The Mandulian Candidate

The Warp is an ever changing landscape as the Dark Powers wax and wane in influence.  At Purple Reign Slaanesh first held dominance, but slowly Tzeertch, Khorne and to a lesser extent Nurgle established footholds in that domain.  Naturally, in each case the power of Slaanesh caused Horrors to appear Fleshy and Blood Crushers manifested the colors and hues of Slaanesh as they struggled from the warp to reality.

My Blog has evolved and it would be remiss of me not to continue this evolution myself.  As such, my attention will be diverted from Purple Reign as the Warp cries out now with my voice from the Mandulian Chapel.

The Mandulian Chapel is a collaborative blogging effort, designed to provide a story of three upstate/western New York gamers - myself Erich (calypso2ts), Aaron (hyv3mynd) and Chris P (Crispy).  It will begin with the story of Da Boyz GT and include painting, modeling, wargaming strategy and my own personal love of Mathammer.  The introduction to the Chapel is here - expect it to hold me accountable for consistent weekly updates over the coming months.

Updates and New 1850 Army List

It has been a bit tough lately for me to get content up - I have completed a lot of painting, basing and created a display board in the meantime.  This was all for Da Boyz GT, which left me a bit behind on my other obligations when it ended.

Naturally, those obligations include this blog, battle reports, and household projects.  The last two weeks have been very productive on the household project front - which means I am finally going to have a chance to do a little blogging.  I want to discuss today some thoughts on an 1850 hybrid Daemons list and go from there.

Of Dice and Men

A recent discussion about standardizing dice at tournaments has prompted me to post some thoughts about dice, random numbers and the intrinsic biases that emerge.  I am going to start with a single basic premise:

Game design decisions are based on an expectation of a uniform probability distribution for dice rolls.

For those whom math is not a strong suit, I will explain what I mean by this.

Why Going First Makes You Good

Strike First, Strike Hard Show No Mercy

Today I want to speak about a topic that has been on my mind since the start of 6th edition - do you take first or second turn in games.  Conventional wisdom has been to always take the second turn as Daemons to deny the enemy one of their shooting phases.  I am here to tell you that conventional wisdom is wrong - against normal armies.

1850 - RTT - G3 - 10-14-12

Game 3

With some judicious deleting of repeat pictures I was able to find some more space on my memory card for this final game.  I also tried to reduce the resolution of the pictures but I could not find the function on such short notice.

Mission: The Scouring

Deployment: Hammer and Anvil

Opponent: Chaos Space Marines w/ Daemon Allies

My opponent in this mission is Craig who just came off a game against hyv3mynd

1850 - RTT - G2 - 10-14-12

Game 2

I am in good shape after the first game - scoring max points against my opponent which means I was at the 'top table' and expected a good matchup.  I drew Doug, whom I had played in the last tournament (written up here) when he brought Grey Knights.

This time he brought a guard army with him that had a lot of anti-Daemon firepower.

Mission: The Relic
Deployment: Vanguard Strike
Opponent: Imperial Guard

1850 - RTT - G1 - 10-14-12

In stark contrast to the last tournament I played in, this time my daughter decided to sleep through the night and left little doubt that I would have the chance to play Saturday.  I arrived without coffee about 20 minutes before the tournament and the format remained the same, although it was a bit tighter with respect to the rules.  The winner was based on W-L record over 3 rounds, which just about guaranteed there would be a tie with the fifteen to twenty people.

The tie would be broken by battle points - which is where the tighter rules this week came in.  For each mission the number of objectives was set by a TO roll at the start of the round which kept some mystery in it, but made sure each player could score just about the same number of points.

As usual I brought my Daemons with me as usual with the list discussed in this post.

Game 1

Mission: Big Guns Never Tire
Deployment: Dawn of War (12" from board edge)
Opponent: Eldar

RTT - 1850 - Daemons Tournament List

It is that time of the month again, a magical moment when my wife has the chance to visit her parents in her home town.  More relevant to me, and this Blog is that it just so happens that the last several of these visits have corresponded to the monthly tournaments at Millenium Games.

