Back to the Drawing Board

So I attempted to finish modelling the walker made from the landspeeder...

Let's face it, my imagination writes checks my skills can't cash. 

Time for something a little different...perhaps more realistic too...

A Lighter Fare

My wife wrote an articles last week, and it was published today.  Check it out!

http://voices.yahoo.com/so-re-dating-geek-12714235.html

In the meantime, I'm attempting modelling.  Have a happy and safe 4th of July!

New Models!

I apologize for missing the other posts this week, for some reason the blogger.com app on my phone misbehaved, and didn't post my musings.

But no worries, there wasn't much to post anyways.

Here's the latest.

I did a size comparison with my buddy Dave's Broadsides (he's a great painter) and here's what it looks like compared to my landspeeder/lego model:

I have about an inch to shave off of the model to make it work, and I think it's doable.

On Wednesday, my riptide stand in model arrived:

For those of you who grew up in my era, you'll recognize this as Tex Rex's speeder/walker from the cartoon Bravestarr.  Obviously, an action figure of the character Thirty-Thirty would have been my first choice, but alas, none was ever produced.

Upon arrival, there were two issues with this model.  First, it's a hell of a lot taller than I wanted it to be.  Honestly, it'll do just fine for a substitute for an Imperial Knight, but it's too tall for a riptide.  So I have to figure out how to reduce the size by a lot, without destroying the model or any part of it, since I could easily use it as an Imperial Knight.

Still, the skull feature is what I want to keep.  I know I can do this to fit in as a riptide.  I just have to be smart about it...

The Tau of Khuster

The tyranid player in my group of Thursday night guys took on the new Khusters Cav the other night.  Just for fun, we threw in the tactical objective cards and had a blast.

Deployment was probably the hardest part of the game for me, but aside from a few tactical errors, namely missing a hit and run opportunity to secure an objective, the game went well.

Final score:  Tyranids 9, Khuster 6.  We made it through turn 2.

In an after battle breakdown, had we played the full game, I would have taken quite a bit of the rest of his army in the next few turns and it would have been a very close loss at the worst.  It would have most likely come down to tactical objective cards or kill points.

Even though I lost, it was clear his army peaked in the first two turns.  He had models with multiple wounds all over the place, and I was able to put a good amount of wounds on each.  But my army started peaking just before we ended.  I still had more than half my army on the board if we had started turn 3, and enough room to stay out of close combat.

I'm noticing that my best damage is actually coming from overwatch.  This army is really taking on the spirit of Custer's Cav, and I enjoy that.

So how did the Tau do?

Very well.  I intentionally did not use the nova reactor on the riptide, because I wanted to see its base strength.  The Cadre Fireblade and Fire warriors did their job.  They sat on my only backfield objective and got me a couple points.

The Broadsides and missile drones were the biggest help.  My opponent had to focus solely on them with a couple of his nasty units, and it saved a good amount of bikes.  The Broadside shooting phase wasn't the best, but it was at least average.  The riptide did its job well.

Of the Tau group, I only lost 2 Fire warriors, 2 broadsides, a missile drone, and 1 wound on the riptide.

I'm going to work on modeling this force next, since I'm confident in the new list being effective at The Harvester.

The New Khusters Cav!

I sat down with one of my buddies the other day and tried out a list I never thought I'd run.

So hear me out before I show the list.  First, I'm not a fluffy player.  I only own a single WH40k novel, and that's a Grey Knights book.  The rest are sourcebooks for the game.  So don't go off on me for not making a fluffy list.

Khuster's Cav 2.0

Combined Arms Detachment
White Scars
HQ - Captain on Bike
TR - Bike Squad (8) w/2 Meltaguns
TR - Bike Squad (8) w/2 Meltaguns
TR - Bike Squad (8) w/2 Meltaguns
TR - Bike Squad (8) w/2 Meltaguns
TR - Bike Squad (8) w/2 Meltaguns
TR - Bike Squad (8) w/2 Meltaguns

Allied Detachment
Tau Codex
HQ - Cadre Fireblade
TR - Fire Warriors (7) w/Pulse Rifles
EL - Riptide w/ Ion Accelerator, TL Plasma Rifle
HV - Broadside Team (3) w/ TL High Yield Missile Pod, TL Plasma Rifle, 6 Missile drones

Overall, the Tau replacing the 5 attack bikes and Command Squad are going to have better range, more firepower, more range, and all I have to do is keep the Tau 6" away from the bikes, or roll to paralyze them with One Eye Open. 

We'll see how this plays out at the next battle...

Khusters Cav Rides Again!

