Black Templars - You've been vindicated!

Hey Ladies and Gents!

Today is a nice hobby update on where I am at with my Black Templars which is nice considering how Blood Angel heavy the blog has been recently with both reviews (a little more on that later) and hobby progress.

So today I have a finished project to show you and also some WIP projects that will hopefully be completed in the next couple of weeks or so (more likely 3 but I'm giving myself something to aim for!)

So here is a rescue project I commenced on a knackered vindicator, I'm aiming to improve on WIP shots as I realised the impact is a lot better than just a before and after picture, but with this tank I'm afraid that's all you're getting for this one, but skip down later for some better WIP picks of the other Vindicator.

Here's the before shot:

And here is a host of after pictures!

You can see in the last picture how little effort I put into really cleaning this up, but I just wanted to get it nice and table top ready from a distance.

I'm happy with how it turned out but I think I will go back once I've done all the tanks and add a more extreme highlight to all of them.

Here is the before shots of the second rescued and converted vindicator:

On the back of the tank was a gaping hole, this was covered up with my favourite emergency conversion material, Train Tickets!! They are pretty sturdy and featured in the first tank conversion also!

And finally here is my WIP scouts that are all metal and have been stripped and half undercoated so far (the other half and second vindicator are upstairs drying from an undercoat as I type!):

With my piled up Death Company crammed in behind them! But having sold all my none Blood Angel and none Black Templar figures my to-do pile is still big but considerably smaller than it was!

Narrative Gaming

So I am playing the second of my Narrative game on Thursday which is why the Templars are getting a good seeing too as we are escalating the points value to around 1500-1600 from 1300. This mean either adding both vindicators or a vindicator and some neophytes. I'm hoping to get some real pictures of this game and try my hand at a decent battle report for once! We are going to be playing a custom mission for this one so I will enjoy writing that up for you as well. Basically the Orks and Templars are going to be fighting for Ork tech from the crashed Hulk from the first game and this will have knock on effects in the final show down where the Templars and Angels will assault an Ork Town. It should be fun!!

Blogucation

Finally I would like some feedback from you my readers on what you enjoy about my blog and what you would like to see more of or less of as I move forward. I really enjoyed writing my review of the Blood Angels codex, though I had a lot of tongue in cheek turn of phrases as I'm sure you will notice if you have read them.

Would people like to see more review? Or more hobby updates? I know I'd like to put more WIP shots up as I said before, I'd also like to put more battle reports up as well. I'm looking forward to writing about my experiences at Fluffageddon and Blog Wars X at hoping to get some snaps of my battles as well as my opponents because I like putting faces to names! 

Anyway, any advice for a better set up, look to the blog or just improvements in anyway please leave a comment and I will try and make this blog better as I go forward.

As an addendum, it took my 2 and a half months to reach 1000 views and it has taken less than a month since then to reach 3000 so I am super happy with over 2000 views in just less than a month! Thank you to everyone who reads my blogs and special thank you to NafNaf from Objective Secured and Nick from the Burning Eye and Corrm from Standwargaming who can all be found on my blog roll and who have been fantastic inspirations and I hope to play all of them in future tournaments I attend :)

Till next time,

Peace out

Rob

Blood Angels - Are we that Bad? Part 5 - LoW, Relics, Psychic powers and formations

Hi readers!

Today I am going to cover Blood Angel Specific relics, warlord traits, psychic powers, Lords of War and then a whole (angelic) host of detachments and formations. WARNING It's going to be a  long one but I hope you stick with it as some of the best bits of the whole blood angels codex and expansions sit in this meaty mess! On we go.

Relics

The Angels Wing - Jump pack? Check. Re-roll scatter? Check. Re-roll on mishap table? Check. interceptor units can only snap fire at you? Oh mother flipping check all over that. For 25 points in can really help your beat stick HQ getto grips with a force. This in combination with other scatter reducing abilities from formations can make some good little precision drops.

The crown angelic - causes fear and the test has to be taken at -2 leadership. brilliant against some armies rubbish against most. At 10 points I'd skip unless your tailoring between friends.

Veritas Vitae - an absolute steal for 15 points. Allows you to roll a second warlord trait from the strategic table. Very competitively priced indeed.

Valours Edge - A users strength at initiative AP2 power sword for 20 points. Combined with furious charge and either the quickening or a baal strike force detachment (see below for both) this is actually really good value for a cheap beat stick style HQ.

Gallians staff - re-roll ones on failed psychic rolls but then loses a wound with no saves allowed for each re-roll that is also a one. Its also a +2 strength AP4 force weapon. Costs 10 points as an upgrade for a librarian, too risky for me personally.

