotesques depending on my points distribution, followed by a small 3 man bike squad and a beast pack. There should be atleast 1 talos. The real decision is deciding on 10 man warrior squads with lance/blaster, or trying to push more towards the coven list and build some wrack squads into venoms.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdX04j1FXV4YpmoJuVh47xe9bv_QRpnH-uKdFA3V-BfPaj_-uAgZK5U-ruizbS12R2Z8UUvOIQJQydH4aBg6d-BR9-z9zY9ugyu9cIMEvzxb2f2hyphenhyphenWRCOyNorp-BlZGlqj3EqIS-1gxzmo/s1600/Archon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdX04j1FXV4YpmoJuVh47xe9bv_QRpnH-uKdFA3V-BfPaj_-uAgZK5U-ruizbS12R2Z8UUvOIQJQydH4aBg6d-BR9-z9zY9ugyu9cIMEvzxb2f2hyphenhyphenWRCOyNorp-BlZGlqj3EqIS-1gxzmo/s320/Archon.jpg" uea="true" width="215" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dark Eldar Archon Artwork</td></tr>
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So hopefully in the next couple weeks, I'll have a few HQ models to showcase. As I mentioned there is a new Archon model, inspired by the artwork from the rule book, built up from one of the old Drazhar models I had. Somehow I had 4 copies of the model, and only 5 arms. I've also made some progress on my Baron conversion, I made an attempt at my own greenstuff cloak which I'm not entirely pleased or displeased with. Finally, I've had a Duke conversion sitting on the shelf for a while and it may even get some paint.Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-38121628081020000442012-12-27T09:42:00.004-05:002012-12-27T09:42:36.939-05:00Christmas means new battle reportsSo one of the items I got for Christmas was a nice new video camera; because as my daughter put it, "I needed it to do more blogging." That means I can start trying to do some video battle reports again.<br />
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Previously, I had been using the video feature on our digital camera, and had even tried using my tablet. Both of those worked, but had limitations with battery life, and zoom functions respectively. Hopefully the new camera will alleviate both of those problems.<br />
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With any luck, I may even get to record a game we have planned for tonight.Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-46039190610520500542012-12-21T13:53:00.005-05:002012-12-21T13:53:47.928-05:00Apocalypse on the ApocalypseJust a quick post giving a shout out for Kris and Dan from MiniWarGaming doing a major Apocalypse game live today.<br />
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If you are like me and looking for a way to help burn away work, go check out the live feed.<br />
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<a href="http://miniwargaming.com/tv" target="_blank">Apocalypse on the Apocalypse</a><br />
<br />Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-41664602510783598352012-12-15T00:45:00.002-05:002012-12-15T00:45:18.084-05:00Crusade of Fire review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd0v4bYdncHb8DsEFNcZm02P-AAmeuwxSjMsGnfEtkZJao5_1c88PBts8FVPt39eF9JzvjeVDCLmgGw77o0x9etYe69gz8VVbnhfO1MmgQjl0qZsGVHDEkbKuFXlEGa2IkBlZ0zEll8IUm/s1600/Crusade.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd0v4bYdncHb8DsEFNcZm02P-AAmeuwxSjMsGnfEtkZJao5_1c88PBts8FVPt39eF9JzvjeVDCLmgGw77o0x9etYe69gz8VVbnhfO1MmgQjl0qZsGVHDEkbKuFXlEGa2IkBlZ0zEll8IUm/s320/Crusade.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>
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So I managed to get myself a copy of another one of Games Workshop's woefully limited release books. The pre-orders seemed to have been completely sold out in the first 3 days on the Canadian and U.S. websites, so I ended up buying a copy from the U.K. website. Overall, I have to say the book was a pleasant surprise. It basically breaks down into the campaign rules with scenarios, and then three sets of special rules; Dog Fights, Gladiator battles, and Demon Worlds.<br />
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Unlike the Blood in the Badlands book, this one tried to push the idea, and benefits, of game mastered, or co-game mastered, campaigns. The overall campaign was designed to have 3 "teams" fight over the re-emerging Corvus sub-sector. I liked the idea that the map gradually reveals, so players who are behind can easily get to new virgin ground and not get overwhelmed and surrounded. The only drawbacks that I see is that you can't just forge out and claim the sub-sector for yourself, and without a proper multiple of 3 teams could become unbalanced. I'm looking forward to getting a campaign going with some friends.