Monday Musings - The Death of Scouts

Scouting in 6th

When I first saw that Accute Senses allowed a re-roll on the board-edge for Outfalnking, my mind started racing. What would that mean for BEL on Wolf Scouts? If we could re-roll that, it would practically guarantee that they would arrive on the board edge that we wanted them to. However, upon reading the Reserve rules, you're not allowed to Assault on the turn that you arrive. No more charging into parking lots. No more tying up enemy heavy weapons teams.

So, the question is; Are BEL Scouts still useful as a disruption unit? Your enemy still has the decision to make - do I turn around and deal with the Scouts before they charge or do I ignore them?

And, they still have the option of Infiltrating of course.

So, it looks like Wolf Scouts might be slightly weaker in 6th ed than they were in 5th. I certainly can't see myself taking two packs anymore that's for sure...

Reserves in General

I've also been thinking about Graham's Null Deployment Tyranid army. Not only can the Genestealers not assault directly from outflanking (making them even more Bolter bait-y) but now you can only put half of your army into reserve anyway. Can't say I'm a huge fan of this as it removes options.

(The end of brackets)

T5(4) is no more. So, Bikes are now natural T5 as are Plague Marines and Nob Bikers. Yes, Nob Bikers! Once seen as "broken", then not, 6th ed could be the time they make a comeback. With natural T5 you need S10 to deny them FNP which means most of the time they'll be getting a 4++ cover save and a 5+ FNP.

Flakk Missiles

Ah, go on then, I'll wade into this one. I always thought that 40K was a permissive ruleset - ie they have to specifically say that you can do something before you can. Nowhere does it explicitly say that Space Wolves get Flakk Missiles nor that they get the opportunity to purchase them as an upgrade.

Don't get me wrong, I think this will change and I think it will change quickly. The question is, how many points for you pay for the option? Flyers look pretty sweet in the new rules and it's only a matter of time before we start seeing mass flyboys at tournaments. How much to try and shoot one down? 2 points a model? 5?

To scout or not to scout? Any reservations about the new reserve rules? What do the new toughness rules mean for BIDMAS? And pound your Flakk Missile, two pound your pair...

Monday Musings

We Need To Talk About Kevin

Sid

Kevin the Knight that is...

So, the Grey Knights won Adepticon and yay, there was a great gnashing of teeth in the 40K community and wails that they are overpowered and/or underpriced. Are they? Personally, I can't see it. In some ways, they are better than other Marines - Storm Bolters, Power Weapons (with the potential to become S5 and/or I6), unshakeable/unstunable vehicles, S8 Autocannon Dreads and ker-azy grenades. However, they're not a perfect army by any standards - lack of AP1, lack of range (Autocannon Dreads apart), reliance on psychic powers.

Basically tho, if you can beat Marines, then you can beat Grey Knights and you don't hear anyone complaining about Marines. Will GK popularity be a fad like "Leafblower" was? Well, I guess that depends on what 6th edition and the next codex brings...

The Future - Random Psychic Powers

Zarjazz

So, the latest 6th ed rumours are that 40K will be brought into line with WFB with regards to psychic powers. In WFB, you randomly select magic spells prior to each game. What would this mean for your Rune Priest? Well, it could mean that you've wasted 100+ points. Imagine drawing Thunderclap and Fury of the Wolf Spirits. Or how about Jaws of the World Wolf against Dark Eldar? Useful. It could well be the death of the Rune Priest. However, that's exactly why GW might do it. Everyone already has at least one Rune Priest model, here's a chance to sell something different.

Personally, I'd rather see the GK mechanic expanded so that you get a power for free and can then buy as many extra ones as you like for 5 points a power.

Sorry, a rather short Monday Musings this week. What do you guys make of Grey Knights? Any little tricks you've picked up for beating them. What do you think of randomly selecting psychic powers? What would be the "lore spell" for the Space Wolves? Maybe Stormcaller, like in 3rd ed...