Fury of Baal - 25 points for a 12 inch, strength 7 ap2 master crafted plasma pistol without gets hot. For 10 points more than an actual plasma pistol its OK, but in general I don't see it being all that useful and better cheaper options elsewhere.

Warlord Traits

These are fairly meh altogether, with the mediocre ones granting either Rampage, Adamantium Will and a single mastercrafted weapon on your warlord (though it can't be one of the relics!). The next tier up are one that grants fearless to all friendly imperium units within 12 inches. Great if you are running your angels as allies for imperial guard but you can't guarantee your character getting this but helpful if so. 

Then there is a trait that grants + 1 intiative to your warlord, this coupled with the Baal Strike force detachment which grants + 1 initiative on the charge could be the difference between winning a challenge and being a bloody smear on a boot! 

The final and best trait, which is Dante's fixed trait as I mention below, is Descent of Angels which grant re-roll of failed reserve rolls for jump, flyer and skimmer units and allows jump and skimmer units to only scatter D6. This is awesome, but if you really want to theme your force around jump units and your gaming group allows lords of war. Just take Dante, as you'll read below he is the boss.

Psychic Powers

The Quickening - My favourite power here is the primaris so a guaranteed get. it grants +D3 attacks and initiative to a character. Potentially you could have Dante, on the charge, throwing out NINE strength 7, initiative 10 AP2 attacks that could be Weapon skills 7 with a sanguinary priest in tow. Wowzers. This power can be a key game changing moment if you used wisely.

Fear of Darkness - targets a single enemy unit within 12 inches and morale check taken at -2. OK but most armies have a counter to morale shenanigans

Unleash Rage - Grants rage to friendly unit in 18 inches or + 1 attack if they already have. Nice on a Death company squad!

Shield of Sanguinius - grants a 5+ invulnerable to librarian unit. Jump pack libby in death company ahoy!

Blood Boil - 18 inch witchfire - target takes 2 toughness tests and if failed takes a wound no saves allowed. For each unsaved wound a large blast marker is placed on models and all underneath it take a S5 AP4 ignores cover hit. Great Against guardsmen and OK against others.

The Blood Lance - a strength 8 AP2 lance beam with a 12 inch range. OK, an extra 6 inches of range would have done it wonders mind.

Wings of Sangunius - the only warp charge 2 power on the list. Allows a unit within 12 inches that isn't locked in combat to be moved up to 12 inches ignoring intervening terrain but normal rules for landing area. Counts as moving for shooting purposes. Can't charge. This would be a lot better if you could charge or not count as moving for shooting. And wouldn't I think be too op compared to some things we are seeing now. As is it is useful for catching an imperial knight in a melta crossfire

on two front with a total 18 inch move possible.

Lords of War

Commander Dante - he is as he rightly should be, an absolute beast. Not only as an indpendent force that can maraud and wreck face (which he can) but also as a potent force multiplier for certain play styles. Firstly lets look at his stats and load out. He has a chapter masters stats, but has eternal warrior and furious charge making him strength 5 on the charge, but he also has the axe mortalis which grants him +2 strength making him S7 on the charge AND still striking at his high initiative of 6 and weapons skill of 6. If taken as part of the the Baal Strike force Detachment and in a squad with a sanguinary priest you are looking at SIX (4 base +1 for charge and + 1 for 2 x CCW) strength 7, initiative 7 (+1 from red thirst), weapon skill 7 (+1 from blood chalice) AP2 attacks on a toughness 4 2+/4++ 5+ FNP (from the priests nartheciums) eternal warrior frame. As much of a badass as he should be? I think so! But ladies and gents that is not all, oh no sir-ee! 

He also gets Descent of Angels as his automatic warlord trait, this sweet trait grants re-roll of failed reserve rolls for jump, flyer and skimmer units AND reduces scatter to D6 for jump and skimmer units that are deep striking, allowing for near perfect tactical precision drops on a jump heavy force. But there is more! In a tactical objectives mission he also get to roll on the tactical traits table in addition to having descent of angels! Perfect in maelstrom! Oh and he also has a mask that causes fear and all enemy units locked in combat within 6 of Dante must pass a fear test at the beginning of 

the fight sub phase even if they are not locked in combat with Dante, which is cool but situational.

Dante has got everything he needs to really ruin a persons day and all for an exceptionally well priced 220 points. He is the last word in chapter master awesome sauce special characterness to me.

