Control, control, control

Welcome back to the webway, and today I want to talk about an idea I want to play with; that of total mind -fu (my term for super tricks).

Just now when I was watching some Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann videos in Japanese (perhaps the most epic animation ever created), i flipped into a video where they show some of the main characters screaming out "Who'd the Hell you think I am?!?!?!" (yeah I understand Japanese, but I'll translate the word here) Suddenly my mind went a little brainstormy and I figured out......why not try to make the opponent really screwed up no matter what they do before the game even starts.

For the purpose, I decided to see what I can do to make this shit happen. Unfortunately for me, that means I have to play around with special characters, and also making some unfluffy combinations. But hey if it works, it works right? So with that I went to work, and immediately I can see the one that will screw up people's pre-game.

I decided to combine Asdruvael Vect and Lady Malys together. Now here are the abilities that can affect the pre-game.

Lady Malys:
Precognisant: essentially bthis is similar to Eldrad's power that after both players deployed at the start of the game, the Dark Eldar play may redeploy D3 units in their army including plaicng them in reserves.

Vect:
Master Tactician: This is a souped up "seize the initiative" where you would seize the initiative at 4+ rather than a 6+.

Now imagine this two elements combined. You would let your opponent deploy first, and the later on you would  redeploy a number of units to a weaker flank and then try to seize the initiative. It is a massive deception tactic, which when it works it is rather nice.

Now you can also play with Baron Sathonyx with either one, as Sathonyx adds 1+ to the dice roll when determining which side chooses table deployment. Baron works well with either one. My personal money is with Malys though if you want to use the Baron instead. But of course Vect and the Baron is quite fun indeed.

Now imagine a Apoc game where you field these three monsters together. You get to choose who gets to deploy first, you get to choose what units to be redeployed to counter the opponent, and then you get the initiative to break through the whole thing. COmbined it with some apoc strategems and you get a real funky play.

I would seriously want to try the Malys/Vect combo more as it is more flexible than the Vect/Sathonyx combo or the Malys Sathonyx/combo. Besides vect is a monster in CC, and Malays allows for whoever that she is attacted to to become immune to psychic powers. Let these two attach with each other, and yeah, you get a really funky scary unit, and that is excluding their bodyguards yet.


Well, this is a first draft of the though , and so I would love to test it out one day. Until then....

Eccentrics in warhammer - how they make my games a whole lot awesome

Throughout my gaming experience in 40k, I have fought against a lot of powergamers, good competitive gamers, good thematic players. But for some reason, among all the gamers I have fought against, I for some odd reason love fighting against a certain type of gamer; the Janky good gamer.

Janky is a term used in card games meaning strange, wrong, screwed up and/or no one really knows what it means. In 40k, I tend to use this in its more light-hearted tone; that of strange way of playing or making a list. It so happens that in everyone's time as a player they will eventually meet up with such a player. The fact that this is not comparable to a newb or a noob should be noted, for the former means that they got no idea on what unit to use and for the latter they don't know the rules properly and act like they know everything. When i talk janky good players, I mean that their lists are so weird, but when they play it it is just plain scary good.

You know how it happens and for those who don't lemme run you through it. You being the player decided to go to the local game store, and wanting a 40k match. There you find another player who is an all-round nice guy who woould all be too glad to play with you. But when you see his army, you say to yourself "What the hell?".

There before your eyes, you see a list unlike any other. It is not a cheesy list, not a balanced list, but instead a list that if more akin to some Circus Circus performance, where you see the units that no one ever uses in tandem with each other with other units, creating what looked like a really sub-par list, if not really unplayable. You think he was a noob, or a newb and say to yourself that it will be easy. As he deploys his units, you see that even his deployment is really off, and you wonder what is he pulling at, or not pulling at all. You deploy, with alll the precision and focus of a player who have seen many battles.

However, when the games start, you realized that for some reason, his list is strangely working very well and somehow he is holding out, in fact at some point his army is breaking yours apart. Before long you already ended up with a battle that challenges you to your limit.

I have the privilege to play with a player like this at a somewhat regular basis. His name is Yee How, and he plays Imperial Guard. But the thing about him is that despite the fact that he got lists enough for all types of Guard (from footslogging to Mech), but his personal favourite is his conscripts and Penal legion lists. He loves to spam these particular units, and play them with the addition of a Commisar with some rather weird upgrades and Straken together accompanied by other platoons. He also plays with vanquishers and some executioners, which makes for a rather weird list. What makes it even weirder is that contrary to most guard army, he would personally love to charge you than to shoot you. And due to the unit's rules and the like, he can potentially make my games very interesting.

He would nuke his conscripts with chenkov if it would mean that he can charge you the next turn. He would allocate that shot to the commisar with the large blob of men if it means that he could do some weird shooting and/or charging at you. He would use his tanks as meatshields for his men if it means that his tiny men would be able to do something to you. Almost everything he does with his army borders on madness, but it does work.

Among all the players I have played against, he is the only one I can never truly read as he is just too random for my own mind. I mean I am rather unconventional, but I do have a sense of building a lean and mean army list. But compare that with Yee How, I am as rigid as Barbara Streisand.

