Make sure you read to the bottom for discussion of my Nova list.
Time for another post! This picture shows a scratch built model for the Heroes of Armageddon project by Chris Borer. You can read more about it on Dave Taylor's blog. Which if you don't check every day, you should. He is just outstanding. I have tried something like this, and failed miserably. Chris is a true artist.
How bout a shot of some of the Heroes of the Blood Angels army?
I think my models hold their own next to Dante in their own little ways. :)
What is up next for me? Well more terminators I say! I have to finish up three lingering commissions. Number one is a small one for a client in Canada. He asked for a squad of terminators, 2 priests, a chaplain using Lemartes model, and a dread. Now that I am done painting the Heroes project, I can focus on getting these done.
This picture of the full sized Heroes of Armageddon banner I am doing does not show any more detail than the last. The wall I am up against here is a pretty big one. Normally I have a huge table in my classroom upon which I can lay my banners and paint them. But during the summer, I have to work at home. And alas, I don't have a huge table. I am off to home depot today to get a big piece of plywood to mount the banner to. Then I will be able to put it in the back room when not being worked on, and bring it out and lay it on the coffee table to work on.
Also at home depot I am going to buy some flood lights and Ott light bulbs that I can use to finally finish taking pictures of the Heroes models. Tim's contribution is on it's way, and every thing else has been turned in including a breath taking DC Dread by Black Matt, Cho's dread, storm raven and assault squad and Joe's death company. Joe sent me his DC Tycho, and John and Mike mailed me their Baal Pred, DC Raven and DC Dread as well. Hopefully by tomorrow I will have all the models photographed, and waiting placement in their new Battlefoam transport when that arrives.
After all that is done, I have another lingering commission. I have had a Black Templars commission sitting on my desk since September. The client has been slowly paying it off and as such, I have been slowly working on it. He is finally ready to finish paying, so I am gearing up the jawa machine to get it done. This commission consists of a Marshal, Champ, 15 crusader marines, 3 razorbacks, 3 speeders and 10 terminators.
And finally I can work on my own stuff. I played in a tournament over the weekend with a new list. I played Mephiston, 4 ten man assault squads, 3 ac/lc preds, and 3 baal preds, two with flamestorm and one with tlac and heavy bolters. I had a big win vs tau, and a slug fest vs BFS member Jeff O who plays a hard as nails Blood Angels list. I held my own in that game but lost in the end. It could have gone either way. But in my third game I encountered the problem I feared. This list was fairly strong, but had a few weaknesses. One would be lots of fast moving transports in an objective game. I knew if I faced Dark Eldar in Dawn of War deployment I was sunk. Add in objectives and forget it. Vect's ability to seize the initiative on a 4+ is huge, deployment keeping my guns off the table first turn sucks, and not being able to see any thing is the worst. Well, that is what I faced in round three. I played this opponent in a previous tournament and got the drop on him, and blew him off the table. He responded in kind. From the start there was little I could do. And he cleaned my clock.
I can say that even against all of the incredible DE fire power, my boys endured after deep striking. He had to assault them to take them down. A squad of 10 marines with a priest actually almost beat a full squad of wyches and a full squad of hellions in the assault. In fact, they had it won. The hellions actually lost combat on a turn and ran off the table, but the wyches stayed and kept the marines tied up. This allowed Vect to finish them off. Vect and his Incubi hurt bad too. They should not be assaulted. :) I played that game as a test of the survivability of deep striking marines in the face of massive shots. With a less assault oriented army like GK or Guard I think they will do better. The dark eldar, while not super strong in the assault, had the fast hitting numbers to overwhelm me. Guard and GK without halbreds wont have that and again, those are the armies I need to worry about the most at Nova.
So any way, I have decided that 40 assault marines will make up the bulk of my army. I started assembling them last night. I am using Sanguinary guard bodies and jump packs with Death Company heads and arms to finish them off. I really need a bulk of well painted assault marines for my personal army any way, since all of mine were painted 3 years ago by a noobie Jawaballs and they show their age.
