New Chaos Daemon Stuff

Morning folks.

I've tended to shy away from "look here's new stuff!" posts, but today I'm plum out of ideas for a blog and haven't been getting any painting done due to that pesky "real life" thing.

(Thanks to HERO's Gaming Blog for the pics, and Faeit 212 for the rules rumours)

Anyway, over the last few days there's been a fair bit of activity in the Warp and Daemon rules rumours have rolled a 3+ to show up, swiftly followed by pictures of the actual models.

I figured I'd pass these on here for club folks who don't check many other blogs, but also to spout my opinion on them - no doubt there'll be people who love the stuff, others will hate it...

Slaanesh Herald - Looks nice enough, but I think she suffers a similar problem with other heralds that they don't stand out enough from the bog standard troops. Suppose it'll be down to the paint scheme as well.

This guy looks cool, suitably dynamic and menacing at the same time. I think a lot of people will have already converted stuff like this though, Bloodletter + extra Bitz.

I'm holding out on seeing the fluff and idea behind this thing because to me, it looks a bit stupid. Like the kind of thing they would force into a toy range for a Superhero movie. "IRON MAN'S HOVERCYCLE" or "BATMAN'S FLYING BAT FORTRESS". And even then, the front prow bit looks like someone has just jammed a big Squig on it.

This looks the better option visually for the Khorne kit. I'm hoping you can also convert this into being a Chariot for a Herald, as that was one of the things I was really keen on putting in my Daemon army.

This guy looks ace and, to me, different enough from the fodder Plaguebearers to stand out in a crowd. I've heard this guy will be plastic, although personally... I really like the Warriors of Chaos Nurgle Lord to use as a Plaguebearer herald.

Love the mounts, they look suitably Nurgle and disgusting. However the riders just look a bit stuck on... As though someone's opened a box of plastic Plaguebearers and glued them on the top.

Now this is ace and exactly how it should look. Lots of Tzeentchy stuff going on, dragged by a Screamer and not a flying stem in sight.

This to me isn't so good. I'm not keen on the "ghost fire" stuff everywhere although it'll be interesting to see what this actually does in a game.

Now onto the rules rumours! (All copied from Faeit212, although since then

The bloodthirsters : 280pts
WS  BS  S   T   W   I   A   LD   SV
10    4    9  7    5   5   5    10   5+
Daemonic gifts: blood axe, armour of terror, whip of destruction
special rules: daemon, daemonic flight, furious charge, rage,blood without end
blood axe - user gains a previously lost wound he has lost earlier in game for every kill he makes on a 4+
armour of terror - user gains a 2+ save and 5+ invulnerable. The bearer gains a 4+ feel no pain if the weapons AP in lower than 3
whip of destruction - 12'' shooting attack - strength 8 AP 4 rending
daemon - see page 36
daemonic flight- see chaos special rules
furious charge & rage - rule book (P41&37)
blood without end- the bloodthirsters gain +d6 attacks on the charge and makes another strike at initiative step 1 for every wound he causes.
These extra strikes do not produce any further strikes.

 This guy sounds like an absolute beast. Exactly as he should be. To me, the old Bloodthirster is measured against the Swarmlord for Tyranids, who got even better with the Psychic power buffs from 6th edition changes. The Bloodthirster should be the out and out combat King of the Universe. Key to stopping him will be the same as in 5th edition though: shooting, shooting and more shooting.

Great unclean one : 260pts
WS  BS  S   T   W   I   A   LD   SV
 5     4    6   8   6    1   4   10   6+
Daemonic gifts: plague sword of death, bloated body, aura of decay
special rules: daemon, slow and purposeful,my master gifts all,shrouded
plague sword of death - wounds everything on 2+ with an ap of 3 - turns characters into spawn
bloated body - the daemon has a 4+ armour save and a 3+ feel no pain on any weapon AP 5 or below.
aura of decay - the great unclean one has defensive and assault grenades and causes all enemy weapons to count as -1 strength (I believe this is ranged and
close combat)
daemon - page 36
slow and purposeful - page 42
shrouded- page 41
my master gifts all - pick an enemy and friendly unit at the beginning of the game. The enemy unit gains -1 toughness and strength while a friendly plaguebearers count as +1 strength and +1 to there feel no pain rolls.

This guy has nearly doubled in points, which is a shame although I didn't see them very often on the tables. The "my master gifts all" rule sounds particularly nasty for the Uber-Plaguebearers although I'm not keen on rules where enemies start off with stats modified, essentially you're robbing the other player of points they've paid for a unit. Example, I pay Xpts a model for an Incubi unit and if this rule gets put on them, they're now T2 and S2 (S3 with the Klaives) which means a points sink now becomes super easy to shift and causes minimal damage in return if it does manage to get there.

bloodletters: 14pts each
WS  BS  S   T   W   I   A   LD   SV
 5     0    5   4    1   4   2   10    6+
daemonic gifts: blood swords (strength: user  AP: 4)
special rules: daemon, furious charge,rage
unit type: infantry
Number/squad: 5-20

Good. I don't mind the issue of the swords being AP4 so much... although I loved hacking Marines up with them. Furious Charge and Rage were my wishlist for Bloodletters, along with a points drop. According to all this they'd be S6 on the charge with 4 attacks which is pretty cool - although now they strike the same time as Marines and can't slice through their armour.

