ASMOH 4th Practice Game & Final Tweaks

Hi,

It's now less than 12 hours for me to submit my list for next weekend's ASMOH tournament, and I'm still dithering over the list.

Good news is that I finally got a second 1750 point game in as practice, and I won against my mate's Eldar which use to routinely trash my Tau.  Everything in the army worked well, apart from my large wrack squad and a trueborn squad failing pinning tests from their exploding transports the turn I would have been able to shoot (3 blasters & 2 liquifier guns) at a large scorpion unit with eldrad.  Both leadership tests were double six's so a squad leader for the wracks wouldn't have helped.  However one thing that would have helped is Grisly Trophies (reroll any leadership test if within 6" of the vehicle).  As they're only 5 pts I'm going to put them on my trueborn's Venoms.

What I'm dithering on is the kill point total in my army list; 22 will mean I'm very likely to need to table my opponent to still win.  If I get the right opponent it's possible but not likely against a decent opponent.  What worked well for my list so far is that it has so many vehicles and so many targets.  To reduce kill points I would have to reduce that strength.  My only thought is losing one of the very small wrack squads and their venom, and putting the points into 2 trueborn with splinter cannons and 2 more incubi.  Painting 2 extra incubi will take longer that finishing off a half painted venom, but it's an alternative.  Even this morning I did some painting on all 3 remaining venoms (see the pic at the top).

So what do you think ?  Is it worth catering to the trend of trying to lower an army's kill points ?  Is 20 rather than 22 kill points going to make any difference ?  Is it too dangerous going down to 5 troop choices when 4 of them are assault troops that are sent into the enemy lines ?

PS. I'll be playing a mate in another practice game this afternoon, but I'll be checking for comments on my phone all day, so please give me your ideas.  I'll be sending my list in late tonight.

Rathstar

PS. Here's the two lists:

22 Kill Points List: (6 Troop Choices)

Haemonculus - 65
Venom Blade, Liquifier Gun

5 Incubi - 110
in Raider with Dark Lance - 60

3 Trueborn with 3 Blasters - 81
in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons & Grisly Trophies - 70

3 Trueborn with 3 Blasters - 81
in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons & Grisly Trophies - 70

10 Wracks with 2 Liquifier Guns - 120
in Raider with Dark Lance - 60

9 Wyches with Hekatrix with Venom Blade - 105
in Raider with Dark Lance - 60

9 Wyches with Hekatrix with Agoniser - 120
in Raider with Dark Lance - 60

9 Wyches with Hekatrix with Agoniser - 120
in Raider with Dark Lance - 60

3 Wracks - 30
in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons - 65

3 Wracks - 30
in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons - 65

Ravager with 3 Dark Lances - 105

Ravager with 3 Dark Lances - 105

Ravager with 3 Dark Lances - 105

Totals: 1747 Pts, 67 Models (including 12 vehicles), 14 Dark Lances, 8 Splinter Cannons & 6 Blasters

20 Kill Point List: (5 Troop Choices)


Haemonculus - 65
Venom Blade, Liquifier Gun

7 Incubi - 154
in Raider with Dark Lance - 60

5 Trueborn with 3 Blasters & 2 Splinter Cannons - 125
in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons & Grisly Trophies - 70

3 Trueborn with 3 Blasters - 81
in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons & Grisly Trophies - 70

10 Wracks with 2 Liquifier Guns - 120
in Raider with Dark Lance - 60

9 Wyches with Hekatrix with Venom Blade - 105
in Raider with Dark Lance - 60

9 Wyches with Hekatrix with Agoniser - 120
in Raider with Dark Lance - 60

9 Wyches with Hekatrix with Agoniser - 120
in Raider with Dark Lance - 60

3 Wracks - 30
in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons - 65

Ravager with 3 Dark Lances - 105

Ravager with 3 Dark Lances - 105

Ravager with 3 Dark Lances - 105

Totals: 1750 Pts, 68 Models (including 11 vehicles), 14 Dark Lances, 8 Splinter Cannons & 6 Blasters

Dark Eldar 1250 Battle - More ASMOH practice

Picture of my right hand side of the board after my turn 1 (blue gems are objectives)

Out of the blue a got a call from my mate with the Nids army I played before (battle report here). He said he was popping down for the weekend to see his brother and wanted to get some more practice for our upcoming tournament (A Small Matter of Honour).