Due to this, I rate him rather highly on enjoyability of playing against, as he always make my 2 hours of gaming a worthwhile experience. In addition with his sportsmanship and being of a similar mould of being joker players, we get along very well. In fact, if I were to face im in a tournament, I would either win very big or lose very big against him.

Players like him challenge me, for I learn on how I can use subpar units to my true advantage and win me games. I also learn about how I can use some weird technicality to make my games so much more devastating, and how a small notion of arrangement could affect the entire course of the game.

If I could face more players like this, I would be so much more happier. but alas I am stuck with more conventional players. This not to say that conventional players are bad, but seeing the same o' things can be rather tiring, and seeing a whole new unit on the table is always a treat. I rather see Thunderfire cannons raining down shots on me than seeing a Razorback spam list. I would rather see a Chaos Slaanesh lord with daemonic weapon and a bike than the Lash prince. Sure these units are subpar at times, but when the are used with devastating effect, I am very happy that I am on the receiving end of it as this showed that these people do have some originality in their though processes.

So with that, I bid thee adieu and enjoy your holidays.

New Beginnings

Well the end of the year is coming, and with it new beginnings. Never is this true than in my current situation.

I will be going over to the US of A to further my studies, and studying overseas will indeed impact the growth of my army, as right now it is sadly one of the things that I must put aside for the Tau'va a.k.a Greater Good until times permit. As selfish as I want to be to bring my entire Dark Eldar army along with me to the states, but the fact still remains that survival comes as one of my top priorities and thus even Vect would understand why I did the sacrifices I have made.

Coming out from the comforts of the webway is indeed a harrowing experience, but nonetheless like any realspace raid, it will also prove to be interesting to see how things go. Exploring the entire place where I will be studying for a considerable amount of time for gaming centers will be one of the primary things I will do if time allows. However, the idea of making army lists, exploring the potential of Dark Eldar units, and the stories will continue on whenever I could post them up.

With that, I will have to say, happy new year to all and may the year ahead be a good one.

The Wings of the Cruel - Voidravens and Razorwings

Whenever someone thinks about Dark Eldar heavy support, they tend to think about the Ravagers, and perhaps even the Talos. But with the new edition of the codex there are two new choices for Dark Eldar; both of which are unique even among Dark Eldar. The vehicles that I am talking about? The Razorwing jetfighter and its larger cousin, the Voidraven bomber.

Hammer units of Dark Eldar: Scary or ridiculous?

Hello, and welcome back. Today's topic is about something that some players would do at all cost to play them, while others would do at all cost to destroy them. That's right we are talking Death Star units!

For those who got no idea what Death Star units are, the video above should tell all that you need to know about them. They are big, scary, and downright destructive and most of the time, they are a pain to destroy. You have heard of Nob Bikers, you have heard of Thunderwolf calvary spam, you have heard of Juggernaut spam. Yeah, those are called Death Star units. There are others such as Tyranid Warrior spam and the likes, but the three mentioned above are the most common ones.

The Attention Part 3 - Short Story

Verdant's World.

A beautiful world, where nature and technology blends together in perhaps one of the more beautiful worlds of the Imperium. The world's oddly toxic ground atmosphere is such that humans are forced to live upon great trees that extends itself towards the strastosphere, each housing a major human settlement, with the largest trees housing several human settlements. Other than that, it is as imperially law-abiding as any Imperial world can ask for.

A world that Vespera had chosen for her next realspace raid, and the world she chose primarily for its extensive communications array that could support whatever it is that is within Faolchu, the messenger-thing that had her Kabal even planning this invasion. How the name Faolchu came about, she never really knew but before long every Kabalite in her Kabal is calling the messenger-thing Faolchu. Clad in her elaborately-crafted ghostplate armor and her custom-made phantasm grenade launchers, she looked upon the world as a place that is just too bright for her, however due to its rather peculiar triad of suns the planet is always lit up. This also poses a challenge for her Kabal, for daylight often means that the defenders would be able to mount a more comprehensive defense and obliterate her forces.

This forced her to take a more insidious route to the planet. Using a small craft, she would infiltrate a small group of her finest Kabalites into the heart of the largest tree settlement and from there on, she would deploy several of her portable webway portals, allowing her forces to bypass the planetary defenses and wreak havoc immediately in the interior of the largest settlement, the cluster of settlements named Verdant's Heart.

If there is a webway portal linked upon this world, she would not have to make such preparations but alas this world is apparently not linked to the webway. For some reason, Vespera seeks to see the message by herself, and thus she will be joining her infiltration squad with Faolchu in tow.

What I love to fight against, and what I hate to fight against

Hello all, and welcome back to the webway. Let's start this off with a feeling I have in regards to Dark Eldar: Dark Eldar feels an inverse proportion of strength to the size of the models. What the hell do I mean when I say this?

