40K is dead, long live the new 40K

The sky has fallen and everyone is all hot and bothered about the new daemon factory psychic phase.  Everyone is crying that their favorite Deathstar is nerfed or that they lost Jaws of the World Wolf, etc.

I give you one of the new Deathstars.

Along with the just released FAQ:

There you have it, 5-10 FarSeers that do NOT suffer Perils of the Warp.  There is no restriction that disallows Jetbikes.  They will successfully cast Invisibility along with a handful of other spells.

From your Main force take an Autarch on a jetbike for grenades and other goodies, and to kick it up a notch consider giving one of this unit's FarSeers the Mantle of the Laughing God. for Stealth & Shrouded plus Hit & Run.  You can add rune of warding to each FarSeer for a 10 points each to get 5(or more) one shot +2 buffs to deny the witch. Fully loaded the Farseers are 130 points each plus 40 points for the Mantle, so yes its a minimum of 690 points for just the 5 dudes.

Now this list should not win you any friends, but it is far more cost effective ( in terms of real money) than buying a shipping container full of daemons.

Forgeworld Hornets Arrive

New Arrivals

So I got a package of goodies in the mail today and quickly assembled 3 Eldar Hornets.  These are the best sculpts and best casts I have ever got.  The mold lines were minimal, there was no warpage other than a few of the gun barrels.  I have never had a Forgeworld kit go together so easily.  

Here Unassembled.

Nice little heat sealed baggies!

Now some of you might be saying, hey FW uses printed ziplock baggies.  You would be right. They also have never sent me anything this well cast.  FW has a habit of using molds well past the point at which they should have been replaced. As well as pulling casts before the model has completely cured.  These suffer from none of those issues.

Move over jetbike hoard fresh new resin from a distant land that has no IP laws has arrived.  

Neverness happens to work with me in the real world, he jokingly suggested that working in an environment where your overseers may be armed with AK-47s might contribute to the quality of the product.

Sadly the company I would like to buy these from does not respect its customers and have driven the costs of its product up while allowing the quality to suffer. When you allow this to happen you open the door to others that will offer better quality at a better price.

Size comparison against a standard Eldar Falcon

Also in the box a Revenant titan with pulsars.  It to is a very well cast kit, and shall be gracing this blog over the next few posts.

I spoke to the supplier of these kits and he is ok with me listing his contact info.  He has worked in the States and speaks English.  I got these in the mail within 10 days of paying for them.  For my order it worked out to about one third of the cost vs ordering from the UK.

If you want to find out more email wargames.discount@gmail.com and tell him that the Warfrog sent you.

FW Lynx Conversion

Follow up on a previous post where I repaired some minor issues.

After looking at how the cannon assembly works on the standard Lynx I realized that a hull brace like the FW Cobra would be a great modification.

Stock photo from FW's site, showing mount style I am hoping to build.

Here you can see where I have ground down the existing hull and added in a piece of plastic card to form the mount.

Here the Gun has bee glued into place and is resting on the mount strut.

Here the mount has been melted with a heat gun and wrapped up around the barrel.

Here the mount ring has been completed 100% around the barrel using Pro-Create.
















Now the cannon barrel will stay secure in while transporting the model, and the barrel wont droop under its own weight.

Some final sanding and details will follow shortly.

Bring on 7th Ed

So I spent the weekend working on some FW models getting ready for no FOC lists.

Very happy with this kit. like most FW it will look great on the shelf.  Maybe FW will see more table time in 7th.  I have a hard time making a 6th list including this because of the current D-strength rules.

I say this was prepping for unbound glory and spam but truth is I have a few models lying around that needed work done to make it to shelves.


The Warp Hunter on the other hand Fits nicely into 6th.  I like the 36 inch barrage, and it seems a little toned down compared to the 24 barrage range from the support weapons.

One of these is not like the others, is it real or is it a recast?

Again round 2 of is it real or is it a recast.

Hopefully I will get these 50 or so Eldar guardian jetbikes based and primed along with the FW Lynx repair and conversion in the next post or two.

Resin Model Repair

So I have been working on a few ForgeWorld or possibly FW knockoffs in an attempt to catch up on my backlog of unassembled models.

Eldar Lynx partially assembled












Repair needed

Here you can see the white area just lower and left of the cockpit.











There was a small break here and I did not have the piece that broke off.  I used a very thin piece of plastic card (from a yardsale sign) I glued it to the underside and trimmed it to fit the old curve of the piece.

