A look at the Grey Knights

With the Grey Knight Codex due for release this Saturday I thought I would take a look and compare the Old Codex to the New Codex. I'm going to give a breif overview of the changes to the book and will go more in depth after playing with the Grey Knights doing a Unit by Unit breakdown.

The Biggest change I have noticed is that Grey Knights are no longer Super Marines, they share the same stat line including Leadership. This means gone are the days of hitting most enemies on a 3+ and sticking around after losing nearly everyone in the squad. Now, they will be hitting on a 4+ generally and being hit by their Bloodletter/Bloodcrusher enemies on a 3+!!!! Now that every unit has a psychic power LD10 is almost a must, but Grey Knights have been dropped to 8, pushing 9 with their Justicar/Knight of flame. This means that alot of Psychic tests will be failed at crucial points especially if you happen to lose your justicar to weight of fire.

The Psycannon and Incinerator no longer ignore invulnerable saves which means that their chosen foe now gets a chance to survive against the Grey Knights shooting! The bonus being Incinerators are now Strength 6 and Psycannons are Rending (not much use against Daemons). The Psilencer does wound on a 4+ against Daemons (unless usually better) but as a heavy weapon in an assault orientated army it is a bit out of place, which is probably why its free. The Incinerator has doubled in points for the gain of one point in strength and with my large number of old models which came with an incinerator (I have 5) it means I have to take an elite choice (Purifiers) or pay equal to another man for each one. The Psycannon has dropped by 15 points and is now a cheap 10pts for a Strength 6 AP4 Rending Assault 2, Heavy 3 gun, BARGAIN.

Now, Grey Knights in Power Armour have Dropped by 5pts per model and as stated earlier dropped alot of Stats and rules, for 20pts you get, a Space Marine armed with a Force Weapon and Storm Bolter, for 25pts you used to get a Khorne Bezerker armed with a Str 6 weapon and Storm Bolter with 2 Attacks. But before I condem the change (I want Str 6) lets look at the cost of a Space Marine (15pts) with Power Weapon (15pts) and Storm bolter (5pts) that is 35pts, 15pts more than a Grey Knight!!! The big problem I have is that now, Grey Knights are just Space Marines with Prefered Enemy against Daemons, who go last againts Daemonettes, will get ripped apart by Bloodletters/crushers hitting easier and cant even ignore their saves in shooting.

The good points though are that now Grey Knights get a thunderhammer, and for only 10pts (the difference between a Power weapon and Thunderhammer), their Force Swords give the Termies a 4+ inv in combat, can take a Halberd which gives +2 initiative for 5pts (taking them to the same cost as an old Grey Knight) but with only 1 attack each basic (no +1 for their storm bolter) they only way to get an extra attack is with a Falchion at 10pts. What seems to be a popular choice (though I will be taking a minumum if at all) is the Null Staff, which gives you a +2 inv in combat at a massive 25pts!!! if it was a bit cheaper I would consider them, but thats another Man with +2 initiative (which means I wouldnt need the 2+ save).

Also, with all the new toys and units then I think this new Codex could be a winner, but I feel they missed out on the fluff big time and it is obvious they wanted to streamline the Grey Knights for newer/younger players. The drop to a standard Space Marines stats will really hurt a close combat psychic weilding army that now has a low LD and average WS.

By this time next week I should have had a good read through the Codex (and not just a glance in the shop) and will begin my in-depth analysis of each unit and its role (and changes). Until then, enjoy.

Dark Eldar Thoughts

Morning all,


I've had 3 games over the past few weeks with my Dark Eldar army, now that the majority of it all is painted up. After having a really good and close game last night, I thought I'd post up some thoughts.

1. Keep moving

It seems obvious, but in the heat of the moment during these games, I forgot about the speed and manouvreability the Dark Eldar have at out-running the opponent.

For example, last night against a walking horde of Necrons, I deployed heavily on one flank, then tried to come across mid-way through the game and take on the Necron centre of the force. Rather than harass the flanks and circle around the slow moving Necrons, like I probably should have.

2. Swamping

At the moment, my lists didn't seem to able to take weight of numbers sent back their way. For example, Scarab Swarms with disruption fields on my vehicles, Flayed One attacks and other things that can bring high numbers at low-ish strength, really made a dent in my force.

3. Hit hard, get out fast.

I've managed to fall into the trap of either attacking the wrong sorts of enemy units with my units, or managing not to finish off the job while I have the extra attacks or boosts on the charge into combat.

4. You can, and will, run away.

Dark Eldar units under my care tend to have a bad habit of running away regularly. Last night I think I had half my army fleeing at one point, just being chased off the board by the silver tide of Necrons.

So that's my mistakes... but on the flip side, what's gone well...

1. Weight of fire.

I've really enjoyed the amount of shots that units can pump out, especially those in a Raider backed up with Splinter Racks. It helps to shift those higher toughness, good armour save troops, that the weight of fire starts to catch up with.