Daemonettes of slannesh: 12pts each
WS  BS  S  T   W   I   A   LD   SV
 4     0   4   3    1   6   2   10   6+
Daemonic gifts: rending claws
special rules: fleet, make them suffer (+1 added to strength - already included)
Unit type: infantry
Number/squad: 5-15

 Strength boost and a points drop is pretty good. Although it still doesn't make up for Fleet getting shafted in the 6th edition rules.

tzeench gift of betrayal -50pts (one use)
pick an enemy independent character at random, that model or unit must pass a leadership test with a -4 penalty or be removed  after being sucked into the warp for tzeench amusement, models from codex: space marine, dark angels,black templars,grey knights,space wolves,blood angels take a -2 penalty instead to represent their resistance from the dark gods temptations.

 Being a Shattershard user, rather than a target, I can't really complain about this. But this sounds pretty daft, I would hope it'd be at least a certain range away, rather than anywhere off the board etc. The Shattershard, whilst it can be really harmful, requires a Haemonculus to get in flamer range of the enemy units, so can always be shot down, tied up, hacked to death, etc. before he can get there.

nurgle's blessing (30pts)
pick a nurgle unit in your army, that model/unit gains +1 to their feel no pain roll.

 Considering FNP is now a 5+ (albeit gets used a lot more) I don't have an issue with this too much.

sword of a thousand souls: 45pts
the bearer must charge every enemy unit and must challenge but gain +2d6 extra attacks on the charge.

 Old school Rage, but he's a monster charging in. Interesting to see what units or Chaos Gods can actually take these, probably Khorne only.

dance of death: 40pts
pick an enemy unit at the beginning of the game, that unit must roll a initiative test every turn of the game or is under the control of the daemon player. The unit under control may charge friendly models but cannot move off the board or into any piece of terrain that can cause hard to the model. If the enemy passes the initiative test more than three times during the battle then the dance has been removed for the remainder of the game.

Again with the shafting of opponents right off the bat. There's nothing more annoying as a player, especially at events, to be on the back foot or have points from my army robbed from me before anything has even moved. This'll be a nightmare for Necron players if it's real...

After these rules were posted up yesterday, there's been a follow up since...

I just thought you'd want to know those Daemon rumors you posted up are fakes.
Greater Daemons are stronger than last edition. Troops are about the same and a little bit cheaper here and there.
All daemons can deep strike or can start on the board and when you reserve units for deep strike they kinda come in waves, it's similar but new at the same time.

The biggest thing I take from this, and also from interviews about the new Daemons cropping up about "balancing between Fantasy and 40k" and "Daemons needing the speed to cross the board, Warp portals, etc." is that Daemons no longer all deep strike.

To me, that was half the fun and challenge of the army meaning that you couldn't set up a fire base at the back of the board, or hide in that building straight from the off. You were at the mercy of the Dice Gods in the same way the army should be at the whim of the Chaos Gods.

I'll wait and see the Codex before casting any more judgment, but most of the models are a bit bleh and stupid (Skull Cannon0, some are really nice (Plaguebearer Herald) but I was hoping for some bigger beasties similar to the Forgefiend and Heldrake.

Anyway, that's all for now until the Codex drops some point next month I'm guessing. There'll be more stuff between now and then surely.

Cheers,
SB

Daemon Update and Flyer Rumour Thoughts

Morning folks,

In my effort to do a bit more blogging, I thought I would comment my opinion on some of the upcoming Daemon update rumours.

Normally anything from an Anon. source is a bit iffy, but I've seen plenty of occassions where these turn out right - but this current batch looks like it tallies up with things.


Rumours from HERE in highlight....

//-------//

The next white dwarf previews the new daemons.

Hurrah! Personally, I love Daemons. They're one of the more exciting Codexes for me to play and, like my Dark Eldar, victories with them feel all the sweeter as opposed to a gun-line Guard army or my Ork horde.

The previously white dwarf released units are changing slightly (some get better, some worse).


This is 90% of the reason I wanted to do a post about this. For GW to change the units, after people have been out and bought a shedload of them, so soon after the initial release, seems really cheap.

Admittedly, people are spamming these units and creating "broken" builds and I've heard cries that these units are "too cheap / good not to take" and fair enough if GW want to fix them. Personally, I would rather them have sorted it in the first place by

The following white dwarf previews flyers. So feb daemons, March flyers.

Have heard that there might also be Daemon flyer in this WD, so the Daemon love continues on into March.

Hoping that the Harpy gets a model so that can be added to my fledgling Tyranid army, as well as a an Eldar specific flyer.


Oh p.s. No new god. No hybrid GDs.

