CotN Dark Eldar List. What it all means.

You have seen the list, but what does it all mean? What are these units and what do they do?
Here is a recap of the list and my breakdown...

Archon- huskblade, ghostplate armour, soul trap, combat drugs, shadow field, haywire grenades 

(160 points)

The archon is a beat stick. The huskblade and soul trap are just too intriguing for me not to use them. They allow him to instant kill anything he wounds and double his strength if it is an IC. The shadow field is awesome. The ghost armour is backup and maybe dropped. He will go in with the bloodbrides and make this unit superkilly!

Haemonculus- liquifier gun, scissor hands

(75 points)

I'm not 100% satisfied with this dude's loadout. He will deploy with the bloodbrides giving them FNP. After that he causes some issues. I first wanted him in the unit to add extra basic attacks and provide the flame template to "dig out" troops in terrain. Looking at it now, I see he does not have fleet and could slow down the unit. I may revisit his choice of equipment and other deployment options.
10 Kabalite Warriors- dark lance
Raider- flickerfield
(185 points)

Kabalite warriors are my scoring units. At only three, they are less than I originally planned on. Original loadout for them was 4 10 man units with splinter cannons. The raiders are going to deploy separately and go tank hunting. The warriors will be my 3rd choice to shoot at tanks. First being my ravagers and my raiders.


10 Kabalite Warriors- dark lance
Raider- flickerfield
(185 points)

10 Kabalite Warriors- dark lance
Raider- flickerfield
(185 points)

4 Kabalite Trueborn- 2 splinter cannons
Dracon- power weapon
Raider- flickerfield
(173 points)

So here is the weirdest choice in the list. I can see everyone saying why..... Well let me explain my thinking. I wanted anti infantry out of this unit. With 12 splinter cannon shots and the ability to assualt an infantry unit, I think they can preform their job. With only 4 models, they may get shot to death, but they are not dark lances, and maybe they will get ignored in the early game. 9 regular, and 5 power weapon attacks on the charge is ok too. This unit is also under review and may change or be eliminated.
3 Kabalite Trueborn- 2 darklances
(86 points)

Strictly anti tank. These guys are cheap and expendable. Original list was 3 of these units, but I wanted the extra kick of bloodbrides vs regular witches.

8 Hecatrix Bloodbrides- 1 hydra gauntlet, 1 shardnet & impaler
Syren- agonizer, phantasm grenade launcher
Raider- flickerfield
(234 points)

Ah the Bloodbrides. This is my rock. This could be the strength or weakness of the list. I am guessing this unit plus the 2 ICs could be the unstopable rock in the army. This is my hammer unit. Plan is to delay throwing them at the enemy till they commit and counter attack. This is my answer to assualt armies. The amount of attacks on the charge is impressive.... 6 huskblade attacks at int 7, 5 agonizer and 27 + 1d6 regular attack at int 6, 5 poison 3+ attacks at int 4. ouch!!

5 Scourges- 2 splinter canons
(130 points)

The mobility these guys have, and the amount of anti infantry firepower is awesome. 12 splinter cannon, and 9 splinter carbine shots. Bring on the big nids!!

Beastmaster- agonizer
5 Khymerae
(92 points)

My tarpit unit. The 4++ the khymerae have will keep them alive till the bloodbrides clean up.

Ravager- 2 disintegrater canons, flickerfield
(115 points)

The disintegrater cannons were already modeled. Still 6 strength 5 ap2 shots is nice. ( plus 1 strength 8 ap2)
Ravager- flickerfield
(115 points)

Anti-tank.

Ravager- flickerfield
(115 points)

Anti-tank.

So there you go. I may post up my first draft of them later. It was a shootier but less assualty force. I would love to hear any thoughts on these units.

Food for Thought... My DE CotN list.

Since my plans for this weekend fell threw, I thought I would post up what I'm thinking of running for Con of the North in February. I'll post up the list, then list my thoughts on how it will all fit and work together in part 2. Without further adu......



1850 point Dark Eldar

Archon- huskblade, ghostplate armour, soul trap, combat drugs, shadow field, haywire grenades 

(160 points)

Haemonculus- liquifier gun, scissor hands

(75 points)

10 Kabalite Warriors- dark lance
Raider- flickerfield
(185 points)

10 Kabalite Warriors- dark lance
Raider- flickerfield
(185 points)

10 Kabalite Warriors- dark lance
Raider- flickerfield
(185 points)

4 Kabalite Trueborn- 2 splinter cannons
Dracon- power weapon
Raider- flickerfield
(173 points)

3 Kabalite Trueborn- 2 darklances
(86 points)

8 Hecatrix Bloodbrides- 1 hydra gauntlet, 1 shardnet & impaler
Syren- agonizer, phantasm grenade launcher
Raider- flickerfield
(234 points)

5 Scourges- 2 splinter canons
(130 points)

Beastmaster- agonizer
5 Khymerae
(92 points)

Ravager- 2 disintegrater canons, flickerfield
(115 points)

Ravager- flickerfield
(115 points)

Ravager- flickerfield
(115 points)

Ok ,so there it is so far. The list has gone through several versions, and this is the one I was the happiest with. I'm trying to get an "All Comers List", but DE tend to be very fragile. So, can it kill enough in the early game to survive? Can it handle hoard armies?

