One step backwards...

  Late last night, one of my buddies called me about a rules question...  Let's jump back to 

Rules I hate!!!

  So I don't know if you guys have seen, but GW released this little thing a couple of weeks before the Machine God came back.  To the wild acclaim of so many of my old-school gaming buddies, this book became very popular really fast.  You see, minus Kharne the Betrayer, this book took everything 'Khorny' and tossed it onto one army.  

  Enter the Khorne Daemonkin codex, probably the best book to be released by GW in a looooong time.  As a couple of my buddies noted, "I finally get to use my OLD Khorne army!".  I tend to have a lot of Chaos fans in my entourage, and Khorne is usually their favorite (we're all a bunch of angry people).  They used to use 'zerkers and Bloodthirsters to do terrible things to my army, and I was looking forward to it again.  

  
  Enter the artifacts...  The most powerful piece of wargear on this list is the Blood-forged Armour.  I say that because I wanted to use Grey Knights (finally) to kill me some daemons, and it turns out that a Daemon Prince can pop this little chestplate on and DESTROY all hope of my GK soul-zapping that bugger.  Wow!
  When my buddy and I played our game, he admitted that the wargear was really powerful and sort of apologized, but I advised that my Dreadknight pilot wouldn't have known better.  If there were other daemons on the board at the time, I could kill them instead!

Did you see the new model!?!  Damn, GW!!!

  Enter the Bloodthirster!!!  I want to kill him so baaaaaaaad!  My buddy chose not to bring one in the standard army list, instead relying on the Axe of Ruin to bring one in.  That is the second best piece of wargear on that list above.  I was excited by that because I would get to see a Bloodthirster on the table again.  Unfortunately, the game didn't work out anywhere near the level where we could have seen that, but that's another post...  In any case, what was going to be cool was seeing a Daemon Prince go down and a Bloodthirster replace him.  It was meant to be totally scary!!!

THAT'S precisely what I expected to see...

  And now back to my other buddy calling me.  Lacking his rulebook, he had a rules question.  This guy is desperately trying to avoid AdMech and he's focused on his Daemonkin army, and he got into a rules discussion with his gamer circle.  It was a rule I never thought about.  Like ever.  

  When the Bloodthirster arrives, does he arrive in Gliding mode or Swooping mode?  In other words, does he deep strike to the ground or does he pull a Goku and teleport directly into midair?  If I had to guess, he deep strikes onto the ground, like everyone else.  When the model is deployed at the beginning of the game, he starts on the ground.  Besides, Deep Striking and Swooping are both 'special' movement modes, and you shouldn't be able to do two 'special' modes at the same time.  So I open up my rulebook and search through the rules for Deep Striking (pg 162), Conjuration (pg 26), and finally Flying Monstrous Creatures (pg 68).   

  "Deployment...  If a Flying Monstrous Creature arrives via Deep Strike Reserve, it always counts as being in Swooping mode."  

BOOM!  This means that the character with the axe dies, then the Bloodthirster rips a hole in the air, has to spend the next turn landing, them finally get to charge the turn after?  Ouch!  In fact, this applies to the Daemonology power Possession- all Conjuration powers follow the Deep Strike rules for all intents and purposes!  I no longer fear, for at least three turns, a summoned Bloodthirster or even Daemon Prince.  

  Remember back in 3rd edition where Daemons popped up and immediately charged?  I hated that and then planned to use it for my cheezy army until the rules changed.  Remember the previous editions where Daemons are simply summoned and have to wait one turn before they can charge?  Yeah, that's normal.  Now we have Daemons that are summoned, then have to wait two turns to charge?  Wow, one step backwards each time...

  Now I'm supposed to be on the receiving end of this combo and actually looked forward to seeing it happen (I just have to get my Ultra-boys back to the range, apparently), but not like this.  This actually makes that combo very unscary (in that competitive way) and kinda ruins the point of this codex.  I mean, zerkers led by a Bloodthirster that might join the fray at some point?  That's not 'Khorny' at all.  That's just a rule I hate...

