Skeletor of the 40k World

            The Chaplain, a very nice unit to use to help buff yours units in assault, this unit is rarely fielded in the Vanilla codex, which is sad since he just has the spunk that you need as an HQ and he has an attitude to match it.  Skeletor as I like to call him grants those handy re-rolls in the first round of combat and also has a mighty Strength 6 hit in close combat.  Yeah I know AP4, but really it doesn’t always matter, the hits and wounds will cause deaths, just let him do his thing.

            I’ve made a couple setups for this model and fun ways to use him, hopefully you get some use out of it, and maybe even use one once.

            Option 1:  Skeletor - 100 Points:  He has no equipment other than what he starts with.  Bland and blank but even like this he is perfectly set up for attacking, no addition, no need to add weapons or equipment.  He is a formidable force to fight anyway you look at it.  Also outfit him with a staff with a dear skull on the tip of the staff if you feel inclined to fit the look.

            Option 2:  Flying Hate - 150 Points: Jump Pack, and a Power Fist.  It may seem simple, but he now can move up field quickly attached to an Assault Squad who already are a force to be reckoned with, but with the Flying Hate you get tank busting, hero cracking, unit smasher.  He can choose to hit I4 or I1, S6 or S8, he also comes with W2 and 4++ save.  How can you go wrong with that? Don’t answer that.

            Option 3:  Light the Way - 135 Points:  Terminator Armour and Combi-Flamer.  Still seems too simple to be any good, can never forget what he already has and what you would have to pay for anything is super cheap.  Got to love a unit who only needs a few extra’s to become a bigger super hero.

            Option 4:  Road Warrior – 155 Points:  Space Marine Bike, Plasma Pistol, and Metla Bomb.  This guy isn’t happy, and he is very angry, chaos beware when this guy comes wheeling towards you, T5 with a 4++ save, its going to be hard to really hurt him.  The plasma pistol gives that little extra damage you need to higher Toughness and lower AV vehicles.  If your going bikes, he needs to be in your command squad, get all those nice power weapons with re-rolls to hit first round of combat and also getting the attention of the Challenges to protect your really well outfitted HQ.

            There isn’t many more choices you can have with this guy, however he is made for assault and if your army is trying to be geared to towards that, he will be a benefit to say the least and never really costing a lot of points leaving you free to fill your roster.

            Yay or Nay for the Brave Chaplains guys!

2000k Raven Guard List

            Okay to start this list off I wanted to say I really like Shrike and the Raven Guard; I have a soft spot for those beaky blokes in there black armour and wolverine claws.  They are a very tactical Army to play and you really have to use your scouts to full advantage in their army.  Can’t just play full Power Armour because it ruins the spirit of the army.  I’ve designed a 2k point list that I believe has the right stuff to be a fluff Raven army.

HQ:

Shadow Captain Shrike

Mandatory for this list seeing has he is the representative for the Raven Guard Army, and just so damn cool in what he does, and gives an entire army fleet, which in 6^th can be a life saver to say the least when hitting into assault.

Troop:

            1 Tactical Squad

I have outfitted the squad with a drop pod, plasma gun, missile launcher, and a power weapon on the sergeant.  This squad will come down via drop pod with drop pod assault and try and hurt anything in the enemies’ side of the field with plasma fire and snap fire missile.  Mostly used as a distraction unit to allow the rest of the army to move up and do what needs to be done.

            3 Scout Squads

I’ve added three ten man squads of scouts to the list; these guys are outfitted to be combat squads, four guys with sniper rifles and a guy with heavy bolter, and four guys with combat blades and pistols with the sergeant a power weapon, melta bomb.  These guys all have camo cloaks to keep them nice a stealthy.  I feel that with fleet and this load out, these scouts can cause some serious harm to most unprepared squads. The snipers picking off special weapons and characters and using the hellfire round from the heavy bolter to do blast sniping to whittle down squads.