Thursday Thoughts

(think of it as a late Monday Musings)

Rumour Control - Percentages

I know this much is... True

We don't do rumours on this site, mainly because other people do it much better. However, I thought it might be interesting to look at some of the rumours regarding 6th edition that are circulating around and to see how they might affect us. A lot of them seem to be wishing for a return to 2nd ed. Ah, 2nd ed where a 2000 point army was about 4 squads of Marines and it still took about 6 hours to play a game. It's true, nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

One of the things we used to have back then and is rumoured to be making a return is percentages instead of the FOC. Now, Warhammer Fantasy Battle already uses this system but what would it mean to 40K? Well, frankly for Space Wolves it would be awesome. Assuming that missions remain broadly similar and you need troops to capture objectives, it would do away with one of the main drawbacks of the Wolves, namely that you can only take 6 scoring units. The other thing that we'd see would be more Long Fangs (and to think, Graham already calls them Cheese Fangs) Let's look at the numbers - in a 1750 point list, 3 units of 6 Long Fangs with 5 Rocket Launchers comes to 24%. So, we can fire 15 Rockets at 6 targets. Or we could have 4 units of 4 Long Fangs with 3 Rocket Launchers and a unit of 3 Long Fangs with 2 Rocket Launchers. This comes to just over 24%. Okay, so we've lost 1 Rocket shot but we can now fire at 10 targets!

I'm not a huge fan of returning to percentages to be honest, I think the FOC works pretty well especially with the characters that swap around slots. It would be interesting if they built on this in 6th edition and had characters that allowed a bit more development with regard to the FOC. Rumours are the Chaos Legion codex may have something like this where you can take an Iron Warriors Captain and get an extra Heavy Support choice for the loss of a Fast Attack one for example.

We can rebuild him

So, as you might have noticed, still no pictures of completed Thunderwolves. Turns out my finger was slightly more broken that initially thought. It is getting better though, so hopefully some more modelling pics next week...

94 Not Out

I'm sure all bloggers have been through this before - slowly watching your Followers total move towards the magical three digits. Then you realise that BoLS has more than 2,000 and you realise that world domination is still a long way away...

Anyone else starting to get excited about the impending 6th Ed? Or is anyone worried that GW will balls it up? Has anyone seen any beautiful new TWC anywhere? And is there anything specific that our 94 loyal followers would like to see? Let us know below the line...

Tuesday Thoughts

(think of it as a late Monday Musings)

Thunderwolves

As you can see, I've put together my first Thunderwolf. Before I add the rider I think it's wise to do some thinking about the actual use for the unit. Now, I've seen Thunderwolves used in many different guises since the codex came out - there's the super rock unit of Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf accompanied by 5 of his buddies down to the solo Thunderwolf as a counter-attacking threat. I think that the first option suffers from the same problems as any rock - it's a lot of eggs in one basket. As Mick found out, in some games they'll kick arse and take names and in others they will do very little. I'm also not totally convinced by the solo T-Wolves. Yes, they can easily claim cover behind a Rhino and there are definitely going to be handy against MSU armies in combat.

So, where now for me? I'm thinking of a unit of 3 initially. This feels like a good balance between the two options above and also because there are 3 in the box. It should be easy enough to claim cover with 3 but they are also going to pack a bit of a punch in combat. Thunderwolf units can get very expensive very quickly and I want a unit that on one hand I won't want to throwaway but on the other hand one that I can afford to lose without it making a huge dent in my battleplan...

3 Thunderwolf Cavalry, 2 Storm Shields, Power Fist

comes to 235 points. That seems really expensive when you consider that 5 Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield Terminators are only 200 points. However, the T-Wolves are a lot more mobile. So, the plan is that these guys will be replacing some of my Wolf Guard. Unfortunately, I have a badly bruised finger from being landed on by a Running Back at the weekend so I don't think I'll be able to finish the models this week...

Whaddya Need?

I've been thinking a lot about some of the rumours that are flying around the internets regarding rumours for the next 40K Codex and I started thinking, who would I like to see done next. Yes, we'd all like to see a better Tyranid codex but that isn't going to happen any time soon so what would we like to see? The rumours seem to point to Dark Angels or Chaos Legions, although Tau and Eldar are mentioned as outside possibilities. Following the last errata, Dark Angels are actually a pretty good army and while it would be nice to see an update I don't really think they need one right now. Personally, I think there are already too many shooty armies out there so that sees Tau off my radar. Eldar are an interesting one. I would quite like to see them being redone as their unit speciality makes them a pretty unique army on the tabletop. However, I have to admit that I'd much rather see a "big book of Chaos" The good guys have had it their way too long, it's time for the bad guys to shine.