One the call he said either 1250 or 1750 point games were fine, so I thought it was a good chance to try out my full Dark Eldar list, however when I turned up he said he’d only bought his 1250 list due to having to transport it on the train, especially with his newly converted Tyranid Strike models.

The Tyranid Strike models are converted from the old zoanthrope body, the very old tyranid hive tyrant head, and two sets of gargoyle wings. It looks very bug like and I’ll try to get him to send me some pictures so I can post some up (unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures of them).

So after having rushing to finish converting and undercoating all the models for my 1750 list I had to leave the new ravager and a venom in the case. My list was:

Haemonculus with Venom Blade, Liquifier Gun - 65
3 Trueborn with 3 Blasters in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons – 146

3 Trueborn with 3 Blasters in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons – 146

10 Wracks with 2 Liquifier Guns in Raider with Dark Lance - 180
9 Wyches with Hekatrix with Agoniser in Raider with Dark Lance – 180

10 Wyches with Hekatrix with Agoniser in Raider with Dark Lance - 190
3 Wracks in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons - 95
Ravager with 3 Dark Lances - 105
Ravager with 3 Dark Lances - 105

Totals: 1212 Pts, 47 Models (including 8 vehicles), 9 Dark Lances, 6 Splinter Cannons & 6 Blasters

I was roughly facing:

Tyranid Prime with Deathspitter, Bonesword & Lashwhip

3 Hive Guard

3 Hive Guard

Tervigon

12 Termagants

15 Hormagaunts with Poisoned & Furious Charge

8 Genestealers

5 Ravenors

4 Strikes with Boneswords and (maybe?) Furious Charge

Rather than a full battle report I'll quickly go through the first few turns, and then focus on specific events of interest.

The mission was multiple objectives and Dawn of War. I choose to go first, deployed nothing with everything coming on turn one. My mate debated on deploying the tervigon, prime and termagants, but sesible decided to keep them off with everything apart from the genestealers (outflanking), ravenors (deepstriking) and strikes (deepstriking) coming on turn one.

Knowing the hive guard only had a 24” range, I knew I could be aggressive, so everything moved on but stayed at least 6” away from the centre of the board. The tyranids moved on, with the tervigon and hive guard staying behind a building. The prime joined one of the hive guard units that could be seen through a doorway in the ruin. With hindsight running the hive guard and using termagants as cover would have been better as it would allow the hive guard to reach a good mid board position earlier.

Without the threat of the strikes, raveners or genestealers I decided to soften the tyranids up, while allowing them no response by moving everything back 6” to ensure the hive guard would still be out of range next turn. Fire power reduced the prime to 1 wound and the unit of hive guard he was with to 1 model.

After the tyranids moved forwards (and was still out of range) I was able to reduce the other unit to 1 model as well. With the tyranid anti-tank firepower crippled so early I really had the game in the bag. The first of two nails in the coffin was my mate being too cautious. His strikes and ravenors deepstriked in cover out of assault range, plus he outflanked the genestealers on the left flank to capture an objective, when it probably would have been better to outflank the other side to help with a key combat and then threaten the side with the more objectives. The other nail in the coffin was a single unit of wyches performing well on the right flank, ending the game sitting on an objective with 4 pain tokens.

