Bah Bah Stormraven!

Hey Guys, Huron here again.  Well last month for a joint motivational thread on a forum I post on regularly, The Painted Dragon, I decided to paint a Blood Angels Stormraven that I had sitting around.  I started working on it and found it to be a total nightmare.  The kit must have been warped as nothing went together right.  I ended up having to glue this bad boy shut and then still head to spend several days filling gaps in the body and fixing cracks and damage cause by all the excess glue I had to use to get it to say together.  Thank god for Liquid Green Stuff.

Well after a bit of work I finally got this bad boy ready for prime and paint.

First Minis of 2012

Alright, so time to post the first minis of the new year.  Today I have some Sanguinary Guard for you, still WIP, but first the story of their inspiration.  Back in early December, as I mention in my last post, I played in and won a 40k tournament at my local shop.  The funny thing is I decided to play in the tournament on a whim the morning of the tournament and threw together an all foot Blood Angels army (well all foot except 1 landspeeder, 3 bikes, and a Drop Pod) from the mostly painted BA minis I have kicking around with a few Painted Flesh Tearer minis I won at a BFS charity Tournament back in late 2010 thrown in.  The tournament was a 3 round escalating format with Round 1 played at 1250pts, Round 2 played at 1500pts, and round 3 played at 1750pts.  Players were required to make a 1750pt list and then take whole unit out of it to build their 1500pt and 1250pt lists.

Well it is a start...

Hey guys, Huron here again, man has it been a while. I have to admit that taking it easy has some advantages (though once you see my list of what I have been up to, you will question if I have been taking it easy), no deadlines, no models I have to have painted, no worries about not having X hobby thing painted, etc.

I has allowed me to find the time to play more and different games, which has lead me to rediscover board games and non-collectible card games and things of that nature. With December coming to a close however, I think it is about time to get back on the horse, set some goals, come up with a plan, and get to work. For one, there is a new 40K tournament season starting just around the corner. I said last year that my Griffons were under powered in the current meta in my area by the end of last season so I was going to do a new army for this season.

Additionally, I have put back on the black in the last few weeks and stepped up at my local LGS Huzzah Hobbies as a Pressganger again. That means catching up on what I have missed over the last 2 years and probably painting up some new demo sets and a new 35-50pt army to use.

Bah, there is to much to write down in paragraph form, so in comes a good old list.

What I have been up/Going to be up to in early 2011.

1. Started Flames of War - Late War Russians
2. Started Uncharted Seas - Shroud Mages
3. Started Dystopian Wars - Japanese
4. Started playing/Purchased Dominion (Deck Building Card Game)
5. Started playing/Purchased Resident Evil's new Deck Building Card Game
6. Purchased Invasion from Outer Space Board Game (From Flying From Productions)
7. Started playing/Purchased Wings of War base game and 2 planes
8. Dabbling with getting back into Monpoc
9. Reactivated myself as a Pressganger for Privateer Press and started organizing a new League and Tournament for Warmachine/Hordes
   
10. Stopped playing Malifaux, we will see if I get back in, in Jan 2011.
11. I am in week 3 of a Warhammer Fantasy Escalation League that will be running through February
12. Played some Apoc recently, has me thinking about getting my Blood Angels finished so I have a new army to play with short term
13. In the conceptual and testing build phase for a Steam-Punk Ork 40k army I am thinking about build to use at the Nova Open next August. Was 100% sold on the idea until I figured out what it would cost to create 3 Ork Battlewagon Steam Trains, now rethinking possibly or doing some revising.
14. Scatter Brained and starting new projects or wanting to finish old projects or something else every other day it seems.

Well that is my list of what I have been up to. I have articles coming in the near future, probably after I get my work area cleared up and find my camera again. But never fear I shall return, looking for me in 2011 if not before.

BfS Day 2 - Games 1 and 2

Hey guys, Huron here. Today I have another battle report for you from my games 1 and 2 of the Battle For Salvation tournament held on the weekend of October 8-10, 2010. I had fun. My first opponent, John, played a Shrike Space Marine list with 2 Assault Squads, Normal Terminators, a Vindicator, and then a few Assault Squads... oh and a squad of sniper scouts. We played a close fought game till the last few rounds when some bad dice on his part rolls turned the game in my favor and I had a solid win, taking VPs, 3 of 4 table quarters, and all 5 KPs.

This ran me into Jeff, a BA player with a tank heavy Alpha Strike list. He won the right to go first and picked a quarter that except for a bit of difficult terrain, but me in a wide open deployment area (we were playing spearhead). Long story short, he zipped up and unloaded, killing, stunning, or shaking everything I had on the table pretty much, leaving me unable to strike back until the end of turn 2. At that point I didn't really have much left and my dice rolls were so bad that nothing was hitting anyways, it was a miracle he didn't destroy me complete and table me. At the end of the game I had a few Marines, Khan, and 2 rhino left hiding in a corner contesting an objective. I had a good game with Jeff and finally got to see what Alpha strike BA can do.

