[Head to Head] Waaagh! Nobrot VS New Tyranids

So, now the Tyranid Codex has landed it's time for everyone to start facing - as usual - that the sky is falling, this Codex is better than every codex before it and everything inside it is unbeatable.

So I figured what I'd do is take a look at what's actually showed up on the tabletop, as opposed to what's circling the rumour mills, and then assess how I can attack and defeat these threats with my Ork army.

Threat #1: Trygon / Mawloc
The Tyrgon, it's big, scary and can take a lot of firepower head on. I think the best way of dealing with these guys for me, is to attack them in the same way I dealt with Carnifexes in the previous edition - lots of Tar pit units of Ork Boyz led by a Power Klaw Nob.

The Trygon might be able to rip a few Ork Boyz heads off before they can attack, but the sheer weight of numbers with the remaining FEARLESS boyz and the Power Klaw should be able to dent it. Combined with the fact if they charge, they're looking at between 30 - 60 S4 shots (depending on if they're Sluggas or Shoota) before charging in.

Threat #2: Mycetic Spores
These guys can be a nightmare for Orks, having a unit walk out in your midst right in your Boyz faces, unleash a wave of firepower and then say "Come and deal with me". They're also Monstrous Creatures with Wounds, which means 1 lucky Big Shoota shot isn't going to destroy it... but on the bright side it's easier to rip into in Close Combat.

I think they key to these guys is to treat them similar to how you would expect a Marine Drop pod force to show up... right where it hurts in your army. And they'll come in two flavours... either dropping a squad of cheap Gaunts or Warriors or with a Monstrous creature inside it.

For Monstrous Creatures, I'd go for the Tarpit method, shoot - then hack it to death. Whereas for the cheaper Gaunts, I'd try and isolate their Synpatic link and maybe use a Vehicle to tank shock them off the board or finish them off with something relatively cheap that I don't want tied up in combat like a cheap Boyz unit. For this, I use a mob of 20 Shoota Boyz that can hover near where stuff is likely to show up and attack from.

Threat #3: Zoanthropes
Zoanthropes are now one of the new "Must-Have" units in the Nid list, after being sidelined for years in favour of the Carnifex spam.

There's 2 things the Zoanthropes are doing well at the minute and that's having the AP1 Lance Weapon, meaning that pretty much any vehicle it's hitting is looking at getting penetrated. Combine that with the fact it can also use a slightly lower Strength plasma cannon shot to attack multiple elite troops like Nobz or Nob Bikers.

Threat #4: The Horde
Nowadays, it seems GW want to focus on getting more smaller troops on the board and even bigger centrepiece models. So now, the idea is to get as many Gaunts on the board, even reducing the price of Hormagaunts almost in half.

However though, the Orks have a trick up in their green arsenal, the fact that they do the Horde better - in my personal opinion. For the same price as a Hormagaunt you get something that's tougher, hits harder and have access to special rules to buff them up (Fleet from the Waaagh!, Big Mek's Force Field etc.).

However, Orks are notoriously sparse on template weapons on anything but vehicles. So the next thing to start thinking about with thinning hordes is weight of fire from units like Shoota Boyz and Lootas, giving your Nobz and Characters Kombi-Skorchas, just to think the place out, and then if push comes to shove... take a unit of Burnas!

Threat #5: Tervigon
I think the Tervigon is THE must have item in the Tyranid codex. A Monstrous Creature that you can take as a Troop choice AND it spits out more troop choices? "Yes Please!" shout the Tyranid players.

My personal method of dispatching this chap would probably involve sheer weight of firepower from a Loota Mob, followed up by support fire from somewhere else. But the majority of Nid players will hedge their bets on a combination of 2 Tervigons, incase 1 of them decides to give up. I think this is a unit you would likely have to commit a turn to, in order to kill them off completely. Meaning the rest of the Tyranid beasties run rampant.

Personally I'd be inclined to send in a Burna Squad to deal with it... Flamers to clear away the Gaunts it spawns and the Power Weapons to deal with the Tervigon itself.

Conclusion - Where from here?
Well... where next for Waagh! Nobrot! with all these Tyranid invasions?

