Codex Inquisition: First impressions

Rules wise, first thing that I see is I can take a special detachment with an HQ and optionally another HQ and 3 elites, and still have a different allied detachment;  cool.  Now what can I do with that?  An Inquisitor upgraded to a psyker is a measly 55 pts,  half of what I'm paying for a generic Rune Priest and a Chooser, for a roll on the Divination table (e.g. Prescience). Now add 3 servo skulls to give a big bronx cheer to Scouts and Infiltrators and we're just under the points of a naked DA Librarian.... This has possibilities.

Lots of new fluff, some nice pictures of some female Witch Hunters, lots of inspiration for new conversion madness.  Valeria is gone, sadly (undoubtedly fallout of the Chapterhouse debacle)  Still have lots to go through for ideas.  Inquisitorial Chimeras can take Psybolt Ammo -- I may have to bring back my Black Mariah -- a conversion I did long ago with a Predator Turret and a heavy bolter. Fun times

GW dropping more hints on the Inquisiton Codex

Can be found here.  I am loving the direction GW is going with the digital editions (from what I've seen so far)

I wasn't expecting the ...

Obvious joke, I know, but actually I'm excited by the announcement that Codex: Inquisition is being released next month.  The announcement says" You'll soon be able to field an Inquisitor and their retinue in any Imperial army in games of Warhammer 40,000". 



So of course, the first question is, how will this work?  I'm expecting language like "An Inquisitor and his retinue may be taken as an HQ choice in any imperial army".  There will probably be options to take other Inquisition units from other parts of the FOC using the Allies rules. 


Among the things I'm hoping for are Inquisition Storm Troopers  to make a comeback, grav weaponry, and quirky Inquisition Wargear. In any event, I'm looking forward to this.

I must say that I hope this trend of embracing the digital editions as a means of introducing new stuff into the game continues.

Getting Lit-Up (Land Raider Edition)

Shortly after getting my illuminated Storm Raven done,
I started building my Space Wolves Land Raider with

the cool Forge World doors.  Shortly after starting it though, I decided that I wanted it to be lit up as well.  Whereas with the Raven it was easy to hide the batteries in the flying base, the Land Raider was harder to deal with.

 While it would be easy enough to hide a battery pack in the hold of a Land Raider, I had painted the interior of mine so I would be lighting the interior; a big old battery pack sitting on the floor would be pretty ugly.    I found these battery holders on e-bay:

Each one holds 2 CR 2032's which provides 6.5 Volts or so -- perfect for my uses.  Now where to mount it?  I need the batteries to be accessible so they could be removed/changed without too much fuss.  Ultimately, I decided to hollow out a space on the underside just enough so that the tank would be resting on its treads not on the battery pack. 

I decided to use 4 yellow LED's to light the interior, with 2 on the Mechanicus shrine, one lighting up the control panel opposite the opening side door and one for general lighting.  I used perf board to build a small lighting board for the interior lights to keep everything in the right place.

The headlights are four 3mm white LED's.  For those who are electronically inclined, I wired the yellow LED's in as 2 series pairs each with a 560 ohm resister, for around a 6 mA current draw for the interior.  The headlights are each wired individually with a 1k resister, for around 2 mA each.  I should be able to get around 10 hours of battery life.

Here's the installation

And all lit up

 And the interior

2000 (1999 + 1) pt RTT at Huzzah Hobbies on 09/15/2013

The monthly RTT series at Huzzah Hobbies continues this weekend.  They hold these the 3rd Sunday of every month. $15.00 entry and lunch provided.

This one will be 2000 pts, no double FOC (1999 + 1) So what to bring this month?  Probably the same basic list I took to the NOVA.  I am looking at building some White Scars to use with either the Wolves or the IG, but those won't be ready by the weekend.  Now what sort of deviltry can I accomplish with another 150 pts? 

Jumping on the Bandwagon

At the severe risk of being labeled a bandwagoner,  I'm going to build a

small detachment of Codex Marines to run with either my Wolves or my IG.

Right now, I leaning towards White Scars:  I have 9 SW bikes that sit in their foam tray alone and forsaken.  Aesthetically, the WS are a good match with the SW, both have the barbarian look, both look great with some Marauder horsemen heads. Plus it's fluffy -- Leman Russ and Jaghatai Khan were pals -- Space Barbarians FTW!

