For todays article we are going a different route and I’mgoing to be writing about game aids as sort of a mini series where we take alook at the various companies who create these fantastic products to help makethings easier for the game we all love.
Today we will be looking at Hammer Head games and what theybring to the table !
Starting off with three of my personal favorite tools theyoffer
The tournament tray
This is one hell of a life saver if you goto as many events as we do. This fantastic tray holds you’re army in the maincompartment then you have side spots for dice, tape measure and all your othergaming widgets. The best part of this tray is that its easily portable as itbreaks down into individual pieces that you can fit inside your army case.
9” measuring gauge
This is the tool that Ive been preachingabout the most and I feel like it should be a must have for any and all gamers.This here is the 9” multi measuring gauge. The long side is exactly 9” longwhich is great for measuring out deepstrikers and various things like that, thereis a 3” side on the bottom of it which is great to help check for holding objectives,on the opposite size you have a 2” one which helps for keeping your units inline with each other, and finally the shorter right side is a 6” tool to dobasic movements. All around a fantastic pick up and it only costs $12.50 andalso comes in a wide variety of colors.
Command point dial
I love this tool, it’s a greatway to keep track of both players command points as well as keep a running totalof victory points for each player as well using the spinning dials on all sidesof the widget. Then in the middle you see the read arrow which is used to showplayer turn and top/bottom of the turn. This is a great as many player use diceto track command points which can easily be knocked over or picked up, where asthis sits flat on the table and can be accessabile by both players.
Hammerhead also offers many othergreat widgets and such for gaming including movement trays, objective markers,unit markers, wound dials tokens and much more. PLUS they also cover a widevariety of different games not just 40k
So do your self a favor and gopick up some of these great tools to help improve your 40k gaming experience.
So after taking some serious lumps with my last minute
Harlequin army at LVO, I decided to heed the advise of teammates and steal a
page from the king of all Aeldari tricks, Sean Nayden, And man have I been
having an absolute blast with the newest iteration of my army. Today we’re
going to discuss my favourite 3rd of my new army, the Ynnarlequin
Vanguard.
If it wasn’t obvious enough from the name, it’s a mixed Vanguard
Detachment of Ynnari Harlequins. Typically containing Yvraine (or the Yncarne
if you’re feeling extra spicy), 2x Death Jesters, a Solitaire, 6x Haywire
Skyweavers (optional), and a Shadowseer (also optional). This little character
bomb is uber flexible and packs a ton of tools, stratagems and relic’s to help
you tailor to each opponent.
For each part of this series we’re going to do a bit of a
deep dive on the possibilities with each of the individual units in the
Ynnarlequin Vanguard. Today we’re talking about my personal favourite, the
Solitaire.
Possibly the most flexible, most entertaining single model
in Aeldari lineup. I’ve always loved the Solitaire, but making him Ynnari put
it over the top. This guy can move 12”
ignoring terrain, has 8 attacks base, with a WS of 2+ and some great weapon
options in the Harlequins Kiss or Carress. His ability to blitz on top of all
that makes him a sneaky silver bullet. This allows him to add 2d6 to his move
for a turn, and bumps his attacks to 10, just cranking up the speed on that
blender. All this for a sub-100pt model.
The solitaire is my usual flex spot for extra relic support.
If you need him to kill characters or reliably tango with units of higher wound
infantry like Abberants he gets the Cegorach’s Rose, this thing is great for
converting a high number of his attacks to high damage wounds, or ensuring a
smaller unit is completely wiped in one go, allowing him to trigger Soulburst,
more on Soulburst later.
Perhaps my favourite relic though would be the Suit of
Hidden Knives, allowing him with Physic and Strat support to blend most large
units he comes into contact with, 100% solo.
I’ve used him to kill full 30 man Ork units or 20 Tzangors at a time, or
should I say watched them blend themselves. The Suit allows you to deal mortals
on a 2+ for every time your opponent rolls a 1 to hit in combat. Stack on Veil
of Tears for -1, use a Warlock or Shadowseer to give the target unit -1 to hit,
and use the lightning fast reflexes strat for an extra -1 to hit. Now every
time those Ork’s swing to hit you at -3, they’re doing mortals to themselves on
anything below a 5 to hit. Like I said, most entertaining model we have.
Now, the fact that he’s Ynnari just adds another layer here.
I was a bit of a purist before not wanting to lose the ability to advance and
charge/fallback and charge from being non-Ynnari Harlequins, but I’m glad I
made the change. Given the raw damage the Solitaire can put out, he can pretty
reliably trigger soulburst himself on most things he wants to target. Here’s a
situation that happened in a recent game.
Solitaire blitz’s out of a building 21” away from some Guardsmen. Declare a charge to Guardsmen and a Watch Master, taking a wound on overwatch. Since he takes a wound I then played Torments of the Fiery Pit for 1CP. Giving him +2 strength and +2 attacks, bringing him to a juicy 12 attacks and s6 with the Cegorachs Rose. Now my 12 attack Solitaire is hitting on 2’s, wounding on 2’s rerolling, with a -1 AP and 3 flat dmg. He obliterates the Guardsmen and consolidates into the Watch Master, triggering Soulburst to attack again, with the same attacks obliterating the Watch Master. The other option here would be trigger Soulburst to run back behind a wall, that honestly was probably the better decision but blending is just so much more fun. That’s just a brief taste of the options a Ynnari Solitaire can provide.