Last time around I played a slightly different Daemons list that emphasized heralds - this was on the eve of the Lookout Sir! changes and 1 surprise FAQ later I had to change my strategy.  You can read all about that list here.  If you look really carefully- I would look at those posts labeled Battle Reports - you can also read how that list played out for me.

Da Boyz Painting - Horrors (nxt 5x)

With a deadline looming I have been taking all the extra time I can to get some painting done and it is starting to show some results.  I finished these five guys last night while the wife was sleeping (and so was the little one).

 

I was actually dreading painting the banner - I was really indecisive as to what colors to use for it, but I like the way it turned out.  The warm colors of the fire against the colder blues really makes it pop.

Da Boyz Painting - Horrors Update 2

This update just has some better resolution pictures to go with the ones I already posted.  The original with my thoughts can be found here. A preview in the first part, click the actual blog article for the rest - they are rather large files and as such I can now see every imperfection!

Da Boyz GT - 1850 List - Second Thoughts

I have been doing a lot of thinking about the list I plan to bring to Da Boyz this year.  In previous years with the composition requirement, it was a bit easier to figure out what to expect - but the meta now is wide open with the inclusion of allies, flyers and fortifications.  I know Fateweaver is strong - but it pains me a bit putting my Warlord, anti-flyer and generic force multiplier into a single slot.  I am going to test the list out this Tuesday - but I am considering making a few revisions to the overall list as well.

My original list can be found here.

Da Boyz Painting - Horrors - Update

I had a chance to spend a few hours last night painting - which was made possible by a visit from my parents who were more than happy to watch over Violette for a few hours.  These pictures were taken at 10:00 last night, so the colors are a bit off, but I will try to get some snapshots tonight with a little better resolution.

Horrors-Front

Da Boyz GT - 1850 List

Although I may have managed to get permission for a trip to Adepticon this year - realistically the Da Boyz GT is the only chance I have to play in a large 40k event each year.  Last year I, unfortunately, finished poorly overall due to my lack of painting and the strict composition rules enforced.  When it comes to battle points, however, I was in the running until the end and on Turn 5 of my last game I believe had a shot at Best General.  Unfortunately, a little bit of luck (or lack thereof!) and my own mistakes foiled that.

This year I want to bring a fully painted army (I know I know I took some unpainted models with me last year to a GT), which means buckling down and deciding what I am going to play now.  I do have some CSM models - but without the new rules and with unpainted cultists, helbrute, lord and chosen I do not see myself prepping those models in time.  That means pure Daemons again, and it also means I need to flesh out my list.  Fortifications are, generically, out for Daemons since there are none that really benefit them.  Instead, I am planning to bring the following list...

1850 - RTT - G3 - 9-8-12

Game 3

Deployment: Dawn of War
Mission: Purge the Alien (Killpoints)
Opponent: Imperial Guard w/ Dark Angel Allies

My army list can be found here.

HQ
Company Command Squad w/ Plasma Gun, Medic
Primaris Psyker w/ Lightning (other useless power)
Allied: Librarian w/ rolled powers Prescience, Force Dome

Elite
10x Ratling Snipers

Troops
Platoon w/ 2x Lascannon, Plasmagun
Veteran Squad in Chimera w/ 3x Meltagun
Veteran Squad in Chimera w/ 3x Plasmagun
Allied: 10x Space Marines w/ Plasmagun, Plasma Cannon

Fast Attack
Hellhound w/ hull Heavy Flamers
Allied: Land Speeder w/ Multi-Melta

Heavy Support
Leman Russ Demolisher w/ Heavy Bolter Sponsons, Hull Lascannon
Leman Russ Battle Tank w/ Hull Lascannon
Basilisk
Allied: Vindicator

1850 - RTT - G2 - 9-8-12

Game 2

Deployment: Diagonals
Mission: The Relic
Opponent: Imperial Guard

My army list can be found here.