 It will be interesting to see what the rumored White Scars supplement adds to the mix, also it will be interesting to see how the supplement works with the main codex with respect to alliance with the main C:SM.

I'm considering the following:

Kosarroh Khan on Moondraken -- fun conversion opportunities here and fun rules.

4 Bikers with 2 Grav-guns and an Attack Bike with Mult-melta (troops)

Storm Talon with Sky-Hammer missiles.

Lot's of folks are building lists that go crazy with the grav-guns, largely in reaction to the plague of MC's that seemed to infest the 40k universe over the past couple of months.  I think a more balanced approach will win out over time.  I do like the synergy that will result from a alliance of SW and WS -- grav-guns are concussive; anything that takes a wound from but survives a grav-gun fusilade will be JOTW-bait. 

NOVA Open 2013-Wrap Up

The NOVA's done now.  Overall I went 3 and 4 and finished 88th out of 223, which is pretty good for me. 

I'll give brief run-down of my games, with one rant about sportsmanship.

Game 1: Opponent: Chaos Demons with CSM allies:  Loss
This was a kill points game against the soon to be all to familiar lineup of Fate Weaver, and a various bunch of greater demons and plague bearers. Nuff said.

Game 2:  Opponent: Necrons :  Win
Objective game against a Crypek, Overlord with 20 warriors and 4 units of 20 of warriors with attached res-orb lords.  I won this game by distracting my worthy opponent with the Grey Hunters to pull him off an objective while getting grav-chuting troops on.

Game 3:  Opponent: Eldar/Dark Eldar: Loss
The Relic/Objective game that I should have won; One lucky bit of shooting with a Vendetta caused 3 Hqs

"Die, Xenos Scum!"

(including Eldrad) to run off the board, all I needed to do was to shoot one lousy ranger off an objective to tie on the objectives which would have given me the win on other mission points;  Poor tactical decisions on my part:

1. I had rolled a 7 for Njal's Weather effect: should have separated him from his blob to try to run him to within 12" of the hapless ranger to hit him with the Chain Lightning effect.

2. I should have used all available firepower on the ranger before worrying about a unit of jet-bikes on the other objective.

KNOW the rules!  I forgot that a hovering Vendetta can fire BOTH door guns if it moves 6" or less.

Great opponent who was able to laugh about it when several hundred points of his army hoofed it off the board.  Thanks for a great game, Lance.

"Fire for effect!"

Game 4: Opponent:  Tau:  Win
This was an objective game with vanguard deployment.  I faced this game with some trepidation when I saw

3 Riptides, then I looked at his list and saw only 2 units of Kroot as his troops. (Eradicator bait!)  Shadow Sun, and a Farsight bomb.  The NOVA terrain makes deep-striking that Farsight bomb a tricky proposition, I deployed first and I deployed my army in such a way he wouldn't have many good shots on my Manticore. As a result, he deployed Farsight and friends on the board using a sea of drones to shield them, near the table edge...very, very close to the table edge.  For a change, I let the generic Rune Priest keep his codex powers, Living Lightning and Jaws of the World Wolf, while Njal rolled on the Divination Table.

Turn 1:  I went first.  I shot the Manticore: 2 rounds centered on the sea of drones, 7 drones die triggering a pinning check and  a morale check;  pinning check; passed, morale check, failed.  Distance to board edge:  my opponent looks and says "I don't even need to roll it"  The rest of the game was spent whitlling down what was left of his army (the Rune Priest did not get a single Rip Tide with JOTW, but he did keep them distracted).  By the end of the game, all that he had left on the board was one heavily damaged Riptide.

Game 5: Opponent: Chaos Demons/CSM: Loss
OK here's where I rant a bit.  My opponent brought Fateweaver; Fateweaver can get powers from all of the disciplines, my opponent DID NOT bring a rule book or other reference such as the psychic power cards with him, nor did he bring a small blast template; he borrowed mine.  Mind you, this was day 2 of  a 3 day tournament; surely, he must have noticed by then that he might need these things.  If I ever play this guy again, I'm going to be a prick about this.  Anyway, he tabled me.  Also I must say that this guy had the FUGLIEST counts-as army my eyes have ever had the misfortune of seeing, and no I'm not talking about the fish army.