Gabriel Seth - basically take everything I lauded on Dante and imagine the opposite. Flesh tearer fans got a real bad deal with Seth taking up a lord of war slot, he just isn't at the same calibre as any other Lord of War that crosses my mind, even with his cheaper price tag of 155 points. Ok he has a chapter masters stats but only a 3+/4++ and no eternal warrior so any S8 hit will insta gibb him, so a dark lance shot or a power fisting character would leave him with a 50:50 chance of living if he was caught on his own for example, relying entirely on his iron halo 4++. Seth will have 6 attacks 

on the charge (4 base + 2 from rage) that are S9 (4 x 2 from his blood reaver eviscerator and + 1 from furious charge) That are AP2 and rending. To hit rolls of 6 also cause a single additional hit each. he is a brilliant horde smasher but you want to keep him out of the way of anything nasty! Plus for his cost you can get 2 sanguinary priest with jump packs and have 5 points to spare (off the top of my head... correct me if I'm wrong) or thereabouts anyway. Sadly there are better options if not in a themed force. He should either have been beefed or not be a Lord of War, with my preference being the latter particularly given the status of Helbrecht or Pedro Kantor for example. Bah humbug!

Detachments

Baal Strike force - This detachment requires 1 HQ, 2 Troops and 1 Elites and grant an additional elite slot for 4 in total. In addition to that you can re-roll your warlord trait if rolling on the blood angel specific traits which is a bit meh but will hopefully stop you getting stuck with a shit one. Its real benefit beyond the extra elite slot is the Red Thirst.

The Red Thirst grants you that all important +1 initiative on the charge (lost if disordered charge). This is all important with putting blood angels above their brethren as it means you will strike first and strike hard against them reducing the attacks that come back with you. And as mentioned above for certain characters and with certain buffs like the quickening this can result in real serious beatstick characters.

I personally will be taking this with my Death Company as it give me the option of the 4 elites, and its a close combat orientated army so initiative is key here and so is a benefit I cannot turn down.

Archangel Detachments and formation

I'm now going to detail my favourite formations from the shield of baal expansion. I'm not going to go over all of them, just my favourite that are actually likely to see competitive play or come with some excellent bonuses that could be utilised in a fluffy but semi competitive list. I won't be covering the White Dwarf exclusive formations as I don't have them and have very limited knowledge of them.

Archangels Strike Force

This is a detachment whereas the other blood angels ones below are formations. This Detachment has a minimum requirement of 1 HQ and 2 Elites. The HQ has to be a captain, librarian or chaplain and they all have to have terminator armour. Captain Karlaen can be taken if desired. Oh and there is an optional HQ and FOURTEEN elites.

These have to be drawn from Terminators, Vanguard/Sternguard Veterans and Furioso Dreadnoughts. With no more than 10 of the infantry units and 6 of the Dreadnoughts. The command benefits of this detachment are a re-roll on the Archangels warlord table if you use it (don't, its shit) and something called Storm of Angels. This allows you to re-roll failed reserve rolls for any deep striking unit and any deep striking unit only scatters D6 inches. I am unsure whether this effects Drop Pods, as in the BRB it does state drop pod assault means they must arrive from deep strike reserves so as I read it, drop pods also benefit from the reduced scatter and reserve shenanigans.

With a few units of sternguard or dreadnoughts in drop pods to come in turn one you can then pretty reliably deep strike the rest of your army in on turn 2, turn 3 if your rolls are really bad. I love this detachment and I am using it for my none death company portion of my blood angels army. This means that I won't actually have any troop units per se in my entire collection of blood angels... As my troops for my death company are Raphen's death company and Cassor the Damned... Woohoo!

This detachment has many a weakness with flyers being prime among them, but if used well it could wreck a lot of armies days. I don't expect I will use it well, but I KNOW that it is possible.

Archangels Sanguine Wing

This formation consists of two 10 man units of vanguard veterans with jump packs and one 10 man unit of sternguard in a Storm Raven. The sternguard must start aboard the Raven and all units must start in deep strike reserve. A single re-rollable reserve roll is made for all units.

Doesn't sound spectacular, BUT, for each vanguard veteran you can take a single free power weapon or lightening claw, that is for each veteran, therefore if you lightening claw up all 20 that would save you 300 points of upgrades! And for the sternguard you can get a free combi weapon for each sternguard member. That doesn't save you as much but its still 100 points, so a total of 400!

