FAQs are here!

The FAQs are up, and the world of 40k is shaken most mightily. Of particular note is that ALL the 5th ed codices (Grey Knights, Blood Angels, Space Wolves) and the Orks have lost their codex specific psychic powers in favour of the new 7th ed powers.

It is also worth noting that the little summary card that comes with the Psychic Power Cards was in fact meant to indicate what powers could possibly be taken in a faction, but is NOT a blanket statement determining what is available to all psykers within that faction.For example, Chaos Marine players rejoiced on seeing Divination get a tick in its happy little box. However, that just refers to such things as the Hamadrya or the Banestar of Mammon. Alas, the Master of the Corvidae, Ahriman, STILL has no access to Divination. Shame on you, GW...

Here's what's going on with the other factions I play:

Blood Angels
Fine, no more Sanguine Sword and what-have-you. I can live with that. And I can definitely live with the fact that upgrading a Librarian to a Epistolary is now 25 pts, rather than the insanely priced 50 pts. Also, the Furioso Librarian is a level 2 psyker, which makes more sense.

On the downside, Blood Angels still have the most absurdly expensive Land Speeder Typhoons, at 90 pts compared to the rest of the Imperium's 75 pts. Also, there appears to be some kind of typo - Blood Angel Razorbacks, Rhinos, Vindicators, Whirlwinds and Predators have all lost Fast. Since there was no accompanying revision to the points costs of these vehicles, I think it's safe to assume that these vehicles did NOT, in fact, lose Fast, it's just that whoever prepared the document was either too lazy, too ignorant, too careless or too feckless to noticed he omitted one of the Blood Angel's defining characteristics.

Astra Militarum
Nothing much. The Primaris Psyker and Wyrdvane Psykers now add Daemonology to their repertoirs.

Chaos Space Marines
The Heldrake has lost it's ridiculous bendy gun, and now fires like it bloody well should - as a hull-mounted weapon, to the front. The Spell Familiar didn't change, so I'm guessing one gets to reroll a failed attempt to cast a psychic power.

Dark Angels
Psykers add Daemonology to their repertoirs. This FAQ still doesn't address the question of whether Deathwing Terminator Sergeants can switch out their weapons for thunder hammer and storm shield. And Blades of Caliban are still the most absurdly useless weapon in the book, coz who the hell needs an AP3 Unwieldly weapon, eh?

Necrons
Canoptek Spyders have had their Gloom Prism updated - it gives +2 to Deny the Witch in a 3" bubble. Also, if Deathmarks choose an Independent Character as a target, they wound any unit the IC joins on a 2+ as well. Nice! Other than that, nothing new that I can see.

Grey Knights
Saved the best for last. Since these guys have lost their codex powers, they've ALL been replaced with the new versions from Sanctic Daemonology. Pretty much everything with Hammerhand now has the new, improved Hammerhand AND Banishment. The Purifiers (including Crowe) have Cleansing Flame as well. All the vehicles which had Fortitude now have Banishment and Sanctuary. Grandmasters and Brother Captains now roll for their powers, with access to Sanctic Daemonology, Divination, Pyromancy, Telekinesis and Telepathy.

The Aegis now means rerolling 1's on Deny the Witch attempts. Reinforced Aegis means the unit can reroll any failed Deny the Witch attempts.

4 years of grimdark - HQ showcase!

It's been quite a while since I started 40k, and I just felt like looking back to my earlier forays into the grimdark. I always knew that I wouldn't have the discipline to paint every miniature in my armies to the very best of my abilities, but that said, I would most certainly lavish a bit more love on the HQ units. This post is a collection of the minis which have led my armies to glory or defeat since I got into the hobby.

The first HQ unit I painted was this Blood Angel Captain. I bought and assembled him based more on how cool he looks as a model rather than how much pain he can dish out on the battlefield. I really hadn't played that many games at the time, mind you. The thing was, by the time I'd gotten the rest of the army to a reasonable standard, I realized how bloody useless he was compared to the Reclusiarch and Librarian, so this is one mini which has never been fielded in combat...

I got the Lemartes model and decided against ever using him as Lemartes, simply because Death Company with jump packs is ludicrously expensive. With all the Blood Angel iconography on him, though, he made an ideal Reclusiarch, and as such has led my Death Company into absurdly violent and destructive charges.