Sven Distractsson

Game 6:  Opponent:  Tyranids:  Win
Objective game vs Nids.  two flying Hive Tyrants, 3 tervigons and a bunch of gaunts.  Again I kept the codex powers on the generic RP while taking divination on Njal.  Again the JOTW RP kept my opponent distracted. Two of his Tervigons corked up on turn 1, the third on turn 2 or 3.  I managed to keep my opponent distracted while sneaking onto objectives. MVP of this game:  the HB gunners on the Eradicator rolled an improbable number of hits just about every turn.

Band of brothers

Game 7: Opponent: Chaos Demons: Loss
 Objective game.  Refreshingly, my opponent did not bring Fateweaver, just two Heralds of Khorne, a Herald of Slaanesh, lots of Flesh Hounds, Seekers, and plague-bearers;  Two high points of this game:  The first was slaying his warlord with the CCS plasma gunners after stripping away the accompanying flesh-hounds with Manticore and Vendetta shooting (improbable number of LOS and cover saves made)

 The second was an epic 3 turn melee between the other Herald of Khorne and his Flesh Hounds and Njal's 20-man blob fortified with a 4++ and prescience.  Khorne ultimately called the Herald and company back to the Warp for punishment, leaving Njal standing alone.  (My opponent rolled box-cars on his check after losing combat.)

This is another game probably could have won some simple moves that I didn't think of:  using Njal to grant 4++ to the other blob while using the generic RP to give a 4++ to the SWS, and attempting to charge a unit of plague bearers on another objective.  Oh well, it was a hell of a good fight!

Game 8:  Opponent Ringer:
Since I was out of contention for my bracket, I had no opponent, so I just watched some of the other games.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this year's NOVA Open, and will be back next year.  The staff does an outstanding job of making things work, and they have some of the best terrain I've ever seen at an event like this.  Congratulations and thank you to Mike Brandt and company to another great NOVA.  I think next year I'm going to enter the narrative event and also volunteer to help with terrain.

Ready for war

Here's my army IG + Space Wolves ready for the NOVA Open.

The first day is done, I've had 3 good games, went 1 and 2, the last one was a squeaker (I lost)  

Well now time to get some sleep and get ready for day 2.

1850 RTT at Huzzah Hobbies (8/18/13)

I entered my NOVA list in an 1850 RTT this weekend at Huzzah Hobbies in Ashburn VA yesterday.  In prep for the NOVA, we were using terrain and missions from the NOVA primer.  I ended up going 1 and 2, vs Space Wolves, Demons and Eldar. I did however walk away with best painted! (I'll take that!  and a $25 gift certificate) 

First a bit of a plug for Huzzah; they're running the only regular 40K RTT series in Northern VA that I know of -- the third Sunday of every month.  Any given month they use the tournament packet for whichever is the next big GT coming which in addition to helping out folks who are planning to go to that GT get some practice, also gives folks a chance to test drive the next GT.  Huzzah gives a 10% discount on GW product.


The first game was 5 objectives Vanguard Strike deployment vs Drop-Podding Space Wolves with Logan, 2 Rune Priests, a unit of Long Fangs and Grey Hunters.  I won that one when my opponent lost mission focus and kept dropping his pods on my home objective, allowing my podding Grey Hunters,  and Vendetta-riding SWS and PCS to take the other two.

The second game was vs Demons; Fateweaver, 2 Flying DP's, screamers and pink horrors, ignominious loss.   Very nicely painted army -- probably my main competition for best appearance, from what I saw.  It was the highly converted nature of my army (the Manticore and the KV-2 Russ) though, that made the difference.

The third game was Iyanden Eldar with a Wraithknight as his Warlord and another Wraithknight, Wave Serpent spam and Warp Spiders, lost this one, did manage to down one Wraith Knight (not the Warlord) with Missiles (the RPG's will not be denied!) and all but one of the Wave Serpents.  I don't know which I hate more, Wraith Knights or Wave Serpents.  Having faced those damn things now, I don't want to hear any complaints if Faeit's rumor about Baneblades being in the IG codex turn out to be true.

All in all a good tournament, my opponents were generally cool, and learning (on my part) did occur.

NOVA bound

 After getting my employment situation straightened out (found out in May that I was due to get laid-off in

July, ended up being un-employed for all of 2 days -- whew!) I've decided to attend the NOVA open this year.  Now what to take?

