A New Year of Gaming?

Merry Christmas and have a happy New Year! I've been extremely lucky this year and have been able to provide for my family and put on a decent Christmas, and in return I got a few nice toys of my own! I've got a lot of projects ahead of me and I'm looking forward to building a ton of new models! Here's what I have planned for the next few weeks:

Two lists - Blood Angels and Tzeentch/Nurgle Heresy

So I've got two lists that I'm thinking of messing around with this weekend if I have the time. Check them out!

Rant time!

Over the last few years I have remained very loyal to Games Workshop and the two armies I play in Warhammer 40k, Blood Angels and Tyranids. From shared codexes to pamphlet-dexes and even PDF-dexes, through FAQ's and edition changes, I've played those two armies through thick and thin, and enjoyed every minute of it. However, over the last year or so, I think the odds have stacked significantly against them and it's starting to wear on me.

6th Ed Parking Lot, and why it's awesome!

So after play-testing the 1,500 pt list I put up the other day, I learned a few things including how durable vehicles can actually be in this new edition all things considered. I won my challenge game with that list against Dark Angels Deathwing, and the only vehicles I lost were my speeders. Here's a look at another list I'm planning on running:

Blood Angels lists for 6th Edition

So this week I came up with a few lists for 6th Edition 40k with my Blood Angels that I want to try out. I made a list for 1,500 points for our Pyramid League, and a 2,000 point list (or, "1,999 + 1"). Here's what's in them and how I plan on using them.

Finally! The Dave HAS COME BACK!

Okay this time I'm really back with a few updates on everything that's been going on.

Another Chance

So now that I've completed my first two days of work, I have a better idea of what things are going to be like.

The Stormraven Gunship - Tactics and Opinions

Ah, the Stormraven Gunship. A beautiful model that just screams "Space Marines" in my opinion. When pictures of the model leaked on the internet, many people had a knee-jerk "I hate it!" reaction, and even I admittedly wasn't thrilled with the only picture that was available at the time. Just like the Venomthrope and Blood Talon fiascoes, after waiting just a few weeks we had better shots of it from GW and size comparisons. I immediately fell in love with this Thunderhawk-esque skimmer and I'm the proud owner of two of them.

Aesthetics aside, this thing comes with a metric shit-ton of weapons and special rules that makes it a formidable transport-gunship.

Let's break it down and see what we've got:

Blood Angels Codex Review Part 1 - Special Rules

Yes, this is long overdue, but FINALLY after a year and a half of play-testing, I believe I can give a solid review of the units in the Blood Angels codex based on a decent amount of experience! I'll start with the special rules, and then go on down the line by Force Organization slots.

How do Blood Angels work?

So lately I've been discussing some Blood Angels theory on Reecius's blog, Frontline Gaming. It might be a bit late in the game for this article, but some people still seem to misunderstand where the strengths of the current Blood Angels codex lie, and that's okay because I'd like to share my thoughts.

NECRONS INCOMING!

So we all know Necrons get their new Codex and models tomorrow, but tonight I'm doing a special battle report with the old 'Crons (against my Blood Angels)! Stay tuned for the video link!

--edit--
There's been some technical difficulties with the videos, and I apologize for the delay. I'm working on the issue right now, so expect them soon!

--edit 2--
I've had the link up on my YouTube channel for a bit, but here it is for those of you that follow this blog:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uAwCZPnji4

2k Blood Angels List

A few weeks ago I played two games with a 2,000 point list I came up with for my Blood Angels. I went undefeated that night against Grey Knights and Orks. Here's the list (though I've added a priest and dropped three Assault Marines and one Death Company member since then):

Battlegroup Cruorem Sanctus

Commander Dante, Chapter Master of the holy Blood Angels, received word from Imperial forces on Volcanis VIII that they were under direct assault from Chaos legions who were devastating the planet in a swift and brutal attack. Dante had previous dealings on Volcanis VIII when he led a strike force to supreme victory against a Chaos Lord several hundred years ago who had tried the same thing. The planet is home to several Imperial artifacts and relics (as well as the Cadian 172nd armored regiment) but more importantly there is an experimental weapons research facility located deep within the planet's capitol city of Ardra that is monitored closely by Inquisitor Kallistos.

Dante, pulling from prior dealings with Chaos forces in Ardra, assembled a battlegroup that would quickly and decisively deal with the enemy.

It is called Cruorem Sanctus.

Labor Day BBQ/Tourney

So, yesterday I attended the Troll Country Games Labor Day BBQ/40k Tournament with several other War College members. It was a load of fun, and we got to cram our faces with some decent BBQ through most of the second round!