No new God? Wasn't really expecting one and I think people who were are a bit too hopeful. The 4 Gods have been corner stones for years now and to add another would be a bit WTF.

As for hybrid GDs, I'm assuming this means you can't get a plastic Lord of Change and have the bits to make it a plastic Fateweaver? If so, that's another shame for people like Skarbrand and Ku'Gath without models, but it's nothing a bit of hacking and converting can't do if there are plastic models on the way.

Expanded fluff on malice.

This is the bit I love. Anywhere they re-introduce older fluff into the current era like Jokaero in Grey Knights. I don't think anything more needs doing with Malice in terms of a playable force as that would un-balance the 4 Chaos pillars, but I'm sure just by adding the fluff back in it will inspire some cracking themed armies and paint schemes.


it's two separate books. Not one book that has rules for both like the white dwarf updates.
it's a hard cover full release not an insert.

Did anyone really think there'd be 1 book shared between 40K and Fantasy? It's never been done before and it'd be fairly hefty... and therefore a much heftier price.

Glad that it's an actual Codex (although my wallet isn't) as opposed to just a WD leaflet.

//-------//

That's all for now folks. What do you reckon about a Daemon update next month? More codexes for me to buy now... Joy!

SB

New Daemon Pics!

Ello folks,

Found these on the interwebs and thought I'd share...

All credit goes to Brad Schwartz @Rhellion on Twitter.

All look flipping ace! Apart from the Plaguebearers... not so keen on them. Plastic Flamers also means my Tzeentch Daemon ideas could become a reality in the not too distant future...

There's also a ton of Finecast stuff that's not been pictured (as it's mostly just existing models).

Thoughts on these?

SB

Badger's Log - Daemon Prince and Bloodcrushers

Morning again folks,

Another productive weekend for me and my Khorne Daemon army. I started Saturday morning with 2 Bloodcrushers, a Herald on a Juggernaut and a Daemon Prince all sat in grey plastic. Lucky for me, Saturday morning was clear of rain and I managed to get them sprayed up before lunchtime.

I then spent the evening painting the models up, with the hope to get them all finished ready for gaming on Monday night. Thankfully, my Daemons take next to no time compared to my Deathwing and before I went to bed, I had all of them done with the Black wash drying.

Sunday morning I got the bases done and that was the end of that chapter! They're quick and dirty again, but they're painted and that's all that matters to me at the moment with the Deathwing I need to finish off, Brotherhood of the Forge to do and (from reading the rumours over the weekend) planning for tons of Necrons to do.

So here's the pics:

Apologies for the pics being a bit rubbish, it was bad lighting when I took them and the flash on my phone is utter rubbish.

Cheers,
SB

Badger's Log - Bloodcrushers

Ello,

Quick one from me again this morning, just to post my progress with goings on. Myself and Sanguinius are going to a doubles tournament in November and decided to take Daemons. So I'm having to upgrade my old count-as Bloodcrushers to the actual models now they're plastic.

I ordered and assembled them a while ago, but I only got round to painting them last week after I got some new paints.

I gave the Juggernauts black armour rather than red to give a bit of diversity with the model, rather than a big mass of red broken up by boltgun metal.

So far I've got 3, 1 of which has an Instrument, but I'm looking to add another set to make a bigger unit which can absorb  more fire.

Peace,
SB

Badger's Log - Skaven Plague Monks / Dark Eldar Wracks

Morning all,

This is a semi-confusing post to write up, so bear with me... Over last week I painted a LOT of Skaven stuff I'd had lying around for a few months. The idea being that anything in my Dark Eldar army that is Haemonculi related (Haemonculi, Grotesques, Wracks) would be made from Skaven plastics.

These would be:
- Warlocks, Packmasters and the IoB Warlord as various Haemonculi
- Plague Monks as Wracks
- Rat Ogres as Grotesques

Right, that's the back story over with, here's 20 Plague Monks I painted last week...

Generic Wrack (Left) and an Acothyst with Venom Blade (Right)

There's the first two models. A generic Wrack (two poisoned close combat weapons) along with an Acothyst, his flail classing as his Venom blade. I like to keep the squad upgrades incredibly cheap and I've  become a huge fan of the Venom blade for 5pts. Last week's game I could fit so many tidbits here and there in my list, because I dropped Power Weapons or Agonisers on squads that didn't really need them, or lowered some upgrades on other things.

The horde of Ratmen descends upon the dining room table!

As for painting them, I originally went with a Mechrite Red colour scheme, but thought they clashed far too much with the rest of the Dark Eldar army I had. They blend really well on the battlefield with the rest of the army now they're Ice Blue robes, I think if I'd left them Mechrite Red it would have looked more proxyish than it already does.

Now... the idea for these guys is they'll ALSO be used in two other armies. I've got the square bases knocking around to use them with my Island of Blood stuff for Fantasy, but also I'm hoping to use them to make a start on an Epidemius all Nurgle Daemon army, with some various other Skaven units involved.

I'll be posting up more stuff that I've painted up, over the course of the week. Any thoughts guys?

