My new friend , the Hornet

 Heya all and welcome back!

It is tough being a Human Resource Executive, as it feels like you are playing the role of a bard in the corporate world and I have lesser time in playing my 40k. Nonetheless it is this that makes each one of my games that much sweeter now. Unfortunately this also means that I tend to forget to take pictures of my games, and thus I am unable to make any battle reports of some extremely good games that I have during this lull in the blog.

During this time, I have found a particular unit that I am really fond of using these past few weeks, and that is the Forgeworld Hornet. These things are so good thanks to the new rules in the IA Apoc that I can't resist it. Not to mention that they are now 40k legal........

Anyhow let me jump into the things that make them such an excellent unit.

The first point that I must make is the fact that their firepower is utterly insane! Each Hornet can carry two weapons, and dear god their firepower matches the War Walkers, and in some cases surpass that unit. Their weapons are comparatively cheap and you can tailor them to whatever your list lacks, and all of them are good (except that damn missile launcher, which is still a lame duck in my opinion). In my case, I wanted a weapon that can dish out a lot of shots at high strength and thus my eyes are on the pulse lasers. With the cheap-as-chips pulse lasers, each hornet can dish out 4 str 8 ap2 shots at BS4!

The fact that they could be taken in squadrons is utterly insane, and multiply the pulse-laser armed Hornet by three and you can see that this unit is just utterly brutal.

Secondly, the unit are really flexible in their usage. This is because it has two rules going for it; Scout and Skimmer Assault. Now most of you are no stranger to the first rule, as Scouting means that I can actually push my advantage early on using the Scouts or I can reserve them to both protect them from alpha strikes and then harass them later on using Outflanking rules.The second rule Skimmer Assault is also very juicy, as it allows the Hornets to snap fire even if they turboboosted. This helps in keeping the tempo for the offense and increasing their defense as well and having such thorns in my opponent's side is just precious.

Last but not least, maneuverability. These things are fast skimmers which is a godsend. I can never stress how amazing fast skimmers are to some people but for anyone worth their salt seeing such a high firepower, high versatility unit having such speed as well is just utterly godlike. Screw the fact that they have two hull points and AV11 on both their front and side (which is amazing in the eyes of a Dark Eldar player, but not to everyone else), as that speed is the thing that will make those shots count when they need to. Side armour, rear armour, moving around an annoying terrain to prevent cover for the clowns that made the annoying terrain their temporary home.....all is possible.

Last but not least, the point cost for them. Dear god......they are just affordable. 80 points per model for that firepower is too much of a bargain. I will take a squadron please (if I were a true Eldar player, I would take 3 squadrons of 3, and not have any friends).

Now that I have talked about the delicious reasons for taking them, I will now proceed on the synergy it provides to my army.

For one, they complete a portion that my list so desperately need. Sometimes I find it hard to kill transports that are of a certain caliber (AV12, I am looking at you) and the Hornets solves that problem for me. In addition they also aid in the elite infantry killing which my list may or may not struggle against from time to time. Lastly these guys can also act as my anti-flyer defense and are definitely more effective than my ravagers in this capacity.

Secondly, the Scout rules on them makes my personal choice for Traits (Strategic) so much more useful and I do not have to care anymore about 'dud' results in the form of rerolling outflanking results. The scout rules also helps me in better positioning them for the kill or make a feint which throws my opponent's off balanced.

In my case it is more like hide behind metal boxes......

Thirdly, if I am forced to, their AV 11 can act as a temporary shield for my other forces. However this is definitely a waste of their potential, and I would prefer to let them live so that I can shoot. Nonetheless it is important to open my thoughts to any sacrifices for the long-term wining strategy of the game.

Lastly and perhaps more importantly, they fit with my philosophy.

I believe that to win without a fight is the best course of action, but I would not mind a victory that is so thorough that the opponent are unable to retaliate against me. When the opponent is pressured enough, they will do mistakes, and when they do I will exploit it. As this weakness is exploited, I like to plan more attacks to exploit any more weaknesses created by the opponent and keep on doing so until the other side surrendered or I literally ran out of gas. Thus I believe in a multi-layered overwhelminng rushdown offensive to make my opponent blunder or freeze up. For that the Hornets fit into this mindset very well, as they give me options to play around the table to fit said belief.

