[40k] May Review

Hi,

40k playing has really picked up this month, helped by the two tournaments I've attended.  The first half of the month was filled with painting to finish off my Dark Eldar in preparation for the two tournaments, and attending those tournaments.  This was followed (as happens frequently when so much effort is concentrated in a small space of time) with a period of two weeks cool off with no painting or gaming done with the Dark Eldar.


Painting / Modelling

My first painting milestone of finishing my 1750 point Dark Eldar army was finished in the early hours of the day of my first tournament of 2011.  Here's a pic of the full 1750 point army, and further pictures can be found on this post giving an overview of the day.  Click on any pic for larger versions.

 

Although there has been no further modelling, I know my next mini projects.  First I want to convert some scourges (even though the official models look amazing).  I was going to use kabalite warriors, but they are quite static so instead I'm going to use the crew in the vehicles boxsets which are hanging off the vehicles (as they'll have more dynamic poses.  For wings I am going to use the blood angels wings.  Next up will be to repair and repaint a 6th reaver so I can get them on the battlefield.

Feedback on my venoms at both tournaments were very positive with another Dark Eldar player saying they were the best venom conversion he'd seen.  It'll be interesting to see what people think once the official model starts appearing in armies.

However it's not all Dark Eldar at the moment, I want to progress with my Space Wolves, particularly assembling a new unit I've recently decided to add to the army, and completing the assembly of my second landspeeder (so I can stop borrowing my mate's landspeeder if I want to have a game).  Adding this new unit to my modelling tracker has dropped by the progress bar, but I aim to get it back up during the next week:

Gaming

With the tournaments I've got in 7 games with my Dark Eldar this month, and they have gone a very respectable 6/0/1 (W/D/L).  The first two games of the first tournament, A Small Matter of Honour, can be found here along with my initial thoughts on the army's performance.  A bit delayed but following soon will be game 3 and 4.  Eventually a summary of the second tournament, Rapid Strike, will also be posted up.

From these tournaments I pretty much happy with my 1500 points list, however the experience of going down to 4 troops choices, means that I'm reassessing my need for 6 troops choices in 1750 points games for Dark Eldar, especially if the extra points are spent on units which will be in the opponents face and will draw firepower.  The units fighting for the right to join the 1750 point army are:

• Scourges
• Reavers
• Beastmasters
• Razorwing Jetfighter

The first two units are to add extra anti tank to the list.  I'm fed up of having to roll 5+ penetrate and then another 5+ to wreak/explode, so heat lances will be getting a trial run.  The beastmasters add some extra MEQ combat power (through razorwing rending and drowning them in armour saves) to add redundancy to the incubi.  Finally the jetfighter adds 4 large templates to help against hordes.  Test games over the next couple of months will show who wins this battle.

As well as Dark Eldar tournament games, I've got in 2 games with my Space Wolves, and I've just come back from a third game today.  I've changed my list for these games to try out a new unit.  I'll post my reasonings on choosing this new unit, and how it's performed in an upcoming post.

Other Hobby News

The big thing at the moment is the transisition to Finecast.  There has been mixed reviews in this change, including worries about the brittleness of Finecast, and horror stories of it melting in (uk) sunlight.  Neither myself or any of my mates haven't bought any finecast (mainly due to we have enough to paint already, and being shocked at the price), so it'll be a while before I can say anything first hand.  However a good source of info is a blog which I read for upcoming army rumours which is Faeit 212. Check out the rest of his really good blog by following this link.


Upcoming Blog Posts

Due to my lack of activity in the last two weeks, I've got a huge backlog of blog posts, but I hope to make good progress on them before my 3rd tournament of 2011 in two weeks time, currently the list of upcoming articles is:

• Test running my tweaked Tau list
• Guest pictures of a venom, and instructions on how I made mine
• ASMOH Game 3 & 4 with final tournament thoughts
• Rapid Strike Tournament Debrief
• Who needs AP1 when you have 20 Lances ?
• The Evolution of a Space Wolves list

Until next time,

Rathstar