Before we close out, we’ll add one more choice to this
blender. What Masque will you take him as? Obviously being Ynnari the Masque
attribute is irrelevant, however you do still get the Masque relics and
stratagems. Now the Masque specific relics are mostly useless for him, but a
couple stratagems shine here. Midnight
Sorrow is likely the most popular choice for the Solitaire. For 2cp when he
dies, you’re able to fight again! Perhaps allowing you to blend a 3rd
unit before death in that example above. On top of fighting again, he gets +1
attack and +1 strength, helping ensure you take something down with you. The other options here would be Silent Shroud
if you’re worried about things like Tau overwatch. For 2cp when charging he
can’t be overwatched, very straightforward, very good in some situations!
I could go on forever about this little beast but we’ll stop
here and leave some of the possibilities up to your imagination. Tune in next
time for a discussion about the 2nd Hero on this Path, the Death
Jester.
Your Resident Clown
Phil
Don’t forget to Like us on facebook @ 40kunfiltered
And finally a huge shoutout to our newest sponsor Hammerhead games! Be sure to check them out for all your widgets & wonders for all your favourite tabletop games
Good morning to all! We have some new exciting spoilers from the new Shadowspear box set in the form on psychic powers, as many of you have probably seen already in the Space marine side of things an image has been leaked this morning displaying a full new psychic tree that is exclusive to the “Phobos” marines that come in the box. So lets dive in an rank these spells out of 10 at a first glance. ( I realize its sort of difficult to rank these without play testing them but hey its fun anyway!)
Shrouding: this new spell has a casting value of 6, range 18″ and basically reads that your opponent cannot shoot the unit you cast the spell on unless they are the closet unit to the enemy. So to me this seems like it may come in handy depending on the matchup you are in, but overall is a hard meh for me. However where i do see it coming into play and being a great tool to have is against an opponent with snipers and weapons that can pick and chose what they shoot at. SO with some usage as well as a good range and low casting cost I would have to rank this one at a 6.5/10
2. Scryer’s Gaze: this is one of the new spells i can really get behind, again casting value of 6 and range 18″, this spell grants a unit of the new marines full re-rolls to hit + the additional bonus that whomever they are shooting at do not gain anything from being in cover. Hurray for re-rolls they are great, and over all this spell seems very balanced and doesn’t do anything too crazy but improve your output. Taking that into account ill be ranking this one an 8/10 as it seems like an easy always take spell.
3. Temporal Corridor: ahh yes one of the more interesting spells from this pack which i believe will take time to show us how strong it really is… and not just a bootleg Warptime. This spell again has a casting value of 6 and a range of 3″ and what it does is allow you to select one of the new marine units and move them as if it were the movement phase BUT that unit must advance when you move and you get to roll 3d6 for the advance as discard the two lowest results. SO i do like this power but unlike with warptime this is forcing you to advance which means you cannot charge, or even shoot for the most part. That being said i feel like this spells has the most value on the first turn and the last turn of the game. On turn one using this to extra run up a unit to potentially grab an objective that may have been out of reach or depending on the deployment type simply haulin ass up the board, and then on the last turn of the game this could come in handy for scoring some last minute points (recon,linebreaker,ground control, even just hold1 or hold more). I do like this spell and i feel it is a sleeper that people may jsut scoff at becasue its not waprtime but with that im going to give this one a very strong 7/10
4. Hallucination: now this is a tricky one! Casting value of 6″ & select an enemy unit within 18″ of the castor, subtract 1 from that units leadership stat + roll 2D6, if that roll beats the targeted units leadership then that unit recieves a -1 to hit penality (both combat and shooting) until the new psychic phase. I like this one a whole lot, the -1 to leadership on its own is meh but depending on the unit could be helpful regardless, however 2D6 beat someones leadership after they have taken that -1lead hit already should be fairly easy to do(baring the odd CP re roll) and placing a -1 to hit modifier on a unit is always great. Plain simple and effective ill be giving this one an 8.5/10 due to the fact its going to be one of those spells that is never bad to have, good range low cast !
5. Tenebrous Curse: Not only did they give us an off-shoot of warptime but we even get a pretty wicked Doombolt! For this again cast of 6 range 18″, select an enemy unit that CANNOT FLY and is within range. That unit suffers 1 mortal wounds & also must HALVE its movement stat + any and all charge or advance rolls that it makes. HOLY HELL this is fantastic, yes the fact that it cannot target stuff with the FLY word honestly doesn’t matter as this is super strong. This is an auto include in my opinion its got so many great targets in the game (bloodletters, bullygryn, tzaangors, deathwing knights, wyches, troupe, ork boys & kommandos) there are so many units in the game that this spell simply shuts them down for a turn. This spell is easily going to be taken everytime (unless your playing Alex H. and his 7 flyers and jetbikes). Easily the strongest spell to come out of this leak and with that ill be giving it a 9.5/10 simply because nothing is perfect.