Some people say that Allies are lame, but for me they actually kept the hobby alive for me. Not to mention that Forgeworld is always a cool bastard. As of this moment I am currently profiting from this particular build;

Duke Sliscus
10 Kabalite Warriors in a Raider with Splinter Racks and Nightshields
9 Kabalite Warriors in a Raider with Splinter Racks and Nightshields

5 Wyches with Haywire Grenades in Venom with second Splinter Cannon and Nightshields

5 Wyches with Haywire Grenades in Venom with second Splinter Cannon and Nightshields

5 Wyches with Haywire Grenades in Venom with second Splinter Cannon and Nightshields

Ravager with three Dark Lances and Nightshields

Ravager with three Dark Lances and Nightshields

Voidraven Bomber with 2 Void Lances, 2 Shatterfield Missiles, 1 Void Bomb and Flickerfield

Eldar Allied Detachment

Farseer with Mantle of the Laughing God on Jetbike
3 Guardian Jetbikers
1 squadron of 3 Hornets with 2 Pulse Lasers

This list works very well against all sorts of opponents and I honestly am liking the synergy of this list a lot. It sure hit like a ton of bricks when it needs to, and it is very versatile.  So far, I am unable to test this out against IG as a result of the resident IG player being a mechanical engineer whose expertise is in high demand.

Only sad panda part as of this moment is that I do not have the real models for the Hornets. Nonetheless, I believe that I will be making some of my own hornets so that it will fit with the Dark Eldar theme.

See all of you next time!

A Little Bit Of This, A Little Bit OF That - Experimental 1750 pts Dark Eldar - Eldar list.

Heya all and welcome back!

I will be honest here and say that life can be tough when for some reason you are stuck in making your list improve. For some reason, life is not giving me results with some of my current builds as a result of not having the right tools for some armies. Here are the issues I find very vexing;

1) 5-men Kabalites with Blasters are becoming more and more like that ugly crutch that limits my options and also offering very little in return. The passengers are not pulling their weight, and I also need a more reliable unit to take objectives aggressively.

2) My Ravagers, despite their 3 lances, are not the most reliable of anti-tanks and they need to be improved. I will not deny that they are good, but in my case they need to be better.

3) Flyers, Flyers everywhere. Everyone's throwing a flyer or two into their list, and personally despite not being affected too adversely by it due to me being a proponent of using flyers, I find that I also need to take those bastards out ASAP. This is related to #2.

4) Shooting is good, but it is not the end-all for assault in this edition. If anything, it means that you have to choose the right targets to charge and kill, preferably with very little resistance.

5) Venoms are good, but I generally find my Venoms getting the lion's share of the shooting alongside the Ravagers. I find it odd that my Raiders tend to be surviving longer than the other nonsense in my list.

As always, the internet horde generally believes that spamming a certain unit and ignoring assault means profit, but like the American Shutdown, spending points on a build that will shut you down in a long time sucks balls. In other words it is my way of saying that the majority of the internet does not know or wants to think outside their comfort zone.

As I did some soul-searching, I realized that I need to scrap all my thoughts and went the opposite direction with my army and designed it without any love for any units that I once used. In addition, I will have to play around with some of the new mechanics of 6th edition a little more to exploit the weaknesses of the current nonsense. In other words, I am literally singing 'Highway to the Danger Zone' to my listbuilding idea and went on said highway.

Based upon these questions I realized that my problems are quite simple;

1) I need twin-linked weapons

2) I need more options for anti-tanks, especially of the more brutal kind.

3) I need to maximize the usability of squads that I want them to last, while having the 'Fuck it' ethos to those that need not survive that long.

I laboured for a while before I came up with this list, which is almost odd as it is ingenious.

Dark Eldar Main Detachment
Archon with Venom Blade, Haywire Grenade, Combat Drugs, Phantasm Grenade Launcher, and Shadowfield
Haemonculus with Liquifier gun
5 Incubi with Klaivex upgrade in a Raider with Nightshields
10 Kabalite Warriors in a Raider with Splinter Racks and Nightshields
10 Kabalite Warriors in a Raider with Splinter Racks and Nightshields

5 Wyches with Haywire Grenades in Venom with second Splinter Cannon and Nightshields

5 Wyches with Haywire Grenades in Venom with second Splinter Cannon and Nightshields

5 Wyches with Haywire Grenades in Venom with second Splinter Cannon and Nightshields

Ravager with three Dark Lances and Nightshields

Ravager with three Dark Lances and Nightshields

Voidraven Bomber with 2 Void Lances, 2 Shatterfield Missiles, 1 Void Bomb and Flickerfield

Eldar Allied Detachment

Farseer with Mantle of the Laughing God on Jetbike

3 x Windrider Jetbike Squadron

As you can see, this list is an utter scrappy list but one with hidden secrets. 

The calculations are simple;

1) 5-men Kabalites with Blasters = Move aside, Wyches with Haywire are a much more stable investment. They either die or once they see a target they will be hunting it down with haywire grenades. For scoring purposes, 10-men squads help a lot more.

2) My Ravagers' need to be better/ Flyer defennse: Farseer with Guide and Prescience helps in making sure things be more reliable. Also the Voidraven helps.