It was a 2,000 point tournament with BBQ-themed missions. Here's a quick battle report of the event:

More Updates

So again things have gotten to be quite hectic for me lately. I've been busy with transitioning the War College to our new Friendly Local Game Store, Troll Country Games, to figuring out what to do for transportation since my car died, to getting my son ready for his second year of school, to searching for a job, and trying to find a few minutes here and there for gaming. It hasn't been easy on all fronts, let me tell ya.

However, it hasn't been a complete wash. I have gotten to pre-order my copy of Star Wars: The Old Republic along with WWE '12, and I've been toying with Blood Angel and Tyranid list ideas as I stated in my last post. Here's what I have been up to with the Blood Angels:

2,000 points - Deathstar and friends

HQ
Librarian (Terminator Armor, Storm Shield, Sanguine Sword, Unleash Rage)
Reclusiarch (Terminator Armor)

ELITES
Sanguinary Priest (Terminator Armor)
Sanguinary Priest (Power Sword)
5x Assault Terminators (2x TH/SS, 3x LC, Land Raider Crusader with Multi-Melta)
Chaplain

TROOPS
6x Death Company (2x Power Weapons, Power Fist, Rhino with Extra Armor and Dozer Blade)
9x Assault Marines (Meltagun, Power Weapon, Rhino)
10x Assault Marines (2x Meltaguns, Power Weapon, Rhino)

HEAVY
Predator (TL-Autocannon, Lascannon Sponsons)
Predator (TL-Autocannon, Lascannon Sponsons)

1,992 points, 41 models, 2-4 scoring units, 15 Kill Points

So the 8-man Terminator unit has Furious Charge, Feel no Pain, Fearless, re-rolls to hit in every round of combat, and a 2+ armor save (with about half of the unit having a 3+ invul). They ride in the Land Raider Crusader and it's job is to ride up the center of the field as fast as possible and drop off it's cargo smack in the middle of everything (to draw as much attention to itself as possible). The Death Company can be aimed at anything the Termies need help with or a unit on an objective, and the Assault Squads will grab objectives. The AutoLas Preds are there for some much needed long-range firepower.

I'll add my Tyranid list soon, but that's what I'm thinking of messing around with for now. It's not perfect by any stretch but it should be entertaining.

New Beginnings

So my GW hobby club, the War College, has finally come together and decided on a place to game. We agreed that Troll Country Games (off of Hampden and Monaco) was ideal as they were a store looking for a 40k club, and we were a 40k club looking for a store. Thankfully, I ended up knowing one of the two owners and in fact I had actually GM'd some D&D sessions for him. What a small world. The cool thing is, they are sacrificing quite a bit to accommodate our club's needs. We are pretty much guaranteed every table in their store on a Saturday, all War College members get a 10% discount on all store merchandise, and they are providing 6'x4' boards for us to play on AND cabinets for us to store terrain in!

Anyways, as life goes on in my tiny little world, I have also picked up a new hobby. It's something I've always wanted to do (whether it was professionally or for fun), but I have joined a Pro-Wrestling organization called Mid-West Extreme Wrestling (or MXW for short). Sure, they may seem like a run-of-the-mill backyard wrestling "club", but I've seen some real talent in this group and I'm excited to see where things go. I've been getting my ass kicked in training and I doubt it's going to let-up. @_@

As for other hobbies, I have been toying around with list ideas for 2,000 point games for both my Blood Angels and Tyranids. I'll probably post the lists here after I get in some practice with them which will come over the next few weeks.

Stay tuned!

Updates

Yes, this is one of those "post just to post" posts. I haven't been able to get a whole lot of painting/building/hobbying done lately due to real life stuff (two kids, wife, job stuff, etc), but I'm going to lay out the projects I'm working on and their progress so far. This also lets me know where I stand (and it's a quick-reference I can check on my phone lol, as my blog is enabled for web browsing now).

Blood Angels:
I started work on a 2,000 point list via my club's 40k Escalation League, and I believe I posted the contents a few months ago. There's 4 Las/Plas Razorbacks, 4 Predators, and a Stormraven in it. Sure, the list is not original, unique, or inspiring, but it surely is competitive and has won me many games (including scoring a SUPER CLOSE draw against the guy who won my store's Feast of Blades tournament). At the moment I have three Razorbacks and 15 Assault Marines primed bright red, and I've started painting black on the details of one of the Marines as a test model. Unfortunately, I still need roughly 8 Plasmaguns so I can convert the turret of the Razorbacks, and I need to do a LOT of work on my regular Predators as the sponsons have broken off tons of times over the years. Also, when I primed my Razorbacks red, there was a bit of shrinking and wrinkling of the paint in certain areas, apparently due to a chemical reaction between this new Army Painter primer and some old GW red primer. Isn't that awesome? Now I have to sand off that garbage and re-prime the spots. I'll post WIP pics later.

