It is, perhaps, not good that I am setting my sites on apocalypse, but I am.
The reason it's not good is because I am one of those players who can field a 10000 point army, in sheer man-power, but that's not really the point is it. The point is that you want to field a Titan, and well...I don't have a Titan. Not yet, anyway.
But what in the hell are these people thinking over at Forgeworld? The scale of superheavies is the scale of cheap toys. Seriously, go to the toy aisle at Big Lots, Walmart, Target, or the dollar store and tell me you can't, in five seconds, pull a model off the shelf that's in Apocalyptic scale. Hell, they sell a tank for army men for $9.99 at Big Lots that looks a hell of a lot like a Baneblade and it's the exact right size. I know they don't expect people to have great modeling skills, but really, how hard is it to glue some bendy straws to the thing and maybe pop on a few extra guns you got from a GI Joe lot auction on Ebay. How much do they want for a Baneblade?
For $18, I found a Scorpion that is nigh-playable right out of the box. I just have to get the barrels of the cannon on it. Do you know how much forgeworld wants for a scorpion. I'm not kidding. Right out of the box. Now, I know what you're thinking, "how much conversion are you going to have to do?"
If I were sloppy, none. I'm not sloppy though so I'm going to have to cut up a frizbee a bit to fill out the back slopes of the wings. Still $18.
And now, I've set my sights on Titans. Did you all know that they're only 10.5" tall. You know what else is that tall? ED 209 vinyl models on Ebay. You know, that robot? From Robocop? Looks like a titan? So, now I'm cruising the cheapo store to find a headpiece that looks remotely like a dog, though I've already figured out that it also looks like the cockpit of a plane, maybe with the nose sanded flat, but how hard could that be to get for under $5.
Seriously, $500 for a 10" model. Are they fucking high?
Showing posts with label warhammer 40k. Show all posts
Showing posts with label warhammer 40k. Show all posts
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Making daemonhunters not suck!
I like that 40k finally came up with an army for the daemonhunters, but they are the worst army they've so far devised. They aren't even really that good at killing daemons unless they take the options. An army called Daemonhunters shouldn't have to take options in order to hunt said daemons.
On the other hand, they're such a great idea for an army that it seems like a crying shame that they suck so bad. I've seen a few people try to work their way around the "suck" factor which I thing revolves around the lack of any ability to kill a tank, and this seems to be how people have managed.
First tactic, Allied armies: This tactic seems to work a bit. There's a direction you can't go. I think you have to do Space Marines with Daemonhunter allies rather than Daemonhunters with space marine allies, but there are problems here. You end up having to buy way too many troop choices to get a single las cannon on the board. Also, don't you want to load the grey knight terminators in the land raider? Well, it's like Mac and PC--the Ultramarine land raider is for Ultramarines, the Grey Knight land raider is for grey knights, and you can't buy it unless you have a Grey Knight hero along with the Ultramarine hero. It gets to be too many points just to play a normal army. Lastly, the problem is in conception. Are you playing Grey Knights, or Blood Angels with some Grey Knights hanging out. And hell...why not just make it Eldar with some Grey Knights hanging around.
Second tactic, IG/Grey Knights: Great tactic so long as you know you're playing IG. I even think that this is a great idea to punch up your IG's hth possabilities. But don't fool yourself. You can't just drop IG guys into another army. They need to be there in numbers to be effective. Otherwise, this only looks like a fix, and will normally come back to bite you in an actual game.
Third tactic, IG/Inquisitor: Again, this tactic is more about making a scary IG army than a real daemonhunter army. You're basically still playing IG with the added benifit of an Inquistor in a Land Raider. But the army will play the same thing and it's not nearly what you want to do, which is to play a grey knight army that doesn't suck....
Which brings me to tactic four, which comes to me from one of the guys in my group:
His reasoning is this: First, no psycannons. Aside from daemons who realy does it hurt. It's a waste of points.
Second, Daemonhunter dreadnoughts, un-modified with all the stuff you can buy dreadnoughts, are cheaper than marine dreadnoughts. Okay, use them. Three of these guys aught to take care of your more obvious tank problems.
Trade in the force nemesis weapons on the terminators for thunderhammers. They bust tanks. The urge is to throw around strength 6 power weapons, but you should think about at least trading over a few thunderhammers in order to make the terminator threat more real.