Here is the video:



Ouch, brutal second game. Well that left me squarely 1-1, which set me up for my best game of the day, vs Neil from the 11th company. More on that next time though.

Thank you for reading.

Battle for Salvation - Friday vs Jawaballs

Hey guys, Huron here. So today I start my coverage of my trip to the 2010 Battle For Salvation tournament held up in White Plains, NY this past weekend. I had a blast. The tournament was using a modified Nova Open Format that adds in Kill Points as a fourth possible win condition (though there were still only Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary mission each round). I ended up going 2-2 and made it to the bronze bracket on the Sunday where I promptly lost to Neil from the 11th company, again...

This first video is of my pre-tournament Celebrity Grudge Match game vs Jawaballs on Friday night. I had fun playing Jawaballs, but in the end he beat me pretty soundly. I reserved everything which was a mistake that I make sometime when using Khan, and was actually the reason I dropped him from my list for the Open so I would not have the option. Losing this game actually helped me quite a bit as it got my head in the right place and me commited to a tactic I would use for the rest of the weekend of minimizing my out flankers to 2 half tactical squads in Rhinos and creating a solid fire base with the rest of the army so that all the unit were better able to support each other and not be overwhelm individually.

More on my strategy in a future post, not on to the part you all want, the battle report. Make sure you watch to the end for some special bonus content with Fritz and Black Matt.



I hope you enjoyed the battle report and see you soon for coverage of my games 1 and 2 at the Battle For Salvation Tournament.

The Plan

Hey guys, Huron rolling in for another post. Sorry, no video battle reports yet, I know I promised Tuesday but my evenings have been full of recovering from the Nova Open, Malifaux, and Warhammer Fantasy so I have not had time to get the editing I need to do done. That said check back tomorrow as I plan to get some serious editing done this evening.

So I have a plan. Is it a good plan? Is it a plan I will stick to? I am not sure of either but it is a plan none the less.

1. Finish painting Malifaux Outcasts and 2k of BAs I was working on last week. Build some terrain for Malifaux.
   
2. Really 1b, try out the marine list Stelek devised for me in 5-10 games to see how viable they are and how well I can adopt/figure out the suggested tactics. I need to build a Captain on Bike for the army as well.
3. Finish painting the 2.5k of Lizardmen I have floating around. Also begin building and prepping the models that I need to paint for final 2k Griffons list based on list Stelek proposed that I have now tested.
4. Paint up Griffons while playing some test games with Blood Angels.
   
5. Start working on Malifaux Resurrections/ Other Projects
   
6. Profit!

So that is my plan, well maybe not the profit part, but man I sure wish I could figure out how to add that one in for real.

Let me know what you think of my plan, and what the odds are I can stick to it. If the odds are interesting enough I might just put something down on them.

Nova Open is over.

Hey guys, Huron here again. How is everyone. Well the Nova Open has come and gone, and it has left yours truly with some big dilemmas to figure out. For starters I spent a bunch of money upgrading my computer to better handle the requirements demanded of it to broadcast the Open live on Friday and Sunday. This improvements did not to help at all and we had to use Bill's machine for most of the heavy lifting.

Secondly I played in the tournament on Saturday and in a pickup game on Sunday vs Pat's (from the 11th company podcast) Chaos Daemon army. Man did I get spanked. I only won 1 game all weekend, and just barely at that. Never fear, though as I have video to edit into video battle reports to be posted. Expect the first batch to show up here tomorrow.

So with that said, I am left with a dilemma, as I said before. What should I do with the Griffons? They are my best painted army (waiting to see what kind of paint score I got) and probably the only one that will be of that quality when I move onto playing prep games for the Battle for Salvation Open coming in October which, I will be attending. I have my new BA army, which is in the mid level painting stages right now, still a long way to go with lots of play testing to do (still have not played a game with this army yet) before I come up with a final version of a list I could use. Alternatively I could reach into the depths of my gaming closet and pull out one of many projects hiding in there.

I have an idea... and the models for a hard hitting mech hybrid Chaos Marine army that combines aspects of how Mech Guard is played and the current Dread/Monsterous Creature method that is doing well right now. Alternately I could pull the Orks from the depths and give them a go again. Lots to paint in that army but I think it could be fun to play them. The Eldar Exodite (Jetbike Army) is still a work in progress idea so that is out. As is the Renegade IG as I am pretty poor right now and I would need to rebuy/rebuild up the the armored component of the army. Tau would be do able, but I am worried about the competitiveness of the army and the amount of time the learning curve would take to master.