Its funny the internet didn't go as crazy about this compared to the space marine Gladius formation or whatever its called, but its a not dissimilar amount of points. You will have to base your army on this formation due to the, correctly I feel, enforced squad sizes but if you develop a solid static holding gun line with some other form of reserve manipulation perhaps then this would work well as a screaming hammer from the sky.

Cool yeah?

The Archangels

DISCLAIMER: This is not a formation for competitive play. However it is a fun fluffy formation that does technically fit into 1850 points... You HAVE to take:

A captain and a chaplain

4 Furioso Dreadnought

and 10 (yes TEN) elites from sternguard, vanguard, or either terminator types.

This guys have stubborn, roll for reserves from the first turn, re-roll trait on the archangels warlord table and deep striking units only scatter D6 (and if you aren't deep striking here,, clue - you're doing it wrong). Here follows a stupid stupid list I drew up that fits in 1850 points and would get beaten by many many armies but I think it would be so much bloody fun to play and I genuinely think it would do OK in the right hands.

HQ:

Captain with Valours Edge, Bolt Pistol and Jump pack
Chaplain with Jump pack

4 X furioso Dreadnoughts with heavy flamer and storm bolter fists plus magna grapple

4 x 5 man vanguard veteran squads all armed with bolt pistol and chain sword, sergeants each have a melta bomb

6 x 5 man vanguard veteran squads all armed with bolt pistol and chain sword

That is 50 vanguard veterans, 4 furioso dreadnought a chaplain and a captain, 1850 points bang on the nose.

Dreadnought start on board in cover or holding objective, anything gets to close they flame and punch it to death. The vanguard vets start dropping turn one accurate as you like and drown anything in attacks that is there, melta bomb sergeants cover anything that is armour 13 or higher, with furious charge attacks taking care of AV 11 and lower and grenades taking care of armour 12.

Oh I wish I had the models I really really do...

Archangels Orbital Intervention Force 

3 terminator squads assault or regular. All arrive from deep strike reserve on one roll, include some reserve shenanigans in list to guarantee arrival when needed. These guys can run and then shoot when they arrive from deep strike. Its only really useful to normal terminators but if you have them and want to take them then this gives you some pseudo deathwing termies all dressed up in red.


Fleshtearers

I thought I should go over these guys special detachment too very quickly then this post will finally be done! Its probably far too long now but hey ho...

Fleshtearers Strike Force

A compulsory 1 HQ, 1 Troop and 1 Fast Attack with an optional 3 troops and 5 fast attacks as well as the usual others. FIVE fast attacks! People can make great use out of this and their assault squads of old. They also have the added benefit of if they roll over 10 on their charge range (not needing to use all of it to get the benefit) that unit gains rage for that assault phase. Delicious.



The End...

Right, that all folks, I know  said this would go up Sunday but I'm hoping to have some Templars painted and ready for use next week to show you this weekend so I thought I would get this written during my 26 hours of work over Thursday and Friday!

I hope someone made it through the whole way... I may go back and split it up if it really looks too long...

Peace out

Rob

Lemartes Guardian of the Lost

Hi readers,

Really quick post today, I sat down this evening and painted Lemartes in one sitting and I am very very happy with how he turned out. So please do give me your opinions of how he looks, he is done and dusted but any advice will always be applied to the next model! The base will still have some little bits added to it but lots of my angels only have minimum basing applied at the moment as I decide how I want to link them through basing in some cohesive sense beyond just snow themed.

Enjoy the pictures and let me know what you think :)

Also this evening I have undercoated a vindicator and 10 neophytes for my Templars that I need to get painted for a game next week so expect rapid work on this guys.

I also undercoated my finished conversion of Dante and I don't think I will be able to resist applying a starting lick of paint to him so tune in for that and more this weekend coming :)

Peace out

Rob

Blood Angels - Are we that bad? Part 4 - Fast Attack and Heavy Support

Hello readers,

This is my penultimate retrospective of the blood angels codex assessing how it work relative to the new space marines and hopefully convincing many people that we still have great unique units that can mix it with some of the best. We aren't the top tier dog codex but we are not a bad codex and I think its important to make this distinction. 

Today I will be dealing with the Fast Attack and Heavy Support options in the codex. Despite there being a wealth of options in these sections, this part of the review will be fairly short, as for the most part these are not significantly different from the vanilla codex, with only 1 unique option among the whole lot! 

Fast Attack

So before I look at the units (which are virtually identical though sadly lacking a bit compared to vanilla marines) I'm going to look at a key mechanic/wargear option of the blood angels which is primarily a "fast" component but also crops up a lot in the Heavy support section.