Lastly, you are a shooty army. You're not that great in hand to hand, but at a range of 24", you are mean. Anything longer, leave to the dreadnoughts and the inquisitor with heavy weapons servitors. Set up some fireplatforms, defend them at medium range with your grey knights, and kick the hell out of people as best you can with your terminators.
Last week I fought this force and won, but by the skin of my teeth and with a Thousand Sons army who are basically designed to wrip through Grey Knights like a hand goes through air.
Hope this helps.
On the other hand, they're such a great idea for an army that it seems like a crying shame that they suck so bad. I've seen a few people try to work their way around the "suck" factor which I thing revolves around the lack of any ability to kill a tank, and this seems to be how people have managed.
First tactic, Allied armies: This tactic seems to work a bit. There's a direction you can't go. I think you have to do Space Marines with Daemonhunter allies rather than Daemonhunters with space marine allies, but there are problems here. You end up having to buy way too many troop choices to get a single las cannon on the board. Also, don't you want to load the grey knight terminators in the land raider? Well, it's like Mac and PC--the Ultramarine land raider is for Ultramarines, the Grey Knight land raider is for grey knights, and you can't buy it unless you have a Grey Knight hero along with the Ultramarine hero. It gets to be too many points just to play a normal army. Lastly, the problem is in conception. Are you playing Grey Knights, or Blood Angels with some Grey Knights hanging out. And hell...why not just make it Eldar with some Grey Knights hanging around.
Second tactic, IG/Grey Knights: Great tactic so long as you know you're playing IG. I even think that this is a great idea to punch up your IG's hth possabilities. But don't fool yourself. You can't just drop IG guys into another army. They need to be there in numbers to be effective. Otherwise, this only looks like a fix, and will normally come back to bite you in an actual game.
Third tactic, IG/Inquisitor: Again, this tactic is more about making a scary IG army than a real daemonhunter army. You're basically still playing IG with the added benifit of an Inquistor in a Land Raider. But the army will play the same thing and it's not nearly what you want to do, which is to play a grey knight army that doesn't suck....
Which brings me to tactic four, which comes to me from one of the guys in my group:
His reasoning is this: First, no psycannons. Aside from daemons who realy does it hurt. It's a waste of points.
Second, Daemonhunter dreadnoughts, un-modified with all the stuff you can buy dreadnoughts, are cheaper than marine dreadnoughts. Okay, use them. Three of these guys aught to take care of your more obvious tank problems.
Trade in the force nemesis weapons on the terminators for thunderhammers. They bust tanks. The urge is to throw around strength 6 power weapons, but you should think about at least trading over a few thunderhammers in order to make the terminator threat more real.
Lastly, you are a shooty army. You're not that great in hand to hand, but at a range of 24", you are mean. Anything longer, leave to the dreadnoughts and the inquisitor with heavy weapons servitors. Set up some fireplatforms, defend them at medium range with your grey knights, and kick the hell out of people as best you can with your terminators.
Last week I fought this force and won, but by the skin of my teeth and with a Thousand Sons army who are basically designed to wrip through Grey Knights like a hand goes through air.
Hope this helps.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Ace of Base pt. 3
Last one. Clearly the stealer aught to get, at the very least, a cover save. Should the termie have line of sight? Note: there is not 6" of terrain between the stealer and the termie. At table level, the termie can see the stealers top claw, but nothing else.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Monstro- A brief history of madness
Q welcomed me the other day to the dark side because I'm playing chaos. That's funny.
Wrap up: I have too many damn miniatures and I'm not a fast painter. This week, I painted 8 genestealers and 8 noise marines. I haven't even made a dent. This is no longer a hobby, it's an albatross. I will be painting from now until doomsday. In a box somewhere I have 20 plague marines and a great unclean one. I'm sick.
- 1988- See Warhamer 40k at DunDraCon at the Oakland Hilton. Began playing Orks.
- 1988-1991- The great arms race builds up between me and the two marine players. By the time 1991 rolls around, the marine player has 6 dreadnoughts, hundreds of men, five rhinos and a predator.
- 1991- Marine player goes into the army, sells me all of his miniatures for $100.