So what does that leave me. BAs, Chaos Marines, Orks, and doing some sort of retool of the Griffons to make them more effective. Maybe revamp them a bit into a Space Wolf list. I really have to agree with Dash of Pepper's comment on Dakka Dakka in the Nova Open thread where he said Space Wolves are not necessarily the best army out there, but a decent player will have just as good a chance of doing well with them as a great player with another army. Since I am only I feel a decent player, maybe I should bight the bullet and revamp the Griffons into a Space Wolves army. I have the models sitting around I would need, or at least most of them and it would allow me to flex some of my conversion muscles that I haven't used in a while when making some Thunder Wolf Cav for the army (Already have a conversion in mind, more on it later if I decide to go this way).

What do you guys think? Get the BA's done and start playing them and hope I have time to tweak the list by October? Tweak the Griffons and go Space Wolf? Should I dust off Orks and give them another try? Or should I build the Chaos Marine army I have been thinking about and planning out recently?

What do you think I should do?

Painting with HuronBH @ 7 - U-Stream

Hey guys Huron here with an announcement. Tomorrow night, 8/5/10 at 7pm Eastern Standard Time, I will be making my U-Stream Debut. I will be broadcasting a tutorial on how I paint my Blood Angels, from Primer to Completion.

The show should run roughly 2 hours and I will cover and demonstrate several painting techniques including Over Brushing, Dry Brushing, Highlighting, and the use of Washes to create nicely painted High Table Top quality miniatures relatively quickly.

This is the first of a new series of regular U-Stream shows I will be starting in October that will cover a variety of topics from painting, to conversion, to terrain building, and gaming.

Also this is a dry run for the U-Stream system that we will be using at the Nova Open on Friday Night/ Sunday Afternoon.

You can join in by clicking HERE!

I hope to see you tomorrow night.

Moving is a hard thing to do...

Hey guys, Huron back again in Digital Land. How has everyone been? I know it has been a while since I posted last but things have been really busy here. Between projects ending and new projects starting at work, then the old projects cropping back up with a vengeance; podcasting on Gamers Lounge (we are up to episode 8 with episode 9 recording on Sunday); and me moving on this coming Saturday I have had zero time to post anything new.

That said, I have been steadily working on getting my Blood Angels painted up. I was supposed to have 1000pts done on May 30th for the Pathfinder 1000, but do to me having to redo the interior of one of the rhinos and deciding I didn't like how the red was looking on the regular Blood Angel models I scraped a lot of what I had done and started over a few days before the deadline, which really put a hamper on me finishing on time. Below you will find very WIP images of what I am working on for the BA's, let me know what you think.

BA Tactical Squad, Part 1

Death Company, Progress

3 Rhino, 1 Death Company, 2 regular. All with magnetized top hatches

Painted interiors of the 2 regular rhinos, DC rhino interior in prior post.

Fully magnetized Baal Predator, door magnetized to add or remove sponsons, weapons option magnetized too (See second pic)

3 Sanquinary Priest, 1 with jump pack, 2 on foot with power weapons.

And finally a converted Librarian using only plastic parts from a number of kits. Yes the top of the axe is the axe head of the Space Hulk Librarian model. Notice the regular back back and wings combo, it is cool that you don't just have to use the jump pack in order to get the wings to work.

So that is it for now. With me moving this weekend and my internet not being installed until Monday the 14th, I suspect it will be at least till then before I post again.

Look out next week for more BA pics, a look at my new place, and plans for my new gaming table.

See you guys later...

New Blood

Hey guys, Huron here with a quick update. Above are some work in progress pics of the first half of a BA tactical squad I am current working on for the Pathfinder 1000. I have decide that I will be playing 3rd company Blood Angels, so that means White blood drops on the Right shoulder pad (painted but not visible here). I have also decided to make this Squad 3 or 3rd Company, so yellow right knee pads with a red blood drop (base yellow coat seen here).

More to come as I have it.


-jay

De be Vampires!

Hey guys, Huron here, how is everything going? Well I thought it was about time to share some of the work I have been doing on my new Blood Angels. Currently I am working on the above WIP Death Company, the Interior of the first Rhino (below), and the first Tactical Squad. I have also been concentrating on Magnetizing everything I can so my Baal has lots of magnets that allow me to switch up parts as I want. The turret and side doors are fully magnetized as will the sponsons when I get around to them.

As you can see from the pic of the Death Company I am doing things a bit differently, namely using the Sanguinary Guard Death Mask heads and some of the Power Weapons/ wrist bolt pistols from the same kit. There are also 2 guys carrying bolters. In the long run I think I am going to split that squad in two, creating a squad of all bolter/pfist wielding DC, and a squad using mostly SG weapon components.