What will I use to fill out my list? Well, I have realized that there is little I will be able to do against GK at Nova. A GK player with the standard list walked all over the tournament on Saturday. Indeed it is true that Land Raiders are dead again. Their brief return due to the ebb and flow of melta power was fun, but now putting one on the table vs GKs is just a waste of points. So too are small units. Five man razor back squads are just as dead vs GKs as Land Raiders. Hence my four full assault squads. I'm still digging Mephiston though. Simply because I like my conversion, and he is fun to play. But sadly, I simply don't feel that Blood Angels can field any thing to counter the GK threat. By doubling the amount of hard hitting shots that even the shootiest of armies could produce, GKs have overcome the 5th edition cover save equalizer, effectively breaking the game. I don't think even the best Blood Angels players could compete against a competent player with a GK list. I'm certainly going to try, and will do the 9th legion proud, but I am going to the Nova with realistic expectations. By the way I am still maintaining that at least half of sixteen armies in the top bracket will be GKs, and am calling a full third of the armies in the invitational as GKs, with them winning both.
I am hoping to go 3-1 on day one at the Nova, setting me up for another shot at Renaissance man. Last year I lost by .01 points. Essentially the one point one of the judges docked me in paint scoring because my terminators were not on the same resin bases as the rest of my army. (I was too lazy to rebase them the week before Nova.) I think if I go 3-1 again I can have a chance at taking it. Of course I have to finish my 40 marines, and that leads me to another question. What else do I play? Since I am going for a competitive list, that looks good, I think I come back to the list I played on Saturday. I already have my three well painted predator tanks. Do I paint three new Baal Preds and jazz them up with some hand painting and go for it? How about going with my termies in their land raider? The point is that if I accept the fact that I know I won't win vs GKs, but play my list that I know does well vs every thing else, can I go 3-1 and swipe Renaissance?
If I go by that strategy, here is what I am planning.
Mephiston
4x ten man assault squads
all have PWs
2 have two melta
2 have two flamer
3 priests.
2 with jp and pw
1 bare
terminators in raider
1x hammer
4x claws
extra armor
multi melta
elite chaplain
In the month I have I can make this army look good enough to go for Renaissance, and it can win 3 games giving me a shot. What will I do vs GKs with the raider? Deep strike. Let it hit the ground and pop smoke.They are going to have to kill it, then deal with fearless, feel no pain termies. I Start Mephiston as far up as I can behind LoS blocking terrain, and deep strike the rest. I probably won't beat the knights, but I know I will put the fear of Sanguinius in them! :) With a little luck of the draw, the right opponents, and friendly scatter dice, I have a chance. That lines me up for the next day. With most of the auto win GK armies in the top bracket, I will hopefully have a shot at winning whatever bracket I fall into. Either the 3-1 or 2-2. Hopefully calamity does not befall me and leave me in the 1-3 or worse! (I am still trying to get last years 1-3 finish at The Battle for Salvation out of my mind.)
More to come!
Jawaballs
.jpg)
.jpg)
19 comments:
Hey Jawa, great playing you again. We are 1-1 now, gunna have to play more time for all the glory lol.
Anyway just in case you wanted to know here is my list.
Vect
Baron
Incubi x 5 (Vect)
Raider w/ Flickerfield
Basterborn x 4
Venom w/ 2nd Cannon
3 x Ravager w/ FF
Hellions x 9 w/ Agoinser (Baron)
2 x 10 Wychs w/ Haywire Nades and Agoinser
Raiders w/ FF
3 x 5 Warriors
Raiders x/ FF
Ended up getting second. Only 2 points behind Charlies' Black Templar.
Wait Charly won? I thought the Grey Knights won!