Look for part 2 where I explain what I think each unit is expected to bring to the game.

Doh!! DENIED

Looks like I screwed up what day the 40k tournie was on at Vermin Con. So no practice tournament. Plan B is to maybe head to Omaha for some gaming.

Dark Eldar WIP Vermin Con

Here are some almost finished shots of my scourges and beast pack. Hemonculi is up next while the 2 ravangers get primed. Only 6 days till the tournament so I need to stay motivated!!!

 I plan to use these scourges to saturate targets with poison shots. With 2 cannons and 3 carbines they can put out an impressive 12 cannon shots and 9 carbine, or 8 cannon and 9 carbine if they move. Add in the 4+/6++ they have and 12 inch move, and I think they will be fun to play and very effective.

 This beast pack will be interesting also. Cheap and small, the one pack master has an agonizer. The 5 khymerae provide some 4++ save goodieness. With str 4 and 3 attacks each they look good on paper.

Thunderwolves and Razorback turrets

Here is a nice site that has some good bits. Thunderwolf cav, razorback turrets, and combi meltas and flamers to name a few. Check it out.


http://bitspudlo.com/en/categories/216-bitspudlo-bits

Dark Eldar WIP

Here is some quick shots of my scourges and beasts for my Dark Eldar army. I'm leaning towards them for Vermin Con and Con of the North. I hope to get some more pics up as I go. I have 2 ravangers and a Hemonculi also to paint up yet.

Black Templars with a 5th ed list?

Stelek had a very interesting list on his blog. He had made a 5th ed looking mech Black Templars army. It is lacking a little melta but I could see variants of this working really well. Add in their cheap termies and wozer!!

Check it out:

http://yesthetruthhurts.com/2011/01/black-templars-fully-mech-and-liking-it/

Crimson Fists Tactical Squad #1

Here are some finished shots today of my tactical squad #1.

Stats for the squad...
10 man Tactical squad- Missile launcher, Plasma gun
Sargent- powerfist, bolt pistol
Razorback- twin heavy bolters

I used Back2Base-ix bases and they are very nice. GW tactical squad shoulders and CF shoulders. I had to remove the plastic shoulder from the missile launcher and replace it with a tactical squad marked shoulder. Razorback is not done at this time.

Hopefully I will get my pictures up of Kantor by the end of the week.

Inquisitor Dunn

Warmachine for sale

I have decided to unload my warmachine if there is a reasonable offer out there. There is a fair amount of Menoth and 4 juggernauts plus Vlad. These are all first edition and the cards are not their anymore. If interested shoot me a pm and maybe we can work something out. reasonable offers please, as I don't need the money and don't care if I don't sell them.

menoth models

Random Piper merc...

Russian dudes..... all 4 jacks are the same. Juggernauts maybe? plus old vlad

If interested shoot me a pm at

jddunn31@yahoo.com

thanks inquisitor_dunn

New Faqs, Oh My!

So GW released new Faqs for Marines, Dark Angles, Templars, DE. Head over to their site and check them out. Drop pods got a little more dangerous with terrain. Dark Eldar looked ok by their faq, no big surprises for me. Dark Angles and Templars can now run termie spam. Maybe better than anyone else.


http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?categoryId=1000018&pIndex=1&aId=3400019&multiPageMode=true&start=2

Just my 2 cents.

2 cents on Tournaments

So with 3 tournaments coming up in the next 2 months, I began thinking back to the last tournaments I had been to. They had all been fun, except for a couple minor issues I had with them. They all had wonky or weird scenarios, and people with unpainted models.

Bad scenarios can ruin a tournament. They can give an unfair advantage to some armies or handicap others to a point they cannot win. Next to proper pairings, scenarios have to be one of the organizer’s most important jobs. Choosing scenarios doesn’t have to be hard either, just remember one simple rule; less is more.

Complicated scenarios are great for casual play with friends you know and play regularly against. In a tournament you need to keep it simple, as players will be trying to digest a lot of information in a short period of time in the beginning of the game. They have to take in information about the terrain on the board, assess their opponent’s army and any new rules if they have never faced them. Add in deployment, special scenario rules, and objectives and it gets to be sensory overload. My thoughts are to keep deployments simple and mission conditions familiar.

A simple deployment can go along ways towards a well run tournament. I have seen players waste valuable time trying to figure out how they are suppose to deploy. This can lead to people being short on actual play time. A simple, easy to read deployment description with diagrams goes along ways. I don’t like scenarios that are won or lost on deployment, but I understand how the same old, same old gets boring too. Here is an example of a recent tournament game with a bad deployment. Both players deployed on their long board edges, but had to deploy 12 inches in from their edge. There was no rule keeping the opposing forces farther apart, so they could deploy one inch away if both chose to deploy on the center line. This meant it was very possible for close combat armies to have turn one assaults if they deployed on the center line. Their opponent could only deploy left or right of them as they would be within 12 inches right in front. This had no effect if 2 shooty armies were facing off, but gave close combat armies a huge advantage and even gave a balanced shooty/cc army an advantage over a gunline or close support force.

