Iyanden Eldar - First Impressions

Okay, now I've played 4 test games (excluding a 1v1v1 game) and I've gotten 4 wins so far, so I'm pretty satisfied with it. I decided to write up what I've noticed in the games that could improve myself and anyone who reads, without leaking too much strategic information to my friends ;).

HQ:

Iyanna Arienal (count as Eldrad):
The best farseer you can get. You simply cannot go wrong with Eldrad in your foot slogging army, as he's able to fortune two units and guide or whatever another. Combining him with the wraithwall is amazing as the Avatar is  much more durable with fortune, in a game he took rapid fire from approx 30 chaos marines and didn't take a wound.

The wargear on Eldrad is also amazing and if you plan on playing higher point games its almost a must have.

Regular Farseer with Fortune:

Just a basic farseer with no other upgrades than fortune. This is really a hard question as you can only fortune one squad per turn and might have problems passing psychic tests etc. In one game he was worth it, in another totally useless. I really think RoWarding & RoWitnessing are great and shouldn't be left home unless really tight on points.



Avatar of Khaine:
This guy made triple his points back in one game, by using fortune. And died to rapid fire from a SoB squad, only managing to destroy their rhino in another game. So the lesson here is to keep him fortuned up. 3+ armor save 4++ invul save is amazing when rerolled, and T:6 will only get you so far. But I have a haaaaard time not taking him anymore, due to the game he single handedly took down like 1 rhino, 20 chaos marine, obliterator etc etc.

Yriel of Iyanden (Theory):
As I haven't been able to play with this character yet, I have a hard time saying how he will work. But in a squad of harlequins he should be amazing. Being able to run up solo to a whole squad of MEQ units and wipe them out whilst the harlequins assault something else. The str:6, AP3 pie plate should shred through any 3+ or worse armor save units. I'll have to try him out soon.


Troops:


Wraithguard (10 Man + Spiritseer):
Alright, these guys are tough, but only in masses and with a fortune 'seer. You can be sure that they will hold the objective and even if they'd manage  to get into close combat, you have time to bring backup as they will be hard to kill for a normal enemy (terminators and the likes are an exception).

Their guns are really short ranged but if they get in range, most things vaporize. Thankfully they are assault weapons meaning you can move 6" and still fire 12", giving you a range of 18" which isn't all that bad, considering rapid fire weapons.

But the main problem is their cost and I dont really recommend taking a full squad unless your playing 1500p or more. And smaller squads just aren't as intimidating and lacks the punch 10 of these will do.


Pathfinders:
Nothing much to say really, a decent choice for objective camping and they are hard to kill from a distance. However if something gets close they are as good as dead. They are the main guys i keep for protecting my home objectives whilst the wraithguards march over towards the enemies objective.



Elites:


Harlequins:

I really enjoy playing with these models. They look slick, are immune against most shooting (shadowseer) and have a nasty amount of attacks. I still haven't tried my death jester but theres been several times where I've had to wait for the perfect counter attack moment and could have used them to fire instead of just wait for the charge.

I honestly thought they would be mediocre as they are really expensive. And I haven't actually yet used more than a 5-6 man squad of them. But even when half their squad is dead, they keep on killing more.

Against the Adepta Sororitas the two remaining harlequins (with harl. kisses) got assaulted by the Canonness but managed to survive, and got one wound off her. After that they used Hit and run and managed to run up to a retributor squad killing all of them whilst only losing one harly. The last harly ran up to the Canonness and rended her to death.

And in the battle against the chaos space marines they managed to run up and kill a squad of raptors but they got killed by the lord they were with. The lord as lucky to survive though as he made most of his invul saves, so I dont blame the harlies for that.

Against the orks they ran ahead and killed off a boy squad on the charge, without even getting attacked back. However they didn't consolidate far enough and got toasted by lootas. Maybe too effective that time around.


Heavy Support:


Wraithlords:
These monstrous creatures have proven very resistant to enemy fire. They do lack the melee capability of some other monstrous creatures, but they can still pack a punch. Against the chaos a greater daemon managed to kill one of them but died soon later in close combat against another wraithlord. Whilst the avatar was being overrun by smaller targets, trying to keep him from slaying daemon.

They have also been okay against tanks with their brightlances, but you really need two brightlance wielding wraithlords for them to have any chance. One just isn't enough as one shot can easily miss, but two have a higher chance of doing some good.

Taking 3 of these guys insures that you have a lot of high toughness targets and as far as I've seen the enemies don't really know how to bring them all down, at least if they also have a fortuned Avatar in the mix.


Overall:
I'm really happy on how my testing have started with 4 wins and the only 'loss' I have is the 1on1on1 but that doesn't really count as people gank you, hehe.
Some people might think my "fluffy" army is way too competitive, but I think it'll pass when they get used to the units and know how to kill them. It will be a sad day for me :(.

But in any case, as I almost tabled the enemy in two of the games, I think they are above average and can be a good all around army. I have yet to test the Swooping Hawks so I can't comment on how they will perform. I'll take them in the next test game.

Space Marines 101 - Terminators & Assault Terminators

Terminators


The normal variant of the terminators are extremely durable and can put out a good amount of storm bolter shots, whilst being effective in close combat with powerfists and the sergeants sword.

