Garage Wars! Battle report Chaos vs Dark Eldar!

Hey guys, the photos are in chronological order. I wanted to put text between each one, but blogger seems to disable the ability for viewers to open the photos to make them larger when I do this. If anyone can help with that let me know. Other than that enjoy the battle report.

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"The warp trembles around the city, what manner of man or beast approaches, Iron Warrior?" said Ghorst, Daemon Prince of the Death Guard Legion as he scanned the horizon, taking note of the flitting shadows over the freshly ruined city. The smell of burning flesh and fresh disease was intoxicating, but Ghorst could still feel the presence of something ...

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"Neither man nor beast approaches, brother. They feel familiar, yes, their souls echo the birthcry of the Dark Prince ... we will suffer the presence of the Dark Eldar this night."

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A sharp cry pierced the approaching night and a small drew across the cracked, bleeding mass that was once Ghorst's lips. "They shall be the ones to suffer, brother, ready your obliterator cult."

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We often play garage games around here when we feel the need to try new units and tactics or when we want to try a proxied unit before we throw down cash on it. This battle report is a tale of such a battle. Enjoy.

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I took a list pretty close to what I usually field but with a few tweaks

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DAemon Prince - Wings, Mark of Slaanesh, Lash

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Daemon Prince - Wings, Warptime, Mark of Nurgle

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Elites

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5 Chosen in rhino with 3 meltas and 2 flamers
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Troops

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3 squads of 7 plague Marines all in rhinos, 2 squads with 1 melta, 1 flamer, 1 squad with 2 meltas

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Heavy

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3 Oblitz

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3 Oblitz

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2 Oblitz

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Captain Obvious took:

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HQ
Archon – Agonizer, Shadowfield, Combat Drugs, Splinter Pistol

4 Incubi, Drazhar, Raider, Scaling Nets

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Wych Drachite – Combat Drugs, Agonizer, Splinter Pistol, Trophy Rack

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TROOPS
8 Man Raider Squad, Blaster, Splinter Cannon, Raider Scaling Nets

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8 Man Raider Squad, Blaster, Splinter Cannon, Raider Scaling Nets

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10 Man Warrior Squad, Dark Lance, Dark Lance

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10 Man Warrior Squad, Dark Lance, Dark Lance

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ELITES
9 Wyches w/ Weapons, (Succubus – Agonizer, Plasma Grenades)
Raider, Scaling Nets

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9 Wyches w/ Weapons, (Succubus – Agonizer, Plasma Grenades)
Raider, Scaling Nets

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5 Warp Beasts w/ Beast Master

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HEAVY SUPPORT
Ravanger - Dark Lance x3

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Talos

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Talos

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I rolled first turn and took it then we ended up with a two objective take and hold mission and the dreaded Dawn of War deployment. The first turn was completely uneventful as I decided to stay off the board. C.O. brought on a squad of warriors with 2 dark lances in a building and a squad in the open with 2 dark lances to threaten my probable entry point.

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Turn 2, I came on mostly behins a building and used rhinoes to deny easy access to my objective. I lashed and plasma templated the warriors in the open and they died quickly, but other than that I had nothing to do. On his side of the turn he decided to come on and light my world up with 15 Dark Lance Shots! Most of his shots were hits but most either failed to wound or failed to penetrate. Other than that, his turn was over.

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Turn 3 brought my reserve 2 man squad of oblitz into play behind his objective and my chosen outflanked there as well. This lead to 7 warriors fried by flamers. My other oblit squads managed to down a raider and destroy a ravager much to my relief. Even better, my Lash Prince managed to push a Talos back 10 inches. His side of this turn involved missing with even more dark lances and charging the deepstruck oblitz with his Archon's squad (a relief to me as I didn't want that squad on my objective). He also crept a little closer with his other Talos and his Warp Beasts.

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Turn 4, I lashed his other Talos away and I think I brought down another raider, but other than that, I was biding my time, waiting for his assault. I also got my chosen back in their rhino and around the corner of his building trying to avois being killed by his HQ squad. On his side of this turn he brought a full-out assault to my doorstep, but rolled terribly on a difficult terrain test for his beasts and bottlenecking a squad of warriors near one of my rhinos. He did mange to break through with a raider behind my objective and assaulted my obliterators, who managed to roll a hand full of invulnerable saves.