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHyKxCxb7xs8spoGxuDhUZWwbhyaRRa177Lwt7buuD0yITrZrWKBfY93vs78WD4UAmrUbbWE4xx_tv8IaNmXNJqhh169DlhozgOWC9Ik3eMPY-KnidGSkpOCBSx9ACllhN-T4MBOmnTxcg/s1600/tzeentch-flamer-flamers-chaos-daemons-demons-warhammer-40k-40000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHyKxCxb7xs8spoGxuDhUZWwbhyaRRa177Lwt7buuD0yITrZrWKBfY93vs78WD4UAmrUbbWE4xx_tv8IaNmXNJqhh169DlhozgOWC9Ik3eMPY-KnidGSkpOCBSx9ACllhN-T4MBOmnTxcg/s320/tzeentch-flamer-flamers-chaos-daemons-demons-warhammer-40k-40000.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I'm always into expansion books for the game rules, and luckily we are given some great additional rules. First lets start with the Demon Worlds. This was a great little special rule that can be added to any game, and will completely re-define the balance of power. Have an extra person, they can be responsible for running any demons that popup. Best of all, it gives you a reason to get some of the awesome new plastic demons that have been released, they really are all fantastic looking models. There is a lot of extra accounting work, but it seems like it should be a blast.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsEotRio4RsMB7PlCOZQW88mTgwL6KWF0x-167V2sxfE4flycFG4YlUkcv9F1oe6AVXqUBF32_9pommxad6vw73LBd8jCejk8So7UVVvsEs_3YeQAeiS_qTyVdSfwxyFCkyz4m_yMqAb_q/s1600/scourge_vs__swooping_hawk_by_beckjann-d3atl5w.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsEotRio4RsMB7PlCOZQW88mTgwL6KWF0x-167V2sxfE4flycFG4YlUkcv9F1oe6AVXqUBF32_9pommxad6vw73LBd8jCejk8So7UVVvsEs_3YeQAeiS_qTyVdSfwxyFCkyz4m_yMqAb_q/s320/scourge_vs__swooping_hawk_by_beckjann-d3atl5w.jpg" width="235" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Taken from <a href="http://beckjann.deviantart.com/" target="_blank">Beckjann's Deviant</a> page</td></tr>
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The one thing that I saw drum up a lot of buzz on Dark Eldar forums were the gladiator battles that are supposed to take place in the heart of Commorragh. This had the potential to be so great, but seems like it maybe needs a bit more refinement. The basic Arena of Death rules are built to demonstrate two characters battling, which would be much more interesting without the addition of challenges to 6th edition. They allude to using more than 2 players, but I have a feeling it will add a even further degree of complexity to these rules. Reading this over a couple times, it begins to feel like a different game using 40k models. You determine your speed based upon your Initiative value, the facing of your opponent that your are in(the opponent on a round base), and other modifiers. Modifiers that are added through cards; cards you have to photocopy and print out. I think this really missed on so many levels. Facings are terrible on a circle based model, there are always going to be times when you can't tell which quarter they are in, go a front and back facing only, if you have to. A chart that allowed us to use regular playing cards might have been a bit more accessible instead of separate cards that you need to play.<br />
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Finally, my favorite addition, the dogfight special rules. They are effective and relatively simple, a stark contrast to the Arena of Death rules. Basically, in the shooting phase a flyer may attempt to dog fight with another flyer. Then it is basically a paper/rock/scissors setup, the attacker chooses 1 of 3 tactics by using a hidden D3, and the defender does the same and you compare the results to the chart, then repeat for 2 more phases. There are a number of results across the tables ranging from firing all your weapons at a flyer, firing a shot at a ground unit, to nothing at all. So potentially, you could shoot an enemy on the ground, then fire all his weapons at the enemy flyer at BS 1, and then fire all his weapons again at full BS. On top of that, if you do destroy a flyer in a dogfight, it's worth an extra victory point.<br />
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Simple yet effective rules, but you want to take it one further? Well let's throw in some race specific maneuvers to add some extra spice. This accounts for every race that can get a flyer, including races like Tau and Eldar that only get access to ForgeWorld flyers. Still not enough? How about race specific fighter ace upgrades? My only issue here, is somehow they missed the one important race with the fighter aces, Dark Eldar(if we don't see a correction, I'll probably cook up some of my own). This is absolutely how additional rules should be done in my mind.<br />