What I thought cost my mate the game

• My army just works very well against nids, the only improvement I would like is to add a razorwing jetfighter instead of one of the ravagers. The 4 large templates would be a godsend against some of the troublesome gaunt broods.
• My mate delayed a lot of his army, genestealers outflanking, ravenors and strikes deepstriking, leaving pretty straight forward target priority decisions
• He was too cautious about losing the strikes and ravenors, leading to both of them dying. If both had moved out at the same time, one may have survived to reach combat, leaving it too long meant I crippled one on turn 4 meaning if the other moved out on turn 5 it would have been all alone
• Thinking too early of capturing objectives, and concentrating on the wrong ones. The genestealer outflanked on the side with an objective they could easily get in cover, but ignored the other side where they could have helped out with a key combat on the side where the majority of the objectives were.

What worked well for the Dark Eldar

• being aggressive after the two turns of softening up the tyranids
• focusing firing, first on the hive guard and then on the combat threats of the ravenors and strikes
• looking out for opportunities (charging into hormagaunts with the attached prime not being able to assist, see later)
• the small wrack squad did not draw much firepower, one splinter cannon was knocked off when they were shot at once by a single hive guard, but they ended up in their venom taking an objective at the end of the game. However the small wrack unit needs to be tested against an army which can't have all it's anti-tank shot away in two turns (eg. most armies have anti-tank spread across many units).

Points of Interest

Objective Placement: Never, Never assume you'll be playing on the side your standing on when you place the objectives. 

In the picture above you may be able to see 2 of the 5 objectives (which were represented by blue gems). To make it easier to see on the small picture (clcking on it shows a bigger picture) I have put red crosses where the objectives are.  They are all on the ground level.  As well as the two visable blue gem objectives another one was on the left hand side of the ruin on the bottom left hand corner of the picture. A further one was in the crater that you just see above the ruin at the top middle of the picture. These 4 objectives were close together and meant that the winner of the game would be the one who controlled this area. The last objective was in the far top right hand corner of the map.

Normally I'll take second turn, but with the objectives placed as they were, when I won the roll off I choose to go first so I could take the side with the more objectives.  Having first turn on a side with easier to get objctives gave me a significant advantage.  If my mate had placed his objectives more neutral, ensuring both sides were even getting choice of table sides would have been less significant.

Killing Characters Without Wounding Them: After seeing this done against a thunderwolf lord at my local GW, when I saw an opportunity I went for it. This tactic is based on looking for characters that are more than 6” away from the edge of their unit. In the thunderwolf lord example he was at the front of a large unit of fenrisian wolves. Two units of genestealers outflanked and charged the big unit. The lord could not make it into base contact, and the genestealers slaughtered the wolves, causing the thunderwolf lord to take 14 no retreat saves and die.

My example was caused when the tyranid prime (after being reduced to one wound while being with hiveguard for one shooting phase) joined the back of a 15 strong hormagaunt unit (well more then 6” from the front of the unit). My wyches were in charge range so went for it. However when doing this tactic you have to be careful.

I couldn't shoot at the unit at all, because careful casualty removal would mean I would have to charge deeper into the unit which might allow the prime to reach base to base contact after I charged. There was a termagants unit right next to the hormagaunt unit, giving the hormagaunts a small 4 model frontage. I could not shoot at the termagants either, because killing those would mean my mate could take off models to leave a gap at the side of the hormagaunt unit meaning that I would probably have to charge models in the second or third rank of hormagaunts, again allowing the tyranid prime to make base to base contact after I charged.

Sitting In Cover Sometimes Only Delays the Inevitable: In this battle the tyranids were too cautious after having the hive guard crippled so early. The ravenors deepstriked off the the left of the map picture above in a ruin. This allowed me to concentrate the half my army on finishing off the hive guard, leaving plenty of str 8 firepower to go at the ravenors while only leaving a venom in their assault range. After a load of cover saves the ravenors were untouched. When the Strikes deepstriked the following turn the tyranids should have been move aggressive, but instead decided to deeptrike the strikes in the same ruin as ravenors. In my following turn the ravenors did have the same luck with their cover saves and were reduced one a single model.

If instead the ravenors had advanced, at the same time the strikes deepstriked in a more aggressive position. I may still have nearly killed one of the units, but then the remainder and the other untouched unit would have been able to charge directly into the area holding all the objectives.