Now, when I say "big book of Chaos", I mean, Chaos Legions, Renegades and Daemons all in the same book so that you can pick and choose. This means that you can run your all Daemon list, your all Bezerker army or anything inbetween. I had an idea of a recently renegade army that was in collusion with Daemons because they thought that they were visions of the God Emperor. So, they wouldn't fight with Cult units because they don't realise that they're actually turning evil yet.

Unfortunately, this book won't happen as there is no way that GW would release one book when they can release three and because it would be almost impossible to balance properly.

So, does anybody have any tips for using Thunderwolves? And if you could have any codex released next, which one would it be and why?

Tuesday Thoughts

We really finally did it. You maniacs!

God damn you all to hell!

So, GW finally did it. As everyone will have seen by now, they've finally announced the release of the Thunderwolves. I know that some people have been complaining that they don't look that good but personally I really like them and the Fenrisian Wolves models. However, the Cyberwolf looks ridiculous and who is going to pay £15 for a Wolf Standard bearer? I also quite like the Arjac model but again I'm not sure who's going to bother since it's possible to make a really good Arjac using the bits from the Wolf Guard Terminator box.

At the same time, the Tervigon kit is coming out. Again, I think the model looks great (although it's going to be nigh on impossible to get cover for it) but I think this has to go down as one of the worst business decisions ever by GW. Surely this should have come out with the codex. Not only is it a great unit in its own right but everyone who bought one would then have had to buy at least 3-4 boxes of Termagants at the same time. Instead they did the classic nerf the old unit (Carnifex) to sell the new on (Trygon) Not cool GW, not cool.

Space Wolves didn't really need the Thunderwolves when the 'dex came out but 'nid players could have really done with the Tervigon. The problem with releasing the models after so much time is that most people who wanted them have either bought 3rd party models or converted their own.

I'll still be buying a box of Thunderwolves tho. My army could do with a bit of counter-attacking close combat punch and 8 foot tall genetically engineer supermen riding giant wolves are just cool...

Wild Speculation

Buy 6th! Sell 5th!

Wow, there has been some crazy speculation about 6th Edition over the last few months on the old internet including a "leaked" set of rules. Some crazy stuff in there like the old fashioned assault before shooting and stand still and Rapid Fire to full range (ooh, can't we just go the whole hog and brink back 2nd ed? How about a cardboard Dreadnought in the box set?) However, there have been some pretty sensible sounding suggestions such as cover becoming 5+ and vehicle survivability getting a tweak (the irony here is that some vehicles need to be made MORE survivable eg Land Raider) It has been pretty funny watching some people posting "6th ed" lists on-line based on nothing but conjecture. "Vehicles are going to be nerfed! Go fully foot!!" Really? Please can I march my army into enemy fire (including those 24" rapid firing Plasma Guns) with a best a 5+ cover save.

In reality, the only thing we really know is that 6th edition is coming and based on previous cycles of the game it's probably coming sooner rather than later. Will it be better or worse than 5th? Will it be more or less balanced? The truth is we don't know, it will just be different. It's fun to speculate what might be coming rules-wise but there is no point in trying to change armies at this juncture in order to take advantage of rules that may or may not happen. One thing is pretty sure tho, while foot armies may become better, GW aren't going to totally nerf vehicles. Even tho they're not always on the ball business-wise (see above) they realise that if you buy a transport, you have to buy a squad to go in it. They've even gone as far as releasing transport and squad box sets recently so I think that even if mech is no longer King, it will still be in the royal family.

Crying Salt Tiers

You're my thunder now!

I'm going to steal some of Andy's thunder from yesterday now. Are there tiers in the armies at the moment? Of course there are. I want to very quickly look at why and whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. For me there are two central tenants here - age of the codex and ease of use. In general the new books are better than the older ones (sorry 'nids and SoBs, you're the exceptions that prove the rule) They have better internal balance and better balance against each other. This is where ease of use comes in. Dark Eldar are an excellent codex but very unforgiving. Space Marines on the other hand are the perfect beginners army since T4 and a 3+ save makes them very hardy. You can make a couple of mistakes and still manage to perform well.