While a Reclusiarch or Chaplain truly shines when he leads the Death Company, Librarians have far greater utility, especially now in 6th edition, with access to the Divination psychic powers. Even back in 5th, the Unleash Rage power worked just as well as Prescience (at least in close combat) and my Librarians often found themselves leading Assault Terminators into battle. Now he finds himself going to war alongside my Sternguard, lending his plasma pistol to their devastating salvos.

Here's another Librarian I painted up, for the sake of WYSIWYG when I don't have the points to have him toting a plasma pistol. That staff took bloody ages...

I made a half-hearted foray into Grey Knights, once upon a time. The things that stopped me from getting into them more seriously were the Dreadknight (one of the most stupid-looking models I've ever seen, in my opinion) and the simple fact that after painting up a few Grey Knight Terminators, I couldn't really be bothered to make it happen. This guy's my take on the Brotherhood Champion. I figured one long Nemesis Force Sword didn't quite feel like it could pull off such cool abilities as Blade Shield and Sword Storm, so I snipped up some falchions and came up with this guy. I'm pretty pleased with the result, and every so often I still toy with the idea of a Grey Knight allied contingent.

A throwback from 5th edition, my Librarian with a jump pack led my Descent of Angels army. In 5th, there was much to be said for null deployment, coupled with the Blood Angels jump infantry's unparalleled reliability in Deep Striking. These days, not so much, and 6th is really not kind at all to squads of jump infantry having to get across the board the old-fashioned way, even with their jump packs. Maybe I'll cobble something together again sometime and give it a whirl...

Ah, the Crimson King... Master of the most consistent of my armies. Since I got my hands on a pair of Necron fliers, the Crimson King has rarely known defeat. Mind you, it took a few defeats in the early days of the Necron codex before I learnt how to properly wield the 20 Warriors who walk with him, the Crimson Guard. I love his pose. Body upright, strong and proud, in contrast to his hunched Warriors. One arm bearing his custom-built Warscythe, commanding his legions onward, the other clutching his precious Resurrection Orb close to him, and his head very slightly tilted back in utter contempt for his foes.

My nameless and cursed Chaos Lord onna Bike. To be sure, he has performed spectacular feats of martial prowess, killing monstrous creatures, battlesuits, Terminators, Obliterators and Leman Russes with the reckless abandon that Khornate champions are wont to display. The thing is, he has never, EVER ascended to Daemonhood. Turned into a Spawn twice and got gunned down shortly after, though. His quest continues...

Belial, Master of the Deathwing, leader of what is by far the most stressful of all my armies. Deathwing is what I field when I want to travel light and have a radically different experience of 40k. I don't know about the rest of you, but in 6th edition, this army strikes me as playing in Hard mode. The simple reason is 6th edition is the edition of the gun. As they say, everything counts in large amounts, and in this edition, I feel we're seeing more models on the board, more guns and certainly more anti-infantry firepower. Not good news for Terminators and man, it stings when every little casualty counts.

"Glory for the first man to die!" In an age of gene-enhanced super-soldiers, fearsome aliens and traitors in league with unspeakable horrors, there's a special kind of charm to the humble human in all his frailty. I decided I needed a right hardass to lead the army of Men to glory, and nothing was quite as fitting in my eyes as a Lord Commissar. I'd been reading a bit too much of Gaunt's Ghosts, I think. Given my general loathing of metal and resin, I used the little officer dude that came with the Baneblade kit, seeing as he had a nice big commissar-esque hat. No, I don't have a Baneblade (yet), I just picked this guy up separately off eBay.

So, that's it from me for now. Next up, a closer look at my lovely Imperial Guard army, the Red Thunder!

Batrep: Knights & Angels Vs Black Templars, 1750 pts

I'd been toying with the idea of a full-infantry list incorporating some Grey Knights,and earlier this weekend I tried out a new list. Having taken my lessons from an earlier engagement against Deathwing, I figured I needed to kit out my Grey Knights to better combat Terminators. So I put together a list, this time with a few more bodies, and hurled them against Louis' Black Templars.