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Hopefully I can get some reports in using some of these rules in the near future.Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-45208132668842899832012-11-29T23:32:00.001-05:002012-11-29T23:34:53.545-05:00Like a Baron!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRDIndSznZEm7xp4kjFq1POcKAeKLKB8tTkEoKHVVd5JIiaygxnXnuPRIt2UMGmp1UZYvkOLzwuZKO-cqBajuuADnVDP0FNCjkDVDJsmWD3wxWl0_lGpjQh6H9ToEgWFEXrdYHxjmQm2ll/s1600/621px-Neutral-feel-like-a-sir-clean-l.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRDIndSznZEm7xp4kjFq1POcKAeKLKB8tTkEoKHVVd5JIiaygxnXnuPRIt2UMGmp1UZYvkOLzwuZKO-cqBajuuADnVDP0FNCjkDVDJsmWD3wxWl0_lGpjQh6H9ToEgWFEXrdYHxjmQm2ll/s320/621px-Neutral-feel-like-a-sir-clean-l.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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So I haven't gotten nearly the number of games in to keep going with my tactics articles, hopefully that will be remedied a bit this weekend. So what have I been doing? Sitting on my butt? Ya, mostly . . . but I've also been doing some painting and conversion work. One of the units I've been working on getting ready for play is my Hellions. They aren't quite done, but expect some pics coming soon.<br />
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I've also been doing some minor conversion work. While looking for some bits for another project (that got pushed to the back of the workbench) I came across an old partial conversion that I got from a friend in a trade. It was meant to be a hellion skyboard for an Archon in the previous edition, simply a part of an Eldar Vyper with some small conversion work. Problem was it got broken and never completed.<br />
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"Hey, I need a Baron Sarthonyx to go with my hellions, and joing my beasts. He needs a cool skyboard!" As the though went through my head the bits started flying. A couple evenings worth of work I got what you see below.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMC4rnveBckTX66VnrHPVnosyzOG5QACNh_yCnbZ5RP9_unL4pTAZZpP801TwYMWyioB-BzVmIfHIAWv9AHZ9P6cjxy9BZFuLDg4cEoNIrA4G5gNnAoH54ptfIVIbZZyZ2ypcbppJ3zRnM/s1600/Baron3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMC4rnveBckTX66VnrHPVnosyzOG5QACNh_yCnbZ5RP9_unL4pTAZZpP801TwYMWyioB-BzVmIfHIAWv9AHZ9P6cjxy9BZFuLDg4cEoNIrA4G5gNnAoH54ptfIVIbZZyZ2ypcbppJ3zRnM/s320/Baron3.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Comin at you</td></tr>
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So as you may be able to see, the central board is made from the rear half of a Eldar Vyper. One of the wings was broken, so I trimmed it down to the body, did some slight re-gluing and then filed it flush. The new wings are the bottom part of some left over Raider rudder blades. The guns were just the barrels off a couple extra splinter rifles that come with the raider kits. You can't see it in the vents, but the reason they are so centrally located is because of the location of the vents and corresponding jets on the front and back of the board. Finally the board needed a bit of greenstuff to hide the center line (this was done previously by whoever started the board, but I wanted some slightly different details, so it was removed and redone).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkK1nFkVcoXz7FymQ5G-QMRA9cXEA2GPxqHeJecVvwFNXXZ-03izCIX-DZNZkMH2PQPYWgycM3J0ZPloXULNs728nKXCM-jTosj_ECXlWf1BKaAsjJPmUd7TB4B3qgy2pCnX_i83-dPHzx/s1600/100_1219.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkK1nFkVcoXz7FymQ5G-QMRA9cXEA2GPxqHeJecVvwFNXXZ-03izCIX-DZNZkMH2PQPYWgycM3J0ZPloXULNs728nKXCM-jTosj_ECXlWf1BKaAsjJPmUd7TB4B3qgy2pCnX_i83-dPHzx/s320/100_1219.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Quite the "pigstikka"</td></tr>
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So I had an awesome looking board, now I just neede a Baron to ride it. Since I had been working on 10 out of the 15 total hellions that I had, I tried putting one of the half assembled hellions on. He just didn't quite have the look I wanted. I started going through other bits, and came across the legs to one of the Venom passengers. A quick pop off of a Hellion body from the legs, some dry fitting with Blue-Tac and I had something that looked like the start of something. <br />
