So, I had a couple of games of 7th...

Note: This post has been sitting in my draft folder for a few weeks now. I've had quite a few more games of 7th ed since I first started this post, but not much has changed regarding how I feel about 7th, so I'm putting this up anyway. 

This weekend I caught up on some serious 40k-ing. Got in my first game of 7th, fielding Deathwing against Adi's Tau, then another game using 30 Blood Angel Tactical marines against Wong's Grey Knights. First impressions? Let's try and be organized about this...

Blood Angel Tacticals SUCK 
Had to get that out of the way. They are more expensive and in every possible way inferior to their counterparts from other chapters. And the one thing that makes them uniquely Blood Angels (i.e. the Red Thirst) only makes them worse at being Tactical Marines. Fearless means no going to ground. Furious Charge means having to choose between the bolter and their hardly adequate close combat prowess.

Pictured: Fail on two legs

So, here I sit, with 3 lovely squads of Tactical marines, relegated to shelf garrison duty. Or maybe I just suck at using them. Whatever the case may be, I'm going back to my good old Assault Marines and their magnificent Razorbacks. If anyone reading this has a clever way to use Blood Angel Tacticals, do tell, coz I'm certainly curious to see how they work...

The Psychic Phase
The source of much mixed feelings thus far, and this has greatly changed the way my Blood Angels operate. In 6th ed, one of the pillars of a decent Blood Angel list was that 100 pt Librarian who'd be puttering about and enhancing his comrades with Prescience. In this edition, 1 Librarian, even an Epistolary is no guarantee of pulling off Prescience reliably. In 6th, 2 Epistolaries equated to 4 powers being cast with great reliability. In 7th, you'll be lucky to get off 2, and that's assuming your opponent can't do much about it. If your opponent has an overwhelmingly greater number of Warp Charges, then your Librarians are pretty much useless, as all your powers get squelched by your psychically superior foe.

Obviously a better psyker than mine

I've mixed feelings about this. On one hand, it's an interesting new mechanic, and yay, Prescience is no longer an auto-include. On the other hand... well, I suppose it's going to take a while for psychically weak armies to find their sweet spot, in terms of how much to invest in psychic powers and which discipline serves them best. And, of course, this means a resurgence in the power of seriously psychic armies, notably Grey Knights, Daemons, and perhaps a little Eldar.

Tactical Objectives
Honestly? I don't like them. For years, I've been pretty used to the idea of putting your army on the board with a clear mission in mind long before the first dice is rolled. Now, I put stuff on the board, and I know where the objectives are but I don't know whether they'll reward me. In fact, until I draw my first hand of objective cards, I have NO idea what I'm playing for. There are a few ways to react to this:

1. Just roll with it. It helps if you have an army that can respond quickly to the changing objectives. 
2. Ignore it, and focus on killing your opponent's army. Coz if he's dead, he can't score, right?
3. Don't play it, and just stick with the Eternal War missions. 

Personally... I'm kinda inclined towards 2 and 3. Mainly because it feels a bit silly when you put a couple of hours into the game only to essentially have it decided by luck of the draw. It's a little more random than I like, I think.

What do?
Well, first off, it's pretty clear that I can't rely on psykers as much anymore. Also, vehicles are back in a big way, thanks to the buffing of the vehicle damage chart and the nerfing of the Smash USR.  So... what does this realistically mean for my armies?

1. Blood Angels - Well, on one hand, I can't rely on my Librarian for Prescience anymore. On the other hand, packing close combat death in a Land Raider is back in fashion, so I think my Chaplain/Reclusiarch may see some action, together with my new Land Raider Crusader...
2. Deathwing - Yay! Null deployment is on! This edition is excellent for Deathwing, so no changes here.
3. Necrons - No Psykers, so no real difference. Haven't seen action yet, though...
4. Astra Militarum - My atheist army of men. Again, I place no faith in Psykers here, and play a large volume of vehicles. This army quite likely has gotten stronger with this edition, so no need to change anything.
5. Chaos Space Marines - Another army without a Psyker. But you know what? I've a Daemon Prince that just might be tempted to start turning to Malefic Daemonology... 

Meta-wise, however, it's worth noting that at my FLGS, the players with more mature armies with larger collections (like myself) are moving on from 1,750 pts to 1,850 pts. No biggie. Fortifications for everybody!

Almost got a new Librarian... Aaaand he's done!

Soon, soon...

I've kept to my usual habit of blending red to yellow on force weapons, though this time, I've gone with a different technique. Usually, I start by painting the area for blending Mephiston Red, then work from one end and blend as I go with Blood Red, Trollslayer Orange, Golden Yellow and Vallejo's Pale Yellow. This time, I started with Iyanden Darksun, then blended starting from the centre. I found this saved quite a bit more time and effort.