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Turn 5 saw a squad of Plague Marines fry nearly all of his warp beasts, my lash prince send a Talos away once again and a counter charge by my plaguers into the Obliterator combat, also joined by the Nurgle Prince, making short work of those witches. My rhino creeped around the building some more just hoping to stay alive so the chosen could contest. His side of this turn only saw him trying to take dark lance pop shots and run his Taloses back into threat range, but the game ended there.

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I think Captain Obvious brought a decent list to the battle, but rolling like crap killed him. He had 15 dark lances and never so much as weapon destroyed a rhino and he also has terrible cover saves, invul saves ect. ect. The bad thing for me is that he managed to have that wych raider parked just a c***hair within 3" of my objective, bringing us to a draw.

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We managed to play another game with a few different units and tactics, but we didn't take picture. He continued to roll badly, but managed to overload my objective leasing to another draw. On a side note, I also tested my Salamander list (army under construction) vs Eric's Ork tankwall and managed to pull a win out in a very good game of 40k.

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I hope you enjoyed the Batrep! As always, feedback is welcome! Perhaps you have a terrible dice story or an amazing one.

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Also, if anyone knows how to post the photos AND put text between each one without losing the ability to click on them and make them larger, please let me know!

What's the point? Where is Dark Future Going?

Those of you who check us out often may be asking yourself why we are posting so many tactical discussions or why sometimes we take stuff from forums or things from other sites.
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The answer is that we at Dark Future Games eat, sleep, breathe, dream and deficate this hobby and with that we LOVE painting, we Love modelling and We seriously Love converting and we talk about and discuss those things almost non-stop. It doesn't help that 2 of us work in the same building. We also enjoy being competitive on the board, but without all the talk of 'powergaming' because afterall we like to have fun and since we own A TON of models, we like to try diverse lists, so we also talk Tactics and possible tactics and what if this or that happened.
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That being said, right now we are building a tactical library for some of the article us writers don't run with and we do that by aggregating articles from the best sources, just as a news site actually takes news from a variety of sources and plugs it in for their viewers to see as well.
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By no means does this mean all you will recieve from us is tactical articles. Far from it! We intend to keep bringing you photos of works in progress, conversions, our painting work as well as some of the mind-blowing stuff we come across.
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Over time, I plan to bring on a couple more writers with various armies in their backrounds and skills with a knife and brush and I also plan to start running video with the objective being to benefit the hobby as a whole as much as we can from our garages, desks and FLGSs.
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If there is anything you would like to see here more often that you don't, let us know. We are all ears.

Culler's How to Build an Ork Army 3: Elites

Elites:-Nobs are good but are more effective in a transport (battlewagon over trukk) or on bikes. Always take a painboy and as many nobs as you can afford in the squad. Take 1 powerklaw per 3 or 4 nobs to deal with tanks and heavily armoured infantry. Equip your nobs with a variety of different wargear loadouts to spread wounds around the squad without removing models. I also recommend cybork bodies for the whole squad, but not necessarily ‘eavy armour. Feel no pain and cybork body together is the equivalent of a 3+ save against normal wounds but you still get a 5+ invulnerable against wounds that ignore armor. ‘Eavy armour only buys you 9% fewer wounds taken from regular sources if you put it on top of cybork. It’s helpful certainly but not necessary if you’re looking to save some points. All of their upgrades are decent, though twin-linked shootas are best left to walking nobs. Equipping a nob with a bosspole is pretty much necessary because of their problems with leadership. Leading them with a warboss is a great idea too to keep their morale in line and also to allocate strength 8 or 9 wounds to the warboss to prevent instant death for the nobs.
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Nob bikers are pretty strong, albeit costly. Building them goes much like the guidelines for other nobs except you definitely want cybork for them all instead of just being recommended. The higher points invested in them is worth protecting.
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-Meganobz are nice, but only in a transport. If you’re doing the nobs in transport thing, meganobz are typically a better choice than nobs.
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-Burnas are nice in a transport, especially a battlewagon, but are otherwise fragile for their points. In the battlewagon you can just roll around spewing templates out the side, which is pretty good albeit expensive.
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-Tankbustas are rarely worth it due to Glory Hog making them act like morons. They can’t hit the broadside of a barn anyway and are also fragile for their points. Tankbustas in a battlewagon are pretty decent because they can get close to a vehicle faster and launch all their rokkits from the comparative safety of the vehicle but this option is expensive not very effective for their points. Gear them to fight at range or in melee. For ranged a nob is not necessary but is helpful for morale with the bosspole. For melee taking some tankhammers and a nob with powerklaw is nice but a regular slugga boy mob is going to be better at fighting infantry and generally handles tanks just fine and costs much less.
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-Lootas are good at what they do and what they do is something the Ork army needs: long ranged firepower. They can take down light vehicles with ease and are decent at killing infantry at range. Make sure to deploy them in some cover as they don’t deal with morale checks well. They also still have 2 attacks each and furious charge, so in a pinch can mix it up.
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-Kommandos are great for showing up and charging on the same turn. Snikrot especially helps with this and I highly recommend him. They don’t deal with dedicated CC specialists that well, being essentially slugga boyz, but the Nob or Snikrot does well against tanks and the unit does great against vulnerable rear line units. With a regular nob leading the squad there’s a chance that the unit will come in some place where they will be utterly ineffective, that chance is much lower with snikrot. Don’t bother with big shootas or rokkits for kommandos, for the same reasons you don’t bother with them for slugga boyz (below). Burnas are really good for them though.