I have 4 more foot DC that need paint and 6 jump pack DC to jump around with Astroth when I eventually get him finished (his axe handle broke in several places and was not easy to pin. I need to do some GS work before finishing painting the model). In contrast the Rhinos interior is coming along nicely, I just need to paint up the bolter and do a bit more highlighting and it will be complete and ready for my to start work on the exterior. My Pathfinder 1000 list has two rhinos in it, a regular one and a Death Company one. I need to get cracking on the other one soon.

And finally we come to an idea I have been struggling with, how to base the BAs. I am a really big fan of the Dragon Forge designs Resin bases but find myself kind of poor right now as I am moving to Ashburn, VA in about a month and I need to save up for the move. That said I have plenty of GS and spare bases laying around so I decided to try to sculpt some of my own, to the right is my first attempt, what do you think? The 4 on the left are just primed while the one on the far right is paint in a concept scheme, what do you guys think? Will the all stone bases work or do you think they need something more? If so what?

Well that is it for now, next time I will try to have a new Battle Report for you, but I need to find a free Video editing program that does Mpg 4 for my 64 bit Windows 7 machine. Once I do that I will have ample video as I already have the source for the first 3 battle reports recorded.

Well until next time...

NEW, New, new!

Hey guys Huron back again. Today I am going to be talking about all sorts of new things. For starters Episode 6 of Gamers Lounge has hit the shelves and is ready for download on the Gamers Lounge Blog, itunes, or over on Podcast Alley. If any of you figure out how to use Podcast Alley please tell me, that site confuses the heck out of me! Additionally Check out the new Gamers Lounge Logo on the left designed by Trevor (Thanks man!). This Logo is just the first of many updates to the Blog and Podcast we are going to be making as we begin final tweaks to the branding and add some new fun things like Gamers Lounge T-shirts and more. Lots of fun stuff planned there.

Yup, if you guessed I was going to be talking about Death Company you guessed right (Pic taken from Deviant Art - by Cabal_Art without permission). My Blood Angels got underway this week as I started paint Astorath, 5 Death Company, and 2 rhinos including one for the death company. Besides Astorath, the other stuff is all in my Pathfinder 1000 paint contest list that I need to get finished before 5/30. The full list is below.

PATHFINDER 1000 - 1K Blood Angel Army

- Librarian
- Chaplain
- (5) Assault Marines + Rhino
- (5) Death Company + Rhino
- (10) Tactical Marines
- Baal Predator
- Baal Predator

In addition to that to fill out my 1500pt list I added:

- (10) Assault Squad
- (4) Additional Death Company
- Sanguinary Priests
- Death Company Dreadnought + DP


And finally we get to one of my new favorite loves... well actual a new version of an old love... Halo Reach. On Monday the Beta test went live for all those luck souls (like me) that have an X-Box 360 and Halo: ODST (I am so glad I bought it!). I finally got the 1.15g file downloaded this morning and jumped into the game around 7AM. At 9:30AM when I stopped to head to work I have played around 15 games and already reached the first two achievements and gained ranked status (Reach will have month long seasons where players compete for rankings by gaining points as they play games, we are in the preseason now).

Needless to say my time for at least this week is going to be eaten up by Reach gaming, but not before I play Mike Johnson @ 2,500pts tonight to decide whether or not he can defend his position 1 more time and become the first top ranked player to have 4 defenses on top of the Pyramid. It should be an exciting game and I will be recording a Battle Report for all to enjoy and will have it posted this weekend.

Well folks, that is it for now, have a good rest of the week!

They like me, they really like me!

Hey guys, how is it going, it has been a while. Well between crazy work hours, still no computer at home, and just some good old fashion gamer burnout (though I played several games anyways) I am finally back from a 2 week hiatus of posting, did you miss me?

So lets talk news! First up is that Gamers Lounge released episode 5 this past weekend. Bill and I spent a good amount of time talking about everything going on with us, whether or not there should be any comp questions associated with a players sports score, and in blog talk we discuss a new trend in blogging, guest authors. Also we announce our first contest! Please follow the link above and check it out or if you would prefer we are on itunes for your downloading pleasure.

Secondly, GW announced this week that 8th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles is coming this summer. I must admit I am much more excited about this release then I thought I would be. As some of you know, especially those that have been following my blog since the beginning or just gone back and read the early stuff, I have a Warriors of Chaos army that I want to play but I just do not like how the current game plays. I really enjoyed playing WFB in the past, namely during 6th ed and really hope that 8th will fix some of balance issues between the rules and the army books. Currently I think the rules are probably just fine but the army books are either too powerful or have to many of their own special rules that don't play well with the 7th ed rules. This makes me worry however that 8th ed will fix the current imbalances of the army books but change to much of the current solid 7th ed rules and require a 9th Ed 4 or 5 years down the road. Either way, I am excited to start playing with some square bases again (at least till I get fustrated and stop again). I've dusted off my unpainted minis and have begun figuring out how I want to paint them up.