Fast Attack:

            1 Assault Squad

This group of ten guys are what will be backing up and working with Shrike, I would have stuck him with a vanguard veteran squad however that would be very expensive and you loose what you guy from using the vets, the assault on deep strike.  These guys are very simply set up, the sergeant has a power weapon and melta bombs.  Its simple and easy and they can dish out a lot of attacks with very little worry, also the sergeant can be used for challenges to save shrike from big meanies that they might encounter.

             

            1 Vanguard Veteran Squad

These guys are setup in a five man team, and are going to take advantage of fleet and assault off the deep strike.  I’ve outfitted them as follows, sergeant has two lightening claws, and a melta bomb, the four others have melta bombs and a power weapons.  These guys are meant to be a unit that hits the biggest and meanest things on the field with a decent deep strike roll and using fleet they are more likely to entire assault and survive to do damage that they are outfitted to do.  Melta bombs are there so they can hit tanks and MC as hard as humanly possible.

            1 StormTalon

I need to add a flyer defense to the list and this seemed like the best choice, I’m not a huge fan of flyers myself but utilizing them needs to be done to survive in the current meta.  I outfitted this baby with Twin-Linked Lascannons and Typhoon Missile Launchers to give that anti-tank flavor that this list lacks.  A flyer seems to be a prefect fit to an army like the Raven Guard and I think it would do the army good.

Heavy Support:

            1 Devastator Squad

These guys are outfitted with four very expensive Lascannons, the reason I chose these was because the list lacked heavy support, and these guys are able to hang back with the scouts and ‘snipe’ tanks and change targets very easy especially if they can a center place deployment.

Fornication:

            1 Aegis Line Defense

I have added this to hang out with the Devastator squad and I added the Icarus Lascannon to the list to match the Dev squads’ lascannon outfit.  I like the wall, it helps give a tactical position to a unit that doesn’t have to cover a objective until the Big Guns Never Tire mission.

            This is has plenty of Troops to move around and take objectives, plenty of in your face units and enough holding the back field units.  A lot of movements to be made and a lot of feints to be played with the moving your troops around.  This is has a whopping 63 unit and vehicle count and its divided even between power armoured, and scout armoured.  I think it anyone likes the fluff of the Raven Guard and wants to play a list that is new and lacks the same unit setup of every other list out there then this one can, no dakka dreads, no huge spamming of units expect scouts but being only two troop choices you’ll have to go one way or the other.

            I would like to hear what you guys think of my thoughts on Raven Guard, maybe tell me what I could change to make it more Raven Guard fluffy.

Note: Blood Angels could be used with this, but I enjoy the fleet a little to much to loose it but the Vanguards would always show up d6 close to the enemy, and rolling a six is a 50/50 shot for assault.

Power Weapons, Who is king?

Power Weapons:
Power Spears, Power Swords, Power Axes, Power Mauls, Power whatchamacallit, which one to use, do you spam one time, is it worth it still to take them? Do you really need that guard sergeant with that power axe?

                Power spears, my favorite of the bunch, are tricky things, they really should have made it +1S and AP3 for first round of combat not just charging.  I digress; they are handy little things that give you the power mauls ability to hurt things better and a power swords ability to be ap3.  People will always know what your plan is when you field a character with a spear and, they will try to deny that option the best they can.

                Power Swords are the mainstay for most armies I believe, they are universally good at what they do and have always done it good.  Most models were already modeled this way prior to the 6^th switch, and these weapon, though no longer able to kill the best armoured units in the game, they still can kill the other 90% efficiently.

                Power Axes are that grey area that I might stay away from, what they should have done for Axes instead of making them unwieldy, should of just made then Initiative -1.  Because seriously, Dante being I6 having to go last because the axe he has fought with for a thousand years is too heavy.  Maybe GW will errata the axe to be more like this, +1S and -1I sounds like a fair trade off, and you would see more of them used.  They look cool on the modeling standpoint, just terrible on being so slow.  It killed a couple nice choices from blood angels HQ and a few other cool units.  Lets face it axes look cool, but they aren't worth anything anymore.  Lets face it, when a base necron hits faster then your high Initiative HQ, questions need to be asked.