Culler's How to Build an Ork Army 2: Da Bosses

Here is the second article in the How to Build an Ork Army tactica by Culler from Heresy Online. This article explains his thoughts on the HQ choices available to the Green Skins. Enjoy,

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Culler said - HQ choices:-Every HQ in the Ork codex has a role to play except for one.

Weirdboyz are unreliable and almost as much a threat to the mob they’re in as a boon if you’re playing an opponent with blast weapons (due to deepstriking). If you use one I recommend the warphead upgrade to prevent as much poor rolling as possible.

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-Warbosses are solid CC monsters. I always recommend power klaw because the rest of the Orks can handle things with poor saves so the army needs all the power klaws it can get. Using a big choppa to strike before marines is all well and good but it only nets you a third as many dead marines as a power klaw and against things like carnifexes and hive tyrants the big choppa gets you almost nowhere. Most importantly the power klaw gives you a strength 10 weapon to employ against vehicles like monoliths and land raiders, which gives you an effective way to kill them since the Orks typically have trouble with those kinds of targets because they get no other strength 10 or Melta weaponry. If you have a warboss and you take nobs or meganobz, always take them as a troops choice so they can capture objectives. -The kombi-weapon options are pretty good for the warboss. The skorcha is excellent and the rokkit is alright if you give him an ammo runt to reroll his inevitable miss. The problem with the rokkit is that the unit he’s with is rarely going to want to shoot at a tank. The twin-linked shoota is decent if he’s on foot, but hardly necessary.

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-Cybork body is pretty much a necessary for the warboss. He often runs into power weapons and the save is very helpful to keep him surviving until he can use his power klaw.-There are basically 3 versions of the warboss: bike, ‘eavy armour, and mega armour. The ‘eavy armour warboss is cheap and you can basically put him anywhere. The bike warboss is more expensive but is basically a carnifex on wheels. Don’t worry about putting him in a regular walking boyz mob to have him shoot out to engage vulnerable targets once the mob gets within 18”.

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-Big Meks are useful in 2 ways: kustom force field and shokk attack gun. If you use a KFF make sure that it’s worth the cost. Keep in mind that it only gives a 5+ cover save, so for it to pay for the whole mek in casualties prevented it generally has to be prevent wounds to 14 boyz which means granting a cover save that wouldn’t otherwise be granted to 42 wounds from shooting to boyz. It’s tough to adjudicate if that’s going to happen, so just go be the rule that you want him protecting at least 60 boyz, several vehicles, or a combination of the two. Big Meks with shokk attack guns are fantastic at engaging targets with good armor saves which the rest of the list traditionally does poorly but you never want to leave him alone. They’re incredibly pricey and fragile. There’s a good tactica for where to put them here: http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=34858 but basically you always want to put them in some other unit.