HQ
Company Command Squad w/ Plasma Gun, Med Pack, Banner

Elite

Troops
Platoon w/ Lascannon, Sniper Rifles, Cloaks, Snare Mines
Veterans w/ 3x Melta Guns, Demolitions
Veterans in Chimera w/ 3x Plasma Guns
Veterans in Chimera w/ Lascannon, (maybe melta guns?)

Fast Attack
1x Valkyrie w/ three Lascannons

Heavy Support
2x Leman Russ Executioner w/ Plasma Cannon Sponsons and Hull Mounted Lascannon
Leman Russ Vanquisher w/ Multi-melta Sponsons and Hull Mounted Lascannon
Leman Russ Battle Tank w/ Heavy Bolter Sponsons

1850 - RTT - G1 - 9-8-12

It was tournament day, the day I had been looking forward to all week long and I almost did not go.  My beautiful 5 month old daughter decided the night before that sleeping is for suckers, so I was up at 2:00 in the morning driving her around in the car, trying to get her some sleep so her mother could also get some sleep.

Usually I try to show up early to help setup at events, but as the 9:30 start of signups began, I was debating staying home with my little girl instead, when my wonderful wife said "You should definitely go."  With that stamp of approval I grabbed my models and got in about 15 minutes before the start of the tournament.

Day Before Tournament Nerf Bat

For those who have not seen the new FAQ's, they are up and resolve a number of open issues that have arisen from the BRB.  Notably, Fateweaver cannot benefit those Tzeetch Terminators (sorry guys) and for a pure Daemon list they nerfed the wound allocation tricks you could pull with Heralds in the original document.

The link to the new FAQ is here.  Naturally, since I traveled to my in-laws for this one, I did not bring all of my Daemons with me.  That means I have a Tzeetch and Khorne Herald that - while not useless - are much less effective than they originally were.  No more wound allocation tricks - which actually is a huge hit to the Bloodcrushers who really cannot afford to lose the models closest to the enemy given him slow they are.

The Flamers take a hit too with the loss of allocation tricks - but some clever positioning might enable at least some wounds to be spread out a little.  With that in mind, I have a camera, dice, ruler, army and willingness to get crushed for tomorrow - although there are also aspirations of greatness.

1850 - New Thoughts on 1850

I spent a lot of time thinking about the list I posted the other day, and for some reason I am just not feeling it when it comes to the composition.  It has some elements I like, but I want to try something different and experiment a bit against some good competition at this weeks RTT.

The rules allow allies, fortifications and I believe terrain placement.  With that in mind I want to follow a few design rules as part of the experiment:

1 - Larger units of Daemons are the way to go this edition - especially with respect to troops
2 - Fateweaver is awesome this edition (for now at least!) and a force multiplier - but I am not bringing him
3 - The new units have incredible maneuverability and damage output - they form the new core of a daemon list
3a - I only have 6 Flamers and 9 Screamers! I have just about all else in quantity
4 - The new assault rules make having to break transports with shooting a thing of the past
5 - Other than FMC, Daemons have no good way to deal with Flyers - this reality I accept and rather than implement bad solutions, I will ignore them completely.

With that in mind, here is the initial list I plan to run - please tell me your thoughts.

Warlord: Herald of Khorne Blessings of The Blood God; Fury of Khorne; Juggernaut of Khorne 
HQ: Herald of Tzeentch - Master of Sorcery; We Are Legion; Bolt of Tzeentch; Disc of Tzeentch

Elite: 4x Bloodcrushers of Khorne
Elite: 6x Flamers of Tzeentch

Troops: 7x Plaguebearers of Nurgle
Troops: 7x Plaguebearers of Nurgle
Troops: 18x Daemonettes of Slaanesh
Troops: 18x Pink Horrors of Tzeentch w/ Changeling

Fast Attack: 9x Screamers of Tzeentch

Heavy Support: Soul Grinder of Chaos - Phlegm
Heavy Support: Soul Grinder of Chaos - Phlegm

I actually did try to hit sacred numbers as much as possible - or multiples of them at least. I was a bit torn on the Crushers versus Fiends, but I wanted a more durable Warlord for the missions and someone that could take down an enemy in a challenge. Skulltaker would be better, but I am not sure where to free the points up. Notably, I plan to DS the crushers disgustingly close to enemy lines.