Objectives vs kill points. Kill points vs Victory points. Everyone has an opinion on what is good and what is bad.  My personal opinion is tournaments should use the BBB missions as there base. Keep it simple. If you have a three game tournie, then use one 3-5 objective game, one kill point game, and one capture and control game. I would advocate using a secondary mission too. An example would be an 5 objective game that used kill points to break the tie. Or if you were using a battle point system you could have kill points be the extra battle points. Example: you can have a kill point difference of 1-2 be worth 1 battle point, 2-4 be worth 2 battle points and 4+ be worth 3 battle points. It would give players that second goal or something to shoot for even if they can’t get to an objective. You could use objectives for a secondary mission in a Kill Point mission too. An example would be: control an objective and receive a bonus battle point. I think this would make the game more fun as turtling damaged units would not help with the secondary mission. The main objective in choosing you scenarios should be to keep it familiar. The less the player has to learn at the beginning of the game, the more they can focus on playing.

I’m not saying all tournament should be cookie cuttered out either. I think simple changes can be the most interesting.  One tournament I played in, the organizer had a special rule for one piece of terrain on each table. He had written the rule on a paper and it was with the terrain piece for reference. Ours had a ice covered lake on the board that counted as difficult and dangerous terrain. Vehicles that got stuck were destroyed unless they had an aquatic special rule (chimera). Skimmers did not have to take the test . It was fun and did not hamper who won or lost but it did enhance our game experience. A bad example was a game I played where they had a rule about low atmosphere and any 6 to wound was a rending attack for everyone. This made armies with high attacks very good at killing low armor, small model count forces and made the game unbalanced. This would have been a great game for casual play, but not for tournaments.

I have seen several tournaments use the Battle Missions Book. My opinion is these are not very good for tournament play. These scenarios look to be best used for casual play were you want something different. Their different deployments, wacky special rules, and modified kill points change the balance of the game in favor of certain armies in certain cases.

I think simple planning ahead, and testing your scenarios can go along ways towards a great tournament experience for everyone. Remember, keep it simple.

Just my 2 cents.

upcoming tournaments and events

Well the holidays are over and now it is time to quite putting off more painting and to hopefully attend some tournaments. Here is a list for the next month and a half I'm looking at attending:

Jan 29th? Vermin Con... 1900 point 40k tournament
I'm looking at this for two reasons. It is very cheap and it would be fun to play some of the guys again. Two, the point level would give me a nice place to try out what ever army I'm going to take to Con of the North in feb. I'm a definate maybe on this one as there are winter water fights also on the same day. Choices!

feb 18-20 Con of the North. 1850 point 40k rtt ( with the best terrain evar!!)
I'm a definate for this. I even took the week off to paint and get ready for it. Ok, I had too use up the vacation before March but it sounds good right?

Feb 27 1500 point 40k rtt at game Shoppe
Problem with this tournie is how close it is to CotN. Good thing about this tournament is now my wife's sister lives a couple blocks from the store and I get brownie points for dumping her at her sisters for the day...lol. I also like their tournaments and if the only games I'm getting in are at tournaments then I would hate to miss this one.


Next up will be Con of the North tournament list. Will it be Sister's of Battle or Dark Eldar?

I LOVE SHOPPING!!!!

I ordered some new units for my Crimson Fist army today, and found out The Warstore has a sale going on. Woot to an extra 5% off!!! Can I get a what's up.

Ultramarines, the movie

My copy of Ultramarines the movie arrived last week, and I have finally had the time to watch it a couple times. I will try not to give any spoilers, but simply list my generic pros and cons. The quality of the movie itself is top notch. It comes in a nice looking sleeve. Their is a box that holds both the graphic novel and the movie case. The novel is very nice. If I was a comic book junkie, it would be super awesome, but I'm not so it is just a nice addition. The movie is a two disc set in a very stylish metal case. I am very pleased with the overall style and quality of the materials used. 5 out of 5.  

The movie is good. It is not the best movie ever, and will not win an academy award for best picture. It looks alot like Beowulf in style of CG. It is ok in spots and very very good where they want it to be. You can definitely tell they were on a limited budget and had to choose where to put the money. I think if they had 2 maybe 3 times the budget, we would be looking at a movie that would be getting awards for cgi and effects.

I would rate the special effects a solid 3.5 out of 5. I would rate the spots they put the extra work into the cgi a 4.5 out of 5. It was really too bad they were handicapped by the budget and the unknown of being the first 40k movie.

The story was good but nothing flashy. My personal thought is some of Dan's story was scraped because of budget. My 2 cents. It moved along nicely but didn't go too indeth into characters. I give the story a 3 out of 5.

The action was awesome. Blood and gore all over. The fact you get to see space marines move and fight is sweet. The speeder is awesome and landscape is very nice. Fight scenes get a solid 4.5.

Overall this is a solid movie to start the 40k series. I really hope everyone goes out and picks this up and supports the idea of further 40k movies. I think it was definitely worth my $40 and since that included the shipping from England, even better. So go out and pick this one up. Grab some popcorn or just throw it on in the background of one of your games.