This is Overcharged engines. Overcharged engines come as standard with certain vehicles which I will mention individually or they are a purchasable upgrade for several vehicles, mostly in heavy support. Overcharged engines grant the "Fast" rule to the vehicles. This allows these vehicles to move 6 inches and fire all their weapons or move 12 inches and fire 2 weapons at full ballistic skill. Furthermore they can flat out 12 inches if desired. I think overcharged engines are brilliant and much maligned by people. 

Example: The humble rhino can now carry its 10 troops 24 inches in a turn. That is 24 inches and if it survives it can move another 6 inches, disembark 6 inches and up to a 12 inch charge. The range of a rhino is massively increased in an offensive manner when given the fast rule. (Error - no charging from rhino)... But still, as an objective secured unit it effectively has a 27 inch range for grabbing objective (24 inch movement and be within 3 of the objective) or it can disembark a squad for a further objective grabbing reach!

As I said these come standard with some vehicles or are purchasable for 10 points for other vehicles. I think by and large they are great value for 10 points. 

Dedicated Transports. This covers the humble Drop pod, Rhino, and Razorback. They are all functionally the same as vanilla marines except that both the rhino and razorback have overcharged engines. In the case of the rhino, the above example illustrates the benefit of being fast, whilst with the razorback the extra speed really increases the threat bubble of their armaments which can be used effectively to making firing lanes with less of the board safe from their reach, especially if equipped with lascannons against vehicles or heavy bolters against mid range infantry.

Assault squads. These guys are not better than the vanilla assault marines, but they aren't worse either. They just fulfil their role in a different way I feel. These guys are well equipped to drop pod in and flame the crap out of a unit, with a regular flamer and 2 hand flamers on the sarge providing ample horde killing goodness. However this does beg the question why not take a 5 man tactical squad with a heavy flamer and 2 hand flamers? (Double Error! I meant to say meltas and inferno pistols but was writing from memory like a fool, these guys can pop open most things on a good to middling day - still don't rate them as an assault units compared to better options though sadly). Assault squads doe have the benefit of furious charge which means that couple with a jump pack assault a squad of 5 will do 5 strength 4 Hammer of wrath attacks, and 15 strength 5 normal attacks which for a barebones 85 points is pretty good. Especially as if you have enough other threats they are likely to be ignored.

Bikes and Assault bike. As far as I can see there is little difference from vanilla marines. I have never found space marines on bike appealing aside from Ravenwing personally. From my standpoint I like the idea of the lighter scouts on bikes but not the full hulkers. These guys also have furious charge of course, which as I state in the assault squad section is a really nice buff on the charge compared to vanilla marines.

Scout Bikes. Exactly the same problem as regular scouts. An additional 1 WS and BS coupled with furious charge would make these an excellent cheap harassing unit but they just aren't worth taking compared to both vanilla marines and other units in the codex like assault marines. Skip unless you're theming a force I would say. As noted in the comments a good delivery system for locator beacons but I still don't like taking scouts in a BA force and there are great ways in formations or wargear to reduce scatter with more flavour. But if you definitely need that precision drop these would be a good way to go!

Landspeeder Squadon. Same as always and no different from Vanilla as far as I can see. The aesthetic of these guys has never appealed to me and I've never had interest in taking them so I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere for any useful comments!

Overall. Fast Attack is a solid section if a very unremarkable section in the Blood Angel Codex. It is almost exactly on a par with the Vanilla codex with overcharged engines really standing out as an excellent addition, but these become far more important in heavy support. Furious charged added to hammer of wrath attacks on bikes and jump pack assault are also viable options.

The main discrepancy here is not only scouts and their reduced stats but also the unfathomable exclusion of the stormtalon and land speeder storms. I see no reason why these shouldn't be available to Blood Angels, it just boggles me sometimes!!

Heavy Support

So on the big guns as it were. There is a single unique unit in here that I will go over then I will round up my thoughts on the rest in a big jumble as for the most part they are all the same as vanilla or the benefits that Blood Angels gives the vehicles is the same. 

Baal Predator. Coming in at 115 points I think this is 10 points overcosted, but its still a good choice. It comes with overcharged engines as stock and it has the option of the triple flame loadout for 135 points and I think that is as good as ever. Blaze up the fields of battle and toast everything in your way. I think if you aren't going for this option then the Dakk predator with assault cannons/heavy bolters is good for the same price but I think I would just take a regular predator and give it overcharged engines to take advantage of the extra range and firing 2 weapons at full BS after a 12 inch move. 

