40K Friday - Iron Warriors vs. Ultramarines

 

In addition to building some updated units for my chaos marines I managed to get a game in with them over the past weekend. This time was against Boom-Gun Brandon's Ultramarines.

The kid has been remarkably consistent with both his army and its composition - possibly because he only has the one army - but he has started building Tau and he's always free to borrow units from my marine forces so he has some options now and will have more in the future.

This was a 2000 point dawn of war deployment (start on the long sides of the table) with a "hold some objectives" type primary and the normal "draw some cards" secondary. I did not take as many pictures as I usually so I won't try to turn it into a battle report here but it was fun. 

The Ultras had Guilliman, Captain Titus, a squad of shooty terminators, a squad of assault terminators, some assault intercessors, two aggressor squads each led by a gravis captain, some bladeguard, then his heavy hitters: A Redemptor dread, a Balistus dread, and a Repulsor executioner.

My IWs went tank-heavy. The main reason was that I wanted this to be an all-painted force, up to date, etc, and all of my old infantry are still on 25s. So it was pretty ridiculous: 3 Predators, 3 Helbrutes, 2 Vindicators, a leviathan dread, a daemon prince, a Heldrake (I know, right?), and then a squad of chaos terminators led by a terminator chaos lord. So I was definitely outnumbered but certainly not outgunned.

HELLOOOO BAAAAYBY!
(BANG!)

I actually won the first turn and started working on his anti-tank units. The predators blew up the balistus and both the redemptor and the executioner were at half wounds or less when I was done. 

The Ultras moved around quite a bit including running the executioner right up near one of the vindicators and dumping out his intercessors + Titus. he didn't manage to kill anything - my vindicator just barely survived the assault after being blasted by the executioner's big laser  - but he was sitting on his home objective plus the center so he was in scoring position early. 

Hello there!

My second turn I rearranged a bit myself and then blew up the executioner and the redemptor. I managed to shoot down the primarch as well but he did stand back up - of course! During my rearrangement I managed to move out of range of my home objective so my scoring fell off of a cliff here.  

Ultras second turn saw the Heldrake chosen as his Oath of Moment target and thus saw most of his army shooting at it and it managed to survive this with a few wounds left. Granted he was missing most of his real anti-vehicle weapons but he had a lot of lesser guns left. He still scored more points though. He also dropped in his terminators this turn.

Third turn and onward we mostly shot up each others remaining infantry. I blew away both aggressor squads and one of the gravis captains. His assault termies failed to kill a predator that was all by its lonesome on an objective and my killing one of them on the way in meant that we were tied for OC so neither of us got credit for it. He did finally manage to kill the damaged vindicator and he was pretty happy about that. 

One wound left - I can still nail the dread!

He ended up winning on points but I had done a lot more damage to his force so I still felt alright about it. It was pretty low scoring as we both mismanaged our secondaries in a big way. 

In the end I was pretty happy with the game. I got to dust off an army I haven't played in years and finally play them in 10th edition. A few more notes:

• I did forget to Dark Pact a lot - the perils of not playing very often - which probably lowered my offensive output. It's a cool ability when you remember to us eit.
• I took the iron warriors detachment (Fellhammer Siege Host) and its signature ability is a -1 to wound when you get shot by a gun with a strength higher than your toughness. Well, with a mostly tank army it was useful for the first two turns then ... not so much a I had eliminated his big guns and was mostly getting hit by various types of bolter and punched in melee. I still like it though.
• The Leviathan Dreadnought ... man I love these things. It's been a long time since I took one and the double-stormcannon setup is basically 4 twin-linked versions of the Predator's turret autocannon. It is really nasty and I am hoping now it's Legends status at least makes the jump to 11th so I can continue. I have 6 or more of the things spread across a few armies so ... yeah ... it's in the list as long as I can take it.

This has also encouraged me to continue with the modernizing as all of the vehicles are up to date, terminators are still on 40mm bases, and so painting up some legionaries, chosen, possessed, and some havocs will give me an up-to-date infantry force to go with them. It's maybe 35 models total, so I should be able to knock it out fairly quickly.

More to come ... 

Primarchs - still need to look both ways before crossing the street ...

40K Friday Off-Schedule Edition: Modernizing the Iron Warriors

 

The title pretty much says it - as I discussed here earlier I have quite a few chaos space marines painted up as Iron Warriors and a surprisingly large percentage of it is still the current production model. This is mostly the vehicles though - the infantry is all older and smaller.

The Helbrutes, Rhinos, Predators, and Vindicators (and the Heldrake!) are all still good. 

All of my actual marines though are the older style, aside from a few characters. 

Now I don't care that much about this state of affairs in general but unit options have changed too and the new hotness is building Chaos Marines for melee and almost all of mine are built for shooting so maybe it is actually ... finally ... time to look at upgrading things around here. At least I only need to consider the infantry, which is a plus. I do have some newer current stuff sitting in the IW box in a closet. I should probably start there. What I have is:

• Abaddon (we will get to him in a minute)
• The Hammer Lord on foot  (technically not the latest and greatest but still fairly recent)
• An unbuilt recently built Terminator Lord/Sorcerer kit (still technically current but likely to be replaced soon)
• A normal sorcerer (the current plastic kit)
• Fabius Bile
• A Master of Possession
• A Lord Discordant (how did I not build this guy already?)
• Some Daemon Princes ranging from the older metal kit to the now-older plastic kit (I loved that kit) to the newer plastic kit.
• Six of the newer monopose plastic Obliterators. I never got around to actually painting these. 
• A box of the newer Possessed
• 3 Venomcrawlers
• More Helbrutes
• A Defiler (now technically the Old Defiler since there's a new one coming out)

There's more - it's a bunch of stuff. There is however, precious little infantry in there. The MoP and the Possessed make a nice combo element but they aren't allowed in Rhinos anymore so what am I going to haul in those? Looks like I'm going to have to start with some legionaries!