Peace,
SB

[Daemons] Belated Game Thoughts

Morning all,

Been a few days without a blog post, and due to a lot of illness and such on Monday night, there were no games. So I thought I'd get around to posting a few things from the week before, when I gave my Khorne Daemon army a run out (since a 2k list fits inside 1 shoe box).

Last Monday was a bit of a "reverse tournament army" night, where everyone seemed to use the army their opponent would normally. Sanguinius used his Orks against my Daemons and Angryman used Eldar against Col. Straken's Tyranid trial list.

The game was Objectives (4 I think) at 1500pts. My list was something along the lines of:
- Bloodthirster
- Herald of Khorne on a Juggernaut
- 3 or 4 Bloodcrushers
- 2 x 10 Bloodletters
- 3 Winged Daemon Princes off Khorne

In the end, I kneecapped myself in an objective based game really, by taking only 2 scoring units that were very easy to get killed off. So... lessons learnt from my most recent game with a Khorne Daemon army?

1. Think more carefully about the units you're placing and where to place them when Deepstriking.

As an example from Mondays game, I had 2 Daemon Princes come down in the first wave, which had the Death Strike shooting attack, which meant that I could happily plop them down and take out the 2 Trukks that the Orks had with relative ease.

What I didn't account for in that, was to attack the Trukks as such, I would have to land within range of all the Bikes (20 of them), 9 Deffkoptas, Wazdakka and the units from inside the Trukks.

I managed to destroy 1 Trukk and immobilise the other, but then both princes got mowed down by sheer amount of S5 rate of fire weapons from the Bikes and Koptas.

Now... if I had thought on, and remembered that I had paid the hefty points to give them Wings, I could have hidden them somewhere and used the Wings to get into firing / assault range later on.

2. Shooting Attacks

Leading on from point one, something else I learnt was that just because I have given a unit a shooting attack - Death Strike on the Daemon Prince - does NOT mean that he needs to be in a position to use that 1 shot per turn weapon, on the turn he drops in.

In my eagerness to use the shooting attack and try to destroy the Trukks, the princes were left open to getting shot to death.

3. Think more carefully about First or Second Turn.

Choosing to have the first turn as Daemons, was a stupid thing to do in this game. It meant I had to weather a full turn of shooting upon landing, from the centralised Ork army.

If I'd taken the second turn, then likely that the Orks would have dispersed from the cluster and moved towards the objectives, and I could have spread out around the board a bit more - who knows?

I find it weird to play Daemons and take into account denying the opponent a full turn of shooting.

4. Khorne Daemons and Combat.

In short, Khorne Daemons, when assaulting, are absolutely rock solid and can smash most units to pieces with little to no trouble. A half depleted unit of Bloodletters manage to smash a Warbiker mob to pieces and make them flee at the same time, losing 1 or 2 Bloodletters in the process.

Then when the Bloodcrushers came down, they managed to batter whatever was close by, before the opponents even had a chance to know they were in an assault. Khorne Daemons show up to drink milk and kick arse.. and they've finished their Milk.

5. Invulnerable Saves are pants against Volume fire.

As the title suggests really... The amount of S5 or S4 weaponry coming my way from Ork Warbikes, Trukks and Koptas meant that each Bloodletter was taking maybe 2 or 3 saves over the course of a turn. There's only so many that they can take.

I'm putting all this failing to make saves down to the fact my army isn't painted Blue...

6. Bloodthirsters

No matter how cool you think he is, how many people he's going to club to death, he always ends up being my opponent's public enemy #1. I need to think more carefully about how I deploy this fella since all the games I've played (still counting on 1 hand...) he's had his face smashed in by shooting, and some really bad armour save rolls.

As with the Daemon Princes I need to remember he has wings and also not to get trigger happy with my Death Strike attack.

7. Increase the amount of scoring units.

At the moment, I've got 20 Bloodletters bought and painted, but I'm starting to think I could do with a fair few more. 2 units of 10 just don't seem to cut it in most games I've played.

I'm not sure what would be the best option with it, either to expand to 4 units of 5, or buy some more bloodletters and go 4 units of 6, 3 units of 8 or maybe 3 larger squads of 10... Even more? What do you reckon?

Conclusion

That's all really... I just wanted to talk a bit about how I've been doing with the Daemons, where I'm really enjoying using my most "unloved" army a bit more. I've maybe shot myself in the foot somewhat by insisting on only using Khorne stuff but maybe...

Get a Soul Grinder in there?
More bloodletters?
2 Bloodthirsters?
Get rid of Thirster alltogether and have more Heralds on Juggernauts?
Or even give into temptation for new models... and expand beyond Khorne?

Peace out,
SB

[Battle Report] Orks v Slaanesh Daemons

Morning all,

Last night was (pretty likely) the last practice game I'd have before Britcon. I went up against Sanguinus' Chaos Daemons, running a pure Slaanesh force. Now Pre-Game, I'd worried about this army, due to the speed it can get around the board and assault units from a large distance.