These guys really don't need a land raider transport, as the land raider doesn't have any firing points. They are better used as fire magnets whilst walking towards the enemy line. This can be pretty effective combined with their relentless rule, allowing them to shoot their heavy weapons whilst moving forward.

With their 2+ and 5++ they can take a lot of beating, but once the AP 1-2 or other armor ignoring weapons start showing up, their 5++ only last for so long. But if you add a independent character (like Lysander) you can use their better invul save to take some pounding, at least if its only a lascannon or two, just make sure its a IC with the eternal warrior rule.

But overall they are a good versatile unit as they can take on even some of the best close combat units with their power fists, and then lay out some good firing with heavy weapons and storm bolters.

Wargear


For each five terminators in the squad you can take an additional upgrade weapon: the heavy flamer, assault cannon or a cyclone missile launcher.

Heavy Flamer
This is used best against hordes, and will do pretty good against them as well, due to the fact that it ignores cover saves, and 4+ or worse armor saves. The upgrade itself is very cheap, and an okay choice if you don't have more than 5p to spare on upgrades for them. But due to the template range it will only get to fire once or twice per game, and sometimes it might have been better laying out more storm bolter shots. But I think its worth taking if you only have 5p to spare, and only in 5 man squads of terminators.

Assault Cannon:
This weapon is great, it lays down 4 rending shots a turn at strength 6 and AP 4. Its best used against elite infantry and tanks. You actually have (statistically) better odds of destroying a land raider with an assault cannon, than a lascannon. But the range is only 24", but that isn't really a problem for terminators as the rest of the squad have 24" storm bolters, and the fact that they can move 6" and still fire them. The problem with this upgrade however is that it makes the assault cannon wielding terminator cost a whooping 70p. So you might not want to take these on smaller cheaper squads of terminators.

Cyclone Missile Launcher:
My favorite upgrade choice for the terminators. This weapon basically shoots like two missile launchers, whilst the user moves and fire his storm bolter on the side. This is great as you don't lose anything when taking the upgrade. The CML can take down light transports, and if lucky even tougher targets. And if there are no tanks to shoot at, then you can fire small blasts on hordes. If you have two of these, in a 10 man squad you get a total of 20 storm bolter shots and 4 small blasts, it really puts a lot of hurt on infantry.

They also have the chainfist upgrade, which basically grants the user 2D6 against armor penetration. I usually take one of these in case I got the points, as it adds to the versatility of the squad, and thats always a good thing.


Assault Terminators


Often thought as one of the best, if not the best choice for an elite slot in the space marine army. And this is due to the fact that they get free thunder hammers and storm shields or dual lightning claws. With thunder hammers and storm shields they are a great unit against other elite units, with 2+ and 3++. If you take the lightning claws they are better versus less elite units as they lose the 3++ and str 8, but gain extra attack and reroll to wound.

If you plan on bringing assault terminators, you really need a transportation for them. Their only choice is a land raider variant, and if you want the most transport space the Crusader variant is the one you should consider. You can deep strike them into enemy territory, but you have to remember that they get one turn of shooting, and if they are a shooty army you'll just get shredded to pieces before being able to assault. The land raider is a great transport for these guys, as you can drive 12", disembark 2" and assault 6" making a effective 20" 'bubble of terror'.

Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield:
This are the guys you want if you need to take down monsterous creatures, (mega armored) nobz or basically any other elite unit. The reason I say "any other elite unit" is because you will get ripped to shreds by 30 ork slugga boyz on the charge, not due to the fact that it ignores your armor, but because you only have 1 wound and with every 1 you roll, one terminator dies. Oh and on the charge you only get 3 attacks per terminator AND the boyz strike first. If you plan on going against a lot of boyz you'll want to take lightning claws instead.

But overall this is the favorable choice of weapon load out for these guys. You'll really show the enemy what terminators are made off.

Dual Lightning Claws:
This load out is great for taking down hordes of things. But you will lack against other elite targets as you still only have your 5++ to keep you alive, and against monsterous creatures your strength wont be great (however the reroll to wound might help).

Combination:
The preferred way is to take most thunder hammers and storm shields, but with some lightning claw terminators thrown in the mix. This way you might pick off some units before they get to strike, but put the armor ignoring wounds on the shields. Sometimes if your in a tight spot you might want to put the armor ignoring wounds on the 5++ lightning claw terminators as they might already have struck and you need every thunder hammer to strike back at them.

Sidenote:

Always remember that one assault terminator squad and one terminator squad in your army can take a land raider as a dedicated transport, meaning it doesn't take up a heavy support slot. This way you could field 5 land raiders, or 2 land raiders and 3 predators/vindicators/whirlwinds etc.

Ordered Cities of Death buildings and rulebook.

I decided that I wanted some CoD buildings for Christmas, and as my father never knows what to get I told him to tell me a price range and I'd buy terrain for it.

This is excellent though, as I get something I really want badly. We don't have a lot of good terrain here, so this is a perfect way to get more terrain, and best of all, great looking terrain!

I also ordered the CoD rulebook as I think its time to get more objectives and scenarios than the 3 missions in the core 5th edition rulebook.