I think I'm likely to stick to the balanced list I have, which includes a Burna unit in a Wagon, maybe give my Warboss a Kombi-Skorcha to be able to thin any hordes he might face.

Orks are lucky in the fact it's more or less Mandatory to take a Power Klaw on any Nob you buy... with a lack of Power Weapons. So that helps to deal with the amount of Monstrous Creatures and also, thanks to the loss of Immune to Instant Death from the Synpase rules, you can now smack your opponent's Tyranid Warriors and smaller beasties to your hearts content.

Key things for your Orks to fight the Tyranids:
- Power Klaws... don't be cheap and take Big Choppas!
- Lootas
- Burnas
- Kustom Force Fields (to reduce the amount of Boyz deaths)

Thanks to all those who read and enjoy :)
SB.

[HOBBY] The New Boys Pt.3

I have returned after debating on the colour scheme for a long while I have come up with a few ideas, I know that I want the basic colour a shade of white, probably along the lines of bleached bone, but with white highlights to lighten it up and a wash of blue to make them look more spectral. This first model is my favourite at the moment but there is still room for improvement.

I also know that the secondary colour would be red, this would be to represent the bloodiness of their raids and culture however I couldn't decide on a definite pattern. I was going to have some form of Heraldry or a Skull icon on the left shoulder. The right shoulder is going to have a scroll on it with the Marines name written on and maybe some squad markings. The fists are going to be red to represent the blood of their enemies over years of raiding, similar to the crimson fists.

In the bottom picture I considered the red reaching up the arms in a flame or blood spatter pattern as a sign of veterancy the higher it went the more senior the marine.

I have posted a picture of the three main ideas I have, however if you find any better ones, feel free to comment and give your feedback.

If you want to see the first two parts follow this link and the link at the end of that article, this is the only way we know of linking them together.

http://maws40k.blogspot.com/2010/01/hobby-new-boys_13.html

[Warlord] Warlord 2010 Begins!

To those who are unaware, Warlord 40,000 is an annual league run over the space of 6 or 7 games between the 40k players of MAWS competing for the Warlord trophy.

It's now in it's third year and it's 2nd with 40k 5th Edition, which is troublesome when it comes to creating a ruleset of 6 or 7 different scenarios as there's only 3 in the rulebook.

So this year it's been tweaked and updated and you can find an online version of the rulespack here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/25488812/Warlord-2010 which can be downloaded and printed.

The link above is for players taking part in the tournament, but if you guys aren't MAWS players, then feel free to let us know what you think about the rules pack.

For those of us that are taking part, there's links on the top left of the document to download the file in a variety of different formats and print if off either from the online document, or through it's respective program.

To all those involved, enjoy!

SB

P.S. If you spot any mistakes or problems, please email me.

[Tyranids] New Nids - First Impressions

Well i played my first game with my new nids against James' Slannesh Daemon army. my list comprised of

tyrant with 3 guard
3 warriors with death spitters
3 units of 14 termigaunts
1 unit of 25 homagaunts
1 trygon prime
1 mawloc
1 tervigon
1 unit of 2 carnifexes with devourers
3 zonathropes

I thought it was a good first list, it would have been a good list if i'd have remembered half the new rules and to charge with units.

lessons learnt from the new list and my first game with them.

1, EVERYTHING tests for synapse (even if fearless)
2, never charge with a mawloc
3, start with the trygon on the board
4, READ READ and RE-READ the rules for the new nids and dont confuse them with the old codex
5, don't over upgrade everything, you are going to need the extra points
6, a minimum of 2 tervigons should be taken
7, use your army as a cohesive force
8, decide how you want your army to function when deciding on your list (obvious i know but something to keep at the front of your mind)
9, keep your tervigons close to your gaunts and give them support
10, never play James' tooled up slannesh daemons

[Daemons] Mono-Khorne Daemons Game 3

Hey all,

Last night my Khorne daemons took to the table against Rob and, unluckily for me, he'd been itching to bring his Daemonhunters out of retirement and even more so, use them against the army they were designed for.