The blue is achieved with Ultramarine Blue washed with Asurmen Blue, line highlighted with Lothern Blue. I still intend to highlight a little further, perhaps mixing some white in.

As I mentioned earlier, I'd decided to base all the gold areas with Iyanden Darksun before painting on Shining Gold, shading with Devlan Mud. I daresay that is what made a really big difference compared to my old technique of painting layer upon layer of Shining Gold on black, then shading with Chestnut Ink, making the mini as a whole appear much brighter.

<Moments later...>

And here he is, standing amongst my old Librarians for comparison:

What we have here is a small psychic nuclear weapon worth of Librarians... Is that a cat's whisker I see before me? 

Well, I'm pleased with how he turned out, and I've a list or two which I'm itching to try out... Next up, I think it's high time I got back to work on my Grey Knights...

Here he is again, in all his glory, ready to deliver the Emperor's wrath...

WIP: Another Librarian

Just got back from a quick break in Sydney a couple of days ago. The thing about going to Australia is that it is, for me, GW hell. Why? EVERYTHING is about 30 to 50% more expensive compared to Malaysia. And just to add insult to injury, there are a LOT of GW shops over there.... That said, I couldn't go all the way to Sydney and not make at least one pilgrimage to a friendly GW, so I stopped at GW Chatswood, staffed by the exceedingly friendly Franz, and picked up one dinky model: A plastic Librarian.

Here's how it's looking now...

Suffice it to say, I had to swap out the head for something a bit more fitting for a Blood Angel, i.e. hairier. I also left out the creepy cherub thing. Yeah, I know his skin tone seems a bit different from his bros in the back. In the past, I used Tallarn Flesh as a base and Elf Flesh to highlight. I'm currently using Vallejo's Dwarf Skin and Basic Skintone now.

Like the plastic commissar, the Librarian is a wonderfully detailed model. There are two things in particular I really like about this model:

1. The head socket gives you the freedom to pop in a different head, should you so choose. Tight fit, mind you.
2. The arms and staff are a single piece, allowing you to just paint those bits separately and glue them on later. 

Still lots to do. Right now, I'm trying to decide whether I want to base the gold bits in Iyanden Darksun first. Then comes the fiddly markings on the staff. Force weapons take me ages...

Update:
Later that day...

Yeah, I went with the Iyanden Darksun undercoat. I like. Those who know me may notice this is the first time I've deigned to paint in the eyes. Since he's a psyker, I don't have to dot them, hah!

Hungry for 7th...

Man, I am dying for a game of 7th ed... So, to keep myself from going insane, I've been keeping myself busy catching up with some old models and making them presentable. Also, I just whipped these up:

Nothing complicated here. Just a little paint and varnish and putting some old, old decals to good use. For Eternal War missions, I'd just use them like I used to. For Maelstrom of War, the Mysterious Objective dice can just be left beside it, so as not to obscure the number.

Inspired by the performance of the Red Thunder, I decided my Blood Angels needed more boots on the ground, so here are my 3 Tactical Squads to bolster the ranks.

I assembled the heavy bolter dude a long, long time ago, mostly because I thought the gun looked cool. Then, having played around with Razorback Assault Squads for a while, I promptly forgot him. Now, after a few more games of putting mere mortals on the board, a gene-enhanced super-soldier toting a massive, rapid-firing gun is looking more attractive than ever, so I painted this guy up, just in case.

I'm pleased to see that 2 editions since I started my Blood Angels, the meltagun still hasn't gone out of fashion. You gotta love a weapon designed to kill any one thing it's pointed at...

While I can say my technique with decals has improved over the years, the quality of Space Marine decals has not. Seriously, how do you get these things to lie perfectly flat on those pauldrons??

Left: New grunt, right: Very, very old grunt. From my first Tactical Squad, in fact. 

There's still plenty of line highlights that need doing here, but on the whole I'm pretty pleased with my rank and file.  Now let's see how well I keep them alive...

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.

Doom, doom, doooooom!!

7th is here, 7th is here! Sooo... I succumbed most pathetically to temptation and had to get myself a copy of the new rulebook:

The bowl is for keeping track of Warp Charge dice. We love Daiso. We note the old objective dice are still of use in the new edition.

Out with the old, in with the new! I've been studying the new book religiously and I'm liking what I see. Anyway, straight to business. Here are some of the more interesting changes I've noted:

Yay for 7th ed Psychic Powers!

