Space Marine Scouts

Today I'll be giving Space Marine Scouts the unit analysis treatment. It has turned into a bit of an essay so prepare yourself...

Scouts are pseudo-marines that have yet to complete the cornucopia of operations involved in the transformation of a man into ubermench. Basically they are going through a second puberty. The marines employ these "boys" in a scouting capacity.On the battlefield scouts provide a cheap scoring unit or distraction. While their grown up brethren charge around the battlefield in boxes of steel, spare a thought for the token scout squad siting in the backlines nursing an objective.

This review is for the scouts in Codex: Space Marines, but most of it will apply to scouts from the Dark Angels and Blood Angels codices - just remember that other scouts are Elites so take up a valuable Force Organisation slot and don't score. The Dark Angel scouts have BS and WS 4.

Lysander Drops In - Legally!

(this follows on from my previous post.)

I had a lot of fun playing with my illegal drop pod list, but I guess I'm going to have to make something legal if I want to get games in the future. Having to drop 100 points AND upgrade to a full tactical squad has forced some hard decisions. In the end I made the call to drop down to 2 scoring units. Sure one has 2+ saves, and the other is coming in from reserves, but it will still be a challenge winning objective games with minimal scorers.

This is why I LIKE playing at 1500 points, you can't have everything you want so you have to make the hard choices. Sure games can be a little one-sided at times, but they can also be exciting as you both exploit weaknesses in the other's forces.

Lysander Drops In

(Not my model - but I have the model undercoated - will be lots of fun to paint too!)

I want to share an army list idea that I have been thinking about recently. It started with the following idea for what I believe is an absolutely sick list at the humble 750 point mark. I was thinking of taking this to Judgement Day, which is a 750 point tournament I have enjoyed immensely for the last 3 years. Then I remembered it is comped (panel comp), and taking Tau last year got me the second highest comp score... so maybe not.

An Exciting New Podcast

It's turning out that the things I want to see in 40k are actually happening. Firstly, an FAQ for Dark Angels was released that makes an all terminator force a competitive reality. Now the 40k Basement podcast crew are back in the game! If you don't know what I am talking about, check out my podcast reviews - you have some episodes to download.

Well the new show is El Pee and The Man, and actually it's just Mr Hyde and Parker from the 40k Basement. These two guys are hilarious and have great chemistry together. They are actually doing a live show with video (of them sitting on a couch), and releasing this as a live stream, as YouTube video, and as a podcast. Each hour of the podcast is a different download, because there is an hour in the middle of the live show where they eat pizza, drink beer, and interact with listeners through the chat feature.

Scratch Built Thunderfire Cannon - Part 1

I've always wanted to try out the stupendous firepower of the Thunderfire Cannon on the battlefield. Sadly the only time I proxied one it died in the first turn of shooting and never got to return fire :( Sure it's fragile, but that is mitigated somewhat by the 60" range and 3+ cover save that it is hopefully getting.

I was donated an already painted Techmarine a few years ago. I was playing him as Master of the Forge for my Terminator/Dreadnought list. So I have that covered, and it seemed that scratch building a Thunderfire Cannon to go with him shouldn't be too hard... The theme of my Crimson Fists army is "cheap", so the idea fits that perfectly :) I have never done a scratch build before, so don't expect anything wondrous. I should be able to scale the lofty peak of "servicable" however.

Here are the bits I am going to use. The tracks and engine plate come from an old Ork vehicle, a Razorback roof plate and gun casings (i think?) and a bunch of bits kindly donated to the project by Battle Bunker Aki (including the punisher cannon - thanks mate!)

A Tale of Free Models: Pay It Forward

I've had this post on the back-burner for a while, but it has been made especially relevant by Miniature Wargame Conversions recent Pay It Forward giveaway bonanza.

It was nearly a couple of years ago when something happened that rejuvenated my 40k model collection. I had been slowly building a Crimson Fists chapter through second hand models. The army started with a great purchase of Space Marine bits that I managed to build about 30 marines from, some bikes and Terminators too. I also used the old Rhino chasis in order to keep costs down.

Are Dark Angels the new Space Wolves?

I got into a discussion at my FLGS about the merits of the new post-FAQ Deathwing army. After the recent Battle Bunker Crash tournament was won by Ray's Deathwing force (and not just won - he was in the vicinity of 15 points ahead of second place, out of 120 total!) a friend of his was saying he thought it was the most powerful army around. He was disappointed that the FAQ had not balanced the points values along with new cyclone missile launcher and typhoon missile launcher stats. My reaction was that it is nice to have a new army that can compete at the top level - also I have a soft spot for Terminators, and had been dreaming of the FAQ being released for years!

The basic idea of such a force is that you take lots of thunder hammer / storm shield terminators with cheap cyclone missile launchers, and spam the cheap Land Speeder Typhoons. Cheap Venerable Dreads are another option that might be viable. I didn't play Ray's army, but at a non-comp event I might field something like this:

Finally Getting my Blogging into Gear

Apologies for the meta article. Hopefully there is someone out there who gets motivated enough to update their blog too!

Now that I've been blogging for nearly six months I realised that there were a bunch of things I was failing at. In the last couple of days I have been doing the following:

• I was confused by a disconnect between Google Reader and blogs I am following in blogger, which I have finally got my head around. So now the list in my blog roll is the blogs I am actually following!
• I have asked around a couple of placed to get on other blog rolls, and applied to the BOLS Alliance to appear on their front page blogroll. Already I am seeing a lift in my hits.
• I am working my way through the GDMNW 40k Blogdex (seriously hard name to remember guys!) and finding some great new sites to add to my reading. I've also purged some of the sites that haven't been doing it for me.
• I am going to go through all the blogs in my Blog Roll and add myself as a subscriber, something I should have been doing from the outset!

Old Stuff Day: 40k Podcast Review

This article is always getting hits from Google. I have updated it with the last three month's changes in red!

I spend a lot of time listening to podcasts as I commute to work by bike or train every day, selected from a mix of gaming, science and parenting subjects. It's a special treat to find a 40k podcast run by a likeable group of people, but that stays on topic and is full of good advice and interesting stories. The following list gives a brief review of podcasts that I have subscribed to (at least for some time).

Before I start, I'd like to list briefly what I look for in a podcast:

• clever and insightful advice that helps me with my game
• advanced hobby tips
• inspirational battle reports and hobby project discussions
• a good variety of opinions and playstyles
• respect for other people
• all 40k all the time!