So, after my last ramblings, right before the game I was in two minds whether to drop the Flesh Hound unit in favour of wings on the Daemon Prince. I was all up for giving the Khorne puppies an attempt at redemption, but I thought I'd keep them in the box and tack the wings on the Daemon Princes.



Rob's list was something along the lines of:

Grandmaster - Lots of Anti Daemon stuff, Terminator Armour
4 or 5 GK Terminators
Land Raider Crusader with them in

Inquisitor in Terminator armour

2 Squads of 10 Grey Knights
2 Rhinos

1 Squad of 10 Inq Storm Troopers
1 Rhino

2 Grey Knight Drednaughts.

I ended up going first, which immediately put me at a Disadvantage, meaning I'd have to weather an extra turn of nasty anti-Daemon fire. Kill points is a good mission for my army, only having 2 scoring units, and deployment makes no difference for me. Rob castled his Rhinos with the rear armour against buildings, to avoid a Deathstrike opening them up on the turn I drop.



Chaos favoured me and gave me my first wave of:
2 of the Daemon Princes
1 Bloodcrusher Unit
1 Bloodletter unit.

I chose to drop the 2 Daemon princes close to Rhinos and try and open them up via side armour, but risk the entire GK army opening fire on them. The Bloodcrushers tried to land inbetween buildings to get a bit of cover out of the way of enemy fire, along with the Bloodletters on an opposite flank.



A lot happened during the game, but the main points, mistakes and lessons learnt were:
- Giving Daemon Princes wings, means I don't need to drop them right in front of the enemy. I can hide out of the firing line for a turn, then hop over something and attack. More importantly, don't forget you've given them Wings!!!

- Beasts gain fleet of foot as a standard rule, along with their 12" charge range. This makes Flesh Hounds a bit more interesting to me, with a potential 24" charge range is all comes off well. Maybe they'll take part next game. I'd forgotten about this being the case... D'oh!

- Think 1 turn ahead with the Daemons. It's all well and good hoping for a Hit on the scatter roll so I can deathstrike a Rhino, but if it doesn't come off, or even if it does, you're stuck in the open being able to do nothing for a turn, then get retaliation fire next turn.

Overall, I think I did pretty well fighting a completely anti-Daemon army, I ended up losing by 5 kill points, but with a couple of mistakes rectified I probably could have saved myself a few KPs or took a few other GKs down.

Next week I'm not sure whether to keep the wings on the Daemon Princes and remember to use them, or drop the Flesh Hounds back in.

Peace out,
SB.

[Orks] Waaaagh! Nobrot! Part 3: The Boyz

Hey everyone,

Welcome to my not so regular post working through the my green tide of an Ork army.

In this article, after looking at the numerous different army builds I like to try out, I figured I'd look at the core of the Ork army - the troop choices, and how I can use them and what their purpose is in my Waaagh.

For the moment, I'll leave out things like Nobz (and variants) and the Deff Dred being able to be taken as troops, I'll cover those in their respective categories and units.

With Orks being relatively cheap for their basic troops, it enables an Ork player to build large mobs of 20 - 30 strong boyz for a low cost, meaning you can have plenty of them on the table, unleashing a proper WAAAGH! I feel the core of an Ork army should be around about 60 - 80 boyz spread between mobs.

There's 2 basic troop choices in the Ork Codex, the Grotz and the Boyz (and the different types of Ork Boy you can make), so I'll run through them one by one.

Grotz

Grotz are a really effective troop choice in my opinion, albeit very weak, but they make up for it in the fact they're so, so cheap. A full unit of 30, with Runtherds and upgrades comes in at around 100pts. And as well, they're eligible to be a scoring unit. So this cheap unit can camp on or near a home objective while your more expensive and trusted Ork boyz can leg it across the board and smash anyone who faces them in the middle of the board.

The downside to the unit is the fact they're so weak... a good round of fire off pretty much any unit in the game can be forcing even a large unit of them to be taking a Morale check, and whilst the Runtherds can sacrifice Grotz to re-roll it, it's still a tough ask.