My Knights & Angels:

Librarian with jump pack, Prescience and Iron Arm
Honor Guard with Storm Shield, Thunder Hammer, 2 Lightning Claws and jump packs
Sanguinary Guard with 2 Infernus pistols, 2 Plasma pistols and power fist
Sanguinary Priest with jump pack
10 Assault Marines with 2 meltaguns, Sgt power weapon and meltabombs
10 Assault Marines with 2 flamers, Sgt power weapon and meltabombs
5 Devastators with 4 missile launchers
Grey Knight Brother-Captain with master-crafted daemonhammer and master-crafted psycannon
5 Grey Knight Terminators with Brotherhood Banner, Warding Stave, Psycannon and 2 Daemonhammers


When you get down to it, a Paladin's 2 Wounds don't really make much difference when you're about to get thumped by power fists, thunder hammers, power klaws, and the like. So I figured I'd use a smaller force of plain Grey Knight Terminators and place the bulk of my points on the Blood Angels instead.

Louis' BlackTemplars:

Chaplain Grimaldus and Retinue
Emperor's Champion
5 Sword Brethren Terminators with 2 Assault Cannons
7 Sword Brethren Assault Terminators with 4 Lightning Claws and 3 shields & hammers
8 Initiates and 3 Neophtes all with bolt pistols and close combat weapons, 2 Initiates with flamers
8 Initiates and 3 Neophtes all with bolt pistols and close combat weapons, 2 Initiates with meltaguns
10-man Assault squad with 2 flamers and 1 power fist
Land Raider Crusader

Vow: Suffer not the unclean to live (+1 Strength, -1 Initiative)

Wow, this army is quite a relic! Still, in its day (and even in 5th ed) Black Templars were amongst the most lethal close combat armies in 40k. Does that still hold true in 6th? Only one way to find out...

Batrep: Knights & Angels vs Chaos Marines, 1750pts

Following my previous outing with Necrons against Edwin's Nids, I realized that I lack a crucial ingredient to make my Necrons truly lethal in 6th: Flyers. A little tweak to the list later, I fit in 2 Doom Scythes and boy, they were lethal. I'll try to make a batrep happen for my Necrons at some point.

In the meantime, I'd been racking my brains for weeks trying to figure out how to field my dear Blood Angels in the messed up world of 6th ed. In the past, my mechanized Angels proved singularly brutal in 5th, combining brutal firepower, speed, maneuverability and a vicious close combat punch in a tremendously flexible package.  A big part of that was being able to move my 3 Razorback squads 12", then disembark 2" and move 6" to shoot, allowing me to very suddenly bring 6 melta weapons and 3 twin-linked plasmaguns to bear in support of the list's other elements.  Disembarking after moving 12" also meant a huge threat range for my Furioso Dreadnought, and my Terminator deathstar.  With the change to the disembarking rules in 6th, my trusty old Double Deathstar list has been effectively neutered.

What's a Blood Angel player to do?  The 5th ed way of mechanized warfare has been brought to a screeching halt.  To make matters worse, the new reserve rules have made a mockery of the Descent of Angels list - no more keeping the whole army in reserve to storm onto the board in the 2nd turn.  So, I'd been brainstorming all manner of strategies around which to base my 6th ed Blood Angels, and I hit upon the idea of pairing them up with my fledgeling Grey Knight force. I threw together a list and gave it a whirl...

My List:

1750pts. Really.

Drago
10 Paladins with Brotherhood Banner, 3 Psycannons, Psybolt Ammo, Warding Stave, Apothecary with a mix of Nemesis force weapons
2 Solodins each with master Nemesis force halberds

Librarian with jump pack, force staff, Blood Lance and Shield of Sanguinius
2 x 10-man squads of assault marines, each with 2 meltaguns and a sergeant with 2 Infernus pistols

Quite a simple idea, really. The Paladins march across the board and hopefully don't take too many casualties in turn 1. Turn 2, combat squads of Blood Angels drop from the sky with their characteristic DoA accuracy and kill any big guns which could seriously threaten the Paladins. Frankly, I had no idea how well it'd work, but I figured I'd take my Warmachine approach to learning and just hurl the thing into combat and watch closely what works and what doesn't....

Louis' Thousand Sons:
Ahriman
Sorcerer in Terminator Armour with the Mark of Tzeentch and a combiweapon
5 Chaos Terminators, led a Champion, with an icon of Tzeentch, 4 combiweapons and heavy flamer
2 x 7-man squads of Thousand Sons, including the sorcerer, in a Rhino
10-man squad of Chaos Marines, including a champion with powerfist, 2 plasmaguns, in a Rhino
Chaos Land Raider

Note: This is the list as I remember it. As I was writing up the batrep, I noticed it's about 100 pts shy of 1750.

Mission: The Relic
Deployment: Dawn of War. I won the roll-off and deployed first.