1850 - Tournament - First 6th ed

With two games squarely under my belt, I think it is time to attend a tournament.  Actually, I do not expect great things from this particular outing but I will have a camera and a write up on some of my thoughts.  I plan to attend the Millenium Games (plug) 1850 tournament, which is a qualifier for the end of the year store championship   Luckily, I have already qualified so this is a great excuse to grab 3 competitive games in a row.

The real question is what to bring with me for an army list.  Here is a list of everything I have available to me for the tournament...

Tactica: Soul Grinders

Today I want to talk about why the new rules have made Soul Grinders an awesome selection.  I was an advocate for the grinder before 6th edition, and the strengths they had during that edition have been reinforced and some of their weaknesses covered with the new rules.  I am going to run through their strengths, weaknesses and how I currently kit mine out.

First Game of 6th Edition - Finally!

I had a chance to play my first game of 6th edition, and although it was a little rough at some points - it was overall a great experience.  Before I go any further a mini rant...

I loaned out my new 6th edition rulebook to some other games while I was playing for a few minutes.  In that time they managed to smash the corners and peel off that nice outer lining.  I take good care of my things, and now my 6th edition book looks worse than my 5th edition/4th edition already.  If you borrow people's things, especially their $75 rule book, be respectful of them and return them in the same condition

...okay, that helped a little bit.  I was steamed all night about the book being wrecked but I tried not to let that get in the way of having fun.  I played a variant of the list I posted here for 1850 which was...

Charge Distances - Revisited

EDIT: These values were updated and validated on 7/18/2012.

With the help of some MatLab code that I wrote, I recalculated my charge distances and accounted for some additional factors as well.   I have these values in both tabular and graph form for quick reference.  First though, some information on how I generated this data.

Since this is a computer, I did an exhaustive enumeration of the whole space for each calculation.  For the layman, I did the equivalent of determining every single possible combination and then collected them to determine the probability of a successful charge.  I have evaluated 3 cases so far:

(1) Standard 2d6 charge
(2) Charge through terrain - drop the lowest
(3) Charge with fleet

Tactica: Pavane of Slaanesh

The new position based wound allocation and removal rules make proper positioning of your individual models far more important than ever before.  With the emphasis on actual model placement, any ability that enables the manipulation of enemy models is far more powerful than before.

There are only two abilities that put the power to position enemy models into your hands (technically three if you count Deep Strike Mishap - Misplaced) and both belong to Chaos: Lash of Submission and Pavane of Slaanesh.  Pavane has less potential power than Lash, but has some advantages:

Lash can be taken on Daemon Princes or Sorcerers marked with Slaanesh.  In contrast Pavane can be taken on a Keeper of Secrets, The Masque, Slaanesh Heralds and Daemon Princes w/ Mark of Slaanesh.  I am going to focus on tactics for enemy model manipulation using The Masque with a unit of Horrors and a unit of Daemonettes.  Some of these tactics become even more powerful when coupled with other units (I will note some cases where appropriate).

In this tactica I will discuss:
1 - Avoiding Look Out Sir!
2 - Special Weapon Range Snipes
3 - Special Weapon Terrain Snipes
4 - Assault Casualty Avoidance

Deep Strike, Charges and Fleet

With premeasuring in for this edition, I finally sat down with Excel and made up a few charts for deep strike guidance to determine exactly how risky any Deep Strike might be.  Remember, you need to include the width of the circles around the center you need to make after the initial model is placed and the 1" distance from the enemy.  A 3-d plot of this that accounts for the possible directional scatter of the dice is forthcoming once I get MatLab working for this data set.