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Next I needed a Hellglaive. My first though was modifying the powerspear from the Scourges set, but the pulled back nature didn't flow with the pose. While I was digging for that bit though, I noticed the spear from the Raider passengers. This was a wicked looking hook, and had some promise. I built out the glaive blades by trimming down the top side of the spear head so it was flat and then adding a second spearhead . I did this with another non-wielded spear, and then trimmed down the handle on both spears and glued them together. A quick check of the Baron's wargear, a pistol arm, and some more Blue-Tac and the model concept was dryfit together.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyhk7VhiBACeLebpOyLSV8tCgLkjQoQsqcI1UdlX59rHEY1DhLTiH3q7ixi4rv1b9zCRFEOIUsNt4JqPQI2IfGrgb-3WXNviLTf0DAjXMO069LWiaeFLnvpkbrE7CAu1aOMAuxrYcPs49W/s1600/Baron4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyhk7VhiBACeLebpOyLSV8tCgLkjQoQsqcI1UdlX59rHEY1DhLTiH3q7ixi4rv1b9zCRFEOIUsNt4JqPQI2IfGrgb-3WXNviLTf0DAjXMO069LWiaeFLnvpkbrE7CAu1aOMAuxrYcPs49W/s320/Baron4.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking down at trouble.</td></tr>
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I still want to add a flowing component to him. I'm going to steer clear of the superman capes that seem so prevelant. My goal will be one of the sleeveless trenchcoats similar to the old incubi that came with Vect's Raider. It should be a good test of my sculpting skills, but I may take a few days to do some testing with tissue paper to see how I want it to flow.<br />
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Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-70274579347094249712012-11-19T14:23:00.000-05:002012-11-19T14:23:24.487-05:00Hobby Plug: Slapdash MinisIt's been a bit a while since I've gotten to do any hobby stuff, lots of reschedules for games and stuff. I've gotten some painting done up that needs some pics and posts. <br />
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Luckily though, work is such that it allows me the opportunity to play videos while I'm working. So luckily, Monday morning I get to come into a nice juicy video from some former local guys who I like to keep track of on YouTube. It's a lot of gamer ramblings, but it's always nice to hear some non-WAAC type of discussions on the hobby.<br />
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Remember to hit up <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/SlapDashMinis?feature=g-user-lik" target="_blank">SlapDask Minis</a> on YouTube, follow him, like him, give him some support.Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-42612011294359323502012-10-15T11:42:00.001-04:002012-10-15T11:42:45.408-04:00Find the FAQs . . .So I surfed over to the <a href="http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/home.jsp?catId=cat440130a&_requestid=198568" target="_blank">Games Workshop</a> page today looking to clarify something on one of the FAQs and noticed the complete lack of an Articles section under the 40k section. At first I thought they had maybe removed it by accident. But after some searching, in some of the more logical places like the 40,000 guide link on the front page, I found it in the Gaming section.<br />
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I don't frequent the GW site much, so maybe it was covered in the White Dwarf daily. But really, I continue to be baffled at how GW doesn't put this in a more accessible location.Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-5564507415310092442012-10-04T22:29:00.000-04:002012-10-04T22:29:38.927-04:00Tactical changes Pt. 2 - Assault, the new challengersI was hoping to get a couple more games in with the new FAQ to add to this, but a small visit to our house by Papa Nurgle left everyone in the house a plague zombie for a week plus, so I missed our normal gaming time.<br />
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With the changes that 6th Edition brought, when I analyzed my play style and the new rules it quickly became apparent that I would need to make some changes. With my Dark Eldar I always tried to use speed and assault to overwhelm my opponents, while dropping some deadly cover fire. The firepower is actually better with the changes to rapid fire, and vehicles being easier to counter, but obviously it would require a bit more resiliency to consistently make it into close combat. So I went back through the codex, and re-evaluated some units.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bash Brothers</td></tr>
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One of the first units that was re-introduced to the list was the Talos. In the twilight of 5th the Talos had sort of fallen to the wayside in favor of the Ravager and Razorwing, but with the Ravager seeming less reliable, the Talos was re-inserted with some haywire blasters. Luckily my first few games after this change were vs. Tau, so I really got a good feel for how the Talos did vs. shooting and overwatch. T7 and a 3+ save let the Talos get in close to where it wanted and once he got that first pain token he laughed at the AP1 and AP2 that had previously been the bane of his existance. Being AP2 in close combat the Talos can handle all those 2+ Meganobz, terminators and broadsides that became so much tougher vs the AP3 power weapon.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bringing the Pain . . . Tokens</td></tr>
