List Evolution: Imperial Guard Tank Company: Part 1

As I've mentioned before, I have been harbouring an urge to build an Imperial Guard Tank Company for a year or so now. Going down the paper tank route failed miserably (that is WAY too much work - respect to those that can manage it!) but I then managed to pick up 6 Battle Tanks for a song off WargamerAU.

As a cheapo gamer, I am now busy converting the turrets and magnetising the hull weapons so that I can switch between demolisher cannons and battle cannons, lascannons, heavy bolters and flamers. Having some good luck there, and I should be able to get a tutorial up in the future...

Anyway this post is about list design and Tank Company strategy, not hobby. I wanted to make a 1500 point list with 6 Leman Russ chassis - yes that sure is a lot. Obviously I need a least 3 troops and an HQ as well. And that's all you can fit into 1500 points - here is my first attempt:

What does the Grey Knight FAQ mean for Draigo Wing?

You have of course all seen the new Grey Knight/BRB FAQ. Plenty of people have gone over it in detail. What I want to do is quickly examine how the rulings effect the the viability of running pure Draigo Wing lists.

Squad Smackdown: End of Round One

Hello loyal readers!

Well we made it through all the first series of matches. There weren't too many suprises along the way, but now we have a vicious bunch of close combat squads still in the tournament and its going to get interesting.

The uneliminated squads are as follows:

• Dark Eldar Wyches
• Chaos Space Marine Khorne Beserkers
• Space Wolf Grey Hunters
• Ork Boyz
• Tau Kroot
• Imperial Guard Platoon
• Grey Knight Terminators
• Tyranid Genestealers

Squad Smackdown - Tau vs Witch Hunters

If you don't know the rules, here they are.

In the Red Corner: A large squad of 20 Kroot, accompanied by a pack of 10 Kroot Hounds, emitting quite a stench. They are hungry for victory.


In the Blue Corner: A large squad of 13 Sisters of Battle stand ready to battle anyone in the Emperor's name. A Sister Superior wields an Eviscerator and reads inspiring tracts from the "Book of St Lucius" to the other Sisters. 2 of the girls are wielding flamers instead of bolt guns.

Neither squad is particularly quick, so there is no advantage for the assault.

The gates open!

Squad Smackdown: Blood Angels vs Tyranids

If you don't know the rules, here they are.

In the Red Corner: Red indeed! 10 Sons of Sanguinius stand tall against the Imperium's foes, chainsword in hand and jump pack fully charged. 2 have traded their chainsword for flamers.

In the Blue Corner: 11 slippery Genestealers lurk about. Their talons drip with toxic ooze.

The Blood Angels have the advantage for the assault here - jump packs trump Fleet.


The gates open!

The Blood Angels resist the red thirst. Never mind the advantage +2 on the roll to assault - the Nids win the roll 6-3 in style. Furthermore the Blood Angels fail the 4+ roll required to start in cover. This could get nasty folks...

Eschewing ranges combat, the 11 'stealers leap into combat and use their Initiative 6 to carve into the flying Marines. In a flurry of dice rolls, including rerolling all failed wounds, they inflict 13 normal wounds and 5 rending wounds on the poor Angels. Wound allocation trickery softens the rends to 3 kills - both flamers get double rends allocated. 3 other marines fail their saves - including the Sergeant with power fist.

The 4 remaining Assault Marines land 5 hits, 3 of which wound, converting to 2 kills. The marines flee the assault, but are not caught despite a significant Initiative advantage, so the battle continues.

Round 2 and the Genestealers only manage 7 wounds, with no rending 6s. 2 Marines fail their saves, leaving only 2 to to swing back. They get 3 hits and manage to convert this to 2 deal 'stealers. The round is a draw.

Now reduced to 7 models, the Tyranids inflict a healthy 6 wounds on the remaining couple of marines. They die.

Aftermath: The Blood Angels had nothing to threaten their opponents, especially when faced with such a lethal first turn effort on the Genestealers' part. Even if they had won the charge, without Furious Assault and Feel no Pain granted by a Sanguinary Priest in proximity they are a shadow of their normal selves.

Squad Smackdown - Dark Angels vs Dark Eldar

If you don't know the rules, here they are.

In the Red Corner: 10 robed Space Marines stand around mysteriously. One wields a flamer, and the sergeant is equipped with a massive power fist crackling with raw energy. (195 points)

In the Blue Corner: Evil, nasty, sadistic, drugged up Dark Eldar Wyches are bouncing off the walls ready for an arena fight - 15 of them in total. One wears a hydra gauntlet, and the Hekatrix wields an Agoniser and wears a strap-on Phastasm Grenade Launcher.

The Wyches roll for the effects of their combat drugs and get a 4 - they will be rerolling failed to-wound rolls throughout the bout. Due to their Fleetness the Wyches have the advantage to go first.

The gates open!

Squad Smackdown: Space Marines vs Grey Knights

If you don't know the rules, here they are.

In the Red Corner: 9 recruits from the Crimson Fists chapter accompanied by a Veteran Sergeant rocking a power fist and combi-flamer. The scouts are wielding pistols and combat blades, obviously hoping that extra attack will compensate for a lack of power armour. They are hard to see as they are all equipped with camo-cloaks.

In the Blue Corner: 5 Grey Knight Terminators stand ready to purge the Daemon and bring the pain. Each wields a towering halberd.

Neither squad has advantage on the roll to go first - outflanking was not ruled to be clearly more likely to get the charge.

The gates open!

Squad Smackdown: Imperial Guard vs Daemons

If you don't know the rules, here they are.

In the Red Corner: A platoon of 25 Imperial Guardsmen, inspired to fanaticism by the bolt pistol of a Commissar. Carrying a total of six flamers (!), they will be a terrifying proposition if they get the assault.