6. Mind Raid: casting value of 6 range 18″, select an enemy unit within range that unit suffers a mortal wound + if your army is battle forged & the unit you targeted was a character roll 3D6 to beat its leadership. If you do so gain 1 command point (which we are pretty sure counts as your 1cp gained for the round). Overall I find this power lacklustre, its balanced but also not interesting 1 mortal wound is blah and 1 CP isnt enough reward for me to want to take this, I feel like it should have been worded “if the unit you targeted was a character inflict D3 mortal wounds & then gain Command points equal to the damage inflicted” this change keeps it balanced as character come with FNP saves and other protection against mortal wounds so its not busted but provides a better “carrot on a stick” to players to take it. With all of that im going to give this guy a sad 4/10
SO there we have it a quick rank of the new spells at first glance!
comment down below with what you think of the spells & maybe what you feel you’d be taking in your forces!
If you like what you’ve read we’d love your support in a variety of ways. Drop our facebook page a like or follow
Or if you really like what you’ve read and would like to support us in a different way check out our Patreon page any donation helps and is always appreciated http://www.patreon.com/40kUnfiltered
Good morning to all! We have some new exciting spoilers from the new Shadowspear box set in the form on psychic powers, as many of you have probably seen already in the Space marine side of things an image has been leaked this morning displaying a full new psychic tree that is exclusive to the “Phobos” marines that come in the box. So lets dive in an rank these spells out of 10 at a first glance. ( I realize its sort of difficult to rank these without play testing them but hey its fun anyway!)
Shrouding: this new spell has a casting value of 6, range 18″ and basically reads that your opponent cannot shoot the unit you cast the spell on unless they are the closet unit to the enemy. So to me this seems like it may come in handy depending on the matchup you are in, but overall is a hard meh for me. However where i do see it coming into play and being a great tool to have is against an opponent with snipers and weapons that can pick and chose what they shoot at. SO with some usage as well as a good range and low casting cost I would have to rank this one at a 6.5/10
2. Scryer’s Gaze: this is one of the new spells i can really get behind, again casting value of 6 and range 18″, this spell grants a unit of the new marines full re-rolls to hit + the additional bonus that whomever they are shooting at do not gain anything from being in cover. Hurray for re-rolls they are great, and over all this spell seems very balanced and doesn’t do anything too crazy but improve your output. Taking that into account ill be ranking this one an 8/10 as it seems like an easy always take spell.
3. Temporal Corridor: ahh yes one of the more interesting spells from this pack which i believe will take time to show us how strong it really is… and not just a bootleg Warptime. This spell again has a casting value of 6 and a range of 3″ and what it does is allow you to select one of the new marine units and move them as if it were the movement phase BUT that unit must advance when you move and you get to roll 3d6 for the advance as discard the two lowest results. SO i do like this power but unlike with warptime this is forcing you to advance which means you cannot charge, or even shoot for the most part. That being said i feel like this spells has the most value on the first turn and the last turn of the game. On turn one using this to extra run up a unit to potentially grab an objective that may have been out of reach or depending on the deployment type simply haulin ass up the board, and then on the last turn of the game this could come in handy for scoring some last minute points (recon,linebreaker,ground control, even just hold1 or hold more). I do like this spell and i feel it is a sleeper that people may jsut scoff at becasue its not waprtime but with that im going to give this one a very strong 7/10
4. Hallucination: now this is a tricky one! Casting value of 6″ & select an enemy unit within 18″ of the castor, subtract 1 from that units leadership stat + roll 2D6, if that roll beats the targeted units leadership then that unit recieves a -1 to hit penality (both combat and shooting) until the new psychic phase. I like this one a whole lot, the -1 to leadership on its own is meh but depending on the unit could be helpful regardless, however 2D6 beat someones leadership after they have taken that -1lead hit already should be fairly easy to do(baring the odd CP re roll) and placing a -1 to hit modifier on a unit is always great. Plain simple and effective ill be giving this one an 8.5/10 due to the fact its going to be one of those spells that is never bad to have, good range low cast !
5. Tenebrous Curse: Not only did they give us an off-shoot of warptime but we even get a pretty wicked Doombolt! For this again cast of 6 range 18″, select an enemy unit that CANNOT FLY and is within range. That unit suffers 1 mortal wounds & also must HALVE its movement stat + any and all charge or advance rolls that it makes. HOLY HELL this is fantastic, yes the fact that it cannot target stuff with the FLY word honestly doesn’t matter as this is super strong. This is an auto include in my opinion its got so many great targets in the game (bloodletters, bullygryn, tzaangors, deathwing knights, wyches, troupe, ork boys & kommandos) there are so many units in the game that this spell simply shuts them down for a turn. This spell is easily going to be taken everytime (unless your playing Alex H. and his 7 flyers and jetbikes). Easily the strongest spell to come out of this leak and with that ill be giving it a 9.5/10 simply because nothing is perfect.
6. Mind Raid: casting value of 6 range 18″, select an enemy unit within range that unit suffers a mortal wound + if your army is battle forged & the unit you targeted was a character roll 3D6 to beat its leadership. If you do so gain 1 command point (which we are pretty sure counts as your 1cp gained for the round). Overall I find this power lacklustre, its balanced but also not interesting 1 mortal wound is blah and 1 CP isnt enough reward for me to want to take this, I feel like it should have been worded “if the unit you targeted was a character inflict D3 mortal wounds & then gain Command points equal to the damage inflicted” this change keeps it balanced as character come with FNP saves and other protection against mortal wounds so its not busted but provides a better “carrot on a stick” to players to take it. With all of that im going to give this guy a sad 4/10
SO there we have it a quick rank of the new spells at first glance!
comment down below with what you think of the spells & maybe what you feel you’d be taking in your forces!
