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It's been a while but I'm finally ready to bring you another update from my painting table! I've recently settled on a list for the very imminent Blog Wars tournament and it included a unit of Sanguinary Guard which I have never played before. I have bought a box previously but I mixed them in with a box of Death Company bits to make an Honour Guard squad. So here we are with a relatively vanilla unit with a pretty much standard colour scheme.

Construction of the models was pretty straight forward with only the banner bearer giving me any trouble, firstly I had to carve the "Blood Angels" text off the scroll on the banner, then with the position of the arm I had to fiddle with the shoulder pad to ensure the jump pack wing would fit in on that side. Other-wise it's a really easy kit to put together and you can get some great poses out of the models.

In terms of the colour scheme I was going to go with a completely standard look but Mick commented last week that he liked the wings black as they were only primered when I first play-tested them last week. So I did a few layers of grey drybrushing on them then washed it all back down with Badab Black and I'm pretty happy with the out-come.

I also tried to do a white to blue glow effect on the Jump Pack engines to tie in with the blue eyes and power weapon glows. It didn't turn out perfect but I'm not unhappy with the result for a first attempt.

Anyway, enough of the preamble, take a look at the pics and let me know what you think. Only the banner is a WIP, the other models are finished.











Lastly a little close-up of the wings and the Jump Pack glow:

Kharn-al Desires

So on Sunday it's the Blog Wars tournament, and I have returned to my old friends the Chaos Space Marines. My list features the unique character KHARN (got to be shouted) who I have used once before. My full list is:

HQ1 - KHARN
HQ2 - Slaanesh Sorcerer with Lash, Wind of Chaos & a Familiar

EL - 4 x Terminators (2 x power weapons, 2 x chain fists)

TR - 8 x Berzerkers (including Champion with power weapon)
TR - 8 x Berzerkers (including Cgampion with power weapon)

HVY1 - Defiler
HVY2 - 3 x Obliterators
HVY3 - Predator with Daemonic Possession and Lascannon Sponsons

APC1 - Rhino with daemonic possession
APC2 - Rhino with daemonic possession
APC3 - Land Raider with Daemonic possession

Fine Craftmanship there ...

Rules question for the "cloud". If you have a unit containing models with multiple, identical master crafted weapons, for example TH SS Terminators in a Vulkan list or a unit of Sanguinary Guard, how do you handle the re-rolls from the Mastercrafted special rule? Do you roll each model's attacks separately, even though they are all identical, or do you roll all the attacks together and re-roll misses equal to the number of mastercrafted weapons in the unit?

At the moment I would ask my opponent how they want me to do it before the game but I'm not sure if there is a widely accepted way to handle this one. Though with the prevalence of "Nipple-Wing" and Vulkan armies at the moment I'd be surprised if this issue hasn't come up in a fair few situations before.

So good readers, what's your take on this one?

2 good victories in a row

So Wednesday night I headed to Warhammer world to play gave and Njal with my blog wars list in what was a fairly comprehensive victory (sorry Gav) I certainly have a problem with getting three squads of long fangs into cover with good lanes of fire.

Gav had some serious bad luck (which I think was more down to the unbalanced claws and fists dice that we have) think he failed 4 or 5 morale checks with rolls of 11 which lead 2 squads to run off the table.

Bjorn again survived taking a decent amount of fire saving 2 strength 9 hits on his side armour from Njal on side armour with a 5+ save and shooting a accurate barge of plasma into Gav's long fangs. I wouldn't say he made his points back but he certainly gave Gav something else to think about. By the end Gav had only a squad of long fangs left while I still had plenty of the table.

Last night I used my new 1750 point list to take on Paul (who I played first game of open war) with his new dark eldar list which featured a couple of Talos' and a Cronos. Again I did well coming out with my first victory against Paul. We played kill points again. I won deployment however he seized the initiative. This caused the same problem for him as I had in the UK GT against Adam from the Space Wolves blog. He had set up very defensively and it meant he couldn't use his mobility to full effect.

We made a couple of mistakes in this game, mainly forgetting that the pain engines were monstrous creatures so that they wouldn't have got a cover save in area terrain which would have meant I put them down quicker.

The turning point of the game came when Paul charged through cover at a grey hunter squad with a Rune priest in forgetting that they had no grenades. I didn't roll one 2 or 3 and I caused 21 wounds from a 10 man squad, it was as good a round of combat as I've ever had.

Again I had some luck with him failing morale checks and legging it off the table but if you consistently make your opponent take checks eventually they will fail a couple.