That's cool - I like having "core troops" in my armies. I am not one of those "only the chrome" type army builders. If I build a box then I could make it into two 5-man squads with one going melee + chaos Lord and one going ranged + Sorcerer. There's a start. Of course I'm probably going to end up with at least 3 boxes but I'll try not to go for the crazy backlog right out of the gate. 

Then of course we have the other major modern infantry box - the Chosen. These are 5 to a box but have lots of equipment options and 3 wounds per trooper. I'm thinking this is where Fabius Bile comes in and leads a squad of these boys. This is a unit heavily slanted towards melee anyway so why not give them a buff character and put them in a Rhino too?

The other new kit I lack is the Havoc box. My existing Havocs are 3 or 4 squads of the old style marines like everything else and are all autocannons, missile launchers, or heavy bolters. Right now I would just blu-tac them to some 40mm bases but I think a box or two of these new-style troops are worthwhile down the road. Between all the tanks and helbrutes etc. I don't lack for heavy weapons but I think a Devastator squad equivalent has a place here somewhere. 

Mine are all from this era

I do also have 10 Terminators already. I think we are currently on the 3rd generation of plastic chaos terminators and mine are from the prior gen but they still look like Terminators so good enough.

So I believe this will be the core of my updated Iron Warriors. It is a lot of new kits but I'm not going to do it all in a week:

• 10-30 Legionaries (Picked up 10 this week)
• 5-10 Chosen 
• 5-10 Havocs
• 10 Terminators (Have 10 now)
• 5-10 Possessed (Have 5 now)
• 2-6 Obliterators (Have 6 now)
• Chaos Spawn (Have 5 now)
• A bunch of tanks and daemon engines (Have a bunch of these now)
• Add characters to taste (Have a bunch of these now too)

I have to figure out what to do with my Raptors and Bikes as they are technically current (though the Raptors just got a new kit in Kill Team) to add in some Fast Attack options (dating myself there). I like the idea of keeping a lot of my old stuff on their 25mm bases to use in old school games but the Raptors may have to join the modernized army for now. 

I think I have 4 of the old ones and I'm sure I will be adding at least one of the new ones down the road.

A side unit making occasional guest appearances would be Abaddon and a 5-man Terminator squad. I already have the termies and they are painted up as Black Legion so part of the work is already done. Could be a fun unit to add on for certain fights.

The other interesting part of Chaos Marine armies now is the whole sub-codex of cultists, weirder cultists, beastmen, traitor guardsmen and just a bunch of mortal infantry that feel like an entirely separate army. I have a couple of units of cultists left from the old 6th edition boxed set which I might add in at some point but I've just never been excited about adding in a bunch of weaker, unarmored troops to my glorious power armor & tanks force. It has gotten interesting now with all of the units they've added in (a traitor Comissar and his Ogryn Bodyguard? Really?) but I would lean towards it being a separate force most of the time. At least that's how I feel right now.  We will see once I get the IW's tuned up and finished out. 

Enough rambling for now - more chaos later.

40K Friday - 3-Day Weekend Distraction Edition

 I did make some good progress last week with the Tyranids. That's 9 Von Ryan's Leapers in the one tray and a pair of Neurotyrants and their little gribblies in the other. At this point I have a bunch of 'gants left to do and the Norn and then I am completely built ... 5000+ points of the 'Nids. Yes there are some units I do not have but I'm probably not going to push very hard to get more as I need to start painting these things. I do have a scheme mostly figured out but I need to start getting more of them going beyond a base coat of Wraithbone.

I had thought about working on more of the Guard this weekend. I try to break things up into chunks as I go so I don't burn out or get bored with what I'm doing which means I am usually working on at least two armies at any given time. This weekend though something came out of left field and bit into me hard.

That's right for some reason I went down the rabbit hole on Grey Knights. It's been a while since I posted about them here - that was 9th Edition 40K and here's where I started talking about them for 8th Edition and they have been an army here ever since those days but for some reason I took them off the shelves and put them in a box after the move and just let them sit. 

Now the distraction started while I was looking at my Iron Warriors and thinking I needed to do some updates as I have added parts and pieces the last few years but I haven't really sat down and hammered away on them. A lot of my stuff is old-school, my marines are mostly still on 25mm bases, and I haven't really finished out even the new stuff that I have added. So I was thinking I should put in some effort on them as I wrap up the Tyranids as there has been a lot of "new" for Chaos Marines recently and their rules seem to work pretty well so I should get some games in before 10th goes away - or at least modernize them a bit going in to 11th. 

While doing this I decided to make a "Conclave of Chaos" on the big table and drag out all of my other chaos stuff too - World Eaters, Death Guard, some of the daemon stuff - to see if I had things loosely assigned to one army that I could use in another. 