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-Wazdakka Gutsmek is pretty much there just to allow you to field a warbikers as troops. If you’re fielding warbikers he’s worth considering, but otherwise not all that great.

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-Mad Dok Grotsnik is very solid if you combine him with a full mob of slugga boyz (or a full transport of them), but that’s the only thing worth using him for. Meganobz shrug off regular attacks plenty well and Grotsnik helps them none against the AP1 or 2 or power weapons they’ll usually have to worry about. 4 more meganobz is much better. Though giving the meganobz cybork bodies if you have Grotsnik in your army is worth it.

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-Ghazghkull Thraka is pretty solid if he’s riding in a transport. His ability to automatically get a 6 for his WAAAGH! is pretty good combined with charging out of an open-topped transport. Don’t make the mistake of joining him to a unit of regular boyz and slowing them down.

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-Old Zogwort is pretty much there for fun. He’s rarely effective for his points but turning your opponent’s super incredible HQ choice into an irate squig is worth more than mere points can ever represent. Some opponents don’t even have independent characters though, some independent characters can just stay out of his range, and his other psychic powers are unreliable and have great possibility for harming your own troops.

To view the whole article, check out this link http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=39703

How to Build an Ork Army Part 1: Mobz and Vics Article by Culler

I read a lot of forum posts and tactica throughout the week and every once and a while I come across a post that is incredibly useful. I want to post Culler's How To Build an Ork Army post here as a series of articles each day focusing on a different FoC group. Today, I will introduce his post and with it his initial advice on vehicles and mob composition. He put a lot of time and thought and practice into it and I hope you Ork players out there find something in these posts that can be useful to you.

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If you would like to read the work as a whole, I will post the link at the bottom of this article. Now I turn the floor to Culler.

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Culler said -I’ve been building, playing, and critiquing Ork lists for a while now and many of the same things keep cropping up, so here’s some solid advice on pitfalls to avoid and ways to make an Ork army. This is less of a ‘what units to take’ guide and more of a ‘how make your army work with your style, how to gear and equip your units, what units are good for what, and what units to avoid’ guide.

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Mob size:-It is always better to max the squad size as far as possible. That allows the Orks to use mob rule and gives them enough durability to win CC against tough opponents and weather fire. Exceptions are deffkoptas (can’t get big enough to really matter) and gretchin mobs (though you still want at least 19 gretchin). Some units it just isn’t feasible to max out like nob bikers and especially meganobz, though they do perform better in larger units.

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Transports:-There are 2 styles of Ork army: mechanized and non-mechanized. Mechanized armies have nearly everything in a transport (either trukks or battlewagons.) There is no middle ground on this issue for Orks unless you’re using battlewagons as transports for some of your troops because battlewagons actually have the survivability to weather your opponent’s anti-tank fire.The reason this is so goes something like this: your opponent has the ability to take out say, 2 trukks a round. If you’ve only got 2 trukks, then they both die the first round. If you’ve got 4, then half your trukks survive past the first round. If you’ve got 6 trukks, then 2/3 of your trukks make it, and so on. Once a trukk is destroyed, it also tends to be incredibly bad for the Orks within, often effectively neutering an already handicapped squad (due to small mob size). Some units can take the punishment of a transport’s death like nobs and meganobz, but they’re better off in a battlewagon anyway.

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-Looted wagons make decent if unreliable transports.-Transports should be open-topped so your units can fire out or assault out of them at will. Extra armour, red paint job, and grot riggers are all good upgrades, but generally too expensive for trukks. When it comes to battlewagons they’re all excellent though. Reinforced rams are good for all transports tough for the ability to reroll dangerous terrain checks, allowing you to drive through terrain without worry (virtually). The ramming ability will rarely come up but allowing trukks to tank shock is handy.

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Vehicles:-Either go with no vehicles or plenty. Having just one or two in a large army means all of your opponent’s anti-tank will be aimed at them and they’ll not survive as long as they should.

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http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=39703

What size games do you play?

I have two questions for you today. How big are the games you usually play and why do you like to play games that large?
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I prefer to play around 1750 as this lets me experiment with variations of my army in the common tournament points value and allows me to create a standard 'take all comers' list to take out all the time as many of the people I know also play 1750.
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After a recent 400 point tourney, I realized that I also enjoy the smaller games because at that point value anything cam happen and the things we don't expect to see come from the enemy can and will happen at this value and every model's performance counts.
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So how do you roll? Do you go for tactical expertise at 1500 or 1000? Do you go for the full might of your forces at 2000? Let's here what you like to play.

