Bwahahahaha Sanguinites!

   The long awaited release of the 6th/7th edition Blood Angels codex finally happened and it brought a huge amount of despair-filled cries.  Admittedly, I took joy in all of it.  You see, I am a son of Sanguinius in a special way, and it's not the "My army sucks now!" kind of way.

  For more than half my career in the Emprah's service, I was a "Blood Angel", eventually becoming an 'Assault Marine' (the old guys know what I'm talking about).  The first army that I saw was from a friend in middle school bringing his Blood Angels to class and me being way too curious.  The first army I saw when I walked into a GW was my old boss's Blood Angels, sitting in the figure cabinet in the front window.  I helped to paint the Blood Angel chapter that the US presented in Gamesday a few years back.  I painted a few more Blood Angels for a number of shops.  I chose to play Ultramarines in my youth because everyone played Blood Angels, and I avoided ever having an army of them because they were downright 'cheezy' for most of their years.  But my exit from the company saw me spending some of my severance on a new Blood Angel army and painting that reward in record time (many posts to the left).

  So why am I so happy and laughing now that I'm a Blood Angel player and the new codex was released?  Well, the most common complaint I've heard to date is that GW moved everything out of the Troops slot and put them in their 'codex' slot.  Assault Marines are now Fast Attack while Death Company and Dreadnoughts are Elites.  Sanguinary Priests and Psyker-naughts are HQs while Baal Predators moved to Heavy and Vanguards moved to Elites.  You know what that leaves?

Tactical Marines as Troops!

  I was the only Blood Angel player on Earth, it seemed, that chose to use Tactical Marines.  While everyone else was playing the ridiculous "Razor-spam" armies, I was using bolters and putting jump packs BACK on my Assault Marines.  I chose not to use Razorbacks or MSU style and instead stuck to the codex- exactly as the chapter is described!  Now I understand that I'm probably going to get flamed again, but I believe that the armies should represent what the story represents!  It's the fluff-bunny in me...

  That being said, I did suffer a bit.  I had built a Destructor, Vindicator, and Stormraven to be my Heavies, while I also built two Flamestorms and a Vanguard squad as Fast Attack (remember that I like to fill FOCs with my armies).  I also used two Assault Squads WITH JUMP PACKS as Troops, to back up the two Tactical Squads in Rhinos.  Two Death Company squads were supposed to round out that department.  In addition, I built multiple Chaplains and Sanguinary Priests for obvious use.  Unfortunately, I now have faaaaaar to many of everything except Troops.  I'm now forced to buy a new BA Tactical squad.  Which, by the way, I will be using 25mm bases for...

  Well played, GW, well played...

  One last parting shot- I thought I was the only person to build my Stormraven with the Plasma Cannons on top and the Cyclone Launcher in front, then included the Hurricane Bolters.  Remember this, my often-criticized flyer-in-red?

 Turn to the back cover of your Blood Angel codex...  YEAH!!!

  Let me know how you feel about the new Blood Angels...

Last Battle of 2014

  You can't stop the Waaaaagh!  Everyone knows that!  That's why the galactic map in that codex is GREEN!  And once that waaagh is called...

  My Warboss decided to take his boyz for a spin and found some Slaaneshi Marines to battle.  My Warboss was itchin' for a fight, so he quickly mustered his small force and saturated the ruins that the spikey-beakies were hiding in.  Here's the list:

HQ- Warboss on Warbike with Cybork Body, Power Klaw, and Bosspole 

HQ- Painboy and Grot Orderly

Troop- 20 Slugga Boyz with 2 Big Shootas, led by a Nob with a Bosspole

Troop- 21 Slugga Boyz with 2 Big Shootas, led by a Nob with a Bosspole

Fast Attack- 4 Warbikes led by a Warbiker Nob with a Power Klaw and a Bosspole

Fast Attack- 5 Deffkoptas with twin Rokkit Launcher

Heavy Support- 8 Lootas led by 2 Meks with Custom-mega-blastas

Heavy Support- Deff Dread with Scorcha and Custom-mega-blasta
It all added up to 993 points and a helluva good time!

  

 The battlefield was a simple 4'x4' tablewith some ruins and an unclaimed (dilapidated) bunker.  The mission was the third Maelstrom of War scenario with the escalating Tactical Objectives each turn.  With no 'night fight' in action and very little true cover, I deployed with no other reason than to rush forward.  I appreciate the 'mindless' army once in a while.

  The image above shows the end of my first turn, with the Greenskins rushing at the rebels at break-neck speed.  I'm not a Evil Sunz guy (all Bad Moonz all day!), but I do appreciate running and running some more.  My opponent and our audience were both significantly worried about this as they saw the flood flowing from one side of the battle to the other.  I rather enjoyed the shakey boots...

  There were some awesome moments right from the beginning.  With some well-placed shooting with my Orks, the entire army managed to knock a single HP off the Vindator.  The entire army included a ton of Rokkits and gobs of Loota shells.  Typical Ork shooting.  That Vindicator then one-shotted my Deffkoptas, leaving one to survive and flee from the table post-haste.  Typical Ork Resilience.  

  There was a point early in the game where a Lucius-led mob of fanatics suffered the first wave of Ork assault.  Not feeling terribly confident myself, I watched as my Nob and two more Boyz were easily dispatched by the ancient duellist.  Then, sure enough, the rest of the Boyz begin swinging their Choppas and the frenzy saw the entire unit wiped out and wounds overflowing onto the surviving Warlord.  His Armor of Shrieking Souls is still trying to figure out which Choppa got him, which arm held it, and which soul to steal- days later!  The very next turn, the victorious Ork mob was gunned down mercilessly by some Noise Marines.  Oh, the 'glass cannon' that is Orks...  But it was nice to see a challenge end positively for me (I'm usually the boyz in blue, and we don't do so hot in the 'ol slapfight).

