NWG Series, Part Three - Board Building

So here we are for part three of the NWG Series I'm going to show you the WIP display board that I'm building for the army.

Last week I put up the list and details of the models that I needed to get sorted. I have now managed to get all of the toys built and equipped with all the appropriate wargear, I'll detail this in a later post, for now it's the board.

As you may have seen from part 1, I had some scrawled ideas of what the board would look like.

The original plan.

As you can see I wanted to get all the squads in front of the pods being addressed by the Librarians. The usual board size is around 2" x 2". I got some MDF cut and had some expanded polystyrene lying around.

I started by assembling the wooden base.

The base

 I test fitted the polystyrene and then trimmed it to fit in snugly.

Polystrene test fit

I then used my specially crafted foamboard template to measure out the spacing of the pods on the polystyrene.

Foamboard sizer.

Measuring the spacing for the pods

 I then got all the toys together and made sure I could fit them all on with sufficient space.

Planning out the troop layout

After drawing out the shapes I then went at it with a hot wire cutter.

Cutting out the edges

Cutting out the pod holes

Some progress

 Once everything was cut out I fitted it into the wooden base.

Polystyrene nested in the frame

The next step is to texture the board with some pre formed plasticard that I have lying about and get the rest of it painted up all nice looking.

NWG Series, Part Two - The list

Welcome back to the NWG Series, time for part two.

Last time I hinted at something involving drop pods and left a few of my mad scrawlings up on the blog for your viewing pleasure.

I suppose it’s time to explain the some of my schemes, I’m going to be entering the 40K tournament, which has a 1650pts limit and rewards you for playing with new toys, conversions and the like.

I’ve opted to bring a list that involves drop pods, 9 of them.

Heres a quick list run down:

Dark Angels

Librarian, level 1 (Divination)

Tactical Squad, Melta, Drop Pod

Tactical Squad, Melta, Drop Pod

Tactical Squad, Melta, Drop Pod

Veteran Squad, Melta, 3x Combi-Melta, Drop Pod

Veteran Squad, Plasma, 3x Combi-Plasma, Drop Pod

Veteran Squad, Plasma, 3x Combi-Plasma, Drop Pod

Space Wolves

Rune Priest, Jaws, Hurricane

Rune Priest, Jaws, Lightning

6 Wolf Guard, 2x Combi-Melta, 3x Combi-Flamer, 1xTerminator w/ H.Flamer, Drop Pod

8 Grey Hunters, Melta, Banner, Drop Pod

8 Grey Hunters, Melta, Banner, Drop Pod

So as you can see I’m going to be needing:

9 Drop Pods

6 Melta Guns

2 Plasma Guns

5 Combi-Meltas

6 Combi-Plasmas

3 Combi-Flamers

1 Terminator

3 Libbys/Priests

6 Sgts

26 Marines

Pretty much all of this needs to be built and painted from nothing, I think I have about 20 Marines, 3 Special weapons undercoated and 1 Libby/Priest model actually painted.

1 model out of 64 completed!

It's a few boxes.

The most daunting thing is likely the 9 Pods, as they’ve a lot of different bits, I’ve spent the last week cleaning them up.

These are the large components

Thanks very much to Ian of Mad Eye Miniatures / The HobbyShack for getting these toys to me in such short order, what a gent, ply him with your business!

Now how am I going to get 9 pods painted? Well I’m going to cheat of course, using Army Painter sprays to take care of the grunt work of base coating both exteriors and interiors.

 

All the rest of the sprues

 

Obligatory crotch shot of just some of the plastic bits.

Progress overall has been slow but I have most of my materials now and I’m working on getting things moving, I’m sure once I get into the swing of things we should see more solid progress and a bit more dedication on my part.

Until next time!

Lots of Rubbish

                                

NWG Series, the beginning.

It’s been ages since I updated the blog because I've been busy playing toys and going on holiday and generally being busy with things that aren't writing walls of text about toy soldiers.