This is what I ordered:

2x Imperial Sector (2x4x Buildings)
1x Shrine of the Aquila (1x Building)
1x Moonscape crater pack (5x Craters)
1x Battlefield accessories (Random ammo crates, fuel barrels etc)
1x Cities of Death rulebook.

This should be enough for a great looking 4'x6' 'Omega' table. I ordered it all from Maelstrom Games and hopefully it'll arrive safe and sound, as I don't have postage insurance on it.

I'll probably base them with square pieces of hardboard, to make them durable and can add rubble and stuff. Going to post more pictures of them after I've started the project (after Christmas).


P.S.
I'll add more posts in the 101 Space Marines series soon, just been doing a lot of other stuff lately.

Waiting for my P.A.C.K 1520

Ordered a custom cut P.A.C.K 1520 about a month ago from battlefoam.com . Decided (well my girlfriend and I did ;P) that we didn't want models lying around everywhere. So a single place to hold all my models was the answer for that, and luckily battlefoam.com had a 'free delivery' thing going on for the holiday season.

Basically this bag should be able to hold all my units that I have, and a few that I have planned to buy somewhere in the future (10 more wrathguard for example). I sent them a list and said that they'd fill it up with pluck foam pieces in case it wouldn't get filled. However they replied saying it probably would be filled up by both my space marines and the eldar, so I'm just hoping there was room for all the units.

You can find their video about the P.A.C.K 1520 here.

The pack 1520 was posted several days ago, so I'm waiting eagerly for it. I'll post more information about the case whenever it arrives!

Ultramarines Army Photoshoot

Been wanting to take some pictures of my entire space marine army for a while now. Mainly because I don't think I've ever had it all in one place at one time.

After seeing the Spear of Sicarious in the games workshop webpage I really wanted to see if my army could match that. Realizing its not a hard task to do, I finally decided to do it.

I think my army did a decent job trying to match the Spear of Sicarious:

Guess the Spear of Sicarious is more specialized and has more troops. However I bet I could take that army on any day! ;D

Space Marines 101 - Assault Squad

The marines in an assault squad are all normal marines, but equipped with jump packs and chainsword instead of boltgun. This means that they keep their 1 attack in their profile but gain an additional attack due to the chainsword.

Many people will claim that the assault marines are worthless and you can spend your points on better more effective things, and whilst I don't think they are worthless, I do understand why they don't like them.

The positive side of the coin is that the marines are all equipped with jump packs and power armour, meaning you have a fast moving 3+ armor save melee unit. This means that they are more mobile than your units in transports, as they can jump across terrain with ease.

The downside is that if your units aren't in transports they can be shot at. Meaning your assault squad will get a constant rain of fire against them. And a 3+ armor save will just last that long. This means you'll want to bring a full squad (10man) so that you have lots of attack left when you get the charge. This will cost you 190p without any additional upgrades.

The idea is to use them to get an early charge against a unit that would stay back and lay down fire. One example would be Necron Warriors or Immortals, they wouldn't be fast enough to move away from your marines and your marines would eat them up in close combat. You'll want to keep them in cover or out of line of sight whilst advancing to reduce the number of casualties.

However if your opponent is using a close combat focused army, you can use them as a counter attack unit. This way they can protect your other units that would get eaten up in close combat. But the marines tend to die against elite close combat squads, as they often wield armor ignoring weapons. Sometimes that extra round or two that they keep the enemies off your other units can be valuable.

Upgrades:


One of the best upgrades are the flamers, as you are able to take two of them in a 10 man squad. As the flamer is an assault weapon, you can weaken the squad properly before charging in to them. The sergeant should get a power fist or thunder hammer. You can give him a pair of lightning claws as well, but most of the time you'll want something with high strength in the squad, as the rest of the marines can hurt the weaker targets.

You could buy the sergeant a storm shield, however I think you shouldn't be risking taking saves on him and instead pick off your normal marines to make sure your fist or hammer sergeant will get to strike (I:1 :( ). So personally I don't recommend getting the storm shield for him. You'll want to try to keep the point cost as low as possible.

A standard assault squad with 2 flamers, 1 power fist will cost around 230-240p.

Space Marines 101 - Predators

The Predator is a great support choice for your SM army, capable of killing of infantry and tanks alike. The weapons on the Predator have all decent range, that combined with AV 13 on the front, can be a real pain for every opponent. And the best thing of all, is the price.

The point value for the Predator is great, but if you only include one, the enemies might pick it off early in the game. You are more likely to have better results with 2 or even 3 of these. And they don't have to compete for land raiders for Heavy Support slots (Terminators can take those as dedicated transports), unless you take many raiders of course.

Predator Patterns:


The Destructor pattern Predator is armed with a Autocannon as its main turret. You can upgrade it to carry Heavy Bolter side sponsons, or lascannon sponsons.

The Autocannon/Heavy Bolter variant is the cheapest of all the Predators (unless you don't take any sponsons at all, which I dont recommend). For a mere 85p you get a high armoured, heavy infantry, killing tank. These Predators can lay down 8 med/hi str shots a turn each.