These ranges work for a scatter dice with 1/3 hits and have remained unchanged over the past several editions.  More interesting is the contrast for charge ranges - the ranges for a standard charging unit have the same plot as the scatter distance from 2 to 12 (just normalize the probabilities!)

More interesting to me is the influence of Fleet on the charge range of some of my favorite Daemon units (Fiends and Seekers).  This calculation is conservative and based on enumerating the entire range of possible outputs assuming you always reroll the lowest dice result.

In actuality you might occasionally want to reroll both dice results (for charging 8" when one dice is a 1 for example).  I will incorporate the fully accurate ranges when I finish up with the MatLab plots (Excel is really pretty poor for these kinds of calculations).  I also plotted the old charge ranges with this plot for a unit with Fleet.

These are the probabilities when only rerolling a single dice to succeed a charge at 2", 3", 4" through 12".  The charge range for 5th edition is the standard 6" charge plus a fleet move.  For beasts/cavalry this remains accurate due to the change to a 12" move for those units.

The relative closeness of these curves demonstrates that the nerf to charge ranges is most pronounced in the 7" charge range (which is where you used to have a guaranteed assault).  Remember, these numbers are a bit conservative as well.

1000 points - Slaanesh in 6th Edition

I referred to a number of the changes made to the rules for 6th edition and their impact on Daemons here

For this army I want to head back to my roots as a purely Slaanesh player - partially because I think they have become really really good - but mainly because the reasons I stopped playing them have partially disappeared.  (you try rolling a 6, 6, 3+, 5+ to kill a moving vehicle for a few weeks and see how you feel about it).  The new Slaanesh list I am going to start with is:

Daemons - 6th Edition Overview

I still have the final battle report to post for the 4 player FFA tournament and I will try to get it up this weekend.  With all the 6th edition hype I have been spending my time reading, rather than writing until this point.  I think these thoughts are mature enough at this point to share as initial 6th edition impressions  These impressions are based on a careful reading of the new rules, as the game I had scheduled this week fell through.

1250 - 4 Player FFA - Round 2

Round 2

Each of the tables used in this tournament are a bit different to provide 3 unique experiences as we all played one game on each table.  This table had a huge circle of LoS blocking terrain on the peripheral with nothing in the center.  I was nervous about this one and need a little luck to make things work for me.  As it turns out, I choose my deployment zone first and arbitrarily choose one with a little less terrain to prevent mishaps.  My opponents for this round are hyv3mynds Dark Eldar again here who end up across from me this time.  There is also a Grey Knight player and an Imperial Guard with the following

1250 - 4 Player FFA - Round 1

I have already posted twice about the rules and list associated with this four player FFA tournament and now it is time for some reports. The rules can be found here for rules while my most recent proposed list can be found here for list. Unfortunately, I realized when I arrived in Rochester at the in-laws that I had misplaced 10 Horrors somewhere but I had thankfully brought an extra set of Fiends with me. In the end I took a list close to my original proposition with Horrors instead of Daemonettes - in retrospect I think I should have nabbed the Daemonettes for this kind of game but they Horrors led to some epic moments. The final list was:

Chaos Daemons

HQ
Fateweaver

Elite
6x Fiends
6x Bloodcrushers w/ Chaos Icon, Fury of Khorne, Instrument

Troops
18x Plaguebearer w/ Chaos Icon (these will have a painting article/concept article soon!)
9x Horrors w/ Changeling

6th Edition - New Rumors - Daemon - Redux Part 1

The rumors are coming fast and furious at this point, and it appears a lot of them have come from actual reading of the new 6th edition book.  I think overall this looks like a pretty significant boost to Daemons and I am going to hit on a few of the large ones here: Deep Strike Mishap Table, Vehicle Damage, and Assault Distances - I will address some of the later ones...later.