While doing that I had to move my Grey Knights Holding Facility (a big cardboard box) and while looking down into it I realized I had been ignoring them this entire edition and they were far more "modern" than the IW's. Well, they're at least on the right size bases. The path of distraction is insidious ...

So I made some room next to The Conclave and started sorting through my Knights of Titan and discovered things I had picked up in the last round of GK interest and never finished and some things that were - I have a painted Kaldor Draigo! Of course it turns out they took him out of the latest codex! But I have a Draigo! Also more normal powered armor guys, more termies/paladins, and more characters than I remembered. I also have 4 dreadnoughts ... not sure why I went to 4 but OK. I have an unbuilt Dreadknight which syncs up perfectly with the one new model the Grey Knights got for 10th which is an upgrade kit to more readily distinguish a Grand Master Nemesis Dreadknight from the regular Nemesis Dreadknight. 

The main thing though is that there are a couple of thousand points worth of painted GK's that just need to be sorted out. I am fixing some of their bases along the way - I painted for several hours this weekend and it was all snow base updates. They were not super-unified before but they will be now. The vehicles need more work as there are a lot of "well it's silver at least" vehicles right now but it shouldn't be terribly hard to improve on that. Right now the plan is to tune up what's done/almost done and then based on what that looks like get some of the other stuff finished. I did manage to pick up the codex for 10th and read through it and I have ordered the dreadknight upgrade sprue so I am fired up about it all. 

The downside of all this is twofold:

• This army has not done particularly well in 10th edition and the way they work now is *significantly* different than what they did in earlier editions. They used to be the all-psychic space marine force where each squad had powers and each character had powers and I can tell you the cognitive load of running them in 8th or 9th was massive. It was challenging, it was fun, but it was the most complex army in-play that I have ever tried to run. They had potentially 5 different melee weapons in each squad, plus a choice of 3 different support weapons at 1 or 2 per squad, and then each squad could pick from at least 1 psychic power out of 6, then the characters had a different set of powers to choose from ... it was a lot. But it fit the lore!
  
  Fast-forward to 10th and all of that has gone away. They do still have the 3 support weapons to pick from but all of the melee options are now "Nemesis Force Weapons" and have a single statline. The psychic phase is gone and the various abilities are just pre-set per unit as a special ability if they have one at all. The psychic down-tune is a general 10th edition thing but it hit the psychic-focused armies pretty hard. The GK's signature feature now is teleporting - every unit has deep strike, they can pick some units up off of the table during the opponents turn, and there are ways to jump on and off and around the board more than any other army in the game. Hey, mobility is a huge thing in this kind of game and they have a ton of it but it is a very different thing than what they used to be. A lot of long-time Grey Knight players are not happy with this take on the force and have pulled back from playing & building and talking about Grey Knights. It's a shame but that's where a lot of people are these days.
• Secondly there have been rumors for some time that the GKs are getting a full refresh in 11th edition - that's models, not rules. So I am diving in and building/painting/prepping a bunch of models that are going to be "obsolete" in a year or two. I will be sad to see them go because I absolutely love these things. They are just about the coolest of the firstborn era plastic marines with their awesome helmets and inscriptions and weapons and the GK color scheme just lends itself to making these things look amazing. That said they are from 5th edition, circa 2010, and a lot of that stuff is getting replaced now. They do look tiny compared to all of the primaris stuff and the new scale for marines but to me that doesn't mean they look bad - they just look small. Also, scaling has never been a strong suit for 40K, right from the start, even among the same army, so it really doesn't bother me. 
  
  So sure, we will see all-new models for the Grey Knights in the next few years. OK. Right now I have a pretty nice pile of the current ones, and I have rules to play them, so that's what I'm going to do. I am hoping that when the update comes they don't change the structure of the army a whole lot so that what I have will still work and I can keep playing with what I have while I contemplate if/how/when I want to upgrade to the newer stuff.
  
  They might not! They might turn it completely upside down! If they do, well, Blaster has been making some noise about how strong Eldar were in 5th Edition so we might have to have a retro showdown and see if they were really all that tough. 

More to come.

40K Friday - Chaos Marine Updates

 

With word that the Traitor Legions are finally getting their 9th edition codex I'm looking forward to dusting off my Iron Warriors for the first time in a while. Alongside this GW announced that the World Eaters are getting their own codex like the Death Guard and the Thousand Sons so that will change things up a bit around here.  

It's good news but I think it's ridiculous that it's taken this long to make any real updates to the CSMs. Sure, armor of contempt, but never addressing the second wound update until over 2 years into the edition is just incredibly stupid. They're putting a White Dwarf update out for the World Eaters to tide us over until their codex comes out - they easily could have done the same thing for Chaos Marines at any time. 

Annoyance aside I am interested in seeing what else the new book holds. We know about armor of contempt, we know they're goin to two wounds, we know they're going to 3 attacks base, rumor is that they get a Doctrine system similar to the loyalists ... I have mixed feelings on that one. 

On the one hand, having a doctrine system will make them feel more like "marines".  That's cool. On the other hand I don't want it to be all that similar as then we get back into chaos marines feeling too much like loyalist marines with spikes and fewer options. So hopefully they do something interesting there. 

My Iron Warriors are pretty much ready to go. I've never had as much of a backlog with these guys as with some of my other armies.