Last week, Col.Straken's Eldar had a tough game against them, so I was up for whatever was coming my way. We played a 5 objective mission using the Spearhead deployment. 2 Objectives were in (or extremely close) to my chosen deployment corner. First turn went to the Orks.

Turn 1 - Orks
The Orks press up the field, spacing out the large Boyz mobs to try and force the Daemons to deepstrike further into the corners of the board. The Mek in a Battlewagon kept closeby to his Boyz mobs, Deff Dred and the Killa Kans, sheltering them under his forcefield. Whilst the Nob Bikers and Warboss zoomed off to reach the outer objectives.

Turn 1 - Daemons
The Chaos Gods weren't please with the pre-game sacrifice Sanguinius made, giving him his "un-chosen" side of the army, which consisted of 10 Seekers, 2 units of 6 Fiends, 2 units of 10 Daemonettes and a Herald on a Chariot. They all managed to deepstrike successfully on the table, with the Herald moving in close to Shoota Boyz on a home objective, shooting them with her Daemonic Gaze and successfully wounding 1. First blood to the Daemons!

Turn 2 - Orks
My Grots remained lurking offfield in reserve, whilst the rest of the Orks pressed forwards. The Slugga mobs pressed either side of a central building to aim for an objective each, while the Nob Bikers moved to target a small Daemonette squad that had showed up next to the objective they were aiming for. The Burna wagon stayed central in order to flame through a doorway onto a Daemonette squad inside the building.

The Bikers managed to whittle down their Daemonettes to 2 remaining members, the Shoot Boyz knocked 2 wounds off the Herald on Chariot and the Burna Wagon took out the Daemonette squad inside the building.

Turn 2 - Daemons
Another smaller Daemonette squad showed up on the board from reserve, backed up by a Slaanesh Daemon Prince adding to the number of bodies on the table. The Seekers and Fiends moved to combat a Slugga Mob and the Burna Wagon respectively. Whilst the Herald shot her Daemonic Gaze at the Shoota Boyz again, killing another and then charging into combat.

Thanks to a lot of rending, the Fiends exploded the Burna Wagon, killing 7 Burnas in the resulting explosion (Ouch!) and losing 1 of their number in return. The Seekers were unable to fare much better against the Boyz mob, managing to kill 13 from their salvo of attacks, but getting wiped out in return, allowing the Boyz a consolidation move forwards. The Herald on Chariot charged into the Boyz and was killed off, after she killed 3 Boyz.

The Daemon prince killed a few Boyz with Breath of Chaos on the way in but lost a wound through combat, whilst the Orks passed their no Retreat wounds.

Turn 3 - Orks
The Orks swarmed forwards again aiming for the Daemonette squads that were appearing, looking to see them off to prevent the Daemons capturing objectives. The Deff Dread and Shoota Boyz tag teamed to wipe out a unit of Daemonettes and the Burna Boyz with Mek took out the Fiends who had destroyed their taxi.

The Nob Bikers and the Boyz mob behind them reduced the Daemonette squad nearest them to their final remaining member.

The other Boyz mob went after the final remaining Daemonette squad, thinning them down to 4 remaining members.

Turn 3 - Daemons
Now the heavy hitters finally started to show up. 2 Soul Grinders, a Keeper of Secrets and another Seeker squad. Unfortunately, the Keeper of Secrets and 1 of the Soul Grinders ended up being misplaced by a bad scatter, so were put in a car corner of the battlefield.

However, these guys showing up started to swing the battle. The Soul Grinders maw weapon claiming 2 Nob Bikers. The remaining Daemonettes fled for cover in an attempt to hold the objectives.

Turn 4 - Orks
We were running out of time for our alloted practice time limit, so we decided to end it once turn 4 was complete.

One Ork mob was stuck in combat with the Daemon Prince, the Nob Bikers finished off the final daemonette in the unit near them, and the second Ork mob moved up and called a Waaagh in order to reach the only remaining Daemonettes on the table, wiping them out in assault after losing 4 of their number. The Daemon Prince took out another 4 Boyz in his assault, but went down to his last remaining wound after some good Power Klaw hits.

Turn 4 - Daemons
With no Daemonettes left, the remaining Slaanesh Daemons just went to try and kill off whatever they could. One Soul Grinder trying to reach the Ork Boyz camped holding the only objective that was captured, but was inches out of range.

The remaining Soul Grinder attempted to splat the Nob Bikers, with 1 Biker failing his cover save and being removed via instant death.

The Seekers charged into the Nob Bikers, killing off 1 Nob Biker and causing some messy wound allocation on another 2, including the Warboss, but losing 4 in retalation, resulting in a drawn combat.

Final Result
Orks 1 - Daemons 0

Conclusion
Had it gone on for another turn, I'm sure the Daemons could have started to race across the board and wipe things off the objectives, when their big stuff finally showed up. My gameplan when the first turn kicked off was the aim for the Daemonettes and wipe them off the table, meaning the only option for the Daemons was either to table me, or result in a draw.

It was a tough game anyway, the worrying thing was that most of the things needed 5s or 6s to wound or glance, but with rending, I was always being denied the chances.