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Along with the Talos, the Cronos was also re-introduced. The Talos was always a beast in close combat, the Cronos not quite as much, being only strength 5 with a limited number of attacks hurt him. But thanks to the Smash special rule, the Cronos can now play like a big boy giving up 1 attack to swing at strength 10. This really lets him reliably ID multi-wound models, and take apart vehicles. I've found it harder to include the Cronos with how well the paired Taloi work and the sheer firepower the Razorwing brings, but I may work more to including him to distribute the pain tokens.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Ultimate Archon standing in for now</td></tr>
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Something else that I've been re-visiting is one of the units that I had previously found a waste compared to other choices, the all seeing Archon. Since he is already running a really high initiative, the furious charge changes meant less wracks and less use for haemonculi, so an HQ slot opened up to play with this guy. So far my standard loadout has been shadowfield, blaster, djinn blade, with combat drugs and phantasm grenade launcher when I can fit it in. I know the Djinn is a gamble, but really I want him to be perceived as more of a threat than he actually is, and it's worked out well for me; although the huskblade is really looking appealing. Telling someone he's WS 7, I7, with 8 attacks on the charge, a 2+ invuln and an 18" dark lance causes some concern. The trick is he can do some real damage, but he's just there to draw the lambs to the slaughter of the anvil he's running with.<br />
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One of the units that I had been eyeing up towards the end of 5th edition has become a true anvil for me in 6th, the Grotesque. T5 with 3 wounds and a pain token for Feel no Pain off the hop make these guys hard to deal with. There are two draw backs to these guys. First is that they are slow, usually travelling on foot because they take up 2 transport slots each. Second, they require a babysitter or may 'explode' causing potential ruin. The resilience means they can take the time to footslog across the board, so it's not that big a drawback. As I alluded to above, dropping an archon in with these guys brings the big boys to them. With the Aberration and 4 other Grotesques, they can be dropping up to 23 attacks themselves, usually wounding on 2's. They have been a true shining star for me and will get a full tactics article in the near future.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Future Purchase</td></tr>
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Lastly, one of the units that has been important in my assault testing has been the reaver jetbikes. My intial thought was that they can easily get in position to support other units in an assault, ideally charging first and soaking up the overwatch with their T4 and 4+ Jink save. This did work a certain amount, but as I switched my other assault units, I found that the sheer harassment potential of these guys worked much more in my favor and could easily get in close enough to tanks to make a mess with the heat lances. They brought another high priority target for the enemy to deal with while slower units like the Grotesques go into position to do some real damage. I'm still tweaking numbers of guys in a unit and the number of units, the fast slot is full of high demand units now. I have found a distinctly beardy advantage to 3, as long as even 1 bike is alive, he ALWAYS regroups on his normal leadership because he is more than 25% of the starting unit.<br />
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So next I'll review how these changes have built my current 1750 point list and what my expectations are of them.<br />
<br />Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-69026705166909326752012-09-07T21:48:00.001-04:002012-09-07T21:49:09.648-04:00Tactical changes Pt. 1 - Assault, the returning contendersTactics article all set to post, GW releases new FAQs, I've tried to edit this real quick. If something doesn't make sense it may be because of edits, or FAQs. It was going to be longer, but I decided to break this into a series of articles.<br />