Unit of the Match

Wyches who bravely charged hormagaunts with attached prime. After appalling dice they were counter charged by termagaunts and the prime made it into combat, then on the third round of combat (with only three wyches remaining) they only lost one model to the tyrant (but not before that wych killed a termagant).  The other two survived the hormagaunt and termagants attacks (they had been reduced to initiative 1 by the prime's lash whip), allowing one to kill the last hormagaunt, the hexatrix to take the last wound from the prime, and then they ran down the termagants as they broke. They even lived to capture the bottom right hand objective, positively gleaming from the 4 pain tokens they had.

What I did badly

It's had to say when the game went so well, however I did think that I didn’t coordinate my assault on the right flank as well as a could. The wyches were left to go it alone against the hormagaunts because they were the only unit within range. Even though I was constrained by the many craters that meant I was worried about crashing my raiders on, if the large wrack unit had been able to help the wyches, they would have charged the termagants at the same time and linked up the two combats. Even with the poor wych result the wracks would have really tipped the balance in my favour, allowing me to win the combat very convincingly rather than just well (leaving the wyches outnumbered, and really lucky to survive).  The combat would probably have ended in a single combat phase with any survivers dying to no retreat saves.

The Walk of Shame

The Haemoculus. After leaving the wyches as they assaulted the hormagaunts he decided to take on 10 termagants. He started by flaming 6 of them with his liquifier gun, and the charged the remaining four. After killing 1 for no return wounds, another died to no retreat leaving only 2. These two plucky termagants then both hit, both wounded, and I failed both saves (no Feel No Pain, as I had left the pain token with the wyches), and the Haemoculus dropped dead with a look of disbelief on his face :(

And with that I leave you with the Haemoculus hoping his master doesn't being him back to ridicule him eternally, and as the tournament countdown clock slowly ticks away the time, it's now less than 5 days until I must submit my lists for the tournament.

Next post will probably be about my experiences of playing at a GW store, and an outing for my new Tau list. My next Dark Eldar game should be the middle of this week, where I hope to be facing Marines.

Rathstar

[40k] First Thoughts on Grey Knights

Intro

Well I’ve had the Grey Knights book for a couple of weeks now, and I’ve been using some of the time I spend travelling on the train, and my evenings, looking through the book to ensure my armies are ready to face them.

Overall Assessment

When you see an army across the battlefield you need to quickly know the main strengths and weaknesses of it.  To do this quickly you should immediately know the main strengths and weaknesses of each race and then see how your specific opponent has strayed away from an average build (eg. more firepower at the expense of mobility etc.).

So what have the Grey Knights for a main theme ?  Looking through each of the unit entries the overwhelming impression that you get is that they are very good in close combat, particularly against units with good armour saves and/or multiple wounds.  The standard marine stat line, complimented by good psychic powers which increase their close combat ability (eg. +1 str before weapon modification, all their attacks causing instant death etc.), and an excellent line of close combat weapons (ranging from the basic nemisis force weapon to free or very cheap upgrades to force weapon thunderhammers, initiative 6 force weapons and even a defensive force weapon that gives a 2++ save in close combat).

As if the close combat ability wasn’t enough a closer look will show that their anti infantry firepower is not bad either.  All Grey Knights start with a storm bolter, and the options just get better and better.  Units and vehicles can have psy bolt ammunition that boosts the strength of bolters, autocannons & assault cannons by 1.  This upgrade is not that expensive (the cost of a tau fire warrior for dreads, twice that for squads, and half the cost of a fire warrior for rhinos/razorbacks).  You could have a squad of 10 Grey Knights throw out 20 shots at str 5.  Riflemen Dreadnaughts (dreads armed with 2 twin linked autocannons) become even nastier for 10 pts (over their marine counterparts) when their shots go from str 7 to 8.