Best solution for this is camp them out of sight and out of the enemies mind and if push comes to shove... run away! Or better yet, rush from cover, all guns blazing and attempt to hack the shins of your attackers. Even if it's a Monstrous Creature or high T character, it's worth taking the Grot-Prod upgrades on the Herders just to be able to deal out a bit of pain.

I normally run them in a unit of 19, which means I only need to take 1 runtherd and CAN fit in a Battlewagon if ever I need to do so (you'd be surprised!).

Shoota Boyz

These guys got a real boost when the Ork codex got updated, giving them Assault 2 weapons. The amount of firepower you can get out of a 20 - 30 strong mob is astonishing and even then, you can have the assault power to either go in and start krumping them - or to take it on the chin next turn.

I like to use a 20 strong Shoota Boyz mob as a buddy unit for my Grotz holding the home objective. These guys head towards the next objective outside of my closest one. If anything comes near the Grotz, these guys generally have enough firepower or threat to stop them and let the Grotz finish them off with their BB guns.

They also make a particularly effective unit whilst in a Battlewagon, 18 plus the Nob accompanied by a Big Mek, being able to jump out and unleash a torrent of firepower into the enemy unit nearby, or even better unleash a drive-by Shooting from the open topped Battlewagon.

The downside most people have with using this unit is the low Ork ballistic skill... which I admit is a problem, but the amount of firepower you get back out of it more than makes up for it. I'll happily have half the BS of a Space Marine and twice the amount of fire power!

Slugga Boyz


Slugga Boyz, same points cost as the Shoota Boyz for Close combat beasts. A mob of 30 of these, lead by a Nob is going to cause serious and considerable damage to whatever it hits. Smashing an enemy unit with 4 attacks each on the charge is nothing to be sniffed at, combined with the furious charge. Marines will still be faster than you, but there'll be enough Boyz to take the damage and still hit home.

I like to run two units of 30 Slugga boyz in my lists forming the core pincers of my army. I have 3 Big shootas and a Power Klaw and Bosspole Nob to keep them in the game, should they ever need them. I've found on rear or side armour, the big shootas are quite handy for ripping open a Rhino and getting at what's inside.

The downside is, big mobs attract lots of fire, especially from templates. So normally my 2 are covered by a Big Mek with Force Field, but they still get munched by flamers, so whilst they are tough - they're still soft and squishy.

Trukk Boyz

Simple concept, a mob of 12 boyz in a Trukk, speed over to the enemy, hop out and hack to death whatever is on the other side. I'd initially not used my Trukk model other than to transport of Nob unit on foot, but found it died too easily carrying it's cargo.

So I eventually expanded to having 3 Trukks with a mob of 12 boyz (Sluggas and Choppas, 1 Big Shoota and a Power Klaw Nob) inside. And yes, once they're out they do die quite easily, but the speed and manouverability they offer, I feel is way worth it.

They are also quite expensive. 12 in a trukk with upgrades sets you back about the same as 25 - 30 do on foot. However, back this lot up with a Kustom Force Field and they're gonna be a nightmare to crack open.

Ard Boyz
The last troop choice is another variant of the Ork Boy, coming with a 4+ Save. The problem I have with these guys is that you can only have 1 mob of these per army, otherwise I'd happily upgrade each of my Trukk mobz to be Ard Boyz.

Equivalent to just short of two normal boyz, to earn yourself a 4+ save isn't worth doing in my opinion. I'd rather get a mob double the size and accept that some will die.

I've always wanted a Mob of them, made from Warhammer Fantasy Black Orc Boyz, so maybe one day I'll get around to it.

Conclusion
So there you have 'em. The Ork troop choices summed up and shown off.

I hope you've enjoyed reading it and the pictures of my units. Any comments, critiscism, feedback or discussion is, as always, welcome.

Peace out!
SB

[HOBBY] The New Boys Pt.2

Following on from my article yesterday where I gave you an idea to what my new Space Marine army is going to look like and why I chose it, today I am going to start going into the fluff of the Chapter which is yet to be named as I cant find anything suitable and not super corny so any ideas are welcome, for now they are named “The Brotherhood Of The Forsaken”.