In more news, I have jumped head first into my cohost Bill's Pathfinder 1000 painting contest. The Pathfinder 1000 in a 1K painting contest were competitiors have 8 weeks to paint their designated 1K of models base on a predefined set of criteria. I choose to do my new BAs for this contest and have gotten started on some Death Company and the interior of 2 Rhinos. Hopefully I will get this computer issue figured out soon and will be able to post some pics for all you lovely people to look at. My list to paint looks something like this:

Librarian
Chaplain
5 DC in Rhino
5 Assault Marines in Rhino
10 Tactical Marines
2 Baal Predators

Every models is a mix of bitz from the DC, Sang P, and pre existing marine boxes; even the Librarian and Chaplain and are 100% Plastic except for a few metal BA Blood drop shoulder pads. Pics as I have them.

Well I suppose that is it for now, see you all next time...

Gamers Lounge Episode 4 & the BA Bug

Hey guys, Huron here, back in action. Well after a special Gamers Lounge Adepticon interview episode which was released last week, Gamers Lounge has returned this week with Episode 4. In this episode Mike Brandt, the host of the Nova Open, Virginia's only GT Qualifier tournament happening in August joins us to talk about his experiences at Adepticon and to share with us some of his exciting plans for the Nova Open. You guys definitely want to check out this episode.

In other news, I have caught the BA bug. That's right, I have done what I said I wouldn't do and started a Blood Angels army. Currently it is pretty small though I am sure it will expand quickly. I will be returning to my painting roots for this one and will be painting the whole army using mostly P3 instead of the GW paints I have been using on the Griffons. I will still probably end up using the GW Metallics and Washes but the rest of the minis will be painting using only P3. I hope to rediscover my style and get back to my two brush blending roots with this army. We will see how it goes.

However fear not, the Howling Griffons will not be forgotten. They are currently my primary 40K army and will stay that way for the immediate future. I also have plans for adding a few things to the army before I call it complete. So as soon as I get a computer back up and running expect some photos and videos about the Griffons to pop up. I want to expand the army by completing a few Apoc formation starting with a Line Breaker Squadron.

See you guys next time.

Using the Old to Inspire the New

Hey guys, Huron here again. Sorry about yesterday. Things got a bit nasty and I didn't mean for it to get so out of hand. So as you all know (or if this is the first time reading my blog in a while or ever) I have been beating my head against a wall trying to figure out what to do when the new Blood Angels book comes out. I have talked about playing Jump Pack heavy, playing Death Company heavy, and have resisted the urge and criticized the fluffiness of going Predator heavy.

After all of this what do I know? I want to play a decent, mid level list with a good strong theme and which has some flexibility to include a variety of the things I really like from the new codex, and not necessarily all at once.

These include things like the new Sanguinary Priest elite characters, the new Death Company and Death Company Dreadnought, the Librarian Dreadnought, and the Sanguinary Guard. I also think a 5 man Assault squad in a razorback is about one of the coolest choices around.

What I don't want to do is play a lopsided gimmick list that has a variety of cool elements but only 25 models and no real interlacing theme, which is all to possible. Step in the Howling Griffons.

For the last 5 months now I have dedicated myself to finding a regular space marine army that works, is tactically flexible, and which is effective against a variety of armies. Khan and the boys have done well by me and it is only the changing environment and a sudden realization that if I played something other then Eldar, Tyranids, Imperial Guard, or a Space Marine chapter of some kind, that my list would not hold up like I wanted it too and so I grudgingly changed up the list. However perhaps I can take that Khan list (which you can find here) and tweak it for Blood Angels. Maybe it might work better and solve all these problems I have been bashing my head over.

First I needed to find a leader to replace Khan, one with some interesting nitch special rules and that both aided the army and helps to enrich the theme. All the Blood Angels special character are pretty expensive, but the regular non-special ones are just a bit too generic.

Sanguinor, Mephiston, and DC Tycho are right out. They are not independent characters and can not join and support my squads like I want my leader to be able to do. Dante and Astoroth are both cool, but over 200pts each and Dante's fluff has him leading a jump pack army and Astoroth a DC one and my army is probably not going to specialize in either of those so they are out too. That leaves just two characters, non-DC Tycho and Seth, Chapter Master of the Flesh Tearers. I decided pretty early on I didn't want to do a Flesh Tearers list, so that just left Tycho.

Tycho is a pretty cool character, but he has suffered in previous books from being very under powered. Not anymore. Now he has Rites of Battle, a masterly crafted Combi-Meltagun which can shoot different ammo types like the Sternguard, and a gauntlet that hits like a Monstrous Creature (at str 4), rolls 2D6 for Armor Penetration, and has digital lasers... oh and he has preferred enemy vs Orks. Cool. Lots of not that unbalanced special rules, some cool fluff, and a Leader for my army.