Standard upgrade weapons for Grey Knights squads are the Incinerator (a heavy flamer with +1 str), Psilencer (a heavy 6 bolt gun that always wounds deamons on at least 4+) and Psycannon (an assault 2 or heavy 4, 24” range, str 7 ap4 rending weapon).  One notable omission from the grey knights arsenal is melta weapons (although they do have the ap1 missiles on the storm raven).  Two ways Grey Knight armies can get melta is on dreadnaughts, and taking warriors in the henchmen unit.  Warriors are 4pt guardsmen that can take 3 special weapons (eg. meltaguns) and can be mounted in a chimera.

Grey Knights can also be a heavy terminator army, with basic terminators as troops, and a new elite slot terminators with WS5 and 2 wounds.  The troops terminators are the same cost as standard marine terminators and come with nemesis force weapons (which can be upgraded to the other nemesis weapons) and storm bolters.  They have the same weapon upgrades as normal grey knights.

Overall we have an elite army that is very good at close combat and has good mid range (particularly 24” range anti infantry firepower).  Long range firepower will come in the form of dreadnaughts, razorbacks or land raiders.  Melta weapons are in short supply (mainly dreadnaughts and landraiders multimeltas or henchmen meltaguns).

The main weakness of Grey Knights (apart from heavy henchmen army builds) will be the toughness of the Grey Knights.  Although they have lots of boosts to their offensive abilities they die just as easily as a basic marine.  Plus their terminators do not get access to storm shields, and their elite two wound terminators (paladins) can be instant killed easily with only a 5+ invulnerable save from shooting.  Slightly increase your low AP and high strength weapons and your shooting should do well.

Basic Grey Knights are also slow outside their transport.  So tactics should include trying to out deploy or outmanoeuvre them and shoot their transports early.  The Grey Knights are also another incentive to mechanise your army more.  This will have the twofold effect of stretching their limited and/or short ranged anti tank and protecting your troops from their very effective anti-infantry firepower.

These general weakness flow through the entire list, as outside inquisitors and henchmen you only have the same grey knight unit and a two variants of terminator units.  In general terms for powered armoured grey knight units you have:

• The standard grey knight troop unit
• A elite unit that can take more special weapons
• A heavy unit that can take more special weapons
• A unit that has personal teleporters to make them jump infantry

Treat them all the same way you would treat their marine counterparts, apart from close combat because they are all good at close combat and require special attention if you intend to deal with them in close combat (particularly if your army has a good armour save as the nemisis weapons will cut straight through it).

Basic tactics against elite armies that will help against Grey Knights are:

• Try to pop their transports early to reduce their mobility, reducing the chance they can use their good close combat ability much or coordinate and focus their excellent short to mid range shooting.
• Try to refuse flank them and/or split up their army allowing you to deal with the enemy in small chunks, while the rest does not play too large a part in the battle.  While this tactic can be used against most armies the fact they Grey Knights need to get to close combat to make the full use of all their abilities and the short range (normally 24”) on their infantry means this tactic can be devastating to them if pulled off well.