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Tactically, the game has changed in extreme ways for my army. Running a hybrid webway army in 5th edition, relying heavily on the alpha strike type of assaults that it allowed for made my glass cannon a thing to be feared, death by a thousand cuts as I liked to call it. But 6th edition came, and karma thought it would be fitting to disassemble my list in the very same way, death by a thousand nerfs. A lot of the changes aren't that big by themselves, add overwatch, random charge distance, no run and assault, no fast moving vehicle assault, nerfs to feel no pain, nerfs to furious charge . . plus others that don't come to mind right now. None of them seemed overly big changes by themselves, I enjoyed most of them, but coming together, they were the perfect storm of destruction for my webway list.<br />
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So as many Dark Eldar players learned, assault is much harder, and more dangerous, to get into. Wyches take this the hardest, arguably one of the best assault troops in the game in 5th, they were the perfect dichotomy; gods in assault, wet blankets when they were shot. The bounce back though is their access to haywire grenades. Wyches are no longer the tarpit unit that they were, now they are used to run up to a vehicle and hit it a few times with haywire and watch the hull points melt away. It's an odd change for a unit that doesn't want to be shot, and preferred to hide in an assault last edition.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhm6Sb3-4MYgF8f0fIZzTRKjeK10BBY8stxqMUIpUkG77m64C0WbuLTME2lC4qbbcPg7wUP9ikj5u2kkv2ZzDJOjbOOw1I2siG69a8siMqBD79JizA7SxPf3IkoEBuGwv9-twJLTRiyxIb/s1600/Wyches.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="174" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhm6Sb3-4MYgF8f0fIZzTRKjeK10BBY8stxqMUIpUkG77m64C0WbuLTME2lC4qbbcPg7wUP9ikj5u2kkv2ZzDJOjbOOw1I2siG69a8siMqBD79JizA7SxPf3IkoEBuGwv9-twJLTRiyxIb/s320/Wyches.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Run from the guns . . . But get the tank?</div><br />
In a similar vein, the wracks were a powerful short range torrent type squad. 10 strong with a Haemonculus out of a webway portal usually saw 3 flamer templates, followed by an assault where they leveraged 30+ attacks at initiative 5, re-rolling to wound in most cases. They were easily the workhorse to a beautifully themed Coven army. Now, unfortunately, wracks often loose as many models as they kill between the loss of the initiative boost and nerf to feel no pain, they could do short range fire fighting with the liquifiers, but that turns the rest of the squad into a delivery system. With wounds coming from the front and random charge distance, they are self defeating, leaving themselves out of range for a followup assault if the liquifiers do cause any damage. For all the struggles I've had in getting a decent set of them together, there is a good chance they are going to be sitting on the shelf mostly.<br />
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But it is about balance, and other armies are having similar issues. So some units came through perfectly fine, or in some cases even better.<br />
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The plus side is the beasts seem to be just as good as they were before, in fact I'd almost say they are slightly better. You loose a little average charge distance, and the wound allocation shenanigans, but that's not a big deal. Ideally, you want the Khymera out front now anyhow, the benefit here is the differing initiative values. When you move into combat, Khymera and Beastmasters are out front and make it into base to base with the rank and file guys. Once they kill a few at initiative 6, the Razorwings now get to pile in at initiative 5, hopefully into holes created at I6 that lets them into base to base with the important guys like special weapon troopers and character upgrades. Since wounds have to be taken from base to base with the razorwings who go on initiative 5, there is a good chance we can burn off those characters/special weapons. Tactially, I'm looking at adding the Baron as my second HQ, just to make these guys so much better. They will get Stealth, Hit and Run, and someone with a shadowfield to soak up wounds; oh, and thanks to a FAQ clarification that indicates that they still go at I1 even though they ignore terrain, he also gives them grenades. With the Beastmasters being characters, it will take quite a bit to have the Baron locked in a challenge, so it should be quite effective.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Come here Mr. Terminator, tell us about your 2+ save again?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Incubi are another squad that is still pretty effective. Up until a few hours ago, I was going to comment on how these guys would be great for challenges, and continue to fulfill most of the roles they had before. What a difference a few hours makes. AP 2 Glaives according to the FAQ, this means that they should still peel through terminators the same as they did before, which is one thing we were maybe going to have to worry about. Again because of the differing initiative between the Klaivex and the squad, we can use the Klaivex to pick out characters/upgrades. Because of their 3+ save, these guys are much more likely to survive overwatch and make it into combat with full effectiveness.<br />