If you like what you’ve read we’d love your support in a variety of ways. Drop our facebook page a like or follow
Or if you really like what you’ve read and would like to support us in a different way check out our Patreon page any donation helps and is always appreciated http://www.patreon.com/40kUnfiltered
Big news in the form of new “beta” rules for bolters (except they’re not, basically everyone is going to use these rules post-LVO– separate subject, we need to figure out when rules are actually “beta”), specifically for rapid fire bolters wielded by Adeptus Astartes and their chaos tainted counterparts. These rules were posted on the Warhammer Community page, though notably a few hours after they were leaked from pics of the upcoming February White Dwarf. Was it originally the intention to release them online? I don’t know. Probably, but not this week.
Let’s start with the basic breakdown of this rule, because I’ve seen some misreadings online. This rule essentially gives you two new ways to double your shots with rapid fire bolters of various descriptions, in addition to same old “at half range” you’ve always had– namely if you stay still, you can double your shots even at long range, or if you’re a terminator, bike, vehicle, or centurion you double your shots at all times. I say this because it does not make a standard bolter fire 4 times at half range if you stayed still, or any other form of doubling a double shot. It just gives you three ways to get the double shot, one of which you already had. (though it can also be used with the Vigilus Rapid Fire stratagem, which we’ll cover later)
It only works for Space Marines, of all forms. So no Sisters of Battle, Custodes, Inquisitors, or anything else. But yes for Grey Knights, Deathguard, Thousand Sons, Blood Angels, Death Watch, and all the other variations of Astartes, and their vehicles.
It’s only for Rapid Fire weapons. So no Heavy Bolters, Primaris Auto Bolt Rifles or Stalker Rifles, Boltstorm Gauntlets or the like. But it works just fine on Storm Bolters, Inferno Boltguns (great AP), and even Hurricane Bolters.
This results in an interesting set of winners and (relative) losers due to the change, particularly in combination with point changes in Chapter Approved (this would have been a good rule to release in CA, but that’s a different topic–coming soon!) and stratagems from Vigilus.
First take is that this helps Primaris marines a lot more than the basic “normie” marines. Not only is the Bolt Rifle a better bolter overall, but 30” is just a lot more useful an engagement range than 24”. 24” rarely reaches into the enemy deployment zone, 30” often does. A Primaris marine is much more often going to have the option to stand still and hit their target twice than a regular marine is.
A second point is that there’s been something of a roller coaster ride in regards to which bolter variant a Primaris Intercessor is best equipped with. Initially out of the box (codex) the Rapid Fire Bolt Rifle seemed the clear winner, being free, decently ranged and powerful, with something of an argument to be made for the Assault 2 Auto Bolt Rifle due to mobility, though it cost extra. The Heavy 1 Stalker Bolt Rifle, despite great range and AP just wasn’t good due to only being 1 shot and the extra cost. Chapter Approved 2018 and Vigilus rebalanced all this significantly. Cutting the cost on the Stalker and giving them Target Sighted for a “sniper” rule didn’t make them good, but it gave the weapon a use. And the Bolt Storm (auto-hit) stratagem for Auto Bolt Rifles meant assault intercessors could hit really hard while moving quite fast (you would also ignore the -1 from advancing). Not as good as the redundantly named Rapid Fire stratagem for regular (rapid fire!) Bolt RIfles, but it gave the assault version a niche. (firing twice as often is usually better than not missing the ⅓ or ½ of the time, but the assault version is going to cover a lot more ground) And…….that’s all out the window, now. Bolter Discipline doesn’t affect either Stalkers or Auto Bolt Rifles, just “regular” Bolt Rifles. With Rapid Fire strat + Bolter Discipline, yes, you can fire 4 times at 30” if you stayed still, or 15” if you moved. 10 Primaris will get you 40 shots It’s even more clear than it was originally with just the Codex. You should take Bolt Rifles. That’s it. Anything else is a lesser choice.
Last point on this subject, this makes Intercessors really good now. Like, much better than I think anyone has realized yet. They were already on the verge of being good–I don’t think people appreciated that while 2 dmg weapons are relatively common you don’t want to be shooting them at basic troops. Chapter Approved dropped them a further 2 pts (3 pts from the codex) which in combination with various stratagems from Vigilus made them actually good, though I don’t think there has yet been time for the competitive scene to absorb that. This Bolter Discipline rule makes them great, maybe even too good. This is how it happens, this is how the Primaris become ascendent and put their predecessors in their graves.
OK, enough about Intercessors, let’s talk about how it affects other units.
Obviously, this is good for tactical marines, too, just not as much as Prirmaris because of less range and no crazy Rapid Fire stratagems. It works just as well for scouts, tho, making them still the better option most times–and they’re more likely to have deployed somewhere they can stay still and be in range too, so it’s actually makes scouts even better relative to tacticals. It does rebalance marines compared to Sisters of Battle, however, which were starting to look a little like right-costed marines.