So since the last time I've gone ahead and actually placed in two tournaments, the first being Skibbcon, which is a team based event centered around getting really drunk and maybe playing toys, this event I won with my team mate Matt. It used three lists that were determined randomly prior to each game and the players were also switched about – Lists for this event are here, we went with bikes, all the bikes.

The second was a solo affair, Brocon, this was based in the University of Limerick and was the hottest tournament in the history of being really hot and sweaty, it really was warm. I took along Sisters of Battle with a fairly comedic list including 3 units of 3 Penitent Engines as well as some Space Wolves in Drop Pods. I finished up in 3rd place and secured my place as the best Sisters of Battle player in Ireland. List can be found here.

The next Tournament that is coming up is NWG, its more about the toys, modeling and painting. The games happen but aren't super competitive. The event will be using 1650 points of 40k and encourages displays, themes and using things that you haven’t before. It’s a great thing to motivate people to paint toys and try different things, also spend lots of money on more toys.

In my genius, or possibly madness, I've decided to have a totally new army with its own display board and a bunch of other stuff that I probably don’t have time for. I won’t spoil everything just yet but leave you with my concept sketches and try and update the blog once a week with my progress, welcome to the NWG series.

I’ll give you a hint, it involves Drop Pods!

Musings on 6th Edition - List building

Just to preface this article I've been sitting on it for some amount of time because I simply haven’t had the time to finalise it.

I've also been busy doing lots of other bits and pieces, including a quick foray into Dreadball as well as taking the Dark Angels out for a spin and sorting out my CGK:LRL (Comedy Grey Knights : Land Raider List) for the 3^rd Shack Attack in the Hobby Shack, Wicklow

I was reading an article over at Imperius Dominatus, here:

http://www.imperiusdominatus.com/2013/03/discussion-unit-counters.html

And it was talking about how there are ‘hard’ counters to certain units, plasma for sanguinary guard, for example.

I wanted to apply this in a more general sense and look at soft counters to certain trends that are apparent in 6^th edition and slot this into my meta, which is the Irish 40k scene.

I then want to apply this to list building for my armies, I’m looking to have a Take All Comers (from here on it’ll be known as TAC) list built up.

There are a few army types that we can start to look at before getting into the actual units that make up armies as these types have a fairly standard composition.

The Horde Army

This is commonly seen as a big pile of Ork Boyz or huge swarms of Tyranids with the idea of numbers being the key to victory; this is generally countered by template Weaponry, Flamers and Blasts, the larger the better.

Tarpits These are a sort of subset of horde forces, using either numerous or very tough models to hold up something that could cause a lot of damage to the rest of your force. It’s not so much something you need to build your list for but more of a tactical element when playing.

A ‘Mech’ force

An army that consists of Vehicles generally with troops inside. This is less prevalent in 6^th Ed than it was in 5^th with the ability for lower strength weaponry to glance a vehicle to death. To counter it one needs to bring decent strength ranged firepower, Strength 8 and above ideally.

Flyers

Flyers are now becoming pretty popular in 6^th Ed, with Cron Air being a big player as well as Guard planes and Helldrakes. Dealing with them really requires some Skyfire so an Aegis Line and Quad gun is starting to become a pretty standard piece of kit in most lists. The new Codicies also include Flakk Missile Launchers and the new Daemon Book has a Skyfire Autocannon. Armies without access to these can try with Twin-linking (prescience) and Volume of fire to try and cause some damage.

Edit: The Tau Codex is now out and Brings the option to sling Interceptor and Skyfire onto all of the Battlesuits including Broadsides and the Riptide.

Terminators or Equivalent (TEQ)

This covers all the folks packing a 2+ Armour Save on the field e.g: Terminators. The hardest counter to this is anything AP2, Plasma tends to be the favourite due to weight of fire, a Lascannon is AP 2 but gets 1 shot, Plasma gives 2 at 12” or you have the cannon with a small blast. Another option is a demo charge but they tend to only really show up in the hands of Vets or Marbo. Another tactic for TEQ is just to force saves, volume of wounds onto models.