Predator and Vindicator. Both are a minor bit more expensive than their Vanilla brethren but not horrendously so. The addition of overcharged engines however can really make them shine. A 12 inch move before firing that autocannon and still having a full BS heavy bolter on the spare? Top notch. Or even better a 12 inch move followed by the demolisher cannon giving it an effective 36 in range, invaluable in delivering that S10 AP1 goodness to the heart of the enemy. I think these both lift these tanks that little bit beyond vanilla ones, but you do pay for it with the upgrade and the base points being higher so its not a gimme by any means.

Whirlwind. These guys also benefit from being able to move 12 and still fire their ordinance regularly but I don't really see the upgrade being that worth it as they are not a terribly competitive choice anyway and they have excellent range. If you take them, take them stock but I would rather spend the points on other things. Saying that, cheap for what they are.

Devastators. Nothing much here part from not having access to heavy grav weapons. I don't like grav weapons I have to say. I think the concept is cool but they are taking place in a saturated special weapons lists and becoming all to easily available I think for weapons of such supposed rarity. Devastators are still good if you already take them but vanilla ones are better.

All landraider variant. Nothing really changed her compared to Vanilla, they all have their strengths and weakness but I genuinely love them all the same. They are such an iconic vehicle for 40k to me, I remember the current kit coming out and being blown away by it. They aren't the most competitive but they are bloody cool as hell!!

Storm Raven Gunship. Last but by no means least. Not unique the Blood Angels for quite some time now, but much like England and our inability to win the world cup we cans till lay claim to being the spiritual home of these great beast. There are no great differences to Vanilla but I love this guy and have recently acquired my own. There are few loadouts on this that aren't great and there are none that are bad. Buy one and enjoy making swoosh noises like I have :D

Overall. The Baal predator is a great unique piece of kit and I think it looks great equipped either way but my preference is certainly for the flame variant to remove stubborn cover hogging units. The overcharged engine upgrade is the next best thing in this section as it really lifts predators and vindicators to another level, if the base points cost was the same as the vanilla then they would be bloody brilliant. The devastators really lose out with no grav cannons but they are still a solid choice if you want a stationary force of covering fire.

Both of these sections suffer from being fairly vanilla in general but with such a glut of options in all other areas of the codex I can't complaint too much. No-one should have trouble making a decently flavour blood angel force. And if you aren't taking those unique units, quite honestly play vanilla. You play blood angels so you can wield their special snowflakes and smash other armies in the face so get to it! 

My final instalment will look at our wargear, Lords of War and my pick of the detachments/formations from the codex and the whole shield of Baal supplement story.

Till then,

Peace out

Rob

Death Company assemble, Terminators finished and Orks attack!

Hey readers,

I was planning on 2 extra blogposts this week but decided to smoosh them into 1 instead. Its been a nice and productive hobby week for me with a squad finished apart from minor basing additions and a lot of models built as well.

On The building front I have been working on my death company army as I have been accumulating cheap death company sprues people are selling from the shield of baal boxset. £14 for 5 brand new death company! Its brilliant! Anyway, these guys along with Astorath and Raphen's Death Company make up the bulk of my force with another dreadnought in a drop pod and a stormraven to add to it. The stormraven is bought and on its way to me so that just leaves the dreadnought and drop pod to finish the list.

Here are the damned and the thirsty (or damn thirsty) Death Company and Lemartes, the Guardian of the Lost:

And behind them you can see the then unfinished Terminator Squad. Those guys now look like this:

I am happy with how they turned out and think I've got this colour scheme for my Archangels down pretty well now. Still 21 infantry to paint for these guys but a third down. Still need do the bases properly on these guys but I will probably save a good chunk of models up and then do them all together.

And finally, I played a game last thursday with a great guy called Stuart. We were playing the first game of a narrative series so we just picked the Scouring and played it as a fast skirmish game between a templars scouting force investigating a crashed hulk on a planet of spires and deserts. It was a great game that I ended up winning 7-6 but at the end of turn three my army looked like this:

All bar my terminators and emperors champion died in that great Waaaaaaagh! But the Emperor's champion and 1 terminator grabbed an objective and my culexus assassin grabbed another objective and linebreaker to give me a win. They were my only three models left on the table to his 30 though.... 

Anyway thats all for now but I will be back on Sunday with Part 4 of my blood angels retrospective.

Till then, Peace Out

Rob

Blood Angels - Are we that bad? - Part Three Elites (and Hobby update)

Hello dear readers,

I have finished my house move and have a nice big new bedroom with plenty of space for my hobby work. We also have a shed that I'm hoping to use to build a foldable gaming table so I can better use out of my FAT mat without destroying the cervical and sacral sections of my spine. 