Tough game and good preparation for an upcoming tournament. After hearing a lot about the way the Slaanesh Daemon army was going to play, I was worried prior to the game, and I still am, considering had the game been played out in full.

If the other half of the army had showed up first turn, rather than what did, it would have been a different story.

Cheers all,
SB.

[Daemons] Second Wave Pictures!

So here we go, the pics we've been waiting for.

Apparently ALL of them are plastic, bar the Fateweaver and Changeling. Which means PLASTIC BLOODCRUSHERS!!!

So what do you guys think? I think I may definitely have to expand beyond the realms of Khorne!

SB

[Upcoming] Chaos Daemons Second Wave: UPDATE

After yesterday's post about the second wave of Daemons, I've had this picture brought to my attention from DakkaDakka.com and Warseer:

Plastic Seekers of Slaanesh, supposedly shown accidentally at a Games Day. You can also see the plastic Daemon Prince in the background too.

So yeah, enjoy :)

SB.

[Upcoming] Chaos Daemons Second Wave

So Sunday afternoon I get informed there's an email going round from GW about the second wave of Daemons coming in October. When checking the mail, I'm extremely dissapointed to find there's no pictures of anything new.

In August, the immortal legions of the Ruinous Powers - the Chaos Daemons - will pour forth once more from the Realm of Chaos to drown the Warhammer world and the galaxy of the 41st Millennium beneath a tide of blood and destruction. Even now, mystics are assailed by nightmarish visions of horror and death, the fractured minds of madmen echo with sibilant whispers, and the doomed clutch symbols of their weak gods closer to them.
A host of incredible new Citadel miniatures for both Warhammer 40,000 Chaos Daemons armies and Warhammer Daemons of Chaos armies will soon be released upon mortal battlefields. All will be revealed in July here on the Games Workshop website and in August's issue of White Dwarf magazine, so keep an eye out for more information.

This means pretty soon we should be seeing images of them, although they could just show up unannounced in a GW email, like the Boarboyz and River Trolls did for Warhammer Fantasy.

What can we expect to see in the 2nd wave of releases? Here's my thoughts:

Plastic Daemon Prince

This guy has been floating around for ages. He's showed up a German White Dwarf, if I remember rightly and since then he's been spotted in the Warriors of Chaos army book for Warhammer Fantasy a couple of times, and also another spotting in either Battle Missions or Planetstrike, stood on top of a large building.

What we know is that he's plastic, more Daemonic and less Space Marine looking, comes with option of Wings and has several heads, torsos and weapons.

Likely Factor: 10/10

Plastic Seekers of Slaanesh

[i]Image Courtesy of: http://ameba.lpt.fi/~varrolli/Figut/Deamons/Seekers1.jpg[/i]

Seekers are I think the only unit (excluding characters etc.) that have no available models to represent them so for the last 2 years, people have been having to convert or count-as to get these on the table.

The reason I've said these are likely to be plastic is because of how slender they are. If they're going to make them, I think 5 to a box for £15 would be enough to get people running 2 squads of 10 in regular games.

I think we'll definitely see them released, the debate on plastic or metal is the only clarification needed though.

Likely Factor: 8/10

Plastic Plaguebearers
These, unlike the other rumours above, haven't had anything confirmed other than wild speculation. I think that these would do well like the Tyranids and Necron Warriors used to come, with bases of Nurglings included in the pack. 10 Plaguebearers for £15 with 2 or 3 bases of Nurglings on the sprues and people would lap it up.

Likely Factor: 5/10

Plastic Horrors
Like with the Plaguebearers, I feel getting the 4 core troop choices in plastic would be a good move for GW, allowing more people to branch out from Khorne or Slaanesh, or those who have already invested in Nurgle or Tzeentch to bolster their forces.

It would also kick start people such as myself to move away from mono-God army lists and branch out into a mixed chaos list - something I've considered but didn't fancy paying for lots of different bitz to convert out of.

It would be even better if maybe these were a prime release box, say £18, but the boxset could allow you to make 10 Horrors or 5 Flamers, through some handy multi part section work.

Likely Factor: 4/10


Metal Blue Scribes
These guys can be converted from Blue Horrors on a Disc of Tzeentch. But I think these guys would tie into....

Likely Factor: 4/10

Plastic Chariots
Plastic Chariots for all! I think it would be too much to ask for 4 seperate chariot kits, with upgrades to the riders to allow them to be special characters like Skulltaker or the Blue Scribes. Or the other option is a generic Chaos chariot with a couple of extra parts here and there, Glyphs, Armour plates, etc. Then 1 rider from each Chaos God on the sprues.

Likely Factor: 3/10

The Changeling
A lot of people have made these out of all sorts of models - posessed space marines, chaos sorcerors, mutated Guardsmen etc. But I think GW might just decide to release him as a metal model.

Likely Factor: 3/10

Plastic Bloodthirster
This was an offhand rumour going around some of the forums that GW might bring out a plastic Bloodthirster model. I'm not sure how much of it is wish-listing and how much is the rumour mill but it would certainly be good to see.