Things to Watch Out For

• Daemon Hammers:  These are an upgrade to the standard nemisis force weapon.  It is a force weapon and a thunderhammer at the same time.  When combined with the Hammerhand psychic power which gives +1 str before weapon modifications it gives the Grey Knight Str 10.  This can instant kill T5 troops (such as thunderwolves) and make it much easier for the Grey Knight to deal with dreadnaughts in close combat
• Nemisis Halberds give the user initiative 6 force weapon attacks.  This can totally swing a combat if you don’t take them into account.  Some close combat specialist rely on killing the enemy before they strike, so if suddenly the Grey Knights get to strike first with Str4 power weapons it could be disastrous (eg. dark eldar incubi, genestealers etc.).  Even heavy hitters would not like losing casualties before they attack (eg. blood angel sanguinary guard, marine command squads etc.).
• Dreadknights look awesome, and their stats back up how impressive they look, monstrous creature, 2+ save, additional invunverable save, good in combat and shooting.  However if you think of him as a better daemon prince you won’t go far wrong.  Without a personal teleportor (see Shunt move below) he is slow and he only has 4 wounds.  He does have the nice combo of good armour save and good invunverable, so a few more low AP1 weapons so it has to rely on it’s invunverable save would be good.
• Purifiers are an elite slot version of the basic Grey Knight power armoured squad.  I think these will be seen a lot because they gain so much over the basic squad for only for 4pts more a model.  They can have the double the special ranged weapons, plus the heavy flamer equivalent drops from 20 pts to free, and psycannons stay at only 10 pts each.  Purifiers are also good against hordes because their Cleansing Flame psychic power allows them to cause a wound on all close combat opponents on a 4+ and these would happen before blows are struck and count towards combat resolution.  A squad of 5 could charge a mob of 30 orcs and cause an average of 12.5 wounds from this special power, and then deliver another 15 close combat attacks which should kill just under another 4 orks.  This totals just over 16 kills from the 5 Purifiers (on average).  Even when the Purifiers loses on average 2 guys from the orks return attacks the majority of the remaining orks should die to the no retreat rule.  With the ability to cover the Grey Knight weakness against hordes, and their flexibility to be ranged anti-horde with up to 4 heavy flamers or ranged heavy weapon teams with 4 psycannons (16 str 7 rending shots of they stay still) they are a great unit.  The icing on cake is that a reasonable costed special character can also make Purifiers troops choices.
• Vehicle Psychic Pilots (which pilot all the space marine vehicles, ie. rhinos, razorbacks, landraiders, skyravens & dreadnaughts) come with the psychic power Fortitude, which means that if they are shaken or stunned they can ignore it if they can pass a ld10 psychic test at the start of their turn.  A common tactic used against vehicles is to stun or shake them so they can not cause any shooting damage the following turn and then move onto the next vehicle.  The Grey Knights vehicles will probably ignore such damage meaning you will need to destroy key Grey Knights vehicles, facilitating the need for more anti-tank and/or an increased proportion of AP1 weaponry.  Just remembering that stunning a Grey Knight vehicle does not necessary put it out of the game for a turn will stop game changing mistakes happening.
• Shunt moves given by personal teleportors can cause a nasty surprise.  As well as allowing the unit to move as jump infantry it allows them to (once a game) make a 30” move, although they can’t assault that turn.  Luckily these can appear on the fast attack powered armoured Grey Knights and the Dreadknight (for an expensive 75pt upgrade).  While the Shunt move can allow them to redeploy very quickly and shoot a unit/vehicle you thought was safe, it is very nasty when combined with the Grand Master (standard HQ character) that allows D3 units to be given one of a number of Universal Special Rules (one of which is Scout).  If a Grey Knight army goes first and gives a DreadKnight the scout ability it can set-up normally, Shunt as it’s scout move 30”, leaving it free to move and assault 18” in the first turn giving it a 48” threat zone from where it deployed.  Counter options include:
• Reserving your whole army to give the DreadKnight no turn one target
• Castling your army, with cheap sacrificial units on the outer edges
• Let the DreadKnight have it’s first turn fun, knowing that what it kills will probably be worth much less than the DreadKnight (which could be near 250 pts with upgrades), and then the DreadKnight is in the middle of your army unsupported.  This only works if each of your units/vehicles the DreadKnight can get to is not worth too much, if the DreadKnight can charge a full Tau broadside unit for example it will make it points back before you even have a chance to move (castling or reserving would be better tactics in this case).

With that I’m going to leave going into the Grey Knights psychic powers and the Inquisitor henchmen for another post.  Hopefully this post will have given you some ideas on how to prepare for the Grey Knights, the overall theme of the list and what to look out for.

Let me know your thoughts, and feel free to point out where you think I’ve got it wrong and other things I may have missed so we can all learn.

Rathstar

Dark Eldar Painting Slowly Continues

Hi,

After a quick trip to Staines GW after work I picked up some more paints. Warlock purple is much lighter than I remember, however the new Liche purple is a bit lighter than the old pot I had, so it's fine for the vehicles I have to paint (to matching my existing vehicles).