Marines or Equivalent (MEQ)

This is what most of the 40k Armies are based around, warriors in Power Armour toting a 3+ save, they can be handed by any AP3 weapons although there aren’t too many dedicated commonly found versions. Again, with the TEQ, volume of fire and forcing saves will sort you out.

AV14

Armour Value 14 and to a lesser Eextent 13 can be problematic if there’s nothing to take care of it, looking at the below, even if we are packing a Lascannon the chance of scoring a penetrating hit is slim.

Weapon Str	Glance	Pen
0-7	n/a	n/a
8	6	n/a
9	5	6
10	4	5

The best bet is a Str10 weapon or anything with the Melta or Armourbane special rule which usually gives Str 8 with 2D6 Armour Pen and even with Average Rolling you are only just getting a Pen.

High Toughness Units or Monstrous Creatures

This includes models starting at toughness 6 and going up to 10, a Str4 weapons only wound T6 on a 6+ and can’t even hurt T8, again High strength weaponry is required to take care of these beasties, I’m looking at you Monstrous Nid’s, (Greater) Deamon (Princes), Dread Knights and most recently Riptides. The latter of the two who are 2+/5++. Poisoned weapons/Fleshbane is a good choice here but unless you’re Dark Eldar there isn’t all that much available.

An Assault Death Star

Death Stars tend to come in the form of a big melee blob loaded up with special characters, a load of wargear and some super nasty combination of other things. Some Examples are; a big Unit of Nob Bikers with Klaws, Loganwing Space Wolves with mixed and matched Terminators and power fists, Some combination of nasty Necron things that never die. Sometimes these units will fall into the TEQ category and can be dealt with, mostly, with Plasma and other AP 1/2 although they usually have some sort of invulnerable save or a mutli-wound Eternal Warrior component. Volume of fire or “more guns!” is always an option.

In conclusion you need the following to build a TAC list:

• Templates
• AP 2 or Lots of guns
• Ranged Str 8
• SkyFire
• AP3 or Lots of guns
• Melta/Armourbane
• Fleshbane/Posion

Lots of guns

I'd love to hear anyones thoughts on this, add a comment and tell me how wrong I am.

Warpcon Rulespack and Missons

With Warpcon this coming weekend I wanted to take a look at the missions in the rules pack to just get my head round what’s needed to actually attempt to win some games.

I often find myself losing sight of the victory conditions and just wading in looking for as much death and destruction as possible. Whilst this is great, if you’re going to table someone, even then that doesn't guarantee a full win of 20-0.

The pack is pretty standard for the 40K Irish tournament scene with one exception, the introduction of a new rule, Nemesis.

Nemesis

The unit or independent character that achieves the first blood objective becomes the Nemesis, If the Nemesis is Removed as a casualty by the end of the game it is worth 1 VP to your opponent, If First Blood was Achieved, but not by a unit or character, then choose a unit, in your army and on the table, at random, to become the Nemesis.

Now I spoke at length about the First Blood rule being critical in 6th edition here. 

With the introduction of this rule I think it really shakes things up and makes “core 6 th ed list building” not quite the same from my Point of view anyway. The emphasis on hiding squishy things is replaced by the idea of taking FB with something that is hardy and can hide out somewhere, but that’s a discussion for another time if this rule becomes more prevalent.

Anyway, on to the missions for the tournament:

Just to note the secondary for all of the Missions are:

Slay the Warlord, First Blood, Nemesis, Linebreaker. – These grant a VP each.

And VPs gained with the Warlord Personal Trait "Legendary Fighter" if rolled

The Secondary’s are calculated with +/- based on number of VPs each player earned.

Game one:

VANGUARD STRIKE deployment

Primary Objectives: Crusade (5 objectives) One objective is placed in the centre of each table quarter and one in the centre of the table.

This is what the table should look like, the triangles can flip sides but you will have 1 objective centrally with 3 roughly down the middle of no man’s land.

This is a pretty straightforward game to play, making sure you have three scoring units that are on objectives at game end, a fair bit of this will come down to deploying correctly and manoeuvring into position to take and hold.