1250 - 4 Player FFA - Revisited

With the tournament coming up tonight I have made a few revisions to my list (some pictures to follow tomorrow on the painting progress).  The rules and original list can be found here.  I managed to complete the bodies of all 19 Zombies who will be my stand in Slaanesh Plague Bearers.  To make them appropriately Slaanesh'ish they will soon have all the paraphernalia needed to be Slaanesh devoted addicts suffering the results of their addictions.  I also forgot to bring along my Daemonettes which means I am going to have to make a few swaps for this list.  The new list I will take with me tonight is:

The 6th Edition Waiting Game...

I have a lot of thoughts on Daemons that I would like to share, but at the moment it seems a bit moot to post an in depth evaluation of units, strategy and tactics with 6th edition well on the way.  As such, I am in a bit of a stasis when it comes to writing - this is compounded by my daughter making it difficult to get much painting done.  Blood Crushers, I promise someday you will be shaded and based...possibly in the next few days with a day off coming due to travel.

1500 Point Throne of Skulls Event

Millennium games is running a Throne of Skulls style event with a few hitched (common to the types of events being run).  I am hoping to get out for both the ToS tournament and the 1250 team tournament lock in following it.  The major points for list construction are...

Special Characters: -5 points
Duplicates: -2 points
Triplicated: -4 points
Dedicated Transports: -2 for each over 3

1250 Points - 4 Player FFA

I am prepping now for a 1250 FFA tournament, with some unique rules.  Each game is Kill Points with 4 total players on the board.  Each player is assigned a board edge and 1'x4' deep of dedicated deployment space.  The player across from you on the board's units are worth 3 KP each, while the ones to the side are worth 2 KP.  There is also an objective in the board center that is worth 4 KP a turn it is held.

The last time this event was held, the winner was determined based on the total KP achieved in the tournament which had some interesting effects in the later rounds when a player put up a massive score in the final round by holding the central objective.

As a Daemon player, there is a unique chance to grab that objective and to remain a low profile target, I am planning to bring a small number of very resilient units with me for the tournament.  This will reduce the shooting going into me, since 1250 points shooting into one of my units is likely to just allow another player to harvest that Kill Point.  Since special characters are allowed in this tournament, it seems like a great time to break out Fateweaver.

Random Team Tournament - Round 3 - 1000 Points

My army and the tournament rules can be found here.


Round 3:
Mission - Seize Ground (5 Objectives)
Deployment - Pitched Battle

Allied Army - Imperial Guard

HQ
Primaris Psyker w/ "Lighting" (2d6 shots?)


Elite
6x Ratling Snipers


Troops
10x Veterans w/ Demolitions, 3x Melta (in Valk)


Fast Attack
Valkyrie w/ Multiple Missile Pods


Heavy Support
2x Basilisk
2x Leman Russ Demolisher w/ 1 Lascannon

Opposing Coalition - Necrons/Necrons

HQ
Necron Lord w/ Mindshackle Scarabs, Warscythe, Tachyon Arrow
Command Barge
Court- Necron Lord w/ Warscythe and MSS


Primaris Psyker w/ "Lightning" (2d6 shots?)


Elite
C'Tan w/ Writhing Worldscape, Lord of Fire


Troops
5x Gauss Immortals
5x Tesla Immortals
10x  Guardsmen  w/ 3x Grenade Launcher, in Chimera
10x  Veterans w/ 3x Flamers, Demolitions (in Valk)


Fast Attack
5x Triarch Praetorians (yep that is right!)
Valkyrie
Hellhound


Heavy Support
2x Leman Russ Punisher w/ 2x Lascannon

Random Team Tournament - Round 2 - 1000 Points

My army and the tournament rules can be found here.