Bolter Discipline makes Death Watch much better, since specialist bolter ammo is kinda their jam. The extra range on some options provide makes it more likely to get that double shot, without moving, just like Primaris, and obviously those shots are more powerful overall. DW Veterans fair much better compared to their Primaris counterparts here partly because specialist ammo can give them greater range (but it’s even farther for Intercessors) but mostly because DW veterans can take Storm Bolters, so 4 shots if they can manage not to move. Anyway, Death Watch is just loving this rule all day, and they were good to start with.
Obviously Bikes and Terminators come out well here, regaining something like a pseudo-Relentless rule from prior editions. It’s worth noting that Company Veterans on Bikes can take storm bolters too, giving them eight(!) shots at any range. But Company Veterans on Bikes didn’t get the huge price cut that normal Space Marine Bikers did. Sadly vanilla bikers only have bolt pistols (or something lame, like a plasma rifle) in addition to the boltguns on their bikes. Even so, 4 shots at any range for 23 pts isn’t bad! Conversely, I’m a little more iffy on 4 shots on a 34 pt terminator. But they are tougher, can deep strike, are infantry, etc. Certainly they’re better, and it makes me wonder if this part of why Terminators dropped so little in cost in Chapter Approved.
Speaking of terminators, this is a huge buff for Grey Knights. Whether you’re talking about Paladins (awesome!) or the basic Grey Knight Terminator (eh…. I think 41 pts is still too much, but they ARE troops) this is a big change. 4 shots at range, everytime. And even power armored Grey Knights all have storm bolters. (Not that strike squads are ever going to live long enough to stand still and shoot at long range. If you don’t believe me ask a GK player.)
Best of all, however, Grey Knights have the psybolt stratagem. 10 terminators or paladins grab the center of the board via Gate, and pop psybolt. Now you have 40 strength 5 shots with -1 AP over a large portion of the board. Use astral aim and ignore cover and LOS. That’s powerful. This basically kills off GK special weapons, which were marginal, even after points drops. It seems much better to get as many storm bolters going as possible in a squad, hopefully for psybolt.
This rule would also be great for Land Raider Crusaders, Grey Knights in particular (24 shots at long range) if Volcano Cannons being in the game didn’t invalidate all Land Raiders (but they do). It’s really good on rhinos, though! Take that second storm bolter, 74 pts, 8 shots at any range. That’s not bad at all if you already wanted transport capacity.
Sadly, none of this does nearly as much for Chaos Marines (heretic Astartes) as it does for the loyalists, which is too bad since they arguably needed more help. Generally, there is a lot less bolters on the spiky side of the galaxy. Actual, legit Chaos Marines are an endangered species, barely ever seen. The Bolter Discipline rule would work on cultists if they could carry bolters, but they can’t. Chaos doesn’t have Hurricane bolters, though combi-bolters work the same as storm bolters on rhinos, terminators, and bikes (no equivalent to the 8 shot Vets on bikes, however). Bolter Discipline is largely redundant with the Death Guard Inexorable Advance rule, one of the few actual Heretic Astartes units that sees use.
Bolter Discipline works great with Thousand Sons, for the simple reason that like Death Watch and intercessors, they have much better bolters. Buth here’s the weird thing: the All is Dust rule means they don’t suffer penalties for moving and shooting Heavy Weapons, unlike nearly everything else in the game. (Relentless style rules being pretty rare in 8th edition) But now Rubric Marines do suffer a “penalty” of sorts for moving and firing their Rapid Fire Inferno Boltguns. That’s just weird. Scarab Terminators can fire everything on the move no penalty, which is nice.
I’m sure there are other cases I haven’t thought of. Let us know! I think this rule helped all marines, but it’s clear it helped some more than others.
This article was written by user Sir_Prometheus
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Hey guys Mike here with the second article for the overlooked & underused series.
With the hype growing around the new Shadowspear box set I figured we would take a look at another undervalued chaos unit… The Maulerfiend
Not only is this a wicked looking model but its also a great option for the tabletop due to the drop in points from chapter approved. So lets take a quick look at what the “optimal” build would be for this guy along with its base stats.
To get started the way i have kitted out this bad boy is by taking the lasher tendrills weapon option (which is also the cheapest option) and i have decided to give it the mark of tzeench. This model starts off with a 10″ move ws/bs 4+ S6 T7 12wounds and 4 base attacks with a 3+/5++ save. At first glance it may not seem like anything crazy but with a few powers & a strat it can provide some great close combat power. By taking the lashing tendrills it clocks in at 132 points and also gets an additional 6 attacks for the tendrills putting it at a potential 10 attacks in total ! 6 of these must be made with the tendrills at s6 -2ap 2dmg each + 4 s12 -3 3dmg attacks.
Even before buffs that still is a mean looking monster, but lets make it better. By casting a few powers on this guy you can make him a hard to kill and super aggressive option, starting off due to taking the mark of tzeench you can now cast Weaver of fates on him to get it to a 4++ invuln save & if you happen to have a thousand sons demon prince in your army or Ahriman (which lets be real you do) you also then get the option of casting Glamour on him to provide the maulerfiend with a -1 to hit ability. On top of all that you can provide him with Presience for a +1 to hit modifier bringing it up to a 3+ and lastly for powers you can do diabolic strength which boosts its strength by 2 as well as providing an extra attack to the model. After you do all the magic powers you’d like theres even a stratagem meant for the fiend which at 1cp provides you with Daemonforge “use this stratagem in your shooting or fight phase when a chaos space marine DAEMON VEHICLE is chosen to attack. You can re-roll ALL failed hit and wound rolls for that model until the end of the phase” seriously for 1 command point you’d be crazy to not do that.