Nurgle Daemon Prince with Balrog wings Part II, painting the fleshtones

I know it has been a long time since I posted my first photos of the Nurgle Prince that I took a powerdrill to convert, but as another unit of speedpainted Thousand Sons dried, I began work on this beast ... and I have not stopped all day except to let the wash dry and to celebrate my oldest Daughter's (which explains the Sponge Bob tablecloth you may have spotted).

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I wanted the flesh of my daemon prince to really give the impression of a creature rife with disease and capable of shaking off the most grievous wounds, all the while maintaining a vibrancy that would make it stand out. I am pretty happy with the results so far, though it took some serious layers of paint to acheive this effect.

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The first thing I did was prime the model black, then I primed it again white but from mostly top and side angles (no spraying the underside).

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Next, I generously coated all of the flesh areas and wings with Snot Green (evergreen for Folk Art) and then washed that HEAVILY with Thraka Green. Allow the model to dry completely.

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Next I drybrushed Snakebite Leather (Teddy Bear Tan in Folk Art) over all the light areas previously painted snot green. Then I washed all of that Heavily again with Delvan Mudd and allowed it to dry fully.

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At this point I was very happy with the layers of various colors in the flesh and the overall look of it screamed Plague! The only problem was how dark it was. The depth obscured some details, so I drybrushed an equal mix of Snakebite and Snot with a dab of Warlock Purple an the lightly drybrushed the high areas. This looked good, but there was still something missing

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This is when I got out a small drybrush and busted out the Leviathan Purple wash and lighty washed the webbing between the wing bones and lightly again over all the flesh of the torso and hands.

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After this, I used Blood red to color in all the damage on the wings and drybrushed Tentacle Pink in over the red for a meaty effect. I will continue this by lightly washing those areas with Baal Red and will probably leave it at that.

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There is still a lot of work to do as you can tell from the photos I have started some of it, but have a LONG way to go. I plan to give the armour the look of the pre-Heresy Death Guard colors and hopefully the Prince will be done tomarrow ... the base is another story. Enjoy the photos and all feed back is welcome and appreciated as usual.

Great Videos from Awesomepaintjob.com

Folks, I have been watching the videos on Awesomepaintjob.com's Youtube Channel for months now and I think there is a little something there for everybody. There are videos for folks who can't paint very well to at least put a quickly and easily painted army on the board to professional level videos. I don't know about you all but I learn a lot better by watching somebody do something than by reading it a few times and making an attempt. Anyway, check it out at http://www.youtube.com/user/awesomepaintjob#play/uploads
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By the way, I just got a decent camera and software, does anybody out there feel that Dark Future would be taking a huge step forward by using videos in addition to articles. Let me know what you think.

Speed Painting with Quality 101 Pt. 1 (Thousand Sons example)

Alright, we all have those models in our army (or for some of us armies) that we have and barely use and we like to pretend we will take the time to paint some day. Well, I got sick of seeing my old Thousand Sons sitting around and I decided I would paint them, but that I wouldn't take a ton of time doing so (after all, I have a greater Plague Daemon and a Nurgle Prince to paint this weekend). Just because I am using Thousand Sons in my example, doesn't mean it couldn't be done with Ultrasmurfs or any number of armies out there, so maybe this could help you. Hopefully the hobby purists won't hang me for this!

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So I decided to try my hand at speed painting and in the process put a little tutorial together for those of you who don't have the time to sit and painstakingly paint every last model in your army but you want the to look good.

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The models were already primed black, but I of course don't want to sit around painting them blue so I found a color that was just a shade lighter than I wanted them to be when they were finished. In this case it was KRYLON PERIWINKLE BLUE SATIN FINISH (Ultramarine Blue is a decent equivilent.)

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Spay the models from about a foot and a half away as this stuff can be a little thick and pick a day where it is not too humid or rainy as it will cause the finish to look like a dried Mud flat. Don't freak out about the flash, it will be corrected before completion.