Tyranids:
I was in the process of painting up my bugs for Tacticon and GenghisCon, and since then my bugs have been horribly mistreated. I've played a TON of games with them, and unfortunately I don't have foam to store them in so they bounce around in cardboard trays and a tackle-box. Someday I'll purchase a shit-ton of foam from Battlefoam to store them in, and it'll be sweet. Until then I think I'm just going to have to be super-careful with them. Anyways, as I said a few posts back I've been really interested in using alternate units including Lictors, so I think I might work on building (and painting) a 2,000 point Tyranid list that doesn't really include the normal copy-paste stuff. I think I'll have a LOT more fun with it, and hey, if I win some games with them then that's even better. :)

Dark Elves:
They are still in-progress, don't worry! I have 40 Corsairs, 24 Crossbowmen, 10 Black Guard, a Hydra, a Supreme Sorceress, a Dreadlord, a Master, and a sorceress built. All I have left to do is roughly 30 more Corsairs, 12 more Crossbowmen (though I'm going to have 6 of them made as unit fillers because I actually don't have 6 more), 10 more Black Guard, another Hydra, and a Cauldron of Blood. I'm easily over half-way there, and my wife is making things WAY easier by cleaning everything ahead of time by de-spruing the models and bits and shaving off the plastic and metal flash. Fairly soon, I'll have 3k of Dark Elves fully built and ready for some kick-ass battles.

Cygnar:
Unfortunately my FLGS hasn't got in ANY of my preliminary Cygnar stuff (tokens, faction deck, etc), so I'm kind of stalled-out on them. Once the job situation gets figured out, I'll be able to start picking up little things here and there from other stores, but for now I'm waiting to use my store credit on the stuff I ordered, if it ever comes in. :(

So, stay tuned, I'll have pics of my WIP models up soon. Life is kickin me in the ass right now, and time is a very valuable asset at the moment.

There's too many of them!

Not too long ago a friend and I came up with a really nasty 2,000 point list for my Blood Angels. We started off by discussing ways around Dark Eldar (so far they have been my bane), and realized that the list I had been previously running (4 Razorbacks, Dread in a Pod, DC in a Rhino, Libby & Honor Guard & Furioso in a Stormraven) was extremely low in target saturation. So after a little list finagling and discussing certain scenarios, we came up with this parking-lot-styled list:

Text Batrep - Vs Dark Eldar

(no, this is not my Razorback)

Whassup people?

I have played a couple of games with the list I last posted (the post right before this one), and so far I'm still doing very well with it. I just recently played a 2,000 point game against a Dark Eldar player, and the reason was because I wanted to see if running one of my more competent lists would make any difference in the usual ass-whupin's I receive whenever I play against the emo elves in space....

More of the Same

For the last few weeks I have been running a 2,000 point Blood Angels list to great success. Here's what's in it:

HQ
Reclusiarch (Power Fist)
Librarian (Sanguine Sword, Unleash Rage)
Honor Guard (2x Flamers, Power Weapon, Chapter Banner, Blood Champion)

ELITE
Furioso Dreadnought (Frag Cannon, Extra Armor, Drop Pod)
Chaplain

TROOPS
5x Death Company (3x Power Weapons, Power Fist, Rhino)
Death Company Dreadnought (Blood Talons, Heavy Flamer)
5x Assault Marines (Meltagun, Las/TL-Plas Razorback)
5x Assault Marines (Meltagun, Las/TL-Plas Razorback)
5x Assault Marines (Flamer, Sgt with Power Weapon, Las/TL-Plas Razorback)
5x Assault Marines (Flamer, Sgt with Power Weapon, Las/TL-Plas Razorback)

HEAVY
Stormraven Gunship (TL-Multimelta, Hurricane Bolters, Extra Armor)

2,000 Points, 4 Scoring Units, 18 Kill Points

So far, I have played against Space Wolves, Chaos Space Marines, vanilla Space Marines (lead by Calgar), Chaos Daemons, and Dark Angels. I know, I have yet to play against a real Xenos army with this list, but that will come. I need practice with what is honestly 80% of the tournament environment before I venture out into the unknown, and so far this list is undefeated (though it's definitely not unbeatable).

I look forward to playing against Dark Eldar when I have more experience, but in the mean time I want to play against Orks, Tau, Tyranids, and Imperial Guard (which obviously isn't a Xenos race but it's rare enough at my LGS that it fits the mold lol).

I am currently working on getting this 2,000 point list to by WYSIWYG, and maybe, just MAYBE, I'll start painting it at some point (obviously depending on how well it does).

What do you guys think?