However sometimes you want something that can penetrate other tanks. And thats when you take the Autocannon/Lascannon variant. For 120 points you get 2 str 7 and 2 str 9 shots that can mess with any vehicle in the game. But this version of the Predator is a lot more expensive than the heavy bolter sponson variant, and it can sometimes fail to get its point value back. This is because you can easily fail both lascannon shots a turn for several turns.


The Annihilator pattern Predators main turret is a twin linked lascannon. This version is pretty expensive and costs 105p without sponsons. You can add the same sponsons as you can on the Destructor. But the role of the Annihilator is a tank buster, and should be used accordingly.

The T-L Lascannon/Lascannon variant is the best anti-tank version of the Predator. Being able to put out 3 lascannon shots (one t-l) per turn. This version is extremely expensive (165p) and most opponents that have vehicles in risk will keep it at least shaken for most of the game.

The T-L Lascannon/Heavy Bolter variant should not be used as its too expensive for what it does. With this variant you either waste low strength heavy bolter shots at a high toughness/armoured target, or waste a high strength shot at easy targets. I think you'd be better of with just the T-L Lascannon on it, if thats what you wish. This way you can keep moving 6" a turn and still firing all your weapons.

HAMulator Online

Working on porting the HAMulator application to a web based (asp.net) application.
This way anyone that has access to a browser will be able to use the application.

This will take some time however, and so far in my own offline test version only the shooting tab is working. Also need to work on the design etc.

Also please note that this will just include (in the beginning at least) the same functions as the current HAMulator application. I might even have to cut down on some functions, we'll have to see. Might make it 40,000 only.

I'll keep updating here as I progress!

Update:
Added a first screenshot of the application. Please remember that I don't have a proper design yet, just making all the maths and stuff work first. :)

Space Marines 101 - Land Speeders

Land Speeder Squadron


The Land Speeders are great choices for a space marine army. They can move fast, ignore terrain and deal a lot of hurt on anything the opponent can field. They aren't too durable however, and in certain setups they can cost quite a lot per speeder. This balances it out nicely, as you can still claim a 4+ cover save by moving flat out.

Even if the opponent manages to destroy a speeders weapons, you can always move up to 24" and contest the enemy objective. This is a useful tactic that can win or draw some games.

Wargear


There are several ways to equip a Land Speeder. The ones people tend to use in 5th edition are : The Tornado Heavy Flamer/Multi Melta Land Speeder or the Typhoon Land Speeder.

The Tornado HF/MM Speeder is a great choice when you need something fast to stop the enemies advance. You can move 24" towards the enemies transports on turn 1 and hope that the cover save keeps you alive. On turn 2 you can move 12" and shoot a multi melta shot into their tank. The key is having a 24" 2d6 melta threat range. The other use for this is to burn hoards of enemies in one go, as the heavy flamer is strength 5 and ap 4, and it ignores cover! This is great for taking down reinforced hoard units, like upgraded genestealers, 'ard boyz etc.

One of the main points about the HF/MM speeder is that you rarely want to fire both weapons at the same target, which means that you can move 12" every turn and still fire that one weapon.

The Typhoon Speeder is a more defensive version of the speeder, keeping range to stay alive. This is a totally different version than the HF/MM one as you have 48" range and can move 12" whilst firing it. You may only move 6" if you want to fire the heavy bolter, but most of the time speed is better than the heavy bolter. This version of the speeder is excellent at destroying light armor or shooting small blasts into hoards. Theres really no place for transports to hide from this speeder when it moves 12" and fires 48".

The idea is to stay just a round your max range taking pot shots at whatever is harassing your main force. The Typhoon is a expensive version of the speeder, as it costs more than your basic heavy bolter sponson predator, but the speed and range makes up for it all.

Other setups can be good, but point wise those two versions are the one that pack the most punch for the buck. One Tornado pattern speeder equipped with an assault cannon might not be the best, but three of them can shoot a rain of shots with the assault cannons and heavy bolters (12 assault cannon shots & 9 heavy bolter shots). This might not be the most competitive setup but it can be fun to play with it.

Space Marines 101 - Scouts & Land Speeder Storm

Scouts

There are several ways to equip your scouts, depending on what you want them to do.

If you want your scouts to hold your own objective or other objectives nearby your deployment zone, then you might want the extra range from the sniper equipped scouts.

If you take sniper rifles then 10p extra for a heavy bolter or missile launcher is well spent. Its also good to take camo cloaks on static sniper squads, as they will most likely be in 4+ cover giving them a 3+ cover save.

However if you want your scouts to be on the offensive then you'll want to keep them with their boltguns or then exchange them for a combat blade. Some people equip them with shotguns, but personally I don't think its worth it.

Camo cloaks aren't needed on forward positioned scouts, as they don't really get a cover save at all anyways.  Yes you get a 5+ if you go to ground, but if you need to do that, you're almost certainly dead anyways.

All scouts come with the infiltrate, scouts and move through cover rule which all greatly help them to do what they need. Infiltrate combined with scouts makes your units able to go almost anywhere they need to on the deployment phase.

Sadly scouts cannot take rhinos or razorbacks as dedicated transports (however they may chose to use another squads rhino/razorback). This is one of the reasons scouts aren't as viable as objective holders as the tactical squad. One heavy flamer and your scout squad cries.