2. Scourges

I really like this unit now. I was a bit unsure of them initially, especially the high points cost, but I've found them to be one of my favourite units now. I take them with a Splinter Cannon, 2 Shredders and a Power Weapon Solarite, but I think I'll be swapping him for a Venom Blade now and save some points.

3. Beastmasters

Again, another unit I really like. Lots of attacks (especially on the charge), lots of cannon fodder Khymarae. Now I just need to find some way of making Razorwing flocks...

That's enough from me for now...

Peace,
SB

Badger's Log - Dark Eldar Scourges

Morning all,

Another installment in Badger's Log, somewhere hopefully towards finishing off my Dark Eldar for a bit, so that I can focus some more on the Brotherhood of the Forge and adding some units from my increasing wish list to other armies.

So here's the latest goodies from the painting conveyor belt - a unit of 10 Dark Eldar Scourges.

From what I was seeing on the Internet, a lot of people were sticking to the Codex concept art and trying out things like Pegasus Wings and Sanguinary Guard angelic wings.

I didn't like those for 2 reasons, the first one being that they were mega expensive to buy (would have worked out about £20 - £25 for the Wings alone). Secondly, that I didn't like the "Crazy birdman" look that the Scourges have - I imagined my Dark Eldar scourges to be more bat-like.

So yeah, I saw some images on BOLS using Tyranid Gargoyle wings and decided that was the way to go. I think the total unit cost was about £35 to make.

I had to the cut the extra talony claw thing off the bottom of the wings, which also meant that I had to cut the wing off pretty straight and didn't do a very good job at blending it back in.

But the idea is that the wings are fixed in place near the back "mounds" on the Warrior's back armour, fixed just to either side of them.

I'm really pleased with how they turned out anyway and they performed extremely well on the tabletop on Monday night, so I'll definitely be fitting them into a list where possible.

Bring on the weekend and some Haemonculi related goodies!

Peace,
SB

Badger's Log - Dark Eldar Mandrakes

Morning all,

I'm managing to keep up my blogging duties - although yesterday I forgot to take pictures of stuff before leaving the house (again...).

Over the weekend, I set myself the task of trying to get the remaining sprayed up Dark Eldar units I had (excluding any Haemonculi related...) painted up ready for a 1500pt game on Monday night. So I got 20 Mandrakes painted up (I'll explain why 20 in a bit...) and 10 Scourges.

Today's installment in Badger's mammoth painting spree, comes in the form of the Dark Eldar Mandrakes.

 These guys are Ghouls made by Mantic. I originally got them to use as Zombies for Left 40k Dead and also as Wracks in my Dark Eldar army.

Then I got onto this idea after buying Rat Ogres and Warlocks, that all my Haemonculi themed things would be Skaven related. They'd also then be usable for my Nurgle Daemon Hrud army.

So that's why I've got 20 of them (10 more are still in the box) and normally a unit like this isn't one that I'll choose to use in an army. I don't like the infiltrating non-scoring squads, but either way, now I've made some, I'll be using them here and there.

Next installment will be some Scourges!


Peace,
SB

Badger's Log - Dark Eldar Incubi

Morning all,

Yet another busy painting weekend this week, mostly so I can get 1,500pts of Dark Eldar stuff done ready to go on the table tonight. Today's installment comes in the form of my Dark Eldar Incubi.

Now, as most people who know me or follow the blog are aware, I don't use any metal in my armies. So... how've I got Incubi going? Well originally, the plan was to use some Chaos Warriors from Fantasy, made to have 2 Handed Weapons, but they looked way too big and whilst some of the helmets looked good, the majority didn't.

So, I chose Dark Elf Corsairs from Fantasy as the models. The reasoning being that the Incubi are trained swords masters, mine prefer to use a dual-bladed approach, rather than the Ushbati style Klaives of the other Incubi.

The end goal for these guys, is that if GW eventually release an Incubi plastic kit, or some Dark Elf Executioners in plastic, they'll form a bodyguard for Duke Sliscus (with the reptile cloaks).

For now, I'm pretty happy with them and reckon they get the message across that they're Incubi and armed with power weapons and are different enough from the Kabalite Warriors.

The plan for them on the table is 2 units of 4, one goes with an Archon in a Venom, and the other goes with Drazhar (or Klaivex if points lower) in another Venom. Just because I like Drazhar...

Did anyone else get up to any hobbying over the weekend? I also got some Mandrakes and Scourges done, I'll try and post them up over the next few days.

Peace,
SB

Badger's Log - Dark Eldar Raiders and Ravager

Morning all,

The blogs keep on rolling. This time, I actually remembered to do something I said I'd do on here. I managed to grab a quick picture of my 2 Raiders and Ravager before heading out to work this morning.