• I need to paint my Obliterators but that won't take long. 
• I have a bike unit mostly painted but I'm waiting to see what they do with bikes for chaos before I finish them up.
• I have a bunch of terminators I was going to allocate to them but like the bikes I'm waiting to see where the new codex takes them. There are rumors about melee weapons all being treated the same and ranged weapons having new limits reflecting the mix available in the current box and that would impact my plans. Termies are good right now and I'm sure I will still want some - it's just a question of loadout, really.

The army itself is mostly marines & havocs with a bunch of Rhinos, 3 Predators, 3 Vindicators, some raptors, some chosen, a unit of spawn, some Helbrutes, various characters including a daemon prince, and a Heldrake.  It's a pretty traditional chaos force, not a lot of daemon engines etc. It's around 6000 points depending on details. Hopefully they come out alright in the transition. 

I am not super excited about the emphasis on cultists in the previews so far. I don't know anyone who gets into chaos marines to build an army of normal humans with some mutations and I kind of think they should really consider moving it to a separate book  if they're going to start expanding it. If genestealer cults can be a faction it seems to me chaos cults could be one as well. Maybe mix in some daemons and maybe even the long-awaited traitor guard to really build out the faction. 

That said I am ready to get the army on the table again - hopefully soon. 

Khorne Campaigns: World Eaters vs More Eldar!

After the last encounter with the eldar one of my main conclusions was that I needed more firepower. I considered havocs and predators and all the usual sources but I wanted to try something different - so I basically upgraded the rhinos to land raiders.


++ Battalion Detachment +3CP (Chaos - Chaos Space Marines) [47 PL, 848pts] ++

+ Flyer [10 PL, 185pts] +

Heldrake [10 PL, 185pts]: Baleflamer [30pts], Heldrake claws [17pts], Mark of Khorne

+ No Force Org Slot +

Legion: World Eaters

+ HQ [10 PL, 165pts] +

Dark Apostle [5 PL, 83pts]: Mark of Khorne, Plasma pistol [7pts], Power maul [4pts], The Black Mace

Exalted Champion [5 PL, 82pts]: Brass Collar of Borghaster, Mark of Khorne, Plasma pistol [7pts], Power axe [5pts]

+ Troops [27 PL, 498pts] +

Khorne Berzerkers [9 PL, 166pts]
. Berzerker Champion [35pts]: Plasma pistol [7pts], Power fist [12pts]
. 5x Chainsword and Chainaxe [85pts]: 5x Chainaxe [5pts]
. Chainsword and plasma pistol [23pts]: Chainsword, Plasma pistol [7pts]
. Chainsword and plasma pistol [23pts]: Chainsword, Plasma pistol [7pts]

Khorne Berzerkers [9 PL, 166pts]
. Berzerker Champion [35pts]: Plasma pistol [7pts], Power fist [12pts]
. 5x Chainsword and Chainaxe [85pts]: 5x Chainaxe [5pts]
. Chainsword and plasma pistol [23pts]: Chainsword, Plasma pistol [7pts]
. Chainsword and plasma pistol [23pts]: Chainsword, Plasma pistol [7pts]

Khorne Berzerkers [9 PL, 166pts]
. Berzerker Champion [35pts]: Plasma pistol [7pts], Power fist [12pts]
. 5x Chainsword and Chainaxe [85pts]: 5x Chainaxe [5pts]
. Chainsword and plasma pistol [23pts]: Chainsword, Plasma pistol [7pts]
. Chainsword and plasma pistol [23pts]: Chainsword, Plasma pistol [7pts]

++ Spearhead Detachment +1CP (Chaos - Chaos Space Marines) [62 PL, 1152pts] ++

+ No Force Org Slot +

Legion: World Eaters

+ Heavy Support [57 PL, 1074pts] +

Chaos Land Raider [19 PL, 358pts]: Combi-bolter [2pts], Mark of Khorne, Twin heavy bolter [17pts], 2x Twin lascannon [100pts]

Chaos Land Raider [19 PL, 358pts]: Combi-bolter [2pts], Mark of Khorne, Twin heavy bolter [17pts], 2x Twin lascannon [100pts]

Chaos Land Raider [19 PL, 358pts]: Combi-bolter [2pts], Mark of Khorne, Twin heavy bolter [17pts], 2x Twin lascannon [100pts]

+ HQ [5 PL, 78pts] +

Warpsmith [5 PL, 78pts]: Combi-bolter [2pts], Flamer [9pts], Mark of Khorne, Meltagun [17pts], Power axe [5pts]

++ Total: [109 PL, 2000pts] ++

So - no juggerlord, no daemon prince, no helbrutes but I do have firepower! I kept the Heldrake around for a second chance too.

Blaster took his usual force which you can see here and we played the same mission as well - "Dominate and Destroy" - involving objective-holding and kill points.

I started with 4 things on the table - 3 land raiders and a heldrake ... if only we were still using that fewest-drops-equals-first-turn rule. I still won first turn. My big tanks rolled up the table and started blasting away, while the heldrake did his usual thing too ...

... and you can see how it goes. He flies up, flame-breaths a guardian unit, then charges it, and the few survivors end up fleeing due to morale - awesome! Except that now he's in range of every gun in the eldar army and he's going to pay.

On the Eldar turn they kill the Heldrake, put some hurt on the big tanks, and drop these guys in behind me. The other thing I was concerned about from my last battle was the lack of objective holders. I knew I was doubling-down on offense with this army list, but it really hurt me here.

This shot above is actually from Turn 2 where I have managed to tear up the wraithguard and some of his other troops but it's not going to be enough.