Land Speeder Storm

You can take a Land Speeder Storm to carry them around, however it takes up a fast attack choice. As it is a open topped vehicle, your scouts can disembark 2" from any point of its hull AND assault on the same turn. This tactic, combined with the cerberus launcher and combat blade equipped scouts (and sergeant with power fist), can be truly devastating against  non assault oriented armies like Necrons.

You are almost guaranteed to get a turn 1 or at least turn 2 assault and if you win, you have a good chance of catching them with sweeping advances.

You can upgrade the heavy bolter to a heavy flamer, multi melta or assault cannon. I think that the heavy flamer or multi melta are the best choices as you will want to get close to the enemy with the scouts. The assault cannon is a bit price and increases the price of the speeder by too much.

The bad side is that the storm can only fit 5 scouts, which means that you need to chose your targets carefully or your scouts will get heavily outnumbered. Another negative side is that its AV 10 all around AND open topped. Which means it will go down pretty fast just to standard small arms fire. And against melta weapons (and other AP 1 weapons) it will go down even faster.

Space Marines 101 - Tactical Marines & Transports

Going to talk about all the different choices in the Space Marines codex. In this part I'll start out with the tactical marines and dedicated transports.

Tactical Squad


The main guys in your army, the ones who will make sure you can win objective games. I'd take at least 20 of these in any sized army. However personally I rarely take more than 20. As they are quite expensive and in my opinion not that great at killing stuff.

Also you really need some sort of transportation for these, be it Rhino/Razorback or Drop Pods. I'd rather take Rhinos and Razorbacks for my tactical marines and use drop pods for more specialized squads.

Theres several ways to use tactical marines, but my favorite one is just to bunker down around an objective with them and/or move them up towards the enemy objective escorted by the rest of your assault force. This is one of the reasons scouts aren't as good as objective holders, tactical marines can get where they need to with less losses on the way.

Wargear

Always remember to take the free upgrades (Flamer/Missile Launcher etc), as even if you take a missile launcher marine in a squad that is moving around, he can shoot 1 shot (bolt pistol) to the same range as the rapid firing boltguns, which means that they only lose 1 shot, but gain the heavy weapon.

The wargear options that I think are the most price worthy are, the flamer (free, anti-horde), the meltagun (cheap, anti-vehicle), the missile launcher (free, versatile), the multimelta (free, anti-vehicle), plasma cannon (cheap, anti-elite). However the plasma cannon is debatable, as you risk killing the firer with the weapon. But if it lands on meganobz, terminators or something like that, it can be devestating.

Sergeant Wargear

On the sergeant I highly suggest taking a power fist if you have the extra points. If you dont, running him vanilla with just chainsword and pistol is good. But the power fist can really be extremely useful! Some people think that codex marines shouldn't win close combat (Combat Tactics, ATSKNF), but honestly I don't feel the same way.

I'll try to explain why: Yes its true, we can chose to fall back, yes we can also auto regroup even if we're under 50% squad size. However what if you roll poorly on your fall back move, and the enemy conscolidates towards you. Its actually pretty easy for them to get within 6" of your squad, which means you can't regroup. And you continue to fall back, and once this has started he'll just escort you out of the table.

Another reason is what if you get charged near your own table edge? Losing combat then means you'll lose the entire squad.

A power fist in the squad often means that you tie or even win close combat, unless its against specialized assault squads. But then you can at least kill someone in the process, and then fall back. Also making tyranid monsterous creatures fear your tactical squads can be extremely valuable!

Transports


As already mentioned, your tactical squad will need transportation of some sorts. And trust me, they really need it. If you decide to footslog with your tactical squad, they wont be half as effective. There is several reasons for this, but the most important ones are: faster movement, and protection from low-strength infantry fire.

But luckily the space marines have several really nice transport options:

The Rhino is the most basic transport, armed with a normal storm bolter. It is a really cheap choice and one of the best choices to carry tactical marines.

The Razorback is a ideal choice for a squad that is set up to camp an objective in the own deployment zone. The normal razorback comes with twin linked heavy bolters which can hurt infantry squads. Most of its armaments got long range, which further improves its defensive role. One of the other popular choices for the razorback is the twin linked lascannon, however this is a expensive upgrade, but it does help to destroy incoming transports. The only problem with the razorback is that it can only carry 6 models, which means tactical squads need to combat squad, to use them. Giving more possible kill points for the enemy.

Drop Pods are actually great for many units, and is a way for units to deep strike relatively safely. As long as you are 12" from the table edge you can't really fail your deep strike down. The main problem with the drop pods are that once you are down, you are walking. This is why I think drop pods are better suited for specialized units, like sternguard or dreadnoughts. Sternguard can kill off the most dangerous threat around them and hope to survive a turn. And the dreadnoughts can pop smoke or kill something on the turn they come down. I don't think dropping tactical marines down are the way to go, as they really need to get from point A to B fast, and a drop pod only lets you get to point A fast.

Amount of Terrain

Alright, so the rulebook says that you should have 25% of your table filled with terrain. Different sizes, things that totally block line of sight and area terrain etc. Normally I think me and my friends have decent amount of terrain, but not enough LOS blocking terrain.