All in all two successful games but I have seen before that if I have a good run up to a tournament I don't do as well however I'm going to put that thought aside being the good scientist I am and look forward to playing Grahams KHARN list (KHARN is always shouted in my head so always written in capitals) and then on to blog wars.

Really hoping that I can come up against a Grey knights list there just because I haven't played one before.

On a side note Open War Doubles tickets are on sale now here it on on the 16th and 17th of July both Fantasy and 40K. Open war events are always really good and Maelstrom is one of the best venues around. All 5 of us will be going, I'll be pairing up with Graham and his squats, Andy and Gav are teaming up and Darren will be going with his doubles partner Chris (I think) hope we can see you there.

Murderous Hurriane - another unlimeted range psychic power?

This post comes about from a discussion on bolter&chainsword which can be found here.

To cut a long story short, a poster said that his opponent had told him that he could put an enemy unit in dangerous and difficult terrain over 18' even though he couldn't actually wound his opponents due to the FAQ.

Q. Does Murderous Hurricane require the power to hit or
wound its target to affect them? (p37)
A. No, a targeted unit is affected by Murderous Hurricane
even if the power fails to hit or wound.

and followed by the following rule from the rule book

Per page 17 in the BRB: "If a target is beyond the maximum range, it misses automatically. This is why you have to choose your target before measuring for range."

Now over the past couple of days I have been thinking about how to stop this use because I refuse to believe that that is what GW intended and yet I cannot so I put it to you the claws and fists readers.

Arena of Death: Baharroth vs Fuegan

Welcome back to the Arena of Death. It's been a while. If you're new, the Arena of Death is where we pit special charaters against each other in a best of three fight to the death. We don't use mathammer but rather real dice rolls to determine the winner. For those who aren't new, sorry about the hiatus but work has been rather busy of late.

Anyway, we're in the middle of the Phoneix Lord cup at the minute. In the first preliminary round Jain Zar beat Maugan Ra for the right to face Asurman in the semi-final. Tonight, Karandras awais the winner of

vs

Round 1 - Baharroth on the charge

Baharroth leveled his Haw's Talon and fired three times. Two shot hit but only one wounded which was easily saved by Fuegan's armour. Only two of Baharroth's attacks hit and only one of those wounded. Striking at the same time, Fugegan also hit twice but couldn't cause any wounds. Sensing hit oppourtunity, Baharroth hit with three out of his four attacks and wounded twice. With the last ounce of his strength Fugegan could only hit once, failing to wound. Baharroth has comfortably won round 1.

Round 2 - Fuegan on the charge

Fuegan fired hit Fire Pike. He hit his target but needed his Crack Shot ability to cause a wound after rolling a 1 initially. Two hits with hit Fire Axe led to a single wound leaving Baharroth on just one. Striking back he hit three time but cause just one wound. Fugegan was now pretty mad, he hit three times causing one wound. It was enough. Baharroth could only hit once in return and did no wounds leaving Fuegan the winner.

Round 3 - No charge bonus

The two initiative 7 characters struck as one. Fuegan hit three times and did two wounds. Baharroth struck back, hitting twice but just wounding once. Fuegan hit two more times, gettin the single wound he needed. Baharroth hit twice but could obnly wound once leaving Fuegan on just one wound - bloody but victorious.


Well, in the end the difference was the S5 power weapon. I think I said this after the last Arena of Death but these Phoenix Lords really need an invulnerable save.

There's only one way to decide - Fight!

A long time ago, Mick asked what was better - Scouts or Speeders. At the time I said that Speeders were the better choice as they are less random but that Scouts would always give you better stories to tell. About two weeks later, I was given the perfect example of this in a game against Graham...

The Scouts have gone Behind Enemy Lines and have come on at the start of turn 2. In the far right hand corner, Graham has a squad of Plague Marines sat in cover on his Objective. Now, I don't think I can beat them but with a couple of Meltaguns and a Power Fist, I think I could possibly hold my own for a couple of turns until the cavalry arrive. The cover is pretty much equidistant from the right hand board edge and the rear board edge so I only need to roll 2+ to get there. I roll a '1'. All is not lost though as there are three Obliterators on that side of the board. Two Meltaguns hit and both wound. Cue much rubbing of hands and twirling of moustache. Graham passes both invulnerable saves. Drat! A resigned shrug of the shoulders precedes a declaration of assault.

5 Wolf Scouts and their attached Wolf Guard against three Power Fist wielding Obliterators with 2 wounds each and 2+ saves. There's only ever going to be one winner really. Only the Wolf Guard survived but it's fair to say that this feat will be sung about in his saga. Plus he's earned himelf a new nicknae - The Ogre Killer, since Graham's Oblits are converted from Ogres...