I split the 10-man Paladin squad into 2 combat squads.  One carried the 3 psycannons and would slowly advance, shooting up any tasty targets and providing fire support to the other squad, which had all the close combat nastiness, including Drago, the Brotherhood Banner, the apothecary, and 2 Daemon Hammers. On the Blood Angels' side, one squad split into combat squads, with 2 meltaguns in one squad and the infernus gunslinging sergeant in the other. The other squad would drop in with the Librarian.  The stage was set - here's how it went...

Army status update

Just thought I'd try to get organized and keep track of what the hell I'm doing. So, here's what's going on. army by army:

Blood Angels
My first love and it shows. I think I've about 5,000 pts of Blood Angels now - quite enough to field a tremendous variety of builds, with 10 Assault Marines and 5 Scouts waiting to be properly painted up. No more Blood Angel purchases for a very, very long time, I daresay.

Necrons
WRAITHS! I WANT WRAITHS! But seriously, I've a comfortable 1750pt army which mostly gets the job done and is great fun to play. The Wraiths and Spyders look really awesome but they can wait, I think.

Chaos Space Marines
Have a 1750pt army which is fun to play, what with something like 500 pts put into bikers. That having been said, I refuse to touch Plague Marines, Lash of Submission and Obliterators, so everytime I've used that army was a struggle just to survive. I think I'll wait to see if the new codex is kinder to bikers.

Imperial Guard
Waiting for about 10 vehicles to arrive. Then I'm looking to try out some shenanigans with obscene amounts of firepower. Until then, I reallyhave to get the infantry elements prepared.

Grey Knights
Have about 15 Paladins and a Land Raider Crusader. Still need a little tweaking to bang it together into a viable Draigowing, and that's as far as I'm going to go with Grey Knights. Not a high priority, so this can wait til I manage to get bored of everything else.

Khador & Menoth
Still waiting for that damned battle box... When that happens, I'd like to get in a few games to get a better feel for the mechanics. Then, I'm looking to build 3 armies, each with a specific theme:

1) Infantry-heavy Sorscha (this will take a LONG time)
2) The Butcher and his brutes (lotsa Man-o-War units)
3) Kreoss' Crusade (lotsa Knights Exemplar)

Armies 2 & 3 are almost entirely plastic. It's just Sorscha that will take a while to piece together. Slowly does it...

So, what am I going to pull my wallet out for? Crap, I really don't know. I'll come back to think about this when the Battlebox arrives. Until then, hobby funding is FROZEN. Except for paints and brushes and glue, of course, assembly and paint MUST continue, lest I fall into the awful trap of accumulating ludicrous amount of grey plastic that never sees a gaming table...

Grey Knights!

First of all, let me say that I don't seriously play Grey Knights. I just built this teeny tiny army because I totally fell in love with the fluff for Grey Knights aeons ago, back in the days of 1st edition Space Hulk, Rogue Trader and 1,200pts for a squad of 5 unspeakably ugly Grey Knight Terminators.

See?

To cut a long story short, I've been waiting YEARS for nice, PLASTIC Grey Knights, and they're finally here! So, this post isn't so much a serious gaming post about an army as much as it is a gallery of some WIP Grey Knights I've cobbled together.

So, here's the guy proxying as my Draigo, until I get my grubby paws on one:


And a closer look at the right-hand sword:


I'm fairly pleased with how the force weapons turned out, because it's a really quick and easy technique:
1) Coat the blade in Mithril Silver.
2) Wash with Asurmen Blue, taking care to avoid the edges where you want the Mithril Silver to show.
3) Wash again, this time about half a cm further down from the tip of the blade.
4) Repeat step 3 as necessary.

The back banner is my first time freehanding. I might take another shot at it at some point. There's a fair amount of drilling and pinning among my Grey Knights. I LIKE double weapons, especially double ended weapons. Here's my Brotherhood Chamion:

DOUBLE double ended falchions, bwahaha!

A look at the right blade:

And the left:


More double-ended joy...


And one more, cue that music from the scene where Darth Maul does his thing...


And something a little different, a Nemesis Force Seriously Big Spear, shown alongside a halberd for comparison:


Of course, I use these conversions to count as master-crafted weapons.

As with almost every miniature in my possession, each of the Grey Knights need a little more love before I can varnish them once and for all. Will post pics when that happens. And maybe one day, we might concievably see a coherent army list for my Grey Knights...