So, is this a good thing? Well, yes and no. Having armies that are easier or harder to use is a good thing but having armies that are hamstrung by an old codex isn't. For example, look at Eldar. Old codex, overpriced points wise and lacking in options compared to the new books. However, even when they're updated, they'll still be like "doing A-Level maths" (copyright Graham Sanders) because that's the way it will always be with an army of specialists.

I think that good players will find a way to win with any codex. The problem is that certain books don't have such good tools for achieving that victory.

Now, since this is a blog, we should do something a bit contentious and try and put the 16 current armies into some tiers. Completely arbitrarily, let's try 4 tiers..

Tier 1

Space Marines
Space Wolves
Blood Angels
Grey Knights

They're all Marines so they're pretty easy to use and they're all good books. At this point I'd like to reiterate that none of them are "better" than the others, they are all just different.

Tier 2

Imperial Guard
Black Templars
Dark Angels
Necrons

IG are pretty much point and fire but deployment is key and things like bubblewrapping and maintaining firing lanes is also crucial. The two Marine lists were helped out by their last FAQ but aren't quite up there with the new boys. Necrons are pretty survivable with T4 and AV13 all over the place but can still be susceptible to assault.

Tier 3

Dark Eldar
Tau
Orks
Chaos Space Marines

DE are quick and shooty but very fragile. Tau are very shooty but suffer from old codex syndrome. Orks are a very capable army in the hands of the right player while CSM suffer from being overpriced compared to their goody two-shoes brethren.

Tier 4

Tyranids
Eldar
Sister Of Battle
Chaos Daemons

'nids are probably on the 3/4 cusp. Good players can make it work but a very average codex doesn't help. Eldar are overpriced and difficult to use but again can do well with the right general. SoBs were probably better off with their old codex. Daemons have some awesome units but rely very heavily on luck.

Right, I think that's enough Tuesday Thoughts (think of it as Monday Musings +1) for this week. Over to you...

Breaking News: Space Wolves admit to loaning Rebekah Brooks a retired Thunderwolf (Yes, come for the 40K stay for the satire) 

If it looks broke, maybe it 'aint.

There’s a lot of moaning about underpowered codices at the moment and, to be honest, for as long as I can remember there always has been. A couple of blogs have been posting articles recently on fixing certain armies, but I’ve just got to pipe-up and say “Stop it!”.

You’re not a game designer despite what-ever delusions of grandeur you may be under and, even if you decide to post your own “improved codex”, no-one is going to use it. In fact, while giving everyone a level playing field may sound like a good idea, I don’t really think that it is.

I’m going to use my recent experience of Blood Bowl as an example here (and before you all mumble “here he goes again”, bear with me, this is going somewhere). In Blood Bowl there are clearly established tiers of teams; Wood Elves, Norse, Undead and Chaos are among the top tier, meaning that they are easier to play with and have reliable strategies for scoring points and winning games. There is a mid-tier consisting of teams like Khemri and Nurgle, these are teams who have defined strategies for winning but they are difficult to implement and tend to require much more careful play. Then there are the bottom tier teams such as Goblins, Halflings and Ogres who really only have one way to win games and are very difficult to play by all but the most experienced coaches. As this is a dice game, luck is also a factor and the tiers reflect how much the luck of the dice comes into play. With top tier teams being able to cope best with poor dice while the bottom tier teams are very reliant on good dice.

I expect that by now you can see where I’m going with this!

In 40K we seem to have a similar system of tiers in the various armies with Grey Knights, Space Wolves, Dark Eldar and Imperial Guard occupying the top slots and Nids, Vanilla Marines and Sisters pretty well entrenched on the bottom rung. Now I do appreciate the fact that the cost of entry to 40K is significantly steeper than that of Blood Bowl (probably in the region of 10x more). So if you happen to play Nids, for example, and GW updates your codex which drops you down a tier or two it’s not necessarily practical to go out any buy a new army. But this is a commodity hobby, you didn’t need those toys in the first place, suck it up and find a way to enjoy your chosen army. Or, go out and start to collect a new army, you managed to do it once, if you love it enough you’ll do it again!

Rather than railing against this “tier” arrangement why not embrace it? It’s very easy for a top level player to spray some marines grey/blue and go off to a tournament and do very well with them.