I then dropped a few drops of superglue onto the piece, followed up with sprinkling baking soda on the glue.  The baking soda makes the glue cure almost instantly, and when it dries you can sand it.  It it much harder than GreenStuff.  Making it ideal for this fix.

Other fixes needed too.

3 different areas needed repairs here.












1 The engine cover got snapped off, I reinforced it from below with thin plasticard.
2 The engine cover and stabilizer seen far right had broken in transit.  I rebuilt the cowl using thin plasticard from underneath and using ProCreate grey putty on the visible side of the model.
3 The white half of the stabilizer mount is thick plasticard cut and sanded to fit the original missing piece.

Warpage

The barrel of the gun was significantly warped.

I glues a magnet to the mounting end and hung it from my work bench.  Then I used the heat gun to soften the resin and bend it back into shape.  Because it was hanging gravity helped keep it straight while the resin cooled.

Battle Report Eldar vs Tau 1850 points

I showed up at our local Hobby Town to get a game in.  I challenged Patrick to avenge Nerverness's recent loss to the Tau.

My list was

4 units of Jetbikes, 6 bikes each 2 upgraded to cannons plus a warlock with a witchblade.  One unit gets joined by the Farseer

Farseer on bike with witchblade, runes of warding and witnessing

3 units of 10 warpspiders, one unit upgraded to an exarch.

2 units of 3 shadow weavers with an added warlock for conceal

1 FW Warp Hunter

We setup for dawn of war I picked sides and have first turn.  MY warlord power allows rerolls at a unit on the objective (never gets used) First turn is night time.  There were 3 objectives I place 2 in no-mans land and Patrick placed one in his deployment zone (sketchy fish people have no honor)

We played on the newest board that Pat made for the store, the trenches are all lava filled, models can't enter (deadly terrain) we also quickly realized that this board eats dice.

 My Deployment.  I left 2 units of Warp Spiders in reserves and tried to keep everything in cover just in case the Tau seize the initiative.

Tau's fishy deployment:
2 scouting marker light units not seen here 2 riptides, a devil fish & hammerhead, one upgrade with the HQ unit that helps BS, the transport had his warlord.





























Turn 1 the dishonorable Fish steal the initiative and unleash.  However the Eldar are masters of cover and buffed saves.  The warp hunter was shaken and a few jetbikes fell to shooting.  On my turn Warp Spiders and bikes eliminated the forward scouts with marker lights and killed all but one of the other similar unit (first blood to me)

Here bikes retreat back behind a bastion and Spiders leap up for more cover saves

Turn 2 and 3 were hard fought on both sides, artillery kept killing fishies and riptides with a 2+/5+ and FNP 5+ showed just how tough they are.  My Spiders sat out turn 2, with one unit coming on in turn 3 shown above with the exarch unit coming on in turn 4.  The spiders make excellent tank hunters with 20 shots of str 7 hitting on 3s.

By the end of my turn 3 it was looking rough as most of the tau troops were dead and the tides were near death.

At the end of my 4th turn the tanks and tides were dead, there were 2 Tau troops units left one with 3 men, the other was a last man standing. I had 2 strong bike units plus a single biker from another allowing me to capture the 3 objectives.

This Tau list is the most resilient list with incredible fire power I have seen in 6th ed.  I lost 25+ warpspiders, 15+ bikes, a few wounded Artillery models ( at T7 with 2+ cover) and a hull point on a hull down hidden tank.  It was a much closer game than the VP total reflects.

The result was a sweep on VPs for the Eldar

List Building

So what makes for a good list?

If an opponent shows up with a list full of Pyrovores and Hormagaunts led by Old One Eye, most in the community will question why was such a poor choice made. Often to a point that is bordering on degrading to the player. Why then is the reverse of that situation also held with such distaste.  Mono Nurgle, Helldrake spam, Waveserpent spam, etc gets the same level of negative response or worse.

Why is that everyone tries to justify there own lists while vilifying the opponents list?  Warhammer 40,000 is not now, nor will it ever be balanced.  If you want balance play chess.  There is a quote floating around that if you find your self in a fair fight then you need to change your tactics. This has been true for every real battle ever fought, it should hold true for a futuristic war simulation as well.

I do not advocate WAAC, if you have to exploit by cheating with movement, pivoting vehicles to gain an inch, or some other such shenanigan then you need to improve on your own skill level to drop such crutches.  I often feel that the current editions permission to use allies is a huge crutch to most players and allows for exploitation.  Most army lists were written in an attempt to give each army a feel; they get something they specialize in, as a trade off they often have a few weaknesses. With the addition of allies you often see nothing but the strongest combos from each codex.