This can be crucial though, as close combat based armies need to get close without getting shot to pieces and shooty based armies need to be able to shoot things before they get into close combat. If your not playing on the correct amount of terrain then you might be unbalancing some armies and ruining the game for some others.

The picture to the right is an example of the test battle I just had with my Eldars (against the lootas). Also this game board is really -WIP-. You can easily see that theres some terrain, but not really any line of sight blocking pieces.

I'll really try to make it a mission to make sure that theres 25% of the table filled with all kinds of different terrain. Just to make sure that its balanced enough for all armies.

Whats your opinion about the amount of terrain? How much terrain do you place on the table for it to be balanced for all armies?

Ultramarine Space Marine Army

These are the current models that I have in my Ultramarines army.

HQ:

Marneus Calgar w/ Terminator Armour

Captain

Chaplain w/ Terminator Armour

Librarian

4x Honor Guards w/ Chapter Banner, Relic Blades and Chapter Champion

Elites:

5x Assault Terminators w/ Thunder Hammer / Storm Shield

5x Assault Terminators w/ Dual Lightning Claws

5x Tactical Terminators w/ Assault Cannon, Chainfist

10x Tactical Terminators w/ 2x Cyclone Missile Launcher, Chainfist + One spare Assault Cannon

10x Sternguards w/ Combi-Flamers, Combi-Meltas, Powerfist on Sergeant

Dreadnought w/ Multimelta, Stormbolter

Dreadnought w/ Multimelta, Stormbolter

Dreadnought w/ Multimelta, Stormbolter

Dreadnought w/ Multimelta, Stormbolter

Troops:

10x Tactical Marines w/ Flamer / Missile Launcher

10x Tactical Marines w/ Flamer / Missile Launcher

10x Tactical Marines w/ Meltagun / Missile Launcher, Sergeant with Power Fist, Storm Bolter

6x Scouts w/ Telion, Sniper Rifles, Missile Launcher

Fast Attack:

3x Land Speeders w/ All options

10x Assault Marines w/ Powerfist on Sergeant.

Heavy Support:

Predator w/ All Options

Predator w/ All Options

Predator w/ All Options

Land Raider Crusader/Redeemer w/ Options

Dedicated Transports:

Rhino/Razorback

Rhino/Razorback

Rhino/Razorback

Drop Pod w/ Storm Bolter, Locator Beacon (optional)

Drop Pod w/ Storm Bolter, Locator Beacon (optional)

Drop Pod w/ Deathwind Launcher, Locator Beacon (optional)

I got some other units that I can field as chapter masters, captains. Also got a count as Vulkan He'stan in case I want to go nuts with multi meltas, flamers and assault terminators.

I don't really have that much that I'd want to get to the army, but perhaps a command squad.

Iyanden Eldar Army

These are the current models that I have in my Iyanden army.

HQ:
Farseer
Avatar of Khaine

Elites:
14x Harlequins, including 4x kisses, 4x fusion pistols, 1 Shadowseer, 1 Deathjester, 2 Troupe Masters

Troops:
10x Wraithguard, plus a Spiritseer
5x Pathfinders
5x Pathfinders

Fast Attack:
6x Swooping Hawks, including an Exarch

Heavy Support:
Wraithlord - With all options
Wraithlord - With all options
Wraithlord - With all options


I'll probably get 10 more Wraithguard at some point, also Yriel and Iyanna Arienal (Count as Eldrad)
At this point I'll just use the regular Farseer to count as Iyanna.

Iyanden Eldar - Test Game 1

Alright, so as I've recently assembled most of my Iyanden Eldar and as Tompa recently received his 35 ork lootas (he already had 10) we decided to take a test game.

This was only for fun and we decided to not care about tracking the stats. So we could try what the units actually do on the table top, and not just what we can calculate.

Iyanden Eldar:


HQ:
Farseer w/ RoWitnessing, Fortune

Elites:
6x Harlequins w/ 4x Kisses, 1x Fusion Pistol, Shadowseer Upgrade
5x Wraithguard w/ Spiritseer (Conceal)

Troops:
5x Pathfinders
5x Pathfinders

Heavy Support:
Wraithlord w/ Eldar Missile Launcher
Wraithlord w/ Eldar Missile Launcher

Orks:


HQ:
Big Mek w/ KFF
Warboss

Elites:
~15 Lootas with some Meks
~15 Lootas with some Meks
~15 Lootas with some Meks

Troops:
~10 Boyz
4 Mega Armoured Nobz w/ Combi-flamer

Thats everything he had if I remember correctly.

Game - 1000p - Pitched Battle - Seize Ground (4obj) - 4'x4' Table:


We rolled to see who goes first, and I won the roll. Looking at his amount of shootyness, no scratch that, his amount of high-strength shootyness I decided that I need to take the first turn.

One pathfinder squad deployed on one objective, whilst the other one deployed in cover, ~10" from another objective.
The rest of my army deployed near a river trying to stay out of LOS from as much as possible.

His army deployed all over his deployment zone.

On my turn I approach his lines with my army, running on the flank with my harlequins. Fortuned the wraithguard squad. Shot the mega nobz with my rangers but only wounded the warboss and a mega nob.