As usual when I pop into GW I didn't just buy the paint I needed. I bought a Aegis Defense Line, partly for more terrain for when I eventually get a gaming board again, and partly to use the two twin autocannons for a marine dreadnaught. I also have been thinking of scourges, so my final purchase was a box of dark Eldar warriors with the intention to source blood angel wings from eBay to turn them into scourges.

Once I finish painting for my upcoming tournaments I want to finish off my Dark Eldar by adding:
Beastmasters
An extra reaver (to make a unit of 6)
Scourges
Razorwing Jetfighter

I'll probably wait for the official razorwing model before I decide to either splash out on a forgeworld Nightwing or convert one from an old Batman ship I've seen others use to great effect.

Back to now and I have half painted a ravager and half painted a venom over the last two evenings. If I could keep this up I'd be finished with 5 days to spare. However, although I'll have lots more time on my hands with all the bank holidays, I'll have more Non-Gaming calls on my time (eg. trips to London to visit family). If I can get some progress tomorrow night and next week I should be in a position to confirm a Dark Eldar list for the tournament in early May.

On the gaming front, Staines store is only 25 minutes walk from work, so I'll probably try to get some games in there. With only 4 DE games with the new codex under my belt I desperately need gaming practice.

It'll be a busy 9 days until the army list deadline on all fronts (work, family, social), but it's looking good so far.

Rathstar

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What's in a Name ? [Dark Eldar]

Hi,

As my Dark Eldar approach their first tournament in many many years I've been inspired to rename my Kabel as they enter this new period in their history.

My Kabel is currently named the Kabel of Darkness, but this seems a bit bland to me. I've considered just lengthening the name to Kabel of Eternal Darkness, but that still doesn't sound too good. I would like to keep the theme of darkness somehow in the name as my Kabel has a dark color scheme (black, purple and dark blue), however I just want a name my victims (I mean opponents) will remember.

So help a guy out, give me some ideas. You never know your idea may become the proud new name of my Kabel.


Painting

I am making slow progress on painting, and my first tournament of the year is fast approaching. I also only have 10 days to submit my list for the tournament, so I have until them to get far enough in the painting to know what I'll finish by the tournament.

I've given myself the target of a ravager and 2 venoms painted by the army list deadline or I'll have to send in a Tau list. I've started the purple on the ravager, but it seems a bit darker than my old models, so I'll switch to the dark blue tomorrow so I can pop into GW to see if there's a slightly lighter purple. It may be that I painted the original models so long ago that the GW purple has slightly changed shade :)


Gaming

My Dark Eldar finally won their first game under the new codex. It was a very convincing win, however it was against Nids against a mate who has only got back into 40k about 15 months ago.

I'll post what I think worked well and what didn't in an upcoming blog post. It'll be after a Grey Knight post which should be up in the next day or so.

Rathstar

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Venoms Ready for Painting

Hi,

With some final conversion work last night and some spraying this morning I now have 4 Dark Eldar Venoms ready for painting.

Today I'll be trying out my current list for the ASMOH tournament. Next week I'll be trying to make some progress on painting these 4 Venoms and a Ravager I have to get done for the tournament.

With this slow but steady progress I should get everything ready in time for the tournament.

Rathstar

PS. Coming soon will a blog post about my thoughts on the new Grey Knights.

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[40k] March Review

Hi,

Has it been another month already, damn that went quick.

Painting / Modelling

I've received all the bits from America to convert all of the remaining (3) vipers I have to venoms.  I have converted a second one, and the 3rd and 4th ones are half converted and should be done in the next day or so.