- 1992-1994- I begin playing Slaanesh (because the book for Tzeentch and Nurgle is not yet out). Chaos rocks. My oppposition is an Eldar player and a Tyranid player.
- 1994- Both of my opponents give up the game and hand me their armies. At this point I have an Ork army, a marine army, a chaos army, an Eldar army, and a Tyranid army (the Tyranid army began as a genesteeler chaos cult so I also have a squat army and all the khorne daemons). All armies contain at least fifty miniatures. Chaos and marines top out at about 250. Eldar include a squad of every aspect except Warp Spiders (which hadn't yet been invented).
- 1997-2004- I stopped playing. During my hiatus, somehow, the genesteelers multiplied. I have during this time given away enough Orks to make an army and enough Tyranids to make an army. My god there are still more. During this time, GW discontinues Squats and Zoats. I still have yet to fully recover.
- 2004- I begin playing again as Eldar. The only thing I lack is all the hover stuff. I buy a bunch of that. Including Nuadhu. I own Nuadhu. How pitiful is that?
- 2005- I went through a little grey knight phase which I think included an entire guard army just in case. I don't know why I own so many damn guard. I have yet to ever play one of them. Around this same time I began to divide my chaos army in half--Undivided (The Pyre) and the old Slaanesh army (light blue and black). My space marines have ultimately settled down to Ultramarines, but as that constitutes about a 1/4 of them, I'm still contemplating making another marine army.
- 2006- Tzeentch. It's hard not to own a Tzeentch army. You buy two squads, Ahriman, a squad of horrors, and a Lord of Change, what else do you need? I broke down and bought the Thousand Sons dreadnought and a couple of chaos predators, but I think at least one of the predators is going to be chaos undivided.
- 2007-2008- While it is fun to own fifty f'ing armies, even when you play week after week, you settle into a routine. I go through phases as to what I want to play. Normally, it's either Eldar, Chaos, or Marines. I haven't played Orks in a LONG time, so I'm thinking of painting them up and bringing them back out. I like the new codex so we'll see. I daily fight the urge to own a necron army. If you look at my scenery, you will notice that it is the stuff I'm best at making.
Wrap up: I have too many damn miniatures and I'm not a fast painter. This week, I painted 8 genestealers and 8 noise marines. I haven't even made a dent. This is no longer a hobby, it's an albatross. I will be painting from now until doomsday. In a box somewhere I have 20 plague marines and a great unclean one. I'm sick.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
My chaos army for the con and why
Okay, so I've decided on a 1500 pt. army for the ICON tournie--
Here's what I've got.
Summoned Greater Demon--because. At a 100 points and with the new rules for possession, you're kind of an idiot not to get the Summoned Greater Demon.
Daemon Prince--Better, I think, then the chaos lord, and not really that many more points. It's a monstrous creature so I'm basically pulling the Carnifax/Hive Tyrant move, except with Chaos. Plus, I make the Daemon Prince a sorcerer, give him Wind of Change (in case I find a bunch of the enemy huddled together) and then give him wings. I'm not sure if he'll go toe to toe with a Wraithlord, but I think he will. Oh, lastly, mark of Tzeentch so that he has a 5 toughness and a 4+ invulnerable. Ouch!
2 squads of obliterators with 2 obliterators each: With the new rules for chaos deepstriking, the obliterators just went through the roof. Sure they lost a point of toughness, but that just means they're terminators with 2 wounds, better deep strike, and whatever weapon they want, including twin linked plasma guns. Notice how many things I have that can act as a focus for summoning these things. That's an importnat part of this army.
Raptors (9 with 2 meltas)+ aspiring champion with lightening claws--mark of Tzeentch. Okay, raptors with 5+ invulnerables stay around. Yes, you can no longer pump up the aspiring champion, but it doesn't matter that much. They have the icon which means they can act as a teleport homer for the obliterators (and can jump so I can get the obliterators down anywhere I want them) plus the aspiring champion can be popped in a pinch for the greater daemon. You lose lightening claws but you really are only out 60 points. The champion here is, by the way, not the first choice of hosts. Of course, as the daemon prince can fly, he's the unofficial leader of this squad.