Big whoop! Hey! Everyone’s very impressed.

Instead, why not say, “Hey, I’m pretty good at this game, let’s try taking a more challenging army to the next tournament and see how I do!”? Being successful with a lower tier army has got to be more satisfying to the player and will surely garner more kudos from the community, if that’s what matters to you.

Given the level of competitiveness in the tournament scene at the moment I don’t really expect to see many people do this but I do not think that equalising all of the codices is the answer. Surely there are top players out there who want a challenge and I think the game would become rather stagnant and boring if everything became equal.

A couple of cases in point for your consideration, I believe that Nic Nanavati is having some success with Nids in the States and over here Gaz Jones has always been a proponent of Xenos codices which have not fared too well (power level-wise) under 5th edition. Also in the UK, James Ramsey was (when last I heard) defending the honour of the Sisters of Battle.

So, what do you all think? Does the variety in the power level of the codices need fixing or is it there to provide a variety of game-play experience? Or am I just talking bollocks because I’ve been playing too much Blood Bowl? I’ll turn it over to you.

Thursday Thoughts

(think of it as a late Monday Musings)

Life

Who ya gonna call?

So, I've not been around for quite a while despite the fact it's my name above the door. Sorry about that. As always, real life has gotten in the way of playing toy soldiers. Unfortunately, I can't see things getting any better in the near future as I'm currently trying to sell my house and I made it my new year's resolution to play more sport and sort out my band's website. That means less time for playing 40K and I find it's the playing that drives blog content.

However, I am going to try and get organised and write a least one post per week. I guess that a lost of this will be more Theoretical rather than Practical (everyone has read Know No Fear by now right?)

Which also bring me on to welcoming Dave to the blog. He's been threatening/promising to join for a while (delete as applicable) so it's great that he's finally on board and we're all looking forward to seeing some of his painting posts over the coming weeks and months.

Warhamzzzzzzzzzzz

Dream a little dream of me

Having said that, I did actually manage a game the other week against Mick's Throne of Skulls list and it was possibly the most boring game of 40K ever. Mick suggested playing Pitched Battle/Kill Points and I absent mindedly agreed. So, my three Long Fang packs stood on my board edge, Mick's three Long Fang packs stood on his board edge and we spent 45 minutes shooting each other. I went first, I won. The only unit from either side that even made it into an opponent's table half was one of Mick's Land Speeders that then got shot down for its trouble. At least it's given me a couple of ideas for posts which will pop up over the next couple of days...

Winning

Winner, winner, chicken dinner

I've been reading Andy's write-ups of the Throne of Skulls tournament with interest. Congratulations to Andy who managed to understand GW's ker-azy system that meant that the only person who won all five games didn't win the tournament. I've also been speaking to Mick about Caledonian Open from the week before where someone missed out on a top 5 finish due to painting scores.

In my opinion, tournaments should be decided on the tabletop. It's slightly facetious but you don't get extra points in football for having the nicest kit. Don't get me wrong, I think that everyone should have a painted, based, WYSIWYG army and there should be prizes for the best painted/converted etc. However, this should have no bearing over who wins overall.

There also need to be a way to differentiate between scale of victory. At ToS, a win was a win. So you could end up with 5 big wins having played against 4 guys who only narrowly won their games. I think that either secondary objectives (as in Nova) or VP adjustment (as used at Caledonian) are probably the best ways to sort this out.

What's the most boring game that you've ever had? How do you think tournaments should be scored? Generalship? Soft scores? A mix of the two?

Monday Musings

Just another Manic Monday

6th Edition Rumours

We don't do rumours here at C&F - other sites are much better at ripping off Warseer than we could ever be. However, I have seen a couple of interesting things that I thought I'd comment on...

a) The potential return of allies. I've always loved the idea of allies ever since the White Dwarf Army List that said Space Wolves had even fought with the aloof Eldar Aspect Warriors. I think it's a brilliant way of trying a new army without having to buy a whole one and it gives you a good excuse to buy models you like but that you might not otherwise get a chance to use. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that someone will come up with some broken combos that will mean that it will never make it to tournament games, but it would offer some nice variety to friendly games.

b) Hardback Codexes. I'm one of those guys who likes to buy every new codex as it comes out. I like to read the fluff and keep up on what other armies can do in case I play them at tournaments. However, if they all go hardback, as the WFB ones have done, then I'm not so sure I could justify the cost. The irony being that if allies came back, I'd probably be more likely to buy models with the codex and not just the book.