4) Assault elements to hunt down pesky units : Wyches and Incubi are fine for their jobs here, only one hunts down vehicles like wave serpents while the other kills 2+ stuff, with an addition of glancing most vehicles to death.

5) Venom attrition; Put in more Raiders to become LOS Blockers, Roadblocks and extra lances. Add that with the 10 men kabalites, they prove to be a way I build redundancy in the list without weakening my scoring options.

In many ways, this list is meant to work in a more Eldar-like manner than my other lists which are more Dark Eldar in nature. All the elements have their role to play, but at the same time I blanket all my glaring weaknesses with their similar roles. Of course as with every list I must put it under fire to truly appreciate what it does, and to see if all this wishlisting is practical.

So far my first game with marines proved to be very successful, as all the units worked wonderfully. Of course a single game means nothing, and thus this will go under the knife against other builds to see its true viability. The build is growing on me, as it fits with my rather aggressive wave playstyle.

I will try to post a battle report with this list as soon as I could, win or lose to at least show what is going on in my mind when I play this list.

A dull 1750 pts Dark Eldar-Eldar alliance list

While I was at work today, I was wondering if I could make an allied 1750 pts list that can be an utter bore to face against and/or play as. So with that I decided to throw this little cutie out. Note that this is something of a min-max list without much variety, thus take this with lots of sauce....hot sauce.

Main Detachment
Baron Sathonyx
5 Kabalite Warriors with 1 blaster in a Venom with two splinter rifles
5 Kabalite Warriors with 1 blaster in a Venom with two splinter rifles

5 Kabalite Warriors with 1 blaster in a Venom with two splinter rifles

5 Kabalite Warriors with 1 blaster in a Venom with two splinter rifles

Ravager with three dark lances with Flickerfield

Ravager with three dark lances with Flickerfield
Ravager with three dark lances with Flickerfield

Main Detachment total pts: 950

Allied Detachment
Farseer on jetbike
5 Fire Dragons with an Exarch with Firepike and Fast shot in a Wave Serpent with twinlinked scatter lasers and holofield
5 Dire Avengers with in a Wave Serpent with twinlinked scatter lasers and holofield
5 Dire Avengers with in a Wave Serpent with twinlinked scatter lasers and holofield

Allied Detachment total pts: 800

Total pts: 1750 pts

Retardedly enough, it managed to end up at a precise figure which I tend to like. Nonetheless you can see how this list works just by looking at it; move and shoot and shoot and move. The main muscle of this list are the Wave Serpents, Venoms and Ravagers. The Baron is there mostly for me to get first turn and will be camping somewhere like a sad panda (he is a tax, but one with a single worthwhile ability).

The Farseer has a simple job to do; Be a mobile twin-linker for the army when it needs it (though I expect most of the twinlinked abilities to be on the Ravagers and Venoms. If I managed to get Doom or Perfect Timing, I will be utterly giddy).

The Dragons are mostly there because they are the cheapest unit that I can use to buy another Wave Serpent within the allied list that functions well within this army's design. Likewise the blasters on the Kabalite warriors are there just because they are a staple for those Kabalite Warriors in Venoms. As for the Dire Avengers, I will admit that they are the tax I pay for the Wave Serpents.

This list functions in a rather simple and dominating way; You will need to handle a lot of things and you need to handle all of them at once, because all of them are able to cripple your army. The twinlinked weaponry only made this choice more crucial as they will be damaging an army quite often. The army also has some interesting anti-air options as a result of the twinlinked weaponry in abundance. In its retardedness, it is oddly balanced against anything.

Honestly the way I would deploy them is to let the Serpents be in front (hiding behind cover of course) while the rest of the army will hide behind those Serpents. Due to the darn Serpent Shield being a perfect way to prevent an alpha strike against me, all the flimsy nonsense will hide behind. Once I get to move, I will be moving forward as one, Serpents as shields, and I will just attack and exploit any weaknesses I have created, and then from there make more attacks to exploit any more weaknesses I have created, and keep on doing so until the other side surrendered or I run out of gas.

A rather blunt and thuggish list for an Eldar list, but it does the job. I believe that it is time for me to lend my friend's Wave Serpents and test this weird boring list out. Who knows, I might actually like it.

New Dark Elves in the eyes of a Dark Eldar player

Heya all and welcome back!

Now with the new Dark Elves model being thrown towards us to be bought over, there are whole lot of things that are quite cool-looking such as the Kharybidiss. However today I am here to talk about what I am looking at for this release as a Dark Eldar player.

First of all, despite the awesomeness of some of the kits, as a 40k player I will just ignore them for the sake of keeping my priorities straight. Unfortunately that means that the big monster had lost the vote to remain on the island. Units that are rather static in nature/too fantasy-looking will also be kicked off the island, however some exceptions will be given to some things as will be explained in detail.