By turn 3 two of the land raiders are gone, the berzerkers are exposed and my chances of winning are just about gone. Over on that left side I did manage to kill his wraithlord but he had killed enough zerks that it was going to be tough to get through his guardians and his jetbikes and the farseer and the spiritseer that were all sitting on that objective.

Then on turn 4 his Fire Prism and brightlance-armed Wave Serpent and his Dark Reapers managed to kill the third Land Raider and I conceded. The first 2 squads were mostly gone and there was nothing in charge range of the intact but now on foot 3rd squad. I was going to spend Turn 5 eating scatter laser and bright lace fire and there was no need to go through that exercise again.

So why are we failing here?

• The board configuration is the toughest one for an assault army fighting a shooting army as the traditional setup has a 12" backfield while this one has 24". That means it takes me an extra turn to get to him (at least). That's a killer. With the Land Raider moving 10" instead of the Rhino's 12" I'm trading some speed for firepower and this setup only makes it worse. Advancing means I'm giving up 12 lascannon shots and 18 heavy bolter shots so that doesn't seem like a good idea. 
• Only 4 maneuver units for probably half the game means I have limited board control. I can't hold objectives until the marines jump out and even that assumes the tanks are still in some kind of fighting shape. Even if things are dying a squad of cultists could have been racking up points in the backfield in those first couple of turns. 
• The Heldrake is 185 points of one-turn-glory and then it dies, and I don't think it's soaking up enough firepower to really help my tanks (or my Rhinos) survive. The board wasn't helping here either as even with a 30" flying move, an 18" breath weapon, and a 2d6 charge range, there was really only one unit he could get to on Turn 1. If he could hit a Dark Reaper squad he would make a much bigger difference, but on this type of board I think a helbrute would have contributed more.
• Tactics - I spread out across the whole board and I probably should have concentrated on one side to cut down on the number of units that could shoot at me. Eldar heavy weapons all have a 36" range or more but it might have cut out some of the shuriken weapons and their annoying bladestorm effect at least. 
• Lack of speed is a problem, aside from everything else. What if I had dropped in a terminator squad somewhere near the Heldrake? Maybe some Obliterators? I need to create some threats on his end of the board, more than just a single unit.

So while I like the Land Raiders taking 3 of them leaves me no real flexibility. One or two of them might work and would free up enough points to add in some deep strikers and some other fire support. 

Logically it would make more sense to take the fire support elements from my Iron Warriors. they're better at shooting, already painted, and this would also open up the option of some psyker support too. There are quite a few places where Warptime would make this army better.

My other inclination is to go Maximum Khorne and get a Lord of Skulls. He's big, he has big guns, and he leaves room for some other things - like juggerlords - as well. 

We'll see how it goes.

40K Friday: Building the World Eaters

Last year I had been building up and playing with my Iron Warriors and I realized that while I had some khorne berzerkers I really didn't want to make them a focus of my IW army. It was the "tank" army and also my "one of everything" army for chaos marines and so while I might add a squad or two I really wanted to make a separate force to focus on them. Besides, it's not like I can;t ally the two together.  That's how I came to build my second (after the Iron Warriors), er, third (after my Death Guard) chaos marine army.

I knew I wanted the core of the whole thing to be 3 squads of berzerkers, in rhinos, led by a Dark Apostle (for re-rolls to hit) and an Exalted Champion (for re-rolls to wound). I already knew I was going to go whole-hog and make them World Eaters and with zerks becoming troop choices for the WE's in the Codex it made for a nice little Battalion and came out to 900- 1000 points depending on how I load them out. So, about half of a normal army.

For the berzerker squads I made them identical: 8 guys (Khorne's sacred number), 5 with chainsword and chain axe, two with chainsword and plasma pistol, and the champion with powerfist and plasma pistol. I know some people prefer full melee and skipping the 21 points of plasma I have here but I just find it to be useful enough that I want that capability in my squads. It's not like they're going to be up close! Three plasma shots can often inflict a wound or two on the way in and that can really help against tougher targets. Does it matter against a dire avenger squad? No. But against the wave serpent that brought them to the fight, it's a nice boost.

The HQ's are mainly there to buff the squads and yes I do try to keep at least two squads within the buff radius when they debark, all three if possible. It ramps up the carnage to an unbelievable level when it all comes together like that. They also can contribute nicely themselves when I give them plasma pistols too, and/or as relic caddies - the Apostle gets the Black Mace pretty much every time and the Exalted Champ gets the Axe of Blind Fury sometimes, the Brass Collar other times.

So what about the other half of the army? I want to add either extreme speed, as in "causing hurt on turn 1" or I need some good long range firepower. Like lascannons.

Well, I like Helbrutes so I've been working those in, usually accompanied by a Khorne Lord on a Juggernaut. They all move 8 so they make a nice block of hurt moving up faster than normal infantry though slower than the rhinos. It hasn't worked out as well as I have hoped though I think some of that is on how I have used them more than the units themselves. It can be tricky to fit 3 rhinos into a small space so sometimes the third rhino is away from the other two. I think working this up as a group with the brutes and the juggerlord has a lot of potential so I need to try it out. Beyond that I will always try to find a way to fit in a helbrute or two in any chaos marine force.