Today I'm going to go over the elite section of the Blood Angels Codex. This is a big section so I will just give a summary of verdicts at the end rather than for each choice. After that you can see a few pics of my new set up and sneak peaks of what's on my hobby table. I'm also going to be putting up my several parts of my collection on ebay today and tomorrow so please stay tuned for links to those auctions and maybe pester a friend or your wallet to bid or buy it now :)

On we go!

Elites

Command squad - 100 points basic - FNP - issue and accept challenges for company champion - These guys are very limited and in such a rich slot as the elites are in the Blood Angels Codex I see no room for you to take them over other choices.

Death Company - 2 attacks, S5 on charge, rage = 4 attacks on charge - 5 attacks with 2 x ccw, striking at I5 in strike force (and why wouldn't you), Astorath re-roll to hit and to wound on the charge - FNP - relentless for bolters and charging - fearless - hand flamers and inferno pistols = awesome. These guys really are fantastic, they will destroy pretty much anything in close combat and the jump packs will hopefully get them there somewhat intact. 

Squads of 10 are a must I think to mitigate the fire power that will definitely be directed at them. These are still the last word in face punching as they should be and the Vanilla's have nothing that can shake that position. A good mix of weapons and bolters on power fist guys to take advantage of relentless is always good. Add Lemartes or Astorath to taste. Or take 2 10 man squads like I am and put one character in each ;)

Lemartes Guardian of the Lost - badass chaplain with mastercrafted crozius - +1 s and A after lost a wound all the rules of death company aside from fearless but has zealot as well. This guys really adds a nice whallop to a squad of death company and to top it all of hey-zeus he has a great model. Really fantastic, always admired it and got mine in the post recently - I'm not a fan of finecast but this one had 0 flash on it essentially and the detail is awesome, look forward to showing you in fully painted up. Hopefully I will get him painted to an Asotrath level of detail for me.

Sanguinary guard - golden angels of sigmar---I mean death ;) 2+ save and Ld 10 with marine mulching weapons (encarmine sword....ap3 master crafted two handed and encarmine axe... +1 ap2 mastercrafted unwieldy 2 handed). These guys are fantastic, the models are really great, though I have ordered some flying sigmarites to convert into them so they are extra bad ass.. but they suffer from no Invulnerable save or even FNP, be careful with them, maybe throw in a couple of storm shield characters to tank wounds if you really want to take them, but more importantly pick your targets carefully. I recommend the sword and leave 2+ saves to someone like death compay who can drown them in a mixture of ap - and ap3 attacks as well as throwing ap2 attacks at I1.

Dreadnought basic - a dread is a dread is a dread - except the cc chapter dread has 2 attacks less.... bugger. Very little to say on these guys. If you are taking dreads then take either of the other 2 dread option we have available.

Death Company Dreadnought - has furious charge and rage which is fun and can get ap2 shred blood talons but only has 3 attacks and really should have 5 (though it gets 5 on the charge so its not too bad and possibly 6 with 2 CCW weapons..I think?)I doubt this will be faq'd though sadly still awesome though and ignores crew shaken and crew stunned results. The ignoring crew shaken and stunned results are the best thing about this beast

Furioso Dreadnought - suffers from the bizarrely low attacks but the best way to run this guy is in my opinion as a holy crap tonne of horde cleansing. Frag cannon and underslung flamer produce 3 template attacks a turn with 2 of them at s6! Oh and those ones are RENDING! Drop this guy in a pod next to any units in cover (T3 for maximum effect) and watch them burn.This beast also has AV13 on the fron for extra survivability. Very tasty profile

Terminator Squad - 200 points and still too expensive for what they do and the models don't even look bad ass like the assault marines do - sad to say I will never be taking these guys - they are marginally better in the vanilla codex due to price drop but still too easily wiped.

Terminator Assault Squad - a different story - the hammernator squad is the same price as the vanilla marines but the kit we have is simply awesome, really beautiful models indeed. The claw variant is over costed compared to vanilla but not by much and they are great at shredding units especially as ours are S5 on the charge and at I5 in the baal strike force formation so it really ups your chance of killing marine squads no problem. A top choice compared to vanilla because of these unique Blood Angel buffs.

Vanguard Veteran Squads - I love the whole concept of these guys and will have two in one of my angel armies eventually (still lying in bits :( ) but the vanilla codex got a MASSIVE reduction in their weapon upgrade costs. Sadly these guys took in the neck the same as the dreadnoughts.