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I've already touched on the Talos in a previous post, but he had mostly been on the fringes of the list, so I'll review and start with him in part 2 of the series, Assault, the new challengers.Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-44635940187846745642012-09-01T22:54:00.001-04:002012-09-01T22:57:16.703-04:00Rise of the TalosWith a change in edition, there needs to be a change in strategies, I've played the game through a little better than four iterations of the rules and learned quickly that even though it looks like a small update, it's always a whole new game. With that in mind, my first couple 6th edition games were ran with an old style list. Webway portals, heavy on assault and short range units like wyches, wracks, and beasts; and of course Ravagers, and a Talos for theme.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The approach of death</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div>Obviously, the list fell completely flat, but I needed to see how bad it was before I could re-build. One of the things that has been echoed throughout the Dark Eldar community, is that our vehicles didn't get nerfed as badly as others with the addition of Hull Points. To an extent I agreed with this, Raiders and Venoms were already fragile and once they got into those rapid fire and melta ranges they died, this remained the same. The one thing I did notice was my Ravagers were getting destroyed much easier. Sitting at a further range, I often took more heavy shots with the ravagers, resulting in stuns and weapon destroyed results with the occasional destroyed result; often the Ravagers would still be alive at the end of a game. 6th edition though, the stun locks, or multiple stuns turned into Hull Point death, and the move and fire at full range of rapid fire weapons put more things in range sooner. The Ravagers were still quite good at anti vehicle, but they just weren't lasting long enough to work as that anvil unit.</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bash Brothers chillin</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div><br />
</div><div>My first instinct was to try and rely on Flyers, we have some very good ones. But I quickly realized that two things, they weren't going to be available enough through out the game to bring to bear effectively enough(2/3rds or less of the game turns), and they were just a gimmick effectiveness for now; as more armies got flyers, or figured out how to torrent of fire them down they would be just as vulnerable. So I was concerned for a bit, but then I noticed how well my Talos was performing, twin-linked haywire blasters had him tag teaming vehicles dead via hull points with a scourge unit with two more haywire blasters, and once he got that first pain token, he was much harder to kill.</div><div><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Come at me Bro'</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div>So as part of my Apocalypticon build, I had gotten another Talos kit, mostly for some more bits, but also to throw together another Talos with these observations in mind. The last few games, the Ravager has sat on the shelf, and the heavy slots have been filled with 2 Talos, and usually a Razorwing. Surprisingly these guys have absolutely preyed on vehicles that take any damage(finishing them off quickly stripping two more hull points), laughed at overwatch as they crash into assault with hammer of wrath, and dominated the table. In combination with a few other changes, that I'll detail in a later post, I think the foot bound Taloi are here to stay, and spark the Dark Footdar revolution, I definitely believe they give the Ravager a very viable run for that 'king of the heavy' crown that it once had.</div><div><br />