On the Juggerlord - Juggernauts are just cool. I have always liked them but have never had a 40K era army that could use them outside of Epic - until now! I like the old metal ones. I like the newer plastic conversions people do. I really hope GW comes out wit ha new one at some point so they don't get squatted in the next edition - but that's a worry for another day!

I took two of them in my fight against the necrons and they did really well but it was almost overkill as they are redundant with the Apostle once the fighting starts (re-roll everything vs. re-roll ones) so from one point of view one is probably enough. They add neither speed nor firepower so they're really an extra helping of Turn 2-3 melee like the zerks themselves.

From another point of view though, 3 of them would fit nicely in a supreme command detachment and would give each rhino and squad a solid "buddy" to accompany them. I haven't done this yet but don't think I won't be considering it in the next fight or two. The biggest problem here is that there is only one Axe of Blind Fury! So the other two have to settle for power axes and get all sullen about it.

I tried a defiler and had mixed feelings about the whole thing. he makes for a nice big centerpiece model but is hurt by the split firepower/melee capabilities. What's fun on a 120-150 point Helbrute - a big fit and a big gun - becomes annoying to demoralizing on a 180-200 point crab scorpion monster. I'm trying to look at it as he adds some decent ranged firepower while still being a true melee monster like the rest of the army - I'm just not sure it's decent enough for the 177 points he cost me in the last battle.  Of course, here again the answer might be "take two or three instead of just one" but that's going to get expensive fast. I have to say though that the idea of sending one downfield alongside each rhino does have an impact. I'll have to see if I can work out the points.

Ah the Heldrake, hated scourge of early 6th Edition, almost forgotten chaos flyer of 8th. I wanted something that could get across the field fast and hurt some things - something that would present enough of a threat that it would divert some firepower away from my rhino's on turn 1 and maybe turn 2.

So I took one.

He did a few wounds and then died in my opponent's first shooting phase.

I took one in the next battle. he did manage to eliminate an entire squad this time, then he died in the opponent's first shooting phase. Again.

They are really cool - the model is amazing, and no other army has anything like them. I want to use mine but the obvious strategy is to zoom upfield, roast something, then execute a turn one charge and hurt something up close. he soaks up firepower for sure, but since he's right up on the enemy force a lot of it is short-ranged firepower that wouldn't be coming at my rhinos anyway. He's soaking a bright lance or two but he's also soaking a whole bunch of wraithweaver and shuriken fire.   I'm just not sure a single drake is an effective use of points. Once again I am thinking that either zero or two of them may be more effective than one.  Another thing to try out next fight.

 Things on the list that I haven't tried yet but am thinking about:

• Obliterators: deep strike, fairly tough, lots of shooting - really need to try them out but at 195 points, well, ouch!
• Terminators: I bought a box of chaos terminators for the army with what I thought was a good plan but ... they are still in the box as it doesn't seem so good now. Deep strike is a powerful thing but if it's mainly to shoot stuff I think the obliterators may do it better and without a psyker to cast Warptime on them (Khorne!) a 9" charge is pretty iffy, even with the Icon of Wrath added in for a re-roll. Still haven't given up but they will probably come in after the obliterator test. 
• Cultists - no. I can take berzerkers as troops! This is a non-cultist army!
• Bikers - maybe someday but not right now. Faster, yes, some firepoer yes but not really threatening enough to draw fire from the rhinos and not long ranged enough to really hurt something
• Raptors - probably not. Not enough melee ability and not really enough firepower either though the deep strike option is nice. 
• Warp Talons - yes, these will be getting a test. Melee only but can deep strike and can remove overwatch and are not too expensive - lots of potential here for a squad. 
• Havocs - I actually did take missile havocs in one fight and I have to say it does feel nice to have a solid long ranged blasting unit in the backfield. It's not super-thematic but it's about as much as a Helbrute and can hurt things from Turn 1 while holding an objective. They may make a return at some point. 

So there's some thinking behind the army. Blaster and I are actually in the middle of another fight so I'll have an update on that next week!

40K 8th: The Aweosmeness of Chaos Space Marine Helbrutes

I've liked dreadnoughts since they first showed up in Rogue Trader. Those early marine, ork, eldar, and chaos dreads were remarkably inspirational and I have ended up with quite a few of them over the years. Their effectiveness waxes and wanes over the editions and with different codexes, but they always manage to at least look cool.

Today I want to  discuss helbrutes, the current designation for chaos marine dreadnoughts. First up: they still look cool!

OK the original single-pose model from the 6th Edition boxed set can get a little old when you see it over and over but the full kit that was released later has a lot of flexibility.

I see posts online stating that you should either take the all-melee brute (usually fist + scourge) or the all-shooting brute (usually lascannons or plasma cannon + missile launcher) because those are the most optimized for their points. Sure. They're also missing the point: It's cool to have a tank that can punch things - hard.

Let's look at a helbrute compared to an all-LC predator, for example:

Predator:

• 140 points with the twin lascannon turret, + 50 more for the two side lascannons = 180
• it's Toughness 7, has 11 wounds, and a 3+ armor save
• In melee it has 3 attacks (to start) at Strength 6, no AP, Damage 1, hitting on 6's
• Move is 12

Helbrute:

• 122 points with a twin lascannon arm, +40 for the fist = 162
• It's Toughness 7, 8 wounds, and has a 3+ armor save
• In melee it has 4 attacks at Strength 12, AP -3, Damage 3, hitting on 3's
• Move is 8

So for 18 points less you lose speed , 3 wounds, and two lascannons - that's not inconsiderable. However you gain no degradation, chapter tactics, and a very effective melee capability.  You could put a heavy flamer on the fist which makes the points almost equivalent and adds a fairly decent short-ranged attack but is totally not the same as two lascannons.