Sternguard Veteran Squads - are as good as they ever were with their fantastic utility. I will also have 2 squads of these drop podding in with my archangels because of their effectiveness. Price point wise they are little changed if at all as I recall but even if they are more expensive compared to vanilla they are still well worth taking

Verdicts

Overall the winners in this section are, as they should be, the Blood angels unique choices. Death company squads and dreadnoughts are top of the class, with flame spewing Furioso dreadnoughts a close second I think. Assault terminators come next, they are really and truly better than marine equivalents when you take the claw variant as they are +1 strength on the charge and can get +1 initiative also. Throwing a sanguinary guard or chaplain in there will boost them even further. I love the sanguinary guard but they are expensive for what they do, you will have to design around these 

guys to get them to really fulfill there potential but they can do it if you want it.

Losers are dreadnought base attacks and vanguard veterans costing significantly more than the vanilla counterpart due to weapon upgrade costs. This can be mitigated somewhat if you take a particular formation but I'll get into that in my final post.

Hobby

So here we have a few pictures of my new hobby set up, I have enough space to have a to do pile:

And a working pile and also have a two lamp set up for better light. The window also provides better light in this room so its very nice all round. 

You can see how much I have to do and also how many brushed I have accumulated!! 

This sits at the foot of my bed and will now be reserved for finished models only so I can get a nice sense of how far I am coming along. 

I'm hoping to get a decent amount of hobby progress this week as my girlfriend is away so hopefully there will be a couple of posts from me this week in addition to my sunday post which will be going through the heavy and fast attack choices for the blood angels codex.

Here is a sneak peak of my WIP Dante conversion:

And finally, I always wonder what bloggers look like so I though you guys could have a picture of me to put a face to a name :) (I don't smile for photos but I am much friendlier looking in real life I promise!)

Peace out till next time

Rob

Culexus Assassin, narrative games and Terminators!

Hi readers,

Taking a break from my review of the badass Blood Angels to bring you some assassin-y goodness.

Culexus

I pre-ordered the assassin game Execution Force and have played precisely... 0 games with it... Ahem. But last night I sat down and managed to build and paint the Culexus to a standard I am happy with in a couple of hours. Its a brilliant model but due to the skin tight nature of its clothing it has a lot less fiddly detail than a terminator sergeant for example.

I wanted to paint it in slightly comic book style colours so I went for a dark blue highlighted body suit with red to set it off. I went for an antique-y look with the bizarre headset thing and then further practiced my OSL skills with the opening of the gun. I'm pretty happy with the OSL effect and how the model looks overall, I even think I managed to get a decent rust effect on the base!

The model has been based to match my templars as the Culexus is going to be their anti-pysker ace in the hole. The templars are set up to be very fluffy with big crusade squads and lots of hand to hand goodness and the Culexus felt like a natural and competitive match for their hatred of Pyskers.

Anyway here are some pictures, sadly the flash has washed out the metal bits, they have a lot more depth in person but its a grey day and flash was the only way to get usable piccies!

As a side note, how cool does his shadow look!?

Narrative Games

In other news I will be  playing the first of a set of linked narrative games tonight. Tonights game will be the Scouring versus Orks. The lead in fluff for this game is a small Ork hulk crashing on to a planet that the Templars are currently investigating. We haven't met before so as well as the game I think we will work out the rest of the narrative but this should be a fun 5-6 games that incentivise me to finish my templars off as I now have all the models I need!

This will mean a slight break from painting Blood Angels but I will be getting back to them as I want to take them to Blog Wars 10, either as the archangels or as a whole army of Death Company. I have enough Death Company to make a 1250 point force right now I just need 5 more Death Company, a Stormraven and another Death Company dreadnought with a drop pod. 

But I hope to get you some OK battle reports up in the future. If I am on my A game tonight I may remember to take pictures! But I'm pretty bad for that so a short synopsis might be the only thing you get from this first game.

And Finally

Just a quick picture of my nearly finished lightning claw terminator sergeant. I was really pleased with this squad as they were made from the bog standard termies that come with Death Storm with just the claws and spare gubbins added to them from the Blood Angel Specific terminators set and they look great! Again I'm pleased with the hair on this one. He just needs basing but the rest of the squad need all the highlighting and layering doing, I just fancied finishing one of them off. Sometimes squad painting get so dull!!

I'm moving house this weekend and internet isn't going to be up till the 8th of July so this will likely be my last post till then, unless I get spare time at work to write the next part of my reviews.

Peace out all

Rob