Thus this leaves us is what is perhaps one of the best female sculpts that had ever exited the GW factories in living memory; The ladyfolk of Naggaroth.

I will say that the most obvious models for 40kers to look for are the Witch Elves/Sisters of Slaughter as they will do very well as much better-looking and kinkier looking Wyches.

In fact thanks to the Sisters of Slaughter, you can get a whole bunch of whips that can be used as Agonisers. Also the Sister of Slaughter masks can be used by elite units such as Bloodbrides and also characters such as the Archon, Sybarites, Hekatrii and also Succubi. A good kit to get for a Dark Eldar player, and I am certain that if a Dark Eldar player has already a bucketful of bitz for Wyches such as myself, you can go wild with the conversions.

However, here is when some of you might already be scratching your head as I also included the Cauldron of Blood/ Bloodwrack Shrine as something that 40kers should look out for. Why would you care about this darn kit? Isn't it too painfully Fantasy to be used in 40k?

My answer to that is no, it has quite a number of parts that can be used in a Dark Eldar army.

For one, that entire altar without the stage can be used in making very thematic Dark Eldar terrain, as you can actually make a Incubi Shrine or something out of the Cauldron of Blood parts, while the big mirror behind the Medusa can become an objective marker.

Speaking of the Medusa itself, look at her arms, and you will see that they will act as very good weapons for the Archon, especially the clawed gauntlet. For those old school Dark Eldar player, that clawed arm can become a updated version of the clawed agoniser (which I still believe is the best agoniser).

But here is the kicker; Did you see that statue on the Cauldron of Blood at the bottom right of the WD magazine? That model is huge right? In fact a lot of the pictures showed that it is way taller than even the wyches. For those Dark Eldar players who wanted to have an Avatar but do not like a truly Craftworld  look need not look further.

That damn thing is essentially an Avatar, but a much bigger and have the looks to match it. If you managed to see the legs, it is actually striding forward like the forgeworld Avatar, and with all those spikes you can actually justify it in a Dark Eldar-Eldar army list if you use an Avatar.

I am for one very glad that I waited a little while longer before I proceed to make my Dark Eldar Avatar, as now I do not have to think too much about how to mutilate the already very dated Avatar model.

With this I will be getting a few of these once the cash starts flowing in, and I will be spending several weeks making them fit into my huge Dark Eldar army!

Mustering of the Kabal - Terrain Board Done!

Heya all welcome back!!!

Finally managed to paint this after two days, and I must say I am impressed as to how I turned random things into a terrain.

I am now appreciating the art of scenery making. With this done now I will go to the background of the display board.

Edit: I decided to add in the family photo to see how everything fits in and I am really enjoying it.

Mustering of the Kabal - Basing and Basecoating the Display Board

Heya all and welcome back!

Real life is rough right now, and the hobby has been in the backburner for the past few weeks. But what I could do during those down times, I do it with lots of heart.

With that I can safely say that Phase 2 of my display board is now complete!

My terrain is covered with layers of fine sand found in aquariums, some rougher sand, and several different kinds of gravel. I actually enjoyed doing the basing for this as the unfinished look really reminds me of the landscape of Starship Troopers.

 And the basecoating went very well, as I learned a technique from a friend of mine to smear filler putty upon my polystyrene to coat it with a protective layer and preventing the aerosol paint from melting the polystyrene. It went very well indeed.

With that done, I can now go on to the next phase of making this display board a reality! Stay tuned for the progress!

Mustering of the Kabal - Phase 1 of Display Board

Heya all and welcome back!

Managed to get a little bit of terrain for the display board done or to be exact all the hills. Cutting styrofoam with a foam cutter is pretty awesome and unnaturally addictive.

Tadaaa!

I was a little lost when it comes to cutting foam, as I do not know how to do the texture for rocks. But after a while of experimenting, I managed to pull it off and I must say that it looks pretty natural now.

I realized that my idea of a display board would be better served with a little rock plateau that would act as a point where my HQ would stand, and thus I carved one out to fulfill the purpose.

Creating the rocky slope from the second plateau to the first one proved to be a rather difficult challenge, as I do not know how much do I have to cut to make it blend seamlessly to the first platform.

And here is the dry fit of all the vehicles in my default 1750 pts list.  Surprisingly everything fits and I have enough space for a 2k army even with the infantry marching below. I actually am fond of the negative space that I could pull off, even with the infantry in tow (not that I have much infantry to begin with). Of course different builds could be made and be put on the display  board, and I have not even added in the other stuff, which may or may not be included in the board.

I will see how things go for now, and take my time on this undertaking. See ya all next time!