The Meta Game

Mick asked an interesting question last Monday, which implies whether Necrons would have an effect on the so called "meta game". Now, Mr Sutton often talks about their being no meta game and I happen to agree. However, there's no doubt that if you build a tournament list specifically to beat an vehicle heavy (possibly MEQ) army then you'll win more games than you lose. Looking at the entry lists for recent tournaments, it's amazing how many Marine armies there are (with GKs being the current preferred flavour)

I was thinking about this last week when I was playing Graham's Marine horde as it was a list completely different to anything I'd faced before. You'll see from the battle report how badly I was beaten but it was just the fact it was something I hadn't factored into my list building.

And that's the thing with the "meta". If you build a list to beat all of the top net lists currently in circulation, you can easily come undone in a first-round random pairing when you come up against someone's left field army.

Looking forward to 6th ed? Come a cropper against a really unusual army? Let us know below the line...

Monday Musings - Is missile spam over?

So this week Gav left me with the Monday musings I am left thinking about my list and if it needs to change after the release of Grey Knights and Necrons.

This has mainly come about after a thread on Bolter and Chainsword asked if the day of missile spam was dead. My immediate thought was no, why would it be, after all Quantum shielding is only one round but then I got to thinking about the role of the missile launcher.

There's no doubt that there are better tools to do the job of popping transports, the melta gun is the obvious one so what do I look for my missiles to do. The answer is clear, suppressive fire, I don't mind if enemy transports aren't destroyed as long as I limit their mobility that allows me to claim the midfield. With Necrons Living Metal and the Grey Knights pyschic powers this becomes a little bit more unlikely so I am left asking do I need to change what I am doing?

The answer I came to is no, 15 missile launchers and 3 squad leaders comes to 420 points, 10 lascannons + squad leaders comes to 430, the 10 lascannons do produce slightly more penetrating hits against quantum shielding however you also miss one a lot more when they die. Another of the big factors I think you will see when it comes to necrons is scarabs, those could well be target number one for my long fangs, missile launchers or las cannons both instant death them so whats better 15 missile launchers or 10 lascannons.

For me the missile launcher still remains the jack of all trades when it comes to heavy support, yes there are more specialised weapons but they come at a cost.

Looking forward to seeing peoples views as always.

Monday Musings

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

One of my favourite bands is The Flaming Lips. I even proposed during a performance of Do You Realize?? at one of their gigs. That song originally came from the above album, "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots". So, with the Necrons out next week, I was thinking, how cool would an army of pink robots be?!

I'm still a bit unsure about Necrons though. The models look awesome but I'm not convinced I want anther BS/WS/S/T 4 army with AV11 transports. That's one of the reasons I really like the Dark Eldar, just because they're so different. In the meantime, I've also come up with a Grey Knight list that I quite like the look of. I'll post that later in the week for some feedback...

Rumour Control

Coming soon - Arrow of Desire: S6 AP2 Large Blast

So, there's been one "dark, satanic mill" missing from "England's green and pleasant land" recently - the rumour mill. GW's news blackout surrounding the Necrons has, in my opinion, been incredibly short sighted. Until last week's leak by Beasts of War, we hadn't seen any of the new miniatures. I understand that GW want to sell some extra copies of White Dwarf but they would have been much better off drip feeding information, building interest and, in these uncertain economic times where toy soldiers aren't a necessity, allowing people to plan their purchases.

Planning to purchase any pink robots? Rabid for reliable rumours?

Monday Musings

The Future

I've seen the future man, it's murder

So, technically, I'm supposed to be saving up for a new house and a wedding. However, that hasn't stopped me thinking about buying some new toy soldiers. Reading all the new Necron rumours over at Faeit 212 this week has got me really excited about the new Necrons. However, then there's the Dark Elder which I'm still in love with. And then there's the Grey Knights. I really want to do a pre-heresy Thousand Sons army "counts as" Grey Knights. I either want to run a "2+" list with Terminators and Dreadknights as a f-you to the missile spam around at the moment or I'd write a piece of fluff about Magnus giving one of his sons a powerful, mystical sword to protect and then run a Purifier list.