Game Two

DAWN OFWAR Deployment

Primary Objectives: Purge the Alien

Artists Impression

This mission is all about minimising casualties and maximising kills, it’s your standard Kill Points affair with not much to really think about.

Game Three:

HAMMER AND ANVIL deployment

Primary Objective: Big Guns Never Tire (3 Objectives worth 3 VPs each) Placed 12 inches apart and 12 inches from the board edge along the centre of the board between the two deployment zones.

Big Guns Never Tire means that your Heavy Support choices count for a VP when they are killed, this means that either I need to have 2 of 3 objectives and lose my Colossuseseseses OR them not die and I still get 2.

So two objectives need to be secured to take this one, with the Hammer and Anvil deployment it means that the Big guns can hide away at the back and still provide fire support.

Game Four:

DAWN OF WAR deployment

Primary Objective: The Relic

The Relic is an odd mission, the need to be swift to go and grab the thing is important, so is being able to shoot anything that can get near it as well. This will likely end up as a huge scrum in the middle, the main issue will be nippy armies that can infiltrate or zip onto it in the first turn and start running before I have a chance to close the distance.

Game Five:

VANGUARD STRIKE deployment

Primary Objective: The Scouring (3 Objectives worth 3 VPs each) One placed in the centre of the board and the others 18 inches either side, along a diagonal line through the centre of the board, between the two deployment zones

The Scouring makes all fast attack scoring and worth 1 VP when they are killed, problem with the Vendettas is that they are too high up on flying bases to score. The table will also be different depending on the opponent, as you can see form the diagram, it could end up with 1 objective in each deployment (red blobs) or with three up the middle (blue blobs). This could make a huge difference as this is the final game and favours fast armies with the potential to zoom onto objectives and have them captured quickly.

Overall the rulespack looks like it will work well with plenty of scoring troops, something that I have recommended before in 6th ed.

My list has a potential 8 scoring units, although none of them particularly resilient, they are guardsmen after  ll. These can of course be reduced to bigger more resilient blobs and a lot of my games are going to be decided at deployment most likely. For anyone curious the list is here.

Regardless of what happens, this is one of, if not the biggest Wargames events in Ireland every year and also a great craic for all involved. I just hope that my social obligations do not end up with me under performing due to alcohol related performance reduction.

One man really knows about Gin.

Hopefully I’ll see some people there who read the blog, if anyone actually does, I’ll be on the bottom tables getting smashed mostly, I imagine, but it’s all about having fun. And when I fail to do well, it’s the taking part that counts!

Dark Angels? Bandwagon, yes.

Now this is me, jumping on a Band Wagon, big style.

It's not a Wagon but it's for a band! (I'm off to see Maiden at Donnington this year)

After having a leaf through a Codex t'other day and seeing how pretty it is and talking to Caolán over at Skibb Wargamers I decided that I would, in my head, imagine myself a list.

Now the lovely thing about Dark Angels has always been the Death/Raven Wing aspect of things and has always appealed to me. Now I've got some Terminators already, some from Space Hulk and some I got assembled and painted to be allied Blood Angels

Libby has a Storm Shield and a Bolter, suck it.

I also have a load of old school Terminators, in a vat of Dettol somewhere, I'm talking Mk 1 Space Hulk Old, they can be augmented with Shields and hammers, was thinking these.

Picture from http://gardenninjastudios.blogspot.ie/

So anyway, I came up with a little list that uses some Terminators and some zippy bikes. 

+ HQ + (215pts)
* Azrael, Supreme Grand Master of the Dark Angles, Keeper of the Truth (215pts)

+ Troops+ (795pts)
* Deathwing Terminator Squad (265pts)
* Deathwing Terminator Sgt
Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
* Deathwing Terminator Special Weapon
Cyclone Missile Launcher & Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
* 3x Deathwing Terminators
Storm Bolter and Power Sword, 2x Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield

* Deathwing Terminator Squad (265pts)
* Deathwing Terminator Sgt
Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
* Deathwing Terminator Special Weapon
Cyclone Missile Launcher & Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
* 3x Deathwing Terminators
Storm Bolter and Power Sword, 2x Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield