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With your Thousand Sons decked out in Periwinkle, now it is time to give them a very generous wash of Asurman Blue wash from GW. Use a good sized brush to slop it on and then brush the liquid wash downward across the model, forcing the dark blue to pool in creases and in areas where natural shadow should fall. Then let it dry (I did the spray and wash one night and then painted the next day).

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Next, I wanted to paint the trim its metallic gold color the 1k Sons are famous for. Now I could have easily done this with a brush, but with speed being the theme, I decided to use a metallic gold marker I found at Wal-Mart (they come in a pack with silver, blue, green, and magenta). I did all the trim, but the stripes in the head dress were done using paint, but that is in the next step. I was suprised by how well the gold looked coming from the marker and it is really the point where I figured that these models could look really good even for a very quick job.

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My next step was to bust out the Folk Art paints available in the entire color wheel and found at Wal-Marts and Hobby Lobby stores across America for pennies! I used Kings Gold and a very pointy brush to do the stripes on the Egyptian Headdress (took only two coats). The tabards were brushed over with Titanium White (very good at covering). I could have gotten away with one coat, but the second didn't cost me much time and it really pops.

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The last step of this tutorial is to wash the tabards with Gryphonne Sepia, once again brushing it to get into the folds and creases. At this stage, I have put a total of 2 hours and 40 minutes of actual labor time into this 9 man squad (which includes the aspiring sorceror) and I am actually impressed with the quality at this point. I am going to take an hour and twenty minutes Friday to paint the details (bolters, powerswords ect.) and then base the models. At this point, I will have completed a 9 man squad in 4 hours of actual painting. We will leave the final judgements to the second half of this tutorial, but I must stress that this could be done with almost any army, but especially ones that have colors in the same wheel as the GW washes ... So Ultra Marines could literally be done with these same colors, Salamander and orks could be done with greens, Blood angels with reds ect, ect.. While this may not be for everyone, I hope it proves useful to those hobbyists who have units they do not have the time or interest to perform epic level paint jobs on. As always, comments are more than welcome.

New Forge World Plague Hulk, Khorne Impaler and Tau XV9! Tons of pics!

Simply Amazing! That's all I can say about it really. The Plague hulk model is sick and it's special rules can be found here http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/pdf/plaguehulk.pdf

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It is described as;

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"Ungainly and sickening to look upon, Plague Hulks stagger into battle on corroded metal limbs, their engines giving off a shroud of reeking vapours and pestilent fog, poisoning the very ground they walk over. The Plague Hulk’s mechanical chassis supports a seething corpulent mass of putrescent daemon-flesh, at the centre of which sits a gaping maw capable of vomiting a tide of unspeakable foulness that can rot flesh and corrode metal. One of the thing’s fleshy arms is fused with an arcane canon that belches out shells so befouled with ichor and infection, that a mere scratch from their impregnated daemon-bone fragments will immediately and agonisingly fester into a crippling injury. Like many other daemon engines, these decaying monsters also possess massively powerful limbs able to smash through the strongest armour with ease, and Plague Hulks are often encountered wielding gigantic cleaver blades or huge rusted flails to smash and batter their foes. Worse yet for any who are brave or foolhardy enough to stand against a Plague Hulk in close quarters, they must first endure clouds of flesh-searing poison before attacking the bloated machine-thing."

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You have got to check out the rules PDF and the additional photos. You will not be dissapointed. http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/plaguehulk.htm

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Though I have not found any rules, there is also a new weapon soon to available for the Khorne Daemon Engine. The Impaler. Also pictured here http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/impaler.htm

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Finally, they have also produced a Tau XV 9 battlesuit which looks like an anime version of the big robot from Robocop (all guns and badassery) Check out the experimental rules here http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/pdf/xv9.pdf

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The only thing I question about the XV-9 is why the wargear options are more expensive for the suit versus the XV-8, though I do have to admit that defensive grenades on a battlesuit is a really great idea.

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The thing I like about the Hulk and the Battle Suit especially, is that they may be IA rules, but they actually make sense points-wise and they aren't exactly too broken. Enjoy the links and photos!

Giving credit where credit is due: Spite for the Dice Gods!