Sat down last night to play a full 1850 game with a friend who brought Eldar to the table.  I didn't grab his list, but this is what we can best recollect he brought to the table:

HQ - Farseer w/Singing Spear
HQ - Farseer w/Singing Spear
HQ - Warlock Council (4) on jet bikes w/Singing Spear
TR - Windrider Jet Bike Squad (6) w/2 Shuriken Cannons
TR - Windrider Jet Bike Squad (6) w/2 Shuriken Cannons
TR - Windrider Jet Bike Squad (6) w/2 Shuriken Cannons
TR - Dire Avengers (6) w/ Wave Serpent with tl scatter laser, cannon, and serpent shield(the 1+d6 weapon)
TR - Dire Avengers (6) w/ Wave Serpent with tl scatter laser, cannon, and serpent shield(the 1+d6 weapon)
FT - Shining Spears (6)
FT - Shining Spears (6)
HV - Wraithknight with scatter laser and star cannon, wraith cannons

And here's what I brought:

HQ - Captain on Bike w/Primarch's Wrath
HQ - Command Squad on bikes w/ 5 Storm Shields and 5 Meltaguns
TR - Bike Squad (8) w/ 2 Meltaguns, with Attack bike w/ Multimelta
TR - Bike Squad (8) w/ 2 Meltaguns, with Attack bike w/ Multimelta
TR - Bike Squad (8) w/ 2 Meltaguns, with Attack bike w/ Multimelta
TR - Bike Squad (8) w/ 2 Meltaguns, with Attack bike w/ Multimelta
TR - Bike Squad (8) w/ 2 Meltaguns, with Attack bike w/ Multimelta
TR - Bike Squad (8) w/ 2 Meltaguns, with Attack bike w/ Multimelta

Due to the extremely lengthy psychic phase, we only got to the bottom of turn 1, so we called it.  For VPs we have 5 objectives each worth 1 VP, and counted the normal Slay the Warlord, Linebreaker, and First Blood.  It ended up with me having removed 7-8 of his jet bikes, and he removed 12-13 of my bikes (including a full unit). 

End score:  Khusters Cav 2 (objectives), Eldar 4 (objectives, First Blood, Linebreaker)

I tried this with the FNP Iron Hands rules.  I only made two of the dozen+ rolls.  The dice showed me they favor the FNP on my Damned army, and not the Cav.

So back to the drawing board.

Jink was never taken on my side, and it wouldn't have helped much anyways, so I'm still unconvinced this is good rule change.  I'll take unjinked hits in round 1 to keep my full BS on the table with cover saves.  But that's beside the point.

With the couple of assaults, I do want to at least keep Hit & Run an option, as I could have moved to contest another objective, or gotten Linebreaker with the run away roll.  So we're back to white scars.

My HQ is swappable with a Chapter Master still at the current point value, so maybe I can swap out the CS with an allied detachment to fill in a gap.

The biggest downside of the new list I can see is that I don't have any juicy targets on the field.  I need to keep a couple heavy weapons (S8 or better) on the table, but I need to bring more fire power or more models.

So I'm going to mock up a summoning list for my backfield first, and then look at maybe a Kroot sniper detachment as well, for when the summoning gets banned (or at least hated enough to have someone flip the board and destroy my army)

Back for more!

I am back from hiatus folks!

I had to take a break from the Damned Army to refocus on family and to keep from going insane.

So what's new?  I skipped out on the Storm of Silence this year.  I usually try to make that one even though its more competitive than the Harvester (my fave), its fun to go up against the big fish and really learn a lot about my army.

Right now the Damned army is on the back burner.  It was taking way too long to paint those minis, even though they turned out beautiful!  No one ever said I had an abundance of patience.

But its time to start prepping for the Harvester.  Its not a very competitive event, and there's more focus on appearance and sportsmanship than the Storm.  I still have my beautiful Khusters Cav, though with the 7th edition changes, bikes have become tougher to run.

Or have they?

Jink used to be such a big boon to bikes.  Now its an even better save thanks to the change, but comes at a cost of firepower.  And as any general of a bike army will tell you, losing that firepower is a big hit.

So how do we reconcile the new coat for cover saves?  Dark Angels have an answer.

This last week I took a meta list I swore I'd never touch, and made some modifications.

Instead of Sammael and the Dakka banner, I made a Ravenwing list using Azrael and a Command Squad.  There are some benefits.  First, Azrael still makes Ravenwing count as Troops.  Second, his "everyone has Ld 10" rule will help a bit against Psychic powers.  Lastly, he is only a bit more expensive than Sammael, and does the same job, to give shielding to the Dakka banner squad.

I dropped the Black Knight CS for the Dakka banner.  Mostly because they rely on jink as well.  I replaced them with a standard CS with storm shields, an apothecary, and stuffedbthem into a razorback for the same cost as the Ravenwing CS.

I threw in my 35 bikes and added two Darkshrouds to round out the 1850.  The Darkshrouds will give all my bikes a 6+ cover.  Not as good as Jink, but better than nothing.

That's one option.  My second option is a bit more drastic and crazy.

Iron Hands bikes.

These were the Chapter tactics I had chosen for the Damned army project.  It still gives only a 6+ FNP, but the survivability is no longer dependent on a couple of fragile units.

There is a huge downside though.  No scout moves, no hit & run, no ignore dangerous terrain, no Ld boosts, and a ton of other little nuances.

But I can choke my opponent by bringing in 60 bikes.  60.  That, my friends, maybe crazy enough to work...

Time for a play test.