Squad 1: (6 troopers+aspiring champion+rhino): The six bear a standard of chaos undivided (or whatever they call it now) and have a plasma gun. I give the champion a power weapon just in case. Clearly, I'm not going overboard on this squad. They are decent. They are not great. But as they can host the daemon or summon the obliterators and as they are in a Rhino and as they are very likely to be ignored by enemy fire, I can move them downfield in a snap with less flack than will be received by the raptors. Basically, if the raptors get hit by the enemy heavy, they pop the deamon. If they don't, squad 1 moves into position and pops obliterators and/or daemon. Plus, the rhino has a combi-melta which is one shot at taking out the landraider (or whatever).
Squad 2: (5 noise marines+1 noise champion+rhino): The rhino is a diversion. The squad doesn't start in it, but with a combi-melta, it is a diversion that one cannot ignore. The squad itself acts as a poor man's fireteam. They can fire a lot with sonic blasters and a single blastmaster. I gave the leader a power weapon and a doom siren, but if all goes right, he'll never have to use either. I may switch those out.
Last night, I played with a Defiler to round all of this out, but I'm trying to decide if I like that. To be honest, it's a lot of points for a weak dreadnought once it loses indirect fire. Now, with fleet of foot, I'm not really sure I see the point. I may replace it with a real dreadnought, or, if points allow, a chaos predator. I want more las-cannons, just in case.
Here's what I've got.
Summoned Greater Demon--because. At a 100 points and with the new rules for possession, you're kind of an idiot not to get the Summoned Greater Demon.
Daemon Prince--Better, I think, then the chaos lord, and not really that many more points. It's a monstrous creature so I'm basically pulling the Carnifax/Hive Tyrant move, except with Chaos. Plus, I make the Daemon Prince a sorcerer, give him Wind of Change (in case I find a bunch of the enemy huddled together) and then give him wings. I'm not sure if he'll go toe to toe with a Wraithlord, but I think he will. Oh, lastly, mark of Tzeentch so that he has a 5 toughness and a 4+ invulnerable. Ouch!
2 squads of obliterators with 2 obliterators each: With the new rules for chaos deepstriking, the obliterators just went through the roof. Sure they lost a point of toughness, but that just means they're terminators with 2 wounds, better deep strike, and whatever weapon they want, including twin linked plasma guns. Notice how many things I have that can act as a focus for summoning these things. That's an importnat part of this army.
Raptors (9 with 2 meltas)+ aspiring champion with lightening claws--mark of Tzeentch. Okay, raptors with 5+ invulnerables stay around. Yes, you can no longer pump up the aspiring champion, but it doesn't matter that much. They have the icon which means they can act as a teleport homer for the obliterators (and can jump so I can get the obliterators down anywhere I want them) plus the aspiring champion can be popped in a pinch for the greater daemon. You lose lightening claws but you really are only out 60 points. The champion here is, by the way, not the first choice of hosts. Of course, as the daemon prince can fly, he's the unofficial leader of this squad.
Squad 1: (6 troopers+aspiring champion+rhino): The six bear a standard of chaos undivided (or whatever they call it now) and have a plasma gun. I give the champion a power weapon just in case. Clearly, I'm not going overboard on this squad. They are decent. They are not great. But as they can host the daemon or summon the obliterators and as they are in a Rhino and as they are very likely to be ignored by enemy fire, I can move them downfield in a snap with less flack than will be received by the raptors. Basically, if the raptors get hit by the enemy heavy, they pop the deamon. If they don't, squad 1 moves into position and pops obliterators and/or daemon. Plus, the rhino has a combi-melta which is one shot at taking out the landraider (or whatever).
Squad 2: (5 noise marines+1 noise champion+rhino): The rhino is a diversion. The squad doesn't start in it, but with a combi-melta, it is a diversion that one cannot ignore. The squad itself acts as a poor man's fireteam. They can fire a lot with sonic blasters and a single blastmaster. I gave the leader a power weapon and a doom siren, but if all goes right, he'll never have to use either. I may switch those out.
Last night, I played with a Defiler to round all of this out, but I'm trying to decide if I like that. To be honest, it's a lot of points for a weak dreadnought once it loses indirect fire. Now, with fleet of foot, I'm not really sure I see the point. I may replace it with a real dreadnought, or, if points allow, a chaos predator. I want more las-cannons, just in case.
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