In the Blue Corner: Huh? There is nobody here. Can you hear hellish screaming in the distance?

The gates open!

Squad Smackdown: Orks vs Eldar

If you don't know the rules, here they are.

In the Red Corner: 30 Ork Boyz eager to "smash sum gurly elves". Who needs a Nob when you have the numbers? (180 points)

In the Blue Corner: 19 Eldar civilians have donned armour and weapons for the good of the craftworld - accompanied by a Warlock with the Enhance power. These amateur warriors don't look entirely comfortable about being here. (200 points)

Both units have access to Fleet, so there is no advantage given to the roll to assault.

The gates open!

Squad Smackdown: Necrons vs Space Wolves

If you don't know the rules, here they are.

In the Red Corner: 11 mindless Necron Warrior automatons stand motionless, ready to activate. Can they make their Feel No Pain roles? (198 points)

In the Blue Corner: 10 Grey Hunters with 2 flamers, a wolf banner and 2 power swords are drunk and spoiling for a fight. I'm starting to feel sorry for those Necrons... (185 points)

Neither squad has an advantage to get the charge.

The gates open!

Squad Smackdown: Black Templars vs Chaos Space Marines

If you don't know the rules, here they are.

In the Red Corner: 8 Black Templar Initiates with 8 Neophytes, all armed with a bolt pistol and additional close combat weapon. The original marine horde squad frothing with righteous zeal.

In the Blue Corner: 9 Frenzied Khorne Bezerkers pulling at their chains in anticipation. Unrivaled on the charge, but either way this should be a slaughter fit for the blood god.

Neither squad has an advantage to get the charge.

The gates open!

Last Chance to Win!

Hi readers - its your last chance to guess who will be winning the Squad Smackdown so check the link and pick a winner in your comment if you haven't already.

Its only hours away so act now - winner gets a nicely painted model from the winning squad!

40k Battle Tactics: The Art of the Turn 1 Assault

One thing that people never expect, and hope never happens to them, is being assaulted by their opponent before they have even started their first turn. Most players don't realise it can even happen, and of those players who know that it can technically happen, most don't rate the unit they think will be the one assaulting.

There are a few key components to the turn 1 assault and making it work for you, and not all armies have the ability. The first component is a fast moving unit with scout. Infiltrate will not get the job done, nor will a unit on foot with scout, as you have to end your scout move outside of 12" of your opponent, so you will never be in charge range. So usually what this means is you need to have scout bikes, or something of the like. The second key component is to have an independent character (or multiple if possible) that has an assault vehicle. The most common army that can do this are Space Marines or Space Marine equivalents such as Grey Knights (ie. Land Raider). There are other armies which have the same capabilities, but I will focus on these for the examples provided. The final component is knowing how to sling shot independent characters.

3 New 40k Podcasts

It's seems like 40k podcasting is experiencing a Renaissance. New podcasts are appearing overnight and starting to fill up my "To Listen" pile. Well I have made good progress getting through them in the last week but if this keeps continuing I am going to have to start making some hard decisions about my podcast diet :)

The first new podcast on the block is Preferred Enemies. I have listened to 4 episodes and a bonus now and I've got to tell you - I'm totally hooked! The hosts are down to earth and just doing a great job of providing interesting content. I think I just really relate to them. Their discussion on the current calls for a GW boycott was open-minded and level headed.

The second podcast is Screaming Heretic, a "sister" podcast of Eternal Warriors (aka Dice Like Thunder for the old school out there). The hosts are friends with the EW crew - girlfriend in one case. Huh? Yes that's right, this one has GIRLS. Huh? Yes, that's not a typo, it's a plural. Last time I heard girls on a 40k podcast was that hobby segment they used to have on DLT - and someones partner delivering fresh muffins on 40KUK. I've only listened to a couple of episodes so far, it's been mostly a "get to know you" so far. Stand by for more opinions...

The final podcast I hasn't actually listened to yet, so this one is at your own risk :) Told you I was getting behind in my podcast listening queue. It originally started out also being called Preferred Enemies (!) but that obviously wasn't going to work. Check out Tyrant's Due. I'm downloading the 4 available episodes now from iTunes...

Hope you find these little updates helpful. If you haven't seen the phenomenon that is the Squad Smackdown, check it out and place a bet on whose got the best CC troops in 40k - there are prizes to be had!

Squad Smackdown: Place Your Bets!

The Smackdown is coming in six days and now is the time to get your bets in...I'm giving away a custom painted model to the winner!

Please check the original post to learn all about it.

And If any of my fellow bloggers out there would consider posting a note about the Smackdown it would be much appreciated. A good fight needs an audience :)

Introducing "Squad Smackdown": You Could Win a Prize!

There's been a recent spate of people running tournaments between special characters from all the Codices, eliminating the losers until a single winner is reached. I saw this first on the blog The 40k Project, and more recently in a segment on the "40K UK" podcast. This is helped by the fact that there are sixteen current Codices - the perfect number for an elimination tournament!

Now "A Plague Spreads" wants a piece of the action, but I am going to do things a little differently. My contestants won't be the superheroes of the 41st millennium, but rather those army workhorses, the lowly troops units. I'm going to take one unit up to 200 points from each Codex and battle them against each other according to the following rules.

In the spirit of "steal the initiative" I won't be doing what I've seen elsewhere, where everyone counts as assaulting. Instead a random roll will determine the aggressor, modified by the units maneuverability. As this unit will also get to fire any weapons if possible before assault, it's going to be a huge advantage. Luckily the defender gets a random chance of being in cover!

So... who's got the best troops?