I feel that there is a time for soft fluffy lists, that time is when teaching the game to a newcomer. Those are called demo games. Would you feel better about your most recent victory if your opponent afterwards said, yeah well I was holding back and used a subpar list on purpose? I see on message boards people using the fluffy list excuse for 2 reasons; either to make themselves feel better about their loss, or to pump themselves up even more in a victory.  Why not just build a list be fair and honest and try to win while being a good sport. No more crying about fair or not fair, spammy or not. Do what every military has tried to do; win!

Some of my most memorable games have been against damn hard lists ran by skilled players using Dark Eldar Raider spam well before the internet was all abuzz about MSU/transport spamming. And that was 3rd edition.

Calling a list or player fluffy or WAAC is bad sportsmanship.  Cheating and rules exploits are bad sportsmanship as well.

Get out there and try new lists, shake things up and work on new combos within your codex. Who knows you might create the next great net-list that everyone talks about.

Battle Report Eldar vs Marines 1850 points

Very few pics this time around.

I showed up at our local Hobby Town hoping for a game.  I had my 1500 point Eldar list and a few extras in case someone wanted to go larger.  The group there introduced me to Corey and his Ultramarines for a game.  Corey had a 1850 list so I scaled up to meet him.

My list was
Basic Farseer on bike joining a Guardian bike squad

4 Guardian bike squads
each with 6 bikes (2 w/cannons) and a warlock biker with conceal

3 Units of 10 man strong Warp Spiders (no exarchs)

A fire Prism with ghostwalk matrix and Holofields and Shuriken Cannon

2 Support weapon batteries each with 3 Shadow Weavers

And a Sky Shield Landing Pad with 3 upgraded barricade sections

For a total of 1808 points

My Warlord power was the one that lets you rearrange your units. My side of the board was so full that it was totally wasted. I went first as the marines were unable to seize in the darkness.  We rolled up Big Guns never tire on Dawn of War.

I knew the marines were holding 3 drops pods plus a unit of legion of the Damned in reserve so I held my troops back so that I did not leave any huge gaps that he could land a pod next to my artillery in.
In the darkness of turn one 30 warp spiders went on the hunt. 10 Spiders on my left flank took up cover in a multilevel ruin.  10 on my right flank jumped 17 inches forward and destroyed a rhino plus one passenger leaving 4 marines cowering in the crater. The 10 Spiders in the middle got fortuned from the Farseer and advanced on two melta bikers, killing them swiftly in the darkness.  A dreadnaught with 2 twinlinked autocannons lost an arm to the fireprism. Then the Spiders ran back and jumped back during the assault phase to hide in cover.

Here the middle spider have just wasted the bikers, and the right flank spiders are ready to slag the Rhino.

The right flank spiders, after slagging the Rhino jump up to the top of a building to hide from the marines.

The rest of the army sitting at the rear waiting to pounce when the pods appear.















Marine turn 1 killed a few spiders and dropped 2 pods just to the left and right of the Landing pad. a dual flamer dread opened up on and got 8 heavy flamer hits on the fortuned spiders.  Only one failed its re-rollable save.  The other pod double flamered the bike squad with the farseer that was hiding under the Pad. killing two bikers.

Eldar turn two killed 3 land speeders all of the drop pod contents, a unit of devastators in the ruins and most of the marines hiding in the crater.  The Marine player dropped the last pod near his fortified ruins and the LotD dropped in to support his ruins and objective.

Eldar turn three all of the pods were destroyed, the ruins cleared including the one armed dread and most of the LotD went back to being just ghosts.  Marine turn three realizing that he was down to a double las-cannon Razorback, a Command Rhino missing 2 hull points, and a Dread that was trying to hid from the spider death. The marine captain fled the field of battle.

In all I lost the main gun on the Fire Prism, 5 spiders from each unit, and 2 jet bikes.

It was a good game with a great opponent at a wonderful Hobby Town game night.  I look forward to the next game.

Is this thing still on?

Life gets in the way. Its been a while someone remind me what year is this and what edition are we in?
I am going to try to start updating this blog again, we shall see how long that lasts.
I have managed to get a few 40k games in recently, there might even be enough photos for a battle report.

I have added a swap shop link for old goodies I no longer need to be the keeper of and broken down my army pic pages to accommodate the Eldar and Tyranid hoardes.

With any luck I will get some photos up and maybe even a battle report or two.