Grey Knights won best general. Black Templars won with comp and sportsmanship
Yea...i went 2 and won and all of my soft scores really screwed me. But yea charly won. Time to break out the nids. Again
They kid who brought the 6 rifleman dreads had a problem with my venting. http://soulflamers.blogspot.com/2011/07/fck-gw.html
his name was zach. Also a shameless plug for my blog. Ha. But ya, i was happy the charlie won.
Grey Knights did not meet the standard at the Larger Wargames Con Event this week. The GK were strong, but their weaknesses were exposed to me as well. Kill or disable long range GK threats and play keep away until the model count is low. It worked with my DE. Suicided against the Psifledreads and killed transports on subsequent turns. It worked twice for me. I saw that Horde Orks presented a hugh problem for them in two games I witnessed. I believe hordes presented the biggest problem. Even purifiers were dragged down by mobs of 30 Orks. I believe smaller events do not determine the national meta view of the game. Larger events give a more accurate view of how armies fit. Blood Angels and GK were over represented, but did not fair well against Orks and DE.
I think you might be surprised on how few grey knights you will see. Maybe its a regional thing, but we only had 2 GK players at the Bugeater GT and Lash won of all things. DE were strong. And it looks like not many GK players in the tops for wargames con too.
With Nova scoring, it opens up doors for other builds to sneek wins.
Thanks for the input guys! I was hoping for some BOLSCON input. Man I can't wait til they switch their name back. Jwolf that is what it is going to take to get me back down to Austin! :)
I do hope I am wrong about my predictions for GKs. But based on what I know, some of the top players on the east coast have been gearing up and switching over to GKs. Nova is still far enough out for them to put the finishing touches on their armies. Perhaps BOLSCON was a bit too soon? What won down there by the way? I've had little time to check the site.
And Schmidtbot, happy to give you guys some plugs.
Dark Eldar overall, Ork foot list 2nd overall, and Ben Molie best general with Vulcan marines.
Their was a sister's list, another ork battlewagon list, and a grey knight paladin rock list flirting near the top day two. Also Dash of Pepper's Dark eldar.
Lots of top players there. Looked like a very nice GT. I'll have to try to make it next year but the drive from Iowa to Texas is long!
Just in case you wanted it here are the standings from Sat
1st charlie 79 templars
2nd john tordeck 77 dark eldar (should have been 78 but I screwed up tallying bonus pts in RD 2)
3rd kurt 76 daemons
4th zack 75 grey knights best general
5th dan w 73 space wolves
6th dave brisbane 72 grey knights
7th shaun 71 blood angels
8th simon 71 marines best painted
9th matt m 70 TAU!!!!!
10th david t 69 eldar
11th jeff o 68 blood angels
12th brian s 68 grey knights
13th james 66 IG
14th brandon 62 chaos
15th will the unnamed 60 blood angels
16th black matt 59 dark angels
17th dan g 58 necrons
18th chris jawa 57 blood angels
19th chris m 45 white scars (marines)
Ringer was played by two people and was a Space Wolves army
Haha you didn't have to post the results! I don't think I ever placed next to last. :) Go Tau! I played him in the first game and tabled him. As should happen to every Tau player. Hehe, sorry Matt.
Well I came away from the weekend with some solid experience on what I want to do with my army. It was worth it.
Nearly 18% of the gamers were GK and the Angels were at about 25%. Some how your theory about the small MSU thing about Wolves and Angels is true. Can you tell me why? What is your theory?
The Elite Built Armies suffered from DE mass poison shots and AP 2 weapons. That I can attest to. I saw a lot of good Mech MSU internet builds sitting on the side lines when it came down to the finish for best overall and general.
Small MSU is dead because the last two army releases have the tools to take away that advantage. Lots of withering dakka, and lots of medium to high strength shots. Previously, most armies lacked one or the other and what they did have was not huge in numbers, and cover saves protected you from half of that. Flooding the table with five man squads of marines in Razorbacks provided enough bodies, redundancy and fire power to over come the shooty that existed. Or at least match it.
Now, with GK and DE, two mid range armies with high rate of fire of high STR shots, they have what it takes to overcome both the armor, and the cover saves.