So after all these powers at strats go off for a wee 132 points you are now left with a 12 wound model with 11 attacks hitting on 3s with either s7 or s14 attacks (depending on the weapon) with full re rolls on hits & wounds , a 3+ armor save a 4++ invuln save and -1 to be hit! Overall taking one or even three of these in your chaos style army could prove to be fantastic, so why dont’cha pick one up and give it a try!
would love to hear from anyone who does decide to test it out and hear how it went!
as always thanks for reading & please let us know if theres any units you’d like us to write up on!
Well after a few weeks of recovery I’m ready to write this post Vegas post ! Had an awesome 5 days in Vegas with some of my best friends and I’m looking forward to going back next year ! This was my third lvo and most of my friends first so I had some kind of idea what I was getting into.
So the important part, my list which I had tuned to the abundance of enclosed ruins that they had advertised. It may not be the exact list but close enough
Alaitoc spearhead
Farseer
Warlock
9 shadow spectres
8 shadow spectres
3 dark reapers (exarch-tempest)
3 dark reapers (exarch-tempest)
3 dark reapers (exarch-tempest)
Prophets of flesh battalion
Urien
Haemonculus (vexator mask)
5 wracks
5 wracks
5 wracks
8 grotesques
8 grotesques
Dark eldar supreme command
Archon (warlord/black heart)
Succubus- shardnet
Succubus- tryptic whip
So taking a much different approach than my usual shining spear Ynari, which I was sure wouldn’t work due to terrain. I opted to take units that could A- interact with buildings and B- be somewhat resilient and with that we shall get into my games !
Round 1 playing against Jessica and her Ynari/corsairs
I had the pleasure of playing Jessica’s spouse first round last year.
Her list was actually pretty bad for me on paper, she had 5 Corsair venoms with poison units inside and then Ynari spears and reapers which had all the tools to deal with my hard to kill units.
I think this game came down to her in experience with her list and my experience normally playing a list like hers. But those poison shots and dark reapers put a hurting on my grotesques, in my opinion the game came down to both my succubus getting into combat with a unit of guardians which my both of my units of grotesques piled into, both of which were weak at this point, but that meant her entire army had no targets as my spectres were hiding and everything else was characters, my succubus’s then went on to kill her dark reapers while my grotesques killed a venom and a unit inside every turn. I won 25-23 in a very close game !
Round 2 I got paired up with Richard and his standard tau list, riptides and broadsides the usual suspects, the mission was the 3 objective one
The game started off with Richard going first, unfortunately I only had one building in my deployment zone which I had deployed my reapers wracks and characters In, this meant my grotesques and one unit of spectres were left out dry. I chose to deepstrike a unit of spectres due to the fact that he had only put 1 unit of fire warriors on his home objective. Richard went first, marker lighted both my grotesque units a bunch and then went to town, I vected the re roll wound stratagem on the broadsides to hope to reduce their effectiveness, turns out it didn’t. Richard managed to kill 15 of my 16 grotesques right off the bat which put me in a horrible position as they were my only answer for a lot of these big things, I spent the 2 command points to keep my lone grotesque Alive so Richard would only get kill 1, that lone grotesque went on to hide in the centre building that the objective was in for the next 3 turns ! I was able to hide in the building and kill all of his weak units with my tempest launchers and shadow spectres while the unit I deepstruck had stolen his home objective which started racking up bonus points. Shadow spectres were key in this matchup as I was making both units -3 to hit therefor most of his army could not even shoot them. I ended up kill more and killing a few characters for I think a 30pt win.
Round 3 I was paired up with orks ! This was Jessica’s team member so I knew he had it out for me! It was a fairly traditional ork list, lootas, traktor cannons and a bunch of grots and boys ! It was a super fun game with me rolling 2 6’s for vect on grot shield ! Ouch but this game was really won by my grotesques, once the lootas were gone he had really no answer for them and they mopped up his army nothing really interesting happened so I’ll save some words ! Another mid 30 point win.
So after the first day I was at 3-0 and feeling great, as you do in Vegas we chose to go out on the town and see what was going on which led to these
Yup those are mile long margaritas and no plans of going to bed early.
So after most of those huge drinks and about 4 hours of sleep I was up and totally not ready for round 4!
So round 4 I was paired up with Allan and his death guard, which as I realized was a denial list just like mine, he had 3 leviathans 3 plague burst crawlers, a unit of blight lord terminators and a unit of plague bearers.
Deployment Allan only deployed the vehicles and a lord so I had nothing easy to kill. I feel I lost this game in deployment as I pretty much gave him 2 of my wrack units which were my key to winning.
So he started by killing a unit of wracks and about 5 grotesques which is about what I expected. I re wracked with one of my units to get the bonus point and to stop a Leviathan from shooting so it was a 3-3 turn. Turn 2 saw pretty much the same thing except he didn’t kill a unit and gave me an opening for a kill on his poxbringer. I tried to take advantage of this and shot 9 spectres with guide at this poxbringer which didn’t kill it, which would have given me kill one and kill more which would have been a 5 point turn for me. This actually lost me the game, we would go on to start trading the bonus point as he deepstruck on the objective and Allan ended up winning the game by 4 points that darn poxbringer !