Blogging

And I hope you like blogging too

Some exciting things happening at the blog this week (please note that excitement is relative, C&F can not be held responsible if you do not get excited by this week's content) There's a new feature on friday called, "Deep Thought" which will become semi-regular. I'm also going to start my long awaited (by me at least) Space Wolf "codex review" It will have all of the standard things like unit reviews and some more esoteric things too. All of it will be based on my practical experiences of playing the Space Wolves rather than what's good in theory.

We also see the return of the 10 week challenge. Now, this was an idea I had with the aim of becoming a better player - pick a list and stick with it for 10 games. The aim is to get to know the army inside out. I've been inspired to restart this by Dave with his triple Vindicator list which doesn't look optimal on paper but works because he's know it like the back of his hand.

Oh and I should hopefully finally get round to writing up Day 2 of the GW 40K doubles. I've been shamed by the speed that Mick and Andy have got their Ope War tournament reports up so I think I should finish that off since it was nearly two months ago now!!

Any thoughts about which second army I should start? Is there anything that you'd like to see on the blog that we don't do at the moment?

Monday Musings

Monday Monkey lives for the weekends

Tyranid Fortnight

Well, the bugs are gone and it's back to normal here on Rending Claws and Spinefists.  A few quick links off the back of it:

1) Darren's awesome Mycetic Spores
2) Warfrog's fantastic blog on modelling Tyranid beasties
3) Graham's step-by-step guide to creating your very own Tervigon

Hopefully everyone has enjoyed this year's xenos week. If we're still here we'll do something similar next year so get your requests in early...

The Necrons are coming

I'm sure everyone has seen the pictures of the amazing looking new Necron models by now and by all accounts they should be up for pre-order at the end of the week. I have to admit I am slightly tempted since drybrushing is about the only painting technique that I've come close to mastering. The thing is, I see the Necrons as mainly a foot army. They march towards you and they're really hard to put down and, if you do put them down, they just get back up. So I'm not sure how to feel about the new vehicles even though they look awesome. To be honest I don't really have the time, money or energy to put together a new army but if I did it would be a straight choice between Necrons and Dark Eldar...

Did you enjoy Tyranid Fortnight? Are you looking forward to the Necrons?

Monday Musings

Two legs good, six wounds better

I've read this 1984 times you know

We've decided to extend Tyranid Week into Tyranid Fortnight. This is mainly so that the Tyranid players on the blog can actually write some articles! I've been promised a tactics article by Graham and hopefully Darren will write something about his Mycetic Spores. Meanwhile, I'm planning another 'nid Arena of Death and an anti-bug tactica...

Deadfleet?

More popular than Dreadfleet

Andy and I went to Warhammer World on saturday, hoping to get a look at, and maybe even a demo game of, Dreadfleet. Yet, to our surprise, they didn't even have an open copy in the shop. They also had a lot of copies still on the shelves which, Andy informs me, wasn't the case with Space Hulk. To be honest, I'm glad they didn't have any as if I'd enjoyed playing it I might have bought one and I've got better things to be spending £70 on at the minute (especially since I found out that Fender have re-released the Jaguar Bass)

Looking forward to more 'nids? Have you tried Dreadfleet yet? Oh and if Warfrog is reading this please e-mail us about you very kind offer last Monday...

Monday Musings

Spinefists and Rending Claws

So, this week is Tyranid Week on C&F. Expect to see some painting, some modelling, some army lists, an Arena of Death - all the usual stuff but with a Tyranid slant. Hopefully it will go down as well as last year's Ork week. Oh and if there are any Tyranid experts out there who would like to write a guest article then please e-mail us and we'll give you the floor.

Search Engine Optimisation

So, being a bit nerdy, I regularly check the Stats here on Blogger. Even though I started this blog as somewhere to write for myself, I'm human and I need to be loved (just like everybody else does) With that in mind, does anybody have any SEO tips or even any thoughts on the best time to post to get picked up on BoLS, HoIP, etc? All help gratefully received.