The general fluff will be along the lines of, “The Brotherhood Of The Forsaken was founded in the 13th founding where there is little known of which chapters were created and which survived. The Brotherhood Of The Forsaken thought dead by the Imperium has become self sufficient and tribal, while still maintaining the structure and discipline of the modern day Astartes. The chapter hold a larger number of Land raiders than any other chapter, this may be because of the constant raids that they carry out upon anyone they see as beneath them, and their Techmarines are often called upon to increase the power output of their vehicles, mainly their land raiders for a fast and devastating raiding party which the chapter excel at. The techmarines are also highly trained fighters and often lead squads into battle to help keep the vehicles running at maximum capacity. Before a raid the Brotherhood Of The Forsaken adorn their Land Raiders with Skulls and skeletons of their recently beaten foes.”

The initial idea for the paint scheme is going to be, white with a pale blue wash followed by highlights and a black wash followed by a second light blue/white wash. With red trim or armour pieces, the hands are going to be red on the grunts like crimson fists and more of the arm is red as they gain veterency, going in a sort of Jagged pattern similar to the white scars. I will post some test pictures as soon as I am able to.

For the last Edition of this article Follow this link http://maws40k.blogspot.com/2010/01/hobby-new-boys.html

[HOBBY] The New Boys

Recently I made the decision to start a new army, I wanted something that would be fun to play and something I could individualize. Over the years I have found that I play better with a small elite force where losing one model can affect the game, and normally with a list like that I get close to winning. So thinking along these lines I found the smallest list I could with as much room for personalizing as possible. After a few weeks of writing list after list of armies I settled on Space Marines, something draws me to them, not the blue and gold of the Ultramarines, it’s the unsung heroes like Shrike, who although has a character, no-one knows much about him, and Lysander who is in a similar situation.

The list I decided on was:

Pedro Kantor - 175

Lysander - 200

Techmarine - 105
Harness, Power Weapon, Plasma Pistol

10 Sternguard - 285
Combi-Plas, Melta-bomb

10 Tactical Marines - 215
Plasma gun, Heavy Bolter, Storm Bolter, Fist

10 Tactical Marines - 195
Melta Gun, Plasma Cannon, Storm Bolter,

Land Speeder - 60
Heavy Bolter, Heavy Flamer

Land Speeder - 60
Heavy Bolter, Heavy Flamer

Land Raider Redeemer - 240

Land Raider Redeemer - 240

Land Raider Crusader - 250

However as I wanted them to be unique I have decided that I am going to make my own chapter, and this is what this next set of articles will be about. Building this chapter from the ground up into something worth singing tales of.

First why this list, why not something more playable and forgiving, well I do best with a small elite force, and I don’t think I could have got much smaller. The way that the guys are kitted out is part sense and part for how they would look. As a quick Breakdown, the three Independent Characters will go with one squad each, Lysander with the Sternguard, Kantor with the Melta Squad and Techmarine Mohammed with the Plasma Squad.

So here is the unit and their objectives:

Sternguard with Lysander in the Land Raider Crusader;

The point in this squad is they are Scoring because of Kantor and Lysander makes their bolters Twin-linked… nasty. They will move up with support from the rest of the army and jump out with their special ammo weapons blow a unit away with help and fire support if needed from their crusader, which will either shoot the same unit until is crumbles or fire at another to weaken it for the next shooting phase.

Melta Marines with Kantor in a Redeemer

Although he is technically my main HQ he gets relegated to a normal squad because Lysanders Bolter Drill is more important to Sternguard than normal Marines. These are on the flank of Lysander and either jump out and melta a Rhino/Land Raider or provide fire support or target a separate unit with fire support from the Redeemer.

Plasma Marines with Techmarine in a Redeemer

This squad has a similar role to the one with Kantor, but if anyone breaks down then the Techmarine jumps out and fixes them, in theory of course.

Land Speeders

These were originally going to be a Dreadnought, but I wanted to make my army as mobile as possible and Land Speeders are cool, these will Harass the enemy and target heavy weapons which threaten my Land Raiders.

Later this week I shall start on the fluff and I may even post a few paint scheme Ideas for the army for your criticisms.