* Deathwing Terminator Squad (265pts)
* Deathwing Terminator Sgt
Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
* Deathwing Terminator Special Weapon
Cyclone Missile Launcher & Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
* 3x Deathwing Terminators
Storm Bolter and Power Sword, 2x Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield

+ Fast Attack + (420pts)
* Ravenwing Black Knights (210pts)
* 4x Black Knights
1x Ravenwing Grenade Launcher
* Ravenwing Huntmaster
Corvus Hammer

* Ravenwing Black Knights (210pts)
* 4x Black Knights
1x Ravenwing Grenade Launcher
* Ravenwing Huntmaster
Corvus Hammer

Imperial Guard 5th Ed (2009) (Allied Detachment) Selections:

+ HQ + (50pts)* Company Command Squad (50pts)

+ Troops + (240pts)
* Infantry Platoon (240pts)
* Infantry Squad
Lascannon

* Infantry Squad
Lascannon

* Infantry Squad
Lascannon

* Platoon Command Squad

+ Fast Attack + (130pts)* Vendetta Gunship Squadron (130pts)
* Vendetta
2 Twin-linked Lascannons


Now I would need to buy a few bits, and a big box of Bikes, but it looks like a fun list, now to order a metal Azrael before they f(uck)inecast him up.

Some list reflections and bits.

I meant to post this earlier but I forgot and then Christmas and drinking etc..



The other week I was up in Wicklow at the Hobby Shack for Shack Attack! It was a 1 Day 3 game event at 1850 points and it gave me a chance to try out my Guard and Wolves list a bit more.

I just wanted to say that the shop is great and the whole event was cracking, if you are ever in that neck
of the woods pop in and say hi, also they are doing Online ordering too, with free shipping in Ireland.

Now onto the thoughts, I took the following list:
HQ
CCS w/ Astropath

Troops 1
Platoon Command Sq

Infantry Squad
1 Lascannon
Flamer
Commissar

Infantry Squad
1 Lascannon
Flamer

Infantry Squad
1 Lascannon
Flamer

Infantry Squad
1 Lascannon
Flamer

Infantry Squad
1 Lascannon
Flamer

Troops 2
Veteran Squad
2 Melta @10

Fast Attack 1

Vendetta
Heavy Bolters

Fast Attack 2
Vendetta
Heavy Bolters

Fast Attack 3
Vendetta
Heavy Bolters

Heavy Support 1
Colossus Mortar

Heavy Support 2
Colossus Mortar

Heavy Support 3
Medusa

Fortification
Aegis Line

HQ
Rune Priest (Bolter)
Jaws, Living Lightning

HQ
Rune Priest (Bolt pistol)
Hurricane, Wolf Spirits

Troops
7 Grey Hunters
Meltagun
Wolf Banner
Drop Pod

The list itself seems solid enough, it was expanding on the Gaelcon Blob but with Artillery instead of
Orks, the Priests were there to buff the blob and provide Prescience where it was needed, the Grey
Hunters and the Pod for First Blooding.

Because it was only 3 games I didn't really get the chance to try it out against a huge variety of armies
but I got a good taste of how it performs, I ended up playing against Dark Angels & Eldar, Tyranids and
Chaos (Marines and Daemons).

I want to look at each unit and how it did in the games I played, and see what can be changed about the
current list and what needs to be added.

Company Command Squad.
Game 1: Orders were given, successfully, the reserves arrived but then they got charged and failed a
Leadership check on -1 and broke.
Game 2: They hid in a ruin and gave some orders, not much else to report.
Game 3: they got gunned down and are particularly squishy out in the open, they were lacking
something to pack a punch really.

Infantry Platoon
Game 1: They were split for deployment and the non stubborn 20 man Blob was meleed and ran whilst
the others held their ground.
Game 2: The whole platoon held firm and shot, loads.
Game 3: the 30 man blob was seized on and lost 10 men in turn 1, they held a unit up in combat for ages
but didn’t do as much as they should, the other two 10 man squads held on but were overwhelmed,
that was because my whole force was.

