Let's Talk: 40K

Yeah, that one is really good. That 50 man lasgun mob of conscripts you blew up? Yeah, they had friends.

Grim Demeanor is good too but better, I think, for the vehicles. Vehicles degrade in effectivneness (M, # of targets, # of attacks, etc.) as they take damage. This one means that if you would normally drop a tier on the vehicle's chart with two wounds, the drop doesn't happen until you take 4. That's really good. It doesn't make your vehicles have more wounds, it just makes them more resilient to the damage. Very cool example of how they've worked detail into simple concepts.

Shooting into combat is good, in general.

I like what they are doing with conscripts, making them more of an unruly and unreliable scrubs. That should help to fix...the problem.

My guard army is moving right along. Decided to add some Bullgryns with beat sticks, a Wyvern, and a Punisher. Trying to get hold of a Manticore. Completely fucked up my Valkyrie cockpit though...to the point where I may buy another rather than live with my shame.

Very excited for the codex...Primaris and Death Guard books are amazing.

I built Mortarion last night. Only took about 90 minutes. Actually a pretty easy build. Model is incredible, one of the best things they've ever done. Don't know if I'd spend $140 on it though!

Happy with Valhallan preview. Seems like will fit into my pre-preview army concept with ultra aggressive midfield armor and lascannon toting infantry squads.

This is going to lead to some fun situations where Valhallan opponent doesn't actually want to wipe out the whole squad, while Valhallans are doing their best to get completely wiped out. The only thing that I'm not sure about, is what Dabid noticed about maybe them not needing a commissar. A commissar is such a 100% Valhallan concept.

Barnes, there's no way you can completely screw up the cockpit. After you cover it with canopy and the "glass", all you can see inside are such vague shades, nobody will notice. And you can always add some tint to the glass, too, it will still look good.

I've recently finished painting a Wyvern and a Basilisk. Guess I'm going all artillery, and hopefully Cadians will get some synergies there.
Wyvern is an awesome model. Basilisk I got on ebay, it had an awful paint job, sticky mud everywhere and a sawed-off cannon. Even my wife acknowledges it is unrecognizable now. And I fixed that cannon with a straw (feeling like a badass kit-basher).

Nah man, I totally botched it. Something about the way I put the pilots in, their arms made it where the canopy didn't fit. I had file down their shoulders, and then the whole thing wouldn't fit. I had to use Gorilla Glue and CLAMP the whole thing down to get it to stay. And it doesn't line up quite right, and has a gap. It makes me sad because the rest of it was looking good. I had to just put it away to stop messing with it. Still need to do the door gunners.

I LOVE that model but man, is it STUPID. The door gunners are positioned in such a way that they have ZERO visibility! They open the door and they are looking right at a rocket pod. The jet intakes over the cockpit would never work. But damn, it looks awesome! And it is great to deposit Bullgryns somewhere inconvenient for the other side!

I love the Wyvern too, that is a really cool piece. I can't find a decently priced Basilisk or Manticore, they appear to be webstore only...which blows. So far, the max I've paid for an AM tank is like $38. GW sells them at $50.

I do not buy painted models, period. If you want a good laugh, look at some of the painted stuff on eBay. I see some of that stuff and I'm just like "really?" I get it if it's a kid's first paintjob or something, but some of the color choices are just stupendously bad! Who paints Tyranids RED and YELLOW- like, PRIMARY COLOR RED AND YELLOW. And METALLICS, OMG. There is someone that has a bunch of AM tanks on their now, that no one is buying, that are just about the ugliest I've ever seen...they tried to do some kind of Wehrmacht camo on them and there are Nazi crosses on them. They look sort of like someone vomited peas on them.

I am really interested in what the Cadian strategems and such are going to be...they may very well go with some kind of artillery focus.

I really need some characters...still need to get Pask, may get Creed too.

Now that you mention the gun placement on Valkyries, the first thing my son said when he saw the Valkyrie, was "Why do they need to shoot their own wings?" And I tried really hard to position the turrets in such way that they'd face outside.
As to your Valkyrie, can't you just take out the whole cockpit, cover it with a canopy and paint it tinted glass? I've seen quite a few Valkyries done this way and they still look good.
Oh, and that Bullgryn charge from the air is awesome. Very alpha strike. Just make sure you charge something the Bullgryns will actually deal damage to (I did that do a Dreadnought, now picture my face when the Bullgryns did like 2 pts of damage to it and were wiped out completely next second)

The only reason I bought a (terribly) painted Basilisk is because I couldn't find one anywhere else, even GW webstore was out. I kinda take pride in how I restored it. Same about my company commander, metal model, bought on ebay terribly primed and bent, I spent a couple of nights fixing him. This creates a bound with your miniature that you can't get from pristine-out-of-the-factory, kind of like rescuing an animal from a shelter (and less dangerous).
Will be posting pictures soon.