Let me know what you think!  

Da Waaagh is Green Now!!!

  A bit ago, I apparently got a bit of a 'bug' and started to build and paint like crazy.  And my focus on getting my Orks finished has finally, finally, FINALLY paid off.  If you've been following, you know that I have been using the same 1000 point army and refused to change it until I got this part painted.  Now that I'm finally caught up on that, it's time to start taking some of the good stuff.  But that's for later.  In the meantime, let's look at my Ork force and just marvel at a goal being accomplished:

The first unit of Boyz, painted for a demo board by a GW Manager.  I added the Boss Nob later.  But it should be noted that my buddy painted the rust on all the models and that drove my paint scheme.  I also want to point out that I REALLY want to repaint the skin, as I'm doing Boy-skin Gretchin Green.  But I left it alone in the interest of homage to my buddy's effort.

The second unit that you should all be familiar with.  To see how they were painted, visit here.  Note the difference in skin color between the Boyz and the Boss Nob?  That's going to be a continuing theme borrowed from Fantasy- older, meaner Orks are darker!!!

Every Ork army MUST have a unit of Lootas.  In addition, I also add a Painboy to this unit to keep them alive longer.  Right now, I find the unit too small for this to matter, I always forget to use the Grot Orderly, and rarely do they get shot.  So I have some adjustments to this unit as I grow the Waaagh...

C'mon, a giant Deff Dread to put rust all over?  Yes, please!  I actually taught my son how to paint rust on this model.  And worry not, there is so much more that could be done.  I just like rust...

This is the scariest unit in the whole force as it is the only one that has the ability to kill a tank.  Not quite as efficient as a unit of Tankbustas (half a hit less per turn for same number of wounds and 20 more points, DARNIT!), but still scary considering that they Outflank and blast rokkits into people.  Plus, I like the models.

Here's the point of almost every Ork army I've ever faced- da Warbikers.  No, these are NOT Nob Bikers, mostly because I have respect for da Boyz themselves.  In addition, da Warboss of Awesomeness is part of this unit.  It's where all my Power Klaws currently are, and it's the best armor saves in the whole force.  There will be more...

And the whole army together!  The look on my opponent's face when I tell them this is only 1000 points is priceless.  Of course, it hasn't worked out so far.  Oh,  and ignore my iced tea in the background...

  I am so excited!  I wanted this force to be fully painted so I could feel accomplished and bring some of that luck into my games.  Unfortunately, the army is 1-4 by this point, playing against Chaos Marines three times, IG once, and a slap-together Necron force.  But hey, the army was just warming up, right?

  Now don't forget that this army is 'tabletop standard', meaning block colors and possible shading (wash is a wonderful thing!).  As the army grows and my list develops to find 'good' options, those units will receive layering and highlighting (tournament standard).  But for right now, well-placed colors look better on the tabletop than plastic-gray, so I'm satisfied.

  Are y'all working on anything good right now (even AdMech, since it is now released)?  Let me know and I can't wait to hear about your elation over finished models.  Happy Hobbying!

Da Rust is Strong wit dis Force!

  When I chose to start a NEW army, it was originally for Necrons.  I wanted a cheezy force that would be a cinch to paint in no time at all.  Sadly, the Necron army box was long sold out (I guess asking the store to hold it for two years for me isn't the best idea!) and the Orks were just released.  In any case, I wanted xenos and a bad guy, and I'm already playing Eldar (so no need for the spiky version)- so Orks it was!

  Just like my last NEW army, the Blood Angels, I stubbornly refused to quit the force or even modify it until I got the 'core' of the army painted.  And my Orks took a bit longer than I expected (hey, school and family and various other responsibilities tend to be higher on the 'to-do' list!).  But I was able to get them done in very little time following this method and the glory of rust!