Likely Factor: 1/10

Character Conversion Packs
The final thing I can come up with is Metal conversion packs to make some of the named Greater Daemons, such as an extra head, wings, weapon etc. etc. This is very much wish-listing though, and a lot of people have already proved you can make them from the options in the current boxsets.

Likely Factor: 1/10

Personally, I'm really looking forward to this release and what it holds for us Daemon players!

So what do you guys think? Any other ideas or suggestions?

SB.

[Daemons] Khorne Daemon Army Showcase

Hey all,

Last Monday while I had some time off work, I spent the day photographing my 40k armies to be ready for blog articles, ready to be fired off whenever.

Today I thought I'd show my Daemon Army unit by unit, just in a kind of showcase article. Talk a bit about anything interesting and generally just show them off...

The brief of this army was two-fold. After playing a LOT of games over the space of 12 months with my Orks, I decided I wanted a very different army that I could make all plastic and on the cheap.

I'd gone round and round with ideas what to do, and liked the sound of the Daemons, and at the time I had a Khorne Heavy Chaos marine list, so the two would link well. In August, the army was born getting about 1,250pts for £50. I then expanded this in October with a £30 investment and rounded it up to over a 2,000pt force - all plastic. "How've you managed that?" you may ask. Well read on...

Skulltaker

This is my take on Skulltaker. He took a bit of a hit in the transition between 4th and 5th Edition, due to the changes to rending rules, but I still think he's a really cool character. Most people's gripe is that for the extra points, it's not worth it when you can just take a normal Herald on a Juggernaut, but like I say, he's cool. He's made from a normal Bloodletter, holding a Skull and with a Khornate shoulder pad and chainmail tabbard thing.

Originally he was going to have a cloak, but the brief of the project was "Quick, Cheap and Dirty" and it would have meant sculpting work, which I didn't fancy doing at the time.

Bloodthirster

This guy is a pre-painted Dungeons and Dragons mini which I bought for £5 (1/7th the cost of a Metal one) and all I had to do was base him with sand. Bargain! Think he's called Ba'Lor or something...

Bloodcrusher Heralds

This is one of my 2 Heralds on Juggernauts. Now I know what you're thinking... "He's not riding anything!" and you'd be true to spot that. My reasoning behind this is that since Bloodcrushers count as Infantry because "the massive armoured Juggernaut is too slow to be considered Cavalry", I envisioned some kind of Incredible Hulk style Bloodcrusher.

So these guys are made from Ogre Ironguts with big 2 Handed weapons. I figure they fit the role of S5, T5, Power Weapon armed with Iron Hides pretty well.

Bloodletters

These guys are probably the only standard unit in the army, and were the test bed of the paint scheme. The army is divided by Green and Blue detailing on the tongues of the Bloodletters to split the units on the battlefield.

They're painted Mechrite Red (flesh), Boltgun Metal and Shining Gold (Hellblades) and Dheneb Stone (bones, teeth, claws, horns). Then they're washed over with Badab Black. Simples!

I'm not one for large amounts of time spent painting...

Bloodcrushers

These are 1 of the 2 units of Bloodcrushers I use in my 2000pt list. This is the green half, and each unit runs with a Herald attached into it.

Flesh Hounds

These Flesh hounds are made from Warhammer Fantasy Chaos Warhounds, simply because they're £12 for 10 of them - a full unit or 2 units of 5. They're painted in the same way as the Bloodletters, but I've kept the fur black, like the old style Bloodletters and the Bloodthirster's mane are.

Karanak

This is Karanak, the leader of the Flesh hounds. He's simply a standard Flesh Hound, but one that's stood howling. I'm thinking about maybe adding some more details onto the base to make him stand out. Personally, I think Karanak is always worth taking if you take the hounds.

Original Daemon Prince

This is my first original Daemon Prince made from the Be'Lakor model from Warhammer Fantasy, as firstly, the model is awesome. But then the fact it's £3 cheaper than the 40k Daemon Prince AND already comes with wings attached.

He's painted in a much brighter shade of red, as he originally led my Khorne Chaos Marine army into battle. However, he's been sidelined as my list called for 3 Daemon Prince units.

New Daemon Princes

These are my new Daemon Princes. Fire Elementals from Dungeons and Dragons, as I really liked the transparent orange look. However, I think these guys will soon get retired in favour of some more fitting models, they look a bit too Tzeentchian. I have some ideas for the MK2 versions, but we'll have to wait and see!

The Khorne Family Photo

And finally here's the army in all it's spikey, bloody glory:
- Bloodthirster
- Skulltaker
- 2 Heralds on Juggernauts
- 20 Bloodletters
- 8 Bloodcrushers
- 10 Flesh Hounds
- 4 Daemon Princes

Next step is maybe some better fitting Daemon Princes - depending when GW decide to release that elusive plastic prince!.