Round 2:
Mission - Capture and Control (3 Objectives)
Deployment - Table Quarters


Allied Army - CSM


HQ
Chaos Lord w/ Terminator Armor


Elite
6x CSM Terminators w/ 2x Combi-Melta, Heavy Flamer


Troops
6x Chaos Space Marines w/ Plasma Gun in Rhino
6x Chaos Space Marines w/ Plasma Gun in Rhino


Fast Attack
-


Heavy Support
5x Havoks w/ 3x Autocannons
3x Obliterators


Opposing Coalition - Necrons/Necrons 
HQ
Necron Lord w/ Mindshackle Scarabs, Warscythe
Command Barge


Necron Lord w/ mindshackle Scarabs, Warscythe
Command Barge
2x Crypteks w/ Tremorstaves


Elite
C'Tan w/ Writhing Worldscape, Lord of Fire
C'Tan w/ Writhing Worldscape, Pyreshards


Troops
5x Gauss Immortals
5x Tesla Immortals
5x Necron Warriors
5x Necron Warriors


Fast Attack
5x Triarch Praetorians (yep that is right!)
7x Canoptek Scarabs
6x Canoptek Wraiths w/ 2x Whip Coils


Heavy Support
Annihilation Barge


It is a random team tournament so I am pitted against my partner from the previous games with the CSM opponent from my previous and vice versa.  We win the roll to go first and hand over the first turn to our opponents since it is an objectives game.  I am not sure this was a great decision overall.  It really restricted my deep striking and engaging the enemy further back may have been more beneficial.


We also play all the terrain pieces as area terrain (I wanted to play them as open terrain, difficult to move up and down but alas) and the 2 level pieces as impassible.  This is just about the worst possible scenario we could run into.

Random Team Tournament - Round 1 - 1000 Points

This weekend (May 12) I had the chance to go to Millenium games for a random team tournament. This was a format I had not played before and had some strict composition rules. Before I too much criticisms hits my, and my opponent's, lists here they are:




Army Composition:
1000 Points consisting of :::: 1 HQ, 0-2 Elites, 1-3 troops, 0-2 Fast, 0-2 Heavy.
No Special character/Named Sergeants upgrades
Choices for Elites, Fast, and Heavies are 0-1 I.e. No two long fangs.
Choices that modify army selection are allowed. I.e. Master of the Forge. Sagas
You must also have at least 4 of the 5 force org slot


With a unique opportunity to completely screw over my ally, I decided to take my Chaos Daemons with the following list:

HQ
Keeper of Secrets


Elite
6 Fiends
4x Bloodcrushers w/ Icon, Instrument, Fury


Troops
12 Daemonettes
5x Horrors w/ Bolt


Fast Attack
-None-


Heavy Support
Daemon Princess w/ Mark of Slaanesh, Iron Hide, Pavane, Aura of Acquisence

1000 Point Random Partners Tourney

After much consideration I finally decided on a 1000 point list for tomorrow's 'Random Team' tournament.  Remember the requirements for the tournament are - no replication, no special characters, 1 HQ, 1-3 Troop and up to 2 choices from the other slots.  Nova style missions. First the list, then some rationale:

HQ
Keeper of Secrets

Elite
6x Fiends of Slaanesh
4x Bloodcrushers w/ full kit

Troops
12x Daemonettes
5x Horrors w/ Bolt

Heavy
Daemon Princess w/ Mark of Slaanesh, Pavane, Iron Hide, Aura of Acquiescence

I was a bit restricted in what I could take to this due to my limited diversity of painted minis (I have 2 Grinders done, 12x Fiends for example).  I really wanted to take Seekers instead of the Daemon Princess (and instead of the Bloodcrushers), but the steeds are just about done for them while their riders are still languishing on the sprue.

With that in mind I want to saturate the board with high toughness units (or to have the option to drop in some standard units as well if I face a lot of poison before it goes down).  I am relying on my opponent to help open transport vehicles - but in my experience at these kinds of events players tend to bring more foot heavy armies (nothing like being blown off the board Turn 1 while your opponents Gaunts point and laugh) and there tends to be a shortage of special weapons.  I expect this to be exacerbated by the 0-1 restriction on individual selections which should help make my big guys last a bit longer.

Even if they do perish in a firey death, I will be putting a lot of pressure on our opponenets and even in standard team tournaments people tend to 'play their own army,' which will hopefully make dealing with my in your face Daemons a bit more difficult.

