Monthly Archives: July 2011

Grey Knight Terminators – Justicar Anval Thawn or Ghost Knights

Justicar Anval Thawn

This week I wanted to take a little time to discuss Grey Knight Terminators and their variant the Ghost Knights. With Ard Boyz coming up I really wanted to fit in some Terminators or Ghost Knights into my Grey Knight Army. I decided to do a little play testing the other day and run an army with both units and see which felt better. I used the Terminators with an upgraded character, Justicar Anval Thawn, or Thong as Jester calls him. I had read over on The Back 40k about how Thawn could really help you dictate the game since he can get back up after dieing. To hear it said, it sounds bad, but to play with it just feels broken. In the test run, Dannato played against me with IG and blew the Terminator unit off the board on T1. Typically this means that the units usefulness is...

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What makes a good local tourney?

So, I’ve built one table for War Pig, and after I finish up the bookshelves for my library, I’m going to build a second. I talked to Big D and gave him an ultimatum for a third table, “No more tables until you run a tournament.” Okay, not much of an ultimatum I suppose, but I think he needs some motivation. Now don’t get me wrong, Big D isn’t averse to the idea of a tournament. In fact, I’m pretty sure he has his own ideas brewing. However, I wanted to ask all of you for suggestions. What makes for a good local tournament? I think we’d likely max out at about 16 participants, though Big D may be able to correct me on that. Since this will be War Pig’s first 40k tournament, I thought it would be a good idea to see what people like in a...

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An Attempt at Sculpting Foam

An Attempt at Sculpting Foam

For the past two weeks I have been working on a giant Salamander head for my display board.  My goal was to make it look as though it were part of a mountain side.  Think Mount Rushmore with a dragon head. I started with a block of 8×8 inch foam.  It was intimidating, so I started the way any novice would:  I hacked into it violently.   I figured I would start by sculpting a mouth and nose, then work from there.  Whether it was pure luck, or divine intervention, somehow this worked out very well.  By working from the mouth up, I was able to control how far the dragon extended in any direction.  This allowed me to shape it any way I wanted.  The mouth gave me a guideline as to how large I wanted it to be, and which direction the rest of the head would...

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Making Obsidian Bases

Making Obsidian Bases

I wanted to make some bases for my new army.  I tossed some ideas around, and decided on obsidian ones.  I knew I didn’t want lava or snow simply because I have done those before and wanted something fresh.   The idea was to make a clean looking, shiny black rock, while also trying to make the surrounding area look ashy. Here is what I did: 1.  Cover the base with Elmer’s glue, then it in a bag of sand. 2. Once that dries, cut pieces of the hardened sand out and place gravel directly on the base using super glue. 3. Randomly put Elmer’s glue over sections of the sand and redip it in the sand bag.  This gives it a more natural look. 4. Once dried, prime it black. 5. Go over the gravel with black paint. 6. Wash everything in a black wash. 7. Highlight the...

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WAR Games Con – Rogue Trader Tournament Battle Report

WAR Games Con – Rogue Trader Tournament Battle Report

After not making the cut on day one of the WAR Games Con GT, I got regrouped into the Rogue Trader Tournament bracket. It was a fresh start, effectively making it a three game race for fabulous prizes. Similar to last week, I’ll run through my match-ups and tactics employed. The RTT was a blast and a great way to cap off three days of 40k gaming. RTT Game 1 – It’s a job only for the Galaxy Rangers! – John Erjavec Grey Knights In the first game of the RTT I got paired against another Grey Knight army. How terrible….. GK on GK crime. I was a little nervous because GK on GK is a bit of an implosion. The setup was spearhead with Primary 3 Obj Seize Ground, Secondary Capture and Control, and Tertiary to have more total units in the opponents deployment zone than they have...

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A Completely Different Direction

A Completely Different Direction

After WarGamesCon, we decided that, as a gaming group, we needed to make sure that all of the new armies were represented, preferably well. Both Sweet E and I were caught out a bit by Dark Eldar in Austin. While we had read the codex, we hadn’t played them on a competitive level, and this proved a handicap. So, I decided to build a DE army for that as well as a few other reasons: they can be played competitively, and they play completely differently than my two other armies. I’ve traditionally played very assault-oriented armies that were remarkably in your face. I wanted to try something more subtle. I know there is going to be a significant learning curve, so I’m trying to get the army up and running as quickly as possible. Before anyone jumps all over me, I know that I haven’t suffered through the years...

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New Models! – Vampire Counts, Daemons, Terrain, and Dark Eldar

This months White Dwarf is floating around out there and pictures are starting to pour in. Aside from the new Sisters of Battle codex there are a TON of new models in this issue. There are new models for Vampire Counts, Daemons, a new gothic terrain piece, and even some Dark Eldar models. August is going to be a really solid month for new model releases.

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Psychic Defense – Do You Need It?

Dark Angels Librarian Finished - Front

With each new Warhammer 40k Codex we see a huge boost in Psychic capacity, or not. Take for example the Grey Knights – pretty much every unit in the book has offensive and defensive psychic capacity. Now look at the Dark Eldar – they have nothing in the line of psychic offence and barring one wacky special character they also have no psychic defense. Here is a breakdown of each race and their offensive/defensive power levels - Army Psyker Power Psychic Defense Blood Angels Medium Psychic Hood Chaos Daemons None None Chaos Space Marines Medium None Dark Eldar None None Eldar Overpowering Runes Grey Knights Strong The Aegis Imperial Guard Medium None Necrons None None Orks Weak None Space Marines Medium Psychic Hood Space Wolves Strong Runic Weapons Tau None None Tyranids Medium Shadows in the Warp As you can see from the chart there are more armies that...

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New Ogre Kingdom Rumors – Out In Time For Halloween?

Converted Ogre Butchers

Here is the latest batch of rumors for Warhammer Fantasy Ogre Kingdoms - Phil Kelly is supposedly the author. New Plastic kits: Rhinox Riders (on regular Rhinoxen) (box of 3) Scraplauncher/Skewer-slinger (Similar to Warp-cannon/plague-claw in design) Great Mammox with three ogre crew and plastic tyrant option (Same base as Arachnarock. Imagine a cross between a musk ox and a Mammoth) Yhetees (More gorilla-like, and and no more 80′s hairstyle manes. Really dynamic for a plastic kit) Finecast: Jahred The Red on Rhinox Golgfag Maneater Redone Goldtooth, Skrag, maneaters (box of 3, female, ninja and pirate discontinued), Tyrant/bruiser, gorger. Rules: Bull Charge will work always, even though you’re less than 3 ogres and charge less than 6″.  All ogres except butchers gain a basic 6+ save from their gut plates. Ogre Clubs negates parry save, and is a general rule for all weapons like Choppas are in OnG. All army...

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I’ve Found My Muse – New Imperial Guard Army Incoming

Catachan Vendetta

I have long toyed with starting a Warhammer 40k Imperial Guard Army. I have even started them up in the past but quickly got burnt out on them. It wasn’t until the trip back from WarGamesCon that I finally decided to pull the trigger and seriously build up an Imperial Guard Force. I had a rough outline of what I needed model wise but I still had one big stumbling block – how to paint them. I thought about it for a few days and then from out of nowhere it hit me – Catachans. I knew at once that was what I wanted to paint and it was time to get started. For my first model I went big by painting up a Vendetta – there would be no screwing around and no time for second guesses. I decided that I was going to crank this guy out...

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