</div>Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4124971295436571179.post-35575362617217458062012-08-25T22:08:00.000-04:002012-08-25T22:08:28.157-04:00Dark Eldar Raven Mk II<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeYFy005apCLIXxPNPDIdXnJHUYPi_8SrBQbUNzpwgLO3JrJV3fufacuY-wdcvAt5bvyfnWeRzAbNu-QkHUhKSroctdTBDaCMu-6w0eT5XwlJ4_P12SBhOeJn6tHN2vHviRg6grbjKRZhu/s1600/Raven3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeYFy005apCLIXxPNPDIdXnJHUYPi_8SrBQbUNzpwgLO3JrJV3fufacuY-wdcvAt5bvyfnWeRzAbNu-QkHUhKSroctdTBDaCMu-6w0eT5XwlJ4_P12SBhOeJn6tHN2vHviRg6grbjKRZhu/s320/Raven3.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Elegant but Deadly Silhouette</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
So one of my projects that I started as a learning process is coming a little closer to completion. My Dark Eldar Flyer, which was aiming to be a Raven substitute, but that may change. The IA Apocalypse 2nd Edition brought the Raven back to the potential of usability for me. They were 205 pts for one twin linked dark lance shot, and four Str 4 AP 5 shots, it came down to 125 and changed four bolter shots for ten poison 4+ shots. It seemed right where it should be compared to the Eldar Nightwing. As of the Aeronautica book however, it's back up to 205 pts, with the same lance shot, and poison shots and a rule that doesn't seem to exist. Add the flicker field to it, and it costs as much as the Tantalus?<br />
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AV 10 2 Hull Points, 1 lance, 10 poison shot flyer = AV 12 4 HP 16 transport, 12 Str 5 AP 2 shots?<br />
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I may just mount another gun in the nose vanes, and run it as a 'counts as' Nightwing with Eldar Allies unless an Errata comes out. Anyhow enough ranting.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFmoZQo2-wFR_HxfIIJO6tJIjsa_pcGZXgjomo0008Jpxechlaa3D6-KWoWmyytis3qUmZyF_GzcgBKpH3hIzq4Kq8-F6dfZ4RvTzHM7a-pNccOoYfVGTmBccxVDaHcfpeD4j0dmjG6mrg/s1600/Raven2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFmoZQo2-wFR_HxfIIJO6tJIjsa_pcGZXgjomo0008Jpxechlaa3D6-KWoWmyytis3qUmZyF_GzcgBKpH3hIzq4Kq8-F6dfZ4RvTzHM7a-pNccOoYfVGTmBccxVDaHcfpeD4j0dmjG6mrg/s320/Raven2.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Sky Asssin itself</td></tr>
</tbody></table>I had used it as a Raven from the IA Apocalypse 2nd Edition book during Apocalypticon. I hadn't quite finished getting a mounting system done, so it was Blu-Tacked to a flying stand, and in a lot of the footage if you see it, it looks like it's crashing. Surprisingly, for it's last minute priming, it received quite a bit of attention at the event. Because of how smooth and stable the wings were, many thought it was a resin product that they hadn't seen.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN8dWYkmWPboMilgARHOP5H0viX4AI-l31af9cY1MKBN7k7itZ4Vw82LSHKEs2eXSxaGC2cgpCWECJSUmW3mSZd-teglBx-LUnPT8Hz2U4G_z0gzIDOc4AD_QYPbLWdvPPSDogByENDE0q/s1600/Raven.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN8dWYkmWPboMilgARHOP5H0viX4AI-l31af9cY1MKBN7k7itZ4Vw82LSHKEs2eXSxaGC2cgpCWECJSUmW3mSZd-teglBx-LUnPT8Hz2U4G_z0gzIDOc4AD_QYPbLWdvPPSDogByENDE0q/s320/Raven.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Side Profile</td></tr>
</tbody></table>So since my last update on this project, I constructed and added the top slugh tail. This is a combination of some plasticard to buffer the gun, and then a Splintercannon body run along the bottom of an inverted and trimmed shuriken cannon from a leftover Wraithlord kit. The main fuselage was rounded out with Milliput, including building up around the cockpit, and housings were added for the Dark Lances, and further rounded with Milliput. I found it was a much better medium than Green Stuff, as with a little water it became much more malleable and allowed you to smooth it much more organically.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRZ731ZuhnB333pheTDOs6pDP0G6L-44R6MVGSVxm0i8EFJBOYBuDrgvuNw19jl9L83o7oWn8ialL-JtYV6P51DNAj7f1TFSy324xxjvp5KjpxJqluGt9wimxJSyvCXmPCYFUW4VGHDJv9/s1600/Raven4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRZ731ZuhnB333pheTDOs6pDP0G6L-44R6MVGSVxm0i8EFJBOYBuDrgvuNw19jl9L83o7oWn8ialL-JtYV6P51DNAj7f1TFSy324xxjvp5KjpxJqluGt9wimxJSyvCXmPCYFUW4VGHDJv9/s320/Raven4.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oncoming death</td></tr>
</tbody></table>My actual canopy ended up getting broken, it is currently sporting a replacement made with the half canopy DE rear, but an Eldar canopy front. That will be replaced for the DE canopy front with the half canopy reversed and connected to the back of the full canopy. Then the goal is to try and get a cast of the canopy by itself, and then try the difficult task of getting a cast of the whole plane.Xzandratehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14727954909325918136noreply@blogger.com2