As usual... any questions, comments or feedback, let me know :)

SB

[FTW] Unifying and Theming your Armies

Hey all,

Recieved an email from Ron at FTW not long ago, with the topic of this month's collaborative post. This time we're going to be talking about how we theme and unify our armies outside of what units are actually in the force.

For me, there's 3 areas we can do this in - Painting, Converting and Basing and I feel all 3 are in my Ork force, but I'll try and chop some other armies in there to spice things up.

Painting
The first and most obvious personally is the painting work undertaken on the army - whether it's Eavy Metal, Golden Daemon winning standard, or something as simple as a variant colour scheme.

I'd then say there's 3 sub-categories inside of painting that can define an army theme - Paint Scheme, Painting Method and Colour Palette.

Paint Scheme

First off, the paint scheme chosen by the player can tell as much of a backstory to knowledgable 40k players as could a 100 word piece of background fluff. From something as simple as the colour your paint your Space Marines, generally signifies their chapter or founding chapter, or what type of Ork clan you wish to play as.

This is my Looted Boom-wagon, painted in lucky Deffskullz blue, to match to rest of my force, showing their heavy focus on looting equipment, vehicles and their general luckiness on the tabletop!

Painting Methods
Once you've picked your overall scheme, it then comes to how you paint your army. An honourable Marine or Eldar army will obviously be highly polished, very cleanly layered and highlighted, whereas an army mid-conflict or a grimey evil army will be less cleanly painted and use more washes and drybrushing.

This is my Necron army, the Soul Reavers, who I wanted to look like standard Necrons, however when painting them I used heavy drybrushing to try and emphasise these are ancient robots who've slumbered for a long, long time and awoken. Time has taken it's toll on their shiney steel!

This is one of my Bloodletters from the Daemonhost of Khorne. These guys I wanted to be very quick to paint, but also emphasise their extreme evil and bestial nature with dark colours overwashed by Badab Black. The use of the wash to darken the models makes them look less cartoony and more evil to me.

 Colour Palette
Another choice in your overall army scheme is the Colour Palette you stick to. I've seen extreme ends of the scale for this, with a Warhammer Fantasy Wood Elf army that was painted in Blues, Greys and pale Browns as a winter theme and it looked amazing. However, just by using a limited palette of specific colours can give such an impression too.

Take my Ork Warboss, who was painted as "How all the rest of his Waagh! should look". By using a pale brown and cream colours for the clothing, I've tried to get the feel like they use really poor fabrics like 41st millenium potato sacks and such, to make them feel more like scavenging Raiders.

Also, I've not used gold on any of my Orks. I figured that a bunch of Looting Raiders would have either spent or lost the gold, so I went for very dark metal colours like battered steel.

Converting
The next step players take to theme their armies is converting - which can be something as simple as most of my Ork conversions are, or very heavily converted armies like Traitor Guard armies made from Catachan / Beastmen Hybrids or such.

My Orks, as I've said previously are major Lootas and since most of the time they are fighting Imperial opposition, they tend to loot their leftovers. Things range from small conversion jobs like weapon swaps and "Orkifying", to kit bashing and other conversions.

These are my Meganobz who thought the Beakies had it too good with their Terminator armour, so crumped a bunch of them and cobbled together the left over armour to make Mega Armour. They've also gone for a variety of colours, signifying they've fought lots of different Space Marine chapters in their time.

Themewise for the army, whatever the Orks can't loot they capture various types of Squigs and get them to do the same job! This is a Warbuggy count-as, that the Orks were more than happy to strap some Rokkits to and charge towards the enemy. This gets further reinforced in the army with a Squiggoth that doubles as a Battlewagon and an "Biological" Drednaught.

Back to more simple stuff now with my Lootas who are the poster boys of the force. These have simply had lots of Imperial and Xeno weapons cobbled together to make their Deffgunz, along with some Space Marine backpacks to tie them all together and make it so I can split the unit into 3 small squads of 5.

Basing
The final area for this article covers basing the army to tie it all together. Which can be as simple as my basing scheme which I use for all my forces - or more elaborate things like small puddles or swamp areas on bases to show the army is fighting in a marshland style environment, or something like snow basing.

Firstly, I started basing with this method when I used to play Lord of the Rings and first moved into 40k and wanted Urban themed Imperial Guard. I start by using Sand or Gravel (a mix of the two also works well) and then paint this with Chaos Black. Once dry, I do a heavy drybrush of Codex Grey and a second lighter drybrush with Fortress Grey. Then I re-paint the Rim of the base with Chaos Black, before putting patches of Static grass on.

I've continued using this method since then, as I envision all my armies are taking part in the same conflict on an un-named planet in the galaxy which forms the background for all my forces.

That way, when displayed with one another, or fighting each other, they form the basis for further background story on the planet whose Imperial Guard regiments face siege daily from all sides by the Orks, Necrons and Chaos Daemons (and maybe a Zombie or two).

Conclusion
So there you go, unifying and theming your army in 3 easy steps. So try and take this into account when you start a new army, or even add to your existing one.

What do you guys do to unify and theme your armies - and do you have any other tips?

SB