With less than 35 days to my next tournament, I'm getting a bit nervous about getting the whole army finished in time.  I reorganised the painting task list (on the right hand pane), and some of you may have noticed a slight reduction in the dark eldar painting progress bar.  I just wanted to split out into two tasks some of the later bigger ones.  The progress bar has to move forward 5% (one task) every 2 days for me to finish the army 4 days before the tournament.  Next week should be crucial as I need to get ahead of schedule as some of the later tasks are to paint an entire vehicle from start to finish, and I'm not sure I can do that every 2 nights when I factor in trying to get games at the local GW/club/mates and family life being a welcome but neverless distraction from getting my army ready.

I've almost got my mech Space Wolves in a state where I can play them without proxying anything, just a razorback and a landspeeder to finish.  Nearly all the infantry are headless (as I spray them a different colour and attach them after the rest of the model is painted), but it should give my mates a good game.

Originally I was going to assemble the thunderwolves as well, but in the end I decided to wait so I could spend more time on them, and playing without the thunderwolves would help me to decide between which support elements I like the best (ie. landspeeders with multi-melta and heavy flamer or long fang razorbacks with lascannon and twin plamsa).  Also (along with my Dark Eldar) it will be nice to try overloading the opponent's anti-tank.  My Space Wolves mech list has 10 vehciles (4 rhinos, 2 razorbacks, 2 landspeeders, 1 whirlwind & a dreadnaught) in 1750 pts; not as much as razorspam armies but more vehicles than I'm used to using.


Gaming

Rather than the complete fail of the previous 2 months, I did actually get two games in (with my Dark Eldar).  Battle reports can be seen here and here.  Not only that but I did make it down to the local GW on games night twice and the local club once (however on all occassions stuff popped up at work meaning I didn't get there in time to get a game).

The Dark Eldar army is showing it can handle nids well, but I need to learn to play the army better.  I've almost settled on the idea of using beastmasters rather than a large unit of incubi in a raider in my ideal list.  However I'd never get the beastmaster unit painted up for my upcoming tournaments, therefore my current idea is to use a list that's a compromise between my cut to the bone list and my last list with the large incubi squad (shown at the top of this post).  Basically I cut the last two small scoring units in venoms and the incubi to the bone in order to keep the nice upgrades such as agonisers and liquifier guns while having 6 troop choices and 4th venom.  Hopefully this will be the last list change for a while so I can just keep practicing with it for the tournaments.  Adding the beastmasters in would lose me 3 kill points so I'll been keen to get them painted up fast, plus I'm quite happy just adding the beastmasters to this list to make a 2000 point list.  Anyway here's the list:

Haemonculus - 65
Venom Blade, Liquifier Gun

5 Incubi - 110
in Raider with Dark Lance - 60

3 Trueborn with 3 Blasters - 81
in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons - 65

3 Trueborn with 3 Blasters - 81
in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons - 65

10 Wracks with 2 Liquifier Guns - 120
in Raider with Dark Lance - 60

9 Wyches with Hekatrix with Venom Blade - 105
in Raider with Dark Lance - 60

9 Wyches with Hekatrix with Agoniser - 120
in Raider with Dark Lance - 60

10 Wyches with Hekatrix with Agoniser - 130
in Raider with Dark Lance - 60

3 Wracks - 30
in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons - 65

3 Wracks - 30
in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons - 65

Ravager with 3 Dark Lances - 105

Ravager with 3 Dark Lances - 105

Ravager with 3 Dark Lances - 105

Totals: 1747 Pts, 69 Models (including 12 vehicles), 14 Dark Lances, 8 Splinter Cannons & 6 Blasters


 Other Hobby News

The grey knights codex is out today, so now we can all get the actual codex and see how close all the rumours are, and make sure we're ready to face this elite army.

Even before the grey knights codex is out, rumours for sisters of battle on BoLS, helped by 4 "leaked" pages of the codex.  Whether this is an April Fools, a fan wish list, or GW leaking stuff to gather reaction we'll have to wait and see.


I hope you've had a fun and productive March (feel free to let us know what you've been up to in the comments), now I must get to bed as I'm got fun family stuff tomorrow, however when my son goes to sleep tomorrow (really later today) I'll hopefully be able to finish converting the last of my venoms.

Rathstar