Round 5 I played against jimmy and his space wolves ! A bunch of wulfen and a bunch of characters
I have played this matchup a couple times
With Torey and found that the grotesques and the wulfen pretty much kill each other, this game was no different and the rest of my army killed his pretty Quickly. Not very much exciting happened except for my succubus killing a bunch of characters. 39 point win for me with the wracks re deploying on the bonus point!
Round 6 I was once again paired up with the tradition tau list
This time the Tau only killed 7 grotesques, which meant he didn’t even get kill 1!
I capitalized on it by getting a 5 point turn and pretty much played it the same way I played my first Tau game but in a bit more dominant fashion as he didn’t have velocity trackers on his riptides so there was no way for him to shoot my spectres at all. The bonus point was characters on objectives which was also very good for me. My opponent conceded on turn 3 as we talked it out and I would keep killing his cheap units and there would be no way for him to prevent me from getting the bonus or kill more and hold more. Was a fairly quick game but great guy !
Another 39pt win and that was my event
5-1 with enough battle points to beat out the rest of the Canadians (moral victory) and a overall great time, the terrain was slightly over hyped but other than that no complaints! Thanks for reading and I’ll be back with my bash article.
This is my first take on the new article series “overlooked
& underused” where once or twice a week, we take a look at some units in
the game that have potential but maybe don’t get picked due to costing a few
more points then they should or not always being the “optimal” choice.
This week were going to start things off by taking a look at
some real dogs of the game. Karanak & the flesh hounds of khorne.
These are two selections from the chaos demons codex,
Karanak being an HQ slot and the flesh hounds for fast attack. So lets start by
taking a look and the top dog
Karanak is a solid HQ choice that clocks in at 4PL & 70
points for a 6 wound model with both strength and toughness 5, that can dish
out 4 -2ap 2dmg attacks hitting on 2’s
Then due to being a demon he comes stock with a 5+ invuln
save
Where Karanak really becomes a unique character choice is
with his special abilities, he has the ability to deny 2 psychic powers a turn
+ he also gains 1 additional attack during any turns that he charges,was
charged or makes a heroic intervention.
Additionally before the game begins Karanak makes you select
any enemy character and for the remainder of the game he receives +1 to all hit
and wound rolls made against that character.
So overall for 70 points Karanak really does have a lot of benafits
to him and provides a solid punch paired with some anti psyker on top.
Next lets take a look at the flesh hounds
Flesh hounds just got a new sculpt and boy do they look
great now !
For 15 points a model or 24 points to upgrade them to a Gorehound
they are faily cheap for what they do
Move 10” ws3 s4 t4 2 wounds 2 attacks each then a 5++ demon
save (which can get to a 4++ via demon strat)
This is a pretty good profile all around for the cost per
model the basic cc attacks from the dogs are at -1AP 1dmg which isn’t overally
impressive but its fair + if you upgrade 1 in 5 dogs to a gorehound you also
unlock a D6 auto hitting flamer which is always a nice trick to have.
Much like karanak they too have some tricks in there special
rules, each unit is able to deny 1 psychic power a turn + they also have the +1
attack for charging or being charged!
So overall I do like the look of these guys, they move fast
take up a decent amount of board space plus provide anti psyker help for khorne
which really lacks in that field and can be a good addition for a demon detachment.
So there we have it the first entry in what hopefully ends
up being a long running article series
Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions as im only
looking to improve for youre enjoyment
For today’s article I’m going to go over day 2 of the Las Vegas open
As I said before I found out that I was to play tau the morning of day two … so I did what any sensible person in Vegas would do and went out the night before and purchased one of the meter long margaritas and boy that was easily the biggest misplay of the night!
So round 4 begins and I get to the table before my opponent and the first thing I do is mark out objectives and such along the table set my models up on the side then slam back 4 Advil’s and proceed to get 3. Cups of water
Once my opponent showed up we start talking and I made sure to inform him of that state that I would be in the rest of our game
So we set up and get everything ready and the game goes exactly as I had though Magnus got sniped to death turn 1 and then morty got popped turn two and from there it was just a game of how many turns does it take to kill all my plagues … well it took5 so I ended up losing on the top of turn 5 with a score of 31-15
After the round was over and before pairings were posted I looked at bcp placings to gauge who I may be facing off against for round 5 and it was either Colin Sherman playing his Ynari list … or Konrad aka time out a friend of mine from Toronto …. alas it turned into the battle of Canadians and I had to face konrads druhkari army full of talos grotesques allied with some craft world psykers. This was my first game playing with a clock so I was on edge a bit, but eventually made me fall in love with clock play nothing keeps people honest and focused on choices like time ticking down to death.
Also to note Konrad was the team coach for ETC team canada last year so I will fully admit he is a far more veted and experienced player then myself so I didn’t have high hopes going into the game
After a long dragged out fight Konrad took the victory over me 34-23 not a bad showing and I still left the table happy as when you play a friend imo doesn’t always matter who wins
So this brings me to a losing record of 2-3 heading into the final game of the event and I get paired against admech with a knight
I feel fantastic about the matchup as that’s kinda what I’m good against. And really didn’t care what happened as were playing the bottom tables just wanted a fun and clean game… unfortunately this is not what happened at all
During the game my opponent was very on edge the whole game and on more then one occasion lashed out at me for rulings in which I proved myself right and then began questioning my integrity asking why I rolled different size dice or dice for specific things and so on.