  I'll show you the easy step by step on my Warboss below.  Please remember that my photography equipment changed (and isn't so good yet) and the rest of the model hasn't been painted yet.  Without further ado, let's go!

1,  Overbrush model with Warplock Bronze (or Tin Bitz, or whatever rusty color (not texture) you may have).  Be sloppy.

Just admiring my conversion...  I LOVE this model!

2.  Heavily Drybrush model with Leadbelcher (or any silver color, really).

3.  Stipple Troll-slayer Orange using your worst brush.  Be sure to let the orange paint dry up a bit, as even base colors are runny for orange...

4.  Stipple Rhinox Hide using the same brush (your worst one).  DO NOT CARE where the color goes.  Rust is chaotic and you not liking it will prove that you're doing it correctly.

5.  Heavily wash model with Agrax Earthshade (or Devlan Mud, or Armor Wash, or whatever).  It will 'fade' the colors together and bring detail back out.  Notice the the Deff Dread?  that's withe less brown and even more wash!

  From here, all you have to do is paint the rest of the colors and wash again!  Remember to check out the other post with the original instructions, as that's literally what I did after the rust.  Let me know what y'all think and, as always, Happy Hobbying!

Aleph for Me!

  We know that I'm like an addict when it comes to miniatures games.  Everyone who's been around me knows that I can't stop once I get started.  I have to make rational decisions to avoid games just because I know what'll happen.  And after this last bit, I think I've come to a realization:

I have a problem!

  They say the first step to solving a problem is admitting that problem.  Well, I have a problem with miniatures games.  Funny enough, it's not a problem I want to solve...

  If I'm going to buy something, I'm going to buy ALL of something.  There's no point to buying some of a product and then wondering what could have been when you could buy everything and regret that less (at least I do).  That's why I have 8 massive armies for 40k, and then three more than can be built up pretty quickly.  Three massive armies for Warhammer, a game I no longer play, 3 massive fleets for BFG, a game almost nobody plays anymore, and every module of Star Fleet Battles Captains Edition that was ever produced- a game nobody has ever heard of!  Yeah, I do that.

  Recently, that happened with Star Trek: Attack Wing (where I own literally everything except DS9 (which I did own) and the Borg Cube, neither of which I want) and Cryptozoic's DC Deck-building game.  Yes, I enjoy both of those games immensely, and yes, I don't need all of that stuff to enjoy it.  But yes, I feel obligated to collect it all.  ALL OF IT!!!

  And then my buddy got me into Infinity.  He brought over some Aleph models and tossed them in my lap.  Not knowing what the heck I was just assaulted with, I picked up the boxes and saw this:

Myrmidons- the badasses of humanity's AI

Posthumans- remote-controlled super-people!

  My buddy knows what I like!  He remembered me showing some interest in the robots and mecha feel of this faction, so he picked them up for me.  Yeah!!!  Of course, that started the avalanche of retail visits.  First, I had to pick up a leader, right?

"Say 'what' again!"

   But I still didn't have any of my cool little robot guys, so I picked this up today:

Aleph Starter Pack, including 3 Dakini bots!

  Now, in order to make my Steel Phalanx list, I have to wait for this box to show up- a box with two missile launchers!

Myrmidons and their Thorikatai brothers...

  I would be a liar if I didn't note that I also bought a couple of drop-troops, a couple of sentry bots, and a giant mecha dude to go with this as well.  But I don't want my buddy to know about all this yet, so sssshhhhhhh.  When I get it all built and painted, his Combined Army (the bad-guy alien jerks) will have enough fun.  I might as well make it a surprise too...

  As with all my other games, I didn't stop at a reasonable point.  My wife is already mad at me for spending so much money, but I can't help it.  Remember, I've admitted it, so I'm only just starting the process of solving it...  Heeheehehehehe

  What habits have taken your addiction?  Let me know and we can commiserate together.  And, as always, Happy Hobbying!