In a vacuum, say a one on one gunfight starting at least 24" apart, the Predator should win - it has twice as many guns and doesn't have to move to be effective and so is not taking a -1 to hit every turn for moving with a heavy weapon that the Helbrute will be taking.

But we don't fight in a vacuum. All it takes is one model charging that Predator and it doesn't get to shoot for a turn. It has to back out of the fight in hopes of getting to shoot next turn. if the opponent keeps charging it with something, it will keep not getting to shoot. There are enough deep striking re-roll or roll an extra die shenanigans in the game now that this is a reasonable possibility in almost every game. This is even more true if you take the somewhat popular 3-predator option to use the killshot stratagem as you're an even bigger target to a savvy enemy. 

If one enemy model decides to charge the Helbrute, in contrast, he's going to get a Str 12 punch ... well first he's going to get auto-flamed if you took that option and then he's going to get 4 hard punches.  there is also the chance the Helbrute gets to charge in first, something you would never do with the Predator. 

You could go with a more comparable missile arm Helbrute which evens up the gunfight a bit (2 lascannon shots and a krak missile shot and no longer needing to move every turn vs. the 4 lascannon shots and not moving either of the predator) and reduces the brute's point cost down to 147 and is still way more effective in melee than the tank will ever be. 

Let's also not overlook the inclusion of Helbrutes in the Legion benefits as well: Iron Warrior brutes get to ignore cover! Predators do not! World Eater brutes get an extra attack on the charge! Renegade Legions can advance and charge in the same turn! Alpha Legion brutes are -1 to be hit at more than 12" away.

 While it's true that Predator trios get the killshot stratagem Helbrutes get "Fire Frenzy" which for 1 CP lets a brute fire twice - admittedly at the nearest target but still a nice option to have. 

There is of course the option for the double-melee Helbrute. With two combi-bolters this option only runs 126 points and can just run right up the table. He gets an extra attack from the second fist, or three extra from a scourge, so he's even nastier up close. Make him a World Eaters brute and you're looking at 9 swings on the charge - ouch! For about the price of two lascannon Predators you could take 3 of these guys - I won't say they're more effective in general but if the rest of your army can handle the ranged anti-tank, this could be a really fun option. 

If you want a more practical use for these guys than an across the board charge I would say "backfield defense". They are a lot tougher than a 5-man marine squad or a 10-man cultist squad, they can carry a decent gun, and they are notably charge-resistant to most things that can deep strike. If some Eldar yahoo wants to turbo-boost his wave serpent over into your deployment zone you can blast him and then go bash his hood in to finish him off! With an 8" move followed by a 2d6 charge you can actively defend a fairly large area. 

For me, well, I like to group up 2 or 3 of them with a Juggerlord or a Daemon Prince and go after something.   

Anyway they're fun! They're flexible! Check them out!

40K Friday Returns! 8th Edition Update

8th edition has been going really well here. We've played 1000, 1500, and 2000 point battles. Apprentice Red has played a little bit with his Orks. Apprentice Blaster is focusing exclusively on his Space Wolves. Apprentice Who has joined the fray with a new Tyranid army. One of Blaster's friends has joined in as well with a new Tau army too. I've built some ruins for a new city board - haven't painted them yet but I've built them!

I'm going with  a new policy on this edition as well: I'm getting all of the codices as they come out. We play most of the armies anyway in our little group so why not? I have Space Marines and Chaos Marines already and I'll be adding Grey Knights in the next week. It's not cheap but this has really turned into our main (if not only) miniatures game so why not go all-in?

Army-wise for myself it's been chaos chaos chaos! Mainly Iron Warriors but with a healthy side order of Khorne daemons and World Eaters. In June I was scattershooting all over the 40k universe, picking up a unit here and a unit there for a bunch of different armies - Chaos, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Orks, Eldar. I decided this was just going to lead to a bunch of half-finished armies competing  for playing time so I went with a variant of my "Year of the Eldar" approach. The second half of 2017 is the "Year of Chaos" where I am finally making my Iron Warriors into a full-on massive force and getting the daemons into usable forces as well. Getting the CSM codex really helped solidify