I was just browsing through some blogs and came across Raptor1313's blog, Spir for the Dice Gods and the first article I read was his last post concerning Deathwing Allies and his breakdown of their effectiveness. After reading that post, I read another and another and before I realized it, I had read through over a dozen posts on tactics involving not only the Great White Wing, but also Eldar and more.
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His tactica are all well written and easy to understand and most importantly he put things into perspectives that I had not considered before with some units. It was really refreshing to read such a well thought out blog and I have to give credit where credit is due. If you get the chance and serious tactical discussion is what you are interested in, take a look at his blog at http://raptor1313.blogspot.com/ Raptor1313, my hat's off to you, man.
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In other news, I played a very fun game against the White Scars! I must say that they have some serious tricks up their sleeves and the Khan is no slouch. It ended in a draw, but I had so much fun, I would have been happy with a loss. Thanks for the good game, Buzz.

Deathwing Interrogator Chaplain finished!

With all the Chaos, Salamander and Dark Eldar post we've been pushing out here, I forgot about my good old Deathwing and the few models I needed to finish in order to complete my army. This fellow came in the bottom of a box I ordered on Ebay and seemed like a great find until I realized there was a miscast in his crux terminatus - a corner was missing.

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At first I said "Well, I guess I could make him a cool looking commander or some sort of Legion of the Damned terminator". Then a better idea hit me as I was reading over the old Crux Terminatus entry in the rulebook for reasons unknown when it occured to me that such a sacred peice of armor bearing a peice of the Emperor's armor when he fell would not be discarded just because it was battle damaged and the last person to cast it aside would be a Chaplain!

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Thus, my Interrogator Chaplain was born a a few purity seals from a Space Marine Commander box were borrowed.

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Anyway, With all of the Terminators done, all but the Forge World Dreadnought's arms finished and Belial getting recreated (again) on the chopping block, the Deathwing is almost finished and unless a fantastic turn of events occurs, the army will most likely go up for sale. If anyone is interested please let me know in the comments to this post and keep your eyes open for more Deathwing coming up!

Dark Eldar Unit Break Downs: Part 1, HQ Choices

Over the next couple weeks I will go over some of the useful and not so useful units in the dark elder list. I will be sticking to and going more in depth on the actual units that I field and have had success fielding. The first unit I will cover will be our HQ choices. Depending on the type of army your going to play will decide who your main HQ will be. There are 3 main HQ choices you can field. Your choices are: Archon, Wych Archite, or Haemonculus. Archons and Drachons are the leaders of a Kabal list, which is the "Standard" Dark Eldar list. Wych Archites and Wych Drachites are the leaders of Wych cult lists. And Haemonculus arefill in HQs in my opinion, never used them, but will be fielding a few to see how they play out.

The main lists that I run usually always have an Archon as the main HQ. I do run wych heavy, but I don't run an all out Wych cult list. In my experience Wych cults are extremely flimsy and extremely unforgiving tothe inexperienced player. One bad move or one skipped assault will 95% of the time cost you the entire game. There are numerous ways you can gear your HQs. Just like in most armies you can gear them to kill monstrous creatures or be troop killers. I prefer the troop killers over the monstrous creature killers because I tend to stack agonizers(power weapon that always wounds on a 4+) in every squad.

Quickly I'll go over some gear setups for decent HQs. Troop killing HQs will always have a punisher and the other wargear to compliment it. Punisher is a 2 hand power weapon that adds +1 str, when paired with a tormentor helm you can use that 2h power weapon and also get +1 attack for close combat weapons. Another good addition to a Archon/Archite is combat drugs and a shadow field. Combat drugs allow you to beef up your lord even more in every assault phase. Granted the more drug options you take the more likely you are to be taking wounds or even insta killing yourself. Shadow field is a 2+ inv save, but the one time you fail it, its gone. So basicly it pans out to one failed 2+inv usually equals death for your lord. One last piece of wargear I throw on my troop killer is the Arcane wargear item called the AnimusVitae. This nifty piece of gear bumps your archon's WS and Str by 1 after they successfully run the enemy down. So now your lord after afew rounds of combat is running around with a stat line similar to this:WS7 BS6 STR5 T3 W3 I7 A3(4) LD9, which can be further enhanced by the use of combat drugs.