Veterans
Game 1: They Grav Chuted in and managed to grab an objective on the last turn.
Game 2: They Chuted in again and Melta’d/distracted some Hive Guard, but then got smashed.
Game 3: No chutes list time, they went to a last ditch draw attempt but didn't have quite enough
fire-power.

Vendettas * I talked about Scout/Outflanking with these lads here.
Game 1: 2 Survived, 1 was vector locked @ 36” and had to leave on the last turn.
Game 2: they chewed up some Tervigon and 1 made it out alive.
Game 3: they all survived and did some damage but it was too late.

Colossus(eseseseses)
Game 1: With Terminators and TH/SS they couldn't really smush anything that well but they caused
wounds.
Game 2: Plenty of wounds onto piles of gaunts, giving them no cover as well was excellent.
Game 3: Splatted some marines and generally made a nuisance of themselves but T6 Infantry is a bit
more annoying, as is FnP.

Medusa
Game 1: It died turn 2 after getting Shaken turn 1, had it lived I’m sure it would have been good.
Game 2: it failed to really deliver in terms of damage, the lack of indirect fire wasn’t great.
Game 3: Short range meant that it wasn't really capable of doing much unless it exposed itself.

Rune Priests
Games 1&2: They cast spells and were generally good.
Game 3: The Shaky Stick came in Handy nullifying psychic powers.

Grey Hunters
Game 1: There weren't any juicy targets but they tied up some shooting.
Game 2: They drew a lot of fire and focused movement.
Game 3: They secured first blood and tied up a unit or 2.

So what didn't really do very well? The Medusa was lacklustre and doesn't really fit the gunline due to
it being range and sight restricted with no real option to reposition without giving up the 4+ Aegis save.
Grey Hunters did will but invariably died each time. Other than that everything seemed to perform fairly
well. One thing that I really noticed was lack of any real melee ability. The tarpits of a blob is nice to hold
up an enemy unit and be a pain, eventually they will wipe something out due to weight of numbers or
suffer. A lack of stubborn when splitting the blobs really makes a difference as well.

So what do I need to change?
Well I think I need to bring in some sort of Melee, now I've heard about rough riders but they just seem
a little poor and they are competing for a Vendetta spot, so they aren't going to be joining. Ogryns are
S5 T5 but lack any power weaponry and are 43 points each with a 5+ save. Power weapons are 10pts
a pop but you still have S3 unless you take a Maul or Axe and then you loose the AP 3 or striking at
initiative, I suppose the Axes are okay when they are snuck in there, might be something to consider.
One thing that was touched on was some Thunder Wolves, being part of the Fast Attack slot in the
Wolves codex this makes them scoring in the scouring, they are also pretty nasty in general, although
they do cost in at 50pts per basic model.

If I drop the Grey Hunters down to 5 and make them a Melta delivery system (no banner), to grab first
blood where appropriate, I can pick up 45 Points. With the Medusa gone I can get another 135. Taking
2 Rune priests is nice but if I opt in for 1 blob I can perhaps afford to lose one, giving me another 100 to
play with. So there’s a solid 280 Points going spare.

TWC are 150 for the basic 3 scrubs, 30pts for a Storm Shield up the front and maybe a 20pt Wolf Claw
in there for some AP 3 and rerolls then 1 standard guy. This puts them at 200 points all told, I could in
theory splurge 60 more on another SS a Thunder Hammer and another Claw which would eat my 80
points but I think that might be better spent elsewhere.

80 points could buy me any of the following:

Marbo a power weapon and a flamer – Cos well Marbo.
5 power weapons and a Melta + Lascannon for the CCS – More Melee potential but also shooting
A Griffon and a flamer – I am tempted to try the Griffon, as prescience on a Colossus was good.
Office of the Fleet, Lascannon for the CCS, 3 power weapons – I like the idea of messing with reserves
more and having 1 more cannon.
Maintain the Grey hunters and grab a Lascannon, power weapon and a Flamer – I don’t think the Grey
Hunters are worth it at 7, reckon it needs to be 10 with 2 Melta/Plasma.