Iron Warriors

• HQ's are pretty much set at a daemon prince, termie lord, termie sorcerer, warpsmith, dark apostle, and an exalted champion
• Troops are a bunch of CSMs and about 30 cultists if I want to sink that low. Seriously, I play CSM's for the marines, not cultists. I'm still experimenting with the CSM squads. 
• Five of them wit ha heavy bolter in a ruin is cheap and contributes even at range. A lascannon or missile launcher improves the contribution but also ups the cost, 
• Ten of them with double or triple plasma or flamers in a rhino turns into an actual threat to many units. I'm still not settled on what  I like better.
• Elites are termies and helbrutes for the most part. Possessed were effective when I put ten of them in a rhino and rushed it up the board. Berzerkers will likely be included in a different way.
• Fast Attack is limited to spawn for me right now but they have been very effective bullet sponges leading a charge and can do some real damage in close combat if they survive to reach it. Also, being able to take them in units of one can lead to some formation shenanigans if you're so inclined. They're great for blocking out deep strike zones too.
• Heavy Support is kind of the IW's thing so I am going in pretty heavy here.
• I have 3 predators and they have done great work and I think they are very effective in this edition. I have not tried out the triple-shot strategem yet but I will!
• I have also added 3 vindicators. I have not done much with them yet but I will and I'll be trying out their triple-shot stratagem too.
• I have added a land raider - finally the basic land raider is a strong player again!
• Havoc Squads - effective but best off in cover. I like autocannons and I like missile launchers. I use the predators for lascannons so I look for other options for my havocs. 
• Obliterators - they were terrible in the index but the codex seems to have made them much stronger. I need to try out this new version.
• Dedicated transports: My Rhinos have gotten quite the workout this edition and I love them. The workhorse APC from the early parts of the game is fast, tough, and just really useful this edition. Rush them forward and pop smoke and the squad inside is almost certainly safe untiil next turn. Use them as cover. Run them into the enemy to soak up overwatch. Put guns on them! The chaos Rhino can carry two combi-bolters and a havoc launcher for 85 points! That turns them into a Razorback effectively, while still retaining the ten-man capacity. They're just handy to have on the table.

Expansion: I don't really _need_ anything but I am looking at maulerfiends and maybe some raptors just to have some of everything in this army. 

World Eaters

This is a fairly new addition to the force. I started picking up more berzerkers and while trying to decide how to integrate them into the army I realized I could just make a separate World Eaters detachment to include whenever I felt like it. This is mainly driven by the WE's being able to take Berzerkers as troops. The core force right now is Kharn, a dark apostle, and an exalted Champion accompanying a trio of 8-man berzerker squads in rhinos. That's around 1000 points and makes for a nice add-on force.

Expansion : I'm already considering expanding it into a full army on it's own - land raider, helbrutes, daemon princes, more berzerkers. We will see.

Daemons

I mainly focused on Khorne daemons as they work well with a more shooty Iron Warriors marine army. Right now it's built on two detachments:

• An outrider detahcment of 3 flesh hound units led by Karanak 
• A battalion detachment of 3 bloodletter squads led by Skulltaker

Pretty basic right? I also have a unit of bloodcrushers I can add in, and the specific unit sizes above can be varied somewhat, but the sauce is in the other HQ choices. A herald on a juggernaut, a pair of khorne daemon princes and up to three bloodthirsters. Taking the thirsters as a separate supreme command detachment and I am pushing 3000 points.

Expansion: Well I am still building this one but I think a skull cannon or two would give it a little shooting and some more heralds would make it more playable at lower point levels. Plus it can always use more bloodletters.

I'll see if I can put up some battle reports and talk about what I am thinking with the rest of my armies next week. 

40K Friday: 8th Edition Upgrades - Iron Warriors

We've played a fair amount of 8th edition at this point and we really like it. The rules are cleaner, run faster, and there is a ton of flexibility in army composition without breaking the game. I expect some things to get cleaned up - the recent FAQ gives me a lot of hope for an "active" GW in this edition - and some significant changes in the imminent tidal wave of codices to keep thing interesting for quite a while.

I started off focused on the Iron Warriors and they have undergone quite a few changes over the last six months. I had a plan for them for the old Chaos Codex, I then revised it for the Traitor Legions book and now I am changing it up again for the Index book. With an actual full Chaos Codex coming I have slowed down a bit on coming up with a "permanent" force organization for them and I am just trying out different groups of units to see how they play under the new rules. The main outcome of this is that I now have about 6000 points of IW's under the new system - a dread here, a squad there ... it adds up quick. I've added a ridiculous number of Chaos Marine bits as well as sometimes when you have a very specific plan you need very specific bits to build those units. Some highlights of my meandering plans:

Work is in Progress

•  I was going to go with 6 Rhinos for them. I think that's probably overkill now as I want to spend those points on other things, particularly if 2000 points is the new standard. The original plan was chosen, possessed, and 4 marine squads in those rhinos. Now I'm thinking 2 chosen squads in one rhino - one melta-shooty and one with power swords and pistols, and 3 marine squads. I'm not sure the possessed really belong in this army.
• I also have considered a completely different approach to troops by taking 4x five-man squads each with a heavy bolter. Set these up in ruins with a few havoc squads and you have a pretty stout gunline for the backfield.
• Triple predators is a lot of points but is looking pretty solid in this edition. I'm glad I built them up
• I'm up to five helbrutes for these guys. With the loss of the deep strike option they are not quite as mobile as before but if I take all of them ... that's a lot of fairly tough targets on the field. 
• I'm seriously considering adding Havoc launchers to the Rhinos. It's not terribly expensive  - comparable to a Heavy Bolter Razorback - but it makes them more of a threat on the table and so might convince someone to shoot at them rather than a predator or a havoc squad or a helbrute. Also it's cool to have a decent gun and still have a ten-man transport capacity. 
• For HQ's I have pretty much settled on Daemon Prince + Terminator Lord + Terminator Sorcerer. The biker sorcerer is still an option but I may not use him as much as I thought I would. 
• Fast Attack and Heavy support are unchanged though I am a lot less impressed with Obliterators right now than in the last few editions. 

The more general feeling I am dealing with right now is that 2000 points still feels "tight" when ti comes to taking what I want to play. I am thinking 2500 might be a better fit for us, or some odd number like 2250. Ah well it's all about "interesting choices" right?