He laid down some serious firepower and my main advantage (high toughness) was negated by his str 7 fire
He got one of my wraithlords down to one wound.

My Harlequins ran forward, rest marched forward and shot everything that they could. Got his warboss down to 1 wound and killed 2 nobz.

The orks finished off one of the wraithlords and assaulted the wraithguard with the mega armored nobz.

The harlequins charged the boyz and whiped them out in the same assault face (which was too good :( )
The wraithlord that was still alive charged into combat to help out the wraithguard and farseer. They failed to kill everything, which was for the best.

The lootas checked their range against the harlequins and managed to just get in range, and killed all but 1 harlequin. This turn the mega nobz failed their moral check and fell back.

At this point there wasn't any wraithguard alive, so the spiritseer, farseer and wraithlord rushed towards the loota ranks.

The second wraithlord was killed in one turn of loota shooting, much due to the Ap 2 weapons of the meks.

Basically all eldar died sooner or later in the assault, but managed to kill all the opponents troop choices. The pathfinders not on an objective ran to one, and the game ended with me keeping 2 objectives.

End Game:
2 Objectives held.

Notes:
Well we killed the same amount of killpoints, but I lost more points worth than he did. Then again he didn't have a proper list to keep objectives, and that really gave me the win easily. But as this was all for fun it doesn't really matter.

I would like to say that this list has to be one of the nastiest list I could possible face. As he didn't have problem wounding my wraithlords and wraithguards with all his high strength weapons.
Hopefully I'll get to test it against a list that contains less high strength shots.

Wasa Konflikt 4 - After Thoughts

Alright, as the chaos marine player said after the tournament, you should think about what went wrong, what went right and how you can improve to next time.

First off, scouts with 4 sniper rifles, 1 missile launcher. They killed a long wolf squad in game 1, failed to do anything game 2 and not sure if they actually killed anything in game 3. They didn't hold any objectives either.

Prior to the tournament I was thinking about getting a dreadnought instead of the scouts and thinking back, it might have been better.

Secondly, the tactical squads didn't do much either. They are just there to fill in the troop choices, and give me some MEq units to keep objectives. But they rarely kill anything significant. The real units that shine are the terminators, in game 1 they took down 1 squad per turn, its insane.

Okay, so the list wasn't great against hordes. There was a total of 3 template weapons, and only a few missile launchers. The lootas also made me paranoid with getting out of cover with the land speeders. And when I finally did get out of cover, they died horribly.

Improvements for anti horde, at 1500p? I'm not sure, I dont think its possible without changing the lists theme. But if the terminators wouldn't have died so horribly like they did at that game, they would have been able to continue to slay orks.

Comments are welcome!

Wasa Konflikt 4 - Summary

2 Minor Wins, 1 Major Loss.

Got some bonus points for sportsmanship and hobby (Painting, Conversion etc).
I ended up getting 24.5p, and placed 5th in the tournament. Which is actually decent and I'm really happy getting 2 wins.

The Ork player from game 2 took the first place, after receiving 2 major wins and one loss. The first place price was 80€ gift certificate to a local games workshop retailer.

I would want to thank the Wasa Wargames Club for hosting a great event. Everyone there was really great to play against,  me and MuppFan had a lot of fun playing with you guys. And as I applied for membership I guess we will be seeing each other more often.

Wasa Konflikt 4 - Game 3

Annihilate, Pitched Battle, Against Chaos Space Marines.

This player had the most amazing painted/converted army that I had ever seen. I seriously dropped my jaws when I first saw them. I'll ask at some point if he has got pictures of them online.

His army was basically a Death Guard army, lots of plague marines, plaguebearers and a amazing converted daemon prince.

This was the second game on the same city terrain board, and I think it was to my advantage. As both of our armies were mechanized, but I had the multimelta speeders to speed forward and disable his rhinos.

I was able to steal the initiative and started to move my army into position, covering the rhinos with my land raider. Took some pot shots but did more or less nothing. His vindicator did however manage to immobilize my land raider on turn 1 again. This is the draw back of using only 1 land raider, its a high str weapon magnet.

My land speeders flew straight towards his rhino trying to flank me, and wrecked it and killed several plague marines on the next turn. There was another rhino approaching on the same flank, but he managed to destroy both multimeltas on the speeders. But by flying away those flanking rhinos and their plague marines failed to do anything for the entire game.

On the other side of the table things weren't going as well, I did manage to kill a plaguebearer squad, but his plague marines and daemon prince assaulted my tactical marines and killing them after several rounds of combat.

His dreadnought went berserk and assaulted the land raider and wrecking it. The assault terminators destroyed it and then continued to destroy the vindicator.

It was really starting to look bad on the side with the daemon prince, but I was lucky and the game ended at turn 5.

Endgame:
4kp (Rhino, Vindicator, Dreadnought, Plaguebearers) to me, 2kp(Tactical Squad, Land Raider) to him.
Minor Victory

Wasa Konflikt 4 - Game 2

Seize Ground (4obj), Spearhead , Against Orks.