The next HQ wargear setup would be the monsterous creature killer. Most of the same wargear applies, but there are a few changes. Instead ofthe Punisher/Tormentor helm combo you would replace that with a splinter pistol and an agonizer. As stated above a agonizer is a power weapon that always wounds on a 4+. You would also drop the Animus Vitae because seeing as your not using your str as a factor with an agonizer. I've ran Archons like this before and have had no fear when charging them into a Carnafex, Wraithlord, or even a nightbringer. It always makes someone mad when you kill their 250+pt HQ with a tiny 135pt toughness 3 hq.

This is the first installment of my Dark Eldar unit breakdowns. In later posts I will go over what HQs to run with what squads and when and when NOT to run HQs solo.

Popping the blog Cherry with Dark Eldar!

Hey all Captain Obvious here. Figured I would make my first post, introduce myself and so on. Well I am a personal friend of Old School Termie, not sure if thats good or bad, but either way it's another title I have. I currently am playing two armies....Black Templar and Dark Eldar. Even with my success of my Templar i have been having an INSANE amount of fun with the DE. My newest list has been having a great deal of success as well. So far I have ran it up against...White Scars, Chaos, Chaos Deamons and Eldar. I have won all games and the one against the eldar player ended up with him getting tabled in turn 4. The current list is as follows:

HQ

Archon - Punisher, Tormentor Helm, Combat Drugs, Animus Vitae, Shadow Field 150pts

Wych Drachite - Punisher, Tormentor Helm, Combat Drugs 95pts

8 Wych Retinue, Wych Weapons, Haywire Grenades, Raider, Scaling Nets
1 Wych Succubus, Agonizer, Plasma Grenades 243pts

ELITE

8 Wychs, Wych Weapons, Haywire Grenades, Raider, Scaling Nets
1 Wych Succubus, Agonizer, Plasma Grenades 243pts

8 Wychs, Wych Weapons, Haywire Grenades, Raider, Scaling Nets

1 Wych Succubus, Agonizer, Plasma Grenades 243pts

4 Warp Beasts BeastMaster 63pts

TROOPS

9 Man Raider Squad, Blaster, Splinter Cannon, Raider 142pts

9 Man Raider Squad, Blaster, Splinter Cannon, Raider 142pts

12 Man Warrior Squad, Dark Lance, Dark Lance 116pts

HEAVY SUPPORT

Ravanger Dark Lance x 3 105pts

Ravanger Dark Lance x 3 105pts

Talos 100pts

This list comes out to 1747. With this army relying on Wyches as your main source of hitting power you have to play it with extreme caution since wyches outside of combat are asking to get killed by las pistols or any other AP6 weapons lol. This army has ALOT of hitting power you just have to know when to use it. You have 13 Dark lances at your disposal and Wyches are able to take on ANYTHING in Close Combat. Both of your HQs are able to take on any other armies HQ in usually 1-2 turns. The Archon after a round of combat will be running around with a NASTY stat line. WS7 STR5 and I7 is hard to deal with in CC. And with the right drug rolls you can usually beef him up to take on just about anything.

The archon runs with what ever Wych Squad got the better drug rolls. I usually will put him with the squad who gets +1ws or 12" assault. People usually cry when they are hitting wyches on 5+ instead of the usual 4+. Makes rounds of combat with that squad a heart ache for anyone.

With the scaling nets on the raiders you need to use them to block LOS and get cover saves if u find yourself out of combat too soon, that way you arent getting completely lit up with out saves.

I use the warrior squads to either roam around Dark Lanceing and blastering things or securing an objective, depending on the mission im playing, or if i have to screening for my wych raiders(LAST RESORT).

The warp beasts and talos are a cheap threat in this list that many people overlook or over estimate. Depending on the player, some tend to focus fire the heck out of the talos and the warp beasts neglecting your wyches and ravangers. After your first turn of shooting 10 Dark lances and poping alot of mech their fire is instantly redirected to your firing platforms and raiders......but by then its too late. This army is easy to get into combat on turn 1 or sit back and drop mech and then assault in turn 2-3, once again all depending who or what your fighting.

Im in the process of making up a Haemomculi list with some grotesques. The thought of exploding enemy troops, and using their tougness against them is just funny. Just have to figure out how to make it play out as a take all comers list.