So there you go. Although I've been really enjoying painting my Dark Eldar army, these were by far, the most absolutely frustrating thing to paint. The amount of times my brush got snagged on a spike or hook, got stuck in a crevice or just generally couldn't reach areas.

I'm not particularly happy with the Wash on the main hull, but I'll live. The only major decision really was the colour of the sails. It was either do them as per the codex, an off white, or go with my Red spot colour, as I have done on the other infantry. I'll need to get a few more Raiders in order to transport my Wracks or Incubi, but we'll see.

Next step for me is to make a start on some Incubi tonight and blog about them before the weekend is here!

Peace,
SB

Badger's Log - Dark Eldar Venoms and Beastmasters

Morning all,

Very busy week last week for me, where I managed to get a fair amount of stuff painted in order to try and get the Dark Eldar on the table for a 1,000pt game. Unfortunately, my Sunday afternoon painting plans were cut short, so I didn't manage to get my Incubi finished off in time.

I've also just realised I've not taken pictures of the other half of things I got painted last week... So I'll do an update tomorrow with those.

First up, last Warboot (Carboot sale for Wargames) that I went to, Angryman bought some second hand Eldar stuff and inherited 3 Vypers, which I offered to buy off him in order to have a go at making some Venoms on the cheap. I've had a look around the internet and didn't fancy paying £18 to cut a raider in half, or £15 for a High Elf chariot to strap to the back of it - hence they're not as bulky as the concept art or most people's conversions.

It's mostly just a bog standard Vyper, with a Raider / Ravager prow, lots of bladevanes and chain-snares and spikey bits dotted around. These were really, really nice to paint since the curved hulls took drybrushing really nicely and I got them done in about an hour.

The idea is to bulk them out a bit more and to explain how 5 guys can fit onto it, I've got some of the clinging on Raider crew members to paint up and attach on and maybe I'll have to do some plasticard work on the back to make a standing platform (since it can't fit a 25mm base where the gun originally was). We'll see if I get around to it, but for now, they do the job.

Also, I got around to converting one of my absolute favourite units in the Dark Eldar codex - Beastmasters. I always liked the idea of them, but the original models were so horribly ugly, and with the release of plastic Hellions I knew I could convert them easily enough.

These guys bully around some Chaos Warhounds (Khymarae) and Ogres (Clawed Fiends) as their beasts. I made them using Hellions with a mishmash of Warrior pieces. The 2 guys with spears are the arms from the Raider crew members and as with all my squads, I've given one of them an Agoniser - just so he looks a bit more like the concept artwork.

I'll get another update done tomorrow with my other vehicles and maybe some Incubi if I get chance to paint them tonight...

Peace,
SB

Badger's Log - The Postman Delivers!

Morning all,

On Monday I got a fresh delivery of stuff for 40k... but ironically it was all Warhammer Fantasy miniatures. Maelstrom Games were running one of their excellent voucher codes, so I thought I'd put in a decent order to try and bulk up my floundering Brotherhood of the Forge project, and also replace some changed Dark Eldar things.

So, what did the postman bring this time?

Dwarf Thunders

First up, is a box of Dwarf Thunderers in order to convert myself another 10 Brotherhood of the Forge warriors. Then the others in the box can be used to bulk up my Celestian / Longbeard unit and I'm not sure yet about the 1 remaining guy. Possibly use him as a test bed for converting Seraphim equivalents...

Dwarf Miners

Then I fancied getting some of the more eccentric Witch Hunters units on the table, one of my favourites being Sisters Repentia. Yeah, they're expensive and whatnot, but I like the idea of an entire unit of Eviscerator weilders. So, here would be the Brotherhood equivalent.

The idea behind them is that when called upon, they use these ancient Ancestral weapons when called upon by the Brotherhood. The only ones allowed to weild such weapons are the artificers and craftsmen of the Forge, therefore they're not as combat savvy and choose to fight with less armour than their warrior brothers.

Skaven Plague Monks

Now, for something completely different... Skaven Plague Monks. Originally I had 20 Mantic Ghouls primed up, based and ready to go as Dark Eldar wracks. Then I looked at them and realised I hadn't given them any weapons, just their clawed hands... And also in my force, anything Haemonculi related was made from Skaven. So, 20 of these guys should provide me with Wracks, and the Mantic Ghouls now become my Mandrakes.

Also, the Skaven Plague Monks allow me to double up my army and work towards and all Nurgle Daemon army, which with my Rat Ogres as Nurgle Beasts, Giant Rats as Nurglings and some other plans I've got. Puts me well on my way to getting them on the table at some point soon...

I'm currently trying to paint up 1,000pts of Dark Eldar for Monday to get them on the table in a game, so I'll keep you posted on that when I get chance to do some more painting. Currently I've got 2 Raiders and a Ravager on the desk ready to go.

Peace,
SB