  The defining moment of the game came with the glorious death of that stupid Vindie tank.  While his Sorcerer Lord gave the tank Shrouded and it was half concealed from the Lootas behind the bunker, it appeared that the tank was invincible, even at side armor.  Sure enough, the Lootas score two hits, enough to finish the war machine off.  With a 2+ cover save, there's no way that tank is going down.  My buddy, having siphoned some of my fantastic luck over the months, decided to roll this:   

  Tank dead!!!  The worst part of that whole situation was that we were so confident that the tank wouldn't die that I exclaimed (apparently invoking my black-shirt power) "You won't roll snake-eyes!" in that reverse psychology kind of way.  After seeing the dice fall and my victory lap around the house, er, workshop, we all just laughed and laughed.  Game over, man, game over.

  The rest of the battle saw him mow down Orks with whizzing bullets ignoring crucial cover, and my Warboss surviving the annihilation of the rest of his army just charging everything.  I had a few Boyz cowering in some ruins and claiming an objective, the Lootas still hidden deep in the back corner (trying to find Joseph and Bob, the only two casualties from turn 1), and just smoke and craters besides.  Although the game should have ended in turn 3 with the tabling of my Ork force, there was some ridiculous whiffing and funny luck all over the place.

  And my reliance on Maelstrom missions to win paid off yet again.  For some strange reason, the cards seem to generally fall my direction.  This makes the ninth win in that format, and really just because I could score a dozen or more points while my opponent scored few in each of the games.  The first match for the Greenskins is a win!!!

Now he wants more...

  Let me know how your last game of the year went and whether you can feel the Waaaaagh!  Happy New Year everyone and may 15.M2 be waaaaaaghsome!

Waaaaagh!

  I dun did it!  After far too much stress and way too many variables that messed with things, I quit my job and dedicated myself to home and hobby again.  I literally had no time to do anything other than sleep for two hours a night and sit in front of a computer anytime I wasn't driving.  Many a model and battle were left unattended over the last year.  But I did it.

  And, like any good cathartic event, some retail reward or therapy was needed.  When I left the service of the Emprah, I purchased an entire Blood Angel army.  Now that I've become a full-time student and dad, I decided to add to my list of xenos and pick up the Orks.

  The starter kit, Stormclaw, had some really beautiful models in it, and the campaign books look really cool.  Plus, I happen to have two sets of Black Reach Orks from a couple of buddies, so I decided to waste some of my holiday budget on that.  Now, I have a fourth 'bad guy' army and a third xenos race to help balance the homo-centric world I live in.  And let's be real, it's just freakin' fun to play the greenskins!

My Ultramarines have become too 'easy' to use, mostly because I own everything there is to own for that army (well, almost).  Any list I write up can be specialized and overly effective, so the army becomes an observation in dice-rolling and basic maneuvres.  My other armies are either too deeply buried or just downright boring to use, so I didn't really have a good force to play with.  And Orks, well, you don't have to think like that.  All you need to do is enjoy rolling dice and pushing little dudes around the table.  

  I've realized that I've been scared of the greenskins for some time for no real reason.  The Lootas are the most utilized unit in that entire codex, which meant that I had to face 30 or more of them often (remember, it used to be my job to sell these things!), which can be terribly effective and demoralizing to some armies.  Nob Warbikers are the next unit that I fear and that's just because bikes are ridiculous to begin with.  Beyond that, nothing else really meant too much and I found myself actually underwhelmed with the codex.  And happily so...

  You see, Orks are opposite of my favored Astartes in almost every way.  They're not fearless or ATSKNF, and their Ld is not high enough to keep them in the fight like other armies.  They wear no armour, and they don't carry special weapons and heavy gear into battle.  A couple might grap a .50 or RPG, but it's all about the shirts, the choppas, and whatever has a trigger nearby.  They aren't few, and they don't come expensive.  Orks can be expensive, but that's only if you choose to play Ghazkull's Meganob formation.  Otherwise, filling the FOC out isn't as hard as you might expect.  

  Better, the clans are perfectly aligned to me.  Much like I love the 'warband' idea of the CSM (let the flaming start... now), the Orks also embody that whole "mix it up" idea to allow me to play anything I want.  I personally enjoy the Bad Moonz (those who know me know why), but I can't bring myself to painting the choppa-boyz with yellow gubbinz when they are asking for dags and checks!  And I do love me Warbikes in red and Meks in yellow and Deffdreads in black, so this is perfect!   Orks allow me to use the whole range of colours and actually make an attractive army.  Of course, that would mean that I'm painting something anything soon, and we know that's not happening yet...

  I've built a 1,000 point force to be used in a small campaign with a couple of buddies.  One of them is a constant Chaos Marine player (he's my typical opponent), and the other has decided to start the Space Puppies from the starter.  I've built a couple of campaign maps and might even try to get another buddy, starting Blood Angels for some strange reason, in on a campaign of conquest!  I own faaaaaar more than that, but I want to paint this army and I don't think that putting 200 plastic dudes in front of me will be very motivating.  But I sure do want to to get to choppin', so the models are built and challenges have been bellowed.  

  This is also the start of a return to my blog.  I miss doing this, but not hobbying and gaming and no time meant that I had to be patient.  Nothing can stop a Waaaagh once it gets started, and I'm bring the Waaagh back!  It always starts small...