Dude's got 2 Basilisks for $60 each on sprue...if I didn't spend out all of my sale proceeds I'd offer $100 for both.

Looks like Cadians are "Born Soldiers" getting rerolls on 1s if they hold position. At first that was sort of meh, but if you have a gunline of 4-5 units...that's pretty impactful. Or a couple of Wyverns.

I kind of feel like Bullgryns are more fun than actually effective. It is a hoot to ferry them over and drop the beat stick boys off. They can do some damage to low toughness units for sure and they've got some staying power but ultimately they are a suicide distraction.

Most of IG stuff is being rebundled by GW since they include the rules in the box now. Basilisks are $50 each.

Michael Barnes wrote: I kind of feel like Bullgryns are more fun than actually effective. It is a hoot to ferry them over and drop the beat stick boys off. They can do some damage to low toughness units for sure and they've got some staying power but ultimately they are a suicide distraction.

Having played them about a dozen games, that's pretty accurate. The problem with low toughness units is that they usually don't have more than 1 wound, so the bullgryns' punch feels wasted. I have an upcoming game against IG heavy on Leman Russes, my plan is to entangle a tank or two with Bullgryns and see what happens. It is theoretically viable, I think... I don't expect Bullgryns to bring down a Leman, but if they could just prevent those tanks from firing for a couple of turns, that would be a success. Another thing about Bullgryns, you can equip two dudes with Slabshield and one with a Bruteshield and manage who is going to take the hits (until the 1st wound, of course). Something to keep in mind when you're building them.

Been playing IG some more... I get more complaints that they are unstoppable (guess who's winning consistently). Very excited about the Codex, though, I hope that maybe it balances things a bit. At this point, IG is capable of fielding the meanest, baddest lists that make feel their opponents like they don't have a chance.
I also think that few of my opponents have actually planned for the inevitable deepstriking of scions+assassins&bullgryns-out-of-valkyrie-charge.

Anyways, some more observations (which will probably change as of tomorrow)

Bullgryns - I added a 4th bullgryn to the squad and it makes all the difference (actually, I'm proxying a slaughterpriest, because constraints, but whatever). Before, they were a fun unit/nuisance. In the last couple of games, they won key skirmishes.

Assassins - Before, my favorites were Vindicare/Culexus. Now I'm gravitating towards Eversor&Callidus. In part that's because tier 1 assassins are just too expensive. Second reason, I noticed they rarely win battles. They are annoying, and very durable, but they don't dash enough damage to kill anyone important in 1 turn. For the opponent, the best way to deal with them is just to ignore their existence (unless you have something that would reliably kill those guys). Callidus&Eversor, on the other hand, MUST be dealt with . And it drives people crazy, because there are other units in my army (like scions) they have to deal with, like immediately. Another thing with Callidus&Eversor, is how you use them. My first dozen games, I made a mistake of treating them like Solid Snake/Sam Fisher kind of operatives - working independently, stalking a target nobody else is dealing with. But they are most effective when supporting another unit. Like Eversor + Bullgryns and Callidus + scions. The assassins can reliably finish off a target already weakened by those other deepstriking units and - most importantly - if the target is isolated, they will likely survive to be used next turn. Anyway, I love these guys now, and they are relatively cheap. If you want to go the cheesy route, get 2 Eversors, but duh.

Wyvern & Basilisk These two are just awesome units, and they work really well with deepstriking tactics.

Regular Guard In 1500pts games, I tend to lose 80%-90% of these guys on turn 1 before they have a chance of firing a shot. Which also means that my opponent is usually completely unprepared for the retaliation, as he geared his army to eliminate the guards. For this reason, I stripped off the heavy bolters (kept the lascannon for sentimental reason and also to give another incentive to shoot at that squad) and, more importantly, the vox-casters. I just realized I never actually use vox casting at all. Even in the unlikely scenario that the unit somehow survives turn 1, their commanding officer should be close enough. I have 4 squads and 2 officers. There's absolutely no reason for these officers not to be there with their troops. And the price to equip 4 squads with these useless vox casters is 20pts, for which you can get a lascannon.

Did you buy a single Bullgyn or a kit? I'd buy one of the others if you did the latter, I was thinking about adding one.