1850pts Blood Angels 3rd Company Army

HQ - Tycho
EL - Librarian Dreadnought
EL - (5) Assault Terminators w/ 4 Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield, 1 Tw-Lightning Claw
EL - Dedicated Transport: Landraider w/ Extra Armor, Multimelta
El - Sanguinary Priest w/ Terminator Armor, Power Weapon
TR - 10 Tactical Marines w/ Power Weapon, Flamer, Lascannon + Rhino
TR - 10 Tactical Marines w/ Power Weapon, Flamer, Lascannon + Rhino
TR - 5 Assault Marines w/ Power Fist & Inferno Pistol, Meltagun + Razorback w/ H-flamer
TR - 5 Assault Marines w/ Power Fist & Inferno Pistol, Meltagun + Razorback w/ H-flamer
FA - Landspeeder Typhoon w/ Cyclone Missile Launcher, H-flamer

Now you'll notice, no DC or DC Dread, both things I wanted to include. Well one thing I realized way back and I needed to remind myself of in this list is that marines play best when you take a static core of basic Marines, character, and support (in this case 2 Tactical, 2 Assault Squads, Tycho, the Librarian Dreadnought, and the Typhoon) and then one or two big things and switch them in and out. That means I can take out the Sanguinary Priest, Terminators, and Landraider and replace them with a Chaplain, 9 Death Company in a Rhino, and a Death Company Dreadnought in a Drop Pod (for around the same cost) and still have a good solid army that will play well. This chunk, about 580pts worth of the army, gives me some breathing room and flexible variety when playing with the army.

This, if nothing else gives me a starting point so I can tweak things from here.

Embracing the DC, Black is Back

Hey guys, Huron here again. 2 posts in one day, crazy I know. Well I have been thinking over the Blood Angels and trying to decided what I want to use when the new book comes out. I am an old school BA fan and have run the army a few different times over the years and one of my favorite aspects has always been the Death Company. Add in some fantastic new plastic DC models and it is easy to want to use them.

So one of my favorite things in the new book is the DC Dreadnought. While it takes up a Troops choices and since it is a vehicle does not score, this monsters is just nasty. The DC read is a front armor 12, WS 5 Furioso that is immune to crew stunned and crew shaken rolls. Additionally you can upgrade the Blood Fist (Dreadnought Close Combat Weapons) with Blood Claws (extra cool Lightning Claws). Blood Claws are really nice as they allow you to attack again everytime you wound an enemy models, which with WS 5, Str 6 Lightning Claws is going to have very frequently.

So here is a Death Company themed 1850pts list. I included Astorath the Grim as he removes the 0-1 maximum from Death Company squads changes the Blood Frenzy rule effect BA squads on a 1-3 instead of just on a roll of a 1. I also got a Sanguinary Priest and a Dreadnought Librarian into the army which if you read my Blog last week you know I'm excited about.

Back in Black, 1850pt Blood Angels Themed Army

HQ - Astorath the Grim
HQ - (5) Honor Guard w/ Chapter Banner, Powerfist
EL - Librarian Dreadnought + Drop Pod
EL - Sanguinary Priest w/ Power Weapon
TR - (5) Death Company w/ Thunder Hammer, Power Weapon, Meltapistol + Drop Pod
TR - (5) Death Company w/ Thunder Hammer, Power Weapon, Meltapistol + Drop Pod
TR - DC Dreadnought w/ Heavy Flamer + Drop Pod
TR - DC Dreadnought w/ Heavy Flamer + Drop Pod
TR - (10) Tactical Squad w/ Powerfist, Flamer, Lascannon
TR - (10) Tactical Squad w/ Powerfist, Flamer, Lascannon

One of the first things to notice is no regular transports except 5 Drop Pods, so I am not taking advantage of the BA fast vehicles. I could replace the DCs Drop Pods with rhinos or razorbacks but would probably need to drop the Sang Priest to do so. Second, no FA Baal Preds or HS Predators or Vindicators. Most players are going to tell you, start with 5-6 Predators and go from there. While I agree this is a strong choice, how is it fluffy or thematic? What is you theme when you have 5-6 Predators in your army that are stripped down and maximized for being low point costs, expendable, and have maximum fire power? I can't figure it out, at least not a good strong theme that isn't so thin that it is trasparent, so I will be avoiding them till I come up with something.

Let me know what you think.

On Wings of Fire

Hey guys Huron here. Well to continue the topic that has been running this week, creating a strongly themed Blood Angels army list using the new codex. I have to admit, its been tough and I have had a few near break downs as I keep steering to the nasty and not the thematic.