Well, the new 7th ed Psychic powers have leaked. I won't bother with detailing how the new Psychic Phase works - there are plenty of posts up on the net which do just that. Truth be told, I'm rather chuffed at how it's looking and here's why. In 6th ed, everybody wanted a piece of Prescience. Most of the time, it could be cast with a 1 in 12 chance of failure (assuming Ld10, 1 in 6 at Ld 9), which is practically as reliable as it gets, and it's a pretty massive force multiplier, regardless of what army you play. And since it was a blessing, there was nothing the opponent could do to stop it. Now, take a look:

Not sure if you can see it, but that's Warp Charge 2. Coupled with the fact that now, everybody (but Orks, Nids and Necrons) have access to Divination, this is pretty big. Now, from the previous 1 in 12 chance of failure (about 8%), we have, depending on the number of Warp Charge expended:

1 dice - No way.
2 dice - 75% chance to fail.
3 dice - 50% chance to fail.
4 dice - 31% chance to fail.
5 dice - 19% chance to fail.
6 dice - 11% chance to fail.

Even throwing triple the bare minimum number of dice required, we can't match the reliability of 6th ed Prescience. Now that's assuming you even managed to generate that many Warp Charges to throw at Prescience in the first place. If you're plodding about with a single level 1 psyker, you're not going to come up with 5 dice all that often. And we haven't included Perils of the Warp in our calculation. Or indeed the efforts of enemy psykers to nullify your spellcasting efforts. Good luck to you if you're fighting Grey Knights or Eldar...

And this is AWESOME! I love how this mechanic both eliminates Prescience as an auto-include power and makes all the other powers suddenly a lot more viable. Now having 3 Primaris Psykers with your Astra Militarum does not necessarily mean all 3 will be tasked with casting Prescience. Also, I love how it makes pure Grey Knight armies the psychic nuclear weapons they were meant to be. Time to dust off some pretty old models, I think...

Three things about the new edition...

Time to dust this guy off? 

We've all seen the rumours bouncing around the net and the tantalizing nuggets from White Dwarf #16. There's 3 things about the upcoming edition in particular that interest me (in combination with the Unbound armies):

1. Psykers - Each Psyker generates warp charge equal to their level, you say? Sooo, in theory, I could have a 1,750 pt Unbound army comprising 20 Solodins and 3 Grey Knight Librarians, giving me 26 dice to roll in my Psychic Phase?
2. Snap fire - Last I heard, this is just -2 to BS. This is a massive boost to BS4 armies, and funnily enough, makes the Vindicare Assassin a pretty fearsome anti-aircraft weapon. That said, it certainly feels suitably fluffy. There was something extremely odd about, say, a Chapter Master being reduced to the competency of a grot when getting charged. 
3. New vehicle damage table - YES! I love my vehicles and if they get tougher in this edition, so much the better! Also, I'm really glad I haven't chopped up any minis with meltaguns and swapped them out for plasmaguns...

So, yeah, 3 little things that have me pretty excited about the new edition. I'm really hoping this makes Grey Knights and Blood Angels shine a little more - I'm kinda in the mood to put them on the table soon... 

This is the Red Thunder, and I am pleased

So, I've been getting in a few games with this army:

Company command with bolt pistol for the commander, carapace armour, grenade launcher, lascannon and officer of the fleet in a Chimera
Tank commander in a Leman Russ Exterminator with heavy bolter sponsons and a Leman Russ Battletank
Veteran squad with carapace armour, 3 plasmaguns and krak grenades in a Chimera
Veteran squad with carapace armour, 3 meltaguns and krak grenades in a Chimera
Platoon command with bolt pistol, grenade launcher and autocannon
Infantry squad with flamer and autocannon
Infantry squad with flamer and autocannon
Special weapons squad with 3 sniper rifles
Heavy weapons squad with 3 mortars
22 conscripts with a commissar
2 Vendetta gunships
Leman Russ Battletank

All squads have voxcasters, bringing this list to 1,749 pts. 86 infanry models in total, with the heavy weapon teams having 2 models per base. I suppose I should confess that one heavy weapon team is still missing a spotter, so, 85 infantry models, accompanied by 8 vehicles. This is easily the most models I've ever fielded in 1,750 pts and as someone who's been playing either Blood Angels, Deathwing, Necrons or Chaos Marines since the end of 5th ed, the Astra Militarum are HARD. Not hard as in hard-as-nails tough, mind you, but hard to play. That said, I LOVE this army! Here's a quick introduction to each of the elements:

Earned their stripes...

... and almost ready for duty. At 3 pts per model, duty mostly consists of stopping bullets. Holy crappe, these little dudes are TEDIOUS...

In other news, it is with great trepidation that I wait for 7th edition, especially with this:

Well, crap. I swear, if they don't have at least a plastic Greater Daemon to go with this daemonology silliness... But you know what? The hell with it. 6th ed has been great fun and I've every intention of getting a couple more games in with my Astra Militarum. And it's worth looking back at the doomsaying over the advent of 6th ed. Can't really say which way the beautiful game is going to swing, but I'll happily wait and see...