The new Codex is really amazing, after sort of languishing for years, they've really doubled down on things that should have always been emphasized- weight of numbers, strong gun lines, artillery, and armor.

I've kind of felt like the voxcasters are useless too...but I like fluffy, and I like for there to be a radio man in each squad. I even built the pretty much useless medic for the command squad,
Just because.

I think if I get a Basilisk or Manticore And Creed I'll be set on AM. Maybe one more heavy weapons box so I can add a heavy bolter and two more lascannons. But I do like their fortifications...

Anyway, they are my favorite 40k army now.

Tyranids are really fun this edition too though. I didn't tell my son about the Tyrannocyte I got, so I brought it out of hiding and dropped it right down behind his SMs. Out popped a Swarmlord, then the Trygon Prime sandwormed up with some melee warriors. It was a bad outcome for the Ultramarines.

Tervigon is just lovely too. It has a litter of baby Termagaunts. Just with pea shooter Fleshborers that can barely ding a MEQ, but they can be a serious nuisance and hold objectives.

The "Nidzilla" thing rules. It's not a very winning way to play because you have few targets and all are serious bullet magnets. But rolling with just like 5 big ass models with crazy powerful attacks and abilities is a blast. But it is true that 8th tends to favor lots of shooting models even at low BS over high toughness monsters/vehicles.

I'm proxying the AOS slaughterpriest as a bullgryn, he's roughly the same size and fits well into my rag-tag army. Besides monetary concerns, I didn't buy another box of Bullgryns because of the fixed posing. But I might do so at some point and will let you know.

For my next army (because who am I kidding), I definitely want to do something that is not a horde. Maybe skitarii. I like Tyranids, too, but I'm not sure I'll have fun painting them. The genestealers from Lost Patrol were a nightmare and are still half-painted (granted, I'm way more skilled now than when i tried those)

LMK- I'll pay for a third of the box! Ha, I totally botched the Lost Patrol Genestealers too. I just wasn't doing it right. The secret is pretty thin base coat, then 1 layer of another color, then do your wash in the recesses, then tidy up with color two and drybrush the whole thing with the last highlight. For Leviathan, that's Rakarth, Screaming, Carroburg, Screaming, Pallid Wych. It is super quick. The purple and red bits are super easy, and I added a flesh color to some of the more "organ" like details and Moot Green for energy/poison elements. The big stuff is really easy and fun.

I went with Tyranids because I wanted something with big monsters and I like the Tyranid versus AM thing (Aliens, Starship Troopers, Earth Defense Force,
Etc.)...usually folks think iof Tyranids as a swarm...but my smallest unit is a Warrior. The Tervigon spits out Termagaunts, but I consider that an exception. I have Gargoyles because they came in the Start Collecting, but I don't know if I'll ever actually use them.

Just built a Hive Crone tonight. It has these funky bug missiles and a drool cannon.

Never bought into 40k, but i have bought tyranid codexes before and a few models to paint. They would be my force as well. Same reason as Michael. I may not have an emotional connection to their psyche or playstyle, but they make for the best adversaries and when I'm pushing models I want the battlefield to look cool.

I should just get Space Hulk...

Those are compelling arguments. Imperial Guard is supposed to be fighting Tyranids, this is the way it should be.
But I'm kinda with mr. White here. I find it hard to empathize with Tyranids, both for painting and playing purposes. And I have most fun building an army that I can relate to. If only they had an equivalent for infected Kerrigan or something like that. Maybe I just need to find some angle to it, storytelling-wise.

Read through the new Codex. It is kinda underwhelming on the first glance. Most of the fluff I already knew from other sources. The kitbashing part is limited to several pictures of miniatures, which you can find online. There're some changes to stats, but nothing game-changing. The meat of it is basically 4-5 pages of doctrines, heirlooms and stratagems. Which, if I am not mistaken, you can buy separately as a pack of cards (and you should anyway). It will slightly change the way IG is played, and it will be more (needlessly as of the moment) powerful,

Forget what I just said about the new Codex, there're some pretty significant changes point-wise.
The scions plasma alpha-strike is nerfed, since they doubled plasma costs for scions. Which makes a lot of sense, but I don't know if it will affect the tactics, because now scions also get access to more options to re-roll their shots, fire more and also dig in (and be less of a suicide squad). I will switch some of my ordnance to volley guns, too, now that they're way cheaper.
Valkyries are 20 pts cheaper, Mortar squads are a little more expensive. Vox Casters seem to be free now (awesome).
Leman Russes got a huge boost.