Well I have something for you. It is not a final list, but a starting point I think. I was not able to get the Librarian Furioso Dreadnought into the list or the Terminator Assault squad led by Sanguinary Priest that I have been talking about. I have already started gathering bitz for both so either way I am going to end up with one of each eventually. But to follow along with the "Wings of Fire" jump pack themed army I mentioned in my last post I present to you:

On Wings of Fire, a 1850pt Blood Angels Army

HQ - Reclusiarch w/ jump pack
Free HQ - Honor Guard w/ jump packs, 2 meltaguns
HQ - Librarian w/ jump pack
Free HQ - Honor Guard w/ jump packs, 2 meltaguns

TR - (8) Assault Marines w/ jump packs, Power Weapon + Melta Pistol, flamer
TR - (8) Assault Marines w/ jump packs, Power Weapon + Melta Pistol, flamer
TR - (5) Assault Marines w/ Power Fist + Melta Pistol, meltagun
TR Transport - Razorback w/ Heavy Flamer, Extra Armor
TR - (5) Assault Marines w/ Power Fist + Melta Pistol, meltagun
TR Transport - Razorback w/ Heavy Flamer, Extra Armor

HS - Predator w/ Autocannon, Lascannon Sponsons, Extra Armor
HS - Predator w/ Autocannon, Lascannon Sponsons, Extra Armor
HS - Predator w/ Autocannon, Lascannon Sponsons, Extra Armor

The 2 HQ choices join the 2 jump pack Assault Squads. Each Assault Squad is followed by an Honor Guard Squad, which comes with a free Sanguiary Priest. Everything else is fast and can get where you need it quickly and is setup to taken down armor or troops. The list is a bit Spammie which I am not a fan of, but it is just a starting list.

What do you think?

Theme vs Power, plus the Nova Open

Hey guys, Huron here again, still thinking about and playing around with the new Blood Angels army list. Yesterday I went a bit nuts thinking of combos and talking out strategies with MVB from Whiskey & 40K and then mashing them around in my head. You should definitely check out MVB's blog, he is one of the stronger tournament players in my area and is known for his strong, flexible, hard hitting lists.

On a side note, he is part of the crew running the Nova Open, a 128 players GT Qualifier (64 40k and 64 Fantasy slots) happening in Chantilly,VA on Aug 14th and if you are a local or don't mind a bit of travel I think you should check this out as it is looking like it is going to be a big hit and will probably become an annual event. Checkout the Nova Open website by clicking here for all the details and to register for the event. I was the first person to sign up for the 40K tournament, which is going to be played at 2,000pts, so you are at least guaranteed one easy win.

But lets get back to the main purpose of this post, the new Blood Angels codex. As any one who has looked at the codex will have gleaned pretty quickly, you can field and an extremely large amount of armor or dreadnoughts in the new BA book. With all the Rhinos chassis vehicles being fast, and Baal Predators being seperate from regular predators and a fast attack choice. Players can easily field 5-6 Predator or 3 Baals and 2-3 Vindicators for maybe a 3rd of the lists points. Put that much fire power in, all on fast, front armor 13 tank chassis seems like a no brainor. With a core of nastiness like that you could take whatever else you wanted and do well. Or, for those that love walkers, it is possible to take as many as 11 walkers in a standard lists, provided you also take at least 25 Death company. And that doesn't mean 11 standard shootie dreads, but 3 shootie dreads which can all be upgraded to venerables, 5 Weapon Skill 5 assaulty Death Company Furiosos, and 3 Furiosos which can all be upgrade to Librarians if you choose. Not bad, Not bad at all.

However, where does theme come into all of this. The new BA book has some nasty combos and I for see spam heavy armies that decimate a variety of lists on the battlefield but which will be comprised of a Hodge Podge of nice looking and possibly nicely painted models but which will have little to no contextual theme through out the whole of the army. This leads to my dilemma.

Is having a strong theme more important than having a tweaked, powerful army. Here is a case in point; Assault Terminators vs Death Company. 5 Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield Terminator come in at just over 200pts. Same for a 10 man squad of Death Company with a few weapon upgrades. Both squads are strong on their own but need an additional character and a transport to be truly powerful. Terminators need a Sanguinary Priest that gives them Furious Charge and Feel No Pain, two abilities the DC already have. Then either a Landraider of some type or a Storm Raven to get them where they need to go. All this comes in around a whopping 500pts or more.

Death Company on the other hand either need a Chaplain or a Reclusiarch (a 3 wound HQ chaplain) which allows them to reroll both attack and damage rolls on the charge and a transport of their own as well. This again ends up in the 500+ points level. Both choices are solid and characterful, and make great center piece units (especially if you add on a couple of DC Dreads to the Death Company Unit), but upon fiddling with some lists I have found that there is no way to include both in a BA army.