GK just pound you with 120+ Twin Linked STR 6, STR 6 Rending, and STR 8 shots. They have the ability to open up every AV 11 on the table in a single turn, then through withering fire power, reduce the squads inside them to combat ineffective at best. Whats worse is that they kill AV14 with equal ease.
DE, while not having quite as much rate of fire as GKs, have a bit more range with their vehicles fast ability. They have a lot of STR 8 shots with their lances, and poison makes their low STR weapons function like STR 6. What they lack in guns when compared to GK, they make up for in speed and assault. Most of their units hit at high initiative, before Space Marines, even Blood Angels on the Charge. Their large numbers of fast moving transports from which units can assault out of, and large cheap squads makes up for their comparatively weak STR, as does again their use of poison.
DE did not have as huge an impact upon release as they would have because they needed GK to help. DE are too fringe for most mainstream players to invest in. But now that GK have helped shift the meta, the pickings are ripe for DE.
The only answer I can come up with is squads of 10 with Feel No Pain trying to scrounge up cover saves.
We are on the verge of the return of the horde. I expect in a year time we will see Codex: Space Marine gun lines, and yes TAU coming back to prominance.
Tau will also benefit from the shift in meta forced by the GK and DE.
Sry Jawa. Was posting it more to show the meta of the armies than overall standings.
i think you could be right about gunlines coming back.
One problem with that is missions make you move more now.
Are you seeing less melta in your area? Here there has been a steep drop in melta spam. everything shifted to autocannons and plasma. It maybe a knee jerk reaction but I'm looking at 2-3 landraiders and going assault for ard boys.
I wrote about the lack of Melta in competitive meta last January. At the conflict GT I think in 5 games I faced maybe 7 melta guns. But a ton of Autocannons. That was the first answer to MSU and AV11 spam.
My shift then was to go heavy with Land Raiders, which did well for a time. But that is bye bye now!
I still beat up on every army type with Straken, Al'RAhem, and jillions of meltaguns and Chimeras. What meta game?
Haha, Brandt you do have the perfect list, especially for Nova. There is very little that can be done vs you. But that has already been established. You should beat up on every one. Your army takes advantage of two of the most broken issues with the guard codex.
Vets should be elites. No other army has so effective, affordable, and survivable a troops choice. Guard does not need elites at all when at 19 you are considered a veteran and a single squad of vets is given more plasma/melta guns then entire companies of Space Marines. And they can shoot them all from inside their chimera. For the same cost as 5 naked assault marines in a razorback with a lascannon you can get 10 vets with 3 meltaguns, and auto cannon inside an AV 12 chimera with multi laser and heavy bolter. Er... and space marines are supposed to be elite?
Vendettas are under costed by about 70 points. They are simply awesome for their cost. The Storm Raven costs almost 100 points more, and is not as good or at best breaks even because it can carry a dread. But ravens are also Heavies while Vendettas are fast attack. Taking ravens eliminates other BA heavy support while Guard can load up.
Add to that uber force multiplying IC upgrades that cannot be targeted in close combat and there you go.
I still think that GK will soon fix things though. :)
I play Space marines in general, alternating between Vanilla, Blood Angel, and Wolves but we have two local GK players and they are pretty much unbeatable by most any version of space marines. Orcs and Tyranid have a chance with enough bodies but anything big gets auto killed. 2 Librarians throwing out multiple powers which makes every attack in entire squads(not just their own squad either) into Init 10 Str 6 Force weapon hits with melta effects means even our nasty dreads get slaughtered at Init 10 or 6. 30 str 6 melta shots before your attack, yeah right. Guys with pikes just auto destroy even Landraiders with ease. About the only hope is Shield/Hammer termies which we pay 50 points more than basic marines. Oddly the power og GK has made the vanilla marine book more useful. Tunning 30 hammer/shield terms with Vulkan and Kantor hidden inside gives a chance.
Post a Comment