This led me to on turn 3 telling him that I’m not here to play this kind of warhammer and in fact even though I was winning and in position to win the game to pack up my dice and models and walk away from the game.
Now i don’t consider myself a salty person or player. In fact I pride myself on ensuring that both players walk away from the game having enjoyed it and this is the first time in any game I have ever played where I felt that the only way to not lose my temper would be to walk away from the situation even if it cost me the game.
Later on I found out that this individual was playing on one of the biggest and most well known 40k teams in the itc which made me even more shocked (although I will not name the individual or the club in this article)
So that was my 40k champs experience I ended the event going 2-4 which to many would be upsetting but I consider it a victory no matter what. This was my first year of trying to break into the comp scene of the game and I really enjoyed my experience at LVO and will 100% be going back in 2020 but with hungry eyes! I met some amazing people and left with many new friends as well as a new look on the game, and I urge those who are worried about going because they think they will lose to buck up and go for it. Only 8-16 of the players who attend do not receive a loss during the main event so there’s nothing to worry about just go and play 6 of the best games of 40k that you possibly can and enjoy your time. Visit the vendors , play the Sunday RTT or long war team tourney join a paint class or just come and hang out … whatever tickles your pickle you can find it in Vegas
Thanks to all of you who have read this and I look forward to any feed back y’all provide and any input on what you’d like to see in future articles
Hey all Mike here to give a brief breakdown of my experience at The Las Vegas Open.
This year was my first year ever attending the LVO and participating in the 40k champs main event, and boy oh boy was it the most intimidating yet most enjoyable event I have played in thus far in my 40k career.
Now that being said I have also only been a tournament player for 1 full year as I had attended my first GT exactly 12 months prior to Vegas so I really wasn’t sure what to expect from an event at such a large scale, 800 players registered and after drops and life reductions the Las Vegas open kicked off day 1 with 682 players!
Before I dive into the event it’s self let’s start with the journey. Myself and some of my closest friends set off from Toronto on the Thursday before game day and went to check in at Bally’s …. to only find out that they had messed up our booking and had the 4 of us staying in a room with a single king bed , so this was quickly rectified by the hotel staff with an amazing upgrade to one of the Hotel suites on the 60th floor of the hotel! (So already off to a great start)
The room was bananas to say the least. Easily the size of 4 regular hotel rooms put together a full kitchen set up, whirlpool tub sat in the middle of the bedroom double door showers the whole works. So we settled in and got ourselves ready for the fight that was to begin in the morning.
We all woke up early too go register for the event and bring our armies down and I took two steps into the y’all and was blown away
Tables on tables on tables filling these two huge convention areas + vendors and side halls flooded with painting stations judging tables and plenty of classes for those to attend.
For those who don’t know me and what I usually play I decided to stick with my guns and continue playing my trademark “Bang Bus” list which consisted of
Demons battalion
Pox bringer
Sloppity bilepiper
1×3 nurglings
2×27 plague bearers with banners
1ksons supreme command
1x Ahriman
2x tsons demon prince with talons ( 1 had the 3++ save trait & the other had the helm of third eye)
Magnus the red
Death guard SH aux
Mortarian
So round one and we’re off to the races
My first opponent was playing a sisters of battle brigade paired with the blood angels battalion of scouts and. Smash captains
This was one hell of a game and easily the top 3 best games of Warhammer I have ever played
My opp had a gorgeous army filled with plenty of sisters and all the fun tools that got great new rules in the beta codex (arcos+ repentas+ the FW flame tanks)
It was a tight game and in the end I lost (20-18) very tight and close game !
Spirts were a little down but it was LvO and I was going to be happy no matter what happened
Round two I was paired against another super enjoyable opponent who was playing ultra marines a list with bobby G tiggy scouts 2 land raiders a levithian and assault terminators
I wasn’t terribly scared of his list and imperial lists with big targets is kinda what I excel at , but I definitely underestimated the power of that dread which powers by bobby re rolls solo killed Magnus on turn two
I ended up tabling him on turn 6 due to the sheer number of magic powers I get to cast
Won the game (39-6)
Game three came up and yet again my string of great opponents continue
Played a guy running a mix of guard + admech (with the new servitor mantipule+ big hero6 bits) follows up with a block of 3 shield captains on daw eagle bikes
This was a great game for me as there was no strong shooting to get any better then 5s to hit on my plague bois which just sat in two lines from one end of the board to the other soakin any damage that he could throw at me. Also during this game two turns in a row I flew Magnus into his deployment zone and cast treason of tzeench on a shield captain of his taking control of it which I then used to kill his other 2 + some rangers and servitors
I tabled this opponent as well (35-4)
And that was a wrap of day 1! I ended 2-1 and felt great about my plays for the day and felt good going into day 2…. that was until the pairings got posted and I saw that I was up against a tau player running the same list as my of my local buddies which I’ve never been able to beat with the exact same list?
Well that’s it for now
Stay tuned for part 2 of this article where I break down day2 of the event + what we got up to on the Sunday !
40k Unfiltered 