Another example is assault squads. There is a very nice build that costs around 150pts for a 5 man assault squad that allows you to deal with tanks. One nice feature of the BA assault squad is that instead of being able to switch their jump packs for a rhino for free, they now can switch them for any vehicle in the list at a discounted price. So players now have the option to add some fire power with their assaults squads transport, and in the current tournament Meta, taking small units in transports with lots of meltas is better then big units outside them. However BAs have a special rule called Descent of Angels which allows models arriving from deep strike to only scatter 1D6 instead of two and I believe either reroll the dice to come in or the scatter die (it has been a few days since I looked at the rule last).

How cool would it be to see five or six squads of Blood Angels deep striking in on "Wings of Fire" (I am coining the name for this sort of themed list) lead by several character with jump packs. Tactically this is a bad plan. With MEQ armies and Inquisitors with Mystics hiding everywhere this army is going to have a rough time of it, but man... it does strike the imagination.

And that is where the Theme of your army comes in. Do you go for power or do you go for imagery and a strong linked theme to your list? If you listened to the first Gamers Lounge podcast you will know my thinking on running a power list as a theme (Theme needs to tie the models in the army together and relate to the 40k fluff in some way to be really solid in my opinion, my Howling Griffons for example have a theme of everything being name after the Arthurian Legends. It is an okay theme... but not a strong one).

This is where I am right now, trying to decide which choice to make and attempting to find a way to balance a little bit of both in an 1850 to 2,000pt list. What should I do?

BA Silliness, Working on a list...

Hey guys, Huron here again. Another day without computer access a home, sigh. But instead of sitting ideally on my hands I have been doing a number of things, including playing around with army list ideas for a new Blood Angels army (Thanks Ron for the pic). If you check out my earliest posts on this here Blog-a-ma-thing you'll notice I used to have a BA army I was working on. Actually Blood Angels (and some Khorne Warriors I was painting) were the inspiration for the name Blood and Blades, but I digress.

So I have been fooling around with list ideas, as I know many have, and I thought I would share a rather silly one I came up with (I don't know, it could be not that silly, just seems it as it starts with 2 models on the table).

HQ - Reclusiarch (3 wound Chaplain) w/ Pfist (and Power Weapon)
EL - Sanguinary Priest w/ Terminator Armor (comes with Power Weapon)
EL - (5) Terminators w/ 4 Thunder Hammer/ Storm Shields, 1 Twin Lightning Claw
TR - (10) Death Company w/ Thunder Hammer, Power Weapon (Do not score)
TR - DC Dreadnought w/ Heavy Flamer, Blood Claws
TR - DC Dreadnought w/ Heavy Flamer, Blood Claws
TR - (5) Assault Marines w/ Power Weapon, Meltabombs, & Melta-Pistol, Meltagun
TR - (5) Assault Marines w/ Power Weapon, Meltabombs, & Melta-Pistol, Meltagun
HS - Stormraven
HS - Stormraven

All this comes out to 2K on the nose.

Okay, so Reclusiarch, (10) Death Company, and DC Dread in one Stormraven; Sanguinary Priest, (5) Terminators, and DC Dread in other Raven. The 2 Assault Squads Deep Strike or are held in reserves. (Alternately you could switch the jump packs out for Drop Pods for free)

Turn 1, Stormravens move fast, use machine spirit to fire Assault Cannon (or Twin-Lascannon if you upgraded it for free) at things that can hurt the Ravens.

Turn 2, move 6, Disembark everything, unleash hell with the Ravens (4 Str 8 AP 1 Krak Missiles, 3 HB shots, 4 AC shorts).

Assault squads drop in, hopefully hit or scatter only 1D6 thanks to Decent of Angels special rule and Melta high armor threats.

Clean up whatever is left with what disembarked from the Storm Ravens.
- 43 Furious Charge Attacks from DC+Reclusiarch that reroll to hit and to wound.
- 20 Furious Charge Attacks from Terminators+Sang Priest, all at Strength 9 or Init 5.
- Dreads Flame/melta then head into combat with Blood Claws (Lightning Claws that are Str 6 (thanks to being on a dread), WS 5, that let it attack again for every wound rolled), with Furious Charge if within 6" of the Sang Priest.

Oh and did I mention it all has Feel No Pain?

Yeah, that is what I call ugly.

It's Official!

It's Official, Blood Angels in April and I am excited. New Plastic and Metal models. That could be a lot of things. One thing is for sure they are going to hit hard, drop pod in, and be able to field more Dreadnoughts then most. But then again, they always have been able to. Time to finish the Griffons because come April I'll be painting Blood Angels, or maybe one of their successors. Okay, back to painting...