I really don't like to play against orks, they are so varied and when they set out to do something, they do it really well. This guy had a nob squad with all different upgrades (of course) and loads of boys. However he did have a lone deffkopta and a lone killakan, so I was kind of wishing I played Annihilation versus him. However thats not the case and he had a huge amount of troop choices to keep me fighting over the objectives.

It did not start well for me, he managed to immobilize my land raider in turn 1 with the shokk attack gun. My first turn shooting was nothing impressive and just killed a few boys. On turn 2 all his outflanking units (Kommandos and kopta) come in, and the kommandos comes close to my rhino.

At this point I was being swarmed from 3 sides, so it wasn't looking too good. However my terminators managed to kill a boy squad in one assault phase, which wasn't too good as I had totally forgotten his shokk attack gun (Yes my own fault!). So in his turn he manages to get 5 Ap2 wounds on me, which I place on my thunder hammer terminators. And I roll 3x 1's and 2x 2's for my 3+ invul save. A sad day indeed.

That basically did it for me, I didn't really have anything decent to counter the nobs, so they just slaughetered my scouts and tactical squad, whilst boyz slaughtered my other tactical squad. One of the predators manage to roll a 1 on its dangerous terrain test and was immobilized.

Endgame:
He holds 3 objectives, I hold 0.
Major Loss.

Wasa Konflikt 4 - Game 1

Capture and Control, Dawn of War, Against Space Wolves.

I decided to keep everything in reserve and gave him the first turn. He split is army, ~50% attacking on my objective and the rest guarding his own. On his turn 1 he moved forward towards my objective with Canis, a rhino with bloodclaws, and another rhino with bloodclaws approaching from his table edge.

I deployed my terminators in the land raider and a tactical squad in a rhino next my objective. The rest deployed further away from my objective and advanced towards his. I tried to shoot some but I failed to do anything decent.

From then on my assault terminators went nuts on everything that approached my objective, killing everything in sight, whilst only losing 4 members from the terminator squad.

His units surrounded his own objective trying to prevent my speeders from contesting it, but in turn 5 one of my predators managed to tank shock into the crowd, barely getting inside 3" range from the objective.

Endgame:
1 Home objective held, enemy objective contested.
Minor Victory.

Wasa Konflikt 4

Because we hadn't played at any tournaments earlier, me and MuppFan decided to attend the Wasa Konflikt 4 tournament. The tournament was held last Saturday (7th November) and had a total of 8 players, one being a jump in.

Each player in the tournament played 3 games, the games being:

Game 1: Capture and Control, Dawn of War
Game 2: Seize Ground, Spearhead
Game 3: Annihilate, Pitched Battle

The army list I brought was:

HQ:
Chaplain - Terminator Armour w/ Storm Bolter

Troops:
10 Man Tactical Squad - Flamer/Missile Launcher
- Rhino
10 Man Tactical Squad - Meltagun/Missile Launcher
- Rhino
5 Man Scout Squad - Sniper Rifles/Missile Launcher, Camo Cloaks

Elites:
7 Man Assault Terminator Squad - 5x TH/SS, 2x LC
- Land Raider Crusader - Multimelta

Fast Attack:
2 Land Speeders - Heavy Flamer / Multimelta

Heavy Support:
Predator - Heavy Bolter Sponsons
Predator - Heavy Bolter Sponsons

Sadly I didn't plan on writing battle reports of the games, so I didn't take notes. And my memory sure isn't like it used to be these days, so this will just be a short rundown.

About Myself

I (SuperioR) started collecting WH40k miniatures 10 years ago when I was 14 years old. Bought the 3rd edition starter set that included Space Marines and Dark Eldar, but started to collect Space Marines as I thought they looked cooler.

I only painted miniatures and created terrain back then, because I just had one other friend who collected WH40k and we didn't really grasp the rules. I remember trying to play a game that actually lasted over two days, as we both had to read through the BGB all the time.

After a while I lost interest in the game, but I started to collect again in 2008. This time I managed to 'recruit' a friend (as he had been playing fantasy). And after he got into 40k, several others also started to play. I'm guessing its easier to find people to play with now that we're all older and have money of our own to use on the expensive hobby that is WH40k.

I now have just over 6000p of Space Marines and 2000p (unpainted) Iyanden Eldar.

My Marines are vehicle heavy and the Eldar are almost the opposite by only being on foot.
I got most of my marines from the starter sets, and then bought more vehicles to add to the army.

My Eldar army is going to be painted by my girlfriend, as she likes to paint but doesn't care about the gaming aspect. I decided to get Iyanden Eldar as I really enjoy the fluff aspect of them.

My friends that I play most of my games with are:

Goggy - Necrons (And looking at Tau/Space Wolves for his second army)
MuppFan - Tyranids / Sisters of Battle
Tompa - Orks / Chaos Space Marines

Oh and I also created the HAMulator application, which you can download from http://hamulator.genostech.com . However I haven't had time to support it as I have lots of other things to do on my spare time. So hopefully it works for you, even though there are some small bugs.

Welcome to the 40k WTD blog!

After thinking about starting a 40,000 blog for quite a while I finally decided to do it.

In this blog I'm going to be talking about Warhammer 40k and anything around that subject. For example army lists, army tactics, my army progress and battle reports.

Hopefully I'll have time to update it as often as possible, but it all depends on the peoples demands.