The Dark Eldar book is in my opinion, the ultimate killer of large and/or elitist units but when it comes to the small, generalistic things, they fare much worse. This is true in the sense that when you see how the weaponry of the book works, they are meant to destroy things that are significantly larger than themselves. Dark Lances, Blasters, Splinter Rifles....they are truly amazing against the larger things that we would encounter in the 40k gaming scene, such as Trygons and Land Raiders, but when faced with the prospect of a simple humble guardsmen or a Rhino, and you would see that for some odd reason the weapons actually struggles with them.

My friend's army list review

Hello all, welcome back to the webway. As the title of this particular post would already tell all of you, today's special of the day is a review of a list of a friend of mine.

Just a few days ago, my good friend and I who both started Dark Eldar around the same time decided to just sit in a McDonalds and brainstormed our way through the book in order to see what works and what does not. Initially we talked about Baron Sathonyx, which my friend wants to play but somehow the talk expanded and in the end, he decided that he would play with 10 Grotesque, led by Sathonyx coming out of a webway portal.

In more ways than one, he is bought on the idea that Grotesque are essentially a very tough unit to break, and also a rather big squad that can rampage through a lot of things, barring Land Raiders and monoliths. It is true that they do not break easily, but they would be a challenge to field with his build.

His list looks something like this (pending some tweaking and some idea on how to spend the remaining points);

The Attention Part 2 - Short Story

Vespera is somewhat annoyed that she is now forced to stay at all times in her kabal stronghold, the aptly named Tower of Venom ever since the attempted assassination on her life. Despite the fact that she managed to blunt their attempts and taking one of the kroots as her plaything, her she is rather curious as to who is this Lord Ranisold that is after her life. Thus she asked her Kabal to investigate the mysterious Archon. Today, she is being briefed by one of her handmaiden as to the identity of Lord Ranisold, surrounded by her favoured lieutenants.

The Attention Part 1 - Short Story

Nothing new here.....

Lady Vespera looks around the pleasure club that she is in, and sees that there is nothing that made her heart race. The usual electro-torture poledancing of slaves and bloodbaths raves are nothing new to her, as is the idea of modifying a mon-keigh to become a music machine in which a Dark Eldar artisan does his musical muse as the lesser Dark Eldar fornicating under the booming music, high on the latest drugs available in Commorragh.

Combat Drugs - How drugged do I want to be?

Welcome to the webway, and today I feel like talking about combat drugs, the juice that is not healthy in any way, but bloody awesome at that. When I first opened the Dark Eldar book, I wanted to know what happened to the drugs and suffice to say, I am a little sad that the 12" charge is gone, but in return we get quite a number of other stuff that is quite beneficial.

My verdict on the new drugs?

Yeah, this motivational says it all.

Mustering of the Kabal : Kabalite Warriors

Welcome back to the second installment of 'The Creation of a Kabal" and today I will be talking about the beating heart of a Dark Eldar Kabal, the Kabalite Warriors.

I for some reason love Kabalite Warriors, even the old ones that some people find horrible. I know that when I start Dark Eldar I would play these guys. When the rules came out for them, I am very pleased that a normal Kabalite can even take down a Trygon, and then I was really sold.

Conversion-wise, I did not do much about them, other than to swap some of their body parts with the Wyches but overall they blended very well together.

Now these are the first painted models in my army and this alone made me wonder; what the hell should I color them with? I for sure know that I never liked following the codex colors, and thus I went around finding some ideas. How the color scheme came around is kinda cute in my opinion.

I was thinking.....what kind of color that when people see moving around, they would be really alarmed? The colors must be very striking, and also very bright, but I do not really want to use too much of the color. Somehow the mind can envisage a totally awesome image, and amazingly the first thing that came up in my mind is actually this;

The Mustering of the Kabal: Lady Vespera

Hello all, and today I would like to start on what is essentially the development of the Kabal of my own creation; The Rapturous Venom Kabal.

Now like any other army, I would buy the minis first and then make the whole shenanigans. So where else to start but not my Archon?

The idea for my Archon came from a GW catalogue 2006 back where in the catalogue, there is a female archon leading her army in a cool manner with her rather luscious hair flowing with the wind. This is a time where I was just starting my army and I was learning the ropes of my first army (Tau) and I said, if I ever start a Dark Eldar army I would like for it to be led by a chick just like the one in the pic. Of course at the time, I am just a new guy who can't paint for nuts and can't convert too much for nuts and thus the dream came to a standstill in the deepest recesses of my mind, and it hides in the shadows.

The said pic of the female Archon is shown below.

Holistic Mumbo part 3 - Fun Times

Heya all, and welcome back to another installment of Holistic Mumbo. Today I will be talking about having fun in games.

Throughout my years being involved in this hobby, I always would try to make each game a riot of fun whenever possible, even in tournaments where the tension is supposed to be much higher than that of a normal game. Some would think of my attitude to try and make things fun as a very enjoyable experience, while others would actually think that I am making mockery of the game.

Personally, I take my fun very seriously and I will try to make the best out of the time allocated to me whenever I am having fun. In more ways than one, I tend to party very hard and also very smart, as it is only economical to yield the optimum amount of fun in the shortest time possible. But that does not mean that I would forsake someone else's fun just because I want it to be fun for me. So i tend to be rather sporting when it comes to some rules, and just make the game a little more enjoyable.