The shadow in the warp is here; don't forget those 3D6 for your Force Weapons you Grey Knights! Oh, and 10 points for anyone who got The Smiths reference.

Monday Musings

Yes, I know it's Tuesday

Scouting for Wolves

So, I spent Friday putting together a second squad of Wolf Scouts. I love Wolf Scouts but they are a bit random so my plan to mitigate this is to take two units! I just need to sort their heads out now...

Newcrons

Wow! Did you see all the pictures of the new Necron models at Games Day UK? No, neither did we. GW seem to be struggling at the moment to get the balance between leaking everything and leaking nothing. It didn't have to be the full model range but just an acknowledgement that Necrons are coming and a few concept pictures would have been nice.

Forging Ahead

Picture "borrowed" from Sons of Sanguinius

At least Forge World turned up to Games Day. I love this model and from the sounds of it, he's going to be pretty hardcore.

Where next?

Once the Scouts are done, my 1750 tournament list will be pretty much sorted. Which leave one question - where next? I put together this guy over the summer, intended to be part of a "Loganwing" Termiantor army:

but I'm a bit disenchanted at how hard it is to get hold of Cyclone Missile Launchers...

Which leaves this pile:

I love the idea of a Drop Pod army but I'm not sure how successful it would be. I bought the Land Raider after a tournament at the start of the year after I faced yet another multiple Raider list and decided that if I couldn't beat them I'd join them! There's no way that I'll have any of these forces painted before 6th edition drops (even if that isn't until 2014!!) but I'd like to start assembling one of them...

Monday Music

This is a feature on Twitter that I'm stealing for here. I'm really old school so I prefer CDs to downloads and I seem to have picked up loads of new stuff in the last couple of weeks. Hence, I might not get round to blogging much as I spend more time listening to music. In no particular order, I've got the following in the need to listen to pile; Kasabian - Velociraptor, Cornershop - Cornershop & The Double O Groove Of, Wild Beasts - Smother, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Mirror Traffic, Dum Dum Girls - Only In Dreams. I've also just got this new album by a band from Seattle called Nevermind. It's a complete rip-off of the Pixies' quiet-loud-quiet sound but it's pretty good. Some of the tracks sound like they'd work pretty well on an acoustic guitar. If only there was some kind of Music Television channel that had a kind of "Unplugged" program...

How's your week been? Did you go to Games Day and find it as rubbish as everyone else? Where should I go to with the Wolves? What are you listening to these days? Have you heard of this band Nirvana?

Monday Musings

Yarr

Since it's Talk Like a Pirate Day, there's only one place to start...

We're going to need a bigger boat

Yep, Dreadfleet. It went up for pre-order over the weekend and I am slightly tempted. I love a good pirate yarn and the models look incredible (actually, when was the last time a new GW model didn't look incredible?) However, £70 is a bit steep for a game that would only get occasional use at best...

Retro

No school like the old school

Lovely old school Land Raider from Forge World. What price nostalgia? £80. Hmm, when they release a retro Rhino, will they be in packs of three? It does look awesome though. The thing is I always told myself that my next Land Raider would be one of these babies...

Games Day

So, Games Day UK is fast approaching. I'm not really that bothered about going after Mick went and said that it wasn't very good. However, I would like to see what GW has in store for the new Necron models. I'm a bit disappointed that we've not heard any news about either IA11 or plastic Thunderwolves which I had hoped we might see at GD. IA11 was confirmed as Wolves and Eldar a long time ago and we've seen some nice lloking new Eldar models but still nothing wolfy. As for the Thunderwolves, I'm starting to think that we may not get them this side of 6th edition. Don't get me wrong, it's been brilliant to see all of the new Dark Eldar models that have come out this year and, if I'm being honest, Tyranids could use a Tervigon/Tyranofex kit before us. But, with the rumours being that IG are getting a release early next year, I feel a bit unloved. Yes, we still have one of the best codices out there but I'd like ot be able to run an army that's really wolfy.

(To be honest, I would probably have bought a couple of Storm Ravens to tide me over if they had been ret-conned as expected in the so called "Summer of Flyers". Whatever happened to that?)

Will you be getting Dreadfleet? Or a retro Raider? Are you going to Games Day? What did happen to the summer of flyers? Will Monday Musings be a one off?