A change needed for the tournament scene?

A lot of the tournaments I've been to over the last year have stipulated that no named characters can be taken but I have to ask WHY?

In the current edition of 40K named characters aren't unstoppable monsters, they are generally characters that tailor the aspects of your army like Logan allowing you to take a pure Terminator army.

Now normally this doesn't bother me, I play Wolves and don't use characters because the Rune Priest is the best HQ in the book to me but after studying the Grey Knights Codex I have to question the reasoning to do this.

So many of the Grey Knights lists rely on using special characters and this will lead Grey Knights players to almost needing two armies. So what do people think? Should British tournaments change.

The club championship update

So we are currently into the First company vets 40k club championship and I thought I would update everyone on the standings.

We have a certain time frame to complete our 5 games that will sort seedings so some of us have played more than others

I lie first having player 3 games winning 2 and losing 1
Graham is in third having played 4 games winning 1 and losing 3
While Andy is in fourth with 1 win on the board

next week sees me play against Space Marines, Graham is back up in Scotland so won't be playing and hopefully Andy can update us on what he is playing.

Pics from the Bughouse

As the original pictures I uploaded were a little on the small side, I have reloaded them. Hopefully they are a little clearer this time!

If you like my work and would like to see more (or even pay me to make some scratchbuilt models for you!) then please let me know.

The basic model:

Undercoated:

Finished:

Commenting on Grazer's 'Nids

Graham posted his 'nid list for our tournament below but for some reason it's posted out of sequence so you may have missed it. Rather then just reply to his post I wanted to write a post explaining what I'd tweak and why. I think the list is actually pretty strong but with a few tweaks it could be even more nasty. It's probably not optimised to within an inch of it's life but you've got to play how you want to play and maximum optimisation isn't to everyone's taste.

Anyway, Graham's original post can be found here.

And here's how I would tweak it to make it just a little bit better (IMHO):

HQ
Tervigon
Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs, Cluster Spines, Scything Talons, Catalyst

ELITE
Hive Guard (x2)
Hive Guard (x2)

TROOP
Tervigon
Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs, Cluster Spines, Catalyst
Termagants (x10)
Genestealers (x12)
Toxin Sacs
Genestealers (x12)
Toxin Sacs
Genestealers (x12)
Toxin Sacs

FAST ATTACK
Spore Mines (x3)

HEAVY SUPPORT
Trygon
Adrenal Glands

Changes first, dropped regeneration from the troop Tervigon – overpriced and not hugely effective. Downgraded to a basic Trygon from a Prime as you don't really need additional synapse in this list and dropped regeneration for the reasons stated above. Points saved allow me to bulk up the 'stealers to 12 man units and give them all toxin sacs which is really the only upgrade they need – rerolling wounds on T4 models is better then wounding on 3s and the boost to initiative is not that important for them. Scything talons are not bad but you're hitting on 3's with a huge amount of attacks so re-rolling 1s is a bit of an extravagance! I had 5pts left over so I gave the HQ Tervigon Scything Talons as it's more likely to be used for combat than the troop version.

How would I use this? Well, the Spore mines can be placed to limit his available deployment zone for starters, sure there's only 3 but if you place them well you can make your opponent either have to split his force or clump up, either s a good result. Clumped up means better chance of multi-charge, split means you can refuse a flank and pick off part of his army at a time.

I would definitely infiltrate all of the 'stealer units as close as I can get them. This makes your opponent have to make another choice; whether or not to I focus on trying to wipe out the 'stealers before they get into contact with anything. Of course this will dictate how much fire-power will be aimed at your three monstrous creatures potentially allowing them to close the gap relatively unscathed.

Speaking of the monstrous creatures I would advance them in a phalanx with the Trygon and HQ Tervigon at the front, flanked by the Hive Guard, providing cover to the scoring Tervigon at the back. Both the lead MCs will have feel no pain to increase their durability, i.e. the 3 MCs have at least a 4+ save (AP2+ weapons accepted).

What I wouldn't do with this list is reserve anything, you need target saturation to make your opponent have to make decisions and the more decisions he has to make the more likely he is to make a mistake which is going increase your chances of success.

The only alternative I would consider which would not hugely change the list and play-style would be to consolidate the 3 units of 'stealers into two units of 18. This would allow you to effectively string a the 'stealers back so that they are in range to have feel no pain cast on them which makes them a lot more difficult to whittle down before they hit your opponent's lines.

What do you think Graham and fellow Claws and Fists readers?

MSU with Grey Knights

I'm still thinking about Grey Knights a lot.

Like Space Wolves I have always liked the fluff of the army, Graham pointed out did I really want to start another power armoured army? The answer, yes, Its the Emperor's finest who attracts me to this game. I keep looking at making a Dark Eldar army but they just aren't Marines.