                Power Mauls are neat things for those people who play against people who are not normally playing against Power Armoured guys, or playing a weaker Str army.  Against marines they are not very good, they wound very nicely, but breaking through the armour is tricky, but at least he grants you as many wounds as possible, and good Tank bashing weapon since AP doesn’t always matter with tanks, a glance is a glance.

                Anyone can choose what weapon they use, you have that power to say the least, be creative, or just spam all of one type, that choice is yours.  Enjoy those trails and errors, and don’t hurt the space pups too bad because they usually swing last now!

Flame Hammers

Hey Guys,
   I was doing some thoughts over making a unique salamander like unit.  I thought having a Command Squad, equipped with both Thunder Hammers, and Flamers, coming down in a drop pod.

Team Setup:
  This is an expensive choice, however it works in most games against hordes and none hordes.  You attached Vulcan to this squad and your laughing.  (Expect the part where you have to buy a extra Captain to access it) You can equip Storm Shields to this group to raise the price and protect against the rise of the plasma gun.  The FNP granted by the Apothecary can come in handy most time, and help grant this 5 man squad some survivability.

  If you use a model like Shirke with this combo, your more guaranteed to get into combat and literally bring the hammer down.

  Beautiful part of this combo, your not going to kill an entire unit in one assault phase, it'll take two usually unless the hits are very in your favor.

  If you add Khan to this combo, you get strength 10 thunder hammers on the charge, and a IC to challange enemy HQ's with an instant death sword which wounds on 3+ on the charge to ME.  Also Hit & Run will keep your models from being bogged down in tarpits and keep them in the offensive instead of stuck in the middle of the field.

  Now adding Lyander will really suit your cause, having a 2+ save and a 3+ Invul, save definitely will keep the squad alive, and the stubborn trait will keep them strong at Leadership 10

  That's the choices for the vanilla codex, you could do the same with the blood angel codex as well, even adding jump packs and sticking a Reclusiarch in the front and enjoy the flame induced show.

Modeling:
  On the modeling side of this, I was thinking of using green stuff on some various thunder hammers you have access to through space wolves, vanilla, and blood angels kits,(All available through Spikey Bits) to give the effect that the flamer is the tip of the hammer and giving a much more visually enjoyable model frame.  I may make these models because they don't seem hard to put together and matching to the Angels of Silence army list is fairly easy since its whatever I decide it too be.

Playing on the Field:
Dropping them in a drop pod is a very effect way to get them in the center of the enemies deployment turn 1, handing out flamer templates like there was no tomorrow,(Take that Tzeentch Flamers!) Orks and Guard would have no chance against a hit that big, though they are easily bogged down in attacks, unless you have Khan.

Using Jump Pack's or Bikes can improve distance and effectiveness of this troop, but on the negative side the price goes up 90 points which as we all know could be another tactical combat squad.  Though having T5,S10 3++ save, with hit & run, might not be the worst thing in the world to have.

Whats your guys thoughts an opinions on this? Was it clear, would it work, would to flop? Deathstar much or waste of much needed points?

Khan makes Daemon Princes

Hey Guys,
     I was musing over something the other day while looking through my vanilla codex.  Khan and his friendly neighborhood command squad can be daemon powered on the charge when equipped with spears.

1. Khan grants Furious Charge to the squad he is attached too which gives the 1+ STR on the charge
2. Spears grant 1+ STR on the charge
3. Bikes makes models T5
4. Apothecary grants a "5+" Invulnerable save as long as he doesn't die

    So if we put those together, the squad itself is this, Khan with his instant death sword, 4+ invulnerable save and a bike, four guys with power spears, bolt pistols(two weapons), and bikes, and one Apothecary on a bike.
   Khan S5 T5 I5 3+ 4++ 5+ FnP A5
205 Points
   4 CS S6 T5 I4 3+ 5+ FnP A4 on the charge (16 total)
   1 Apoc S5 T5 I4 3+ 5+ FnP A4 on the charge
265 Points

  Daemon Prince S6 T5 I8 5++ A6 on the charge
145 points

  The point is there that this squad can be Daemon Princes on the charge; just shorter and can get into assault range without a worry.

  What do you guys think?