Tonight though, I have some final prep work to do on the crushers.  I have the other 3 basecoated, magnetized and generally ready to go for this tournament.  Unfortunately, they are not all going to be at the quality of my first model by game time.  I blame a leaky kitchen sink that I spent 3 nights fixing along with two electrical outlets that were not to code that had to be rewired.

Get on the 6th Bandwagon - Talking Grey Knights

This article has success written all over it.  It will have Grey Knights.  It will have 6th edition.  It will have wild speculation.  All components at this moment for a successful 40k Blog post.  What I want to hit on are some thoughts about how changes in 6th edition can bring those obviously overpowered, unfair brutally destructive Grey Knights back into balance with the other codices.

Blood Crusher Test Finished

It took about two days overall (let's say 6 hours of total painting?) to finish the first Blood Crusher and I really like the result.  I followed the outline I presented in my previous post for this guy, although I had to do some extra touch up and I decided that black hooves were better than tan/bone white.

Painting Update-Fiends/Crushers

It has been a while since I posted any painting.  This should not be taken as a statement that I have not been painting at all.  Instead, it should be taken as a statement that I have not been making much progress in my painting.

That may have to do with the birth of my daughter and her constant (adorable) demands for attention.  To make this a mega painting update, I also started that first Bloodcrusher (once again my daughter is interfering with my painting schedule!) and the Purple/Black base of the crusher is complete.  I intend to bring the brown up to a gold color using some drybrushing to achieve that NMM effect (this is the same effect I used on the statues for the chapel).  Here is what I have so far...

Team Tournament - 1000 Points - Random Partners!

In spite of failing to provide updates in almost a month, I have been busy painting away.  There has been a slight distraction with our family expanding from two to three, but I think I am ready to hop back into the painting bandwagon.  Naturally, the best motivation to get some painting done is an upcoming tournament and I am targeting  a random team tournament at my old stomping ground.  Here is the overview thus far (it may change)

No shared abilities or transports between allies
Random partners - first round truly random, second round pairings from the top/bottom half of players
Modified Force Org - 1 HQ, 0-2 Elite, 1-3 Troops, 0-2 Fast, 0-2 Heavy
--> No single selection other than troops may be taken more than once.

Daemons at Adepticon

For those who do not follow the GT scene, Bill Kim took his Daemons to the final 16 in a field rife with Grey Knights (they must have known he was coming).  I want to talk a little about the list he brought.  Taken from Blood of Kittens it is...

HQ
Fateweaver
Skarbrand

Elite
6x Fiends of Slaanesh w/ Unholy Might
6x Fiends of Slaanesh w/ Unholy Might

Troops
14x Bloodletters w/ Icon of Chaos
5x Horrors w/  Bolt of Tzeetch , Changeling
5x Horrors w/ Bolt of Tzeetch
5x Horror w/ Bolt of Tzeetch

Fast Attack
16x Seekers of Slaanesh w/ Icon of Chaos

FW Decimator Review

This is a little different than my normal posts (which I have not made any of in a while, note to self - upload new unit of Fiends!).


For those who have not seen this new Forge World model yet...

The rules for it can be found here http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/d/decimator.pdf

I am coming at this unit from a Chaos Daemons perspective - it is much different IMO for a CSM list as the trade off's you are forced to make change.

Daemonettes Complete

With a little bit of eye strain from the painting (and possibly staring at too many computer screens) I now have my first complete set of Daemonettes done.  This squad, the hair squad as opposed to squad Bald and squad Mohawk, came out pretty well and I learned a lot as I progressed through painting them.  Without further adieu here are the final 5 and a group shot.

Daemonettes 4, 5, 6, 7

It took a bit longer than I had hoped, but I finally finished the next four Daemonettes for the unit.  I really like the way the unit is turning out and I think it is going to look very striking on the table.

Daemonettes 4, 5, 6, 7 RHS