They still sing to me MSU and on Thursday a fellow first company vet was telling me about a Coteaz led army that features 9 Psybolt Razorbacks and 3 Psyfleman dreads. I wouldn't go that far because I would still want a majority power armoured army but I certainly like the style so here's what I think I'm going to build towards.

HQ
Crowe
Elites
Vindicaire Assassin
5 man Acolyte Squad with Melta Guns in a psybolt Razorback (thinking about changing that for a Rhino)
Troops
6 5 man Purifier squads 1 Deamon Hammer, master crafter weapon for the squad leader, 4 Halberds in psybolt razobacks
Heavy Support
3 psyfleman dreads

so 6 scoring units
Vindicaire and Acolyte squad for dealing with heavy armour
21 twin linked strength 6 shots a turn
12 twin linked strength 8 shots a turn
Crowe is there firstly because I like Purifiers, secondly there aren't many power armoured HQ's most are in Terminator armour, thirdly on the charge he is great at taking out enemy HQ's.

So as always I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.

Big Momma

I have now finished my first Tervigon, and have even used it in a couple of games. Here is a quick guide to how I made the model...

First, I built the body from a plastic dinosaur I bought on holiday last year. The model was just about the right size (approximately 8 inches...ahem...), and had the requisite spikes and spines that Tyranids demand. I took the dinosaur head off as it was a little bit feeble, and repositioned the tail by cutting it in three places, angling the ends and then regluing to get the gentle curve I wanted.

Next, I added the front and rear legs, plus the excellent crushing claws which gave the beast a very menacing demeanour. At the same time I added a Carnifex head, which I imbedded into the carved-out neck cavity of the dinosaur skeleton.

I also had to fill the hollow body of the model, to convert the long-dead bones into the lumbering behemoth it wouls shortly become. To do this, I mixed PVA glue and water in equal quantities, then soaked up the mixture into kitchen roll. I rolled up balls of glue-inpregnated papier-mache and inserted them into the dinosaur's body cavity (slightly reminiscent of stuffing a bird at Christmas, but that's a tale for an entirely different website). The texture on the kitchen-roll gave a satisfyingly leathery skin texture to the belly of the beast. At this stage I also created the head-crest, which I made from flat, approximately 5mm thick strips of modelling clay on a curved piece of see-through plastic superglue blister pack!

Once the model was complete, I undercoated it with grey carpaint and then got to work with the acrylics. The main colour is Citadel's Ice Blue, over which I washed Asurmen Blue ink. The spines and scales were painted Warlock purple, and detailed with increasingly fine lines of lighter purples and finally white.

The last piece of work to do was the base. I use modelling clay to create a lightly textured rocky effect (no sand is used in the making of this model's base), which I then paint light grey and wash with Ogryn Flesh ink. Some dry-brushing helps to pick out the peaks of the rocky crags, and finally flock is added to give a bit of colour and contrast to the otherwise neutral base.

Gun-Zilla

I've now played four times with my Tyranids at 1,500pts, and, following the sage advice of Gav & Darren, I've stuck with the same list in all four games. As they suggested, this has helped me to learn what each constituent part of the army does, and probably more importantly, how each unit supports and complements the others ('synergy', anyone...?).

Very briefly, my army list is:

HQ - Tervigon (with Catalyst etc)

EL - 2 x Hive Guard

EL - 2 x Hive Guard

TR - 10 x Termagants

TR - Tervigon (with Regeneration, Catalyst etc)

TR - 10 x Genestealers

TR - 11 x Genestealers

TR - 12 x Genestealers (with Scything Talons & Adrenal Glands)

FA - 3 x Spore Mines

HVY - Trygon Prime (with Regeneration)

To date, I've had one win and three losses, with all games coming against good, experienced players (my three losses were to Mick's 'Cheese-Fangs', the club-boss' Tau gun-line and a club veteran's CSM army). Firstly, and most importantly, the games have been fun! That has to be the prime consideration of any game. Secondly though, I'm concerned that I'm a little low on two things:

i) Tank-busting guns

ii) Early assault units

What I've found in all my games so far is that it usually takes 2-3 turns to get far enough forward to engage in any meaningful combat, and when the tattered remains of my units do finally get there, the opponent's infantry (most often Marines - it feels like I'm always playing Marines!) are still sitting tight in their Rhino's & Razorbacks. I only have four tank-killing guns in my 1,500pt list, so more Hive Guard or some Zoanthropes are an obvious addition, or possibly the big daddy Gun-zilla himself, the Tyrannofex. What are folks' opinions of this monstrous beast?

My other requirement is to tie up the opponent's big guns earlier, so I'm thinking about the addition of Raveners at the expense of one or two units of Genestealers. I would have to screen these relatively fragile beasts with a line of Termagants, but luckily the Big Mommas are more than up to the task of birthing screening units - indeed, my two Tervigons spawned over a hundred of the lil' critters! Have you, the readers, considered, or used, Raveners? What are your thoughts here?