Well, I'm not the type to FOTM so it will be IG and SW.  Yeah, I know, that's so early 6th ed.  I'll probably get rolled by all the Tau, Eldar, Tau-Dar, but what the hell; I can laugh at all the Tau players next month once Sternguard start crushing Riptides under their own weight with combi-grav guns.

So here's what I'm thinking about:

IG (Primary Detachment)

     CCS, 3x Plasma, Chimera

     Vet Squad, 3x Plasma

     Infantry Platoon

         PCS with 3x Flamers

         4 x  Infantry Squad with Missile Launcher
          (because RPG-7's look cool)

         SWS with 3x Flamers

     Vendetta with HB Sponsons

     Vendetta with HB Sponsons


     Manticore

     Leman Russ Eradicator with HB Sponsons

SW (Allied Detachment)

     Njal in Runic Armor

     Rune Priest (Living Lightning, JOTW)

     10 GH with 2x Melta in a Pod

Fortification:

     Aegis Defense Line with Comms Relay

Njal is of course there to make the weather lousy for my opponent.  The other Rune Priest is there to either cast JOTW if I keep his codex powers or to cast Prescience if I go for Divination.  The lone squad of Grey Hunters is there to pod in if the opportunity presents, or just to add some resilient troops.    I decided to go with a Manticore since rocket artillery is cool (and very Russian).  The Eradicator is there to ruin the day of anything relying on cover (like Pathfinders).

The nice thing about this list is that it really doesn't require me to do any major building, just a bit of touch-up on some existing models, convert up a Nova Cannon for my Ragnarok Russ and paint up the ADL and the comms relay.

Of course, knowing me, I'll get an 'inspired' idea the weekend before which will require major 11th hour hobbying.

THIS is Apocalypse

A few pics from an Apocalypse game I played in last weekend.  Actually, I think that this was the first real Apoc game I've ever played -- up to 10K points per person.  As you can see, all the cool stuff was on the board:  Thunderhawks, Titans, SuperHeavy Tanks.  Some things could of gone smoother of course, we only ended up playing 3 turns over two days, but it was still very cool and fun.   This game has inspired me to start a new project; a very BIG project :).   Enjoy the pics

 

 

Staging

More Staging

Traffic jam coming in from reserves

 

 

 

.

Grey Hunters wrecking the artillery park

Up-Gunning

Previously, I'd always used my Baneblade as a Hellhammer; now that I've had my first game with the

new book, I've decided that the doubled range and the bigger pie-plate size of the Baneblade is more important than the S10 and AP1 of the Hellhammer.


Fortunately, I'd planned ahead when I orginally built it and magnetized the barrel and the sponson weapons.  Unfortunately, I never painted the barrel, so I had a bit of a challenge in matching the paint to the previously painted turret.  The good news is that a good soot effect hides many sins.

And side-by-side with my Shadow Sword.

Ready just in time for my next Apocalypse game.

Lord Castellans Supreme Command

Looking through the Apocalypse book, I see that the IG section has updated the formation for

Creed's Supreme Command to just need a Company Command Squad with Creed,  full advisors, Jarran Kell, two body-guards and a Bastion.  The formation gives you some nice buffs as long as they're embarked in the Bastion:  2 extra strategic assets at each break and the
Master of Ordnance gets 1+D3 shots per shooting phase -- nice. I've never been a huge fan of the MoO due to the inaccuracy of his shooting, but with 1+D3 shots, he gets a bit more appealing. (And besides, it's Apocalypse, so why not?)

The Vostroyan Company Commander model looks sufficiently cool to make a good stand-in for Creed.  At first I thought that 'the Ancient' should work well enough for Kell (even if lacking a Power Fist), but I decided that I'd convert up a Vostroyan-ishKell using some Cadian command squad bits.

 As for the advisors, I have the old Demon Hunters Mystic as my Astropath, and Lt. Varras rom the Battle for Macragge set as my Officer of the Fleet,  I don't however have a MoO.  The GW model for the MoO is too Cadian in appearance, so I decided to make my own to fit in with the Vostroyans.

I started with the great coat body from the Bane Blade kit which nice and static looking -- after all he only shoots when he doesn't move. The head is likewise from the Bane Blade kit with the addition of a furry hat and a big mustache to complete the Vostroyan look.  I gave him a big pair of binoculars from one of the Empire kits to spot targets with and a vox caster to call in fire support.
 

 

Here's the whole crew, ready to go to war!